Goings-on in and around the family

• On Thursday, we celebrated Adam's promotion to Sergeant. The ceremony was held at the State Police Headquarters in Framingham, after which we went out to dinner. We were all very proud and very happy.
• Last weekend, we visited our friends, Pete and Mildred, in Maine. They have a flock of sheep - several ewes and one ram who's looking forward to mid-November when it will be time to frolic. (It's best when lambs are born in the spring.) We stayed overnight at their house and went to the Fryeburg Fair the next day.
• On Sunday, our friends, Dan and Gay, came to our house. Gay had been at a chaplains' conference in Boston. On Saturday, they climbed Mt. Katahdin. We went to Mike and Lynn's for the evening. After dinner, we listened to Michael and Krista play the piano and, then, Lynn and Jennie sang with Dan accompanying.
  
• Last night, we went to Mike's football game. The high school has a new football field with artificial turf. Mike's team lost.
• Sandra's parents will be returning from PEI this week. Their 65^th wedding anniversary is coming up in a month.
  
• This morning, we had our first frost, just a light coating on the back deck.
  

ConsumerReports.org - Is it really decaf?

Some of our friends have reported that, in order to avoid the unwanted buzz, they have to stay away from coffee altogether. They have noticed, and ConsumerReports has confirmed, that the stuff sold as decaf still has quite a bit of caffeine.

The Psychiatrist Sketch

Via At Last, the 1967 "At Last, the 1948 Show" Show

67% Geek

Free Online Dating from JustSayHi

Good luck, AJH

• So why do you think we have an appendix? | MetaFilter
• Appendix Isn't Useless At All: It's A Safe House For Good Bacteria

NEJM -- More on Thunderstorms and iPods

NEJM -- More on Thunderstorms and iPods

Playing a C on the world's tiniest violin

UMass student takes his C to federal court - The Boston Globe

Suffer Not the Trick-or-Treaters

Suffer Not the Trick-or-Treaters: "Did you ever wonder why Halloween seems to primarily feed off of a market of 3-13 year olds? This is a Satanic ploy for our children. I don't think that Christian children should completely abstain from the festivities of costumes and candy, because they can be a light through their alternative behavior. [I personally plan on dressing my children up in Biblical and God-honoring characters that will draw people to ask questions.]

Scientists prove that if money could buy happiness, you wouldn't know what to buy | Science Blog

Scientists prove that if money could buy happiness, you wouldn't know what to buy | Science Blog

Sleep: Reboot Your Brain with a Caffeine Nap - Lifehacker

Sleep: Reboot Your Brain with a Caffeine Nap - Lifehacker: "Scientists say that a successful midday nap depends on two things: timing and (no kidding) caffeine consumption."

News of the next generation

Last night, Matt had his movie debut in his uncle's movie, The Third Date:


The glory of stardom doesn't, as we know, confer immunity. This morning, Matt had surgery on his right hand. He broke his finger in a football game a couple of weeks ago and needed some help to heal properly. He'll be ok.

Lily is celebrating her 8^{th,/sup> birthday today with a swimming party. Lily is establishing herself as a formidable swimmer in local competitions. Happy Birthday, Lily.}

The iPod Death Clock

This site will give you an estimate of the amount of time your iPod has left: The iPod Death Clock - iPodMechanic.com

Mine has

Country’s Top 100: All-Time Best Songs

Lists such as Country’s Top 100: All-Time Best Songs make life interesting because you really have to exercise your imagination to understand what planet these people are coming from. Patsy Cline's cover of Willie Nelson's Crazy at number 34?! Come on.

If you can listen to Will the Circle Be Unbroken by the Carter Family with dry eyes, you'd better get some duct tape because there's a hole in your soul.

Google Turns 9

A special thanks to friend Patti , who, quite a few years ago, alerted me to Google. Patti and I had worked at DEC when AltaVista was the first great search engine. AltaVista was built pretty much a bunch of spaghetti code that showcased the power of DEC's hardware. Had DEC understood what it had in AltaVista, we'd probably still be working there and there would still be a there there.

We shouldn't be sad, though. Google turns 9 today. The rest is searchable history.

On the road again

Marley and I brought Sandra to Logan Airport this morning. She's flying to California for a friend's 60^th birthday; she and Sandra have been friends since they were three. It was my first time in a long time driving in rush-hour traffic. It hasn't changed much. If anything, it seems that the drivers were better behaved. With the Big Dig and Williams Tunnel complete, the ride to the airport is easy and quick. Even with traffic, it took us an hour and fifteen minutes.

So, the bachelors are back at home, looking at the wide-open day. The weather is steamy with clearing showers forecast for later today and tomorrow. Marley's found a place in the sunshine and is snoring quietly. There's plenty to do, fun and otherwise.

The recent news that Microsoft is trying to buy a piece of Facebook led me back to the social network for a closer look. There are 122 people in Facebook with my last name, only one of whom I know (grandson Mike). I'm not the only graybeard in the crowd, but, well, .... One of the offers in the Marketplace section is a bit dodgy: *** 120% unique gift for you and your friends***. You get to create a doll that looks like you.

I've also spent time on the web site for Mike and Matt's high school. The site offers a fairly sophisticated system for managing calendars for the various sports teams. In addition to seeing a calendar of upcoming games on the site, I can get email, SMS, and RSS updates. I've not been able to get the synchronization with Outlook working yet.

Escape from Cubicle Nation: 8 Strategies to get the most from painful or awkward life transitions

A friend used to tell me that I'd look forward to the hard times for what they'd have to teach me. I can't say that I always look forward to the hard times, but I usually manage to believe that I'll learn something important.

Escape from Cubicle Nation: 8 Strategies to get the most from painful or awkward life transitions

Y'see, this is what Eddie Van Halen is supposed to sound like

Complete with the wise-ass grin: FARK.com: Fark YouTube Player (3092347) Vintage Eddie Van Halen - "Eruption" guitar solo (live)

Exploration - Canada at Scale: Maps of our History - Exhibitions - Library and Archives Canada

This one, Exploration - Canada at Scale: Maps of our History - Exhibitions - Library and Archives Canada, is for the map nerds. It's a nifty collection of old maps of Canada, including a 1765 map of Prince Edward Island, known at the time as St. John's Island.

Hello, Rangoon!

It's probably not a bad idea to have a reference source such as Wikipedia or the CIA Factbook handy when watching the news. As we learn about the protests in Burma/Myanmar, we also learn that each media outlet has a policy regarding the name of that country. Using the name Myanmar implies that we believe that the junta in charge of the country has enough legitimacy to change the country's name. Naturally, the U.S., most of its allies, and many publications use Burma. In almost all cases, there's some qualification such as "The country formerly known as Burma" or "the country now known as Myanmar."

This is not all that uncommon, differing names for people and places. The capital of Finland, for example, is Helsinki, except in Swedish, where Helsingfors prevails. A few decades ago, China (once known as Cathay) changed the transliteration of many names, giving us Mao Zedong instead of Mao Tse-tung and Beijing instead of Peking. And, if then there's what's-his-name, the guy who heads up Libya.

So, now, Duane Ingalls Glasscock (RealAudio link) have to sign on with the cry, "Hello, Yangon!"

Ghoti

More commonly heard as fish:

gh as in enough
o as in women
ti as in vacation

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge"
- Bertrand Russell, philosopher (1872-1970) via