CurlyShavings

(This Scribbling dates back to November 4th, 2005.)

It happened again. Crossing Euclid Avenue from my favorite Starbucks™, I felt a familiar sensation as drips from my Grande Komodo Dragon scalded my fingers.

I've noticed it for years: the "SOLO Traveler© Lid" (No. TL 316 LID) just doesn't form a perfect seal around the top of the No. 316TA 1182 I-05 cup 16oz (473ml) Special Design Hot Cup that usually accompanies me back from my twice-weekly trip to Starbucks™. The cup's seam gets in the way.

Now, there are really two problems here.

The seam leaks when the cup's liquid sloshes onto that seam/lid intersection. That's largely a nuisance (i.e., dribbling down my fingers as I navigate the concrete and asphalt patchwork currently making up Euclid Avenue). Whose fault is that? It may be the City of Cleveland's for the now-incessant excavate-repair-rest-repeat they've been practicing this year and are poised to continue for another few. [Update: Current Euclid construction completion estimate at our corner is 2nd quarter 2008.] Perhaps it's SOLO's for not engineering a tight enough seal between the lid and the cup.

But it's probably my own fault for not allowing any "room for cream". (At 10.6 cents per fluid ounce, [Update: Now 11.1875] I want every drop I can get into my cup.)

The other problem is what I call the Lid/Seam Alignment Problem.

When the seam is within 30 degrees of the lid's opening, the leak ceases being a nuisance problem and now becomes a laundry problem. And because I drink my Java in the AM, it's not
an end-of-the-day laundry problem but a first-thing-in-the-morning laundry problem.

Here's what happens: When the seam is within 30 degrees of the lid's opening and you position the cup to deliver its payload to your waiting mouth ("Caution: Contents Hot"), a tiny gap between the lid and the cup's imperfect rim allows a drop of coffee to escape to the outside of the cup. If you collect a couple of these drops under the lid's edge, watch out because it will soon let go and deposit itself on your tie, your shirt, your blouse—whatever is in its path.

You get to wear that stain the rest of the day.

My frustration here is that this whole issue is avoidable. If my Barista would just ensure that the cup's seam is opposite the lid's opening (twelve-o'clock rather than four–to–eight-o'clock), this could all be avoided.

Or perhaps I should stop at the counter, inspect the Lid/Seam Alignment and perform a Number 316 un-alignment whenever I see that such an alignment exists.

I approached Bobby who seems to run this Starbucks™ (name has not been changed to protect his innocence mostly because he's such a great guy). He confirmed the problem and went on to disclose that it isn't in any of the training manuals and doesn't appear to be widespread knowledge in the Barista community.

Why? Why is it that everyone but Starbucks™ knows not to put the lid's opening in line with the cup's seam? Ask any serious consumer of their dihydrotrimethylpurinedione and they can tell you some variation of the "drip on my shirt" story.

Until it is added to their corporate training materials and becomes widespread Barista knowledge, it looks like it is up to me to save my shirt and always check for Lid/Seam Alignment before that first sip.

Now if they could just acknowledge and address the Insufficient Air Intake Port Problem…

One of my favorite things to do at the office during the holidays is to make candycane reindeer. You should see the different kinds of reindeer that get created each season. Each is about as different as the person who made it.

Last year we had a dreadlock "rasti-reindeer", an all-seeing reindeer, a 32-point reindeer and many other variations. This year I made some instructions and will leave them out for people to see what's going on. I'm also trying to figure out how we can get some pictures of peoples' creations; maybe we can post them here or something.

I'm adding a clothespin version this year; when I get a prototype together I'll post it here.

Also, these make a great craft for a den of Cub Scouts!

(Yes, that's a view of my office desk in the background!)

[Update 12/14/2007] Here's a rouge's gallery of Reindeer!

I am re-reading The Hobbit at the moment. Work has been, well, work, recently and I wanted something that I could enjoy without expending too much effort. And then, I found myself thinking about this passage:

     'Then what is Durin's Day?" asked Elrond.
      'The first day of the dwarves' New Year,' said Thorin, 'is as all should know the first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter. We still call it Durin's Day when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together. But this will not help us much, I fear, for it passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again.'

This is from The Hobbit, Chapter III, "A Short Rest", pg 56, emphasis added. Winter begins at the Winter Solstice, on or around December 22nd each year (in my hemisphere, anyway). The sun and moon can appear in the sky together in a number of different ways, but if we assume that a "moon" starts at the new moon (i.e., when there is no moon), then the first chance that this new moon and the sun have at being in the sky together is at the sunset after the new moon, when the sliver of new moon trails the sun just a little. Tolkien reinforces these details with another passage, later in the book, in Chapter XI, "On the Doorstep", pg 179.

     'Tomorrow begins the last week of autumn,' said Thorin one day.
     'And winter comes after autumn,' said Bifor.

All day Bilbo sat gloomily in the grassy bay gazing at the stone, or out west through the narrow opening. He had a queer feeling that he was waiting for something.

     If he lifted his head he could see a glimpse of the distant forest. As the sun turned west there was a gleam of yellow upon its far roof, as if the light caught the last pale leaves. Soon he saw the orange ball of the sun sinking towards the level of his eyes. He went to the opening and there pale and faint was a thin new moon above the rim of the Earth.

So we've confirmed so far that it is late autumn, the new moon has just taken place and we're looking west toward the sunset at a sliver of a moon chasing the sun toward the horizon.

     Quickly Bilbo explained. They all fell silent: the hobbit standing by the grey stone, and the dwarves with wagging beards watching impatiently. The sun sank lower and lower, and their hopes fell. It sank into a belt of reddened cloud and disappeared. The dwarves groaned, but still Bilbo stood almost without moving. The little moon was dipping to the horizon. Evening was coming on. The suddenly when their hope was lowest a red ray of the sun escaped like a finger through a rent in the cloud. A gleam of light came straight through the opening into the bay and fell on the smooth rock-face. . . . There was a loud crack. A flake of rock split from the wall and fell. A hole appeared suddenly about three feet from the ground.
. . . .
     Then Thorin stepped up and drew the key on its chain from round his neck. He put it to the hole. It fitted and it turned! Snap! The gleam went out, the sun sank, the moon was gone, and evening sprang into the sky.

The clues we can get from these passages are many. We confirm that we're looking for the last new moon in late autumn. The clues about looking west confirm for us that this is a sunset event and the sequence ("the sun sank, the moon was gone") helps us place things precisely. We're to watch the sunset on the evening of the new moon or the evening after the new moon. Why the imprecision in our precision? Because, depending on your longitude and the time of day for the new moon, not everything may appear on the first sunset.

We are currently on the threshold of winter (begins about 12/22/2007). The last moon (of Autumn) starts this weekend (Sunday afternoon, December 9th at 1241). On that day the moon sets at 1634, while sunset for my location (near N 41° 30' 36.4212" W 81° 34' 44.1588") is twenty minutes later, at 1657. I'd like to see that moon if it were possible. On Monday, the sun sets at 1657 and the moon sets at 1726, So as I read it, we just might be able to see the moon and the sun at the same time at sundown Monday, December 10th, 2007.

That would be Durin's Day.

I'll be watching.

There were too many clouds yesterday in Cleveland to properly observe the sunset/moonset combination that I'd been hoping for. weather.com currently seems to think that Wednesday might be the first day this week with a chance at seeing the sun and the moon in the same sky together for this last new moon of Autumn.

I'll let you know.

My oldest daughter collects tea cups. I wanted to give her something related to this interest for Christmas 2007 and it was during a lecture I was attending when the idea for a tea tray came to mind. There are usually bulletins around when I attend a lecture and so it was fairly easy to come up with a few sketches for the joinery and the general dimensions. I went home, measured one of my wife's tea trays and the plan started coming together.

The wood would all be scrap. The ½'' mahogany sides would come from the coamings project on my KrazyKat catboat, as would the ¼'' mahogany slats for the bottom. The ¼'' curly maple slats came from the Breakfast Nook cabinets project. The ebony handles came from a Brio-gauge train project that I made for various children.

The corner joinery is ½'' finger joints. The long sides are ½'' x 1½'' x 17'' and the short sides are 13'' long. That leaves the inside dimensions to be 16''x12''. The ¼'' dado capturing the bottom slats is ¼'' deep and located ¼'' from the bottom of the sides. This leaves the depth of the tray to be 1''.

Yellow glue for the finger joints and for holding the handles to the carcass until the brass brads could be set. I like brass on mahogany.

The curly maple was sanded with tung oil (150 grit, then 220 grit) and I think some of the mahogany slurry ended up in the pores of the curly maple. It helps to "pop" the grain.

Overall, I made enough materials for three. My daughter, mother-in-law and sister-in-law each got one; each unique.

(Reminder to self: let the tung oil set for a few days before presenting to recipient!)

The plans for the TinyCat sailboat I built this summer call for a Jonesport mooring cleat right up on the stem of the boat. I decided that mine should be made of Texas mesquite. I took the plans, copied the profile (top and side views) and then used a photocopier to enlarge each image until it matched the sizes in the plans. Then I took those images as scans and used Visio to create a line-drawing that matched the enlarged drawing.

The plans are available in PDF and Visio formats. The thick black lines are intended to represent how a mooring line would flow over the curves. Not terribly pretty or even accurate, but it did help me see how they would be used.

I started with a large mesquite block and used a hand plane to get it fairly square. Then I cut out the profile I liked the most (there are two profiles included in the plans) and traced them onto the block with a pencil. Then I went to the bandsaw and with a ¼'' blade, cut a rough shape on the top, staying proud of the lines. I traced the side profile and cut that, too.

Then I used a block plane, several different files, a microplane and some sandpaper to shape the mooring cleat appropriately. I had a ½'' stainless dowel (pin?) that was going to become part of the cleat. The hole into which this would fit was bored on the drill press. When the pin was inserted, I used some Gorilla Glue to keep it in place.

Of the two profiles, the second one is my favorite and is the one that most closely matches what I ended up with.

I finished up by giving it a coat of epoxy to soak into some of the cracks that appeared (mesquite trees usually have a fair number of branches). Following that, it received a couple of thinned coats of varnish followed by a couple of lighter (but full-strength) coats. The lag bolts used to secure it to the deck are stainless and in the 3+ inch range. One goes into the stem and the other into a 2''x6'' backing board.

The deck isn't completely flat; I placed some 150 grit sandpaper on the stem and scrubbed the mooring cleat against it until the profile of the cleat matched the shape of the deck. It wasn't much, but I felt better about it.

The entire mooring cleat is bedded in a thin layer of silicon caulk. The two lag bolts (and the fender washers) keep it nice and snug against the deck. I was able to be towed this summer by a huge power boat (never again!) with the tow rope belayed onto this cleat. It held perfectly.

Be patient with your boaters and let them rant. Most of them will get over it come December.

When my task at work is to craft something with words, to write something more meaningful than a simple response to an email, I sometimes run aground. As one might expect, a shorter, more pithy piece is easier to complete than a longer, more enduring work, but they are both hard effort.

Similarly, the shoal, the sand bar that blocks my exit from safe harbor into the wider water is harder to traverse depending on the words that must be written. Or perhaps the bar and the water over it remain the same and it is the weight in my craft that grounds the hull on its way to deeper parts.

Whatever the case, the price to pay to cross the bar and write what my work needs written seems, ironically enough, to be more writing. I find that when this writer's block is struck, a short piece, a few words soon sees me over.

Sitting down to "do" performance reviews for my team first requires a short crafting of words in an unrelated theme. Writing a job description is preceded by a series of paragraphs on something more organic than roles and responsibilities. And writing my own performance review demands repeated iterations of rowing out a kedge anchor and straining at the capstan to get me over.

On the other hand, crunching numbers to create reports and graphs, while lengthy and easy to accomplish, requires writing unrelated sentences and paragraphs at the completion of the task, rather than before beginning. More of a cleansing the palate or holystoning the deck than clearing for action.

Frustratingly, I sometimes kedge off to begin the real work, the paid-for writing, before the distraction piece is completed. Unlike today. Today, I saw the shoal first and began this piece, not knowing what I am to write when it is finished.

Many, many years ago I sorta promised to myself that I'd buy flowers from just about any street vendor selling them. The theory is that since I'm always thinking of my wife, I'd see them, think how she'd just love some and so bring a few stems home. It's a good reminder device and she seems to appreciate them.

Last week I bumped into a fellow outside Tower City and purchased five rather nice-looking roses (two pink and three red) for ten bucks. I've got two daughters (pink ones) and one wife (red ones). Yesterday, I had to do some certified mail at the PO there and bumped into him again. He seemed to remember me and when asked, told me that last week's prices wouldn't work this week since tomorrow was Valentine's Day. Good for him, I said, let the demand drive up your prices. I purchased three stems (still ten bucks!) and proceeded across the Square to my bus.

While waiting for the bus with my three red roses, I heard, out of the corner of my ear, a woman's voice commenting about roses in Spanish. Now, when I was six, I learned some rudimentary elements of Spanish. And when I was in elementary school, I was bathed (externally) in it. And starting in high school and on through college, I ingested it; lived and breathed it. And then, sort of lost the opportunity and lost the ability.

Except during times like these. Something snaps (I can almost feel it) and suddenly, I can speak Spanish again. So I turned to find this lady's Spanish voice and replied, in Spanish. Not only did it surprise me, but she seemed stunned. We chatted for a few minutes and then my bus came. I almost chose to miss it, I was having such a great time. I won't say I was being particularly fluent or witty. It was an effort to keep going. I was merely conversant. As I was leaving, she asked me where I was from, Central America? No, just Texas. I'm not sure I'll even know if she detected a slight CA accent in my voice (I doubt it). Certainly possible, many of my high school friends are from Guatemala.

So I was surprised by Spanish. From an unknown lady passing by on the Square commenting on some red roses. And by my own Spanish. From somewhere equally unknown inside me.

A little later today I'll be typing on a different laptop, enjoying a privilege my employer calls Work From Home. I don't ordinarily take advantage of WFH but will today for two reasons.

First (and most boring), I have a half-hour errand to run at 9:30.

Second (and only somewhat more convincing), today is Opening Day for the Cleveland Indians. My office is only a couple of blocks from the newly-named Progressive Field and usually Opening Day is a madhouse, even for us public transportation types. Add to that the piles of rotting snow, the ongoing (never-ending?) construction of the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project and we have a conspiracy to keep me home.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article on Friday titled Opening Day. It maps the story of the writer's truancy from school on many Opening Day events in the past.

Wrigley Field. The Chicago Cubs. My brief sojourn in Chicago (1992-1995) taught me that there was virtue in rooting for the Cubs. I had grown up with Nolan Ryan slinging no-hitters (during both of his careers) but didn't follow baseball religiously. My primary exposure to MLB was through the radio in the late `80's as the commercial-punching producer of the Houston Astros for a now-defunct (?) station in Kingsville, Texas. To this day, I'd rather listen to a game than watch it. Stephen Moore claims that "people who move away from Chicago almost always remain life-long Cubs fans" (with the noted exception of Hillary). There is virtue in rooting for the underdog that does its best. There is virtue in the simplicity and age (the grandeur?) of Wrigley Field that the lights have done little to diminish.

Jon Boyd and his brother travel the US each year for the First Pitch. He's recently had a life-changing event and I wondered to him if he'd be able to keep up the tradition this year.

So today is opening day. And while I'll be staying far away from it, I hope that Jon gets out to keep his tradition, if not today in Chicago, hopefully somewhere else.

Our fair city's third-tallest building (by eyeball) got in the way of a rather smallish sparrow this morning.

I was exiting this building with a cup of coffee in my hand (as I sometimes do) when I saw it.

Now, the last twelve hours have seen a bit of rain (as the barometer foretold) and this smallish sparrow was hunkered down on the wet, red granite in from of this tallish building. I'm not an ornithologist, however hard I try. I do know my neighbors and this one didn't look familiar. The cut of the beak, perhaps, or the more densely spotted back.

After absorbing myself completely in watching her for a few minutes to see if she'd fly away, it didn't appear that she would. She didn't even protest as I placed my hand over her warm back and slipped my fingers under her equally warm belly.

There's a little flower bed a dozen feet away with a sheltered overhang into which I placed her.

Still no protest, no visible gratitude. If she was even aware of me, those beady little eyes didn't show it. Or even any signs of being terrified. She graciously accepted the change in location by hunkering further into the little corner she now found herself in. I suppose that's the best kind of gratitude.

Aware now of the people walking nearby and staring, I cut the corner of the Square to my own sheltered overhang, out of the way of this gray and dripping windy weather, taking with me only the memory of this warm softness.

Matthew 10:29-31

Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

[2008-04-11 16:05] As of this afternoon, she was gone. There was some chirping coming from the bushes, but I didn't get a visual.

[Warning: Spoilers for C.S. Lewis' books from The Chronicles of Narnia are included. If you have not yet read the books (or seen the movie(s)), please pick up The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and read it first.]

I recently finished C.S. Lewis' Reflections on the Psalms. Among the many things I learned was an interesting tidbit about Professor Kirke from Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (the first of seven in The Chronicles of Narnia).

Lucy is in conflict with Edmund on this country she found (and he visited) in the wardrobe (If none of this makes sense to you and sounds interesting, please go read the book!), causing some strife in this family of four. Peter and Susan, the two oldest, approach the Professor (with whom they are staying during the London air raids) and tell him the whole story that Lucy has related.

     "How do you know?" he asked, "that your sister's story is not true?"
     "Oh, but—" began Susan, and then stopped. Anyone could see from the old man's face that he was perfectly serious.

     "But do you really mean, Sir," said Peter, "that there could be other worlds—all over the place, just round the corner—like that?"
     Nothing is more probable," said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, "I wonder what they do teach them at these schools."

     . . . I never regard any narrative as unhistorical simply on the ground that it includes the miraculous. Some people find the miraculous so hard to believe that they cannot imagine any reason for my acceptance of it other than a prior belief that every sentence of the Old Testament has historical or scientific truth. [. . .] The real reason why I can accept as historical a story in which a miracle occurs is that I have never found any philosophical grounds for the universal negative proposition that miracles do not happen. I have to decide on quite other grounds (if I decide at all) whether a given narrative is historical or not.

One of the reasons I insist on reading (and advising others to read) the Chronicles in the order in which they were written (starting with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, then Prince Caspian and ending with The Horse and his Boy, The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle) rather than the chronological order (starting with The Magician's Nephew) is for the sense of mystery. We marvel with Lucy and the others at the Lantern. We are surprised by talking beasts and a magnificent lion. And we wonder why the Professor is so wise.

We find out later, of course, that one reason the Professor is so quick to believe Lucy is that he has experienced the same miracle. But approaching the book from a position of not knowing allows us to experience the wonder, the marvel and the awe as the children do their first time through the wardrobe.

"How do you know?" he asked.

Time at ICCM this year feels different than in years past. No doubt having a wife and four children in tow (my first time as a family at ICCM) influences that. No doubt having one child who is actively participating in the conversations this year also influences that. But there's something else, something I can't quite place my finger on.

Perhaps it is that this year is the first of four years I haven't been looking for a job while at ICCM. The prior three times were all during periods of transition: once I was underemployed and twice I was in-between phases of my career at my current employer. This year is different since I have just started a new assignment at that employer (less than two weeks ago), so I'm definitely committed elsewhere for a while.

Perhaps it is that this year is the first year that I'm giving back. These people don't want to hear about the huge datacenters my teams manage or the problems we face implementing the millions of dollars in server hardware each year. And you'd think that since this was my fourth time attending I'd be more in tune with what they need and what they want. My arrogant gaff the first night during the introductions painfully reminded me of all this.

The ten or fifteen folks who attended my Managing in the Whitespace of your Organization session yesterday seemed somewhat confused at first. It is, in fact, a strange topic to go over. ("White space" in an organization is that uncharted space in an organization chart that exists between the various functional teams. It is here where miscommunication takes place, poor hand-off exists and inefficiencies are created.) Ordinarily I pay a lot of attention to going slowly in a presentation but this time I was off like a shot. Thirty minutes into a 75-minute time slot, I was done. What was up with that? I've never done that before—I've always either ended with a few minutes for questions or gone right up to the end.

Well, I soon figured out why I slipped this time. There were a ton of questions. Thirty-five minutes of questions, discussions and probing conversations. I even got a chance to talk about some of the strategies I've employed in healing broken technical teams over the years. And after the questions were over (including two real extraordinary ones from Bob Hodge), folks came up front to talk for a few more minutes. The next session had to shoo us out. (This probably means that my presentation was actually lousy and the questions were needed to fill out the details. I'll think more about that soon.)

More later, as this continues to grow.

Casablanca is one of our favorite classic films. There are many reasons to love it including the music, the lines, the acting, the scenery, the story and of course, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre.

Last night was our night to watch this wonderful film. This time around, we focused a bit more on the politics of the situation. Something that has always perplexed me was toward the end when Captain Renault pours himself a glass of water, looks at the bottle and drops it into the trash. The label says it is from Vichy. I just finished The 33 Strategies of War and some of the situations surrounding France and northern Africa are covered there and so I thought it might be related.

We were discussing why he dropped the bottle into the trash; the event occurs at the end of the movie when Captain Renault covers for Rick after Rick shoots Major Strasser. Not only has Rick killed the German Major, but he has also taken the stolen letters of transit and used them to help the leader of the resistance flee to Lisbon and from there (presumably) to America. Up until this point Rick has been very careful to stay neutral, despite his history of being a mercenary, fighting on the wrong side of various wars, etc., but his most recent actions put him forcefully against Germany and for a free France.

Captain Renault likewise has stayed very neutral, being friendly to the Germans but always siding with "Unoccupied France". Turns out Vichy was the seat of power for Unoccupied France during this time and so we had a good conversation trying to understand the significance of this cinematic symbol. (See here, toward the bottom, for the answer.)

We went back and forth for a while, discussing French geography, world politics, de Gaulle and even some of the other symbols in the film.

Then the five-year old gave us his analysis:

"Well, maybe it was expired!"

Many things in life have a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference. (This statement, of course, may or may not be true.)

What is true is that my employer is in the financial industry and I have been watching the "implosion" of WaMu and Wachovia (as well as our cross-town rival) with some interest. Now much of my financial news comes from the Wall Street Journal and as I read, digested and followed the events of the past weeks, a phrase from the HHGTTG kept coming to mind. Of course I wasted many, many hours in middle, high school and college listening to the series on NPR (and my bootleg recordings) and reading and re-reading the books, but apparently that wasn't enough because it wasn't until I went to the book (thanks, Karen R!) and found chapter 15 that I remembered the complete scene.

Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of. . . .

. . . And so the system broke down, the Empire collapsed, and a long sullen silence settled over a billion hungry worlds, disturbed only by the pen scratchings of scholars as they labored into the night over smug little treatises on the value of a planned political economy.

It was "the pen scratchings" that I was hearing as I read the paper pages of my newsprint, the RSS feeds of the blogs and talked around the water cooler with my colleagues. Some of it scholarly. Some smug. Some little. Some espousing less regulation and some espousing more.

A lot of pen scratchings, though.

And now I think I am ready for a period of "long sullen silence". You see, while Douglas Adams was ultimately a funny nihilist, I have work to do, a family to lead, a boat to sail and cabinets to finish.

Update (20081104): Several readers have asked me if I really believe in "a planned political economy". I do not. I believe that free markets, when transparent enough, are the most effective ways to handle an economy. I do, however, wish for a sullen silence (or any kind of silence) these days.

Yesterday afternoon the six of us (and nine assorted other relatives) were at the Manassas National Battlefield Park, near my parents' retirement home. I had the two year-old, the youngest of my four, on my back when an older lady approached me and commented that I must have drawn the short straw, implying that I got the chore no one else wanted, carrying the baby.

I quickly replied that I was loving this. "Well, I think it's beautiful," she responded and turned away.

I wish I hadn't been so intent on remembering whose army was behind which hill at what time or I would have engaged her a little bit more.

"Thank you! This is my fourth child and compared to my third at this age, she's a feather.

"Feel those fingers clasped so tightly around my neck? See that downy head nestled on my shoulder? Hear those chirps about this and about that?

"I only hope I can remember these things into my seventies and eighties and beyond. You see, I've only been doing this for nearly twelve years now, and I rather feel like time is running out.

"She's likely our last (I won't say our last) and outside of time with nieces and nephews, waiting for grandchildren seems almost unbearable."

Twelve years. Is that short or long?

Time's running out.

Tony Woodlief writes today that he doesn't know why his back hurts except that sometimes in his dreams he runs "really fast to stay a half-step ahead of the monsters".

I don't know if his monsters take any particular form but it seems that today there are plenty of candidates. (I had thought to list some but concluded that nameless monsters are more universal, i.e., the monsters in my dreams might not inhabit yours.)

I also found it particularly interesting to hear another adult confess to having monsters. A few years back my wife and I developed a strategy to deal with our son's monsters (I think we lightly spritzed water under the bed) and I wonder now if we were doing him a disservice. To him they were real, even as the ones that menace adults are real. Teaching him to trust in a sovereign God for something as silly as imagined monsters under the bed might not have been such a bad idea—we lead him to prayer for many other things.

A sovereign God. Probably sounds old-fashioned to some readers. And certainly God's sovereignty doesn't preclude those monsters from doing bad things to His people (but here we digress into free will, etc.).

The comfort comes in knowing that we are His people and even when bad things happen, we cannot be snatched from His hand. The monsters, even when they catch us, are not eternally consequential.

A leaf made it to the sixth floor of my office building today, no doubt brought in on the heel of someone's shoe. It lay there on the carpet most of the afternoon, a bright-red maple reminder of Autumn's arrival.

I marvel, not only at its humble beauty but also at its fortitude. Blown to a wet sidewalk from who-knows-where, attached to a sole for a walk to and then inside the building, a six-floor ride up the elevator and another walk down a long, carpeted hallway, to be deposited there for us to see.

The wall color is "Feather Gold Dust" or some such rot and we hang large posters and big framed art to break its monotony. Why, then, does this three-inch wonder command such attention, disrupt our focus and draw us back to view it again?

It isn't just the boldness of its color or the uniqueness of its hue. Nor is it the cut-out shape that only a maple can deliver.

No, it is because it is something "outside" that has made it in.

Something that surprises us by not belonging here. Something otherworldly that defies by its presence.

Up against an acre of industrial hallway and walls, this little red maple leaf draws us to itself. "Come closer;" it seems to say, "see me; remember that today is not like yesterday, that inside it is still, and that outside, things remain in motion."

My ancient Garmin eTrex Legend gave up the ghost over the summer. It would boot up, attempt to acquire satellites and then the display would go blank with a strange, sometimes purple, fine line from top to bottom. And the eTrex Legend is gray-scale—no colors, not even purple on this model.

I'd been utilizing the GPSr in my BlackBerry Curve 8310 for Geocaching but I was unable to find any free software that was as good as the rudimentary interface on the eTrex Legend. While I tried GPSed for BlackBerry (v.1.01) and Spot for Blackberry, the best for navigating was probably Google Mobile Maps. With the three different map types (roads, satellite photo and terrain) and the 3-meter accuracy of the Blackberry Curve's GPSr, I could sneak up on the geocache without any difficulty at all. (Yes, I know that with the eTrex Legend's WAAS, I could obtain 3-meter accuracy, but that just didn't happen in the field. The BB Curve gets that just about all the time.)

I have two difficulties geocaching with Google Mobile Maps. One is that I occasionally/frequently geocache outside AT&T's grid (so Google Mobile Maps can't get any maps) and the second is that there is no copy/paste of longitude and latitude into their search feature (so I end up trying to type the position from someone else's GPSr device or a piece of paper).

So, I have four basic requirements for my GPSr:

1. High accuracy
2. Geocaching mode or ability
3. Tracking mode or ability (to make trail maps)
4. MacOSx connectivity
5. Oh, yeah, and maps

Enter an interview with Pete Fleszar, a mapmaker and trail maintainer. I sent him a note with my quandary and he replied that he owns the Garmin GPSmap 76CSx. Amazon.com is/was discounting them highly (52% off) and so after some research, I pounced.

It arrived late Wednesday. First impression: "It's huge!" Second impression: "We're inside the house and it still has 20-foot reception!" We took it out for a brief spin and dropped a marker and left some tracks. Nothing spectacular. Third impression: "It looks like a hard-drive to my Mac!" Fourth impression: "Garmin has a lot of Mac-specific software."

Garmin Communicator Plugin is pretty sweet. Allows you to transfer geocaches from Geocaching.com directly to the GPSr device. Garmin RoadTrip is a fairly decent piece of software, too. Now starts the frustrations: maps.

The Garmin GPSmap 76CSx comes with a simple map for the US. Nothing fancy. It knows the major roads near my house and even has exits for the highway. I have the original MapSource Topo US from my eTrex Legend. And of course, the RoadTrip won't recognize it.

Turns out there is some software that will migrate all 2,565 foonum.img files from the MapSource Topo East package to a single, 591.4 MB "US Topo - East.gmapi" file. But they don't make it easy. They expect that you have a modern Windows box . . . and here's where the problems begin. Rather than write up all the rabbit trails we followed, I'll summarize. (Garmin does tell you how to do it here.)

Steps to convert old/Windows Garmin maps to the new/Mac formats:

1. Discover CodeWeavers' CrossOver Mac product and free license (not sure if demo license will suffice)
2. Install Garmin MapSource for Windows
3. Install MapSource Topo US into MapSource
4. Install MapConverter for Windows
5. Convert all modules/CDs (?) of the MapSource Topo US product (East, West, Alaska/Hawaii) to gmapi format (approximately 15 minutes per CD)
6. Install Garmin RoadTrip for Mac
7. Install Garmin MapManager for Mac
8. Import gmapi files into RoadTrip using MapManager for Mac
9. Install Garmin MapInstall for Mac
10. Import installed maps into the GPSr using MapInstall for Mac
11. View old, detailed Topo maps on new Garmin GPSmap 76CSx

If those steps hadn't worked, I was going to get my old Win98SE cd out and install into my beta version of VMware Fusion (whose license has expired). So I now have working detailed topographical maps on my GPSr and Mac's desktop. And I had some fun hacking this together. But if time is money, I'm probably not ahead at the moment.

So we're going to play with this doing some geocaching, trail maintenance, etc. I'll post a review later in the year with my findings!

Today is the first Sunday in Advent this year. This is how we celebrated.

First, we all stopped what we were doing and came together. This is sometimes the hardest and yet most important thing about family worship: stopping what we're doing and coming together to worship together.

Read John 1:1-9

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

Then we talked a little bit about why we're celebrating Advent. We talked a bit about what a humbug I can be and why it is important to prepare for the coming celebration. We didn't get real deep here. I read the portion of a Christmas Carol where Jacob shows up and talks about his chains:

"You are fettered", said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life", replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know", pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

And of course we had to hear the obligatory "We're Marley and Marley" song from the Muppet Christmas Carol and that gave us a chance to talk about those chains.

Then we sang three verses of O come, O come, Emmanuel and talked about why Emmanuel is one of my favorite words of the Bible: God with us. Think of the imagery—there's a lot of power there.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.

We sang from some old cast-off hymnals we've collected over the years. The youngest son is the choir-master and he studies these while the others are doing school.

During the hymn, the youngest daughter decided to gargle, dribble and spill her drink, to the amusement of her siblings. It wasn't the holiest time of the evening but I managed to laugh and keep singing.

Somewhere in this time we lit the first candle on our Advent wreath (more about this later, if you're interested). Of course we had troubles with the lighter. The oldest doesn't know how to flick-the-bic just yet. And we laughed and kept on.

For the days this week, we'll likely choose one or two hymns from either side of O come, O come, Emmanuel and light the candle before dinner or in between the hymns. Or we'll forget to light it at all. The point is not to have a perfect family worship service. The point is to have one at all. Please note that we didn't get all deeply theological during this time. We touched on some biblical truths, a bit of doctrine, some scripture and sang a song. Nothing fancy. We worshiped our God as a family. That's it.

See you tomorrow.

My little sister is the creative genius behind "Little c Designs" out of Annapolis, Maryland. If you have a little one, are expecting a little one on know someone who does or is, check out Little c Designs.

They're all very special and my favorite is this little sailboat design.

For a girl, I like the Piper design and for a boy, the Simon. They're all just too cute and make me want to snuggle up with them just from looking.

In addition to what's in the catalog, she may make custom items for you.

Take a look; there are some really neat items on her website. If you drop her a line, make sure you tell her that her big brother sent you!

Today it was single-digit temperatures as I disembarked the bus and started thinking about lunch. You see, Wednesdays are when our Team Manager Management Team gets together for lunch. To talk about solutions, pose situations and bridge gaps so we can be more unified when stuff happens. And it wasn't too early to think about lunch (is it ever too early?) because by 6:45 am, I had emails suggesting Houlihan's or Cadillac Ranch, both of which are close to the office.

And it occurred to me: what's my tolerance for walking outdoors to lunch when the temperature is 5°F?

In my Google Reader is a small XML file that brings in an image from Indexed, a website full of 3x5 cards. So I'm familiar with the idea: A 3x5 card with an image, usually an X-Y graph or Venn diagram, taking two or more dissimilar ideas and relating them.

Since I was at work, I couldn't search the site for my idea (blocked by Websense), so I drew my own. My apologies to Indexed if I've plagiarized; I didn't find anything similar here. If this idea isn't on your site, perhaps it should be.

My maternal grandmother lived in Erie, Pennsylvania. I visited a number of times growing up (late 70s), but I only ever remember visiting in the summer.

For someone transported from the southern parts of Texas, Erie in the summertime seemed a bit chilly. I now live in Cleveland, less than one hundred miles south and west of Erie and there are times in the summer when I'm transported back. Back in time, back to Erie, back to the front and back yards of the house with the African violets on the tables by the chair and windows.

Today, for example, my youngest and I went for a walk around the block. It's been a cool summer and yet there's something about a couple of warm days followed by a cool one that brings out certain smells.

It's that standing on someone's sidewalk, smelling their grass grow. A particular type of short, weak grass that looks nice cropped low. It might even be the exposed dirt that an edged sidewalk shows next to that grass. It's that mix of oaks and maples and sycamores (with a spruce mixed in for good measure) cooling off in the evening breeze.

And there are sounds along with these smells. Sounds of cars a few blocks away, but none on your street. It's the voices of folks from a distance, talking with one another, greeting one another as they pass on the various sidewalk slabs: sandstone, concrete and blue stone.

But mostly it's the smells.

And I'm nine, all over again.

My Mountain Hardwear Airjet 3 has three types of seams: stitched, welded and glued. I received mine in December of 2003 and have used it extensively and carefully on many campouts. It serves me well with one exception—some of the glued seams have had the adhesive turn crumbly and I am returning it for warranty service.

Of course, that happened a few days before I was to use it on our August OA campout and I needed a tent. My nearly ten year-old daughter graciously offered me hers, a small, 2-man Eureka Tetragon 5, a tent she received as a gift in December 2008.

I was extremely grateful because staying in the cabin was going to cost a bit more. I was also grateful that we'd bought her such a sensible tent (and that it wasn't pink).

The Tetragon 5 may be small but it is sufficient—I had plenty of room for my sleeping bag and my gear. But first, the basics.

It sets up well, quickly and easily. We replaced upgraded the original stakes with some MSR GroundHog tent stakes and made sure the loops were reflective. We were expecting rain the next day so I made sure to get the tent set up tightly an a flat site with an ever-so-slightly slope. I was assigned Camp Beaumont's Ermer and while there is plenty of flat site, much of it leaves little scope to the imagination. However, I found a delightful spot with tall trees on one side and a little meadow on the other.

The evening started out warm with Beaumont's traditional mosquitoes begging to get in. The Tetragon 5's extensive mesh kept them at bay and still allowed the cooling breeze to get in. By morning, the breeze was quite cool but I didn't have the condensation problems I sometimes do with the Airjet 3's single wall design. There is plenty of room to sit up and change one's clothes. I'm not sure how I'd feel with a second person, though—we'd probably need to take turns.

The tent has two diagonal poles and two eyebrow poles for the fly. When properly staked out, there's a small vestibule for the front and a bit of an overhang for the back. The vestibule might be a misnomer since Eureka! calls it a "protected front entry". Suffice it to say that there's enough space for your boots to stay dry. Certainly not enough space for gear (backpack, etc.) outside.

Final thoughts

This seems to be a great tent for one person plus gear or two people whose gear is in the car (or, if camping in the back yard, in the house). I don't see two adults and their gear fitting in this tent. It seems to confirm my calculus that if you want a tent with room for gear, add one or two to the number of expected occupants to get the right fit.

Eureka! makes a great tent and I'm very glad my daughter is using this one. She is well-situated for family campouts with the Pack!

This week also saw a fawn visit us.

Yep, in the middle of a suburb, near a busy road and right on a busy intersection, a very new fawn spent the day in our flower garden.

There are some woods a couple of blocks north on Southwick and some more woods a couple of blocks west of Broadway (and over the railroad tracks). But still, this was quite surprising to see a young fawn just sitting by the side of the house all day.

You can see my excavations nearby as I had started work on the sidewalk widening project. We had planned to go fishing that day, but wanted to adjust the dehumidifier before setting out. So I jumped in the house, checked things out, then went to close and lock the door. It was then that I saw the little guy, took some pictures and had the kids come check it out.

Of course, I had to Tweet about it and it got picked up by a couple of people.

Never did I think that it would still be there when we came back for lunch, some interior cleanup, painting and general getting-things-ready and then dinner and S'mores later on.

Mom must have come by that evening and retrieved it because it wasn't there the next morning. At least that's what we hoped happened.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy fawn. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy fawn. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy fawn. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy fawn.

Inspired by Jeanne's Toddler Skirt Tutorial over at Life in Cleveland, I decided to get some sky-blue and pink fabric for my daughters and give this a try.

A quick trip to Jo-Ann Fabric saw me in a weaker moment. The daughter (age 3) wanted a couple of different pinks and a couple of different blues.

Four yards later, we came home and I began measuring and cutting and sewing.

First, her waist is about 24" in circumference. (Oddly enough, so is the older daughter's!) Second, there's about 18" between where she wears her pants & skirts and her ankles. Third, I don't follow directions very well.

I cut about 16.5" off the 45" section of pink. And a 45" long strip of 5.5" wide blue. Then I followed the directions a bit, lined up the pink and the blue, rolled up the pink, made a tube of it all with the blue, pinned it and sewed it up. (See her blog post for better instructions.)

Turn all that right side out, iron the sleeve for the elastic, sew that sleeve, sew the skirt's sides, insert the elastic, fasten it into the sleeve and hand it to the girl to try on.

Then, it's outside to twirl around in the sunlight. We picked a daisy for an accessory (hope Mom doesn't mind)!

Of course the older one (age 10) wants one, too and Dad is quick to churn out another one. We still have plenty from these two yards for pockets and maybe a belt/sash, too.

The date/time stamps on the photos says it took 40 minutes to make the second one, however, I think it was a lot less—either that or fun makes time flies!

That was quite fun and I really like how they turned out. I'll cut out a couple pairs of pockets in a contrasting color (pink on blue and blue on pink), iron over the edges and sew those on tomorrow. And I still have two yards left for another two or three.

Eldest daughter brought me a skirt book with some excellent ideas for patterns which we might try. One is a double-layered skirt that would look excellent with the remaining sky-blue pink pair that we have.

Before moving into the neighborhood in 1998, I'd never seen a flat top haircut before, except maybe Buzz Aldrin on TV. George had one, though, and even in the winter when he'd cover it with his orange knit stocking cap, you knew it was there. George was about as old as you could be without thinking of how old he might be. Nowadays he's even older of course.

George held court three houses down from us in a house with a garage as full of junk and miscellaneous as I'd ever seen. I never saw the inside of the house but I figured it was as full as the garage. Had to be. In thinking about it now, it's quite surprising that the house and garage didn't overflow into the yard, but it didn't. And despite the fullness of the garage, the place never looked like Appalachia. Wish I knew how he pulled that off.

He was amazing in how he kept up with things. Actually, the whole neighborhood was fairly up-to-date on happenings, but George out-snooped everyone else. It didn't take much to bring him strolling past. I'd get out my circular saw or think about pounding a nail or two and he'd just show up. Always stayed on the sidewalk unless you engaged him and got him talking--he just seemed to know where the line was on being a distraction.

Well, most times.

Early on I decided to upgrade the electrical panel and rather than sit down and calculate all the outlets, lights and various loads, I just picked a panel with a good-sized main: 200. Yep, from 60 amps to 200 and I'd need to roll out new wires all the way to the peak of the house. Those wires were thick and pretty ornery so I chose to put them in nice, big 2" conduit.

Well it didn't take George long before he was standing there asking what I had that was so big that I needed 200 amps for my little-bitty starter bungalow. I think he was convinced I had a pot farm in the basement and needed all those amps for the grow lights. I still have the occasional nightmare where I'm working inside a hot meter base with him asking me questions from the sidewalk. I'm sure he was just there to pull me off the live wires if I happened to make accidental contact. Yeah.

I'm not sure George ever got rid of anything. I imagine in his house a drawer with a small box in it labeled "string too short to save". Well, maybe not, but he seemed to keep just about everything.

When a squirrel would deposit an acorn, a walnut or a buckeye in his hedge and forget about it for a year or two, those saplings would get pretty high before he'd think about cutting them down or digging them out. George taught me the meaning behind the old proverb about the best time to plant a tree being twenty years ago and the second-best time being today.

One Fall he showed up in our front yard with a couple of his lost-acorn oaks and a couple of volunteer red maples. Thought we might want a couple of trees in our front yard. Well, I didn't. Trees are trouble, I thought. You have to mow around them and rake their leaves and all kinds of maintenance I didn't have time for.

And I planted them anyway. My wife probably had something to do with that. The oak had been cut once and there was a twisted little part about five feet up on this seven foot tree. I figured I'd be digging it out the next Spring.

Well, that year we planted those two and a year later we moved a green gauge plum to the front yard and a year or so later a peach went into the back yard. My wife probably had something to do with that.

And twelve years later my children are thirty feet off the ground in the most perfectly-shaped pin oak tree that ever was. Even the maple has a lovely figure. And even though you can only get twenty-some feet off the ground in the maple, they climb that one, too.

I will always be proud of George's trees.

I still don't like raking, though.

'Then what is Durin's Day?" asked Elrond.

'The first day of the dwarves' New Year,' said Thorin, 'is as all should know the first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter. We still call it Durin's Day when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together. But this will not help us much, I fear, for it passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again.'

It appears that Durin's Day in 2010 will be in early December, the threshold of Winter.

Winter itself starts on December 21st, 2010 at 1747 UTC, with the Full Moon occuring at 3:14 am EST (0814 UTC) that day.

The last moon of Autumn starts on this threshold (Sunday afternoon, December 5th at 12:36 pm EST or 1636 UTC).

On that day, the moon sets at 4:51 pm (2151 UTC) while sunset for my location (near N 41° 30' 36.4212" W 81° 34' 44.1588") is 4:56 pm (2156 UTC), five minutes later. In The Hobbit, we read that on Durin's Day, "the sun sank, the moon was gone", implying that sunset takes place first, so December 5th isn't Durin's Day.

Not only is the order of setting wrong, but the amount of moon showing is so slight (due to the short apparent angular distance between the moon's and the sun's centers) that it's doubtful it would be seen.

On December 6th, the sun sets at 4:56 pm (2156 UTC) and the moon sets at 5:50 pm (2250 UTC), nearly an hour later. At that point, it will be nearly 0.03% illuminated, just a thin crescent.

I think this day (December 6th) is the best candidate for Durin's Day in 2010.

The order of setting is correct and there's likely to be enough moon to see (between 0.016% and 0.03% visible).

The United States Naval Observatory indicates that the record for an early sighting of a lunar crescent is 15.5 hours from New Moon for a naked-eye sighting and December 6th falls outside that mark.

The computed phase of the moon for a few hours later on the 6th is shown nearby.

The website crescentmoonwatch.org seems to agree with us. While they indicate (pdf and jpg) that it will be difficult unless the atmospheric conditions are correct, they do think that northeast Ohio should be within the visible range. The likelihood of seeing it on December 7th is even greater (pdf).

So there you have it. Durin's Day is the first day after the last New Moon before Winter, December 6th, 2010. Head out to the west at sunset and look for the tiny crescent.

Durin's Day for 2007, 2008 and 2009.

The moon/sun position images were taken from Stellarium.

We start by determining that Winter starts on December 21st at 1204 UTC. The immediately-prior New Moon is on November 27th at 11:56 am EST.

Sunset for that day (New Moon day) is at 4:58 pm EST and moonset is 4:37 pm EST.

Sunset for the immediately following day (November 28th, 2008) is at 4:58 pm EST and moonset is at 5:23 pm EST. Approximately 1% of the moon's visible disk will be illuminated, so this isn't likely to be Durin's Day.

Sunset for November 29th is 4:58 pm EST and moonset is at 6:16 pm EST with 4% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated.

Moonwatch predicts that it will be first visible in northeast Ohio on either 11/28 (not likely: pdf) or 11/29 (almost certainly: pdf).

Please note that we are using a modern interpretation of when Autumn takes place (between the September Equinox and the December Solstice), not by using the solar markers at the center of the seasons.