CurlyShavings

There is something special in a name. Words are important and certainly the words we associate with ourselves or our interests carry more weight as they are almost names. So:

mySawdust.com

Sometimes the only thing that gets produced when working with wood is sawdust.

Because shaping and touching wood is magical.

I had my first taste of the new Starbucks' Ubora Blend and was surprised that I didn't like it. What? Not like a Starbucks coffee?! (Yes, in fact, there are quite a number of their offerings that I don't like.)

This one I should have liked since it's a blend of East African coffees (and that's what I generally like). Putting aside for the moment that their blends tend to lose much of flavor of the geography, East African coffees frequently have a fairly noticeable floral aroma. This one didn't. It tasted like the inside of an unwashed stainless steel coffee maker.

Sorry, Starbucks, I won't be getting any to take home. It was too bright and tasted like Coffee™ rather than a citrus-y cup of East African selected coffee beans. Maybe my baristas had a bad day. Maybe there's something else to blame. I'll have another cup later in the week (if that's what they're serving) but won't go out of my way to get any more.
[20070831 UPDATE:] Got another cup of Ubora today, same store and same experience.

What do I like?

The Organic Lomas al Rio was good (even though it is from Costa Rica which typically produces acidic, bright coffee). Ironically, it tasted East African.

[20070831 UPDATE:] My favorite Starbucks manager at my most-frequented Starbucks store gave me 9oz of the Organic Lomas al Rio today. Yum!

The Sumatra Siborong-Borong was exceptional. Very full, very black and smooth.

So was the Ethiopian Sun-Dried that never got officially released this year due to the "discussions" Starbucks was having with the Ethiopian government about trademarks. That was tasty. Somehow managed to be given three bags (24 ounces, about $42 worth!) and enjoyed every bean.

Ethiopia Sidamo is a great house coffee (and what I usually enjoy day-to-day). Starbucks says it is "smooth and elegant, with a floral aroma" and I agree.

Sulawesi would be my other choice as a "house" coffee. I don't know how they can justify calling it "buttery" but I will agree with "smooth" and "elegant".

The only decaf I'll drink of theirs is their Sumatra-Decaf. It still tastes like a good coffee without the caffeine.

Ordinarily I like their Sumatra. It is quite often almost chewy: good and solid. Starbucks calls it "intense [and] earthy" and again, I'd have to agree.

(However, much depends on how it is prepared. Late Saturday, 8/25, my youngest (11 mo) and I stopped by the Starbucks at Mayfield and Lee in Cleveland Heights, OH. I got a tall Sumatra and a large chocolate chip cookie (to share). The coffee was burnt. No other explanation for it. I should have complained, but didn't. An 11 month companion can be a handful and I didn't want to juggle her at the same time as a customer-relations issue. The cookie was a huge success, though. I haven't really "dated" in years but I remain convinced that the easiest way to enjoy a date is to wholly focus on making sure your date has a great time.)

Oh, and I should explain that I strongly feel that the best way to enjoy a cup of coffee is by grinding the beans coarsely a few moments before putting it into a clean french press and scalding it with nearly-boiling hot water, stirring initially and letting it steep for four minutes before pressing and then pouring into a large ceramic mug while heading to the front porch with the dew on the ground, a clear blue sky and the sun still thinking about rising. Getting drip coffee in a paper cup whose seam is prone to leak with a plastic lid whose air-intake port is too small is several notches below that. Especially when you're paying eleven cents an ounce.

Exploring Twitter today. It's kinda like a blog but you can do it from your mobile, IM, the web, maybe other locations. Each entry is called a "tweet" and is typically very short. Just another way to clutter the web and ruin your privacy!

This entry is set to auto update whenever I send an update to Twitter.

Remember, you heard it first here! A giant spider is menacing Cleveland. No, it isn't red and blue, only out of focus.

So, what is it? The Cleveland Water Crib Web Cam has a spider whose web has been in front of it for some months now. Every once in a while he/she/it gets into a position and menaces our fair city's skyline.

I just thought I'd share.

So check the live images every once in a while (this image was from around 8pm today) and see what the spider is doing! Here's the spider in September.

Now for the real news. Why is there a web cam on one of Cleveland's water intake cribs? I'm not sure, but it is part of Green Energy Ohio's feasibility study of wind power generation off Ohio's north shore. Looking at the streaming data from the anemometers, etc. placed at various levels, we ought to be able to work something out.

Like Sarah Taylor (disclosure, she's my neighbor), I feel strongly that we ought to have wind power generation on the Cleveland waterfront. Check out her website, Windustrious.com, see the opening Flash presentation and get a feel for why this makes sense. Please approach it with an open mind; she has answers for all your objections, from bird body counts to lake-bed vibrations.

Here's a pointless clip of us at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum on one of their boats, the Katie G.

Did I mention that I love my Mac? A very long time ago (1997, we thinks), I bought a souped up Dell notebook/laptop. Very nice. Lots of RAM, fast CPU, much disk. It had Windows 98SE on it (the last small but stable of the Windows family). It ran. It did my stuff. And I was happy.

Then it developed a rattle. This was probably 2004. Long life, right? And the hard drive began being unstable. And it crashed ("click, click, click, click . . ."). And I replaced it. And began running Linux (various Red Hat versions). But there was something wrong with the power on this box. It would freeze and require a hard shutdown (the "one-finger salute") to revive. Which would occasionally fry the new disk (just the data, not the disk). Unstable. And I was not happy.

I didn't read my email. I didn't respond to questions. I didn't write anything of note (and still don't). I began relying on my work laptop for most of my personal computing needs. This was a Bad Thing because I work for in a Highly Regulated Financial Company with draconian InfoSec people who forbid using corporate resources for personal use. And this is a good thing because you don't (or haven't yet!) seen Highly Regulated Financial Company in the news for losing a million credit card numbers or accidentally leaking half a million social security numbers. But I still didn't check email (because they actually enforced that part of the policy). And I was not happy.

Said Dell laptop died one more time. As I was making backups. Really bad die this time. Had to format and start over. Very unhappy. And so I approached this family's Budget And Requisition Board for a new computer. "What?! Ten years since your last computer? Go get yourself one." I don't like spending money (specially on myself) and I was still not happy.

After a few days of making others in my family unhappy, said BARB (Budget And Requisition Board) repeated the request. And I drove my youngest son to the Apple store with a list of part numbers. I flumuxed the sales person because she didn't have to sell anything to me, just get me part numbers from the stockroom. Yes, there was a minor transaction having to do with a piece of plastic, but there wasn't a "sell". And we drove home. And I was happy.

And it sat in the box during dinner and some time after. Oldest son was frustrated because he couldn't open it (it isn't his) or touch it (it isn't his) or use it (it isn't his) or watch Dad use it. Dad wanted to read the instruction book. It didn't take long. Something around five little-bitty pages. And I savored all of them. And I was happy.

Getting up and running was a piece of cake. A slice of pie. As easy as falling down. And so I invited Oldest son to help read me the 128-bit encryption key for the WEP on the wireless router. And he messed it up. And messed it up. And messed it up. And I was unhappy. So I took it from him and typed it from my own eye-balls. And it worked and I was happy.

And I remain happy. I answer email. I distribute pictures. I read the news. I write stuff (still poorly). Apple makes a nice product (hardware and software/OS). I've used a ton of OSes and I know what makes a good OS. OS X 10.4 is a great OS. The laptop is a great laptop. (It just better last me 10 years!) And I am happy.

Douglas Adams once wrote in one of his books about a fellow that, once he learned to fly (defy gravity, actually), he learned to understand Bird (a twittery sort of language). I believe that it ruined the experience of listening to the birds for him. Lots of inane chattering going on about seeds and wind currents and stuff like that.

Well, Twittering seems to me like it suffers from a similar problem. Let's deal with this in two ways, self and others.

For myself, who wants to know what I'm doing at every waking moment? Well, besides the nefarious deeds people, but we'll address that later. No one. So maybe I reserve Twittering for status changes of import. But what if I forget one? According to my Twitter page, for three+ days, I've been "Getting organized for the day. Too many loose ends right now." Not helpful if you want to know what I'm doing right now. So maybe I reserve Twittering for intense thoughts, impressions, ideas. That might have merit. Unfortunately, when viewed by themselves, they seem rather pithy and without context. (We may be on to something here, hmmm, context.)

For others, who wants to know what I'm doing at every waking moment? (Wait a minute, didn't we already use this argument?) Well, besides the nefarious deeds people. I imagine one could figure out from some of my Tweets when I'm going to be somewhere or not somewhere. It may be possible to determine that I frequent a certain Starbucks at certain times of certain days. Or that on one day, I might be seen as a small sailboat nearing a particular Cleveland landmark. This aspect of Twittering may or may not be important. Hard to say. By the time it becomes important, it will probably be too late.

So, like the fellow who learned how to understand Bird, who cares? Who cares what a million people are doing at every point throughout their day? Who cares.

In the meantime, if you want to listen to some strange bird twitter interesting (and irrelevant) thoughts to the ether, subscribe here.

I suppose I'm conflicted. This time of year I like it cold, crisp and bright outside and warm, moist and bright inside. (I'd really rather be sailing, but that's another thing.)

Like Anna at little.red.boat, I'm a bit impacted by the dark gray skies and short days. (I sometimes read little.red.boat simply because of the little red boat graphic.) Seasonal Affective Disorder is a bummer and so I might huddle under my "happy light" more in the next few months than I ordinarily would.

And now I remember that tonight the US Congress has inflicted a "Fall Back" maneuver on the timepiece. Daylight Savings Time ends (or begins, I forget which) tomorrow at 2am Eastern. Having saved nothing in terms of energy (which the bill/law was supposed to do) and expended tons in terms of effort (to update computer systems, etc.), we merrily go our way into the darkness that is Fall in NE Ohio.

Some places get to vote today. Our community, county and state have a couple of interesting items.

At the state level (Ohio), we have to decide whether it's OK for strip joint workers to be touched and who compensates their employers for lost wages if they can't be touched. (OK, that's sort of a simplistic, one-sided view of things...) It doesn't matter since it didn't get enough signatures, so (as far as I understand), voting one way or another doesn't matter.

At the county level, (Cuyahoga), we get to decide if we should continue paying taxes to our Port Authority. This is a same-millage tax levy, not an increase. I'm thinking No on this one, although there isn't an easy answer in sight. Mostly because I've been frustrated by the types of projects the Port has decided to fund, what they call their Development Finance Authority. This is the Port Authority, not the local bank. Focus on Port projects. DO something about Whiskey Island (or stop moaning about it). DO something about the Flats (or stop moaning about it). DO something about the land east of the Cuyahoga mouth (or stop moaning about it). Get out from under the County Commissioners' thumbs and show some real leadership.

At the city level, (Cleveland Heights), we have the usual bickering between city council members (and want-to-be members) and the usual posturing between school district board members (and want-to-be board members). Very frustrating on both counts. City Council doesn't seem to be able to do much planning for the future in some situations. There was a recent issue around Euclid Heights Boulevard and declaring some state of emergency. Did the road suddenly get worse? No, it's been declining as long as I've lived here. Wake up and plan for the future.

It's hard to talk about our School District (CH-UH) without talking about their leadership, too. Years ago (starting in 2004?), we, the voters, voted down three separate ballot initiatives to increase the millage on our property values for the school district. We said "No" three distinct times (or was it four?). CH-UH threatened to close schools, threatened people's favorite "Peace Programs", threatened all the usual stuff to get people's attentions. Then, the county guys planned to raise everyone's property values (I think the average was around 10%). The school district said (in effect) "OK, we hear you, this number X is too high, we'll go for Y". The deal is, they would make more money off of Y and the new property values than they would have with X and the old property values. The public didn't look under the covers very well (and they had it on the ballot in November, after the snow birds (who apparently vote No) had already left), and it passed.

Guess what? They closed a school anyway. And they allowed a library building project (really a testament to their greatness) to go over budget by millions. That's right, CH-UH owns our libraries, not the County system. (As much as I hate the County guys, we at least should join the County system.) We have a duplicate infrastructure that we get to pay for also. Then there's the two $100k contracts that got bought out when instead, the recipients should have been put on trial (probably).

Well, anyway, now they're threatening to close a school, stop everyone's favorite programs, etc. if we don't approve the increase. Message to School Board: How much is enough? When money gets tight in the Gifford household, we tighten our belts. We don't go running to mamma and asking for more money. The slogan on all the signs are something like "We can't stop now". Why not? The only folks who claim that more money equals better schools are the school districts, teachers unions, the teachers and the people they inform. The key is parental involvement. There's no direct correlation between money/student and better education. Go back 200+ years and you'll see a consistent theme: successful students had parents behind them who were involved and cared.

[I'm sure I'll get blasted by readers (if there are any) that I have my facts/dates all wrong. Fine. Send them to me in a comment (below) and we'll get a conversation started. I've been wrong before; it's been known to happen!]

Anyway, don't forget to vote.

Here's an example of what I was talking about yesterday: the Port Authority issued some bonds for an office building (no where near the port). Can't we let private citizens decide if and/or where we need more office space? Why do taxpayers have to help? Let these builders/developers get a bank loan.

Crain's Cleveland posted yesterday some information on office buildings in the `burbs. The Wall Street Journal posted some vacancy rates for Cleveland. It seems pretty high and is rising (2Q2006 was 17.9% and 2Q2007 was 18.1%). Why build rather than buy? Is it that much cheaper? (Never mind the County's $35MM asking price for their E9th street screwup.)

(Full disclosure: I work for a bank. And while I may not sound like it, I love my town, Cleveland.)

The Port Authority levy passed and the CH-UH School District levy passed. Rats.

I've been pretty good about writing every day this month. What I haven't been good about is writing things that need to be written. I have a backlog of ideas and have only crossed off one of them. What's up with that?

Part of the problem is that my anonymous employer wishes me to not blog during work. Except in internal blogs (which you can't read, firewalls, etc.) which I'm not allowed to also post externally. So some days this month, I've double-blogged but can't share. Bummer.

Really good stuff, though. We're recognizing the need (for some time now) to be more agile. Our developers are already well-down that path (or think they are) and now the Operations side of things needs to get more agile. I blogged long and hard about how enterprise agility is significantly different than agile development. I brought in examples, included a picture that demonstrated some contrasts and even made a reader (who actually picked up the phone and called) somewhat anxious about what I was writing. (Now I know I at least have one reader!) At the end of the day, though, I think I expressed myself well and had an interesting dialog (with my one or more readers) about enterprise agility. Now if I could only post it here....

Am I wasting my time? Or just yours?

Re-reading yesterday's posting, I was reminded of the true story of a friend who explained why he doesn't keep a gun on his boat, even when cruising in drug-runner-infested water. They had gone aground, for the 13^th time that day and the husband was employed (again) in swimming an anchor out a ways to bury in the sand, swim back and then attempt to winch themselves off. After multiple attempts at burying the anchor and all the back-and-forth swimming, the husband returned to the boat and the boarding ladder wasn't down for him. So he started swearing like a sailor at his wife who reached into the seat-locker, grabbed the handiest thing around and pointed it at him. Luckily for him, it was only an airhorn and not a loaded gun. Unlucky for him, it was still an airhorn.

So I called Western Reserve Wines and Kathy answered. "We're very interested in South African wines," she said. Maybe she says that to everyone. She'd look into it for me.

So then I called my sister in Annapolis (only she was in northern VA at the time) and she agreed to go find me some.

Anyway, later that evening Kathy calls me back with a list of Stormhoek that her distributor carries: `05 Pino Grigio, `05 Sauvignon Blanc, `04 Shiraz and an `04 Pinotage. I took four bottles of the `04 Pinotage (price was right). They weren't going to be getting anything newer. It sounds as though the proprietor (Kathy) wants to find some, too but her distributor won't do it. Too bad.

Then my sister calls back while I'm on the bus. Her wine store has old `04 stuff, too. (Who knows, maybe the older, the better in this situation.) I respectfully passed.

We'll be in NoVa Friday next week and will have a look around for some there. Maybe we'll get lucky.

I'm expecting a call from Kathy tomorrow (Friday). I sent an email to The Grapevine asking if they could get me some. I want some `06 and an `07. Meanwhile, I'll drink my `04 Pinotage.

I have a tailor. I've never met him, never had him take a tape to my shoulders or my arms or comment on my girth. And yet, there he is. Please let me explain.

Several years ago, I got hooked on Hyde Park Oxfords over at Lands End. Really nice, thick oxford cloth shirts that could take an iron over and over again and not look terrible. And then they changed how they made them. Started making them of inferior fabric. Didn't last as long. Very disappointing.

I also like the label "Made in the USA". Now, I'm not a complete nut. One of my cars is made in Canada, the other, Japan. My shoes are made in Minnesota. Many of my electronic gadgets are not made here. My bandsaw and jointer are both made in the USA. My coffee, well my coffee is made all over. (I found a local roaster but can't seem to get my schedule and theirs in sync.) Still, there's something about the "goût de terroir" (taste of the earth) when you open a bottle of wine that was grown in the same Lake Erie watershed. (But I digress.) I am deeply disappointed that much of our nation's manufacturing has fled our shores. I buy my cars from Honda to thumb my nose at Detroit's arrogance and I buy my shirts from David Mercer because he has a shop in Maine. Well, that, and he makes a really nice shirt.

My last pink Lands End Oxford died a few weeks back (wore out too soon) and so I picked up the phone. David was on vacation at the time so I carefully left a detailed message and a week later he called back. "How about those Indians?" he started. (We live in Cleveland but I follow the Cubs.) "Just checking the measurements" and he read back what I'd ordered before. "Still want the half size on the sleeves?" My arms are weird, OK?!! He verified that I still wanted to use the xxxx credit card, he wished the Indians a better next year and gave me a hard time about my Cubbies. And that was it.

Soon, I'll receive a small package in the mail. It will have the most beautiful pink oxford known to mankind in it. It will have a hand-written thank-you note somewhere. It will have pins in all the right places and will be a joy to open (like an Apple iPod). It will fit. It will last (a reasonable number of years). And I will know, that somewhere in Maine, David and his crew are working on someone else's shirt.

So. I buy my shirts from a guy in Maine whom I've never met. He once replaced a blue shirt because one of the seams burst open. We never did determine if it was my cleaners or workmanship. He didn't argue, he just made me another one. I called him once and explained that although I work at a financial institution, I am a people-person technologist (the subject for another blog). I don't want to look like Wall Street. And he recommended a fabric for those days when I meet with the LOB. And I look great. Like a technologist who works for a bank (oops!).

So I may never have met David. But one of the reasons I buy my shirts from a little shop in Maine is that he treats me like he has run his tape from my shoulder to my wrist. I may just be another entry in his Rolodex but I'd never know that.

He's my tailor.

When I was building my boat in the garage, I moved many of my tools out there. Not the stationary ones (drill press, router table, bandsaw, tablesaw) but the handtools. Some planes, hammers, sanders, etc. And you know what? Except in extreme, specialized cases, I didn't use them.

Here's what I used:

• 20 year-old nail apron with pencils, screws and tacks


• low-angle Lie-Nielsen block plane in a scabbard


• 16oz hammer


• 12' tape measure


• cordless drill/driver and bits

I'm not saying that I'm a master craftsman (I could tell you stories . . .). I'm only saying that one doesn't always need the latest and greatest tool. Just a couple of ones that work well for your craft.

Would Shakespeare have written more elegantly (or just more) with a 21st century MacBook? Or would he have gotten bogged down in Leopard vs Tiger and quit when his hard-drive crashed? We'll never know.

Found some Stormhoek yesterday and brought it home; Western Reserve Wines had called their distributer and got me four bottles of the 2005 Pinotage Western Cape.

Nice bottle, good information on the label. It's also nice to see who is importing it; perhaps I could deal directly with them for a few bottles of the new stuff. Or send WRW their way for me?

We're thinking this might be our Thanksgiving wine (Thursday this year!) and so there might be more ink on the subject after that event. Cheers!

To Grandmother's house we go! We leave tomorrow morning at oh-dark-thirty for Grandma's house. Here's the route we're planning to follow:

View Larger Map
You can follow our progress here:

Somehow, without breaking the sound barrier, we managed to make it to Grandmother's house shortly after lunch-ish time. There was a brush fire under a bridge for the other lanes and that caused a rubber-necking delay; other than that, we almost flew.

Traffic felt light for a Thanksgiving day. I half-expected bumper-to-bumper traffic and long lines at the pump. As it was, it felt about the same as any other trip.

Now Thanksgiving dinner, well, that was something else. We had turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, red stuff, two different types of green beans, lima beans and copious amounts of wine and water. I brought a 2005 Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon that was delicious. Of course we started with a sparkling Chardonnay from someplace west. And then we moved over to a 2005 Chardonnay from Texas. Yum, yum, all around.

I really enjoy getting lost in the woods. Not completely lost, just mostly lost; somewhat lost.

After we woke up today and started moving again (coffee!!!) we went in search of a couple of geocaches. It's nice to have a somewhat large park full of windy paths and trees and stuff in your parent's back yard. Once, about 15 years ago (I haven't spent much time there in the last decade or so), I was there during that summer for a week (or something) and had gone for a walk in these woods. I kept hearing a baying sound and eventually found a woman walking two dogs who were making all the racket. She was chasing a fox. Yeah, right. I walked back to the house and when back to the streets and sidewalks, something caught my eye from between two houses. Yep, it was a fox, red as can be.

(Fast-forward to the present . . .) So after the woods, we went to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (cheap/free admission, expensive parking, great museum) and met quite a gaggle of cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, assorted spouses and two sisters. One of my more delightful times was taking my 6mo nephew for an extended walk (carry!) from the entrance to the southern extreme, up the spiral staircase (to see the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, Steve Fossett's Burt Rutan-designed plane), down the incline to the northern extreme, back to the center, down the stairs, then back to the southern extreme (to see the Rutan VariEze) and then back to the entrance where Mom (my sister) was waiting in line for the observation tower. I'm a big fan of Burt Rutan. Fossett, while likely dead (missing anyway) is/was a Boy Scout.

Anyway, somehow we survived the trip, made it back to my parents' house where most of the gaggle met us. And we ate some more, drank some more (La Crema Pinot Noir, a Beaujolais Nouveau and a Spanish Cava) and had a really good time of it.

Today we went to Mt. Vernon.

Three mysteries. One was this: If no food or gum-chewing is permitted on the property, why did the docent lady pop a stick in before she started her talk? The second is like it: If there are all these restrictions on food, why did they let dogs in (who might deposit something worse than gum on the ground)? The third is less interesting: Why was the green channel marker on the far side of the body of water we saw?

I thought it would be red: Red Right Returning (to port, upstream). So it should have been a red channel marker.

Hmm.

The only problem is that the channel is only 200 feet wide and we couldn't see any red ones from our vantage point. So the old adage holds true. Next time I bring my spy-glass.

We recently sold a lot of stuff on eBay. Now I've got to get it down to the post office and mail it. Is it worth it? I'm not sure.

Weird Al captures my thoughts most concisely: "the kind of stuff you'd throw away" -- that seems to be it. Rather than throw it away, let's see if anyone will consider buying it for $.99 and $6.00 shipping!

My new shirt arrived today! I pulled open the plastic bag UPS used to protect it against the rain and snow, carefully pulled open the paper padded envelope and there was my pink Oxford! After removing the pins I was able to try it on; it fits well. Happiness, indeed.

I recently wanted to add a "tag cloud" to this blog but found that out of the box, it simply listed the tags used, from A-Z without any distinguishing characteristics. So I poked around a little bit, found one with no code and another that wanted to charge me. And then I found some info on SixApart's website. Really, there are only a couple of things that need doing to add a tag cloud on your Moveable Type blog.

I'm leaving the instructions somewhat vague with the idea that if you don't know what I'm talking about, you won't attempt it. Seriously, you could mess up your site if you did this wrong and didn't know how to un-do it.

First, find your site's Main Index template. Find where you want your Tag Cloud to go. Open a different window with SixApart's Tag Cloud page. Find the section marked "Displaying a "Tag Cloud"" Copy the code from that page to your template. Save.
Second, find your site's CSS file or files. You may need an editor (emacs, anyone?) to do this. Select the one you want to edit. Find where you want to add your Tag Cloud CSS. From the SixApart page, copy the CSS code from under the "Displaying a "Tag Cloud"" code into your CSS file. Save.

Rebuild (I guess that's step #3) your front page and refresh your browser. You should see a neat little tag cloud wherever you told it to be!

If you wanted to do it differently, you could create a MT Widget and add it to your Widget Set (that's what I did). That way, when I want to mess around with the tag cloud by itself, I can do that. I also added a couple of lines to the CSS to get the effect I was looking for.

I miss my vinyl. Not exactly, but let me explain. Years ago I bought Ziggy Stardust on vinyl, that was about the only choice. I listened to it frequently and repeatedly. Then I bought a Walkman and wanted to take my vinyl with me, so I tinkered around (I'm a bit of an audiophile) and recorded all my vinyl to linear magnetic tape (cassette). Something happened during the recording to slow down the platter and give Bowie a slight defect for less than a second on "Five Years". It wasn't too bad. I listened to that for several years.

Somehow, during one of our married moves, all my vinyl got lost. And so I couldn't rip it to MP3 files. So I invested in iTunes, got the files and stuck them on my iPod.

And my brain can't hear "Five Years" without missing that little warble. OK, so it's not on my vinyl. But I still miss it.

We walked about two miles on this hunt. <Spoiler!> The first cache was a nice ammo box near a distinctive tree; the other was a teeny-tiny magnetic micro under a park bench. Both were predictable enough that we just needed the GPSr devices to get within twenty feet and the rest was "geo-sense". <End Spoiler!>

Still, it was nice just to get out of the house, get some exercise and do something. We like getting lost in the woods (our euphemism for geocaching; you're never really lost -- you might not know where you're going or where you came from, but you're never really lost). It frequently gets you to places you'd never normally go.

Now November is over and while we're looking for low 20F tonight, we don't yet have snow. I have one of the boys tomorrow while Mom takes the girls to a Lady's Tea. Perhaps we'll go get lost in the newly-opened Treadway Creek...

We're going to be busy this Christmas season. This is the list of movies we're planning to watch (including six versions of A Christmas Carol).

• White Christmas (Irving Berlin)


• The Bells of St. Mary's (Bing Crosby & Ingrid Bergman)


• Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Fred Astaire)


• A Christmas Story (leg lamp, anyone?)


• Miracle on 34th Street (1947)


• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (original TV version)


• The Star of Christmas (Veggietales)


• The Muppets Christmas Carol


• A Christmas Carol (Patrick Stewart)


• Scrooge (Albert Finney)


• Scrooge (1951, Alastair Sim)


• A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott)


• A Christmas Carol (Focus on the Family Radio Theater)


• The True Christmas Story (Zondervan)


• A Charlie Brown Christmas


• It's a Wonderful Life


• Nutcracker (American Ballet Theater)


• How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (Boris Karloff)


• The Year Without A Santa Claus (Mickey Rooney)


• The Toy That Saved Christmas (Veggietales)


• Jiminy Cricket's Christmas (Walt Disney)


• A Disney Christmas Gift (Walt Disney)


• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

If you have any questions (like why is Bells of St. Mary's on the list), feel free to write. Some of them I hope to be at work for (all the Disney ones). I think National Lampoon is the TV version so we'll be able to show that to the children. The best Christmas Carol is actually a radio version. And why are we watching A Christmas Story? Because we live 8.1 miles from the Christmas Story House and because we live in Cleveland!

And this doesn't include the 7.8 hours of Christmas music we've collected on iTunes.

I was out and about yesterday with a colleague during lunch and decided to stretch the legs a bit by taking a turn around 800 Superior when I very nearly bumped into a local artist named Wesley. With a guitar over his shoulder and a smile on his face he asked us if we wanted to buy his CD. We could even listen to it first on his portable CD player and headphones. While the offer was very tempting, we needed to get back to the office in the next five minutes or so and anyway, with the wind whipping the 33°F Cleveland air around, it felt like -33°F instead. "No time to listen, but I'll get one anyway; what kind of music?" Sort of a bluesy-folksy mix, we were told. I handed him my $5.00 (now his) and he handed me his cd (now mine). "Make sure you check out my MySpace page," he insisted, tapping the cellophane cd sleeve, "With Open Eyes I'm Finally Free, and don't forget to add me to your friends list." We thanked him, headed north to the corner and then west along Superior.

Interesting, I thought. I wonder what Hugh would say about this social object. Think about it: a random stranger on the street stops two other random strangers to do some marketing, make a sale and expand his brand. We were given the chance to sample the product in a very personal way (for me, anything with a headset is a very personal device). We were invited to join his "friends" list. The "social object" (the CD) also functioned as his business card with his name, phone number and MySpace URL on it. This is just too cool.

We went back to work and I got a chance to listen to it at my desk later that afternoon. The music itself isn't for me and don't let that stop you from buying a copy or going to one of his shows (he was at Phoenix earlier this month). I think he is trying to play a style or collection of styles and is in the process of discovering his own style. And I repeat, don't let that stop you from buying a copy for yourself! Maybe if I were listening to it under the sun somewhere (Mall C?) with a warm wind gently blowing instead of our current weather I might think differently about it.

I'm not a big fan of MySpace and don't have an account. So unfortunately, Wes won't get a chance for me to befriend him there and it might be tricky for him to ever find out that I blogged about it here. I haven't found an email address for him yet.

Wes, I wish you all the luck! Keep up the guitar, singing and your global microbrand!

(Note: words "in quotes" above shouldn't be seen as actual words of the person speaking, just a way to facilitate the dialog on the page.)

I pressed some Tanzanian Peaberry this morning. From the Phoenix Coffee Company label:

Featuring a wine-like aftertaste, with delicate acidity and a mellow, medium body.

This is my second 10oz of Phoenix Coffee -- the first was some Jamaican Blue Mountain this past December. Something that struck me about both was the way it pressed. I have a Braun burr grinder set to course (French Press and course grounds go together). I clean my grinder and my press well. I use reverse-osmosis water and I let it settle for a few moments after it boils. In my little press, I use 2 tablespoons for 8oz of water, for the big one, it's 6 tablespoons for 40oz of water (turns out that's a bit short, should be 10Tbsp for 40oz). I stir the grounds/water mix and let sit for four minutes, then press. I prefer drinking from a ceramic mug (stainless, paper and styrofoam all "add" to the flavor).

If you're thinking I'm a coffee snob, you're probably right.

But what strikes me about their coffee is how it foams when the water is poured over it, in the press. Starbucks coffees don't do that, they accept the water without complaint. The Phoenix coffees seem to foam, almost hydrophobic. I would have to guess that this is related to how they are each roasted. Please note that this isn't a criticism of either brand; only a comparison. I don't know how coffee is "supposed to" mix in a press.

Tomorrow I'll try again with the proper ratio of grounds to water (2Tbsp to 8oz). For the moment, I'd have to say that this pot seems fragile. It's changing character in just the few minutes since I pressed it. Second cup is still "medium body" but the delicate acidity is starting to turn. As far as the "wine-like aftertaste", I had more of that sniffing the beans than I did drinking the results. In its current strength, this would be an afternoon or evening coffee for me rather than a morning jolt to get me going. More on that tomorrow.

It seems that with eight inches on the ground in Painesville and another seven expected, church has been canceled today. We'll print out the bulletin and sing some of the songs and maybe listen to a taped sermon from over the summer.

That sound was me breathing a sigh of relief. We were trying to figure out the dangers (if any) of driving to Painesville and what we should pack should we get stranded there.

I believe that snow like this is God's way of telling us to slow down. We should submit and enjoy the season rather than exhibit the hubris of feeling that the weather can't stop us.

I got a "wine-like aftertaste" today using my small (one cup) French press and two ounces of coarsely-ground beans.

When I purchased this coffee at Phoenix Coffee on Lee Road last Wednesday (1/16/08), the tall, lanky fellow behind the counter made it sound like this coffee might be a life-changing experience for me. I know some about peaberry coffees from my favorite-coffee-of-all-time, New Guinea Peaberry, a Starbucks offering some years ago. What I heard on Wednesday and didn't know (and still don't believe) is that because the berries are so small, there's twice the coffee in each berry. Nope, I don't believe it. Nice verbal marketing, though. I do, however, get the sense that the coffee's tenderness is in proportion to the size of the bean.

This coffee seems to want to be enjoyed being brewed by the cup; when I try to make more than one cup at a time, it ages right before my lips whilst sitting in the press. (I generally consume a five-cup press in less than half an hour, so it's not waiting too long.) Is it a reaction to the air that's aging it or continued contact with the grounds? I'm not sure. Until I have time and desire to find out, I'll just take the extra effort to make it one cup at a time.

[Update 1/25/08: It also ages while in the cup, perhaps five minutes from press & pour to tasting stale. Does this coffee not press well?]

Is this a bad coffee? No. Is this a good coffee? Yes. Is it a great coffee? I wasn't able to make it be that. Could it be a great coffee for someone else? Probably. Would I purchase another ten ounces at eight dollars and change? Not before trying a few other of their offerings.

[Note: I have a number of unpublished/unfinished blog entries; this was one from January 21^st, 2008. In its unfinished state, it was supposed to celebrate being a coffee snob. Now, maybe not.]

Bumping into Bobby at the BP Tower Starbucks gave me a chance to explore coffee and talk about it. Our personal preferences conflicted dramatically, but it was conversations with Bobby that convinced me that coffee could be enjoyable and not only for the caffeine. Since then, I've discovered that there is "coffee™" and then there is "Coffee!" Very simply, the stuff called "coffee™" I found is usually purchased in stores and cafes, is usually too hot, weak and tastes of stainless steel or burnt beans. "Coffee!" is usually brewed at home.

I suppose there's another category. Our Cub Scout Pack drinks what we call "cowboy coffee": throw the grounds into a blue-enameled coffee pot, boil the water, let the grounds settle down and pour. You have to wait for the coffee to cool enough to strain it through your teeth. It satisfies but is never really enjoyed.

Recently, we've been bringing a collection of four-cup french presses. That gets messy, real quick. And keeping three or four of these things producing is almost a full-time job. You never get to sit down long enough to enjoy a cup. But in a french press, even rusty, hard campground water can make "Coffee!", depending on the beans.

And therein lies part of the problem. There are dozens of variables, some within your control and some not. I found myself constantly chasing the perfect cup of "Coffee!" Would this bag of Sulawesi taste as good as the last one? Should I try a different roaster's product? Why does coffee from this roaster do this in the water but coffee from this other roaster do something different? Early on, there was a bag of New Guinea Peaberry that has taken on mythical proportions. I've never been able to duplicate the flavors of that bag.

Someday, maybe I'll get back into playing this game. I enjoyed being a coffee snob, really. Ultimately, it was the constant chasing after the perfect cup that did me in. There was never a simply "good enough" cup of coffee.

Several years ago I had an abundance of wormy-chestnut scrap that either needed to be used or thrown away. Sacrilege, to say the least. I'm not sure of what prompted me to make coat hangers, but that's where we ended up.

I used a fancy one from my closet as a template. That's what helped me get the compound angles right. A dowling jig that I built helped drill the holes for the dowels that hold the arms together, along with some yellow glue.

For the thousandth time, I swore never to become a metal-worker. Those folks have my hat off to them. Making the actual crook part of the hanger and getting it to look esthetically appealing may have been the hardest part of the whole job. Of course I used a bending jig for it (making jigs is half the fun of any project!) but the steel wanted to bend back and finding the right radii for the bends was tricky. In the end, it was done and several hooks turned out nicely. (I have since purchased some ready-made hooks to save frustration.)

I used Gorilla Glue to hold the hook into the hole bored out between the arms. So far, no one has reported failure of either the joint, the hook or the hook-to-hanger fastening.

Show here are a Wormy-Chestnut hanger and a Cocobolo hanger.

New orders for manufactured durable goods are up 100% for two consecutive months! It seems that elderly appliances can't hear the booming drums of the financial elite who promise such things as "stagflation", recession and other scary terms.

December's higher-than-expected order is a result of the hot water heater giving way midmorning Christmas Eve. Faced with having to heat water to wash dishes from our church's brunch (held at our house), it decided that eighteen years was enough and chose to retire. All over the basement floor. Providentially, there was enough time left in the day to descend upon the orange box home center and get their most-efficient model, install it, and take a shower. With time left over for visions of sugar plums. (We've already noticed that we get hot water longer and our gas bill is lower. Nice!)

January's higher-than-expected order is a result of the washing machine giving way thirty-one days later. Conspiracy? Inquiring minds want to know. Connected via ½'' copper pipe with the new hot water heater, perhaps it, too, had had enough and decided to throw out the towel. Providentially, (or perhaps suspiciously?) the Budget And Requisition Board had for months already determined what model would take its place. A few phone calls around the NE Ohio economy found one in Willoughby. By 10pm we had clothes being washed!

What's nice about the washing machine (besides it being new) is that it is a front-loader. Very efficient in terms of water and electricity usage. The wattage on the motor is low enough that the lights don't dim any more! It's kinda frustrating that the cycles are so much longer. The extra capacity means that we have fewer loads to run and because they are drier when they come out, our dryer doesn't have to run as long.

We're just doing our thing for the environment and the economy!

[Update: An astute reader in the DC area wrote in to bring my attention to the IRS' rules around a tax credit for the H₂O heater's purchase in 2007. I'll keep that in mind!]

Distracted by a reorg at work today, a colleague and I went for a walk at lunch and ended up at the Euclid Arcade to get Vincenza's pizza for lunch. As we passed the cutover from the Euclid Arcade to the Colonial Arcade, I caught a glimpse of Anne DeChant, a frequent performer during Friday lunch. That's a pleasant surprise.

I was already looking forward to good food and good conversation, now I could add good music to the mix.

After picking up our pizza (I got two slices of Chicago Artichoke, my favorite), we walked over to the cutover and sat down opposite the Baseball Heritage Museum to talk, eat and listen.

Once we figured out the new org chart, we turned to listen. She's good. I don't always understand nor agree with all the lyrics but good live acoustic guitar is still good listening. We listened to "I love you Carolyn" and a few others before needing to head back to the office.

As we left (and dropped a couple bucks in her guitar case), we chatted a little bit, as always. One of her songs will be on TV tomorrow night. What she didn't tell us was that in April, she's moving to Nashville. That's an unpleasant surprise.

Her next time to be at the Euclid Arcade will be March 7th. I'd better schedule lunch with my colleague now.

Sometimes, early in the morning and even late at night, I have a furry shop assistant who observes, it is true, more than she assists.

Here she is, crouched under the edge jointer and behind my coil of hose for the dust collector. The lumber behind her is rejected from the Southern Yellow Pine workbench that she's helping me with.

Sandie joined our household from the Cleveland Animal Protective League in December 2007. She spent the first three weeks cowering in our basement. So much so that I wanted to change her name to Grendel, the monster that inhabits the deeps.

Since then, we enclosed her in our tiny first-floor bathroom for a week or so, bringing her out so socialize throughout the day. She now has free range of the house. She's still a kitten (six months at this writing) and still pretty independent. She does appreciate certain peoples' company from time to time.

Overall, I appreciate having her around.

We like to eat.

I don't remember the reasons we first cooked this version of Buffalo Chicken Wings but I do remember that the oven was so finicky (so old), that we couldn't get the temperature correct. It would be 100°F, then I'd bump it up a tiny-tiny bit and it would be 500°F. It was awful.

So I bought my wife a new oven. 14-billion BTU burners with a thermo-nuclear oven. It's a high-tech, 5°F-increment, stainless-steel oven. On sale. Display model. Free removal of old, free delivery of new. Consumer Reports, etc. Snow Brothers, here in Cleveland.

Here's the recipe as we recorded it. It's the fourth version because it changes each time we make it. I got tired of re-writing the card each time so we just left it "Buffalo Chicken Wings IV". The card talks about things like what the temperature was the first time we baked it. The real temperatures and times are in parenthesis.

Take a bowl of chips, drizzle some of this on top and then add the cheese (Grated Asiago works well). Don't eat in the living room. If you want the text of the recipe, drop me a line. For barbecue sauce, we used Stubbs and Hot Sauce Williams. Sometimes we reduce the butter and forget the chili powder. And we never seem to have the right amount of ketchup.

See, we never make the same recipe twice!

My eldest niece caught me over Thanksgiving weekend working on an embroidered handkerchief for my eldest daughter and asked for one. Silly me, I thought I could finish both by Christmas. I finished the monogram last week and added some flowers on the corners in the days since then.

Originally, the corner with the double flowers didn't look very nice and so I undid it. In the process of doing that, I severed one of the fibers in the handkerchief. And then the marks I used to show where I was sewing didn't come out. So I ended up needing to redo the flowers anyway! One of them is done completely by eye. No points for guessing which!

Once again, this represents many, many leftover lunch breaks and a couple of sits around the table at Scout meetings. Overall, it was quite a lot of fun and I hope she likes it!

Thanks to Christine over at Really Bad Cleveland Accent, I found a scone recipe that I could accomplish. Check out her blog page for the recipe; I won't reproduce it here. I followed the instructions (mostly) but substituted some home-made blueberry jelly instead of the rose hip jam. My family heads out east of Cleveland somewhere a couple times a summer to pick blueberries. We get dozens of pounds, eat lots, bake pies, turn some into jellies and jams and freeze the rest (the majority). This was jelly from the 9/2006 vintage, yum.

As frequently happens (to me, anyway), I was assured last night of the existence in our house of all the ingredients. So when I got started at 6:00 am this morning and found half the baking powder and half the half-and-half, I was disappointed. Even more so since the flour, sugar, butter and salt were whirling in the mixer.

Our local Dave's (Cedar & Fairmount) opens at 7:00 am on Saturdays. I was one of the first in. Got the baking powder, half-and-half and saw some lemons on sale. Turned around and had things in the oven very quickly. RBCA should consider some silicone baking sheets; the scones slipped right off, including the caramelized blueberry jelly that escaped.

I set up a tray with a pot of tea, some mugs, plates, forks, sugar (for the tea), spoons (for stirring the sugar) and a basket with bread blankets for the scones. Oh, and some napkins `cause the scones were looking (and ended up not being) messy.

My wife was stirring (this is now nearly 8:00 am) and the little one (15 months) was bright-eyed when I brought this steaming tray and sat it down on the bed. I think I freaked her out with the tealight/candle.

The three of us got help with that batch when the eight-year-old joined us. Another batch (this time with red sprinkles!) an hour later saw everyone full. Including the little boy pictured nearby.

If only I'd known that happiness could be bought like a pair of socks, indeed, as a pair of socks.

My first clue should have been when my German Aunt & Uncle gave me a pair of black and one of blue wool socks with a nice pattern on them. Different from my standard blue, black or brown socks, I should have guessed that the good feeling I got while wearing them was related to my wearing them.

So one day I Googled for "funky socks", migrated to "argyle socks" and found the Men's category at SockDreams.com. I ordered five different pairs that day, three of which can be seen nearby.

They arrived Monday while I was at work. The next day while wearing a grey/green argyle (not pictured here), I heard from a co-worker how glad I must be that my black trousers reached my shoes (covering my socks). Wednesday was easier since my stripes matched the sweater I was wearing. In our weekly one-on-one meeting, my manager commented that I seemed noticeably happier. I informed her that she'd never guess why, and so flipped off my clog and twiddled my striped-covered toes over the edge of the table at her. She just busted out laughing. That was the day I was challenged by a colleague to wear the green argyles next. In desperation, I wrote the Sock Dreams website, asking for help in matching with my trousers and shoes. Contrary to their response (which arrived after I'd left for work Thursday), matching argyle socks to the rest of one's ensemble (men don't wear "outfits") feels quite tricky. I ended up choosing an olive pair of linen trousers and my black clogs.

Today, Friday, was blue argyles, blue shirt, khaki "Dockers", brown RedWings and a navy jacket. Nice.

While I suspect my happiness will be somewhat fleeting, morale was indeed higher this week. Stored in my dresser drawer for another day to be enjoyed, again and again. Who knew that happiness could be bought—one pair at a time!

My friend Lee Bush and Erin Kufel recorded a few tunes and put them up on YouTube with some others recorded over the years.

Boy, would I love to see these two at the Euclid Arcade. There is frequently live music there on Fridays, near the cut-over from the Euclid Arcade to the Colonial Arcade, in front of the Baseball Heritage Museum.

I think my favorite is this one, below.

I purchased a very dear eight ounces of Phoenix Coffee's Hawaiian Kona. Here's how the experience is shaping up.

Beans seemed normal size and shiny (oily?). The smell (aroma?) as they came out of the bag was pleasant. Ground them course and attempted to discharge the static that builds up on the parts of my burr grinder. Since it is cold but not nearly as dry today, perhaps I didn't have as much static electricity buildup.

I then added 8oz of near-boiling H₂O to my two Tbsp of grounds, stirred and let sit for four minutes. I didn't have nearly the "hydrophobic grounds" experience this time (where the grounds didn't seem to want to get in contact with the water). It pressed well, without excessive force.

First sip was pleasant. Mild, smooth, little bit of an abrupt bite at the end. It's a good cup of coffee, but I'm not hearing angels sing or anything like that (yet).

One nice characteristic (different from the other two coffees I've ground from Phoenix) is that this one doesn't seem to "age in the cup" like the other two. Seriously, I've had coffee go sour in the time it takes to get to the bottom of the cup (and not stone-cold, either).

Premium coffee grown on the volcanic slopes on the Big Island of Hawaii since the early 1800's. Exceptionally Mild & Smooth. Rich flavor and aroma.

I finally finished this fancy letter "E" on my daughter's handkerchief.

How long has it been? Well, I started before Thanksgiving 2007 . . . and am just now complete. That doesn't mean that it is hard, just that I'm slow.

Thanks to my wife for choosing the colors, to Erika for choosing the letter and to all the people I didn't have lunch with while I sat at my desk and worked on this project.

Today was my last day to have coffee for a while. No, I'm not dropping caffeine, just coffee. Why? Hmmm....

Well, it's an expensive habit. A teabag is not only much more portable, it's cheap, too. Oh, and how does one throw away a teabag? Squish it out and drop it in the trash. Coffee? Well, I suppose there are single-serve coffee bags, but they never really taste like coffee. French press, now that's the way to go. What a mess.

I suppose one could argue fair trade, shade-grown and environmental impact as reasons for dropping coffee. That's part of it, but not all of it.

It's mostly because I have become the worst coffee snob I know. I can argue the differences between Starbucks and Phoenix, African vs Indonesian and why I can't stand bright coffee from Central America. I travel with a french press and grind my own beans, moments before adding the precisely filtered and boiled water. Yuck, I can't stand myself.

We're almost out of coffee in the house. My wife has a small stash of flavored stuff hidden somewhere. I have nearly a pound of organic Sumatran decaf that needs grinding (keeping it for entertaining). But I'm really done for a while. I'm not sure what would convince me to go back. I've gradually dropped myself to a single cup per day and tomorrow I switch to tea.

I started coffee a few years back when I took over WSO at work. Couldn't keep up, so I started burning the candle at the one end I was best at, the early end. It became a social ritual and then I found that there were differences in blends and regions, the terroir, they say. And then I couldn't drink it without knowing what I was drinking, where it was from and making notes. As I said earlier, yuck, I can't stand myself.

So, in case I'm completely unable to type this next week, you'll know.

We went as a whole family (there are six of us) to this year's ICCM conference. I didn't get as much time to hang out with the family as I had liked—I never made it to the lake, the woods, fishing or a hike—but one place we were consistent was the table. Taylor University feeds their conference attenders very well.

One of the things we like about having four children is that the oldest (now twelve) is able to assist with one or more of the younger ones on occasion. So it isn't unusual for JR (our son, the oldest) to be helping with KA (our daughter, the youngest at 18 months). What we wished we had the camera for was the looks of adoration that each gave the other as JR was helping KA with something at the table. She just looked up at him with this big smile while he looked down at her with another big smile. Moments like these remind you that not only do they really love each other, but they like each other, too.

My wife caught these smiles, too and I made a comment about how JR, twenty-some years from now, might be standing as a groomsman in KA's wedding, with much the same look now: very proud.

It can be fairly disturbing to think of your children in twenty years; much can happen and has to happen before then. But leave it to my wife to out-do me. She reminded us that in twenty-some years, one or more of JR's children might be flower girls or ring bearers or some-such role in this far-off wedding of our youngest daughter to some (as yet) nameless man.

Now if that doesn't get a Dad's eyes moist, well, you'd better check for a pulse.

It was a day in mid-June like today, with late-afternoon thunderstorms rolling in after one another, that my oldest son was born. My mental notes have it after the day's second thunderstorm, just after 6:30 pm. What a day and what all has happened in the intervening twelve years!

Yes, twelve years.

I still carry his baby picture in my wallet. Ask to see it sometime.

For the record, I have darkened the doors of my local Starbucks a couple of times these past weeks, all with someone else around. Yes, they were social visits, not coffee visits. To some, that may not be much of a distinction. The goal was to sit and talk with someone for a while, not to drink coffee. In fact, I couldn't even tell you what I got. This whole issue remains, not a boycott of anything but rather, a simplification of a lifestyle habit.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal has an article "New Starbucks Brew Attracts Customers, Flak" in which we hear that the new Pike Place Roast coffee "has perked up the company's sales by attracting new business, but has alienated a small yet vocal group of longtime patrons." That's not really why I'm not drinking coffee these days, but I think it helps illustrate one of my points: pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee (or "Coffee!" as I've posted earlier) is a difficult business and one person's perfection is another's filth.

It was the pursuit that was wearing me down, both in my own home, playing with all the variables and in my Starbucks, hoping for the perfect cup each day.

I just finished breakfast and a cup of tea. Simple and sufficient.

Today's Cleveland weather is predicted to be almost Houston-like (OK, as close as we can get in Cleveland) with highs in the 80's, high humidity and thunderstorms. So I pulled out a red-striped, short-sleeved shirt to wear that I received as a gift way back in 1992 when I was expected to move to Houston for my first job out of college.

I had originally been offered a position with Interleaf (now Broadvision) in their Houston, Texas office. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but by the time I got around to accepting it, the job was in Chicago. They flew me up there for a day and I was given a tour of the office, a nice lunch and a flight back. What I remember the most was the huge pile of rotting snow (this would have been April, 1992) that was still sitting in the parking lot of the office in Oakbrook Terrace.

View Larger Map

So I ended up in Chicago. And found a orthodox, reformed Presbyterian church (hard to come by these days) at which my faith was salvaged. And met a wonderful, godly woman (almost as rare these days?) with whom I later married and had four children. I could go on and on with the life-changing details that came into play after I took the Chicago job instead of the Houston one. Including the move to Cleveland.

Same job, really, just a completely different city and result. Yes, you could argue that I might have ended up the same had I moved to Houston. But I didn't. And I'm glad.

And so today I'll wear a red-striped, short-sleeved dress shirt that was given to me as a way to handle the heat and humidity of Houston, not the general clammy dampness of Cleveland. And if you see me, ask me what I think of God's Providence.

Please note that no warranty is being made here. Even if you follow these suggestions, there's no guarantee that crackers won't flood your network, your systems won't go down and your hair won't turn green. As they say, "Your mileage may vary". Follow at your own risk.

Typing in passwords to jump from one *nix box to another can be a real drag. Even more so when you're on a trusted network segment and you're using SSH (more information here) to get from one hardened server to another. So I decided to do something about it on my own network. Here are the assumptions and requirements.

• all hosts are on a trusted segment (start/local and end/remote)
• all hosts are hardened to one's particular level of satisfaction
• all hosts are using roughly the same level/version/flavor of SSH
• the asymmetric algorithm to be used is the Rivest Shamir Adelman (RSA)
• user keys must be a minimum of 1024 bits
• the start/local system is the local system that the user is typing on and starting from
• the client is sitting on the start/local system
• the end/remote system is the remote system that the user wants to end up
• you've used ssh before on both local and remote systems

How it works

The basic idea is that SSH allows for a public/private key exchange. The local system generates a public/private key pair and the public key is distributed to the remote server(s). It is important to remember that the private key needs (must!) remain private.

When the client (running on the local system) connects to the remote system, it tells the remote system its public key. If this public key is known to the remote system, then some encryption and decryption happens between the two systems to validate that the client does indeed possess the correct private key. (Please see RFC 4252, Section 7 for a full description of the Public Key Authentication Method.) If this checks out, the remote system grants the access without requiring a password.

Please note that this is not the place to defend public/private key encryption. If you have concerns about it, go do some homework until you're satisfied.

What to type

On the local system's home directory,

     ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 1024 -f .ssh/id_rsa

If asked for a passphrase, leave blank. The -t rsa specifies our RSA requirement and the -b 1024 specifies our key length requirement.

Now, in the .ssh directory, you should find two new files: id_rsa and id_rsa.pub. These are the private key and public key (respectively). Copy the public key to the remote machine.

     scp .ssh/id_rsa.pub USERNAME@REMOTE:~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Until your public key is in the right location, you'll still need to provide your password.

     ssh USERNAME@REMOTE
     cd .ssh

Now check to see if the file authorized_keys already exists. Older versions of SSH might have (or even require authorized_keys2 rather than authorized_keys. If, when we're done, things don't work, play around with these two possibilities.

Now add the public key to the list of authorized public keys.

     touch authorized_keys
     cat id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys
     chmod 640 authorized_keys
     rm id_rsa.pub

These last few steps add your new public key to the list of authorized keys. They're written to allow for this file already existing with one or more keys in it. Now exit and then log back in again. If everything was done correctly, you shouldn't be prompted for a password.

Updates

If you're already using a public key, you can "simply" start at copying to the remote server.

Update 20110623: If you'd like to use multiple keys, I found this page to be very valuable.

This red-hot Mexican Fiesta was seen on Coventry in Cleveland Heights Sunday afternoon, perhaps a bit "lost".

Click on the picture for a slightly larger view.

Tamaulipas is a state on the border of Texas and Mexico. From what I can gather on the web, Mante Ford is in the town of Reynosa, on Mante street.

Perhaps the plates were mailed to them. Or perhaps they're really, really lost: a red-hot Mexican Fiesta on its way to celebrate something somewhere.

Many of my high-school classmates are from Mexico; one is reported to read this blog from time to time. Perhaps he can comment? Otoniel?

It's ironic somehow, that the things that most likely would make good blog posts keep me from blogging. Current projects include:

• Meadowbrook housing code violations remediation
• Wandle housing code violations remediation
• New job with The Employer
• Over-subscribed 2008 Webelos Resident Camp (expected 120, got 180)
• Dealing with my renters and some fallout from the credit crunch
• Living with a meniscal tear

I wish the boat was keeping me from blogging. I wish my family was keeping me from blogging.

Nope. Just onerous building code violations, yet another in a string of positions at my old/current/future employer, a camping nightmare with full-to-capacity dining hall and a bad bit of cartilage.

Really, though, these are all good reasons for not blogging. Real life will always be a good excuse to not spend time in this navel-gazing hobby!

Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom Demarco

My review

The say that the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago and that the second-best time is today. I planted this lovely maple before we left Wandle, so in 2001 or 2002. Of course it was just a little sapling at the time and look at it now!

That's Benjamin way up there. I gave him a boost to get to the first branch and coached him on some of the finer points of where to place his hands and feet, but he did all the work. We talked about what size branches he should trust and why it is important to put your feet and hands close to the trunk, if possible.

And of course, I stepped away to take some neat-looking pictures, too. Sometimes a boy needs his space, you know.

Afterward, he showed me the scratch he got while up there. That's what summers are for, you know. Climbing trees, getting scratches, being outside. Stuff like that.

If it isn't totally clear, I'm very proud of him. It's a nice tree, sure, and it is very nice for climbing. But it needed to be climbed and Ben was the guy to do it.

When we go back, there's an oak in a different part of the yard that he ought to try. I'll bet he can do that one, too. I planted that one, too, about the same time. I remember it was raining and George (a neighbor) brought over these two volunteers that were coming up in his bushes. The oak had a bit of a twist to it (which you can still see, a bit). Now it is a very handsome tree. A bit worn and abused by the tenants, but both trees are very nice. Makes me wonder sometimes why we left.

Take a close look at this picture (click on it for a larger image). Ben is hiding in there somewhere! The camera I used (my BB) isn't the best for this sort of thing and it was a brightly-lit day to begin with. Honest, he's in there! It's amazing how wonderfully this tree has turned out. It is a perfect maple shape, very dense foliage and seems quite healthy. I was going to bring it some dirt for around its roots (which are seeming a bit bare at the moment.)

Sunday, driving on our wait to church, I turned around to find the 2 year-old "reading" Dr. Suess, the 5 year-old reading his Bible, the 12 year-old reading the comics and the 8 year-old reading an American Girl book.

It felt rewarding.

Mom was driving and I was trying to catch up on my sleep (didn't work).

I'm not sure why this is impacting me so much. I mean, they moved in last October and we didn't really know they were there until we helped dig them out this March after the huge snow storm this year.

Today is their last day in their house. We had them over once. Talked over the fence a few times. He wants to build a boat. They have a little girl. They're friendly. They drive a Honda. He has a nice tool shop (bandsaw, etc.). They didn't seem to hate us.

Not sure why I pinned some hopes on a friendship.

Now they're moving to Georgia. I hope their house sells quickly and they get what they want.

Godspeed, Troy and Tracy.

Eldest daughter's birthday was a couple weeks ago and she took us to Tommy's for breakfast (she had pancakes).

On the way out, she noticed that if you stand at the right spot, you can make their sign say "Please Wait to be Eated"!

Take me out to the ballgame! My wife and kids made it to a Pirates game today. I, however, went to a Cubs game. Of course, we're at the same PNC Park...

This was a birthday present for my wife, the one in the Pirates hat and Pirates jersey, diligently keeping score.

Cubs won, 2-0. By the end of the 9th inning, there seemed to be more Cubs fans than Pirates fans!

And the much-needed rain held off until the game was over.

One of the things I enjoy at my employer is the opportunity to encourage and celebrate young Dads. And Moms, to be sure, and older Dads, too, but it is the newer Dads that I particularly enjoy celebrating.

Some time ago, I was approached by a fellow from a colleague's team who hesitantly asked me for some information on FMLA at our employer. I have used it three times over our four children, so his manager was quite right to send him my way! We talked pros and cons for a while, chatted about his wife's health, talked about what he was reading, how he was feeling and as we did so, I could sense the confidence rise in him. I don't know if his hesitancy was about being a dad in the workplace or just the newness of finding out that he was going to be a dad, but as we talked, it was clear that something was changing.

We touched base several times during the months to follow and one day I happened to overhear a conversation that made it sound like the time had come. I poked my nose in further and found out that indeed, he was a new dad! A little earlier than anticipated, but all was well and everyone was home.

In 1996 I was given a banner ("It's a boy!" on one side and "It's a girl!" on the other) and over the years I have used both sides often at my employer. This time was no different and after grabbing a handful of thumbtacks, I placed it, boy side up, on the outer wall of his cube, much to the astonishment of his neighbors who knew he was expecting but didn't know the time had come.

He had decided not to exercise FMLA this time: with the first child, unless there are complications, it may not be needed! An extra hand at home is almost always welcome, but it is with subsequent children that an extended period of time at home for Dad is most useful. (This is my opinion and experience, of course.)

A week or more later and he was back. I bumped into him in the hallway and we had a good long chat. His eyes danced as we talked. I'm not sure what made me think of it but I realized I hadn't heard about a baby shower. A bit later I figured out where they were registered and there were still a few items on the list so my oldest daughter and I picked a few things out. I had moved to the other end of the floor since he had last seen me and so it was wandering around looking for me that I found him next. Oh, how he seemed to welcome the gift!

This hasn't been the only Dad I've encouraged at work, just the most recent. And while each is different and each story has different twists, their reception is the same. Encouraging, celebrating and affirming Dads is one of my favorite "extra" things to do at work. And it may be one of the most important, too.

I read the following on the bus the other day:

". . . for if a democratic republic, similar to that of the United States, were ever founded in a country where the power of one man had previously established a centralized administration, and had sunk it deep into the habits and the laws of the people, I do not hesitate to assert, that, in such a republic, a more insufferable despotism would prevail than in any of the absolute monarchies in Europe; or, indeed, than any which could be found on this side of Asia."

It made me sadly think of Russia.

I bumped into Wesley Washington (wrote about him earlier here) again the other day out in front of what is becoming Cadillac Ranch. Sounds like he's going to have a concert soon out in Tremont. Here are the details:

with open eyes

10-16-2008 21:00 at The Southside 2207 W. 11 St, Cleveland, Ohio 44113 Cost: Free

English is a funny language. Not sure if it is funnier than some or most, but it is certainly funny. (I only speak one other, so I reserve the right to be wrong.)

Years ago I wrote a thank-you note to a number of friends who had graced me with a present of their presence at a dinner my college roommate (Hi, Alex!) had hosted. I thanked them "for their presents of presence" and even though all were (and presumably still are) very literate, I was soundly chastised for using the wrong word ("presents" vs presence" or vice versa) or writing a poorly-constructed sentence.

I was reminded of that event today when calling a doctor for an appointment. Their voice response unit kindly informed me that they were all busy at the moment and then thanked "their patients for their patience".

Astute readers will recognize these pairs (presents/presence and patients/patience) as homophones because they sound the same regardless of their spelling. And they are also heterographs because they sound the same and are spelled differently.

What I didn't know is that they are also (and this appears to be debatable), polysemes because they have related meanings.

If you'd like to explore this even more, be sure to check out the differences between terms on Wikipedia's Homonym page.

Some day I'd like to know why words weren't this much fun in high school or college.

Please take the time to vote today!

Is it Christmas yet?

How could I possibly gush over this web site without over-stating its design, its functionality and its utility? I mean, think about it—the site is pure, functional and maintains a staggering track record for being extremely accurate. It answers a fundamentally important question to millions of people on this planet: Is it Christmas?

It even has its own RSS feed for your reader. Every day as you read the events pouring through your RSS aggregator you'll be alerted that today, for example, is not yet Christmas!

I just finished recommissioning a pair of overalls that has seen duty for thirty-some years already. Given the wear marks on the knees and shins as well as the bottom, it appears I wore them as a crawler and young walker. They're soft, blue corduroy with a brown, red and blue plaid lining. Besides their origin (my mother), what makes them super special is the name patch on the front. I vaguely remember hearing that it came from my father's brother's uniform, but perhaps that's just a myth.

They came to me this week in need of some buttons. My youngest son and I were out shopping Wednesday and found a near-perfect match—near enough for me, anyway.

It appears my wife has plans to let our youngest daughter have a go at them and the straps over the shoulders needed letting out. In hindsight, I'm not sure why we didn't move the buttons that are already there: I see evidence that where they are now is not the original location. So now there are two rows of buttons. The card we bought had five so the fifth is hiding inside the front in case repairs are needed.

This spring will see our youngest in them; perhaps in another twenty years we'll see them covering another generation.

Advent, from the Latin adventus, meaning "coming", is a particularly special time for our household.

This isn't easy, though. Starting somewhere in college, I have frequently had a hard time "enjoying" Christmas. Some of this was due to exams, some due to travel and some due to the constant grind broken by a day or two of celebration. Things did not improve when I joined the work force when the day before Christmas and the day after are treated much the same. To top things off, my wife tends to favor Christmas over just about every holiday—perhaps over every other holiday. So we celebrate Advent, to prepare us for the season and not just celebrate the day.

We are somewhat rare among Reformed folks; this tends to be a Catholic tradition. Yes, Presbyterians have liturgies for this sort of thing but bringing it home seems to be quite another matter.

Why is it, then, that every year we struggle with what to do as we shift our time of family worship to Advent? Certainly there are books and resources and stuff on the Internet. I'm not sure. Whatever the matter, this is what we're doing this month.

Keeping to the themes of Advent and simplicity, we sang four verses of O Little Town of Bethlehem and four of There's a Song in the Air.

And then we split off to the four corners of the planet as the oldest went to Scouts, the two middle ones cleaned rooms and I and my youngest picked up spare Honda parts and ate snowman cookies.

Well, I'm late posting for the last two days. On Tuesday we came together, lit the candle and sang two hymns, God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen and O Come, All Ye Faithful.

On Wednesday, I don't know that more than half of us were in the same place until after 9:00 pm and so, sadly, we skipped family worship. Cub Scout Pack 4 met in St. Paul's Episcopal Church where I found a good stack of Advent resources for taking home (which I did) and plan to utilize to expand our hymn-singing.

Tonight we decided just to sing. The five year-old decided on four verses of O Little Town of Bethlehem (again). After that, he chose four verses of O Come, All Ye Faithful (also again). The only problem is that the hymnals we are using (Songs for Christan Worship, a 1950 hymnal from the United Presbyterian Church of North America) only has three verses and the version he preferred from the Trinity Hymnal has four. The verse he wanted to include was:

God of God,
Light of Light,
Lo, He abhors not the Virgin's womb;
Very God,
Begotten not created;

and so he led us in that following the other three verses.

Cub Scout Pack 4 is camping at Stigwandish tomorrow night so no new updates until Saturday night.

Some four or more years ago I rebuilt the back porch of my house, moving the "powder room" and the water lines that feed the sink. In order to get everything to fit into the tiny space between brick foundation and the walls, I ended up laying the hot water line almost directly in contact with those exterior bricks.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Except that this hot water line consistently freezes at 15°F. No matter how much insulation I packed around it, it would freeze. The only thing that would save it was a couple of 100 watt bulbs under it all night long.

Until now, that is. Some time in October (I think it was), I moved that hot water line about eighteen inches away from the foundation and re-applied all the insulation. It wasn't until last night that we got a chance to temperature test this configuration.

When it officially hit 3°F. Unofficially, our car registered -1°F and we heard elsewhere that it was zero for a while.

Sweet success! Of course it was the cold line that was acting up this morning. Not frozen, but a little sluggish, a bit restricted for a moment or two.

So I'll check that one off the list. Of course, since that success, the list has grown by three entries already. . . .

I've been hesitant to discuss our cat on these pages mostly because google.com tells me there are some 4.5 million pages of "cat blogs" out there already.

A quick recap, then the story. Sandie is a shelter cat that we've had for a little over a year now. The first few months she spent in the basement, refusing to come up. Now she thinks she's a full-fledged member of the family.

Whenever I create a lap, she comes over to investigate, climbs up and proceeds to catnap. Most of the time she is fine, however, dinner time and laptop time are both difficult to manage with a cat in your lap, resting on one arm, peacefully purring and warming up one's middle.

Like right now, for example.

Silly cat. You'd be warmer by the fire or the radiator. And you wouldn't have to put up with me moving my arm every so often.

For lease: One small, 3"x3"x1.37" blue "Tiffany & Co." jewelry box with suede pouch.

Upgrade any sterling jewelry instantly with this iconic blue box—she'll think you shopped at Tiffany's and you'll get a significant savings. Double bonus points!

For only seven dollars a week* (plus round-trip shipping), you can lease this beautiful blue box, its pouch and the original padding. That's only a dollar a day! (Return in mint condition at the end of your lease to have your $55 deposit fee refunded.) Please note that you may need multiple weeks to sneak the box back from your wife.

*Offer good only until the original contents are paid off.

Note to trolling lawyers: This blog posting is a spoof. A funny one, but not one I expect to be taken seriously! If you insist that I take it down, I'll consider your argument below in the comments. But I think I'm covered under the "parody is free speech" stuff. (By the way, my relatives all thought this is how I got the box in the first place—I have a receipt around here somewhere. . . .)

I was in a church nursery once, well, probably more than once. I've been in multiple churches and multiple nurseries.

I've been in nurseries that weren't in churches and churches that had no nurseries.

I was probably in this one nursery in this particular church more than once, too, come to think of it.

Anyway, it had a sign in it, a poster. Probably in many church nurseries. Probably.

Never mind, I'll try to come to the point.

At least once, I saw a sign in a church nursery. And it said:

Not all will sleep
But all will be changed.

And while the meaning intended by the ink was certainly not the meaning intended by the author of the verse in Corinthians, it has stuck with me over the years.

And I think of it sometimes. As I change diapers. As I contemplate change. As I think about sleep.

And January seems a good month to think (and perhaps write) about change.

One of the more obvious examples of change is the kind found in one's pocket.

I'm what I call a "change minimalist". I don't relish walking around with loads of change in my pocket. And yes, it is only ever in one pocket: my left. (Is this too much information or only what's needed to make a point?)

My left pocket, because my BlackBerry is in my right one. And why announce to the world that you're walking toward them? Why make any more noise as you walk around than you need? (Does this also apply to blogging?)

So what becomes of all my change? At work, I have a spot in a drawer that I sometimes raid when there's enough in it for a cookie or some other treat. At home, there's a big jar on my dresser that receives all my change. In the car, there's a small, 20 dram medicine vial for quarters and dimes (meter feeders).

Just about all change is inspected. Quarters are evaluated for the State Quarter Collections (five in our house). Pennies are inspected for wheatbacks and various Canadian varieties. All non zinc-copper alloy coins are inspected for copper-clad status and silver instances are retained. Nickles' ages are inspected, along with that tell-tale mint mark over the rotunda. And if you're a `76 quarter: look out—I'm compiling a roll of you.

Change that sticks around too long (like pennies) ends up at Zagara's where they have a cool change collector. (If you choose to be paid in an Amazon card, the machine won't charge you a surcharge.)

But overall, I'd rather not carry around loads of change. It's never enough to accomplish what you want/need/desire and it just makes too much noise.

Like this blog entry.

I worked this New Year's week (MTWF) and anticipated an early end to the day on Wednesday. (Christmas Eve, management sent folks home at 11:24 AM!)

So my wife and I started to plan lunch. I'd take the bus in, she'd drive in around 11:00 and we'd be lunching by 11:45! Have a long, restful lunch and who knows what would follow.

"Take me somewhere special", she hinted. That's just the encouragement I needed. Cleveland's La Strada is a winner I'd wanted to share with her for a while. Also on East 4th Street is Lola Bistro which I've not visited yet. "You choose. And call to make sure they'll be open", she gently prodded.

Huh? Open? Why wouldn't they be open?

"Not enough workers" said La Strada "but we open at five." "Your website says four; please fix it", I replied, frustrated. No matter, Lola was also on my list.

"No lunch hours New Year's Eve; it would make a really long day for our staff." Huh?

So we decided I'd come straight home after they dismissed us. (Yes, there are other places to eat on East 4th Street—for some reason we had our hearts set on these two.)

That morning, I discussed my woes to the folks at the local coffee shop. (Can't wait for Erie Island Coffee to open!) They'd be open all day normal hours, which I suppose makes sense given that no one is likely to make a coffee shop their 2009 New Year party headquarters.

Is it consistent for me to complain about restaurants being closed for lunch on NYE but enjoy going home early myself?

Wednesday, as I walked East 4th Street to my car on Prospect at 11:45, I saw little activity at any of the establishments. Except, in the distance, a man pulling at the door to La Strada. "Why aren't they open?" he yelled to his friend and went over to Lola. With the same result.

"Neither Lola nor La Strada are open; I don't know about the others. Something about the staff not working such long hours." I informed them.

"In this economy?" he demanded as I walked past. Precisely.

Then why was I excited to head home early? Hypocrisy, I suppose. (More likely the difference between an hourly wage and a salary. And that's a different sort of hypocrisy.)

Happy New Year, Cleveland. Maybe in 2009 we won't roll up the sidewalks so often.

(Note: words "in quotes" above shouldn't be seen as actual words of the person speaking, just a way to facilitate the dialog on the page.)

Have you ever wondered what a "sea change" was? The easy answer is that it is a transformation of large proportion. It comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest in which Ariel sings:

Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

In short, Ariel is saying that the sea has changed Ferdinand's father's body from flesh and blood to coral, pearls and things rich and strange. We have adapted the phrase and made it mean change of significance, any large change.

Now you know!

I learned to cross-stitch some time ago at Bethany Beach, Delaware, and, to my surprise, rather enjoy it. I've done a "Finding Nemo" pattern, adapted a "princess" theme and done a few others. Recently, I started a Pointsetta pattern, managing to finish it in one day.

Granted, it wasn't a very hard one (12-count, if I remember correctly). There weren't very many colors and no fancy stitches were required, just the standard cross-stitch variety.

But somehow I was able to get it done on a lazy day around Christmas time. Even got it hanging from the tree.

My eldest daughter is now working on a 6-count pattern that she received for Christmas—a flower and a couple of lady bugs—and making great progress. I was hoping that I'd inspire her to finish it and it looks as though she shall.

What's odd is that most of my technique (outside of up here and down there) is self-discovered. How to start and terminate the floss and making decisions on which color to start with and why. So we've had some very interesting discussions around some of those techniques. Things I never thought I'd be talking about with my daughter.

Rather fun.

Ages ago I started a two-part cross-stitch project with a train and a train-crossing sign. It was supposed to be framed in some little heart things that I just couldn't get my brain around. Hearts and trains!?

I struggled for a long time with even finishing, mostly because of the time commitment. There are only so many hours in the day, even for folks who wake up early. I'd get a half-hour or so during some lunch breaks. One day I had someone walk by my office and do a double-take—"What are you doing sewing a post-it note?" I had fun explaining that one.

One day I attended a meeting where I was expected to be one of the only live participants. A dear friend also attended and the rest were on the phone. I pulled out my cross-stitch and got busy. Until a third participant showed up in the room.

Well, I finally finished both parts and tried to figure out what to do. I ended up cutting a round piece of cardboard, used some 3M spray adhesive to fix the Aida fabric to the cardboard and then cut out the cloth. Big mistake. I should have left some on the edges. A little white glue and some black satin cord fixed the problem, though. It looks fairly nice (if I do say so myself) hanging on that little red thread.

This one was a bit tougher than some of the others. The count is higher, making for a finer stitch. There are also some "french knots" which frequently give me fits.

My train nut friend seemed to like it. Ended up being a late birthday/Christmas present.

I don't think he recognized it from the meeting, though.

One of the blogs on my virtual blogroll is The Scoutmaster Minute. I thought this recent posting needed some clarification, though. I thought he got some details wrong about this February 17th thing being about HDTV and if I'm right, his argument is weaker than he thinks. But that doesn't make his overall point wrong. In fact, I agree completely with his overall point: we make choices every day. We're largely in charge of what we say and do and with that responsibility may come consequences.

Anyway, here's his original blog posting and below are my comments.

Just a point of clarification, if I may. From the DTV.gov website: "On February 17, 2009 all full-power broadcast television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting on analog airwaves and begin broadcasting only in digital." It's not really about HDTV but about analog vs digital signals.

To be able to receive over-the-air TV signals will require this converter box. And if you have an old TV, the picture will look about the same. If you decide to get one of these converter boxes and you already have an HDTV, it may look about the same. A lot depends on if your local TV station is broadcasting an HDTV signal and you have a converter box, too. Just getting a converter box doesn't mean that you'll get an improved, HDTV picture.

What's different about this new digital signal argument from the VHS/Beta war or even the ongoing 8-track/cassette/CD/MP3 wars is that this one was mandated by legislation. The consumer didn't get to decide (like in the other format choices). That's why the government (you and I) are paying to offset the costs of these converter boxes ( https://www.dtv2009.gov/ ) So the argument that the conversion from analog to digital TV is the same as the conversion from 8-track to CDs isn't really a valid one.

Having said all that, I largely agree with your posting. Watching TV is a lifestyle choice. My household is choosing not to get a converter box. What this means is that we will continue to not regularly watch broadcast TV. Those few times we want to catch a football game or some news event, we'll need to turn to the Internet, I suppose. And that's a lifestyle choice. Just like it was when I updated my cassettes to vinyl and from vinyl to CD and from CDs to MP3s.

Being able to watch my analog TV signal, though? The government is taking that away from me.

Our society seems to have forgotten what a choice is. We are not entitled to (many of) of the choices we make! We (largely) choose where we live, what we wear, if we drink coffee from home or high-priced stuff from some boutique coffee shop. We choose to watch TV and we choose if we will get cable.

Yesterday, over at the Scoutmaster Minute, an additional article was posted. I'm not sure if it was understood that I agree with the overall message presented there and that I was mostly taking issue with the example used to argue his point.

No matter, read on, The Scoutmaster Minute has a great site with lots of insight into Scouting at the Troop level!

I'll be a voluntary bachelor for several days starting Sunday—my wife and children are taking a holiday to Alabama to see my father-in-law and his wife. Should be fun and I'll join them in Birmingham on Saturday.

The question, though, is what to do with "all the free time"? That phrase has quotes around it because I doubt I'll have all that much extra time. I'll still be going to work and there are some obligations already planned:

Sunday

Church in the morning

Sledding with Pack 4 at 2pm

Steelers game at 6-something (probably skip; gain 4 hours)

Monday

Morning open (6 hours)

Volunteer at the CABBS booth at the Cleveland Boat Show from noon to 6pm

Evening free (4 hours)

Tuesday

Back to work

Work the CABBS booth at the Cleveland Boat Show from 6pm to 9pm

Wednesday

Work in morning and afternoon

Pack 4 Pack/Den meeting at 7pm

Recover

Thursday

Work in morning and afternoon

Work the CABBS booth at the Cleveland Boat Show from 6pm to 9pm

Friday

Work (from home) in morning and afternoon

Evening free (4 hours)

Saturday

Bus to train

Train to airport

Southwest to Birmingham

Collected by wife and four children

Drive north

So what would I like to accomplish? Hmmm.......

• Sit with cat on lap
• Complete another cross-stitch (airplane?)
• Varnish cabinet doors
• Finish arranging shop
• Complete top of workbench
• Turn handle for custom screwdriver
• Practice a recipe or two
• Write review on CodeWeavers CrossOver
• Write here a bit more
• Finish a few cleats and a pair of blocks

Update: Oh, and I have need to:

• Do a couple loads of laundry
• Finish the leatherworking on my new Scout belt
• Clear up my office and get 2008 taxes started
• Write some Thank-you notes
• Get my Etsy.com site up
• Organize my new books

Of course, I'll never really get much of that even started.....

I love my little garret office, with a few exceptions, anyway. This morning it was -12°F outside, warm for some folks and quite cold for us. Inside the house, the thermostat was set to 62°F, the normal nighttime temperature for us. My office, however, was 57°F. That's quite cold for typing. I found my pair of ¾-finger gloves, put on my hat and went to work. A few hours later, the sun rose and I got quite a dazzling spectacle on my eastern window as the ice patterns laid down by Jack Frost during the night were illuminated and began to sparkle.

A few hours later, it wasn't so spectacular, but still pretty enough that I wanted to snap a picture (see nearby).

Meanwhile, the temperature had risen to nearly 70°F and I had shed the gloves and hat. Downstairs it was 68°F, which is just about where we want it during the day when people are present.

The frost, which had formed on the inside pane of the storm window, was starting to melt. Perhaps as the sun heads west I'll be able to watch it freeze again.

I suspect that as the day wears on (and after my lunch break), I'll notice a decline in the temperature and will need to re-apply the gloves and hat.

Quite nice at the moment, though. In my little garret office!

I was in the process of doing a complete backup of my MacBook's hard disk drive when I noticed some strange sounds emanating from under the wrist rest. Yes, it was the click-click of death.

Hard drives only ever fail when you're in a precarious situation. Either you're about to do an important presentation or you're suspicious of your backups. Because we all do backups, right?

Not only do I do backups, but I even test them! I've been using TimeMachine since it came out and I love it. About a week ago it began complaining that something wasn't right so I took a peek at the backups and found that it was corrupt. No matter, I'd only ever used the facility once in the past year, so I wasn't too worried. I had the original media (my hard drive), right?

At this point I should have gone to MicroCenter and purchased a third mirror for my TimeMachine's RAID array. Let the mirror sync, then break the mirror on this third drive.

There's not a whole lot of free space on my .5TB TimeMachine volume: we've got three systems backing up to it. So I deleted the "corrupt" copy of my machine's backup and started a new backup.

And this is where I started hearing my click-click of death.

Between the partial TimeMachine backup and the externally-mounted original laptop's SATA drive, I have just about all the files I need. Still need to download a few programs (probably needed new versions anyway), but overall, I'm pretty happy. About the only thing (and it's a big one) missing is the directory with the pictures. It's not on the partial TimeMachine backup and the drive shows a file when it should be a directory. Hmmm

So I lost some pictures (fairly big deal) but I also lost a lot of time. Every non-working moment for the past four days has been spent messing with this dratted issue. Seriously. I have a couple more ideas on how to retrieve the pictures directory. But I'll never get the time back. And that's a big deal.

This past Sunday, my wife took our four children on a trip to see her Dad and his wife at their Alabama condo on the beach.

And I stayed home.

I stayed home to save some vacation time, to keep the house from freezing solid, to feed the cat and hamster, to bring in the mail and paper and to volunteer at the Cleveland Boat Show. (I think all but the first of those could have been hired out.) Oh, and a honey-do list a mile long.

I ended up doing all of those except about three-quarters of the honey-do list because of the HDD failure in my MacBook. But I digress.

So my wife drove these kids the thousand miles to Gulf Shores, Alabama and my kids drove my wife crazy. Well, not quite, but close.

So I was called in to chauffeur them back. Not the whole way (since very little flies into Gulf Shores that we could find), but from Birmingham, at the end of a long-ish Southwest flight. So while they did a full 2,000 miles in a week, I only did 1,400 miles. In 38 hours. On Saturday, I was up by 4:30 am, on a Greater Cleveland RTA westbound #32 by 5:43 am, on a westbound #66/redline by 6:02 am and through Cleveland Hopkins airport security by 6:52 am. (They didn't care that I only had a sandwich bag and not a liter bag for my toiletries!) By 7:00 am I had started my first cup of coffee and was wishing I'd figured out the ATT/Starbucks free wireless password before I'd left. At 7:38 we were lining up for Nashville.

I had to change planes in Nashville so I decided to sit close to the front in an aisle seat. This meant sitting next to a mom with an infant. Turns out she's got two 7-week old twins and a three-year old (the others were with her sister in the previous row). We had some fun conversation for a while, I read for a while, I napped for a while and then we landed. Barely a peep from the two twins the entire trip. The other kid, well, he's got issues (appropriate for his age) with sitting still for 90 minutes!

By 9:42 am (all times Eastern), we were on the ground in Nashville and I was looking for more coffee. Starbucks there was still in the T-Mobile network and had lines out the door so I didn't get any coffee or free wireless. So I ate some of the scones I'd made Friday and wished for coffee.

Bumped into a mom and son traveling from Cleveland and we chatted for a bit. Posted a picture of the cool wing on the plane at the next gate and by 11:04 am we were on the plane to Birmingham and on the ground by 12:04 pm. By 1:04 pm we were all reunited and had diverted to the Museum of Southern Flight where we got caught up on our Tuskegee Airmen history and saw this cool replica of our/Ohio's very own Wright Flyer.

After that was a long drive to Bowling Green, Kentucky (where I happen to know the location of the near-highway Starbucks from our trip to Mississippi for our Katrina relief trip). After a night in Bowling Green, we were off again. Very slowly, with four children.

The snow started in Cincinnati and let up a few times but the temperature kept dropping. Soon we were in Cleveland and home by 8:30 pm Sunday.

It was good to get everyone home.

This Saturday, Pack 11 went winter camping. The temperatures were in the upper single-digits and lower double-digit, staying (for the most part) away from the teens. The Pack rented a cabin but most folks stayed in tents. Troop 176 provides the food so the Cubs and parents can pay attention to toes and such. My job was primarily to have fun. I wasn't able to stay the whole time due to some commitments early Sunday morning, but my youngest boy (not yet a Tiger) and I decided to go.

Having a cabin is nice but it complicates things. Do you want to be inside or outside? If I warm up, will I want to go back outside? Given the chance to sleep inside, would I want to sleep outside? Frankly, I think folks stay warmer and drier outside. I think it forces folks to watch what they're doing and be careful.

One of the big draws for this campout is the sledding. This camp is on a ridge overlooking a valley and yet there weren't a whole lot of good places for sledding. We tried a few runs with limited success.

Earlier in 2008, I borrowed my mother's snowshoes from her since we get more snow than they usually do (or want). This was the chance to use them!

Overall, it was a great experience. Once I got the hang of the bindings and remembered to use my gaiters, things went smoothly. I wouldn't want to use them on a trail, but on virgin snow, they didn't seem that much extra effort. I will need to investigate new bindings, though. These are quite old, probably 40+ years and there's signs that the leather will need to be replaced with a synthetic. Not the sinew holding the shoe together, that's fine, just the leather bindings. I'll keep my eyes open for possibilities.

I work in downtown Cleveland and needed to both drop by an Apple Retail Store and go to the IX Center today. Apple closes at 9pm, the same time I'd be finished at the IX Center (Cleveland Boat Show). So, must drop by an Apple Retail Store before 6pm when I need to be at IX Center. Work ends around 4-ish (I start early), so that rules out a trip to the east side (Legacy Village) only to cross over town to get to the IX Center (south-west side). There's an Apple Retail Store at Crocker Park. I dislike Crocker Park only slightly more than Legacy Village. Mostly the fake architecture and pretense at being a community, a village. I like Legacy Village slightly more than Crocker Park only because I have been desensitized to the fakeness, I suppose.

maps.google.com rocks, in my opinion. You tell it where you want to start, where you want to go and choose if you want to drive, walk or take transit. I use it a dozen times a week, easily. Google's Mobile Maps on my Blackberry is even cooler. Bear with me, I'll get to that.

So I remember where I left the car, get started and then remember that the East 9th Street entrance to West I90 is closed. Something about a bridge being too stressed. I know that there's this thing called I490 that might help, so I spin myself off toward I77 hoping to get connected. The GPSr in my Blackberry connects to Google's Mobile Maps and I tell it to get me to Crocker Park. Bingo! I'm on I77 southbound, I490 westbound, etc., etc., and soon there's the exit to Crocker Park.

Crocker Park is big, huge, confusing and you can't park near where you want to be. I know, it's supposed to be like that. And I'm not the kind of person who needs to drive everywhere. I'd just like to know where I'm going after I park.

No maps in the parking garage and no sense that I'm . . . anywhere, really. Back to Google's Mobile Maps. I walk out to get a clear fix with my GPSr and ask my Blackberry where the Apple Retail Store is. Bing! Now I'm in Geocaching mode and I find it quite easily.

Aside: Apple's store is amazing for both the "hunter" and the "gatherer" types. I was in "hunter" mode and the clock was ticking. I walk in, scare the orange-shirted concierge (must have had a "get out of my way" look) and find the Disk Warrior box I think I want/need. Blue-shirted person comes up, swipes my credit card, scans the box, I tell her to send me the email receipt, she confirms my purchase, asks me if I want a bag (no!) and I'm out of there. Total time at Apple: four minutes.

Back to the car following the breadcrumbs I'd dropped earlier and once in the car, I point it south and tell Google's Mobile Maps where I want to go.

Here's where I start driving blind. There's this cultural thing in Cleveland that stipulates that if you're an EastSider, you're not permitted to travel on the WestSide and vice versa. Border crossings, card checks, etc. So here I am, an EastSider, traveling on the WestSide from a somewhat unknown location to a location I know quite well but never from this direction. A Real EastSider would have gotten back on I90 until they were back in friendly territory and traveled to the IX Center the approved way. But I don't have the time.

So my GPSr and Google's Mobile Maps take me south into the fuzzy area known as WestSide. I know none of the names of the streets, the communities, the buildings: nothing. (Once I thought I saw US20 but since it wasn't called Euclid Avenue, I couldn't be sure!) It's like the corner of the map that gets folded and unfolded until the paper fibers aren't there anymore. That's what the WestSide looks like to EastSiders.

But hey, this is an amazing place! Or was I just amazed that my GPSr got me to where I wanted to be? I drove through neighborhoods and along golf courses, through the Rocky River park and saw amazing scenery. When I drove up to the IX Center after not knowing where I had been for twenty minutes, I felt like Hornblower when he brought his ship up to the Panama (?) shore after three months at sea and no landfall. Just amazing.

But it gets better. I was telling this story to my fellow boat-builder colleague who, it turns out, lives on Porter Road along my route. And he validated, turn-by-turn, that Google's Mobile Maps took me the right way. In fact, it was the way he frequently drives. Amazing.

So I think I will be less afraid of the WestSide from now on. A little.

Note: I'm mostly kidding. I feel this way about most places I can't get to easily or conveniently via bus/train. And I'm sure that many WestSiders feel the same way about the EastSide. Seriously.

Someday I'll have to tell you why we live on the EastSide.

We live on an old riverbank and our driveway slopes down to the road now covering the west branch of Dugway Brook. This slope has caused us much frustration over the years but hey, we chose the house and probably ought to enjoy it.

One of our problems is that we don't like to shovel snow. We live in the snowbelt and don't see much point in shoveling snow only to have to do it again a few hours later. Besides, we have a 4wd SUV and why bother? So we hired a neighborhood boy (our own) to take care of the driveway.

Sometimes he doesn't get to it fast enough and the car will compress the snow to become a double ribbon of ice. This requires extra equipment (a different kind of shovel) and extra work. Seriously, if it wasn't for the need to drive to church and piano lessons, I'd just leave the cars (and the snow) in the driveway until May.

Combine this problem with a sick snow-shoveling boy earlier in the week and you end up with a glacier.

With today's high expected in the mid-40s, I thought I'd finish up chipping away at the glacier. Most of it had been removed earlier in the week: I'd spend an hour a day on it and get everything clear before I left Saturday on a short (but long) trip.

Suffice it to say that I got it done.

We're big fans of reading. We have acres of books in our house, RSS subscriptions and too many magazine subscriptions. We get the Plain Dealer on Sundays (for the comics and ads only), and the Sun News on Thursdays (for the local police blotter) and the Wall Street Journal Monday through Saturday (for the national and international news as well as the opinion pages).

Most of the articles I read from the WSJ come through my RSS feeds and a cool tool for the BlackBerry called the Mobile Reader.

I think what they've done with their RSS feeds is very usable. Their headline and an introduction paragraph show up (free) in my Google Reader along with all my other "news" and if I want to read more, I click over to the article on wsj.com (paid) to read the entire thing. Since we're paper subscribers, the online version is slightly less expensive than an electronic subscription by itself. (And eliminating both would be gain even more savings, but I digress.)

I'll frequently read the online version at the office over lunch and come home and talk about it with my wife or the kids who have read the paper version at home. Or some days, when things are too hectic, I'll just read all my news on the BlackBerry's Mobile Reader. Today was one of those days.

I had gotten up and left the house before the paper had arrived and then wasn't in touch with a WiFi connection throughout the day. By the time I left Nashville, I had read all the Opinion pages and much of the x1 pages (where "x" is Section A, B, C, etc.) on my BlackBerry.

So it was quite disconcerting to see the fellow two rows in front of me paging through his paper to see article headlines I'd started reading at 5:30 am on my handheld device. At first it was a "where did I see those words in that order before" moment and then it became a "why are those words on his newspaper" thought and then it finished as a "I wonder if there are any differences in the text from his to mine" pondering (there sometimes are as misspellings and typos get corrected).

So, no, it wasn't a case of dual realities. To find those you'd have to compare an article from the Plain Dealer and with the same story from the Wall Street Journal. It doesn't happen often but we're sometimes left shaking our heads and wondering if we're on the same planet. It's (almost) always explainable by the bias that each paper has, but it can be very disconcerting.

One of the neat things we got to see in Birmingham, Alabama was the Southern Museum of Flight. Not too far from the airport, we stopped after picking me up from my flight and spent a good while there.

What I wasn't prepared for was the exhibit on the Tuskegee airmen (and here). What an incredible story. I understand that there are even more information, stories and planes here.

We read about a B52 being removed from a nearby lake bed, we saw the Mig from a North Korean pilot defection and we saw a whole lot of airplanes.

It is a good museum and it was a good time to get reacquainted with my family after being home alone for a week.

My wife has me converting AppleWorks files to formats used by OpenOffice today. We're using DataViz Conversions Plus 15-day demo to get things over. Works like a champ under the CodeWeavers CrossOver tool.

And then she gave me a CD to convert with a label on it.

Stuck, stuck, stuck.

But hey, out of all of the different suggestions found on Google, the one that worked for me was to stick a business card into the slot and then attempt to eject, while gently tugging on the card. Worked. Both times.

Got a note that my updates are appearing in an out of sync fashion (older ones appearing after newer one). Not sure what's going on here! If I find anything interesting, I'll let you know.

Perhaps it's the RSS feed?

I was asked recently to explain how we converted all my wife's AppleWorks files to formats used by OpenOffice. We used DataViz Conversions Plus, a Windows-based tool, and it worked extremely well.

We don't have any Windows machines in the house so we used another useful tool to run the Conversions Plus software, CodeWeaver's CrossOver Mac.

First we installed the CrossOver Mac tool, then used it to install Conversions Plus. (If you have a Windows PC, skip the CrossOver Mac step and install the Conversions Plus on your Windows PC.) I assume you have knowledge for how to make your AppleWorks files accessible to the Conversions Plus software. (You can create a shared folder, burn them to a CD or any other mechanism for file transport.) Quickly read the Conversions Plus documentation (you'll be performing a batch conversion) and start converting your files!

You may want to consider what you're going to do with the originals and the converted files. Will you keep the originals? Archive them? How will you merge the converted files into your document hierarchy? Things like that.

For more information, you can find the software referenced in this article here:

CodeWeaver

CrossOver Mac lets you run Windows programs on your Intel-based Mac

DataViz

Conversions Plus is a file conversion utility that works well converting files. Useful in going from AppleWorks to OpenOffice

Apple, Inc.

AppleWorks was Apple's premier office suite for a number of years. Now discontinued.

It appears that if you have the right version of AppleWorks, you might be able to use some of the filters included to perform your format conversion.

And it appears that the old versions of AppleWorks will work on the newer Intel-based Macs.

And if you buy iWork `08, you can read your AppleWorks files directly.

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is an open-source, "free" (as in beer) office suite that can read and write Microsoft Office formats (among many other things).

I use it on all my personal computers (but not my employer's).

One of the nice things about my current employer is the privilege of working from home on occasion. (Right now my work PC is crunching item 79 of a 3900-long list, so I have a few moments to take a break.) Working from home (WFH) is nice largely because of the flexibility—for example, if you "leave for work" at the normal time, you get all that commute time as work time and can spend it during other parts of the day. Same thing at the other end of the day. And getting a cup of coffee can be a lot quicker at home than at the office.

Of course, there are dozens of other reasons WFH is awesome. And of course, there are are drawbacks, too.

One of my personal frustrations is how it exposes my well-oiled house as a creaky wreck. Before starting this 3900-long list, I went downstairs for a coffee refill to find that two of the five are still in their PJs (9:30 am), breakfast had been a free-for-all (eat what you find), people were walking over and through a pile of clean laundry, one kid had thrown something at the other and was now crying on the couch, one kid was making bread, one was devising a meal-plan for this weekend's campout and the smallest was running around yelling "I not the bucket girl!"

Before you go and blame the other adult in the house, please note that all of this rests on my shoulders. When all is said and done at the end of the ages, it will be I who is asked to account for this. It is my responsibility to see that the right things are done. It's my job. And when Corporate America takes me out of my home, I am not able to accomplish my job* as effectively as I should.

So, what's the plan? Well, some things are not important, while others are. Learning to get up early, get dressed, prepare and eat breakfast and start tackling the challenges of the day—learning these things has long-term temporal significance. Having my house look like those "museum" homes with no children in them: that's not important.

Well, we're at 97% (3819 of 3900), so I'd better get back to the stuff that pays the bills. Things are running again downstairs and I think I can look forward to a clear floor and fresh bread around lunchtime. Your prayers are appreciated.

More on the important but non-temporal (i.e., eternal and spiritual) items later.

*Note: "job" in this instance is my real job, the one with eternal consequences, not this silly nine-to-five one that I have taken on to pay the bills.

When I was in Middle School, I bought a red Schwinn with my own money. A Made-in-America Schwinn 10-speed with a steel frame and toe clips and racing handle-bars.

I loved that bike. I used to wax it. I rode it everywhere. Fishing trips, around campus, to town for that museum job, that radio job and eventually that other summer job.

In High School, I traded it in for a black Schwinn 10-speed. Lighter and nicer, but not red.

It helped me run away from home once and helped me compete in the triathlon in college.

I used to put on my pink shirt, fill up my white water bottle with the blue top and get on my bike. Cinch up the red leather straps on my toe clips and get going. Fifty miles was nothing in those days. Neither was eating a pound of M&M's, a loaf of bread and starting on a six-pack of Cherry Coke.

Yeah, strange habits back then.

The last two years I rode my bike consistently I got hit by two different cars. OK, I hit them. Turning right, right in front of me so that I hit the rear, passenger-side door—what is that? Me hitting them or them hitting me?

Once I moved out of the country, I stopped riding the bike. Too many ways to get killed.

Too many stop signs.

Not enough open road.

So I gave away the bike.

Well, I still have the open road and stop sign problem. But as of today, I don't have a bike problem.

Today I purchased a brand-new, FCR-3, road-ready bike.

I got a new helmet and a tag-along, third-wheel for the youngest boy to ride. So far it's been a lot of fun.

The oldest boy and I have been putting on the miles exploring here. Quite fun.

More later!

Bart Johnson pitched for the Chicago White Sox from 1969 through 1977. An accomplished player, he has quite a story and has impacted a number of people over the years.

My own connection to Bart was quite short. One evening in the spring of 1995, in a ride-share limo (at the time, cheaper than a one-passenger taxi) heading home to Downers Grove from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, my fellow passenger and I did the small-talk about our jobs and such. He introduced himself as Bart Johnson.

I suppose when you're really famous, it must be frustrating to be recognized all the time. Perhaps when you're somewhat famous, it must be frustrating not to be recognized at all. (I know when you're not famous at all, being recognized can be quite embarrassing.) I sensed disappointment that I didn't recognize him and also that I didn't recognize the name.

I learned long ago that expressing interest in someone keeps you from being a bore so I asked him a few questions and heard about his latest trip. He was a scout for the White Sox at the time (1980-1997) and had been down south for a couple of days.

We were nearing the limits of my baseball small-talk. While my wife is a baseball nut, I am not: I had a summer job in high school (mid 1980's) at a radio station producing* the Astros Baseball broadcasts** but that was it. I enjoy the game but don't know much about it.

He explained that as a scout, he'd be given a seat behind home plate, up just enough and a little off to the side to see the pitcher in action. It was a courtesy that teams gave visiting scouts, largely to ensure that their scouts would also get the seats they needed. He'd been down south that week (Arizona comes to mind) and had caught a number of foul balls.

"Would you like one," he asked. "Sure," I replied as we arrived at his address.

We got out of the car in the last of the day's twilight and he went to retrieve his gear from the trunk. He unzipped a bag and produced a ball. Borrowing my Cross pen, he quickly signed it. "I didn't pitch it, but I caught it, so perhaps it'll be worth something someday."

I thanked him profusely as I got back in and he went up the walkway to his home.

Later in the car, I looked it over. I sensed that I had in my hands something important. I didn't know much about him; that would come later. He'd been a real, live, baseball player and that was enough. I got one of those plastic baseball boxes for it and I keep it on my bookshelf, next to the one my dad gave me from his high school days.

*"Producing" at the time was a fancy word indicating that I played the commercials and station IDs at the appropriate times.
**To this day, I enjoy listening to a radio broadcast of a game over watching on TV or even heading to a ball-park. I was warped at an early age.
[random note] Doing the Astros Baseball in the `80's did turn me into a Nolan Ryan fan. I followed him into college in the late `80's and witnessed many of his seven no-hitters.

Update 9/3/2010: Since we can't seem to keep the comments (and there have been many that didn't pass the filters) to Bart Johnson, the Sox or random baseball player meetings, I've closed the comments. Too bad.

The Total Perspective Vortex is a device from the imagination of Douglas Adams. It was designed to give the viewer

just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here."

It occurred to me that we may not need to wait for a fairy cake to implement the Total Perspective Vortex. (Fairy cake, you'll remember, was necessary to extrapolate the whole of creation and then show all of it to the intended victim.) We don't need fairy cake because we have Google. The entirety of the known universe is stored in Google.

Why would I say something so preposterous? Well, if Google is our entry point to this universe, it doesn't really matter that a page isn't indexed because you're not likely to ever land on it. So for the purposes of this argument, Google is the known universe.

So, on one side, we've extrapolated the entire creation and into the other side, we plug YOU.

Go for it, you've done it before and you can do it again. Google your name. Your whole name, your name in "quotes", your nickname, whatever.

How many pages must you scroll through before finding a reference to YOU? Out of the more than one trillion pages in Google, how many of them refer to YOU?

Are YOU on the first page? Is there more than one YOU? Does the rest of the universe have plenty of source material about YOU?

And this is what we find:

The whole infinite Universe. The Infinite suns. The Infinite distances between them, and yourself. An invisible dot on an invisible dot. Infinitely small.*

Of course, there are other ways that Google implements the Total Perspective Vortex. Here's someone who thinks that Google has implemented a reverse Total Perspective Vortex using Google Earth. And here's another example from a different source.

And here's another example, this time, of someone who is knowingly creating a cosmos in which he (and his family) are the primary persons.

Wait. Didn't I just describe blogging in general?

I first documented how to determine Durin's Day in 2007 and when the day arrived, it was too cloudy to observe. In 2008 it was Friday, November 28th and this year (drum-roll, please!) it will be December 17th.

Here's how I arrived at this conclusion. For Cleveland Heights, Cuyahoga County, Ohio (longitude W81.6, latitude N41.5):

Wednesday, 16 December 2009

New Moon at 7:03 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

Sunrise at 7:46 a.m.

Sunset at 4:58 p.m.

Moonset at 5:03 p.m.

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Sunset 4:58 p.m.

Moonset 6:01 p.m.

Friday, 18 December 2009

Sunset 4:58 p.m.

Moonset 7:03 p.m.

Monday, 21 December 2009

Solstice 1747 UTC

Wednesday is the New Moon (7:03 a.m.) and so there is not likely to be any crescent visible after 4:58 p.m. when the sun sets. However, on Thursday, the Moon will be a waxing crescent with approximately 1% of its visible disk illuminated. And on Friday, it will have approximately 4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Stellarium seems to agree.

I'll start by telling you that I don't know the answer to this question—I'm still struggling with how to answer it (although I've come to a current conclusion).

Background

You may not know this: I was recently (April) laid off from my company of 12 years. I'd known this was coming (was welcoming it, actually) and had been interviewing with a fair amount of success. But there was something nagging me in the back of my brain that said it was time to do something different. Reinvent myself, strike out on my own, take all that I've done and think about the problem from a different angle.

So I put things in motion so that when the day came (April 19th), I was ready to go the very next day. On April 20th, North Shore Nomads, LLC became legal, I started snapping up domain names, drafted a dozen different versions of a business plan, interviewed banks, realtors and brokers, joined the local chamber of commerce, got a cool logo, continued networking, talked with building owners and got things going.

And ordered business cards.

The Problem

What to put on those business cards? Is this a small business or maybe a startup? Am I an owner, a founder or an entrepreneur?

I'm taking an idea, finding that others have done similar things in other cities and bringing my vision of this idea to light in my own area. Sounds very similar to the example offered up on wikipedia for entrepreneur:

Entrepreneurs tend to identify a market opportunity and exploit it by organizing their resources effectively to accomplish an outcome that changes existing interactions within a given sector.

Since what I'm doing is a new twist on an old thing, I think that makes me an entrepreneur.

And for the moment (or until the cards need to be reordered), I'm the Owner.

The Buckeye Trail passes along the eastern shore of Shadow Lake in the South Chagrin Reservation. This is in the Bedford Section of the Trail and from here it is possible to hike (north) all the way to Lake Erie or (south) into the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

This little lake is stocked with trout each year and while it may be possible to catch one, we have not. (We have seen them, however!) Perhaps one's luck is better in the winter, ice-fishing.

The lake is approximately 3.3 acres and the trail approaches the lake from the south, passes along the eastern and then northern edges of the lake before turning back into the woods at these steps (pictured).

We almost always catch something here, usually Bluegill Sunfish, Pumpkinseed Sunfish, Redear Sunfish or the odd Rock Bass.

I'm fairly certain that Katie is showing a Redear Sunfish in this picture. There's a barely perceptible red spot on the trailing edge of its "ear" in a close-up picture.

Anyway, Katie is ecstatic with her catch, her first, from casting to landing.

She's using a fly jig with a weighted head and a nice juicy (thick-skinned) maggot. Seemed to work that day since we were pulling them in one after another.

I rarely get any "real" comments from anyone other than my two faithful readers. That doesn't stop me from periodically sifting through the Spam for mis-labeled "real" comments.

Recently I noticed a pattern. Someone was posting some witty one-liners (unrelated to the entry). It was pretty clear that it was some sort of spam bot, but they were so witty, I had to find the source.

Well, I can't say with certainty that I found it, but I did find a collection of quotes in a "fortune" list that contained all the quotes I was looking for.

Here are my favorites from the list on the subject of taxes:

Intaxication: Misguided euphoria about a tax refund (of your own money).

Taxation WITH representation isn't so hot, either!

Taxes are going up so fast, the government might price itself out of the market.

There is nothing more permanent than a temporary tax.

Any new tax law must exempt enough voters to win the next election.

Death and taxes may be inevitable, but they should not be simultaneous. -- Mack

The ability to tax is the ability to control.

The power to tax involves the power to destroy. -- John Marshall

There is only one way to kill capitalism: By taxes, taxes, and more taxes.

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.

Death and taxes are inevitable; at least death doesn't get worse every year.

I've just about always hated taxes. Becoming a small-business owner has only galvanized my dislike.

We swing like there's no tomorrow because we both know there isn't.

For her, she has this innate sense of carpe diem—soon you will make me go home, soon it will rain, soon I may want to slide instead of swinging.

For me, I know too well how fast a summer rushes past us both. How, in August, "tomorrow" can so easily become October. How our busyness and our business rob us of the moment. Split each day into ever-decreasing slots to seize.

We swing like there's no tomorrow to slow today down. In our speed the world seems slow. We become the ones out of control and not the reverse.

This summer, I will at least remember.

At least I will remember this summer.

This summer, at least, I will remember.

I will remember this summer.

And in October's longer nights not startle to awareness that the summer we so anticipate has slipped away into a darker fall. Again.

We swing like there's no tomorrow because we both know there isn't.

Our Honda Pilot hit an important milestone recently.

Chip Richter is the most fun, upbeat singer-songwriter I can think of. And I'm not saying that just because we've been listening to him on the radio, the tape deck, the CD and DVD players and now our iPods for the last dozen years or more.

We first heard Chip on WCRF in the late 90's and have been swinging, singing, bopping and dancing with him and our growing family ever since. Just last week I had the privilege to deliver Chip's newest CD, Are We Almost There? (available here and soon on iTunes) to my nieces and nephews in Virginia. It was my privilege because it was their total delight—the shrieks and excitement told the whole story:

"Yay, more Chip!!!!"

You can follow Chip on Twitter and that's how today's story came about. I check into Twitter a couple of times a day and today I saw that he was going to be in Warrensville Heights this morning and Beachwood this afternoon for library shows. Those libraries are just a few miles away from us, so we thought we'd drop by and enjoy him in concert!

Did I mention that Chip is awesome? It's been six or so years since we've seen each other in person but that didn't stop him from recognizing me and my family and being excited about it. He even remembered the woodworking project I'd done for him some time ago (hopefully in a good way)!

Well, he got tuned up, sang his traditional (mandatory?) "Hey There, How Do You Do?" (mp3) introduction song and I think we had kids bouncing, dancing and singing along from that point on.

When Chip is singing and playing, the kids all get blurry!

Of course since it's summertime, we just had to sing "Ice Cream" (mp3) and a new one, "Ridin' My Bike" from his new CD that had everyone with imaginary helmets on, riding their "bikes" around the room. He treated us to the story of how he and his daughter (when she was six) came up with "Ladybug's Living Room" (mp3) and then led us all in singing it.

It all ended way too soon, but that's the way things go sometimes. And we'd never have caught him if we hadn't made the effort to get there. Summertime is like that. Ice cream melts, opportunities fade away, songs go unsung and bike rides remain unridden, unless—unless we get out there and eat it, sing it, ride it, swing it and enjoy it.

Thanks, Chip, for a totally enjoyable afternoon. I'm off to go ride my bike before we're due at the pool. Thanks!

I was reminded today of a trip my dad and I took about this time of the year in the late 80's.

I was headed to college for the first time and, looking back, it was a bittersweet memory for me.

Although I had my license, I don't remember driving, nor do I remember which car we owned at the time (probably the beige VW Dasher but maybe the late-eighty's silver Camry). It was a ten-hour trip.

Because I was from outside a certain radius, I was allowed early-access to the dorms. There was a legion of assistants to help me unload my foot locker, my bike and whatever else I owned (an Apple IIc, my $105 mouse and dot-matrix printer?) and get it into Luckett Hall. (Remember when a mouse was $105? I do, because I earned every penny to buy that one.)

I don't remember what we had for dinner but after I got settled, I remember asking which bunk my dad wanted (my future roommate was pretty local and hadn't arrived yet).

He wasn't staying. He'd booked a room in a local hotel.

"I've already had my first night in my first dorm room," he told me. "We'd just stay up late hearing me tell my stories and you wouldn't get a chance to have any stories of your own."

A wise man, that Dad.

So what do I remember about that evening? I remember thinking about this clean break. I remember how helpful the RA and RD staff were in getting my gear down the steps into my basement dorm room.

I remember that the bed was a twin long, the only sheets we could find to send with me that would fit were pink and that I had a creme cotton thermal blanket and a quilt my mother made me a few years earlier.

I remember being awakened at oh-dark-thirty by the fire alarm, rushing out into the hallway in my PJs, rushing back in again to grab my key and then heading for the stairwell exit.

I remember heading up the stairs to the ground level and seeing the pulled fire alarm handle. I remember thinking that since there wasn't any evidence of fire near the pulled fire alarm, I was probably safe and I should head back to bed.*

I remember standing there thinking that I should still treat this alarm as real since I didn't really know if there was a fire someplace else.

I remember still standing there when the RA showed up, saw me there next to the pulled fire alarm and started asking questions. Thankfully he believed me (or at least gave me the benefit of the doubt).

Most of all, though, I remember thinking about my dad and wondering about his first nights in his various dorms (Grove City, Penn State, etc.).

I wonder if he got to run around in his PJs.

*During my three years' tenure in Luckett, we had countless fire alarms and to my memory, every one of them was false. Sometimes my roommate and I would think about getting up and sometimes we wouldn't. Several times I remember being told to put my foot on the floor. Murphy's law said that the alarm would stop as soon as you woke up enough to step out of bed. Murphy's law also said that it would continue ringing as long as you stayed in bed. Murphy's law also said that if no one from the entire dorm left the building, the whole dorm would die in a terrible conflagration.

Homeschool was over for the day. Resumes had been posted. Emails had been sent to potential employers. Networking calls had been made. It was Friday, October 8th.

In short, the school-week and work-week were done. It was time to get out of the house.

About this time of Fall in Cleveland, we start joking about "the last nice day of the year". Unfortunately, it's not always a joke and it's very rarely funny. Sometimes we can get a dozen more nice days and sometimes we find that they're all behind us.

So it's important to catch them when you can.

And thinking that this might be the last one helps to heighten the enjoyment of each remaining one.

It's like discovering more M&M's in the bottom of your supposedly empty bag.

We live about a mile north of Shaker Lake and so it's a quick walk through the neighborhood to the path that goes around this lake (the lower lake on Doan Brook).

Too close to ignore on this beautiful, last nice day of the year.