And Now for Something Completely Different ...

Everyone likes George Carlin, right?

Here's one of his more recent masterpieces to help you slide into the weekend.







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Well, I'll Be Darned!!!!

It appears that I've been had, and thanks to Jules for letting me know.

I usually am more suspicious of such things, particularly the political ones, but the one about Mars becoming spectacular this month got right by me.

Sorry about that, folks. I should have noticed the part where it said Mars would appear as large as the Moon. That won't happen unless we are about to crash into Mars.

I'll be more careful in the future.

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Been Warm Lately

Here it is the beginning of June, not even summer yet, and in Nature’s Air Conditioned City, temperatures have ranged from the mid-80s to over 90, depending upon where in the area you are. A nearby town was said to have hit 102 today. Frankly, I doubt that, but I don’t doubt that some thermometer somewhere may have read 102.

In Nature’s Air Conditioned City temperatures in the upper 80s and above are unusual, so unusual that in the 40s the Chamber of Commerce began offering free lemonade the day after the temperature reached 90 degrees. There were pretty girls clad in shorts serving the tasty ade, and it was quite an event, given its rarity. Particularly when the official temperature upon which the decision to serve lemonade is determined at the airport, which is on a mountain top away from the warmer asphalt and concrete of the downtown area, and usually a few degrees cooler there.

Over the last several years, it has become more frequent, no doubt due to manmade global warming.

Today, the car thermometer read 93 at work, which is due in part to the fact that my car was sitting in the sun. When I got home, which is at a higher elevation, the car read only 91, still in the sun. The porch thermometer read a cooler 88. Officially at the airport today, it was 88, a record for this day set in 1966.

Temperatures in this range are unusual at any time of the year for our little burg, but nearly unheard of in June, especially for this many days in a row. If we get that high at all, it is in late July and August.

Well, I’m not complaining, especially remembering the chilly days of winter, and remembering my buddy Buffalo’s stories of Friendly, Frozen Manitoba.

It was the first evening we have been out on the deck, one of my favorite places at home. I had to stain the deck, or about half of it, before we could use it. It is very pleasant, even if a little warm.

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Thursday

Thursday was an active day, even with the late start we’ve been getting all week. We got out around noon and went to lunch at Panera Bread, a really, really good sandwich place that has several locations here in the eastern US, and maybe elsewhere, too.

After that we made our way to Norfolk, Va., which is Navy central, with multiple bases in the area, the Norfolk Naval Station, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, the Little Creek Amphibious Base, the Oceana Naval Air Station, all in the nearby area. There are other military installations here, as well, with three Army bases, and Langley Air Force base, close by.

Norfolk houses Nauticus, a nautical museum that features exhibits and information on area naval activities from the days before the Civil War. It’s a very interesting place, and has the battleship USS Wisconsin on display for touring. We spent more than an hour there before heading to the Virginia Beach boardwalk, which as I said before bears no resemblance to the boardwalk I remember from my Air Force days when my band spent so much time playing in the beach clubs (no remnant of which can be found today).

We then headed to Bella Monte, an Italian place recommended by my high school and college classmate Betty Todd Howes, whom I haven’t seen since 1966. She and her husband Peter, and the five of us had a good dinner and some long-overdue catching up.

Diane had Osso Bucco, lamb shanks in a dark sauce; Ryan had Lobster Ravioli, which he didn’t like; Katherine and Christen had something, but they were at the other end of the table and I don’t know what it was. Me, I had one of the specials, a split lobster tail with crab meat over risotto. This was the best dinner of the week. We got home about 10 p.m.

Friday, we are hoping and expecting to be able to go to the beach for a while without being sliced to ribbons by blowing sand, and the weather forecast give us hope that we can. Saturday morning will be glum, as we have to pack and hit the road for home.

All Hands On Deck!

Well, tonight was the first Deck Night of the season. We did some yardwork this afternoon, getting rid of shrubs that had outlived their usefulness and were causing problems, still fighting the leaves of fall, and then got ready to fix dinner. We grilled some nice, thick pork chops treated with a Calphalon Steak and Chop rub, had some asparagus, corn on the cob and ciabatta toast, and, of course, some wine.

We have spent a little time on the front porch, just sitting there talking and taking in the out of doors, but tonight was the first Deck Night of the season. We pulled out the cushions, cleaned off a small table, dusted off the chair frames, and had dinner on a plate in our lap on the deck. It wasn’t the full scale deal, with the big table and taking the stereo out there, but it was still very relaxing and comfortable.

The back deck is mostly private, blocked off from the street to the south and no neighbors within sight to the north. The house is to the east and the only possible “spy” is the lady that lives on the hill above the tiered back area to the west; you know the one, the one that collects all the leaves in the fall. The lady that lives up there—the house is about 30 feet away and 20 higher than the deck—is elderly and we never see her in the yard, so she isn’t a factor. So, we can sit out there and enjoy the birds and the trees and whatever else is going on without human interference. The photo is from two years ago; we haven't gotten this far yet this year.

The deck is one of my favorite places to spend time. I sometimes take the laptop out there and work on the Web pages I manage, or write the newsletter that I edit, and do other tasks. It ain’t fancy, but it sure is comfortable, and I’m glad that it’s that time of year again.

Home Cookin'

So, we fixed ourselves a home-cooked dinner tonight consisting of rib eyes and asparagus on the grill (it was about 51 degrees today) and some salad and a piece of ciabatta toast with a Sterling pinot noir that was very tasty (and not at all expensive).

We are in the process of decorating for the season, and we have been listening to some Christmas music on the stereo as we went about our business. First was a glorious CD featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of my favorites; then one by the Airmen of Note, the USAF big band, which is a truly wonderful CD; and then Chris Botti’s “December” album, which is very fine; and finally a Christmas album by James Taylor titled, “James Taylor at Christmas.” James is a guy who just continues to put out good stuff, year after year, starting way back in the 70s (I think). One tune came up, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which involves some singing along with some spoken words (what the opera people call “recitative”), which is really just some banter between the man and the woman doing the song, he trying to convince her to stay because it’s “cold outside,” and she saying, “I really should go.” Diane ventured that the woman was Natalie Cole, and I wasn’t convinced that it was Natalie, although I didn’t rule that possibility out.

Here, I must tell you that I have a very good ear for voices, and have a very good record at identifying singers. But, I just thought that it didn’t really sound quite like Natalie.

Well, guess what? It was Natalie!

Damn! I hate it when that happens; when she’s right.Fortunately, it doesn’t happen that often. (Don’t tell her I said that, okay?)

As Buffalo would say, life is sweet when … your wife is right and you aren’t?

Well, maybe that’s not exactly what he’d say.

New Stuff

Impatiently awaited and long overdue, a big update to A Little Levity has been posted.

If you need a chuckle, go check it out.

Changes

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

Those lines from the Bob Dylan song are on my mind right now, as I look out over the Observations universe, small and unimportant as it is, and contemplate the changes that have occurred over the three years of its existence, and those that are occurring right now.

I commented a while back that many of the old visitors had moved on to other interests. That happens; we all have our priorities and fascinations, and they tend to change as we go through life. I regret losing contact with those folks, because though our correspondence we became friends to varying degrees. But new ones have come along to take their places, and relationships have grown with them, too.

Unfortunately, several of the more recent gang have experienced, or are experiencing, things in their lives that take them away, either for good, or perhaps for just a while, or maybe they just visit less often.

Most of my blogger friends are friends at a distance, meaning that I don’t know them personally, and have never laid eyes on them, which I expect is the case with most blog relationships. Exceptions to that general rule are Kenna Amos, a writer/reporter who lives nearby and just got too busy to keep his site going, and visits here occasionally, but seldom comments. Then there’s The Windjammer, who used to write a column in my newspaper, and was a friend whom I saw pretty often and corresponded with almost daily through email. He contributed columns to Observations for a while. The Windjammer related to me that he had some health problems, but didn’t tell me the truth. I got word from his son that he had succumbed to cancer earlier this year. That was a shock, and a great loss, as I said in a post right after his death.

I have had direct contact with two other blog friends, first Brad Barfield, who called my home one day in an attempt to play a joke on me. I don’t know Brad other than through this phone call and our interaction on the Net, but the phone call was a nifty experience. He spoke with my wife, Diane, first, saying something she didn’t understand, and then ending the call. She commented about that to me, and handed me the phone. Unbeknownst to Brad, the caller ID listed his name, so when he called back, I answered, “Hey, Brad. How are you?”, or something like that. Incredulously, he said, “How did you know who it was?” He thought he was calling from a “blind” number; he was wrong. Anyway, we had a good, though not lengthy, talk.

Earlier this year a visitor calling himself “Winfred Mann” came upon the scene, and became a frequent commenter. At one point I mentioned that the family was vacationing in South Florida, and “Winfred” (Rick) emailed me asking where we were. I told him and ask if he was nearby, to which he responded that he was only a few minutes away, and asked if I would like to get together with him for coffee, which we did. We met, drank some coffee, and talked for an hour or so, and then went back to what we were doing. We continued communicating on each other’s sites, until earlier this month when Rick sort of just “went missing” (a truly ridiculous phrase). He hasn’t posted on his site, commented on mine, or answered emails seeking to find out what is going on. I am worried about Rick.

There’s JL Pagano, from Ireland, who once was a frequent visitor, who still has his site going, but doesn’t comment very often here, and there’s Texas Fred, who has a very active site, and will drop by once in a while or send an email, but apparently isn’t a regular visitor.

And then there’s Buffalo. He and I have disagreed on just about everything for nearly three years, both on the Web and in emails. I have developed a great respect and liking for Buff, despite his mistaken political philosophies. I got an email from Buff, telling me that he was going to stop publishing on “Buffalo’s Path,” but might start a new blog later on. That is a true disappointment, and I hope he continues to visit and keeps trying to set me straight.

So, I’ve lost a few valued blog friends recently, and that is an unpleasant aspect of the blogging experience. But, on the bright side, I still have Brad, Nuri, and Lord Nazh, Steve and Jules, as regulars, and (every so often) Fred, and I hope they don’t go away, for, as the song says, the times they are a-changin’.

Newsletter Thursday

I am the Webmaster and the editor of the newsletter for an organization I belong to, and every Thursday I spend the better part of the day writing up the week’s program and updating the Web site. This week was an especially frustrating experience.

When the weather is nice I take the laptop out on the deck and work on the outdoor table that has an umbrella over it to keep the sun off me. This week, as with many summer days, there was the possibility of a late afternoon/early evening thundershower, but when it was time to write up Tuesday’s program, the sun was shining. After lunch I went back outside and went to work finishing the write-up, and around 2 p.m. completed the task. At that point I had to go inside to the office at set up the Web pages and upload the newsletter and other updated pages to the Web host. After about a half-hour, I realized that there was some information that I needed that I had left on the table outside.

When I climbed the stairs from the basement office I could see sunshine on the hillside out back through the door to the deck, but when I got to the top of the stairs and could see the deck itself, I realized that it was also raining. I didn’t get too excited, since the rain was more of a sprinkle than a downpour, and the computer was, after all, under the umbrella. But I couldn’t see the table from where I was and when I went out on the deck and made my way over to the table, I saw that the papers I had out there were soaked, and I realized that while it was only sprinkling now, it apparently had really poured before that. When I got to the computer, its screen was dark and water droplets covered the screen, the keyboard, the mouse pad … everything on the table was soaked and the computer had gotten wet enough to have shut down.

Panic ensued.

This laptop had survived a few crises, and had been replaced by a new one when it developed a problem accessing the Internet that I couldn’t solve. What good is a computer that can’t access the Internet, after all? So I replaced it. Not too long thereafter, the new laptop developed a problem I couldn’t solve, so I reactivated the one that was now soaked, and found and cured the Internet access problem (weird how necessity creates solutions you couldn’t find before the crisis, isn’t it?), and have been using it for a few months. Efforts to get the computer to run failed; it just sat there, doing nothing.

Well, I didn’t immediately go out and get a new machine, although that prospect did enter my mind. Who wants to have to spend a thousand bucks that you don’t have on a new laptop that has Windows Vista on it that isn’t compatible with most of your non-Microsoft software, and which comes with almost no programs pre-loaded? So, I put the laptop in a position that would drain the water out of it, and let it sit for a few hours. I tried to fire it up a few times at various intervals without success, sometimes hearing “frying” sounds that gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and then left it until this morning, figuring that both it and me would benefit from a night’s sleep.

This morning I plugged the cord into the wall, only to find that the light that indicates that the computer is plugged in was flashing like it should be, which it always did, and that the light that indicates that the computer is on was flashing, too, which it should not be, but which it had been doing since the ill-fated, un-expected and un-forecast rainstorm. I had just resigned myself to having to buy a new laptop, when one of those little flashes of insight flashed in my brain. I remembered the reset button on the bottom of the laptop, stuck my mechanical pencil in the little hole and reset the machine, and, eureka, it started working.

So, to borrow from my friend Buffalo, life is sweet – when things work out and you don’t have to contemplate buying a new computer.

Technorati Tags: America, Computers, Culture, Technology

Blogs, Bloggers, Blogging

September 28, 2004 was the first post on Observations, at least on the Blogger version of Observations. It wasn’t quite my first post on a blog of my own, but the earliest effort was abandoned pretty quickly, and I’m certain there was a good reason for doing that, I just don’t remember what it was.

Being not too far from the third anniversary of my widely unread scribblings, I have begun thinking back over those years, going back and reviewing the early posts and how the site has evolved. I note that I posted three columns/articles on Day 1 and one on Day 2. I note further that no one commented on any of those. On October there were two comments on a short piece titled, “Terrorists Getting Desperate?” that were removed by me, indicating that they were SPAM comments. The first actual comment came the next day on a post titled, “The Debate – First Reactions,” as the election neared. The post was signed “Anonymous,” but I know the poster, and later on he began to use the pen name “The Windjammer.”

The next real comment came from someone who identified himself as “h~” that took issue with my position on Iraq war protests. After that I had comments from Conservative White Chick, Huston (with whom I established a decent, though short-lived blog relationship), Buffalo, Mr. Paw, Kenna Amos and JL Pagano before amassing a fairly long list of people that came and went, and a few that still visit, like Nuri, Brad, Steve, Lord Nazh, jules, Winfred Mann, the Kashmiri Nomad, Texas Fred, and a few others that drop by less often such as Kat, Leo.

I really look forward to comments and place a high value on the ones I receive, using that as a guage of how the blog is doing, although I know that some readers won’t leave a comment.

Of all of those commenters, as loyal as some were and are, the comment on October 16 by Buffalo is quite significant, for it was the start of a blogging relationship that endures to this day. Buff and I have little in common and agree on even less, but we have maintained a cordial and mutually respectful blogging friendship through the years.

Blogs are interesting things. Mine has evolved through various incarnations in appearance, with changes in type style and color, and some HTML modifications, the addition of photographs and an occasional video, and the putting up and removing of content items, like the photograph in the header taken from a mountain top overlooking my hometown. At one point I posted a thought for the week, which is a feature from my own weekly newspaper from a few years ago, and I also used to put up a weekly Bible verse, a feature of both my great grandfather’s daily newspaper, and my weekly.

I had Google AdSense ads on the site, hoping to maybe make a little money. I learned that it takes a lot more time and effort to produce a site that attracts enough readers to make money than I had available, however.

I replaced the Blogger comment feature with Haloscan’s, because it has more features and fewer problems, I added Technorati tags, and joined a few traffic-building activities along the way. I still keep playing with the code, adding links and such when the spirit moves me to do so, and I guess I always will.

Periodically I’ll post a list of places where readers call home. It’s truly amazing all the different countries that readers of Observations live in, like Australia, Britain, Ireland, Thailand, Canada, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Japan, Malaysia, Columbia, France, and, of course, the U.S., to name several.

Most of the folks that I met on Observations have moved on to other activities, having found blogging a temporary diversion. That’s too bad; if they’d hung around, I’d have a pretty healthy list of devoted readers (and commenters), but that’s the way it goes, I guess.

Like most of us, I have periods where the words just won’t come, or nothing moves me enough to write about it, and sometimes I get busy with life and abandon the site for a few days. But I plan to keep plugging away, hoping that a few people will like something they read here, or maybe learn something, or, best of all, be persuaded by something I have written.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to visit and participate in the discussion, and I hope you will continue to grace Observations with your presence.

Technorati Tags: America, Blogs, Journalism, Pleasure

Zoo Pics

These photos were taken at the Miami Metro Zoo on our recent trip to South Florida.

Enjoy!

Greetings From Smoky Florida

We came here as the result of a weird process. The private college where Diane works held a fund raising auction and some of the Trustees had donated a week at their timeshare, and in order to help the school and also hopefully help us get a week in Key West, we bid on and won one of those. After nearly two years of trying, we were unable to book a week in Key West; apparently no one wants to give up their week there. So, we settled for a week in Pompano Beach, FL, where I had vacationed with my parents.

Well, we drove down Friday and Saturday, and checked into a nice room. We didn’t encounter any smoke from the wildfires at the Georgia border like we expected, but Pompano had a smoke cover until Sunday. Not so bad.

However, the facility wi-fi connection has been down the entire time, and they don’t know when or if it will be fixed, so communications from me will be sparse.

What Do We Americans Value?

Well, the verdict is in: Parade magazine has published its edition that tells us who makes how much, and the answers are, well, interesting. The range of earnings reported in Parade goes from $0 (California Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger) to $341 million (YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley), and there is a lot in between.

Let’s look at some examples:

Air Force Staff Sergeant (E-5) Kenneth Martin makes $48,000 a year.

Gary Fearn, a minister, makes $9,000 a year.

Wynde J. Lawson, USPS letter carrier, $49,200.

Robert Pacht, magazine editor, $55,000.

Mary Ellen Caruso, nurse, $70,000.

Janet Napolitano, Governor, New Mexico, $95,000.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, $212,100.

Kathryn Nelson, police judge, $132,000.

Most of us would say that the people in the above examples are paid appropriately, or maybe that some of them are underpaid, based upon the specifics of their job and/or what they contribute to our society. These people are at the lower end of the scale, as reported by Parade. I wonder how we feel about those at the upper end, where we find people paid what I can only term absurd amounts of money for doing things that arguably aren’t worth as much as they get for them.

Now, make no mistake: I’m still the capitalist pig I’ve always been; I think capitalism, while imperfect, is the best economic system on Earth. Ever. I think the opportunity to make as much money as we can, which is what a capitalist economy affords, is one of the few great things that life offers us. No, it is not capitalism that I criticize; it is the way we Americans prioritize things that enables some of these people to earn what truly are obscene amounts of money.

Here are some examples of what I consider highly overpaid people: the TV Food channel’s Rachael Ray made $6 million in 2006. I watch the Food Network and while Rachael Ray isn’t one of my favorites, there is certainly nothing wrong with her. But $6 million? I just don’t see it. Julia Roberts and George Clooney, people who pretend to be someone else for a living, are paid $10 million to $20 million per film. Yeah, they’re pretty people, but so are a lot of others making a fraction of what they rake in. Radio guy Howard Stern made $302 million, and rapper 50 Cent made $41 million. Howard and 50 and the other rappers and shock jocks get paid millions to spread their trash. Pitcher Randy Johnson made $13,100,000 one year, and catcher Mike Piazza made $13,000,000 a year for playing a game. Maybe they are some of the best in baseball, but it’s just baseball. And the high salaries of corporate CEOs are a continuing source of dismay.

I’ve nothing against actors or chefs or entertainers or athletes or CEOs, but what makes these people worth that kind of money? Objectively, nothing can justify that kind of money for those jobs. What it comes down to is that people who give us what we want make the big bucks, not the people that give us what we need, and that says bunches about our society and its twisted priorities. It says that we want entertainment of all descriptions from teaching us how to cook 30-minute meals to watching grown men and women play games to listening to vulgar guys like Howard Stern and 50 Cent to men and women who produce dividends and rising stock prices. And it says that such relative trivialities are more important to us than our national security, and developing and teaching our children, and being cured when we are sick, and our national character.

It is one of the increasingly numerous signs that our culture is collapsing.

Technorati Tags: Culture, America, Common Sense

A Stunning Performance

As many of you know, I am a musician and have been for 50 years. I love music; I love great performances, regardless of the genre. That means I like good rock, good jazz, good "classical," good gospel, good country ... well, you get the idea.

The video below is a great performance. I urge you to plug in your good speakers, or put on a headset and listen to this tune. Forget the words; forget the genre. Just listen to a truly great singer accompanied by a truly great pianist.




The tenor is David Phelps and the piano player is Anthony Burger, both outstanding musicians. The performance is from one of the Gaither Homecoming concerts titled "Christmas in the Country."

I invite and welcome your comments.

It’s Been Really Busy Lately

November was a blur. We headed off on our Southern Odyssey on the night of the 7^th and returned at 1 a.m. on the 20^th. For us, that’s a long trip. It was a great time, but getting ready for a trip of that length is a challenge, and catching up after a trip of that length is more of a challenge.

It was the week of Thanksgiving when we returned, and my regular Tuesday Rotary Club meeting (that I am Program Committee Chairman of) occurred, and that night a Foundation where I serve on the Board had its fund raising dinner with magician Michael Ammar as the entertainment. Michael is a world-renowned magician, and a hometown boy. He was amazing, and that’s a word I don’t use frequently. I also had some online tutoring Tuesday morning.

Wednesday, I had more morning online tutoring, and a meeting Wednesday evening; Wednesday was the easiest day of the week, as it turned out. Thursday, we traveled two hours north to spend Thanksgiving Day with Diane’s mother, who had just moved back to the home where Diane and her two brothers grew up, the first time the family had been together in that house in 26 years. That was very special for them.

Friday, the newsletter for the Rotary club was due to be posted and the Web site updated, and that’s a task that lasts several hours. Then, thank goodness, it was the weekend. That didn’t mean there was nothing to do, but less of it: the Battle of the Leaves in the day, and a party that night. Sunday, the kids headed back to school and then I played a rehearsal for the church Christmas cantata that night.

And then on Monday, the Week from Hell Began. Tutoring morning and afternoon at the college; and in the evening a rehearsal of the jazz ensemble that I’m director of had its second rehearsal before our Winter Concert. Predictably, there were many things not right in the concert hall. Tension. However, the rehearsal went pretty well, and playing music is always fun and therapeutic.

Today, it’s Tuesday again, and in addition to the online tutoring there’s the regular Rotary meeting at 12, and I have a meeting with some folks from Georgia—the country, not the state—for the Foundation at 11, and also a Board meeting for Rotary at the same time. I’ve got to finish setting up an invitation that our family (the big family, not Diane and I) sends out to nearly 900 people and get it to the printer. Tonight, thankfully, there’s our weekly get-together with some friends for dinner.

Wednesday: online tutoring and then cantata rehearsal in the evening. In the afternoon I’ll be setting up the concert program, and I have to get a head start on the newsletter and Web site update, because Thursday is filled.

Thursday: Dress rehearsal for the jazz ensemble concert at 7, meaning a few hours checking out equipment and working out details, and somehow finish and post the Web update material.

Friday: Run off and fold the programs, and take care of final details. A light day.

Saturday: We may have a called cantata rehearsal, otherwise, nothing scheduled, thank the Lord. Maybe work on the leaves again.

Then, Black Sunday: First cantata performance at 10:30. Warm-up for jazz ensemble at 2, and the concert at 3. At 4:30 the second performance of the cantata is scheduled. Problem: the jazz ensemble concert won’t be finished by then, so the two of us involved in both groups will have to get to the cantata as soon as we can, arriving after the performance has begun. But by 5:30 or so, it’ll all be over.

Monday begins a regular week, but after the previous one, it will be a snap.

What A Difference A Day Makes!

Yesterday afternoon I sat with friends in the pavilion of the Bacardi distillery in San Juan sipping a Bacardi cocktail in the 88-degree heat.

Very civilized. Very pleasant.

Today, I woke up at home in the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia to an inch of snow and 31 degrees.

Brother!

Technorati Tags: Civility, Vacation, Puerto Rico, San Juan, Pleasure