Gone East

Peter Pan

Portsmouth Herald: "The draw of a worry-free evening on the waterfront drew dozens of families to Prescott Park Thursday, the opening night of the 29th annual Prescott Park Arts Festival."

But a Win is a Win

This was pretty amazing. When I tuned in there was 1-out in the bottom of the first, and we were already winning 11-1. Box Score.

Crash Boom

Well I got my wish today, when we got the biggest, most serious thunderstorms in a couple of summers. Around 2pm the rumbling started in the distance. It grew closer and louder with many flashes of lightning, some pretty close. When the rain started to fall it came down in torrents, and the wind blew hard.

Conincidently I had to head out to my Lake Host job during the height of the storm. The roads were littered with leaves and other debris from the trees. Talking to people at the boat launch who were caught out on the water, there were reports of hail and many frighteningly close lightning strikes. At one point the radio was interupted by the Emergency Broadcast Network and it WASN'T a test. They warned of a severe thunderstom watch just to the NE of us.

Cool.

Bad News Good News

It's incredibly humid here again for the second day in a row. This may signal the -- finally -- beginning of summer weather.

I went swimming! And boy did it feel good. I'm not a big swimmer, but it was the perfect way to cool off.

I'm listed!

Hey! This weblog has been listed on blogshares. Five different people have invested in me! Cool!

Ashcroft's America

Dan Gillmor quotes Jimmy Breslin regarding the recent conviction of terrorist Faris. Breslin:

I don't know what Faris looks like or sounds like or what he thinks and what he was doing. He could be the worst. I don't know. Prove he wanted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and let him paste a picture of Osama bin Laden on the cell wall for inspiration over the next half a century. But first bring him into open court and try him. Pretend you live in America.

Then Gillmor adds: "The travesty is, first, that our government now operates a secret criminal justice system, because Congress doesn't care enough about liberty to stop a power-mad Bush administration from tearing up the Constitution."

A dear friend of mine supports Dick Gephardt in the upcoming NH Primary. But if he really said this, I'll need an explanation. Reported by foxnews.com: "When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day."

RW Emerson, blogger?

Christopher Lydon on proto-blogger Emerson:

When we talk about this Internet and this blogging software, this techno-magic that encourages each of us to be expressive voices in an open, universal network of across-the-board conversation, we are speaking of an essentially Emersonian device for an essentially Emersonian exercise.

The Internet is Dreaming

There's a common sci-fi plot where a big computer system reaches a certain threshold of complexity, it suddenly "wakes up", and becomes a self-aware Artificial Intelligence. For years I've speculated that someday the Internet would reach this point. Now System Admins are puzzled by alot of mysterious internet traffic.

Network administrators and security experts continue to search for the cause of an increasing amount of odd data that has been detected on the Internet.

However, the security researcher hastened to add that the traffic seen by network administrators isn't ominous. It merely has piqued the curiosity of quite a few researchers.

Open the pod bay doors please Hal.

Harry 5

Michiko Kakutani, NYT review of "Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix" (this reveals some general plot elements, but has no significant spoliers):

A considerably darker, more psychological book than its predecessors, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" occupies the same emotional and storytelling place in the Potter series as "The Empire Strikes Back" held in the first "Star Wars" trilogy. It provides a sort of fulcrum for the series, marking Harry's emergence from boyhood, and his newfound knowledge that an ancient prophecy holds the secret to Voldemort's obsession with him and his family.

!!!

I saw a BIG TURTLE today. Film at 11.

Andy Ihnatko recently went on a MacMania cruise. His first-ever cruiseship experience. He was particularly tickled by the prospect of a ship full of all-you-can-eat buffets.

"...a lot of my time is being spent selecting items via tongs and then eating them. 'I'll take a third cheeseburger,' I thought during my first trip through, 'just in case my chair has a short leg.' A friend told me that on a cruise ship, you don't stop eating when you get full: you stop when you get tired. I intend to test this. Is man meant to sit in a hot tub eating a strawberry sundae with his right hand while sipping at a blender drink with the left? I intend to test that, too."

Up, up, and away.

My brothers, Scott, Dave, and Dave's family, are headed off for a weekend of Mt Washington camping and hiking. I wanted to go along with them, but I have some work obligations that I can't shirk.

One of the things they're planning is to hike/climb up to the summit of Mt Washington. This is one of those adventures that is easy enough that a regular person can usually accomplish it, but tricky enough that once a year or so the news is filled with reports of a massive search for overdue hikers. So when you read about the Hodgson boys in the news, well, you heard about it here first. (Don't worry Ma, they're gonna be fine.)

Now that they are all cut off from net connectivity I can post here that my sister Beth and I, and maybe our parents too, are thinking about driving up Mt. Wash tomorrow to surprise them at the top. But it's supposed to rain. We'll see.

UPDATE: We wimped out and didn't go to surprise them. Now we're waiting to hear that they didn't fall into a ravine.

Crack. Boom.

Doc Searls: "I'm sitting on the deck here, barely sheltered from a tropical torrent,as a thunderstorm rolls through. It's a little bit scary and thoroughly wonderful."

I'm with you Doc. I love thunderstorms. And sadly we haven't had any really good ones here in NNE in a couple of summers.

360degrees

There are LOTS of Quicktime Panoramas. You can see lots here. For example this view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and this view from the top of Mt Everest.

But this one, of the inside of a guy's mouth, is just weird.

Creepy!

This morning I found a tick doing his thing on my leg. EEuuww!

I managed to remove it in the proper way -- I think. I looked it up on the web, and spoke to one of my "mom friends", and it seems that I will live. Now I'm just simply creeped-out by the whole thing.

Oh, by the way, I'm keeping the little monster as a pet.

I've finally uploaded some pics that we took on an outing last week. Ft Stark and Fort McClary

Here's an interesting article on shareware distribution that I think I can learn something from. Thanks to Dave, who heard about it from Chris.

Cool.

This morning, as I stood at my front window -- coffee in hand, looking out at the lake -- a Blue Heron appeared from the right.

It was flying low, following the shoreline, about 12 inches above the lake's surface. Its big wings occasionally flapping, its neck and head tucked close to its body.

It passed by, at its nearest to me, about 20 feet offshore from my beach. Then, as quickly as it had appeared from the right, it was gone to the left.

This is a great place to live.

Catching Up

It's been a difficult week.

I've started working on the Exotic Invasive Weeds program again this summer. This is the same one I worked on last year. It involves being out and about at 6am, and my body is adjusting to the new schedule slowly.

Wednesday I was down in Cambridge for the monthly BMAC Mac Users group. Disappointing presentation on "Unix for OS X Users". For the first time I saw old BCS*Mac Folks at the meeting. Will Stackman, John Carpenter, and another guy who's name I still can't remember. I didn't say hi to them cause I didn't remember names until much later. Next month.

I skipped the Tuesday night Seacoast Mac meeting due to -deprivation. I'll be there next month for sure, since I doing a demo of the Apple Music Store.

Wow. All these years I figured I was eating healthier than Sherm.

Channel 5 in Dallas Texas has this story on their website: "Fast-Food Salads Can Have More Fat, Calories Than Burgers."

There's alot being said and written about the Sammy Sosa corked bat incident, and I'm not sure what to think about his guilt or "innocence". But it shines a spotlight on one aspect of the game that I've always had issues with: The unreasonable value placed of the Home Run and those who hit alot of them.

Home runs are just not that significant a part of the playing of the game. Their importance is inflated out of proportion to their real contribution to winning. Under many circumstances a Single can score almost as many runs. Statistically there is no correlation between teams with alot of home runs, and teams with alot of wins.

And its fan appeal is really pretty simple minded. A home run is not really all that exciting. The runs it bats-in can be exciting, but no more so than the 2RBI single.

Hank Aaron, who knows a little bit about home runs, said that he didn't think it was the most exciting play in baseball, he thinks that the Triple is. I agree.

To Aaron's list of plays more exciting than the home run I'd add, any throw to home plate, and the catcher's throw to 2nd base to stop a stolen base. Each of these are routinely more interesting than most HRs.

Back in the old days they knew. In the early days of baseball, hitting the ball out of the park was a BAD thing. Players were penalized if they hit it over the outfield fence. Now I'm not suggesting that we return to that. But I do wish that fans would get some perspective and give ALL of baseball's intricacies their proper due.

Salaam Pax, the Famous/Mysterious is-he-or-isn't-he-a-Baghdad-resident blogger (he IS!) now has a column in the Guardian.

...the people at the electricity works got paid by the new salary scheme suggested by the Bremer administration (the range is from 100,000 to 500,000 dinars, $100-$500: the people at the lower end got a raise and the people at the top got the cream taken off their pie) and as if by magic the electricity workers try a bit harder and the situation gets better.

President Reagan's tough-talk and saber-rattling almost certainly was one of the main factors in the fall of the Soviet Union. Is it possible that the Bush administration has stumbled onto the best way to finally make progress with the age-old problem of the middle east?

Thomas L. Friedman , New York Times:

The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government ? and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen ? got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about.

Something's broke

A few of you have reported that, in some of my entries, the picture is hiding the words. (Some people would say that's an improvement.) Anyway I can't reproduce this display on the computers I have here. If it's happening to you, can you please leave a comment telling me specifically which entries it's doing it on? Also, if you're using Windows Internet Explorer and the words and pictures seem OK, please tell me that too. Thanks.

Went wandering in Northwood Meadows State Park yesterday. Interesting thing, we visited two locations in the Park, there were mosquitos at one, and black flies at the other.

How I spent my Saturday.

Portsmouth Herald: "The 19th annual WOKQ Chowderfest, New England's biggest and oldest chowder-tasting competition, attracted 4,000 people, who sampled 500-plus gallons of different chowders."

Fosters Daily Democrat: "The Pines Seafood House swept both the People's Choice and Judge's Choice awards at the 19th annual Chowder Festival on Saturday. The Raymond seafood restaurant topped both categories this year after finishing first in the [People's Choice] voting last year."

The picture above (taken by my Dad) is the line of people waiting to get into the Fest just before the gates opened. The ChowderFest is a fundraiser for the Prescott Park Arts Festival, for which I am a Board Member. I was working at the gate selling tickets.