September 30, 2003

Say it ain't so

I hope my California friends can tell me this isn't what's gonna happen.

Out in my home-state-away-from-home, it looks like Arnold is gonna win the the Recall Election. If that's not bad enough, many expect that the day after the election a NEW RECALL petition will be started. Since Arnold will have won with only 30% of the voters, it's likely the petition will succeed, and here we go again.

Posted by jghiii at 03:05 PM | Comments (5)

Float like a butterfly

Sting Like A BeeOne of my brothers has been an avid hiker his whole life, yet until recently he'd never been stung by a bee. This summer he's had a couple of disturbing run-ins, which have led to the discovery of a mild allergy to the stings.

When I was a kid I stepped onto the entrance of an underground nest and received 10-20 stings on my legs. It swelled up alot, and itched like crazy, but I didn't seem to have any allergy. But it gave me a lifelong phobia about being stung.

My other brother sends along this link to an article in Slate about a guy who let himself be stung repeatedly in order to evaluate various remedies. Better him than me.

BTW, doing a Google image search for "bee sting" produces some disturbing pics.

Posted by jghiii at 01:04 PM | Comments (1)

Awesome Fall Day

It's a wonderful Autumn day here in Northern New England. In honor of that, I've changed the masthead of this blog to be a picture of the view out my front window.

Posted by jghiii at 12:25 PM | Comments (2)

Maintenance

I just made some changes to the front page of this weblog.

I'm afraid I've committed a web-developer-sin, by taking out some of the fancy CSS, and replacing it with an html table.

I tried to get the blog to look like I wanted with the CSS, but the code that came with Movable Type is so convoluted that I couldn't get it right. It looked OK on all the Macs I checked, but I found that it was weird on some Windows machines.

I hope this is better. Please let me know.

Posted by jghiii at 12:23 PM | Comments (1)

Are you ready for some baseball, Part II?

Thanks to Steve G for pointing this out. You can enter the lottery to win the chance to buy a pair of Tickets on top of the Green Monster.

Posted by jghiii at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)

Are you ready for some baseball?

Washington Post about the Red Sox' Wild Card win celebration:

Although a more buttoned-down (read: boring) outfit like the New York Yankees or the Atlanta Braves -- both of whom have much practice at celebrating -- might scoff at such an enthusiastic display, the Red Sox were not being irreverent or even overeager.

They are simply one of the most fun, most joyous teams to come along in years, and sometimes they have so much fun they just don't know what to do with themselves -- which is why, with baseball's postseason set to begin today, the Red Sox are the team of choice for any neutral fan who likes baseball and parties.

Posted by jghiii at 08:53 AM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2003

Go figure!

This blog is the #3 result when you search Google for "plural of moose", and also #3 on "cingular triplets".

Posted by jghiii at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2003

Sayings

I like to collect clever, pithy, funny sayings. I keep thinking that I'll add a feature to this site to show a different one from my collection every time this page is refreshed. Maybe somday.

In the meantime, here's a good, geeky, one I found today on Jerry Pournelle's site.

"There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't."
-- Unknown

Posted by jghiii at 10:08 PM | Comments (2)

VT Pics

Gavin Estey Blog, Burlington VT: "The weather was fantastic today at lunch today and the Winooski river was abnormally low (there is a dam upriver) so I took the opportunity to take a few snaps with my digital camera. The building in the second picture is where I work."

Posted by jghiii at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2003

Unconvinced

Concord Monitor newspaper, Concord, NH:

Randall opposed the Iraq war from the start. But she's willing to give the benefit of the doubt to those politicians who voted to use force against Saddam Hussein last year - including four of the 10 declared candidates. The trouble is, none of them has yet convinced her to do so.

"I can understand why some of those people voted for it. But I would like to see some honesty," Randall said. ". . . I want every single one of them to say it was a lousy idea, that they were taken in, and they're going to do something about it. . . . That to me is leadership, and I haven't really seen that."

Posted by jghiii at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)

Free Market

Billboard Magazine:

Easing into new territory, Ticketmaster has debuted its first concert ticket auction for a Sting charity show Oct. 4 at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom.

 When Billboard first learned of Ticketmaster's plan to provide sanctioned auctions, the program was met with some concern that it would unnecessarily drive up ticket costs.

Everyone is concerned that this auction will lead to high ticket prices and "gouging". It will actually lead to higher, but "correct" prices.

Right now, the ticket prices for top-level acts are kept artificially low, because they're afraid of being accused of gouging. But the result of keeping prices low is that some people, who are lucky or priviledged, get cheaper tix, and many others are shut out altogether cause there aren't enough tickets to go around.

I'll be watching this auction thing with interest cause done right it will allocate the scarce supply of tix to those who want them the most.

Posted by jghiii at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2003

Survivor Update

Click the "Continue Reading" link for an update which DOES HAVE SPOILERS.

They made a big mistake voting off Skinny Ryan. In the long run strength is not as important as other things. I think Ryan S would have been a goner soon anyway, but now they're gonna spend the next three days whining about Osten and his bad attitude. It's gonna hurt them.

Of course the main thing that's happening here, so far, is that Drake is eating. And eating really well. Morgan is already suffering from malnutrition. It's affecting their physical and mental health.

Morgan is down two people and stands to lose more. Watch for a Survivor Plot twist, from Probst/Barnett, to level the playing field.

Posted by jghiii at 10:23 AM | Comments (3)

Is it just me?

The main content column on the JoHo weblog is almost 1000 pixels wide. Hard to read.

Is this intended? A bug in his html? Or a problem with Safari?

Posted by jghiii at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)

Clark in NH

Newly announced presidential candidate Wesley Clark is in NH this weekend. NHPolitics.com has a schedule.

BTW, is anyone else uncomfortable referring to him as "General Clark"?

Posted by jghiii at 09:48 AM | Comments (1)

Quickfile lives!

One of the very first programs for the Macintosh, back in 1984, was a simple, but very useful thing called Rolodex. It was written by Bill Atkinson. It was for keeping names, numbers and other things you might record on cards. Soon after its introduction Bill apparently got a letter from the Rolodex card file people and so he had to change its name to Quickfile.

All Quickfile was was a "card" -- for writing names, numbers, whatever -- and a search field, for finding things. It was simple to use and FAST. Even on those ancient CPUs it could search extrememly large lists of names very quickly.

I used Quickfile for years, it continued to work like a champ up through System 7 and beyond. Many people migrated over to the more feature-rich, commercial program QuickDEX. But I stayed with the original.

I finally left Quickfile behind in the late 90s when I started keeping my phone book on a Palm Pilot.

About a year ago I went looking for a copy of Quickfile, and discovered that it even still sorta worked on OSX. But the advances of the OS had finally introduced enough bugs to make it impractical to use this old friend for my phone book.

I'd never warmed up to QuickDEX cause, for me, it had TOO MANY features. I wanted Quickfile's simplicity.

Yesterday I read in Macintouch about mooDEX. It is "...designed to fill the gap left by the program called QuickDEX..." But in fact it was more like Quickfile. Simple, fast... and a native OS X program to boot!

I downloaded it and loaded alot of my phone book info. I'm really impressed, happy, and feeling that warm-fuzzy Quickfile feeling. I think it's a keeper.

The only thing I wish they'd done different is that Quickfile did boolean OR searches, which were great for quickly finding the card you wanted without having to flip through multiple cards till the desired one appears. But this is a nit.

Try mooDex. It's shareware, and only $7!

Posted by jghiii at 09:25 AM | Comments (4)

September 25, 2003

Oakland Bound!

The Red Sox squeaked by the Orioles this evening 14-3 to clinch the American League Wild Card spot. They start a 5 game series against the Oakland As next Wednesday.

Here's a webcam inside Fenway Park.

Posted by jghiii at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)

I can name airplanes no problem

I'm taking a bit of heat in comments about not knowing what kind of car my brother has. It's a '71 LeMans, which apparently is also sometimes known as a Tempest.

Posted by jghiii at 02:54 PM | Comments (2)

Oakland vs. Seattle

Most readers don't look at the comments, so I'm reprinting this story that Sherm posted as a followup to my crowing about the Sox.

Sherm wrote:

So, when I took the 3 students to the A's vs. Mariners game last friday, I spent most of my time talking to the Seattle fan. I've known the A's fan and the (spits on the ground as he prepares to say the name) Yankee fan for a few years. Noah from Seattle is a new student. In a debate team analogy, he's the novice amongst the varsity members, and I always had a soft spot for my novices.

We sat four in a row, and Noah and I mainly talked amongst ourselves. And even tho it was too my advantage to see Seattle lose, I found myself rooting for them against the A's, and most of my barbed comments that night ("First round losers, baby -- the trend is gonna continue.") were against Kyle and his A's, although I did throw a shot at Robbie the (vomits profusely on the ground) Yankees fan a jab ("Kyle has to get thru us to get to you, but I wouldn't count on you being the ones we beat for the AL championship -- remember the Angels!").

My rooting for Seattle that night was because I was getting primed to be against the A's, and I knew Seattle wasn't going to survive to the playoffs and I wanted to make a good night for the novice. So I rooted for him and watched him grow as an opposing fan amongst all the home town fans.

In the first inning, Seattle's pitcher -- their worst according to Noah --- was getting rocked and was lucky to get away with only one run scored. Noah made a feeble yell in support of his team when they were up in the second, but as the game grew on, he got bolder and louder. It helped that in front of us were sitting five hottie members of the Santa Clara University Women's Cross Country team. The team seems to have a lot of Washington state residents, and their cheering emboldened Noah.

So today, Noah came into my office in the afternoon. He looked a bit shellshocked -- mostly from the exam and paper he had due in the past few days -- and I started to shout out TWO!, which was the magic number at the time, and he looked and me with these pleading eyes and said "Take it easy on me, okay?"

He wanted this one a lot, and he thought they had their best shot in a while, and looking at his face reminded me of Bucky Dent and that stupid home run, and he who's name is never to be spoken and the ball between his legs, and Pudge and Fred Lynn and Roger "Denied #300 in Boston!" going someplace else to play, and that last horrible seventh game in 1967 when I was twelve.

So I took it easy on the kid, told him my stories, and told him he has to build up a thick skin if you want to be a baseball fan.

When he left I scruffed the top of his head and told him I'd appreciate it if he roughs up the A's next week for me.

Posted by jghiii at 07:24 AM | Comments (1)

Road Trip

Heading off this morning to help my brother move his classic car (OK so I know almost nothing about cars, and I can't remember what kind it is, it's supposed to be pretty cool though), from where it's stored down in Massachusetts, up here to NH.

That's not his car in the pic, but it kinda looks like that one. I'll post actual pics later.

Posted by jghiii at 07:16 AM | Comments (6)

September 24, 2003

Boston-Online will be back soon

I've noticed that one of the sites I look at daily has been offline for a few days. They've now reported that they'll be back soon. Steve G has the story.

Posted by jghiii at 10:33 PM | Comments (1)

Not tonight

I guess we got a little overexcited. Red Sox didn't manage to clinch tonite. Probably tomorrow, it'll be the final regular season game at Fenway.

Posted by jghiii at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)

One!

Seattle has lost to Anaheim, so the Red Sox can clinch the Wild Card tonight.

Posted by jghiii at 06:32 PM | Comments (1)

What's that all about?

Over in comments, David responds to this item and apparently has some issues with Lawrence MA.

Posted by jghiii at 01:18 PM | Comments (3)

Clincher

The Red Sox came from behind last night in an exciting, "cowboy-up", finish to beat the Orioles in the 10th inning. That, combined with the Mariner's late-night loss to Anaheim, leaves the Sox with a Magic Num of 2.

Seattle plays early today, 4pm eastern. If they were to lose, then Boston would be in position to clinch the Wild Card with tonight's game.

Go Sox!

Posted by jghiii at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)

I can dream can't I?

Some have speculated that the Clinton gang are so supportive of Wes Clark cause they plan to use him to force out the current frontrunners, then will have Hillary enter the race and Clark will become her #2.

The coolest thing about that scenario would be that BOTH Bushes would then have been kicked out after one term by losing to a Clinton. And W would have lost to A GIRL!!!

[One term president link/image thanks to Steve G]

Posted by jghiii at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2003

Drifting down...

...time for the W to cook up another crisis. Check out this fascinating chart, over on j-walk, of the President's approval rating since his inauguration.

Posted by jghiii at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

Since 1874

The Dewey Decimal System was created and copyrighted in 1874. That copyright is apparently still in effect today. Who says public domain is dead?

New York Times:

"Who knew that someone owned the Dewey Decimal System? Apparently not the owners of the Library Hotel, nestled in the shadow of the New York Public Library. Now the boutique hotel, which numbers its guest rooms and stocks them with books according to Melvil Dewey's century-old library classification system, is being sued for using it."

Posted by jghiii at 09:30 PM | Comments (1)

52 Projects

I haven't looked at each of these, but the few I did were kinda cool. Leave a comment here if you see any that you like.

[Thanks Steve G]

Posted by jghiii at 09:16 PM | Comments (1)

Yes Rain

BIG Rainstorm passed through the area this afternoon. Both UNH and the Epping amateur weather guy show that we got about 1.2 inches. That's about 6 weeks worth where I used to live in Calif.

Driving from here to Portsmouth there was alot of standing water. There was also a major car crash on 101 in Exeter when I drove through late this afternoon. I'm expecting to hear reports of flash flooding in the news tomorrow.

Posted by jghiii at 09:12 PM | Comments (4)

September 22, 2003

As opposed to?

In a recent blog entry Doc Searls wrote, "after landing at LAX in a passenger plane..."

My question is, what other sort of plane might he arrive in?

Posted by jghiii at 07:21 PM | Comments (4)

Kicking Ass

The Democratic Party (actually the DNC) has a blog.

Posted by jghiii at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)

Fall?

Isn't the first day of Fall around here somewhere?

Posted by jghiii at 06:30 PM | Comments (1)

Slow day

I was up and out early today for a 7:30 meeting in Portsmouth.

Then, various tasks, and other meetings, kept me away until mid afternoon. Since then I've been looking around for some blogworthy stuff.

No joy.

Posted by jghiii at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2003

Back where we started?

Guardian Unlimited: "The first official warning about the dangers of the Atkins diet has been issued by the [British] Government amid concern about the rising number of people opting for the high-fat, high-protein regime."

Posted by jghiii at 12:18 PM | Comments (1)

Voting Machines

Ever since the Florida debacle in the 2000 Presidential Election there's been alot of commotion about how to "fix" voting machines. Now the California Recall election is forcing the whole thing to a climax. Cory Doctorow is telling us how the IEEE, a computer group that sets national standards, is making some poor choices that are liable to stick for a long time.

What I don't get is why we're even still trying to create "voting machines". These machines were created a long time ago because the only way we could count votes automatically back then was to input the vote in a machine-readable form. Those ancient machines couldn't read a ballot with Xs in boxes. So we flicked levers, and punched holes.

But the machines are smarter now.

Computers can now read written text, analyze pictures, understand spoken words. Our kid's futures are determined by machines scoring the test answers that they input by filling a circle with a #2 pencil.

Let's return to the "old fashioned" paper ballot. Let's return to putting a big X next to the name of the candidates we support. Then feed these ballots into a machine that can read them.

Posted by jghiii at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2003

Was that him?

Over in comments "stefani" responds to a post I wrote awhile back, where I used Boston Saturday Morning TV Legend Rex Trailer as a symbol for all Sat morning fare. Stefani seems to think that I AM REX.

Stefani is hot for behind-the-scenes info about Rex's experiences playing "Dr Reynolds" in the Cher movie, "Mermaids."

My question: was that my Rex?

Posted by jghiii at 07:12 PM | Comments (1)

Freeze Punk!

Cartoon explaining all the ways the copyright laws have been extended beyond all common-sense. I got the link from David Isenberg's weblog, he got it via a few others.

Posted by jghiii at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)

BBS Documentary

Old friend Steve Garfield has been interviewed for an upcoming documentary on BBSs. Remember BBSs?

Posted by jghiii at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)

Fizzle

Although it was wet and rainy all day, the side-effects of Isabel on Northern New England, were negligible.


We got about 0.9 in of rain here in Southern New Hampshire, and I haven't heard of any wind or rain damage.

Above is a pic of the surf, yesterday around 6pm, at Wallis Sands Beach in Rye.

Posted by jghiii at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)

Don't bogart that mp3, man!

The Paid Content website summarized a recent New York Times piece this way: "File sharing is the pot smoking of today's young. If you expect lawsuits to stop it, don't hold your breath."

I've never heard that comparison before. Very interesting.

Posted by jghiii at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)

September 19, 2003

Survivor: Pearl Islands

Survivor 7 started last night. No who-was-voted-out spoilers here. As usual, the first episode of a new "season" is a bit of a jumble as we try to figure out who's who, and what's what.

The commercials over the past week had made a big thing about how they were gonna be made to walk the plank, earlier than expected, with just the "clothes on their backs".

That would have been pretty interesting... but they also gave them cash, and let them run wild in the local village, buying provisions.

That was OK too, cause it offered them a chance to start fighting with each other, early on, about what to buy.

But all-in-all it wasn't exactly "just the clothes on their backs". They ended at their camps with as much or more stuff than they've had in past seasons.

One foolish thing was how the tribes were very proud that they bought so much food in the village. This was actually pretty stupid. They're not hungry yet, and the food would never keep until they WERE hungry. They should have spent all the cash on tools and materials for shelter, food-prep, and hunting.

Posted by jghiii at 12:55 PM | Comments (4)

History Repeats

Just about a year ago I wrote, "The forecast is for a pretty big storm starting later today. Three different storm systems are gonna meet up and hit us hard..."

Then later that day, "Well, the storm was a big dud."

Is this starting to be that all over again?

Posted by jghiii at 10:23 AM | Comments (1)

Geek Alert

Here's a collection of comic strips and cartoons that make techy-nerd references. Thanks to the New Hampshire linux group mailing list.

Posted by jghiii at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2003

Yay!

Red Sox won tonight, and Seattle lost. So the Magic num is down to 8. Red Sox are 2.5 games ahead with 10 games to play.

Posted by jghiii at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

How to cover a storm

This page is intended for journalists looking for tips on how to cover extreme storms. I think it's pretty interesting. Al Tompkins, PoynterOnline...

Posted by jghiii at 10:28 AM | Comments (1)

Quiet weblog day

Blogging may be light here today as I'm gonna be on the road alot. Tomorrow the Isabel rain is supposed to hit us, so I plan to hunker down and do desk work. Assuming the power and intenet access stay on, I'll probably catch up on posting alot of things that I've got half done.

Posted by jghiii at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2003

Ten!

Red Sox won last night, and Seattle lost. The magic number is down to 10.

Posted by jghiii at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

Change your luck

Halley presents a summary from a new book called, "The Luck Factor: Changing Your Luck, Changing Your Life, The Four Essential Principles."

Posted by jghiii at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

Stormy weather

Beautiful day today. The forecast now is for the direct effects of Isabel to hit us here in Southern NH Friday and Saturday. Current forecast...

Posted by jghiii at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)

Suspicious

Reuters (via CNN.com): "Whether it's curled up in the fetal position, flat on the stomach or stretched out across the bed, the way people reveals their personality..."

Posted by jghiii at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2003

But who's counting

The Red Sox' Magic Number vs Seattle is now 12.

Posted by jghiii at 05:10 PM | Comments (1)

In the middle of nowhere, at the edge of tomorrow

The name Silicon Valley is, of course, known world-wide, but the valley's original name was Santa Clara Valley.

In the Mojave desert of California is Antelope Valley. It's the location of Edwards Air Force Base, and one of the coolest municipal airports in the country, Mojave Airport.

Antelope Valley also calls itself "Aerospace Valley", and they have applied to the FAA to be designated as a "spaceport".

Posted by jghiii at 11:43 AM | Comments (1)

I'm hoping one of my Mom friends will run with this.

Recipe for Silly Putty: "In 1943 James Wright, an engineer, was attempting to create a synthetic rubber. He was unable to achieve the properties he was looking for and put his creation (later to be called silly putty) on the shelf as a failure. A few years later, a salesman for the Dow Corning Corporation was using the putty to entertain some customers."

Posted by jghiii at 11:18 AM

I thought it was funny

Comic: Dead Air


[Thanks Begging to Differ]

Posted by jghiii at 10:19 AM | Comments (2)

Wet

According to an amateur weather station in the next town over, it's rained over 1.75 inches here since midnight. And this is not even Isabel.

Posted by jghiii at 07:56 AM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2003

I hope Britt doesn't read this.

Joi Ito's weblog: "Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

[Britt is my 13 year old niece who, like many her age, spells weird.]

Posted by jghiii at 10:48 AM | Comments (4)

Like John Madden

I was catching-up on old David Letteman shows last night and I saw the one with Whoopi Goldberg. She says she hasn't flown on the airlines for seven years. She has a bus that takes her around the country. 42 hours from NY to LA she said.

One appealing side-effect to travelling by ground, is all the places she likes to visit as she travels. Favorite restaurants, etc.

Posted by jghiii at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)

Looks like we're in for a blow.

Reuters: "Forecasters said the storm could strike the U.S. Atlantic Coast anywhere from South Carolina to Maine by Friday, though the most likely track would bring it barreling up the North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland shorelines."

Posted by jghiii at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2003

Changes

Regular readers will know that I'm a Board Member of the Prescott Park Arts Festival. This past week the longtime Executive Director resigned. Here's the Portsmouth Herald story, and the Foster's Democrat story.

Posted by jghiii at 06:42 AM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2003

Clueless

Micah Marshall from his weblog Talking Points Memo:

Department of Homeland Security: 36 billion dollars

Current Projected Cost of War-fighting and Reconstruction in Iraq: 241 billion dollars ...

Having a president who's got a friggin' clue: Priceless

Posted by jghiii at 10:41 AM | Comments (1)

Exotic, invasive plants

No one is saying that this is how the aquatic plants that we're fighting here at the lake work, but, very interesting. NYTimes:

...they have found spotted knapweed's deadly secret: a potent and previously unknown poison that it releases through its roots into the soil to kill off neighboring plants. By eliminating its neighbors, the weed can appropriate all the water and nutrients that the other plants would have taken, and it has plenty of new space to spread out in. More...

Posted by jghiii at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

Johnny Cash Too

Johnny Cash died yesterday too. It was a rough day all around. Story...

My dad has always been a big Johnny Cash fan.

Posted by jghiii at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)

John Ritter Dies

Just last night I was talking with my roommates about the TV show "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter." I was planning to post a link to a page that listed the actual rules. This morning I wake up to the news that Ritter collapsed on the set yesterday and died. Very sad, my condolences. Story...

BTW, the "8 Simple Rules" are from a book by Berkeley author W. Bruce Cameron. Apparently there was a popular book that inspired the TV show. Here are the rules.

Posted by jghiii at 10:28 AM

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

I'm a big fan of Garrison Keillor. From an article about him on CNN.com:

Keillor's radio show has become increasingly political, zinging Republicans and President Bush. While Bill Clinton's foibles provided much richer material, Keillor says, there's something about Bush "that's kind of smirky and kind of uncurious and proud of it."

"You get older, you feel a certain freedom that you wouldn't feel if you were in your 30s," Keillor says. "You'd be far more politic. You'd think, 'Well, now, you know, how is my dad going to feel about this? How is my boss at work going to feel about this?' And you get to a certain age, you don't think about that anymore." More...

Posted by jghiii at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2003

Some good news

Washington Post: "After eight years away from newspapers, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is creating a new comic strip called "Opus," starring his beloved penguin of the same name."

Posted by jghiii at 12:44 PM | Comments (1)

Never Forget

I've been debating what to post, or even whether to post anything at all, on this special day. Standard blog fare seems like it would trivialize it. So many important things could be talked about today.

Remembering those who were hurt or killed two years ago. Remembering the coming of age that the American people have experienced. Considering the horrifying way the Bush administration has used these circumstances to further frighten the people, and to advance their self-serving agendas.

It's a serious day, and we should not only memorialize the fallen, but consider what our culture, and our nation, is becoming since 9/11. Is this the America we want?

Do we want to live in Ashcroft's America? Sacrificing our civil rights, more and more every week, in the hope that we will feel safe, while constantly being reminded by the government -- which we expect to protect us -- that we are actually in more danger, and will be for the forseeable future, so we better behave.

Or do we want to live in Ben Franklin's America? "If you give up your freedom for security, you have neither."

Anyway. I think I'll remain silent here for a few more hours. And then we'll see.

Posted by jghiii at 11:00 AM | Comments (1)

September 10, 2003

One more.

I thought I had posted enough today, and that I should go do some real work. But this one last quote is too good.

Edward Cossette, Bambino's Curse weblog:

"This is the toughest time of the [baseball] season for me... Just as outside it is not quite summer but neither is it autumn, the Red Sox are in that period where they have all the importance of the postseason but it's not the postseason. Nor is it the giddy "just enjoy baseball for baseball's sake" mood I felt back in spring. It is the in between time."

Posted by jghiii at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)

A Somber Holiday

A year ago I wrote about the post trauma stress of the September 11 anniversary. It still applies.

Posted by jghiii at 12:27 PM | Comments (5)

Be careful out there.

Sherm, my friend who wants you to think he's a bad-ass, wrote this essay about coping with 9-11.

"I remember so much of that morning..."

Since I don't watch tv or listen to the radio and no one mentioned it on my bus ride from West Berkeley, I didn't find out until a student called me in my office and told me. I remember not believing him, and humoring him while I pulled up the Boston Globe's website to prove him wrong -- except he was right. The twin towers were gone and the Pentagon was burning. And somewhere in a field in Pennsylvania, we had new heroes to honor.

On that day I remember hugging a lot of people and I remember crying. And later on, after that day, I remember how everyone seemed kinder to each other. I remember how proud I was to work in Social Welfare after getting an email from a student. SW 102 was scheduled to meet on 9/11, and Prof Grossman cancelled the lecture and led a discussion -- letting students pour out the emotions that were overwhelming them. In the email student wrote me about how valuable and precious Prof Grossman's class was to her -- that the rest of her instructors just tried to ignore the horror and the tragedy, while her Social Welfare class addressed it and provided comfort and relief. That email became a way for me to define Social Welfare to those who seem confused about our major. Students and faculty in Social Welfare are the ones who hurt at the sight of the homeless, and the abused child, and lonely elderly -- but they don't turn their eyes away and pretend it isn't there. They focus on that sight and they help. They work to make it better -- both solving the immediate harm and also working to prevent anyone else from suffering from that harm.

Thursday might be tough for some of you. I know it will be tough for me. Remember to love each other, be nice to each other, and hug each other during the day. 

Posted by jghiii at 12:03 PM | Comments (1)

All Clear

By the way, you can stop stocking up canned goods. It's gonna miss us.

For now... [dramatic horror movie music]

Posted by jghiii at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

Say it ain't so!

Reuters: "Across southern California, the home of the belly-baring micro-tee popularized by pop diva Britney Spears and her teeny-bopper clones, the tiny tank top has given way to a long shirted, layered look invented by two 30-something pals."

[Thanks Al's Morning Meeting]

Posted by jghiii at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)

Formation Flight

That movie about the little girl who flew an ultralight airplane, to lead a flock of Canadian Geese on their migration, that movie has always bothered me.

Glorifying the idea of children doing dangerous things in airplanes has always been a bad idea. And Canadian Geese are right up there at the top of my list, with squirrels and mosquitos, of pest-animals that need to be eliminated.

But apprently they still do the ultralight thing every year, with whooping cranes, and hopefully, with adult pilots. More info...

I was pointed to this story by a site called Journey North, which I enjoyed last spring, and is apparently also about the Fall seasonal changes too.

Posted by jghiii at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2003

Water testing

Most of today has been taken up with managing the monthly water testing session. Each month, May through September, on the second Tuesday, a group of Lake residents get together to gather water samples from about 15 locations around the lake. These sample are taken to the NH State Dept. of Environmental Services Lab in Concord and tested. The results of these tests form a record going back 15 years now, of the condition of the lake and it's tributaries. This takes place at lakes all over the state. The program is called the Volunteer Lake Assessment Program. You can read alot more about the program at the NH DES website.

This spring Don R., who had been the volunteer manager of the program for our lake, decided he needed to step down. I took on the responsibilities. Before Don, the program was managed by Werner Sachs, and before that by my Dad.

Posted by jghiii at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2003

Red Sox Nation

Boston Globe:

Mike Flynn, from Roslindale, was one of the thousands of Red Sox fans who spent the weekend in the Bronx and for two giddy days helped transform the upper decks of Yankee Stadium into an outpost of the Nation. "I never thought I'd live to see the day," he said yesterday morning, "where I'd get to chant, `Yankees Suck' in Yankee Stadium."

Posted by jghiii at 05:08 PM | Comments (2)

Prescott Park Chili Fest

By the way, one of the things I'm working on these days is the annual Chili Festival presented by the Prescott Park Arts Festival. This year it's Saturday Oct 4. Mark the date. Gates open around 11am.

Posted by jghiii at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)

Good press

New York Times: "As Microsoft has been cast in the role of Goliath in the personal computing wars, Macintosh has been playing David. And right now the stone in its slingshot is music. Not only is the iPod the top digital music player in the field, but earlier this year Apple's iTunes Music Store became the first legitimate music downloading service viewed as a success in the business, with one million songs downloaded (at 99 cents each) in its first week." More ...

Posted by jghiii at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)

A rose by any other name. What's in a name?

Frank Paynter, Sand Hill Trek weblog: "Now that Uday & Qusay have been eliminated, a lot of the lesser-known family members are coming to the attention of American authorities." For example, Sooflay, the restauranteur; Ojay, the stalker/murderer; Gulay, the singer/entertainer. More...

Posted by jghiii at 04:59 AM | Comments (2)

September 07, 2003

I think I can, I think I can.

Edward Cossette, Bambino's Curse weblog: "Please don't let this be another instance of bringing us to the gates of paradise only to cast us away in the end."

Posted by jghiii at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

September 05, 2003

Shocking!

My mail software, Eudora, has this silly "spicy content" filter built in. It flags some messages with a little chili pepper symbol to warn me that it may contain racy words. It also highlights words in outgoing messages, I guess because I'm not smart enough to know when I might offend anyone.

Well, in a message I just wrote, it warned me that I might shock someone with the phrase "Don't rub it in." Sheesh!

Posted by jghiii at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)

Gephardt waiting in the wings?

Doc Searls quotes an interesting piece about Howard Dean, from an article by Katha Pollitt in The Nation. Take a look...

A good friend of mine, who is a passionate NH Democrat, still supports Gephardt. She says, and she could be right, that Gephardt knows he can't win NH vs the two "favorite sons", Dean and Kerry. She says Gephardt is biding his time, letting these two beat each other up. He plans to leverage a #3 showing in NH, with a proven national politics track record, and a long history of fundraising ability, and make his move after the NH primary.

I'm really liking Dean though.

Posted by jghiii at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

Happy Birthday

Today is my grandfather's birthday. Arthur Rouillard. My mother's father. He would have been 106. Sadly, he died when he was about 40.

Posted by jghiii at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

September 04, 2003

Crazy Day

Trying to get things done so I can head up to Maine tomorrow morning. Also, alot of excitement in another part of my life, more on that later.

Posted by jghiii at 01:18 PM | Comments (1)

September 03, 2003

Look!

This is where I'm going this weekend.


Posted by jghiii at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)

Manny Update

In case you haven't heard, in a thinly veiled punishment, Manny Ramirez was benched for last night's game against the White Sox. This is not Carl Everett's Red Sox any more. Read the Gordon Edes, Boston Globe story here...

Posted by jghiii at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

Arnold may have just lost the election.

AP Story: "Schwarzenegger planned to skip Wednesday's debate and instead deliver a speech to supporters and students at California State University in Long Beach... Schwarzenegger has agreed to participate in only one debate... for which questions will be provided ahead of time." More...

Posted by jghiii at 12:25 PM | Comments (1)

September 02, 2003

The Big One?

Reuters: "A giant asteroid is heading for Earth and could hit in 2014, U.S. astronomers have warned British space monitors... But for those fearing Armageddon, don't be alarmed -- the chances of a catastrophic collision are just one in 909,000."

Posted by jghiii at 01:45 PM | Comments (6)

Malingerer?

I haven't been a great Dan Shaughnessy fan recently, but this seems to represent what I've read and heard in other reports:

Red Sox management is good and steamed at the $160 million man [Manny Ramirez], and so are some of his teammates... It turns out that while Sox fans were agonizing over Saturday's crushing loss, Manny was hanging out with Yankees infielder Enrique Wilson. The fraternization itself is nothing unusual these days, but only Manny is bold enough to entertain an opposing player while he's supposed to be bed-ridden. And this after telling ESPN that he wants to play for the Yankees. [Entire Column]

For some time now it's occurred to me that Ramirez may not be the brightest bulb in the marquee. What is this guy thinking?

Posted by jghiii at 12:18 PM | Comments (1)

Something flaming liberal

Sherm writes: "if you're looking for something flaming liberal to post on monday, there is a nice commentary on labor day in newsletter #4"

Since Sherm's newsletters are not posted on the web anywhere (a REAL SHAME I've always said) I'm reprinting this particular item here.

Sherm writes: "if you're looking for something flaming liberal to post on monday, there is a nice commentary on labor day in newsletter #4"

Since Sherm's newsletters are not posted on the web anywhere (a REAL SHAME I've always said) I'm reprinting this particular item here.

Excerpt from:
The (UC Berkely) Social Welfare Undergraduate Newsletter

Fall 2003 Semester - Issue # 4 Sunday, August 31, 2003

3. Labor Day Commentary

But while you are all taking it easy on Labor Day, keep in mind the folks who do some of the toughest labor in this country. Prof Vu-Duc Vuong teaches a course on Immigration for the School of Social Welfare in the Spring and in the Summer. He sends the following message along to keep in mind on Monday:

Friends:
I don't have a press agent, so this will have to do:
This monday, Labor Day, yours truly will have a "Perspective" piece on
KQED-FM (88.5) in the Bay Area, and on KQEI-FM in the Sacto area.
All of 2 minutes to lift up the millions of international migrant workers
who help maintain our standard of living, send home remittances to keep
their families alive, and often keep the economies of their native countries afloat.

On KQED, it will be aired at 6:07 am, 7:37 am, and 11:37 pm in case you
can't . But better still, you can listen to it at any time on the web: KQED.com -- go to "Radio Programs" -- then to "Perspectives" . It will be archived as soon as it is broadcast.

Below is the full text, for your preview. It is shortened somewhat to fit
into the 2-minute slot. As someone once said: Workers of the World, Unite!
Peace,
Vu-Duc Vuong


PERSPECTIVES - LABOR DAY 2003
For KQED-FM (88.5) - 8/25/03

IN PRAISE OF THE MIGRANT WORKERS
By Vu-Duc Vuong


As we take a day off to honor labor in this country, let us pay special
tribute the migrant workers. The image of the "migrant worker" in this country is that of farm workers, from the Japanese and Filipinos in the 19th Century, to the "braceros" during World War II, all the way to Cesar Chavez and today's strawberry pickers. Our standard of living depends heavily on this army of kitchen helpers, janitors, maids, gardeners, roofers, cooks, hotel cleaners, and assorted food workers. The vast majority of these workers are brown and immigrant; and the majority of them, surprisingly, are women. But their impact reaches far beyond our cozy life. Today's migrant workers send a portion of their earnings home and keep their families housed, clothed, fed, educated and medicated. And in some cases, they virtually keep the economies of their native lands from collapsing. In 2002, Latin America received at least $32 billion in remittances from workers abroad, a sum that equaled all direct foreign investment in the region. Mexico's share alone was over $10 billion, more than what that country earned in tourism. In El Salvador, remittances made up 14% of the country's gross domestic product, while in Colombia they equaled half of the value of coffee exports.

In other parts of the world, tens of millions of workers seek jobs outside
their countries every year. Bangladesh sent out three million of its workers who in turn sent home over $2 billion in remittances.
The Philippines, with a population of about 85 million, sends 7 million of
its workers to find jobs elsewhere. Filipino maids ring the continent, from
Japan and Hong Kong to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; construction workers built much of the Middle East, including replacing thousand of Palestinian workers during this intifada, and now are ready to rebuild Iraq. And the list goes on: Indonesians in Malaysia, Bengali in Singapore,
Vietnamese in Eastern Europe, Sri Lankans in the Middle East, etc...
Their jobs vary, but they share fundamental dynamics: they are lonely,
their individual rights don't matter much, and there is little support or
protection from any governments, even their own. Yet each of them, on
average, supports from three to ten family members back home.

So, on this Labor Day, let's tip our hat to the millions of workers who are
unrecognized and unprotected, yet absolutely indispensable to the global
economy of the 21st Century.

Posted by jghiii at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)