The view from the window next to the trees displayed below. 

Another one of the original works of art on the wall towards which I never gave a second glance. It's amazing how much you can see with a camera that gets overlooked by the naked eye. 

These are the plates above the door from the main part of the house into the covered porch. I never gave them much of a glance until I edited this picture. Nice Plates.  

Mother Daughter Reunion 

Below Zero Last NIght

It was below zero last night. The ice fishermen are out on the river. I count four from this window.

They are keeping close to shore. It will probably take a few more nights below zero before the perminant village is installed. Because to temperature is going up during the week, the shacks out there now will be towed off.

To more days in the fridged north before we return to balmy Boston.

=30=

In the Maine Woods in December

How does howling winds, 10 degrees above zero, F., sound?

I am sitting at the computer on the enclosed porch overlooking the frozen river. The word 'cold' comes to mind. Not too cold, yet. Too cold is when you walk out to the shed to get wood for the stove and your eyeballs can't move because the tears have frozen, you can't breath through your mouth because your lips have frozen together, now THAT'S cold!

It's too early in the season for the ice fishermen to be out there.
It takes a few nights below zero for the ice to be hard enough for them to pull their little huts out onto the river ice with their snowmobiles.

They once used jeeps, the small WWII type of jeep not the monsterous SUV jeeps of today. I suppose before that horses were used. That would be long before my time.

There is snow predicted for the drive back through Boston on Wednesday, but we'll have snow tires on the car. This will hopefully make the drive a tad easier,

Ah, Maine in Winter, what fun...

=30=

No one should drive in this weather

Okay, that was too scary for words.

We drove north from Quincy after a family gathering,
through Boston on Rte. 1 and then onto 95 North.

The interstate had not been plowed or sanded. Our
packed minivan was going all over the road.
There was no place to get off the interstate where
we wouldn't end up on a sideless farm road, so
we braved the road until we got to middle
Newburyport.

By then, the nerves were shaken and the windshield wipers
frozen. We were able to pull over at a Mobil station.
There we shook off the nerves and the windshield wipers.

It wasn't that far to New Hampshire, where fellow motorists
met at the station, told us the roads were passable.

My kudos to the New Hampshire and the Maine road crews.
A Bronx Cheer to the Massachusetts crews. The roads sucked
to the point of being dangerous. I just hope they weren't all
nice and warm watching the Patriots trounce the Jets.
=30=

London Underground Tube Blog

How Stuff Works

How a blog works

It's been a long time since I last mentioned the website I can only call "neat."
The site is How Stuff Works. If you've ever had a question regarding the basic
inner workings of just about anything, this is a good site to visit.

My favorite entry so far, and I know this will be a surprise to you, is the one
entitled How Blogs Work

It doesn't go into great detail but just enough to let you know what it is we're
dealing with here. It also talks you through signing up for a blogger.com
weblog, such as this one. The next section is a simplistic explanation of
the Blogophere. At least it tells you it exists and in very general terms
what it is from one point of view.

The entry on blogs mentions the Forbes Best Blogs page. That's worth a visit
as well, if you have an hour or so to kill and a good understanding on
how to load bookmarks in your browser.

I hope your holiday is going well.

=30=

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

If Christmas is the holiday your people use
to celebrate the rebirth of the sun,
now that days are getting longer,
I wish you the merriest of times.

=30=

GMail invitations.

I remember scrounging around for my GMail invitation not so long ago.

Now I have five of them just sitting there with no one asking for them. If
you would like one, just leave a comment to this blog and I would be glad to
send one to you.

=30=

Christmas Even on Shadowbrook...Desert Time!!!

w::bloggar is sending up duplicates

w::bloggar, the blog interface I use to upload messages directly from my desktop to Blogger has take on a new feature.

In the previous version, when you backloaded a previously published blog for editing, and you republished it, it replaced the edited version.

In this version of w::bloggar, 4.00.181, to place the corrected blog back in its prior location, you click on the "Post" icon and not the "Post & Publish."

When I reviewed the blog this morning and found similar duplications to the one found on Leo Laporte's blog, I was able to delete them using the online Blogger interface. Good thing it was there; it makes maintaining the blog so easy.

=30=

This site is copyrighted by JDK Communication

Though all I write is owned by JDK Communications, I found the
Creative Commons Licence displayed below to be of some interest.
There were no sites listed in the United States, but the link was
facinating.
=30=

Creative Commons Licence

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

Tomorrow and the day after is for Family...

I spent a good deal of time on the home laptop today.

For the next two days, I will come in here sparingly.

Happy Holidays!!

=30=

I jumped ship, but the siren calls

It didn't take long for me to jump from the Opera ship and onto the ocean liner that has become Firefox. The kick is now Opera is releasing a beta version to be called Opera 8. The oddest thing I have read about it so far is the voice recognition software. It will be imbedded in the structure. I could see this as a plug-in for those in need of such a feature, but why weigh the software down? The feature that took me away from Opera was the open ended email. Not the sort to check mail boxes to see if the mail has gone down, or even to read the ingredient list on fast food, I was still wondering what email I missed trusting to its style of delivery. Thunderbird has a similiar One Inbox feature for all the types of mail you have delivered, but inside the workings of the machine, you still set up how each mail box is treated. It also sets the filters up for so easily, I don't even think twice about setting a filter for a message that will probably be the only one from that particular source. Then there is Sunbird. It's a calendar, a PIM of sorts. I have played with it, it works, but then so do the other dozen or so PIM's I have tried down the years. A database is pretty much a database. The three I use at the moment are Locust Notes at work, Palm Desktop at work and on my palm and Time and Chaos on my laptop. I have been using Time and Chaos since it had a DOS interface. The amount of information I have put into that program is personally staggering. It has a Palm interface, but I don't think I want half of what I have in Time and Chaos to fill all the memory. This also gives me a chance to keep work somewhat at work and my personal information seperate. The Palm is the bridge. I don't know how I lived before it existed. This has become the time of year for lists of best blog sites. I won't bore you with my opinions, in general. The one I am having the most fun with right now is flickr.com. Like toys at christmas, we'll see how long it lasts. To those for whom it means something, Merry Christmas. =30=

Our electrician on a coffee break...This is a wacky town in which we live...

=31=
 

Our local UU Church is having three services tomorrow. The first is at 4:30, the second is somewhere around nine. The Midnight service will start at 11.
this is a little different from last year. A new minister likes to put his touch on the way things are run.
That's a good thing. I suppose.

=31= 

Number two: 

Ever the one to try something new, I took advantage of TypePad's free 30 day offer to try their on-line interface for blog creation. It was interesting, had some nice features, but was no more interesting than, say boog-city or the venerable blogger.com.
Here are snap shots of the two pages I created there. The offer expires today, and I don't plan to continue with the paid service.
=30= 

Sufism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sufism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Weather Report

Though I know of none, I am sure there is a superstition somehwere
about it snowing on the first day of Winter. It probably has something
to do with locust, China and the grand state of Utah, home of our
Governor's family.

You may be surprised to find me making an entry early on a Monday
morning. Be not so startled. I am teaching a class this evening at
1800. Ergo, I don't need to be in the office before 1400.

I took Friday off and here it is Monday and I am still not at work.
It kinda, sorta, almost feels like a four day weekend. I am sure
it won't feel that way when, tomorrow morning, I have to get up
at five to make it into work on time.

The good news there is there will be only one more day after that
before I go on vacation.

Real Vacation, with a capital V. Then I don't return to work until
the first Monday of the New Year. That is assuming the job is
still there.

Not too , supersticios am I?
=30=

Aimie's Black Poodles

---

=30=

Aimie's Mother and Aunts

The older photograph is of Aime's mother and aunts.  If  the
second photo posted along with the first it is of Amie's two
black full sized black poodles. 

The brown one was sitting next to me on the back porch.

=30=

The entry below this one was the Flickr Zeitgeist

One day, if I think there are enough interesting photos to upload to Flickr, I may install the Zeitgeist into the upper right hand corner of this blog. For now, I think I will experiment a little more with the beta version of the service.

The price for the pro version, almost $50.00 is a tad steep for one who would give it frivolous use. That and the Hello! part of Picasa offers so much more as to the management of the photos themselves. Combined, and if the upload by email feature ever works, perhaps then I would consider subscribing.



=30=

A washed photo of The Monument

A washed photo of The Monument,
uploaded by sgtret.

This is a test of the Flickr online photo log's ability to upload photos to my blog.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

In case you were wondering with what camera I am taking the previously posted photos,
It is the Olympus Stylus 410 4MP Digital Camera . It replaced my Olympus film camera that
went with me to Africa, stayed behind and came home a week or two later intact.

It's a ridiculously easy camera to use. Combine it with the SanDisk SecureMate USB Card Reader
to my laptop, and you're off and running.

The Camera does come with a cable that attaches directly to the
laptop, but I found the downloading of pictures drains the battery quickly.

There is nothing worse, photographically, than running out with a dead battery. It's very
frustrating to have the digital advantage of 372 shots but not the power to take them. I am
considering getting the solar powered back pack I saw in a recent Engadget entry.

Whether that's before or after I get the I don't know.
=30=

The orange cat below has a name.

His name is Mowgli, after the boy in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books

He is originally from Florida. He came to our house because of a child's
allergy in his first home. Unlike our other cat, Beamer, Mowgli is pure
house cat. Beamer is more the outdoors type. Moge, as we call him has
the pure New Yorker's attitude of the great outdoors being the space between
the end of the awning and the taxi.
=30=

This man was one of my childhood heroes. Here he is demonstrating how a certain gesture can be modified by leaving the fingers open. My favorite quote from him has to the with the expulsion of fire rectally to save matches. He's a wonder of wonders to know. Do you know who he is? Think Paul O'Dwyer and Sarah Kovner.... 

I like to think of this blog as the diary of person into not just the blogging itsef, but the method and use of the blogging software and associated paraphenalia. An example of this is the Picasa and its related Hello! plug in for sending photos to Blogger. The photo above is a screen capture shot of sharing photo session using Picasa. 

In a recent article Mr. Dvorak stated emphatically that there were two kinds of blogs. Tech and Personal, aka diary types. 

Picasa

Download it for free here! This is an amazing bit of software free from Google.
They must be making money on it somewhere, but so far it hasn't come directly
out of my pocket.

Picasa's first use for me is to easily upload photos to the Blogger Account. This
is a Blogger Account.

The second use, one for which I thought I had little use until friends and family
picked up on it, is the instant sharing of pictures.

Simply said: I like it.

=30=

Have I mentioned the jury notice?

In Massachusetts, all able body adults are required to report for jury duty
every three years. When they say "all," they are not kidding.

This includes others who are automatically excluded in other states, lawyers,
judges, politicians, police, Indian chiefs and candlestick makers.

The jury notice sitting on my desk tells me I am to report to a certain court
at a certain time and that there is no choice.

The good part is the one trial-one day rule. You report for one day. If you are
not selected for a trial, you are forgiven for the next three years. If you are
chosen for a trial, and the trial goes one day, again, you are forgiven for three
years.

However, if you are chosen for a trial and the trial goes on for weeks and weeks,
you must stay for the entire trial. It's a crap shoot.

Life's pretty much a crap shoot as well. It should apply to our trial system.

Such is Justice in New England.

=30=

The first blog every I read...

...was the one put up by Neil Gaiman.
I picked up a copy of his Neverwhere and fell totally in love with his writing style.

Much like my experience with Gurdjieff, I wondered if he had written anything else.

When I googled him, it somewhat amazed me that there was already a small
cult following. Every time I think I've found something new and cool,
it always happens that a million people have beat me to it.



This started as a comment on Neil Gaiman's blog and turned into a walk down memory lane.

The point I intended to make is that producing a blog similar in intensity to Neil Gaiman's
has been my goal. There were two or three paragraphs of excuses running through my head
which almost were written, but all of them boil down to lack of commitment to the trade.

There is SO much writing in so many forms these days, that to be a Writer is no longer clearly defined,
but seems to be a needed profession in much the same way the farmer or hunter was not that long ago.

With my over a half of century of experiences behind me, the noble thing to do would be to write about
the more interesting parts, meaning the parts that happened in the first 32 years, before I was put on hold
by a date with the front of a truck.

Before that date, I wrote poetry, sculpted and went to every museum and library within fiscal reach.

After the date, I found solace in just waking up alive every day.

The desire for adventure of any sort was almost cut out of me.

Near Death for the fifth or sixth time should be a lesson to the smartest of the few
who make it past the last time. For me the fear of being timid far exceeds the fear
of dying. Make sense out of that and I will spend time on your couch saying confession.

Enough baring of the soul.

=30=

Though I am very tired, I had to finish...

... installing the Openoffice.
I was told it's HTML editor was a great place to writer a blog before
transferring it to w::bloggar.com
or Thingamablog.

So far it seems to be working out for the
best. We'll see how true this
is when we save it in HTML form
and see if it translates at all to the blog

=30=

Live Radio Net

Of all the radio guides I've seen on the Internet, the link above
will take you to the best I've found yet.

=30=

A witticism

A witticism spontaniously erupted from my boss during a
budget discussion. He said, "...we have to learn how to polish
the apple without paying for the cloth."

Having read many books containing endless bon mots and
have never heard that phrase used before. Kudos to the boss.

=30=

Amy's New York Notebook

Amy's New York Notebook is worth a visit
for anyone who has ever lived in New York.

Reading this blog is like having an old neighbor stop
at your house on the way somewhere else just to have
a cup of coffee and shoot the breeze about
what's happening in your old neighborhood.
=30=

Amy's New York Notebook

Amy's New York Notebook is worth a visit
for anyone who has ever lived in New York.

Reading this blog is like having an old neighbor stop
at your house on the way somewhere else just to have
a cup of coffee and shoot the breeze about
what's happening in your old neighborhood.
=30=

The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes

The Link

Everyday Matters!

Everyday Matters.

Now that Boogie Street is on hiatus, I have added another artist's blog to my list of To Read blogs.
Its called Everyday Matters.

I hope you all go there for a visit and enjoy this wide open free spirited artist as he shares
his work with the world.

I wont make the mistake again of reproducing the work here.

You'll just have to go over the Everyday Matters and see for your self.
=30=

Citizen Reporters

MSNBC news is taking advantage of the blogging faze to sign up Citizen Reporters.
It appears to be little more than an extended letters to the editor section.

It does bear reading, if for no reason than to gauge what the people believe to be important news.

When I say the people this mean those people who have the ways and means of getting online to express their opinion of what qualifies as news. This makes them no different than most bloggers, but does give them the legitimacy of coming from a recognized news agency.
=30=

Chocolate getting a bum rap agian?

Just when I thought chocolate was really the miracle food I always thought it should be, ABC News, in an article, goes on to tell me it may not be.

In the tradition of news of late, it continues to say it just might be.

A Dr. Katz is quoted as saying: "It's probably the richest source of flavanoids in our diet," Of course this is assuming that the scientific announcement that a flavanoid is good for your. To me it sounds like a body part that should be removed if it becomes swollen.

The conclusion of the article states it is, in moderation, an indulgence that may have health benefits. Sounds like a resounding endorsement to me.
=30=

Wouldn't want to miss a Saturday

Quick entry to be changed later

=30=

My Next Car!!

A bright and sunny Sunday

With the cat on the roof, not hot, not tin
but tile and very cold, I sit and muse.

Musing can be a very dangerous thing.
It means there is nothing of any great worth
to do, or ponder, or regret.

Musing, I believe is more of an Europian
practice. With musing they came up with
things like World Wars I and II.

Then there's Communism, The Catholic
Church and all of its puppies. Most of
these things were the result of having
enough free time on your hands to muse.

You can argue that the Christian faith
started in the Middle East. True enough.
It wasn't until it got to Rome on the back
Paul, as in "blinded by the light" Paul, and
was picked up as hobby by the emperor
Constantine, that it took off.

It took off, the books tell us, because
Constantine was looking up towards the
sky, as in musing, and saw a cross form
in the clouds. What would the world be
like today if he saw a clown or a duckie?

Yes, this musing can be a very dangerous thing.

=30=

Watch out Blogger!

There is a new blog host in town.
It's called MSN Space and it wants us all to leave this
Google based Blogger and run right over to a new
attempt by Microsoft to own the world of computing.

Did I succumb?

Of course I did. I created a blog there called, of course,
Random Space.

=30=

Stretching the limit

When we look for new ways to make a blog entry stand out,
using this drop-cap method is one of them.
Though, as a child the drop cap did confuse me into thinking
all of the words to the right of it began with that letter.
It was used in earlier manuscripts as an illustrative tool.
I think it's much sublter than constantly using the thumbnail
photo method. After a while, too many photos on a page can be
distracting and take away from the topic on hand.

If you have any questions as to how this is done, merely look to the
source of this blog. It will have the coding in it. Look for coding
that begins with "float" and ends with "2px;"
=30=

What does a Saturday off feel like?

I'll let you know.

It has been a month and one half since I have had a Saturday fully off.
I have either worked, attended a work related class or was "on call" every
Saturday since the beginning of October.

I think, if I can, I will sleep past seven a.m. this coming morning.

What a luxury!

=30=   

There are two programs I use all of the time

The first is RoboForm.
--
In Opera there is little need for it but,
when using any other browser, such as my new favorite Firefox,
RoboForm is a must. The good side is it just doesn't remember
passwords, it acts much like the information right click in Opera.
You can store whatever information you want in a password protected
file. It's good stuff, get it.


------------------------------
The other is Snagit.
--
Many of the images I use in this and in other weblogs,
especially the graphic titles, I create in one program, and then grab the
image in what I know will be a perfect size for screen display with Snagit.


------------------------------
For neither of the above programs do I get a dime for these recommendations.

=30=

Peas are predicted for New England

There is a decided sluggishness in the people as they continue to digest
Thursday's dinner and Friday, Saturday and today's leftovers.

Tomorrow the return to work before the sun rises and the ride home
with the sun near or past the evening's horizon brings no hope.
We all will now either dread or look forward to the coming
"Holiday" season.

Using a sports metaphor, we have passed through the playoffs in
November, with a bye for the first week in December. Then it's
daily practice until the last week...

Then we celebrate surviving the year and start all over again.

It's all a wheel, a circle, a bubble.
Out boats float, they sink and then rot in the mud.

Ain't life grand!
=30=

Just when we think we've got problems...

We read about the poor Prince Ernst August of Hanover.
He is married to Princess Caroline of Monoco and is
cousin to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

It would seem when he drinks, according to the
German courts, he likes to smack or kick people.

This is an unfortunate trait, especially for the
people he smacks and kicks.

How would you like to be the fly on the wall at his
AA meetings, "My name is Ernst August and I am
an alcoholic!"

So much for anonymous.

=30=

The Family over for Thanksgiving feast. Before the meal is served... 

If you are wondering

Where some of the graphic links I load on these
blogs originate, click on the graphic below:



=30=

... 

The Sunday before Thanksgiving

This should be called Planning Sunday.

Shopping lists, guest lists, list lists, all for one day of eating more that we
should of a meat and its trimmings unique to these shores.

Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays left that haven't been switched to
Monday. I half expect it to be switched at least to Friday someday soon.

You know the people who have Thursday off will have Friday off by default.

Those that don't will be so full of Turkey and its attached feel good natural
drugs, their work will be compromised and the mistakes will cost millions.

Have I been in the "Corporate World" too long?

=30=

Every once in a while I like to post this bugger so that something is moving on this blog.

This is a rare Saturday where I have little business.
All of October and last Saturday were consumed in the Not for Profit thing I call my job.

Did I mention Payroll screwed up my direct deposit?

How easily we come to depend on the things we have allowed computers to do automatically.

How upset we become when a glitch, and the world is full of them, throws our newly ordered,
automatic lifestyle into momentary chaos.

As a child I had the rare privilege of being allowed to stand and watch the other side of the Automat wall.

From the front, freshly prepared food miraculously appeared behind the glass doors with the bronze handles.

A few nickels in the slot, a pull of the ornate handle and the door opened, the food was yours.

If you turned around and looked through the glass a moment later, there would be something
new in the box.

On the other side of the wall were dozens of workers. Some cooking, some baking, cutting,
cleaning and just placing the fine china plates in the hole.

The plates were white china, the silverware, heavy stainless steel. You drank from glasses
made of glass and heavy coffee mugs. All the comforts of home.

I miss the Automats...

=30=

Did you ever leave a blog out there...

...to fend for itself?

I did that on Father's Day of this year. I had set up a bloger at the
Lycos Live Journal site called Other Grazing.
---
My blog editors were having trouble with the Lycos site and it was too cumbersome
to go to each time I wanted to make a mark.
---
Now the new ::w. bloggar software has taken care of that and allowed simple entries
to be posted simply

Thought I'd let you know.

=30=

::w.bloggar 4.00 RC 2

The latest Release Candidate for ::w.bloggar is out.

This blog entry is being sent using the newest version. I haven't delved into its finer points.
I just wanted to see if its basic function of posting a blog was still intact.



=30=

I don't know if I will ever drive again...

Of course I will, can't work without commuting.

It's just that yesterday I was within two car-lengths
of three accidents, one very severe, one a front-end
crushing hit from behind and the other a temper-
flaring fender bender.

We all know there are many accidents out there.
When you put normally sedentary people in control
of several tons of steel that travels a mile in a minute
or less, with all of today's distractions, they're going to
bump into each other; into trees, poles, walls and baby
carriages. Don't forget fruit stands. In the movies and
on TV, there always seems to be a fruit stand in the
way of a vehicle or foot chase.

I'm not looking for a solution. I just don't think I'll drive
today or tomorrow...

Or shop for fruit. Why tempt fate?

=30=

political note

One more political note: How would you feel if the Blue states joined
with Canada and let the Red states fend for themselves? Of course,
we'd have to take Florida by force because of large number of retired
Blue staters that live there.

it's snowing

When I was a few decades younger, "It's snowing!" would always have
an exclamation mark at the end.
Now I am over 50 and living in New England.
It's Snowing is about as exciting as saying the grass is growing.
Think I need a vacation?
---
Vacations were invented by people who live in the
northern half of the Temperate Zone so they could,
on occasion,
visit the southern half.

Peace.

=30=

Checking another blog poster

Qumana, the title comes after the composition. This is Qumana. It's a tad confusing.

Something of meaning...

As I go through each day, fleeting moments of clarity occur.  Had I not been on the watch for them, each moment
would seem pretty much the same.  When you learn the difference between the natural dream state, the point somewhere
just a second or so after real time, and the closest thing to real time we are capable of seeing, these moments of clarity,
when the come, the contrast is startling.

What is even more startling, is the rapidity some days, or the total lack of one for months.  There is a reason for this.  There
is always a reason.  For every action there is a cause and an effect.  Action=Reaction, etc.  This is all reason is. 

La illah, il el allah!  Hoo!
There is nothing but what there is.

Get it?

=30=

Trying Blog Weaver

I downloaded and installed BlogWeaver from Snapfiles.com
It isn't quite the independant interface with Blogger that ::boggar is.

Let's see how it looks online...
=30=

Temporary sanity

The thing that proves I haven't fallen completely
under the spell of the local sports nuts is that this
is Monday.

Monday Night Football.

I honestly don't care which teams are playing tonight

I know it isn't the Red Sox.

I know it's not the New England Patriots.

It's a day off from New England Sports.

A day of temporary sanity.
=30=

Infectioue enthusiasm

As was mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I have never
had much of an interest in sports. I have mocked people
in Florida, watching their obsessed behavior regarding
their college football.

Now here I sit, on a Sunday in New England.
Today is the second day of the World Series.
Boston is up one game,
but...
Today is also the day The New England Patriots
will play the New Jersey Jets.

This is football.

The Jersey Jets are 5-0
The Patriots are 5-0

When this game is over, one team will be 5-1 and
the other will be 6-0.

Buy that's not all.

The Patriots have gone 20 games since last season without
losing...

Talk about pressure!!!
=30=

A clear demonstration

Game seven of the ALCS was a clear demonstration of the maxim
that just because a thing had never been done before, that it can
never happen.

I honestly think it was the belief of the Yankees that because they
had four tries to win, one of those times, even up to the last,
would HAVE to be the game they won.

And then the put Brown, 0 & 5 at home on the mound.

What where they thinking?

Anyway, here's to you Red Sox. I hope you didn't shoot your
bolt and can beat the dreaded National League in the
World Series.
=30=

Oh, boo hoo

The Yankees lost in 12 innings last night.
Some may think they lost because of something
to do with pitching, fielding, hitting, or the lack
thereof.

Nope.

They lost because I went to bed in the bottom
of The Ninth, with the score tied 4-4.

It took another 3 innings for the sox
to win.

Tonight, I will be at a meeting in Town Hall
for the first few hours of the game.
I hope The Yankees can hold on long
enough for me to get home.

No matter what the wife says,
The World really does revolve around
me, in October, during the playoffs,
if
The Yankees are in contention.

Otherwise, in the words of the Simon
who is not the senator, I am no
more than the sand in an old man's cuff.
=30=

Base Servers Being Maintained.

If there are photos or links not working on this blog
it is because we are doing maintenance on our main
server.

This will take most of Sunday-10/17/04 but should
be finished by Monday 10/18/04.

I hope, I hope, I hope....

=30=

From whence came this interest in sports?

As a feral youth on the dirty streets of New York,
I can't say a deep knowledge of sports statistics was high
on my list of thing one needs to know to survive.

But that was New York, home of The New York Yankees.

We won, we won, we won, oh dear, we lost, oh well, we won, we won...

To tell you the truth, and the people of Boston may have difficultly understanding this:

It gets boring to win all of the time.

Boring and an accepted fact of living. The Yankees win, next....

But now I am in Boston. It is a religion here. No joke.

If you don't have a long list of reasonsThe Yankees won,
other than they are a well run professional baseball team,
then you may as well exclude yourself from all social
contact during the baseball season.

There's more. The New England Patriots.

They play in Foxboro, but as far as the people in Boston are concerned,
they are a Boston team.
This could be because they are winning, so far.

Will the feral youth of Boston one day say,
"The Patriots, they win, they win, they win...ho, hum?"

I doubt it.

There is always baseball.

=30=

Let's just say...

The Yankees didn't lose last night.

The night before, I was feeling sorry for fathers and sons, sitting there in the rain, hoping against hope for the rain to go away. If it had, and the game turned out the way it did last night, perhaps they would have wished for the rain to continue.

To put a spin on this, last night was game five. The ALCS is The Yankees 3, one tie, (0-0). I know this isn't real, but a good spin now and then makes you dizzy and the people of Boston need to feel a little dizzy right now.

We stayed up, somewhat, to watch the entire game. I saw something I never thought I would. Behind home plate, where you usually see the well dressed people talking on their cell phone, I saw young fans wearing Yankee related sportswear. The Red Sox Fans had left the building, even though their mighty team had scored 8 runs and the game was yet to be decided.

What does that tell you about the Red Sox fans?

19-8 Yankees.
Series: Yankees3 -- Red Sox 0

=30=

Rain! Rain!

Rain 1
Fans 0

=30=

Once again

With feeling. You could have skipped innings 3,4,5,6 and 7. But in good American Baseball tradition, it was a clift hanger. But, as I mentioned last night, The Yankees won.

Again..

Now, don't get cocky.

=30=

Yankees Won!

In case you didn't already know this, The Yankees won the first game.
=30=

Belltower and Home Grazing

In my most recent Home Grazing entry, I mention finding a cd of the Pavarotti concert in June, 1981. It was in San Francisco. My dear friends Joe and Guin Miller had invited me to attend it with them.

For reasons long lost, I needed to be in New York and could not attend. I was browsing through my "spiritual" books and came across, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. In it was a note from Guin. She mentioned they were sorry I couldn't attend the concert with them.

Out of curiosity, I went to Google to see if there was anything about the concert and found a CD for sale at Amazon of just that concert. I need to get that CD. If for nothing else to see if I can hear Joe's distinctive laugh coming from the audience.

=30=

Nature as I love it. 
=30=