Musings and Meanderings

Memorial Day Nice quiet Memorial Day. Heard from MW, went to a nice get together at the Farrells. Here are a couple of pictures Sue and Liza Liam and Ed Connor was the grill meister and did a great job. And Alex and Tyler swam

Too much Too fast I got the chance to have a nice LONG talk with Prjt2501 and Mordacai driving across VT. I think we must have talked for an hour. It's always great catching up with old friends and NearFest is really just around the corner! Anyway while talking to Bill, I got a call on the cell from Liza when I was driving somewhere outside of Bennington I think that Alex was invited to a sleepover at Tyler's house. Now Alex had some behavioral problems this weekend but this was partly due to him not liking/eating what was served to him until Lunch on Sunday...... ...... when he ate like 8 huge chicken tenders at the Keene Country Club. Also it was due to lack of sleep. Alex more than any kid I know is a complete pill if he doesn't get the right amount of sleep. Lunch Sunday at the Keene Country Club Counterclockwise from the left: Laurie, Alex, Allie, The Rev Samir, Kathy and Harry. (Just a quick side note for those that don't know my compli...

La famille de NH From Left to Right The Rev Samir, Harry, Alex, Laurie, Allie and Kathy. Missing this weekend Liza, Jon and Forrest. We played a lot of croquette this weekend. :-)

Posting from NH Drove out to NH today from NY to see Dad and Kathy. Alex and I took the scenic route, NY Rte 7 to VT Rte 9 to NH Rte 9, which is actually all the same long piece of asphalt. It was rainy and beautiful through VT and NY and NH, not in that order of course. It took about 2 hrs 20 with two stops. To think my Dad is only 90 miles away from me is quite a cool thing, considering that he's been in either GA or Switzerland for the last 10 yrs or so. We went to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant in Keene and I had two Margaritas, and some amazing Chicken Enchilada's. Alex's behavior was rather atrocious. But what can ya do with a 10 yr old surrounded by adults. My sister and her kids are coming out tomorrow so we will stay till Sunday AM. Dad and I watched the DVD of Master and Commander tonight. WOW this is a fantastic Movie. I heartily recommend it, though there are some gory parts during the battles and surgery, so it's not a "family" ...

Radio Rant In the old days, when a product or service made by one company or industry, began to loose market share to a newer or better product or service, that company or industry would design a better product or service or go out of business. But not today! Not in an America where Big Business practically owns the White House. Not in a day when Clear Channel contributes so much to the Republican Party. Specifically I am referring to the fact that The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the organization that represents the large radio and television owners, is using its lobbyists, campaign contributions and political influence to have Congress and the Federal Communications Commission limit XM Radio's ability to provide listeners with "locally oriented" content, including the new XM Instant Traffic & Weather channels and Sirius' just signed deal with the NFL to offer regionalized football coverage. The broadcasters feel threatened by the su...

Startling Musical Revelation This of course will not come as a surprise to many of my prog head friends, especially the fabulous prjt2501 (who theoretically reads this blog, as I read his). In fact this should not come as a surprise to me either, but it did. I'm referring to King Crimson. Now I've always loved their first Album, In the court of the Crimson King. But I got one of the later albums a long while ago and it didn't work for me, so I've stayed away from the stuff that followed. Foolish me. Today I was able to listen all day to King Crimson, from In the Court all the way to Red. WOW. I guess a bit of maturity does a lot for musical appreciation. This is not tap your toes, catchy music by any means. It is demanding to some extent, and a bit dissonant on some tracks. But the fusion of avant guard and jazz is just brilliant. I should have expected nothing less from Robert Fripp. KC has had three "periods". The first 8 studio ...

Das Hausfrau Cleaned the house today. I mean I CLEANED the house (ok the first floor and the stairs only). Per Room, as applicable... Cleaned Straightened Dusted Re-Organized Vacuumed "Swiffered" Mopped. In order: Living Room, Dining Room, Entry Way, Front Stairs, Kitchen, Sunroom, Back Stairs, Bathroom. Now I'm in Pain. PAIN..... Here Mike have some cheese with that... Anyway thank god for Tylenol and Advil! But the House is clean. I wanted to do something nice for Liza to come home to from her "over night". And though she bought it, I cooked a 6 lb roaster, baked potatoes and salad. Ok I didn't cook the salad, I just opened a bag... So as I said... Das Hausfrau.

Well the Cast is set now With the casting of Billie Piper , the New Dr. Who cast is now set. Christopher Eccelston will be playing the Dr. Pictures are here with the accompanying article. The executive producer for the New Dr. Who will be a Paul Cornell. Pauls credits include some of the better Dr. Who novels during the television hiatus. Since then he has gone on to write and produce such critically acclaimed shows as Queer as Folk. The show is set to air in 2005 in the UK. No news has been released as to North American or Australian distribution rights. Most Dr. Who fans like myself have had their new Dr. Who fix satisfied by the BBC novel range following the adventures of the "Eighth Doctor", whose mannerisms and looks are modeled after Paul McGann who played him in the "TV Movie" that was on Fox in 1996. These novels have ranged from good to bloody excellent, but due to the oncomming "Ninth" Doctor will be ended in favor of ...

Some musical notes Groan.... I have dialed down my trading dramatically over the last 6 months or so. Frankly I have many more shows than I could ever listen to, and just adding more and more shows seems counter productive and it's getting hard to find room for them all. However I have participated in a few cool trades and trees. The biggest of which is an very good recording of the first leg of the new Yes tour, this show from San Diego. They are playing a few new songs and sounding fantastic. One of the things I have recieved back from the people I participated in the Yes tree is a recording of the new Bowie tour, the second show from this tour I have recieved in fact. On another front a friend of mine in the UK is remastering the Wall tour shows and I finally got the complete Manhattan shows. These were the dates that Pink Floyd did after the LA shows in 1980 (I was at the final LA show). It's cool hearing the different bits put in and out of the show, but...

AP – 5/21/04 Republicans replace Elephant as symbol with the Ignoramus Americanus. By the late 90's scientists were very worried that this rare breed had nearly been educated to extinction. But the Republican National Committee, in celebration of four years of hard work bringing this creature back from the brink of extinction, has announced it is getting rid of the Elephant and exchanging it for the Ignoramus Americanus, or more jocularly known as the "Idiot". This creature can be identified by several characteristics. The Ignoramus Americanus exhibits herd mentality faithfully following their lead or Alpha. This can be a male or female Ignoramus. When threatened with reality or facts they exhibit a closing of the ranks, not unlike the Turkey when threatened with rain, so as not to let any outside thoughts ruin their beautiful but imaginary mental landscape. When these facts become so obvious to the rest of the Nation the Ignoramus Americanus begins to use...

What a Tool Did you hear about this one? An exchange occurred between Speaker of the House Hastert and a Reporter earlier today which started when a reporter asked: "Can I combine a two issues, Iraq and taxes? I heard a speech from John McCain the other day..." Hastert: "Who?" Reporter: "John McCain." Hastert: "Where's he from?" Reporter: "He's a Republican from Arizona." Hastert: "A Republican?" Thus showing Speaker Hastert to being the sad little (ok he's large) man that so many suspect him to be, and a complete tool of the Bush Administration. Well lets learn a bit about Sen McCain and Speaker Hastert. According to their rough biographies, while Sen McCain was serving his country vigorously in Vietnam, Sen Hastert was a..... .... wait for it..... Wrestling coach. The Speaker has lived this rather pleasant life: Born on January 2, 1942, Hastert is a 1964 graduate of Wheaton...

The anti-Coulter From time to time I tune into Ann Coulter's ranting and raving for a good laugh. Yahoo is kind enough to host her wacky blathering so it's easy to find. However for a good laugh tune in here. Crazy Like a Fox Viewers If you have little tolerance for insane beautiful women I can paraphrase for you. Little orphan Annie is upset because of a poll done by an arm of the University of Maryland called the Program on International Policy Attitudes that showed that people who watch Fox news misperceived the truth of three issues 45% of the time. These issues were fairly uncomplicated: That Iraq had some complicity in the Twin Tower bombings, that evidence of links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq exist, and that WMD's were found after the war. Misperceptions, The Media and the Iraq War (This is a PDF link). It is the third statement, which I’m sure upsets little orphan Annie the most. As you may be aware in Annie's view any disagreement with the ...

The Right Wing Agenda wins again It was a bit disheartening doing the research for this one. Because it was damn hard to find any information. I guess corporate media figured it wouldn't sell commercials. Briefly put, the FDA has repudiated it's own panel regarding the so called "morning after pill" also known as "Plan B". The panel voted 27 to 0 earlier this year to make this available over the counter. And an outside panel advisory panel had recommended approval by a 23-4 vote However in an egregious political move to make the Right Wing happy, it was over ruled. The reputation and denial of a recommendation has been rare indeed untill this Administration. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, over-the-counter availability of Plan B would result in 1.7 million fewer unwanted pregnancies and 800,000 fewer abortions each year. Moreover, a recent study published in the Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology has shown that providing...

What I did this weekend As you know I'm the Asst Scoutmaster for our Boy Scout Troop 611. We had our Spring Camporee up at Grafton Lake State Park this weekend. Friday Night out to Saturday Afternoon was lovley, then the Thunderstorms rolled in, and it got either rainy, drizzely, or just damn wet for the rest of the time. Not that any of this dampened (sorry bad pun) the fun. And yes I did too. Anyway click on the link below Spring Camporee Enjoy the pics. I will be going back through and giving each pic some sort of caption in the next day or so.

More Personal stuff What? Another blog that doesn't have political posturing? Bloody Amazing. Cue the smallest violin playing "My heart weeps for you" by touching the tip of your thumb to the tip of your index finger on the same hand. Now move your pointer finger across the thumb, that’s the bow, and your thumb is the violin. LOL. Sherman if you would be so kind as to dial the way back machine to 1979. Why Mr. Peabody? Well my good boy, we are going to see Mike hurt himself somehow running up and down stairs in London while on a family vacation. To this day I still have no idea what I did to myself, but periodically over the last 24 years my left hip would "flare up". Usually this coincides with periods of my life where I have NOT been working out or exercising properly, and usually when I do return to the bike or gym the pains go away. Not this time. It has gotten so bad that I can't sleep on that side, and sitting for a bit becomes...

Road Mania 1986 Warning today's blog is fairly brutal.... It was in Spring (I believe) in 1986 when I was told in no uncertain terms that I would not have a place to live come the beginning of summer. I was living in SF at the time and living with my Mom (yea at age 25), staying in brother Greg's room while he was finishing at UC Irvine. With him coming home from college I had to find new digs. At that time frankly my life was in the shitter. I don't remember what I was doing for work, maybe not anything. My girlfriend had kicked me out, and I was hanging out with a guy whom did nothing for motivation. We drank a lot, not drunks mind you, but evenings usually ended up playing dice, drinking tequila and talking (he was very bright). I had failed at my attempt to be a stockbroker with Dean-Whitter-Kenmore having been let go AFTER passing my Federal exams. The manager didn't like me.... In addition I had pissed off enough friends that had come back to ...

What do you expect? I think it is a given that the culture of a country deeply affects the mindsets of the people in it. No country is homogeneous of course. But certain cultural conceits will filter through to the everyday people. This is especially true of a country that places strong emphasis on it's Government. Many Americans scoff at European Government, but so do many Europeans. They hold their leaders in less of a revered role than we do on this side of the Atlantic. This explains the reactions on this and that side of the Atlantic to President Bill Clinton's peccadilloes. Europeans could not for the life of them figure out what the buzz was all about. Americans on the other hand were absolutely aghast that a married sitting President would do the dirty with a younger woman in the White House. Let alone lie about it. No matter that a small but sizeable minority of Americans have affairs and lie. I use this as an illustration not as the point of this ...

Happy Mothers Day To all the Mommies in the audience. How good is this? Hallmark creates a holiday JUST FOR YOU! An occasion to drop 5 to 6 dollars a card into the coffers of the very same company that created the holiday! You know what I do? I buy cards for all my mommies (mom, grammie and wife) I buy them so they come from the dog. I buy them so they come from the cat. And I make sure I don't buy Hallmark. That will teach them! But if they have a Mothers Day and a Fathers Day how come they don't have a childrens day! EVERY DAY IS CHILDRENS DAY....... So we are planned for a get together at the F's house sometime btw 5 and 530, so that we are all to be sure done by the time Survior rolls around at 8! Me too.. isn't that sick? I got sucked into this one big time. In attendence will be Liza's Mom, Liam's Mom, Alex's Mom. Susies's Mom is not good for travel and we would be up past her bed time. So she is staying put at the ...

More Republican Dirty Tricks Where does one start? With nausea I believe. Anyway this week's parade of "patriotic" Vietnam veterans who got together in Washington to slag off John Kerry was just the latest round of highly offensive dirty tricks by the Bush/Cheney team. Of course said team adamantly denies that they had anything to do with it. Of course they are lying. This most recent attack was led by none other than John O'Neill, whom has been harrying John Kerry since 1971. This is the guy who went after John McCain's record during the 2000 primaries and went after Sen Max Cleland. You remember him, he lost three limbs in Vietnam. The coverage I saw made it abundantly clear who was spearheading this attack. It is my firm belief that this is going to backfire upon the Bush/Cheney campaign. I mean one guy whose service during Nam was as a Air Force reservist, whom it has been established couldn't even bother to appear for his last physic...

Oh you gotta see this one You think you have seen it "all" on E-bay? Noooo you haven't. Click here for a good laugh And for the record a friend of mine posted this to a discussion group am part of. Obviously he has way too much time on his hands.