Letters to Mom

The Outdoor Game

2011-12-04T09:49:00.001-05:00

I've been playing indoor soccer for many many years now. I played a couple of games outdoors in an EMC summer league and pretty much hated it. Outdoor fields are notoriously uneven and either unmowed or barren of grass. Add a little rain and they become a mud pit. Passing and controlling the ball is difficult due to the crazy bounces and all the little undulations in the turf make it frighteningly easy to roll your ankle or twist a knee. Plus, the bigger fields and larger number of players results in a lot of running but far fewer touches on the ball.

A couple of the guys from indoor also play in an outdoor league and have been pestering me to play with them for a couple of years now but I always declined, citing the above reasons. This year, they finally wore me down. It was a combination of a couple of things that finally made me give it a try. The first was that I now qualified for the over 50 league. This is actually kind of depressing of course, but it also meant that I wouldn't be trying to keep up with the 30 year old "whippersnappers" who apparently don't have to get up on Monday morning and go to work, and who never seem to have a couple of Ibuprofen tablets that I can bum.

The other thing that pushed me over the edge was the fact that most of the fields the teams play on now are the artificial turf fields that have perfect bounces and no holes to swallow your ankles. These fields are very grass-like and have those black rubber pellets that give a more realistic bounce and provide a little bit of "looseness" to the field so your cleats don't stick and rip your knees and ankles out.

So I showed up to my first game, which was on our home field in Hopkinton. It's located down a dirt road that goes past the town maintenance yard and I'm thinking "This is not looking good." Well what do my wondering eyes behold but a spectacular complex with a suite of pristine turf fields. Here's a photo I took later in the season when it was getting quite chilly in the morning. It's not a great picture but it gives a pretty good look at the nice fields.

Turns out, I'm really enjoying playing outdoors. The turf fields play as nice as they look and I'm actually enjoying doing a bit of running. The other thing is that the I can hold my own against most of the players in the league and it feels good to contribute and feel like I can make a contribution to the team.

Despite this contribution, we didn't win many games this season and have been relegated to a lower division. Oh well, I've never really cared much about win-loss numbers, I just like playing the game.

Now I find myself looking forward to the Spring session and getting back outside. Who'd a thunk it?

I Want My WIFI

2011-06-26T23:42:00.001-04:00

We embarked on our annual trip to the Vermont Quilt Festival this weekend. I had taken the RV into the shop about three weeks ago to fix a weird problem with the brakes - the left front brake would stick on and either pull to the left or just make a terrible grinding noise - until we would run over some rough road and it would shake loose.

Also, the air conditioner, which for a long time, would only run when the fan was on high, started having a thing where some louver or door deep inside the dash would flip and cause it to stop blowing cold air out the vents and apparently get re-routed into the engine or something.

So I took it in and picked it up this week. The guy said it was all fixed and when I asked him what was wrong with the brakes, he looked at me like he'd never heard of the problem. Great. He assured me that nothing was wrong with them so what could I do.

Well the drive up was uneventful. The brakes seemed to work fine and not stick. The air conditioning you ask? Well, I wouldn't know because it was so cold that we actually had to turn on the heater. This, on June 24 - Summer!

We got to the campsite and checked in. When they showed me where the site was, I remembered what had happened when I made the reservation. They didn't have any room in the section we always stay in so they put us on the upper level. I remember having walked around this area and it seemed like it was more of a tent/pop-up area. I remember wondering if this was going to be okay or not but I didn't have much choice.

We drove around to our site and our jaws dropped open. It was a tiny site and we were practically wedged between two other rigs. I looked at Deb and we knew we couldn't stay here. I managed to get my door open and walked up to the office. They were very nice and said we could have another site in that area or we could take an overflow site in the "regular" area. I walked back and took a look at the other site and it was really no better so I drove around to the overflow site. It was basically a grassy field but with hookups. It actually looked like pretty much the best site in the place.

I parked the rig there and walked back to the office to claim it. They sent a guy over to show us where to park - since it wasn't really that clearly marked. He also helped us get power and water since they were in the process of changing things around.

The next day, I drove Deb to the quilt show and came back to the campsite to do some web site work. I walked up to the office to buy my 24 hours of WiFi access but when I went to pay, they said they only took cash. Of course, Deb has the only money I had.

"Um, can I write you an IOU?"

"No, they might come collect the money at any time. Sorry."

"Can I *buy* a ten dollar bill from your cash register with my credit card?"

"What?"

"Can I buy something in the store and you charge me for that plus ten dollars on my credit card, and then give me ten dollars in change?"

"No, you can only pay for WiFI in cash."

(face palm)

So I walked back to the camper fuming. Of course, before I had walked up to the office, I had unrolled the awning, hooked up the water and power, and got settled in for the several hours it takes Deb to do the show. After fuming some more and deciding against a frontal assault on the office cash box, I packed up the rig and headed down the road to find an ATM that I had located on my phone browser.

I got the money and pulled back into the camp site and stopped at the office. I had played out the entire scene - the one where I walk in and calmly ask for WIFI access. She looks at me cheerily and says "Oh, found some money huh?". I look at her, my eyes piercing her soul - "No, I didn't *find* the money, I packed up the rig and *drove* to an ATM to get it."

That was take one. In take two, I don't say a word. I just look at her and she gets very uncomfortable in the silence and hurries to give me the password.

A few dozen variations on those scenes play in my head. I'm not sure which one it will actually be but I will cut her down swiftly and mercilessly with my icy stare and acerbic wit.

I open the office door and - she's not there. Crap!

In reality, she's probably just on her lunch break but I push that thought from my head and convince myself that she spotted me getting out of the RV with a ten dollar bill in my hand and that *look* in my eyes, and had to get out of there. She asked Mildred to cover for her because she was "feeling a little queasy" and slipped out the back of the store. Clever girl...

So I buy my WIFI password, park the camper, and setup with the laptop in our little screened-in patio thingy. I quickly forget about the WIFI Nazi and work on web sites until Deb calls. Heaven!

We had a good rest of the day, booming thunderstorms, kabobs on the grill, and a few rounds of Rumikube.

On the drive home the next day, it was warm enough to turn on the A/C. It ran fine for a while and then started blowing inside the dash again. If I turned off the A/C and put it on vent only, it would eventually start blowing out the vents again. Turn the A/C on again and it would run for a while and then stop blowing. Seems like something is either getting cold or hot enough to cause some door to close or open. Turning off the A/C let's it cool down (or heat up) and open (or close).

All in all, a pretty normal camping trip.

Ridin' the Rails

2011-06-18T10:03:00.001-04:00

A little follow up on the new GoPro helmet cam I got a couple of months ago. Over the Memorial Day weekend, we went camping on the Cape and took the tandem. The campsite is right near the Cap Cod Rail Trail which we've ridden a few times. As the name implies, it's a railroad right-of-way that's been converted to a MUP - Multi Use Path - (a bike path) that covers a good part of the upper Cape.

We really enjoy the trail, there's a great little Mexican Cantina right off the trail that has the best pulled pork soft tacos in the world. We usually get on the trail in Brewster and take it down to Dennis and then over to Chatham on the cost. I have an app on my iPhone that uses the built-in GPS to track my rides and then uploads them to the MapMyRide web site as a sort of personal training log and ride sharing system.

Here you can see how it captured the ride.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/35792228"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Cape Cod Rail Trail&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/?location=Brewster, MA"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Cycling Routes / Bike Rides in Brewster, MA&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Not only that, but they also create a Google Earth "fly over" of your ride.

Cape Cod Rail Trail and more rides in Brewster, MA on MapMyRIDE. Find ride

I captured some video of the ride with my GoPro camera and edited it into a short little movie and posted it to YouTube.

Old Black Water, Keep on Movin'

2011-05-25T18:34:00.000-04:00

Ah, black water. In the context of RVing, the muddy Mississippi is positively sparkling compared to our version of black water. Last year, on our last camping trip, I went to dump said black water and found we had a bit of a problem.

Our black water system has two dump valves. One is on the right side of the RV, right next to the holding tank, and one is one the other side where the dump tube fits for draining into the dump station. I guess there are two so that you have a backup in case one of them fails.

The general dump procedure is to connect the hose, and open the dump valve on that side. Nothing comes out because the other valve is still closed. Then, I go around to the other side and open that valve, unleashing the torrent from Hell. Of course, this means that I'm not able to make sure that the dump tube stays in the hole in the ground so I have to race back around to the other side and hope that the end of the tube isn't whipping around like a garden hose, spewing effluent hither and yon. Don't laugh, it's happened.

I had noticed on a few previous trips that I would get a couple of drips from the valve on the tank side during the course of dumping. It's kind of gross but nothing really bad and frankly, I was kind of hoping it would go away on it's own.

It didn't.

This last time, it was pretty much pouring out of the valve. It happened to be doing this while the campground owner was standing there talking to me about his nice campground. Oops.

Of course, I didn't do anything about it at the end of the year so, with our first trip scheduled for Memorial day a couple of weeks away, I had to fix it.

The first step was to drain the system. I had drained it after the last trip but I had put antifreeze in over the winter so I had to empty that out. I ran the hose into the camper and had Deb put a bit of water in the bowl and flush. I cut off the top of a gallon milk jug and started ferrying buckets of goop from the camper inside to the toilet.

And ferrying.

And ferrying,

And ferrying.

I think I moved about 25 gallons of slurry into the house. Yuck. I called it quits when the water was running somewhat clean.

This weekend, I took a look at the leaky valve. The valve is a knife valve which means that it's basically a gate that you push in to drive a blade across the with of the pipe to cut off the flow. The valve is sandwiched between two flanges and held in place by four bolts in the four corners of the flange. The first thing I noticed was that one of the corners of one of the flanges was completely destroyed. Hmm, I guess that's probably why it's leaking. I got a couple of wrenches to take the bolt out and, as I turned it, the corner just disintegrated and the bolt basically just fell out. Great.

As I looked at the damaged flange, the ramifications began to sink in. If the flange is broken, I can't fasten a new valve between it and the other one since there's nothing to put the bolt into. In order to put a new flange in, I'll have to cut the other one out of course, but it's right next to an elbow so there's not really any room for a coupler that I would have to get to splice in a new flange. As I look at the whole system, I'm coming to the realization that I'm going to have to cut the pipe on the other side of the elbow and re-build the entire elbow and flange assembly. Wonderful.

I go ahead and attempt to undo the other three bolts holding the valve in-place and proceed to twist the heads off of each one. I guess there's a bit of rust going on down here. I finally got the bolts and the valve out. Mercifully, no liquid came out but the smell was less than pleasant.

I also noticed that the other flange, the one that goes into the black water tank is also damaged on the same corner as the destroyed one. The hole in the corner looks like a "C". It might be able to hold a bolt but it could be dicey.

I got on the web to see if there was any info on replacing black water valves. There were a few posts but nobody had any info on what to do when you had to splice in new flanges. I found one post where a guy suggested using MarineTex or equivalent to repair broken plastic parts. I remember Dad telling me about MarineTex and how it was a wonder material - a plastic that hardens into a sand-able, drill-able material that fixes anything. If figured that might be a good thing to use to reinforce the "C" on the tank flange.

This weekend I went to Home Depot to get the new elbow, couplers, and new pipe. Luckily, they had 2 foot lengths of pipe so I didn't have to buy 10 feet of it. Of course, I forgot the MarineTex so I had to go back and get that. I didn't find MarineTex exactly but I found a similar material that they said would do the same thing. Basically, it's like a putty that comes in a "log". You cut off a section and knead it in your fingers which mixes and activates the two components of the epoxy. You press it into place and wait an hour for it to harden.

To fix the "C" I decided to just mash a bunch into the hole and form a new corner. Then I could drill a new hole and have a stronger corner. As I was thinking about how that would work, I realized that I could probably just rebuild the destroyed corner of the other flange in the same way and not have to remake the entire flange/elbow configuration. So, I proceeded to rebuild the damaged corners, applying a layer of putty and letting it cure for an hour, and then repeating the process a couple more times to build up the missing corner.

After building up what I figured would be enough of a corner, I went about getting the holes drilled and the valve installed. The hole with the little damage was easy. I put the valve in place with two bolts in opposite corners and ran a drill through the hole in the valve that was over the repaired hole. The drill zipped through and, when I unbolted the valve, I had nice clean, repaired corner.

I bolted the valve into the other flange and drilled through into my totally rebuilt corner in the same way. I ran the bolt through and found I didn't have enough bolt to get the nut started since I had built up so much putty. I had planned on that though so I got out the trusty Dremel and ground down the hardened putty/corner enough so that I could get the nut on the bolt coming through. I fastened everything together and gave it a quick leak test.

So far, so good. I cracked the rebuilt corner a bit when I was tightening the bolt so I added more putty in the cracks and tried to beef it up a bit more. I'll be able to give it a real test this weekend when we hit the road.

Let's hope she holds.

GoPro or Go Home

2011-04-23T10:44:00.001-04:00

Well, the video bug has bitten me again. It's actually been percolating for a little while now and was born from our bike rides. See, we ride through a bunch of really cool areas and I've always wanted to capture the experience somehow. The solution, of course, is to have some sort of camera that records the ride.

A still camera isn't really practical and not what I want. I don't want to pull over and take a picture. I want to record video that I can then edit and make into a kind of travelogue. There are basically two options - mount the camera on the bike, or mount it on me. Mounting on the bike limits the visibility of the camera as it's fixed in position and can't see the various views I'm seeing in different directions. It also would get a lot of road vibration and probably wouldn't look very good.

So, the solution is to get a helmet cam. Yeah, like the kind the skydivers wear when they jump out of planes. There are two main contenders in the small, relatively inexpensive helmet wars - Contour and GoPro. Initially, I liked the Countour since it was small and relatively unobtrusive (as much as a camera mounted on your helmet can be unobtrusive). Recently though, I'd been hearing a lot about the GoPro so I looked into it further. Here's their promo video

Not that I want to jump off a mountain on my skis or anything but that's some pretty cool video.

Anyway, I did a little more research and decided to go with the GoPro camera. I got a helmet mount and a few other so I could attach it to the bike as well for some other shots.

For a test, I attached it to the top of the car and drove around. Kind of boring footage but I wanted to make sure I aimed it properly and could bring the video into my editor and cut and trim. That all seemed to go okay so, if it ever stops raining, I'll try to get some bike footage.

Should be fun.

Big Data

2011-04-04T23:39:00.000-04:00

It's the new buzzword. Big Data refers to the vast quantities of information that is being generated and collected by various companies, web sites, governments, whatever. More specifically, it refers to what those entities might want to *do* with all that data.

Working at EMC, we've been dealing with large amounts of data for a long time. Our products (in general) are gigantic disk drives that store and protect "Mission Critical" data for companies large and small. Our Marketing people are quick to point out mind boggling statistics like - the amount of information produced last year is larger than all the of information produced in all the previous years combined - things like that.

Information production is only getting faster and faster too. It's one thing to have to store all that information but increasingly, companies want to be able to *mine* that information. As the amount of information grows, data analysts can apply statistical methods to look for patterns in the data and 1) determine behaviors and 2) predict activity.

So, analysts can look at sales figures and see that people are buying more of one product than another and adjust inventory levels or do other things to make sure their business is positioned correctly. They can also look at the data, combine it with other data and create models that let them predict what people are going to do when this or that changes.

Now, analysts have been doing this kind of thing for a long time - it's not really new. What is new is the amount of data being processed and the need to process it very, very quickly - real-time analytics.

Real-time analytics means looking at the data as it comes in and analyzing it right then. In the past, the analysis had to be performed on small subsets of the data in the "Data Warehouse". The analysis systems were not big enough or powerful enough to plow through all the data, they had to take a sample and hope that it had enough information to provide meaningful insight. Plus, it took them hours and hours to run those models and get an answer

Obviously, if you don't get a big enough sample, you could arrive at inaccurate conclusions. For example, you can take a look at the stock market values over any period of time. Depending on which week you happen to pick, you might conclude that the market is going up, down, or staying the same but that might not represent the larger trend. To get a "better" picture, you really need to look at more data - data that represents a longer period of time. In general, some patterns don't emerge until you get a sufficiently broad look at the data. Thus the dilemma. You need large samples of data to analyze and the bigger the sample, the more time it takes to analyze. But, to beat your competition, you need to get the results in seconds, not hours or days of the traditional systems. You want to be able to look at the cash register as the clerk is scanning items, find what else that customer has bought from you, and offer them an accessory that would beautifully match the dress they just bought today and the shoes they bought last month. Winning!

So the term Big Data not only means the *amount* of data out there but how to process and use that data to gain an edge in business. At work, we've been getting into this more and more. We're no longer interested in just storing the data for our customers, we need to help them mine it and get value out of it.

There are lots of interesting applications. We are currently working with Utility companies to help them figure out how to manage Smart Meter Data. It used to be that the power company would come by every month and read your power meter to figure out how much electricity you used so they could send you a bill. They got a little more advanced by installing meters that they could read from a truck as it drove by your house - no need to get out, find the meter, and write it down.

Enter the age of Smart Meters. These meters will now look at your power consumption and send it back to the Utility company every 15 minutes. So, instead of getting 12 readings a year from each customer, they are now getting 34,000 readings per year from each user. That's 3,000 times more information than they had been getting previously.

Not only are they looking for ways to manage this info, they are looking for ways to *use* it - beyond just sending you your bill. For example, it's really, really, expensive and hard to build a new power plant but there is a never ending demand for power. And it's the peak power demand that is killing the power companies. When everyone comes home at night and cooks dinner or washes clothes on Saturday, they have to have enough capacity to handle the peaks but that capacity goes unused in the valleys. If they could lower the peaks, they wouldn't have to build more plants.

Enter the Smart Meter. The power company can offer you an incentive and say, if you reduce your consumption from 5:00 pm to 11:00 pm - our peak demand time - we'll offer you a rebate (or some other incentive) on your bill. With the Smart Meter, they can tell not only how much power you use but when you use it, and try to adjust your behavior. In some scenarios, they can even tell what kinds of things are using your power and be able to send you a letter that says "We see you have a 1995, Kenmore model C-RAP dishwasher. Newer models use much less energy so we'll give you a rebate if you replace it."

They can also look at the grid of meters and get a better picture of their delivery system. With real-time analytics of the information coming in, they can detect say, voltage variations in a particular neighborhood. They can see that one particular transformer is common to all the affected meters and, using their statistical models, predict that it will fail in 2 weeks. They can then roll a truck to replace it *before* it blows, avoiding down time, angry customers, and unfavorable news reports..

Cool.

Okay computers, this is getting ridiculous

2011-04-02T09:42:00.001-04:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. Have to get better at this.

I'm a little late on this latest bit of technology but it's still amazing. To set the stage, I've started doing Sudoku puzzles. I held off for several years while Dad, Carly, and Deb all exclaimed how fun it was. In fact, I was a little worried that Dad was on a personal mission to convert everyone to be a Sudoku Jedi Master.

I'm not really into puzzles or brain teasers much so I ignored them as best I could. What finally converted me was I downloaded a Sudoku App for the iPad and tried it. It took a few runs but now I'm hooked. Deb and I now play a game or two on the iPad before turning out the lights every night.

The App itself is pretty amazing. It has different levels and actually has teaching modes to help you learn different techniques to solve the tougher puzzles. While in the puzzle, if you get stuck, you can ask it for hints. It will start by saying something like "Ponder the digit 8". This will usually be enough to help you move on since you can focus on all the 8's and see a move you hadn't noticed before. If that doesn't help though, you can ask for more and it will give more and more specific hints, to the point where it will just fill in the square for you. I have the sound off but I think it makes a little noise like "Jeeeezus!" when it has to hold your hand that much.

So that's cool but not really the reason for this post. I'd heard about Google Goggles which is an app for the phone that let's you do Google searches but in a couple of interesting ways. You can type in your search words like normal of course but you can also just speak your search. You press the microphone icon, say "Nuclear Power", and it will pull up search results just as if you'd typed it in. Amazing, but oh so five minutes ago.

No, to really be cool, you just take a picture of what you want information about. So, take a picture of say, a book or DVD, and Google will bring up information about that item. In the bookstore, take a picture of the barcode, Google will identify it and tell you what the price is on Amazon so you can order it right then.

(Which really sucks for the bookstore of course. Reminds me of a funny picture I just saw. It was the front window of a Borders Bookstore with signs listing all the liquidation sales. There was also a sign that said "No bathrooms. Check Amazon" Ouch!)

Which gets us back to Sudoku. We do the puzzle in the paper on Saturday and Sunday so today I tried a trick I'd heard about. In Google Goggles, I pointed the camera at the puzzle in the paper and took the picture. Google identified it as a Sudoku puzzle!

Then it asked me if I wanted it to solve it.

Two seconds later, it was done.

Hello Sky-Net...

Back from the Brink

2010-03-27T19:19:00.000-04:00

Dontcha just love computers?

It's weird how the simplest of changes can cascade into a rolling thunder of destruction and mayhem. Okay, nothing actually caught fire, but this has been a rough few days for the Hudgins' Mac.

Here's the story. The newest version of the Mac operating system - 10. 6 (named Snow Leopard) - was released last August or September. I didn't upgrade to it because 1) I'm cheap and 2) I didn't see a compelling need to do so. Snow Leopard was slated as a release with a lot of fixes under the hood and without a lot of fancy features. It was however, supposed to speed things up. Any hint of an idea where this is going???

So, a couple of weeks ago, I got the urge to start work on another iPhone application. Actually, it will eventually be an iPad application - for the new tablet computer that Apple is releasing. It's basically a giant iPhone-looking device but it has some new features and I thought it would be fun to write a program for it. Well, I went to download the software development kit for it and found out that I needed to upgrade to Snow Leopard in order to use it. What the heck, it's about time anyway right?

I ordered it from Amazon and it came in a few days. I went through the install process and got it all up and running and was amazed - at how slow everything was. Programs were taking forever to launch and then ran at a snail's pace once they were up. Oh crap! This is not good. I asked Mr. Google what the heck was up with this and was greeted by page after page of people having the same problem - terrible slow downs after upgrading. Hmm. I guess I should have done that search *before* I did the upgrade...

I limped along this way for a few days and ran into the next problem. I went to start Parallels - the program that lets me run Windows programs (Quicken) on the Mac. When it tried to start, it politely told me that the current version wouldn't run on Snow Leopard and I would have to upgrade it (Parallels) to the latest version. Argh! Okay, I bought that online and downloaded it and installed it. That program is a pretty big drain on the Mac anyway and now, with the machine limping along as it was, it was essentially unusable. Something had to be done.

I should point out that I had chosen to do an upgrade of Snow Leopard as opposed to a clean re-install. There are two schools of thought on this. Some people think that you should just wipe your disk clean and start fresh while others maintain that the upgrade process is good enough that you don't need to "clean house" beforehand. Of course, if you do the clean install, you've got to have good backups of all your stuff because a clean install means deleting everything on the disk. I actually have two methods of backing up the computer - I use Time Machine which takes hourly backups of the system and stores them on a different disk and I also have Mozy which backsup over the network to some big disk in the sky somewhere.

Despite all those precautions, there is always a fear that you've missed some critical file in your backup plan or something won't come back when you try to restore. Not to mention that a fresh install also implies that you reinstall all your applications (as opposed to recovering them from the backup) so you need to have all your registration codes for all those programs you bought. That's why I decided to do the upgrade instead of the clean install.

After trying every manner of voodoo to get my system even workable, I decided that I needed to wipe it out and start clean. I went through all my files and made sure I had backups of everything as best I could and then fired up the Disk Utility to wipe things out. I swear I stared at the "Do It!" button for about 5 minutes before casting my bits into oblivion.

Once the installation was complete, I cautiously fired up the browser to see if things were back to normal or hopefully, even faster. When programs launch on the Mac, they "bounce" in the Dock at the bottom of the screen as they load. Before the reinstall, my web browser was taking about 25 bounces before a window would appear and even then, it wasn't fully loaded. After the re-install, it launches in about 2 bounces. Oh yeah!

I've spent the better part of today getting things re-installed and working again. I've re-downloaded all kinds of programs, pulled activation keys out of old emails, and basically tweaked things back to the way they were before the big reset. The whole license key thing is fraught with opportunities for disaster. I thought I had one today when I tried to reinstall Parallels. When I bought the upgrade earlier, I just installed it over top of the old version and it went fine - besides from being slow.

When I reinstalled it today, it asked for my Activation key which I got when I bought the upgrade, but then it asked for the Activation key for the original version that I upgraded over. Oh cool! I think I bought that about two years ago. I have no idea what that code is! I looked through old emails, looked at the manual, found the original install disk - no Activation key. I called support and asked them if they had any record of my Activation key. Nope, they don't have it and can't generate one for me. Great! The guy on the phone did say that the key should be on the original CD. I double checked the CD again, this time looking at the back of the CD jacket, and viola! There was the key. I entered that in and was able to complete the installation. Wow - that was close!

There are probably other problems still lurking - like programs that I rarely use that I didn't re-install and will go to use one day, or files that I haven't restored from backup. We'll see.

It has been a long and arduous process but I'm so glad to have my speedy computer back, that I think it was worth it. I think...

Regular Expressions

2010-03-06T20:12:00.002-05:00

OK, we're going to take a trip to Geek World today and talk about Regular Expressions.

One of the things that computers are really good at is finding things right? You type in what you want to find and the computer goes off and finds "matches". The trick, of course, is being able to clearly tell the computer what you want to find. Most people have experience searching for things on the web where you simply throw as many terms at the search engine as you can to try and narrow down the results list.

Let's say you are searching for a dentist in your area who does laser teeth whitening or something like that. You could search for "Dentist" but the list of results would be rather large and mostly irrelevant to your area. You could refine the search by typing "Dentist laser" and that might narrow it down some. You could type "Dentist Laser Uxbridge teeth" and that would be very precise but that might be overly restrictive because you might not get Dentists in the next town over. So clearly, you have to find just the right combination of specificity and generality to get the results you want.

But I'm not going to talk about web search engines. I really want to talk about searching for text in a file - say looking for the word "shrimp" in a Word document. Obviously, that's pretty easy to do. You click Edit, Find..., type in "shrimp", hit OK, and Word shows you all the occurrences of shrimp in the document. OK, but what if you wanted to find both shrimp and shrimps? Or what if you only wanted to find shrimp if it was the first word in a sentence? What if you wanted to find the word shrimp only if it was the first word in a sentence or if it was followed by the word Gumbo and make sure the 's' in shrimp was capitalized? That's probably easy enough to do by hand but what if you had a file with 500,000 lines of purchase descriptions from the Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory that you had to process like that?

You need a way to precisely define a pattern that will match this relatively obscure combination of letters and possibly perform an operation on some of those characters automatically. You need a Regular Expression.

A Regular Expression - or RegEx - is a pattern matching language that is used extensively in Geekdom. It's an truly powerful and complex system that lets you perform amazing feats of text manipulation. Here is a simple Regular Expression that matches an email address. A web developer might use this to verify that someone registering is entering a proper email address:

^\w+@[a-zA-Z_]+?\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}$

Yeah, so that's a bunch of gobblty-gook right? Yup, with great power comes great...difficulty. It's very difficult to express a text pattern that is precise where you need it to be but flexible enough to include variations that you want to be flexible about. An email address is something@something.something. You know the @ sign is in there but the other stuff is pretty much whatever you want right? Well, no. Email addresses can't have spaces in them so you have to throw those out. You can use dot and underscores but not dashes. There are a few other rules about a proper email address as well. So, specifying exactly what you want to match can get tricky. It's especially tricky because you have to use characters - the very things you are trying to find - to specify the pattern you are trying to specify. The result can be extremely cryptic as you can see above - and that is a simple one!

There is a funny saying that everyone learns when first starting with Regular Expressions. It goes something like this:

"So you have a problem you want to solve with a Regular Expression. Now you have two problems."

Indeed, you could easily spend more time writing and testing a regular expression to make a change than you would have if you had just paged through the entire document and made the change by hand. I know. I've done it.

As I kind of hinted, RegEx's are used to find and optionally replace so here's a simple example. Different text editors allow you to specify the search pattern and the replace pattern in different ways but for now we'll just show things like this:

Search: cat
Replace: dog

The characters 'cat' are a RegEx pattern. Same with dog. They are "literals" and do exactly what you would expect - they match themselves.

If I wanted to find all the occurrences of either 'cat' or 'Cat' and replace it with 'dog', I could do something like this:

Search: [c|C]at
Replace: dog

The '[c|C]' pattern says lowercase 'c' *or* (the | symbol) uppercase 'C', followed by a and t.

So, there are special symbols used in the expressions to add flexibility. Of course, this use of special symbols presents a problem. The vertical bar symbol - called a pipe symbol - is a special symbol that means "or" - this *or* that. But what if you really wanted to find a pipe symbol in your text. You need a way to tell the pattern to not treat it as meaning "or" but to actually match itself. To do that, you "escape" the symbol by putting a '\' in front of it like this \|. So if we wanted to find something like 'car|truck' and replace it with 'car and truck', we would say:

Search: car\|truck
Replace: car and truck

Yeah, I hear you. What if you want to find the '\' symbol. Well you escape that with a '\' so it looks like this '\\'.

Now back to our example of replacing cat or Cat with dog. We wrote the expression to do that but it might have a problem. What if the word 'catalog' was in our document. The RegEx would convert that to dogalog which is probably not something we want. It's a perfect example of how RegEx's can do things you never intended if you aren't properly precise. So actually, what we wanted to do instead of replacing 'cat' with 'dog' is replace ' cat ' when it is surrounded by spaces to ' dog ' surrounded by spaces. That would limit it to the *word* cat and we wouldn't accidentally match other words that happen to have c-a-t in them.

Except, what if cat is at the end of a sentence and is followed by a period not a space? We want to include that right? So we really want to find a space, c-a-t, and either a space or a period. Or a comma. Or a semi-colon. Maybe it's c-a-t followed by anything *but* another letter. That's an example of how a RegEx might *not* do things you intended because your pattern isn't properly lenient.

Developing a pattern that does match what you do want and doesn't match what you don't is a real challenge. Whole books have been written on developing Regular Expressions and the web is full of tutorial sites for it if you are interested. What prompted this post was a problem I had the other day. I had a file that consisted of 5000 lines of information that I needed to import into a database. It was arranged something like this

[barcode],[Date] [Author] [Notes]

[barcode],[Date] [Author] [Notes]

or

ISG000002421, 10-23-2009 10:23:34 Jsmith This is the description, of product A...

ISG000002456, 10-24-2009 9:10:04 JDoe More notes that contain text...
and so on...

Pretty straightforward but there were some problems. First, I needed to separate the barcode section from the rest of the text with a pipe '|' instead of a comma. Easy enough it would seem just find all the commas and replace them with a |. Not so fast though bucko. There might be commas in the notes section that I don't want to replace so I had to find only the commas that came after the barcode value. Hmm, there might be barcodes mentioned in the notes section though so I really want to find only the commas that come after the barcodes that start at the beginning of the line. Here's the pattern that matches that:

Search: ^ISG\d+,

The caret - ^ - matches the beginning of the line, the ISG matches itself, the \d matches a digit (zero through 9) and the + means one or more of the preceding items (the digit), and then the comma and a space that you can't see. OK, so that's what I want to find but what do I want to replace it with? I can't just replace it with a | because I'd replacing the whole pattern - the barcode and the comma with just the pipe character. I'd lose the barcode. Since I'm matching different barcode patters - the \d+ that matches sequences of digits - I don't really know what to replace it with. Fortunately, RegEx's will remember the patterns that they match and let you put those matches back during the replace. Here's how:

Search: ^(ISG\d+),
Replace: ^\1\|

I've added parenthesis around the barcode pattern. This says "remember this pattern, I'm going to use it later". Then I use \1 in the replacement pattern which corresponds to whatever text was matched in the parenthesis in the search, followed by the pipe character (which I have to escape because it normally means "or" in a regular expression and I want it to actually mean | here).

So that should fix that but there were a few other problems. The notes section sometimes had quotes around them and I didn't want that. I didn't want to remove any quotes that were inside the notes, just the ones that might be around the whole notes section. That was pretty easy too:

Search: ^(ISG\d+\| )"(.+)"$
Replace: \1\2

This says "find everything up to the first quote character and remember it in pattern 1. Then match the everything up to the quote before the end of the line and remember it in pattern 2. Replace all that with what is in pattern 1 and pattern 2. Since the quotes were not in the patterns that were remembered, they get dropped.

The last problem was tougher. It turned out that some of the notes actually contained multiple entries. So the notes section might look like this for some lines:

ISGxxx | 10-24-2009 10:2:23 This is note 1 11-2-2009 9:3:13 This is note 2...

I really needed to separate those multiple notes into separate lines for the same barcode. I won't go into the pattern that I built that let me do that. Suffice it to say that it was rather complex. It probably took me about 30 minutes to figure out the patterns that I needed but it probably saved me about 3 hours of tedious, error prone, hand-editing of that 5000 line file. Fun stuff.

Double Your Reds, Double Your Fun

2009-12-30T21:45:00.001-05:00

I finally gave blood again after skipping the last several drives. The Red Cross is almost like the telemarketers - once they have you, they keep pestering you to give, give, give. The last time I gave, they had trouble finding my vein and it was not a pleasant experience. They were digging around my arm with the needle and I ended up pretty bruised. They even cut me with the needle as they were pulling it out. Needless to say, I wasn't too keen on going through that again so I begged out of the last several drives.

They called again recently and I figured it was time to try again so I headed over there on Monday. When I got there, they asked me if I wanted to do "Double Reds". This is where they hook you up to a machine that runs your blood through a centrifuge that separates the red cells from the plasma. They keep the red cells and pump the plasma back into you. Since they give you back the plasma, they can take two pints worth of red cells and not leave you dehydrated, hence the term "Double Reds".

Things didn't start off very well. They again had a hard time finding my vein. The first two ladies couldn't do it but the third one got things going. It wasn't nearly as bad as the previous time but still somewhat irksome. Another benefit of the Double Reds procedure is they use a smaller needle which is more comfortable. I guess.

So they got the blood flowing and the machine started working. I watched the blood being pumped through all kinds of tubes and circular pumping wheels. After a while fluid that looked like beer started filling up a bag hanging on the front of the machine. It acutally had a foamy head on it! The nurse said that was my plasma and would get pumped back into me after they got the first pint separated. Just behind the "beer bag" I could see another bag filling up with blood - presumably the extra rich red cells.

They mix the plasma with some saline which is at room temperature - meaning cold - so when they started pumping it back in, my arm started getting very chilly. I could see the plasma bag draining as my little micro-brew was injected back into my arm. My arm was a little cold but I soon started feeling my lips tingle. I wondered if my core temperature was being lowered and making me shiver in a weird way. I also started feeling kind of tingly in my chest. I asked the nurse about it and she said it was from the citrate they add to the saline (not sure why they add that).

After the plasma bag empties, they pump out another pint of blood, separate it out, and pump the plasma back in for round two. After it was all done, I was still a bit tingly but I didn't have to sit at the "Canteen" table since I hadn't really lost any fluid. I felt pretty good but decided not to go to Deb's Aerobic class that evening. Tonight though (Wednesday), I went to another aerobics class and basically couldn't keep up. I guess it will take a while to regenerate those cells and be back to full aerobic capacity.

Live from Ubuntu

2009-12-20T12:12:00.006-05:00

No, I'm not in some foreign country. Ubuntu (oo-bun-too) is the name of a distrubution of the Linux operating system that I just installed on this laptop.

Back up. I've been using this third generation, hand-me-down laptop that was originally purchased for Kyle for his High School graduation present in preparation for heading to college (four and a half freekin' years ago!). After Kyle got his Macbook, this laptop went to Carly who used it until she got a Macbook for her graduation and then I inherited it. Sigh...

I've been using it downstairs to browse while watching TV or just lounging so that I'm not always sitting in the computer room (or for when Deb hogs the main machine). It's actually not bad for a Windows machine. Over the last couple of days however, I started getting virus warnings that the virus scanner was unable to fix. Who knows what all the kids had put on this thing so it's integrity was suspect anyway. So, I could re-install Windows or I could try Linux.

Linux is an open-source operating system that is built on a version of the Unix operating system which powers the big data center servers. Linux is supported by enthusiasts who contribute things to it to make it better and support all kinds of things. One problem with Unix (and therefore Linux) though is that it was designed for computer nerds and is really not suitable for the general public. For example, here's how you turn off the sound that plays when you login:

nftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds --type bool false

Yeah, that ain't gonna play in Kansas.

So, various organizations have come up with packages to make Linux more friendly to the average user. Ubuntu is one such organization and is relatively popular so that's the one I chose. Ubuntu gives each version a different name. This one is Karmic Koala. Others have been Jaunty Jackalope, Hardy Heron, you get the idea. Way to take yourselves seriously guys...

Anyway, with the laptop still running Windows, I downloaded a CD image of the Ubuntu installation CD and burned it to a blank CD. Then I rebooted the laptop to boot from the CD and it went through the installation process - wiping Windows off the machine. No going back now...

It went through pretty quickly and in about a half an hour, I had a new system. Only problem was that the wireless network wouldn't work. Hmm. One kind of catch-22 with this stuff is that all the fixes and updates are basically only available over the internet so, in cases like this, in order to fix your internet connection, you have to have a working internet connection. Ruh-Roh.

It's not as bad as it seems though. Usually, the wired network connections will work so I took it upstairs, connected the cable from the router to the laptop and established a glorious, soul-saving, all-things-are-now-possible, connection to the web. Yeeh-Haw!

I then set about the process of figuring out how to make the wireless connection work so I could use this thing downstairs. With a bit of Googling and tweaking and fiddling, I was able to make the wireless card work again and got connected. I'm now downstairs, sitting on the couch, typing this post.

I've spent most of the morning (while the blizzard rages outside) trying to get the automatic updates running so that security patches and system upgrades can be downloaded and applied. I *think* I've got that working but it hasn't been fun.

Not really sure about the whole Linux thing overall though. Twenty years ago, all this tweaking and modifying would have been a lot of fun but now I just want things to work. Still, it's free and all I really need is a web browser and that's working so I can't really complain too much.

What I really need to do is turn this thing into a Hackintosh - a regular PC laptop running the Mac operating system. THAT would be cool!

First Snow

2009-12-06T11:46:00.000-05:00

Last night was the "Uxbridge First Holiday Night" celebration/parade. The Community Chorus was slated to sing so Deb (and me for some reason) had to go down to the common at around 3:45 for the start at 4:00. The weather was terrible - a drizzly, cold rain so it wasn't very pleasant at first. About an hour into it however, the rain started turning to snow and it was kind of pretty. By the time Deb finished singing and Santa had gotten off the fire truck and lit the trees, we were both pretty cold. Despite the weather, we decided to head to the mall for some shopping.

By the time we got home, we had some pretty good accumulation and by the morning we had this!

Winter Leaves

2009-11-25T19:02:00.002-05:00

Winter Leaves
Originally uploaded by tmhudg.

Doing some more playing with Photoshop filters to turn pictures into paintings. This one came out especially good I think.

More "art" on the Flickr page.

TSO - Epic FAIL

2009-11-21T12:25:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, I heard a radio ad for an upcoming concert by the TSO - Trans-Siberian Orchetra. You may have heard of them. They got popular from their rock-infused versions of some Christmas songs a few years ago. Each year, I hear people saying they went to the show and how good it was so I decided to get some tickets. I was going to surprise Deb but I had to make sure she didn't schedule something over the date so I ended up telling her what it was. Her reaction was - shall we say - muted.

So last Thursday, we headed out to the DCU center in Worcester for our date with destiny. Strike one was the jacked up parking prices at the surrounding garages. I had just been to a hockey game here a few weeks ago and paid $10 for parking. This time however, it was $20. Isn't that illegal?

We found our seats in the arena and waited for things to start. The stage was packed with all kinds of lighting rigs and framework and it really looked impressive. After we sat down, a group of people filled in the seats behind us and one guy in the group started telling the rest of the group how great this was going to be - and we got to listen. It seems he's seen the show about a hundred times and kept telling his friends how this was going to blow their minds. He liked to announce "We've got a virgin here! A TSO virgin" referring to one of the people in his group. The really disturbing thing was that I think he was referring to a woman who looked like it was his mother (and Grandmother to the kids in the group) - Ugh. He would also follow this announcement - and pretty much any other statement with a creepy "heh-heh-heh, heh-heh-heh" laugh.

He and another guy in his group talked about all kinds of things relating to the concert. They explored the quality of the position of these seats as opposed to being on the floor or on one of the other sides and how we should be able to see all the lasers and flames better. They told the "virgin" that they were going to be watching her face when things start up because she's just not going to believe it. It was pretty much like when you watch a movie with someone who's seen it before and they constantly say "Ooh, get ready, this part is funny."

The best part however was when they tried to estimate the size of the crowd. It started with "How many people do you think will fit in the arena" and one of them said "Probably about 90 to 100 thousand." I just about fell out of my chair. The DCU center is your typical multipurpose small city basketball/hockey/RV show arena and there is no way it seats more than about 15 thousand people. The other guy answers back "No, probably no more than 30 to 40 thousand since one end of the arena is blocked off for the stage." I figure 10 K max. One guys says "Yeah, they give $1 for each person to charity at each show so that's really great." A few minutes later, the guy snags an usher and asks the seating capacity. She says "12 to 13 thousand." "Oh."

Just before the show starts, local radio personalities (I guess) get on stage with some band members and present the check to the local charity. The amount? A little over 8 thousand dollars. From behind I hear "So if they give a dollar per person, that means... umm... there's... (frantic, complex calculations going on in his head), 8 thousand people here. Hmm, I guess we low balled that one huh? Heh-heh-heh, heh-heh-heh" No, you twit, you over estimated it!

Soon, the lights go down,the crowd whoops it up, and our buddy says "Heh-heh-heh, heh-heh-heh. Get ready to be blown away. Heh-heh-heh, heh-heh-heh." The lighting rigs light up with some blue lights. "Heh-heh-heh." They start raising up (apparently "like magic"). "Heh-heh-heh." The band then launches into a heavy metal version of some Christmas song. They have a drummer, a couple of keyboard players, a bass player, and then two guitarists and a violin player running around on stage playing various solos and guitar/electric violin licks. I felt a sense of "Oh crap" washing over me as they ran around and played. The guitarists had their guitars slung way low and would run to one side of the stage and stand with their legs spread apart while they ripped out a lick or two. They they would run to some other position, take a pose and do some more. The violin player (a female I think) would also take dramatic pose positions and periodically point her bow straight up and wait for hoots and hollers from the crowd. It was like a KISS concert! WTF!?

At one point the two guitarists each ran to opposite sides of the stage and the violin player was in the middle. Suddenly, their little stage areas began to lift up and the crowd went wild. Was it by magic? No, it was due to the scissor jacks that were completely exposed just hoisting the platform up. They could have easily put some black fabric in front of the platform that would unfold as the platform went up but nah, the Kubota jack from Taylor Rental will be fine with no covering. At one point, the light cage that lifted up at the start got into the act. It came down and went up a few times and the lights changed colors. Awesome!

Then, it got better. A narrator came out and began telling a Christmas story/poem - in the style of an evangelical preacher. At one point, I felt like turning to Deb and smacking her in the forehead to drive the demons from her soul. I only found out today, from reading the review in the paper, that the story was about a lost angel who was traveling around the world, observing the hardship and heartache of people until he/she/it found the Prince of Peace. At first I thought that meant she was looking for Michael Jackson but then I figured out who it was. Now, I'm fine with the story and the message but it was just so poorly done - the rhymes seemed like what a 10 year old would come up with to make things fit, and the delivery was so over the top - that I just couldn't stand it. The pattern was that the narrator would tell a little story and then the band would launch into a song - that basically had nothing to do with the story segment we just heard (I guess). At one point, snow (soap?) started falling from the light rigs in the ceiling and lasers began blasting around the arena. "Heh-heh-heh, heh-heh-heh." Yeah, this was pretty cool - back in 1982 buddy.

Deb and I finally reached our saturation point and decided to leave. I have to admit that there was an ulterior motive. My weekly soccer game had been moved to Thursday and I had taken my stuff on the off chance that the concert would be over in time to make the game. I didn't have to twist Deb's arm though - she later said she was hoping I wasn't really enjoying it and was ready to leave almost from the beginning. Funny, I was thinking the same thing.

The irony is that I've since Googled the TSO, found their web site, and listened to some of their songs. I actually kind of like some of them. I think the over the top, amateurish production was what ruined it for me (Deb says "Nah, they just suck").

So, if you are a TSO virgin, I suggest you stay that way. Their ain't no morning-after pill for this mistake.

We Did It - And I Never Want To Do It Again

2009-09-14T08:47:00.003-04:00

I had been contemplating the title of the blog post that would report on the status of our century ride all along the road. At first, when we started out in the rain, it was something like "Wet and Wild". Then it was something about the scenic forest and ocean area of Dartmouth. At about mile 95, it changed into the one you see now - and I wasn't too sure about the first part coming true.

Let's start back at the beginning. It had been raining for several days leading up to the ride on Sunday so we didn't get much extra riding in during the week - OK, none. We did a couple of aerobics classes but that's not quite the same. It was supposed be partly cloudy on Sunday but when we woke at about 4:30 to drive down to Dartmouth, it was raining. Well, maybe it will be clear down there...

We got to the start at around 6:30 or so and checked in. They gave us a little wrist band and a cue sheet that gives the directions. We had thoughtfully brought a clear plastic sheet holder that we were going to put the cue sheet in and pin to the back of my jersey so Deb could navigate us around the course.

When they handed us the sheet, Deb and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was an 11x17 sheet with about 4 point type listing all the turns. Deb's sunglasses are not bifocals so there was no way she was going to be able to read that thing.

Luckily, they also "arrow" the route which means that they spray paint little directional arrows on the road at all the turns. We'd actually ridden with the group that puts on this ride once before and they really do a good job with this and it worked perfectly on this ride.

Anyway, we rolled out of the parking lot at about 6:50. There wasn't a mass start at all. People just dribbled out as they got registered. I had figured we would just follow people around the course but there was nobody visible in front of us when we started. The roads were wet and I got the usual spray in the chin that I've come to love so much. A little way down the road we started to see other people who had started before us and we reeled them in one by one. I now know how this works. The people who are slow start first to give themselves plenty of time to get around the course. The fast guys arrive late and hammer past all the slow pokes.

At probably around 15 miles, a group of two people who had been slowly gaining on us for awhile finally caught us and we stayed with them until the first rest stop at 30 miles. They would pull away from us on the uphills and we would catch back up on the flats and downs. I should take this opportunity to point out that "The Flattest Century in the East" is anything but. It doesn't have "climbs" like we have around here but it was pretty rolly - much more so than I was expecting. It was a little bit frustrating too. We could stay with pretty much every group that we got with until the road turned up a bit. Then, we had to decide if it was worth the energy expenditure to try and hang with them to the top or just let them go and hope to catch. We did a little of both but, in hindsight, we probably should have just let them go.

At the 30 mile checkin, we refilled a bottle, stretched a bit and then headed back out. We actually felt pretty good - those miles had gone by pretty quickly. Less than a mile from the stop, we see something in the road which doesn't look normal. As we get closer, we realize that it's a rider lying in the road - not moving. There are a couple of people standing around looking concerned. We stop and Deb gets off and goes over to see what's up. Apparently a dog had run out and caused the crash and the guy couldn't move his hip/leg. One of the other people called for an ambulance and Deb sat down on the road and let this guy lean on her so that he wasn't trying to hold himself in an awkward, non-painful position. I sure wouldn't want to have a heart attack out there because it took the ambulance about 20 minutes to get there. They relieved Deb of her duties and we set off again.

I don't really remember much about the ride to the next rest stop. It was very scenic and we were still feeling pretty good. It was only at mile 47 so the stops weren't spaced evenly apart. We stopped but didn't have any food. We felt like the Cliff Bars would be better then the PBJs that they had. We got water and stretched and just chilled for 10 minutes or so. The weather was still damp but the roads were starting to dry out little by little. The next stop was another 20 plus miles down the road at 70 miles. Still, we again felt a little rejuvenated when we got back on the bike.

This next stretch took us to the coast and was really quite pretty. At least I think it was. By this point, the sun had come out and the temp was heading up. The pain was also starting to build and I don't think I was able to savor the full ambiance of the area. It was a long way to the third rest stop and I was mercifully glad to see it. Just before we got there, I was thinking that I was probably going to have to stop soon regardless.

At the stop, we sat, laid down, stretched and basically vegged for awhile. We had a PBJ between us, got water, and chilled some more. We also noticed that my odometer said we were at mile 72 while this stop is a mile 70 according to the cue sheet. Hmm, sounds like my odo is reading a little generous. It also indicates that we are going to have to ride until my odo says 102 miles, not just 100 - crap.

Deb and I hatched a plan that we would break up the last 30 into 3 sets of 10 miles. Our easy ride at home - which we call the Llama loop because it goes by a llama farm - is 10 miles so we figured it was just 3 of those. Yeah, easy peasy.

We started off again and this time we didn't feel so rejuvenated. Clearly, I was feeling it more than Deb. I had a tough time getting going again. I felt pretty good on the flats but as soon as we had any kind of uphill, the power went out of my legs. We got to around mile 83 and found a grassy spot to pull over and rest. It was kind of frustrating to have all those people that we passed, now passing us but, as Deb said, it's better than passing out and falling over. True dat.

After a few minutes, we mounted up again and headed out. At the next 10 mile spot, I was feeling not great but OK so we kept on going. Big mistake. After another few miles or so, I was in serious pain and having trouble just making my legs go around. Unfortunately, we were in some woods with no real place to pull over and rest. At about mile 100 (on my computer), I had to stop. We found a grassy lawn with a shade tree. It took me awhile to get my breathing down and my legs were pretty much toast so we sat/laid there for awhile. Finally, I managed to get to my feet and get on the bike. The last three miles back were tough but manageable and seeing the UMASS Dartmouth campus come around the trees was like finding an oasis in the Sahara.

We found the car, picked up our t-shirts, and had a burger (I know). I even had a quick massage to try and put some feeling back into my neck and shoulders.

I should point out that all this pain and suffering is from my perspective only. I don't mean to suggest that Deb was in nearly the kind of pain that I was. She said she felt pretty good - just a little sore. Clearly, she handled this much better than I did - she says it's because she's the professional athlete (aerobics instructor) after all. She came home and did laundry while I laid in the recliner, unable to move. I hate it when people show off.

So we did it. It's a milestone to say we have done. And, while I said at the top that I never want to do it again, as I type this on the day after, and the pain has subsided, I could see that someday, I might consider doing it again.

Nah.

College Ho

2009-08-24T08:56:00.004-04:00

As Carly got in the car for the trip to UNH, Deb proclaimed "College Ho!" After a few seconds of awkward silence, she said "No, I mean, we are off to college!"

And so began the day of dropping off Carly for her first year of college. We had packed the Rav to the gills with all of her stuff and, I think, probably put Wal-Mart into the black a few months ahead of the typical retail turnaround that would otherwise occur on the day after Thanksgiving.

We got to school easily enough and joined the hordes of students (with their parents) moving into the dorms. They have vast armies of volunteer students with large laundry bin-type containers that come to your car, help you load, and take up to your room so it's actually not that bad. Carly is on the fifth floor of Bixler Hall so we had a long wait for the elevator to hoist the bin to the top. We actually had to take the stairs so they could fit more bins in the elevator. Did I mention it was about 90 degrees out and about 90 percent humidity?

We got to her room and found that one of her roommates had already gotten her stuff in. Just after we got there, her other roommate and her family arrived. So, we had about 12 people crammed into this room that barely holds three, in the stifling heat, unpacking cart loads of stuff.

Here's Carly and Deb apparently trying to figure out which side of the sheet faces up or something.

And here's another that gives another look at the room.

After we got settled, we went for lunch at the cafeteria and then to the bookstore to get a power strip, and a few other things. I expect a letter from Wal-Mart shortly asking why we didn't go to the local store in New Haven to get them.

After that, we all gathered under a tent in the quad to hear all the official welcomes and messages about the beginning of the journey. I remember it all being very meaningful and motivating back when Kyle went through it. This time however, it was just plain hot and I was ready for it to be over.

At about 3:30, the parents were "dismissed". We said our goodbyes but Deb wouldn't let me take a picture - something about her allergies acting up suddenly...

The drive back was long. Partly because we were contemplating the start of new life chapters for all of us, partly because we were making a list of all the things we had to bring to her that we forgot or didn't take, and partly because I tried an alternate route home and ended up in the countryside of Connecticut behind various forms of John Deere farm machinery.

Deb actually sent a few text messages to Carly on her phone - and Deb doesn't "text".

Yeah, things are changing.

Tandemania

2009-08-22T15:18:00.003-04:00

Well, we've been training for this century coming up in September for awhile now. Way back in May when I signed us up, I looked up all kinds of training plans for comfortably completing a century. They were basically 10 or 12 week plans where you gradually increase your mileage such that you could do a 60 or 75 mile training ride. If you can get to that point, the little bit extra on the day of the big ride would be easy.

Of course this was in May so we had plenty of time... You know where this is going don't you.

The weather this summer has been really rainy so it was very tough to get rides in. Not to mention that there just isn't time during the week. This was going to be a struggle. We have been gradually building up the ride length but it's slow going. Last week we put a long one in and by the time we got back to Uxbridge, it was really hot. I "bonked" - ran out of energy on the last bit up the hill to the house and just about died. That was only 40 miles. I think the cause was not enough water and not enough electrolytes.

Early on, I had started looking into energy replacement stuff. The newest thing is a carbo gel that comes in little packs that you rip open and squeeze into your mouth. I had no idea what they were like but I bought a box of those and tried them on one ride. It tasted like cake frosting which is kind of a weird thing to eat when you are tired and thirsty. It was hard to really tell how well they worked precisely but I seemed to feel better during the ride and not so blown afterward. I then decided to try Cliff Bars. They seem to get pretty good reviews for taste, energy, and being relatively good for you. I picked one up at a bike store in the middle of a ride and man, it was great! It tasted good and it was something to chew and "eat" as opposed to simply swallowing the energy goo. What I hadn't gotten though was any kind of electrolyte replacement drink. The gel and the bars have salts in them but I guess not in the quantity that you sweat out so I think that had something to do with the "bonk".

Anyway, after the ride, I happened to notice a spot on the tire where the casing was showing. I went online and bought a new tire and also some Cliff Shot sports drink mix and some more Cliff Bars. I also got a new pair of sunglasses. The ones I had been wearing continually slip down my nose and don't sit on my face evenly. It's risky buying glasses without seeing how they fit but I took a chance.

The stuff arrived on Friday - yesterday - so we took a ride - about 25 miles - after work. The glasses fit great and were a joy! I didn't put the new tire on because it would have taken an extra 15 - 20 minutes and I figured I could get a few more miles out of the current one.

Today, we got up at about 7 to either ride if it was not rainy, or go to an aerobics class if it was. Well, the streets were kind of wet but it was clear and getting hot so we got on the bike. I again opted not to put the new rear tire on the bike...

We planned out a ride of about 45 miles. Here's the ride laid out at MapMyRide.com

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ma/uxbridge/234125097079516347"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Uxbridge, Pascoag, Manchaug, Grafton Loop - 45&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/united-states/ma/uxbridge"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Bike Rides in Uxbridge, Massachusetts&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

We were going along pretty good until right at mile 30. BAAM! The rear tire blew. Yup, right where the worn spot was, the tube blew through the torn casing. Guess I should have replaced that tire. Blown tubes are no big deal - they happen all the time and we have a patch kit and spare tubes to fix them. Blown tires on the other hand are not good. You can't just put a new tube in there because, a tube at around 115 PSI will just squirt through the hole in the tire and blow again. The jury rig fix for a torn tire is to use a dollar bill to "boot" the tire - line the inside to prevent the tube from coming through. The fabric of the bill - folded over - is strong enough to keep the tube from coming through - theoretically.

We are basically out in the middle of nowhere so I guess we'll have to try that. We could call Carly and have her bring the new tire but let's just see if we can fix this. Open up seat bag to get tire levers to remove the tire - no levers. Oh yeah, Kyle takes them and puts them in his bag when he goes for a ride alone - Argh!. OK, I guess we call Carly. Get cell phone from plastic bag in my pocket. Hmm, the screen is blank. Press button - "Battery drained, Shutting down" it says before going dark again. I repeat this to Deb and she smiles her wry smile - "I guess we are walking then."

Just then, an elderly man comes out of a small house and he walks over to us holding a tiny baby turtle that he says he raises in his backyard. Hmm, OK, "Um, we've got a mechanical problem with the bike, do you think I could use your phone to call someone to help us?" He says "Sure, just let me take this little guy down to the pond."

He comes back and leads me into his house as I'm trying not to drip all over the place. I call home and get the machine. "Pick up Carly, pick up!" Nothing. I call the neighbors but get their machine as well. I then try Monique Cote since they have a phone number that is very easy to remember (I have everyone's phone number - on my cell phone that is dead).

She answers thankfully, finds a spare key to son Nate's truck and says she will pick us up. We agree to meet at the vacant lot of a burned down restaurant that we passed about a mile or two back. I thank Ma and Pa Kettle and head back out to Deb who, by this time, has been supplying sustenance for all the mosquitoes in the forest. We start walking back toward the restaurant to wait for Monique. She shows up not too long after we get there, we load up the bike in the back, and head back home.

At home, after I put the new tire on the back, Deb asks if I want to continue the ride. It's kind of hard to get back in the mood but we really didn't get the full ride in so I say OK. Just then, the sky opens up and, in full sunshine, pours for about 5 minutes. We look at each other, shrug, and get on the bike and head out.

It's not really raining but the roads are wet and the spray coming up from the tires is soaking us. The rooster tail from the front wheel is mostly blocked by the downtube of the bike but as I make small steering corrections, the wheel swings out from under the tube and throws the stream up which hits me in the chin. Mmmm, tasty! Deb, of course, has what we know looks like a skid mark all the way up her back from the stream off the back tire.

We stop in Douglas at a little coffee shop for some ice coffee. This is the new "carrot" for Deb. We have to stop for ice coffee about halfway through the ride to give her "a purpose". I now know that's the reason she suggested continuing the ride - she hadn't gotten her ice coffee.

In Douglas, we decide to try a different route to loop back home. Neither of us knows Douglas however so we end up thoroughly lost taking random roads that "seem" like they will take us the right way. Eventually, we find some familiar roads and complete the loop, adding another 15 miles for a total of 45.

I spend the next two hours cleaning and re-lubing the bike.

Despite the setbacks, we feel pretty good about our progress. We are no longer totally spent after a ride of this length (although my neck and shoulders are sore) so we are thinking we might just be able to do this. Oh man, I shouldn't have said that...

Ships and Salsa

2009-08-10T08:24:00.002-04:00

Saturday was Deb's birthday of course and it just so happened that the EMC Latin Leadership Interest Team (ELLIT) was sponsoring a "Salsa Cruise" in Boston Harbor that night. Well, since we've been taking all these dance lessons it seemed like a great opportunity to bust some moves! A couple from our class - Gary and Judy - joined us for the trip into Boston. They own Vaillancourt Folk Art and make amazing figurines of all kinds.

We managed to find a parking spot in Boston and make our way to the dock and the boat. The boat was actually really nice - it was really nicely decorated and very large. There were two decks and the top deck had an opening that looked over the dance floor. We found a table and watched the people come on board. There were a few people I knew from EMC but it turned out that this was not exclusive to us. This is a weekly cruise and apparently quite popular. We grabbed a plate of food from the buffet, which was very good, and waited for things to get rockin'. We didn't have to wait very long. They fired up the music and we hit the floor. They played a lot of actual Salsa speed music which is very fast. Ironically, as the music gets faster, you do less complicated steps so it wasn't very difficult. We were also able to do our rumba and Cha-Cha's when it slowed down a little. They even threw in some popular hip hop style songs that were fun too. The dance floor was very very hot and I was embarrassingly drenched from the effort. We had to go out on deck to cool off at one point.

Another thing that was heating up the dance floor was the girl who was sitting at our table. She was a tiny thing who was poured into a dress. Here name was Reena and she was from St. Petersburg - Russia! When she got out on the dance floor, Gary and I joked that we felt this strange compulsion to open up our wallets and look for 1's. As we were dancing, a circle formed on the dance floor of the type where each person goes out in the middle and shows a couple of moves. Well, this girl went out and didn't stop. Seconds later, Deb goes out and joins her and they both practically set the place on fire. Muy Caliente!

Anyway, we had a blast despite being way too old for this kind of thing. Our knees and feet paid the price on the walk back to the parking garage - but we'll probably do it again...

The Camper

2009-07-05T22:43:00.002-04:00

I remember when we first bought the camper - probably close to ten years ago now. Dad said "You can pay for a whole lot of hotel rooms for the cost of that thing." That's certainly true but we've had a lot of fun with it and all in all, I think it was a good purchase. As you know though, those things aren't really built to the highest of standards and the punishment they take going down the highway and sitting still for long periods of time really takes its toll and ours is starting to show its age. Actually, it's been showing its age. It's now starting to drool and act crotchety.

A few weeks ago, we were getting ready to go up to Vermont in the annual trek to the Vermont Quilt Show. We've been going every year for the past several so Deb and the other ladies can browse the Mecca of quilts and I and the other guys can sit back at the campsite and sleep. Deb had gotten a quilt accepted to boot so it was a special trip. It was just Deb and me this time - no kids and no other couples. I plugged in the camper the night before to charge the battery and cool down the fridge in prep for loading up groceries and heading off on Friday. On Friday, we loaded up and got ready to go but when we unplugged from power, the fridge wouldn't light. It usually takes a few tries on the first trip of the season because the gas has bled from the line and it takes a while to fill back up. This time however, nothing was happening. Hmm.

The other thing that was happening was that the battery disconnect switch was acting flaky. It's a momentary rocker switch that "kicks" on when you press it but it was refusing to stay on. All indications were that the battery was not giving enough juice. In order to determine if it was the battery, I pulled the Camry over to the door of the camper and used jumper cables to connect the Camry battery to the RV power cables. Once I did that, everything seemed to work fine. Great - dead battery. OK, so we'll hit Wal-Mart on the way up the road and get a new one.

Went to Wal-Mart, got battery, powered it up, no fridge. Crap! Hmm, I can hear the fridge trying to light but it doesn't catch. I end up using the butane grill lighter outside in the fridge panel to get it to light. I actually had no idea where the flame really was supposed to be but I just kind of waved the burning lighter around an area that looked like it might be a burner and yelled to Deb to "Hit it!". The burner lit, we closed it up, and headed North.

A few miles down the road there is a stoplight and as we come to a stop, we smell burning something. Hmm, is that smoke coming from the hood area? We pull into a gas station, get out and see that the left front wheel is smoking. I can't even touch the hubcap it's so hot. Great! We turn around and pull into a auto/RV shop to see if they can take a look. They said that it looks like the brake is seized up but there's nothing they can do. OK, well, there's nothing for it so we head home. At this point, I can feel a tug to the left as we are going down the road. The section of rt. 146 just before our exit is really torn up and we are getting rattled to bits and, after one particularly hard jolt, I feel the tug to the left go away and the whole truck feels normal again. We get off at our exit for home, look at each other, say "Screw it", and get back on the highway and head North once again.

We didn't have any more problems with the wheel but all throughout the trip, the electrical system kept kicking in and out. There are various beeps when the disconnect is doing it's thing normally so now, as we are driving, we get random disconnect beeps. Deb and I just look at each other - "Did you hear something? Nope, I didn't hear anything."

Another thing that we have been struggling with for years is the side mirrors. They are on long arms in order to see past the sides of the camper and these arms are designed to fold in if needed. Well, they decide to fold in ALL THE TIME! The wind blast on them, coupled with the violence of all the potholes and rough patches just swings them in rendering them useless. The one on Deb's side is the worst. She is constantly having to roll her window down and push it back out so that I can see what's to the right of me. She has tried all manner of friction inducing wedges to try and keep it from folding and she uses everything at her disposal - drinking straws, toll booth tickets, camping maps, anything. Nothing works. I've tried tightening the bolt that is supposed to give it some resistance but it never lasts for long. In a display of wondrous engineering, you have to fold the mirror back to get access to the bolt that you have to tighten to keep it from folding. Yes, you have to fold the mirror, tighten the bolt, and then try to unfold the mirror, overcoming all the friction you just put on the bolt to keep it from folding. Huh? I'm sure some design engineer got a bonus for that one.

Anyway, we made it the 4 1/2 hours up to the top of Vermont with no further problems. It was forecast to rain all weekend and it rained pretty much the whole way up there but when we got there, it was clear and beautiful. We cooked dinner and tried to light a campfire but the mosquitoes drove us indoors so we played cards inside. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the microwave. Last year, during the last camping trip, when we plugged in the power at a campsite, the microwave, which normally just dings and waits for you to set the clock, actually seemed to come on and "cook" for a few seconds. Deb noticed it when I was outside connecting the power so I came in to look. Hmm. None of the buttons on the control panel were working. I flipped off the breaker to remove power to it and then flipped it back on. Sure enough, it came on and "cooked" for 3 or 4 seconds, shut off, and was unresponsive to the buttons. I repeated the power cycle and this time noticed that when it powered up, the display said, in cryptic LED characters "2.5 oz Baby Food", ran for 5 seconds, and turned off. Yes, the microwave has decided that it needs to warm up 2.5 oz of phantom baby food when it gets power and then lapse into a coma until shocked into another round of baby food cooking the next time. So that's another thing that's broken.

The next day, we got ready to head to the quilt show which means disconnecting from power and using the battery to keep the fridge cold. Sure enough, when I disconnected from power, the fridge wouldn't work. I opened the battery compartment to find the wingnut on the battery hold down "bolt" gone and the battery jostled about in the compartment - cool! I grabbed some zip-ties and made a "chain" from them to fashion a hold down strap and we headed over to a Lowes to look for something to use as a hold down. I finally found a turnbuckle with hooks on both ends that did the trick. Unfortunately, the fridge would not run and the battery disconnect was acting flaky again. I dropped Deb off at the quilt show and headed back to the campsite. As much as I would have loved to join her and browse the hundreds of quilts, I felt like I should get the camper back on AC power so the food in the fridge didn't spoil. It's a scarafice I felt I had to make.

Anyway, long story a little shorter, we drove home with no fridge and various CO2 and gas sensors going on and off as they intermittently got and lost power, mirrors folding in, and the "Service Engine Soon" light on. Did I mention that the camper was up for inspection in June? Did I mention that that service engine light will cause an automatic "fail" of the inspection?

I took it in to get the service done and the inspection completed this past week. When the guy called me to tell me the story, he actually chuckled when he started the conversation which, of course, means "this is not good". That's exactly what it meant.

We do really like camping...

Graduation Day

2009-06-08T11:16:00.002-04:00

Preliminary launch number two was completed this weekend. It was great having Mom & Dad come up for the grand event and it was a beautiful day as you can see. Lots of inspirational words and wishes and just an all around great day.

Later that day was the Safe Graduation party which Deb masterminded decoration-wise so we worked on that all evening until the kids got back from a trip to Boston.

Pretty good stuff.

The Coming Century

2009-05-28T22:21:00.004-04:00

I did it. I signed us up for TFCE - The Flattest Century in the East. Yes, normally it's Deb who gets us into these things but it was me this time. A Century is, of course, a 100 mile bike ride and is roughly equivalent to a Marathon for runners in terms of goals and relative difficulty.

I did one once before, back in California, a little over 20 years ago...Hmm.

I had heard about this one last year and wanted to do it but they only allow a limited number of signups and I missed the cutoff. This year, I marked the signup day on my calendar and got in. I signed up both Deb and I so that we could ride the tandem but kind of neglected to tell Deb that I was going to do this. When I told her we were signed up, well, let's just say she did not jump for joy. The draw for this ride is spelled out in the name - Flat. As I think I've mentioned before, tandems don't do hills very well. Actually, they do downhills very well. It's the uphills that they struggle with. OK, it's the riders who struggle with the uphills. The bike doesn't give a crap.

Anyway, tandem riders really like flat rides so I figured this should be easy. Right?
Yeah, except that I happened to mention my plan to another guy who had ridden this ride. He said that "yeah, it's flat. But it's along the coast and it's rather windy." Great.

Whatever, we're signed up and we'll give it a try.

In order to do this, we've got to start riding - the ride is on September 13 - so I got the bike down and enlisted Kyle to help me do some clean up. We removed the chains and cleaned them and the gears and generally spruced things up a bit. I don't know if I've ever posted a picture of this bike so I found a stock photo of our bike. If you click on the picture of the bike at the top, you can get a larger picture of it. It's got fancy "aero" wheels with minimal spokes that are "just as safe as regular wheels". Notice the rear seatpost. It's got a little shock absorber for the Stoker's (the rider in back) bum. On a tandem, the Captain (the guy in front) is suspended between the wheels and gets a pretty smooth ride. The Stoker on the other hand, sits right over the rear wheel and takes the brunt of rough roads. The road shock is made worse by the fact that the Stoker can't see approaching potholes and therefore can't "brace" for the impact. The seatpost shock helps to lessen some of the punishment. You can't really see it but the brake levers on the front handlebars double as gear shifters as well. You squeeze them like normal to apply the brakes and push them side to side to shift gears. It's pretty much the coolest invention for bikes ever.

Speaking of gears, this bike has ten sprockets on the rear wheel and three on the pedal for a total of 30 gears. Some gear combinations aren't useful but it's still a huge range, and it's needed for the extremes the tandem faces - very low gears for grinding up steep hills and very high gears for bombing down the other side.

It's a really nice bike and we really enjoy it (but check back again on September 14th...).

Do the Zoo

2009-05-25T22:02:00.002-04:00

As you may know, Carly was "laid off" from the Whitin Community Center early in the year. She had been working in the Fitness Room cleaning equipment, washing towels, and giving tours to prospective members. The Center is struggling so they had to let a bunch of people go and Carly got the ax.

This was not good given the current economic situation and the fact that she needed to build up some cash for next year's college expenses. I was anticipating an agonizing job search process but one day she came home and said she got a job at the Zoo (or at least had an interview lined up). The Zoo, is the Southwick Zoo, located in the next town over - Mendon. It's just about the most unlikely place to have a zoo but it's actually quite well known and very large and well done. Carly had her interview and they hired her on the spot!

She mostly works in admissions and the gift shop and regales us with tales of kids who pull all the plush toys down from the shelves and the people who spend 15 minutes trying to figure out if they should get the "All Access Pass" or buy individual tickets for the various attractions (or some such calculation). One time she was working in the "Build an Animal"-type area where the kid picks out an animal to make and they fill it with stuffing and decorate it. I guess it's like "Build a Bear" at the Mall (I've never been there). Anyway, she said she was getting ready to fill the animal with stuffing which involves holding the empty animal "skin" over a nozzle that spews (apparently at a rather high velocity) stuffing into said animal. She told the girl to WAIT until she got the animal completley over the nozzle before she (the girl) pressed the "Fill" button. Of course, the girl hits the switch BEFORE Carly has the skin on the nozzle and Carly ends up being blasted in the face by animal stuffing as the girl shrieks with laughter. The girl does it one more time before Carly thinks to turn off the master switch to disable the "Inject" switch so she can get the animal lined up properly.

She seems to enjoy the job however and is happy to be making some money again. She said tonight that her little stint in unemployment has taught her to be a little more frugal than she had been so I think that's a good thing.

Mass Historia

2009-05-25T21:15:00.002-04:00

One of the cool things about Kyle's Scholarship is the stipend that he can access to support a summer as an unpaid intern at some company, presumably to get experience related to his major. Basically, they will give him $4,000 so that he doesn't have to work at Wal-Mart or some such place to make spending money for the upcoming school year. This being "technically" his last summer off from school, he had to access it or lose it. Back in January, we started to periodically ask him what he needed to do to set that up. Of course the answer was always "I've got plenty of time".

Well, it turns out that there was a deadline to getting all the paperwork turned in - including finding the place that you were going to work at - back in April. He actually realized it about a week beforehand and tried to meet with his advisor and people at the career center but with tennis matches and practice, he didn't make it.

I was none too pleased with his procrastination and I sure as heck didn't want to leave $4,000 on the table so I called the career people to see what we could do. Well, after explaining that most kids get their summer internships lined up in February, the lady said that the deadline wasn't that critical and he could still access his stipend. He just needed to find something - quick. He got a list of potential places and sent his resume around to them. I also contacted some people that I knew to see if they needed anyone. It wouldn't have anything to do with History but the lady said it didn't have to be directly related so I figured what the heck. Kyle even asked me if maybe EMC might "hire" him so I checked there too. My other sources didn't need anyone and EMC doesn't do unpaid internships. He hadn't heard back from anyone either so it was looking pretty bad.

One of the things our group at EMC does each year is volunteer in some community project. Last year, we worked on houses for the Habitat for Humanity and this year, we planted crops at the Community Harvest Project farm that feeds many hundreds of people in central Mass. They are always looking for volunteer coordinators - people to manage the volunteer planters and workers that they have come in and help - so I mentioned it to Kyle. He was interested and, since it was the only game in town, called them up and arranged to meet with them. A couple of days before he was to head to the farm, he said that he got an email from the Massachusetts Historical Society saying that they could use an intern! After a few negotiations back and forth he was in (and told the farmers to pound sand).

Well, the Mass Historical Society is conveniently located in downtown Boston so Kyle had to figure out how to get there... We found their website and got directions (which say, by the way, that parking is horendous and you really should take public transit). We plugged the location into the GPS and it says it will take about an hour to get there. We figure he should leave at 7:00 am to get there for his 9:00 appointment.

The next day, at 6:50 am, not hearing Kyle stirring, I went into his room to find him fast asleep. "What's up" he says. "It's 6:50." "Crap. My alarm didn't go off." So, he ambles out of bed and proceeds to leisurly get ready. I'm practically helping him put his clothes on and he's just casual as can be. He finally says "Would you just relax. I've got plenty of time." He finally rolls out of the driveway at about 7:20.

I head in to work and Deb calls me at about 8:30 asking if I've heard anything from him yet. Nope. I send him a text message asking if he found it OK. At about 9:13 I get a reply "Just finished parking." It took him another five minutes to walk from the parking garage to the building so he was about 20 minutes late. Hmmm. Luckily, it was not a big deal (he is unpaid afterall). He said they are very laid back and very accomodating. His first day was spent unfolding letters (bills) and placing them in other folders. He was a tad bored but he wasn't complaining - much.

After navigating the Mass Pike and Boston traffic he figured he really should find another option so we plotted his trip via the commuter rail system. The next day, he rode the train in to the Back Bay Station for a short walk to work. I got a call a few minutes after his train was due to arrive - "I'm not sure where I am". Great! I quickly pulled up Google maps and we figured out where he was and I got him going in the right direction. That day he did more unfolding and some transcribing. At the end of the day, they happened to get a shipment of old books from 1812 or something, written by a French speaking guy and they wondered how they would translate it. Kyle said "Um, I speak French." So the next day he was researching the information in these letters trying to figure out where this guy was and what he was doing. Based on Kyle's translation and research, he figured out that this guy was in the Dominican Replublic and logging the cargos of incoming ships from around the world. Pretty cool for his third day.

We still haven't gotten the stipend payment sorted out so I hope we actually see this money. I'm racking up the commuter rail bills so I sure hope this works. I think Kyle's actually going to see about $100 of this $4000 by the time all the expenses are accounted for.

The Last Prom

2009-05-10T14:51:00.002-04:00

It doesn't seem possible but we are almost done with High School. Carly went to the prom the other night so about the only thing left is Graduation.

Another Season Done

2009-04-25T17:13:00.001-04:00

DSC05150.JPG
Originally uploaded by tmhudg.

It's amazing how fast the time is flying by now. Wheaton Tennis finished another season which means there are only about two weeks of school left for Kyle this year.

They lost in the semi-finals to Babson but overall had a pretty good year. It's really more about the team and the relationships than the wins and losses in the end and this is one tight team.

ARTn't you thrilled with these?

2009-03-29T19:55:00.002-04:00

You know that Carly has been dabbling with drawing and painting for awhile now of course. She's recently done a couple of small paintings and when I saw them, I thought that you would get a kick out of seeing them.

I'll post the small versions here but you can click any of them and view the full version on Flickr.

I Don't Know What it Means but it's Beautiful

2009-01-20T14:44:00.001-05:00

I listen to a tech podcast that talks about all thing Macintosh (Apple computer) and the guy always ends the show with a song from someone. I usually skip over them but something made me leave one on and have a listen. Wow, I'm really glad I did.

The song is Adoram Flores by a Brazilian guy named Henrique Amorim. It's in Portuguese I guess and I have no idea what the words mean but the tune is really pretty.

You can have a listen at his website.

Announcing Tranza Software

2009-01-18T14:09:00.002-05:00

Well I've been working on this for some time and it's finally time to announce my new company - Tranza Software. I've been working on an iPhone application and I thought it would be more professional if it was from a company instead of just me so I decided to give it a go.

OK, so how do you start a company - assemble a team of lawyers? Meet with a Banker? Hire a Marketing firm? Nah - go down to the Town Hall and fill out a form that says I have a business and pay my $20. Done - That was easy!

You may be wondering what Tranza means and the answer is - absolutely nothing. I was trying to think of a name and I wanted something non-specific so it could be flexible enough to cover lots of things (In hindsight, I probably should have left off the "Software" part for even more flexibility...). I got to thinking about car names that sound cool yet mean nothing. There's a new Toyota called a Venza so I morphed it to Trenza. I Googled that to see if it meant anything - the last thing I wanted was my company name to mean "He who eats babies" in Swahili - and found some definitions in Spanish I think. I changed it to Tranza and got no meaningful hits. Then I went to GoDaddy to see if I could get a domain name using it. Incredibly, nobody had used it so I registered it.

I put together a simple logo in Photoshop, bought cheap web hosting and put up the site and I was in business!

Except that I wasn't. Developing the program for the iPhone is one thing - I basically spent two full weeks from morning till morning over Christmas working on it - but getting it published is yet another. Every iPhone app is sold through the Apple App Store and you have to go through a rigorous vetting process to get it on the store. It has to be tested and reviewed by Apple and I have to setup up all kinds of financial information so that I can get paid for the sales. It's taken about a week and a half for all that to get done. I actually didn't know it was on the store until I got an email from someone who asked me some questions about it. I asked him how he even knew about it and he said it was on the store!

He said that he would buy it so I think I just made my first sale! I'll be checking my bank account for that $0.70 (Apple takes 30% of the 99 cent sales price...).

Wish me luck!

Bee Ess B-eautiful

2009-01-18T11:29:00.005-05:00

Deb and I went down to Providence to see Becca and her band (the Becca Stevens Band - BSB) play and we were blown away! She has various versions of the band depending on how many people she lines up and tonight there were three of them. Becca sang and played the guitar, ukulele, and the charango (like a Uke but with 10 strings). Liam played the accordion and sang and Chris played the Bass (big standup Bass). It's a combination that you wouldn't think would go together but it worked beautifully.

Now, I've heard some of her stuff before and, while pretty, was not the kind of style that I was really drawn to. Hearing it live however made me a convert. Her voice was so clear and varied and full of emotion. It's weird but *seeing* a band perform live is so much different than just hearing it and this was no exception. The other guys' voices were also perfect matches and their timing was amazing too. The songs have lots of changes in rythmn and volume - how they were able to come in at the same time with no apparent cue was amazing.

Becca's guitar and uke playing were also fabulous. All the Ukulele playing I've ever heard has been just strumming and it always sounded toy-like. Becca actually - I don't know what you call it - finger picks? - and it sounded amazing.

Of course, we bought a CD after the show and had them all sign it so that when they are all famous and we've exhaused our 401(k)s, we can pawn it for another year of Health Insurance.

Click her picture to go to her web site. From there, you can listen to various tracks and get other information.

Here's a link to a recent article in the Boston Pheonix that sings her praises.

Wow. Just - wow!

Uxbridge Holiday First Night

2008-12-06T23:13:00.004-05:00

One of the things we like about Uxbridge is its small town quirkiness. Take the Holiday First Night celebration - please! It's a quaint little town get together where Santa comes in on a fire truck to the town common and lights the Christmas lights to start the official Christmas season. It's just about what you'd expect - Deb's choral group sings Christmas carols, various groups serve cookies and hot chocolate, and the local banks and businesses open up with other types of entertainment and refreshments.

So, at first blush, it seems normal enough. But if you step back for just a minute and really look at what is happening, it's pretty freakin' weird.

First, let's talk about the animals. There's a petting zoo. OK, maybe it's not that strange to set up a small pen on the common and put goats in it for the kids to pet. But then there are the "other" animals like small alligators, millipedes, and chinchillas. I just picture an alligator lurking in the Nativity, licking his chops at the chance at an absolutely "perfect" snack.

Then there are the street vendors. These guys show up at the fourth of July and other parades selling light sticks and assorted other glowing things and here they are again. So now you've got hundreds of little kids running around waving lighted *swords* and whirling glow in the dark tubes over their heads! They aren't even Christmas colored!

Early on, the police block off main street for the parade that will bring Santa to the common and people line up to get a good spot on the curb. The excitement builds as you hear the siren and see the flashing lights coming over the hill. But wait, it's not Santa's fire truck, it's a truck from the neighboring town of Douglas. Oh and next we have a truck from Mendon with an inflatable Grinch on top. Then, there's a truck from Upton, an ambulance from Holliston (an ambulance?), an old time, open-air fire truck with two guys who look like their core temperature is about 1 degree above freezing, another truck from Rhode Island with an animatronic Santa (that Deb thought was the real Santa and wondered why he wasn't stopping to light the tree), and then several more trucks from even more towns near and far in various types of decoration. If somebody knocked over a candle, the whole of southern Mass. would go up in flames while all these fire trucks struggled to get out of town and strip off the 4 tons of Christmas lights (and portable generators that power them) before they could start spraying water.

So now there's a big delay in the parade. Nothing is coming down the street and the people are wandering out in the street looking confused. Wait, I can see some flashing lights and hear a marching band. Yes, it's the Douglas High School marching band. That's correct - Uxbridge doesn't have a marching band so we have to "borrow" the band from our neighbors to have a band in our parade. Yeah, we hate them throughout the year but come parade time, all is forgiven. After the band comes, is it? Yes, it's the Blackstone Valley Pop Warner (PeeWee) football organization. Of course it is.

Then there's Charlie Brown and Lucy walking down the street. And I think that's got to be Snoopy with an old time pilot's helmet on. Yeah, that's got to be it. I'm pretty sure that Charles Shultz estate would not approve of that costume...

Here's a float - OK, "float" is maybe a bit generous. It's Chevy Blazer pulling what looks to be the bed of an old pickup truck that has been cut from its cab long ago. The important thing, I guess, is that it has the ubiquitous generator powering a couple of strings of lights randomly arranged on some 2x4's that frame the perimeter. There are people standing on the platform throwing candy to the... no wait, it's not candy it's...confetti? Yes, I think those are small handfuls of confetti that are basically blowing right back in the faces of the people who are throwing it.

Next up is another trailer, this time with what appears to be a "stock car" on it with two kids sitting on the rear trunk with their feet going in through the (missing) back window. This car looks to be the type that you would see in "local" car races but I'm struck again with the thought "Why are they here?" And if that didn't pose enough of a question, the next item up for review certainly does. At first it looks like another stock car on a trailer but wait, this one turns out to be totally wrecked! The weird thing is that there are no markings of any kind. If it at least said "Happy Holidays from the Demolition Derby" or "This could happen to you if you drive after Christmas Parties" there would be some kind of connection but there's just nothing. Huh?

Next up, we have what looks like a Nativity scene. OK, cool, this is more like it. We've got the straw, the wise men, the spotlight in the East, and yes, that *must* be baby Jesus being held up by the neck and waved around by that six year old in the turban.

After that we have - a Trolley. Hmm. It says it's the official tour trolley for the Boston Red Sox and yes, it's pulling over to the curb and disgorging passengers. This takes several minutes as some people try to get on and those inside try to get out. Meanwhile, the 18 wheeler behind it (more on that in a minute) is laying on his horn to try and keep the parade moving. The Trolley, finally empty, pulls across the road into the bank parking lot (where it we figure it probably should have stopped to unload in the first place) and the parade continues.

As I said, the next vehicle is a tractor-trailer. Just in time, someone comes on the PA and announces that the Grand Marshall of the parade is none other than - wait for it - Hannaford Supermarkets! No, not the President of Hannaford Supermarkets. Not the manager of the local store, it's the whole company. And they've brought their truck.

After that, it's what looks like a large delivery truck with a hatch on top occupied by - you guessed it - Ronald MacDonald. We half expected him to reach down into a greasy bag and start chucking fries at the crowd.

Finally, there's the fire truck with Santa. He dismounts and comes over to the Holiday Circuit Breaker, the announcer does a count down (hesitating briefly on the number that comes next after "4"), and the lights go on.

Now, we've seen the maintenance crews putting the lights up in the days preceding the parade and and it looks like they are taking care to artfully arrange them in the perfect Holiday pattern. In the end though, it just looks like the Jolly Green Giant grabbed a handful of lights, heaved them up in the air, and let them fall where they may.

Did we say how much we love this town?

Results and Soccer Vids

2008-12-02T23:31:00.003-05:00

Well, the girls lost their State Semi game. The game was held about an hour and a half west of here in Westfield. The school got a couple of buses for the kids to go support the girls and we drove out as well. By game time - 7:00 pm - it was about 26 degrees but thankfully dead calm. The other team scored about 3 minutes in and then put another one in early in the second half. Our girls made a valiant effort but they couldn't put much offense together. The whole town is still really proud of them and it was a fun ride.

Meanwhile...

I've been using YouTube to host my videos - primarily because it is so popular. I've always had a problem with the quality of the videos though. Regardless of the quality of the video that you upload to them, they re-process the video into what is called Flash so that it is playable on all kinds of different computers. In the process however, the quality is drastically reduced.

Well, there are competitors to YouTube and so I recently tried out Vimeo. I uploaded the music video and the slide show I did for the Girls Soccer team and I think they look pretty good. Check them out and see what you think.

2008 Uxbridge Girls Soccer from Tom Hudgins on Vimeo.

2008 Uxbridge Girls Soccer Slide Show from Tom Hudgins on Vimeo.

An Improbable Run

2008-11-16T19:23:00.003-05:00

IMG_0380.JPG
Originally uploaded by tmhudg.

The Uxbridge Girls Soccer teams have always been pretty strong. They usually finish at or near the top of the league standings and make it into District playoff action. Unfortunately, that's where they usually stop. In the past, they've just not played up to their potential in the really big games. This year was shaping up to look pretty much the same. They were seeded #2 in the District playoffs and had a bye in the first round. Their first game was with Leicester (say "Lester") and they won 3-1 to advance to the semis for, I think, the first time ever. That was an exciting game and Carly almost scored a blistering shot that hit the crossbar. It bounced up in front of the goal and Steph (something like 34 goals this year) headed it in. Already this was farther then they had gotten.

The game with Oakmont was on a frigid Auburn High School turf field and they came a way with a 2-1 win. There was wild celebration that they had made it into the District Finals! We found out that the #1 seed and arch rival Millbury (who had defeated them in Districts last year) would be their opponents in the finals.

The Finals were scheduled for Saturday, November 15 at Auburn High but it was raining and I guess there was lightening so it was postponed to Sunday at 1:00. A little after noon, I got in the car to head to Auburn. Deb's choral concert was today and Kyle was going to Wheaton to practice with the team so it was only me. I got to Auburn and quickly realized that I had a big problem because there was nobody else there. Hmmm. OK, I guess I'll strangle Carly after I figure out where the heck they are. I used my Blackberry to go to the Scheduling web site but the browser on my phone doesn't really render web pages that well and it refused to show me any details about the game. I called Kyle who was at home getting ready to leave for Wheaton and asked him to use a real browser to see if he could find out where they were. He got the page up but it didn't have any information about where the game was. I didn't have phone numbers for any of the other parents on the team and I could not figure out how to find the game. I called the sports desk of the local paper hoping they could help me but only got an answering machine. I finally Googled "Uxbridge Soccer MIAA" (MIAA is the Mass Interscholastic Athletic Association) and got a page with the tournament bracket. It was pretty jumbled on my tiny screen but I managed to find a link to the Finals and it said "Location: Foley Field". Great, I wonder where that is. I Googled "Foley Field" and found what had to be it - with driving directions to boot!

Luckily, it wasn't that far away so I as I got there and was walking in, I saw that it was halftime and the score was 3-0. Uh-oh. I was pretty sure that Millbury would be the one up by that big of a margin but when I got in and talked to the Uxbridge Athletic Director, he said "No we're up and your daughter scored a goal!" Woo-hoo!

The wind was howling straight down the field and, since it's a turf field, the ball just runs. Basically, whichever team is playing downwind has a huge advantage. Uxbridge had downwind the first half and got the big lead and now would have to hold on for 40 minutes of relentless pressure. Of course I didn't see Carly's goal but everyone told me she ripped one from the top of the 18 yard box and put in the opposite side netting. It sounded like a beauty.

The second half was a wild and woolly affair. When the Uxbridge girls would attempt to clear the ball it would basically get blown back in their faces. Millbury sent one of many corner kicks into the box and managed to ping it around and into the goal. They got another off of a deflection off of an Uxy defender. So it was 3-2 with time winding down and the crowd on it's feet. When the final whistle blew, it was pandemonium in the stands and on the field. When the girls finally came over to the stands, there were hugs and pictures all around. It's a fantastic achievement and I'm really proud of the team.

They are now in the State Semi-Finals and the game will be played later this week. Here's hoping for more success to prolong this improbable run.

A Blast From the Past

2008-11-07T22:41:00.005-05:00

I came across this document while browsing my computer tonight. I enjoyed reading it again and thought it might be fun to add to the blog...

CARIBBEAN HOLIDAY

As recorded by Deborah Hudgins

AUGUST 23, 24, 1985

I couldn't believe that we were finally leaving for ten days in the Caribbean. After Packing and repacking our luggage several times and patting our cat goodbye, we left the house in our neighbors' hands and headed for the airport with our friends, the Furriels. They dropped us off at our terminal with well wishes and warnings to "stay out of hurricanes".

Little did we know, as we wended our way to the ticket counter, that our flight was two hours behind schedule. We were not extremely thrilled to learn of the delay, but were able to see the bright side at least we'd be able to get a good head start on the novels we'd brought.

About half a book later, roughly 1:00 a.m., we were called to board the L1011 "Whisper Liner". We were seated in the middle section with a hefty couple seated directly in front of us. Naturally, they reclined and landed in our laps. Our "carry on" Luggage used up what little legroom we had, so the flight was not the most enjoyable. We were amazed at the way the plane shook at take off and landing; we thought she'd come apart at the seams. Obviously, nothing of the sort happened, and we made it all the way to Puerto Rico.

Why Puerto Rico when our destination was supposed to be St. Thomas? We wondered the same thing. As it turned out, Eastern Airlines had been unable to hold our connecting flight for an additional ten minutes, so, Puerto Rico was where we were left.

It was stifling hot as we walked from the main terminal to make our final connection. Tom made an executive decision and booked us on a little twelve passenger rubberband operated deal to St. Thomas. I was nervous, but tired enough not to really mind. There we were, packed into that mosquito of a plane like sardines, headed down the runway! As soon as we'd lifted into the air, I wished the pilots would land and take off all over again, just for the fun of it. It was frightening, but more exhilarating. The scenery below was beautiful; the water around the islands was multicolored blue, the clouds white and puffy. It was interesting watching the pilots at work in the cockpit. The descent through the clouds was a bit bumpy, but the landing was smooth. We'd arrived!

The airport in St. Thomas was the beginning of our culture shock; it was a converted World War II flight hangar. I plumped down on our bags while Tom tried to find out where one of our pieces of checked luggage had wound up. I inspected the scene: A throng I presumed was headed for a tour was being herded into groups according to hotel accommodations by a bossy gentleman, fortyish, wearing a loud shirt and touting a walky talky. Mr. loud Shirt continued to bark orders first into the walky talky and then to the bedraggled tourists. The tourists slouched listlessly on Suitcases or leaned heavily on one foot. Some sipped free rum punch they'd been offered when they entered the terminal. Finally, the crowd dwindled down to the inevitable two who hadn't heard their hotel called, and Mr. Loud Shirt first bellowed something into the walky talky, then escorted the stragglers out.

A few moments later, a couple stood practically on top of me; they were explaining their plight to an attendant... "You see, we just got in from Toeerrr tola and must have missed our connection... He was wearing a wild tropical print shirt and a cowboy hat, she an ankle length mumu. Though they were agitated about missing their flight, they spoke in an abrasively unhurried drawl, saying they'd just have to catch another plane for Texas. Somehow I'd known all along that they were from Texas. I was glad when they'd moved on; she was wearing a powerful perfume, and they were blocking the breeze.

After watching some garbage guys take away three loads of trash and the free rum lady mix another batch, Tom returned. Not surprising, our suitcase was lost. We were used to this sort of thing. The funny part was, neither Eastern nor Crown Air would accept responsibility for returning it to us. All the time I'd been luggage sitting and People watching, Tom had been hustling back and forth between ticket counters trying to get somebody to say they'd handle the case of our missing bag. At long last, one of them told Tom they'd call our hotel when it arrived. We loaded up our gear and headed for the taxi vans we were off and running.

We arrived at Secret Harbour Hotel hours late. Mom and dad were there, relieved that we hadn't been lost in the Bermuda Triangle or hijacked to Cuba. It sure was a pleasure to give hugs all around. We popped open a complimentary bottle of champagne and toasted our togetherness for a terrific vacation.

That evening, we shared an incredibly romantic first dinner. Despite the fact that the bugs were out for blood and the guys were wearing shirts and ties and sweating to death, it was postcard perfect. We sat on a patio surrounded by dipping palm trees, the water lapping at the beach, a pink sunset. We dined on roast duckling, filet mignon and fresh fish, and pinched ourselves to remind us that everything was real. That evening will long live in my memory; it was a dream come true.

AUGUST 25

We regrouped on Sunday morning, bade farewell to Secret Harbour and headed for Caribbean Yacht Charters (CYC) to claim our boat. Her name was Tattoo, and she was a beaut. We received brief instructions on the operation of the boat, where everything was, how to fix minor mishaps, how to work the radio. Then we sat around a table in the lounge area of the CYC office and listened to a crash course in navigating around the Virgin Islands. Our guide rippled around a map of the islands with colored markers, pointing out good and bad anchorages, places to see and avoid. He highlighted his whirlwind lecture with stories of "Fat Albert" at the Jost Van Dyke customs office, Clementine, an old storyteller on the island of Virgin Gorda, and how our boat, Tattoo, had been named...

"It seemed that time had run out. The owner was at wit's end trying to come up with the perfect name for his yacht. At the last possible moment, his wild secretary and girlfriend stopped by to show him what she'd gotten that day. She threw open her shirt and there it was, a tattoo on her breast!" And so our boat was named.

Our guide left the room for a moment; we glanced at each other apprehensively. We knew that we would never remember half of the things he mentioned. Next time, we decided, one of us would take notes!

While the guys went aboard to check everything over, mom and I braved a taxi ride into town to do the grocery shopping. Pueblo Market was very similar to a grocery store in the states. We stocked up on canned soups, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly and loads of canned soft drinks. It took nearly an hour to gather what we needed and to check out. On the way back in the taxi, we were dismayed to find that our driver had no idea where Caribbean Yacht Charters was located. What a panic! Fortunately, we passed some landmarks that mom and I'd noticed on the way to town, so we were able to steer the driver in the right direction. At long last we arrived at the dock, stocked the boat with the supplies we'd brought and were ready to leave.

A CYC guide maneuvered Tattoo out of the Marina and into open waters, then left us on our own. We were sailing! Our destination for that first night was Christmas Cove off the island of St. John, a brief trip across the channel from St. Thomas. It was early in the day, so we were able to go for our first snorkeling expedition. Mom had never snorkeled before, so I showed her what Tom had taught me. I'll never forget her brilliant happy smile as she came up out of the water. It really was fun! I was amazed at how clear and turquoise the water was, at how many fish and sea urchins there were. The undersea world was beautiful and fascinating.

On board, we ran up against our first problem: we found that we had no water pressure. We fretted for a while before we realized that we hadn't flipped on the switch. I also discovered that our toilet, "the head", was tough for me to pump. I needed help in doing it, as a matter of fact. I later learned that I could manage by myself if I wore my sailing gloves to better grip the pump. Other than those minor details, it was interesting and fun discovering that the stove rocked, that the plates, bowls and cups had sticky rubber on the bottoms, and that there was a special trick to opening cupboards and drawers.

At dusk we noticed that our battery, the #1, was almost out of juice. It didn't pose any real problems since we had the #2 to fall back on. Each morning we were to run the engine for about an hour to keep the batteries charged and the refrigerator cool. At 8:00 p.m., we listened to the weather and "traffic" (messages for sailors) report, and watched the moon rise. There were millions of bright stars dotting the sky; it was beautiful.

No one slept well that first night, however. It was amazing how many unusual sounds that boat and its rigging produced. It took us a while to get used to the creaks and groans, the dinghy nudging and squeaking and the moon as bright as a flood lamp.

AUGUST 26

Before we headed out to sea, mom and I decided to take the dinghy out for a spin. We took a crash course in operating the outboard motor from the guys, and then sped off in the direction of a tiny island to do some snorkeling. As we approached our destination, we asked one another, "How deep do you suppose this is?" Then "scrape THUD" and we were aground on crunchy coral. Fortunately, we'd switched the motor into neutral. We couldn't, for the life of us, figure out how to lift the prop. So, I jumped overboard and 'Lifted the back end of the boat, careful not to step on sea urchins. I guided the dinghy over the coral and finally was able to swim and pull it into deeper water. I threw my shoes into the boat, grabbed my snorkeling gear and swam for Tattoo; mom got the dinghy going and kept me company on the way back. We spent quite awhile laughing at ourselves, afterward.

Our first real sail was to Frances Bay, and it was a wild one. We encountered heavy wind it was rather unnerving. All I seemed able to do was scramble madly from one side of the deck to the other, or peel my hands away from security for a moment to tail the winch. I sure prayed that the other guys knew what they were doing. There were some unfriendly looking rocks jutting from the swirling white capped water directly in front of us. And we were worried about negotiating Johnson's Reef, a place where the buoys had been known to mislead boats to their watery graves. I wasn't exactly scared; I was too busy hanging on to think about anything else. Grey wild sea, wind whipping, dark clouds scuttling I checked to make sure I didn't have an albatross around my neck. Finally, Tom kicked on Tattoo's trusty diesel engine and we made our way safely to our night anchorage.

Once the storm had abated and we were settled in, Tom decided to go for a Swim. When he returned, he reported that held seen a small nurse shark not far from our boat! We all saw turtles swimming by, their yellow heads peeking out of the water every now and then. We were also able to see stingrays resting on the bottom; the water was beautifully clear. Rain fell intermittently throughout the afternoon. According to the weather report, we were in for a tropical wave, the precursor to a hurricane.

True to the report, a thunderstorm caught us late in the day. The guys went out in the dinghy during a lull in the weather action to set the plow anchor over the bow. I acted as the official "dinghy painter watcher". My duty was to make sure that the rope tying the dinghy to Tattoo didn't get caught in the propeller as we backed up. It often took many tries to set the anchor properly, and was a worrisome task. We all had visions of slipping away during the night into a reef, or waking in the morning to find ourselves lost at sea. So, great care was taken to set the anchors well.

Once we were securely battened down, Dad and Tom grabbed some soap and climbed up on deck for a shower in the shower! Unfortunately, dad lathered up a little late and missed his rain rinse, so he was stuck with sticky old salt water. They came back in and closed everything up tight behind them. We all nestled in to weather out the storms seven, to be exact throughout the night. None of us slept very well., needless to say.

AUGUST 27

Next morning dawned behind a misty fog. We locked up Tattoo and headed for shore in the dinghy; we were off to explore the old Annaberg Sugar Mill on the island of St. John.

We started walking inland along an old dirt road. The sun burned through the fog and made the day all of a sudden hot. We were surprised to find millions of tiny maroon purple colored crabs crawling all over the around like ants it was hard not stepping on them, there were so many. The plants were dark green and tropical looking, with vines everywhere. Above ground roots extended down from the sides of the trees to the ground like elephant trunks.

As we came off of the trail and onto a worn paved road, we noticed several signs, which read: "DANGER. MANCHINEEL TREE. EVERY PART OF THIS TREE IS TOXIC. THE SAP CAUSES SERIOUS RASH. EATING FRUIT CAN BE FATAL." Another sign said that Columbus described the small green fruits of the Manchineel Tree as "death apples". We all had a laugh imagining how Columbus coined that name in the first place..."Here Giuseppe, try this little green thing; it looks just like an apple"...

We walked for what seemed hours; the sun was really beating down, making our hike feel like a forced death March. We were relieved to finally reach the Bill compound. The most prominent structure there was the base of an old windmill, built from blocks of cut coral. In my mind's eye I could imagine wooden blades turning in the wind. There was also an enormous stone vat once used for storing rum, and a number of skeletons of buildings, all fashioned from the cut coral blocks. It gave me a sad feeling to see everything so quiet and unused no pirates, no rum raids.

A brief shower caught us on the beach as we ran for the dinghy. En route to Tattoo, a beautiful rainbow arched through the clouds. It was like a good omen as we set sail for Jost Van Dyke.

Because Jost Van Dyke is part of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), it was necessary for us to go ashore to clear customs. Once again we went through the process of setting the anchor, locking up and heading for land. Young children played in the water by the dock where we tied up, and some men were building grass huts on the beach to the sound of reggae music. We learned that the preparations were being made for a wooden boat race and festival to be held the Labor Day weekend.

The customs office was a small cluttered room. The desks were piled high with papers; bent louvered blinds hung awkwardly at the windows. A few fat lazy flies buzzed around as we waited for Albert Chinnery (Mom dubbed him Albert Chimney) to locate the proper paperwork. Mr. Chinnery was a stocky black man, rum soaked and sweaty. He asked a few questions about our boat, where we planned to go and when we planned to leave British waters. Dad signed the document granting us permission to visit the BVI as "The Master" of our vessel. We were then the official guests of the Queen!

We stepped outside into a wall of humidity. It felt good to hop back on the dinghy and return to Tattoo, where the breeze always seemed cooler, fresher than on land. Tom and I decided to go for a snorkeling expedition around the reef at the entrance to the cove. We were not impressed with the view a few dead or nearly dead fish, small stinging jellyfish and lots of what morn called "beer can coral" (submerged trash). I also had a hard time clearing the water from my mask and wound up getting a lot of salt water in my nose, which stung. By the time we climbed back aboard and dried off, it was early afternoon, and time to get moving toward our night anchorage: Cane Garden Bay, off the island of Tortola.

The sail to Cane Garden Bay was my favorite of the entire trip. We had plenty of wind to speed us along, and I finally began to feel comfortable climbing around the deck, always being sideways. Tom showed me all of the fun places to sit on the sides with my head through the lifeline or with my bucket over the edge. I guess I grew my sea legs that day.

Once we had set the anchor, we were able to take in the beauty of the Bay. Coconut trees lined the beach; the sand was bleached white. Turquoise water was still as glass and reflected the perfect blue sky. It was heaven on earth. As steel drum music drifted over from shore, we grilled steaks and watched the sun go down. After listening to the weather report and traffic, we hit the hay early for a good night's sleep.

AUGUST 28

As we ate breakfast, we discussed the game plan for the next couple of days and opted to stay at Cane Garden Bay for one more night. Snorkeling was the first item on the agenda; a trip into town on the other side of the island was the next.

Unlike our experience at Jost Van Dyke, the snorkeling off Tortola was magnificent. Tom pointed out varieties of elkhorn, fan and brain corals, all vivid shades of red, orange, purple, and blue. Millions of iridescent blue and silver fish swarmed in schools around us. We saw a hogfish and a big jack, and many tiny jellyfish. It was thrilling and frightening at the same time being in a strange environment; I felt like a visitor in an enormous aquarium.

At lunchtime we went into shore ready for adventure. We all had a pina colada or two and bought T shirts at a little variety store and bar on the beach, and then headed out on foot towards an old rum distillery we'd read about. Old was an understatement; the place was an ancient ramshackle shed filled with casks and bottles of rum. Everything, including the elderly man who worked there, was covered with a thick coat of dust. The old gentleman claimed that his rum was the best in the world "Have fun, dance and sing... no hangover!" Mom bought two bottles of the dark rum and a T shirt to wrap them in.

We then proceeded back to the store where we awaited a taxi to take us to Road Town. When it arrived, we wondered how it would ever make the trip. Choking black smoke billowed out the back, and it actually seemed to cough and wheeze. Before I even had the door shut, the driver tore off toward town own.

We took a very steep road over the mountain; there were many times we wondered if we'd have to get out and push to help the poor old taxi along. On the way down into Roadtown, the hairpin curves and fear of the driver screaming "NO BRAKES!" combined to create a hair whitening experience. When we weren't squeezing our eyes shut to block out impending doom, we were treated to a spectacular view of our bay and the harbor on the other side of the mountain. The water was deep blue and sparkling in the sun, a beautiful sight.

When we arrived in Road Town, our first impulse was to throw ourselves down to kiss the ground. Instead, we paid the driver and requested that he return in two hours to take us back to the bay. I suppose the pina coladas had impaired our abilities to reason. Our spending abilities remained functional, however, and we passed our time in town meandering through the shops, supporting the local economy.

Armed with bags of souvenirs, we waited at the meeting place we'd set for our cab. Our driver pulled up in a different car, a dilapidated station wagon. The trip into town had done in the first taxi, we guessed. So in we climbed and off we peeled. Exhaust fumes poured directly into the open back window, quickly causing me to feel carsick. It seemed rather ironic that three days at sea hadn't turned my stomach once. Teetering on the edge of extinction, we careened over the mountain and landed once again at the variety store.

It was late afternoon when we finally climbed aboard Tattoo with our purchases and a six-pack of Tab. We were hot and frazzled, so decided to go snorkeling once again, this time with mom and dad. Dad got caught in a frenzy of tiny silver fish, and decided that he wasn't too keen on seeing what the denizens of the deep had in store for him. He said that he figured there must be something bigger and more ferocious following all those little fish, and he didn't want to stick around to find out how many teeth it had. Instead of snorkeling, dad got out the windsurfer and had a go at that, along with Tom. Mom and I returned to the boat to make some supper.

Our menu was boiled chicken, broccoli and hot rolls, a real feast. After the dishes were done and we'd listened to the weather report, mom and dad decided to go back to shore to buy some milk and check out the night life in Cane Garden Bay. Steel drum music started shortly after they'd gone, and Tom and I heard lots of laughter and singing drifting from the bar. Toting a supply of irradiated milk, mom and dad returned much later. It turned out that they'd wound up in a limbo competition!

Moonlight washed over the bay; one by one the lights twinkled out on the other boats and on shore. It was another perfect evening in paradise.

AUGUST 29

Early the following day, we sailed in a northeasterly direction past Guano Island and Great Amanoe to a tiny island called Marina Cay. There was a restaurant and grocery store there that we had hoped to visit, but both were closed. Snorkeling, swimming and general laziness became the order of the day. We mostly lolled around on deck; I wrote postcards and got sunburned.

Four special remembrances stood out among the rest during our stay at Marina Cay. First was the discovery of a current of hot water that flowed around the island just below the ocean's surface. We wondered if the heat thermals were caused by volcanic activity. The second was a woman's high heel, an old fish net and some pieces of coral; treasures found when mom and dad explored nearby Scrub Island. The third was the fun of sharing our hamburgers with a family of sea gulls. And the fourth, my favorite, was dad holding mom, dancing on deck beneath the full moon.

AUGUST 30

We sailed for a place known as The Baths on the island of Virgin Gorda, next. Tattoo wouldn't point, as usual, and it took us many extra miles to reach our destination. We had some excitement when a rainstorm blew by; dad expertly tacked away out of its reach.

Our first impression of The Baths was the enormity of the boulders scattered on the beach like carelessly tossed pebbles. We slid our boat into the bay along with the other sightseers and took the dinghy to shore.

Mom and I poked around the base of the boulders while the guys took off climbing. After exploring the pathways that wove around the rocks, we better appreciated their enormity, and wondered where they had come from. Having become warm like lizards baking in the sun, we all decided to do some snorkeling. And it was on that extraordinary occasion that I saw them. Three horrible grinning barracudas hanging motionless about four inches below the surface, looking Tom and I over.

My first instinct told me to get the heck out of there. The second best thing to do was grab Tom's arm and cling and hope that those 'cudas had lunched earlier. Tom motioned me to the surface and reminded me that we were not filming a sequel to Jaws 3D, and that we probably wouldn't be ruthlessly chewed to shreds as long as they were still grinning. So, we made a slow nonchalant escape, pretending that we were too busy admiring the coral to even notice them. The barracudas must have realized that they didn't have any bread large enough to make a sandwich out of us, so we were spared.

Having cheated certain dismemberment, we wallowed out of the water only to find our bathing suits completely filled with sand. It took us another half hour to unload before heading back to the boat.

As we sailed toward our next anchorage at the Bitter End Yacht Club on the island of Virgin Gorda, I got to daydreaming about why The Baths were called The Baths, and wrote the following story.

How The Baths Got Its Name

The way I figure it, the pirates must have given it the name. You see, rather than make pirate hopefuls walk the plank to prove their worth, they were taken to "The Baths" for a more grueling test of will.

Everyone knows that pirates were foul stinking vermin who had never experienced a Mennen Speed Stick. Think of it. Months, years at sea ... and no Life Bouy (Judging 'from the way I smell after only 24 hours without a shower, those guys must have been absolutely flammable!). Anyway, as part of the pirate initiation ritual, the seasoned pirates would strike out for the Baths first, under a bright full moon. They'd then hide behind the boulders and wait for the unsuspecting pledges. The guard on board counted to 100, if he could count that high, and then sent the young scallywags ashore. The pledges' main objective: to return to the ship alive.

Soon, the ambushes began. The old crusties would leap from the caches and wrastle the pledges into the little tide pools. It was customary for the pirates to dunk the pledges under for three counts, three times. If the pledge drowned, it proved that kindness and decency still owned his heart, a cardinal sin among pirates. If he lived, he was forced to endure the remainder of the night as an object of ridicule, for cleanliness had no place on a pirate ship.

The punishments for these poor souls were mean. After being heartily flogged, they were forced to sing boisterous sea shanties until their vocal cords were raw. They were then rolled in wild cow dung, spat upon, cursed and finally locked below in the aft compartment to heighten the effects of seasickness. Only after vomiting on themselves did the pledges earn the forgiveness of their peers, and the right to fly the scull and crossbones.

This initiation for pirate pledges all started at the place affectionately known by all true pirates as "The Baths". And we were there.

As soon as we kicked on our diesel engine, we realized we were without tach, volt or bilge. We were afraid to turn off the motor for fear that we might not be able to get it started again, and the destination we'd chosen required more accuracy than our sails could provide.

It was a long, hot uneasy motor all the way to Bitter End. We took great care not to hit coral reefs and jutting rocks; the passage was a dangerous one, but not impossible. Again, Dad and Tom's skill and our guardian angle brought us safely to our anchorage. We were treated to the luxury of a mooring bouy no setting of the anchor, no worrying about dragging away during the night. We'd reached an oasis.

We went into the yacht club for some breakfast milk and to order dinner. Somewhere along the line we fell into some margaritas and nearly drowned. We spent the rest of the afternoon laughing over things I don't or can't remember, and trying to get from the dock to the dinghy to Tattoo. We then showered, changed into civilized clothes and went back to shore for dinner.

The atmosphere in the restaurant was warm and friendly. Flags representing yacht clubs from around the world hung from the ceiling, the lighting was subdued, candles flickered at each table. I ordered conch soup, a steak and french fries, quite a spread of food. The conch soup sounds exotic, but it actually tasted bitter, like burnt clam chowder. However, after having done our own cooking for the last few days, eating out was a luxurious treat, even if the soup did taste unusual.

As we enjoyed our dinner, we became acquainted with a man seated at the table next to ours, a Mr. Fritz Seyforth. He was a writer and a salt, and looked like both. His hands were gnarled, his pants drooped down below his waist exposing the top of his underwear and his feet were bare. His eyes were deep set; his face, rugged and wind worn. Fritz plunged headlong into a sea tale about how his boat had been cut in two by a freighter, then peaked our interest by telling us that his book, Tales of the Caribbean, was on sale in the bookstore' Without a moment's hesitation, mom was gone and back again with two copies for Fritz to sign for us. We had experienced our first island character.

That night we were serenaded by a ship's cat howling on the boat moored next to ours. It had been a fun day.

AUGUST 31

We awoke to a dead engine in the morning. We radioed CYC first thing, and were told not to worry; Rene was in town. He arrived shortly carrying his tool kit and a few other odds and ends for repairing our ailing boat. He was fortyish, handsome and incredibly smelly. Every pore on that man must have emitted ten cubic feet of stink. He crawled into our cabin and from there entered the hot engine room, where he continued to radiate body odor.

To escape the stench, mom and I went to shore to do some reading. We reclined in lounge chairs, poured ourselves some cold cokes and dug into our novels. The best part of the day was using the flush toilets, something we'd recently begun to dream about.

Two and a half hours later, the men returned for us. Dad held out a mass of burned twisted wires. It was apparent that we could have had a serious fire had we run the engine any longer. Again we thanked our guardian angel.

Since Rene's musk lingered nauseatingly on the boat, Tom and I decided to rent a laser and do some sailing around the cove. It was a small boat, and easy for me to handle with some coaching from Tom. We took turns hiking our bodies out over the water to keep her from capsizing as we flew back and forth across the cove. It was exciting to feel the strength of the wind, to be able to use that power to take us where we wanted to go.

When our time was up with the laser, Tom and I took the dinghy out to Sabba Rock, a point that seemed to separate the shallows from deep ocean. We spent an hour snorkeling and sunbathing there. When we returned to Tattoo, we separated from our mooring and motored a short distance to Drake's Anchorage to settle for the night. It was a very difficult place to set the anchors. Dad and Tom planted both, but still worried about getting a good hold on the sandy bottom. Tom went down with a mask to see how much depth we had under our keel. He came shooting up to report that we were in shallows, dragging toward a sandbar and reef! Like lightening they pulled in and reset the anchors. In his haste, Tom accidently caught the dinghy's life jacket strap on the anchor line, and we watched as the jacket spiraled down to the bottom. Something about having a life jacket on the anchor started us all laughing, lifting the tension we'd experienced moments before. Our angel also had a sense of humor.

That evening we watched the lights of a sailboat attempting to find its way into Drake's. After the trouble we'd had in broad daylight, we couldn't imagine how she could negotiate the reef and set anchor in the dark. Long after her lights disappeared from our view, we wondered if she'd arrived safely to her destination. I spent some time appreciating the care, the foresight, the skill with which my shipmates sailed Tattoo. Stars filled the sky; we were able to see the Big and Little Dipper. The moon took its time rising, but once it did, its beams shimmered and danced across the ocean. A cool wind blew, and all was calm.

SEPTEMBER 1

We left Drake's Anchorage early, around 8:30 am., and sailed a reach for Salt Island. A rainstorm came up, so we skirted it by jibing away towards Tortola. When the squall had passed, we headed back and anchored in Lee Bay around a mooring bouy. It was here that the Rhone had wrecked on the rocks during a hurricane in 1867, killing all 125 aboard. Tom and I grabbed our snorkeling gear and took the dinghy out to the point to take a closer look.

The view was eerie, almost frightening. The hull was mostly disintegrated, and looked like the ghostly bones of what was once a ship. It was very large, and though seventy odd feet below the surface, looked as though it were close enough to touch. I didn't like swimming near it; I had no desire to dive down closer for a better look.

The fish were glad to see us; they probably thought we were there to bring them goodies as other visitors had. There were some medium sized black fish with yellow tails and others with black and yellow stripes that seemed to hang in front of us begging for handouts. They were a friendly bunch.

We climbed back into the dinghy and tied up once again to Tattoo, ready to head for the Bight, on Norman Island. Without the aid of the engine, we sailed effortlessly out of the bay and had a smooth ride to our destination. Once there, we anchored in among three other boats, only to slip away towards shore. We tried the engine and found it dead due to some failure in the oil pressure system. Tom and I quickly took the dinghy out and set the other anchor, and Tattoo stopped drifting. Meanwhile, dad called CYC about our engine. They said they'd send someone out in the morning. So much for the wonders worked by the odiferous Rene.

I had a case of sun poisoning, bumps all over my hands, knees and ankles, so I stayed below, took a quick shower and did some reading. Tom and dad went wind surfing most of that afternoon. Later that day one of the "stinkpots" (Non sailing vessel) spilled gasoline into the bay, covering both Tom and the windsurfer. Dad was especially angry and menacing. The owner of the guilty boat came over to apologize, but none of us were too interested in forgiving him Tom and the windsurfer, not to mention Tattoo's hull, were a smelly oily mess. It took the rest of the day to clean everything up.

Mom cooked dinner that evening Dinty Moore over noodles, with dumplings made out of muffin dough that had popped from its tube. We were amazed at the number of boats that came into the bay as night started to fall. Many had their diesel and gasoline engines running, and their generators blaring. Some were lit like tennis courts, TVs and radios competing. We longed for peace, quiet and fresh air.

SEPTEMBER 2

All morning we awaited the arrival of the CYC maintenance crew to arrive and fix our broken engine. I again remained below to stay out of the sun. When the guys got there at 11:00, we were all surprised to hear the engine start right up, as though nothing had ever been wrong with it. The bilge was working and all. Jim, the head mechanic with the Harley Davidson tattoo on his arm, did detect a squeal in the refrigeration unit, however, and decided to check it out. During his inspection, the belt broke, and he didn't have a spare, so we were left refrigerator less. The final word on our temperamental engine was that a wire had jiggled loose, disconnecting our clutch. We decided, after they left, that they had no idea what they were doing, and that Tattoo had been the recipient of a miracle cure.

At any rate, we gleefully left the Bight behind us and sailed that day to Salt Pond, off St. John, a beautiful secluded spot where we were again by ourselves. Dressed in my long shorts and baggy shirt I went snorkeling with Tom to explore by some rocks and a reef. We saw huge furry finger like coral, and fish traps down at the bottom. We also saw five large stingrays and a school of fish thrashing around creating billowy clouds of sand. It looked like a feeding frenzy.

After swimming, I took a good shower, applied ointment to my sun spots, and went to the galley to make pizza and salad for supper. It was an inky black night, the moon not making its appearance until 9:30, and even then behind a veil of clouds. Perhaps because it was so dark, the spectacle we beheld was even more beautiful millions of phosphorescent fish or organisms blinking in the water all around us. As quickly as it started, it stopped; we were glad to have seen it.

We then settled down to listen to weather and traffic. The captain of The Puffin kept calling for the Cookie Monster: "Cookie Monster, Cookie Monster, Cookie Monster, this is the Puffin..." We couldn't help laughing at the ridiculous names of these two boats. We joked about the Puffin running aground on Fraggle Rock, or needing a shipment of Scooter Pies. Then The Blue Hen's captain came on the radio. He had a low husky voice, as if to dare anyone to make fun of the name "Blue Hen". We all laughed again until we cried.

SEPTEMBER 1

This day we decided to go through customs at Cruz Bay, on the Island of St. John. We motored around Steven Cay and came into the bay, where the water was ten feet deep and filthy looking. It was balmy and very hot there; we hated closing up Tattoo while we walked around town.

We took our dinghy around the Bomba Challenger, a big old passenger boat, and slid into a spot by the dock. We arrived at the Customs Office at 12:24; it was closed until 1:00. So, we decided to have some lunch first, and walked up the hill to Frank's Restaurant. Frank, originally from New Jersey, had a long crooked nose and dirty hair. His son, co owner of the restaurant, looked exactly like his dad only 35 years younger. We all talked awhile as our lunch was prepared. I had a delicious cheeseburger and homemade french fries that tasted like heaven. It felt good to be on land, eating a burger and fries.

We were in and out of the Customs Office, mercifully. On our way out, mom asked the officer, "Don't we have to declare anything, or show receipts... Tom and dad steered her out the door fast, rolling their eyes as they went.

Afterwards we stopped at Mongoose Junction, a shopping complex, to do some souveniring. There was a wide variety of goods there yards of tie dyed material, T shirts, pottery, jewelry, hand painted bathing suits, billowy blouses and skirts. I purchased some tiny ceramic tropical birds to hang in my kitchen window.. We stopped in a small grocery and packed a box with fresh supplies some ice, cans of pop and beer, granola bars, fruit then went to the dinghy. We were just about to leave when we spied a man selling ice cream cones; naturally we couldn't pass that opportunity!

Back on board, we lathered on another coat of sunscreen, stowed our purchases below and headed back out to sea. Our night anchorage was to be Christmas Cove, off the island of Great St. James our last evening aboard Tattoo.

Despite the wintery, cheerful name, Christmas Cove was hotter than hot, the most uncomfortable hot we'd experienced on the trip. To add to the discomfort, there were strange currents and swells buffeting the boat! both a bow and stern anchor were needed to hold us down. We ate all of the leftovers for dinner macaroni and cheese, hotdogs, baked beans. The mosquitoes decided to join us. We doused ourselves with OFF and another more potent smelling bug repellent. The wind completely died, the dinghy bumped against Tattoo, it was hot, we were being eaten alive, and to top it all off, we found out that our, water supply was gone. No showers, no washing dishes, no nothing.

Needless to say, we all slept very poorly that night. Between the mosquitoes buzzing around our heads and the dinghy bumping against the hull , we were able to catch a few fitful winks, however.

SEPTEMBER 4

We awoke early in a sweltering sweaty mess, bug bitten and smelly. I finished packing what things I hadn't felt like packing the evening before, then went up on deck for breakfast. We were all in fairly foul moods. Thank goodness we had some sense of humor left to laugh at ourselves and our predicament. I washed all the crusty dishes from the night before and our breakfast bowls in salt water, dried them and put them away. We rounded out the morning by packing and cleaning, packing and cleaning. Then we motored to CYC, our starting and ending point.

Chris, from CYC, came out to greet us and pilot us into the harbor. It didn't take long to unload our gear onto the dock. After the night we'd just spent, we were not entirely sorry to be leaving Tattoo behind, but we did feel a little sad to be at the end of our adventure. It had been an experience of a lifetime.

Soon we were in a taxi en route to Secret Harbour Hotel, visions of water from a tap and flush toilets dancing in our heads. We dropped, off our bags, cleaned up and decided to go into the big city, Charlotte Amalie, for some lunch.

Charlotte Amalie is a very colorful town, full of street vendors, jewelry shops, linen stores, restaurants. There were three cruise ships in the harbor, a Royal Caribbean, and NEI, a Holiday. They were enormous. There were people everywhere, quite a contrast to the lonely quiet places we'd visited during our time on the boat.

We ate lunch at Chang's Patio and Bar, a breezy outdoor cafe. Afterwards, we did some browsing and shopping. Beautiful coral jewelry, finely appliquéd linens, tablecloths, tie dyed skirts and wide brimmed straw hats lined the shop windows. It was an exciting and interesting place to visit.

Back at the hotel that evening, we packed and repacked our luggage, trying to perform a miracle by getting everything to fit. We all enjoyed luxurious hot showers, then relaxed in air-conditioned bliss. It was hard to believe that we were heading for home the next day. We opened a bottle of champagne and toasted our safe return, and our time together.

Tradition Interrupted - Resumed?

2008-07-22T19:44:00.002-04:00

I don't know if you've noticed or not but sailing has played a not insignificant part in the family's life over the years. Certainly it was a big part of Dad's life which translated into your life and then I got dragged into it all. You may have also noticed that there was a rather abrupt stop when it gets to my family. I'm not exactly sure what happened - I didn't really plan on *not* getting my kids into sailing - it just seemed like the opportunity didn't really present itself.

By the time the kids came along, Deb and I were into biking, and then we moved way inland, and they got into soccer, and well, it just didn't happen. We took the bareboat trip back in 2004 and that had somewhat of a mixed result. The kids were initially so taken aback by the 3rd world-ishness of it that they spent the first half of the trip complaining. They ended up having a good time but they didn't really learn anything about sailing.

Fast forward to last weekend. Deb's brother Tim came up to visit and we decided to go down to Newport to go to the beach and just bop around. It was a beautiful day and the bay was *filled* with sailboats. After driving and walking around Newport, I asked one of the local tour boat operators if there was any place that rented boats to sail. They pointed me to SailNewport so we went down there and had a look around. It was a nice place and they rent J-22s for not a terrible amount of money. As we were walking around the boats, I was really feeling nostalgic for the good ole' days. It's such a different, exclusive world and I kind of missed it. Apparently, Kyle was starting to feel the pull of the dark side because, out of the blue, he said that he wanted to learn how to sail. He said "Grandaddy does it. You do it. I want to continue the tradition. Someday, I want to take my family on a Caribbean charter like you did."

Wow! Where did that come from? Well, I got some information and we drove home. Later on, I was thinking about whether I really wanted to try and pursue this and I remembered that I had a friend who had taken sailing lessons at a lake in Worcester. That would be a lot closer than Newport so I gave them a call. Turns out I could join with a 30 day or 60 day membership and then, after proving that I knew what I was doing, could just show up and take out one of their boats (primarily White 14s).

Kyle and I drove up on a Friday afternoon to check the place out. This place is practically in the heart of Worcester on Quinsigamond Lake. It's called Regatta Point Community Sailing and it seems to be geared towards teaching city kids to sail. There's a beach right next to the place and it's a very "city" crowd. The "club" also rents paddle boats and canoes. We talked to the guy in charge and I signed up right there. I asked if I could get checked out and take a boat out right then and, at first, he said he didn't have anyone to conduct the test and it was looking like we would have to come back the next day. He then said that he did have someone so I ended up being tested by 13 or 14 year old Callie. Through some communication mix-up, I was only being certified for a mainsail. Jib cert is a separate test...

Anyway, after coming back in (Kyle waited on the dock), de-rigging the boat, and putting the sails away, I was cleared to take the boat out. So Kyle and I re-rigged the boat and went out. This place has some of the craziest wind I've ever seen. The lake is not very wide and there are trees and buildings all around so the wind just swirls. One minute you are close hauled and the next you are dead downwind. Not the best of conditions to learn to sail but I gave Kyle the tiller and he sailed around.

We headed home after a bit and Kyle seemed to have really enjoyed it. He had a friend from school visiting the next day and suggested that we come back and take him for a sail. So, on Saturday, we went back for another sail. I had to get certified with a jib so the manager guy told me to rig a boat and he would check me out. I grabbed some sails and went down and moved a boat to the downwind side of the dock for rigging. As I brought the boat around, I handed the bowline to Kyle for him to tie to the dock so we could start rigging. He bent down to pass the line through a ring on the side of the dock and then just kind of froze. I looked down and saw the bowline sinking in the water and the boat starting to drift away from the dock. With a "You did *not* just drop that bowline!" I dropped down on my stomach and plunged my arm, head, and upper body into the water and snagged the line. As I scrambled to get my head and chest back on the dock, Kyle's friend grabbed my leg and, instead of holding it down on the dock, lifted it up - basically bending me in two. I managed to get myself out of the water anyway and tied the boat up.

Kyle and I then set about rigging the boat - he remembered a lot from last time so I just told him what to do. The last part was the jib so I hanked it on, hooked up the halyard, ran the starboard sheet through the fairlead, and finally, the port sheet through the fair... Oh look, there is no fairlead on the port side. It's been ripped off of this boat. So, we de-rigged this boat, took it back around to the other side of the dock, got another boat around to the leeward side and rigged that boat. I finally went back to the manager and told him I was ready for the jib checkout. He told me to go ahead on out and he would come by and see how we were doing. I never saw him again.

We had much better wind this time (stronger if not any more directionally consistent anyway) so we just sailed around for an hour or two. I gave Kyle the tiller and he did OK unless we got a good puff and things started happening fast and he got confused on which way to move the tiller. One time (I was on the helm), we got a really good puff and just about went over. As I was scrambling to the high side I was thinking "Great! Thrown out for capsizing on my first day!" The extra wind and hiking out helped to stoke the interest however and both Kyle and his friend said they loved it. When we got home, we watched YouTube videos of all kinds of extreme sailing.

So, you never know. Maybe the interrupted tradition will be resumed and Kyle will be able to pass it down to the next one.

The Great Wall of Uxbridge

2008-06-15T20:10:00.004-04:00

There must be some gene or something that makes a man want to build a wall - even those men who have no business building a wall. I've built several walls - or at least wall-like structures - shelves, and work benches, and similar things - and I have no business building walls. So, of course, I set out to build a wall.

Let's back up. We've had several problems with our furnace over the years, water leaks, start up failures, and, recently, the power vent that pulls the exhaust out had started making terrible noises. I went out to take a look at it one day and found that it was rusted, corroded, and missing major pieces - like they had been eaten away. I guess this is normal - the sulfur in the fuel oil mixes with the rain water and makes - you guessed it - sulfuric acid! This eats away the metal and destroys the vent. We had the furnace guy come and look at it and he said we either needed a new vent or we needed to put in a chimney. He said the vent would be about $800 and the chimney would be about $1500. Right, so we called up friend John and had him start the process of putting in a new vent.

The problem was however, that all the while the vent was being destroyed, it apparently wasn't pulling enough exhaust out the flue. We noticed that we had a fine layer of soot all over everything in the basement. It was then that we decided that we should wall in the furnace so that if this happened again, it would be contained in the furnace room. This also afforded me the chance to build that wall and dabble in a plan to finish the basement. Of course, I really didn't know where to start. I had a Time-Life book on building walls that I had gotten a long time ago so I pulled that out and had a look. My, it looks so easy in the antiseptic "lab" they used for the photos. Funny, they don't seem to have all these pipes, and wires, and beams, and poles like I seem to have all over my basement. Luckily, our friend John Cote is a general contractor and does this for a living so I gave him a call and told him what I was thinking. He told me to pick up some lumber and he would be over to get me started.

On the appointed day, he showed up with all his tools and we got started. Getting the walls laid out properly is the critical first step. The book has you drop a plumb line down from the header so you can figure out where the sole plate needs to be but no, we don't use no stinking plumb line. John whips out this device that spins a laser light that "paints" a line along the floor, up the wall, and across the ceiling that tells you exactly where everything should be. We snap down some chalk lines and cut the sole plates. John then gets out his hammer drill, drills holes in the plate and the floor and we pound in concrete anchor "nails". Repeat for the studs on the walls. He pulls out another laser devices that makes a perfect 90 degree angle for the corner and we snap those lines and repeat the process. As he's having me cut studs and nail them in, he stops everything and says "OK, we have to go to Home Depot. We have to get you an apron." By apron, he means a tool belt - something to hold the hammer, square, nails, tape measure, and a pencil. I'm not too keen on the idea but he insists saying that it is really necessary. I give in and we come back with a new belt, a tape measure, a utility knife, a small square, a big T square, and a 4 foot level. I strap it all on (well, not all of it) and get back to work. After a little bit, I have to admit, it *is* much more efficient. I'm no longer looking for my pencil, or the hammer, or the square after each use - it's all right there. So John leaves and I continue over the next several days. By the next weekend, I've finished framing the wall. It was not without its difficulties of course. Measuring for studs and then actually cutting them the right length is a skill that mostly eludes me. The tolerances are ridiculous. A 16th too short and the stud sways in the wind and can't be nailed to the top plate. Too long and you can't wedge it in between the top and bottom plate. It's better to have them too long than too short and taking off one blades worth is usually too much so I end up leaving them long and bashing them into place laboriously. Toe nailing is another skill that I don't have and that's what this process mainly consists of.

Today, I worked on getting light into the new room. Once it gets walled in, the light in the basement will be outside the room so I had to figure out how to get light in there. Awhile back, I had run a new electrical circuit over to my work bench so that I could hang a fluorescent light and have an electrical outlet nearby. For the new light, I decided to tap into that circuit. I still had about a mile of Romex left from that project so I spliced into a junction box, ran wire along the header inside the room, down to a box for a switch, and then back up to the ceiling for a receptacle. I moved my light into the room, plugged it in to the new receptacle and - there was light!

At this point I'm basically ready to try my hand at drywall. According to John, this is actually the hard part so it should be interesting.

Civic Duty

2008-06-15T19:21:00.003-04:00

It's great to have Kyle home from school but it does present somewhat of a dilemma - transportation. With Carly driving and working, and Deb working full-time now, there is no vehicle left for Kyle. Of course, he wasn't real thrilled about finding a job so it was looking like it wouldn't matter but I knew he would have to get *something* so we started the process of figuring out what vehicle to get.

There were quite a few options of course - just perfect for people who can't make decisions. I could get a car for me and give him the Camry or I could keep the Camry and get some junker for him. The wrench in the system is that he's going to be back in school in three months so the extra car would end up sitting through the whole winter gathering dust (and chipmunks). As we were pondering what to do, we couldn't help but look at cars and we found that we really liked the Honda Civic. Well, after a bunch of hemming and hawing, we hatched a plan. We would get a new Civic and then sell the Camry at the end of the Summer. Next Summer, we would find something else for him or me to drive.

Have I mentioned how much I hate the car buying process? This one actually wasn't that bad. We shopped around a bit and found a dealer that wasn't too bad. The hardest part was finding the right color/model. I decided I wanted white and Kyle was pushing to get a manual transmission. Turns out there was only one white, manual transmission Civic in New England - or so the dealer said. Anyway, they found one, we haggled, and then drove off in a new Civic. It's a very nice car. It's roomy, and fun to drive and gets great mileage. I'm not sure the manual transmission was the best decision. It's fun for awhile but then it's just work. Oh well.

Kyle and I are trading off driving it - although he seems to get it more than me... That's OK, he'll be back at school soon enough. I'm re-thinking about the plan to sell the Camry however. It's still in good shape and I'll need it again next Summer so it might be cheaper just to hang onto it over the Winter.

Bailing out the Jetta

2008-05-06T21:25:00.003-04:00

Deb called me at work one morning and said that she had to take Carly to school because the Jetta was flooded - as in there were three inches of water in the front passenger-side footwell. Of course the logical assumption was that Carly had left the sunroof or a window open but apparently she had not. Deb actually had to bail out the water and then stomp on towels to try and dry things up but she really couldn't tell where the water was coming from. I told her to park it in the garage (since it was still raining) and I would take a look when I got home.

Of course, the first rule of the Internet is - if you think you're the only one with problem X, you are wrong. Somebody, somewhere has blogged about it. So, I googled "Jetta water leak".

Big mistake.

Gee, should I read about the class action lawsuit against VW for the water damage from filled passenger footwells, or maybe the list of dealers who deny the problem, or any of a thousand personal sites recounting the trials and tribulations of dealing with the leak and the moldy smell and electrical problems it brings.

I eventually settled on a site that had a running commentary from people who had the problem and who had tried various different ways of dealing with it. After reading literally hundreds of posts, there seemed to be two main theories. The first was that the drains from around the sunroof were clogged. Of course there were people who had the flooding who didn't have sunroofs so that was a bit suspect and there were people who either paid the dealer to clear the clogs or did it themselves and it didn't help the problem. Hmm. The second theory was that the pollen filter in the engine compartment gets cracked when they put the cover back on and this lets the water in. I didn't know where this was going but I figured it would be an expensive trip wherever it went.

So on a drizzly Saturday, I had a chance to take a look. I had asked Carly if there seemed to be any more water coming in. She said there wasn't on the floor but she said she thought she heard water sloshing whenever she braked. Oh perfect. I hopped in the car and rolled down the street and put the brakes on. I swear there must have been a Bonsai Pipeline in the roof of the car! OK, I'm guessing the sunroof drains are clogged - who even knew there were drains in the sunroof?

The website posts had mentioned little rubber "nipples" that needed to be "worked" to release the flow - try googling *that* and see what you get - but I really didn't know where they were. I finally found another website that walked you through the whole process - with pictures of the nipples even! I went back out to the car, found the objects of my desire and started "workin' it". OK, enough of that. Anyway, as I worked this thing, it was excreting this thick, sandy/greasy gook like black toothpaste coming from a tube. Then, all of a sudden, the last of the gook came out followed by spraying water! It quickly drained and I repeated the process on the other three nips. It was amazing how much gook and relatively high pressure water came out. It drained the roof area though and it seems to have done the trick although we haven't had much rain since.

Help Dad, I'm lost in Worcester

2008-04-19T17:02:00.003-04:00

You know that Carly has a boyfriend who lives in Connecticut right? Well, she's been angling for us to let her drive down and visit him for awhile now. Deb and I actually drove her down there so that she could go to one of his school dances about a month ago. It's about an hour away and Deb and I chilled at Mohegan Sun - an Indian Mega-Casino right by his house.

Anyway, Carly has wanted to be able to go down there herself and we finally gave in. I set her up with the GPS to guide her there and everything went fine. Well, a couple of days ago, she made plans to go down there again after school. Since the GPS was in my car, it was my job to remember to take it out of my car and leave it for her before I left for work in the morning. You know where this is going don't you?

Right. I forgot to leave her the GPS. So, she calls me about it but there's really nothing I can do. She figures she can just go old school and get directions from MapQuest and be OK. She has already driven there after all. Fine, no problem.

So I'm in the car driving home from work at the end of the day when - Riiingg.

Carly (Sobbing): Dad, I'm lost.
Dad: What happened?
Carly: I don't know.
Dad: Where are you?
Carly: I don't know, somewhere in Worcester.
Dad: What street are you on?
Carly (Angry and Sobbing): I don't know.
Dad: Do you see any street signs?
Carly: I don't know.
Dad: What do you see around you?
Carly: Just buildings.
Dad: Are you on 290?
Carly: No. I was but I got off and now I can't find it.
Dad: You have to find out what street you are on.
Carly (full breakdown): I can't! I don't know where I am! I don't see anything!

So I'm trying to figure out what to do to help her. Worcester *is* a difficult city to drive in. It's got some sort of Bermuda triangle thing going on I think - things just don't seem to make sense. Let's see, I can't really go get her if she can't tell me where she is so there's no point in driving there. Hmm, what to do...

I arrive home with her still on the phone driving aimlessly around Worcester so I get on the computer and bring up MapQuest to see if I can figure out where she is. She finally gives me a street name but I can't really figure out where she is on that street or which direction she's going. I finally tell her to find a business and pull into the parking lot. She pulls into Metro Dental Group or something like that so I Google it, find their home page, which just happens to have their address, and pop that into MapQuest - Bingo! I get her going in the right direction and talk her through every turn - using my best "Miss Garmin" voice by the way - "ReCALCulating". I get her back to the shopping center that she knows and hang up with her on her way back home - the trip to CT scuttled.

She gets home and recounts how she must have gotten on 395 North instead of South and realized her mistake when she started seeing the buildings of Worcester instead of the CT countryside. She didn't want to get off the highway in Worcester so she kept going and turned around in Shrewsbury. She got off the highway when she saw a sign for Uxbridge but then got totally lost trying to follow that route. Worcester is "the big city" and a touch grimy compared to the sticks of Uxbridge so she got a little freaked at being alone and lost in a dicey area. I think she's going to pay a little more attention to driving after this little excursion.

Big Bad Voodoo Valentine

2008-02-16T13:03:00.004-05:00

Ah Valentine's Day. The day that strikes fear in to the hearts of every man who has a woman. And really, it's only tough once you've firmly hooked them. All the guys who are courting some sweet young thing love it because it gives them a chance to show that they are sensitive and we know that the girls just eat that up (It was cute to see Chris drive up and give Carly a Valentine Bear). What the girls just don't seem to understand is that once the chase has ended, the game is over. Right? What's the point of going through all that effort when you've already won?

Anyway, just to keep the meals coming, I arranged for a Valentine's Day outing for the big day. I had heard on the radio that a band called Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was going to be at Twin Rivers in Rhode Island for V-Day. This is a modern day swing band who have had a few hits on the radio and I've liked them from the first time I heard them. Here's a link to an Amazon page with some of their songs. You can hear snippets by clicking the "play" triangle icon next to each song. "Mr. Pinstripe Suit" is representative of their stuff. A lot of their stuff is actually too fast for us to dance to but I decided to get tickets and see what it was like.

We got to the casino and walked through the noise and smoke and finally found the room holding the concert. It was in a big general purpose hall with folding chairs set up and two "dance floors" in the center. There was quite an eclectic mix of people trickling in - everything from old to young, people in jeans (like us) to people decked out in 20's flapper dresses and felt hats. The band came out (in suits and hats), started playing, and the dance floor immediately filled. We got out there after the first song and did our best to keep up. Our main dance is a triple step swing which is geared for a slower beat than these guys were playing. We can modify it into a single step swing for faster beats, which is what we did, but the turns are much faster and it's easy to get messed up. We still had fun though and worked up a sweat. We also enjoyed just watching some of the really good dancers. It's amazing how many different types of moves there are and how much we don't know. There were guys swinging the girls around and overhead and under. Crazy.

The band itself was really, really good and just listening to the music was a treat. We had a really good time.

We start up with lessons again in a couple of weeks with our old instructor. It's a beginner class so it might be a bit remedial for us but some friends are supposed to sign up so it should be fun.

HD-DVD Take 3

2008-01-24T23:07:00.000-05:00

Remember all my wranglings with Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD? It was chronicled extensively a few posts ago. I'll wait here while you go back and re-read it.

Back? OK, well, forget all that. Turns out that the format war is juuuust about over. Basically, two major studios who were staunch supporters of HD-DVD just jumped ship to Blu-Ray.

That's OK, go back and read it again. Yes, I agonized and finally bought an HD-DVD player a few weeks back (Yes, I'm also the guy who bought the snow blower and caused a New England winter without snow a few years back).

I never really liked the whole "Play movies on the Xbox" experience anyway so I did a little experiment. I had gotten "300" in HD but it came on a dual format disk - one side was HD and the other was SD (regular DVD). I played them both and basically couldn't tell that much of a difference. So, the HD-DVD player went on eBay and I got most of my money back from it.

God I love technology.

Another Movie Review

2008-01-24T22:50:00.000-05:00

I'm not trying to make this a movie review site but I just watched "Stranger Than Fiction" and I thought I would give it an endorsement. It's Will Farrel in a more serious role and he does a great job in it. Here's a little snippet.

I also watched "300" - the "epic" movie about the 300 Spartans who held off the Persians in ancient um, Sparta I guess... Stupid. I think the toughest part was accepting the Scottish accent of the Spartan King. Go ahead, scream "Spartans, Chaaarge!!!" in your best Sean Connery accent.

See what I mean?

Oh heck, I can't resist. Here's a mashup to prove it all. Just loop this little 8 minute clip about 12 times and you'll have basically recreated the movie. Think of the money you saved in movie theater popcorn alone.

Wasn't that just wonderful? The only thing I'm confused about is that I thought that this movie was completed *before* the writers strike but I just don't see how that could be.

Sounds like a Super Hero or Something

2008-01-02T22:31:00.001-05:00

I just watched Donnie Darko. It's little known movie that has developed somewhat of a cult following. I got it because Netflix recommended it based on other movies I had rented. The fact that I liked it is in itself kinda scary. How are those Netflix programmers getting into my head???

The movie is about an emotionally troubled teenage boy who sees and talks to freaky man in a rabbit suit.

And then it gets weird.

Let's see, we've got time-travel, worm holes, Watership Down, Graham Greene, God, destiny, free will, Star Search with Ed McMahon, and, of course, there's that man in a giant bunny suit. I'm not going to bother trying to explain it. Wikipedia has the best, concise explanation of the whole movie and there are about a billion fan/discussion sites on the web that argue and debate what it all means. That's actually part of the fun. After the movie ended, I couldn't wait to go online and see how other people filled in all the holes. Here's a YouTube homemade trailer that gives you a sense of this baby.

Speaking of Netflix, I don't know if I've mentioned that I subscribe to it or how it works. Basically I pay about $7 month and I get as many DVDs as I can watch (one at a time) sent to me. I go online and go through the catalog and add movies to my "queue". They send me the first movie on my queue and after I watch it, I just drop it in the mail in the prepaid envelope that came with it. About a day or two later, I get the next movie in my queue and so on.

Ain't technology grand!

HDTV Part 2

2007-12-09T14:08:00.000-05:00

In our last episode, the TV and Tivo had been ordered and I was awaiting the glorious dawning of a new age of TV viewing. Well, some progress has been made so I figured I would fill you in on the state of HD at the Hudgins'. I'm not sure if I mentioned it back then but I actually bought the TV from Amazon.com. It's a little strange to think of buying a TV online - especially a TV that weighs 125 pounds - but I read review after review of how smoothly it went. Not to mention that shipping was free and I saved the sales tax that would have been tacked on if I purchased it locally.

I got a notice that the TV would be delivered on a Tuesday so I moved a vacation day I had planned for Monday to Tuesday so that I could be there to supervise the delivery. They were supposed to be there between 1 and 3 but actually showed up at 11. They brought it in, unpacked it, turned it on to make sure it worked and left - easy peasy. Now, due to chicken and egg issues, I still had only Standard Definition (SD) TV coming into the house. Basically, I couldn't have the cable company switch to HD until I actually had the new TV since the old TV wouldn't play it. Thus, the new HDTV could only display SD TV which actually looks worse on it than it does on a regular TV. It's like enlarging a low resolution photo - the bigger you make it, the crappier it looks. Anyway, it was still a nice big picture but I had to schedule the cable company to come out and install the HD cable service - and configure the new HD Tivo.

The new Tivo is actually kind of weird. Normally, when you get cable, you need a set top box from the cable company that connects to the cable from the wall, decodes the signal and then sends the output to the Tivo, which records the show and/or sends the show to the TV. With the new Tivo, the cable comes out of the wall and goes directly into the Tivo which then hooks up to the TV. The cable company has to come out and install "Cable Cards" into the Tivo that allow it to decode the digital/HD signal that comes from the wall. In the dreaded support forums, I had read countless tales of tribulation about how the cable cards don't work, the techs don't know how to install them, they have to keep coming back, blah, blah, blah. Needless to say as the installation day approached, I was pessimistic about how many tries this was going to take or whether it was going to work at all.

This feeling was not helped by the first words out of the mouth of the installer when I opened the door and reminded him that this was a Tivo install - "I hate Tivos" was all he said.

Well, there were a few moments when it looked like we would have problems but after about an hour or so, I was fully up and running in HD Tivo goodness.

Of course, the HD from the cable is only 720p (720 lines of resolution) and the TV is capable of handling 1080p. Currently, the only way to get 1080p video into the TV is through either HD DVD or Blu-Ray "DVD" players. Turns out that the Xbox game console is a "relatively" cheap way to get an HD DVD player and that was the next purchase. I had sold the other game consoles we had accumulated on eBay so that helped take some of the sting out of this addition. Well, I went to Circuit City to get the HD DVD drive (it's a separate part from the actual Xbox console) and they didn't have any. I stopped over at GameStop and they had a new one and a used one for $50 less. Hmm...

So I got the used drive home and went to hook it up to the console. Did you guess that there was a cable missing from the box? Of course you did. Now, I have so many USB cables laying around that I figured that I surely had one that I could use. I examined the ports and determined that I needed a USB male A to male A cable. No, I did not find one in my jumble of USB cables that come with every other piece of electronic gear. Hmm... I knew GameStop wouldn't have it so I didn't bother going back. I checked on line at Circuit City and Best Buy - nobody had these things! How can that be! I even *went* to Radio Shack. Not only did they not have it in the store, they didn't even have them in their catalog! WTF!

I finally found it online from some obscure web site with a warning that these cables are not normally used and may result in short circuits of the devices that they plug into. I swear I heard ominous music playing from that website as I clicked the "checkout" button...

A week later, the cable came in and I was all excited to hook up the player and watch my first HD DVD movie (I had bought Transformers back when I had bought the player and it had been sitting there, mocking me for cheaping out with the used player). So, I hooked everything up, turned on the Xbox and the player, and - it sat there politely telling me to "Please connect the HD DVD player to the Xbox Console". Yeah buddy, I *did* connect the player to the console. That's what that freaking cable that I just waited a week for is doing! If I would have purchased the Xbox Web Cam "To enhance your gaming and online experience" I could point it at the connection and maybe this stupid machine could "see" that it was connected. Unplug, replug, power on, power off. "Please connect the HD DVD player to the Xbox Console". Arrggh!

Well, I guess there was a reason that it was a used HD DVD player. I'd have to take it back to GameStop (and pay $50 more for the new one). Optimus Prime was now smirking at me from the cover of the Transformers DVD case I swear.

The next morining, I awoke thinking about the player and had a hunch. During my attempt at diagnosing the player problem, I noticed another connector on the back of the player. I hadn't thought much about it at the time since these things often have unused connectors that are "Reserved for Future Use" and I figured it was just that (since I didn't actually have a manual for the player, seeing as it was used...). Stop me if you know where this is going.

Come to think of it, that connector actually looks like a mini-USB connector - like the kind that you use to connect a digital camera to your computer. Yeah, like the 5 or so that I pushed out of the way looking for the USB male A male A cable that I didn't have. Really, just stop me if you know already.

So, I hooked up the cable (yes, one of the ones I'd had all along), and turned on the console. "Please conn... Your HD DVD player is now installed. Enjoy your movies."

After touching up the chip in the wall left by one, now useless, "USB male A male A cable", we fired up Transformers, which by now had actually peed it's pants (or whatever the hell they wear) it was laughing so hard, and basked in the glory of 1080 HD.

It really was quite impressive.

HDTV- Huge Dilema over Television Variables

2007-11-19T12:03:00.000-05:00

Despite my aspirations to the top of geekedness, I had not bitten into the High Definition TV craze. I suppose my cheapedness trumped my geekedness - at least initially. Of course, I'm bombarded by the HD marketing Juggernaut at every turn. Take the Sunday paper for example. Every Sunday, Skip faithfully runs out, grabs the paper and trots back into the house with it carefully nestled in his jaws and drops it at my feet.

As if!

OK, so, every Sunday, when I have Deb go out and get the Sunday paper as I sit waiting for my cereal to be poured, I anticipate opening it up and pulling out "the section". You know, the section of the paper that brings joy to millions and let's you escape from the drone of endless stories of corruption, hunger, pain and suffering. It's the one that's been around for I don't know how long. It's always changing though - being constantly updated and refreshed for today's lifestyles and interests and trends. You know what it is because you, like everyone else on the planet, have that need to take a break from all your worries and indulge in that guilty pleasure that is the CircuitCity flyer.

What.

You thought I was talking about something else? The funnies? Yeah, Dagwood is "hilarious". It sets me free...Sheesh!

So anyway, CircuitCity, and all the guys at work talking about how many inches they have and how their wives love it so much have just been nagging at me for such a long time now that I finally decided that I needed an HDTV. Thus began the process of "HD selection". Now, if you don't know already, there are several variables that go into the HDTV selection formula. First, you've got the three main types of HD TVs - DLP, LCD, and Plasma. Of course, each has it's tradeoffs which means that there is going to be a decision involved which, as you know, is not one of my favorite things to do.

OK, so DLP is off the list since it's a bit older and is projection-based so it's not "flat" like the others. That narrows it down to LCD vs. Plasma. LCDs are lighter, use less power and have matte screens that don't reflect a lot of light from windows and such. On the negative side however, they sometimes suffer from "lag" where fast moving images (sports for example), sometimes blurr or pixelate. Newer displays have faster refresh rates but they are more expensive and there are still some people who say they still see the laggies. Plasmas are slightly cheaper than LCDs as the sizes get into the 50 inch range, and they display fast moving images better and are generally judged to have a better picture. The down side to plasmas are they are heavier, use more power, and can suffer from "burn-in" - where an image can get burned into the screen if it is left on and static for too long - kinda like the score indicator in all those fast moving sports shows it's so good at displaying - of course.

The next dilemma is resolution. HDTVs are primarily divided into 720p and 1080p resolution. The number refers to how many horizontal lines comprise the picture. A standard TV has 480 lines of resolution so 720 is half again as much and 1080 is more than twice as much. Obviously, more lines is better but, of course, it costs more as well so the question becomes, do you really need the extra resolution. There are several factors involved here of course. One of the big ones is based on the source material that you are going to be watching. Well, it turns out that the High Def shows coming across from the cable provider are only 720p so a 1080p TV is not going to show any more information than a 720p set would so you could argue that it doesn't make sense to get a 1080 set. *But*, the new high def DVD players - called HD-DVD and Blu Ray (yes, there are two competing formats just like Beta and VHS of the VCR days) - are capable of delivering 1080p video. *But*,since neither HD-DVD nor Blu Ray has won the format war yet, and since different movie studios have signed on to one or the other format and therefore if you pick a format, your favorite movie might not be available on that format, and since the players are pretty expensive so you probably can't get both, and since some people say that by the time the format war gets decided it won't matter anymore since we'll all be just downloading our movies over the internet, it's kind of a tough decision...the resolution decision...yeah, remember...the first sentence of this paragraph...that one. There's more to the resolution question too - like how far away from the set are you going to be sitting and how big is the screen. Sigh...

OK, so there are a lot of choices available and what you really need is some advice from people who are knowledgeable on this kind of thing. I know, let's ask Google!

Big mistake...

Christ, you could restore the Mississippi river delta with the silt from the muddied waters of HDTV options found in reviews through Google. I don't know what affliction I have but it's the one where the *last* opinion you hear always seems to make sense. I can read an argument for getting a 720 LCD TV and think "Ya know, that really makes a lot of sense. I think I'm gonna go with that." But then, my mouse, with a mind of it's own, clicks on the "Why you should always buy plasma" link and in no time I've abandoned the LCD camp and fully embraced plasma. And then another 10 seconds goes by and the cycle has repeated itself - twice. The customer reviews feature of Amazon should be outlawed as cruel and unusual punishment.

So, I think there are a few more variable involved in the equation but at this point, I'm not sure what they are anymore. Basically, I boiled it all down and decided I wanted to get a 50 inch, 1080p, plasma from Samsung. I won't go into how many times *that* final decision changed on the way to the shopping cart but I clicked the Submit button and tried to relax before the first wave of buyer's remorse set in.

The next step of course is figuring out where this thing would go because it won't fit in the entertainment center that currently holds our TV. So Deb and I set out this weekend to find something to fit. There are a couple of options for the TV. You can wall mount it so it looks like a big picture frame on the wall or you can get a stand - a coffee table of sorts that the TV sits on, or you can get a massive piece of furniture that the TV sits *in*. I listed those options in order of increasing price. Can you guess which option we settled on??

Right, the three piece HD entertainment center arrives in 3 to 4 weeks (which is after the TV is set to arrive - hmmm). Oh yeah, and then there's Tivo. We are addicted to Tivo since it lets us record all of our shows and watch them when we want (and all kinds of other good stuff). Can you guess where this is going? Yup, the current Tivo is not HD capable. Now, the cable company will rent you a Tivo-like box that will record HD shows but, in one of the few product reviews that is nearly unanimous, it is generally agreed that - they suck. So now we have to get a new Tivo that can handle the HD shows. All I can say is this TV better be so good that it's like stepping into another world because that's the only world we are going to have. We are going to have to experience eating out by watching high def versions of The Iron Chef and this will probably be my last post since I won't be able to afford an Internet connection either.

It's gonna be so cool!

It was 50 years ago today - then

2007-10-14T22:38:00.000-04:00

So, this post is waaaaay overdue. I really should do a better job at keeping at this (I was going to say that I have to be in the mood but that's really not an excuse). Anyway, I wanted to recap the Anniversary party - mainly because I'll forget the details if I don't (if I haven't already). You already know pretty much all of this so I'll try to fill in some details.

Deb and I had been thinking about what we (the family) should do for your upcoming 50th anniversary and we were having a tough time coming up with something that made logistical sense. The main ideas were either a cruise or renting a beach house. The cruise sounded fun but the expense would eliminate many people from being able to come (including probably us) and the beach house thing seemed like it would be difficult to really manage as well. We rubbed heads with Carolyn and decided a simple party in Portsmouth would be easiest - which sounds like it was a cop-out but really, all the fancy ideas seemed just too complicated. We figured we couldn't make it a surprise party so Carolyn called to tell you what we were thinking and to get a list of the people you'd like to invite. When she called after she talked to you, she said that you were flabbergasted that we would do this - almost to the point of tears! That surprised me actually. I was feeling bad that all we could come up with was a party in your apartment building after fantasizing about cruises and beach houses.

Anyway, the plans started rolling. Carolyn negotiated with the Caterer - who had to be brought down to Earth a bit - and I got the list of invitees - on paper. Yes, after years of working with Dad to get all his contacts managed online and electronically organized, I got about thirty sheets of paper - printouts from the address book. Sigh... I took one look at how many email addresses I was going to have to type in and said "This aint happening". So I hacked into Dad's email account (OK, not really. He knows I know his password) and exported his contacts into an Excel spreadsheet, weeded out all the duplicates, and fed the list into an Evite web-based party invitation system. For the people without email addresses (can you imagine!?), Deb sent cards.

It was kinda worrisome waiting for the responses to come in. Lots of people had already made other plans or couldn't make for one reason or another and I was worried that we had started too late. Slowly though, the list started filling up and we got in the car for the trip to VA. Let me rephrase that - the 12 freaking hour long trip to VA! The only good thing about the trip was that I had just gotten a transponder that you place in the window that, being tied directly to your checking account, lets you zip through toll booths in the "Fast Lane (tm)" without stopping and scrambling for coins under the seat. It's such cool technology that it was almost fun paying $3.25 to drive across a bridge. So, we got there not too much worse for the wear.

I don't really remember much of what we did on Saturday. Oh yeah, we went out to Walmart to get balloons and plants for the table. Yeah, so I entered WalMart into the GPS and said "take me there". Well, when it finally said "Arriving at Wale Mart, on left", all that was there was some large building that looked like it might have been a Walmart some time ago. Super. There was anther Walmart on the GPS so we said "take us there" but again, when we "arrived", there was not a WalMart in sight. We kept driving around this Mall area and the GPS kept "Re*calculating*" in that "why must you keep bothering me voice that it has", but finding nothing. We finally decided to head for a Target we had seen sign for. As we were pulling up to Target, in the distance, the familiar blue of a WalMart superstore appeared out of the mist (OK, 98% humidity) to a chorus of angels singing. So we got the plants, balloons, helium, ribbon, etc. and headed back to decorate and work off the computer questions punchlist.

We had a nice birthday party for Franmommie and then the party started on Sunday. Of course, you know all that happened at the party. It did seem to go pretty well - Deb and Carolyn were like a well-oiled machine and really did a great job. Everyone seemed to like the food, the singing, the slide show, and of course, seeing you and Dad and paying tribute to your wonderful life together. Photos from the party are here.
I've also got the slideshow uploaded to YouTube. It's a lower quality but still fun to look at.

Did I tell you about the drive home? No? Well, on Sunday, I had noticed that the transmission in the car seemed to be slipping a little (you know where this is going don't you). I think we were in New Jersey when, after getting off the highway for some lunch, the car decided it didn't really like shifting gears and taking us forward. It worked fine once we got it up to speed but it didn't like starting out - kinda like the VW bus in Little Miss Sunshine. So we get to New York and the GPS takes us over the George Washington bridge into congested NYC area - stop and go traffic. We get through that and then, in CT, the highway status signs say "Delay, next 26 miles". I think there was a smirking Smiley face icon on the sign as well. I punched "Detour" on the GPS and it took us off the highway, through some residential neighborhoods and onto...tada! the Merritt Parkway. I had actually tried to find this road another time and couldn't. It's a no-trucks, limited access road that was very scenic and flowing pretty well. As the miles rolled on however, the car got worse and worse. We made it home but it was touch and go. The next morning, on my way to work, the car just stopped going and I coasted into a parking lot in town. I did what I should have done earlier and checked the transmission fluid. It was bone dry. Did I tell you that I had just had my transmission fluid flushed and filled before the trip? I called Deb to come get me, and I went to the local gas station and bought a few bottles of transmission fluid. That was enough to make the car move and I drove it to the Jiffy Lube that had done the flush and informed them that I was not happy with the work they had done...

They fixed a leak but I think I've done permanent damage to the tranny. It just doesn't seem the same. Oh well. It just adds to the aura of the camry and gives yet another reason for the kids to cringe when they have to be seen riding in it.

The Mac Plunge

2007-08-06T21:12:00.000-04:00

OK, so I did it. This actually goes back to shopping for a new car and the final realization that I really didn't want/need to spend that kind of money at this point. The problem is that I had gotten in the mood to buy "something" and once that horse gets running, it's pretty hard to get him back in the barn without something to show for it. Of course, the rationalization was that I was saving all kinds of money by *not* buying a car so I could buy something pretty expensive and still spend a whole lot less than I would have had I bought a car...

As I've written before, I've been tempted to switch to a Mac for awhile but I've always been able to talk myself out of it for practical reasons - like practically everyone else on the planet *doesn't* have a Mac. So I was looking at new Windows PCs - with the new Vista Windows Operating System - but I was just completely uninspired by the thought of getting yet another version of Windows. So, when I went to the Apple site to ponder the Macs, I saw that they had a deal where you get a free iPod with the purchase of a Mac. Oh, I should point out that this deal was for college students. How, you may ask, did I see the iPod deal? Well, I knew from last year when Kyle was getting all his computer gear for college that Wheaton has a special section of the Apple web site where Wheaton students could get discounts on Apple stuff. So, I figured since I am the financial portion of Kyle's college experience, I should be able to reap the benefits offered by Apple for student gear. That, and the fact that they didn't seem to require any verification of being a student on the web site...

So the iPod deal was a pretty good incentive. It was actually not free but I could get $200 off a $250 iPod. Of course, there's no small bit of irony here (I think that's what it is) since, during the music player decision process I went through a few months ago, I had originally bought an iPod and returned it for a Zune player. The Zune is not compatible with the Mac so I would need an iPod if I were to switch to the Mac. With this deal, I figured I could sell the Zune for about $150, get $200 back for the iPod and come out ahead of the game - just nod your head and agree.

Anyway, that's what I did. I bought a iMac, an iPod along with some video editing software - at ridiculous student prices - and other software that lets me run Windows on the Mac as well so that I can still run Quicken. I think I wrote about this before. We'll see how things go when it gets here...

May er Concert Experiences Be This Good

2007-08-06T21:06:00.000-04:00

I wouldn't normally offer up a concert review but this one is warranted. Carly actually started the ball rolling by lobbying to go to a John Mayer concert that was coming up in Boston. The whole family has liked him from when we first heard his first album several years ago and we have generally liked his others, and the popular songs that come on the radio from time to time. But Kyle and Carly have really gotten into him lately - basically after the release of his third album. His music and guitar playing has been one of the key drivers that has prompted Carly to take up the guitar with earnest. Kyle has a friend at school who plays guitar and worships Mayer and he and Kyle have followed him closely.

When Carly started making noises about the concert, I thought it sounded like a good idea but I wasn't really sure how it would go down. I kind of didn't really think she would want to go as a family and said as much to her. She said "Nah, I don't care, I just want to go!" OK, well, what the heck. So I looked into tickets and found that the concert in Boston was on a Tuesday night. Kyle usually works every Tuesday night so that was going to be a problem. Then, I realized that I was going to be in Seattle that whole week so it was looking like Deb and Carly were going to have to manage the trip into Boston and back. Hmm... Deb wasn't too keen on that idea. She definitely did not want to drive into Boston (and back late at night) so we looked into trains. We quickly found that it would involve multiple changes between commuter trains and subways and a large risk that they might miss the last train back if they were not careful. Needless to say, Deb was not very thrilled about this. At that point, I found that John had another concert in Hartford on a Saturday. It was the day before I was to go west but it was the only way we could make it work. We still didn't know if Kyle could make it but I bought 4 tickets and sent the confirmation email to Carly's account. The next time I saw her, she let out a whoop!!

To make a long story a bit shorter, Kyle was able to go and we got to the concert with no issues. We had pretty good seats for getting them so late. We were in the first row of the second section which while pretty far from the stage, meant that there were no people directly in front of us. There were two warm up bands before Mayer played and they filled me with a sense of trepidation for the upcoming main show. The first band - I can't even remember the name - was not "bad" but they just weren't very interesting. They had a few catchy tunes out of the 5 or do they did but it was hard to understand the lyrics and the sound seemed "muddy". The next band - Ben Fold - was unbelievably bad. I'd actually heard of this band so I was amazed at how awful they were. Again, the sound was muddy but even worse was the singing. It was a three piece band and they all sang - in different keys. The main guy - Ben Fold - played the piano - a grand piano no less - and he basically just banged on the keys. It was terrible but my biggest fear is that the sound was going to be just as muddy for John Mayer. I was actually wondering if it was me and my failing hearing that was dampening out the highs.

After a long wait for John Mayer to start up he finally came on stage - with two more guitar players, a bass player, drummer, keyboard player, and a two-piece horn section - to loud applause. He launched into the first song and it was like the wax had been pulled out of the ears of the speakers (if you know what I mean). The sound was just amazing and the music was fabulous. John Mayer, it turns out, is a guitar virtuoso. Kyle had said that he was but it didn't really mean anything to me until I heard it for myself. The guitar playing - from him and his two band mates - along with incredibly crisp, sharp drumming made for an incredible concert. I can't really review each song of course but by the end of it all, we were all just in awe of the whole experience. It's hard to compare this concert with some of my all-time faves from back when I was a serious concert goer but I think it might have been the best. The only thing that could have made it better would be if I was a little more familiar with the songs. I'd heard them all before but I didn't know them deeply like the kids did. The other thing that was great about the whole thing was that we all saw it together. When the kids have gone to concerts and reported back that it was "great", or when Deb or I say how such and such a concert was great back in the day, no one has a frame of reference. Now, not only do we all have a yard stick to measure against, we all experienced an amazing event and will be able to re-live it for years to come.

Learning to Fly

2007-06-27T19:42:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, my birthday was coming up and I was facing the question of what to do or get to celebrate it. I can never decide what I want of course, so it was somewhat frustrating. Well, I was chatting with some people at work and, I don't know how it came up, but the subject turned to vertical wind tunnels - the kind that people use to simulate sky diving. When my boss mentioned that there was one just over the border in New Hampshire, that sealed it. That was what I wanted to do.

To add icing to the cake so to speak, I got a few "thank you" bucks for my work on the POC that I wrote about earlier so I had some cash to spend on this adventure. Now, to fully appreciate the story, you have to understand that each year on Mother's Day or Deb's birthday, the family is subjected to some sort of "Deb" activity. These have ranged from trips to Plymouth, Sturbridge, art museums, butterfly habitats, and other sorts of "cultural" enlightenment experiences. Deb makes us go on these days because it's the only day that we can't really say "No, I don't think the Massachusetts Quilt Museum would be that fun to go to."

So, I figured I would declare a "Dad's birthday excursion" day but not tell them what we would be doing. This provided over a week's worth of them trying to guess where we would be going and just exactly how bored they would be by the end of said day. On the day of, we set out for the unknown. They were still trying to guess where we were going but couldn't figure it out of course, since I wasn't saying anything. They thought for sure it was the Duck Tours - car/boats that are used for tours of Boston - but when we passed the turnpike entrance, that theory fell apart.

They were really confused when we got off the highway in Nashua, NH because there really isn't anything there. We were driving down the road and, since Skyventure is behind a Best Buy, and we turned onto that road, they were incredulous that I had taken them to an electronics store in another state. Then they got a look at the building behind it, with the big bold INDOOR SKYDIVING on it. The sound of their jaws hitting the floor was quickly followed by "I'm not doing that!", "No way!" As we got out of the car though, I could tell the kids were kind of intrigued.

Inside, the kids agreed to give it a try but Deb decided that she would spectate and hold her finger over the 911 buttons on the phone for the duration of the flight. We paid our money and went upstairs to await our training, equipment, and flight. Meanwhile, we watched others in the tunnel trying to fly. Frankly, it looked pretty difficult. The person is pulled into the vertical air flow by an instructor who helps balance you as you lay out flat in the wind stream. At that point the person just tries to keep from bashing into the walls of the tunnel as they slip and slide in the blast of wind.

After a short wait, we got some brief instruction from our guide which basically consisted of "relax and keep your head up". We then got outfitted in knee pads, elbow pads, jumpsuits, ear plugs and helmets and then filed into the "chamber". The tunnel actually has a small seating area inside but out of the wind and there are two doors into the tunnel itself which has Plexiglas walls. There were about 10 people in the chamber with us and we each took turns flying. You pay by the minute and the basic package was two, one minute flights.

It's really hard to describe it but it was fun. There is no sensation of falling, just floating. The first time for each of us was a little shaky but much better than some of the other people we were with. The second time around was even better and we each were able to get some pretty good float time. Deb was shooting video and I've put it together into a little music video below

Afterwards, the kids were thrilled. Carly kept saying "I can't believe we just did that!" and Kyle came up to me and said how cool that was. We are definitely going to have to do that again some time.

This Semi-Charmed Life

2007-06-03T18:33:00.001-04:00

It's been three days and I still find myself shaking my head in amazement. About a week ago on Friday, I got asked to sit in on a con-call about a POC (Proof of Concept) that the bosses were thinking of taking on (a POC is where companies have us set up equipment in our labs to prove that our stuff is going to do what we say it will do). The deal was that another company was trying to sell some of their gear, that works with our gear, to Farmer's Insurance. Our storage systems will talk to each other so that data on one system can be replicated to another system some distance away so that if there is some sort of disaster at one site, the data is still available at the remote site. This, of course, requires sending large amounts of data across networks and as the distance between the sites increases, the time it takes for the information to get there increases. This other company makes gear that speeds up the transfer of the replicated data and they wanted to get into our lab to prove that their stuff works with our stuff (which the customer already had).

The problem was that it was Friday, and they wanted to show this to the customer on the next Friday. Oh yeah, and this was the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend so there would only be four days the next week to set everything up for the demo. Of course, management said "It should be easy. Let's do it." So we stared scrambling around to try and get ready for the gear that would be coming in next Tuesday. Being the Friday before a long weekend, management usually sends out an email around 3:00 saying "Enjoy the long weekend. Feel free to leave 'as your schedule permits'". It's kind of a running joke that I always get tasked with something just before a long weekend and thus never get to 'leave as my schedule permits', and that day was no different.

So the next week (last week) comes and we get the equipment in and start setting it up (along with one of the guys from the company that makes the gear) and start slogging through no end of problems - mostly with EMC gear. The basic test is to set up a program that writes data to one of the EMC storage systems which then replicates it through the other company's gear to another EMC storage system and compare how fast it is both with and without the other company's "speed-up" gear. After fixing cable problems, hardware problems, and various other road blocks through a couple of late nights, we were finally ready for a dry-run on Thursday. Thursday morning, one of the account team members calls and says that they don't like the data we are getting and want to switch to a different load generating program. We tell him that it's too late to switch at this point and he hangs up in a huff. We got through the dry-run pretty easily but then went to try one more test and the third-party gear had a failure. We stay late on Thursday trying to get one of their boxes running faster but they finally determine that it's some kind of hardware problem that they can't fix in time so they'll just wing it and hope the customer doesn't notice. The demo, by the way, is actually taking place in San Jose via a remote video connection to our labs. The customer and the account team will be in SJ and will remotely connect to our computers here (just like I do when I view Dad's computer from home) to see the demo.

So Friday comes around and we make one last run through of the test and, of course, everything goes to Hell. Turns out the program we have been using to generate the data has filled up the disks of the storage system and won't run anymore. The process for creating the whole test environment has taken three days and we are faced with wiping out everything and rebuilding in about three hours. We first thought that maybe the disks were just very close to being full and that maybe could get a few more runs out of it so we started up the program again. It looked like it was going to run but it was taking a very long time to get started. We were watching it set itself up and as some numbers were incrementing, it was looking like it was going to take about an hour to get going. Cool, that would leave us with two hours to spare. Except that after about 15 minutes into it, it seemed to be going slower and it now looked like it was going to take two hours to start. Hmm.... A little while later it looked like it was going to take about 2.5 hours to start. Needless to say the tension was high. With about an hour and a half until show time, I called the account manager and told him our problems and that we may have to fall back to an alternate method of data generation which wouldn't provide them all the data they wanted. He said "Well, that would be very unfortunate. Please keep me posted." With about 30 minutes to go, the test finally finished initializing but when it started, it still would not generate any data. Crap! I had an idea that maybe I could re-initialize to a tiny fraction of the size of the original system and it still might work. So I stopped the test so that I could re-initialize - except that it wouldn't stop. I finally had to kill the test and reload the whole program. I fired it up, raced through the configuration of the test parameters and set the data size to 3% of it's original value and hit the Run button. It thought about it awhile, built it's test files and, praise God, started generating data. At that exact moment, I got a text message from the account manager that said "Well, are we ready or do I have to start dancing?" I fired back a text message saying "We are go!". We quickly reset for the beginning of the test, turned on the remote video session, dialed into the conference call, ran through the whole scenario without a hitch, said "That's about all there is to it.", to which they said "Thanks very much.", disconnected, and then collapsed into a heap.

One of the guys got a text message later that said something like "Wow, you guys hit that one out of the park!" Like I said, I'm still shaking my head over this. We were so close to absolute disaster to have it come off so well almost shakes my faith in atheism.

Music (player) Musings

2007-04-17T22:01:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I've posted and I'm not really sure what to write about so I'll just ramble...
I jumped on the MP3 player bandwagon several years ago. I got one of the early hard-disk players that came out after the first round of memory-based players. The unit I got, from Creative, had a 20 Gig hard drive and was about the size of a deck of flash cards. This thing held all of my songs - which were ripped from CDs onto my computer and downloaded to the player - and was great to use in the car or the bike while we had it. I never liked the idea of smaller capacity players that held 50 or 100 songs - a small fraction of my music library - because it meant that I had to decide, before I left the house (where the computer was that had the full library) which songs I was going to want to listen to that day. Its the same problem with having (even) a six disc CD changer in your car. For me anyway, I never know what I'm going to want to listen to so I'd have to take all my discs anyway. I love being able to call up any song, artist, or album I want, whenever I want to listen to it.

So the Creative player served me well for several years. In that time, the iPod exploded onto the scene and has become the de facto standard MP3 player. Nowadays, you can't go into a store and swing a cat without hitting a shelf of iPod accessories and they are getting better, smaller, and more feature packed. The latest craze is the addition of video. So now, you can carry around your movies, TV shows, and home videos along with your tunes. Of course, all these new features were putting my old Creative player further and further into the dark ages and I was getting the bug to move up. The other thing was that the Creative had a really tiny screen that I could barely see which made it rather dangerous to pick songs through while driving (not that I ever did that...)

So, I started looking at new players. As I posted earlier, I've been thinking about switching to a Mac as my computing platform and, of course the iPod is tailor made for Macs so there was that whole integrated solution thing going there. The iPod works with PCs too though so I could conceivably get an iPod and still stay with the PC. Actually, the whole Mac thing was kind of fading so that was less of a factor. The other option was a new player from Microsoft called the Zune. The big plus from the Zune was that it has a bigger screen which is a little better for watching videos. The downside of the Zune is that it is competing against a well-entrenched iPod base and all the accompanying accessories. Well, I went back and forth a bit and finally decided to get the Zune. I went down to the local Walmart and picked one up. I got it there because they have a 15 day return policy whereas other places will charge a restocking fee and I wanted to keep my options open in the event I wasn't thrilled with the Zune.

I should point out that the Internet is both the best thing for research into purchases and also the worst. It's great because you can get the information from lots of other people who have taken the plunge before you and have written up their thoughts. It's awful because you can get the information from lots of other people who have taken the plunge before you and have written up their thoughts. There seem to be an equal number of people who love and who hate any particular product. There are horror stories about virtually every product. This, of course, plays into my indecisiveness and practically paralyzes me in my decisions.

But anyway, I got the Zune and set it up, and liked it. I loaded my songs on it. I loaded some videos that I had made - and they looked great. All in all I was very pleased. But...

The whole iPod juggernaut was still weighing on me. There are more things geared to the iPod - cases, adaptors, speakers, airline power connectors, everything is iPod. Then, I saw that Amazon had Zunes for $50 less than I paid. I went back to Walmart to see if they would price match and they wouldn't. So, I returned the Zune, intending to just order it on Amazon and save $50. Just as I was about to click "Checkout", I stopped, canceled my order and ordered an iPod.

I got the iPod, set it up, loaded my music on it and liked it - basically. The iPod uses iTunes software on the PC to manage the music that gets loaded on the iPod and I hated it. It was slow and difficult to use. I then tried to transfer those same movies that looked so good on the Zune to the iPod and - no dice. The iPod uses a different video format than what Windows uses so you have to jump through some hoops to convert Windows media (video) to Apple media. Frankly, I'm just not that interested in jumping through the hoops. So, I sent the iPod back to Amazon and ordered another Zune.

Crazy huh? Ain't technology wonderful?

Dance Dance Revolution

2007-03-10T23:20:00.001-05:00

Waaay, back in California, just before we decided to move to New England, Deb and I signed up for a West Coast Swing dance class. I think we took about 3 or 4 classes before we did the big move and, although we really enjoyed it, we never "cemented" what we learned and it just faded away.

For our Anniversary last year, I found a place that had swing dancing and had a beginners class before the dance. We got there early and (I) struggled through the intro lesson and then kind of shuffled through the rest of the night. It was enjoyable but we really didn't know enough to make it fun.

(It was also kinda weird since, evidently, it's common practice to swap partners at these dances and therefore we had to dance with people who 1) we didn't know and 2)were way better than we were. The dancers were...how should I say this..."skewed toward the Big Band era" and so during the lesson where every woman shifted around the circle to the next guy after each part, Deb and I were paired with every imaginable shape and size of Foxtrotting Fun.)

Knowing that we really needed focused lessons to get over the hump (so to speak), Deb set about seeing if she could find some. Well, lo and behold there was a new place opening up in one of the mills in town that was going to have dance lessons. Of course their first series was "Latin Lovers Salsa Dancing" or some such theme. Oh perfect.

We've been to three classes so far and we are really enjoying it. We are learning the Rumba and the Cha-cha and I don't think we've even scratched the surface yet. We are supposed to practice between lessons and we haven't been very good about it so I think I'll go downstairs and see if I can interest Deb in a little Rumba before bedtime...

Big Mac Attack

2007-01-29T22:31:00.000-05:00

I really never thought I would be in this position but let's start back at the beginning...

Upon Kyle's return from school for Christmas break, he let it be known that he thought the Apple MacBook laptops were way cooler than his Dell. I, of course, said "That's interesting. So what?" I had no intention of doing anything with Apple computers. Well, he kept noodling me about it - everybody at school has them, they are really easy to use, blah, blah, blah. He even kept changing my desktop wallpaper to an Apple logo.

Christmas this year was somewhat lean I will admit. The kids are getting bigger and the clothes they want are expensive enough plus the fact that tuition is a serious drain. So there weren't many (OK, any) big-ticket items under the tree. I was feeling guilty about this so I guess I was particularly vulnerable to his constant attacks. I had to admit, they are very sleek machines and the shiny new techno-geek in me was slowly being seduced by the dark side. I asked Deb what she thought and she straight-out said that he didn't need a new machine and we should nip it in the bud right there. It was a dose of reality that I needed to knock me back to financial reality.

I guess it wasn't a strong enough dose to kill the invading bacteria and they came back with renewed immunity to treatment. The other factor that started to weigh in was the fact that Carly really needed a new computer. That sounds so strange to say but what has been basically a luxury item is virtually a necessity these days. Her computer is a third generation hand-me-down and is very slow so she uses my computer which means that I sometimes can't get things done. Of course, most of the time she's playing games or buying songs on iTunes (with my account for some reason!) so it's not like she's being held back from working on her doctoral thesis but whatever.

So anyway, in a fit of insanity, I went to the computer store one night while Kyle was out and bought a MacBook. I figured I would bring it home and set it up for him (which would give me a chance to play with it) and he would be surprised. He was surprised alright. After he played with it a bit, he said, somewhat sheepishly, "We can still take this back right?". What! What the heck are you talking about!? It's just what you wanted!

He said he had been thinking about it all day and had decided that he really didn't need a new computer just because it was a sleek Apple and he shouldn't have been pestering me about it after all. Great! I told him I kinda wish he would have told me that a few hours earlier.

Over the course of the next few days, he agonized over that machine. He really felt bad about pushing me into this purchase and that was gnawing at him big time. I told him that it wasn't entirely his fault since I was interested in it too and the Carly factor weighed in as well (although I was still irritated at him and myself for getting into this situation). Although I knew the answer, I called CompUSA and asked about the return policy. $200 restocking fee on opened computers. Now, the computer I would have gotten Carly was about $400 cheaper than the Mac so if we were to return the Mac, give Kyle back his Dell, and get Carly a new machine, I would save about $200.

The other thing that Kyle was struggling with was the fact that his favorite game wasn't quite the same on the Mac as on the Dell. It seems like that might be about the least important aspect of the whole decision but I assure you that it is probably number one.

I finally gave him an ultimatum to decide to keep the laptop or return it. He finally said he wanted to return it. So, I said "OK, uninstall your games, take your name off of it, and basically get it ready to return." Of course, when faced with the reality of really returning it, he hesitated (for the 50th time) and decided that he wanted to keep it after all.

So, in the end, Kyle took his Mac back to school. Carly has a new (to her) Dell, and Dad? Well, Dad got hosed. I got to play with the new Mac and experience a sequence of "No big thing", to "Well, it *is* pretty cool", to "Wow, I really like it", to "Bye, MacBook. Have fun at school".

I *do* really like the machine and I was seriously into the analysis of whether I would want to switch and how I would go about doing that. There are a couple of things holding me back however. First, there are gazillions more programs written for Windows than for Macs. I think I have half of them installed on my computer right now. I don't use them all, all of the time, but when you need something, you can usually find it. That would not be the case (as much) if I had a Mac. Second, my killer app - Quicken - while available for the Mac, is about 2 generations behind the Windows version. Virtually every review of Quicken for Mac says it is garbage compared to the Windows version. Third, Macs are more expensive than PCs which sticks in my cheapo craw. Fourth, since I am tech support for Dad with his computer, if I switch, he would probably have to switch, and I'm not sure the time-space continuum could handle that kind of molecular restructuring. Actually, I'm just trying to be funny there. I actually have wondered if Dad just might find Mac easier than Windows so that might not be a concern after all.

If that were that, then there would be no question. The Quicken thing would be a deal breaker. Things are never that easy though are they. Turns out, you can run Windows programs on Macs using what are called Virtual Machines. We use these at work a lot and basically it is a program that simulates a physical computer. On that simulated computer you can, for example, install Windows just like you would install it on a real computer. Once you install Windows onto this Virtual Machine, you can install Windows programs (like Quicken for Windows) and end up running Quicken for Windows inside a window (to the Virtual Machine) on a Mac. This solves problems 1 and 2 above - sort of. This Virtual Machine, since it is implemented in software, isn't as fast as a real machine so processor intensive applications - like video editing, for which I've invested a bit of money in - won't run as fast and might not run at all. You can get around that however by dual-booting Windows and MacOS. This means that you can install both Windows and MacOS on the laptop and decide which run to run when you turn on the machine. Seems they've got pretty much everything covered.

It's been a few days since the Mac has gone back to school so the *need* has subsided somewhat but it's still simmering in the back of my mind. I figure my current desktop computer is good for another year or so. At that point, I'll revisit the issue and maybe do something drastic.

I'll keep you posted.

So Much for Coming Home Every Weekend

2006-11-01T22:31:00.001-05:00

When we last left you, Kyle was struggling to see the bright side of college and worrying that the work would be too hard and he would be flunking out in a few short weeks. At the end of the last episode, there was a glimmer of hope that he might make it - he had made friends on the tennis team but was still apprehensive over classes.

Well, it's been two months now and I think it's safe to say that Kyle has adjusted to college life. Remember how he was going to be coming home every couple of weekends? He's been home once. And that was only because they had a four day weekend and all his friends were coming home from their colleges (it was his birthday weekend to boot and we barely saw him).

The biggest contributor to the turn-around was the tennis team. As mentioned before, the whole team has welcomed him aboard, helped him meet even more people, and provided an instant "fraternity" he belongs to. He really can't say enough nice things about them. They get together for team meals, they've formed an indoor soccer team, and generally have a good time with each other. What's even cooler is the fact that Kyle, despite being a freshman, earned a spot on the starting roster for a couple of "off-season" (Fall) tournaments. The first one was a hoity-toity grass court affair down in Newport, Rhode Island. To give you an idea, the team had to wear all-white to be able to play on the grounds. Kyle plays doubles and they won one match and lost another. He also played in the Wheaton Invitational and I went down and watched the matches (and took some pictures).

Here's a pic of the kid between games. Note his flashy Wheaton duds and bottle. Not shown are the warm-ups and the always available trainer ready with extra water, Gatorade, and medical assistance. I wonder how they manage to pay for all this stuff. Oh wait, I think I know where the money comes from...

Here's Kyle and his doubles partner Ni.

So the tennis thing has helped out a lot. Through teammates, his roommate - who is a Sophomore and therefore able to introduce him to a bunch of people that he knew, and the fact that he always was good at meeting and getting to know people, he has met and made friends with a ton of people. Deb went to visit him one day and commented to me that, as they were walking across campus, virtually everyone they passed knew him and said hello. Deb was amazed. He says that he and various friends have had great times going into Providence for dinner or shows, going to movies, or dances, or just hanging out. He says one of his favorite things to do is his weekly meeting in the TV lounge with his buddies where they order a bucket of wings and some pizza and watch Monday Night Football.

Did I mention that he is one of the only three or four males on his floor? Yes, the rest are girls... Did I mention that there is only one bathroom on said floor? Yes, it is a coed bathroom... He says it's fine but when we were there for Parents weekend, I just couldn't bring myself to use the bathroom in his dorm.

Academically, he says that classes are hard but he's realized that he can do the work and is actually doing well. I think he's lost count of how many papers he's written which was the thing that was really worrying him. He says that there is a lot of work but there is also a lot of time to do the work as well. He likes having just a couple of classes a day and having time between them so that he doesn't have to kill himself to get his work done and still have time for fun.

So, as I said. What started as a plan to come home often has turned into "home, what home?" That's the way it should be of course and we are very thankful that things have worked out the way they have.

SCI-FI Snag

2006-10-29T15:37:00.001-05:00

One of the things I like about my cable service is the availability of on-demand movies. These are movies that you can watch whenever you want instead of trying to catch them when they come on the time slots of the movie channels. I can program Tivo to record movies but sometimes I just want to watch something "right now".

Well, I was wandering through the movie choices and found another section of on-demand TV shows - one of them being Battlestar Galactica. I had heard/read that this remake of the old TV series was very good and had wanted to see it but I had never made the effort. One of the "episodes" was titled "The Story So Far" which collapsed the first two seasons into a catch-up episode to let you know what had happened. About 15 minutes into it I was hooked. The basic story is the same as the original: Human designed robots - the Cylons - revolt against their creators and annihilate virtually everyone except for a "rag-tag fleet" of space ships protected by the battlestar Galactica. These guys represent the last vestiges of human kind and they set off on a search for the mythical 13th human colony called Earth with the Cylons in hot pursuit. The big difference between this version and the original is the writing, casting, directing, acting and sub-stories within the main story. Other than that, they're practically identical...

I'm hooked enough that I wanted to go back and see the first two seasons but I didn't really want to buy DVDs of shows that I'd probably only watch once. So, I logged onto the county library system web site, found that they had them to borrow, and placed an order to get them delivered to my local library. How cool is that?

Anyway, I highly recommend taking a look this series. Very interesting.

What Have I Done?

2006-10-17T21:28:00.000-04:00

I knew it was only a matter of time. After I got the new Sony SLR, Carly snapped up the little camera that I had been using and began taking pictures of everything.

Well, the other day when we were in the store looking for frames for some of my prints, Carly says "Ya know Dad, I've been kinda thinking that I'd like to get into photography..." Ka-Ching!

So, I gave her a quick photography lesson over the weekend. Of course, she picked it up in no time and is now exploring her creative side, taking pictures of blades of grass growing in the sidewalk, coffee cups, and Skipper's butt. I fear I have unleashed a sleeping giant... BTW, she took the photo of me above which I think is pretty good. I wonder how much this is going to cost me....

Picture This

2006-09-19T20:43:00.001-04:00

Bridge001
Originally uploaded by tmhudg.

I don't know when it happened or why but I was bitten by the photography bug over the summer. I had a nice SLR camera way back when I was a teenager and I really enjoyed taking pictures with it. I stopped using it a long time ago in favor of the smaller digital cameras (and video cameras) and, in fact, just sold it on eBay several months ago. I like the digital cameras because they are small and easy to pop in my pocket and take anywhere as opposed to the SLRs that have big lenses and require their own bag to be carried in.

The small cameras though really don't have features and flexibility that the big ones do. Plus, you can't really be taken as a serious photog if you are holding a tiny digicam focusing through the LCD screen like all the other prolotariats!

So (you know where this is going don't you), I started looking at cameras. The camera I was looking at mostly was the Nikon D50. This is their "entry level" DSLR with a 6 Mega pixel sensor. It had tons of good reviews and was priced around $600 which is pretty good. I was all set to pull the trigger on it when I saw an ad for the new Sony Alpha 100. Now, Sony is not well known in the DSLR market but it turns out that they had bought the old Konica-Minolta (KM) company and had decided to take on Nikon and Canon - the giants of the SLR market. Well, the Alpha has a 10 Mega pixel sensor (much higher resolution) plus, the coolest feature of all: in-camera image stabilization.

Image stabilization is the ability to compensate for camera shake so your pictures are sharper. When you take a hand-held photo (as opposed to using a tripod), you can't hold the camera absolutely still of course. If you don't have a fast enough shutter speed, this camera shake will make your pictures slightly blurry (from a little to a lot depending on how steady you are). As you use bigger and bigger lenses (zooming in), this camera shake is magnified along with the picture and can become a big problem. Nikon and Canon have addressed this problem by making image stabilized lenses. These lenses have little sensors and motors in them that sense the movement of the lens and move the lens elements in the opposite direction - effectively canceling out the shake. Pretty amazing stuff huh? The problem is that these lenses are much more expensive than non-stabilized lenses. Konica-Minolta (and Sony by way of purchase) decided to move the image stabilzation into the camera instead of the lens. This way, any lens that you put on the camera is automatically stabilized. You buy the stabilization once in the camera instead of on each lens. That seemed like a much smarter solution to the problem.

So, as usual, I hemmed and hawed all summer over whether I should spend the extra money on the Sony or if the Nikon would be "good enough". To make a long and agonizing story shorter, I got the Sony. Interestingly enough, right after I got it home, a guy on one of the Sony forums I was reading said he had written an on-line book on the Sony and was looking for reviewers. I volunteered and he sent me a copy of the book (a large PDF file that I downloaded from his website). I spent several weeks reviewing it and providing comments. He was so impressed with my viewpoint and comments that he gave me top billing on the credits page of the final version of the book! How's that for cool? Not to mention that I was able to learn a lot about the camera through the process of reviewing the book.

Anyway, I've been having a blast taking pictures, tweaking them on the computer, and uploading them to Flickr. Flickr lets you give tags to your pictures and people can search for photos with certain tags and also leave comments on your public pictures. I'm sure the interest will fade a bit over time but I'm glad I did it - it's a fun hobby to have as I approach the Golden Years...

College Connumdrum

2006-09-02T11:59:00.000-04:00

Ah yes, the day that all parents dream and dread - the first day of college. We took Kyle down to Wheaton on Saturday to move him in and get him started on four years of fun... From day one - back when he was deciding where to go - he really hasn't been very enthusiastic about going to college and, as the day of reckoning got closer, he was getting even less enthusiastic about it.

Well, we pulled up outside his dorm and were swarmed by student volunteers with big, wheeled bins who pretty much took care of all the lugging of belongings from the car to the floor. We found his room and were amazed at how big it was. He was on the second floor and his window looked out on the pond and a little patio. It was absolutely beautiful!

Kyle failed to see the splendor of it all...

We then headed over to Balfour Hood center which is kind of like the Student Union for him to register and pick up various pieces of information. As you can see by the photos, the campus is absoutely stunning. This picture is looking back toward the dining hall on the left. Kyle's dorm is part of that building you can see right of center but his wing is out of site on the right with his window looking out on the pond. Pretty sweet. The next picture is back in front of his dorm looking back this way.

Anyway, after he got registered, we took his computer to the tech department to be scanned and checked for viruses. We dropped it off for pickup the next day. Then, we had a nice lunch in the other dining hall and went back to his room. At this point, Deb decided to take Carly back home so she didn't have to go through all the orientation stuff and to let the Skip-dog out so he didn't pop.

Kyle and I waited for his roomate to show up since he, being a sophmore and arriving early, didn't have a key. We met Sam - from Seattle and very nice - and then headed over to the bookstore to pickup a few things. After that it was over to Haas Athletic Center for introductions and speaches by the President, the Dean, and various others. All-in-all, it was very good. Deb got back in the middle of this session.

At the end of the session, the students stayed there for more meetings and the parents went to still more sessions where we could ask questions
about parenting through the college years, athletics, academics, and all kinds of things. Again, a really good job by the college to get students and parents acclimated.
Of course, through registration, lunch, and pretty much the whole afternoon, Kyle was not having a very good time. He kept saying he just wanted to go home. He was pretty much overwhelmed by the prospect of dealing with the newness of the situation and wasn't enjoying things. When it came time for us to leave, it was pretty rough. I think it threw Deb off a bit as well. Initially, she was primarily worried about dealing with the separation and how she would handle it. With Kyle in such a tizzy about how he would handle it, Deb and I pretty much had to focus on convincing him that he would be alright and would be able to handle the situation. Primarily, we both just felt so bad for him that he was so unhappy. As we walked back to the car and he walked back to the dorm, we were wondering if we should make sure that he actually did go back to the dorm and not out to the street to flag down a taxi to take him home.

The next day, I had to leave on a business trip to Seattle so Deb was left to fend for herself in the half-empty house. Kyle had a French assesment test to take on Sunday so I left him a text message on his phone reminding him and wishing him luck. Later in the day, he sent me a message saying he took the test and thought he did pretty well so that at least was a positive.

I talked to Deb a little later and Kyle had talked to her and said that things were a little better - he'd met a bunch of people and was enjoying getting to know them and all that. He was still very apprehensive about classes and how much work he was getting himself into however.

His first day of classes was on Wednesday - he has three back-to-back on MWF, and one on TTHU. He also had tennis try-outs on Thursday. I talked to him on Thursday - he called - and he said that classes were OK but that he thoroughly enjoyed tennis. It wasn't so much a try-out but more like a practice. Evidently, as long as you can play relatively well, you are on the team - which is not to say that the team is bad. Kyle said that he hit with the #1 player and he (#1) was fantastic. He said that everyone on the team was super nice and made him feel part of the group immediatly.

When we dropped him off on Saturday, he had mentioned that he might come home on the following weekend - to which I said that I didn't think that was such a good idea. When I mentioned this on the phone, he said that he was not planning on coming home afterall. He's still worried about classes but I think he is slowly coming around to the idea that he might be able to survive this thing.

We'll keep you posted.

PilotPen

2006-08-23T14:01:00.000-04:00

Since Kyle was starting college right when the U.S. Open was starting (plus the fact that I forgot to get tickets), we decided that we would go to the Pilot Pen tournament - which is a warm-up for the Open - in New Haven Connecticut.
So, I took a Wednesday off from work and we headed down to New Haven. This was just like a mini-Open - there was a big stadium and several "outer" courts with shops and vendors all around. We really enjoyed the tennis. The weather was wonderful and it was small enought that we could get right up to the action.

We started off watching some doubles.

Then we saw Srichapan get schooled by Monfils.

Then we saw Davydenko beat (somebody).

We got a look at Patrick McEnroe and the gang.

Then we saw Niemenen.
Bagdadis was on the big court. Our reserved seats were way up top but since there were very few people there, I dragged Kyle down into the box seats and we grabbed some good ones right behind the baseline. Kyle was terrified someone would come and kick us out of the seats but we stayed and watched some great tennis.

Rally Round Westford

2006-08-19T19:38:00.000-04:00

Well, we did our first tandem rally last weekend. We went to the Eastern Tandem Rally (ETR) in Westford, MA and had a really good time. I subscribe to an email list that focuses on tandems and had read about other rallies and figured it might be fun to go to one. When this one was announced and was going to be practically in our backyard, I signed us up.

Friday evening we packed up some bags, put the tandem on the car, told the kids to hold the for and set off for Westford. We got kind of a late start so we didn't get there until around 9:00 - a little late for the ice cream social at Kimball's, the local ice cream "farm". We checked in to the hotel and then checked in at the rally desk. They said that Kimball's was still open and we had free coupons in the registration package so we put the tandem in one of the holding rooms - the first one was full - and headed over for some ice cream. It was actually down right chilly out so ice cream wasn't exactly the best thing so we went back to the hotel.

The next morning, they had a breakfast buffet so we got our plates and experienced the familiar "Hmm, everyone else seems to know everyone and is sitting in groups having a great time and we know nobody" feeling. So, we sat down with some people and started talking and had a nice breakfast.

One of the things that I found strange about the rally at first was that there was no set start time. Basically, they gave you a route sheet and said lunch was at such and such a place from around 11:30 to 1:00. The idea was that people would form little groups and leave when they wanted to. Since we didn't know anyone, we just sort of finished up breakfast, got our stuff on and got on the bike. There were people dribbling onto the road so we just joined in. They had several routes that could be combined to give you different total milage for the day. Basically, there was a 43 mile and a 23 mile route to the lunch stop and an 8 mile, 30 mile, and 46 mile route back to the hotel. We really hadn't ridden much more than about 30 miles during our rides this summer so we were wondering if we should do the 22 to lunch and then 8 back but it seemed like most people were doing the 30 mile ride back so we decided to do that.

We started off with a small group of tandems but they were kind of poking along so we gradually left them and caught various other people along the way. Just as we caught up to the organizers - who were riding a triple - they turned into the parking lot of the Minuteman Park. This is the place where the first shots were fired in the Revolutionary War. We got off the bike and walked through the small museum and then down to the bridge where it all started. It wasn't really that spectacular but still pretty cool to be at the spot where it all started.

We got back on the bike and cruised the rest of the way to lunch. We were among the first to arrive and were a bit early so we just talked to the mechanic who happens to work in the bike shop where we got our tandem. I probably should mention the ride sheets. Deb was the Navigator and she had to read the route sheet and keep us on track. She kept the sheet folded up in my back jersey pocket and would pull it out and let me know the mileage at the next turn. So she would call out "OK, at 6.9 miles, turn left on Nagog Hill road". I had zeroed the computer at the start so I just needed to look for the turn at the appropriate mile reading. Except that 15 seconds after she announced the information, it was completely gone from my brain. It wasn't just me either - she would forget what she just said too. So she was constantly pulling the sheet from my pocket and finding the line for the next turn. She was doing all this all while we are blasting down hills and grinding up others. Some clever teams simply pin the route sheet to the back of the captains jersey but after she thought about this, she said that that wouldn't work since she couldn't see the writing without getting it just right in the bifocal area of her glasses. To top it all off, I like to stand up sometimes when going up hills and, of course, I would announce that we were standing just as she had pulled out the route sheet so she had to deal with that as well. All in all though, we didn't get lost. We only really missed one turn and that was because the sign was hidden behind a tree.

At lunch we sat with some people who we recognized from the time we went on a ride with the TBONEs (Tandem Bicyclists Of New England). We finished our lunch and got back on the bike and started off for the 30 mile ride back. At one point, we were working together with another team - each trading pulls and going pretty good. As we were motoring along behind them, they went over a big sewer drain and flatted big time. We were lucky we didn't flat as well. We stopped to help but they said they had all they needed and told us to go on. We were just a mile or so from a stop at the Butterfly Place - a place we had taken the kids when they were little. We pulled in but didn't really feel like going in. As we were cooling it in the parking lot, the couple from breakfast came in. They didn't want to go in either so we both mounted back up and go on the road. We road with them for quite awhile (we would drop them on the uphills and I would soft pedal to let them catch up) until they stopped for a "Butt-break". We were also feeling pretty sore but didn't want to stop for fear of not being able to get started again. We managed to make it back to the hotel without incident.

Once back, we hit the hot tub and chatted with another couple for a bit. Dinner was another buffet thing and we sat at a table with the people we ate lunch with and several other couples and really had a good time talking with them. After dinner, they had door prizes and everybody at our table won something - pretty cool. We won two pairs of "tandem" socks.

Sunday was a quick 30 mile route followed by checkout and a BBQ at the hotel. The ride was a bit hillier than on Saturday but generally not as hilly as our normal rides so we didn't really have a problem. We were among the first to the first stop atop a large hill at the Fruitlands Museum which was a Shaker fruit farm/museum. Unfortunately, it wasn't open. By the time we found out it was closed, a large pack of bikes had arrived so we hooked up with them for a fast downhill run. It's nice riding with a group because you can just follow them and not worry about when and where to turn - theoretically. We were blasting down the road on the tail end of a group and the main group went straight but the people in front of us insisted that we needed to make a left turn. We hadn't been keeping track so we weren't sure so we followed them. Deb quickly got the route sheet out and realized that we should have gone straight. By that time though, the pack was gone and we had to chase. Meanwhile, Wrong Way Larry caught back up to us and got in front. A few mile down the road, Deb calls out that we need to make a left turn on such and such a road. I see it coming up but Larry blasts on through. We turn left and a few minutes later, Larry and Sally come cranking by.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were pretty tired and sore. 83 miles total over the two days isn't bad for us and we were pretty happy. Lunch was good and we sat with a couple from dinner and the couple from breakfast.

All in all it was a fun time.

The Maine Coast Trip

2006-08-03T23:17:00.000-04:00

Tim, Amy, and Quincy came up from the deep south for a visit. They were originally going to stay a few days and then rent a car and travel up the coast of Maine. They wanted to see the "quintessential Maine coast" - rocky harbors and fishing villages and guys saying "ayah". Well, since we had not seen that either, I suggested that we might want to all go up in the MoHo. At the time it seemed like a good idea and they agreed. As I got to thinking however, I started worrying about accommodations. That camper can get very crowded with more than four people in it and I was worried about the dog, rain, Kyle and Carly being bored, and all that. I also worried that we might be infringing on their family vacation but they said not so I didn't worry about it. In the end though, we decided that we would leave K & C & Skipper at home while Deb and I and the Rossers went up the coast.

Deb and I had previously only gotten up as far as Portland which is not quite into the desired landscape so I asked around at work for ideas on where I should go. Of course, I didn't really follow up on it so Deb and I ended up browsing the web and guessing. I'd read a little about Bar Harbor and Arcadia National Park so we made that our destination. We decided to take a couple of days to get up there so that it wouldn't be a tough drive on the Q-dog (Quincy's pet name so-to-speak). Picking campsites from a web page is always a crapshoot but we did our best.

We chose to start at Old Orchard Beach which is just below Portland. We'd camped there before - it is "famous" for an ocean front amusement park - more like a permanent church carnival-type of thing - and it's an easy 2-3 hour drive from home. The next place was Megunticook campground in Rockland which was halfway to the last place in Bar Harbor (BH). We figured we would stay three nights in BH.

The day before we were going to leave, I was sitting at my desk at work looking at the route when a buddy came in. I explained where we were going and we started talking. Then someone else, who I barely know, walked by, overheard us talking about Maine and jumped in with all kinds of suggestions on where to go and what to see on the way up. Serendipity.. Anyway, Tim, Amy, and Q arrived and we poked around for a few days before leaving. Quincy, by the way, was an absolute joy - from when she arrived and throughout the whole trip. It was very fun getting to know her and making her laugh and imprinting on her some special Hudgins things.
The trip to Old Orchard Beach (OOB) was uneventful (if you ignore the problems with the motorhome that I won't get into here). The Rossers were particularly impressed with the New Hampshire State Store just over the border that has it's own highway exit.

OOB itself was kind of shabby. The campground was fine but we walked to the pier/amusement area and found it crowded and kind of dirty - the typical permanent-temporary rides/fried dough/games-you-can't-win kind of place. Quincy enjoyed it though I think. It's funny how your perception of a place can be colored by watching a yung-un experience it. Had it just been Deb and me, we would have hated it. But it was fun with Quincy along.

The next day we continued up the coast and got into the "real Maine". My walk-by buddy had suggested we stop in Boothbay Harbor so that was our first stop. Oh, we passed by Red's Eats on the way - another place that somebody had mentioned. It was a small red "diner" with people in a line wrapped around the building. We didn't stop because Q was asleep and we wanted to make time (ominous forshadowing We got to Boothbay got our first taste of a Maine harbor town. It was a bit bigger and more commercialized than I was expecting but it was very nice and we enjoyed walking around and having lunch. Once again the Q was Qute as ever.
.

After lunch, while browsing in a store, I asked the guy behind the counter where I could go to see the quintessential Maine seacoast. He thought a bit and then suggested Pemiquid Point lighthouse. It sounded good and was on the way so we decided that would be our next destination. Well, "on the way" is a relative term in Maine. The coast is made up of many inlets and peninsulas and to get to the end of the next peninsula over, you have to drive back up the one you are on and down the next one. Oh well, we came to find out it was worth it. Pemiquid Point was fabulous

After scrambling over the rocks and enjoying the views and breezes, we piled back in the RV and headed back up the coast toward Rockland, our next campsite. After about 15 minutes on the road though, we heard those words we will never forget - "Bunny?" Now, we had heard the call for Bunny before and the quick application of said Bunny had always calmed the Q and allowed the world to continue to turn. This time however, there was a second call, and a third, and the slowly building realization that Bunny was not in the RV. Yes, we had somehow managed to leave Bunny at Pemiquid Point. On the rocks. With the tide coming in.

We found a place to turn around and headed back to the point. We jumped out and began combing the area for signs of the wayward rabbit. Just as I was about to give up hope, I saw Deb walking back to the camper waving Bunny in triumph. She had found it on top of the fence around the lighthouse, placed there by someone who will now spend all of eternity watched over by a higher power. Amy, who had stayed with Quincy in the RV, was actually crying when Deb arrived with the prize. So, crisis averted, vacation saved, we headed back up the road to Megunticook campground in Rockland.

Megunticook was a small little place that was nice and uncrowded. As I was registering, the lady at the desk said to be sure and check out the "patio" after we were set up. Um, OK, I'll do that... So, after setting up, I wandered in search of the patio. I followed a trail through the woods and emerged onto a beautiful bluff overlooking the ocean and rocky coastline. It really was cool with some chairs for sitting and taking in the view and just generally slowing down (and consuming some of the liquid that was picked up at the State Store in NH).

The next day, we took a quick trip back down the coast a bit to visit a little fishing village and to see the lighthouse at Owl's Head. Both were absolutely gorgeous.

We then headed back up the coast and made it to Mount Desert Isle - home of Bar Harbor and Arcadia National Park. Bar Harbor and Arcadia were also fantastic and we spent the next two days there. One of the great things about the place is that you can get everywhere via a free LPG-powered shuttle bus system. We were able to leave the RV parked and not have to wedge it into places it didn't want to go. The first day we went shopping in BH, and then to a beach and hike along the coast. The next day, Tim and I went kayaking among the Porcupine islands in the harbor and the girls took a trolley tour to the top of Cadillac mountain. For dinner we had lobster at an authentic Lobster Pound where you order your lobster by the pound. They grab them, throw them in a rope net bag and boil them in seawater outside over wood fires. I'm not a big lobster fan but it was fun nonetheless.
It really was a beautiful place.

The last day we headed home. We had planned to head inland and jump on the superslab for the quickest way home but we decided to go back down the coast to see some of the places (read antique and quilt stores) that we didn't stop at on the way up. Well, we didn't stop at them on the way down either, much to Deb's consternation but we did manage to stop at Red's Eats that we had seen the crowds at earlier. So we got in line and waited, and waited, and waited some more. When we finally ordered, I suggested that Deb go find us a table. As I came around to the back patio, I see Deb fuming like I'd never seen before. Seems some woman had pushed past her to claim the only open table in the place. I rarely see Deb get quite that pissed at someone. So, we ate our mediocre lunch at Red's and continued on our way.

Our last stop was in Freeport to checkout the L.L. Bean factory store. Freeport was wacky. It's like the whole town was one big outlet mall. There were outlet stores of all kinds and then, the mega-L.L. Bean store(s). They had a building for bikes and boats (kayaks and canoes), a building for camping gear, a building for regular clothing, and an outlet store as well. The whole place is open 24 hours a day. Weird.

We finally got home that night. This really was a great trip - we had fun with the Rossers and really enjoyed the scenery and locations as well.

My Maine Squeeze

2006-08-02T23:01:00.000-04:00

This was shot at the Pemiquid lighthouse on the Maine coast during our trip with Tim and Amy and Quincy.

Those Amazing Fundies

2006-08-02T22:51:00.000-04:00

What will they think of next? This would be fun reading if it weren't so amazingly frightening/depressing.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/5/29/195855/959

Collegebound

2006-04-17T20:58:00.000-04:00

Well, the decision has been made. Wheaton it is...for now. Well, we sent the acceptance form in along with the $300 deposit so I guess that makes it official. It's been a rocky road for Kyle, figuring out what he wants to do and where he wants to go.

The dilema was between two schools about as diametrically opposed as you could get. In this corner we have UMass Amherst. Weighing in at over 23,000 students, this behemoth is a city unto itself about 2 hours away in western Mass. The challenger, Wheaton College. Only 1500 students soaking wet, about an hour east. Ding! Round One

UMass is big. It has people from all over the world and probably just about any kind of club or activity is available. But, UMass is big. Although they deny it, the classes are large, some taught by Grad Asses whereasWheaton is small, tiny even. Maybe not quite the level of diversity and probably a bit upper crusty but we really got a sense that the instructors take an interest in the students and it certainly seems like they would know them by name.

UMass is cheap (comparatively). It's a state school and, by virtue of good test scores on the state tests (MCAS), Kyle got free tuition (but don't get all excited tuition is only a fraction of the cost). Call it $15K per year. Wheaton is not cheap. Wheaton is wicked not cheap. Wheaton is freakishly, expensively, not cheap. The list price is $43K per year, however, they countered the cough and puke factor by throwing in a $12,500 scholarship. Call it $30K per year - twice the price of UMass. They also awarded him a $4000 stipend that he can use during a summer to do "Academic Exploration" of some sort so that he doesn't have to get a job that he might otherwise. Cool.

So, those are the heavy hitters but like in many things, the small, intangible things seem to have a bigger impact than you would expect. Wheaton has a tennis team, UMass does not. Many of Kyles friends are going to UMass. Wheaton is closer than UMass. Wheaton has a very nice career center that arranges interships with local companies. He doesn't really know what he wants to do so can we justify spending that kind of money in that case? Wheaton just feels like a nice place. UMass half the cost of Wheaton (did I mention that already?). Sigh...

So it boiled down to the fact that Kyle liked Wheaton, wanted to be able to play tennis on a college team but was very concerned about the cost. Me, being the "frugal" person that I am, was very much counting the dollars involved in this decision. Even the "cheap" education at UMass was going to be $60,000 over four years. Wheaton will be over $120,000!!! Is it worth that kind of money? I was having a tough time swallowing that pill. I was pretty sure we could do it but I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it. I basically told Kyle that if he wanted to go to Wheaton, he'd have to cough up (borrow) the difference between UMass and Wheaton. At the time, it seemed like a decent compromise and he agreed (not really understanding the weight of a $60,000 debt of course). As he thought about it more and more however, he started to wobble. He said he was not really looking forward to college - any college - in general so he couldn't even get excited about deciding to go to Wheaton. He was worried about keeping his grades up enough to keep the scholarship. And he was worried about bankrupting us as well.

What to do?? I know, call Mom & Dad!!

Of course, they offered to donate practically the entire proceeds of the recent sale of their house and I'm sure would start work as Wal-Mart greeters to contribute to the funding of this endeavor if given a chance. As we were talking about ways that they could help out and how this compared to what they did for me when I was going to school, it hit me like a cold slap in the face; I've got to quit being so selfish! Here they were, having sacrificed anything needed to put me through school and now perfectly willing to sacrifice anything they now had to put my son through school and I'm whining about how much this is going to cost me! Man - suck it up!
When I think about what a crapshoot it is raising kids and how they could easily be thankless, rotten thugs but are instead wonderful, fabulous people, I'm embarrassed to have even hesitated. That kid has been nothing but a joy and I should be pushing people out of the way to pay for his education. Thank you M & D for indirectly slapping some sense into me.

So we had a big discussion on Wheaton and the merits and the fact that I should not have put the burden of the finances on him (or at least not quite as much) and basically tried to make it OK for him to want to go there. That, and the fact that Deb was practically bursting trying to get him to go to Wheaton, and the fact that the tennis coach said that there was room on the roster for him, led to him giving the thumbs up for Wheaton.

All in all, I'm pretty comfortable [must...keep...typing] with the decision. I'm sure [fight...it] we'll be able to [p..a..y] pay [f..o..r] for [t..h..i..s] this.

I wonder if I can sell a dog on eBay...

The Jetta is not For Sale

2006-02-01T21:01:00.000-05:00

Well wonder of wonders, Kyle is now quite proficient with the transmission on the Jetta. He drove us to the mall the other day and was as natural as you please. I'm glad it worked out. It's a far cry from the last time he drove me to the mall...

He'd had the car for a couple of weeks and was driving himself to work (which is an easy drive from home) but hadn't really ventured out that much. So we are getting off the highway on the exit for the mall and he lets out a "Oh Great!" I'm thinking that something is falling off the car but he points to the traffic that is backed up on the ramp. I say "No big deal. A little traffic." He says "No, look" and points to the line of cars stopped all the way up the access road to the mall. "Yeah, some cars...Oh." It was then that I realized what he was fearing. The access road to the mall is a long sweeping *uphill* and given the phalanx of cars, it would be a stop and go, clutch slipping, extravaganza getting to the top. Of course, the guy behind him is trying to get to the top before him by somehow passing through Kyles car - which doesn't help. I've got my hand on the emergency brake to try and prevent a systems meltdown induced roll into our friend behind us. About half way up the hill, Kyle is about to pass out from hyperventilating but he's doing fine. At the top, there is utter gridlock which gives him a chance to calm down. I think this was a turning point for him whether he knows it or not. He made it through a terrifying/trying experience and lived to tell about it.

Fun Athiest Quotes

2006-02-01T19:41:00.000-05:00

Steven Weinberg: "I think that on the balance the moral influence of religion has been awful. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil. But for good people to do evil -- that takes religion."

For Sale - 1 Jetta with a burned out clutch

2005-12-28T18:42:00.000-05:00

Well, I probably did a dumb thing but after much searching and hemming and hawing, we bought a car for Kyle. We found a '97 Jetta for 4K. It was in very good condition so we jumped on it. The only thing is,... it's a manual. Yes, that's right, Kyle doesn't know how to drive a stick. We had our first lesson today. He did alright but he's very nervous about it. He's not ready for traffic yet so we spent a lot of time just going up and down the driveway backwards and forwards so he could get the feel of it. He had to take several breaks since he was so tense. We took a few trips around the neighborhood so he could get out of first.

He's really torn up about the whole thing though. He loves the car but he doesn't want to go through the whole learning process. In hind site, it probably wasn't real smart of me to go for the manual.

The purchase ordeal was another "adventure". The person selling the car was in Newton which is just outside of Boston so it was a long trip there in the first place. When we got there, the owner asked for my driver's license before we test drove it. Guess what I couldn't find? We had been test driving vehicles at various dealers who all ask for my license. Last time I remembered having it was at a dealer the other day. I called Carly at home to have her look for it in my other jacket but she couldn't find it. Great! The owner was very understanding and took Kyle's license number and let us drive it. We liked it and arrived at a price and then set about the process of taking ownership. First, I had to go find a bank, get a cashier's check, bring that to the owner. She then gave me the title which I had to take to my Insurance Agent to get an insurance form proving to the DMV that it was insured. On the way over, Kyle and I are wondering whether they will ask to see my license for some reason which would, of course, scuttle the whole deal. We got through that OK so then I had to find and go to the DMV to get plates. We got to the DMV and took a number - A062 - and looked up to see "Now serving A020" of course. Again, we are wondering whether we can pull this off without a license. We also note that they no longer take credit cards for payment - cash or check. Hmm, I wonder how much this will be... We decide to run out and find an ATM before they get to our number. I grab $100 extra bucks from the ATM to go along with our $60 or so (you know where this is going don't you). We finally get to a window and the woman asks for my license. "I don't have it with me, my son drove here." She says "Do you always go out without your ID?" "You come to the Registry without your license?" and then proceeds to process the transaction. (and I don't say) "So if you can still do this without my license, why did you feel the need to chastise me for not having it?"

She totals it up - $280!!! Oops. "I don't have that much with me." "Here, come back when you can pay." So we walk out of the DMV with no plates. Do we go back to the ATM to get more money and wait in line again or do we just go get the car, take the front plate from the Camry and put it on the back of the Jetta, and hope we don't get caught? I bet you can guess what we did can't you?

So I'm driving the Jetta home with no license, no registration, and "stolen" plates. I bet you thought you knew where this was going didn't you. Well, we made it home with no incident (think of the blog entry *that* could have spawned!)

I've been razzing Kyle about how I'm going to be driving the Jetta and he'll be stuck with the Camry since he's going to give up on the stick in frustration. I'm trying to use "psychology" on him but I'm a little worried he's going to end up calling my bluff...

eBay is Fun

2005-12-04T14:00:00.000-05:00

I know I'm a bit late to the party but I've been having a bit of fun selling various things on eBay lately. I've bought one or two things before but it always seemed that the people selling things were more of a business than just Joe Average trying to off-load some of his own crap so I never felt like I was getting a deal.

I've thought about selling things before as well - you know, those Christmas gifts that you've been meaning to re-gift but couldn't think of anybody you wouldn't be embarrassed to give it to. I always held back on that because there were fees, and shipping, and scams. Man, all the information about the scams is enough to stop you right there. There are so many things to watch out for, it's always been just easier to stack the stuff up in the basement.

Well, after I sold the motorcycle this Fall, we had several sets of motorcycle jackets and pants taking up room so I figured I would try to unload them on eBay. I also had a perfect unregiftable item as well. It was actually easier than I thought. They do a very good job of walking you through the whole process. All you need to do is take a few digital pics of the items and they'll help you upload them and create an auction. I sold four of the five items (1 regift, 2 jackets and 2 pants) and I think I'll be able to sell the fifth by re-listing it. I got a good price for one of the pants, a medium price for the other pants and a very low price for one of the jackets. I probably only recouped a fraction of what I paid for those things but they were of zero value in the basement so I choose to look at it as coming out ahead. I even sold the regift item - people will buy anything!

The packing and shipping are a little bit confusing but you can do everything online - including printing out paid shipping labels so it really is easy. All in all, it's been fun and I find myself going around the house looking for more things to sell... here Skip!

Wildflower

2005-11-08T23:15:00.000-05:00

Just got Sheryl Crow's new CD - Wildflower. I've never been that interested in owning any of her stuff but now that she's hanging around Lance and all... I was in Borders the other day and happened to see it. I gave it a test listen at one of those headphone/lice nursery kiosks and it sounded pretty good. Upon full listen, it is great! I heartily recommend this album. There's really only one, maybe two slightly pop-sounding tunes and those are really catchy. The rest are beautiful ballads. She really has a fabulous voice and she puts in little inflections here and there that just make it that much better. Go get this one.

A Karma is threatening to run over my Dogma

2005-11-08T22:56:00.000-05:00

Surprise, surprise! Kyle wants a car. This has been the running theme in the house for about a month or so now - probably longer but I've been able to ignore it up until now. The persuasion tactics seem to oscillate between the utter despair that "Everyone has a car but me" to calm, reasoned arguments such as "Everyone has a car but me." He's even got Carly ganged up on me. They point out how much more convenient it would be if Mom didn't have to run around and pick them up from their various activities and so on.

I've always maintained that I was not going to get them a car in High School. Heck, I didn't get my first car until I was graduating from college and look how I turned out...OK, skip that part. Anyway, I still really have a tough time seeing how the minor increase in convenience outweighs the added cost. It seems especially irresponsible with college coming up in less than a year. Still, they do have a point. Virtually every kid in Kyle's class does have a car and it would help in situations where he's going to practice or work or wherever.

I've even asked people at work about it. Of course, I got one guy who said getting one was a good thing and another who said he didn't get his kids a car and they turned out alright.

Such a dilemma. WWJD.

Man the Pumps!

2005-10-20T22:53:00.000-04:00

Deb and I took a belated Anniversary getaway weekend camping trip up in New Hampshire last weekend. It absolutely poured! It actually started raining the weekend before and hadn't stopped - really, I don't think it ever stopped raining - by the time we left. It finally stopped raining on Sunday morning when we were packing up to come home.

The campground was saturated and normally this means - mud and lots of it. We took the Skipster with us which means - mud in the camper and lots of it. Strangely though, there was practically none. The soil was a strange sandy composition so our shoes and paws - and the camper - stayed remarkably clean.

Coming home we stopped by a huge quilt store that Deb adores. As much as I was tempted to go in, I stayed in the camper to keep Skip company (yeah right). Planning on hours of boredom, I happened to spot a canoe and kayak store across the street. Well, ever since the Greenway challenge adventure I've been thinking more and more about kayaks. I've even bought a couple of books. So, I went over and chatted with the owner for awhile. He had some really beautiful boats and I'm really starting to get the bug to give this a try. There are a number of places in Rhode Island that have lesson/tour arrangements that I think we are going to try. I'm not sure if we could get something in this year or if we'd have to wait until Spring so we'll see. My biggest concern is my back and it would hold up with all the twisting motion.

Anyway, on the way home, we saw some amazing torrents of water coming down various rivers. When we got home, several areas of Uxbridge and surrounding towns were flooded/closed/damaged from all the water. The kids even had a "flood day" on Monday, apparently because some of the bus routes were impassable. Crazy

TSA Playtime

2005-10-11T20:43:00.000-04:00

I love it when people bring out the inherent humor in simple things. Check this Airport Security playset.

More Fun with Religion

2005-10-03T23:04:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to another blog that is pretty fun to read. The comments are equally as fun. My favorite comment was this;

You know the old saying:

CULT (n): a small, unpopular religion.
RELIGION (n): a large, popular cult.

22 Years!

2005-10-01T17:19:00.000-04:00

Hard to believe we've been married that long. Seems like only yesterday that she tricked me into marrying her :-). As is typical, we didn't really do anything very special. The High School football team was home today so we got assigned to work in the concession stand at the game. After that, we went for a short tandem ride. Ironically, we passed by a house where there was a small wedding going on. I was tempted to stop and wish them good luck but I didn't.

We had to get back early so that Carly could go on her first date! Well, sort of. She and Jill were going to the movies with Myles and Ian. It's not really clear who was with whom or even if that applied in this situation. After the movie, that expectant "How was it!" was met with the typical and deflating "fine." Oh well. Mom and Dad would say I deserve that - in spades.

The Proper Method - The Video

2005-09-30T21:57:00.000-04:00

This is about tandems if you're interested. I subscribe to a tandem-centric mailing list where people converse about all things tandem. Occaisionally, a new team will post a message along the lines of "New to tandeming. Finding it difficult to get started smoothly." It can be a challenge to get two people synchronized and get the bike balanced at low speed if you don't know the tricks. These kinds of posts generate a chorus of responses which generally describe a technique known as - The Proper Method. There are completly different ways of getting started (and stopped) on a tandem but one method - The Proper Method - is what most people use and try to teach to tandem Newbies.

The Proper Method - usually shortened to just TPM - is generally credited to Bill McCready who is the founder of Santana Cycles - one of the largest and arguably most influential tandem makers. Bill knows a lot about tandems and if you don't believe it, just ask him. He has very definite ideas about the way things should be done and the merits of Santana bikes. He is also very much an advocate of tandeming in general and pushes the envelope in tandem design and product development for all builders and parts suppliers. People on the list seem to either love him or hate him but all, I think, respect what he's done for their sport and the industry. Anyway, Bill is credited with describing TPM. He basically said this is how I think it should be done - the proper method for getting started and stopped on a tandem. It has become so ingrained that it took on a formal name for itself - The Proper Method.

So back to the Newbie asking for help. The replies describe TPM or send the requestor to some other web site which describes the method or whatever. This process is repeated for each Newbie who doesn't bother to search the archives to see if someone else has asked the question already (hint, hint you Newbies). During one such event, someone said "You know, someone should really make a video of TPM and it would make the whole process easier to follow." Well, given my interest in video editing, this sounded like a fun project to tackle. So Deb and I drafted Carly to take some video of us starting out on the tandem using TPM. I edited the footage together with some text instructions and produced TPM - The Video. It's a small video file that you can download and play in pretty much any browser. It's located here

After I made the video, I notified the list members and invited comments. Everyone seemed thrilled that I had done it. There were comments about how they did it slightly differently or whatever but most people thought it would really help out the Nubes.

My next tandem video is going to be "How to Stand". Most teams find it even harder to get smooth enough for both riders to stand and pedal at the same time. Deb and I couldn't do it at first but we kept working at it and have now gotten pretty good at it. One of these days I'm going to make a video that shows the steps we took to figure it all out.

Challenge Met

2005-09-24T20:25:00.000-04:00

Alert the media! We have survived the Greenway Challenge!

But let's start back at the beginning which is actually about Tuesday - the day both Deb and I start feeling scratchy throats and general crappiness. Lovely. By Friday night, both of us are on NyQuill and Motrin. Can't quit now I guess. We arrived at the Gorge at about 10:40. 10:50 was the fastest time for this checkpoint recorded in a dry run in the Spring when the river was running faster so nobody expected any teams to get there by then but we had to be sure. We were among the first to arrive and, as we stood around and chatted with the volunteers, the racer-boys started to trickle in. Shaved legs, feather-weight bikes, one guy even had a $1500 rear wheel - yes one wheel - that measured his power output in watts! Ruh-roh Rastro!

So we wait and wait. They finally got the word that the first boat had put in on the leg leading to us. The operation was that the spotters would get the number of the team as the boat got close to the end of the leg and the corresponding biker would move into position for the transfer. Each team had to transfer a little wrist band to the next person. The kayaker would have to jump out of their boat, drag it up a hill, drop it and run to the bike transition point to make the hand-off. By this time the transition area was packed with bikes. Deb and I were desperately scanning the crowd to pick out people who we thought we could beat so that we wouldn't come in dead last. OK, there's a woman with sneakers and toe clips - check. There's a gray haired lady on a bike with a rack and some kind of decoration in her helmet - check. Here's another whom I have to help pump up her tires because she doesn't have a pump and doesn't know how to use the one I lend her. She also remarks that she's probably going to have to push her bike up the hill out of the Gorge - check.

The first boat is spotted - team 20 (we are team 7). The kayaker comes running up the hill slaps the hand of his teammate on a bike with tri-bars and a disk wheel who rockets out of the area, up the hill and out of site. One guy comments "Oh yeah, that guy has a couple of State Championships under his belt." Oh, State Champion you say? And you race with him? Perfect. The next boat is called - team 41. The paddler comes running up the hill with a line around his waist dragging his boat! Wonderful! By now Deb and I have found religion and are fervently praying for a major disaster to have befallen our kayaker so that all these Tour de France wannabees can take off before we do. We can hear it now, "Yeah we were in 3rd place until the last bike leg when Tom and Deb got blown away by the real bike riders." So, the 4th team comes in, the 5th, 6th, 7th. I lose track of the exact count. Ok, Ok, they're gonna be way back, we're gonna be racing against Ma Kettle and her mountain bike over there. You know where this is going don't you?

Team 7! Gulp! Did you say Team 7's boat is coming?! Yikes! We move the tandem sheepishly past all the gleaming bikes and snorting bulls pawing at the ground ('scuse us, 'scuse us) and get into position. In no time two kayakers are coming up the hill to us. Our girl is slightly behind another team. We make the hand off and go. We are about 20 yards behind the other biker. He motors up the hill and we motor up the hill just as fast. Ok, Ok, he's not killing us. We pretty much stay just behind him for the first few turns. When we reach a downhill, we go past him but not really pushing hard because we know what's coming up and don't want to waste it now. I'm hoping that we'll be fast enough without a lot of effort to slowly drop him on the flats and slight downhills. After a bit, I look back and - no such luck. He's staying with us.

We come to a short stretch on a major street where we have to take a left turn to another road. The traffic is horrible. There's about 50 cars in the left lane coming up to the light. Our buddy cuts left to the center line to go around them - and us! Well, it is a race! I cut between two cars and follow on the center line toward the light. As I'm pondering how the Hell we are going to manage a left turn in front of all the cars lined up coming this way, I see a cop come out and hold up traffic. We stomp on it, fly through the intersection, and catch up with our rabbit. Again, we pretty much stay together until we get to a hillier section where he starts to pull away. Deb and I are suffering mightily at this point. We are both wheezing from having to breathe so deeply against the hacking cough that we (especially Deb) had the night before and this morning. The spit in our mouths is turning the consistency of glue as well. I tried to spit a couple of times but it all just hangs together and blows over my shoulder and down my back. Yum!

We keep our guy in sight but he's definitely pulling away. We come to an intersection and there are several cars coming from both directions so I suppose that's why I totally miss any semblance a sign telling us to turn left. I roll through wondering "is that it?" but I keep going. We get to the next intersection and I realize that I should have taken that left. Crap! I know that this is the road that the first left would have eventually come to and sure enough I see the road on the left as we come back. So, we are back on track after a detour of about 2 or 3 minutes. Crap! Crap! Crap! Our guy is now out of sight.

Two more turns and we are on Woonsocket Hill Road. We are now pretty much wasted and we struggle up the hills on this road. A couple of times we are barely moving. We finally get to the top and the payback. We shift to our biggest gear, put our heads down, and hammer. I can't even look at the speedo but we are flying. It's over all too quick though and there's a decent uphill to the next turn. Just as we approach the turn, a guy goes by us. Crap! Where did he come from? We play cat and mouse with him through another right and left in traffic again. Another cop strategically placed lets us blast through without slowing. As we approach downtown Woonsocket there is absolute gridlock. Racer-boy weaves through the cars and drops us. We are in the right-hand lane which opens up nicely until a car cuts in front of us and squeezes us into the curb. I slam on the brakes while Deb drops the F-bomb on the driver. I clip back in and try to wind us up again. Mass confusion at the light. The cop waves us through and points to an opening in the curb where a volunteer stands waving us to come towards him. I'm thinking "well get the Hell out of the way then!" We swerve past him and he shouts "No, turn right!" I grab the brakes, cut right down an alley between two buildings turn left, and "Mother of God!", there's the finish line. We screech to a stop in front of our next leg teammates, Deb hands off the bracelet, and we slump over the bike in total exhaustion.

After we regain small motor control, we chat with our kayak partner who came down after tagging us at the Gorge. She had some problems and lost a few places. Well, we really only lost one more since we actually started behind the first guy. We chatted with some other people we knew and finally got back on the bike for the ride back to the car - back at the Gorge. Thankfully, it was only a couple of miles away. As we meandered back to the car, we started to feel pretty good about our effort. I was still kicking myself for missing that turn. I know we would have held off that second guy had we not missed it but the mongrel hordes didn't sweep by us like we had feared they would. I looked down at the speedo and noticed our average speed was 18.1 miles/hour! Holy crap! That's not bad! Hmm. I wonder how fast we got on that downhill part? Whaa? 47.7 mph!?!?! Holy Holy crap! That's practically Free Fall!

We loaded up the tandem on the car and made our way to the finish area where they had a cook-out, a band, and the standings. As we are walking toward the finish line from the parking lot, we see our runner go by and across the line. Hmm. I wonder how we did. Let's see, Whitinsville Community Center - 11th place overall! Wow! Let's look at the Recreational Division. 2nd place?! Super Wow! Deb and I look at each other in amazement.

So all-in-all, it was pretty fun. Deb remarked that that was the first race she'd ever been in. I said "You're not going to want to do this again next year are you?" She just raised her eyebrows in that "Ya never know" look.

Gotta love that Deb.

How Green is my Challenge?

2005-09-18T18:53:00.000-04:00

Gotta love that Deb.

The Whitinsville Community Center where she works is a sponsor of a local competition called the Greenway Challenge. It's kind of a relay Tri-athalon through the local area with canoeing/kayaking instead of swimming to go along with running and cycling. You know where this is going don't you? Her boss mentioned that they didn't have anyone to fill the second bicycle leg, Deb said that we ride all the time on the tandem, he said...

Right. So today we did a test ride of the course. This, after I attempted to drive the course the other day. You know how the stereotypical New England directions center around "Ya caan't get theya from heeya"? Well, it's not because you can't physically get there, it's because they don't bother to put any freaking signs between here and there! The course is only 12 miles but I managed to spend about an hour trying to drive the thing. I never did find the last 3 miles of it.

We set out on the tandem to give it spin. Now, this bike is pretty nice - this ain't Daisy's bicycle built for two with baskets and bouncy seats - and we're not afraid to make it go fast but tandems are notoriously slow going uphill. You know where this is going don't you? Let's see, our leg follows a kayak leg. The kayak leg finishes at the Blackstone Gorge. Gorge? Perfect.

Right. So we start the ride with a gut wrenching climb out of the Gorge. Actually it wasn't that bad but we weren't warmed up at all and it put us into some Oxygen debt right off the bat. Note to self - warm up first on race day. Reply from self - since you are the 5th leg out of 7, and there are 70 teams that will be strung out all along the Blackstone Valley how in the Hell are you going to know when your kayak person is going to arrive at the freaking Gorge so you can time your warm up, huh Lance-boy?

Deb had pinned the route sheet to the back of my jersey so she could navigate and call out turns while I drive. We got this idea when we rode with another tandem group a couple months ago. Did I mention that she used two safety pins on the top of the sheet? Did I mention that the airflow over and around the Captain's back is not particularly smooth? You know where this is going don't you? Less than a mile down the road, after the route sheet has practically torn itself to shreds in the vortex, Deb unpins it and puts it in my back jersey pocket. I knew this part of the ride anyway so it wasn't a big deal. Anyway, we navigate a few turns and then start a moderate climb. It's not a big climb at all but when you are pushing hard, it starts to hurt. A lot.

I had been wondering how best to ride the course. As I mentioned, the tandem is tough to go uphill with but on the flats and especially on the downhills, it flies. We can easily drop strong singles when we get even a slight downhill. So I didn't know whether it made sense to give it everything we had on the climbs and recover on the easy part or to just pace it uphill and crank on the downs. I think it makes the most sense to push hard on the hills and recover on the downs because the speed differential between us an the singles is greater on the uphills and that differential lasts for a longer time. I still think that's true in theory but it's hard to do in practice. You don't want to "crack" - build up so much lactic acid in your muscles that they just shut down - and we got close to that a couple of times today. One of the great things about cycling is that you can be near total exhaustion one minute and then, after just a short recovery period where you just ease up a little, be back to full strength and ready to crank the next.

Well, we got to the part that I hadn't found on my driving tour. The name of the road is Woonsocket Hill Road. You know where this is going don't you? We actually stopped at a fire station to ask if this was the proper road. The guy there said it was and mentioned that "it has some pretty good hills too". Perfect. When motorists notice the hills, you know it's bad. It was bad. We struggled over the top imagining all the featherweight singles blowing by us. The fireman also said that the downhill payback was pretty good though too. He was right. We almost went supersonic coming down the other side. OK, we only hit 44 mph but I was taking it relatively easy since I wasn't sure if there was a stop sign or something at the bottom. There wasn't so I imagine we will approach about 50 on race day! As a bonus, Deb's shrieking should clear out all the small animals that might otherwise be tempted to run across the road in front of us. From there it was a short ride into the heart of downtown Woonsocket - to the Museum of Work and Culture. Doesn't that sound like a 5th grade field trip from Hell.

So we finished it in about 45 minutes for an average of about 16.5 miles per hour which isn't real good. The thing is, we are in the Recreational division. Not the Championship division. Not the Corporate division. Not the Tri-athlete division. The Recreational division. When I clarified this with Deb's boss he said yeah, we might get first or second in the Rec division but I'm interested in how we do overall. What? You've got middle aged, weekend athlete posers on this team and you want to compete for the overall? That kind of attitude and added pressure takes some of the fun out of it.

Oh, after we finished, we had to ride back to the car at the Gorge. Due to the layout of the course, it was only about 3 miles away but you've never ridden through the streets of Woonsocket have you?

Five miles later, back at the car, we put the tandem on the car and say hello to all the other competitors checking out the transition area at the Gorge. Did you see the legs on that guy!? We're gonna die.

Gotta love that Deb.

College? What College?

2005-09-13T23:29:00.000-04:00

Got the video back from the taping session on Saturday. Uh oh. It didn't really come out very well. For some reason, it looked like we were lobbing the ball over the net instead of hitting with pace. There weren't very many stretches of consistent rallying, his serve was not that good looking (and he was foot faulting), and his overheads were bad. His backhand volleys looked good though.

I think we are going to have to re-shoot. I want to focus tighter on him a bit. We need to work on his serve and well, lots of things. This is not going to be fun.

On top of that, the soccer team lost 2-0. They didn't look that good either.

Is There Anyone Else Like Me?

2005-09-12T22:54:00.000-04:00

Here's an essay in the "This I Believe" series on NPR that sounds a lot like something I would write NPR : In Praise of the 'Wobblies'

A New Cam

2005-09-11T22:52:00.000-04:00

Bought a new camcorder yesterday (sold the Goldwing so I had to buy something to replace it...). I got the Panasonic PV-GS31. I had been looking at various models all up and down the price range for quite awhile and, as usual, I couldn't decide if the wiz-bang features of the higher priced models out-weighed my cheapskate tendencies. The more expensive cams have better picture quality and more manual controls which appeals to the techie in me but I also know that I barely use any of those kinds of thing in the real world. I just want to point and shoot - the cameras are smarter than I am anyway. So, I got the low priced model and I'm glad I did.

One of the reasons I was pining for a new cam (when I have one that still works) was because the new models (MiniDV) capture digital video. This makes it much easier to send the video to the PC for editing. Plus, you can send the back to the camera from the computer for storage (a tape still holds lots more video than a CD or even a DVD). Well, I hooked up the camera to the PC and guess what. I couldn't get it to send my test video to the computer. I tried everything. I didn't know if the problem was with the camera or the PC so I ended up going back to Circuit City and plugging it into one of their computers. Worked fine. Looser salesman said "you had it on Play right?" "Of course!" I said. Oops... Went home hooked it up again. Works fine. Ok, next time I really am going to read the instructions.

All Taped Up

2005-09-10T22:51:00.000-04:00

Patrick from CPOA came over to the tennis courts to film Kyle. I was the hitting partner so we played points, he served, returned serve, volleyed, took overheads. I really have a tough time serving now - my arm just doesn't like it anymore. I sucked it up and went for it though so it didn't look like we were trying scam the prospective coaches. He played pretty well except his overheads sucked. Of course, he was overly hard on himself...

Good Bye Wing

2005-09-10T22:49:00.000-04:00

Sold the Goldwing today. A mixture of relief and regret. I really wasn't riding much lately for a number reasons. I want to be extra safe on the bike so I make a point of wearing all the safety gear - helmet, pants, jacket, boots, gloves. Frankly, it's a pain to put all that crap on before going for a ride. Then you have to take it all off when you get where you're going and then repeat to come home. Then there's the aches and pains. My throttle hand really starts to hurt after a few minutes (I think I've got carpal tunnel from mouseing for so many years). Then my neck and back start to hurt after that. I really enjoy the first part of a ride but after a while it just starts to become less and less fun.

On the other hand, Deb and I really liked going for rides. Our favorite was out to the Vanilla Bean in CT for breakfast.

In the end, I couldn't justify making the payments and paying the insurance for what little use I got out of it. I hope I don't regret selling it.

God and Katrina

2005-09-08T22:45:00.000-04:00

Once again, a national calamity has given us another opportunity to demonstrate our twisted religious beliefs. Like 9/11 and countless other episodes of suffering and loss of life both large and small, Katrina has brought out the best in religious ill-logic.

One of my favorites was when the mayor or New Orleans, upon finding that the French Quarter had only suffered minor damage proclaimed that God had put up a fence around this area to spare it from the ravages of the hurricane. Obviously, this implies that God was either only powerful enough to save selected areas or He purposefully didn't save certain areas. It also implies that He doesn't really have control of the weather either. I'm sure the zealots have some sort of explanation that exonerates him. Usually it is connected to the "Free Will" idea - yes he is powerful enough to control things but He lets things happen to see what we do and how we cope (like this Apologetics Press - God and Katrina). It's all a big test and if you pass you get to live and if you fail, you die (or get seriously injured if you almost failed I guess).

It truly boggles my mind to see so many people subscribing to this way of thinking.

Oh man, the Westboro Baptist Church FAQ is unbelievably funny and scary at the same time. Man, you absolutely don't want to be near the target of God's wrath when he decides to "purge". You would think that God could be a bit more precise when somebody screws up and has to be punished. Whew! It's like surgery with a chain saw!

Here's a pretty good comment on other religious Katrina-crap In the name of God and Katrina

Open Arms

2005-09-04T23:09:00.000-04:00

Kyle and I went down to NYC to watch the U.S. Open. I've been watching that event for over 20 years and this is the first time I'd ever been there in person. We really had a great time.

We went down on Friday and got to Katie's apartment about 1:00. She took us on a tour of New York - Times Square, Empire State, Battery Park, China Town, Little Italy. We met up with Becca and her boyfriend Tom for the latter half. After dinner in China Town, we had bubble tea - milky, iced tea in various strange flavors with large black balls of Tapioca in the bottom. You get these fat straws and suck up the tea and tapioca balls - crazy!

Saturday we hit the subway for the trip to the stadium. After a short wait in line, we rush in to Armstrong stadium to watch Gasques and Lubacic. Then we went to Ashe to watch Nadal and Blake (Blake won). Then to some outer courts to see Malisse and somebody. Then back to Ashe to see Agassi and Berdych. Then doubles with Mahesh Bupati and Somebody Damm against Lubacic and Acic? Then to Armstrong for Robredo and somebody. Basically, we overdosed on tennis. We didn't leave until about 11:00. Got back to the car at Katie's and left for home about midnight. Pulled in the driveway at about 3:00 AM. Ouch!

We had a great time though. It was great seeing Katie and Becca and Kyle was totally overwhelmed by the tennis. A pretty good trip...