RHG called to let me know that they are dead in the water mear Nashville. In her narrative, a steel bar was dragging from rear of the bus leaving a trail of sparks. Again according to the narrative, a state patrolman followed them for five miles and finally pulled them over with lights and siren and advised the driver that the situation had to be corrected before proceeding. RHG, knowing the protocol, advised that there were three scenarios: driver fixes problem, mechanic is called, or new bus comes from Peoria. Later comm advised that scenario two played out. Advice to RHG - get sleep while you can (earlier advice #1) and enjoy adventure. Comment to Real Wife - by the time RHG is 30 the rear of the bus will have been fully engulged in flames.

Timmer, right now I am listening to Billy the Kid by Aaron Copeland. Try it, you’ll like it (well, maybe not all of it).

Radar

Red Haired Girl departs at 09:30 hours tomorrow via motor coach to Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. Actually, it is an abbreviated version called Pathfinder, facilitated by the local 4H chapter. She will be gone for four days, with two days actually “training” for the astronaut corps. While I’m very excited for her, Real Wife and I face the next few days with much trepidation with this being the longest (other than church camp, which is only 8 miles away) and furthest that she has been away from home without us. Her primary concern seems to be availability of electricity to charge her iPod, with my primary concern being…everything else. I emphasized a number of points: 1) sleep when she can, 2) she is there to learn and experience - on topic. I do NOT, repeat NOT, want her to feel compelled to ride her bicycle three counties over wearing a diaper and carrying mace, etc., to avenge a love affair gone wrong, 3) before she does anything not closely supervised by instructors/adults-in-charge, to ask herself what I would say. If she imagines that I would freak out, then it’s probably a bad idea, and 4) enjoy an experience of a lifetime that most kids will never have. The closest I ever came was physiological flight training at Pease AFB and I loved every minute of it (other than laying awake all night after the first altitude chamber flight absolutely convinced that I had the bends).

A friend of mine, retired USMC colonel, just had a new engine installed in his rather old Cessna 170, so we will also be doing some local VFR flying in the next couple of weeks. He’s offered RHG some flight time if she successfully completes her Space Camp regimen. He’s a very cool guy, having flown both prop and jet fighters (WWII and Korea) and one of the few great representatives left in this area from the Greatest Generation. I don’t think RHG is headed for a career as an Airman or an astronaut, but whatever she ends up doing, I think all of this will stay with her in a positive reinforcement way, and maybe as a lifetime reminder of one of the true passions her dad had.

Lastly, a hat tip to our departed cyberspace friend Joe Comer, who I am sure would have shared my excitement.

Radar

We acquired a company earlier this year and I have been spending a lot of time on the road trying to integrate all things legal, hence limited blogging time. It’s kind of interesting because they are a tech company with a lot of the stereotypical traits, as in attire consisting of bermuda shorts and sandals. The parent company is quite the opposite - think IBM in the fifties. My “home” division is more business casual, but I still feel a little out of place when I wear jeans. I just love walking into the office there and announcing that “I’m from Corporate - I’m here to help”. At first everyone just rolled their eyes and thought the days of free espresso were numbered, but everyone now seems to understand that I HATE corporate crap. I’ve even been told by the Gen. Mgr. that I am welcome to come up just to “hang out”.

Throughout all of these road trips Real Wife has soldiered through her chemo treatments in followup to the lumpectamy back in June. The last one was two weeks ago, but she’s still pretty beat down. They have had a cumulative effect, with the “good” days fewer and further apart. After each treatment she received a single shot that, by itself, costs $5,000 (its for pumping up white blood cells and made by a cloning process using recombinant DNA). Thank God for passably decent insurance. How she has been able to teach school each day amazes me, but I think she should start feeling better soon. Next week the radiation treatments start - every weekday for six weeks. According to the docs, the side effects will be very minimal. We are hoping that the worst part will be the 45 mile drive each way. All in all a pretty crappy summer for all.

As to the title to this post, I took my oath for the USAF thirty-five years ago today. I was sitting on the patio in the dark last night thinking about how long ago it seems and all of the ups and downs since then. It has been unseasonably warm here, but there was a nice cool gentle breeze that brought me back to Lackland. I somehow had the good fortune of being assigned the duty of emptying the squadron trash into the dumpster each night. I say good fortune because it was an opportunity, however brief, to enjoy solitude under the starry skies - away from the TIs and the rest of the squadron. San Antonio was hot during much of my boot camp, but each night there was that same cool breeze I felt last night. It’s funny the things you remember most.

Independence Day celebrations in small towns haven’t changed all that much over the years, and the one here is no exception. Our town is the county seat, with a large lawn on the town square that is perfectly suited for such festivities. Of historical significance, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas spoke on the courthouse lawn on October 11th and 22nd respectively.

Earlier that year, on July 10th, Lincoln gave a speech that rings with relevance even today, although framed in the notoriously contentious debate with Douglas about slavery. He said, in part:

“If they (the immigrants that arrived in the U.S. after its independence) look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

Just three blocks from where Lincoln spoke, and fourteen years earlier, Joseph Smith (founder of the Mormon Church) and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob that had shown much animosity toward the Mormons settled in nearby Nauvoo Illinois since there arrival from Missouri. This led to the Mormon migration west into present day Utah. When I moved to this community (into a house just a block from the jail where the killings took place) twenty-nine years ago, there still was considerable animosity toward the Mormons; not for any particular reason that I could discern, but rather traditional distrust passed down through the generations and the typical blather we hear today when referring to concerns about Mitt Romney (which, by the way, does not at all fit my own experiences with members of the LDS church with whom I work and do business) and, in 1960, John Kennedy.

Since that time the LDS church rebuilt their temple in Nauvoo that had been burned soon after the exodus to Utah, and they purchased the entire block where the old jail is located and built a very nice visitor center. None of it came easy, for either the Mormons or the local inhabitants. Over the years, however, I have noticed a sea change on both sides. Individual members of the Mormon Church have moved to, and become assimilated into, our community. The discovery that we all share the same fundamental values, as Lincoln so eloquently expressed in his 1858 speech, has I think finally started healing the poison that spread some one hundred sixty years ago.

Today was a landmark occasion, however. A small troupe of Mormon singers, accompanied by a bagpiper and pianist, traveled from Utah and took to the stage during the activities on the square to perform patriotic and traditional American music for an audience of several hundred people. The concert, lasting a couple of hours, left not a dry eye in the house. Between musical pieces, various of the performers spoke of defining moments in our history and memorialized the true heroes comprising our national identity, from the founding fathers to the men and women who have worn the uniform since those early days, to the every day Americans who understand and appreciate the gift of liberty and equality bestowed upon us. While not wanting to sound like an apologist for either side of the events that led to such a terrible schism, these performers gave what I consider to be the ultimate offering of friendship, that being a poignant reminder that all of us who hold the truth to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are, as one, Americans. How ironic that such an event should take place literally yards from where Abraham Lincoln likely delivered the same message, albeit in a different context, so many years ago.

Happy Independence Day

“This decision to commute the sentence of a man who compromised our national security cements the legacy of an administration characterized by a politics of cynicism and division, one that has consistently placed itself and its ideology above the law,” Barack Obama

“I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby,” Wilson said. “I don’t owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor.” Joe Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame Wilson)

I don’t think I can recall a time when such deceit and hypocrisy was so prevalent across so wide a swath of our political leadership. Senator Obama, a law professor, practices the very cynicism and diversion that he decries, and the last I knew, commuting a sentence, particularly one as egregious as that handed down to Scooter Libby, is not above the law.

Senator Clinton, my message to you is simple – do you remember Marc Rich?

And Joe Wilson, look in the mirror before you start throwing out names such as traitor. You have shown yourself throughout this entire affair to be beneath contempt. Your fifteen minutes of fame has passed, so I sincerely hope that you shut up and enjoy your book royalties.

Finally, I hear that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has called for George Bush to be impeached over this. You guys just can’t get over Clinton’s impeachment can you?

I have no love for politicians in general, but the current crop absolutely sickens me.

Update: Powerline blog informs us that the House Judiciary Committee plans to hold hearings next week on the sentence commutation. Would that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington et al. could be with us on this two hundred thirty-first birthday of our country to comment on this. They would most definitely be far more eloquent than I could ever be. On the other hand, they may have taken these left wing zealots to the woodshed for a proper flogging.

My favorite part of our house is a twenty by twenty five foot patio, screened floor to ceiling. I have a decent stereo, and a fairly extensive collection of music that is well suited to watching the summer go by. This year, I have designated the Official Summer Patio Song as (drumroll) Sleepwalk, by Joe Satriani. It is a remake of the original recorded by Santo and Johnny in 1959. I liked the original, but this version is juiced up nicely with a strong drumbeat and bass. I even got a slow dance from Real Wife:-)

Well, I think Real Wife is through the scariest part – the part of the journey where the immediate future is unknown. She underwent surgery Friday to remove the lump in her breast, as well as a so-called sentinal lymph node. The procedure as I understand it that they inject a dye into the tissue adjacent the tumor, and then remove the first lymph node that shows an uptake of the dye – the idea being that if the cancer has spread, that would be the first location. The tests came back last night that the margins of tissue around the tumor were clean (they got the whole thing), and the lymph node was negative for cancer. She is now scheduled for a consultation with doctors for both chemo and radiation therapy. While not an insignificant set of procedures, she feels that they are tribulations minor in comparison to waiting for the surgery and subsequent pathology reports.

Everyone in her family is hypersensitive to anesthesia, and she is no exception in terms of nausea and slowness to become alert. An interesting twist was that she exhibited a rare side effect of the dye injection in which her complexion turned green. Really green. She was later shocked to learn that her urine was bright blue – think Windex. Everything is normal now, and it did provide needed comic relief in what was a very long and stressful day.

It is now a matter of continued vigilance, but we are thankful to the excellent medical staff and all those who sent their kind prayers and support, not the least of whom were friends and readers at The Daily Brief.

On a happier note than my previous post, Red Haired Girl has finally hung up her dance shoes. The first one or two recitals were fun to attend, and we videotaped everything. Six years into it I was to the point where gouging my eye out with a dull spoon was preferred to sitting for 2 – 3 hours watching group after group with little or no talent. The last two years she and Real Wife have taken pity and allowed me to forego the experience. She has now decided to take lessons from a voice coach, and the results are nothing short of amazing. This kid can make people take to their feet and clap now. Last weekend she brought home a trophy from a local “Star Search” contest, performing Mr. Cellophane from the musical Chicago. It was an outdoor show performed on the courthouse square, with absolutely perfect weather and an audience of a couple hundred or so locals.

The next day, she was going through the typical thirteen year old angst of being bored because there was nothing to do. Her best friend called and asked her if she wanted to ride along with their family to an old fashioned tin can shoot at the local gun club. Real Wife was kind of down on the idea (there were never guns in her household while growing up, so she most associates them with the all-too-often sensational news stories seen these days). I pointed out that the kids would be well supervised, so she relented and off went RHG. She returned home about five hour later, and I’ll be damned if she wasn’t toting a rather large trophy for having won second place in the age 11 – 17 class. She’s never held a gun in her life, much less fired one. I think the sweetest part of the victory was the fact that, of the other twenty or so kids in her class, most were boys, and first place also went to a girl.

She now wants me to join the gun club so we can shoot on a regular basis, which I am inclined to do. I have a 1938 Walther PPK, a 1940 Walther P38, and a 1937 (I believe) Mauser Hsr, all semiautomatic pistols that I bought as collector items but have never fired. I did present to her (albeit with a lot of restrictions relating to its usage and availability) to my first rifle, an Ithaca model 49 lever action single shot .22 that my dad gave me for my twelfth birthday ($25 from Sears and Roebuck). I think that I’ll watch the local gun auctions for a single action .22 revolver to teach her pistol shooting – I’m very against the idea of handing a semi to a kid.

There may be readers out there who rail against teaching kids to shoot guns, but in these parts, and where I grew up in rural upstate New York, it is a perfectly natural thing to do (my 15 year old niece shot three turkeys and two deer last year). Our local high school is consolidating, and one of the benefits will be more diverse activities, which to her excitement will include trap shooting. It looks like I need to find a decent shotgun too. She’s a little worried about the kick, but we have a year to work on it.

I am now wondering what other hidden talents she has…

Real Wife and I met with the specialist this morning to discuss treatment options and prognosis for her breast cancer, and I must say it was quite revealing. Our initial reaction on hearing the news was based largely on the norms of twenty to thirty years ago, i.e., that such a diagnosis meant at best radical and life-changing surgical procedures, extensive radiation, and chemotherapy and, at worst, the unthinkable. While I have suffered loss in my life, I cannot recall ever feeling such intense fear and hopelessness, compounded by the need to not let it show in front of Real Wife and Red Haired Girl, both of whom were likewise caught in their own personal hell. In retrospect, we erred in convincing the primary doctor to apprise us of the results as soon as they were known but before meeting with the specialist to determine what they really meant.

In this instance, we were told that it is the most common form of breast cancer, with both the treatment regime and typical outcomes well understood. Also working in our favor is the fact that it was caught relatively early, with the lump at slightly less than one centimeter. The plan at this stage is to remove the lump and inject a dye for the purpose of checking the lymph glands – both procedures done, surprisingly, on an outpatient basis. Followed up with several localized radiation treatments to catch any stray cells floating around, the hope is for a complete cure. I thought it significant that the doctor chose the word cure and not remission. If they fail to get all of it this round, another surgical procedure may be indicated, along with possible chemotherapy. While we both realize that nothing is certain, and things could take an unexpected turn for the worse, our attitude will be optimism unless hard facts tell us otherwise.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch we received a phone call yesterday at 6:00 a.m. from Real Wife’s eighty-eight year old mother asking us to come immediately. She had fallen in the night and broke her hip, and it took about two hours for her to crawl to the phone (she is now more receptive to the use of those Lifeline alert systems!). We flew over and met an ambulance, which transported her forty miles to the nearest hospital with an orthopedic surgeon. After about ten hours of waiting they finally performed surgery to replace the femoral head, which was snapped off at the base. Coincidentally, I had an identical injury some twenty-two years ago, so I was expecting the worst in terms of the trauma associated with the surgery and the difficult recovery. In my case, because I was just a little over thirty, they elected to save the head, so I was put back together with pins, rods and plates. That led to over three hours of surgery and several months of recovery. Yesterday they had her on the table for about forty-five minutes replacing the head with a prosthetic, and had her up on her feet today. Simply amazing.

All in all a pretty crappy Father’s Day, particularly for someone who really, really hates hospitals. The only good thing I can associate them with is – becoming a father

Well, it’s after 1:00 am, and we just completed the three hour drive home from Scholastic Bowl with the third place trophy. The team that won (the only one to beat us all night) had one girl who answered virtually every question - the consensus is that she’s an MIT grad ringer. They actually shut out two teams completely - an unheard of feat. Red Haired Girl is happy that she personally scored more points against that team than two other teams combined.

It was kind of neat being around a couple hundred of some of the brightest middle school kids in the state - it reinforces my confidence in the upcoming generation.

Signing off from Geeksville…

I live in a typical Midwestern rural community that has long taken pride in the accomplishments of the school athletic teams - to an extreme. Today though, we hope for grey matter to seize the day. Our middle schoolers are sending their Scholastic Bowl team (including Red Haired Girl) to the Illinois state class A championship. On Monday we traveled to Brimfield, near Peoria, and smoked the competition to win the sectional championship. That in and of itself was a milestone – the first hardware in the trophy case and banner in the gym for brain power. Also for a first, the school held a pep rally this morning for the kids.

Real Wife and I leave shortly on the three hour jaunt to Bloomington-Normal for the Big Dance. Competition will be tough – these are the über geeks coming from many Catholic and other private schools. Odds are good though; our kids are a diverse bunch who complement each other well. The questions are equally tough (how many Loyal Readers knew that John Jakes was the first Supreme Court justice, or that the transmission electron microscope was invented before the scanning electron microscope?).

We should arrive home by around midnight. Unbeknownst to the kids, the local fire and police departments will meet the bus at the edge of town for an escort home. No matter the outcome, they are winners.

Small town life is good (and geeks rule!!!).

p.s., in re. the title of this post - it is the slogan on the team’s shirts, and we do not have fish in our blue jeans

Red Haired Girl competed in the regional Scripps Spelling Bee this week - a victory there would have taken her to Washington for the national competition. She’s a very good speller, but these things tend to be luck-of-the-draw (I never heard of a cruller, or for that matter, a muumuu). She did well until the second from the last (p-e-n-u-l-t-i-m-a-t-e) round when she got the word fuselage. When asked to repeat the word, the pronouncer - consistent with her performance the entire evening - gave it a somewhat British flavor. RHG, who reads a lot but not the things that boys read, spelled it the way it was pronounced that night - fusilage. Another girl was eliminated for spelling angst as ongst, and yet another for spelling chronology as chrinology - in both cases they spelled it as it was pronounced to them.

I have always considered my time in the USAF in the early seventies to be a defining point in my life, and have an on-going fascination with airplanes, so this particular defeat was somewhat crushing. RHG took it in stride though, looking forward to next year. On the way home we went through some words that she might encounter in the future, like empennage.

Is it just me or does the Mahone character on Prison Break look like Alan Colmes?

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon trying to reactivate Windows XP on Red Haired Girl’s Mac. It ran fine when I installed it, but because it is on a differant machine than what it was originally installed on, it went dark after a period of time. Because I did not set it up with capability to access the Internet, a phone installation was required - just as well because I knew that explanations would be required about the entirely different hardware footprint. According to Microsoft, the purpose of requiring activation is to prevent “casual copying”, and that the minor inconvenience will actually save consumers money through the prevention of piracy.

Well, the truth is a bit more complicated. According to the customer service rep and his supervisor (Bill Gates was unable to come to the phone), their policy is not to activate preinstalled versions of Windows, regardless of the circumstances. I asked him what would happen if I had fried a motherboard (which requires activation), to which he replied that it would be a warranty issue with Gateway. I asked what if the warranty is expired, he told me that, in that scenario, the license dies with the computer.

The issue is supposed to come down to one license, one computer. I can live with that. All they needed to do was give me a 45 digit number (really - 45 digits) and RHG would be playing Nancy friggin’ Drew and I would be happy, but nooooo. They want a war, and that’s what they are going to get. The first thing I am going to do is carve up the computer that the software was originally installed on and send it to Bill Gates with a signed affadavit attesting to the fact that it is no longer in service. Any other ideas would be appreciated.

One of the things I like about the Democratic party is that when they form firing squads, which they are often wont to do, they do so in a circular fashion. In their latest move, they pulled out of a co-sponsorship arrangement with Fox News for an August debate of Democratic presidential hopefuls in Las Vegas. This was precipitated by MoveOn.org, whose members apparently cannot bring themselves to tune their TVs to Fox News, and whose leader has reportedly said that his organization “owns” the Democratic party. I hear that there is a deal with al Jazeera in the works.

Where is Zell Miller when the country and his party need him?

The temperature here in central Illinois reached 60 degrees today with a forecast of seventy next week. I have the smoker ready for that first brisket, the tires on all of the bicylcles aired up, and the oil changed in the riding mower. Tomorrow I need to fire up the chain saw to make firewood of all the tree limbs that I lost during the ice storm just 3 1/2 weeks ago. Oh, and the robins are back in full force and the bald eagles which, owing to their fish diet, are not all that tasty , are heading back north.

My favorite time of year.

Sgt. Mom’s post got me to thinking about some of my past experiences in Europe. I first started travelling there on business in 1987, when I spent quite a bit of time in Burnley, Lancashire in northern part of the UK. At that time, we had just entered into a joint venture with Lucas, aka The Prince of Darkness, to develop a multifunction column switch for a U.S. auto company. Despite the seemingly endless rains (the sun broke through only one day on my first visit, with the local weatherman reporting that the temperatures “soared into the seventies” – this being July), it was quite a nice place with a small town feel to it. They serve a particular type of beer there called bitter, which, once one acquires a taste for it, is a pleasant way to end the workday. The locals were friendly and very welcoming of us Yanks to challenge them to a game of arrows (darts) at the local pubs. We had contracted some test equipment to a tool shop in nearby Nottingham, necessitating a trip to evaluate their progress. Accompanied by our hosts and some engineers from Chrysler, we took the motorway to Yorkshire, travelling by the Major Oak, which is alleged to have been used by Robin Hood as a hiding place. It turns out that the managing director of the tool shop had some sort of relationship (brother or something) with the curator of Nottingham castle, so after our business was concluded we enjoyed a personalized tour. What a neat place, whether or not you believe in the legend of Robin Hood. Afterwards we retreated to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, a pub across the square from the castle that has been in continuous operation since 1189 with the name inspired by the start of the third crusade. At one point our host asked us what we thought of all that we had seen that day. The auto company engineer thought a moment, and replied (WARNING – UGLY AMERICAN MOMENT AHEAD) “Well, its all very nice, but what have you people done lately?” My only beef with England is their aversion to ice water. If you ask for a glass, you will get one ice cube. That’s it.

Another of my favorite places is the Principality of Liechenstein and its capital city Vaduz, located in the heart of the Swiss Alps. The hotel where we stayed is about a bucolic setting as can be imagined. There was a cow pasture just outside my hotel window, with (sorry California) some of the happiest cows I have ever seen, each wearing a traditional cowbell and munching on the prolific wildflowers. As we were leaving the hotel in the mornings, we would pass groups of children in their neatly pressed uniforms heading to school, singing and playing stickball. While the locals seemed quite friendly, they viewed us with a little suspicion, as though wondering whether we truly were the barbaric Americans that had undoubtedly heard about. One night, our hosts took us to a fine restaurant located high up on a mountain in nearby Switzerland, overlooking the upper Rhine valley, with the river itself being little more that a creek at that location. On our return down the mountain (WARNING – UGLY AMERICAN MOMENT AHEAD), I pressed our host to treat us to a yodeling performance. I was firmly informed in no uncertain terms that “We do not yodel!” I would like to return one day, although I am concerned about their national security.

Paris may be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but I find its residents to be among the most hostile toward Americans – not in any specific way – just a general distaste. I found Toulouse, on the other hand, to be quite the opposite. My last visit was on short notice, so the hotel where we stayed was an unknown quantity, though proving to be a hidden gem. The rooms were quite small – the building dated to the eighteenth century – though most of them opened into small interior courtyards. The owner made a general-purpose room available for us to work on our presentation. He had never seen the sort of hardware we had – laptops, projectors, PowerPoint, etc. – and was fascinated with the process. Each day, he would go to the market to buy fresh breads and pastries for us, serving them with the most wonderful espresso I’ve had before or since. In exchange for showing him the finer points of creating a presentation, he responded to my curiosity about the espresso machine with a compete tutorial on its complicated operation. I remembered enough French to get the basics, but I suspect that, on my own, I would have blown it to smithereens.

In general, I have found that positive attitudes toward Americans are inversely proportional to the sophistication of the city in question. I suspect that much of this is because cities like London and Paris are not so different from cities like New York or Los Angeles, where cynism is the currency of the realm. American influence has shaped much of post-war Europe and, to the extent that things are not going well, Americans are getting the blame. The irony of all this is that, as I alluded in my comment to Sgt. Mom’s earlier post, many of the ideas imported from America by Europe are those held so dearly by the left in America – secularization, liberal immigration policies, socialized (name the government program), etc. The further irony is that the fury of those attitudes is largely directed to those in the U.S. who are most likely to resist the very policies that have failed so miserably in Europe. I am looking forward to my upcoming first trip to Iaşi Romania. Their recent history suggests a more likely aversion to these far-left liberal influences.

One last point I would make is that the Europeans also blame crass commercialization, another bane of society, on Americans. It is, more accurately, a by-product of capitalism, and I would accept it over the alternatives any day. More than any other region, Europe should have learned this (anybody remember the Dark Ages?)

When Real Wife and I set up housekeeping 15 years ago, one of the needed items was a vacuum cleaner. By happenstance, we received some sort of free promotional offer, contingent on sitting through a sales pitch for a Majestic Filter Queen. For those not in the know, this was considered at that time to be the epitome of suck. Real Wife (then Real Fiancée ) simply had to have one. Having a few beers during the presentation, the only thing that stood out about the ordeal was that the motor spun at 10,000 RPM – impressive in its own right (if true) and clearly deserving of a Tim’s Tool Time Binford Tool endorsement. That is, the only thing that jumped out until he told us the price. Fifteen hundred dollars – 1992 dollars. Real Wife (Fiancée) gave me The Look, and we were the proud owners of a vacuum that cost a mere $700 less than my first brand new car (although said car, a ‘72 Plymouth Cricket aka Hillman Avenger, had a redline of only about 5,000 RPM).

Well, it died last week (the Filter Queen - the Cricket died in 1977, victim of Lucas electricals and a Stromberg carb), or at least the motor did (teardown analysis found a loose nut and flat washer - catastrophic at aforesaid 10,000 RPM). Real Wife was ready to move on anyway; tank-type machines are not compatible with two story homes. We compared a number of models at epinion.com, and thought that one of the Bissell models, at around $150, seemed a reasonable blend of price vs. performance, so RW headed to the local Sears. On schedule, The Call came. You know the one – when he/she tell you that this really credible (in this case a former schoolteacher) sales person has these magic beans… In this case the magic beans were … a Dyson DC17 Animal. Triple cyclonic action, no need for HEPA filters or bags, etc. And only a third the cost of the Majestic. I quickly calculated that the price of having a negative opinion about this would be required active participation in future vacuuming activities, so I told her that it was her decision.

A couple of hours later she returned home, albeit with a somewhat disappointed look. It turns out that The Animal was not in stock. The old bait and switch – they sold her a DC14 telescopic instead. One of the ugliest damn things I’ve ever seen. Yellow and gray, with a faux business-end-of-a-NASA-air-tunnel look to it. But can it ever suck. We ran it over carpet that was vacuumed with the Filter Queen just prior to its demise and, unless the cats and dogs lost most of their fur since then (they look OK) the old Filter Queen wasn’t cutting it. I was so impressed that I almost asked to take it for a spin, but caught myself with the sudden thought that this could set an unfavorable precedent. Regarding the latter statement and before the hoards show up on the comment board with the digital version of pitchforks and a rope, I offer the following. RW has never come within even a passing consideration of reading a manual for a phone, computer, or other similar device. Same dynamic – once you start you own it. One of the dynamics that establishes the balance required for lasting marriages. My other defense for seeming to be a, well yes, chauvinist pig is that (except for flowers), if its outside its mine. Mowing, downed trees, snow removal, dead animal removal (the need has arisen), pest insurgencies, and landscape improvements - all are mine.

So, I’ve got a ’92 Filter Queen, all it needs is a motor. Any offers?

I received an email from an aunt whom I’ve not seen since my Dad’s funeral in 1978, but who recently discovered email and the viral distribution of jokes and stories. The most recent message was titled “Funny Things Kids Say to Their Grandparents”. Having brought Red Haired Girl home at nearly forty years of age, I can personally attest that it is not always the grandparents who get the good zingers about age. Anyway, here are some of the choice ones.

A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather’s word
processor. She told him she was writing a story. “What’s it about?” he
asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t read.”

——————————————————————–

My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday He
asked me how old I was, and I told him, “62.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, “Did you start at 1?”

(more…)

The Copyright and Royalty Board, part of the Library of Congress, has announced copyright license fee increases that, if not struck down, will put many of the more innovative Internet music streaming (read radio) sites out of business. According to Bill Goldsmith at radioparadise.com, the royalty payments will amount to 125% of their revenue. I don’t think this is hyperbole based on what I read on the Radio and Internet Newsletter site.

Who benefits? All the usual fat cats. Who gets screwed? Well that would be all the smaller indy bands and labels, those of us who appreciate their work, and, of course those of us who are sick to their stomachs of the crap that passes for commercial radio broadcasting these days.

All of this is at the instigation of the RIAA of course – the same folks who, flummoxing around because their business model was caught totally unawares by the advent of digital music (boy, who could have seen that one coming 20 odd years ago at the introduction of CDs and then again, in the last decade, when Al Gore invented the Internet), have resorted to litigation against grandmothers because little Jimmy discovered file sharing. As a trade association I think they are doing a piss poor job. I had a conversation a while back with the third generation proprietor of a small local roller skating rink. What a resource to have. You can drop off the kiddies for good clean fun, knowing that Bonnie is watching out for them – a gem of a local institution. Bonnie told me that she didn’t know how much longer it would make economic sense to stay open – one of her single largest expenses is paying RIAA royalties.

Meanwhile, I legally downloaded some songs for my daughter, and found out that it is nearly impossible to transfer them to any other device. For this we can thank the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, otherwise know as The Act Passed By Congess, Signed Into Law By The President, But Written By The RIAA.

Hey, I’m for law and order, but I am rooting for the guys figuring out how to beat these greedy bastards. Maybe once the RIAA and their lackeys on the U.S. Congress figure out that the only alternative to an equitable fair royalty structure and a reasonable fair use doctrine is widespread free illegal underground distribution, they will get their heads out of their asses.

I encourage our Loyal Readers to bitch to their government representatives and to engage in civil disobedience in this matter (just don’t get caught and if you do, don’t call me).