August 2003 Archives

OK, summer's not so bad.

Sweet corn hours old and fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes for dinner. Watermelon for dessert.
K-

The heat broke. Hasn't been above 80 all day. My Sunday long run (today 9+ miles) was so much easier than the 2 miles I slogged through in yesterday's swelter. Even the locusts slept in. Didn't hear a one.

Five weeks till the Army 10-Miler. Finishing won't be a problem from a conditioning standpoint. Now if only the knees, back, hamstrings, etc. can hang in there. Hooah. My only concern is that I'm still carrying all this weight that I was sure would drop off once I began training in earnest. S- tells me it's the beer. But I know I read somewhere that beer is a low-calorie, non-fat food.

Beer is a low-calorie, non-fat food.

See... you just read it somewhere, too.
K-

Omigod. Take a deep breath and repeat to yourself "I control the blog. I control the blog. The blog does not control me. The blog does not control me."

I've spent a good portion of today and some of yesterday tweaking P&D. You'd never know it to look at it. At least I've learned some about cascading style sheets and more about Adobe Photoshop Elements. Of course a 90F temperature with 75F dew point does wonders to keep a body indoors. (I tanked on my run this morning.)

Time for a Dogfish.

Moose. Indian.
K-

Somehow my blog vanished while I was attempting Tucson. I think I know why. Just my boneheaded mistake of putting the MT MySQL database in the wrong directory where it finally got deleted by the system.

I couldn't figure out how to import old items. Maybe it's because I hadn't exported them. And after my trip, I didn't have the inclination to figure out how. But I did have the HTML so I was able to recreate my blog. Sort of.

However, I lost all my comments. That hurts the most.
K-

I should have realized my Tucson trip was snake-bitten from the cab ride to the airport. The cab driver arrived 15 minutes late, had to pry his trunk open with a crowbar for my bags, and was ticketed for speeding on the way (72 in a 55 mph zone).

My connection to Tucson was at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport. Imagine my surprise when the pilot woke me from a doze by announcing, "We'll be landing in San Antonio in a few minutes." It turns out that thunderstorms in Dallas had closed the airport and we were on our way to San Antonio for fuel. Two hours after refueling we got cleared to fly up to Dallas.

I arrived at DFW to find planes on the ground everywhere. Needless to say there wasn't a gate. So... two more hours sitting on the tarmac.

Finally a gate. It's 10 PM, I've been in my plane for 9 hours, and haven't had a thing to eat. I dash to the gate for my outbound Tucson flight. Yes... I made it with time enough to eat! Current departure time 11 PM.

But 11 became 12 became 1 became 1:30 AM. No flight attendants. And then our pilots became "illegal". (They had been on duty too long to fly.) Despite all this delay, we were assured by the gate agent that our plane would depart for Tucson at 7 AM. Great! I'll be in time for my meeting. Unfortunately, no hotel rooms were to be had and I was forced to sleep on the floor of DFW airport. (Recalling the Zest ad... "You're not as clean as you think.")

I awoke about 6 AM to find out my departure time was now 10:43 AM. But that, too, came and went for want of any flight attendants. The Tucson passengers were getting ready to riot.

Doing the math, I decided that I probably wouldn't make it to Tucson in time to contribute to my meeting. So I booked travel back to Baltimore. The ticket agent said he would do what he could to have my suitcase sent over to my Baltimore flight but, of course, it went on to Tucson. The return flight to Baltimore, which was originally scheduled for 1:20 PM, departed DFW at 2:45 PM.

Nine hours in a plane, 16 hours in DFW, you'd think nothing more could go wrong. But, oh no, I got even more evidence that God has a sense of humor when I arrived back at the house. The cab driver who brought me from the airport decided that he just had to run over the mailbox at the end of my driveway while backing out. Snap! He broke the post and crushed the box flat.

K-

August 26th
Today I'm off for Tucson. My employer insists.

Having grown up in the temperate north and spending most of my adult life living in the Maryland Piedmont, Tucson is not the place I would care to live. It's just too damn hot most of the time.

However, I've found it a great place to visit. There are some pretty good restaurants there. The birding is first rate (check out Madera Canyon). And I will say, come January, the climate in Tucson is outstanding.

But this trip is business; no time for birding; too hot otherwise.
K-

August 25th
Today is Andrew’s last first-day-of-school. He starts 12th grade. He’s a senior. He begins what is essentially the end of a long road. I was there for the first first-day-of-school. And I was there – today – for this last one.

Oh, sure. There will another first-day-of-school for him next year. With any luck, he will be in college.

But it won’t be the same for me.

I won’t be there. I won’t be there to roust him out of bed at exactly 6:42 AM. I won’t be there to get him breakfast or argue about why he’s not eating it. I won’t be there to remind him to bring his stuffed tiger, his Ninja Turtle lunchbox, his crayons, his clarinet, his gym clothes, his calculator, his cell phone, or his car keys.

I won’t be there.

There’s a scene in The Wizard of Oz when it’s time for Dorothy to leave Oz and go back to Kansas. I still get a lump in my throat when she says goodbye to her three friends. I always thought her farewell to the Scarecrow was the saddest. After all, Dorothy helped him find his brain.

But I was wrong. The saddest farewell is when Dorothy says goodbye to the Tinman. “Now I know I have a heart,” he says. “Because I can feel it breaking.”

The Tinman cries - risking certain rust - because someone he loves very much is about to leave.

The Tinman cries all the more - risking public embarassment - knowing he must stay behind. So it is with children. And so it is with parents.

A part of the Tinman always understood that Dorothy must leave Oz. She didn’t belong there. But another part of him doesn’t understand how anyone could ever leave Oz. Oz is beautiful! Why would anyone want to leave Oz?

Oz is beautiful... But it can never be like Kansas.

No, Oz can never be like Kansas.

Wherever Kansas turns out to be.
K-

August 25th
"Let's go bosco! It's 6:42. Time to get your butt out of bed. You're a senior in high school and I'm still in here getting you out of bed!"
"OK, I'm up. I'm up!"
"Just make sure you stay up."
"Do you want any breakfast? I could get you some cereal."
"When was the last time I ate breakfast before school?"
"OK, do you have everything? Do you have your cell phone? Remember it's got to be off and out of sight. How about your lunch money? Do you have your lunch money? And your clarinet… where's that? Do you have to bring your clarinet today?"
"No, I don't need my clarinet today. Yes, I've got my lunch money. Jeez, Dad, this isn't my first day of school…."

"Daddy, is the bus almost here?"
"Pretty soon, buddy. It'll be here in about three minutes. If you look right over there through the gap in those trees you'll see it coming. Then it'll round that turn in the road and stop right here. Yours is the first stop!"
The little hand gripped mine just a bit tighter.
"How will I know where to go when I get to school?"
"Well, remember we learned about that last Friday? They'll lead you off the bus and into the cafeteria. Then your teacher will come get you and show you to your classroom."
"Will I know anyone?"
"I don't know. You might know someone. But even if you don't you'll make lots of new friends."
"I wish Bobby were in my class."
"I know but you'll see him at recess. Are you excited?"
No answer.
"Are you nervous?"
"A little."
"It'll be all right. You'll have fun."
"No I won't."
"OK, here comes the bus!"
"Daddy, why can't you take me?"
"That's what the bus is for. Hold still so I can take a couple of pictures. Try to smile! It's your first day of school! Let me take another one. OK, that's good. Remember Mommy will be right here this afternoon to get you off the bus. Have a good first day! Love ya!"
"Bye, Daddy."
Godspeed, little man.

"Dad? Dad! Dad, are you there? Earth calling Daddy…"
"What? Oh, I, uh, was just looking at my camera. This silly digital camera is new and I'm still trying to figure out how to use it."
"Well, if you want to take pictures you better do it quick. I'm driving and I don't want to be late. Traffic gets really bad in front of school."
"OK, stand over there so I can take a couple of pictures. Try to smile! It's your last first day of school! Let me take another one. OK, that's good. I don't know what time your mother will be home tonight. Drive safely! Have a good first day! Love ya!"
"Bye, Daddy."
Godspeed, little man.

K-

August 25th
My younger son, Danny, started high school today. He's a bit of a worry wart and all the unknowns about high school are looming large before him. "Will I be on time for class?", "When do I eat lunch?", "Do I have everything that I need?"

Then there's the size issue. He's short for his age. Now that he's in high school, the contrast will be even more apparent. I tell him it's not that big of a deal and there are lot worse things than being short. But he's concerned.

He's also, quite possibly, the nicest person I've ever met. I don't think I've ever heard him say - once - a mean-spirited thing about anybody.

That'll make him the Big Man on Campus.










K-

August 24th
Six weeks till the Army 10-miler. (If you believe the ATM website, the most frequent question they get is How long is the race?) Up at 6:30AM for my weekly long run...

The Camry later logged 10.7 miles. Probably a distance record for me. Left knee hurting. Here's hoping I can sustain the pace and not break.

They used to talk about the loneliness of the long-distance runner. It's nothing compared to the loneliness of the old, fat, runs-as-slow-as-hell long-distance runner. Today's run seemed to take forever; I can't imagine training for a marathon. But my pace was a lot better than my target. I can attribute that to a morning that was almost cool for Maryland in August. (61F when I started.)

Got to exchange "Good Mornings" with the blonde ponytail running with her retriever and another sweet, young runner in a jogbra. Young, female runners do wonders for a guy's running style and certainly causes a momentary pick-up of the pace. Thank you. Thank you both.
K-

August 21st
Every year my son's (make that sons') high school marching unit has "Pass in Review" at the end of band camp. (Band Camp is a euphemism for 2 weeks of marching and performing hell in the blistering Maryland summer preparing for upcoming performances.) At Pass in Review, the band, the flags, the rifles, and the pom-poms get to show off what they've learned. The director doesn't expect perfection (this time) and it's kept informal. Think of it as a scrimmage game for the marching unit. The proud father of a trumpet and a clarinet brought his camera. Behold the 2003 Marching Unit:

K-

August 21st
It came from Starbucks in a simple no. 10 business envelope. I knew it spelled trouble just by looking at it even though the outside looked innocent and nondescript.

I tore open the letter and began reading. "Dear Kem: We regret to inform you..."

Starbucks has discontinued home delivery of its coffee.

I thought "I can live with this." Business decisions are made all the time that adversely affect the individual consumer. But then I read on...

"Starbucks is now more accessible then ever. We recommend you visit your nearest Starbucks store located at..." I didn't need to read further. The temerity of those people! What nerve! After more than 10 years of being a loyal customer of Starbuck's home delivery - two pounds every four weeks - Starbucks was telling me the reason they cast me adrift is because they've decided it's now more "convenient" for me to go to one of their retail stores rather than have them ship coffee to my house.

Excuse me? As if I don't have enough to do without adding "Go to Starbucks" to my already full list of errands. I don't think so. So in reply I can only say "Dear Starbucks: I regret to inform you..."

Can anybody say Green Mountain Coffee Roasters?
K-

August 21st
All this week the kids have band camp from 6 to 9:30 PM so they've not been around at dinner time. And because this is S-'s first week back at work dinners have been chaotic. Last night we decided to dine at the Double "T" Diner.

This is a chain of diners local to the Baltimore area. The Double "T" serves typical diner fare for a reasonable price. What the food lacks in quality is made up for in abundance. Most people walk out with a doggy bag. I had the usual Double "T" Triple Decker Club. The bread was a little soggy but was otherwise enjoyable. S- had the veggie garden wrap.

On the way in we bumped into a friend from St. John's who joined us for dinner. P- is a really neat guy who was baching it for dinner. I see P- regularly because he teaches Rite 13 as I do. (Rite 13 is part of a youth ministry program called Journey to Adulthood. Rite 13 is for middle-schoolers.) He's very knowledgeable about computers, cameras, and other technical gear and gave me some very useful advice during my recent digital camera purchase. He's a true raconteur and I enjoyed our dinner together immensely.

Well, he just bought one of those Cooper Minis. They're the little sports cars you see in The Italian Job. He showed it off to us in the parking lot of the Double "T" and it is way cool. He's said it's as fun to drive as it looks. Interestingly all the routine maintenance is covered for the first 40K miles. Not bad.
K-

August 21st
Every year my son's high school marching unit performs a musical show at the homecoming football game. There's some acting in addition to all the band music. Last year they performed Austin Powers. The year before that it was Beauty and the Beast.

Yesterday the band director asked A- if he would be willing to portray the villain in this year's show based on Phantom of the Opera. A- agreed to do it.

Great casting.

K-

August 21st
By any measure, I live in a nice suburban community. Manicured lawns, decks and patios, swing sets... they're all here in abundance. The developer calls where I live a "traditional golf course community" because an 18-hole course surrounds us. There are no dirt roads, no back woods, no mountains, no deserts where I live. You can't go off-road anywhere within 30 miles of my house. Look up "conventional suburbia" in the dictionary and you will find a picture of my neighborhood.

A neighbor two streets over just bought a Hummer H2. It's big, it's ugly, it has a huge metal grid across its front to "protect" it from God knows what. Where I live, a rickshaw couldn't look more ridiculous. I saw it backing out into the street on the way to work today.

Other than too much money and too little concern for the environment, what possible justification could that doofus have for buying such a bonehead vehicle?
K-

August 21st
I have two hummingbird feeders in my yard. These days the ruby-throats are exceptionally busy at the feeders. They're fattening themselves up for their long migration south in a few weeks.

(Interesting fact: Ruby-throated hummingbirds winter on the Yucatan Penninsula. They get there by flying directly across the Gulf of Mexico from the US in one straight shot.)

Ounce for ounce, hummers are the most pugnacious animals on earth. They attack and chase each other with a ferocity not to be believed when one bird encroaches on another while feeding.

Be glad... be very glad hummingbirds are not the size of German Shepherds.
K-

August 20th
This digital camera is awesome! My wife was so pleased with the quality of the pictures of my sons and the ease I was able to post them to my blog. She thought it would be fun to take each other's portraits and post those. You can see how they turned out. I tell ya... it's like looking in a mirror.

K-

August 19th
The new toy arrived today all the way from New York City. I ordered it yesterday afternoon and I got it 1 day later. Amazing. I got a Canon Powershot G3 digital camera. Now I can take pictures and upload them to my blog. Here're a couple pictures I took with my new camera. It shows my no. 1 and no. 2 sons mugging for the camera.

K-

August 19th
When you're married to a public school teacher, your life is completely tied to the school calendar. Today all Howard County teachers report back to work after their summer hiatus.

Forget September 23, the astronomical end of summer. Forget Labor Day, the traditional end of summer. Summer ends today.

S- returns to school for two weeks of hell as teachers, parents, and students pummel her with special services requests. A lot of the requests are from people too dim to realize that the first day of school is here and all that scheduling and course selection they meant to do over the summer has to be done now.

After that things are more or less squared away and then it's only the usual KBS.
K-

August 18th
For a few weeks now I've been considering buying a digital camera. (Mostly so I could put pictures up on my website for grandparents although creating a blog has given me more justification.) I've read all the reviews, checked out prices, etc.

With toys I go through a lengthy: "Do I really need it?/Nah, I can live without it./But it sure would be a lot of fun./But it's really expensive." cycle before deciding to make the purchase. Well, today I succumbed. Check it out. It's coming all the way from New York City; it should be here in time for the ritual first-day-of-school pictures.

When I was a boy, I would order things from the back of cereal boxes. I remember, in particular, a Woody Woodpecker door knocker that I got by saving box tops from Frosted Flakes. Time never went so slowly as when I was waiting for the mailman to bring me the cheap plastic objects I had ordered from Kelloggs. My anticipation became electric.

Now that the Internet has replaced Kelloggs as my purveyor of postman-delivered toys, it strikes me the feeling of anticipation and the eternal wait remain the same.
K-

August 17th
Up early today for my weekly "long run". I did about 8.8 miles which is what I was hoping to do. The neighborhoods were quiet; I started about 6:30 and saw no others. We had thunder-boomers last night that dropped the overnight low to about 65. Not too hot.

Never mind what my time was. With a BMI of 29 you know it's slow.

Birds: Song sparrow, blue jays, modo, nomo, robin, chipping sparrow.
K-

August 15th
In Maryland they start singing in early August and don't stop till first frost.

They are all around but never seen. The hotter it is, the more frenzied their song. Locusts. They thrum and keen on the warmest of days from first light till after sundown.

Maryland has had a relatively cool, wet summer in 2003. But right now we're in a hot spell and the locusts are out in force during my morning runs. I never see them but from the sound there must be thousands. They scream from every tree I pass on my runs.

When I was a boy I would spend my summers with my grandparents in Delaware. They had no air conditioning and probably would have declined it if offered. One of my most vivid memories is lying in my hot corner bedroom trying to sleep while the locusts in the oak outside my window sang their bug tunes. I'd hear them falling asleep and awake to their call the next morning. And now whenever I hear them, I find myself transported back to those hot sheets in that stifling room... enraptured.

Do the locusts sing where you live?
K-

August 15th
D., A., and I had an evening when we were "baching" it, so we headed up to Senor Toucan's. This is a little Latin American restaurant not too far from where we live. As its name attests, the decorations in the place consist mainly of wooden statues of toucans and other tropical birds hanging from the ceiling. I had the grilled steak soft tacos. They weren't too bad although the meat could have been a little more tender. A. said Senor Toucan's has the best quesadillas around.

The restaurant had two guitar players strolling through the dining room. When they stopped by our table I told them that A. had been studying Spanish for 5 years. The three of them proceeded to carry on a conversation that neither D. nor I understood. At the end they all laughed as if sharing a mutual joke, which they probably were. The musicians then played a song A. had sung in his Spanish class the previous year. Considering that Senor Toucans is just a little out-of-the-way Mexican restaurant in Howard County, the musicians sang and played very well.

We all gave them a round of applause at the end of their song.
K-

August 14th
There are so many creative people. I wish I were one of them. The MT home page provides a running list of blogs that have been recently updated and I've been checking them out. So many are sleek, clean, and inventive. There's The Girlie Matters, Tightly Wound & Highly Strung, The Kingdom of Squirrels, Pixie With a Crash Helmet, A Whole Lot of Nothing, and more.

The blogs on my blogroll mostly follow my interests but also implement a lot of good ideas I'd like to try with MT, which is still pretty much of a mystery to me (old dog, new tricks issue). Graphics tend to really enhance a blog but I haven't found much discussion about tools to create blog graphics.

I like the way the Internet has fanned the fires of individualism and creativity. You can see how people live elsewhere, what they're interested in, what their day-to-day concerns are. You can find insightful commentary from the political left as well as typical BCD screed from the political right. Baseball, movies, Kansas City, they're all blogged. (I haven't encountered any porn blogs though. I wonder if there are any? I'll keep looking.)

If only I were creative... I'd have one of those cool blogs.
K-

August 14th
I set up my blog on a whim. Three months ago I hadn't even heard the term. (It took me some little time surfing the web to divine what a blog was and find a few.) Only two weeks ago did I decide to take the plunge and obtain my own URL. Then last Friday I surfed into website that looked sleek and clean; the colophon said "Powered by Movable Type". I checked MT out, thought to myself "I bet I could install that", and set up a blog.

Yesterday I had my first visitor.

I am so thrilled. It's as if I had set up my own little business and just had my first customer. I feel the way Babu Bhat did when Jerry Seinfeld first walked into the Dream Cafe. (No scalding hot towels to offer though.) Did they like my blog? Was everything set out OK? I sure hope so. Were my politics off-putting? I hope not. They even left a comment.

That first comment made my day. Thanks.
K-

August 14th
A. had very minor surgery today. A "subcutaneous cyst" - an overgrown zit - had to be removed from his back. We waited more than an hour for a 10-minute surgical procedure. (Don't know how much he'll charge for the operation; A.'s younger brother offered to remove it for free using a grapefruit spoon.) A. has to lay off cross-country practice tomorrow but is OK for Saturday as long as he feels up to it.

He was a little nervous going in but played it cool. The way you'd expect a 17-year-old to.

He claims that the surgeon told him that a half-gallon of Edy's cookies-and-cream ice cream is necessary for pain relief and to speed healing. I guess the surgeon forgot to tell me that. But if it's doctor's orders...
K-

August 12th
There's a small pond located in front of where I work. It's not particularly large. In fact, it was originally built to provide water for the fire department in the event of a fire. (Now that Howard County has grown, the pond is merely aesthetic.) They are draining the pond to inspect retaining walls and other things so I imagine small aquatic critters are more visible now.

Tonight as I came out of work I noticed a large, dark bird slowly wheeling over the pond. Initially, it was pretty high so I couldn't see exactly what it was but I could tell from the way it held its wings that it was not a vulture.

As it slowly descended I thought I detected a white head. And then as it wheeled away from me, I was pretty sure I detected a white tail. Before too long I figured out what it was and, you guessed it....

A mature bald eagle had settled down onto the ground next to the pond.

It joined a great blue heron and some ducks already in the pond.

Beautiful!
K-

On August 12th, Dubya picked another westerner to head up the EPA yesterday. As we all know, there's never been a BCD westerner who could claim to be friendly to the environment. Bush stated Utah governor Mike Leavitt has gained respect for "handing environment issues in a spirit of openess and bipartisanship." This is simply Bush-code that means Leavitt will blow off environment concerns and cave to what industry wants.

If this guy gets confirmed - and with Gale Norton already entrenched at Interior - the Bush administration cements its claim to having the least earth-friendly administration ever.
K-

This is the second book by David Liss. It takes place in mid 17th century Amsterdam and concerns the exploits of a Jewish speculator who is encouraged to begin trading in coffee.
K

From August 9th, 2003:

We had dinner out. We tried the Blue Pointe Grille, which was just up on Rt. 40. I had never been there. I kind of thought it was a fun-and-food-drinkery but it was more pricey than that. The food was good. (I had the ribs.) S. had a sauted chicken breast stuffed with a crabcake. We all had good desserts. It would be a good place to go and try dessert.
K-

I think I may have had a path wrong in my weblog initialization. Let's see if I can fix it. Here's a test picture.

K-