January 2006 Archives

I'm in Jamaica the rest of this week; I return late Sunday night. The map shows where I'll be in case you're in the neighborhood.

I'll toast you all with a Red Stripe or two - the non-imported variety.
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I leave for Jamaica tomorrow on a medical mission. Twenty-six are going: 21 doctors and nurses and five "lay persons". The doctors and nurses are the heart and soul of the mission. The lay persons, which include me, can only bring arms, legs, and strong backs as we support the docs and the real work of getting medical care to people who wouldn't otherwise have any. I still have no clue what, exactly, I'll be doing although I've been told repeatedly that I'll be very, very busy on clinic days. I hope to bird but don't expect to. I expect to photograph but we'll see what happens.

But whatever I do, it will be in the tropics. The Weather Underground predicts the following weather for Montego Bay:

Tuesday: Clear, hi 82, lo 73
Wednesday: Clear, hi 82, lo 71
Thursday: Clear, hi 80, lo 75
Friday: Clear, hi 80, lo 75
Saturday: Clear, hi 80, lo 75
Sunday: Clear, hi 80, lo 75

I guess I can leave my fur hat at home.
K-

The Baltimore Sun has a very interesting article on the Trailblazer program at NSA. You remember the NSA? That's the place listening in to all our phone conversations at W-'s order.

Trailblazer was intended to be a high-tech response to NSA's problem of reducing and analzying all the data it receives every hour. Overly ambitious from the start, the program has failed to deliver on its promise despite 6 years of effort and $1.2B spent. One intelligence expert calls Trailblazer "the biggest boondoggle going on now in the intelligence community." Here's the link to the complete article although you may have to register to see it in its entirety. The article makes for compelling reading and may worry you (if you're not already concerned) about POTUS's illegal wiretap effort. (If you want, you can reach NSA by, quoting Letterman, "simply calling any phone number in the country.")

And speaking of compelling reading, check out the New York Times editorial from today. It clearly rebuts all of the Bush administration myths that will be foisted off on the country again Tuesday night.

Incompetentcy and arrogance abounds - though for different reasons - at NSA and in the Executive Branch.
K-

Just so you know, the movie Annapolis - which opened in theaters yesterday - is bogus, apocryphal, as phony as a $3 bill.

I will boycott this movie.

The movie was filmed in Philadelphia not our fair capital by the Bay and the Blue Angels streak over Founder's Hall at Girard College not Bancroft Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy. There's absolutely no way I can watch the City of Brotherly Love masquerade as Maryland's Colonial-era capital. Bah.

Evidently the producers were ready to shoot in the real Annapolis but financial incentives from Pennsylvania and disagreement with US Navy officials over the portrayal of Academy life led to the change in location. Nevertheless, as a Marylander I just won't spend my hard-earned money on a movie that is so fundamentally endemic to Maryland yet contains such an egregious swindle at its core.

And its Tomatometer reading is 9 percent. There is justice.
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This time with pictures.
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My blogging will be scant and scarce the next couple of weeks. Today I travel to Tucson on business. I return Friday. I then leave for Jamaica on a medical mission a week from today. I return from the Caribbean late the following Sunday night. As a result, there won't be much going on here until I get back from the mission. (There won't be anything going on here while I'm in Jamaica.) I might blog from Tucson but I received less-than-glowing reviews the last time I tried that.
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It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.

They say confession is good for the soul.

Last Friday I received my latest shipment from Netflix. It was a movie I'd been very much looking forward to. I knew it was a guilty pleasure. It was a movie I've seen several times on TV in recent years but it's been a long time since I last saw it in its original form.

The Blues Brothers.

I absolutely love this movie.

It's not for everyone - car chases strung together with musical interludes - but I love this movie. The Blues Brothers isn't great cinema... it just is what it is. But seeing it again unexpurgated was a delight. I think it's worth a watch just for the automobile choreography and stunts. John Landis must have shut Chicago down for weeks to film. I can't imagine they could make this movie today.

Of course, the real reason to watch this movie is the music. Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles, James Brown... it's all still fresh.

Hit it.
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There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread;
She whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

Unfortunately our strict Mother Goose disciplinarian - a long-time Howard County resident - is facing eviction and child endangerment charges. Ever since her husband, the old man who lived in a shoe, dumped her for Angelina Jolie, old woman has had trouble making ends meet. Recently, her storied house, dilapidated and careworn, has been emptied of her many rambunctious children, who are now living with relatives.
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Had to run an errand this morning. Pulling away from a strip mall - the archetype of the Maryland suburbs - I chanced to see these bad boys hanging out in the parking lot. (A whole bunch more were up in the air.) Completely oblivious to vehicular comings and goings, I had to be careful not to run over any. Don't know what they're doing so far inland. Raucous, too...

"I'm a bird... I'm a bird..."
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Senator Harry Reid was on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer tonight. Quoting Senator Reid: "Having Senator Rick Santorum do something about lobbying reform is like having John Gotti do something about organized crime."

Oh, yeah. That's the stuff.
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I got off from work today. In fact, everyone at my employer did.

I arrived at work only to find all the power off. Every building on the campus was sucking down its emergency juice. Everywhere uninterruptible power supplies beeped. People were milling around the hallways looking for ambient light to work by, dazed and confused, as if someone had rearranged all the food dishes. Engineers don't quite know what to do if they can't work. I was miffed. Some days I don't really need my computer. Some days I just need my desk, paper, and pencil. Today was not one of those days. Today I needed my computer. (As did the New Horizons launch team. A Maryland power outage actually caused a spacecraft launch in Florida to be scrubbed. Too bad. This is one way cool space mission we're controlling.)

Then came an overhead announcement: "At 6 AM the power to the main campus went off. BGE reports that power will not be restored for the rest of the day. If you are able to work, you are instructed to do so. If you are unable to work, you may take administrative leave with the approval of your supervisor."

I haven't seen such a mass exodus since that bomb scare we had back in 1985.
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You hunt around for 10 minutes looking for a screw you desperately need to hang a curtain rod only to discover it's clamped firmly between your lips.
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All the pictures had to go back on the dining room walls now that I'm done wallpapering. I ran by Home Depot to get some new picture hangers; I wanted the kind that consisted of a simple hook you nail into the wall. I found a box, which, according to the package, were used by museums.

My dining room is a lot like a museum so I bought them.

Later opening the package I noticed a banner across the top of the box containing the picture hangers: "Guaranteed not to damage your walls."

Confused by this statement I looked for clarification elsewhere on the package but found none. So I went ahead and hung my pictures, confident that the nails I was pounding into my walls were in no way causing damage.

It's guaranteed.
K-

I spent the weekend wallpapering the dining room. Four corners, thirty sheets of varying lengths, more measuring than you can shake a stick at, 17 hours spread over 2 days all to beautify a room I sit in maybe once a month.

I am beat.

This is not to say I harbor a particular animosity toward wallpapering. Actually, it's kind of fun. Wallpapering is not as messy as painting and there's an immediate sense of accomplishment each time a strip is glued to the wall. The stuff can be temperamental. The paper is remarkably fragile and frustratingly tough at the same time.

Most of all, wallpapering is stressful. Buying enough is the most confounding aspect of wallpapering. I want just enough. Too little is bad because you might not be able to get another roll from the same print run. Too much is bad because the stuff is expensive. And I really hate that sword of Damocles feeling as I approach the end of the job not really sure if I have enough, where it'll be really, really close. Unfortunately, room dimensions vs. unpapered area vs. rolls vs. bolts vs. American vs. European vs. repeat length vs. pattern match makes estimating needs, for me at least, a crap shoot. This time I bought 5 bolts based on my initial estimate. Then just as I was about to begin my project, a huge wave of doubt swept over me. These are European rolls! They're smaller!! Did I estimate assuming American rolls? I might have!!! Oh my God!! So compelling was my doubt that I ran to the wallpaper store for assurance. A few furrowed brows and a page of calculations later, they thought I would have just enough.

I had one bolt left over. Go figure.

I took a few NoDoz to calm down.
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Thursday night, Marin Alsop appeared with the BSO for the first time since being named music director designate of the orchestra last July. (For the uninitiated, the BSO is the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, as if there could be another BSO.) You may recall there were some, uh, hostilities and words between the BSO Board of Directors and the orchestra musicians at the time of Alsop's appointment.

Well I'm happy to report that any hostilities that may have existed between Alsop and the musicians have been smoothed over and patched up. Alsop received a warm welcome from the orchestra and a standing ovation from the audience as she came on stage to take the podium. "Thank you. It's my incredible pleasure to be here," she said, bowing her head and holding that bow to accept the applause.

Following the performance, Jane Marvine, head of the BSO players committee, presented Maestra Alsop with a single red rose adorned with a small yellow ribbon.

"We couldn't be happier," stated Ms. Marvine. "The musicians have put everything behind them. All our business is settled."

In an unrelated incident, BSO president James Glicker was found murdered in his Roland Park mansion Friday morning. Sources close to the investigation report that Glicker was found dead in his study, stabbed through the eye. "The murder weapon appears to be a thin, basswood skewer of some sort about 12 inches long with a cork handle," said Floria Tosca, a Baltimore Police Department spokeswoman. Tosca confirmed that someone or something had carved "sic semper tyrannis" into Glicker's stomach using a small knife.

Police acknowledge a small knife was found in Glicker's study. "It is what is known as a reed knife," said the police spokeswoman, "used by woodwind players to shape reeds for their instruments. Whether it had anything to do with the gruesome carving found on Mr. Glicker is still being investigated."

Police have no suspects.
K-

Yesterday, the Maryland General Assembly voted to override Governor Robert Ehrlich's veto of a bill requiring Wal-Mart to pay more for employee health care. Maryland's Fair Share Health Care Fund Act is the first of its kind in the nation, requiring corporations with large numbers of employees (> 10,000) to pay at least 8 percent of its payroll on employee health care or else pay the difference to a state fund. It now becomes law and a model for more than 30 other states, which are expected to take up similar legislation in coming months.

It's not often that Maryland finds itself at the center of such a closely-watched legislative battle. At the national level, Maryland doesn't count for much. But lots of folks were watching, including Wal-Mart management in Bentonville. And just as Sauron cast his malevolent eye on the Shire from the bowels of Mordor, Wal-Mart officials cast their eyes on our fair state, exerting no small amount of lobbying pressure on General Assembly members. Withdrawing plans for a proposed Wal-Mart distribution center on Maryland's Eastern Shore is probably a certainty now. When asked about it, a Wal-Mart spokesman would only say the company will be re-examining the project "through a different set of lenses."

The override had 3 more votes than necessary; not a single republican voted for it. Maryland General Assembly Republicans are now predicting that the state's business environment is forever poisoned. Needless to say the conservative media is bemoaning the loss of yet another way large corporations can screw their low-income workers. "Partisan" is what failed Republican senatorial candidate, E. J. Pipken, called the vote. "Socialists" is what radical right wing extremist Michelle Malkin calls supporters of the measure.

Regardless the bill now becomes law in 30 days.
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Nikon, one of the world's leading makers of cameras and lenses, announced Wednesday that it will be significantly reducing its film camera product line to focus more on the digital camera business. Nikon will continue to manufacture its F6 for professionals ($1,900 for the just the body) and FM10 for photography students ($250). This shift in business strategy follows similar moves by Kodak and Canon.

I wonder how long before film cameras are no longer readily available? Aside from disposable cameras, there seems to be little need for anyone to use film.
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Today the Maryland General Assembly opens its 90-day session. Unlike many states, Maryland does not have a legislative body active year-round. The House of Delegates and the State Senate convene on the second Wednesday of January for 13 weeks of nail biting, nonstop action, a tradition dating back to the days when everyone in Annapolis had to get back to their farms for spring planting or hit the Bay for the start of the crab run.

This year the first action of the General Assembly will be to override several vetoes by Governor Robert Ehrlich, the most contentious being the Fair Share Health Care Act or so-called "Wal-Mart" bill. The Senate will vote tomorrow on reinstating a bill aimed at requiring large corporations to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on worker health care or pay the difference to the state. Effectively this bill applies only to Wal-Mart. In a related action, house leaders plan to try to override the veto of a $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage. Maryland is rapidly losing its industrial manufacturing base. It'll be interesting to see whether our legislators can do something to assure an almost-living wage for the workers of the service sector.

Maryland is a mixed bag politically. Strongly Democratic areas such as Baltimore and the DC suburbs are countered by strongly Republican areas such as the Eastern Shore and western Maryland. Right now, the General Assembly is predominantly Democratic with a Republican governor. Partisan rhetoric is already flying. Said Democratic State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller yesterday: "We're going to declare Independence Day. We're going to sit in the chamber of the Senate of Maryland and let freedom ring and let the doves sing. We're talking about five veto overrides. GOP leaders are going to be flying high, but we're going to get together and we're going to shoot them down. We're going to put them in the ground, and it'll be 10 years before they crawl out again."

Hyperbole aside, it should be an interesting session. I'll keep you posted.
K-

We got back from Florida late last night. The trip was OK considering I spent four days at my in-laws. That West Palm Beach must be one of the most over-developed, over-crowded areas in the country didn't help. All-day birding on Saturday was, for me, the highlight. And the weather was nice.

Ah, the weather.

The weather was all anyone could talk about. You see, while we were there it was "cold". Temperatures were only in the high 60s with nightly lows down in the 40s. For us Marylanders that was short-sleeves and shorts weather. But the way the natives talked you'd think the forces of hell had been loosed on the area. (And to be fair, some bean growers in southern Florida did lose portions of their crops and a stiff wind early Saturday morning made me wish I had a pair of gloves while I tromped through the marshes.) I thought the weather couldn't have been better.

For you birders out there I did get one life bird: painted bunting. The wind on Saturday probably did keep some of the birds hunkered down making birding less than it could have been. But I fell in with a group touring Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, which included one of those wunder-birders who can tell you a black dot in the sky is a snail kite because of the characteristic wing beats. I was the young kid since everyone else was retired.

Off to work.
K-

Out of my mind on a Wednesday moanin'...

1. My older son - who's on the wait staff at a Ruby Tuesday Restaurant - gets paid every two weeks. Just recently Ruby Tuesday began printing advertisements on the back of his pay stub. They print ads on the back of his pay stub! I'm appalled.

2. I received a 2-CD set called "Bird Songs in Jamaica" as a Christmas present. Now I'm driving around town listening to those CDs in my car cramming for my upcoming trip. I'm going on a medical mission and I figure I won't have much time to actually see the birds. Hearing them is the only way I'll be able to identify them. "Out of my way, people, I'm hearing a Jamaican crow!"

3. In Jamaica, most warblers are winter birds so only the flock maintenance and alarm calls are given on the CDs. Warbler songs - given by the birds while on their breeding territory and studied avidly by Maryland birders - are not on the CDs.

4. A furor at the Baltimore Sun... Michael Olesker, a well-known Baltimore columnist, resigned yesterday over plagiarism charges. He had been with the Sun 27 years. Too bad. Olesker was a staunch supporter and chronicler of Baltimore. I don't know the gory details of how journalists do their work, but it seems like it could be hard to keep straight quoted material and original material in your notes. Of course, if you're a journalist that's part of your job and you should resign if you can't do it.

5. Just read that a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday that "mooning", while distasteful, is not illegal in Maryland. This is the ruling in the case of a Germantown man who exposed his backside to a neighbor with whom he was feuding. The judge called the alleged act "disgusting" and "demeaning" and the outcome could have been different had the man been on trial for "being a jerk." Evidently in Maryland, it is the revealing of one's private parts that is the sufficient condition for indecent exposure. A word to the wise next time you're in Maryland.

6. I have to go somewhere after work tonight. I've never been there before so I used Google Maps to get the driving instructions. Here's the last instruction captured verbatim off the screen:

Google is nothing if not precise.

7. Do your New Year's resolutions have to start on January 1? What if I start a week later? Is that OK?

8. I was awarded Second Place at my 8th grade math fair for my riveting project on logarithms. That I knew the value of e to 6 decimal places is what clinched it for me. No one bothered to interview me. (FYI, e is an infinite series equal to 1+1/1!+1/2!+1/3!+1/4!+... and is used as the base of natural logarithms.)

9. After years of keeping it short, my younger son has decided to grow his out hair. D- has coarse hair that just sort of "bushes" out as it grows; it takes a while to get long. Last night he comes up to me with his hair combed down over his eyebrows and says "Daddy, look at my hair. It looks as if all my hair is growing out of my eyebrows."

10. I'm wearing my dress watch today for the first time in a while. Every 2 seconds it ticks two seconds. Weird.

K-

I love some of the Google hits my site gets. Had this one today: "how to book Kem the musician".

To whoever it was - just so you know - I'm available.
K-

It's back to work for me after a nice four-day weekend. But it'll be short. On Thursday I head down to Florida for a long-scheduled visit to my in-laws as well as several days away from a PC. I don't really mind the in-laws but I don't have much use for Florida. It's just as congested as the DC suburbs only with palm trees and not particularly scenic. I think Maryland has more to offer in that regard. Yeah, the weather will be nice.

Finally I have yesterday's Non Sequitur, which I post here much like I clip a comic from a paper

Can't have too many people dissing O'Reilly. If you need more, go here and here.
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That team from Columbus is playing that team from South Bend today in the Fiesta Bowl. I am sooooo conflicted. What's a Michigan boy to do? I hate both teams; I want them both to lose. I guess it could be fun to watch the game and hurl foul epithets at both teams and cheer the misfortunes of both. But I'd just as soon rip my arm off and beat myself with the bloody stump.

(And, yes, I understand there's a corporate sponsor for the Fiesta Bowl but until I'm paid to do so, I will never use the corporate moniker for any sports event or stadium.)

Boo to that team from Columbus. Double boo to that team from South Bend. Boo, boo, boo to you both.

Maybe the game will end in a 0-0 tie.
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We tuned into Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve on Satuday night to see how well he's doing. He had a stroke just before last year's New Year's Rockin' Eve.

It was good to see him. Not that I'm a big Dick Clark fan - or a big New Year's Rockin' Eve fan - but he is an American icon. His voice was slurred somewhat and it appeared that he couldn't move his right arm. It must have been difficult for a guy who makes his living in front of the camera being there less than perfect. My guess is that it took a lot of effort and courage to put himself out there like that.

I would hate to have a stroke. They're always capricious and almost always pernicious. My grandmother had a stroke that left her in a wheelchair. Physical therapy didn't help her much.

Here's hoping Dick Clark's therapy keeps him on the road to full recovery.
K-

Overheard at a New Year's Eve Party:

Q. What do you call 47 millionaires watching the Super Bowl?
A. The Ravens

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