My Calendar

reposting

The 23-month-old kid was a Mexican national being treated for swine flu in Houston, CNN reports.

(Notice, did you, that the government wants the flu to be referred to as H1N1, so people won't be scared off from eating pork?)

This raises all sorts of question. Was the child traveling to the U.S. while symptomatic or asymptomatic? From what state and city in Mexico is the child and his or her parents from? If asymptomatic, by what means did the family travel--plane or private automobile or bus? If the tot was symptomatic, were any questions raised when the family entered the U.S. by border patrol agents, either at a border checkpoint or at an airport?

Or was the child brought to the U.S. with the full knowledge of the American government, so that pediatricians/doctors in the U.S. could have a serious case to monitor, from which to collect samples, on which to perform an autopsy? How long was the infant hospitalized in Houston? How long was the child ill? How fast did the swine flu progress? Was the child isolated? Is the U.S. government doing anything to track the fellow passengers with whom the family may have traveled? What is the Mexican family's income? Will the medical costs be picked up by them or by our government? Can we stop other Mexicans from crossing the border to seek treatment, if they are traveling with a family member who is symptomatic?

Many questions needing answers.

There was another unusual death from pneumonia in San Antonio yesterday. A Lackland AFB, a 19-year-old from Enfield, Conn. (traveled there in May 2004) died from adenovirus 14. Lackland has had quite a history of this virus on base, second fatality from it, the first occurring several years ago. Military reporter Sig Christenson did the story.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/Airman_19_dies_of_pneumonia_at_Lackland.html

O.K., local paper now saying the toddler was from Brownsville, Texas, on the border. Makes some of my previous questions moot, but not necessarily those of travel across the border.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/CDC_says_Texas_swine_flu_death_is_first_in_US.html

WASHINGTON — A 23-month-old toddler from Brownsville has died in Houston from the swine flu virus as authorities in the United States and around the world struggled to contain a growing global health menace that has also swept Germany onto the roster of afflicted nations. ...

City of Houston spokesman Frank Michel told the Chronicle this morning that the toddler was from Brownsville and was trasnported to Houston for treatment. He did not have any other details. There have been no reported Houston cases of the disease yet.

Things are more or less on hold here, partly because I'm the last person in the county without a cell phone, so I'm sitting by the land line in anticipation of a call from the Habitat for Humanity truck driver coming by to pick up furniture.

Actually, I think "dingbat" is probably correct, Joel: an ornament or symbol. Same with the pens, the globe, and the other symbols in the calendar.

The editor of our local paper, Robert Rivard, had a stint in Brownsville as a young journalist. Let's hope his intimate knowledge of Brownsville (interesting Loomis family history there) will assist the paper in getting good coverage of the story of the first U.S. fatality from swine flu.

Let's hope the family of that young child gets some peace and quiet to grief their loss.

SCC grieve

Off to enjoy a cool but sunny day. Have a great day everyone.

I'm confused after reading the lede graf at washintonpost.com about the first fatality from swine flu in Texas. The way I read it, coupled with the breaking news coverage from the San Antonio Express-News and CNN, it would appear that the family in Brownsville were Mexican nationals, who traveled back to Mexico for a visit, then returned to Brownsville. It *appears* that they weren't U.S. citizens?

More questions: Was the toddler who died their only child? Did the 23-month-old child have older siblings who were in school in the United States? Are the parents exhibiting symptoms? Were the parents in the U.S. legally or illegally? If legally, how long before they sought medical attention? If illegally, did they let their baby's flu worsen before seeking treatment? Did the mother and child have contact with other mothers with children in Brownsville?

Many questions.

Withoutblankspacescommunicationbecomesmuchmoredifficultsodon'tknockblanknessnowyouhear?

On the homepage: "Obama says authorities are monitoring spread of virus carefully."

Question bothering me overnight: A Google news search shows that many states suspect they may have cases of swine flu. How many nasal and throat swabs from suspected cases have been sent to the CDC? Is the CDC backlogged? What number of staff does the CDC in Atlanta have to do the testing? And Winnipeg for that matter. Are any samples being sent to Canada from the U.S. for testing? How many samples can the CDC process in a day, an hour? Is staff at the CDC working overtime?

As for the California lab, is it the same facility in Richmond, Calif., that expanded by 28,000 sq. ft. last yr. thanks to efforts by Calif. AG Jerry Brown, to expand DNA testing of every Californian arrested for a felony?

http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/60958

It's like being stuck inside an MRI while the technician goes off to lunch.

*Snort*

And I can't sleep well because I have too much to do. Sorry Mudge.

Funny Mudge. Very. After lunch, he goes for a smoke break, and then calls his girlfriend to chat.

I prefer to lose sleep over mind numbing questions like "What is *it* in the statement "it is raining." The sky? No, the sky's not raining. The clouds? Clouds don't rain; they become oversaturated, right? Something else I think about...the first person who ate a crab, what the heck was he thinking? Did he cook the first one, or the second?

Loud day here. Power tools. I should be be-bopping to the cacophony soon.

Tried Lay's Stax chips. Not bad, but how can you justify the plastic packaging? Seems capable of surviving daily use for a decade.

At least the package doesn't contain a lot of chips.

'Mudge;

Re: Your 9:53...

You saw that "Krauthammer research associate" want ad too??

:-)

"Here Lies Joel Achenbach. When the Chips Were Down, He Always Volunteered to Go for More."

This is Washington, dude. It's all in the spin.

Grade of F to CNN's Heidi Collins for her inability to summarize the information coming out of the Houston press conference, held after the first fatality of swine flu in Texas, the death reported earlier this morning.

The rototiller is threatening me with much more than mockery. Which it is also doing, of course. Mocking me. I had better go threaten it back.

Today's your lucky day, LiT. I happen to have the very answer you seek to your mind-numbing question at 10:05. The answer is that "it" is an "expletive." "The hell you say!" you exclaim. But it is true. Allow me to quote from Garner's Modern American Usage, in the entry's entirety, to whit:

"EXPLETIVES. In general usage, *expletives* are understood to be curse words or exclamations. This sense was fortified in AmE [American English] during the Watergate hearings in the early 1970s, when coarse language was replaced with *expletive deleted* in transcripts of the White House tapes. In grammar, however, an *expletive* is a word having no special meaning but standing (usually at the beginning of a clause) for a delayed subject. The two most common expletives are *it* and *there* at the beginnings of clauses or sentences. See *it* and *there is.*"

So there you have it, so to speak. In your example of "It is raining," "it" is an expletive, a word of no special meaning but standing in for a non-existent subject. (Or as Yoda might put it, "Raining it is.") Ditto "There are sheep in the meadow." And et cetera.

Oh, the first person to eat a crab was me, back in 1438. I was hungry, and I had some Old Bay, and thought, well, what the hell, how bad can it be, compared to the Black Death? Turns out that with a couple pitchers of beer, they were pretty darn good.

Lovely rain today making the plant happy. Ticks arose in the heat. Darnation: need more diatomaceous earth to repel by dessication. What other strategies do the booldlers use for these pesky and tenacious creatures.

I have a blue bell still nodding but her leaves are lime green...will check pH of soil. I also have three nicotiana about to bloom, which is early. But that three days of July in April tricked them into this display.

I shall try to think on an on kit comment. Does mentioning months count?

Mudge, because of the connotative freight of

it
there are,
which ofter appear as subjects in sentences, we now call them "empty subjects."

Hmmm. An F for inability to summarize.

Thanks, dmd.

Remember, Joel: You are the One you've been waiting for. Try not to be disappointed.

I know that's advice that I'm trying to follow.

With the rise of crabs and beer, so rose the newspaper industry.

So, which one did you cook - first or the second?

bc

Ah,seems we've been seeing a lot of empty subjects lately, CqP.

Geez Louise! At last some credible information regarding the first swine flu fatality, coming on the web 5 minites ago, from the Austin-American Statesman.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/health/entries/2009/04/29/texas_reports_swine_flu_in_chi.html

Good thing that Heidi Collins of CNN just had author John Barry ("The Great Influenza") on her program for a short interview this past hour. Thank goodness Barry corrected Collins outrageous statement made earlier on CNN this morning that vaccine production technology (eggs) is 50 years old. That is incorrect, as Barry pointed out.

Do you think that there ought to be a rule against perky little bobblehead anchors making statements about science when they know nothing about the subject matter?

Ironic, too, isn't it, that about 2 weeks ago SecState Hillary Clinton was in Mexico commenting that the expanding Mexican drug war was fueled by Americans' craving for illegal drugs. Funny how fast the tables turn. Given the locally televised story last night about the demand for Tamiflu and Relenza and the run on the drugstore in Eagle Pass, Texas, byMexican nationals, it appears that Mexicans are now clamoring for our drugs.

Mudge, so you are the first person who heard the scream of the crab being plunged in boiling water. It's heartwrenching but a diner has to do what a diner has to do.

I'm guessing that Heidi Collins isn't going to be losing any sleep whatsoever over that grade.

I'll try not to lose sleep thinking about that child, no matter where he was from, his terribly sad parents and such things as what they were planning for his second birthday -- the one that they'll never celebrate.

bc

Thanks Mudge. Made me smile. Again. But now I have more questions...Empty subject I get, but delayed subject? Is that like when the weatherman says it's going to rain this morning, but the rain doesn't get here until the afternoon?

Also, what made you decide to sell crabs by the bushel? Wouldn't weight have been better? Were crabs bigger back then, so that a bushel was maybe 5? When did you decide to serve it with drawn butter?

bc...don't forget the hushpuppy industry.

Second one. The first, uncooked, was pretty yucky. And of course it hadda be a sook with a lot of roe. Bleech.

dbG, your 10:45 made me hoot out loud.

Thank you, CP, and you may call them "empty subjects," at your discretion...but I dasn't cross Brian Garner. If he says "expletive," so must I, his humble acolade. Acolyte. Electrolyte. Whatever.

Yes, ftb, I received yours. Haven't read them yet, alas. But very soon.

Thanks, mudge.

LiT, wish you hadn't mentioned hushpuppies so close to lunch.

My husband was chatting yesterday with me. His boss shared with him that their company has a plan should a full-scale pandemic break out. Don't know if the plan was developed by Wells or Wachovia, which company should receive the credit for being fully prepared and forward-thinking.

Inquiries were made by my husband's company about whether the vendors have a pandemic plan. Apparently the vendors do, but the boss shared that the vendors explained that they couldn't share them because of privacy/confidentiality concerns. The boss thought the answer given by the vendors might be a response from the vendors for not having any plans whatsoever. *l*

For now, the plan is: Everybody go to work!

Everything I know about cooking crabs I learned watching "Castaway". Is it true that crabmeat only becomes decently solid after cooking?

SD, sent a cheque yesterday. Doing what I can for you, buddy.

On calendars, one of the problems with electronic calendars is that everytime there's an upgrade or whatever all your old records of what you were doing on a given day disappear. This kind of goes back to the pack rat kit and associated issues.

On swine flu, sorry H1N1, a colleague down the hall comes back from Mexico this weekend. So we'll see how that goes.

shriek, back during the Dark Ages and the Spanish Inquisition one tended to get pretty used to hearing live objects screaming in agony, so dropping a crab into a kettle was no biggie. In fact, it was kind of a nice change of pace, being able to eat them afterward.

At first we tried to draw and quarter them, but found out (good old scientific trial-and-error) that it was better to pry up the shield and then break them in half instead, after ripping the arms off. (This was actually a trick we first learned with captured Vikings and Visigoths.)

I actually enjoy watching really perky bobbleheaded anchors. I just turn the sound off and stare at their bosoms.

Hey Heidi, this one's for you--cell-based influenza vaccine production and surge capacity needs:

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/vaccine/vproductioncells.html

Wheezy, where are you when we need you?

Every company with a decent business resiliency plan has a section on pandemics. It's auditable.

Englemann, raw crabmeat is reasonably solid. You can buy it at the supermarket. (It usually comes in three grades: claw meat, which goes about $7 or $8 a pound; lump, around $12 a pound, and the top grade, backfin, about $14 to $16 a pound.)

Great reporting by Federal Diary columnist Davidson at washingtonpost.com:

Meanwhile, one of the unions working to organize airport security screeners has complained that transportation security officers are working without proper safeguards against swine flu.

The American Federation of Government Employees said some transportation security officers' requests for protective gear have been denied. "TSOs have been told that they cannot wear respirators because doing so would alarm the public," AFGE President John Gage said in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security.

Among other things, he wants the agency to provide officers with respirators, gloves, disinfectant and hand sanitizer, and allow those who contract the disease to take administrative leave rather than sick time.

laloomis, while it is likely that the CNN anchor really didn't know anything about modern vaccine production, you should provide the benefit of the doubt for an alternative explanation: it is not the anchor's job to know enough that the interview subject does not need to explain fundamentals; it is the anchor/interviewer's job to elicit an explanation of the fundamentals from the interview subject, so that the information comes from a person with established authority. If you want to watch anchors and interviewers who believe that they speak from authority, watch Fox.

Years ago, I heard an interview with Alan Alda, and it touched on his work as the host/interviewer of Scientific American's TV show (name forgotten). He mentioned that when the show began, he was terribly concerned that he should know more about the subjects, and so he boned up and did a lot of reading. He found, however, that he was a better interviewer when he came to the interview with little prior knowledge, because it enabled him to speak for an audience that is interested but lacking the fundamentals of the subject matter. His job was not to know the answers, his job was to elicit the answers from the subjects. If you listen to the Diane Rehm show, you will frequently hear her asking questions whose answers you would think she already has. Then it may dawn on you that she *does* know the answer, but unless you have been listening to her show religiously for 25 years, it is quite likely that you, the audience (or at least, a large part of the audience) *do not* know the answer. Her job is to be your voice and to be ignorant of the subject in order to guide the interviewee into addressing the right topics.

So, give poor Heidi a break. Even if she really is an empty-headed bobble-head, it is her job to take the social risk of displaying that emptiness on air so that the interviewee can respond to it. *Publicly* exposing one's ignorance takes guts, so don't just give her a break, give her some credit.

I've seen more than my fair share of transportation security people, and they *always* have gloves on, even just to check that the name on my ticket matches that of my driver's license.

Also, I notice a lot of "would be", "could be", and "promises to" in the article about cell-based vaccine production in the article linked by laloomis. These are what we experimental scientists call "weasel words", describing what we hope to be true but that we are prepared to repudiate entirely because we have not yet had the opportunity to do the actual work that we are trying to describe. Very common in writing abstracts for meetings that are 6 months away but that come 2 months after the opportunity to do the necessary experiment. The article in fact confirms that egg-based production of influenza vaccine is "traditional", which is readily interpretable as "what we actually use right now." In other words, according to this article, the much-maligned Heidi of CNN (who the heck is she?) was precisely correct in describing egg-based production that *is* used to produce influenza vaccine, regardless of the methods that *will be* used when/if they work out for large-scale production.

Thanks, SciTim for this reasonable response. The focused and courteous interview pose is a good one to take in many situations. I often am flummoxed by the technical content of student papers. Asking questions and acknowledging the expertise of another yields the best information and leads to understanding.

"I gotcha" in journalism, critique of journalism, the workplace, at home: well, not the better use of human intellect.

Riverdale Park, MD, is home to a large Mexican-American population. This community is sometimes "outnumbered" by other Central American families. I know some of these families through school connections; I have fielded a few phone calls from some concerned about the symptoms. The local clinic is absolutely overwhelmed with calls, drop-ins, requests for appointments, etc. Two local churches will host an information session on Saturday, to be "simulcast" in English and Spanish.

There's a local radio personality who does lots of interviews with knowledgeable people and uses the "stupid interviewer" technique a little too often or too much - he asks questions that are in my opinion a little too stupid, that is. Still, he gets back answers that all listeners can easily follow. And overall his show is quite good.

Today's shout-out is to Jack. Yo, Jack!

Tracking the genome of the swine flu. VERY preliminary, early phylogenetic trees...pigs in Ohio? Lots of links here:

http://www.genomeweb.com/blog/wash-your-hands-and-after-you-read

Breaking: First suspected swine flu case on a Marine base...29 Palms, Calif.

Loomis, your husband actually chatted with you? You granted him that opportunity, I suppose. I begin to read a post and when I realize it's one of yours I skip it. Get a life...or maybe a job.

This is the end of my snarky comments for the day as I have real work to do.

I am so sorry for the little child who died and his family.

Anyone else stop eating when you are up to your eyeballs in work? Seems that it is either one or the other extreme. Is this off-topic?

Hmm, actually I see that laloomis cited Heidi Collins as making an "outrageous" assertion about the age of the egg-production technology for influenza vaccine, but the property that made it outrageous is ambiguous to me -- is laloomis het up because it is not that old, because it implies that it is primitive, because it is no longer the technology in use (evidently not correct), or what? I see anger, but I don't see a real reason for it. However, I do not actually see any declaration that she was wrong.

When did it become an acceptable element of feminist activism to deride an on-air journalist as a pretty bobble-head? She may be pretty, and she may be bobble-headed, but the conflation of the terms implies something much uglier than an individual harsh evaluation of an individual person's abilities. Reading her CNN bio does not seem to support the contention that her head is empty or particularly bobbly.

Nope, sorry, no breaks for Heidi.

Nor for Steve Liesman, who was given kudos yesterday by Larry Kudlow on CNBC for his commentary about swine flu. Liesman ought to know the terms virology "passage" and possibly "immunity" before Liesman he spouts off about two strains of the swine flu virus.

I think NYT needs a science editor, too, given tat ridiculous mention in an article yesterday about how the 1918 "Spanish influenza" derived its name.

Backboodle stab all you want. I don't care. Shall I explain how SuperFrenchie was eliminated from the Boodle? It's quite a story unto itself.

RT NOTHING is off-topic in boodle-landia. Shall we begin a discussion of one ply, two ply, and four ply yarns? Did you know that milk fibers exist? I have knitted with black poodle hair yarn before. Not that that was a high point of my life or anything...

faxing you dainty but hearty chicken salad sandwiches (curry dash in the sour cream binding) and seedless grapes. Carry on.

RT, that is certainly how it works for me; more work, less food. It has now gone to extremes.

CP, may I have a sandwich, too, please?

If you talk yarn, I will be delighted to listen. I also offer as a topic 'art glass.'

Joel, I really, really like that calendar, even if it is lacking in bunnies. (I mean Lagomorphs not the other kind sometimes found on calendars. Or so I've heard.)

Anyway, there's a fellow known as Edward Tufte who has made it his life's mission to advocate graphs (for that is what it really is) like that calendar. For that WaPo artist has managed to display a large amount of useful information in a visually pleasing way. If you compare it to Napolean's March ( http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters ) you should be able to see the family resemblance.

This sort of thing fascinates me because it is where data and art meet. Good things often come from such collisions.

And I, fer one, would pay good money to see an Achenbach-centric version of this.

No offense, Padouk, but I'm more interested in where Data and Tasha Yar meet.

We know you don't care. Otherwise, somewhere along the line, you would have added quite a bit of sugar to that acerbic tone. And since you're the queen of unwarranted stabs, kinda gutsy practically begging for the same in return. Seeing as how you don't care and all.

Oh, ooh, Yoki: art glass. Good. Details and colors and do you mean glassware like Venetian glass? Stained glass? Blown glass?

Help yourself to the platter of sandwiches. I used thin bread and a moderate amount of filling. I mean them as appetizers. What else are we having?

Diatomaceous earth! I was trying to remember what that's called and there it is. Thanks, CP!

Oh my. I see your point, Mudge. Glad I didn't use my first word choice "merge."

Hi AC: wonderful stuff those tiny little silicates that slice slub bellies and dry out fleas and ticks! A fossil jewel, really.

Random boodle knowledge nuggets: glad I tossed one that works for you!

Yoki -- what do you advise for doggies on tiny creature pest control?

Russianthistle, I do find my eating habits get irregular under stress, too.

Eating too much (if start eating sugary fatty foods), yes, drinking too much caffeine, even forgetting to eat when I should and then realizing I'm not that hungry.

Obviously some people binge-post when under emotional distress. No criticism, just a point-out, because sometimes that distress might be better served by taking actual action or something.

Okay -- one of those days where I am on the fone with software providers the entire day trying to get the 'puter back into shape. Could just cry, I tell ya! *aaaarrrrgggg*

So, I'll take some lunch first (salad, crisp bread with cheese (low fat, but really tasty) and a couple with Kalles Kaviar from Ikea (I adore it!), and apple and then some tea (black tea with mango, I think, is suitable for a gloomy day like today).

And then, back to the software wars.

*copious expletives*

Not to get technical, but a stab here is a Boodle stab.

Having witnessed the SuperFrenchie saga, I'd be more interested in hearing about Noni.

Sigh. Would it surprise anyone if one of the activities marked on Joel's calendar would be "Pull the Plug on the Boodle?"

I'm also very pleased to know that "it" can be an expletive.

I recall Nani fondly.

Not me, RD, or at least "Forty Days and Forty Nights of Darkened Boodle."

CP, I'm no expert on the debugging of doggies, because we have very few risks up here; it is so dry that ticks and fleas are very very very rare. You need dbG for this question!

I still miss Nani.

I was lurking just as Nani was withdrawing, and even I experienced it as a loss.

What happened to her, Mudge? I was on hiatus from the boodle when she left.

That is one cool calendar. Thanks for the link, Joel. Right now I can display mine in all kinds of nifty ways but it doesn't have cute symbols. I think the iPhone needs those. Cute symbols would make my days appear much more interesting, and possibly suggest that my activities are much more important than they actually are.

Okay, lots and lots of information in this Boodle. Thanks to Mudge for the expletive explanation. That was fascinating. I shared LiT's question (what is "it") and never thought to look for an actual answer. Thanks to ScienceTim for the excellent explanations of vaccine manufacture and, more important, an anchor's responsibility to viewers.

Weed, are you serious? Wilbrod? Y'all stop eating with too much work? I only wish. I just wind up eating at my desk, wherever it happens to be. In law school I favored gingersnaps, because it is impossible to eat very many good gingersnaps at one time. Wasabi peas are good for the same reason.

Finally, what is this diatomaceous earth of which you speak?? One can actually use something to get rid of ticks on the ground??? Our strategy for ticks is to pick them off of dogs and, after outside activities, ourselves, and to hope they don't migrate into the house too often. We have lots and even our coldest winters recently have not discouraged their increase. There's nothing like stepping unawares into a nest of baby ticks. Ick ick.

Breakfast was kimchee and a couple of Ritz crackers.

I'm mulling over the astounding concept that many chicken-fried steak recipes do not call for cracker crumbs. I use a 50/50 mixture of cracker crumbs and flour. I do not double dip; the cracker crumb-flour mix is thick enough. I will egg-dip them once and then spend some time pressing each into the dry mix repeatedly.

I just ran the Ritz crackers (I don't mess around)through a screen, and have seasoned the mix with garlic powder, salt, black pepper. I think I will throw in some Old Bay for a minor note. Or more likely sprinkle the meat with it in advance. Of course I will have white gravy on top. And a baked potato with cheddar.

I like to put a wee sprinkle of Tabasco atop the gravy-clad CFS.

The Receiver General of Canada, that non-existing person, thanks you for the check SoC.

The Fungi now works for a major drugstore chain (that's a rare combination, my son and work in the same sentence). They are out of surgical masks and antiviral meds already. Let's just say it's still a little early for a full fledge panic and the hoarding of meds. Last night PHAC was saying they had 14 cases, this morning it's down to 13. All mild cases.

Howdy acinsj. Nani left the Boodle when Loomis gratuitously insulted her, Nani perceived the insult as involving her race or culture and objected strongly, Loomis refused to budge in any way, and Nani decided this was unforgivable and had poisoned the whole Boodle for her. I, too, recall Nani fondly.

I'm like Yoki -- was still just lurking when Nani was here. Hers was one of the characteristic voices that drew me to the Boodle and made me want to stay.

laloomis, I think the lesson of SF would be an excellent one for you to learn.

RD, I think we've had this discussion before, somwhow. Anyway, I'm a Tufte fan, too. Have several of his books, and attended a few of his seminars. I have a nice copy of Menard's graph of Napoleon's march into Russia as a souvenir from one of them, too. Good stuff.

And, OK, I share his general dislike of the misuse of PowerPoint.

bc

Thanks, Ivansmom. Too bad, I liked her. Maybe she's still lurking occasionally and will see that we're still hankering for her return.

The older I get the more I understand that notion of the "blank day."

I mean, when you are a little kid each day is full of something new and exciting. I think of the wealth of memories I hold in my brain from between sentience and puberty and can only conclude that years were a while lot longer then.

And then there were other years in which so many things happened that they are etched in my memory. 1982. I can remember practically every day of 1982, while I have only a vague fuzzy notion of, say 1997.

And it isn't just correlated with age. I firmly believe that at any age life can provide you with unexpected moments of boundless joy. But to get to these moments you have to often slog through as arid desert of massive translational symmetry. For in anyone's life there are bound to be months, if not years, when we do the same sorts of things over and over again. Sure, there are riffs and variations, but the underlying motif remains the same.

I try not to get too worked up over this. I think it is inevitable that even the most exciting of lives are going to have periods whose only apparent purpose is to prevent an embarrassing gap in the spacetime continuum.

bc - yeah, sometimes it seem like no matter what the topic of conversation, it always comes back to Tufte.

Well said, RD.

My electronic calendar includes everything involving having to be somewhere or important reminders.

The blank days inevitably represent good things at this stage of my life - the day to day routine that will live on as the background memories of my daughter.

Realize that SF was not "banned." He still popped up from time to time. And his crime wasn't disagreeing, or being an iconoclast, it was being consistently rude.

We all get caught up in the heat of argument sometimes and say things we regret. And most if us ask absolution, if only privately, for our transgressions. (Man, was I raised Catholic or what.)

But rudeness and boorish behavior became his trademark, and he seemed somehow proud of this.

He was rude to other boodlers, and rude to Joel. As I recall he made a very inflammatory post about Joel and the Achenblog in another blog. When confronted with this post, I can only assume he felt he grew bored with picking the wings off flies and moved on.

Good afternoon boodle! For those who missed lunch I have homemade chicken and wild rice soup. None of those paddy grown pellets marketed as "wild" rice for the boodle.

To go with the calendar check out Time's 100 Day Photo Essay
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1893255,00.html

Ah, I see we are going into fun-land.

laloomis, I did no back-stabbing, nor backboodle stabbing, nor did I insult you. I disagreed with your specific judgments and your lack of consideration for the circumstances under which TV journalists must work and the necessary conventions of the form. I did so in the writing style that I consciously affect for the Boodle, unemotional and dispassionate. I am not an automaton, but I can write like one for the web. In keeping with that style, I make a point of (almost always) referring to people according to their Boodle handle, regardless of other nicknames they may answer to, just as I have done in this paragraph.

I do not approve of the vituperation you sometimes receive here, but I am not insensitive to the attributes of your writing that call it down upon you. I attempt to address you intellectually and dispassionately when you post something that is false, inaccurate, tendentiously interpreted (thanks to Bill Buckley for the word "tendentious"), or intellectually dishonest. That is what I have done today. When I find that I myself am guilty of such faults, I make an effort to apologize for any resulting injustice and to correct the record (viz., my reconsideration of your reaction to what exactly is so outrageous about Heidi Collins' on-air comments).

SuperFrenchie got himself eliminated from the Boodle because he was tedious and repetitive and approached the Boodle as nothing but an opportunity to stage arguments on topics that he had previously researched and then picked a fight in order to deliver his topper. Always with the same outcome: the US is stupid, and Europeans are smarter. The US is immoral and Europe is not. The US is ideological and Europe is pragmatic. The US is bad and Europe (really, anybody else) is better. Yet, he chooses to live here. So: tedious, repetitive, and somewhat hypocritical. Is there some reason that is subtle and conspiratorial that is a better explanation for eventually kicking him out? And, the truth is, it is pretty much an honor-system "banning": he was asked to go elsewhere, and chose to comply. He has sufficient knowledge to come right on back as a troll, under a different name and falsified IP, if he really wanted. He is a difficult person, but he is not a total jerk. If you want to talk to him, here is his URL: http://www.chazelleconsulting.com/

Egypt, though no swine flu cases are present, issues orders to slaughter all of its pigs because of the influenza virus A-hemagglutinin 1 neuraminidase 1 virus. Area Christians, now rioting, will have to find another protein source? Egypt not aware that raw pork doesn't spread the influenza virus A-hemagglutinin 1 neuraminidase 1? You may want out check out the last grafs, a statement from an offiical at the UN.:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6193785.ece

Some solid, quality reporting now from the NYT about strain on U.S. public health resources to handle swine flu cases:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/health/30states.html?hp

The issue, simnply put, is information vs. misinformation coming from press--print or broadcast. And Boodlers, for that matter.

It's the e-mail(s), Tim.

Don't know nuffing about no ticks nor tick prevention, but I do know a wee tad about diatomaceous earth: it is beloved of every pro level umpire. There is a particular species of di earth that is specified by Major League Baseball to be THE one and only substance that is allowed to be rubbed onto a fresh, new baseball to take the shine off. This "mud" (which is exactly what it is) comes *only* from one particular mud flat in the Delaware River, and it is scooped up and packed in cans. MLB sends the cans to the various stadiums as part of the required equipment, and before each and every game the home plate umpire for that game is given several dozen brand new baseballs for that game, and he diligently rubs each one with this di earth. This is the *only* substance allowed, and every umpire has been doing this for the better part of a century or so. (Sometimes the home plate ump's fellow umps help him, sometimes not.)

This particular di earth was chosen and specified because of its highly uniform quality and consistency. Whether it keeps ticks off umpires or pitchers I have no idea.

This incredibly arcane and miniscule factoid has been brought to you by the Boodle, where no factoid is too small for public discussion.

You may all carry on. Feel free to ask pertinent (or even impertinent) questions, such as "What exactly is this here infield fly rule, anyways?"

But Professor, baseball is such a neat sport. Very tidy, even with that occasional slide. Why must the umpire dirty the baseballs before each game? Don't we want bright, shiny baseballs flying through the air at 90 mph towards the plate, sunshine glancing off them and creating a glare effect which would show a hitter's true skill?

And what exactly is this here infield fly rule anyways? d

Mudge, I adore you O prophet and praise you! Who knew that baseball connects to gardening this way. The tiny edges of the silicate fossils repel snails in such di-earths; di-earth dust dries out fleas, flea eggs and the like for ticks.

Baseball connects to gardening
Baseball connects to doggie care

through fossiled dirt.

Boodle moment, I am sure.

DR -- please connect di-earth to knitting. I challenge you to this.

Note to self: never look at things you know you don't really want to see.

bc

Sources: AP/FOX News: First confirmed case of swine flu in Nevada.

CNBC/Bazell: WHO to keep "swine flu" nomenclature.

CNBC/Reuters: WHO also closer to moving to pandemic alert level 5.

My vet says there is nothing "good" for tick prevention but the high-tech (expensive) stuff like revolution does help somewhat she says. And so we apply this toxic liquid by dermal absorption to our official tick queen and fleabag, the Liquid Cat, and the Very Large Puppy. The old lab does not tolerate the product and gets the flea treatment (no tick prevention at all) by oral meds.
The old guy has always been a difficult patient, most drugs have serious side effects on him. We couldn't find an anti-inflammatory or painkiller that didn't made him very sick when he ruptured a ligament when he was about 3 years old. It took him 3 days to come back to normal after general anesthasia when he had (cosmetic) surgery on his anus. Yes, he has a perfect a-hole.
In fact he had a small tumor removed from this most delicate of location, about 5 years ago. But he scared us when he acted like a zombie for 2 days and looked miserable for another day after that.

Ah, Nani. A great lady, and a terrible loss for us. I hope she is well and enjoying life.

Linda, I'm a peaceable soul and I don't read your posts because I find they don't add anything worthwhile to the discussion. Relationships with others are the most important aspects of life as we know it. From my vantage point, your assumption of superiority and vituperation against those who disagree are case studies in how not to live a good life. Being human means that we are ignorant of many things we should know and that we are not always right. In many cases, we are flat-out wrong.

I will chime in when I have knowledge to share, but much more often I am delighted to read and learn from the others here. I have found that life is much more enjoyable when I don't focus on how *I* think it ought to be, but listen with humility to what others contribute. Though we are far separated in time and location, I consider boodlers to be my friends. If you don't want to have these people as your friends, let me suggest that you find another venue for your spleen.

Oh, and attack me as you will. Nothing you can say will hurt me, because I don't care.

CqP-a friend swears by free range chickens as a great tick preventative. I won't try it because I don't want to get and train a dog, or llama, or anything else, to keep chickens safe from predators here abouts. However, when my friend and I meet for coffee at our favorite indie coffee shop I am all about the frenvy. She trades eggs for credits on her coffee card. I realize this could cause difficulties with the authorities where you live, but wouldn't you like to be both green and a bit subversive?

The di-earth is cruel and unusual punishment to segmented chitinous creatures. It's death by abrasion between the segments. I'm sure the critters would choose suicide with a solid dose of chlordane or DDT over that if they had the choice.
This is why a spread vast quantities of di-earth around the house and on on the patio, to make the effing earwigs suffer the slow painful death they deserve.

I was just reading the story in Proulx's _Bad Dirt_ where the vegetarian ranch-owner rents alligators from Florida to chase a fence-cutting neighbor's wild cattle from her garden. Seems like overkill for ticks, though.

CqP, I'm with SD. I use Frontline on 1 dog, Sentinel on the other. I dislike them, but it's better than repelling a home flea invasion. I haven't found that natural remedies work as well. Ivansmom, that baby tick nest image is going to give me nightmares. Flea nests were bad enough.

Mudge, something tells me you read books written by my ex-husband.

Slyness, you are a goddess.

CP, Baseball (capital B, because we are talking about a major religion within Western Civlization) connects to all life, and all things. This is its zen of dispersion. You know about The Force? (As in, "May the Force be with you"?) Well, Baseball isn't quite "The Force," but it is, like, the second cousin to The Force. I like to think that perhaps it even has something to do with "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." I feel certain the dust in that quotation came from a certain river bank in the Delaware, though I have scant evidence. Just a gut feeling.

No, Ivansmom, we do *not* want Old Sol glinting off a 90-mph fast ball as it hooks in from 60 feet 6 inches away. We want a smooth, uniform nonreflective matte finish on it. This is why umpires "throw out" (discard) a baseball that has even a scuff mark of a grass stain on it. Each and every baseball hurled toward the batter must be pristine as well as uniform in appearance, every time, no exceptions. (Nothwithstanding the supernatural abilities of people like Gaylord Perry to defile said perfection in ways so creative the umpiracal mind boggles.)

Life its own self is but a battle between the Forces of Good (umpires) and the Forces of Evil (Gaylord Perry, Roger Clemens, Preacher Roe, Buck Newsom et al.).

(Perry, in particular, used to sniff red peppers before a game to make his nose run, and would put vaseline on the zipper of his fly, knowing it was the one place umpires wouldn't frisk thoroughly.)

(According to legend, a gob of tobacco juice -- one variant of the spitball -- was partly responsible for the death of the only pro player ever to have died in a baseball game. In 1920 Roy Chapman was hit in the head by a spitter he didn't see coming. Or at least, he didn't get out of the way in time. Hence, the spitter is especially frowned upon by the Forces of Good.)

What (kind of) books did your ex-husband write, dbG? (Cuz if they wuz umpire books, I read 'em. Read ev'ry umpire book there is, tho' there aren't many. Please don't tell me you used to be married to Ron Luciano.)

dbG, fences are devices for reducing the probability that cattle will be found on the other side. No one in their right mind has ever thought the probability was zero.

Cattle are fond of wet places--the image of cattle being driven across dry countryside is somewhat misleading. Cattle really, truly prefer streamsides.

So renting some gators for the garden may be of some use, except that Wyoming cattle won't have any idea what gators are, and therefore will cluelessly get bit. The book to read is Joel Berger's "The Better to Eat You With", which is all about naive prey being clueless, and therefore easily eaten.

bc, that must be the corollary to Yoki's first principle: never ask a question you don't want the answer to.

Don't see all that many alligators up in Wyoming. Nope.

Coyotes et 'em, mebbe.

Nope, Mudge. It was the rabbits did 'em in.

Big jackalopes. With sharp pointy teeth.

Feral jackalopes? I had no idea.

Frosti, your mention of free range chickens made me realize that I haven't heard our local rooster recently. A few weeks ago we suddenly started hearing a rooster crow every morning -- someone in the neighborhood must be raising chickens. I wonder if it's allowed. The recent lack of crowing might suggest that it's not.

I was skimming the First 100 Days chat just now, and this made me laugh out loud. This is the logical result of the Bush/Cheney fear machine.

"Rochester, NY: In his first 100 days, Obama hasn't showed much strength when it comes to dealing with enemies like North Korea and Iran (his great heroism with the pirates notwithstanding). Do you think this is why we're seeing increased attacks from things like the swine flu?"

Pity poor Fred Hyatt who had to respond respectfully.

Cool link, dmd. Interesting that none of the songs that Pigpen sang were included. My favourites are (Turn on your) Lovelight, originally a Bobbby "Blue" Bland tune, and Next Time You See Me. From the Slate list, Cosmic Charlie and Wharf Rat, although I'm far too young to have attended the shows that made them famous. They played the former at the show we saw in Greensboro, and it was quite a treat. I guarantee that most of the crowd was young enough that they didn't recognize the song. Of course, many other factors may have come into play, age being the least of them.

SCC: Hiatt

Hi all yerself.

So does Fred build hotels or write songs?? *terribly confused*

How did you know, Mudge?

DoTC, just a story, although there was a stream in the story also.

Haven't I seen stuffed jackalopes at some steakhouse or other?

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I so hate my computer right now.

Okay, gotta keep kicking it. Thanks for your attention.

*whimper*

No fair, Scotty, I already posted my mea culpa.

For some reason, this ticks are early and aggressive: pulled four off dear little doggie (May 1 Friday is the date for the neck meds).

And, I have pulled four ticks on my person: one is large and is either a dog tick or a very big deer tick. Blechh....have taped the buggers on scotch tape. If I feel poorly in ten days or get a bullet rash, I can send them to entomology to be tested.

But, how will I tell that it is swime and note Lyme? :)

Off to P.U. Dear CPBOY to be deposited at driver's training. TBG -- the rules are so strict now that you take the class before you get the permit. But, la la DotofG and SonofCP are nearly synchronous on the driving threshold.

Mudge -- I am a baseballian adherent too. If forced to choose between being RC and BC (baseball crazed) I would really struggle.

CqP: //If forced to choose between being RC and BC (baseball crazed) I would really struggle.//

I love hearing this.

I drove home from work today thinking of Proulx and your cowboy boots.

*faxing poor ftb a tall, cool gin and tonic, a hanky, and a pair of steel-toed FMPs*

ftp, percussive maintenance is good for them.

If it resists, I recommend public humiliation.

Didn't mean to run out on the boodle, but back now. Thanks for the sandwich, CqP! Makes two days in a row... (minus curry).

Did a recon run to hosting facility to see just what is going to be arriving here. It is what it is!

No fan of Verizon. They never opt for a simple solution and they NEVER finish the job. They are the worst business-to-business vendor around.

Hey, dbG, just looked up all your ex-hubby's works on Amazon and am quite impressed. He's a pro-level heavy-duty historian! I'd really like to read the two-volume one, and I suspect CP and I would both really enjoy that article/book review he wrote for "The Historian." Also the book on Eisenhower's era, too.

Way cool.

CP, the nice thing about worshipping BC instead of RC is that there were no nuns to rap your knuckles with heavy wooden rulers. And no fish on Friday.

Mudge, fish on Friday is a problem?

Well darn. Who knew?

I don't know, Mudge, spending time with nuns isn't that bad, just as long as you don't get into the habit.

Thinking of near-mythical Wyoming beasts, I did once visit habitat of the black-footed ferret while on the way to the highest-elevation pronghorn habitat in the country. Carter Mountain has fairly gentle slopes and no trees all the way from the basin to the tundra, approaching 11,000 feet. It felt a bit odd up there to be examining a bit of tundra (lots of mini-plants) and hear a pronghorn close behind, clearing its nostrils.

Princeton University Press has released "The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?" by University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward (who is also an astrobiologist for NASA).

At work, and at long last we are completely moved into our newly renovated spaces. Still some things to work off on the punch list but from my desk I can hear kids playing in the gym, a piano lesson in progress, homework and snack, and anticipation of a little video game action (a rare, rare treat)on this rainy afternoon. I think I have finally realized my childhood ambition of being just like Jane Addams. Still time to win that Nobel I suppose.

Way to go, frosti! Hearing kids playing is much better than trying to work listening to lawyers moan in despair as they watch their billable hours dry up.

I have today secured a nice new client which will keep at least some of the commercial and securities people busy.

Congratulations to frosti & Yoki!

New spaces, happy children; new client, happy lawyers -- it all sounds good.

As for me, I'm grading a new exam ... not so sure it'll lead to happy students.

Okay, now. Got SP1 for Vista installed (only took all day since every one of the 3 people I talked to in Bangalore told me something different -- only the last one worked out). Reinstalled ZoneAlarm firewall. The Adobe Acrobat is not behaving itself, so they're next on the list to call.

I'm so tired, I could just plotz out right here and right now. Of course, right in the middle of explaining something critical to the third Bangalore guy, I started coughing uncontrollably (and a dry cough, which made me feel like I was going to turn inside out) -- so I told him to hold on for a few minutes while I guzzled (not really) from my favorite codeine-laced cough syrup. Yep, I'm gonna sleep good tonight!

What I want to be able to do is ignore my computer and just have it let me work -- dangit! Am I asking too much?

Finally, to put my two cents in -- to Linda Loomis: If you insist on taking things personally, at all costs to you and to others, you will not get what you want. Well, actually, perhaps you will. You really seem to enjoy the attention you get from pissing people off. That's what you really seem to want. We will continue to ignore you and scroll past your missives. We others will continue to be adults (like our President, thankfully) and talk among ourselves. If you want to be part of this party, we expect you to act like an adult. If you disagree, disagree gracefully. If you want our attention, ask for it gracefully, by not behaving the way you've been doing. And, finally, if you don't want to play by *our* rules (since we're the ones really in control here), go somewhere else where you will be better accommodated.

I have learned over time (lifetime) that control freaks like to control others because they are so out of control themselves.

I've got a free-range rabbit roaming around the center of the house - zoom, zoom, clicketyclicketyclicketyclick zoom. Fortunately at the moment she's not using her sharp pointy teeth.

I'd like to go back to Joel's and RD's notion of a blank day. As someone else said (forgive me, can't think), blank days right now are often days spent with my offspring, and that is good. When he was little I had more blank days, which translated into days at the park, days at the zoo, days playing. Now that he's older, blank space may also be days working in the garden, days reading a book, days just enjoying life. I tend to heavy repetition, as RD noted so often happens as we age, but as long as I enjoy what I repeat, I'm all to the good.

I could use a blank day or two sometime soon.

I like the idea of a blank day. My younger brother, and now the rest of the sibs, call these "safety days." Why safety?

Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt!

laloomis...I just had one of those LiT moments (who am I kidding...more like ten minutes) and there was a quick tangent to you. Hear me out...it wasn't bad. Here's my thought...Wouldn't it be interesting to know how many of the US infected cases routinely got a flu shot and how many didn't?

Think there's useful info there? If so, thoughts about releasing that info?

LiT, CDC has already said that this year's flu shot has no effectiveness against the new strain of swine flu. This is not unusual. As I understand it, each year's vaccine is based on the DNA of the last year's strain, and three years ago they guessed wrong, also. This is the adaptability of recombinant DNA, I guess. Which is sort of horrifying and wonderful, in equal measure.

Therefore, I don't see what useful information could be extracted from those stats.

Congratulations to frostbitten for successful project wrangling, resulting in successful child wrangling, and to Yoki for successful lawyer wrangling. Yee-haw, y'all. Rabbits for everyone. Or some nice wine.

Wine? Wine! Yes please!

I am busy scheduling some blank days for the end of May. Not sure it will work out, and it would be even better if Mr. F could schedule a few to coincide with mine. Better still if they just happened and didn't have to be scheduled.

I'm trying to remember what it was like when we had time for breakfast out in Lawton OK just about every Sat. Isn't that the way of blank days? When we have them we are often in places not necessarily designed for their fullest enjoyment.

Just started using Google Calendar and have, after not too many hours, completely synced city, work, rental business, community nonprofit and personal business into a new crackberry. I'd like to thank President Obama for his leadership in this area.

Hmmm... I'd kinda like to know about how many of those folks got the flu shot, too. I know they say this year's shot isn't effective, but I'm curious just to see, that's all.

Yoki, yes, I know those things about the flu shots, how they develop them, why, blah blah blah, but I still think there might be something in the data. Thinking outside the box kind of thing. An LiT moment, if you will. What if those who are infected have *all* gotten flu shots every year. Then we'd know to look down that alley.

What if none did?

I'll pass on the rabbit as well. Would just be prey for the frostcats (#5 anyway, aka The Assassin). But wine, yes, I do believe I'll kill that bottle of Herding Cats Shiraz tonight.

What about their histories of flu shots? Okay, I gotta let go of this and go do the bedtime thing. Will try to pop back in later.

OK, I've been debating whether to say anything or not. This may be a social mistake, but I'm compelled, morally. I offer this in all humility.

Dear ones, I don't like when everybody piles on laloomis. I know we need to defend our friends against unwarranted and cruel attack, but something seems to have got out of control over the last couple of days. Those of us without a horse in the race can stand back, and hold on to what we know to be true, without dumping on somebody who is clearly ill. Most of the assaulted are full able to defend themselves, and that is fair enough.

So can we please go back to our happy place, occasionally straying onKIt (well, not me, I'm am the worst offender [but only because I mostly don't understand the pointy stuff]) since Joel tells us he likes it, and when we're not, at least not taking up arms against a sea of troubles not of our making or fixing?

Charity will carry us far. Scroll is a most excellent feature of the site. Just sayin'.

Here endeth the lesson. As you were. Carry on.

Contrary to Michele Bachman's pronouncements, Ford was president during the last great swine flu scare. I remember they gave shots at school, then more people died from the shots than the flu. Probably set adoption of flu shots as a routine back a couple decades. I know I haven't had one since, despite Mr. F's nagging.

Yoki, It was me she slammed, me who was defended. Me who just threw her an opportunity to show she wants to engage in a civil, intelligent conversation. I find your post way way out of line. Especially when you could have sent an email.

Way off topic, but allow me a moment to remember someone from the world of sports broadcasting here, in particular swimming, equestrian, figure skating, etc.

Ted Reynolds 83 passed away, sat behind him at one years National Swim Meet, a meet my sister was participating in. I was thrilled to see in person the voice I had listened to so many times. RIP

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2009/04/29/sp-ted-reynolds.html?ref=rss

LiT - I didn't read Yoki's comment as going towards you personally. I really didn't. I just read this as a general plea to calm the waters.

LiT, my post was absolutely not directed at you; it was for people *not* involved who keep bringing it up day after day.

After 4 hours on the phone with techs, I am informed that the router can't do what it was sold to do.

Oh.

Tons of bells and whistles, but "NO ROUTIE"

Not sure which is going to be worse... the cure?

Frosty, Bachmann isn't one to let a few details get in the way of some stunning stranger-than-truth situations.

It is no longer cute.

'Mudge, BC does have foul tips, splintered bats and the occasional line drive to the sternum, though.

*good thoughts to the Oriole pitcher who seems little worse for wear after said line drive*

That's true, Scotty, and I have received many, even been knocked out once. But in virtually all cases these come as a total surprise, with only a fraction of a second warning, if at all.

Where as when the nun approaches with the ruler, time seems to stand still, and you *know* you're gonna get it. (So I imagine, anyway; never had the experience, my own self.)

I doubt if many of the people in the US who have swine flu have a history of getting flu shots, because they're not in the demographic that is urged to get flu shots - they're healthy young adolescents or adults. No idea what it means, given that this is apparently a flu that would have been part of the shot anyway (I think).

I've never gotten a flu shot - maybe a residual reaction from the Ford era...which I had no memory of till I was reminded about it in the news coverage.

Is this Take Umbrage Day (again)?

Oh, thanks, Mudge.

My divorce lawyer told me that the next time I helped someone develop a national reputation to make sure it was in a field that paid well. :-)

A little off-topic silliness....

If shoes were sold like airline tickets
by Janice Hough (from www.tripso.com)

We all need a laugh once in a while, and who better to give it to us than the airline industry?

The following scenario may sound far-fetched when applied to buying a pair of shoes. But substitute the word airline, and …

Customer: “I’d like to buy a pair of the “Supercool Superfast” running shoes you have advertised for $39.99, size 8 medium.”

Clerk: “Certainly ma’am, that will be $159.99.”

Customer: “Wait a minute,the advertised price said $39.99.”

Clerk: “Yes, but that’s per shoe.”

Customer: “That’s still only about half of what you are charging me.”

Clerk: “Yes, but that doesn’t include the fuel costs involved to get the shoes to our store. And of course sales tax, a fee to cover our store security, and local taxes from China where the shoes were made. Plus there’s a couple others, I don’t remember them exactly.”

Customer: “That doesn’t really seem right.”

Clerk: “And that final price does include a surcharge for my personal assistance. We do have to charge a little more when you don’t order online.”

Customer: “So I could have gotten a better price without actually coming to the store?”

Clerk: “Yes, if you could have figured out our Web site, I have been told it’s a little confusing. And then there would have been a restocking fee if you didn’t like the shoes.”

Customer: “So there really were no shoes available at the advertised price?”

Clerk: “No, the ad is correct. But actually, it’s all explained in the fine print. You know the price would have been cheaper if you came in Tuesday or Wednesday night. And the least expensive price is only available for size 5 narrow. Most sizes are more. Just be glad you don’t need one of our premium sizes.”

Customer: “Well, I need the shoes, and they are supposed to be great. So fine, I’ll take them.”

Clerk: “Great, and would you like laces for an additional $20?”

SCC - I left out a "not" - this swine flu would not have been in any recent flu shots.

We get that same kind of up-selling at our local cinemas, too. Cracks me up. If I wanted a bucket of popcorn or a well of pop, I would have ordered it.

Hey, *I* had a flu shot last fall, the fall before that, and the fall previous to that. And I haven't had the flu in any of those years. The being feverishly sick for three days I can handle, it's the feeling lousy for the next four to six weeks that I really don't care for.

I wonder about vaccines. My mother had the pneumonia vaccine and before it lapsed spent fourteen nights in the hospital with bacterial pneumonia, a hundred miles from home. It wasn't a happy experience.

TBG, that was good. Very, very good.

Funny, TBG.

I decree, Wine for Everybody!! Or, of course, an appropriate substitute beverage of your choice. Got your glass? Okay: a Toast to the Boodle! Idiosyncratic, occasionally cranky, silly, witty, the Fount of All Knowledge, and still better than anything else out there. "Those other blogs -- they haven't got this!!"

One of the problem I see with this human swine flu thing is all the speculation. Everyone is an expert suddenly (including myself, of course). I've talked with a real expert today, as she was too busy and not answering my e-mails so I call her to remind her she owed me something.
The CDC, PHCA and WHO are following about 10 leads each at the same time and trying to coordinate themselves not to duplicate efforts. They have people on short, medium and long term outlook. People on vaccines and people on meds. We're not talking bloggers and would be reporters here but real experts. And remember, the CDC reports 91 cases in the US (including 51 cases out of a single school contamination in NYC) and the PHAC reports 13 cases in Canada.
About 35 million people got the flue last year in North America, with a mortality rate around .1% or 35 000 people.

TBG -- levity. Thank you.

I just read the UMCP pandemic flu plan. My goodness, the risks posed by 27K undergraduates: choice range from keep them on campus in quarantine to send them home to the far corners of the Mid Atlantic some as vectors; classes in some classrooms might be canceled but not all, those who can should hold online classes; grades might be based on work thus far, no refunds....wow, the level of risk discussion.

RD, do you ever work with path analysis and decision theory? My head is bobbling thinking about this.

SCC flu

We're all going to die, but maybe not next week.

We have a GP that comes in and whoever wants a flu vaccine gets one. I've had one for about the last five years.

I remember getting the swine flu shot when I was in college in 1976. I didn't get another shot until 2001 or 2002 and have gotten one each year since. I tended to get the flu about every ten years. Last time I had the flu was in 1996. It was a nice week off of work. But that's a risky approach as you get older. So I now get a flu shot.

SD-I can't remember if it was last night or the night before that Jon Stewart commented on the MSM penchant for map graphics in relation to swine flu. Showing a map of Canada it suddenly turned from white to red, showing that cases had been reported there. I paraphrase "For 13 cases they color 50 million square miles!"

Listening to Obama online now. Wish I could watch this, no TV here at work. Too cheap to pay for cable, and it would be too tempting to let the kids watch it.

For days, I've been pondering the question if we can learn anything about this swine flu from the 'normal' influenza strains that cycle through the populations during the various "flu seasons." I think the questions LiT raises about the innoculation histories of the folks who've been exposed to this flu and contracted it as well as those who have and did not contract it (or exhibit symptoms), are good ones. Perhaps an flu strain/ vaccination from 10 years ago might be effective - I don't know what's valuable data in this regard and what's not. At this point, I'll take any and all data.

Seems to me that sometimes correlations emerge if the right data is available for analysis. And since I don't know what the right data is, the analyst I am wants everything.

On another note:
LiT, do you feel like you just got hit over head with your own an olive branch? C'mon, you're Italian -- you know no good deed goes unpunished.

bc

PJ and Engelman, I get a flu shot on campus. Teaching exposes me to a huge number of people with poor sleep hygiene, etc. My two immunely-weird children do not flu shots. They get a serum-sickness illness after vaccines that last for about six weeks.

So, flu shotted since 2000k. My mom had two episodes of Guilliam Barre after a pneumovax shot typically given to the elderly. She did not opt for a third one of those. Her active lupus likely trigger the responses.

TBG -- hold my glass of Shirz until I P.U. boys from driving class.

I nominate Frosti for the Boodler's Choice Award and her Hull House of the North -- with Robots Included. Can I get a second?

Seconded, CqP! With joy and frenvy.

CP - I have been known to work with something called "Markov Chains." I believe these are very similar.

Briefly, on the way to rehearsal:

Yes on the flu shot. Only way I can get the Boy to have one.

Frostbitten, I think my rabbit might take your cats, or at least hold her own. You could have one of her offspring. Of course, that's after the crowds died down and some would probably show up at your house, since it would be a virgin birth.

Just saw Jon Stewart on Specter and Barack's 100 Days. Wildly funny. Smack on target.

bc - again, I don't think Yoki was commenting on LiT. And Yoki confirms this. I'm inclined to believe her.

Oh my, a president who has press conferences and answers questions. What have we done to deserve this wonderful state of affairs?

Ah you guys.

Ivansmom-the departed frostcats, Clyde and Clancy, were big guys but terrified of a little Netherland Dwarf I kept in my classroom and brought home on weekends. Alas, we had to find a new home for Bob the Bunny (aka Sid Vicious) when we moved to Hawaii. I'm not so sure The Assassin would be cowed even by Bunnicula.

I do not normally get a flu shot, nor do my kids - to the best of my recollection I have not had the flu and my kids have never had it - not sure I would even recognize it if we had. Have had Norwalk virus which was horrible but short lived thankfully.

This year I may make sure we all get flu shots - there really is no excuse for us not to they are free and widely available.

Be still my heart. The dott just tweeted that she's watching the press conference. I guess all those hours of forced NPR listening in the car finally paid off.

There will be critics of this question (surprised, humbled, enchanted, humbled) but I'm liking the approach. Write it down, take some time to think, and doesn't sound like a sound bite (yet, which is the problem with live blogging a prez who does long articulate answers)

For fans of the other JA, I have moved "Lost in Austen" to the top of my netflix queue. Saw part of episode 2 last time I was in St. Paul and immediately turned it off so I could find it and start from the beginning.

More here
http://www.itv.com/Drama/perioddrama/LostInAusten/default.html

Better than zombies!

Another non-partaker here. I had a few flu shots when I was in the Air Force (generally, one must accept pin-cushionlike status for immunizations, especially if one is a likely candidate for overseas deployment) but none since. Every now & then I remind myself that I oughtta get one, but that's as far as I've gotten.

Nate at 538 has an interesting post on the flu
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/six-degrees-of-swine-flu.html

I hope he does an analysis of blog reaction, and over reaction.

Pretty good press conference, if very laid back (not necessarily a bad thing).

According to scuttlebutt, a major, major episode of "Lost" is coming up in a few minutes.

frosti - That is an interesting post. "Fun with numbers", indeed.

Hmmm. Anybody just catch that promo for the new Star Trek? Looked like Ice Station Zebra Meets Jurassic Park.

And did anybody catch that quarter-of-a-second love scene? I'm guessing that was Kirk on top. Anybody recognize the girl?

Help me! I am stuck in a permanent state of tech support!!!!

And I have a craving for chocolate. OR spicy vietnamese soup. Something!!!

Been there last week Weed. The solution those clowns have is reformat and start over. Re-install all that software and recreate all those links and accounts. M$ products are corrupted by the heinous act of using them.

Bill Fristed twice by Yoki.

Perhaps I really do need to escalate this situation with a lawyer.

Chocolate milk at the moment. The little Mac Mini seems to be doing fine.

New Scientist has some interesting perspectives on swine flu at their website. "Swine Flu: The Predictable Pandemic?" includes this chilling sentence: "While researchers focused on livestock problems could see the threat developing, it is not one that medical researchers focused on human flu viruses seemed to have been aware of."

The relevant swine flu viruses have been busily evolving in North America, not elsewhere. So perhaps the US is giving the world a double whammy. First the financial crisis, now flu.

Spiegel has a lengthy report, "Is 2009 the New 1929"? Gloomy.

I'm rereading some old Jim Harrison. A trio of novellas which includes Legends of the Fall. But it's The Man Who Gave Up His Name that rewards the most. (Somewhere I missed that Revenge was made into a movie with Kevin Costner. And I don't much mind having missed it.)

I have not read anything by him since Dalva.

Harrison used to put paintings by Russell Chatham on the covers of his books.
http://www.newwest.net/index.php/topic/article/the_renaissance_of_russell_chatham/C39/L39

I'm having an acid flashback....

Mudge, did you have a case of the flu in 1918? I had the Hong Kong flu of 1968 just after Christmas. I remember it all too well. I was horribly sick with the worst headache of my life. I spent 10 days in bed in a dark room, nursed by by mother who was a very, very good nurse. By the end of the 10 days, I had lost 10 pounds, (which took more than a year to regain ((Hah! I could do that in a month these days!)) and I was terribly weak for months. I'll note that I was a robust college student at that time.

I'm sorry that so many people have to go through a bad flu like that again.

Iris germanica and Iris albanicans (floritina?) are blooming pale in the dark. Sigh, the grape smell is only wafted upward at night. Some do not believe that Irish would smell like purple Koolaid. And yet, they do if we only walk out at night. I have also one tiny green bloom of Nicotiana alata, which is startlingly like sweet cigar: Yet lovely and not at all stogy and bankerlike.

I can see that since this morning the Lamb's ear -- Stachys lanata -- is sending up stalks. Later, these purple wands will sway back and forth, heavy with bees upon them.

The high summer days will come but for now he garden gathers itself for May: roses and peonies next. Such froth and abundance gathering even now for us to plunder with our eyes and noses soon.

Good night boodle. Talk of posies is not so far from illness...
ring around the rosey
pocketfull of posey
atishuu (ashes)
atishuu (ashes)
we all fall down.

My Irisher granny said atishuu and we westerners ashes...but the placeholder none sense words are many.

Timing is everything, isn't it?

bc

[Please note that I resisted making the 1,258 jokes that sprang immdiately to mind involving the word "Fristing."]

CP, my purple grape-scented irises have flowers forming - they remind me of VA where I smelled them while driving home late at night, many years ago. And I have daylillies with flower buds forming - before slyness? My lamb's ear has all died out, I think.

Just got a call that one of my cousins collapsed and died of a heart attack this morning. This is the first death in my generation, and it comes as a shock. She was in her mid-60's and was taking care of her mother, who is 91, as well as watching her grandchildren. This is going to be tough.

According to the cousin who called me, she had not been to a doctor since her son was born in 1970. She was overweight and a smoker so the outcome was predictable, but still. A big, gaping hole in the family, and much pain.

I've been meaning to say all day that I read the kit and saw "He Sure Ate a Lot Of Chips" but thought "He Was All That and a Bag of Chips."

Oh slyness... I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin. Lots of boodle hugs and mojo coming your way.

Slyness-so sad about your cousin. Ma Frostbitten was similar in her avoidance of doctors, until she left work in an ambulance and had to have a pacemaker put in.

Slyness, I am so sorry about your cousin. It is very hard when our contemporaries go. I've lost a few slightly older cousins, very sad. My condolences to you and your family.

My deepest condolences on the loss of your cousin Slyness.

Slyness, one of my cousins, same age as me, so parents played compare-the kids, died several years ago. He'd probably damaged himself as a young adult, but still, it was a shock.

Slyness, please add my condolences to the others. I lost a close cousin last year at way too young an age. It hurts.

Yep, Maggie, had the Spanish flu in 1918--had it early on in the first wave, before the strain turned deadly in the second wave.

Had pretty much every flu that came along, until flu shots came along. Had West Nile Virus a few years ago when my wife and I and another couple all went to Cozumel-- all four of us got it. Took three weeks to shake it, worst flu-like disease I've ever had. Had some sort of flu this past Christmas week.

slyness, my condolences, too.

I pass along my condolences as well, slyness.

Slyness, my condolences to you and your family.

My neck hurts. I had a biopsy yesterday morn. No news on the lung scan, and it's been nearly two weeks. I'm taking that as good news. Now I wait...

Anything interesting going on? I saw a lot of laloomis at the top and skipped down to here. I was on jury duty for the past two days -- a couple of stories from there maybe later -- and all the computers in the jury assembly room were on the fritz as far as internet connection is concerned.

LTL-CA

dmd, I'm really sorry to read about Ted Reynolds. Is there anyone left of the really great Canadian Sports casters?

I remember Ted Reynolds from way back. He had the cutest curly hair. (I seem to pick great sports broadcasters the way I pick my cars...'but honey I like yellow)

Good evening folks.
Slyness,so sorry for your loss,but if it is any consolation,i read your post and decided i need to quit smoking and lose some weight.

Tonights rain brought out the froggies on the road home,they seemed so happy jumping around.I will miss alot about West by god,but such great memories.

slyness, so sorry to hear about your cousin.

slyness, your family is in my thoughts.

gwe, that spare Nordic Track is yours for the taking! (I know you're trying to pare down, though).

LTL-CA, just the latest episode of American Idle.

bc, precisely.

Ivansmom, I do forget to eat because I don't keep food at my desk. Sometimes it's appetite loss due to adrenaline and focus.

I will swill tea and soda if available, though.

You know, if I'm really revved up and I go to eat (usually not when I actually want to, but say it's time anyway), it's very easy for me to inhale food without noticing because I'm just not focusing.

So I can empathize with your gingersnap needs, they are hard and help slow down that revved eating.
(I love those, rarely eat them, good for stress, though... I usually buy them and eat them when moving or such.)

Slyness, my condolences to you and your family.

I can forget a lot of things, but I never forget to eat. When I encounter a problem, first thing I do is go look for something to eat. And once I start, it’s difficult to stop.

slyness,
I'm sorry for your loss. So many people avoid doctors to avoid bad news until it is too late. My prayers for your whole family.

'morning all. Beautiful cool day here.

Ah, slyness sorry for your loss. It hit harder when it's someone from your generation, does it? Maybe it,s why Error's passing was so unnerving despite we never met.

Barely a month in the fiscal year and I have to take a sick day, so I've already spent half of what I took last year in 12 months. I ate something rotten or sumttin. Beurk.

'Morning, Boodle. Working from home today, got a few family errands to run, and may do some telecommuting. Which means I'm gonna have to round up my own coffee from somewhere instead of the coffee my officemates (and I) make. But it is so easy to be spoiled when you arrive at work every morning and find a hot, fresh pot just finishing up as you walk in the door. Ah, well.

Today we celebrate two (or perhaps three) men most of you have never heard of.

**************
Today in Nautical and Aviation History

April 30, 1943: In the surf, Spanish beachcombers find the body of British Royal Marine Maj. William Martin, washed ashore from a torpedoed ship. Martin is handcuffed to a briefcase carrying secret documents detailing Allied plans to invade the Balkans. These plans eventually find their way to Adolph Hitler, who diverts troops from Sicily to Greece. In fact, Maj. Martin is “The Man Who Never Was,” the clever creation of Cmdr. Ewen Montagu of British Naval Intelligence, who created the fictitious Martin and his secret plans to hoodwink Hitler over the invasion of Sicily. The identity of the body donated for the mission and deposited off the coast by a submarine has never been revealed.
1955: Adm. John Towers, the first Navy pilot to be promoted to flag rank (in 1939), dies at age 70. Towers, considered the “father of Naval aviation,” graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1906 and earned his wings in 1911, becoming “Naval Aviator No. 3.” Towers held a series of important but not very glamorous staff positions that contributed toward American victory in the Pacific during World War II.
**********

Thanks for all the kind words, my friends. It really is a shock to lose one of my generation, and in such an unnecessary way. Her 2 year old grandson will not remember her, and her 6 year old granddaughter, with whom she was inseperable, will be inconsolable. I'm really concerned about my aunt, who depended on her. As I said, a tough situation.

GWE, get moving on the exercise! You won't regret it.

Oh, and good morning, everybody. Al, you too.

Slyness, my condolences. It's always too early, isnt' it though? *HUGSSSSSSSS*

'Mudge, I knew of "The Man Who Never Was," but I didn't know his false name. Excellent example of counterintelligence.

Hey, the Nats won last night! *checking-the-curtains-for-a-lurking-Rod-Serling Grover waves*

:-)

Hi All,

Looking backwards, it seems a good thing I wasn't available yesterday. Very good thing.

Trying to cover all bases, I note Jack's late night message - hope you're feeling better and get good news soon, Jack. Is the neck thing perhaps a brachial cyst - annoying, but benign? One can hope. My niece had one removed.

Along with ftb (and someone else - skimmed above) I spent all of yesterday battling a virus which is not allowing virus scans to complete on my laptop. You know you're a spoiled American when you seriously consider buying a new laptop to avoid cleaning up the old one. You know you're a strange American when you end up putting your laptop in the fridge at 11 at night to see if *that* will finally keep it from overheating long enough to finish its scan (it didn't work).

Have a good day, all.

slyness - my condolences as well. We lost a coworker to a sudden heart attack recently, it is brutal on everyone.

ScottyNuke - I'm still not watching the Nationals. I just listen at the door and then run away when my wife starts to mutter.

Mudge - I'm a big fan of "not very glamorous staff positions." Even without, you know, free coffee.

Morning boodle! Gray, misty, but not too bad 'cause it's not snowing here in Our Fair City.

Wheezy-I am a firm believer in "machine heal thyself" as a first step, sometimes also steps 2 and 3. It took several months for the lap top I had before this one, but one day I got it out to finally get it to limp along and do just one thing-program Lego robots. By the time it got done with what seemed like dozens of autoomatic updates the symptom I had ditched it for had disappeared. Never used the fridge though, but it sounds like something I'll end up trying in the future.

Better run. Have to get some cleaning done in the rental property to get ready for fishing season and summer rentals. After toilet number three a whole lot of educational investments look pretty stupid.

Slyness, the answer to this question
O death, where is your sting? is that sting is too small a word for what happens. I am very sorry. Let the balm of emerging flowers and treasured friendships sustain you. Am I right to imagine that the most excellent southern church ladies are planning the repast?

Good Morning, Boodle!

Second cold, foggy morning in a row. Earlier visibility was less than a 100 meters.

It warms up in the afternoon. I Have to get some winter things as winter tends to arrive here like a hammer blow.

Haff a gut day, everyone

Brag

And, Jack, thinking about you.

CqP, I haven't heard the arrangements yet, but I'd be surprised if a Southern repast isn't the beginning of the obsequies. I understand the funeral will be Saturday afternoon, so a meal beforehand would be normal. And to die for, this being the (formerly) rural South.

I've already written the instructions for my memorial service, and they include the reading of John Donne's Holy Sonnet 10:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.

Good morning everybody. I'm so far behind, I am ahead. This working 3 days in a row is for the birds.

I know I am missing a ton of condolences, congratularions and I'll pray for you's. Way too many to list, but know that I read the whole boodle eventually, and you are all in my thoughts.

Its dawned bright blue skies here for the first time in a long time. Long may it continue.

Well unless it wants to rain. We are so short of moisture this spring, that if something doesn't happen soon, there is going to be a whole lot of firewood for sale.

Wheezy, are you running those scans disconnected from the Internet and in recovery mode? That won't help the overheating, but if Windows isn't started, many viruses won't start either--which lets the scan delete them. Also check your firewall because it may have been reset to allow access to them.

Mo? Where's Mo? She'd have more cogent advice than I. Ask me if you need VLDB advice.

I've been in cheap mode, so I've taken care of the last 2 virus sets myself. But the temptation simply to go out and buy new has been strong.

Good morning.

Slyness, I'm sorry about your cousin. I lost a cousin unexpectedly last fall. It is a shock.

Jack, good luck.

Frostbitten, according to the Boy there's not much that's better than zombies.

Frosti - I believe you're right about machines eventually coming back into usefulness - it's happened to me before, too. And dbG - I must shamefacedly admit that I don't have a clue how to start the virus scan without Windows. I will start "safe" mode and see what opportunities present themselves, though. I did have wireless access turned off all day yesterday, though. Today I'm throwing caution to the winds. A day of propping ice packs under a laptop, and setting timers to pause scans every 15 minutes to give it time to cool down, always ending up with it turning off in the last 15 minutes of the scan, has made me crazed and foolish.

Those new $300 netbooks are looking pretty good. Any new one would be *mine* only - I could tell that one of the offspring had been visiting verboten sites the evening before this mess descended - history cleared just before I walked back in the door.

Tech from FIOS back here. Somewhere at Verizon, there is a guy named Milton who thinks he has the answer. Let's hope!

Slyness, dear, let me put this earthy trinity in the mix:

food
sensuality and s3x
death

They go together, don't they. Southern ladies may be discreet and magnolia-toting; however, they know this. As did John Donne. If you read all his writings, my graciousness. He did not talk so much about food but he had the sensuality of spirituality down to the toe tips. I believe his wife Anne would have a bit to say about this, should she join the boodle.

Off to the day.

God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.

Morning, friends. I missed the Dawn Patrol this morning, just could not get up. I needed the extra forty winks, but now have a headache. I need to visit the laundry room this morning, but was trying to avoid that too. I have to meet my daughter at the doctor's office for the g-girl. I'm a little concerned, but not worried yet, hoping it doesn't get to that point.

This blog is one of places I come to learn, unwind, be myself, and enjoy the company of my friends here. I call all of you my friends. This is a great place. And after meeting most of you, just really nice people to hang with. We're going to get on each other's nerves sometimes, but it's all good. Even in that, there's something to learn.

Someone mentioned Nani. I think about Nani often. Her stories were the best, and one of the things that kept me coming. Mudge, and his commentary was right up there too. And of course, the author of the blog, Joel Achenbach. Beautiful kit, JA. And on those blank days, I think I'm having more of those than I should.

Martooni, Slyness, Scotty, Mudge, and all the gang, have a great day.*waving*

Yoki, thanks for the compliment on the breakfast. Coming from you, it means a lot.

And Slyness, I am sorry about you cousin. I do hope something can be worked out for her mother, and the rest of her family.

Time to swim.

CP

You rock. Of course, you know this, right? Just think there might be more?

The washingtonpost.com isn't reporting the full story from Texas this morning, but they got the big one about the closure of schools in Fort Worth.

From the Austin-American Statesman (late last night) See John M. Barry's book about swine flu and pregnancy. C section needed because of respiratory distress:

Perry said state health officials are concerned about two other seriously ill patients: a 23-month-old child, who was confirmed to have swine flu, and a pregnant woman who had an emergency C-section. Her child is fine, but the mother is in critical condition, said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the state health department. Lakey said there was "a high likelihood" her illness would be confirmed as swine flu.

San Antonio has its first suspected case of swine flu in a 17-year-old. An infant from Brownsville-Harlingen area is now in a San Antonio hospital, another from that coastal border area in addition to the fatality from Mexico-Brownsville whose death was announced in Houston yesterday.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/health/Swine_flu_threat_mounting_in_Bexar_surrounding_counties.html

NBC cancelled its plans to broadcast next week from San Antonio so that the Todayshow staff could stay closer to its NYC studios to report on the swine flu pandemic. Jeanne Jakle, San Antonio Express-News, had the story yesterday at noon, but by evening the story had changed significantly. Locals who were to appear on the show, Jakle reported. The Today crew was to have traveled on to Key West from San Antonio for another remote broadcast. Despite my best efforts, I cannot find the link to the cancellation story this morning.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/columnists/jeanne_jakle/Jeanne_Jakle_Today_will_get_a_taste_of_SA.html

Lovely to see Donne in this kit.

Here's one for all marching band geeks (or parents thereof...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_fe_st/odd_marching_band_beating

Chrysler's officially going into Chapter 11. Expected, but still gloomy news. The company seems to have already made startling progress at cutting costs. Having Fiat running things will be utterly odd. I realize their CEO has done amazing things, fast, but still...

SCC: Locals who were to appear on the show were disappointed, Jakle reported.

Egypt's plan to cull its swine herd may not be as crazy as it sounds on first read. What went unreported yesterday by the UK Times Online is that Egypt is dealing with lingering avian flu--from April 20's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21flu.html?ref=health

Perhaps far more significantly, there is a mutation in the A/H1N1 virus that renders Tamiflu ineffective in treating flu, plus a second mutation that enables this strain of virus to better infect.

It would be appropriate if government officials, as they tease out the genome of the swine flu virus, informed the public if the emerging swine flu virus has these mutations. From the January 8, 2009 NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/health/09flu.html?scp=3&sq=Relenza%20powder&st=cse

The single mutation that creates Tamiflu resistance appears to be spontaneous, and not a reaction to overuse of the drug. It may have occurred in Asia, and it was widespread in Europe last year. In response, the disease control agency issued new guidelines two weeks ago. They urged doctors to test suspected flu cases as quickly as possible to see if they are influenza A or influenza B, and if they are A, whether they are H1 or H3 viruses.

The only Tamiflu-resistant strain is an H1N1. Its resistance mutation could fade out, an agency scientist said, or a different flu strain could overtake H1N1 in importance, but right now it causes almost all flu cases in the country, except in a few mountain states, where H3N2 is prevalent. ...

The mutation conferring resistance to Tamiflu, known in the shorthand of genetics as H274Y on the N gene, was actually, Dr. Niman said, “just a passenger, totally unrelated to Tamiflu usage, but hitchhiking on another change.”

The other mutation, he said, known as A193T on the H gene, made the virus better at infecting people.

Furthermore, Dr. Niman blamed mismatched flu vaccines for helping the A193T mutation spread. Flu vaccines typically protect against three flu strains, but none have contained protections against the A193T mutation.

Ahh, this just so pleases my mood this morning.



An Ode, On the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell
( Late Servant to his Majesty, Organist of the Chapel Royal)

I

Mark how the Lark and Linnet Sing,
With rival Notes
They strain their warbling Throats,
To welcome in the Spring.
But in the close of Night,
When Philomel begins her Heav'nly lay,
They cease their mutual spite,
Drink in her Music with delight,
And list'ning and silent, and silent and list'ning,
And list'ning and silent obey.

II

So ceas'd the rival Crew when Purcell came,
They Sung no more, or only Sung his Fame.
Struck dumb they all admir'd the God-like Man,
The God-like Man,
Alas, too soon retir'd,
As He too late began.
We beg not Hell, our Orpheus to restore,
Had He been there,
Their Sovereign's fear
Had sent Him back before.
The pow'r of Harmony too well they know,
He long e'er this had Tun'd their jarring Sphere,
And left no Hell below.

III

The Heav'nly Choir, who heard his Notes from high,
Let down the Scale of Music from the Sky:
They handed him along,
And all the way He taught, and all the way they Sung.
Ye Brethren of the Lyre, and tuneful Voice,
Lament his Lot: but at your own rejoice.
Now live secure and linger out your days,
The Gods are pleas'd alone with Purcell's Lays,
Nor know to mend their Choice.

John Dryden

And a newfound gem by William Cullen Byrant. He was friends with John Carlin, the deaf painter of native Americans, incidentally.

MUTATION
William Cullen Bryant

Hey talk of short-lived pleasure--be it so--
Pain dies as quickly: stem, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease.
Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes--did it keep
A stable changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

Wheezy (knowing you'll be back), again, not my area of expertise, but run the scan in smaller directories at a time, unconnected to the Internet.

Note the offending files. Reboot, start in safe mode, delete those files at the command prompt. Reboot or start Windows, rerun the smaller scans, repeat if necessary.

Check Task Manager to see what processes are running, and check each one using Internet search if necessary. Check your startup menu to see which of these is starting up, if any, take them out of the startup menu. Reboot, then disable the bad ones in services.

Internet search on specific viruses will bring up technical sites which are often happy to help.

Good luck, and I'm turning this over to a desktop person, any desktop person!

And in the "Lord love a duck" department...

To a Waterfowl
a poem by William Cullen Bryant

Whither, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--
The desert and illimitable air,--
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere:
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end,
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reed shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

And now for a little fyre from the tyger of poets...

The Chimney Sweeper
William Blake

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep,
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lambs back was shav'd, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair

And so he was quiet. & that very night.
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black,

And by came an Angel who had a bright key
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind.
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

Verizon has found my IPs... solution was very low tech ... also they had a bad cable connection here (not I)...

I think I benefited from my overall knowledge and common sense to put the tech at ease when the "company line" was that it was my problem.

Bazaar symptoms that had the TV service working, but not the Internet on the RJ-45 problem.

Thank you, CqP! I expect Anne Donne was a lovely, sensual, intelligent woman who'd fit right in here on the boodle. She'd be fun to have around.

Wilbrod, this is for you and CqP:

TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME.
by Robert Herrick

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

Ahh, that is a nice poem, although I never liked the idea that youth is best spent in marriage.

Speaking of age....

You are old, father William
poem by Lewis Carroll

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment one shilling a box
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his fater, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.

Randolph AFB touting (Geez!) in an online article yesterday that it is the first AFB with swine flu (though Randolph only performed testing--the two military dpendents, teen boys from Schertz, as I mentioned Saturday morning).

Yesterday, in Twentynine Palms, there was the first confirmed case of swine flu on a Marine base (psst, Wolf, Twentynine Palms is really NOT in the San Diego area--think Palm Springs, swimming pools, desert).

Now it looks like we may have the first confirmed case of swine flu in the Coast Guard--Corpus Christi.

http://www.kxxv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10278865

Love it, Wilbrod!

Of course, when that poem was written, there wasn't much for women to do but marry or, if Catholic, become nuns. I can imagine the latter being a better choice for many.

I'm so not into extolling the good old days. Say what you will, but obstetrics are much better today.

Off to Bible study. Today's chapter is I Kings 3, in which Solomon exhibits his wisdom in figuring out who is the mother of the living infant. My Bible says the two women were prostitutes. Now there's a detail that doesn't get into the storybooks.

This is just one of my favorites.

"In Flanders Fields" - a poem by Dr. John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

.....

I also found this translated gem by Victor Hugo-- not tres miserables, nor hunchbacked.

THE GENESIS OF BUTTERFLIES
Victor Hugo

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies.

--- On a note, I'm off to walk Wilbrodog and let him sniff out some haikus.

I also found this translated gem by Victor Hugo-- not tres miserables, nor hunchbacked.

THE GENESIS OF BUTTERFLIES
Victor Hugo

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies.

--- On a note, I'm off to walk Wilbrodog and let him sniff out some haikus.

Thanks for the pomes y'all. That is real soul food. I haven't read much William Cullen Bryant, very evocative.

I have no computer tales of horror, but we were recently billed on our AT&T account for something from OAN Services/Kool Telecom which appears to be some kind of scam. Ivansdad found lots of complaints about them online. When we called AT&T directly they automatically switched us to Kool Telecom, which either disconnected or went to an endless "on hold" loop. Finally I bypassed AT&T automatons & talked to a real person there. When I told her Kool T was set up to avoid real people she called them, got a customer service representative, and transferred me. The Kool person first explained that we had an account with them. When I strenously disagreed, in my best lawyer tone, she asked if we knew a person with an obviously fictitious name. I said no. Interestingly, she folded immediately: cancelled the account, blocked any future charges to our number, and authorized a refund for the erroneous billing. She also earnestly assured me I need not report this to our state Attorney General, since she had taken care of the problem. Funny, huh? I reported it moments later.

Ivansmom, I'm sure your best lawyer tone would be enough to get *me* to fold. Glad to hear you reported it to the state Attorney General.

Thanatopsis (part 1)
William Cullen Bryant

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;--
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.

Thanatopsis (Part 2)

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world -- with kings,
The powerful of the earth -- the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, -- the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods -- rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. -- Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings -- yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep -- the dead reign there alone.

Thanatopsis (conclusion)

So shalt thou rest -- and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men--
The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn, shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

I'm more tanka-ful this morning. Ahhh.

Odd eyed blonde grinning
with her shy tuxedoed pal,
their leashes swinging.
Our greeting pants warm up
the morning air, and tails stir.

-Wilbrodog-

Thank you CqP for reminding me of Bryant. And thanks to Ma Frostbitten who has forgotten more poetry than I'll ever read-she was the perfect antidote to the teachers who stripped all delight from every pome they touched.

Morning all
I have lost my mountain view here in west by god,leaves on most of the trees,the redbuds and dogwoods are so stunning right now,I have to take their pictures everytime I drive by them.

Lovely poems this morning y'all,we used to say grace before every dinner,it was almost mandatory at our dinner table. But my poem for the day has no grace what so ever.

God is Great,God is Neat

C'mon man,Pass the Meat

Loomis, please, touting? I read the MilTimes articles and I don't see touting going on. It seems that you complain when folks provide information and you complain when they don't.

Why don't you take a walk and get some fresh air? I just did and it was very nice.

Have a fine day!

Scroll, baby, scroll.

A nice walk through the redbuds would be good.

Much fuss being made of the Biden blunder on the Today show this morning--Biden saying he wouldn't want members of his family riding in confined spaces in planes, subways. Bloomberg, others, issuing statements in response to the Biden truthiness. Guess that means Amtrak, too, eh Joe?

Article last night in the Express-News about the Napolitano flip-flop--Tuesday she said officials at the border were practicing passive surveillance; Wednesday before the Senate she shared that the surveillance was more than passive.

Besser in his CDC presser moments ago said that after today CDC won't be sharing the number of cases (could be case load--I was falling asleep while listening--migraine during sleep last night. Not up for walk.) of confirmed swine flu. Besser said that he'd been twitting.

Navy now suspects swine flu present at its base in San Diego. National Guard protecting stockpile of Tamiflu in Ohio.

What did Carville say on CNN last night? That he had ABC's George S. and John M. Barry visit one of his classes in the past several days. Author Barry's advice about the current spreading outbreak of swine flu: "Tell the truth."

Should I explain how I consider CNN's Jack Cafferty the latest to get the broadcasting boob award for swine flu coverage and how NBC's clever Brian Williams, with help by NBC science correspondent Robert Bazell, used almost the exact same verbiage uttered by Cafferty to turn Cafferty's comment into into something golden as far as information dissemination?

I'm voting for Occam's Razor on Wheezy's PC, in that the problem is overheating and not a virus. But I'm not there.

The very small garden plot is now rototilled. By tomorrow the new asparagus plants will have a home, a potato which has sprouted also, and tomato plants living at some store have a new home though they don't know it yet. Also some poblano seeds, although it's awfully late in the season for pepper seeds. Last year was the first in many I had no garden, and the soil, though good, was adamantine after two years of no plowing. The centipede grass remains will be a problem.

Headline on CNN:

"Scientists spot oldest object in universe"

Close yer blinds, 'Mudge.

:-)

And to close out the "cruellest month," a lesser-known pome on beauty...

BEAUTY
John Masefield

Have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills
Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain:
I have seen the lady April bringing in the daffodils,
Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,
And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships;
But the loveliest things of beauty God ever has showed to me
Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.

News about the swine flu fatality in Houston yesterday. News report on cable says the kid was walking a Houston mall when he was most likely incubating the virus.

Cafferty yesterday on Blitzer's afternoon show, parphrasing: Why don't we put this in perspective, really! We've had only one death from swine flu and already 11,00 deaths this year in this country from your garden-variety flu.

Let's recall that the news of spreading swine flu happened only last Friday/Saturday. See the washingtonpost.com reporting about how the WHO didn't really have a handle about what was happening in Mexico after the swine flu erupted and spread there. I was impressed with WHO's Chan and Fukuda during their presser late last night frome Geneva, plus the fact that CNN/Blitzer ran the presser in its entirety!

Williams on NBC Nightly news parroted Cafferty's comment, then turned to Bazell and asked what the big deal was.

Bazell: We don't know yet whether or not the virus will "boomerang." (Insert mutate, if you please.)

If one reviews Barry, and let's hope this 2009 swine flu doesn't turn out like 1918, one learns that there were about 26 weeks between the first mild wave of swine flu and the extremely deadly second wave. If history were to repeat itself--and let's hope it doesn't, 26 weeks would hardly be time to develop a vaccine against swine flu.. Consider the time needed to develop the seed stock, then the time necessary to run clinical trials so that deaths do not occur from the vaccine, as happened in the 1970s.

Spotted a green chrysalis hanging from a coontie leaf. Checked, and it isn't the somewhat rare Florida atala, a butterfly that eats only cycads.

Science is providing swine flu information:
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/swine-flu/

Nature has lots of info:
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/swineflu/index.html

And New Scientist's Short Sharp Science Blog marvels at efforts by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization to "protect the pig sector from the novel H1N1 virus by confirming there is no direct link to pigs".

The operative word seems to be "direct".

STELLA'S BIRTHDAY MARCH 13, 1719
Jonathan Swift

Stella this day is thirty-four,
(We shan't dispute a year or more:)
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled,
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green;
So little is thy form declin'd;
Made up so largely in thy mind.

Oh, would it please the gods to split
Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit;
No age could furnish out a pair
Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair;
With half the lustre of your eyes,
With half your wit, your years, and size.
And then, before it grew too late,
How should I beg of gentle Fate,
(That either nymph might have her swain,)
To split my worship too in twain

So Swift was the first to use the smiley face emoticon? Truly ahead of his time.

I'll buy you lunch for that one, engelmann.

I thought Forrest Gump was the first to use the smiley Icon.......

Englelmann, again, with the improbably short dead eye aim. Good job, sir. dbG buys lunch and will spot three drinks for you...AND, drive you home safely.

Speaking of which, who's up for lunch?

I'll grill some salmon, and for those with the sniffles, I have fresh, homemade chicken stock to combine with prosciutto tortellini and baby spinach.

CqP? One of your excellent rhubarb fantasies?

I don't now, CqP. Although I don't drink much, my driving is scary sometimes.

Just ask my good friend Yoki.

Not to mention my typong. KNOW, not NOW.

Whoops, I meant to say that I will spot the drinks and drive the darling Canadian home. I blame the new glasses and the odd seasick feeling that peering through them give me.

Yes, we are having raspberry rhubarb pie for desert.

I have a salad of baby greens for each of you. Your choice of dressing.

dbG,I watched the animated movie cars the other night,that kind of scary?

Note: I did not type green baby salad or salad of green babies. Thank goodness for small correctness.

And, I have meant to say to Joel that perhaps the blank days in calendars are really the most mindful. As in the mind really wanders in the fields of baseball, knitting, blossoms, bread dough textures, muffler modifications, tiki bar decorating, wee wooden box-wrighting, poem digestings....when the square is blessedly blank.

I will be 50 next January and will wish for myself and others, more mindful days; What do we have, really, but days?

gwe, more like the SF car chase scene in _The Rock_. Although I have never hit a cable car.

CqP, we have days and each other. That should give us a clue what we need to do with time and company.

Lunch sounds divine. I'll be there as soon as I'm done at the dentist's. Just the regular cleaning and checkup, so I won't have to brush my teeth tonight. Even after rhubarb pie.

tortellini en brodo ... please may I join?

I won't be in the way.

Absolutely, RT. Delighted.

As a joke, when people ask me where I learned to drive.I always say the Bumper Cars at the amusement park.

I guess with the invention of the GPS systems for cars,no man ever has an excuse for getting lost when driving anymore. It is just a shame I don't have one.

Off to work

Everyone have a Great Day!!!

Lucky, lucky Baltimore. Turandot coming in June. My favorite.

Okay -- heads up, Boodle techies. Little by little, my computer and I are recovering from yesterday's hideousness.

But . . . .

I can't get my printer to work. In the first (of three) calls to Microsoft to install SP1 for Vista, I was advised to detach all the peripherals (two printers and one scanner, plus external hard drive) from the computer. Which I did. After SP1 was successfully installed, I plugged everything back in to either the computer directly or to whatever USB port was available. Tried to print something this morning and the printer just sat there. Decided that I probably should reboot, just to see if the computer recognized all the hardware. Still doesn't work, and I do have to print some documents (like invoices).

Any advice before my brain starts to explode again?

Ever in yer debt. . . .

I'm back! Laptop all fresh and clean. Thanks to dbG for the advice. I restarted in Safe mode and restored to a past date. Which gave the coup de grace to the Yahoo security system, which then had to be re-downloaded and installed. I think Jumper was right, the problem was mainly the overheating, although McAfee was insisting that it could not "fix" my security problems.

**Do not try this at home** I then started a scan with the newly downloaded McAfee, popped the laptop in the freezer, and left for three hours. When I came home it had successfully completed and then frozen the whole machine. After a period of thawing and pouring condensation out of various orifices, it is fixed and whole!

ftb, sometimes unplugging a printer, waiting, then plugging in again without rebooting forces the machine to acknowlege the new hardware. Which I'm sure you knew. I have very limited knowledge. Is this service pack you reinstalled a new one, or the one from a few years back for XP?

FTB, while you are waiting to see what the DigiChics/Dudes recommend, I would suggest my I-am-an-idiot routine.

You unplugged. So, check the replugging of all connectors. That is all a got.

For Engelmann, this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

which is the Susan Boyle moment of last year with Puccini the vehicle (not porcini!)

and the classic Swede Jussi NOT Jenny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPEG914GATk&feature=related

singing the same. I love this aria.

Snuke,

Funny
Headline on CNN:

"Scientists spot oldest object in universe"

Close yer blinds, 'Mudge.

:-)

Shortly after spotting the oldest/furthest object. Someone from the Max Plank Insitute in Chile visited my webbie and bought a copy of Kingmaker.

I wonder if it was the grauate Student who made the observation. :-)

Brag

Start
Settings
Printers & Faxes

Posted before done. A while back somehow my printer was no longer set as "default printer" and I had to make sure I set it back to that setting. I right clicked on it and got the menu to let me do it. Voila. Of course if the computer is not even seeing the printer, one should activate the "set up new printer" (or some such) routine and try to get it to recognize the printer.

Wheezy you ought to fix the overheating. It' probably going to die if you don't get a new power supply or battery, whatever's causing ti to get hot. If you must use a chiller, try a small fan blowing on it with plenty of room underneath it too for air to blow. I think you are torturing it with the freezer routine.

Looks like Joel has another day filled-in on his calendar:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043002485.html?hpid=topnews

A new study of genetic diversity among indigenous populations in Africa.

And terrible news from the Netherlands, where a man trying to attack a bus carrying the royal family instead manages to kill 4 and injure 13 others.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043001082.html?hpid=artslot

I know there's a problem, Jumper, but the thing is only a year old. Only overheats during prolonged periods of disk-hitting, like a scan or uploading a lot of photos. I took the cover off the fan to check for dust - clean. I normally rest it on a "cooling" pad for daily use. I'm going to have to get it fixed sooner rather than later. Just want to be able to get photos copied first.

Sorry to tie up the boodle with this mundane stuff.

I think my e-mail has been down for the past hour or two (and I'm working from home and can't do anything about it). Scotty, can you send me a test e-mail? If I don't acknowledge it here, assume my e-mail is down.

Nevermind. Just got an e-mail. Thanks

Thanks, CP. There are so many memorable pieces in Turandot, I didn't even really recall Nessun Dorma when the Paul Potts phenomenon was starting.

ftb, about a year ago I had a Vista/printer problem and several boodlers had excellent suggestions for me. If you want, here's the link to their wisdom:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/02/blogger_menaced_by_bears_in_sa.html

Nope, definitely got an e-mail problem going on here.

Loved the links CP, an aria I have played in my car many, many times - and still well up everytime I hear it - so beautiful.

Wheezy I have been out most of the day but catching up and reviewing your posts gave me lots of chuckles - glad all seems to have worked out.

Spent a second day trying to restore a friends gardens, they are currently just a little short of Sleeping Beauty's castle status, it was like treasure hunting there find lots of plant gems when I would clear out the overgrowth. The gardens were once well tended by serious garden fans but were neglected in the last few years - I am sore but it is so much fun.

Just got an e-mail saying that my agency has, if needed, a supply of N-95 respirators and nitrile gloves. Hmmm.

And, in looking for the link on the printer dilemma, I noticed that I sounded much more light-hearted in those days. Must work on my state of grumptitude.

Have a slice of rhubarb raspberry pie, RM. I used your mom's Kick Butt Completely X 3.14 times recipe. Hot coffee too.

I see a bit of what the Germans call Schlagsahne in the fridge. Have a dollop of that too. Saw "mit Schlagsahne" three times; you will laugh and fell better.

CP and Raysmom, the gardens I was working in have several raised beds that seem to have been used for fruit and plants, a large patch of rhubarb grows there - thought of you when I saw it.

mmmm... pie...

Thanks!

To quote Bob Marley ... "one more cup of coffee and then I'll go." ... to leave the hosting company that is raking me.

Well, it appears that I was able to install the drivers for one printer, and yet, not for the one which I use the most (the laser). I downloaded the drivers, but had to unzip them, and now I can't find the unzipped .exe file.

I simply want to scream -- or cry. And it's a shame to want to cry over a &*^%( computer, yanno.

Thanks for all the sympaki. That pie sounds luscious, CP. BTW, I note from back-boodling a bit that you said that you are turning 50 in January (that was the month, wasn't it?) -- I think that's a superb excuse (as if one needs one) for a BPH -- a BDBPH, if you will. And we all need an excuse to party in January, don't we? 'tis a gloomy month otherwise.

Otherwise, I'm gloomy right now. If only I could print. . . .

Weed, isn't that from "One More Cup of Coffee" by Bob Dylan, from the "Desire" album?

Same line, different song, as far as I can tell, Mudge.

One cup of coffee, then I'll go;
Though I just dropped by to let you know
That I'm leaving you tomorrow;
I'll cause you no more sorrow:
One cup of coffee, then I'll go.

I brought the money like the lawyer said to do,
But it won't replace the 'eartache I caused you;
It won't take the place of lovin' you, I know,
So one cup of coffee, then I'll go.
---
/Saxophone solo/
---
Tell the kids I came last night
And kissed them while they slept;
Make my coffee sweet and warm
Just the way you used to lie in my arms.

I brought the money like the lawyer said to do,
But it won't replace the 'eartache I caused you;
It won't take the place of lovin' you, I know,
So one cup of coffee, then I'll go;
One cup of coffee, then I'll go;
One cup of coffee, then I'll go.
/fadeout/

Mudge, I tossed in the word "more." my bad.

For your Thursday afternoon listening pleasure, Ennio Morricone - The Mission, Ennio conducting, for me right up there with Nessum Dorma - though this is a peaceful way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnwZoIHrfAY&feature=related

Wow, thanks, dmd, very nice. Thanks also to CqP for the earlier link.

I'm old. I never liked things like this before.

Since I do not know vast quantities of poetry I will offer music, Morricone, "On Earth as in Heaven", live from Warsaw.

Gave me chills - chorus is lovely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUMZvb2lWds&feature=related

DMD -- that music was one of several pieces my mom listened to on low during her death watch. (No other way to say this, sorry if this is abrupt.)

Thank you for the reminder. That opening scene still takes my breath away.

RT and Mudge's coffee reference is beautiful and true and sad. So, here is a cleansing coffee fun bitness from
The Manhattan Transfer
Java Jive (the Cuppa Cuppa song)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa1khK65-V8

dbG -- ya know the adult investature begins with

liking mushrooms
eating both kinds of olives (greenies, specially because the have that martini-vibe)
washing your hands and really lathering for the full 90 seconds
saying no to a Popsicle

(insert others)

finally, the opera thing, without being Italian and really really really almost weeping even though you do not know the words....Puccini especially. Mozart is frantically happy; Verdi is heavy; but Puccini strikes us 'zactly in the heart and lets us keep breathing as if we are in the story too.

So true about the opening scene to The Mission, a movie where the music is such an important player in the movie, with a lesser soundtrack would have been so impactful.

New kit!

Uh, oh. I think adulthood will go the way of my driving, careening, going fast and wrecking half the city.

I'm allergic to mushrooms, but any olive, any time, is good with me. I will have to start listening to opera.

Isn't that the Puccini work that's shown in _Pretty Woman_?

new kit!