Merry Christmas from Florida no. 2

Behold the Christmas Cactus. We've discovered the secret for growing one: Hang it in a protected place and ignore it (but water now and then):

Merry Christmas from Florida

This wreath was put together by one of our daughters from Boston using boughs from her brother's Christmas tree in Colorado. He and his wife are due in this evening, so this wreath is perfectly symbolic of having a family home for Christmas, or most of us, anyway. They wanted warm weather and they will get it, all week. Merry Christmas!

Aunt Susie meets Santa

"Meets" isn't the right word, here. When you are 91 years old, you've developed a long-standing friendship with the old boy. She was concerned that she was too old to sit in his lap, but everybody around her told her you are never too old. She almost had him sitting in her lap.

Aunt Susie turns 91

May we all look so good when we are this close to a century! (As usual, click on the photo to enlarge.)

congratulations, me

Time Magazine has named "you," meaning me (and by inference, you, because you are reading this), as "Person of the Year" for 2006. The theory is that I, and my roughly seven faithful readers, are controlling the Information Age. We are engaged in community and collaboration. We are writing WikiPedia, an on-line encyclopedia of dubious integrity, and we are loading up servers and filling the ether with home movies of our pet iguanas and photos of our tattoos on YouTube and MySpace.

Time Magazine has made a serious argument for bringing their silly tradition of naming sombody as the Person of the Year to a conclusion. Now.

Never mind the madmen who are murdering people around the world; never mind people like Bill and Linda Gates who are trying to find a good and humanitarian use for their billions of dollars; never mind . . . OK, you get the point. You could name somebody worthy of the honor.

But seriously, one person? for an entire year? for the entire world? Naming "you" as the person of the year is an easy out, and an admission that the concept is absurd.

If you want a more honest view of 2006, check out the St. Petersburg Times' annual Sour Orange Awards or Esquire Magazine's Dubious Achievements issue.

finally

I promised to stay on the positive side for the rest of the holiday season. As you can see, I haven't been inspired to say much on the positive side.

I could tell you about my new HD television and my new DVD player that will "play" digital photos on the TV screen. We had friends over the other night who put on a spectacular digital slide show with their photos from Greece, Egypt, North Africa, and other places you've got to see to really appreciate. I could tell you how I got my audio hooked up digitally to my surround-sound system. But that would sound like bragging.

No, the good news for today is that we (the city I work for) won a federal lawsuit involving billboards. Not the huge kind of billboard you see along the Interstate Highway, but little mini-billboards that have sprouted up around town like weeds, renting at $7.00 a day. Some of them have been around for years, which was one of their arguments against code enforcement.

This case has been pending in court for more than a year since the last activity in the case. For the past six months, the case has been in an "any-day-now" status and the waiting has just about driven me crazy. (It would have been a very short drive.) We get notices of activities in the case electronically and I've been looking at my email morning, noon and night, waiting for notice that the word has come down from the mountain.

The case is not terribly monumental in the overall history of American jurisprudence but it will help our city look better and the decision meant a lot to me. I am not a gracious loser to begin with, and this one attracted the attention of one of our High Officials. Losing the case could have been career-threatening.

It ain't over yet. The fat lady doesn't sing until the appeal period has expired (or, if appealed, until that's been decided). But I've seen the fat lady in the dressing room, warming up her vocal cords, and she's wearing our costume. She's a very pretty fat lady and I hope she doesn't go wandering off too far.

move over, Sean Connery

I've been a fan of Sean Connery since 'way back, beginning with his best James Bond film, From Russia with Love. That movie is my "gold standard" for Bond films and Connery has always been, in my humble opinion, the best Bond actor. Until tonight.

Tonight we saw Casino Royale, with Daniel Craig as Bond. Our group of six veteran movie fans agreed that this is probably the best Bond film ever and that Craig is (take your choice but you've gotta see the movie first) every bit as good as Connery, or even better. Our six-person jury didn't take a vote on that question.

Craig doesn't look as smooth and urbane as Connery does in a dinner jacket but he is tougher than all of the other Bond actors. They ran him through some extraordinarily difficult and implausible (aren't they all) stunt scenes, but he looks like he could have done it all without stunt doubles, even when he walked through a wall after jumping from the top of one construction crane to another and onto a rooftop. Craig kept reminding me of somebody and I finally realized who: He is Steve McQueen reincarnated with slight touches of Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman when he could play a bad guy with a straight face, and the cyborg from The Terminator. Only tougher. I mean, he could take Chuck Norris.

The movie runs nearly two and a half hours but doesn't drag for one minute, even near the end. It is pure Bond. Chase scenes? Check. High stakes poker? Check. The beautiful woman? Check. One is played by Eva Green, although she's the first I can remember not willing to hop right into bed on first meeting Bond. That role is played by a beautiful Mediterranean actress, Murino, wife of one of the bad guys. We are missing only the underwater Scuba diving scenes, boat chase scenes, sky diving scenes, and skiing scenes. Hmmm, OK, it isn't the composite of all Bond movies but they promise he will be back.

Can hardly wait!

what a hoot!

What a motley collection of characters. Julianne Moore and Gwyneth Paltrow will be offended to be seen in this collection of mugshots, so don't tell them. I hope the government's face-recognition software is better than this. I was hoping Sean Connery would show up as a match:

http://www.myheritage.com

happy holidays - please!

My entries over the past several months have been on the dark side, the result of reading too much about the Current Occupant and the War for Democracy. Enough, already. Between now and the end of December I'm going to focus on good news, no matter what.

Good news from Iraq: In a story the other day about the latest round of carnage, there were a few paragraphs tucked away that sounded hopeful. In "mixed" neighborhoods, where Sunnis and Shiites live, there are Sunni families and Shiite families who are looking out for each other and protecting each other, despite the risk of being called collaborators. Friendship trumps fanaticism, how about that? Let's keep hoping. . .

Good news from Florida: Hurricane season draws to a close in a few days. This year we've had zero hurricanes to make landfall in the U.S. and only three tropical storms in Florida.

Good news from our extended family: We've made it nearly to the end of the year and everybody is doing just fine. That includes Aunt Susie, who will be 91 next month. She's been in hospitals and nursing homes since August but she's feeling no pain and has few complaints. She's getting along.

May we all get along for all of next year.

got it

Got the new TV -- a 42-inch Panasonic plasma TV. It took me all evening to set it up, mainly because I had to disassemble everything connected to the old set (DVD player, tape player, receiver, speakers) to make room for it. All that fun stuff was assembled several Christmases ago when our M.I.T. students were home for the holidays. I don't think they even looked at the manuals. Now I have to wait until the end of next week for the cable company's tech guy to come around and install the HD digital box. Here's what it looks like:
http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/Panasonic-TH-42PX6U.htm

This isn't billed as a 1080p set, but the specifications say it is compatible with 1080i and 1080p with an HDMI device connected to it.

I have no idea what that means. I'll figure it out shortly. I need a new hobby anyway and this TV may become my next one.

high tech

I'm not the highest of high-tech people. I try not to get left too far behind, although I have a tendency to hold on to high-tech toys long after they ought to be replaced. In my defense, I've gotta say that sometimes, if you wait awhile, the prices drop from outrageous to merely unreasonable and it's time to get the new toy.

Case in point: Flat-screen TV's. I don't mean those cathode-ray TV's that happen to have flat screens. I mean the truly flat, plasma or LCD television sets that look like they are painted on the wall and give you pictures that knock you out.

The first one I ever saw was in a showroom in Boston. The price was something like $10-12 thousand dollars and I would have bought one on the spot but it was too big to take home on the airplane. That, and the fact that I couldn't afford the down payment, kept me from enjoying a picture so perfect I didn't know such a thing could exist.

Happily, the prices have dropped over the years to the point that they can fit into the budget if you eliminate frivolous expenses like lunch. Santa Claus has decided that our tired old TV, the one that we fine-tune by swatting it on the side whenever the colors fade to black, is ready for replacement, and he's thinking of making an early delivery before all the stores sell out. Santa is a smart old bird.

I have another high-tech story for you. I work for a government (pronounced "gummint") agency, but I'm not in the main building. I've been wishing I had a TV in my office so I could watch meetings live but that would entail running cable into my office, probably at my personal expense. I was pondering that problem when I discovered that our meetings are now carried live over the computer by means of a thing called "streaming video." This is very cool. I've been able to listen to the audio, which means I can grab my jacket and hustle over if I need to be in attendance for some reason, but now I can watch, too.

We work with computers and e-mail, and rely upon e-mail to get work done. I've exchanged significant work product with employees I've never actually met. The dark side of that is that our system gets deluged with spam, to the tune of 30,000 pieces of spam per month. Our system of moats and dragons keeps almost all of it out. People who generate such garbage should be dragged into the streets and shot, but don't get me started on that.

post-election Blue(s)

A few quick thought before getting into the "river of steel" for the commute home:

The U.S. shifted toward blue (Democratic) last week, although Florida is more purple than blue or red. The lone dissenter on the Hillsborough County Commission, a Democrat, woke up Wednesday to discover she's now a Congresswoman in a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. That means the people who beat up on her during all her time on the county commission will have to deal with her to get favors from Congress. I can hear them pleading for bipartisanship, a word that does not exist in the Republican dictionary. Yuk, yuk,. . .

In our county we had a race between two lightweights for a seat in the State Senate. One of them (my kids know her from high school) ran what had to be the ugliest, nastiest, smear campaign in the country and I am happy to report that she lost. There were several other races that went to the victims of extremely negative campaigning. This year, a lot of voters just got sick the negative ads.

Judging from letters to the editor of the local paper, a common reaction among die-hard Republicans is, okay, let's see what kind of a mess the Democrats can create in the next two years. Two years to untangle the mess than has been created in the past six years? That's asking a lot but here's the curious thing: Some of the Democrats are more conservative that the Republicans they beat. This is going to confuse the people who can't think or speak of public issues without relying on the "liberal" and "conservative" labels.

I just finished Woodward's book, State of Denial. Everybody should read it but I caution you that it will not leave you feeling optimistic.

Rumsfeld should have resigned in 2004

Donald Rumsfeld should have resigned or been booted two years ago. According to Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial, which is a book you should read, Bush's chief of staff Andy Card was lobbying to have Rumsfeld replaced after the 2004 election. Bush sent Colin Powell packing and named Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State but just couldn't dump Rumsfeld. If he had done so two years ago, and replaced him with somebody willing to listen to Rice and the generals, who knows where we would be in Iraq today.

The unwillingness to listen to the generals or to anybody else with a contrary opinion has been the chief distinguishing failure of Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney. Questions and contrary opinions are viewed as disloyalty, and disloyalty is viewed as giving aid and comfort to the terrorists abroad and at home.

None of them are lawyers. A law school education is three years of questions and answers, the "Socratic method." In practice, lawyers eat, breathe and dream questions. You'd better be able to give plausible answers to questions from your clients, partners, and particularly judges.

Bush and Rumsfeld were in the military, as pilots. You have to wonder what they learned from their experience. Army and Marine officers have one purpose in life and that is to get the mission accomplished, and to do it smartly while protecting your troops. Doing it smartly means changing with the fortunes or misfortunes of war. Bush and Rumsfeld locked themselves into getting into Iraq with no clear plan for getting out, no clear definition of "victory," and no tolerance for questions or contrary opinions. The election on Tuesday sent them a message and it is a pity they weren't sent that message in 2004.

Election Day

I did something today I've never done before.

I voted straight party ticket.

Not only that, we had a raft of proposed amendments to the state constitution and the county charter on the ballot, and I voted no on all of them. We also had something called "merit retention," which asks if various supreme court justices and appellate court judges ought to be retained in office. Consistent with my contrarian attitude, I voted no on every one of them, too.

We had only one non-partisan race on the ballot, for a seat on the school board. This gave me a choice between a man and a woman. What to do? I voted for the man because I know his mother.

Just before pushing the big button on the final computer screen that casts your votes onto a little magnetic card to be counted by a computer (we can hope), I got a screen with all my votes summarized. Wow. Every vote was a "Dem" or a "no" with the one exception of the mother's son. Very impressive!

It was fun! Brainless! Almost irresponsible! How easy it was - no need to think!

I know people who have voted that way all their lives. They are mostly Republicans, who vote like my grandmother used to vote. She'd vote straight party ticket even in a primary election, or so she thought.

I may have lost half my votes, but I'm not sure it matters much. I believe all the candidates are liars, cheats, and thieves because they've been telling me so for several months, so having a "blue" crook instead of a "red" crook may make no difference.

But it was fun, free entertainment for about five minutes or so.

Saddam and Election Day

I lost a bet when the verdict - and sentence - came down on Saddam Hussein. I'd bet five bucks he would be acquitted because "he's a Muslim - one of us," and he'd be released and back in office just like Osama was allowed to escape to his cave.

Now, the Current Occupant of the White house and his cronies are betting this will (a) signal the end of the war in Iraq and (b) signal the American voters that "holding the course" is the only proper way to vote tomorrow because that will make us all safer from terrorists. "Holding the course" will appeal to a lot of voters. Making us safer? Ending the war? Don't count on it.

Most of our European "allies" (so to speak) are opposed to putting the man to death. Why turn him into a martyr? Good question. Martyrs have this annoying habit of remaining "alive" in human consciousness for centuries. About 30 percent of Iraqis are Sunnis, and most of them will carry the desire to avenge the death of Saddam into the 22nd Century and beyond. Let him rot in jail.

The coincidence (?) that the decision came down two days before Election Day looks an awful lot like more than a coincidence to us cynics. This, from the Gainesville (FL) Sun: "The White House said the timing of the announcement, two days before Election Day, had nothing to do with American politics and had been dictated by the Iraqi court. But Bush moved quickly to put it to use in what has been his central strategic imperative over the past week: trying to rouse Republican voters to turn out." (Italics added.) If you believe the timing had nothing to do with American politics, I know of some waterfront property in Florida you should buy from me.

Meanwhile, the official newspapers of all of the branches of the American armed forces have issued a joint editorial calling for Secretary of War Rumsfeld to leave. That is truly remarkable. If the Current Occupant had sacked Rummy two years ago in favor of a secretary who listened to the generals and who had an objective larger than dumping Saddam, he might have a legacy worth saving. He didn't, and he doesn't.

where's the apology??

First, let me tell you that, as a veteran, I was offended by Kerry's bad choke of a joke and I sent an e-mail to his official web site address telling him so. He has apologized (but not, I'm sure, as a consequence of my e-mail).

That was yesterday's news.

On the subject of apologies, the Current Occupant of the White House owes the American public (and others) a few apologies. The following is borrowed shamelessly from author and comedian Steve Young. Actually, his list is up to 36 and I am sharing only a few of them:

by Steve Young
November 3, 2006 --
Hollywood (apj.us) --

Within any problem lies an answer, so said Einstein. Kerry botches a joke about Bush. Republicans demand an apology to the troops and their families. A problem for Democrats? Only if they don't seek the answer inside the problem. The answer? Republicans want to call for apologies when defaming, undermining and letting down our troops -- so let's get this party started!

COMMERCIAL #1
Run Bush's hysterical search for WMD at the White House Press Corps Dinner.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #2
Run Rumsfeld's "Go to war with the army you have, not the one you want."
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #3
Run Cheney's "The insurgency, if you will, is in its last throes."
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

[You are getting the idea, so I'll edit this to a shorter list.]

COMMERCIAL #5
Run Bush's "Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job."
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #6
Run Cheney's "We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #9
Run Rumsfeld saying that he couldn't see the war going past six months.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #12
Run Bush's admission that he just doesn't think that much about bin Laden.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #13
Run Bush's "Bring it on."
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #14
Run the faces of the 655,000 dead Iraqis
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #21
Pharmaceutical lobby writing the pharmaceutical legislation
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #22
Outing a CIA Agent.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #24
For cutting veterans' benefits until the Democrats embarrassed them into uncutting.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #25
For sending the troops into harm's way underequipped.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #26
For losing billion$ meant to rebuild Iraq
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #30
For not taking the advice of generals, then blaming them.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #33
For borrowing trillions from our children's future, placing it in the pockets of the wealthiest Americans and calling it a booming economy.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #34
Run photos of the flag-draped coffins of our young heroes we're not supposed to see.
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #35
"Mission Accomplished"
Ending Graphic...Where is the G-d F$#@ING APOLOGY?

COMMERCIAL #36
THE LIBERAL MAINSTREAM MEDIA™ WHO LET ALL OF THIS CRAP GO DOWN WITHOUT 1/10TH THE COVERAGE THEY GAVE KERRY'S BOTCHED JOKE!
Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

I mean, ya know, what's fair is fair.

I canna take this abuse any longer

Here's your typical political campaign advertisement, heard on TV in Florida:

"My opponent, _______, is a tax-and-spend liberal. She (*) has voted for tax increases 28 times. She's voted to protect child molesters, give amnesty to illegals, raise your insurance rates, and place your children at risk. She's spent money lavishly on herself, thanks to the contributions of the gambling industry. She wants to promote the liberal agendaat the expense of family values. She favors gun control, abortion, and gay rights. She voted against legislation making English the official language and protecting the sanctity of marriage beween a man and a woman. She wants to cut and run, not stay the course. Call __________ and tell her we can't afford her. I'm _________ and I approve this message."

*or, substitute "he"

Meanwhile, she is running this advertisement:

"My opponent, _______, is a tax-and-spend liberal. He (*) has voted for tax increases 28 times. He's voted to protect child molesters, give amnesty to illegals, raise your property taxes, and place your children at risk. He's spent money lavishly on himself, thanks to the contributions of the insurance industry. He wants to promote the liberal agenda at the expense of family values. He favors gun control, abortion, and gay rights. He voted against legislation making English the official language and protecting the sanctity of marriage beween a man and a woman. He wants to cut and run, not stay the course. Call __________ and tell him we can't afford him. I'm _________ and I approve this message."

*or, substitute "she"

At this point, all the ads have run together. Being a trusting soul I believe all of them. All of the candidates are up to no good but I've decided the Democratic crooks are a better bet than the Republican crooks. Next Tuesday, the ads will stop. I can hardly wait.

more scenery in Scotland

I'm not through talking about Scotland, yet. There was a lot to see and do, and it also takes my mind off the incredibly stupid and outrageously moronic political ads we are forced to watch every two minutes on TV.

Pictured here is a tower, part of Drummond Castle (click to enlarge, as usual). I like this for a couple of reasons. I could tell you that the light in the window is there because of ghosts flitting around upstairs, but in truth, this 500-year-old castle is privately occupied. You can read more about it here: http://cdronan.addr.com/castle.html

I got to see some of the inhabitants get in their car and drive off, presumably to go to the big city to catch a show. They appeared from a distance to be fairly normal people although they looked at us like they were just tolerating tourists at the end of a long tourist season. I wouldn't mind living in a castle like this but I wouldn't want to pay the taxes on it. I'd spend my time snooping around in nooks and crannies to find out where the bodies are buried, so to speak. In a castle this old, I wouldn't be shocked to find a ghost or two.

Happy Halloween

This is one time of the year you miss your kids. Especially if they used to bring back more candy than you gave out!

On the left, three cute gremlins. Their brother (not in the picture) suffered the disadvantage of being too young to go out that year. Above right, he's learned to make up for lost time. Like a bandit, you might say.

Happy Hallowe'lections

Here are a couple of Halloween horror stories, both having to do with elections in Florida. Remember Florida, in 2000? The same party is still in control and nothing much has changed.

1. A court has ruled that election officials may provide written notice telling voters that a vote cast for a withdrawn candidate [Mark Foley (R)], whose name still appears on the ballot, will be counted as a vote for a replacement candidate whose name does not appear on the ballot [Foley resigned one month ago]. The Florida Secretary of State [Katherine Harris' old job, a position now occupied by Sue Cobb (R)] proposed to give a notice to voters addressing only the former and current Republican candidates. The court said that the notice failed to meet the impartiality requirement. Instead, they will use a notice at polling places that was provided by the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections [who are locally elected county officers]. The court found that notice to be a neutral, evenhanded, plain and concise statement of facts.

It would be to the Republicans' advantage to explain why a vote for Foley is not really a vote for Foley, but the Secretary of State cannot put together a proper notice.

2. Meanwhile, in Tallahassee, the local elections supervisor has been giving voting machine manufacturers unholy hell. He has demonstrated that voting machines made by the three manufacturers certified to do business in Florida can all be "hacked," altering the vote count. Did he get a thank-you note from Sue Cobb (R), the Florida Secretary of State? No. She has threatened to sue him and remove him from office for"undermining voter confidence." You can read about it here: http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/31/State/Activist_inside_and_a.shtml

I'm going to do something on November 7 I thought I'd never do. I'm voting straight party ticket. I may have second thoughts if I have to vote for certain incumbents, but it will be a lesser-of-two-evils analysis. I'm taking a clothes pin with me in case I have to hold my nose while voting.

if you wonder why time seems to speed up

This cartoon will be a mystery to our friends in the U.K. They don't "do" Thanksgiving and I don't think they get "into" Halloween. They don't over-commercialize Christmas, either. Lucky them.

never say never

Taking a break from vacation photos, let's think for a moment about the lowly Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Here you see placekicker Matt Bryant, with three seconds on the clock and the Eagles ahead by one, attempting a 62-yard field goal.

Yeah, right, we said. Game's over, we said. What time does the baseball game start, we asked.

He made it, straight down the middle with yards to spare. The ball went over the goal with so much air under it that he'd have broken the NFL record if he'd kicked the ball from two yards farther back.

A great lesson in nevers: Never give up, and never leave the game until it's over. The fat lady never had a chance to start singing. It was good.

scenery in Scotland, part 4

If you saw Rob Roy, you may remember this scene. These are the gardens at Drummond Castle (with daughter and mother-in-law decorating the first landing on the way down). First laid out in the early 1600's, it was the scene (in the movie) where Montrose was posing for his portrait, Rob Roy came to renegotiate his loan, Montrose asked him to perjure himself against Argyle, and he escaped into the Highlands. These gardens are magnificent. Even on a drizzling September day without much sunlight, there's enough color to dazzle you.

driving in Scotland, part 2

In retrospect, I very much enjoyed driving a full-sized van over two-lane roads with narrow shoulders, on the "wrong" side of the road, especially in the rain. I can say that now because we survived, and because the inspector at the car rental return shop wrote "NND" ("no new damage") on the report at the end of the trip.

The Brits are polite people and they drive that way. Except for the honkers. Stop at a place where you aren't supposed to stop (such as, entering a traffic circle and stopping because you forgot to look right to see who's about to hit you, or stop to let pedestrians finish crossing the street) and the guy behind will honk - every time. That's OK, because a lot of accidents are caused by people stopping where they aren't supposed to stop. But, I remember being honked at in Germany only once. Maybe the other German drivers were getting ready to get out and beat me senseless with a bratwurst, but they didn't honk as much. In Scotland and Germany, I didn't see any obvious signs of road rage, and didn't drive by any fender-benders, either.

In Scotland, most of what you need to know is painted on the asphalt in large white letters. Like, "slow" as you approach an intersection. Like, arrows telling you which lanes are turn lanes and which are through lanes. Like, the speed limit, a number inside a large circle. They do have road signs. My favorite is the sign reading, "Slow down NOW." There was one sign, a red circle with a blue background, that I never did decide what it meant. After awhile you'd see another just like it but with a red diagonal line telling you that the mystery zone ended.

One thing they do not have is billboards. They don't even have the kind of small-sign clutter we've come to associate with cities. You might notice that while you are there, or you might not notice until you get back home and look at all your photos and realize their scenery is not trashed and cluttered with signs. In the U.S., our scenery is blocked by signs. In Scotland and other parts of the U.K. and Europe, where the scenery is spectacular at every turn in the road, may they never be cursed with such garbage.

When we returned the rental car I noticed a Japanese couple leaving in theirs, apparently having just arrived in Edinburgh. The lady was behind the wheel and she had a thoughtful, almost prayerful, expression on her face. They don't drive on the left in Japan, I've been told. I hope that she, too, was rewarded with an "NDD" at the end of their trip.

eating in Scotland, part 2

Earlier, I tried to upload a photo of sticky toffee. Here 'tis. Doesn't look like much in this photo but it tasted wonderful. This, from a restaurant in Crieff called Passion. We spent the rest of the trip trying to find one as good.

travels in Scotland, part 2

One aspect of Scotland that you notice right way is the friendliness of the Scots. Granted, those in the business of hosting tourists like us have an incentive to be friendly but their warmth and good humor is genuine. That extends to others you bump into along the way such as taxi drivers.



Pictured here is Galvelmore, the B and B in Crieff, west of Perth, where we stayed two nights. We found it using Google before we left and booked our rooms well in advance. It turned out to be a good choice.

Galvelmore is owned and operated by Katy and David Galbraith and, naturally, I had to stay with someone who could be a (very) remote cousin. They have two young children, who were off to school by the time this picture was taken.

scenery in Scotland, part 3

Pictured here is Culcreuch Castle, near Fintry. (As usual, click to enlarge the photo.) As castles go, this is modest but it has been made into a fine hotel with a very good kitchen and bar, and it is the setting for about 200 weddings a year.

The part of the building on the left is the original part. The first two or three floors were complete by 1400. The rest was added in more modern times. The date over the front door is 1721. We stayed in the bridal suite, on the top floor. It isn't often you wake up to look out over the battlements of a castle!

I went out of my way to find this for a personal reason (and, truly, this is off the beaten path). Back when my family was a Scottish clan with a chief, he lived here. His forebears lived elsewhere around Loch Lomond but this seems to be the only structure associated with the clan that is not a ruin. Alas, the chief was denounced as an outlaw in the early 1600's and fled to Ireland, losing his estates. His son was the last chief of the clan and since then we have been chiefless. No, I am not volunteering to become the next chief!

scenery in Scotland, part 2

The castles of Scotland range from well-kept Blair Castle (top photo) to Urquhart Castle, on the shores of Loch Ness (below). Blair Castle (check it out: http://www.blair-castle.co.uk/index.asp) has room after room stuffed with porcelain, embroidery, silver, oil portraits, medieval swords and armor, furniture, and a truly fine exhibit of the history of the Atholl Highlanders, "Europe's only remaining private army."

At the other extreme is Urquhart Castle. This castle was taken, destroyed and rebuilt several times during its history. Check it out here:
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/properties_sites_detail.htm?propertyID=PL_297

eating in Scotland, part 1

Scotland has a bum rap when it comes to food. Think of Scotland and you think of haggis, a local delicacy made from "lesser ingredients."

The reputation is so poor that I came close to cancelling the trip to Scotland in favor of Italy. "Let's go where they know how to cook food," I said. What a mistake that would have been.

Four of us ate three meals a day for a week and none of us had a bad meal. The Scots do a really fine job with seafood, venison, lamb, and beef. We are thinking of a seafood restaurant down by the waterfront in Oban with especially fond memories (halibut, scallops).

All of the B & B's advertise a "Scottish breakfast" that would satisfy a farm hand - porridge, eggs any way you want them, mushrooms, tomatoes ("to-MAH-toes"), various cereals, fruit, toast, jellies, orange juice, coffee. . .enough to do you for the rest of the day, or at least until you see a good place for lunch.

For lunch, you can get almost anything from fish and chips, "pub grub," soups, sandwiches, you name it. You can order haggis for lunch. Some castles and museums have both gift shops and places to order lunch, a convenient way to stay on schedule.

Speaking of haggis, see the photo above. That was the haggis I ordered as a "starter" for dinner at Culcreuch Castle. In a restaurant, you don't get the full-size, uncut haggis which is the stuff of legends and the focus of ceremonies. You do get a nice sampling, though, with veggies on the side. Did I mention "lesser ingredients?" The overall effect was more on the order of meat loaf. You get lesser ingredients in sausages, kielbasa, German wursts, and American hot dogs, all of which I love in the wurst way. Don't ask, don't tell, just eat and enjoy!

Desserts? Oh, yeah. Desserts are an art form in some restaurants. Our favorite dessert was "sticky toffee," which we tried out in different restaurants to see how many ways there are to make it (we got no two alike, all wonderful). I tried to upload a photo but Blogger is rebelling. Maybe later.

driving in Scotland, part 1

No, we aren't passing anybody. No, the photo hasn't been "flipped" left over right.

Laurel wanted to try her hand at the wheel and I was grateful. That put me in the passenger seat, which in this case meant the left side.

Driving on the left is the first thing you notice in the UK. Even as a pedestrian, you have to look right instead of left, and then look left halfway across the street.

Note the stone fence on the right side of the road. Note the narrow shoulders. Sometimes the stone fence is on the left with the same narrow clearance. This isn't too bad on a dry day if you have no tour buses hogging the road. On a rainy day the road seems narrower. We had only a day and a half of rain but my passengers thought even that was too much.

Driving in the cities is a whole 'nother story, which I'll get around to later.

scenery in Scotland, part 1

People go to Scotland for a variety of worthy reasons. Some go to play golf. Some go to drink good whisky. We met one young lady from Pennsylvania who went to Edinburgh to work on a master's degree in photography. But a lot of people, like us, go to see the historic castles, churches, and ruins that dot the countryside. These photos were taken at Jedburgh Abbey. (Click to enlarge.)







Note the ledge and crossbar above the door in the background, below the lower of the two windows. That's where Laurel was standing in this picture.











To get there, we had to go up and down these stairs. Note the toe of my shoe, bracing me against the wall to take this picture, which gives you some idea of the small size of these steps. No room for fatties, here. The spiral staircases are as amazing as the ornate stonework in the rest of the building. The steps had to be cut identically to fit the staircase. The inside corners of the steps stack on top of each other, forming a column, and the outer edges are anchored in the wall. That's a rope going around the column, our "handrail."

travels in Scotland

Just got back from a very fine but too-short nine days in Scotland. Watch this space for further details and photos, to be posted later. Right now my body is telling me it is an hour or two until sunrise and I'm going to have to sleep off the jet lag. ZZZzzzzzzz

view from my office

Sometimes you've got to stop and appreciate the beauty of the world around you, such as this view of the building next door to our building (click to enlarge):

I want a fun, frivolous subject here

I want a subject less somber, less serious, than hurricanes and the foolishness of our President and his top-level advisors such as Rummy, the Secretary of War. No, that was the old title. The current title is, Secretary of Defense.

So, the latest hurricane is going to roll into the North Atlantic in time for us to fly over it on our way to Scotland. Should be a fun view from 40,000 feet or whatever altitude we're cruising at. That's as close as I want to get to another hurricane.

And, believe it or not, a few Floridians noticed a faint treble from an earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. Really, really faint. So now we can add earthquakes to hurricanes, tornados, sharks and alligators as reasons why you Yankees ought not to sell the family homestead and move to Florida.

The Bucs lost their opening game, the Red Sox are killing themselves, the Devil Rays can't get started, . . . no wait, here's some good news: The FSU Seminoles held on to edge Troy. Troy? TROY?

I'm still looking for a fun, frivolous subject, here. I'd share a "joke" I heard on Sunday but, nah, I'd better not. It wasn't all that funny.

Thursday, we leave for Scotland. Now, that should be a source of fun topics but you will have to wait until we got back.

the primaries are over, thank God

We just finished our primary elections in Florida, thereby (almost) putting an end to a heavy barrage of the sleaziest, slimiest election campaign ads that we've seen in a long time - that is, since the last election. In Florida, the way you run for office is to pin the liberal tail on the donkey who is your opponent. That's donkey as in jackass, not donkey as in Democrat. Even the Republicans, whose mothers undoubtedly taught them never to say unkind things about other Republicans, were trashing each other. I'm happy to say that most of the worst offenders lost their bids for office, but not all of them.

I wish I could report that Katherine Harris' political career came to an end, but she embarrassed the party leaders by pulling in almost half the vote in a four-man. . .er, four-body. . .race. This is the Katherine Harris of Election 2000 fame, the Katherine Harris who calls separation of church and state a "lie," and the Katherine Harris who immediately went on the offensive by calling Senator Bill Nelson a liberal four times in a speech that lasted less than four minutes. We have to cope with this for two more months. I'd rather cope with hurricane season, which is also in full gear.

are we all insane?

Everybody in the world is a fool except you and me, and sometimes I wonder about you. Consider these stories from this morning's newspaper:

Authorities have arrested a polygamist, head of a "church," who over the past four years has "excommunicated" men and "reassigned" their wives and children to other men, apparently without serious opposition or objection. He has about 10,000 followers. Let's see. . .how many gallons of Kool-Aid would be necessary. . .

A headline reads, "Violence obscures Iraq's gains." It turns out that the "gains" are being measured by the number of bodies showing up at the morgue, and the number for August is substantially lower than for July and for June. The terrorists must have read that story, too, because at least 50 died in Iraq today and August isn't over yet. So much for "gains" in Iraq.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said yesterday that critics of the U.S. war "strategy" don't know their history, and are like those who tried to appease the Nazis. I'd say Rummy doesn't know his history, certainly not the history of Iraq or the Middle East. Neither he nor anybody else in the Bush Administration knew that Saddam, although a butchering murderer along the lines of Stalin, was a balance of power against Iran, Osama, and the al-Quaeda. A year after the "Axis of Evil" speech, President Bush was unaware that Muslims in Iraq were divided between the Shia and Sunnis. Rummy did not know and could not predict that the troops would have more trouble with the Fedayeen that with the overrated Republican Guard. Rummy seemed unaware of the numbers of troops and the time required to build new nations out of Germany and Japan, but instead insisted on attempting to do the job in Iraq with insufficient forces and on a ridiculously short schedule that collapsed. The Bush Administration had no strategy for the end of the war. . .but they certainly detest criticism.

Finally, to make my day, Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown says he regrets that FEMA had no plan for the day (month, year) after Katrina. His positive statements in the days after Katrina about help coming through from the federal government were just "White House talking points" to protect the President. Given the choice between lying to "protect" the President and telling the blunt truth, he lied. Now we know what "White House talking points" are. Just a pack of lies.

I could add something about John Karr, but that's old news. He must have done something bad to somebody, somewhere. Fly him back to Thailand.

And all that from Section A of the newspaper. I can understand why George W. Bush doesn't read newspapers. It will disturb your otherwise bland equanimity and might even prompt you to think.

saying goodbye to an old friend

I've just deleted the 1998 version of Quicken. I had to. I want to try a little on-line banking using Quicken but my bank, the Second National Bank of London (Kentucky, that is) insists on my using a newer version. So, I've installed the 2007 version of Quicken Basic (a dollar cheaper than the 2006 version at the local Office Depot - go figure). I'm going to miss the 1998 version because it was so clean and simple.

Why do I bother mentioning this arcane trivia? Because, of all the computer programs, I like Quicken the best. It ranks up there with e-mail, genealogy software, and the things you can do with digital photos as being Really Good Reasons to Buy a Computer. I liked the first version I installed, designed to run on DOS. The 1998 edition has worked despite upgrading to Win98, Win2000, and WinXP, and despite changing the hard drive twice. It just plugs along like the trusty Timex watch, a time-consuming thing to update but so nice to have when April 15 rolls around every year.

My regular readers of this blog are going to roll on the floor laughing when they read this because they know their father is not exactly first in line when new technology comes out. But, hey, sometimes you've gotta catch up with the rest of the world.

Ernesto, just go away

We thought the hurricane season this year was off to a slow start. Katrina, one year ago, was the eleventh named storm for 2005. This year has had four storms that posed no threat. But I kept telling myself that Hurricane Andrew was the first named storm of the 1992 season (sheesh, it seems like yesterday). Now we have this storm that has pounded Cuba and emerged into the Florida Straits, and is on its way to. . .who really knows? Take a look at the 3-day guesstimate map, which shows it going way east of where I live:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at5+shtml/150927.shtml?3day?large

The bad news is, this is a part of Florida that doesn't need another hurricane. They were criss-crossed by three hurricanes in 2004, one right after the other:

http://img.coxnewsweb.com/C/05/92/61/image_961925.jpg

George W. Bush is an arrogant idiot

I've been reading some new books about Iraq lately. One is Cobra II, written by a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general (the three-star kind of general) and a NY Times military correspondent, who go into excruciating and well-researched detail about the missteps of the Bush Administraton and senior brass. They don't seem to have set out to make Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and company look like aggressively uninformed dolts but that's the impression they leave. "Make no mistake about that," as Dubyah likes to say.

To summarize a long story, Bush went into Iraq with several objectives and failed at all except the toppling of Saddam. They sent a barely sufficient number of troops. The success of our troops, and our U.K. allies, is a tribute to the fighting spirit of our professional Army and Marine Corps. The CIA and military intelligence continually gave no useful information or gave false reports. George Washington knew as much about the location of the British Army as our field commanders knew about the Iraqis, which is to say, practically nothing.

Bush, et al., failed to understand the religious and ethnic subtleties of the people of Iraq. They failed to anticipate the Fedayeen resistance and failed to pay sufficient attention to them. They expected parades but our troops got showered with bullets and rocket propelled grenades. Once Saddam fled the city, Bush and the top brass believed the war was over, despite the fact that we were still engaged in combat in large areas of Iraq. Like the dog who chased cars until he caught one and didn't know what to do with it, they had no plan for the day after the war ground to a conclusion. Almost immediately, they began talking of bringing the troops home. They brought the experienced field commanders home and sent in replacements. They halted the influx of new military units. Keeping the peace in Iraq requires more troops than were needed to fight their way into Baghdad, because manpower is necessary to control the borders, man checkpoints, halt looting, engage in civil affairs, and keep the economy running.

In short, there was a window open in which to bring some semblance of democracy to Iraq but it was squandered by decisions to cancel an election, dissolve the Iraqi army (leaving thousands of men unemployed), and "de-Baathisize" the public institutions such as schools and universities to the point that they were crippled. That window is slammed shut.

So, now what? "Cut and run?" That was how we left Viet Nam but this part of the world is much more incendiary. We need to stay the course but do it more intelligently. Republicans ask, do the Democrats have better alternatives? That's a fair question, and in return I ask, do the Republicans have alternatives better than what we have seen to date? We have to wait until 2008 or later to find out, sad to say.

baseball in the minor leagues - you gotta love it!

Take a close look at this man. His name is Julio De La Cruz. He is a pitcher for the Clearwater Threshers, a Class A team in the Phillies system. Last night, he pitched the entire nine innings. . . and he pitched a no-hitter. Five strike-outs, and only one walk. There was one error charged to the third baseman that some scorers might have called a hit, but last night it was an error. A no-hitter is extraordinarily difficult in baseball. This is only the second one in Clearwater's 21-year history. You don't often see pitchers going from start to finish like he did, either. Start collecting his baseball cards, folks, we will be seeing more of him!

no party this year, she said

Boy, was she wrong! Surprise! And this photo includes only the family members who were able to come. The family came from California and Colorado, and Boston, and our oldest and dearest friends came down from Tallahassee.

There's one good thing about a birthday with a zero in it: You get to wait another ten years before you have to worry about it again. I promise, there will be a party then, too.

happy birthday!

If somebody had told this pretty young Michigan gal that she'd go to college in Florida and get a master's degree, that she would have four babies of her own and they would grow up to be happy and successful adults, that she would be a breast cancer survivor, that she'd still be married to the same guy after 34 years and, just before turning 60, she would start a new career working to protect children from abusive and broken homes who are at risk of becoming homeless or worse, I think she'd still have that same sweet smile!

actual bumper stickers

I wish I had one, or more, of these bumper stickers:

Blind faith in bad leadership is not patriotism.

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

If you supported Bush, a yellow ribbon won't make up for it.

Poverty, health care, & homelessness are moral issues.

Of course it hurts. You're getting screwed by an elephant.

Bush lied, and you know it.

Religious fundamentalism: a threat abroad, a threat at home.

God bless everyone (no exceptions).

Bush spent your Social Security on his war.

Pro America, anti Bush.

Who would Jesus bomb?

Feel safer now?

I'd rather have a president who screwed his intern than one who screwed his country.

Jesus was a social activist -- that is a liberal.

My values? Free speech. Equality. Liberty. Education. Tolerance.

Is it 2008 yet?

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." -- Thomas Jefferson.

Don't blame me. i voted against Bush -- twice!

Annoy a conservative: think for yourself.

Visualize impeachment.

Hey Bush! Where's Bin Laden?

Corporate media = mass mind control.

Stop mad cowboy disease.

George W. Bush: making terrorists faster than he can kill them.

Keep your theocracy off my democracy.

Democrats are sexy. Whoever heard of a good piece of elephant?

Corporate media: weapons of mass deception.

Stem cell research is pro life.

Hate, greed, ignorance: weapons of mass destruction.

Honor our troops: demand the truth.

Rebuild iraq? Why not spend 87 (now 400) billion on America?

Fact: Bush oil
1999 - $19 barrel
2006 - $70 barrel

The last time religion controlled politics, people got burned at the stake.

I'll give up my choice when John Roberts gets pregnant.

Scotland

We are going to Scotland in September. As usual, I have put off the little details like reservations, but now I'm seriously checking out B & B's and small hotels and small castles, and I'm calculating mileage and driving times from place to place. Now that July is almost over with and September starts tomorrow, for planning purposes, it is time to Get Serious and start making those reservations. The big Edinburgh Festival ends a few days before we arrive, which means their tourist season will be winding down, which makes it possible to find places to stay in the city even this late. We like to avoid crowds, and I want to drive around with as few other crazy Americans driving on the "wrong side" of the road as possible.

I've been "flying" around Scotland on Google Earth, flying low to see the hills rise up as I cross the country. I've also started reading Kidnapped, one of those books I should have read as a kid but didn't. Near the beginning of the book young David Balfour goes to Edinburgh and sees an "islet" in the middle of the Firth of Forth. On Google Earth, I'm seeing what may have been the island Robert Louis Stevenson was writing about. When we get there, I'll have to drop by to see if he's sitting out in front of the Hawes Inn, or the ghost of him since he's buried on a Pacific Island. If the Hawes Inn was fictional I'm sure some canny Scots have created one. I'll have to buy a drink for old RLS even if his ghost can't pick up the glass.

My ancestors lived in Scotland, somewhere in the vicinity of Loch Lomond, north of Glasgow. They left, one step ahead of the law, and went to Ireland. After getting pounded between the English and the Irish, between Protestants and Catholics, some of them got brave enough or desperate enough to sail to the New World. That was more than eight generations ago, in the 1700's. One of the reservations I've already made is to spend a night in a modest little castle that once belonged to the clan chief, when my clan still had a chief. I don't think I'll buy a drink for the old chief. His ghost can probably pick up the glass and drain it.

Anagrams

I was never worth much when it came to anagrams, the silly mental exercise of rearranging the letters in a word or phrase to make a new word or phase. My mother was very good at it, but this is not an inherited trait. I am telling you this so you will not suspect that I had anything to do with the following except steal them shamelessly from an e-mail and copy them here while waiting for traffic on Intracounty 275 to thin out.

At the risk of insulting your intelligence, for each pair of words or phrases, rearrange the first one to get the second one:

DORMITORY
DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN
BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER
MOON STARER

DESPERATION
A ROPE ENDS IT

THE EYES
THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH
HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE
HERE COME DOTS

SLOT MACHINES
CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY
IS NO AMITY

SNOOZE ALARMS
ALAS NO MORE Z 'S

A DECIMAL POINT
IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES
THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO
TWELVE PLUS ONE

MOTHER-IN-LAW
WOMAN HITLER

My favorite of this bunch:
ELECTION RESULTS
LIES - LET'S RECOUNT

news you can use from the Discovery Channel

My son and I spent quite a bit of time learning all about dung beetles and sharks on the Discovery Channel. We missed the program about how to escape a gator, though. Fortunately, one young man here in Florida was paying attention:

http://www.wesh.com/news/9569904/detail.html

car maintenance - a "whew" experience this time

Today it was time for my car's air conditioning system to get the fishy eyeball from the guys at a shop who repair a/c systems for a living.

I knew this was going to cost me, big time. In the good old days, the mechanic would say it needs a can or two of Freon and that would keep it going for the rest of the summer. Now they don't use Freon and they are smart enough to say there's some reason why your system lost so much of the refrigerant gas. That's the cue for saying that you need a new compressor or condensor or evaporator, or some other odd part they haven't sold enough of lately. . .none of which is cheap. . .plus labor and taxes.

You can imagine my shock upon getting the expected bad-news phone call this morning. The shock was, it wasn't bad news. My a/c is fully charged and working fine, and was blowing cold air. Their best guess was, when the fans for my radiator conked out, that also affected the a/c system. Because I learned long ago that you don't run the a/c when it is low on Freon or whatever they use nowadays, and because I assumed that was why the a/c was blowing warm air, I hadn't given it a chance to prove itself after getting the radiator fixed.

The price for all their trouble: $16.00 including tax.

It is good to know where honest mechanics are. They could have sold me $400 worth of repairs today and I wouldn't have known the difference. Come to think of it, the garage that gave me five pounds of air for a tire on Monday could have sold me a front-end alignment and my ignorance would have been bliss.

Next time I have a problem, I know who to see.