Dangers of an Idle Mind

Hurricane Irene Blog - Sunday 22.00

2011-08-28T21:49:00.004-04:00

There’s an odd feeling around a town that’s been through a long night. It’s like that really chilled out feeling you get the day after a good late party. The dark frightening, windswept and sodden night gave way to a grey, gusty morning and finally a beautiful, bright, breezy afternoon. Wndering around the Inner Harbour there was a feeling of tolerance or relief. Visiting Navy ships moored around the edges and above, unfettered by clouds, the sun was able to make its warmth known. Up the hill Camden Yards was full of enthusiastic baseball fans and along the way workers checked the integrity of the temporary stands erected for next week's Grand Prix. Back in the harbour the only signs of damage were the little electric boats, floating, but filled with water like a line of baths. By and large we dodged a bullet.

The totals were I was staying would up being 4.6 inches of rain and a gusts of up to 55mph. Doesn’t sound like much but I don’t need to live it through it again.

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Bazza

Hurricane Irene Blog - Sunday 09.30

2011-08-28T09:32:00.001-04:00

All that's left is some light rain, a breeze and a cleanup. Will make some tea and head out but overall cannot see any obvious damage

Hurricane Irene Blog - Sunday 04.15

2011-08-28T04:22:00.001-04:00

It's all about the wind now. Less rain but the wind is gusting very strongly. Half of the mall across the road seems to be in the dark. We still have power. This is about the time the eye passes to the east. At around midnight the estimation was that we,d had just over 4 inches of rain and gusts at 50 mph both these numbers are bound to increased.

Re: Hurricane Irene - Saturday 11.30

2011-08-28T00:18:00.001-04:00

In bed now. It has gotten really really loud out there. The rain has gotten as heavy as at any point in the day. It has now been raining really heavily for 12 hours. The wind is now gusting really powerfully.
I am testing mobile posting so format might be different

Hurricane Irene Blog - Saturday 22.15

2011-08-27T22:15:00.005-04:00

Wind is stronger yet and has also swung around a bit so that it is slapping the non stop rain against my windows. Those windows, in my hotel room, face North West and up until now I have been on the sheltereds side. The seriously worrying development is tornadoes within some of the spiraling rain bands. We have totally lost all local channels from satelitte but still have power right now. The Governor of Maryland announced that there will be no attempt to fix any power outages until after the storm is finished (makes sense really).

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Bazza

Hurricane Irene Blog - Saturday 20.30

2011-08-27T20:28:00.004-04:00

Good news! The rain has stopped falling. Now it's just going sideways. We are still about 7 or 8 hours 'til the eye passes by about 30 miles to the east. Wind is steady but not tree bending yet. Still expecting the total rainfall to be around 7 inches and once the stronger winds do come the soaked ground will let the trees go. The trees are bound to take out power lines so I'd be surprised if I have power all night. Also having watch the traffic signals swaying in the moderate breeze this morning I would expect many of those to ocme down.

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Bazza

Hurricane Irene Blog - Saturday 16.30

2011-08-27T16:41:00.005-04:00

16.30
Moved the car to a hotel nearby. This hotel seems to be at a nadir so if we are to get a lot rain it might not be so smart to be parked here. From there I stepped into a bar for lunch and might, just might, have had a beer or two. The bar was much emptier than usual and staff were all quite edgy. Instead of Football, baseball and other sports on the myriad TV screens there was just Irene coverage. It has now been raining solidly and heavily for 5 hours. The hotel TV is having trouble with some of the satellite channels.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Hurricane Irene Blog - Saturday

2011-08-27T16:11:00.004-04:00

Saturday August 27
10:30
Irene made landfall early this morning, though I have no idea what that means since the clouds and winds from seemed to smashing across North Carolina when I went to bed. I'm still in my room listening to the Chelsea game (1-0. Go Blues). Through the hotel room window it looks pretty gloomy out there. Latest view of the tracker seems to suggest the path is still to the east but worrying the storm does seem to have drifted slightly west. Will head out once the game is over.

14.00
Drove a ways South East. The rain got heavier. The wind raised a little. AsI looked around at the power lines and traffic lights it began to dawn on me how ugly this could get. One small deviation in the storm's track and this area could be out of action for a week.
Back where the hotel is and the rain was lighter (but still heavy). Time to act on the car and lunch

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Hurricane Irene Blog - Friday - Early Saturday

2011-08-27T16:05:00.006-04:00

Working on a project just South East of Baltimore, very near BWI. This weekend is our handover to the customer and so I have stayed here. Even in the light of Hurricane Irene.

Friday 8/26

20.30
Looking at the latest tracker for where I am it seems we will have up to 60mph winds and about 6 -7 inches of rain. It'll start tomorrow around lunchtime and ending Sunday lunchtime. We're getting off easy I think. Went out to get my tea and no one at the chick-fil-a seemed too bothered still. When I got back to the hotel there was a note under the door saying pretty much 'hang tough and draw the heavy curtains to stop the breaking glass". Good luck to North Carolina tonight.

14.00
A lot of the customer's employees have left as their homes are under an evacuation order. In the project war room things are tense. Not sure if it is the stage of the project or that those leaving today are definitely very worried about being stuck here. Me? I'm planning to buy some beer, more chocolate and junk food. I'll only start worrying when JIm Cantore shows up.

10.30
Popped out to get some water and snacks. No sign of anyone being even vaguely concerned. Was in a 7 - 11 and a gas station; no-one topping up their gas or buying pallets of bottled water. Found a flashlight in the car which i'll keep with me. Latest tracker has the storm coming up Chesapeake Bay. That's way too close

8.00
The contractors working on the project are very worried. Some are flying out tonight. A friend in Florida called to give me tips and make sure I was aware of what might happen. I have been thinking of where to park the car. It needs to be safe in case I have to leave due to protracted power outages. The hotel i'm in is at the low point of the suurrounding land with a lot of trees nearby not good for a rainy and windy outlook.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Foxes and Parrots - English Suburban Wildlife

2010-10-21T16:32:00.024-04:00

This is the last re-post f0r a while and is rather long. It is a re-posting of two of my favourite pieces dealing with Southern England's Suburban wildlife.

I sipped my tea, my head full of images of foxes moving through the suburban London night like Ninjas stealing shoes from beneath the noses of their owners.

“What happens to the shoes?” I asked.
“We throw them away” He said.
“Why doesn’t the neighborhood get together every few months and have a kinda reverse jumble sale. A chance to repatriate the shoes?” I asked.
“The foxes seem to like the shoes a lot, they lick and chew them like maniacs; I don’t think the owners want them back after that.”

Suddenly the ninja fox view disappeared and was replaced with an image of gangs of foxes roaming the deserted Surrey streets looking for a shoe fix.

“Come on pal I need something! Just a tongue, a lace! Can’t you see I’m in cold Nike!”

Do you think there are fox rehab clinics? Maybe they would be put on insoles which are like shoes but not as strong. Maybe there is a reality show in there? “The real cubs of KT17”

But then a different thought occurred to me, what if it’s not an addiction? What if it is a fetish? Perhaps other foxes looked on those with the shoe fetish as being weird, outcasts. Maybe there were Fox dens where a dog could meet a vixen in a safe environment surrounded by the beautiful heels of Surrey. An underground foxclub scene …..

I was startled from my musing on Vulpes.vulpes retifism by a loud chattering and I watched bemused as a thirty strong flock of Green Parrots rose from the trees at the end of the garden. Parrots! In Surrey? But that is next week’s blog.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

I watched as the beautiful Green birds rose as one body from the end of the garden. Given that the fox conversation was still hanging over the breakfast table, I wasn’t about to start another fauna discussion. I excused myself and headed back upstairs. Once in the back bedroom I grabbed my camera phone and looked out into the garden for the second time that morning. Sure enough, in one of the trees that flank the garden were four green parrots. I snapped this rather bad picture just to prove to myself that I wasn’t insane.

Later, when everyone had gone out, I tried a little ‘twitching’ on the web. If parrots have established themselves in Surrey then surely it must be all over the news? Not exactly. I did, however, discover that the birds I had seen were Ring Neck Parakeets and one of the more colorful theories for how they come to be in the UK. Namely the assertion that the birds escaped from the film set of The African Queen while it was being filmed at Shepperton Studios in West London. The most informative piece was this four and half year old article on the BBC. The most startling thing in this piece is the estimate that the population is growing at 30% per year – that’s a lot of parrots.

Later that day I caught the bus to Kingston (there’s some wildlife right there). Once there I met up with my kids and took the opportunity to ask my youngest about the parrots.

“Spud, do you ever see Parrots?” I asked, over a coffee in Starbucks. Spud looked up from playing a game on his cell phone, creased his brow and shot me a sideways glance. He seemed annoyed that I had interrupted him.

“Parrots?” he asked and he turned back to his text messaging.

“Yes parrots. Do you ever see parrots?” I had the beginnings of a horrible feeling of déjà vu., “Parrots, here in Surrey. Do you ever see ‘em?” My only response was the silent movement of his fingers on his cell phone keypad.

“Spud,” I said, a little louder this time causing a few of the other coffee shop patrons to look in our direction, “parrots? Anywhere?”
Spud snapped his cell phone shut and put it on the table between us.

“What is it with you and bloody parrots?” asked the twelve year old.

“Don’t swear,” I said, “I‘m just asking, in case you didn’t hear me the first three times, if you ever see parrots round here?”
His look changed from tired indulgence (I think he learned that from his mother) to one of, well, contempt (also probably from his mother).

“Of course I see parrots. They’re everywhere. And anyway they’re not parrots they’re parakeets”

“Parakeets? What’s the difference?”

“Parakeet is African for small.” He said, but I think he was making that up. “They live in the Oak tree outside our house and in the trees near the football pitch; they make a lot of noise when the ball hits one of their perches. And sometimes I watch them in my geography lesson”

“When you're doing things about Africa?”

“No, in the tree outside the window of the geography hall, they live there too.”

“Well Spud, maybe you should concentrate on your lesson …” I started to say. I was going to explain to him that when I was a boy there were no parrots, sorry parakeets, in England. But I realised that his attention was back with his cell phone.

So I guess there are now parakeets in living in Surrey. I wonder if parakeets can talk. Bet they say more than a twelve year old boy says.

Later, when I was back in the States, I was telling my mate Jim about the parrots and that they may have escaped from The African Queen. He pointed out it was lucky they weren’t using elephants in that film. I agree. If Pachyderms got into trees by the football pitch god knows how you'd get them out.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Fox Info

For a more sensible explanation of urban and suburban foxes see & Here:
And proof that foxes even steal the shoes of the nobility

The Soft-dying Day

2010-10-06T02:12:00.007-04:00

*This post was originally published in October 2008 (I was alluding to more than winter BTW). I have slightly changed some of the wording this time. It's still my personal favourite. One for the Fall lovers.

I awoke this morning in my southern New England home to the sound of the wind pushing against the house. Outside the sky was a crisp blue. The multi-colour leaves of autumn were lining up like golden sky-divers; waiting for their cue to leap from the trees and then tumble and dance down the hilly road.

The wind breathed excitement and animation outside my window. Until recently the heavy foliage of summer had stopped it from reaching the green frog that hangs, unspinning, over my deck. But now that the fall has come you can see patches of sky again and the frog spins madly throwing off spirals of reflected light. Speedy, Sparky and their friends that inhabit the grassy bank, are nervous. The sweet smelling autumn wind moves everything and drowns out the normal sounds of safety. The change of air is tangible to them as they stand on their hind legs, twitching and sniffing. The small mammals are obvious now because they are the only stationary things. Ironic that they should be so exposed by the very act that has hitherto kept them safe.

In the front of the house, the verdant green canopy is transformed into boney black fingers that point skywards accusingly. “The sky took the leaves, the sky took the leaves.” they say and the sky is guilty as charged.

Later, as I leave the house, the wind pushes me urgently from behind as I walk, “Move along, move along. No time to hang around, it is coming.”

And later still, I’m in the car and the radio tells me that indeed, snow has fallen in the north already. I am dismayed to realise that it is dark at both the 6.30s that occur in any given day.

The wind excites us with its news but it will be gone tomorrow leaving the horrible realisation that the better parts of the year are beyond reach now and soon the heavy cold grey blanket will replace the blue. We will retreat to our homes and burrows. The spiraling green frog will be taken down and stored along with the cheery summer lanterns that line the paths around us. Collect your firewood and admire the last few stubborn leaves then hunker down. Winter isn’t long now.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Title from 'To Autumn' by John Keats

“I say goodbye, you (still) say Hello…“

2010-10-03T08:30:00.000-04:00

Another piece originally published under the same title at The Spartan Opinion in 2009.

Prologue – Nine years! You’d get less for manslaughter in some states. But nine years is how long I have lived in this great country. During those nine years whenever I meet somebody new and they work out I am English, the conversation moves to one of the same group of topics. Typically the topics are either, The Beatles, Benny Hill, Monty Python, Fish and Chips or Princess Diana. Over the next few pieces I will try and shine my own little spotlight onto these areas.
Before I start though I’d like to it clear I do not claim to represent all 61 million British people. I don’t even claim to represent a majority; I’ve yet to talk to even a fraction of all Brits and whilst many of those I have spoken to I did like a lot, there are also some that, quite frankly, I don’t think I liked at all.
The first piece is on the impact The Beatles have had on my life and my confusion about why the American populace is still so obsessed with them …

The Beatles, be-suited mop-tops or Kaftan clad hippies, whichever incarnation, why are the Americans so obsessed with them? The rest of the world tipped its hat, said thanks and moved on. But here you can’t move for them. Major radio stations still dedicate hours of programming each week, there are literally hundreds of Beatles tribute bands and a new cash-in their old hits CD release is a huge news event. Let’s remember that the Beatles first hit was nearly 50 years ago now. How ridiculous would it be if in 1962, when The Beatles exploded on the scene, our parents were listening to music from 1915 (not to mention still shelling out for repackaged songs that they already owned)? Surely pop music has moved on?

But first I must confess I do owe the Beatles one big debt, namely our first telly. In 1968 our little South London flat did not have a TV. This situation was quite normal for our area. In fact, only Mario down the street had one and he wouldn’t shut up bragging about it, how they watched comedies, soap operas, dramas and most annoyingly, kid’s shows. But then one day it all changed. My sister came home from school in tears. The BBC had announced it would air the first ever TV showing of the Beatles film “The Magical Mystery Tour”. She was distraught because the film would be shown and she would miss it. Worst still, all her friends would gather at Mario’s house (with his sister, who was always viewed as rival) to watch it. Our little flat was filled with a black cloud that night.

The next day my dad, who like a lot of fathers hated the thought of either of his daughters being unhappy, was so moved by my sister’s misery, that he went out and rented a big cabinet style black and white TV. Oh boy this was living. Better yet, the tele was nicer than Mario’s. Hah! Who’s bragging now? We had all three channels: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV while Mario could only get BBC1 & ITV. He was crushed. So thanks to the Beatles we got one up on the local rivals plus we got to see the Apollo 11 moon landing, the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales (big yawn) and best of all, the mighty Chelsea winning the FA cup in 1970!

Sorry, got a bit carried away there, anyway like I say; I have nothing against the Beatles. But as far as I can tell on my occasional visits back to England, people accept that they were great. Maybe once in a while you will hear a song on the radio but even my sister who has several TVs of her own now, doesn’t worry about re-runs of the films. My cousins, most of who are slightly older than us and were smack dab in middle of Beatles mania the sixties, have new bands, singers and music on their iPods.

The danger is if we spend so much time marveling at how great The Beatles were we will miss out on, and in some cases close our ears to, much of the new music around. Nearly all of the current brand of pop singers still use the three and a half minute, bright catchy song with hooks format, which The Beatles help cement into pop radio. These new pop songs are no more relevant or irrelevant than any Beatles song. I’m always amused when some of my American friends heaps criticism on people like Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce or Justin Timberlake and yet treat Please Please me like it’s high art (let alone Octopus’s Garden or Yellow Submarine!).

My last concern is simple, if The Beatles are your musical safe haven, great. But a safe haven can only be truly appreciated when you have been to somewhere, different, dangerous and exciting. Remember, Columbus may not have intended to discover America but he would have found nothing new if he had just continued sailing around the familiar Mediterranean.

So come on America! They were awesome but unless you let go you’ll never find anything else – it’s time to move on. You know when Paul sang “will you still need me, will you still feed me – when I’m sixty four?” It wasn’t meant to be a binding contract.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Benny and me

2010-09-28T15:24:00.003-04:00

This piece was one of two pieces originally published in 2009 at The Spartan Opinion as 'Benny “down” Hill all the way'

In the late eighties I was a support guy working from a narrow closet. It was just wide enough for a desk and chair and long enough for the desk and 4 or 5 floor standing computer systems which kept the room very warm. The building did have high ceilings and at one end of support room was a slender but tall, window that looked out over Teddington High Street. Teddington is an average, small suburban London town, ten miles west of the city along the River Thames. The High street had the usual assortment of pubs, small supermarkets, fast food shops and banks. Our building was next to the Barclays Bank

The sun arced from morning through noon and onto dusk. People, buses and cars all passed by the tall window and the changing leaves on the trees across the road marked the seasons passing. Not much happened day to day in Teddington but there were little distractions. Sometimes the ‘shouting’ man would appear. He’d stand on the corner with a big placard and yell at startled passers by to repent; at least until the local policeman turned up to move him along. Sometimes, though, I would see a different man. A gentlemen in his sixties and dressed in a rather scruffy raincoat, no matter the weather. The old man was about 5ft 10in high (I know because that’s the same height as me) and generally he’d be carrying his groceries in plastic supermarket bags. Some people said hello as they passed him but most ignored or didn’t recognize him. I myself bought him a glass of red wine one Christmas (and got ridiculed for it by my mates). The man in the raincoat was Benny Hill.

Here he was ignored by the people in the very town where he wrote his most famous comedy sketches. A man who less than ten years earlier was voted as ‘The Funniest Man in The World’ by Britain’s TV Times readers.

And yet few years later, in 1992, Benny Hill died aged 68, alone and unnoticed. We don’t even know the exact day he died we just know he was last seen the Thursday before Easter and he was found the following week. He was in a chair in front of his TV. After his death there was no resurgence of love for him or his art. His passing was not even accompanied by the tabloids every-ready buckets of crocodile tears. He just warranted a short obit’ on an inside page.

So how did Benny, lovable buffoon with the funny side kicks and very tall women, become such a non-entity in his home country?

Put simply two things: The fickle nature of the British and a top class assassination job by a handful of new, aggressive young comics.

In the UK in the early to mid-eighties comedy was undergoing it’s version of the punk rock revolution. An aggressive breed of comics often pictured as led by a man called Ben Elton burst onto the scene; arriving with the fourth British TV station, Channel 4. These new comics blew a breath of fresh air through a comedy scene that honestly, had become rather stale. The new comics were irreverent, coarse and trendy. Responsible for great new comedy (Black Adder, The Comic Strip) and some terrible crap (so bad I’ve blanked it out) they took the establishment to task. A lot of us had long been uneasy with the clumsy and sexist nature of some of Benny Hill’s material and the new comics picked up on that sentiment. Although other established comedians were picked on too, Benny was an easy target and he bore the brunt of their attack. Barrage after barrage of anti Benny Hill material exploded around him. The tabloid newspapers picked up on the theme and suddenly there were enough people calling him sexist (as well drawing criticism of his treatment and portrayal of old people) that the country pretty quickly turned away from him. Some even felt the comedian was an embarrassment to Britain. Soon after the uproar started Teddington based Thames TV canceled Benny's show and his contract. Benny Hill had gone from loved to loathed virtually overnight.

That was nearly 25 years ago and one could reasonably expect perspective and time to soften our views but in my narrow poll of British friends I discovered that not much has changed in the way people think of Benny. I was surprised at this but then even I still have no desire to watch him chased across a garden by 10 bikini clad woman. I don’t think that any of the major UK stations ever re-run any of his series and when I asked my sons (13 & 15) only one had actually heard of him but he had never seen any of his comedy.

Is it fair? The more I think about it the less I’m not sure either way. Truth be told, if you take out the childish slapstick, and the semi naked ladies, a lot of if what is left was very clever and funny. Was it sexist? Well yeah, clearly it was and long after attitudes had started changing. Someone should have explained it to Benny. But then again, if the Americans and Germans are still laughing with him, shouldn’t the British re-visit too?

He seemed a nice enough old bloke, in the pub that Christmas. My mates might have given me shit when I bought him that glass of wine but even then I just felt bad for him. He’d been a superstar and now he was hated and he hadn’t changed, everyone else did. Perhaps my country does owe him a bit more than a glass of red wine, maybe we should clean up his act, issue some DVDs without the slapstick and Alfred ‘Benny’ Hill should get some respect.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The End is Nigh

2010-09-07T22:48:00.006-04:00

I have some sad news for you all but to aid my mental health, I am formally ending this blog.

Basically with all the life changes recently I just haven't had a chance to stay up to speed with the blog. But, fair reader, make no mistake I do feel guilty.

It is not for lack of ideas (I have loads of ideas many started but never finished) it's just lack of time. I may continue to submit articles to the new and revitalised Spartan Opinion as well as post the occasional note to Facebook but that's about it.

So why end? Why not just repost that stuff every few months? Well it's to do with my spiritual health. I strongly believe in a personal bit of co-opted & perverted Eastern philosophy. Namely, having something constantly nagging at you because it is unfinished or plain needs attention, but ignoring that nag, is bad for you. It's that elephant in the room thing. So before I have to start shoveling I'm done.

Thanks for reading for the last three years and thanks for your support and care - have fun.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Getting Ready For The Showing

2010-05-02T18:23:00.009-04:00

Before I can try and settle down somewhere we have to get rid of the house in Connecticut. Bought as the bubble was bursting we know we will lose money but even so we can’t just list it. We gotta make it desirable first.

There’s a lot of nonsense spoken about making houses look good for showing (referred to as staging here in the US). In fact there are whole cable TV shows dedicated to the alleged art. Reality is that it is not that hard.

Overall, you must allow nothing to distract your viewers from the positive experience. You want them to leave discussing where they could put their bookcase and where to drink their morning coffee; not the clothes that were on the floor or the smell by the sink.

The Bazza rules to house staging are:

1. Above all – Clean your house inside and out! All buyers will be put off by a grimy, tired or spider web laden house

2. Find the cool features of your house that others will like and emphasis these. Also consider a little guide book or some well placed notes (don’t over do it) to point out the unique or positive aspects. Most rooms have an area or part where the eye is automatically drawn to. If you can get a friend to walk into each room and tell you the first thing they see, that will tell you what that focal point is and you can decide if it is what you want it to be.

3. Make the most of the space (applies to the external part of the house too)
--- De-clutter
--- Move furniture to allow most floor space to show
--- Allow walls to show but not totally bare (see item 7 below)

4. Make the most of the light – even spacious houses look small when dark.
--- Ensure windows can let in the natural light
--- Make sure all light switches and bulbs work
--- Consider putting in brighter bulbs were safe to so

5. Fix those little annoyances – the house inspector is going find them anyway.
--- Dripping taps
--- Wall dents
--- cabinet door knobs missing trim

6. Ambience: Make the house feel home like with smells and possibly some music

7. If you are the kind of person who covers every inch of wall with photographs of loved ones. Remember the point about no distractions and making the most of space. You don’t have to take down every picture but let the wall area be seen. Beware those sporting or other cultural displays too. For instance if you are a Yankees fan - you don't want to turn off an itinerant Red Sox or Mets fan - think I'm joking? I'm not. Remember you want people to leave talking about how pleasant your place was not the Jeter poster on the ceiling.

8. Take some sensible steps to make your house child safe, if it isn’t already.

9. Find a secure place to put valuables.

10. When people come – go out! I know it’s scary but every time I view a place with the residents there the visit is much shorter and I never feel good about the house.

In the next blog I’ll explain how we implemented those rules.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Looking for the Man Who Can't Moved

2010-04-19T16:29:00.004-04:00

We’re moving again. Three years rolled by and it will soon be time to leave Connecticut. As we drove around the North Suburbs of Chicago looking at the outside of affordable houses I got to thinking how often I’ve moved. For the purposes of this article I will define ‘home’ as ‘the place you go to when you don’t have to be anywhere else’. That would mean that since leaving my parent’s house in 1984, I have called 11 places home. More startling I realised I hadn’t managed more than a few months over three years in any of them.

I guess I don’t mind it or else I wouldn’t do it but it does affect those around me. Before meeting me my wife had only called three places home. Now she is up to seven (and likely to be eight before 2010 is over). She has only spent about 20% of her life with me. And although not entirely due to me, my eldest son (15) has lived in eight places.

Some of the houses or flats I lived in were only intended to be quick steps along the way but others, notably the flat on the Surbiton/Kingston boarder and the townhouse in Elk Grove Village, were definitely intended to be more permanent.

And the next place? I want it built to last – out of brick, on a solid concrete foundation and I wanna be able to decorate to taste and not to sell. In the words of The Script I want to be ‘The Man Who can’t Be Moved’.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

A Weekend in the Country - My First Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T13:39:00.002-05:00

Chicago, like most major cities, is growing outwards. The lake stops it going east but nothing is stopping it from covering the other three compass points. Its continued sprawling has left little access to proper English style countryside. There are some nice parks or commons but little in the way of real open areas. Another thing is that unlike most of the UK (Norfolk excepted) Chicago metro area is very, very flat.

So a weekend in the Northwest of Illinois, in a cabin amid a birch forest seemed a nice idea. OK, granted it meant spending the weekend with people I didn't know too well but it was only Friday midday through to Sunday afternoon so it was copeable with. As it turned out there were to be five of us: me, my new friends Ellie & Jeff, their friends Biker Bill & Sandy. Oh yeah a Rottweiler. The Rottweiler was a 6 yr old male named after a vicious Greek leader, Alex. This was my first meeting with the dog and we didn't get off to a great start.

Jeff & Ellie turned up around 10am on an unseasonably mild Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. In the sky there were patches of blue in-between large puffy, luminescent clouds. It was a beautiful day to be going somewhere. We pushed my bags, beer & guitar into the back of their SUV and I slipped into the back seat alongside Alex. He was sat up on the seat and therefore, he was taller than me. He looked me in the eye and growled. It was a long, deep menacing growl. Then he moved his head a little closer to mine and growled again, lower & longer this time. His eyes burned red and his breath smelt of dead Englishmen. I sat still but maintained eye contact and so me and dog tried to stare each other out.

Finally, Ellie decided it was safest if I sat in the front after all. So she came to the back door of the SUV and opened it. Alex wasn't going to let me get out that easily. He carefully placed one of his front paws on my right thigh, leaned forward so his weight was fully on it and growled again. I was beginning to feel concerned but Ellie shouted and pushed and pulled him until finally, reluctantly he let me go.

I have to say after that he was a perfect gentleman the entire weekend. Well almost, we were 20 miles shy of home on Sunday when he dropped the smelliest fart of the whole event and possibly ever.

Anyway tiff between man & dog over we finally got underway. We met up with Biker Bill & his lady Sandy a gas station. They nodded at us from their SUV, we waved and we were at last genuinely underway.

We headed west on the I90 towards Rockford, A route I have only traveled once before and it was still just a boring road. (Actually I was going to go into detail on the last time - but that is a whole different story with very few laughs).

After an hour or so we stopped at another gas station for a coffee and toilet break. Inside I spoke with Biker Bill, who was a healthy 40ish weather beaten biker & carpenter with long blond hair. He had met Jeff & Ellie in a bar called Bungalow Joe’s and they had hung out from time to time ever since.

Back outside we all took the opportunity to meet Sandy, who is Biker Bill's (in biker terms, only) Laydee. Sandy was about 5.5 and thin and looked a bit like you expect a biker's mole to look like. 20 years ago she must have been a classic Californian blond.
I was introduced to her, not unreasonably, as Being from England and I said something like.
"Pleased to meet you. Looks like we are in for fun weekend."
She responded.
"Oh you’re from England. Do you speak English?"

Now normally on meeting any new Americans I will politely endure the usual comments. They tend to come in two categories: hopelessly out of date and uniformed (these ones base their knowledge of the UK on Monty Python or worse still Benny Hill) or the over informed Anglophiles who try to impress you with their knowledge of Britain and ask you opinion on things you've never even heard of. Sandy was plainly somewhere below the first type.

As I say I'm normally polite but being asked if I spoke English was too much. I laughed and so did Jeff, Ellie and even Biker Bill. Unfortunately, Sandy just looked offended. Oh well.
We drove on for another 90 minutes; the sky became heavy and gray before eventually releasing a fine drizzle but then something magical happened. The landscape had been small farms and fields for some distance suddenly did something great. We were about 20 miles from the small town of Elizabeth when the ground beneath us started to rise & fall. Only a little at first but the further on we went it became an undeniable fact. These were hills! Real hills! I looked out of the car windows and there where more to our left and to our right while in front was the biggest yet. This was the first time in 11 months I had been amongst hills and it was great.

Then as we crested that hill there spread before us, was Elizabeth. We drove straight through the middle (well you would wouldn't you).

We stopped again. Because Jeff & Ellie had only rented the cabin for 2 people, Biker Bill' Sandy & me had to wait while they got the keys and hoped no one would see us going in.

* * *

I had no idea what to expect of the log cabin. But what we got was cool.
A large house set on/into a hillside over looking a heavily wooded valley the tall silver trunks of already denuded Birch trees standing like an army ready to march. Inside the house was on 2 levels. Upstairs were 2 bedrooms, the kitchen, a small and functional bathroom and a large living area with big fireplace.
The lower level was a very similar layout except there was no kitchen and the second bedroom was a utility room. Off of the lower living space was a balcony with hot tub, looking out at the forest. At the upper level was a similar balcony but with a swing seat and a grill instead of the tub.

The sky was still gray and the drizzle was a constant, gentle spray. The temperature was mild (especially for Illinois). The leaves carpeting the floor around the dwelling still had their beautiful colours and it felt for an instant like an October day on Leith hill. I stood for a while and let the drizzle fall on me - eyes closed, face to the heavens and arms out wide. 8000 miles there and back in split seconds......

Later on we went to the nearby town of Galena to get lunch. We found a small restaurant and settled down. At this point Sandy announced she only ate once a day. Luckily for us this was the time. We all ordered and Sandy decided as she was on holiday that she was going to push the boat out and have a whole salad!

Galena was apparently a well off mining village at one time however, the mines closed and the village became almost a ghost town before re-inventing it self as an oldie worldie tourist resort. By American standards it is old and because it was a depressed town for most of the 20th century a lot of its buildings are original. It is renowned for its antique shops and its narrow busy pavements with bustling shops, winding roads and a high street on a hill made it a very comfortable little town. After lunch we wandered round the shops for a while and then headed back to the 'cabin'.

Once back Biker Bill built a fire and we cracked open few beers. Ellie suggested a cozy game of Scrabble. Now the weekend had already started to feel like an episode of Big Brother and a little bit of friendly competition was an explosive idea.

And then we had another 2 Sandy moments.

All five people were sat around the table and it was clear it was to be a the scrabble was turning into a death match. So I made a suggestion.
"In case of arguments over words why don't we just go with consensus?"

Most people nodded but Sandy' brows were furrowed.
"Can't we just agree instead?"

No one even sniggered. We were very proud of ourselves. Once the game was underway she hit me with another. One of the other players was studying their tiles Sandy turned to me and said:
"I'd like to know more words, like you do."
I said:
"That's a good ambition."
"I have a dictionary at home." She said "and it's a special one."
"Oh that's nice." I said unsure quite what to expect next.
"It's got a lot words in it." She said
"Mmmmm, they're the best kind of dictionaries." I said, totally confused where we going with this.
"No!" She said clearly annoyed at my lack of understanding. "Lots of words that mean the same thing!" I was lost. Then suddenly, like a lighthouse beaming through the mist for a lost sailor, I realized what she meant.
"Oh a Thesaurus." I said and waited for the conversation to continue.
There was a pause and her brows again took on that furrowed hurting look. She finally said.
"Yes, I expect that's in there too."
(BTW her second word in the scrabble game was 'nite' and I didn't have the heart to say it wasn't a proper word and nothing will ever get me to recount her description of what the word 'anus' meant).

Well the beer flowed and the game eventually ground to an everybody-having-3-tiles-left stalemate without too much more trouble. Most if not all the bipeds were quite drunk and a call was made for the guitar. So I played some songs and we had a bit of a sing-along. Sandy seemed a little miffed that I couldn't do any Motorhead or Metallica but we all chilled out a bit.

Later on we all got in the Hot Tub. It seemed weird sat in bubbling bath on a balcony at 2 in the morning with a bunch of other people. The temperature had dropped outside to near freezing as well. Very strange. Here obviously is a country with more electricity than is needed (California excepted of course).

* * * Saturday * * *
It was surprisingly early (around 9) when all parties re-convened in the upstairs living room. I looked around the assembled party and realized this was going to be tricky. Last night had been 5 people en-route to oblivion, this morning we were 5 cranky, tired & slightly hung over people.

We had wanted to go horse riding (horseback riding in local parlance) but the only open stable would not allow trotting, cantering or galloping and I for one don't feel I've been on a horse unless I lave been terrified, nearly fallen off and had my testicles jammed back to where they spent the first 13 years of my life, so we decided to go hiking instead.

Timidly and probably over diplomatically, we all started suggesting what we could do on this hike. About this time Ellie decided to take Alex for a jog. Apparently this upset Sandy, as she had wanted to go as well. And we were off to a good start to the day. (Hey! Aren’t you impressed that I avoided saying Ellie just didn't take Sandy along because she couldn't cope with two dogs (damn I just did it!)). After another hour of fart-arsing around Biker Bill got all manly and finally made a decision for everyone.

Now Jeff & Sandy were the crankiest of all of us but Biker Bill was feeling none too chilled either. It probably didn't help that I just mooned around being non-committal offering no useful opinion on anything.

We took both trucks because Alex was coming with us and there isn't space for 5 plus a Shetland Pony sized dog in any one truck. Biker Bill said he knew the way and so led.

He shot off at a great speed and Jeff decided that not being able to keep up might be a good thing but unfortunately for all concerned Biker Bill slowed each time we fell back and even came looking for us when we where trying to get lost. After a relatively short, but at times, exciting, journey we arrived about 500 feet up on top of a ski slope, which had no snow. At the bottom of the steep incline was the Mississippi. Biker Bill led us down the slope and we spent an ever increasingly tense 90 minutes exploring a dirt road, the railroad track & the banks of the river (not really hiking) but by the time all 6 of us had climbed breathlessly back to the top of the ski run the atmosphere was crystallising and not in a pretty way. At least it wasn't raining.

We all returned to the cabin and Ellie, Jeff and I decided we had to eat as it was mid afternoon and we were normal human beings. Biker Bill and Sandy decided they wanted to go and look at a Harley shop. So around 2.30 we split up.

The three us had a pleasant enough time eating a small lunch (we had a big meal at a cool restaurant planned for later) and wandering around shops looking at weird stuff. Ellie even bought herself a didgeridoo and then bought Jeff a dulcimer for Christmas. We had a coffee and looked at some crystals and then set off back.

* * *

We got back to the 'cabin' around 6 pm. Biker Bill announced that as we had gone out to eat he had assumed we wouldn't be going out to eat later so he and Sandy had eaten already. Remember she only eats once a day! The rest of us were not sure if we should be pissed off or pleased so we each retired to our rooms. I put on my MP3 player and got out my guitar to see if I could play along with any of the songs. Now my door was open and they must have been able to hear me and there was another living room downstairs but the upstairs living room erupted into a loud and visceral argument between Biker Bill and Sandy.

It was f***ing brilliant! I did get the distinct impression that we were meant to hear and that Sandy was 'staging' this. I will spare you the details but some were intimate (sexual performance, personal hygiene, financial status) whilst others aimed just to be inflammatory (your friends are stupid etc.). The argument followed the course of Sandy raising a point Biker Bill answering, then the two of them would bat it back and forth for while until it was well and truly dead and then Sandy would produce another topic. My fingers were quite sore from all the playing last night and on Thanksgiving Day but I could stop playing otherwise it would be obvious I was listening. Each time the argument seemed to end Sandy would stoke the flames again. Even Alex must have been impressed by how doggedly determined to raise hell she was. But eventually even the most bilious and intelligent of people run out of steam and as she only possessed one of theses qualities after about 40 minutes it seemed safe enough to come out of my room.

They were sat at either end of the enormous curved sofa in statuesque and frozen silence. The fire was cracking and glowing, burning a few good size logs but any heat it was generating was more than compensated icy cold surrounding the biker and his (obviously not a) laydee. I tried to make some small talk and Jeff and Ellie appeared as well. Biker Bill decided to get something from his car and Jeff went with him leaving Sandy with Ellie and me. As soon as the door swung closed behind the two guys Sandy started on us. She told us how tough her life was and how bad Biker Bill was. How unfair his treatment of her was. Ellie and I just tried to stay non-committal and looked embarrassed.

Fortunately Biker Bill and Jeff returned before we were submitted to too much and the time before heading out to our evening meal passed quickly. The three of us normal diners left around 9pm, ate well and returned at 11pm. As we pulled into the drive there was something clearly wrong.
Biker Bill's truck was gone. We entered the house apprehensively but it was empty apart from Alex. They had decided not to remain for the final 12 hours. We had noticed that while we were waiting to go out Sandy had downed a six-pack of beer and judging by the empties around had continued when we left. Later we learned that pretty much as we drove out of the drive they had started another huge argument and Biker Bill had decided he couldn't cope anymore and packed their stuff and they left. I am not sure how he got through the journey home but he did say he'd made her sit in the back

We cleared up a little and I played a few songs but for some reason I went down the Verve/Travis/Radiohead route. I did do 'Why does it always rain on me?' in honour of Matthew and James because after all a log cabin is almost camping and as ever when camping, it was raining again. I guess we were all a little down (well utterly suicidal after doing the Drugs don't work and High and Dry) when we went to our beds. Maybe I need to learn some Madness and Bare Naked Ladies numbers?

Sunday
Sunday was quick and we tidied up and packed and made our way back to Schaumburg with only Alex casting that cloud when we were nearly home and coming close to choking us.

Weekend in the country? Weekend in a reality show!

Any similarity between characters in this story and anybody real is entirely intentional. Most character profiles are either absent or brief due to a need to keep some friends. Names changed not because there were any innocents but I don’t need to be sued.
Remember. If undetected, ignorance can pose a serious health problem to you and those around you.
Lastly.
At 20 you can be pretty & stupid and survive but at 40 you'll just be pretty stupid.

This story is 95% true and there is even a video to accompany it. It all took place in 2001 and I'm glad to say I am still good friends with at least one of the characters in the story (Jeff). I am reminded of it at this time because my wife and I are about to head north for thanksgiving with another couple, their sister and a dog …..

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Bazza

Rue Du Désir

2009-10-31T19:00:00.008-04:00

Although by ten O’clock the late August sun was already high and warm in a spotless blue sky, the nights had been getting cooler; it wouldn’t be long until the harvest. I stopped the old tractor and killed the engine; silence washed into the vacuum left by the rusty motor’s noise. From the driver’s saddle I could look down across the shallow valley at our three large fields of corn. I found myself wondering again how the crop could wash and ripple across the fields even on perfectly still days like this. It can be mesmerizing and the ocean is only broken by the straight narrow strip of the road to St. Martenne. The highway may be a normal two lane road but at this point in the summer the corn crowds to its edges giving the impression of a narrow avenue.

Looking to far end of the road I saw the blue convertible appear. Since the middle of July it had passed by every morning at this time. It is why I too, was here again. The car sped between our fields, parting the golden sea. The fawning corn stands back while it passes only to sweep back to the road once the car has gone. The corn bustles excitedly and rustle-whispers ‘See her? Did you see her?’ And I did see her. She was magnificent. Her fair hair shielded from the wind under a patterned silk headscarf, her eyes hidden behind large lensed sunglasses which, in turn, accentuated majestic high cheekbones. Her lips always had a slight smile playing along them. And her arms were bare and lightly tanned like her face. She looked for the all the world like one of the dames à la mode from my mother’s 1960s Paris Match magazines; the ones that are stacked in low columns around her dark and musty room. But those ladies are faded, distant and dead or dying now, the woman in the convertible was not. She was a like a movie star but just as untouchable even though she was only a fifty meters away.

As she passed I noticed my arm had risen to wave but as always before she either did not see or probably thought it was just part of the swaying crops around her. Then she was gone. My arm fell back to my side while the excited corn returned to a gentle ripple. I exhaled, I seemed to have been holding my breath.

Leaning forward I pressed the large black button that restarted the old tractor. It rattled and shook into life, the noise and the oily smell of the exhaust brought my mind back to the day’s chores. Yes, soon we will harvest and she could not help but see me up here then however, I knew, in my heart, she too would be gone; back to the city and summer would be over.

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Bazza

Rocket Man

2009-10-21T21:06:00.003-04:00

I vividly remember writing this blog. It was on a flight to Denver in February 2008. Yeah, the trip that resulted in the Tibia Trivia fun. In all the excitement I forgot about the blog for ages. Then my editor (or wife, as she is sometimes known) said I was too libelous with some parts. So eventually I cleaned it up a bit and present it to you here.

A few nights ago I was at a karaoke evening and Elton John's Rocket Man was a chosen sing-along. Something has always troubled me about the song and so I paid extra attention as the words scrolled across the screen! Aha! I know what troubled me. It’s a load of crap!

There are two things that most get to me about this song. Working week and raising your kids on Mars.

First the bit about being a rocket man five days a week. You can hardly go home for the weekend Mr. Dwight! You cannot turn the ship around every Wednesday lunchtime because you don’t wanna miss Stars in their Eyes. No, like a sailor (hence why it’s called a ship oh ex-director of Watford FC) you are there for the voyage. That’s bad but the stuff that really bothers me is the stuff about Mars.

According to Reggie, “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids.” Yer think?
“It’s cold as hell.” Excuse my transplanted follicles friend but isn’t hell hot? The nuns at Sunday school said it was. Maybe Dante had a little freezer section for people who die after moving to Boca Raton (probably quite full if my visits to the town are anything to go by) but I believe the general view is ‘hell is hot’.

But here’s the real weird bit. In the next line our height challenged pianist says.
“And there’s no-one there to raise them if you did.” What the heck! Shouldn’t we raise our own kids and where is his spouse? What kind of judge would give custody of kids to a tantrum prone homosexual man living on another planet?

Kinda made me start wondering about his other songs - could he really see Daniel waving goodbye?

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Giving The World Away

2009-08-13T12:02:00.001-04:00

Spud and Moochy arrive Saturday for a visit. It reminded me of an unfinished blog piece from about six months ago. That was in the middle of the longest time we had ever gone without seeing each other. I found the piece and here it is:

The four Rolls Royce engines on the Virgin Airbus A340 decrease in pitch and the plane noticeably slows. Beneath the wings the blue waters of Lake Michigan give way to the flat grid of the north suburbs; a buzz of excitement passes through the cabin as the aircraft banks right to start it’s loop into the airport.

Two thousand feet below, on the back-step of a rented suburban family house, sits a solitary man enjoying the contrast between the warm early May sun on his face with the cool glass of the French doors on his back. He is strumming ‘Kingston Town’ on an old worn guitar. It is not unusual to find him there while the daily Virgin Airbus from London turns over St Charles and follows the broad line of Lake Street into O’Hare.

By the time the airliner gets to him it’s so low it feels as if he can see straight into its oval windows. He fancies again, as so often before, that he can see the big green eyes, round with anticipation, of a small boy's face. That face pressed against the aircraft’s Plexiglas. The guitar quiets in his hands as his soul seems to leave him and fly alongside the aircraft.

All too soon the plane passes and lands moments later. Off stream hopeful business men, excited tourists and home-comers; the latter anxiously scanning the crowded terminal for a familiar face. A squeal, a hug, maybe some tears and flowers. Then they pour form the building in a cloud of excited chatter and heavy cases and fall into the waiting cars; they are back among their own.

Two miles north, on the suburban back-step in the early May sunshine, the solitary man goes back to strumming Kingston Town. Quietly he sings “If I had the whole world I would give it away just to see the boys at play …”

In case you re unfamiliar with the song:

Original Lord Creator Version

UB40 Cover

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Bazza

Faces Royally Flushed

2009-07-17T12:19:00.000-04:00

Moochy is clearly growing up to be a smart kid - I'd never tell him but he's smarter than i was at that age (his brother is no slouch either). I still have my moments too, those these days they're more often 'senior' moments.

So with me and the Moochy's combined brain power you can be forgiven for thinking we never get caught looking really really stupid. Unless you had been in a certain computer games retailer last year.

Me and Mooch were looking for a new game. We wanted a multiplayer game and preferably one that didn't just require fast fingers. We were looking at board and card games when we got to discussing poker.

"You know it's funny," I said to the 14 year old, "you never see multi player poker games for the Playstation."

Moochy looked puzzled too. "You're right, I wonder why?" he mused.

We decided to ask

The guy behind the counter seemed a little bemused at the question; his head tilted to one side, brow creased as he looked from me to Moochy and back again. Finally he said

"Well, you'd be able to see the other person's cards ..."

We left the shop very soon after.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

It's All Lining Up!

2009-07-10T15:46:00.001-04:00

On December 6th 2008 the BBC reported that Sunny von Bulow had passed away after 28 years in a coma. A lot of people, like me, were probably surprised to hear she was not already dead. Sunny von Bulow was of course the wife of Claus von Bulow who was first convicted and later cleared on appeal, of putting her in her coma. The appeal case is quite famously recounted in Alan Dershowitz’s 1986 book Reversal of Fortune or the subsequent film of the same name that had Glenn Close as Sunny and perennial baddy, Jeremy Irons, as Claus. I have always been intrigued by this case and the issues around it.

In stark contrast to the cold atmosphere of the film Reversal of Fortune, the film High Society is a warm, jolly, song filled romp and also features in my top five films. Who can resist Sinatra and Louis Armstrong pretty much playing themselves? Add to that Crosby who, despite being in his 50s by then, playing a playboy protagonist in the marriage of beautiful Grace Kelly. Finally to cap it all you get a fine, if somewhat overshadowed, performance from Celeste Holm. Well did you evah?

So why do I mention these two things? Because they are linked of course. Whilst on a very pleasant, and unseasonably mild, visit to Newport RI in March I discovered that the Sunny von Bulow owned and met her untimely fate in the very house where High Society was filmed. Clarendon Court is a typical (if there is such a thing) Newport mansion. Although High Society was filmed there some fifteen years before the von Bulows took possession it is still a bit a weird.

So there you have it; proof that everything in the universe is connected.

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Bazza

More Medic Snapshots

2009-07-01T19:00:00.017-04:00

Just got back from visiting my mum in hospital in England, I snapped the pictures below:

For those of you who believe what well off and insured US politician say about the NHS should look at the sign in the first picture. See! the it does cater for everything. Gotta say I was sorely tempted to get a handsome man lined up for my mum.

Wonder why the machine is scared ...

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Bazza

News Roundup Last Week of May 09

2009-05-30T20:04:00.007-04:00

I have decided that you, my loyal reader, deserves a break. So to help make your day easier I have distilled the key news headlines from the past week. The news has actually been pretty consistent across US and UK news sources. I have scoured the web, all my tweets, Facebook, my Press Association feed and talked to a couple of drunk blokes in the pub to bring you the most important stories.

Here are the key headlines in order of importance:

Shock!!! Rather unattractive Scottish woman can sing.
Bigger Shock!!! Rather unattractive Scottish woman who can sing, can also swear when under pressure.
Oh BTW. Unstable despot develops & tests nuclear weapons and threatens last remaining bit of world stability. Also some of our soldiers died in some foreign country and thousands of people lost their jobs.
Oh My God You’ll Never Believe This!!! Rather unattractive Scottish woman who can sing and swear doesn’t win pointless TV show. The world will never be the same!

I wonder if Obama, Gordon Brown and the rest of the G20 will step in and order the TV show producers to make Scottish woman (who can sing etc.) winner …?

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Bazza

P.S. don’t get me wrong she does have a great voice and I wish all our talents were judged on their own standing not on whether we are pretty or handsome as well. I just can’t believe all the media feeding frenzy.

Repeat Defenders

2009-05-25T15:47:00.010-04:00

Same thing happened again today (right down to getting trounced at tennis by my wife) but this time I had a camera. The birds were quite far away but yo can clearly see the three smaller birds hassling the larger bird.

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Bazza

Harrier Harried

2009-05-24T21:17:00.007-04:00

I was playing tennis in the high spot of the day. The ground was being bleached by the sun. I was about to hit one of my slap-patters that passes for serve, when a huge shadow shimmered across the court. The shadow was accompanied by the unmistakable shrill echoing call of an eagle. I looked up and saw the huge wings as the bird found a thermal and started circling upwards. It’s not too unusual to see very large birds in our part of Connecticut. Huge Turkey Buzzards are very common. They are easy to distinguish from other birds by the V shape of their wings as the soar. But this was no Turkey Buzzard and that call was just so distinctive. As a boy from South London I did not think I would ever see a real eagle.

Watching it circle upwards I slowly realized something strange was going on. A smaller bird, just a black silhouette against the blue sky but about the size of a Robin, was flying around the Eagle. As I watched the small bird flew underneath the eagle and bam! The bird flew straight into the eagle’s belly. The small bird fell away briefly but then darted to above and behind the bird of prey. Then the smaller bird then flew into the tail feathers of the eagle. The dark shape was joined by another similar bird and both birds continued to harass the magnificent glider. By now they had traveled some distance from us but the small birds did not seem to let up.

I’m sure the smaller birds were protecting their young by forcing the eagle away from wherever the nests were but I gotta admit it was pretty ballsy of them. Sad for me as the eagle seemed to get the message and stayed away. Mind you, that did mean it didn’t have to watch the slaughter that ensued on the court as my wife beat me in virtually every game.

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Bazza

Renault, Toyota and Ferrari are Right to Boycot

2009-05-13T12:13:00.004-04:00

On the BBC Sport website today is th following headline:

"Renault are the latest high-profile team threatening to quit Formula 1 in 2010 unless proposals to adopt a £40m budget cap are shelved. "

Damn right I say! £40m for a hat! I can get one in the mall and have them wrote 'Bitch' on it for less than $10. That's what I'd call a budget cap not £40 bloody million.

Idiots.

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Bazza

Leaves Update

2009-05-13T08:35:00.002-04:00

And this is two weeks later.

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Bazza

Leaves Are Like Buses; None For Ages Then They All Come At Once

2009-04-29T12:34:00.011-04:00

On Saturday, just after Chelsea beat West Ham with a nice goal and a little bit of luck, me and my wife stood outside our house looking at the dark, bare branches of the bushes and trees. It was a warm day and we were about to clean out our garage for the first time in two years.

As we stood looking at rocks we could hear a lot of excited bird song with many different voices calling, cooing and chirping. In the air the insects were starting to appear in numbers and there were even some big black bees loudly buzzing about. However, there were still no buds or leaves on the trees or bushes. How long, we wondered, until the summer green canopy shaded our house again.

That was four days ago and this morning I looked out of the bedroom window to see the bushes and trees had started blooming seemingly overnight. It ain’t Washington DC with the Cherry blossoms, but it’s pretty impressive for four days.

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Bazza

Blog Writer Mysteriously Disappears

2009-04-20T12:39:00.003-04:00

It’s true I did disappear. Thanks to all those who sent insults or encouragement while I was away.

First dispel a few rumours:
1. I have not been abducted by aliens. They were only searching for intelligent life-forms, which ruled me out.
2. I did not die of a heart attack during the Chelsea Liverpool game, though I think I was close.
3. I have not suspended the blog in favour of Twitter or FaceBook.

No, I just got really busy and while I normally get plenty of writing opportunities on my travels this recent lot was not as accommodating.

I will be in full flow soon – you have been warned.

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Bazza

Themed Park

2009-03-26T21:32:00.010-04:00

We haven’t had a ‘silly Connecticut’ story in a while, and I can honestly say I have no idea why I didn’t write this up at the time.

Our local sports team is the Bridgeport Bluefish, a non-affiliated, minor league baseball team. Their only real claim to fame is that their coach is a very renown former lefty pitcher whose deserved reputation was eclipsed by his eponymous surgery - one Tommy John.

Anyway last summer, pre-teenage Spud and his oh-so-teenage brother were staying with us and so we decided an evening at the ballpark would be nice. Next to the ballpark is the Arena, a multi-purpose venue, and this particular evening the WWE was doing its sweaty man dance thing at the Arena while the Bluefish played the Lancaster Barnstormers.

The car-park was more crowded than usual and as we pulled up to the orange vested lady at the gate she said:
“Baseball or Arena?”
“Baseball.” We said.
“Three dollars” said the young lady. I don’t know if it was me, the boys or Christine who actually said it first but we all thought it. So one of us said:
“How much if we were going to the Arena?”
“Oh,” she said, “that’s five dollars”

So I know what your thinking, if you ever go to an event at the Arena in Bridgeport make sure you tell the parking people you’re actually watching baseball. Not so fast! Behind the Arena and the baseball stadium is a ferry terminal which also uses the same car-park and guess what? It’s free!

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Picture from Google Maps

Winter Sweeps Out

2009-03-21T20:36:00.007-04:00

I awoke early, the sky was just turning grey and the thermometer was reading below freezing. By the time the tea had brewed there was a crimson line along horizon. I took my mug and headed down to the back door. I pulled on my old boots and took the red checkered jacket off the hook.

The winter had been long and cold. Round here they mix sand with the road salt. A lot of sand. The floor of the garage crunched underfoot as I lifted the reluctant-to-open overhead door. It was lighter outside now and a few of the houses across the valley seemed to be stirring, a solitary chimney sent a blue smoke trail into the air.

I grabbed the yard brush, its worn handle felt snug against the callouses on my hand. By the time I finished sweeping out the garage the sky was blue and the brass thermometer had inched past the freezing mark. I drained the tea mug, leant the broom against the door frame and listened. So quiet through the winter, the woods that lined the valley, were waking up. The calls of a distant wood pigeon were mixed with the enquiring whistle of the Robin and the piercing call of a thrush. And there, across the woods, was the unmistakable creaking rattle-taps of a woodpecker.

There will probably be a few more nights below freezing, maybe even another inch or two of snow. But the birds know it’s time. The deer that past through one evening last week, they know it’s time. The tulips and the daffodils know it too - it’s been a long cold one this year but winter is clearly leaving even if a but unwillingly.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Some Toilet Humour

2009-03-13T18:00:00.006-04:00

As I mentioned in the note about the bumper sticker, I have been having a significant amount of sinus pain. So much so that me, an ordinary male, was finally motivated to visit a doctor.

While sat in the waiting room looking around I noticed a door with one of those little brown signs on. You know the typical kind of door sign. They're about eight inches long and a couple of inches high and usually brown with white lettering. Generally the signs say things like ‘Authorized Personal Only’ or ‘No Admittance’. I had been kinda staring the door and its sign, unfocused, for a while before realizing what the actually read. it simply said.
PATIENT TOILET
Blimey, I'm glad I know where that one is cos I’d hate to end up sitting on the impatient toilet…

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Bumper Sticker Sets Man Free

2009-02-23T15:22:00.006-05:00

This afternoon I was driving home behind a car with a whole bunch of bumper stickers on it. One particular sticker caught my eye. It read ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body’.

“Bloody brilliant!” I thought. Given the extreme nasal discomfort I’ve been in for the last few months that must mean I have the strongest sinuses, teeth and cranium in the county!

In fact if we extend that thought out a little further. With all the hangovers, motorcycle accidents and rugby injuries I’ve had - I am probably one stubbed toe away from becoming The Hulk (I even look good in Green)!

Wonder why I can’t get the lid off of the sinus tablets then?

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Life In The Stopped Lane

2009-02-16T11:49:00.010-05:00

Some people exert that the word California means something along the lines of “place of milk & Honey.” I have just returned from a trip to Southern California and I ain’t so sure. The lifestyle does seem to be different to here in the Northeast or back in the Midwest. However, I’m not sure that life in Southern California is all that. The working life definitely seems not to be idyllic. I chatted with a bunch of locals during my stay and I found myself getting more and more surprised that anything is achieved in Southern California. This is mostly down to the compromises forced upon them by the traffic.

The workday seems to go something like this:

Get up early to avoid the traffic. Get stuck in traffic. Arrive at work and spend first hour moaning to co-workers about the traffic. Work for one hour. Go out to Starbucks. Work 30 minutes. Go to lunch early to avoid the queues. Come back to work, spend thirty minutes discussing lunch then thirty minutes discussing traffic at lunch. Do an hours work. Spend fifteen minutes watching the traffic on the Internet. Leave early to avoid traffic. Get stuck in traffic. Arrive home. Spend ninety minutes recapping to spouse your day and the traffic. Go to bed early as you want to get up early to avoid the traffic.

Maybe companies should just run large buses equipped with satellite communication that drive from one employees house to the next - never actually arriving at an office just sat around on the Freeway all day ...

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Bogey's Green Legacy

2009-02-07T17:20:00.014-05:00

Later, when everyone had gone out, I tried a little ‘twitching’ on the web. If parrots have established themselves in Surrey then surely it must be all over the news? Not exactly. I did, however, discover that the birds I had seen were Ring Neck Parakeets and one of the more colorful theories for how they come to be in the UK. Namely the assertion that the birds escaped from the film set of The African Queen while it was being filmed at Shepperton Studios in West London. The most informative piece was this four and half year old article on the BBC. The most startling thing in this piece is the estimate that the population is growing at 30% per year – that’s a lot of parrots.

Later that day I caught the bus to Kingston (there’s some wildlife right there). Once there I met up with my kids and took the opportunity to ask my youngest about the parrots.

“Spud, do you ever see Parrots?” I asked, over a coffee in Starbucks. Spud looked up from his cell phone, creased his brow and shot me a sideways glance. He seemed annoyed that I had interrupted him.

“Parrots?” he asked and he turned back to his text messaging.

“Yes parrots. Do you ever see parrots?” I had the beginnings of a horrible feeling of déjà vu., “Parrots, here in Surrey. Do you ever see ‘em?” My only response was the silent movement of his fingers on his cell phone keypad.

“Spud,” I said, a little louder this time causing a few of the other coffee shop patrons to look in our direction, “parrots? Anywhere?”
Spud snapped his cell phone shut and put it on the table between us.

“What is it with you and bloody parrots?” asked the twelve year old.

“Don’t swear,” I said, “I‘m just asking, in case you didn’t hear me the first three times, if you ever see parrots round here?”
His look changed from tired indulgence (I think he learned that from his mother) to one of, well, contempt (also probably from his mother).

“Of course I see parrots. They’re everywhere. And anyway they’re not parrots they’re parakeets”

“Parakeets? What’s the difference?”

“Parakeet is African for small.” He said, but I think he was making that up. “They live in the tree outside our house and in the ones near the football pitch; they make a lot of noise when the ball hits one of their trees. Sometimes I watch them in my geography lesson”

“When you're doing things about Africa?”

“No, in the tree outside the window of the geography hall.”

“Well Spud, maybe you should concentrate on your lesson …” I started to say. I was going to explain to him that when I was a boy there were no parrots, sorry parakeets, in England. But I realised that his attention was back with his cell phone.

So I guess there are now parakeets in living in Surrey. I wonder if parakeets can talk. Bet they say more than a twelve year old boy says.

Later, when I was back in the States, I was telling my mate Jim about the parrots and that they may have escaped from The African Queen. He pointed out it was lucky they weren’t using elephants in that film. I agree. If Pachyderms got into trees by the football pitch god knows how you'd get them out.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The Fox And The Ten Little Piggies

2009-01-29T09:58:00.009-05:00

Seems foxes are really settling into the suburban lifestyle; even bringing into the well tempered gardens of Surrey the kind of behaviour that normally is reserved for behind the white patterned net curtains.

Let me explain, just before Christmas I was in England, staying at my sister’s house in Surrey, I was very intrigued when one morning I opened the curtains and noticed a black object sat in the middle of her, otherwise blemish free, lawn. The object looked about eight inches long and a couple of inches across; it was a glossy wet from the morning dew.

Over breakfast I mentioned the object to my bother-in-law.
“It’s a fox.” he said.
I peered out of the French windows at the black thing; prominent and obvious on the lawn.
“No it’s not,” I said, “it looks like a kid’s training shoe.”
“I know it’s a shoe,” said my brother-in-law, rolling his eyes at my sister as she entered the room and sat down, “The shoe was put there by the fox.”
“What, a real fox?” I asked “Like Basil Brush or Foxy Loxy from Chicken Little?”
My brother-in-law looked momentarily confused. He leaned a little closer into me.
“You do know Basil Brush isn’t real don’t you?” He paused. He seemed to be waiting to see if this was a significant revelation. You know, like the Santa thing. Eventually he continued
“But yes a real fox.”
He went on to explain that on a pretty regular basis a fox, who lives somewhere at the end of the garden, leaves shoes on the lawn, sometimes even digging holes to try and bury the stolen footwear.
“… we are not only the house ‘round here with the problem either.” He finished.

I sipped my tea, my head full of images of foxes moving through the suburban London night like Ninjas stealing shoes from beneath the noses of their owners.

“What happens to the shoes?” I asked.
“We throw them away” He said.
“Why doesn’t the neighborhood get together every few months and have a kinda reverse jumble sale. A chance to repatriate the shoes?” I asked.
“The foxes seem to like the shoes a lot, they lick and chew them like maniacs; I don’t think the owners want them back after that.”

Suddenly the ninja fox view disappeared and was replaced with an image of gangs of foxes roaming the deserted Surrey streets looking for a shoe fix.

“Come on pal I need something! Just a tongue, a lace! Can’t you see I’m in cold Nike!”

Do you think there are fox rehab clinics? Maybe they would be put on insoles which are like shoes but not as strong. Maybe there is a reality show in there? “The real cubs of KT17”

But then a different thought occurred to me, what if it’s not an addiction? What if it is a fetish? Perhaps other foxes looked on those with the shoe fetish as being weird, outcasts. Maybe there were Fox dens where a dog could meet a Vixen in a safe environment surrounded by the beautiful heels of Surrey. An underground foxclub scene …..

I was startled from my musing on Vulpes.vulpes retifism by a loud chattering and I watched bemused as a thirty strong flock of Green Parrots rose from the trees at the end of the garden. Parrots! In Surrey? But that is next week’s blog.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

For a more sensible explanation of urban and suburban foxes see:

http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/Elmbridge%20Borough%20Council/Environmental%20Health/Fox08.pdf

http://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/red_fox.html

And prrof that foxes even steal the shoes of the nobility

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1411208/Yesterday-in-Parliament.html?pageNum=1

The Ice Storm

2009-01-15T12:03:00.004-05:00

It didn’t feel that cold. I mean it was clearly below freezing; my breath was misting and the walkway was glazed in uneven ice, but what I’m trying to say is it looked even colder than it felt. It was unusually quiet; I guess not many people had ventured out yet. The birch tree across the way had turned to glass and was drooping towards the pavement under its new weight; it’s every limb a tube of ice. Nearby a glass skirt of icicle fronds hung from the bumper of my car.

My shoes slithered as I moved towards the car, the icy surface feeling like a tray of marbles beneath me. Mercifully, the car unlocked at the press of the key fob. Setting my feet as best I could I pulled on the driver's door, it opened with a loud crack.

Inside the car it was darker than usual. The heavy icing gave the appearance of frosted glass making it feel like a surreal shower cubicle. I started the engine and waited for the car to start warming up.

Sitting in the frosted cocoon just waiting was pretty dull. I looked at the window next to me, then at the button to make it open, then back at the window and back at the button. Was there any point even trying I wondered? Well, I could always just let go of the button if it didn’t move. What the hell, go on! I pressed the window button and was surprised to see the window beside me descended smoothly leaving a whole pane of ice still intact and in its place.

I looked at the ice pane and admired nature. Then I swung my jacketed forearm towards the ice. As my arm hit the sheet it broke with a sound very like breaking glass. Several large pieces fell onto the frozen tarmac below, tinkling and sparkling as they became a thousand smaller pieces. This was awesome!

For the next two minutes I leapt from window to window inside the car smashing the sheets of ice. The passenger side I punched out with my gloved hands. The back right window was my elbow and forearm and in true Hollywood style I kicked out the last window. Despite a small shock when some of the shards fell into my trousers on that last window, I still found myself grinning like the fool I am.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

How to Keep a New Years Resolution

2009-01-08T19:05:00.001-05:00

I know this time of year is resolution time and many of you have made yours. Me? I generally don’t at this point of the year. However, if you have made a resolution here are some ideas to help you stick to it and achieve your goal. Most of these ideas exist elsewhere either in A- time, Covey’s seven habits or project management techniques but I have found these tips to be helpful.

1. Make sure you really mean it
2. Make the resolution a measurable goal
3. Have a deadline
4. Set a plan to reach the goal by the deadline
5. Tell people and ask them to help

1, Ask yourself how serious you are. Are you prepared to change your behaviour either eating differently, going somewhere regularly or is it just something you feel you ought to do. If you are not serious about changing your habits then you probably don’t mean it. Don’t set yourself up for failure; just tell people you didn’t make a resolution this year.

2. If you did mean it then let’s go. Make your resolution a measurable and achievable goal. For instance if you resolved to eat better you might say the first step is only eat red meat in one meal a week and an oil fish meal once a week. Or if your resolution is to lose weight instead of saying to yourself “I must lose weight”, say “I must lose X pounds”. Remember the goal must be achievable. Ask yourself how confident you are that you can hit the target – if in doubt lower it a little. If you cannot measure your success and don’t see an end goal it is difficult to know how well you are doing.

3. Covey (I think) says that a goal without a deadline is a dream. He is right. So if you want to lose X pounds make it X pounds by the end of August. Or if you want to learn a language set yourself a deadline of a significant event in that language (Cinco de Mayo for instance) to learn 30 words or ten phrases.

4. You have a goal. You have a deadline. Now you need to draw up the plan. A plan should have steps that take you steadily towards the goal. Want to learn Spanish? Then decide how. Maybe January’s plan is buy some software and get past the introduction (Learning languages by rote can be very dry. So you could find a friend who speaks that language and plan a lunch each week were you practice with them). Losing weight? Then plan a set amount to lose by end of January and another amount to lose in February. Also plan your diet method and exercise regime as necessary. Stick to your plan UNLESS it doesn’t work for you. Then revise it ‘til you it does. Plans are great and must be followed but you need to be able to improve them as you go.

Finally number 5. This is a matter of taste. As long as you have done steps 1 – 4 then why not tell people. Nothing like having someone remind when the dessert trolley comes by that cheesecake is a no-no. If however you haven’t gotten to point 4 and are still kicking around item 1 then you might want to keep the resolution to yourself.

I hope this helps you achieve your dreams in 2009 – you will if really want to!

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Even Dogs love Christmas

2008-12-30T08:14:00.007-05:00

Hey!

Back from England with a bag full of oddities. But before I discuss the English Christmas lights, the fetishes of foxes or Parrots Here's that great picture from Nick of Vinny the Dog with Santa.

Have a great New Year!

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Christmas has been Spotted

2008-12-17T20:20:00.009-05:00

So did I find Christmas? Well kinda. As you can see from the picture, on Sunday we met Frosty. A few days earlier, on Friday, my friend Joan sent me a long and beautiful email to remind some of the things I could be doing. The same day Nick sent me a picture of his dog and Santa (I need to ask his permission before I post it). It was sad to see that some of you clearly struggle with Christmas. And also a bit relieving that more than a few of you felt like I did.

But I do know where my Christmas is. And I do know (and probably always did) when my Christmas will start. Christmas is in South-West London. One half still croaky from his first real concert visit and the other half is praying we will land in time to watch him play football. When we walk out of customs in terminal three and they are there, well that’s when it will really start. We might even have time to dash upstairs and see TikiTomb as he departs with his family, for Chicago.

But the tension is getting unbearable as the time to leave gets nearer. There is heavy, heavy snow forecasted for the day we go. Getting to the airport may take longer than the flight. But Christmas will come somehow, even if it’s delayed at JFK for a while. Happy Christmas everyone – I hope you find yours!

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

PS I am also looking forward to meeting many friends in the Black Lion on Tuesday.

WTF happened to Christmas

2008-12-12T16:20:00.006-05:00

I’m from England - we don’t do Grinchs - so I’m left asking what has happened to Christmas this year? Here we are, mid-December, and not a murmur of feeling for it. The shops I’ve been in play Christmas music but there seems no bonhomie to go along with the tunes. I can’t even work out if this void is personal or all pervasive.

Were we put off kilter by the late Thanksgiving and the drive back from Chicago? I have not bought a single present or written one card yet and in a few days it will be too late. In our house is no tree (because we will be away) but we have put up a handful of decorations. Our neighbours seem to be decoratively muted too. So maybe it is pervasive? We have only received one Christmas card so far after all. The people we normally buy gifts for have asked us not to this year and even my boys just want gift vouchers. My wife’s family have also abandoned the grab bag draw, for so long a kick-off-Christmas tradition at the Thanksgiving gathering.

Here in my sweltering office (It’ll be freezing by two O’clock this afternoon) I just tried playing some Christmas songs and still no hint of a feeling.

So I don’t know if it’s me, us, America or the world. Soon we head to the UK and it had better be going on there. I beseech my British friends rise to the challenge; buy your trees, fill the bars with our English drunk:
I see you stand like greyhounds in your slip(per)s,

Straining upon the start. Christmas is afoot:

Follow your (holy) spirit, and upon this charge(card)

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' It’s Christmas!!!!!

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Is Christmas happening for you? Please comment

Look for Some New Features

2008-12-11T21:31:00.005-05:00

This week and next week I am making some changes to the blog. I'm adding some new sidebar items, some new comment features and making a few subtle design alterations.

Hope it makes the blog easier to read and to leave comments/feedback. Let me know if it works for you.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Spud Scores a TKO

2008-12-09T09:38:00.004-05:00

Any parent hopes their children turn out to be smarter than them. In my case it didn’t take long to happen. Spud was around 4 or 5 and had just started taking interest in sport on TV especially WWE/WWF. I detest the wrestling sports entertainment and always have so I was reluctant to let him watch it.

On the day in question we were watching TV together while the rain slapped against the windows, when a commercial for an upcoming WWE event came on.

“Dad can we watch that?” Spud asked.
“No. I hate that stuff.” I said
“Why?” the boy asked.
“It’s just pretending. They’re play acting. They’re not even fighting properly.” I told him.

He scowled but said nothing. I made lunch and we sat with the TV on, half watching half discussing what we should do next. Suddenly the TV announced that up next would be exclusive coverage of the previous night’s Mike Tyson fight, And along with the announcement were some clips of the fight. I moved to turn the TV over when Spud looked up and asked,
“Are they really fighting?
“Yes.” I said
“Great then we can watch THAT instead of WWE!”

All I could hear was the sound of the rain on the window echoing through my head where a response should have been.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Updates

2008-11-26T17:12:00.015-05:00

Sorry for the missing post last week but all creativity got used up writing a six page essay on the ethics of naked short selling. So here is a bunch of updates on previous entries

Gadget Crisis.
In go - go gadgets I discussed my over-stock of gadgets. Well one thing has changed since then. Through a bizarre series of events I found myself selling my 5th Gen iPod a few days before leaving on a trip to England. Despite my promises to cut back on expenditure I couldn’t face the airport/aeroplane routine without an MP3 player and so I took advantage of the moment and bought a 2nd Gen iPod Touch.
Put simply the iPod touch has the best UI of any gadget I have ever had. It does have its problems but I will save comment on those until I have installed V2.2. However, for music, movies and game play the iPod Touch has usurped the Palm already. Now if it only had a GPS chip … More in a few weeks.

Speedy and Sparky
Given the financial issues we are all having I have started to wonder if there is a parallel acorn crisis. Our Tamias striatus friends might have fallen foul of some drop in the fruit and nut index and had their burrows repossessed. I feel this because we have not seen anything of them for a few months now. Of course if Nostradamus is right then the update below maybe why we are not seeing them; they are busy plotting again.

The End of world (new date)
So after my South Korean soothsaying Santé Fe incorrectly announced the end of the world last May, the calendar inside the car has just been quietly and repeatedly counting up from February 0 to February 9 all Summer. Then a month or so ago I noticed it had slipped past the 9th and started up to the 28th or 29th. Then a couple of weeks after that it passed the 29th and now sits proudly on February 42nd. That means the end of world will be held on January 20th 2009. Which is awesome, ‘cos it’s after Christmas but before we have to pay the credit card bills. Party Time people!!!!

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Goldilocks and the Three Books

2008-11-14T10:28:00.010-05:00

We all have to read text books, schoolbooks or manuals sometimes. Most of us don’t enjoy it too much. Over the years I have discovered there are three distinct types of these books

1. Ultra sticky
2. Just right
3. Ultra slippy

Ultra sticky are the ones where each word is so sticky it takes ages to move on to the next word. Typically though, you do retain something. But god! It takes forever.

In ‘Just Right’ books each word holds you up just long enough for it to sink in. reading is fun and you feel better for reading it.

With an Ultra Slippy all the words become one long string and your eyes slide along each line without any hindrance. The words flash beneath your eyes and before you know it you have slid to the end of the line. Often you find yourself having to climb back to the top of the paragraph or even page to try again.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The original version of this was posted to the DePaul student discussion board September 08

Brotherly love and Sisterly affection - Philadelphia

2008-11-06T21:11:00.022-05:00

Last weekend my wife and I went to Philadelphia – here is my stream of consciousness.

Friday Afternoon/evening

It’s great when a city has only one team and they win something – no Yankees/Mets or Sox/Cubs split. The whole town gets happy!
Those steps that Rocky ran up? Piece of cake!
Why are these bars so crowded? (see first note :) ). Yuengling, Great beer!
There’s a lot of homeless people - very like San Francisco
Shut up outside my hotel! I know the Phillies won but it’s four in the morning and I want to sleep now.

Saturday
I’m tired. Weather is beautiful.
Is that street theatre outside Starbucks or are those two fat women gonna have a fight at 10am in the morning.
Does this pub show the Chelsea game? 5-0 :):):) Yuengling.
Tourist time – a walking tour!
Oh god, the guide is in a kilt.
Liberty Bell, where the constitution was written, Ben Franklin’s house, church and grave. Bestsy Ross’s house (why the cat statues?). What do you mean you dressed as a Red Coat and demanded all the tea in the local Starbucks?
That ankle is hurting. Yuengling.
Get to Coldplay! Listen to Coldplay. Get really really close to Coldplay. Yuengling.
Have trouble getting cab – go to pub and it’s full of Texans watching College ball!! Yuengling.
Tonight we sleep Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sunday
Coffee, pack, head out.
Bye philly. Well done Phillies! Oh god! We have to drive through New Jersey and New York
No more Yuengling :(

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Untangling the Crisis - Money 101 from NPR

2008-10-30T16:48:00.005-04:00

Like most of us I am watching the financial crisis unfold. I do feel like I’m walking across the beach after the sea has gone away and looking at all the strange things we couldn’t see before. Things like, naked Short selling, CDS’ and Commercial Paper. I even found myself using the phrase ‘financial instrument’ not so long ago. All the time I wander on this beach, overturning rocks and digging at sand worms with my toes I am aware that it is only here because a disastrous tidal wave is coming.

My first major insight into how the crisis started came in May with an NPR radio show in the series “This American Life”. The show was called The Giant Pool of Money and even though you will have to pay for it now, it will be the best 95c you ever spent. This show, in very simple terms, explains how the mortgage crisis has impacted us and how it came about. This American Life followed up that show in October, with a show called “Another Frightening Show About The Economy”. Again 95cents but this show explains the CDS issue.

One thing in this current financial climate is the amazing speed at which things are happening. Stuff which would previously have headline news for months barely makes it to the front page. At least three high street banks have been bought for pennies. The US government and its people have shares in banks! In a run up to an election! In another time this would have been the hottest topic and would dominate the election for the entire race but now everyone shrugs and seems to accept it.

The last radio show/podcast I want to talk about is NPR’s Planet Money podcast, which is almost a spin off from the two This American Life shows. There have been a few I have really enjoyed and a few that slipped by unnoticed. However one recent show I really liked is this one. The really interesting (to me) part is the interview with the postal worker who wanders around Seattle delivering mail and reading between the lines.

Finally, just remember this: Even as this credit/mortgage crisis unfolds and as the inevitable recession, or even depression, swallows us up, we will still be loved and we will still be able to love others – money isn’t everything.

Hope this helps.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The Soft-dying Day

2008-10-23T16:08:00.002-04:00

I awoke this morning in my southern New England home to the sound of the wind pushing against the house. Outside the sky was a crisp blue. The multi-colour leaves of autumn were lining up like golden sky-divers; waiting for their cue to leap from the trees and then tumble and dance down the hilly road.

The wind breathes excitement and animation outside my window. The heavy foliage of summer stops the hanging green frog from spinning over our deck. But now the fall has come and the cover is thinned, so that you can see patches of sky, the frog spins madly throwing off spirals of reflected light. Speedy, Sparky and their friends that inhabit the grassy bank, are nervous. The sweet smelling autumn wind moves everything and drowns out the normal sounds of safety. The change of air is tangible to them as they stand on their hind legs, twitching and sniffing. The small mammals are obvious now because they are the only stationary things. Ironic that they should be so exposed by the very act that helps keep them safe at other times.

In the front of the house, the verdant green canopy transforms into boney black fingers that point skywards accusingly. “The sky took the leaves, the sky took the leaves.” they say and the sky is guilty as charged.

Later, as I left the house, the wind pushed me urgently from behind as I walked, “Move along, move along. No time to hang around, it is coming.”

And later still, in the car the radio tells me that indeed, snow has fallen in the north already. I am dismayed to realise that it is dark at both the 6.30s that occur in any twenty-four hours.

The wind excites us with its news but it will be gone tomorrow leaving the horrible realisation that the better parts of the year are beyond reach now and soon the heavy cold grey blanket will replace the blue. We will retreat to our homes and burrows. The spiraling green frog will be taken down and stored along with the cheery summer lanterns that line the paths around us. Collect your firewood and admire the last few stubborn leaves then hunker down. Winter isn’t long now.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Title from 'To Autumn' by John Keats

Monsters and Angels

2008-10-16T13:23:00.001-04:00

We haven’t had an embarrassing kid’s story for a while so here is the tale of Moochy and the monster under his bed.

Moochy, my eldest son hated going to bed and never more so than when he felt there was something happening that he was missing out on. In those times he would invent all sorts of reasons for why he could not go to sleep or had to keep getting up. This story takes place on one of those occasions when he was about four.

One beautiful spring evening we were staying at his Grandparent’s house in southwest London, near where me and his mother both lived before moving about 60 miles away. Anyway, we had arranged for some of our old friends to come around and hang out for a while. They were due around 8 and so just before that we put Moochy and his younger brother, Spud, into their pajamas, tucked them into bed and turning out the light, bade them goodnight.

No sooner had the first visitors arrived than a little blond four year old appeared and told us.
“I can’t sleep; there’s a monster under my bed”.

We were used to this. We told him to go back to bed, stop messing around and anyway there are no monsters in his grandmother’s house. He pouted and went back to his bed.
Five minutes later some more friends arrived and The Moochmeister was back out again.
“The monster under my bed is making noise, I’m frightened!”

We smiled, our friends were there after all, and told the itinerant boy that he wasn’t missing anything and that he should go back to bed again. More reluctantly than the first time, he went back to bed.
At this stage we were the first of our group to have children and so we were patiently explaining to all our pals that this was normal behaviour for our son and he wasn’t really scared of anything more than missing a good party. Our friends just smiled indulgently and Moochy appeared yet again.
“The monster under my bed keeps moving. I don’t want to sleep with the monster!” He announced to us all.

I stood up from where I had been sitting. His large Blue eyes filled with fear as he looked up into my face.
“Dammit child! There are no monsters under your bed.” I hissed. The room around us fell silent and Moochy’s eyes started to cry. Everyone was watching the scene.
“B b b but there really is a monster.” He said like Oliver asking for more.
“Here,” I said, snatching up a torch from the sideboard “I’ll show you”.

As expected in the pitch-dark bedroom all was silent except for the quiet breathing of his brother, who clearly did not believe the monster nonsense either. Moochy and I moved to stand between the two old wooden beds. We crouched down on all fours so that we could shine the torch under bed. I pointed the torch into the blackness and clicked it on ….

There were two huge green eyes looking back at me. Under the headboard a hiss issued from a blackness that reached from the floor to bottom of the mattress.
“Holy ****!” I said forgetting about the four year old now trembling and trying to hide behind me.

The blackness suddenly shifted and an enourmous ebony cat launched itself from underneath bed. It leapt the sleeping Spud in a single jump and bolted out the door. I ran after it stubbing my toe on the bed and adding more choice words to Moochy’s education. Back down the hall the immense cat ran and as the last of our friends arrived, it shot past them, through the open doorway and out of the house.

We never saw the cat again, our friends had us down as very improper parents but Moochy seemed to forget most of trauma and only remembered for ages how daddy scared the monster away. Oh yeah, and we never doubted his word again.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The Noisy Islanders

2008-10-09T13:34:00.004-04:00

It was around eight years ago when I arrived in a Chicago suburb to live. I remember a lot of it really well. A few choice songs can transport me back to the feelings of adventure and novelty. Stumbling around a friendly area (especially the Northwest suburbs of Chicago) can be a lot of fun. Committing social faux pas or driving the wrong way around the parking lot. Those people are pretty friendly and tolerant. One of the really novel things I found was that even complete strangers would tell you their political convictions and this being just prior to the 2000 election there were a lot of people telling me what they believed.

When it came to novel ideas here was one. The circles I moved in when I lived around London a persons political beliefs were their own. No-one asked you about yours unless you advertised them. In fact I have friends I have known for nearly forty years and I couldn’t tell you which political party they root for. So having a relative (and sometimes complete) stranger telling you their beliefs felt a bit weird.

Weird definitely, but kind of liberating as well. Here was a nation so young and enthusiastic that people were not hindered by whatever bizarre awkward social unease that bewitched my London friends. I liked it.

That was eight years ago and about 7 years and 11 months ago something became apparent in the political rhetoric of all those people happy to speak of politics. They were unshakeable in their beliefs. In the eight years I have been here I have yet to see a discussion between a Democrat and a Republican where on of them said:
“You have a good point there.”

No, whenever I hear people around me talking about politics, an image comes to mind. Two small islands and atop each island is a person with ear plugs in. They are holding a megaphone to their mouth and shouting at the other person who of course has ear plugs and is just shouting back.

It’s kinda sad really. But I still like the people I am just a little less impressed with their willingness to talk.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Go Go Gadgets

2008-10-02T22:00:00.001-04:00

There is one question my wife asks me regularly which no matter how often I try to explain she still thinks it’s a valid question. That question is:
“Haven’t you got enough gadgets?” What a ridiculous question to ask any man!

But here’s the thing, I do take too many gadgets when I travel (See picture below) so I need you help out there in Blog land

1. BlackBerry
2. 5th gen ipod
3. Palm T/X
4. Samsung quad band
5. Various Power Adapters
6, 7 & 8 USB memory stick, WIFI detector & Bluetooth connecter
9. Fold up Bluetooth keyboard (easier than laptop on planes)
10. Compact speakers.

Between the existing gadgets I can play great puzzle games, write blogs using the blue tooth keyboard, use a full GPS system (with a Bluetooth GPS puck – unshown). I can play music, browse the web, get and send emails, call home from abroad, read eBooks and tether to my laptop for on-the-go laptop internet connection (read it and weep iPhone users).

S0 here is the challenge. I really don’t want to lose any of these abilities. One of the gadgets must be a BlackBerry because of the restrictions from work. Palm doesn’t make handhelds anymore. The iPhone is crippled by AT&T. The iTouch is lacking Bluetooth and decent data entry. So ideally what I need is a two sim card, extensive Bluetooth support, 30 gb, quad band BlackBerry with an iPhone style screen.

Any ideas?

Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Britney Spears and Bill Gates

2008-09-25T16:35:00.007-04:00

You know that famous video on you tube, the one with the tearful girl pleading with everyone else to leave Britney alone? Well I’m wondering if the next Microsoft commercial will be a teary eyed Jerry Seinfield pleading the same for Microsoft. Even I’m feeling a little bit sympathetic. Articles like this are still banging on about Vista.

I have already commented on my Vista experience and as I said it’s not horrible and it’s not unusable it’s just not as good as it should be. A lot of Vista’s problems come from the fact that Microsoft promised so many new features, including a whole new way to manage files, that just never materialized.

Seems Microsoft haven’t learned. I was really angered to see some of the write ups for the next version of windows (Windows 7). The write ups include long long lists of features. It is like Microsoft looked at all the complaints about Vista, even the conflicting ones, and said,

“We’ll fix that.”

And of course when the product arrives, no matter how good, it will be a disappointment again.

Come sob for us to Jerry.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

World Music - Lazy or racist?

2008-09-18T16:06:00.001-04:00

I have a bunch of MP3s and being a bit of a pedant they all have tag information. If I search by genre there a dozens of genres to describe each miniscule subset of rock, electronica, hip hop etc. but when it comes to music from India, Africa or South America it all gets the same genre, ‘World Music’.

You can’t tell me I need 14 different genres with ‘rock’ in them (not including metal and other rock related genres that don’t include the word rock) and yet anywhere outside of Western Europe or North America is just called ‘World Music’. Even Reggae and Soca are called ‘World Music’ in iTunes.

This is lazy but more than that, it is deeply insulting to other forms of music.

Agree?

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

PPPick up a Penguin

2008-09-11T19:00:00.002-04:00

So there I was this morning, drinking my tea, feeling a little bit disaffected and disconnected. I was watching out of the kitchen window as the clouds bumped each other across the sky; the radio was on in the background. I slowly became aware of the music that was playing. By the time the piece ended I felt just a little more in step with this planet and its people. The piece was ‘Prelude and Yodel’ by Penguin Café Orchestra.

Who? I hear you ask. Well if you live in the UK and watch TV or live in the US and listen to NPR I guarantee you will have heard their music. It is used in many commercials, as theme music and as segment link music on radio, the music is impossible to catagorise (though iTunes uses ‘New Age’). It is sometimes whimsical and at other times dramatic. Typically it is woven from a number of simple phrases which combine for a more complex and moving river of sound. Songs will often start out feeling melancholy and end up feeling upbeat and you will realize you don’t know how you the transition happened

The founder of PCO and its main creative force was Simon Jeffes who sadly passed away in 1997 – I don’t know how musical genius is defined but for me PCO does it; elegant, apparently simple, moving and fun.

I’m not linking here to any of the sites that provide 30 second clips because it needs a little more listening than that – go on throw a few units of your local monetary currency and take a risk. I recommend ‘Preludes, Airs & yodels’ or ‘Broadcasting From Home’ for starters.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

More From The Pedant Box

2008-09-08T21:02:00.010-04:00

In 'Pixar need to study Elementary Physics' I introduced you to my pedant box ( things that I am fussy about). I must thank my friend Nancy for sending me this, which forced me to look into the pedant box and pull out two of the things that make me scream (occasionally laugh).

The first is, literally. This word, which has provided deep humor to ‘private eye’ readers for years, still makes me laugh often. My Collins Dictionary defines Literally as: “1. In exact accordance with or limited to the primary or explicit meaning of a word or text. 2. word for word.” Bearing that in mind when dear old Murray Walker announced that:

“… quite literally, I have my heart in my mouth!” It was a kinda gross mental image.

Another example came the other night when watching Fox61 news. The presenter quoted the leader of the Connecticut Democratic Party as saying:

“Joe Lieberman has literally broken my heart.” I wondered when Mr. Lieberman would be arrested for murder.

The second word is, Decimate. To decimate is to reduce by one tenth. (From Latin decimare ‘to take the tenth (decimus) part of anything’). So when the presenter on the Discovery show said:

“…The Chachapoya were decimated by 90%.” It was a mathematical nonsense.

Everyone’s pedant box probably has some of their own, what’s yours?

Bazza

Welcome back Tiki Tomb

2008-08-30T18:41:00.004-04:00

Are warm welcome back to blog land to my friend Tiki Tomb. Head over and check out his musings!

Oh and Tomb? Listening to the White Sox at 1am? At least your body will still accept beer. Try getting to the pub at 7.30am on three consecutive Sundays for the first three Chelsea games (a green plague upon you Setanta!).

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Big Bully Truck maybe not so Tough

2008-08-25T12:26:00.008-04:00

The Hummer press releases tell us how tough and manly the ridiculous SUV is but maybe it's not that tough... A catalog with this advert fell through my door a few days ago.

Does little Hummer need his own tenty then, ahhh didums. My Santa Fe sits outside year round and still predicts the end of the world.

Bazza

Bigfoot? Big Con

2008-08-19T22:04:00.012-04:00

Hot on the tail (tale) of the dog cloning, kidnapping, mormon loving Joyce/Brennan McKinney comes this story. I watched it unfurl with all the excitement a regular 'Monster Quest' watcher (albeit with normal hair) could. I suspect that there is more to come out of this but it is a great story and very very funny.

Here is the BBC’s take on it.

Bazza

Too Good not to be True

2008-08-14T14:00:00.002-04:00

Occasionally during our lifetime, a story will surface which is so outrageous that if a writer had made it up then it would have been universally panned as too implausible. One such story from my teens was of a petite American model that followed a rather burly Mormon chap to Surrey, England, Kidnapped him, tied him up and forced him to have sex with her. When you are a teenage boy you tend to remember stories about models kidnapping men and forcing them to have sex with them!

Well imagine my surprise when not 30 years later, I was driving home listening to NPR and they mentioned her name. A quick check online found this version of the story with its recent additions.

Every paragraph of this tale has a hysterical line but my favorites are the quote from the lawyer’s wife and the quote from detective. Enjoy!!!!

Read Times Online Here

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

I'm on Holiday

2008-08-04T17:14:00.003-04:00

Kicking it back with my sons for a couple of weeks. But I'll be back and ranting second week of August.

Hell is Full of Online Reviewers

2008-07-18T12:02:00.006-04:00

Five categories of online reviewer.

I occasionally buy gadgets or musical things and there is some degree of comfort in researching which item to buy. These days that inevitably means some reading of user reviews. These appear on sites such as online musical supply companies, electronics companies or even Amazon or Buy.com. I have noticed that user reviews seem to fall in 5 categories and 95% or more are written by morons.

Category one: The Honeymooners = ‘Just received it and it’s brilliant!’
This is a very common category. It is only mildly annoying because sometimes the reviewers can be cute; conveying the enthusiasm felt with a new toy. But in all honesty can you really write a review for something within the first hour? Not if it has any sort of complexity.
These people need to learn that nearly everything takes time; go back to your original review after a few months (post honeymoon period) and add some more info. It will be much more valuable.

Category two: The Flamers = ‘This $10 digital camera broke after three months …’
Sometimes criticism of a product or supplier is warranted. Unfortunately however, most of the time these flames merely illustrate that the reviewer is an idiot. Typically because they are trying to use the product for something it wasn’t designed to do or The Flamer has a very unrealistic expectation of a product.
These people (in 90% plus of cases) just make themselves look rude and stupid.

Category Three: The Frustrated Smuggies = ‘People who don’t actually own nor have ever used the product’.
This category bugs the living crap out of me and it is cropping up more and more. It is reviews by people who don’t like the hype around a certain product and so don’t own one. Yet they feel compelled to write about its various features and how everyone who has one is a fool.
Those people need therapy --- Now!

Category Four: The Show off = ‘Geeks/musicians showing off’.
This one really bugs me too. It is typified by the person who buys a gadget and boasts about how they managed to load Linux on it. Another example would be a musician name dropping or hinting about the number of gigs they have etc.
Get over it! Most people with day jobs ain’t got the time - oh and get a girlfriend (it’s a very (young) male dominated area).

Category Five: The Angels = ‘Good reviews’.
I saw one once. It was from someone who had owned the device for three months listed the pros and cons and what they meant in real terms to the average user. The reviewer had spelt its, it’s, there, they’re and their correctly all the way through too. Or maybe I just dreamed it ….

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Narnia and Newton

2008-07-11T08:00:00.009-04:00

Last week I was in Europe and even flew out of Düsseldorf again. I am very proud to say there was no repeat of the incident from last October.

Before going to the Netherlands and Germany I stopped off in London. While I was there I did go to see the newest Narnia film (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) with my two sons; it was kinda fun. The film had the usual religious allusions, which did not get in the way of the enjoying the story. One thing though, all the baddies in the film spoke English but had Spanish accents. These were the only human people in the film (apart from our four little heroes who were very very English). At some point we learned that the baddies had been in Narnia for three generations. But even so, surely they would just speak Spanish to each other? It couldn’t possibly have been a case of using an accent, other than British or American, to mark someone out as a baddie?

*** Pixar Need To Study Elementary Physics ***

Before the film started I did find something that clanged loudly against my ‘pedant box’*. There was a commercial for the upcoming WALL-E film. At the end of the trailer WALL-E is seen moving through space using a fire extinguisher for propulsion. Overall the concept is fine. If you believe Newton’s 3 laws of motion (and if you don't I would love to hear your reasoning), then the extinguisher would exert a force and therefore the robot and extinguisher would move forward (laws one and three see here). So far so good. However, the fire-treatment propelled robot slows down as he moves across the screen. If you understand Newton’s first law then that is complete b*****ks. A body in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by a force such as gravity or resistance. So our automated red tube rider would continue on. He would not slow down as he moved through space as WALL-E does in the trailer.

The only thing that annoys me more is the way space ships or their weapons make a noise in films. Star Wars IV (the first one for us old people) took place almost entirely in space and yet was noisy as all hell! Space is a Vacuum. There is no noise in a vacuum! There’s no carrier.

The trailer for WALL-E can be seen here – the extinguisher bit is at the very end.

*All men and most women have pedant boxes. These consist of details and facts that you cannot abide being misrepresented. My Pedant box is enormous.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

An Unkempt History

2008-07-01T09:00:00.005-04:00

Here is a list of The History Channel’s great programs: Ice Road Truckers – Season One, er er er er well that's about it really.

However, somehow I am attracted back time and time again to watch Monster Quest, UFO hunters and any show that deals with the end of the world (December 21st 2012 according to them but we know different don’t we loyal reader?). Each show is marked by dubious, one sided research, dodgy grainy footage and freaky people who believe in whatever they are investigating. In all the shows I’ve seen not one single episode has ever resolved a mystery. It's great!

One thing does become obvious however when watching these shows. That is that anyone who wants to be known as a sea monster, UFO, ape man or end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it expert one must first eschew any formal form of hairdressing. Not only are these people insane their follicles are mad as well.

So if you want to convince me crop circles are made by UFOs then you need to get to a barbers first.

BTW since we are talking about history. We know the Black Death arrived on a Genoese trading ship into the port of Florence in the early 13th century. We also know plague is carried by black rats and transferred in the fleas who have feasted on infected black rats and then humans. But why didn’t the rats, fleas and all the humans die on the boat in the first place? Therefore alerting the Florantines (he he. I know it’s either Fiorentini or Florentians but I’ve always wanted to use that gag) that a bad thing was on board. And rats die of plague too, so why didn’t they?

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Gods Day Off

2008-06-26T10:00:00.005-04:00

We all know the bible says that God created the earth in six days and on the seventh day he rested. Well lately I have been wondering what did God do on his day off. There are some challenges if you think about it. Maybe his mates came round and said:

“Alright God? Wanna go down the pub?”

“Nah, not really,” says God, “I’m already there.”

“Oh,” say god’s mates “Well do you wanna get a DVD out? Maybe the new Mel Gibson flick?”

“Oh in the name of humankind, no!” exclaims God, “I made the movie, I've seen it, anyway I'm already there. And you know Mel was a bit of an accident. My hand slipped and when I looked down there was Mel and Tom Cruise.” apologetically, God adds, “Sorry about that, lads.”

“For God's sake, God!” say his mates, “This whole omnipresence thing is really boring! Almost as bad as you being all knowing and all seeing”

“I knew you were going to say that” Says God with a straight face, “The all seeing thing is cool though you should see what Lilith is up to today."

Of course my wife, who is much more learned than me, pointed out that the bible actually says that God spent the day admiring his work.
And that in itself is funny because whenever I put up a shelf or a curtain rod and stand there admiring my work; she gives me a hard time. I asked her if god was allowed to take a day to admire his own work why can’t I? She pointed out that actually when I put up a shelf I'm not so much admiring my work as just backing away very slowly.

It would be unfair to print the witty response to that comment that I came with not 20 hours later.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Summer Starts When?

2008-06-19T14:14:00.004-04:00

That same trip to Borders I was looking at an audio book version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time. I was wondering if it was read by some famous actor or would it be that computer voice the whole way through - thus proving his assertion that time does indeed lengthen. Next to the audio books were the journals. Leafing through the journals were two young ladies (I'd guess late teens or very early twenties); one young lady turned to the other and said,

"I want to keep a journal this summer; I think it is going to be a significant one. But you know what? I don't know when summer starts."

Her friend seemed lost for an answer and I caught the eye of the original speaker.

"Summer will start the day you start your journal then." I offered.

The young lady just smiled. It was a smile that said.

"What?"

Oh well.

Bazza

The Grand Tour for Oprah fans

2008-06-19T14:10:00.004-04:00

Back in the 17th and 18th century the privileged offspring of European landed gentry undertook what was known as the ‘grand tour’. The BBC’s excellent In Our Time* describes it as “…The idea was for wealthy young travelers to finish their education with an extensive trip to Europe to experience its natural beauties, its cultural treasures and, if they were lucky, its sexual permissiveness.” This was basically a several months, or occasionally a several years, tour of notable European cultural cities normally ending in Italy. Most historians view the Grand Tour as a general waste of time (though the entry in Wikipedia suggests otherwise). The British Aristocracy was particularly fond of the Grand Tour and a whole tourist trade sprung up to cater to visiting rich kids. As suggested above a lot of the participants behaved exactly as the British tourist would now. Stick anyone from a privileged background on a six month jolly around Europe and guess what? They behaved badly, followed the trail blindly and learnt very little.

I have a very dim view of the Grand Tour and had almost forgotten about it completely until a recent trip to my local Borders. Borders isn’t exactly the highbrow Mecca but it is a still book store. As I stood in the meandering check-out line I looked around and took in all the summer titles that were being heavily featured (pushed). A lot of them were in the form of "How I changed my life" or “Look how unusual my life is”. As I got to the very front of the queue was a large picture of all America's favorite, ever morphing woman: Oprah. Along, with her beaming image was a large tray full of copies of her book of the month. I don’t know exactly what it was but it seemed to be some tome which would allow a reader to experience someone else’s life. That was when I suddenly got an image of all these middle class woman on their own version of the Grand Tour. Those Oprah lovers slavishly following her recommendation and experiencing at a distance someone else’s life while making no change to their own....

But that does the rest of us no harm does it? Probably not but it does have an impact on what does or does not get published. Have you noticed how many of those books there are out there at the moment? To get onto Oprah’s list is to sell millions and millions of books. Surely every publisher wants a piece of that. To a certain extent Oprah has turned the high street (or Mega Mall) book store into the literary equivalent of reality TV.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

*In Our Time, Originally aired 5/30/2002. IOT is well worth a listen most weeks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20020530.shtml
Link for full page and archived show – will need RealPlayer to listen.

Guess Who's Back?

2008-06-14T18:55:00.008-04:00

After the discovery of the chipmunk babies (now called McSparky and McSpeedy though honestly I have no idea who sired them), I felt there was little left to get excited about for the Connecticut summer. However, last Sunday we sat in our sunroom, eating ice cream and watching the dusk close in and we saw a bird like creature flying erratically between the trees. Batty was back!!! Batty was spotted, and named by 13 yr old Moochey, last August. I believe the chiroptera is a Little Brown Bat. I was afraid that due to White Nose Syndrome Batty may not make it back to us but he is and I am very pleased.

Welcome back Batty! Now get those mosquitoes boy.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

More info here:

Four Babies and a Woodpecker

2008-06-06T21:23:00.005-04:00

Standing in the kitchen the morning after the drive back from Chicago, my back and legs ached and my head felt as if all thought was being filtered through a thick piece of cloth. I looked out of the kitchen window at the grassy bank that leads to the road. It was incredible how much had happened out there in a week. We had aimed the car at the sunset nine days before and when we left the three mature trees out the back and the bushes at the front were starting to show signs of leaves. Now, the neighbours downhill and to the front had disappeared behind a wall of green. And looking out to the back the mid Sunday morning sunlight was all but occluded by the green canopy from the trees. The shadows of the leaves allowed only tiny dots of bright light through, I was watching, mesmerized, at how the patterns shifted and changed. Suddenly I noticed two chipmunks quite near to the house and huddled close together. This is unusual as chipmunks tend to be territorial. As I continued to watch a third and then a fourth chipmunk appeared and I realized these were smaller than either Speedy or Sparky. These were four chipmunk babies.

I guess this was a sign of true summer. Breeding season is February to April and gestation is a month while weaning is four to six weeks. Add all that time together and we were definitely at start of summer. Our second spring in Connecticut had had its nature highlights. We spotted two or three blue jays and a very red cardinal has taken up residence in the trees outside the front of the house. We had seen other birds too; a couple of very colourful finches visited for a few days, some swallows arrived and back in early spring I caught sight of a woodpecker that was high up in a tree overlooking the valley. Finally, of course, there are always the common populations of Robins, Sparrows and overhead, Turkey vultures and falcons.

We will see what Mother Nature has for us during the summer – maybe another mountain lion like last year?

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza
PS I discovered the really cool pictures of some chipmunks at the site below.

http://www.pbase.com/cecilg/squirrels_and_chipmunks

Leaving Home and Heading for Home

2008-05-30T19:58:00.006-04:00

We left at ten minutes to nine in the morning. The city took sympathy on us and did its best to let us out painlessly, unlike when we had arrived seven days earlier. There is no other city I have seen where the skyline does so much to define its nature. At times it seems so compact you could imagine it is inside the glass dome of a snow-globe, just waiting to be shaken up.

As we drove down the Kennedy, the monumental buildings increased in size as we passed by their feet, until we got to Sears Tower. Then faster than they had grown they fell away again. The Kennedy became the Dan Ryan and the soullessly named US Cellular Field appeared on our right. After that it was foot down and head for Indiana.

We turned 90 degrees at the bottom of Lake Michigan, the sun shone and the lake was sparkling blue in the distance. We left Illinois via the Chicago Skyway. Sounding futuristic and romantic, the reality is the heavy industrial iron design of the bridge never allows you the feeling that you are on anything more than an interstate. Incredibly we were in Indiana in a little over thirty minutes from leaving the northern suburbs; a journey that has been known to take as much as four hours, though 60 - 90 minute is more normal.

After an hour of driving we had left the black and smoky rail connected buildings that line the Indiana banks of Lake Michigan. The terrain was green and flat. The cold sadistic reality of the mile markers read 30 and reminded us that our friends, family and other comforts were falling further and further behind. Ahead of us another 900 miles of interstate, 700 of which was to be a straight line on one road, I80. In total 14 hours of driving but with nature and food breaks 16 hours of road riding.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

End of the World - Update

2008-05-15T13:00:00.004-04:00

After Saturday I decided to look up the definition of anticlimax.

It said: 'An event, period, or outcome that is strikingly less important or dramatic than expected.'

And given the definition I guess the end of the world not happening could be classed as a bit of an anticlimax. The calendar did roll over to a new number (see picture) which I am assuming means 100. If that is the case then we must assume the end of the world is probably 900 days away. So the apocalypse is officially rescheduled, by my Hyundai, to a new date of October 26th 2010. I'll try and remember to remind you the day before.

Couple of other points.
There a fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims but you never hear of fundamentalist Atheists

Last night on the TV news the new reader said that Ford were recalling thousands of their trucks ‘because of problems with their ho’s’ does Eliot Spitzer have a Ford then?

In professional and school life we are taught there is no such thing as a stupid question. Bollocks!!!! There are tons of ‘em. “Do you want another beer?. “Would you like some chocolate?”, “Do these trousers make me look fat?” and “Do bears poo in the woods?” Are among the first that spring to my mind. Let’s bring some sanity. SOME QUESTIONS ARE STUPID!!!

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Good luck for the End of the World Tomorrow Lunchtime (Central)

2008-05-09T16:19:00.010-04:00

Just checked the calendar in the car and it reads Feb99th so just wanna wish you all the best for tomorrow. I have noticed that the calendar changes at 1pm Eastern so you Brits have got a bit more time whilst the Californians have 'til about 10am.

Anyway enjoy it - I was gonna video the end of the world but I'm not sure I can be bothered.

(Confused? See here and here and here)

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Three Slices of the Long Haul

2008-05-01T22:15:00.006-04:00

This week’s blog is actually three different observations on my recent flight from England to New York.

Airbus A380
Most people who travel by air a lot (especially men) are interested in some way in aircraft. I have loved aeroplanes since my childhood. I may not be able to remember much about my years at primary school (grade school) but I do remember the first time The Concord flew over our house. A few days later the kitchen ceiling in our flat fell down, my mum and dad attributed it to the amazing noise and vibration of the supersonic passenger plane.
Therefore Monday’s flight from London was quite exciting for me. To be exact the taxi from gate to runway at Heathrow was exciting. I was sat in a window seat on the port side of an American Airlines Boeing 777 as we taxied when the pilot drew our attention to the fact we were passing one of the two Singapore Airlines Airbus A380s.
My first impressions were:
‘How many wheels?’
‘How ugly?’
‘It really does look like a Beluga whale,’ and then,
‘It’s huge!!!!’
Unfortunately we took off before it did so I couldn’t see it in flight but I have to say it is a spectacular aircraft despite its sea mammal looks.

If This Is A Film – Then We’re Dead

2008-05-01T22:12:00.003-04:00

Boarding the plane in London it was hard to miss the festive bunting and banners that the crew had placed all around the aircraft. ‘Happy Retirement’ was the theme of the day. Now I don’t know about you but in any film or book you watch or read, when it is someone’s last day, well you know what happens – they die!!!! They never make it. From Catch 22 to Ed McBain, they die.
So when the purser announced it was the final trip of Captain Bob, the pilot, it was all I could do not to scream “We’re doomed. We’re doomed!”

The Time We Stopped Moving and Everyone Forgot About Us

2008-05-01T22:10:00.004-04:00

Somewhere over South Eastern Canada the blue outside my oval window became grey and the plane flew on. On my iPod the Thievery Corporation filled in the aural space with rich, compressed full-range sound. Out of the window I looked upwards and there was grey. I looked back and there was grey. I looked forward and down; grey. And the plane droned on. Thievery Corporation became A Girl Called Eddy, Ivy then Embrace and the plane flew on – still enveloped in grey. The iPod started on Massive Attack and I wondered if we would ever see anything again. What if ATC had forgotten about us and we had no place to land. Would we spend eternity suspended in bleakness? Was this what happened to pilots – they didn’t retire they are just held in an endless holding pattern?
When the New York suburbs did suddenly appear they were alarmingly close and were followed almost instantly by the hatched markings at the start of the runway. The ceiling must have been less than 200 feet.
I hope pilot Bob got home safely or maybe he waited until we all got off, took his Boeing 777 and disappeared back into the grey forever.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Spud's first Cubs Game

2008-04-24T13:01:00.004-04:00

Last ‘my kids’ story for a while – I promise.

Back in 2002 I took Spud to his first major sporting event. It was a Cubs against the Cardinals baseball game at Wrigley Field. Spud had been playing Backyard Baseball, the PC game, for a year or so and knew enough about baseball to follow what was happening on the field.

It was a bright and warm August afternoon as the Spudster and I settled into our seats, which were behind home plate about half way up the second tier. Spud was 6 and had never been to any type of big sporting event before (closest was a single A game the year before). It was a great experience, we did all the things kids love about baseball games. We had cotton candy, soda, peanuts and I even got him the ubiquitous foam claw.

The early innings passed with Spud getting acquainted with the mechanics of a ball game. The peanut throwing, Wrigley’s skanky toilets etc. but we soon settled to watch the actual game. Almost immediately the Cardinals star batter stepped up to the plate. I nudged Spud and said.

“Here’s Albert Pujols, he’s really good. Watch!”

I watched the at bat intensely. Ball, ball, foul, ball, foul, foul, flied out right field.

Only then did I turn to Spud to see how he’d enjoyed the classic Pitcher/batter duel.

Spuds face was bright red, he was gasping for breath and tears were rolling down his face. Fearing he was choking or had been struck by a flying peanut bag I asked,

“Spud what’s up? Are you hurt?”

Through gasps he said, “Pooh holes! His name is Pooh Holes!!!” It took him the rest of the innings to recover. Even now he sniggers when he hears the name.

We won’t be going to any Cub’s games this year not unless they trade Fukudome.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Phrases That Make You Do The Opposite

2008-04-17T11:39:00.007-04:00

In the blog titled 'Least Honest Four words' I talked about phrases that are inherently dishonest. Well how about phrases that make you do the opposite?. Below I’ve listed three of my favourites - along with that real world response. Do you have better ones?

Phrase: “You need to adjust your attitude”
Response: Yeah I’ll adjust my ***ing attitude you <inset expletive>!

Phrase: “Don’t look now but...”
Response: Where? Where? Where?

Phrase: “It’s a secret so keep it to yourself.”
Response: Oh boy! I gotta tell someone.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The Real Reason I had to Leave England

2008-04-10T11:57:00.016-04:00

Every parent has a story of how their children have embarrassed them and here is mine.

Back at the end of the summer in 1996 I lived in a small village in Essex, England. That summer had seen the Olympics in Atlanta, an explosion over the Atlantic of a Paris-bound TWA plane and England were beaten by arch rivals Germany in the Euro 96 semi-finals. Oasis and Blur dominated the UK airwaves. By September 1996 my family consisted of my wife, a two year old boy referred to as Moochy and a six month old who become to be known as Spud. Oh, and a nameless Goldfish too. Moochy was as cute as any two year old ever was. He had a shock of white hair and big blue eyes. Overall he was a pretty happy kid. The only concern we had was that he was having some problems with talking, most of the things he was saying were pretty unintelligible but at least he was trying.

The story takes place one Sunday afternoon. Spud and his mother were both taking an afternoon nap and I decided Moochy and I should do the weekly shopping together. So I strapped the blond two year old into his car seat and we set off for the supermarket which was about 8 miles away from our village. Along the way we listened to some of the latest songs including the Oasis track “Champagne Supernova”. Up front in the driving seat I sang along lustily. “Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a Canon Ball, where were you while we were getting high?” etc. (full lyrics here).

In fact I enjoyed the song so much I played it – and sang along with it – several times.

Unusually for a Sunday afternoon the supermarket was very busy. I placed Moochy in the seat of a shopping cart and we spent a happy half hour wandering the aisles selecting our groceries. Normally Moochy enjoyed the supermarket experience but this particular afternoon he seemed preoccupied. Eventually, we joined the line for the check out with it’s beeping barcode scanning machines and the quiet buzz of conversation from the surrounding queuing shoppers.

Amid this idyllic rural/suburban scene is when Moochy tugged my sleeve to get my attention. He looked up at me from his supermarket trolley seat and asked in the clearest and loudest voice that he had ever used:
“Daddy, where was I while you were getting high?”

Every eye in the store turned on me,
“It’s just the words of a song” I said but the faces of the other shoppers showed no-one believed me. We hurriedly paid and left before the Police arrived ….

Bazza

Picture courtesy of BBC.co.uk who seem to have gotten from Associated Press

Move over Jose, I am the Special One! (Feb 63rd)

2008-04-03T09:54:00.006-04:00

I now realise that I have been chosen by a higher power to bring to you, my loyal readers, some important messages. My destiny is now clear and I will save you all (as long as you send me all your money. And you'd better be quick about it we don’t have long). The only other chosen ones are already in a cave in Russia awaiting the day (I’ll need to set up a virtual cave for us, obviously).

When I first ran into the calendar issue with my Santa Fe I thought little of it but I did write to my local Hyundai dealer in Milford, CT. Last night the service manger finally replied,

"I have had no other coplaints[sic] of this."

So I called Hyundai USA and spoke with Tyler. Tyler opened a problem report but also confirmed that there have been no other reports of this issue.

Therefore, I am left with only one conclusion. I have been singled out by some deity to have a message revealed to me. A bit like Moses or Noah – I hope I don’t have to build a boat though; I’m crap at building things… Lego! I can build stuff out of Lego. So if this god wants me to build an Ark as long as it’s out of Lego we’ll be good. Anyway I digress, as I was saying some greater power has seen that I am to receive this great message. Given the calendar in the car has only two numeric digits the we must assume that when the calendar reaches Feb 99 then something significant will happen – probably the end of the world. These things are always a sign of the end of the world – but it may just be a new iPod or something (Apple’s marketing seems to get everywhere).

Finally, for proof, I Googled Nostradamus (you know the French seer whose predictions are only any use when whatever it is has already happened) and I found this cryptic verse that may be trying to tell me something

Nostradamus said:
In the land that Columb found
In an eastern chariot will come a man profound
Who shall receive the special sign
In month two; day ninety nine

And that chosen one he will be saved
Upon that awful bloody day
The evil rodents shall show their hand
And Speed and Spark will ruin the land

Strange bloke that Nostradamus.

Anyway send me all you money as quick as you can and I’ll see you in the virtual cave.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

April 1st or Feb 61st?

2008-04-02T10:08:00.004-04:00

As you can see my car now believes it is Feb 61st - next update on Feb 99 (May 9th).

Feb 60th

2008-03-31T20:55:00.006-04:00

In Leap years are longer in South Korea I explained about the calender in my car. I suspect that April the 1st it will rectify itself so here is the last picture of Febraury.

Let you know what happens.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The Least Honest Four Words in English

2008-03-24T20:54:00.007-04:00

English is a strange language. A simple phrase where the words seem to mean esteem can actually mean contempt when spoken. There are number of phrases like this and below is the one I hate right now. Feel free to add a comment if you have a favorite of your own.

Today I was walking past a conference room at the office where I work and overheard an aggressive voice saying the phrase. As usual the aggressive voice immediately followed it up with something pretty unpleasant.

Then tonight, the phrase was uttered on TV during a phone-in, the host followed it up by completely rubbishing the callers point. The phrase ...

"With all due respect..."

Whenever I hear it seems to actually mean:

"You are wrong---shut up! You are due no respect"

It is nearly always deeply offensive so if you say it - STOP.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

During leap years February is a little longer in South Korea

2008-03-12T22:17:00.009-04:00

As I described in 2 Green Dots and 28 Green Bars my car has a little green clock. Well those cunning South Korean Hyundai engineers also put in a calendar. On the 12th of March my wife and I were driving back from dinner and she happened to notice the date that was being displayed on the calendar. Seems the Hyundai engineers may have missed something …

Feb 29 + 12 = 41 so at least it is right!

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Sit Down, Be Quiet and Eat Your Poison

2008-03-07T13:30:00.006-05:00

Last week I found myself recounting this story to a bunch of people and being lazy have decided to plagerise myself and reproduce the tale here.

When my sons were around 3 and 4 I used to look after them all weekend and so had to cook meals for them. One Sunday evening I decided to cook fish fingers (Breadcrumb coated fillets of cod - very popular with kids). The children had been playing up all day so were under strict instructions not to leave the table until all their food was eaten.

I served up their dinner and continued cleaning up the house. I checked up on the boys every minute or so but they were not eating.
I told them again, "You will go straight to bed - no story - no TV, unless you eat it all".

After about fifteen minutes I was beginning to get very angry at the lack of consumption, when the 4 year old came and found me in the kitchen.
Like a reverse of the scene from Oliver twist, in a faltering voice said , "Please don't be mad but we've eaten as much as we could, it's just we don't think these should be like this".
He held out a fish finger, which on closer inspection, was slightly burnt on the outside and still frozen solid on the inside.

We went to McDonalds.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Sparky reads the Blog!

2008-03-02T09:46:00.010-05:00

When I first told my eldest son about Speedy and Sparky, the Chipmunks who live on the grass bank outside my kitchen, he said I should be careful as all Chipmunks are evil (the cuteness is just a cover) and they are all plotting to take over the world. The then 12 year old said that Chipmunk's borrows are full clever machines and computers with lots of flashing lights, some of those tape reel things that go round for no reason. I thought he was joking until recently.

Three weeks ago I wrote about not having seen either Speedy or Sparky all winter in 'Missing Speedy and Sparky'. I surmised it was too cold and harsh for them and I even expressed concern about whether they had enough food.

Just after the posting one of those machines, deep below the muddy grass bank, must have whirred into life. Speedy wobbles up to the screen and reads a blog in increasing rage: 'Too harsh? Not enough food?" He screams in a Chipmunk, "I'll show the humans!"

He waits his chance and it occurs the very next weekend. Overnight there is a snowfall of about eight inches - perfect time to prove me worng - up he pops, larger than life and clearly not starving.

<Enter Stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

More Tibia Trivia

2008-02-26T19:13:00.008-05:00

It might be illegal but this morning, using my phone, I snapped this shot of the three X-rays of my wife's ankle. The doctor wasn’t around at the time. The X-rays clearly show the plate and various screws needed to get her ankle back together again.

In image one and two the plate and seven screws holding together the fibula are obvious. Apparently the damage was somewhat greater than the original X-ray showed and so a further screw had to be added between screws 3 & 4 of the plate (counting from the top). That screw is holding the bone together horizontally.

Lastly, all of the images show the two large screws keeping the pieces of the tibia together.

This all stays in place forever now - so wish us luck when we next get to go through an airport.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Tibia Trivia

2008-02-16T12:56:00.010-05:00

The ankle is a joint where the foot meets the leg. It consists of the bones of the leg - the fibula and its larger neighbour the tibia - and the top foot bone part called the talus. The fibula and tibia run between the knee and the ankle. If you were to cause a fracture to the one of these bones anywhere from the knee to about three quarters down, you would be considered as having broken a leg. If the break, in either or both of these fine bones, happens in the general area of the top of the foot then you have broken your ankle. To break either the fibula or tibia is bad, to break both is worse.

This is a picture of a clearly broken fibula and, less obviously broken tibia (it is two images of the same foot). The bones in the X-ray belong to my wife and that is why I now know more about the bone structure of the lower extremities than I did last Friday morning. Those same bones are also the reason I did not post a blog last week.

We were attending the wedding of some good friends out at a ski resort in Colorado. My wife went out a week early to be a helping hand and I flew out Friday morning looking forward to a hug after a tough week, which was spent alone.

Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans for us and on Thursday night dumped a ton of snow in the mountains between Denver and Vail and mixed it up with swirling 60+ MPH winds. Consequently when I landed in Denver the first phone call I got was my wife telling me that a 40 mile stretch of the the I70 was shut. Luckily the next call was from our friends Keith and Marianne who were also waiting for the road to open. After a little bit chris-crossing each other we managed to meet up at the Red Rocks concert venue. From there we went into nearby Morristown for lunch and to wait for the avalanche exploders and snow plows to do their work and reopen the interstate. It was while eating lunch I got the call, from my wife, that started with the phrase:
“I don’t want you to freak out but …”

Fortunately, the road reopened as we finished lunch and my little, two wheel drive, Chevy Cobalt - who’s only saving grace was the aux connector for my iPod, slipped and slid the four thousand vertical feet and forty horizontal miles to my wife and the various pieces of her ankle. Turns out she had slipped in a snow-packed car park and fallen awkwardly.

Wedding was nice but the all the other plans for the weekend were shot. I had sketched out six (yes 6!!) blogs on the plane but did not get time for finishing or posting. We made it back to Connecticut and have since had the ankle plated and pinned

So friends know you know what a tibia and fibula look like and now you know how they can screw up your blog.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Missing Speedy and Sparky

2008-02-03T10:29:00.001-05:00

This morning I sat by the big kitchen window half heartedly picking at a crossword, eating breakfast and looking out at the large grassy bank that runs down to the road. The bank (like so many US banks) is in a poor state. The locals tell me the snow was early this year, then it froze and there have been two or three very heavy rain storms inbewteen it all; so the the bank has taken on a a worn, muddy, threadbare look. As I gazed out the morning frost was being erased by the bright wintry sun and there was a small grey/blue bird perched on the brittle black twigs of a bush but no other sign of life.

I felt like a sailor’s spouse who is constantly drawn to the oceans edge, hopelessly scanning the horizon but knowing it will be weeks before they do catch sight of what they need most.

Last time I saw Speedy and Sparky was towards the end of October. Activity on the grass bank had increased to manic proportions. They seemed to have thrown off the debilitating cloak of caution and could be easily spotted madly dashing here and there as nature rained down manna from the trees. Other chipmunks and a number of grey squirrels had also appeared in this Sciuridae equivalent of Mardi Gras – and then a few days later they were all gone.

I know chipmunks go into torpor in the winter (who doesn’t go into torpor?) but I guess I had hoped it would still allow them the occasional above ground visit. Let’s hope those last few weeks allowed them to stock up enough to get through to late March.

Stay warm

Bazza

You saw a leader - we saw Captain Ray Gun

2008-01-24T20:47:00.002-05:00

As the US goes through its process to pick it’s contestants for November’s presidential election, I am reminded of one of the most striking differences between US and British perceptions: namely Ronald Reagan (or Capt Ray Gun of the doomed Enterprise Starship).

Even before he died in June 2005, I had noticed that, regardless of stated party affiliation, the former president seemed to be highly regarded and loved in the US. Americans credit him with bringing down the Berlin wall and give much credit to him for his method of pulling together the best advisors and making no nonsense demands of those advisors, among many other things.

But his time in power was in the 80s and in the UK this coincided with one of satires most savage periods. I cannot talk for all 59 million people in the UK, however my lasting impression is that the Star Wars president was always portrayed as a bumbling old fool who was merely a mouth piece for the backroom staff. I certainly never gave him any great credit in the downfall of the wall and felt that the fall was caused by the already apparent moderation of Mikhail Gorbachev. My recollection was also that the UK overall took a very dim view of Iran contra scandal and the free Government money to his party contributors*.

So imagine my surprise when I came here to the US still holding the feeling that RR was the puppet from the ‘The Presidents Brain Is Missing’ to find he received the level of respect and downright affection showered on him by all normally only reserved for saints. The American public (well the handful of people I talked to) loved and revered him.

I am not saying the US public is wrong and I’m sure the UK view was at least harsh; I am merely drawing the contrast to the gulf in diverse views.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Governments giving out money (or honours) to people who make donations to party funds - surely never happen in the UK (a-hem).

Suits you sir!

2008-01-20T18:05:00.001-05:00

In his blog 'National Hosiery Obsession' my friend Tom talks of the great dislike of white socks by the other members of his Gym near London and this reminded me of one of the differences I noticed when crossing from the UK to the US – namely office dress code.

Between the UK and the US I did pretty much the same job in pretty much the same environment. The difference was when working in the UK I wore a suit at all times. However, in the US there is a less stringent dress code. It is business casual, basically slacks and a shirt. What difference did it make to my work? None at all! However, it did add another complication in my early residence in this country as I struggled to work out exactly what business casual was (and I am not that convinced I have it even now).

The style of dress not withstanding, the other significant change was that in the UK even people who were disinterested in fashion would update their work suit with high frequency. Double breasted, single breasted, high button, single button, Navy Blue or Olive Green there is a continuous cycle of suit fashion. Here in the US if I had managed to stabilise my waistline, I could still be wearing the same slacks and shirts as five years ago.

So to my terry toweling befuddled friend that explains why there are no white socks in your English gym. They are just very, very, very out of fashion.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The biggest mistake ever

2008-01-17T11:59:00.002-05:00

You don’t get to middle adulthood without making a few mistakes. I have made my share. I’ll always regret the incident with the chocolate milk, the banana and donkey and I still blush when I think of the time I took the Olsen twins to McDonalds

Those were serious mistakes but way and above those outbreaks of stupidity is my decision to buy a PC with Vista on it.
It’s not that Vista is a terrible operating system it’s just underwhelming and irrelevant. Below I have listed the pros and cons that I have personally found since August (compared to Windows 2000 or XP SP2).

Pros.
· Spider Solitaire is much nicer.
· The Volume control mixer has a level for each application not just file type.
· Some of the icons are nicer and browsing folders seems easier
· Er that’s it

Cons
· There was no driver for my printer.
· It’s slow – for the PC it’s on, it’s very slow.
· That Aero interface is pointless.
· The gadgets are inferior to the gadgets available with Google Desktop.
· I still have not been able to use the wireless NIC that came preinstalled (driver issue).
· The security stuff is intrusive.

When I was making the buying decision I was thinking Mac with OS X or PC with Vista and I chose PC because of the software we already owned and I figured being a Microsoft product Vista would become ubiquitous and getting a little early knowledge would help me. The Mac for its part was just plain too expensive. However, upon reflection the cost of the time spent on the wireless card and buying a new printer the Mac would have not been so expensive. I also find it interesting that the take up of Vista does not seem to have been anything like as rapid as I expected. I have yet to come across a business that has moved wholesale to Vista.

On the subject of Macs – I love them! Unfortunately, they have always been just a little more money than I could afford. And if you are following the amusing Mac/PC adverts don’t be fooled. I was a Mac user during the introduction or OS 7 and OS 8 and OS X.0. None of them were as smooth as Apple would have you believe and we still see some incompatibilities between OS X.4 and OS X.5 (leopard). Lastly, also realise that the Mac is just a nice (very very nice) GUI running on a cut down Unix system.

If I had to decide again, knowing what I know now, what would I do? For ease of transition and lack of learning curve - given our budget - we should have gone for XP on the same PC platform. The network cards and printers would all have worked and it would have been faster than that donkey when he saw the banana.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Nothing says I love you like a CD ...

2008-01-08T10:47:00.001-05:00

As mentioned in Musical Mayhem amongst other things, I gave my sons a bunch of CDs this Christmas. Actual physical CDs. Which, when I thought about it, was strange.

Buying and giving real CDs was strange because both of the boys have iPods. In fact the whole family has iPods or other MP3 players. Moreover, all the current digital music devices we have actually represent somewhere between our second and fifth such device (and that is not counting things that are primarily something else but with music ability - such as PCs, Phones, Palm Pilots, PSPs etc.).

Personally, I originally went digital because I was traveling between the US and UK and it was a lot easier to carry 10 MP3 CDS than it was 50 or 60 music CDs. I had my mega expensive 32mb Rio Diamond; that thing would run out of songs before the plane even taxied to the runway but damn it was cool for 1999. Once I had my Rio I pretty much stopped listening to actual CDs. I stopped buying them completely and started buying my music electronically when iTunes and Napster et al got their act together a year or two later.

So being a digital family when the boys received their gifts this past Christmas morning, the first thing they did was rip them to MP3. This enabled them to listen to the songs on their iPods, in my car (it has iPod connector) or from the main music PC in my house. And that was the point that it hit me and I asked myself.

“Why didn't I just buy them the songs on iTunes or Amazon.com in the first place?”

Legal questions aside (and that’s a lifetime of blogs), I guess that it is just that we still need to give something real – something that can be touched, wrapped and unwrapped. I guess computer files are fine for presents to ourselves but when we give a gift to someone that we love it has to feel like it has a value and an MP3 file is not acquainted with the same value yet - even for geeks like me.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Musical Mayhem at Christmas

2008-01-04T12:42:00.001-05:00

I hope you had a good Christmas break and I wish you a happy New Year.

Christmas at our house was excellent because it was my turn to host my two sons. The two boys are 11 (though nearly 12 as he points out) and 13 and they normally live with their mother near London, England.

They are pretty normal for 11 (Nearly 12!) and 13 year olds and into the sort of things you expect (i.e. Mentos and Diet Coke). High up on that list is music and so it should be no surprise that Christmas stockings contained a number of CDs.

CDs make a great a gift for them as unlike Play Station games, PSP games, DVDs or Videos there is no 'region' or NTSC/PAL issues. Remote control cars or other small electronics have problems with 110 volts/220 volts or plug pins so CDs work well as a gift. The only problem was the music or more precisely the contrast.

It’s a small complaint really as I didn't have to deal with deeply offensive gangsta rap or average pop bands. No punk and neither Hannah Montanna, no! I had to deal with one child discovering classic heavy metal and the other into the more mainstream end of Hip Hop. The days after Christmas, around the house and in the car, were a constant bone jarring jump from Led Zeppelin to Jay Z or Guns'N'Roses to Timberland. Now I did my time DJing and at no time in my life have I jumped from ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ into ‘The way I Are’. Don't get me wrong, both are fine just not together. It's like wearing leather trousers with a silk jacket. Could be worse of course and as they get older I'm sure it will. However, it was certainly a test.

Now where is that Aerosmitth/Run DMC track again??

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Mentos and Diet Coke

2007-12-28T13:45:00.001-05:00

Somethings are timeless: Two people trying to get through a door at the sames time, 2 drunks setting the balls on a pool table, Sucking helium and talking, seeing kids accidently hit grown ups in the crutch and of course Mentos and Coke.

2 Green Dots and 28 Green Bars

2007-12-22T08:45:00.001-05:00

My car has a little Green digital clock. My wife’s car has also got a little green digital clock. Both the clocks in both our cars are simple four digit displays and both of our clocks in both of our cars have an additional little green dot to indicate whether is am or pm. So what? I hear you ask. Well it occurred to me some time ago that while I did spend a lot of my years, prior to this year, whooping it up, partying and carrying on etc., I don't think I ever looked at a clock that showed four O'clock and thought to myself

"Wait! Is it four in the morning or four in the afternoon?”

More to the point, anyone so confused as to not know whether it is eight O'clock in the evening or eight O'clock in the morning probably shouldn't be driving a car.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Dog years, cat years and now Connecticut years

2007-12-13T19:18:00.001-05:00

We have dog years (about 7 human years), we have cat years (about 5.5 human years) and now we have Connecticut years (5 Connecticut years equals 100 human years) I’ll explain. About a month after we arrived in Connecticut a huge storm, referred to as a Nor’easter, swept through. With it came 12 hours of incredibly heavy rain. The intensity of the rain was equivalent to the short sharp tropical downbursts that happen in Florida but whereas they typically last an hour this lasted half a day and was pretty cold too. The local rivers all flooded and there was a great concern over the high tide, which coincided with the storms height as well. When all was over many, many properties were damaged or flooded and lakes existed where previously there had just been meadows.

Luckily we escaped without any bad things happening to our house and we were greatly relieved, when walking around the housing complex we live in, to notice no significant ill effects for anyone (even Speedy and Sparky survived, though I was very worried for them). As we passed the condo association office we bumped into the president of our association.

In conversation, and being new to the area, we asked him about the storm. He looked at us gravely and said:

“Oh that was a bad one,” he went on “You know it was a one in every one hundred years storm.”

“Really? Well that’s good then.” we said.

“Yes,” he said, “last time we had a storm like that was five years ago”

So there you have it, in Connecticut 100 yrs = 5 years. Therefore I am 920 years old. Don’t feel so bad about the bi-focals now.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

Ironic – No, I really don’t think so.

2007-12-07T10:56:00.002-05:00

What do you call someone who doesn’t get Irony? American (or Canadian)!
What do Americans think irony is? Something you use on creased clothseys.

Definition: (Merriam Webster’s online dictionary) But basically think of Irony as luck with a twist.

I’m ranting about Irony because of something that really makes me MAD – that is Alanis Morrisette’s song Ironic. If you are unfamiliar with the song let me explain. The lady, who spent the three and half minutes of her first single “You Oughta know’ screaming at me because I was a man, decided to create a song illustrating that life has many unfortunate twists and turns (First error, irony isn’t always bad). I realise I’m not the first to point out some of the songs issue but like I said it bugs me.

The first verse has three examples:
1. A 98 yr old man who won the lottery and then died.

This isn’t ironic. What would be ironic is if he died from a heart attack after being told he’d won the lottery. Otherwise dying is just bad luck

2. Next Alanis tells us Ironic is a ‘Black Fly in your Chardonnay’.

Definitely only bad luck. What could be ironic is if you had spent a month searching for a specific species of Black Fly only to give up and console yourself with a glass of posers wine and there, floating on top, was the very species of black fly you had been fruitlessly searching for.

3. Finally for verse one we get: ‘It's a death row pardon two minutes too late’.

Two things to point out here: 1. It’s just bad luck again and 2. how would you know? Irony would be if you had campaigned your whole adult life to have the death penalty abolished but during a heated debate you accidentally knock over proponent of capital punishment who struck their head on the mock electric chair being used as a prop in the debate. The fallen person dies and you are tried for murder and get put on death row. Finally the federal government outlaws the death penalty but two minutes too late for you – the leading campaigner. That would be ironic.

OK this blog is going on too long but I hope you beginning to see what I’m getting at here. For instance, the chorus talks about ‘rain on your wedding day’. Wedding day rain is only ironic if you are a weather forecaster who forecasted good weather. ‘A free ride when you’ve already paid’ – then it’s not free is it? And ‘good advice you just didn’t take” again bad luck. Only Ironic if you’d taken every piece of advice offered by that person and it had all been wrong and the one piece you ignored was good.

My final complaint is the closing lines include the lyric ‘a little too ironic, don’t you think?’ This implies there are degrees of irony. Which I don’t really think there are, things are either ironic or not.

Sorry Alanis, but maybe if you hadn’t tried to make all men feel like shits in your first song I wouldn’t be so touchy about this now.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

If you want to search for the lyrics please be careful many so called lyric sites are 'honey pots' crammed with malware.

I Am Officially Old!

2007-11-29T17:01:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I had to go to an Optician and he pronounced me ‘officially old’.

Let me explain. I have been finding it harder and harder to see, especially when driving at night. In fact after twilight I see a lot better with no glasses at all (be afraid Connecticut drivers). With this in mind I deduced that I probably needed to get some new, clear, unscratched and unfoggy glasses. And while I was going to the effort of visiting an optician I figured there would be no harm getting my eyes tested at the same time, especially as my arms no longer seem to be long enough to allow me to read properly.

So yesterday I found myself at a major optical store looking into a light held by Dr. Goldstein (or something similar). He seemed a nice enough gent and bade me to follow his pencil light or read various letters on his board etc.. He asked the usual questions, made the usual ums and ahhhs and everything seemed to be progressing quite nicely. We did the nasty puff-in-your-eyeball machine and he still seemed happy with everything. Then, out of the blue and with a staggering casual cruelty, he pronounced me as old! Over the hill, aged, almost an AARP member! I could feel the Christmas gifts of Tartan (plaid) Carpet Slippers and matching hot water bottle lurking in my near future. My descent into Victor Meldrew is almost complete. ‘I don’t belliieeevvee it!’.

Actually what he said was:
“Everything seems to be fine but you’ll need bi-focals.”

And that was it. No sympathy. No cup of tea. No offer of discount on incontinence pants. Nothing.

I broke the news to my much-younger-than-me wife, who luckily (for me anyway) didn’t immediately file for divorce (as far as I know). She did try to defend things by saying it did not mean that I was old but when I challenged her to name one young person who had bi-focals there was a long, long, long silence.

So there you have it I’m old!

Right! I’m off to complain about music from the kids next door and put my foot in hedgehog.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

For those of you who celebrate it ...

2007-11-21T16:41:00.001-05:00

Have a Happy Thanksgiving

Philosophers and Businessmen.

2007-11-15T21:33:00.001-05:00

We often hear the news media refer to someone as a 'businessman' but what exactly is a businessman? We also hear the media refer to philosophers but what is a philosopher and what do THEY do?

Not so long ago, I was listening to an irrelevant news piece on NPR (Publicly funded radio to the Brits). The basic tenet of the story was simple but NPR felt it needed some 'experts' to comment on it. There were two of these learned pundits. One was a professor of technology but the other was introduced to the radio audience as a philosopher. Not professor of philosophy but an actual philosopher. I got to thinking "How did he get that job?" and what type of organisation needs a Philosopher?

How do you get a job as a philosopher? I did look on Monster and Careers.com but couldn't find a single advert for a philosopher. As this was announced as his job then what did he do all day? Who did his appraisal? How do you set criteria for goals for a philosopher?

Right Jenkins as company philosopher we need you to determine 5 new philosophies this year"
"Oh be real! You know we only managed two last year, how am I supposed to come with 3 extra"
OR
"I see. Of course all that is new is in fact old and as philosophy doesn't exist you cannot count them and therefore I may very well done the five by now"
OR
"Let me ask you if a manager sets a goal but no-one bothers to try is it still a goal?"

Enough of Philosophy though there is another job title that I keep hearing on the news media. It is 'businessman'. When a plane crashes some of the dead inevitably hold the job title ‘businessman’. During reports on crime bit-part characters seem to have that job title too. However, I fly a lot (I try to avoid the crime thing) and no one has ever introduced himself or herself to me as a 'businessman'. Indeed what does a businessman do? Presumably business. But a plumber does business and he is referred to as a plumber. A chef dos business but he is a chef. So I got to thinking anyone who worked in an office is a businessman but then I realised in our office we have IT support people, engineers, administrative assistants, managers, salespeople and some marketing people. No one has the job title 'businessman’.

Finally I worked out why no one is called a businessman! Because they are all either dying, victims of crime or in prison. So if you are ever boarding a flight and overhear someone introduce themselves as a businessman RUN.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

BTW I believe the job title is just a lazy dumbed down media term but that is a different rant.

Examples:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7039637.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/7006206.stm
http://www.epistemelinks.com/Main/MainJob.aspx