Ship's Log

Christmas Eve Disconnect

2009-12-24T21:23:18Z

Earlier today I was in the curious position of having to buy a sympathy card on Christmas Eve. The adult son of an elderly couple I know died earlier this week. I only learned of it this morning while catching up on the week's newspapers. Cause of death was not listed, but the fact that he was my age gave me pause. I also felt a deep pain for his parents. To lose a child is every parent's worst nightmare. To do so Christmas week is unthinkably cruel.

I sketched out an itinerary of errands that began at the Hallmark store in Rindge. The center aisle, where the holiday cards were on display, was packed with shoppers presumably ambushed by an unexpected holiday greeting. But I had the other side of the display, where the sympathy cards were located, to myself. My presence there seemed to unnerve new arrivals to the store, as though it served as an unwelcome and untimely reminder of our mortality. This is the time of year to celebrate, to feast, to laugh and sing! And here I was with the bad manners to be browsing through cards dealing with death and loss. They seemed almost to be averting their eyes.

As I tried to find a card bearing a message that wasn't too ornate, overtly religious, or unctiously smarmy yet still spoke my heart, the electronic cacophany of those godawful musical Christmas cards collided with the lugubrious funereal lamentations I was reading.

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la!"

(With deepest sympathy in your hour of loss)

"Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus lane!"

(Just as your loved one is with God, so our thoughts are with you)

"Oh what fun it is to ride on a one-horse open sleigh-yay!"

(To let you know that our prayers are with you and your family)

I found two that spoke what I felt: "So much to say - so hard to find the words", and "Wishing you strength and peace in the days ahead." I went with the second one, concerned that the first might seem a little too much about me. I pushed through the revelers to the counter and handed the card to the cashier.

She took my money, bagged the card, and handed me my change. Then without missing a beat she gave me a big smile and chirped, "Have a great day, and a Merry Christmas!" I wondered if she'd even seen what it was I'd just purchased, or if she were just on autopilot. I smiled back and said "Thanks, same to you," and left the store a little bemused.

Tomorrow I will be laughing, drinking, and dining with my brother and his family, showing off my new 55-250 mm telephoto lens. Ed and Edith will be burying a son. I wish it weren't so. They will no doubt be surrounded by their other children, their grandchildren, and maybe a great-grandchild or two, but there won't be much laughter.

Ed, Edie: I'll drink a toast to you and your son. It's the very least I can do.

Point/Counterpoint

2009-11-22T22:21:37Z

The most disgusting thing happened to me this weekend, so naturally I must share it with the world. I'm pretty frugal with my groceries, avoiding most processed foods and favoring local or generic store brands where feasible. I only allow myself to splurge on a few key items: coffee, for instance. Or olive oil.

I buy imported olive oil in those big rectangular cans that can go for $15 or $20 a pop, because it's worth it to me. To mitigate the inconvenience of pouring from such an unwieldy container, I've kept a smallish glass bottle I bought oil in years ago, and refill it from the big cans. The small bottle sits at eye level for day-to-day use. The large can goes into a below-counter cupboard against an outside wall, where it keeps relatively cool in the winter.

So Saturday night I was cooking something that I felt a dash of good olive oil could only improve, and noticed that it was about time to refill my little glass bottle. So I opened the cupboard where I keep the main supply, and to my dismay saw that the built-in flexible plastic nozzle had been completely gnawed away, leaving an uncovered hole in the can. Further, the perpetrator had left a half-dozen fecal pellets on the lid. And the can was still half-full. Damn.

Now I'm not proud about this next bit, but I actually considered - for about 12 nanoseconds - using the oil anyway. After all, 20 bucks is 20 bucks. I mean, it would be heated in the pan, right? To well over 100 C, right? That should kill any bacteria... Right? But then common sense kicked in. No, of course I can't use the oil. A mouse might have pooped in it, for Christ's sake. With a sigh of resignation I took the can outside and began pouring it out into the dirt.

The oil glugged out merrily for a few seconds, then suddenly stopped to a trickle. I could tell by the weight that a considerable amount of oil remained. I peered down at the top of the upended can and saw something blocking the opening.

OMG, I thought. Is that...?

It was.

It was a mouse. (Presumably THE mouse.)

A dead mouse marinating in my imported olive oil. One whiff assured me he'd been there for several days. I'm not particularly squeamish, but my gag reflex hovered right at the surface, especially when I thought what might have happened had I followed my first impulse and actually cooked with and eaten that rodent's embalming fluid.

It takes a lot to gross me out, but I was totally grossed. Yuck.

And now for something completely different...

I finally seem to have found slideshow-assembly software with most of the features I require. Drag and drop editing. Complete timing control. Synchronized sound. Captioning. It has more transition effects than I'll ever need, and apparently extends the ability to zoom and pan, like those exquisite Ken Burns films. The interface is a little funky at first, but after playing around with it for a day or so, I can knock together a slideshow in about half the time it takes me to use IrfanView (a fine imager nonetheless), with transitions between slides synchronized to events in the music. And it plays back at the same rate regardless of the computer's clock speed.

There are a few things it can't do that I wish it did, the way IrfanView does. For instance, you cannot import or export the image list in a text file. I don't always know which of several competing pieces of music to score a series with, and the only way to really find out is to try each one. It would be nice, once the playback sequence has been established, to save it as text, so I could quickly reassemble the same show with a different soundtrack.

And you can't save the slideshow as a standalone executable, the way you can with IrfanView, the way the review I read insisted you could. You must choose one of several standard movie formats, potentially compromising the slideshows' portability. If you can run an .EXE file, you can view an IrfanView slideshow whether or not you've got IrfanView installed. The new software requires the viewer to have a media player. For now I'm holding my nose and saving my slideshows as .WMV files for that godawful Microsoft Media Player, because most people have that.

But for the most part I'm happy with my purchase, and I'm psyched to start displaying my photos with the elan I'd envisioned when taking them.!

The Vision Thing

2009-10-18T19:59:30Z

A few weeks ago I began experiencing an odd disturbance in the vision of my right eye. It started off as a kind of flickering in the upper right periphery whenever I moved the eyeball within its socket - never when I held the eye fixed and turned my head. But if I panned from right to left, I'd see this flickering in the corner of my vision.

It was at the end of a long workday (12 hrs or so), and I chalked it up to fatigue. It was present the next morning, but much less pronounced, so I thought that was the end of it.

But over the next several days, it came back. It seemed to wax and wane in severity, and change its character. Now when it happens, it's as if a large floater in my eyeball sweeps rapidly across my field of view, not quite obscuring my vision, but flashing translucently by. At other times, the vision is just filmy, as though looking through a gossamer-thin sheet of waxed paper. Blinking sometimes clears it up. Sometimes not.

I have one of those home medical advisor books, the first few hundred pages of which are devoted to flowcharts for self-diagnosis. When the weekend rolled around and I was still bothered by the symptoms, I had a look. Here's where following the yes-no trail led me:

"Have you had a recent head injury?"

(No)

"Have you suddenly lost some or all of the field of vision in one or both eyes?"

(No)

"Has your vision become blurred?"

(Not sure what they mean by blurred - let's tentatively say Yes)

"Is only one eye affected?"

(Yes)

"Is the eye painful?"

(No)

CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN WITHOUT DELAY! YOU MAY HAVE RETINAL DETACHMENT!

(Yikes! No blurriness, nope, none at all!)

"Have you developed double vision?"

(No)

"Have you been seeing flashing lights and/or floating spots?"

(Yes)

CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN WITHOUT DELAY! YOU MAY HAVE RETINAL DETACHMENT!

Holy crap, a detached retina! This was scary, but since this was a weekend, and I couldn't be sure if this were a medical emergency or not, I waited antsily until Monday before calling my doc to set up an appointment. I also declared a moratorium on researching the disorder - I was frightened enough, I didn't need to know more when there wasn't anything I could do about it.

When I called my physician, my expectation was that he'd schedule an appointment for a few days out, and that would be that. Instead, I was asked if I could get there within the hour.

I did, but a cursory examination by the Physician's Assistant revealed no signs of detachment, which was a relief. Still, there was enough concern to schedule an appointment with an ophthamologist later that same week. Here's the dilly:

The retina is the light-sensitive wallpaper lining the inside of the eyeball. When it starts to peel away, there is a progressive - and permanent - loss of vision.

The space inside the eyeball is filled with a gel called the vitreous humor. This gel isn't free-floating, but physically bonded to the outer surface of the retina. As we age (and I'm crowding Six-Oh hard), the gel can shrink, pulling away from the retina as it does. This is called (deep breath) "posterior vitreous detachment", and this is what is disrupting my vision. Instead of rotating in lock-step with my eyeball, blobs of this gel are flapping and folding over where it's broken loose, creating the floaters and disturbances I've been seeing. Once it's completely detached, the symptoms should disappear.

However, until it does, I'm at elevated risk for a full-blown retinal detachment, because the gel tugs at the retina each time I move my eye. So for the next few months I've got to see the ophthamologist every week or so to make sure the retina doesn't start to tear. If it does, surgical intervention will be necessary. So I ain't out of the woods yet.

Writer's Block: Most memorable concert

2009-09-27T14:13:13Z

What was the most memorable concert you ever attended? What made it so magical?

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I saw John McLaughlin play (with drummer Dennis Chambers and organist/trumpeter Joey Defrancesco) at UMass several years ago. It was memorable for me because McLaughlin had been one of my guitar heroes since his Mahavishnu days back in the 1970s. It was a curious sensation awkwardly waiting in line amidst strangers half my age, overhearing them earnestly discussing my LP collection, much of which had been recorded before they were even born. (It was from a student from India that I learned the correct pronunciation of "Shakti" - with a broad -a- as in "bah", and emphasis on the final syllable.) A number of them were apparently student musicians, there to admire McLaughlin's technical brilliance as much as his artistry.

It was open seating in the concert hall, and I rather amazingly found an aisle seat in the 4th row. I settled in, waiting for things to begin. Here's what I said about it in my journal at the time:

The house lights dimmed, the canned music faded, and the audience burst into applause. The black backdrop behind the stage moved, and a figure, still in shadows, stepped out, carrying a guitar, on which he began to strum improvised chords, shifting, changing, abstract yet subtly melodic, and he stepped forward into the light.

There he was!

Longish salt-and-pepper hair fashionably swept back; dark brown shirt with light tan pants and matching vest; and a dark red hollow-body wireless electric guitar. The long, pointed, English nose; the broad, not-quite lantern jaw; but now Animated, not just a scuffed photo on the back of an album cover. He seemed to be having trouble with a slight cough. He casually strode to his side of the stage, not thirty feet away, playing his guitar, while the organist and drummer took their places.

McLaughlin abruptly shifted gears and launched into a dark, choppy blues vamp, and he eyed the drummer as he hit the distortion pedal. Chambers picked it up and began pounding hard, as only he can, and the two of them skittered off playing a hard, acid-jazz-funk, bewilderingly complex and delightfully visceral all at once.

Chambers seemed to have attracted his own following, and after his first, brief solo, about a dozen kids in the front row stood up, whooping, circling their fists in the air over their heads for a few seconds before sitting back down. The drummer glanced at them with a bemused expression on his face, and acknowledged their kudos with a quick nod of thanks. McLaughlin, unobtrusively vamping on the opposite side of the stage at the time, also noticed the display; and at the end of the number, he made it a point to re-introduce the drummer to the audience. It was a nice touch, I thought, bespeaking a modest generosity and a willingness to share the glory.

The organist was a doughy, baby-faced young man I was unfamiliar with, but he played a nicely soulful line with rapid-fire arpeggios fitting of Mahavishnu. McLaughlin turned his back to us to keep eye contact with him during his solo, and kept him in motion by stroking dark chords from his guitar.

It was wonderful!

They played only one song I recognized, "The Wall Must Fall" from Mahavishnu's final (1987) album. It's a great jazz tune, with ample opportunity for rock-blues soloing; and they did a great job with it, so abstracting the theme that it was several minutes before I recognized it. The organist, in particular, soared here.

Immediately at the beginning of the second set it was clear that something was wrong. The organist had begun to play, and I could hear him just fine, but he looked startled, reached over to the amp and twiddled something, and started over. McLaughlin, who'd opened up the set by playing a long, introspective chordal solo, looked around, and DeFrancesco mouthed, "I can't hear anything". A technician ran out on stage, hunched over as if he thought we wouldn't be able to see him, and opened up the back of the amp. McLaughlin rolled his eyes and kept playing, but it was starting to get distracting, especially when the organist left his place and got down on his hands and knees to hold a flashlight so the tech could solder. Chambers looked embarassed, and his playing lacked conviction. Finally, McLaughlin began to sing, "I've got 10 seconds to go/let's get it fixed!", and actually stopped playing and started to walk offstage. The audience laughed a little nervously, but DeFrancesco grabbed McLaughlin by the arm and spoke briefly with him. The organist sat back down, McLaughlin returned to the spotlight, and they took off again, a little distracted at first; but they made it up to us!

McLaughlin has always seemed to favor strong drummers (Billy Cobham, Mike Walden, and Danny Gottlieb with Mahavishnu; Tony Williams with Lifetime; Zakir Hussaine and Trilok Gurtu with Shakti and other world-music outings), and Chambers was a perfect choice for him. Throughout the rest of the set, they maintained eye contact, grinning and mugging, challenging one another to top each provocative riff, continually raising the ante. Chambers plays in bold, primary colors, and while he's perfectly capable of playing a cool, straightahead jazz 4/4, he's at his best hammering out the kind of jagged, loping funk that worked so well on Scofield's "Dirty Rice". McLaughlin was clearly loving it, but seemed to be having a little trouble with his left hand. I wondered if that was the one he'd injured several years earlier. Yet he still managed to fling out a good, five-minute cadenza, the distortion pedal flat to the stage, and the audience screamed and whooped in excitement. There was one kid in front of me on the opposite side of the aisle who must have been partly responsible for the rank, cumin-like odor I'd noticed while in line outside: he held his head, doubled up in a near-fetal position, then thrashed and bobbed in his enthusiasm. I laughed aloud: this might have been the first REAL music this kid was hearing, and he was hearing it fresh, unpasteurized, unhomogenized, and from a man old enough to be his grandfather.

McLaughlin finished with his characteristic clanging, dissonant power chord, and the drummer, who'd been burning just hot enough to keep McLaughlin aflame, slowed down, then started kicking out yet another riff. He fixed McLaughlin with a sly, sardonic grin which McLaughlin returned, shaking his head as if to say "I can't! I can't do another one!". He gestured to to DeFrancesco, who then ran with it for a while. McLaughlin walked to the far side of the stage and sat down for a well-deserved rest break.

At any rate, the three of them riffed, bouncing ideas off one another for 2 hours more, long after the set was supposed to have ended. Whether it was to make up for the set's uneven start or whether they just really got into it doesn't matter; it meant an evening of pure, distilled improvisation for the rest of us, and was one of the most satisfying musical experiences it's ever been my privilege to enjoy. The obligatory curtain call was a gentle, playful duet between McLaughlin and DeFrancesco, on trumpet this time, recalling the guitarist's recurring gig with Miles; and it ended with the two of them walking together offstage, still playing, as if arm in arm. A perfect dessert, sweet yet light!

All this for nine bucks!

Writer's Block: Unlikely Benefactor

2009-08-10T02:53:02Z

Congratulations! You won a million dollars but you have to give it all away. How will you distribute the money?

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Well, let's see. My mother is pretty well set. My daughter is poised in her career to take off. I guess the question is, Who in my Most Most Humble Opinion needs the money most? A number of options come to mind:

My alma mater. The University of New Hampshire can always use the cash. The physics center was pretty run-down when I matriculated, sure would love to see some high-tech labs in Demeritt Hall!

The Fitzwilliam Fire & Rescue Squad: These gals/guys ROCK. They get up in the middle of the night to face God-knows-what kind of emergency in town, and deserve our funding. (They've given me two ambulance rides in the last 10 years...) They'd get a big piece of my inheritance.

The Salvation Army. I don't adhere to their religious claptrap, but they do good work with the destitute. They'd get some money.

The Nature Conservancy. Probably I'd give to a local subsidiary, like the Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests - but I give to them anyway.

Whatever.

Writer's Block: Crystal Ball

2009-08-01T20:41:27Z

All of August stretches before us today—what is your prediction for this month's weirdest or most unexpected news story?

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"GOP Rallies Behind Dems' Healthcare Plan"

"Bin Laden Captured"

"Stock Market in Unprecedented Bull Run"

"North Korea Opens Dialogue With the West"

"Study Finds Exercise Harmful, Bacon Good For You"

"Microsoft to End Obsolesence of Operating Systems, to Concentrate on Support and Enhancements"

"Harvard to Award Sarah Palin Honorary Degree"

"NTSB Presses to Mandate Cell Phone Use, Texting, While Driving"

"MacDonald's Announces Introduction of New 'Healthy Alternatives' Menu"

Back to TACAN

2009-07-26T17:32:22Z

So I went back here, armed with camera this time. (I went unarmed on my first visit.) The weather was similar to that on that earlier trip - maybe a little cooler & drier.

I showed the pictures to a friend in the know who verified that it is, in fact, a TACAN installation: Tactical Air Navigation, or something like that. It's an omnidirectional beacon operating at a specific channel that aircraft can tune in to, and get some idea from its bearing where they are.

It was surrounded by a dozen or so of what looked like rural mailboxes, all oriented tangentially to the circle their positions defined.

They were active devices, if the power cables feeding each are any indication. I don't know a lot about the technology involved, but my guess is that they're power sensors. The beacon itself is likely constructed of a number of directional radiators all arranged back to back in a circle. In order to ensure that they're all broadcasting at the same frequency with the same power (so the beacon is equally "bright" from all directions), each sensor would detect the output of one of the radiators and report back into a central controller. If any radiator started to drift in frequency or sag (or surge) in power, its sensor would notify the main control unit to make whatever adjustments might be needed to compensate.

I dunno, sounds reasonable. But don't quote me.

Likewise, the steel mesh might just serve as a passive reflector, to bounce any downward signal back up, capturing what would otherwise be lost. If anybody seeing this happens to know anything about TACAN, please feel free to post a comment.

Here's the gallery - just 14 images in all.

Also went back here, maybe for the last time. The first floor ceilings have all collapsed, and the structure is now little more than a box whose four sides are on the verge of collapsing outward. It looked too dangerous even to approach. No strange phenomena this time. No new pictures worth keeping.

The End of Days

2009-07-03T16:15:45Z

What in the name of all that's holy is THAT?

That great, flaming orb in the firmament?

Is it Apollo racing his fiery chariot across the sky?

Is it one of Thor's firebolts hurled our way in petulance?

Is it divine punishment for our myriad sins?

Is it a visitation from somewhere Beyond?

Or is it... is it the "Sun", that awful being the elders' tall tales claim once graced the heavens, bringing light and warmth to the land? Weren't all their wild stories mere legend? The foolish prattle of the old, just so much nonsense and superstitious rubbish meant to impress and frighten us?

AIEEEEE! Great Helios, I bow down before thee, averting my unworthy eyes from thy fearful countenance...

Later that same day...

One day while screwing around with Google maps, I discovered this feature not 10 miles from my house. It sits surrounded by deep woods atop a hill at the end of a dirt road off a dirt road off a narrow, sinuous, two-lane state road.

WTF? I said to myself. The name of the dirt road terminating at the object was evocative enough: Governor Jet Signal Road. I assumed this was some kind of aviation navigation facility or maybe a satellite signalling station, run by the Feds. It's proximity and potentially exotic nature intrigued me.

So last weekend, in a light, steady drizzle (such as we've had nearly every day for a frickin' month, now), I took a drive over that way to reconnoiter, in the event that the rains might someday stop. Sure enough, I found the Dirt Road blocked by an unmarked gate off the Other Dirt Road, with nary a sign warning away any Googlers curious enough to shut off their computers and venture out into nonvirtual space.

I thought that a good strategy if one did not wish to attract undue attention to potential trespassers like myself.

I also found a place to park that was far enough from the gate to be discrete, close enough to be an easy walk; and that WTF part B was a string of phone poles heading directly up the hill. Though a shorter walk, the road itself was just about a mile in length and easier traveling, so I decided against following the phone lines.

So when the cloud cover finally broke today and the air began to freshen, I decided an expedition was in order. With the car keys in hand, I contemplated the camera bag hanging from the closet doorknob, then decided against it. The facility was unlikely to be manned, but it could be watched over by security cams. The last thing I wanted was a video of me prowling around a remote government installation with a camera. I hear Gitmo isn't very nice this time of year.

I made the 20-minute drive, parked & locked the car, and set out. Though the humidity was lifting, the woods smelled damp and earthy, and the breeze shook out rain caught by the canopy overhead. In short order I reached the road. The gate was about 50 feet in.

I noticed a hand-painted sign in the ditch just to my left: "PRIVATE DO NOT ENTER". I thought it unlikely that a government installation would put up a hand-painted sign, but I decided that I hadn't seen the thing anyway. I pressed on and stooped to pass under the gate.

As I proceeded up the hill, I noticed something rather odd. Every hundred feet or so, there were wooden posts driven into the ground on either side of the road, with reflectors fastened to their sides. Atop each post, someone had carefully placed a single stone.

Now my imagination set to work, and started gnawing at my self-confidence. What if this weren't a government installation after all? What if it were a marijuana farm, or some weird religious cult who'd cleared out the circular patch as a signal to invite UFOs to land, or to call Yog-Sothoth down from the stars? I found myself avoiding the softer areas of the road in favor of the harder more firmly packed gravel to minimize the clarity of my bootprints, and stopping every so often to listen.

When the road turned from its easterly track and veered north, it started getting steep, and I knew revelation was at hand. I passed the phone line just as it reached the hilltop, and observed that the poles did not continue, but that here the lines went underground. A government installation seemed more likely, then.

Which a few more steps corroborated. A small, rectangular, vinyl-clad shed, with a silent air-conditioner protruding from a back wall next to a couple of doors labeled "Government Property - No Trespassing". Beyond the building, a wooden stairway, unfinished and weathered gray, ascended about 10 feet of rock ledge to a vertical aerial of some kind, and a white, ultramodern obelisk. Signs posted nearby proclaimed this to be a site run by the FAA for purposes of air traffic control, and that any damage to the equipment it contained could contribute to the loss of life. I took this to be in the nature of a warning, and not a threat.

However when I climbed the stairs to approach the obelisk, I made out stenciled lettering on its side warning me not to approach any closer than 150 feet. Unsure about the effects of terahertz radiation on my body, I thought it wise to comply.

Anyway - curiosity satisfied, I returned to the bottom of the hill. The walk back seemed much shorter than the walk up. It seemed to warrant a return trip - with the camera.

Forty days and forty nights...

2009-07-02T13:38:39Z

So far this summer, the weather here in New England has been absolutely beastly. We haven't seen the sun in weeks. Throughout the entire month of June, it rained every fucking day - maybe only for an hour at a stretch, but just enough to ensure that nothing ever dries out, ever. The vernal pool next door should be dry by this time of year. It's near overflowing. The grass in my yard is knee-high. My mildew gardens are thriving. People's moods are as ugly and homicidal as they are during mud season at the end of a vicious, nasty winter. Even as I write this, rain is hammering on the skylight over my head, savagely trying to claw its way inside. The month of July owes us big time, but it's not off to a very promising start.

So here it is, the first day of a 4-day weekend, and I'm glumly looking outside at the leaden skies and the sodden greenery pressing like some kind of creeping mold against what little yard I've got. I've got photos I'd like to take. On a recent visit to one of Winchendon's crumbling machine shops, I bumped into a curious passer-by who happened to be the town manager. When I told him how I'd sell a kidney to get inside, he laughed and assured me all I had to do was knock if there happened to be a red pickup truck parked nearby - the caretaker would be more than happy to give me a tour. The prospect of spending an afternoon chasing the light through such a place is exciting, but with no sun to illuminate the interior, there wouldn't be enough light to chase.

There's an old factory building in Athol I think I know the way inside, but it involves approaching through the brush surrounding it, and it's too damned cold to get that wet.

So what I'm doing instead is looking back over what I've already shot. I've taken well over 3,000 photos in the two years I've had the camera, and so eager was I to get started that I never bothered tagging my images at download time. I found it taking longer and longer to paw back through my archive for a particular image, and couldn't figure out how to use the software that came with the camera to tag after the fact. So I wrote a little app to use in conjunction with IrfanView (a free image editor I can't rave about enough!) to create an Excel spreadsheet linking a description of each image to the image itself. Once I had built up that database, I wrote another app for whenever I download a fresh batch, to query for and append a description for each new image, assuring that the database will remain up to date. Finally, I wrote a little search engine (presently in beta) to search the database for an image based on keywords. If the description contains any of the three words in line 1 AND any of the three in line 2 AND any of the three in line 3, then that image's file/pathname is displayed. It looks like it's going to become a killer app!

And I've been experimenting with black & white renderings. Again using IrfanView, I convert to grayscale, enhance the contrast, then reduce the color depth to four: black, white, and two shades of gray. The results are interesting...

...but I'm not sure where it's going to lead. I guess that's why it's called experimentation.

Here's what I've done so far:

Writer's Block: Environmental Confession

2009-06-28T21:04:00Z

'Fess up: What do you do that's bad for the environment?

Sponsored by One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco.

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Exhale.

the dream melody

2009-06-12T21:38:40Z

So I've been listening to a lot of never-before-issued Miles Davis from the vaults of Columbia, including "The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions." This stuff got Miles inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (posthumously) in 2006. Miles' MO at the time was to start tape rolling the minute the musicians assembled in the studio, then start running through the various motifs he'd sketched out beforehand. They didn't record "songs" - just riffs and jams around certain chord changes or rhythmic structures Miles wanted to explore. They ranged in length anywhere from a few dozen seconds to over fifteen minutes or more. It was then up to Teo Macero, the producer, to edit, mix, and splice the best of all this work into a whole that could be packaged on two (or sometimes four) 20-minute sides of vinyl.

Anyway, there's some kick-ass stuff here. Guitarist John McLaughlin proved to be about as close to a collaborator as Miles ever had - Miles even changed his style of playing to mimic McLaughlin's slashing guitar lines. There's a wonderful moment at the end of a riff called "Duran" (take #4), on which the guitarist has just laid down a second overdubbed track, ending with a particularly nasty, distorted, dissonant power chord. Before the clanging has even reverberated away, Miles chuckles appreciatively into a nearby mike, "That's some raunchy shit, John!"

Some of this music has been previously released, used to assemble parts of "Tribute to Jack Johnson" and "Big Fun". Several appeared in the double LP (what we quaintly called "a four-sider" back then) "Live-Evil". The bulk of this LP was recorded live in a Washington DC club called The Cellar Door, but bits from the "Jack Johnson" studio sessions were used as well, in particular the first 80 seconds or so of a jam called "Honky Tonk." This fragment was used as bridge connecting the opening live jam ("Sivad") with a relatively quiet passage recorded later during the concert.

Now: several years ago (many, in fact) I had a dream in which I'm playing this LP, and while looking over the liner notes I discover a pocket in the sleeve with a 3rd disk, one whose existence I'd never suspected! I excitedly replace what I'm playing on the turntable with this disk, and it turns out to contain an alternate version of "Sivad", one in which the bridge seques instead into a fantastic, classic blues riff. As it is with dreams, the melody dissolved upon awakening, but I've always remembered the dream with some fondness, with a sense of "if only".

So you can imagine my astonished delight (mingled with a few goose bumps unrelated to pleasure) when "Honky Tonk" sequed into that very blues riff. The first 80 seconds were familiar (though out of context without the concert footage preceeding it) - but the blues riff was eerily familiar as well! Is this an example of convergent evolution? Of clairvoyance? Astral projection? Am I a musical savant without realizing it, did I logically reconstruct the remainder of the tune from the first 80 seconds?

Beats me. But it's a great tune, and I can't tell you how glad I am that it finally came home.

Writer's Block: Places to Lay Your Head

2009-05-26T11:35:04Z

How many different places (cities, houses, apartments, dorm rooms, etc.) have you lived in? Which is your favorite? And your least favorite?

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I've lived in the same house now for 30 years, but prior to that moved around a lot. Born in Springfield, MA (USA), moved to Cleveland OH, then to the Cleveland suburb of Eastlake, back to Springfield, to East Longmeadow MA, thence to Longmeadow, thence to Cornish NH (USA), to Walpole NH, to Westmoreland NH...

Four years at the University of New Hampshire, four separate dorm rooms; to an apartment in Keene NH, and finally to my digs now.

While I didn't technically live there, I spent an awful lot of time in Ann Arbor MI (USA) with a woman I met out there...

I obviously must love where I live now or I would have moved by now, but the house in Walpole has special memories for me - two secret rooms, incidentally cut off from hallways and entryways by construction additions. The house in Westmoreland was special, too, for its location, surrounding by rolling pastureland.

Dormitory life, however, is not something I'd ever want to experience again. I'd volunteer for waterboarding before moving back into a dorm.

Writer's Block: Sweet Tooth

2009-04-12T14:01:11Z

What is your favorite holiday-specific candy or treat?

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Every Christmas Eve I enjoy a nip or two of Napoleon Brandy. It's expensive, but it's lasted for years, and it ages well!

Writer's Block: Deal or No Deal

2009-03-05T12:28:13Z

What's on your list of dealbreakers when it comes to romantic relationships?

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The biggies include

* smoking
* dislike of children or animals
* stupidity (not to be confused with simple ignorance)
* game-playing

There are others, I'm sure. Smoking will kill it for me even before it starts, but sometimes you have to dance a few numbers before the others manifest themselves.

Writer's Block: AKA

2009-02-27T12:14:07Z

What's the story behind your username?

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"Lesnyk" is a Russian word for "forest ranger", lit., someone who lives in the woods. That be me.

Writer's Block: DIY

2009-01-23T12:42:05Z

MacGyver, hero of the tv show with the same name, is known for his resourceful use of ordinary household items to get out of an emergency situation. What's the most ingenious solution you've ever come up with in a pinch?

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When I was a kid, I jury-rigged an intruder alarm for my bedroom out of a spring-type clothespin, an old doorbell, lampcord, and a couple of batteries.

More recently, I've used my belt as an impromptu dog leash, and shaving cream as a molding compound to find out just where my door latch was hitting the striker plate.

Note to all would-be improvisers: WIRE-TIES!

Writer's Block: Resolved

2009-01-01T14:10:01Z

A lot of resolutions, from the mundane to the truly ambitious, are being made today. What are your New Year's resolutions? Do you think you're likely to stick to them past the month of January?

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I hereby resolve in 2009:

* only to use my superpowers for the good of mankind
* never to let lutefisk, mastodon, or bat's milk pass my lips
* never to dispose of my spent nuclear fuel rods in the local water supply
* never, ever, to vote republican
* limit my ballistic missile testing to the daylight hours
* not to declare war on any sovereign state
* to burn my copy of the Necronomicon and refrain from further experiments in reanimating the dead

The year's only a few hours old, but so far I'm off to a pretty good start.

Writer's Block: Long Nights, Short Poems

2008-12-21T21:30:19Z

It's the winter solstice in the Northern hemisphere, summer solstice in the Southern hemisphere, and Haiku Day in the U.S. Does that inspire you to write a three-line poem with five syllables in the first and last lines and seven in the middle line?

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Most contemporary English haiku has foregone the strict adherence to the 5-7-5 structure. My understanding is that the Japanese sound-units (onji) the count refers to are only approximately analogous to English syllables. I prefer a terser 4-6-4 or even 3-5-3 syllable count - when I bother counting syllables at all. The point isn't to get an exact 17, 14, or 11 syllables, but to portray a verbal snapshot with the fewest number of words, to wit:

moonlit woods
so cold the snow squeaks
underfoot

christmas bells
the mailman's tire chains
caroling

birdseed enough
until
the evening grosbeaks

christmas eve
i sit at home alone
writing haiku

holiday treat
my once-a-year glass of
napoleon brandy

Writer's Block: What Kind of Wonderful?

2008-12-20T18:03:20Z

A lot of people love the film It's a Wonderful Life. Some people find it to be not so wonderful. Do you have a favorite holiday-themed movie? And if so, what is it?

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Gotta be "The Trailer Park Boys' Christmas Special"!

The New England Ice Storm of 2008

2008-12-19T21:14:06Z

I sit here at my desk, sipping a piping hot cup of green tea while Mr Cat dozes contentedly on the couch. I'm comfortably clad in a bulky knit sweater, dockers, & slippers. Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" is spinning on the CD player while my 3rd load of laundry is spinning down in the cellar. Snow is gently falling outside. We could get up to 10" tonight, but it's going to be cold, so we're talking 10" of powder, not the heart-attack inducing stuff. Hard to believe that barely 12 hours ago it was 25 degrees in here (that's F, not C), and that the power had been off for over a week...

Prologue – Thursday, December 11

A major winter storm blew into New England today, bringing sleet, freezing rain, snow, & ice - what the manicured TV meteorologists euphemistically call "a wintry mix". The rain had begun to freeze on the roads by the time I left work, but on a scale of 0 to 9 (0 being a warm July day and 9 a nightmarish drive on smooth, solid ice slickened by rain), the driving conditions rated maybe a 2 or 3. Nothing a seasoned New England driver with a modicum of common sense couldn't easily handle. I got home only a few minutes later than usual, greeted the cat, and prepared our respective evening meals. I'd put in for Friday as a vacation day, and went to bed contentedly looking forward to a three-day weekend.

But sometime during the night the storm turned ugly. While the rain picked up, the temperature held steady at around 30 degrees, with the result that ice began rapidly accumulating on the trees. Every once in a while some would break loose and clatter onto the roof with sufficient clamor to partially rouse me. I've been having problems with red squirrels invading the attic again this year, and the sounds were not unlike those of the nocturnal battles between them and the cat; but the stalwart hunter lay sleeping at my feet.

A loud crash fully awoke me at one point. I looked towards the clock on the nightstand, but the power had gone out. I arose, groped for a flashlight, and stepped out to investigate. The analog clock on the oven had stopped at ten past midnight. I made my way to the living room, and played the light over the louvered door of an unfinished closet in which gaps in the sheetrock provide access to the spaces between the walls. I keep a stepstool propped against this door to keep out the cat (an inveterate door-opener). He had knocked it down on one other occasion, and I had assumed that the crash that woke me was a repeat performance. But the stool was still in place. As I cast the beam around the living room - already getting chilly - ice and other debris rattled on the skylight overhead, and the rain itself seemed to surge in waves. A little uneasy, I returned to bed.

The crashes and thumps continued throughout the night. Every so often the cat ventured from his place at the foot of the bed to alternately investigate or take refuge in the cellar. I hovered at the edge of sleep, occasionally dozing between bouts of apprehensive listening. During one of the latter, a crash like no other shook the house. The cat leaped off the bed and fled down the basement steps. I jumped out of bed and flicked on the flashlight.

Not knowing what I'd find, I returned to the living room. Nothing appeared to be out of order. I flicked the light up towards the skylight. A layer of sleet had accumulated on the outside, but no water was coming in. I shone the light through the window lights into the sunroom. The debris from the recent reconstruction still lay on the floor, but I saw nothing untoward - until I moved the light to the right.

A pool of water was streaming from the direction of the wood stove like blood from a freshly-slaughtered carcass.

I opened the door and was struck simultaneously by the sound of dripping water and the scent of fresh pine. I looked up. "Jesus Fucking Christ..."

Like the point of a javelin, a five-foot length of white pine, freshly stripped of its branches, jutted down from the ceiling. Water poured in around it through the jagged exit wound in the sheetrock, while pink tufts of insulation hung down like bits of flesh.

"Fuck!" I repeated. "God fucking dammit!"

I'd struggled with water damage the year before, and had vowed Never Again. Barely two months ago I'd replaced the entire roof. Now, nearly $18K later, I was right back at square one. "Son of a fucking bitch!"

I stared aghast at the carnage, unsure what to do, gradually coming to the realization that there was nothing I could do at that moment. I quietly shut the door and went back to bed, where I lay as close to tears as I've been since Holly packed her bags.

An indeterminate amount of time later, another loud crash propelled me out of bed, but I could find no evidence of what had caused it. I nervously poked my head outside and panned the light across my brand-new old car, but apart from a layer of sleet, it was untouched. I returned to bed, more to keep warm than to sleep, and restlessly lay there until wan gray daylight began trickling through the bedroom windows.

Day 1 - Friday, December 12

(R.I.P., Bettie Page: 1923-2008. We'll miss you, Babe.)

By the time it was light enough to navigate through the house without the flashlight, the rain had slowed to a misty drizzle, but the damage was far from over. Every few minutes a sharp crack like a gunshot reverberated through the woods, followed by a brittle rustling marking the passage of a broken limb plummeting to the forest floor to land with a crash. I quickly dressed and poked my head outside. Ice and twigs rained down from above in an almost continuous stream, and the ominously bowed trees overhead gave me pause. The fragrance of freshly-cut pine was incongruously pleasant. When, to my right another limb gave way with a rifle-like crack and crashed to the ground, I decided it would be wise to fetch my hardhat (even though it would do little more than preserve my dental work for the coroner in the event something the size of what had punctured my roof chose to land on me.)

I discovered the source of at least one of the lesser crashes I'd heard during this Kristallnacht - a treetop had snapped off and landed next to the house, its limbs slapping against the clapboards in its final throes. It had missed the spare car by several feet, and now occupied one of the parking slots. Its neighbors were all stooped under their load of ice, and looked like they could give way at any moment.

I thought it wise to avoid walking around that side of the house and ventured out back along the east side instead. From the back, I saw what had happened to the roof.

The top ten feet or so of a tall, slender white pine had snapped off and fallen, point first, into the roof. As it penetrated, the horizontal branches all sheared off until they were too too thick to do so, stopping the spear's descent. Five feet of treetop protruded upside down from the roof like an arrow from the ribs of a fallen buck. "Fuck," I said once again (thank God for that general-purpose epithet!), this time with more awe than shock.

My usual M.O. during any kind of storm-related outtage is to reconnoiter the neighborhood to assess the extent and severity of the damage. If such a survey suggests that power might reasonably be restored within 48 hours, I'll tough it out and stay home. I've got a wood stove, an ample supply of canned goods, a 5-gallon jerry can, and I'm only a mile from a lake full of water suitable for flushing. I picked my way back to the front of the house, swept the already-melting sleet from the car, and set out down the driveway. But once I pushed through the hemlock boughs hanging down almost to the ground, I stopped dead. A large tree limb across the end of the driveway blocked my way.

I got out and managed to wrestle it far enough to one side for me to venture out onto the road; but an even larger one lay across the road a few hundred feet to the west, right in front of Penny's. I stopped and gave it a few futile tugs before turning around. Maybe I could escape by the back way.

But that way was blocked as well, and I could see at least two other obstructions further down the hill. It appeared I wasn't going anywhere just yet. This was starting to look even more serious than I’d supposed.

I returned to my driveway and walked up to the tree in front of Penny's house. I was trying to kick some of the side limbs from it when I heard her hail me. She was bundled up outside in her yard taking stock of her own damage. I waved and started her way until I heard a car door slam behind me. I turned. Our mutual neighbor was trudging through the muddy slush to the obstruction - with a chain saw in his hands. I decided to help him instead and waited for him to arrive. In a few minutes, we had cut a notch wide enough for a single vehicle to pass through. Penny joined us and helped haul the last few bits of loose debris off to the side of the road. "Isn't this exciting?" she enthused.

"Exciting," I repeated. "I suppose it is, though that's not the first adjective that comes to my mind."

She laughed. "Why don't you come in and have a cup of tea?"

I thought a spot of tea might help smooth over my jagged nerve-ends, so I took her up on it. She descended to the basement where her wood stove simmered and returned with two teacups filled with hot water. She handed me one and pointed to a bowl on the table filled with tea bags. I took one and settled into one of her kitchen chairs. "How about a pumpkin muffin?" she offered. "You shouldn't go outside on a day like this without breakfast."

I smiled and nodded. "Thanks," I said. "Tea and a muffin sounds pretty good." She jumped to her feet, pulled a foil-wrapped muffin from her refrigerator and disappeared back into the basement. "It'll take a few minutes to warm up on the stove," she said as she shuffled back upstairs.

We sat and swapped stories about the stormy night, and when she stood to retrieve my muffin I gestured for her to sit down and clumped downstairs to fetch it myself. It was still cold on the inside, but it went down easily, especially when washed down with another cup of tea.

A knock on the door some time later interrupted our chat. Two of the town's volunteer firemen stood there in their yellow waterproof jackets. "We finally punched a hole down here to you guys," one of them said. "We had a group from the Depot working in, and Charlie led a group from this end working out. We met by the lake. We need to get Warren out," referring to another of our neighbors, a first responder. "He can't get out."

"I'll help," I said, pulling on my coat and sodden gloves. "Thanks for breakfast, Penny. Stay warm."

I followed the firemen's SUV on foot down to Warren's house, just beyond my own in the direction opposite Penny’s. I thought they’d meant that his driveway was blocked, and they needed to cut their way through, but the path was relatively clear. However an 8-inch diameter pine lay across the bed of his pickup truck, pinning it to the ground like an eland whose back has been broken by a lion. Warren stood next to it looking tired and chagrined. "Holy shit," I exclaimed. "You too!" And I shared my roof story.

"Looks like we’ve both got something to give the insurance companies to think about," he said.

"Looks like," I agreed.

Since there was no immediate work for me to do after all, I stood idly off to one side while Warren collected a few items and tossed them into the back of the SUV before climbing in and heading off to the firehouse with his comrades. I slogged back up the hill to my place and decided it was time to try to brave the roads again myself.

Just from the limited view of the devastation I'd seen, and from the description the firemen had given, it was obvious even then that there was little chance of restoring power within the 48-hour time frame I usually allow; so I packed an overnight bag, checked that the cat had plenty of water and kibble, and locked up. I headed out once more, swerved past the obstruction I'd helped clear, and slalomed my way down the road and up the hill. At the top I had to roll over a large-ish branch left behind by the cursory cleanup. It scraped and thumped against the undercarriage. The steering wheel yanked to the left, and fought me as I veered around the curve. "Now what?" I muttered. I could hear something scraping against the road, and the car's performance seemed sluggish. I pushed it to the boat landing where it was wide enough to pull off the road, stepped out, and crouched to look under the car.

The branch, maybe six-feet long and some three inches in diameter, had wedged itself under the central exhaust hanger. Its narrow end was jamm somewhere into the left front wheel. I was barely able to reach it, and when I gave it a tug I might just as well have been tugging on the axle. "Shit!" I exploded. This was not to be one of my better days.

I managed to cover the 20 miles or so to Keene dodging and weaving downed trees, phone and power lines, as well as a few abandoned cars. I saw no evidence of artificial lights in the Depot, nor in the Village, nor in Troy. It wasn't until I descended from the hills into the ancient lake bed now home to Keene that I saw lights, specifically at the dealership at which I'd bought the car a few weeks earlier. I pulled in and parked by their service entrance.

I told the scheduler behind the desk about the log I was dragging around, and without batting an eye she directed me to drive inside. Within minutes the car was on a lift, and since the lad wielding the air wrench happened also to be from Fitzwilliam, he seemed all too happy to lend assistance to a neighbor in distress. It only took him a few seconds to remove the hanger, and a few seconds longer to wrestle the log free of the front wheel. He cast a practiced eye across the undercarriage. "Looks okay," he proclaimed, & I sighed with relief. We marveled at how the spinning driveshaft had polished a flat on one side of the branch, and he lowered the car to the floor. I reached for my wallet and asked the girl if she'd gotten the work order yet. She just shook her head and smiled. "On the house," she said.

From there I drove to the office. I needed to call, in order: my daughter (too see if she were okay); Bergeron Construction (to see what they could do about the hole in the roof); my insurance company (to see what THEY could do about the hole in my roof); and my mother (whom I knew to be okay, living here in Keene, and to tell her about the hole in my roof). I spent the rest of the morning wasting my coworkers' time telling them of my experiences, though it appeared that the storm was pretty much central on everyone else's mind as well.

My next order of business was to find some place to crash for the duration of the outtage; but every place in Keene was already booked solid by refugees flooding in from the hill towns surrounding the city. No room at the inn. I'd heard no news that day, so perhaps I could be excused for my naive assumption that points further south of me would have received less damage. I knew of a few motor lodges north of the city, but thought my chances would be better in some of the towns in northern Massachusetts. Ha ha, I crack myself up.

Once south of the state line, I began to suspect the folly of my decision: downed power lines obstructed Route 12, the main north-south artery here, and Winchendon, the first town I passed through, was dead. Not just the outlying areas - downtown itself was dark. With dusk falling, I began wondering just how long and far I'd be driving before finding a place to camp.

I continued south on 12 from Winchendon to 140, from which I got onto Route 2 (the northernmost east-west artery in Mass.). I headed west, almost immediately passing the small city of Gardner. Had I not known it was there, I never would have guessed that I was passing within spitting distance of the downtown district of a city of 21,000. It was as black as the surrounding night. Templeton, Phillipston, Athol, Orange... all dark. The only lights I saw were those from the oncoming highway traffic. It wasn't until I started dropping from the highlands into the Connecticut River valley that the power grid started showing signs of life. I eventually reached I-91 in Greenfield. Not wishing to commute to Keene from this distance, I got onto the interstate and plied north.

I got off at the first exit in Vermont, where I found Brattleboro to be fully lit. I pulled into an Econolodge which, mirabile dictu, still had a vacancy. (A vacancy, I said.) A single room with but one bed, non-smoking, with its own bathroom, cable tv (more than I have at home!), microwave (ditto!), mini-fridge, coffee maker, and the requisite Gideon bible, within walking distance of a Price Chopper and a couple of pizzerias, all for (with my AARP discount) $60 a night.

It seemed as good a spot as any to pitch my tent.

Day 2 – Saturday, December 13

As is my wont, I slept poorly that first night, beset as I was by unfamiliar sounds, shadows, smells, and sensations. At around 11 pm, I’d heard trucks backing up to one of my windows, accompanied by the revving of engines, shouting, and heavy metal blaring from the cabs. Great, I thought. Rowdy neighbors. Remembering dormitory life, I wondered if I was going to be a quiet enclave amidst a colony of party animals. But the noise subsided within 10 or 15 minutes, and I managed to drift off to a restless sleep. At around 6:00 I rose to pee, and on my way back to bed parted the curtains to peek outside.

A half-dozen bucket trucks were parked side by side, their articulating arms primly folded against the frames. My neighbors, apparently, were also my saviors, whose long, grueling hours rendered them unlikely to party wildly into the night. If they made a little noise coming into harbor, well, so be it.

In contrast to the day before, the day was cold and bright. I returned to Keene to attend to a number of items. One, I wanted to call my daughter again. I’d only gotten her voicemail the day before, and I needed to hear from her that she was all right. This time I got through, and although she was without power, and her town (in the words of their police chief) “looked like a bomb had gone off”, she was warm and dry for the moment.

Two, I needed to find lodging for Mr. Cat. The most promising option was Cheshire Veterinary Clinic, although they closed at 1:00, and I wasn’t sure I could get to my house and back by then. My daughter had offered to take him in; but we’d have to meet in Gardner for the hand-off, and meet in Gardner again when my power finally came back on. Since he was originally her cat, I was also a little wary of mutual re-bonding. At the last minute, an idea occurred that turned out to offer the best of all worlds.

I stopped at the Humane Society and asked if I could leave my cat with them until the outtage came to an end. The woman I asked (a rather harried-looking volunteer) stared at me and replied, “You know, we never even thought of that.” She retreated to a back room and emerged a few minutes later with a big smile. “Bring him in,” she cheerfully offered. “As long as you supply the food, he can stay for free.”

Free being good, I agreed to this, thinking that a $50 donation at the end of the ordeal would not only help them out and express my gratitude, it would be significantly less than what Cheshire Veterinary was charging.

From there it was back home, where the indoor thermometer registered 32 degrees. It was now about 3:00, sunlight still streaming in through the living room’s west windows, but casting ever-lengthening shadows. Remarkably, the construction crew had already come and gone. They’d removed the lance from the roof and installed a temporary patch. I needed more clothes and something to read, so while there was still sufficient light I collected these items. Then I opened all the taps and flushed the toilets. When the water stopped running I descended to the basement and opened the drain valve, catching the remaining residual water in the pipes in an old plastic dishpan. I threw the breakers for the hot water heater, the water pump, and the furnace before throwing the main. I ascended the stairs and sat on the couch. The cat jumped up and flopped down next to me, pressing against my leg. When I stroked his side he flipped over onto his back to expose his belly. I gave him a few good rubs, and for the first time in days he began to purr.

“What do you say, Mr. Cat,” I said. “Time to abandon this ship.” I pushed up off the couch and crossed the floor to where his carrier has been collecting dust since his arrival. I bent down and opened the door.

I realized then I’d left my glasses on the bedroom dresser so I went back to get them. I grabbed his bag of kibble and a few cans of tuna, and for good measure I picked up the envelope with his medical records. Thus armed I returned to the living room where I paused at the entry.

In the months he's been with me, the cat has never so much as looked at his carrier. Now he stood before it, tentatively sniffing at the entrance. He looked towards me at my arrival, and without a word on my part, he calmly entered the kennel, turned around, and lay down.

“It won’t be too long, buddy,” I promised. “We’ll have you back here soon.”

I locked the carrier’s gate and carried it into the car, setting it on the front passenger seat so he could see me. I loaded the rest of my cargo into the back, locked the house, and set out once again for Keene.

He was fine until I carried him into the Humane Society shelter itself; then the smell of animals and the barking of dogs elicited a tiny, frightened meow from him. After all the dire threats I’ve made in the past about his behavior ensuring an abbreviated life span, it was surprisingly poignant. “Hey, it’s okay, buddy,” I crooned. “I’ll be back for you.”

The woman who took him from me led me into a large, spare room lined with carriers much larger than his. She directed me to put him into one of them, but when I opened the door to his, he refused to budge. I had to take the carrier apart to get at him, physically lift him out and place him into his new quarters. He looked at me with great frightened eyes and repeated his pathetic little mew.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I whispered, sticking my fingers through the bars. “It’s okay, buddy. I’ll see you before too long.”

“He’ll be just fine,” she assured me.

“I know,” I said straightening. “That’s why I’m bringing him here.”

The sun had turned red and the wind cold by the time I stepped outside to return to my car. I couldn’t get that tiny little mew out of my mind. As I crossed the parking lot I balled my naked fists in a vain attempt to keep them warm, and my glasses offered little protection from the wind, because I had to remove them and wipe my eyes before getting behind the wheel.

Day 3 - Sunday, December 14

According to the Brattleboro yellow pages, the Chelsea Royal Diner looked like a good bet for breakfast. The street directions given seemed pretty straightforward, but I wasn’t able to find it. (I’ve since learned it’s about a mile or so beyond where I gave up and doubled back.) I settled for a little café at the midtown plaza, where I enjoyed an excellent late-morning breakfast of huevos rancheros with a bottomless cup of coffee.

With my belly full and my endocrine system jazzed on caffeine I was ready for the world. I happily wandered around town for a few hours with my camera, marveling at the architecture, the blend of old and new, at the gentrification of the ancient dirt-poor mills.

The temperature rose to near 40, and I assumed that on such a day the melting back home would begin in earnest. After a little Christmas shopping, I decided to check on the house and to see what debris I could clear from the driveway.

I made the 50-minute drive and was disheartened by what I saw. Brattleboro sits in the lowlands right on the banks of the Connecticut River. Across the river in New Hampshire, Mount Wantastiquet looms like a dozing giant, still sporting a white Mohawk of ice crystals at its very crest. Once the roads bore me to that altitude, the icing looked pretty much as it had the day before, and the day before that.

Still, there had been some progress widening the road in to my place, so I had to believe that help was on the way. The downed phone lines were now flagged, and the trees I’d been so concerned about on Day 1 seemed to be standing a little straighter.

Living alone as I do, I will not own a chain saw – one slip, and the blade will slice through bone like a paring knife through cheese. I myself know several people who can personally attest to this. My only cutting implements are a pair of heavy-duty loppers, an old bow saw, and an axe, which were enough to allow me to remove most of the debris blocking the turnaround. I’ll need some help getting rid of the lower half of the tree, but it’s far enough out of the way that it can wait until spring if necessary.

I tidied up as much of the loose windfall as I could, brought the mail and paper into the house, then inventoried my clothes closet in preparation of the coming work week.

The pickings were pretty meager. I'd pretty much exhausted my stock of clean under- and outer-wear, and had planned, even before the storm had hit, to dedicate part of this weekend to laundry. I had a few clean short-sleeved shirts left and some dark-colored T's, but I was reduced to pawing through the basket of soiled clothes in search of matching socks that could still bend. It wasn't much of a selection, but it would have to do. (While rummaging through the hamper I also chanced upon my long-lost flash drive! It must have fallen out of my shirt pocket while I was disrobing one night.) I brought these items to the car and lay them still on the hangers on the back seat. After one final walk-through of the house to see if anything more needed to be done to secure it, I rather morosely locked up and returned to my encampment in Brattleboro.

Day 4 - Monday, December 15

My first day back at the office was spectacularly unproductive, spent largely swapping war stories with fellow refugees. “You got power yet?” “Nope, you?” I might have done an hour’s worth of work. I sent some surgical sutures off for EtO sterilization. I updated the equipment log when the thermal scanner and the tachometer came back from calibration. I sat in on a CorrectInject strategy meeting, answered a few questions in regard to the Unisis epidural needle ECO, and set up a meeting with the CP Tool sales rep for some help programming the ESP-7 automated torquing station. Okay, the CI meeting ran an hour. So maybe I put in a solid hour and a half.

I returned to my camp directly after “work” – I figured there wasn’t much I could do at the house in the dark – and decided to try the Steak Out for my evening meal. As is my preference, I walked directly into the lounge. Not only is “table for one” kind of lame, there’s rarely a waiting line. I took a chair at the end of the bar.

When Keasha and I were together, she’d often tease me for the dismal inadequacy of my “gay-dar”. On more than one occasion I’d bantered with affable waiters who, she’d later inform me, were in fact hitting on me. So I naturally assumed that the bartender’s gentle smile and slightly delicate manner were simply the natural outcome of a friendly disposition and sensitive nature. I asked for a Manhattan and the sirloin salad, and once the drink arrived I settled in to discretely check out the ambiance.

The lounge was sparsely populated – it was a Monday, after all – hosting maybe a half-dozen couples at most, none younger than about 40. It was only then that the fact registered that there were no women among them. A pair of white-bearded gents shared a bottle of wine and intimate conversation at a corner table. Across from me a pair of clean-shaven men earnestly discussed – no, not sports; not sex; not even the storm – how one of them intended to go about re-upholstering his sofa. Two seats down from me, two fellows contemplated how the proposed economic bailout of the automotive industry might affect local enterprise. It was all very genteel and refined, right down to the silent stranger at the end of the bar quietly sipping a cocktail and crunching on his fresh greens. A stranger in a strange land, not fully grokking the ways of his accidental companions, nor they his – but perhaps there was no need to. We’d come to this place for food and drink, a commonality shared by all mankind, and commonality is always an opportunity for fellowship. Here there was refreshment, companionship, and refuge from the cold. What could possibly matter more?

Day 5 - Tuesday, December 16

Another day wasted. I’d never anticipated the outtage lasting this long, and though I’d been aware that a residual slug of water would remain in each of the sink traps after I’d drained the pipes, I’d elected to do nothing about it. Now that we were in Day 5 I began to worry about those slugs freezing solid and splitting the pipes. I was told that something called “RV Antifreeze” is not only septic-safe, but potable. I decided to buy a few bottles that day and pour them down the drains, joking that I could always mix the leftovers with vodka and have a little party when the lights came back on.

The day dragged by. I wanted to leave early enough to get to the house when there was still a little daylight. Unfortunately, I’d scheduled the meeting with the CP Tool rep for that afternoon, and I had to be there. Fortunately he arrived on time (a little after 1:00 pm), and the meeting lasted barely an hour. He left with a better knowledge of what we need, and I made my escape at around 2:30.

Aware that I was pressed for time, the Gremlins of Perversity gleefully set to work. I bumped into an old colleague at the automotive section of Wal-Mart, and had to play Remember-When and Whatever-Became-of-So-and-So before grabbing two jugs of antifreeze. At the checkout, none of the express lines were manned, and I had to stand in line behind two couples who’d decided that this would be a fine time to do their Christmas shopping. I was antsier than a six-year old at his first Communion who’d rather be outside running around the church playground bothering the girls.

And it didn’t end there. The parking lot is marvel of incompetent civil engineering, with inscrutable arrows and traffic lines leading to cleverly hidden cul-de-sacs, and with the heavy holiday traffic it took me several minutes to find my way out. Then I had to sit through no fewer than three cycles of the light to escape, only to find myself behind a lumbering oil tanker. He finally made a right-hand turn to make a delivery, but not before letting out every last car waiting to pull out onto the main drag. Finally past him, I encountered every timid driver in the region operating, I swear to God, in tag teams to ensure I didn’t reach the house until after dark.

They nearly succeeded. It was probably around 4:00 when I pulled into the driveway, and darkness comes early this time of year. There was enough light to see inside, but not enough to see in color. Still, it was sufficient to pour a few glugs of antifreeze into the drains and toilets, and I left feeling that I’d done just about all I could do to safeguard the house for an extended deep-freeze.

Day 6 - Wednesday, December 17

A sloppy mix of snow and sleet greeted me when I stepped from the room that morning. As I have each day I’ve been here, I extended my room lease by one more day before heading out. This morning, the lobby was full of blue-jeaned men in heavy jackets and thick midwestern accents. I astutely deduced that they belonged to the flotilla of bucket trucks with the Missouri tags, and gratefully watched them clamber up into the cabs and pull out into the storm. Men like these were going to restore power to my house. Someday.

The commute was slow and difficult, not so much because of the snow as because of the timid drivers intent on snarling up traffic. One does not approach the base of Chesterfield Hill at 25 mph in a snowstorm unless one is determined to stall out halfway up the hill and disrupt everyone unfortunate enough to be trailing behind. If one has even a few functioning brain cells, one builds up speed and momentum at the base of the hill in order to clear the top at 25 mph. It was touch and go all the way to the summit, but I cleared it (barely), and from there it was literally downhill all the way to the plant.

Some time that morning I received a call from my insurance company, who informed me that, since my house was considered "uninhabitable", my motel tab would be covered by my homeowner's insurance! Now I wished I'd checked into the Holiday Inn instead...

During the afternoon, Ray Tremblay stopped me in the hall to inform me that power had been restored to Templeton Turnpike. The “turnpike” is a grandiose name for a little side road that turns to dirt and meanders southward from the village to emerge eventually (after a few side excursions) in the town of Templeton, MA. There are two inhabited stretches: one just off the town common, the other in my neighborhood. In fact, the latter area is at the very end of the utility lines, so if they had power, I must. I thought it more likely that the settlement nearest the village was the one restored, a fact verified by a phone call to the police department. I spoke to the chief, a neighbor of mine, who said he’d been assured that power would be restored to our road by the end of the following day.

Not daring to hope, I resolved not to believe it until it actually happened.

Day 7 - Thursday, December 18

Still, the promise of returning home proved a strong allure. I honestly tried to work that day, but found myself instead making contingency plans for the next few days. Two more major snow events were barreling towards New England: one for Friday, the next for Sunday. (It’s starting to look like a repeat of the previous winter, when we had a major storm every two days or so.) I’d reserved the room for this night; the plan became to reserve the room for the next night as well (Friday) if power were not restored by 5:00 pm. I was taking Friday as a vacation day, so I’d leave for home early and check the status of the power. If the lights were on, I’d cancel the reservation by phone. Otherwise, I’d still have a place to crash.

I called Penny at around 2:00. She told me the lights were still out, but that big yellow trucks were all over the place, and they were still talking about restoring power by “the end of the day.” Unsure whether that meant 5:00 pm or 11:59 pm, I tried without much success to focus on Geoff’s competitive product analysis. I just wanted to go home.

I called Penny again a few minutes before 5:00. She didn’t pick up, but neither did her answering machine, a pretty solid indication that the power was still out. I glumly trudged out to the parking lot and drove to Brattleboro.

I dined at a little Italian bistro on Main Street, and got to the motel about 7:30. I went directly to the lobby to find out if I could reserve a room and cancel by phone if necessary; but before I could pose the question, I was told there was a message for me. Someone named Penny had called to say that “the lights were back on.”

The lights were on! I was going home! I packed the car with everything except what I’d need the next day, and retired early so I could get an early start. I needed to beat the storm which, by now, looked likely to arrive by midday.

Epilogue - Friday, December 19

As excited as a kid on Christmas morning, I awoke spontaneously around 4:00 am. I tried to go back to sleep but it was futile, so I turned on the TV and watched parts of a few bad movies until around 6:00. Then I checked out, and, rather than taking 9 to Keene as I had all week, I took 119 directly to Fitzwilliam. I nearly got clocked by an idiot who’d drifted across the centerline (probably while mindlessly yakking on a cell phone), but other than that the drive was without incident. The eastern sky was just starting to blush pink when I reached home a little before 7:00.

It was still dark enough inside to require the flashlight to find my way around, and cold enough in the living room to see my breath. A check with the indoor thermometer showed it to be about 25 degrees. I descended to the basement and stood before the circuit breaker panel.

The moment of truth had arrived. I played the beam on the main breaker and hesitated for just an instant before throwing it. What if I closed the main and nothing happened? Trying to steel myself for the worst, I reached up and flicked the switch.

And just as it was supposed to, the light overhead sprang on.

Yesssss!!

I went through the checklist as I’d rehearsed it. Next on was the water pump. As soon as I closed the breaker, the pump clicked, water hissed in the pipes, and the faucets upstairs sputtered and farted as the lines flooded and water displaced the air within. I ascended and let the water run for a while to clear out the debris and particulates that were stirred up. Amazingly, the hot water was still (or already) running lukewarm. After the flow from each faucet had stabilized and was running relatively clear, I shut them off and prepared to activate the last major subsystem: the furnace.

When I'd thrown the breakers a few days earlier, I'd had second thoughts about standing beside the furnace while activating it after an extended shutdown, so I'd flipped the emergency shutoff at the top of the stairs instead. From the relative safety of the cellar entryway, I gingerly reached up and toggled the switch to the “ON” position.

And with neither complaint nor fanfare, the oil burner came to life.

My house was alive again!

Before the house could come up to temperature, I unpacked the car, leaving the front door open to more easily transfer my belongings. Then, when the blower finally began pumping warm air into the house, I allowed myself the luxury of booting the computer and checking my email. It was while so engaged that I encountered the first glitch.

Although all the faucets were off, I could still hear water whistling in the pipes. Not a good sign - this meant that water was still flowing somewhere. “Oh, shit,” I muttered, and returned to the basement. What had I overlooked? If a pipe had burst, water would now be running out between the walls and pooling up somewhere on the cellar floor. I couldn’t see any wet spots, but the sound indicated that the water was flowing in the lines to the upstairs bathroom. It was while ascending the stairs that I remembered that the valve in the upstairs toilet sometimes (often, actually) does not seat after a flush. It was a simple matter to press the valve down into the outlet. Within minutes the tank had filled and the pipes fell silent.

I was back online!

A quick inventory of the refrigerator showed that I’d lost most of the freezer’s contents, which wasn’t a big deal – a couple packets of frozen hamburger, a bag of frozen blueberries, and a package of homemade venison sausage given me a few years ago that until now I’d forgotten about. The worst part was cleaning up the blood and berry juice from the freezer floor. I lost all the meat in the lower compartment as well, but that only amounted to a small portion of ground pork and a 4-pack of chicken thighs. Except for a partially-liquified cucumber, the vegetables had managed to survive. Another $50 or $100 to throw at my homeowner's deductible. I put together a quick shopping list, and proceeded to implement the final part of the plan: it was time to retrieve Mr. Cat.

By 10:00 it was gray and heavily overcast, with the feel and smell of snow in the air. The grocery stores in Keene were jammed with panic shoppers, and some of the items on my list were already sold out, requiring an unplanned stop at a second store. But I'd timed things well, and after gassing up the car, I got to the Humane Society just as they were opening.

I’d been concerned that the cat might not remember me (or, worse, remember me with a grudge) but neither seemed to be the case. He calmly entered his carrier while I handed the girl a check for $50 as a grateful donation for helping me out of my predicament. I lugged Kitty to the car and set sail for Home. Not only had he not forgotten me, he kept pretty close tabs on me after we’d settled in, and we passed the afternoon together on the couch. As the first few flakes of powder drifted down from a pewter sky, he purred happily beside me while I skimmed through the week’s newspapers.

"There's no place like home... there's no place like home..."

A few more ice storm photos here

Writer's Block: Untimely Passing

2008-12-08T12:13:54Z

RIP John Lennon. The list of sudden and unexpected celebrity deaths is long—Princess Di, Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, and many more. Which one affected you the most on an emotional level?

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Stevie Ray Vaughan, I think. It may have been the cumulative effect of losing him, Art Blakey, & Leonard Bernstein all in the course of a week.

Writer's Block: Infamous

2008-12-07T14:14:16Z

Today is known to some as the Day of Infamy, in commemoration of what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In your lifetime, what date sticks out as the most memorable in terms of world events?

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I'm going to weigh in before I see what other answers have been posted. For me, it would have to be November 22, 1963 - Dallas, Texas: the first Kennedy assassination. Prior to that day, the country still had a youthful innocence, an exuberance, and a firm belief that we were Number One. We lost all that during that awful weekend, and never regained it. Besides a glamorous & dynamic leader, we lost our virginity and self-confidence that day.

Let me try to pre-emptively address the trolls who I'm sure are going to remind me, as unpleasantly as possible, of Kennedy's now-notorious womanizing. This wasn't known at the time. That his affairs hadn't yet come to light does not justify them. Of course they were wrong, and if they'd come to light during his lifetime, I'm sure he would have been Clintoned by his political enemies, who were legion. Whatever transpired in the bedroom has nothing to do with the fact that Kennedy projected a grace and charm that we very abruptly lost that day.

Writer's Block: Physical Education

2008-12-02T13:54:25Z

Call it gym, P.E., recess, or pure hell, most people have participated in a class at school that focused on games and athletics. What sport or game did you hate the most when you were a kid? What sport or game was your favorite?

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I hated it all, though "dreaded" might be a better word. The activities themselves weren't so inherently awful, but the glee with which my "teammates" heaped humiliation after humiliation on me (with the coach's ill-concealed collusion) made gym a memorable experience. There was one other fat kid in my class, and we naturally paired up during Wrestling. We'd take turns throwing our matches. The jocks loved it. We didn't, but we did what it took to survive. Football and basketball were incomprehensible to me, meaningless exercises in running back and forth. In softball I could lose myself in left field for a while. Bombardment (a particularly savage variant of Dodgeball) was actually the easiest: I'd just stand still (while protecting my head and face) making myself an easy target, and let myself get taken out of the game early on. Then I'd just watch the Neandertals bash away at one another. Gymnastics wasn't so bad, especially the time I broke my ankle dismounting the horse - that was my ticket out of gym for the rest of the year.

When I got to college, I failed the fitness test, and got placed in a "PE for Fatties" class. That was a revelation. The coach, recognizing that most of us had been scarred & battered by our high-school experiences, actually treated us with respect and dignity. He didn't force us to participate in team sports we didn't understand - instead we did a little swimming, a little judo, a little weightlifting - things we could do on our own or with a single partner. I actually got into running, and continued working out regularly once I'd completed my requirement. From that point on, nobody knew I'd been fat. I blended into the world of the Normals, without actually becoming one. Forty years later, I'm still an avid hiker, and exercise daily. At heart I'm still a Fat Man, though I remain in remission.

Writer's Block: The Wrath of Ohrwurm

2008-11-26T15:47:42Z

German has a word for everything, like ohrwurm. Translated literally as "earworm" in English, it's the word for songs that get stuck in your head and won't go away. What earworm of a song do you most dread burrowing into your head?

Submitted By willard41

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I just bought the 1st 3 seasons of "Mission Impossible," so I've got the theme going round & round in my head. Fortunately, I like it. It's the Oscar Meyer song I dread. ("My bologna has a first name... it's oh ess see ay arr...")

Writer's Block: Nature Gone Wild

2008-11-13T21:22:01Z

Field mice always sleep facing northwest. Kangaroos can't walk backwards. Female hyenas have penises. Let's face it, nature is weird. What's the strangest thing you know about the animal kingdom?

Submitted By kaley_93

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That life exists at all! Why should it? Why should hydrocarbons naturally organize themselves into self-replicating chains of amino acids that form increasingly complex structures which eventually start asking questions like this??