Yes, some of them want us there

From Iraq The Model, a blog by Iraqis in Baghdad.

Midnight Company.

I often find myself in arguments with people about the behavior of American soldiers when they search homes and many of the people I talk to base their argument and negative impression on the footage of some raids we see on TV or on experiences of presumed relatives or friends.

When I try to counter the idea of 'they knock down doors unnecessarily, steal jewelry and treat people bad' by saying that there must be a good reason the troops sometimes act rough and that 'for every reaxction there must have been an action' I often get the response of "what do you know about that? The Americans never searched your home"

Well, last night they did…

It was around midnight and we were gathered around the fire in the backyard when we heard someone talking in English in the street.
Go see what that was, Mohammed told me.
I approached the front door and peeked into the street, a number of Humvees were there.
I returned to the group and told them we might have some company.

Almost every Friday night we gather with some friends for drinks and barbeque and we all take turns hosting the nights. Yesterday it was our turn.

I went to the living room where my father was having a heated political debate with his friend and told them the house would likely be searched. The two men stopped talking, looked at me carelessly for a second and then resumed their loud debate.

I went back to tend the fish we were preparing for our Masgoof dinner and then heard the front door open and a flashlight beamed into the driveway.
I walked to meet the night visitors; 6 or 7 American soldiers and an Iraqi translator wearing a black ski mask walked in.

Good evening gentlemen, how can I help you?

Hi, that's a lot of cars you got here! Are they all yours? The lead soldier said, obviously suspicious about the number of cars we had in the driveway.

That one is ours, the rest belong to our friends. And explained that we had guests and that in order to avoid the curfew they are spending the night here.

As was speaking two of the soldiers were using the lights on their rifles to look through the glass into the cars.

Who are those people back there?

Those are our friends and my brothers, I said as I lead the way into the back yard.

The Iraqis and Americans exchanged words of greetings.

The soldiers now began to feel a bit relaxed seeing the relaxed friendly mood, the barbeque and the drinks in Iraqis' hands.

That's a large fish! Looks good! One soldier noted.

There's enough food and drinks for all of us here, please join us, said one of my friends.

Nah, we can't do that. Thanks anyway.

We know the Americans were on duty and had a job to do so we didn't repeat the offer violating the tribal Iraqi tradition of persistently offering food.

One of the soldiers asked for the keys to the cars and he and his colleague started checking them one after the other.
I lead three others into the house showing them the rooms explaining what each one was.
When we entered the living room they were surprised to see 4 laptops scattered around.

What are these for?

One's mine, the other is my brother's and the rest are our friends', I said and explained that our friends always bring their laptops with them when they come because they can use our wireless.
My brother and I are bloggers, our friends work in the computers business, I added.
Ah, you got wireless! I should bring my laptop too next time I come here, one of the soldiers joked.

We went up to the second floor, then the roof and they looked around around, opened a few drawers, asked if we had any weapons. I told them we didn't have any.

That's fine, no problem.

Within roughly 20 minutes the soldiers had completed searching the house and by now they seemed convinced that this household is 'clean'. So we all went back to the back yard and gathered around the tasty-smelling fish and we all had some short friendly talk about food, booze, the city, the war, the internet, etc.


At the end we stood to take some pictures together.

These are bloggers dude, cover your face if you don't want to be seen nude on the internet tomorrow! One soldier said to his colleague as I snapped this photo, and we all chuckled.



And I know what you're thinking; Mohammed and I do not appear in this one.

The Americans and Iraqis shook hands and exchanged take care's and stay safe's.
They went on to continue their patrol, and we went back to our fish.
Some of us will definitely have a joke or a short story to tell from this night, I thought.

I realize that for some other Iraqis having their homes searched wasn't as smooth or as pleasant an experience as ours but this is my story and I thought I'd share it.

Posted by Omar @ 22:34

Today's shirt

The only place to buy a real cowboy hat.

The pitfalls of being Pete

Remember the cliche Lassie bit where little Timmy falls into the well and Lassie goes for help, barking excitedly until rescuers follow her to pull the hapless kid to safety?
Ruthie the Wonder Dog had just such an opportunity this morning, but she failed miserably. But then, it was Pete the Aussie - her constant companion and frequent tormentor - who needed rescuing. So maybe she chose to ignore his plight so as to be rid of him.
I had finished my workout at the gym when I checked my cell phone and found I had missed a call from Maria. I called her and she got me up to speed on the progress, or rather the lack of it, on our garage project. The two-man crew had filled the dumpster by 11:30 a.m. and, since the trash hauler couldn't get a fresh one to our site before this evening, Maria cut them loose. That's another half-day down the toilet because of inadequate dumpster service. And, she said, Pete had gone Walkabout and was nowhere to be found. We figured he would show up eventually, so I opted to shower, bank my paycheck and grab a bite of lunch before heading home.
When I got back to my locker from the showers, my cell phone was ringing again. It was Maria, saying she had found Pete. He'd fallen into the open cistern that we uncovered a couple of weeks ago when we tore out the rotting wooden deck behind the house. The previous owners had dumped great shards of broken glass and other construction debris into it and we tossed in whatever rocks and bricks fell to hand in an effort to fill it. I covered it with a piece of drywall that I found in the garage. That worked fine until it rained. It soaked up the water and went soft and mushy. Pete had apparently assumed it was still a solid surface and fell through. Maria said she noticed the hole in the drywall and peered down to find Pete gazing balefully up at her.
He hadn't barked or done anything else to attract her attention.
Ruthie, in the meantime, was larking around the back yard and taking no notice whatsoever of her young friend's plight.
Maria called her dad and he came over, held her by the ankles and she reached down and plucked Pete from the pit. She said he was subdued, but apparently uninjured.

Half a day wasted

It's about 6 p.m. and the trash hauler just drove away with a full dumpster, leaving an empty in exchange.
We needed him to be here a full six freaking hours ago!
When I got home from running errands about 3:30 p.m., I found the two-man wrecking crew just doing busy work as they waited for a dumpster to show up. They had the one that was delivered yesterday afternoon stuffed to overflowing by 11:30 a.m. and spent the rest of their time here breaking up debris into small pieces.
I cut them loose, rather than pay them for standing around.
The trash hauler showed up at 5:35 p.m. and spent about 20 minutes tossing stuff out of the dumpster onto the ground because he apparently didn't think he could haul it without debris falling out onto the roadway.
Clearly, we could be moving twice as quickly if we had dumpster exchanges in a timely fashion. I sincerely hope this clusterfuck doesn't repeat itself tomorrow.

Progress report

The crew, still one man short, is back at work today. They took down the second garage/shed and continue to hack away at the roof of the garage they dropped yesterday. They've filled a second dumpster and are now waiting for an empty to be delivered. While they wait, all they can do it keep hacking the remaining debris into smaller pieces.
This was projected to be a three-day process, but they still have to rip out a bunch of trees and shrubs and the trash hauler can't keep them supplied with empty dumpsters as fast as they can fill them, so I expect it to run into four or more days.
It's midday and the temperature has only risen to 33 from an overnight low of 30, but at least the sun is shining.
The top photo was taken about 10 a.m. yesterday. The bottom at 12:20 p.m. today.

Going down!

After a couple of days of futzing around due to delays on other projects, our construction guy finally got two-thirds of a work crew here to start tearing down our two crappy garages.
Of course, the weather has turned bitterly cold. It was 32 degrees and spitting snow when we got up and hasn't warmed up much since then. Nevertheless, when the guys arrived they got right to work and in less than two hours had the main garage on the ground.
And they managed to do it without having to move the hot tub. It will have to be moved later, but for the moment at least, we can relax about that issue.
The plan calls for the trash hauler to bring us a fresh dumpster this afternoon, so with any luck at all, both structures will be gone by tonight and tomorrow's work will likely focus on breaking up and removing the concrete footprint of the larger garage.
Then, we can start moving dirt around and ripping out shrubs to prep the site for the new garage.
It's a huge relief to get this business underway.
I should be doing our taxes, but this is too engrossing. Maybe tomorrow.

Before...

The view from east of our property before the two garages in the foreground came down. That's Ruthie the Aging Wonder Dog on the right.

Before the deluge

Looking west about 10 minutes before the heavy rain hit. A strong cold front and line of powerful thunderstorms swept across Indiana this afternoon. We were walking to a cafe for lunch when I shot this.

Counting down to G (garage) Day

The bikes are in my neighbor's barn, the beer fridge is on the back porch and the surplus fridge and Franklin stove are on the front lawn and we have almost all of the "keeper" stuff out of both garages.
We figure we can clean out the last of it early tomorrow morning before the demolition crew and the dumpster arrive.
I wrestled the refrigerators single-handedly, which is probably why my back and legs are killing me tonight.
Maybe I'll get a chance to work out some of the kinks tomorrow at the fitness center, but probably not, since we have to supervise the demolition, including the relocation of the hot tub to a spot in the front yard. Our place is going to look like some kind of hillbilly haven for the next few weeks, with the front yard and porch loaded with stuff that shouldn't be there. I can only hope it ends well.
The forecast for tomorrow is sunny and 70 degrees, so the Weather Gods are on our side for the moment.

Saturday lunch

Lunch at Qdoba.

Crunch time

The demolition crew and dumpster will be here Monday morning to begin the destruction of our two garages.
So we have to get everything important out of them this weekend.
And, of course, it's raining.
And we're expected to attend a birthday party tomorrow for one of Maria's nephews. And we have to buy her daughter a new cell phone today to replace the one she let get stolen last Saturday.
And we have 50 minutes left to get to the postoffice to mail the newspaper's entry package for the National Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Contest and Better Newspaper Advertising Contest. Winning means we get to fly to the awards presentation in October in Norfuck, Va.
I must be off.

Thursday night out

Lauri and Maria enjoying some after-work bar time. We stayed til past Last Call and got home about 3 a.m.

Step one of the fitness journey

I had my introductory workout and tour of the fitness center this morning and it went pretty much as expected: an interview to assess my general level of fitness and to ferret out any potentially dangerous medical problems, then an introduction to the machines.
They're pretty much the same as the ones I've used at other fitness joints over the years, so there were no surprises and no daunting challenges. The pool and adjoining jacuzzi look inviting. The other clients look like ordinary folks off of the street. No buffed-up bodybuilders or gym princesses in $500 Spandex workout suits. Just a bunch of lumpy midwesterners in t-shirts and sweats trying to work off the triple curse of years of sloth and bad diet choices and their inherited DNA.
Yeah. I think I can do this.

Maria and Lauri: The newspaper's Dream Team

Making some last-minute tweaks to a special section on drug abuse, to be published Friday.

No pain, no gain

It's been so long since I've been what I would consider physically fit, I've almost forgotten what it felt like.
Almost.
Which is not to say that I'm a physical wreck. I'm just suffering the ravages of a couple of decades of too much food and not enough acitivity. I can still walk a couple of miles without getting winded and haul my BMW motorcycle up onto its centerstand with relative ease, but I'm nowhere near as fit as I need/want to be.
There was a time, back around 1980 - Jeez, that's 27 years ago! - that I was in the best shape of my life. I was working in downtown Indianapolis and had a membership in a fitness center a few blocks from the office. I developed a habit of working out five days a week - strength training on Nautilus equipment on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and aerobics on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I got good results and felt great. After a few months, I was doing the full weight stack on several of the machines.
Then the owners of the place sold out and transferred my membership to a club on the far side of town, making my lunchtime workouts a thing of the past. I tried to keep up a routine, but it was just too much of a hassle and I finally gave up and went back to beer, pizza and TV.
Over the years, I've made a couple of feints in the direction of getting back into my fitness zone. I joined a couple of fitness centers, but never made it stick. An apartment complex where I lived in the early to mid-1990s had a workout room, but I couldn't get into the habit of using it.
But now that I'm just weeks from becoming eligible for Social Security benefits (I turn 62 on July 14), I realize it's now or never. That's what drove me to drag Maria along on a doctor-supervised weight loss program at the first of the year. I've lost more than 30 pounds since Jan. 1 and Maria is about 25 pounds lighter.
We've been shedding pounds, but it's largely because of the drugs and diet. We've pretty much ignored the exercise part of the equation.
Well, no more.
Maria's newspaper publisher is picking up the enrollment fee for any employee or family member who wants to join a local fitness center and I signed both of us up today. Maria is resisting fiercely, for reasons I can't fathom.
But I'm charging ahead. My first session and orientation with a trainer is at 10 a.m. tomorrow and I am acutely aware that the quality of what's left of my life is at stake.
I'll let you know how it goes.

California dreamin'

Here I am on the Pacific Coast Highway south of Big Sur. I'm ready to go back.

Cruzin'

I was cruising the aisles at the local Staples office supply store last week when I noticed they were blowing out the SanDisk Cruzer® Micro 2GB (Black) for $24.96 - about one-third of its advertised $75 price. I'd been thinking about picking up a thumb drive for some time, but just couldn't get leverage on myself to pay the price most stores were asking.
This puppy comes with a bunch of extra software, like Skype and security stuff, along with a handy lanyard for carrying the Cruzer around your neck.
I've already used it a couple of times to transfer photos from my home computer to the system in Maria's office. The files were too big to e-mail conveniently and it seemed a waste to burn a CD-ROM just for a few photos.

16 summers ago

Me and my '81 BMW R100RS at Devil's Tower in July, 1990. The white bike is Linda Balough's R100CS. We were on a day ride from the 1990 BMW MOA International Rally at Rapid City, S.D.
This is the first photo I've been able to post from my Treo 700p since I bought it last fall. That's because I had been trying to post photos by themselves, rather than as e-mail attachments. I finally took the time to read the Blogger.com posting instructions in detail.
Duh!

Maria at the Bernina

A little quilting therapy before she leaves for work.

Hostage situation

Our garage project is supposed to start next Monday and I just left a voicemail with our construction guy to confirm that we're on track. I also made it clear that I understand he has other jobs ahead of us that may be slowed by the weather and we're prefectly OK with a later start. In fact, later is better for us because it's taking time to clear out the two garages that have to be demolished.
We spent Sunday afternoon ripping most of the old wood deck out behind the house and discovered an open cistern that will have to be filled and/or covered. There is some construction debris, including big jagged shards of broken glass, in the cistern which makes it doubly dangerous. I've got a big sheet of plasterboard over the opening at the moment, so the dogs don't fall in. The garage demolition will include removal of the concrete footprint, so there should be plenty of material to fill the cistern.
The project is being financed with the bulk of the proceeds from the sale of my parents' house up in Delphi last October. We put the money into a nine-month CD on the date of the sale, which means it matures on July 7. The only problem is, the construction company is going to want to be paid in installments, starting in mid-April. So I have a call in to my bank to determine whether it's smarter to take the interest hit from early withdrawal or to take a short-term loan against the CD. Or there may be a third solution that I haven't thought of.
And just to make the process more interesting, I can't find the original paperwork on the CD. The bank assures me that they don't need it because they have all of the records of the transaction, but nevertheless I'm kicking myself for letting it get misplaced.
In the meantime, I have to find a new home for the big old Franklin stove that the previous owner of our house had in her kitchen. It's plumbed to burn natural gas and, if I had my druthers, we'd put it back into the kitchen for added heat on those cold winter mornings. However, Maria has bad bad associations with such stoves from her childhood and doesn't want it.
We had three large pieces of kitchen cabinetry in the garage, left over from the kitchen remodel we did six years ago. We hauled them to the curb several days ahead of the regular Friday trash collection and passersby snarfed them up, just as we expected. I don't know that it will be that easy to dispose of the Franklin stove.
We also have a couple of refrigerators to deal with: one left by the previous owner and the other from Maria's previous home. The first, we'll try to give away. The second has to be stashed somewhere on the property for later installation in the new garage. Our two motorcycles will go down to our neighbor's barn for safekeeping.
Then, in the smaller, crappier garage, we have Maria's dad's roto-tiller which probably needs a major engine clean-out because it hasn't been run since it showed up here about three years ago. And, there's the lawn mower, my dad's big wooden extension ladder and a bundle of shingles left over from the most recent roofing job.
So, you can see why I would welcome a delayed start on the project.
In the meantime, I'm held hostage by the phone as I wait for calls back from the construction guy and the bank.
***********************************
Aha!
There was a third solution. Andrea at Chase Bank suggests a home equity line of credit, under which the interest is tax deductible. She's putting it together now.
And construction guy George says we're on track to begin old garage tear-down next Monday. The permit paperwork will be filed on Friday.
Now I'm free to get on with my day.

On the road

Here's a composite image I created yesterday afternoon with Photomatix, made up of three rapid-fire shots. I was heading home at 2:29 p.m. to let the dogs out.
The great thing about this process is that it uses multiple images in various degrees of exposure. This consists of three images: one properly exposed, one over-exposed by one f-stop and one under-exposed by one f-stop. What you get, then, is image information gathered over a much wider tonal range than would be possible with a single exposure. That makes it possible to get detail in the clouds all the way down to the dashboard. Since it's made up of three separate exposures, it shows the oncoming truck in three positions.

While walking the dogs

The Art Center up the street.

Subaru in spring

It was my turn to get up with the dogs this morning, so I took the opportunity to shoot some photos of a pre-dawn early spring Indiana morning as seen from the deck behind our house.
I like the cloud details.

Breaking News!!!

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press Writer


PHILADELPHIA (AP) - More than a decade after Congress first tried to police the Internet for pornography, a federal judge cast doubt Thursday on whether the government can craft such a law without restricting free speech.

A federal judge in Philadelphia blocked enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act, the second attempt by lawmakers to stop online pornography at the source.

Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. called the 1998 law unconstitutionally vague and said it could have a chilling effect on Web publishers.
"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," he wrote.

Reed said the law fails to address threats that have emerged since the law was written, including online predators on social-networking sites like News Corp.'s MySpace, because it targets only commercial Web publishers.

"Even defendant's own study shows that all but the worst performing (software) filters are far more effective than COPA would be at protecting children from sexually explicit material on the Web," said Reed, who presided over a month long trial in the fall.

The law has never been enforced. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2004 a temporary injunction blocking the law from taking effect; Reed on Thursday issued a permanent injunction.

The law would have criminalized Web sites that allow children to access material deemed "harmful to minors" by "contemporary community standards." The sites would have been expected to require a credit card number or other proof of age. Penalties include a $50,000 fine and up to six months in prison.

Sexual health sites, the online magazine Salon.com and other Web sites backed by the American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the law on grounds it would have a chilling effect on speech.

Joan Walsh, Salon.com's editor in chief, said the law could have allowed any of the 93 U.S. attorneys to prosecute the site over photos of naked prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

"The burden would have been on us to prove that they weren't" harmful to minors, Walsh said.

Daniel Weiss of Focus on the Family Action, a lobbying arm of the conservative Christian group, said it would continue to press Congress for a workable law.

"The judge seems to indicate there's really no way for Congress to pass a good law to protect kids online," Weiss said. "I just think that's not a good response."

To defend the nine-year-old law, government lawyers attacked software filters as burdensome and less effective, even though they have previously defended their use in public schools and libraries. That case was over a 2000 law requiring schools and libraries to use software filters if they receive certain federal funds. The high court upheld that law in 2003.

The plaintiffs expect the Justice Department to appeal. Justice spokesman Charles Miller said the department still was reviewing the decision and has "made no determination as to what the government's next step will be."

"I would hope that Attorney General (Alberto) Gonzales would save the U.S. public's money and not try to further defend what is an unconstitutional statute," said John Morris, a lawyer with the Center for Democracy and Technology. "That money could better be used to help educate kids about Internet safety issues."

The plaintiffs argued that filters work best because they let parents set limits based on their own values and a child's age.

Reed concluded that filters have become highly effective and that the government _ if it wants to protect children _ could do more to promote or subsidize them.

The law addresses material accessed by children under 17, but only applies to sites hosted in the United States.

The Web sites that challenged the law said fear of prosecution might lead them to shut down or move their operations offshore, beyond the reach of U.S. law. They also said the Justice Department could do more to enforce obscenity laws already on the books.

Reed noted in his 83-page ruling that, since 2000, the Justice Department has initiated fewer than 20 prosecutions for obscenity that did not also involve other charges such as child pornography or attempts to have sex with minors.

Although the government argued for the use of credit cards as a screening device, Reed said he saw no evidence of any accurate way to verify the age of Internet users. And he agreed that sites that require a credit card to view certain pages would see a sharp drop-off in users.

The 1998 law followed the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Congress' first attempt to regulate online pornography. The Supreme Court in 1997 deemed key portions of that law unconstitutional because it was too vague and trampled on adults' rights.

COPA narrowed the restrictions to commercial Web sites and defined indecency more specifically.

"This is the second time Congress has tried this, and both times the courts have struck it down," said the ACLU's Chris Hansen, a lead attorney on the case. "I don't see how Congress could write a constitutional statute."


As a professional journalist and photographer, I have spent most of my life in an arena where the protection of the First Amendment is an essential element.
And while politically conservative, maybe even reactionary on some topics, I have always favored the broadest possible interpretation of the First Amendment.
I do not believe the government has the right to tell me what I can see, hear or read or, conversely, say, write or present as an image.
If Congress or state legislatures want to protect children, they should pass laws that encourage parents to exercise control over what their kids see and hear. This is a responsibility of parents, not of government.
The wonderful thing about the Internet is that it is wide open to the expression of every conceivable idea and image. And it is ironic that the U.S. Congress is willing to cross the line into the realm of Internet censorship that is already richly populated by totalitarian regimes like China and North Korea.

Not my kids

I'm working at the newspaper office this evening and dinnertime rolls around.
Chris, the assistant sports editor, and Sam, the assistant managing editor, ask Maria and me if we'd like to join them for dinner at the Creekside Inn, a restaurant/bar on the banks of sometimes-scenic Sugar Creek.
Sure, we said.
So we're seated in a booth, Chris and Sam on one side and Maria and me on the other. After dinner, the 20-something waitress strolls over and plunks the bill, in its padded plastic case, down next to me.
I look at it for a moment and then it dawns on me. Chris and Sam are in their early 20s, Maria is 43 and I'm 61. Instead of seeing us as coworkers, she figured we were a family and I, as the dad - or even worse, maybe the grandpa - would pick up the tab.
How amusing.
When she returned, we explained the situation and asked her to re-calculate the bill.

Edwin O. Park

Last night, as I asked Maria to take a sports page proof that I had just edited across the newsroom to the sports editor, I flashed on the old days at The Indianapolis News when we wrote with typewriters and had copy boys to do all the gopher work.
In that bygone era, before college degrees were considered important, being hired as a copy boy at a large newspaper was a first step toward becoming a reporter. When you finished a story, or in the case of a breaking news story, when you finished a page of a story, you yelled, "Copy!" and a copy boy would hustle over to carry your news copy (hence the name) to your editor for his scrutiny. Copy boys also made coffee, distributed newspapers throughout the city room as the various editions came off of the press, and carried stuff back and forth from the newsroom to the Statehouse bureau about four blocks west when the Legislature was in session.
We had a variety of copy boys in those days ranging from a photographer's young son whose chief interest seemed to be getting drunk as often as he could so he could brag about it the next day, to a scrawny little hillbilly with a tough guy surly attitude, to a gay black kid who dressed up in women's clothing and cruised Indiana Avenue on weekends, to Edwin.
Edwin O. Park was at The News when I started on Feb. 6, 1967, and he was there after I quit in October, 2000. At least I think he was still there. I'd been working in a suburban bureau since 1985 and lost track of the folks downtown to a large degree.
Edwin, I was told, was a graduate of Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis who came down with some horrible fever that left him brain damaged with the intellectual capacity of a 10-year-old. We loved Edwin and reveled in his quirks and habits. And we collected "Edwin stories."

His wardrobe was a kaleidoscope of stripes, plaids, polkadots and odd combinations. One day he showed up with a particularly hideous combination of bowling shoes, plaid pants and striped shirt. Copy boy Tom Healy announced Eddie's arrival, saying, "Do not adjust your set!"
Edwin wore short-sleeved shirts with a pocket protector and a half-dozen ballpoint pens,none of which worked. He used a handcart to haul stacks of newspapers around the building for distribution and kept his distribution list in that shirt pocket.
One day when Eugene C. Pulliam, the owner of the paper and an Arizona resident, was in town to visit, Edwin arrived at the elevator at the same time as Gene.
Eddie had his arms full of newspapers and had no idea who Gene was. He glanced at Gene, who was dressed in slacks and a Hawaiian shirt, and told the owner, "Hit three for me, will you buddy?" Gene, being a good sport, pushed the button for the third floor.
Sometime in the early 1980s, Eddie's dad died. On the day of the funeral, Edwin came back to the office after the services, still wearing a suit. A reporter, expecting Edwin to be overwhelmed with sadness, asked him how it went at the funeral.
"I came out pretty good on that deal," Eddie said, brightly. "I got my dad's watch."
Edwin continued to live with his mother, riding a bus downtown from their home on the far northside.
One morning he was called to the phone. Watching him take the call, we could tell it was something serious. After he hung up, someone asked what was the problem. "That was my mom. I forgot to turn her oxygen on last night."
Wendell Trogdon, who was city editor at the time, was solicited by the author of a popular Book of Lists to offer the name of a distinguished journalist to be included in the next edition of the book. When the next edition appeared, there was a paragraph about Edwin O. Park, full of bogus credits, right after the paragraph on TV newswoman Jessica Savitch.
So it was no surprise last weekend when I got an e-mail from fellow Newsie Skip Hess, who had gone to the funeral of former News television critic R.K. Shull. Shull wrote a TV column and also responded to letters from readers in a sidebar called Shull's Mailbag. In characteristic fashion, the subject line of Skip's e-mail was "Shull's Bodybag."
Skip said he and another News alumnus, Gerry LaFollette, had dropped by the nursing home where Edwin now lives to tell him of R.K.'s passing.
Here's the text:
He was playing bingo in the dining room with 10 others scattered about.
"Got five quarters," he said when we walked up.
"G 48," said the caller.
"We stopped to tell you that R.K. Shull died and we are going to his services,"Gerry said.
"We had one die here," Edwin said.
"B 10," said the caller.
"They're dropping like flies, huh, Eddie?" I said.
"Well, see ya later," Eddie said.
Visiting time: 2.20 minutes

Happy Birthday, Dad

My father, who died in November, 1997, would have been 97 years old today.
Here he and I are, all dressed up for church on a Sunday morning in 1950 and standing in the back yard.
He would have been about 40 in this photo, which is to say 20 years younger than I am now.
Not a day goes by that I don't miss him.

More music from Portland

My son Sean did the programming and some of the guitar playing on this amazing EP: Lounge Sessions by Purekane.
Buy it on Amazon.com as a CD or an MP3 download. Now.

Trick of the light

The miraculous illumination of my del Sol in Wendy's parking lot.

33.5%

Found on Amazon.com:
The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have put together a list of 200 albums that should be in every music collection. As NARM president Jim Donio puts it, they are "albums that have consistently excited record buyers over the years and those that have the potential for continued success based on enduring popularity.... The inevitable debate about the 200 must-own albums will underscore just how much the music and the art form mean to everyone." Take a look at the list below, presented in ranked order, and enjoy videos from a number of artists whose work made the cut. From Sgt. Pepper to We're an American Band: these are their 200 definitive albums of the rock era.

I scanned the list and found I have 67 of the 200 albums listed - most of them on CD, but a few on vinyl up in the attic. And, yes, a lot of the NARM choices are what I would call highly debatable, or to put it more succinctly - crap.

I discovered recently that TEAC and others make turntables that connect to a computer via USB 2.0, making it possible to digitize my old vinyl albums. It would be nice to put a lot of that music that I haven't heard in a decade or more onto my iPod. The TEAC unit is under $100. The biggest barrier to me getting this done is a lack of free time. That's what happens when you retire.

Cool special effects

When I stopped by Fred Ropkey's Armor Museum (www.ropkeyarmormuseum.com) the other day, his right-hand man Skip showed me some photos processed with a nifty program called Photomatix. I downloaded a copy and am very impressed with the creative stuff you can do with it. It's a standalone program, rather than a Photoshop plug-in and it requires at least three bracketed exposures of the same photo.
Fortunately, I can program our D200 and D100s to shoot 3,5,7 or 9 bracketed exposures at high speed automatically, which eliminates the need for a tripod in most situations.
Here's our house and a plaza in a nearby town. (Click on the photos to see them BIG.)

Feels like spring

We hauled a bunch of trash out of the garage this afternoon, which necessitated taking both bikes off of the trickle chargers and moving them into the driveway.
To my great relief, both engines fired up immediately. Gotta love fuel stabilizer and trickle chargers.
It's a sunny 59 degrees and the cardinals are singing their sweet spring song.

Details

A few odd personal details:
1. I once had a summer job as a trashman, riding on the back of a packer truck.
2. I am a former member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
3. My home was the first Transcendental Meditation center in Indianapolis.
4. I went to Washington, D.C. for JFK's funeral.
5. I've flown in an antique Ford Tri-Motor plane.
6. I have a box of more than 100 sheets of Adolf Hitler's personal stationery. (See example above.)
7. I once won a (live) rabbit at a pre-Easter theater matinee.
8. One of the original Mouseketeers is a personal friend.
9. I've ridden a motorcycle at 146 mph.
10. I've shaken hands with Paul Tibbetts, pilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb, effectively destroying Hiroshima and winning World War II.
11. I achieved the rank of Flight Commander in Captain Midnight's Secret Squadron.
12. I set the record for SAT scores for my high school.
13. I qualified as a Marksman (got a ribbon for it) with the M1 carbine during my 41-day Air Force career.
14. I used to smoke 3 packs of cigarettes (Viceroy) a day before I quit in 1978.
15. I have a permit to carry a handgun.
16. I was a motorcycle skills test examiner for the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
17. I've been in all 48 contiguous states.
18. I have a stainless steel plate and 6 screws in my left thigh.
19. I once wrote the only weekly newspaper column on motorcycling in the United States.
20. I can read upside down and backwards.
21. I've met one of Dr. Mengele's twins.
22. I've written a ton of mostly redundant reviews on Amazon.com.
23. I am allergic to cats.
24. I once dated a woman whose aunt was married to Stan Getz.
25. My mother had a miscarriage before I was born. It was a girl and her name would have been Victoria Elizabeth.
26. My first car was a Fontana gray 1965 Volkswagen beetle. I put 100,000 miles on it back in the days when that was impressive. It rusted to death.
27. My mother kissed the Blarney Stone. Really. I have the certificate to prove it.
28. I was a motorcycle skills test examiner for the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles in the mid-1980s.
19. I know how to run a Fairchild Scan-a-graver (an obsolete device that made photo engravings for pre-offset newspapers).
20. I know how to work a 4x5 Speed Graphic camera and process the sheet film.

The end of my '91 K100RS

Here I am, rolling into Red River, N.M., for the BMW Riders Association rally in July, 2002. It was my last transcontinental ride on the bike.


It's time to say goodbye to what's left of my 1991 BMW K100RS.
It's been more than a year since I last Ebayed any parts from this fabulous bike that I had to retire because of a terminally expensive engine problem.
I started disassembling it just before Thanksgiving, 2003, with 160,124 on the odometer and I ended up selling $3,504.92 worth of parts from a bike that my dealer guessed was worth less than $2,000 intact.
Three weeks from tomorrow, a work crew will rip down the main garage where the bikes live as well as another ramshackle garage-like structure. They will clear the way for a glorious heated and air conditioned two-car, two-motorcycle garage with a second-floor office/photography studio that should be completed by the end of April.
So it's time to clear out the garage and that includes the old K-bike. There's still a fair amount of parts left - the engine, frame, fork, front wheel, centerstand/sidestand assembly and driveshaft with rear brake disc.
I called friend Galen Perry, who runs Perry Beemer Exchange near Americus, Ind., the other day and offered the remnants to him for $200 on the condition that he come and get it. He jumped on the deal so fast I wondered how much more he would have paid for a perfectly good K100RS frame and a 16-valve engine. The last time we spoke, he was going to try to get down here tomorrow. Since it only has one wheel, he was thinking about bringing a spare K100 wheel with tire so we could roll it to his trailer rather than giving ourselves hernias and heart attacks by trying to carry it.
It was a great bike - the first one I ever bought new - and it changed my life in ways I'm still discovering.
I like my 2003 K1200GT, but I loved the K100RS.
My neighbor Larry, who rides a BMW R1150RT, has agreed to let me stash my bike and Maria's '94 K75S in his barn while the garage project is underway.

Two steps forward, one step back

I got a reminder today of how fast technology is evolving.
I was killing time in an Office Depot this afternoon while Maria shopped for fabric in the nearby quilt store. I'd worked my way over to the iPod accessories and my gaze fell upon a Logitech Bluetooth wireless headphone set - marked down from $50 to $35.
I've longed for wireless headphones ever since the first time Pete the Aussie jumped up and snagged his paws in my headphone wire, yanking the phones out of my ears and making me fear for the connection point on my 60GB iPod.
It seemed like a good deal to me. I've used Logitech stuff, most recently the multifunction programmable remote control that my son Steve gave me for Christmas, and know they make good stuff.
The package was clearly labeled "Made for iPod," so I assumed it would work fine with mine.
But it couldn't be that simple.
When I got home and sliced open the clear plastic packing with my new Swiss Army Knife that son Sean got me for Christmas, I discovered the Bluetooth transmitter that plugs into the top of the iPod had an extra prong. And there is no opening on the top of my iPod to accept such a prong.
I poked the plug into the iPod as far as the prong would allow and found that I can, indeed, hear music through the 'phones, but it isn't a secure fit and the transmitter swivels around through 360 degrees.
WTF?
So I searched Ebay and found the same model offered in the price range I paid with the caveat that it doesn't work with the iPod video or the current version of the Nano.
No such information on the package I bought at Office Depot. Of course not. It was made before the current generation of iPod and Nano were released.
It's a damned shame, because the 'phones can be used to skip forward and back through the tracks, as well as increase and decrease volume. I found the volume control works fine, but the forward and back feature does not. So now I know that the prong was for.
Checking the Logitech website, I see that the model I really want is about $100. And, of course, I'm now hooked on the idea of wireless headphones. Nothing to do but take the obsolete 'phones back to Office Depot for a refund and step up to the correct version.

Steve's Wallpaper

This is my son Steve's Apple laptop. The wallpaper is a photo I shot of his mother around 1968. We lived in an apartment with a patio and sliding glass doors. She was cleaning the glass on a very cold day when I locked her out, then shot this photo.
It's nice to see Steve shares my sense of humor.

A new look

My son in Portland, Ore. mentioned in an e-mail today that he was having trouble reading my blog because it showed up on his screen as black type on a black background.
It didn't come as a huge surprise, since I had the same experience when I tried to view it on the OS X Macs in my wife's newspaper office. I had hoped it was just a peculiarity of the computers, but if other people are experiencing the problem, it's time to fix it.
Besides, I was getting tired of the look of the blog, having made no template changes since I started about three years ago.
Fortunately, the Blogger.com template library is easy to use and it only took a couple of minutes to make the switch to the new look.
And I know it works with OS X Macs because I'm writing this on one.

Who Are You?

I don't think I ever need to go to another concert again. Unless the Who comes to town again.
Pete Townshend is the same age as me - soon to be 62 - and he's clearly lost none of his fire. In fact, his playing is probably the best it's ever been.
Roger Daltrey was a bit hoarse from a cold. At least that's what he said between numbers, but you couldn't tell it from his singing. Zak Starkey has all of the explosiveness of Keith Moon, but without the self-destructive craziness. His father, Ringo Starr, should be very proud. Pino Palidino is a solid journeyman bass player and doesn't try to replicate John Entwhistle's brilliant playing, but Townshend's guitar work more than takes up the slack.
The concert was an auditory and visual experience without peer.
And we'll be able to re-live the experience, thanks to an inspired decision by the Who to make CD/DVD packages of each performance available for purchase. So I went online to www.themusic.com and ordered the March 6 Indianapolis concert, which is supposed to be delivered around April 10. The proceeds go to Who charities, which made me feel even better about the $50 (shipping included) cost.
I still don't understand Pete and Roger's choice of opening bands, unless the aim was to make the crowd even more eager for the Who to take the stage. I used earplugs for the Tragically Hip, because their sound was physically painful. Not so with the Who. They were loud, but without distortion and within comfort levels.

At the Who concert

Tragically Hip, the opening act, is excruciatingly boring. I would have paid another $20 to NOT hear them.
Gotta wonder what Pete & Roger were thinking.

Vista? Not yet, thanks.

I expect my copy of Microsoft Vista to show up in my mailbox any day now, but it will be weeks, maybe months, before I install it.
I just read a Cnet piece about how the latest iTunes tweak still has problems working with Vista. And the last time I checked with NikonUSA.com, there was no Vista driver for my Nikon ED IV negative scanner. I haven't checked to see if the Palm desktop software for my Treo 700p works with Vista.
But, as far as I'm concerned, compromising my use of my iPod and my negative scanner is a deal-breaker.
I've got too much at stake in terms of productivity to risk system paralysis and serious compatibility issues.
So, take your time with the Vista software, Dell. I'm in no hurry.

I just had salad. Really.

Lauri reacts as Maria (right) glares at her ex at Pizza Hut.
I have yet another reason not to like Pizza Hut.
I've long felt theirs was the closest thing to generic pizza around. They compound the felony by serving only Pepsi products.
But I agreed to go with the flow today when Maria and our friend Lauri decided they and I and coworker Sam should go to Pizza Hut for lunch.
About 10 minutes after we were seated, Maria glanced up and noticed her ex, his wife and her children at the salad bar.
They pretended not to notice and we made no effort to greet them.
Unfortunately, Maria isn't at the same place with her ex that I am. I harbor no ill feelings for my ex. I don't seek her out, but I don't go out of my way to avoid her, either. She's re-married to a genuinely nice guy and I'm glad she's in a relationship that makes her happy.
Unfortunately, Maria's divorce wounds are still festering, largely because of the way her ex has turned his back on their kids. So the encounter, call it a sighting, wrecked her mood and soured her stomach.
I haven't blogged for a few weeks - not since the mid-February blizzard - because I came down with a cold and lost all of my motivation.
One area where I have remained motivated is in the weight loss program Maria and I are on. Since Jan. 1, I've lost about 24 pounds and Maria is down nearly 20 pounds. And we're feeling fine with the diet and aren't tempted to dive head-first into a 55-gallon drum of ice cream. It's a doctor-supervise deal and we check in every Wednesday morning for weigh-in, blood pressure and pulse checks. The three components are drugs (phentermine, chromium and vitamin B12), diet and exercise in the form of 10,000 steps/day as measured by a pedometer. Neither of us has done 10k steps in a day since we started the program, but now that the weather is breaking, the dogs and iPods are beckoning and it's beginning to look more convenient.

Getting mobile

The car is dug out and running. Even though the hood was frozen, I was able to yank it open and reconnect the positive battery terminal.
I tried, without success, to duct tape a shim over the open-door sensor button, but the metal was too cold and the duct tape won't hold. So the 10mm wrench will remain a required accessory, at least until I can get to the Subuaru shop tomorrow.
A friend called to say he heard our exact snowfall amount here is 16 inches.
No big surprise there.
Now we're off to play newspaper.

The Blizzard of '07

Working up the energy to go dig out the Subaru after about 30 hours of snow that met the NOAA criteria for a blizzard.
There was lots of drifting, so it's hard to tell exactly how much snow we got, but I'd guess it to be around 14 inches.
There's about a two-foot drift in front of the Subaru that needs to be shoveled away.
I had planned to drive Maria to work, then head for the Subaru dealership in Lafayette to get the open-door sensor button fixed. But the Subaru service department reports none of their technicians made it to work today because of the blizzard. So we'll have to keep pulling a battery cable whenever we park, for another day at least.
The del Sol is surrounded by three-foot drifts and isn't going anywhere until the snow melts.
The good news is that the plumber called last night and said he'll be here sometime tomorrow (Thursday) morning.
Is it spring yet?
Note to Tot in Winnipeg: Yes, I realize this looks a lot like your spring.

Deja Vu

I found this on Blonde Sagacity and felt it needed the widest possible audience:

Abraham Lincoln "repeatedly asserted that his aim was to prevent the spread of slavery, not eliminate it in the South." When asked if he was going to outlaw slavery in the South he would reply, "I believe I have no lawful right to do so."

Then, two years into the war he issued his "Emancipation Proclamation."

The North claimed Lincoln had "lied" and "misled the country into war" and that a "bloody and unnecessary war was being fought to bring the blessings of democracy to a people who had little experience with it."

Lincoln was also criticized for suspending habeas corpus — and not asking Congressional permission to do so until long afterwards.

Throughout the conflict, embittered Democrats claimed the war was an utter failure and demanded the administration bring the soldiers home.

The active duty commander, Gen. George McClellan (backed by the "Peace Democrats"), chastised Lincoln for predicting a shorter war with far less casualties...and for not sending enough troops.

(From: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln -Doris Kearns Goodwin)

My 2¢ worth

I've been reading the Amazon.com forum comments on The Shins' Wincing the Night Away and I find it interesting that not much is being said about the production side of the album.
James Mercer and producer Joe Chiccarelli have created some really spectacular aural landscapes that make the album - for me, at least - a treat for the ears. I want to say up front that I probably never would have bought Wincing the Night Away were it not for the fact that my son was one of the engineers on the project.
After seeing people natter away about how The Shins' first two albums were better, I went to iTunes and bought Chutes Too Narrow.
Now I think I see what the problem is. If I'd formed my impressions of what The Shins are supposed to sound like based on Chutes Too Narrow, I might have listened to Wincing the Night Away with a mind too narrow. Where "Chutes" was all about the songs, presented against a plain white background, "Wincing" puts the music in color and three-dimensional space.
For my money, Wincing the Night Away is the best-made album I've heard in years.

System failures

Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds.
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.

Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken.

Bridge: Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground

Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin',
Everything is broken.

Bridge: Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face

Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.
— Bob Dylan

It started about a week ago when the mercury dropped to the single digits and stayed there for days. The water line serving our dishwasher froze. It's happened before, but I hoped we'd dodged the bullet this time because there was no wind hitting the under-insulated wall between the dishwasher and God's own deep freeze. So the dishes started piling up and we broke into our supply of styrofoam picnic plates and plastic knives, forks and spoons.
And we hoped for a thaw.
Then, about 1:30 p.m. Sunday, I lost my internet connectivity. I ran through the usual routine - powercycle computer, DSL modem and wireless router. When that failed, I called tech support to ask if Frontiernet had any reports of a service outage in our tiny town. Nope. So I spent about an hour running various diagnostics that the techie thought might get me back online. At one point, he speculated that the problem was with my modem, since the browser couldn't see it. He finally ran out of ideas and put me on hold, saying he was going to pass me on to another geek who had more experience.
When it comes to experience, mine has been that everytime my DSL service goes down, Frontiernet Tech Support says the problem is with my equipment. And they've been wrong every time. Even the time when my modem died, because after all, that's their equipment too.
Moments after he put me on hold, I heard Maria screaming my name from the kitchen. I hung up the phone, dashed downstaris and found a small lake spreading out from the dishwasher.
This is the worst-case scenario of dishwasher water line freeze and it's only happened once before. The freezing water expands inside a valve and breaks it. It only starts to leak when the ice thaws and Sunday's modest warm-up was enough to trigger the flood.
Maria ran to the basement and shut off the water and I got out our floor scrubber, which has a water pick-up feature.
I left a voicemail for our plumber who called back about 30 minutes later to say he was at a basketball game with his son and would call us when he got home and checked his schedule to see when he could get to us. (It's now about 48 hours later and we still haven't heard from him.)
In the meantime, we located the shutoff valve for the dishwasher, shut it off and opened the main valve, restoring water to our toilets, showers, sinks and laundry facilities.
Monday morning, we were awakened by a call from our local Frontiernet repairman, a genuinely nice guy who lives next door to Maria's parents up on the north end of town. He showed up about 20 minutes later, did some voodoo and got me back online. The problem, he said, is a local piece of equipment the corporation is slow in funding. Once it gets installed, he said, these dropouts should stop. And, no, the people at tech support don't have any idea of the local problem and are useless when it happens.
Ok, that's two steps backward, one step forward.
Then Maria got home from work last night and reported the dashboard light on the Subaru that tells you when a door is open, wouldn't turn off. She said she'd checked all of the doors and confirmed they were properly closed. I went out and did the same. Of course the light stayed on. Apparently one of the door sensors had malfunctioned, making the car think a door was still open. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care what the car thought, but the circuit was set up to keep the light on even with the engine off and the key out of the ignition.
That's another step backwards.
With a major snowstorm about to start (We're under a blizzard warning as I write this the next day and the snow is blowing and piling up at an alarming rate.) I wasn't keen to let that dashboard light wipe out the battery overnight. So I rummaged through my tools in the garage and found a 10mm box-end wrench with which I disconnected the positive terminal of the battery.
When I got back inside the house, Maria showed me a rubber piece that she found on the floor by the front passenger seat. I'm 99 percent sure it's a tiny boot that fits over the door sensor button. With the boot gone, the closed door doesn't depress the sensor button far enough to assure the motherboard that the door is completely shut.
We awoke this morning to a call from one of Maria's reporters saying she doubted if she (the reporter) could get to work because a snow emergency had been declared in the county where she lives. Maria told her to stay put. The Indianapolis TV stations were all in Chicken Little Mode and it quickly became obvious that Maria wasn't going to drive the 18 miles to work today.
She saw this coming, which is why she went to Wal-Mart on her way home last night and bought some batting for a quilt she's making for the niece who was born on Saturday.
So we're hunkered down in the warm semi-security (until something else breaks) of our house while Maria quilts and runs her newspaper by phone and internet, directing the handful of people who were able to get to the office.
As a footnote, my Honda del Sol hasn't moved since the first snowfall about a week ago. It has big fat tires that are great on dry pavement, but turn into skis on snow and ice. The car is just plain scary on slick pavement and I let it sit when there's snow on the roads.
The best car I ever had for snow was the first car I owned - a Fontana gray 1965 VW beetle. With its rear engine over the drive wheels and skinny tires that concentrated the weight into small but effective contact patches, it was pretty much unstoppable in snow. Unfortunately, it was frequently unstartable because it was prone to gathering moisture in the distributor. But I'd trade my del Sol for the old bug on days like this.

Shins on a roll

The new Shins album, "Wincing the Night Away," is the #4 album in iTunes downloads.
My son Sean was an engineer on the project.
Damn! That's sooooo cool.

Would you go into space with Lisa Nowak?

STS121-S-002 (5 April 2006) --- These seven astronauts take a break from training to pose for the STS-121 crew portrait. From the left are astronauts Stephanie D. Wilson, Michael E. Fossum, both mission specialists; Steven W. Lindsey, commander; Piers J. Sellers, mission specialist; Mark E. Kelly, pilot; European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Reiter of Germany; and Lisa M. Nowak, both mission specialists. The crewmembers are attired in training versions of their shuttle launch and entry suit.

Image Credit: NASA/JSC

NASA Photo and Orange County Sheriff's Dept. Photo
Tuesday , February 06, 2007
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) — A NASA astronaut was ordered released on bail Tuesday on charges she attempted to kidnap a romantic rival for a space shuttle pilot's affections, but was told to wear a tracking device and not to contact her alleged victim.

Orange County Judge Mike Murphy said Lisa Marie Nowak, 43, will be released on $15,500 bond. She said "yes" when Murphy asked her if she understood not to contact the other woman.

Nowak stood in a jail uniform, usually with her head facing down during the hearing. She planned to return home to Houston once released.

Nowak is a married mother of three and police believe she was in a love triangle with a fellow astronaut. She faces charges including attempted kidnapping, attempted vehicle burglary with battery, destruction of evidence and battery.

Police said she drove 900 miles, donned a disguise and was armed with a BB gun and pepper spray Monday when she confronted a woman she believed was a competitor for the affections of Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein.

Nowak and Oefelein, 41, were both first-time fliers during separate shuttle missions last year. They trained together but never flew together.

Two other astronauts attended the court hearing. Steve Lindsey, the commander of Nowak's Discovery flight last July, testified that Nowak would obey the conditions of her release.

Chris Ferguson, a pilot on the mission, also attended the hearing. When asked about Nowak's behavior after the hearing, Ferguson responded "perplexed is the word I'm sticking with."

Nowak told police that her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship," according to an arrest affidavit. Police found a love letter to Oefelein in her car.

According to authorities, Nowak believed another woman, Colleen Shipman, was romantically involved with Oefelein. When Nowak found out Shipman was flying to Orlando from Houston, Nowak decided to confront her early Monday, according to the arrest affidavit.

Nowak raced from Houston to Orlando wearing diapers in the car so she wouldn't have to stop to go to the bathroom, authorities said. Astronauts wear diapers during launch and re-entry.

Dressed in a wig and a trench coat, she waited for Shipman's plane to land and then boarded the same airport shuttle bus Shipman took to get to her car, police said. Shipman told police she noticed someone following her, hurried inside the car and locked the doors, according to the arrest affidavit.

Nowak rapped on the window, tried to open the car door and asked for a ride. Shipman refused but rolled down the car window a few inches when Nowak started crying. Nowak then sprayed a chemical into Shipman's car, the affidavit said. Shipman drove to the parking lot booth and police were called.

An officer reported following Nowak and watching her throw away a bag containing the wig and BB gun. Police also found a steel mallet, a 4-inch folding knife, rubber tubing, $600 and garbage bags inside a bag Nowak was carrying when she was arrested, authorities said.

Oefelein and Shipman, who the Houston Chronicle said worked at Patrick Air Force Base near the Kennedy Space Center, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

NASA spokesman James Hartsfield in Houston said that, as of Monday, Nowak's status with the astronaut corps remained unchanged. "What will happen beyond that, I will not speculate," he said.

Hartsfield said he couldn't recall the last time an astronaut was arrested and said there were no rules against fraternizing among astronauts.

Police said Nowak told them that she only wanted to scare Shipman into talking to her about her relationship with Oefelein and didn't want to harm her physically.

"If you were just going to talk to someone, I don't know that you would need a wig, a trench coat, an air cartridge BB gun and pepper spray," said Orlando police Sgt. Barbara Jones. "It's just really a very sad case."

According to NASA's official biography, Nowak is a Naval Academy graduate who has a master's degree in aeronautical engineering. She has a teenage son and younger twin girls.

Oefelein has two children and began his aviation career as a teenager flying floatplanes in Alaska, according to a NASA biography. He studied electrical engineering at Oregon State University and later earned a master's degree in aviation systems at the University of Tennessee Space Institute. He has been an astronaut since 1998.

Cmdr. William Oefelein

Smugness

I'm feeling smug this afternoon.
We went to our nearest Barnes & Noble today, looking for books on photographic lighting. I found two - one for $19.95 and one for $24.95 - that I wanted. Then I used my Treo 700p cell phone to surf to the Amazon.com website (they have a separate site configured for hand-held devices) and was able to buy used copies of both books for a total of $9.73, including shipping and handling.

Just for the record

I don't give a shit about the Superbowl.

Shins Album is #1

Marty Crandall, Joe Chiccarelli, James Mercer and Sean Flora



Hey, the new Shins album - Wincing the Night Away - is #1 in four Billboard album categories:
#1 Rock Album
#1 Digital Album
#1 Independent Album
#1 in the "Tastemakers" category
Am I proud that my son Sean was an engineer on the album project? That would be a serious understatement.


Here's the pertinent blog entry pirated from Sean's MySpace account:


The new record by the Shins, Wincing the Night Away, comes out this Tuesday.
I'm super excited, as this is by far the biggest engineering credit for me so far. These guys were great to work with and were about the farthest you can imagine from being Prima Donnae (or pre-madonna?).

I always marvel at the constant interplay and balancing act between composing and studio experimentation. Sometimes you get people recording songs before they've even written the lyric. To me this is nuts. It seems like the posture is: "Oh, I just come up with something at the last minute...whatever comes into my head."... Well, it usually sounds like it... In my opinion, the best writing takes work and focus - even the songs that seem to come out easily require your attention and patience to get them down on the page. There are nuances in the music which have to be informed by what's going on in the vocal line.

Where I'm going is this: James came into the sessions pretty fully prepared as far as having the songs written. In fact he had already recorded at home some of the elements of each song - a vocal and a guitar part, the steel-drum-sounding keyboard part on Red Rabbits... Yet there was also quite a lot of room - meaning openness and willingness on the part of James and the band - for experimenting with forms, sounds, rhythms and other elements...

I have to say, having a lot of room for experimentation can also, for some folks, lead to getting mired in too many options. Producer Joe Chiccarelli [you have got to see his credit list; it's HUGE and varied] really kept things on track, getting the home-recorded tracks to mesh with the live-in-studio parts and all the guest musicians.

This past week, I've been doing some behind-the-scenes work as the Shins get ready for TV appearances and touring... Look for some great remixes coming out soon, including at least one by DangerMouse.

Changes

Changes are in the air this month.
Maria and I signed up with our doctor for his weight loss program. At the end of three weeks last Wednesday, I'd lost about 15 pounds and Maria was down about 8 or 9. And we're feeling better already. Taking Phentermine, chromium and vitamin B12 every morning, paying closer attention to what and how much we eat and aiming for 10,000 steps/day with pedometers we wear on our belts.
We've also had our initial meeting with the contractor for our new garage/studio. The plan calls for the razing of our two ramshackle garages. They'll be replaced by a heated two-car, two-motorcycle garage with an upstairs photo studio/office. Plumbing would add $10k to the cost, so we're skipping that amenity, but it should be a great addition to the property. We're also planning to pave the area between the garage and house and put up a privacy fence for entertaining and hot tubbing. The hot tub desperately needs something to block the wind. As it is now, any wind over about 10 mph makes getting in, and especially out, of the tub a bone-chilling experience.
I need to remember to call Galen Perry, who runs a BMW motorcycle parts operation up near Delphi, and have him pick up what's left of my old '91 K100RS. I've parted out most of it on Ebay and am down to the frame, forks, front wheel, engine and drive train. We have a lot of stuff to dispose of or, at least move before the garage goes into the dumpster.
Anybody want a Franklin stove that runs on gas? I'll probably offer it on Ebay with local pickup only. No way I'm going to ship that beast.
And I went under the knife last Tuesday to have a cyst removed from my back. No big deal, but the incision is starting to itch as it heals and I can't use the hot tub until the stitches come out in another week.
Maria fired her night copy editor, so she and I have been working together at her paper evenings since last Monday. It's fun to be back in the newspaper harness and paycheck is nice too. Sure beats flipping channels all evening.
We're shooting a wedding next weekend for the son of a couple of Maria's longtime friends. The kids are extremely short on money, so Maria offered to do it for $300. I was willing to come down to $500 as a charity case, but $300 is downright painful, considering the post-shoot production work I have to do to edit the images and burn them onto CDs. This is essentially the same package for which we just raised our rates to $1,000. I told her this is the only semi-freebie she can give away this year. And we need to get these kids to swear they will never tell anyone how cheaply we worked on their wedding.
As I write this, the mercury is down to 15 degrees (F), heading for an overnight low of 10 or 11. It's the closest snap of the winter so far, so I guess I shouldn't complaing. But I've been cold all day and it's got me thinking of a tropical escape.

Shins album

Amazing. Simply amazing.
The new Shins album, that is. I bought a copy this evening, mainly just to see my son's name in the liner notes, but it turns out to be the sweetest piece of ear candy I've found in a long long time.
I'm sitting at a computer at my wife's newspaper office, writing obits and editing copy while listening through earphones.
The second thing I do when I get home tonight, after letting the dogs out, will be to rip this CD to my iPod.
Good work, Sean!

Another low mileage year

I turned in my 2006 mileage for the Indianapolis BMW Club's mileage awards this afternoon. It was an embarrassingly low total - 6,093 miles.
I suppose some casual riders would consider that pretty good, but for a BMW rider it's pathetic.
For more than a decade, I was a regular recipient of the club's 10,000-mile award at the annual awards dinner, but this will be the second consecutive year when I've failed to make 10k.
And it looks like 2007 won't be a high mileage year either, because our wedding photography business is picking up. I like the money, but I miss riding.

Right on, Sean!

I got this e-mail the other day from my son Sean Flora, who is a recording engineer/producer in Portland, Ore.:

The new record by the Shins, Wincing the Night Away, comes out next Tuesday. They will be appearing on the David Letterman Show (whatever it’s called) that night. They were on SNL this past weekend. This is my first engineering credit on a major release of this magnitude.

Needless to say, I'm enormously impressed and proud. I've watched him work with musicians in the studio and am impressed with his ability to tweak things and to guide in a friendly way, so as not to bruise egos. He has excellent people skills and is damned good at what he does.
Check out his MySpace page.

No thanks, Mr. Jobs

Okay, maybe I don't want an iPhone after all.
After listening to various podcasts in the wake of Steve Jobs' introduction of Apple's new cell phone, I'm a bit less awed.
Yes, it is a spectacular design. No moving parts or keys, just a big gorgeous touch-screen. That means Apple can update your iPhone with tweaks and new features - maybe even completely change the user interface when you synch your iPhone with your internet-linked computer. That's freaking revolutionary.
But when I start thinking about how I use a cell phone and what the iPhone supposedly will do and won't do, I find myself having to give up too much.
The word is that the touch-screen keyboard makes typing e-mails really difficult, compared with the thumb typing and accessory fold-out keyboard for my Treo 700p.
At present there is no provision for third-party software additions, so I'd have to give up Pocket Quicken that synchs with my PC Quicken, my various Palm weather programs, my Palm document reader, and on and on.
And, like the iPod, the iPhone does not have a user-replacable battery. Plus, the presumed battery life is only about 5 hours.
And that gorgeous big screen looks like it can be easily scrathed and marred in normal day-to-day use.
And the mp3 player capacity is pretty piddly, compared with my 60GB iPod.
The idea of rolling an iPod and cell phone into one package is alluring. I find myself carrying both whenever I leave home. But somehow the iPhone doesn't quite get me there. It's kind of a cell phone and kind of an iPod and kind of an internet device, but it doesn't compare with the power and versatility of a regular iPod and a Treo.
Plus, I'm locked into contracts with Sprint for the rest of my natural life and have no desire to switch to Cingular.
So I think I'll pass on the iPhone and stick with my Treo.

iPhone

The new iPhone unveiled yesterday is excruciatingly cool.
But they forgot to build a camera into it.

Added later: I was watching Steve Jobs' keynote address at Mac World online today and discovered I'd missed the reference to a 2 megapixel camera. So the iPhone is perfect, after all.

Sad duty

I covered another soldier's funeral today - this one a hometown boy. I can see the cemetery from my bedroom window. Here's his mother with the flag from the casket.

Life without the Internet

I lost my internet connection a week ago this morning. I was looking at movie previews on the Netflix site when the connection failed. I tried all of the usual tricks - power cycling DSL modem, wireless router and computer, poking the reset buttons on the modem and router and snugging up the cable connections on modem and router. None of it worked.
So I called the tech service people at my ISP - Frontiernet. The friendly techie ran me through his diagnostic flow chart and concluded that my DSL modem was hosed. Well, he avoided that term, preferring to say it needed "a rest." So he transferred me to customer service where the friendly lady tried to talk me into a DSL modem/wireless router combo, which would add $4 and change a month to my phone/DSL bill for equipment rental. I declined and asked for a simple DSL modem, since I have no complaints with my D-Link wireless router.
"How soon can you get it to me?" I asked.
"Jan. 2," she replied.
This was on Dec. 27, mind you.
"Is there any way to expedite that?"
"No."
So I sat and stewed for a day.
On Friday, I decided to go to my local Frontier office on the off chance that they would have a DSL modem I could borrow until my new one came from afar.
But the door was locked and bore a sign announcing that the office was closed for the New Year holiday.
Seriously Jonesing for an internet fix, I took my laptop to the local public library and used their Wi-Fi to check my e-mail and surf a bit.
The one glimmer of hope in my disconnected despair was the realization that, although the U.S. Postal Service wouldn't resume deliveries until today (Wednesday) because of President Ford's funeral services, UPS might be working on Tuesday and my modem was coming via UPS.
Nevertheless, I went back to the local Frontier office yesterday (Tuesday) to let them know I was without service.
(The last time I lost my DSL connection, the Frontiernet techies said my router was at fault, but it turned out that the problem was at the local switch where one of the guys had snipped some wires and a tiny piece of wire fell into contact with the wires associated with my connection. Consequently, I have learned that the distant techies are pretty much always wrong.)
So the woman at the local office took down my information and said she'd ask their only tech guy - who was handling problems in a nearby town - to get on it when he got back.
In the meantime, the UPS guy delivered a brand new Speed Stream DSL modem/wireless router combo to my house. Remember that I said I declined the combo? Well, here it was.
So I hooked it up and, sure enough, I still had no internet connection.
The DSL indicator light shone a happy bright green, but no data was coming through the connection.
Once, again, the Frontiernet techies misdiagnosed the problem, pointing the finger at my equipment when the fault was on their side of the connection.
Naturally, the local tech guy didn't get back in town in time to fix my problem last night and I'm still waiting at 9:15 a.m. today.
So how am I connecting to post this?
I'm piggybacking onto my next-door neighbor's unsecured Wi-Fi signal.