Down For The Count

Hello World,

Happy Leap Day! Now that's something that you don't hear often, because Leap Days are rare enough, and even more rare to appear on a Friday along with the rest of my notes, so this is indeed a red-letter occasion and one for the books. This is a big day for anyone born on February 29th, since they have so few opportunities to celebrate their birthdays on the actual day they were born, but as special days go, Leap Day has failed to develop enough traditions or rituals to make it worth celebrating by the general population. I suppose that's better than taking a page out of the books of some other holidays, and following in the unwelcome footsteps of the Waitangi Day riots or St. Patrick's Day lawsuits, or even the Ramadan pilgrim stampedes, but it would be nice to have something more fun and festive to look forward to every four years, instead of just confusing all the calendar makers for nothing. Speaking of which, at work they had to circulate a memo to all departments, alerting them that the time cards had arrived from the payroll processing company with the wrong date on them, and to please use them anyway, in spite of saying March 2 instead of March 1. Honestly, you'd think a place that does payroll for a living would be used to the idea of Leap Year by now, which has been in effect for centuries already, and wouldn't go ahead and print up all their time cards with the wrong dates, as if it would be beyond their abilities to plan for something that happens regularly every four years and right on schedule every time. This is about on the same order of surprise as sunrise, or Spring, or even death and taxes, which is to say, no surprise at all.

Speaking of surprises, in the local area the winter had been so mild and pleasant for the most part, that many of us were surprised to see actual snow last week, with enough accumulations and messy conditions that would have closed schools all over the region, except for the fact that they were already closed for winter break anyway, and a good thing, too. I braved the conditions and went to work, where it was business as usual at the hospital, since practically nothing keeps medical people from getting to their jobs. Where Bill works, they closed for the day, so he got to spend the day at home, playing with his new snow-thrower for the first time since he got it at Christmas. He turned it loose on the walks and even our long and winding driveway, and was satisfied with the results. Later in the day, the snow turned to freezing rain, and the snow plows came along and made their snow piles in front of the house, so Bill shoveled out a space for the Escort the old-fashioned way, because that would have been beyond the snow-thrower's abilities. But for what it is capable of handling, it did a fine job, and at least Bill had a chance to try it out and see how it works, after sitting around in our living room for two months and not a flake in sight.

In the Sports section of our local paper on Thursday, there was a story about a young man who won the boys slalom at the New York State high school ski championships in Lake Placid. The article actually starts with this shocking assertion: "Mahopac senior Billy O'Connor has been making trips to the Adirondacks with his family for countless years." I said to Bill, "No, he hasn't!" After all, the kid is only 17 years old as it is, and he couldn't have gone to the Adirondacks before he was born, so even I would have no trouble at all counting the entire sum total of these supposedly "countless" years, starting at 17 and working my way backwards. In fact, I could probably do it in record time. It might not occur to the local sports reporters that the expression "countless" is more appropriately used for seemingly limitless quantities of things, like sand on the beach or stars in the heavens, and certainly not high school athletes who aren't even old enough to vote, much less drink. As a matter of fact, I'm three times the age of this youngster, and I could still count all the years that I've done something in my life, because human life-spans are just too short to use the term "countless" about them, even for the math-challenged among us, and I ought to know.

Meanwhile at work, the people in charge of our Patient Satisfaction Team decided to videotape our skit on Patient Satisfaction, as it had been presented live at the management luncheon in October, and they thought that having it preserved for posterity would be useful for educational purposes. So they notified everyone on the committee that the taping would take place this morning, at an empty room on the 7th floor, and we should all meet there at the appointed time and be prepared to reprise our roles for the camera. Anyone who remembers the vicissitudes of this skit from the first time around will not be surprised to learn, obviously, that didn't happen, and in spectacular fashion. This is the same skit, with 7 speaking parts, and this time, only two of the people showed up for their parts, plus one other person from the committee, which achieves a new level of failure even for this skit's standards, which were pretty darned low to start with. We used the three people we did have, and then sent the team leader out in the hallways to round up any available staff who could fill in for the missing four other parts, including the grouchy patient, who is central to the plot. Since the hijacked staff outnumbered the committee members, our team can't even take the credit for it, although we were lucky that the emergency fill-ins played their parts well and cheerfully. Between setting up, gathering props and equipment, rehearsing (which didn't help, by the way) and actual taping, it took almost two hours to record what amounts to a 5 minute skit. I'm sure we all did the best we could, but I can't imagine how bad the finished product is going to look, no matter how they try to fix it in the editing, I'm afraid that it would be beyond saving at this point. One thing I am sure of is that YouTube is certainly not waiting for this to see the light of day, and that would be putting it mildly.

Also at work, I had been taking a walk around the hospital campus recently and was surprised to see a Christmas tree at this late date, that had been discarded and left at the curb. For anyone who might have supposed that it was just any old evergreen or pine branches being cleared out of someone's yard, I can assure you that it still had a string of Christmas lights attached to the branches when I saw it. I went past it a few times in my travels, and after I noticed it was still there a week later, I started to feel sorry for it, and after that, my mind just totally snapped. I found myself thinking, by golly, it's a Christmas tree, I could drag it to the parking lot and take it home, then cut it apart for firewood, because they burn great. I'm thinking by the end of February, it must be good and dry, plus it would be a nice manageable apartment-sized tree that would be a snap to bring home and saw apart. So then instead of Daffy Duck showing up ("Shoot me now! Shoot me now!") like he should have, after work I grabbed hold of it and dragged it all the way down the block to the parking lot, where its true nature finally reared its ugly head. Far from being a little and manageable 5-foot tree for a small apartment, it proved itself to be at least a 7-foot behemoth with a large no-nonsense trunk, and way too heavy to just toss in the back of the Escort with abandon. In fact, even with all of the seats folded down, and the trunk on the dashboard, the beast wouldn't fit in the car, and I had to break off all of the top branches to close the hatchback. Trying to drive with this unwieldy cargo taking up 90% of the interior was an arboreal experience that I would not care to repeat, and when I finally got home, I found that it was impossible to wrestle it out of the Escort without using my loppers to cut off the lower branches and pull it out the front door. I left it in the backyard, with its tattered string of Christmas lights trailing after it, and I have to say that my enthusiasm for sawing it apart has definitely waned to a considerable degree. And I know that no matter how many countless years I may have the Escort, I will never get all of the pine needles out of it, or should I say, countless pine needles.

Smooth Sailing

Hello World,

Well, what hasn't been going on around here lately, it's been a veritable whirlwind of activity in our environs, what with one thing and another, I tell you, we're just beside ourselves. And I don't mind saying, even with the four of us, there's still plenty to go around, and that's not just my evil twin speaking, believe me. Of course, Monday was Presidents Day, and our department in the hospital was closed, which is always nice, and in a smooth move I made it even nicer by taking off the Friday before, so I not only had a 4-day weekend, but two weeks in a row that I only had to work four days each, and that was a real treat. We took the opportunity to accept my sister's invitation to meet them at one of our favorite places, the Eveready Diner in Hyde Park for brunch, and unlike other time-challenged people that we try to rendezvous with, we all managed to get there at the same time. We had a wonderful meal, which is no surprise, and then headed up the road to introduce them to another favorite attraction, the Hyde Park Antiques Center, which is way more interesting and enticing than it sounds. And not just to crazy people like me who collect salt and pepper shakers, although I suppose that doesn't hurt.

Alert readers may remember the new invisible fence on one side of the hospital campus, where the original old chain link fence had been removed so that only the empty posts were left standing. This was exactly the opposite of what I expected from the representatives of Premier Fence Installations, and I said so at the time. It turned out later that they did in fact install a new fence there, and it didn't turn out to be invisible after all. On a subsequent trip around the campus two weeks later, I noticed new green metal fence posts, set about a foot farther back from the original posts and closer to the sidewalk, plus bright shiny and new green chain link fence attached to them and looking very secure and neat. So now we know the whole story of the fence saga, and the world is once again safe from any cars being driven out of the doctors parking lot and over the sidewalk, in the hands of dazed and confused medical professionals, and a good thing, too.

Also on the inside looking out, we had the same sort of situation on our upstairs porch recently, when I opened the door to look for something, and couldn't help but notice an errant chickadee flying around in there. I closed the door and summoned Bill, who is not widely recognized for having been born with super-human powers, far above those of mere mortals, but should be, and he was quick to pitch in. (Actually, his first words were, "How did he get in?" as if by explaining to the chickadee to go out the same way he came in would do the trick, but everyone knows that I have a long-standing policy against using logic with irrational beings, so I refused to try that.) It was obvious from the way the chickadee was flapping around in an agitated manner, and banging into the windows, that he had no idea how to get out of our porch, and in fact, probably wondered what he was thinking when he came in there in the first place. We knew we would not be equal to the task of catching this smooth operator on the fly, so finally we just moved a bunch of stuff out of the way and opened one of the windows, and then contrived through an awkward series of acrobatic maneuvers, to direct the intruder to fly out the open window, which he finally did. We were glad to see the tail-end of him in our porch, and I'm sure that goes double for our little feathered friend. Frankly, I never realized that chickadees even knew those sorts of hand gestures.

Bill had this to say about our friends at infoplease.com and their explanation of Chinese New Year:

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I had a serious question about this Year of the Rat thing. You said:

Those born in Rat years tend to be leaders, pioneers, and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, William Shakespeare, and Mozart

The obvious question is, just where HAS Gwyneth Paltrow led us? Kidding aside, not only are there no leaders, pioneers or conquerors on the list (I suppose Mozart could be considered a pioneer of sorts, but not in any real, Kentuckian sense), but the worst part is -- there are no CHINESE people on the list! How good is this Rat stuff as a predictor if they don't mention Mao or even Chiang Kai Shek? In fact, that's a lot of Rat years for a country with half the world's population in it to come up with just two known leaders (if you don't count the Ming guys with the vases.) Just thought that was a little bizarre. But then, I'm a follower of Gwyneth Paltrow.
====================

Well, I can't say that I disagree with any of that, and while I don't expect every one of them to be a leader or pioneer, I personally think it violates some kind of law to mention Ben Affleck and "charismatic" in the same sentence. And don't even get me started on Samuel L. Jackson and "charm," for heaven's sake.

Of course, everyone knows if it's February, there is at least one thing for certain in this uncertain world, and that is that I will be out in the backyard cutting firewood for camping, and they'd be right. We always have plenty of firewood in our yard, in the form of fallen branches, plus whatever I pick up in my travels around town or in the neighborhood, as well as years' worth of previous Christmas trees. In fact, I was probably more surprised than anyone when I went to cut the branches off last year's Christmas tree, and found the previous year's tree still lounging around in the corner of the yard with all its branches still attached. I would have sworn that I had already clipped that one smooth and left it on the log pile to dry out so I could cut it up for camping, and not left it for a whole year just laying about in the same spot. But the inescapable fact is that either I completely neglected to take care of that old tree when I should have, or I suppose one of the neighbors could have snuck their old Christmas tree into our backyard instead of putting it out at the curb. In any case, I cut the branches off both trees and put the trunks on the log pile to dry out, which certainly explains the subsequent rain, snow storms, etc, etc. Like the Christmas trees, much of the firewood that I have at my disposal is much too long to burn, so I have to cut it into shorter lengths, which I do in the winter when it's cooler and there are no bugs. The wood that is too big or damp to cut, I leave to dry on the log pile, and sometimes I leave things there so long that by the time I get around to sawing them into pieces, they've turned into nothing but sawdust with bark around it. I made some pretty good progress on my camping firewood by cutting up the smallest and driest stuff first, and made quite a stack of sure-fire tinder that should burn great. Then I decided to pull some of the wider pieces off the bottom of the firewood rack, with the idea that I could split them and they would dry out faster in the garage. I moved all the wood that was on top of them, and that was no picnic, believe me, only to find that all of the pieces on the very bottom were frozen to the frame of the rack, and there was no budging them. Well, that is one of the drawbacks of trying to gather firewood in the middle of the winter, and don't think that the irony is lost on me, because even at this early date, I can recognize the camping gods toying with me when I see it.

Speaking of early dates, the ticker tape from the Giants parade was hardly cleared off the streets in the Canyon of Heroes in the city, when the local sports world was rocked with the announcement that the Mets had signed pitching ace Johan Santana away from Minnesota, to don the fabled pinstripes of our very own Amazin's in the heart of Queens. This was big news indeed, especially for a franchise that missed the playoffs last year by one game, and whose pitching during that time lurched from the unpredictably bad to worse all season long. This is the kind of "hot stove" report that makes life worth living again, and it seemed to be one particularly dark and dreary day when someone mentioned that it was only two weeks to Pitchers and Catchers, which is a rejuvenating elixir that the legendary Fountain of Youth could only aspire to. Since then, the newspapers have been full of pictures of limber young men in warm weather, gearing up for the upcoming season, bright with promise and teeming with great expectations which no dread foreboding can dim. There's nothing like it to warm up those cold winter days, and give us all reason to wish for spring, where hope reigns and every team is a contender. It's finally close enough that looking forward in the TV listings, our TiVo wondered if we would like it to record the first few Mets pre-season games being broadcast, and we jumped at the chance. So here in February, life is good, and baseball is better. Or in the immortal words of Johan Santana (actually, I think it was Carlos Santana) who said, "Smooth!"

The Proof Is In The Pudding

Hello World,

Happy Valentine's Day, plus one! I hope that you observed the saint's day with the requisite hearts and flowers, romance and indulgence, not to mention, satin ribbons and lace doilies that would satisfy any Cupid's fondest desires. It's a widely recognized axiom that "diamonds are a girl's best friend," but when it comes to Valentine's Day, I tend to prefer things with a lot less sparkle and a lot more milk chocolate, thank you very much. Throw in some caramel and chopped nuts, and you can keep your jewelry, believe me. Our holiday started out in an unusual way, actually the night before, when we had to call the plumber at 11:00 at night because our furnace was making a strange buzzing noise. Because I have "medical student's disease," I convinced myself that I was getting a headache and dizziness from carbon monoxide poisoning, in spite of the fact that our house is draftier than an old canvas tent, and it would be impossible to be overcome by fumes in here, no matter what. So at 7:30 AM on Valentine's Day, here was the plumber in our driveway, which is a new approach to the holiday in our experiences, and as innovations go, I can't say that I recommend it all that much. But he gave our furnace a clean bill of health, so we could go to work and not worry about the house blowing up while we were gone. And in fact, it didn't, and we came home to find things exactly as we had left them, and glad of it. So we opened our presents after dinner, and considered the day a huge success, and don't think I don't have the chocolate to prove it. On the other hand, Bill complained that by Wednesday, February 6th, which was 8 days before the holiday, the supermarket had already cleared out all of their Valentine's Day merchandise from the seasonal aisle, and replaced it with a profusion of Easter baskets, chocolate bunnies, pastel candy eggs and baby chicks of every description. Sounds like the "Event Police" sized up ol' Cupid and his pals, and found them wanting in terms of sales appeal, so they got the bum's rush in favor of the next big thing.

Speaking of events, alert readers may be wondering, if the Super Bowl has come and gone (and even the ticker-tape parade for the Giants along the Canyon of Heroes in midtown Manhattan) what about the annual congregational meeting at church? For years, these two occasions were scheduled on the same Sunday in January, and it was easy to remember when the annual meeting would be at church, because for weeks ahead of time, the date for the upcoming Super Bowl was all over the media and there was no getting away from it. The NFL season had gotten so long over the years that the Super Bowl was finally stretched out all the way to the last Sunday in January, and our meeting moved right along with it, but once the football bigwigs pushed it back into February, we bailed out on it, and left tradition behind by keeping our meeting in January. And so there it was, and that sound you don't hear is of the wailing and gnashing of teeth, not to mention name-calling and throwing chairs, that pointedly didn't happen at the meeting this time around. We actually conducted some business, elected Council members, passed the budget and had lunch, and seldom was heard a discouraging word, all the live-long day, with a banjo on my knee. I think it would be premature to hope that after 500 years, Lutherans had finally gotten mature enough to have a meeting without it turning into an acrimonious free-for-all, but at least this was a welcome change of pace. And I'm sure that rumor of a new kiosk for ice skate rentals in Hades has just been wildly exaggerated.

About the cold, that's one thing I don't have to worry about any longer, since Santa's elves were warm-hearted enough to bring me a heated seat cushion for the Escort, so I can stay nice and toasty in any kind of weather. While the Gremlin, bless its little purple heart, was not equipped with a cigarette lighter, the Escort had no such deficiency, although it took a team of experts to arrive at that conclusion. When I got the Escort in September, it didn't take long to notice the hole in the dashboard, among the other controls and below the radio, where I supposed, the cigarette lighter would have been if there had been one, which there apparently was not. I paid it no mind, since I didn't require a cigarette lighter for any purpose, and certainly didn't stick anything into it as an experiment. (Feel free to ask Bill about the time I cut through an extension cord with a pair of scissors, if you wonder at my lack of curiosity on this point.) So when I unwrapped the heated seat cushion on Christmas Day, which plugs handily into the car's cigarette lighter, I couldn't help but blurt out that there is no cigarette lighter in the Escort, just a hole on the dashboard where it used to be. Of course, everyone knows that Bill is not to be daunted, and he hurried to the store and picked up an after-market cigarette lighter kit for our mechanic to install in the Escort, and after all, there was already a convenient spot for it to fit right into. Not so fast! Our young mechanic, who would prefer to be thought of as expedient rather than lazy, assured us that the hole in the dashboard was still a perfectly functional cigarette lighter socket, and the only thing missing was the actual cigarette lighter feature which usually identifies the whole apparatus, but the socket worked fine. He proved this by using the socket to charge up his cell phone, and was pleased as punch with the results. Being young and fearless, he couldn't help but ask, "Didn't you try sticking anything in it to see if it worked?" (Please see note above about extension cord and scissors.) So that was more of a learning experience than an actual mechanical repair, but it all worked out for the best, as I've been enjoying my heated seat cushion on those frigid mornings and frosty evenings back and forth to work, and I can heartily recommend it.

While we're on the subject of cars, I happened to be walking around the hospital campus one afternoon, and from down the block, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a car alarm going off at full volume. This was one of those security systems that runs through a series of five different alarm sounds in sequence over and over again, that are really annoying until the person shuts it off, and I guarantee that if grenades were more readily available ... well, I for one could not be responsible for the consequences, and I don't think I'm alone in that. Everyone knows that my personal opinion is that when a car alarm is going off full-tilt and at length, that's the perfect opportunity to break into the car, because it's obvious that no one is paying the slightest attention to the fact that the alarm is going off anyway, and you may as well take advantage of it. An unheeded car alarm is the same kind of open invitation as piled-up mail and newspapers in front of a house, it just screams that no one is watching the store, as it were. Anyway, I was hoping for the sake of the neighbors that someone would come out soon and turn off the darned alarm so they wouldn't have to listen to it any longer than necessary, when I noticed a car pulling out of a side street and turning onto the street I was on. And you could have knocked me right over when I realized that this was the very car that the alarm was blaring for all the world to hear, and here it was, driving nonchalantly down the street as if there was nothing at all amiss. It drove right past me, and you couldn't miss the fact that got louder and louder as it approached, and then softer and softer as it continued on its way, so it was obviously the alarm in question. As noisy as it was out on the street, I'm thinking that it must have been even worse inside the car, so that must have been no picnic to be driving around with that screaming racket in your face, even if it was just to go the service station and have the alarm fixed. Of course, we can't overlook the possibility, as I've always suggested, that someone just came along and stole the car as long as the alarm was going off anyway and no one was paying attention to it, in which case, the noise was a small price to pay for a new car.

Well, I hope that everyone has gotten their licks in by taking pot-shots at HealthStream, because I just found out that it's a thing of the past. Alas, poor HealthStream. This was the service that the hospital signed up for a few years ago, whereby the staff could complete their annual mandatory education requirements online, which was supposed to be much easier to keep everyone up-to-date on their training in fire safety, infection control, HIPAA, emergency preparedness and hazardous materials. It replaced the previous system of dragging all 1,600 employees to the auditorium, a batch at a time, to go over these lessons in person, which was considered too archaic by our forward-thinking management. They touted the advantages of HealthStream, which provided a vast array of Internet resources, it could be altered or updated quickly if needed, and completion rates tracked with ease. I will admit that I was one of the nay-sayers, and I said right from the start that it could never work, and when it came to tossing brickbats at it, I was right there in the front and center, pitching hard. I felt that too great a proportion of the hospital employees were low-paid entry-level foreign workers, in Housekeeping, Dietary and the Storeroom, whose lack of computer literacy would doom the program from the outset. I complained about it long and loud over the few years that it was in place, decrying the wrong answers, incomprehensible questions, erroneous completion rates and balky interface that marred its effectiveness right from the very beginning. I will say that my complaints about things have never had any impact at the hospital previously, so I certainly can't chalk it up to that, but I found out earlier in the week that the hospital had severed its relationship with HealthStream, and was instead implementing a system of paper tests that everyone would need to complete and return. Well, that's what I would call a giant step into the 19th century, and while I was no fan of HealthStream, I can't see that this is going to much of an improvement. And I have the feeling that it won't be long before we're all going to miss HealthStream, and wish that we had it to kick around again. And I'd be right in there kicking, you can believe it.

Meanwhile, we get this story from Bill:

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In other news, I was looking for some software for my Palm and came across this guy who was selling a flash-card like program to help you learn a language. Unfortunately, the blurb on the page read like this:
"A program LanguageTutor is intended for effective memorization of foreign words. The unique method of word memorization on the basis of letter tips (prompts) is applied in the program. Unlike flash cards, the letter tips give rise to a number of associations and "hooks" for effective memorization.To not be proofless we shall disassemble work of the program on an example."
Now, THAT'S the guy I want to learn a language from! Sign me up!
================================

Well, if that last sentence is a "work of the program on an example," that may be an idea whose time has not yet come, or perhaps would be better described as "Some Disassembly Required." Say, I'll bet this is the same guy who used to do HealthStream! Now, where's my brickbat when I need it?

Read My Palm

Hello World,

Hong Kong Bok Choy! Well, you know it's Chinese New Year around these parts when you hear people who are afraid that they can't correctly pronounce Kung Hey Fat Chou wishing each other instead a very happy and healthy Hong Kong Bok Choy. We had a visit yesterday from Michael, a nice young man who works in our OR, and I have always had the feeling is Filipino, although it must be said that it looks like he's wearing the map of China all over his face. Since he was in our office yesterday, I told him that I always had my suspicions that he wasn't really Asian, since it was after all Chinese New Year and here he was at work. He laughed. I said that I wanted to be the first person to wish him Hong Kong Bok Choy, which is what we say instead of saying the right thing the wrong way, and while I was saying that, he nodded and said, "Oh yes, Kung Hey Fat Chou," and you can believe me when I say that it didn't sound anything like that when he said it. Ah, those inscrutable Asians. I think they just toss these things at us to throw us off the scent.

Well, I don't know if everyone was as surprised as I was at the outcome of the Super Bowl last week, although I certainly hope the bookies weren't, because they'd all be bankrupt. I should have realized something was up early in the morning at church, when instead of our usual 20 worshipers, there were more than 30, apparently all praying for one thing. When we got to the point in the service where Pastor says, "Who would the people of God pray for, either aloud or in their hearts?" where you usually hear people around you saying things like "Susan," or "cousin Harold" or "Aunt Daisy and Grandma Puckett," from everywhere in the congregation, you could hear people saying, "Giants ... Giants ... Giants ..." In fact, I could have sworn I heard the little old lady behind me who is in charge of our Altar Guild whisper, "Please break Tom Brady's leg," but I'm sure I must have been mistaken.

Of course, we all know that I have no axe to grind, and I am not prepared to rule out the possibility that the local mobsters did in fact take the necessary steps to win the game for the "family," and I say, more power to them. I figure there's no sense in having these Mafia kingpins in the first place, if you can't get them to put the squeeze on when it counts. Our newspaper also did a big story before the game of a young man who sells novelty Giants license plates at the stadium, and he had attended all three playoff games where the Giants won all three, so he wanted to make sure he was at the Super Bowl as a good luck charm, he might have been the one who tipped the balance. Personally, my money is on Don Shula, the coach of the undefeated Miami Dolphins of lore and legend, who was rooting loud and long against the Patriots, so his team could remain the only undefeated team in NFL history, and he certainly got his wish in unexpected fashion. I don't know how he did it, but you can believe that I wouldn't bet against him from now on.

On a more sober note, however, it occurred to me that with the whole media flap about the so-called "spygate tapes" that were destroyed by the Commissioner's office, it might have been just as well for the Patriots not to win, because the stigma from that would have followed them around forever, dogging their heels and tainting their victory, rightly or wrongly. It wouldn't have been fair to either team, the fans, or the history of the Super Bowl, regardless of whether the allegations had any basis in fact or not. Say, that brings up the possibility that it was the Commissioner's office that put in the fix on the game, and not the mobsters after all. Way to go, Capo di NFL Capo!

Pop quiz: Quick - name the NFL Commissioner right this minute!

I regret to say that the actual answer to that question appears to be something called Roger Goodell, according to published reports, whoever the heck he is. It seems impossible that in just a matter of years, the sports commissioners have gone from being mythic, larger-than-life world famous figures, to mere nobodies in suits that no one knows or pays any attention to. Who could ever forget Pete Rozelle, the NFL Commissioner back when the Super Bowl started, who was sharp and charismatic, and you couldn't turn on a TV or open a newspaper without seeing him somewhere, being interviewed about something, and everyone cared what he said. About the same time, Bowie Kuhn was a towering figure as the Commissioner of baseball, and his no-nonsense approach to the game kept everything on the straight-and-narrow, so the integrity of the sport was never questioned. Ever since they stepped down, the people in those jobs have gotten tinier and more insignificant, until now when football has this Roger Nobody, and in baseball, one of the team owners is pretending to be commissioner. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, and that's not just the dinosaurs talking, believe me.

I don't mean to say that people in the local area went completely nuts when the Giants won the Super Bowl, but after the game was over and I was going to bed around 11:00PM, I couldn't help but notice the unmistakable sounds of someone shooting hoops in the driveway next door, one supposes, because they were too keyed up to get to sleep after all the excitement. Although these are relatively new neighbors (yes, the mother ship did eventually return to beam aboard our previous neighbors, and replace them on their home planet of Ugly Yard Major, in the What-Were-You-Thinking quadrant) it hasn't been our experience that they usually go outside to play basketball in the dead of night in the middle of the winter, at least until now. I only blame it on the Super Bowl, because it would be odd for the neighbors under normal circumstances. On the other hand, it would be even odder for the raccoons, so if it was the neighborhood ring-tailed bandits tossing baskets instead, I admit that I am stumped for a reason to explain that, since they've never exhibited any affinity with the Giants previously.

Since I haven't been going in early, staying late and working through lunch at my job anymore (HOORAY!!!) I try to make the most efficient use of my time, and I've found ways to streamline some of the things that I do, to eliminate all wasted steps. So I was already in that mindset when I considered how I do my book reports, which is I write a synopsis of the plot on a paper form, and then type it into my computer so I can post it on my book blog later. I realized if I had something small that I could carry with my book at lunch, and type my notes as I go along, then I could just copy them to my computer from the device where they would already be in electronic form. I love my new laptop, but I knew it was too heavy to drag around at lunch, and then I remembered that I had a handy Palm Zire M150 that was just crying out for this kind of use. It has a stylus so you can write notes using regular letters or numbers, or you can tap the letters on a tiny virtual keyboard that displays on the screen, and the Zire will save it in a memo that you can export to a regular word processing program on your computer, without having to do anything twice, as I had been. I tried this in the cafeteria at work with a historical romance that I had been reading, being sure to sit by the window for the best light, and I thought it worked great and was the answer to a prayer.

That is, until I got back to my office and transferred the document to my computer to save it in my book report, and found that in spite of 40 years experience in typing, the results of using the virtual keyboard on the Zire came out looking like this:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Anthony gtaham abd gis btothr srricw. Agter long days ofbtender kovibg csre, missvfell isvfinally ell rnough to go doenstairr for meals with the gamily, rather than het room, snd lady annsbel aaus to bring the mysterious sttrabger ;as the sposed fsughtrr of an old svhool friend ; to bump into domrone, althpugh aichard drspairs of her oit riding alpne, and ecen she wonders hpw she could ,smafr. ladu abbabek and kixy atr ibcited to akmacks and shr soon has bp lack pf suitrs, brsodes majot borern, whpm lord anthony considers a fprtine hunyer, and ishes thzsy lucy thought of msrlf more as a suitpr than an age;ols family ftinf.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I said to Bill later, "Well, that's about as close to literary Mad Libs as I can probably get, and don't forget, I'm actually reading this book, and I have no idea what this means!" Family ftinf, indeed.
I hope that you've been enjoying a very happy Chinese New Year so far, and remember to wear plenty of red, which is supposed to bring good luck in the coming year. The newspapers usually run stories about other traditions and folklore for the occasion, such as what to eat, how to decorate, what to avoid and the like, because most non-Asian people don't remember from one year to the next. Actually, this can work in your favor, since you can pretty much just make stuff up on the spot, and encourage people to wear their clothes backwards, cover themselves in corn starch, or buy boxes of Ping-Pong balls for good luck, and they'd be none the wiser. That could actually be pretty entertaining, in a disreputable sort of way, and I ought to know. Kind of like the April Fools version of Chinese New Year for all of us in the Wild, Wild West. If you need further inspiration or suggestions, please feel free to call on me, as I encourage you to consider me to be --

An Age;Ols Family Ftinf

No Axe To Grind

Hello World,

Happy February! While it doesn't seem possible that January could already be well and truly over, that certainly is the case, as we find ourselves here in February, and I don't mind saying, with nothing to show for it. Why, it seems like only yesterday that the aisles were awash with snowmen and holly berries, everything was on sale, and stores were open at the most ridiculous hours to wrest the last dollar out of frenzied consumers. Now, of course, we've moved past all of that holiday folderol, and even Martin Luther King is a thing of the past, so everyone can finally relax and settle down to some peace and quiet with nothing at all going on, and plenty of it.

Not so fast! It turns out that February is just brimming with seasonal festivities of its own, and so there's no escaping the fact that the celebration caravan continues apace, with no end in sight. In fact, there's so much happening this month, that they had to tack another day on at the end, just to fit it all in. Yes, 2008 will be another Leap Year in our calendar, and like the last one in 2004, always interesting to have around as a change of pace. But that's not all! Order right now, and we'll throw in, absolutely free, this handsome set of high-quality Ginsu knives ..... no, wait a minute, that can't be right. What I mean is that Leap Day isn't the only notable occasion in the offing for this month. Oh no, indeed not. Saturday is Groundhog Day, which according to various old European legends, is when the local groundhog/woodchuck/marmot/ground squirrel (any one of the diverse rodents of the Sciuridae family) comes out of its burrow on Candlemas Day to indicate whether there will be an early spring or six more weeks of winter. Punxsutawney Phil is chief among rodents in this annual climate showdown, still going strong after 120 years at his post, although now he has been joined by the likes of Staten Island Chuck, Dunkirk Dave, French Creek Freddie, Holtsville Hal, Buckeye Chuck, Shubenacadie Sam, Wiarton Willie, Spanish Joe, Malverne Mel and the estimable General Beauregard Lee. This Candlemas stuff is no place for amateurs, that's for sure, so please don't try this at home. Also not for amateurs, of course, the Super Bowl is on Sunday, which is a recent and welcome addition to February, from its previous berth in January, and being the biggest sports event of the entire year, you would think that would be plenty to keep anyone occupied and round out the week all by itself.

Au contraire! (That's French for "Block that kick!") With barely enough time to clean up the champagne from the winning team's locker room, suddenly on Tuesday, it's Mardi Gras, which is the second biggest sports event of the entire year, although in a completely different category of sports altogether. As the day follows the night, the next day can't help but be Ash Wednesday, which ushers in the season of Lent for millions of grouchy Christians the world over. Speaking of grouchy, Wednesday is also Waitangi Day, which our friends at http://www.wikipedia.org/ describe with admirable restraint as " ... the national day of New Zealand. It is a public holiday held each year on February 6 to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document, on that date in 1840." They do a good job of explaining the history behind the event, which is about as dull and incomprehensible as you would expect, but they also don't shy away from the controversial aspects, and there are whole paragraphs describing the annual protests, riots and political skullduggery that have marked the day almost from its inception. In fact, although they didn't mention it, no one will ever convince me that the same people aren't behind this brouhaha that are behind the annual donnybrook known as the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City, because their fingerprints are all over this mess.

Just about the time that the riots have died down in New Zealand, here is Thursday bringing us the irrepressible Chinese New Year, which in 2008 is the Year of the Rat. Our friends at http://www.infoplease.com/ have this to say about it: "The Chinese year 4706 begins on February 7, 2008. Chinese months are reckoned by the lunar calendar, with each month beginning on the darkest day. New Year festivities traditionally start on the first day of the month and continue until the fifteenth, when the moon is brightest. Those born in Rat years tend to be leaders, pioneers, and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, William Shakespeare, and Mozart were all born in the Year of the Rat." I will state for the record that there are no Asians anywhere in my family, and I have no axe to grind, but I will say that ya gotta love the way those Chinese throw a party, and the people in charge of Waitangi Day, Ramadan and the St. Patrick's Day parade could learn a lot from them. Two solid weeks of fun, fireworks, food and frivolity, with costumes, parties, songs and folk dancing, and not a hint of unrest from beginning to end. There's no riots, protests, angry press conferences, lawsuits, SWAT teams or stampeding pilgrims. This is a holiday after my own heart, and it's no wonder that every year, I feel the pull of the Yangtze and the spirit of Mao Tse-tung, as I wish one and all a very happy "Hong Kong Bok Choy!" And for all of you Rats out there (that would be anyone born in 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984 or 1996) get out there and party like it's 4706!

Speaking of heart, the following week is Valentine's Day on the 14th, of course, the highlight of the year for romantics everywhere, and for anyone who isn't, they'd better hurry up and turn into one, or at least pretend to, or that relationship will start looking like the Waitangi Day riots and pretty darned quick. This again is another one of those unfortunate years when Valentine's Day falls in Lent, which is an unhappy juxtaposition that dismays both sides, but especially the confectioners, at the hands of those myriad grouchy Christians who give up candy for Lent. There's no one to blame this on, obviously, except Easter, which is yet another of those movable feasts that rambles all up and down March and April, so you never know from one year to the next when to expect it, and since it's so early this year, it pushes Lent right back with it to early February. I would say that I have a bone to pick with the movable feast schedulers, but that would sound like I have an axe to grind, and heaven knows, I don't.

On the other hand, Bill does. Have an axe, that is. Throwing caution to the wind, and scoffing at the danger, he has been fearlessly using Axe shower gel, entirely heedless of his own personal safety. You may have noticed in their television commercials, the men who use Axe products are routinely and invariably mobbed by crazed and sex-starved super models on all sides, who miraculously appear out of nowhere in droves, even in the middle of the desert, to achieve their unsavory objectives. I haven't seen any super models around here yet, so it's possible that we are down-wind of them, but if they do show up in droves, and it's axe they're after, I'll be happy to turn them loose on my camping firewood, and they can chop all they want.

Since I haven't been going in to work early anymore, I've discovered a curious morning phenomenon in my travels. Unlike 8:00 or 8:30 AM, with its crush of school buses, commuters, soccer moms, delivery vans, taxicabs, garbage trucks, police cars, bicycles and crazy people jogging, if you wait a half-hour, it turns out that you've got the roads pretty much to yourself, at least around here. You can believe me that driving to work at five minutes to 9:00, the world is your oyster, and I have to say, those oysters have got it made. The streets are deserted, the sidewalks are devoid of pedestrians, and you can stop at a traffic light and be the only vehicle in the entire intersection. It's downright lonely out there, and if I had a GPS device in the Escort, I'd probably turn it on, just to have someone to talk to me. Speaking of which, I got this nice note from an alert reader (thanks, Rich!) with international experiences to share:

===================
Bill must have the same GPS lady I have, and certainly she seems to be giving his directions to me, and vice versa. I tried some of the other voices in my GPS. The British lass is nice enough, but having driven on the wrong side of the road for so long, she just can't get her lefts & rights straight. The Italian woman has a very pleasant, if not deeper voice - now if I could just speak Italian. The French woman was downright rude, and although I don't speak a word of French, I could tell that she was mocking all Americans for not being able to find their way around their own country! The Russian, well that's another story. I believe Comrade Sergei is moonlighting, and no matter where I want to go, he directs me to Siberia.
===================

Naive people may scoff about our old pal Comrade Sergei, but you know they always say that the complete lack of proof just goes to show how well the conspiracy is working, and let's face it, those hordes of paranoid conspiracy theorists can't all be wrong. Speaking of people being wrong, I couldn't help but notice this teaser on the AOL Welcome Screen, where they invited me to view what they referred to as a "Sneak Peak" at one of the upcoming Super Bowl TV ads. Frankly, with Arizona being as flat as it is topographically, I can't imagine this being all that much of a "peak" in any sense of the word, so I have the feeling that it may not have been at all what they intended. And while we're on the topic of the Super Bowl, for anyone who couldn't conceive of the day that the Giants would beat the Cowboys in the playoffs, you can only imagine what they thought of them subsequently defeating the Packers, and landing themselves unexpectedly at Glendale in February. Now all that's standing between them and the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy, unfortunately, would be a little thing known as the undefeated New England Patriots, so to say that the Giants have their work cut out for them would be putting it mildly. Personally, what I'm counting on is whatever combination of bribes, threats and foul play it would take, on the part of the New York and New Jersey mobsters, to bring that trophy back here, because after all, if crime doesn't pay, what's the sense of having all these Mafia families around here in the first place? And while I'd be happy to lend them my hatchet for the cause, everyone knows that I have no axe to grind.