They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money they have and peace they lack.
  -James Earl Jones "Field of Dreams"
and don't go mistaking paradise for that home across the road
  -Bob Dylan "Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Today



I took the first picture, I found this one on the Obama website and had to add it.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Finally


Last weekend, when I was sure that I was going to get to keep my job, I bought the camera that I had been looking at for a few years, a Canon Digital Rebel XTi.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Never Mind

This is not news to anybody who reads this, probably, but in early November I was informed by my employer that my position was being eliminated and that my last day would be 11/23. Since that day was the day after Thanksgiving the real last day would be 11/21. On 11/20 (!) I was offered an extension for two months, making the new last day 01/25. Today, with 4 days to spare, I got an offer to stay. I had a couple of other offers but this makes the most sense since I can retire from Motorola on 06/01/2010 if I can hang on that long. Three months of hell, but it ended the way I had hoped.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Great Minds Think Alike

Mike's blog has some great links to questionnaires that attempt to tell you what presidential candidate you most agree with. Susan and I both did them (separately) and came up with the following results.

My choices, from top to bottom, were:

Kucinich
Obama
Clinton
Edwards
Paul
Giuliani
McCain
Romney
Huckabee
Thompson

Susan's were:

Kucinich
Obama
Clinton
Edwards
Giuliani
Paul
McCain
Romney
Huckabee
Thompson

Note that while Giuliani and Paul were reversed, the rest were in the same positions. If you follow the link to Mike's blog you will see that his, while a little different, follow a similar theme.

I mailed in our ballots yesterday. Despite the poll, I voted for the guy in the picture above.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Marathon Temperatures

There is a report in the press that it was 20 degrees colder last year than this year. This is somewhat unscientific, but here is what appears to be evidence of a 14 degree difference.

Last year:



This year:



Both pictures were between 8 and 8:10 (marathon starts at 7:40).

Sunday, January 13, 2008

More Marathon

Here are the leaders, passing Virginia Avenue. The leader at this point was Dejene Yirdawe from Ethiopia, who finished second. The second guy would appear to be Chokri Dhaouadi of Tunisia, who finished 9th, but I am not sure of that because the bib number is hard to make out. He could just as easily be somebody else... The third fellow is Evegeni Bozhko of Ukraine, who finished 7th.

Rock and Roll Marathon 2008

I took these 3 videos in the first few minutes of runners passing by our neighborhood.





Thursday, January 10, 2008

Obama Rally

This is probably longer than you want to deal with, but check out the guy in the forefront on the left.