Got my new Powerbook. Woohoo! My goal is to make it a Microsuck free computer. Trying OpenOffice, an Open Source Office suite to replace MS Office and Apple's Safari in place of IE for my web browser. So far... so good. Sweeeet!

Obscuring the truth - Making the CIA and George Tennet the fall guys for Bush's Iraq folly is nothing more than this administration's (and the Republicans) efforts to obscure the truth and escape its own responsibilities. It is obvious that from the beginning, Bush pressured the CIA to come up with intelligence to support its intentions to invade Iraq. There were several reports before the invasion that Bush cherry-picked his information, slanted intelligence, and ignored other information in order to support going to war. Just recall Collin Powell's address to the United Nations. Powell showed dozens of satalite images of WMD research facilities, storage depots, missle sites, even possible nuclear accelerators. Each and every one of these has been uncovered as something other than what Powell claimed. This was not evidence of WMD... it was all a fabrication of the truth. The world didn't buy it then, and defeated the US resolutions authorizing military actions. However, with Bush's relentlessness in his desire to have his war, for his own political and economic agenda, the US public was Bushwacked into going along with his devilish scheme. Now the truth is coming out, and Bush and the Republicans will try to hang the CIA, rather than do the right thing; face up the their responsibilities and admit the truth.

Back to work after nice holiday weekend. A classic 4th of July holiday. Fireworks in downtown Rockville. Community Concert band performed in the streets of Rockville, Aaron Copeland suite, 1812 overture, followed by fireworks. Went to New Britain Rockcats minor-league baseball, followed by fireworks. Then, went to Hartford Riverefest... followed by fireworks. Finished off the long weekend on Sunday with a trip down to the shore for a New England Lobster dinner at Abbott's. Ah!!! Thats the way to spend the Fourth of July.

My running career might be over. Every time I've run recently, I've gotten bad pains in my hip. Each time I've given it a rest before running again, but each time its taken longer to recover. Now I've got another bruise on my heal thats bothering me. Can't stand not getting my running time in, so I've started with some bike riding. Not quite as intense a workout, but its something.

Earlier this week, attended forum sponsored by the Green Party in town. It was about the proposal in front of the Zoning board for Walmart and Home Depot coming to town. Several speakers talked about the impact of such a move on the community in terms of the community, economy and environment. It was a real eye opener. I especially learned much from a UCONN professor from NEMO. I had no idea of the impact of these Big Box Developments on the wetlands, and its affect on our water supply. Her presentation was scientific, well researched, and relevant with slides showing the impact of similar development in other Connecticut towns and cities using satalite imagery.

I think this is a great local issue to get involved in. This town is definetly at a crossroads, and the community needs to be heard. We don't want to see our town become victims of commercial sprawl. It is obvious that any tax benefits will be negated by increased expenses in town services and lowering of property values if the Zoning board gives in to these large corporate interests.

Another week gone by... seemed like an eternity. I think another The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is in order:

The Good - Nephew Martin G. graduates Rockville High. Always great to see these kids pass another important milestone. Eventful ceremonies, as the sky opened up to monsoon like rains midway through the handing out of the diplomas. Congrats to you, Mawty... great, great job!

The Bad - Dad's heart attack on Tuesday, followed by hospital stay and surgery. Mom ends up in a care unit, dazed, confused and upset.

The Ugly - Dad gets placed in a hospital that cannot perform the necessary procedures we all know he will need. They put him on the operating table anyway, only to make the decision to transfer him elsewhere. He gets transfered to Bridgeport Hosp, but we are told by the nurse that he was transfered to St Raphael in New Haven. Of course we are calling St Raphy's for hours, and Pops never arives. In our minds he is lost for hours, until a lot of detective work uncovers his true location. Dad's arteries get invaded once again which has since caused much pain and aggravation. What a mess!

Lots of traveling from work to Bridgeport to Southbury over the next couple of days with lots of stress, worry and lost sleep. Hopefully Sis and I gave some aid and comfort to M&D during this difficult time.

In the end, Mom and Pop are reunited. Their incredible Love for each other sustained them and gave them the strength needed to make it through.

Saturday eve... picked up C after work. Just walked on into a concert midway through. Watched the last set of incredible bassist Stanley Clarke. Played an amazing acoustic upright bass. What a sound, and what a soft touch. His big ole fingers just danced over those strings. Encore was a rockin rendition of his famous School Days on electric bass. Sunday after only 3 hours sleep, drive Rae and And to airport for their journey to Fla.

Man, I am completly beat. Its been a helluva week.

Full weekend. Saturday family get-together at our house. All families represented, M&D, Last, Gag, Press, Bergs...good to see the cousins together. Sure did miss Laura though.

Sunday ran my 3rd 5K race. I did really well... at least for me, improving my time by another couple of minutes. Hips are hurtin' today though. Rach ran with me. She just did it for me... I'm sure she didn't really want to run. She finished, did good, better than me in my first attempt.

Found these paragraphs buried deep within another unrelated story on CNN's web site today. Interesting how this never found its way into a network newscast or on the front page of the newspapers.

Civilian deaths
At least 3,240 civilians were killed in the U.S.-led war in Iraq, including 1,896 in Baghdad, according to a study of hospital records and death certificates conducted by The Associated Press.

The report was based on records from 60 of Iraq's 124 hospitals from March 20, when the war began, to April 20. The 64 hospitals that were not visited were in dangerous or inaccessible areas, the AP said.

The news agency said the actual number of civilian deaths was probably "significantly higher" because it did not include figures from hospitals that did not distinguish between civilian and military deaths and because some hospitals' records were incomplete or damaged in the fighting.

U.S. and British officials told the AP that coalition forces tried to minimize civilian casualties and that they did not count civilian deaths.

Happy days... Claire landed a teaching job. She has been working towards this for at least 5 years, and has finally achieved it. A real career, regular hours, good benny's. Profesionally, something that she can get some real satisfaction in.

Dave came through again with a couple of tix for Aretha Franklin tomorrow night. $100 a seat VIP tickets! Since C is working, and D can't make it, its just Rach and me... dinner and a concert. Should be a fun night out.

All Matrixed out - a couple of weeks ago, saw Matrix Reloaded. I was blown away by the action and special effects, but was totally lost over the story line. I figured I had to watch Matirx 1 again. Rented it... watched it twice. The original Matrix is an incredible work of Sci-Fi. Great, great story, tremendous depth of philisophical issues (e.g. what is reality, matters of choice, computer AI simulations, etc.). Then saw Matrix Reloaded a second time. This time, I could make some sense of the story, but they really took things to a rediculous level that goes beyond the realm of reason, even for science fiction. So, besides my original screening of Matrix Reloaded, I sat through Matix twice, then Reloaded for the second time. That is enough of Matrix for a lifetime (oh yeah, Matrix 3 is due out later this year).

Here is my take on what happened. **** Warning - Spoiler below**** Have to write this down, or I'll forget it. The Architect states it all near the end. In order to make the Matrix a true simulation based on the human experience, he had to give humans the ability to make choices. Since Humans inevitably make the wrong decisions which ultimately results in their own destruction, the program, over time will fail. In fact, it has failed 5 previous times, and this is the 6th version of the Matrix. The System chose Neo to be the One. He was given a choice to go through the door on the left to go back to Zion and pick 11 men and 11 women to rebuild Zion after the machines destroy it, or he can take the door to the right and save Trinity, but the Matrix will be destroyed... of course he makes the Human decision and saves Trinity for the sake of love, and now we must wait for Matrix 3 to see the conclusion. (BTW, in the middle of the film, Neo asks the Chancelor why there are no young people on the Council. The Council members are the 23 people chosen to rebuild Zion, thus they are all part of the System, and the Council must know the fate of Zion and the purpose of the One.) And, yes, there are more holes in this story line than in a block of swiss cheese.

Been three weeks or so since last entry and a lot's been happenin'.

• Ran my second 5K race. Improved time by 2 full minutes... time still sucks, but I'm into training to improve it. Next race is Fathers day.
  
• Dave got us VIP seats to the opening game of Connecticut Sun WNBA game at Mohegan Sun. Lotsa fun, Chaka Khan sang at halftime. Dave is working for the team prepping music and doing video editing. way cool, Dave.
  
• Followed that by great weekend at Rockport MA. Been going there for about 13 years. Sadly, Gunter and Renata are selling Rocky Shores Inn, so this may be the last time to stay there. Weather wasn't the best, but had a great time. Long walks by the shoreline, good eats, took a great morning run. Read a great book.
  
• Read *Into Thin Air* by Jon Krakaur. Great read, real page turner. It's about climbing Mt. Everest and the incredible disaster of 1996 that claimed 8 lives. Just happens to be 50 anniversary of Hillary/Norgay expedition that was the first successful climb, so lots of current stuff about Everest in the news.
  
• Work's been goin pretty good too... good year to date, negotiated new contract on equipment that will save company over $100K/yr. Forcasts, though, are for some rough times during the summer.

At the moment, things are pretty good. Biorythms must be all at their peaks. Course, that can all come crashing down at a moments notice!

Ran first road race. The Mother's Day Dash is a 5K (3.1 mi.) race. Great fun. I'll be doing more of these for sure. My time sucked, but it was my first race. Now I have something to train for. Can't wait for next one.

Work- Brutally stressful last week due to an invasion of a computer virus that took over our servers, gateway, and many workstations. Huge effort to irradicate the problem, including completely rebuilding the NT server that is our Internet Gateway. This time, have installed anti-virus and firewall. I lost many hours of sleep over this one. PC's are so vulnerable to this stuff. Another reason to Love Your Macs.

Ah... Fantasy Baseball (FBB). America's Favorite Pastime... for geeks. FBB is why the Internet was invented. Stats, Stats, Stats. Real-time stats available for endless player analysis. Manage your line-ups, negotiate trades, Constant banter and trash talk on-line. Anticipation of how your team performs. The Thrll of Victory (someday I'll experience), the Agony of Defeat (much more familiar).

Poor Rach... cracked her thumb during a softball game. Required going under the knife. Emotionally trying day for us all. Man, its tough to see your baby suffer.

Talkin' about my baby. She turned 16. That means DRIVING. Though the above injury will keep her off the road for a while, the girl did quite good for a newbie at the wheel. Getting the license is the first step towards a kids independence. Found that out with Dave. Once he got his car... he was lost to us. So it goes, such is life. You raise 'em, and they leave you for a life of their own. Car, college...

Nice Easter weekend in Rochester NY with C's family. Went clubbin' late Fri. night. Saw hot fusion band. Roch is a happenin place. Saturday, big family party. Place was crawlin with little ones. Whole new generation has cropped up. Funny how we used to horse around with our nephews, then our nephews... with our kids, now our kids play with our nephews kids. It just keeps goin' round and round. Of course, I got some pics.

UCONN Lady Huskies - National Champions... what a wild ride, again. Woohooo! And, there are no seniors, they will all be back next year!

Last night, saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones live... just incredible. Comp tickets from Dave. Enjoying the concert with him made it one great night. Thanks, Dave.

Tonite, I watched American Masters-Joni Mitchell. Joni evokes so many feelings and memories. Listening to each and every album with my sisters Laura and Diana, her anthem to Woodstock, in later years, her collaborations with my heroes of Jazz (Jaco, Wayne Shorter, Herbie, Mingus, Metheny). What an inspiring musician, poet and artist. This TV production gave me incite into her life and art. A great documentary on this incredible woman. Public TV... amazing how they can consistently turn out such high quality productions.

I believe the saying is "The first casualty of war is the truth". This war is no exception. Weren't we led to believe that the Shock and Awe campaign would demoralize the Iraqi army and leaders into giving up this war quickly? Weren't we told that Iraqi military would be laying down their weapons and surrendering in droves? Weren't we told that Iraqi civilians would welcome our forces with open arms? It appears to me that our government seriously miscalculated almost everything about the Iraqi response. Shock and Awe has had little effect. Iraqi military is putting up signifcant resistance. I think the jury is still out on whether our presence is welcomed by the citizens of Iraq, but the initial appearance is that we are viewed as an occupying force. All of this makes me very skeptical of anything our government tells us. Propaganda is a powerful weapon, and it is used extensively by both sides.

I keep seeing images in this war that remind me of Vietnam. I realize that this war is nothing like Vietnam... and god forbid it should ever become that. However, these pentagon briefing, with military officials desperatly trying to set realistic expectations, and bragging about the effectiveness of bombing or ground conflicts, the reporting of casualties, are scary reminders of those awful days. This really hit home as I watched a plane delivering the remains of deceased soldiers back to Britain with full military regalia.

Please, God, make this war end soon. the longer this goes on, the greater risk that this will escalate beyond our control. There are so many opportunities for bad things to happen; terrorism, Syria, Kurds and Turks, Israeli engagement, launch of chemical weapons, just to name a few.

The reality is we are in this war up to our armpits. There is no turning back. I support our troops, I want us to prevail, I want Saddam to leave Iraq... I just want this over quickly.

Seems like one of those significant milestones... traded in the ole' Family Minivan for a hip new (well, used) Jeep Grand Cherokee. The days of Soccer Mom/Dad, are begining to fade away.

Saw George McGovern on Larry King last night. What a great man (and a WWII decorated figher pilot); a reminder of how the Democratic Party once was, and should be. He was very articulate against the war, and what he said rang so true. There are so many motives that have resulted in this war beyond those that we are being told; oil, money, revenge, our inability to capture Osama, politics, economics, etc. The reality is that Iraq has not been a threat to anyone in the last 10 years, the inspectors have not uncovered any chemo-bio weapons, and thus far, our troops have not either.

The best way to support our troops is to get them home and put an end to the death and destruction that is going on en mass. Shock and Awe has begun, the destruction is horrific, and one can only hope that this conflict will conclude quickly before this escalates into a situation that is totally unpredictable and out of control.