The Young, the Old and the Frugal - New Word Series Champs

Hey Yankees... You can't always just buy a World Series Championship. The Marlins win with less than 1/3 the payroll of the NY Yankees. What an incredible pitching performance by 23 year old Josh Beckett. The youngest to pitch a shutout in the October Classic since 1971, and the oldest manager in baseball (Jack McKeon, 71). Thrilling!!

Is iTunes a good thing for musicians?

Woa, bet you never thought you could see a link to an Anti-iTunes web site from me... but here it is. All Apple is doing with iTunes Music Store is putting a new high-tech face on the old corrupt business model. A model that screws the musicians, while giving the the lion's share of the revenues to the big 5 record companies. As this site points out, there are several other feasable models. One that could reduce the price of music, while rewarding the artists in a more equitable manner. This site really gives you something to think about.

Baseball and Apple pie

There is a curse
All rational thinking would lead you to believe that there is no curse... no baseball god directing events on the field of dreams. But this post season has indeed confirmed... the curse is real. There can be no other explanation. The Cubs and the Red Sox have taken what appeared to be excellent chances to reverse the course of history, and unexplainably blew it. The Cubs with a 3-1 lead heading back to home turf for the final games, then losing 3 in a row. The Sox, with Baseballs best pitcher in the 7th game and a 4-0 lead, only to blow it when manager Grady Little makes the bonehead decision to leave Martinez in after 125 pitches and the game unravelling. A Florida v. Yankees World Series?? Not much interest as far as I am concerned. If there is a god, a miracle will befall us, and the Fish will prevail.

Apple and Music
Apple computer's announcements regarding iTunes and iPod. Uber coolness. Apple again changes the world as we know it. The music industry will change based on the model that Apple has created with iTunes Music Store (ITMS) and the iPod. Hell Froze Over (as Steve Jobs put it). In creating iTunes (and the Music Store) for Windoze, Apple has written the best software for Windoze ever. ITMS in the last quarter had 70 percent Market Share of all legal music downloads... and that was with Mac clients only (barely 5 percent of computer users). Now Apple has set the stage for changing the way music is sold, distributed and shared forever. To really appreciate what Apple is doing, you must view this event in streaming QT. These Steve Jobs presentations are always a ball to watch. Let's face it... Steve Jobs IS Apple Computer. When he goes, it all goes down the tubes.

On the Radio

The Dave gave me an hour spot on WHUS radio to do a Jazz show. Way cool. Fun, but a bit scary. Playlist was Yellow Jackets, Jeff Lorber, Jaco Pastorius Big Band, Mike Stern, Scofield, MM&W, Danillo Perez. Gotta do it again soon. Line me up for another spot, Dave! My DJ name... Pops!

The New World of Music - iPod

For any music lover, the iPod is a life altering device. Yes, I laughed at Dave's friend Eric for making a similar statement, but now that I am a proud owner of one of these babies, I understand completely. Sorry, RIAA, the day of the CD is over... they better stop fighting digital distribution, and learn to adapt. To be able to have a huge music collection (I currently have near 1300 songs, and growing, in my iPod) at my fingertips at all times to easily plug into earphones, your bedside stereo, your entertainment center and car stereo is incredibly convenient. I find myself listening to music of all genres at all times. I have gained an even greater appreciation for diverse artists from the hip Billy Holiday to swingin' Art Blakely to haunting Joni Mitchell to the techno Crystal Method.

As for the iPod itself. It is one of those devices that is a piece of Art in and of itself. Just the correct weight and balance in the palm of your hand... the cool silvery metallic back, and the snow white smooth face and the incredibly sensitive touch controls... it is perfectly designed in its aesthetics as well as its function. Teamed with Apples iTunes, it is so simple and natural to load this baby up with your entire music collection. You can rate your collection, make playlists, legally buy music... just incredibly impressive what Apple has done with music.

The Big Five-O

Turned 50 yrs old this weekend. Bummer. Thought it wouldn't affect me... just another birthday. Reality is, it is a big one. Half Century. Yikes. Kinda felt down about the whole thing, but Claire did me right. She threw a real nice party for me. Dinner and cake with our good friends. Went to out dinner, opened gifts, cake, the works. Really eased the pain! Next day met folks in W Hartford, checked out the Cows and had a lovely dinner at Max's to top off the weekend.

Last 10 years, were for bringing up family... that's what it's all about. I can feel good about how that turned out. Kids are almost grown up, have good values, and will be responsible adults, I'm sure. Next 10 years will be for helping them transition to adulthood, and for C and I to prepare for retirement, and to create a good life for the balance of our years. I've had a fairly good career, and we have been able to acquire the things that are important to us, so I can't complain. I don't see myself as old. I am probably in the best shape of my life, and I feel healthy, but damn, I feel the stigma of being 50+ years. I know it can hurt me in my career. Not too many older folks being hired as IT Professionals. Just gotta hang in there for 10 years or so. Also, I just can't get out of my mind that sister L's 50th was her last. There is a lesson to be learned from that sobering thought... but enough of getting heavy on the matter.

Family got together and bought me an AWSOME iPod. Is that great or what! This little device is a marvel of engineering and design. My entire MP3 collection, thousands of tunes from every genre will be on this beauty to be with me wherever I go. A music lovers delight, to be sure. Thanks Di, M & D, C, B... you guys are the best!

Random

Letter from Jason in Iraq. Heart wrenching to say the least. He is in Al-Ramadi. Looked it up in the Net, and it is just west of Bagdhad near Fajulla where recent anti-american uprisings have taken place. Also reports of sniper action in that vacinity. Jay says that they set up a soccer field for the kids there. Had to clear the field of land mines first.

Damn! Less than 2 months after getting my new G4 Powerbook, Apple upgrades the models, adding lots of drool-worthy features (bluetooth, airport extreme, cool backlit keyboard, etc.). Tried to swing a deal to exchange, but dealer wanted too much. That's OK, happy with my TiBook as is.


Rach... crash... ouch... grrrrr

Dave called. He was invited to a dinner (as a student leader!) to honor Prime Minister of Ireland. He wants to buy a suit for the event. Imagine that. A 19 year old kid wants to buy a suit???

What has become of this world?

On this tragic anniversary of September 11, its interesting to go back to my blogger entries of that day and the days that followed. It is horrifying to think of the atrocities of WTC attacks, and the events that have grown out of that tragedy over the last two years. I mourn not only for the thousands of deaths from that senseless act, but for the hundreds of US soldiers that have died because of Bush's recklessness in committing our country to War. I also mourn for the thousands of Iraqi civilians that perished from our bombs and weapons. I mourn for the deaths of innocent Israeli and Palestinians citizens that have been victims of increased hostilities since 9/11.

It makes you wonder... what good can become of pouring $87 billion more dollars, more soldiers, more weapons into this war? A war that was waged on a premise that was essentially lie. What has become of this world?

New Blogger stuff!

Lots'o new features for Blogger users for free! Starting to use them here. Like Title Fields (see the title at the top of the post?), and some other more teckie stuff thats not real apparent (weblog.com pings, file uploads, post dating...etc). Love free geeky stuff!

Too bad commenting isn't included, but I finally found a free service (one that works after trying several that either didn't work, or were unreliable). So I now have a slick new Comments feature linked to the bottom of each post.

Okay, here is something you can comment on, if you wish. Been thinkin' abt making a Family blog. A single blog that all Fam members can post to and express... whatever! I think it would be pretty cool, but not sure if it would really be used.

Just back from a nice family labor day BBQ in Rochester NY. Celebrated upcoming Mom-in-Laws, 80th (and my 50th). Conspicuously missing from the event was nephew Jay, off in Iraq. He's been away from family nearly 1 year, and overseas since Easter. Two young kids and one on the way. A cryin' shame. Forced to miss some of the best years of being with his young family. Though not much was said about it... he was in everyones thoughts. Missed you Jay. Come home soon, man!

A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.

The plan, which among other things, calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars', was penned by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), who's members include Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and others. This article gives us details on the devilish plans.

If you doubt the existance of the PNAC, or its agenda, check out the PNAC web site.

Back to work... grrrrr. Now I appreciate the 2 weeks off. Recap... Mystic Aquarium, Rach's SB tourny, Rockport overnight, CT Sun BBall game, Mohegan Sun (won some $$). Home stuff accomplished; fixed Cable TV connectors, replaced broken house fan, had 4 trees cut down (good job PD), stacked wood. Not bad.

Came back to HELL at work. 'puter problems all over the place. Biggest prob, companies FTP server (also used for networked apps and my Postal Sorting DB app) was acting real funky. The more I tried to work with it, the worse it was getting. After several days of troubleshooting, I am convinced that we were victims of Denial of Service (DOS) attack. What'd I do to plug the security holes? Checked Winblows update site to find I needed Win2000 Service pack and 33 SECURITY PATCHES!!! Yikes! Spent 2 1/2 days tearing my hair out (what little is left) dealing with the problem. Meanwhile, company FTP is down, and work keeps piling up. Thankfully the patches worked, and everything seems to be copasetic. Now I can get back to catching up for the 2 weeks off.

Guess what? Not one Mac computer problem at work while I was gone! Hmmmm.

Woa! Got my Powerbook back from AppleCare Service in less than 48 hours. Incredible. Sent it in just Tuesday afternoon (overnight shipping prepaid), and Thursday, its back, all the way from Texas. Apple Rocks!

Fun weekend, the annual summer NCGSL softball tourny. Rach played 5 games over 2 days. Vernon girls won the tournament (as well as regular season champs). I LOVE this game, and love watchin' Rachy play. Lots of great pics.

Halfway through my couple-a weeks off. Not doin' much.

One thing I've done with my "way-to-much-time" is create this Web page to celebrate my MS-Free computing on my new Powerbook. Check it out. Even if you don't care about the content, you have to see the movie clip, I've included (Dance Monkeyboy). Its a hoot, if you haven't seen it before.

I also bought this book, to learn Unix during my vacation. And another book for Hackin' the Mac.

Yes... I am geeking out to the max. Beginning to scare myself!

Now... the disaster of the week. The hinges on my brand new powerbook lid busted. Damn... brand new, thankfully it will be fixed under warranty, but it still means that I have to send it back to Apple for a week or so. Well, its not like we don't have any 'puters around here to keep me geekin out on while its being fixed.

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.