Category: Diversions

The cold I’m fighting may slow me down a bit, but Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone just the same. That same cold and some unwelcome rain water in the basement have likewise derailed any thought of attending the Manassas St. Patrick’s Day parade which is a shame because it’s become a tradition for us to hit the parade and then fest at Philly Tavern. We’ll certainly be back next year.

Anyone who reads this blog has seen my Irish book reports and knows we’re deep in preparation for our trip to Ireland in just two weeks. For some more good stuff about St. Patrick’s Day, we watched a good program on The History Channel last night about The History of St. Patrick’s Day which was very good.

Mark my words, this WILL be the next big thing in online campaigning. Watch to see which of the Presidential campaign’s is the first to offer a Klingon version of their web site. Forget the soccer moms, go after the Trekkies!

Finnish MP seeks votes in Klingon
Reuters, March 9, 2007

Last August I wrote about the piano we obtained from Craigslist for free. Today I leared we got what we paid for. Among the many ‘things I need to get to’ that the New Year has motivated me to finally ‘get to’, was to have a piano technician out to look at our new instrument and hopefully bring it into playing shape with a few turns of a wrench.

Matt was fast and efficient in removing the various lids and covers that are the piano’s skin, exposing an intricate interior. It didn’t take him long to offer the bad news, the sounding board is broke in multiple places, rending our free piano ‘not worth a penny’.

I explained that although the piano lacked pany particular sentimental value that might justify a major expense, the reality was that we need only an instrument good enough to suit the practice needs of a beginner player. With that understanding Matt agreed to ‘tune’ it as best as possible, and give it a good cleaning, with the understanding that he did not recommend our investing any further money into its repair and that if our kids became serious about the piano, we would want to get them a new one within a couple of years.

While removing the keys, Matt commented, “I wonder what we’ll find inside. I could tell you many stories about the things I’ve found inside of pianos.”. He was right that we’d find something. We found a six-ounce fishing weight, and a small baseball bat. By looking up the make and serial number, we concluded that this piano was built between 1905 and 1910, meaning it has either reached or is very close to reaching 100-years of age. We’ll never know the story behind the lost toy and fish weight, but we can give a respectful ‘last hurrah’ to a good looking instrument that is well past its prime.

For your holiday enjoyment, here’s a flashback look at the decoration and lighting of the 1997 Capitol Holiday Tree, as viewed by TreeCam.

At first, it looked a bit like a UFO. A thin black slash in sky. Then it banked a little bit, and I recognized it as a B2 Stealth Bomber.

It didn’t take long to realize why it was there over I-95. I happened to be on my way into DC today at about the same time that the new Air Force Memorial was being dedicated. I’ve watched the memorial grow slowly over time on my commute into the city, and from a driveby, it’s pretty cool looking.

Right behind the B2 was a C-17, an aircraft that’s very familiar to me for family reasons (look close, you’ll find the connection). Behind the C-17 was the Thunderbirds.

Very cool, and not something you see every day.

Wild Blue Wonder
The Washington Post, 10/13/06

It may happen that by later today, Tropical Storm Chris will mature and become the first named Hurricane of 2006… Hurricane Chris!

I’m not sure if I prefer for Chris to be a big and strong hurricane, or for it not to amount to much. I guess the latter. I’m sure all of the Katrinas in the world would prefer not to have had their name attached to last year’s devastating storm.

Stay tuned…

UPDATE: OK, so Chris petered out… never even made it to Hurricane strength. Nice storm.