In case you wondered

why the current administration doesn't seem to know very much about how business works or what creates jobs . . .



. . . it's because they've never worked outside government. See here for more detail about the information reflected in the chart.

What?

Or should I say, "WTF"?

The military is just, like, out of control, man.

Luck of the Irish

On Friday night, Luke lost his car keys somewhere in Ithaca, where he was visiting Wes and doing an ROTC drill competition. He called us Saturday morning. We had some spare keys hanging on a nail in the garage that maybe were for his car, or maybe were for Laura's long-lost Legacy GT, or perhaps for some other car, we weren't sure. AAA got him into the Forester so that he could get his things out of it, but he still had no way to drive back to Rochester Sunday morning. Dad and I got ready to spend Saturday afternoon driving to Ithaca with the maybe-keys and, if necessary, if they didn't work when we got there, hot-wiring the Forester. But just in case, I called Lucy: home in Earlville for the weekend, but not going back to Ithaca until Sunday night or Monday morning. Not soon enough for Luke's plans. She gave me Bryan's number, and I called him, just in case: quite surprised to hear from Mrs. Murphy, not planning to come home for the weekend. Whitney was meeting her mom in Syracuse and if we'd gotten in touch sooner that might have been a possibility . . . but too late. Oh well. We were on the point of going out the door when Luke called: Travis was driving from Hamilton to Ithaca to visit his brother and would pick up the keys. He arrived shortly thereafter. Dad gave him the keys, tools to break into the car, the clicker from my Forester just in case it worked on Luke's (it works on the Outback, who knows why!) Sooner or later, if you look hard enough, Somebody from Earlville will be driving to Ithaca for the weekend. You can count on it.

Luke called a couple of hours later. One of the keys worked and he was safely in the Forester and able to drive it home. Dad and I didn't have to drive to Ithaca after all. Luke is still more or less out of luck because the lost keys include several that he needs back at college and will be hard to replace. But at least he can get into his car and drive it to where it needs to be. Thank you, Travis (and Lucy and Bryan!)

Wagon Road Camp

I'll add to that. Two posts should pull on Google harder than one. Are you out there? Let us know.

Wagon Road Camp

I'm putting this on the blog just so that if anyone googles "Wagon Road Camp" they will see this. We'd love to hear from anyone who worked there in the 1970s, in the William F. (Bill) Brown era.

fOsSiL FuELs

We will NEVER run out.

READ NOW!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

a lovely thing to watch

Earlier this morning I found a lovely little video on Boing Boing and I embedded it here for its peacefulness and beauty. However, twice now I have tried to play it from the embedded link in this post and both times my computer froze so completely that I had to reboot. That's not peaceful or beautiful! So never mind the embedding. It plays fine in Boing Boing and it's really a pretty thing, so, if you like, go watch it and then come back and tell me if you liked it.

My Suitemate Wins Programming Competition

http://www.rochester.edu/currents/

My suitemate is Ian, the guy in the middle of the picture. The article says it's the first time a school has beaten MIT at this level of the competition in 6 years.

Ana with her bunny

Figueroa Goes To Ithaca (start at bottom)

Hi, guys. Got room for one more?

You'll never get me on that thing.

Hey! Don't pull so hard.

His last meal with his family. He's the one with the massive head.

Yet More

here.

More Veteran's Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7oBeQ4Y6xo

On Veteran's Day

My grandfather, Sebastian Justin Frey, in World War I, which ended at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918. He was born in 1892, so he would have been somewhere between 22 and 26 in this picture.

Uncle Ned at work

Both of these are featured in a collection of funny song graphs and Venn diagrams here, and yes, indeed, Uncle Ned is Mister Hippity. It's possible to vote for your favorite and, even though some of the others are pretty funny (see for example the Meatloaf one), Uncle Ned's contributions currently rank #2 and #7. What a world!

Update:

I am advised by The Artist Himself that he has been even busier than I realized.



Currently ranked #6.

Blog Numerology

The blog passed 50,000 visits the other day. Sadly, I didn't notice in time to figure out whose was the 50,000th visit (SiteMeter only stores data for the most recent 100 visits.) Here are the stats as of today:

Total
50,161
Average Per Day
28
Average Visit Length
1:27
Last Hour
2
Today
13
This Week
197

PAGE VIEWS

Total
111,476
Average Per Day
50
Average Per Visit
1.8
Last Hour
16
Today
46
This Week
352

Now, here's some food for thought: in February 2010, the blog will be five years old. Five years! Pretty amazing. How should we commemorate it? We had a best-post write-in vote for the First Blogiversary but since then we've let it slide. We shouldn't let this one slide. Think about it.

MFYs/Colin WIN!

The best team won. Johnny Damon was a hero. It's time for a little humble pie, Red Sox fans.

One more

I couldn't get Blogger to let me put three videos into the previous post, but I really wanted to add this one: "Danny Boy."

Dad in concert

Earlier this year, Dad met Red Raville when we joined the Sherburne Community Chorus. Shortly thereafter, Dad played the piano at a gathering at Clippingers' that Red attended -- and here's a result. On Saturday, Dad played with Red at the Vet's Home in Oxford. They sounded lovely. It didn't occur to me to bring the video camera, but once we got there I remembered that the regular camera can take short videos. Here are some clips. They're truncated and the sound may not be the greatest, but it'll give you the feel.