1) Does Superman have super peripheral vision?
2) If so can he see what's behind him?

The death of Jeff,
who had been unknown to me,
caused my phone to ring,
an email received and
the phrase "Death is the
true democracy, everyone
has to do it and everyone
can only do it once" to be
recalled.

"We are passing you on
your left and
one of us might lick your knee"
-Woman and her dog passing me
on the bike path.

LHC

For unadulterated nerdy silliness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

After the rain
Elm,
Kiln and
Shawsheen nice and full.
cicadas in full chorus.
lone bull frog croaking
green, green, green.
mr. rogers koan guided me
"sometimes it is fun to do
things slow"

A women and a man approach
me on bikes, the woman in
front. Each wear those little rear
view mirrors on their helmets
that remind me of little
teleprompters.
The woman says hi,
I say hi,
The man gives a toot
with his nether eye.

Typical family vacation rule:
"Don't run by the pool"
Wicked cool family vacation rule:
"Watch out for dead animals in the stream, they
attract boa constrictors"

Typical phone call conversation:
"Getting much rain there"
Not so typical phone call conversation:
"Damn it, you snaked that gift idea
out from under me"

Typical picnic lunch conversation in the park:
"How is work going"
Not an everyday picnic conversation in the park:
"How far back in time will the dead come back
to life as zombies?" "As long as there is enough
musculature to support movement, ie:
NO zombie skeletons"

Outside my window
at Lexington Corporate Center
Building One
it is a worm gold mine
for the robins.

Job security

Orange day lilies
stretch towards the sun
and I brush by the leathery
petals with my
arms and legs
enabling me to
put pollinator on
my resume.

In retrospect

While it didn't,
in and of itself,
doom my marriage,
starting it by
taking a vow invoking
ritualistic
cannibalism tempted
the fates.

Roads and Streets

Springs
Hillside
The Great
Loomis
Wiggins
Westview
Maquire

What did you do this morning?

Using my right foot I squirted
a flammable liquid into tubes
which then ignited under pressure.
Using my left foot and right hand
I controlled this transfer of momentum
through a series of gears and fluids
to wheels under me.
Using my left hand I changed the
angle of those wheels to adjust my trajectory.

Me?

I walked.

If we can't stop zombies with
a head shot we are screwed.

No bike path for slugs.

Between Presta valved bikes,
roller bladed hotties,
and
rapidly drying asphalt
there is no bike path
for slugs.

Father's Day 2008

God asked
"What do you know?"
I answered
"I know these two boys"

Rainy day on the bike path

1 Dog
2 Bikes
3 People

We have launched a toilet into space
and now we send people up to fix it.

Hope it was a union job.

The darkness engulfed
with the sound like chewing
tin foil.
Spit out onto the bike path
like a dead mouse
among dogs who forgot
they can not fly.

M. - She abused her car by running out of gas 27 times.

R. - but she never took a blow torch to her ball joints.

No it's not ironic.

Everything has happened,
including that not having happened
before.

MasterCard

0$ - Cancel your car insurance

0$ - hit a bicyclist

Priceless ! - act indignant

Jayne,
Thank you for working
with me and sharing a
little of our lives.

Around 6:30pm phone call
from 401 area code
with unrecognized number.
Let go to voice mail but no
message left.

Go to the grocery store
for coffee and impulse a
bag of chips. Woman behind
me in checkout line comments
she wish she could get chips.

Seinfeld - Jerry and Elaine make
rules for having sex so they can stay friends.

As Time Goes By - Lionel and Jean grow
closer together and kiss.

Globe Trekker - one of my
favorite travelers Megan McCormick
goes to Scotland.

Make some Mac and Cheese.

All the while he was thrown from
his bike by a car (green in my mind)
and taken to the hospital.

Andrea helps him.

Thank the gods just stitches over eyebrow
and a sore arm.

Sit back and relax,
everything has happened.

To the dog on the bikepath.

The one whose walker wouldn't
let you stop and give that clump of
grass a good long sniff.
You looked back at me when
you passed. Did you smell
something, 2-methylphenol
perhaps,
or my destiny.

In the hermetically scrubbed and
conditioned air where the light
is buzzing fluorescent
the dog shit on my shoe has the
temerity to stink.

If nothing else he left his share of night soil.

Sit back, relax and smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCld99SNg1o

Good
ice cream sandwich

Better
ice cream sandwich sandwich
(ice cream sandwich between
two ice cream sandwiches)

Best
( _fill in the blank_)

They went to Martha's Vineyard

Drive to Woods Hole for 9 am,
where its
7 dollars per person to the island.
One day bus pass on the island
for 6 dollars
unlimited usage and come back around
4.

Bite me,
frak me,
just never let me
be phony.

Any universe that has
room in it
for a wild turkey in
the courtyard of
Lexington Corporate Center
is all
right by me.

Update 2:30 pm,
2 Men in white shirts came into
the courtyard and herded
the turkey away.

Plan B, C, D, E and F
are the same as Plan A,
get off this fraking planet.

Hey you, nice legs !

Heh, nice parking !

JOHN STEINBECK recounted in a 1953 article for Harper’s Bazaar what it was like to travel with a hired Italian driver in a Fiat 500 on the Amalfi Coast road:

“Flaming like a meteor we hit the coast, a road high, high above the blue sea that hooked and corkscrewed on the edge of nothing, a road carefully designed to be a little narrower than two cars side by side. And on this road, the buses, the trucks, the motor scooters and the assorted livestock.

“We didn’t see much of the road. In the back seat my wife and I lay clutched in each other’s arms, weeping hysterically.”

This is all right.

I believe there is no free will.
I believe there is no god.
I believe in hedonism:
http://hedonist-international.org/?q=en/manifest
I believe I look really funny only wearing socks.

MaverickZ31 (10:13:31 AM): thought this was funny: http://www.maniacworld.com/i-guess-you-will-do.html

richardwood401 (10:18:44 AM): that was brilliant

MaverickZ31 (10:19:11 AM): sounded like something Samantha Bee would do

richardwood401 (10:25:56 AM): it reminded me of the "bar" rob was going to build in his basement and which now stores his bowflex machine !

MaverickZ31 (10:26:10 AM): hehehe

MaverickZ31 (10:26:30 AM): and of the 3 bedroom ranch michelle and i almost bought with the semi-finished basement rec room & bar...

MaverickZ31 (10:26:32 AM): :lol:

richardwood401 (10:27:45 AM): we are just some meat in a bag of salty water marching around to the tune of our DNA.

Red tail hawk
this morning
perusing the
bike path menu
harried
by 2 small birds
giving it all
they are worth.

The bright morning sun was out and the air was sharp and clear.
I was lucky to see two of these turkey vultures.
They were perched on a chimney of a house.
In unison they turned their heads.
Weighing me as carrion.

He ain't got no distractions
Can't hear those buzzers and bells
Don't see lights a flashin'
Plays by sense of smell
Always gets a replay
Never tilts at all
That deaf, dumb and blind Than
Sure plays a mean pinball

Survival guide after reading Peoples History of the United Sates.

1) Stock pantry with favorite foods.
2) Lock doors.
3) Close all shades/curtains/blinds.
4) Drink plenty of water.
5) Get plenty of sleep.
6) Hug and play with your family.
7) Only go back outside when the sun is out.

And what did you do today?

I put a dimple in the fabric of space-time !

In the parking lot across the street from Lexington Corporate Center.

The man opened the hatchback of his car and
the golden retriever, generously silvered,
stood waiting patiently.

The man bent down, reached around the chest
of the dog and lifted the dog's front legs into
the car.

The man then wrapped his arms around the back
end of the dog and gently lifted into the car.
All was done with practiced grace.

maverickz31 (9:39:42 AM): Happy "holy crap" Monday

maverickz31 (9:40:26 AM): the origin of the phrase "holy crap" comes from what Jesus did after being dead for 3 days.

Lesson in sound.

I thought I knew the call of a blue jay.
Sort of a raucous challenging sound.
This morning I was stopped by a sound
that was a cross between a British police siren
heard through a flugelhorn.
I stopped and looked into a bush
and low and behold it was a
blue jay.
Thanks blue jay for bringing your "A" game.

My super powers.

super sight - to see whats really going on.
super hearing - to listen.
super smell - to know the truth.
super taste - to enjoy being of this world.
super touch - to be connected.

Kiss me I am jeebus !

When St. Patrick's Day is on a Friday, certain bishops grant a release from the traditional Lent Friday no-meat observance. This release is called the "corned-beef indult."

Experiment to see who loves you more.

1) Lock wife and dog in the trunk of your car.
2) Drive around for an hour.
3) Open trunk and note who is happy to see you.

School across from 101 America Avenue, Providence RI.

Along the bike path this morning in Bedford
there were hundreds of starlings
in the trees making a cacophony of noise like
school children at recess,
on a nice sunny day.

T. S. Eliot said:

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

toothpastefordinner.com

The chance of being hit by any one raindrop is infinitesimal and yet if I go out in the rain I get wet.

Corn.

Food and entertainment. That's right.

In the building complex where I work (Lexington Corporate Center or LCC for short) there is only one garage door and over it is a square white sign with the number "13" in black. Funny thing is there is no driveway leading to that garage door. The few times I have seen a nondescript white pickup drive to that door it had to ride over the grass and down a sidewalk. Any information would be appreciated.

1) "Everything I know about chickens I have learned from cartoons." - Mike
2) My life is more like "Green Acres" than I realized.
3) Some day soon people will forget what a "Dial Tone" was.

American
Standard
3.8 Lpf/ 1.0 Gpf

30 degrees and bright sunshine can only mean one thing.

car napping time !

Crazy earthlings.

Every fourth year they have to work an extra day, because they believe, if they don't their god "jeebus" will punish them eventually by making it snow in july and their tomatoes ripen in december.

Happy Birthday John.

John Steinbeck said, "A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun."

On company time.
ChaChing !

A song on the 1963 bus trip from the NY worlds fair with Ursala, my grandmother.

"Ham bone, Ham bone where you been?"
"All around town and back again"
"What you going to do when you get back?"
"Going to take a walk by the railroad tracks"

Last one at work on a snowy day.

I am king of Excelergy !

A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media

prairiehome.publicradio.org

February 22, 2008

2/22/08

Post to the Host:
I just heard your latest show and you mentioned that Bisquick is now a sponsor. How do the folks at Powdermilk Biscuits feel about this? Are they pulling their sponsorship from the first part of the program? And, most importantly, which product do you think makes the best biscuits? Maybe a taste test is in order at the local Fire Department Pancake Breakfast.

Liz P.
Chatham NJ

I don't give a rip how the Powdermilk people feel about it. They are relatives of mine, on the Powell side, and their product, frankly, is behind the times — Bisquick is Heart Smart, no cholesterol, zero grams trans fats — and nobody has the faintest idea what's in Powdermilk. That branch of the family made a nice peanut brittle at one time but their flour products are nothing to write home about. Pull their sponsorship? I wish they would. They haven't paid us a sou in years. We carry them out of sympathy and because I have elderly relatives who would be hurt to see them go. Myself, I'd be tickled pink. Powdermilk makes a decent biscuit if you like your biscuits heavy, but don't use them to make pancakes. One stack and you'll be immobile for the rest of the morning.

Snowy day forecast

richardwood401 (2:12:00 PM): I just watched a weather forecast video and the weatherman said we might want to re-think our dinner plans. DONE - instead of mac and cheese I am going to make bean and rice burritos.

MaverickZ31 (2:15:33 PM): crisis averted!

Ape quandary.

Bonobo:

Teenager to shock his mom "Sex is just natures way to say hello".

Chimpanzee:

That bastard is tailgating me. I am going to get behind him and flash my high beams and give him the finger.

At work we have gone from blue to pink urinal cakes and I have to say I like it. Very festive !

Total lunar eclipse tonight. WOOT WOOT.

I am very health conscious. I only use iodized salt.

Ansel Adams said, "A good photograph is knowing where to stand."

What stops an ape.

After dusk, before dark, a flock of ducks circling a small field/marsh looking to land. Low enough that I can hear their wings beating and a small guttural noise they are making in their throats.

A small two engine passenger jet coming in for a landing at Hanscom airfield. Low enough you can see the landing gear is down and the gentle rocking of the wings in the cross wind.

nice things

• feckin' first sip of coffee in the morning
• feckin' good book after reading a bad book
• feckin' hot shower on a cold morning

not nice things

• feckin' idiots (you know who i am talking about)

A tangential 18-1 story.

In the courtyard at work there was a New York Giants Win Super Ball mylar balloon blowing around. It was nearly deflated, however, and with the wind it would rise up and down (reminding me of American Beauty). A guy came out of building 2 (I am in building 1) and started to walk rapidly towards it. As he neared the balloon a gust of wind took it up and over the roof of building 3. He watched for a while, with one hand in his khaki pocket, glanced around, and retreated back inside. We have stuff trapped by the courtyard blowing around all the time and I have never seen anyone chase it. (Maintenance guy sweeping up birds killed by the hawk doesn't count) I guess he wanted the balloon (Yay Giants !) or to destroy the balloon. (Screw you Giants)

I learned today that in the Yankee Swap universe the term "Bring a gift valued under 25$" really means "Bring a gift valued at 25$"

No thank you, I don't want your crappy gift.

My favorite weather.com view....10 day forecast !

"Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits."

Robert Louis Stevenson

Walk to work, August 24th 2007

They are not waves on the ocean,
They are the ocean waving.

Man rides his bike by me from behind
carrying two coffees in a cardboard tray.
He had one of those perfectly circular
bald spots on the back of his head.
As he went around a corner ahead,
bushes blocking the view of his bike and
body, his head looked like a giant
sunflower with black petals and a khaki center.
I think someone is lucky to be having coffee
brought to them this morning.

We are not people in the universe
We are the universe peopling.

Than - 23

There once was a Boy
who cut his own hair,

I have seen him swim
in Canada bare.

His beliefs are courageous
and his friends are the best,

May your 23rd year
be filled with adventure
and zest.

Drove to Providence for nothing.
Boo Hoo Hoo.

A deer on the bike trail

I stepped off the bike trail
to watch the deer
about 30 feet away and
the most amazing thing happened.
Human endeavor,
the people on bikes,
roller blades
and running,
became time delayed exposure,
blurred by their motion into
a grey streaked stream
while the deer and I watched
each other.

What my dad said.

I called to tell him I was moving.
He said
"Congratulations, maybe this
will be the start of a new life"
Fuck,
He might be right.

Not in the manual

I have chosen to be
honest with my kids
about my personal struggles.
It is hard to do and
I hope it is fair.

Fathers' day 2007

My children are to me

like portals created by

black holes in the

space time fabric

of the universe.

Paths to the future.

5 guys shingling a roof.

Seven o'clock bright an early
they wrestled the ladder to get
up to the 2nd story roof.
Four in white tee shirts, with
some kind of work logo, and
jeans. One, no shirt, and dark blue
sweat pants.
All sat, starting at the peak, with
legs pointing down the slope
of the roof and scraping off the old
shingles. Worked their way down
the roof until old shingles avalanche
off and slid down a big plastic
sheet protecting the side of
the house.
One fetched a push broom and
that half of the roof cleaned off
nice and neat down to the wood.
Four sat in a circle, don't know where
the fifth went, and shared a joint in
the warm morning sun at 40 feet.

Beekeeper

Will work hives and go
Four Hundred years into past
for a flora boon.

Priorities

An attractive woman is

walking into the building

carrying a box of donuts.

One says "she is good looking"

Another says "She is very good looking"

I say "You think that box is a full dozen"

Moon on route 128

The sky in the east,

had started to turn that kind of

dusky purple,

framing the ancient,

ascending

full moon,

the color of

mastodon tusks,

and saber tooth canines.

Houses chapter IX

A mason came forth and said, "Speak to us of Houses."
And he answered and said: Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop?
Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.
In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer.
A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.
And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master?
Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires. Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

Khalil Gibran

A Dream

Scott is driving his car

and I am in the front

passengers seat.

We are going to South Boston

to buy weed.

A giant brick factory

in bad disrepair

looms before us.

We drive between towering

brick chimneys. People

are milling all around.

I ask who he knows to ask

and he doesn't answer.

He pulls up behind a dumpster

crowded with trees. I am distracted

looking around and he buys it

without me seeing.

We slowly pull out and

work our way to the entrance

except now the ocean is sending

waves against the beach at

the bottom of one of the giant

brick leaning chimneys.

I say "That chimney is going to fall".

Teenage boys playing

football at Colt State

Park

No Coaches

No Parents

One rule - 10 Mississippi

to rush

Hut, Hut, Hike

A mad dash down

the crooked grass.

A hail Mary pass

full tilt, a leap at 45 degrees

off the ground.

Ball grazes fingers

and tumbles away.

He crashes to earth

and loses his hat.

Lots of high fives

and he jumps up laughing.

Steve said "it cloned my usage" which, when taken out of context, sounds funny however not as funny if you say "it cloned my weasel". Is that judgmental?

Song lyric from zefrank
"Did your invisible baby
drink some invisible potion
or did you just cover it
with some invisible lotion"

Winter color out today.
Not cloudy, not cold,
just the quality of light.
Autumn leaves.

Jeff's 16 year old nephew is in the hospital with brain damage after getting hit by a van. Brings me back to Rachelle's accident. Cars kill and maim us, make us weak and flabby, damage the planet, makes us do bushiness with crappy countries, yet its like a god given right to drive one (I am no exception). Not to mention all the god-damn money we spend on them. They also bring us to Key West in the winter, Nova Scotia in the summer, California at christmas.

If it's brown your in cider town.

Visiting kid's work places.
"That appliance over there simulates a lower intestinal track"
"That old bent over apple tree was a pain to pick because many of its branches are on the ground"
"Try the carrot juice"
"The geese come up from the river into the parking lot and hiss"

Compassionate upright monkeys doomed to worry?
From listening and understanding someone's struggles to trusting that it will turn out all right? Answer next time on Dr. Phil, if you dare look him right in the eye.

arrggggg...when the flow goes down, go down, when the flow goes up, go up.
Its all about the flow.

Damn, I showed no mercy to my soul but I did show it whose the boss(and its not Tony Danza). Take that you ephemeral container of my essence !

Crazy work day, may the lord have mercy on my soul.

Hackneyed and described every which way New England autumn foliage makes the off ramp from 95 North onto 4/225 look pretty cool.

The crappy new IP phones here at work remind me of a joke.
Dick: "The food at this restaurant stinks"
John: "Then why do you eat here?"
Dick: "Large portions"

Siren song of fog reluctantly left behind,
wonderful obscuring,
all enveloping fog.
The fog has left it's gift although
hard pressed to put into words.
I miss that fog again.

I smell my pencils after sharpening.

Go ahead, leave a comment.

While the average programmer (OK, me) might be wondering if Oracle 10g really will provide the scalability needed for his employer to prosper....

The number of individual E. Coil bacteria that the average programmer (me again) excretes in one day averages between 100 billion and 10 trillion.

Its taken the United States much longer to excrete 300 million people (that's not me, I am only responsible for two) by October 2006.

Take that USA !

Borrow from Sunday to play Saturday.

There are four or five trees outside my window at work. There is no breeze at all and leaves are falling of their own volition a few at a time. Whether they are yelling Wheeeee or Oh my God I can't hear through the glass that has on it drops of rain pointing towards the center of the earth. The landscaping crew cleaned up today but by now you would never know it (unless the lawn mower tire tracks in the grass give it away to you). The sky is grey however still several shades lighter than the air conditioning equipment on the building across the way.

I found this article an interesting way to look at something, I do every day, a little bit differently.

Interlude: Meditation of the Week:

"To the angry driver, wish peace.
To the speeding driver wish patience.
To the aggressive driver wish compassion.
To the hesitant driver wish skill and confidence. "

All hours wound,
the last one kills.