Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Word-a-day calendar in the wrong hands is a dangerous thing.
I swear I just heard this on NPR, driving home from work. Speaking at a White House press conference, President Bush clearly and distinctly said that prisoners at Gitmo are "trained to disassemble." After a long pause, he helpfully told the puzzled press corps that disassemble means "to not tell the truth".
Uh, I believe the word you're looking for is dissemble, Mr. President.
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I swear I just heard this on NPR, driving home from work. Speaking at a White House press conference, President Bush clearly and distinctly said that prisoners at Gitmo are "trained to disassemble." After a long pause, he helpfully told the puzzled press corps that disassemble means "to not tell the truth".
Uh, I believe the word you're looking for is dissemble, Mr. President.
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Monday, May 30, 2005
Fest!
So it turns out I am playing the Flagstaff Folk Festival, Sunday morning (the 15th) at 10:00. Since I don't have to be there bright and early Saturday, likely I'll be driving up Saturday morning and saving myself the extra night at the hotel. Things get swinging at 9:30 both mornings, which makes Flag the earliest-starting folk festival of the batch I know of - Phoenix & Prescott both start at 10:00; Tucson has some programming at 11:00 but doesn't really get started until noon.
This being Memorial Day I feel like I ought to say something about the vets in my family, not that there's much to tell. Uncle Jack was a German PoW in WWII, but not being a politician he never talked about the experience. I probably would have remained totally unaware, except that it gave my Dad, his brother, a vehement dislike for Hogan's Heroes. Dad was drafted, but discharged after a few months for medical reasons, so his "war stories" mostly had to do with his company having the best cook in the Army. One of my cousins is now married to a woman he met while serving in Vietnam; their story would make a great book, but it's not my place to be putting their private lives online. They can get their own darn blog.
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So it turns out I am playing the Flagstaff Folk Festival, Sunday morning (the 15th) at 10:00. Since I don't have to be there bright and early Saturday, likely I'll be driving up Saturday morning and saving myself the extra night at the hotel. Things get swinging at 9:30 both mornings, which makes Flag the earliest-starting folk festival of the batch I know of - Phoenix & Prescott both start at 10:00; Tucson has some programming at 11:00 but doesn't really get started until noon.
This being Memorial Day I feel like I ought to say something about the vets in my family, not that there's much to tell. Uncle Jack was a German PoW in WWII, but not being a politician he never talked about the experience. I probably would have remained totally unaware, except that it gave my Dad, his brother, a vehement dislike for Hogan's Heroes. Dad was drafted, but discharged after a few months for medical reasons, so his "war stories" mostly had to do with his company having the best cook in the Army. One of my cousins is now married to a woman he met while serving in Vietnam; their story would make a great book, but it's not my place to be putting their private lives online. They can get their own darn blog.
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Saturday, May 28, 2005
To Fest or Not to Fest
Two weeks to the Flagstaff Folk Festival, and still no schedule on their website and nothing in the mail, so I don't know if I'm in this year or not. I suppose I'll run up for a day even if I'm not on the schedule, just to see what's up. And get away from the heat.
The tomatoes are turning into something of a disappointment. The big ones, like the Cherokee purple, are getting ravaged by bugs before they ripen, or developing blossom-end rot. The cherry and smaller sized tomatoes seem to be doing better; I picked some Brown Berry to try with dinner tonight.
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Two weeks to the Flagstaff Folk Festival, and still no schedule on their website and nothing in the mail, so I don't know if I'm in this year or not. I suppose I'll run up for a day even if I'm not on the schedule, just to see what's up. And get away from the heat.
The tomatoes are turning into something of a disappointment. The big ones, like the Cherokee purple, are getting ravaged by bugs before they ripen, or developing blossom-end rot. The cherry and smaller sized tomatoes seem to be doing better; I picked some Brown Berry to try with dinner tonight.
1 comments
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
In the news: Some lawmakers are introducing new legislation in Congress, based upon their conviction that women have no place in combat. This new law would prevent US armed forces from engaging in combat in any area where women live.
Psych! No, it's really about preventing women from taking up arms and voluntarily putting themselves in harm's way. Time to dust off this little ditty I wrote for the invasion of Grenada (wherein female soldiers who fought on the front lines were denied medals due to their "non-combatant" designation):
A woman's place in war
Is a victim or a whore;
Wouldn't it put you off your feed
If a dame could fight and not just bleed?
Halelujah, boys, God is on our side!
And he ain't no frail,
He's a true blue male -
That's a point of American pride!
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Psych! No, it's really about preventing women from taking up arms and voluntarily putting themselves in harm's way. Time to dust off this little ditty I wrote for the invasion of Grenada (wherein female soldiers who fought on the front lines were denied medals due to their "non-combatant" designation):
A woman's place in war
Is a victim or a whore;
Wouldn't it put you off your feed
If a dame could fight and not just bleed?
Halelujah, boys, God is on our side!
And he ain't no frail,
He's a true blue male -
That's a point of American pride!
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Monday, May 23, 2005
What a lovely day, what a jolly day, what a day for a holiday!
Manomanomanoman, the office was sooo frigid today that when I climbed into my car this evening I wanted to leave the A/C off and just bake. Literally; it was about 109 degrees out. My stomach absolutely hates me. It figures that the morning I have to get up an hour early the alarm decides it doesn't want to play the Walt Whitman CD anymore. (Not that I blame it; Whitman should be bellowed by a basso with a large beard, not rattled off like the city council minutes from Needles, CA.) The humming of the disk not-playing eventually roused Omega to stomp up and purr in my face, waking me from an annoying dream wherein a dog was trying to get at a pan of dripping meat in the fridge. Originally a whole goose, it became goose liver, then a pork chop. If Iron Chef didn't use so much foie gras this would never have happened.
In short, it's been Monday. How is your week so far?
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Manomanomanoman, the office was sooo frigid today that when I climbed into my car this evening I wanted to leave the A/C off and just bake. Literally; it was about 109 degrees out. My stomach absolutely hates me. It figures that the morning I have to get up an hour early the alarm decides it doesn't want to play the Walt Whitman CD anymore. (Not that I blame it; Whitman should be bellowed by a basso with a large beard, not rattled off like the city council minutes from Needles, CA.) The humming of the disk not-playing eventually roused Omega to stomp up and purr in my face, waking me from an annoying dream wherein a dog was trying to get at a pan of dripping meat in the fridge. Originally a whole goose, it became goose liver, then a pork chop. If Iron Chef didn't use so much foie gras this would never have happened.
In short, it's been Monday. How is your week so far?
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Sunday, May 22, 2005
Batten Down the Coolers
Yesterday it hit 105 degrees here in Mesa, a few degrees cooler than Phoenix, and today it's forcast to reach 110. This wouldn't be so unusual -- if it were August! Nevertheless I had a decent turnout at the housefilk last night, with a little over a dozen people showing up. Much more than that in this weather and I'd definitely have to switch from impulse to warp drive (aka from the swamp to the heat pump).
Tomatoes
My garden is now producing vast quantities of tomoatoes! Well, at the moment they're mostly green tomatoes. The firstripe ones I've gotten have been tiny yellow cherries from a plant that sprung up at the edge of the patio, in full sun, with no water source whatsoever. Go figure. In my actual garden the Sunmasters are starting to ripen, but have a horrible case of blossom-end rot. I have some goo that's supposed to prevent that, but didn't dig it out of the shed this year. A bunch of the Brown Berry tomatoes are almost ripe. And there are some Cherokee Purples that, while still green, are absolutely massive, much bigger than any tomato I've managed to grow in Arizona. I think the rains and mild weather earlier this year, along with getting a shade cloth over the garden early on, have really helped.
Oh, and I still have atrichokes out the wazoo.
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Yesterday it hit 105 degrees here in Mesa, a few degrees cooler than Phoenix, and today it's forcast to reach 110. This wouldn't be so unusual -- if it were August! Nevertheless I had a decent turnout at the housefilk last night, with a little over a dozen people showing up. Much more than that in this weather and I'd definitely have to switch from impulse to warp drive (aka from the swamp to the heat pump).
Tomatoes
My garden is now producing vast quantities of tomoatoes! Well, at the moment they're mostly green tomatoes. The firstripe ones I've gotten have been tiny yellow cherries from a plant that sprung up at the edge of the patio, in full sun, with no water source whatsoever. Go figure. In my actual garden the Sunmasters are starting to ripen, but have a horrible case of blossom-end rot. I have some goo that's supposed to prevent that, but didn't dig it out of the shed this year. A bunch of the Brown Berry tomatoes are almost ripe. And there are some Cherokee Purples that, while still green, are absolutely massive, much bigger than any tomato I've managed to grow in Arizona. I think the rains and mild weather earlier this year, along with getting a shade cloth over the garden early on, have really helped.
Oh, and I still have atrichokes out the wazoo.
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Friday, May 13, 2005
Misery Loves Company
I didn't pass the ISSEP. I'm in good company; so far, half of my co-workers who sat the exam on Monday have reported in and only one passed. Some have already scheduled to re-take. I'm not going to bother thinking about it this weekend. Too much housework & yardwork to catch up on.
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I didn't pass the ISSEP. I'm in good company; so far, half of my co-workers who sat the exam on Monday have reported in and only one passed. Some have already scheduled to re-take. I'm not going to bother thinking about it this weekend. Too much housework & yardwork to catch up on.
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Monday, May 09, 2005
Aftermath
So. When I cracked the booklet and looked at the first page I had the distinct feeling I had studied for the wrong exam. About 50 questions in I started feeling, well, bruised is the best term I can come up with. After it was over I went back to the office and announced that I was moving to Prescott to raise alpacas for a living.
And none of this nets me either a raise or a promotion.
Right now I'm just enjoying a huge absence of tension.
2 comments
So. When I cracked the booklet and looked at the first page I had the distinct feeling I had studied for the wrong exam. About 50 questions in I started feeling, well, bruised is the best term I can come up with. After it was over I went back to the office and announced that I was moving to Prescott to raise alpacas for a living.
And none of this nets me either a raise or a promotion.
Right now I'm just enjoying a huge absence of tension.
2 comments
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Quick Break
I have one song left to transcribe for Stardust County, and a bunch of changes I want to make to the existing orchestration. I have three in-progress stories on my laptop. Bits of paper with bits of poetry and song lyrics are scattered throughout the house. I'm experiencing the flood after a long drought, and I can't pursue any of the streams this weekend because I'm studying for the ISSEP exam on monday. Double arghh.
This morning no less than three cactus wrens were noisily attacking the solar oven in my backyard. I'd left it set up overnight after clouds thwarted my attempt to cook lunch yesterday. The little buggers saw their reflections in the outspread panels and were accordingly outraged.
2 comments
I have one song left to transcribe for Stardust County, and a bunch of changes I want to make to the existing orchestration. I have three in-progress stories on my laptop. Bits of paper with bits of poetry and song lyrics are scattered throughout the house. I'm experiencing the flood after a long drought, and I can't pursue any of the streams this weekend because I'm studying for the ISSEP exam on monday. Double arghh.
This morning no less than three cactus wrens were noisily attacking the solar oven in my backyard. I'd left it set up overnight after clouds thwarted my attempt to cook lunch yesterday. The little buggers saw their reflections in the outspread panels and were accordingly outraged.
2 comments
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
One more thing to remember
...........to bring my freakin' CDs to the festivals. Including the ones I'm not playing.
1 comments
...........to bring my freakin' CDs to the festivals. Including the ones I'm not playing.
1 comments
Monday, May 02, 2005
Dia de los Choo Choos
Drove down to Tucson for the folk festival over the weekend. This year I spent more time in the backyard of the festival, behind the Tucson Art Museum where the workshops and ballad tree are, than out at the main stages. I took my Native American flute along for its first excursion, and wound up playing duets with Patty Arnold at her workshop, and later with a fellow running a jewelrey booth in the marketplace area, and even got some compliments from strangers despite the fact that I don't know what I'm doing. Funny the dumbek I've been carrying around for years never gets that kind of reaction - drummers don't seem to be very integrated in the folk scene in Arizona. Also, I found out Linda Lou Harris used to play bassoon in high school.
Points to remember:
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Drove down to Tucson for the folk festival over the weekend. This year I spent more time in the backyard of the festival, behind the Tucson Art Museum where the workshops and ballad tree are, than out at the main stages. I took my Native American flute along for its first excursion, and wound up playing duets with Patty Arnold at her workshop, and later with a fellow running a jewelrey booth in the marketplace area, and even got some compliments from strangers despite the fact that I don't know what I'm doing. Funny the dumbek I've been carrying around for years never gets that kind of reaction - drummers don't seem to be very integrated in the folk scene in Arizona. Also, I found out Linda Lou Harris used to play bassoon in high school.
Points to remember:
- Train traffic is much heavier in Tucson than in Phoenix. Near-continuous train whistles wafted a romantic ambience over the Festival.
- The Radisson City Center charges extra fees that you don't find out about until check-in. Among the services covered by these fees: parking, a newspaper that's not delivered on weekends, and "free local calls". I was very tempted to send out 15 faxes to random people, just so I'd be getting something for my money.
- The boundary between downtown and the 4th Avenue district is as convoluted and subtle as that between the mortal lands and Faerie; there is no way to get from one to the other without travelling in the opposite direction. I have no recollection of how I came to be driving west on Franklin when I started out going north on 4th Ave and never once turned or changed direction.
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