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It\’s my little sister\’s birthday today. Happy Birthday, Honey.

(November 2007) The Springfield Massachusetts Museum of Fine Art is currently hosting an exhibition of Josh Simpson\’s glass work. Peg and I, along with our friend Tina Marie (no, not Teena Marie) went to see it on Sunday. Here is a sample image, though we didn\’t see this particular item:

Photo (C) Josh Simpson Contemporary Glass (thanks 🙂 )

There is a DVD documentary playing on the second floor that shows the effort that went into the making of the first \”megaplanet\”. What you can\’t possibly capture from a photograph of one of these masterpieces is the depth of the work. These megaplanets are over a foot in diameter, and start with a small, apple-sized ball of glass that is shaped with water-soaked wooden bowls and paddles. Colored bits of glass, including millefiori canes, as well as metal foils and other materials, are attached to this base piece, then the piece is dipped in the pool of molten glass again. This process is repeated six or seven times, each time building up another layer, adding depth that can only be seen in person to appreciate.

Now, Peg and I know something (well, a little bit) about glassblowing. Peg took a course in it, and one day I went along just to watch, and the instructor insisted that I make something just for fun. So I made a paperweight about the size of an egg. Inside the furnace was a crucible containing probably a couple hundred pounds of molten glass at approximately 2200F. Yup, it was close to red-hot, that nice orangey color when you know something is really hot. That day pretty much redefined hot for me. I had worked with plastics at 450F, nylon at 550F, and some other stuff, like metal work, that ran into the close-to-red-hot region, but this stuff was hot!

But my paperweight was about two or three ounces of glass, consisting of a starting glob about the size of a small walnut, with some yellow glass stuck in, and one more dip in the molten glass (and a lot of nerve-and-heat-related sweating!). Josh\’s Megaplanets are, oh, like 100 pounds of glass. While the artistry involved is unquestionably wonderful and beautiful, the engineering work and the sheer scale of the megaplanets are just mind-boggling to me.

Very very impressive stuff, and I heartily recommend seeing the exhibit, open November 20, 2007 through February 3, 2008. Admission is only $10, free to Springfield residents.

Saturday November 24 found Peg and me in Warren, Massachusetts for my 35th high school reunion. Here\’s a picture of the fourteen of us (out of 89 – how sad – a mere 15.7%) that actually came out for the event. It was fun to see those who came, but I wish there had been a better turnout. There are a lot of other folks I wish I could have seen.

(back) Chip, Henry, Mark, Mike, John (me), and Eldon.
(front) Cecelia, Rebecca, Nancy, Donna, Sue, Debbie, Judy, and Jeanne.

(N.B. if you do a save-link-as instead of save-image, the full image will download – jg)

Well, not really. Bears, sure. But no lions or tigers. Just cows. A number of years ago Peg and I went to London (we were supposed to go on 9/12/2001. Guess how that went?) for a holiday. I think it was 2003, but, well, my memory… But when we got there CowParade London was going on. Fiberglas cows, well over 100 of them, were to be found all over the city, painted in frightfully imaginative color schemes. Sort of like the Berlin Bears (link above). But anyway, after the Antwerp trip, we headed back to Amsterdam and checked into the Hilton at Schiphol Airport, and two more cows were outside the Hilton. And there were others inside the airport as well, next to a cheese shop. It makes perfect sense! The Netherlands is a well-known cheese-making country in its own right. Here\’s a picture of a third cow, along with me:

Man, I had hoped to just fill this page up with juicy stories and lots of photos, but the truth of the matter is that we didn\’t get into Amsterdam proper like we had \”planned\”. A coworker and I traveled through Amsterdam to visit a customer site near Antwerp, and had \”planned\” on getting out of the customer site early on Friday, take the train to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, ditch our bags, and head into town. Antwerp had different ideas. We didn\’t leave the office until 16:45, and there were no taxis to be had at all in the city of Antwerp. The receptionist tried in vain to contact three different taxi companies, all to no avail. She finally got a company to commit to a taxi \”in an hour\”, though that cab never came. Around 18:30 we started to panic a bit – it was cold and raining, and the train station was like 5km away – much too far to walk. The buses didn\’t seem to have a scheduled run until the following Monday (wrong stop, I guess), and we were out of options. We called one of our customer engineers and begged for a ride to Berchem station, getting there in time for the 19:26 train to Schiphol, which pulled in at about 21:30. Cold, exhausted and hungry, we checked in and immediately met for dinner. We made plans for breakfast at 08:15 the following morning and said goodnight.

07:30 I arise and start getting ready for breakfast. The phone rings. Apostolos has a sore throat (no doubt from standing in the cold rain waiting for that taxi), so begs out of the trip to Amsterdam Central. I feel like crap anyway, so I pass on the trip as well, opting to check out the shops at the airport. My sister had requested a label pin rather than Belgian chocolates. I found one as we were leaving, but not on the initial reconnaissance trip. I went back to the hotel and stayed comfortable until checking out at noon.

I have promised myself that if I ever own a hotel (or B&B which is a more likely scenario – even as unlikely a possibility as that might be), there will be free access to the internet, either wired or wireless. The Hilton pissed me off. Here I was paying €135 for the room (a very nice room, by the way, with one glaring exception[1]), and they wanted another €6.95/hour (or €20.00/day) to plug my computer into the rest of the world. Sheesh. Buy a few routers, buy a few wireless access points, and since you\’re hooked up anyway for the reservations systems and such, give away internet access. Just give it away. Happier customers. Isn\’t that what they\’re supposed to be striving for? I know most of their customers don\’t care about another $8 or so, but some of us live in the real world, and only very occasionally get to stay at the Hilton (my last time was 1972, returning home from the Navy in Denver for Christmas).

[1] The only fault I could find with the room is that the shower couldn\’t maintain the proper, set temperature. I lived, but I certainly prefer the shower at a €135 Hilton hotel room to be at least as clever as the shower I have at home. I don\’t think that\’s unreasonable, do you?

I got to visit Antwerp (Flemish:Antwerpen / French:Anvers) for the first time in October 2006, and found it to be a delightful city – helpful, friendly people who spoke English (as well as German, Flemish, French, it seemed), cooked good food, and made excellent beers in various styles. Belgium is a country divided by language. In the south they speak French predominantly, and in the north, it\’s mostly Flemish, a Germanic language. It\’s mostly the same as Dutch, with a few dialectal differences that certainly my ears can\’t distinguish.

On the 2006 trip I stayed at the Best Western Classical Mozart hotel (view from my room) . Unfortunately they were booked solid (and quite a lot more expensive) this trip, as was the case for most hotels in Antwerp, apparently. We stayed at the Tourist Hotel, which was quite conveniently located just opposite Antwerp\’s Central Station. But the view from my room this time looked like this:

which is clearly not as cool as the Cathedral. But the hotel was clean and reasonably comfortable, if not luxuriously appointed like the Mozart. I do wish they had had a real shower, though. Instead of being wall-mounted, the sprayer was hand-held, which made me feel more like a load of dishes. But it worked pretty well in any event. At least the water temperature stayed steady (which I cannot say about the Hilton at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam). We didn\’t try the hotel restaurant, but I stopped in at the bar a few times. They had Primus beer (probably Primus Haacht) on draught, so that suited me. Nothing too complex, just a nice session beer, with a little bowl of peanuts to while away an hour before heading up to bed.

The Tourist Hotel was, we suspect, owned by Russians (Dema Hotels Group), and the bulk of the folks at breakfast were apparently Russians, too, both business and casual guests. Breakfast was a bit sparse by the European standards to which I\’ve become accustomed, but I didn\’t leave hungry. I would have been happier with cereal, some fruit and some yogurt in the mix. But coffee, tea, juice, bread, sliced meat and cheese usually do pretty well.

OK, so everybody has started to ask Peg (and the Elves) what to get John for Christmas. I put forth this helpful list, and promise to update it as I think of cool things to add. I admit freely that it\’s difficult to shop for me. I\’m kind of picky, I\’m rather odd, and I have just about everything already. If you really, really can\’t think of anything, donations to Children\’s Hospital or the Dana Farber Cancer Institute would simply rock. Really. (Since I already have a star 😉 )

At the Animal Rescue Site there is the \”Animal Rescue Site Large Duffel Bag\” that might take some digging to find, but it\’s cool and some of the money goes to feed animals in shelters.

There is also the \’RockMite\’ 30m CW transceiver kit at Small Wonder Labs (in case you didn\’t know I\’m sort of \”into\” ham radio, and this is a very cute, and relatively inexpensive toy. Of course the \’RockMite\’ connectors and controls kit to go with it would help me get on the air sooner, and that\’s ever-so-important (that\’s me channeling Shirley Temple, who appears twice on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper\’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album by the Beatles, oh-by-the-way.) Too late!

Inasmuch as I am also a music buff (I don\’t know how many CDs. I can\’t even count that high) there are a number of those that I am forbidden to purchase until the New Year has come. This list will grow:

• Carrie Underwood – Carnival Ride – Too late
  
• Dwight Yoakum – Dwight Sings Buck
• Leann Rimes – Family
• Brooks & Dunn – Cowboy Town – Too late
  
• GracePotter & the Nocturnals – This is Somewhere
• Amy Winehouse – Frank
• Feist – The Reminder
• Ray LaMontaigne – Till the Sun Turns Black
• Kate Nash – Made of Bricks
• Rhonda Vincent – Good Thing Going

Peg has suggested gift cards to

• Barnes & Noble
• WalMart
• Ham Radio Outlet

if for no other reason that I can purchase books, CDs, and radio bits.

Also purchased for me were gift cards from:

• Dunkin Donuts
• Starbucks
• Applebees

I also enjoy wearing socks that nobody else in their right mind would wear. Not kittens or ducks, mind you, but colorful stripes, patterns, little skulls and such hold great sway with me. I got another pair of socks with skulls 😉 Blue background and hot pink skulls. Excellent!

Have you seen the video of that moron in Gainesville getting Tasered at the John Kerry speech? OK, so he was a moron, but perhaps the Taser shouldn\’t have been unholstered. It sure was entertaining to watch, though, the kid screaming \”Don\’t Taser me, Bro! Don\’t Taser me!\”, the zap zap zap zap of the Taser, the screams of the kid as 50 000 volts of juice coursed through his body and all.

The part that I don\’t get, though, is that John Kerry claims he was unaware of the kid getting Tasered, the screaming, the pleading, the sounds of his sorry ass flopping all over the floor at he was jolted at the hands of the crack troops at the University of Florida notwithstanding. He was unaware of it until after he left the stage. Unaware. How can that be? Well, I guess John Kerry is as stupid as I though he was.

You might have figured out from some of my other posts that I\’m a ham radio operator. Well, we have to have all sorts of odd little gizmos floating around, and a lot of them look like each other but are completely incompatible.

Long story short, I ordered some incorrect parts from a place in San Marcos California called RF Parts Company (RF means \”radio frequency\”, which is what ham radio is all about…). On getting the parts and realizing that yes, I am an idiot (well, only sometimes), I sent an email to their customer service department, admitted to my idiocy, and asked what to do.

So I\’m shipping the parts back, they\’re shipping new parts in return, and all I have to pay is shipping. No muss, no fuss, just $8 to correct my error (well, and time, but ham radio operators don\’t get paid by the hour or anything).

So, if you happen to need capacitors, attenuators, connectors, dummy loads, or any of the thousands of other bits like that, try RF Parts. They are also home to Diamond Antennas.

God\’s will be done

(AP Photo)