Random thoughts from John

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)

I got this in my email this morning. I wasn\’t able to verify it at Snopes, but I agree with about 98% of it…

Written by a housewife from New Jersey, and sounds like it! This is one ticked off lady.

\”Are we fighting a war or terror or aren\’t we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001?

\”Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation\’s capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn\’t they?

\”And I\’m supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was \’desecrated\’ when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?…Well, I don\’t. I don\’t care at all.

\”I\’ll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

\”I\’ll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia.

\”I\’ll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg\’s head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.

\”I\’ll care when the cowardly so-called \’insurgents\’ in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.

\”I\’ll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

\”I\’ll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution\’s Bill of Rights.

\”In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don\’t care.

\”When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college-hazing incident, rest assured: I don\’t care.

\”When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank: I don\’t care.

\”When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed \’special\’ food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being \’mishandled,\’ you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts: I don\’t care.

\”And oh, by the way, I\’ve noticed that sometimes it\’s spelled \’Koran\’ and other times \’Quran.\’ Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and – you guessed it – I don\’t care!!! \”

OK, now for the 2% I don\’t agree with. I believe that the Koran is just as important as the Holy Bible. It should be treated with every bit as much respect. I don\’t believe that Muslims are violent, any more than I believe that Christians are violent, or Jews are violent, or whatever. People, no matter their faith (or lack thereof), are capable of violence, and the farther they are from God or Allah, the more likely they are to be violent. And I believe that God is Allah, and Allah is God, and to disparage either is to disparage both.

And it\’s my solemn prayer that one day, God will strike down all of the infidels of any faith that kill \”in His name.\” I hope it comes quickly, but happens slowly.

Insha\’Allah

I got this in the mail from my Aunt Joann today. I can\’t provide proper credit, but it\’s very highly accurate…

Information on Boston and the surrounding area:

There\’s no school on School Street , no court on Court Street, no dock on Dock Square , no water on Water Street . Back Bay streets are in alphabetical \”oddah\”: Arlington , Berkeley , Clarendon, Dartmouth, etc.
So are South Boston streets: A, B, C, D, etc. If the streets are named after trees (e.g. Walnut, Chestnut, Cedar), you\’re on Beacon Hill . If they\’re named after poets, you\’re in Wellesley .

Massachusetts Ave is Mass Ave ; Commonwealth Ave is Comm Ave.
South Boston is Southie. The South End is the South End. East Boston is Eastie. The North End is east of the former West End. The West End and Scollay Square are no more; a guy named Rappaport got rid of them one night. Roxbury is The Burry, Jamaica Plain is J.P.

How to say these Massachusetts city names correctly:

**Say it wrong, be shunned**
Worcester: Wuhsta (or Wistah)
Gloucester : Glawsta
Leicester : Lesta
Woburn : Wooban
Dedham : Dedim (like denim w/ a D in the N pace)
Revere : Re-vee-ah
Quincy : Quinzee
Tewksbury: Tooks berry
Leominster : Lemon-sta
Peabody : Peabuddy
Waltham : Walth-ham
Chatham : Chattum

Stoneham: Stone-em

Waban: Wah-ban

Holyoke: Hole-yoke

Definitions:
Frappes have ice cream, milkshakes don\’t.
If it is fizzy and flavored, it\’s tonic.
Soda is CLUB SODA.
\”Pop\” is Dad.
When we want Tonic WATER, we will ask for Tonic WATER.
The smallest beer is a pint.
Scrod is whatever they tell you it is, usually fish.
If you paid more than $6/pound, you got scrod.
It\’s not a water fountain; it\’s a bubblah.
It\’s not a trashcan; it\’s a barrel.
It\’s not a spucky it\’s a sub.
It\’s not a shopping cart; it\’s a carriage.
It\’s not a purse; it\’s a pockabook.
They\’re not franks; they\’re haht dahgs. Franks are money in France .

Police don\’t drive patrol units or black and whites they drive a \”crooza\”.
If you take the bus, you\’re on the \”looza crooza\”. It\’s not a rubber band, it\’s an elastic. It\’s not a traffic circle, it\’s a rotary. \”Going to the islands\” means Martha\’s Vineyard & Nantucket. If something\’s good, it\’s \”pissa\”. If something\’s really good, it\’s \”wicked pissa\”.

The Pat\’s = The Patriots
The Sox = The Red Sox
The C\’s = The Celtics
The B\’s = The Bruins

Things not to do:
Don\’t pahk your cah in Hahvid Yahd . they\’ll tow it to Meffa ( Medford ) or Slumaville (Somerville).
Don\’t sleep in the Common. ( Boston Common)
Don\’t wear Orange in Southie on St. Patrick\’s Day.

Things you should know:
There are two State Houses, two City Halls, two courthouses, two Hancock buildings (one old, one new for each).

The colored lights on top the old Hancock tell the wetha:
\”Solid blue, clear view….\”
\”Flashing blue, clouds due….\”
\”Solid red, rain ahead….\”
\”Flashing red, snow instead….\” – (except in summer; flashing red means the Red Sox game was rained out)

Route 128 is also I-95 south. It\’s also I-93 north.
The underground train is not a subway. It\’s the \”T\”, and it doesn\’t run all night (fah chrysakes, this ain\’t Noo Yawk).
Order the \”cold tea\” in China Town after 2:00 am you\’ll get a kettle full of beer.

Bostonians… think that it\’s their God-given right to cut off someone in traffic.
Bostonians…think that there are only 25 letters in the alphabet (no R\’s).
Bostonians…think that three straight days of 90+ temperatures is a heat wave.
Bostonians…refer to six inches of snow as a \”dusting.\”
Bostonians…always \”bang a left\” as soon as the light turns green and oncoming traffic always expects it.
Bostonians.. .say everything in town is \”a five-minute walk.\” (Pronounced \”wok\”)
Bostonians…believe that using your turn signal is a sign of weakness.
Bostonians…think that 63-degree ocean water is warm.
Bostonians…think Rhode Island accents are annoying.

I can\’t help it. These guys have apparently figured out how to sell everything. The coolest thing I bought from them so far was a 1000\’ spool of orange (bright orange) parachute cord. It yielded 12 80\’ pieces that I used to guy four towers one year at Field Day. But check out the Barre Army Navy Store. I want to drive up there on vacation just to check it out 😉