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Images - Click here to view some incredible images of people around the globe mourning those lost. And as a reminder, if you find yourself being surprised by all the good things being reported about people are helping people through this crisis, you may need a healthier dose of good news in your life. That's why HeroicStories.com was started... check it out.
--Mike @ 22:26
The vacation that would not end - We finally returned home last night from our Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks vacation with our friends Carl & Yvonne, and we took today off to recoup. We were four days late in getting back home because of the terrorist attack on the US. At times, we wondered if we’d ever make it back - it sure feels good to be home. Unfortunately, there are over 5,000 families that may never feel that way again. It was so sad coming into Newark airport and seeing the NYC skyline empty except for the lingering trail of smoke that was still rising over the ashes of lower Manhattan. One of our last sights before starting out on our vacation two weeks ago was the image of the two World Trade Center buildings towering over the world as we rounded a corner on the highway heading toward the airport. Despite repeatedly seeing the images of the jets crashing into the towers, it’s still unbelievable that they’re completely gone.Today, the owner of the towers started talking about rebuilding them. I understand his opinion that not rebuilding them would be to admit defeat, since they’re now such a symbol, but I still wonder if it’s a good idea. Would anyone want to work there? Would companies really lease space?
We had done our best to avoid all world news during most of our trip (it’s easy when there are no room TVs in either Yellowstone or Grand Teton). The morning of the day before we were scheduled to leave, I figured I’d “ease our way” back into the world by tuning into a radio news broadcast. It so happened the one I picked was just 45 minutes after the first jet crash in NY. We were frozen in our tracks just listening to it - we could not believe what we were hearing. Then, during the same newscast, the announcer said they had just received word that the entire tower had collapsed.
My brother Joe saw the whole thing happen from where he was working across the river. In fact, just three weeks earlier, he had actually been doing some work in the Trade Center… it still sends chills through me. After hearing the news on the radio, we immediately went down to the main building in the area of Grand Teton where we were staying, and found everyone crowded around the TV in the bar. If we thought that hearing about the details was beyond belief, seeing the pictures was even harder to absorb.
We were scheduled to leave on Wednesday 9/12, but of course that was impossible. At least we were in the general vicinity of where we had intended to be, unlike those whose planes were forced to land at the closest field to where they were at the time. The earliest we could re-book our flight was four days later. Bozeman, Montana isn’t the worst place to be stranded. We visited every single recommended spot that anyone told us about, and even managed to find a few things to do on our own, too! A few more days and we might have just given up and stayed there! The scenery is so breathtakingly striking, it seemed strange to be in such a peaceful place when so much death, destruction and sadness was just a glance away at any TV screen.
In general the people in Wyoming and Montana were just great. Everyone seemed to want to go out of their way to do whatever they could. Sometime they bent the rules (a Northwest Airlines employee gave one of our group a first class seat on our return flight, to avoid our having to stay another day); sometimes they would simply start up conversations to see if everyone was handling the situation adequately. One cashier in the Jackson Lake Lodge gift shop in Grand Teton National Park even offered to have us stay with her if we couldn’t find hotel accommodations… way above and beyond the call of duty! National Car was even reportedly waiving the dropoff mileage fee for anyone stranded who needed to drive their rental car home (it was just too far for us to consider, and we wouldn’t have returned home much earlier anyway). The lady in the AAA travel office made all kinds of calls for us, working the angles trying to see if she could get us home by train or bus. It’s terrible that such a tragedy occurred, but it’s equally heartening to see how most people respond in a time of crisis and do whatever they can to help others.
Vacation pictures are forthcoming, by the way...
--Mike @ 22:12
Still alive... more to come.
--Mike @ 18:40
See you... in September - Where did the summer go? This holiday weekend is being a perfect end to it -- great weather, low humidity, plenty of sunshine. Spent a picture perfect day at the lake Saturday with lots of family. The kids had a ball building moats in the sand, and we got in some reading, some socializing, a game of Scrabble and a hearty night-time game of Continental before calling it quits. Does it get any better than this?? :-)
--Mike @ 00:20
Winding down - The end of a frenetic week, and it comes not a moment too soon. There was no movie we found compelling this week, so the group decided to try a new Thai restaurant downtown (it was great), and then walk the streets of Somerville, enjoying the weekly concert, running into people we knew, and ogling the antique cars that line the curbs of Main St. each Friday evening during the summer. These car owners are really into their hobby!Memories - Still receiving messages from grammar school classmates long forgotten -- it's a delight to be tickling so many old memories!
A winner! - Brother Kevin finished the windsurfing season as the repeat winner in his fleet, finally edging ahead in the weeks old statistical dead heat... congratulations once again! (Sorry, Chip ;-)
This is more like it - Solar roofing tiles are generating integrated energy and more and more interest!
Buh-bye for now...
--Mike @ 20:36
Superconductivity is back in the news. Scientists from Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs have shown that soccer ball-shaped carbon molecules known as bucky balls can act as superconductors at relatively warm temperatures, raising hopes for inexpensive, power loss-free organic electronics and other practical applications such as quantum computers.
--Mike @ 13:17
The Flying Wing - This month saw the record-breaking flight of Helios, NASA's solar-powered, remotely piloted, ultralight propeller driven aircraft. It broke all altitude records for non-rocket powered flight, reaching almost 100,000 feet.
--Mike @ 07:29
Old friends - Hmm, my efforts at spreading the word about classmates.com's new ability to list your grammar school has resulted in a flurry of e-mail contacts with people from my distant past -- what fun! Didn't even know those memory cells were still active in my brain.
--Mike @ 00:08
Useful service - Makeashorterlink.com is a tool that allows you to turn one of those horrendously-long database-type URLs into something more easily pasted into an e-mail message, without fear of having it truncated or incorrectly wrapped when it's opened by the e-mail recipient. Great idea. [Thanks, Jim!]Oh, no -- there's more - The Analog Clock pictures are now available at humanclock.com. I've submitted a photo of my own for the digital clock at 5:18am, but I don't see any sign that it's been accepted for publication. Apparently, the guy running the web site now has more photos than he needs, so photos for a particular timeslot will be rotated among those available.
Picnic - Thanks to V's cousin Barbara and her husband Chris for reviving the Tocco Family Picnic on Saturday. Unfortunately, the day ended with 5-year old Allison falling and breaking her arm, but she was a real trooper about it, and the hospital had her in a sling in no time.
List your schools - There are a bunch of new features now available at Classmates.com, that allow you not only to list your high school graduating class, but now you can also specify your grammar school, college, even kindergarten and military service!
Appreciation - Friday night, I attended a free dinner and show at the lake clubhouse, as part of the annual volunteer appreciation night, for my service on the weekly windsurfing race dock committee. The food was good, and entertainment was provided by comedian Paul Venier. Can't believe another season has come and gone already!
TV at its finest - Also on Friday night, the Museum of Television and Radio had a two-hour special on CBS called Breaking the News, narrated by actor Mel Gibson. It interviewed the many world-class journalists who covered the major events of our lives. An extremely interesting show, with great footage, some never before seen.
Lucent - We seem to have survived the layoffs at work for now. Six people in our building got whacked with the last round on Thursday. The general consensus is that this month should have seen the worst of it, and we can begin our recovery at half the size the company used to be.
--Mike @ 16:45
Zooming in on Noah's Ark? - A soon-to-be-launched commercial spacecraft will focus powerful cameras on the mysterious mountainside oddity to help unravel its true nature.
--Mike @ 13:58
Bridge to the future? - Ford Motor Company yesterday introduced a car with a hydrogen internal combustion engine that could help bridge the gap between gasoline vehicles and the fuel cell vehicles of the future.
--Mike @ 11:49
The super-sizing of America - We've lost track of our portion sizes.
--Mike @ 15:46
Photos of me from 16 years ago? - And published on the Internet, no less! Thanks to my "friend" Mace, questions have once again been raised as to whether I'm an "innocent victim or criminally insane". However, other photos from that era seem to demonstrate my agility at discovering creative space-savings solutions, so maybe I'm not completely insane after all. These old publications are proof why the Web had to be invented -- there was a crying need for this kind of personal publishing even back in the mid-80's. (But now that we've got the Web, I'm still crying ;-)
--Mike @ 21:26
Photos from this weekend
The windsurfing season is winding down; there's seven new photos of this weekend's racing activities, and a couple of new shots of the twins. Click on the photos to see more.
--Mike @ 11:33
More hybrid figures - According to Reuters, both Toyota and Honda say they are selling HEVs at a rate that exceeds the number they have planned to import and sell over the year. "We're trying to help the environment but we're also a business as well," said Ed LaRoque, Toyota's national advanced technology manager, adding without details that the company was very close to breaking even on hybrids. "There have been a lot of horror stories on how we're taking huge losses," he said. "We're not."In the United States so far this year, Toyota has sold 8,400 of its Prius, at a rate well above its 12,000 allotment for the year from Japan. Honda has sold nearly 3,000 Insights, a rate on target for its 6,500 allotment. Steady demand for Prius means there's an average waiting time of three months, Toyota officials said.
Next year, Honda will fit an as yet undetermined number of its second best selling car, the Civic with hybrid technology. And Toyota's President Fujio Cho said his company plans to make 300,000 hybrid cars worldwide by 2005.
Car companies worldwide are soon to jump in the race, including converting the quintessential American car in the last decade, the SUV. In 2003, Ford Motor Co. will make hybrid SUV Escapes, while DaimlerChrysler will make up to 30,000 hybrid Dodge Durangos.
Both Toyota and Honda said making hybrids eases the path to the opening of hydrogen age, when cars are expected to run on hydrogen fuel cells. "We believe a lot of the hard work being done now is going said to pay off for successful fuel cell vehicles for the future," said LaRocque, adding that Toyota hopes to make fuel cell cars by the end of the decade.
Meanwhile, salesmen wish there were more hybrids on their lots. "We've sold all we got," said Murray Malise a Honda salesman at a dealership in southern Manhattan. "They didn't make enough."
--Mike @ 09:45
Green light for conservation - A newly developed green LED is powering traffic lights in L.A.
--Mike @ 23:19
New way to make TVs skinnier - Researchers at Sarnoff Corp. said they have developed an electronic display that is half as deep as current models.A mad, mad, mad movie - The group went to see Jerry Zucker's latest creation, Rat Race. It was silly and ridiculous and, oh by the way, I loved it and laughed my ass off.
--Mike @ 22:44
Hybrids going mainstream - In 2003, DaimlerChrysler plans to produce as many as 30,000 hybrid versions of its Dodge Durango sport utility vehicle. The same year, Ford is expected to produce a hybrid version of the Escape SUV, promising it will get 40 miles to the gallon on city streets, 17 more than its current model. Honda is also planning to install a hybrid powertrain into its popular Civic. General Motors will follow suit with the Chevrolet Silverado and the GMC Sierra.
--Mike @ 09:27
Engaging the future - After several years and millions of dollars invested in preparatory work, scientists in several research institutions across the United States have come together. The people and partners forming Motion Sciences Organization believe that significant discoveries in physics may be made within 10 years, discoveries of great significance to the future of life on Earth. Motion Sciences is a new kind of science enterprise: an advanced physics research and development organization supporting an international network of scientists and institutions, pioneering together breakthrough technologies for 21st century life.
--Mike @ 19:58
Bazeboll - Bob, Mace & Barbara and I attended last night's local Somerset Patriots game vs. the Atlantic City Surf. Like last time, the Patriots looked like they were going to pull off an exciting game-saving rally in the bottom of the ninth. This time, though, the rally fizzled in grand fashion. Down two runs, they had runners on first and third with no outs, and one of their better hitters at the plate. He swung hard at the pitch -- a little too hard, it turns out -- missing the ball, but sending his bat flying high through the air all the way down past the first base coach. The runner at first base acted like he'd never seen anything like this before, and stood there (OFF the base), watching the bat fly through the air.The catcher quickly spotted his opportunity and fired the ball down to first base, catching the runner in a rundown between first and second. While that's going on, the runner on third base saw his opportunity to use the distraction to try to run home and score a run. Well, the guy in the rundown finally got tagged out, and the ball was immediatley fired to home plate, just in time to catch the guy trying to slide in and score. So instead of having two runners on with nobody out, now there was nobody on and two men out. What a rally killer! And that's the way it ended.
We had a good time anyway, it was a perfect room-temperature night for a game, and a guest appearance by the San Diego Chicken mascot kept us entertained.
Wise Decision - I have to hand it to President Bush -- he made the correct choice in figuring out how to start down the road of stem cell research, compromising in an area where many said no compromise would be possible. The outrage of those on both extreme sides of the argument is indicative of how finely crafted that compromise was. What will be more telling, though, is what happens when the authorized initial batch of embryonic material is exhausted, and the research looks very promising but is incomplete.
--Mike @ 08:25
UFOs or IFOs? - For years, people have reported black triangle-shaped craft floating through nighttime skies. These vehicles are claimed by some as proof that Earth is a tourist off-ramp for visitors from afar. But a more terrestrial, less cosmic, modus operandi may be at work.
--Mike @ 13:50
Flying WingNASA's solar-powered Helios experimental aircraft lifted off from a U.S. Navy base on the Hawaiian island of Kauai on Monday, reaching a height of 96,500 feet. When fuel cells are installed by summer of 2003, the Helios will be able to stay aloft for months at a time, Hicks said. And because the Helios will travel close to the Earth, rather than in space orbit like a satellite, it can be brought down easily for routine maintenance and payload changes.
--Mike @ 10:53
Zzap - We've received over 3 1/2 inches of rain the last few days, and during the Sunday night lightning storm, our phone service was interrupted. Since then, our main line is acting like there's a phone off the hook somewhere. I followed the phone company's instructions to unplug all devices from the phone line and from their power cords, but the line is still dead. Now they have to send someone out to look the situation over. We don't have a maintenance contract on the inside wiring, so if it does turn out to be a faulty piece of equipment, we get billed for the service call. I blame it all on Judge Greene in 1984.
--Mike @ 10:43
Photos from this weekend
Our weekend wasn't half bad, considering how bad the weather was elsewhere in NJ. It was overcast the whole time, but only rained briefly a couple of times. It was good enough for fishing, but otherwise it kept us all in the house playing cards & Scrabble, reading, and (of course) eating. Since most of the family couldn't make it this weekend anyway, it wasn't an overcrowded situation at all. This is the type of weather my friend Rick and his family are used to at the lake house anyway – the weatherman seems to know any time they're planning to travel up there over the past 25 years or so. Since our goddaughter Cheryl was only up from the Univ. of Miami for a week and a half, we were glad to schedule everyone while we could, regardless of the weather.
--Mike @ 23:30
Funny - An elderly couple had dinner at another couple's house. After eating, the wives left the table and went into the kitchen. The two elderly gentlemen were talking, and one said, "Last night we went out to a new restaurant, and it was really great. I would recommend it very highly." The other man said, "What is the name of the restaurant?" The first man thought and thought and finally said, "What is the name of that flower you give to someone you love? You know...the one that is red and has thorns?" "Do you mean a rose?" "Yes," the man said. He turned toward the kitchen and yelled, "Rose, what's the name of that restaurant we went to last night?"
--Mike @ 09:20
Even though The Hunger Site recently bit the dust with the dot-com crash, there are still ways to give free (corporate sponsored) donations to worthy causes, including hunger, and freedonation.com seems to be one of the easiest ways now available. Click the logo to learn more. [Thanks, Carl!]
--------Keep your paycheck--------
Since it was founded in 1995, Americans for Fair Taxation has grown to become the largest tax reform organization in the United States with over 400,000 supporters and members. Americans for Fair Taxation advocates the elimination of the current income tax code and proposes to replace it with the FairTax, a single-rate federal consumption tax collected only once, at the final point of purchase for personal consumption. Click the logo to learn more.
--Mike @ 19:22
HotHotHot - Hopefully, the weather will break by the weekend… we’ve been under a brutal assault of hot steamy weather all week, with the heat index up near 110. Our air conditioner’s never had such a continuous workout. The lake house has no A/C, though it’s usually about 10° cooler up there in the mountains. Two of my cousins from Maryland are using the lake house all this week with their kids, so I hope the heat’s not getting to them too badly. Even the lake water feels like a warm bath these days.
--Mike @ 21:38
Everybody's getting in on the act - GM today unveiled stationary fuel-cell technology that could be used to power homes and businesses, and plans to begin mass production of fuel-cell cars by 2008.
--Mike @ 15:29
Thought du jour - Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?
--Mike @ 15:10
Father Time recommends - The "Human Clock" -- a MOST unusual timepiece! What's even more amazing, the web server for this site is a portable Tandy Model 100 computer. [Thanks, Carl!]
--Mike @ 14:44
Tantrum Control for Mother Nature - A Florida company claims it has invented a powder that can be used to remove clouds from the sky and even stop the development of hurricanes.
--Mike @ 11:12
Photos from this weekend
Tux BoyThis future GQ model, my nephew George, is modeling his very own size 2 tuxedo with tails that he'll be wearing as the ring bearer in his cousin's upcoming wedding. We hear the aisle at that temple appears about a quarter mile long, so his mom plans some well-placed bribery: he is promised candy when he gets to the front!
--Mike @ 09:18
They work - The new digital camera works great, and so does the new cruise control, and the new PC, and I even got new glasses this week too. I like the way the camera works with the new PC's USB port... no special software required: just plug the camera into the PC, and the computer sees it as a removable hard disk, so I can drag and drop the pictures just like any other file -- how handy is that?? (I'll spare you the fully-zoomed photo of our refigerator, my first picture. ;-)America's Sweethearts was this week's movie, at least for half of the group (the other half saw Legally Blonde). I liked America's Sweethearts a lot -- it made fun of Hollywood stars in a way that kept us laughing hard throughout... very irreverent. Julia Roberts was great, as always.
--Mike @ 10:43
Fleeting red sprites? - Yep, that’s the name of a poorly understood upper-atmosphere phenomenon that can be viewed from hundred of miles away, but only for only a tiny fraction of a second. Sounds like a fairy tale, until you actually see a photo of one!No pool, honest - We’ve been living in the same house for nearly twenty years now, and consistently still receive all kinds of swimming pool supply catalogs in the mail. So, what’s wrong with that? Well, we have never owned a swimming pool, and there wasn’t even a trace of a pool when we bought the place. That means that countless companies have been wasting untold postage for more than two decades on an address that couldn’t care less about their products. Multiply that by who-knows-how-many-other households in the country are receiving the same stuff, and multiply that by all the other industries that are making a similar mistake, and pretty soon you’re talking real bucks. I once tried calling a few of the pool supply companies to explain the situation, but either there was nothing they could do about it because the list wasn’t maintained by them directly, or they just weren’t interested in hearing about it, even if it could save them money, not to mention all the trees that are sacrificed to print all this stuff. It’s just amazing to me.
--Mike @ 07:35
New thing #1 - After years of watching from the sidelines, I finally decided the time had come to buy myself a digital camera. The Olympus C-700 Ultra Zoom is what finally pushed me over the edge. It's the world's smallest 10x optical/27x digital zoom camera, measuring only 3"x3"x4", and can even make a short home movie.New thing #2 - They're upgrading my PC at work to an HP Vectra, which will be 50% faster than my current workstation, with about 4 times the disk capacity, and includes a CD burner and USB ports.
New thing #3 - It took 11 months, but I'm finally getting the cruise control option I had always wanted in my 2001 Prius -- it's scheduled for installation tomorrow.
--Mike @ 08:45
Almost real voices - Listen to the state of the art in speech technology, from AT&T.
--Mike @ 15:11
He livesNephew George recently visited with Sir Toppin' Hat himself, down in Baltimore.
--Mike @ 09:38
Gone? - Two web sites that I've visited each day for years seem to have gone dark at about the same time... not sure if it's temporary or forever: freestatelotto.com allowed free entry into a multi-state lottery, and thehungersite.com donated food to the needy in exchange for visiting their web site.What's the score? - No, it's not 4 to 2. The Score was this week's movie, starring Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando and Angela Bassett. De Niro plays a life-long accomplished thief who wants to retire and live a legitimate life, but needs just "one more" big job so he can retire in style. The story's engaging, but no detail is spared, causing it to be a bit dragged out.
--Mike @ 08:07
The Third Person - We had an interesting Thursday evening, attending what we thought was going to be a play called The Third Person at the Montclair State University theater. What we unwittingly found ourselves involved in was the very first "book-reading" of a brand new musical play. This means there's no sets, limited costumes, only a piano for the music, and the actors carry their lines around with them and read them from books throughout the play. Considering this group had only rehearsed a total of 8 times before last night, it was a remarkable performance, and an interesting play with a truly wonderful musical score. Some of the dialog for the ending scenes had been re-written only ten minutes before the performance started! These were very talented and very flexible actors -- there was only minimal stumbling around in the script and their lines throughout the night.Following the performance, the cast, the writer, the director and the music writer all came out on stage to talk to the audience about our impressions of the play -- what worked, what didn't, what could be improved, what might have been confusing about the story, etc. We got to offer our criticism and feedback and they listened intently.
They'll repeat that several more times this weekend, refining the play a little more each time, and then next month, the same cast will bring the play to off-Broadway in NYC. It was very interesting to be part of the creative process and see it up close like that.
FCVs - Honda recently said that tests on its fuel cell vehicle (FCV), the FCX-V3, have demonstrated performance levels close to that of a car powered by an internal combustion engine. As a result, they said that plans to bring the vehicle to market in 2003 are on track.
--Mike @ 09:26
Going it alone - In a rebuke to the Bush administration for its climate change stance, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell and four members of the City Council Monday announced support for the Kyoto Protocol. They called on other local governments to adopt policies to fight global warming. The policy commits Seattle City Light, the city's public electric utility, to a policy of zero net greenhouse gas emissions, the first major utility in the country to aim at this target. "Every city and every individual can take steps to reduce global warming," Schell said. "Cities are where most emissions occur and where the solutions must begin. We can't afford to wait for the federal government to do this."
--Mike @ 07:56
More to come - Toyota has announced it aims to boost production of environmentally friendly hybrid-powered vehicles to 300,000 in 2005, up from 19,000 last year.
--Mike @ 20:49
Alzheimer's - can now apparently be detected years before the onset of any symptoms, according to this report, by using MRI and voxel-compression mapping to view degeneration of brain cells.
--Mike @ 10:46
Good friends, good timesWe spent Saturday with about a dozen friends for a weather-perfect day at the family lake house. Here's some photos, courtesy of Mace and Bob's digital cameras.
Sunday was also a lot of fun as we went to Cheryl & Eric's for a cookout at their new house... a nice way to relax and finish the weekend.Since we were at the lake house Friday, brother Kevin and I took the wives to see Jurassic Park III at the Warwick Drive-In theater. What a hoot! They still have all the original before-movie entertainment from the 50s, with the dancing soda cups and all. The audio these days comes over a low-power FM station instead of the old clunky window-hanging speakers, though some of those are still in operation too. The locals around Warwick NY seem to be pros at how to attend the drive-in: they turn it into a tailgate party. They back the van or SUV into the parking spot, and out come the folding chairs, blankets, popcorn and wine (oops -- did I say wine?). Add a portable radio for the soundtrack, and you're all set for a family outing at the movies!
--Mike @ 09:24
Happy 1st birthday - to this web log! I can't believe it's been a year already since my first entry -- it's been fun, and less effort than I thought. Many of the personal entries are just versions of e-mail I've already taken the time to write anyway, so it's not much trouble to copy, paste and edit. It's fun to look back now and see all the things that were occupying my time last year, too. (It helps Father Time figure out "where the time went to" ;-) Cool tool... Thanks for reading!Become a voluntary taxpayer - A bipartisan group of cosponsors introduced HR2525, The Fair Tax Act, in the House of Representatives last night. The Fair Tax is a non-partisan proposal that will abolish all federal income taxes, including payroll, self-employment, income, capital gains, corporate and death taxes, and will replace them all with one simple and straightforward federal sales tax. The FairTax will tax only what we spend beyond our necessities, and will not tax us on what we earn. The FairTax will give control and choice back to the American people by allowing us to keep 100% of our paychecks. Ask your Representative to support HR2525.
--Mike @ 20:58
NJ getting into the act - Republican state senator Bill Schluter recently introduced SCR112, a proposed amendment to the NJ State Constitution, to use Instant Runoff Voting for all races that elect one winner, in both the primary and general elections. Write your local representatives and urge them to support this amendment.
--Mike @ 14:44
Gearing up to make fuel cells - is the title of a two-page article in Fortune Magazine that provides a snapshot of where the industry is, and where it's going next.
--Mike @ 09:18
Metrication - Next time you hear something about how hard it would be to convert to the metric system, point to this page to see a list of all the commonly used consumer products that already come in metric sizes, and we lived to tell about it!
--Mike @ 15:04
Bush Takes Aim at Tax Code - According to yesterday's NY Times, the Bush Administration plans to address . . . "overhauling or replacing the entire federal tax code." This is exactly what needs to be done. Join Americans for Fair Taxation today, and help reignite the debate!
--Mike @ 14:05
Remember Drive-in movies? - Believe it or not, there's still a very active one in Warwick NY, not far from the family lake house, that shows current films every night (starting time varies throughout the year, depending on time of sunset -- isn't that quaint?). We haven't been there in years, but it might be a good time to catch the new Jurassic Park III there sometime this week.
--Mike @ 08:44
Arachibutyrophobia - that's the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth, believe it or not. That, and about 533 other fears can are listed at www.phobialist.com, I'm afraid ;-)
--Mike @ 10:50
More? - There's additional reading available in the Archives.
