Really poor judgement . . .

Chena Indian Village. Sled dog in training.

Sometimes I scare myself. Decided to go for my 2 mile walk at about 11:30am when the temperature was about 80 and cloudy. But . . . The sun came out and the humidity is outrageous. I probably lost 2 pounds just sweating it out getting home. Yuck. But I feel great anyway. The walk actually felt good. I must be at least a little nuts.

Puppy's Pop and I started out at Lizzy B's today before I did my Big Y shtick and he had to go to the dentist's again. The cops are getting sneaky again. As I got on at ramp 88 there was a marked police car on the side of the road so people were slowing down but just a bit farther there was an unmarked black Charger and that policeman had his radar gun out and working to get those unfortunate enough to think they could speed up after they went by the obvious one. They had moved on by the time I was coming home but the black Charger had chased someone down and was in the process of giving out a citation. Traffic does move on 395. 65 is slow and 60 is downright dangerous. You'll get rear ended or squeezed off the highway.

Time for some lunch and the Bulletin before I head out for Groton.

Quote: Either I will find a way or I will make one. ____Sir P. Sidney

Volodos plays Turkish March（Mozart,trans.by Volodos）

This is so much fun. I don't know whether I want to laugh, cry, smile. Mostly I laugh out loud because he's so exuberant. He's just so fantastic and energetic and in love with the piano.

Auto Racing: Two generations enjoying the ride at Thompson Speedway - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin

Auto Racing: Two generations enjoying the ride at Thompson Speedway - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin

This is way cool. I went to All Hallows with Donald and taught Brandon when I was substitute teaching at Plainfield Central. "Dugin" (long u) lives up the hill from us and I didn't realize he was still racing. Our oldest used to serve meals for him and his hunter buddies out in the boonies where the fare was what they had bagged that season.

At Ground Zero

There are no words to mitigate or mourn
As pale with dust like walkers on the moon
Ghostly rescuers probe thru human ruins,
Lifting their eyelids scorched dry of tears.

___Richard O'Connell
9/11/01



Do not want to lose this poem. In retrospect I should have read National Review at the proper time.

Procrastination . . .

62 degrees, cloudy and humid, a good day to clean but I'm not in the mood. Not much new there! So . . . I'm doing a couple of washes and while Grampa is at the VA in Providence I also took the time to vacuum the basement. Always can find those pesky old spider webs and some new ones to boot. And since I wasn't in a real cleaning mood I decided I needed to go for a walk too. Went downtown and up Main Street to Church Street to the Little League Park, through Potvin Village, across Linnell back to Main and home again, home again , jiggety jig. Stopped on the bridge to see the river. It's so low you can walk across. It seems strange that the river is so low because although the lawn is a bit dry it's really not too bad. We really do need a soaking rain. As I was pondering the river a young man, rather hirsute and disheveled stopped by in a raggedy car and asked me if I knew where Cloud Nine was. Took me a second to remember what the heck it was but then came the dawn. It's the drug store in Almyville! So I gave him directions for a u-turn and he thanked me and waved goodbye. Talk about stereotypes. Well I hope he has a glorious day. Back home I swept out the garage before Puppy's Pop gets home and I checked out what the town is doing on the curve near our property. They must be getting ready for rain. They're digging out the bottom of the old stone wall and making a trench. Perhaps some poor drunk will end up in the ditch one of these nights. OK, time for a snack and some reading.

Quote: How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat, in the broad and fiery street, and in the narrow lane; how beautiful is the rain! ____Longfellow

Annihilation is grand . . .

Puppy's Pop caught the El Camino stowaway Friday. Woot! Woot! Woot! Has left two traps set in the El Camino just in case he has a family member who wants to sight see.

Almost a good day . . .

Home and kennels of Susan Butcher, legendary Iditarod dog sled champion.

Was having a good day until Grampa tried to use the computer and it wouldn't connect and when I tried to use the iPad I couldn't even connect on the 3G and . . . when I called at&t I got the damned robot!!! at&t is really starting to tick me off big time. But here I am on the porch and the Wifi is now working. I've got to complain about the messy Wifi connection. You get sick of paying for crap after a while. I think it takes me longer than most to get pissy.

Played some basketball today at the Sterling School with Kiddo and baseball last night before it got too dark. His Mom just called and they may be coming to town to eat at Riverview. They wanted us to go also but poor Grampa had a root canal Thursday and he's still suffering so I'm making a hamburger stew. Hopefully that won't be too hard to deal with. We didn't even go out to breakfast this morning so you know it's got to be pretty bad. Did take a nice round about ride to Ekonk Hill where Grampa had coffee but I had ice cream. They have a corn maze this year and seemed to be quite busy at the maze. So the stew is cooking and I'm hoping that Kiddo and family will stop in after their dinner! That would be nice. They can see all the logs from the trees since the guy is having trouble getting someone to come and take them away. At least he called and said he really does want them and is working on an alternate plan. I expect them to be gone soon.

Well the computer is back to working. We'll see how long this connection lasts!

Quote: From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.

Woot . . .

Cabin's End? No, I guess it's the end of a dock.

Can't believe what I have wrought! We had so much trouble with our at&t phone and Internet service at the end of August and beginning of September that they gave us a whopping $5.70 credit on our bill. That infuriated me because I had to use my cell phone minutes during that time and it cost quite a bit so this morning I called and complained. The lady was very nice and said she'd give us another $5.00 credit. I then told her that Metrocast, our cable company was offering us a great deal on our cable, computer and phone service and I was seriously thinking of changing. So . . . she nicely gave us an additional $10 off per month for 2 years on our Internet service and an additional $5 off our telephone service for a year. Now that's pretty interesting. I'm not sure how all this works but now I feel as if I've been overpaying for a very long time! Or . . . is someone else being overcharged so they can lower my rates? I wish I had a head for money matters. But I don't so I'll just be happy for small victories.

Quote: Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip. ___Colton

Last day of Summer. . .

Chena River Landing. Finally, back to Alaska!

Excellent day. Went out for breakfast at Lizzy B's and hope I win this month's raffle. Linda has a neat little cart with pumpkins painted on the side and it holds a good sized potted plant. In all these years I've only won once and I won candles! I'm petrified of candles. She's had some pretty nice free raffles but I certainly don't have Gram's luck. Also had the time to walk at the track while Puppy's Pop played around with the plane engines and then shopped at Big Y. This is the first time I try their 5 for $20 items. It's pretty neat. I got five different packages of meat for $20. You can get all the same meat product or vary it. It was a good buy at least for this week. At the track there were 6 sea gulls lined up watching the plane go round and I half expected them to attack the newbie but they just flew off after watching a few rounds. I'm getting antsy about the logs on the lawn. The man who wanted them and came to see them last Thursday hasn't called to say when he'll be picking them up. If he doesn't call by the week end we'll have to see what's going on. There are plenty of people who have shown an interest in carting the logs away. I'm beginning to suspect that we should have hired the man who cut them down to haul them away. He did say that if the deal fell through with the friend of a friend to let him know and he has someone who would come and get them. Still, my patience is wearing thin. The only plus is that Kiddo hasn't seen the trees down and he will get a kick out of playing laser tag along the logs when he comes home Friday afternoon.Brought the last two pumpkins to Groton today. Not too much left in the garden. I cleaned out a lot of weeds and dead flowers yesterday. We're still eating beets and Swiss chard but we only have about 10 more tomatoes. The Fall raspberries are just starting to ripen and if we don't get an early freeze they will be luscious.

Quote: Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books. __Colton

Photos Puppy's Pop didn't use . . .

If you'd like to see more pictures from the Essex Junction Car Show see Perry's Blog.

The HITCH HIKER . . .

Presently on Route 6 in Andover,CT. And did I mention our hitch hiker? Here's the unadulterated truth. At the Vermont Sugar House yesterday morning I bought maple sugar fudge and a small bag of maple sugared walnuts. I left the maple sugar nuts on the seat of the El Camino and ate all of the fudge. This morning when I got in the car to head for home I was appalled and about ready to give Puppy's Pop a good talking to. There were only about 3 walnuts left in the bag and there were crumbs on the seat. I picked up the bag and saw little teeth marks and a ragged hole in the plastic bag . . . What a horror show. We've got a mouse in the El Camino as I write! What the heck. We brought the thing to the car show with us and don't know where the sucker is. As we were cruising down 291 South a piece of maple sugared walnut fell from the dash to my feet. Kill, kill, kill, kill . . . Can't wait to get home and set some peanut butter traps.

Coming home . . .

Just a few miles south of Sharon,VT in the beautiful Green Mountains. We're on our way home from the Champlain Valley Hot Rod Show. It's really quite pretty although there are some low flying clouds in the valleys. They always remind me of the first trip Puppy's Pop and I took to Québec back in the late 60's. I was teaching at NFA and we were living in East Hartford because Grampa was a pressman at the Hartford Courant. Wow, good memories but doesn't seem as if it could have really been so long ago - bk - before kids! The weather has been great for the show. There were at least 1700 cars and the colors and variety always take my breath away. There were only 4 El Caminos and ours certainly showed to advantage. One was grey; two were the original blue like my old Buick and then there was our perfect deep red. Quite a few people took pictures of it and as we left this morning someone had left a sticky note on the windshield about our selling it. All in all a relaxing couple of days. We stay at an excellent Best Western that has a fantastic restaurant and bar, The Windjammer. Our friends Bob and Joyce were in Connecticut this weekend for his 50th high school class reunion so we didn't get a chance to see them and they'll be on their way back to VT as we're on our way home at this moment. A neat looking 1940's panel truck just screamed bye on its way back to CT. It looks terrific in yellow. Not every vehicle looks good in yellow but that sure does. One of Puppy's Pop friends at the show was selling his black '57 Chevy so he can have room in his multiple garages for the '55 Nomad he's putting together. Asking $60,000 for the '57. He painted the '37 for us. His cars are always beautiful and worth a lot of money. His wife told him, "No more garages!" so he has to sell a car if he wants to build. Nice problem!

Now for last photos . . . honest . . .

And here's the second and last one . . . smile :)

Two more videos if I can download them . . .

Some photos . . .

Start from the bottom!

Good-bye old friend . . .

Good day for the felling of the Tamaracks. Father and son started on the first tree, the one losing it's needles, at about 9am. It was down by about 11:30 when they went to lunch. Grampa had an appointment at the VA for a blood pressure test so I was left in charge of the camera. When he returned after lunch I left him in charge of the camera because I went to Groton to pick up Kiddo. Between us we've got some pretty good shots. Puppy's Pop's are better than mine. Naturally I have an excuse. He only had to take the shots with one tree. I had two. Now that's a good excuse.

Quote: The true aim of every one who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions, but to kindle minds. __F. W. Robertson

Almost too busy . . .

Around 10 at night. Fairbanks, Alaska.

Went to Wrentham for the Mass Cup control line flying contest Sunday. What a great place for a contest! There is a three mile walk with stations every 300 feet or so where you can climb steps, do stretches, hang and stretch yourself out etc. I didn't take the whole walk because I didn't want to lose sight of the flying field but I did take two short walks just to keep me from sitting too much. In the distance we saw 5 planes pulling banners around town and even got to see 4 F-18's fly overhead in formation. It was a cloudy, windy day but that was better than too hot. I helped to launch Puppy's Pop's Padre and he won the advanced division over 7 other contestants; one of them was pretty darned grouchy but I thought it was cool that Grampa won the first time he flew in the advanced class. They're already telling him to move up! That's a compliment, I suppose, but it seems to me that he should get a few more contests under his belt before he moves to expert. They also want him to fly full fuselage models. I'm certain that they don't realize how many planes we have in this old house - 18 - and some of them are full fuselage! They better watch out what they ask for. We went to the Dog Track this morning for my walk and his flying and he lengthened his lines by a couple of feet. Wow, the planes look even better when they are flying with the longer lines. He's a pretty cool dude and just takes everything in stride.

The tamaracks will be coming down starting at 8am tomorrow. I have mixed feelings but they really do have to come down. It's such a shame because Pa and my Uncle Joe planted them when I was about ten or twelve years old. They used to go into the State Forest and borrow trees all the time. Hmmm . . . I wonder if I could get the state to pay for cutting them down? Could use some of that stimulus money.

Just came in from a shellacking in horseshoes. Was beaten badly twice even with my 30 shoe advantage :( But it's so good to be out there enjoying our yard and the beautiful fall like weather. I've got to start cleaning up the garden but it'll have to wait for a while because I'm not in the mood. Went to see my younger sister yesterday. I love to go see her. We go out for a shared pizza and then off to Granville, MA for homemade ice-cream and a walk around the barn yard to check out the nice clean animals. The donkey was missing but we did pet the mother of 8 chocolate lab puppies while they were rough housing in the donkey's pen. The lucky donkey is away for the season at Amherst, UMASS. He was such a good stud last year he was invited back. Pretty cool.

If you would like to see pictures of the Wrentham contest click on Perry's Toys at the top of the blog. He has some of the shots and a link to many other photographs from the contest including the plane with 22 wings.

Quote: Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt; and every grin, so merry, draws one out. __Wolcott

Never forget . . . September 11, 2001

In memoriam: Requiescat in pace. Amen

Vraiment intéressant . . .

Hot air balloon at about 10 at night in Fairbanks.

Quelle journée magnifique! It has been a pretty spectacular day. Kiddo, Grampa and I had a lot of fun yesterday playing Monopoly (kids version), cards and Bakugan plus we got in quite a bit of reading. To top it off Grampa had to leave early this morning to compete in Wrenthem, MA in Old Timers and Classic control line flying. Kiddo and I took the opportunity to have breakfast at McD's and get in some more games and computer stuff before I took him home. We met his Dad on the way. He had a tow call for a motorcycle accident on the Gold Star Bridge. I truly hope it wasn't a fatal. I went by the cleaning up on my way back and it didn't look good.

After Groton I went directly to Putnam for the Franco-Canadian get together where I was to meet my friend who teaches French at Killingly. Only one minor problem; I was there by 12:45 and it didn't really get going until 2pm. Easy peasy. I went and bought myself a new book and a bottle of water and sat in the shade by the Quinebaug as people set up. My friend arrived a bit flustered so I helped her and the French Club kids set up their table to sell cretons. What a wonderful crowd and such perfect weather. The KHS kids sold all of their cretons or as we used to say when I was a kid Gortons. I ended up eating some poutine ( French fries with a beef gravy covered in cheese ), crêpes from rival Woodstock Academy which were not very thin and although they said they were served with sirop d'érable, it was a monstrous fib! They had Aunt Jemima. I almost had a heart attack right then and there. So to salvage the day I bought and ate a half pint of real Maple Ice Cream with maple candy crumbles. Vraiment magnifique! Jose Vachon a French Canadian singer put on quite a show but I left before the cloggers and fiddler were on stage. I really wanted to get home to see how Puppy's Pop had made out at the contest today. We'll go to Wrenthem again tomorrow to finish up the two day flying affair.

I won't go into details but Puppy's Pop did show all and sundry how to save a plane when you're flat on your back. It seems that the plane was coming in on him so he was backing up to save it and fell flat on his back but he did manage to keep control, get back up and actually finish the round. I'm glad I missed that. I would have been petrified that he had gotten hurt or the plane crashed into him or some other weird scenario. Perhaps tomorrow it won't be as windy. We can only hope.

I had also hoped to get to Sterling Family Day because we had friends selling sausage and meatball sandwiches and another nice young lady selling homemade hand creams and lip balm. But we settled for a nice easy spaghetti supper at home.

Quote: Gluttony is the source of all our infirmities and the fountain of all our diseases. As a lamp is choked by a superabundance of oil, and a fire extinguished by excess of fuel, so is the natural health of the body destroyed by intemperate diet. ___Burton

Yup, another wow day . . .

Great day all day. Wow, we went flying and walking at the Dog Track, stopped for a muffin and coffee at Lizzy B's, gave Natalie, our superior waitress a monster Yankee Candle, Macintosh, which we received as a present at the party and I picked the Indian Corn. Also let Puppy's Pop beat me at horseshoes before I spent some time tying my corn into neat bunches. Friends from Oneco stopped by and I let her pick a bunch but she wouldn't take one of the bigger ones and chose a smaller group. When I insisted that she take two because hers was small she took another small one! I couldn't win.

Expecting to hear from the wood cutter today. We may have someone lined up to cart the wood away. It seems he has a portable saw mill. We'll see how it goes. I just want the trees out of here. The sooner the better. Also topped off the day with a nice fairly long telephone conversation with our youngest. We may not be visiting her in England next year if they have to move closer to London. Everything will be up in the air for a while but hoping they'll make it home in 2012. Now that would be the greatest. Then if the oldest could be persuaded to come home for a visit at the same time we'd have us all together again. It's already been 5 years since we've all been under the same roof. Unbelievable.

Quote: Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue -- I mean good nature -- are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and the staff of life. ___Dryden

Wonderful day . . .

We did it. Another exceptional Horeseshoe Tournament. We had the best weather yet and an excellent bunch of people about 48 in all. It's so easy to have a party when you don't have to do the cooking! We went from 1pm to 6pm. There were kids aged 6 months to 11 years old and Kiddo had a blast. I think I only saw him twice all afternoon. He was busy playing laser tag with the "boys" club. Too funny. Our clam fritter man showed up so we had that special treat and for desert M & M ice cream sandwiches. It's a good thing that everyone likes what I like because that's all we get for the party! The middle child beat her husband twice at horseshoes and did she ever play that up big time. You had to be here to appreciate the fun. Already looking ahead to next year and how I'm going to tweak the menu.

Grampa has been having a good time tidying up the basement so he has a more comfortable place to work on his planes. It really looks good. We went to the Sterling School today to fly and walk. There was another couple there; she walking the dog; he, driving golf balls. It all worked out well because the place is big enough for golf and control line practice. Just remembered. We had three little dogs at the party one Shidzu and two Yorkies. All very well behaved. I must admit I'm tired because we've already got the yard and house back in shape and packed away for next year. Won't have to cook for a while as we finish up the left overs. Not too much this year. So it'll be a good week of no cooking! That's a plus.

Quote: How lovely are the portals of the night, when stars come out to watch the daylight die! __ T. Cole

Busy week . . .

Back to Alaska.

Busy week. Kiddo is back in school full time and I'm back at lunch duty and etc. full time! Still look forward to going to school. So I guess I haven't changed too much. Grampa and I worked like mad today to get ready for the party. We're all set. He'll pick up the food at noon and I'll stay home getting the last minute stuff done and hope I don't forget anything. But if I do we'll manage. I'm happy and excited. The weather today was superior and tomorrow is supposed to be the same.

Kiddo finished reading the second section of a Dick and Jane book for me so I had to bring him to Target for his winnings. We bought BeyBlade Metal Fusion Super Vortex Battle Set. What a blast we had last night and this morning. They are battling tops and I get a real kick out of them. I hope he reads the last third of the book so we can go get another top or two. I've loved tops since I was a little tyke and they still thrill me. A good time was had by all!

Quote: The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures, consists in promoting the pleasure of others. __La Bruyere

Works for me!