Category: Uncategorized
Discovering Rock Creek Park
One of the things I’ve discovered during our sheltering in place, is Rock Creek Park. It’s kind of sad that I’ve lived in this neighborhood for more that 20 years and didn’t realize what a treasure the park is. I’ve probably walked in the part more in the last month than the five years previous. And Rita expressed regret that we didn’t bring the kids into the park for walks more often. Oh well. Past is past. For right now, I fell very fortunate to have the park so near.
Key to my enjoyment is Rozzie. Watching her running up the hills, through the trees and along the creek is a joy to behold. When I first started walking during the pandemic, I considered a two mile walk, door to door, a long walk. Forty-five minutes and I felt like I’d done something useful. I’ve been gradually extending the walks. First, there was the three mile walk to the “ruins,” the stones leftover from the renovation of the U.S. Capitol near the public horse stables. Now, that’s the short walk as I peel around the stables and go back down to the creek for a four miler.
My new thing is birds. I started taking pictures of birds in anticipation of my safari to Kenya. That’s been cancelled, but I’m still trying to photograph birds with varying degrees of success. Gotten a couple of good ones. Unfortunately, my spill in the stream wrecked my good camera and I’m now doing what I can with a Canon Powershot. Once I’ve convinced myself that this photography thing will endure, I will upgrade, with Rita’s permission, of course.

Coronavirus Journal
We are well into the pandemic and I’ve been keeping a journal. I find that one of the activities that makes me feel like I’ve done something useful while sheltering in place is writing. And it doesn’t matter if anyone reads my writing. Just the act of writing seems to lift my mood. Oh, let me correct that to paraphrase the famous line about writing. The act of HAVING written lifts the mood more than the writing itself.
I also think that writing in a public forum as opposed to a private journal, enhances the experience since it forces a bit of discipline into the process. So, yesterday, I spent a few hours reviving this blog. It turns out a year of total neglect opened it to a massive amount of malware making it non-functional. It took a lot of tech support and a little money to get it back up and running. And here it is. Now, it will serve to haunt me into posting in hopes that I eventually write something worthy of a public blog.
I must say that reading posts from the beginning of this blog shows I had a bit of a knack. Interesting stuff. I wonder if I still have it. Also, a blog is kind of a gadget freak’s dream. Lots to learn about the back end technology. That might be fun. Although, I fear that fiddling with the technology might give me another excuse to avoid actually creating content for the blog. Whatever. It’s something do do in quarantine. And since I’m pretty sure that nobody will ever read this stuff, I am free to do whatever the hell I want. So, there’s that.
Hope for the Church
http://www.onourshoulders.org/#doctrine
America is at a tipping point where the traditional commitment of our government to protecting and advancing the common good is in very real danger of being dismantled for generations. Members of the “Tea Party,” libertarians, Ayn Rand followers and other proponents of small government have brought libertarian views of government into the mainstream; legitimating forms of social indifference. After decades of anti-government rhetoric and “starve the beast” tax cuts, some even appear to exploit predictable fiscal problems to establish a privatized, libertarian order that reduces society to a collection of individuals and shrinks the common good to fit the outcomes achievable by private, for profit firms.
Crate & Barrel Sucks
This post was in my drafts section and was written years ago. I posted it thinking that WordPress would preserve the original date. It did not. So, it is posted out of sequence.
I used to be a fan of Crate and Barrel. I have spent many thousands of dollars at the Spring Valley store in Washington, DC. I find the products of high quality and tasteful design. And their salespeople are unfailingly polite and solicitous. It’s like they are good a both ends, but suck in the middle.
About a year ago, I bought some patio furniture for more than $3,000. It was probably two months before I was able to actually sit on the furniture on my back deck, all because they couldn’t produce the cushions that went on the furniture. But the worst part of the experience is that I was guaranteed on multiple occasions by their very solicitous salespeople that the cushions would arrive at my house on a date certain…..and nothing would come. It would happen again and again and again, with various explanations for the breakdown in each individual instance. In the end, the store grudgingly gave me a $150 gift card as compensation for the enormous hassle that this nightmare caused.
I was so frustrated, I boycotted the company for a year. But I had this gift card, so I finally decided to weigh in again and buy a barbecue grill.
Big mistake. Another nightmare.
Rita’s Relations
This post was in my drafts section and was written years ago. I posted it thinking that WordPress would preserve the original date. It did not. So, it is posted out of sequence.
Rita’s father’s people are from County Kerry. We were told that she had relatives in a place called Kilgobnet. No one we spoke to had ever heard of the place. Fortunately, Google had, so we were able to place it generally, near Kilorglan, the place where Puck Fair takes place. Rita’s father’s boat was named Puck Fair in honor of his ancestors.
Unfortunately, most of the people in Kilorglan had never heard of Kilgobnet either. We ended up stopping at a private home and got directions that brought us close. We ended up asking about three more people before we found the Kilgobnet Post Office. Here’s Rita there.
Willie and John
Here are Willie Corrigan and John Cod, who came from central casting. They are a couple of laddies from County Whitlow and were visiting Kinsale on holiday.Scalia
I have lost all respect for Antonin Scalia. I used to think he was a smart, principled judge with the wrong principles. Now I think he’s just a jerk. On 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl got him talking about torture and whether it violated the Constitution. He said, as he always says about issues he doesn’t want to deal with, “There’s nothing in the Constitution about torture,” thereby absolving him from declaring the practice unconstitutional and getting crosswise with his friends in the Bush Administration. Stahl pointed out that there’s a prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Ah!” he says, “That applies to punishment. Torture to extract information is not punishment.”
Bullshit! You say to the person being tortured, “Tell us the information or we’ll torture you.” If that’s not punishment, nothing is. It just shows the lengths to which he’ll go to advance his conservative philosophy.
It’s reminiscent of “Depends on the what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
The Simple Way
Fuller Center riders enter the offices of The Simple Way.
At the start of each day on the Fuller Center Cross Country Bike Adventure, we have a “circle up,” where we get basic information about the ride ahead and, sometimes but not always, information about where we will be staying, which is almost always a church. As we get to the end of the ride, my senses are heightened. I begin take in the neighborhood to get some idea what the next 12 to 15 hours will be like. I generally hope we will be near a commercial area where the basic needs are within walking distance, particularly things like IPA beer and ice cream. You know, the staples. I will also be interested in learning about the accommodations. Will this be a big church with lots of room for our sleeping pads? Or will we be tightly packed? Will it have a lot of electrical outlets for all our rechargeable electronics, bike lights, smart phones, Apple watch, bike speaker, supplemental batteries, etc. Will it have air conditioning? How many bathrooms? In-house showers or will we be shuttling offsite (and will the showers have hot water)? A kitchen? Will there be a welcoming committee of church members who can tell us about the town? Will they be serving food? Or will we just be handed the key and told to lock up when we leave?
The fact is that, after riding 70 plus miles on a bike, the answer to these questions are mostly academic. It’s nice when we have a lot of creature comforts, but mainly what I want at that point is to stop riding a bike. Everything else is gravy. For me, the exception is cold showers. I HATE cold showers. Every ride I’ve been on has had one or two. It’s almost enough to keep me from coming back. Almost. Continue Reading
Rozzie’s First Kill
While I was working on installing the new fence at the Cape, Rozzie was laying out on the lawn playing with a toy. I didn’t pay much attention and assumed she was fine. Hearing the squeaking of the toy told me she was content. For some reason, I walked over to her to give her a pat and discovered that she didn’t have a toy. She had a baby bunny, about 4 inches in size. It was the bunny that was squeaking. I was horrified and shooed Rozzie away. The bunny was still alive and walked slowly toward the house, looking for some place to hide. She stopped behind one of the fence sections. I checked on her periodically as she sat there motionless. At one point, I checked and she was gone. I’m telling myself that she was fine. But….
Later in the day, Charlie hit a baby bunny with the weed whacker. He then had to put the bunny out of its misery. We don’t know if it was the same bunny. Apparently, we had disturbed a nest of rabbits when we ripped up the old fence.
Probably going to have nightmares tonight.
65th Birthday
Rita arranged a birthday party for my 65th birthday. A good time was had by all. Very nice comments, particularly by Luke. I’m blessed with a wonderful group of friends.
