Morning all:
I don’t expect any issues with this morning’s post, unlike last week’s update fiasco. That previous Thursday I received a note from my “hosting” service that “transparent-to-me” they had migrated my account to a new server—let it be known that a note of this kind is the kiss of death. Sure enough, no matter what I tried I could not FTP anything to the host. All weekend notes flew between the help desk and my laptop. Five settings were at issue and the combination made for me to try twenty some-odd variations before I gave up. Monday morning I explained the issue to one of the techs at work and showed him my list of attempts. He got it correct on the fifth try. My coffee tasted fairly bitter that morning.

Early in the week I grabbed lunch at a drive-through and received in change a washed out looking five dollar bill with something stamped on it in red ink—“where did you get this bill?” At the bottom was stamped “This bill is registered at www.wheresgeorge.com”. That evening I logged on to the site and entered the serial and series number and a 1-line description of the bill along with my zip code. It turns out that in almost three years I was the third person to register it. In early 2004 it was first logged in Baltimore, MD as a crisp new bill. Later it showed up in College Station, PA, and now again in Cincinnati. My bill had traveled 374 miles and had aged very gracefully with only a single small tear. Yes folks, yet another fun little diversion brought to you through the internet.

Our region, over the past several years, has not fared well in the news department. This week it gained a huge plus as being a first in the country. Cincinnati the city is interwoven with a series of small towns. Adjacent to where I live is the struggling little City of Norwood. This week this city lost out to Joe Average, the little guy, in Ohio’s Supreme Court. All the hub-bub was over Eminent Domain; the accelerating land grab free-for-all practiced by many municipalities all over the country came to a screeching halt right here in river city. Yea! No longer can a city just dump anyone out of their family home so that the property can be transferred to a private developer who promises visions of greater tax revenue. As I had always felt, this was not the philosophy America was built on, and Ohio’s Supremes agree.

Marcia thinks that I am paying absolutely no attention to any of the serious family events that loom. One of these is a scheduled Pig Roast in early autumn as part of the celebration for Adrianne and Tevita. I worked long and hard on a concept for the invitation cover. As I wrote to Kirstin, seeking her input for the (see attached) design artwork of the cover, I felt that it had a certain je-ne-sais-quoi; her candid response was not a glowing one. I guess its back to the drawing board.

Mentioning Kirstin, I am not certain that my post will be on Saturday morning next week. I am taking a couple of days off and be in Florida. I’ll have a short visit with brother George and Sandy then scoot on over to spend some time with Vince, Kirstin, Derek, and our new grandson Kellen. My plan is to spend a little time oohing and aahing over Kellen, but also to do some very special stuff with his big brother Derek. With all the attention a newborn gets I just want to make certain that Derek doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. I am really pumped about my visit and can’t wait.

Last night Jason and I walked the dogs in one of the nearby large parks and it was a bit of an adventure. Shang stuck his nose into a sweat-bee nest and within seconds all three dogs were rolling around on their backs covered by swarming bees. Next, Shang spotted a sewer rat next to the pond and gave chase. Rats are amazingly fast swimmers is what I learned from that lesson. I suspect that my morning walk will be somewhat more sedate. Ready Shang?

Make it a great week everyone; remember it takes 200,000 flowers for a bee to make 1 Kg of honey—respect the little buggers.

Cheers,
Dirk