pbi

i started this using the free internet at the west palm beach residence inn to document a weekend of little milestones.

made it down in about 14 hours, including a breakfast stop in palm coast, fla.

heard a spiel for my brother's new financial services gig and had a birthday dinner for my niece at the cheesecake factory, which does, in fact, make good cheesecake.

we got a slice each of the godiva chocolate and the amaretto raspberry. they handed us seven forks and three cups of coffee. they even sang and gave a tiny scoop of ice cream with whipped cream and a candle for layla's first year.

as trips go, i was woefully unprepared. i packed super light -- two t-shirts, a golf shirt, two pairs of boxers, a razor, shave gel and a toothbrush. for trips south on warm weather months, i wear one pair of flip-flops.

but ... there was no toothpaste. (i did pack the cholesterol/hypertension meds.) and, while i packed this laptop, the digital camera and a mobile phone, i brought chargers for none of them. 

the camera and phone died, for all intents and purposes. 

missed a shot of a sign at st. ann's catholic church thanking beckley, w.va., engineering magnate leo vecellio for his contribution to help build their grade school. and no one could call me.

i was peeved, mostly because i normally don't leave geek stuff like that to chance. 

for this trip, i took a chance on one -- that four bars of battery life would be enough to get me through three days -- and totally whiffed on another in forgetting all the pics kris and i had been shooting in the weeks before the trip. that's 2 for 3 for lack of preparedness.

for the want of a nail ...

by the way, this marks kris' first marathon weekend road trip with mom and dad. she seemed to handle being cooped up in the family truckster quite well. that, and she got to participate in her first scrabble match with mom and joy. (as driver, i couldn't play -- much to the amusement of those participating, apparently.)

and, as an added bonus, this was kris' first chance to watch the family dynamic for oversensitivity power the proverbial tempest in a teapot, when joy and i got into a tiff over missed rides and miscommunication. welcome to the family, hon. 

finally, of course, the unstated milestone for me is this is my first family trip where my folks got a room for me and kris.

it was no big deal; i'm only noting it because, well, it's the first sanctioned grown-up thing for us by them. it tickles me.

maybe it's remarkable because it's not remarkable -- in their eyes, it's simply one of the perks that married people enjoy -- a given, the understood. 

ok, so i'm a little late. it's still nice to be at the grown-up party.

news from japan

goodbye kitty hawk

The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk leaves the pier at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, Wednesday, May 28, 2008. The ship made its final departure from Japan to be decommissioned after nearly half a century of service. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa)

hello kitty

Kimono-clad Hello Kitty holds her certificate received from Japan's Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba, left, at his office in Tokyo, Monday, May 19, 2008. Fuyushiba appointed the popular cartoon character as ambassador to welcome tourists from China and Hong Kong. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

i like that the caption writer made sure readers knew the real-life japanese cabinet minister with the normal-sized head was the one pictured at left from the fictional, kimono-wearing cartoon character with the monstrously oversized head.

hello computer

courtesy of crazy cousin dubya's tax rebate and the refund of my uncle sam, i have a new computer.

i think the old one knew something was up when i started visiting the dell and apple sites and decided to go on a work slowdown whenever the internet was involved.

i'd guess there were too many applications running in the background that made the poor guy's processor choke, bless its little windows m.e. heart.

the work slowdown eventually led to more frequent and prolonged seizures until the thing couldn't get past the start or disc repair windows. i think for all intents and purposes, it's dead.

hopefully, i'll be able to retrieve whatever files are on the drive.

meantime, i'm getting reacquainted with the mac operating system, now up to 10.5, something called "leopard." the first one i had was called the classic, which was sort of a middling se 30, running on system 7.

the next one, i think ran system 7.5, and that was probably more than 10 years ago. it had a whole gigabyte of storage and was my first desktop with a separate monitor and cpu.

the dell with the windows m.e. i sort of inherited from mom and dad when they got their gateway about four years ago and i needed some kind of home computer for free when i moved to south carolina.

it wasn't such a culture shock, because i'd been using pc's ever since i started working in papers. all my graphics buds in the biz, though, still swore by the mac's, so i'm glad to be back in the fold.

and even if it's not top of the line or even the best i could get at this level, it's still something of a wonder.

i mean, easy internet access via wireless, good file download speed, a color monitor and sound in the space of a coffee table book?

these are features and capabilities that would have required a suitcase 20 years ago and maybe a room or even an entire floor of a building when i was born.

it has the ability to burn cd's from my own discs and audio files from the web, which used to be something i could only dream of when i was recording vinyl l.p.'s to cassette and praying to God for no skips, clicks or pops.

and then there's freakin' video!

as mr. paul simon sang back in 1986, "these are the days of miracles and wonders." it's kind of cool to be spoiled by the ever-growing expectations of progress.

a gallon of gas

the sense that there's a shift going on in terms of quality of life didn't hit me until kris and i pulled up to the gas station up the hill last saturday and saw the price of regular was almost four bucks.

luckily, the price at the station across the street -- the station here, as shot by my colleague craig on monday -- was still $3.65. i filled up the tank for fear of a price hike; a well-founded one as it turned out.

earlier in the week, there was word of calls against hoarding goods out in california. seems skittish consumers out west were stocking up on rice and staples as a hedge against further increases.

it reminded me of the bank scene in "it's a wonderful life," where all of bedford falls' financial institutions were going down and panicked investors were wanting their money back.

(it also didn't help that kris and i have been in the dvd thralls of the sci-fi cable series, "battlestar galactica," which was on a thread of hard times living under enemy occupation.)

filling up the tank cost more than $60. that's just an invasion away from $100. sixty bucks for a 10-day supply of gas. i can remember when $20 filled up for two weeks. (yeah, it was a honda, and i'm driving an suv now, but still ...)

i'm not sure how $100 fill-ups are going to affect us -- i can't say "me" now that i have a wife -- but i'm going to bet we'll be watching our budget a lot closer now.

ten dollars here, ten dollars there, didn't seem to hurt too much; but hundreds? that hurts in a way that i'd never thought of before.

hundreds added up to a good stereo system.

hundreds were installments on a car.

hundreds are paying for my house.

these aren't just paper cuts; they feel like good, bloody slices with an errant kitchen knife. you move a little bit more gingerly when you have to maneuver around a gauze wrapped wound.

Lord knows, times have been tougher.

my great-uncle had to quit school when the great depression hit. he spent some time with the works progress administration and helped build the timberline lodge out on mt. hood, oregon. he absolutely revered franklin roosevelt.

uncle claudio knew from hard times.

mom and dad lived during the occupation of the philippines. mom was one of those kids who asked american g.i.'s for candy when u.s. troops would come through town.

this is a crimp, not a collapse, and it will pass. (well, i'd hope it should.)

we've lived fat since i was a kid in the downturn of the '70s. we were due for some belt tightening.

i'm just adjusting to the fact that it's my belt being tightened now. not my great-uncle's. not my parents. this time it's mine.

shooting the bull

meet the latest addition to the household: the toro recycler model 20067.

according to the spec sheet that was still on my front seat, it can mulch, has a quick bagging system, a wash-out port, a no choke/no prime engine, personal pace rear-wheel drive and an electric starter. plus, it's got a 3-year guaranteed start warranty. hmph.

i liked that it offered the mulch, bag and side-discharge option, even though i'd rather mulch because emptying bags is a pain, and so is raking the stuff that shoots out the side. (you can see the locking plastic cover for the discharge chute adapter there behind the front wheel.)

still, if we follow through on our efforts to create our own compost pile, the grass clippings could come in handy for organic fodder.

when it became obvious that the cost of repairing our sadly neglected 20-year old toro made it less attractive in the repair/replace ratio, i looked up the consumer reports recommendations and saw that the toro recycler 20066 was rated a "best buy."

pile hardware, out on the west side, not only serviced, but sold the things. it seemed only right and good that i support our local business. a visit showed me how the place has stayed in operation since the early 1930s, for it was manned by quick, knowledgeable staff and owners who actually worked at the store.

i was waited on by one of the pile brothers, ted, who gave me a quote and his card. i don't think i could have had that kind of attention at any of our box stores.

kris seemed kind of put off by the price, but her dad told her he'd spent nearly twice as much on his own mower, so it sounded more like a good deal. however, he said, pay a little extra and get the electric starter since the first thing that always goes was the pull crank starter.

who were we to argue with a retired union man? (hi dad.)

besides, with a recovering wrist hurt trying to start my brother-in-law's mower two weeks ago, i had added incentive to go electric.

so "best buy" be damned, i called my wife from the hardware store, told her the next model up with the key start costed 70 bucks more and she said go for it. "it's going to be the last lawn mower we buy, so we might as well get something good," she reasoned.

(later, the hardware guy -- another pile brother? -- who'd been sort of listening to my consultation, laughed and said it was so easy to use, the wife could start mowing. if he only knew how much kris says she really wants to ...)

anyway, henceforth committed, and getting the operational walk-through as the pile brother added oil and a tank of gas, i grew more and more impressed with the way the thing looked. i kept gazing at it while he ran my debit card through the register.

all sleek and red, it looked like a freakin' ferrari or something. i told him that this was good as it was ever going to look, kind of like a new pair of sneakers. he chuckled and agreed.

in a few months, the wheels were going to be stained green, their tread worn, and the hot paint job was going to be marred with knicks and chips. rust spots would inevitably follow. once i started bagging, the pristine white would grow besotted with exhaust and dirt and grass.

and it wasn't like a car, that you could wash and wax and detail back to life. short of blade and engine maintenance and deck washing, it was only going to grow more weathered and used-looking.

so ... i took pictures. and the decades of ogling car mags finally paid off with some of the sexy stills i took. somehow, barring nuclear, electromagnetic holocaust, this machine will look as pristine as the day i bought it, thanks to digital imagery. call them baby pictures for the gadget geek.

(notice the blue port for the garden hose wash-out. oh, yeah.)