So why are there no tall blogs?

Because being tall is so incredibly boring? I mean there are scads of fat blogs, and I don't think being fat is any more interesting than being tall. More common, maybe. Short people blog, but being tall is much more difficult than being short.

Car to hurry in

Yesterday, late for a meeting, I found myself needing to travel from an outer suburb of Boston (Natick) to an inner suburb (Newtonville) in a hurry. This turned out to be a perfect application for the Mini Cooper S.


Each control (steering, throttle, and brake) has immediate response and prodigious range. As soon as you see a gap in traffic, you can fill it. Not just because the car is small, but it's also fast and it changes direction quickly.

The only limiting factor is how obnoxious the driver is willing to be.

New cell phone

I have a pretty good job, but just recently I was given a bunch of new responsibilities that entailed a lot of talking on the phone with folks in other parts of the planet. I really loath talking on the phone, so I extracted from my boss an agreement to get a company-paid cell phone.

I ordered a Motorola RAZR phone, because it was compact and seemed to have good battery life. I have it now, and with the exception of a couple of odd usability choices, I'd have to say it's a pretty good phone.

I happened to come across the first cell phone I ever owned, which by chance was also a Motorola from the late 1990s. I thought it was interesting to compare the size of the two phones:

Small cars

As you can see by the list of cars I've owned (and that I now own), I like small cars. This is ironic, of course, since I am anything but small myself. Now that I drive the Mini on a daily basis, I get a lot of razzing about being so tall while driving such a small car.

I'm not sure why I like small cars so much. They're generally fun to drive, since they have low polar moment and less inertia sloshing around. I like that making a car lighter creates a positive feedback loop (a lighter car can use smaller brakes, which makes it lighter, which means it can use a smaller engine, which makes it lighter...).

People often wonder why, since I'm so tall, I don't drive a big car or SUV. Being 205cm tall, the first thing I look for in a car is how roomy it is for the driver, and I have not found any correlation between exterior size and interior room. Some cars that I have looked at that have excellent room:

• Mercedes E-class, S-class
• BMW 3-series and 5-series
• Mini Cooper

And some cars that have rotten interior space:

• Porsche Cayman
• Porsche 911 (1965-1986, 1999-on)
• Ford Explorer/Expedition
• Nissan Quest

Being tall has kept me out of some cars that I would have loved to own:

• Formula Ford
• Mazda Miata

The circus

My son is just getting to be old enough to enjoy the circus.


The last time we went, he was such a mass of fidgets that I didn't really enjoy it. But this time, he made it through nearly the entire show, and I had a great time. I especially enjoyed the clowns and the trapeze artists.

Bottom freezer refrigerator

I'm visiting relatives today, and they have a normal refrigerator with the freezer on top and the refrigerator on the bottom. Bending over to fish a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator made me realize how much I like our refrigerator at home. The refrigerator section is on top, so it's easy to reach the stuff you use every day, like milk. The freezer is on the bottom. I love it.

Field of grass

My neighbor has a 20 acre field behind his house, which he uses to grow hay (and thus save money on his taxes, as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a program to abate taxes for active farming operations). With his permission, I walk across this field on my morning walk, and lately as I'm walking back, the sun is rising above the field.


If you stand in just the right spot, you can see the twin white chimneys on his house rising above the field of hay, creating the feeling that Wyeth's Christina evokes in me:


Something that made me happy this morning.

Washed

The BMW wagon is now almost six years old, five of those years with us. It has 54,000 miles on it, and I've spent this weekend fixing little broken bits, like a new cup holder and a new exterior temperature sensor. A couple of weeks ago, I had Landshark Automotive in Natick change all of its fluids (brake, coolant, transmission, final drive, and engine oil). It is going to need new tires soon, and it has a bit of a shimmy at 62 MPH, which I think is from worn bushings in the front trailing arms.

I'm hoping this car will serve our needs well for another five or six years, and I also figure that giving it a nice wash can't hurt:

Not having to work weekends

The workload at my job fluctuates, like most jobs. It's been pretty intense lately, and last weekend (and on my vacation the week before) I needed to spend some time working, just to keep up.

But this weekend, all I really need to do is take an hour or two to go through my e-mail inbox and clear out the debris from the last two weeks.

Plus no social engagements and no travel.

So I can mow the lawn.

Something simple that I like.

How rare?

The 99th percentile for the height of adult USA males might be 6' 3 5/8" (192 cm). So if you're 6' 4" tall, you're taller than 99% of other adult males.

If you're 200 cm tall (6' 6 3/4"), then you're taller than 99.98% of other adult males.

If you're 205 cm tall (6' 8 5/8") like me, then you're taller than at least 99.999% of other adult males. Among the US population, you are taller than all but about 7,000 other adult men.

Which is why, in my life, I have only met 2 people who were taller than me. And one of them was Robert Parrish.

Toys

Three oddball toy cars that my darling wife gave to me:

Replica of a wind-up tin toy (even the tires are folded tin) loosely modeled Malcolm Campbell's Bluebird LSR car:


LEGO model of Michael Schumacher's Ferrari F1 car, circa 2001:


Automoblox C9 sports car:


No reason, just for fun.

BMI (Body Mass Index) for tall folks

If you went through high school physics, you probably learned the cube rule: as you increase the size of an object, the surface area increases by the square of the linear size while the volume increases by the cube. Thus, if an object is twice as big in linear size, it has four times the surface area and eight times the volume.

The (often discredited) BMI or body-mass index formula is designed to provide a quick estimate of whether one is underweight, of normal weight, or overweight. The formula assumes that weight increases with the square of height rather than the cube, so it tends to overstate the BMI for tall folks.

This page provides a calculator which adjusts for this effect.

Extremely lame Mini swag

I received my "Motoring Welcome" kit in the mail from Mini yesterday. Truly some of the lamest swag ever:

- "Buy a Mini" trading cards to hand out to my "like-minded" friends
- Window placards with such charming messages as "Hey, Sexy"
- A cheesy ballpoint pen
- A really cheap Moleskine knock-off notebook from China
- Various come-ons for Mini financing
- A duplicate roadside assistance card

The only remotely cool item was two "Interstate Bingo" cards. Of course they were bent in half by the ape who packed the box.

Blogger

I have to say, I've really grown fond of blogger. It's so easy to create a reasonably good-looking blog, easy to add pictures and other media, and easy to post videos. I'm running four blogs now, and I just like it. Free, easy, satisfying. Something simple that I like.

Casual Male thinks I'm "freakish"

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Casual Male CEO David Levin displays the contempt with which he regards the customers of Casual Male Big and Tall, recently renamed Casual Male XL.

Q. What exactly makes the name XL more palatable than Big and Tall?

A. It is strong. It exudes confidence. Whereas big and tall is like, 'I am a freak.'

Other tidbits from the interview include a discussion of the travails of getting "premier" clothing labels to manufacture (or license the manufacture of) large sizes:

Q. Casual Male XL has persuaded elite brands to manufacture big and tall sizes. Why did it take them so long?

A. These brands do a lot of aspirational, inspirational-type branding. To see it on a big size — they don't want to go there. It took us a year to work with Reebok, to have them shop our stores and realize that a lot of these customers are jocks themselves. These were football players and basketball players so why would you not try to continue the brand heritage into those sizes?

I find Mr. Levin's cynicism breathtaking. In an earlier interview with the Boston Globe, he said:

Q: You recently changed the name of stores from Casual Male Big & Tall to Casual Male XL. Why such a fuss over a few letters?

A: The big and tall market is a $6 billion business. It was puzzling why our market share -- at $430 million -- was so small. We got a focus group together of men those sizes who never shopped at Causal [sic] Male. We asked them what their perception was and it was alarming. They thought we didn't carry their sizes, that we don't have their brands, and that our clothes are for older men. When we asked them about the big and tall market, they said: 'We're not those guys. Those are obese guys, overweight guys.'

Q: But these sound like big and tall men. Aren't they?

A: Even though at a 42- or 44-inch waist, they are pretty big guys, it's a matter of self-perception. Today, we don't think we're as old as we are, as big as we are. We don't look in the mirror and see ourselves that way. Lazy, fat, and unmotivated were what they associated with the words big and tall. XL, though, that's powerful, that's masculine. So the light bulb went off.

It's wonderful for David Levin's wallet, I'm sure, that he has figured out how to sell clothes to overweight men without forcing them to admit that they are overweight. But what about tall guys? Casual Male retail stores do not stock any pants with inseams longer than 36 or waist sizes smaller than 44.

Ruins

Many (OK, ten) years ago, I lived in the small town of Maynard, MA. I lived at the edge of the town forest, which abutted a large, abandoned US Army facility.

Then, as now, I love to walk in the woods, so I used to venture from the town land onto the Army land. The annex was, I think, about 600 acres, and it included some truly beautiful wetlands. I particularly enjoyed exploring the old networks of roads. You could see the traces of the original farm roads (the Army seized the property during WW II) overlaid with the newer paved roads used by the base. There were numerous abandoned ammunition bunkers as well. At that time, the annex was not open to the public, and in fact was actively patrolled, so you had to be on your toes to enjoy a decent walk.

When the toxic cleanup and remediation is finally completed, I believe that the land is going to remain undeveloped. I also understand that the bulk of the land is to be opened for hunting, which is great for hunters but not so good for everybody else.

What brought this to mind was a walk I took yesterday, to the abandoned US Air Force base in Truro, Massachusetts on outer Cape Cod. The same derelict buildings and roads, but this time sited on a 200-foot high bluff overlooking the Atlantic ocean.




I really enjoy walking through abandoned ruins, even modern ones. People (and societies) are happy to talk about themselves, but it's what they leave behind that really tells their stories.

Garage Queen

Well not really, but ever since I got the Mini, I only take the Porsche out for fun, and only on nice days.

911 Handling

The Porsche 911, especially the pre-964 cars (1965 through 1989, except the 1989 Carrera 4), have a bad reputation for handling, particularly unexpected oversteer.


The first time I took my 911 on the track, it was with a fair bit of trepidation. But I found that when driven normally, it handled wonderfully. Brake steadily for the turn, begin turn in while the brakes still on (to get some weight on the front), then steady throttle to the apex, followed by full throttle from the apex to the exit. At any point in the turn, minor throttle adjustments can be used to trim the line. Perfect, just like a race car.

I've done a fair amount of racing and time trialing, and I've also done a lot of instructing at BMW and Porsche driver schools, and I would say that a Porsche 911 also serves as an excellent error amplifier. For example, if you get on the throttle before the car is turned into the corner, you will experience tremendous understeer. React by cranking in more lock and easing off the gas and you will experience a dramatic shift to oversteer (as the cranked front wheels find grip) followed by tail-first exit. Or if you come in to a turn too hot, turn in to early, then get off the gas in mid turn, same scenario.

But in the hands of a capable driver, what a thrill:

Land conservation groups (in general), Mass Audubon (in particular)

When I need a simply sublime experience of the outdoors, I head for one of Mass Audubon's sanctuaries. Mass Audubon sanctuaries are masterpieces of land management. The sanctuaries provide extensive, protected wildlife habitat, wonderful passive recreation (walking trails), and extensive educational programs.

I'm a big fan of land conservation groups in general, such as the Trustees of Reservations (TTOR), but Audubon is one of my favorites. The three sanctuaries that I know the best are Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, Wellfleet Bay, and Broadmoor in South Natick.

Deer fly defense

During their relatively short breeding season, four to five weeks in June and July, the deer fly (Chrysops discalis) can make life miserable for the dedicated woods walker. These flies feed by dive-bombing the victim, quickly slashing a hole in the skin, secreting saliva with irritating chemicals that increase blood flow, then eating blood from the wound.

These flies typically feed on large mammals. They are attracted to the plume of carbon dioxide that typically emanates from such mammals, as well as to the movement of large dark shapes. Their brute-force feeding style does not work well on fur-covered surfaces, so the flies tend to seek out parts of the body without protection, such as the eyes and ears.

In my experience, the use of DEET-containing repellent has absolutely no effect on deer flies. What does work is to wear a broad brimmed felt hat. The flies lock on to your CO2 plume, then home in on the hat, then dive in and attempt to feed madly on the brim of the hat. Their behavior pattern is fixed. They do not attempt to move around on the victim prior to feeding; the dive bomb and instantly start chewing.

Discovering this quirk of deer fly behavior has really improved my experience of the woods this time of year!

Spare tires

My BMW has the best spare tire in the world: The spare wheel is an OEM alloy that matches the four on the car, as does the tire, a 235/45-17 Michelin Pilot. Any kind of flat tire or wheel damage and I can pop on the spare and continue my journey for any distance at any speed. If the tire must be replaced, it is a standard size available anywhere.

The Porsche has a temporary service spare which must be inflated using a pump prior to use. It has restricted speed and distance limits.

The Mini has no spare. The tires are run-flats, which can be driven on with zero air pressure for a limited distance (120 miles) at a limited speed (50 MPH). Once they've been run flat, they must be replaced. They are not commonly available, especially outside of the core Mini markets (the Northeast, California, and the Pacific Northwest).

The two types of tire problems that I've experienced in my motoring career (not counting delaminating retreaded tires) have been slow-to-fast leaks caused by nails in the tread and catastrophic loss of pressure caused by bending the wheel rim on potholes. The former can typically be repaired, and as long as you keep pumping up the tire, aren't a big deal. The latter, of course, require a new tire and a new wheel.

To make the Mini more useful and usable, and to reduce the chances of needing to buy a new run-flat tire just because I pick up a nail, I assembled the following on-board tire kit:


The items in the kit fit, more or less neatly, in a small bag:


which in turn nestles happily in my newly installed euro parcel tray:


I also purchased the smallest tire pump that I could find, which fits easily in the glove compartment:




I'm going to live with the run-flat tires for a while, but I expect to ultimately replace them with regular tires with better performance characteristics.

My life

My life is just making me happy right now. I've been going on adventures with my son (we hiked up a really steep trail, in the rain, last weekend and he did an amazing job). I'm having fun with my new car. I've been facing a lot of new challenges at work, which I had been dreading, but which are actually really stimulating.

And physically I've been feeling the best I've felt in a while. I've dropped about 25 pounds over the past few months, and it's making a huge difference in how I feel.

I guess part of being happy is not needing to spend a lot of time blogging about the stuff that makes me happy.

The Banzai Pipeline?

The traffic reporter on Channel 4, in a passing remark this morning, said that the State Police refer to route 128 (aka I-95) as the "Banzai Pipeline". This term certainly captures the essence of driving on 128, and if true, it also provides a clue as to (a) why you never see anyone pulled over on 128 and (b) what the likely limits of acceptable driving speed and behavior are, at least in the eye of the law.

Cowabunga!

Round headlights rock

Just an odd coincidence. Three cars with round headlights. Some old, some new. English. German. No reason.

Not a typo: Really did have two 525 Wagons

For a while, two years in fact, I really did have two nearly identical 2001 BMW 525iT wagons:


I bought the first one in November 2001, used. It had 10,500 miles on it and was less than a year old. It was such a great car that I bought another one in 2004, to replace the Toyota Matrix, which I couldn't drive after a back injury (not enough leg room). The second one came to us with 3 years and 36,000 miles on it (an ex-BMW financial lease car). It recently left, a victim of its own quiet competence, to fund the purchase of the new Mini Cooper S.

A car that I had never seen

I've been watching cars for about 40 years, and it is rare that I see a car that I couldn't identify. But this past Sunday, at the fast-growing Elm Bank Classic Car Show in Dover, I came across this one:



Clearly an Alfa Romeo, but small and ... ahem ... not very attractive. The size and proportions are reminiscent of a SAAB Sonnett III. The detailing, very '70s Italian.

The interior, classic Alfa, arms-out driving with the gear lever at a 45 degree angle.


The answer? A 1972 Alfa Romeo Zagato Junior 1300.

VW Headed Down-Market

Fresh off their ridiculous ad campaign showing inattentive, distracted drivers getting into completely avoidable accidents in their Jettas, VW announced that it will be cutting prices on US-market Jettas for model year 2007.

VW: Crap cars for bad drivers

Porsche Ramble

One of my favorite weekend activities is taking the 911 out for some exercise:

I said it before, and I'm saying it again now

I love walking in the woods in the rain.

It's been raining here in Boston for about two days now. Morning temperatures are typically in the low 40s, Fahrenheit.

Yesterday I put on a pair of shorts, a Gore-Tex shell, and an old felt hat and set out on what I call the 'short long walk'. There is are approximately 500 acres of conservation land just south of my house, and there are many different possible trail journeys. But in essence, there's the northern loop complex and the southern loop complex. The two complexes are connected by a single trail that runs through a big wetland. The 'short long' walk involves making it all the way to the southern loop complex, but taking a short path once there. (The 'short short' is a short path just in the northern complex, the 'long short' is a long path in the northern complex, and a 'long long' is... well, you get the idea.)

It was about an hour and half walk, probably 5 or 6 miles, of pure bliss. The sound of the rain on last fall's fallen leaves, the sheen of the water on the trunk of an enormous silver beech, the squish of mud under my feet.

The sound of the rain is like a blanket around you when you walk. You can't year the distant sounds of traffic, or construction, or airplanes. It is as if you have the world to yourself.

Wildlife

This past Tuesday, while out walking I came across a pair of big fat beavers trying to build a house. The trail I walk takes me across an intermittent stream. For much of the year, the stream carries a pretty good flow of water, draining from a nearby pond. In fact, Horace and the local boy scout troop built a wooden walkway across the stream about 6 years ago. In the late summer, the water level in the pond recedes to the point where the stream dries up, so it turns out that this wasn't going to be a great place for a beaver lodge. I didn't see the beavers the next time I was there.

I enjoy seeing wildlife when I'm out walking. Here are some of the animals that I've seen lately in the woods:

• White tailed deer (too numerous too count)
• Chipmunks
• Beavers
• A Fisher cat
• Turkeys
• Garter snakes
• Frogs
• Toads
• Snapping turtle
• An eastern box turtle
• Red tailed hawks
• Chickadees
• Woodpeckers

I really enjoy coming across the other types of creatures with whom I share the woods.

My Mini spec

I've got a 2006 Mini Cooper S currently on order. Mini really encourages and facilitates the special ordering of their cars. Their web site has a very easy to use tool for creating a custom configuration, which you can then view, print, or dispatch directly to your local dealer.

It took me about a week to come up with my configuration:

My 2006 MINI Cooper S
Base MSRP*		$20,900
Destination & Handling		$550
paint
	British Racing Green Body Color	$450
	White Roof/Mirrors	$0
	White Bonnet Stripes	$100
package
	Cold Weather Package	$300
	Heated Front Seats
	Heated Side Mirrors and Washer Jets
performance
	Sport Suspension Plus	STD
	Limited Slip Differential	$500
	16" V-Spokes (All-Season)	STD
	Front Fog Lamps	$150
	Rear Fog Lamp	$100
	6-Speed Getrag Manual	STD
cockpit
	Sport Seats	STD
	Leatherette: Black	STD
	Int. Surface Anthracite	$0
	3-Spoke w/Cruise and Multifunction	$250
	6-spkr AM/FM CD Player	STD
TOTAL MSRP AS CONFIGURED*		$23,300
accessory**
	Black Carpet Floor Mats (4) (installation not incl.)	$95
TOTAL ACCESSORIES **		$95
TOTAL MSRP AS CONFIGURED*		$23,300
TOTAL COMBINED		$23,395

My color choice was driven by what I think of as the classic Mini color scheme, with a white roof over British Racing Green. I'm not thrilled that the current BRG is metallic, but I think it will look OK.

My other choices were really driven by my experience trying to find my Porsche 911. When I first bought a 911, it fit me, but snugly. But when I decided that I wanted to do a trackday, I absolutely could not get a helmet on. It took about a year, but I found another 911 of the same year without a sunroof, and it was definitely worth the wait. I was grateful to the original owner that he specified such a basic car: no sunroof and no optional equipment other than body-colored Fuchs alloys.

I decided to do a similar thing with my Mini: I wanted to get a light, performance-oriented car. I'm 6'9" tall, and I fit fine in a Mini. But when I put on my helmet, I need the extra headroom that comes from not having a sunroof. Plus, the sunroof adds about 40 pounds to the car in the worst possible location.

I did not order the 17" s-lite wheels, because they weigh 25 lbs each, as opposed to 17 lbs for the V-spokes. This means that I have fewer tire choices, and also that I won't be able to fit the JCW brake kit.

Finally, the fogs. I ordered those because I didn't like the look of the blanking panels.

A good dump

With the exception of Jamaica Plain, pretty much every town I've lived in has had an excellent dump. Twenty years ago, when I was living in New Hampshire and Vermont, the local dumps were still burning trash. You'd haul your stuff up and dump it, and an old bulldozer would shove it into a burning pile. You could pick through all the non-burnable junk that was lying around, and sometimes there was a swap shop where people would drop off or pick up still-serviceable stuff.

Nowadays, of course, our dump is a transfer station. You put all of your recyclables into the correct bins, then dump your remaining household trash into a big dumpster, which is taken off to a central landfill, or more commonly an incinerator.

I was out walking with Horace yesterday in the woods behind an abandoned state hospital when we came across an old dump from the mid-70s. There are a number of civil war-era dumpsites in town, full of great artifacts, but this is the first intact 20th century dump that I'd seen. There were old cars, appliances, furniture, and bottles. The staples of 20th century life. My favorite find was the back two thirds of an early 70s Ford Country Squire station wagon. Acres of wood grain vinyl siding, great swaths of Naugahide upholstery (where was PETA back then, before the Naugas became extinct?)

So that's today's simple thing. A good dump.

My new Mini

Like pretty much everybody else who's ever ordered a Mini Cooper, I'm gonna blog about it. To save time, here's the compressed

All about tub's cars

In my life, I've owned a lot of cars. This blog is where I'm going to write about my automotive history, the cars I own now, and pretty much anything else related to...cars.

People with staying power

Most folks who turn up at this site are searching for information about Limmer boots or boot grease. I hope those links get you where you need to go. (I am a big fan of the grease, but the jury is still out on the factory-made boots. The take a long time to break in, and they seem to be designed on the theory that if your foot doesn't look like a good German foot, the boot will reshape your foot so that it resembles a good German foot.)

But recently I noticed that there is an actual link to a post on this blog from Universal Hub, a project of long-time internet personality and Rozzie resident Adam Gaffin. Adam doesn't know me, although we exchanged e-mails one when I was thinking about relocating from JP to Roslindale, but I've been aware of his presence and contributions to the Boston community for a while. Here's to staying power.

Walking in the rain

Such a cliché, but I love walking in the rain. It's been terribly dry for about a month, but this morning it is raining. I love putting on my slicker and my hat and walking in the woods in the rain. The sound of the drops on the leaves creates a feeling of privacy that is hard to match, as if you were alone in the world.

Something simple that I don't particularly care for

Today is my birthday, which is OK I guess. But it's also the beginning of something that I detest: Daylight Savings Time.

One of the best things about spring and summer is the early mornng dawns. The chance to get outside in beautiful sunlight while no one elese is awake. Well, alas, those days are over.

The end of daylight savings time. Something simple that I'm really looking forward to.

Peepers

This time of year, in wet spots, vernal pools, swamps, and marshes, it is time for the baby frogs to hatch out and start singing. I absolutely simply love driving home on a warm spring evening with the windows open, driving past a wet bit, and hearing the peepers. Simply love it.

Woods sounds

Yesterday, I took the big walk, about 7 miles through the woods behind my house. I live about 15 miles from downtown Boston, and it amazes and delights me that I can walk out my back door directly into 600 acres of parkland, forests, and fields. There's immense development pressure on this land, so it's not clear how long this treasure will last, but every day that it's there and that I can walk in it is a special, simple, wonderful day.

On my walk yesterday, I heard some of my favorite woods sounds. When you're in or near a stand of high oaks or beeches, the sound of the wind blowing through the tops of the trees creates a distant, lonely sound. A quiet sound that you can't really hear if you're with another person.

The trees behind my house, and those along my neighbor's field, is home to a red tailed hawk. He is beautiful to see, soaring in endless loops over the field, but his harsh, innocent call is terrifying and stark.


Finally, as I was coming home, I heard a hairy woodpecker tapping away in a tree in my back yard.


I had trouble locating him, but with patience I noticed a dead limb in the tree, and there he was.

The sounds of the woods. Something simple that I like.

Spring

Yesterday was the vernal equinox. The longer days creep up so slowly that you hardly notice. But I love waking up at 5:30 and having the sky already glowing with light. And I like being able to drive home in the light.

My nemesis, Daylight Savings Time, appears soon. But for the moment, we morning folk have the upper hand.

A wonderful poem from W.S. Merwin, again heard on The Writer's Almanac and reproduced here without permission.

Trees

I am looking at trees
they may be one of the things I will miss
most from the earth
though many of the ones I have seen
already I cannot remember
and though I seldom embrace the ones I see
and have never been able to speak
with one
I listen to them tenderly
their names have never touched them
they have stood round my sleep
and when it was forbidden to climb them
they have carried me in their branches

The house

Bruder trucks

Bruder makes the best toy trucks out there. They play well. They're full of clever design touches, like booms and jibs that articulate like the real thing. Little pumps on the fire trucks. My son has five Bruder trucks:

The MAN crane truck:


The ladder fire truck:


The MAN dump truck:

The JCX backhoe/loader:

And the Schaeff mini-excavator:

I love these trucks, because the people who designed and manufactured them really care about the equipment.

Trappist preserves

It can be tough to go food shopping. Most of the processed food available in this country is manufactured by large corporations who are mostly interested in how much profit they can make. A few years ago, I decided to try to keep as much partially hydrogenated fat and high-fructose corn syrup as possible out of my diet.

One item that met my criteria, and which is also delicious and locally produced, is Trappist Preserves from Saint Joseph's Abbey, a monastery of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance ("Trappists") in Spencer, Massachusetts.

Every time I'm in the grocery store, I appreciate finding that small island of simplicity and tradition.

Rain

The roads around here are coated with a gritty, salty, layer of slime. A nice steady bit of rain, as we are having now, is wonderful at starting to wash away a winter's worth of dirt. I like walking in the rain too. The sound of the rain on the leaves is just a wonderful background sound.

Other simple things that I like today:

• I'm continuing to recover from a bout of back pain
• I haven't caught the nasty bugs that have laid low the rest of the folks who live here
• The newspaper got delivered before 4:00 AM, so I could read the Journal over breakfast
• Did I mention that my back doesn't hurt as much today as it did yesterday?

A wonderful poem, by Louis Jenkins, heard on the Writer's Almanac:

Every fall before he goes to sleep a bear will put away five or six
hundred dollars. Money he got from garbage cans, mostly. Peo-
ple throw away thousands of dollars every day, and around here
a lot of it goes to bears. But what good is money to a bear? I
mean, how many places are there that a bear can spend it? It's a
good idea to first locate the bear's den, in fall after the leaves are
down. Back on one of the old logging roads you'll find a tall pine
or spruce covered with scratch marks, the bear runes, which
translate to something like "Keep out. That means you!" You can
rest assured that the bear and his money are nearby, in a cave or
in a space dug out under some big tree roots. When you return
in winter, a long hike on snowshoes, the bear will be sound
asleep. ... In a month or two he'll wake, groggy, out of sorts,
ready to bite something, ready to rip something to shreds ... but
by then you'll be long gone, back in town, spending like a
drunken sailor.

Used without permission, I'm sorry to say.

When it all comes together

• I'm feeling the best this morning I've felt in five days.
• The Bahrain GP was an excellent, exciting race. Great driving from Kimi and an astonishing debut from Nico Rossberg. Closely fought to the finish, the race augers well for an exciting 2006 season.
• The boy elected to sleep in, so my wife and I could watch the whole race (nearly) live
• Comcast DVR meant that we could skip most of the commercials, simply by virtue of pausing the video while we had breakfast
• A crispy fresh Sunday New York Times waiting on the front step

Sunday morning. A simple thing that I like.

It's racing season!

This morning is the first race of the 2006 Formula One season.

Grinding pain, day four (2)

Actually, the simple thing that I like today is getting to spend a whole day watching my wife and son going about their daily routines. Normally, I see them in the morning and at night, which are not their best times of day, respectively.

What a joy. What a lot of work. Having a family. A simple thing that I love.

Grinding pain, day four (1)

So it's hard to find something happy to think about on the fourth day home sick. Lemons? Lemonade? Whatever...

As jobs go, I've got a pretty good one. I'm able to sit for long enough today to actually get some work done. My boss has thoughtfully provided me with a laptop computer to use at home when I'm not able to come to work. The laptop runs a software VPN client that I can use to tunnel over my home 802.11g network to the network at the office. Once connected, I typically just log into my desktop PC using Windows Remote Desktop. Even though I'm using Comcast's cheapest 4MB service, I still get enough bandwidth to run graphics-intensive applications such as InDesign and Illustrator.

So that's a simple thing that I like: Having a job with the flexibility to work at home when I'm sick.

Feeling better

Today, the simple thing that I like is that I'm not hurting quite so much. That makes everything look a little better.

Sick day

Despite the fact that I am in grinding pain



a simple thing that I like is a sick day. Or two. Or three.

Expectations are low, and I have an excuse for not doing anything productive. Like this.

On balance, feeling good is better. But if you don't, it's a simple thing that I like to not be at work.

Porsche Ramble

It was a beautiful day today, and the boy and I took advantage of it by taking a Porsche ramble. This involves getting in the Porsche and going for a drive to nowhere in particular. It had been months since I'd had the car out, and it didn't want to start at first. I had to bring the other car into the garage and give it a jump start before it would go.

We drove back and forth across the river several times before our meandering took us to the local community farm, where we walked around looking at the animals. We saw two cows, a sheep, the bunnies, the chickens, and a grey puppy.

A nice ramble.

The boy

My son turns three tomorrow. He is wonderful, cute, affectionate, smart, active, happy, sad, and simply amazing. And he gives me a window into my own childhood so many years ago. Here he is, wearing a sweater of mine and playing with his new crane.


When I was three, my parents and I were living in Tübingen Germany, and I was wearing that sweater and playing with my own toy crane.

Something simple that fills me with joy, not just makes me happy. My son.

The big walk

Today was the nicest day of 2006. Clear blue sky, sunshine, not too cold, and not windy. I took advantage of this by dragging my friend Horace on the "big walk". This means walking out my back door, and taking the trail network all the way south to the hunt club, then crossing over to some meadow land around a pond, then back through the marsh. It's about 7 or 8 miles and takes a good two hours, especially if you detour to the market to pick up the paper.

I love a big walk, because you walk, talk, and think yourself out.

When I lived in Jamaica Plain, I called the big walk the "Jamaica Plain death march." I would walk from my house all the way around Jamaica Pond, then down the Jamaicaway to the Arboretum, then go up and down both Peters and Bussey hill in the Arb, then back home.

The biggest big walk I've ever taken was a 17 mile trek from Newton through Wellesley and Dover to Medfield. The big walk in JP that I never took was to summit the five hills of JP: Jamaica Hill, Bussey Hill, Peters Hill, Moss Hill, and the hill at Larz Anderson park. I kind of miss JP .

Anyway, the big walk is something simple that I really, really like.

SuperDuper!

I recently got a second PowerBook and I created a second disk image file on my firewire server disk and placed a copy of SuperDuper on the new PowerBook so that I could do my wireless network backup.

When I was first getting SuperDuper running, I had trouble getting it to automount the network drive. I created this elaborate scheme where I would open a settings document on the PowerBook through an alias on the server (because I couldn't put the SuperDuper! settings document in the server because it is a package, and some of the filenames weren't compatible with the Windows box serving the disk).

But it turned out that none of that was needed. A properly configured and scheduled SuperDuper! backup will properly mount a network disk.

So all I really needed to do was configure the PowerBooks to wake up 1 minute before the scheduled backup.

Now, if I want to back up a PowerBook, I simply leave the lid up when I go to bed (a PowerBook will not wake up with the lid closed, unless it's connected to an external monitor). The backup just happens.

Simple and sweet.

Garrison Keillor and "The Writer's Almanac"

Every morning, just before nine o'clock, WGBH in Boston runs a short syndicated feature from American Public Media called The Writer's Almanac. Garrison Keillor talks about a few notable literary figures born on this date and then reads a short poem.

When I happen to be driving to work around this time of day, I am always transfixed. I love Garrison Keillor, and I really enjoy the poems and the bit of history that he provides.

It's a small thing, in the scheme of media, about 5 minutes, but I really enjoy it.

Chickadee song

I love birds, but I'm no birder. In the spring, there's a particular song that just makes me think of spring. I didn't know what it was, but thanks to Tony Phillips of SUNY Stonybrook's math department, now I do. It's the song of the Black-capped Chickadee. This is distinct from the call of the Chickadee (the familiar chick-a-dee-dee-dee).

One fat robin

Right outside my kitchen window, where I'm sitting right now, there's a very pretty hawthorn tree. And in that tree, lately, has been one fat robin.


I mean this bird is fat. He's the size of a softball. It's amazing that he can fly. He looks like one of those oversized cargo jets:


But that's not the simple thing that makes me happy today.

This blog has two regular readers: my wife and somebody in Boston who uses RCN for his or her internet access (Hi there!). And that's OK with me, because I'm writing this stuff for my own purposes.

But regular reader #1 wants to know how come I never write about her and about being married. Well, I love my wife and I love being married. I've never been happier in my life. But, and if you're married you know this, there's nothing simple about it. At great personal risk, I am going to list some of the simple things I like about being married:

• I like knowing that there are people in the world who love me and care about me
• I like knowing that there are people in the world whom I love and care about more than myself
• I like not having to wash my own clothes
• I like taking care of things, like keeping the cars safe and maintained, so that my wife doesn't have to
• I like being able to go to work and really focus on what I'm doing, without needing to worry about who's taking care of my son
• I like that my wife lets me have these quiet hours in the morning, and I like that on days that I go to work, she comforts my son if he wakes up early, even though I'm already up
• I like that she lets me indulge my wants and desires without making me feel bad about them

So that's something (not) simple that I like.

Breathing

I am an early riser, and the first thing I do after I wake up is walk down the hall to my son's room. I duck my head in the door and listen for the sound of his breathing. There is no sound more innocent than the breath of a sleeping child. It fills me with happiness, knowing that he is warm and well and sleeping.

Limmer boot grease

Five years ago I made one of the best purchases of my life. I had a bootmaker named Jim Freeman in Middlebury Vermont make me a pair of custom hiking boots. I've probably logged 3,000 miles on those boots since then, and they have been wonderful.

When Freeman gave me the boots, he told me to use Lexol leather shampoo to clean them and Sno*Seal to seal them from water. Unfortunately, I have found that after five years, these boots have started to show some significant cracking around the flex points.

I decided that it was time to start looking for some replacements to use when these boots got too cracked, and I came across the Limmer family in Intervale NH. I got a new set of boots (factory made in Austria) from them along with what they recommended for taking care of the boots: Limmer Boot Grease.

During the process of breaking in my new Limmer boots, I've been using the grease on the new boots, but I've also been using it on my old Freemans, and it's definitely rejuvenated them. The leather is more supple, and more waterproof.

Something simple that I like: a hand-made product that lets me keep something that I treasure in good condition.

Porsche 911

It's a foolish thing to give your heart to a car, but mine belongs to my Porsche 911.

Brilliantly simple in design, meticulous in execution. Room for two adults and their luggage, plus room for two small children. A top speed of 150 MPH, vivid handling, astonishing brakes.

It doesn't get driven much in the winter, but come spring watch out!

Limmer boot grease

Internet

We recently upgraded our cable service to use a DVR. This lets us record shows to the cable box, and it lets us watch one channel while recording another (or record two channels at the same time). This is great, and a nice simplification.

But every so often, the DVR cable box would get into a state where no sound came out of the TV set. The screen said "Muting", but the TV wasn't muted and pressing the "Mute" button on the cable box remote did nothing. I gave my wife the big shrug and power-cycled the box, which fixed the problem but interrupted the Olympic event she was trying to tape.

On a lark, I did a Google search for "Comcast DVR mute problem" and the first search result provided a detailed description of the problem (a bug in Comcast's DVR software) and a fix (how to reprogram any button on the Motorola remote). Wow.

This is an experience that I often have. I am trying to solve a problem that is so obscure, bizarre, or obsessive that I am convinced no one has ever even thought of it before. But 30 seconds of Googling, and I have an answer.

Another example: my wonderful, sweater-knitting mother-in-law recently got a new Macintosh iBook to replace her ancient iMac. I've been trying to provide her with technical support over the phone, with some success. But it turns out that a person developed a wonderful free, secure toolkit that lets you remotely log in and view someone else's OS X session over the internet. This post was so awesome, because the writer was trying to solve exactly the problem that I was trying to solve, and he had exactly the same concerns:

• No cost
• Minimal configuration changes to my mom-in-law's system
• Easy for my mom-in-law to initiate the connection
• Secure, encrypted link.

I guess, in addition to the internet, I also like Apple, Google, and the fact that OS X is based on Unix.

Not simple, but something that I like.

The maple tree

Right behind our house is very old, very tall maple tree:


This tree keeps our house cool and shady during the hot summer and provides shade for picnic lunches on the deck. In the fall, it turns beautiful shades of orange and red. In the winter, with the leaves gone, it lets the sun shine into our family room. And in the spring, it buds out and provides a new green canopy for the gardens.

The previous owners of our house built a deck around the tree, which is one of the things that's helped the tree do so well. This spring, I need to cut away some of the deck, since the tree has grown to the point the root flare is in contact with the deck beams.

We're concerned about winter moths (they were swarming in November and December), so we've arranged for the tree to be treated in the spring.

Trees, especially this tree, are something simple that I like.

The sweater

My mother-in-law is a big-time knitter. She's knitted me a lovely black cotton crewneck sweater, many sweaters for my wife, and an extremely cute sweater for my son with a pattern of excavators (his favorite thing in the world).

My favorite sweater of hers was one that she wasn't going to finish. I'm not sure why she started it, but she got about 20% through it and decided that it was "too ugly". I told her I thought it looked fine, and she should finish it:


I wear this sweater nearly every day. It is a heavy wool sweater and I wear it on my morning hikes. I love that it keeps me warm, but it also breathes. When I wear it over two layers of fleece, it's good down to about 10º, as long as the wind's not blowing too hard.

As you can see, it's a big floppy sweater, the kind of thing that Ernest Hemingway was always photographed wearing. It probably makes me look like a big, striped whale, but I don't care because it keeps me so warm!

14° F

This morning it was 14° F when I left for my walk around 6:30 AM. As I made my way across a nearby meadow, the moon was still high in the sky:


I could hear hundreds of Mallard ducks grumbling and thrushing in the stream behind my house. There is a spring behind our house that keeps a small brook full of flowing water, no matter how cold the temperature. On cold evenings around sunset, I hear the sounds of the ducks wheeling in to land, and all during the night they grumble. In the morning, just at sunrise they leave for the day.


I love our spring, and our stream, and the birds and animals that come to visit us here.

Moon

We have houseguests this weekend, and they're sleeping in a room that is just off the front entryway in the house. Because I'm an early riser, and because I didn't want to wake them, I walked around the outside of the house from the back door to pick up the Sunday papers, left on the front step.

It's 10° F (-18° C), so I was pretty focused on getting out and back in a hurry, but I did stop to look up in the blackest of night skies to see


I love the moon. Implacable, wise, huge, always changing. I love the fat orange moonrise that comes in early evening. I love the aching moon, hanging overhead. I love the moon setting in the west, while tendrils of dawn stream toward it.

I also love stories about the moon:

The Container Store

Life is complicated, and one of my life goals is simplification. I call little simplifications "friction reducers". For example, if you have a computer, you need to back it up. If you can figure out a way to do the backup automatically, that is a friction reducer. One less sharp edge to catch your sweater on during the day.

The Container Store sells devices for managing and storing stuff around the house. Plastic storage tubs for organizing pictures, shower organizers to hold your soaps and shampoos, partitioned trays for decluttering your kitchen drawers, and so on. I recently got tired of the collection of half-empty bandaid boxes cluttering up the medicine cabinet, so I bought some pharmacy boxes:


Which let me organize the bandaids (and see them) and get rid of the bandaid boxes. Handy.

But what I really like is the Container Store tape measure. An automatically retracting cloth tape measure. It has a lanyard hook, a stainless steel tip, and a white plastic case. It fits the palm and pocket perfectly:


But the very absolutely most wonderful thing about it? It is made in Germany.