I can't think of a title so that's my title.

Let's see what's going on. Down on Cape Cod there have been 6 shootings. Not people but grey seals. The seals were granted federal protection because of a dwindling population. It worked well as the population has exploded. In the town of Chatham, a very lovely place, there are an estimated 3000 seals living along the coast. 6 have been found shot to death. The increased population may have resulted in the increase of shark sitings over the last few years. There are no suspects but there is speculation that it could be someone in the sports fishing industry because a grey seal can eat up tp 50 lbs of fish a day and these boats have to go farther out to find the fish. Once again there are no suspects yet but several government agencies are investigating. So who knows, maybe the seals owed somebody money. Still it's all a sad state of affairs.

We have another sports team going for a championship though as of this writing they are down in the series 3 games to 2. I used to follow hockey back in the '60's and 70's. I had the privilege of watching Bobby Orr play. As far as I'm concerned the greatest hockey player ever. Of course I'm being a homer when I say that. I forgot what an exciting event the Stanley Cup playoffs are. The Bruins haven't won the cup since 1972. 

Today, Sunday, the weather is cool topping out at 60 or so. It's overcast and drizzly. Not a great day but I don't care I'm not working today. I hate working Sundays. Massachusetts was the last state in the country to allow big stores to open on Sunday. This was about 1985 I think. People in the Boston area would drive to nearby New Hampshire on Sundays because their stores were open, not to mention that New Hampshire didn't have and still doesn't have a sales tax. Of course the two states are different. New Hampshire is very rural. There are as many people in  Boston as there are in the entire State of New Hampshire more or less. When I was growing up until 1985 Sunday was a very quiet and peaceful day. I do miss it. Anyway I am off and I took a lady friend out to breakfast this morning. After our meal we frequented a local warehouse type store. I guess it's sort of like a Wal-Mart though I have never been in one. I have my reasons for not going into Wal-Mart. Let's just say I don't like them. I admit that I do like this store. It's really no frills but contains just about anything you're looking for from tenderloin steak to fishing rods. I did find it amusing at what I saw as I walked in. Right next to a section that had glass cases full of jewelery were four large bins full of watermelons. Now that's cross merchandising!

Your tax dollars at work dept.
I suppose he took a lot of crap growing up because of his last name. Still, despite his name he had managed to get himself to congress. Yes I'm talking about the congressman from New York State, Anthony Weiner. It is an unfortunate name. At least these days. Imagine if he was born a girl and his parents had a sense of humor and named him Heidi.

This man is obviously full of himself and and not very bright. Sure with today's technology doing what he did was easy but it's also just as easy to have this stuff discovered. And what did Mr. Weiner do when, if you'll pardon the expression, he was exposed. Deny and lie. It's what they do when they are caught red handed, so to speak. This whole thing just lends itself to endless jokes. What makes it worse is that he's a married man. If he were single and just admitted to it right away as being a stupid, thoughtless thing to do especially when you're a high profile government figure we could have all had a chuckle over it, made our jokes and it would fade into the past though I think this would have been one of the more amusing political goofs of the new century. Believe me I am restraining myself from using some of the words and phrases that are available. Think Al Pacino as Scarface, "Say hello to my little friend." I don't know if I'll ever be able to have another hot dog on the Fourth of July. Here's a clip from one of my favorite show called Mystery Science Theater. It's a silly but funny show that ran about 9 years. The character on the show would take only the most awful movies that they could find, as long as they were in the public domain, and sit and watch and just crack wise, tearing the movie apart. I always found it very amusing. It didn't have to be a feature length movie. The made fun government films, such as the famous "Duck and Cover" film from the '50s made for school children. Here in the U.S. during the '50s and '60s there was constant worry about a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. It told children that in the event of an attack to get under the desk if they were in school and if they were on the street they were to drop to the ground and cover themselves with their coats. I guess if was summer, too hot for a coat, you were shit out of luck. It's hard to believe they thought this would make the public feel more secure. Any way Here's a short clip from MST3000. It comes from a school home economic film. It applies to Mr. Weiner.  

 

 OK I've gone on long enough. Time for supper. Hold the mustard.
Ciao.
I'm outta here. 

I think I'll call this a blog entry.

Hello. First, here's the video that I was trying to upload the last time. It's a little slide show of a few of the pictures I took of Martha's Vineyard.

Last week in western and central Ma. we witnessed a rare occurrence in these parts. Two tornadoes. They do happen but not very often. In the Boston area we got rain and one heck of a lightning display. There never were any loud claps of thunder just a constant rumble like some celestial bowling tournament. I grabbed my camera opened my bedroom window, which is in front of the house on the porch and snapped away. I filled about 4G'S of memory card space snapping away. Catching a shot of the sky all lit up wasn't that hard but catching a bolt of lightning was literally a shot in the dark. Then there is the random nature of lightning. Point, hold steady, start clicking, hope for the best. Here's a short video of a bit of lightning.                           

As we have all experienced, sometimes there isn't enough time in one day. Some days, even when I leave work at a reasonable time, by the time I do whatever I have to do and make supper it's already close to 7:30 or 8 pm. If I sit in front of the computer I can feel my eyes getting heavy after a half and hour. It's the same if I watch TV or try to read. I'm just no fun anymore. Have I officially become an old fart? I want to be a young fart! I started this blog last night and could not think of much to write. Earlier in the day, while at work, Ideas flowed between slices like water filling a bath tub. Last night as I sat in front of the screen the flow became a couple of drips because apparently the main broke and there was no preasure left.

Living near a big city has it's plusses and minuses. I can see a part of the skyline being only 5 miles away and it's fairly easy to get into town though by car it can be a nightmare. On the minus side, a main highway, that essentially runs from upper mid New Hampshire to the tip of Cape Cod, runs through my town. Well a section of this road that runs through my city, built in the late 50's and early 60's is being refurbished with federal stimulous money. There are 14 bridges that are going to be replaced throughout the summer. The first one about a quarter mile from where I live. One a weekend. Well they did the first one over this passed weekend. They cut the 4 lane high way down to 2, took out half the bridge lowered the new one in place and the same for the other side. I got out of work at 8 on Saturday drove home and walk down to see if I could catch some of this but when I arrived at about 8:45 it was done. I would have loved to have taken some pictures of that. There were two huge cranes. Neighborhood people told me it was amazing to watch. This is what I saw when I got there.

  Normally at peak hours traffic is a mess. People going on the highway or getting off. Now it's snarled to the north and the south. 13 more weeks of this. The next two are almost equally close to me. I Hope my work schedule allows me to be able to witness this. As aggrivating as this is, the idea of removing the old road way and dropping in a new one fascinates me.

At this point in the day I've accomplished a few things. I finished this blog for one. Something I haven't been doing as often as I used to. To those of you who come here regularly, I thank you. I usually don't get many comments but I can always count on you guys and that's good enough for me. I am also off tomorrow and apart for some minor things I think I will relax. Now I think I'll pop a couple of CD's in the player, lay down and more than likely take a snooze.

I'm outta here.

To sum the month of May up.

May was a very eventful month. It all began with the sudden death of my uncle and being reunited with my cousins again. As you get older and settle into your life you lose touch with people who are doing the same thing. I realize that everybody is already aware of this reality of life. I've already written about my uncle Sam. He would spend the holidays with us his nieces and nephew instead if his own daughters. Two of them live in the same city as we (my family) do. Ones about 20 miles away and one now lives in London. The month also featured a particularly tough work schedule, save for the short time I spent on Martha's Vineyard last week. Next I received a call from my dear friend on the west coast. She tells me,

"I'm coming out east! To Concord!" Concord is where her mom is from. Her moms sister is very ill.
"That's great!" I said. "When?"
"Tomorrow!"
"How long will you be out here?
I don't know. A few days. A week. A month. I don't know. I'll be staying in Concord. I will probably go to Cape Cod for a bit. (More family) Then to New Hampshire (Friends). "

I fully understand how things work when you have to travel a great distance because of a family issue. Everything is done on the fly. I tried to coordinate our schedules which caused her to say,

"Oh there he goes, Mr. Plan. Has to plan everything."

Leaving out the details I did manage to see her for one evening. She is very spontaneous. Me? Not so. It was wonderful. I met a little more of her family. It was just an evening but I'm glad I saw her again. Maybe September or October, if all the planets align in, I'll go out there. Something we talked about last year.

Of course there's work. A very uneven schedule week to week. Hitting 40 years on the job on April 1.

On the other hand, I just had 9 days off in a row. A good chunk of it spent, as the snotty say, "Down on the Vineyard." It was quite enjoyable to come and go as we pleased. The ability to sit by the ocean on a beautiful day after about a minute walk. The streets had some vacationers, Asian, European, Jamaican, but there were no crowds anywhere. There were license plates from around the country. I even saw one from California. Now that's a road trip. Getting up early to see the sun break the horizon over the Atlantic. Eating well, not overboard but, indulging one's self here and there. That's the beauty of traveling off season. It's very tranquil. As planned, We left on the very day the first crowds started arriving for the long weekend. All in all a welcome ending to the month of May. At this point I had a short video at this spot but it doesn't want to cooperate at this time.

When I went back to work it didn't take long for a customer to mispronounce Wunderbar Baloney as "the wonderful baloney". I'm back doing the day to day routine. I'm also painting my kitchen, but that's coming along slowly. Well as I sit here we are under a tornado watch around here and a tornado warning in the western part of the state. These storms are getting closer. there are rumbles of thunder and lightning at the moment.

OK. Time for me to be off.
I'm outta here.