Pajamadeen.com

Find Out Your True Age with Online Quiz

pajamadeen — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:09:16 +0000

I’ve outsmarted Harvard!

The Intelligent Interactive Systems Group at Harvard — which works to increase computer accessibility, ease of use (and fun!) — developed this online age test based on the fact that our motor skills and motor control change (translate: decline) as we age. While the test claims it can accurately predict your age as you click on a series of dots on a computer screen, the test determined that my age is 39.

Yes! Make my day! Never mind my chronological age. It’s a state secret. Right. Not. So, my keyboarding friends, if you’d like a cheap thrill, be sure to take this test. I think our keyboarding skills are what skewed the age prediction. It takes about seven minutes to dial back the clock to a new age. Way cheaper than Botox or plastic surgery!

The test monitors movement speed and reaction time, and even how the mouse is moved from one area of the screen to another. Harvard developed the aging test for LabintheWild. LabintheWild describes itself as testing one’s “cultural preferences and perception. At the end of each experiment, you will see a page with your personalized feedback, which lets you compare yourself and your performance to people of other countries. By participating, you contribute to research on people’s similarities and differences around the world when interacting with technology.” Other interesting tests at LabintheWild include:

Me, I just wish I was as limber as the enthusiastic young contortionist who has his body draped over a large ball.

Read a cautionary tale about a woman who never understood the importance of family, and who insisted on dying alone.

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Have You Seen Dzhokar Tsarnaev?

pajamadeen — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:59:07 +0000

Have you seen this man? Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, is the remaining prime suspect in the Boston Marathon terrorist attack of Monday, 15 April. If you’ve seen him, call 1-800-CALL-FBI. Don’t try to be a hero. He’s carrying explosives and has at least one long rifle so, unless you’re in a hurry to meet your maker, don’t approach Dzhokar Tsarnaev. Boston Police Chief Ed Davis said: “We believe this to be a terrorist…We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people. We need to get him in custody.”

It’s also thought that Tsarnaev may have fled to Connecticut. The family also has relatives in Montgomery Village, MD, a Washington, DC suburb near Gaithersburg, MD. At the moment, police with guns drawn are focusing on Watertown, a Boston suburb where the suspect has lived. According to CNN, police say that Dzhokar Tsarnaev has a laptop computer, and is sending out messages on social media. Apparently, he’s upset that his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a confrontation with police last night. Tamerlan, who was carrying explosives and an explosives trigger, was shot in the chest several times and also injured by his own bombs. He suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead on arrival at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Boston is on lockdown. Residents have been advised to stay indoors. Schools and businesses are closed. There’s no bus, taxi or subway service. There’s so much media coverage that the Boston Police Department felt compelled to issue this statement: “WARNING: Do Not Compromise Officer Safety by Broadcasting Tactical Positions of Homes Being Searched.” At this point, bomb squad trucks, SWAT teams and snipers are converging in Watertown.

The family emigrated from Dagestan (also spelled Daghestan), which is a republic of Russia that borders Chechen. Dagestan’s capital is Makhachkala, where one uncle of the two suspects described Dzhokar as an “angel.” However, in an impassioned interview, Ruslan Tsarni, another uncle of the two terrorism suspects who lives in Maryland, says that while he’s “shocked” by the recent events, he wants nothing to do with either of the suspects. He says the family is “ashamed,” and called the brothers “losers” who deserve to die. Tsarni says he loves America, and that this is the only country where one can come and be treated as a human being.

Read more Boston Marathon coverage, as domestic terrorism comes home to roost.

Photo credits: FBI and The Boston Globe.

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Boston Changes Everything

pajamadeen — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 07:43:34 +0000

It was a beautiful, flawless day in Boston. It was Patriots’ Day, a wildly popular civic holiday celebrating the first battles of the American Revolution. School was out, spring was in the air, it was a holiday weekend, and the Boston Red Sox played at home in Fenway Park, as they’ve done every year for over 50 years. To add to the festivities, it was “Marathon Monday,” as locals call the day of the Boston Marathon. What more could one ask for on this heady spring day? Thousands of runners from around the world ran the 26.2 mile race. Begun in 1897, the Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual marathon. With half a million spectators lining the route and concentrated most heavily at the finish line where the explosions occurred, the Boston Marathon is also New England’s most widely viewed sporting events. All eyes were on Boston today. What the world saw was not what it expected to see.

Just as runners reached the finish line on Boyleston St. at 2:50 p.m., the first of two bombs detonated. Everything changed. It was the largest terrorism attack in the United States since 9/11, which likewise began as an achingly beautiful, crisp Fall day. As the scope of today’s attack upon the Marathon unfolded, I kept thinking…“This changes everything.” The stakes have been raised tremendously. The ante was upped. No longer can we go shopping in a mall, walk down a crowded street, or attend crowded concerts or sporting events without wondering if we are really as safe and secure as we thought we were. That peace of mind has been ripped away.

The Boston Police Department says there’s no motive for the attack. Excuse me? The motive is clear, and simple. Terror, up close and personal. An apparently random attack, not one which is anticipated, has more impact because its suddenness strikes at the heart of everyday life, tearing threads of the social fabric apart. No grand target, like an imposing government fortress, was needed. Terrorism, up close and personal, at a level we could all relate to. The latest reports say three are dead — including eight-year-old Martin Richard from Dorchester who died after kissing his father, William Richard, who had just reached the finish line. Martin then returned to the sidelines, where so many injuries from the explosions occurred. Seventeen people are in critical condition and 144 people total were injured. Runners were felled, left without legs. One woman described a detached leg which passed overhead from the force of the blast. Aerial views of the carnage showed large areas of sidewalk smeared with blood. At least 10 other amputations have been performed in area hospitals.

Everyone there was forever changed by the darkness of chaos and fear. All of us who watched the unfolding coverage were affected.

According to The Wall St. Journal, Brent Cunningham, 46, who traveled from Sitka, Alaska to run in the Boston Marathon, said: “We heard two explosions, and I thought, ‘that had a 9/11 feel to it.’ ” Yes, it did have a 9/11 feel.

So far, no one knows who planned and carried out this attack. In a way, it doesn’t matter. No, I don’t think it was North Korea’s Kim Jong Un…He’d want something even more spectacular and phallic, such as nuclear warheads. Maybe he’s just full of hot air, like his predecessors. What I personally think is…this terrorism does change everything, in a very fundamental 9/11 sort of way. Up until today, law enforcement was able to prevent mass murder at large gatherings of people such as the Super Bowl. Where was the monitored “chatter” this time? And why would a deranged person shoot up a school or a movie theater when this opportunity for bloodshed exists? Surely, I’m not the only person upon whom this has dawned. This changes everything because it’s now clear that terrorists CAN successfully strike anywhere, at any time. I expect more of these types of attacks.

People in Washington, DC are terrified right now for this kind of reason…After 9/11, I remember asking my mother to never, ever go shopping again at Tysons Corner, a huge sort of Mall of America located in Northern Virginia which is well-known for its high-end merch and sometimes equally dizzying prices. On any given day, probably half of Congress and various celebrities shop there. And yet it’s about 30 miles from downtown DC. Tysons is the 12th largest employment center in the United States, with relatively easy (nothing about metro D.C.-land traffic is easy) access via I-495. It’s the largest shopping mall in Virginia and in the entire Baltimore-Washington area. Every weekday, Tysons — which has 46 million square feet of office and retail space — attracts about 55,000 shoppers. Weekends are even worse. To be blunt about it, there’s no speedy way to exit Tysons. What better place to inflict damage than a soft target with atrocious, often gridlocked traffic, populated with government officials and other well-heeled patrons? So no, I don’t think it was North Korea, but I do think the stakes just got raised considerably for soft targets. Like most people, I’m shocked by the apparent ease of this attack.

The attack also coincides with the April 15th Tax Day and, within a day or so, give or take, the anniversaries of the Waco siege and the Oklahoma City bombing. So, it could be a militant tax protest or some militant anti-government group that we never heard of. But it’s a game changer, because we now see that soft attacks are…possible and…do-able. Up close and personal. Life will return to normal. But it’ll be another “new normal,” never the same.

Read about our relatively stress-free rural adventures in picking blackberries.

Photo credits: BeyondDC.com; Fairfax County Library, Photographic Archives

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The Fourth of July a Century Ago

pajamadeen — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 01:17:08 +0000

Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are here, with a vengeance. The thermometer (in the shade) on the back porch reads…117° F. There’s a heat warning out. For the first time I can recall, there won’t be a fireworks show here in Tiny Town. With tinderbox-dry fields and forests, no chances are being taken. Burning trash and lighting fireworks at home are also out. But at least I wasn’t running in the world’s largest road race, Atlanta’s 10k AJC (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Peachtree marathon this morning. More than 60,000 people tried that. They won’t miss me, and I won’t miss the marathon, what can I say? Joey “Jaws” won $10,000 and a “mustard champion” belt today, in his sixth consecutive win at Nathan’s Famous hot dog-eating contest in Coney Island. “Jaws” consumed 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. There’s a movement afoot to give this gluttony legitimacy, by calling it “competitive eating.” There was even an attempt to qualify competitive eating as an Olympic sport. Poppycock. It’s binge eating, nothing more and nothing less. Me? I’ll be inside tonight, watching the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, which airs live at 10 p.m. tonight on CBS.

While waiting for my faraway fireworks to begin, I couldn’t help but browse through my postcard collection to find a few Fourth of July examples which are each over a century old. The lovely 1908 Lady Liberty, artist-signed by someone named Charles A. Beck, reads: “Miss Liberty, with hearty cheer, /At sunset rends the atmosphere.” There were four postcards in the series: dawn, noon, sunset and night.

Here’s someone’s idea of a good time: a charming circa 1904-1913 real-photo postcard shows a parade float in an unknown and then-small town. The float is profusely decorated in red, white and blue bunting and sports at least three American flags. Perhaps of more interest to revelers, it advertises Blatz Beer, with “Be Happy” written below Blatz Beer. Blatz (the Valentin Blatz Brewing Company) was made in Milwaukee; the brewery operated from 1851 until 1959, when the label was sold to the Pabst Brewing Company.

In 1910, the July 4th parade in Newmarket, NH also had a beer float, although the beer brand is hard to read. The rider of the white horse cuts a dashing figure. This Main St image was photographed by someone named Thibault. Enjoy the pyrotechnics tonight, whether they be local or televised.

Read about our adventures in picking blackberries.

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Picking Blackberries

pajamadeen — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 23:07:34 +0000

As anyone who’s ever picked blackberries knows, there are some “prices” to be paid, as is the case with many choices in life. The primary issue (besides the 110 – 112° F. heat we’ve experienced over the last several days) is…thorns. There’s a reason that blackberry patches are called “brambles” — Once started, blackberry bushes sprawl. They get wider And denser. They grow willy-nilly. Or another way to put it is, they become an impenetrable mass, vines knotting around vines. Vines covered with lots of tiny, hard-to-see thorns. Venturing forth into a blackberry patch almost inevitably leads to scratches and pricks from the thorns. Soon, one feels like Brer Rabbit — hopelessly stuck to the Tar Baby or, in this case, tangled up in endless proliferous vines and thorns.

A less likely — but still real — possibility is an encounter with a black bear. Ursus americanus is not your friend to begin with. Black bears love blackberries (and lots of other fruit, blueberries among them). If you’re in the woods, look for claw marks and holes (from teeth) on tree bark. Bears use the distinctive claw marks and holes as a way to communicate with one another (thinking of scratch marks that read: “Yippee, I maimed a human!”) You don’t want to hang around that tree. Ditto re: hanging around cute baby bears. If you see bear cubs, run! Protective Mama Bear will not like you. At all.

In addition to being able to withstand thorns and read trees, wearing steel-toed boots is helpful in avoiding a rattlesnake or copperhead bite (I keep a snakebite kit in the glove box of the car.). And a certain degree of finesse is involved in picking the berries. Just because blackberries are black, doesn’t mean they’re ripe. (Life is so unfair.) They need to look plump and almost fall into your hand as you pick them. Just a few days makes all the difference between a sweet blackberry and a sour one. Too ripe, and they’ll drop off the blackberry bush.

I once contemplated creating a blackberry hedge between myself and a pesky neighbor. But trying to train blackberry bushes would have been much more time-consuming than building a privacy fence. And besides, blackberries yield about eight gallons per 100 feet of row. I don’t need 8 gallons of blackberries. I just wanted a taste. So, all things considered, it’s much simpler to buy blackberries from a stranger knocking at the door. And there stood Troy, soaking wet from the 100°+ heat, in all his shirtless, skinny, tatted, crackhead glory, his girlfriend Louise hovering hopefully behind him. I did admire his ingenuity, in creating a job for himself from what was available. Resourceful.

As I stepped out onto the porch and left my air-conditioned 70° environment for the sweltering 100° + heat, I made a mental note that should I choose to drive the 35 miles round-trip to a grocery store and pay at least $4.75 a pint for the same thing, I’d be doing so in my newly un-air-conditioned car. It had just suffered “black death,” more formally known as “catastrophic compression failure.” The Honda dealer wanted $3,300 to fix the problem (with no guarantee as to how long the air-conditioning would work). Since the car has heat, I’d taken a pass on the $3,300 crap shoot. At $5.00, the generous pint of berries was a bargain.

The first few tastes of blackberries went on Irish oatmeal. Blackberry-apricot spread sounds good. Blackberries in the Vitamix, maybe blended with strawberries. Old-fashioned blackberry cobbler. Hurry back, Troy. You’re far more inviting than the woods are.

Learn how to make the best dinner rolls we’ve ever eaten.

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I Found Jon Corzine’s Missing $1.2 Billion

pajamadeen — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:16:16 +0000

Really! After shopping half-heartedly at Pamida (a privately held chain of miniature K-Marts located in small towns, primarily in the Midwest) for a new office chair for Wrinkled Randy, getting a prescription filled and wandering around looking at Christmas decorations, we emerged with the chair, the prescription, and a couple of sweaters for me. Once home, as we removed our purchases from the back of the SUV, we saw a suitcase. An attached sticky note read: “Private! Do not touch. Jon Corzine.” Visions of sugarplums danced through our heads. Naturally, we popped open the suitcase. It was stuffed with $100 bills and bearer bonds worth millions of dollars.

Hey! If John Corzine can say ‐ under oath — that he “never intended to break any rules,” and didn’t realize that MF Global was spending more than it had, then I can spin a yarn as well. His lawyered-up testimony was jaw dropping. He eventually testified: “The money will be found.” Oh paleeeeze. You would think that someone who’s served as a U.S. Senator, Governor of New Jersey, and CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs would have some idea of what was going on at a company he ran. Would you buy a used car from this man? Me neither. But if I did have the “missing” $1.2 billion, I’d give every penny back to the investors, to end their bewilderment and pain.

Read a post about Zynga, which is expected to give birth to its IPO next Friday, 16 December. It’s widely anticipated as a precursor to Facebook’s 2012 IPO. Never mind the fact that Zynga is dependent upon Facebook and Facebook is dependent upon…Google.

Photo credit: businessinsider.com

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I Thought I Wanted to Move to Austin, Texas

pajamadeen — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 01:19:46 +0000

Austin, land of cool, hip people, with plenty of organic and natural food stores, a bleeding edge music scene (Timbuk3 and Stevie Ray Vaughan, among others) and no state income tax. It sounded (sort of) like Shangri-La. What other town do you know of which loved ax-man Stevie Ray Vaughan enough to erect a statue of him? This one’s along Lady Bird Lake in Austin (Texas Governor Ann Richards proclaimed October 3 — Stevie’s birthday — as “Stevie Ray Vaughan Day,” in 1991. An annual motorcycle ride followed by a concert in Central Texas raises money for the Stevie Ray Vaughan Memorial Scholarship Fund.).

True, it’s been beyond hot in Texas this summer. And dry. Supposedly, the current Texas drought exceeds conditions in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. (A friend in Plano, north of Dallas, says the endless heat has melted railroad tracks. The West Texas town of Big Spring is building a $13 million sewage plant, where urine will be mixed with lake water, treated in a three-step process and then provided to the public as … drinking water. Why am I telling you this? Just more fun stuff about Texas.) Housing costs in the metropolitan Austin area (about 1.7 million residents) are high. Higher than anywhere else in the state.

But my on-again, off-again love affair with Austin finally ended about a week ago, courtesy of my Isle of Man friends at The Ranger’s Blog. The Ranger posted a photo of this Austinite:

It’s a giant red-headed centipede (Scolopendra heros), and it looks noticeably worse than the Florida cockroach, or palmetto bug (Eurycotis floridana). These cockroaches grow to about 1-1/2 to 2” in length. Having once lived in a home along a Florida bayou, I can tell you that it’s true that these cockroaches love warm, damp areas (like along a bayou). They loved to come indoors in the evening to my hot, damp shower and my hot kitchen. While living next to a bayou may sound romantic, it’s not. One dares not dangle one’s feet over the edge of a dock, or walk along the shoreline, especially at night, lest an alligator lunge forward out of the darkness to dine on you. It was also unnerving to hear them go “plop”, as they reached the end of the dock, diving into the inky-black nighttime water. You could hear them; you just couldn’t see them.

Now back to the undesirable centipedes. An adult giant red-headed centipede grows from 6-1/2 to 8” long. Outdoors, it likes to live under stones and logs. Indoors, one of their favorite hiding places is…shoes. Another friend, whose mother served in the military, recalled seeing her mother shaking out her boots before putting them on each day, while stationed in TX. Texas, a state of mind and a place I will always love. From afar.

Read about two new endangered species here in Kentucky. I promise, they don’t look like cockroaches, or centipedes which look like 1950s movie props where aliens invade Earth.

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Amy Winehouse Dead from Suspected Drug Overdose

pajamadeen — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:25:26 +0000

Troubled blues singer Amy Winehouse, 27, was found dead this afternoon at 3:54 p.m. local time in her North London home, of a suspected drug overdose.

Winehouse battled addiction to alcohol and drugs and was in rehab several times in recent years. A planned European tour was canceled in June, after a disastrous performance in Serbia on 16 June, when she was incoherent. The angry audience booed her, and the concert was widely regarded as the worst ever in Belgrade. She subsequently canceled appearances in Istanbul and Athens.

In a 2008 interview, Amy Winehouse’s mother, Janis, said she wouldn’t be surprised if her daughter died prematurely. Mrs. Winehouse commented: I’ve known for a long time that my daughter has problems…I realize my daughter could be dead within the year. We’re watching her kill herself, slowly.

”I’ve already come to terms with her dead. I’ve steeled myself to ask her what ground she wants to be buried in, which cemetery. Because the drugs will get her if she stays on this road. I look at Heath Ledger and Britney. She’s on their path. It’s like watching a car crash — this person throwing all these gifts away.”

It’s thought that former husband Blake Fielder-Civil, whom Winehouse married in Miami in 2007, introduced the singer to heroin and crack cocaine. They divorced in September 2009. Fielder-Civil was sentenced to 32 months in prison last month for burglary and possession of an imitation firearm.

Winehouse’s break-through album was “Back to Black.” It’s considered one of the finest soul albums of all time. Ironically, the lead single of the album was “Rehab,” which begins with the lyrics: “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said ‘No, no, no.’ ” Instead, she now joins the infamous 27 Club, (also known as Forever 27), which is a group of musicians who all died at age 27. (The 27 Club is also sometimes referred to as the “Stupid Club.” You be the judge.) The members include Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain. A Winehouse autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow.

Read another post about Amy Winehouse.

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Replace User and Reboot

pajamadeen — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 21:55:41 +0000

Ironically, that was the title of one of my friend Paul’s last posts before he died. Somewhere, Paul is laughing over the irony.

Like many people, I only knew Paul Jones (dba “Yabba”) online. No matter. He was a brilliant, witty writer — reading his emails was a joy. I looked forward to them. We were sympatico. And how could you not love this smile?

Look at the size of that dahlia! Among other things, Paul won at least three national awards for his dahlias. To tell the truth, I’d never paid that much attention to dahlias, until I saw pictures of his. Good Lord, Paul loved dahlias and dahlias loved Paul.

Paul died the morning of July 6th. At age 44, he had a brain aneurysm and poof! Just like blowing out a match, his golden flickering light was gone. He leaves behind his pregnant girlfriend, a child who will never know his or her father, a grieving family, and his many, many virtual friends in cyberspace. As one of my sisters said recently about a loss: “another goodbye.” It has been a year of goodbyes, some expected, some unexpected.

Paul loathed Facebook and all that it stood for, but hopefully he’d have a good laugh or be flattered that so many of us have joined the Friends Of Paul Jones (Yabba) R.I.P. group. Someday, future Yabba, as I like to think of his child, may want to browse the page.

Yabs, thanks again for all of your help. I do wish we’d gotten a chance to compare and contrast various greenhouses. Yours were certainly much larger than anything I had planned, but I know your advice about which small commercial greenhouse would best suit my needs would have been invaluable. Maybe I’ll find my answers in the posts at Allotment Vegetable Growing. It was one of several gardening sites where Paul hung out, including the Chilis Galore and Growing Potatoes forums. I’ve been promised some of the chile pepper seeds. Paul Jones was an unusual combination of a programmer and a gardener. He could look at a page of code and instantly see what others had spent hours trying to find — the source of a coding error. He had a real talent for it.

Yabs, thank you also for toiling relentlessly in an effort to get fruits and vegetables to display (with rotating images) on client Dana Slatkin’s website. You even forgave me for sending the multi-gigabyte, infamous “archives.zip” file containing all of the client’s numerous images. I figured you’d tease me forever about that one. (Were you a saint?!!!) And you’d get a kick out of hearing that our clueless music festival client of last fall actually had the cajones to cheerfully write me while Cherie was visiting. As if nothing were wrong, clueless client emailed seeking assistance with his Google Analytics account. Really. I ignored his first email, hoping against hope that he’d take that as a “no.”. A few hours later, an identical email appeared. And also one from his boss. I wrote his boss and said we hadn’t worked on the account in over six months and, besides, I had houseguests. Priorities, you know. I think the festival owner is annoyed with me. Do I care? No. I know you wouldn’t care, either. We’d have had a good laugh over that one.

Paul’s favorite charity was The Woodland Trust. Founded in 1972, it’s the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. Plant a tree in Yabba’s memory.

If I could be in the U.K. on Monday for his services, I’d wear my authentic 1970s hippie chick dress and would be humming this song:

Bob on, mate. Thank you for sharing so freely and cheerfully with all of us. Read another heartfelt post about Yabba.

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Easter Bunny Appears in Hodgenville, KY

pajamadeen — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 23:57:18 +0000

We’d like to thank the Easter Bunny for putting in an appearance today in Hodgenville, Ky. How did he know that we are fond of Dove bars? How did he know that we have some difficulty consuming figural chocolates shaped like…oh, the Easter bunny? The Easter bunny must have taken lessons from Wrinkled Randy. Mrs. Easter Bunny appears to have stayed home, in this delightful and fanciful c. 1907 Easter holiday postcard, embossed and gilded, with a mother rabbit in a red dress and her child rabbit holding up a sign that reads: “Be Sure and Have a Good Time.” Like all the best bunnies of the time, this holiday postcard was published in Germany. And we do hope you’ve had a Happy Easter! Always be grateful for what you have, and treasure those around you (lest you end up like this.

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