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My brother sent us an email describing our father's wedding. Dad seems to wonder why we aren't blessing his (fourth!) marriage. Ask him sometime about not attending his own daughter's ceremony but instead going to a his neice by second marriage. Those rose-coloured "love" glasses never seem to allow him the clarity of thought to realize that: having a torrid affair and leaving your first marriage, ignoring the children of your first marriage for years on end, walking out on your second marriage, having a fancy third marriage on the west coast to a rather cold woman with minimal "friendliness" skills and then, surprise, the marriage doesn't last very long. And now marrying once again. Yawn. Ho hum. I hope he's happy but don't expect cries of jubilation from here. He's getting old enough now, that I wonder who will show up at his funeral. I will be there if I possibly can, of course, but will I have much company?

Email withdrawn at Tom's request.

It seems my brother didn't want to reveal his "news and views" about our father's wedding to his fourth wife to the world — just to his siblings. Pity. Perhaps it was the not too flattering description of my father's new wife or maybe his reactions about our father's new step-family. Apparently they had a good time at the wedding reception and that's the main thing. Any time is a good time for a party!

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My nephew, Ryan O'Donohue, sent me a charming poem via his Mom, my sister. The "Basement Dwellers" refers to the fact the the O'Donohues have been living in the basement of their house while a second floor is added and the first floor is renovated — since about mid-July. I saved his Word document as html and copied the html here.

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The edge of the low pressure system which used to be hurricane Isadore gave southern Ontario a good soaking today. It has been months since we have had a rain like that — at least during the day. Fortunately I have been so busy C++ coding at work this past couple of weeks, even through most of my lunch hours, I barely noticed the weather.

Speaking of coding, I am getting the knack of using C++ templates, the Standard Template Library (STL) and type-safe iostreams. There's some cool things (well at least for me) you do can do. These things include having "magic" static constants that automatically get read or written to an ODBC database connection, connections to several databases managed by one function with a static std::map variable, using std::auto_ptr's for automatic pointer deletion, templates for type-safe input and output. The large program I am working on used to have a hard-coded "tree of if statements" set of rules which created a 10,000 element linear programming (LP) matrix. This code was hard to understand and maintain especially if a particular rule had to be changed or there was an error in the output LP matrix. Now these rules are contained in a text file and I use the STL to create structures such as std::map, std::vector and std::set to process inputs and create the LP matrix. Perhaps, it is not quite as fast as the set of if statements but rule errors and changes are much easier to implement without a program recompilation.

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1. Aquadextrous (ak wa deks'trus) adj. Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub tap on and off with your toes.
2. Carperpetuation (kar'pur pet u a shun) n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
3. Disconfect (dis kon fekt') v. To sterilize the piece of confection (lollipop) you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, assuming this will somehow 'remove' all the germs.
4. Elbonics (el bon'iks) n. The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater.
5. Frust (frust) n. The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dust pan and keeps backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug.
6. Lactomangulation (lak' to man gyu lay' shun) n. Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk container so badly that one has to resort to the 'illegal' side.
7. Peppier (peph ee ay') n. The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole purpose seems to be walking around asking diners if they want fresh ground pepper.
8. Phonesia (fo nee' zhuh) n. The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting whom you were calling just as they answer.
9. Pupkus (pup'kus) n. The moist residue left on a window after a dog presses its nose to it.
10. Telecrastination (tel e kras tin ay' shun) n. The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away.

Source: lockergnome newsletter
Forwarded by Wayne Clark

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I am the bass section leader for a community choir in Oakville. Unfortunately I have a conflict with their Christmas concert dates as they are the same as the dates for the Bell'Arte Singers. More's the pity as the major work is the Beethoven Mass in C. I have made enquiries much not had much success at finding a substitute for me. For now I'll continue "section leading" and trust that my fellow community choir basses will learn the repertoire well enough so that they can sing it without me.

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I love running on Sunday mornings as it is quieter on the streets and I can listen to Choral Concert as I run. Today's major work was Handel's Israel in Egypt. There is one chorus than mentions pestilence however it came out sounding like pencils. "He gave them pencils" was repeated several times just in case I had any doubt. That's nice, God gave the children of Israel, or perhaps the Egyptians, pencils. Did He give them paper, too? Was paper even invented yet let alone pencils?

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The back deck has a few boards starting to rot so I have decided to remove them all and replace them. The major rot problem was caused by the having the 16 foot long deck constructed with 14 foot boards butted to 2 foot boards. At each of those butt joints, rot has started and, in some cases, even spread to the joist below. The other problem was the use of galvanized nails which eventually corrode and sometimes pop up which makes it difficult to refinish. Anyway I had replaced about a half dozen of the most rotten boards with screwed down pressure-treated stock about two or three years ago.

After some research I found I could use pressure-treated lumber (cheap), cedar (more expensive), a plastic-wood composite (very expensive). Because the deck is under a tree I don't think cedar would last very many years so I am opting for the cheaper alternative of pressure treated lumber. As I am starting "fresh", so to speak, I am going to use brackets attached to the joists and screwed underneath to the deck boards so there won't be any surface attachment markings at all.

Today I took off the railing and 2x2 supports. There sure was a lot of those! I had enough time before supper to take the nails out of two of the boards. I have found the easiest way to do this is to pound a small crowbar under the nail head with a hammer and then pry up slightly. Then I take a 1 m crowbar and pry the nail out the rest of the way. Still it is tedious work with about 30 nails per board. My aim is to have the deck surface finished before my wife's family comes for (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner in about three weeks time.

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My younger son's assignment seemed to be a short essay on "The End Justifies the Means". For bonus marks he had to find out who coined the phrase so he asked if I knew. Being a humble engineer I didn't. Nevertheless, after a little searching with Google both quoting and unquoting the phrase and also adding quotation to the search string I came up with the most probable answer that Nicolo Machiavelli said it first in The Prince. That's the answer the teacher was looking for so we got the bonus marks.

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How do you know when it's time to tune your bagpipes?

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This slogan appears at the top of my Royal Bank VISA bill. This month's statement had one item:

Sep 13 VISA FEE 110.00

The only I reason I obtained this card was:

1. no fee
2. some places in Europe don't except the MasterCard I usually use
3. Did I mention no fee?

I phoned the 1-800 customer service number and, after punching through some voice menus got "Mike" on the phone. After proving I am who I said I am (birthdate, credit limit, etc) he told me "there's been an error" and this charge will be removed. Since the statement processing is totally automated, this looks like a tweaking bug in their software or database rules. One must be ever vigilant.

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"In the beginning the world was without form, and void. And God said 'Let there be light'. And God separated the light from the dark. And did two loads of laundry."

Kevin Krisciunas

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The Bell'Arte Singers, the fine, nay superb, choir I belong to, retreated to the Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts about midway between the Hanlan's Point and the Centre Island Toronto Islands' ferry stops. It was a day for singing, rehearsing, relaxing and meeting choir and board members. The forecast rain never appeared though the weather was typically Toronto hot and humid. A cooling lake breeze in the afternoon was most refreshing.

In addition to rehearsing together and in sectionals for our upcoming concerts (see right side panel) our special guest was Timothy I-didn't-catch-his-last-name. He is or will be composing a piece for our May 2003 concert. Tim led us through some interesting rhythm and song exercises. Though they were fun to try I always have difficulties. I believe I can tap my foot and count well enough to come in or out of the choral tapestry at the appropriate times; however, I start to screw up just adding hand clapping, for example. One such exercise involved clapping every fourth beat and singing a dotted half rhythm, half, dotted quarter, quarter, etc. Too bad I couldn't have experienced my wife's early childhood music education program at the Toronto French School when I was a child. Good thing I don't chew gum or I would never be able to pat my stomach!

In the evening we enjoyed a potluck supper and BBQ viands provided by the BAS board. Our music director, Dr. Lee Willingham, showed great dedication in directing us all day and barbecuing in the evening despite being afflicted with a cold. My wife and I received a framed poster of our Italy tour as thanks from the board and choir members for our work as Music Librarians. We appreciate the gesture greatly; though, perhaps, it comes with the price of having to continue the job for some time in the future. Once the music is obtained and handed out we can enjoy the rehearsals like everyone else. Their is no greater joy (for a music librarian, anyway) than if all the music is handed back in and accounted for after a concert. This season also starts off well for us as we have managed to sort, file and record in a spreadsheet all the original scores in the BAS music library over the summer.

I would also like to apologise to my wife for creating a misunderstanding and not making her a sandwich for lunch. Sometimes I talk, sometimes I listen and, sometimes, I do neither or both at the wrong time.

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• Great Truths About Life That Little Children Have Learned
• No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
• When your Mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair.
• If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
• Never ask your 3-year-old brother to hold a tomato.
• You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
• Reading what people write on desks can teach you a lot.
• Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
• Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a tic-tac.
• Never hold a dust buster and a cat at the same time.
• School lunches stick to the wall.
• You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
• Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts. No matter how cute the underwear is.

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All teachers have probably experienced a child with great story telling abilities. Check this one!

Show and Tell Birth Stories by Irene Zutell (a grade school teacher)

Usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it to school and talk about it, they're welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very out-going kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater. She holds up a snapshot of an infant.

"This is Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday. First, Mommy and Daddy made him as a symbol of their love, and then Daddy put a seed in my mother's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord." She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had a video camera rolling. The kids are watching her in amazement.

"Then, about two Saturdays ago, my mother starts going, 'Oh, oh, oh!'" Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. "She walked around the house for,like an hour, "Oh, oh, oh!'" Now the kid's doing this hysterical duck-walk, holding her back and groaning. "My father called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my mother to lie down in bed like this." Erica lies down with her back against the wall.

"And then, pop! My mother had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!" The kid has her legs spread and with her little hands is miming water flowing away. It was too much!

"Then the middle wife starts going push, push, and breathe, breathe. They start counting, but they never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff they said was from the play-center, so there must be a lot of stuff inside there."

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest.

Ever since then, if it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder — just in case another Erica comes along.

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At about a quarter to nine in the morning a colleague got a call from his wife about a jumbo jet crashing into one of the World Trade Center towers. His natural reaction was "you've gotta be kidding". Sad to say it was true. A true-to-life movie special effect, more horrifying than any movie. Those weren't extras or stunt people — just people like you and I at work in those tall towers. It still seems incredible. Did the perpetrators, other than the so-called "martyrs" on the planes, know how "successful" their mission would be? The U.S.A. has moved on but, how, how can one fight against fanaticism especially without usurping everyone's personal freedoms?

Why did it happen? I am sure there will be as many reasons as persons who senselessly died in the tragedy. According to articles I have read, 9/11 was being planned for at least a couple of years, perhaps longer. Being of a non-violent nature myself I really can't conceive how these people could plan such destruction.

My thoughts and prayers are with the victims' families today. I'm sure the extensive news coverage is poking into some deep emotional wounds that have barely started to heal. What can anyone say to assuage this deep sorrow? Extend a hand in friendship, provide a shoulder to cry on, one can't know their pain but one can try and understand and sympathize with their feelings.

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The Bell'arte Singers had their first rehearsal for the 2002 - 2003 season. This year we'll be presenting the Mozart Requiem and the Te Deums by Mozart and Haydn along with the Bach-Elgar choir in October. We will perform the Requiem again with the Oshawa-Durham Symphony in January. Our own season includes a Chrismas concert and Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms at the beginning of March, 2003. I was glad to see our director also pulled out O Ignis Spiritus by Imant Raminish. We performed this a couple of years ago but it's a tricky piece so I am sure I can learn to perform even better than the last time. My "September voice" is out of practice and dry on account of the anti-ragweed-histamine pills I have to take at this time of year. I look forward to the first frosts which get rid of this particular problem.

The rehearsal venue is not far from my sister's place. Her roof has been raised, the second floor put in, the first floor gutted to the walls. Now there are stairs to the second floor and partition walls have been put on the first floor. My nephews and niece showed off their rooms complete with their very own closets! It will only a few short (long for them :-) weeks I imagine until they can move out of the basement.

Last stop was a visit to my wife's parents. My mother-in-law is feeling much better after her fall causing a dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone and broken ankle in June. She's starting to bowl again and do the household chores much to the relief of my father-in-law. He was with his Shriners group during the day helping to serve hot dogs (about 900 he thought!) at a kids' soccer tournament. I BBQ the supper (no hotdogs!) and then we played cribbage for a few rounds before going home more that 12 hours after we left.

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This one makes sense, which is why it's so pernicious. But it's still wrong.

Meteoroids are tiny bits of dust, rock, ice or metal that have the unfortunate luck of having their orbits intersect the Earth's. When they pass through our atmosphere, they are heated so ferociously that they glow (and at this point are called meteors), and are visible for hundreds of miles.

However, it is not friction that heats them. Think of it this way: a space shuttle's tiles are extremely delicate; they crumble easily in your hand. If they were heated by friction as the shuttle de-orbits and enters the atmosphere at Mach 25, the tiles would disintegrate. That's not a very good design characteristic.

In reality, it isn't friction, but ram pressure that heats the meteoroid. When a gas is compressed it gets hot, like when a bicycle pump is vigorously used to inflate a tire. A meteoroid, moving at 33,500 mph (15 kilometers a second) or more compresses the air in front of it violently. The air itself gets very hot, which is what heats the meteoroid. That's the fact, not friction.

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I've set this email as a priority tonight so that it gets done. It has been busy,busy, busy here which is pretty standard for Prem Center. We're now into our third week of school, hard to believe that Cdn school aren't back in session yet. Last week was probably our hardest yet. Crawford had one of the worst viruses yet experienced by his parents. It started with a fever a week ago Saturday. With Advil he slept through the night. On the Sunday he got worse so we took him to the hospital, when they took his temperature (39+) they immediately started to sponge him down, even before the doctor saw him. The Dr. said it was a virus with no secondary infection so he didn't want to prescribe an anti-biotic (a rarity in Thailand, but welcome by us after his last reaction to an anti-biotic). By Sunday evening Crawford had a cough as well as the fever that continued to spike up through the advil. Not a lot of sleep that night as we had to periodically sponge him down to help fight the fever. The neck night it was the seal bark cough that kept us all awake, however the fever had broken. Crawford ended yup missing the whole week of school, His Birthday passed on Tuesday without any fanfare. No Day in the life pictures as we didn't really want to be remembering this. On Friday we had scheduled a party with nine children invited as well as their parents. We decided to go ahead with the party although Crawford was really only operating at 50 to 60%. Sunday we did take pictures and open some gifts and today he was back at school.

Also last week Chrissy was in week two of a Thai language course that she's taking two hours a day five days a week and I had a curriculum evening and a couple of after school meetings. Thank goodness for Ah.

Chrissy and I did manage to go out for dinner for our anniversary on Sat. night (again thanks to Ah) at a restaurant called the Antique House, near the river and the night market.

I imagine that we'll still be a few days relaxing again, but boy is it good not to have a whining, clinging, sick little boy around. We've got the smiley, game playing one again.

Most of the resident kids have now had the same sickness, and quite a few of the new staff. Chrissy and I have gotten away with mild cases of the runs and a few headaches.

Robert

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Hello to you all,

Hope you are all well. It hardly seems possible that September is here already. The summer has gone so quickly. It has been a predominantly hot and dry summer here, where 'hot' means into the 80's and dry means brown 'grass' everywhere. Today, although the sun is out now, we have had some uncharacteristically heavy rain showers to greet the first day back at school. Fortunately, the rain did not start until after Samra and I had finished our morning walk.

This is primarily to advise you that we did not send wedding invitations to family and friends who are a long way away. At the same time though, we assure any and all of those people that if they happen to be in the neighbourhood of Vancouver on September 28th, they are very welcome to attend the wedding and the reception afterward. Also, we are asking that everyone, whether near or far away, to please consider sending a donation to the charity of their choice in lieu of a wedding gift.

I talked to Tom last evening. He is still looking for a full time job, and has just about decided that they must leave Victoria for him to find something. His spirits are still pretty good. We are looking forward to seeing them all here on the 28th weekend.

Love,

Dad / Grandpa

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Son's Accident #1 — Wed. evening

My son's in our '92 car with his girlfriend waiting to left turn. The tow truck in front of them backs into the car trying to let a transport pass. The hood is buckled and gouged. They exchange insurance and address info. Tow truck operator says to get three estimates and they will foot the bill. Tow truck driver assures son that the hood still latches, only "about $400" of damage and the car is drivable.

Son's Accident #2 — Thurs. morning

Son checks hood and decides to secure with bungee cords, too. He drives girlfriend to work prior to getting damage estimates. Hood flies up and breaks windshield en route. Luckily no one is hurt and son pulls over to the shoulder. A young OPP officer doing radar duty on the other side comes over to investigate. Gives son a court summons for driving an unsafe vehicle and he asks son for a statement "which may be used against him in court". Son declines to give statement. Officer calls a tow truck and a taxi for the girlfriend. Car is towed (impounded?) to an autobody shop in Mississauga not too far from where I live.

Friday — Running Around

Had intended to take day off anyway but not spend it doing this stuff. Call insurance agent and give particulars. Find out that we didn't have collision on the '92 vehicle. We pick up damage estimate. Son takes lots of pictures. Son faxes estimate ($3,000+) to tow truck company and we visit Peel accident reporting centre at local police station. Accident took place in Halton region but he gave all sorts of advice. I try to get permission from autobody shop to release vehicle to tow truck company so that they can take it to their shop to get fixed. Autobody shop just wants $200 towing fee and $125 per day pound charges. I was told this was "standard industry practice". Beginning of long weekend so it was looking unlikely we were to get "loaner" car promised us from towing company.

Saturday — Stuck at Home waiting for phone calls

It took a Saturday of phoning and leaving messages to finally get a "loaner" car delivered by tow truck at about 10:30 p.m. Stress unbelieveable for wife and I. I had the cleanest colon in Mississauga that day! Son had the nerve to complain about the junky vehicle. The price was right, and he has a car again. When (and if since this sauga isn't done) this is over we'll have a talk with my son. If he feels hard done by the arrangements we've made and with all the stress his mother and I went through. Fine. He can go out get his own insurance as an under-25 single male. Last time I checked the premium was about $5,000 per year.

Rest of Labour Day Weekend

I can't say that it has been that enjoyable; however, we could forget the situation until Tuesday. I had a couple pleasant walks with my wife. We caught up on our sleep and generally tried to relax a bit. Unfortunately resolving accident and loaner car details did us out of a chance to do some visiting. Sigh!

Lessons Learned So Far

1. Drive or have vehicle towed whatever the damage to collision reporting centre.
2. Check with insurance agent about what to do next. Don't let a roadside tow truck operator tow vehicle to an autobody shop compound — they'll charge pound fees unless they fix it.

To be continued...

You can be sure on that!