Walt Whitman

Today is Walt Whitman's (or as Robin Williams called him Uncle Walt "the sweaty-toothed madman") birthday. I found this section of his 'Leaves of Grass' poem called 11-Sun-Down Poem. What a vivid description of the water at sun set.

11—Sun-Down Poem.

I too many and many a time crossed the river,
the sun half an hour high,

I watched the December sea-gulls, I saw them
high in the air floating with motionless
wings oscillating their bodies,

I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of
their bodies, and left the rest in strong
shadow,

I saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual
edging toward the south.


I too saw the reflection of the summer-sky in the
water.
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of
beams,

Looked at the fine centrifugal spokes of light
round the shape of my head in the sun-lit
water,

Looked on the haze on the hills southward and
southwestward,

Looked on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged
with violet,

Looked toward the lower bay to notice the arriv-
ing ships,

Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were
near me,

Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw
the ships at anchor,

The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride
the spars,

The round masts, the swinging motion of the
hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,

The large and small steamers in motion, the pi-
lots in their pilot-houses,

The white wake left by the passage, the quick
tremulous whirl of the wheels,

The flags of all nations, the falling of them at
sun-set,

The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the
ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glisten-
ing,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the
gray walls of the granite store-houses by the
docks,

On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-
tug closely flanked on each side by the
barges—the hay-boat, the belated lighter,

On the neighboring shore the fires from the foun-
dry chimneys burning high and glaringly into
the night,

Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild
red and yellow light, over the tops of houses,
and down into the clefts of streets.

Caroline Busting the Bongo

Here's a pic that Mike sent me of Caroline. Cool!

How to get kids interested in computers

Maybe you want you child to be less interested in computers, but heres a great link. Even an example of binary taught through vegetables.

Dylan's HOME!!

Wow, Great news about Dylan. Plus a new weblog his parents started.

Consultants and Sheep

Here's a funny story about some of the people we deal with at work. Very smart and well paid people, but sometimes, you have to question them.

A norwegian farmer is herding his gigantic herd of sheep when a tough new BMW 5 series pull up on the road next to his field. A young guy in a Broni dress with Gucci shoes, RayBans and a YSL tie sticks his head out the window and shouts to the farmer: 'If I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have, will you give me one of them?'
The farmer looks at the kid and says: Well, thats OK with me'. The guy pulls over to the side, opens his notebook on the hood, hooks it up to the latest Nokia cell phone, and surfs to a NASA site, and calls up a GPS sattelite navigation system, picks up their exact position, and feeds it to another NASA sattelite the takes an ultra high resolution photo of the field. Then he opens the digital image in Photoshop and exports it to another site: 'Image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany' . Within seconds he receives an e-mail on his palm pilot that reads 'picture processed and data stored. Then he logs in to an SQL database via ODBC and calls up an Excel sheet with hundres of built in formulas. Then he loads all the data to a Xircom and in an instant he receives an answer. Lastly he prints out a multicolor, 150 page report on his high tech mini HP color laserjet and glances at the last page:

'You have exactly 1586 animals' he says.

The farmer says its correct, so its ok that you take a sheep. Then he is watching while the kid picks an animal, and struggles to fit it in the trunk of the BMW. Finally he says: 'Hey you - if I can tell you what your job is, can I then have my sheep back?' The young guy thinks for a second and then says: 'Yeah, why not?'. The farmer says: 'you are a consultant'. 'Oh, my God, you are right', the guys says - 'how could you guess?' - 'I am not guessing' the farmer says 'You came here without me calling you, then you wanted me to pay you for an answer I already knew, even to a question I never asked - furthermore you have absolutely NO clue about my business! - So would you please open the trunk and give me my DOG back?'

Pictures on Request

We took this pic Saturday after a long day climbing "The Mountain". Isaac slid down and climbed back up time after time. The picture shows the results.

Star Wars and Imagination

We watched parts of Star Wars (see scene 28) with Isaac this weekend. Seeing the affect on Isaac made me marvel at the imagination of a young child. After seeing the pub scene with all the creatures; he had no problem inserting himself in the situation, with lightsaber attached to his belt of course, mingling with the creatures of the universe.

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
Jules de Gaultier

Nancy, you're in our thoughts

Here's a helpful link to help you prepare. I'm sure your bed will become a major battle ground/make-up table.

congratulations on a new baby brother, Christian. Better luck next time for Faith. :)

Interesting Airport Observation

Two guys headed to Iraq. And another great idea and story.
thanks guys.

More Dylan News

From Stacie, Dylan's mother,

"Well he did it, he is at 7 pounds 2.8 ounces and took all but about 19cc's from dad by bottle last night and then at 1200 took the entire bottle (62 cc's a little over 2 ounces)."

Kent State Aniversary

"a protest against the war in Vietnam, when a platoon of National guardsmen, for reasons nobody knows, turned and fired into a crowd of students and killed four of them. There was never a trial, and no one was ever disciplined."

I wonder if Mom has any recollection of this event. Very chilling.