THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Fixed (sort of) Beth's Blog

Beth has a blog at: http://www.jtownponderings.blog-city.com/.

The blog post rules had been set to only show the previous 3 posts. Beth sent me her ID and code so I could change it. It now allows 32 posts to show. The blog host (blog-city.com) allows no more post space than the current amount of posts so when Beth has more posts, I'll have to redo the fix. Oh darn. After looking at Beth's site I think the color posting add something. So from now on, I'll be color posting my blog.

Leaves and Grass

The past two days have been somewhat misty with little sunlight. As a result, the leaves on the grass have been wet and have started to decompose a bit. Among the first decomposition products of leaves are esters. Esters frequently have nice smells as in the table below:

methyl butanoate smells of pineapple
methyl salicylate (oil of wintergreen) smells of the ointments called Germolene™ and Ralgex™ in the UK
methyl benzoate smells of marzipan
ethyl methanoate smells of raspberry
ethyl butanoate smells of pineapple
pentyl ethanoate smells of banana
pentyl pentanoate smells of apple
pentyl butanoate smells of pear or apricot
octyl ethanoate smells of orange

which I found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester

Our leaves today seem to have a slightly peach-like oder which isn't in the table above. I mowed today. The nice oder was reduced but still present.

Red Sox Win and KBL's Party

The Red Sox swept the Cardinals 4-0 yesterday (after 4 wins in a row vs. the Yankees) for their first world series since 1918 (the year they famously traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees). There was a full eclipse of the moon at the time the final out came.

Ann and I are in Atlanta (yesterday and today) visiting Ann's mom who had a party and 88th birthday and 3rd retirement celebration (her last job was only about 6 hours a week but she did it for about 8 years; it involved review of State medicare claims). About 80 people came. Ann's brother arranged for an open bar (I'm drinking beer left over from the party today).

Bear Hunt

Maryland had its first bear hunt in 51 years yesterday (it was a one day hunt). The Dept of Natural Resources approved the hunt because of a worrisome increase in the bear population. About 40 bear were killed. Various groups protested.

Cruise Highlights & the Red Sox

A and M returned from a New England and Maritime Province cruise today.

Highlights

Oct 17 - Dulles to JFK; took shuttle to Pier about 50th St. Saw the remains of the 1964 World's fair on the way; also went around Central Park. We had a very nice view of the statue of Liberty on the way out of NYC harbour.

Oct 18 - At sea. Nice long exercise session, jacuzzi and sauna and A and M say "Harry Potter - The Prisoner of Askaban".

Oct 19 - Halifax, Nova Scotia. City seemingly doing pretty well. We went to the Citadel fort and around the old municipal part of Halifax and to the city arboreteum. The arboreteum and much of Halifax suffered from Hurricane Juan in 2002. Many of the old trees were blown down - a lot of damage to structures.

Oct 20 - St John, New Brunswick. Saw the reversing rapids (at confluence of St John River and Bay of Fundy, the water flows towards the Bay of Fundy at low tide but the other way during high tide and the rapids, about a 7 ft drop in elevation, reverses also). Saw the Jewish Museum and a lot of the Municipal area.

Oct 21 - Bar Harbour (pronounced Ba Ha Ba). Saw the cottages (actually mansions) left by the rich of the 19th century (the locals called them Rusticators). By the late 1900s, there were 3 churchs in the city. One was for the Rusticators (Episcapol), one for the servants of the Rusticators (Catholic) and one for the locals (Congregationalist). The Episcapol church has some beautiful tiffany stained glass windows. There is also a civil war monument which, although dedicated to Union troops, mistakenly placed a Confederate soldier at the top of the monument. The city located the statute they were supposed to have, it, of course, was in the south and was dedicated to Confederate troops but with a Union soldier at the top. Both cities decided to leave it as it was. That night, the Red Sox beat the Yankees in game 7 of the LCS. The Sox were down 3-0 after 3 games and this was the first come from 0-3 win in playoff history (over a hundred years).

Oct 22 - Boston -- It was raining and I had a cold so we stayed aboard ship.

Oct 23 - Newport -- Saw the coloniel heritage. About 200 buildings from before 1776 still there. Most have been preserved in the past 3 decades. The Tuoro Synagogue is still functioning but is now a terrorist target and has metal detectors, etc. That night we say Spiderman 2.

Oct 24 - returned to NYC Harbour. Took awhile to get a shuttle to actually leave the port area (one passenger was waiting at the wrong place); we just missed the 1230 JFK flight back to Dulles. The 230pm flight from JFK was delayed about 45 minutes due to weather conditions at Dulles. The shuttle at Dulles was very quick however and we got back to the house about 615pm

Electric Bill

We got a huge bill for the month ending Sept 27. I went out to read the meter and it seems the electric company misread the hundreds digit. Ann showed me the bill which also has the previous months on it. It turns out they didn't read the meter at all in July so the Aug reading was high. I think the electric company really, really wants to torture us into going to the level payment plan.

G helps with the Sukkah then off to NYC

While here, we were watching a repeat of "Angel", G noted that he not only looks like Wesley Wynham Price (played by Alex Denisof) but since G is studying Aramaic grammer and kindred subjects, G is actually becoming Wesley.

G finished helping me deconstruct the Sukkah about noon or so and then by 245 he was off to NYC.

Baby Snakefish Caught

Back on May 4th, a pond was drained and no baby snakefish were found. The city breathed easier. Yesterday, in a bay near the Mt Vernon mansion, a fisherman netted a 3" long baby snakefish. Is it time to panic yet?

Baseball Season Ends

The Orioles improved their starting pitching quite a bit in the second half of the year but the relief pitching was still poor. Miguel Tejada (SS) ended the season with 150 RBIs, a team record and one of only 2 dozen MOB players to get 150 RBIs. Brian Roberts (2B) broke the club record for doubles with 50. Melvin More (3B) had a team single season record .340 BA. In his 5th year with MN, Johan Santana had a post All Star game record of 13-0 with an ERA of 1.22 (20-6 overall and 2.61) In the NL, Barry Bonds ended the year with a league best .362 BA, 232 walks (a record), on base average of .609 and slugging average of .812 (also a record). Also in the NL another 40 year old, Roger Clemens was 18-4 with a 2.98 ERA and struck out 218. Ichiro Suzuki had 262 hits (breaking George Sisler's 80 year old record). Greg Maddux won 15 games (actually 16-11) for the 10 time in a row. Expos played their last game in Montreal where their record 2,753-2,943 record. Jason Schmidt of SF finished the year with 251 Ks breaking Juan Marichal's 1963 record. Julio Franco (1B for Atlanta), at 46 finished with a BA of .309 (also 3 Triples and 4 SB).