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THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Chronological Account of the Weiss family with contextual remarks, some weather, sports and other news. You can write to me at: mhw20854@yahoo.com The people in the Weiss family are: Martin, Ann, Beth and George. I also sometimes write about other people or our pet.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Law and Order - Traffic Cam

We got a traffic ticket in the mail courtesy of the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration's traffic camera system. The information in the ticket stated the time and location of the infraction (driving 42 mph in a 30 mph zone). It was the Hyundai which is mostly driven by George but the time period was one in which Beth was home and sporatically using a car. George immediately went into investigative mode and got a record of his cell phone calls that day and various other information on his whereabouts. As happens (probably a lot in real life), the information he obtained did not provide anything conclusive about where he was at the exact time of the apparent violation.

Email from Beth later indicated that she was using that car that day in the vicinity of the incident.

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:31 AM

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Another $6 Haircut; Another Geopolitical Discussion

I had my previous $6 haircut on July 26. At that time, the barber complained that the President of Pakistan was also head of the Army. Well yesterday's (Aug 30)newspaper indicated that the Pres of Pakland was going to resign his military post.

After fielding some questions about the 1980s civil war in Angola, one of the barber's friends came in and complained that the barber wasn't going to Disabled Vet Meetings like he promised. I pointed out that the barber had complained about the Pres of Pakistan beign head of the Army the previous time I had a haircut and sure enough, this fellow was resigning his position according to the newspaper. The barber's friend got a kick out of it.

The barber pointed out that lots of other people were complaining about it. I responded that "yes, millions of Pakistani people have been protesting for a half decade but it wasn't until YOU PERSONALLY made your position known that the situation changed." The barber's friend was really smiling at this point.

On my way out the barber complained to me about the DC government's management of its trade schools. Hmmm. I was thinking of responding,

"You know its one thing to get positive change in a country 7000 miles away where people don't speak English and where a large section of the population hates America. - that we can do. But you want positive change in the DC Government. Dream on!"

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:19 PM

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

An Amusing Moment at a Staff Meeting

I normally dread staff meetings. Probably I'm not alone in this. We had one of those today. At one point, the people were introducing themselves and discussing goals for the next fiscal year. The two people before me both mentioned procurement problems to solve which is reasonable because our acquisition management situation is just short of a nightmare on stilts. So I began my presentation with the phrase,

"My name is Martin and I've been dealing with procurement problems in this office for 14 years." I then commented, "You know this sounds like I'm attending a 12-step program."

One person (who was attending the meeting by telephone conferencing) then commented,

"Well the first step is when you admit you have a problem."

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:21 PM

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Over the counter Medicine Works - Yay.

Yesterday (Aug 27) early am I was in pain. The left side of my back hurt and it was almost impossible to bend down and pick up the newspaper.

I used two applications of a generic version of Lanacane ointment and some sodium naproxin. A few hours later I felt fine.

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:45 PM

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Our Stuffed Animal Likes to sing during Grace After Meal

Our stuffed Alligator (earlier noted June 19 2007), joined up for Grace After Meals. He (Alligator) likes the parts that proclaim God's kindness to all living things, and granting all living things what they need. He particularly likes the wish that the merciful one will bring Alligator the Prophet (he thinks the book incorrectly calls it Elijah the Prophet) to announce goodness.

The Alligator dances also.

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:17 AM

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Iris Exchange

Yesterday I received my second free bunch of Iris roots of the year. I've been giving away some of my pink, dark purple and champagne yellow iris roots to people asking for them. Two people have asked for ch-yellow iris roots this year (I received the initial champagne iris roots from my sister in law).

The ch-yellow irises in our yard grow so well that the ones at the end of the garden bend over before they get their last blossoms, but until then they look quite nice. Also, they didn't have a nice smell until the second year after I planted them but they do now and because there are a lot of them, people walking by on the sidewalk get a nice aromatic treat.

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:31 PM

After 3 innings the Orioles led 3-0 and it seemed a normal game but

Even after 5 innings, with Texas leading 5-3 it seemed a normal game.

Then, Texas scored 9 runs in the 6th, 10 runs in the 8th and 6 runs in the 9th. For a 30-3 win (Texas also had 29 hits). Texas had 28 runs in their previous 9 games.

There were many records broken:

Most lopsided loss by an Oriole team (franchise history including St L) ever.
Most hits given up by an Oriole team ever.

Most runs scored in a game by one team since June 28, 1897 (when Chicago - they were called the Colts then - beat Louisville 36-7)).

Most hists since Aug 28, 1992 (when Milwaukee had 31 hits in a 22-2 victory vs. Toronto).

It was the first game of a doubleheader (the Balt-Texas game on Aug 20 was postponed because of rain) and Texas set its record for runs in a doubleheader before the first out of the 2nd game. Texas beat Balt 9-7 in the second game, so the combined scores of the two games was 39-10.

Texas now holds the American League record for runs in a double header (Detroit had the record at 36 in games played in 1937).

Texas tied the AL record for at bats with 57.

Interestingly, although this game represented something of a discontinuity from the typical arc of the season, one thing was consistent with continuity: Texas batters have been striking out a lot this week.

Texas batters struck out 11 times in the first game and 8 times in the second game on Aug 22. Texas batters struck out 11 times in the game (the Orioles won 6-2) Aug 21.

(so Balt batters struck out 10 times in the 3 game series while Texas batters struck out 30 times)

Texas batters struck out 19 times in the game (the Twins won 1-0) Aug 19.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia (who began the game batting .179 and ended the game at .262) and Ramon Vazquez , the bottom two batters in Texas' lineup, each homered twice and finished with seven RBIs. The last time two teammates had as many as seven RBIs in a game was 1962, when Elston Howard had eight and Mickey Mantle added seven for the New York Yankees against the Kansas City Athletics.

Baltimore's ERA went from 4.39 to 4.60 (in the first game).

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:09 AM

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Metaphor Alert

We were having a meeting at work. We were discussing the situation with one of our on site contractors. They have exhausted their time to be allowed to have small business preference and another contractor has been tentatively selected.

While our contractor does provide some good people to help us, some of their administrative work lately hasn't been too good.

One of our people indicated that the old contractor is mentoring the new contractor.

I said, "Isn't that a little like Stevie Wonder mentoring the Optimalogist Convention."

End of Meeting.

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:46 PM

Monday, August 20, 2007

Beth Departs - Sigh

We took Beth to BWI yesterday as part of her journey back to Jerusalem. BWI to Hartsfield, Atlanta, Hartsfield to BenGurionIntl, sharoot to Jerusalem. It's probably about a 20 hour journey with the various wait times. She made several fairwell calls in the car on the way to the airport. BWI has a nice observation deck where we passed some time before she went through the security gate. Beth claims to be good at spacing out. This really helps when doing long travel -- I'm not good at this; I need to read something and I also need to get up and stretch because my legs get very uncomfortable if I don't.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:48 AM

Sunday, August 19, 2007

The upside of messing up

G had a problem. His diploma came in a tube that was pretty tightly sealed and contained no directions on unsealing it. He came to me for direction. I tore a bit of what appeared to be a second cover (over the tube material) and there was an apparent joint between the two haves of the tube. I worked the joint until the joint failed and the tube came apart. The result was that the diploma was nicely torn in two.

The upside: less to do since G will think twice before asking for direction again.

posted by Martin Weiss # 2:55 PM

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

New Blog for Beth

She has moved to:

http://www.jtownponderings.blogspot.com/

from:

http://www.jtownponderings.blog-city.com/

Thus she now joins the rest of the family at blogspot (a free - for now- site owned by Google).

posted by Martin Weiss # 11:34 AM

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Baseball's big number Monuments of 2007

So far this year,
Barry Bonds (SF) hit his 756th HR (Aug 7)
Tom Glavine (NYMets) got 300th win (Aug 5)
Alex Rodriquez (NYYankees) got 500th HR (Aug 2)
Roger Clemons (NYYankees) got 350th win (July 2)
Craig Biggio (Houst) got 3,000th hit (June 28)
Frank Thomas (Toronto) got 500th HR (June 28)
Sammy Sosa (Texas) got 600th HR (June 20)
Trevor Hoffman (SDiego) got 500th save (June 6)

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:02 PM

Trip to Deep Creek Lake

Aug 6-8, the 4 Weisses took a trip to the Deep Creek Lake area.

We also had a bunch of sidetrips and misc stops.

Everyone was very impressed with the wood working shop at the Penn Daw area in Garrett county and with the man made white water rafting course at McHenry and with the helpfulness of Mr. Kramer (who owns Kramer's deli in the C&O Canal historic site in Cumberland, Md.). On this latter point, Mr. Kramer volunteered to drive me to AutoZone so I could get radiator fluid at a better price than I would if I went to the Citgo station around the corner. Of course, it turned out that what I needed was a new battery (also procured at the AutoZone after getting a jump starts (one at the historic site and one at the Citgo site). The Citgo fellow didn't charge me for the start. The AutoZone fellow let me bring the old battery back after we had the new one installed (this for a recycling refund).

G was dissappointed we didn't get to visit the Max Security prison in the Cumberland area (had to cancel it because of the car problem. We had some nice dialogue on this:

M - I'd like you to wear some decent clothes.
G - Why, they are just prisoners?
M - Yet but one of the inmates could eventually be a Supreme Court judge someday.
G - and you better watch what you say when you tour the prison.
M - Why?
G- because you'll be really near the prison.

We also had a nice boat ride on Deep Creek Lake (all 4) and a visit to Swallow Falls (all but Ann) and various other touristy things.

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:07 AM

Thursday, August 02, 2007

M in Wisconsin (July 30-Aug 1)

I should have left Natl Airport at 7am but had to be available to brief the Administrator on a non existe.ant highway project. The briefing was cancelled. So I left on a pm flight an got into Wiscon about 5 pm. I picked up two people and drove to Lancaster and had supper with the mayor. Among the things I learned was that in SW Wisc. a number of dairy farmers are trading their cows for goats. The latter produce less but the product sells for more per gallon. It turns out, among other things, that goat cheese in very 'in' and also that many lactose intolerant people can eat feta cheese. The next day I went to E Dubuque to see a coal to liquids site (they are currently making anhydrous ammonia from natural gas but will start using coal to produce a variety of things - ammonia, a petroleum product, elemental sulfur and elemental mercury). Then we went to the site of a future national beer museum in Petosi. The town has about 180 population but they beat out Milwaukee and St Louis for the location of the museum. A retired teacher is the coordinator of the effort and has raised about $4.5M (he will need another $1M) for this to work. Federal Highway Administration and other grants were about $1M. There is a new restaurant across the street that sits 150 people. They had a fundraising concert the previous month and raised $40k. I also visited some flood damaged scenic area, a state chartered rail road and a wind farm and a historic brewery that was turned into a micro brew plus a hotel./retaurant (that was in Mineral Point). It was a long day (left motel at 745am arrived back at 930pm). The next day I visited two ethanol plants, one of which was under construction and will be affixed to a milling plant (first of its kind in the US). The trip was to do site surveys for a perspective on the impact of the new types of energy companies. The afternoon of the ethanol plant trip I was the first HQ visitor at the new Wisconsin division office. Later I met the Deuholms (friends from College) for beer at the student union. Very nice trip (although some days were very long).

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:12 PM

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