Why Not Just Raise The Age to 65?

It seems the boy hasn't changed his mind, or gained any maturity since the age of 4.

BROOKLINE - When Eric Dumas was 4, he asked his father if a man standing nearby was going to die. Taken aback, his father, Rob, inquired why his son would ask such a question. His son’s response: “That person is smoking.’’

His dad didn't answer this way, but I would have. "Well son, everybody, including that man, will die someday." And, "People will often times do things that you think are against their own interests. But this is a free country and they have a right to be self-destructive."

Some WWII Aircraft From the A & S

The Japanese "Zero"



Spitfire, with elegant elliptical wings.



P-52 Mustang. Not as elegant as the Spitfire, but with laminar flow wings 100 mph faster and much greater range. Able to escort bombers all the way to Berlin.

Early Preview of Schedules to Come

Each of the three girls goes to a different school: The youngest to elementary school, where they only deal with pure things like Iron and Oxygen and no messy compounds like water or trans-fatty acids. The middle goes to, wait for it, middle school. And the oldest is in high school. Next school year, the youngest will be going to middle school, so there will be just two batches of kids to send off rather than three.

The preview is that my wife took the youngest to a wedding in LA and so I had only the two eldest to get on their way. Once the middle schooler went out the door I had two hours to kill before having to start work. Wow! It opened up such a nice big chunk of day.

I remember when I had to drop all three off at daycare,-three different places, on the way to work. Work which I had to be at an hour earlier than my current job. Things have essentially improved steadily since then. Schedule wise.

Boys And Amateur Sociology

Boys. Not mine, we only have girls:

Lately I've been reminded of how awful boys of a certain age can be. That age? Not sure, probably middle school aged, though they could have been in a final bit of grade school or early grade in high school. Let's settle on middle schoolers as a working hypothesis.

I am a normal looking guy, neither especially geeky nor notably handsome. So, to young people I am usually invisible, which is fine for me and I presume, fine for them*. But lately on lunchtime jogs I have had kids yelling obscenities at me from their bus and even throwing things at me from the windows. I suppose some of the explanation is that they feel safe. The bus is too fast for me to catch and they have a certain kind of mob mentality when they are grouped-up like that. I suspect none of these young boys would dare accost me if we were both on foot. So there is a bit of cowardice in play.

But why do it in the first place? This is not something any friend or I ever did at that age. I think class plays a role here. My office is in Billerica, which is mostly working class but I run a lot in Bedford which is mostly professional people. I have never been accosted in the Bedford part of my runs, but frequently in Billerica. It is well known that college educated professionals have much lower divorce rates than those with less education and so it might just come down to an absence of fathers in the households of these nascent hooligans.

*To confirm this, I asked my daughter, who runs on her high school track team, about this. She indicated that whenever a school bus goes by when they are jogging, their running group gets a similar treatment. Our town of Chelmsford is probably intermediate class-wise between the above two towns. It is possibly even more socially unacceptable to insult young women as adult men, but certainly less physically dangerous.

Added: I think it may always have been thus. This musing made me recall an encounter I had almost thirty year's ago. I was shopping at a supermarket in Spokane--I did most of the grocery shopping and a fair amount of the cooking when I home for the Summer from college. I ran into a man I knew from my dad's days in the Washington ANG. This guy had been a pilot or navigator and when he retired from that, he became a middle school teacher. We spoke a long time about family and whatnot, but one thing really stuck with me. He said that, "boys leave the human race for a while' but he added, "they come back".

More Grilling and Efficient Use of Charcoal

A couple of weeks ago we grilled for 18 people: Yesterday there were a total of 24 for the Memorial Day BBQ.

I got three loads of food out of one charge of Kingsford briquettes: First, a full load of tandoori chicken--mostly lid closed to ensure doneness. When that was finished, a full load of shish kabobs was done--lid open to char the meat without over cooking it. Finally, a load of burgers, hotdogs and Italian sausage.

There were tons of desserts and side dishes too, but I had no role in those other than eating them!

Plenty of drinks were had as well: The usual beer and wine, but also an easy Summer cocktail we came up with last year:

1 glass with a few ice cubes in it.
1 shot of gin or white rum poured over the ice.
1/2 can of Pelligrino Orange or Lemon soda.

(To conserve soda, just make two of these at a time--one for you and one for a guest)

Crazy Saturday, sedate Sunday

The day started early; I had a race in Bedford NH which started at 9:00 AM. As is common on these grand prix events, lots of people from the running club meet at a shopping center and carpool up. I ended taking two other guys up with me.

The run was fine, I took a minute longer than the last time I ran it a couple of years ago but still finished with roughly the same placement. Results are here. What I found interesting is that, of the members of our running club (42 finishers) the group I drove up with finished together. On one hand, it is almost inevitable in that we are roughly the same speed, but from a statistical standpoint, highly unlikely to happen by chance.

On a normal Saturday, if I did a race, then the rest of the day would be mostly lazing about. This day, we had a bunch of visiting relatives coming over--there would be 18 people counting our own family. I had to neaten up the out of doors part of the place and that involved a hour or so of lawn mowing. And my gas-can was empty! Luckily I remembered that the snow blower tank was still full, so I drained that tank and used the gas in the lawn mower.

The rest of the house was set-up and then grilling commenced in the early afternoon. It all went well, but I felt like I was running on fumes from well before noon.

Update: Oh yes. On Sunday I didn't do jack squat. Heaven!

Museum of Natural History

An Emerald, almost as nice as mine.

1,000 Carat flawless aquamarine.

Looks like the brain of an evil genius--possibly a robot.

Is this Superman's house? AKA Fortress of Solitude

Brown Bear.

Conservatory (greenhouse)

Right in the same neighborhood as the Capitol, Supreme Court and Library of Congress is the National Conservatory. A nice break from all of those stuffy buildings with lines and security screenings.

Orchids

Our little family taken on an upper level catwalk by a friendly woman.

Cacao tree

Another orchid

Uncommon Valor

Groton Road Race

Place.....Name..............Time...Pace...Age...Place/Men....Place/age group
66.......David Pecchia.....44:14...7:08...49....62/253..........20/68

I don't think I have ever run this race as fast and yet I don't think I did as well as I have in the past. Here is last year's stats: I came in higher is a field that was slightly larger, came in 44th out of 284 men versus this year when I came in 62 out of only 253 and so forth. I think the key is that the median time this year was a whole minute faster than last year's race, so even though I took 30 seconds off of last year's time, it wasn't enough to maintain my rank.

Last year's stats:
Place----Name----------Time---Pace--Age--Place/Men----Place/age group
52-----David Pecchia---44:47--7:13--48---44/284-----------22/104

A Couple More I liked...

Art somewhere...

We went to a bunch of museums on Tuesday; the Freer, Sackler and the National Gallery, so I don't remember which this one was--I think the National Gallery.

Every once in a while I took a detail shot of a painting and it is well worth it, I really wish I had done more of that.

Out Of This World

In the center of the top circle is a little black dot. This is an actual rock from Earth's Moon. The window commemorates the mission to land on the Moon.

Streams of Light

You can almost picture the trillions of photons rushing in through this window.

I like the subtlety of president Washington's location here.

The real question is why this holy light does not scorch her skin.

National Cathedral, Washington DC

National Cathedral Washington DC: It looks really big on the outside.

Inside, it is rather cozy.

Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks (Live on KEXP)

Happy Easter!

Why Are Hoodies Threatening?

Here is my working hypothesis.

Daughter's High School String Orchestra

My daughter tells me the piece is called;
Capriccio espagnol, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Actually, she only gave me the name and I googled the rest of the information.

It is really kind of funny: A Russian makes classical versions of Spanish folk music which is later adapted by American High School string orchestras. Small world & etc.

Practicing Medicine Without A License

On a Japanese Dogwood tree.