Events

These are from my not-small, not-simple camera. (Note: the photos are shown at half-size; you can see more detail if you open them in their own browser windows.) The plane that brung me: Nantucket Memorial Airport, just as it looked in Wings: House on Washington St., with the harbor behind it: Nantucket Town. Yes, it is that charming. I suspect things were different when Ishmael bunked with Queequeg: Another view of Main St.: The Whaling Museum:

I have two cameras. One is very small and very simple, the other is neither. Here are some photos from yesterday that I took with the small, simple camera. Altitude, 7,500 feet (2,300 m): VFR on top, meaning I was flying in visual conditions on top of this cloud layer: Nantucket Island: Also, a bonus shot. As I reported earlier, a tornado touched down about 60 km (40 mi.) east of me on Sunday. As I was getting the Nantucket photos off my camera, I discovered I had a photo of the wall cloud that spawned...

The jury is no longer out: one can now say, without fear of libeling them, that Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling are a couple of theiving fraudsters.

Today, actually. I took lots of photos but I'm too pooped right now to deal with them. So tomorrow morning check back for a cohort—nay! a plethora!—of photos. And possibly a limerick. The flight down went quickly (1.2 hours from Nashua to Nantucket), I had a great landing, and took a leisurely stroll into town. (A side note: With AVGAS approaching $5 per gallon, the $100 hamburger now costs $320.) On the way back I encountered (a) rain at Martha's Vineyard that kept me circling offshore for ten mintues...

Microsoft has suspended at least 1,000 contracts with developers for a week, just like (*snap*) that: Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said Monday that Microsoft told vendors who supply the contractors that about 1,000 workers globally would not be needed this week. The vendors, whose workers do software development for Microsoft, also were told to schedule two other days off, Gellos said. Gellos also said the decision was unrelated to a move, announced late last week, to offer new perks to its Redmond...

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes today about Sen. James Inhofe's (R-OK) asinine English Language amendment: There is no point to this amendment except to say to members of our currently large Spanish-speaking population that they will be legally and formally disrespected in a way that earlier generations of immigrants from—this is just a partial list—Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Norway, Sweden, France, Hungary, Greece, China, Japan, Finland, Lithuania, Lebanon, Syria, Bohemia, Slovakia...

A while ago Anne and I heard an NPR story about East St. Louis, Ill., that mentioned Police Chief Mister and Mayor Officer. Then this morning NHPR referred to a Manchester, N.H., Police Captain Dick Tracy. Now the Chicago Tribune reports on an Illinois State Police Capt. Negro, who no doubt is best friends with Chicago Police Lt. Honkey. Is there someone out there making up names for public officials? Perhaps inspired by Catch 22's Major Major? Weird.

Montenegro has voted to secede from Serbia: With 95% of the votes counted from Sunday's referendum in Montenegro, on independence from Serbia, 55.4% of voters were in favour of the break. It is possible, but unlikely, that the few votes still to be counted will change this. The much more likely prospect is that Serbia and Montenegro will negotiate their divorce in the weeks and months ahead. Montenegro's prime minister will visit Brussels next week to formally request recognition from the European...

A fast-moving storm system blew through Southern New Hampshire yesterday, dropping pea-sized hail and buckets of rain. I watched it from the Peddler's Daughter in Nashua. I noticed what I thought was a wall cloud, but seeing no rotation I disregarded it. It turned out I may have been right, because several people reported a tornado and water spouts touching down northeast of me: As the storm arrived, observers a few miles north on Ocean Boulevard in Hampton saw a strange, wedge-shaped cloud. It was not...

I may have opined on this subject earlier, but here follows my prediction, with which people may ridicule me in three years: In approximately 974 days and 15 hours, we will see the inagurations of President Gore and Vice President Warner. I believe I am making this prediction with considerably more evidence than Shrub made his prediction that democracy would flourish in Iraq within the same time-frame.