Category Archives: short (not so sweet)

‘Tis The Season

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When I was living in Maine, Spring was called mud season. Right now it is Spring in MA verging on Summer… but really there is one season in between.

In MA, a new season is almost in full swing: road work season.

Now that the roads are clear of snow and ice, it’s only appropriate that other obstacles be put in our way between us and where we are going.

I suddenly remember why I leave fifteen minutes early: to deal with the plethora of lanes closed for road construction, or just weed whacking the median.

Yes, they weed whack the median on Route 9 every now and again, and yes, they close down a lane of traffic in the morning to do it.

So, we know Summer is almost upon us by the increasing number of lanes closed each morning on the way to work. I had only two this morning (one on Route 9, one on the Pike), so we know it’s still spring.

Thanks Person From Mongolia!

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Here are the stats for readers of my blog for about the past four months which you may find interesting:

Current Country Totals
From 1 Oct 2008 to 22 Jan 2009

United States (US) 1,462
Canada (CA) 123
United Kingdom (GB) 115
Germany (DE) 49
Brazil (BR) 28
Hungary (HU) 28
Australia (AU) 25
France (FR) 21
Poland (PL) 21
Puerto Rico (PR) 18
Netherlands (NL) 18
Italy (IT) 18
Spain (ES) 16
Mexico (MX) 16
Sweden (SE) 15
Belgium (BE) 14
Ireland (IE) 13
Denmark (DK) 12
Finland (FI) 10
Russian Federation (RU) 9
Romania (RO) 9
Japan (JP) 8
Israel (IL) 8
Argentina (AR) 8
Portugal (PT) 7
Europe (EU) 7
Singapore (SG) 7
Turkey (TR) 7
India (IN) 7
Chile (CL) 6
Switzerland (CH) 6
Colombia (CO) 6
Norway (NO) 6
Korea, Republic of (KR) 6
Philippines (PH) 6
Peru (PE) 5
Serbia (RS) 5
Indonesia (ID) 4
China (CN) 4
Czech Republic (CZ) 4
Thailand (TH) 4
Austria (AT) 4
Vietnam (VN) 4
Costa Rica (CR) 3
Greece (GR) 3
Slovakia (SK) 2
Malaysia (MY) 2
South Africa (ZA) 2
New Zealand (NZ) 2
Venezuela (VE) 2
El Salvador (SV) 2
Ukraine (UA) 2
Iceland (IS) 1
Paraguay (PY) 1
Uruguay (UY) 1
Lithuania (LT) 1
Latvia (LV) 1
Mauritius (MU) 1
Jamaica (JM) 1
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) 1
Egypt (EG) 1
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR) 1
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (LY) 1
Pakistan (PK) 1
Kuwait (KW) 1
Hong Kong (HK) 1
United Arab Emirates (AE) 1
Malta (MT) 1
Dominican Republic (DO) 1
Netherlands Antilles (AN) 1
Slovenia (SI) 1
Sri Lanka (LK) 1
Honduras (HN) 1
Panama (PA) 1
Bulgaria (BG) 1
Mongolia (MN) 1

There are several things I enjoy about these stats, but I think the lone fellow from Mongolia takes the cake.

I also admit I had to look up where Malta and Mauritius was and didn’t know anything about them.

For anyone who wants to know, I got some info from Wikipedia and I will share the juicy bits with you.

The Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation off the coast of Africa east of Madagascar. One of the coolest things I read about it is that there is a plan for Mauritius to become the first nation to have coast-to-coast wireless internet access. The wireless hot spot currently covers about 60% of the island and is accessible by about 70% of its population. Also, Mauritius was the only known habitat of the extinct Dodo bird.

Republic of Malta is an archipelago of seven islands off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea. All education is free there (which is always an obsession to us in the USA who start life off with debt to be educated) and Malta was ranked number 5 in the World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems (also an obsession to those of us in the USA who have periods in life with no health insurance). The official language of Malta is Maltese which I didn’t even know was a language.

I hope this has been educational for everyone. Thank you all for stopping by!

Email Phobia

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My regular email lately has become full of nasty, unexciting STUFF. I don’t want to look at it. I have to weed through what I do and don’t want to read or deal with at the moment to get to any good morsel. It’s to the point where I am actively procrastinating when it comes to checking it.

All the potentially good, amusing, heart warming stuff is on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Email is now full of almost exclusively nasty-bits.

This is bad. I used to love checking email. It was a pleasure to hear from people I correspond with, read writing they sent to me, read news, etc. Now, it’s mostly bills, spam, customer service, or other unpleasantness.

When did email start being exactly like snail mail?

Myst Vanity

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On the way to work today I drove behind someone from Rhode Island (at my own peril). They had a vanity plate that said “RIVENT”.

My mind immediately jumps to “Man, that person must really like Myst to have a plate that says Riven on it.”

Then my geek morning addled mind realizes that this person probably thinks that Myst is a misspelling of the stuff that perpetually hangs around Providence, also known as fog.

Then begs to question what this license plate actually was being so vain about. RIVENT… like a Rhode Island vent? Or maybe Rhode Island event?

I’m glad I have this commute every morning to contemplate what is most important in life.