August 2003 Archives

Helaine and Steffie went to Long Island this afternoon to see Rick Springfield at Westbury Music Fair. I remember Westbury from, I would guess, 40 years ago (and, as I heard, Steffie felt it looked old).

Because the trip could have taken anywhere from 1:30 to 5 hours, they left early. Luckily for Steffie, there's a very nice, upscale mall nearby. Roosevelt Field is built on the grounds of the airfield where Lindbergh took off to fly solo across the Atlantic.

They said the concert was excellent. I lent Steffie my Fuji S602z digital camera and she took around 100 shots before the battery gave out. The camera was dead, its lens extended from the body. Steffie freaked. But, it was just the battery.

I posted some of her finer shots (and they're really great) in a photo gallery.

Later today, we're going to Foxwoods, and Steffie and Helaine will see Rick again. And, Steffie will get fresh batteries for the camera.

I'm not sure how Helaine and Steffie could do this... I'm certainly not sure why they're so motivated... but I know they are. In fact, they are one step short of 'cult like' when it comes to Rick Springfield.
Helaine first got hooked over 30 years ago during the "Speak to the Sky" era and kept her affection during General Hospital, Jessie's Girl, Hard to Hold and beyond. Now, Steffie is right there with her.

I was able to get tickets, through a friend at Foxwoods, and Helaine made reservations so we wouldn't have to schlep back after the show. We arrived mid-afternoon and checked in. Then, we headed to the box office to pick up their tickets (none for me, thanks).

Unreal as it seemed to me, there was already a sizable contingent of women, mostly sitting on the floor, in line, hoping to be first in. For most shows, Foxwoods Fox Theater has general admission with maitre'd seating up front and reserved in back.

We ate at Foxwoods' buffet. It's not Vegas. What can I say.

Helaine and Steffie headed to the show around 8:00 (Steffie taking my digital camera for more photos) while I headed to the poker room. Unfortunately for me, the wait was so long I knew I'd never play before the show was over. So, I played some slots and lost $40.

Too early to meet the girls, I hung out in front of the theater finding my friend Vinnie and his wife Jacqueline. After they went in I started talking with Mike, who was running the merchandising.

After a while, three women walked out, recognized me, told me they had an extra ticket, and gave it to me. So, I walked in.

Rick was mid-audience, on a seat, singing and playing. To say the crowd was going nuts was an oversimplification. This was an audience made up of adoring fans... and he was eating it up.

I watched Helaine and Steffie, standing in their front row seats, looking at Rick. It was actually pretty cool to be spying on them because they were having such a good time together.

Being a lone male in this sea of women gave me the ability to move at will through the theater. I went to see Steffie and Helaine and tell them I was there. I saw Vinnie and Jacqueline. I said hi to a few theater staffers I knew.

After the show, I had arranged for Steffie and Helaine to go backstage (actually downstairs, under the stage, in a stairwell) to meet and greet.

Rick and his road manager "Bucky" looked at some photos Stefanie had shot the night before in Westbury. Bucky thought it might be nice to have her 'rose explosion' photo sent to the office. Helaine will try and make that happen... if she finds out where the office is.

Both girls had their photos taken with Rick, as he held them. Then, they took a surprise photo, to be held for a later time (and, of which I can't speak).

There's no way for me to put myself in their shoes. I'm not sure who in my life would be a comparable 'get.' But, I do know they were amazingly affected, and that this was a wonderful time for both of them that they'll never forget.

Steffie's photos from both nights are posted in my photo gallery.

Steffie was scheduled to work Saturday afternoon, so while she went to bed, Helaine and I went downstairs to play. I found a $5/10 Texas Hold'em, with a kill (meaning the bets are $5 or $10 except after a pot of $100 when they are doubled). After a few hours, I walked away up $52. I really enjoy poker, and hopefully, am getting better.

Every year, around her birthday, Steffie has a picture taken, which Helaine and I then hang in the hallway leading to our bedroom. Over the past few years we have started going to the mall photographer, with pretty good results.

Over the past few years we've also started bringing Ivy along, which causes some logistics problems. Malls aren't exactly dog friendly.

Helaine made the appointment and we brought Ivy and Steffie in just before the mall opened and before the photographer was jammed with screaming little kids.

Once again, it's a really nice photo.

Late last week, my friend Harold told me he was taking this week off and that if I took a day off, we'd go to "The City" (Since I was a little child "The City" meant Manhattan which was treated differently than other parts of New York City).

Fine. I asked for, and received, Tuesday off.

But, what to do in The City? We talked about The Lower East Side (I am a knockoff watch whore and am looking for a new faux Breitling), getting tickets at TKTS and seeing a Broadway show, the Ansel Adams exhibit at MOMA and going to see David Letterman.

I have been a Letterman fan since the first time I saw him on The Tonight Show. When his late show began on NBC, I got on my knees and begged our program director at WGRZ in Buffalo to run it (which she eventually did).

Click to see the inscription from Dave

Around 20 years ago, Helaine and I went and saw a taping at 30 Rock. A friend who worked at NBC at the time got us into the studio early, where we shmoozed with Biff Henderson.

Letterman came out before the show and walked into the audience, looking for questions. Being right in front, we were tough to avoid. He called on Helaine and then answered her question, "What kind of makeup do you wear? My fiancee is on TV and his doesn't look as good."

When the show started, he made reference to the question and asked me what station I was on. Andrea Martin was on the show, but I don't remember much more.

Of course, Letterman tickets are tough to come by, especially in the summer when his target audience is ... at will, so to speak. So, I emailed my friend Mel at CBS. "They hate us," he replied, making no bones about the Letterman staff's relationship with the rest of CBS.

Next, an email to Aaron Barnhart at the Kansas City Star and www.tvbarn.com. Aaron has been a Letterman fan forever, and I figured he was connected. Anyway, I had just done a favor for him, so he was into me.

No pull.

But, Aaron suggested I go to the CBS website and put myself on the standby list. What the hell? It was late, the dog was chowing down, I had nothing better to do.

This afternoon the message appeared on my cellphone. Mitch at Late Night was calling, telling me they had a cancellation and I was invited. Assured seats, no standby. How cool is this?

All I had to do was answer a trivia question to establish my Letterman bonafides. First, how often did I watch? I told him 2-3 times a week (any more and too much Dave starts sneaking into my performance). My question, "Who is Alan Kalter?"

Damn! Alex, I'll take staff announcers for $500.

So, Harold arrives at 10:00am. We''ll drive to Stamford and catch Metro North to Grand Central. And, we're going to see Letterman.

From the New York Times op-ed page (during a very rainy summer)

August 5, 2003
And the Forecast Is . . .
By MICHAEL RUBINER

Wednesday in New York : Rain. Heavy at times. Followed by periods of precipitation.

Thursday : Lingering showers throughout the day. Chance of rain 800 percent.

Friday : Moist. Damp. Sodden.

Saturday : Rainish. Showery. Precipitacious.

Sunday : Light rain followed by heavy rain followed by pouring.

Monday : Unseasonably rainy in the morning. Uncharitably rainy in the afternoon. Unconscionably rainy in the evening.

Tuesday : Endless showers broken up by occasional flooding.

Wednesday : Remember "Waterworld"? Like that, only with more rain.

Thursday : Not sunny. The opposite of sunny. Just forget about sunny, O.K.?

Friday : Clearing just long enough for you to make weekend plans. Followed by obscene amounts of rain.

Saturday : Take a wild guess.

Sunday : Incessant, spirit-crushing rain. The kind of rain that makes it futile to get out of bed in the morning. The kind of rain that seems as if it will never end. And guess what? It never will. Ever. Do you understand?

Monday : Please go away.

Tuesday : Ample, brilliant sunshine throughout the day. Wait — did I say sunshine? I meant rain. Really hard rain.

Michael Rubiner is a screenwriter.

I still can't get over the fact that Letterman tickets were available on such short notice. Friday, on the list. Monday, get the call. Tuesday, see the show.

Harold, who had suggested we do NYC in the first place, got to my house at 10:00AM. As an all day trip, there was no sense starting early and fighting it out with the commuters.

We drove to Stamford uneventfully. Though Helaine and I disagree on this, I like to drive to Stamford and take the train (Metro North) from there. That way, I have many more trains to choose from than if I had left from New Haven. That's especially true on the way home, when many trains make all the stops. Plus, I drive faster than the train does.

Actually, I like driving in even better. But, on a weekday, getting through Manhattan is iffy at best with long, slow tie-ups, unpredictable.

We ended up in the first car on the train, and Harold and I (being nerdy kids at heart) moved up toward the font door/window. Then we felt the motorman's wrath.

I've been riding trains over 50 years and I had never had a motorman shoo me away, but shoo'ed I was... and not in a nice way. This guy was so adamant about us not being near the front window that he made the whole trip with the cab door open, which I assume is some sort of safety and/or security violation. And it's not like Harold and I are dangerous looking characters.

We made Grand Central a little after noon and headed downstairs to what was once a waiting room. Now, it's a very nice food court. Most of the shops look like independant small operators. I tried some sushi and Harold had half a sandwich and soup. Converting this area to a food court was a great idea.

I was also impressed that the men's room was clean and large (though there was a line for the women's room).

FIrst stop was to be Canal Street, home of "knock off" everything - - watches, handbags, DVDs. If something costs more because of a name or intangible content beyond the manufacturing cost, you will find it dirt cheap on Canal Street.

Harold and I bought all day Metro Passes for $7 and headed downtown on what used to be called the BMT.

I was looking for a knockoff of a very specific Breitling watch, with LCD and analog readout. The real thing is around $2,000. On Canal Street it should be under $50 and a dead ringer.

Harold, who wasn't expecting to buy, found a very nice Seiko. The vendor said $10. I said $7. Harold got it for $8. It's a very nice watch.

Neither of us can figure out how this stuff gets made, brought to the US, and sold for these prices with profit being made every step of the way.

We needed to be at the Ed Sullivan Theater by 3:30 PM to claim our tickets. So, we took the train back uptown.

New York was very warm and sticky. On numerous phonecalls throughout the day, Helaine told me the radar was showing storms nearby. I know it rained while we were inside the theater, during the Letterman taping, but we never saw a drop fall from the sky... thankfully.

I had been instructed to say I was on Mitch's "gold list". Still, I wanted to try everything I could to get better seats. All the CBS pages wore tags with their name and hometown. I desparately seached for someone with "CT" on their tag, and found Dave from Waterford, CT.

Bingo. Dave looked at my drivers license (you need ID to claim your tickets), looked at me, and smiled. He had recognized me. This, I thought, was a good thing.

Harold and I entered through a roped walkway to some sort of 'special' podium. I later learned that another Dave, the audience coordinator, had also spotted me. The girl with the tickets took out a Sharpie and wrote "CBS" on mine.

Another good sign.
With tickets in hand, we left to head to Times Square and the TKTS booth. There, on the day of performance, unbought Broadway tickets go for 1/2 price plus a few bucks. Often, the seats are quite good. Steffie and I have seen loads of shows this way. Broadway is now like flying in that everyone pays a different amount.

I had convinced Harold, reluctantly, to see a Broadway show after the Letterman taping. I probably like Broadway more than any other straight man in America.

The shows on the board were mediocre. But, Gypsy was there, and I had heard very good things about Bernadette Peters with favorable comparisons to Ethel Merman. We stood in line for around 20 minutes, and I could see Harold having second thoughts.

Meanwhile, I was snapping away; taking pictures of people, places and pigeons. In Times Square, the pigeon is king! Even the statue of George M. Cohan serves as a pigeon roost.


Amazingly enough, after a while I looked up and there, staring back at me was Stephanie Linakis, who I have known since we were both infants and who lives on Long Island. How strange to meet up with her in the heart of Times Square, where most New Yorkers dare not tread.
I was surprised to see CBS - Letterman pages in Times Square, trying to drum up more studio members. It was my impression that this show was always sold out months in advance. Was there some royal screw up which caused less tickets to be originally distributed, or was it just tough to fill the theater?

Even under these circumstances, potential audience members were asked a Letterman trivia question (Who is Biff Henderson?).

Harold was growing fidgety, so we bolted the line and walked around midtown. There is a Museum of Photography somewhere, though we never found it. We did, however, find some interesting public art.

Many buildings in Manhattan have been forced to put in public spaces as part of their committment to the city. I had never seen this interesting 'sculpture' with water flowing down the side and a tunnel through its center.
It was time to go back up to Letterman. We had been told to be there by 4:30 PM. Immediately we were taken inside (air conditioning and bathrooms) where we stood in a hallway with around 50 others, listening through the walls to Paul Schaeffer and the CBS Orchestra rehearsing. Outside, much of the assembled audience was being rained on.

After a while, another audience coordinator came in, stood on a chair and told us what we would be seeing. We had been chosen to get 'great seats', he said. Unobstructed views. The only ones like that in the theater. He even referenced me, "you might even see your favorite Connecticut weatherman", in his schpiel.

After a while we went to our seats... in the balcony. I sat in the very last row. Yes, we had an unobstructed view, but it was obvoius the show was being done for the people downstairs. And, I know from being on stages, with the lights, we couldn't even be seen from downstairs. Being upstairs it wasn't even the 'meat locker' cold temperature that Dave's studio is known for.

I'd be lying if I didn't say this was disappointing.

And, I'm totally unsure what to make of it, because the people in this group were hand picked from the crowd in general. But, maybe that's the idea. The people downstairs should be those with no pull, and anyone here trying to throw their weight should be out of sight. I just don't know.

The show itself was very good. The Sullivan Theater has been modified greatly for Dave. A large protion of the balcony is gone, hidden behind large accoustical panels. There are also accoustical panels above the light grid. If you look really hard, you can still see some of the beautiful work on the theater's original ceiling. There were at least 5 or 6 microphones on the balcony railing, pointing toward the audience. Overkill.

Taping would start at 5:30 sharp. Eddie Brill's quick warmup, the band's number and Paul's entrance were all timed to bring Dave on exactly 3 minutes before taping. I was amazed to see Paul being counted down by the floor manager so he would end the music on time... and the show hadn't even started.

I found Dave warm and engaging. Though Helaine and I have speculated that his private life might be a mess, it is obvious that he is the master of this domain. He was totally confident and sharp. This is his venue and everything is designed so he will be able to be at his best.

The show went quickly. The major guest was Colin Farrell, with a new movie (SWAT) about to premiere. He was good, and funny. The "F" word slipped out and Dave joined in... knowing it was all safe fun, since we were going to tape.

I have been to lots of tapings before but felt a little out of it being this far away. Some people credit Jay Leno's studio rebuild, moving the audience closer to the action, as being part of his current success (I'm not a huge Jay fan, but getting Kevin Eubanks who is willing to play along and take one for the team, is a large factor).

Harold and I left the theater, heading downtown again. Wit the museums closed and Broadway off the agenda, I asked if we could take a round trip on the Staten Island Ferry. I wanted some shots of Lower Manhattan and The Statue of Liberty.

On the way down, we ended up in the subway's first car, and again gravitated to the front window. I wanted to hold the camera steady against the window while we were in a station, allowing me to take a long exposure into the darkened tunnel.

The motorman (no doubt related to the Metro North guy) yelled at me from his cab. Camera's weren't permitted in the subway!

Actually, MTA rule 1050.9 C says "Photography, filming or video recording in any facility or conveyance is permitted except that ancillary equipment such as lights, reflectors or tripods may not be used. Members of the press holding valid identification issued by the New York City Police Department are hereby authorized to use necessary ancillary equipment. All photographic activity must be conducted in accordance with the provision of these Rules. "

A man in the other end of the car, the only other passenger, yelled at me to go ahead and take pictures. My guess is this man does not let the concept of rules ever slow him down. I put the camera away. No balls. And, I was doing nothing wrong!

Off at Whitehall Street we headed to South Ferry. The Andrew J. Barberi would be our boat.

Barberi Class Boats:
There are two sister ships, the Andrew J. Barberi and the Samuel I. Newhouse. The Barberi entered service in 1981 and the Newhouse in 1982. Each boat carries 6,000 passengers, with a crew of 15 plus one female attendant. The boats are 310 feet long, 69 feet, 10 inches wide, with a draft of 13 feet, 6 inches, weight of 3,335 gross tons, service speed of 16 knots, and 7,000 horsepower.

There are actually 8 ferry boats used between Lower Manhattan and St. George, Staten Island, with these two being the largest. The trip is 25 minutes. Since 1997 it's been free. Even when they charged, it wasn't expensive. As a kid, it was $.05 versus $.15 for the subway. Later, it went to a quarter.

The trip to State Island was very nice. The water was calm but the sky was gray. With a long view to the horizon, I saw areas of both rain and sunshine.

I snapped dozens of photos: other ships and boats, buoys, lights, buildings and, of course, The Statue of Liberty. With sunset approaching the statue was closed for the day. A Coast Guard boat was close at hand.

As we approached Staten Island an announcment was made. Our ferry would be going out of service: Leave, even if you are making the round trip. Of course, that was a lie.

Luckily, that allowed Harold and me to experience first hand, the St. George Ferry Terminal. If there is a more depressing public space in America, I have not seen it. This building is screaming, "We really don't give a shit about you." The waiting room was drab. Even if it were clean it would seem dirty... but it was dirty. There were pigeons, inside, walking around.

These were tough ass city pigeons. Sort of like mob pigeons. You wouldn't want to screw with these pigeons... they had friends. They were in the ferry terminal waiting room because there was no one with enough weight to get them out.

By the time we made it back to Manhattan, the sun had set. Lower Manhattan wasn't lit up the way I expected. Maybe the Financial District is just different since 9/11. The skyline was nice, but there was no look of excitment. Certainly the WTC is missing from the picture I remember seeing.

I did catch a sailboat, probably a party charter, with dozens of people on deck, sailing by The Battery. I really had to push this photo to make it viewable. It was a pretty neat sight, seeing these big buildings and this stately sailboat.

Back to the subway and on at South Ferry (the old IRT line). I remembered this station from when I was a kid. Its platform is so curved that iron grate extensions push out from the platform every time a train stops. Otherwise, the doors would be too far away and the station unusable. As it is, only the front five or so cars fit on the platform.

By the time we got to Grand Central, the food court had closed. Harold and I picked up some snacks and headed to the 9:07 express to Stamford.

I took a lot of pictures... nearly 200. Hopefully that didn't get on Harold's nerves. And, I had a good time.

When I was a little kid, Manhattan... The City... was always a treat. It was and still is exciting. I always thought that only the best worked there. I don't feel that way anymore. But, I do feel there's a certain prestige that goes with working in the city that I've missed out on.

It has been speculated for a while now that this evening on The Tonight Show, Arnold Schwarzenegger would announce he was NOT going to run for Governor of California. In fact, Matt Drudge made a big deal out of it.

No one told Arnold. He appeared with Leno and announced his candidacy.

With loads of people now running to be California's governor, and with the election rules such as they are, it is possible that Gray Davis will be removed and replaced with someone who has less popularity than he!

When we moved into our house, in the summer of '90, I planted a few fruit trees, in the mistaken belief that I'd take care of them and one day eat the (pardon me) fruits of my labor.




Well, I never really touched the trees and they've grown, but never produced edible fruit.

This year seems to be different. Maybe it's our awful summer weather, or maybe the horrendously brutal winter (it can't be the spring as we didn't seem to have one), but whatever the reason, the peaches are very nice... albeit small.

My plum tree has loads of fruit, though nowhere near ripe yet.

Yesterday, Helaine said she had seen a deer near the fruit trees. Tonight, as I was getting ready to take Ivy for a walk, the deer was back with two babies.

Steffie yelled for me to get the camera, and I ran upstairs in that uncoordinated way that makes my walk so easy to parody. The batteries were in the charger, so I pulled them out, dropped the charger to the ground and tried to race downstairs without killing myself.

TV Weatherman Succumbs to Deer Related Death - - I didn't want to see that.

There wasn't a whole lot of light, but enough for me to get a few decent pictures.
The funny thing is, most times of the year, deer are pests. They eat our flowers in the spring (when we get one) and, if I had planned on eating the fruit, they'd still be eating it.

I am a 7-time Emmy Award winner (OK - it's the local rectangular base version, not that nice round national one - shoot me), so I have some sort of obligation to NATAS and will try and fulfill that by hosting an Emmy judging party for the St. Louis region next Saturday.

I found an email from the NWS in Taunton, MA and took all the email addresses from there. Hopefully, I didn't miss too many people.

A long time ago, Helaine and I attended a judging session held at Channel 8. Good God! It is scary to think this is how it's done. People were inattentive and we hardly ever got through an entire tape.

I hope to live up to that high standard at this session.

Here's the letter I sent:

Hi (Insert Name Here),

I'm writing this extremely personal note on behalf of the Boston/New England Chapter of NATAS and the annual Emmy awards. As you may know, each year entries from our area are judged by our peers in other markets, where it doesn't rain every day during the month of August and the dew point doesn't stay above 70 for- - - oh sorry - - - I haven't taken my medication yet.

Anyway, as we are judged, we are called upon to judge others. This year, it's your chance to steal good lines and map drawing techniques as we watch the weather people from St. Louis, MO and environs.

Would you be willing to help judge? I have volunteered my house in Hamden, CT to host a judging session next Saturday (8-16) at noon. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided. Ivy the dog will be there for one-on-one petting sessions.

It's your chance to meet some of your fellow weather people, tell us how awful your station's owners and management are, and trash everything you see from St. Louis. You'll get a better understanding why the Emmy always seems to go to some no talent... sorry... again no medication yet.

As an incentive to you in other states, many Connecticut State Police officers have pledged to write no tickets to anyone traveling below the current temperature (Celsius only). You folks in Boston should remember we schlep there every year for the actual Emmy ceremonies, so don't kvetch.

Please let me know if you can attend. Detailed directions will be provided.

Your name and email address was actually plucked off an email from Glenn Field at NWS. If you're now out of the business, selling cars, please excuse the intrusion.

All the best,
Geoff Fox
WTNH News Channel 8

ps - You know, most people read the "ps" before they read the letter.

Our Southwest Airlines VISA credit card, from First USA, has become a royal pain in the ass. The problems started almost immediately when we got the card in March. We were 'declined' more than once for security purposes and now because our magnetic stripe wasn't read correctly (2 different cards in 2 separate readers) declined again.

Even in cases where First USA knew they would 'decline' our next transaction, they never called, leaving that responsibility to the gas station attendant or grocery store clerk.

What service does my yearly service fee buy me?

Today we received a letter saying that a $5,000 payment by check had been returned to them, account closed. I immediately went to the computer, checked the account, and it's fine. This being Saturday, there's no one at the bank to speak to. The woman at First USA was incredibly rude and made it clear that First USA is too big to service it's customers on a personal basis.

This will be fixed, but I am steamed.

I'm not sure why, but I've finally got the bug to build this website correctly. whether I can accomplish that is another question.

I figure the first thing I need to do is establish a style, and that means CSS, something I don't understand 100%. That makes it a bit more difficult.

I also worked on getting some dynamic weather data, specifically forecast model data. That meant shell programming, in BASH. Again, this is something beyond my expertise. Luckily, I have the guidance of Bob Hart at FSU. His knowledge of 'ix' languages and GrADS (which I'm using to produce the graphics) is scary.

There is also a version of HAMWeather running, though not customized at all.

This will take time. But, there is a huge amount of satisfaction (as I got a few minutes ago when a PHP enabled include worked) in writing and debugging code.

My last computer class was 1967... and then in Fortran.

Helaine asked if I would be interested in brunch at Mohegan Sun today? I said sure... though I sense diet time is just around the corner for me.

This is one of those incredibly decadent brunch buffets with virtually everything you can think of that's vaguely related to breakfast. Add to that amazing desserts and coffee and I'm there in a heartbeat.

I stuffed myself on raw clams, shrimp, lamb chops, freshly cooked pasta (with sun dried tomatoes and mushrooms but very, very minimal sauce) and a passion fruit crepe with mango ice cream for dessert.

Before breakfast, I walked into the soon-to-close poker room and put my name on the list. As I returned, a new $5/$10 Hold'em table was opening, and I was called. It was a nice group of people; lots of fun.

More importantly, over the course of the afternoon I won $292. I continue to feel my poker skills are going up. I've won the past 3 or 4 times I played. But, it is very possible to be lucky for a run like that (and more profitable to be lucky than skillful).

It's a shame Mohegan Sun's poker room will close in early September. It is a very nice room; smaller than Foxwoods but a little more nicely appointed and sedate. A poker room can make good money for the owner, but nowhere near as much as slot machines... and that's what will go in. I sense Foxwoods will change the rake structure, in essence raising the price to play poker, once the MS room is closed.

I got to the bottom of the credit card flap thing morning.

In 2000, three years ago, my mutual fund says they sent me new checks and had me sign for them. This May, they stopped honoring the old checks. I've been using the old ones all along, so they could have told me I was headed for a tree.

Bottom line - they're wiring $5,000 into my checking account. They will waive any fees. Southwest's VISA will refund my bounced check fee and will wire $5,000 from my Wachovia checking account. Wachovia, an innocent bystander, will probably charge me to receive the wire transfer (and make a huge profit on it).

Is this chapter closed? It should be. It probably isn't.

This is ridiculous. I have become poker obsessed.

I have a few days off and went to try and play on-line. Pokerstars.com have some free tournaments, with 1,000 entrants. Before I could figure out how to enter, it was full!

I'm willing to put some cash into this, but my credit card company will not approve payments for Internet gambling (they being smarter than I). There's a method where you tie your checking account... need I go further? That's not happening.

What I will do is bring some money to Stop & Shop and wire it to Costa Rica via Western Union.

Even as I say this, I realize this is probably a dumb thing to do. However, I will limit my loss to less than what I won this past weekend and see what happens.

It's nearly 2:00 AM as I write this. I have played on and off since 9'ish.

My first mistake was entering a $30+3 Pot Limit Hold'em tournament. I had never played pot limit before and it immediately adds something new to the game. If you show weakness, other players in better position will take advantage and raise like crazy.

Now a pretty good hand becomes suspect. It might have been worth a bet... but your whole stack? As it is, I finished in the middle of the pack. I went "all in" with a two reasonably good picture cards only to lose.

Next it was a one table No Limit Hold'em tournament for $10+1. I don't know what I was thinking, because I had just done so poorly with pot limit. I came in third, again going all in with a reasonably good hand only to lose to someone with a reasonably better hand.

Third place pays $18, so that's $7 net, minus the $33, leaving me down $26.

Helaine played a $10+1 Hold'em tournament. Nada. Now down $37.

I decided, before bed, to try some low stakes non-tournament poker. After all, this is what I play in casinos. The advantage of tournaments is you limit your risk. But, I decided to play $1/$2, so how wrong could I go? How much can you possibly lose playing $1/$2?

It should be noted that I'm playing at pokerstars.com. Earlier, I had played at partypoker.com. There's really not much difference. Competition makes them all match each other. I met some folks from pokerstars at The Orleans in Las Vegas at a tournament and they seemed nice.

Maybe the biggest difference here (and I haven't been to Partypoker in a while) is the very, very low stakes games you can find. You can literally play $.01/$.02 pot Limit Hold'em, and $.02/$.04 with fixed limits.

Of course, there are also free games, but the play is so different when there's no real money on the line that it's just no fun.

I played around a half hour at $1/$2 and got very hot, very quickly. By the time I was done, I had gone from $37 in the hole, to $12 up. Moving $49 to the positive at these stakes is pretty unusual... so luck and the other player's lack of skill certainly had to enter into it.

I couldn't help it. One more time. A very small, one table tournament. Stakes were $5+1. I came in third, losing with three of a kind to a guy who caught a straight on the river (shit happens).

PokerStars Tournament #237041, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $45.00
Tournament started - 2003/08/13 - 02:31:08 (EST)

Dear ctwxman,
You finished the tournament in 3rd place.
A $9.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

$9, or $3.50 more net.

Found a Hold'em tournament for $11 this afternoon. Top payoff was well over $700.

I bombed out with AQ off suit to an A-10 who paired up.

48th of 276. Unfortunately, they only pay the first 27.

What could be cooler than an LCD monitor? They really look sharp sitting on a desk. For years I have been using a 17" CTX CRT at 1280x1024 resolution.

Anyone who comes into my office asks how I can stand it. The text is really tiny. But, I appreciate having all that real estate, because I often have multiple windows open.

So, why didn't I have an LCD monitor?

Money. They were just too damned expensive and the 15" monitors, pretty much the desktop standard, only provided 1024x768 resolution. That meant things would really be squeezed.

Why spend the money and trade down?

This past weekend, Staples put a Pixo AT700S, 17" LCD monitor on sale for $380, minus an $80 rebate. Fat Wallet had a link to a Staples coupon which saved me another $30.

The specs show this to be somewhat below top of the line. The contrast numbers are below some I've seen and is the lag time. However, a recent article in one of my computer magazines said most of the published LCD monitor specs were wrong... often in the consumer's favor!

It didn't make much difference. I'm not quite sure what all the specs are anyway.

I bought the monitor home, hooked it up, turned on my PC and... nothing... white screen. The low res text booting screens were there, but as Windows got ready to deliver, the screen went white. Not only that, I couldn't get the on-screen controls to work.

I knew my computer sometimes started in a weird video mode where the Windows desktop was larger than my CRT, forcing me to scroll around until I could reset it. That seemed to be the case here. So, I hooked up the old monitor and reset the video... and created a hot key to easily reset it if this problem arises again.

The first thing I noticed was the brightness. This monitor is much whiter than any CRT I've used. Pictures were spectacular. Actually, maybe they were too good. I started noticing the artifacts of compression on images; something I hadn't seen before. As bright as the whites were, the darks were deeper than the old CRT.

But, there were problems as well. Text looked ragged. This was especially true with what looks to be single pixel type, most often used for utility and menu purposes. Some letters looked thicker than others too and some straight lines weren't quite vertical.

I opened the manual... actually a manualette and read. There were less answers than an Arnold Schwarzenegger news conference (OK - shoot me, I like the line).

What do phase and pitch do? Other commands seemed fairly straightforward, but these two, who knows? And, many of the commands seemed to be intertwined, in that doing one affected another.

PassMark has developed shareware monitor testing software. I downloaded it and fired it up. I'm not sure how you get a monitor to look good, but I do know what looks good. I started to play.

Pitch seemed to be very critical. It was the only control that caused visible screen pulses as it was adjusted. But, it was able to eliminate some thickness that letters only had on parts of the screen.

Does that make sense? It makes no sense to me either, but I'm not sure how else to say it.

Anyway, long story short, using the test screens I was able to tweak the monitor much better than I would have ever been able to just using my eyes. Yes, some very tiny type is 'too sharp' and displeasing to look at. But, by and large, everything is very sharp. Graphics are spectacular. There doesn't seem to be any lag or problem when I use my TV tuner in the computer.

This 17" LCD is much larger than my 17" CRT (they are measured differently), meaning that at the same resolution, things are larger and more easily seen with this monitor.

There's a 14 day return policy at Staples, with no restocking fee. I haven't yet cut off the UPC for the rebate, but after some indecision, I think I'm going to keep it.

What I don't understand is why these monitors are limited to 1280x1024? My 15" laptop screen is 1400x1050 and it's a thing of beauty. If Sony put one of those on the desktop... well, no, I probably wouldn't spring for Sony's prices. But, if Pixo put one out, I'd absolutely consider buying it.

At my desk at work, in the studio... suddenly the lights began to change color. I guess that's what happens with flourescent studio lights. They don't dim, they shift their color as the voltage withers and then

-GONE-

We were without power for only a few seconds, enough to bring down every computer under my control in the Weather Center. Most started to reboot on their own. Others were a little more recalictrant. One computer, the one that controls our Doppler radar, is totally dead. Luckily, it's sunny and will be again tomorrow.

It looks like something in Southern Ontario took down most of the Northeast power grid (though they're blaming Niagara Mohawk Power in NY).

Helaine just called from home. She and Steffie had been at Trumbull Mall when the power went out. It looks like the power never blinked at home.

As the power failure/blackout story progresses, the Canadian power authority has begun to blame a lightning strike in Northern New York State.

This would be a subject I have some expertise in. So, take my word. There was no lightning strike in Upstate New York this afternoon that might have set off the blackout. Period. End of story.

I've volunteered to host Emmy judging tomorrow. So far, the response has been really poor, and it's a shame for the weather people in St. Louis that we won't have a bigger crowd to see their tapes.

Helaine asked if I would go and weed our two front beds, so we might make a good impression. Yikes! That stuff grows like... oh yeah, I guess it's supposed to.

It's funny. If you plant tomatoes or flowers or anything you really want, you have to take extra special care to make sure they grow healthfully. But a weed! It doesn't give a damn. It will grow anywhere.

I've seen weeds growing in the cracks in a sidewalk, through concrete, and my favorite, in the rock face that makes up the 'canyon walls' on the Cross Bronx Expressway.

Weeds are the pigeon of the flora world.

While I was down on my hands and knees weeding, I did notice one unusual thing. This is a major year for worms. I couldn't believe how many of them I found. They were all very fat and anxious to get away from me.

I'm sure they noticed I was wearing gloves and realized that meant any worm inhibitions I might normally have were out the window.

Last Friday, after a dreadful week full of clouds and rain (in fact rain on the first 9 days of August), I thought it was time to resurrect Andy Savas, playing the part of "The Crying Man."

In tonight's episode, Andy is a high official with the Cape Cod Tourism Association.

Andy cut this tape years ago. It's probably been 2 or more years since I last used it. Having this video squirreled away in my desk is like money in the bank.

This entry has been updated. Click for the new information.

At the TV station, we mostly use infrared satellite images because they show weather patterns even when it's dark. And we use geosynchronus satellites, whose orbital position seems to remain motionless in relationship to the Earth.

The DMSP photos here are from a low Earth polar orbit satellite sensing visible light, a totally different animal.

With clear skies Wednesday and Thursday, the setup was right for an incredible comparison of before and after during the Northeast Blackout.

Very impressive.

I guess I haven't been keeping good track, but as of this morning, we're down an incredible $16 since we started.

Tonight I played two tiny $5+$.50 tournaments and came in 2nd once. So, that's $3.50 on the upside. I think Helaine did the same earlier.

I find, because the action is there, that I'm playing a lot of No Limit Hold'em, which is a totally different game than what I had been playing. I'm not totally sure how much I like it, because there are major bluffs going on. So, it's possible for another player, in essence, to ask you to put up your entire stake (and any chance to place in the tournament) and that player has nothing.

If you have a larger stack, it's much easier to be bold, because you can force someone to make a life or death (so to speak) decision, yet you have much less on the line relatively speaking.

Even if I hadn't placed, this game offered good entertainment for the investment. For my $5.50, I played for 1:15.

This has been an exercises in frustration. I volunteered to coordinate judging of the Weathercaster Emmy for the Mid-America region (basically St. Louis and Kansas City) and sent out dozens of invitations to other weather people around New England, including many who I know enter themselves... and got very few responses.

If it weren't for the fact that it was summer, some folks were on vacation, the AMS convention had taken place last week, I'd name names because I'm pissed. I don't mind that only a few people said yes. I'm more upset at how many didn't respond at all!

Anyone who enters the Emmy's expects more... and deserves it.

Our Emmy panel was comprised of Matt Scott and Gil Simmons and me from WTNH, Michael Friedman from Fox61 (WTIC TV) and Jayne Smith (meteorologist and former weather intern turned weather producer). We watched 9 tapes. Helaine was the 'caterer' and as is always the case, we ate wonderfully... and then had pizza for good measure.

The rules say I shouldn't discuss individual tapes, and I won't, but I will discuss the general quality of the entrants and the tape content itself. No one really stood out. There were two who I thought were better than the rest... but not by much. There is less of an edge or style to these Midwestern folks than what we see here in the East and a lot more nuts and bolts meteorology (which I'm by no means criticizing).

By and large, there was not enough "talent at chromakey" on the tapes.

It seems all but one of these entrants confused a good location with a good presentation. Because you're somewhere, and something beyond your control has happened, doesn't mean what you're doing is special.

Don Fitzpatrick, TV talent guru, used to talk about reporter audition tapes that included a live shot from the president coming to town. Unless you got that exclusive one-on-one with the prez, ditch the tape.

At this hour, all our score sheets (which I haven't sneaked a peek at) are in the Airborne envelope, waiting to go out with the tapes on Monday.

Yesterday's forecast for today was mostly cloudy with scattered showers and thundershowers. I woke up this morning and it was sunny.

Let me pause and tell you one of the weirdest conflicts in my life is rooting for bad weather, just because I called for it! If I say blizzard and it's flurries, even though I hate snow, I'm very upset.

So, obviously, I was on edge when I saw the Sun.

But, give Mother Nature credit for being somewhat predictable. By mid-afternoon, as the Emmy judges were leaving the house, the radar was showing building lines of thundershowers north and west of Connecticut (there were thunderstorms south too, but they were heading away).

These were big storms, full of those giant economy sized drops that you only get in the summer, and only in thunderstorms. It didn't take long for streets to develop curb side streams, and puddling to take over low lying areas.

NEXRAD rainfall estimates show around 1" of rain where I live, with higher amounts toward Waterbury and Meriden, and a significantly higher accumulation along the Connecticut River south of Middletown.

I picked up Steffie at work as a thunderstorm was just tapering off. They had closed the front door to the store because water was blowing in.

This should be a Sunday entry... but installing DSL on my friend Steve's computer took 4 hours, including a few on the line with tech support (using up my entire cell phone battery in the process).

I went over,after the end of another vicious round of thunderstorms, at about 8:00 pm. It was wet, but the air was starting to have the feel of lowered dew points.

Steve is running Windows 98SE on a somewhat older Pentium. He has plenty of RAM. I know, because I put it in (and RAM is usually the best, cheapest way to speed up and rejuvinate an older PC). Because he has sensistive information, and because (like most users) he's a bit petrified, he has Norton Anti-Virus, Disk Washer, and other stuff strewn around.

I'm sure they have a purpose, but I have never seen any of this stuff be anything but trouble. And, an unwary or un-savvy user can still bring viral infection right in.

Doing any installation, such as DSL, pits your installer versus the Norton's of this world, who are trying to keep new programs from getting in!

The installer CD crashed, or more accurately, locked up twice. Each time it was re-run, it went a little further. Then, well into the process, Windows complained that we had too many tcp/ip devices (a sure sign something was screwy, since we certainly didn't have more than the modem and NIC installed).

By the time Earrick at SBC tech support in Houston was on the line, the install program had become unresponsive, even from a restart. All of Earick's suggestions brought new and different error messages, many of which he had never seen before.

We finally uninstalled the NIC and tcp/ip protocol entirely. Then rebooted. Then manually reinstalled the PPP software. We must have rebooted 25 times tonight; no exaggeration.

Finally, success. Steve will send a nice note to SBC because Errick was excellent and patient. But, this is further roadkill on the information superhighway. A DSL installation should be totally painless, quick and easy.

Why isn't all the intelligence needed built into the DSL modem? The most you should need is an ethernet connection... not all this passwording and configuring.

Anyway, bottom line was, it's fine now.

As soon as we were done, Steve wanted to check his mail. So, he clicked to connect via modem. Old habits die hard. But, he's probably not alone is not understanding how all of this is routed and connected, and that the phone pop he normally goes in on is no closer to his mail than this new DSL connection.

Steffie and I are going to see John Mayer again tomorrow.

The first time we saw him was a great experience as everything really fell into place. He was at KC-101, and we went there and met him, had some photos taken, and then went home. We then went backstage after the concert and he signed the photos we had taken hours earlier.

I sent an email to his management company, looking for backstage access after the show and got my answer (positive) this afternoon.

Helaine (who won't be going) is probably just as excited that my contact is the person who writes John's tour blog. Go figure. She has asked me to get John to sign a souvenir laminate (laminate is pronounced lamb-in-eight as a tribute to an overly aggressive Rick Springfield concert goer)

Today was marked by dozens of bounced emails coming back to me from places I had never of heard (and some I had).

By the afternoon, it had become obvious that the SoBig virus was back in a huge way. Not only does this puppy try to replicate itself by emailing viral attachments, but it spoofs the return address... often making it look like it's coming from a 'trusted' person, like me.

What I don't understand is, who still opens unexpected pifs and the like? And, why do email programs default to allow you to do this to yourself?

I am seriously considering changing email programs to get off the Outlook Express merry-go-round. Some of my friends use Pagasus, but a trip to it site, pmail..com, bounced (as did repeated tries later).

There is no safe haven, is there?

Email has become such a killer app on the Internet that casual virii are really public menaces.

I woke up this morning to find a few dozen more SoBig bouncebacks in my mailbox. From the looks of the email's I've received, the actually infected computer might belong to someone at WFSB... someone I invited to the Emmy judging!

Along with random, weird addresses (see the extended entry below), emails went to Rob Jordan (agent) and a few Meredeth and WFSB addresses. Oops.

Click here for more photos from the concert

As of Wednesday morning, I still hadn't heard from John Mayer's road manager, Scotty Crowe, as promised. Just a little worried (it is my nature), I sent another email to the management folks and got a reassuring email in return.

By early afternoon there was an upbeat voicemail at work. We were good to go (literally and figuratively). The only surprise was the time. "Meet and greet" is normally a post show event. Not with this show. John would be entertaining at 7:00 PM.

Anticipating Hartford traffic (which we never saw), Steffie and I arrived at The Meadows a bit before 6:00 PM. A line had already begun to form the entrance. People with tickets for the vast expanse of lawn wanted to stake their claim and find a good seat.

Good lawn seating is miles away from the stage. Bad seating is in another time zone.

We hit the "will call" window, looking for our "Meet and Greet" passes. Nada. But, that's not at all unusual. As it turned out, the clerk was looking in the wrong place, and a turn to the left produced two round adhesive passes and a small Xeroxed set of instructions to the marshaling point.

The gates to The Meadows actually open at 6:30 PM. But the real excitement starts a few minutes earlier as a PA announcement lists what you can and cannot do... can and cannot bring.

Digital cameras were on the forbidden list. I decided to take it anyway and hope for the best. After all, meeting John and having the passes might be enough of a mitigating factor. As it turned out, the 'frisker' took a look at he camera, pondered for two seconds, and pronounced it within reason. My guess is, with the lens retracted, he thought it was a non-professional film camera.

My first rock concert was probably 1966 or 1967. I went with my Cousin Michael and Larry Lubetsky to the Village Theater, aka The Fillmore East. We did that often on Friday and Saturday nights. It was pure fun and music (with the Joshua Light Show and the smell of marijuana pungent enough to knock you on your butt).

Things have changed

If there is something that isn't for sale, or marked with signage, I didn't see it. I'm surprised a wheelchair company doesn't sponsor the handicapped ramp.

In the parking lot were four perky post-teens (male and female) wearing red t-shirts. They would be passing out Trojan condoms throughout the evening.

Dodge sponsored this, Comcast that, and Channel 30 something else. Dunkin' Donuts was passing out Fruit Coolatas, but most everything else was for sale and over priced beyond belief (again, please excuse my naivet�. I'm 53 and I'm not in the concert demo anymore).

Considering there is a law in Connecticut preventing a reseller from marking up a concert ticket by too much, you'd think the venue itself would follow that same policy when it came to bottled water or beer or pretzels. They could let you in for free and still make a profit.

A few minutes before 7:00 we met Scotty Crowe. It's interesting how the Internet can catapult unlikely people into the limelight, and Scotty is one of them. Once I knew I'd be meeting him, I "Googled" him. Not only does he write John Mayer's Road Journal, he also has some dedicated fans, including a Scotty Crowe bulletin board. Damn!

We went into the hallway that would serve as "Meet and Greet" central, and waited. I tried to make small talk with Scotty, but as is always the case when I do something like that, I came off as a total dork. At least I gave him a good PhotoShop tip (Ctl-L is perfect for enhancing video levels on digital photos).

John came out a few minutes later. I don't notice these things, but Steffie said he was wearing the same outfit we saw him wear at Oakdale. He's tall and thin and young and I'm jealous..

After saying hello and posing with the people in front of us, John came over. He was very nice (though after meeting him at KC-101, Oakdale and now here, I can't help but wonder if he thinks I'm a stalker... or if I actually am a stalker).

As soon as he started to speak to Stefanie, he said, "You're Stef, right?" I believe that was the magic moment as far as she was concerned. To be remembered by someone in his position, who meets so many people, was very gratifying.

I told John I thought he was smart, and a nice guy. But, I had seen others who had that... and lost it. I told him it was very important he remember to continue to be the kind of person he is now. I seriously think he will. But, as with Scotty a few minutes earlier, I felt like a dork after I said it. I hope he'll think I was somewhat appropriate.

We had come very early and we found out we would be staying very late. Not only was John Mayer performing, so were the Counting Crows and an opening act before them. There was only so much we could take, so Steffie and I sat outside, people watching, while Stew (or possibly Stu... I wasn't inside) performed.

We headed inside and found our seats before the Crows hit the stage.

If you have never been to The Meadows (and now that I've talked about all the commercialism, you should know, it's the "ctnow.com Meadows Music Centre). It is a huge, high roofed pavilion with theater seating and a removable rear wall. There is no air conditioning. There are no ceiling fans. It was hot and sticky and uncomfortable.

I had never seen the Counting Crows and I was favorably impressed. Lead singer Adam Duritz, his hair fashioned with somewhat wild dreadlocks, is very talented and (and I always like this in a performance) a commanding presence on stage.

Toward the end of the set, he told a story of going to school in Watertown, CT and flunking a music course. Judging by the description, it is probably The Taft School. A website FAQ confirms it.

The Crows got off after 10:00 PM. The venue had not cooled down. Every once in a while, a brief whisper of air would move by, and you'd think, maybe it's going to cool down. But the 'waft' was short lived; a tease at best.

Not quite 11:00, John Mayer took the stage. As appreciative as the audience was for the Counting Crows, they stepped it up a notch and a half for John. There's no doubt that a packed house is good for the home team, and he is the home town here.

He is an artist who sounds just like his Cd's (I wanted to write records, but that would make me very old, wouldn't it?). That means his artistry is real and not produced into being. Most of the house stood for most of the performance.

He did the hits, and some cuts from the new CD (out in a few weeks) and then a phenomenal guitar solo. As good as he is as a troubadour, John Mayer is a masterful guitarist; as good as I've heard

There's obviously some BB King in his riffs, and probably others I don't recognize, but mostly it is his ability to make the guitar become its own voice that makes his playing so good. It is my contention that if he weren't singing, he'd have an amazing career as a guitarist.

At 11:45 PM he said goodnight, only to come back on stage alone to do the first of two encore numbers.

We were out by midnight. As soon as I turned on the car radio, I realized I wasn't hearing quite as well as I did when I went in! Within ten minutes we had navigated Hartford and gotten onto I-91 southbound.

Though Steffie tried (and she has pre-season field hockey practice tomorrow morning) she had only a few minutes of sleep before we were home.

Great night. I'd do it again.

Click here for more photos from the concert

Whatever the reason, the forecast through the Great Lakes tonight has been atrocious. A strong line of thunderstorms stretched from the Quebec/Ontario border southwestward into the United States.

At least two tornadoes touched down in Michigan. There was NO Severe Thunderstorm or Tornado Watch in effect.

There might have been a Tornado Warning or Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the counties affected, but since those don't get issued until a storm is sighted, they afford little in the way preparation time.

I'm not at the Storm Prediction Center and certainly don't know what goes on in their mind(s), but over time, it has seemed to me like they are reticent to issue a watch box once a storm has already gotten going.

I've seen it in Connecticut, and tonight in Michigan. It's wrong.

Certainly issuing a watch while the storm is already in progress signals a blown forecast, but it allows all sorts of secondary actions to take place which will sensitize residents to what is taking place.

I will read, with interest, the Michigan newspaper websites over the next few days.

Both Helaine and I have been playing on Pokerstars.com. Obviously, our inability to win consistently means it must be fixed. It couldn't have anything to do with skill... could it?

Mostly, we stay in low stakes tournaments. Pokerstars runs a bunch of tournaments. Maybe too many!

With all the tournaments, you often have to wait for a table to fill up. So, you'll see 3 of 9 seats filled here and 2 of 9 there or 4 of 18 somewhere else. If there were less choices, there would be more filled tables at any given time.

Tonight, Helaine made 3rd place in a single table, fixed limit Hold'em tournament. Entry fee, $5.50. Payoff for 3rd, $9.00.

We can retire!

After walking Ivy the dog, I tried my luck at a 2 table, no limit Hold'em tournament. Entry fee, $11.00

We're still down $42 since we started around a week and a half ago. Quite honestly, it's exciting, cheap entertainment. But, it would be more fun if we were currently winning.

I've been interviewed dozens, maybe hundreds of times (and I enjoy being interviewed, so it's not a problem).

It still astounds me... the ratio between what you say and what actually ends up in print. It's probably even worse in TV, where we preceed the interview with setup time.

It was clear, early on, that Friday had a significant chance for severe weather. I was concerned that the computer models downplayed it somewhat. But Thursday, within a few hours of being run, they had already blown the forecast in Michigan... so the computers weren't to be totally trusted.

A little activity started on Central New York State toward early afternoon and the Storm Prediction Center threw up a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for the entire state, effective until 8:00 PM.

That was the right call.

A little background. I forecast the weather. The folks I work with forecast the weather. My competitors forecast the weather. But, we all leave watches and warnings to the Weather Service. The idea is to present a coordinated front, so as not to be confusing. In my 20+ years in weather I have heard few dissent from this concept.

After a watch is posted, it is the job of the Taunton, MA National Weather Service Office to put out a 'redefining' statement for all of Connecticut (even though they normally only forecast for 3 of the 4 northern counties and none of the shoreline). These are needed because watches are parallelograms and they don't evenly fit within state or county borders. Without the redefinition, a watch area might include a small sliver of a state or something else equally confusing.

Taunton's original statement only included their counties.

Then a correction to include the whole state.

But, by then the damage had been done. At the TV station our Weather Warn II computer was confused. It put up a Thunderstorm Watch and then alternated text for a "defined area" and mentioned the three original counties. If we would have aired it, it would have looked like the watch was only for three counties.

As I drove in, Kirk Varner, our news director (who reads this, I can't blast him here), saw what was going on and basically shifted to manual. This system is supposed to work on its own, without intervention. At the moment, it can't be trusted. But, thankfully, we had the right info on the screen.

Throughout the afternoon we saw scattered thunderstorms. They probably didn't get to the 'official' severe limit, but were close enough to justify the watch box.

Thursday night, this same system had quieted down and then, with the watches expired, fired up. It even spawned tornadoes in Michigan on the 'rebound.'

Tonight, the system again died down. And then a series of awful human judgment errors.

At 7:10 PM:

But, in Connecticut, these storms weren't just over Windham County. They had crossed the border to New London County. In fact, by the time the warning went up, Northern New London County was seeing more action than Windham.

Windham County gets its warnings from Taunton, MA. New London County gets them from Upton, NY. No warning went up for New London County.

If there was reason for warning Windham County, there was reason for a warning to be issued for New London. This lack of coordination is a problem we face a few times a year, at the least.

At 7:51 PM, the watch and warning configuration in Connecticut was out of whack with what was actually happening. This system is supposed prepare and inform. It was confusing.

Thunderstorms continued, though weaker, until sometime past 10:00. Saturday will be a totally different weather animal - cooler and fresher.

I am not happy with what went on Friday. In many ways, I am powerless to change things unless I start 'buying out' of the unified watch and warning scenario.

I don't think I'm ready for that... but I'm close.

-------
By the way, at 4:21 PM the dew point a Meriden, CT (KMMK) reached an unbelievable 79°! I can't ever remember seeing a dew point that high in Connecticut.

Right after 9/11, a photo circulated on the Internet showing a man on the observation deck of the World Trade Center, facing a camera. Behind him, a plane flew directly toward the building. It, of course, was a fake.

In fact, tools like PhotoShop make it incredibly easy to turn the unreal...real. Such is the case with a satellite image making its way across the world, mostly through email. It has been resized and had the levels tweaked a bit, but it's the same image.

So far, I have gotten this from my father, my friend Howard, loads of viewers and other well meaning people. If it were true, it would be a pretty spectacular shot.

The real photo is actually a montage of a number of satellite images from a Defense Department Weather Satellite (DMSP). In order to get a fully clear view, and cover the whole country, the actual time frame of the image is Oct. 1, 1994, to March 31, 1995.

Few people look at visible satellite imagery at night, because all you can see are city lights... and normally that's not very helpful.

If you really take a good look at the phony image, it's done in a ham fisted way. The areas of removed light shouldn't resemble a black hole, but should be shades of dark gray. After all, there was some illumination from the moon. Also, there were pockets of lights still working, even within the blackout area. And, though wire reports implied otherwise, most of Connecticut was powered up and good to go.

When I first saw the photo, I knew it was wrong because I know the original very well. It's a classic. But, I also knew this satellite doesn't see the whole country at once, nor is the whole country ever cloud free.

There are before and after images from the blackout, and they are pretty amazing. Unfortunately, fact isn't quite as glamorous as fiction.

I am desperately trying to enable some good weather info on this site. I have Hamweather installed, and it works. But, I can't integrate it to my look.

I have tried NOAHweather, but am having no luck. Looking at some of the code makes it seem like there are hard coded paths that don't apply on my system.

I will try again, but it's driving me a little crazy.

In better computer news, I installed a wireless router and pci card for my friend Steve. Now, no more wires between rooms.

Though it didn't go 100% smoothly, it was pretty good. Belkin did an excellent job on the software and manual, making them nearly foolproof.

Nearly two weeks of online poker is now behind us, with Helaine and me playing a few times a day (I originally had I but I think it should be me).

Tonight, I played 3 - $11- 2 table tournaments. Two losses, including one incredibly quick flameout, and one third place. That's $36 minus $33 for a $3 net tonight!

All right... Amarillo Slim.

All together, we're down a bit over $50.

It continues to be fascinating. However, tonight I was chatting with my friend Bob, who was watching me play from Florida, and I realized how easily you could cheat. Except for the really huge tournaments (and we've never placed in the money in any of those) you pretty much select your own table.

But, these $11 tournaments take so long for someone to take home $72... would anyone find that worthwhile?

From today's New York Times:

August 25, 2003
Evite's Day of Atonement

Evite, an operator of a free Web-based event planning and invitation service, and a unit of InterActiveCorp, sent the following e-mail message on Friday to recipients of its monthly newsletter:

My friend Farrell sent me this, all the way from Singapore. It's a retrospective of photos from the Northeast Blackout, taken in New York City.

Just click on the box below to see the pictures.

It has been pointed out that 'photo's' shouldn't have an apostrophe. I agree, but because of the format of the pictures, cannot change it.

So, I guess, spelling does count. Damn!

When I built my current home computer (what a geeky thing to be able to say), I installed a small applet that sits in the system tray, that little area on the lower right hand part of the screen near the clock. The applet does one thing and one thing alone. It monitors the temperature of my computer's CPU.

I thought it might be a good idea because sometimes the room gets warm or cool and I wanted to make sure it didn't suffer. Truth is, My AMD Athlon 1600+ is capable of running at much higher temperatures than what I subject it to. I also thought another cool readout on the screen would be... well... cool.

I was worried about heat, even in the design stages. I have so many fans in the case that it sounds like a Beechcraft 1900 taxiing out for departure.

Give me a sec... I'm getting to the point.

What I found was the biggest contributing factor to higher CPU temperatures was not environmental but actually how much thinking the computer was doing! That was weird., and it took a while to put 2+2 together.

If, for instance, I edit video (which is very math intensive and can take a long time) the CPU's temperature starts creeping up. On a long session it can be 15-20 degrees warmer than what I normally see. If I'm surfing the net or typing email or working on this blog, it idles relatively cooly.

I'm not sure if this is because in high stress applications there are more electrons trying to move faster, making it a friction thing? The clock that runs the chip keeps a constant beat, so it's not heating up because its little silicon heart is beating faster.

But, it is a puzzlement.

Here's what brought this to mind. Tonight, The National Weather Service's computer, which run the forecast models, had to be shut down because of heat. Since these machines run the same basic programs every night, I don't think they're experiencing the same kind of anomolies I see at home. It's probably mechanical and will need a plumber or air conditioning expert rather than a computer expert. Still, it's interesting to see that heat is the enemy of computers everywhere.

The link below connects to their statement on the computer failure.

I was looking through the webite of a journalist, whose work I've really enjoyed for a long time, when I found something unsettling. Recently, he had written a long, positive story about a company... and now that company turned up as a sponsor of his website.

What to do?

This is probably the wrong thing to do, but I worte him a note. And, actually, I was mostly satisfied with the answer I received.

Here's the answer I got:

I removed his name and the name of the company because, though this shouldn't have happened in the first place, it stopped quickly. As I said, I have read this guy since the beginning and will not fry him for one misstep.

That's one.

Helaine and I continue to play, and we continue to be down $43. However, over the past three days I have done two things which have proved very successful.

First, I'm playing in very low stakes games. These are normally $5 No Limit Texas Hold'em tournaments (plus $.50 for the house) with 9 or 18 players. The low stakes tends to attract people just getting their feet wet. You can win up to $36 if you place first in an 18 player tourney

So, is it a bit of an unfair fight? Sure.

Any card player can get lucky or hot, which is what keeps poor players coming back. But, you can't depend on luck. Over time, the cards do even out.

Second, I've become very, very aggressive. I hardly play any hands early on, waiting for the top few draws to see the flop. As soon as I know I have something very good, I go all in. Most players fold immediately.

Will I bet KK and end up facing someone with AA... or someone who makes a ridiculous runner? Yes. But, by and large, this strategy (which cuts down on pot size by eliminating the last few bets) produces many more winning hands. More importantly, players fishing for a hand get scared off.

As I said, it's been very good, as I've won money in 4 of the last 6 tournaments I've been in.

I do know my limitations. This strategy might not work at all in $10 tournaments. Certainly, in higher stakes games there will be a more educated class of player, and I might be seen for the 'poker bully' I'm being.

It's also possible I'm on a hot streak and don't see it. In that case, this strategy will fail rapidly.

I'm pretty happy with the response my NE Blackout satellite picture 'expose' brought. This is a very tiny website... miniscule... but somehow, under certain conditions, I am the number one citation on MSN Search for people looking for the blackout satellite images.

We're only talking about a few hundred hits. To me, that's a big deal.

Earlier today, I got a nice note from a woman who wanted to print my page, but can't because it's white type on a gray background (I will look for a plug in to enable a 'print' page). I sent her the text, she replied thanking me, and added:

When I looked at her return address, I realized she works at the home office of the same, small company I work for! As it turns out, she had no clue I worked for them. The address on this website is a personal, not corporate address. This was just dumb Internet luck.

So, again, how weird is this?

Helaine and I took the trash to the curb a few minutes ago. The town doesn't pick-up recyclables every week, and we don't bring them to the curb every time we can, but the scene outside is not to be believed. There are three trash cans, a recycling bin full of bottles six grocery bags full of the New Haven Register and New York Times and assorted cardboard tied with string.

There is more outside our house than used to sit outside the apartment building I grew up in!

To me, what makes this ridiculous is what we recycle; glass and mostly paper. What do they think, this stuff grows on trees? Uhh... forget that.

Trees are an easily renewable resource and glass comes from sand. As far as I know, there's no shortage of sand in the offing. Here is Connecticut at least, the percentage of forested land is higher now than it's ever been. Aren't there things to be recycled which would make more sense?

I get my hair cut at work. I know. That's one of the most decadent priveleges my job affords me. In the last 15 years my hair has been cut outside of this building once; on the morning of my daughter's bat mitzvah,

Today, I was sitting in the men's dressing room with Francine (Queen of Hair) giving me a little trim.

By the way, if given half the opportunity, Francine would work on my hair for hours at a time, until each individual folicle was where it belonged. But, even when I rush her, she's unreal.

So, Francine is clipping away and the door is open to the hallway. I tend to look at the mirror and call out to people who are passing by. A tall figure walks by, stops, and sticks his head in.

Jesse Jackson.

So, what do you do when you're sitting, with a 'bib' on, trying to keep hair off your clothes with a woman spraying water on your hair? Is there anything clever to be said at all?

The Reverend Jackson and I do not see eye-to-eye on all issues... in fact, maybe not on most issues. However, I must admit he is a charming man... very approachable and seemingly without pretense (in our short meeting). There is no doubt, he is one of the most recognizable, revered, and reviled, people alive today.

I am astounded by the number of people at the station who say they've met him before. He is a person who makes loads of one-on-one contacts. That's a major strength.

He is tall and a little rumpled in his dress. He was accompanied by, though not surrounded by, a group of tall and large black men.

I'm sure he needs bodyguard protection, he is a controversial figure with a lot of enemies. But his 'protectors' were not at all menacing or threatening or even overly cautious here in the television station. But, they were big. I'd feel safer.

I wonder if he'll remember meeting me? I will remember meeting him.

This morning, Helaine asked me if I had noticed that Ivy the dog's breathing was very shallow and rapid, even when at rest. Unfortunately, I did.

We have a very good vet hospital in the neighborhood, and I called. Helaine took Ivy over before noon.

Ivy has fluid in her lungs, her color is pale and her lymph glands are swollen. They put her on an IV and administered oxygen. They also gave her some medication.

This evening, there is some improvement, but not much.

We are worried, and how could we not be? Ivy is a very important member of the family.

Dr. Gustafson, Ivy's attending, will be in tomorrow and we will check back.

Ivy the dog is still in the hospital There was some improvement today, which I'll get to later. Still, Helaine felt it was best for her to stay home... and she did.

Steffie and I took our three tickets to see The Producers, got in the car around 9:00AM, and headed into New York City. After Dunkin' Donuts and gas (there's a joke here somewhere), we hit the open road, convertible top down.

This was actually risky. The mostly cloudy sky turned overcast as we moved west from Bridgeport (In Connecticut, the east-west Connecticut Turnpike is labeled north-south. This makes a geographically challenged adult population even more confused). I expected to have to pull over, under an underpass, at any moment to get the top up. But, by the time we hit the Cross Bronx Expressway, the sun had returned and the air began to get steamy.

The trip to New York, though shared with lots of other cars, was never hampered by traffic.

We followed the CBE to the West Side Highway (following the Last Exit in New York signs) and headed south along the Hudson River. The view to New Jersey was a little hazy. The river itself was pretty empty.

I parked the car ($30, thank you) on West 44th Street, just west of 8th Avenue. I always put up the top when parking, even in attended parking, and that was a good thing, since it later rained.

It was near 11:00 AM and the show wasn't until 2:00 PM, so we headed into the subway at the corner and went downtown to Canal Street.

For some unknown reason, I thought the IRT #1 train would be the closest (it wasn't). I mention this, because the subway stairs at 8th and 44th bring you to the 8 Avenue Line IND station with connecting corridors to the IRT (mentioning IND and IRT only helps to show I'm getting older. These labels, a throwback to the era when some subways lines were privately owned, haven't been used in decades.) It seemed like we were walking to Canal Street as the narrow, tiled, dingy, hot tubes led up and down, left and right, until we were on the downtown platform. We took the express a few stops and then walked across the platform to take the #1 to Canal.

New Yorkers leave the city in droves during the summer, and I'm sure that's especially true for Labor Day weekend. At the same time tourists pour in. Canal Street was jammed.

Maybe I've mentioned this before, but I'm sure Kate Spade, Christian Dior or Louis Vuitton (is there really a Louis Vuitton?) would clutch their collective chests and fall to the ground in cardiac arrest if they ever saw Canal Street. Everything is a knock off... but a nearly perfect knock off.

When a bag says Prada on the outside, it also has Prada on the hardware and Prada "franked" on the leather inside. It's a pretty thorough job.

Today, I actually stopped as I bought a bottle of Poland Springs water from a vendor, thinking maybe it too wasn't the real thing. Hey, it's Canal Street, who knows?

I continue to look, to no avail, for a Breitling combination analog/LCD watch. Obviously, Breitling has them, but that's a little out of my price range for a watch... maybe not for a car, but for a watch.

Steffie went bag, wallet and shoe shopping. Is it an obsession? Sure. There should be some 12 step program to get her back on the right track. But, at least on Canal Street you can indulge your fantasy. She bought a few things, including some shoes she had been lusting after.

I found a few computer books. One was on Perl, a computer language (which will not make my spell checker happy) used on websites like this one, that I want to learn. The second had to do with Cascading Style Sheets. Again, it's a concept used on this website and something I had heard about for years without understanding. Like Perl, if I'm going to administer this site, I need to learn at least a little bit about it. Books on Canal Street go for 1/2 retail price or a little less.

A few Canal Street observations. There is a street side display ad for Tag Heuer watches. These watches are sold on Canal Street... they're just not real. It's an odd place for an ad like this.

Canal Street is old and tired. There hasn't been new construction here since the 1930's or maybe earlier. Little shops are crammed into spaces no larger than a small closet. And, my guess is, this was never an upscale neighborhood, even back in the day. That's why it was interesting to see beautiful detail work on some of the older industrial buildings.

Finally, even in the midst of urban congestion, people find comfort in things growing. I found this 'city garden' on a fire escape. There's no doubt it's against fire code, but it is nice to see.

With a 2:00 PM curtain, we headed back into the subway and north to the 42 Street stop on the E train. Up the stairs and, astoundingly enough, we were a half a block from the theater. But, there was a problem. We had Helaine's ticket!

A try outside the theater yielded nothing. It didn't seem like the right place to sell it. So, we headed to the TKTS booth in Duffy Square. This is where you'd likely find people looking for tickets, and Producers tickets were always tough to come by.

I walked parallel to the line at TKTS. "Single ticket to The Producers." Once, twice, three times... and then as I was about to try one more time, Steffie turned me to a woman in line who was interested. She asked how much? I hadn't thought about it, so asked her to make me an offer. She said half, and the deal was done.

As it turned out, she was Japanese, in New York by herself (though she said she had friends there) and had only come in earlier in the day. She was about to sit dead center in the 6th row, and I was subsidizing 50% of the cost.

The Producers was excellent. It is everything the movie was, though the story has been adapted and simplified for the stage. The current cast is considered "B" next to Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. Even then, like most New Yorkers, some of the biggest players were out-of-town, replaced by stand-ins. Lewis J. Stadlen, the lead, was replaced by John Treacy Egan, which meant Egan was also covered by an understudy.

I would very much like to see the show again, with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. As the originators of Bialystock and Bloom, and with the theatrical clout to be a little 'over the top', my guess is they bring the show up a few notches.

The dialog and sensibility of the show was pure Mel Brooks. You could hear his voice in nearly every line. And, in fact, his voice was heard (lip sync'ed by an actor) during Springtime for Hitler; "Don't be stupid, be a Smarty - sign up with the Nazi Party!" I believe he did this line in the film as well.

Brad Musgrove as the astoundingly gay Carmen Ghia was a hoot. He got the biggest ovation of the non-principals.

After the play broke, we headed away from the car, and back toward Times Square. Steffie wanted a henna tattoo, which we never found.

We did see a few things in Times Square that you only see in Times Square. The most notable is the "Naked Cowboy." It is, stripped to its essence, a man wearing a cowboy hat, boots and underwear. That's it. He charges to pose for photos, and does a pretty brisk business.

For the cowboy challenged, there was also Spiderman, available for a price. In the spirit on New York, I doubt any of his take goes to the copyright owner.

What we did find was rain! What had been a sprinkle as we left the theater turned into a downpour. We were near 42nd Street by this point, so we headed to the ESPN Zone. With a 30 minute wait, we turned back up Broadway and ended up at Planet Hollywood.

When in Times Square, Steffie and I eat at Planet Hollywood more often than not. The food was fine, but more importantly, the restaurant was dry. We were soaked when we got in. Luckily, the camera, books, bags, shoes and the like were in plastic bags. Steffie's purse had been outside, but tonight, it seemed none the worse for water.

We headed back to the car, only to run into the New York City Fire Department. Something was going on above West 44th Street. Four or five pieces of fire rolling stock and at least a dozen, firefighters (each wearing oxygen packs) stood around chatting as a ladder was extended from a truck and two firefighters climbed to the roof of the theater adjacent to the St. James (where The Producers plays).

If there was cause for alarm, it was well hidden. No one was breaknig a sweat. Steffie wanted to stay and watch, which we did for a few minutes. But, as time went on, it became clear that whatever was going on, was going on out of sight... and wasn't all that dramatic.

By 6:00 we were in the car, turned north on 8th Avenue, and headed home... with the top down.

I went and saw Ivy in the hospital this afternoon.

She was quiet when I came in, laying down in her cage. It is spacious by Westie standards, but it's still a cage. Ivy had an IV tube taped to her left front leg.

She licked me and gobbled down the piece of cheese I brought. But, she also started panting, which isn't good. The doctors have said she is doing a little better, but she still has shallow breathing.

Hopefully, Monday (Labor Day) she'll have her ultrasound and a plan of treatment can start.

This sucks for Ivy. It sucks for us too.