inside I am warm
the world rains cold outside
I sit in my seat

haircuts down the hall
she stands curvy, sweet and blond
glass seperates us

Christmas came and went
our gifts were few and many
inside I am warm

stern, powerful man
responsible for monday
or was it tom hanks


that is the haiku for today. Letterman did a monologue on Cheney and torture it was a bit of a running gag. Maybe it has been for a while. I've not seen it in a while. The really interesting bit is that the commentary before it at least in Maine was advocating torture. I got to wondering how many issues come up because at some point two people had something to prove to each other. And I thought that torture might be just such and issue. I don't know... I was blown away by the contrast. I wondered if there might be some intelligent design behind it.

it is late sunrise
He shouts against all comers
who can be right now

Sadness not to play
seven and 1 half written
rules are important

seven and 1 half
we do not understand it
be careful drinking

disconnect, he shouts
you only have table stakes
he would disagree

mystic dies

mystic died last night
a beautiful black cat
our friend will be missed

Regrets

Regret that not done
no once then again later
what was I thinking

life changing choices
relics flow over me still
time is relative

autumn's copper leaves
bright reminders shine for me
It's not over yet

it is, no it's not
I move on but relics stay
they are nice to view

They don't change for me
I grow, I move forward still
still it's nice to know

I like fall contrasts
bright leaves against foggy air
hope before winter

What is a haiku

Seventeen syllables does not a haiku make. But it's a good start.

fog haiku

computer hums near
fog horn moans low far away
the day begins now

A day of Deep Sea Fishing

My friend Fred Andrews at Investment Properties Real Estate took a bunch of us deep sea fishing aboard the Maine Lady III. It was a rough trip out but Capt Rob was amazing. It was obvious he'd done it before. The man is a complete professional. He made the ride out an amazing roller coaster instead of fear for your life kind of trip at least for me. I'm sure the seas weren't as bad as they seemed. One of us said "Those seemed like bigger than 2-4 foot seas."

"They always do." said Captain Rob.

We got out to sea a bit and the sun came out. Ok so we didn't catch much, a bunch of mackerel and pollock that we used for bait, but I had a really good time

Radio better in the dark

OK so I was listening to the shuttle landing on the MPBN the other day when my son came down and I thought it would be cool to show my son what a shuttle landing looked like. I turned on the TV and you know what, it was night in California. Turns out that television relies a lot on visuals to tell the story and once that's gone they don't have much to say. The radio had chatter between the crew and the ground. A commentator that had a clue as to how to tell a story. Should've stuck with the radio. Maybe it's time to take the radio out of the corner and put it back into the center of the room.

I'm watching "the man who shot liberty valence." Talk about hitting the river, I've been playing poker online, the man went out against very high odds, I guess the pot odds just were right for him. The interesting thing is that I've never seen more than the last hour of this movie.

Did they make this movie to look like it was on stage or was that the way movies were made at the time? Other John Wayne movies aren't so obviously on a sound stage or were they.

Anyway, I'm really liking this movie and I might even being willing to sit though it with the commentary feature turned on. It might be really interesting to hear an old interview with Jimmy Stewart or John Wayne.

It has one of my favorite lines. "This is the west sir..."

roller skating haikus

Yesterday Skating
Not my most favorite thing
I did the dad thing.

There was a party
which daughter was invited
I did the Dad thing.

Thought I might like it
had not done in thirty years
I remember why.

Wrote some Haiku there
Seemed like the thing to do
Did not hurt as much:


Wheels turn round and round
Air flows warm past my ankles
They need to be strong

My feet hurt alot
My feet are now red and hot
Blisters are forming

Forehead beading sweat
Drops hit the ground moist and wet
Puddle, skate with care

Water fountain, ah
No! The water is tepid
I am still thirsty

We cut out early
and got ice cream good and cool.
Felt better for it.

Summer begins in Maine

They say about maine, that if you can't take the winters you don't deserve the summers. Well the winter wasn't really hideous or maybe I've just repressed the horror. I do seem to recall alot of snow. The last few weeks have been just deadly. Rain, rain, and more rain. But not today. The sun is out. It's warm. the birds are singing. WooHoo. And I'm in here loading win2000 onto an old computer. Oh well.

I walked the kids to school and it was beautiful.

June NETpm rocks

Ok so maybe rocks is to strong a word as there wasn't any music. But man the food and beer did not even come close to running out. It was amazing.

Oxford Networks and Know Technology put it on. They have a cool office in downtown Portland, ME. It has among other things a glassed in data center that looks really neat, and the fattest data pipes in Maine.

I had a good time. Tech people showed up. People looking for tech people showed up. The NETpm is really becoming a business event. Look for a stylin new office in Westbrook for Mesda coming very soon.

The rating: 4.5 almost as good as it can get.

Brian O'Connor Plays the Spoons

I would like to thank Scott Haron who is selling real estate for InvestmentPropertiesRealEstate.com for telling me to update my blog every time he sees me.

But that's not why I write today. Brian O'Connor, among other things, plays the spoons and sent this video out to his fans today. It's 4 megs so be patient. It is worth the time to download. Be sure to check out the use of the entire body from head to knee. He is available for personal and television appearences.

savetoby.com or not

OK so I came on bobparson's blog today. It seems that some guy has decided to put the fate of a rabbit in the hands of the internet. 50 grand before the end of June or the rabbit gets it and I eat it. I don't really care one way or another except that PayPal took down his donate here account presumably because of pressure from animal rights groups.

First how does that save the rabbit?
Second unless he is doing something illegal that is censorship. While I'm not really concerned about the fate of an animal which is used as food around the world, I am concerned about some basic freedoms which seem to be taking something of a beating these days.

It's important that we are able to express ourselves even though it may be offensive to others. I'm not a big fan of a lot of extreme groups on both sides of the political spectrum but it is important that they are heard or at least allowed to be heard. Personally I just don't listen to most of them.

PayPal can do what it wants but I for one would prefer to know that it will not close down my account just because I'm doing something that someone else doesn't agree with.

There are some really heinous groups out there some of which could well ask for money to do something that is illegal. But killing a rabbit for food is not illegal.

On another note, when I went to the site it took a long time to load. It may well just crash under it's own weight, as more and more people go to see it. So if you are curious go see it. If you are against it go see it, too, cause it turns out that on the internet there is sometimes to much of a good thing

President's Challenge

So I earned a bronze award at the President's Challenge the other day. It's part of the Presidents Council on Physical Fitness . I earned an award for skiing when I was in high school. It's kinda neat to have something to show for my exercise and martial arts practice at Fournier's. I mean besides the better body, better mind, better health in general bit. OK maybe I don't need something else still it's nice to track my work.

I lost 75 pounds over the last two and a half years. I don't notice any difference... except when I'm carrying around a heavy load. Then I'm like wow I used to have to carry this much weight around all the time. That must have been no fun at all.

Well alright one of the movies I acted in is on the net. It's called Sidesitters and it's worth a look.

turn your life around?

so I'm listening to Morning edition on NPR this morning and they're talking about a pastor who was once a crook and who is now leading his church and breaking fraud rings. The procecutor that put him away even wrote a blurb for the cover of his book.

He admits that it must be hard to trust him but there it is.

As I was listening I was wondering if he ran into someone in his position asking for trust if he would trust them.

Hunter Thompson killed himself yesterday. What's up with that?

Was he hallucinating? Did he think death was an untried drug to experience? Was he sad? Bored? WTF?

I'm not a big fan of suicides. Maybe I just don't want to try to relate to how horrible a person must feel to just give up that much.

We're a Neilson Family! Not really a barrel of fun. For a measly five bucks, we get to fill out a diary by hand about what we watch. Talk about low tech. But I really am an influencer now. A blog and I am representing some of the Portland, ME veiwing area. Course, I blew off television thursday and friday for martial arts classes at Fournier's. But that's the way it goes. On the other hand I did get home for the last fifteen minutes of Survivor. So the cost of ad's for that time slot may go up slightly because of that. Or maybe just not go down slightly. The ads for the first 10 minutes were pretty prominate.

been away for a while. Nothing like stating the obvious, hey?

Anyway, the Mesda NetPM/ABC art show annual event at Troubh Heisler went well. I had a couple of painting in it. Got some nice comments but didn't sell anything. You know that is a really interesting time. Artists, business people, and techies. Talk about an event not to be missed, the networking opportunities alone make it worth the time.

This year though, there was beer! Not just the wine. Which was really good by the way. Miranda's Vineyard from the Portland Public Market supplied it. I am finally convinced that Australian wines might be worth another look.

OK so I joined freecycle.org last year, well really my local group, Portland. It's a pretty cool idea about giving away unwanted stuff to people that might want it. Today this link came through that I thought was pretty cool. It pretty much says it all.