WhimsyLand

Everyone in my family is always bugging me about getting a reliable car.  I have this old Lexus with 230,000 miles, so I bought my son's Honda to have something that wouldn't give out for odd reasons at odd times.  Then, Dima needed to borrow a car and Der came home from his road trip and I needed another car, so I bought an old pickup.  I've owned a Jag, a couple of Austin Healey's, and RX-7, and I can't remember what else over the years, and I'm looking for something peppier.  This Bugatti would be nice.  With the top down it tops out at 250 MPH, and does 0-to-60 in 2.5 seconds.  They're only making 400 of them, and there's a waiting line.  Of course there is.  They're a bargain at about $2 million each.

I just made a rough count and we now have over 30 terabytes of storage in the office.  That's about 10 terabytes per person.  It's estimated that the Library of Congress's print holdings would occupy 17 to 20 terabytes if it were digitized (much, much less if just typed into a Word document).  There are approximately 18 million books and 54 million manuscripts which take up hundreds of miles of shelf space.

There are 5 pretty terrific videos the Academy of American Poets' website.  If you've never heard them in person, you get a chance to listen to  John Ashbery,  Louise Glück,  Anthony Hecht,  Kay Ryan, and W. S. Merwin.  Kay is hilarious, as usual, Ashbery is engaging and it's the first time I've ever seen the Duchess of Dour smiling.

Boulder area news (partly for the benefit of Jeannine):  Police encountered two men arguing in their front yard and upon asking questions, were approached in a hostile manner, whereupon the police shot one of the men with a Taser, which mis-fired.  One man then picked up an axe and started whacking at the police car.  The police then fired bean bag guns at them, which apparently subdued them.  If that hadn't worked, the officers would have probably tried harsh words.  Erie resident Constantina Tomescu-Dita, a Romanian lady who lives in nearby Erie, arrived home after winning an Olympic Gold in the marathon.  A local man thought it would be a good idea to roughhouse with his friend's pit bull until the latter bit the ear off of the former.  CU regents declined to reconsider its policy of barring guns on campus, after being petitioned by a group called Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

Poets & Writers lead-off article and cover shot is of the always affable Billy Collins.  Quotes from the interview include:  "... there are about nineteen kinds of audience silence, ranging from really good to really bad".  His 2001 book, Sailing Alone Around the Room sold a quarter of a million copies.  I know that 80% of my audience doesn't like BC, but you should really listen to The Best Cigarette and then think about it.  A long article on David Rhodes, a novelist (so I don't care).  Another article on Agents and Editors, which leaves me laughing.  Special section on independent presses which includes Green Lantern Press, Flood Editions, Academy Chicago, Adastra Press, Fairy Tale Press, and Nightboat Books.  Stories by Megan Doll on the Dickman twins.  Eight zillion MFA and MA program advertising.  Bajillions of announcements including a reminder that the Whitman Award comes with a $5K prize and publication by LSU Press. 

What I'm working on?  A bunch of projects which includes those Dima's engaged in and a small project for Ilya:  Windows application to download new firmware to a controller that IBM OEMs for its POS systems;  MP3 player firmware on a new chip; Demo program to show possibilities of a new dual-touch touchscreen that responds to gestures a la the iPhone; Windows CE and Linux drivers and demo programs on an ARM4 board that connects with a novel touchscreen system; Commercial BASIC compiler/runtime with interface to MySQL.  I'm also working with Der as we rip the carpet off the stairs to the second floor.

Quotable Quotes:

'Becca via Reb:  "Self promotion is NOT A SIN, unlike touching yourself inappropriately on the bus, or wearing Tevas™ with a skirt."

CDY:  "I am starting to feel my age. Let us leave it at that."

Jonathan:  "Improvisation is a troubled category."

Eduardo, upon entering the Poet's Cottage:  "I want to hug my poems. I want to kiss my poems. To thank them for sheltering and feeding me."

Shann:  "I spent hours this morning switching verbs, then nouns, then starting over again."

Kasey:  "Our biggest issue yet is so frisky and slippery and full of pseudoinformation and prone to inappropriate touching it will make you SQUEAL!" (see Rebecca's quote)

Aaron:  "Stay in touch with loved ones."

Trish:  "Solzhenitsyn...is DEAD," Elegant Choice announced dramatically when he came home from work on Sunday. "Solzhenitsyn? But I thought he was from the eighteenth century," I responded wonderingly."