The Sprinkler System Project: Repairing PVC Pipe

These photos show three of the types of repairs I made on the pvc pipe in our sprinkler system. In the system that Jack Dewhurst had installed about five years ago and which had been damaged by the workmen who did our renovation, I had to locate and repair a total of eight breaks or simply missing sections in the underground piping.

I located the breaks by starting at the well head. At the well head, there is a valve that divides the water into three zones. I would select a zone, turn on the pump, and then walk along what I knew to be generally the underground path of the pipe until I came to the first break. I knew when I found one, because the ground would be wet at the break or, sometimes, there would be water simply gushing up from the ground into the air, like Old Faithful. I would turn off the pump, and start digging. When I finished that repair, I turned on the pump again and walked the zone further to see where the next break would be, if any, or whether, instead, the sprinklers would all spring into action.

As you can see in the photos, when I found a break I would dig a trench that exposed the pipe section in question. Then I would take a hack saw and cut the damaged portion out or round off the ends of the pipe in place if a section were simply missing.

PVC pipe is easy to work with, as long as it is in an unconfined place. Our system uses 1 1/4 inch pipe, which is no problem at all to handle. Lowe's and Home Depot have the pvc pipe in all sizes and all the common fittings. The pieces glue together easily and quickly with a liquid primer and an adhesive made especially for this work. I have a Black and Decker WorkMate and it provides the portable workbench/holding platform to cut the pipe. (I probably have the first version on the WorkMate, a marvelous invention that Carol gave me 25+ years ago.)

The problem with making these repairs is that the pipe is definitely not in an unconfined place. The first photo indicates the problem.

The basic repair involves cutting out the damaged piece of pipe; cutting the appropriate length of new pipe from replacement stock; priming/gluing a new coupling to each end of the sound pieces; and then fitting the repair piece into place at the exposed ends of the system pipe, one end at a time, after priming/gluing each end of the exposed pipe under repair.

The problem is that the pipe under repair is set in the ground and, like the replacement piece, has very limited flex. There is also very little lateral movement of the pipe in the ground.

The first photo shows the solution in a particular case. I dug the trench up to a nearby elbow and then dug a second trench that followed the 90 degree turn. At the 90 degree turn, I widened the trench so that I could push the pipe section under repair in the direction of the elbow, giving me enough room between each of the pipe ends under repair to slip in my new piece.



The second photo illustrates two problems. Here I did not have a nearby elbow to help me make room for a replacement section. In addition, one section under repair was a break in a 30 long section of pipe that Jack, upon initial installation, had gently flexed to follow the boarder of the front driveway. The plumber who installed the drain line from the new bathroom simply had to remove about a two foot section of that pipe. There was not nearly enough room for the sort of flex one could safely coax from a repair section of pvc. Furthermore, the angle between the exposed ends of the pipe under repair was less than 22 degrees. I could not find an elbow that would help me fit in the replacement section, and the pipe, as usual, had very little horizontal (longitudinal) play, if any at all.

Enter Flexible PVC. I learned about this miracle solution on the internet. I went back to Home Depot and Lowe's which carried flexible pvc, but neither of them had it in the 1 1/4" variety. But a supply house in Nevada had it, and within a week of my order I had a five foot piece in hand. It made an easy fit, as the photo indicates.

At the bottom of the photo you can also see a "T" junction which was completely broken when I dug out this section. Here I had very little room to maneuver, but a fitting called an expansion repair coupling came to the rescue. This coupling has a telescoping feature that will shorten and lengthen the coupling over about 5 inches of play. To install it, you remove about a foot or so of the pipe with the break; then separate the coupling into its two pieces, gluing one piece to each of the ends under repair; and then slide the coupling closed and tighten it. The coupling has a rubber bushing that seals it in water-tight fashion. Amazing. I used several of these.

There are some other repair approaches. For example, if there is simply a small hole, there is a sort of pvc patch that one can paint with the glue and snap around the section of pipe that has the hole. None of the breaks I had were that small. And there is also a compression fitting available, but I couldn't figure out how that was to be used.

As much as the Lowe's and Home Depot people advertise about having experts at hand to help you, I found myself to be pretty much on my own at those places. One bit of irony is that on my very last visit to Lowe's, I came across an instructional CD entitled Sprinkler System Design and Installation. It was very inexpensive and I bought it, but I'm not sure I want to see it. (I shouldn't say I was on my own. Carol often went with me on my shopping expeditions. She became quite knowledgeable after several visits, and she had the patience to sort through the various boxes at Lowe's and Home Depot that often were either wrongly labled or had the wrong parts mixed up in them.) (Rain Bird has an instructional video on sale at its website.)



The other renovation job I asked our contractor to come back and fix is the driveway itself. We have an old fashioned asphalt, circular drive. What we would like to have are "pavers," that is, a driveway of bricks that are laid cobblestone fashion and can look very nice. The contractor is nowhere in sight.

Let me see, what should I do . . . ? Now that would be a project!

Orchids Bloom in Haiti

Here,

Water!

Today, after patching one more section of the South Zone, the last of the three zones to be repaired, and replacing several more sprinkler heads, we flipped the switch and everything worked.

Business Idea for the Entrepreneurs in the Family

Some sort of export import/business to Africa, maybe in the med technology field. (I'm telling you, if Mary goes back to Africa, I'm going too, if God gives me the health and the means, which I pray he will. By that time, I hope there is a Miami-Nairobi direct air link. Carol says she's coming along, and I'm counting on it.) I'm thinking that with the Davidson College doctor connection, this is a no-brainer.

Fabulous Friday

Yesterday, Carol and I took a "vacation day" and spent it with Mary, who has been here for a few days of her Spring break. We toured South Dade (sometimes referred to as "Redland" or "the Redlands"), starting with our first visit to RF Orchids, then to lunch at the "Tea Room" at Cauley Scquare, on to the Plant Creations nursery, and finally to that famous, glorified fruit stand known as Robert is Here, probably the only fruit stand in Florida with its own micro-zoo out back.

RF Orchids is an orchid nursery that Carol and I learned about at the Miami International Orchid Show that we attended a few weeks ago. It teems with gorgeous orchids, and the nursery rooms are replete with growing, blooming plants, rooms that are open and welcoming to the visitor. (We knew the owners were happy to have us, when one of the staff brought us out glasses of home-made lemonade within five minutes of our arrival.)



Cauley Square is an eccentric collection of shops and small restaurants grouped just off US 1 near Goulds. Mary Ann Ballard, a member of a pioneer S. Dade family, developed this unusal place, round an ancient (for Florida) building just off the track bed for Flagler's railroad that once took people to Key West. (Mary Ann is now deceased, but I had the privilege of knowing her many years ago.) Just to demonstrate that I have no male identity problems, I am not embarrassed to report that not only did I have lunch with Carol and Mary in the "Tea Room" at Cauley Square, I had spinach quiche, which was simply fabulous. (More on Cauley Square, Mary Ann, and the Team Room here.)

After lunch we visited a nursery that has an outstanding web site, Plant Creations. It has an impressive inventory of plants and trees, but it is plainly for the landscape professional. Amateurs like us would best stay on the website and, when we make our in-person visits, have our list of acquisition needs already in hand.









We ended our South Dade tour with a visit to Robert is Here, which enjoys legendary status among people who live in Miami-Dade and is a required stop anytime we are otherwise within 15 miles of the place. We had the obligatory strawberry-key lime milk shake (just one of the many flavors available), sampled some Guayava fruit that Robert himself cut up and offered us (one of the photos shows Robert serving Mary), bought a Mamey for Mary to take back to a friend at Bryn Mawr, and just had a great time looking around at the fruit and other offerings, and, especially interesting for me, at the other visitors, not only tourists from up North but ones from Europe as well, particularly the Germans. (The Germans are the ones who look like us, only they are bigger).

Two of the places we visited, RF Orchids and Cauley Square, are part of a self-guided tour called the "Redland Tropical Trail," which has its own website.

Mary Admitted to Med School!

Here.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him all creatures here below!
Praise Him above heavenly host!
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Amen.

Unrelated

I'm starting a new project for myself. At this point, it's going to have two connection points on the web: a short form and a long form.

The short form is up and running: Unrelated:

It's mostly a list of things that are ideas themselves, or shards of ideas, or nascent ideas that I'm not going to work at all into trying to relate to each other. (Hence the name.)

The Long Form, if it happens, will be a place to link them all up in an essay form.

More Renovation

Our last report on the renovation was May of last year. Although at that time about a year had gone by since the contractor had officially signed off, there were matters left for us to do. Carol worked on the windows, and I worked on repairing the damage to our yard. Despite being good with a shovel, I didn't feel quite up to repairing the lawn sprinkler system that the workers had damaged nor the driveway that had been sliced through at a couple of places. I asked the contractor to come back and give an estimate on putting that in order. He took at look at it about six months ago and brought by a sprinkler subcontractor, but I haven't heard anything from him since then. (No recession in that business, apparently.)

So, several weeks ago I got the shovel back out and resolved to put the sprinkler system back in working order. Since then, I have become well known in the plumbing department of the new Lowe's in Hialeah, have bought work lights that allow me to toil after the sun goes down, and learned, among other things, that there is something called "flexible pvc" and 22 degree elbows and other semi-exotic sprinkler system parts. The internet has been a great help in figuring out how to patch broken pipe and, of course, there's Jack Dewhurst to consult: Jack, who, between jobs during 2003, originally put in the system.

Finally, there is Carol, the brain trust. She would have been a great engineer or surgeon, because she can really figure things out. So out she comes when I run into a problem.

The sprinkler system for our vast estate has three zones, one for the back yard (South Zone), one for the west yard and the west parkway or "swale" as some people call it (West Zone) and one for the front yard and north parkway (North Zone). (No need for an East Zone because Octavio, our neighbor to the east, has a very serious sprinkler system that takes care of about a six feet strip on our side of our common lot line. Octavio has just finished building one of the new terminals at MIA. Before that he went around the country building new Home Depots. He is a serious DIY guy. He tries not to smile when he sees me with a shovel.)

The West Zone is now up and sprinkling. The North Zone is up and sprinkling except for a portion I have temporarily capped off while I wait for the delivery of some 1 1/4 flexible, white pvc to repair a break. The South Zone was the most damaged, and today I repaired one of the pipe breaks and located what I believe is the only other one in that zone. So I have the back broken on this project.

Let Octavio smile.

Matters not to Confess at the Med School Interview

Mary soon goes to her med school interview. She's been researching what to expect, and one question often asked is "What are your weaknesses." So I am now proposing that we list weaknesses that are best kept to yourself at these things. Of course, Mary has none of these weaknesses, so this proposal is for the public interest.

Things not to confess at the med school interview:

1. I hate to wash my hands.
2. The sight of blood makes me faint
3. I'm in this for the money
4. I go to bed early and turn my phone offf
5. I never learned to cover my face when I sneeze
6. I think people get sick because they've sinned.

From Some Other Planet, Senator Kerry Again Speaks to the Financial Crisis

Bankers as Animal House partiers.

Bankers? You have to be kidding me. I have been dealing with these types for 30+ years. These are not (repeat not) party animals. Compare, say, the Masters with Woodstock.

We are in such good hands with Washington now running the banking system, not to mention the auto industry, the insurance industry, the education system, the District of Columbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Drugs, and soon to be, apparently, health care and about everything else.

My theory has been that Washington supports the UN because the UN bureaucrats in NY make Washington look good. But I don't know. I'm not saying that the UN should start packing its bags, but . . .

When is Father's Day this Year?

Oh, yeah.

And lookuh heah.

(And isn't that Macon next to the shelf?)

Greensboro Wonderland

From Mary Ann's front porch.

Funny conversations at the dinner table...

So, the other night, Aidan started knocking on the under side of the dinner table while we were all eating. After doing it a few times, I said, "who's there?" Aidan said, "it's Webb!" (the name of his best little buddy). Honor quickly interjected, "NO! It's Jesus!"
The remaining conversation went something like this:

"webb!"
"Jesus!"
"webb!"
"Jesus!"
"webb!"
"Jesus!"

until they both dissolved in laughter. This continues to remain a heated debate at our dinner table whenever someone "knocks" on the table.

It makes me smile every time.

Staggering Beauty

Carol and I went here this afternoon.

Kerry Three Putts

Sunday afternoon I viewed the exciting finish of the Northern Trust Open on TV. During the week before I had, on behalf of a new client, been working with Northern Trust people here in Miami. I therefore knew what an important event this tournament was for the bank, because the bank people with whom I spoke on the new matter were talking about it. (I don't represent Northern Trust, and I have never represented them in its individual capacity. In fact, in the last three decades that bank and I have often been at loggerheads.)

The WSJ this morning comments on John Kerry being "angry at Northern Trust" over its sponsorship of the event, because the bank had accepted $1.6 billion in TARP funds last year. Senator Kerry's office announced that the Senator would answer Northern's "idiotic" decision to sponsor this event by introducing a bill to prevent "any recipient of TARP funds from hosting, sponsoring, or paying for conferences, holiday parties and entertainment events." The bill will include penalties, fines and forced reimbursement of TARP funds, unless the recipient gets a "waiver" from some sort of entertainment czar that the government would set up.

Last fall a client of mine was interviewing various banks and investment firms to determine who should manage his wealth. Among them was Northern Trust. During the vetting process, the Northern Trust people told us that the bank had accepted TARP funds, but that it was not out of any need for them. They said, essentially, that it was politically expedient to accept TARP funds, because the government made it clear that it expected the bank to take the money. As the WSJ editorial states, "Northern Trust could pay back the TARP funds tomorrow if the terms of that investment [which I was to understand the government virtually forced upon the bank] didn't make it onerous to do so before three years have elapsed."

(Lest anyone think that this is a slam against the President, I would, as a Blue Dog Democrat, take note that these funds were forced upon Northern during the late Republican administration. This is a slam against government.)

Is the War on Drugs a Failure?

The former presidents of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico think so.

Why Some Republican Governors are Turning Down the "Stimulus"

Because it's a trap.

My Political Heart May Have Found a Home

Walt Minnick of Idaho. I heard him on NPR this morning, talking about the "Stimulus" Act. Can we trade our Republican governor for this Democrat?

Here's Walt's view on the auto-bailout from his website.

UPDATE: Here's the NPR interview.

FURTHER UPDATE: Aha! What our governor is probably up to.

"Missionary Medicine in East Africa"

Our friend Juliet Lahmeyer brought Carol a copy of the February 2009 Samaritan's Purse Update. The Update is on the 'net here. An excerpt:

For young physicians just out of residency who feel called to medical missions, our Post-Residency Program provides the opportunity to serve for two years in a hospital overseas. Through this program, we have physicians and their families serving in over a dozen developing countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Drs. Garry and Leann Finke are serving at Kijabe Hospital in Kenya, where the couple continually witnesses God’s healing hand at work. Leann especially remembers a 13-year-old boy named Kelvin who spent a month in the hospital after being run over by a car. He almost died, but the Lord answered the prayers of the Christian staff at the hospital.

(I'm pretty sure that the photo is not of a ward at the Kijabe Hospital. For one thing, the wards we saw there were much neater. For another, the hospital is above the malaria line, so there would be no need for the mosquito netting. From the article, it would appear that the photo is of a ward in a missionary hospital in South Sudan.)

Asher's Blessing

Carol is teaching the Beth Moore study of Esther to a group of women at our church. She teaches the given lesson on Wednesday night and then repeats it Sunday morning for the women who missed it. (There's dedication for you.) In the meanwhile, I get the benefits of the lesson and Carol's insights into it as she prepares.

She brought to my attention yesterday this passage from Deuteronomy 13:

²⁴ About Asher he said:
"Most blessed of sons is Asher;
let him be favored by his brothers,
and let him bathe his feet in oil.

²⁵ The bolts of your gates will be iron and bronze,
and your strength will equal your days.

If I could describe the need for Asher's blessing in 21st Century terms, I would describe it as "What Boomers Would Pray For Should the Idea of God Happen to Come to Them in Their Distracted and Aging Lives." It sums up our fears and, especially, our needs.

Of particular interest is the blessing of "your strength being equal [to] your days." I read this at at very basic level, dealing as I do with clients whose parents or who themselves have needs that have outrun their physical or mental strength or both, but they still have the prospect of many days, even years, left on this earth. Sometimes I think that the greatest blessing of all would be for God to take me exactly at the moment when I fail to recollect the one memory too many; that is, at the very point where I find myself stepping over the threshold of dementia. (Maybe that was yesterday; I don't recall.)

Further Reflection:

But for the Christian "your strength" is not limited to one's individual physical or mental stamina or the extent of his 401k. Look at Pslam 27:1:

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?

My strength is the Lord. Let it happen.

Valentine's Banquet

Does Honor's new shirt remind you of anyone?

My first thought was, "That looks like a shirt Juanita Stokes would like!"

Copland Songs

One of the gifts God gave me was to have been raised in a church where music was central to worship and fellowship. It was a big (for its time) Southern Baptist church, big enough to support a "graded-choir program," a "minister of music" (not a mere music director), an accomplished organist who was a perfect match for a grand pipe organ, and a concert level pianist. A "graded-choir program" meant that there was a choir for every age group, beginning with the little ones (the "Cherub Choir"), the middling ones (the "Junior Choir"), and then the teenagers (the "Youth Choir"). At the top sang the adults (the "Sanctuary Choir").

We had a complete Christian Education program, built around Sunday School, which itself was divided according to age into "departments." Music was a central feature of that program too. The "educational building" rivalled the Sanctuary building, if not in beauty then certainly in function and floor space. During the Sunday School "hour," each Sunday School department had an "opening assembly" of about 10 to 15 minutes, following which the students "went to our classes", boys to theirs and girls to theirs, small groups of maybe around 6-8 children. There might be 6 or 7 of those classes per age group. Using materials from the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the teacher led us. He or she had come to church the Wednesday night before where, at a "teachers' meeting," the "superintendent" of that department would have gone over the upcoming lesson.

We sang at the opening assembly of our Sunday School department, often singing from hymn or song books designed for our grade level. Each Sunday School department area had a piano and there was always a pianist, drawn from a talented pool of amateur musicians in the congregation. As we got older, the pianists, usually adult women, gave way to our peers who had been "taking piano" from an early age. By the time we were in high school, one of us was "leading the singing" and another of us was accompanying. Sometimes the minister of music would come in and with the piano accompany a solo or an ensemble presentation given by our peers who sang in the choir. Sometimes the solo or ensemble presentation was accompanied by one of us as well.

There were "music festivals" where our choirs would meet at assemblies of other Baptist choirs. We would sing our best numbers and be "evaluated" by panels of judges. There were presentations not only of choirs, but of ensembles (I sang in a "quintet" during high school with my cousin, Ken) and of individuals, either as pianists or "song leaders."

Our youth choir went on tour by bus several times. We had a tour to New Orleans one summer, for example, but the most unforgettable was the trip to the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. We sang in Baptist churches all the way up the East Coast and all the way back. Our choir not only gave a concert in the sanctuary of the church, with a sacred program, but at a "fellowship" time after the concerts, our ensembles presented lighter fare - one of them being something called "the Grasshopper Opera," which was a scream.

I was a boy soprano in the younger choirs, but by junior high all of the choir boys had voices breaking down, and the thing to be was a bass. It was OK to be a tenor, but to be a bass - that was where I wanted to be. (My father, also a singer, liked to refer to "the men and the tenors" in the choir. He, of course, was a bass.) So I thought I was a bass throughout the period, but I got no solos. The nicer voices were those of the boys who turned out to be real basses and of the boys who embraced their tenor hood. The main problem, in addition to my attitude, was that my voice was not developing as quickly as that of the other boys. So I did not sing solos. Of course, with my modest ego, that was fine. (Right.)

When I went to college, I kept singing, and as a freshman auditioned for and was admitted to the Men's Glee Club, the Sanctuary Choir (the one that sang every Sunday in the Duke "Chapel"), and a more select group called the "Chancel Singers." The music directors put me in the second tenor section of each group. It was OK. When you go away to college, you are expected to kick down the traces, and Dad had no idea. I also found the First Baptist Church of Durham a little dull and soon quit going. Besides, I was taking Old Testament at Duke the first semester and New Testament the second from an absolutely marvelous professor, Barney Jones, who was also a Methodist Minister. So my Sunday mornings were at Duke Chapel, singing in the tenor section of the choir.

There I was, singing tenor and doing Bible study with a Methodist. Everything we were warned about back in Sunday School concerning college was coming true. (I won't mention discovering Smokey Robinson, the Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas and the aptly named Temptations. I won't mention d***eing.)

But my voice was growing up, and the ego was always there. So I asked my parents, who were dealing with the financial burden of putting me through college (my dad was too proud to fill out the financial aid forms and my mother had gone to work for Eastern Air Lines), to pay for voice lessons. They did. I found my way to the music department at Duke, which was different from the campus choral organizations, and to John Hanks, who was an accomplished tenor. Mr. Hanks became my voice teacher and, now and then, Ruth C. Friedberg would come in and accompany us during a lesson.

(Ms. Friedberg was a wonderful musician. She was an accomplished pianist and a member of the Duke faculty. When she played while I sang, something happened between us. Sometimes I think she was deeper into what I was singing than I was, like a mother deeper into her child's play than even the child, at least on a conscious level. It was not about me, of course, it was about her exquisite gift of listening to others. What a marvelous woman. She is now Professor Emerita of Music at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio.)

One can have a big ego and still not have a lot of confidence, and I was that person, especially as a singer before Mr. Hanks. He believed my choral singing was not good for my still-maturing voice. He said that ensemble music directors exploited their good choir voices by encouraging those singers to "over-sing." So he got me jobs at churches in Durham singing on Sundays where I would solo frequently. My junior year I sang in the choir of an Episcopal church in Durham, which was really good because the chairman of the History Department, Dr. Watson, was in that choir and I got to know him well. When my senior year arrived Mr. Hanks had me take the job as the soloist at the First Church of Christ Scientist. During that time I finally got over my stage fright. At the Christian Science Church I led the singing at the Wednesday night service and on Sunday morning, each Sunday morning, I sang a solo.

The Christian Scientists were simply wonderful people to sing with and to sing to. To them, there would always be something good about whatever I sang, and they told me about it. And I soon got over trying to lay the ground-work for low-expectations with them when, before the service, I might tell the reader that I had a sore throat or that I did not sleep well, or some foolish thing like that (I soon learned to go to bed early enough on Saturday night.)

Among the high points of my music at Duke were the vocal recitals of my senior year. There may have been two of those that year, but I only recall what I sang and what the recital hall looked like when I sang and how I felt. I could have sung those songs at separate recitals or only at one. Of course, I was one of several young vocalists who sang, and I do remember those others very well - they had voices far superior to mine, but I was OK with that by then. (Finally, I'm beginning to grow up!) The songs I remember singing were John Duke's Yellow Hair and Copland's arrangements of Simple Gifts and Gather at the River.

This entire post so far is simply prologue to the video I have embedded below. Marilyn Horne sings the very two Copland numbers that I sang (along with a third, Long Time Ago). She sings so very beautifully, and listening to her set off this train of memories that I have recounted. Her Gather at the River moves me nearly to tears, because I'm back at Central Baptist Church again, singing Shall We Gather at the River from the Broadman Hymnal. And my mind at the same time is transported "over yonder" where gathered are my mother and father, family (older and two younger ones) and friends. Finally, I see the future, when we will be so gathered as well. What a blessed prospect!

Things never to say to a two year old...

So, here is a little interchange between me and Honor from several days ago when we were on a plane and it was landing. Being two, Honor was sitting in her own seat and looking a little bit frightened to be there. As we landed, the plane bumped around a little bit.

Honor: what's that, Mommy? What's that?

Me: Oh, don't worry, Baby, that's just the plane's wheels braking.

Honor: (her eyes fly open in sheer terror)

Me: I think about it a moment and realize that Honor heard me say, "Oh, don't worry, Baby, that's just the plane's wheels breaking".

She thought that the wheels were falling apart and that I was telling her not to worry! Well, don't you guys worry, I quickly explained to her the difference between when something breaks and when it brakes. Her eyes slightly relaxed, but she wasn't truly relieved until we got off the plane.

Silly, Mommy. Scaring such a sweet sweet girl like that!

"Put Your Car Keys By Your Bed at Night"

Someone in the office sent this idea in an email, which I think is pretty good. I quote her explanation in part:

If you hear a noise outside your home or someone trying to get in your house, just press the panic button for your car. The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies. This tip came from a neighborhood watch coordinator. Next time you come home for the night and you start to put your keys away, think of this: It's a security alarm system that you probably already have and requires no installation. Test it. It will go off from most everywhere inside your house and will keep honking until your battery runs down or until you reset it with the button on the key fob chain. It works if you park in your driveway or garage. If your car alarm goes off when someone is trying to break into your house, odds are the burglar won't stick around . . . After a few seconds all the neighbors will be looking out their windows to see who is out there and sure enough the criminal won't want that. And remember to carry your keys while walking to your car in a parking lot. The alarm can work the same way there.

Despair is on Drudge

As an advertiser. briefly. It was this ad for bittersweets. (I think I asked that girl for a date once at Duke as a freshman. I recognize the expression.)

Go here to order.

Jobs and the Public Sector

Maybe you saw the photo of the thousand or so people lined up for 35 firefighter jobs with the City of Miami. It ran with this article from the Herald, which treated it as an example of the growing unemployment problem generally. If the people in the line were all unemployed, then it certainly would be evidence of tha problem. (And there is such a problem, of course.) But this particular line is likely about something else. It's probably about getting a job in the public sector.

Glenn Reynolds on his blog quotes this from a Forbes article:

America, in case you hadn’t noticed, is dividing into two nations. The 22.5-million-strong public sector (that includes retirees) is growing ever larger, and enjoying ever greater wages and benefits often guaranteed by state constitutions.

In private-sector America your job, assuming you still have one, hangs on the fate of the economy. If your employer ever offered a pension for life, like young officer Goss is receiving, odds are it has stopped doing so, or soon will. Those retirement accounts you scrimped and saved to assemble? Unless they are invested in Treasurys, they aren’t doing too well. In private-sector America the math leads to the grim prospect of working longer and living poorer.

In public-sector America things just get better and better. The common presumption is that public servants forgo high wages in exchange for safe jobs and benefits. The reality is they get all three. State and local government workers get paid an average of $25.30 an hour, which is 33% higher than the private sector’s $19, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Throw in pensions and other benefits and the gap widens to 42%.

Glenn suggests that we read the whole thing, and that's a good idea.

On the other hand, doesn't the "stimulus" bill give us all these kinds of pensions? Maybe it's in there, and we shouldn't be concerned.

More Beetz!

Beet greens with yogurt sauce. Mmmm!

(The link has a nice photo of some beets. Desktop photo?)

Not-so-Happy Meals

Canadian study indicates that that the correlaton between breastfeeding babies and a lower incidence of asthma is negated by fast food consumption.

Imagine that.

The next thing you know, they'll be telling us that eating hot dogs increases the risk of leukemia. Ooops.

Food, Allergies, Gastrointestinal Distress, Migraines: Hello, Family

Justine Raphael bases her family's eating plan on the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) Diet created by a British pediatrician and the similar Specific Carbohydate Diet developed by a Canadian biochemist. Both ban processed foods, all starches, some dairy products and an assortment of other foods, including soy and okra. Both claim to relieve everything from Irritable Bowel Syndrome to autism.

Such diets may seem "really extreme, but it's all relative to the degree of suffering," says Dr. Patricia Restrepo, a physician and clinical dietitian in Miami. "If I'm really suffering with something, I'm willing to go to an extreme to make a difference, to see results, to heal the whole intestinal tract."

Many of Restrepo's patients have endured years of gastrointestinal misery, allergies and migraines. While she doesn't prescribe the GAPS Diet per se, she says winnowing patients off wheat and processed foods "is the only thing that has given us great results'' in many cases.

Raphael reports "some amazing changes'' in her family's health. Seventeen-year-old Eli, whose colitis was so severe she required blood transfusions, "has grown and gained weight. She looked anorexic before." As for Mom, "I don't get colds anymore; the digestive symptoms are gone. . . . My immune system is obviously happy. My husband noticed the same thing -- the digestive symptoms he thought were normal are gone."

None of which is to say that you need to sign onto Raphael's diet in order to embrace her kitchen savvy. Nor do you need pricey kitchen gear, just "a couple of good knives, a cutting board and some pots."

From a good article on food in today's Miami Herald.

Ersatz Apology in SEC Land

The new Tennessee football coach, Lane Kiffin, wrongfully accuses Florida's Urban Meyer of recruiting violations, is reprimanded by the SEC for it, and then makes a pusillanimous, if not outright fraudulent "apology." What have the Vols done to themselves in hiring such a person?

No Bail-out for the Prudent Investor

This morning I saw my friend, the bank manager, on the People Mover. He is my window to the front-lines of the credit crisis. As you may know, the banks with their government subsidies are simply writing off many, many loans. They are "forgiving" the debts of the people who borrowed money from them to invest in the real estate bubble. An interesting aspect of such debt forgiveness is that the borrower realizes taxable income on the debt forgiveness. Thus, my banker friend these days is taking calls from borrowers who cannot comprehend why the government should tax them on the forgiven debt.

These borrowers are the people who "flipped" real estate purchases, using borrowed money for their initial purchase and then being bought out by the subsequent speculator who himself borrowed money from a bank to purchase the subject property. At those flip sales, then, the seller walked away with cash, because his buyer was mostly if not completely financed by the next bank. The flip cycle for a given property typically would happen several times, and each time the seller would walk away with the cash provided by the bank in respect to debt that is now being forgiven as a result of government bank bail-outs. If this sounds like a sort of Ponzi scheme, then you are listening well. Except here no one gets indicted. The government picks up the tab.

But at least our speculators must pay taxes on the profit that they have made from their flip sales. I hope the tax enforcement is vigorous.

The banker contrasted all this with the story of a friend of his who bought a lot near Baptist Hospital with his own money. Then, with his own money again, he built a $600,000 house on the lot. The house did not sell and sits there shuttered. There is no government bail-out for him, the banker observed.

The banker also observed that there is no bail-out for the banker himself in respect of his retirement investments in the stock market. He will defer his retirement for several years, he said, because he believes that it will take at least 10 years for his stocks to get back where they were. None of his stock purchases were on borrowed money. (Prudently, he wasn't all invested in stocks.) No bail-out for him either.

Work and Worship

The Chronological Bible Study has taken us over the last several days through the story of Joseph and his brothers. Genesis 37:1 - 46:9. During our study group last night, one of the men remarked that we see very little of Joseph's "interior life." He meant that we were not able to see into Joseph's mind. This student observed that there seems to be no reference to a prayer life, a worship life, if you will.

Another student commented on how, in these scriptures, we see Joseph working all of the time, except when he is imprisoned in the cistern. Joseph's story opens when he is 17 years old and working for his father. When we see him speaking to his brothers, it is as his father's deputy; his conversations with them take place at the work place - the fields where they tend their father's flocks.

After Joseph is sold into slavery, we see him as Potiphar's steward, in charge of that man's household. The confrontation with Potiphar's wife takes place while Joseph is working and in the workplace.

When he is imprisoned on false charges of attempted rape, we find Joseph not languishing and discouraged but working - running the prison as a deputy of the warden, a job that includes such close relationships with the other prisoners that they confide their very dreams to him.

And finally, we see him working for Pharaoh, and he becomes the most powerful man in Egypt next to the king. He is always working. But we see no prayer, no personal devotions; we see a life of apparently worshipless labor.

As Providence would have it, I listened to Robert Austell's first sermon of the year this morning as I took my walk, his first in a eight-part series. (I had downloaded it to my iPod, but did not get to it until today.) Robert's sermon deals with work and worship, and his thesis is our work is our worship. Robert notes that the Hebrew word for "work" in Genesis is elsewhere translated as "service" and "worship". The work that Adam did in the Garden was, then, a form of worship. (I cannot do Robert's sermon justice, so you should listen to it yourself.)

And so it obviously was with Joseph.

There is, in fact, an insight into Joseph's "interior life" provided in Genesis 39:9, which relates the conversation Joseph has with Potiphar's wife when he rejects her. He asks her, "How could I do such a wicked thing [as sleep with you] and sin against God?"

It is God to whom Joseph sees himself accountable, not Potiphar. An unfaithful worker is unfaithful not to the person who would appear on the outside to employ that worker but to God. Faithful work, then, is faithful worship, and Robert makes the point that this principal applies in all walks of life. We do not need to "see" Joseph's "interior life." We know that it was a rich one, indeed, by how he worked, that is, by how he worshiped.

No, They Can't Have my Miami Herald Subscription

But I did think about it when the consulate called.

The "I'm President and You're Not" Approach

You have to love it.

Suggestion on Where to Release the Gitmo Prisoners

Plains, GA.

What One Thinks and Does Makes a Difference

In an opinion piece in the WSJ today, David Roche, a London expert in banking and monetary policy, discusses the liklihood that both the UK and the US will nationalize their respective banking systems. He writes, in part:

How has it come to this? The global credit crisis and the ensuing economic slump we are now entering have both ultimate and proximate causes. The ultimate cause was the ingrained social behavior of the U.S., the U.K. and many other economies over the past two decades that put instant gratification of consumption over the ability to pay for it. Thrift gave way to borrowing and excessive spending. That in turn led to huge global imbalances and distortions. The proximate cause of the crisis was how these excesses were financed through liquidity creation in innovative ways and in huge proportions.

Note the connection between individual - shall I say it? - virtue, on the one hand, and the present economic situation, on the other. And yet, as my friend Juan points out, the government appears to believe that the answer is to spend even more money, borrowing against nothing else but the future, hoping that a newly virtuous citizenry will defer its gratification, get to work, and support not only itself but also assume the inevitable burden of taxation and inflation that must surely compensate for its spending.

UPDATE: Glenn's thinking along the same lines.

Thinking about the Presidency

I saw and heard the speech, and it was stirring. The inauguration was so fraught with meaning that it transcended the people involved, and I saw most of that meaning as wonderful and some of it disturbing. (Not a mention of abortion anywhere in the speech, for example. Maybe he thinks it will go away. I hope it will go away too, and in fact there is less of it in the US than ever, praise God.)

A friend of mine posted on her Facebook page that she was so happy that now we could have a President she could be proud of. Facebook is personal and that's the place where one has permission to assess events in terms of one's emotions. But maybe it would be worth it to read the case for the Bush Presidency by his chief speech writer Marc Theissen when things calm down. I don't really think about whether I am "proud" of President Bush or not, or even whether I "like" him. I think about his performance - how did he do? He certainly made some mistakes and did things with which I disagree. But I think that the majority of Americans will come to appreciate his successes, as Theissen argues.

FlyJumpers

Don't show this to Macon.

Hannah and Joe Got Married!

This morning, at a wedding that began at 10AM, Hannah Carr and Joe Lahmeyer were married at our church. Hannah is Abby's big sister, and Joe is our pastor's son. (Hannah and Abby are daughters of my friend Austin. Austin also has a son, Cody, who was there too, and read the scripture.) Joe's grandparents from California (near Bakersfield) are staying with us for the wedding.

Hannah and Joe are at UCF and active in InterVarsity, and a bunch of their friends came down, along with the staff person there. The wedding celebration more or less started yesterday morning at the regular worship service at our church, continued last night with the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, also at our church, recommenced this morning with the wedding itself, and then adjourned to the Rusty Pelican for a reception and luncheon, overlooking Biscayne Bay on a simply gorgeous South Florida day. We left at about 3:45. (Good thing we had a morning wedding!)



I sang at the wedding, and sort of hid behind the flowers in the choir loft. At the reception one of the people I met there said, "Oh, you are the singer! You did well. In fact, my daughter asked me if it was a recording." That was NICE! Anyway, I did OK, and sang "How Beautiful" by Twila Paris. One of Macon's friends sang that song at Macon and Kellsey's wedding, which is where I got the idea. (Hannah asked me for suggestions on the music.) The congregation also sang "Great is Thy Faithfulness," which I had suggested to Hannah and Joe after hearing it sung so beautifully at Meredith's wedding.

Ed Sagi played the piano at Hannah's wedding. He is an old friend, and was in my class at Hialeah High School. He also was our music director at FPCMS nearly 20 years ago, when we had a choir and an organ. At HHS we had a big drama department, and our senior year it mounted an unforgettable production of Oklahoma!, and Ed played Curly. He did a fantastic job. Even in twelfth grade he had this wonderful baritone voice. Ed went on to be a high school music teacher, and I think he did about everything: band, chorus, you name it. He is really fun to sing with, because he knows vocal production and he knows how to deal with amateurs - and he is a teacher.

It was a great day!

Go, Dawgs!

Moderate Dems in Congress.

Oh, to be in Philadelphia!

Oh, to be in Geneva!

Honor and Aunt Mary and Second Birthdays

Mary posts on family resemblances.

Fancy Nancy Birthday!

For any of you uninitiated people out there who do not know Fancy Nancy, she is a fabulous character in a children's storybook by Jane O'Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss-Glasser. Actually, there are several books by now, and we have five of them. Honor has been wanting to read them over and over again lately. Fancy Nancy loves using big words and loves dressing up. She is crazy about accessories and believes that she really does play soccer better when wearing lace-trimmed socks.

Anyway, I was talking with my mother about not knowing what to do for Honor's second birthday a few weeks ago and she suggested a Fancy Nancy party. What a "Spectacular" idea! So, today, we had a Fancy Nancy birthday party for Honor. All the kids got movie-star sunglasses, tiaras, wands, necklaces, bracelets, leis, tattoos with fancy things on them, and glow sticks. I chose a different colored plastic bucket for each child and crammed all their party toys in them. The kids loved it.

Honor especially looked like Fancy Nancy today because she had just received a leotard with a tutu from her Sue Sue and Pa Pa. Honor, of course, decided that THIS dress was going to be her "Party Dress." She LOVED wearing this little outfit, complete with Baby Legs (because it's cold people...January is not the best time to go running around in a leotard and not much else!)



Our friends arrived, we ate cupcakes almost immediately so the kids would have some time to really play hard and burn off the sugar.



After that we passed out party favors a la bucket, and played and played until we could play no more. Then, we all sat down with our mommas and our papas and ate pesto linguini, herb salad, and roasted garlic bread. YUM! The kiddos were also offered Pesto linguini (and all the three almost two year olds loved it, but the four year olds were not as enthused).



Then, we cleaned up and opened presents.

After that, we said goodbye to our friends and headed upstairs for nap.

Whew! What a morning!

"De-Friend" for a Whopper? What a Bad Idea!

Maybe most Facebook fans already know this, but I didn't know until today that Burger King had a promotion under which a Facebook member would get a free Whopper for "de-friending" 10 others. The WSJ reported that BK "pulled the plug on the campaign," which it launched on January 5. The article reports that "thousands of members jilted each other for burgers."

There are some really deep implications to this, don't you think? Or maybe people are so busy on Facebook that don't have time to fix dinner.

Doug recently asked me to be his friend. Do you suppose he would dump me for a burger?

Juan Reports on the Madoff Ponzi Matter

Via a post on his increasingly famous blog and direct from the UM Heckerling Estate Planning Conference in Orlando.

Lady Hawks Win!

Abby and Company win the GMAC.

"Integrative" Medicine and the WSJ

I was very surprised to see this article on the WSJ editorial pages earlier this week. While I was undergoing my cancer treatment 15 or so years ago, I read one of the authors of the article, Andrew Weil, and I read several of his other books too. He seemed to offer the sort of hope that didn't have taking prednizone, having a port installed for the introduction of various other chemicals, and getting nauseated associated with it.

Then a contemporary who had the same diagnosis about the same time as mine died, after shunning chemo and embracing "natural" remedies.

Glenn Reynolds linked to some criticism of the article that is worth reading. Here's more.

This is not to say that I did not take to heart the "healthy living" aspects of Weil's writings and others in the genre. Carol worked very hard to "reinvent" herself as the food preparer in our home, and was very successful. We steered away from fatty foods. Although we have not become vegetarians, we have far less meat in our diets and, of that, very little beef and pork. We went to Weight Watchers and we both lost some weight (30 pounds in my case). We exercise daily. We are not total abstainers from alcoholic beverages, but we rarely drink and, in such cases, we will only have wine at dinner now and then. Neither of us smokes. We work at keeping our marriage healthy. (It's great work!) We take vitamins.

And we had during my treatment and we continue to maintain an active prayer life. I seemed actually to "feel" the prayers of others when I was in treatment, and there were a lot of them being offered. I believe that God answered those prayers through my physicians in large part and in what they prescribed, through the loving care that Carol provided, and the support of the rest of my family and other friends.

WSJ Not Happy with Obama's Estate Tax Solution

(I know this is of great interest to all readers.)

Here's the editorial board's view.

I mentioned this subject earlier this week. Obviously, the WSJ missed my comments. Strange.

More comments from Juan. Of special significance to our practice are the "portability" aspects of what this year's legislation may contain. This will be a great boon to married couples in the middle to upper middle classes and enable them to exempt the first $7 million of their estates from the estate tax at the second death (there is already no estate tax at the first death in a married couple). The idea that there is a "death tax" that threatens the hard-earned wealth of most Americans was propaganda from the white-shoe wing of the Republican Party. (And may those shoes - in both parties - be increasingly replaced by work shoes of all kinds.)

Abby stands for Ambition

The sports section of the Herald this morning has an article featuring Abby Carr, the younger daughter of Austin and Linda.

"Hi, I'm an Apple . . . "

Your Tax Money at Work

This weekend I caught portions of the NFL divisional play-off games. They were good games, but what caught my attention were the commercials from GM and Chrysler. There were many of them, and they were all about selling pick-up trucks.

They don't get it do they? And we don't get it for giving them bail-out money so that they can, among other senseless things, run those commericals.

My hat's off to Ford at this point. I didn't see so many commercials from them and they haven't taken bail-out money yet. Yes, I know that they sell the F-150 hard when we do see their commercials. But I figure it will be the F-150 that will survive that auto class and, for that matter, Ford itself will be the one to survive of the once-Big Three.

We'll Keep Eating

The WSJ this morning reports that Obama will keep the estate tax in the form in which we have it right now. (The tax was scheduled to "expire" in 2010, but come back in a much harsher form in 2011.)

This is a pretty middle-of-the-road solution to an issue that has been very big in my corner of the world since the first Bush Administration. I say good for Obama.

"Hip Hop Meets a Higher Power"

The Neighbors section of the Herald featured on its front page the Catalyst Ministry that our church hosts.

Recent Days in the Life...

So, on Christmas Day, Honor was very sick with pneumonia. Poor Girl!

Aidan, who had also had pneumonia, was feeling much better by Christmas as he had had two penicillin shots in his legs to arrest the process of the infection. As you can tell, he is quite ready to enjoy his new Christmas goodies! (this is a Bow and Mallow, affectionately termed a "marshmallow gun").

Here is a pic of Honor with Mommy after she had received three new clippies from her Nanna and Grandaddy. She looks better, but she's still looking sick.

Next we have a photo of Aidan from this afternoon. I swear, he looks like he is eleven in this picture. It freaks me out when he ages many years in a photo, something which is happening pretty often these days.
Last we have a pic of Honor sporting cutie pig tails and wearing a new clippy that her mommy made for her. What fun! She is looking so much better than her first pneumonia-fied pic (and even worse, she developed an ear infection on top of that the day after being diagnosed with pneumonia.) Seriously, people, we are very happy to be healthy around here!

Yo, Beets!

Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancerfighters.

How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power.

From The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating.

(Mmmmm, folate!!)

In Genesis: Getting to Work

God made Adam and put him to work and to rule. Thus in chapter 2 of Genesis,

15 The LORD God took the man [Adam] and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. . . . 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

God created Eve because "no suitable helper [for Adam] was found." Help him what? To do what God had created him to do, that is to work.

Is it missing the mark to say that popular culture, to the extent that it thinks about Adam and Eve in the Garden before the fall, pictures them as innocent playmates in a sort of divine park, running around having fun without their clothes on? And that's what we want to get back to, isn't it? That's the point of redemption, no?

I see something different in these texts. Man and wife are purposefully busy in the Garden. And what Adam is doing (that with which Eve is helping him) has divine purpose, as man has been created in God's image. Man is directed to take a formless mass of creatures (not formless to God, of course, but initially, surely, to Adam, Eve) and to name those creatures, that is, to observe them carefully, to catalog them, to understand their affinities and differences, perhaps their needs and wants, the ultimate end of which is to rule them as God rules.

In Genesis 1, just after God created "male and female."

28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Man is like God in the sense of what God calls him to do, to work, that is to observe, to understand, to care for, and, finally, to rule Creation as God's fiduciary, his trustee, his steward.

What does this say to the popular idea that one works to acquire, and then to retire, and then no longer to work? Or that our relationship to other living creatures is to exploit them without limitation? Or that, as to Creation in general, we are responsible only to ourselves, that is, to our immediate self, that is, to whatever I think I need at this moment, and that Creation and everything in it is there to serve me.

Tainted Chinese Food Imports

Last night I heard a reference on the radio to the danger of tainted food imported from China. I thought the problem was pet-food, but that may simply be a Providential "heads-up." I googled the matter and found this 2007 article from the Washington Post. We don't eat much meat at our house, but the meats of choice are chicken and turkey. The reference to chicken imports is disturbing.

Again, the One Year Chronological Bible

Last year, I read the entire Bible. I did this with the help of The One Year Chronological Bible, (“OYCB) which, according to the cover, consists of the “entire New International Version in 365 daily readings arranged in the order the events actually occurred.”

It helped that I usually take MetroRail into work each business day, which gives me about 25 minutes to myself with no distractions. By the time I get half-way through the ride (about to the Earlington Heights Station), I am able to do an entire reading. I can do two readings on a complete ride, which I often must do on Monday and Tuesday to make up for sometimes missing the readings over the weekend. I was also assisted in this project by my friends at church who attended our Men’s Bible Study meetings. We had taken as a group project reading the Bible through and discussing at least once a week (and sometimes twice a week) what we found new or relevant or confusing (or all three).

Among the things that I learned is how much we miss of what the Bible says if we simply depend on the church’s formal program to educate us. I do not mean to be critical of formal programs (I include the sermons in this category), but we have to understand that what we get from them is someone else’s idea of what we should read or listen to, someone else’s agenda, as benign, well intentioned, and generally Spirit directed as it might be. Church programs are directed at a sort of common denominator, where each of us is uncommon. Reading the Bible directly, comprehensively, daily, where we have the rest of the day to allow the passage to wander around in our minds, in and out of the rooms of immediate and long-term memory, bumping into the furniture of our anxieties, values, expectations, and learned behaviors, is a different matter altogether. And it is enjoyable.

So I started all over again with the OYCB on Monday (I'm already behind!). This time I am going to try to keep a journal on what insights occur as I read through it.

Espejos for the Third World

Think about what poor vision, uncorrected because of poverty, does to the economies of the third world, and then read this.

Pretty neat website, too.

Making Marriage Making Love

Bull's Eye! (Thanks, Glenn Reynolds.)

No to "Cram Downs"

In a "cram down," according to the WSJ yesterday, "a judge modifies a mortgage [usually in foreclosure or bankruptcy proceedings] so a borrower can afford it." The article did not explicitly describe the modifications in question, but the variables would include lengthening the term, lowering the interest rate, or simply decreasing the outstanding loan balance. In other words, the borrower's obligation to pay back what he borrowed would be significantly reduced.

Right now, judges do not have that authority, but the WSJ reports that momentum is building in "Democrat-controlled Washington" to confer that power on bankruptcy judges.

The moral hazard here is obvious: Borrowers will be less careful about the obligations they assume. Furthermore, the cost of borrowing will increase, as the risk of default will shift back to the lenders who will, in turn, raise their rates to compensate for it. By raising their rates, people who might otherwise have afforded a mortgage on a new home might be frozen out.

And "cram downs" may not work. According to the WSJ article, "Lenders argue that loans modified by bankruptcy judges often have high rates of default on the new payment plans." (I assume that this has been in situations where the lender consents to the modification.)

Email your Congressman.

Hello 2009 and Goodbye 2008

We saw "Michael Clayton" on video last night, part of our gala New Year's celebration here on Dove Avenue. We would recommend this suspenseful film, starring George Clooney and others. (One of the villains is Tilda Swinton, who played the White Witch in the first Narnia film.) Clooney is a lawyer in a big Wall Street firm, and it was fun to see the stereotypes populating that "community." Great pace, tension, superb acting - you are happy to forgive the act of blessed Divine intervention on which the plot turns, especially if this is part of the point - that God sometimes does such things.)

Afterward, we watched on Channel 2, a PBS station here, a great live telecast from Lincoln Center of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring the conductor Lorin Maazel and the mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who is a Texas Tech graduate. Following that was a rebroadcast of a Great Performances video of a Chicago blues show called "Crossroads" featuring, among many others, Eric Clampton, B.B. King, Cheryl Crowe.

About 15 minutes before midnight, we switched over to watch the Times Square ball drop - there were two networks broadcasting the festivities, and one of them had Dick Clark as a host. He simply looked pitiful and exploited. But I guess part of the point of New Year's is to acknowledge time's inexorable march. The ball dropped on schedule, although poor Dick Clark was at least one second behind on his countdown for about 8 seconds, but finally caught up at about midnight minus 5.

I guess it's obvious that we survived midnight. That is, no bullets came through our roof. Given the way people are prone to celebrate the event by shooting up, that is vertically, up into the air, not out from one's position (get it?), we cannot assume that we are safe inside our homes here in South Florida. Here is the obligatory article about this practice that appears annually in the Miami Herald, although one must wonder why they published this year's article in the January 1 edition rather than the December 31 issue.