To sleep, perchance to dream Part 2

After four days on the road of not sleeping well in hotels I returned home Friday and had one good night of sleep. I was up early on Saturday to drive out to Noah's to spend the day with him. So I was really looking forward to sleeping in on Sunday morning. Sunday is usually my only day to sleep late and my body was telling me you really need a good rest.

Here's how that small dream was shattered like a sugar sculpture falling off a six story building.

What's that noise I hear? Hmm sounds like a vacuum cleaner, must be dreaming. NO what time is it???? 7:44 AM!!!! and one one my idiot neighbors is doing their best Felix Ungar imitation running the vacuum directly over my bedroom.

"O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!"

Who forgot to throw a log on the fire?

I returned home today after a four day business trip to Alabama and all I can say is I miss the warm weather already. It was chilly in the mornings in Alabama but the sun did its' job, and by the afternoon it was very pleasant.

The folks in Alabama are very happy with the their football team currently ranked number one in the nation.

On this trip our task was to take a physical inventory of lumber and plywood at an off site location for my company. Lumber and plywood is never easy to count because of the size of it. But it is one of those tasks that must be done. It kind of reminds me of what Rumpole used to say about his wife, "She who must be obeyed."

But in these tough times in the lumber business, I'm glad to still be needed to go count wood and that we have wood to count.

Cheezborger Cheezborger Cheezborger

I was on the road last week for business. I was outside of Atlanta Sunday to Tuesday then on to Chicago for the rest of the week. Chicago is a nice city to visit with a nice downtown area, many good places to eat, the lake and the river.




The second shot was taken from the 21 floor of the Hyatt looking down the Chicago river with lake Michigan in the distance. I also liked the older buildings that had character. Here is a shot of the Wrigley Building.
















Here is a shot of the new Trump Building that is just west of the Wrigley Building. It may be me but I don't think it fits into the skyline very well.

But my favorite spot I visited was the Billy Goat Tavern. It was neat to order a cheezborger and get asked "You want a double it's the best?" Cheeps? Coke no Pepsi. You get your cheezborger served on a grilled Kaiser roll on a piece of deli paper, a bag of cheeps, and a coke, pay your $8 and savor the history.

Henry V and Easy Compny

Back in 1599 Shakespeare penned the play Henry V. Within that play was Henry's Eve of Saint Crispin's Day Speech.

I've always found Shakespeare easier to follow when spoken instead of reading his works. If you have the time to listen to the speech, you will hear a simple phase that has been used to describe another group of men 345 years after those word were first spoken in 1599.

This past weekend the History Channel aired several episodes of The Band of Brothers. I always stop and watch. I've read Major Dick Winters book Beyond Band of Brothers. Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division was the unit Stephen Ambrose called the band of brothers. Most of these men are in their 80's or have gone to meet his maker. The living history will fade away so it is a good thing that some of these men have been captured on film telling their stories.

Nothing about war is good, the human stories are compelling history worthy of being remembered.

Fryeburg Fair 2008

I took this past Tuesday off and went up to the Fryeburg Fair in Fryeburg, ME. It turned out to be Senior Citizens Day with those 65 and over getting a free pass at the admission gate. As it turned out I was the the junior member of the three of us that went to the fair. Thus I was the only one that had to fork over the $8 to enter the grounds. But it was money well spent. The Fair is a throw back to the past. Agriculture is king here. Sure there are midway rides and a childrens midway for the little ones. Food to satisfy everyone's taste and whim. But livestock, harness race horses, 400 pound pumpkins, draft horse pulls, tractor pulls, oxen pulls, goats, sheep, cows being milked, arts and crafts contests, you name it, it was here on display.



The team of horses in the photo are pulling 7000 pounds. The teams had 5 minutes to pull and the team who pulls the sled the longest distance wins. The winning distance was 310 feet.

Lucky for me Tuesday also turned out to be antique tractor day. I don't know why, I didn't grow up on a farm, but I really like to see old tractors, both as is and those that are restored.

There were folks from the US Forest Service and the Maine State Forestry Department so for me it was fun to talk to them.

It was a fun day, a throw back to the past and a celebration of today's farmers and others that make their living from the land. As well a life style that looks better to me today than it did when I was studying forestry and hoping to make it my life style.

Old South Cemetery

I took a walk in Old South Cemetery which is about 1/4 of a mile away from my apartment this weekend. It is the oldest cemetery in Billerica, MA. Billerica was incorporated in 1655. The oldest grave I found was dated 1740. The thing that struck me the most after reading the headstones, was the ages of the people when they died were not that young. There were many graves where the people had lived long lifes. The oldest person I found was 92 when she died in 1785.

The grave's of the veterans were also interesting. I found one that was a Civil War vet and the others was all veterans of The Revolutionary War.



Makes one think.

Ponder the egg cream....

I had an urge for an egg cream yesterday. For those of us that grew up in the shadows of New York skyscrapers the egg cream has a magical allure. First I had to find Fox's u-bet chocolate syrup. Lucky for me Stop and Shop carries it. There is something about Fox's syrup that makes an egg cream taste like an egg cream should. Several co-works asked me as I returned from lunch with my prize in hand, "Does it taste better than Hershey's?" My answer, "No it tastes different."

Hershey's is fine for ice cream, but for a true egg cream it has to be Fox's u-bet. On the back of the bottle it has the directions for a New York Egg Cream;
In a tall glass pour 1/2 inch of u-bet, 3/4 inch of whole milk, add carbonated water & mix briskly.

Perfection in a glass.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older that the pleasures of my youth are coming back to me. A few months ago it was hard rolls, now egg creams. Anyone up for a game of stickball?