News, News, News

There is a LOT going on, and I have been ... absent! My apologies, Gentle Readers. As Lennon said (no, not the Communist one), "Life is what happens when you're making other plans."

Internet: My temporary home-away-from-home (the trailer in a campground in eastern Carolina) does not have phone hookups. DirectWay doesn't know how to connect my PC in North Carolina to their satellite(!). So, I have been blog-less for a week. I got a replacement notebook computer for one of the dying business ones, and it has WIFI, so I will truck on over to Starbucks soon and see if I can get it to work.

Pope: The coverage of the Pope's death has been wonderful, I think. I'm celebrating that he's off to his eternal reward. I was on hold for about 45 minutes last night with a Boston radio station I heard on a "skip" in North Carolina, and I did not get a chance to put in my two cents.
- On a mundane basis, I think the Pope deserves a lot of credit for being clever by appointing Archbishop John Foley from Philadelphia as his communications chief. I met him, a sharp former newspaper editor, and a very intelligent man (as was John Paul: linguist, author and he had earned two PhD's). Who better these days to head up a huge corporate communications effort than an experienced American communicator?
- The Pope's legacy may be with encouraging youth to talk to God, though he did not get them to come back to the Church.
- As to his presumed authoritarianism, the one area I wanted to see fire and brimstone is in the U.S. priest abuse scandal, and I am sorely disappointed. Even Cardinal Bernard Law got a pretty good job in Italy after he resigned in Boston.
- My personal thoughts about Vatican II really do not matter, since the Church is neither a democracy nor a republic. But the priests, and especially those in authority over them who did nothing, deserve punishment.
- Finally, I will remember him as the Pope who established the fourth set of Mysteries of the Rosary. The Rosary is a wonderful prayer, and he made it better!

Terry Schiavo: I don't know if Terry (Theresa Marie) wanted to avoid artificial life support or not. I know that her husband has no credibility, having denied her Holy Communion and barring her parents from her deathbed. And I strongly suspect that she would not want to be the poster child for euthanasia, or mercy killing. Rest in peace, Terry.

Fifth Wheel Camping: First of all, it is not camping. Yes, it takes place in a beautiful campground surrounded with nature, pine trees, sand and a pond in the middle of farm land. But when I wake up, I put on the coffee maker, hunt in the refrigerator, shave with hot tap water, shower, blow dry my hair with a dryer which is plugged into a wall outlet, dress in a starched shirt, pressed trousers and Lands End shoes, walk the dog, set the heat and ventilation, and drive to work in the truck. True, at night, I can build a fire near the wooden picnic table next to the trailer, so it LOOKS like a camp; but what I have is a portable hotel. And I LOVE it!!

My Brother: Things are working out in Chicagoland so that Paul can come to join me in North Carolina. He has done a lot of great work with the powers that be, it isn't easy, and I see a happy transition in the next month or two!

New Client: I finished the first week with a new client in Greenville, NC. I am developing certified tests to run on their sophisticated dryer system, used to apply a liquid coating to powders and then to dry it. The powders can then be compressed into pharmaceutical tablets with uniform properties. My goal is to develop and run tests which produce documented evidence that the equipment does what it is expected to do. So far, so good; no, so excellent, really!

So, now that I have poked my head out of the trailer, what's up?