Midnight excitement

    At just before midnight last night, I was awoken by the squealing tires, scraping and thud of an accident. I got up in an anxious state and made my way down the hall to the front of the house and saw headlights aimed into my yard. Quickly making my way back to my bed, I realized that calling 911, as my wife was suggesting, was what my brain was trying to figure out to do, and called. I couldn’t really answer many of their questions, except that there had been an accident and my address. Even before I finished putting my pants on, which I immediately did, 911 called back to confirm I had called and to ask how many cars. Again I could not answer.

    I slipped on shoes, grabbed a flashlight and headed out to see if anyone needed help. I found several cars already pulled over, and one of my neighbors already there. The scene was a 2007 Chevy Silverado Z71 on its roof and half off the road. One rear wheel and axle were off, and the other rear wheel was torn off. Fortunately, the driver was alive and being kept company by his brother-in-law. He was back side partially out the passenger window, with minimal bleeding, and talking. Within minutes, police cars arrived from both directions, as this was on the town line. Before long there was an EMT ambulance and several fire trucks as well.

    I went back inside to let my wife know the status, then went back out, as the sound had me sufficiently shaken up that I didn’t expect to get to sleep again any time soon. The driver was carefully removed and taken to the hospital, and I had a chat with the driver’s brother-in-law. The driver had come from his brother-in-laws house, and had been alone. I had been concerned that a passenger might have been thrown clear and be needing help with no one knowing they were there. The firemen swept up much of the glass and debris, and when the tow truck arrived and moved the vehicle, they sprinkled some kind of powder over the area, and cleaned that up as well.

    For a while, it looked like the tow truck wasn’t going to be able to take the vehicle. It was a flat bed tow truck, and after pulling the car out onto the street, tiping it right side up and turning it so it could be approached from the front, the tow truck driver angled the bed and attached the winch cables. When he started the winch, the tow truck slid to the accident vehicle, then started to pull the vehicle onto the bed. it got part way up and couldn’t get it higher. He enlisted the help of a fireman to rev the engine, but that didn’t seem to help much. The fireman told him to angle the bed less, move the bed forward, while using the winch to keep the vehicle from sliding, the angle the bed down and slide it further under the vehicle. It took some doing, but he eventually got it mostly on the bed, with it hanging some over the end. A heavy vehicle with flat front tires and no rear tires is much harder to pull than one with wheels.

    I went back inside when everything was done and the police were leaving, about 2 hours total time, but still had trouble sleeping. The sudden sound and it’s nature really caught me off guard. I did chat with both my neighbors again, one at the scene while this was taking place and the other the next morning when I went out to see the scene in daylight, which I haven’t done in several years. Not a very neighborly neighborhood. 🙂

Back to BI

    I blogged last June about the Surf Hotel on Block Island changing hands, and suggested I might try to get back there in the fall. Well, here it is the fall, and here I am on Block Island again. This time the kids are with us, and our room is in the Surf Side annex to the Surf Hotel. It is a separate building just a few buildings down from the main hotel, and you still have easy access to all the amenities of the main hotel.

    We really lucked out this weekend, as New England weather can be unpredictable at the best of times, and down right chilly. Add to that being by the ocean, with breezes and generally lower temps than our inland abode. But not this weekend, which is just about the best weather you could ask for on a fall New England day. It’s nice and warm, maybe a pinch muggy, and partly cloudy to sunny. Perfect for outdoor activities, which the kids seem bent on avoiding. Grrr, I could just stay out doors all day, on the beach, walking some trails, reading and writing in a nice quiet spot. OK, with the kids along, nice quiet spots are non-existent. 🙂

    The boys were thrilled to see the large chess set in the lobby area of the Surf Hotel. Mischka has been playing chess with Sandy and Alexei lately, and knows the moves well, although he prefers to play in an equitable way, trading equivalent pieces, and he can get whinny or uniterested if he feels the capture balance is weighted to his opponent. Alexei can play with some planning, and will go along with Mischka sometimes, but he also wants the chance to win sometimes too, which can lead to ‘loud discussions’. Mischka lead the way to the beach this morning, and played in the water, then wondered the beach with Alexei looking at the dead crabs, starfish, etc and collecting stones, wood, shells, sand dollars, etc. Seems he was thinking of selling some of the stuff.

    Right across the street from the Surf Hotel is the Island Free Library, a nice little library which always has books and videos for sale. I tried to resist, but finally succumbed to buying ‘How to do everything with your PocketPC, Second Edition’, and ‘Bone, Out from Boneville’. We’ve read the complete Bone graphic novel collection and enjoyed it, so I was only minorly annoyed when I had to pay $1 instead of 50 cents, since it was rated as a trade paperback. Anyway, I may be cheap, but I’m a sucker for supporting good causes like libraries. Alexei worked on a school project that’s due on Monday, as libraries usually have quiet work spaces where you can focus, as long as your little brother isn’t around.

    What about eating, you might say. Good point. I still need more practice and less stress when packing for a trip, and this one was no exception. I spent way too much time on upgrading the OS on our 3 Palm M500 PDAs, oh and some work stuff even though I took the day as a vacation day, thinking I still had plenty of time before we had to leave. Wrong, oh well, we’ll get food on island. Err, although snacks for the ferry trip would have been good, and kept the kids calmer while waiting at the restaurant for food when they were ‘starving’. we left a bit later than I would have liked, but once on the road I was able to relax and accept whatever ferry we arrived in time to catch. Well, we missed the 5pm car ferry, so spent 50%+ more to take the 5:30pm high speed ferry. Arrived at the same time though.

    Oh yeah, food. So, I was tweeting from Finn’s, a classic seafood restaurant, where Alexei had a bacon cheeseburger, doh. The prices are reasonable and the food was good. Some places here are closed for the season, including at least an ice cream store and a fast food shack. We managed breakfast at the Surf Hotel, despite my concerns over the kids balking at the limited selection. More to come…maybe 🙂

Ye best be reading this, ye scurvey dog

    Avast ye, it be that time of year again, known as the International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLPD) to all ye land lubbers. Thar be no way to truly talk like a pirate using the written word, so git talking to a real swab insted o read’n this.

    If’n ye still be here, you may as well be feasting yur eyeballs on this bit o merryment at Language Log, and I’ll be talkin to ya next year on September 19th.

Bye Foleo, that was quick.

    A little hype, a lot of panning, and before it got started, the Palm Foleo is dead. I blogged on it’s announcement in June, and here we are 2 months later and Palm CEO Ed Colligan is blogging on his commitment to focus on the next gen platform, which the Foleo doesn’t use and so they are dropping it. He seems convinced there is a market for such a device, and may get back to something for that market based on their next gen platform, but for now, bye bye.

    Maybe I’m just cynical, but it looks to me that they saw the writing on the wall and finally accepted that this was a poorly received product, and therefore a small niche. Or maybe there was just too much hype and action around the iPhone, so they would have a hard time getting traction. I really hope this means they will be coming out with a stellar new PDA, although with their focus on smart phones, I may have to keep doing surgery on my Palm Tungsten T3 for a few more years. It is holding up well, although it started to exhibit a battery problem recently. Couldn’t hold a charge as long, got to a point where it wouldn’t even recharge fully. I found, and ordered, a larger capacity replacement battery from ebay, but before it arrived I tried a power reset, i.e. disconnecting the battery (after a full backup of course) and it was back to normal. I’ll hold off putting in the batter for now, but look forward to better battery performance in the near future, and continued use of my T3 for the foreseeable future. Yup, I’m not disappointed with the loss of the Foleo. 🙂

Boston Sun Tech Days

    As if Sun Tech Days aren’t cool enough to get you to attend, the upcoming Boston Sun Tech Days includes James Gosling, father of Java amongst other things. Whether you are a developer, sys admin, user, or interested party, this is a venue for you. This is a 2 day event, with the first day focused on Open Source communities, from 3 different perspectives (NetBeans Day, OpenSolaris Day, University Day). On the second day, there are 2 tracks, one focused on Java and one on Solaris, with many great topics in each.

    Alas, Sun Tech Days aren’t as prolific as they used to be, so get registered now, and take advantage of this event while it is in the area. Looking at the tour schedule, it may be a year or more before it comes back to the north east. Get clicking and get registered. Oh, and quit reading blogs and get back to work. 🙂