The Colonel's Forum

NASA put together a cool image collection of Antarctica. I'm not sure how useful it is, but it's cool. http://lima.usgs.gov/

Here I sit, in the lobby of one of San Francisco's great historic hotels, reflecting on what it means to be "on the road again." When Willie sang it, of course, he wasn't talking about IT consulting. I am certainly not making music with my friends, so between those two things, the musical version of on the road again is out of the question. I ran into a nice Australian couple at the bar tonight (John Foley's Irish house, best fish and chips in the city), and it's always nice to meet new people. The husband in this case is a pilot for Quantas airlines, and he brought his wife along for a "holiday" here in the city. They weren't sure what to do with their time here, so of course I offered some suggestions. The conversation then turned to politics - I asked them about Australia's election last week. Here are some key points from that discussion: 1) I learned that voting in Australia is compulsory. It's against the law not to vote. T...

How many refrigerators do you have? I have one. I'd guess that's the case for most families. Sometimes you retire an old one to the garage, and then you have two, but you only really use one. Diana Charles has 2 refrigerators, and a freezer. This isn't because she's retired one or anything like that - this is by design. Tonight she sent me downstairs to "get the andouille and a bag of crawfish tails" in preparation for the breakfast casserole she'll be making for us tomorrow morning. I missed the andouille on my first attempt - it was hiding behind the tasso and the alligator meat. This is a glimpse into what it's like to enjoy thanksgiving in a Louisiana kitchen. We're spending the long weekend with the Louisiana side of my family, which always makes for some fun times. Good food is as much as guaranteed. Here is the menu for the weekend: Wednesday: Dinner Smoked Stuffed Beef Roast Onion Roast Potatoes ...

It appears that I've worked my way straight through the end of October and into November. While the travel is still a royal pain, it sure beats flying coach class to France for (literally) weeks on end. I was reminded of this recently when I learned that the French transit workers are on strike yet again. You may recall they went on strike this exact same time last year, leaving me stranded at Charles De Gaulle airport. "C'est un grieve." If you find yourself traveling through France, you can't figure out why your plane/train is canceled, and you hear those words, you may wish to consider extending your vacation in, say, whatever town you happen to be standing in at that moment. Some transit worker has just informed you that there is a strike going on, and you couldn't leave town if you wanted to, except perhaps on a bicycle. Vive la France! San Francisco is truly a dream compared with most other towns, really. Just ask my wife, who came out to visit m...

Saponification is the hydrolysis of an ester under basic conditions to form an alcohol and the salt of a carboxylic acid . Saponification is commonly used to refer to the reaction of a metallic alkali ( base ) with a fat or oil to form soap . Saponifiable substances are those that can be converted into soap.

Greetings from the Bluegrass. It's cold and rainy here today. The drought made for a quick fall, and tomorrow we're dropping to the 40s. A tip o' the hat (thank you, Stephen Colbert) to the Naval Academy midshipmen, who, after a 43 year stretch finally beat Notre Dame. Coach Weiss, if you're looking for employment (and you ought to be), the Ace Hardware down the street from us is hiring. A wag o' the finger at Pervez Musharraf. In the past week Pakistan's president fired the supreme court because he learned they were about to declare his recent re-election unconstitutional. Then he locked up 3500 people because they don't agree with him. He is also sending out the riot police to any political protests, and has suggested that because of this [self-invented] state of emergency, he might need to postpone elections for a year. While some countries have frozen their foreign aid to Pakistan in light of these alarming developments, the US continues to send t...