What made you smile today?

I'm encouraged to see that there are still people who appreciate the little things in life. Seriously.

I would have stayed a bachelor were that not the case.

Well, some thrive on complexity.

Meeting George, his Lovely Bride and Rhy tonight. Sharing a meal with them, Setanta and joeblow. What a nice evening.

Aw, I bet. That's a fine group.

Posting from Cooperstown NY.
Meeting the Toronto Gang was a trip!
Great company, great meal, great view of the lake.

(Then the BoSox went and rained on my parade at the Rogers Centre.)

They have a centre just for rogering? They've got a place like that in Amsterdam.

This is in Toronto -- which no one has ever confused with Amsterdam.

I could organize the table at the Pearl, but I couldn't do anything about that game.

Tonight - back down to Harbourfront with Brenda Lee and another friend. We went to the Music Garden (further west along the waterfront than we walked last night) designed by Yo Yo Ma as a response to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites . We heard a marvellous performance of the first suite - with a pre-concert narrative explaining which parts of the garden reflected the various portions of the music. Mahvellous!

Being in Munich made me smile today. That, and seeing my favorite waitress from my student days, in a completely different restaurant that I couldn't possibly have guessed if I'd tried.

... an email-exchange with the Reference Desk at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


By pure chance I found the 'call number' of some sources I only knew partly from various books.
I need those texts for a research work - so I asked them, if I could get copies, what the price was ...

Got a response within hours. She wrote between the lines that it would be extremely costly for me to get duplicated those two sheets of microfiche that hold the wanted information; but she would scan me the written/printed documents when she had the time to spare.

I've send her some virtual flowers

Walter, As you know, I'll be visiting Auschwitz in November. Is there anything I can bring back for you besides some pictures? I'm not sure whether there will be copies of documents or books for sale at the site.

The following link shows what's available at their bookshop.
http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=741&Itemid=83

I don't wish to sound irreverent, but my daughter has just got back from Poland, and the beer is brilliant.

Thanks for the offer, c.i. - but my research has no connection to Auschwitz.

If someone only knows Hall & Woodhouse, then it certainly will be so.

I've had beer in Poland, but that was about 1 thousand gallons ago.

I'm terribly unpatriotic regarding beer Walt. My favourite is Czech, I'm a bit more parochial when it comes to cider though, I'm brewing 5 gallons at the moment.

She brought me back loads, the vodka's good too.

Just got an e-mail from one of my students. Horrible slacker. Like me, but I can't admit that. Anyway, email had attached a research paper 2 days late. Message in body of email was "Sry is late. My dog ate my .doc file."

He's got your sense of humor too....