Thursday May 06, 2010 - &\quot;Twitter is over capacity" Is it better to use an overwhelmed service (Twitter) than a privacy-ignorant, incompetent service (Facebook)? Duh, yes.

Sunday April 25, 2010 - Goodbye, Facebook. It was fun while it lasted, but your silent, opt-out privacy changes are too much to take. Just last week you silently changed my settings once again, to make my personal information your property. Come back when you learn how to treat customers.

Saturday March 27, 2010 - It seems that Facebook has vacuumed up all my desire to blog. I'll have to revamp this page, without much of a blog.

Wednesday December 23, 2009 - Let's face it: our two political parties are really loose coalitions rather than traditional parties, and that's a good thing. The result is that we're going to see more frequent party defection and a lack of "Party Loyalty".

Wednesday December 16, 2009 - The Co-Prezzies attended "The Santaland Diaries" at Portland Center Stage - absolutely hysterical/frightening/wonderous: the tale of being a Macy's Elf one Christmas season. We highly recommend it.

Friday October 16, 2009 - CollectorZ fiasco, part II: a note to the company ellicited a response that basically said "It couldn't have done that. Stop badmouthing our product.." - they haven't seen badmouthing yet.

What kind of arrogant idiots argue with their customers over what they experienced. Face: the data is gone; Fact: the upgrade did not display the giant, red "This is not a free upgrade" notice.

Either CollectorZ is a company of arrogant incompetents, or it's a con. I can't decide which, but in any case, they're on the Co-President's "Tell all our friends to avoid them" list.

Tuesday October 13, 2009 - Burned by Collectorz! Collectorz provides database programs for your CD collection, Book collection, or Movie collection...that is, until you try to update. Co-Pres L just innocently clicked the "sure, update to the latest version" button, and a) the update replaced the good version with a 100-book TRIAL VERSION of the new release, and b) THREW AWAY HER DATABASE. Luckily, she had entered only a COUPLE HUNDRED books of our very large collection. A little Googling revealed that others have had similar problems with this product.

Needless to say, CollectorZ products are now on our Do Not Buy; Do Not Recommend list. Thanks, dufuses.

Wednesday October 07, 2009 - Heck - I'm doing all my blogging on Facebook...where it will disappear when Facebook decides it should no longer exist.

Saturday September 26, 2009 - A text blog is soooo passe' - I need to update this to something more lively.

Friday July 31, 2009 - Whew! After a week of record-breaking heat, last night we were able to open the windows again. It's so nice to feel a cool breeze.

Friday June 12, 2009 - Say goodbye to analog TV. Weird, I feel like we should be throwing a new-years-like party or something, to commemorate the end of an era. We plugged in a cheap UHF antenna into our new TV and Voila! Lots of local channels in high-def.

Wednesday May 20, 2009 - Okay, after seeing Star Trek 3 times, I've decided I like it a lot, though I'm still disappointed with the Enterprise theme music...or is it the Kirk theme music? That's part of the problem. Other than my admitted nit-picking of the music, it was great fun.

Sunday March 22, 2009 - Gee, now that the domain is transferred, I get to decide what to do with it: weather tracking? ...A real blog? ...My fantasy "Bill Bill" site where to log the minutes wasted while waiting for your Windows machine to recover?

Thursday March 12, 2009 - I can't believe it! After about two months of learning the intricacies of Domain Transfer (and fighting Network Solutions), Needhamia.com is at its new home at GoDaddy - woohoo!

Saturday March 07, 2009 - If you can read this, Needhamia has (finally) moved to its new home!

Sunday January 25, 2009 - After weeks of dry weather, we're looking at an inch of snow...just an inch; nothing to worry about....

Sunday December 28, 2008 - AT LAST! The Co-Presidents escaped from our house after 14 days of being snowbound. No, I didn't see my co-workers before Christmas. Now, after a couple days of well-above-freezing temperatures, the driveway is clear and the roads are (mostly) clear - whew! This was the biggest snow in 40 years.

Saturday December 20, 2008 - So far we have about 16 and 1/2 inches of snow on the deck, with more falling and more to come. Co-pres B has been working from home (due to the weather) for a week now. Will I see my co-workers before Christmas?

Sunday December 07, 2008 - Inspired by the StoryCorps National Day of Listening, this year Co-President B recorded an hour of extended-family stories around the Franksgiving* table. It went fantastically well, with stories about living in Panama, passing through Shanghai, licking slugs, ladybug bites, pickled pigs feet, the Spanking Machine, and many others.

*Franksgiving (Friday + Thanksgiving) is the day after Thanksgiving: a time to get together and share the Thanksgiving leftovers. If the leftovers extend to Saturday, that's called "Sanksgiving". It has nothing to do with the 1930's early Thanksgiving by the same name.

Friday December 05, 2008 - This week the official Recession-Declaring Office of the US officially declared a recession, that started 3 quarters of a year ago. Convenient, in that future Republicons can claim that "the recession started soon after Obama was elected" rather than the truth that this recession is a result of deregulation that started with that icon of 'gut the government', Ronald Reagan.

Saturday November 15, 2008 - The Co-Presidents are in heaven. Sure, we know that the next few years are going to be Bush's mess no matter what Obama (HURRAH FOR THE GOOD GUYS) does, but at least we won't have Bush's policies continuing to do more damage.

I heard today that we're not in a recession. My guess is that Bush's number-fiddlers are making sure that the economic disaster officially doesn't happen until Obama's watch, so later Republicans can blame Obama for Bush's mess. It's a little like blaming the fire department for a string of arsons, because they're always there putting the fire out.

Tuesday November 04, 2008 - I can't stand the anticipation. Will the combination of deliberately-faulty voting machines, deliberate purging of voter registrations, and deliberate slow-downs be enough to steal the election? ...or will the fact that many republican party honchos hate McCain, and the fact that savvy honchos don't want a republican in the white house during the coming years of suffering from outright theft committed by administrations going back to Ronald Reagan, be enough to tip the election results toward honesty?

Let's recap: In 2000, an angry mob interrupted a legal recount in a close election in Florida, then the Supreme Court interfered in a state's election process, ending the recount and giving the election to George Bush. In 2004, Democratic voters were deliberately purged from the rolls in Ohio, throwing the election to George Bush again.

Vote so that we can throw these clowns in jail, like any other mobsters, and reclaim our right to an honest election.

Monday October 20, 2008 - Since Christmas seems to come on the heels of Halloween, we've posted our totally twisted, head-on crash of "The Raven" and "The Night Before Christmas", titled The Santa.

Wednesday October 15, 2008 - It's the last debate, and the question should never be "who won the debate", instead ask yourself "What did I learn about the candidates"?

Tuesday October 07, 2008 - Did anybody notice the lovely setup-followthrough that Obama did in the Presidential Debate tonight? It was great to see a candidate use a clear debate technique, and to see McCain fall for it so completely: 1) Obama takes an aggressive stance, 2) McCain says that Obama is being a crazy man, 3) Obama points out, through a large number of undeniable examples, that McCain is the crazy man.

Sunday October 05, 2008 - Last week the Co-Presidents saw Portland Center Stage's production of "Guys and Dolls" - it was fantastic! The best we'd ever seen (and we've seen a lot). For the first time, Sarah was played as a realistic character rather than just a cartoon of a stuck-up missionary; the songs were delivered as exposition rather than interludes, and the sets and costumes were totally over the top. The whole production was fresh and filled with excitement, as if this was the world premier of the musical.

Tuesday September 16, 2008 - Last night, as the Co-Presidents watched the full moon, an airplane flying high above crossed directly across the disk of Luna herself - offering a spectacular silhouette of the otherwise-invisible plane. Probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Sunday September 14, 2008 - I forgot to mention that a short time ago we went to a Cricket game by the Beaverton Cricket Club.. It's the first time we've seen anything more than highlights of the puzzling game of Cricket (there are two batters, and a half inning often takes hours) It was loads of fun, and educational - now we have some idea of how the game is played. Many thanks to Londoner Adam (not part of BCC), who gave us the play-by-play, as well as tips on how Cricket is played in London schoolyards. One big thing we learned is that all the players seem laid-back, not because it's a laid-back game, but because it's a game of physical endurance lasting days.

Wednesday September 10, 2008 - Wow, I had no idea that the main opposition to the Large Hadron Collider was outside the US. Whew, that's a relief - for once the hillbilly-science isn't coming from around here.

Wednesday September 10, 2008 - Are we the only country hillbilly-enough to fear the Large Hadron Collider and not worry about global warming?

Tuesday September 09, 2008 - Karl Rove wanna-be: "I've got a great idea! We choose a girl as your running mate, then run polls that show that girls are going to vote for you because they want to vote for a girl - then girls will actually vote for you, because they think all the girls are voting for you. And if that doesn't work, we can rig the vote and claim that all the girls voted for you - it's brilliant no matter what happens!" McCain advisor: "Look up 'condescending' in your dictionary, if you think 'girls' are going to be unable to tell the difference between Hillary Clinton and some total unknown. Why don't we just put Joe Lieberman in a dress and a wig." KRW-b: "Hey, you've got something there!"

Wednesday September 03, 2008 - Any presidential candidate want to talk about Social Security? ...or health care? ...or the 8 to 12 Billion (yes, one-thousand-million) dollars per Month that Iraq costs the US, making us the latest superpower to be banikrupted by their military? No? Instead you're going to talk about smaller government, but not about lead in childrens' toys because of that smaller government. ...about how torture is a great thing, as long as it's somebody else being tortured. ...about drilling oil that will only send this planet over the edge sooner. No thanks.

Sunday August 10, 2008 - The trip to Ireland with the Chorale was fantastic; the most amazing part of the trip was a visit to Skellig Michael after the choir trip ended. Skellig Michael is a little island jutting out of the sea about 6 miles off the southwest coast of Ireland. Some time before the 8th century AD, monks rowed out to the island and established, through a huge amount of labor, a tiny hermitage on the top of the island. To visit it today, you need to 1) take a fishing boat from Portmagee (a 1 hour trip), climb the 660 rough steps (laid down over 1200 years ago) that take you literally up the side of the island - one false step and you're fish-food - then take the same 660 steps down, then take the same fishing boat back to shore. It was wonderful! As you can see from the photo, the seas were a bit rough the day we went out.

Tuesday June 10, 2008 - In summary...Grandchildren Cute; Iron Man Good; Weather Cold and Wet; No Water Today (working on the pipes). Things certainly do fall apart quickly when you have no water...duh. The last snow was April 19th - weird.

Sunday April 20, 2008 - Snow in April in the Willamette valley? I've never in my life seen such a thing...until yesterday. There were show and hail showers all morning - very odd.

Saturday March 15, 2008 - Saw 'The Other Boleyn Girl' last night. Despite the critics' universal panning of this film, it's not half-bad (though it's not great by a long shot). Lovely costumes, generally good acting (with some WOOF exceptions), mediocre dialog, and really, really uncreative cinematography., Oh, and WHAT was a sundial doing in that one indoor scene? ...did the director misinterpret what a Solar was?

Monday March 03, 2008 - It's cold/flu season again, and the Co-Presidents are in the season, with a pair of colds. Bleah.

Tuesday February 05, 2008 - The Co-Presidents saw Atonement for the second time - just to confirm what a bad story it is - and, yes, that egg is still rotten. Can't say more without spoiling the surprise ending, other than to say that one of the characters in the movie peered into the abyss...then turned away and happily skipped down the road. WOOF!

Tuesday January 29, 2008 - Never taught Jack Frost. The Co-Presidents were held hostage Monday by newscasters' dire warnings of imminent snow, then this morning Co-P B drove into work with tire chains, through 6 inches of snow. Nobody knows what tomorrow will look like.

Sunday January 27, 2008 - So where's the snow? The Co-Presidents went to bed last night trusting in the weather reports of 1-3 inches of snow above 500 feet. This morning: zip, nada, nothing. The radar map shows all the nasty weather is holding off to the southeast. It is still just freezing, but no precipitation. If this narration keeps up, I'll have to join the Dull Mens' Club.

Saturday January 26, 2008 - Snow on the way Satuday, Sunday, and Monday...We'll see what we get. (maybe this IS a weather blog after all).

Wednesday January 09, 2008 - Our new Creative Zen V Plus mp3 player works on Windows Vista, but Creative's apps don't for some reason, and Creative seems helpless against the problem. Consider for a moment: Microsoft happens to sell a music player and provides a music download app that competes with Creative. Are these Vista 'bugs' an accident? ...I'm not so sure.

Tuesday January 08, 2008 - Another bit of snow, that's melting. (I guess this is another weather blog)

Sunday January 06, 2008 - At the risk of this being just a weather blog, we have snow again. It's 8:30am, and we have about an inch, with more forecast all morning.

Saturday January 05, 2008 - Another test - the app seems to be behaving.

Saturday January 05, 2008 - Testing a Java version of my Blogging program.

Saturday January 05, 2008 - More snow. The old has melted away.

Sunday December 30, 2007 - The previous snow has almost all melted, and now it's snowing again - the forecast is for snow showers all evening. For those not of Needhamia, snow in December is a bit of an oddity - usually we get our snow in late January.

Thursday December 27, 2007 - 'Sleigh bells ring, are you listnin'?' We have over 8 inches of snow (and more coming) here in Needhamia! Word is that the house saw a White Christmas (though the Co-Presidents were in Seattle at the time).

Sunday December 02, 2007 - Snow, Rain, Wind! The weather people say that the largest weather system they've ever seen is moving in from the Pacific. Yesterday it gave us snow (only a little); today is raining buckets and promises 50mph winds (100 mph on the coast). Batten down the hatches!

07:30PM November 28 - It's SNOWING! The Co-Presidents built a little (like 1 foot tall) snowman to celebrate.

Wednesday, August 22 - Why are virus scan companies sooooo hard to deal with? I switched from Symantec because it was almost impossible to renew: you had to log in to the web site, purchase there, get a secret code from that site, use the secret code in your renewal, and more - it was like exchanging codes with a secret agent. I just spent an hour trying to get a simple question answered by McAfee, and in the process: 1) wandered through their 'helpful' wasteland of a knowledge base, 2) 'chatted' with a 'live' customer service rep who was either an Eliza program or had an IQ lower than a dog, who tried to get me to buy McAfee for Linux when my problem was that I couldn't log into their site (a lost password + my flakey email account), then 3) talked with a nice Indian woman who I had to communicate email addresses and passwords over the phone with - final success: she gave my my password, and all was well. Any other company would automatically renew my subscription, and would in fact make it hard to cancel. Symantec and McAfee behave as if every customer is a potential threat - which goes back to my premise that companies act like their products. Sheesh.

Friday, May 25 - The Co-Presidents saw Shrek-III earlier in the week. It's a hoot, especially for anyone who's in theater. The plot's a little thin, with several completely random elements, but the play-within-a-play makes the whole movie worthwhile.

Wednesday, May 16 - The Needhamian Oracle Predicts: You know that counter-terrorism effort to scan vast amounts of information about US citizens? ...the one that the White House keeps saying should not concern law-abiding citizens, even though it intrudes into the most private parts of our lives and gives the government unprecedented surveillance capabilities without warrants? The Needhamian Oracle (ok, Co-President B.) predicts that it will be revealed that a large part of that data is being sold to foreign companies by corrupt US government contractors. I don't know how long it will take for this to come out, but it will. I predict this because a) this administration has shown itself so corrupt in so many other ways, and b) a huge database like that is just too tempting.

Sunday, April 29 - I watched George Tenet's interview on 60 Minutes. I can't believe how self-absorbed he is, to talk about his honor and his hurt feelings when either 1) it's his fault, as head of the CIA, that his organization provided fauly intelligence that sent America to war with Iraq, or 2) the CIA had accurate intelligence, the White House twisted it to take America to war, and it's his fault that he said nothing. He kept talking about his hurt feelings and hurt honor, instead of talking about the facts.

Monday, April 09 - Why do I love The Wind in the Willows? A new adaptation was on TV last night. Quite amusing. My favorite line is the Water Rat's "...there is nothing--absolutely nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." Oh, if Needhamia only had a stream to drift along in.

Sunday, March 11 - Our Heroic Soldiers of the Revolution in Congress have blessed us with 3 more weeks of Daylight Time, ostensibly to save energy. What will the resulting Mini-Y2K-Bug bring us in the next three weeks? Will school zone lights that flash an hour too late be an annoyance, or a deadly error?

Monday, January 29 - The Co-Presidents attended (and performed in) the annual Robert Burns Dinner at the Resort at the Mountain on Saturday. There's nothing quite so stirring as nine bagpipes in a banquet room...unless it's four bagpipes in the bar afterward! (International treaties prevent playing more than 4 pipes in a small room :-) We had loads of fun singing "Oh Flower of Scotland" and many other tunes well into the wee hours, in celebration of the birthday of the Bard of Scotland.

Tuesday, January 16 - I'm watching President Bush on TV explaining his plans, and I can't help but think that his plan is to transfer as many public funds to his private friends for as long as he can. The only other alternative I see is that he's completely delusional. So it boils down to this: either he's a fool, or he thinks he can fool us.

Sunday, October 08 - Welcome to all the readers of ScrollSaw Woodworking and Crafts magazine, whose winter 2006 issue includes my article on Rose Window Ornaments.

Friday, September 01 - Ever seen a movie and wanted those 2 hours back? We just saw the remake of The Wicker Man...WOOF. It's not even bad enough to enjoy as a cult-movie-to-be: Zero tension, which is a bad trait in a horror movie; photography that belonged in a garden magazine (no tension); a sound track that belongs in an elevator; dialog from a first-year writing student (ever had a burger that distracted you? neither have I)...and the list really does go on...and on. And a tip: if you're going to make a creepy movie about the Old Ways set in the Pacific Northwest, spend an hour in a library or a bookstore in the area before you write the script...sheesh.

Monday, August 21 - HE FINALLY SAID IT! In today's press conference, President Bush finally said that Iraq had no WMDs and that Sadam had nothing to do with 9/11. Instead he tried to say that his reason for invading Iraq was to bring hope to the region - as if he brought flowers instead of bombs. Now we see that Bush's strategy book contains one page: Where there is hate, kill; Where there is despair, kill; Where there is poverty, kill; Where there is suffering, kill. This man must be impeached now.

Wednesday, August 09 - I hope Connecticut voters can see through Senator Lieberman's desperate attempts to be re-elected at any cost. If the Senator were really an Independent, he would have left the Democratic party when he found himself at odds with the party beliefs rather than when he found that Democrats wouldn't elect him. Other Senators have changed parties in the past, and they've done it based on their principles. This strategy of switching parties after losing says that the Senator has no principles, other than the self-centered desire to sit in Washington.

Friday, July 28 - We saw Superman Returns tonight...I wish we had left half way through so we could imagine a good second half. Outstanding interior architecture, promising characters, then all action stopped dead, dragged down by the boat-anchor of Lois Lane's I-have-two-boyfriends total lack of emotional dynamics.

Friday, July 21 - 108 degrees in North Plains! Ack!

Saturday, July 08 - Sadly, Sweet Oregon Grill restaurant burned early Friday morning. Coincidentally, we were awakened at about 4:15am Friday by the sound of roaring wind...which turned out to be our TV receiver, which had somehow a) switched to a non-existant channel, and b) turned the volume all the way up. The result was a roaring as of a tsunami - which is a good trick so far inland. We suspect that the fire caused some power spikes, that caused our receiver to play tricks on us.

Thursday, March 09 - SNOW??!?!!? Yes, that's 5 inches of snow on our deck...in mid-March. Just last weekend I was strolling through the forest, thinking of spring; Today I cut up a tree that had fallen into the road from the weight of the snow. What is so rare as a day in June? ...a snowy day in March in Oregon.

Monday, February 13 - Ok, the winds are gone...now they're forecasting 17(!) degrees by the weekend, with possible snow. I guess the groundhog did see his shadow after all.

Friday, February 10 - What are the winds of March doing here in February? Gusts to 40mph last night brought down many, many fir branches - they'd flash past the windows in the dark, like green ghosts falling from the sky.

Saturday, February 04 - Visited Teavana tea shop today - all 'tude and no tea. One of the few signs in this minimalist shop said "bubble tea". Since I like the stuff I asked for one - big mistake - quoth the BarrisTea: what kind? We have green tea, fruit teas... Me: Do you have Papaya? Bar: No. (she gestured toward a discreet brochure - so discreet I had no idea what it was - that portrayed their teas in loving J. Peterman style and 8 pages). Bewildered, I fell back on the first kind she said. Me: I'll have green tea. Bar: We don't recommend green bubble tea, because the milk doesn't mix well with green tea (then why did you say you had it???) Me: Uh...I guess I'll read up...bye.
So it was clear they didn't want me as a customer - I'm happy to oblige, from here on. I guess they only want tea gourmets, who by the way like Bubble Tea, which is a sort of slushie that overwhelms any tea flavor it's made with. I'd say they have a confused brand identity.

Monday, January 30 - Ach! How lovely is the annual Robert Burns Dinner at the Resort at the Mountain: A full complement of pipers, award-winning highland dancing, a fine dinner, and the Calendonean contingent of the Oregon Chorale. What a night!

Wednesday, April 20 - I've uploaded my genealogy to Ancestry.com, so you can now browse the Co-Presidents' ancestors, starting from This surname index

Sunday, March 20 - After working on my genealogy for over 4 years, I'm now starting to publish the results. See Howard Needham's Ancestors - my first attempt at posting the results. More to come.

Friday, December 24 - We nabbed our tree from our pasture again this year, making it about 12 minutes from door to tree-stand. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Monday, November 22 - Coyotes are *so* sneaky! We've seen one in the pasture twice now, and they've so far managed to avoid the camera.

Tuesday, November 09 - It's not all bad news...John Ashcroft has resigned, allowing calico cats of the world to breathe a sigh of relief. Now if only Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush would follow his lead.

Thursday, November 04 - You can't fool all the people all the time, but you can obviously fool 51 percent of them some of the time. Brace yourself for four more years of the raiding of America's wealth, resources, and future by the rich, justified through the misdirection of religiousity.

Wednesday, September 15 - Ok, I've channeled my anti-Bush feelings into satire. I've documented the Secret Bush-Bashing Messages I've received from the satellite TV program guide. The guide chops off the last few letters of program titles to make them fit on the screen, and occasionally comes up with whoppers like reducing "Junkyard Wars" to "Junkyard W". Follow the link to see them all.

Monday, September 06 - After watching the republican convention, our new motto is "If you believe him, you deserve him". The president lied for over an hour about the state of schools, medicare, the economy, and Iraq. Let's recap: this president overthrew a country that had no WMDs and no ties to the people who attacked us - he might as well have attacked Canada - and now claims he went in for humanitarian reasons. This humanitarian invasion went on to deliberately torture citizens - the Attorney General appeared before the Senate and testified that he was basically asked to find how to make torture of prisoners legal. Meanwhile, our soldiers lacked basic armor and supplies because those services were contracted, without competitive bids, to Haliburton, which is the company that the vice president led before becoming vice president - in short, the vice president's company made money by killing our sons and daughters. On medicare, the president either lied about or didn't understand the costs of his medicare bill, and now it turns out it's going to cost 17% more than he claimed. On the economy, the president claims we're at war, yet gave a tax cut to his friends, and keeps forecasting loads of jobs that haven't materialized. Again, either he's lying to make his friends rich, or he doesn't understand how the economy works - either way, we have a president who is ruining the country.

Tuesday, July 13 - Look at the bottom of the main page to see our new "sponsor" by some citizens of Needhamia. Cool cards!

Sunday, June 06 - We just saw Urinetown in Portland. Absolutely amazing. A perky, cynical musical with a gut punch at the very end. Incredibly brilliant. Born of the playwright's frustration with pay toilets in Paris, the show uses a basic need as a lens on society and the environment. "Don't be the bunny".

Tuesday, January 06 - "Make it Stop! Make It Stop! Make It Stop!" Cabin fever has set in; the Co-Presidents have been cooped up since January 2, with ice, 12" of snow, 2-foot icicles all over the roof, and garbage cans that are frozen solid. The small bin in the picture is full of bird seed, which the Junko nearby is undoubtably wishing for.

Wednesday, December 31 - "Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!" Oh, the weather outside really is frightful: snow, snow, possible-rain, snow, freezing...you get the picture. The only group partiers here are the squirrels and birds, who won't be careening down the hill after midnight tonight. So the Co-Presidents will be warming their tootsies in front of a roaring fire as the Times Square ball drops. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wednesday, August 06 - The Co-Presidents have returned from a fantastic tour of Baltic Europe with the Oregon Chorale: Helsinki in Finland, Tallin in Estonia, Riga in Latvia, Vilnius in Lithuania, Gdansk in Poland, and Dresden, Wittenberg, and Berlin in Germany. One of the cool things about touring with a choir is that you get to make contact in a way other tourists don't: here is the view from the choir loft in Gdansk Cathedral, where we performed to an enthusiastic crowd.

Monday, June 16 - Yes, after hiding for quite a while, the deer are out again in force. The caption for this picture might be "Camera? What camera? ...got any apples?"

Saturday, May 24 - The Co-Presidents saw "Down With Love" last night. It showed every sign of being a cute spoof/homage of 60's Doris Day comedies. Unfortunately, while a visually amazing replication of such movies, "Down With Love" isn't one. The best we can say is this: the movie gets kinda interesting near the end - too bad the audience has to wait until then to enjoy themselves.

Sunday, April 13 - Shame, Rumsfeld. Shame. You protected Iraq's oil wells and chose to let the museum be ransacked of thousands of years of human history. Art, culture, and history mean nothing to you. What other crimes against humanity do you and your cronies dismiss with "Democracy is messy"!

Tuesday, April 01 - This genealogy thing is going well: I now know that Albert Needham's parents were Humphrey M. Needham (born about 1813) and Olive Hart (born about 1821). Now I'm tracking down when and where these folks were born, married, and died.

Thursday, November 28 - Last week, Co-President Brad had the opportunity to visit the birthplace of his Great Grandfather, Albert Needham - Akron, New York. This photo shows the oldest house in Akron, the Rich-Twinn Octagonal house, built in 1849 and now owned by the Newstead Historical Society. Albert pre-dates this house by only a few years, being born in 1841. Since a town hall fire destroyed all of the Akron records prior to 1880, finding Albert's parents is going to be a bit of a detective job.

Akron, NY is a cute little village - I'd recommend a visit.

Thursday, October 10 - A bit ago the Co-Presidents visited the Hope Abbey mausoleum in Eugene, where Co-Pres. B.'s great grandparents, Albert and Emogine Needham, are interred. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, being the only example of monumental Egyptian Revival architecture in Oregon. After decades of neglect, it is being lovingly restored by the Eugene Masonic Cemetery Association.

Sunday, June 23 - We just saw the Mock's Crest production of The Mikado, and I gotta say it was, by far, the best Gilbert and Sullivan production we've ever seen! It was beautifully executed (so to speak), both musically and theatrically, had wonderful interpretation, and was a hoot to watch!

Tuesday, June 11 - So we're depriving US citizens of speedy trial and access to council now? Remember when all those guys were interred after 9/11 and the President assured us that only non-US citizens were treated that way - that he had the highest respect for the Constitution? I guess this guy doesn't count as a citizen somehow because of what he's accused of. I'm sure he's guilty, but keep in mind he's accused of serious crimes - not convicted. ...and we haven't made a declaration of war against anyone, so he can't be an enemy soldier as defined by international law. How would you feel if the FBI decided , based on inaccurate info, that you had conspired with Al-Kaeda? Wouldn't you like a defense lawyer?

Monday, May 27 - We attended The Sing-Along Sound of Music at Cinema 21 last night - what a hoot! Subtitles for all the songs, a little bag of edelweiss, and a party popper for Maria's first kiss. It's sort of a Rocky Horror Picture Show for the whole gang. Yell advice to Maria: "don't forget your ha!t" "use the curtains!" Boo the Nazi's, hiss at the baroness, and scream "HELLO SAILOR!" each time captain Von Trapp appears. And, of course, sing along with all songs (and they mean ALL the songs - brush up on your latin for the first Abby scene). It runs through the 30th at Cinema 21 in Portland, so get out there and sing!

Sunday, May 26 - We saw Spider-man last week, and it's a fine movie. Well-cast characters you care about, an actual plot (as compared to some movies we might mention), and closure in the face of a sequel. Hey, I even cared about the bad guy. Aimed at the grade-school crowd, Spider-man was a kick.

Monday, May 20 - Well, we saw Attack of the Clones yesterday, and finally figured out the problem with Lucas' films: His first Star Wars movie was a camp western set in space, and his latest two are solidly sci-fi with no sense of humor whatsoever...no relief from the self-absorbed, one-dimensional characters.

Thursday, March 14 - It's a sure sign of spring when the deer (a.k.a. "The Big, Dumb Dogs") reappear! Ok, so they're predicting SNOW tomorrow - it's still the cusp of spring.

Monday, January 28 - When it rains, it pours! ...or snows. We received 5 inches of snow Saturday night - here's a picture of a bit of it. This evening, the roads are clear of almost everything, with just a few small patches of ice remaining.

Monday, January 21 - It's Snowing! Just when we thought we'd seen the last of ol' man winter for the year, this surprise storm swept in. Planning to go to choir rehearsal, I almost put the car in the ditch twice while driving down the hill - no fun. So... I put the chains on at the bottom of the hill, drove back home, and took this picture. They're predicting snow all night - wheee!

Sunday, December 16 - The Christmas tree's really not that big... really. ...not that big. It just looks big in the picture. ...and looks like it's devouring Co-President Brad. But it's really just an optical illusion. It didn't take the whole Needhamian department of public works to drag the thing from the tree farm next door.

Sunday, November 18 - Is it really almost Thanksgiving day? September and October are a blur. The Co-Presidents are perfecting their speedy tourist method. For example, we attended the North Plains Elephant Garlic Festival (in September) three times, each time popping in for just a few minutes to eat and cruise the booths. Way fun!

Sunday, August 5 - The Co-Presidents saw Planet of the Apes this evening, and are giving it an unqualified STINKO!!!!. It's the worst movie we've seen in a long time -- does the studio think they're saving money by not getting a decent writer, or is the project so appealing that they had to have a committee of writer-wanna-be's? How often to studios have to be reminded that people go to movies for the story? Sure, the special effects, makeup, and sets are important, but if the story stinks, they're just wasting everybody's time. If you want to see Planet of the Apes, go rent the original.

Sunday, July 1 - Yes, the Co-Presidents are on the boards again, this time in Stage One's production of Guys and Dolls. Who'da thunk that Sister Francis and Big Jule would hit it off?

Sunday, June 17 - It's almost summer, and the deer are dancing in the yard again.

Saturday, May 26 - The contented bumblebees are having a fine time nuzzling the rhododendra in the back yard of Needhamia. Co-President B. took this picture with the new Needhamian digital camera, an Olympus C-3000 - we're liking it a lot!

Tuesday, March 27 - Yes, it's undeniably Spring in Needhamia: The daffodils are blooming, the birds are singing, and the deer are nibbling on the dandilions.

Monday, March 19 - After a month of friends recommending the movie (hey, it takes us a while to get out), we finally saw O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a Coen Brothers film based on the Odyssey. It's hysterical, and an exhausting adventure paralleling Homer's epic. Those who saw the Washington County Chorale's The Great Train Concert should note that the similarities to O Brother really are coincidental. We Co-Presidents exchanged incredulous glances at the appearance of three incompetent robbers on a train, the constant phrase "How's my hair look?", and the yodeling.

Wednesday, February 28 - Wow! Earthquakes are exciting - the sort of excitement I can do without. Here in Needhamia, the quake was just a half minute of slight rolling, but up north in Seattle, it wrecked quite a few brick facades downtown. James, who lives in Seattle, said everyone went outside to see what was the matter - looks like "Duck and Cover" training is in our future.

Saturday, February 24 - My Gosh! What a beautiful day! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and spring is just around the corner

Thursday, February 8 - I think you're looking at the last snow of this winter. It's just a dusting, but it's pretty. In other news, if you haven't seen Late Night Catechism, the Co-Presidents recommend seeing it. The Catholic-school attendees in the audience were in stitches, but even we non-Catholics found it hysterical. Don't show up late, or you might have to put in a buck toward the Pagan Baby fund.... Find out which saint you're named after, or find out that your name is a verb (like "Carrie"). Way too much fun.

Sunday, January 28 - At last I've renewed Spoken Songs, my weekly poetry-reading page - look for a new reading every Wednesday.

And here's a photo of my car rolling to 77,777 miles, taken with a Casio Wrist Camera. My advice - if you want one, buy it at a store rather than at Casio's site. My order through the Casio web site never did work.

Sunday, December 17 - When the Co-Presidents are hunting, no tree is safe! Here Co-Pres. L. (and our neighbor's dog, Bonnie, who helped tremendously in finding the right tree) triumph over a magnificent 147-point Douglas fir. It put up a grand fight, but we finally brought it to ground only a few yards from our house. Within just an hour, the trophy was mounted in our family room, next to the crackling fire.

Thursday, December 14 - In all this reconciliation has everyone forgotten that a legal ballot recount was halted by an angry mob and that the US Supreme Court established a precedent for throwing out recounts in future elections? It's going to take a lot of work to repair the legal and political damage done during this election.

Monday, December 11 - For you poetry fans, I've updated the Spoken Songs page so that you can hear the poems with either Real Player or with Windows Media Player. I hope to record some new poems soon.

Oh, and we have about 1/2 inch of snow.

Monday, December 11 - Those crafty weather-forecasters! We've got snow falling and 26 degrees. It's like the "Arctic Blast" forecast of a week ago is coming true after all.

Sunday, December 10 - The forecasters changed their minds - no arctic freeze this early. Needhamia is just having a normal Oregon winter, made of rain and a little frost.

Thursday, December 7 - It sounds like a nasty cold front is moving in. Maybe it's last year's bad winter that never came, so cold and slow that it took a year to get here.

Thursday, November 9 - Since it looks like the election won't be sorted out for a long while, I think the candidates should lead as co-presidents until we know who won. I'd be sort of like Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Gondoliers.

Sunday, November 5 - I seem to have misplaced by "web-rot-be-gone", but a few things are back up: three weeks of four are now available at the Britain Trip link, and the webcam is up every day now.

Halloween was fun (ever thought that an inverted plastic trash can topped by a pair of battery-powered pumpkin lights would look like the head of a giant slug? it does.). Thanksgiving approaches swiftly.

Sunday, October 22 - I've put up the second week of our trip, and you can now see either week at The britain trip link. Also, the webcam is working again - I had cleaned my desk during sabbatical, eliminating the pile of books the video receiver had been sitting on. In the new, lower position, it wouldn't receive worth a darn. Let this be a lesson: never clean your desk!

Sunday, October 8 - Ok, Ok, I've applied some little bit of "Web-rot-be-gone" to this site, in the form of a page on the first week of our fall trip to Britain. It's just a start, but there's lots more (2,400 photos, to be exact) where that came from.

Tuesday, September 26 - Serious bit rot has taken hold in the web site through my utter negligence during my sabbatical vacation - when you're not using computers at work, they sure seem to lose their appeal against things like reading in the sunshine or walking in the woods. Will using a computer ever be as pleasurable as reading or walking?

Fortunately, my vacation ends soon and I expect my interest in all things computing-related to reappear. Soon after that I hope to apply liberal amounts of bit-rot-be-gone to the web site, making it shiney and new.

Tuesday, August 8 - In the name of power conservation during the California summer power surge, I'm turning off the webcam during most of the day for a while, running it only when I'm online. In other news, the RainBird scarecrows are doing a great job of keeping the deer from eating the dogwood tree down to nothing. We see deer grazing in the forest several times a day now.

Tuesday, July 25 - As an experiment, I've temporarily moved the webcam out to the chicken coop (oops! That's the Imperial Stables and Aviator Barracks). This chicken's-eye view reminds me of the barracks in the movie Chicken Run.

Tuesday, July 4 - I've put up a few pages of snaps from the Stage One production of Fiddler on the Roof that the Co-Presidents just finished singing and dancing in. Did I mention that Silverna McCall is a fantastic director, and mounted the whole production in less than six weeks?

Monday, July 3 - Stage One's production of Fiddler on the Roof is now history. Thanks to everyone in it for a great job, and thanks to everyone who came to see it for being a great audience. It was wonderful!

Saturday, June 3 - Find out all the details of the Co-Presidents' theatrical reunion at the Ministry of Culture's Fiddler on the Roof page. You can even find out where to get tickets to see them for yourself.

Saturday, May 27 - Inexplicable glacial activity has deposited a set of boulders in our yard. Either that, or landscaping is continuing. The deck and front are done. Now all we need is... 20-some truckloads of fill dirt!

In other news, co-president B. just returned from the RealNetworks Real Conference 2000, where he saw Edgar Bronfman, Jr. CEO of Seagram (United Music) give an impassioned "we will sue you and win" keynote speech, alienating the very people the music industry needs to persuade. Copyrights are essential, Mr. Bronfman, but you don't form alliances with threats. This was a music publisher plainly terrified by Napster and MP3.com. This was a man reduced to using the keynote speech to say "take what's mine and I'll get you for it."

Saturday, May 13 - GREETINGS CITIZENS - I am happy to announce that Needhamia.com is our country's new home! The first tanks peacefully rolled into the Needhamia.com at 19:15GMT 13 May 2000, and were greeting by thousands of cheering citizens flinging roses and wearing the trillium emblem of their new country.

Friday, May 5 - It's time for spring cleaning, so I've cleaned up the Nation of Needhamia. A new look, conveniently organized by department, should be easier on the eyes. I've also expanded a little on the pictures from events hosted by the Ministry of Culture.

Soon I plan to add information on how to become a citizen of Needhamia so you can join in the fun!

Tuesday, April 25 - Apologies to all Needhamian Webcam fans: I had shut off the camera during some phone work, and didn't fire it up again for a few weeks. It should be up and sending a snapshot at 10 minutes after the hour every day now. As you can (hopefully) see from the photo, we're adding a deck now to complement our recent remodeling. There's also work going on out front, but you'll just have to imagine what that looks like.

Thursday, April 13 - Always forgetting your camera? Not a problem...take a look at the Casio Wrist Camera. It was going to come out in May, but they've slipped it to September - bummer.

Tuesday, March 28 - OK, it's not Lawrence Olivier, but it's certainly worth the price: visit my new poetry reading page.

Saturday, March 25 - Our daffodils are just about to bloom. They bloom up here a little later than on the valley floor.

Sunday, March 19 - Friday night we saw Galaxy Quest, expecting a screwball comedy. Instead we found it was a fantastically well-written and charming redemption of the Star Trek actors and fans (and a hysterical comedy). I laughed constantly during the whole movie, even though sometimes I was laughing through tears. If you are a Trekkie, know Trekkies, or know anything about the difficult lives of the original Star Trek actors, you'll love this movie. To say anything more specific would ruin the fun.

Monday, March 13 - Curiosity of the Week: The movie The Day the Earth Stood Still contains a scene in which the alien Klatu, in the guise of Mr. Carpenter, borrows Bobby's scout flashlight. In that scene, Mr. Carpenter looks at Bobby's train set and asks Bobby to remind him to tell him the next day about a train that doesn't need tracks. Unfortunately, Mr. Carpenter winds up leaving Earth and never tells Bobby the story. Assuming that this is another of Klatu's clever lessons in astrophysics, what was Mr. Carpenter's "Train that doesn't need tracks"? (I haven't a clue.) If you have an idea, send me an email.

Sunday, March 5 - Spring is (unofficially) here! Bulbs are sprouting all over Needhamia!

Thursday, March 2 - I can't believe it... a full-grown hawk flew into the window today, setting off the burglar alarm and, sadly, killing itself in the process. How do you keep hawks from hitting the windows?

Saturday, February 26 - After working on it for two weeks, I just have to plug my honey's new site: www.LindaNeedham.com. Find out all about Linda's latest book, and see our very own cover clinch (in the About Linda page)!

Sunday, February 13 - Now that Y2K is safely behind us, I wonder what's going to break on February 29th. The rules for leap year in the Gregorian calendar are:
February has 28 days
except every four years, it has 29
except every 100 years, is has 28
except every 400 years (which 2000 is), it has 29 again.
The problem is that many programmers are aware of the 100-year rule, but very few know the 400-year rule. This failure may cause many programs to believe that February 29th is actually March 1, making those programs off by one day forever.

Tuesday, February 8 - Where's that BIG BAD WINTER they said we'd have? (oh, oh. Now I've gone and taunted it.)

Wednesday, February 2 - The animals are returning - last night we saw a doe and fawn stroll by the house, just like they used to before all the construction.

Friday, January 28 - Is nothing certain? Aluminum, not Hydrogen, to blame in Hindenburg fire?

Thursday, January 27 - Ever wanted your own Captain Midnight Decoder Badges?

Tuesday, January 25 - I'm so broken-hearted! Just when I find Torquay is an actual place, I learn that Fawlty Towers wasn't filmed there. From the Tor Bay visitors info: It was while John Cleese was filming with the "Monty Python" team at the Gleneagles Hotel (Asheldon Road, Torquay) that he was inspired to write Fawlty Towers. The series was actually filmed in Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

Wednesday, January 19 - Check out PixelsPlace, a cute turtle webcam.

Tuesday, January 18 - It's just another webcam, but This Oberammergau Webcam shows the snowy streets of that quiet little village in the Black Forest of Germany.

Sunday, January 16 - I'm having way too much fun with my new digital camera. After what seems like a year of messing around with toy cameras and web cameras, I now have a real live digital camera: a Cannon Powershot A50. Way-nice photos, but way too big to put on the web site (I'm limited to 5MB total, and I'm currently using about half of that). Now I need to work out a "here's a few recent photos" gallery.

Friday, January 14 - It's a wonderful thing that snow takes forever to melt. The pasture still has a couple inches of snow in spots (at a 3-foot-tall snowball in the middle).

Thursday, January 13 - Ok, ok, we a foot of snow didn't fall last night. Last night's snowfall caused the total accumulation to become one foot -- got that?

Thursday, January 13 - The final report on The Big Snow of '00: last night we had a total of 1 foot of snow in the pasture. Today, it's all melting. Yep, when I'm sitting in my rocking chair in front of the holo-cracker-barrel at the Ye Olde Timey Internet Cafe in 2055 and start to rattle on about the winter of '00, I fully expect to be whisked out the door by the boredom police.

Wednesday, January 12 - "Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful!" Four inches of snow so far, and they're talking about more today. Cool.

Tuesday, January 11 - Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! Ok, so it's only a dusting, and it'll probably melt by noon, but hey, it's snow!

Monday, January 10 - I'd like to show you some photos of birds at our birdfeeder, but no birds have shown up yet -- I expect it will take them a few days to find the feeder.

Saturday, January 8 - Now that the construction is over, wildlife is returning to our site. A racoon was caught by the camera as he nibbled a few old apples I'd put out - I sure like the motion-detecting floodlights (but I'm not sure the racoon does).

Saturday, January 8 - After days of fog, the sun has burst out of the clouds -- is this winter?

Friday, January 7 - The webcam picture really is updating... it's the weather that isn't changing.

Thursday, January 6 - Check out my notes on What Exactly is Singing "In Tune" - tuning is stranger than you think.
P.S., Yesterday's note should have read "altar" instead of "alter" - my brain knows how to spell, but my fingers don't.

Wednesday, January 5 - WebCams are mainstream at last - The Monks of Adoration Chapel has a webcam pointed at their alter 24 hours per day. Right now, they have a nice nativity scene.

Tuesday, January 04 - Hello again for the second time in one day - cool, no?

Tuesday, January 04 - Y2K seems to have quietly come and gone. Brock Meeks said it best in this month's Communications of the ACM: "The computer industry is so thoroughly infused with effects and bugs that problems of all sorts are simply taken in stride. This is the cruel hoax of all the Y2K computer problem hysteria."

Monday, January 03 - Lovely fog today. If this is the worst of the winter, we're in fat city.

Monday, January 03 - This vacation thing is great, but going back to work is tough.

Monday, January 03 - Another test just for testing's sake.

Saturday, January 1 - Happy New Year! Everything looks pretty normal here. Since 2000 is an exceptional leap year, did you remember to set your clocks 42 minutes ahead at midnight?