Musings of Captain Peleg

Tweets du Jour

2009-11-07T02:03:23Z

Today's tweets

12:22 RT @cdarwin: Geology gives excessive pleasure as soon as one partly understands the nature of a country #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-11-06T02:02:49Z

Today's tweets

22:37 Matsui matsuri #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-11-05T02:05:52Z

Today's tweets

15:17 LOL at fake #APStyle tinyurl.com/ygcov5r Thank goodness we techies use Chicago. :-) :-) :-) #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-11-04T02:02:44Z

Today's tweets

15:14 Operating system expertise moves outward as programmers job-hop - O'Reilly Broadcast - shar.es/aAq5v #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-11-03T02:02:29Z

Today's tweets

12:03 Seen on the commute: Thousands of starlings swarming onto a lawn in Andover. I do mean thousands. Lawn turned black. #
16:51 That 4-foot piping plover statue in Nebraska has a name now -- Pebbles. tinyurl.com/y9kafdw #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-30T01:01:19Z

Today's tweets

12:53 No wonder I've been craving oatmeal this week. Today is National Oatmeal Day! tinyurl.com/yjhsfvl I'll celebrate with McCann's. #
15:45 Are they Smithsonian certified? tinyurl.com/yzm8t4z RT @Sierra_Magazine [... ]eco-friendly brands: bit.ly/ecocoffees #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-28T01:02:07Z

Today's tweets

14:08 Daily News wins national award for Plum Island erosion coverage - NewburyportNews.com, Newburyport, MA - shar.es/ap19J #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-27T01:02:21Z

Today's tweets

23:39 New blog post. First snow bunting of the season. tinyurl.com/yh2w9of #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-23T01:01:50Z

Today's tweets

23:11 @DawnFine That explains the shrubbery. Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate? :-) (RT @DawnFine Saw Monty pyton..holy grail play...) #
15:19 New Hampshire piping plover report. Not good news. tinyurl.com/yh2kqvn
Seabrook is so crowded, I'm amazed they even try to nest. #
17:17 Special Tour of Parker River NWR on 11/08 @ 12:30PM ...part of the MRWC Annual Meeting ... tinyurl.com/yhzggvl #
17:21 David Yates on bats of the northeast. Tonight 7:30 at Parker River NWR HQ. Flying mammals, not Red Sox hitters. tinyurl.com/yhofxbk #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-21T01:03:54Z

Today's tweets

15:42 Cool. The Green Blog article on Rachel Carson mentions her Parker River NWR connection. tinyurl.com/yk25h29 #
19:51 Posted a blog entry about Rachel Carson and Parker River NWR. tinyurl.com/yzanry8 #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-19T01:03:02Z

Today's tweets

20:49 Saw an old man standing on the corner of Sea Street and Albatross Road in Quincy tonight. Ancient Mariner? #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-17T01:02:03Z

Today's tweets

15:22 Giant piping plover naming contest: tinyurl.com/yllflpw
I want a 4-foot PIPL in my living room. :-) #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-16T01:02:03Z

Today's tweets

22:35 Dark-eyed juncos have arrived. Blog entry at tinyurl.com/yzbayn8 also HONK! Providence in other blog tinyurl.com/ylx6lnw #

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HONK! Providence

2009-10-15T00:59:48Z

Extraordinary Rendition Band
Originally uploaded by Captain_Peleg

PRONK! or HONK!-Providence got off to kind of a slow start at India Point Park on Monday afternoon. We wandered around looking for bands but found a group from RISD doing some kind of en plein air painting exercise.

We spotted a couple of people looking for their bands, including a guy from the Extraordinary Rendition Band who found out that contrary to what it said on the poster, the bands weren't scheduled to be there until 5:00 PM but some would be there starting at 3:00 PM.

We contemplated walking back up to Wickenden Street for more coffee and were just about to leave when a band from Austin, Texas showed up. They hadn't gotten the 3:00 PM message either. Anarchists are not very well organized, but PRONK! was disorganized even for anarchists. I told the guys from Austin that they should read John Sayles' short story The Anarchist's Convention.

Musicians began to trickle in and started jamming with the guys from Austin. Eventually. the guy from ERB found the rest of his band. More bands showed up. The music was so good that even I danced.

The crowd grew. More bands joined in. They all played together and it was wonderful.

There was a whole other happening going on involving hula hoops. Apparently some boomer age people were teaching little kids and some Gen-X and Millennial types how to do it. Very cool.

A clown made balloon animals. Jugglers passed clubs around a volunteer kid from the audience. The wind blew relentlessly in off the water chilling everybody.

We met a mother and son visiting from rural Tennessee doing the East Coast college visiting thing. They were staying at the Radisson and heard the music so wandered over. The boy is applying to Brown, MIT, and Yale. We told him you can get a good education wherever you go but if he does go to MIT, he might want to pledge DKE for my brother's cooking. They were looking for something coastal and touristy and quintessentially New England to see so we sent them to Beavertail Light in Jamestown figuring you couldn't get more New England than a lighthouse with big waves crashing around it.

The rest of the pictures are up on Flickr. Have a look.

Tweets du Jour

2009-10-14T01:03:04Z

Today's tweets

21:56 Back from Providence HONK! festival. Too tired to blog or post pix. "What Cheer?" rules! #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-13T01:03:32Z

Today's tweets

14:02 At India Point Park. No Honk bands yet. i c drummer looking for his band. #
15:38 Honk bands here from Seattle Austin Providence. Finally music-! #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-12T01:03:33Z

Today's tweets

13:11 Radio:Castiglione gets in obligatory reference to how much #RedSox are missing Rocco Baldelli. Now reminiscing about 1986 Game 5 in Anaheim. #
13:59 Birdy blog entry: tinyurl.com/ygxr8mu - My adventures among the peeps yesterday. I loves me some shorebirds for sure. #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-10T01:01:26Z

Today's tweets

16:01 Reading Big Papi's blog: bit.ly/4DHKfH
Go #RedSox #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-08T01:01:35Z

Today's tweets

14:18 @eruzich Yes, the Two-Fisted Birder is in testosterone overdrive. It makes me wonder what he is is trying to compensate for. #
14:19 LOL RT @cdarwin I enjoy writing letters but I have recently discovered a new means of communicating: charlesdarwinonthebeagle@googlewave.com #
14:24 Everything old is new again. RT @panklam ...Hamel ... rediscovering what we practiced at DEC many years ago. 1989: bit.ly/HaFxx . #
14:28 RT @TweetMeIshmael You may wonder how the albatross was caught. Not by crossbow, but by treacherous hook & line as it floated on the sea. #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-07T01:02:00Z

Today's tweets

12:58 Antidote for info overload: RT @whalingmuseum ... decoder ring... tinyurl.com/lsysfz, RT @ernestopriego #digitalhumanities #
16:46 Google won't let me login to my Blogger blog, Plover Warden Diaries. No more entries for awhile. Will keep tweeting. #
16:47 More stuff in the Merrimack River, a boat: www.lowellsun.com/ci_13496477 #
17:11 Latest on dredging the Merrimack River and putting the sand on Plum Island: tinyurl.com/y9v73q3 #
17:23 This Manly Birder guy will give @birdchick some competition in the "proving birders aren't geeks" department: tinyurl.com/ye9j2nc #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-03T01:02:25Z

Today's tweets

16:45 I loved "Lost Son of Havana". Your chance to buy Tiant's story today. - The Names Blog - Boston.com - shar.es/16pyc #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-02T01:02:15Z

Today's tweets

07:33 A very chatty flock of chickadees just landed outside my window. They're dee-dee-deeing up a storm and flitting from branch to branch. #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-10-01T01:02:33Z

Today's tweets

21:26 Can't stand #redsox radio announcers going on and on about breakfast cereal. Do they have to bore us cuz they're bored? #
21:53 #redsox are coming back to life! No more talk of breakfast cereal. #
17:26 Wish I'd seen this giant fish sculpture crossing Boston Harbor: bit.ly/3BMhRz #
18:07 @DawnFine Sorry. Got a phone call in the 9th. Sox lost 8 to 7. Clinched wildcard later when Texas lost. #
20:53 Praying for the monks and nuns of Bat Nha. RT @thichnhathanh How you can help the monastics of Bat Nha. helpbatnha.org/how-c... #

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Tweets du Jour

2009-09-30T01:02:14Z

Today's tweets

23:53 Blog entries about #workingwaterfront are up at both of my blogs. Birders see tinyurl.com/yc35d8m Others tinyurl.com/ycpcgka #
14:19 @timoreilly My coworker, Eduardo, stayed at this B&B: Esmeralda De Barros - Residenza degli Angeli - Venice – Italy

www.angelibb.com #
20:56 Do the #redsox just not want to clinch the wildcard tonight? What are they waiting for? #

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working waterfront festival

2009-09-29T03:15:14Z

What a weekend! What a study in contrasts! Saturday was one of those clear blue days that people move to New England for. Sunday it was one of those days when it rains sideways and you shiver in your wet sweatshirt wondering why you came.

We timed our arrival on Saturday to see Sharks Come Cruisin' at 1:00. They made a couple of references to how hard it was raining when they played the New Bedford Working Waterfront Festival last year. They even mentioned it in a song. They felt lucky to have Saturday's great weather this year. More importantly, they rocked! Their set was so good that Nancy, who was indifferent to them last year, declared she now gets it. Then it was over to the dining tent for some lunch. Alas, the lines were VERY long and disorganized. For the "anything other than M&C fried things" there was only one line, so to get to the "grilled things" vendor one had to pass the sushi and the raw bar vendors. The food was good once we got to it, but lunch took way longer than we anticipated.

Sharks Come Cruisin'

We got back to the main tent in time to catch some of "Something Fishy", which was Jon Campbell, Dave Densmore, Jim McGrath, and Bob Quinn all on the same stage. We were so taken with Bob Quinn, whom we'd never heard before, that we caught his next recitation at the narrative tent. He calls it recitation and I guess that's a good word for his combination of reciting/reading his Uncle Bonney's poems and telling his own stories of life on Eagle Island. Bob Quinn's stories brought back memories of summer visits to my Dad's cousin's farm in Maine back in the 1950s. He's an excellent storyteller and that cool Maine accent (the real one, not the kind you hear on TV).

Bob Quinn

The theme of the festival this year is farming and fishing so they had a surf and turf poetry pairing of David Densmore, fisherpoet, and Joel Nelson, cowboy poet. I've never been much of a horse person, but Joel Nelson's poem about a cavalry battle from the horse's point of view just blew me away. Both poets left me wanting more.

Dave Densmore and Joel Nelson (Joel is the one with the Texas hat)

Other highlights of Saturday were The Johnson Girls and a panel discussion on next generation fishermen and farmers.

Sunday was a whole 'nother thing. Nancy had a sore throat and did not want to risk getting really sick so I ended up, after much discussion and indecision, going alone. I really wanted to hear more of Joel Nelson, which I did, and Sunday was also my only chance to hear the Ana Vinagre Ensemble. I need my dose of fado. What can I say? Ana Vinagre was well worth the trek across the pedestrian bridge while trying to keep my umbrella from flying onto the highway. i can just picture Lisbon in my head even though I've never been there and don't know much Portuguese. The "Of Land and Sea" session again combined "surf and turf" with Joel Nelson, Bob Quinn, Good Old Plough, and Dave Densmore along with The Johnson Girls. One highlight for me was when Dave Densmore read a poem about being stuck in boat with engine trouble his teacher. who managed to lose the oars while his Dad tried to get the outboard working. Bob Quinn played off that with a story about trying to get an engine started and accidentally blowing it up. Another highlight was a luminous Joel Nelson poem about finding an arrowhead. So I met my goal of getting my dose of fado and hearing more of Joel Nelson.

Ana Vinagre and Jon Campbell, Two Icons of the Southeastern Mass./Rhode Island Scene

The craft/artist/exhibit area was not very busy in the pouring rain and some of the exhibitors packed up early. When I finally wandered over to the booth that was representing my friend Jeff's pewter castings, they told me I'd just missed Jeff. Sigh. I still love the horseshoe crab I bought from him 2 years ago. The folks I talked to were impressed that I knew Jeff from the ancient high tech days, not just the present artistic days.

I spent a ton of money on books and CDs at the Baker Books tent but did not make my semi-annual pilgrimage to the actual Baker Books store. I was so tired and wet, I just wanted to get home to change.

On the way back to the garage I did try to take a few pictures of New Bedford in the rain while trying not to lose my umbrella.

Rainy New Bedford

My Umbrella Landed Next to a Happy Face