A Pleasant Evening in Reading

Last Sunday afternoon, my younger brother and I went up the road to Reading, Pennsylvania to take a swim in Blue Marsh Lake and take in a minor league baseball game. The weather was pretty nice that day, warm enough to swim but not hot enough to roast, bake, sizzle or char. A very nice breeze was blowing from the west. For five or six hours, I actually felt good.


We got to the ballpark early because we wanted to eat and watch the teams warm-up as well as high-five all the mascots.

The ballpark is located in the north end of Reading, a town tucked between Mount Penn and the Schuylkill River. This is the town the Reading Railroad was named for - and the tracks run directly through the center and a huge rail yard is located next to the ball park.


High on Mount Penn, 1,015 feet above the Schuylkill River stands the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower. On a clear day, you can see for 30 miles in every direction after climbing 120 steps to the top. Also on Mount Penn, about a mile south of the fire tower, is the Japanese Pagoda, built in 1908.


From the Pagoda, you can also see for miles. Looking down into the town, you can see the river on the far edge and the railroad tracks running left to right in the middle of town with the beginnings of the rail yard visible to the right. The Pagoda is open to the public and houses a gift shop and cafe.

With the start of the game nearing, my attention was captured by a group of the cutest kids, all wearing the free blue shirt that was given to all kids 12 and under. Drats, I didn't get one!


Being largely disinterested due to a nearly overwhelming disgust with how grossly overpaid professional sports figures are, I had absolutely no idea who D. Brown, good old number 7 was - so I had to look him up... Turns out he is Domonic Larun Brown, a 6' 5" lefty born on September 3, 1987 in Zephyrhills, Florida, US. "Dom" was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2006 MLB June Amateur Draft. He is now playing for the Phillies AAA team located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, named the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs.

I guess he made an impression on someone while he was in Reading playing for the AA team. I don't remember him at all.

P.s., The Reading Phillies lost to the Erie Seawolves 9 to 4 (not that anyone but the most rabid local diehards care) and the after-game fireworks were simply marvelous.

Watoto wadogo wamekisoma!

Today, I am posting from a laptop that isn't running Microsoft Windows software, it is running Ubuntu.

If you 'ask' Wikipedia about Ubuntu you will be told:

1. Ubuntu (philosophy) is an ethical concept of African origin


2. Ubuntu (operating system), in computing, is a free operating system based on a version of Linux (Unix)

Ubuntu, pronounced (oo-BOON-too), is an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of southern Africa. Ubuntu is seen as a classical African concept.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered a definition:

A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity.

We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

Nelson Mandela explained Ubuntu as follows:

A traveler through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: What are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?

As I admire the philosophy, it seems only fitting to me that I should put Ubuntu on my Laptop.

Unbuntu's website states:

Ubuntu is and always will be free to use, share and develop. We hope it will bring a touch of light to your computing – and we hope that you'll join us in helping to build the next version too.

I hope learning Ubuntu isn't as hard as learning Bantu (which includes Swahili), the language(s) of East, Central and Southern Africa. I'm getting kind of old for learning new tricks. Time will tell as a friend of mine often says, but so far, things are going pretty well.

Watoto wadogo wamekisoma! (The children have read a book!) Hopefully someday, they will post a blog.

Too much change - but not the right coins

On most days, I come home and empty the change out of my pockets before taking a walk, The change that I've accumulated throughout the day goes into a big Tupperware container where it sits until I need to "break the piggy bank" (or it overflows) and take it all to the bank and dump it into their coin sorter and counter. I rather enjoy hearing the coins rattle through the counter and watching the total dollar figure climb ever higher until the last coin goes "clink" into the hole.

Today, I was working the Lady's Room Job, attempting to establish a tunnel. This isn't a shovel a hole in the ground tunnel, its a "Virtual Private Network" (VPN) tunnel that sends encrypted information over the Internet to a very specific endpoint. The terminology has made a grown man cry.


I was told to envision information on the Internet going from computer (servers and web hosts) to computer (yours and my home and work desktop or laptop computers) in the form of a "packet train". And when the train goes into a tunnel, someone with an eye in the sky, can no longer see the train. Such a train would then be thus be "private" or hidden from prying eyes.

I've finally, after much sweat, some blood, and a complete recitation of every swear word I know (and many of them repeated twice), I finally got the VPN tunnel set up and working. While struggling with it, someone approached me and asked me if I had change for a dollar so they could use it in one of the antique vending machines in the break room. I dug the change that I had out of my pocket and was surprised to note that even though I had $1.19 in coins, I could not make change for a dollar!

I had 3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies. When I took a break, I decided to investigate this curiosity. I learned that very first coins minted in the USA were called half-dismes made from Martha Washington's silverware in 1794. That is no misspelling, dimes and dismes were used interchangeably until the early 1800's. I learned that the first silver dollar was also minted in in May of 1794 and it recently was sold to a collector for $7,850,000!

I also found out that you can make change for a dollar 293 ways.

During the Civil War, coins were scarce so a soldier heading into battle didn't need to worry about coins rattling around in his pocket and alerting the enemy of his approach, they usually carried stamps for change and they even had paper money in several denominations less than a dollar.

Lastly, in only one portrait on US currency now in circulation does the subjects head face left instead of right...

Any guesses as to who it is?

Yes, it's Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. Maybe I'll look around some more to find out "just why that is" some day.

Don't Stop Believin'

Just a small town cone living in a lonely world
She took the midnight train going en-ne-where..
Just a city sponge born and raised in south Detroit
He took the midnight train going en-ne-wherah....


Video by zulzen

A singer in a smoky room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on

Strangers, waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding somewhere in the night

Working hard to get my fill
Everybody wants a thrill
Paying anything to roll the dice
Just one more time

Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

Don't stop believing
Hold on to that feeling
Streetlight people...