Holiday Wishes and Movie Review

 I hope all of you are enjoying your holiday season. A belated Happy Hannukah and Merry Christmas as appropriate, althought it's related belated with still ten days of Christmas left.

It's been a quiet but pleasant holiday season so far. Yesterday we saw the Imitation Game, the movie about Alan Turing and his development of a computer-like machine to break the enigma code used by the Nazis in WWII. I am sure it took some liberties with the facts but it is fine and powerful movie with excellent performances. A central theme was the inability of bureaucracy and its practitioners to treat unconventional people decently.

Short Break from a Dreary Autumn

There were three nice days recently, a welcome break from what has been one of the dampest and grayest autumns I can remember. The last two days have been back to cool drizzle, but here are some pictures from Saturday.  As you can see, have entered the white season up here.

General Relativity

I am still cogitating about the nature of space/time. If it is simply the interval between events would it have any intrinsic properties? How do virtual particle pairs and dark energy fit in this? Obviously, I need to do a lot more reading.

Nightstand project update

More on my nightstand project - non woodworkers are excused. Finished the practice piece a few days ago. It's in pine and spruce and the only reason I stained it a dark color was to gain some perspective on how it would look if built of mahogany. 

I decided I would make the legs slightly greater in diameter and make one larger drawer. Here is  the final design drawing. Now to work. 

The real reason for the internet: cats

Since we all know the real purpose of the internet was to provide a purpose to owning a cat, here are a few feline photos.

 Where's my booster seat. ... Natalie apparently has just sat down for dinner but is not quite satisfied with the arrangements.

That really is a cat in the basket. Sally finds some odd places to sleep. The basket is how we hope to keep the newly reupholstered chair from becoming fur covered.

Tommy is a neighbor's cat and terrorizes the rest of the neighborhood; but he is a good looking bully.

A very busy seven days

Just returned from a marathon weekend last night. Drove to New Jersey through a snowstorm on Wednesday. Had a quiet and very pleasant Thanksgiving with our friends the Rapps in Glen Rock. On Friday drove 600 miles to Detroit with our friend Helen. The drive went smoothly except for the last twenty miles of icy roads with  more minor accidents then I have ever seen before in one month let alone one hour.

Stayed at a great place, the Inn on Ferry Street which comprises four converted upper middle class late nineteenth century mansions.  Spent three hours in the very impressive Detroit Institute of Art, then changed and went to Adam Breslawski's wedding to Erin Tobin. The wedding took place in the beautiful Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament and the reception at the elegant and very traditional Detroit Athletic Club. Was great to spend time with our friends Gina and Tom and their families and to meet the delightful Tobin Clan. On Sunday morning we had breakfast with great friends met through scouting in Glen Rock, the Foglemans. We had seen them briefly the night before when they were dining at the Detroit Athletic Club. Detroit has real resources and there is a great deal of activity and investment going on . We'll have to wait to see to what degree it will help resurrect the city.

Drove back to Glen Rock Sunday with only about one hour of heavy traffic. Visited an old friend in Ridgewood Monday morning and then down to Basking Ridge to see the staff, faculty, and  Sarah B. Everyone looked great despite the turbulence caused by the latest education deforms [ the d is not a typo.]

Yesterday went up to Yaw Paw, the local scout camp in Mahwah, visited with the ranger,  and delivered two vises I had repaired. [ Now I have fewer vises but no increase in virtues.] Then did some shopping for delicatessen and bagels  [ can't get good cold cuts or bagels in our part of Western Massachusetts]; we had lunch with an aunt and cousins on Jean's side; we did some more cold cut buying; and then we stopped to visit  my sister and brother in law and some of her family in Connecticut and got home around nine in light snow.

During the night we were treated to being awakened three times by our nineteen year old cat who literally shouts either for attention or while arguing with her water fountain. Anyone interested in adopting a cat?