Miranda
loves
many things.
Which is good.
I read
another book.
I didn't love it, particularly, but it wasn't bad.
The Teaching Company has
a
free lecture about Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
Which probably also isn't bad, although I haven't listened to
it yet.
The lazyweb
produces a set of tools to visualize revision histories on Wikipedia; pretty cool.
From a reader pointing me at
this,
we find the rather amazing
TiddlyWiki, which
isn't exactly a Wiki, but sort of is, and is in any case
an impressive litle toy by someone who knows more
than I do about JavaScript / DHTML / Ajax / etc.
Backlinkage
on our modest proposal to replace the Constitution with an identical
copy of itself, and see if the Originalists' heads explode.
The Skeptic's Circle.
And since I've now degenerated into single noun phrases, I should
probably say goodnight.
*8)
Good Night!
Self-service gasoline stations aren't, apparently,
allowed in New Jersey.
Neither is the serving of alcohol in restaurants in
Ocean City, New Jersey.
(In at least one particular restaurant, they additionally
"aren't allowed to serve tap water".
Although they do allow children over ten to order
the Kid's Meals, even though the menu says "ten
and under only".)
As you might expect from the first paragraph,
there are, on either side of the road just after
the bridge from Ocean City New Jersey to the mainland
and presumably just outside the town line,
two largish places, Yesterday's and Obediah's, which undoubtedly
do serve alcohol.
Just past those two there's a smaller place, Pappy's BBQ / Pizza /
Breakfast - Lunch - Dinner, where the little boy and I had
breakfast this morning.
We were served by a heartbreakingly lovely young woman;
black hair and pale skin and an imperial profile, her
face earnest and friendly.
She nodded efficiently, grownup-to-grownup, when I said no
thanks I didn't want any more coffee; and she laughed
when we asked what the "French Toast Sandwich" was, and
said that no one had ever ordered it but it was probably
like two scrambled eggs between slices of French toast.
(Not wanting the eggs, the little boy just had French
toast and sausage, and I had a short stack of pancakes
and two eggs over easy and bacon, and it was all very
good especially considering it was a BBQ / Pizza place.)
The holiday weekend weather was lovely and dry and clear
from Saturday on.
I drove down on Friday night by myself; the little boy
was dropped off after a long drive from Space Camp on Saturday
morning (at six freaking aye em on Saturday morning).
On Friday night I said hi to the other family that
was there already, and I drove out to Sea Isle City
and had dinner and walked on the beach, which was
great and solitary and restful.
Sea Isle City is pretty much our traditional beach on
these vacations
with a nice small boardwalk and not annoyingly touristy,
but this year the fourteen of us ended up going to
a water park in Wildwood one day and the beach at Ocean
City another day just to see what it was like (bigger
than Sea Isle City, lots more fancy-looking houses,
longer boardwalk, many many more people), so that
night was the only time I saw Sea Isle City, so
I'm glad I went, just for sentimenal reasons.
(Unlike
last year, this
year I didn't read all the previous July Fourth log entries,
and didn't follow my own wise advice about bringing extra
food and sleeping mats, but we had a good time anyway.
I'm only slightly bruised and stiff-feeling, and we did
have enough random foodstuffs along that we didn't have to
mooch food except when it was actively offered.)
All along the causeways
between Route 9 and the various
seaside towns (Sea Isle City, Avalon, Ocean City) there
are broad flat green expanses of salt marsh, or inland
waterway, or something broad and flat and green and
watery like that.
Pretty high on the long list of lives that I'd like
to lead sometime is "water person".
Not in the wealthy yachts or racing-boats sense (although
those are on the list somewhere too), but in the
mucking around with small boats in the harbor sense;
the going out for groceries with a little 5HP electric
motor on the back sense; the sitting on the dock with
a drink and watching the sun go down after caulking some
seams sense.
That life would, of course, involve being much better
with atoms than I am at the moment.
But that's okay...
(Oh, and Happy Birthday to the U S and A and all;
we'll probably just curl up and watch the fireworks
on the teevee tonight, like last year.
I'm tired and it's good to be home.)
