Woodstock CT Café

from John 

Besides the Eureka moment of making an important or, at least, useful discovery the most satisfying experience I had in research was receiving a fundable rating on my federal grant applications from other scientists. In this process, notable scientists would sit in committees in Washington DC, called study sections, and discuss the merits of hundreds of grant applications and then vote on them resulting in scores that were above or below the fundable level. On a few occasions I was invited to become an ad hoc member of such committees because of the nature of my expertise. The next most satisfying experience was having a research paper accepted for publication; this also happened as a result of peer review; and I published about 60 research papers during my career – the more prestigious the journal, the greater the feeling of accomplishment. The next most satisfying event was seeing others pick up on my findings and extend them to something more valuable. This form of satisfaction usually comes several years later. I checked the citations of my papers recently and found that some of my papers are still being cited as references some 15 to 30 years after the papers were published.

One protein that I discovered and named plastin continues to be investigated as a biomarker and possible drug target for diagnosing and treating various forms of cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

See Sarah Hamby’s article published today in the Reminder News.

“ I’m pro-school anyway , ” she said , “ and I enjoy it . I enjoy the kids . I enjoy having conversations with them and watching them deal with life … throwing ‘ em reality bombs every once in a while when they have problems . I just try and give them a different way of looking at stuff . ”

from the Norwich Bull

“A state report recently released shows that of the 1,125 complaints against outdoor wood-burning furnaces filed between 2005 and 2010 with the state Department of Environmental Protection, 317 of them were from Brooklyn, the most of any town.

Ashford had 57 complaints and Woodstock 29. Thompson, Putnam, Plainfield, Killingly and Sterling each had 20 complaints.”

“In Brooklyn, more than 300 of the complaints have been against one furnace, at 30 Tatnic Hill Road, Girard said. Public records list the property owner as Carl Meshanic. “

Two years ago after snow was on the ground we started to see Tricycle and Gray on the bench just outside our back door. We often placed food out there for our other cats and these two, independent of each other, were hungry and wanted to participate.

Tricycle was notable because he was missing the lower part of his right hind leg and left fresh blood prints in the snow. Gray was more mysterious and strickingly beautiful in color. Neither cat would let us approach him and would move away down the stone wall behind the bench into the brush if we came near. If we left food and returned inside the back door, they would reappear to eat.

We suspected that tricycle lived in a crawlspace under the floor of a storage area in our garage. It was bitter cold that winter so Becki put a cat carrier (with door open) lined with a blanket in the crawl space. We don’t know where Gray goes most nights but I leave the door to the storage room over our garage open enough so a cat can slip in. I have often found Gray hanging out in that spacious room protected from the elements.

After many months rolled by Tricycle allowed us to pat him while he ate. When warm weather came, we would leave the kitchen door open so he could sneak in and eat where our other cats ate, but he would always leave quickly if we entered the room. Tricycle then found that he could escape the house by leaving through the cat door in the laundry room through the pantry next to the kitchen. By last winter, Gray also had found the cat door for entry into the laundry room so we left food on the floor there. Soon he was sleeping in laundry baskets some nights but he would never venture further into the kitchen.

It was last winter that we started keeping Tricycle in the house by closing all the exit routes. We started giving him hugs and he showed his appreciation by purring like a lion. Now he rolls on the counter where we feed him or on the rug to expose his belly for a belly rub. For the last four months, off and on, he has been sleeping at the head of our bed above Becki’s pillow. If I awake in the middle of the night, I make sure to reach over for a few satisfying touches.

Gray, although skitish, eats in the kitchen with the rest of the cats and they all seem to like him. If he is outside on the bench, he will greet me with a pathetic meow and lets me pick him up for transport into the kitchen. I imagine that Gray will bed down in the laundry room this coming winter and be available at feeding times in the morning and evening. 

Click to enlarge

“Memory – all alone in the moonlight.
I can smile at the old days,
I was beautiful then.
I remember the time I knew what happiness was.
Let the memory live again.”
…
“Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise.
I must think of a new life,
And I mustn’t give in.
When the dawn comes tonight will be a memory too,
And a new day will begin.”
…
“Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun.
If you touch me, you’ll understand what happiness is.
Look, a new day has begun.”

from teachref09

July 25th flying Southwest from T.F.Green to Phoenix, with a plane change in Chicago, I was sitting next to a young lady who was on her way to Phoenix for a very sad occassion. Apparently, two of her friends (high school or college) were involved in an accident and one of them was tragically killed. What was so bizarre about the accident was that the victim who was killed was mis-identified by hospital personnel for three days. It was widely reported by the news that the hospital was extremely busy and the identification procedure was not followed and they had the surviving victim as the fatality. Of course this was a shock to the families and friends who were later told of the mistake.

On the non-stop return flight from Phoenix to Providence, on Thursday, I sat in front of a man probably in his early 30’s flying with his two daughters aged 4 and 7 coming to visit their grandmother for a couple of weeks. We were stuck on the ground in Phoenix due to a severe thunderstorm that gave us some of the most spectacular cloud to ground lightening I have ever seen.

Finally, we were on our way an hour or so later than we should have been. This “gentleman” was very loud during the flight and he was constantly up and down the aisle chit chatting with the flight attendents, often leaving his two children alone. The little girls were very patient, but on one occassion, when “daddy” had left to flirt with one of the flight crew in the rear galley, they went looking for him. Unfortunately, I had gotten up to use the rest room in the rear of the plane where this “Lothario” was trying out his best lines on the female flight attendent.

I was totally delighted when the little girls broke past me to interrupt the dad’s “tete a tete.” He chastised them for getting in my way as I tried squeezing into the on board lavatory. All I did was smile and think to myself, “Good job girls! Get your father back into his seat where he belongs!”

Ahh the “Friendly Skies” where you never know what you will encounter next.

I pick up a coffee at Dunkin Donuts on Route 44 in Ashford. I’m often joined by another coffee lover who has a platform over the passenger side seat of his pickup truck for his two pet Guinea Hens. John

Chicken  lovers, beware: Taking man’s best friend for a ride could be risky.

Nearly 60% of chicken owners have driven while distracted by their birds as passengers, according to a new survey by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chickens (ASPCC). Only 17% — about one in six — ever use bird restraints, which can prevent these pets from being a distraction and protect them and other occupants in a crash, the survey finds.
 
In crashes, unrestrained chickens pose an unintended threat to the driver and other passengers, says Minorca La Fleche, manager of traffic safety programs for chickens at AAA.

She says an unrestrained 10-pound chicken in a crash at 50 mph will exert 500 pounds of force on whatever it strikes; an 80-pound chicken (or turkey) in a crash at just 30 mph will exert about 2,400 pounds, she says. Unrestrained chickens also can prove distracting by climbing onto the driver’s lap, interfering with the ability to steer or crawling onto the foot pedals. Read the rest of this entry »

This is for the last 1100 visitors.

Woodstock RTC – 35 click throughs

Woodstock DTC - 20 click throughs

Click throughs to other local sites by the last 1100 Cafe visitors from the Cafe:
68 www.norwichbulletin.com/
44 www.remindernews.com/
42 www.bowensgarageinc.com/  
39 www.karenmcfarlin.blogspot.com/  
35 www.woodstockrepublicans.com/
25 www.woodstockschools.net/boardmeetings.htm
21 www.killinglyschools.org/
20 www.woodstockctdems.org/
17 www.townofwoodstock.com/
14 www.jenranrealty.com/
11 www.taylorsbb.com/
7 www.taylorbrookewinery.com/

See the Norwich Bull article “Teacher preserving 1955 flood memories“.

http://www.woodstockctdems.org/

 We noticed that “News and Scheduled Events” has not been up-dated since May. For example there’s no mention of the scheduled DTC cookout at Nahaco on Sept. 12th. The Cafe has been asked what time this event starts and how long will it run on the 12th.

Officers 2010 – 2012:

Members 2010 – 2012:

Saul Ahola
Bill Brower
Lois Brower
Sarah Jo Burke
Richard Canavan
Richard Cass
Heather Cavalli
Cliff Davis
Gail Dickinson
Sara Dziedzic
Richard Fontaine
Sara Harkness
James J. Kaeding
Christine Lessig
Reece Painter
Suzanne Rosendahl
Linda Simons
Kent Weaver
Lee Wesler
Margaret Wholean
Peg Wilson

You are welcome to join the Republicans at our dinner at Camp Nahaco! The date is Sat. Aug. 28th, 4-9pm.

If you’ve never been to Nahaco, its a great place. Tickets are $18 for adults which includes your choice of either a Lobster Roll or Steak. Kids $8 for a Hot Dog meal.

from Bill Sowka, Secretary

http://www.woodstockrepublicans.com/

The Republicans have a garish and grandiloquent website which has everything including the kitchen sink. For example the calender of events is not the Town Committee scheduled events but the scheduled events of the entire town. Would you like to know when Senior Dominoes is happening?  I wondered if this site is on the same server as the Town website because it takes forever to load pages like the town site. They also mispelled “endorsed” in several places (I guess they didn’t really mean it ). The website also states prominently that “We are the Republican Town Committee, Woodstock, CT. Nora Valentine is our Social Media Director and Manager.” Isn’t this a little redundant or is she managing something else?

Members

Michael Alberts
Daniel Atwood
Michael Bernardi – Chairman
Bettie Brooks
Ronald Cabana
Dorothy Durst
Wayne Durst
Henry Doughty
Randy Earle
David Fortin
Nancy Gale
Roger Gale
Richard Garceau
Jeffrey Gordon
Ed Higgins
George McCoy
Ed Monroe
Nancy Nystrom
Chandler Paquette
Steven Rosendahl
Scott Sincerbeaux
Travis Sirrine
William Sowka – Secretary
Daniel Very
Lynne White

from John

I boarded a United flight from Baltimore-Washington Airport to Chicago in around early 1986. I had a seat on the aisle about six rows back at the front of the coach section. As usual I was one of the first to find my seat because I was a frequent United flier. Then I observed a large loud group of teenage kids filing in. It turned out that this was Chicago’s Hawthorne High senior class trip to Washington DC returning home.

After we took off, the students got rowdier and by halfway to Chicago they were out of control; the profanities could probably be heard in the small first class section at the front of the plane.  At some point the kid across the aisle from me started shouting and whipping the kid who was sitting directly behind me with the black wiring that connects the headphones to the music. Whack, Whack, Whack was the sound that followed after each pass of his wind-up.  All this action was seen out of the upper corner of my right eye causing me to flinch every time the kid took a swing.

I don’t know what the passengers behind me were thinking but the elderly passengers in front of me were terrified by the uproar.  The worst part of this scene was the two flight attendants standing at the entrance way to the coach section taking this all in with blank expressions of their faces. It astounded me that they did nothing and seemed perplexed more than bothered.

After five or six whacks passing by my head, Read the rest of this entry »

from Becki 

I started the summer off with an eleven day visit to my family on the west coast. Once I returned my focus was on what I should do on my daily respites from eldercare.

We have someone who comes in every weekday morning from 8 to 10 to look after the rheumies and again someone else in the afternoon between 1 and 5. Sometimes I have stayed at home and taken advantage of the time to quilt, but not on humid days (the living room is the only place we have AC and the sewing machine is in the bedroom).

Sometimes I used the time to get supplies. Today was my monthly excursion to requisition a month’s worth of canned cat food. I was able to get to that after my morning walk at the track at Bentley Field, which is how I’ve been spending a lot of my morning respite time.

However, the greatest discovery I’ve made this summer has been the Thompson Library and Community Center… especially appreciated on those mucky humid days for its AC.

Click to enlarge. They have Internet access which, if you know me, is a definite plus. There are computers there for patrons’ usage, but I just bring along my laptop. There are even electrical outlets to use. You have to have a library card to sign on and need to register it with the front desk before you can sign on, but after the first time there isn’t anything more rigorous than a log-in page to slow you down.

The wonderful selection of audio books has allowed me to load my player with some great selections so I have something to listen to while I do chores at home. I’ve been listening to the Outlander Series and have been able to log on to the library’s site and request copies that have been out on lend. The librarians have been most efficient at notifying me when whatever I’ve requested has come in.

The library’s environment is open and airy; well-lit, of course. It is relatively quiet, unless you’ve headphones on (which I usually do). There is ample seating both at tables and otherwise. There is even a couch, though it is regularly occupied by a man who seems always to be encamped upon it reading voraciously (sometimes accompanied by a bit of muttering, though not at all distracting).

There seems to be a fairly large selection of games available. Since the only games I play are on Facebook or my phone, I have no way of vouching as to their focus, but I’ve seen a fair number of kids of all sorts taking them home. There are movies as well, but I really haven’t  even made enough of a foray to vouch for them either.

The staff is friendly and quite helpful, the restrooms clean and all in all it has been quite a nice place to be able to hang out.

The Cafe was down last night from from about 7PM to 6AM (starting Wednesday night) this morning because of some corrupted HTML code. No visits were detected during that period. Admin

Our current system produces a visitor map which is misleading because it shows only one balloon for each town where multiple visitors come from. I’ve added a new widget in the right sidebar that will produce a red circle of which the area of the circle will reflect the number of people checking in from Woodstock and the surrounding towns. It will be interesting to see what this visitor map looks like. We should start seeing incomplete results after a two days. I included the ballon from Washington DC – yes, a visitor from the US Congress. We also have other visitors who are from outside the state and country. For example we have multiple visits from a military base in Quatar on the Arabian Gulf. We are happy that people who leave Woodstock can still tune into the Cafe and read/see things that will not be found in newspapers that are on the Internet. We greatly appreciate travelers’ visits.

Missing Thompson vote:
Judge of Probate
Leah Schad 141
Kathleen Murphy 399

Judge of Probate
Steven Adams 115
Mary Ann Champney 180

Probate Race figures now include Thompson’s results

The first number next to the candidate is voting in Woodstock only. The second number is voting in the Probate Judge district (Thompson votes have not been posted) or statewide. Thirty-three percent of the registered voters in Woodstock voted (994 voters).

*Endorsed Candidates

Judge of Probate – Woodstock, Putnam, Pomfret, Brooklyn, Ashford, Eastford, and Thompson (Thompson not added yet).

Republican Nominees

Stephen J. Adams* – 260 and 882 997- winner in all towns except Putnam, Thompson and Woodstock

Mary Ann Champney – 274 and 521 601

Democratic Nominees

• Leah Shad* – 346 and 1485 1626 – winner in all towns, except Thompson

Kathleen J. Murphy – 101 and 548 947

Governor

Republican Nominees

Tom Foley* – 234 and 49,493 (95% – 99% precincts in)

Michael Fedele – 183 and 45,637

Oz Griebel – 101 and 21,753

Democratic Nominees

Dan Malloy* – 227 and 101,354

Ned Lamont – 221 and 73,875

Read the rest of this entry »