Dan Birchall

Christmas again already, is it?  My, that year went by fast.  But it was an exciting one - and not just in the "may you live in interesting times" sense! Unsurprisingly, I'm sitting in a telescope control room on Christmas night.  Not something that happens every year, but maybe half of the years.  I was in the same place the night of Christmas Eve.  However, in between, I did make it up to the top of the mountain to do a bit of work during the afternoon   and get snowed on!   Yes, not only was there snow already on the ground (has been for weeks now), but snowflakes were falling on me.  That was neat. So it's December, and I'm scrambling.  Scrambling to work as many hours as possible toward the 1000-hour annual cap at my main job.  Scrambling to sort through all kinds of mail and deal with it.  The nice folks who send me a bunch of paper every quarter about my IRA, which I never ever read (the value has gone up nicely in the 3.5 years I've i

  I don't drink (at all, ever) but I found this short commercial (part of a series) both funny and wise. The character is "The Most Interesting Man in the World." In the  longer commercial which launched the campaign , he was described as follows: The police often question him just because they find him interesting. His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body. His blood smells like cologne. He is... the most interesting man in the world.

  I've been poking around a bit genealogically today, and in looking up members of the Rollins family (some of my ancestors), found that the Google Books project has scanned, and made available as a freely downloadable PDF, John Rodman Rollins' 1874 book,  Records of Families of the name Rawlins or Rollins, in the United States , courtesy of Oxford University, England. In the introduction to his book, Rollins excerpts an article by Charles Lanman in the September, 1856  Harper's Monthly,  entitled  Social Hours of Daniel Webster,  in which Webster - a noted New Hampshire attorney, congressman, and U.S. Secretary of State - recounts an experience with some members of the Rollins family.  I don't know whether anyone in my particular branch of the family has read this already, but in case they haven't, here it is.

I had a couple airline vouchers sitting around, one of which was scheduled to expire in late December if I didn't use it.  And I had a little bit of free time in early December.  So I checked to see whether the vouchers were usable, and set up a bit of a trip to visit my parents, with side jaunts to see my sister and nephew, go to the Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. with a bunch of other frequent flyers, and various and sundry other things. I set off Wednesday morning from Hilo, getting a good view of the Hamakua Coast waterfalls from my window seat on the way over to Honolulu. Arriving in Honolulu, I was reminded of what I already knew - Aloha was running 3 hours late due to rough weather, while Hawaiian (who I flew) were perfectly on schedule.  That's why we say "Friends don't let friends fly Aloha." Thankfully, since Hawaiian was perfectly on schedule, I had a nice relaxing stop in the lounges at Honolulu, then slept all