Hot Rock Therapy

So I'm watching the TV news this morning with Mrs. Wiggy, a hot cuppa joe, two wet and soggy dogs, and three frenetic cats, and my eyeballs are having a little trouble with this whole 'waking up' concept. I'm nodding through the weather report - yes, it's raining, got that, thanks. I'm doing the bobbing-head thing through the latest series of debates by the local school board and the scandal involving state employees, some guy trying to explain how he thought a snowmobile was a gift for a job well done, not a bribe. Uh-huh. I get snowmobiles all the time. Garage is stuffed with them. I never know which one to ride here where it never snows. I know people who give each other snowmobiles every other Friday. I don't mind a crook, as long he's entertaining. This guy is not. Off with his head! I wander out to the kitchen to refresh the go-juice cup.

Well, one thing leads to another, and soon enough, the caffeine has done it's evil work. I'm looking down the barrel of another day in the life of His Wigginess. Joy aboundeth. Huzzah. They oughta put morphine in the coffee. That would be a big seller. Bring back laudanum, that's what I say.

Mrs. Wiggy sees a commercial for some resort spa for women, a place where one can retreat from the cares and woes of modern living and enjoy being pampered and coddled in a way that no husband can ever provide. Oh, we'll heat up a can of Chicken Noodle Soup if you're sick, and maybe rub your feet for you, or your back once in awhile, but we're not big on the aromatherapy and being in tune with your emotions and so on. We're more into stretching, farting, and scratching. We're good at that. World class. Being one with our (which means 'your') feelings? Not so much. Of course, this is not the type of thing anxious husbands all over the world want me to say. Oops. Sorry guys.

So here's the TV commercial for the women's resort spa, and they're showing some poor woman having rocks piled up on her back. Oh my God! They're torturing the poor thing! Eek!

Mrs. Wiggy reassures me that this is considered pleasureable by the women to whom it occurs. Hot, smooth, stones - placed in secret and ancient kabbalistic patterns on a woman's back - bring about inner serenity, calm, relaxation, and a state where even the concept of my massive and uncompleted 'honey dew' list or the mental image of one of our evil dogs devouring another yard of linoleum floor fails to cause her stress. Total bliss, in other world. Imagine my surprise.

So I'm thinking to myself that I vaguely recall reading that piling stones on people was once a form of torture used against people accused of witchcraft. I'll bet they had no idea that they would have had to pay big bucks in today's world to have similar treatments.

I wonder what else that was once considered torture would now be considered physical therapy?

"So, how's the ducking stool then, Mrs. Jones?"

"Ooh, it's lovely. All that water forced up my nose has had a wonderul effect on my sinuses, and the constant up-and-down motion reminds me that life has its ups and downs, so I should keep a good mental attitude and not try to respond to every little thing that disturbs my equilibrium."

"Well, that's just great. Another ten minutes, I think; then we'll administer CPR, as you'll most likely be drowned by then. If we manage to revive you, would you like a followup appointment?"

"That would be terrific. I wish my husband could be here to enjoy this too. Simple fool, he'd rather drink beer and scratch himself."

"Well, we know how those men are. Well, I've got to run, we're doing a mock execution on Mrs. Terwilliger at two o'clock. We think it will help her address her anxiety about the future."

"Probably be great for the digestion, too, eh?"

"No doubt, it seems to have an effect, we're currently researching that for our next TV ad."

Could be I'm wrong about this whole thing. I often am, you know. I'm just a man. I kinda wish I still smoked - I'd burn myself with a cigarette to see if this theory of mine has any validity. I'd probably be violating some retreat spa's exclusive 'smoking aversion therapy' program, though.

Well, back to the coffee. Peace be upon you. Unless you like hot rocks on your back, in which case, enjoy the, um, therapy. I'll stick to scratching where it itches. But you knew I'd say that, didn't you?

Wagging Tails,

Wiggy

PS - Great band I heard recently; Red Delicious. I especially like the song "Casualties." Just another musical tip from your ol' Uncle Wiggy.

US Military: TNG

Well, I'm back from Grandma Jones' funeral, and let me tell you, it is one long drive from North Carolina to Central Illinois and back again. However, I did have my niece Ibuprofen Jones with me. She's in the US Navy, stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC, base hospital - she's a Corpsman.

Camp Lejeune
What is a Navy Corpsman?

Now, ol' Wiggy's got three younger sisters, and we don't see that much of each other these days. We sort of spread out over the country, with one sister in Omaha, another in West Des Moines, and yet another in Denver. Ibby is my youngest sister's oldest daughter, and she's 20. Hard to believe, she was just pooping on me when I changed her diaper - that was what, ten or eleven months ago? I took her 'Trick or Treating' only a couple years ago, and before that, she and her sisters held my hand tightly as we toured the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Twenty years old? In the Navy? This cannot be happening.

However, I was in for an eye-opening experience, and a treat. I don't have a lot of time for youngsters - they mostly seem like a rude, selfish, and ill-behaved bunch of louts, mopes, and ne'er-do-wells, and I'm too busy doing all those things myself to be troubled with the likes of them. Never had kids for a reason - I'm not tired of being one myself.

But my niece has gone and become a human being when I wasn't looking. We don't have an adult-to-child relationship anymore; she's an adult as well, and she has deeply impressed me. Oh, she is young, and impetuous, and headstrong, and she has already made a few bad decisions - real whoppers. But she has what she needs to get better. I like the person she is becoming. I enjoyed talking with her as we drove across the US. She has the usual gamut of hopes, dreams, and plans - but she is also well-grounded in reality, she seems to understand what can and what is not likely to happen. More important than having wants - she has reasons. Reasons are cool, I respect reasons. She wore her dress uniform to our Grandma's funeral, her's a photo of her with another of my sister's sons, Dolphinus Jones:



We got back last week, and now I am working double-time and weekends to catch up on the work I missed while I was gone - this sucks. But oh well, we do what we must to earn that daily ration o' beer.

But while I was at work, I got an email from my sister in Des Moines, she of the sons and not the daughters. Her eldest, my nephew Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper Jones, was just graduated from US Army bootcamp and sent directly to Iraq. He's doing OK, they had him in Kuwait for awhile to get used to the heat and the sand in your wrinkle, I guess. Here he is:




I didn't do the fancy montage thing, I guess that's his handiwork, or my sister's. These kids, they're wacky. And their music - it's just noise. But I digress.

He's another that I recall all too clearly as a little boy. Milcom Miasma and I used to babysit him from time to time, I was there at the hospital when he was born, out in the hallway, listening to my sister shout obscenities. I remember taking him to see a baby elephant that someone had dragged into a mall in Colorado, to get his picture taken with the 'lellyphant. He took one look at the monster and began screaming at the top of his three-year-old lungs, which, as it turns out, are quite powerful. I got my first migraine headache that day, which reminds me that I owe my nephew a boot to the head.

I got to spend some time with TG at his boot camp graduation in South Carolina, and he's another young man who appears to have his head and ass wired together. Although he's still way to interested in fast cars (or rather, fast piles of crap that he's wired together and refers to as a car), he's also one whom I have no doubt will make a fine man. I'm worried about him, of course. He's nineteen and looks it. Dear God, was I ever that young? When I was in the Marine Corps, did I have such a boyish face, did my relatives still see me in ripped dungarees and t-shirts, running around playing Cowboys and Indians?

So here they are - The Next Generation. We're asking a lot from them, and somehow it feels like we're asking more from them than was asked of my generation when we were that age - maybe that's just the perspective of age talking.

And I don't know if you support the war or not - heck, I'm not even sure what that means, and I don't know if *I* support the war or not. If things keep up the way they're going, old bald fat men like me could be squeezing back into cammies and picking up machine guns again someday soon (Iran, North Korea, who doesn't hate us?).

But I see a lot of those bumper stickers on the roadways - "Support Our Troops." I see a lot of ribbons that I think are supposed to mean that as well. I'm never sure just what that person has done to 'support our troops'. Does that mean that they just generally don't wish any harm on our young men and women who are in harm's way tonight? Does it mean that they pay their taxes, and thus fund the war effort? I have no idea.

But I do know this. The photos that I got of my nephew came with a wish list of things for a CARE package:

CARE PACKAGES FOR US TROOPS

PERSONAL & HYGIENE ITEMS
New Knit Hats & Gloves
New T-shirts – Large or XL
Antibacterial wipes, lotion, sunscreen
Travel-size toothpaste, lip balm, q-tips
Nail clippers, Disposable razors
Non-aerosol shaving cream
Band Aids, cough drops, dental floss, combs
Foot powder, boot Odor Eaters – no aerosol
Paper, pens, postcards, envelopes (free postage)
Black shoe polish

MISCELLANEOUS
Holiday Decorations
Blank Greeting Cards
Wrap-around sunglasses
Film (35 mm)
Paper Towels, toilet paper
Laundry Detergent travelsize powder, no liquid
Duct tape, Ziploc Bags, Styrofoam cups
Glasses wipes
Clothespins, Clothesline
Battery-operated Fans
Misty Mates
Pre-paid phone cards (#1 item)

FOOD & FOOD RELATED ITEMS
Ready to Eat Tuna or Chicken Salad Kits
Breakfast-type foods and drinks
Instant & Regular coffee, filters, creamer, sugar packets
Coffee makers, hot plates
Instant hot chocolate packets
Campbell’s chunky soups, chicken, beef, etc.
Fast Food Hot Sauce packets
Individual packets of Trail mix, Beef Jerky, Slim Jims
Peanuts, canned chips
Cereal bars, granola bars, energy bars
Pre-sweetened powdered drinks, Gatorade
Lil Debbie snacks, no icing
Packs of candy, gum, Twizzlers, tootsie rolls, skittles

ENTERTAINMENT
Disposable cameras
Handheld electronic games
Puzzle, Word Game & Crossword Puzzles
Beanie Babies for soldiers to give to kids
Magazines, local papers, comics, paperbacks
Games, Chess, Checkers, Dominoes, Parcheesi, Uno
Cribbage, Puzzles, Cards, Nerf Toys
Hackey Sacks
Frisbees, Baseballs, Footballs

I have his APO address in Iraq, I'm not supposed to give it out. The military doesn't take anonymous CARE packages from citizens anymore - too risky. But if anyone wants to send any of that stuff to me, I'll gladly send it in the box we're getting together for him. And thanks, folks. Just drop me a line - I'll send you my mailing address.

Anyway, back to work. I'm going to blog more about my trip to Illinois and my Grandma's funeral soon, but I wanted to mention this.

Always and Forever,

Your Wiggy

The Last Grandma

Got a call on Monday, Grandma Una Ferne Jones had passed away. She was 89 years old in December, living in a nursing home in Morton, Illinois. She went in her sleep.

I have many fond memories of Grandma Jones - Dad's mom. She was the wife of a man who worked as an engineer at Caterpillar Tractor back in the day when you got one job and did it for 45 years, and then you retired and visited grandkids and national parks in your motorhome. As most wives did back then, she 'volunteered' instead of having a job-type-job. Her job was with the PARC, as it was known in those days; the Peoria Association for Retarded Children. She used to bring home her 'kids' as she called them, men and women who were actually adults, but who had the temperament and apparent mental age of a child. They were nice people, friendly and they loved Grandma Jones. She would keep one or two over a weekend - I think she also had them do housework and lawnwork. I hope I'm not misremembering that, I don't mean to sully her memory. Things were different then - she felt that she was teaching them job skills, and she paid them some minor amount of money for their time, which they usually spent on candy, as I recall.

She was quite a bit overweight, and didn't move around much. She used to tell us jokingly to call her "Granny Grunt." She had a princess phone with a 50-foot cord, a rarity in those days, and she would travel around the house with it and talk for hours to her friends. My granddad was a little wiry guy, she absolutely dominated him and he worshipped her. He'd ask if he could have a cup of coffee and a cigarette after he got done cleaning the kitchen (he cleaned and cooked) and she'd say "Just one cigarette and half-a-cup of coffee, on the porch, and you'd better not spill any!" He had the shakes - later I guess we'd call it Parkinson's Disease. His coffee would slosh all over as he drank exactly half a cup in a china cup with a saucer, while standing on the porch and smoking.

My granddad died years ago, and Grandma Jones had to learn to do things she had never done before in her life - like drive a car. How you live in the midwest (central Illinois) and not know how to drive a car is beyond me, but she never had, and to give her credit, she learned.

I have so many memories, and I'm still trying to sort them all out. I suppose I'll have a little time for that, as tomorrow I am driving from North Carolina to Illinois, to my past, to the cornfields I grew up in, to say goodbye to a Grandma that I loved, respected, and did not visit enough (to my shame). I'll be offline for awhile, ya'll take care.

Your Pal,

Wiggy

The Good, The Bad, and The Hungry

So I'm at this art gallery the other day, and one of my fancy-pants pals says to me, "Wigwam..."

OK, start over. I'm lying.

I was at McDonald's, stuffing a Quarter Pounder with Cheese Value Meal into my gaping maw, and I was reading the newspaper while I did it. I read this news story about the fact that the US population will surpass 300 million sometime this year, probably in October 2006. 300 million? That's a lot:

NY Times - 300 Million Oxygen Tarts - Click Here

When I was born (1961), The US population at that time was something like 179 million. So that's nearly double the population in 45 short, fat, bald years. That's a lot of gettin' bizzy. Bizzy!

And the world? Something just shy of 6.5 billion people. When I was born, world population was about 3 billion, so again, lots of folks getting bizzy - even more than in the USA. Wacky Europeans!

So what does all this mean?

Well, I'll tell you. 'Cause that's what your ol' pal Wiggy does. He shares. Isn't that nice? Yes, it is. Anyway, onward.

So, I really *was* at an art gallery the other night, where Mrs. Wiggy and I were attending a reception for the opening of a show that has a couple of my photographs in it. These:

One of them (the barn) sold right away - it was so cool, watching total strangers buy one of my photos, just because they liked it. Really fun, folks. I recommend it. Get yer Wiggy Wear now, before I'm famous again. You'll be able to tell all your friends that you knew me when I was a mere country-music legend and Master of Leash-Foo, let alone a famous arteest!

Anyway, one of my friends and I were talking, and he asked me what the most important invention of the 20th century was. I know what you're thinking - and so was I. Cable TV, right? I mean, where would we be without those classic "Car 51" reruns late at night, and the Home Shopping Network?

He said I was wrong. He gave me a hint - this invention allowed a lot of people to be fed who otherwise would not have been. Ah! OK, I'm getting it. He must mean the Popeil Pocket Fisherman. Remember those?

CLICK!

I mean, how many of us were driving down country roads, and suddenly we discovered we were hungry? So we waited until we drove over the next creek (there's one ever couple of miles), pulled over, and grabbed our Pocket Fisherman from our gloveboxes of our cars. I am not sure what we baited our hooks with - maybe we also had a small shovel and we quickly dug up a couple of worms. I am a little fuzzy on the details, but I get like that. Better twiddle my knobs a bit, or adjust my antenna.

But anyway, we stepped up to the babbling brook, tossed in our line, and within a few moments, we had a prize trout at our fingertips. I am guessing that somehow the Popeil Pocket Fisherman avoided the carp and gar, and just pulled out trophy fish - bluegill and such as that. Now, how did we cook those things? Maybe we had small camping outfits in the trunks of our cars. And then after we ate, we tied our dishes to a rope and tossed them in the creek to be cleaned by nature, while we sat back with a cold beer (we had a cooler in the back seat) and picked our teeth with a rib bone from the trout by a grassy bank. Somebody played a harmonica in the background and clouds overhead formed interesting shapes, and we probably took about a half-hour nap in the noonday sun and awoke feeling refreshed. Now, of course, we just stop at McDonald's. Modern times.

But no, it seems I was wrong again. Try harder, he says. This invention fed a LOT of people.

CLICK!

Um...George Foreman grill?

No!

Hmm.

Well, I gave up.

Seems the answer is something I never expected. This scientist fella named Fritz Haber invented a process to synthesize ammonia. Get this - he made it from natural gas and plain old air - which contains a lot of nitrogen in gaseous form. He passed it over an iron catalyst (don't understand this stuff, just I'm just saying) under a lot of pressure and some heat, and then he got ammonia for nearly free.

Ammonia? That smelly stuff your mom cleaned windows with? Yes.

What's so important about ammonia? I mean, I realize that it's really important that we have clean windows, but I'm not sure what that has to do with feeding the world.

Wikipedia - Ammonia - Click Here and Mind the Smell

The deal is, ammonia is what is used to make solid nitrogen, which is used in fertilizer. No ammonia, no nitrogen. No nitrogen, no fertilizer. With me so far?

So, my fellow 6,500,000,000 droogies, there would be a lot less of us today if we didn't have non-organic fertilizer. Yes, we could still grow crops - the old-fashioned way, with lots and lots of what living things in general and politicians in particular seem to produce lots of. But it is not the same. Crop yields have shot up by amazing leaps and bounds since we started churning out bags of synthetic nitrogen-based fertilizer. We really have fed the world - we could not sustain a population this size without it.

Our world would be so much smaller. About 3 billion is all our planet could have sustained with the technology of the times prior to Fritz Haber and his invention. So 3.5 billion people are here today that would not be alive - they'd either have not been born, or they'd have starved to death.

My friend was right. It was not Ron Popeil, nor even George Foreman, whom we had to thank for feeding the world. It was Fritz Haber, a German scientist who invented this synthetic ammonia stuff and patented it back in 1910. He won a Nobel Prize for it, too:

Fritz Haber and the Nobel Prize - clicky clicky here

Now it seems that NPR did a story on Fritz Haber a few years back, which I subsequently found and have re-read:

NPR - Fritz Haber

And there is more, such as Wikipedia's entry:

Wikipedia Entry - Fritz Haber - Clickz Herez

In fact, there's a bunch of websites devoted to Fritz Haber. Just Google for his name. But none of them seem to connect up all the dots, which I'm about to; stand by.

Speaking of the Nobel Prize - you know why that prize exists, right? It was created by the directions found in the last Will and named for Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite. He was apparently horrified to find that his invention, which he created to make handling nitroglycerine safer (it had killed his brother and many others who handled it to do construction projects), was being used as well for military uses. One could say that in addition to making things like the massive bridges and dams of the 20th century possible, Nobel also created the means for their destruction in times of war.

Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prize - Clickster

Seems old Fritz had a bit of that good/bad thing in him, as well. Feeding the world is a pretty cool thing, you have to admit. All those people who won't starve tonight - because we can get more yields from crops, thanks to the invention of synthetic ammonia. How can that be bad?

Well, let's start with Fritz Huber himself. He was born a Jew in Prussia (now Poland) in 1868. It is only significant that he was Jewish in that he converted to Christianity in 1892 at the age of 24. He was a brilliant student and it was said that he would have excelled in any field he chose - but he chose chemistry. He lived and worked in Germany and considered himself German. It was said that he continued to associate with his Jewish friends, and caught a lot of hell from his Christian colleagues for his Jewish background. How he put up with that crap, I'll never know.

However, it is important to understand that Huber considered himself a loyal German. So much so that he served in the German Army during WWI, and was made a Captain - in charge of chemical warfare. He felt that a scientist belonged to the world during peace, but to his or her nation during war. Most of the blame for the many, many deaths by chemical warfare in WWI could be laid at his feet - he invented the processes, and he came up with Haber's Rule - that low dosage and long term exposure to toxins was just as deadly as high dosages for a short time. He argued that chemical warfare should only be used by Germany if Germany was definitely going to win the war - otherwise, not. Presumably, because he foresaw how the world would view the vanquished when the vanquished had used mustard gas on their boys in the trenches. Fritz defended chemical warfare; "death is death," he argued. In any case, the Allies soon put their own Nobel prize winner in chemistry up against Huber, and they inflicted massive damage on the Germans as well; this Huber can also be given responsibility for. It was later found that the German army was not interested in using chemical warfare at first - Haber funded the research on his own initiative and presented it as a 'done deal' to the German High Command, who then accepted the middle-aged professor into the German Army and made him a Captain.

The story is told, and seems to be accepted as fact, that Haber's wife, who was against his involvement in chemical warfare, shot herself through the heart at a dinner party in front of the guests as a protest of the first use of his deadly toxins in warfare. He left the next morning, abandoning her body to be dealt with by others, and he went to the Eastern Front.

The company that he had founded to synthesize ammonia, which was largely made from air and natural gas, was turned to military use by Germany - it seems that nitrogen made from ammonia is also a really good high explosive (more shades of Alfred Nobel, it seems). Thus Haber contributed in two massive ways to the power of Germany during WWI, and some say his high explosives extended the war for years beyond what otherwise would have happened.

After the war, Haber went back to his university, Copenhagen Polytechnic Institute, teaching and doing research. He invented a firedamp whistle to protect miners, which I guess is pretty cool. You might recognize the name of the school - Haber was teaching with Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein - giants all.

He was still deeply involved in chemical poisons - but was prevented by law from doing research into chemical warfare. So he created a new company, German Society for Pest Control, which he used to sell a chemical compound he invented to control insects that threatened crops.

During the years running up to WWII, the Nazis came after Haber. He was called "That Jew Haber" and pressured to leave Germany. His conversion to Christianity didn't matter at all. His staff, mostly Jewish, were all fired. Haber himself was not physically threatened, too many remembered his previous service to Germany. But he asked for an invitation to emigrate to Switzerland, which they refused. He then turned to England, and was invited to teach at Cambridge, which he accepted, although he disliked the English weather and complained bitterly about the winters.

He died of heart disease in 1933 while moving between England, Palestine, and Switzerland - trying to find a climate that agreed with him. What he did not know what that his insect killer, which he had named Zyklon B, would soon be used to murder his own friends and relatives in Nazi concentration camps who had not escaped Germany before the Holocaust.

And that's not all...

What's more - the very nitrogen created from synthesized ammonia that has fueled this massive rise in the human population - well, it is in darned near everything these days. It is in the oceans, in the soil and groundwater, in the air we breathe.

Wikipedia - Eutrophication - Clicky

Some say the land itself can't take much more. Extensive use of nitrogen has created areas of farming where the land was too weak to support crops, and has increased yields by huge amounts on arable land - but now has stopped increasing yields. The Soviet Union and communist China discovered through the massive use of chemical fertilizers that crop yields began to level off at a certain point - they can't simply apply more fertilizer and get even more of an increase. We're giving the earth a right good shagging, and we've gotten all we're going to get, barring another breakthrough by another Haber.

You've heard of Red Tide? This is a deadly algae bloom in the water, caused by...tah dah! Too much nitrogen and phosphorus in the water:

Wikipedia - Red Tide - CLICK Dang Burn It

Others say that it is not Haber (and his partner Bosch) who are responsible - and even that nitrate-based fertilizer is not the problem some think it is:

Nitrogen on the Land: Overcoming the Worries - Clickah

But getting back to the original question. What's the most important invention of the twentieth century, and you'd better not be saying the Popeil Pocket Fisherman, either. Synthetic ammonia, but an amoral scientist who gave us more - and took away more - than he ever knew, or history ever cared to address.

I considered calling this rant 'The Man Who Killed the World', but I thought that might be a little over the top. Still, no one hears about this fella. And why not? This roller-coaster of a story, this train-wreck of a human life, makes "A Beautiful Mind" look like Ozzie and Harriet.

So I'm calling it, 'The Good, The Bad, and The Hungry'. Somebody ought to write this movie - starring Brad Pitt, I guess. Me, I still favor the George Foreman Grill. But that's me. I'm a simple guy.

Eh Films - Full of It - Clack Here

Make Peace, Not Nitrogen,

Wiggy

Epiphany and Stuff

So January 6th was Epiphany, which is a Holy Day of Obligation for us Catholics. That means we're required to attend Mass. At this Mass, we also sing "We, Three Kings of Orient Are," and believe me, it sure is hard to avoid singing about rubber cigars and so on. Straight to hell, I'm tellin' 'ya. That's my destination, no doubt about it.

We three kings of Orient are
Tried to smoke a rubber cigar.
One was loaded, it exploded...

We two kings of Orient are...
(repeat until no kings are left or your parent smacks you)

So, the Knights of Columbus had a big shindig (also known as the 2006 Mid-Year Meeting) at the Marriott in Charlotte, NC scheduled for this weekend, and your old pal Wiggy had to go represent (that's the way the kids say it these days, I hear).

I drove out from Wilson after work on Friday, got checked in to my room, and went right to sleep, more or less. On Saturday, we had meetings galore - much sekrit stuff going on - but I slept through most of it. So if we're planning on taking over the world or something, I missed the date it's supposed to start, sorry. If I hear anything I'll let you know.

Saturday afternoon was Epiphany Mass, as I mentioned, followed by the Feast of the Epiphany, which in this case was roast beef and chicken and some little red potatoes with various veggies. It was fine. I went back to my room, popped a can of Guinness, and installed the latest release of Mandriva Linux on my laptop. That turned out not to work well - it was bog slow and didn't want to upgrade itself properly, so out it went and in went the latest Suse Linux release, which seems to be ok. I usually run Ubuntu, so this was fun for me. Geeky fun. Oh well.

Anyway, I went to bed and woke up this morning with a stabbing headache. I mean my head hurt really badly. I sat up for awhile, holding my head in my hands and hoping it would go away, but it didn't. I thought it might be my sinuses, so I sat in the bathroom for awhile with the door closed and the shower on hot - steam sometimes helps. Not this time, it got worse right away. It was hurting so bad, I was getting nauseous. You know what I mean.

So I got dressed enough to go down to the front desk and buy a couple of three-dollar packs of Aleve and a cuppa joe. Got back to my room, ate the pills, and sipped at the coffee.

Well, that was a bad idea. I did the Big Spit, the Technicolor Yawn. Ugly. You get the idea. I'll leave it at that. It was just one Guinness, or I'd have suspected a hangover. One, really.

Our sekrit meeting broke up before noon and I headed home; long drive when you're feeling punky, let me tell you. And my voice is a busted up, not that anyone has to listen to me talk right now. I got home and Mrs. Wiggy made me a nice Jello, which helps considerable.

But I didn't want to talk about that. I wanted to go on a tear again about one of my favorite subjects - calendars. I mean the kind of chapbook-sized planner in which one keeps one's schedule, appointments, and personal notes-to-self. You might recall I ranted about these last year - when I discovered that it is impossible to buy a calendar for the current year in March of that year - only the NEXT year is for sale. But that was a different rant - the availability rant. This is a rant about the types of calendar-planner thingies that are sold.

So, let me set the stage here. You might suspect that your old pal Wiggy is not the 'keeps-a-personal-planner' kind of guy. And you'd be right. In fact, some of the Wigster's friends can recall when my idea of 'organization' was a box labeled "Bills I'll Never Pay," which was sadly somewhat literal.

However, a number of years ago, Wiggy somehow got into the habit of using one of those "At-A-Glance" organizers, and I really got used to it. I liked it because it was simple, it was small, and I could take it anywhere. A page for each day of the year, and a month-at-a-time display at the beginning of each month. Tabbed for the months, and that's about it. You open the thing up, and open the tab for the month you want. The first thing you see is your monthly calendar, so you know what's coming up that you've forgotten to plan for (hehehe) and then you turn to today's date, and you see what you have scheduled for today. That's about it.

For those of you who have gotten used to using a daily planner of this sort, you know what I mean - once you're hooked, it's your life. You can't do a thing without it. Everything is in there that matters in your day.

I carried one for about ten years, but stopped doing so about seven or eight years ago - just didn't need them anymore, because I got a traveling job and a PDA.

Yes, PDA's are cool. As a road warrior, I liked mine quite a bit. It kept my daily schedule, of course, but it also was an MP3 player, and it kept things like downloaded itinaries and directions to local hotels, customer sites, names and phone numbers, and etc. A handly little device, to be sure.

But, I don't travel for a living anymore. And a PDA is way more than I need now. And a PDA is not that good at the one thing I really do need it for - keeping quick notes and my daily schedule. Oh sure, it can do it, but I'm not that fast on the keypad, I don't speak Blackberry, and my prehensile thumbs are not up to speed, since I'm a pre-1962 model human. So as much as I'm a true techno-geek, I am not doing the PDA thing anymore.

I started a new job a couple of years ago, and I had discontinued using my PDA, and had not gone back to the dead-tree version. My boss noted a couple of times that I appeared to be forgetting things - like meetings and deadlines and stuff. Then, when I failed to correct the problem, he noted it on a performance review and hinted that staying on top of things might be a good way to remain employed. Hmmm.

This led to the previously-mentioned rant, as I tried (in March) to find a 2005 calendar, only to discover that you can't buy one for the current year past January of that year. I finally found a half-baked 'Academic Year' planner for teachers, and it worked, after a fashion. But this year, I resolved to find one of my old favorite "At-A-Glance" daily planners.

So here it is - the 8th of January, 2006. I actually started looking on Friday, the 6th.

My first stop was the local Staples - one of the Big Three office supply superstores (the other two being OfficeMax and Office Depot). They have a whole row of planners, and Glory Be, they're all still for 2006. However, although they have every form and type of planner known to US marketing forces, they did not have what I was seeking.

Over the years since I had used my last "At-A-Glance" planner, the various US planner-makers seem to have reached some sort of agreement on nomenclature for planners. They're labeled with a big "D" if they are daily planners. "W" stands for weekly, and of course, "M" is for monthly. And there are permutations available, of course. There is "WM," which is weekly-monthly. And therein hangs a tale.

It would appear that the type of "At-A-Glance" planner I used to carry was what is now known as the "DM" variety (Daily/Monthly). Do they have one? No, they do not.

Oh, there are lots of alternatives. Loads of them. If I want to build my very own paper-based personal time management device (I am not making this up), I can purchase lots of loose-leaf pages that match, more or less, my needs; and then I can select a cover and put the whole thing together. It will end up costing about three times more than I want to spend, and it will have a whole lot of what I don't want.

Let me tell you what I don't want. I don't want any freaking affirmations. No poems. No zen koans. No prayerful thoughts, no pictures of clouds or puppies. I don't want anything that takes batteries or lights up or makes noise. I don't want fine Corinthian leather or zippers or buckles or snaps or velcro. Nothing padded, nothing with pen holders or rulers or metric conversion tables. No world time-zones or "Zipcodes I've Known and Loved," no "This Day in History." All I want is a single page for every day of the year (you can double up on weekends, I guess) with a monthly preview calendar and tabs for the months. That's it.

I guess the various planner makers here in the USA have been busy trying to out-PDA the PDA's. More 'features', if you will. More fluff. And of course, more money. Well, none of them will do. I don't want them, and I won't buy them.

There are several US makers of these things. Names that come to mind are At-A-Glance, Daytimer, Dayrunner, and Franklin-Covey. And they're all crap. They all make exactly the same thing, with each one trying to top the other in extras. You end up with an overpriced, padded leather, all-singing, all-dancing book of garbage with your important notes lost somewhere in the middle of that monstrosity. It reminds me of a 1973 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Comfy? Yes. Useful? Not especially.

So today, as I drove home from Charlotte, I stopped at OfficeMax and Office Depot, thus completing the unholy triumvirate, and discovered what I fully expected to find at this point. Nobody has a "DM" planner. Naturally.

What really galls me is that most of the employees of these places looked at me like I'd grown two heads when I asked them about it. Not only did they not have any "DM" planners, they were fully prepared to swear on a stack of bibles that there had never been any such thing in the entire history of the world. Why would ANYONE want such a thing? Now, that really gripes my wagger. It's one thing to not have an item. It's not great if they no longer make it, but I can deal with it. It's NOT OK for snorg-hunching employees to sniff in my general direction and try to impress me with their acumen in the daily planning arena.

Ah, but this rant MIGHT have a happy ending after all. When I got home, hoarse and angry and planner-less, I got online and checked the 'net.

Seems the Europeans haven't lost sight of what a planner is bloody well supposed to be.

The first thing I found was the Moleskine, an Italian creation. It has a huge freaky fanbase, apparently it is very famous. There's even a blog devoted to it. Well, it is the thing I'm looking for, so that's good. It doesn't cost very much, that's nice. Ah. They're OUT OF THEM. Yeah. That had to happen.

Take a look at this - see how nice it is? See how simple? Why can't the Americans do that anymore? It does not have tabs for the months, but it has a ribbon to mark your place - I can live with that.

Moleskine US

I also found Lett's of London - apparently well-known in NYC as well as in London, according to Mrs. Wiggy. Her uncle would never go out without his Lett's. The one I like is this one:

Letts of London

However, although it appears to be in stock, it lacks some critical descriptions of what it contains. Specifically, I don't know if it also has a monthly calendar preview of each month. I wish they'd be more descriptive.

Exacompta is the other European company that I found that understands what a daily planner is supposed to be:

Exacompta

So here I am on Sunday night; ticked off, again. I'm going to go to work tomorrow and I'm going to get online and I'm going to order SOMETHING, I reckon. Guess it will be one of those European numbers, presuming that someone has one in stock and will ship two-day air. I'm going nuts here.

And I still don't understand why the US makers won't just make a simple planner (or 'diary' as some Europeans call it).

But enough of this. I'm tired now. Going to bed. No epiphany in sight. But by tomorrow, I'm going to have a planner, if I have to draw it myself on notebook paper.

Smooches,

Wiggy