Skeleton Woman in North Carolina

Had a nice experience today. I take care, as a volunteer, of the WCNI internet streaming.

WCNI is our college-sponsored FM radio station. My email address is on the streaming web page, so folks can contact me directly if there are problems. I received this in the early afternoon: "Hello I am writing to inform you that I can't get your station. It says it isn't found....Hope you get it fixed soon was hoping to hear the great Global Village with the Skeleton Woman."

For some reason, not being too familiar with the WCNI programming, I thought the listener was referring to a little known punk band. There were clients receiving the stream fine, so I figured the problem was the client's computer. After several emails back and forth (almost had a chat room going), we got it fixed, and she was a happy listener.

I then got interested in who the heck "Global Village with the Skeleton Woman" was. Was this a musical mashup of the revamped Village People with a skinny female lead? I went to the WCNI schedule, and saw how wrong I was!

Global Village is the name of the show: "All the music of the world-plus bagpipes!", and Skeleton Woman is the DJ. The show is on Thursdays from 3 to 6 pm. I must say the music was great, most with a Holiday Season spin, but with a "world" of variety. So, I have to thank the listener for turning me on to Skeleton Woman's show.

I then noticed that there were four of five clients with the same IP listening to WCNI. When we get more than one from the same IP it generally means they are behind the same VLAN, which could be physically spread out over a large area. I looked up the IP on GeoBytes. Turns out the main location for this IP is Shelby, North Carolina.

So, it looks like Skeleton Woman has a faithful following in North Carolina. Hurray for the Internet, which has made this possible. For a little while, I felt close to the now happy unknown listener that emailed me, as we enjoyed the same music. And no, the Internet was not invented by Al Gore, in spite of what he has said.

Jenna at Vassar

My niece is a freshman at Vassar. She was number one in her high school, and valedictorian, so I told her not to study too hard! Here she is with her dad, Tom

And here with her mom, Anita. Who is also my sister

Jenna is my fourth FaceBook friend. I joke that I had to pay the other three, they are my student employees. No, I did NOT force them to invite me to be their friend! At this rate, I hope to gain two new friends every year. But how many true friends can you really have!

How Small We Really Are

Hmmm, wonder if he knows a little JavaScript...

From Lonely Man's Blog

A Good Project

A man tries to photograph one child from every country on Earth — without leaving New York - so far he has 194 nations

Eyes Wide Shut

My wife, Gig, took this picture. Steve is a great guy, and I've known him since the late 1970's, when he and his nice friends sailed with with me in the Caribbean. The guitars are made by his son, Roger. Unfortunately, the digital camera has a shutter delay, and Steve's eyes are closed.

The bees and the spider

This plant has a wonderful color in the fall. The bees like it also, there's a bunch of them collecting honey all day long. You can get real close to them, inches away, and they just mind their own business and keep harvesting

.

A spider showed up a few days after the bees, made himself a nice neat web between two plants, and is going through about two a day. Plenty of bees, plenty of flowers, and a happy spider!

Two people I like together

Gonna Miss You, You Big Fool!

The end of summer came too soon

Summer is usually nice and quiet, but we had so much work to do this summer, that it really flew by. My office is in the old library, which is kind of neat. Have not seen or heard any ghosts yet. I got done about 2/3 of the projects I had planned, which is about average for me. Always reaching for the stars.



Another shot. Our front "lawn" is the nicest on this side of the Thames River, and you can see Long Island Sound. UCONN Avery Point on the other side of the river has us beat on looks though, they ARE on the Sound. My back is to the lawn, which holds three soccer fields. Looks like a giant lawn, not like an athletic center, so it's real pretty.



Decided to sell the old Whaler, and put it in tip top shape, burning up a few days of vacation time. Never had it looking this nice when I used it for myself! Even put the rail on that my wife always begged for, man, did I feel guilty about that! Sold it to the girl across the street, so I still get to pump it out when it rains.

Merry Christmas

Ok, I'm a little late, but I ran across the Christmas card I made last December.
Pretty is our overweight 17 pound cat. She loves us, and we love her. We have run across many dogs that weigh less.
Leigh came home from her internship at Hilton Head Island, and is getting settled in her too-small room. Good to have her home for a while. I think she threw out about a hundred pound's worth of childhood stuff, by my wife managed to save half of it, and is now stashing it in her car. There was a bit of a dispute over ownership, but I told Leigh that once she throws it out, she's giving up possession. Leigh is starting her USCG captain's license course in Fairhaven MA, in Mid-Sept. Kris' tennis team won their local championship, Kris is now off to Florida for a week of with Perry, his nice and cute friend.
Hope they have nice weather!

Bragging again!

Ok, here is dad bragging again about his daughter.
Leigh was named Empire 8 Conference Woman of the Year, and will represent the conference for balloting for the NCAA Woman of the Year. Nice article here . The Ithaca teams are called the Bombers.

There are eight New York State colleges in the Empire 8. Leigh is the only Bomber to earn all region honors from the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) four times, receiving first-team recognition in 2004, 2005 and 2006 after being picked to the second team as a freshman. She is the Empire 8’s only four-time first-team all-conference selection and was named the league’s Player of the Year in 2005.

Leigh is now finishing her internship with Vagabond Cruises in Hilton Head, SC, and gets to work on Stars and Stripes, the boat that Dennis Connor lost the America's Cup in.

My brother and my aunt

Here is my "little" brother Ralph, who lives in Austin TX, visiting my aunt Italina, aged 93, in Bologna, Italy, a few weeks ago.
I call her Zia Lelle. She lives on her own, does all her own cooking, banking, shopping, cleaning, etc.

Another picture of my aunt. She lived with her older sister most of the last 10 years. But about 3 years ago, the sister, Zia Libia, had to go in a nursing home. The home was about 150 yards away. Almost every day Zia Lelle would walk there to visit her sister. Zia Libia passed away about 2 years ago.

My daughter

I needed to test image uploads, and thought of my daughter. Much of the last five weeks has been spent traveling, with the last long trip to Durham, NC for the Division 3 Softball National Championship. My daughter, Leigh Bonkowski, is captain of the Ithaca College team. They finished 5th in the nation. Leigh also won the Ithaca College Female Athlete of the Year award, and was No.2 academically in her department. Just a father bragging! I copied the image from the Ithaca College web site.