I usually take route 106/107 to work and this past Thursdy morning was no different. The only exception was that traffic was at a complete standstill. After about a half hour of keeping myself busy listening to XM radio, NPR and a bunch of other stuff, traffic moved a little bit to reveal that the delay was not an accident, which I thought it was, but a crew from Asplundh were trimming trees around the power lines. I thought what a strange name for a tree company. I looked it up and found that Asplundh is Swedish in origin and actually means a grove of Aspen trees.

This is another blog about our new puppy Charcoal (a little 10 pound Shnoodle).  Last weekend Joanne went out and I decided it was the perfect opportunity for me to take Charcoal out on a walk on the road. It was our first "road trip" and I was nervous. From the start she was straining at the leash far more heavily than her 10 pounds.  Every time a car approached I conservatively stepped onto the grass and pulled her to my side.

The bottle was on the top shelf of a little antique shop in the village of Menemsha on Martha's Vineyard. It was old and dirty - a soda or beer bottle. On the clear glass, I could make out the embossed writing. “Henry Immen's Sons, 46 & 48 Commercial St, Greenpoint, LI”. That's what made me think. Greenpoint is in Brooklyn, Greenport is on Long Island. I had to check further.

OK, so Scraps is now gone all night Sat, all day Sunday (I call but few places are open) and now Monday morning I start making calls again.  The Islip town shelter gives me the name and number of a young woman who picked up a dog of similar description late Sat. and I call the woman around 10am.  She grills me a bit on describing the dog and asks me for papers (for which I have none), but our convo about how/where the dog usually gets out and where she found her less than 500 feet from my home seems to convince her that the dog is indeed mine.

As my son described it, “after Disney they lose their minds”.

As June 21st roll around I have commented that the days are getting shorter and that winter is coming.  It is not a welcome thought as summer is just getting underway and winter is not really coming and who wants to think about that.  

Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, is stepping down. He took over for Bill Gates in 2000 and since then the value of Microsoft has diminshed from $555 billion to $289 billion. Not a good look.