Month: September 2012

Kilt Friday


left to right: Cousin Susie, Cousin Duncan, Donna, Me, Cousin Jimmy, Cousin Laurie, Howard.

For several years now I have been wearing a Hawaiian shirt to work on Fridays. I have tried to convert members of my department and even folks throughout the rest of the plant with limited success. The number has varied from 2, Mark & I, to 4 to three and now it is back to just the two of us. Hawaiian Shirt Friday runs from sometime in May until Labor Day. After the first week in September folks break out their favorite college or pro football team gear.

Way back in June when I first saw this Bloomberg Businessweek article, Why Pixar Employees Wear Kilts on Fridays, I have teased both my boss and my wife that I would wear a kilt on Fridays.

When we visited the Scottish games in Virginia on vacation I went shopping. Yikes. Quality kilts start at a C-Note and go up. Then you need the belt, the Sorran, the high socks, the shoes, etc. Turns out it is a major investment and one I’m not willing to make just to raise a few eyebrows on Fridays.

The photo above was taken by a friend of Duncan’s with her smarty pants phone. There were 3 taken all told, but I like this one because if you look quickly I look like I’m wearing a kilt…

Heads Up

The western side of Monhegan is where the “town” is, as that is where the natural harbor is. It is also relatively flat. The center of the island rises up sharply from sea level to around 100′ and the houses thin out. The western portion of the island is all nature preserve, pine forest and rocky cliffs to the sea. From south to north:


Burnt Head (125′)


White Head (135′)


Little White Head (105′)

I missed taking a photo of the tallest cliff called Black Head because I was too busy scrambling up the rocky trails…

Artist’s Retreat

Monhegan has always been a haven for artists and artist’s workshops. While we were there, we stumbled onto this group several times at various locations around the island.

Foggy Morning On Monhegan

The morning we left started clear, but the fog soon swept in giving some mood to the island. Most people who visit Monhegan come for just a few hours via ferry from the mainland, so they don’t need a place to stay. But for those who come for an overnight or two, mainly stay in one of a couple places.


The largest and most visible spot is the Island Inn which has 32 rooms and is probably the first thing you see when pulling up to the dock.


The next most popular place is the Monhegan House with its 28 rooms. Both of these two spots serve breakfast to both those staying there and folks who walk in (like us.)


If you are staying longer the best option is a rental house that run from rustic to almost modern.


If you come by boat, you can always stay aboard. Not on one of these though as they are lobster boats owned by the local fishermaen. There was a small sailboat moored in the harbor this morning, I just didn’t take its portrait.

Two Options


Monhegan Island Lighthouse

Late afternoon as I sat in my chair in front of the computer screen I could feel myself getting sleepy, I could use a little caffeine. I had two options, bottle of Coca-Cola or a cup of coffee. The Coke was to much fluid with too little caffeine, so coffee it will be. Now I had two more options, coffee from the machine for a quarter or a 50¢ premium cup of joe from the Keurig in the mail room. I thought it would be nice to go for the slightly better K-cup coffee. This created still another set of two options, I could get change for a buck to pay for the coffee or I could just stiff the company as the Keurig setup is on the honor system.

I’m too honest for my own good sometimes, so I headed to the change machine in the cafeteria. I selected my crispest dollar bill because sometimes these machine can be finicky. I feed it in and it got spit back out. I unfolded the 1/16″ turned down corner and tried again. It came back. I swapped which end of the bill that went in first and it came right back out again. I decided to try a different bill, one slightly more wrinkled, the machine clunked and whirred and sounded like it was going to work. It did. A shiny gold dollar coin dropped into the output dish. WTF!

I had two options, I could go get 4 quarters from accounting for the dollar coin to get that cup of coffee or I could forget about the whole thing and go back to my desk. I went back to my desk, as I was now wide awake after my walk up front and failed attempt to get a couple of quarters.

Rooms 302 & 303

The photo above is the view out the window to the porch of the cottage my cousin and her husband were renting for their 2 week stay on the island. They have a land line phone (cell coverage is very spotty) and a propane stove and refrigerator, but no electricity. Light is provided by kerosene lamps or candles. There is electricity all over the place on the island, but it costs about 10x what it does on the mainland. Plus there is the expense of putting in wiring in older homes. The Vaughn House where they are staying was built in the 1700’s. The expense is also the reason there are no street lights anywhere on the island, so when the sun goes down you better have a flashlight or the full moon to find your way back to where you are staying.

Last night we went the Cracker Barrel across the street from our HIE to have breakfast for dinner. It was 6 o’clock in the evening and the place was crawling with Hokies on their way home from a football game. We even had to wait 20 minutes to get seated*. As we sat there waiting on our food I could barely hear myself think for all the chatter and dinnerware noises. When I could get a thought in edgewise, all I could get was that there were more people in that restaurant right then, than we saw in our whole two days on Monhegan Island.

*Cracker Barrel is the only place we really wait like that.

When I woke up this morning at 5:00 AM and got up to use the restroom I was alone in in the bed of Room 303 in the Holiday Inn Express in Roanoke, VA. Donna was not in the bathroom either. I turned on the light and she wasn’t in the chair in the corner of the room either. I was alone. My first thought was she had woken up early and gone for a walk, but dismissed that when I looked outside and it was still pitch black. My second thought was she had been abducted by aliens. My third and more likely scenario is that she was curled up on a couch in the lobby sleeping. I have a nice loud snore sometimes which is fine if she gets asleep before me, but if not, then one of us goes to the other bedroom in our house.

Donna was actually across the hall in Room 302. I started snoring, her usual tactics of getting me to be quiet, poking, prodding or talking me into rolling over didn’t work, so she went downstairs at midnight and rented a second room.

23,000 Feet Of Line

Somewhere in the Poconos, the Purple Whale clicked past the 23,000 mile mark.

Today was the first day since we started our trip that I didn’t take a single picture, so I have posted an artsy photo from Monhegan Island. More than likely that will be the case for the next week or so.