They played real good, for free

I was walking around the Palo Alto Arts and Wine Festival the other day (in the Silicon Valley, you apparently cannot have arts without wine; they all include both) and came upon a string quartet.

Now, this is a bit out of the ordinary, although it was the “arts” and wine festival. But usually you’ll have a single musician, or maybe a duo, with CDs for sale and an open instrument case for donations.

These four (as you can see) were just playing—Pachelbel, then a czardas and then a tango. No sign, no container for coins.

They’re from the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and they were a delight.

Keep on truckin'

Well, this is interesting. I sort of assumed that the Daylight Foods Company, which supplies local restaurants, had progressed from a partial URL on their trucks to a complete one.

But I was wrong.

Here’s one of their fleet without so much as a hint of web presence:

Go figure.

Manassas again

One hundred fifty years ago today, Union and Confederate forces were locked in battle in an area of Northern Virginia known as Manassas. Only 13 months before the two armies had been there, fighting the first major engagement of the war of Southern secession.

This time, both armies were blooded, with General George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign having worn on for several months with ground between the York and James rivers changing hands, and then falling back into the original possessors. A lot of bodies left along the way; nothing much decided.

Except that it was pretty clear that McClellan wasn’t what you’d call a real battlefield commander.

The command of the (Confederate) Army of Northern Virginia had fallen to Robert E. Lee, after Joseph E. Johnston was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines. Lee, deciding that McClellan and the Army of the Potomac weren’t all that much of a threat on the peninsula, turned to face the newly-formed (Union) Army of Virginia under John Pope. Pope was advancing down from Washington, hoping to take pressure off of McClellan and maybe even threaten Richmond.

Lee saw this as an opportunity to defeat the two Northern armies in detail—knock off Pope and then turn back to crush McClellan, since the latter hadn’t given any signs of moving swiftly in any direction for any cause.

The Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of Virginia converged in the area around Manassas on the 28^th, and then continued the next day, with various units maneuvering in the God-awful heat. (You cannot imagine how hot and humid it is in Northern Virginia in late August. and then with their woolen uniforms, the rush of battle; it must have been absolute hell.) Pope, in the tradition of so many Union generals, completely misread the activities of Lee’s subordinates and assumed various forces were ripe for bagging. They weren't.

This back-and-forth continued throughout that day and the next. Finally, on the evening of the 30^th, Pope ordered a retreat (which was orderly, not like the complete rout of the previous year). Lee’s forces were exhausted and low on ammunition; they didn’t pursue.

Once again, Confederates held the ground at Manassas. Around 10,000 Union soldiers were killed and wounded (of 62,000 engaged); Confederates casualties came to 8,300 (of 50,000). Washington was protected, Richmond abandoned as a target.

And as Lee decided to take the campaign into Union territory, Lincoln was forced to bring back McClellan. In less than a month the two armies would meet at a Maryland town called Sharpsburg.

Pick-up lines

I’m part of a group that meets in the hall of a church that also runs a nursery school. The kids are almost always out in the playground when I pass.

The other day I was walking by when a small blond boy (maybe four years old) called out to me, “Hel-LO, little girl! What’s your name?”

Well!

I thought, that line’s going to be really successful in about 25 years.

Actually, it went down a treat with me, except that he didn’t seem to know what to do with my name when I gave it.

He’ll have to work on that.

The moon & Osiris

Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot upon an extra-terrestrial planet, will have had no problem passing Osiris on his way to the afterlife. If anyone lived an upright life in the service of truth and humility, leading to a heart that outweighed by a feather upon its completion, it was Armstrong. He died Saturday at age 82.

You can read all about his life, about his career as a Gemini and Apollo astronaut and about the 1969 moon mission pretty much anywhere you like. But here’s what struck me about him.

After that walk, Armstrong could have raked in squillions in product endorsements, speaking fees, or high political office. I bet they were flinging checks, cars, airline tickets, hot and cold running hookers, and everything else you could imagine at him in hopes they could slap his name on a billboard and generate cashflow.

Didn’t matter to him. He had job responsibilities with NASA, and he carried them out.

Then he taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati. Later he did take some gigs as spokesman (for Chrysler and a couple of others), and he did serve on some corporate boards. But he didn’t convert his NASA achievements to a massive fortune.

In today’s crass and greedy environment, that just seems stunning.

But here’s a quote from him that I believe sums up Armstrong’s life. He’d been asked to share his thoughts in the moments after he stepped out of the lunar lander. What deep insights had come to him?

“We weren’t there to meditate, we were there to get things done,” he replied.

No, Osiris won’t spend a great deal of time considering Armstrong’s heart.