patriots, taxes, and yankees

April 15, 2002

Today's Reading
Mount Hope : A New England Chronicle by George Howe

This Year's Reading
2002 Book List

Today's Starting Pitcher
Derek Lowe

True story: A guy at work today asks "What's this Patriots' Day? Does it have something to do with the Kennedys?" Another guy asks: "How many patriots were there in Massachusetts? The only one I know is Sam Adams." At least he didn't say Adam Vinatieri or Tom Brady. So I piped up with Longfellow's Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: "on the 18th of April in '75" etc. Doesn't ring a bell. I say "Lexington and Concord." That rings no bells either. Finally I try Emerson's Concord Hymn : " By the rude bridge that arched the flood where once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world." Light begins to dawn on this guy: "So it coincides with tax day?"

What if they gave a revolution and nobody came?

More distraction: The power went out in the building. My computer shut off instantly. So much for uninterruptible power supplies. There seemed to be a mix of computers that blacked out instantly and computers that stayed up long enough for a graceful shutdown but there was no rhyme or reason to which was which. Everyone dove for the power switches. All work ground to a halt and we tried to list Massachusetts signers of the Declaration of Independence, figure out the Red Sox pitching rotation, console each other on not winning the lottery... anything but work. I couldn't do my usual thing of imploring people to review documentation because so many of them prefer to do that online too. Besides, it was too dark with just the emergency lights. The overcast didn't clear 'til after the power came back on. Power failures are darn expensive.

And finally, the Yankees: Red Sox beat them 3 out of 4 on this visit and that's darn good. Derek Lowe pitched another gem. Not that I could listen to it at work over the Internet what with no power and plenty of actual work to do anyway.