Amazonia

We have been getting a lot of rainfall lately, we have had flash flood warnings and watches every day for weeks now. We had thunderstorms for five hours yesterday, one right after the other. The lightning strikes were so close I didn't even work in my shop until that train of storms passed over. A river now runs through my yard and down my driveway. My front yard is becoming a swamp. My trees now live in a rain forest. What I am trying to say is:

Thanks to a friend of mine for that meme. He's a funny guy.

I did manage to build a box the other night:

Looks like a hunk of wood. But wait:

Lift the lid and there you go. Red mulberry natural edge top and red mulberry block for the body. I am not real big on joinery around here but since boxes sell I figured I would make one that matched my particular inclinations - simple, natural, functional, and made out of local wood. 

But that's not what I am here to talk about. Nope, as always, there is more to the story. Years ago I read an excerpt from Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I found those few paragraphs fascinating - chocked full of detail and written in a manner that reminded me of Tom Wolfe - very energetic and fast paced. So once I got my new Kindle I looked for that book, but at 9 bucks, no thanks, I'll save my money and I passed it by. Then I espied another book by Stephenson entitled Snow Crash for $1.99. I bought it. And next thing you know, before I have even made it halfway through the latter book I got an email from the racket boys over at Amazon. They are mind readers, you know, and they offered me Cryptonomicon for $2.99. They know that I am cheap. That my resistance to buying that book prior to receiving their new offer was totally based on the price point. Being clever money grubbing, er, business geniuses they figured that out and knew that if they dipped that bait in the water I would bite. Like a freakin' piranha. Nom nom nom. They reeled me in. So far I am not disappointed. That boy can write. Which brings us to something else - so there I was readin' the book, relaxin', and on page - aw hell, Kindle does not number its pages, but at 1% of the way through the book I was stopped dead in my tracks. There, bigger than life was the name John Vincent Atanasoff, listed as a Bulgarian working at Iowa state. I read the name and had to close the book. I knew J. V., knew his brother Theo, his sister-in-law Lily, his nieces and nephews, one of whom was best man at my wedding. He was a patient of my father. He lived right outside of town in a house that he designed and built - it was, I guess, in the brutalist school of architecture - poured concrete walls, no ornamentation, brutal in a word. Fortress-like.

John Atanasoff

That's five syllables right there

What else can you do?

But enough about that - that is borderline gossip. I will resume reading the book and reminisce about times gone by some other time. But damn, bam, that is an odd thing to encounter in a book, just sayin'.

We know the answer to this question.