Author: gfielder

Oil Refinery Blues… I work in a big oil refinery here in Delaware (shouldn’t be too hard to figure out which one).  We are in the process of shutting it down because an important process unit was damaged a few weeks ago and it is not profitable to continue running the plant without that vital…

The City of Philadelphia is only a few miles north of us.  It’s a really nice city.  We should go there more often. During the last part of winter, the Philadelphia Flower Show returns to remind everyone that spring is just a few weeks away.  Friday afternoon, we drove to the city and decided to…

We live in an area of the US that seldom sees big snow storms.  We have the Chesapeake Bay to the west and south and the ocean to the east.  The water helps protect us from temperature extremes that can cause snow events.  Rain in the winter is much more common than snow. That being…

I had jury duty today.  I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but here it is a guaranteed boring day.  You are expected to show up at 8:30 am at the courthouse and spend the entire day there with just an hour or so off for lunch.  Cell phones, PDAs and Ipods are…

To get things started, the three things in the title of this post are not really connected.  Saturday night, my wife and I went to a local tavern that advertised live music.  They had a band called “The Fridge Raiders”.  I’m not sure where that name came from.  It was a more-or less typical bar…

It is SO nice to make a trip and not have anything go wrong.  The planes all left on time, our baggage made the trip and we had no problems with customs or immigration (my Brasileira doesn’t have a green card yet).  We landed in Philadelphia on time and my son was there to pick…

The title pretty much sums it up here.  Because life has been pretty quiet here lately, I thought I would just talk about walking.  It’s something that I like to do, it’s healthy and can be pretty interesting, especially in a new place (this really isn’t that new to me any more).  I’ve got three…

Rain – nothing unusual in the tropics during the summer.  You can usually depend on a thunderstorm almost every day as the warm, humid air cools off.  Yesterday we had a thunderstorm in the early afternoon and things looked like they were clearing up a bit, so Monica and I took an evening walk, stopping…

It’s January 20, and in the United States we are having the peaceful transfer of power from one elected executive to another.  It’s something that we do every four to eight years.  Perhaps many of you will forget, but I remember what happened the last time.  The White House’s offices were vandalized by some of…

Elton John is in Sao Paulo this evening. Looks like the US$500 tickets are gone. – there were only 5,000 of them. We could get the $250 tickets or the $125 tickets, I suppose. The linked web site (a translation) calls the $125 tickets “half-entry” tickets. Oh my, are they expecting you to leave at…