Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo (or, "how the US commercialised a celebration").
This event is not Mexico's National or Independence day, but the celebration of the defeat of a small invading French force by an even smaller local Mexican force at Puebla in 1862.

By "small" I mean that there were 6,500 French soldiers and 4,500 Mexican militiamen involved - numbers that were "usual" in the wars of independence further north some 75 years before, but dwarfed by the scale of the armies raised in Europe between 1790 and 1815, during the Napoleonic conflicts. Of course, various web sites change the figures - the Mexican number seems pretty well agreed-upon, but the French force seems to vary, up to "three times the number of Mexicans" or more !

In Mexico this is a big celebration in the state of Puebla, but that's about it. In the USA, on the other hand, it's the cause for big promotions by food and drink companies. All in all, it seems like people in the US ( and I mean all the people, not just those who look like they might have walked quietly over the border last weekend ) have a predisposition towards partying this weekend. Probably because Spring has started and the weather is, at last, turning warm, and so let's all get out there and party ! May 5th is just a good time.

By the way, for those interested in "genuine" beer, Tecate is a popular beer, but is brewed by Labatt's, who live in Norwalk, VA. Labatts are owned by Interbrew of Belgium and FEMSA Cervesa of Mexico. Dos Equis shares the same distinctive heritage ! Personally I prefer Pacifico, brewed by the larger of the two Mexican brewing giants, Grupo Modelo, who also export Corona, Corona Light, Negra Modelo, Modelo Especial, and Modelo Light. Unfortunately, Anheuser-Busch owns 49% of Grupo Modelo, so things may soon get worse

For info, thanks to MEXonline. For the picture of a burrito, thanks to WikiBooks ! For ace food, thanks to the ladies in the Taco House restaurant at the bottom of Route 70 in NJ.

Celebration !

It's St. George's Day to day, so all you English should be out in the streets waving flags and jumping up and down like crazy people, celebrating the day of our patron saint, St. George.

How many of you will be doing that ?

Well, I might hazard a guess and say that Philip Johnston might be, but I doubt that, even in England, he'll see many frolickers. We're not very frolicky people, you see, we English.

You're far more likely to find us having a quick cuppa before getting back to work than having a celebration. Not at all like some ex-patriots, like the Irish, for instance (especially in the USA) who've co-opted almost the whole of March The Mexicans have grabbed May, and the United Statesians themselves start July off well and just keep on barbecuing 'till the bitter end !

So I'd like to appeal to all those English people out there, and all the anglophiles in the world, to start planning for next year's April 23rd. We can plan for great meals of mountains of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, gallons of rich dark gravy, and sweet young green peas cooked gently with mint. We can sing heart-rousing songs like Jerusalem, and play dragon-slaying games.

TGIF

Well, it's Friday again. You find me sneaking in a quick few words here as I wait for compilations of a program. I was wilfing around a few minutes ago and found this blog from Karin Eriksson, which links to knitting, if anyone's interested (there seem to be a lot of knitters around here!). Her designs and style are really nice, and she has an etsy shop too. All of us here in the USA should make an absolute point of searching out all the European artists that we can, as their styles are so different to US ones.

Today started with great reluctance to get up, followed by panic as I realised the time :) Took Offspring to school and then went off to work with friends.

Back later with more ...

Well, I never made it back, so see you all on Sunday !

A Lesurely Mid-Afternoon Posting

yeah, well. I had intended on blogging this morning and this evening, but this morning's log just seemed to vanish in the haze ! Mostly it was consumed by taking Offspring's pal to school, taking Offspring and Cousin to grandparents' (both Better .5 and I are working today), and getting to where I'm working. Offspring and Cousin aren't in school today because they went to Medieval Times for Cousin's birthday present and didn't get to bed until around midnight.

Humour of the day was this reprint from Auntie.

Pretty much everyone has been having their say about what happened the other day at Virginia Tech. Take a slow read of Bryony Gordon's take on it: it may temper things a little differently for you after you've read it. I hope it does.

[GEEK]
So, for all those curious to know, today was one of tracking down software bugs. In an application written in VB.NET 2005 and SQL Server 2005, with input from and output to Excel. It turned out that a conditional statement read "if so-and-so is true then ..." instead of "if so-and-so is not true then ...". So, a lot of strange complaints started cropping up in the program, as it processed things later and found them to be wrong. A good work-out for the error trapping, but not the way I'd intended
[/GEEK]

Finally, a word of hope to all those languishing on the "wrong" continent. Apparently some air prices are going to come down rather dramatically, almost as far as with Freddie Laker, if you remember him. It's supposed to happen next your and there's some info here. Personally, I'll be commuting from a small town just outside Limerick if The O'Leary does his sums right ! Maybe all the other readers can come and visit NJ ? !!

All the best to you all !

The Evening Post

It's just after seven in the evening as I write this, so it'll be out in time for you night-owls in Paris and London to read before you go to bed !

Today was a long day of scouring job lists, looking for positions to apply to. Not many today, but a few. The Better .5 and Offspring are off to Medieval Times in Newark, a thoroughly worthwhile fun evening out. They're be eating and drinking and be being entertained, and I'm here programming and listening to Al Stewart CDs.

Good for me, though, because while wilfing around I ran into this interesting page. I got about half-way down before I was crying so much with laughter that I had to stop reading. Now some of you, I should say first, may not be very amused at this at all, but some of us have found it hilarious. Having warned you, you can click here. There are several pages all together: two or three are very funny.

Tomorrow will be a day of programming work and job searching, instead of the other way around like today.

For a final note, I'd like to commend the military Establishment of India for daring to have a sense of humour. It is refreshing to be able to see that one country's military, at least, is able to laugh at itself, even if on just a few occasions. For this nice page, please go to the Defence India site.

Good Morning ?

Well, I never got to post again last night, so we'll try doing today in bits.

This morning I woke to the alarm clock, staggered from bed to shower, and dragged clothes on to find that the Offspring wasn't nearly ready for school and, as a result, the Better .5 was still not dressed and obviously unable there too. Together we got him ready and out of the door.

Then around to his cousin D's, to pick him up ... . They're having their kitchen painted today, so they haven't any clocks ! D is running late :( We get D and head off to school (thank you the school bus system for arranging two buses in our way to slow things down !).

We get to school (fuel guage showing bright orange at this point, which means I have only about 5 miles to go) and I can drop off the kids. Warning to fathers here: if you ever thought of your wife as meek, gentle, and mild-mannered, then don't come here to drop off kids. The way these mums drive would put a pack of snarling hyenas to shame ! Talk about aggressive !

Then quietly to the petrol station and finally home to the Better .5, who's almost ready to leave for work (mine being here at home for the time being). Breakfast ? Some ReadyBrek would be nice. Put it into bowl, add milk, nuke for two minutes, and then ... pick up the overflow and do it again for 1.5 mins ! This time it's ok - just very hot ! Cold orange juice from the fridge for safety !

I Love Al Stewart ('s Music !)

I got an envelope from England today with a CD in it. Well, so ? you might say. Well, I lost a few CDs a while ago, and eBay has been the way I've managed to get copies of them again. Sometimes they can be very expensive, and sometimes not.

I just got hold of Al Stewart's "Between the Wars", which seems amazingly rare for such a good CD. I've seen a lot of copies going for $40 and $50 or more, which is startling ! I got this one for about $15 including shipping from the UK to America, which was nice. Cheaper, in fact, than the CD was to buy originally.

Today was warmer than yesterday, and my in-laws' basements didn't flood any more than they did yesterday, which was good news. It's been very wet here in New Jersey these last few weeks. I could do with a holiday in somewhere dry. Like California, for instance, or Utah ...

I'll continue this a little later, but, for now, greetings to all those who take a read before going to bed. Sleep well !