The file is not Mac friendly it seems, so I can’t listen to it. But Bob Frump was on the radio Wednesday talking about his new book.

The World: August 23, 2006

Host Marco Werman speaks with author Robert Frump, who’s recent book explores the growing death toll among refugees from Mozambique entering South Africa. The cause of those deaths lions in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

Direct link to the audio I can’t listen to is here.

Bob has even more at the book’s website.

My grandmother has recently been emailing me stories for me to keep for posterity, put on my Wiki, etc. Over time I’ll get them added to my Wiki. She’s sent a couple that were stories of my dad and his sisters when they were young and such, and those are good, but I asked her for more about her and my grandfather specifically. Yesterday she sent this:

I was thinking of our first date…

Dave had no car for several years on the farm. It was 1939 when we met at the Quaker work camp and he was borrowing Gene Cox’s car (husband of nurse Lindsey) to make calls etc. So he asked our workcamp counsellors, a young couple Biff and Elsie Jackson with two young boys to take us to a nearby town one evening for a coke.

On the way I was singing some of my favorite folk songs. A Kentucky one “Down in the Valley” for example: “The valley so low, Hang your head over, hear the wind blow. Roses love sunshine, violets low dew. Angels in heaven know I love you.”

I think it was that ride that raised the idea of lifetime companions which we were both in search of.

Fast forward to 1991 when Susan and I were with a dying Dave in TMC hospital. He had been in a coma for several days and as I sang that song near his bed he gave a moan. The hearing goes last they say and I am sure he heard the down in the valley tune from that first date.

I’m a sucker for such things, but I can’t even read that without misting up.

I added a new graph to the graphs section for the first time in months. At some point I’ll get back to actually updating the old graphs. Maybe even automating it. But not yet. In any case, the new graph shows the time I get up each day. Click through on the graph to see it better and read more about it. Here are some of the interesting bits though:

• The moving average is pulled up by about an hour due to weekends, when I wake up considerably later than on weekdays, but also with a lot more variation.  Weekdays are very constrained due to work schedules, weekends are all over the place.
• Jul 2005 to Oct 2005 I clearly normally got up around 11 UTC.
• Nov 2005 I started getting up an hour later, around 12 UTC.  This is due to the crazy "fall back" thing that happens.  Everybody starts doing everything an hour later in the winter months than they do in the other months, and I go along with it.
• In December after I had my offer from my new employer, but before I started at my new job, I got up much later, it was like weekends every day.
• Jan 2006 to Mar 2006, once I was at the new job, I usually got up around 17 UTC.  That is five hours later than I got up at the old job in November.  Three hours can be explianed by the fact that I am further west and everybody seems to do everything 3 hours later here.  But the other two hours are explained by the fact that my old job had everybody start insanely early in the morning, and things start at a normal time at my new job.
• In April I started getting up about an hour earlier, about 16 UTC.  This time it is because of the "spring forward thing" where everybody starts doing things earlier in the day again, and I did too.
• The variability in my wake up time at my new job is much more than at my old job.  This is because each day at my old job started with a meeting that everybody had to attend.  At my new job the mornings are much more relaxed and freeform and nobody cares exactly when you get in.

Monday I got an email from a major Internet retailer (with whom I have another relationship as well) letting me know:

As someone who has purchased books by Robert Frump, you might like to know that The Man-Eaters of Eden: Life and Death in Kruger National Park is now available . You can order your copy at a savings of 37% by following the link below.

Robert Frump is of course one of my ex-bosses from the place I worked before the place I worked before the place I work now.

You should all buy his book. I know I will.

His last book is also still available.

Only about a 6% chance of tropical storm winds hitting our place in Florida at the moment, but we would still rather it did not.