**Long Walk Home**

One of the good things about moving cross country is the opportunity to reconnect with my Jersey Girl roots. My high school years were defined in part by the Jersey Shore and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. They are doing the Friday concert this morning on the Today Show.

I couldn't help but notice that the keyboard player in the E Street Band is wearing a hearing aid. I don't think there is a member of the band under 50. And the only young people in the crowd are the kids dragged to the concert by their parent Springstein fans.


I could feel the pull back east listening to the Boss and the E Street Band complete with Clarence Clemmons this morning as they played the song that makes up this entry's title. He is still firey on the stage just as I remembered him at concerts in my youth. He would play 3.5 hours without a break. We would leave the stadium hoarse from singing along.

I might add they they starting playing before the Today broadcast started and are contemplating an encore at 2.5 hours. And so he continues with a heart wrenching rendition of Hometown. He's still got it.

**Should Have Seen It Coming**

Six years ago, when I decided to take this job, I negotiated that my new employer wait a year so I could insure a smooth transition. To the very end my co-workers at my ending job were kind, supportive and appreciative of me remaining for the year, knowing I could have left them hanging with no time to find a replacement.

I can't say that my decision to stay for an additional 6 months at my current job to "wrap things up" and help with the transition has gone as smoothly. The co-worker issues I always found a bit troubling now in my face. I am concerned about some gender issues that were undercurrents coming to the surface and generally finding that my multi-year "feeling" I was marginalize is no longer a feeling.

I guess it makes closure a little easier, but in reality, I liked how closure worked at my last job better.

***Hmmm...***

How often have we shown ourselves as we really are, and yet we need not
have bothered, there was no one there to notice...

~Saramago,The Stone Raft

**I am back because tomorrow is a very important day**

Taken from a student news forum which really covers all one needs to know:

Wednesday is Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The name's pretty much descriptive. Here are a few pirate dos and don'ts:

Do:
-Buckle all swashes
-Sing the Talk Like a Pirate Day Song: http://www.tomsmithonline.com/freestuff/oddio/TLAPD-Streaming064.mp3
-Pepper your conversation with expressions like "Yarrr!", "Arr", "Yo ho ho", and "Shiver me timbers".
-Wear a bandana (here be instructions fer all you landlubbers: http://gollan.pwaresearch.com/hp/bandana.html) or eyepatch
-Watch a piratical movie. "Pirates of the Caribbean" is all well and good, but I'd recommend the classics: "Captain Blood", "The Sea Hawk", "The Crimson Pirate", "Treasure Island".
-Enjoy your grog responsibly.
-Eat limes. Scurvy kills!

Don't:
-Bury your treasure and forget where you put it.
-Pillage and plunder without permission.
-Necessitate the use of eyepatches through careless handling of sharp objects like cutlasses or hooks.
-Be embarrassed to talk like a pirate. The more people do it, the more fun you'll have.


More posts to come. Promise.