04-JUN-B-3

COMPLETION OF MY RESIDENCE PERIOD

THAT INAUGURATES THE ELDP

AND RETURNING TO THE POSTPONED LIFE

OF DERWOOD AND GW, PAYING BILLS,

ORDERING THE NEW FINISHING FEATURES

AND CAMPAIGNING AGAINST THE ICC—

AND, AN ALMOST UNACKNOWLEDGED “FATHER’S DAY’

June 19--21, 2004

Now I can open my mail and pay the bills. I had left my colleagues after the last afternoon session at the Ashburn campus and scooped up the notice of attempt to deliver a registered letter and drove to the post office in Derwood. I had an idea what might be being sent to me by registered letter, and actually had to appreciate the chutzpah—North American Wildlife Taxidermy is sending me a bill for the Phantom of the Derwood Deer Woods re-mounting at an inflated rate by registered mail, with Charley Culbertson adding the threat that if I do not pay within 30 days, he will take whatever legal means he can to destroy and dispose of it! That is the classic pose if you are in deep trouble—adapt an aggressive pose and strike back! Further, I do not now have to look up the full name and address of Charley Culbertson to sue him.

I went out for a long run, and then came back home to distribute the flyers announcing the hearing at the public showing of the ICC plans and inviting public comment. The rally was held at 11:00 AM and I had to distribute the flyers announcing it, but the schedule of the ELDP precluded my ability to do it earlier. I ran the neighborhood while still all wet and smelly from the long run. Then I came in and opened my mail and tried to catch up on the mail and pay bills. I have not written this narrative since I have been in the “boot camp” writing papers on the readings. I also had a lot of chores to be done and a lot of Derwood improvements to be working on—as I had left the keys and a blank check for the fellow who spent three days here doing the wall paper and coverings for the foyer and the powder room, which he finished at mid-week. I got up early to mow the lawn on the one day it has not started off raining. I scattered some of the crush and run in the hoes in the driveway and the openings at the door of the storage room, all of them finishing touches that have not yet been done by the contractors who have not been here for a couple of weeks. The dumpster, the port-a-john, and the other heavy equipment have been moved out, with the only recent work being the installation of the microwave oven trim kit which ha been waiting here for several weeks along with a series of the punch out items left undone.

I had planned to hang a few more items on the walls, and will do so this weekend, with a note left by Sandy Shelar saying that she would be going away for the next weeks, but she would put in the orders for the powder room mirror and the window treatments on the deck facing windows. I still have not heard from the ADT security folk who have not come by to check to see the ludicrous heavy security wireless sensors on small windows like the powder room, while leaving all other windows unmonitored and all of it connected to nothing, while they are still charging me a hefty fee for a serviceable home security outfit. It will call the local police and fire departments, they say, but since it is connected to no phone and has no wiring that is connected to anything, it seems that this is not a service being rendered at this time. I have a lot of final fixings to do.

I mowed the grass and then went to the anti-ICC rally in front of the FHA “public hearing” at Blake High School on Norwood Road. The officials are al there in force since the federal surveys and studies have all concluded that this 4 billion dollar road that will also be a $ 5.00 toll road, six lanes connecting the I-95 to 270 and inaccessible to me but within the sound and sight of my new picture windows all proven to not ease the congestion which is allegedly the reason it has been proposed. The governors and a number of developers are behind it, and a few local politicians area against it—most of them making an appearance for the TV cameras as I arrived to hear the same things said over and again.

I have been at work in Ashburn campus from dusk to dark on the longest daylight days of the year. It was good to get out and see the sunshine on the one day this last ten days that it has not been raining. I have a lot of connections to be made, including staying home for various repairs to be done—like the exhuming of the well and its pump to replace it—there is still an awful amount of noise in the system as a lot of air is sucked into the pipes, and each toilet bowl is rimmed with the sand and clay coughed up by the pumps. But each of these require yet another day or more off work, and babysitting a house that should be able to run on its own. Each project remains incomplete, so that I have to finish it myself or be here when I can let someone in if they choose to show up upon the day they have appointed—about a 20/89 chance so far. Even the Audi which is supposed to have the fifth check on its “engine on” light from the O2 sensors’ disagreements, despite their very pricey replacements is going to take a several day window out of my schedule.

During that time I am supposed to be planning and arranging the details of the trip to Haiti, which is also set up by my ordering supplies through a fax sent out and confirmed which none of the people at MAP seemed to have noticed. So, I am behind on all the details that accumulate in my absence, and I will then get involved in these items to find that the near daily schedule of events in the statistics projects and the several long papers and research using library and literature sources are then falling behind in their turn. So, my summer is easing in for the usual scramble evening the absence of far flung foreign trips. I was to have taken off immediately from the ELDP to Bangkok and participate in a conference in Chingmai, but since I was in Norfolk when they had planned to hear from me, they did not include me in that program, for which I am just as glad. But, there are other programs for which they said they will now plan around me, which means that there will be further conflicts to steer around. And, now, I must get back to running as diligently as I had been doing before the walls closed in upon me.

FATHER’S DAY,

AS NOTED BY EVERYONE BUT MY OFFSPRING

When I got up this morning, I saw a note on my phone. I cannot send text messages, which I had learned about in Philippines, which is the world’s leading user of text messaging. So, I was unaware, since I cannot send text messages, that I could get them—and there it was: a note that said Happy Father’s Day. Could it be the first-ever notice of this day by either of my sons? No such luck, since I found the sender was none other than Virginia, the first three words I have heard since her abrupt departure over two weeks ago.

I went to church, where the big news, after that of Ted Taylor’s funeral, was that Laura had a baby boy at 4:00 AM in Boston, but with no name known as yet. Perhaps they were not expecting this event!

I waited all day to hear from either son, and finally called—no answer at the home of the new grandson, Matthew David Geelhoed, so I left a message. I had hoped to work out my trip south for the Dominican Republic and Haiti visit so as to stop over and see the new grandson. I next called Michael and Judy, both of the twins wanted to say hello, but then each clammed up near the phone. They are coming up to the area to spend a week down at the beach in Duck, NC, and Michael is flying into Norfolk for that weekend, coming to see me and the new Derwood on Monday morning the 12^th of July, then leaving from BWI the following morning. I had been waiting to hear about this timing before I set down the dates I would be traveling. So, we may have used the need for information to get the Father’s Day greeting transferred on my call.

I did call Joe, and wished him a happy day, since he was in the middle of a family gathering to celebrate the event. I will run with him on one of the days of this weekend, which I will no doubt be here, since with the trip to Thailand skipped off the schedule, the carefully planned return through Grand Rapids to celebrate the fortieth reunion of Calvin graduation is not on the books either. I will host Bill Webster at least one of the weekend days when the second to last deer head comes home to roost. The spot reserved for the biggest one, of course, will have to await the resolution of my pending suit against Charly Culbertson who seems to think that he is in the driver’s seat, having sent me a registered letter saying he will dispose of it as he sees fit within thirty days if I do not cough up his overcharge for shoddy work at an extremely long interval. So, life at Derwood, after a lot of little delays and interruptions, such as the ELDP which will require me to resume work soon, is going along on a schedule of small steps, with a very minor scale of markers of progress.

Happy Father’s Day to all others to whom this may apply!

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