High on the list of things I took for granted during my Connecticut childhood are the bridges of the Merritt Parkway. Named for Congressman Schuyler Merritt, the Parkway was constructed between 1935 and 1940 as a public works project. Its woodsy 37 miles runs through southwestern Connecticut, and, during off-peak hours, is a lovely alternative to the truck fumes of I-95. It has been featured on Letterman Top 10 lists (“Little Known Provisions in President Clinton’s Crime Bill: No speed limit on Merritt Parkway for late night talk show hosts”) and is the highway on which most 16 year old Fairfield County residents first drove 55 mph. The 70+ bridges that needed to be constructed for the Merritt were designed by architect George Dunkelburger to fulfill its scenic purpose. Historic motifs and various styles are represented in the bridge decorations. Complexity ranges from a simple “stone wall” to fancy concrete detailing. An ambitious traveler took photos of 28 of the bridges. The Parkway has inspired a conservation effort.

There is one rather reviled bridge along the Merritt route. The “Sikorsky Bridge” forms one end of the Merritt, connecting it up to the Wilbur Cross Parkway, over the Housatonic River. Named, informally, after nearby Sikorsky Helicopters, visible to the north, the bridge has an open steel-grid deck. What it lacks in aesthetics it does not make up for in user friendliness. Driving across the open grid gives me the same feeling I get when I can’t get an amusement park bumper car to go where I want it to. It’s as if my tires are as scared as I would be if I were walking across the see-through grate, with the river waters clearly visible far below. However, the wheel trembling will be a mere memory soon. The bridge is being replaced and the new structure will have a solid deck of concrete and asphalt.

“Deaccession” is the term used when a museum removes a piece from its collection. I ran across a Yahoo photo of a Degas pastel, “Danseuse”, scheduled to be auctioned by Sotheby’s this week, and discovered that it is being sold by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A tiny flurry of news articles immediately followed the MFA’s announcement in March that it would be selling “Danseuse,” plus another Degas work and a Renoir portrait. The proceeds were destined for the acquisition of a major work, the identity of which the museum refused to divulge, calling it only a “masterpiece”. Journalists pressed their sources and the latest news, unconfirmed of course, reports that the MFA is raising money to purchase an 1876 Degas painting titled ”The Duchessa di Montejasi with Her Daughters Elena and Camilla.” Estimated price is $20 million. Proceeds from the auction of the three works is estimated at $17 million. Some may quibble over the loss of the lovely Degas pastel, but with a $425 million building-expansion campaign under way, not to mention a plodding economy, the museum isn’t expecting donors to furnish very high ticket art. There are fewer masterpieces left in private hands, and the MFA is pursuing a rare chance to pluck one out for public view.

Yuk or yum? I have been fighting snails continuously since I planted some basil last year. Snails love basil. After unsatisfactory investigations into beer traps, copper barriers, and midnight hand-picking, I had settled on iron phosphate bait. Then one morning I saw birds merrily breakfasting on the tasty snail bait. I’ve just about given up on fresh pesto this year. Culinary cravings brought the brown garden snail to California in the first place. The gardener’s hated Helix aspersa is one and the same as the gourmet’s escargot. They were imported for food in the 1850s, but never quite caught on here as they did in France. Freed from their culinary prison, the snails proliferated amongst the gourmet California vegetation. You can catch and eat them if you’d like. The ones around our garden at least are already well-seasoned with basil.

CLACKITY CLACK CLACK! Do you miss the old IBM keyboards that gave your fingers a workout? The ones that actually hurt if you dropped them on your toe because they were made of metal? You can still buy those old workhorses from the original manufacturer. Old ones can be sent in for repair at a reasonable $30. And if you want the quality without the accompanying CLACKITY CLACK, they also have “enhanced quiet touch” models. (via Gizmodo & MSNBC article)

With Aaron Sorkin leaving “The West Wing”, no forthcoming Region 1 DVDs of old episodes, Bravo (reruns Q3 2003) sadly missing from our current cable subscription, and all 45 “Sports Night” episodes pretty much memorized, there’s no wonder my mind is pondering what the next Sorkin project will be.

Annie Lennox returns to the solo scene with a new album, titled “Bare,” which will be released in June. Short clips are available on her official website. Owners of her previous solo album, “Medusa,” can hear three selections. The process asks for a bit of personal information and then requests that you place your “Medusa” CD into your computer’s CD drive for verification. Lennox is currently on tour and her show in San Francisco was reviewed very favorably.

Photo Friday
Today I get away from words and go for the visuals. I’ve picked out 13 favorite photos from the past couple years and put them into a gallery. I haven’t yet learned about post-processing digital photos to clean and brighten them up, and I do almost no cropping as I spend a lot of time framing my shots. So these are the raw images, reduced for web consumption. Enjoy the photos.

The way the band and connector on this USB watch fit together is wonderful. Company morale officers take note: “The dial can be imprinted with logos and trademarks.” (via gizmodo)

Food service distributor Sysco, undisputed king of restaurant supply, may have strong competition coming in the years ahead. The NY Times notes that Walmart may expand their subsidiary McLane Foodservice beyond its current fast food customer base. A battle between two companies famous for “unsentimental business tactics” whose survival depends on logistics management could provide much fodder for a business school case study.

Useful and neat! “ShapeTape is a fiber optic based 3D bend and twist sensor, that knows where it is continuously along its length, providing accurate position and orientation information, even when in partial or variable contact with an object or person.” The product fuels creative ideas for new methods of human-driven computer input. When used with a foot pedal, special software helps users create 2-D and 3-D shapes in drawing software. (via nooface)