Almost Never told Vietnam story

In 1967 I had signed up for an extra year beyond my Army 2 year draft notice time in an attempt to stay out of the infantry. Against the backdrop of my high school friend Gary Scott being killed as an infantry officer timed with my going in, I nixed my OCS path that would have made me his replacement, most likely, and got into supply instead. I should have joined the band, but I didn't think of it. This actually turned out to be a good move, since even though I was in Vietnam by January of '68, "Tet", I ended up in "Automated Supply", a computer services operation in a relatively safe area in Vietnam, if there was such a thing. We tracked, stocked and ordered replacement parts for all of the helicopters in the country. Some of the operation was classified secret, and everything was top priority. Several times had to urgently have a special delivery of a needed tail rotor or something from St.Louis with nothing else on the flight but that one part! Our Army suply unit was in a compound called "Tent City B" just outside the Ton-Sun-Nhut Air Force base, the busiest airport in the world at the time, and we were not too far from the place that Westmoreland stayed. Due to the IBM 360-40 mainframe computer in the building (today's desktop computers are more powerful), we enjoyed air conditioning and secretaries and fairly lax controls, by army standards at the time. After our day "at the office" we walked or jeeped a half mile to the barracks, where we had bunks and lockers and mama-sans to shine boots, wash and iron , clean up during the day. We were in a relatively safe area. There were the occasional snipings on the edge of the base, grenades being found with pulled pins in the back of trucks passing through crowds outside of town, mortar rounds hitting in our near area, the closest to me was when one VC 120mm mortar fried a helicopter not 100 yards from where I slept, and other hazards of living in the midst of a war zone, but by and large we were relatively safe. I mean especially compared to the vast majority of army people who were scattered out in remote places of the country, and carried guns and were more exposed to danger all the time. I can tell stories of notable other exceptions, but we were even relatively safe when we pulled rotating guard duty all night long every few weeks. This guard duty is my story for today.

Tent City B, with its chain link and barbed wire exterior would have nestled right up into a residential suburban saigon area except for a buffer zone of about 100 yards or more that was sort of rolling grassy area like the edge of a golf course or something. These residential areas beyond the fence had low shacky houses with adobe looking walls, wooden boxy houses with long sloping roofs, multi family it looked like, or at least many people disappeared into the houses . During the day you could see people scurrying around, men in their dull clothing and women in those silky pajama-like things and the conical architypical hats, and the sad eyed kids by the scores. These residential areas near cities were supposedly friendly south vietnamese population, but there was no way to know if they were infiltrated with VC or sympathisers as well. As I learned about half way into my stint there, the south vietnamese that we were there fighting for weren't uniformly happy about us either. A light bulb went off for me when a local girl who keypunched for us told me that she couldn't even ever tell her neighbors that she worked for the Americans on the base, so she told them she worked for the South Vietnamese officials. If they knew, she would be scorned.

Anyway, we clerks and computer nerds and others in our operation had to pull armed guard duty in this buffer zone every night just to keep an eye out and be there I guess in case we were needed. The way the rotation worked, I think I had to do this every three weeks, but I can't recall. Did I mention we were not seasoned soldiers? Sgt Bilko would have recognized us. We were issued grenade launchers, flares, rifles, live ammo, and those big machine guns on tripods for the end bunkers, but we had had minimal training on any of these things. I had an M16 the first night I was out there. We would form up and string out along a line next to the base perimiter out on the grass, and in bunkers and foxholes that were already there. You went out there about dark, and stayed awake until morning. Nobody really told you what you were supposed to do, or under what conditions you would use the guns or whatever. It was a really strange setup. I'm sure there was a chain of command to higher authority if something really started happening, but we felt like we were on our own. I was one of the higher ranking, since I had made seargant by being able to read 80x80 computer cards efficiently.

Well this one night I had opted for a flare instead of a rifle, and secretly had decided I was going to shoot it off, if I could figure out how it worked. I noticed that they didn't account for these very precicely like the guns and ammo, and they were expendable. I figured If somebody asked, I would say we heard something out there and wanted to light it up to see what it was.

It was in a canister tube thing about two feet long and 3 inches in diameter. The way it worked is that you took a cap off of one end and put it on the other end. That cap had a firing pin in it, and striking it would fire a flare out of the tube. I had seen these flares used at a distance, and they were really bright. A phosphorous ball or something shot out and up and spread light like an umbrella over a big area. This would be good to light up a target for helicopter fire, or investigate movements, or whatever. I was nervous for a couple of hours thinking about trying one out. Here's a sketch of how the cap fit on the other end and was rapped to shoot off the flare. Also, I wan't sure how to aim it. Since I was sitting down, I figured a safe way to do it was to pound it on the ground in front of me, to have control of it as it shot upward, like this:
___.___________

Well, that's not the way it happened! As I struck the ground in front of me, I couldn't keep the the bottom from sliding towards me, and the business end of the flare aimed straight out like a howitzer!
______

The phosphorous ball, instead of shooting aloft, streaked forward about 1 foot off the ground, whoooosshshshsh and struck like a fireball right through the wires and slam into the wall of some poor local person's house about a football field away from us! All heck broke loose.
Men and women came out with blankets and buckets and put it out with much hubbub. Luckily nobody was hurt as far as we could tell, bravely cowering in the bottom of the foxholes hoping that they wouldn't shoot back.

My version of the High Point story

When I was in first grade, (1951?) Dad moved the family from Eggertsville (Buffalo NY) to North Carolina. He had been personnel manager hiring people for a new Sylvania plant there, and apparently when the hiring was done, we moved back up north to LeRoy NY, and he similarly opened the Sylvania plant in Batavia. Here is a googleshot of our house we lived in then, 708 Montilieu Ave. High Point NC: The view is looking south. I am a little confused about which house is which, but I'll figure it out. Below is sort of a brain dump of my memories from that short time being a young tarheel.



Upper left is the woods I started on fire playing with matches. The Ray Street School, which Merry and I went to was torn down years ago, but was about a mile to the right here. I found the vacant lot for that school when Martha and I went back there. I also found Armstrong Park, where I remember catching crawfish and learning to make boondoggle lanyards in the summer at sort of a day camp.

I think I remember sitting in the living room watching TV with ads for Lucks Pinto Beans and Orville the Orkin Man, and probably the Howdy Doody show.
I remember the "Why you shouldn't drink water" animated lamp stashed in the upstairs closet.
I remember there was a Mulberry tree right beside the garage that we climbed to get on the roof.
I remember setting rat traps in the back yard and prying the rats out. Is that possible? I was in first grade.
I remember in school the teacher made some kind of jelly trays as some part of preparing masters for the mimeograph machine. It seems like I can smell it now.
I remember going out from the classroom to take the chalk whitened erasers from the big black blackboards that lined the room and pound them on the grate that covered the window wells beside the playground. I think it was a reward, not a duty to do this.
I remember a little one-roomed red school house in the back of the school, which had been the previous school, and it was still used for something.
I remember being teased by two kids at school for chewing on my pencil, and got a bucky beaver nickname.
I remember the plastic tokens they used for lunches in the cafeteria smelled like throw up to me. (or was that later?)
I remember that we knew of a family that lived nearby that the kids supposedly ate soap sometimes.
I remember that we had a black cat named Yose-mite who we left behind by mistake at a fair far away and she found her way home by herself.
I remember a few times Dad drove us out in the country to a fish fry restaurant and we had hush puppies.
I remember Dad bringing a movie projector and screen home from work and us sitting in the dark living room watching a travelogue type movie about a car trip through the south, including the blue ridge mountains.
I remember I was allowed to go by myself by bus downtown to the YMCA for some sort of swimming or sport of some kind. Is this possible?
I remember too well being bit on the lips by the neighbor Mrs. Johnson's collie. I had tried to chase it down with a rope, and it got me in the struggle. I remember crying and thrashing as the doctor and my parents tried to make me lie still for them to sew my lip. I felt guilty years later about that, because from time to time I felt self conscious about that scar, and realized I had probably made it worse by resisting.
I remember Dad and Mom hired a Mayflower Moving Van to move us to our next home on Summit St. in LeRoy, and the driver was Mr. Sullivan, who according to legend was very good to us. Some things were packed in cardboard barrels that had metal clamped hoops holding the tops on.
I remember these things, but what did I have for lunch yesterday? Not a clue.

Pet Peeves

Plastic Baseball cap brims?
I don't like the way they make baseball caps now with that stupid plastic in the brim. Any boomer kid can tell you that the idea of wearing your cap (of course not backwards) is to wear it in and get the curve of the brim and the peak of the front just right. Sort of like breaking in a baseball glove. The problem with the plastic brims is they are too curved for one thing, and you can't change the shape. No personality.

You would fit the cap to your head, and each time you take it off or adjust it, you give it a little curving, a little bending, and you work on it from time to time when you are just fiddling. The cardboard in there had a memory. If it wasn't shaping up, you could get it wet and let it dry with some newspaper stuck in it to help block it.

The sad thing is that I worry about this, but almost never wear a cap.

========================

Centigrade vs Celcius??
When I was a kid, you had farenheight and centigrade scales on thermometers. If push came to shove, I think we might have known that celsius was another name for centigrade, but the media and everybody today has forgotten about centigrade and switched to celsius. Who did this and why? And why didn't they ask me?

I bet Mrs.Fortmiller, my H.S. math teacher would not believe that I still can on paper convert back and forth. Tc=(5/9)*[(Tf-32)] . . . . .Tf=[(9/5)*Tc] +32


=======================

And when did they start calling the planet Ur a'nis Ur' uhn is? It seems to me it was because people didn't like the snickers when they mentioned the rings around Uranis. Understandable, but we shouldn't let the jokesters force us to change our whole language.

=======================

While I am on words, how about "Pointsettia?" In the old days we knew that there was an "i" in there when you spelled it, like for spelling bees, but the i was silent! As I remember it, everyone said "point-set-a" without fear of mispronouncing it. Then the ignorants took over and in a mistaken effort to look smart, started pronouncing the "i" to prove they were literate. Enough people were embarassed to pronounce it the old way, so the "i"s took over.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Update: Oh, yeah, Leah reminds me that "There's no point in poinsettia" Ummm, Should I use my bad memory excuse or my ignorance excuse? Umm . . . let's see.

Japanese theme computer

There is a kind of one-upsmanship among some young (at heart) techies to modify computer cases to wild themes, many times involving neon lights and all that. Here is one that goes a more artsy direction.

Opportunity knocks?

I got two funny telephone marketing calls today on my second line. They did have a valid referral from a company I know, and I had foolishly put that second line number on a registration form one time, and they were calling me by the fake name I had used. So I didn't blow them away but cautiously let them start the pitch, partially for curiosity.

The first one said they had a really interesting moneymaking opportunity (which I do need) and they didn't sound too pushy, and asked me if I wanted to listen to the details. I said yes, as long as it wasn't some crazy Amway type thing where they never tell you what it is they are selling, just that you can make tons of money to buy a yacht and isn't that great. By the time I was through that sentence I was laughing because they had hung up.

The second one was offering an "Online Pharmacy" of my own.
Pitch girl: You do know that millions of people are looking for alternative sources for pharmaceuticals, don't you? --yadda yadda-- You do have a major credit card and would be willing to invest around $300 in a business of your own wouldn't you?
Me: No, I'm not so sure about that.
Pitch girl: "-click-"

Gordon E. Miller

I've been meaning to put up something about my Grandfather, my mom's dad, who gave me my "G". He died when I was a kindergartner, (b1877, d1952) but I have vague memory of him digging deep in his suit pockets for goodies, and even a fuzzier memory of him carving an acorn pipe and a willow whistle for me in a park in Mercer, but this may be from stories from mom. We have that old wire recording of his voice singing a Canadian Indian song, for he came from Washago, Ontario.

He was an artistic man, and at this time court stenographer at the courthouse in Mercer Pennsylvania, the county seat, which seemed to be quite a distinguished position. I looked up an old map of the area and it is remarkable to see that all the roads went out from Mercer like the spokes of a wheel to all corners of the county.

We have some interesting art work that he drew in 1913 when he apparently attended "The Stevenson Art School at Wood Dr. and Third Ave." in Pittsburgh. He liked to draw little ant-like figures along with witty comments. Here is "Sharps and Flats"



Here is the front and back of what you might call a courting postcard to (my Grandmother) Miss Eleanor Kohler with a cartoon about Smith's dress shop. No date on it.



Next, check this newspaper clipping from 1937 of a notable murder trial with a court scene showing Gordon seated in front of the Judge.

________^^^____(click for large original)

MS stupidity

Although Microsoft has done better in recent offerings, they still just can't help itself in its dumb and condescending comments and error messages. For one thing, they always sound as if the computer is actually talking to me. Or blaming me! Stop it!

This error message is more like a therapy session!
No, you bozo, I didn't forget. The keyboard repeated, or I hit two keys at once, or whatever.


When you request a receipt for an email, and it comes back to you, microsoft Outlook Express feels the need to put this message on it:

This is a Return Receipt for the mail that you sent to xyz@abc.com

Note: This Return Receipt only acknowledges that the message was displayed on the recipient's computer. There is no guarantee that the recipient has read or understood the message contents.

Duuh? I thought it was guaranteed that the recipient has read every word and understood it. (?) I get replies to emails that prove some recipients don't understand a word I wrote.

Stormy weather memories

Memories come various forms. We tend to think of visual things as memories, but the sounds, smells, and environmental combinations of senses have made their marks on us as well. One such memory of mine goes back to one night in 1964. There was an exceptional spring storm in Pennsylvania. I recall precisely where I was and how I felt. I'm sure I could go back in the records and find the very date of that storm in the record books, since it produced floods and local damage. It was quite an event.

For me it was more than the dark and stormy night referred to in the cheap novels and in the writings of Snoopy. I was overwhelmed.

The rain was driving but not steady, sort of in sheets or dumps like some giant bucket was distributing water from above, thrown in arcs by and unseen giant, spreading it around. The sky was dark and the low clouds were transparently illuminated in puffs of light every time the lightning flashed. There was a magical quality to it all.

The huge leafy trees swayed and howled, seemingly choreographed by the forces to sway in an irregular rhythm. The wind tunnel effect and the downpour made whooshing sounds, accented by thunder. For some reason I felt exhilarated, on edge, maybe on an adrenalin natural high.

I was looking forward to the adventure of going out in this bluster, but I hesitated to drink it all in. The diagonal rain that was already hitting me was not uncomfortable at all, since the rain and air were quite warm. I stood there unable to move.

The wind! A integral part of this sensory memory was the swirling and forceful wind that accompanied the rain. The power and motion of it grabbed me, became a part of me. I remember savoring the pleasure of the moment, almost as if to predict that it would be something I would remember forty years later.

I have that emotional memory of standing, poised in that doorway. I was cocked as if ready to burst out of the starting blocks for a 100 yard dash, anticipating the thrill of the wind and rain. The sounds, wind, rain, fresh smell of ozone, the spooky but overpowering sensation was exciting. I never since have had that same wild and thrilling feeling, right to my very core, but a glimpse of it comes back to me as a memory in some storms today. When the winds whip up and things get wild, it gets my attention.

Understandable history experience

This is a wonderful resource for historical American graphics, sounds, politcal images,
maps and charts, all kinds of sensory riches, all in date categories. I have to show a few
favorites from The Authentic History Center web site:

I actually have this "K-K-K-Katy" sheet music cover.

This navy poster may show the role of women
has changed, but at least they weren't ashamed
to use the subjunctive.





And good ol' Charles Atlas
inspiring the 90 pound
weaklings.

Eight Inch Floppy

This might be a cheesy post, but I just ran across an old 8" Floppy in my file cabinet, qualifying for the dead media award of the week. You can see from the holes that I stick-pinned it to a couple of bulletin boards along the way, but it once had data on it as I recall. Which machine, what format, what language, is lost to the ages. Notice the hole in the lower left, which was usually covered with tape for write enable. Later (but also dead?) 3.5 floppies reversed that, and closed the hole for protect. Also notice the index hole to the right of the spindle hole that was to keep track of the hard sector boundaries. Double sided, double density! Probably held ~200-300K?

Scientific Facts

NASA's images from space are always amazing, for instance this crystal clear one from the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn. It looks like you can reach right out and grab this moon. The whole scene sort of looks like it could be a work of art thrown on a potter's wheel from clay, the moon spattered with fliks for dramatic effect.
NASA link

BUT have I mentioned I get more questioning as I get older? This wonderful Hubbel image of "Ring Galaxy AM 0644-741" below, is equally great, and I love to see the images, but I question the confident, settled and conclusive attitude of the descriptions of this kind of thing by the astronomers who write the copy.

Not to disparage the scientists, but the explanation is as if they are describing a ham sandwich, it is so certain. Oh, yes, this is 300 MILLION LIGHT YEARS AWAY, and is not even seen with visible light, and we have to reconsruct the data, but we are sure of everything. They casually state that these rings form in the collision of two galaxies, and USUALLY when this happens, the stars don't collide, and Rarely this and that yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, Right! Like they have seen many of these things occur in real time (millions of light years), and these are established scientific facts.

Excuse me, this is all very smart and logical scientific THEORY, not fact.

And the anthropologist knows the shape of an ancient man's flesh from two or three petrified skull fragments, and some leg bones, too. I've seen the sketches, so they must be true.
NASA link

Ancient Music Videos

Here are two memory lane type videos from the world of music. Don't like
external links, but these work better this way, linking over to "zippyvideos".

The first is a Beach Boys thing. Interesting to hear the music, which hasn't
aged at all, but see the faces of these young kids, including Brian Wilson, who looks
so incredibly young. (I want in the comments, the story of my brother John who is rumored to have mixed for them back then. )

The other is Karen Carpenter on the Ed Sulivan show, 1970. Who could not be just bowled over at the first sounds coming out of her mouth? Just breathtaking. You would expect a rich sound like that coming from a Mama Cass size frame person, but how did she do it, especially with her illness which made her even lighter.

Google the new MS?

Headline: (hat tip to scott)
Digital Media Asia: News - NASA, Google to collaborate on 'entrepreneurial space industry'

All these marvelous, surprising and enthusiastic things that Google keeps getting into, and the hundreds of things you assume they are doing behind the scenes in their "labs" as we speak makes me keep thinking about the difference. The contrast between their actions and Microsoft's way of doing things, years ago, and even now.

For example Microsoft often bought out other companies not to have the new idea and do something exciting, but sometimnes in a defensive way, to put a competitor out of business so they wouldn't stop MS and their ho-hum ordinary stuff from succeeding. Suing rivals to slow them down, doing anything to prevail.

Google bursts out with a whole different attitude, like acquiring Keyhole to introduce Google Earth. They knew they could do something great with it, and they did. Microsoft always was predatory, never appreciating the third party software and even hardware (I mean, what was MS, a software company doing making mice or emulator boards for Apple II?) that helped them become the monopoly that they thought they had to be to keep from failing.

Instead, Google seems to have the crazy idea that if they do great, interesting and useful things, people will like that, and that will drive success. I certainly hope they prove that that is the better way to go about things.

Silver Clef Music

One new music publisher, Silver Clef Music, really is out in front, and I hope they are successful. They specialize in sheet music for school, community, and church groups - particularly bands, choirs, and orchestras, and for solos and ensembles of musicians from those types of groups. David Miller started this publisher of printed and digital sheet music to be part of the solution and the vanguard of the future, rather than part of the past.

Copyright laws at the heart, really leave reproduction rights and restrictions up to the owners and the publishers of music as to what is and is not permitted. Traditionally if you copy a piece in any way, xerox, hand copy, transcription, digital, you were in copyright violation because the publisher prohibited it. In practice, people violate this too much, and with the 21st century, it is harder for these copyright laws to be followed. Silver Cleff gives more practical and modern permission while still holding copyright and hopefully getting fair compensation for the sets they sell. Here is their short description:

We offer copyright permissions unique to the instrumental music world . . . . When you purchase music from Silver Clef, you also get the right to make as many copies as you need for the instrumentation or voicing of your group. If you have 32 horn players, just print 32 horn parts. If someone loses their music, or marks it up in ink, just print more. No problem.

The only thing you're not allowed to do is to give (sell, lend, transport, telepathically deliver) it to another group. Let them buy their own copy. But you'll never have a lost part again. You'll never have to forgo playing a wonderful Silver Clef arrangement because all the trombone parts are missing, or because all the viola parts have crumbled to dust.

Hopefully other publishers will follow this lead as we go further into the digital age. It is so practical and wonderful to have a .pdf file containing all the perfectly done parts for each instrument, or voice, and print it out when you need it without feeling like you are doing something wrong. Or in the future, maybe those parts will appear on a networked digital screen stand rather than being printed at all.

Just one more wonderful thing that Silver Clef is doing. They have started "Project Sousa", the "Project Gutenburg" for the music world, making whole arrangements of public domain pieces available to the public at no charge. The first music they completed were John Philip Sousa's own band pieces and marches. FREE! All in pdf! Amazing.

Future thin client computers?

I start this thread saying that desktop computers have evolved so they are too complex for their own good. Windows has tried to be all things and add multimedia, support for all sorts of content and hairy programs, making it vulnerable to viruses and other inherent problems just because it is trying to do so many complex things seamlessly, connected to the internet pipeline, subject to any kind of input.

In a nutshell, if you really try to DO something with the computer, it slows down, crashes, stops working the way it used to, and is a royal pain. Even power users have probably unacceptable levels of updates, repairs, re-boots, reformats, and typical users don't want to, don't have the time, or can't cope with the daily problems that seem to pop up. Time and expense.

The solution may not be yet another version of Windows, or OSX, or whatever.

The industry newsletters reported this Microsoft insider story:

Jim Allchin, a senior Microsoft Corp. executive, walked into Bill Gates's office here one day in July last year to deliver a bombshell about the next generation of Microsoft Windows.

"It's not going to work," Mr. Allchin says he told the Microsoft chairman. The new version, code-named Longhorn, was so complex its writers would never be able to make it run properly.

Well maybe they got beyond that, maybe they didn't, but are you betting that Longhorn, now called "Vista" will be the solution?

What is the possible solution? "Thin Clients"

In the 90's Citrix invented a system which takes all of the hassle of maintaining a PC away! A central server has all the goodies. Many clients simultaneously log on remotely from terminals, and use it as if it were there own. Slower computers and networks slowed acceptance back then, but Microsoft at first licensed the software from Citrix, then tried to steal the idea, but were stopped by a lawsuit, which lead to "Terminal Services" that Microsoft provides, but pays Citrix for the code. I know this because I knew someone who worked for Citrix in those days and told me about it. Microsoft was predatory, according to him.

I use my laptop that way. It's older, but not ancient, and I couldn't and didn't want to replicate all the programs on my main PC. So I set up just the bare bones, and wirelessly connect by Terminal Services to my main computer in the cellar, which acts as a sort of server. All that is transmitted is the keyboard and the screen ( thin client). It is so fast and responsive that I can hardly tell I am not on the other machine. Some video and sound is not perfect, but would be with even faster connections.

All my settings, updates, software, bookmarks, text files reminders are there, because actually I am there electronically.

Well imagine your PC just connected to the internet with who cares what minimum client operating system, pay a monthly fee to be connected to a server. It has all the programs you want. You don't have to worry about slowdowns, updates, viruses, conflicts, just use the computer. Of course some registry of settings would be stored for your individual setup, but that might not even be local.

If you have used a "Blackberry" or cell phone or such device to get on the internet, you get the idea. Just put that on a big screen with a keyboard, and there you have it. No license of windows necessary (sorry, Bill). No need to troubleshoot or wrestle with technical troubles. That burden is shifted to a server somewhere, where hundreds of clients can log in simultaneously as if it were their own personal setup.

Kitchen low-tech

This seems so trivial, but Martha Stewart is out, so I will do it in her honor.
It has been a while since I went into one of those kitchen gadget specialty shops, but we used to laugh because no matter how complete, they never had the three things I thought were the best things in our kitchen. "Oh, we at Kitchens R Us have, or can get anything.", they say, but I get the last laugh because they don't ever have them. These were made by somebody once, because we have 'em, but they must have lost the molds, because you never see them for sale.
1. The best ladel ever made made. Not available now.

Not to go too crazy here, but the flat edge is great to scrape the last of the soup or whatever out. The pan is flat. Why do they make ladles all rounded and oval shape?
2. A simple plastic ring transforms any common plastic waste basket into a better functioning and trim holder for a liner or a paper bag.


3. The third one I don't have a picture of because I wore out both of these I used to have. It was made out of very flexible plastic or nylon, and was about the length and shape of a big 12" carving knife. Sort of a long thin spatula. I used it to make scrambled eggs or an omlette in a frying pan. The flexible blade would bend under and scrape the sides and the bottom at the same time. Can't describe it any better, but it beat anything else.

Chinese Inflatable Spam

I almost deleted it, but somehow it had a curious look to it, so I clicked an unsolicited email from a Chinese company which sells huge custom made inflated plastic "toys".

"We manufacture high quality and good price inflatable products in any size or style, please browse the inflatable products sorts."

Bouncers______Castles_________ Sports __________ Slides_______ Fun City


This, unlike 99.999% of spam, was an interesting ad, from an honest company with a Real Product , They gave their real location, and legitimate contacts, opt out click, etc.. In short, if all our unsolicited mail were like this, we could tolerate it! I mean how long are we, as smart mail consumers, going to put up with these fake mortgage, drug ads, scams, not to mention the viruses, that we have to find ways to filter out?

But spam discussion aside, I love these things and the company ad with its pretty-good English. Althought they never mention the prices, which they quote when you inquire, I bet they range form 200$ up. The shipping alone is estimated at ~$250 if you only order one. They come with electric fan blowers that keep them up, and a repair kit. I don't mean to sound like an infomercial, but they are interesting! (Just think of Richie Rich's birthday party) Some of them are huge - 30 feet high - and complex. You've probably seen them as grand opening displays, on top of shopping centers for promotions, etc., but they have hundreds of them, and will custom make one to your design if you want!

Internet vs Katrina

My internet hosting company, DirectNIC had an intereting challenge last week. You can see from my sitemeter graphs here that there was a bite out of page views mainly on friday and saturday. DirectNIC offices and servers are in an office building in New Orleans. One of the owners has had media attention with his blog during the hurricane and aftermath. He put out pictures and stories from the streets when others were escaping to high ground. When the power went out, the city shut down, support service companies left, and everyone advised them to throw in the chips, they stuck it out and with luck and hard work, never lost connectivity, even though they admitedly had problems and loss of some activities. They ran on deisel back up generators, as did the company next door who supplied the OC3 line to the internet. They waited for resupply of fuel that was promised, but not delivered on time, they kept tech support up for existing customers, and this is not a trivial thing, since they are one of the major internet hosting companies in the country.

Interestingly enough, my web sites were available at first when the hurricane went through, but finally went out on fridayand saturday, but bounced back quickly. I was impressed that they sent me a quick response to my email and let me know what was happening.

Here was an entry in the "Interdictor" blog yesterday:

The city really does look like a ghost town. It's so bizarre to see streets which are normally highly trafficed having such a limited flow of vehicles. And at night it's weird to see all these high rises with no light coming from the buildings. No street lights, no traffic lights, the clock on the Whitney Bank building on Poydras and Camp -- a widely recognized feature -- is stopped. The debris is still everywhere. Cars abandoned all over the place. Abandoned and trashed. And the quiet. Aside from the occasional vehicle, this place has no sound. Every piece of glass that used to be a high rise window which hits the ground can be heard blocks away.

I wonder how things will be different in this city when this is all behind us.

Update: On cam, way down the street, you can see what appears to be an armed military foot patrol. First one I've seen.

Oh, yeah they have a live web cam: Web Cam

Arthur Ashe Commemorative Stamp Unveiled

Here's a story that has a few twists and turns. I have a Google news alert sent to me for three or four things. One is "Richmond, VA" since I lived there so long. Today I got a news clipping that the Bangkok Post(!) was reporting that The US Post Office was honoring Richmond VA native Arthur Ashe with a commemorative stamp.


I feel close to the Arthur Ashe story, because I followed his presence, though I don't think I ever actually saw him, in Richmond --- well maybe in a parade. I passed the tennis courts often where he had been excluded as a youngster, I followed the battles of the area snobs and worse who finally had to accept a wonderful statue to him on Monument Avenue, the great divided boulevard in the fan that was previously only lined with bronze Robert E. Lee on horseback and other Confederate heroes.

I saw his funeral pass me at work in 1993. I was standing at our counter, looking out the plate glass windows, and I happened to be talking on the phone to a supplier in California at the time, who was so interested, she had me tell her the story and describe the details as he passed.

Past Topics

I did a little cleanup on my archives. Some of the posts from 2002 were linked to storage places that don't exist anymore, and they were identified by dates rather than title, so it was russian roulette to look at old entries. The result is a title list in the left column, linking to previous posts by name.

I had forgotten about this post June 2002 that linked to some family pictures and some design pictures. Also, the snaps of the Lego display when it was in Hartford also in 2002.

template fugit

Just a little tweaking in the template for a change.

Tech support Wizard?

Tech support?
A good friend of ours said that their 20-something daughter in Florida needed help because she didn't know how to get her new printer to work with her laptop. I figured I could walk her through it on the phone (to Florida) since I have set up hundreds of printers and drivers. I was not prepared for this, though. It took about 30 minutes for 5 minute's worth of actual work.

The daughter, I will call her "Jane", is a teacher, and I figured would be somewhat savvy. NOT! I asked what the problem was, and she explained the printer was still in the sealed box, she was afraid to open it, but she thought that the "wire thing" (USB Cable) that her mother sent was the right one probably. Now at this point, I should have told her I would call back after she had it set up and connected, but I was on their phone, and wasn't going anywhere, so I gritted my teeth and grinned, and said, "First, take it out of the box and take all the packing and tape off of it." This took her many minutes with me coaching.
Jane, "What is this little cube box thing that says Ink Cartridge on it?"
Me: "It is an ink cartridge. Take the tab off it and put it in the printer."
"Where in the printer?", said Jane.
I said I had never seen the printer, so she would have to figure it out. This went on and on. . .

About 98 % of my frustrating step by step process was through, and all there was was to send a test print to see if we had succeeded, she denied me of this pleasure as well. All of a sudden she unfolds a big quick start instruction sheet and says, "Hey, this has all of this stuff on here that we have been doing!" And she starts READING IT TO ME! 1. take tape off 2. unwrap black cartridge, pull tab, etc. etc.... EEEEKKK! I had to laugh, because I had to stop her from going over this back to me, but she didn't get it. Finally, I got her to print a test page, which would have been automatic if she had read the instructions.

Then I get ten minutes of praise and nonsense from her and her mother about how smart I am for doing this , as if it were a wizard and they were mere muggles. "Oh, it was nothing", I heard myself saying, If they only knew how true that was.

Two telephone related rants

Two phone related rants: a.) Can't dial and listen. b.)Phone times out too soon.

a.) Most phones now, cell and standard have the dialpad in the body of the phone, not like the old days when you could look at the dial and listen too. This would be fine, except the phone company and corporate automated phone systems (eg. . . hit 1 for sales, 2 for customer service, etc.) still think you can do both.
So I hit 2 for customer service, for example, and not being a magician, I take the phone from my ear to do this. By the time I get it back to my ear, the message has already started on instructions for the next level, so I have to wait for the next cycle to repeat.
Or you have to enter your 10 digit id, and a digit doesn't register, but of course you don't know this until you have put the whole thing in there. Then when you finish the whole thing, you realize that if you could have listened, you would have known sooner.

b.) But the most sinister thing that has changed on the phone systems, and I swear I am right on this, is that they don't give you as much time - or enough time between digits. I first realized this when Martha's mother started slowing down a few years ago, and she couldn't dial any number out of town because it started beeping if she delayed more than a couple of micro-seconds between digits.

Even today I get so mad when I am looking up a number, and key in the area code, glance down to my listing and find the rest of the number, and before I get my attention back, it has timed out. Bah Bah bah bah The phone nazi has said "No dialing for you! Too slow!" Not an earth shaking problem, but makes phones harder to use and I know they were not this way years ago. And who is responsible for this? Ma Bell? ATT? it is a nationwide thing, it looks like, so there is nobody to complain to, nobody who would care.

emminent domain revisited

There is a chance, albeit small, that the worst supreme court decision in memory, Kelo vs. New London, affirming the forced acquisition of private property for more profitable private, not public use, could be re-heard.

Perhaps the justices will have seen the flurry of cities now emboldened to act on this, making plans to take private property for malls, golf courses and wall-marts, and have had second thoughts.

Institute for Justice: Property Rights Cases: New London, CT, Kelo

BPL

BPL technology makes sense if it turns out to be profitble to develop. Broadband over Power Lines! The wires are already there! Makes sense for rural areas, for sure. Hard to get cable or DSL out to the boonies. Turns out it is not as simple as plugging an adapter in the wall. There are distribution problems, costs of repeaters and bypasses to transformers. One architecture being tested has the final signal come in from the power pole by Wi-Fi.

It's faster than DSL and Cable, and though there is a nagging interference problem with with short wave radio signals, that could be overcome. Everybody is running tests, (IBM, ATT, Google, AOL, Yahoo, and smaller players) and there will be issues of control and distribution, but it looks like it is coming on. Broadband is really dragging its feet in getting cheap and available. I would have thought that satellites or other wireless internet would have been the next technology to get practical, but we should be used to cloudy crystal balls by now. A lite discussion of BPL here and a heavier 2004 white paper here.

Oh, by the way, I just read that AOL is going to stop its subscription service. Have to redefine themselves. But what am I going to do with the left over "free trial" discs that they sent me?

Paul Winchell

I had no knowledge of Paul Winchell's voice in Disney movies, as is being reported, but I sure remember his best friends, Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smith (or was it Smiff?). I always was a sucker for ventriloquists. You feel like a dummy yourself each time you realize you are accepting the dummy as a real character. I also read a witty statement that Jerry and Knucklehead were probably more important inventions than his artificial heart. I gotta read a bio somewhere about him. How could an entertainer/ventriloquist also be a artificial heart inventor? Bet it is a great story.


Update: I did go to the Vent Haven Museum of Ventriloquists that Leah suggested in the comments. By coincidence, their 2005 convention is going on as we speak. One thing that I got straight finally was that Edger Bergen had Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd et. al., easy to confuse with the Winchel/Mahoney/Smiff team.

RE: The inventor Winchell: from this web site:
Something of a renaissance man, Winchell was also an inventor who held 30 patents, including one for an early artificial heart he built in 1963 and then donated to the University of Utah for research. Dr. Robert Jarvik and other University of Utah researchers later became well-known for the Jarvik-7, which was implanted into patients after 1982.

Among Winchell's other inventions were an early disposable razor, a flameless cigarette lighter, an invisible garter belt and an indicator to show when frozen food had gone bad after a power outage.

Oh, NO, The Supreme Court let us down!

Justices: Homes may be 'taken' for local projects
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses - even against their will - for privately owned economic development projects.

I guess the justices did not read my plain and simple plea in my blog back in march,
They have ruled against a free country and for a communist system ignoring the rights of the ordinary citizen. It's enough to turn me into a Democrat!

So now Big Brother, 1984 can take your private property not for public use, but steal it for sombody else's gain???? !!!!!

"Mr. & Mrs. Doe, your house that you own, and have lived in for 25 years shouldn't be there, Ajax developers say they can make a fortune and a very attractive and profitable Mall there, so GET OUT NOW!"

How does this square with our consitution and our legacy?? I can't wait to read the opinion. Red Commie rats! ( I don't know why this upsets me so much!)

The Sky is Falling

I cringed at this news item:

Rescued Utah boy had hid from searchers
The 11-year-old boy lost for four days in the Utah mountains might have been found sooner had it not been for the fact that he was taught to stay away from strangers, his uncle and a sheriff told NBC News on Wednesday.

I'm sure we all have wondered if the negative aspects of teaching a generation of kids to stay away from strangers would come back to bite us. Certainly I have read that the hysteria about kids being abducted is not statistically supported. The chance of abduction has always been a miniscule risk compared to most anything. I know the emotion of a parent not wanting to have their child hurt, but ironically, I think kids are also hurt by fearing to smile or wave at people, or as in this case, be afraid to be rescued.

Kuni Watch

Just browsed on the web to notice that Japan has given almost 7 million dollars' worth of fire engines to Egypt, and of course our friend Kunihiko Makita was in the middle of it.

Amazing and gratifying that Japan is such a friendly and generous country in
the modern world.

Worn out words

I know T.V. is a time waster, and I know Seinfield is ancient history, But from time to time I think of the episode that included Jerry and his wise guy reaction to a rental car non-reservation.

Seinfeld. I made a reservation for a midsize,. . . .
Clerk: We have no midsize available at the moment.
Seinfeld: I made a reservation. Do you have my reservation?
Clerk: Yes. Unfortunately we ran out of cars.
Seinfeld: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
Clerk: I know why we have reservations.
Seinfeld: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. You know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation.
And that's really the most important part of the reservation-- the holding. Anybody can just take them.

So many words have lost their meaning Either through overuse, dishonesty, or ignorance. They need to be explained to the user like Seinfeld did: Do you really think there is a SALE when they put up a sign that says so? Everything is on sale.

There has been a "Deaf Child - Caution" sign down the street here, looks like it's been there for for twenty years. I haven't talked to anyone who remembers who the child was it was protecting. But of course nobody in the neighborhood would think to take it down, hoping it might slow the traffic. The town has forgotten it, I'm sure, and the speeding cars don't really pay any mind to it anyhow, having seen the Seinfeld episode, so it will probably be there many more useless years.

PS: Did you know you can Goooogle any TV show, including the dialog, since Big Daddy Google even looks at the closed captions and presents you even with thumbnails from a search: Go to video.google.com and search, or type something like this right into your browser: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=seinfeld no soup for you

PostSecret

Here is something a little different. Here is the site that invites all to send in a postcard with a secret on it. Cards are posted here: PostSecret: "Mail In Your Secrets Today".

It's a little hard not to be cynical and think these are fabrications, but the little pulls at truth and sadness, or utter, though anonymous confession, makes you know that even if it isn't true in this case, there are those out there with similar stories yet unrevealed.

I don't feel qualified to get all philosophical about this, but it starts cutting at the premise I always had that, though I have never been in the "In Crowd", perhaps NOBODY really has been, and everybody is on the outside looking in, at least in one way or the other. My bet is that pretty much everybody has a secret or two that should go on one of these clever or poignant post cards.

Example of one I like:

My Firefox Update

Just a post to say that I almost exclusively use Firefox now.

I love the tabbed browsing. I thought it might have been mainly because of my slower dialup access, but now that I have DSL, it hasn't changed. A browser without tabs would be a BIG step backward.

Especially when reading blogs, there are often several links I might want to go to, but if I go to them when I see them, it is a diversion, and I may never get back to the original or finish the current thought. Instead, I right click on each link, sending it to a new tab, and they are ready, loaded and available when I am ready to jump.

As far as the RSS, I have tried quite a few aggregators, and felt that it was the way to go, because you can scan all the headers for you selected sites and go to those that interest you without wasting time loading up each site. Firefox has made this the EASIEST yet with "live bookmarks" I put my favorites in a pull down menu in the top bar, and can peek at these, and since they are dynamic, I can always see the latest things.

Because of the open source, the programmers have been having fun adding little extension and add-ons that keep improving the environment, like the googlebar lite, with all of the goodies except page rank.

When I go to Microsoft's own site it's best to use IE, apparently because they use a lot of 'Active X' that is not supported in Firefox for security reasons.

Art in the 3rd dimension.

Brother Nardo sent me this link to the site of an unlikely and previously unfamiliar (to me) Dutch artist by the name of Rinus Roelofs.

Did I say WOooooaaaahhhwooohoogahgahgahgahbubububububyeeeeeehaaa yet?

I can't describe his sculpture, computer graphics, stuctures, optical brain toys all.

Hoping to be within fair use of his copyright, I will send you on your way to check it out with the image below, which is only a tiny sample of this amazing body of work.

Big Band Gig

I usually play best embedded (hiding?) in the midst of a concert band, playing a Sousa march or some overture or pops piece, but underneath, I really love the Big Band Glenn Miller or Dorsey type music. I don't have as much experience or skill at that, either, but from time to time I am asked to substitute in a local "Big Band of the 40's" for a "paid" gig where a musician can't make it. If you saw the check, you would know why I put quotes around "paid". This band is VERY good, many of the guys have been professional musicians in their younger years, or played this stuff for years. I do pretty well considering. It's so amazing to be playing these old 78rpm songs like "String of Pearls", "Sentimental Journey", "Jumpin at the Savoy". You have to keep remembering when reading the music that it "swings", for instance if you had four quarter notes in a row, they don't have the same value, the first and third grab a little more time; so you get: dah da dah da.

We played from 7 to 10pm. It was a special event for an older church group, and the people were dancing and tapping and swaying just like it was taking them back to the old days. A lot of fun for us and for them.

Wheel lugs

This is a mundane, non intellectual posting, but I get some traffic due to search engine hits on words from my archives, partially because my posts vary so much. So this qualifies as atypical, not unlike me.

Though my '91 Ford Explorer runs pretty well, it has a variety of ills, and one that nagged at me was that the lugs nuts on this era of ford were made really crappy (crapily?). For some reason they thought they would dress the little lugs up, so they pressed these silly metal caps on them for decoration. Trouble is, a few years of torque on these things and the caps split, and peel off, revealing a rusty nut underneath. And the nut that left is an odd size that doesn't fit any standard wrench. What, was I going to carry an 18mm socket and a rachet with me in case of a tire problem? Time for a picture:

You can see a "good one" on the left, a split cap, a beat up one, and the rusty nut that is left when they inevitably fail. Then the solid new replacement on the right.

I guess the real reason I started this post, other than the embarrassment Ford will feel in this blazing exposé, was that I am stuck in the old days when it comes to money. Everything surprises me. I rolled down to Auto Zone intent on replacing them all, couldn't cost too much. I was thinking five bucks for some lugs. Well they were 1.49 each: 5 lugs x 4 wheels=20 == $29.80 plus tax. Over 30 bucks! I am a relic. They do look better though.