Monthly Archives: June 2008

I’ll bet it was a heckuva ride

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Like Owen, I didn’t know a snowmobile could do that.

A 31-year-old Grafton man is angry about receiving $1,000 in fines for using his snowmobile like a Jet-Ski, speeding across the flooded Milwaukee River.

No video? Darn it.

A police incident report says Jay A. Seaver acknowledged speeding, saying he had to go about 75 mph to get across the river without sinking.

So he was really moving along.  I looked at Flickr and lo and behold .. pictures!

Channel Hopping

The combination of ‘snow mobile’ ‘open water’ and ‘crash helmet’ is a big hunk of awesome.

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Selfish, Un-Patriotic, or Pursuing a Dream?

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I don’t follow sports, so I hadn’t heard about this until a friend posted about it today on a message board.

Becky Hammon, a WNBA player for the San Antonio Silver Stars, has dreamed all her life of playing basketball in the Olympics. This year, that dream might come true. When the WNBA goes on their summer hiatus, she’ll be trying out for an Olympic spot on a national team, along with 2 other WNBA players.

Thing is, if she’s selected, she won’t be playing playing for the USA. She’ll be playing on the Russian team. Last year, when the USA Team released their list of prospects, Becky’s name wasn’t on it.

She subsequently signed a lucrative contract with club team CSKA Moscow.

Hammon has no ancestral ties to Russia, and under Russian league rules, she was eligible for a Russian passport and to become a naturalized citizen. She received her passport in March. As part of her CSKA contract, her agent Mike Cound says, she agreed to participate in the training camp for Russia’s Olympic team.

According to FIBA rules, “A national team participating in an international competition of FIBA may have only one player who has acquired the legal nationality of that country by naturalization or by any other means.” Hammon says that, barring injury, she has the lone spot all but wrapped up.

Meanwhile, J.R. Holden, a former Bucknell point guard who plays for CSKA Moscow, is expected to play for Russia’s Olympic men’s team.

Hammon has been called unpatriotic by Anne Donovan, who coaches the US team. The article I read didn’t say whether anyone has called J.R. Holden, Deanna Nolan (WNBA – Detroit) and Kelly Miller (WNBA – Phoenix) unpatriotic. If Becky’s unpatriotic, doesn’t it follow that the other 3 are, as well?

One of the folks on the message board said that Hammon was being selfish, that she should just understand that you don’t always get everything you want in life, and suck it up.

I’m curious as to what y’all think. Personally, I wouldn’t give up my citizenship for anything. But I’m ignorant about law – if Hammon is a naturalized Russian citizen, does that mean she surrendered her US citizenship?

Is she a selfish, unpatriotic person who puts her own desires above everything else, or is she a dedicated athlete relentlessly pursuing a childhood dream? Would there be such a fuss if she were playing for any country other than Russia?

Frontier Surgeon

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The practice of medicine in these United (and for the period 1861-1865, somewhat disunited) States was for most of the 19th century a pretty hit or miss proposition, both in practice and by training. That many sensible people possessed pretty extensive kits of medicines – the modern equivalents of which are administered as prescriptions or under the care of a licensed medical professional – might tend to indicate that the qualifications required to hang out a shingle and practice medicine were so sketchy as to be well within the grasp of any intelligent and well-read amateur, and that many a citizen was of the opinion that they couldn’t possibly do any worse with a D-I-Y approach. Such was the truly dreadful state of affairs generally when it came to medicine in most places and in all but the last quarter of the 19th century – they may have been better off having a go on their own at that.

Most doctors trained as apprentices to a doctor with a current practice. There were some formal schools of medicine in the United States, but their output did not exactly dazzle with brilliance. Scientific method – eh, what was that? Germ theory? A closed book. Anesthesia – a mystery. Successful surgeons possessed two basic skill sets at this time; speed and a couple of strong assistants to hold the patient down, until he was done cutting and stitching. Most of the truly skilled doctors and surgeons had their training somewhere else – like Europe.

But not in San Antonio, from 1850 on – for there was a doctor-surgeon in practice there, who ventured upon such daring medical remedies as to make him a legend. His patients traveled sometimes hundreds of miles to take advantage of his skill – Doctor Ferdinand Ludwig von Herff, soon to drop the aristocratic ‘von’ from his name, and to practice his considerable medical talents on behalf of anyone in need. For besides being supremely well-trained for the time, and exquisitely skilled – Doctor Herff was an idealist, one of those rare sorts who are prepared to live their lives in accordance with the principals they publicly espouse. He was a relation of John Muesebach’s, and came to Texas in 1847 as part of a circle of young idealists called the “Forty”, who had a plan to establish a utopian commune along the ideas espoused by social critics of the time. (Yes, there were all sorts of interesting and experimental communes sprouting like mushrooms all during the early 19th century, very few of which lasted longer than the 1960s variety)

Like the 1960s variety, most of Ferdinand Herff’s companions in the “Forty” were students of universities at Giessen or Heidelberg, or the industrial school at Darmstadt. Hermann Spiess had already toured through the United States and Texas before returing to Germany with all kinds of ambitious plans. Originally the plan was set up their community in Wisconsin, but when one Count Castell, who was an original member of the Mainzer Adelsverein heard of their intentions, he offered them funding and support if they would establish it Verein land-grant in Texas instead. The offer was accepted and in mid-summer of 1847 the “Forty” arrived in Texas, led by Herff, Spiess and Gustav Schleicher, a trained engineer who would eventually oversee building of the rail system throughout Texas. They had brought along a huge train of baggage, supplies and equipment, including seeds and grapevines, mill machinery, a small cannon, many dogs, one woman – a cook/housekeeper named Julie Herf (no relation), Doctor Herff’s complete collection of surgical impedimenta, and a good few barrels of whiskey. By late fall, they had moved all this (and a herd of cattle) to their town-site, on the north bank of the Llano River near present-day Castell. They set up tents, built a long building to use as a sort of barracks and common-room, planted crops and named their little town Bettina, after a leading star-intellectual of the day… and settled in to live their dream of communal living close to the land; think of it as Ferdinand and Hermann’s Excellent Frontier Adventure.
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Summer in Texas has arrived!!

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I got this HILARIOUS e-mail from a friend, it was too good and too funny to pass up putting it here:

Dear Diary:
June 10th:
Just moved to Texas ! Now this is a state that knows how to live!! Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. What a place! It is beautiful. I’ve finally found my home. I love it here.

June 14th:
Really heating up. Got to 100 today. Not a problem. Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I’m turning into a sun worshipper.

June 30th:
Had the backyard landscaped with western plants today. Lots of cactus and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing the lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here.

July 10th:
The temperature hasn’t been below 100 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least, it’s kind of windy though. But getting used to the heat is taking longer than I expected.

July 15th:
Fell asleep by the community pool. (Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body). Missed 3 days of work. What a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson though. Got to respect the ol’ sun in a climate like this.

July 20th:
I missed Lomita (my cat) sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got to the hot car at noon, Lomita had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag, then popped like a water balloon. The car now smells like Kibbles and $hits. I learned my lesson though. No more pets in this heat. Good ol’ Mr. Sun strikes again.

July 25th:
The wind sucks. It feels like a giant freaking blow dryer!! And it’s hot as hell. The home air-conditioner is on the fritz and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive by and tell me he needed to order parts.

July 30th:
Been sleeping outside on the patio for 3 nights now. $225,000 house and I can’t even go inside. Lomita is the lucky one. Why did I ever come here?

Aug. 4th:
It’s 115 degrees. Finally got the air-conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to 85. I hate this stupid state.

Aug. 8th:
If another wise a$$ cracks, ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I’m going to strangle him… D@mn heat. By the time I get to work, the radiator is boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like baked cat!!

Aug. 9th:
Tried to run some errands after work. Wore shorts, and when I sat on the seats in the car, I thought my a$$ was on fire. My skin melted to the seat. I lost 2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs and a$$ . . . Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried a$$, and baked cat.

Aug 10th:
The weather report might as well be a d@mn recording. Hot and sunny…Hot and sunny…Hot and sunny…It’s been too hot to do $hit for 2 d@mn months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn’t it ever rain in this d@mn state? Water rationing will be next, so my $1700 worth of cactus will just dry up and blow over. Even the cactus can’t live in this d@mn heat.

Aug.14th:
Welcome to HELL! Temperature got to 115 today. Cactus are dead. Forgot to crack the window and blew the d@mn windshield out of the car. The installer came to fix it and guess what he asked me??? ‘Hot enough for you today?’ My sister had to spend $1,500 to bail me out of jail. Freaking Texas ..What kind of a sick demented idiot would want to live here?? Will write later to let you know how the trial goes…

Meet Jezzy

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Short for Jezebel. About five inches tall at the shoulder. Eyes: muddy gray, will possibly turn green when mature. Overall color: mixed hues of black, several shades of brown, tan and pale orange. Weight: 2 lbs. Approximate age: 6 weeks. Temperament: carefree, affectionate and playful. Breed: Short haired American domestic feline. (I am guessing about the short-hair, though.)

Yes, after lamenting Meek, the adoring lap-cat with the beautiful celadon-green eyes, Blondie has acquired a kitten – or the kitten has acquired her. It’s kind of hard to tell with these things. There are those people who have “Incredible Sucker for Our Dumb Chums” written across their foreheads in invisible letters? Yes, Blondie is one of them, and the neighbors who originally provided us with Sammy (who with incredible fickleness fell madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with Blondie about three years ago) are another. A couple of weeks ago, they rescued a pair of infant felines from under the bushes at a neighborhood church, and took them both home to their menagerie of eight small and two large dogs and a number of adult cats. They found a home for one, and at a yard sale they were holding this last weekend, cunningly offered to show Blondie the other one.

Which, aside from being as endearing as kittens usually are, totally fearless with dogs, also is the spitting image of Patchie, the cat that I found as a kitten on a building site in Athens, and who accompanied us to Spain, Utah, California and Texas before succumbing at the age of 16 to complications from old age and feline diabetes. No, this was something ordained, although the other cats are probably objecting in no uncertain terms. Here is a kitten, a playful, adventurous infant being added to their staid and mature circle. Seeing that they were all neutered at an early age, and have lived indoors ever since, Jezzie is possibly the very first immature specimen of their kind that they have encountered in the last seven years.

Percival condescends to play with her, but Henry, Morgie and Arthur are all very much offended dignity. She gets a warmer and happier welcome from the dogs, oddly enough. They are both so very much larger – in the Lesser Weevil’s case, about forty times larger – that we must take care that their affections and playful urges do not put Jezzie in danger through accident. She, by the happy chance of being cared for in a household overrun with small dogs, appears to rather like dogs. She will play, pouncing on the end of Spike’s plumy tail, and will curl up between Weevil’s outstretched paws, on the floor of the den while we are watching TV of an evening. And whenever one of us picks her up – her purr-motor kicks into overdrive; all together a most endearing little catling.

Honestly, though – we are maxed out as far as the capacity for pets goes. No more. Really…

Seriously…

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I know I’ve asked this before, but I’m still curious. Can anyone explain to me how two people, willing to commit their lives to one another, willing to say, “I’m with you until the day I die.” are offensive or harmful to others?

Can you please tell me how gay people harm you or your family? I don’t understand it. If you can leave the Bible out of the conversation, I’d appreciate it. If you can’t, press on and give me your point of view. I’m seeking to understand here. I’m not getting it.

“The Greatest Scam In History”

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I still read Rachel Lucas. She found this over at Newsbusters:

John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel:

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in [sic] allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens.

Emphasis from Newsbusters…I think.

I had a long rant here but it turned into a diatribe about how we’ve had the Department of Energy for the past 31 years and how the hell do we not have cheap, efficient, clean energy by now…but it was too depressing. We put a man on the moon less than a decade after President Kennedy set that goal, but three decades after President Carter set up the Department of Energy, things are no better than they were, and in many ways they’re worse.

Tomorrow is FireFox 3.0 Download Day

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If you’re already a Firefox user, why not download it right away and help Firefox get that world record? If you’ve never used Firefox before, the worst that will happen is that you’ll kick yourself for never using it before.

Disclaimer: I get absolutely nothing out of this but the satisfaction that comes from passing on a better browser. Seriously.

Download Day
Apparently “Jun 17″ was just an estimate. I searched the Firefox site and can find the May Beta version, but still can find where to download the full version of Firefox 3.0. I’ll let you know when I do.

Journey, Revelation

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So Dashing Son-in-Law (DSIL) and Gorgeous Daughter (GD) came over for their regular Saturday afternoon/evening. This usually includes dinner and some movies, either rented through NetFlix, or from either of our extensive collections. This week, DSIL, who’s a rabid Journey fan, brought over the DVD from their latest release, Revelation. (Link takes you to the WalMart site, it’s exclusively available there.) His take on their latest singer, “You’re not going to believe the voice on this guy.”

Now I need to fill you in on my take on Journey. Back in the 70s when I went to every concert event I could go to, Journey showed up at just about every multi-artist event in Chicago. A Day in the Park? Journey was there. Summerfest at Navy Pier? Journey was there. WLUP presents…Journey was there too. You get the picture. By the end of 1978, I was so tired of Journey that I would literally start to cringe when the beginning of “Wheel in the Sky” would come on the radio. And watching Steve Perry sing during his solo career? I’m sorry, a singer shouldn’t look like they’re in pain when they’re performing (and it was a couple years later we all found out that he was). So I’ve been sort of avoiding Journey over the past 30 years or so. Okay, not avoiding, I don’t lurch to turn them off when they come on the radio, but they’re just sort of background, not band I turn up and sing loudly off-kee with. I was cynically amused when “Don’t Stop Believin’” started selling big again a couple years ago. But DSIL wanted us to see and hear the latest Steve Perry sound-alike and so we popped it into the Bose and gave it a look and listen.

Oh. My. God. First of all, I completely forgot how freaking good Neil Schon is on guitar. DSIL reminded me that he played with Santana when he was just 16. And it’s been 30 years since I’d seen them live…so I was happily reminded of his guitar riffs and bridges. It’s like Joe Perry from Aerosmith. Good on an album, much better live. I don’t know enough about the rest of the band to fill in their backgrounds, but I seem to remember that drummer Deen Castronovo had been with The Babies and keyboardist Jonathon Cain had been with Schon with Bad English and I think bassist Ross Valory has been with them all along…no, wait, Randy Jackson was the bassist at some point…but no, Valory was there at the beginning…anyway, not important. To say the band was professional and tight? Understatement. Did some of those old songs sound old and tired? Not. One. Bit. The songs sounded fresh as the day they came out.

And then, there’s that voice. Arnel Pineda looks like he might be a tenor rock star in some lounge in Vegas. He’s about five foot nuthin’ and he’s got long black hair, and he’s Philipino. Played with a band in the Philipines called “The Zoo.” Spent most of his life there, doing cover songs and some originals. His bio says he’s 40 but he’s got one of those faces that you just can’t tell how old he is. To call him a Steve Perry sound-alike is insulting. While Arnel Pineda does sound like Steve Perry, Steve Perry never had the tonal clarity that comes out of this man’s mouth. Okay, maybe not never, but none-the-less, great pipes.  He’s freakishly good and sounds like Perry before he trashed his vocal chords.
The new songs they’ve recorded with Pineda at the mike? Of course there are ballads, and they’re sweet. And there are some harder rock songs that make me think that they’re going to have some hits on the rock stations this summer as soon as the DJs get past the idea that it’s not Journey without Steve Perry.

Quite honestly, if I have a lil extra money, I’ll be buying the two CD set with the DVD this summer. If you ever liked Journey, but thought, “No Steve Perry, no way.” please think again. With Arnel Pineda handling vocals, they sound better than ever. I even made it through “Wheel in the Sky” with nary a shiver.

On Ellen via YouTube.

Summer Finale, Battlestar Gallactica

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The first half of the final season of BSG came to a close with a resounding thud.

First of all, when you’re in the middle of what should be one of the most dramatic scenes of the season, do you really want want to get all “creative” with the editing? No. It just made me go, what the hell?

Secondly, was I the only one who wasn’t practically screaming at the TV, “Duhhhh! Check the Nav Computer!!!! Don’t you people READ Scifi?”

And lastly. The final scene? Really? You pick NOW to go all Planet of the Apes?  This was your choice?

I appreciate the various homages made during this season, but come ON.

Tim Russert: RIP

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They’re saying it was a heart attack. I don’t watch the Sunday morning news shows, but I liked Tim Russert whenever I saw him. I’m sorry he’s gone.

Thoughts and prayers to his family and co-workers.

Big Brother IS Watching You

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I would have you know that google-maps and mapquest and all those other lately-developed methods of scoping out and locating a specific address is a god-send, especially for someone making a living marketing books, or in some kind out outdoor sales, or even just scratching a living doing temp-jobs here and there. How easy is it now to drive across country and locate the next gas, or rest-stop, with the aid of an add-on or built-in navigation system? How easy is it now to find the place where you have an interview or a sales call the next day, or to locate every independent bookstore in every town in Idaho or Iowa.

It was great when google-maps even added an aerial view version of their maps; you can zoom in and sort out where features are in relation to each other – and when they went even farther and generated a street-level view? Oh, fantastic! As someone with a propensity to get lost going to a place that I had never seen before – well, that would take care of that, wouldn’t it? I am a visual person, I operate by landmarks I would already know what a place looked like, before I even set out! I would recognize it when I got there! Is this technology stuff great, or what? It did occur to me that this would enable a new and higher degree of on-line snooping. How many of you could resist the temptation to check out the ex-boyfriends’ or that former spouses’ address? (“He lives there ?! OMG, Quelle dump! How could I ever have fallen for someone who lives in a tacky place like that?”) We certainly didn’t resist temptation at one of the places that I worked: we whiled away a small portion of the workday showing each other our own houses, discovered that we all lived in small, agreeably well-kept neighborhoods, in tidy bungalows of no particular distinction. None of us, on this showing, would ever have our domiciles featured in House Beautiful or Southern Living.

But I should have gone a couple of houses farther down the street, upon discovering this feature. Because, most jarringly, whoever did the street level photography in my neighborhood inadvertently captured more than just my house, my neighbors houses, and all of our cars.

They captured my daughter and I, with our dogs on leashes, standing in the driveway of mu neighbor Judy’s house; all three of us, perfectly recognizable to ourselves and our closest intimates, if fortunately just blurred enough to make us unrecognizable to a stranger. There we are, the three of us, with the smallest of the dogs clearly visible at my feet, my daughter in her gym things with the other dog half-hidden behind her. I have a sweat-jacket on, my daughter a pair of red sweatpants and a navy blue pullover – and there we stand, talking to our neighbor Judy. We were all mildly freaked to discover this; it was obviously shot months ago, for the lawns are late summer crispy-brown and there are no flowers in bloom, although most of the visible trees are in leaf. The skies are overcast, grayish with light clouds. My daughters’ new car, which she bought last year is parked in our driveway. We have coats on, so it is obviously cool – and most likely a Saturday or a Sunday morning, since those were the only days that we both went out with the dogs.

We find the creepiest part of this to be that our neighborhood is fairly small, although the street we live on does get a fair amount of traffic – and we thought surely we would have noticed someone driving along, filming through the windows. Surely we would have noticed Big Brother watching our street, especially on a Saturday.

(Cross-posted at Blogger News Network)