No Fun Allowed!

The administration at Bonny Eagle High School in Maine denied a graduating senior his diploma. What did the young hoodlum do to have such a thing happen. After all, he was in his cap and gown, attending the graduation ceremony with his classmates, and was called up on the stage to receive the diploma that culminated his achievement. What disruptive misbehavior would result in such a penalty.

He blew his mom a kiss. That's it!

The school administration says he broke the rules, so was sent back to his seat without the coveted certificate. They said that they don't want to have a repeat of the infamous silly string incident that disrupted the ceremony a while back. "Four years ago we had some issues with silly string and beach balls," said sourpuss Superintendent of Schools, Suzanne Lukas.

Bill Maher on President Obama

Bill Maher made some critical commentary on President Obama on his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher. As much as I wish I could disagree, I do not. President Obama has a rare chance to bring real reform to health care, and instead he is leaving the crooked insurance companies as part of the solution. He has the chance to reform the fraud in the banking industry, but it has become business as usual for the banking giants. The spending of tax dollars to incentivize people to trade in their gas guzzling old cars for new, more efficient models, and reinvigorate demand for new automobiles has no provision to limit the program to American-made vehicles.

I agree with Maher that this is NOT what I voted for. I have been willing to give the President the chance to get things going before being overly critical. The ridiculous right is doing a great job of that. However, there is no guarantee that his party will retain its strong majority in the Congress after the elections next year. As the old adage goes, "it's time to make hay while the sun shines". NOW is the time to enact the key components of the platform he ran on. Forget bipartisanship. As Maher points out, maybe Obama needs to get a little of Bush's attitude...my way or no way.

Mr. President, don't forget what you promised...change we can believe in. We put you in office to effect that change. If you prove to just be another overpromising and underdelivering politician, you had better enjoy your job, as you could be a one-term president. You have the goodwill of most of the country. You have proven to be the hardest working man to get the job in a long time. But working hard isn't enough. You have to remember why you are there.

Unlike loudmouth Rush Limbaugh, I and most people want to see you succeed. It's time to quit compromising away your platform, when you don't have to. Perhaps instead of getting some Bush attitude, you should channel Larry the Cable Guy and just "Git 'Er Done!"

Meteorite Boy

A 14-year-old German boy had an extremely rare event happen to him. Gerrit Blank was struck by a meteorite! The space rock was travelling at 30,000 miles per hour, and hit his hand before creating a crater in the ground a foot across.

The Telegraph reports that the boy said:

"At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder."

The young man went on . . .

"The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road."

Obviously Gerrit's scar will give him a lifelong reminder of a close encounter with the extraterrestrial rock.

Hail & High Water

Two hours ago, it was a beautiful sunny day. But all of a sudden, the sky got dark as night, sirens started going off, and marble-sized hail pelted us for about 30 minutes. I have never heard such a noise as the roof was being pounded and the wind and lightning was running rampant. It turns out that multiple funnel clouds are dropping all around us, and we are under a tornado warning.

It got so noisy and loud that Molly the Dog and I went to the basement for a few minutes during the worst of it. Here's hoping that this won't cause problems with my mother-in-law's flight in to Denver from Pittsburgh this afternoon.

I don't ever get scared of storms, but all the noise of this one did get my pulse racing a bit! I also hope the roof is okay. I suppose we shall find out.

Working on the B&O Railroad

The lovely spouse comes from a long line of railroad workers. Her father and paternal grandfather both were lifetime employees of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. As it turns out, her dad's maternal grandfather was also a railroad man.

In looking through some of the old photos we have, are a couple of pictures taken trackside along the B&O. These are in the railroad yard in Grafton, West Virginia in the late 19th or early 20th Century.

In both cases, the man on the right is the Lovely Spouse's great grandpa. I have no idea who the other man is. The B&O Railroad played an important part in the economy of the state of West Virginia, as it hauled the state's major natural resource, coal. I know railroad labor is very hard work, but if given the choice between that or working in a coal mine, I would definitely opt for the railroad.

In the second picture, the car on the left has a huge crane attached to it. Apparently it is used to load and unload the flat car to its right. It is also interesting that the flat car appears to be made of wood.

It is very interesting to look at old photos like this. It brings to life the people who came before us. We can see in their faces that although they lived in a very different time, they are not much different than we are. They worked to provide for their families, strugged to keep it all together, and although the technology of the age was not what we have today, we are not really different than they were.

It is too bad that photography is less than 200 years old. Wouldn't it be interesting to see pictures from the medival period, or perhaps from the Roman Empire or the Ming Dynasty? As usual, you may click on the photos to "biggify" them.

WTBO Sign

WTBO sign overlooking the city of Cumberland, Maryland

Hollywood has its iconic sign on a hill overlooking the town. So too, does Cumberland, Maryland. In Cumberland's instance, the sign is on the grounds of radio station WTBO. That station, as I have mentioned before, is the first commercial radio job I had back in 1973. At night, the sign's neon face sequentially lights up each letter.

I took this photo on a trip through Cumberland in 1995. Downtown is situated in the distance just out of the shot to the left. The view here is facing to the north. The tallest mountain in the distance is on the north side of town, and is named Wills Mountain, most of which is situated in the state of Pennsylvania, but which does come into Maryland at Cumberland. At the Maryland end of Wills Mountain is a pass; through the mountains where the old National Pike ran through the Appalachians. It is known as The Narrows, and the road today is US 40.

Chattanooga 1966

Here is yet another old photo I came across today. I took this with a cheap little box camera using 620 Kodacolor film. The photo has seen better days since it was damaged in a flood, but at least it is still viewable. What you see here is the view from Point Park on Lookout Mountain near Rock City. You are looking basically toward the north at the Tennessee River and the city of Chattanooga.

The freeway making the big, sweeping "S" curve along the river is Interstate 24. The interchange in the center of the picture is where US 27 peels away and heads north.

This picture was taken back in 1966, so that would make me 13 years old at the time. Hard to believe my oldest grandson is about to turn 14 this week!

Camping at Lake Livingston - 1970s Style

While shuffling through some old photographs, I found a stack from the late 1970s that brought back memories of a very fun time. My buddy, Dempsey, and I took several days off and went camping. We borrowed my dad's canvas tent (yep, a lot heavier than today's nylon tents), loaded up some pots and pans, sleeping bags, food, and fishing gear, and spent several days at Wolf Creek Park on the shores of Lake Livingston in southeast Texas near the town of Cold Spring.

The first picture is me and my fishing pole in front of the tent. The second picture is Dempsey washing the dishes. As I recall, we made some kind of a silly bet, and the loser had to wash the pots and dishes from our next meal. I cannot remember what the bet was about, but there may have been a card game involved. I decided to capture the result on film for posterity's sake.

We had a great time, fishing and hiking during the daylight hours, and sitting by the campfire, or playing cards by the light of the Coleman lantern during the evening.

The third photo is one of me, about 30 years younger than I am now. I appear to be sitting by the campfire, watching over a pot of beans or chili. In the background, you can see Lake Livingston.

I also recall that had we been dependent on our success as fishermen, Dempsey and I would have likely starved to death. If we caught any fish at all, they were way too small to feed us, so they got tossed back in the lake.

Politics and Technology

Regular readers of this blog know I am a big fan of the free Linux operating system, and open source software in general. One of the best Linux distributions out there is the Linux Mint project. It is based on the excellent Ubuntu Linux, but includes some of the niceties, such as multimedia codecs, right from the "get go".

Therefore, I was dismayed to read at Extreme Tech that one of the Mint developers, Clement Lefebvre, made a highly political post regarding the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. In it, he asked those who support the Israeli government to not use Linux Mint, nor contribute to the project. Initially, the post was made on the official Linux Mint blog, but has since been moved to Lefebvre's personal blog.

This is unfortunate, because whatever one's position on geopolitics, Linux has always been developed in the spirit of open, non-political cooperation. Also, Lefebvre is not the only developer, and should never have made such a statement.

Still, Mint is a great distro. I hope this episode doesn't cause it to fall by the wayside. Clement, you are out of line on this, and should retract the tying of Mint to your political views. You are certainly entitled to them, but despite your statements to the contrary, you did bond Mint and your politics with your statement about who should not use the product. Open source is open to all. You have erred, and erred greatly. Hopefully, you will retract this misguided statement, apologize, and put it behind you.

Tornado Outbreak!

Funnel cloud forming in the eastern edge of Centennial, Colorado

Today was a very nice day through the morning and early afternoon, but just after 2:00 P.M. this afternoon, a line of severe weather suddenly moved in. There are several confirmed tornadoes in the area. One of them was formed right outside the back of my son's house in Centennial. He took these photos as he watched the funnel descend into a full-blown tornado. While the extent of damage is yet unknown, the tornado is confirmed to have touched down about three blocks from my son's house. KUSA television is reporting that the Southlands shopping center in extreme south Aurora has been hit, which is approximately 2 miles from my son's home, and about 8 miles NNE of where I live. Southlands is near the NE corner of E-470 and Smoky Hill Road. The tornado is moving to the southeast and entering Elbert County.

There are also confirmed tornadoes north of Denver at the town of Thornton. KUSA is reporting a tractor-trailer rig on I-70 at Watkins was picked up into the air and thrown into a ditch. Hail up to the size of eggs has been reported around the area as well.


Another view of the tornado forming near E-470 & Smoky Hill Road.

Elk in Estes Park

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a couple of photos I took up in Estes Park, Colorado. NBC News had a nice story on the elk that inhabit the town and its environs. Here is the video below:

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The Defendant Did Not Speak in His Own Defense

There is a sad, but odd story out of Queens, New York this week. The New York Daily News reports that while the body of a 59-year-old man sat dead in his van, the city continued to place parking tickets on the vehicle over a period of several weeks.

The daughter of the deceased is asking how this could happen. That seems like a reasonable question to me. The window was slightly open, so you would think that a decomposing corpse would have drawn some olfactory attention. The body was so far gone that the only thing left was skeletal remains and the heart.

The photo is not the actual vehicle in this incident, but is here for illustrative purposes only.