Old Plymouth

I love old cars. Especially the cars from the 1940s through the 1960s. I guess that is one reason I would like to visit Cuba; all the old U.S. cars that are still running all over that island.

Here is one I happened upon a while back, sitting for sale in Franktown, Colorado. It is an old Plymouth Belvedere from the 1951 model year I think. This car was for sale, and didn't seem to be in bad condition, and could be beautifully restored.

I don't have either the resources or the know-how to undertake such a project, but can certainly appreciate this fine old car. With Plymouth having joined the ranks of nameplates such as Studebaker, Nash, Rambler, DeSoto, Hudson, and Oldsmobile in the dustbin of automotive history, this car is all the more appealing.

I hope it got a good home.

Speaking of old car names that have gone by the wayside, here is a photo from a building on Broadway in Denver that once housed Franklin Studebaker. It is now vacant, but still looks ready to contain a new car showroom. I can easily imagine it.

Impending Storm

One of the most fascinating sights to me is when the weather is undergoing a rapid change. A frontal system moves through, and the skies can go from light blue to dark gray in a matter of minutes. In this picture I took a few months ago, we see such a change. The upper left still has a bit of clear blue, but it was quickly being replaced by darkness, as storm clouds moved in from the west. The gnarly chaos of the bare branches adds to the chaos in the sky behind them.

Here in Colorado, our moisture can come from several directions. Pacific storms can blow in over the Rocky Mountains, but sometimes we get moisture coming up across Texas and Oklahoma into the state. When the winds drive such water-rich air into the mountains, we get upslope weather conditions. In the winter, this results in blizzards like we had in December and January of this year. When Pacific and Gulf air collide over the Centennial State, watch out baby . . . it's gonna be a storm!

Fair & Balanced? Hardly!

See the Faux News Channel's character assassination team in full force, as they repeat lies and inuendo about Senator Obama. What did we expect from BushCo's propaganda channel. They repeatedly label Obama's elementary school a "madrasa", and make an issue of his middle name being Hussein. So what, his dad was a Muslim. Do they think everyone named Hussein is Saddam? Do they forget America's late friend in the Middle East, King Hussein of Jordan. I guess anyone named Lee is evil because they share a name with Lee Harvey Oswald. Or perhaps anyone named Timothy is suspect, because of Timothy McVeigh.

Sex, Lies, and Newt

The hypocrisy of politicians is something to behold. The glee and zest with which the Republicans in Congress, along with their pit bull Ken Starr, pursued President Clinton, is matched only by their own deeds. One of the primary players who went after the President over his lying about an extramarital sexual relationship, now confesses his own affair during that period. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, now seeking the Presidency himself, has acknowledged his own affair during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

So lets see what we have here. Mark Foley was chasing young male congressional pages, Rudy Giuliani moves his mistress into Gracie Mansion, and Newt is getting some on the side; all the while speaking of moral bankruptcy in The White House. Now Rudy & Newt both want to be President.

Now, I think that monogamy is a convention we have from a societal tradition, as it tends to create stable families. Yet, biologically, it seems we are not wired for it. Given that statistics show a lifetime of monogamy is not lived by a majority of people; and the fact that power and sex seem to go together, it is not surprising that our politicians go outside their marriages at times. I would be quite surprised if they did not.

What is reprehensible is the way these people misused their offices to go after President Clinton for political purposes, all the while doing the same thing they criticized him for doing. This type of hypocrisy is not new. There is an old saying about people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. In the Christian bible, Jesus tells a man not to worry about the mote in his brother's eye, when he has a beam in his own.

What is even more amazing is how these neocons derided Hillary Clinton, even though she did what they supposedly stood for; she forgave her husband and kept her family together. Yet family values Newt asked wife number one for a divorce while she was recovering from cancer surgery, and then divorced wife number two to marry his mistress. Who better represents the conservative idea of so-called family values, Newt or Hillary.

These champions of family values are liars of the highest order. Some say confession is good for the soul, but even more than that, it appears to be very politically expedient. Any so-called conservative who supported the relentless pursuit and impeachment of Bill Clinton should take a long look at their values if they support either Gingrich or Giuliani.

All this aside, I don't vote for a President based upon his private sex life. I don't care about that, that is his or her own business. However, I find it sickening how these neocons played the high moral ground, all based upon lies. Just like the darling of the Christian Right, Ted Haggard, who preached against equal rights for gays, preaching that homosexuals are headed to hell; was conducting an ongoing relationship with a male prostitute in Denver; these guys don't practice what they preach. Despite their admirable leadership on many key issues, this "do as I say, not as I do" attitude make them unfit to occupy the Oval Office. They want one set of rules for themselves, another for the rest of us. They tell the sheeple whatever they want to hear to garner votes.

I don't condemn these men for their sexual liaisons, again that is their private business. I do condemn their gross hypocrisy. They owe Bill Clinton an apology.

Give A Better Way

The City of Denver has found a great use for some of its decommissioned parking meters. Thirty-six of them have been refurbished, given special graphic treatment, and redeployed around downtown as collection centers to help the homeless. Rather than handing cash to panhandlers who many times use the money to feed addictions, the money collected will go to services and programs that will actually help people. This gives people who want to help a way to insure their contributions will give real assistance.

A new survey has shown that there are over 16,200 homeless people in Colorado, many who cite medical conditions, job loss, and other economic hardship for the reason they have no shelter. It is a horrible situation to be in poverty, and it could happen to most any of us. Since we have no universal healthcare, job loss means loss of medical coverage as well, which only further kicks people when they are down.

The meters can each hold up to $60 in coins, and can do a world of good. Even $1.50 will buy a meal for a person in need. Some other statistics from the projects website, www.giveabetterway.org:

$625 - Provides a homeless family with food, shelter, clothing, employment
assistance, and case management for one month

$216 - Provides 10 days of transitional housing for an individual or
family who is homeless

$75 - Provides a night of shelter and support services for a victim of
domestic violence

$15 - Provides a meal for 10 homeless individuals

My kudos to those involved in this worthwhile project.

More Street Signs

Okay, still more about street signs. Are you getting bored with it? This is an example of how Houston has changed from the standard green signs to special signs for different parts of town. Each district is distinct from the others, and this example is from the Upper Kirby area, but actually on S. Shepherd.

This brings me to another thought. The block numbers on Houston's street signs are quite useful. This sign tells me the sign is in the 3500 block of S. Shepherd and the 2100 block of Colquitt. The number goes with the street name, and helps you know which direction to turn at the intersection to get to where you are going.

When I first moved to Colorado, Denver's signs were quite confusing. They do it just the opposite. The name of the cross street appears with the hundred block of the street you are currently driving on. Very odd, and after 13 years here, I still have trouble with it. It just is not very intuitive. There should be a standard, and I would vote for Houston's method to be adopted nationwide. Easy to use, and makes more sense, at least to me.

Back to the Past

In my previous post below, we took a look at a very futuristic, chrome circle street sign from Houston's Galleria area. So it is only fitting that we now take a trip back in time to another era in the Bayou City's developmental history.

In the 1960s, developer Frank Sharp was building his community of the future, Sharpstown. While the subdivision has been through a number of ups and downs over the years, it was at one time a very happening place. It was home to the long gone Sharpstown Drive-In Theatre, the still existing Sharpstown Center, one of America's early air-conditioned indoor shopping malls, and lots and lots of houses! Sharp had such sway that the routing of the Southwest Freeway was largely due to his lobbying to have the new limited-access highway act as an express route between Sharpstown and Downtown.

The street sign you see here is a concrete obelisk at the corner of Langdon Lane and Bintliff Drive. These street signs were all over Sharpstown at one time, but have one-by-one disappeared to the ravages of time until there are only a few left standing. Still, they are a part of my childhood memories. I don't know if these were common anywhere else, as Sharpstown is the only place I have ever seen them.

Now, let's all sing the Sharpstown Center advertising jingle from the 1960s! Remember it? Sure you do!

Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall,
Stroll in the air-conditioned mall.
With one stop to shop for all,
At Sharpstown Center!

Big, Shiny Signs

Street signs come in a variety of types. I will be posting more about them in a few posts to come. In any case, this is a good photo to see a very unique type of street sign. This photo was taken going eastbound on Westheimer approaching Sage Rd. in Uptown Houston, also known as the Galleria area.

That big, chrome-like circle suspended above the intersection is actually a street sign. To the best of my knowledge, these signs are unique to the Uptown Houston district, being deployed along Westheimer and Post Oak, and maybe a couple of other thoroughfares. If you click on the photo, you will get a much larger version. The one thing these signs don't have that standard signs do, is the block number. Still, they give a very striking and futuristic look to one of the busiest areas of town.

Not far from this location, just a few blocks to the southeast, is the Williams Tower, formerly Transco Tower. It is the tallest skyscraper outside of a central business district. It is a very interesting building, made of dark, reflective glass; and shaped like the classic art-deco design. On top is a rotating beacon that can be seen for many miles at night. While it was being built in the early 1980s, I worked across the freeway, and watched as it got taller and taller.

As an aside, take a look at the traffic lights. The backplates are elliptical, and have a convex shape to them. They are mounted on highly-polished chrome posts that match the street sign. You don't see that everyday either.

More street sign postings to come!

Is it a Bump or a Hump, Chump?

Being the road geek that I am, it is high time that I start a series of entries about roads. Specifically, this series of posts will be about road signs. I have always loved travel by automobile, and even as a small child, could navigate the highways by map. I also used to pass time by drawing street maps of non-existent cities (yeah, I was a weird kid I guess). Now I enjoy a somewhat similar passtime in the form of the computer city simulation, SimCity 4.

Anyway, here is the first picture we will talk about:



Now this looks like a typical suburban neighborhood, and it is definitely that. This is a street in my parents' subdivision. A quick glance will tell you that this is not a new street, as the sidewalk at the corner ends at the curb, rather than a ramp compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA. Also, the mature trees are an indicator that this neighborhood has been around for a few years. In fact, this subdivision was built in the mid-1970s.

Along this street, the city has installed a type of what traffic engineers call a traffic calming device. The one used here is usually known in the United States as a Speed Bump. Traffic calming is a way to divert or slow traffic in an area. Other traffic calming devices include the Traffic Circle (known in some places as a Roundabout), rumble strips, and curb extensions. Speed bumps are effective, but have a number of drawbacks, especially in that they can slow emergency response vehicles. Before one gets to a speed bump, there is typically a sign to warn about it, giving the driver the opportunity to slow down before hitting the bump.

Why is the sign above a bit of an anomaly? Let's take a closer look:

Notice, the sign says nothing about a "Speed Bump", but rather warns of "Road Humps". Now my readers from places like the United Kingdom and others may think, "So what"? That is the term that is used in many parts of the world. However, here in the United States, it usually isn't used.

It has always been a source of humor to me, as I think of "hump" as what a dog will do to your leg! I don't associate it with a road, so it just comes off as an odd way of wording it. Still, if one doesn't have the mental snap to figure it out, it will probably only take them one time hitting the "Road Hump" at full speed to get the idea!

Navy Pier

A while back, I traveled to one of America's great cities on business. Chicago, while not a place I would ever choose to live, is a terrific place to visit. It was unfortunate that I had very little free time during my stay.

One evening I was able to at least take in one sight. A colleague and I decided to have dinner at Navy Pier, which extends from a park out into Lake Michigan. We went out just a bit before it got dark, and walked out to the end of the pier. That is where I took the picture below of a lighthouse framed within the large anchor on display.



While enjoying some shrimp at Bubba Gump's, darkness set in, and that is when I took the pictures below. Here is the Ferris Wheel that is about halfway out on the pier.



I like this next one as well. It was taken from the south side of the pier looking back at the southern portion of the skyline. One thing I particularly like about this one is the reflections of the different colored lights in the water, probably caused by various bulb types, such as sodium or mercury.



Sometime I would like to go back to Chicago on a pleasure trip and enjoy more of the wonderful sights of this metropolis in the heart of North America.

Time & Culture

Technology changes culture. This is evident in many ways, but one comes to mind today; that being the advent of digital clocks.

First, many people no longer use terms like “a quarter till four”, or “half past”. Back when all clocks were analog, I don’t recall anyone saying something like “It’s seven fifty-five”. It was “Five minutes ‘til eight”. Once you got past the half-hour, you spoke in terms of time remaining until the next hour.

The second thing is our digital precision. People typically rounded off to the nearest 5 minutes or so. Now, it’s “1:52 PM”, where before, it would have been about “ten ‘til two”. We have all become more like Star Trek’s Mister Spock, since digital timekeeping has become commonplace.

The first digital clocks I remember coming into common usage were those alarm clock-radios that had digits on a Rolodex-like device that flipped down the next digit as each minute passed. Some of these still had a little analog wheel to scroll by seconds, but many were just the flip digits for hours and minutes. I think these came along in the early 1970s.

About that same time, or shortly thereafter, I also recall those LED (Light-Emitting Diode) watches that glowed bright red. The first one I saw was in the movies. I don’t know which movie it was, but it was a James Bond film, and one of Bond’s high-tech gadgets of the day was one of those LED watches. The problem with them was the fact that you had to push a button on the watch to see the time. The button caused a current to go through the LED, illuminating the display. If your other hand was busy, you couldn’t see what time it was. Coolness is not always easy! In this case, just like eating a Whopper, it took two hands to see what time it was. Now, the more practical LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology has superseded LEDs for watches, although analog displays have made a resurgence in this market as well.

In God We Trust, But We Still Need To See His I.D.

Well, it's been a while since we have taken a look at the wacky world of religious nuttiness. For all their inane antics, the gullibility of the pious is an unending source of humor. Really, you just cannot make this stuff up. Still, a couple of stories in the news caught my eye this week.

First, from the town of Hobart, Indiana, Kevin Russell has gotten worldwide attention after his arrest for trying to cash a check. What's unusual about that? Well, the check was from God, and was made out in the amount of $50,000. The 21-year-old took the check to the Chase Bank in Hobart, and the signature of "King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant" made the teller think something was amiss. Could it be that God had overdrawn his account? Maybe he has been passing bad checks all over town...heck, all over the universe!

Poor Kevin not only could not cash his check, for which we assume God still owes him; but he was arrested and is being held in jail with a $1000 bond. You know, maybe God could at least cover the cost of bailing him out!

Then from my hometown of Houston, Texas, we have a controversy surrounding a magical pizza pan. Guadelupe Rodriguez, a cafeteria worker at Pugh Elementary School in the Houston Independent School District, was washing a pizza pan after lunch. She noticed an appearance by the blessed Virgin Mary in a grease spot on the pan. Mary has an affinity for cheese, I suppose. She has been known to appear on grilled cheese sandwiches. Now the pan that once baked a tasty, cheesy pizza is her home; and pilgrims are coming to the holy pan by the hundreds, to receive healing from the Mother of Chrust.

After some controversy in which Guadelupe had to give the pan back to the school, an arrangement has been worked out where she can keep the pan. Holy Cheezus Chrust!