Give Me Your Cheesy Statue Knock-Offs

The Iconic Liberty Enlightening the World, or more commonly known as The Statue of Liberty, stands proudly in New York Harbor, a symbol of the promise of freedom offered by the United States. Given to this nation by the people of France in 1889, Lady Liberty has welcomed immigrants, warriors returning from the battlefield, and tourists to America's largest metropolis for 118 years. Arguably, this is the most copied statue in the world. In Paris, France, there are two replicas, the most famous overlooks the River Seine, facing toward her New York original. Cities around the globe have replicas prominently displayed. Here in the United States, there is even a replica at the New York, New York hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

One massive distribution of Lady Liberty knockoffs was done by the Boy Scouts of America. Between 1949 and 1951, the youth organization distributed over 200 low-budget replicas to towns and cities across the United States. About half of them are known to still be around. I have seen at least two of these, one of them just yesterday. The first one was many years ago, and it stands (or at least did decades ago) at Boy Scout Camp Sidney Dew in Georgia. The one I saw yesterday, shown here, is on the grounds of the Weld County, Colorado courthouse.

Like all of the statues distributed by the scouts, this one is not a close replica at all. The face is somewhat misshapen and rounder in features than the original. I also noticed this one appears to be getting tired, as the torch is not being held up exactly straight, if it ever was. Still, it is one of the remaining examples of this post-World War II act of patriotism by the scouting organization, and is proudly displayed 57 years after it was donated in 1950.

As the current government in Washington continues its assault on our freedoms, let's hope that our actual liberties don't die before the demise of these statues that personify those ideals.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?

"Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?" So sang the rock group Chicago back in 1970, in their hit song from their first album, Chicago Transit Authority. People have been asking that question for centuries, and have devised all kinds of devices for providing the answer. In Denver's Cranmer Park, there is a more modern version of one such device that dates back to antiquity. A giant sundial stands there to mark the hours as the earth makes its daily rotation in relation to the Sun.


The sundial in Cranmer Park, Denver. Click photo to enlarge.

This is not the original sundial in this park. This is one placed in 1966 to replace the first one, which was placed in 1941. The stone is tilted to the plane of earth's equator, and the shadow producing rod points pretty much at Polaris, the North Star. According to the instructions engraved in stone behind it (enlarge picture below to read), you can make adjustments from solar time to standard time by using the diagram on the instructions. They appear to have been engraved for the 1941 dial.

As you can see from the time indicated, I was at the park at noon solar time, and that is very close without any adjustments, as my watch indicated 1:02 PM, but that is Daylight Savings Time, which adds one hour to standard time. Standard time is the average for the time zone, and the Mountain Time Zone's average is at the 105 degree meridian west of Greenwich, which the instructions tell us is at Navajo Street in Denver. Therefore standard time in the Mile High City is just about solar time. Since time zones are drawn for convenience, and not necessarily true to solar time, Denver is closer to the Central Time Zone than the Pacific. If one heads east on I-70, you enter the Central zone at the second county in Kansas, just past the town of Goodland, KS. That is about 200 miles away. To reach the Pacific Time Zone, you have to traverse two-thirds of Colorado and all of Utah to the west, entering Pacific time in the state of Nevada.


Instruction chart from the original 1941 sundial. Click to enlarge.

Microsoft Word? WordPerfect? Who needs 'em?

A vintage Underwood typewriter

This afternoon I was walking in downtown Greeley, Colorado, and came upon a business machines store. In the main windows of this shop were some displays of vintage technology that once ran America's businesses. There was an old dictaphone machine similar to the one in featured in one of my favorite film noir movies, Double Indemnity. There were many old cash registers (that's a point of sale device to you kids out there). There were also many antique typewriters on display. Some were older than the one pictured here, but this one caught my eye.

Why? Because my dad had one almost exactly like this that he purchased used while attending college in the early 1950s. I believe this model was produced in the 1920s, so that says something about the reliability of these vintage pieces of office equipment. I don't know if he still has it or not, but my school papers in high school and early college years in the late 1960s and early 1970s were also produced on this heavy piece of machinery.

How well I remember buying a package of "Typing Paper", rolling a fresh sheet onto the platen of the typewriter, and begin typing words onto paper. You didn't want to make a mistake, as there was no such thing as correction tape. The ribbons were either all black ink, or half red and half black. There was not a key for the numeral "1"; instead you used a lower-case letter "L". To make an exclamation mark, you typed a vertical single quote and backspaced to put a period underneath it. Still, for the most part, the QWERTY keyboard arrangement is the same as this laptop computer I am writing this post on. I also recall the loud bell as you reached the end of each line, telling you to perform a manual carriage return at the end of the next word. Did you want boldface type? Type over your words again. Want to change the typeface or get italicized text? Tough luck on that! And whatever you do, don't type too fast...the type arms would get tangled and you'd have to stop and unmesh them.

Still, with all the shortcomings compared to a modern computer with word processing software, you have to wonder just how many pages of business reports, school papers, and books were produced on machines such as these.

Where is This Sign? Not Where You Might Think.

Today was a beautiful day, so I decided to take a short road trip. During this little Saturday jaunt I saw this mile marker sign, and a few others that were the same except for the mile number. Now, you can take a look at a U.S. road map and try to find this highway. Or just CLICK HERE to find out about U.S. 76. You will see that it is a 548 mile long highway that stretches from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina; traversing parts of Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas.

Yet here I am in the Centennial state of Colorado, many miles from these eastern states. So what's up with the U.S. 76 highway shields? Well, CDOT's clueless sign makers are at it once again. These markers are actually along the western version of Interstate 76, and should carry a red, white, and blue interstate shield, or none at all. Instead we have the wrong highway denoted for several miles along the freeway, showing U.S. 76 in a state where the highway doesn't exist!

This highway, I-76 is a bit of an anomaly anyway, as it has two distinctly separate highways with that designation, and both were once known as Interstate 80S. The eastern I-76 goes from Lodi, Ohio; through Pennsylvania (largely as the Pennsylvania Turnpike); and ends in New Jersey.

The western I-76 is almost entirely within Colorado. This is perhaps fitting, as Colorado is known as The Centennial State, as it was admitted to the union in 1876, the centennial year of the United States. This highway begins as a split from I-70 just west of Denver, Colorado; and heads northeast toward Nebraska's panhandle, where only about a mile or so is actually in that state. The highway ends as it merges onto Interstate 80 near the northeast corner of Colorado.

Rolls of Hay

Rolls of hay in an open field - Englewood, Colorado, USA.
Click for larger version.

The Colorado plains along the front range are definitely horse country. With all those hungry equines, comes the need for hay to feed them. I took this photo in an open field in the Meridian Business Park, a large area near Centennial Airport that is home to a number of companies, including Western Union and EchoStar. There is also a golf course that runs through it. Even so, there are many open areas yet to be developed, and apparently these are used for the growing of hay.

I decided to go a little artsy-fartsy retro on this one, giving it a black & white treatment with a red filter to enhance the clouds. Look closely in the larger version, and you will see the Rocky Mountains off in the distance, along with many more rolls of hay scattered across the field.

I used to play a little hay game with my wife. We would be driving along the road, and I would spot a truck loaded with hay, or some hay by the road, and would shout out, "HAY!". Invariably, she would reply, "What? What is it?". Thereupon I would point to the hay and say again, "Hay!". Finally, she got tired of my silly trick, and vowed never to fall for it again. That has been several years ago, so I am biding my time. One of these days, I'll get her with it.

Also, when I think of the words "roll" and "hay", I always remember Terri Garr in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, where she invites Professor Frankenstein for a "roll in zee hay". She then starts rolling around in it, chanting, "Roll, roll, roll in zee hay!". What a great movie!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

A beautiful double rainbow, and Alexander's Band.

Here is a photo I took this afternoon of a spectacular double rainbow stretching across the sky. We currently are in a pattern of hot days which agitate the atmosphere to create afternoon thunderstorms. Out of this has come some very nice rainbows. I wish I had gone to get past the power lines in these shots, but I didn't want to get my camera wet, as it was raining pretty good at this time.

This particular photo of a double rainbow displays a couple of very cool things about these displays of color in the sky. First, the primary, brightest rainbow is mirrored by a fainter partner, higher in the sky. This is because the light is reflected once inside the raindrops to product the primary, and then is reflected again inside the drops to produce a secondary rainbow, fainter than the original. It is also interesting that the colors are are always reversed in the secondary rainbow.

Also, notice that the sky beneath the primary bow is brighter than that above it. The rainbow becomes a demarcation arc between darker and lighter sky. This is due to the angles of light emerging from the raindrops as well. Since the colors of the rainbow spectrum combine to form white light, there is more white light refracted below the bow than above. The area between the primary and secondary bow is actually a bit darker than the sky above the secondary one. This is known as Alexander's Band. This is because Alexander of Aphrodisias, a commentator on the writings of Aristotle, noted the phenomenon around the year 200 C.E.

While the science behind them is interesting, it doesn't remove any of the joy of looking at the colorful display in the sky.


The primary rainbow's north end, demarcation between light & dark.

An Unfortunate Product Name

Being a marketing type, I find it interesting when companies commit a faux pas in the marketing of their products or services. One type of such a problem is when a company doesn't listen to how the name they give a product can be a homonym for another phrase. Had I seen the name of my latest example printed or on screen prior to hearing it, I might not have noticed either. However, I was reading and had the television on, and thus heard a commercial for the product, complete with the pronunciation of its name before seeing it on the screen.

The product in question is AciPhex, the trade name for a new heartburn medication. What I heard coming from the TV was an announcer talking about this wonderful new drug called "Ass Effects". I don't think I want to take anything that creates any kind of ass effect! Makes you wonder if the company ever said the name of their product out loud.

A Small Town Diner

Well, life has seemingly been so busy lately that I haven't been posting to the blog quite as often as I would like. So here is the first post for the month of August.

The lovely spouse and I decided to take my new car out for a short spin on the Interstate to give it a quick exposure to what a road trip might be like. We didn't go far, but headed east on I-70 and exited at the small town of Strasburg, Colorado. There seems to be a bit of a housing boom going on in Strasburg, as one homebuilder is apparently cashing in by building homes a little cheaper than you can get them in the Denver area. The catch is that the approximately 40-to-50 mile, each way trek into town makes it not worth the price difference. Just the gasoline alone would add to the cost of living there.

That said, Strasburg is a nice little town out on the prairie. It is so flat out there that you would not think you are in the same state as Estes Park or Aspen. The terrain is more akin to our neighboring state of Kansas than it is to the Rocky Mountains for which Colorado is known.

It was getting into the afternoon hours and we were getting hungry, so we looked at the handful of choices in Strasburg for lunch, and saw there were quite a few cars at an establishment called the Nifty Fifties Diner. We have this rule when looking at unknown places to eat. That rule says that if the parking lot is empty, the food is probably not very good. With the traffic at the diner, we decided it would be a safe bet.

The first thing I noticed is that Strasburg time is slower than Denver time. It took a while for everything, from getting water, to the arrival of our food. Not an inordinately long time, but longer than I usually wait in Denver. The menu had a great variety of food, from meatloaf to chicken fried steaks to burgers to malts. We each decided to get a malt with our meal. Too bad we didn't take a closer look at the price before ordering. More on that later.

My wife had a grilled meatloaf sandwich, and I had the Heartbreak Hotel Hot Dog. The meatloaf was over an inch thick slice, grilled and put into a sandwich that looked delicious. My hot dog was also quite the feast. It was split butterfly fashion, and grilled; put in a foot-long bun and smothered in a chunky-style chili, with cheese, mustard, onions, and jalapeno slices topping it off. It was served with waffle fries. The dog was delicious, but was also so big that I could not finish it all without making myself overstuffed. I got about two-thirds of the way done and had to stop. I also ate about a third of the fries.

The only surprise came when we go the check. The total after tax and before tip was about $34! The big gotcha was the price of the malts. They were $4.99 each! Yikes. I might have settled on something else had I looked at the price. The malts were really good, but not overly big. They were thick and tasty, but at five bucks, I think they are a bit pricey. But then again, you are in Strasburg. Don't like the price, drive to Denver.

Bottom line, the Nifty Fifties Diner had tasty Americana diner fare. While the price is a bit on the upper end for this type of food, it is a good stop for non-chain road food when traveling across Colorado. And while this type of food is good once in a while, I would not recommend it as a steady diet if one expects to live a healthy life. I think it's time for some granola and yogurt!

Quick Enchilada Casserole

Here is something I threw together in the kitchen this afternoon, and boy is it good! I figured I'd share it so anyone who wants to can make this tasty recipe! I'll call it Randy's Quick Enchilada Casserole. It started out as a way to use up a few ingredients we had in the refrigerator, but ended up as a very delicious meal. Of course, if you don't want the quick version, you could cook your own beans, roast your own chili peppers, make your own sauce, and even make your own tortillas. But quick and easy is so good with minimal fuss. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• Half a can of refried beans
• About 4 oz. of shredded cheese (cheddar, jack, whatever you like)
• One bottle of 505 Red Enchilada Sauce, Hatch, or whatever brand you prefer.
  
• Half pound of cooked ground beef
• Small can of chopped green chilis
• A few sliced, black olives
• Three large flour tortillas

Preparation

If you don't have the beef already cooked, quickly brown it in a skillet, drain, and set aside. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Assembly

• Pour a thin layer of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of an 8-inch square baking dish. This will keep the casserole from sticking.
• Spread the refried beans onto one of the tortillas to approximately the size of the 8" dish. This should be about a 10-inch diameter tortilla to fit up the sides of the dish.
  
• Lay the tortilla with the beans into the dish on top of the thin layer of sauce.
• Pour about a third of the sauce over the top of the beans.
  
• Sprinkle a thin layer of cheese over the top.
  
• Put the next tortilla into the dish.
• Distribute the beef in a layer on top of the second tortilla.
• Add chopped roasted green chilis in whatever amount you like.
• Put about half of the remaining sauce over the layers below.
  
• Top with another layer of shredded cheese.
• Put the third tortilla on top and press it down on top of the other layers. You can crease the tortilla along the edge of the dish to square it up if you like.
  
• Add the remaining sauce over the top. Add another thin layer of shredded cheese. Top with a few slices of black olives.
• Cover with aluminum foil, place in center rack of oven and bake at 375 degrees for one hour.

Remove from oven, let stand for about 5-10 minutes, cut and serve. For extra flair, and to make it feed more, serve with a side of Spanish Rice and avocado slices.

Yield

Serves 6-8 people, depending on how much each one eats.

Houston, We Have a Problem

What's up at NASA? The one-time showcase of American technology has had a bad year. Despite the aging shuttle fleet flying again after the Columbia disaster, we have one thing after another at the space agency.

Earlier this year, Astronaut Lisa Nowak was dismissed after criminal charges were filed against her for driving from Houston to Florida to threaten a romantic rival for another astronaut's affections. Then a contractor kills his boss at the Johnson Space Center. Yesterday, another contrator was found to have sabotaged computers slated for delivery to the International Space Station. Then at the end of the day, NASA admits that it has been sending drunk astronauts into space.

Now while a bit of alcohol may ease pre-flight jitters, you'd think that astronauts need total lucidity to fly the shuttle. I halfway expect the next revelation to be that the astronauts on the ISS are growing marijuana.

I suppose the astronauts are only taking seriously the words of Elton John's hit song, Rocket Man, seriously:

"I packed my bags last night, preflight,
Zero hour, 9 am.
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then."

Our space corps has certainly fallen from grace since the days of Alan Sheppard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn.

The "Show Me the Passing Lane" State

European passing lane, from
http://international.fhwa.dot.gov/humanfactors/chapter_two.htm

The Associated Press is reporting that the State of Missouri is getting ready to try an experiment with one of its highways. The state's chief highway engineer, Kevin Keith, saw the way that many European countries have implemented the concept of a passing lane. Unlike in the United States, where only the occasional passing lane is built, Europe builds three-lane highways for many of its non-controlled access roads. The idea is that the middle lane alternates every mile or so as a passing lane for each side of the roadway. This will allow the highway to carry nearly as much traffic comfortably, as a four-lane highway.

The experiment will be first played out on Missouri Highway 5 between the towns of Lebanon and Camdenton, a stretch of about 16-miles. This highway connects the popular tourist destination, The Lake of the Ozarks, to Interstate 44, the main highway from St. Louis to Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Lawton, and Wichita Falls. The cost of upgrading the highway is estimated at $50-million dollars.

Traffic engineers at The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is closely watching the MoDOT project, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. If it proves as successful and safe here as in Europe, you may soon see this concept in highway design coming to a road near you.

1957 Chevys

A beautiful, black 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air.
Notice the black rubber cones on the bumper.

The 1957 Chevrolet is a classic icon of mid 20th Century American automobile manufacturing. From the chrome grill and bumpers to the tail fins, this car was uniquely different from the 1956 model before it, and the round rear-ended 1957 that followed. In fact, it seemed that Chevy made significant styling changes every model year from 1956 through 1960. It is hard to believe that this beloved and much collected car is celebrating its 50th birthday this year!

The 1957 Chevy has a prominent place in my childhood memories. Sometime around 1960 or so, my dad traded our old 1950 Ford Custom in on a white 1957 Chevy Bel-Air at a Chevy dealership in Pasadena, Texas. What a car it was. No center column between the front and rear windows made it unlike any other I had ever ridden in. We had that car when we moved to California in 1962, and kept it until it was traded on what was the first brand new car my dad ever bought . . . a 1964 Chevrolet Impala station wagon that served us for many years.


Inside the black '57 Bel-Air

The black Bel-Air and the yellow one below were parked today alongside some other vintage cars on Mainstreet (yes, spelled as one word) in Parker, Colorado at the weekly Farmer's Market. While both were fantastic vehicles, the interior of the black one had upholstery of the original design, while the yellow one had been altered significantly.


Yellow 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air in Parker

There were some other cars parked on Mainstreet as well, and I may share some photos of them in another post. Still, after I left the Farmers Market I ran across yet another 1957 Chevrolet in Parker. This on had a "For Sale" sign in the window, and was parked in a lot along Parker Road (Colorado 83). This one wasn't as sweet as the other two, as it wasn't fully restored, and is a more spartan model, featuring window columns and no rubber cones on the front bumpers. A sign in the window said the car was worth $18,000 NADA, but would be sold for $9,100 or best offer.


For Sale - 1957 Red Chevy

If I had the financial resources, I think I could really get into collecting old cars. Since that is not the case, I will just continue to take pictures of those I see that interest me.


1957 Chevy for sale - rear view