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:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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.

A New Toy Yoda

Okay, I know this isn't new, but it did strike me as funny. The Hooters waitress in the picture thought she won a new car. She doesn't look very happy with her prize...a brand new toy Yoda!

How the States Got Their Shapes

I have always been fascinated by maps and geography. When I found the book How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein in my local book store, I thumbed through it and though it was worth the purchasing. So I bought the book and brought it home to read.

It is a very interesting read, while being something you can take on in pieces as the mood hits you. It is chock full of historical side notes and maps that explain how the 50 United States ended up with their unique shapes. It is not a heavily-footnoted, scholarly work, but rather in the tone of a Reader's Digest publication, suitable for all ages.

I enjoyed the book very much, and it covers many trivial matters that shaped our nation. Examples are the arc on the Delaware / Pennsylvania border, the notches along the Tennessee / Kentucky frontier, and the Missouri boot heel. But I have one major quibble. The one anomaly I had hoped would finally be explained to my satisfaction was totally ignored.

That still open question (at least in my mind) is one that I have not even found an answer to yet using Google. The issue is the fact that the eastern border of New Mexico has a notch at northernmost part where the state shares a border with the Oklahoma panhandle. You see, the NM/OK border is at 103 degrees west longitude. But most of the eastern border of New Mexico is shared with Texas, and is situated a couple of miles or so west of the 103rd meridian! Stein doesn't address this anomaly at all!

Now my suspicion is that it has something to do with the borders negotiated by Texas with the US government when it agreed to become part of the United States. But I would love to know the story behind this border zig and zag. This map from Google shows this border. If you know why this is, please feel free to let me know.

All that said, Stein's book is still highly recommended. And if you wonder why Case Western Reserve University in Ohio is named that, the book covers that as well. Just say that it has to do with when Cleveland would have been located in Connecticut!

Lunchtime!

I am a man of simple tastes. I enjoy a wide variety of food, but sometimes it's the fairly simple things that hit the spot. Today, I decided to fire up the propane grill and heat up a couple of hot link sausages. I steamed some whole wheat buns for them, made some onion dip for my potato chips, added a bunch of grapes and a Coca-Cola and enjoyed a delicious lunch.

I remember when I was a boy, my dad telling me that my eyes had gotten bigger than my stomach, when I took more food than I could eat. That was the case today, as I just couldn't finish off the second sausage. It was good all the same.

Merciful Shopkeep

A store keeper in Shirley, New York showed extreme compassion for the man who tried to rob him. The robber came in wielding a baseball bat, but when Mohammad Sohail pulled out a gun, the man began to cry and plead for mercy. He told Sohail that he had no money and was just trying to feed his family. Sohail gave the man $40 and a loaf of bread with the condition that he never rob again. He also doesn't plan to press charges if police find the robber.

While the robbery was wrong, this is just another tale of hardship from the economic disaster we are dealing with. For the full story, CLICK HERE.

Sauce for the Goose?

Remember all the wailing and crying from the GOP about giving President Bush's judicial nominees "an up or down vote"? Well, wouldn't you know it. A group of conservative luminaries are asking the Republican Senators to filibuster President Obama's nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. What a bunch of hypocrites! The shoe is on the other foot now, and it doesn't feel so good to them!