Memphis afterthoughts

It felt good to be among BMW riders yesterday.

I've missed conversations about bikes and travel and great motorcycle roads.

It was a good experience for Maria, too, because she found five fellow quilters in the club and got a line on a quilt/fabric shop in Memphis. She's been starved for good fabric and quilting shops since we left Indiana and this promises to be a fabulous discovery.

Charlie Parsons chauffeured us to Memphis yesterday and, in the process, showed us a quick route to U.S. 63 - the link road to I-55 - that bypasses Jonesboro and its traffic. I'm embarrassed I hadn't figured it out myself from studying area maps, but it's great information and will make the drive to Memphis and back much more pleasant.

The job of editing the club newsletter was up for grabs and I successfully suppressed the impulse to volunteer. I did the Indianapolis BMW Club newsletter for 10 years until other responsibilities in my life transformed it from a pleasure to a burden. I'm not ready to repeat that process here.

BMW club meeting

We're at the BMW Riders Association of the Mid-South meeting at the Sidecar Cafe in Memphis.

Shirtsleeve weather

Sunny and mild here today.
Beats shivering in Indiana.

Confident smile, kind eyes... what more could you ask?

I was going to write something about the Obama "Historic Victory Plate" commercial that informs us this "priceless work of art" features a portrait of the New Messiah's "confident smile and kind eyes" that "are an inspiration to us all."  but I can't top this from ondeafears.com:

Yep, it’s FINALLY here! The Barack Obama commemorative plate. Watch the whole commercial on the website. I laughed my ass off at the end when the dude and his family are like “I thought this day would never come.” Is he pissed? He sounds kind of pissed. Of course he isn’t pissed! He wasn’t talking about the election of an African-American president. He probably voted for McCain. He was talking about the firing of a ceramic plate commemorating the election of an African-American president. I want the commemorative plate commemorating the first commemorative plate commemorating the election of the first African-American president.

Now that’s a PLATE you can believe in!

I think my favorite part in the commercial is when the guy is at his desk writing a letter or something and he glances over at his Barack Obama Commemorative Plate and nods his head and smiles like he was all “Man I just CAN’T write this letter to the editor of Readers Digest. “YES YOU CAN” -Thanks Barack Obama!!”

Check out the image, they spelled certificate, cirtificate. Now that’s a Spell Checker you can’t believe in!

'waving lunch

Now that we have a functional, dependable microwave oven again, frozen entrees are a lunchtime option for me.

Today it was Chicken Florentine Lasagna from Lean Cuisine. It was OK. The best thing about it was the four-minute cooking time.

It's mildly surprising how dependent we've become on a kitchen appliance what was practically unknown less than 40 years ago.

Microwave ovens date from the 1940s, but they didn't become affordable until the late 1970s. Since the median age of Americans is around 37, that means nearly half of the population can't remember a time when there were no microwave ovens.

My first wife and I bought our first microwave - a clunky countertop Amana Radarange that came with a hardcover microwave cookbook - sometime around 1979 or 1980.

We never explored its cooking potential with any depth, using it mostly for baking potatoes and popping popcorn. We learned early that microwaves explode eggs and turn bread products into rubber.

I don't remember what we paid for it - probably somewhere around $200. Like everything else in electronics, the price has dropped precipitously and today you can find a countertop microwave for under $50. (That's about $17 in 1979 dollars, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.)

What's so hard about pronouncing "inauguration?"

in-au-gu-ra-tion

Those of us who are accustomed to pronouncing English words properly know it's pronounced in-aw-gyh-rey-shun.

But a startlingly large number of people on TV think it's pronounced in-og-ur-a-shun.

The first example of this moronic butchery of the word cropped up shortly after the election in a commercial hyping a commemorative Barack Obama plate. I noted the aberration and dismissed it as an attempt to connect with the New Messiah's constituency.

But as the event nears, I hear it falling from the lips of network news people - several of them - who really ought to know better. These are people who routinely pronounce goofy names like Ahmadinejad and Blagojevich. They should know better.

Or maybe, in this particular instance, it's appropriate.

Fellow acrophobes, avert your gaze!

Babu Sassi, a fearless young man from southern India is the cult hero of Dubai's army of construction workers.

Known as the "Indian on the top of the world", Babi is the crane operator at the world's tallest building — the 819-meter (2,687 ft) Burj Dubai. His office, the cramped crane cab perched on top of the Burj, is also his home — apparently it takes too long to come down to the ground each day to make it worthwhile. When the building is completed, its elevators will be the world's fastest.

Stories about his daily dalliance with death are discussed in revered terms by Dubai's workers. Some say he has been up there for more than a year, others whisper that he's paid 30,000 dirhams ($8,168) a month compared with the average wage of 800 dirhams a month. All agree he's worth it.

The observation deck of the Sears Tower in Chicago creeps me out. I can't begin to get my brain wrapped around what this guy is doing. BTW, 2,687 feet is more than half a mile.

Must be Fix-It Day

Gary from Sears just called to say he'll be here in about an hour to fix our microwave oven and to confirm that our parts had arrived.

"Parts? I thought you were getting them."

"No, they were supposed to ship the parts to you."

"Hold on. I'll check the front porch."

Sure enough, there was a UPS box just outside the front door with a shipping label listing the three parts he needs.

This came about 10 minutes after I got a call from our renter reporting water was flowing out from under the dishwasher.

I told him where the dishwasher water line shutoff could be found under the kitchen sink and told him to call the 800 number for the home warrant insurance we bought.

It's about 12 degrees there and I suspect a valve in the dishwasher froze and broke, then started to leak when the line began to thaw.

Anyway, it's presumably being handled, so I can enjoy my comparatively warm and sunny day in the Mid-South.

Recession? What recession? Nordex's Jonesboro wind turbine plant is still on track.

  Nordex USA's plans to build its $100 million U.S. wind turbine manufacturing facility here are on schedule despite the current economic downturn.

Joe Brenner, vice president for production for Nordex USA, told a Jonesboro Area Chamber of Commerce Power Breakfast yesterday that the German wind turbine company still plans to start production in Jonesboro in January, 2010.

The company announced its choice of Jonesboro for the factory site in late October, 2008.

Curt Hodges, business reporter for the Jonesboro Sun, reported in today's paper that Brenner confirmed, "At this point it looks like that’s how it will be. We are in the design stage. Everything has been positive.”

The factory will be build on 187 acres in the Jonesboro Technology Industrial Park and will employ about 700 people.

Brenner told The Sun he sees recent layoffs at wind energy-related companies in the Little Rock area as “blips” and added that “for the mid-term and long-term,” wind energy companies are stable and growing.

LM Glasfiber of Little Rock announced Tuesday it will lay off more than 150 workers, saying developers are having trouble financing wind farm projects because of the current credit environment.

John Sawyer, CEO of Aspen Transportation of Jonesboro and a sponsor of the breakfast event at the Jonesboro Holiday Inn, said, "They say we are in a depression. You're going to have to leave this ZIP code to prove that what you read in The Wall Street Journal is fact."

And they're hiring. This is from the Nordex USA Web site.

Caption it...

Boiled hippopotamus... yum!

I finished "And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks" this week, thanks to my son Steve and the Amazon.com wish list.

I started the book while hanging out at a local bookstore in early December and after about 50 pages, decided I'd like to read the whole thing, so I put it on my Christmas wish list.

It's an odd little document of the early days of the Beat Generation in New York City. Kerouac and Burroughs wrote alternating chapters in this story of the events surrounding the murder of one of their friends by another in their social circle in the summer of 1944.

It was rejected by publishers in 1945 and spent the next 60 years buried in a filing cabinet. The title, by the way, comes from a news report of a fire at a circus.

The book was finally published in 2008 after both authors and all of the characters were dead.

It's a fascinating period piece, with intriguing glimpses of wartime New York.

If you've read and enjoyed Kerouac and/or Burroughs, you'll probably love this book.

Supreme Court conference on Obama challenge

BREAKING NEWS

Chief Justice John Roberts has sent a full-throated challenge to Barack Obama's presidential eligibility to conference: Lightfoot v. Bowen (SCOTUS docket page).

Lightfoot lead attorney, Orly Taitz believes, "This is Chief Justice Roberts telling the Congress... the other eight Justices, that there is a problem with this election."
The Lightfoot case has legal standing, due to litigant, Gail Lightfoot's vice presidential candidacy in California, with the Libertarian Party. It also address two major issues of legal merit: 1. Obama's failure to provide legally evidentiary documentation of citizenship and American birth and, 2. his United Kingdom citizenship at birth, passed to him by his Kenyan father when that nation was a British colony. (Other current challenges also submit that Obama's apparent status as an Indonesian citizen, as a child, would have caused his American citizenship to be revoked.) This case is therefore considered the strongest yet, to be heard by the Supreme Court. Obama challenger, Philp Berg had previously been granted conference hearings this Friday, 1/9 and on 1/16.

Read all about it at investigatingobama.blogspot.com.

Godspeed, Cheryl Holdridge

Annette Funicello, Cheryl Holdridge and Doreen Tracey

My original Mouseketeer friend Doreen Tracey emailed this morning to say that Cheryl Holdridge, another of the original Mickey Mouse Club crew, died yesterday.

It was a followup to this email on Monday:

A quick note letting you know, that Mouseketeer Cheryl Holdridge is under “hospice care” at home for her remaining days. Cheryl has been battling cancer for two years. As the second day of the New Year rolled in, her extended family and friends visited her at St. John’s Medical facility in Santa Monica showering her with love. (It was quite a party, and the nurses almost kicked everyone out for disturbing the  other patients on the ICU floor.) Now she is going home to look at the Pacific one last time. Yesterday, she said she will miss all of us, as if to say, she is going someplace where she can’t see us for awhile. Mouseketeer Tommy Cole came yesterday, and that’s when it hit me how much I will miss my friend the Countess.

Doreen said there will be a memorial service within the next couple of weeks.

Born June 20, 1944, Cheryl joined the Mickey Mouse Club during its second season.

She became a Countess on Nov. 7, 1964, when she married Woolworth heir Lance Reventlow, whose father was a Danish nobleman. Reventlow was killed in a light plane crash near Aspen, Colo., in 1972.

Cheryl was widowed a second time in 1999 when Manning Post, her husband of 23 years, died.

And, yes, Annette Funicello is still with us, despite a 17-year ordeal with multiple sclerosis.

TV news comes to the story late, again.

I've been watching the TV news media for this story for more than a week. Now that the swarm is apparently over, FOX News has a story. Still haven't seen it anywhere else, except on the web sites of US News & World Report and some newspapers, including the Times of London.

Here's the latest from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory:

 

YELLOWSTONE VOLCANO (CAVW#1205-01-)
44.43°N 110.67°W, Summit Elevation 9203 ft (2805 m)
Volcano Alert Level: NORMAL

Aviation Color Code: GREEN

Yellowstone Lake Earthquake Swarm Summary as of 6 January 2009

Through 5 January 2009, seismic activity has markedly decreased. It is possible that the swarm has ended, though a return of activity may occur as Yellowstone swarms of the size usually last for tens of days to many weeks. About 500 earthquakes occurred between Dec. 26 through Jan. 1. Three hundred of the earthquakes (including all >M2.0) have been reviewed by seismologists. There have been 86 earthquakes with M > 2.0 and 16 earthquakes > M3.0. About 200 smaller earthquakes have yet to be reviewed. Depths are difficult to determine accurately. The best located earthquakes have depths on the order of 3 to 10 km (1.8 to 6.0 miles).

From Dec. 26 through Jan 2, the earthquake hypocenters appear to have migrated northwards, starting southeast of near Stevenson Island, with many of the latest events occurring near Fishing Bridge. The recent swarm is well above typical activity at Yellowstone. Nevertheless it is not unprecedented during the last 40 years of monitoring. Swarms are the typical mode of occurrence of earthquakes within the Yellowstone caldera, with magnitudes ranging to > 4.0. The 1985 swarm on the northwest rim of the caldera lasted for three months, with earthquakes up to M4.9 and over 3000 total events recorded. Magnitudes of earthquakes in this swarm range from zero to 3.9. Seismologists categorize those of magnitude less than 3.5 as generally not felt by persons. For perspective, earthquakes of magnitude 3.4 to 4.5 are often felt, as several of the events in this swarm have. A magnitude 5 or greater is generally required to produce damage to buildings or other structures. Improved volcano and seismic monitoring at Yellowstone gives us a greater ability to locate earthquakes, understand their source process and identify anomalous sources of seismic activity.

New equipment including precise measurements of ground motion by GPS receivers and borehole strainmeters provided by the National Science Foundation's EarthScope and Continental Dynamics Program have been used extensively during the last week of intense earthquake activity. Ground motions accompanying the swarm, from the GPS instruments will take two or more weeks to fully process.

It is worth noting that in 2004 the Yellowstone caldera began a period of accelerated uplift measured by GPS instruments that was as large as 7 cm/yr (2.7 inches/yr), three times as fast as recorded in the recorded history but has now reduced to about a maximum rate of 4 cm/yr. Scientists have modeled this deformation as due to magmatic recharge of the Yellowstone magma chamber at a depth of ~10 km (6 miles). The area of the swarm is on the eastern side of the uplift area. Earthquakes at Yellowstone are caused by a combination of geological factors including: 1) regional stress associated with normal faults (those where the valleys go down relative to the mountains) such as the nearby Teton and Hebgen Lake faults, 2) magmatic movements at depth (>7 kms or 4 miles), and 3) hydrothermal fluid activity caused as the groundwater system is heated to boiling by magmatic heat.

At this time, no one has noted any anomalous changes in surface discharges (hot springs, gas output, etc.). YVO staff from the USGS, University of Utah and Yellowstone National Park continue to carefully review all data streams that are recorded in real-time. At this time, there is no reason to believe that magma has risen to a shallow level within the crust or that a volcanic eruption is likely. The USGS Volcano alert level for Yellowstone Volcano remains at Normal/Green.

Yellowstone National Park is evaluating infrastructure near the north end of Yellowstone Lake to assess if any damage has occurred to facilities. Winter visitor activities and staff operations have not been impacted and continue as normal.

Crunching numbers

I'm reconciling our checking account on Quicken. What fun.

Not.

The long strange trip begins...

This was my home 42 years ago - a trailer along an alley in Tipton, Ind.

I was 21 and a reporter for the Tipton Tribune, a six-day-a-week rural county seat daily north of Indianapolis and it was my first paying newspaper job. I was earning $65 a week.  I think the rent on the trailer was $25 a month, but I had to pay the utilities, including the heat. As you can see, there was no apron around the bottom, so the winter wind carried away the heat about a fast as the furnace could generate it.

And that's my 1965 VW beetle - my first car, which I eventually drove 100,000 miles back when that was an exceptional achievement for a car. It finally rusted to death.

These photos were shot with another first - my first 35mm camera. It was a Minolta Himatic 7, a rangefinder camera. I sold it years ago. It would be fun to have it back, but the meter needed a battery that used mercury and is no longer available.

My career at the Tribune began Sept. 6, 1966 and ended Feb. 3, 1967 when I joined the staff of The Indianapolis News. I started at $115 a week. The Tribune is still being published and The News folded in 1999.

Exploding head averted

Fortunately for everyone concerned, our tenant's rent check was in our post office box this morning.

He mailed it Saturday - three days after the due date - which is not a good sign, but at least it's here.

The bad news is that the cashier's check from the State Bank of Lizton (Ind.) is made out to "Don and Maria" instead of "John and Maria."

So now I'm printing out a copy of the lease agreement to take to the bank to prove the check is really meant for us and that we are entitled to cash it.

Maria's parents dropped by the rental house the other day to meet the tenants and her dad ended up showing the renter how to turn on the water. I gave the renter explicit instructions on how to turn on the water in a two-page "operator's manual" to the house. I emailed him a copy at his workplace several weeks ago and also left a printout on the kitchen island when were there the weekend before Christmas.

Duh.

We have reached a point where I am asking Maria to handle all communication with this guy because I'm afraid of what I might say.

But at least we have a check. Kinda. So my head probably won't explode. Today.

Making small town advertisers look bigtime

Our friend Lauri, who is the best ad designer I've seen in my 40+ years in the newspaper business, has posted her portfolio on Picasa.

This is one of my favorites (because I shot the photo), but there are lots of other dazzlers in the collection.

The advertisers at her paper are getting a tremendous bargain for their ad dollar because she makes local businesses and organizations look like they've retained national advertising firms to build their ads.

No surprise that she's been named the best ad designer in Indiana multiple times in Hoosier State Press Association competition.

Check out her portfolio and you'll see what I mean.

Angry shoeless morons

This may be a big deal insult to Muslims, but to the rest of us it's just a bunch of angry morons throwing away perfectly good shoes.

Trying not to have too much fun

I see on the Weather Channel web site that it's 41 degrees, with a wind chill of 33 up in miserable cold Indiana.

But it's 71 with an occasional peek of sunshine here in northeast Arkansas, so I took Maria's K75S out for a 33-mile spin this afternoon. It hasn't been ridden for a couple of months and I figured it was time to blow out the cobwebs.

I dropped a couple of rental DVDs into the mailbox at the Post Office, then rode down to Advance auto parts to buy some fuel stabilizer.

"Getting ready to put your bike up?" asked the clerk.

"Nope, this is for my lawn mower. I hope I don't have to run it for another four months."

Then is was down to the Kum & Go for a tank of gas - the first fill-up for the K75S since Sept. 23 - and a run up the backbone of Crowley's Ridge, then home.

I was tempted to keep going, but I don't want to have too much fun. It might make me gloat about the mild winters here.