Random Access

Friday – 04 February 2011
It’s my 9/80 day off. Amen.

Today is also World Cancer Day.

Last night, Mary and Matt came over for dinner. SaraRules! made breaded pecan chicken strips, scalloped potatoes and a zucchini/squash mix for dinner. Mary and May brought a cake for dessert. Dinner, the company and the conversation were all very good. After our company left, I finished reading this week’s four-color haul and played a little (a very little) DCUO before calling it a day.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Since it’s the weekend, and it’s going to be “a little” busy, you’re getting THREE entries:

• Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

  

  She performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. In 1954, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Carmen Jones. By 1956, still under contract to Fox, Dandridge hadn’t made any films since Carmen Jones. Fox still believed that Dorothy was a star, but just didn’t know how to promote her. One of the head chiefs at Fox once said “She’s a star, but we don’t have any films to put her in or leading men to cast her opposite.”

  In 1957 Dorothy’s luck came back when Darryl F. Zanuck cast Dandridge as Margot, a restless young Indian woman, in his controversial film version of, Island in the Sun, co-starring stars such as Joan Fontaine, James Mason, Harry Belafonte, Joan Collins, Michael Rennie, and Stephen Boyd. This film was a success which brought Dandridge back to the public eye. Determined to reinvent her career, she decided to wait on Fox to call for her to make a film.

  In 1959, Columbia Pictures cast Dorothy in the lead role of Bess in Porgy and Bess; Dorothy was again nominated for a award, this time for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Dorothy was again eager to see if she was to win the award, but she once again lost. A few weeks later Dorothy was released from her 20th Century Fox contract.

  Dandridge was married and divorced twice, first to dancer and entertainer Harold Nicholas (the father of her daughter, Harolyn Suzanne) and then to Jack Denison. Dandridge died of an accidental drug overdose, at the age of 42.

• Ralph Waldo Ellison was a novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer.

  

  Ralph Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap.In 1933, Ellison entered the Tuskegee Institute on a scholarship to study music. Tuskegee’s music department was perhaps the most renowned department at the school, headed by the conductor William L. Dawson. While he studied music primarily in his classes, he spent increasing amounts of time in the library, reading up on modernist classics.

  During World War II, Ellison joined the Merchant Marine, and in 1946 he married his second wife, Fanny McConnell. She worked as a photographer to help sustain Ellison. From 1947 to 1951 he earned some money writing book reviews, but spent most of his time working on Invisible Man. Fanny also helped type Ellison’s longhand text and assisted her husband in editing the typescript as it progressed.

  Published in 1952, Invisible Man explores the theme of man’s search for his identity and place in society, as seen from the perspective of an unnamed black man in the New York City of the 1930s. In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin, Ellison created characters that are dispassionate, educated, articulate and self-aware. Through the protagonist, Ellison explores the contrasts between the Northern and Southern varieties of racism and their alienating effect. The narrator is “invisible” in a figurative sense, in that “people refuse to see” him, and also experiences a kind of dissociation. The novel, with its treatment of taboo issues such as incest, won the National Book Award in 1953.

  In 1964, Ellison published Shadow and Act, a collection of essays, and began to teach at Rutgers University and Yale University, while continuing to work on his novel. The following year, a survey of 200 prominent literary figures was released that proclaimed Invisible Man the most important novel since World War II.

  Ralph Ellison died on April 16, 1994 of pancreatic cancer, and was buried at Trinity Church Cemetery in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City.

• Ella Jane Fitzgerald, also known as the “First Lady of Song” and “Lady Ella,” was an American jazz and song vocalist.

  

  Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia. In her youth Fitzgerald wanted to be a dancer, although she loved listening to jazz recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and The Boswell Sisters. She idolized the lead singer Connee Boswell, later saying, “My mother brought home one of her records, and I fell in love with it….I tried so hard to sound just like her.”

She made her singing debut at 17 on November 21, 1934 at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. She pulled in a weekly audience at the Apollo and won the opportunity to compete in one of the earliest of its famous “Amateur Nights”. She had originally intended to go on stage and dance but, intimidated by the Edwards Sisters, a local dance duo, she opted to sing instead in the style of Connee Boswell. She sang Boswell’s “Judy” and “The Object of My Affection,” a song recorded by the Boswell Sisters, and won the first prize of $25.00.

In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House. She met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb here. Webb had already hired singer Charlie Linton to work with the band and was, The New York Times later wrote, “reluctant to sign her….because she was gawky and unkempt, a diamond in the rough.” Webb offered her the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University.

She began singing regularly with Webb’s Orchestra through 1935 at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom. Fitzgerald recorded several hit songs with them, including “Love and Kisses” and “(If You Can’t Sing It) You’ll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)”. But it was her 1938 version of the nursery rhyme, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket”, a song she co-wrote, that brought her wide public acclaim.

With Decca’s Milt Gabler as her manager, she began working regularly for the jazz impresario Norman Granz, and appeared regularly in his Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concerts. Fitzgerald’s relationship with Granz was further cemented when he became her manager, although it would be nearly a decade before he could record her on one of his many record labels. Fitzgerald left Decca and Granz, now her manager, created Verve Records around her. Fitzgerald later described the period as strategically crucial, saying, “I had gotten to the point where I was only singing be-bop. I thought be-bop was ‘it,’ and that all I had to do was go some place and sing bop. But it finally got to the point where I had no place to sing. I realized then that there was more to music than bop. Norman….felt that I should do other things, so he produced The Cole Porter Songbook with me. It was a turning point in my life.” Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, released in 1956, was the first of eight multi-album Songbook sets Fitzgerald would record for Verve at irregular intervals from 1956 to 1964. The composers and lyricists spotlighted on each set, taken together, represent the greatest part of the cultural canon known as the Great American Songbook. Fitzgerald’s song selections ranged from standards to rarities and represented an attempt by Fitzgerald to cross over into a non-jazz audience.

Plagued by health problems, Fitzgerald made her last recording in 1991 and her last public performances in 1993. Miss Fitzgerald was generous throughout her career, and in 1993, she established the Charitable Foundation that bears her name: The Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, which continues to help the disadvantaged through grants and donation of new books to at-risk children.

Stray Toasters

• MarknTyme sent me a link to an article about a “skin gun,” used as a treatment for burn victims. The accompanying video isn’t for the squeamish… but the results are rather impressive.
• 
• A Super Bowl oddity: No cheerleaders for Packers or Steelers
• No Easy Fixes as Internet Runs Out of Addresses
• Today in rock ‘n’ roll history: The day the music died
• 
  
• Gunman hijacks Greyhound bus in North Carolina
• The King of Cool’s Motorcycle Is for Sale
• Yesterday’s amazing house of tomorrow is today’s boring house of today

And, on to the day!

Namaste.

Thursday – 03 February 2011
It’s my NBN Technical Friday. Amen.

Last night was D&D (4.0) game night with and company. We almost team-wiped twice. It wasn’t pretty. But, we finished two encounters… and everyone survived. Barely. One neat, but unrelated thing: Jack and I noticed a Justice League Chess Set for sale for $50 (USD). We were intrigued. We pondered it for a bit before realizing that we could just “build” a chess set, using ‘Clix figures for the pieces for a lot less, should we decide that we really couldn’t live without one.

I also played a little DCUO last night. I’m still having a lot of fun with it. Last night, I was sent to a new (to me) part of Metropolis, Chinatown, to meet Zatanna for my next set of missions. Let me just say that this part of the city looks simply amazing.  The DCUO team also released another teaser video that portends ill things…

AND… new information has been released about new content being added to the game, including their Valentine’s Day event content, as well.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s personality is: Stokely Carmichael

Kwame Ture, also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”) and later as the “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party. Initially an integrationist, Carmichael later became affiliated with black nationalist and Pan-Africanist movements. He popularized the term “Black Power”.

In 1960, Carmichael went on to attend Howard University, a historically-black school in Washington, D.C., rejecting scholarship offers from several white universities. His apartment on Euclid Street was a gathering place for his activist classmates. He graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1964.

He joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), the Howard campus affiliate of SNCC. He was inspired by the sit-ins to become more active in the Civil Rights Movement. In his first year at the university, he participated in the Freedom Rides of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and was frequently arrested, spending time in jail. In 1961, he served 49 days at the infamous Parchman Farm in Sunflower County, Mississippi. He was arrested many times for his activism. He lost count of his many arrests, sometimes giving the estimate of at least 29 or 32, and telling the Washington Post in 1998 he believed the total number was fewer than 36.

Carmichael saw nonviolence as a tactic as opposed to a principle, which separated him from moderate civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.. Carmichael became critical of civil rights leaders who simply called for the integration of African Americans into existing institutions of the middle class mainstream.

The Black Panthers and Carmichael disagreed on whether white activists should be allowed to help the Panthers. The Panthers believed that white activists could help the movement, while Carmichael thought as Malcolm X, saying that the white activists needed to organize their own communities first. In 1969, he and his then-wife, the South African singer Miriam Makeba, moved to Guinea-Conakry where he became an aide to Guinean prime minister Ahmed Sékou Touré and the student of exiled Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah. Makeba was appointed Guinea’s official delegate to theUnited Nations. Three months after his arrival in Africa, in July 1969, he published a formal rejection of the Black Panthers, condemning the Panthers for not beingseparatist enough and their “dogmatic party line favoring alliances with white radicals”.

It was at this stage in his life that Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Ture to honor the African leaders Nkrumah and Touré who had become his patrons. At the end of his life, friends still referred to him interchangeably by both names, “and he doesn’t seem to mind.”

Carmichael remained in Guinea after separation from the Black Panther Party. He continued to travel, write, and speak out in support of international leftist movements and in 1971 collected his work in a second book Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism. This book expounds an explicitly socialist, Pan-African vision, which he seemingly retained for the rest of his life. From the late 1970s until the day he died, he answered his phone by announcing “Ready for the revolution!”

Stray Toasters

• This LEGO video was sent to my by angstd:
• Shippers Concerned Over Possible Suez Canal Disruptions
• The White Stripes Call It Quits
• The Super Bowl is Sunday. As the Ravens (and Dolphins and Panthers) are not in the game, I guess this means that I’m a Packers fan… at least through the weekend.
  • Even the Avengers are choosing sides… again:
    
• Ad banned for simulating drug use
• MTH has announced a locomotive that I now covet.
  I specifically want it in the Army livery.
• Reprogrammed stem cells are loaded with errors
• LEGO Mystery Box
• 
• Dispute Over Jewish Archives Derails Russian Art Loans to U.S.
• Classic Teen Heroes Boogie Down in the Art of Bill Walko
• This is a very cute commercial:
• The time has come for child seats on airplanes
• Foreclosed Homeowners Go to Court on Their Own

Namaste.

Tuesday – 02 February 2011
It’s Groundhog Day; be on the lookout for Bill Murray.

It’s also new comics day and D&D (4e) night, to boot.

Last night was D&D (3.5) night with and company. When we weren’t behaving like twelve-year-olds – and derailing the game – we managed to come up with a course of action… most of which we won’t get to until next gaming session. But, it was still fun. (A good corollary is found in Wil Wheaton’s blog entry: In which we play Cal & D).

After I got home, I played DCUO for an hour or so. One of the missions repeatedly kicked my trash. Nothing like getting swarmed – and defeated – by higher-level H.I.V.E. Troopers…repeatedly. *sigh* After what felt like eleventy-kajillion times, I finally got through it. I did a couple of Brainiac-related missions, as well.  Those weren’t quite as painful, though.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is… actually going to be TWO people:

• James Baldwin

  

  Baldwin was an American novelist, writer, playwright, poet,essayist and civil rights activist.

  Most of Baldwin’s work deals with racial and sexual issues in the mid-20th century in the United States. His novels are notable for the personal way in which they explore questions of identity as well as the way in which they mine complex social and psychological pressures related to being black and  homosexual well before the social, cultural or political equality of these groups was improved.

  During his teenage years in Harlem and Greenwich Village, Baldwin began to recognize his own homosexuality. In 1948, disillusioned by American prejudice against blacks and homosexuals, Baldwin left the United States and departed to Paris, France. His flight was not just a desire to distance himself from American prejudice. He fled in order to see himself and his writing beyond an African American context and to be read as not “merely a Negro; or, even, merely a Negro writer”. Also, he left the United States desiring to come to terms with his sexual ambivalence and flee the hopelessness that many young African American men like himself succumbed to in New York.

  In 1953, Baldwin’s first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, an autobiographical bildungsroman, was published. Baldwin’s first collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son appeared two years later. Baldwin continued to experiment with literary forms throughout his career, publishing poetry and plays as well as the fiction and essays for which he was known.

  Baldwin’s second novel, Giovanni’s Room, stirred controversy when it was first published in 1956 due to its explicit homoerotic content. Baldwin was again resisting labels with the publication of this work: despite the reading public’s expectations that he would publish works dealing with the African American experience, Giovanni’s Room is exclusively about white characters. Baldwin’s next two novels, Another Country and Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, are sprawling, experimental works dealing with black and white characters and with heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual characters. These novels struggle to contain the turbulence of the 1960s: they are saturated with a sense of violent unrest and outrage.

• Gwendolyn Brooks

  

  Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American writer. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.

  Brooks published her first poem in a children’s magazine at the age of thirteen. When Brooks was sixteen years old, she had compiled a portfolio of around seventy-five published poems. Aged 17, Brooks stuck to her roots and began submitting her work to “Lights and Shadows”, the poetry column of the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper. Although her poems range in style from traditional ballads and sonnets to using blues rhythms in free verse, her characters are often drawn from the poor inner city.

  Her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville, published in 1945 by Harper and Row, brought her instant critical acclaim. She received her first Guggenheim Fellowship and was one of the “Ten Young Women of the Year” in Mademoiselle magazine. In 1950, she published her second book of poetry, Annie Allen, which won her Poetry magazine’s Eunice Tietjens Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, the first given to an African-American.

  After John F. Kennedy invited her to read at a Library of Congress poetry festival in 1962, she began her career teaching creative writing. She taught at Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, Clay College of New York, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1967, she attended a writer’s conference at Fisk University where, she said, she rediscovered her blackness. This rediscovery is reflected in her work In The Mecca, a book length poem about a mother searching for her lost child in a Chicago housing project. In The Mecca was nominated for the National Book Award for poetry.

  In addition to the National Book Award nomination and the Pulitzer Prize, Brooks was made Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968. In 1985, Brooks became the Library of Congress’s Consultant in Poetry, a one year position whose title changed the next year to Poet Laureate. In 1988, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. In 1994, she was chosen as the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Jefferson Lecturer, one of the highest honors for American literature and the highest award in the humanities given by the federal government. In 1995, she was presented with the National Medal of Arts.

Stray Toasters

• Consider this: There is almost always enough time to exchange a pleasantry with a coworker before asking a question or setting them to a task. It amuses me how often I have to “gently remind” people of this fact.
• Flowchart: What Facebook Comment Should You Leave?
• I considered making Avery Brooks (1, 2) this morning’s Black History Month personality… but then I figured that people might not want to read my gushings over my man-crush. So, I didn’t.

  But, guess what: You’re reading about him, anyway!  So, I guess that means I still win!

• Punxsutawney Phil celebrates 125 years of Groundhog Day
• How to Use “Who” and “Whom” Correctly
• 
• Fees for home mortgages increase
• Crime Scenes: No break for cops caught on camera
• A Hacking Case Becomes a War of the Tabloids
• 
• Batman: billionaire plutocrat vigilante
• Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their worth.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 01 February 2011
It’s another sunny, but cold, day in Paradise.

Today not only marks the beginning of a new month, but also the start of Black History Month. (More on this below.)

Last night, SaraRules! and I had a fairly quiet night. We had dinner at the local Cafe Zupas, then we did a little errand-running before locking the world outside our door. We even managed to watch an episode of NCIS from the DVR. After that, I played a little DCUO before heading to bed. As a test, I fired up City of Heroes; I wanted to see how it looked with the graphics settings dialed up. The visuals were good, but the framerate was… less than fluid, which I found disappointing, when juxtaposed with DCUO. Maybe I need to tweak a few more settings in CoH to increase the framerate.  *shrug*

Chew on This: Food for Thought
As mentioned above, today is the beginning of Black History Month. As with last year, I think that I’ll do another “ABCs of Black History” this year. We’ll start with Dr. Ralph Abernathy:

Abernathy, the grandson of a slave, was born in Linden, Alabama (March 11, 1926). Ordained a Baptist minister in 1948, he studied at Alabama State College and Atlanta University. Abernathy met Martin Luther King in the early 1950’s, when the two were ministers of congregations in Montgomery, Alabama. They became widely known after the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts in 1955-56.

In 1957, King and Abernathy formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), with King as President and Abernathy as Secretary-Treasurer. After King’s assassination in 1968, Abernathy assumed the presidency, leading the Poor People’s Campaign later that year. Abernathy also presided over SCLC’s Operation Breadbasket, which used economic pressure against companies that did not provide equal opportunities to blacks. In 1977, he resigned from the SCLC to run unsuccessfully for Andrew Young’s Atlanta seat in the US House of Representatives.

After the election, he served as pastor of the West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta. A year before his death, he published his autobiography, entitled And The Walls Came Tumbling Down.

For more information, see: Ralph Abernathy

Stray Toasters

• A Harlem Cultural Hub Is Threatened by Debt
• Android System Overtakes Symbian
• Tolstoy’s “10 Rules of Life”
• 
• What’s Happening in Egypt, the Action Movie Explainer: “Raiders of the Lost Mubarak”
• Further reflections on discrimination
• Maine Bill Would Allow One-Armed Men to Use Switchblades
• 
• Apps Alter Reading on the Web
• Study puts spotlight on red-light cameras

Namaste.

Thursday – 27 January 2011
Another No Bad News Thursday is upon us. This one greets us with sun and the hope of a (reasonably) warm day.

Last night, SaraRules! and I met downtown for dinner at Settebello Pizzeria Napoletana. I had been there twice (I think) before, though I’ve been to Capo, the gelato shop next door, a few times. SaraRules! had the Margherita; I had the Quattro Stagioni, which was quite good. After dinner, we walked to the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center for our fifth Sundance movie, Perfect Sense:

When Susan (Eva Green), an epidemiologist, reemerges from an affair gone sour, she encounters a peculiar patient—a Glasgow truck driver who experienced a sudden, uncontrollable crying fit. Now he is calm, but he has lost his sense of smell. Susan learns there are 11 cases like him in Glasgow, 7 in Aberdeen, 5 in Dundee, and 18 in Edinburgh. In fact, Great Britain has 100 cases, with additional ones reported in France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, and they all appeared in the last 24 hours.Although Susan’s encounter with Michael (Ewan McGregor), a local restaurant chef, holds the promise of new love, the world is about to change dramatically. People across the globe begin to suffer strange symptoms, affecting the emotions, then the senses.

This description doesn’t really do the movie justice. While it does touch on the epidemic, it focuses mostly on Susan and Michael, their relationship and how it changes as the world around them changes. It was a dramatic piece with very human comedic moments interspersed through it. I’ve noted before how I appreciate movies that use silence – or, more aptly: the absence of sound – well, like Contact and Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams. This movie joins the ranks of those films in its excellent use of silence.

Stray Toasters

• We had an “all-hands” meeting this morning, kind of a “state of the company” address. It went well… I personally think that it may have been made a wee bit better, thanks to the Saint Brendan’s Irish Cream in this morning’s coffee.
• Homeland Security to replace color-coded terror alerts



• I have a new personal goal: To make at least one person per day smile or laugh.
  I liberated this goal from Matt, last week at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
• A Reservist in a New War, Against Foreclosure
• If “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” how do you think this guy feels?   (Courtesy, )
• ICV2 interview with WizKids Games’ Justin Ziran
• 
• At the suggestion of Thom Zahler, I am adding this book to The Covet List.
• Finding Tomorrow’s Jobs
• Thanks to Liz for this morning’s email amusement: Blue Panties (Totally work-safe, despite its title.)
• Lessons Linger 25 Years After Challenger Tragedy
• Museums Draw Scrutiny When They Sell Artworks
• I just received my new business cards!  Woot!

Namaste.

Tuesday – 18 January 2011
Back in the work-a-day groove.  It’s sunny and… clear today. And it’s relatively warm, too.

Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. For the past couple years, I’ve wanted to do something for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, but for reasons that pretty much come down to neglect and procrastination, I haven’t. But, this year, I did. I worked at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

When I got there, I met Bill Huntzinger, the manager of the ReStore. He gave me the overview of the store’s mission and told me to get familiar with the place. Twenty or so minutes later, I had the rough lay of the land and went back to find out what Bill wanted me to do. There was a plethora of doors and windows that needed to be sorted and moved into sales areas. That was going to be my job. To that end, I was introduced to Mike, another volunteer and I was put in charge of a group of volunteers from The Bennion Center at the University of Utah: Brandon, Drew, Jason, Ken, and Miguel. The guys were great – I explained what we were doing and they jumped right on it. There wasn’t any “Aw, man… I don’t want to do that” or slacking. A little later Dalton and Blake, a couple more volunteers, as well as Andana and Sam (both from The Bennion Center) joined our merry little band and the work just flew… as did the time.

After the Bennion group left, I worked with Mike, Dalton and Matt (more on him later) to clear out a couple of work areas and sort through some donations. Part of the fun of this was piloting a pallet jack – and I didn’t drop a pallet on anyone’s foot! Part of the “not as fun” was going through some donations from the former Roberts Arts & Crafts Store — there were LOTS of scrapbooking and crafting material. LOTS.

I left the ReStore about 3:30 or so. I had a great time and got to meet a number of interesting – and fun to work with – people.  I will definitely be going back there to volunteer… and I won’t be waiting until next year to do so.  I would recommend it to anyone.

On the way home, I stopped at The Train Shoppe. I asked about getting an older engine and a boxcar repaired; I’ll be taking them in on Friday to see what can be done. I also managed to walk out without buying anything new. (Besides, it’s only 10 more days until the train show at Thanksgiving Point…)

Last night, after dinner, SaraRules! surprised me with a trip downtown to see the Preservation Hall Jazz Band perform. It was part of the JazzSLC 2010-2011 season. It was a fun – aside from the 10-12 year old kid with a bad case of the fidgets – and a fantastic way to end a good day.

Back at home, I wasn’t quite tired enough to hit the rack, so I played a little LEGO Universe. I completed a couple of missions and also started building my property before calling it a night.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
As I mentioned before, one of the guys I met yesterday was named Matt. His full name is Matt Livermanne. He’s the guiding force behind TransWalk, the Transcontinental Walking Association. Matt became a volunteer at the ReStore after one of his walks (Wendover, NV to Salt Lake City) ended there. He told me stories of some of his encounters while walking – he’s met some really interesting and good people, as well as a few “less than savory” people, including one who got a Super-sized dose of “instant karma” served to him.

If you should find yourself at the ReStore, as either a volunteer or a customer, see if Matt’s there and have him tell you a tale of his travels.

Stray Toasters

• Jan. 18, 1911: Clear the Deck
• G.E. to Share Jet Technology with China in New Joint Venture
• Thanks to for posting this:



• Where News Is Power, a Fight to Be Well-Armed
• Mr. Aladdin, sir…?
  What will your pleasure be?
  Let me take your order, jot it down
  You ain’t never had a friend like me!
• Legendary Music Publisher Don Kirshner Dies
• Goblin War Machine
• 
• Papertoy Monsters
• Comcast Wins FCC Approval to Take Over NBC

Namaste.

Sunday – 16 January 2011
So far, it’s been a quiet and grey morning in the valley.

I slept in a bit and then headed over to Rich’s Bagels. Sunday breakfast with SaraRules!, bagels and Ray Charles in the background… can’t really go wrong there. Later today, I’m heading over to and Jack’s for D&D; we’re playing catch-up, so that our game is back on-schedule. Then, there will be dinner with the in-laws. After that, possibly a movie or a couple episodes of Mad Men.

Yesterday was a busy day. It started with breakfast with SaraRules! and Rachel at Millcreek Cafe and Eggworks. Next, SaraRules!, Jana, and I went to brunch (Market Street Broiler) and the matinee performance of Spring Awakening. I didn’t know what to expect going in, but I quite enjoyed it. It was an interesting play; it was set in the late 1800s, but the music was mostly modern rock. I found that the dichotomy worked well, with the music providing an interesting undertone for the angst and rebellious thoughts/natures of the youths.

After Spring Awakening, we came back home and I watched my recording of the Ravens-Steelers game. (More on that in a moment.) Then, it was time to get ready for Utah Opera’s Hansel and Gretel.

The performance also featured Angela and Kate (two of the Utah Opera’s Resident Artists), as “The Dew Fairy” and “The Sandman,” respectively. It was a… “fun”… opera, and more light-hearted than many/most operas that I’ve seen. There were a couple of special effects that added to the enjoyment of the performance, most notably the “dancing broom.”

Instant Replay: Football
There were some good games over the weekend… even though I missed both of Saturday’s games.

Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers
24 – 31
The Ravens, coming off last week’s big win over the Chiefs, flew into Heinz Field to take on the Steelers for the third time this season. The first half of the game was fantastic. The Ravens worked rather well on both sides of the ball, while the Steelers had… “some issues.” The Ravens went into halftime with a 21-7 lead. I don’t know exactly “what” happened in the second half. Complacency? Overconfidence? Whatever it was, the teams seemed to switch playbooks — the Steelers came on like gangbusters, while the Ravens looked more like the Keystone Kops. It was both sad and disappointing. And with that, the Ravens’ season comes to a 13-5 end. While I’m sad that they didn’t hold on for the win, I am glad that they had such a good season – it speaks well to the commitment of the staff, management and players. Lewis: “We’ll be back.”

Stray Toasters

• Tomorrow, I’m going to be working at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore for my  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service project.



• , have you seen this: Here’s Your Chance to Own the Real Batmobile
• As the son of teachers (and having a few friends who are teachers, as well), I think that everyone should check out Classroom Superheroes.
• The Monkeys You Ordered
• I am a little more than halfway done with The Professional. Hopefully, the ending will be more satisfying than Rough Weather.
• Museum of Sex exhibition about sex and comic books
• In in today’s “Weather vs. Technology” lesson, Flooding in Australia:

• My new desktop is up and running. Now, all I need is for DCUO to show up…

Time to get ready for gaming.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 12 January 2011
It’s midweek, which means that it’s Comics Wednesday.
As for returning the “sushi” to Wednesdays, well that’s something that we’ll have to see how it develops… but last night, the missus and I had dinner at Tsunami, so the sushi craving has been abated for the time being.

SaraRules! and I, along with Melissa and her friend, Kate, went to see The King’s Speech after dinner.

We had heard a number of glowing reviews from friends who had seen it, so it seemed like a fairly safe bet. At least in my case, friends’ comments didn’t do it justice. It was a fantastic film. Colin Firth did an excellent job as Albert, Duke of York (and later, King George VI). Geoffrey Rush was equally good in his role as Lionel Logue.  And, this was the first movie in some time in which I’ve seen Helena Bonham Carter act and didn’t just want to shake my head and go, “Really…?!  This again?!” She was… charming… in her role as Queen Elizabeth. This was a wonderful bit of cinema, proving that you don’t need to spend exorbitant amounts of money on special effects in order to tell a compelling story.

Stray Toasters

• I pre-ordered DC Universe Online: Collector’s Edition two months ago, because I wanted perks that came with it.
  The game went live yesterday.
  I received an email from Best Buy – at 11:09 PM last night – saying that it was “backordered.”
  I am not happy.
• 
• A Pink Lambo? Well, It’s Personal
• Face-Lift for Met’s Costume Institute
• The Onion‘s take on an extended football season:

  Onion SportsDome

• Credit scores get easier to track down and less secretive
• Battle Is Set as Verizon Adds iPhone
• 
  (And for those who don’t get the ‘Poser’ double entendre, click here.)
• This American Life: The Invention of Money
• Ten Awesome Things Most People Don’t Know About PHP
• James Bond Returns! And Not a Moment Too Soon!

Quote of the Day
Today’s quote comes from Derek Hunter, a local writer and illustrator:

Nitpick about your looks all you like, but let’s face it ladies, you’re all pretty gorgeous.

Know what?  He’s right.

Namaste.

Monday – 10 January 2011
A new work week begins. This one actually has some blue sky and sun associated with it. Of course, there is still a good bit of haze about the valley, but I’ll take what I can get.

Yesterday, and came over to watch the Ravens-Chiefs game. Nox brought Josh and Sabriel with him; both of the kids did a good job of entertaining themselves while we yelled at the television watched the game. After the Ravens-Chiefs game, we flipped over to the Packers-Eagles game, which was also a good contest.

After football was over, SaraRules! fixed dinner: Homemade beef barley soup, squash and dinner rolls. ‘Twas very good. After dinner, we played Trivial Pursuit and then I somehow convinced her to watch Smokey and the Bandit. It might not be the world’s best movie, but it’s one of my favorites — if I believed in “guilty pleasures,” it would be one of mine. (If memory serves me correctly, I believe that my father took me to see it in the theatre… three times.) I learned a couple of interesting things about the movie, thanks to IMDb:

• The second highest grossing movie released in 1977 next to Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
• Was a Guilty Pleasure of Alfred Hitchcock according to his daughter Patricia Hitchcock

After the movie, I finished up Rough Weather and called it a night.

Instant Replay: Football
There were some good games over the weekend… even though I missed both of Saturday’s games.

Baltimore Ravens at Kansas City Chiefs
30 – 7
The Ravens and Chiefs met at Arrowhead Stadium for the AFC Wild Card Playoff Game. The Ravens came to play some serious ball, too. After leading 10-7 at halftime, the Ravens went on to score another 20 unanswered points and seal the deal. Next stop: Heinz Field on Saturday, for a meeting with AFC North rival Pittsburgh Steelers.

Joe…?  Derrick…? You guys just scalped the Chiefs and are going to the Division game against the Steelers!  How do you feel about that?

Yeah, I’d be passing around the high-fives, too!  Congratulations!

Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles
21 – 16
The Packers and Eagles faced off in Philly… …and the Pack came away with the win There was a lot of post-game talk about the two missed field goals by Eagles’ P David Akers… six points which would have secured a Philadelphia win. Should’a. Could’a. Would’a. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers move on to face the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday.

.

New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts
17 – 16
Last week, I was worried about the Ravens having to face the Indianapolis Professional Football Club in the playoffs. More specifically, I was worried about the teams having to meet yesterday. Fortunately, Indy lost last week’s game and the Ravens wound up taking on the Chiefs. Saturday, Mark Sanchez and the Jets eliminated Indy – and the last Manning standing – from the playoffs. I only wish that I had seen that game.

.

New Orleans Saints at Seattle Seahawks
36 – 41
Are the Seahawks this year’s Cinderella team? They upset last year’s Cinderella and have their sights on da Bears in next weekend’s matchup.

Stray Toasters

• SaraRules! tested out a very good blueberry pancake recipe for breakfast yesterday.
  I have third-party independent verification of this, as young Ms. Sabriel packed away two of them, herself.
• It wasn’t a workout, per se, but I walked up five of the six flights of stairs to get into the office this morning. I’m thinking that I might challenge myself to do it at least once a day during the work week.
• Federal Charges in Giffords Shooting Cite Assassination Plan
• TV ‘Wonder Woman’ Not Going at This Time
• Taking a trip into history with the Freedom Riders
  • The Freedom Riders movie referenced on the second page of the article is the one that SaraRules! and I saw last year at the Sundance Film Festival.  If you have a chance to see it, I highly recommend it.
• 
• Library of Congress Gets a Mile of Music
• Theme park giant’s ups, downs lead to investor showdown
• Muslim and Christian, Egyptians stand together against violence

I don’t know when it happened, but most of the haze has burned off and you can now see across the valley.

Namaste.

Friday – 07 January 2011
It’s Friday and my 9/80 “off” day. Despite that, I’ve been somewhat productive this morning. I’ve already take my car to the shop (tune-up and tires), started laundry, prepped the carpets for vacuuming.  And it’s barely 10:30. (Well, it was when I typed that…) I consider that “productive.”

Last night, SaraRules! and I hit the gym, for my first workout of the year. She started a new routine, so I figured that I’d give it a go.  It wasn’t too bad… except for the lunges:

• Bench Press: 3 sets/8 reps, 165 lbs
• Front Squat/Push (shoulder) Press: 2 sets/10 reps, 40 lbs
• Step-ups: 2 sets/10 reps, 25 lb dumbbells
• Bent-over Row: 2 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs
• Lunge (static, one foot elevated): 2 sets/10 reps
  • Set 1: 25 lb dumbbells
  • Set 2: 15 lb dumbbells
• Push-ups: 2 sets/10 reps
• Plank: 2 sets/45 seconds
• Cable Horizontal Wood Chop: 2 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs

All-in-all, not a bad workout. There were a couple of exercises that were awkward, but nothing insurmountable.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
I read this yesterday, and shared it with Nyx, but neglected to add it to yesterday’s post: The Agonizing Last Words of Bill Zeller

Stray Toasters

• It’s a lovely shade of grey, inversion-induced “blech” outside this morning.
• Government recommends lowering flouride levels in U.S. drinking water
• From Indexed: A Little Something for the Pagans
• Harry Potter plagiarism case dismissed
• 
• Wizkids! Games’ site is jacked up, at the moment. Feh.
• Saudi Arabia ‘detains’ Israeli vulture for spying
• Congratulations to Greg and Liz Dean (of Real Life Comics)! Why?  Click here.
• This Is the Perfect House if You Are a Cat
• 
• US unemployment rate drops in December
• There’s been Sex Bomb and Sex Bob-omb, but neither was as insidious as this.

And with that, on to the rest of the day…

Namaste.

Wednesday – 05 January 2011
It’s midweek, which means that it’s Comics Wednesday! Unfortunately, no word has been given on if/when “Sushi Wednesday” will be reincorporated into the mix. I guess time will tell.

Last night was D&D 3.5 night with and company. Our party got into a fight… and got seriously smacked around. In fact, ‘s character took a beating at the hand a a war chief and came down with a sudden case of death. And, even though my character has some cleric-like (read: “healer”) abilities, he was beyond the scope of my power. So, I called in a favor. A big one. Really big. We got ‘s character back, but it came at a pretty steep cost.  (That whole cleric thing I mentioned before…?  It’s gone, at least for the foreseeable future.) Hopefully, that won’t come back to bite us in the collective recta.

Today, I got to work only to discover that I had left my ID badge at home.

*grblsnrkx*

I have a temp badge. Yay. Although, I really shouldn’t gripe too much… it does what I need it to. Mostly.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
Publisher Tinkers with Twain

A new edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is missing something.

Throughout the book — 219 times in all — the word “nigger” is replaced by “slave,” a substitution that was made by NewSouth Books, a publisher based in Alabama, which plans to release the edition in February.

Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery, approached the publisher with the idea in July. Mr. Gribben said Tuesday that he had been teaching Mark Twain for decades and always hesitated before reading aloud the common racial epithet, which is used liberally in the book, a reflection of social attitudes in the mid-19th century.

I read this article before heading to work this morning. When I got to the office, angstd messaged me to ask if I had seen it and what I thought about it…

I first read Huck Finn when I was in 8th Grade. I remember having a little bit of difficulty with it, not because of the content or offensive language, but from a few of the slang used. Aside from that, it was “just a book.” The fact that it dealt with social issues – especially slavery – wasn’t a big concern of mine, at the time. (Come on… I was 13 and it was reading for school.) I do remember thinking that it was a good book, however.

I’m not on board with Professor Gribben’s argument. I understand translating books from one language to another, but this was written in English – granted, some word structures are a bit dated, but English, nonetheless – and as a classic work of American fiction, I say leave it. Mr. Twain wrote it in a particular manner and I think that it should remain in that form. “Nigger” has a… colorful… history, but it is part of the American lexicon and, more importantly, it was part of the daily speech of many in the 19th Century. Changing the word to “slave” changes the dynamic of the language. I’ll concede that both words were used to denigrate the people about whom they were used, but one has a history of being used more harshly and cruelly. (Three guesses which it was.)

I was pleased to note that the article included a counterpoint:

“I’m not offended by anything in ‘Huck Finn,’ ” said Elizabeth Absher, an English teacher at South Mountain High School in Arizona. “I am a big fan of Mark Twain, and I hear a lot worse in the hallway in front of my class.”

Ms. Absher teaches Twain short stories and makes “Huck Finn” available but does not teach it because it is too long — not because of the language.

“I think authors’ language should be left alone,” she said. “If it’s too offensive, it doesn’t belong in school, but if it expresses the way people felt about race or slavery in the context of their time, that’s something I’d talk about in teaching it.”

Agreed. Were some of the issues that came along with and out of slavery offensive?  You bet they were. But I don’t see them as things to be swept under the rug or turned away from. If we do that, we forget about a powerful and divisive part of our history.

I’m sorry that Professor Gribben has a hard time with a few words. But, that’s all they are: Words. They can be used destructively, but we can learn many things – from who we were and where we’ve come from to what we have achieved and where we are going – from even the most harsh of words.

Perhaps the professor should take some time to read Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, by Randall Kennedy. The book takes the word and attempts to present ways to diffuse its volatile nature and history.

Maybe that would help.

Stray Toasters

• Escaped from Belarus, Actors Raise Voices
• 8 Superhero Movies That Broke the Mold (Please Copy Them!)
• By way of my coworker, Corey: Detroit in ruins: The photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
• 
• Swear Freely In Pennsylvania: It’s Your #$%^&*^ Constitutional Right
• I’m not a big country music fan, but I do like Darius Rucker… and Hootie and the Blowfish (much to my friend, Peggy’s, chagrin).  I caught a performance of this song on Palladia the other night. I was amused and entertained by it:
• “Whoops! #1”
• Could the days of the British “pint” be numbered?
• 
• A Most Successful Self-Experiment: Over 18 Months Soap and Shampoo Free
• “Whoops! #2”

Namaste.

Tuesday – 04 January 2011
In the words of The Pretenders, I’m “back on the chain gang.” 
Of course, as Big Daddy Kane said, “A Job Ain’t Nothin’ but Work.”
So far, the transition back to the working world hasn’t been too painful. And I actually remembered how to log into my systems, so that’s an added bonus.

Last night, I set up a couple of the 2’x4′ boards on my layout. Now, my rail yard is 4’x10′ long…

…and the base of the “U” is on  sawhorses and a board, rather than a 2″x4″ blocks… on a board… on a filing cabinet. I also extended the passing track by 10″, for no other reason than “because I could.”

SaraRules! and I had a quiet evening in, catching up on episodes of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. I find it amusing and somewhat ironic that I had two weeks off but didn’t catch up on very much of the DVR content.

Stray Toasters

• Our company gave us yesterday off.
  A number of people weren’t aware of this and showed up yesterday.
• Something old, something new at the Utah Symphony
• For Tolstoy and Russia, Still No Happy Ending
• By way of :



• Spider-Man’s ‘dad,’ Stan Lee, to get his Hollywood star
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Research babies
• 
• Struggling Borders to Meet with Publishers
• Temporary zombie tattoos by Mitch O’Connell
• There seem to be a lot of shake-ups (and a few break ups) in the NFL today.

Lunch is over; back to the grind.

Namaste.

Friday – 31 December 2010
Snow falls on the ground.
The broom sweeps away the snow.
The driveway is clear.

BOOM!  Just like that: Two days of haiku!

It snowed again last night, with very light snow falling this morning. This time, it was the light, powdery snow for which Utah is know. Thus, I was able to literally sweep away the snow. Today’s snow removal music was 2112; I finished in the time it took to listen to “2112” (the A-side) and “A Passage to Bangkok,” so… 24:08.  Not too shabby.

Last night, SaraRules! and I went down to Abravanel Hall to hear – and see – The Blue Planet Live! We went with Logan and Sanaz, and wound up running into and Jeff, as well as Mickey and Sammie . The performance was narrated by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. It was a good production. It was made more amusing by the woman sitting behind us who was amazed/fascinated by practically everything on-screen. (Seriously… you’d think that she didn’t use her television for anything but watching The Young and the Restless and maybe Martha Stewart Living.)

I was originally planning on heading up to The Wonderful World of Trains with today, but his schedule won’t allow it. I may still head up on my own, as I’m itching to get a look at the new location of The Bookshelf… and it’s three blocks from WWoT.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
Today is the last day of 2010. It’s been a year of ups and downs, but mostly “ups”:

• SaraRules! and I bought a house (…and discovered a great little neighborhood espresso shop)!
• My mother retired.
• I lost another good friend.
• I got back into model railroading after a nearly 30-year absence.
• I celebrated my first anniversary.
• I turned 40… and, thanks to the coolest wife ever, got to race cars for my four-hour mid-life crisis!
• My third niece was born.
• We got to host Thanksgiving in our new home.
• We had my family come out and celebrate Christmas with us.

…and, as I said last year: “…these are all part of ‘life.'”

On the whole, 2010 was a good year. I am thankful for the many new people I met and I am grateful for the many wonderful things that I got to experience. If you were part of my year – no matter how big or small a part – thank you for the pleasure of your company and for being a part of my journey.

I wish you a very happy and prosperous 2011 and beyond.

Stray Toasters

• I think that I like sweeping snow far better than shoveling it.
• The Sartorialist
• 
• John Ridley’s Top 7 ‘Nontroversies’ of 2010
• GeekDad, meet GeekMom
• Nyx is dealing with ever-increasing levels of monkeydom. I think that she should keep a dead-blow hammer handy, for just such occasions.
• 
• DC Women Kicking Ass – The most memorable moments in DC history for women: Nominee #21
• I believe that I’ve solved the “problem” of streets in my model railroad: SuperStreets
• Demolition of the Paris Metro
  • Berlin – The Metro
    
• The Style Guy’s 15 Rules to a Sharper, Smarter Life
• How to Take Better Pictures with Your Smartphone’s Camera

And with that…

Be well and be good to yourself and to others.

Namaste.

Friday – 17 December 2010
It’s my 9/80 “on” Friday.
It’s also my last day of work for the year.

With those two things, you’d think that the day would almost qualify as an “NBN Friday.”

Too bad that I spilled my coffee as soon as I got to my desk. *sigh* I made it out of the house, out of the garage, all the way to work, up the elevator and into the office with no problem. But, go to turn the corner at my desk…?

::: SPLASH :::

And I’d only gotten a small sip of the coffee in the elevator. “Some days…,” I tell ya. Hopefully, this will not prove to be a bellwether of the rest of the day. I got the office wet/dry vac and did the best I could to clean Ground Zero. (Fortunately, the carpets are scheduled to be cleaned this weekend.)

Last night, SaraRules! and I had dinner at MacCool’s. As usual, the fare was quite good. We split an order of Finn Skins as an appetizer; she had their Ahi Tuna Sandwich, while I had the Meat Loaf (with a spiced barbecue sauce). And there was Guinness. It was a good dinner and a nice change of pace.

After dinner, I stopped at Dr. Volt’s to pick up my second brick of ‘Clix, the tournament prize pack – gotta have goodies to hand out at tourneys, of course – as well as this week’s four-color paper crack. From there, it was on to Hastur Hobbies for 4th ed. D&D night. Josh, a former coworker, joined the group. We finished out the encounter (and that chapter of the story) without any deaths in our party.

After the game, I headed home to meet SaraRules! and we then headed to the gym:

• Leg Raises (Roman Chair): 3 sets/15 reps
• Bench Press: 3 sets/8 reps, 155 lbs
• Squats: 2 sets/10 reps, ~75 lbs
• Row: 2 sets/10 reps, 110 lbs
• Push-ups: 2 sets/10 reps
• Step-ups: 2 sets/10 reps per leg, with 20 lb dumbbells
• Jackknifes: 2 sets/10 reps

And, to finish up the evening we finally finished up this year’s Christmas card.

Stray Toasters

• MarknTyme just called me a “pusher.”
  All because he:
  1. Is considering getting back into model railroading after we’d talked about it a few times, and
  2. Just made his first purchase from WorldWorksGames.

  I told him that I prefer to think of myself as a “facilitator.”

• 
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Flirty Models Were Hired in Bid to Find Bone Marrow
• Zombie attack hoodie
• From the “We’ve Taken Care of Everything…” file: Man boards plane at IAH with loaded gun in carry-on
• Help, My Half-Elf Is Pregnant! The 11 Strangest Questions from the D&D ‘Sage Advice’ Column

  

• Blake Edwards, Prolific Comedy Director, Dies at 88
• Badass LEGO Guns
• The Implants Loophole
• When the Apocalypse Happens, You’ll Find Me in My Armored Home

Namaste.

Sunday – 12 December 2010
So far, it’s been a good day.  Of course, I just woke up… so, there hasn’t been a lot going on. But, as the commercial says: “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup waking up,” so I seem to be batting 1.000 so far.

Yesterday was a shopping day. We got a fair portion of Christmas shopping done for members of the family. We also went to Abravanel Hall to see Holiday Celibration with Jerry .

The concert featured Angela Theis and Kate Tombaugh (the two of the Resident Artists from Utah Opera), Karen Brookens (Weber State University Asst. Professor of Music), Brent Reilly Turner (also from Utah Opera), the West Jordan High School Concert Choir and their choral director, Kelly DeHaan. It was a fun concert, with a nice mix of sacred and secular music; among the notable selections:

• Angela, Kate and Karen performed a lovely three-part lead to O Come, All Ye Faithful, backed by the choir;
• The ladies also sang Handel’s Come Unto Him, from Messiah and a swing version of Up on the Housetop, in the manner of the Andrews Sisters;
• Brent performed a sung/spoken rendition of The Polar Express, backed by the choir; and
• The soloists performed The Twelve Days After Christmas, which was… different and amusing.

It was a nice way to spend the evening.

Stray Toasters

• Thanks to , angstd and MarknTyme for making sure that I saw the LEGO Antikythera.
• I think I’m in a mood for some Bobby Darin…
• Hilary Clinton: Empower Girls and Women
• Scandal and a Schism Rattle Atlanta’s Schools
• Bobby Darin – Artificial Flowers
• Technology Outpaces Privacy (Yet Again)
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Killer Groupie Samantha Spiegel
• Just Breathe: Body Has a Built-in Stress Reliever
• Kids’ book/science fiction mash-ups
• Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea
• After watching a few of bravosixxx’ videos, I’m trying to find a way to change up my rail yard. Unfortunately, it appears as though I would need to extend the length of that side of the layout by a couple of feet.
• Buried in Peru’s Desert, Fossils Draw Smugglers
  (I’m looking at you, Dr. Jones. The Hovitos are still a little ticked about that whole golden idol incident.)
• Heavy snow causes Metrodome roof to collapse in Minnesota
• Bobby Darin – Mack the Knife

just suggested making a trek to The Garden of Sweden. And with that, it’s time to start getting ready to face day.

Namaste.