Random Access

Tuesday – 21 February 2012
Ugh. That’s how I felt this morning when my alarm went off. Not because the girls woke up in the middle of the night. (Which was fine, as they woke up about 4:15 and were asleep again shortly thereafter.) No, last night’s broken sleep came courtesy of some rather disturbing dreams. Disturbing enough that it took me a while to want to go back to sleep. Yeah, it was that much fun.

The evening, however, was good. It was another bath night for the girls. After last week’s experience with Vanessa (a.k.a. “Splash-O-Matic 5000”), I decided to change into shorts before giving the girls their baths. And, of course, this week, both girls were fairly subdued. Still, bath time was good.

After the girls were down, SaraRules! made a fantastic chicken curry dish (with chickpeas and spinach) over rice. We ate and knocked a couple of episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles and Castle off the DVR. When those were done, we saw that Blade Runner was on AMC. We watched part of it and realized that neither of us had watched the whole film in a while. We plan on rectifying that in the not-too-distant future.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: Leslie Uggams, an American actress and singer.

Leslie Uggams was born on May 25, 1943 in New York City, to Harold and Juanita Uggams. As a small child Uggams would sing along to records, exhibiting a remarkably mature voice. The fact that Uggams had vocal talent was not a total surprise. Her father was a member of the Hall Johnson Choir, and her mother was a chorus girl at the Cotton Club.

In 1949, at age six, Uggams sang in public for the first time at St. James Presbyterian Church in New York City. The following year, she made her acting debut with a small part on an episode of the television comedy Beulah, which starred the legendary Ethel Waters. Uggams played Beulah’s niece.

At 9-years-old Leslie, opened for such legends as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington at the Apollo Theater. She also made appearances on Your Show of Shows, The Milton Berle Show, and The Arthur Godfrey Show. After completing the third grade, Uggams left her local public school to enroll at the Professional Children’s School, a private institution in Manhattan catering to children with show business connections.

At 15 , she appeared on the CBS-TV quiz show “Name That Tune,” winning $12,500 toward her college education. The appearance gave Uggams a chance to showcase her vocal skills. Her rendition of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” was noticed by record producer Mitch Miller who, as director of artists and repertory at Columbia Records, was one of the most influential figures in popular music during the 1950s. Miller signed Uggams to a contract, and her first album was released in 1959. Despite increasing career demands, Uggams continued to excel at school. At the Professional Children’s School, from which she graduated in 1961, Uggams was editor of the yearbook and president of the student body.

When Miller got his own television show, Sing Along with Mitch, in 1961, Uggams was asked to appear on it, first as a guest vocalist, then as a regular member of the all-singer cast. She became the lone African American performer regularly appearing on network television. The presence of an African American singer on the Sing Along with Mitch show drew relatively little controversy, although some stations in the South refused to air the program. “Mitch was told either I go or the show goes. He said, ‘Either she stays or there’s no show.’ He loved that show, and he had been trying to sell it for so long that to turn around and do that was heroic,” Uggams told Nadine Brozan of the New York Times in 1994. Uggams sometimes found her position as television’s only African American performer difficult to bear. “It was a heavy load. I was responsible for having a clean image. I wanted people to have respect for black people.”

Monday – 20 February 2012
It’s a new work week. Yay (or something to that effect).

I am, however, rather excited as the girls – for the second time in three days – slept through the night!

Vanessa (l), Sara, and Diana

That’s right, seven-and-a-half hours of sleep. (If only I didn’t have such disconcerting dreams last night…)

The rest of the weekend was good, as well. Saturday afternoon, I judged a tournament for Dr. Volt’s Comic Connection. Saturday evening, I attended Utah Symphony‘s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto N0. 2 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 with Melissa Sanders. It was a fantastic concert.

Sunday was a relaxing day, spent mostly at home. We did venture out for a bit to Black Water Coffee Company and Fashion Place Mall… where the girls went on a shopping spree. Seriously. They cleaned up. (Okay, okay… it helped that Carter’s was having a pretty big sale. Still…) Later in the day, we headed up to SaraRules!’ parents for dinner before heading home for little girls’ bedtime. And, we wound up the evening with The Walking Dead and with me playing a little Modern Warfare 3.

And today is Presidents Day.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
After taking the weekend off from blogging, let’s get back into the swing of things with an all-music selection of notables:

• Questlove (also known as ?uestlove), is an American drummer, DJ, music journalist and record producer.
  
  Ahmir Khalib Thompson (January 20, 1971) Thompson was born in Philadelphia. His father was Lee Andrews of Lee Andrews & the Hearts, one of the great 50s doo-wop groups. Ahmir, who started drumming at the age of 2, often accompanied his parents on tour. By the age of 8, he was well-versed in life on the road, learning how to “cut gels, place mics, place lights. Then I became the sound guy and tech guy. One night the drummer didn’t make it, and then I was [my father’s] drummer.”

  Thompson’s first gig came at the age of 13, during a performance at Radio City Music Hall. “My parents didn’t trust babysitters back in the early 70s,” Thompson told Mother Jones magazine in 2011. “So I had to play bongos on stage with them ’cause ‘No stranger’s gonna watch my son in Muncie, Indiana!’” That same year, Thompson was named the musical director for his father’s group, and he became determined to establish his own career in music.

  Questlove’s parents then enrolled him at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. By the time he graduated, he had founded a band called The Square Roots (later dropping the word “square”) with his friend Tariq Trotter (Black Thought). After high school, Thompson was offered a spot at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, but the young musician couldn’t afford the tuition. Instead, Thompson devoted himself to making his unique style of music. The Roots’ roster was soon completed, with Questlove on percussion, Tariq Trotter and Malik B on vocals, Josh Abrams (Rubber Band) on bass (who was replaced by Leonard Hubbard in 1994), and Scott Storch on keyboards.

  Questlove currently performs with The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, occasionally performing solos titled ‘re-mixing the clips’ where he draws on his production and DJ abilities to dub video clips, cue audio samples in rhythm, and play drum breaks simultaneously.

  Thompson, not one to rest on the heels of his success, has also been involved in a dizzying array of side projects. He appeared as a drummer for the instrumental jazz album, The Philadelphia Experiment in 2001, and in 2002 he released the compilation ?uestlove Presents: Babies Making Babies. He has also served as an executive producer for artists such as D’Angelo and Common; has written film scores; and drummed for artists like Christina Aguilera, Fiona Apple and Joss Stone.

• Otis Redding (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger, and talent scout.
  
  Otis Ray Redding, Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was born in the small town of Dawson, Georgia to gospel singer Otis Redding, Sr., and housekeeper Fannie Redding. At an early age, he sang in the Vineville Baptist Church choir and learned guitar and piano. From the age of 10, he took drum and singing lessons. Later, at Ballard-Hudson High School, he sang in a school band. Every Sunday he earned $6 (USD) by performing songs for Macon radio station WIBB. His passion was singing and often cited Little Richard and Sam Cooke as major influences.

  At age fifteen, he abandoned school to help his family financially. His father had contracted tuberculosis and was often hospitalized, leaving his mother as the primary financial provider for the family, while Redding worked as a well digger, gas station attendant and guest musician in the following years. His breakthrough came when he played Little Richard’s “Heebie Jeebies”, winning a $5 contest fifteen weeks in a row, until being banned.Redding was soon hired by Little Richard’s band The Upsetters.

  Redding joined Johnny Jenkins’s Pinetoppers, a local Georgia band, and also served as the group’s driver. When the group traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to record at the famed Stax studios, Redding sang two songs of his own at the end of the session. One of the two, “These Arms of Mine” (1962), launched his career, attracting both a record label executive (Jim Stewart) and a manager (Phil Walden) who passionately believed in his talent.Redding’s open-throated singing became the measure of the decade’s great soul artists. Unabashedly emotional, he sang with overwhelming power and irresistible sincerity. “Otis wore his heart on his sleeve,” said Jerry Wexler, whose Atlantic label handled Stax’s distribution, thus bringing Redding to a national market. Redding’s influence extended beyond his gritty vocals. As a composer, especially with his frequent partner Steve Cropper, he introduced a new sort of rhythm-and-blues line—lean, clean, and steely strong. He arranged his songs as he wrote them, singing horn and rhythm parts to the musicians and, in general, sculpting his total sound. That sound, the Stax signature, would resonate for decades to come.

  Redding developed polyps on his larynx, which he tried to treat with tea and lemon or honey. He was hospitalized in September 1967 at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York to undergo surgery. In the winter of 1967, he again recorded at Stax. One new song was (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay, written by Cropper and Redding. Redding was inspired by the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and tried to create a similar sound, against the label’s wishes, and his wife was dissatisfied with its atypical melody. Redding wanted to change his musical style to avoid boring his audience. The Stax crew were similarly dissatisfied; Stewart thought that it was not R&B, while bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn thought its sound would damage Stax’s reputation. However, Redding thought it was the best song he ever wrote and would top the charts. Redding died just three days later, when his chartered plane crashed into Lake Monona, Wisconsin. Redding was entombed at his ranch in Round Oak, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Macon. Jerry Wexler delivered the eulogy. Redding was survived by his wife and three children.

• Tupac Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), was an American rapper and actor.
  
  Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. He was named after Túpac Amaru II, a Peruvian revolutionary who led an indigenous uprising against Spain and was subsequently executed. His mother, Afeni Shakur, and his father, Billy Garland, were active members of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s; he was born just one month after his mother’s acquittal on more than 150 charges of “Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks” in the New York Panther 21 court case.

  At the age of twelve, Shakur enrolled in Harlem’s 127th Street Repertory Ensemble and was cast as the Travis Younger character in the play A Raisin in the Sun, which was performed at the Apollo Theater. In 1986, the family relocated to Baltimore, Maryland. After completing his second year at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School he transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied acting, poetry, jazz, and ballet. As a teenager, Shakur attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he took acting and dance classes, including ballet. While living in Baltimore, he discovered rap and began performing as MC New York.

  In June 1988, Shakur and his family moved to Marin City, California. He began attending the poetry classes of Leila Steinberg in 1989. That same year, Steinberg organized a concert with a former group of Shakur’s, Strictly Dope; the concert led to him being signed with Atron Gregory who set him up as a roadie and backup dancer with the young rap group Digital Underground in 1990.

  In 1991, Shakur emerged as a solo artist – using the name 2Pac – with his debut album 2Pacalypse Now. The track “Brenda’s Got a Baby” reached as high as number three on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart. His second album Strictly 4 My N. I. G. G. A. Z. crossed over to the pop charts, with singles “I Get Around” and “Keep Ya Head Up.” The album went platinum, selling more than a million copies. Around this time, Shakur also appeared in several films, including Poetic Justice (1993) opposite Janet Jackson.

  Tupac became quite a sensation, earning praise for his musical and acting talent as well as condemnation for his explicit, violent lyrics. Many of his songs told of fights, gangs, and sex. He appeared to be living up to his aggressive gangster rap persona with several arrests for violent offenses in the 1990s. In 1994, he spent several days in jail for assaulting director Allen Hughes and was later convicted of sexual assault in another case.

  Shakur himself fell victim to violence, getting shot five times in the lobby of a recording studio during a mugging. On the night of November 30, 1994, the day before the verdict in his sexual abuse trial was to be announced, Shakur was shot five times and robbed after entering the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan by two armed men in army fatigues. He would later accuse Sean Combs, Andre Harrell, and Biggie Smalls—whom he saw after the shooting—of setting him up. According to the doctors at Bellevue Hospital, where he was admitted immediately following the incident, Shakur had received five bullet wounds; twice in the head, twice in the groin and once through the arm and thigh. He checked out of the hospital, against doctor’s orders, three hours after surgery. In the day that followed, Shakur entered the courthouse in a wheelchair and was found guilty of three counts of molestation, but innocent of six others, including sodomy. On February 6, 1995, he was sentenced to one-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years in prison on a sexual assault charge.

  After serving eight months in prison, Shakur returned to music with the album All Eyez on Me. He was reportedly released after Death Row Records CEO Marion “Suge” Knight paid a bond of more than $1 million as part of Shakur’s parole. In his latest project, Shakur as the defiant street thug was back in full force on this recording. The song “California Love” featured a guest appearance by famed rapper-producer Dr. Dre and made a strong showing on the pop charts. Besides his hit album, he tackled several film roles.

  On a trip to Las Vegas to attend a boxing match, Shakur was shot while riding in a car driven by Knight on September 7, 1996. He died six days later on September 13 from his injuries. His killer has never been caught. Since his death, numerous albums of his work have been released, selling millions of copies.

• Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years
  
  Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) was born in Nutbush, Tennessee, the daughter of Zelma Bullock, a factory worker, and Floyd Richard Bullock, a Baptist deacon, farm overseer, and factory worker. Zelma Bullock later relocated to St. Louis, Missouri. Floyd Bullock moved to Detroit and later settled in California. Anna Mae and her sister relocated to Brownsville where they were raised by their grandmother.  She performed on several talent shows as a child and sang at her church choir. She later moved to St. Louis and, following her graduation from high school in 1958, took work as a nurse aide at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

  In between the time Anna Bullock had moved to St. Louis, she was enthralled by the city’s thriving nightclub scene and her sister often took her to several of the clubs, much to their mother’s chagrin. Anna was introduced to Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm band after her sister took her to Club Manhattan where Alline served as a barmaid. Anna pursued Ike Turner for months asking him to let her sing with his band. When she was seventeen, she sang during a band intermission to a B. B. King song which impressed Turner. Eventually Turner allowed her to join the band as a background vocalist. Turner gave Bullock her first stage name, “Little Ann,” during this time and included her in his record, “Box Top”, which was a local hit in St. Louis.

  In November 1959, when a male vocalist failed to show up for a recording session, Anna was told to give a guide vocal to the song. Ike Turner then sent the song to New York where he met with Sue Records president Juggy Murray and played the song to him. Upon hearing it, Murray insisted Turner keep Anna’s vocals on the song, giving Turner a $25,000 advance, convinced the song would be a hit single. In response to this, Turner decided to form a duo around him and Bullock. In the process, he changed her stage name to “Tina Turner.” The two achieved considerable success as a rhythm-and-blues vocal duo and became known for their electrifying stage and television performances. However, after years of abuse, the marriage and professional partnership was officially dissolved in 1976.

  After a slow start, Turner’s solo career took off with a remake of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together in 1983. Her much anticipated solo album, Private Dancer, won four Grammy Awards and sold well over 20 million copies worldwide. Subsequent albums include Break Every Rule (1986), Tina Live in Europe (1988, Grammy for Female Rock Vocal Performance) and Foreign Affair, which included the hit single “(Simply) The Best.” In the 1990s, she released Wildest Dreams and Twenty Four Seven.Turner also launched an acting career, appearing in the films Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdrome starring Mel Gibson and The Last Action Hero with Arnold Schwarzenegger. She has also made several recordings for soundtracks, including “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” “Goldeneye,” and “He Lives In You” for The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride.

  In 1993, Turner’s best-selling 1986 autobiography I, Tina was made into the motion picture What’s Love Got to Do with It? starring Angela Bassett. Her soundtrack for the movie went double platinum in the U.S.

  Though she is now semi-retired, Turner does make rare appearances and recordings. She returned to the stage in 2008 to embark on her “Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour.” It became one of the highest-selling ticketed shows of 2008 and 2009.

Stray Toasters

• Spotlight: Princeless
  I picked up the first couple of issues of this title. It’s a great spin on the “princess needs rescuing” trope. I highly recommend it.
• New Museums to Shine a Spotlight on Civil Rights Era
• New Civil Rights Museums Emerge
• Girl in iconic March on Washington photo identified
• Afrocyberpunk: The future and science fiction in Africa
• States Try to Fix Quirks in Teacher Evaluations
• Frank Zappa explains the decline of the music business
• NASA salutes John Glenn, Mercury astronauts
• How Companies Learn Your Secrets
• Phone Booths Reincarnated as Bookshelves Finally Make Phone Booths Useful… for people other than Clark Kent

Namaste.

Monday – 13 February 2012
Another new work week begins…

…and today is also my Sib-1’s (Rana) birthday:

This weekend was good… and somewhat productive, too. SaraRules! and I have changed the girls’ nighttime sleep and feeding schedule: Wake them up for a small feeding and diaper change just before we go to bed. It seems to be working pretty well. Saturday night (the first night we tried it), they managed to sleep for six straight hours. Unglaublich! And, after they woke up for their “wee hours of the morning” feeding, they slept in until 8:30. It was divine.

Diana (l) and Vanessa, before heading out for the day

We took the girls up to Red Butte Garden for a Saturday afternoon stroll. They seemed to enjoy it… almost as much as yesterday’s pilgrimage to The Garden of Sweden. Amen. Both girls stayed awake through IKEA trip, which became funny when we got into the warehouse area. As I’ve noted before, the girls are fascinated with moving things, especially ceiling fans. I had forgotten that IKEA has ceiling fans in the warehouse. However, this was not something that escaped Vanessa’s notice. Nor, a few seconds later, Diana’s notice. It was funny to look down into the stroller and see them both staring agog at the ceiling.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
It’s another post-weekend two-person post.

• John Mercer Langston (December 14, 1829 – November 15, 1897) was an American abolitionist, attorney, educator, and political activist.
  
  Langston was born free in 1829 in Louisa County, Virginia, the youngest of three sons and a daughter of Ralph Quarles, a white plantation owner of English descent and Lucy Jane Langston, a freedwoman of mixed African and Native American descent. After his parents both died when Langston was four, he and his brothers, Gideon Quarles and Charles Henry Langston, moved to Chillicothe, Ohio with their half-brother William Langston. John was taken to live with William Gooch and his family, friends of his father’s.In 1835 the older brothers Gideon and Charles started at the preparatory school at Oberlin College, where they were the first African-American students to be admitted. John Langston earned a bachelor’s degree in 1849 and a master’s degree in theology in 1852 from Oberlin. Denied admission to law schools in New York and Ohio because of his race, Langston then studied law (or “read law”, as was a practice then) under attorney and Republican congressman Philemon Bliss and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1854. In 1855, he was one of the first African-American people in the United States elected to public office when elected as a town clerk in Ohio.

  Together with his older brothers Gideon and Charles, John Langston became active in the Abolitionist movement. He helped runaway slaves to escape to the North along the Ohio part of the Underground Railroad. In 1858 he and Charles partnered in leading the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, with John acting as president and traveling to organize local units, and Charles’ managing as executive secretary in Cleveland.

  In 1864 he helped organize the National Equal Rights League, of which he was the first president. After the American Civil War Langston moved to Washington, D.C., practiced law, and was professor of law and the first dean of the law department (1869–77) and vice president (1872–76) of Howard University.

  He was U.S. minister to Haiti and chargé d’affaires to Santo Domingo (1877–85) and was elected president of the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (1885).

  In 1888 he was a Republican candidate from Virginia for the U.S. House of Representatives, and, after a challenge of the election returns that took almost two years, he succeeded in unseating his Democratic opponent and served in Congress from Sept. 23, 1890, to March 3, 1891.

• Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (October 20, 1885 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer.

  

  Morton was born in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. A baptismal certificate issued in 1894 lists his date of birth as October 20, 1890; however Morton himself and his half-sisters claimed the September 20, 1885, date is correct.

  Morton learned the piano as a child and, at the age of fourteen, began working as a piano player in a brothel (or as it was referred to then, a sporting house.) In that atmosphere, he often sang smutty lyrics and it was at this time that he took the nickname “Jelly Roll”, which at the time was black slang for the female genitalia.

  Morton’s piano style was formed from early secondary ragtime and “shout”, which also evolved separately into the New York school of stride piano. Morton’s playing, however, was also close to barrelhouse, which produced boogie woogie. Morton often played the melody of a tune with his right thumb, while sounding a harmony above these notes with other fingers of the right hand. This added a rustic or “out-of-tune” sound (due to the playing of a diminished 5th above the melody). This may still be recognized as belonging to New Orleans. Morton also walked in major and minor sixths in the bass, instead of tenths or octaves. He played basic swing rhythms in both the left and right hand.

  Around 1904, Morton started wandering the American South, working with minstrel shows, gambling and composing. In 1912–1914, he toured with girlfriend Rosa Brown as a vaudeville act before settling in Chicago for three years. By 1914, he had started writing down his compositions, and in 1915 his “Jelly Roll Blues” was arguably the first jazz composition ever published, recording as sheet music the New Orleans traditions that had been jealously guarded by the musicians. In 1917, he followed bandleader William Manuel Johnson and Johnson’s sister Anita Gonzalez to California, where Morton’s tango “The Crave” made a sensation in Hollywood.
  

  He made his recording debut in 1923, and from 1926 to 1930 he made, with a group called Morton’s Red Hot Peppers, a series of recordings that gained him a national reputation. Morton’s music was more formal than the early Dixieland jazz, though his arrangements only sketched parts and allowed for improvisation.

  During the period when he was recording his interviews, Morton was seriously injured by knife wounds when a fight broke out at the Washington, D.C. establishment where he was playing. A nearby whites-only hospital refused to treat him, and he had to be transported to a lower-quality hospital further away. When he was in the hospital the doctors left ice on his wounds for several hours before attending to his eventually fatal injury. His recovery from his wounds was incomplete, and thereafter he was often ill and easily became short of breath. Morton made a new series of commercial recordings in New York, several recounting tunes from his early years that he had been talking about in his Library of Congress interviews.

  A worsening asthma affliction sent him to a New York hospital for three months at one point and when visiting Los Angeles with a series of manuscripts of new tunes and arrangements, planning to form a new band and restart his career, the ailment took its toll.

  Morton died on July 10, 1941 after an eleven-day stay in Los Angeles County General Hospital.

Stray Toasters

• It was a Foster The People kind of morning.

• The Style Report: The Best-Dressed Men at the Grammys
• Scale of the Universe 2
• While I’m not a huge fan of the new DC Entertainment logo, I find that it doesn’t annoy me as much as it originally did.
• 
• The Words She Really Wants to Hear
• Trophy heads of fanciful Seussian creatures

Namaste.

Thursday – 09 February 2012
This NBN Thursday is a bit grey and hazy.  But, I started the morning with SaraRules! and the girls, so it was a good kick-off to the day.

Last night, we watched Killer Elite (not to be confused with the movie with almost the same title from 1975) for Movie Date Night. Robert DeNiro. Clive Owen. Jason Statham. All kicking ass and, in some cases, taking names. The premise was a little different than I expected, but not in a bad way. There were a couple of plot holes, but what movie doesn’t have those these days? In the end, it made for a decent night’s viewing.

Also, I tried out something different with my bike trainer: Disengaging the tension wheel, so that the back wheel spun freely. Works, but without any resistance, I was pedaling as easily in the higher gears (15 and up) as I was in the first three gears. Still, it’s an option.

Chew on This: Food for This – Black History Month
Today, you’re getting a double d0es of Black History Month goodness.

• The first person of note is James Weldon Johnson, author, politician, poet, songwriter, and educator, and early civil rights activist.James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938)  was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Helen Louise Dillet and James Johnson. His brother was the composer J. Rosamond Johnson. Johnson was first educated by his mother (the first female, black teacher in Florida at a grammar school) and then at Edwin M. Stanton School. At the age of 16 he enrolled at Atlanta University, from which he graduated in 1894. In addition to his bachelor’s degree, he also completed some graduate coursework there.

  After graduation he returned to Stanton, a school for African American students in Jacksonville, until 1906, where, at the young age of 23, he became principal. As principal Johnson found himself the head of the largest public school in Jacksonville regardless of race. Johnson improved education by adding the ninth and tenth grades. During his tenure at Stanton, Johnson wrote Lift Every Voice and Sing — often called “The Negro National Hymn”, “The Negro National Anthem”, “The Black National Anthem”, or “The African-American National Anthem” — set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954) in 1900.

  In 1897, Johnson was the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar Exam since Reconstruction. He was also the first black in Duval County to seek admission to the state bar. In order to receive entry, Johnson underwent a two-hour examination before three attorneys and a judge. He later recalled that one of the examiners, not wanting to see a black man admitted, left the room.

  In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him U.S. consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and in 1909 he became consul in Corinto, Nicaragua, where he served until 1914. He later taught at Fisk University. Meanwhile, he began writing a novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (published anonymously, 1912), which attracted little attention until it was reissued under his own name in 1927.

  In 1920 Johnson was elected to manage the NAACP, the first African American to hold this position. While serving the NAACP from 1914 through 1930 Johnson started as an organizer and eventually became the first black male secretary in the organization’s history. In 1920, he was sent by the NAACP to investigate conditions in Haiti, which had been occupied by U.S. Marines since 1915. Johnson published a series of articles in The Nation, in which he described the American occupation as being brutal and offered suggestions for the economic and social development of Haiti. These articles were reprinted under the title Self-Determining Haiti. Throughout the 1920s he was one of the major inspirations and promoters of the Harlem Renaissance trying to refute condescending white criticism and helping young black authors to get published.

  Johnson died while vacationing in 1939, when the car he was driving was hit by a train.

• The second person of note is Mat Johnson (no relation), an American writer of literary fiction.Johnson (born August 19, 1970) grew up in “racially stratified” Philadelphia. His mother is African American; his father, Irish American. After his parents’ divorce, he was raised by his social worker mother in a largely black section of the city, Germantown, where he often felt like a standout. “When I was a little kid, I looked reallywhite—I was this little Irish boy in a dashiki.”In his teens, he transferred to a private school, Abingdon Friends, in a more affluent neighborhood. “It was the first time I was around a lot of white people. I suddenly realized I had an ethnic identity, and started to think about race.” He listened to Public Enemy and devoured The Autobiography of Malcolm X and books by W.E.B. DuBois and Toni Morrison. “African-American literature felt like an intellectual home, this place where I fit and belonged,” he says gratefully.

  Like the late playwright August Wilson, Johnson seems to identify almost exclusively with the African roots of his biracial family tree. “African-American is a Creole culture. It embraces the mix,” he asserts.

  Mat Johnson attended West Chester University, University of Wales-Swansea, and ultimately received his BA from Earlham College, and in 1993, he was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Johnson received his MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in 1999. Johnson has taught at Rutgers University, Columbia University, Bard College, The Callaloo Journal Writers Retreat, and is now a permanent faculty member at The University of Houston Creative Writing Program.

  Mat Johnson’s first novel, Drop (Bloomsbury USA in 2000), was a coming of age novel about a self-hating Philadelphian who thinks he’s found his escape when he takes a job at a Brixton-based advertising agency in London, UK.  Drop was listed among Progressive Magazine’s “Best Novels of the Year.” In 2003, Johnson published Hunting in Harlem (Bloomsbury USA 2003), a satire about gentrification in Harlem and an exploration of belief versus fanaticism. Hunting in Harlem won the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Novel of the Year.

  Johnson made his first move into the comics form with the publication of the five-issue limited series Hellblazer Special: Papa Midnite (Vertigo 2005), where he took an existing character of the Hellblazer franchise and created an origin story that strove to offer depth and dignity to a character that was arguably a racial stereotype of the noble savage. The work was set in 18th Century Manhattan, and was based around the research that Johnson was conducting for his first historical effort, The Great Negro Plot, a creative non-fiction that tells the story of the New York Slave Insurrection of 1741 and the resultant trial and hysteria.

  In February 2008, Vertigo Comics published Johnson’s graphic novel Incognegro, a noir mystery that deals with the issue of passing (racial identity) and the lynching past of the American south.

  He was named a 2007 USA James Baldwin Fellow and awarded a $50,000 grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists. On September 21, 2011, Mat Johnson was awarded the Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

Information courtesy of Chronogram.com, DCComics.com, matjohnson.info and Wikipedia

Stray Toasters

• I’d like to add this to The Covet List.
• …and an order of these, too.
• Retro Fitted
• I drew some tweets, by The Oatmeal
• Try Medieval Hot Pants? Surely, You Joust
  Well, I don’t… but it is my home state’s official state sport.
• 
• States Negotiate $26 Billion Agreement for Homeowners
• I like this Project: Rooftop redesign of the X-Men’s White Queen’s outfit.
• Steampunk Magazine is back!
• China police chief may seek U.S. asylum
• MINE!
  
  I had to order this. Compelled to, I say! It’s the location of Beth Steel that my father used to work for.
• US Approves Two New Nuclear Reactors
• The science-fiction effect
• Tai Chi May Help Parkinson’s Patients Regain Balance

Namaste.

Wednesday – 08 February 2010
Vanessa turned 5-months-old today:

Last night, the girls took another foray into “New Food Adventures” with sweet potatoes. Their primary reflex is still to somewhat spit out whatever they’re fed, if it’s not in a bottle. This can be mitigated by simply re-spooning the food back in. After trying rice cereal last week, we were curious to see how they’d respond to a new food. We got our answer: They seemed to like it.  It was a messy – but successful – test.

As the night wore on, I finally decided to bring my bike in and set up the bike trainer that SaraRules! got me for Christmas. I got everything assembled and decided to try it out. It was a bit noisier than I expected, which may prevent me from using it after the girls go to bed at night… unless I move it into the unfinished part of the basement.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: Elmer Samuel Imes, the second African-American to earn a Ph. D. in Physics and among the first African American scientists to make important contributions to Modern physics.

Elmer Samuel Imes (October 12, 1883 – September 11, 1941) was born in Memphis, Tennessee, attended grammar school in Oberlin, Ohio and completed his high school education at the Agricultural and Mechanical High School in Norman, Alabama. Imes graduated from Fisk University in 1903 with a degree in science.

Upon graduating from Fisk, Imes taught mathematics and physics at Georgia Normal and Agricultural Institute in Albany, Georgia (presently Albany State University) and the Emerson Institute in Mobile, Alabama. Imes returned to Fisk in 1913 as an instructor of science and mathematics. During his tenure there, Imes earned a Master’s degree in science from Fisk University.

In 1918, Imes earned a Ph. D. in Physics at the University of Michigan where he studied under Harrison McAllister Randall becoming the second African American to receive a Ph. D. in Physics since Edward Bouchet, did so from Yale University in 1876. Imes’ research and doctoral thesis led to the publication of Measurements on the Near-Infrared Absorption of Some Diamotic Gases in November 1919 in the Astrophysical Journal. This work was followed by a paper co-authored and presented jointly with Dr. Randall: The Fine Structure of the Near Infra-Red Absorption Bands of HCI,HBr, and HF at the American Physical Society and published in the Physical Review in 1920. His work demonstrated for the first time that Quantum Theory could be applied to radiation in all regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, to the rotational energy states of molecules as well as the vibration and electronic levels. His work provided an early verification of Quantum Theory.

Around 1919, Imes became married to Harlem Renaissance writer, Nella Larsen. The couple lived in Harlem becoming part of the Harlem intellectual society which included intellectuals such as Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois.

During the period Imes spent in the scientific and materials industry, his work resulted in four patents for instruments which were used for measuring magnetic and electric properties.

In 1939, he conducted research in magnetic materials at the Physics Department at New York University and continued as chair of the physics department at Fisk until his death in 1941.

Stray Toasters

• Court Strikes Down Ban on Gay Marriage in California
• 101 Valentine’s Gifts for Every Woman Imaginable
• Thom Zahler, the writer and artist of Love and Capes, is putting out an art book. Check out his Kickstarter page for more information.
• 
• The Miraculous NASA Breakthrough That Could Save Millions of Lives
• In Data Deluge, Multitaskers Go to Multiscreens
  Yep. I use two screens at home… and a total of five at work.
• The Well-Dressed Rebel
• MasterCard announces product future around EMV
• Sadly, this is what part of our conversation during last Friday night’s Star Trek Tactics game sounded like…
  
• 79 Things We Can All Agree On
• This is why an octopus is more awesome than your mom
• 8,000 Butterfingers dropped in Boston to jab at Pats’ receivers
• Could the Death Star destroy a planet?

Namaste.

Friday – 03 February 2012
It’s my 9/80 day off with the girls.

Diana (l) and Vanessa

I’m trying to decide what we should do. There’s an offer on the table for a short road – and hobby shop – trip that’s sounding more and more appealing. On the other hand, we’re already planning to hit the World’s Greatest Hobby train show on Sunday, so I’m (somewhat) less inclined to buy something today.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: Don Cornelius

Donald Cortez “Don” Cornelius (September 27, 1936 – February 1, 2012) was an American television show host and producer who was best known as the creator of the nationally syndicated dance/music franchise Soul Train, which he hosted from 1971 to 1993.

Originally a journalist inspired by the civil rights movement, Cornelius recognized that in the late 1960s there was no television venue in the United States for soul music, and introduced many African-American musicians to a larger audience as a result of their appearances on Soul Train, a program that was both influential among African-Americans and popular with a wider audience. As writer, producer, and host of Soul Train, Cornelius was instrumental in offering wider exposure to black musicians such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson, as well as creating opportunities for talented dancers that would presage subsequent television dance programs. Cornelius said “We had a show that kids gravitated to,” and Spike Lee described the program as an “urban music time capsule.”

By way of NPR’s Dan Charnas:

Don Cornelius proved a truism about America and race that so few people, even today, understand: Black culture, expressed in undiluted form and unapologetically, will by virtue become accepted by the American mainstream. It’s something that future rap moguls like Russell Simmons and Jay-Z understood instinctively. So it’s a tragic irony that Soul Train‘s decline came with the dawn of the hip-hop era.  Last year, the set and memorabilia of Soul Train landed at the Smithsonian’s Museum of African-American History and Culture.

In the early-morning hours of February 1, 2012, officers responded to a report of a shooting and found Cornelius with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead by the Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner. According to former Soul Train host, Shemar Moore, Cornelius may have been suffering from early onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease and his health had been on the decline.

Information courtesy of NPR, The New York Times and Wikipedia

Stray Toasters

• Baratunde Thurston Explains ‘How To Be Black’
• I Love Ya But You’re Strange – That Time Batgirl and Wonder Woman Both Fell in Love with Batman
• Jailbreaking Is Not a Crime: An Interview with Bunnie Huang
• 
• Congratulations, University of North Carolina – Charlotte, you now have your very own SWAT team

And tonight, I’m playing HeroClix: Star Trek Tactics with the guys…

…just before the HeroClix: ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ event that I came up with and am judging tomorrow.

Weekend full of tabletop gaming goodness. Aw, yeah…

Namaste.

Thursday – 02 February 2012
It’s not just another NBN Thursday, it’s also Groundhog Day.

Yep. It’s just like that. And, apparently, the groundhog predicts six more weeks of winter. (Apparently, Utah never gets that memo.)

Last night was Movie Date Night around the household. The movie I chose was Drive, as SaraRules! and I both have an affinity for car chase movies. It was good… and far from what I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. I can’t really say “how” or “why”, but I will say this: The movie is not for the squeamish.

After the movie, I played a little CoD: Modern Warfare 3. There was one round that was horrid. Seriously abominable. The team we faced locked my team down on a map and just ate us up. We’d respawn. We’d die. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Fortunately (or “mercifully”), the round was over fairly quickly.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is Benjamin Banneker.

Benjamin Banneker (November 9, 1731 – October 9, 1806) was a free African American astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, almanac author and farmer.

It is difficult to verify much of Benjamin Banneker’s family history. Some writers have stated that he was a grandson of a European American named Molly Welsh, who came to colonial America as an indentured servant.Researchers have questioned this, as Banneker described himself only as having an African ancestry. None of Banneker’s surviving papers describe a white ancestor or identify the name of his grandmother.

Born on November 9, 1731 near Elliott City, Maryland, Benjamin Banneker was educated by Quakers, however, most of his education was self-taught. He quickly revealed to the world his inventive nature and first achieved national acclaim for his scientific work in the 1791 survey of the Federal Territory (now Washington, D.C.).

Benjamin Banneker has been called the first African American intellectual; because of his dark skin and great intellect he was called the “sable genius.” Benjamin Banneker was a self-taught mathematician and astronomer. In 1753, after studying the inner workings of a friend’s watch, he made a wooden pocket watch – one of the first watches made in America – that accurately kept time for more than 40 years. Twenty years later, Banneker began making astronomical calculations that enabled him to successfully forecast a 1789 solar eclipse.

From 1791 to 1802, he published the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemeris, which contained tide tables, future eclipses, and medicinal formulas. It is believed to be the first scientific book published by an African American. Also a surveyor, Banneker was appointed by President George Washington to the District of Columbia Commission, which was responsible for the survey work that established the city’s original boundaries. When the chairman of the committee, Pierre Charles L’Enfant, suddenly resigned and left, taking the plans with him, Banneker reproduced the plans from memory, saving valuable time. A staunch opponent of slavery, Banneker sent a copy of his first almanac to then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to counter Jefferson’s belief in the intellectual inferiority of blacks.

On August 19 1791, Banneker sent a copy of his first almanac to secretary of state Thomas Jefferson. In an enclosed letter, he questioned the slaveholder’s sincerity as a “friend to liberty.” He urged Jefferson to help get rid of “absurd and false ideas” that one race is superior to another. He wished Jefferson’s sentiments to be the same as his, that “one Universal Father . . . afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties.” Jefferson responded with praise for Banneker’s accomplishments.

Banneker never married. Because of declining sales, his last almanac was published in 1797. After selling much of his farm to the Ellicotts and others, he died in his log cabin nine years later on October 9, 1806, exactly one month before his 75th birthday. A commemorative obelisk that the Maryland Bicentennial Commission and the State Commission on Afro American History and Culture erected in 1977 stands near his unmarked grave in an Oella, Maryland, churchyard.

Wednesday – 01 February 2012
It’s not only midweek and new comics day, it’s also 2-1-12… which means it’s also Rush Day!

Today is also the day that HeroClix: Star Trek Tactics hits the shelves. (Think Star Fleet Battles… but updated. And in ‘Clix form.)

After the girls were asleep last night, I headed out to meet the guys for Guys’ Night Out. It was a good crowd. And, when mixed with good food, drink and conversation, made for a great way to spend a Tuesday night.

Today, to quote Al Jarreau: “I got my certain and my sure ‘nough on…” In other words: It’s a suit day. Grey herringbone suit, white and purple striped shirt, purple tie, white pocket square, grey socks, black loafers AND… purple LEGO cufflinks. BAM!

And tonight is movie night. (And I still have NO idea what we’re going to watch…)

Chew on This: Food For Thought – Black History Month
Today also marks the start of Black History Month.

Today’s person of note is: Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993) was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. Most of her singing career was spent performing in concert and recital in major music venues and with major orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although she was offered contracts to perform roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined all of these, preferring to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals.

Anderson displayed vocal talent as a child, but her family could not afford to pay for formal training. From the age of six, she was tutored in the choir of the Union Baptist Church, where she sang parts written for bass, alto, tenor, and soprano voices. Members of the congregation raised funds for her to attend a music school for a year. At 19 she became a pupil of Giuseppe Boghetti, who was so impressed by her talent that he gave her free lessons for a year. In 1925 she entered a contest with 300 competitors and won first prize, a recital at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid twentieth century. In 1939, when the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow her to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her DAR membership in protest and sponsored Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial, before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions.

Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage.

She also worked for several years as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and as a “goodwill ambassadress” for the United States Department of State. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, the National Medal of Arts in 1986, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

In 2001, the 1939 documentary film, Marian Anderson: the Lincoln Memorial Concert was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

On January 27, 2005, a commemorative U.S. postage stamp honored Marian Anderson as part of the Black Heritage series. Anderson is also pictured on the US$5,000 Series I United States Savings Bond.

The Marian Anderson Award was originally established in 1943 by Anderson after she was awarded the $10,000 Bok Prize that year by the city of Philadelphia. Anderson used the award money to establish a singing competition to help support young singers. Eventually the prize fund ran out of money and it was disbanded in 1976. In 1990 the award was re-established and has dispensed $25,000 annually. In 1998 the prize was restructured with the “Marian Anderson Award” going to an established artist, not necessarily a singer, who exhibits leadership in a humanitarian area. A separate prize, the “Marian Anderson Prize for Emerging Classical Artists” is given to promising young classical singers.

(Information courtesy of biography.com, FactMonster.com and Wikipedia)

Stray Toasters

• Early filers may have to wait longer for their tax refund
• You Bought It, but Do You Own It?
• A couple of sad bits of news:
  • Authorities: ‘Soul Train’ founder, Don Cornelius, dead of gunshot wound
  • Comic Book Artist Al Rio Reported Dead
• Breast Cancer Surgery Rules Are Called Unclear
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Twitter jokes ruin U.S. vacation for two British tourists
• 
• Al Jarreau will be in concert in Las Vegas in April. Hmm…
• This is what women in superhero comics should be
• Why Komen defunded Planned Parenthood
• Home ownership rates fall to 66% as downturn nears a bottom
• Google won’t pull Android apps deemed malicious

Namaste.

Tuesday – 31 January 2012
It’s the end of the month. More specifically, it’s the last Tuesday of the month. That must mean it’s time for Guys’ Night Out. Amen. The only thing that could – and did – make the day better was starting the morning with cuddles from Diana and Vanessa, as well as a kiss and a hug from SaraRules! Quadruple win.

I would also like to thank Ms. Galadriel for coming over (again) last night to help put the twins to bed while SaraRules! was at a Justice League meeting. There was no wailing, moaning or gnashing of teeth. And the twins were fine, too.

My subconscious has been drawing from my memories of 70’s and 80’s TV shows. This has become especially apparent over the past few nights’ dreams.  A few nights ago, Nicholas Hammond (probably most “known” for playing Peter Parker in CBS’ prime-time, live-action The Amazing Spider-Man) made an appearance. And last night, I had a dream sequence that was like a scene from the old Lynda Carter Wonder Woman. (Although the costume was a little wrong.) It was a little odd, but amusing, nevertheless.

And, I woke up with this running through my head:

Stray Toasters

• What Comes After Segregation?
• She Has No Head! – Interview with ‘Princeless’ Creator Jeremy Whitley
• What Is It About Mormons?
  Having lived in The Land Behind the Zion Curtain for more than a decade, my answer is: “There’s nothing ‘about’ them.” I have made a number of good friends who are LDS and they are just as human – for better and/or worse – as anyone else.
• 
• It’s fairly common knowledge that I’m a fan of Fringe. As such, I’ve come to like Lance Reddick‘s Agent Broyles/Colonel Broyles character(s) over the past few seasons. But, I think that both of them could learn a few things from his Toys R Me character.
• And yet another reason to like him: He’s from Baltimore.
• Letters of Note: To My Old Master, courtesy of
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Teacher charged with lewd acts allegedly told kids it was ‘game’
• 
• N.F.L. Super Bowl Ad Will Stress Safety
• YORU FOOT
• Ask the Captain: What happens when all systems fail during flight?
• 
• Illinois Assemblyman withdraws urine-testing for welfare bill when colleague adds urine-testing for Assemblyman amendment

Namaste.

Monday – 30 January 2012
Wow. Looks like it’s been almost a week since I posted. Long time, that. So let’s get to it…

It’s been a good week. In a nutshell, it’s included:

• Spending time with SaraRules! and the girls:
  

  Vanessa (l) and Diana… with Tigger and Pooh

• Watching Real Steel with SaraRules! (It wasn’t bad; think “Rocky Meets Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots”)
• Kicking off a new multi-month ‘Clix event series for Dr. Volt’s… (in addition to the regular tourneys)
• Playing a fair bit of Modern Warfare 3… and a little Gears of War 3
• Picking up a Butterfinger-dipped caramel apple (!!!)
• Seeing Utah Opera’s performance of Rigoletto.

Yeah, It was a good week.

This week has the possibility of being quite nice, as well.

Stray Toasters

• My mother-in-law made a fantastic chicken tortilla soup for dinner last night. I feel sorry for those of you who didn’t get a chance to sample it.
• Superheroines, and Their Better Halves
• Airline Fees
• This is a great article about my friend, Jake Black: Super story: Father, husband, comic book writer and cancer survivor enjoys the simple life
• The Avengers Shouldn’t Text
• 
• The Bookstore’s Last Stand
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Report: Body in storage unit for 17 years
• It’s Time to Rethink Steampunk
• It’s Illegal to Talk About the Super Bowl?
• Ruling on Contraception Draws Battle Lines at Catholic Colleges

Namaste.

Tuesday – 24 January 2012
For a day that started off grey with low clouds, it sure is sunny and bright out there. Of course, that’s a marked improvement over yesterday evening’s snow, so I’ll not complain.

Yesterday morning:

This morning:

Last night, came over. The original plan was for her to help me get the girls to bed while SaraRules! attended a Junior League meeting… but the meeting got rescheduled. So, she just came over and hung out with us, instead. She also tried to teach Diana to do The Time Warp, but it didn’t go so well. (I attribute it to the fact that the twins can’t stand yet, let alone dance.) But, I applaud her effort.

And, here’s a shot of the girls from this past weekend:

Stray Toasters

• Chaotic Start to Egypt’s First Democratically Elected Parliament
• Funny Ad for DC’s New Logo Parodies Fan Backlash
• This article is about a young lady that some friends of mine know: Colorado Teen Girl Recalls Train Accident: “I was watching my legs get crushed by coal cars.”
  Click through to The Times Call interview/article.  It’s worth it, for many reasons.
• Ex-Stanford Prof Starts a Totally-Free Online School
• Carroll Shelby marks 50 years with 800 hp Super Snake
• Yeah… add this to The Covet List.
• I got to spend the day surrounded by “quite a few” Shelbys when I went to Miller Motorsports Park a couple of years ago.
• 6 Made Up Nerd Words That Made It to Common Usage, and 8 That Should
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims
• Strongest solar storm since 2005 hitting Earth
• Solar radiation storm sweeps over Earth
• Storms in the Void: Space Weather and Childhood’s End
• Not Quite Smart Enough

Monday – 23 January 2012
It’s another day in the valley as a new work week begins.

Trying to kick the last remnants of the cold-like-thing that the girls gave me, I took some NyQuil this morning around 2:00 AM. It’s not hard to understand why I decided to forego the 6:30 alarm…

… and the 7:00 alarm.

…and the 7:10 alarm.

I finally managed to drag myself out of bed at 7:50. Fortunately, I didn’t have to be into the office early, so it wasn’t a big deal. (And I was still in the office by just after 8:30.)

The weekend, on the whole, was good. I took the girls to their second train show on Friday. It was at Thanksgiving Point. I was a little disappointed by the show; maybe it’s just because they didn’t have much in O scale that I was interested in. Maybe it was that it felt like I’d seen everything that they had to offer before. Still, it was nice to be able to attend a train show and see that the hobby is doing well.

Saturday, I judged a ‘Clix tournament for Dr. Volt’s Comic Connection. We had a rather decent turn-out, which was a very pleasant surprise. (It also snowed Saturday, as well. That was not as pleasant a surprise.) We had a player drop out between the second and third rounds, so I wound up playing a bye round. I threw together a team that I thought would be fun:

• Aquaman (hey… this one does more than just talk to fish),
• The Question,
• Superman Beyond and
• x-23

…and went up against a team of Lord of the Rings ‘Clix. My team did well. I hadn’t used the Aquaman figure before, but after seeing how dangerous he can be, I think that he might just become one of my new “go-to” pieces. He works well with The Question and I think that he’d be similarly effective with the LE Harvey Dent from the Arkham Asylum set. Or Psycho-Pirate. Or even an Atlantis-themed team.

Yesterday, aside from watching football, was mostly a stay-at-home and hang out with the family kind of day.

Instant Replay: Football

Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots
20 – 23
The Ravens traveled to Foxborough, Mass. to take on the Patriots for the AFC Championship. It was a rough game. Both teams got off to slow and rocky starts. Then the Pats put up a field goal. Eventually, the Ravens got an FG, too. And it was game on. The teams traded blows through the rest of the game and it looked as though Baltimore might have put the final nail in their own coffin when QB Joe Flacco threw an interception late in the fourth quarter… …but, the Patriots couldn’t capitalize on it. With 27 seconds left in the game, WR Lee Evans dropped what would have been a game-winning pass in the end zone. And, finally K Billy Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal that would have tied the game, sending it into overtime.

And, with that, the Ravens season came to a screeching halt. I was understandably disappointed at the game’s end. I tried to determine which was more disappointing: Evans’ drop or Cundiff’s shanked kick. I decided that it was the dropped pass, because Cundiff has missed many clutch kicks this season — this was just another one to add on to the tally.

Oh, well, at least there’s next season to look forward to. (Until the Ravens-Raiders game, that is. My marriage may come under siege over that game.) But, I’m still proud of the way the team played all season and I’m still proud to be a Ravens fan.

Stray Toasters

• Our office Property and Assets Manager, Julie, sits across the cube wall from me. She’s a Patriots fan. I (still) like her, despite this obvious shortcoming. A little while ago, I had to ask her for a piece of software and the software key. She handed me the software CD and emailed me the key… along with a picture of the Patriots logo.
• Supreme Court: Warrantless GPS Tracking Is Unconstitutional
• 
• Anonymous shutters government, music industry sites
• Anonymous: Facebook is next, on January 28
• Geothermal test will pump water into volcano to make power
• ComicsAlliance Design Critique: The New DC Comics Logo
• 
• The 18 Things You’ll Want to Wear Next
• Cameras May Open Up the Board Room to Hackers
• Khaaaaaaaaan!

Wednesday – 18 January 2012
Midweek is upon us once more. It seems as though Mother Nature has plans to introduce…

…into our weather pattern. Soon. We shall see how this plays out.

Last night was a long night for the girls. Vanessa seems to be on the downhill slope of her “cold-like thing.” She had a bit of a time falling asleep, but managed to meet Morpheus and wander through The Dreaming for a couple of good stretches. But, according to SaraRules!, Diana was up roughly every 45 minutes to an hour. Hopefully, she’ll get a better night’s sleep tonight.

Stray Toasters

• This Is What an Internet Protest Looks Like
• Protest on Web Uses Shutdown to Take on Two Piracy Bills
• 
• 3 New ‘Legend of Korra’ Videos Emerge for ‘Avatar: the Last Airbender’ Sequel
• Fashion Week: Best Looks, Fall/Winter 2012
• If I was a betting man, I’d have put money on Jeff Fisher going to Miami over St. Louis.
• Is Cooking Ever an Art?
• 10 Ways to Have a Productive Meeting
  I wish more of the meetings I attended adhered to these ideas…
• Few Cities Have Regained Jobs They Lost, Report Finds

Tonight is “Pasta and Movie Date Night.” I have a couple of tentative ideas for a movie, but nothing that jumps out at me. Hopefully, inspiration will hit before I get home.

Namaste.

Friday – 13 January 2012
It’s Friday. Hallelujah! And the fact that it’s Friday the 13th? Meh. It’s my “on” Friday, but it’s quiet around the office, so I should be able to get a few things accomplished with minimal interruption. That would be a “good” thing.

It’s also Playoff Purple Friday:

Last night was a fairly quiet night around the homestead. It was bath night for little girls, both of whom took their baths without much ado. And, they even went to sleep fairly easily. Although, Diana did wake up about 12:45… which is almost an hour earlier than her norm. I am chalking it up to the fact that she – and Vanessa – seem to be a bit congested, of late and that’s making sleep a little more difficult.

After the girls went to sleep – and after dinner and an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles – I played CoD: MW3. I was able to team up with a few friends, which made it all the more fun.

Stray Toasters

• When Cosplay Collides with Cuteness
  Our kids are sca-rewed.  🙂
• Obama to Ask Congress for Power to Merge Agencies
• 
• Court rules Black minister owns title to building housing famous KKK shop
• Uneasy Neighbors in a Southern Gothic Tale
• Bill Cowher has turned down at least three NFL teams
• The Inbreeding Coefficient of Superheroes
• 
• Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
• Morgan Freeman doesn’t just make movies — he’s a fan
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Dumb, dumber and dumbest: Burglars snort ashes of a man and two dogs after they mistook them for cocaine

Namaste.

Wednesday – 11 January 2012
Midweek. My day started with pre-work cuddles from both of the girls. AND there shall be new comics today. AND tonight is “Pasta and Movie Night.” I’d say that this is a Wednesday full of “Win.”

Last night was another baby bath night around the homestead. It was also a 180° change from Monday night’s pre-bedtime experience. The girls, while tired, were little troopers through their baths and bedtime preparations. We’ve also stopped double-swaddling the girls and just going with the single-blanket swaddle… and (so far) it hasn’t bitten us in the ass.

After the girls went to bed – and after we ate dinner – I decided to unwind by spending a little time playing DC Universe Online. After a fairly brief patch/update, I was back in Gotham City.

I finished out a mission that I started… probably back in November. I thought about doing the final mission in that arc, but realized that I was already up a bit later than I had planned to be. So, I called it a night.

Stray Toasters

• Doomsday clock moved closer to midnight
• A meeting that was almost scheduled for today has been pushed back to tomorrow. I’m fine with that.
• Stopped they must be; on this all depends — reddit goes dark in protest of SOPA
• 
• Simon & Schuster has posted an excerpt of Carrie Fisher’s new book, Shockaholic.
• Bacon: Good or Bad?
• Courtesy of Christopher M. and the “Some Peoples’ Children…” file: !@#&^%$!!!!!! (Cellphone halts Mahler’s Ninth mid-movement)
• Energy Department to analyze power grid cyber threats
• 
• We Can’t Get Enough of the Google Girls
• Independent DABC Committee Taps a Keg of Bar Owner Frustration
  And the “best” part: They scheduled this meeting yesterday, from 2:00-4:00 PM. You know… when most people (who might object to it) would be at work.
• After firing coach, Raiders GM promises title
• Fatal Stampede in South Africa Points Up University Crisis
• What We Expect to See at Fashion Week

Namaste.