Random Access

Sunday – 08 September 2014
Three years ago, this little lady was born.

The Birthday Girl and her Aunt Missa!

Happy birthday, Vanessa!

Sunday – 07 September 2014
Three years ago, this little lady was born.

The Birthday Girl

Happy birthday, Diana!

Monday – 18 August 2014
There has been A LOT said about the situation in Ferguson, MO on the air – and on social media – over the past week. I actually think that far too much of it has been the reporting equivalent of static. I’ve intentionally stayed rather absent and quiet about it, trying to glean facts from all of the information/sensationalization.

The bottom line for me is:

• I am sorry for the senseless loss of Michael Brown’s life.
• It is wrong for a young man – of ANY race – to be killed for simply being suspected of committing a crime.
• It’s sad and disheartening that in an age where we (as a society) pat ourselves on the back for being so educated and enlightened, far too many people are still judged simply for their skin color. Or their religious beliefs. Or, even something as mundane as the clothes that they are wearing or patterns of speech.
• It’s telling when some of the best coverage of the news comes from a news satire show, be it The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

That said, listen to what Mr. Oliver has to say about the Ferguson, MO debacle and tell me that he doesn’t make sense.

And then listen to this and tell me if it rings true about the state of the media in America, if not the world, today.

Be good to each other. We’re all we have.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 12 August 2014
We’ve done it.

We’ve already started on the next two phases of the #CrashingOurYard project. You’d think that after busting our butts for a week and a half, we’d want to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labors from the first two phases of yardwork.

Yes and no.

Sara! and I were talking about how much we’d done and how nice it was to be done… and what we wanted to do with Phase Three and Phase Four. Eventually. Last week was relaxing, given that we didn’t have to rush to get things done after work – and after dinner… after the girls were fed… and in bed. In fact, we had talked about leaving any other work until next spring.

Then, we took a trip to our local Home Depot and looked at some of the things we’d need to make the next parts of the project happen. We realized that what we wanted to do wasn’t terribly difficult, it would just take a bit of time and some work. We started looking at timetables for getting things done.

Over the weekend, we talked with Sara!’s dad about the flagstone from his patio, that he was getting rid of; he said that we were welcome to it. Sunday morning, I picked up the first load and picked up the second load after dinner. It’s currently in an impromptu staging area.

Last night, after work, I headed to Home-Away-From-Home Depot – twice – to pick up twenty pieces of sod. My sister-in-law commented on my second check-in at the ‘Depot:

Melissa: Wait, you finished the back yard. Why do you keep returning to the hardware store?

Me: No, we didn’t finish the back yard. If you go back and read carefully, you’ll see that we just finished the first two phases of the back yard.

I bought twenty pieces, but it turned out that I could only get ten or so pieces in the truck. Thus, two trips. I brought the first ten pieces home; Sara and I started arranging them. I took a quick break to watch a couple Schoolhouse Rock cartoons with Team DiVa, before they went to bed. Then, I went back to Home Depot for the second set of ten pieces; we laid those out in the dark.

I went out this morning to get a few pictures of our progress:

Wait… is that… grass?!

By Jove! That is, indeed, grass!

As a frame of reference, here’s what that section looked like before Sunday evening:

It’s the section between the fence post on the left and the tree.

Depending on the weather (and little girls’ temperaments), I’ll be picking up the last eight (give or take) pieces of sod, to finish off Phase Three.

To quote Cyborg: Booyah!

Namaste.

Monday – 04 August 2014
Over the past week and a half, Sara! and I undertook steps to transform our yard from “Wow, you actually call that a yard” to something that would be functional as the setting for the wedding of a couple of our friends.We had to make at least half of our yard – nearly 800 square feet of space – which we had effectively let go into something that was both not an eyesore, but was also usable.

How would we make this happen?

• By getting truckloads of dirt from the construction site around the corner from our house to fill in the depression that was left under the spot where the gazebo we tore down in 2012 formerly stood.
• By getting a LOT – nearly four (4) cubic yards – of mulch.
• By putting in a lot of hard work.

In a move that may have been inspired by my affinity for DIY Network, I started referring to this as #CrashingMyYard. I even tagged my favorite Yard Crasher, Ahmed Hassan, in a couple of Tweets. (He even responded to a couple of them!) Unlike the Yard Crashers show, we had neither a TV host/professional landscaping contractor nor a motley crew of people helping on this; it was just Sara! and me – with occasional help from Team DiVa – doing the work.

We borrowed a friend’s pick-up truck, so that we could haul dirt and mulch. We felt that would be much easier – and potentially less back-breaking – than trying to do it all in wheelbarrows and/or Sara’s car. And, far less messy, too. Friday (25 July 2014) after work, I headed to the construction site around the corner from our house to get fill dirt; Sara had secured permission from the site foreman earlier in the week. After spending what felt like an eternity filling the bed of the truck, I drove it around the corner and backed into the yard to unload it and start filling the pit left from The Great Gazebo Demolition of 2012.

Saturday morning, I woke up, had a bite to eat and headed to the site for more dirt. I unloaded about half of it before I needed to leave for a prior engagement; Sara unloaded the rest. Saturday night, more of the same. By the time it was all said and done, we’d filled, compacted and leveled the hole.

Sunday saw the first of far too many trips to Home Depot for mulch. I brought home twenty-one (21) bags that night. By the way, one bag of mulch, not so heavy. Twenty-one? Heavy. And, to make things even better: After I’d loaded the last bag into the truck, about ten bags on the display decided that they didn’t want to be part of the display anymore. *sigh* So, I had to pick them up and put them back in some semblance of order.

By Monday night, following another Home Depot run, the first third of the yard was mulched. Tuesday, about two-fifths. Wednesday, we changed things up a bit, installing a new fence post, with the kind assistance of my father-in-law. (We had a double-door gate that never seemed “just right,” so we took it down to one door and a gate-turned-fence section.) Thursday, after another trip to the ‘Depot, we enlisted the “help” of the girls to put down more landscaping fabric and mulch. Friday, I made the last trip for mulch and by nightfall, there was just one small section left to mulch on Saturday.

Saturday brought lawn mowing, some general clean-up, spreading the last bits of mulch and securing the fence section to the new post.

Sunday, we were ready for a wedding. And it was good.

The Yard.

Click here to see pictures of the overall process, from start to finish.

Last night, after the festivities were done and the girls were down for the night, Sara! and I sat outside in our newly landscaped yard and enjoyed the evening air. With cocktails, of course.

This was a lot of work, but was very much worth it. And gave us a massive boost in the direction that we want to take the yard, which includes, but isn’t necessarily limited to:

• Grinding down three stumps (there was just no time for it with this go-round),
• Creating a flagstone patio in one third,
• Sodding the middle third of the mulched area, and
• Creating a playspace for the girls in the last (not-quite) third.

Some of that might have to wait until next Spring, but, we are very happy with where the yard is at this point.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 15 July 2014 Thursday – 24 July 2014
A new week is upon us now two days old.
An even newer week is upon us… and is almost over.

That’s right, this is a post that’s been so delayed and off-put that it’s taken over a week to complete. I’m just going to leave the core of the original post in place and just append the newest additions to the end of it. Because I can.

Tw0 weekends past This was a good weekend. We kicked it off Friday evening with the Deer Valley Music Festival – Utah Symphony performed the music of John Williams. And, as if they knew that I was in the audience, they opened the concert with Superman March. The concert wasn’t solely Williams’ music;  Team DiVa even heard a song that they recognized: On the Beautiful Blue Danube, which they know from their Classical Baby DVDs. After the concert and after the girls were in bed, I played ‘Clix with coworker Adam… until the wee hours of the morning.

Which made for a short sleep cycle on Saturday, as little girls bounded into our room before 8 AM. I spent the better part of the day with them, as it was Sara!’s Saturday to play. This included letting them watch The Lion King... which lead to Vanessa singing I Just Can’t Wait To Be King Begin.

All. Night. Long.

It was more funny than annoying.

That Sunday, we got up and went to breakfast at Millcreek Cafe and Eggworks. Then it was off to run a few errands and then back home to get ready for our annual ice cream social. This year, we had more kids than we have in the past. We also prepared for this with: Ice cream cones! I am happy to report that the cones were not only a hit, but were utilized with minimal spillage!

Ten days ago Yesterday was Monday. ‘Nuff said.

This past weekend, we headed up to Idaho to celebrate Sara!’s grandmother’s 90th birthday, which was actually last November. But, as it fell right before the holidays, the family decided to hold off until (nearly) everyone would be available to convene and celebrate it. So, this summer was chosen as the “when” and central Idaho was chosen as the “where.”

I like traveling. Granted, I haven’t done a lot of it in the past few years, but I do enjoy it. With toddlers being added to the mix, there are things that you learn and accommodations that must be made in travel arrangements. Things like: Potty breaks. Before children, pit stops and bathroom breaks only occurred once every couple of hours, if that often. With kids who are on the tail-end of potty training, these breaks become more of an “ad-hoc” thing. And the ad-hoc can be pretty damned often. Case in point:

• Sara and I have made the same trip, before kids, in a little over five hours.
• This trip (to Idaho, at least) took roughly 7.5 hours, including six (6) bathroom stops – a couple of which I don’t even want to talk about – and a stop for dinner.
• The trip back was about six hours – with only one stop for a potty emergency.

The trip itself was fun, though brief. We got in late Friday evening; Sara! scored us wonderful accommodations, via AirBnB. We stayed in what was effectively a mother-in-law apartment of a home overlooking the Salmon River — the river was about 50′ from our bedroom patio door:

This also offered Team DiVa the opportunity to throw rocks into the river, which they did with great aplomb.

Saturday, we spent the day with the family – aunts, uncles, cousins, kith an kin. And Sara’s  grandmother, of course.

Sara made a quilt for the occasion, with hand-signed/stamped/imprinted pieces from everyone  – except the newest addition (within the past few months) – in the family:

It was nice to have a chance to visit with everyone. That evening, we headed back to the apartment to put the girls to bed (well past their usual bedtime). Sunday morning, we woke up, got dressed, packed and hit the road… back into town, for breakfast. We ate at the Tea Cup Cafe & Bakery. It was an unexpectedly refreshing place. And, I would have to agree with the high ratings on Yelp.

On the way back to SLC, we stopped in Arco, ID. Why? Because there’s a submarine sail there. Why? Okay, that one, I can’t really answer.

USS Hawkbill (SSN-666)

After that, we stopped at EBR-1 for the Team DiVa’s first nuclear power plant field trip.

No, it didn’t trigger any latent X-genes or metagenes. Unfortunately. They had a ball. We made it back home without too much incident.

Stray Toasters

• Today is Pioneer Day in Utah.
• Today is also National Tequila Day.
• I find it highly amusing that the two fall on the same day.
• On a recent trip to the party supply store, we bought superhero masks for the girls, in four different colors. Why? To keep them from stealing mine. Because they liked them. Earlier this week, they decided to wear them in the car on their way to day care.
  
  Sara! asked who they were.
  Diana (green mask) said, “Green Lantern!”  (Yeah, definitely my kid.)
  Vanessa (blue mask): “Somersault!”
  (Backstory: A couple days ago, their Aunt Jen was teaching them to do somersaults in the back yard. I guess it made something of an impression.)
• I finished listening to Stranger in a Strange Land last week; it was the first time I’ve read/listened to the book in at least ten years. I read something recently that posited that Jubal Harshaw, not Valentine Michael Smith, was actually the protagonist of the book. Looking back, I can see some validity to that argument.
• Plum Stitch. If you haven’t been there, go now. I’ll wait right here until you get back.
• I introduced the girls to Smashmouth’s Walking on the Sun this morning last week. It went over well.
• Coworker Brad and I have been recasting movies and TV shows today. It’s helped to make the day pass rather quickly.
• I’ve found that watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic with the girls isn’t so bad.
  What is bad: When the vershluggen theme song pops into your head as an earworm.
• One week ’til Guardians of the Galaxy. Tickets have been acquired.

That’s all. For now.

Namaste.

Saturday – 28 June 2014
Just testing out a new cross-posting plugin.

Sara!, the girls, and I have a 5k in the morning… in a few hours. I really should be in bed. More to the point, I should have been in bed at least half-an-hour ago. And, it’s not like this isn’t going to be a long day:

• Young Living Farms’ Run Through The Lavender 5k at 7:00 AM. This will be our fifth year (!) doing this event. It will also be our slowest time, as the girls will be walking with us, rather than being pushed in a stroller or carried.
• War Of Light (Month 1) HeroClix Tournament at noon. I get to play in this one, rather than judging it.
• A friend’s daughter’s birthday party.
• Another friend’s cook-out.

I’d be amazed if I’m even nominally coherent by the time the girls go to bed. I wouldn’t be surprised if my field of vision was reduced to this:

Not surprised at all. *shrug* I might just go to bed at the same time they do.

Okay, bed.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 25 June 2014
Totally missed “Team DiVa Tuesday” (again) yesterday. Hopefully, this will make up for it:

Hanging out at Wheeler Historic Farm

On the tiger statue at Hogle Zoo

On the elephant statue at Hogle Zoo

Oh, and John V. might want to stop reading now…

Is he gone?  Okay.

The girls have taken a pretty strong liking to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, since being introduced to it about a month ago. Last night was Vanessa’s night to choose what they watched before bedtime and she chose…. dun dun DUNNNNN…. MLP. No problem.

I found the first season on Netflix and fired up the first episode. (Why not start at the beginning, after all?) This episode introduces the main ponies and how they met. That’s pretty good for a first episode.

During the scene where Twilight Sparkle meets Applejack – yes, I actually have gotten to know the ponies’ names. I’ll just chalk this up to what my mother calls being a “Commendable Daddy.” –  Applejack takes Twilight’s hoof and starts shaking it, vigorously. Diana, at this point, looked up and rather nonchalantly noted: “Ponies don’t have hands,” and then continued to watch the rest of the episode.

Sara and I just kind of stared at each other, with a “Did she really just say that…?!” expression on our faces.

Proud parents. 🙂

Namaste.

Thursday – 08 May 2014
First off: “Happy birthday” to my stepmother and brother!

Around the homestead, things have been good. Not to say that they haven’t been “interesting,” but the overall take is “good.” Most of the “interesting” revolves around Team DiVa. Go figure. Here are just a few examples:

• Almost every car ride is either narrated or seranaded. If it’s the latter, it can be pretty much anything, from Wheels on the Bus (Go Round and Round) to I’ve Been Working on the Railroad (which I did not teach them, by the way) to Three Little Birds to Hourglass.
• We went to the zoo last weekend, to check out the lions at the partially-opened African Savannah (among other animals).  The girls liked the lions, but weren’t terribly impressed. Granted, the lions were just lying there surveying things like they owned the place. And I can’t lie, I thought about this:
  
  …more than once. It made me grin like a fiend.
• Sara! introduced the girls to taking showers last week. They have been a pretty big hit. I’m sure that it would also look rather comical to an onlooker. (Hell, it looks pretty comical to me when I’m giving the showers.) It’s usually Sara! or me in gym- or swimwear, and one or two very soapy and giggly little girls. This is something of a departure from just a few months ago, when the shower was very much a “nope, not me” thing for them, even if it was just to wash their hair.
• We’ve returned to story time before bedtime. The girls pick their favorite-book-of-the-night (which can change at a moment’s whim) for us to read. A couple of nights ago, we started story time with Vanessa’s book. When it was time for Diana’s book, she informed me that she was going to read it. And proceeded to “read” it… the only thing: It wasn’t exactly the story as I remembered it, but it was awesome – and a bit hilarious – to hear her take on it.
• Yesterday morning, we were awakened by both little ladies coming into our room to climb into our bed. At 6:30, a full hour before they usually get up. We still haven’t gotten the real reason “why,” but I suspect that someone had a bad dream. Usually, when they come into our room on the weekends, shortly after they climb into bed – and when they are done with family cuddles – they want to “do/play Globey,” which is their term for playing with the World Atlas app on my iPad. In order to (hopefully) stem the tide on that, I told them that we couldn’t do Globey since it wasn’t Saturday or Sunday. Surprisingly, they accepted that at face value and didn’t ask about it again.
• Last night, when I came home from work, after saying my “Hellos,” I sprawled out on the living room floor. What I didn’t know, was that this was apparently the international signal for the girls to pile onto my back. At one point, it was… uncomfortable. I made this know by saying “Ow!” At this point, Diana got off my back; Vanessa, instead, stayed on my back, but kissed me on the back of my neck and rubbed my head.

And, I should probably throw a couple of pictures of the girls up here, as well:

…and, if I can get this to work, even a video:

Fun with Meerkats!
[KGVID width=”568″ height=”320″]http://blog.echopulse.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/IMG_2380.mov[/KGVID]

Stray Toasters

• I’ve started posting on Four-Color Coverage again. If you’re a comics fan, check it out.
• 15 Brutally Honest Mother’s Day Cards From Kids
• May you have a beautiful Death:
  

  Cosplayed by @liziferous, by way of Comics Alliance

• Missed Connections for A-Holes
• 29 Surreal Places in America You Need to Visit Before You Die
  I’ve been to/near one (#5), when Sara! was doing her internship in Aspen.
• Abduction From the Seraglio opens Saturday.

And with that…

Namaste.

Tuesday – 15 April 2014
I’ve been properly horrible about keeping up with blogging of late. Life and whatnot. Okay, well, now that that’s out of the way…

It’s Team DiVa Tuesday.

Drawing with chalk

Vanessa, enjoying bacon dipped in powdered sugar…

Diana, enjoying bacon dipped in powdered sugar…

Helping Mom carry groceries…

BEEP! BEEP!

Also, I think that my daughter is Houdini.

More accurately: I think that Diana may possess the reincarnated spirit of Harry Houdini.

Last night, Sara! and I were watching TV when we heard a wail over the girls’ monitor. We waited a couple of moments to see if it was an actual call for help or just a passing, “Hey, I’m just turning over” kind of thing. Then came another. So, upstairs I went.

I opened the door to the girls’ room – we close it when we put them to bed to contain the mayhem in the hopes that they will actually go to sleep – and waited to see if I could tell which of the girls was in distress. I didn’t turn on a light, so as not to wake the other girl needlessly. I took a moment to listen. Vanessa was snoring. Not her. So, I went over to Diana’s bed.

She wasn’t in it…

Okay.
Let’s not panic.
There has to be a logical explanation.
Check the foot of her bed; she sometimes scrunches down to the foot of the bed.

No go, Flight.

I was at a loss. Literally. Closed room. Only one kid. She didn’t run out past me. So where in the Nine Hells did she go?!

I did the only thing that I could think of: I called Sara upstairs to help me figure out where Diana went. I gave her the quick rundown. And then I turned the girls floor lamp on low.

That’s when we found her: She had climbed up on the changing table… and fallen asleep.

No, that’s not completely accurate: She climbed up on the changing table, pulled off her diaper¹, and fallen asleep.

After we stopped laughing, Sara changed Diana, while I disposed of the apparently offensive diaper. We got the lass back into bed – into which she settled down quickly – and left.

Mischief managed.

Namaste.

¹ – The girls are potty-training (and doing very well at it), but we still put them in night diapers.

Thursday – 20 March 2014
It’s the first day of Spring. Seems like the perfect time to clear the cobwebs off the ol’ blog.

Last night, Sara! and I attended Utah Opera‘s production of Turandot. And “production” is the perfect word for it because it was more than just a “performance.” The staging, the set design, the costuming, the performers. All of it. It was quite literally amazing. If my count is correct, this was the 26th opera that I’ve seen… and it easily makes it onto my “Top 5 Operas” list. The three-act story had elements of drama, comedy and intrigue deftly woven throughout and never felt like it was dragging.

During the first intermission, we were advised by Christopher MacBeth (Utah Opera’s Artistic Director) to wait for Turandot – performed by Maida Hundeling – to first sing. He wasn’t making idle boasts; she was fantastic, truly a pleasure to hear sing and to watch perform. To that point, all of the performers were great. I’d also give a special note to Kelly Kaduce, as Liu, who turned in a stirring aria in the third act.

If you have a chance to see Turandot during it’s run, by all means: Do so.

Team DiVa has been doing well…

Digging for fossils at the Museum of Natural History

At the “Chocolate” exhibition at the Museum of Natural History

On the terrace at the Museum of Natural History

Sporting new hairstyles!

And, this was taken this past weekend:

The little ladies have entered the realm of potty training. It’s been going well. Sure, there are still a few mishaps and accidents, but that is to be expected. Fortuately, both girls seem to be excited by the idea of using the toilet and wearing “big girl” underwear.

I usually play music when I wake the girls in the morning. Usually, it’s Rhapsody in Blue, or The Ride of the Valkyries (this video is actually their favorite version) or Cristofori’s Dream. The girls will often ask for them by name (“Rhapsody,” “Hoyotoho,” and “The Dream Song”), if I haven’t started the music before waking them.

We’ve also introduced them to other genres of music. They’re fond of Bob Marley and Miles Davis, by way of Sara!, while I’ve most often let them listen to more pop/upbeat fare. And, let me tell you that listening to a couple of two-and-a-half-year-olds trying to sing the chorus of Squeeze’s Hourglass – which is one of their current favorite songs –  is hilarious.

All in all, life is good.

Namaste.

Friday – 14 February 2014
It’s Valentine’s Day. (Or the so-called “Single Awareness Day.”)

Team DiVa – Valentine’s Day 2014
Picture (c) Erra Bella Photography

However you refer to the day, I hope that it finds you well.

Things have been pretty good around the homestead. The girls are, as my mother would say “…getting into everything but a beef stew.”

Fun with dry ice…

But, they are also quite fun to be around. Listening to them as they are holding imaginary conversations on “telephones” is hilarious. And seeing the things they come up with – rockets, trains, towers, cars with propellers – when playing with their Duplo? Just as entertaining. They even have sets of Valkyrie and Amazon HeroClix that they keep at the dinner table…

The Dinner Guardians

…although, they are occasionally are “put to bed” under napkins, which is equally amusing.

Chew on This – Food for Thought: Black History Month

I’m farther behind with this than I had hoped to be. But, I’m not going to let that daunt me. So, let’s just jump right in:

• Blackface – A form of theatrical makeup used by white performers to represent a black person.

  Blackface makeup was either a layer of burnt cork on a layer of coca butter or black grease paint. In the early years exaggerated red lips were painted around their mouths, like those of today’s circus clowns. In later years the lips were usually painted white or unpainted. Costumes were usually gaudy combinations of formal wear; swallowtail coats, striped trousers, and top hats.

  Minstrel show entertainment included imitating black music and dance and speaking in a “plantation” dialect. The shows featured a variety of jokes, songs, dances and skits that were based on the ugliest stereotypes of African American slaves. From 1840 to 1890, minstrel shows were the most popular form of entertainment in America. (Black-face.com)

• The Children’s Crusade – The name bestowed upon a march by hundreds of school students in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 2, May 3, May 4, and May 5, 1963, during the American Civil Rights Movement’s Birmingham Campaign. Initiated and organized by Rev. James Bevel, the purpose of the march was to walk downtown to talk to the mayor about segregation in their city. Many children left their schools in order to be arrested, set free, and then to get arrested again the next day. The marches were stopped due to the head of police “Bull Connor” who brought fire hoses to ward off the children and set police dogs after the children. (video from Biography.com)
• Deed of Manumission – Manumission was a popular term used during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in reference to the voluntary act on the part of indi­vidual slave-owners of freeing or liberating their own slaves. As a general rule, slaves so freed were issued a formal document (“manumission deed”) by the slave-owner. This document, of course, became an invaluable possession of the ex-slave and usually the only means of “proving” that he or she was in­deed free.
• Robert Brown Elliott – An African-American member of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina, serving from 1871-1874.
  Robert Brown Elliott’s early life is a mystery. He claimed to have been born in Liverpool, England toWest Indian immigrants. But, biographers have been unable to corroborate these facts.
  Elliott arrived in South Carolina in 1867 at the age of 25, where he established a law practice. Elliott helped organize the local Republican Party and served in the state constitutional convention.In 1868 he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. The next year he was appointed assistant adjutant-general; he was the first African-American commanding general of the South Carolina National Guard. As part of his job, he helped form a state militia to fight the Ku Klux Klan.

  Elliott was elected as a Republican to the Forty-second and Forty-third United States Congress. He “delivered a celebrated speech” in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. He resigned on November 1, 1874, to fight political corruption in South Carolina. He served again in the South Carolina House of Representatives, where he was elected as Speaker of the House.

  He ran successfully for South Carolina Attorney General in 1876. In the state elections that year, white Democrats regained dominance of the state legislature. The following year, 1877, when the last of the federal troops were withdrawn from South Carolina, he was forced out of office.

• Freedmans’ Bureau – Established by Congress on March 3, 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau was designed to protect the in­terests of former slaves (“freedmen”) and displaced southern whites (“loyal refugees”) following the American Civil War. Intended primarily to act as a safeguard for the freedmen against possible attempts at reenslavement, the Bureau was also empowered to provide freedmen with food, medical and hospital care, educational facilities and homestead land. In addition, the Bureau assisted the freedmen in obtaining employment, settling legal disputes and finding suitable housing facilities. Function­ing under the aegis of the War Department, the Freedmen’s Bureau was headed by General O. O. Howard. Although the official “life” of the Bureau extended until 1872, most of its major objectives had been accomplished by 1869.
• Charles Sidney Gilpin – One of the most highly regarded actors of the 1920s.

  In 1896 at age 18, Gilpin joined a minstrel show, leaving Richmond and beginning a life on the road that lasted for many years. When between performances on stage, like many performers he worked odd jobs to earn money: as a printer, barber, boxing trainer, and railroad porter. In 1903, Gilpin joined Hamilton, Ontario’s Canadian Jubilee Singers.

  In 1905 he started performing with traveling musical troupes of the Red Cross and the Candy Shop of America. He also played his first dramatic roles and honed his character acting in Chicago.
  In 1916, Gilpin made a memorable appearance in whiteface as Jacob McCloskey, a slave owner and villain of Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon. Though he left Bush’s Company over a salary dispute, his reputation there allowed him to get the role of Rev. William Curtis in the 1919 premier of John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln.

  Gilpin’s Broadway debut gained him casting in the premier of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones. He played the lead role of Brutus Jones to great critical acclaim, including an O’Neill-lauded review by writer Hubert Harrison in Negro World. Gilpin’s achievement resulted in the Drama League of New York‘s naming him as one of the ten people in 1920 who had done the most for American theater. He was the first Black American so honored. Following the Drama League’s refusal to rescind the invitation, Gilpin refused to decline it. When the League invited Gilpin to their presentation dinner, some people found it controversial. At the dinner, he was given a standing ovation of unusual length when he accepted his award.

I was going to throw in a few Stray Toasters, but I think I’ll save those for another post.

Namaste.

Monday – 20 January 2014
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

For the first time in three or four years, I’m not getting out and doing volunteer work. But, I am doing something that I consider just as – if not more – important: I’m spending the day with Team DiVa.

I hope that everyone has a great day and takes a little time to reflect on the what today stands for.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 14 January 2014
Life with kids can be interesting. It would probably be best to say that life with kids is often interesting. That’s not to say that it’s not fun. And exciting. And, all too often, very amusing.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve introduced the concept of “time out” to Team DiVa. It’s been met with mixed results. Most often, when one of the girls does something to antagonize her sister and I tell them they’re going to time out, they either:

• Start saying “I not going to time out! I not going to time out!,”
• Make a bee-line for Sara!,
• Start crying,
• Some combination of all of the above.

But, time out usually happens. (They do not like it.) And they stay there until they tell me why it is that they are in time out. Once they tell me that, I ask them what they need to do to get out of time out, which is usually finding their sister, saying they are sorry and giving their sister a hug.

So, you can imagine my surprise – and amusement – when I came home from work today to find that the girls had introduced something new to their toys. They have a handful of Fisher-Price Little People figures, including three Wonder Woman figures and a Batgirl figure. They would have the figures playing, hit them together, then tell one figure that it was going to time out.

Puddle Jumpers!

Team DiVa and grandparents

Also, this:

Stray Toasters

• Dear ‘Daddy’ in Seat 16C
• 10 Superhero Webcomics You Should Be Reading
• Banncars Poster Series
• Sara! and I have been watching the current/modern Doctor Who, starting with The Ninth Doctor and have just gotten back to The Eleventh Doctor. Until this, I’d not seen the Ninth or Tenth Doctor (outside of “Blink”). I really enjoyed Mr. Tennant’s Doctor, he may be my favorite after Tom Baker, of course… which made me enjoy this all the more.
• Denial is a helluva drug.
  
• Flying Mouse 365, the art of Chow Hon Lam
• 2013 was the 75th Anniversary of Superman. To celebrate that fact, Comic Book Resources compiled a list of “The 75 Greatest Superman Stories of All Time.”
• Debbie Harry, as a Valkyrie (or a knight)? I’m all for it.
• I wish that this Indiegogo campaign had gotten more of a signal boost when it would have helped the cause; I would have enjoyed seeing something like this produced.
• Josh Ln’s “Hero-Glyphics” Take Pop Culture Back to Ancient Egypt with The Avengers, The X-Men, and More

Namaste.

Wednesday – 25 December 2013

(Photograph by Tenisha Hicks of Erra Bella Photography)