Random Access

Saturday – 26 February 2011
I woke up this morning to find it snowing. Not a problem, as I hadn’t really planned on doing much today.

I slept in (until about 0900) and then headed downstairs to watch some TV and surf. HGTV provided a good episode of House Crashers, in which the target couple had a kitchen remodel done. It looked pretty amazing when all the dust settled. After that I remembered that I still had an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold on the DVR, “The Knights of Tomorrow!”

Something that I had completely forgotten: It was co-written by my friend, Jake Black. The story nicely blended elements of the Golden, Silver and Modern Ages, including:

• Golden Age:
  • Batman, in his Golden Age costume
  • The introduction of Robin (Dick Grayson)
• Silver Age:
  • The wedding of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle (Catwoman)
• Modern Age
  • The “graduation” of Robin into his Nightwing persona
  • The passing of the Batman mantle from Bruce Wayne to Dick Grayson
  • The introduction of Damian Wayne (the current Robin)

It was a well-told story and was quite fun to watch.

After SaraRules! woke up, we headed to Millcreek Cafe and Eggworks for brunch. We tried their coffee cake, which was good – it seems as though they use a spice cake base (as opposed to yellow cake). As always, the food was good.

After we got back home, SaraRules!’ parents came over for a few. Her dad is going to help us finish the last 40% of the basement. Today, we started the ball rolling on what will be the new bathroom. We went through a few ideas and came up with something that we think will be really good.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s item is Motown (1, 2, 3), a record label that was originally founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, on April 14, 1960.

Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music, as it was the first record label owned by an African American even if it was not the first to feature primarily African-American artists. Motown achieved a crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its soul-based subsidiaries were the most successful proponents of what came to be known as The Motown Sound, a style of soul music with a distinct pop influence.

In 1959, Billy Davis and Berry Gordy’s sisters Gwen and Anna started Anna Records. Davis and Gwen Gordy wanted Berry to be the company president, but Berry wanted to strike out on his own. On January 12, 1959, he started Tamla Records, with an $800 loan from his family. Gordy originally wanted to name the label “Tammy” Records, after the popular song by Debbie Reynolds. When he found the name was already in use, he decided on Tamla instead. Tamla’s first release was Marv Johnson’s “Come to Me” in 1959. Its first hit was Barrett Strong‘s “Money (That’s What I Want)” (1959), which made it to #2 on the Billboard R&B charts.

Gordy’s first signed act was The Matadors, a group he had written and produced songs for, who changed their name to The Miracles when Tamla signed them; their first release was “Bad Girl”. Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson became the vice president of the company.

From 1961 to 1971, Motown had 110 top 10 hits, and artists such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Four Tops, and The Jackson 5, were all signed to Motown labels. The company operated several labels in addition to the Tamla and Motown imprints. A third label, which Gordy named after himself (though it was originally called “Miracle”) featured The Temptations, The Contours, and Martha and the Vandellas. A fourth, V.I.P., released recordings by The Velvelettes, The Spinners and Chris Clark. A fifth label, Soul, featured Jr. Walker & the All Stars, Jimmy Ruffin, Shorty Long, and Gladys Knight & the Pips. Many more Motown-owned labels released recordings in other genres, including Workshop Jazz (jazz), Mel-o-dy (country, although it was originally an R&B label), and Rare Earth (rock). Under the slogan “The Sound of Young America”, Motown’s acts were enjoying widespread popularity among black and white audiences alike.

In 1967, Berry Gordy purchased what is now known as Motown Mansion in Detroit’s Boston-Edison Historic District as his home. In 1968, Gordy purchased the Donovan building on the corner of Woodward Avenue and Interstate 75, and moved Motown’s Detroit offices there. Motown had established branch offices in both New York City and Los Angeles during the mid-1960s, and by 1969 had begun gradually moving more of its operations to Los Angeles. The company moved all of its operations to Los Angeles in June 1972, with a number of artists, among them Martha Reeves, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Motown’s Funk Brothers studio band, either staying behind in Detroit or leaving the company for other reasons. The main objective of Motown’s relocation was to branch out into the motion picture industry, and Motown Productions got its start in film by turning out two hit vehicles for Diana Ross: the Billie Holliday biographical film Lady Sings the Blues (1972), and Mahogany (1975). Other Motown films would include Thank God It’s Friday (1978), The Wiz (1978) and Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon (1985).

By the mid-1980s, Motown was losing money, and Berry Gordy sold his ownership in Motown to MCA Records and Boston Ventures in June 1988 for $61 million. In 1989, Gordy sold the Motown Productions TV/film operations to Motown executive Suzanne de Passe, who renamed the company de Passe Entertainment and runs it to this day.

By 1998, Motown had added stars such as 702, Brian McKnight, and Erykah Badu to its roster. In December 1998, PolyGram was acquired by Seagram, and Motown was absorbed into the Universal Music Group.

Stray Toasters

• As it was today’s “Chew on This” item: Motown: A Game-Changer for Black Americans
• WETA Collectibles auction to benefit Christchurch quake victims
• How many things can you find wrong with this product listing?
• 
• Best Art Ever (This Week)
• By way of comes Inventables
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Toddler spends 4 hours locked in bank vault
• Japan Airlines Boss Sets Exec Example

Namaste.

Friday – 25 February 2011
It’s Friday. Amen. Aside from the whole “end of the work week” thing, it also means that it’s only a week until the Hostler’s Train Show in Ogden.

Last night, I made dinner: Teriyaki chicken stir-fry over rice. It turned out pretty well. SaraRules and I caught up on NCIS over dinner; now, we just need to do the same for NCIS: Los Angeles. We also caught a bit of Dawn of the Dead, by Zach Snyder. I am very curious as to how his new vision for Superman shapes up.

After that, I spent a little time in Gotham City, chasing down Harley Quinn – saving Robin in the process – and beating on some of Bane’s thugs.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is Bessie Coleman (1, 2, 3)

Elizabeth Coleman was an American civil aviator. She was the first female pilot of African American descent and the first person of African American descent to hold an international pilot license.

Coleman was born on January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas, the tenth of thirteen children to sharecroppers George and Susan Coleman. Coleman began school at age six and had to walk four miles each day to her all-black, one-room school. Despite sometimes lacking such materials as chalk and pencils, Coleman was an excellent student. She loved to read and established herself as an outstanding math student.

When she turned eighteen, Coleman took all of her savings and enrolled in the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University (now called Langston University) in Langston, Oklahoma. She completed only one term before she ran out of money and was forced to return home. Coleman knew there was no future for her in her home town, so she went to live with two of her brothers in Chicago while she looked for a job.

In 1915, Coleman moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she lived with her brothers and worked at the White Sox Barber Shop as a manicurist. There she heard tales of the world from pilots who were returning home from World War I. They told stories about flying in the war, and Coleman started to fantasize about being a pilot. She could not gain admission to American flight schools because she was black and a woman. No black U.S. aviator would train her either. Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender, encouraged her to study abroad. Coleman received financial backing from Jesse Binga (a banker) and the Defender, which capitalized on her flamboyant personality and her beauty to promote the newspaper, and to promote her cause.

Coleman attended the well-known Caudron Brothers’ School of Aviation in Le Crotoy, France. There she learned to fly using French Nieuport airplanes. On June 15, 1921, Coleman obtained her pilot’s license from Federation Aeronautique Internationale after only seven months. She was the first black woman in the world to earn an aviator’s license. After some additional training in Paris, Coleman returned to the United States in September 1921.

Coleman’s main goals when she returned to America were to make a living flying and to establish the first African American flight school. Because of her color and gender, however, she was somewhat limited in her first goal. Barnstorming seemed to be the only way for her to make money, but to become an aerial daredevil, Coleman needed more training. Once again, Bessie applied to American flight schools, and once again they rejected her. So in February 1922, she returned to Europe. After learning most of the standard barnstorming tricks, Coleman returned to the United States.

When Bessie returned to the United States to pursue her new flying career, she knew she must have publicity to attract paying audiences. She created an exciting image of herself with a military style uniform and an eloquence that belied her background. Her first appearance was in an air show on September 3, 1922 at Curtiss Field near New York City. The show, sponsored by Robert Abbott and the Chicago Defender, billed Bessie as “the world’s greatest woman flyer.” More shows followed around the country including Memphis and Chicago. On June 19, 1925, Bessie made her flying debut in Texas at a Houston auto racetrack renamed Houston Aerial Transport Field in honor of the occasion.

In the time between her 1922 flying debut in New York and her 1925 Texas debut, Bessie never lost sight of her goal of opening a school for aviators. She flirted briefly with a movie career, traveled to California to earn money for a plane of her own, crashed that plane once she bought it and then returned to Chicago to formulate a new plan. It was another two years before she finally succeeded in lining up a series of lectures and exhibition flights in Texas. Once there, she defied not only racial barriers but gender barriers as well. She appeared in San Antonio, Richmond, Waxahachie, Wharton,Dallas and numerous unreported small towns and fields. At Love Field in Dallas, she made a down payment on a plane from the Curtiss Southwestern Airplane and Motor Company.

Coleman’s aviation career ended tragically in 1926. On April 30, she died while preparing for a show in Jacksonville, Florida. Coleman was riding in the passenger seat of her “Jenny” airplane while her mechanic William Wills was piloting the aircraft. Bessie was not wearing her seat belt at the time so that she could lean over the edge of the cockpit and scout potential parachute landing spots (she had recently added parachute-jumping to her repetorie and was planning to perform the feat the next day). But while Bessie was scouting from the back seat, the plane suddenly dropped into a steep nosedive and then flipped over and catapulted her to her death. Wills, who was still strapped into his seat, struggled to regain control of the aircraft, but died when he crashed in a nearby field. After the accident, investigators discovered that Wills, who was Coleman’s mechanic, had lost control of the aircraft because a loose wrench had jammed the plane’s instruments.

Over the years, recognition of Coleman’s accomplishments has grown. Coleman’s impact on aviation history, and particularly African Americans in aviation, quickly became apparent following her death. In 1927, Bessie Coleman Aero Clubs sprang up throughout the country. In 1989, First Flight Society inducted Coleman into their shrine that honors those individuals and groups that have achieved significant “firsts” in aviation’s development. A second-floor conference room at the Federal Aviation Administration, Washington, DC, is named after Coleman. In 1990, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley renamed Old Mannheim Road at O’Hare International Airport “Bessie Coleman Drive.” In 1992, he proclaimed May 2 “Bessie Coleman Day in Chicago.”

Mae Jemison, physician and former NASA astronaut, wrote in the book, Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator (1993): “I point to Bessie Coleman and say without hesitation that here is a woman, a being, who exemplifies and serves as a model to all humanity: the very definition of strength, dignity, courage, integrity, and beauty. It looks like a good day for flying.”

Stray Toasters

• Geeksoap: The Cleaning Agent for the Everyfan
• It’s the Inequality, Stupid
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file:
  • Cab driver throws out dark-skinned opera singer
  • A Woman Almost Died in Her Burning House Because of Verizon’s Dropped 911 Calls
• The Supreme Court’s Failure to Protect Blacks’ Rights
• 

• Have We Grown Too Fond of Technology?
• MarknTyme sent me a couple of links:
  • An entertaining and amusing short: Schizofredric
  • Concert for George, which is streaming all day
• How Photography Shifted the Balance of the Civil Rights Movement
• Enlisting Prison Labor to Close Budget Gaps
• 
• Gangster’s daughter has beef with a new Vegas mob exhibit
  • Hard times don’t stop Las Vegas influx
• California’s Tax Aversion Complicates Budget
• Seven Simple Ways to Fix Air Travel for Everyone
• US cities original names

Namaste.

Tuesday – 22 February 2011
Work Week: Day Two. The sun’s out, but the temps are still kind of low. (Although we might actually break 40F today…)

On the “up” side, I am definitely feeling better. I also no longer sound (completely) like a reject from the old Budweiser frogs commercials. I’m still a bit congested, but I can breathe… for the most part.

Last night, SaraRules! made a tasty chicken pot pie for dinner. We ate and watched a couple of episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles and then a couple of episodes of House Hunters.

Generally speaking, I enjoy House Hunters, but last night’s episodes contained a couple of families who the Logic Fairy seemed to overlook – or at least skimp on – when she was doling out common sense:

1. A family in the suburbs of Louisville, KY decided that they wanted to purchase a vacation home.
   (So far, so good.)Let me reparse the above with the kicker: “…they wanted to buy a vacation home, twenty minutes from their current home.” Yeah, we were dumbstruck. They wanted to take out a second mortgage ($250, 000) on a “vacation condo” in downtown Louisville. Twenty minutes away. That doesn’t even make good crazy people sense.
2. The second family wanted to buy a new home in which to raise their 18-month-old daughter. Their main “wants” were:
   • One level.
   • Three or more bedrooms.
   • A yard for their daughter to play in.

   All-in-all, their wants weren’t too outrageous… especially when compared to some of the things that people have sought on this show. The “one level” requirement was because they saw stairs as a safety hazard. (I guess they’d never heard of a child safety gate. *shrug*) They saw three houses:

   1. One level, but the “back yard” was largely taken over by a large, in-ground swimming pool.
   2. Multi-level house, with a couple of notable potential hazards.
   3. Two-level house with a loft.

   They chose House #1, despite the wife’s early – and quite vocal – objections to having no back yard and the giant water hole. I can understand some of their reasons for avoiding the second house, but the third house’s stair “problem” could have easily been handled with a gate.

I also spent a little time in Metropolis before bed. I started off just flying around, exploring parts of the city that I hadn’t yet visited. I decided to tackle a mission that I’d let languish for a couple of levels.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s personality is: Carter G. Woodson (1, 2, 3)

Carter Godwin Woodson was an African-American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He was one of the first scholars to value and study Black History. He recognized and acted upon the importance of a people having an awareness and knowledge of their contributions to humanity, and left behind an impressive legacy. A founder of Journal of Negro History, Dr. Woodson is known as the “Father of Black History.”

The son of freed slaves, Woodson worked as a sharecropper and a miner to help his family. He began high school in his late teens and proved to be an excellent student. Woodson went on to college and earned several degrees. He received a doctorate from Harvard University in 1912—becoming one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D. at the prestigious institution. His doctoral dissertation,The Disruption of Virginia, was based on research he did at the Library of Congress while teaching high school in Washington, D.C. After earning the doctoral degree, he continued teaching in the public schools, later joining the faculty at Howard University as a professor and served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Convinced that the role of his own people in American history and in the history of other cultures was either being ignored or misrepresented among scholars, Woodson realized the need for research into the neglected past of African Americans. Along with Alexander L. Jackson and three associates, he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History September 9, 1915, in Chicago. That was also the year Woodson published The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. His other books followed: A Century of Negro Migration (1918) and The History of the Negro Church (1927).

After leaving Howard University, Dr. Woodson devoted the rest of his life to historical research. He worked to preserve the history of African Americans and accumulated a collection of thousands of artifacts and publications. He noted that African American contributions “were overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them.” Race prejudice, he concluded, “is merely the logical result of tradition, the inevitable outcome of thorough instruction to the effect that the Negro has never contributed anything to the progress of mankind.” In 1926, Woodson single-handedly pioneered the celebration of “Negro History Week”, for the second week in February, to coincide with marking the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The week was later extended to the full month of February and renamed Black History Month.

Dr. Woodson’s most cherished ambition, a six-volume Encyclopedia Africana, lay incomplete at his death on April 3, 1950 at the age of 74. He is buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland.

Stray Toasters

• I took “a few” new pictures of my railroad layout.
• Datamining Hip-Hop’s History
• I’m not an Indians fan, but I found this story interesting: Straight Down the Middle, the Long Way
• Free Trove of Music Scores on Web Hits Sensitive Copyright Note
  
• Rafting for Rocks
• “Tonight I’m Frakking You” is your new sci-fi dance single
• 
  
• Will Michael Bay’s NASCAR Transformers Be the Skids and Mudflap of Transformers 3?
• Hundreds of Tourist Photos Weaved into One
• Child-Product Makers Seek to Soften New Rules
• Apple in talks to improve the sound quality of music downloads

Namaste.

Monday – 21 February 2011
It’s a sunny, but cold, President’s Day. While many people/businesses have the day off, ours is not one of them. I just noted how empty the parking lots are. *shrug* Of course, most of the people who are off today don’t get a week-and-a-half off for Christmas, so I really shouldn’t complain too much.

Over the weekend, I apparently picked up SaraRules!’ cold. Yay. It hasn’t been completely hellish – mostly a cough, some sniffles and a few aches – and I seem to be on the downhill side of it now. Of course, I still sound like a frog, but what can you do…?

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is Denmark Vesey (1, 2)

Denmark Vesey, originally Telemaque, was an African American slave brought to the United States from the Caribbean of Coromantee background. After purchasing his freedom, he planned what would have been one of the largest slave rebellions in the United States.

No records existed on Denmark’s origins, although scholars have speculated that he may have been born in St. Thomas or in Africa. Denmark labored briefly in French Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), and then was settled in Charleston, South Carolina as a youth, where Joseph Vesey kept him as a domestic slave. On November 9, 1799, Denmark Vesey won $1500 in a city lottery. He bought his own freedom and began working as a carpenter. Although a Presbyterian as late as April 1816, Vesey co-founded a branch of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1817.

By 1818 he was preaching to slaves at plantations throughout the region and, drawing on the Bible, he told them that, like the Israelites, they would gain their freedom. Although he would later deny it, he allegedly held meetings at his home to collect arms for an uprising he was planning for as many as 9000 African-Americans in South Carolina.

Inspired by the revolutionary spirit and actions of slaves during the 1791 Haitian Revolution, and furious at the closing of the African Church, Vesey began to plan a slave rebellion. His insurrection, which was to take place on Bastille Day, July 14, 1822, became known to thousands of blacks throughout Charleston and along the Carolina coast. The plot called for Vesey and his group of slaves and free blacks to execute their enslavers and temporarily liberate the city of Charleston. Vesey and his followers planned to sail to Haiti to escape retaliation. Two slaves opposed to Vesey’s scheme leaked the plot. Charleston authorities charged 131 men with conspiracy.

Vesey defended himself ably at his trial, but was sentenced and hanged along with about 35 blacks; some 35 others were sold to West Indian plantation owners. It would have been the largest slave revolt in U.S. history, but its end result was the passing of even stricter laws against African-Americans.

Stray Toasters

• An Eye-Opening Look at America’s Academic Standards
• U.S. Sets 21st Century Goal: Building a Better Patent Office
• Trying to find the replacement part I need for my railroad crossing has been like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
• Five retirement planning mistakes to avoid
• 
  
• LotR Rewritten from a Mordor Perspective
• Another Stop on a Long, Improbable Journey
• RR in a Box – this is an interesting concept.
• Women in War: “I’ve Lived Out There With the Guys”

Namaste.

Friday – 18 February 2011
It’s my day off. Unfortunately, it’s not a four-day weekend for me, as our robot overlords protectors don’t give us President’s Day as a holiday. Oh, well.

Last night, SaraRules! and I attended Ballet West‘s performance of

It was very enjoyable. The dancers for Aurora, Prince Desire (“Prince Philip” for the Disney-ites out there), the Lilac Fairy and the Male Bluebird were all excellent. My only real complain about the performance came in Act III, with the court dances of the fairy-tale characters in attendance — It seemed to be a never-ending cavalcade of dance. Granted, the performers were all talented and acquitted themselves nicely, but it just seemed to make the production drag on and on. (NOTE: The dances were written into the original production by Tchaikovsky, so it’s the way the ballet is supposed to be performed.)

After we returned home, I played a little CoD: Black Ops before calling it a night.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s personality of note is: Nina Simone (1, 2)

Eunice Kathleen Waymon, also known by her stage name Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

She took to music at an early age, learning to play piano at the age of 4, and singing in her church’s choir. The sixth of seven children, Simone grew up poor. Her music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for Simone’s education and, after finishing high school, Simone won a scholarship to New York City’s famed Julliard School of Music to train as a classical pianist, but she eventually had to leave school after she ran out of funds. Moving to Philadelphia, Simone lived with her family there in order to save money and go to a more affordable music program. Her career took an unexpected turn, however, when she was rejected from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; she later claimed the school denied her admittance because she was African-American. Turning away from classical music, she started playing American standards, jazz and blues in clubs in the 1950s. Her original style arose from a fusion of gospel and pop songs with classical music, in particular her first inspiration, classical composer Bach, and accompanied with her expressive jazz-like singing in characteristic low tenor. She injected as much of her classical background into her music as possible to give it more depth and quality, and as she felt that pop music was inferior. She took the stage name Nina Simone—”Nina” came from a nickname meaning “little one” and “Simone” after the actress Simone Signoret.

Simone had always included songs in her repertoire that hinted about her African-American origins (such as “Brown Baby” and “Zungo” on Nina at the Village Gate during 1962). But on her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone In Concert (live recording, 1964), Simone for the first time openly addresses the racial inequality that was prevalent in the United States with the song “Mississippi Goddam”. It was her response to the murder of Medgar Evers and the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four black children. The song was released as a single, being boycotted in certain southern states. With “Old Jim Crow” on the same album she reacts to the Jim Crow Laws. From then on, a civil rights message was standard in Simone’s recording repertoire, where it had already become a part of her live performances. Simone performed and spoke at many civil rights meetings, such as at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Simone advocated violent revolution during the civil rights period as opposed to Martin Luther King’s non-violent approach, and hoped that African Americans could, by armed combat, form a separate state.

In 1987, the original 1958 recording of “My Baby Just Cares For Me” was used in an advert for Chanel No. 5 perfume in the UK. This led to a re-release which stormed to number 5 in the UK singles chart giving her a brief surge in popularity in the UK. Her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, was published during 1992 and she recorded her last album, A Single Woman, in 1993.

In 1993, Simone settled near Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. She had been ill with breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône on April 21, 2003. Simone’s ashes were scattered in several African countries.

Stray Toasters

• Women Cover War: Dodging Bullets, Sexual Assault
• My CSX water tower (for my railroad) was just delivered. It’s been… 10 days… since it was shipped.
  • CSX is the product of the Chessie System and Seaboard System Railroads, along with a couple of other lines.
• Driver Sued for Updating Facebook in Fatal Crash
• There’s a new trailer for Thor that’s hit the Internet:
• The Line It Is Drawn #28 – Album Cover Homages
• Digital Age Is Slow to Arrive in Rural America
• With ’21,’ British singer Adele opens her heart to the world
• 
  
• Planned Parenthood Financing Is Caught in Budget Feud
• I just had a random craving for gummy cola bottles…
  
• Our new Superman on the cover of Entertainment Weekly
• This did not come from my workplace. I don’t recall who posted the link to it yesterday (or two days ago):
  



• A Car You Can Drive With Your Thoughts

That’s it for now.
Time to find some trouble to get into…

Namaste.

Monday – 14 February 2011
It’s Monday, which means that it’s the start of another work week.

It’s also Valentine’s Day

or, as Neil Gaiman put it:

Happy Valentine’s Day. Or take pride in Being Single Day. Or join me in the newly-created Why Is My Wife In Australia Day (people who live in Australia are not eligible to join).

or, as I was just reminded: It’s Anti-Green Lantern Day. (Look at a color wheel, it will make sense then.) I wasn’t thinking about it when I got dressed this morning, but I selected a green shirt, white turtleneck and black slacks for today’s fashion fare. It wasn’t until Julie came into the office, in red-and-black that I thought about it being Anti-GL Day, too.

Yesterday, I finally picked up a six-car hopper set that I’ve been eying at a local hobby shop. It’s an older set – and showed no signs of moving any time soon – so they cut me a rather nice deal. (That didn’t hurt my feelings.) After that, I headed home and saved the world (DCUO-style) for a bit before heading over to the in-laws’ for dinner and a movie. Last night’s feature was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note is: Huey Newton (1, 2).

Huey Percy Newton was a political and urban activist who founded the Afro-American Association and co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana, the youngest of seven children to Armelia Johnson and Walter Newton, a sharecropper and Baptist lay preacher. In 1945, the family settled in Oakland, California. The Newton family was destitute, and often relocated throughout the San Francisco Bay Area throughout Newton’s childhood. Despite this, he contended that his family was close-knit and that he never went without food and shelter as a child. Growing up in Oakland, Newton claimed that “[he] was made to feel ashamed of being black.” In his autobiography Revolutionary Suicide, he wrote, “During those long years in Oakland public schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or to explore the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in the process nearly killed my urge to inquire.”

Although he graduated at Oakland Technical High School in 1960, Newton was illiterate. During his course of autodidacticism, he struggled to read Republic by Plato. He read it five times to better understand it, and it was this success that inspired him to become a political leader.

In the mid-1960s Newton decided to pursue his education at Merritt College where he met Bobby Seale. The two were briefly involved with political groups at the school before they set out to create one of their own. Founded in 1966, they called their group The Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Unlike many of the other social and political organizers of the time, they took a militant stance, advocating the ownership of guns by African Americans, and were often seen brandishing weapons. The group believed that violence—or the threat of violence—might be needed to bring about social change. They set forth their political goals in a document called the Ten-Point Program, which included better housing, jobs, and education for African Americans. It also called for an end to economic exploitation of black communities.

The Black Panthers wanted to improve life in black communities and established social programs to help those in need. They also fought against police brutality in black neighborhoods by mostly white cops. Members of the group would go to arrests in progress and watch for abuse.

Newton earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Cruz in 1974. He was enrolled as a graduate student in History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz in 1978, when he arranged to take a reading course from famed evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, while in prison. He and Trivers became close friends. Trivers and Newton published an influential analysis of the role of flight crew self-deception in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90. Newton earned a Ph.D. in social philosophy at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1980. His doctoral dissertation was entitled War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America.

On August 22, 1989, Newton was fatally shot on the 1400 block of 9th street in West Oakland by a 24-year-old Black Guerilla Family member Tyrone Robinson during an attempt by Newton to obtain crack cocaine.

Stray Toasters

• Valentine’s Day dating tips from lovestruck scientists
  • The Valentine’s Day Survival Guide
    
• In Spokane, a Mystery with No Good Solution
• Back to the Future (not the movie)
• 
• I’m not sure that I’m overly fond of the new UI on Gizmodo.
• NYC gives Optimus Prime a parking ticket
• States Aim Ax at Health Cost of Retirement
• 
• Yay for problems with the locks on the doors to two of our storage rooms!
• Watch IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy! Tonight

That’s good for now.

Namaste.

Monday – 07 February 2011
It’s Monday.
And the NFL 2010-2011 championship title has returned to Titletown.  But, more on that in a minute.

It was a good weekend. There was a fair bit crammed into the three days. Highlights include:

1. A trip to Ogden to visit Wonderful World of Trains, The Bookshelf, as well as Almosta Junction on Friday, with .
2. A trip to Jitterbug Coffee Hop for the first time in a very long while.
3. A good HeroClix tournament on Saturday.
4. The Super Bowl yesterday.

Sure, there were other things that happened over the weekend, but those were the big ticket items.

And, tonight, SaraRules! and I are celebrating an early Valentine’s Day by going out to dinner (none of those Feb. 14th dinner crowds for us!) and going to Kingsbury Hall to hear Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra perform.

Chew on This: Food for Thought – Black History Month
Today’s person of note: Althea Gibson

Althea Gibson was a World No. 1 American sportswoman who became the first African-American woman to be a competitor on the world tennis tour and the first to win a Grand Slam title in 1956. She is sometimes referred to as “the Jackie Robinson of tennis” for breaking the color barrier.

Gibson continued to improve her tennis game while pursuing an education. In 1946 she moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, to work on her tennis game with Dr. Hubert A. Eaton and enrolled at Williston High School.

In 1958, Gibson retired from amateur tennis. Before the open era began, there was no prize money, other than an expense allowance, and no endorsement deals. To begin earning prize money, tennis players had to give up their amateur status. As there was no professional tour for women, Gibson was limited to playing in a series of exhibition tours.

According to Lance Tingay of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Gibson was ranked in the world top ten from 1956 through 1958, reaching a career high of No. 1 in those rankings in 1957 and 1958. Gibson was included in the year-end top ten rankings issued by the United States Tennis Association in 1952 and 1953 and from 1955 through 1958. She was the top-ranked U.S. player in 1957 and 1958.

In 1971, Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and in 1975, she was appointed the New Jersey state commissioner of athletics. After 10 years on the job, she went on to work in other public service positions, including serving on the governor’s council on physical fitness.

On September 28, 2003, at the age of 76, Gibson died in East Orange, New Jersey due to circulatory failure and was interred there in the Rosedale Cemetery.

On the opening night of the 2007 US Open, the 50th anniversary of Gibson’s victory at the US Championships in 1957 (now the US Open), Gibson was inducted into US Open Court of Champions.

Instant Replay: Football
Yesterday, Super Bowl XLV was played in The Temple of Jones Cowboy Stadium…

Pittsburgh Steelers at Green Bay Packers
25 – 31
The Steelers and the Packers, teams from a couple of blue-collar towns, battled for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The Packers took advantage of key Pittsburgh turnovers in the first half, establishing a 21 – 10 lead by halftime. The Steelers returned to form in the second half, scoring 22 points and coming within two minutes of potentially winning the game, but couldn’t pull all of the pieces together to make it work. Congratulations to the Packers on their win.

Stray Toasters

• I think that owning these would be fun.
• Killing of Missionary Rattles Texas Border
• I would love to know who at Microsoft and/or Treyarch thought that it was a “good idea” to make this a “Double XP Weekend” for Call of Duty: Black Ops.
• I finally remembered to get screenshots of (the DCUO version of) Nefer-Tem:

  

• Bill Nye on America’s “horrible” science education
• Why Some People Evade Colds and Others Don’t
• 
  (I do own the game and it’s a lot of fun; I just haven’t played in a LONG time…)
• Jos. A. Bank 2011 Spring Style Guide – It may require a Facebook account
• From the “Whoops!” file: Christina Aguilera mangles national anthem at Super Bowl XLV
• I ordered a Superstreets vehicle and a CSX water tower for my layout. I should probably start putting some brainpower towards of the logistics involved with building the multi-level deck that I have in mind.
• Best Art Ever (This Week)

  

• Pharmacies Besieged by Addicted Thieves
• Betting on News, AOL Is Buying The Huffington Post
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Sicily couple murdered man with butter
• Steampunk Etch-a-Sketch

That’s good for now.

Namaste.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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

Namaste.

Sunday – 30 January 2011
We’re almost done with the month and my fingers still want to type “2010” half the time…

Yesterday was a long and event-filled day. I started the day by volunteering at the Salt Lake City Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I did a mix of things from some retail-prep work to organizing (yet more) doors to helping to unload donations.

Leaving the ReStore, I met SaraRules! at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center for our final movie of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Salvation Boulevard (1 , 2):

Pastor Dan is a charismatic preacher who has captivated a city with his charm. Ex-deadhead and recovering hippie Carl is one of the loyal sheep in his flock. When Dan finds himself in a compromising situation, Carl is called into service in a most unconventional way. The megachurch is cast into shadow, and a hellish storm begins brewing that could jeopardize its entire existence. The road to hell—in this case, Salvation Boulevard—is paved with good intentions—gone hysterically wrong.

This movie cast a very satirical look at mega-churches and their followers. I liked the movie; SaraRules! didn’t. I stayed after the credits for a brief Q&A with the director, George Ratliff, and his co-writer, Doug Stone. An audience member asked:

Friday – 28 January 2011
It’s finally Friday. Granted, it’s my “on” Friday, but that’s okay… I’m cutting out of here a little early and heading to Thanksgiving Point with to check out the Ophir-Tintic &Western Model Railroad Show.

Last night, SaraRules! and I – along with about 18 other people – went to The Bayou to celebrate ‘s completion of coursework for college. It was a fun evening out. I had an Epic Brewing Imperial Stout, along with dinner, a bowl of Gumbo and a bowl of Crawfish Etouffee. The food and the company were both quite good.

Back at home, I called it an early evening. To say that I slept “poorly” would be an understatement. I first woke up – screaming – from a very odd dream around 0100. After managing to get back to sleep, I woke up again, around 0415; this time, it was from a raging heartburn. I set a couple of Tums on the job and drifted off again. When the 0630 alarm went off, I was in the middle of another disturbing dream and was in no mood to get up. 0700 wasn’t much better. At 0725, I decided to drag myself out of bed and start the day.

Here’s a little something to help kick off the morning:

Stray Toasters

• HOWTO be a well-dressed office dude
• Astronaut’s Brother Recalls a Man Who Dreamed Big
  The Engineering Building at North Carolina A&T State University (I attended this school after Purdue) was renamed after Dr. McNair – who had attended A&T – following the Challenger disaster.
  • 25 years after Challenger — inspiring the future of space science
• The Geopolitics of “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?”
  



• Sundance Festival Thrives on More Than Just Money
• “aww…”  != “awe”
  Conversely, “awe” != “aww…”
• Predictions for 2011
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Beaten, concussed man finds video of his assault on YouTube, care of his attackers
• What’s Happening in Egypt, Explained
• 
• 8-bit Funding Helps Kick-Start Indie Games
• LEGO Haunted House

And with that…

Namaste.

Wednesday – 26 January 2011
Midweek is upon us once again. Of course, that means that it’s Comics Wednesday. Additionally, it means that SaraRules! and I have another Sundance movie to attend; tonight’s movie is Perfect Sense.

It’s grey and foggy outside. I half expect to see creatures from Stephen King’s The Mist appear at any moment…

Last night, we had a quiet night in. I cooked dinner – chicken over rice (all cooked in cream of mushroom soup) with green beans – and we knocked out another couple of hours’ worth of DVR fare. After TV-watching, I went in to have another go at playing DC Universe Online.

I’d gotten another couple of responses from Sony’s Support Team, so I figured that I’d see what worked. The solutions worked better than before, but I still wound up crashing… but not before I got out of the introduction/tutorial. Finally. There are a couple of other things that I need to try before emailing the Support Team and telling them that their suggestions only partially worked.

Stray Toasters

• Straight out of the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Man fired for wearing Packers tie is offered new job
  So, let me get this straight: You fired a guy because he doesn’t like the same team as you…?  Idiotstick.
• F.D.A. and Dairy Industry Spar Over Testing of Milk
• Dubai’s World of Islands Is Sinking into the Sea
• 
  • • 10 Guinness Gaming Records You Didn’t Know Existed
• BBC World Service cuts outlined to staff
• Jos. A. Bank is having a sale on suits, sportcoats and blazers. I could use a couple of new blazers…
• “It’s the music that we choose…”
• For rent: Kennedy Space Center facilities, launch pads
• To Add Appeal, Olympics Borrow (Again) From X Games
• Coming soon: Wide Nose Dash-8. And it will come in CSX and Norfolk Southern livery.  *covet*

Namaste.

Tuesday – 25 January 2011
We’re almost a full month into the new year, but my fingers still want to type “2010.”

Today is my sister-in-law, Chelsea’s, birthday:

It’s snowing again. It’s not a heavy snowfall, but it is constant.  The snow doesn’t appear to have affected drivers in this part of the valley too much… but we’ll see how it goes as the morning progresses.
UPDATE: It’s gotten a little worse:

With that in mind, the Council for Better Driving: Utah would like to remind drivers to exercise caution when traveling today.

Last night, SaraRules! was kind enough to pick up the engine, tender and boxcar that I was having repaired at The Train Shoppe:

The locomotive now goes like the proverbial “bat out of Hell” — I hitched it up to a nine car consist and opened the throttle… and off it went. With the quickness. I am happy. I am also happy because I now have three (3) fully-functional locomotives.

SaraRules! fixed a very tasty recipe of stuffed peppers for dinner. As we ate, we cleared another couple of episodes of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles off the DVR. Then, it was time to catch up with a few coworkers for CoD: Black Ops online. It was fun; I even tacked three more levels onto my character. After the group broke up, I tried to play a little more DC Universe Online. Once again, it locked up on me. (I’m going to be Level 30 before I ever get out of the introduction, at this pace…) I have a support ticket logged with Sony. In the past 12 hours, I’ve had two responses on it – one was a request for more information; one was a possible solution to the problem. I’m going to test it out this evening.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
This morning, Marvel’s latest event, “Fantastic Four: 3,” kicked off.

In this event, a member of the Fantastic Four dies. There’s been great speculation as to which character it would/could be. Comics news sites announced, as early as last night, that some mass media sources were spoiling the news of which member died.

*sigh*

It was bound to happen, I know… but I still held out a glimmer of hope that I would be able to make it until tomorrow – when I pick up my books – without hearing who the doomed person was.

Nope.

This morning, on the drive in, an announcer on a local radio station just blurted it out. There was no “Hey, if you’re a fan of the FF, you might want to turn the volume down for a minute” warning or anything.  Just “BAM!”

Monkeys.

Ear Candy
I heard this on the way to work this morning…

…which, for some reason, made me think of this:

Stray Toasters

• I finally got to introduce Kristen to iChat’s video chat option last night. It was nice to not only talk with her, but to see her, as well. I also gave her a “walking tour” of the house.
• The Sartorialist
• Bethany Sew and Sew: Character Aprons
• Chopin ‘probably had epilepsy’
• Test find high levels of lead in reusable bags
• Updated version of yesterday’s comic:



• Documents Open a Door on Mideast Peace Talks
• Jan. 25, 1921: The Robot Cometh
  • All Hail Our Robot Overlords! Sci-Fi’s Best Bots
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Flier goes ‘berserk’ over blocked lav, punches attendant
• 2011: A security manager’s wish list
• Unusual Wave of Violence Strikes Police Officers

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

Namaste.

Monday – 24 January 2010
Well met, work week. Let us see what we can accomplish.

Yesterday, I met up with Chris and Jeremiah for a HeroClix game. We played 800 points, per player. Chris fielded his X-Force team, Jeremiah brought five White Lanterns, and I played the Teen Titans. The game lasted almost three hours and, in a rare twist, didn’t involve two of us ganging up against one player. It was probably one of the most balanced three-player games I’ve ever played. In the end, Jeremiah lost his team first, I came in second, with Chris winning.

After the game, I met SaraRules! at her parents’ place for dinner and football. Later in the evening, the two of us headed downtown for our fourth Sundance movie: Benavides Born. The movie told the story of Luz Garcia, a high school senior in a small Texas town. Her dream is to get put Benavides in her rear-view mirror. Her means for doing so is to secure a powerlifting scholarship to the University of Texas. The movie follows Luz as she competes, in hopes of winning a scholarship, and as she interacts with her family and friends. This is also a coming of age movie, as it deals with Luz learning what it takes to achieve her goal and dealing with the obstacles and setbacks that arise, making her dream seem unattainable. It was a very “human” and very good movie.

Instant Replay: Football
There were some only two games over the weekend: the AFC and NFC Championship Games. I only watched the AFC game:

New York Jets at Pittsburgh Steelers
19 – 24
The Jets flew into Heinz Field, coming off a big win against the New England Patriots. I don’t know what happened to the Jets in the first half, but they were completely shut down by the Steelers. Their run game was ineffective. There was almost no pass game. The were just… there. In the second half, the Jets remembered what they were there to do and played ball. Their game wasn’t perfect, but it was fairly solid, they posted sixteen (16) unanswered points, but their last defensive stand failed to stop the Steelers from attaining first downs, allowing them to run out the clock. And so, the Super Bowl game will see the Steelers taking on the Green Bay Packers. Guess I’m going to be a Packers’ fan.

Stray Toasters

• American Icons
• Art Exhibit Stirs Up the Ghosts of Zimbabwe’s Past
• Thanks to for pointing out the Model Railway Layouts Blog to me.
• Fitness guru Jack LaLanne dies at 96
• Why Papa Johns, Intel, others said no to Super Bowl ads
• 
• Frank Gehry’s Home for New World Symphony
• In Pursuit of Qubits, Uniting Subatomic Particles by the Billions
• Wizard and Toyfare magazines fold
  (Which really seems about 3 to 5 years overdue…)
• 
• This is a good multi-genre mash-up: The Walken Dead
• Comics Code Authority is dead

Bang. Zoom.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 19 January 2011
Midweek is upon us once more.
And it comes to us with a mixture of sun and snow. At the same time.
But, it’s also Comics Wednesday. And also possibly even “Caramel Apple Wednesday,” in lieu of Sushi Wednesday.

Last night was D&D 3.5 game night with and company. I’m not sure what the deal was, but most of the game’s disruptions came from the lot of us behaving like high schoolers. (Let’s just chalk it up to “puerile behavior” and move on.) Last night’s challenge came from our group trying to parley with a group of frost giants for possession of a crown… and not get squished. Things went well: No one died, we have favorable status with the tribe of giants and we may even have new trade partners. Not bad for a night’s work.

Stray Toasters

• I may have come up with a new (or, rather, “yet another”) rail yard layout idea. And, unfortunately, I really like this one. Instead of having a stub-ended yard – which my current layout is – it would be a double-ended yard, allowing a train to enter/exit from either end. There are a few drawbacks to this idea, though:
  1. I would need to purchase six (6) new switches, minimum, to make it work.
  2. I would need to expand that side of my layout by at least 4′ in length and 1′ in depth.
  3. I wouldn’t want to set it up until the basement is finished, which would tentatively be sometime in March or April.
• Rock Stars for a Night, and for a Price
• Who is fixing your plane, and how?
• Former Haitian Dictator to Face Charges
• This is kind of what it’s like when I go to The Train Shoppe or The Wonderful World of Trains…
  

  

• Thom Zahler Returns with “Love and Capes”
• From the “Longinus!” file: Caligula tomb found? No. Caligula movie reappraisal time? No.
• This Year, Sundance Will Savor Its Homegrown Projects
  Speaking of Sundance, our first film of this year’s festival, I Saw the Devil, is Friday night!

Namaste.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stray Toasters

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



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

Namaste.