I was thinking how cool it would be to reach a plateau of 365 posts for the calendar year...one for each day...
But then you'd end up with something like this post for a day...
There's a few days left, so time hasn't run out. I have a post I'm trying to decide on putting on this year or waiting for the new number on the date category to show up. It's on what I call Modern Magic. I also have a post on Riviera Living I'm definitely waiting on.
I have a post about the unification of the Germanic tapestry and why Austria is a different country (even though they speak German). I hatched that one when I still believed that I was of Bavarian descent. When I found out that that side of my family was actually from Verdun, in Lorraine, it changed my perspective. The Alsace/Lorraine region is currently in France, but has been fought over by the French and German empires through the years.
Now I'm hatching a post about Verdun.
Next year the number of posts per month might dwindle, but the quality of those posts I'll try and raise above these simple missives.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Dumbo Memories
Corrie and I have been trying to build a complete library of the initial Disney animated features, the original five Golden Age entrants: Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi. Our reasoning, or rather, my reasoning, is that I want to study the film-making of the classic movies. So far, we have three of the five. The difference that nine years make, from Steamboat Willy in 1928 to Snow White in 1937 is such a monumental shift in technological abilities that it boggles the mind. Other classic films from the late 30s, live-action films, many times barely compare with today's audiences to the animated features Walt pulled from his team.
Bambi came out after Dumbo but had been originally planned as the second feature. It fell behind schedule and over budget due to the realism desired and achieved by the animators. They could only achieve eight drawings a day, whereas for other features the animators could get nearly thirteen seconds a day done.
The financial success of Snow White led to the ballooning budgets for the next films, only to suffer bad losses at the box office. Most of this was due to the European markets cut off because of war, but right before the workers were to rebel and go on strike, effectively ending Disney's Golden Age, Walt was able to siphon a few of the old-guard guys off of Bambi and give them a cheap project, one that could possibly recoup some of the money the studio needed to stay afloat.
What became known as the 9 Old Men in Disney's animation crew history is fodder for it's own post (or not), but the old guys pulled from Bambi and given the Dumbo project were the guys who trained the then-young men who'd become the 9 Old Men.
Because of that, maybe, Dumbo has always held the banner of being Disney's most emotionally involved feature, containing the most heart-breaking animation in all of the features before or since. One of the most accomplished animators in American history, Bill Tytla, worked on Dumbo himself, using his toddler as inspiration, and the loving scenes of Dumbo splashing and playing hide-and-seek with his mother convey a certain playfulness. Contrasting that scene with Dumbo apprehensively approaching his mother's holding cell, then climbing into her trunk and she gently swinging him and we see his momentary comfort, shows the range that Tytla had. Some of the other wildly expressive characters that Tytla worked with were Grumpy from Snow White, Chernabog (the Black God) from Fantasia, and Stromboli from Pinocchio.
We owned the VHS cassette of Dumbo when my brother and I were kids; it was among many of the old classics my parents had purchased. I remember liking the flying elephant aspect of it, the cool pink elephant sequence, but not really being all that into the real sadness that is in those moments of heartbreak. As a kid, that's how I rationalized it to myself: those scenes are too sad, so I'll avoid it for the most part.
The Pink Elephant Parade sequence is one of the coolest things animated in a major feature ever, maybe. I was surprised that Walt and Salvador Dali had collaborated on a project (that was unfinished until Roy worked it out in the late 90s), but with Surrealism being so popular--popular enough to make it into Dumbo's famous sequence--it makes a certain kind of sense.
I looked into it: "seeing pink elephants" was a euphemism for hallucinations from delirium tremens for a number of years prior to the movie (I was always curious which came first). The drunkenness representations of Timothy Mouse and Dumbo were animated with an eye for cartoony realism. I'd hazard a guess that you'd be hard-pressed to get those images in a major motion picture for kids nowadays.
One last note: the crows. The Disney brand has caught flak over the years from groups concerned with racial sensitivity issues. The problem those groups have is with the crows, voiced by and based on a performing family of black entertainers. They are obvious caricatures of American ideas of their black neighbors. They are, having just watched the movie, not portrayed in a negative light.
The crows are the only free characters in the movie. They are, besides Timothy Mouse and mamma Jumbo, the only characters who are warm towards Dumbo, even going so far as to be supportive. They can, as an alienated segment of society, empathize with Dumbo's plight, and this leads them to decide to help.
Snow White showed off what was possible; Pinocchio was an exercise in perfection; Fantasia was about the music; Bambi was about the realism; and Dumbo was about alienation and mother's love, all in a cartoony package.
It's the most cartoony of those original five features. The animators went on strike right after it came out. The totalitarian spell was broken.
The spell lasted long enough to give us one of my favorite tiny bits from Dumbo, when the matriarch of the elephants, being the top-dog boss-lady of the group she's the elephant who is on the bottom of their elaborate elephant pyramid, balancing on the ball. The animation is so good of the elephants slowly climbing up and getting into place. The bit I'm talking about has the matriarch, sweating and struggling with the weight of the entire clan on her back, literally, while we're hearing the ringmaster blathering off in the distance, and as an audience we share in her struggle. As we gawk at her, she says what we're thinking, "Won't that blowhard just get on with it..."
Bambi came out after Dumbo but had been originally planned as the second feature. It fell behind schedule and over budget due to the realism desired and achieved by the animators. They could only achieve eight drawings a day, whereas for other features the animators could get nearly thirteen seconds a day done.
The financial success of Snow White led to the ballooning budgets for the next films, only to suffer bad losses at the box office. Most of this was due to the European markets cut off because of war, but right before the workers were to rebel and go on strike, effectively ending Disney's Golden Age, Walt was able to siphon a few of the old-guard guys off of Bambi and give them a cheap project, one that could possibly recoup some of the money the studio needed to stay afloat.
What became known as the 9 Old Men in Disney's animation crew history is fodder for it's own post (or not), but the old guys pulled from Bambi and given the Dumbo project were the guys who trained the then-young men who'd become the 9 Old Men.
Because of that, maybe, Dumbo has always held the banner of being Disney's most emotionally involved feature, containing the most heart-breaking animation in all of the features before or since. One of the most accomplished animators in American history, Bill Tytla, worked on Dumbo himself, using his toddler as inspiration, and the loving scenes of Dumbo splashing and playing hide-and-seek with his mother convey a certain playfulness. Contrasting that scene with Dumbo apprehensively approaching his mother's holding cell, then climbing into her trunk and she gently swinging him and we see his momentary comfort, shows the range that Tytla had. Some of the other wildly expressive characters that Tytla worked with were Grumpy from Snow White, Chernabog (the Black God) from Fantasia, and Stromboli from Pinocchio.
We owned the VHS cassette of Dumbo when my brother and I were kids; it was among many of the old classics my parents had purchased. I remember liking the flying elephant aspect of it, the cool pink elephant sequence, but not really being all that into the real sadness that is in those moments of heartbreak. As a kid, that's how I rationalized it to myself: those scenes are too sad, so I'll avoid it for the most part.
The Pink Elephant Parade sequence is one of the coolest things animated in a major feature ever, maybe. I was surprised that Walt and Salvador Dali had collaborated on a project (that was unfinished until Roy worked it out in the late 90s), but with Surrealism being so popular--popular enough to make it into Dumbo's famous sequence--it makes a certain kind of sense.
I looked into it: "seeing pink elephants" was a euphemism for hallucinations from delirium tremens for a number of years prior to the movie (I was always curious which came first). The drunkenness representations of Timothy Mouse and Dumbo were animated with an eye for cartoony realism. I'd hazard a guess that you'd be hard-pressed to get those images in a major motion picture for kids nowadays.
One last note: the crows. The Disney brand has caught flak over the years from groups concerned with racial sensitivity issues. The problem those groups have is with the crows, voiced by and based on a performing family of black entertainers. They are obvious caricatures of American ideas of their black neighbors. They are, having just watched the movie, not portrayed in a negative light.
The crows are the only free characters in the movie. They are, besides Timothy Mouse and mamma Jumbo, the only characters who are warm towards Dumbo, even going so far as to be supportive. They can, as an alienated segment of society, empathize with Dumbo's plight, and this leads them to decide to help.
Snow White showed off what was possible; Pinocchio was an exercise in perfection; Fantasia was about the music; Bambi was about the realism; and Dumbo was about alienation and mother's love, all in a cartoony package.
It's the most cartoony of those original five features. The animators went on strike right after it came out. The totalitarian spell was broken.
The spell lasted long enough to give us one of my favorite tiny bits from Dumbo, when the matriarch of the elephants, being the top-dog boss-lady of the group she's the elephant who is on the bottom of their elaborate elephant pyramid, balancing on the ball. The animation is so good of the elephants slowly climbing up and getting into place. The bit I'm talking about has the matriarch, sweating and struggling with the weight of the entire clan on her back, literally, while we're hearing the ringmaster blathering off in the distance, and as an audience we share in her struggle. As we gawk at her, she says what we're thinking, "Won't that blowhard just get on with it..."
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Decemberween 2011
Last year for the gift-day of December 25th, Corrie and I came out to Santa Monica. My brothers, cousin, and mom all also came out to visit. It was great fun...Norm and I went swimming in the dangerous runoff beach conditions on Christmas Eve, an event memorialized in January's post Dolphins and Venice.
This year, the tradition continued. Norm and I went swimming in a cleaner ocean, this time with much larger waves than either of us had swam in in years. We got pummeled.
The family was good, the gifts were precious, and the ocean was cold and rough.
There was one gift that Corrie and I got from my godparents, my Auntie and Uncle that live in Santa Monica, that was different and unique. It was a large dirigible. A dirigible toy.
It's one of the Air Swimmers. It has attached fins made of tissue paper, a gondola that runs along a track, and a tiny motor in the tail construction that whips the tail from one side to another, causing the blimp to move forward. The motorized gondola moves forward and back as a means of ascending or descending. It all works relatively well, if quite slowly.
The cool thing I've noticed from it hanging around our apartment is how the air is effected by simply walking around. If you walk by even the meekest air current can cause the Air Swimmer to get shoved around.
This year, the tradition continued. Norm and I went swimming in a cleaner ocean, this time with much larger waves than either of us had swam in in years. We got pummeled.
The family was good, the gifts were precious, and the ocean was cold and rough.
There was one gift that Corrie and I got from my godparents, my Auntie and Uncle that live in Santa Monica, that was different and unique. It was a large dirigible. A dirigible toy.
It's one of the Air Swimmers. It has attached fins made of tissue paper, a gondola that runs along a track, and a tiny motor in the tail construction that whips the tail from one side to another, causing the blimp to move forward. The motorized gondola moves forward and back as a means of ascending or descending. It all works relatively well, if quite slowly.
The cool thing I've noticed from it hanging around our apartment is how the air is effected by simply walking around. If you walk by even the meekest air current can cause the Air Swimmer to get shoved around.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
My New Favorite Show
This is kind of a joke, since I don't really watch all that much television. If there was a new show that if I'm not at work when the episodes air, I'll stop and watch them, would be ABC's Modern Family.
This post is about a show that comes on only when I'm off (it's on later than when I leave for work), and recently I've had it on while working on this blog. Occasionally on my days off, I'll go ride on my bike, come back to my apartment and write, and later on, head back out on my bike after a cocktail. Sometimes I'll put on a movie while I write for timing purposes. Once I let this show play out, just so I could see what the fuss was about. It turned out to be better than I expected.
I shouldn't have been surprised, since it's the longest running live action show in American history, Gunsmoke.
I wouldn't say I'm a western freak, but I am a fan to some degree. To highlight my point, an episode of Gunsmoke aired where James Arness' Marshall Matt Dillon, after being shot, is mended by a family of former slaves heading to Oregon. The family is menaced by the same shooters of our hero, the Marshall, and are foiled eventually through the ingenuity of the family and the ailing hero. It was an interesting discussion on race relations, and the first time I ever heard the phrase "leather-ear": it's an escaped slave who was caught and shorn of an ear as punishment. Said caught slave would wear a leather patch, like an eye-patch, over their ear.
The next show on the channel I caught the first five minutes of, is also a western, and after those first five minutes, I decided I couldn't stomach it any longer. It was an episode of Bonanza, and the Michael Landon's character was vying for a girl's attention in competition with his friend. In five minutes it was tired and done over.
That's the point I was trying to make about westerns. I like some, absolutely, but others I don't care for. As a genre, the western offers me the possibility of enjoyment, is all I'm saying. I know people who can't stand westerns.
In any case, I've only seen three episodes of Gunsmoke to date, of 400+ over twenty years, so some may not be as good as others. The first episode I saw was about swindlers and land speculation. The second episode was about Doc, the town doctor, witnessing a murder in the opening moments of the show, calling out for someone to stop the murderer, that murderer getting shot by Marshall Dillon while fleeing, then the doctor having to tend to him. Meanwhile, a sick baby, who had no real chance of survival, died because Doc, who'd been on his way to help the baby only to witness the stabbing, had to tend to the accused stabber.
The storylines are tragic and real and complex. It's not The Wire, but really, what is? For a western from the late fifties spanning all the way to the seventies, I realized why it had staying power: good writing.
This post is about a show that comes on only when I'm off (it's on later than when I leave for work), and recently I've had it on while working on this blog. Occasionally on my days off, I'll go ride on my bike, come back to my apartment and write, and later on, head back out on my bike after a cocktail. Sometimes I'll put on a movie while I write for timing purposes. Once I let this show play out, just so I could see what the fuss was about. It turned out to be better than I expected.
I shouldn't have been surprised, since it's the longest running live action show in American history, Gunsmoke.
I wouldn't say I'm a western freak, but I am a fan to some degree. To highlight my point, an episode of Gunsmoke aired where James Arness' Marshall Matt Dillon, after being shot, is mended by a family of former slaves heading to Oregon. The family is menaced by the same shooters of our hero, the Marshall, and are foiled eventually through the ingenuity of the family and the ailing hero. It was an interesting discussion on race relations, and the first time I ever heard the phrase "leather-ear": it's an escaped slave who was caught and shorn of an ear as punishment. Said caught slave would wear a leather patch, like an eye-patch, over their ear.
The next show on the channel I caught the first five minutes of, is also a western, and after those first five minutes, I decided I couldn't stomach it any longer. It was an episode of Bonanza, and the Michael Landon's character was vying for a girl's attention in competition with his friend. In five minutes it was tired and done over.
That's the point I was trying to make about westerns. I like some, absolutely, but others I don't care for. As a genre, the western offers me the possibility of enjoyment, is all I'm saying. I know people who can't stand westerns.
In any case, I've only seen three episodes of Gunsmoke to date, of 400+ over twenty years, so some may not be as good as others. The first episode I saw was about swindlers and land speculation. The second episode was about Doc, the town doctor, witnessing a murder in the opening moments of the show, calling out for someone to stop the murderer, that murderer getting shot by Marshall Dillon while fleeing, then the doctor having to tend to him. Meanwhile, a sick baby, who had no real chance of survival, died because Doc, who'd been on his way to help the baby only to witness the stabbing, had to tend to the accused stabber.
The storylines are tragic and real and complex. It's not The Wire, but really, what is? For a western from the late fifties spanning all the way to the seventies, I realized why it had staying power: good writing.
Monday, December 19, 2011
The New "Big Thing" in Digital Photography
With cameras being implanted in all sorts of things like phones and iPads, we lose track of how amazing photography really is. The tiny lenses and sensors in those random implants uses the same basic method as almost all digital photography, a technology that basically mimics film photography.
Cameras that you can buy in the store nowadays that are digital are generally based on film camera shapes, as designers just placed the digital sensor in the spot that the light-sensitive film paper would be. Strangely this hasn't really changed. I've read that there is a type of digital camera that is trying to buck the film camera design philosophy, but it get's a little technical for here.
What I'm talking about in the title of this post, the great new "Big Thing" in digital photography is the first new innovation and change in how photography is approached in more than a hundred years.
I'm talking about the light field camera. Designed by a Stanford scientist, a light field camera houses nearly a dozen lenses and captures light rays from all directions towards which the camera is pointed.
What does that mean practically? It means that you never have to focus the camera, but it goes farther. You focus the picture after the fact. Because of the data gathered by the lenses, you get the opportunity to make different photos from the same image capture simply by changing what you want to focus on. The fact you get to choose what to focus on after the case is new and novel.
If you spend a second to examine the Lytro web site I've linked to, you can see the wildly simple design on the camera, an electronic Snickers bar almost. It only has two buttons--"On" and the shutter release. It charges like a phone, doesn't have a memory card insert (the styles of camera are categorized by Gigabytes of memory), and is the least intimidating camera-exclusive product out there.
Cameras that you can buy in the store nowadays that are digital are generally based on film camera shapes, as designers just placed the digital sensor in the spot that the light-sensitive film paper would be. Strangely this hasn't really changed. I've read that there is a type of digital camera that is trying to buck the film camera design philosophy, but it get's a little technical for here.
What I'm talking about in the title of this post, the great new "Big Thing" in digital photography is the first new innovation and change in how photography is approached in more than a hundred years.
I'm talking about the light field camera. Designed by a Stanford scientist, a light field camera houses nearly a dozen lenses and captures light rays from all directions towards which the camera is pointed.
What does that mean practically? It means that you never have to focus the camera, but it goes farther. You focus the picture after the fact. Because of the data gathered by the lenses, you get the opportunity to make different photos from the same image capture simply by changing what you want to focus on. The fact you get to choose what to focus on after the case is new and novel.
If you spend a second to examine the Lytro web site I've linked to, you can see the wildly simple design on the camera, an electronic Snickers bar almost. It only has two buttons--"On" and the shutter release. It charges like a phone, doesn't have a memory card insert (the styles of camera are categorized by Gigabytes of memory), and is the least intimidating camera-exclusive product out there.
Second Trip to Disneyland of 2011
Corrie's office party was held at Disneyland. How about that? We had to muster at the park's gate at 7:30 am to gather for a guide who was to take us to our breakfast spot, the exclusive Club 33.
Apparently what I knew about Club 33 (it was where my brothers got a bit of a swerve on, as the lone pace that serves alcohol in the park) was based on what Dan and Norm have told me. When I told people I work with that we ate at Club 33 the response I get is of the raised eyebrows and "Wow!" variety. I hadn't really even heard of it until Dan and Norm were telling of a trip a few years back. I'm not sure how they made it in, but I have some ideas. People have been impressed thus far, more than I would've guessed from the experience. Our breakfast was buffet style, and it was okay.
The idea for Club 33 started when Walt Disney wanted a posh corporate lounge that would be a quiet respite from the madness of the park surrounding it. He wanted a place where he could entertain dignitaries from the entertainment and business world, as well as to create an environment that would be exclusive an accept only a few members. Even now, no one's allowed in who's not invited by one of the 437 members. Located above the Blue Bayou restaurant in a quiet corner of Disneyland called New Orleans Square, the main theory about how it got its name comes from the number of corporate sponsors for the opening of the park in 1955--33.
Incidentally, the Blue Bayou is the restaurant that you float by in the beginning of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
After breakfast we hit up the park. Corrie and I had a few rides we wanted to get to that we hadn't back in October, but were otherwise open for whatever. We eventually did what anyone with experience at Disneyland would love to do: introduce newbies.
Bonus: the day was young and the park was mostly empty. Perfect combo.
Corrie and I paired up with Marte and Majik, a Polish couple. The young lady Marte got hired at the same time as Corrie, so they feel connected in a way. Also, we get along with Europeans pretty well for some reason.
This was Marte's first trip to Disneyland, or any theme park, and Majik had been to EuroDisney in France, and had been to Six Flags in Santa Clarita, but it was also his first trip to this section of Anaheim.
Firstly, right after we finished breakfast, we all went on Pirates of the Carribean, it being right there and there being no line. Then the four of us went off to Space Mountain. We asked Marte if she'd ever been on a roller coaster, and she said that once she'd been on a merry-go-round but that had been it. We smiled and told her she was in for a treat.
After Space Mountain we did the Matterhorn, then Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (which we'd skipped in October), then Alice in Wonderland (Corrie had really wanted to check it out), then Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and it was barely 11 am.
For people reading this, who've never been to Disneyland, you may say, "Whatever." But for people who've spent nearly an hour in each line they've waited in during a hot day in Anaheim, you might look at that and say, "What?"
Pirates, Space Mountain, Matterhorn, Mr. Toad, Alice, and Big Thunder Mountain in under two hours. Unbelievable. I told Marte that we're probably ruining the her for the park, since the next time she might come it could very well be far busier.
Since we had park hopper tickets, and Indiana Jones was closed, we went across the way to California Adventure to see if their roller coaster, California Screaming, was open (it hadn't been in October). It's the only coaster to go upside down in Walt's Southern California empire. It was open, and the line was four minutes long, and the four of us loved it so much that we just got back in line after after exiting and rode it twice in a row. After that we stopped for a snack and cup of joe, then waited all of ten minutes for the hang-gliding ride, Soaring over California.
After that, Corrie had to take me to work. Besides my sleep situation, which I'll get to in a second, it was one of the most ideal trips I've been able to take to the Disneyland: the ticket was a gift; we got to show a pair of Europeans the best things about the two parks (in our opinion); and the longest line was for for Alice in Wonderland. I had a great time during the last trip, but being on a schedule was kinda nice.
A Thursday night where I work was busy enough, but we had to stay until 3 am to get everything done that had to get done. I got home at 3:30 and went right to bed. We got up at 5:30 to shower and get out of the house by 6:30 so we could be in Anaheim by 7:30. We were early to the park but not by too much. Corrie took me to work around 1:30-2, where I stayed until midnight.
Considering the rough moments I had on Friday night, I feel comfortable saying that it could've been some of my finest work. In college I occasionally worked on as few hours before, but never with the responsibilities that I have now, and not on one of the four busiest days of the year for my work. I made it through, is all I'm saying.
In any case, I'm trying to organize the four of us, Corrie and me and our Polish friends, to go to Magic Mountain in January on a dreary Tuesday or something similar...middle of the week, rain would be kinda nice, anything to keep the crowds away. There's nothing like no lines at roller coaster parks.
Apparently what I knew about Club 33 (it was where my brothers got a bit of a swerve on, as the lone pace that serves alcohol in the park) was based on what Dan and Norm have told me. When I told people I work with that we ate at Club 33 the response I get is of the raised eyebrows and "Wow!" variety. I hadn't really even heard of it until Dan and Norm were telling of a trip a few years back. I'm not sure how they made it in, but I have some ideas. People have been impressed thus far, more than I would've guessed from the experience. Our breakfast was buffet style, and it was okay.
The idea for Club 33 started when Walt Disney wanted a posh corporate lounge that would be a quiet respite from the madness of the park surrounding it. He wanted a place where he could entertain dignitaries from the entertainment and business world, as well as to create an environment that would be exclusive an accept only a few members. Even now, no one's allowed in who's not invited by one of the 437 members. Located above the Blue Bayou restaurant in a quiet corner of Disneyland called New Orleans Square, the main theory about how it got its name comes from the number of corporate sponsors for the opening of the park in 1955--33.
Incidentally, the Blue Bayou is the restaurant that you float by in the beginning of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
After breakfast we hit up the park. Corrie and I had a few rides we wanted to get to that we hadn't back in October, but were otherwise open for whatever. We eventually did what anyone with experience at Disneyland would love to do: introduce newbies.
Bonus: the day was young and the park was mostly empty. Perfect combo.
Corrie and I paired up with Marte and Majik, a Polish couple. The young lady Marte got hired at the same time as Corrie, so they feel connected in a way. Also, we get along with Europeans pretty well for some reason.
This was Marte's first trip to Disneyland, or any theme park, and Majik had been to EuroDisney in France, and had been to Six Flags in Santa Clarita, but it was also his first trip to this section of Anaheim.
Firstly, right after we finished breakfast, we all went on Pirates of the Carribean, it being right there and there being no line. Then the four of us went off to Space Mountain. We asked Marte if she'd ever been on a roller coaster, and she said that once she'd been on a merry-go-round but that had been it. We smiled and told her she was in for a treat.
After Space Mountain we did the Matterhorn, then Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (which we'd skipped in October), then Alice in Wonderland (Corrie had really wanted to check it out), then Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and it was barely 11 am.
For people reading this, who've never been to Disneyland, you may say, "Whatever." But for people who've spent nearly an hour in each line they've waited in during a hot day in Anaheim, you might look at that and say, "What?"
Pirates, Space Mountain, Matterhorn, Mr. Toad, Alice, and Big Thunder Mountain in under two hours. Unbelievable. I told Marte that we're probably ruining the her for the park, since the next time she might come it could very well be far busier.
Since we had park hopper tickets, and Indiana Jones was closed, we went across the way to California Adventure to see if their roller coaster, California Screaming, was open (it hadn't been in October). It's the only coaster to go upside down in Walt's Southern California empire. It was open, and the line was four minutes long, and the four of us loved it so much that we just got back in line after after exiting and rode it twice in a row. After that we stopped for a snack and cup of joe, then waited all of ten minutes for the hang-gliding ride, Soaring over California.
After that, Corrie had to take me to work. Besides my sleep situation, which I'll get to in a second, it was one of the most ideal trips I've been able to take to the Disneyland: the ticket was a gift; we got to show a pair of Europeans the best things about the two parks (in our opinion); and the longest line was for for Alice in Wonderland. I had a great time during the last trip, but being on a schedule was kinda nice.
A Thursday night where I work was busy enough, but we had to stay until 3 am to get everything done that had to get done. I got home at 3:30 and went right to bed. We got up at 5:30 to shower and get out of the house by 6:30 so we could be in Anaheim by 7:30. We were early to the park but not by too much. Corrie took me to work around 1:30-2, where I stayed until midnight.
Considering the rough moments I had on Friday night, I feel comfortable saying that it could've been some of my finest work. In college I occasionally worked on as few hours before, but never with the responsibilities that I have now, and not on one of the four busiest days of the year for my work. I made it through, is all I'm saying.
In any case, I'm trying to organize the four of us, Corrie and me and our Polish friends, to go to Magic Mountain in January on a dreary Tuesday or something similar...middle of the week, rain would be kinda nice, anything to keep the crowds away. There's nothing like no lines at roller coaster parks.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Reflection Fun Part 3
After it rains and I have errands to run, I take my camera. I'm an inveterate puddle chaser.
Here's a few of the latest batch. These are from around our neighborhood:
Here's a few of the latest batch. These are from around our neighborhood:
Quota Met
I didn't want to mention my personal monthly quota in the blog, lest I jinx myself, but seeing as I'm working on it now, it's time to accept it.
Halfway through January I realized that I could hit twenty posts that month, and then I set about trying to make that quota each month. Some months I would stress about it, for no reason it almost always turned out.
Twenty. That was my quota. Now I'm averaging almost 30, and it seems like stressing about twenty is silly, but that's how I am.
I mention this because next year my focus will be more on my fiction, and I'm not sure how much posting I'll be doing...maybe ten a month, just to keep it fresh.
A post about the number of posts a month...maybe I've gone too far.
Halfway through January I realized that I could hit twenty posts that month, and then I set about trying to make that quota each month. Some months I would stress about it, for no reason it almost always turned out.
Twenty. That was my quota. Now I'm averaging almost 30, and it seems like stressing about twenty is silly, but that's how I am.
I mention this because next year my focus will be more on my fiction, and I'm not sure how much posting I'll be doing...maybe ten a month, just to keep it fresh.
A post about the number of posts a month...maybe I've gone too far.
Planetarium Show
Visiting Griffith Observatory on a Sunday is a trip. (And by that I mean to use "trip" with the slang definition.) It's like Disneyland, only with less places to blow money and more learning going on. It was very busy and crowded, and, like Disneyland, a cacophony of languages and accents were eavesdropped upon. Parking was a bear, and we got there less than an hour after they opened. It was plenty worse when we left.
On my quick trip on that Wednesday in September, I skipped the planetarium show, wanting to experience it with Corrie when we could be together.
I like planetarium shows. I have a historical fondness for science things. I was the first student at my elementary school to go to Space Camp, and even before that I attended a summer science class program. The memories are hazy, but I do remember their experiments with the flora local to the Van Buren Ave/Auburn Blvd area in Citrus Heights, and, not coincidentally, the planetarium show. (Another memory was of the the ninety-one second knockout Mike Tyson laid on Michael Spinks.) Leaning back in the chair in the dark and watching the pointer pick out the constellations and planets always got me excited to be able to show off that knowledge. Too bad that the night sky in Sacramento in 1988 was already too polluted with light.
It was with that history that when they aired the episode of South Park with the planetarium guy who's speech impediment causes him to pronounce the word as "plan-e-'arium" (he can't pronounce the 'T' in that word only), I totally got a kick out of him trying to hypnotize the kids during the show. Very soon after that episode came on, I caught a scene in a exploitation film from the 70s with a pimp hypnotizing his ladies during a planetarium show. That made the bizarre idea that Trey and Matt came up with more understandable.
In any case, this past Sunday we got our tickets and when the time came, got our seats, and got ready to lounge and learn, or be reminded anyway. The show is led by a knowledgeable person, and ours was an older lady who sounded like Eartha Kitt. It was strange at first, but oddly soothing as she went on.
At one point during the talk, as we relaxed in the dark, the dome's black surface looked mottled with dancing blurs. Strange, I remember thinking, things weren't this blurry earlier. The blotches of blur would fade off the side. For a few minutes about the unfathomable immensity of the universe our Eartha Kitt spoke, and we watched the dancing blurs. She was speaking about galaxy clusters and remote-ness, and eventually the last of the dancing blurs went away, as a patch of whiteness began to take form in the center of the dome. In it, slowly growing, were a few nice, regular looking galaxies. This was our remote galactic neighborhood. We soon watched those few galaxies fly by, and a smaller, single spiral galaxy slowly came into focus. We're even isolated in our own neighborhood. It was then that we all realized something startling:
That 'Dance of the Blurs' was really our journey through a section of the universe. All those blurry objects passing by or moving about, those were distant galactic 'hoods, and judging by how long it took the traveling view (that would have been many, many magnitudes more than the speed of light, the ultimate (for now) speed limit)) we're really quite out there.
Our galaxy came into view, and we eventually saw ourselves out in the boondocks in an empty space between two arms. The view/journey came all the way to Earth, then Southern California, and stopped right out front of the Observatory.
We stepped out of the show to the same spot.
Post Script: Our galactic neighborhood is far from many things, and the Milky Way spiral galaxy is oddly isolated even from it. In our general area, you could say, there are three galaxies: one regular (the Milky Way spiral) and two irregulars. They're classified as irregular dwarf galaxies, which has a specific definition. Wouldn't it be cool if you could see them? It makes sense that we should be able to see them, right, if they're in our galactic 'hood and all.
Turns out they're absolutely visible, only in the southern hemisphere, though. Known as the Magellanic Clouds (the Large and the Small), they've been known to southern star-gazers for as long as those people gazed.
On my quick trip on that Wednesday in September, I skipped the planetarium show, wanting to experience it with Corrie when we could be together.
I like planetarium shows. I have a historical fondness for science things. I was the first student at my elementary school to go to Space Camp, and even before that I attended a summer science class program. The memories are hazy, but I do remember their experiments with the flora local to the Van Buren Ave/Auburn Blvd area in Citrus Heights, and, not coincidentally, the planetarium show. (Another memory was of the the ninety-one second knockout Mike Tyson laid on Michael Spinks.) Leaning back in the chair in the dark and watching the pointer pick out the constellations and planets always got me excited to be able to show off that knowledge. Too bad that the night sky in Sacramento in 1988 was already too polluted with light.
It was with that history that when they aired the episode of South Park with the planetarium guy who's speech impediment causes him to pronounce the word as "plan-e-'arium" (he can't pronounce the 'T' in that word only), I totally got a kick out of him trying to hypnotize the kids during the show. Very soon after that episode came on, I caught a scene in a exploitation film from the 70s with a pimp hypnotizing his ladies during a planetarium show. That made the bizarre idea that Trey and Matt came up with more understandable.
In any case, this past Sunday we got our tickets and when the time came, got our seats, and got ready to lounge and learn, or be reminded anyway. The show is led by a knowledgeable person, and ours was an older lady who sounded like Eartha Kitt. It was strange at first, but oddly soothing as she went on.
At one point during the talk, as we relaxed in the dark, the dome's black surface looked mottled with dancing blurs. Strange, I remember thinking, things weren't this blurry earlier. The blotches of blur would fade off the side. For a few minutes about the unfathomable immensity of the universe our Eartha Kitt spoke, and we watched the dancing blurs. She was speaking about galaxy clusters and remote-ness, and eventually the last of the dancing blurs went away, as a patch of whiteness began to take form in the center of the dome. In it, slowly growing, were a few nice, regular looking galaxies. This was our remote galactic neighborhood. We soon watched those few galaxies fly by, and a smaller, single spiral galaxy slowly came into focus. We're even isolated in our own neighborhood. It was then that we all realized something startling:
That 'Dance of the Blurs' was really our journey through a section of the universe. All those blurry objects passing by or moving about, those were distant galactic 'hoods, and judging by how long it took the traveling view (that would have been many, many magnitudes more than the speed of light, the ultimate (for now) speed limit)) we're really quite out there.
Our galaxy came into view, and we eventually saw ourselves out in the boondocks in an empty space between two arms. The view/journey came all the way to Earth, then Southern California, and stopped right out front of the Observatory.
We stepped out of the show to the same spot.
Post Script: Our galactic neighborhood is far from many things, and the Milky Way spiral galaxy is oddly isolated even from it. In our general area, you could say, there are three galaxies: one regular (the Milky Way spiral) and two irregulars. They're classified as irregular dwarf galaxies, which has a specific definition. Wouldn't it be cool if you could see them? It makes sense that we should be able to see them, right, if they're in our galactic 'hood and all.
Turns out they're absolutely visible, only in the southern hemisphere, though. Known as the Magellanic Clouds (the Large and the Small), they've been known to southern star-gazers for as long as those people gazed.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Return to the Observatory
This past Sunday found both Corrie and I off and on an adventure to Griffith Observatory. It was her first time. The day was gray with patchy sun breaking through, but mostly dreary.
How much good do you think this telescope will do?
Here's one of the domes with the Hollywood sign:
From the distance, looking back, the two different planes that house the separate telescope domes and the planetarium dome can be seen here:
We learned a lot about our Solar System in the downstairs learning center. There was a computer program called "IMPACT!" that let you choose an object, it's size, density, velocity, and the angle that it would be headed towards Earth from beyond.
Some of the different objects were comet, space detritus, and meteor. First we chose a 20 meter nickel-iron meteor of the highest density with angle of twenty degrees. The screen changes to a simulation of how the fireball would look: a bright streak blazes across the horizon, an impact occurs, and then the scene was an overgrown crater with the words "Decades Later". The result showed how large the crater would be and how long it would take to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
Then we wanted to have a little fun. We maxed out the size of the nickel-iron meteor--50 meters--maxed out the velocity and density, and set the angle at 90 degrees, meaning it would hit the planet like an arrow and a bull's-eye.
The simulation takes the vantage point where the entire planet earth is visible. The explosion was so bright it whited out the screen. The resulting crater was as large as Mexico, and the overgrowth had begun, and the caption said "Millenia Later."
Thousands of years it would take to get some life back to the reshaped area of the planet. Crazy.
I brought our Holga camera, but this time with the black and white film. We'll see how the pictures come out. Another neat thing about this trip will be the subject of the next post, going to a planetarium show.
How much good do you think this telescope will do?
Here's one of the domes with the Hollywood sign:
From the distance, looking back, the two different planes that house the separate telescope domes and the planetarium dome can be seen here:
We learned a lot about our Solar System in the downstairs learning center. There was a computer program called "IMPACT!" that let you choose an object, it's size, density, velocity, and the angle that it would be headed towards Earth from beyond.
Some of the different objects were comet, space detritus, and meteor. First we chose a 20 meter nickel-iron meteor of the highest density with angle of twenty degrees. The screen changes to a simulation of how the fireball would look: a bright streak blazes across the horizon, an impact occurs, and then the scene was an overgrown crater with the words "Decades Later". The result showed how large the crater would be and how long it would take to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
Then we wanted to have a little fun. We maxed out the size of the nickel-iron meteor--50 meters--maxed out the velocity and density, and set the angle at 90 degrees, meaning it would hit the planet like an arrow and a bull's-eye.
The simulation takes the vantage point where the entire planet earth is visible. The explosion was so bright it whited out the screen. The resulting crater was as large as Mexico, and the overgrowth had begun, and the caption said "Millenia Later."
Thousands of years it would take to get some life back to the reshaped area of the planet. Crazy.
I brought our Holga camera, but this time with the black and white film. We'll see how the pictures come out. Another neat thing about this trip will be the subject of the next post, going to a planetarium show.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Correction: Prokhorov vs. Putin
I made a mistake in the last post about Anna Politkovskaya and her last set of articles.
They were concerning the atrocities in Chechnya during the Russian Army's operations in the Caucasus and not about Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy who died mysteriously in London to what appeared to be radiation poisoning.
Litvinenko had authored a pair of books about the way Putin came to power and the method the government waged its "war on terror" in the Caucasus.
I got my facts mixed up...he was the one who blamed Putin for her death, not the other way around.
I didn't want to go in and just switch the sentence in the last post. This seemed like it should just be highlighted.
They were concerning the atrocities in Chechnya during the Russian Army's operations in the Caucasus and not about Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy who died mysteriously in London to what appeared to be radiation poisoning.
Litvinenko had authored a pair of books about the way Putin came to power and the method the government waged its "war on terror" in the Caucasus.
I got my facts mixed up...he was the one who blamed Putin for her death, not the other way around.
I didn't want to go in and just switch the sentence in the last post. This seemed like it should just be highlighted.
Prokhorov vs. Putin
In an surprisingly unsurprising situation in Russia, Vladimir Putin is deciding to run for a third term as President. I guess their election laws stipulate that the limit of two terms are only for consecutive groups of two.
In an actually surprising situation the Russian people are taking to the streets like so many other citizens in other countries. You know people all over are getting riled when the Russkies are taking to the streets. They're upset at early election returns that give Putin's, and current president Medvedev's, party a majority at the Kremlin. Fraud is the shout from the mountaintop.
In a strange turn of events, Mikhail Prokhorov is reported to be toying with the decision to enter the Russian Presidential race against Putin.
Mikhail Prokhorov is the youthful, tall, billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, a team that that will instantly become my new team the moment the finally move to Brooklyn. I remember seeing this lanky basketball looking guy in the newspaper reports when the sale went down. He was the new owner. A billionaire.
Billionaire? This confused me, until I read that he had been a nickel magnate.
A forty-something nickel-magnate billionaire Russian?
I'm thinking of a word...it starts with the letter 'G' and ends with '-ANGSTER'. I've read enough of Anna Politkovskaya to know how "politics" works in Russia. The Army, the liquor industry, the power structure, the erst-while KGB people in charge at all levels of government, the radiation poisoning of former spies ready to talk...it's all a different world over there.
Politkovskaya was an investigative journalist who spent her days exposing the various atrocities committed by various institutions in a scathing portrait of the ways things just get done in Russia. You can call her an alarmist. I guess. Anna was working on an article about that former spy that was killed by radiation poisoning in England.
She was mysteriously shot while going into her apartment and died in her building's foyer.
She had little to say about Prokhorov specifically in the material I've read, but I get it; I get the basic image of how this guy must have become a magnate. Irresponsible douche-bag trust-fund kids getting their hands on their family's money or company's and ultimately the government is not how the world works in Russia. Not in the Bill Gates kind of way, anyway. There's a level of roughness, violence, and plain gangster in the political realm that would absolutely astound Americans if they truly understood the level at which it really exists.
Corruption? Please. That word has very little meaning in Russian politics.
So, really, part of me is quite excited if Prokhorov truly intends to join the race.
It would be for President of Russia, true, but it would really be for the title World's Top Gangster.
Putin or Prokhorov...as president either would eclipse Kim in North Korea, Bashad in Syria, or any of the African thugs that are still holding onto power.
A comment on that article I've linked to wants Obama to then buy the Bulls, which would make for great inter-conference rivalry games.
In an actually surprising situation the Russian people are taking to the streets like so many other citizens in other countries. You know people all over are getting riled when the Russkies are taking to the streets. They're upset at early election returns that give Putin's, and current president Medvedev's, party a majority at the Kremlin. Fraud is the shout from the mountaintop.
In a strange turn of events, Mikhail Prokhorov is reported to be toying with the decision to enter the Russian Presidential race against Putin.
Mikhail Prokhorov is the youthful, tall, billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, a team that that will instantly become my new team the moment the finally move to Brooklyn. I remember seeing this lanky basketball looking guy in the newspaper reports when the sale went down. He was the new owner. A billionaire.
Billionaire? This confused me, until I read that he had been a nickel magnate.
A forty-something nickel-magnate billionaire Russian?
I'm thinking of a word...it starts with the letter 'G' and ends with '-ANGSTER'. I've read enough of Anna Politkovskaya to know how "politics" works in Russia. The Army, the liquor industry, the power structure, the erst-while KGB people in charge at all levels of government, the radiation poisoning of former spies ready to talk...it's all a different world over there.
Politkovskaya was an investigative journalist who spent her days exposing the various atrocities committed by various institutions in a scathing portrait of the ways things just get done in Russia. You can call her an alarmist. I guess. Anna was working on an article about that former spy that was killed by radiation poisoning in England.
She was mysteriously shot while going into her apartment and died in her building's foyer.
She had little to say about Prokhorov specifically in the material I've read, but I get it; I get the basic image of how this guy must have become a magnate. Irresponsible douche-bag trust-fund kids getting their hands on their family's money or company's and ultimately the government is not how the world works in Russia. Not in the Bill Gates kind of way, anyway. There's a level of roughness, violence, and plain gangster in the political realm that would absolutely astound Americans if they truly understood the level at which it really exists.
Corruption? Please. That word has very little meaning in Russian politics.
So, really, part of me is quite excited if Prokhorov truly intends to join the race.
It would be for President of Russia, true, but it would really be for the title World's Top Gangster.
Putin or Prokhorov...as president either would eclipse Kim in North Korea, Bashad in Syria, or any of the African thugs that are still holding onto power.
A comment on that article I've linked to wants Obama to then buy the Bulls, which would make for great inter-conference rivalry games.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Post 700: Remembering a Busy Year
During the calendar year of 2011, I made a number of milestones posting on this blog.
I hit:
400;
500;
600;
and now this, the 700th post. (Here's a meta link for you.)
I've been trying to make preparations for steeling myself to my fiction.
Thanks for looking at this blog, reading portions, and, if it applies to you, commenting. I appreciate it.
I hit:
400;
500;
600;
and now this, the 700th post. (Here's a meta link for you.)
I've been trying to make preparations for steeling myself to my fiction.
Thanks for looking at this blog, reading portions, and, if it applies to you, commenting. I appreciate it.
For Fans of "The Animatrix"
A few of my readers will be familiar with, or fans of, the animated collection of nine episodes The Animatrix, a supplemental collection of Matrix-universe stories that were released in the time between the first two films.
The artists collected for that production could be the fodder for a post, they being some of the most famous and influential Japanese animators working today.
One of the episodes that I greatly enjoy was animated by an up and coming animator, a young man given the opportunity to try out something. His short was titled "World Record", and it highlights a sprinter breaking a world record, his sheer intensity waking himself up from the Matrix. It was a stylized thing of beauty; the focus on the runner's hands was an element the young director's mentor had asked him to look towards.
In any case, that same director has made a feature length animated film that'll be hitting the American shores soon, if not already here. It's called Redline, and here's a link to a long preview, but I should warn you that most of it's in Japanese.
It sounds like it may only get shown in New York and Los Angeles, which would be a bummer, but for people interested, it will be available on DVD at some point.
It appears to be about an interstellar high-stakes high-speed race. It looks luxurious, exciting, and occasionally cluttered with action or debris of action, if you will.
The artists collected for that production could be the fodder for a post, they being some of the most famous and influential Japanese animators working today.
One of the episodes that I greatly enjoy was animated by an up and coming animator, a young man given the opportunity to try out something. His short was titled "World Record", and it highlights a sprinter breaking a world record, his sheer intensity waking himself up from the Matrix. It was a stylized thing of beauty; the focus on the runner's hands was an element the young director's mentor had asked him to look towards.
In any case, that same director has made a feature length animated film that'll be hitting the American shores soon, if not already here. It's called Redline, and here's a link to a long preview, but I should warn you that most of it's in Japanese.
It sounds like it may only get shown in New York and Los Angeles, which would be a bummer, but for people interested, it will be available on DVD at some point.
It appears to be about an interstellar high-stakes high-speed race. It looks luxurious, exciting, and occasionally cluttered with action or debris of action, if you will.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Queen Mary
Moored in Long Beach, the Queen Mary is a luxury liner commissioned in 1934 and launched in 1936. It was retired in 1967. It was part of a two ship fleet that ran regular trips between Southampton, Cherbourg, and New York City. It was used by the Allies to ferry soldiers during WWII.
Purchased by the city of Long Beach in what was generally seen as a folly, she's a tourist attraction now. Permamnently moored, the Queen Mary now shadows another tourist attraction, a Soviet sub, the Red Scorpion.
Not only is the QM an attraction, there's a restaurant and a ghost tour in the bow (front):
There's a large luxury hotel in the mid-section. Hopefully you like 8'x10' rooms with seven foot ceilings:
And there's a theater, the Royal Theater, in the stern (back):
The Royal Theater was where Corrie and I went to see a play, a cheeky comedy about the last days of a physicist, one of the same ones I wrote about in the Demon Core post.
"The Louis Slotin Sonata" is the play in question, and as a comedy it has it's moments, while rare, of gallows humor generally overshadowed with the tragedy of arrogance in the final days in the life of a proud man embarrassed and humbled.
The production's first fifteen minutes, the actual test in question that went bad, takes place on the stage behind large sheets of plastic. The audience sees the blurry players, hears the action, and the idea that history's important moments are always guarded by a layer of experience is successfully passed.
The plastic comes down for the rest of the long play, and we watch the quick deterioration of a scientist, his arms constantly in a large bowl of ice. The play portrays Slotin's final wish was to be forgotten, to not be remembered.
The play portrays that the play itself violates his last wish in one it's many fourth-wall breaks, but I dare anyone to ask any physics majors who Slotin was, let alone folks in the street.
People in the street likely have heard of Einstein. Depending on their age, possibly Oppenheimer. Slotin? If that had been his final wish, it seems almost granted. Being remembered by a handful of science folks and independent theater fans as a tragic figure of history, doomed by his own arrogance.
Purchased by the city of Long Beach in what was generally seen as a folly, she's a tourist attraction now. Permamnently moored, the Queen Mary now shadows another tourist attraction, a Soviet sub, the Red Scorpion.
Not only is the QM an attraction, there's a restaurant and a ghost tour in the bow (front):
There's a large luxury hotel in the mid-section. Hopefully you like 8'x10' rooms with seven foot ceilings:
And there's a theater, the Royal Theater, in the stern (back):
The Royal Theater was where Corrie and I went to see a play, a cheeky comedy about the last days of a physicist, one of the same ones I wrote about in the Demon Core post.
"The Louis Slotin Sonata" is the play in question, and as a comedy it has it's moments, while rare, of gallows humor generally overshadowed with the tragedy of arrogance in the final days in the life of a proud man embarrassed and humbled.
The production's first fifteen minutes, the actual test in question that went bad, takes place on the stage behind large sheets of plastic. The audience sees the blurry players, hears the action, and the idea that history's important moments are always guarded by a layer of experience is successfully passed.
The plastic comes down for the rest of the long play, and we watch the quick deterioration of a scientist, his arms constantly in a large bowl of ice. The play portrays Slotin's final wish was to be forgotten, to not be remembered.
The play portrays that the play itself violates his last wish in one it's many fourth-wall breaks, but I dare anyone to ask any physics majors who Slotin was, let alone folks in the street.
People in the street likely have heard of Einstein. Depending on their age, possibly Oppenheimer. Slotin? If that had been his final wish, it seems almost granted. Being remembered by a handful of science folks and independent theater fans as a tragic figure of history, doomed by his own arrogance.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Crumbling Walls of Silence
In the sports world the walls of silence are crumbling since the scathing grand jury report indicting former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky hit the public. It's sickeningly similar to the sex abuse cases with the Catholic church.
Sandusky has been hit by another charge and doesn't have enough cash for bail. Syracuse basketball assistant coach Bernie Fine has been fired from his position he held for 36 years, even though he hasn't been charged, for sexual abuse accusations (other teams thought it was weird the Syracuse ball-boy joined the team on trips). The head football coach of Brooklyn's Poly Prep high school, Phil Foglietta, was famous for his ra-ra speeches and his fondling of his players while in his green Impala.
"Don't get in coach's car," the seniors would tell the freshmen.
You can't make this up.
Even hockey's getting in on the action. Theo Fleury, a former NHL star with the Calgary Flame, accused his former coach Graham James of sexual abuse in his autobiography. James was Fleury's coach while he was a star youth player. Graham James was jailed, freed, found in Mexico, sent back to Canada, only to be arrested again. He has just made bail again, this time to Fleury's anger.
What the hell is going on? I guess it was only a matter of time that the prevalence of sexual abuse of children reared its ugly head out of sad bedrooms and denial leaden homes. Is the prevalence that high really?
Is it?
That's the important question.
Sandusky has been hit by another charge and doesn't have enough cash for bail. Syracuse basketball assistant coach Bernie Fine has been fired from his position he held for 36 years, even though he hasn't been charged, for sexual abuse accusations (other teams thought it was weird the Syracuse ball-boy joined the team on trips). The head football coach of Brooklyn's Poly Prep high school, Phil Foglietta, was famous for his ra-ra speeches and his fondling of his players while in his green Impala.
"Don't get in coach's car," the seniors would tell the freshmen.
You can't make this up.
Even hockey's getting in on the action. Theo Fleury, a former NHL star with the Calgary Flame, accused his former coach Graham James of sexual abuse in his autobiography. James was Fleury's coach while he was a star youth player. Graham James was jailed, freed, found in Mexico, sent back to Canada, only to be arrested again. He has just made bail again, this time to Fleury's anger.
What the hell is going on? I guess it was only a matter of time that the prevalence of sexual abuse of children reared its ugly head out of sad bedrooms and denial leaden homes. Is the prevalence that high really?
Is it?
That's the important question.
The Demon Core
The original atomic bombs were fission bombs. Fission bombs start a fission reaction. The other, newer atomic bombs--hydrogen bombs, are fusion bombs. They use the same fission reaction to start a fusion reaction. A fission bomb's reaction is, basically, the energy released when large and unstable atoms are unzipped. A fusion bomb's reaction is, basically, the energy released when two hydrogen atoms are fused into a helium atom.
I was always surprised that a fusion reaction releases far more energy that a fission reaction.
In any case, the original bombs needed a plutonium sphere--a ball or core--about the size of one of those mini-basketballs they sell at amusement parks. It would be placed in a bowl of neutron reflective material made of tungsten-carbide. To start the reaction, the top half of the bowl would have to be slammed onto the bottom half, preferably by an explosive device. The strength with which the top-half of the shell coming down around the core determined how far along the reaction would go. Placing it slowly would generate a shot of neutron radiation, but not a bomb-like explosion.
The plutonium core, while dangerous when in contact with or surrounded by tungsten-carbide neutron reflective objects, is itself stable and safe to handle with bare hands, if warm to the touch. In the beginning of the atomic age, scientists would have to test the criticality of a particular core; test it's explosive-ness and reactivity.
During one such early test, a physicist named Harry Daghlian, while building a tungsten-carbide base around a particular core, dropped one of the bricks directly onto the sphere. It went critical for only a moment and blasted him with radiation. He died twenty-five days later. Here's a photograph of a recreation of the accident with the exact same core:
The very next year, a friend of Daghlian and another physicist and self-proclaimed "bomb putter-together-er", a man given to bravado and showing off, had led a group of scientists into a room to show off how easy it was to test the criticality of a plutonium core. His name was Louis Slotin. He was from Winnipeg, his parents having escaped the encroaching antisemitism in Europe.
Using a line from Dick Feynman, they were going to "tickle the dragon's tail," a reference to the potential dangers. Slotin was about to be relieved of the hand-testing procedures, and was attempting to train a new physicist for the job. He typically went against protocol and used only a flat-head screwdriver to keep the two outer shells separated around the core. While even more dangerous, this would bring the core to near-criticality and give better test results.
Do you see where this is going? Slotin's hand slipped and the shells came together. The core went critical and blasted everyone in the room with neutron radiation. Slotin, having actually been holding the core, was dead in nine days.
Many of the seven others in the room that day died years later with what appeared to be obvious radiation related ailments.
In a strange turn of events the core for both Daghlian and Slotin was the same, and came to be known as the Demon Core.
Here's a picture of the recreation of the Slotin event, taken a few days after, using the same exact core. It's the same damn core!
Ironically, having been brought to criticality twice, the Demon Core was even more efficient and powerful. Here is the actual explosion of the bomb made with the Demon Core:
Is this totally wild or is just me?
It was after the Slotin incident that the US government stopped doing human tests of plutonium core criticality. Takes an incident, I guess, to get the right changes in a reactionary world.
I was always surprised that a fusion reaction releases far more energy that a fission reaction.
In any case, the original bombs needed a plutonium sphere--a ball or core--about the size of one of those mini-basketballs they sell at amusement parks. It would be placed in a bowl of neutron reflective material made of tungsten-carbide. To start the reaction, the top half of the bowl would have to be slammed onto the bottom half, preferably by an explosive device. The strength with which the top-half of the shell coming down around the core determined how far along the reaction would go. Placing it slowly would generate a shot of neutron radiation, but not a bomb-like explosion.
The plutonium core, while dangerous when in contact with or surrounded by tungsten-carbide neutron reflective objects, is itself stable and safe to handle with bare hands, if warm to the touch. In the beginning of the atomic age, scientists would have to test the criticality of a particular core; test it's explosive-ness and reactivity.
During one such early test, a physicist named Harry Daghlian, while building a tungsten-carbide base around a particular core, dropped one of the bricks directly onto the sphere. It went critical for only a moment and blasted him with radiation. He died twenty-five days later. Here's a photograph of a recreation of the accident with the exact same core:
The very next year, a friend of Daghlian and another physicist and self-proclaimed "bomb putter-together-er", a man given to bravado and showing off, had led a group of scientists into a room to show off how easy it was to test the criticality of a plutonium core. His name was Louis Slotin. He was from Winnipeg, his parents having escaped the encroaching antisemitism in Europe.
Using a line from Dick Feynman, they were going to "tickle the dragon's tail," a reference to the potential dangers. Slotin was about to be relieved of the hand-testing procedures, and was attempting to train a new physicist for the job. He typically went against protocol and used only a flat-head screwdriver to keep the two outer shells separated around the core. While even more dangerous, this would bring the core to near-criticality and give better test results.
Do you see where this is going? Slotin's hand slipped and the shells came together. The core went critical and blasted everyone in the room with neutron radiation. Slotin, having actually been holding the core, was dead in nine days.
Many of the seven others in the room that day died years later with what appeared to be obvious radiation related ailments.
In a strange turn of events the core for both Daghlian and Slotin was the same, and came to be known as the Demon Core.
Here's a picture of the recreation of the Slotin event, taken a few days after, using the same exact core. It's the same damn core!
Ironically, having been brought to criticality twice, the Demon Core was even more efficient and powerful. Here is the actual explosion of the bomb made with the Demon Core:
Is this totally wild or is just me?
It was after the Slotin incident that the US government stopped doing human tests of plutonium core criticality. Takes an incident, I guess, to get the right changes in a reactionary world.
Trip to Hollywood
The other day, another Wednesday in Los Angeles, I took the subway into Hollywood, a trip that takes at best an hour and a half (it could take longer driving, but probably not when I went), to go to an independent theater to see The Artist.
The Artist, for those uninformed, is a new French movie that's carrying a lot of Oscar buzz. It's about Hollywood in the late '20s and early '30s, and the main character is a silent film star and apparently he won't survive the coming of the talkies. His love interest is an up and coming starlet who quickly makes the transition to the sound-filled projects. This film is shot on 72mm film, just like the silent films of the era it's depicting and, so, it looks like a full-frame television show. It's also shot in black and white. Both of those constructs, and storyline, make for a possibly artsy look at the dawn of the Hollywood era.
The Artist, though, goes beyond that in an attempt to transcend cinema and bring viewers back to the time period: it itself is a silent film.
There is a running music track just like a 20s silent film to help with the mood, and when it cuts out, the power is palpable. The lack of foley art is noticed specifically when it is used, during the single random moment when the sound barrier is broken. John Goodman has a large role as a studio executive, but the movie really belongs to it's two French leads, Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo.
It turns to melodrama in the middle, but it is beautifully executed. At times in the first act, I found myself growing weary of the lack of sound, then I got angry with myself (you knew it was going to be silent when you got on the train this morning), then I became reinvested, and more into it as the story unfolded.
It is a very fine movie, and shows the power of moving images by themselves. It proves that image alone can provoke and promote feeling in viewers. It also, ironically, proves the sheer power of sound in films, proves it by it's absence. That which you take for granted becomes clear when it's gone.
The showing I saw was at 1:05 pm, and the ticket cost $13.75. Really? Tron: Legacy in 3D might have been just $12 or $14 in Austin.
While walking back to the subway in a bad-idea-in-hindsight-shortcut, I took a couple of pictures. The first is an image of an LA icon I can get behind and believe in in an un-ironic way; the Observatory:
The second is a picture of an old theater, the Palladium. Apparently, Iggy and the Stooges are playing, but are sold out. Iggy Pop's still alive? I took the picture because our wedding rings are made of palladium, a metal in the platinum family that's less expensive. Because of palladium's ability to absorb hydrogen, it's currently being used in automobile capacitors (weird tidbit, huh?).
The Artist, for those uninformed, is a new French movie that's carrying a lot of Oscar buzz. It's about Hollywood in the late '20s and early '30s, and the main character is a silent film star and apparently he won't survive the coming of the talkies. His love interest is an up and coming starlet who quickly makes the transition to the sound-filled projects. This film is shot on 72mm film, just like the silent films of the era it's depicting and, so, it looks like a full-frame television show. It's also shot in black and white. Both of those constructs, and storyline, make for a possibly artsy look at the dawn of the Hollywood era.
The Artist, though, goes beyond that in an attempt to transcend cinema and bring viewers back to the time period: it itself is a silent film.
There is a running music track just like a 20s silent film to help with the mood, and when it cuts out, the power is palpable. The lack of foley art is noticed specifically when it is used, during the single random moment when the sound barrier is broken. John Goodman has a large role as a studio executive, but the movie really belongs to it's two French leads, Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo.
It turns to melodrama in the middle, but it is beautifully executed. At times in the first act, I found myself growing weary of the lack of sound, then I got angry with myself (you knew it was going to be silent when you got on the train this morning), then I became reinvested, and more into it as the story unfolded.
It is a very fine movie, and shows the power of moving images by themselves. It proves that image alone can provoke and promote feeling in viewers. It also, ironically, proves the sheer power of sound in films, proves it by it's absence. That which you take for granted becomes clear when it's gone.
The showing I saw was at 1:05 pm, and the ticket cost $13.75. Really? Tron: Legacy in 3D might have been just $12 or $14 in Austin.
While walking back to the subway in a bad-idea-in-hindsight-shortcut, I took a couple of pictures. The first is an image of an LA icon I can get behind and believe in in an un-ironic way; the Observatory:
The second is a picture of an old theater, the Palladium. Apparently, Iggy and the Stooges are playing, but are sold out. Iggy Pop's still alive? I took the picture because our wedding rings are made of palladium, a metal in the platinum family that's less expensive. Because of palladium's ability to absorb hydrogen, it's currently being used in automobile capacitors (weird tidbit, huh?).
"...Cat...in the furnace...
I use Simpsons lines probably too often in everyday life, as well as on this blog, but the propensity I used to show has dropped off substantially in the past few years. I think that's due to the usual group of people I spend time with aren't as keyed in as my San Luis people. Corrie now gets most references, but most people I work with or hire are either too old or far too young.
In any case, I'm obviously not talking about putting a cat in the furnace, but rather, I thought the line was good to discuss two things that I notice everyday, namely, my cat and my wall furnace.
We've, down here in Southern California, been hit by a cold spell recently. I know what some people might be thinking; what, it's down 60 degrees? Well, yeah, it hits 60 on it's way to the upper 30s and low 40s. That's been the recent really cold spell, but before then it had been down to the mid 50s, and since our windows are single pane, we fired up the old furnace to pump out some warmth.
Well, one fella interested in the pumping heat has been our little fur-ball, Tuxedo. He's even stopped sleeping on the bed with us in favor of being in the furnace blast zone, a position he's sleeping in now as I type this. I have some different pictures from the past few days, taken randomly as I walked by; out to the dentist--take a picture of Tux; taking the garbage out--picture of Tux; off to work--picture of the cat.
Here are a few. Nothing gets old for a cat.
In any case, I'm obviously not talking about putting a cat in the furnace, but rather, I thought the line was good to discuss two things that I notice everyday, namely, my cat and my wall furnace.
We've, down here in Southern California, been hit by a cold spell recently. I know what some people might be thinking; what, it's down 60 degrees? Well, yeah, it hits 60 on it's way to the upper 30s and low 40s. That's been the recent really cold spell, but before then it had been down to the mid 50s, and since our windows are single pane, we fired up the old furnace to pump out some warmth.
Well, one fella interested in the pumping heat has been our little fur-ball, Tuxedo. He's even stopped sleeping on the bed with us in favor of being in the furnace blast zone, a position he's sleeping in now as I type this. I have some different pictures from the past few days, taken randomly as I walked by; out to the dentist--take a picture of Tux; taking the garbage out--picture of Tux; off to work--picture of the cat.
Here are a few. Nothing gets old for a cat.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Yoga in Jeans
My back has tightened up a little, causing me some discomfort. It's getting better, for sure, one reason being me putting in the yoga DVD and doing the initial stretches they have.
Yesterday, after pressing play and realizing that there's a reason that a person doesn't wear jeans when they do yoga, I was accosted by a furry pal.
Tuxedo, seeing me grunting and struggling on the carpet, got up from his spot--sleeping in the fallout of the wall furnace--and threw himself at my hands for the majority of my stretches.
He wouldn't let me alone. Normally it'd be cute, the cat wanting to play and get some love, but this was serious, boy.
We'll see how he does today when I do the same routine, just without the jeans
Yesterday, after pressing play and realizing that there's a reason that a person doesn't wear jeans when they do yoga, I was accosted by a furry pal.
Tuxedo, seeing me grunting and struggling on the carpet, got up from his spot--sleeping in the fallout of the wall furnace--and threw himself at my hands for the majority of my stretches.
He wouldn't let me alone. Normally it'd be cute, the cat wanting to play and get some love, but this was serious, boy.
We'll see how he does today when I do the same routine, just without the jeans
Congratulations Ron Santo
Ron Santo has finally been elected to the Hall of Fame. The third-baseman for the Cubbies back in sixties and seventies and should have been elected a while back. He died of complications to bladder cancer last December 10th.
Santo had raised large amounts of money for diabetes research, a disease that had claimed both of his legs below the knee in the last few years of his life.
Better late than never. He was elected by a newly formed panel that decides at the winter meetings. Needing just 12 of the 16 voters to accede to make the Hall, Santo got 15 votes.
As a player he won five Gold Gloves, played in nine All-Star Games, and hit 342 homers over his fifteen year career. He even once hit 13 triples and led the league, a large amount for today's fastest players, let alone barrel-chested third-basemen.
Santo had raised large amounts of money for diabetes research, a disease that had claimed both of his legs below the knee in the last few years of his life.
Better late than never. He was elected by a newly formed panel that decides at the winter meetings. Needing just 12 of the 16 voters to accede to make the Hall, Santo got 15 votes.
As a player he won five Gold Gloves, played in nine All-Star Games, and hit 342 homers over his fifteen year career. He even once hit 13 triples and led the league, a large amount for today's fastest players, let alone barrel-chested third-basemen.
Friday, December 2, 2011
The Dinosaurs of Long Beach
Starting with the dregs, we get the pigeons. Stripped from their usual perch around piles of garbage or power lines away from the ocean proper, at the beach they do their usual thing; scavenging for food. Scattered in large groups cooing around the sand, finding a rare place of solace from the tiny sparrows that always seem to bounce around their larger cousins and nimbly rob them.
Not totally absent, mind you, but the sparrows are not the normal presence you'd expect.
The pigeons are on the bottom of the totem pole. Not that they know, or care, really. They loudly scavenge mindlessly. Instead of the smaller sparrows (mostly), the pigeons are menaced, if that's an appropriate word, by seagulls.
The seagulls are larger and stronger than the pigeons, but they seem a more brutish form of scavenger. The ability to pose a serious bodily threat to the pigeons exist in these gulls, but they seldom act on it.
It being the fall and heading into winter, a series of resting migratory flocks seem to be catching a breather.
The cormorants are off in the water, doing their dense-bone lifestyle.
The gulls do have a nemesis of sorts: crows.
Already the thugs of the world of land, at the continent's edge the crows are forcing their will on the sandy mainstays (gulls and pigeons) with limited success.
I would hazard that the average gull has the ability to easily exert a physical dominance over the average crow. Possessing the ability and exercising the ability aren't the same thing, though, and these baller crows push around the gulls.
The seagulls don't seem to possess that same killer instinct that the crows do.
The pigeon coos and follows you for food. The rare sparrow (at the beach) swoops in and snatches up what the pigeon goes after. A few gulls show up and horn in on the food, not entirely dispelling the pigeons.
The crows are trying to find pigeon and gull eggs to eat.
They seem more out for territory and power, and routinely get in skirmishes with angry mamma gulls. They're the brutes of the beach scene.
Some compassionate part of us humans says something like, "Stupid jerk crow. Let them have their peace." Something I just learned is, why not, crow? Those stupid pigeons and gulls don't have shit to do without being told, so they're probably better off. At least the crow might respect the intrepid sparrow, actively stealing from the pigeons (at least the rare ones out at the sand).
This still leaves the big bad boss to be discussed.
This talk up until now makes it almost sound like the crow is the boss of the beach. The gulls out here aren't actively conceding too much to the crow; they seem to repel the incursions well. That's just what it is: the crow is the instigator, the gull plays defense.
But...
Unconcerned with territory, power plays, or even the notion of being attacked, the true head dinosaur out here literally rises above it all.
The pelican, larger, bulkier, stronger, and tougher than the crows and gulls alike, is left alone. They spend their days not scavenging or scoring territory. They hunt.
All day.
It's very cool to watch. Circling high above the water, they focus their eyes on the surface below. These are the brown pelicans. Ironically, they are the smallest of the pelican species. They are also the only pelicans to dive bomb fish in an ambush to hunt.
There isn't much cooler things to be able to watch in nature than the dive bombing pelican's attack. No other act of predation happens as often or as regularly as the diving pelican. This isn't a Bird of Paradise mating dance. Even if the shoals are gone, it'll only take a few minutes to catch a single hunt. Seriously, it's awesome.
The pelican out here is the apex hunter, the true bird of prey. The crow is the bird of power; the gull is the power scavenger; the pigeon is the prey scavenger; the sparrow is the opportunistic dynamo.
Not totally absent, mind you, but the sparrows are not the normal presence you'd expect.
The pigeons are on the bottom of the totem pole. Not that they know, or care, really. They loudly scavenge mindlessly. Instead of the smaller sparrows (mostly), the pigeons are menaced, if that's an appropriate word, by seagulls.
The seagulls are larger and stronger than the pigeons, but they seem a more brutish form of scavenger. The ability to pose a serious bodily threat to the pigeons exist in these gulls, but they seldom act on it.
It being the fall and heading into winter, a series of resting migratory flocks seem to be catching a breather.
The cormorants are off in the water, doing their dense-bone lifestyle.
The gulls do have a nemesis of sorts: crows.
Already the thugs of the world of land, at the continent's edge the crows are forcing their will on the sandy mainstays (gulls and pigeons) with limited success.
I would hazard that the average gull has the ability to easily exert a physical dominance over the average crow. Possessing the ability and exercising the ability aren't the same thing, though, and these baller crows push around the gulls.
The seagulls don't seem to possess that same killer instinct that the crows do.
The pigeon coos and follows you for food. The rare sparrow (at the beach) swoops in and snatches up what the pigeon goes after. A few gulls show up and horn in on the food, not entirely dispelling the pigeons.
The crows are trying to find pigeon and gull eggs to eat.
They seem more out for territory and power, and routinely get in skirmishes with angry mamma gulls. They're the brutes of the beach scene.
Some compassionate part of us humans says something like, "Stupid jerk crow. Let them have their peace." Something I just learned is, why not, crow? Those stupid pigeons and gulls don't have shit to do without being told, so they're probably better off. At least the crow might respect the intrepid sparrow, actively stealing from the pigeons (at least the rare ones out at the sand).
This still leaves the big bad boss to be discussed.
This talk up until now makes it almost sound like the crow is the boss of the beach. The gulls out here aren't actively conceding too much to the crow; they seem to repel the incursions well. That's just what it is: the crow is the instigator, the gull plays defense.
But...
Unconcerned with territory, power plays, or even the notion of being attacked, the true head dinosaur out here literally rises above it all.
The pelican, larger, bulkier, stronger, and tougher than the crows and gulls alike, is left alone. They spend their days not scavenging or scoring territory. They hunt.
All day.
It's very cool to watch. Circling high above the water, they focus their eyes on the surface below. These are the brown pelicans. Ironically, they are the smallest of the pelican species. They are also the only pelicans to dive bomb fish in an ambush to hunt.
There isn't much cooler things to be able to watch in nature than the dive bombing pelican's attack. No other act of predation happens as often or as regularly as the diving pelican. This isn't a Bird of Paradise mating dance. Even if the shoals are gone, it'll only take a few minutes to catch a single hunt. Seriously, it's awesome.
The pelican out here is the apex hunter, the true bird of prey. The crow is the bird of power; the gull is the power scavenger; the pigeon is the prey scavenger; the sparrow is the opportunistic dynamo.
The Seventh Moon of Saturn
Leaving a domicile, heading down through the balmy air, hazy with orange and gray mist, to the gently lapping shores of a briny lake, the strolls through the atmosphere of the Seventh Moon of Saturn has inspiring moments.
Not cold, not warm, the day just is. Sitting in the sand lets one watch the critters flutter about their world running their lives. Battles are waged with squawks pecks, while the top predator sails above it all, hunting the shoals of water prey, dive-bombing regularly.
It's all pretty spectacular, even when the air taste like something other than salt and the sky is blotted with dense clouds.
Sometimes it just makes me see us out on a weird rock, rotating around a remote outpost.
Not cold, not warm, the day just is. Sitting in the sand lets one watch the critters flutter about their world running their lives. Battles are waged with squawks pecks, while the top predator sails above it all, hunting the shoals of water prey, dive-bombing regularly.
It's all pretty spectacular, even when the air taste like something other than salt and the sky is blotted with dense clouds.
Sometimes it just makes me see us out on a weird rock, rotating around a remote outpost.
The American West
After having visited Seattle I decided that I could discuss the the disparate regions of America that are called "the American West." I tried to come up with some characteristics of people in the West, or society/culture out here, because that seemed necessary. People out here are similar to other Americans, but without being in the clutches of traditions, like society on the east coast. There's a touch more of self reliance and shedding of family than you get back east. Also, considerations of space and distance are different for folks from the American West. Something I think is surprising is that when comparing progressives from the East and the West you get slightly opposing views from folks on the same side of the political spectrum.
The east coast cities and society as a whole is more conservative in dress. Venturing down to the grocery store in pajama bottoms? You better be in California and not New York; that doesn't fly back east. Weird observations like that show the rigidity of east coast life, where it's all a little more free and loosey-goosey out west.
Progressives from the east tend to be for a little more government control and spending, while being slightly more socially conservative (I'm still talking about liberals, here, so relatively speaking). Progressives from the west are slightly more libertarian in that they generally want less government intervention (though not as little as republican voters) but are more open minded when it comes to social mores.
Really, I just wanted to make a list of the regions I think make up the American West. I hadn't, until a few minutes ago, really delved into the cultural similarities and differences between the cultures. I wanted to save a full exploration of that for later.
Really, my regional list that I spent the flight from Seatts to Long Beach espousing sparked this post. It's more of a map talk, maybe, than a social studies class.
Historically St. Louis was seen as the start of the West, but now that seems outdated. Lincoln, Nebraska and Oklahoma City aren't western cities, so we have move the needle a little farther.
I started thinking about Denver. Denver, with it's NRA strong hold and lax pot laws really exemplifies the start of the West. Denver, for me, is as far east as the West extends.
I lump Denver in with Boulder and Billings, Montana, in the region I call the Mountain West. I've read various discussions of the American West, and almost all have the same name for this basic region.
My next region isn't included in any list I've seen. I lump Utah and Idaho, with their respective cities, into a region I call the Mormon West. This seems like a reasonable thing to me. Both those states have western American qualities while being more conservative due to the nature of the overwhelming religious attention.
With Seattle and Portland and the other cities in Washington and Oregon I put into the Northwest region. Sometimes called the Pacific Northwest, I think Northwest works just as well.
Stretching from Barstow in California all the way to El Paso in Texas I have, swallowing up the entirety of Arizona and New Mexico, the American Southwest. I think the Southwest is as ripe for its own post as any region.
Now, the last two regions are as distinct as western entities can be, and they live in the same state. With the idea that Crescent City and Eureka in California are closer to Vancouver than they are to Tijuana, it makes sense to include them in the Northwest.
Now, I've broken the rest of California up into Northern California, extending from Chico to Fresno and from the Bay Area to Reno; and Southern California from SLO to San Diego, from LA to Las Vegas.
I've decided to lump the major cities of Nevada into the California regions, which maybe is the lone original thing on this list (other than calling one area the Mormon West). That may be unfair to people from Nevada, but really, it just seems like Reno and Vegas are more about being outside California, and what that implies, rather than how original Nevada is.
So there we go. An airplane's ride worth of ideas:
1) Mountain West;
2) Mormon West;
3) Northwest;
4) Southwest;
5) Northern California;
6) Southern California.
It's got to be narcissistic to claim California as it's own region, twice, but that's how I see it. People who've never visited the state would claim that I'm a self-involved Californian. That's probably true, anyway, but the romantic view of California that people have outside the state, back east and in the south, is only an imagination, similar to our San Luis acquaintances' ideas about New York before we left for there.
Having lived in some of the places and traveled through many others, I feel I've gathered evidence, maybe not enough to make ultimate judgments, but enough to discuss things from experience and not just imagination.
Take what you want from this discussion.
The east coast cities and society as a whole is more conservative in dress. Venturing down to the grocery store in pajama bottoms? You better be in California and not New York; that doesn't fly back east. Weird observations like that show the rigidity of east coast life, where it's all a little more free and loosey-goosey out west.
Progressives from the east tend to be for a little more government control and spending, while being slightly more socially conservative (I'm still talking about liberals, here, so relatively speaking). Progressives from the west are slightly more libertarian in that they generally want less government intervention (though not as little as republican voters) but are more open minded when it comes to social mores.
Really, I just wanted to make a list of the regions I think make up the American West. I hadn't, until a few minutes ago, really delved into the cultural similarities and differences between the cultures. I wanted to save a full exploration of that for later.
Really, my regional list that I spent the flight from Seatts to Long Beach espousing sparked this post. It's more of a map talk, maybe, than a social studies class.
Historically St. Louis was seen as the start of the West, but now that seems outdated. Lincoln, Nebraska and Oklahoma City aren't western cities, so we have move the needle a little farther.
I started thinking about Denver. Denver, with it's NRA strong hold and lax pot laws really exemplifies the start of the West. Denver, for me, is as far east as the West extends.
I lump Denver in with Boulder and Billings, Montana, in the region I call the Mountain West. I've read various discussions of the American West, and almost all have the same name for this basic region.
My next region isn't included in any list I've seen. I lump Utah and Idaho, with their respective cities, into a region I call the Mormon West. This seems like a reasonable thing to me. Both those states have western American qualities while being more conservative due to the nature of the overwhelming religious attention.
With Seattle and Portland and the other cities in Washington and Oregon I put into the Northwest region. Sometimes called the Pacific Northwest, I think Northwest works just as well.
Stretching from Barstow in California all the way to El Paso in Texas I have, swallowing up the entirety of Arizona and New Mexico, the American Southwest. I think the Southwest is as ripe for its own post as any region.
Now, the last two regions are as distinct as western entities can be, and they live in the same state. With the idea that Crescent City and Eureka in California are closer to Vancouver than they are to Tijuana, it makes sense to include them in the Northwest.
Now, I've broken the rest of California up into Northern California, extending from Chico to Fresno and from the Bay Area to Reno; and Southern California from SLO to San Diego, from LA to Las Vegas.
I've decided to lump the major cities of Nevada into the California regions, which maybe is the lone original thing on this list (other than calling one area the Mormon West). That may be unfair to people from Nevada, but really, it just seems like Reno and Vegas are more about being outside California, and what that implies, rather than how original Nevada is.
So there we go. An airplane's ride worth of ideas:
1) Mountain West;
2) Mormon West;
3) Northwest;
4) Southwest;
5) Northern California;
6) Southern California.
It's got to be narcissistic to claim California as it's own region, twice, but that's how I see it. People who've never visited the state would claim that I'm a self-involved Californian. That's probably true, anyway, but the romantic view of California that people have outside the state, back east and in the south, is only an imagination, similar to our San Luis acquaintances' ideas about New York before we left for there.
Having lived in some of the places and traveled through many others, I feel I've gathered evidence, maybe not enough to make ultimate judgments, but enough to discuss things from experience and not just imagination.
Take what you want from this discussion.
What's In a Name?
This post could easily be called "The Intertwining of Three Mid-Market Baseball Teams' Histories", which is boring. As I was doing a little research about a piece about the Pacific Coast League and sports teams' names, every little tidbit added to this greater mosaic of history, which led to the breaking up of the original idea into at least three posts.
This particular post I feel could be expanded into a bigger thing. I just think the connections between the identities of the cities is ripe. This idea is bigger, anyway.
So I'll just shut up and get on with it.
There are some cities in America that get along with baseball. They enjoy it here and there, definitely when the team is doing well, but they never seem to get too bent out of shape about it. Dallas is like this. They like their Rangers, but it's almost secondary. Sometimes I get that feeling about Oakland as well. Maybe they just haven't had a lot to work with in a while--hell, they were home to the Oakland Oaks back in the day, so there was some reason Finley decided to move them there from KC.
The three cities I'm talking about in this post aren't those types of cities. These are the hard-core baseball cities. These have had historical teams ripped away only to replace them the next year (or a few years down the way), complete with the same name and team history. The teams acted as an extension of the city itself. They were institutions more than today's business venture identities.
These three cities are connected in a strange way that highlights what I spoke of in the "Introduction" piece.
The cities: Baltimore, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.
I put St. Louis last because they've had the most recent success; they just won the world series, won it in 2006, and lost it in 2004. That's three World Series appearances in ten years. That's more than the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rangers, the only other teams with multiple visits in that span (2002-2011).
Milwaukee I put second, since they're coming up, won their division, but just couldn't get all the way to the Fall Classic.
Baltimore has been in a prolonged funk since Jeffery Maier hauled in then rookie Derek Jeter's fly ball in the playoffs in 1996, causing an erroneous home run to be awarded to Jeter, spelling the eventual doom of the Orioles that year. The fans aren't really turning out. I've been reading about the beleaguered Baltimore baseball fan; they're screaming for new ownership to right the ship. They desperately want to return the franchise to it's rightful place of glory.
The Baltimore Oriole baseball team has a colorful history. They were fielding teams in Baltimore called the "Orioles" from before the Civil War. Over the course of a few decades they'd have success, major successes, and were invited to join the more major leagues many times. They refused as many times. The team would go through a rough patch, nearly go bankrupt, be sold and moved. This happened as well. Not every year was a championship year.
Soon after these moves, another organization would be built, and a new Oriole team would be established. Soon they'd be kicking butt, then they might falter. Before what we call the major leagues totally enslaved the minor league, there were two teams from minor leagues that repeatedly bested the teams from the lone major league (the National League) whenever they played: the Newark Bears and the Baltimore Orioles. Both were asked to join the NL, both refused. During a period of financial hardships, an Oriole owner accepted an invitation to join the upstart American League.
After just one year, he moved the team to New York, where it eventually became the Yankees. Baltimore would get another team through a move, another one of the charter members of the American league, but it would take a number of years, and other stops along the way.
Much has been made of the Dodgers and Giants leaving their boroughs in New York for California during the same winter, changing the baseball landscape and truly connecting a basically rural America through sport.
That, though, was not the first time a major league team headed west. The Philadelphia A's moved to Kansas City before the Dodgers and Giants, but before the A's the original abandoners of their East Coast origins were the Boston Braves.
The Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee. Just as the Dodgers displaced the LA Angels and Hollywood Stars, and the Giants displaced the SF Seals, the Braves displaced the favorite sons of Milwaukee baseball, their very own minor leaguers. Care to guess on their name? If you said the Brewers, you've been paying attention or are a good guesser. Say what you will for Milwaukee baseball nowadays, but for almost the entire first decade the Braves were in Milwaukee, they led the entire major leagues in attendance. They even won the only World Series in both Milwaukee and Hank Aaron's history. (Way to go Hammer! Still more than Barry!)
The Braves in Milwaukee adopted the color scheme of the Brewers, navy and red. Even until recently the Braves have had two-tone caps, red bills with navy crowns and a white A, reminiscent of the white M used for both the Brewers and Braves.
A few years after the Braves vacated Milwaukee for Atlanta, a used car salesman named Bud Selig, a fervent lover of Milwaukee baseball, organized the purchase of the the strapped Seattle Pilots expansion team, and after only a single year in Seattle, they were relocated to Milwaukee. Their name? Do I have to tell you?
The Brewers were supposed to reclaim the navy and red color scheme from the original Brewer team, only the sale happened so fast and a reliable apparel company couldn't be found, so they just tore the Pilots logos off and sewed on Brewer logos. They simply adopted the Pilots' colors of gold and blue as their own.
But, see, the story of Milwaukee baseball goes back almost as far as the Orioles. The Brewers were a successful baseball team in Milwaukee during the 1880s and 1890s, and were extended an invitation to the new American League in 1901.
Isn't that wild? Two of the original franchises in the American League are the Baltimore Orioles and the Milwaukee Brewers, neither of which is still named that or located there.
In any case, something spooked the owner of the Brewers, because before the beginning of the 1902 season, after just one year of play in Milwaukee, the team was moved to St. Louis. Before the 1902 season in Milwaukee, after the American League team left, they easily fielded another team, named it the Brewers, and joined a minor league, most likely the one that they'd left to join the AL a year earlier. From 1902 to 1952 that same Brewer team was Milwaukee's baseball team, right up until the Braves came to town.
The Brewer team that moved to St. Louis adopted the name Browns, and became a staple of St. Louis sports. For the first few decades the Browns were in St. Louis, the goal of the owner's group was to run the Cardinals out of town. For a while they seemed to be working. Not that the Browns were winning a whole lot, but they were doing better than the Cardinals, which was all that they wanted. Any takers of the name choice? The Browns was a shortening of the original name for what turned into the Cardinals, the Brown Stockings.
The bitterness was palpable. People were still so upset that the Browns had changed into the Cardinals that they got another team and called them the Browns. they actively tried to destroy their opposition's franchise. It worked for a hot minute, then, with players like Dizzy Dean and Stan Musial, the Cardinals went on to be one of baseball's model franchises, where it remains today, having won the second most World Series in baseball history.
The Browns had their colorful owner Bill Veeck, who angered the rest of the group of stodgy owners through his clowning up the league. A well known example of a Veeck stunt was when he put a midget, Eddie Gaedel, up to bat in a game.
Eventually the other owners forced him to sell. He'd wanted to move the team, and the other owners wanted him out of St. Louis as well, but they wanted him just out. They let him sell, and the Browns were finally out of St. Loo, and any guesses as to where they went?
They were moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles that we have today. With such a rich tradition and history stemming from a brief single season in Milwaukee and a half century in St. Louis, it's almost strange that the Orioles have basically wiped that history from their teams identity. The Washington Nationals might celebrate Rusty Staub, a player from the (more or less) glory years as an Expo in Montreal, but you don't get a whole lot of history from Wisconsin or Missouri at Camden Yards, the home of the Orioles.
That history is irrelevant to the identity of the of the Baltimore baseball fan. That's one of the criteria for being a baseball hotbed; baseball tunnel vision.
In Milwaukee, they field a team called the Brewers. When a major league team comes along, they embrace them, but after they spurn you, you do what you do, and field a team called the Brewers.
In St. Louis they field a team just to run another team out of town, going so far as to name it the original team's original name. That there's enough support for baseball is during those times is what a hotbed's all about.
In Baltimore they wash away the history that has nothing to do with the history of the Baltimore Orioles.
Singular focus.
There truly is plenty in a name. Plenty.
This particular post I feel could be expanded into a bigger thing. I just think the connections between the identities of the cities is ripe. This idea is bigger, anyway.
So I'll just shut up and get on with it.
There are some cities in America that get along with baseball. They enjoy it here and there, definitely when the team is doing well, but they never seem to get too bent out of shape about it. Dallas is like this. They like their Rangers, but it's almost secondary. Sometimes I get that feeling about Oakland as well. Maybe they just haven't had a lot to work with in a while--hell, they were home to the Oakland Oaks back in the day, so there was some reason Finley decided to move them there from KC.
The three cities I'm talking about in this post aren't those types of cities. These are the hard-core baseball cities. These have had historical teams ripped away only to replace them the next year (or a few years down the way), complete with the same name and team history. The teams acted as an extension of the city itself. They were institutions more than today's business venture identities.
These three cities are connected in a strange way that highlights what I spoke of in the "Introduction" piece.
The cities: Baltimore, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.
I put St. Louis last because they've had the most recent success; they just won the world series, won it in 2006, and lost it in 2004. That's three World Series appearances in ten years. That's more than the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rangers, the only other teams with multiple visits in that span (2002-2011).
Milwaukee I put second, since they're coming up, won their division, but just couldn't get all the way to the Fall Classic.
Baltimore has been in a prolonged funk since Jeffery Maier hauled in then rookie Derek Jeter's fly ball in the playoffs in 1996, causing an erroneous home run to be awarded to Jeter, spelling the eventual doom of the Orioles that year. The fans aren't really turning out. I've been reading about the beleaguered Baltimore baseball fan; they're screaming for new ownership to right the ship. They desperately want to return the franchise to it's rightful place of glory.
The Baltimore Oriole baseball team has a colorful history. They were fielding teams in Baltimore called the "Orioles" from before the Civil War. Over the course of a few decades they'd have success, major successes, and were invited to join the more major leagues many times. They refused as many times. The team would go through a rough patch, nearly go bankrupt, be sold and moved. This happened as well. Not every year was a championship year.
Soon after these moves, another organization would be built, and a new Oriole team would be established. Soon they'd be kicking butt, then they might falter. Before what we call the major leagues totally enslaved the minor league, there were two teams from minor leagues that repeatedly bested the teams from the lone major league (the National League) whenever they played: the Newark Bears and the Baltimore Orioles. Both were asked to join the NL, both refused. During a period of financial hardships, an Oriole owner accepted an invitation to join the upstart American League.
After just one year, he moved the team to New York, where it eventually became the Yankees. Baltimore would get another team through a move, another one of the charter members of the American league, but it would take a number of years, and other stops along the way.
Much has been made of the Dodgers and Giants leaving their boroughs in New York for California during the same winter, changing the baseball landscape and truly connecting a basically rural America through sport.
That, though, was not the first time a major league team headed west. The Philadelphia A's moved to Kansas City before the Dodgers and Giants, but before the A's the original abandoners of their East Coast origins were the Boston Braves.
The Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee. Just as the Dodgers displaced the LA Angels and Hollywood Stars, and the Giants displaced the SF Seals, the Braves displaced the favorite sons of Milwaukee baseball, their very own minor leaguers. Care to guess on their name? If you said the Brewers, you've been paying attention or are a good guesser. Say what you will for Milwaukee baseball nowadays, but for almost the entire first decade the Braves were in Milwaukee, they led the entire major leagues in attendance. They even won the only World Series in both Milwaukee and Hank Aaron's history. (Way to go Hammer! Still more than Barry!)
The Braves in Milwaukee adopted the color scheme of the Brewers, navy and red. Even until recently the Braves have had two-tone caps, red bills with navy crowns and a white A, reminiscent of the white M used for both the Brewers and Braves.
A few years after the Braves vacated Milwaukee for Atlanta, a used car salesman named Bud Selig, a fervent lover of Milwaukee baseball, organized the purchase of the the strapped Seattle Pilots expansion team, and after only a single year in Seattle, they were relocated to Milwaukee. Their name? Do I have to tell you?
The Brewers were supposed to reclaim the navy and red color scheme from the original Brewer team, only the sale happened so fast and a reliable apparel company couldn't be found, so they just tore the Pilots logos off and sewed on Brewer logos. They simply adopted the Pilots' colors of gold and blue as their own.
But, see, the story of Milwaukee baseball goes back almost as far as the Orioles. The Brewers were a successful baseball team in Milwaukee during the 1880s and 1890s, and were extended an invitation to the new American League in 1901.
Isn't that wild? Two of the original franchises in the American League are the Baltimore Orioles and the Milwaukee Brewers, neither of which is still named that or located there.
In any case, something spooked the owner of the Brewers, because before the beginning of the 1902 season, after just one year of play in Milwaukee, the team was moved to St. Louis. Before the 1902 season in Milwaukee, after the American League team left, they easily fielded another team, named it the Brewers, and joined a minor league, most likely the one that they'd left to join the AL a year earlier. From 1902 to 1952 that same Brewer team was Milwaukee's baseball team, right up until the Braves came to town.
The Brewer team that moved to St. Louis adopted the name Browns, and became a staple of St. Louis sports. For the first few decades the Browns were in St. Louis, the goal of the owner's group was to run the Cardinals out of town. For a while they seemed to be working. Not that the Browns were winning a whole lot, but they were doing better than the Cardinals, which was all that they wanted. Any takers of the name choice? The Browns was a shortening of the original name for what turned into the Cardinals, the Brown Stockings.
The bitterness was palpable. People were still so upset that the Browns had changed into the Cardinals that they got another team and called them the Browns. they actively tried to destroy their opposition's franchise. It worked for a hot minute, then, with players like Dizzy Dean and Stan Musial, the Cardinals went on to be one of baseball's model franchises, where it remains today, having won the second most World Series in baseball history.
The Browns had their colorful owner Bill Veeck, who angered the rest of the group of stodgy owners through his clowning up the league. A well known example of a Veeck stunt was when he put a midget, Eddie Gaedel, up to bat in a game.
Eventually the other owners forced him to sell. He'd wanted to move the team, and the other owners wanted him out of St. Louis as well, but they wanted him just out. They let him sell, and the Browns were finally out of St. Loo, and any guesses as to where they went?
They were moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles that we have today. With such a rich tradition and history stemming from a brief single season in Milwaukee and a half century in St. Louis, it's almost strange that the Orioles have basically wiped that history from their teams identity. The Washington Nationals might celebrate Rusty Staub, a player from the (more or less) glory years as an Expo in Montreal, but you don't get a whole lot of history from Wisconsin or Missouri at Camden Yards, the home of the Orioles.
That history is irrelevant to the identity of the of the Baltimore baseball fan. That's one of the criteria for being a baseball hotbed; baseball tunnel vision.
In Milwaukee, they field a team called the Brewers. When a major league team comes along, they embrace them, but after they spurn you, you do what you do, and field a team called the Brewers.
In St. Louis they field a team just to run another team out of town, going so far as to name it the original team's original name. That there's enough support for baseball is during those times is what a hotbed's all about.
In Baltimore they wash away the history that has nothing to do with the history of the Baltimore Orioles.
Singular focus.
There truly is plenty in a name. Plenty.
What's in a name? Introduction
This is a little introduction to a larger piece about the names people assign to their sporting teams. Sports in America is for many men the only emotional connection they allow themselves to be tethered to, and this is a shame, since human beings obviously need emotional connections. Why else would sports be so popular the world over?
The nicknames for American sports teams, if we go back far enough, come from descriptions of people from those areas. This is a roundabout way to discuss the popularity of college football in the post-Civil War era. People from Ohio were called Buckeyes; people from Michigan were Wolverines; from Wisconsin were called Badgers; Gophers in Minnesota...I'm sticking with the Big 10 because they still retain those customs--rather, those customs have been so ingrained as to be thought of in the reverse. The major universities from those states--Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota--adopted the names that midwest settlers had begun calling each other. A Hoosier is someone from Indiana. After a hundred years of the University of Indiana using "Hoosier" as its team's mascot, people have begun to think that calling someone a Hoosier means you're identifying their university of choice.
A few quick points seen through examples: in 1989 Charlotte, North Carolina was awarded an NBA expansion franchise. They started play in 1991 (I think), and their color scheme of teal and purple rocked the professional sports world. Their name: the Charlotte Hornets.
You might be surprised to learn that the main minor league baseball team that was a part of Charlotte's identity for almost a hundred years (almost all cities had their own team, in various levels of pro leagues) was named the Charlotte Hornets.
The sense this makes is kind of my point for the bigger post to follow. Owners tend to leave the naming of an expansion team up to the fans by way of voting on an approved set of names. This usually results in fans picking the name that has the most connection to teams of the past. Any guesses as to the name of Denver's main minor league team? It was the Rockies. How about from the same year, in Miami? They just switched back, actually, but the Miami Marlins originally was a team that played ball in the forties and fifties in Miami. How about the original LA team, the one here before the Dodgers showed up? The Angels.
Any guesses as to what the main Pacific Coast League San Diego baseball franchise was called? It was the Padres.The Padres, Rockies, Marlins, and Angels are all teams in today's major leagues, and their nicknames hearken back to their minor league origins.
Teams like the Hornets of Charlotte have a longer tradition for that nickname, similar to the Yankees. The Yankees started out in Baltimore, but when the moved to New York they were called the Highlanders. They were changed by the writers, as at the time nicknames were only nicknames and sports-page writers had the power to label the team as they felt, to the "Yankees" mainly because it could be shortened easier. "Yanks" was easier to print.
In any case, colonists were referred to as "Yankees" and "Yanks" by their British overseers, using a term with a Dutch background. Eventually people from the North were known as Yanks during and after the Civil War. Even later, during both World Wars, American soldiers were called Yankees, and now abroad, Yankees is synonymous with American, like Aussie, Kiwi, Springbok...The word made a type of sense to the New York City sports writer in 1907 to represent an American sports team in the City at the time.
A British naval officer, when complaining about the unruly people of the Carolina colony, and speaking of Charlotte specifically, likened it to a hornet's nest. The name Charlotte Hornets was used in a few different endeavors before the minor league baseball team came to be, but the nickname is one to which people in Charlotte feel connected.
But, fans can go horribly wrong in picking nicknames. Case in point (I'm not going to mention modern minor leagues of baseball, since they're absolutely fraught with awful, awful nicknames): the Washington Bullets. For those fans of the NBA, you'll recognize that there is no team called the Bullets anymore. This is correct. When Washington DC was in the top five for murder rate and total homicides in American cities, the city officials decided that the Bullets as a nickname was a little too insensitive.
The multiple choice they gave their residents is lost to me, but the final two, if I'm remembering correctly, were the Sea Dawgs and the Wizards. Both are horrible names for a major league franchise. The winner, the Wizards, is easily the worst nickname of the big four American sports.
The nicknames for American sports teams, if we go back far enough, come from descriptions of people from those areas. This is a roundabout way to discuss the popularity of college football in the post-Civil War era. People from Ohio were called Buckeyes; people from Michigan were Wolverines; from Wisconsin were called Badgers; Gophers in Minnesota...I'm sticking with the Big 10 because they still retain those customs--rather, those customs have been so ingrained as to be thought of in the reverse. The major universities from those states--Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota--adopted the names that midwest settlers had begun calling each other. A Hoosier is someone from Indiana. After a hundred years of the University of Indiana using "Hoosier" as its team's mascot, people have begun to think that calling someone a Hoosier means you're identifying their university of choice.
A few quick points seen through examples: in 1989 Charlotte, North Carolina was awarded an NBA expansion franchise. They started play in 1991 (I think), and their color scheme of teal and purple rocked the professional sports world. Their name: the Charlotte Hornets.
You might be surprised to learn that the main minor league baseball team that was a part of Charlotte's identity for almost a hundred years (almost all cities had their own team, in various levels of pro leagues) was named the Charlotte Hornets.
The sense this makes is kind of my point for the bigger post to follow. Owners tend to leave the naming of an expansion team up to the fans by way of voting on an approved set of names. This usually results in fans picking the name that has the most connection to teams of the past. Any guesses as to the name of Denver's main minor league team? It was the Rockies. How about from the same year, in Miami? They just switched back, actually, but the Miami Marlins originally was a team that played ball in the forties and fifties in Miami. How about the original LA team, the one here before the Dodgers showed up? The Angels.
Any guesses as to what the main Pacific Coast League San Diego baseball franchise was called? It was the Padres.The Padres, Rockies, Marlins, and Angels are all teams in today's major leagues, and their nicknames hearken back to their minor league origins.
Teams like the Hornets of Charlotte have a longer tradition for that nickname, similar to the Yankees. The Yankees started out in Baltimore, but when the moved to New York they were called the Highlanders. They were changed by the writers, as at the time nicknames were only nicknames and sports-page writers had the power to label the team as they felt, to the "Yankees" mainly because it could be shortened easier. "Yanks" was easier to print.
In any case, colonists were referred to as "Yankees" and "Yanks" by their British overseers, using a term with a Dutch background. Eventually people from the North were known as Yanks during and after the Civil War. Even later, during both World Wars, American soldiers were called Yankees, and now abroad, Yankees is synonymous with American, like Aussie, Kiwi, Springbok...The word made a type of sense to the New York City sports writer in 1907 to represent an American sports team in the City at the time.
A British naval officer, when complaining about the unruly people of the Carolina colony, and speaking of Charlotte specifically, likened it to a hornet's nest. The name Charlotte Hornets was used in a few different endeavors before the minor league baseball team came to be, but the nickname is one to which people in Charlotte feel connected.
But, fans can go horribly wrong in picking nicknames. Case in point (I'm not going to mention modern minor leagues of baseball, since they're absolutely fraught with awful, awful nicknames): the Washington Bullets. For those fans of the NBA, you'll recognize that there is no team called the Bullets anymore. This is correct. When Washington DC was in the top five for murder rate and total homicides in American cities, the city officials decided that the Bullets as a nickname was a little too insensitive.
The multiple choice they gave their residents is lost to me, but the final two, if I'm remembering correctly, were the Sea Dawgs and the Wizards. Both are horrible names for a major league franchise. The winner, the Wizards, is easily the worst nickname of the big four American sports.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Welcoming December
This time last year we were debating whether or not to go after a possible move to California. That seemed to work out.
The past few months I've started each month with a post about the upcoming stuff, or how I held back a few posts a bit so they'll make the new month even more exciting.
I've finally smoothed out my post about teams' names, context, dinosaurs of Long Beach, the American West, and go-go music and Slim Charles.
I wrote a few days ago about Thor, and using that as inspiration we tried Green Lantern.
Um...okay. Green Lantern, as a character--the Hal Jordan iteration--is one of fans favorites, but always with a caveat. Green Lantern is one of the silliest-yet-coolest DC characters, and fans know it. No character is as comic-book-y as Jordan's Lantern. His power ring manifests will power, which is very cool, but it does so as a green lit energy, and is powerless against yellow.
Superman (a flying super-strong alien), Batman (billionaire martial arts master), Spiderman (bit by a radioactive spider), the Hulk (radioactivity makes him turn into a brute)...Green Lantern (ring that needs recharging manifests will-power). Do you see it?
Manifesting will power is cool...using an item than can run out of power and needs recharging? Maybe that's closer to real life and the need for food or emotional sustenance.
A Green Lantern movie always makes fans first ecstatic, due to the love of the story, then second nervous, due to how easy it is to screw it up. If the movie would be any fun, even if corny, most would be forgiven.
Plot holes would be overlooked. Wooden acting could be forgiven. Scenery chewing would be lauded.
It's just too bad this movie wasn't any fun. Maybe I'm being too hard. It just looked like everyone was fighting their days being on set, and that lack of enthusiasm permeates the data captured by those fancy HD cameras.
Another quick Redbox note: we checked out Source Code. That one's fun. A sci-fi treatment of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, the frenetic pace and chemistry between Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan is amusing as he works through the eight minutes of quanta repeatedly. It's serviceable as science fiction, and having seen some of the recent "Fabric of the Cosmos" episodes of Nova, the outcome isn't so fantastical.
Directed by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones, Source Code makes me want to see his directorial debut, starring Sam Rockwell, Moon.
Pleasant movie surprises please me.
The past few months I've started each month with a post about the upcoming stuff, or how I held back a few posts a bit so they'll make the new month even more exciting.
I've finally smoothed out my post about teams' names, context, dinosaurs of Long Beach, the American West, and go-go music and Slim Charles.
I wrote a few days ago about Thor, and using that as inspiration we tried Green Lantern.
Um...okay. Green Lantern, as a character--the Hal Jordan iteration--is one of fans favorites, but always with a caveat. Green Lantern is one of the silliest-yet-coolest DC characters, and fans know it. No character is as comic-book-y as Jordan's Lantern. His power ring manifests will power, which is very cool, but it does so as a green lit energy, and is powerless against yellow.
Superman (a flying super-strong alien), Batman (billionaire martial arts master), Spiderman (bit by a radioactive spider), the Hulk (radioactivity makes him turn into a brute)...Green Lantern (ring that needs recharging manifests will-power). Do you see it?
Manifesting will power is cool...using an item than can run out of power and needs recharging? Maybe that's closer to real life and the need for food or emotional sustenance.
A Green Lantern movie always makes fans first ecstatic, due to the love of the story, then second nervous, due to how easy it is to screw it up. If the movie would be any fun, even if corny, most would be forgiven.
Plot holes would be overlooked. Wooden acting could be forgiven. Scenery chewing would be lauded.
It's just too bad this movie wasn't any fun. Maybe I'm being too hard. It just looked like everyone was fighting their days being on set, and that lack of enthusiasm permeates the data captured by those fancy HD cameras.
Another quick Redbox note: we checked out Source Code. That one's fun. A sci-fi treatment of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, the frenetic pace and chemistry between Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan is amusing as he works through the eight minutes of quanta repeatedly. It's serviceable as science fiction, and having seen some of the recent "Fabric of the Cosmos" episodes of Nova, the outcome isn't so fantastical.
Directed by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones, Source Code makes me want to see his directorial debut, starring Sam Rockwell, Moon.
Pleasant movie surprises please me.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Dreaming About Turducken
The turducken is a food that is based on older royal-feast main courses of de-boned nested animals roasted to perfection. In America the turducken was popularized by the television football analyst John Madden, and has since entered the American consciousness as an elite Thanksgiving dish, something that's reserved to be purchased whole from one of the few Louisiana sellers or purchased in pieces and put together ones-self.
The name "turducken" comes from TURkey-DUCK-chickEN. The dish is, if you're unaware, a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.
In 2003, when the dish was first being popularized, my roommate at the time Ryan, a person I've featured in my blog from time to time and close friend, decided that that year we'd do a turducken, found a butcher to de-bone the birds and got a hold of the fixings for three awesome dressings.
That's another one of the staples of the turducken. I'm trying to make it a staple anyway: if you're going all out with the turducken in the first place, you should make three separate stuffings.
That first year the stuffings were: andouille sausage based; oyster based; and corn-bread based. While Ryan was the leading force and financial backer, Corrie and I had the time and know-how to put it all together, and pretty much made the dish.
It's cooked slowly on low heat; if it gets too hot the fat from the duck will deep-fry the other two birds from the inside.
It was awesome.
This year Corrie's parents were on a California trip for a specific reason, and were able to swing down to Long Beach for Thanksgiving. Corrie's dad made a comment about the possibility of us doing a turducken for the meal, to which Corrie laughed off at first. Eventually she decided that doing a turducken would be the perfect cap to her folks' California trip, and the plan was afoot.
She gathered the things, I sharpened my knife, and we made it happen.
Here's a picture that's reminiscent of Christmas Day before the gifts get ripped into:
I set about carving the birds, de-boning them. I started with the chicken because it's the least important if you screw it up. I try to liken it as carving the raw bird in reverse. If you've ever carved up a whole raw chicken, with a sharp enough knife and enough patience, de-boning is possible. Think about it as removing the carcass from the bird instead of the meat from the carcass; carving in reverse order.
It worked well, and so I repeated the method with the duck. Some observations: the duck's wings are much larger and tougher than the chicken's, relative to the frame, while the duck's thigh/drumstick is smaller than the chicken's, relative to the frame.
I repeated the method again with the turkey, while leaving the bones in the thigh/drumstick and leaving the wings on, to make it look more like a real turkey. Here's a shot of the de-boning process wirth everything done and ready to rock. The chicken is on the left with the darker meat duck next to it separated from the turkey on the right by the bowl of bones in the middle (by the timing on these pictures I learned that it took me just under an hour to de-bone the trio):
Lacing it up is really the first time that takes two people to do. One person needs to hold while the other laces. The method we used was the no-needle sew job. You pierce opposing sides of the skin with a sharp-ended skinny rod at intervals, then lace around the rods like you would a shoe. Carefully tightening brings the skin together.
A labor of love is ready to be given a butter-and-thyme massage and roasted to perfection. (Had to bring out the big-guns for this day: black cap and apron.)
I was at work on the Turkey-day itself, but I heard the turducken was good (by Corrie's parents; Corrie felt she'd overdone the chicken). The three stuffings I used were: traditional bread with jack-o-lantern seeds and sage; buttered rice with exotic hot peppers; and corn bread.
This Thanksgiving wasn't all turducken. Corrie put together a grand menu, and pulled off everything. She made a roasted butternut squash soup with goat cheese fondue added for sexier flavor. She put together a very smart cheese plate with globe grapes, blueberries and crackers. She roasted beets for a chicory and beet salad. She made pumpkin pie with ginger snap crust and even made a ginger sorbet to top the pie.
That ginger sorbet is killer.
This was Corrie's Thanksgiving...I just carved some raw birds and made some stuffing.
The name "turducken" comes from TURkey-DUCK-chickEN. The dish is, if you're unaware, a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.
In 2003, when the dish was first being popularized, my roommate at the time Ryan, a person I've featured in my blog from time to time and close friend, decided that that year we'd do a turducken, found a butcher to de-bone the birds and got a hold of the fixings for three awesome dressings.
That's another one of the staples of the turducken. I'm trying to make it a staple anyway: if you're going all out with the turducken in the first place, you should make three separate stuffings.
That first year the stuffings were: andouille sausage based; oyster based; and corn-bread based. While Ryan was the leading force and financial backer, Corrie and I had the time and know-how to put it all together, and pretty much made the dish.
It's cooked slowly on low heat; if it gets too hot the fat from the duck will deep-fry the other two birds from the inside.
It was awesome.
This year Corrie's parents were on a California trip for a specific reason, and were able to swing down to Long Beach for Thanksgiving. Corrie's dad made a comment about the possibility of us doing a turducken for the meal, to which Corrie laughed off at first. Eventually she decided that doing a turducken would be the perfect cap to her folks' California trip, and the plan was afoot.
She gathered the things, I sharpened my knife, and we made it happen.
Here's a picture that's reminiscent of Christmas Day before the gifts get ripped into:
I set about carving the birds, de-boning them. I started with the chicken because it's the least important if you screw it up. I try to liken it as carving the raw bird in reverse. If you've ever carved up a whole raw chicken, with a sharp enough knife and enough patience, de-boning is possible. Think about it as removing the carcass from the bird instead of the meat from the carcass; carving in reverse order.
It worked well, and so I repeated the method with the duck. Some observations: the duck's wings are much larger and tougher than the chicken's, relative to the frame, while the duck's thigh/drumstick is smaller than the chicken's, relative to the frame.
I repeated the method again with the turkey, while leaving the bones in the thigh/drumstick and leaving the wings on, to make it look more like a real turkey. Here's a shot of the de-boning process wirth everything done and ready to rock. The chicken is on the left with the darker meat duck next to it separated from the turkey on the right by the bowl of bones in the middle (by the timing on these pictures I learned that it took me just under an hour to de-bone the trio):
Lacing it up is really the first time that takes two people to do. One person needs to hold while the other laces. The method we used was the no-needle sew job. You pierce opposing sides of the skin with a sharp-ended skinny rod at intervals, then lace around the rods like you would a shoe. Carefully tightening brings the skin together.
A labor of love is ready to be given a butter-and-thyme massage and roasted to perfection. (Had to bring out the big-guns for this day: black cap and apron.)
I was at work on the Turkey-day itself, but I heard the turducken was good (by Corrie's parents; Corrie felt she'd overdone the chicken). The three stuffings I used were: traditional bread with jack-o-lantern seeds and sage; buttered rice with exotic hot peppers; and corn bread.
This Thanksgiving wasn't all turducken. Corrie put together a grand menu, and pulled off everything. She made a roasted butternut squash soup with goat cheese fondue added for sexier flavor. She put together a very smart cheese plate with globe grapes, blueberries and crackers. She roasted beets for a chicory and beet salad. She made pumpkin pie with ginger snap crust and even made a ginger sorbet to top the pie.
That ginger sorbet is killer.
This was Corrie's Thanksgiving...I just carved some raw birds and made some stuffing.
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