Mad Scientist Laboratory

To  begin with, Joyce says I need to clean up my mess. But she has been saying this for months. Now I wonder why she let me add more electronics to my computer room collection. To top that off, it's not the entire collection - there are more units in the living room. Just not as obvious.

Notice that I said 'computer room' - not 'man cave'. She has a real thing about the man cave description so I feel comfortable with 'computer room' - it seems to offer a bit more sophistication.

At any rate, the additional equipment came as the result of Jeff asking for videos to watch as he goes through his cancer treatment. I'm happy to do that if it make Jeff's days more pleasant.

First, my wonderful Super VHS video tape unit quit. (It currently resides under the bed out of the picture.) So I had to go out and try to find a VCR playback unit to feed videos to my computer for conversion to compact disc. Not too hard to find -
got one for half price (five dollars) at a Goodwill store. Then I needed to find a Cassette player for downloading music. That was a bit harder to find. None of the Goodwill stores, or DAV stores had cassette players - cassettes seem to be out of style.
So I started to make the rounds of pawn shops. I finally found one - got it home and it didn't work and took it back to get another. That works fine. Another ten dollars down the drain.

So, I now have a playback disc player, a cassette player, a VHS playback, two 8mm camcorders (in the closet), a computer and a printer in the computer room (not forgetting the maze of wiring connecting various components). Oh, I must not forget a non-working computer at the end of a dresser, a slide projector, and an 8 mm antique movie projector. And a few (?) piles of slide reels, movie cans, VHS tapes, and CD's and DVD's. That's the computer room which also has a closet (full), a dresser, (full) and bed (laden with'stuff').

Not to be outdone, the living room includes a DVD/VHS player AND a DVD recorder attached to our flat screen 46 inch television which is also connected to a cable system box.

Does the mad scientist label fit?

And Joyce has advised me that in two or three weeks we will be having company from out of state. I fear she will not simply ask - but perhaps lovingly demand - that something is done to make the computer room habitable. Oh, well..............

The End of an Era

It's not fair. Slides have become passe. And getting slides converted to prints is almost impossible to

get done. I checked with a large number of mainline drug stores and the machines they have only work with computer media. Checking stores like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Best Buy, and Meijers were just as bad. It seems that the only way to get old slides converted is to work with a major photography store (and I'm not even sure about that) or to buy a slide converter that puts the slides in digital form.

I guess that much of traditional photography has passed its prime. My uncle Ralph, back in the thirties and forties, was a really good photographer. He would take pictures with classic German cameras and process the film in trays in his apartment bathroom. It was all black and white pictures. Later, in Missouri I bought a classic Speed Graphic press camera and did my own processing as well.

In 1941 my father bought an Argus c-3 35millimeter slide camera which he used a lot during our family vacation trip from New York to California. A few of those slides still exist, believe it or not, some which show my brother and I wearing honest to goodness 10-gallon cowboy hats in the image of Tom Mix and his Ralston Straight Shooters, (For those who might never have heard of Tom Mix, he was a movie cowboy in the 1930's also was a featured star in a children's quarter hour afternoon radio serial. I wanted a Stetson because it seemed more western than a tall cowboy hat but I had to deal with what I had.

As time passed I got still and movie cameras well before the days of digital. I can't remember all the cameras I went through but almost all of the cameras were used to take slides, especially of the family.That's the problem I have gotten into - a zillion slides and no way to make prints of them. In the picture above you may get some idea of the pictures I took back in the fifties and sixties. These slides are treasures but without a projector it's hard to look at them, and slides don't go well in scrapbooks.

So with no way to convert the slides to prints it became a real challenge in trying to copy do it commercially. More than challenging, it was nigh on to impossible. And so one more gadget is
added to a computer room (some might call it a man-cave) that Joyce would love to see cleaned
up. It took a bit of experimenting to get the device to work (I needed to learn the proper switch positions) but I finally succeeded. So I think I will make the technology available to friends and members of the family who are faced with old pictures that technology has tried to consume to
the waste of the world. But I have finally come up with a better idea. So there, all you super-stores who move with technology but forget there are a lot of people who some old-timey service

Missing: One B-36

My WW (Wonderful Wife) says I have a tendency to dwell on the past at times. I don't call it dwelling on the past - I prefer to look at it as treasuring good memories. And so we decided to escape the 'closing-in-walls' of our apartment and just go somewhere.

Somewhere turned out to be Rantoul, Illinois, our home away from home off and on from 1953 to 1959. In some ways it was much the same as we remembered, but like most towns we remember from fifty years ago it has changed a lot. The Methodist church is much bigger - there's a lot more shopping but the old Air Force Base - Chanute AFB - is shut down - has been since 1993. Maybe it was time for it to happen - it was one of the oldest bases in service.

As we drove around the base many things were changed - wooden barracks were gone - newer brick dormitories were in  state of decay - and even the roofs of the giant hangars were showing their age. The "new" (new in 1957) hospital our middle daughter Amy was born in - is falling by the wayside. But I recognized the building I worked in and the base headquarters. Some things didn't seem to have changed. But the static display B-36 was gone. Or at least I couldn't find it. Even with the excellent display of aircraft at the Chanute Museum It wasn't in sight. Where was the B-36?

Well it wasn't at Chanute. Probably before the Museum was opened it was dismantled and shipped in pieces to what was Castle AFB in California where it was reconstructed and stands on display there. Probably makes sense when you think about it - Chanute AFB was not a B-36 base and Castle was the home of the big birds - I think they called the the 'Peacemakers." I remember them flying in Texas when I was in basic training, and I remember the cargo version of the B-36, the XC-99, flying in and out of McClellan AFB in California. (If you go back a way in my blogs you'll find a story about the XC-99.

I guess, like old soldiers, airplanes don't always fade away - they just go on display in some museum. And that makes good memories

Maybe Then but Not Today

It could have been me in 1946.

I had just finished helping a neighbor stuff an attic with insulation. The itchy-scratchy kind. And it was August when a friend and I got done with the job.

We thought a camping trip would suffice as relief from the job and so Eddie and I gathered up survival rations and primitive camping gear and set out for the Hunter Mountain area of New York's Catskill Mountains. No backpacks. No tents. No sleeping bags. No insect repellent. Two bushel bags full of food a little like the picture above but not carried on a pole. And we were hitchhiking.

We arrived at the mountain in late afternoon ate our first meal, and proceeded to spread our primitive
bedrolls to get an evenings rest before setting out on the trails the next morning. What we didn't know was that flies, fleas, gnats, and mosquitoes had scheduled a convention in our camp site and we were their welcome guests.

The joy of camping and hiking was gone by morning and, rather than going back home, we decided to hitchhike to Niagara Falls and back. So back to the highway we went and it was not long before a farmer allowed us the privilege of riding in the back of his pickup truck for a few hours. When he reached his destination, we thumbed another ride in another truck for quite a while. (I think we ended up in Cooperstown of baseball fame by then.)

On the road again, we got a ride from a traveling salesman who got us all the way to Buffalo. On the way we cooked up a supper and he picked up a lady who turned out to be totally out of it from an alcohol binge and she was deposited at the front door of a Syracuse Police station. Then it was on to Buffalo where our driver allowed us to sleep on the floor of his Buffalo apartment living room.

I have no recollection of how we got to Niagara Falls but we made it there, and at the end of the day we decided to stay in a YMCA in Lockport. By this time we were getting a bit "ripe" and the "Y" had showers. The next morning we were on our way again - same clothes since we brought no change of clothes. Somehow we got to an open field between Syracuse and Utica where we camped in an open field. No bugs and 'critters' this time but the ground was really hard and sleep was hard to come by.
Seems to me that we started the day off with a breakfast of sardines and beans since there was not a lot of food left.

The next day we somehow made our way to Albany. How I don't know because we were really looking pretty shabby - an d left some body odor behind wherever we were. Not only that, but we were not very agreeable to each other - we were trying to decide whose crazy idea it was to take this trip anyway. We may have been out of food, but we had a little money in our pockets and decided that in the interest of getting home we would take the train the final 30 or so miles. By the way, it was well before the days of Interstate highways.

When Eddie and I met again some fifty years later we had matured a bit. we had a pleasant reunion but the question still remained: Whose idea was it to take the trip in the first place? And whose idea
was it to give up hiking to go to Niagara Falls? And was the trip a wise one to undertake?

Not on your life - but it was one of those things adventurous teenagers do - and sometimes still do.
But times were different then and we got away with it. I can't say the same for doing stuff like that today.

Tulip Time

A few years ago Joyce and I took a nice jaunt from our then home on the eastern shores of Michigan to go to a train museum in the center of the state and then we spent the night in Grand Rapids. The next morning we drove to Holland. Not Holland Holland - Holland Michigan. It was a perfect trip - the huge crowds that invade Holland were gone and it seemed as though we had the town to ourselves - except for millions and millions of Spring flowers. What a wonderful place Holland is - either the one in the Great Lake State - or the one in Europe. I remember that one well from my Air Force days when I spent several months in The Hague working with the Netherlands Air Force.

i guess that all came back to me yesterday when we drove down to Evansville for a a college honors convocation in which granddaughter Jill was one of the honorees. The University of South Indiana is one of those places that has masses of tulips at this time of the year. Not just the University - the flowers were all over the city and it was beautiful. It really brings to mind the beauty of God's paint brush and makes one glad to be alive.

But I wasn't all that glad when our cell phone went off a when we were in our local bankers office the other day. The cell phone sounded off and it seemed as though everyone started laughing. I don't know why - all it was was a cell phone ring.  It was just a ring tone of Tiny Tim of past years singing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips". If you haven't heard it, or are unfamiliar with who Tiny Tim was, look him up on the Internet -  I'm sure you will be impressed - or at the very least puzzled why anyone in their right mind would use that ring tune. Then, again, I''ve not been accused of a somewhat twisted mind for a long time. Or maybe Joyce doesas well - I think the ring tone was her idea.

Then there is the story about  long flower beds filled with beautiful tulips - a little like the picture above. This flower beds ran from a sally port entry to a large apartment complex in Rye, New York. Running along the flower bed was a concrete sidewalk leading to an ornate entrance to the building proper. I was quite young - perhaps four or so - and we had an apartment, our first home on the mainland after my father retired (for the first time) from the active Army. This row or tulips was the managers pride and joy.

Needless to say, I had not completed driver education but I was equipped with wheels - a four wheel pedal car. Unfortunately it was not equipped with GPS and so, when I drove it, the little car had a mind of its own as the direction it went. If you are think that the car might have  affinity for tulips, you are 100 percent right. Not just one side of the sidewalk but both sides experienced a floral demolition derby. From one end to the other. It was not a tip toe through the tulips - it was mass destruction.

If memory serves correctly, we did not last in that apartment complex. I've been told that the manager invited (urged? insisted? demanded) us to move quickly after my moment of floral devastation and we ended up in my grandmother's boarding house. The picture above is of the infamous vehicle with me behind the car and one of the Tucker boys to the left. Granted, the picture is a bit faded, but so am I at the moment. And wonders of all wonders, I have a considerably better respect for flowers - especially if they are my wife's.

March Madness

It's a glorious time in the Midwest - a time when all hearts and souls focus on basketball. High school, college, and most everyone else. Except this year when people held their breath to try to figure out where former Colt quarterback Peyton Manning would end up. And so it will be the Denver Broncos and now focus is back to basketball.

But I want to focus on something else - the March Madness of 2012 weather in Indiana. I thought it might be interesting to compare our 2012 weather to New York City winter in March 1888. As noted in the picture above, the Big Apple enjoyed a bit of snow in mid-March.  As much as 58 inches in one storm. There were 400 or so people who died, and there were damages estimated as high as 25 million in 1888 dollars (over a billion dollars in modern money) The storm produced winds as high as 80 miles per hours, creating snow drifts as high as 52 feet.

Then there was the time in my lifetime in New York State around 1940 when we had a snowstorm in which we had to use snowshoes to get to town because the snowplows couldn't get to our house. And the time in Rensselaer, Indiana when we had so much snow we had to cancel church three weeks out of four because churches were inaccessible for weeks at a time. When we were first able to make our way to some of them we had to drive on single lane roads with snowbanks on the side almost twice the height of our car. In Kokomo, Indiana we had an occasion where we couldn't get from our apartment into town for several days and Joyce couldn't get to get job in Marion (fifty miles away) for a week.

But then there is the year 2012 - another record setting weather year. Not for snow and cold -- just the opposite - warmth. It's been a really mild winter. And now it's mid-March. I venture to say we are

having Spring a month early and here is where we are this first day of Spring.  I'll take it but we do that with big question - It's great this year -- but what about Winter 2013? We shall see - but like I say, it's wunnerful this year.

This was the morning that was

 

In case someone wonders, it is not all peace and tranquility back at the senior citizen ranch in good old Indianapolis. The above is a self portrait at around 9:30 this morning.

What it represents is my reaction to a smoke alarm going of in our apartment. I might expect it once in a while in the kitchen area when I have been incinerating a steak. Or maybe overcooking some of the good lady's favorite Brussels sprouts. (Let me correct that: LEAST favorite - it's me who has craved them ever since I had them for ten days straight in three Israeli hotels where they are a mainstay.)

At any rate, it was not a kitchen alarm that went off - it was a bedroom alarm and nothing I tried would cause it to stop screaming. Before anyone has any false illusions, we were far away when it sounded off so it wasn't anything we did - maybe forty years ago but not today.

Next thing we knew the phone rang - the manager downstairs wanted to know if we had a problem. Only an alarm that we couldn't shut off. Then the maintenance man showed up with three of the biggest and bravest firemen I've ever seen - all the way up to the second floor. Finally everyone agreed - a smoke sensor had malfunctioned  and had to be dissembled to stop the alarm. A few hours later a new sensor was installed and hopefully will continue to guard over us unless some dire (real) emergency occurs.

All this sounds like something not to big but in an apartment building like ours it affects every occupant in one way or another. Maybe it's that the building fire doors automatically close. Or maybe that a building-wide warning is sounded. So, though I really had nothing to do the problem, I got a lot of dubious looks when I went downstairs for the mail a little later. And a few questions as to what we had been up to in good old 227. The manager, bless her heart, said, it's happened several times the past few weeks because of failed parts and our friendly firemen have paid a courtesy call every time. Even last Tuesday when someone else's sensor sounded off at two in the morning.

Oh, well, things happen, and I'm glad the system is here - maybe sometime it will protect us when
something more serious happens. Meanwhile, enjoy the picture - it's pretty much where I was at the time.