Daily Rambles

Sue's Paintings

2011-07-22T07:06:00.000-07:00

My kitchen counter typically looks like this these days. Sue has really taken an interest in painting. She has quite a talent for it and I really enjoy her results. This picture is what her workbench looks like. The brushes and paints are complemented by a paper worksurface that might have any color in the rainbow.

Texas Medical Center - Houston Man First in World to be Successfully Implanted with Pulseless, Artificial Heart

2011-06-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

Texas Medical Center - Houston Man First in World to be Successfully Implanted with Pulseless, Artificial Heart

This article is the must read source on the new pulseless artificial heart. It gives names, dates and devices used in the implantation of a centrifugal pump type artificial heart in a terminal patient that lived a month with the device before succumbing to other organs failing from the disease.

Researchers Create the First Pulseless Artificial Heart

2011-06-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Researchers Create the First Pulseless Artificial Heart This is a completely new idea to me. Others have reported on a centrifugal pump approach that was used in the past but the impeller on this machine is supposed to be an Archimedes screw that does not produce the cavitation the older pumps did.

3rd-grader denied playground witnessing (OneNewsNow.com)

2011-04-17T03:43:00.000-07:00

3rd-grader denied playground witnessing (OneNewsNow.com)

This is a very tough problem for me. Should a student be allowed to proselytize their religious faith on public school grounds during school hours and common school activities. My test for this is whether it would be considered fair to have Muslims or Jehovah's Witnesses or even Wiccens do the same thing. I ask for my Chpristian friends help in understanding this by using the following example. If a Wiccan were teaching natural religion or what some feel is Satanism on the school grounds, would they find it acceptable? If they do, then we are ready to allow religious proselytizing on public grounds.

It is a question of fairness. It is a question of doing unto others as you would have them do to you. it is a question of whether the United States Constitution guarantees an individual the right to speak of their religion in public. I believe it's the same as preaching in the public square. It is constitutional and must be allowed. I support this young girl's right to speak of her religion where I would not support the Gideons passing out Bibles in the classroom where no one could leave.

We are a nation of many faiths. we must consider the rights of our citizens.

NATO equals free ride for European defense

2011-04-15T05:58:00.000-07:00

"The Obama administration's reluctant involvement in the Libya operation
recalls the Biblical adage," The other 27 nations of nato hey only 25 percent of the defense bill 4 that organization. this is not sensible for the united states. some say, if we don't do it who will. The answer is let someone else have the chance. If it's that important they will pick up the bill. in the meantime, power federal government is raidng social security, and telling us it's broke in order to pay for such junkets.

Europe has the same problem with refugee's that we do with Mexico. The idea that they cannot defend their own borders is ridiculous.

Swype and voice input will work well

2011-04-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

Swype is a keyboard entry system that lets you trace your fingers over the keyboard and enter text that way. It does capitals and other keyboard shifts very well.

I think Swype will work very well with voice import.It seems to have the ability to quickly react to changes. This is a very quick method of data entry. It requires the writer to think and act quickly. It handles capitals and punctuation and is used on the Android machines.

The interaction of the writer and the machine will be intense, but it's possible that the interaction of the machine and writer will be quicker than keyboard entry. The intensity of the experience should be quite profound. I believe that it would lead to very very quick work.

The whole rhythm of the way you speak and write is changed.You start to speak and think in hunks of words.

Twitpic - Share photos and videos on Twitter Uncle John Engels spoke at the Vassar Township monthly meeting. He reminded residents of local contributions to the war effort during the Civil War.

2011-04-13T04:26:00.000-07:00

Twitpic - Share photos and videos on Twitter Uncle John Engels spoke at the Vassar Township monthly meeting. He reminded residents of local contributions to the war effort during the Civil War.

A busy day with music

2011-04-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

Are we busy today. Brothers in song are singing 1 gig and practicing twice. We are practicing our group numbers at 11 o'clock at dave arnoldS. then we have a performance at american house north following that we have a practice at kathy watson's in clio. All in all very busy day

AddThis Social Bookmarking Sharing Button Widget

2011-04-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

AddThis Social Bookmarking Sharing Button Widget: "AddThis is a free way to boost traffic back to your site by making it easier for visitors to share your content"

2011-03-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful but cold day for a walk on the railtrail today, but I'm glad I made the effort. This is the Cass River back up toward the bridge on M-15. It is one of my favorite spots. I caught my one and only pike so far right at the end of the grassy finger sticking out into the river. That was quite an adventure.

My new phone, the droid x, is working well and getting better coverage than I had with the Blackberry. I had trouble making calls from some parts of my house with the Blackberry. Of course, my office was a big offender on that. Now, that seems to have gone away. We'll see.

I run my internet browsing on wifi with the new phone. No more dead spots and the speed is lightning fast compared to a 3G connection on the Blackberry. This will make the phone a real competitor with the computer for internet access.

The picture above is from the droid. It's an 8 MP shot. I loved the old camera at 3.2, but after seeing what happens when you blow a shot like that up, I really didn't want to keep on creating memories and documentation in that format.

It's been a good day. I cooked supper for a change. All went well.

My Father and the Reising Gun

2011-03-11T08:33:00.000-08:00

Dad was a Marine on Guadalcanal. It was a transforming event in his life and one filled with many stories. Some of them related to instantaneous death. One of these small stories was about a friend who was walking down the beach talking with two other Marines.

A Japanese sniper was in a plam tree looking for such a target. The sniper killed the man farthest from Dad's friend who was carrying a Reising gun. The sniper swung to the next man in line while the Marine hit the butt of the Reising gun; threw the gun into position and fired. The sniper was dead before he could swing to the remaining man.

The Reising gun had a bad reputation. Troops thought that the magazine you see extending below the gun could be used as a handle. This caused the gun to jam; not a good trait in war.

As you have heard, this gun was more than enough on at least one occasion.

My New Granddaughter

2011-03-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

A new person is coming into my life. I wonder what she will bring into our lives. This crazy, little smile that brings a smile in return from me will bring joy to many. She is an undiscovered treasure.

Gene and Becky's Wedding

2011-02-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

Picasa is great for going over those pictures you might not see quite enough of. This one shows just how fast six years passes. We had a great time during the wedding at the Richville Church and later at the reception at the Bridgeport Country Club.. All this took place in 2005.

Sue on the Tee

2011-01-16T18:20:00.000-08:00

Becky's Brady has a new WII Health and Fitness. It is a wonderful thing. I have even tried it but Sue has been the best in my family on keeping up with the younger set. Brady seems to be the best at winning, of course,

Sue is standing on a balence board that isn't shown in this picture. It works well however and is key to the game. First, you stand on it to have it figure your weight. *(a fact which it never reveals to my knowledge). Then, your movements interact with the game on the screen. If you think this isn't more of a workout than most adults take part in, do try one. Not too long however, you'll be sore the next day.

Tennis, anyone?

2011-01-10T17:57:00.000-08:00

I cut 100's of acres of hay with my grandfather's mower that was exactly like this one
It woulc cut about one acre an hour when pulled in third gear on a John Deere B. Every 3 rounds I had to grease the alamite fittings on the pitman. and oil guides on the blade. Later I changed that to every 20 minutes which was much faster as the field got smaller and the rounds got shorter I was not really using the oil to the fullest extent with the old method.
This machine would have run forever but occassionally the gear box oil would get low. Then the case would get to hot to touch. That was always a bad day.

The wooden tongue is missing from this machine. These tongues were broke about every third year when you hit a post of something. I was making a tongue out of an ash tree when I hit my leg with the hand ax when I was about 13. That was not fun.

3-D TV about to become Common

2011-01-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

ESPN 3-D, which started last June and was only on the air for live sporting events, will be on the air full time starting on Feb. 14. Along with a few live games each week, the network will rebroadcast archived games. “This, for us, is very much an image of just what happened with H.D.,” he said of the gradual roll-out.

At C.E.S., Mr. Burns will be meeting with set manufacturers, distributors and others to, as he put it, “make sure the entire food chain works in harmony.”

Separately this week, Discovery, Sony and IMAX will give a name, 3NET, to the 24-hour 3-D channel that they are expected to start later this winter.

It appears that we are about to make a change in our viewing habits. 3-d will be one and only one of these changes. Beginning Feb. 14, it will have 24 hour a day programming on ESPN.

Of course, the race is on. While many of us have not been watching, Blu-ray players and new tv sets come with wireless and wired connections to the internet. They are one more device to hang on that home network you have originating in the router you need for the internet.

Boxee is out there now to be downloaded to your computer and let you get used to the idea of streaming video to a device, in this case your computer. You can stream it to that new blu-ray player or tv too.

Lots of changes coming in the next year.

Life in my House in 1950

2010-12-26T18:15:00.000-08:00

This is a very rare picture of the kitchen in Dad's House at 6721 Oak Road, Vassar about 1950. I am the boy in the back with sister, Linda, in front of me with Allen Reamy in the lead. We are in my wagon that I left by the road and had stolen. Notice the wringer washer in the background by the door. Mother would slide that out in the middle of the floor about where we are. She heated all the wash water on the stove. We had a wash house out the screen door about 25 feet away. All water was hauled from there up the porch and through the screen door. The country was much darker then. This house had been wired for electricity in 1946, 4 years before. You could hear the crickets out through the screen. They were much louder then. Of course, the grass was much higher then because we wouldn't have a power lawn mower for five more years. Grass was cut by the field mowing machine. The house was heated at this time by fuel oil which ran about $240 per year. Dad paid for the fuel oil with the wheat crop that he raised for several years at this time. The floor was covered with linoleum like all the floors were when I was little. Bathroom facilities were 35 ft out thru the screen door. Life was very different then. We were still listening to the radio every night for entertainment. Dad and Ralph Reamy were both working at Universal Engineering in Frankenmuth where they both had a solid job until retirement about 32 years after this picture was taken. Of course, when this picture was taken, we had four people in our family. Laura would change all that in about a year.

Christmas at Nancy's

2010-12-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

This family picture has many of the players from my typical family get to gathers. Julie and Steve and family are here. They have lots of places to go on these days but do manage to be with us a good bit of the time. John and Nancy Welch are here especially because it's their house and they did the dinner. My mother-in-law, Loraine Hayes is with us and feeling and geeting around better than last year. And , of course, this is my nephew, Blake Karr's second appearence. He is the life of the party.

The Cost of Talking from Ma Bell to Facebook

2010-10-12T07:26:00.001-07:00

In 1950, when I first remember the phone it was so different. Dad and Mother had Michigan Bell but grandma had an older system with wooden phones and cranks that you turned and yelled "Florwnce, Florence is that you?" into the mouthpiece so Florence Vttengroover down in Millington at the switchboard would know to pull and plug wires on the switchboard to make connections Grandma did almost all the taking on this Mystery. Grandpa didn't touch it once a year.

Our phone was much more modern. We had a four digit number, 3502, that other Vassar phones could dial with their black rotary phones with no operator involved.

Cost was very high. Three dollars for three minutes when we called Grandma Crane in Vermillion, South Dakota and it took an hour to make the connection.

Grandma Welsh who lived only a mile and a half away was with Millington Wolverine Telephone Co. So she was long distance. Calling her was fifteen cents so that was seldom done either when Dad made two dollars an hour.

Today we live in the sold of free communication. Things are very different.

My New Camera

2010-10-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

This new camera is great!!!

Kris's Birthday

2010-09-25T05:42:00.000-07:00

My family had two birthdays this week. Son-in-law, Keith Droz became a year older on the twenty-fourth and my step-son, Kris had his birthday of the twenty-second. Kris is twenty-eight this year. All of the kids are hardly kids anymore.

Keith and Tricia are in Japan right now so even talking to them is different. I did send a birthday greeting card and got him a gift certificate to Amazon. That always seems to be a hit.

We had a party for Kris. The picture shows part of the people who came. Andy Erdman was there as was Chris Johnson. John and Nancy came out and my mother-in-law, Lorraine Hayes was there too.

Sue had a very nice meal which she made while she was cleaning up storm damage in the yard. She is amazing.

Everyone had a very nice time.

2010-09-12

2010-09-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

My wife, Sue, just went to her sister, Mary Anderson's, house for a visit. From right to left, this picture has Sue, Nancy, Leanne or Lee, Mary. I always look better in their pictures. All I have to do is stand in the back.

1964 Class Reunion in 2010

2010-09-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, September 11, 2010, my high school graduating class had its forty-sixth year reunion at my house at 7040 Sheridan Road, Millington, Michigan. We were really pleased with the turn out. I took a good number of photos that you can see at the link. The party started at about 1pm and continued until about 9 pm. Thirteen class members were there. We agreed to have a party next year on the second saturday that would be September 10, 2011. It will be held at 7040 Sheridan Road, Millington, Michigan 48746 where it was this year.

Linda Welsh McRoy, sister, told about Sue Ann Burns loosing her husband this past year to carbon monoxide. Some of us had heard about that at the time but others were not aware of it. Lee Preston told how he had lost is wife a couple of months ago. That was news to some of us. I didn't know that even though I live close.

Everyone really wanted to talk and be brought up-to-date with each other so the time really flew. Spouses did a good job mixing and being a part of the festivities too. I met Steve Ulrich's wife for the first time. Steve told how he had gone to a farm sale on the other side of the state. He bought an Oliver tractor at that sale and arranged to pick it up a few weeks later. The time passed and he came with a friend to pick up his purchase. The tractor would not start. Finally, they decided to try ether to get it going. None was on site. Steve saw the woman of the house drive in so he asked her if she had any ether on the farm. "No" she said " I had the sale when I lost my husband and now all that is gone". On the way to get that can of ether, Steve had his first conversation with his wife. It had been close though because when they returned, Steve's friend had that tractor running. It had started just after Steve left to get the ether. Some things just seem to be met to happen.

Bill McCorkle always surprises everyone because of his height. Billy was under five feet when we graduated. He was small. Now, he is about 5'6" and is involved in prison ministries. He does quite a bit of public speaking and added to the fun of the day.

Dave and Debbie Sebert Cobb where there. I enjoyed talking to both of them. Dave had been on the school board in Millington. Debbi and I talked about how things were in high school in the 1960's and how many social changes there have been. She lives in Millington now and knows Uncle Richard Hauger. She had her own story to tell on him.

Janet Taylor Lucias and her husband John were there too. Janet told about her seventeen grandchildren and about how she had helped with her son's bike store. John and Bill McCorkle had so stories to tell about the night John broke Billy in on a job at Buick.

Larry Ill and his wife spoke of their experiences. Larry is working for Bader Bros. in Birch Run right now. Normally, he has been working out of Saginaw. His wife is a teacher. I enjoyed talking to her about the conservative/liberal split in the country now and how it is essential that we learn to listen to different points of view.

Ed LeBean and wife were present too. His sister, Priscilla lives right up the road so I see members of his family on various social occasions.

Marth Crump Jensen was a real hit with my wife Sue. They are both nurses. Sue told me that Martha is living up north of West Branch but gets to Millington to visit her daughter. Martha did work with me at Flint Truck Assembly for a time. I was an industrial engineer and she worked in the medical department.

My sister, Linda Welsh McRoy, the always faithful one, drove over from her home in Caledonia, Michigan. Linda is a retired teacher who taught in the Kentwood(Grand Rapids) School System. She is now in realty and is my chief running buddy on trips all over the place that she usually dreams up.

Sharon Walker Beemer (did I come close on the spelling) came too. We shared conversation on how things have changed over our lifetimes and how things were in Millington high in the 60's

Sandy Harding Honsinger got a chance to see the garage I have been talking about on Facebook for the last year. Sandy was a music teacher at John Glenn in Bay City and still is very involved with music. She has a surprising ability in wood working that you can see if you go to her Facebook page. Sue and I were both glad that she came. Sandy has a cousin named Sandi Pavlawk who is a good friend from the Bay County Historical Museum where I volunteer, make friends, talk, and really enjoy myself. Finding Sandy, our classmate's, Bay City connections was a surprise to me.

Bette Sebert Chambal has been a real worker on these reunions. She brought the meat dishes to this one. (I loved the food by the way). Bette lost Ken Chambal, our classmate, several years ago. Ken was a bright spot in everybody's day. I was really sorry when we lost him. Betty is also the person I know the longest in our class , outside of sister Linda that is. Bette's family had parties with their relatives and neighbors when I was four or five and since one of Bette's aunts, Ernestine Kerns was a friend we often went to these parties.

All these folks worked really well to make the reunion a success. I really enjoyed it and I think that was the general feeling.
Part of the
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That Job I Thought I'd Never Finish Got Done

2010-09-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

May garage has been finished and in use for about a year now, but I made the big mistake of not finishing just a few pieces of siding on the dormers. There was a reason for this problem. While putting the siding on over the window was no problem for anyone with a ladder, the pieces on the sides of the dormers were a different animal. You had to get on the roof to do them.

Now, this roof is a 6 12 pitch. That means that for every 12 inches you go forward you will find yourself 6 inches higher. Roofers can stick like glue to these structures but overweight, sixty-four year olds seem to slide right down the roof. That had been my previous experience soooo, little progress was made until.. I made this quick attachment for my loader.

This thing started out as a set of forks to plant the crimson maple tree. It worked great. The forks were on both sides of the earth ball and the three rings I installed to the forks and the bucket centered the ball perfectly. I simply drove over the hole with this contraption and lowered the bucket. The twelve foot tree was seated perfectly.

These forks moved around a little though. That is a discomforting feeling when seated on the edge of a roof fifteen ft above the ground. I added some braces and locked the structure to the metal bucket and I was good to go.

It only took about three hours to get the siding tools out again and finish these annoying little loose ends. Now, the job is done. I need something else to side.

As for the attachment to the bucket. It is going to be used as loader forks to pick up downed limbs this morning.

Books for My Class Arrived

2010-09-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

The mail was kind to me today. I got my copy of Custer Victorious. This book will be the basis for my talk on the first years of Custer's career.

He had just graduated from West Point when the Civil War began. Custer was a genius or very lucky in the Civil War. He was in tens of battles and survived without a serious injury'

Gregory J. W. Urwin, the author of this book, says that he has come to know the role politics played in the careers of officers in the Army of the Potomac.

Urwin praises The Union Cavalry in the Civil War by Stephen Z, Starr as the seminal book on the topic. Starr said:

Next to Sheridan in credit for the accomplishments of the [Federal ] cavalry in the Appomattox Campaign stood Geroge Custer.

I am looking forward to reading Custer Victorious.

One Hot Day

2010-09-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

I never got to notice much of the heat yesterday because Corby and I had a job to do. We got up at 2:30am to drive to Indianapolis to take care of some business there.

I remembered when Dad got the 1955 Ford Fairlane. It was his first new car. He paid $70 per month for three years on it. It was also the first car we had that could stand 70mph all day long.

In May of 1955, we took this car to Vermillion, SD to see my grandmother, Anna Crane. Dad went about 600 miles in one day. Yesterday, Corby and I split the driving and went 680 miles in my 2009 Chevy truck. It just didn't take the same amount of time on the expressway that Dad had to spend on US 2 going to grandma's.

This trip did take most of the day though. I didn't do much else. Today, I was off to a good start. I got the first floor boards in on the deck. About 1pm I took a break because of the heat.

I'm getting to be like my Dad's Father. I don't do that well in very hot direct sunlight. I had a plan to go back out when the shade moved over the deck in a few hours but by the time a few hours had passed, we were in the midst of a real downpour.

Inside, I got to work on my Medicare package. I am sixty-five on October 5 so I get government health care. My doctor says it is better than what I've had so great. The problem is that I have to change some things with GM. I think we will end up having Sue and Candice on St. Mary's Insurance. I think I will get my supplimental insurance there too.

When that task was done, I went to work on Custer in the Civil War. I have a presentation on Oct. 6 at the Civil War Round Table in Saginaw at the Bateman-Fish Library. I have to have a finished hour and one half presentation done by then. That puts me focusing on the Civil War more than I have in my recent Custer efforts.

In the midst of all this, the storm knocked the web out. It seems to be back now so we'll get back to the Civil War.

Fw: Digital pictures and flatscreen TV

2010-09-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

This message has been sent using the picture and Video service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, Quicktime@ 6.5 or higher is required.

Fw: Monday Again

2010-08-30T10:27:00.001-07:00

It was a beautiful weekend. Sue and I spent most of it on classic summertime persuits. Saturday, I worked about six hours on the deck.

I did a lot of nailing with my Bostic Palm Nailer. These cost about sixty bucks. I wouldn't be without one now. The treated wood in the deck requires galvanized fasteners so I drove quite a few 20d galvanized pole barn nails.

I got my first 5/4 deck boards. I'm ready to put them on now. This project is a little more than $1000 in materials.

Saturday night, we went to the Tiki Lounge in Bay City for a work party for Sue. I really enjoyed it. They had a Reggae band. Cover charge was 2 dollars. Sue's work friends were a lot of fun.

I just discovered Blog to Print

2010-08-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

http://sayhithere-dailyrambles.blogspot.com/

What a remarkable service. Blogtoprint http://blog2print.sharedbook.com/blogworld/printmyblog/index.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=adwords&utm_campaign=feb09 takes all those postings and pictures and prints a PDF file. You can buy a copy for $8. If you want a soft or hard cover, bond book, you can get it for a few dollars more.

Just the PDF copy of what I have written would be great for me. I am sure I will use this service.

Baptism

2010-08-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

Last sunday, Sue and I went to Kaylee and Kadence Karr's baptism at the Catholic Church in Vassar. These two twins are the center of attention in the family right now if Blake isn't. We all had a good time and a wonderful time to take pictures like this one of one of the twins and Nancy.

2010-07-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of me at Flint Assembly sometime in the 1970's. I appear to be filing process sheets which had a picture, part specifications and change history for every part on the vehicle. I would have been building Blazers and Suburbans at the time.

The IBM terminals in the background were connected to a IBM 360 mainframe two floors above. We didn't have any personal computers at this time.

AndrewBrittanyWedding

2010-07-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

I have some more pictures of Andrew McRoy's wedding that tell a little more of the story.

Hauger Family Reunion

2010-07-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

The reunion was held at John and Nancy Welch's this year. John had chicken that he and Uncle Richard Hauger had parboiled the day before and that they barbecued on the trailer type grill that we rented. The food was set up in the garage. There was really too much of it. Bill Hauger made pies that were really good. I got to try Grandma Hauger's goulash. I really loved it.

Sue did games for the kids with the mandatory water balloons. We had filled them in the old bathtub at our house so by the time we got to Vassar a bunch of them had broken for unknown reasons but the rest of them were luke warm. I had to hold the bucket in the balloon toss so I like warm water balloons.

I talked to Jake Leiber for quite awhile. We talked about my dad in the war and what I knew about what he did. I related what had happened at the Battle of the Tenaru that Dad took part in.

Eric Hauger was there. He is going to do some logging with horses next winter. I offered to help The experience would be great.

Rite Aide Shopping Card

2010-07-01T15:44:00.000-07:00

Sue and I bought two resin love seats for the patio yesterday at Rite-Aide. We found out about their new shoppers card and about signing up for the online coupons. I did both today. Their shopper card is very like what Kroger does. In order to get the sale price on a item you have to have the card. You don't have to carry it. The clerk can enter your phone number and qualify you. At any rate we got our rebate and learned about another way to save money.

Designing a Class on Gen. Custer in the Civil War

2010-06-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

Jo Brownlie, the coordinator for the Osher Life Long Learning classes called me today about a class for that program at SVSU in the fall. I was very pleased to hear from her and to have the opportunity to develop this course. I also thought about a course on the St. Louis World's Fair as a follow-up on the Columbian Exposition, but Custer won this battle.

I plan to put a few hundred hours into this project. It's necessary to spend that much time in preparation. At this point, I don't have a structure or a theme I want to develop so I will be doing some survey reading on Custer in the Civil War.

I'll take notes in my OneNote application and work the course up from there. It will be a blast.

Beautiful Video

2010-06-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

This is a beautiful video that makes me want to add a projector and a laptop to our shows for the effects we could so easily add to the program.

A Day at the Museum

2010-06-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Tuesday anchors my week. When I retired, in 2001, I started volunteering for the Bay County Historical Society. That's one of the best decisions I've made. The Society is a platform for so many discoveries and an place where I've met so many interesting people. Tuesdays are the days I volunteer in the Butterfield Research Library located just inside the front door on the left in the museum.

It's a strange little room where so many discoveries are made. Yesterday, we had a young man come in with a uniform shirt from the Bay City Brahma's, a semi-pro team from the 1990's in Bay City. I had never heard of them because no one else had asked about them during my years at the library, but a quick look in the vertical files under sports, football brought out this big folder filled with clippings. The young man eagerly went through the stack and his quest was answered.

A young woman, who is beginning her genealogical quest looking for information on 600 different relatives came in. She is just beginning but the joy of discovery is in her eye. She's beginning a long journey but one with enough discoveries to carry her well into middle age. I bet she goes there. I hope she comes back with reports on her discoveries.

That's the way it often is in the world of a library researcher. When people leave with smiles on their faces, I know we are on the right track.

Dale Walicki's Style Pages

2010-06-09T17:40:00.000-07:00

The picture at left is an example of the very helpful style guides found in Dale Wolicki's book "The Historic Architecture of Bayt City, Michigan" . There are about twenty of these pages in the book. If someone learned what was on them and did some neighborhood walks to see which elements he could identify on homes in his area, that person would be well on his way to an understanding of those homes.

We have the book for sale in the Bay County Historical Museum store. It is critical for understanding Bay City Architecture.

Carroll Park Walking Tour

2010-06-09T17:33:00.000-07:00

This group of people took part in the walking tour from Carroll Park in Bay City that I guided on tuesday morning. I worked about 30 hours on this tour but like to work more like 75 hours on material that I haven't given before. All turned out well though and the group was just super.

They were from the Bay County Council on Aging and had set up a lunch as well as the tour from this pretty Bay City park.

I told them that the D.H. Fitzhugh family had donated the land for the park in about 1875. I described how different parks were at that time and how cemeteries often filled that function.

Of course, I had to mention Frederick Law Olmsted's contribution to the design of this park. I believe that it is probable that his firm designed the layout of Carroll Park. Olmsted was the first landscape architect in America and the designer of Central Park in New York as well as Biltmore in North Carolina. He also did the grounds for the Columbian Exposition.

I studied Dale Woliki's book on Bay City Architecture once again to prepare for this tour. This time, I noticed how crucial understanding his pages on architectural style are to conducting a higher quality architectural tour.

One of the houses on the tour is shown on the left. This is the Gilbrith House on Center Avenue. It is a colonial revival home that originally belonged to the owner of the World Star Knitting Mills. This house is almost on the corner of Trumble and Center.

After the tour, I shared lunch with the group in Carroll Park. It was really a pleasant experience.

Leigh and Bob Nancarrow's Wedding

2010-06-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

After twelve years, Leigh and Bob tied the knot on Saturday at their home by Sand Lake. The entire affair was very nice and was very enjoyable to all of us there.

Dave Deland met Sue and I at the intersection of M-55 and M-65 to follow us into the cabin. That is something of a trick since it is located about 2 miles of the main road. Once you know where to go it isn't a problem but until then it can be.

There were about forty people at the wedding. The deck on the cabin was able to hold all of us comfortably. The balcony up above the deck was perfect for the cermony. The minister who was a lady conducted the service well with an overtone of fun for all.

Bob was funny when he forgot the ring during the ceremony and had to return to the cabin t o get it.

Sue and I had brought up roast beef and chicken that Leigh had bought at Norm's in Richville. Dinner was very nice. Sue brought up her decorated cookies as well.

Sue and I stayed until the end of the day when we left to spend the night at Dave Deland's in Gladwin. All in all, it was a super time.

The Last session of My Class on The Columbian Exposition is finished

2010-05-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

I feel the last session of my class on the Columbian Exposition went well but wasn't as good as the second section was. I presented information on the 37 state buildings at the Fair, ships shown there and the Midway Plaisance. The state section is important because of its impact on architectural styles after the fair. Most cities have houses that were inspired by designs seen at the Fair. Early American was popular there as were some of the beginnings of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The ships included replicas of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, the Viking long-ship that had come from Norway, the whaling ship, Progress was in Chicago too. I went over the Illinois which was a brick and mortor battleship replica at the Fair and the whaleback, Christopher Columbus that was used there too.

The Midway Plaisance had a lot of interesting concessions, including the Ferris Wheel and Sitting Bull's cabin. I don't think that I was able to get the excitement of this area across though. I plan to listen to my audio of the presentation so see if I feel that way in retrospect.

The whole thing has been a lot of work but a great deal of fun. I expressed interest in doing a class in the fall. We'll see what comes of that.

Would an acoustic shutoff valve have stopped the oil spill

2010-05-27T13:35:00.001-07:00

I'll bet that an acoustic shutoff switch would not have been about to stop the oil spill at the BP rig in the Gulf. I suspect something is wrong with the blowout preventer itself. I thing this is true because the "dead man" switch didn't shut the valve and the remote vehicles weren't able to shut it either. I'll bet an acoustic switch would have been unable to get this probably broken device to function.

in reference to:

"BP says the Deepwater Horizon did have a "dead man" switch, which should have automatically closed the valve on the seabed in the event of a loss of power or communication from the rig. BP said it can't explain why it didn't shut off the well."
- Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device - WSJ.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Just what does a blowout preventer do?

2010-05-27T12:06:00.001-07:00

This article has information on what the oilspill site looks like and what techniques are being used to stop the leak. The schematic of the operations being undertaken is veryhelpful.

in reference to: The Gulf oil spill: What lies beneath | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)

A Week of Presentations

2010-05-14T12:33:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been filled with presentations and preparations for them. Chiefly, that was for the SVSU OLLI class I am teaching on the Columbian Exposition. I love to study that fair since so much happened there and in Chicago at the time it was taking place.

I had two hours to talk about the buildings of the Fair. That got me through the fourteen major buildings and two or three exhibits in each of them. I got to go over the careers of the successive architects which added so understanding to what their thinking on design was. I also got to review the material we had last week.

This class of seventeen went well. I am quit happy with it, but , like normal, there is so much that I would like to do. I'd like more video of the time to show what was happening. I'd also like to put on an effective section on the music of the era since so much was changing right then with the advent of the phonograph.

I have done nothing with the medical field of the 1890's. That area would be interesting too.

I do want to cover military developments as well since this was a time of great military change as well. The Krupp exhibit at the fair had a piece called "the Thunderer" that was capable of a fifteen mile range. The United States had several artillery pieces at the fair as well.

I could enjoy doing a ten week course on this fair but time only allows me one more session.

Today, I had 100 students studying the lumber industry. That went well. It ended up dealing with City Hall as well. The kids were great and a joy to have.

Bringing Candice Home from College

2010-05-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day.. I had two groups of twenty-five young people to lead on a scavenger hunt in the exhibit area of the museum this morning at 9:45. So I had to get up and get going to make it. The hunt itself works well. We divide the kids into five groups in an area outside the exhibit area. Then we give each group a set of three questions printed on card that are color coded by area. We instruct the kids to search for their area first and then to look for clue posters in the gallery. The clue posters have the answers to the questions on the cards. We give them 7-10 minutes to search. Then we call all groups together at the first group's area. Which in our case is the Native American Area. Then I get to pose questions from an answer sheet that I've been given to the group from that area.. When that group has finished, we move to the next area This game works well with fourth graders. I had fun with it.

Then, I watch Corinne do a presentation to a group of 11 young people on the trilobite exhibit and fossils in general. The young people really got into this. When that was over, it was time to take the truck to Mount Pleasant and bring a load of Candice's things from college home. That went very well but took about five hours. Next it was the mowing.

I did get about half of the lawn mowed so I am happy.

The Last Song

2010-04-28T18:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Sue and I went downtown in Vassar to see 'The Last Song'. Nicholas Sparks wrote the book. Just like his other books, 'Dear John' , 'The Notebook' and others, this was a great movie. I was riveted to the story the whole two hours of the film.

Sue's Mom went with us. I think she enjoyed the film as well. We had planned to go to the matinee, when tickets cost only $4.50 but Sue had to work earlier in the day. Once again, this is a great date movie.

Holding My First Grandson

2010-04-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

My grandson, Aiden, has been doing so well lately that he probably is much larger than this right now. He is twice as old as he was in this picture. He is much more socially involved now. I see him smiling and making noises in the videos that are posted.

I'd love to get to see him but that doesn't seem likely for awhile.

Columbian Exposition March - Edison Blue Amberol

2010-04-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

This is the Columbian Exposition March written expressly for the fair.

Tiger Woods and Nike's New Ad

2010-04-08T06:54:00.000-07:00

When I was in school many years ago we had the assignment to pull different ads from newspapers and magazines to analyze just what was being said. That was a simple assignment compared to the analyzing the messages of the digital age

This Tiger Woods ad has been judged as brilliant by professionals in the field. It will convince millions that some sort of father/son conversation is taking place where middle class values are reinforced and Tiger sees the light. On some subconscious level, we will all take this as a real event. That is how moving pictures work. That's why we scream when we see a horror movie. I know that I am in a theater, eating popcorn but my physical systems think I am in the movie. That's why I want to run from a picture on the screen. Millions will believe that this is how Tiger feels and that this is what Earl Woods, his father, would think and say. Those millions will believe it with absolutely no evidence that either Tiger or Earl feel that way.

Earl's been dead since 2006 but that's not so long that Tiger wasn't playing his tricks at the time. Gossip has it that Earl played some tricks of his own. What basis do we have to believe that Earl would be asking "What have you learned?" with the implication that fidelity is best. None, as far as I'm concerned. What basis does Nike have for using a dead man in this way?

This video is very well done propaganda. It should be studied in depth by all of us.

People You Meet along the Way

2010-04-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

Today was my day to work as a research librarian at the Bay County Historical Museum. I looked for a rather slow day due to the weather but I have a great research project in the Chicago World's Fair and a good book on the 1890's to read for background information.

About an hour after I arrived a young man walked in the door. I knew that he had come to see the regular exhibits but I had no idea what he wanted in the library so I explained what the library did.

It turned out that he was interested in research in the Bay City area due to his family connections in Reese. This young man had Mexican and German connections and was quite interested in the social effects of immigration. He was a principal of a school in Oakland, California and was very knowledgeable in many historical areas. We talked about Mexico, the border, Brazilian immigration to Japan, and many other topics.

My great regret is that I didn't get his name. I do hope that he comes back into the library. I would like to see him again.

Julia Welsh, My Grandmother

2010-04-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

I should try to tell my story of life with my grandma, Julia Welsh. Each of the people who knew her would have a different view point but I have my own. I was privileged to have her with me for thirty-five years. I first knew her when she was many years younger than I am now and I had her with me until 1980 when she was eighty years old.

Driving Thru W. Virginia

2010-04-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

I have become even more interested in the mountains I see in different parts of the country. This one looks like it belongs in Arizona but it can be found in West Virginia.

2010-03-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

This is my grandson Aiden. He is the apple of his parents eye. As a grandparent it is wonderful just to be able to see not only what he is doing but how his parents are reacting to him.

My only problem is the distance to where he lives. Raliegh, North Carolina is a great city but it is 800 miles from here. I also think about how different his life will be. He will be a city kid, raised in the new south, in the twenty-first century. I was a farm boy, raised in the industrial bread basket of the world, in the twentieth century. That makes for quite a difference.

Brothers in Song at America House on Linden Road.

2010-03-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

We are getting to the point where we have regular fans among the people who watch our shows at America House on Linden Road. It is fun to see them every month or so. It is also fun to try to give them a song which they may not have heard in awhile. I do enjoy going over there.

We have another show at the Pines on Davison Road next Monday. I am looking forward to it. We are doing more four-part harmony. I really have to push my range to do first tenor at this age. *It would be better if I could go to second.

Singing and the Dreaded Cold

2010-03-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

I was back to practice with the Brothers in Song yesterday. I hadn't sung anything in about two weeks. All of my higher ranges were gone and the lower ones weren't the best either. You have to start someplace so I did. Everyone else was in some sort of shut down or the other so we made a fine group.

I had new music to work on.

I'm Sitting on Top of the World
Me and My Shadow
Button up your Overcoad
Have I told you lately that I Love You(done before many times)

We have a gig on on thursday so things need to come together by then.

Bill did a Great Job discussing Wordpress and DesignInsideChicago

2010-03-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

This video is very impressive and filled with great information. It is an example of what I would like to see in a video interview. The questions show thought and the answers cover the questions. Nice job Bill!

This is an example and a snippit of what Bill and Katy are doing now. I think many of us would be surprised. Some of us, like me, learn about modern communication and design by following these discussions. I like them.

DesignInsideChicago

Aruba to Michigan and twenty degrees loss.

2010-03-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

I had to think of how different Aruba was from my time on the computer tonight. Now, we had just a beautiful day here. The temp went to 69 degrees but that just isn't as warm are Aruba was when I was there last week. Even after the sun went down the temperature was at least 65. We would sit by the pool and listen to free music. Some times the girls would dance. Sometimes, even I would help. The recreation coordinators at the place we stayed were great at keeping things going. We danced, played trivia, put puzzles together and of course had the Hula Hoop contest. Everything was so much fun. Michigan is fun too, but I will never forget Aruba.

TRON

2010-03-10T17:38:00.000-08:00

The 1982 movie TRON hit my world of 386 computers right between the eyes. I like the movie. I knew just enough to know that TRON was the word for trace-on. In those days you could think about getting inside of the machine because you often had to do it. Besides, the IBM pc was lucky to have a disk drive in those times. so the machines were much smaller. The Apple II was on its way out so not many did machine language, but nobody had the likes of microsoft offfice and movies where out of the question.

I have to see this sequel TRON 2010.

So Connected that I'm in a Snarl.

2010-03-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuit, Blogger, HomePuzz, Picassa, and others. I use all of them. The social networking scene is one of my favorite places but I do end up confused.

I'm not bad on Facebook. I use it for all sorts of things. My Blackberry Storm Facebook Application is one of the first spots I visit in the morning, but I am still a bit lost about how to use it effectively. Don't get me wrong. I often get the word first on what is happening in the family, but I wonder if my science posts should really be mixed in with a note about going to the movies and what was playing.

I use twitter because it is a searchable, wide spread tool that will load Facebook. I like tweetdeck too because of its ability to set up searches on whatever. In fact, I almost never use twitter from within twitter. It always comes from my phone or tweetdeck or my new hootsuite.

Right now, I am very confused about how to use all of these effectively. Maybe, in ten years I will get it.

If this is Tuesday, I am at the Museum

2010-03-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

I saw a magic lantern today. It's funny that I haven't noticed it before. It looked very like a film strip projector with a small smoke stack. This was at the Bay City Antique Mall where I visited while Sue went to the dentist.
I found an American Heritage book from 1967 on the 'Gay Nineties' .
That will fit right in with my work on the Columbian Exposition.

First Day Back for Regular Life

2010-03-08T18:43:00.000-08:00

I was back to the museum and Brothers in Song practice. It really was alot of fun.

2010-02-18T16:41:00.000-08:00

I had a great day today. First, I was up with Sue at 4:30am. Sue volunteered to go into work early today. I was on youTube by about 5:30 using my Blackberry Storm. Verizon can stream a good video signal here at that time of day so I was watching Al Jezera discuss talks in the Middle East. They honestly did a better job than I would normally see here. I also got to check out RichardDawkins.net where I learned he was born in Kenya and what his parents were like.

About 9am I started working on the Bay City History District. I was able to finish it up good enough to turn in for the first draft. That might be the end of this project for me. I need that to happen because I have to start doing my Fair Presentation.

Then, in the afternoon, I went to America House with the Bros in Song were we did about the besty job we have seen. Like I said, it was a good day.

Researching the Bay City Historical District

2010-01-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

I wisely signed up for a smaller area when I had the chance to choose. Mine is a four block area centered on Center Ave and Monroe. I'm trying to find out who has lived there in the past 130 years. It is interesting but not as easy as you might think.

Most of this is done with Polk City Directories, which we have in the Historical Library. In the earliest years, 1867 say you pretty much have to look at everything to see what might be there. Later on, in the 1880's there are three Bay City Directories on books.google.com . Finally, from 1920 on you can check who lived in an area by address.

I'm making progress, but I have a bunch more to go.

A New Decade Begins

2010-01-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and happy new decade everyone. I am at an age where a decade passes in a flash. It seems that just a few days ago I was watching the Millennium dawn across the Pacific Ocean. What a memorable experience that was, but now a new decade approaches. It will be earth shaking in its effects. The first decade of the 21st century saw huge advances in biology, nano-tech, brain science, personal computing, the net and so many other things, but those things have not influenced daily life to the extent that they will. They are held up behind the dam of inertia and lack of knowledge. The dam is breaking.. Never has knowledge moved faster. I read the other day that Americans consumed three times the information today that they did as recently as 1980. That will have its effects. But first, I want to ponder what things have influenced the last ten years in my life.

As the new Millennium dawned, I was still working. GM was much more of a player than today and I was in the truck engineering business. It was exciting. I had the best boss of my career and had just come back from working in Japan. I loved the new systems we were using to build trucks and I had surely built trucks. I built engines and frames for 1973-1975 pick-ups and utility vehicles. I built frames and dressed them out for SUV's; connected the trimmed out bodies to these frames and drove them off the end of the assembly line from 1975 to 1980 then I went into the interior of the cab to build dash boards and install all the trim that makes a vehicle a finished thing instead of a glorified tool box. About 1983, I started building those bodies in the cab shop. I had many fewer people and a lot more hard automation. I learned the machine gun like stutter of a manual spot welding gun and how to dodge the sparks these guns could shoot six-ten feet. I also had the paint department. What a different world that was. When I started, people were doing most of the painting. In my last years in paint, robots did almost all the painting and people cleaned metal and watched them. During the first Iraq War, Dessert Storm, I was in Lordstown, Ohio learning how to build the big Chevy van which we called the G Van. There, we had two men who worked one hour on and one hour off painting the entire inside of this big van. They had breathing devices they had to wear to survive. When they entered the vehicle, sat down on a plastic bucket and started to paint, I saw them no more until they got out of the truck. Baltimore Assembly had a new, electrostatic robot doing this job a year or two later. That robot would reach into the body through the back doors and paint at a terrific rate. The inside of that Astro van was done in about one minute with no human touching anything. It was a marvel.

Robots were far from the biggest changes though. These were caused by part design for assembly, systems changes that scheduled each truck so much better and simple ways that each person's job was set up. All these things together made a working building a truck in 1990 about the equal of 1.5 people from 1973. These were effects of the 'Toyota Production System' which was about as big a change as Henry Ford's assembly line concept.

The seventies were a decade in waiting, as far as the computer was concerned. Oh, big things were happening, especially from the outlook at the time, but computers didn't dominate the decade except in the thoughts of a few of us.

In 1972, when I was still working for Manpower Inc and not yet a truck builder, I went into typewriter exchange in Flint and after much soul searching bought a four function calculator with no memory and an external charger for $180. I was twenty-seven and I just had to have it even though I was only earning $550 per month so it was about a third of a months wages. They had been much more money in the recent past. This thing was a marvel for my industrial engineering buddies who did their math with a Freiden in the office or with a pencil on the side of a box in the plant. This was probably the first calculator to hit Vassar too. At least, my Jaycee buddies had never seen anything like it. After that, for about five years, I regularly bought a new calculator. Normally, these came from Texas instruments and cost about $180. Each time, they had more capacity. I took to carring one on my belt. These things were as big as a hunting knife and could really intimidate in that era. My last one before the computer era was a TI-59 , This could hold 999 program steps and the program could be recorder on a mag strip. A new age had arrived. I got a thermal printer and the calculator for Christmas one year and spent all vacation programming a GM efficiency report. It just made it in the 999 steps. This did the work of two men with one in half the time. I was pleased.

Then I found the teletype that lived in the backroom. Nobody was doing anything with it. so I got a plan. I found out that you could run programs written in Basic on that machine. You hooked the telephone handset into a cradle, dialed a number, listened to the chirping and prayed on hot days. Then you were time sharing on the big computer in the sky. ie Swartz Creek Parts Division. After hours and hours of learning to write basic and coding this program that never ran even the fifth time. I got one running. and put the calculator program out of business. The teletype replaced the two men with only one for two hours per day. Progress!

For my birthday in 1977, I got what has to be the most important present of my life. My friend, Ron Sprague and I drove to Apple Creek Station on the corner of Northwestern Highway and Inkster Road where I bought a newly introduced Apple II for $1190. I was making $1060 per month by then. I brought it home, connected the TV that served as a monitor and was not included. Found and connected my cassette player that would serve as a disk drive and uploaded a program. The theme from 2001 a space Odessey started and my life changed forever. Then came computing magazines and trips to the Apple club in Detroit where people from all kinds of business met to learn about their machines, VisiCalc was invented and business was revolutionized. Visi-Calc was the first program like Excel is today. I had it at home three years before we had it in GM.

In 1980, my plant was ready to try personal computers. My friend, Kiley Reid and I went to Computerland on Dort Highway in Flint and bought an IBM pc with a copy of the brand new Lotus 123. We also got a copy of dBase II which was a relational database like Access. We got it on a friday and my bosses who know nothing about computers ordered me to have a water leak program running by Monday. I worked a long Saturday but we got it.

Flint Assembly spent huge amounts of time and money for the next ten years teaching most of its salaried staff and some hourly how to run these machines. I did a lot of the training for this and set up the original machines. I really was doing industrial engineering work about half the time and PC coordinator work the other half. By 1990 most departments had a PC or two and tens of people were using them every day.

These machines were small though. I got caught up in the scrap problem at Flint.. A big plant like that had about 50,000 different part usages that need to be tracked. PC's of that era had no hard drive at all, The ran on 180 kilobyte floppy disks. most of which had to be for the operating system and some program like dbase or Lotus 123. The scrap program had to run on the main frame.

All kinds of resources might be buried and not used in a large plant like Flint. We had three terminals in industral engineering that connected to the mainframe and ran TSO or Time Share Option. You could do alot with TSO in an era when parts lists were written on sheets of paper with 80 columns and keypunched by a lady two floors above you. TSO let you do keypunching online. No More Lady... TSO let you do computer copying. so if I had a card that was just like the five below it except for one or two keystrokes, I could type one, copy four and edit a couple of characters and be done. No more writing 80 characters x 5 lines or 400 letters and numbers with a pencil. Great!!

Of course there had to be something better than TSO and there was. It was called EZtrieve. Nobody could write it but in GM fashion, we had it, whether we knew it or not. That could sort records. Move them around and add them up. It could write reports. Viola.

Well, not quite. It was not a relational database. In fact it wasn't a real database program at all. but you could fake it. Now relational databases..then and now.. let you do a neat thing. If you have one file that says something like

81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9&C60
81010103010010 00103122 Radiator LS9-C60

and another file that says

00103121 CA21
00103121 CA71
00103121 CC01
00103121 CC05
00103121 FB05
00103122 CA23
00103122 CA72
00103122 CC05
00103122 CC01
00103122 FB06

You can join the two files together on a common key in a one to many relationship and end up with records like

81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9&C60 CA21
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9&C60 CA71
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9&C60 CC01
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9&C60 CC05
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9&C60 FB05
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9-C60  CA23
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9-C60  CA72
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9-C60  CC05
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9-C60  CC01
81010103010010 00103121 Radiator LS9-C60  FB06

Now, that trick doesn't amount to much until you have many files to join and tens of thousands of records in each file and a computer without much capacity. If you have that problem and this technique and do it right you can save $100,000 dollars a year on 50,000 trucks and that was always the point.

Flint had another buried program that was just a classic called Focus. Focus could do almost anything that Access can to today. It wrote fast and ran quickly. It only had one problem. It ran on the main frame and could cost $2000-5000 per month to run,. The boss didn't figure it out for quite a while, but we are still making money. Today, this program would run on a PC with Access for FREE except for the purchase cost. That's what twenty years have done.

In 1991, I got the chance to move from Flint Assembly to Ottawa Towers in downtown Pontiac. It was a great move. and for a few months I wasn't an industrial engineer. I became a process engineer. After almost twenty years, I didn't have a stopwatch. I didn't have standard data books to tell me how long it takes to move a human arm 18 inches.and I didn't do cost studies or work with the union. I made assembly documents. It was probably the best job I ever had. We would decide how to assemble a piece of the a truck in my case medium duty trucks like school buses, gravel trucks, stake racks etc. make a part list and cut and paste a picture of an exploded assembly with leader lines to the parts. I liked it.

Change happened and I ended up with this job and an IE job. OK, that was alright. I helped build the Savanna Van in Wentzville, the Astro van in Baltimore, pickups in Arlington, Texas, and a couple things in Shreveport, La. Finally, I was put on the Colorado, small pickup being designed in Michigan but built worldwide. That is how I got to Japan. and worked for a few days in the Fujisawa Isuzu Plant.

In 2000, Sue and I had three three teen-agers at home and spent a lot of time parenting.. The house was so much busier than it is now and had a fair share of inter-generational conflict. At the end of the decade, I am really pleased with all my kids. They have done so much. That may be the biggest magic that happened this last decade. I started with mostly teenagers and ended with a whole set of these impressive young people that you see dashing through airports with a laptop and a cell phone in full glory.

The computing revolution that began way back at the end of WWII has been a major piece of my life. I have spent so much time on it and it has been so important in my daily thoughts that at this age events prove that it is a major theme of my life.

I have a bunch more to say but I will post this for now.

Avatar is a landmark film

2009-12-24T06:58:00.001-08:00

Avatar is a remarkable film. Its also my first 3D movie. The glasses are horn rimmed now. they don't give me headaches and you can walk to the restroom without taking them off. They won't help your image on date night though.

The story is interesting so you will not be bored duing the 240 minutes of the show. The combat scenes are made for the movies. We still have gunners in guntubs and Patton's view of tank warfare is still with us. Oh sure we have neat but lumbering exoskeleton robots but nobody is into Net-centric communications.

This movie is a retelling of the European taking of America. The native scenes remind me of Catlin's paintings. The native charge on insect horses remind me of the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

I like the movie. Don't look here for what combat on one of the new exo-planets might be like though.

TVO.ORG | Video | Literacy - Web Exclusive: Imagine the Future Episode 3

2009-10-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

TVO.ORG | Video | Literacy - Web Exclusive: Imagine the Future Episode 3

Picking Up Leaves

2009-10-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today was the day to clean up some of the leaves in the yard. This job would be impossible without a good mower. The John Deere does a good job but it still takes a full day to do the entire yard right.

American Samoa and My Wife's Sewing Machine

2009-10-23T10:54:00.000-07:00

The Foot to my wife's Singer Sewing Machine arrived today. It came all the way from American Samoa and works just perfectly. I am thrilled. We had gone to a local sewing shop that only had the wrong part with didn't work at all. The net and T N T sewing solved my problem.

I got three feet and a holder for $15 including shipping. The machine is fixed and I am very happy.

2009-09-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

"1. Ballad Of The Alamo - Marty Robbins" This haunting melody has alway stuck in my mind since I heard it over forty years ago.

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2009-08-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

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This was always one of my favorite songs. I can never know how much movies influenced my view of the world and of morality, but I suspect it is a great deal.

Vassar News - Topix

2009-07-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

Vassar News - TopixIs the local paper letting you down? Do you miss knowing what is happening in your local community? Try topix. I signed in to Vassar’s listings where I found a few things that I didn’t know about local happenings. I will definitely be back to the topix site in the future.

Vassar News - Topix

Oliver 770 Generator

2009-07-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

I got the generator back from the repair shop today. Now to hook it up and pray for the best. It will be so great to have the Oliver 770 back online again.

NUMMI just the latest in Silicon Valley's long history of manufacturing job losses - San Jose Mercury News

2009-07-24T09:18:00.001-07:00

So the plant that I went to for training on the Toyota Production System is in danger of closing. I spent a very valuable two week period in this plant in the late 90’s. Now, it seems, the plant is no longer needed.

NUMMI just the latest in Silicon Valley's long history of manufacturing job losses - San Jose Mercury News

Interior Design Deals

2009-07-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Interior Design Deals

Katy and Bill have a link for shopping on their website. I will have to try this out. It is a new form of web business for me

Daily Rambles on Fora TV

2009-07-23T07:39:00.001-07:00

Culture and Religion in Europe

I really wish I had time to study anything to an ample degree. This video gives hints of some of the dramatic changes that are happening in Europe. It gives a structure of thought that could be used with other approaches and introduces me to a writer that is well know but not known to me.

Ian Buruma is well represented on the net and in print. He spoke well in this discussion with Caryl Phillips on changes in european culture.

The technical aspects of this video are not well done but it is still worthwhile.

Technorati Tags: Ian Buruma,Caryl Phillips,Islam,Europe

Rodents Love Engine Wires

2009-07-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

Rodents Love Engine Wires

Today, I got a $200 shock when my local GM mechanic pulled the top cover off my 2004 Buick LaSabre 3800 and found a mouse nest and a good bit of wire damage where you would expect nothing. A quick internet check revealed that the world has changed and harness insulation now includes soy oil which the little critters love. This seems to be an extensive problem so check your vehicles. My Buick is driven everyday so don't think that makes you safe.

Ayn Rand Reviewed

2009-06-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful study of Ayn Rand these interviews provide.

Facebook | Home

2009-06-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

Facebook | Home: "Super Wall"

Monica Conyers tie to $40K in jewelry probed | detnews.com | The Detroit News

2009-06-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

Monica Conyers tie to $40K in jewelry probed | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Just how much will the voters of Detroit stand for. Granted, Conyers is not convicted. What will be the reaction if she is?

SunOx.org

2009-06-07T18:46:00.001-07:00

SunOx.org

This site has an interview with http://sunox.org/paulagordonshow/life-and-living . It is a very interesting view of the arrival of a new age.

Daily Rambles

2009-05-19T19:54:00.001-07:00

This was a good day. I got the last of the shingles for the ridge of the garage. I worked at the library and got to see Pine Ridge. I plan to do some weed wacking there tomorrow.

Daily Rambles

2009-05-19T19:51:00.001-07:00

Live Writer

2009-04-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

Science Illustrated has this interesting picture of a robot like machine that is the pride of its maker and at least fifty years out of date in approach. Does this man have internet access.?

Katy and Bill

2009-04-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about social networking like Facebook is the quick views of what is taking place in the lives of those you care about. I just love it. Before Facebook, I probably would have never seen this great picture of daughter, Kate, and her husband Bill.

A New Model for Generating the News

2009-04-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

I am sure that there is a need for paid, professional news sources. I don’t see a future for organizations that charge for repeating wire stories on paper. The whole distribution process is in competition with almost free distribution of electronic information that can be audio or video as well as editable and copy-capable. My 3G phone is closer than that awkward paper on the table and gives me access to papers that I never had before.

It is possible that we don’t need paid writers. The USA has so many people who do a great job of writing as an art form or interest. We also have a great number of institutions who distribute well done information for free. That doesn’t cover everything though.

We need something like the wire service that provides the key link between events and written reports of them. This business service needs to be paid by micropayments made to the writer who pays a set fee to the distributing organization. It would be an ebay of reports and ideas. The free market would determine the need for professional, paid writers.

I wrote this in response to a posting on TWO Cents

Had a good day visiting

2009-03-08T20:05:00.001-07:00

Had a good day visiting Sue's cousins , Bruce and Vernon Hayes in Torrence, Califirnia. We went to Rodondo Beach where we visited the Pier.

Building the Garage

2009-02-27T09:04:00.000-08:00

The Garage is getting a Roof

2009-02-08T06:39:00.001-08:00

We have the roof sheeting on the back side. This side should happen today.

FW:

2009-02-05T12:30:00.001-08:00

Is reading "Champllain's Dream in the Jack Wirt Library.

FW: Thought for the day

2009-01-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

Truth is often in front of a man's face but his eyes are closed.

FW: storm

2009-01-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

We have wind chills of down to 25 below.. The wind is wipping. The snow just started. We are supposed to get up to 5 inches. I am not enjoying this.

A January Trip to the Casino

2009-01-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

I am simply not much of a casino person. I see every bet as a potential loss not a gain. I did have fun on the trip though. The people we went with were fun and the day was sunny. I wanted to see what each of these two casinos looked like. Both were very nice. We went to St. Ignace first and then on to Sault Saint Marie. Sault Saint Marie is the bigger of the two.

I found a twenty dollar bill so that made the day.

FW: Christmas Eve and the Snow.

2009-01-09T16:16:00.001-08:00

Plow snow, shovel snow

FW: vassar flood

2008-12-29T13:40:00.000-08:00

This is the cass river in vassar, mich after the new flood control project.

I am reading Blackwater' by

2008-12-28T08:07:00.001-08:00

I am reading Blackwater' by Jeremy Scahill. It has surprising facts on almost every page.
one fact deals with APLP bullets .

booktv

2008-12-26T09:15:00.001-08:00

David Hackett Fischer on booktv did a deep seeing presentation on Champlain's Dream

The weather is so much

2008-12-24T08:14:00.001-08:00

The weather is so much warmer. I plowed driveways here and at Uncle John's. Now it's time to drop off the computer at Maskers. I

FW: meeting

2008-12-21T11:20:00.001-08:00

Our Pine Ridge Cemetery Group at Grandpa Tony's

One True Thing

2008-12-19T08:17:00.000-08:00

I watched 'One True Thing' on Hulu the morning. It reminded me of the cancer death of my father and of my mother's later sickness so much. It was real in a cleaned up sort of way. These deaths are terribly intimate and not at all neat..and the movie had to be at least neat. Each stage of the disease is shown including stages where some of the most important family memories are formed. These are the days that modern cancer treatments buy us. It shows the early death and owns the disease for what it is.

Movie

Chicago

2008-12-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

View from Hancock Tower Lounge.