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

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

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

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

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?

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

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.