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.

Life in my House in 1950

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

 

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

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.