Score! Two points!

or: "and the Lithuanian judge gives that an 8.6!"

Buffalo, NY, early 1960's. I'm somewhere in the range of five or six years old, wandering the railroad tracks that I've been told innumerable times to keep off of. This being me that we're talking about, I am oblivious to the world around me; totally engrossed in whatever weird 'young Terry' world I happened to be occupying on that particular day.

Suddenly a huge locomotive comes barreling around a blind curve at 500 MPH* and starts blaring the horn of imminent manglement.  Imagine, if you will, how I instantly dove head-first off of the tracks, cruised gracefully down the embankment, passing through tree limbs and brush on the way, and ended up jammed to the shoulders in one of those wooden bushel baskets used for apples (that had been dropped amongst said bushes) - with my head poking out after having busted through the bottom.

Damned trains have no consideration.

*  Note that '500 MPH' is possibly a slight exaggeration.

To all the authors I've loved or hated, "Thank you."

Thank you

I wonder sometimes what it means when I say that I love to read?

Does it mean that I only want to be entertained by someone, and then discard them and their work without a word of thanks?

There are a number of authors that have influenced and inspired me over the years.  People who have taught me things that I otherwise never would have known, or even thought to consider. Yet I never made an effort to thank them. Of course, many of them were long gone even before my mother and father spent that night on the riverbank near Charlotte, North Carolina.  However, there are others that I could have contacted and expressed my appreciation to at the time, yet they too are gone now.

I'm thinking about this because I'm completing one of my periodic re-readings of the essays of the physician and researcher Lewis Thomas, specifically: The Lives of a Cell, The Medusa and the Snail, and Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony. It occurred to me as I was reading that I didn't even know whether he was still alive; although I was pretty sure that I'd noted his passing many years ago.  I checked online afterwards, and found that he died in 1993.  That makes me sad.

It makes me sad because everywhere I look today, people are complaining and screaming about how awful everyone else is.  Very few people want to think about the intrinsic beauty that can be found in a myriad of items all around them, including the people that they encounter in the course of their lives on a daily basis.  So yeah, it makes me sad because I look at our own (yes, mine too) bad examples and cringe internally. It makes me sad because I remember how much hope I had growing up, how essays like those moved me and made me want to do whatever little part I could to help improve the world; and I have done some things, things that only I'll ever be aware of, but I wish that I had done more.  Mostly though, it saddens me because I never took the five minutes to write to Mr. Thomas, or any of the others, to tell them how much they had moved, improved, and inspired me.

Too late now, but I'm sorry Mr. Thomas... ...and thanks for everything.

I think that they're spying on me

Even in my car

Yesterday, while my wife and I were driving to pick our oldest son up at school, I noticed a late model Jeep with a huge "WILLIES" decal on both sides of the hood.

That's not a Willys Jeep

That started a discussion between us where we were talking about Willys Jeeps, then Chrysler Jeeps, and finally AMC Jeeps.

Sorry, what's an AMC?

My wife was not really around by the time that American Motors went out of business, so I brought up two of their models that I knew that she would be familiar with; the AMC Pacer and the AMC Gremlin.

Hey, wait a minute now

Today, this showed up on the sidebar on Facebook:

AMC Gremlin used in a Colon test ad

Coincidence?  I don't think so!

My very first exercise bike

Simeri Crichi, Italy, early 80's.

In the late 1970's through the early 1980's I was COCO's Assistant (Coordinator Of Chain Operations)/Chain Communications Petty Officer for the Coast Guard Mediterranean Sea LORAN-C (LOng Range Aids to Navigation - a precursor of GPS) chain, at the Master Station located outside of Sellia Marina, Italy.

Google Maps view of Sellia Marina, Italy

This being southern Italy, it tended to get quite hot during the summer.  Luckily, in addition to some cars, I also owned two motorcycles (mostly just buying vehicles from people ending their tours and heading back to the states). I used the bikes quite often, since I'm not really a big fan of hot climates.

A view of the station from Google Earth.

On one of these 100+ F (about 38+ C) days I took my Laverda GTL 750 out to enjoy the twisty-turney roads available throughout the mountainous foothills of the Catanzaro Region. At about 2:00 in the afternoon, I decided to take a break, stretch my legs, and enjoy the scenic views.  Finding a suitable location on a somewhat safe curve in the road which had a grand vista due to an abrupt (though relatively gentle, considering) drop-off, I stopped the bike, put it on the side stand and went off on a walk to stretch my legs and explore a bit.

Well darn, I should have seen that coming

I'm sure you see where this is leading.  Black asphalt.... 104 degree Fahrenheit sunshine.... 750cc motorcycle on a skinny little side-stand.... 150 minutes later, after finally having manhandled the bike back up the 80 foot, 60 degree slope - with numerous zig zags and loopbacks, all I could think of was how happy I was that I hadn't decided to take my 1200cc BMW.

The Model I had -- a 1974 Laverda 750 GTL-S

Do you love house rabbits?

Do bunnies rule your family?

If you have bunnies as part of your family and would like to get some cute house rabbit related tees, you should check out my wife's shop on Etsy.  In addition to running my own shop, I am also the screen printing golem for my wife's items,  which can be found at http://laseraphincreations.Etsy.com. This shop is strictly hers, and the proceeds are hers to do with as she pleases.

Here are some examples of her tees

With more coming all of the time.

Big Buns House Rabbit Shirt

Ask me about my bunny shirt

Bunny 500 Racing House Rabbit Shirt

The One Who Thumps House Rabbit Shirt

My Heart Has Joined The Thousand House Rabbit Shirt

Rabbit Facts House Rabbit Shirt

Visit her shop at http://laseraphincreations.etsy.com

Learn to adapt

Do you adapt to change?

Learn to Adapt (with 45RPM adapter) tee

I'm trying to push this particular tee in January. I'd like to start the year out knowing that people are out there using their brains and listening to and taking opposing viewpoints into consideration.  I'm sometimes guilty of confirmation bias myself, so I know that I'll be making a more active effort to obtain as much relevant information as possible and modifying my stance on issues as appropriate.

I'm hoping to see at least fifteen sales of this particular tee before the end of the month. With that in mind, I'm reducing the price to $11.99 for the rest of the month. I doubt that it will get the fifteen sales, but a person needs to dream.

Learn to Adapt (with 45RPM adapter)

It doesn't have to be black on yellow.

You can request custom color combinations.  I mostly used yellow because the majority of the 45RPM adapters were yellow.  As shown in the first photo, the shirt I just did up for myself used grey for the design/shadows and black for the text.

I've also increased the size of the 45RPM adapter in relation to the shirt, and darkened it up some.  That will be the new format for them.

Now available at both stores.

On sale for $11.99 through the end of January.

The shirt is now available at both of the shops. You can get it at the online store (the preferred choice, for me) - or at the Etsy shop.

Get the shirt here

New shirt for the IT types and neighborhood 'computer experts.'

Have you tried flinging poo at it? tee

This shirt has an IT department chimp on the phone - reminiscent of Roy and Moss with their classic "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" - but with a decidedly simian perspective.  

Stop by and check it out at The Wits' End

Not-So-Great moments in my computing history.

January, 1981. My first full-fledged computer game programming effort comes to a successful fruition. I had, of course, "programmed" games before that; however, they were either laboriously entered from magazines like COMPUTE!, ANTIC, or A.N.A.L.O.G. or they were simple things done up in the vein of that type of program (not to imply that the magazine programs were simple, just that my efforts were.).

January saw me complete a program that I was quite proud of. It was in Atari 8K BASIC, but it incorporated machine language routines loaded dynamically into Page 6 as needed, display list interrupts, Player Missile graphics (known as "sprites" on other systems), original graphics, "music" and sound effects.

I no longer have the program, so I can't give any screen shots or anything, but it was basically a variation of Space Invaders. The name of this awesome first programming effort?

Save Your Sister From the Alien Sperm!

I am simultaneously proud and shamed.