When I grew up, my family always called it “Decoration Day,” which meant the time was spent sprucing up the graves of the dearly departed, including adding any appropriate flags, flowers or remembrances.
I still look on the Memorial Day holiday as something special because the men and women in the military have often been called upon to give up their lives so the rest of us can be free. We should always remember that. I don’t believe we consider that often enough, honestly.
Personally, I had enough of the white stuff just a couple of months ago when we were literally buried with it during Snowpocalypse. But some folks can never get enough … if you are in San Francisco. Here’s a story from sfgate.com:
>>A rare late-spring storm, coming at the end of what has been a chilly May, will lead to a most unusual promotion this weekend at one Sierra resort – skiing on Memorial Day.
By then the weather should be sunny and warmer, but for the rest of this week, damp skies will be the rule in the mountains and the Bay Area flatlands, forecasters said Tuesday.
A weather system moved onshore about midday Tuesday, bringing widespread rain to the Bay Area and snow to about the 6,900-foot level around Lake Tahoe. At least one resort is taking advantage of the weird weather to invite skiers to enjoy one last fandango on the slopes.
After eight seasons, the phenomenon that was 24 has concluded. This program demanded that we pay attention to what was happening on the screen, and that was something new and special compared to “background” television programs that you didn’t have to watch carefully.
Here’s one review, from Mary McNamara at the Los Angeles Times:
>>In the end, it all came down to Jack and Chloe, surely one of television’s most complicated, and unconsummated, romances. Yes, Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) is married and Jack ( Kiefer Sutherland) has had his string of disastrous love affairs, but it was Chloe who saved him from all his enemies, including, in the second-to-the-last hour of the series, himself. And it was Chloe to whom Jack directed his final farewell via drone satellite. “When you first came to CTU,” he said, bloodied but unbowed as ever. “I never thought it was going to be you that was going to cover my back all those years…. Thank you.”
It was AOL that really turned me on to the Internet. Was it really so long ago that I bought a floppy disc with AOL on it for $25 (before they started sending them out like crazy)? Here’s a report from Washington Business Journal about this landmark:
>>Steve Case and Jim Kimsey returned to the Dulles campus of the online company they co-founded in 1985 to mark AOL Inc.’s 25th anniversary.
Ted Leonsis, AOL’s vice chairman emeritus, was also there, as was current CEO Tim Armstrong and about 2,000 other AOL employees and alumni.
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, drew a lot of inspiration from the scientists of his day when he made the show. Now, it seems, the show is inspiring the scientists of today and tomorrow, according to slipperybrick.com.
If you happen to go to the lobby of Microsoft’s Studio D located in Redmond, Washington, you might “boldly go where no man has gone before.” In that room, you’d find a sculpture of the cast of the original Star Trek that continually gives the appearance that Kirk, Spock and the rest are beaming in or out.
I was pleasantly surprised when I dove into the social-networking site Facebook a few months back. In just a few weeks, I had re-connected with several friends I had lost touch with, including one friend who’s wife had passed and he had remarried in the 10 years since we last spoke. I also connected with my closest friend, who now lives in Florida, and we keep in better touch. And one friend from my college days has been very busy creating a large family, and he may even be a great-grandfather by now. Then, too, I have made several new friends, including an aspiring actor from the NYC area who is working very hard to become a successful acting professional. And I have been able to keep in touch with several musicians I admire, and keep up with their offerings of new music.
One of the dangers of social networking sites is that information can be unwittingly given out that could make problems for the person releasing it. For instance, many unscrupulous characters have searched for funeral notices in newspapers in order to know when the family would be busy at the funeral of a loved one so they could raid the person’s home address. Or it could be like the case of the professional football player who announced his affair on Facebook, which was read by his very unhappy wife. Yikes!
Today, for the first time in about a year, I’ll get to attend the monthly club meeting of the U.S.S. Chesapeake Star Trek and Science Fiction Club, based in the Washington, D.C. area.
As I mentioned in the first of these blog entries, my work schedule changed recently. Until early May, I had spent a year working on Saturdays, which made it very difficult to get to even a part of the club’s regular gatherings. Heck, I even had trouble getting to the club’s Writers’ Group, which has been working on scripts for fan films based in the Classic Trek era.
It’s amazing what some people will do sometimes! Check out this story from CBS3.com:
>>Philadelphia Police are searching for the heartless thief who stole a wheelchair and a dog from a man who suffers from cerebral palsy.
The shocking theft happened at about 11 a.m. Thursday outside a convenience store located at 27th and Lehigh Avenue in North Philadelphia. Warren Lloyd parked his motorized wheelchair outside the Yoscar Mini Market and went inside to get a sandwich. His dog was in a carrying case on the back of the wheelchair. In the time it took Lloyd to go inside and pay for his food, the thief struck and made off with Lloyd’s wheelchair and his dog. View full article »
I’m fascinated that the mascots for London’s 2012 Olympics and Paralympics are … honestly, I don’t know just what they are, really. Here’s the story from The Guardian:
>>In the end they were neither animal, vegetable nor mineral. Nor, as some cynics had predicted, did they resemble white elephants.
Instead, Wenlock and Mandeville, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic mascots, elicited mostly baffled reactions as to just what they were at their unveiling today.
With a metallic finish, a single large eye made out of a camera lens, a London taxi light on their heads and the Olympic rings represented as friendship bracelets on their wrists, they resemble characters dreamed up for a Pixar animation.
I’m a PC guy–my head understands the PC vastly better than it does the Mac, which has always been true. But every once in a while, I see something I like better about the Mac, and this is one of those occasions! Thanks to Gay Slagle for pointing this out to me! It functions much like my iPhone does, which is pretty smooth!
Here’s the official release about the product:
We’ve built a better mouse.
It began with iPhone. Then came iPod touch. Then MacBook Pro. Intuitive, smart, dynamic. Multi-Touch technology introduced a remarkably better way to interact with your portable devices — all using gestures. Now we’ve reached another milestone by bringing gestures to the desktop with a mouse that’s unlike anything ever before. It’s called Magic Mouse. It’s the world’s first Multi-Touch mouse. And while it comes standard with every new iMac, you can also add it to any Mac with Bluetooth wireless technology for a Multi-Touch makeover.
