Old Smokes
My grandfather had a variety of stuff in his “treasure box”. Some of these things were packs of cigarettes he picked up on his travels. The designs are pretty cool, so I scanned them. These are good for design or color scheme inspiration.
Call any phone with Google Voice
Google Voice just made it so that you can call any phone for free directly from your Gmail account. I’ve been using it all morning with great success.
It made calling Comcast and the DMV nice and easy. My dad said that the call sounded better than my cellphone.
Trees of Mystery
Another estate sale find. I picked up some old educational slide show presentations, complete with cassette tapes. First up is a presentation about the Trees of Mystery in Oregon.
I scanned all the slides, digitized the tape, and put it all together in iMovie. This was my first attempt using iMovie, and it turned out OK. It’s about as exciting as you’d expect from a 1970′s classroom presentation, complete with “Paul Bunyan” doing the voice-over.
Red Cross Trainmobile
Here’s a treasure I picked up at a rummage sale a while ago. Two very large 16″ acetates* that lost their labels a long time ago. I love picking up unmarked acetates as they’re a complete surprise. Sometimes it’s a child’s bad piano rehearsal, sometimes it’s gold like this one.
The recording is a WWII field report for NBC that’s almost 13 minutes long. The reporter (Tom Stewart) is in Italy doing a segment on a Red Cross Trainmobile called the “Yankee Dipper”.
I have been trying to research the “Yankee Dipper”, but have not found any information. The Red Cross website says:
Records indicate that specialized use of railroad cars during World War II may have been limited to two “trainmobiles” that delivered services and comfort supplies to Allied armed forces overseas, much like the converted buses and trucks, called “clubmobiles“, that provided doughnuts and coffee to the military.
Now Reading: The Poisoner’s Handbook
I recently picked up The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York and I am enjoying it thoroughly. As some of you know, I’m a sucker for books about obscure American history.
This one follows the birth of forensic science in early 20th century New York. I’m only a few chapters in and it’s completely sucked me in. A nice combination of history and crime drama.
“Deborah Blum makes chemistry come alive in her enthralling account of two forensic pioneers in early 20th-century New York. Blum follows the often unglamorous but monumentally important careers of Dr. Charles Norris, Manhattan’s first trained chief medical examiner, and Alexander Gettler, its first toxicologist.”
Interesting Article About Miscegenation
It’s an older article (2004) but it’s a damn good one.
One aspect that I found particulary note-worthy are the arguments against interracial marriage in the 1780′s:
- First, judges claimed that marriage belonged under the control of the states rather than the federal government.
- Second, they began to define and label all interracial relationships (even longstanding, deeply committed ones) as illicit sex rather than marriage.
- Third, they insisted that interracial marriage was contrary to God’s will, and
- Fourth, they declared, over and over again, that interracial marriage was somehow “unnatural.”
Sound familiar?
Lost: The Official Show Auction
If you’re a LOST fan and you’ve got a lot of extra cash lying around, now you can own pieces from the show.
My wife is opening for The Blasters!
There’s excitement at home this morning. My wife got confirmation that she’s the opening act for The Blasters when they play in Sacramento!
When: Sunday, August 29th – 3:00pm – 8:00pm
Where: California Automobile Museum, 2200 Front Street, Sacramento, CA
Renraku.com v10.0
Woo! I can’t remember exactly what version this reincarnation is, but it’s at least 10.
I built the WordPress theme from scratch and spent a few days getting the style where I wanted it.
I’ve been running a few separate blogs, but I think I’ll just make this the one-stop-shop for that stuff. I’ll probably start by re-posting some content from the other blogs here just to get the content going.
