And for those that haven’t seen it in previous years, here I am desperately throw a gang sign calling for immediate help.
Category Archives: Snapshots & Fragments
MacWorld: Waiting in line in the dark and the cold
Sarah Palin has another book signing at noon today at the Barnes & Noble in Sioux City, Iowa. Supporters spent the night in the parking lot in hopes of getting their book signed. My friend Kay drove up from Des Moines to cover the event and took some photos. The wind chill was about 9 degrees.
Her story and photos got me thinking about things about which I care enough to wait in line, in the cold (I hate both). I couldn’t come up with much.
There was the time George (pictured), David and I waited in bitter cold weather to attend a taping of Digg Nation in St. Louis.
I had not idea San Francisco could be so cold at 4:30 a.m. or I would not have waited in line to see Steve Jobs give a keynote at MacWorld.
But the coldest of the cold will always be (I hope) the inauguration. My hands are shaking just typeing these words.
For whom/what have you/are you willing to wait all night in the freezing cold?
It’s damned cold in Santa’s kitchen
Rollip turns digital pix into Polaroids
I loved Polaroids for the same reason I love small digital cameras. I got to see and share the photo immediately. No waiting for processing. And there was a space on the front of the photo to write name/date/place.
Rollip is a website that turns your digital photo into a faux Polaroid. I can probably do this faster in Photoshop but if you like this effect, Rollip is fun, easy and free.
Learfield’s “kitchen conference room”
When I started at Learfield Communications in 1984, the business was operated from a 3-story brick house on McCarty Street in Jefferson City, MO. The rooms were jammed with desks and partitions and the kitchen was the “common area.” In this photo (below), you see Clyde, Clarice Brown, Bob Priddy (all still with us) and a few others.
This image captures that time very well. There was very much a family feel to the company. The days of high-tech conference rooms were many years in the future. This is one of several images I scanned from a contact sheet (thus the poor quality). The original prints are undoubtedly buried in a box in some closet.
Working on a new doo
Man with umbrella, boy with balloon (see comment)
My kind of war
I’ve read a lot news stories, blog posts and tweets this weekend, reminding everyone to remember the men and women who served and died in defense of our country. How best to do that? Little American flags? Those magnetic yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbons?
My dad was in the Navy (a radio operator) and saw action in the pacific during WWII. He survived but never talked about it. To me or anyone else as far as I know. I do recall my mom telling me how relieved everyone was when it “started looking like we would win” the war. That was the first time I really understood it was possible for our country to lose a war. The movies always included some drama on that score but you knew the good guys would prevail. Not so for those who fought the thing.
Perhaps the best time to remember our men and women in uniform is before we send them off to fight and die. And if the cause isn’t just and right –whatever that means anymore– we don’t send them.
I grew up during the Cold War and I kind of miss it. If you think about it, a thermonuclear war is the only war where the politicians –who decide to go to war– might die in the first ten minutes. That is my kind of war.
More photos of ice storm damage
Photo above –taken by Matthew Howard– shows why many homes in southeast Missouri are still without power. Matthew managed to get some photos on his Facebook page and give me permission to share a few here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a utility pole snapped in two. Or this much ice damage to trees. And this close-up sort of tells the story.
Ice storm Kennett Missouri
As power is slowly restored to some parts of southern Missouri, more photos like this one are getting out as folks get back online. This is Nancy’s home (Kennett, MO) and you get some sense of just how much ice it would take to bring down a tree limb this size.