More Neighborhood eXcitement

On Friday as I was going to work I saw about 5 men in Stuey's old house next door. I'm not sure what they were doing but they all looked like contractor types. Today, I saw a man cutting the grass next door with a riding lawnmower. I can barely contain my excitement. I'm just curious about who our new neighbors will be. Also on Thursday afternoon I saw a man wearing a suit step in the house carrying a briefcase. He looked like he might be an appraiser. I'm unable to make any connection between him and the 5 guys I saw there Friday morning.

Last night there was a party at the house across the way from Stuey's house. There were about 15 cars parked on the street and at one point someone stepped outside and put on a juggling show with flourescent lanterns. I observed the whole show from my kitchen window. It was well done, accompanied by booming music.

Currently Jacksonville Jaguars are playing against the Indianapolis Colts at the Dome. The Jags keep getting the ball down to the red zone but are unable to punch it in for 6. This just in, a Jacksonville field goal has given them a 16-14 lead with about 14 minutes left in the 4th quarter.

Again, I've managed to spend another weekend putting off yard work. As I like to say, I'll get to it "at some point".

More Empty Houses

The house next door to us still sits empty. There is a bag of phone books out front gathering rain and is there no one there to take them home. I haven't brought my phone books in from the cold either. The whole phone book concept seems outdated nowadays. If I need a number I'll go look it up on the web rather than pull out some 2000 page tome to get a listing that might be out of date.

Also, no one has yet moved into Elizabeth's house down the street. I've seen a red pickup in the driveway at times during the day but I've seen nothing going on there. Also around the corner and across from the park is a house that sits empty. It belong to an older woman who has moved somewhere else but has not bothered to sell her house. There are shrubs out in front that have overgrown and obscure the home. I met her neighbor at a Canterbury Board meeting and he was hoping that she would sell it some time.

Now that hound dog Rex is back I have an opportunity to "patrol" the neighborhood again but haven't talked to anyone lately, just observations on empty houses.

I don't miss the roar of motorcycles from next door but Stuey was a pretty good neighbor although I had perhaps 2 conversations over the four years we lived side by side. I hope to be able to chat a bit more often with whoever moves in next door.

Another departure from the neighborhood

I was walking with Rex down the street last night and I saw Elizabeth and Ken loading up the horse trailer in their driveway. The trailer was attached to a large SUV with Washington state plates. The house sold a few weeks ago and the last time I talked to Elizabeth she told me she was moving to Washington with Ken which is where he is from.

Today when I took Rex on our morning jaunt and walked past her house and saw the trailer and SUV were gone. There probably on the road right now. I'm not sure when the people who bought their house are moving in. Also, the vacant but professionally winterized home is still vacant and I doubt anyone has been in the house since I saw the workers over there last Saturday.

Brant and I went to the Colts game Sunday, the home team one in decisive fashion 35-14. It was the first game I'd been to since they lost to Tennessese in 2002. Perhaps this is the year the Colts get to the Superbowl.

Where is Stuey-Lee

I had a next door neighbor over the past four years who I hardly ever spoke to. He has apparently left his home without biding me farewell. He went by the name of "Stuey".

I noticed a moving truck in front of my neighbor's house earlier this week. I thought that he had a roomate moving in or out. On Thursday I noticed an awful lot of stuff brought out for the garbage. I still wasn't sure what was going on.

Today I saw a pickup truck with a dome for a flashing light on top, nothing too official just something similar to what you would see on highway department maintenance vehicle. I saw a guy leaving the house with a few garbage bags full of stuff. I walked over to him and asked, "Do you know where Stuey went to?"

"I'm just working here, I'm hired to clean out the house, it's my job, I don't know nothing else.", he replied. I walked back over to my house trying to figure out what was going on. There are no "For Sale" or "For Rent" signs out in front, if he had sold the house to a friend or family member I imagine he wouldn't hire a guy with a semi-official looking pickup truck to clean up. I wonder if he was foreclosed out of the property. I wouldn't think so but I don't know what else to speculate.

Later this afternoon, after the truck was gone I walked back to the house. I saw a small green and white sign in the front window. It said, "This house has been officially winterized: 10/10/2004." Below the text was a signature presumably of the man I had spoken to earlier today. The front door has a relator's combination lock on it. Perhaps at some point the home will be put on the market.

I never knew my neighbor very well. I talked to a roomate of his a few years ago and once this past summer when I was playing ball with Rex I kicked it over my privacy fence and it went into his yard. I went over there to retrieve it and spoke with him briefly. I never heard much from him except when he and his friends were revving up their motorcycles which they were known for doing at all hours of the night.

Across the street from him, I saw another neighbor moving out. There was a "for sale" sign in the yard about a month ago and I assume the house has sold and she is moving on. I think she just moved in last year. Who knows? Just another neighbor I don't know much about.

I did call Brian Boak who lives down the street from me on Thursday. I invited him to go to the Colts game with me but his mother is visiting from Atlanta on Sunday and they are celebrating her birthday.

I got in touch with Brant and we are going to the Colts game on Sunday. I hope they win as the Colts are my pick for the survival league this week.

Rex released today from CCI

I've just given my blog a new template. It looks pretty cool, perhaps it shall motivate me to write more. Does anyone read this thing? It's been months since I 've seen a comment on it.

Rex was released from Canine Companions for Independence today. He has been in advanced training for about 6 weeks but has been a bit difficult. Rex is a real high-energy dog and we doubted he would pass, still there was hope that he would have made it through the 6 months of Advanced Training and been placed with a handicapped person. Mary is going to Columbus on Sunday to pick him up and take him home. We hope to adopt him out to a family that would like a very nice active dog.

I was watching TV monday night and the "American Experience" had a show on about Robert Kennedy. I only saw the last 10 mintues and it was painful to watch knowing how everything was going to end. The footage from the funeral train was really moving. I got the vibe as a train as a metaphor for life, passing by in a linear fashion a glimpse here and glipse there, onward to the next town.

I ripped most of my "Schau ins Land" CDs into my iTunes so now I can listen to German news and culture without having to find my CD wallet.

At the end they showed the funeral and read from the quote that is on his tombstone.

"He who learns must suffer. In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God"

Aeschylus

What I'm reading right now.

In the fiction category, I'm going through Robert Wilson's "Instruments of Darkness". It's about a British expat in West Africa looking for a missing person amidst intrigue ranging from sheanut trees to dead bodies in swimming pools. Reading the book makes me want to see on a veranda in 105 degree heat and drink whisky on the rocks. All of the European characters are portayed as half crazed drunks trying to hide some deep secret, escape the past or both.

Also I'm reading "Joel on software". It's a collection of articles that Joel Spolsky has written on his website He has some good ideas, one of them being practing your writing skills my updating your blog regularly.

I was talking to Woodie today about his cabin on Lake Wawasee in northern Indiana. He was telling me that he has to close his place up for the winter but wants to keep the heat running so he can go up there over the Holidays and use the place. We were talking about ways to monitor the temperature remotely and I suggested purchase a large digital read out thermometer, mount it on a wall and point a webcam at it. He could just log in from work check his webcam and note the temperature up at his cabin. It would be a hi-low tech solution. Or you could employ some sort of image recognition software that could actually "read" the temperature post it to a database and fire a trigger if the value got below 60 degrees.

a great movie

"Lost in Translation"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335266/

I rented it and saw it twice last week. The picture was amazing, it really made me think about a lot of things.

It's one of those ambient movies where the pacing is slow and you have to let the atmosphere tell the story. Also there aren't many characters aside from the leads but Japan itself is a character and serves as a metaphor for alientation and disconnected feelings.

I'm going to order the soundtrack online. I tried to find it at Target, attempted to download it from Itunes but no go. I don't even know of a dedicated record store in the Indianapolis area.
I could go to Barnes and Noble but I never have much luck finding stuff there.

I keep on listening to the song "Sometimes" from the group "My Bloody Valentine" that is from the movie.

I'm back from my trip in Europe and I tried to post earlier this week but it the blogger site timed out and it never got up there

it's been a while

I was in Europe for two weeks with my wife and mother.

We were in Paris, the Swiss Alps and visited my relatives in Switzerland.

I am now back on the job. It wasn't till I got back here that I realized how sedentary this job is.

One sits in the cube and sits and sits.... There is an occasional meeting to attend but there are some weeks when even that doesn't occur. At lunch there's always the opportunity to get out of the cubicle into your car and head to the nearest fast food drive in for a nutritious meal.

Except for the trip from Paris to Basel, we didn't take any lengthy train trips. Perhaps one day we will take the Glacier Express. I think that train runs from Zermatt to Saint Moritz.

I' m eagerly waiting the Microsoft XP security patch.

I wonder what new "features" it will offer

Went to Bub's in Carmel tonight with a crew from my wife's work. I did not have the big ugly but did have 6 highly nutritious "V" wings.

"If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new"
Voltaire

Bertrand Russell quote:

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts"

I was first became familiar with the name "Bertrand Russell" while watching the movie "Taxi Driver" where the Wizard (Peter Boyle) is speaking to Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) outside a coffee shop.

tour de France
 
With 90% of sports talk radio devoted to talking of trades and draft choices it's nice to see some actual sport taking place.  OLN (Outdoor Life Network) is showing the Tour de France daily.  Yesterday I saw Lance Armstrong battling his way to second place through the Pyrenees.  It's incredible watching the cyclists make those steep climbs.
 
Today was a short segment on the tour into the city of Nimes so not as exciting as yesterday.  The race resumes on tuesday when they head to the alps.
 
It's been pleasantly mild this July with relatively low humidty and temperatures in the low 80's. 

my car sucks

For the forth time in 9 months my car has broken down

there are the occasions of ailment

# Oct 15: battery dies

# May 1: serpentine belt snaps

# May 15: tensioner assembly collapses

# tonight: I have no idea what happened but the car died in the parking lot at Fountain Square. I waited 2 hours for the tow truck to show up. Ironically, I was planning on attending a Buddhist meditation class at Fountain Square. Going south on College the car was making all sorts of weird sounds and having a hard time getting acceleration from a stop. Well, while the rest of the class was learing about samsara, I was experiencing the real thing. Thankfully I was able to accumulate merit and practice patience and put the results into the path.

reading an old Article in the Atlantic Monthly about Robert Moses, the man who was the driving force between many of the bridges, tunnels, parks and parkways in the New York area. When I was growing up in Niagara Falls, NY we lived right off of the Robert Moses Parkway and that was the first limited access highway I became aquainted with.

Ironically Robert Moses never drove a car, I don't believe he ever had a drivers license.
The man who designed all these highways never himself drove down them.

I'd like to list these improbable occupations I've run across in my life:

I had a roofer once who lived on the first floor of a 5 story apartment building.

A mortage broker who rented an apartment.

I tried to think of some hypothetical ones:

A dentist with no teeth

A teetotaler that runs a bar

..list to be continued...

Ta gai lem holle dai!

nice long weekend, mostly spent in leisure

I've finished reading "Amnesia Nights" by Quinton Skinner. It's a good book that kept me guessing up to the end as to what the outcome would be.

The amazon link is here below.

Amnesia Nights

I've started reading "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote and am about 1/3 of the way through. Not much suspense in this one as I've read it before and am aware of the fate of the Clutter family. Still a fascinating read and the book that kicked off the "true crime" genre.

I saw two DVDs also, "Spellbound" and "The Basketball Diaries". The later has the infamous classroom shootout, with Leonardo DiCaprio wearing a trench coat and laying waste to his classmates. At one point I turned on the subtitles and had a revealing moment in regards to song lyrics. In one scene a basketball game is under way to the tune of the Doors: "Riders on the Storm". The lyrics came through on the subtitles and when I saw the line "Take a long holiday" I was taken aback. I don't know why but somehow I thought that Jim Morrison was chanting some Native American prayer or eastern phrase ala "Jai Guru Deva Om" in the Beatles "Across the Universe". To me the Doors lyrics always sounded "Ta gai lem holle dai -- Let your children play". Weird

I also went to a cookout at my friends Richard and Vickie's house and ended up manning the grill. Richard kept asking me how to barbeque chicken and then asked me to prepare and cook the food. I was more than happy to assist him soaking the poultry in the bbq sauce and tending to it on the charcoal grill.

sunday around 5 pm

We just had our 2nd annual 56th street ice cream social sponsored by my wife the neighborhood block captain. Both young and old were in attendance. The youngest was Brian and Lynn's son Henry who is 13 months old, the oldest being Martha who exact age we are unaware of but she told us once that she got married in 1945.
It was a very pleasant day for the event, warm and sunny but not humid. The past week the weather has almost been like fall. The event ran from 1-3 pm but most people showed up around 2 and we were out in the driveway until about 4.

Watching Henry the 13 month old was interesting. I have no children nor any nieces or nephews so being around kids is a rarity. There are few youngsters on the street, aside from Henry the only other children are two elementary school aged kids whose names escape me at the moment. My mother once told me that I did not learn to walk until I was 18 months old. I watch Henry amble about confidently albeit with support from outdoor furniture and chairs and wonder what I was doing at 13 months. Was I that clumsy or did I just love powercrawling around the house.

Currently my 3 cats, Bindi, Stanley and Sophie are circling the basement posting themselves by my chair as according to their estimation it is supper time. It's funny watching them all scramble down the basement stairs in unison, Stanley the most hyperactive one skipping through the air and landing ahead of another cat to get to his food bowl as they make the descent. Alas, Master Bart is not ready to feed the young beasts as the hour of 5 pm has not yet struck.

Our book club has chosen Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" for this month so I will get my copy from the library this week and read it over the fourth of July weekend.

My favorite Urban Legend

Is Clint Eastwood the son of Stan Laurel?

Most of the stuff I find on Snopes as the result of some e-mail that's been forwarded on to me about $50 Applebee's Gift Certificates, kidney thieves in Las Vegas or poisonous snakes at the children's playground at Burger King.

The legend claiming that Clint Eastwood is the son of Stan Laurel is one I discovered on my own and is a personal favorite. Snopes.com mentions that Clint Eastwood was born the same month that Stan Laurel's wife gave birth to a son who died 9 days after being born. The rumor has it that the baby didn't die, was given up for adoption and was taken into the Eastwood home. Who knows maybe it is true? Has Clint Eastwood ever come forward and proved that he's not the son of Stan Laurel? What is he trying to hide from us? I'm growing suspicious.

Sometimes when people send me the Urban Legend e-mail I'm inclined to write them back and introduce to them the wonders of Snopes and how they should check every e-mail against the Snopesbase to verify what they are reading. Some programmer out there should add that to e-mail filtering software. It would detect an Urban Legend and attach the Snopes reference to the message so that the user could get all the facts at once.

I enjoyed the Laurel and Hardy movies growing up. My Dad would check them out from the library in reel to reel format(no VCRs or DVDs in my childhood, sonny). On New Years Eve at church we would have a potluck and my Dad would show a Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin movie. Also there was a program called "Supes On" on Channel 43 WUAB in Cleveland and the first hour of the program usually featured a Stooges or Laurel and Hardy movie. Going to church to see an old comedy sure beats going to Sunday School.

many thoughts crossing into my mind at the moment.

in the news I've heard of a terrorist plot to bomb malls in Columbus, Ohio. I found this news a bit alarming being a former resident of the city and having frequented its malls many times. For those not acquainted here's a rundown based on personal experience.

Northland Mall: otherside of town from where I grew up. It no longer exists, is used to be the main mall in CoCo town when I was a kid but the surrounding neighborhood decayed and the mall went down the tube with it. I only remember being there once, to see the movie "Teachers" with Nick Nolte, Judd Hirsch and yours truly. I was an extra in the film and was actually congratulated by Aaron Russo, the executive producer for my performance in a scene. This scene ended up on the cutting room floor much to my dismay and my I was aghast when I realized this as I kept telling my friends before we entered the cinema, "I'm in the film, I'm in the film". Alas, I think I ended up on the album cover for the soundtrack, I'm that large red speck seen heading up the stairs of John F. Kennedy High School(olde Central High school in reality). This was my 15 minutes of almost fame.

Southland Mall: does it still exist, did it ever exist. The south side of Columbus once claimed this mall. It had about 7 stores and a movie theater. I remember it because I saw a James Bond movie there. One scene in the movie involved a woman playing a violin in a concert hall in Bratislava, Czechloslovakia, I forget the rest. I always think of the mall when I hear the Lynrd Skyrnd song that goes "singing sounds about the Southland..." I have some image of the band playing in front of the store with no one around just some stray trash twirling around aimlessly right outside the entryway. If you've seen the movie "American Beauty" you'll understand what I'm talking about.

here's a sight/cite you might find interesting:

Northland Mall Today

Dead Malls web site


Westland Mall: home sweet home, actually I spent more time at Great Western but that was a strip mall and not the enclosed, climatically controlled SuperMall. I went to Westland many times but I honestly cannot remember why, nor do I recall spending a lot of money there. No, I was not a mall rat and did not hang out there with other disaffected teens, there were other places to do that which were far more interesting. I would go to WaldenBooks, a record store whose name I have forgotten and going to a pretzel outlet called "Hot Sams".

City Center Mall: this was just built about 15 years ago right in downtown. Circle City Mall in Indianapolis was built to model this mall. I'm really not sure if the downtown Columbus Mall is still in good shape. Circle City was not built until after I went away to college but I did visit a few times. I wonder how things stand today.

time to blog and blog again.

It's been an 80's kind of week with all Ronald Reagan tribute going on. It almost makes me want to go to Itunes and download Phil Collin's "No Jacket Required", head out to the nearest fern bar/comedy club for a few wine coolers before heading home to watch the latest episode of "Miami Vice" faithfully recorded on my Sony Betamax.

I did a little research on remaining living US Presidents and their ages: (ranked by age)

Gerald Ford: Born: July 14, 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska (90 years old)

George H.W. Bush: Born: June 12, 1924 in Milton, Massachusetts (79 years old) ; birthday is tomorrow

James Carter: Born: October 1, 1924 in Plains, Georgia (79 years old)

Bill Clinton: Born: August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas (57 years old)

I just wonder if all of these men will request state funerals when they pass. What will the coverage of the Gerald Ford funeral be like? Will the casket slip off the hearse?

My old Church

From 1969- 1975 my father was the minister of this church

Riverside Church in Niagara Falls

My father is mentioned in the church history found here

We left Niagara Falls shortly before my 8th birthday. I don't remember much but in the summer after church they'd have a coffee hour with lots of punch and cookies and running around in my Sunday best at such events. Looking at photos of the church on the website it looks like they put in addition right in the middle of the area where these receptions took place. As Dr Suess once said "Oh, the places you will go."

Niagara Falls is where is first heard of a TV show called "Star Trek". The show had been off the air for several years but was in syndication and on practically every night throughout the 1970's. I was a bit confused initially thinking that the show was called "Star Track" and imagined some tie in between cho-cho trains and outer space. The first episode I ever saw was when Kirk and Spock travel back through time to the 1930's United States and somehow Kirk hooks up with this woman who is anti-war and if she had lived would have led to a Nazi victory World War II or something like that. Here's the episode:

city on the edge of forever

tues 5 pm: time for a new blog entry

I've just read that Ohio State fired their basketball coach and there is speculation that OSU might be looking to replace him with Mister Bob Knight who is an Ohio State alum. I'm not much of a college basketball fan but it would make the Ohio State - Indiana series interesting. Also I have a special karmic connection to Bob Knight as we both are from Orrville, Ohio. I left when I was 18 months old, actually I lived in nearby Dalton at the time but Orrville had the nearest hospital. Mr Bob Knight actually spent his entire pre-adult life so that makes him more of a native than myself.

The news media is full of tributes to the late President Reagan. It's interesting seeing the old clips of his appearances back when he was president. Although I was 13 when he was elected and remember him being president I have few specific recollections of the man. I recall I found out that he was shot right before I had to go to my piano lesson and wasn't sure if I should go, I did up having the lesson. I went home that night and Dan Rather was on TV with a mannequin-like object and a doctor from Columbia - Presbyterian explaining where the President had been shot. At the time I did not realize how good a public speaker he was, I only had Carter to compare with him and I was even younger during his reign. The only Gerald R. Ford recollections I have are of a large awkward man and his klutzy moments that were captured for the evening news on a regular basis.

I think one of the other aspects of the Reagan shooting was that it was not covered by Walter Cronkite who had retired a few years before it happened. All through the late 70's and early 80's dinner was always at 5:30 in the Medley home as we had to be done by 6:30 in order to get in front of the TV for "Uncle Walter". As the 80's progressed, Mom went back to work, Rather and CBS slid in the ratings and dinner was pushed back to 6. Eventually Mom went back to school and dinner came in the crock-pot and was consumed in front of the TV while "PM Magazine" or "M*A*S*H" re-runs blared away.

Another recollection of the Reagan years was my friend who said to me after Yuri Andropov died that Reagan must have commented "Oh my, the youngster is dead." I found this quite funny at the time and could not stop laughing. Also after the Robert Bork controversy he told me that he imagined a headline in the paper reading "Reagan Gorks!, nominates Bork to court."

The weirdest thing about all the Reagan history retrospective is that I was around for it. Unlike the endless JFK assassination anniversary coverage from last November, the LBJ tapes or old newsreel footage of FDR on a train somewhere, I lived the Reagan years.

In future blog entries I will try to tap the memory mines and tell tales of my days in the fast food industry in Columbus, Ohio in the mid 1980's. I think the time period can be compared with working on the railroad in the 1900s or being in silcon Valley in the late 1990s's.