The Harry Helms Blog

Greetings From Fort Mill, South Carolina

2009-08-24T17:21:00.003-05:00

Di and I have finally settled into our new home in Fort Mill, SC.

Yes, I know we were supposed to be heading for Las Vegas. But sometimes he who hesitates is saved instead of lost.

We made an offer on a house in Las Vegas, but that fell through when the seller discovered the buyer of our Corpus Christi condo had-----without our knowledge, and in breach of the sales contract-----taken out a second mortgage on the property, thus invalidating our representation to the Las Vegas seller.

But this incident did trigger some further discussions of where we should move. While Di had professional contacts in Las Vegas, she had no close personal friends or family. And I had neither in Las Vegas. But when death is looming, you need your family and friends more than ever.

It was Di who first suggested moving back to the Carolinas, and I readily agreed. We bought a condo on Highway 160 near Tega Cay, about a mile from the state line with North Carolina. I am just a few miles from the graves of my parents and grandparents; while it sounds illogical, I find this comforting.

My journey began here, and it will soon end here.

All the people I love most are now near me. I have often written here about how lucky I have been in my life, and the biggest stroke of luck has been my loving, generous, and kind aunts, uncles, and cousins. In particular. I want to thank my Aunt Polly for caring for me while Di handled the move back in Corpus Christi. Polly never had children of her own, and she lovingly babysat me when I was five or six years old. I'm now 56 years old, and she lovingly babysat me for the past three weeks. If I have ever known a saint, it is her. My Uncle Grady has two hobbies: golf and helping other people. He and his wife, my Aunt Betty, have been in daily contact, offering to take me places, bring me stuff, shop for me, etc.

My cousin Cheryl visited me often. While I love all of my cousins, Cheryl and I have long been tuned into a frequency the rest of the family can't receive. When she visited, she brought me reading material such as National Enquirer and, of course, The Elvis Encyclopedia. She and I share the same demented worldview, and she never failed to lift my spirits.

To all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, I love you more than I can express in words. Pure, unconditional love is a rare, miraculous thing. I am so lucky to have been bathed in it since my return.

Physically, I am declining fast. I can still eat, bathe, and generally care for myself, but I can't walk more than a few steps before becoming exhausted. I spend most of my time in bed or on the sofa. The only difference between me and a street junkie is that I have a doctor's prescription; we both need our periodic drug fix to get through the day.

But I am happier than I have been in a long time. I'm not going to live any longer here, but I will die surround by people who truly love me. That means a lot.

And this will be my final post here. One reason I started this blog was to keep my family informed about my status; now I can tell them face-to-face. As a writer, I hate to leave projects unfinished, and this blog is no exception. And frankly there are much bigger priorities in my life than this blog. So now it now ends (although one of my survivors may post my death notice).

I thank everyone who has read and followed this blog. I also thank everyone who read my books and articles over the years and the many people around the world I came to know from my radio hobbies. And my friends in the publishing industry have given me far more than I have given them.

To borrow the old Navy farewell, I wish you all fair winds and following seas.

Interesting Links And QRX De W5HLH

2009-07-27T08:55:00.003-05:00

I've found some interesting links I hope you'll check out:

• If you ever get the feeling the current economic crisis is different, that it is unprecedented in history, you're not alone. David Smick says the key problem is export-oriented economies who are relying on the United States as the consumer of last resort. I don't agree with everything in Smick's analysis, but I do agree with his identification of the key problem. I hope some people in Washington read and consider Smick's argument.

• Of course, much of the current economic situation is due to inept corporate management. As a disgruntled former Microsoft shareholder, I think you can make a strong case that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer might be the most incompetent CEO this side of former General Motors CEO Rick Waggoner. John Dvorak agrees and lays out a blistering indictment of Steve's blunders. It is astonishing to think that a company that 15 years ago-----on the brink of the release of Windows 95-----seemed poised to own the computing world now seems ready for a swoon as deep and severe as IBM's in the early 1990s. IBM managed to recover, and Apple was struggling 15 years ago. Maybe Microsoft can stage a similar comeback. . . . . . . . but it never will as long Ballmer is running the show. (A new board of directors would also help.)

• And it's not just for-profit companies that are reeling from the effects of greed, hubris, and wishful thinking. Harvard is facing a huge financial crisis and no one seems to have an idea of the extent of the crisis and how to deal with it. Is a federal bailout for Harvard in the works?

• Outsiders are often puzzled by the fierce loyalty University of North Carolina alumni feel for their alma mater. I can't explain it; like Zen, you either get it or you don't. But Emily Banks, who just finished her freshman year at Carolina, comes very close to articulating the ineffable in this New York Times essay.

• "QRX De W5HLH" is radiotelegraph code; "QRX" means "wait," "de" means "from," and W5HLH is my ham radio license call letters. This is a roundabout way of saying I won't be making any posts for at least a couple of weeks as Di and I prepare to move. I'll still have access to e-mail when i find a WiFi hotspot, but I doubt I'll have the time or energy to blog until we're settled into our new home. I'll be back around mid-August if everything goes right.

Memories Of My Atomic Youth

2009-07-25T10:09:00.021-05:00

Some of my most vivid memories from the late 1950s and early 1960s involve the old Civil Defense (CD) program. White it seems like utter lunacy in retrospect, quite a few Americans and government officials devoted a lot of time, energy, and money back then to planning how to survive a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Seriously.

The theory behind CD was that most deaths in a nuclear war would come from radioactive fallout instead of the bomb blasts themselves; while the poor folks in New York City or Los Angeles would be reduced to cinders, people in the hinterlands could retreat to underground shelters for two weeks until the radioactivity levels dropped to safe levels and people could move about safely above ground. To house large numbers of people, "fallout shelters" were established in the basements of large buildings such as schools and office buildings. I even remember visiting Tuckaleechee Caverns in Tennessee back in 1961 or 1962, and seeing that a couple of the cave's rooms were being used as fallout shelters!

These "mass storage" fallout shelters were stocked with cots, blankets, medical supplies, and food, such as these appetizing-sounding "survival crackers":

As you might expect, radiation detection equipment was also standard in "mass storage" fallout shelters:

In addition to public "mass storage" shelters, Civil Defense encouraged people to build and equip their own fallout shelters. CD did this the time-proven way: they scared hell out of people:

Civil Defense published several booklets detailing plans for building home fallout shelters, which more resembled home prison cells. Look at those cramped dimensions; can you imagine spending two weeks inside one of them without going stark, raving mad??

And, as the Civil Defense literature helpfully pointed out, living in a home fallout shelter for a couple of weeks would present some interesting challenges not faced by Ward and June Cleever:

Civil Defense thought the following items would be adequate for stocking a home fallout shelter. Looking it over, I can't help but wonder: uh, shouldn't a rifle, shotgun, or other firearm be on that list? Something tells me life in a post-nuclear war world would be chaotic and dangerous, and a weapon of some sort could come in very handy:

During a nuclear attack and its aftermath, the CONELRAD system is how people were supposed to get official information from the U.S. government. This system would have allowed radio broadcasts on just two AM radio frequencies, 640 and 1240 kHz, with transmissions switched between different stations so Soviet bombers could not use the broadcasts for direction-finding. Or at least that was the theory:

Station WBT in Charlotte was selected to participate in the CONELRAD program, and here's a link to a story about WBT's "fallout shelter" from which CONELRAD broadcasts would be transmitted.

Yeah, it all seems so crazy now. But fifty years ago people took all of this very seriously.

Forty Years Ago Today

2009-07-20T17:19:00.003-05:00

We were young, and we were fearless and, after all, nobody had ever told us young engineers that we couldn’t successfully land humans on another planet. So we did it.-----Sy Liebergot, electrical, environmental, and communications mission control officer, Apollo 11 mission.

There was a time when the United States could accomplish the impossible. There was a time when heroism and accomplishment were celebrated and honored in this country. It dreamed big, and a lot of those big dreams became reality.

What the hell happened to the United States??

Where did it all go wrong??

Forty years after arguably the most magnificent achievement in human history, our most remarkable accomplishment today is the debt we're running up with the Chinese. We are now much better at denying we have problems, or avoiding facing reality squarely, than we are at solving problems.

What the hell happened??

I feel lucky that I was alive when the United States was at the height of its power and glory. And I feel lucky I will be dead by the time China passes the United States as the world's dominant economic, political, military, and scientific power.

And the next visitors to the moon will be Chinese.

Artist's Palette And Other Places In Death Valley

2009-07-18T17:26:00.011-05:00

The Artist's Palette Drive is located on the east side of Death Valley, up in the Black Mountains. It gets its name from the colors produced by oxidation of various metals on the mountainsides. The drive is a little over nine miles road and the road is well-paved and suitable for all cars.

Below you can see the start of the drive. Note the "layer cake" look of the hills and the reddish streak running upward toward the right:

As you drive along, you will see patches of green and aquamarine among the brown and white of the hillsides:

As you drive along, the green and aquamarine patches become brighter and larger, and are striking under the bright Death Valley sun:

Salt Creek is located on the floor of Death Valley near the junction of California highways 190 and 267. I can't help but pity all those early explorers and travelers in Death Valley who thought they had found a huge source of water in this godforsaken desert, only to taste it and learn why it came to be called "Salt Creek." The water does support some plant life, however:

Stovepipe Wells is along Highway 190 on the western side of the park; it is the most used entrance to the park and offers gasoline, food, and lodging. It's also the starting point for the trail up Natural Bridge Canyon, an easy hike in cooler weather. Below is a look at the natural bridge:

Adjacent to Stovepipe Wells is a network of sand dunes that visitors can hike across. These dunes are spectacular in the light of dawn and sunset:

There is much, much more to see in Death Valley; it is my favorite national park by far. If you're thinking of a California vacation, skip the usual tourist traps like Disneyland or Fisherman's Wharf and instead head out to Death Valley. You'll be glad you did.

Finally, A Shot Of Reality In The Health Care Debate

2009-07-16T07:59:00.004-05:00

There is a terrible reality in the current national debate on health care reform that no one, regardless of whether they're conservative or liberal, wants to admit: too many treatments today are too expensive for the benefits they offer and consume resources that could, and should, be redirected to other patients. In other words, we can spend a lot on one patient or spend smaller amounts on a lot of patients, but we can't afford to spend a lot on a lot of patients. There are hard choices to make when it comes to health care, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. The only way to afford universal health care will be to deny certain treatments to patients, especially those patients whose long-term survival is already dubious.

Let me give you an example from my own experience. From February to July, 2007, I was administered a chemotherapy "cocktail" every two weeks. It was a potent brew that included several pricey drugs such as Eloxatin, Fluorouracil, and Avastin; I had to go to St. David's Hospital in Austin for the infusion, which took several hours.

And it cost over $50,000 a month for those treatments, which turned out to be totally ineffective. My cancer returned less than two months after the end of the chemo, and that's when I put my foot down and said "no!" to any more chemo. In other words, all those treatments-----all that money-----were a complete waste. I might as well taken that $50K each month and gone to Las Vegas instead; the results would have been the same and I would have had a much better time.

My case is hardly unique. Many very expensive treatments fail more often than they work, and even when they do the net gain is measured in months instead of years. I have to wonder if that money spent for me each month should have been spent instead on programs for early detection of various diseases, childhood vaccination programs, etc. In other words, was my life really so valuable compared to the needs of other people?

Honesty compels me to say "no."

And if we're going to be honest about health care reform, we're going to have to admit we can't afford to give everyone anything and everything that might help them. We, as a nation, will have to reach a point where we say that a patient gets a treatment if there is a 60% chance it might work but a treatment will be denied if there is only a 30% chance it will work.

Some individuals will have to suffer for the good of others. There is no getting around that terrible truth.

That's why I was pleased to see the New York Times publish this piece by Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton, in which he openly discusses the hard choices we must soon start making. Read it.

Rationing and denial of certain treatments is inevitable in the health care system. The only question is whether it will be done by the government or by the market. But it will be done, and don't fool yourself into thinking it can be avoided.

Is The Book Industry Going To Get "Napstered"?

2009-07-15T18:42:00.002-05:00

Before I retired from the publishing industry, I was a big advocate of eBooks-----in fact, if I were not sick, I would be managing my own eBook publishing company now. While I don't think eBooks will ever largely supplant print books----especially for fiction----I think they have a ton of potential for professional, scientific, and technical works, especially in subject areas where frequent revision is necessary. eBooks would also make sense for topics that are inherently "time limited," such as books on various software releases. It's doubtful anyone will need or want a Windows Vista book a decade from now, so why not distribute them in electronic form? Publishers and readers could both save money and trees with eBooks.

But one of my frustrations during my days as a publishing consultant was the emotional, irrational opposition to eBooks on the part of many publishing executives and managers. One fear is "piracy," the notion that people will download eBooks for free from outlaw web sites instead of buying authorized versions. Another, more deadly notion is that eBooks must be priced close to the list price of print editions lest eBooks destroy the market for print editions. Both of these are ridiculous ideas, but a surprising number of senior publishing executives treat them as if they came down fromn Mount Sinai on marble tablets.

I feel these attitudes will eventually cripple some book publishers, and Slate's Jack Shafer agrees. If you're in the publishing industry, you need to read his article.

The Marble Canyon Mining Camp Ruins

2009-07-10T15:37:00.012-05:00

The Saline Valley is located just west of Death Valley, and is almost as hot as Death Valley itself. It is also far more isolated and undeveloped than Death Valley itself (for example, you are dozens of miles from the nearest electric service or gasoline). The sole road through Saline Valley is a graded dirt road running from Highway 168 in the north (the Big Pine entrance) to Highway 190 in the south (he Owens Lake entrance). The road definitely requires a high clearance 4WD vehicle, like my late, lamented, and much beloved White Thang.

Saline Valley was added to Death Valley National Park in 1994, and many of the mining claims in the area where abandoned over the next several years. One of the best preserved is at Marble Canyon. It is reached by taking Highway168 east from Big Pine, CA, approximately four miles to the Saline Valley turnoff. The Marble Canyon site is about 20 miles down the Saline Valley road.

The first signs you're approaching the mining camp are some buildings and mining equipment that are starting to fall apart:

It amazes me how people managed to build such an extensive mining camp in such an isolated area------you're well over 100 miles from the nearest hardware store, and transporting those materials down the Saline Valley road must have been a huge challenge. The result is impressive:

The interior of the residential building was well preserved; the kitchen looks like it had been abandoned only a few months earlier:

The National Park Service has a policy of leaving abandoned buildings in the same shape as they were when they came under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service; the buildings are not restored but instead are allowed to naturally decay. The result is that some sites are trashy with lots of junk, like the one at Marble Canyon:

The one exception to this "leave it as it was found" policy involves entrances to mines. The National Park Service seals off the entrances to abandoned mines, as you can see below. This policy is necessary because every year several idiots manage to get themselves badly hurt or killed by exploring abandoned mines; causes include collapse of the mine shafts, poisoning due to toxic gases accumulating in the shafts, rattlesnake bites, etc.

Like many isolated desert locations, the Marble Canyon mining site has some quizzical sights, like this open-air chair:

While the Saline Valley road is isolated and not for 2WD vehicles, it has several signs and is easy to navigate without a GPS receiver or maps. As the photo shows, the Marble Canyon mining camp is at a high elevation. The Saline Valley road is often closed by snow in winter, and the best time to visit is autumn or spring.

The Saline Valley gets only a fraction of the visitors Death Valley gets. It is difficult to reach, but it's worth the effort.

I Loved Lucy

2009-07-08T09:58:00.002-05:00

My rabbit Lucy died yesterday of an apparent stroke. She was about ten and a half years old and had been my companion since January, 2001.

When I developed cancer and started receiving chemo, I would rest on the sofa with Lucy laying on my chest. I would rub her head and she would reciprocate by licking my face. Those were some very peaceful, relaxing moments; all the stress and angst in me would drain away.

I loved that little rabbit and will miss her greatly.

July 4, 1982

2009-07-04T14:50:00.004-05:00

I spent my first, and only, Fourth of July outside the United States on July 4, 1982. I was in London with my girlfriend (and future wife) Tina; she was in London on business for CBS Records International. I tagged along to do some business-----negotiating North American rights to books published by British publishers such as Granada and the Institution of Electrical Engineers-----but most of my time was being a tourist. On the morning of July 4, Tina was in the CBS offices while I was exploring the Egyptian section of the British Museum (yeah, mummies fascinate me). We had thought about going to the cook-out and baseball game held at the American Embassy in London each July 4, but instead decided to have dinner early that day and to meet in the Soho section of London.

We were both feeling a little homesick that day, and almost puzzled----why are these stupid Brits working today?? Don't they realize it's the Fourth of July?? The Soho area has several terrific Chinese restaurants, and we finally decided on one that had air conditioning (that's still a rarity in the UK). We ordered, and sat back to await the arrival of the spicy vegetables on crispy noodles. The background music in the restaurant was the instrumental, "Muzak" style you hear in elevators and doctor waiting rooms.

And then we both started laughing hysterically, because a syrupy version of "White Christmas" began playing over the restaurant's music system.

It was like a scene from a David Lynch film: I was in a Chinese restaurant in London, on the Fourth of July, listening to "White Christmas." And I wished, I really wished, I was back in the United States. Oh, I always enjoyed London, but on that particular day, at that moment, I was more conscious of being an American than I had ever been before in my life.

I often hate the American government and American politicians (both Republicans and Democrats), but I love the American nation. I consider being born an American citizen to have been the luckiest break of my life. And since July 4, 1982, this holiday has had a very special meaning for me. All it took was a Chinese restaurant and an instrumental version of "White Christmas."

Memories Of Las Vegas

2009-07-02T17:31:00.011-05:00

Now that Di and I are headed "home" to Las Vegas, I'm getting nostalgic about my first period of residency in Las Vegas.

My condo was in the northwest corner of Las Vegas, in the La Posada section of the Summerlin development. My condo faced west, toward Red Rock Canyon State Park, which was located about five miles away. I loved visiting this park; the colorful rock formations were surreal in the light of a setting sun:

My first visitors after moving to Las Vegas were my LLH partners, Carol and Jack Lewis. Here they are in Red Rock Canyon:

As you can see below, poor Carol was all tuckered out after her busy, busy day in Las Vegas, and feel asleep in my living room:

In May of 2003, a very angry thunderstorm moved into Las Vegas from the west. Looking at it from my condo balcony, I noticed a very distinct wall cloud and "elephant trunk" funnel cloud descending from it. By the time I located my digital camera and booted it up, the funnel had started to dissipate. If you look at left below, you can see the remains of the funnel cloud:

Las Vegas is in the desert, but it is also a center for watersports thanks to Lake Mead. Di and I would sometimes rent a boat from a Lake Mead marina and cruise out to the middle of Lake Mead. It was like having our own private lake for swimming, sunbathing, etc:

The desert around Las Vegas is populated by wild burros. These hardy critters descended from the burros used by miners and prospectors, and do quite well in the harsh desert climate. If you travel the back roads around Lake Mead or Red Rock Canyon, you'll eventually see a burro like the one below on the roadside:

I'll be returning to Las Vegas by air and I know it will be a physically grueling trip; fortunately, I think my new painkillers will help and I'm no longer too proud to admit I need a wheelchair for long distances. But emotionally I am really jazzed about returning to Las Vegas. As I've written before, the story of Di and me began in Las Vegas and it should end there------Las Vegas is "our" home. And anything beats sitting around here and waiting to die. I'm looking forward to one last adventure!

Why We're Losing The "War" On Cancer

2009-06-28T19:27:00.002-05:00

I've repeatedly made the point here that most of the money raised to fight cancer and find a cure is, to put it bluntly but honestly, pissed away. And the New York Times agrees, as you can read at the linked article. You should read the whole thing, but here are some money quotes:

Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.

One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing cancer.

And I'll say it again: there is a critical need to redirect some cancer funding toward helping existing cancer patients. In particular, there is a desperate need for counseling, therapy, and support services for patients and their families. Almost no health insurance plans provide for such services, and the attitude of most oncologists is to deliver the bad news to a patient-----"Your cancer has metastasized to your liver"-----and then get the hell out of the exam room ASAP, leaving the patient and his/her family to cope with the crushing news.

Yes, we need to look for a cure. But a cure is a long way off even under the most optimistic scenarios. And meanwhile many cancer patients have real, serious needs that are being ignored.

I'm lucky to have Di, my family, and my friends to get me through my cancer. Many of my fellow cancer patients are not as lucky, and suffer in silence with a host of emotional and logistical problems arising from their cancers.

And that makes me madder than hell. We urgently need a honest, no-bullshit national discussion of how to deal with cancer.

Thoughts On A Very Eventful Week

2009-06-27T13:01:00.006-05:00

Wow, what a week! Much happened that deserves some commentary.

• We accepted an offer for our condo yesterday and will be returning to Las Vegas in August. It was on the market only 32 days, a tribute to the still-robust Texas economy (memo to most of the other states in the union: Texas is clearly doing something right in its state budgeting and governance, and you should emulate what is done in Austin). Di and I met in Las Vegas, got married in Las Vegas, and bought our first home together in Las Vegas; it is fitting that our story will end in Las Vegas.

• This condo community is a gossipy one; it sometimes reminds me of high school. Here's proof: Di took one of our dogs for a walk about two hours after accepting the offer, and three people stopped her and said they heard we had sold our condo. Yet we never told anyone here!! It will be a relief to again live in a place where some people are not obsessed by other people's business.

• The cause of our neighbor problems was the rental of an adjoining unit to two adults who were not related to each other; this is explicitly prohibited by our condo association by-laws but, for some reason, our condo association and officers decided to look the other way. There are now several other units rented to non-related adults, most of whom are students at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. This week we met with an attorney who told us any unit owner would have a very strong case for a lawsuit against the condo association and its officers for permitting such widespread violations of association by-laws. Since we're moving, we obviously won't be pursuing any legal action. But I know some people in our condo community read this blog, and perhaps they might want to keep this in mind if the board continues to turn a blind eye to these blatant violations of the by-laws. A couple of the association officers are suffering from advanced hubris, and a lesson in humility---the kind provided by depositions and discovery----would have a salubrious impact on them.

• I was deeply moved by the death of Farrah Fawcett; I feel a connection to people like her (and Tony Snow) who have a cancer similar to mine and were diagnosed about the same time I was. Their deaths make me even more grateful to have defied the odds and survived as long as I have. But Farrah's story is also a cautionary tale for cancer patients and their families. The money quote:

Diagnoses of cancer routinely generate periods of what we might call "ritualized optimism." No matter what the reality is, surgeons announce they "got it all," and patients declare that they are cancer-free. It is hard to criticize these types of proclamations. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of other ways one might describe the first weeks and months after being diagnosed with cancer. Even if patients themselves believe or suspect otherwise, they want to reassure family and friends that they are on the road to cure.

I myself have fallen into that trap. The key is to know when it is time to renounce optimism for a cure in favor of a hard-nosed realism that acknowledges that cancer is going to kill you but also acknowledges there is much in life to enjoy before that happens.

• I saw my doctor on Wednesday and my new painkillers are oxycodone and darvocet. I was fearing an "upgrade" to methadone, and I'm glad to still not be at that point. I don't want to make Keith Richards envious of me just yet!

• Mark Effin' Sanford, governor of the great state of South Carolina! His press conference this week was something out of a David Lynch film; it was both hilarious and profoundly disturbing. What struck me was that he showed more empathy and compassion for his mistress than he did for his wife and, especially, his four sons. For those kids, every Father's Day in the future will be a reminder of the weekend Dad left them in Columbia and flew down to Buenos Aires to see his girlfriend. Sanford should be impeached, not for the adultery itself but instead for his breathtaking lack of judgment and common sense. Suppose Sanford was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and he abruptly vanished for a few days, telling no one at the company where he really was, and turning off his mobile phones so he couldn't be located. What would happen to that CEO? That's right, he would be promptly fired upon his return. And that's why Sanford must resign or be impeached ASAP; it's not about the sex, it's about his obvious mental and emotional issues. Sanford is nuts and needs some industrial-strength therapy.

• There really not much to say about the death of Michael Jackson other than how creepy the parallels are to the last years and death of Elvis Presley. Those two both had it all and threw it all away; both surrounded themselves with sycophants who told them what they wanted to hear instead of what they needed to hear. At the end, neither had anyone who loved them enough to pull them back from the abyss. And so their talent, careers, money, and eventually lives were squandered away. Such a waste. . . . . . .

Say Hello To Tinuviel May!

2009-06-20T15:39:00.002-05:00

Tiffany Gasbarrini is a dear friend of mine from my days of consulting for Elsevier; she and her husband live in the Boston area. It was a joy interacting with Tiffany because she was highly intelligent, funny, and passionate about publishing.

And now she's a mother!! On June 16, her daughter Tinuviel May arrived in this world at 8 pounds, 3 ounces (wow, what a big baby girl!). And as you can see in the photo below, she is adorable.

I am so happy for you, Tiffany! And I wish "Nuvi" (as they have already nicknamed her) a long, happy, and fulfilling life.

Random Photos, Random Thoughts

2009-06-20T10:36:00.011-05:00

I was doing some housecleaning on my photo files and found some interesting (well, at least to me) shots from my past.

The one below was taken in 1986, and shows me in front of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square. This was on a tour of the USSR that included Moscow, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and Kiev. This photo was taken on April 26, and the next day we flew from Moscow to Kiev. We had no idea that a catastrophic accident had taken place during the night at a nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, located about 30 miles from Kiev. And we were in Kiev for three days before we learned what had happened, and that was via the BBC and Voice of America-----I had packed along a Sony portable shortwave radio. I have often wondered if my cancer is the result of exposure to the radioactive particles vented by the Chernobyl reactor; thankfully, my then-wife Tina is still in good health. Regardless, it's a hoot to consider that I visited a country----the Soviet Union-----that no longer exists.

Here's me preening next to the summit marker atop Sugarloaf Mountain, 9980 feet, in the San Bernardino mountains of southern California. When I lived in San Diego, I loved doing these single-day climbs; I'd hit Interstate 15 around sunrise and be back home by sunset. The photo is how I want people to remember me: Strong! Vigorous! Goofy!

The highest mountain in southern California is San Gorgonio at 11,499 feet. I did this as a single-day climb, and believe me that was one of the longest days of my life! Timberline in southern California is about 10,000 feet, and as a result the upper reaches of San Gorgonio are like the Sierras-----boulders, talus, and scree. Here I am celebrating my ascent; that's a can of Diet Cheerwine that I'm swigging:

The photo below shows me atop Humphrey's Peak, the highest mountain in Arizona at 12,666 feet. It is an extinct volcano and gives spectacular views of the Grand Canyon and Painted Desert from the summit. Northern Arizona is a very different world from Tucson and Phoenix; there are pine trees, cool breezes, grassy fields, etc. I look exhausted in this photo, and it's because I was; the last few hundred feet up to the summit are steep and scrambling over several boulders is necessary:

Finally, here's a photo of a borrego ram that I saw in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park east of San Diego. This fellow jumped atop the boulder and spent the next several minutes eyeballing me and my hiking companions (including my business partners Carol and Jack Lewis). Eventually he moved away and we reported our sighting to park rangers; these animals are considered an endangered species and sightings of them are very rare. We were very lucky to spot this guy!

Photos like these are why I say I want no one to feel sympathy or pity for me; instead, feel sympathy or pity for those who haven't seen, done, or experienced the things I have. It's been a great life, compadres!

Thought For The Day

2009-06-16T19:04:00.002-05:00

“Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.” -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

QSL Card Gallery

2009-06-15T17:38:00.013-05:00

One of the traditions of the shortwave/ham radio hobby was something called the "QSL card." "QSL" is the radiotelegraph code abbreviation for "I acknowledge receipt of your message," and QSL cards were 1) sent by stations to listeners who correctly reported reception of the station, and 2) exchanged between two ham radio stations who had established contact with each other. In effect, they were souvenirs-----much like the picture postcards you'd collect on a car vacation with Mom and Dad----of having heard or contacted a radio station.

Okay, so it sounds silly. And it was. But it was also fun. I loved getting those envelopes from distant lands with their exotic stamps; inside would be a colorful card and other materials like program guides. I collected QSL cards the way some people collected baseball cards.

Take a look at this beauty, all the way from the small African nation of Togo. Ever heard of Togo? Thanks to shortwave radio, I had an outrageous knowledge of world geography:

Some QSL cards commemorated historic events, like this one issued by Germany's Deutsche Welle broadcaster two decades ago to celebrate the reunification of West and East Germany:

A historic QSL card I managed to snag was for the first test of digital AM broadcasting back in 1995. The test was conducted in Las Vegas during the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention, and it was easy to hear from my then-location in San Diego:

In the mid-1990s, the AM broadcast band expanded to include 1610 to 1700 kHz. I carefully looked for stations in that range, and was lucky enough to catch KXBT, Vallejo, CA-----the second station authorized for the new frequency range-----on its first night of transmitter testing:

Before the 1610-1700 kHz range became populated by broadcast stations, it was often used by low power traveler information stations at airports, etc. The QSL card below represents a really difficult reception; the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport operated a 60 watt information station on 1680 kHz, and I managed to hear it in Solana Beach, CA. That's quite a haul for such low power, but I was using some highly advanced radio equipment (the Drake R8B receiver):

I also swapped QSLs with hams all over the world when I established contact with them, as shown below. I received QSL cards from hams in various countries----like Czechoslovakia, East Germany, the Soviet Union, etc.----that no longer exist:

Some shortwave stations in Latin America would also send out colorful cloth or paper pennants with their QSL cards, like this one:

The practice of sending out QSLs declined as shortwave listening declined in the late 1990s with the rise of the internet. Printing and mailing QSLs is expensive, and declining broadcaster funding and staffing has caused many stations to stop sending out QSLs. And the situation has been exacerbated by the closing of many shortwave broadcasters.

The QSL era is now in its final stages; soon QSLing and QSL cards will be quaint historical artifacts, much like boarding passes and menus for trans-Atlantic passenger ships or cross-country steam locomotives.

But it was fun while it lasted, and I'm glad I had a chance to be part of it. Sadly, I don't look forward to the mailman's arrival each day like I once did. . . . . . . .

Hats Off To Sony!

2009-06-15T11:53:00.003-05:00

A lot of blog entries complain about poor customer service from various companies.

This one is different. It is to praise Sony for their outstanding response to our problem.

Shortly after moving to Corpus Christi, we purchased a 42" Sony HDTV for our master bedroom. In late May, it failed------the screen started to display a "rainbow" pattern. And it developed this problem exactly two weeks after the one-year warranty expired.

We contacted Sony anyway. And Sony today agreed to repair our set without charge.

Thank you Sony!!!

If you're thinking about buying a HDTV set or other item of high-end consumer electronics, put Sony at the top of your list. They are clearly interested in doing right by their customers, and that's very rare today.

The Ghost Town Of Zurich, California

2009-06-14T17:02:00.006-05:00

Zurich, California was a stop on the Carson & Colorado narrow gauge railroad that ran on the eastern shore of Owens Lake from Laws to Keeler, California. It's located on Highway 168 about two miles east of Big Pine, California. Zurich was founded in 1888 and its original name was Alvord. It was renamed Zurich in 1913 because the wife of the depot master said the view of the Sierras reminded her of her home town of Zurich, Switzerland.

This railroad stop operated until 1932 and as a result the depot is still well-preserved:

The station platform is now crumbling:

Here is why the depot master's wife wanted to change the name to Zurich. There are five 14,000+ foot peaks in the photo below; the snow to the left is the southernmost glacier system in the United States. IMO, the view of the Sierras from Big Pine is the most sublime and beautiful vista you'll find along that range:

Just north of Zurich is the Cal Tech radio astronomy observatory. If you look carefully in the photo below, you can see the "dish" antenna structures of the observatory:

Barrack Of Arabia

2009-06-04T14:47:00.008-05:00

I don't like to get into politics here, and God knows I have enough issues in my life already. But my mind is reeling from today's speech by President Obama in Cairo; the transcript is now on-line, and I can't believe what I'm reading. Yes, I know President Obama is a Harvard Law graduate, is obviously intelligent, projects a soothing public persona------hey, I not only voted for the guy, I donated money to his campaign------but it's clear that, while he may be intelligent, President Obama is not wise. In fact, he's starting to remind me of those "professional" graduate students-----you know, the ones who are 28 and working on their third masters degree-----who deal solely in abstractions and concepts and are totally lacking in pragmatism and common sense.

My fellow Americans, we are in terrible, terrible trouble with this guy in charge.

Let's start with the venue for his speech. Why a Middle Eastern Arab nation? While many people think Muslim = Arab, only slightly more than 25% of the world's Muslims are Arabs. The most populous Muslim nation in the world is Indonesia. There are more Muslims in central and southern Africa than in the Middle East. By speaking in Cairo, Obama reinforced the stereotype that all Muslims are Arabs.

Moreover, Islam is not a monolithic religion and its tenets are not observed as strenuously in all Muslim nations. For example, the Qu'ran forbids alcohol to Muslims, yet Indonesia has a thriving beer industry. Malaysia is another Muslim nation, yet their annual per-capita alcohol consumption is over 20 liters per person. In Saudi Arabia, possession of a single bottle of beer will get you a public flogging (if you're lucky). The Arab world is dominated by Saudi Arabia's wahhabist strain of Islam, a fundamentalist, primitive interpretation of Islam on par with Christianity's snake handlers and speakers in tongues. In other words, the wahhabists are full blown batshit crazy. Whether he realized it or not-----and he should have realized it-----speaking in Cairo gave an implicit endorsement to the fundamentalist versions of Islam practiced in the Arab world.

A city like Lagos or Jakarta would have been a much better venue than Cairo. Such a choice would have demonstrated that Islam is not the exclusive property of the Arab world. Frankly, the fundamentalist Muslims in the Middle East could learn much from nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia on how to cope with the modern world. That is a message that President Obama should have delivered today.

I am troubled by Obama's silence on the excesses of fundamentalist Islam as practiced in the Middle East. He has not hesitated to criticize Israel, yet in Saudi Arabia a couple of days ago he had nothing to say about certain aspects of Saudi life, such as the subjugation of women, stoning to death of gay people, banning all other religions but Islam (mere possession of a Bible is a crime in Saudi Arabia), amputations of hands and feet of criminals, restrictions on what clothes a man or woman may wear, etc. etc. In his speech today, the president vowed, "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." Uh, that's good, Mr. President, but what if those negative stereotypes are, ya know, based on cold, hard, and indisputable facts?

An honest speech in Cairo today would have taken Muslim fundamentalists to task for their disregard of basic human rights. An honest speech would have told those fundamentalists they will never be accepted into the community of the 21st century until they leave the Middle Ages behind.

That sort of candor and honesty would have truly been change we could believe in. But instead today we got a spew of cultural relativism, the sort of aversion to making moral judgments that betrays an utter absence of principles and standards. It is Oprahism gone amok: I'm OK, you're OK, and those fundamentalist Muslims who stone gay people to death are OK too. After all, who are we to judge??

Barrack Obama seems to think kind words and a willingness to compromise are all a leader needs. Those are important tools for any leader. But a leader, especially a president, also needs the ability to make people shit in their pants with an angry look. A leader needs to understand it is more important to be respected, or even feared, than it is to be loved.

Barrack Obama doesn't get any of the above. Like other overly idealistic presidents-----Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter come to mind-----he will fail because of a misplaced belief in the innate goodness of all people and an entirely unjustified faith in his own lofty assumptions about how the world works.

And the United States will pay the bill-----and it's going to be a hell of a bill----for Obama's learning curve.

Throwing In The Towel

2009-05-31T16:11:00.006-05:00

Things have been going very badly here since mid-April, and Di and I have decided to put our condo in Corpus Christi for sale and move.

When we first moved into our condo development over a year ago, we were impressed by the homeowner association rules. They were (and are) written to encourage occupancy by owners and discourage renters; for example, the rules forbid rental occupancy of a unit by two adults who are not related by marriage or blood. The intent of this is to discourage rental to students at nearby Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, who tend to be party animals.

But in February a new slate of officers was elected, and since then things have fallen off a cliff in our development.

In mid-April, the unit adjacent to ours was rented to two young women who are not related to each other, a clear violation of condo association rules. But that was not what bothered us about our new neighbors. Instead, it was the loud crashing, thumping, and bumping sounds that we started to hear late at night from their unit. These sounds were not just annoyances. Instead, they were loud-----I compare them to dropping a boxload of books, or someone jumping off a bed and hitting the floor with both feet-----and would wake Di and I from deep sleep. And most of these sounds would happen from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am.

We complained to one of the board officers----a person for whom the term "feckless" would be high praise indeed----who spoke to our new neighbors. Their response was to amp up the noises and they made several false charges against my wife in response. What really pissed off Di and I was the eagerness with which that board officer believed their outrageous accusations.

And the thumps, crashes, and bumps continued. I'm dying of cancer, and I have enough trouble sleeping through the night as is. All In want is to be able to spend whatever time I have left in peace and quiet. Apparently this is too much to ask for our neighbors and certain board members.

However, there will soon be a resolution in our favor. Our neighbors made the big mistake of putting their libelous accusations in writing. That document was addressed to their leasing agent, the unit owner, and the condo board. We were not sent a copy. Not only was their document libelous, but it also contained several statements that could be easily shown to be false, including a real whopper where they lied about what a police officer supposedly told them about Di and I----I spoke to the officer about what he supposedly said, and the officer vehemently and angrily denied making the statement. (Unfortunately, the lie by our neighbors triggered an internal affairs investigation by the Corpus Christi police department; I expect the officer's denial to be fully upheld.)

Some people were involved in circulating our neighbors' document, and the highly libelous accusations in them, to third parties. Suffice it to say that lawsuits for libel and defamation of character will soon be filed against responsible parties. I'm sure some of the affected individuals think it's all a big joke and these are empty threats. They are about to learn a hard, painful lesson.

But the entire experience since mid-April has really soured us on remaining in this condo development and Corpus Christi. The strain on Di and me has been terrible; we're often cranky, short-tempered, and get into arguments with each other over silly things. As for me, it is pushing me toward a dark place where I feel like completely giving up and just dying. While we have met some outstanding people here (like our neighbors Sue and Tom), that is offset by an increasing disgust and contempt for other people who have refused to help us with our neighbor problems. We don't feel welcome, comfortable, or even safe here any longer-----and, to be honest, we are seeing signs of anti-Semitism being directed toward Di. (If true, that would explain certain things.) Regardless, when you can't help but see people each day who you genuinely hate, it's time to leave that place.

The condo is for sale and Di will be returning to Las Vegas. The move makes sense for a lot of reasons. Las Vegas real estate is an amazing bargain now, and Di has friends and professional connections there. It will be a perfect place for her to re-start her life after my death.

I will accompany Di to Las Vegas if at all possible. I'm not trying to sound melodramatic, but I am slipping fast and I don't know how much longer I'm going to be around. Las Vegas is where the the story of Di and me began, and it would be a perfect place for it to end. I hope it can.

I will be posting only rarely here in the future. I feel like I have said about all I feel like saying.

Rin Tin Tin Toys

2009-05-22T16:02:00.012-05:00

When I was five years old, it was easy to find me at 4:00 pm Monday through Friday. I was in front of our television, eagerly awaiting a new episode of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. The show starred Rin Tin Tin, the smartest, bravest German Shepherd in the known universe, and Rusty, a schlubby little kid who I had to envy because Rin Tin Tin was his dog. The show was set in the Wild West; Rusty and Rin Tin Tin lived at Fort Apache, a U. S. Army outpost in hostile Indian. . . . . . .er, I mean Native American territory. I always looked forward to those episodes in which Rusty was kidnapped by Apaches. Those episodes would end with a ne'er-do-well savage holding a knife over Rusty, getting ready to plunge it down, when suddenly Rin Tin Tin would leap into action, biting the savage's wrist and causing him to drop the knife. Rin Tin Tin would then lunge for the Native American's throat, and I would giggle hysterically at his death screams. It was perfect entertainment for a wholesome, innocent age in which everyone respected President Eisenhower.

Like many Baby Boomers in the 1990s, I became possessed with an urge to collect pieces of my childhood, and naturally Rin Tin Tin was at the top of my collectible list. One of my prize finds was this Fort Apache playset; it included Rusty and Rin Tin Tin figures, as you can see below:

I think Rin Tin Tin was one of the first kids' shows to derive more income from merchandising than from syndication fees. Among the items available back in the 1950s were stuffed Rin Tin Tin stuffed animals, jig saw puzzles, pennants, board games, "magic" writing slates, etc. Here are some examples I found:

As a kid, I owned the item below. The "pictures" were on plastic-coated paper and the "crayons" were soft and putty-like. When I colored the pictures, the colors were more smeared on the pictures instead of being drawn. The colors did wipe off quickly with a paper towel, but I remember getting quickly bored with this toy:

Numerous Rin Tin Tin books and comics were produced, as you can see below. Note the book in the upper left corner; it was from the 1920s and was published in conjunction with the movies of that era that starred the original Rin Tin Tin. I have videos of those 1920s silent films, and I have to admit the original Rin Tin Tin was a genuinely remarkable dog------many of his stunts are mindboggling, and he was incredibly athletic.

For my fifth birthday, I got a Rusty playsuit for a present. I put it on and spent several happy weeks pretending I was Rusty. It should be no surprise that I was thrilled to locate the mint Rusty playsuit below. It was still in its original factory wrapping and even had the same smell when I opened the box that I remember from my fifth birthday.

I have greatly downsized my Rin Tin Tin collection; I'm trying to leave Di without much to sort through after my death. It was fun to once again own this stuff, and I'm glad the items above now resides with other Rin Tin Tin fans.

Mother's Day 2009

2009-05-10T11:56:00.003-05:00

This is the third Mother's Day for me since the death of my mother, and, as has been the case on her birthday each year since her death, I have this hollow, empty feeling inside me.

She taught me to read and write before I started school. I didn't get every toy I wanted, but if it was something to read-----a book, a magazine, etc.-----she always bought it for me. There is no doubt my writing and editing career was a direct result of her efforts.

And she loved me truly and unconditionally. I am glad that I was in remission-----which, to her, meant "cured"-----when she died and she never knew my cancer returned.

When I was a kid, my favorite meal was Mom's baked macaroni and cheese. She would use real cheese which would melt and flow through the macaroni; the top would harden into a crunchy crust that I loved to bite into. She would serve it with a green vegetable and some of her sweet yellow cornbread.

Years after I moved away, she would always make baked macaroni and cheese when I came to visit. I always knew it would be waiting for me when I arrived at the airport in Charlotte.

I would give everything I own to taste that meal again.

In a a world that is often dark and angry, mothers are beacons of light, hope, and love. I hope every mother out there today receives the love and honor they deserve.

The Ghost Town Of Lida, Nevada

2009-05-06T16:46:00.006-05:00

You'll do some serious driving to visit Lida! From Las Vegas, take Highway 95 north for 180 miles until you reach the intersection with Route 266. You will turn left off Highway 95, and it's hard to miss where to turn------the Cottontail Ranch Brothel is at the intersection, and is the only business for several miles. The nearest gas, food, and other services are in Beatty, NV, about 40 miles south. I strongly suggest topping off your gas tank in Beatty. You'll travel about 30 miles on Route 266 to reach Lida. The road is paved, although it is narrow in places.

Lida came into being in 1873 when a post office opened there. Numerous small gold and silver mining claims were being worked in the surrounding countryside, and Lida served those miners with supplies, services (like assaying), and recreation (like gambling and drinking). By 1905, Lida's population reached 300. But that was the peak of mining activity in the region, and the town began to slowly decline. By 1918, the post office closed and Lida was almost totally abandoned a few years later. However, there are still a few people living in the area who conduct ranching operations, so Lida is not totally deserted.

Much of the ruins of Lida is on private property and is fenced off to visitors, so you have to be content with looking instead of touching:

However, a few standing buildings are not fenced off and can be visited:

The state of Nevada erected the sign below to mark the site of Lida. And I got a couple of friendly waves from working ranchhands as I drove through Lida. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to get a similar reception if you visit.

The Ghost Town Of Kelso, California

2009-05-05T16:31:00.007-05:00

Kelso, California was a stop on the Union Pacific railroad running from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City. The site was chosen because of abundant springs in the area for water. Kelso boomed about a century ago because of gold and silver deposits in the surrounding mountains. By 1940, the population was about 2000, but began to drop rapidly after World War II. In the early 1980s, there were only a few people left and Union Pacific wanted to close down all buildings and raze them. Fortunately, a preservation effort was launched and Union Pacific agreed to turn the townsite over to the state of California. Today, Kelso is part of the Mojave National Preserve and is administered by the National Park Service.

Kelso is reached by taking Interstate 15 from Los Angeles or Las Vegas; Baker is almost midway between the two on I-15. From Baker, take Kelbaker Road south 37 miles to the site of Kelso. The road is paved the entire way and suitable for all vehicles.

The most impressive structure in Kelso is the old Union Pacific station shown below. When I visited back in 2001 and took these photos, it was closed. Happily, the National Park Service has restored the building and it now serves as a visitor center and has the only restaurant for quite a few miles:

Another well-preserved building in Kelso is the post office below. This was the last building to close in Kelso back in the 1970s:

Most of the remaining structures in Kelso are behind fencing, meaning you can look but not touch:

The only buildings not protected by fencing are falling apart:

Near Kelso are some impressive sand dunes called, appropriately enough, the Kelso Dunes. David Carradine walked across them in the opening sequences of the 1970s TV program Kung Fu, and you can retrace those historic steps after visiting Kelso.

Updates On Buck and Dub

2009-04-22T17:24:00.007-05:00

Kimberly Critz is the daughter of Ward and Sue Critz, the new owners of Buck and Dub, the horses Di and I previously owned. She sent along some more photos of the boys in their new home, and all photos were taken over Easter weekend.

Here's a photo of Buck (on the right) and his new herdmate Peso, a beautiful young Palomino. Buck looks so regal in this photo; he has a classic "Arabian look" to him:

Another herdmate of Buck's is Henry, an older horse in his twenties. In the photo below, Buck strikes a noble pose while Henry lurks in the background:

Dub gave a 17-year old girl named Kelsey her first horse ride, and, according to Kimberly, took her on a gentle ride around the pasture. The saddle and riding tack shown below are my old saddle and tack, and I'm glad it's still being used:

The last photo shows Kimberly's niece, Caroline, getting to know Dub. This photo captures what I loved so much about Dub: a gentle, loving heart inside a large, powerful body. I still remember how Dub would spot me when I entered the horse pasture, how he would give a little "whinny!" and start galloping toward me at full speed. I would stand my ground as Dub charged. At about 15 feet away, he would start to put on the brakes. At about five feet away, he would seem to glide to a stop. He would then creep slowly forward until he about a foot away; his head would lower, he would sigh, and I would gently stroke his head with my hands. Our eyes would meet, and we would be connected in a way that is beyond words or logic:

Knowing that Buck and Dub are in such a loving, supportive home takes a load off my mind. I am grateful to Ward and Sue Critz for taking in "our boys," and I thank Kimberly Critz for sharing these photos.

I'm Feeling Cranky And Churlish Today. . . .

2009-04-17T19:04:00.005-05:00

. . . . . . . . but I think I have good reason to feel that way.

One annoyance is that the Blue Angels are in Corpus Christi this weekend for shows at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. They have been rehearsing today, and as a result our condo has been repeatedly rattled by low flying jets screaming in off the Gulf of Mexico. Even car alarms are being set off by the jets' shock waves. And for what purpose? If these were training exercises for an anti-terrorist mission, that would be one thing. But instead the Blue Angels are training for a series of stunts, all performed at low altitudes over heavily populated areas. As I asked before, for what purpose??

Attention President Obama: if you want to save on defense spending, ground the Blue Angels. And when you're finished with that, start showing more respect for civil liberties and privacy than George W. Bush did. Your somewhat. . . . . . shall we say, overenthusiastic embrace of warrantless wiretaps is one reason why people like me------people who voted for you and donated to your campaign----are experiencing severe buyer's remorse these days.

I'm also pissed off at an event being held tonight at a local high school running track. The event is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. People will be walking the track all night, and sponsors will be donating a certain amount of money for each mile walked.

So why does that piss me off?

Because the American Cancer Society, like almost all other cancer groups (such as the Jimmy V Foundation that Dick Vitale slobbers over each basketball season) focus their efforts almost exclusively on research into "finding a cure for cancer." But that approach has two big shortcomings: 1) as you can read here (and here), all of those billions spent on research have brought very little improvement in cancer survival and no further to a "cure," and 2) all that money spent on research leaves very little money left over for support and aid to existing cancer patients and for making diagnostic tests for early detection more widely available to more people.

One of the things that shocked me when I began chemotherapy was how many fellow patients had no reliable way to travel to and from their treatments. Make no mistake-----you are in absolutely no shape to drive after a chemo infusion, and you remain physically impaired for days afterward (I was typically bedridden for five days following each of my infusions). I was fortunate to have Di to drive me to and from the hospital in Austin, but many people, especially the elderly, had to search for a ride each treatment session. And sometimes they had to cancel their treatments if a ride wasn't available.

Some of that money being spent in futile searches for "cures" needs to be redirected toward services and support for people who need rides to their chemo treatments, who need people to check on them after treatments to see how they're doing, who need psychological counseling, etc.

Those sorts of tasks aren't glamorous enough for the American Cancer Society. Yet those tasks make life far more bearable for those dealing with cancer.

Some have asked if I would like a donation made in my name to the American Cancer Society after my death. And my answer to that is. . . . . . . hell no!! Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong Foundation does an infinitely better job of supporting and aiding cancer patients, especially in Central Texas, and deserves your support far more than the American Cancer Society does.

See? I may be falling apart, but I'm still the same irascible son of a bitch I've always been!

Miscellaneous Musings

2009-04-12T17:01:00.005-05:00

• We have several ducks living in the pond that fronts our condo unit, and on Friday one of them hatched four ducklings. Here's a photo I took a few hours ago showing Mama Duck and one of her kids. The maintenance people at our complex have fenced off her nest, and there is water and food for her and her ducklings. I suspect I'll be posting a lot of cute ducky photos in the weeks ahead!

• Today marks the 48th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin. By any measure, this was one of the great accomplishments in human history, yet this anniversary has been, as far as I can tell, almost entirely ignored by the mainstream American press. Why is this? Are we living in such an ahistorical, cynical, heroism-denying age that such monumental acomplishments are now considered of less importance than, say, Lindsay Lohan's new hairstyle? I note the Chinese are enthusiastic about space exploration, embrace heroic enterprises, and I suppose that's why China will be the dominant world power in less than a quarter century. Do your kids a favor; teach them to say "Sure thing, boss!" in Mandarin. They will thank you for it.

• In the past week I have received several unexpected but very welcome e-mails, and I want to acknowledge them. My old high school buddy Donald Mack located me and sent me an update on him and his family; he's doing well and I'm happy for him. Cindy Ballard-Guminski was the first employee of Hightext/LLH back when she was Cindy Ballard; she left us to join the Peace Corps and work in Botswana (my going away present to her was a Grundig shortwave radio!). She had some very warm words for me which I really, really appreciated. I also received an e-mail from someone who had found this blog by accident, Shirley Bovshow. I appreciate her kind remarks about my cancer entries. Shirley has a very interesting gardening blog that is worth checking out. Finally, I also received phone calls from Jason Gardner and Jon Erickson, two buddies from the publishing industry. I can't describe how much such e-mails and calls mean to me, especially from people I have been out of touch with for a while. From the very bottom of my heart, thank you!!

• Today is the third anniversary of my cancer diagnosis and also marks the end of blogging about my cancer. Why? For one thing, I feel as if I have said just about everything I can about the subject; I'm bored with having cancer and how it now dominates my life. I no longer decide when I will go to bed, when I will wake up, what (or if) I will eat today, or what, if anything, I will do on a given day------cancer decides all that for me. And there's very little I can say new or insightful about having cancer. Cancer sucks. That's the summation of everything I have learned over the past three years, and I doubt I'm going to learn anything new in the time I have left. So no more cancer posts; instead, I'll write about ghost towns, mountain climbs, the Big Island, Death Valley, etc. Those are positive memories and cheer me up, while writing about cancer is depressing. I don't want to spend my remaining time in mopey self-pity, so the "My Cancer" label is now officially retired.

North Carolina 89, Michigan State 72

2009-04-07T12:51:00.002-05:00

Last night was the last time I will ever get to see Carolina play. I watched it quietly while lying in bed, my calm the result of a painkiller I had to take earlier in the evening. There was none of the celebration that accompanied the 2005 title, but in the last few minutes of the game I was both giggling and crying tears of joy. . . . . . . the last time I will ever see Carolina play, and they win the national championship. That, my friends, is what you call a "perfect ending."

Yes, to some it was a silly ballgame. For me, last night was an escape from my decline and pain, and some welcome joy and happiness. I felt good and happy, and for that I am grateful.

My thanks and love to my alma mater. As the Carolina fight song says, "I'm a Tar Heel born. I'm a Tar Heel bred. And when I die I'll be a Tar Heel dead."

More Scenes From The Big Island Of Hawaii

2009-04-05T18:13:00.005-05:00

I don't think I'll have time to post individually about all the places on the Big Island that interest me, so here's a quick look at sites I've enjoyed visiting.

One cool place is the small town of Na'alehu, which has the distinction of being the southernmost incorporated town in the United States. The local post office provides the full data:

Na'alehu has a neat restored movie theater that's now a museum. It was closed when I took the photo below, but the exterior was worth a look:

A few miles from Na'alehu is South Point, the southernmost point in the United States. There is a heiau there, which was used for human sacrifices. South Point is very isolated; there is a navigation light there but not much else.

Kalapana was a town on the southeast corner of the Big Island. It was destroyed in 1990 by lava flows from Kilauea. However, lava doesn't flow in a continuous stream; instead, it sometimes flows around areas, resulting in islands of untouched greenery amid a sea of black, cooled lava. And a few houses are spared this way, as you can see below. But this homeowner, and others like him/her, wasn't exactly lucky. If lava destroys a home, the insurance paid the value of the home. But homes like the one below were cut off from roads, electricity, water, sewer services, telephone service, etc.------in other words, those homes were back in the nineteenth century. And since the homes themselves are undamaged, the insurance companies pay nothing, the owners can't sell, and they're stuck:

Visible from the site of Kalapana is the gas cloud emitted from the Pu'u O'o vent of Kilauea. The photo below doesn't do justice to how impressive the cloud was; it was churning like boiling water:

There are several additional places I'll blog about in the future.

The Haunted Heiaus Of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

2009-04-02T17:14:00.010-05:00

The Big Island of Hawaii has been my favorite vacation spot since my first visit in 1988. In fact, I had hoped to retire there before getting sick. Kailua-Kona is on the western side of the Big Island, and is the epicenter of the island's tourist industry. Being in the rain shadow of Mauna Loa, the weather is usually dry and sunny (in contrast to the frequent rains on the eastern, or Hilo, side of the island). There are extensive coral reefs near shore for divers and snorklers, great deep sea fishing, and a wide selection of nightclubs and restaurants. Most of the latter, along with the most luxurious hotels, are on Ali'i Drive, which winds along the seafront. But there is one site that is a jarring contrast to the glitter and glitz of the rest of Ali'i. Several hotels have opened and closed there over the years, and that's because the site is supposedly haunted.

The last hotel there was the Kona Lagoon Hotel, which closed in 1988. It was demolished in 2004, but the building was still standing when I took the photo below in 2002:

The site was fenced-off, but I was able to gain access to the site by the shoreline; the beachfront is public property on the Big Island. This is the view of my access route:

When the hotel closed in 1988, the official reason was because the Japanese owners ran out of money and were unable to obtain additional financing. But rumors said it was because the hotel was haunted. Guests supposedly saw lights and shadowy figures in their rooms and hallways. Sounds like human screams were reportedly heard. And there were numerous non-paranormal problems at the hotel, such as power failures and water leaks. The Kona Lagoon Hotel closed a little over four years after it opened.

But that wasn't the end of the reported supernatural activity at the closed hotel. There was a big turnover in security guards, with many quitting after supposedly seeing ghosts, seeing strange lights, hearing human screams, etc.

I have no idea whether any of those stories are true-----and I have my big, big doubts------but I had heard them prior to my last visit to the Big Island in 2002. I decided to visit the site and see for myself.

I must regretfully report I observed no ghosts, apparitions, spirits, shadowy shapes, or other manifestations of the supernatural. Nor did I see any floating orbs or blobs of mist; I didn't hear any bloodcurdling screams either. The only things that startled me were a couple of large rats that darted out when I didn't expect them.

The reason for the reports of the site being haunted is because there are two sacrificial heiaus on the property. A heiau was a platform made of volcanic rock used for human sacrifices. In the ancient Hawaiian religion, human sacrifice was a key component; the killing of a sacrificial victim allowed Hawaiian kings, priests, and upper classes to absorb the life energy of the victim. No one knows how many victims were sacrificed here, but it is believed the total was in the tens of thousands. Here is a photo of the main heiau:

The "secondary" heiau is below:

The most gruesome sacrifice here took place early in the eighteenth century. At that time, each of the Hawaiian islands had their own king and bloody warfare between the islands was commonplace. During a battle between Maui and the Big Island, the King of Maui was captured and taken to this site. Apparently there was a lot of animosity between him and the King of the Big Island, because the latter had the king of Maui impaled on one of the heiaus instead of killed outright. He was given water but no food as he lay on the heiau.

And he lay on that heiau for eleven days before he died.

The site has several petroglyphs and "brain coral" grows very close to the shoreline:

I understand current plans are to develop an "authentic" Hawaiian resort on the Kona Lagoon Hotel site. I have no idea if human sacrifices on the heiaus will be part of the "authentic" Hawaiian theme.

My Old Buddy Rick McFadden

2009-03-31T18:56:00.002-05:00

Above is a photo of my friend Rick McFadden and his wife Laura. Rick and Laura currently live in Madison, WI with their sons Britt and Brian, both students at the University of Wisconsin.

In junior high and high school, Rick and I were tighter than a pair of thieves. We lost contact with each other when we moved to different parts of the country to pursue our respective careers, but thanks to Google and the internet we've managed to re-establish contact with each other. And that has unleashed a flood of memories. . . . . . .

. . . . . . . like camping out in the woods when we were in junior high. Or like the endless rounds of basketball games------sometimes one-on-one, sometimes five-on-five------in our respective backyards. We raced each other to see which one of us would be the first to get our driver license. (I honestly can't remember who "won.") And I especially remember the basketball games involving Duke, Davidson, North Carolina, etc., that we would see in Charlotte at the old Charlotte Coliseum on Independence Boulevard. And after the games, we'd pull into a Shoney's drive-in for a few late night greaseburgers, followed by a rambling late night drive back home through the back roads of the Carolinas.

It was a lot of fun having Rick as a friend, and it was even more fun when we re-established contact a few weeks ago. I have a lot of great memories of the things we did together, and I'm enjoying recalling them in our frequent e-mails.

A Visit From My Old Friend Hugh McCallum

2009-03-17T19:50:00.003-05:00

The photo above shows me (at right) with one of my oldest and best friends in this world, Hugh McCallum (at left). We're on the beach at Corpus Christi Bay with the aircraft carrier USS Lexington behind us.

Hugh and I tried to figure out how old we were when we first met, and we finally determined we must have been four or five years old. That means we have known each other for over 50 years, not a bad record for two people who are not blood relatives.

Hugh lives in Los Angeles and works as a grip in movie and commercial production. You can see a credit for Hugh in the closing credits for such films as Casino, The Doors, True Lies, and, of course, the beloved Charles Bronson revenge drama Murphy's Law. Hugh kept Di and I well entertained with stories of the actors and directors he has worked with (and he had something good to say about almost everyone), and he and I also did some heavy duty trips down memory lane to the people and places of our boyhoods.

It is impossible for me to describe how much good a visit from an old friend does me these days. It's weird that at the time when I am physically collapsing that my heart is happier than it has been in years. The visits and e-mails from people in my past mean so much, more than I ever can put in words.

Hugh is the walking definition of a "good man." He has been a true and loyal friend over the decades, and it is a great honor to have him for a friend.

A Visit From My Friend Forrest Mims

2009-03-14T11:51:00.004-05:00

My old friend Forrest Mims and his wife Minnie visited me a few days ago; the photo above shows Forrest at left and me at right. I have known Forrest since July, 1979, and he has been one of my closest, and most wise, friends since then.

I first met Forrest when I was a technical writer and editor in Radio Shack's technical publications group at their Fort Worth, Texas headquarters. Forrest was bringing in the "manuscript" for his book Engineer's Notebook. The manuscript was actually a set of mylar transparencies on which Forrest had carefully hand-drawn each figure and word, much like an actual engineering notebook. Forrest and I spent a hot July afternoon spraying clear lacquer on each transparency to protect the lettering, and in that three hours or so a lasting friendship was forged. And Engineer's Notebook went on to sell over 750,000 copies, each a tribute to Forrest special genius when it comes to explaining electronics technology clearly and simply.

Since then I have served as Forrest's editor at various publishers, including HighText/LLH, and have shared all manner of experiences and ideas with Forrest. Forrest's mind is encyclopedic and far-ranging; he is a disciplined, focused thinker whose work has appeared in such publicatons as Nature and Scientific American in addition to his books. It is a shame that many of Forrest's readers are unaware of his wicked sense of humor!

During my cancer, he has always been there for me with supportive words and a sympathetic ear.

Forrest is a loyal and true friend, and I am grateful for his friendship over the years!

Virtue Triumphs Over Evil

2009-03-08T20:58:00.002-05:00

North Carolina 79, Duke 71. That makes six victories over the Blue Devils in the last seven games, and is more proof that Roy Williams has restored Carolina as the dominant basketball program in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

I'm still here, but I haven't felt much like blogging lately. I'll try to get my butt into gear and start posting again (and my thanks to those who e-mailed wondering if I'm okay). I am still at peace with my situation and with what lies ahead for me.

Closing The Circle

2009-02-26T12:36:00.002-06:00

I spent February 15 to 20 back in the Carolinas visiting my relatives, and in a very real sense it was the summation, and completion, of my life's journey.

Sometime in early childhood, maybe around three or four, we start to develop an awareness of an outside world of other people and different places. We start to explore it. It's as if our lives are a gigantic whiteboard and we take a marker and start tracing the path of our lives on that whiteboard. We go through childhood, then adolescence, then young adulthood, and into middle age and beyond. The line made by my marker on my life's whiteboard has often been a dizzying series of loops, swirls, starts and stops; sometimes I took two steps forward but then a step back. It would include stops in places like New York City, Dallas, San Diego, and Las Vegas along with various wives and significant others, assorted writing and editing jobs, flings of entrepreneurship, and periods of obsession with different interests and ideas.

I don't know if I'm typical, but at this point in my life I need to make sense of that line I drew on the whiteboard. It's not that I'm looking for the great cosmic meaning of it all, but I do want to see if there is some common theme, some coherence and sense in all those squiggles.

It was very emotional arriving in Charlotte on the afternoon of February 15. My condition is rapidly deteriorating, and I wanted to make the trip while I was still able to travel without special assistance. I also knew this would be my last chance to see my childhood home and relatives. As with all visits back to the Carolinas over the past two decades, the impact is disconcerting. Everything is so familiar, but everything is also so different. At times, I feel right back at home but at other times I feel like a total stranger.

I said goodbyes that week to many people and places. I visited the graves of my parents and grandparents for the last time and took soil from each; I will have that soil sprinkled on my body when it is cremated. I also got to see almost all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins together on Wednesday night when we all gathered at my Uncle Grady's house. That night, I was able to do something that I needed to do while I still could, and that was to take each of them aside and tell them to their face how proud I was to be related to them, how much I appreciated all the love and support they had given me over the years, and how much I loved them. It was an emotionally wrenching thing to do, but I had to do it and I'm glad I did.

Departing Charlotte on the morning of February 20 was depressing and heartbreaking. In fact, the only time I think I have felt more emotional pain was the death of my mother. I knew that morning I would never see my relatives and the Carolinas again. And I was in a very dark, anguished place as I waited to board my flight to Dallas.

But then I thought back to the gathering with my relatives on Wednesday, and how so many of the stories told were about other family members who had died. The stories were told with great love and affection; the virtues and good points of departed family members were suitably exaggerated while their shortcomings and failures were conveniently forgotten. There was much laughter as what the late members said and did were recounted, and for many minutes those departed members were once again alive and with us. It's on evenings like that you realize you can indeed live on forever in the memories and hearts of those who love you.

And then I also realized that one day they would be swapping stories about crazy cousin Butch----or "little Harry," as some still call me------and that on those evenings I would once again live in their hearts, with all my virtues enhanced and my shortcomings ignored.

That was the moment when I realized the marker I was using on my life's whiteboard had returned to the point where I first started drawing over five decades ago. That crazed, demented circle was finally closed, and I understood the message in all those loopy lines: the love of your family and friends is what makes life worthwhile.

I felt the sadness lifting as I waited for the plane to take off. Yes, I would never see my relatives or the Carolinas again, but they will always be with me in my heart. Things are playing out as they were meant to play out. I have no idea how the end will be, but I do know things will happen just as they are supposed to happen.

Oh, I know this must be confusing gibberish, especially if you are healthy or otherwise not looking down the barrel of a gun. But the world looks different to me than it did just a few months ago. Your perception changes radically once The Beast has you in its deathgrip. But thanks to that trip I made last week, I feel an acceptance of my fate and an inner peace about the sum of my life that it is both wonderful and liberating. And it is all because of my family and friends, and I love and thank all of you.

Five Years!!

2009-02-13T10:00:00.007-06:00

Today is the fifth wedding anniversary for me and Di. We did the deed on February 13, 2004 at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas. As I never tire of pointing out, that was where Elvis married Ann-Margaret at the end of Viva Las Vegas. It was a surprisingly dignified ceremony for Las Vegas. Di chose We've Only Just Begun by the Carpenters to be played while I, of course, selected Johnny Cash's Hurt.

I promised Di last year that I would be around for our fifth anniversary, and I kept that promise. But I know I won't be around for number six. However, I do promise to treasure her every day that I do have left. Di has been an enormous source of joy over the past five years. During my illness, she has been courageous, loyal, kind, and encouraging; there were times when I wanted to simply quit but she kept me moving forward and fighting back. It is no exaggeration whatsoever to say that without her I wouldn't still be alive to write these words.

Thank you, Di. I love you!

I've Been Fighting The Beast For A Few Days

2009-02-11T08:48:00.001-06:00

I often say I have my good days and my bad days when it comes to my cancer. What does that mean? "Bad days" are ones in which I can literally feel my body under assault from the cancer and my immune system fighting back. The impact on me is fatigue bordering on exhaustion, a general feeling much like the flu without the fever or chills. As the disease progresses, my bad days are getting more numerous and worse, like the recent episode that began last Friday.

It began Friday afternoon with an increase in my level of fatigue coupled with a loss of appetite; I had to force myself to eat that evening. On Saturday morning, I didn't finish one breakfast pastry and my sole food for the rest of the day was a can of tomato soup. My big activity for the day was lying around watching television and reading. On Sunday, I was determined to do something, so Di and I did some grocery shopping. The bags of groceries felt like they weighed a ton as I brought them in from the car, and I promptly took a two hour nap when I was finished.

Monday was the worst. I couldn't force myself to eat anything other than drinking some milk. At times, I was physically shaking. My cognitive abilities were scrambled; I tried to read but I was unable to concentrate and found myself re-reading the same paragraph two or three times. By afternoon, I had given up and just lay on the bed. I thought, so, this must be what it will be like when I finally die from cancer. By 8:00 pm, I had to go to bed for the evening, and as I drifted off to sleep I had this nagging feeling that maybe this was it, that perhaps this was the night I would die. I know I'm supposed to have learned some message of courage and hope, or some profound philosophical insight, that I'm supposed to share with everyone. But I didn't. All I could think of was, wow, 56 years and all that I've been through, and it might end tonight with a slow motion fade-out. As the old Peggy Lee song once asked, "Is that all there is?"

But I awoke Tuesday morning. I was very weak, yet I didn't feel as totally emptied as I did on Monday. As Tuesday progressed, my appetite returned and so did my strength. I was able to focus on things again and I could think clearly. And today I feel 1000% better than I did 48 hours ago.

Somewhere inside me, my immune system won some battle against my cancer during the past few days. Maybe it was trying to invade some new organ, or that tumor on my liver was trying to expand some more. . . . . . . . I don't know, but I'm certain a victory of sorts was achieved. And I think I got an advance preview of what it will be like to die.

All in all, a very interesting few days. Now I need to get to work and catch up on some stuff!

The Petroglyphs At Steam Wells, California

2009-02-06T12:04:00.011-06:00

You won't find Steam Wells, California on ordinary road maps; you'll need a U.S. Geological Survey map to find this petroglyph site. It is east of the semi-ghost town of Red Mountain, CA, on public land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. To reach it, you take Highway 395 north off Interstate 15 until you reach the town of Red Mountain. Turn east onto Trona Road and follow it a couple of miles until you reach the turnoff for RM14444, a graded dirt road, on the right. At this point, you will be "behind" Red Mountain, a highly oxidized basaltic cinder cone that now has a reddish coloration. Because of the maze of dirt roads branching off from RM1444, you'lll need a good USGS map or directions from the local BLM office to find this site. While a 4WD vehicle isn't usually necessary, deep sand can accumulate on sections of the roads so a 4WD vehicle or a truck with a robust low gear is a good idea.

This is the high desert of southern California, with an elevation of about 3500 feet. Winter is a great time to visit, as it is cool and critters such as rattlesnakes are hibernating in their dens. You'll need to hike about a mile from the road to reach Steam Wells, and the petroglyph site is a basaltic outcropping that rises about one hundred feet over the surrounding area-----it is easily visible as you approach the site. Another clue you're getting close will be a distinctive "rotten egg" smell. This is a geothermally active area and steam wells were drilled to power mining activities at this location in the 1930s. While the wells have since been capped, they do leak enough to create an odor.

The petroglyphs are scraped into the basaltic boulders making up the outcropping. As you climb the outcropping, most of the boulders you'll see will have designs like the ones seen in the photos below:

When you reach the summit of the outcropping, you get an outstanding view of the surrounding desert------talk about being isolated!!-------and there are some petroglyphs at the top:

I have been reluctant to write about the Steam Wells petroglyphs because they have already been damaged by "outlaw archaeologists" who deal in the thriving black market for pre-Columbian artifacts. As you can see below, someone has very professionally cut away some of the petroglyphs, and those missing petroglyphs doubtlessly decorate the home or office of someone with more money than sense. Isolation and limited BLM resources makes sites like this sitting ducks for thieves.

After visiting the petroglyphs, you can follow your nose to the site of the actual steam wells, as shown below. I visited on a January day with the temperatures in the lower 40s, and I could actually see a few wisps of steam floating away from the well nozzles. The smell got a lot worse the closer you got to the wells, so I didn't spend much time there!

Friends I Miss

2009-01-27T15:34:00.008-06:00

Okay, so technically these people are not "family." That doesn't mean I can't miss our former neighbors when Di and I lived on the Bar Nothing Ranch.

Below are Sherrie and Leslie. They were the queen bees of the "Loop" (as we referred to Pine Valley Loop, the road on which they and we lived) and were organizers of the social scene. Sherrie is a sales engineer for Teology in Austin, and Leslie was the realtor who represented the original owners of the Bar Nothing Ranch. Like us, Sherrie and Leslie owned and rode horses, and the four of us spent many nice weekend afternoons riding along the trails in the area. They swore that had seen the "ghost donkey," a pure white donkey/ghost supposedly seen by some along the Loop on moonless nights (they were absolutely serious in claiming this). Sherrie and Leslie also hosted the annual Super Bowl Loop party, and this Sunday's game has me thinking about them and all the people who will be gathered there. Sherrie and Leslie were also the best damn pair of lesbian cowgirls in the entire state of Texas, IMHO. I gave them my 4-inch refractor telescope as a going-away present last May; I hope they are using it to stargaze under those wonderful dark skies.

Another great couple on the Loop was Wanda and Stuart Schoop, shown below. Wanda is a survivor of ovarian cancer, and was an invaluable resource when I first was diagnosed back in April, 2006. There is no one who can give you the straight, unexpurgated truth about cancer like another cancer patient; Wanda was more informative about the effects of radiation and chemo, and how to cope with them, than any of the medical professionals I dealt with back them. Stuart was extremely helpful because he continued to interact with me as he always had, never slobbering over me with pity or even acknowledging I was sick. And I loved that, because when talking with Stuart I was "Harry" again instead of "Harry the cancer patient." When I spent time with Stuart, I could almost forget that I had a big problem and felt semi-normal again.

Wanda and Stuart often held get-togethers at their home, a place they called "Sloppy Pines." It had a wonderfully eclectic decor, featuring plenty of signs and posters, Japanese pinball machines, an al fresco bar room, etc, Below is a photo of Stuart and me being goofy one night at their place; my "lobster face" is the result of some radiation treatments the previous week:

The get-togethers also produced some of my favorites photos of me and Di, like the one below. I am being goofy, while Di is being cute. I like this one because it shows Di wearing her glasses instead of her contacts, and I know using this photo will really piss her off good:

When you reach the point in life that I'm now at, your friends------past and present-----become very, very precious to you. The memories of the good times you shared with them sustain you on dark days. I have been very lucky to have known people like Sherrie, Leslie, Wanda, Stuart, and, most of all, Di. And there are many more I need to mention on this blog-----I'll get to it. But until then, I say THANK YOU to everyone out there that I have been fortunate enough to have counted among my friends!

Interesting Stuff In The News

2009-01-19T10:01:00.005-06:00

I haven't felt much like writing lately, but I have run across some interesting things in the past week:

• Sometimes I get the feeling the feeling theoretical physicists are just jerking us around. Exhibit A: now they're telling us the universe is just a giant hologram. This is intriguing, mindbending stuff to read, but I really do think too many theoretical physicists are painting themselves into the same intellectual corners that medieval theologians did with their speculations about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. They are constructing theories that are inherently untestable, theories for which no observational evidence is available, theories that might be nothing more than epic works of mathematical fiction. String theory is perhaps the best current example of this obsession with the unprovable, and here's a nice demolition of string theory.

• I recently raised the possibility of a sudden collapse of the Mexican government as being a big problem for the Obama administration. It's a relief to see some people in the U.S. government are taking that possibility seriously. I have bookmarked the web sites for many newspapers in border cities (like Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, and El Paso in Texas) and reading them gives powerful evidence the situation in northern Mexico is getting very grim; civil authority in many areas has already essentially broken down-----in some regions, there is even evidence the Catholic hierarchy has been co-opted by narco money. Mexico could turn into a monstrous problem very rapidly, even though most large media outlets (with the notable exception of the Los Angeles Times) continue to resolutely ignore the situation.

• Magazines are going through the same rough times as newspaper and book publishers, and the Magazine Death Pool web site chronicles the latest victims. The "Museum of Dead Magazines" link at that site is worth a visit for the nostalgia factor alone-----hey, I remember Crawdaddy and Omni!!

• People who get a diagnosis of advanced, probably terminal, cancer invariably react in one of two ways: 1) they accept the news straightforwardly, are honest with themselves and others as to what's happening, and have no patience for self-deception and bullshit about what's going on, or 2) they immediately go into denial about their situation and enter a world of magical thinking, a world in which a refusal to say the word "cancer" and positive, upbeat thoughts are all you need to beat the disease. I'm a type 1) cancer patient. Steve Jobs is a classic type 2) cancer patient. I don't know the details of Jobs's prognosis, but I don't have to; I've run into plenty of people like him in oncologists' waiting rooms, chemotherapy infusion centers, radiation oncologists' waiting rooms, etc., since 2006. I know the type well by now: often very intelligent and high achievers, but utterly unable to accept the notion something bad has happened, and is happening, to them and there is essentially nothing they can do except hope for some good luck. In talking with such fellow patients, I have often been stunned at how irrational and genuinely delusional such otherwise intelligent people can be. Steve needs to stop kidding himself about his situation and what's going to happen; it's a lot better to spend your remaining time enjoying your family, friends, and life than it is to waste it in a futile attempt to convince yourself that reality isn't real.

• I grew up in the segregated South. I remember "whites only" signs in restaurants, hotels, laundromats, waiting areas in airports and train stations, as well as separate entrances for blacks in places like movie theaters (blacks were usually exiled to the balcony, leaving floor level seats for whites). Segregated schools, a total absence of black voters in any election, casual use of racial slurs in everyday conversation. . . . . . . . . I remember all of that very well. Even as recently as a decade ago, I never thought I would live to see the election of a black man as president. And that makes tomorrow's inauguration perhaps the most memorable event of a life in which I have already been lucky enough to witness some truly amazing events. No longer will be the notion of a non-white president be considered remarkable, and that will truly be a marvelous thing for this country. I am proud to say that I voted for Obama in the Texas primary and caucuses, in the general election, and also donated to his campaign. I wish him the best.

• While I supported Obama, I didn't------as did too many of his supporters------fall in love with the man. While I respected his obvious intelligence, I worried about his inexperience and what I felt was an excess of idealism and a lack of pragmatism. (I had no such doubts about John McCain; I was fully confident, and his campaign bore this out, that he was a senile, bewildered old fool prone to panic-driven snap decisions.) Obama strikes me as a guy who would make a great chess player, for chess is a game of pure logic in which the relative strengths of the players' positions are visible to the entire world. But life and politics are like poker. You don't know which cards the other players are holding and deception and bluff are inherent parts of the game. And I worry about whether Obama has spent too much time in the rarefied air of law school faculties and the Senate to have developed the necessary instincts to determine if his counterpart from China, Russia, or a Middle Eastern state is really holding a pair of aces or is trying to bluff with a two and a seven off-suite. My worry is that Obama might be like Jimmy Carter, another idealistic, not-too-worldly type who reacted with genuine shock to the news the USSR had invaded Afghanistan: why, Leonid Brezhnev gave me his personal word he wouldn't do such a thing!! (That's an absolutely true story, by the way.) My fears in this regard have mounted as Obama has populated his administration with retreads from the Clinton administration, including the ultimate retread of all. I consider the Clintons to be breaded-deep-fried-and-served-with-hushpuppies versions of Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, and I strongly, sincerely believe Obama will eventually curse the day he decided to make Hillary Secretary of State. I think that will come in early 2011, when Hillary resigns and makes blistering criticisms of Obama's ineptitude in foreign affairs. And the next day, by remarkable coincidence, the "Hillary2012.com" web site will go live and the fun will really begin.

Remember, you read it here first.

The Moving Rocks Of The Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park

2009-01-10T13:02:00.010-06:00

I love Death Valley National Park. When I lived in California, I spent many winter days and nights exploring, hiking, and camping in it. It has a stark, harsh beauty that touched something deep within me. I know the park so well, especially the backcountry and off-road areas, that I could be a ranger there. I have told Di that I wouldn't mind having my ashes scattered in Death Valley after my death.

Death Valley is full of geological wonders, and perhaps none is so remarkable as the Racetrack Playa, a dry lakebed at the northern end of the park. Rocks move across the surface of the Racetrack Playa for reasons we don't yet fully understand.

The Racetrack Playa is reached via a 27-mile dirt road that begins near Ubehebe Crater. Below is a photo of my beloved 4Runner at the start of the road. While the sign says a 4WD vehicle is recommended, the road is generally well-graded enough for most passenger cars. However, the surface is very "washboardy" and a rugged vehicle with a robust suspension is a good idea.

An interesting stop on the way to the Racetrack is Teakettle Junction. For reasons now lost in history, visitors hang teakettles from the sign marking this junction. I didn't have a teakettle to leave, but I did get a kick out of the sign:

The Racetrack Playa is about 2.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. In the middle of it is an outcropping of dark basaltic rock called the Grandstand. Below is a view across the Racetrack toward the Grandstand:

The surface of the Racetrack Playa is a hard-packed mixture of dried clay and silt. The drying process has produced a mosaic-like pattern of cracks. When I walked across it, I found the surface to be a little slick, even though it was dry, and remarkable free from dust and particles. I attribute this to the near-constant wind that was blowing during the day:

I walked out to the Grandstand. As you can see, there is erosion around the fringes of the basalt, and the rocks that travel across the Racetrack originate from here:

Here is one of the rocks as it moves away from the Grandstand:

The "trail" left by the rock above was clearly visible to the naked eye, although it came across as faint in the photo below. I've tweaked the color and contrast in the photo below to make it more visible, although the clarity will depend on the resolution of your display:

Here is one link telling more about the Racetrack Playa and here's the official U.S. Geological Survey page about the Racetrack.

A trip to the Racetrack Playa isn't a casual jaunt, but well worth the effort!

More Upheavals In Book Publishing

2009-01-05T10:55:00.004-06:00

Ya know, I got out of book publishing just in time. Sometimes I feel like an airplane passenger who arrives at an airport to connect to another flight, and later hears his original flight crashed shortly after taking off from the connecting airport.

Here's exhibit A from yesterday's New York Times. And despite the fey "everything's gonna be fine!" response at the end from the well known has-been Michael Korda, I suspect most people in book publishing today know the good times are really gone forever and things will never be the same again.

A lot of these changes are long overdue. In particular, the return on investment for sales conferences and trade shows such as BookExpo America has been very, very questionable for over a decade; they are more like class reunions, with plenty of opportunities for excessive drinking and extramarital fornication, than they are serious business meetings. In the professional and technical publishing areas I'm most familiar with, I've long questioned the effectiveness of spending to attend and exhibit at various professional society meetings. Two decades ago, I was at Academic Press and each month marketing would circulate sales reports showing how many books were sold at events like a regional meeting of biochemists. Now it might seem impressive to have sold $1500 of books in two days at such an event, but when you added up the travel costs of having an editor and marketing person attend the event and staff the booth, and then you did the math, and you realized Academic Press actually lost almost $2000 by exhibiting and selling books there. . . . . . . . . . witnessing that sort of nonsense firsthand is one of the things that motivated Carol Lewis and I to leave Academic Press to found HighText/LLH.

Robert Gottlieb, quoted in the Times article, is correct when he says excessive spending on travel and entertainment is "small potatoes" compared to other problems publishing faces. But the waste on travel and entertainment is symptomatic of the poor management found throughout much of the publishing industry. Exhibit B is this story from the Wall Street Journal. The author of that piece is an associate professor at the Harvard Business School, and it is more than a little worrisome that someone responsible for training the next generation of business leaders does not recognize the book publishing strategy she describes, with what seems to be approval, is actually nothing more than the strategy of a sucker at a Las Vegas blackjack table with all their chips bet on a hand, sitting on 17, and asking the dealer to hit them with another card. That's not a "strategy"; that's desperation!

The real problem with book publishing today is the number of parasites consuming the revenue stream from the end purchaser. There is the discount given to the retailer. . . . . . and the "co-op" payments to retailers to get shelf space for a publisher's titles. . . . . . and the additional discounts to wholesalers like Ingrams which service smaller booksellers and small orders from larger stores. . . . . and don't forget shipping and printing costs, both of which have grown faster than the list prices of books.

There is hope among some publishers the practice of allowing retailers to return unsold books for credit can be abolished. But doing that is going to be about as easy as getting a junkie off heroin. More promising would be a rapid expansion and use of print-on-demand technology to allow the same just-in-time inventory management techniques that many other industries are now using. The practice of sinking a lot of capital into printing a big inventory of books----and the costs of shipping, storing, and processing that inventory-----is something the book industry can't sustain much longer. Sadly, I see very few larger publishers willing, or able, to consider alternatives to the existing printing and distribution model.

Meanwhile, Google is moving ahead in digital publishing while most print publishers are passively watching. It wouldn't surprise me if Google isn't the largest "publisher" in the world in a couple of decades.

Speaking of Google, I am amazed and dismayed at how inept book publishers are in using tools like Google's AdWords and AdSense to direct web searchers to their titles. Try this experiment: enter the term "programming C#" in Google and see what you get in terms of ads on the search results. You get ads for contract C# programmers, C# programming seminars and classes, etc., but no ads for books on C# programming. Brain dead. . . . . . . . just brain dead.

Yet I wish I was in good health and able to work long hours, because there are sensational opportunities out there for entrepreneurs willing to embrace the digital publishing revolution. The iPhone appears to be emerging as a very potent eBook platform (more here). I look forward to seeing what creative, visionary publishing people will do with these new tools.

2009

2009-01-02T11:48:00.005-06:00

A new year was once a time of great plans and goal setting for me. Since getting cancer, it's become a more contemplative, introspective time. This past New Year's Eve/Day was a somewhat somber time for me. I've survived longer than most other patients with my prognosis, but the luck I've often referred to here is starting to run out. I have experienced a significant physical decline since Thanksgiving; I'm really feeling the "tumor load" on my body and, if life is a chess game, then I have definitely entered the end game. With the physical decline has come something of a mental and emotional decline as well. I no longer enjoy doing many of the things I have enjoyed in the past (like writing or playing with my radio equipment) and I am often beset with this puzzling lassitude and indifference. As I told Di a couple of days ago, I sometimes feel like someone who has stayed too long at a party and needs to leave. I have no doubt my physical deterioration is starting to have an impact on my mental state.

Normally I'd be optimistic and bubbly at the start of a new year, but this year I am under no illusions. I know 2009 will be a bad year. I can see the storm clouds approaching. I know I am going to get stomped hard in 2009, and there is nothing I can do to prevent that from happening. All I can do is get a good grip, grit my teeth, and try to be as stoic as I can in dealing with what's ahead.

I probably won't be updating this blog as often as I've been doing; most days I just don't have the motivation. But I'll try to keep posting interesting things about the places I've visited and items in the news; I don't want to turn this into a poor-poor-pitiful-me whinefest.

I greatly enjoyed the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi channel yesterday. I especially liked the "Monsters on Maple Street" episode. This involved a sudden power and telephone system failure in a small town at the same time a large, bright meteor was seen. Very soon, the anxious, nervous townspeople start wondering what happened and why, and the people soon disintegrate into a hysterical mob convinced the meteor was a flying saucer, the power and telephone failure was caused by the flying saucer, and that space people are in their town preparing to take over Earth. The townspeople start suspecting each other-----even children-----of being "space people," and one neighbor even gets shot in the panic. Of course, none of them are "space people," and the episode was actually a powerful commentary on the McCarthy era. But it still has relevance today as a warning against allowing your fears to dominate your common sense and to not see "monsters" where there are only shadows. It's a warning applicable to entire nations, and also to people like me facing an uncertain future. I'll try to keep it in mind as 2009 goes forward.

I hope everyone has a great 2009 and my best wishes to all of you! Thanks for visiting and reading here!

Links To Stuff I've Been Reading

2008-12-30T14:14:00.004-06:00

I haven't been feeling well lately and haven't felt much like blogging, but I've been reading some interesting things I'd like to------as Rod Serling used to say on The Twilight Zone-----submit for your consideration:

• The Greensburg, KS tornado of May 4, 2007 was a F5 monster that destroyed that unfortunate town. It was also just one of several violent storms in Oklahoma and Kansas that evening. It now seems as if those storms were part of an extraordinarily rare meteorological event-----a cluster of "inland cyclones" and "super tornadoes"------that caused the parent thunderstorms to develop eyewalls, much like hurricanes, and the Greensburg tornado to reach a width of four miles on the ground! That link is to a discussion on the Stormtrack.org website; it's often detailed, and not easy, reading but is a fascinating look at the same phenomenon that may well have produced the great 1925 Tri-State Tornado. (It now seems, based upon the data gathered from the Greensburg tornado, that the Tri-State Tornado was probably a single tornado rather than a series of them.) Tornadoes are produced by super-cell thunderstorms, and it now appears on rare occasions that super tornadoes may be produced by super super-cell thunderstorms! As one of the participants in the Stormtrack discussion asks, can you imagine what a storm like this would do if it hit a populated area like Kansas City, Oklahoma City, or Dallas?

• As if that's not enough to worry about, there has been a swarm of earthquakes under the caldera of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Let's face it; we're all doomed.

• A web site called Strange Maps is worth everyone's attention!

• Don't look now, but the government of Mexico is coming apart at the seams and could collapse at any moment, producing widespread chaos and mega-problems for the United States. Think I'm kidding? The cause is the war between Mexican drug cartels and the wobbly, post-PRI Mexican government, and the Mexican government is currently losing. The Los Angeles Times is covering this situation very well. Visit that link, read the stories, ponder how long a border we share with Mexico, further ponder how open and undefended it is, and then shudder. President Obama's first major foreign policy crisis may not be in the Middle East or Russia, but instead on our southern doorstep.

• I'm so old that I remember when Caroline Kennedy used to be Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. Behind her Senate bid is less a commitment to public service than an apparent desire to frustrate the senatorial ambitions of a former "associate member" of the extended Kennedy political clan.

The Ghost Town Of Warm Springs, Nevada

2008-12-20T16:05:00.009-06:00

Warm Springs is really in the middle of nowhere. It's located on Nevada highway 6 about 40 miles east of Tonopah, NV, at the intersection of Highway 6 and State Route 375 (the so-called "Extraterrestrial Highway" that leads to Area 51). The isolation here is about as complete as it gets. You are over 20 miles from the nearest gas station, there is no cell phone service available (or at least there wasn't when I last visited in 2002), and you can get just a couple of weak radio stations on the AM and FM bands. When I drove the 40 miles from Tonopah on a weekday afternoon, I didn't see another car the entire way to Warm Springs. In other words, this is the wrong place to have a flat tire or mechanical breakdown!

Warm Springs was first settled around 1866 as a stopover for stagecoaches traveling from Utah to central California. There are some natural hot springs which, when cooled, provided drinking water for horses and travellers and also allowed growing of some modest forage for animals. By the 1890s, railroads had replaced horses and stagecoaches for travel on the route and the original settlement was abandoned. Below are photos of the surviving ruins from that era. As you can see, many of the structures, as well as the horse corrals, were made from stone because of the shortage of wood in the high desert:

In the early 1900s, bathing in natural hot springs became a popular health fad and Warm Springs experienced a little revival. A swimming pool was built along with bathhouses, a small cafe, and a couple of homes for the workers. As I understand things, Warm Springs was never a "destination resort" but instead catered to travelers on Highway 6 who wanted to relax for a couple of hours in the warm waters before continuing on to Tonopah, Carson City, or the Sierra Nevadas in California. The surviving two buildings at Warm Springs seem to be of fairly recent vintage-----say from the late 1950s or early 1960s----and appear to have been abandoned perhaps in the 1990s or so. The cafe is boarded up and sealed, while the house has been stripped of all fixtures, including electrical wiring and plumbing fixtures. I suppose both are now the property of Nye County because of unpaid taxes:

The swimming pool at Warm Springs is behind a locked fence, although it would be a simple matter to cut the padlock and enter; I wouldn't be surprised if that's not a regular event way out here. Because the water flows into the pool from a hot spring and then flows out through a drain, the water seems fresh and has no signs of algae or other contaminants. One can bathe in the warm water without breaking into the pool by using the water flowing out of the pool drain.

Warm Springs is near two sites that are also worth visiting while you're in the area. Ten miles further east on Highway 6 is the so-called "Base Camp Airfield," an emergency landing site for test flights out of Area 51 to the southwest. This is a 7300 foot runway with several trailers behind a fence with several "No Trespassing: U.S. Government Property" signs. While the facility looks deserted, it is staffed and security guards appear out of nowhere if you stop along the fence line. It is my understanding that Highway 6 may be closed during flight tests at Area 51 if an emergency landing might be necessary. Another 15 miles further east on Highway 6 (or 25 miles east of Warm Springs) is the turnoff for the Project Faultless test site. A dirt road at that point leads about 14 miles to the site of a one megaton underground hydrogen bomb test conducted on January 19, 1968. The area was supposed to be a replacement for the Nevada Test Site, but the underground geology was all wrong for nuclear testing; the Project Faultless explosion caused about 4000 square feet of land to sink a little over ten feet, producing an obvious depression which is still visible. Anyone can visit this site and see the concrete "caps" on the blast tunnels and numerous metal ground markers with cryptic lettering. I wrote about both of these sites in my book Top Secret Tourism.

Of course, you can always head south on state route 375 from Warm Springs and pay a visit to Area 51. I previously wrote about visiting Area 51 here.

Delightful Miscellany From The Past Week

2008-12-16T12:36:00.008-06:00

• My skeptical review of the series finale of Ghost Adventures is now up. As you may detect from the tone of my review, I wasn't impressed, but at least I was amused!

• One of the dirty little secrets about cancer tests is how many of them are not very accurate and miss many early stage cancers. So says the New York Times. The large majority of funds raised for cancer research go to "home run" projects that try to discover the underlying causes of cancer----why do certain body cells start running amok and replicating out of control?-----but, despite decades of research and billions of dollars, those efforts have largely failed and show no promise of any breakthroughs in the near future. Meanwhile, research into more mundane topics, such as improving the accuracy and reliability of diagnostic tests such as colonoscopies, is neglected even though such improvements would likely save more lives much sooner. But the "home run" research is more glamorous, money goes to it, and people die needlessly as a result.

• Nick Gillespie lets rip with a magnificent, scatalogical rant about the current state of the United States in this piece from Reason. I find myself in agreement on most of his points. In particular, I find myself wondering why I should be obligated in cleaning up the mess created by fools who bought no-money-down homes with adjustable rate mortgages. I take pride in the fact that I have tried to live my adult life not just within my means but well within my means; I have lived in homes, and driven cars, less grand than I could have if I had spent every last dollar of my disposable income. Instead, I saved and invested much of my disposable income. That's why I was able to buy our new condo in Corpus Christi, as well as our 2009 Scion, with cash instead of credit. (And you have no idea how hard a bargain you can drive in this economy when you're a buyer able to pay 100% cash!) I take pride in the fact that all I owe each month are utility and insurance bills. And that is why I say to anyone struggling with a sub-prime mortgage, one you got with no money down and having the closing costs folded into the loan. . . . . . . . I have absolutely no sympathy for you. None whatsoever. If you lacked the income and/or personal financial discipline to save a down payment of 20% and qualify for a fixed rate mortgage, you had no business trying to buy a home; you should have just rented instead. You, not me, are the one responsible for the jam you find yourself in, and I will severely punish any politician who wants to use my tax dollars to bail your worthless, idiotic, and profligate ass out. In other words, I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. I hope this clarifies my feelings on this matter.

• I'm in favor of revoking Illinois's statehood, giving it to Puerto Rico, and instead making Illinois a territory, much like Guam or American Samoa. Here's why. Seriously, if Illinois was a Central American nation with such a chaotic government, we would have sent in the Marines by now.

• Here's a variation of those "100 things to do before you die" lists, but this one deals with visiting places and experiencing things connected to the natural sciences. I was surprised to discover I have done 42 of the 100 things on this list, and I even posted here about #47, Telescope Peak. I'll soon post here about the others I've seen/experienced, like. . . . . .

#1, an erupting volcano (Pu'u O'o vent on the Big Island of Hawaii; I took this photo in 2002):

#2, see a glacier (better yet, I have actually climbed as well as seen a glacier----this is a photo I snapped while climbing across the Palmer glacier on Oregon's Mount Hood-----note the cracks in the surface ice):

Digital Continues To Grow At Print's Expense

2008-12-12T15:05:00.004-06:00

It's amazing how something that seems permanent and immutable can collapse in a very short time-----remember how the Soviet Union evaporated in just a few months back in 1991?

Something similar is happening in the print publishing business. Icons of print publishing are collapsing or staggering under the weight of increased competition and declining revenues.

The Tribune Company, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers, filed for bankruptcy on December 10. Entertainment Weekly is rumored to be phasing out its print version in favor of its on-line edition. Newsweek is drastically cutting back its print edition in an attempt to survive, but some publishing industry observers think it's doomed-----perhaps as soon as 2010----no matter what.

The interesting thing in all this bad news is that its arrival should be no surprise; since the turn of the century, it's been painfully obvious digital was starting to take large bites out of the hide of print publishing. This post from Clay Shirky is a bit self-congratulatory but is also dead on-target------the changes now battering print publishing are the logical culmination of trends clear a decade ago. In a similar fashion, when I say wireless broadband will replace terrestrial radio, or that the huge bulk of technical and profesional publishing will move to digital, or that something like the iPhone will become the eBook reader platform of choice, I'm just extrapolating from trends that are well underway and have clear direction. It takes no special insight to notice these trends; you just have to be open to the notion that change, rather than permanence, is the normal condition of life.

Sadly, I think my beloved book publishing business is no better positioned than newspapers or magazines to adapt to the digital age, as this post illustrates. (Take a good look at some of those comments!) Oh, I know plenty of rank-and-file employees and lower-level managers who are fully aware of what's about to happen, but the executive suites in most larger publishers are filled with people who are convinced things can be just like they were back in 1988 if they just hang tough and wait for this wacky digital fad to run its course.

Most "crises" are entirely predictable and the logical summation of clear, obvious warning signals that are ignored until too late. Take, for example, this article from Business Week titled "What If GM Did Go Bankrupt?" A timely article, you say? Yes, but it was published on December 12, 2005. And GM's executives and employees have done absolutely nothing over the last three years to even begin honestly recognizing their problems, much less solve them. (And that's why I oppose any auto bailout; the Big Three execs and workers have spent years denying they have a problem and are utterly incapable of developing a viable solution in three months. A bailout will only postpone the inevitable reckoning for decades of collective foolishness. If Congress simply has to spend $15 billion, let them spend it instead on something like health care for uninsured children.)

I fear that many in the print publishing industry will, like GM, continue to ignore problems, deny they even have problems, until they crash head-first into fiscal reality. And when that happens, it's too late to change the outcome.

On the bright side, I think some major fortunes are going to be made by those who figure out how to use digital to meet their readers' (that is, their customers') information needs.

We're in for a wild ride. If you're in the publishing business, hang on tight!

The Petroglyphs At Swansea, California

2008-12-08T11:38:00.007-06:00

Swansea, California is a ghost town site located about ten miles south of Lone Pine, CA, along Highway 136. It is located on the eastern shore of the Owens Lake dry lake bed, bordering a vast expanse of white alkaline deposits. There is not much left of Swansea, and I'll blog about that ghost town in the future. Today I'm going to write about a series of remarkable petroglyphs found near Swansea on the east side of Highway 136.

Most of the petroglyphs found in the southwestern United States were made on basaltic rock, but the Swansea petroglyphs were made on marble. Because marble is a harder rock than basalt, making the Swansea petroglyphs must have been a difficult task. Fortunately, it also means the Swansea petroglyphs are very well preserved compared to most basaltic petroglyphs:

So far, these look like very typical petroglyphs. They depict game animals (note the bighorn sheep in the second photo above) as well as astronomical objects (the starburst at left in the photo above). They also include the random geometric patterns indicative of hallucinations induced by native tobacco, lack of sleep and food, etc.

What makes the Swansea petroglyphs a bit controversial is the presence of supposedly Christian and European symbols in them, such as the cross you can see in the photo below:

Some of the Swansea petroglyphs supposedly represent horses, which were unknown in North American prior to the arrival of the Spaniards:

The Swansea petroglyphs are the inspiration for a very unusual web site called The Equinox Project, which claims the Swansea site is proof of European exploration of North America------principally by the Celts-----over 1000 years ago!

Frankly, the Equinox Project's claims are profoundly unconvincing and more than a little demented. But the Swansea petroglyphs are well worth a visit for their own sake.

Dub Makes A New Friend

2008-12-05T11:45:00.006-06:00

Above is Dubya, my horse from 2005 until this past May when we sold him (along with Buck) to Ward and Sue Critz as part of our move to Corpus Christi. The photo above was taken last weekend, and shows Kimberly Critz, daughter of Ward and Sue, and her young niece Caroline atop Dub. It was Caroline's first horse ride, and she seems to be enjoying it. And I imagine that in another decade Caroline will always want to ride The Dubster whenever she visits her grandparents.

I really miss Dubya. It always amazed me that such a large, powerful animal could have such a gentle heart. I miss walking outside and hearing Dub "whiny" when he saw me and then galloping toward me. It's a relief to know he and Buck are in a good home with loving, caring people to look after them-----and that he will probably be the horse a young girl falls in love with.

Random Musings. . . . . .

2008-12-04T09:59:00.004-06:00

Interesting stuff in the news of late. . . . . . .

● The book publishing business is finding it is not immune to the current economic climate and some well-known publishing professionals have lost their jobs. There are also some long-overdue efforts underway to consolidate divisions and functions and avoid the duplication of effort that is pandemic in some larger publishers. I expect to see a lot more news like this in the future as the book publishing industry model I worked in for years is no longer financially viable; big changes are going to happen of necessity.

● I've previously blogged about the utter insanity of the proposed auto industry bailout, with my biggest objection being that it simply won't work. Reason magazine nicely sums up why the bailout is doomed to fail, and crunches the numbers to show why it can't work------even if GM, Ford, and Chrysler get everything they're asking for, they'll be back for more by next summer. The problems with GM, Ford, and Chrysler are simple: 1) people don't want to buy the cars they're making, and 2) the management of those companies is flat-out incompetent in every possible way. Until GM, Ford,and Chrysler figure out how to build cars people want to buy, no amount of federal money can save them------without customers who want to buy your stuff, you don't have a business. A Chapter 11 filing for all three would be their best bet for a rebirth. Giving federal money to the same teams of executive fools who got the automakers into their current mess would accomplish absolutely nothing. And I really object to how the bailout request is being described as "loans." These are the sort of "loans" that are made when your worthless brother-in-law asks to borrow $500; you know damn well you will never see that money again if you make that "loan." Same thing applies here. . . . .

● Several months ago I 'fessed up to my addiction to various "ghost hunting" shows on cable television. Well, there is a new one on the Travel Channel titled Ghost Adventures that I find highly "entertaining," and I'm doing reviews of it for the Skeptical Viewer web site. Here is my first review and here is my second review. I find Ghost Adventures to be only slightly more disingenuous than, say, a typical episode of Meet The Press.

● I greatly enjoyed watching North Carolina demolish Michigan State last night by a score of 98-63; this Carolina squad might be the best since the legendary 1981-82 national champions (which featured a couple of players named James Worthy and Michael Jordan). But my enjoyment of the game was impaired by the repeated maudlin references to "Jimmy V Week" and pitches for donations to the "Jimmy V Foundation." Jimmy V was Jim Valvano, the former basketball coach at N.C. State who died of cancer in 1993. What drove me nuts was listening to the non-stop emoting of Dick Vitale during the game and, during commercial breaks, Duke coach Mike Kryzewski, both telling us what a terrible disease cancer is, how it destroys lives, how we must find a cure for it now, how courageous cancer patients are, blab. . . . . blab. . . . . . blab, until I was about to scream. As I've written here before, the "courageous cancer patient" is just a myth; we undergo chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery not because we're brave but because we want to live. Moreover, cancer patients don't live lives of non-stop suffering and despair. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass to have cancer, I'd rather not have it, and I had a lot more fun without it, but I still lead a very enjoyable, rewarding, and fulfilling life. We cancer patients don't want or need anyone's pity. Finally, I was upset by the egocentric, self-congratulatory tone taken by Vitale and Kryzewski in their verbal ramblings; it was as if the subtext was See what a good person I am! I hate cancer! Well, good for you boys! I hate it too. But I don't like being reduced to an icon or symbol that people can project their fears upon, and I don't like being patronized as some sort of pathetic victim in need of constant love and support. I know the vast majority of the other cancer patients I've met since beginning my journey feel the same way. We're just ill, not helpless. And we're real people, not symbols!

Happy Birthday, Di!

2008-11-29T12:21:00.002-06:00

Today is the birthday of my wife Di. Above is one of my favorite photos of her, one I took at dusk on the observation platform of the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas. Back in 2003, I swore I would never get married again, and I sure as hell was never going to live in Texas again. And then I saw her, with that fiery red hair against a clear blue desert sky, I was immediately stricken by the sight, and suddenly all of my plans and vows went out the window. And I'm glad they did.

Since we met, she has been both my parole officer and game warden and, since I got sick, increasingly my nurse and my reason for trying to hold on as long as I can. She has shown courage, strength, character, and patience. There have been times she was the only light in my darkness.

Happy birthday, baby! I love you!!

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-11-27T10:26:00.002-06:00

I'm lucky enough to see another Thanksgiving, and I have a lot to be thankful about.

Like my family and friends. Like the people I've never met but who I "know" through my writings, this blog, and radio activities. Like our dogs, cats, and Lucy the wonder rabbit. Like my memories of the places I've been and the things I have done. Like the fact that I'm one of the lucky patients located on the right side of the mean survival time bell curve. As I look back on my life and reflect, the one thing that keeps popping into my mind is man, I've been one lucky SOB!

Years ago, I used to say I wanted to die suddenly and unexpectedly, and never have an idea it was coming. But I am thankful the way things have turned out and for this opportunity to look back at the road I have traveled. I have climbed heights only to experience steep, brutal falls. I have been thrown from one side to the other. I have turned one way and then turned sharply in the opposite. Sometimes all I could do was hold on as tightly as I could.

That sounds like a world-class roller coaster ride, doesn't it? And that's the perfect metaphor for my life. Now my ride is nearing the end-----the part where the roller coaster slows down as it returns to its starting point-----and I have to say it was a lot of fun, well worth the trip, and I'd do it all again, exactly the same way, without hesitation. And for that I'm thankful.

I hope everyone reading these words feels the same way toward the end of their life journey.

It's just me and Di today. There will be the obligatory overconsumption of food, perhaps a walk on the beach, and then back home to watch the Cowboys versus Seattle and, later, the Texas Longhorns confronting the dreaded Texas A&M Aggies. Viewing of those games will be assisted by bottles of 2008 Georges duBoeuf Beaujolais Nouveau, which will probably do me more good than all that $15K a month chemotherapy I received.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone, and thank you for stopping by!

The Ghost Town Of Darwin, California

2008-11-13T11:48:00.011-06:00

Darwin, California isn't a "true" ghost town; as the sign shows, a handful of people still remain. But it's a "zombie" town that seems populated almost exclusively by those on disability or engaged in activities they wish to keep away from the eyes of local, state, and federal law enforcement agents.

Darwin is located on Highway 190, the western entrance to Death Valley National Park (this is the so-called Panamint Springs entrance). It is reached by taking the Highway 190 exit east off Highway 395 just south of Olancha, CA. The road to Darwin is on the right from Highway 190 eastbound, although it is poorly marked and it's easy to zoom right past it------as most visitors to Death Valley via this entrance do.

Darwin in named for Dr. Darwin French, a prospector who discovered silver in the area in 1874. By 1877, Darwin had over 3500 people with water pumped down from springs in the surrounding mountains. There was a silver smelter, a Wells Fargo office, two general stores, a hotel, several saloons and eating establishments, and a weekly newspaper. Because the site was isolated and populated by miners with little to do for recreation but drink, gunfights were common; outbound silver shipments were frequently the targets of robbers. But in 1879, the miners staged a violent strike for higher pay, culminating in a large fire, believed to be arson, that hit Darwin on April 30 of that year. Many buildings were destroyed, including mine offices, and the results were predictable: the mine operators quickly pulled out. and the now permanently unemployed miners had no choice but to do the same. By 1880, the population of Darwin was only 85. But it never completely died.

In 1908, some new lead and copper strikes were made in the area and people began to return to Darwin. By the 1920s, the population was back up to 1000 and remained around that level until all non-essential mining activity was curtailed in 1942. By the time World War II ended, Darwin had less than 100 people. In the early 1950s, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company greatly expanded its lead mining operations in Darwin, even building a new mining camp (complete with housing facilities for workers) that dwarfed Darwin. For a period in the late 1950s, Darwin was the largest producer of lead in the United States. But the mine began to play out, and Anaconda shut down its operations in the mid-1970s. Today, the remains of their large facilities can be viewed in the distance from behind a fence, as shown below. Being a security guard for Anaconda at this facility seems to be about the only source of employment in Darwin:

Much of Darwin looks like the scene below, with plenty of boarded-up buildings from the 1920s "rebirth" and abandoned/inoperable vehicles from the 1950s left to slowly rust in the high desert:

There's no place in Darwin to get any gasoline or your car repaired-----heck, there's no place to buy anything to eat or drink!------but there is this cool abandoned service station/general store. Look at those two neat old "gravity" gasoline pumps still standing out front!

For fun, I suppose everyone in town goes to the Darwin Dance Hall. When I looked through the windows, however, I didn't see much room to dance, only a lot of glass bottles and miscellaneous pieces of wooden furniture:

One building which survives from Darwin's original 1874-79 boom period is the wooden building below which has served as a schoolhouse, then a saloon, and, finally, reportedly a brothel. Maybe it was all three at once; if so, I guess everyone was happy when they had a lot of homework:

Most of the remaining population of Darwin lives in ramshackle dwellings like the ones below, although many have whimsical little touches like the Mickey Mouse head at right. The only water supply to Darwin comes through a single six inch pipe from the adjacent China Lake Naval Weapons Center. One of the people I spoke to in Darwin said the water pressure sometimes falls to a trickle, and residents all stockpile water for drinking, etc., for such times. The nearest grocery store or medical attention is in Lone Pine, about 60 miles away.

Like all small, isolated areas of the American West, Darwin attracts its fair share of eccentrics, misfits, and those who are just plain batshit crazy. They live in places like the "house" below; it's a fiberglass, pre-fab fallout shelter from the 1950s. You were supposed to cover it with soil or concrete to block radiation. You weren't supposed to locate it on the west side of Death Valley, install an air conditioner, and make it your home sweet home:

It takes a special person to live in Darwin. I'm not special.

The iPhone As An eBook Publishing Platform

2008-11-11T11:56:00.005-06:00

Back in early 2005, I started a blog titled "Future of Radio" in which I discussed the coming revolution in radio and communications technology. One of my topic labels was "cellphonecasting," which was a term I coined to refer to phones with wireless broadband capability that could be used to receive internet radio and video streaming. Eventually, that morphed into my conclusion that one day we would carry around a sort of "universal communications device" that would be your mobile phone, have your MP3 and video files for entertainment, allow you to store photos, contact information, and other files, and would finally provide wireless broadband access to the internet.

I discontinued the "Future of Radio" after getting sick, but I was pleased to see the original iPhone validated the notion of "cellphonecasting" and a pocket-sized "universal communications device."

Elsevier gave me an iPod Touch last year after I left my consulting gig, and it was a revelation to use. I was struck by the clarity and resolution of the small screen, and had no trouble reading any of the web pages I accessed on it via WiFi. I mentioned to some of my friends in the publishing business that I thought something like the iPod Touch or iPhone could become an eBook platform. I also felt dedicated eBook platforms like Amazon's Kindle were not the way to go because most of us are looking to carry around fewer items, not more; multifunction devices like the iPod Touch/iPhone struck me as the way of the future.

That's why I found this post from Joe Wikert about his experiences with the iPhone 3G as an eBook platform very interesting. Note how his commenters are also reporting their positive experiences with the iPhone 3G as an eBook reader.

So what would I do if I were 30 and in the print publishing or terrestrial/satellite radio businesses? I would be preparing for a future in which almost everyone has something like the iPhone 3G and gets "publications" and "radio" through it.

For a lot of big, established media players, this is going to be a painful, perhaps fatal, transition. For budding entrepreneurs with energy, imagination, and boldness, it's going to be the opportunity to make a lot of money. . . . . . and I mean a LOT of money.

Given the current gloom and doom about the economy, that might sound a little crazy. But two of the greatest business success stories of the last 50 years, Apple and Microsoft, were started in the mid-1970s, in a similarly hostile-----if not worse-----economic environment. Anybody remember gasoline lines? A prime interest rate of over 20%? Double-digit inflation? It wasn't fun back then, boys and girls, but Steve Jobs and Bill Gates recognized what was on the horizon, took action, and won big. Heck, we started LLH/HighText back in 1990, and the economy wasn't exactly great then. But that's the best time to start something new because many of your potential competitors will be fearfully huddled in their caves, waiting for the storm to pass.

The same is possible today, and brains and the willingness to take a chance will be a lot more important than money and connections.

If I could be reasonably confident of being around two years from now, I'd be getting my ass into high gear to exploit these opportunities. As it is, I am going to make my next book, currently being written, available for the iPhone. If you're in publishing or broadcasting and are reading these words, what are you waiting for?

Whatever you do, or dream, begin it now. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.----Goethe

An Inchoate, Angry Rant For Such A Beautiful Autumn Day

2008-11-07T18:10:00.005-06:00

It's official: General Motors has started its death spasms and, of course, wants you------I'm talking about you, schmuck, the American taxpayer------to bail them out. President-elect Barack Obama is on board with the idea, and I suppose that means GM will soon be getting billions of federal money.

Is it possible to impeach a president prior to his inauguration?

Why? Because if GM is in such dire financial straits, then where did they find the $300 million to build a new auto factory in Russia? (And note the date of the grand opening----today, November 7, the day they announced to the world they're going broke!)

And in September, GM opened another $300 million dollar plant, this time in India. Of course, I don't want to forget the $250 million facility they are building in China.

In other words, will any GM bailout go to help save the American auto industry or will it instead go to help the auto industries of Russia, India, and China? (Hint: this is a how damn stupid are you anyway?? type of question.)

The root of General Motors's problems are twofold: 1) they are bloated, producing too many brands that compete with each other more than they compete with other automakers, and 2) GM makes poorly built, crappy cars that offer terrible value for the money.

GM's current problems are exacerbated because of GMAC, the auto financing arm once wholly owned by GM. For years, GMAC provided financing for customers purchasing GM cars through GM dealers and, even more importantly, was how GM dealers financed their inventory. Not only was GMAC the lubricant that kept the GM sales machine running, it was also a cash machine for GM, generating $2.4 billion in pre-tax profit for GM in 2005.

But then GM's executives got a bright idea: to make up for declines in their auto sales and auto profits, they would sell 51% of GMAC to Cerberus Capital in 2006. GM got $14 billion for that 51%, and that allowed GM to show a nice profit in 2006.

But. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . GM lost control of their ability to finance both their customers and dealers. And that is beginning to squeeze hard now. Have you seen any of the recent GM commercials with their "financing that fits" promotion? That's because GMAC is no longer financing any individual customers but the most credit worthy (credit scores of 700+), and those people can usually get a better credit rate elsewhere. Even more ominous is what GMAC is doing to GM dealers. GMAC is now only financing inventory for three months instead of the previous six and no longer finances any used car inventory. In short, GMAC, at the behest of Cerberus, is slowly strangling GM, much like a python coiled around GM's neck.

And why would they do that? Well, guess which company bought Chrysler last year and took it private?

Yep, Cerberus. The financing arm GM depended on for decades to provide credit to its customers and dealers is now controlled by a competitor. That was the reason for the recent flurry of rumors about a GM/Chrysler merger or acquisition-----Cerberus was trying to force GM to buy Chrysler at a price that would make a nice profit to Cerberus for one year's "work." And that plan would likely have gone through if not for GM steep nosedive over the past quarter.

Of course, the same fools at GM who engineered the sale of GMAC, such as Rick Wagoner and Bob Lutz, are still there and still making nice paychecks even as their dumbass decisions have put the company's survival into question.

A federal bailout of General Motors will not save GM or the American auto industry. A bailout will not alter the fundamentals of the industry (like overcapacity) or make GM's management any brighter. All it will do is keep those new plants in Russia, India, and China running.

It's time for some tough love.

The proper solution for GM's problems, as well as those for Chrysler, Ford, Goldman Sachs, or any of the other leeches wanting federal money, is called a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Chapter 11 isn't nice for anyone involved. Existing management is fired, the board of directors is replaced, labor contracts are voided, creditors are paid just a fraction of what they are owed, assets are sold, shareholders have their investment reduced to pennies per share, and control of the company is in the hands of court-appointed trustees and managers.

But it does give the company a clean slate, fresh management, a new structure, and a greatly improved chance for survival. It is no guarantee of survival, but in GM's case it represents the only realistic chance for survival.

If I were the court-appointed trustee to oversee GM in Chapter 11, I would immediately discontinue the Buick, Pontiac, Saturn, and Hummer brands. I'd sell them to a foreign manufacturer if I could; if I couldn't, I'd stop production of them to focus on just the Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands. I'd sell the start-up operations in places like Russia, India, and China to instead focus on the still-profitable European operations. I'd also greatly reduce the number of GM dealers.

Advocates of a federal bailout for GM would probably wail, "But what about those who would lose their jobs in Chapter 11?" Guess what? Those jobs are going to disappear regardless. It's a much better idea to take the bailout money you were planning to give to GM and instead spend it on extended unemployment benefits and other financial assistance, transitional medical care, and training for new jobs for affected workers. It would also be a lot cheaper than giving the money to Wagoner and Lutz so they can just piss it away, and they would be coming back in 2011 for another bailout anyway.

You didn't know GM was investing more in new facilities in Russia, India, and China than they are in the United States, did you? That's because most of the mainstream press just regurgitates corporate press releases instead of doing any research. It took me about ten minutes on Google to find the news about GM's overseas investments, and I bet I could've found more with a little extra effort.

President Bush's bailout of Wall Street investment firms cemented his claim to being the dumbest bastard ever to occupy the Oval Office. But if Obama gives in to demands by GM and the rest of the auto industry for a comparable bailout, then he will have taken the first step toward giving Bush a serious run for that title. Enough already! This country simply can't afford to write a check to every company, or individual, that makes dumb financial decisions. One day there has to be a reckoning. And this day is as good as any to start that process.

Okay, I promise I won't turn this into a political opinion or rant blog. But today's announcement by GM, and the sympathetic press coverage that provided no analysis or insight into how they got into their predicament, sent me over the edge. I'm now going to pour a couple of glasses of Pandasol sangria and try to calm down.

And it really was a beautiful day here; highs in the upper 70s, low humidity, and not a cloud in the sky.

Update! It just gets worse. Since finishing the post above, it turns out GM is now making more plans to expand its presence in China.

Another Print Publication Goes Down For The Count

2008-11-06T08:11:00.002-06:00

U.S. News and World Report is changing to a web-only publication. Can Time and Newsweek be far behind?

I'm glad I'm not 30 and intent on a career in print book or magazine publishing!

The First, Last, And Only Political Post I Will Ever Make On This Blog

2008-11-03T09:05:00.004-06:00

The photo above shows John McCain using the dreaded "Shaolin death grip" he learned in Vietnam from the late Kung Fu superstar Bruce Lee on President Bush, causing the president to scream in pain. It's too bad McCain ignored my advice to use the Shaolin death grip when he shook Barack Obama's hand before each debate. . . . . . Barack would collapse and writhe in pain, McCain could taunt him: So tell me whose bitch you are, Barack!, and the good senator from Illinois would be forced to squeal I is yo bitch, massuh John, I is yo bitch!

I believe such a moment could have indeed changed the course of this election, but that is not to be.

The Obama campaign has been very impressive in its organization, especially its use of the internet to mobilize supporters, while the McCain campaign has resembled a bit of concept-driven, avant garde performance art that has gone badly awry. Or maybe the "Red Zone Cuba" episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a more apt comparison. At any rate, by this time 48 hours from now I firmly expect Obama to be our next president.

The real suspense is going to be in comparing the final polls to the actual election results. The final polls are all over the place, and it's clear that some major errors are being made in polling methodologies and analysis. For example, Gallup today gives Obama a lead of 8% while IDB/TIPP has Obama with a 2% lead. That's the sort of difference that can't be explained as normal variations in the data; something else is going on. And as someone fascinated by statistics-----three college courses in it-----I have some ideas.

One obvious problem is that the sample of a political population self-selects; no one can be forced to participate in a poll. I have read that about 20% of those contacted by political pollsters decline to take part. That has to introduce a huge error into the results, although the extent and direction of that error can't be determined. But it is definitely there.

Pollsters also contact people via landline telephone numbers. But an increasing number of people only have cell phones, and those people are omitted from any polling. I was in that situation when I lived in Las Vegas; I had a landline number, but I used it exclusively for my fax machine. If you wanted to make a voice call to me, you had to reach me at my cell phone. Contacting only those with landline phones is another source of sampling error.

But perhaps the biggest source of error in this election will be the Bradley effect. This is the dirty little secret we're not supposed to talk about; as a nation, we like to tell ourselves race will not be a factor in elections. But I don't believe it. I am confident there are quite a few white voters who will not vote for Obama because he is black but will not admit that to a pollster-----instead, they will say they are undecided or even say they are voting for Obama.

Versions of the Bradley effect are found in other areas. For example, it has been repeatedly shown that people are much less like to admit to certain beliefs and behaviors via personal interviews (either face-to-face or by telephone) than they will via anonymous written questionnaires. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw an item where a survey was conducted of married women from 25 to 40 on the subject of infidelity.Only 1% of women interviewed by telephone admitted to having had an affair; that number jumped to 8% on anonymous written questionnaires.

Because of the Bradley effect, I think Obama's margin of victory is going to be less than the polls indicate. I suspect he will win by 3% to 5% in the popular vote, but have a very healthy margin in electoral votes. It will be interesting to see if exit polling is any more accurate than it was in 2004, when exit polls had such laughably inaccurate results as John Kerry winning South Carolina. My advice would be to ignore any and all exit polls tomorrow; wait until actual vote totals start coming in before drawing any conclusions.

I cast my ballot in early voting last week, and I voted for Obama. I did so because I respect his intellect, because I feel we need a president uncontaminated by the "beltway mentality," because. . . . . . . ah crap, I'm not going to lie to you. I'm dying from cancer. I'm worried that maybe my college professors were wrong, that there really is a heaven and a hell, that I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do before much longer. . . . . . . . so maybe if I vote for a black guy for president, thereby demonstrating I am really A Good Person after all, maybe I can plea bargain down to probation and a couple of hundred hours of community service instead of eternity on the Rotisserie Of Divine Vengeance.

An act of desperation? Yes, but I am a desperate man.

The Ghost Town Of Bodie, California

2008-11-01T14:36:00.016-05:00

I've been dreading the day when I would write about Bodie, California. While it is an impressively preserved ghost town, it is heavily visited and a California state park in the bargain. The things I love about "real" ghost towns-----the challenge of getting there, the isolation in them, the total lack of anything "touristy"-----are all missing in Bodie. It has an admission fee, is only open for a few hours a day, and has hordes of tourists driving up from Yosemite to see a bit of the Old West. But at least it's an authentic ghost town-----nothing has been restored-----and the park rangers do a good job of protecting the remaining structures. If you don't mind sharing Bodie with a horde of overweight parents and their snot-nosed kids, this ghost town has a lot to recommend it. At least Bodie looks like what most people think a ghost town should look like:

Bodie is located east of Highway 395 between Yosemite National Park and the town of Bridgeport, CA; it is seven miles south of Bridgeport on 395, and the exit to the east is clearly marked. The first ten miles or so of the road to Bodie is paved, but the last three miles are gravel. The road is no problem for most passenger cars in dry weather during the summer, but mud and snow can be a problem the rest of the year------June through September is the best time to visit. The park is open all year, however, and some visit by snowmobile in the winter. The elevation here is about 8300 feet, and temperatures even in the summer can be cold, especially early or late in the day. No services other than flush toliets are available in Bodie, so be sure to have a full tank of gas and everything else you need before heading out. Drinking water is something you should definitely take, as the altitude and dry air can quickly dehydrate you as you walk around the town.

Bodie was named for Waterman Body, who discovered gold in the hills around the town site in 1859. In 1877, a major strike in the area created the second biggest gold rush in California's history, and by 1880 Bodie had grown to over 10,000 people. The shot below shows the remnants of the mining operations-----they are the gray buildings toward the left. This is where gold was extracted from the mined ore:

Bodie was a wild, lawless town. There were supposedly 65 saloons in operation, gunfights to the death were frequent (as were lynchings and other forms of vigillante justice), and even a Chinatown with opium dens. But by 1900 it also had some surprising amenities, including an opera house, a fire department and a limited fire hydrant system, a railroad line, two newspapers, locally generated electricity, and even a semi-pro baseball team that scheduled games with teams from Reno and Aurora, Nevada.

By the late 1910s, however, the gold veins began to play out and the mines closed. People began leaving Bodie as rapidly as they arrived three decades earlier. During the 1920s and Prohibition, Bodie made a virtue of its isolation and became a center for illegal whiskey and gambling. But fate dealt Bodie a fatal blow on June 23, 1932, when a major fire, fanned by high winds, swept through the town and destroyed most of its buildings. The result is a town site today that has large empty spaces between the remaining structures, as you can see below:

The 1932 fire was the killing blow to Bodie as a living town. Basic services, like electricity and fire protection, were not restored after the fire. The post office and school closed, and all but a handful of residents moved on. By the early 1950s, Bodie was completely deserted and scavengers began to tear down the surviving buildings for their lumber and brick. Fortunately, the state of California purchased the site in 1961 and added it to the state park system in 1964.

Bodie is maintained in what is called a "state of arrested decay." This means no effort has been made to restore the buildings, but steps are taken to prevent further damage to them. The photo below illustrates what is meant by "arrested decay"; the building is leaning badly, but is kept propped up so it doesn't collapse:

Perhaps the most impressive building left in Bodie is the old schoolhouse. Below is a photo I took of it on my last visit back in June, 2004. If you look carefully at the right, you can see Di and our dog Bahrnee:

Another pair of impressive structures is the post office building and an adjoining general store. In the photo below, Di, accompanied by Bahrnee, is looking into the windows of the old store; the brick building at left is the post office:

The photo below shows what was once Main Street in Bodie. All those empty spaces represent where buildings were lost in the 1932 fire.

The scavengers who descended upon Bodie in the 1950s managed to take away most of a bank building, but they couldn't take away the vault. It still stands amid the ruins:

The remaining houses in Bodie were generally owned by the last people to live in the town and were probably occupied until at least the late 1940s:

This final photo is another example of the "arrested decay" theory in action. Yes, it's an outhouse. And there's no other structure within a hundred feet of it; I guess it survived the 1932 fire while the home it was built to serve must have been destroyed. It is now lovingly preserved by the taxpayers of California. There must be some sort of lesson in that:

More Death Rattles From Print Publishing

2008-10-29T09:42:00.008-05:00

The Christian Science Monitor is discontinuing its print version and going to a web-only version. (No word yet concerning the plans of its main competitor, the Muslim Superstition Merrimac.)

Seriously, that is big news------this is the first major (seven Pulitzers to its credit) newspaper to abandon print and opt for a 100% web version. The circulation of the Monitor had been in a steady decline, along with that of most other major newspapers. And newspapers are responding with staff reductions followed by more staff reductions. That's why I have to congratulate the Monitor for taking such a bold step to position itself for the future; it certainly beats the half-assed, emphasis on cosmetics approach of the floundering New York Times. ("I flew back from California in coach!! Oh, the horror of it all!!") And the financial markets and credit-rating agencies are starting to notice the problems of various media companies. Many print media companies are highly leveraged (that is, they are up to their asses in debt) and it is only a matter of time before some of them will be forced to liquidate assets, likely at fire sale prices which will drive down the value of media assets held by other companies. It will not be a pretty sight, and the closing of publications and job losses in 2009 are both inevitable. The only open questions are "how deep?" and "how many?".

None of this pleases me. My entire career has been spent in magazine and book publishing. I love the feeling of holding a physical book in my hands that I've written; I enjoy the tactile feedback I get from turning paper pages. But I'm a realist. Too much of the consumer cost of print media (books, newspapers, and magazines) is tied up in the printing and distribution of physical printed materials; consumers are tired of footing those bills. Advertising and ancilliary revenue sources can't close the gap. In fact, many advertisers have permanently migrated the bulk of their efforts from print to the web, and no upturn in the economy will reverse that trend.

For better or worse, a transition from print to electronic publishing has to happen; economics alone dictates it must happen. But I get this terrible feeling many in the print publishing world are not prepared, and are not preparing, for that day. There seems to be this unspoken hope that somehow, some way, it will be possible to ride out this crazy internet fad and one day circulations of newspapers and magazines, along with book sales, will return to their per-capita rates of the 1960s. All that's required is to hang tough, refuse to compromise "journalistic principles" (whatever they are), and eventually those people who insist on getting their news and information from the internet will come to their senses.

I understand what motivates those sentiments. I've tried for the past few years to figure out what the future of book publishing will look like, and I must confess I still don't have a clue in hell how it will shake out. I have this feeling it will eventually evolve into something where a physical printed book is only a small part of the total revenue mix. I suspect "book publishing" will morph into something involving a web site (with ads) where readers and others meet to to discuss the book content with the author and each other. eBook versions, supported by embedded ads, will be freely available and widely circulated. The web sites and eBook versions could include video and audio clips that can't be included in a print version. In a sense, a book might never be completed but rather continuously updated and revised as long as the readers (and author) care about the material. And print books could become something akin to a high-end souvenir, much like a team jersey or sweatshirt purchased during a trip to Texas Stadium to see a Cowboys game. (And those "high-end souvenirs" will increasingly be the product of print-on-demand technologies.) In my vision of the future, most author/publisher revenue would come from the electronic publishing side, and the print revenues would be strictly ancillary income, a reversal from today's revenue models.

And, as I've previously blogged here, maybe many authors will find it more lucrative to self-publish through Amazon's CreateSpace or Lulu.com than to go through established book publishers.

Again, I have no idea how any of this is going to be play out or whether I'm barking up the wrong tree here-----no idea whatsoever. All I know is that the tectonic plates under print publishing are shifting rapidly these days, and there are going to be some big winners, and big losers, over the next few years. There's a part of me that wishes I could be in a position to take part in this revolution, while another part of me is grateful I can watch this from the sidelines. If I were still in the print publishing business these days, I would be both excited and apprehensive about the future.

Signs That Stopped Me In My Tracks

2008-10-28T13:55:00.007-05:00

When I was doing the research for Top Secret Tourism, I made several visits to the boundaries of restricted sites in the western United States. And while I couldn't actually get inside those places, I could at least take photos of the signs warning me to stay away.

Let's start with America's favorite top secret facility, Area 51. Below is a sign I photographed at its border. Maybe it's just me, but there is something irresistible about a "Photography of this Area is Prohibited" sign-----I just have to take a photo of it! If the sign had read "Photography of this Area is Mandatory," I would've taken no pictures. With people like me, you sometimes must employ reverse psychology:

Here's another sign forbidding photography of Area 51. That orange post at right is how the border is marked beyond the main road; they are spaced about 100 feet apart in the desert. As I discovered, the security guards get very interested in what you're doing once you hike away from the main road and start traveling in the open desert:

Plant 42 in Palmdale, CA is where top secret aircraft are built before their existence becomes known. The U-2 and SR-71 spy planes, along with the B-2 and F-117 Stealth aircraft, were built here along with all sorts of prototypes that never became operational. If it flies and Uncle Sam doesn't want you to know about it, it's built here. Of course, photography is prohibited at Plant 42, and of course I had to photograph the sign informing me about that:

The Nevada Test Site is the most heavily nuked piece of real estate on the planet. 126 above-ground tests and over 800 underground tests have been conducted here; it's also been the site of chemical and biological weapons tests. That's why I wasn't too offended by the sign below telling me to stay out; I guess they were just concerned about my welfare:

Prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, the security at the Nevada Test Site was often amazingly lax. For example, I discovered one unmanned, and unlocked, entrance gate a few miles north of the sign above. I actually got to drive about a mile inside the facility before I decided not to press my luck too far and retreated. The shot below is of an old Atomic Energy Commission sign on that road; it apparently led to the site of several 1950s above-ground nuclear tests:

I wrote more about my travels to the places above on a blog at the Feral House web site; here's the link and some interesting comments by listeners and readers.

"This Is. . . . . . Cinerama!!"

2008-10-24T12:17:00.011-05:00

The most incredible movie experience of my life happened in the summer of 1962 when my parents and I went to see This Is Cinerama. Even 46 years later I can recall the impact of the opening roller coaster shot and how I literally had the physical sensation of motion------including up and down movement-----during it. More contemporary big screen formats, like IMAX, pale in comparison to Cinerama. It was as close to "virtual reality" as motion pictures have ever come.

Cinerama's astonishing visual impact was based on a simple idea: to capture and reproduce the same image normal human vision would see of a scene. That works out to a field of vision equivalent to 146 degrees. This meant Cinerama could approximate our peripheral vision------what we see out of the corners of our eyes. Since peripheral vision is responsible for our visual perception of motion, balance, and depth, the Cinerama picture could produce those perceptions in the audience.

To achieve this wide field of vision, the Cinerama camera simultaneously exposed three roles of film using a common motor drive and shutter for uniform focus. The camera used three lenses offset from each other by 48 degrees; each filmed one-third of the final Cinerama image. To reduce "flicker," Cinerama movies were filmed (and projected) at a speed of 26 feet per second (fps) instead of the standard 24 fps used for 35 mm film.

When Cinerama films were shown, the filming process was reversed. Three spools of film were simultaneously projected using a common motor drive to synchronize the three parts of the image. To enhance the peripheral vision effects, the screen was curved so the left and right parts of the image were closer to the audience. The image below is one I scanned from a This Is Cinerama souvenir program, and shows the layout of a typical Cinerama theater:

In the image above, note the speakers behind the screen. Cinerama's sound system was just as revolutionary as its visual system. It was recorded on a separate 35mm magnetic tape at a speed of 29 inches per second (ips); this was at a time when tapes used to make phonograph records were recorded at a speed of only 15 ips. Sound was recorded in seven separate channels, with five of the channels behind the screen, one to the side of the audience, and one behind the audience. The system was 100% analog, meaning it could reproduce sound more accurately and clearly than today's 100% digital CDs and MP3 files. The recording and audio playback equipment used vacuum tubes, which likewise produced better sound than today's solid state audio gear. (Don't take my world for it; ask any professional musician who still uses a tube-based Marshall amp, for example.) Acoustics were a key design element for all Cinerama theaters. All of this is why I am much less than impressed with today's theater audio systems, like THX. Their harsh, overly processed sound is much less realistic than what I remember from Cinerama.

What was it like to be in the Cinerama audience? Here's an image I scanned from a This Is Cinerama souvenir postcard. It gives a good idea of what the screen looked like from your seat; the picture was overwhelming:

Cinerama was the brainchild of Fred Waller, a jack-of-all-trades inventor with over 1000 patents to his credit (his other great invention was water skis!). Cinerama grew out of his work in World War II to develop an aerial gunnery and bombing trainer for pilots. The system he devised used five separate 35mm cameras and projected the image on a spherical dome screen. Students were able to move around inside the dome to simulate tracking and firing upon enemy fighters. And those students raved about how realistic the training was; it was easy to transfer their skills to actual aircraft.

Waller incorporated Cinerama, Inc., in 1946 to adapt the system for commercial motion pictures. And it's here where things get controversial. Waller claimed the three projector Cinerama system was solely his idea, but a similar system had been briefly used by French director Abel Gance at the end of his 1927 epic Napoleon. Gance wanted a spectacular conclusion to his film, and the final five minutes of the movie, featuring enormous battle scenes and Napoleon's pet eagle soaring overhead, were filmed with three separate, overlapping cameras and then projected with three separate, overlapping projectors on a wide screen.

I had the opportunity to see a restored print of Napoleon in 1981 at New York's Radio City Music Hall, and the effect in the closing sequence was eerily like Cinerama. There was a pronounced sense of depth and motion (something I have never experienced in any other black and white film, especially a silent one!). Gance was a well known director when Waller began his career, and Napoleon had played New York during the time Waller lived there. I have not found any quote from Waller, or in Cinerama's promotional materials, acknowledging Gance's pioneering work with a three camera/three projector process, but it's difficult for me to believe Waller was unaware of Gance's technique-----the similarities are just too numerous and immediately obvious to even casual observers. Thus, I think Gance deserves just as much credit for Cinerama as Waller.

Cinerama was conceived as a way movie theaters could compete with television, and Cinerama movies were intended to be exhibited much like Broadway plays-----one performance nightly, matinees on weekends, reserved seats, souvenir programs, an intermission, and premium ticket prices that were three or four times the admission of ordinary movies. A Cinerama movie was intended to be an event! Below is a souvenir program for This Is Cinerama I have in my collection:

This Is Cinerama had its world premiere in New York City on September 30, 1952. Despite playing only three months at one theater, This Is Cinerama was the highest grossing film of 1952. In the years that followed, new Cinerama-equipped theaters opened around the country and world. The high water mark was reached in 1963, when over 130 theaters worldwide were equipped for Cinerama.

But Cinerama never became the commercial success its backers expected. One problem was the lack of a plot in 1950s Cinerama movies. Cinerama, Inc., was a movie technology company, not a movie company, and its films reflected a total lack of storytelling skill. Cinerama movies were glorified travelogues in which the "plot," such as it was, involved people traveling around the world to gape at incredible sights or to take high speed trips aboard airplanes, trains, speedboats, etc. The titles reflected their content: Cinerama Holiday, South Seas Adventure, Seven Wonders Of The World, Search For Paradise, etc. They all seemed like home movies of a vacation to exotic places, except for being filmed in Cinerama instead of 8mm. And the audiences for each film declined from the previous one. By 1960, Cinerama, Inc., was struggling to stay afloat financially.

Cinerama got a reprieve in 1961 when it entered into an agreement with Metro Goldwyn Mayer to produce new feature films in Cinerama. Two pictures emerged from this venture: The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm, a biographical film of the two fairy tale authors that featured plenty of special effects, and How The West Was Won, a sprawling historical/adventure epic with stars such as Jimmy Stewart. Below is a scan from the latter's publicity materials; it gives you a good idea of what it was like to be inside a Cinerama theater:

Unfortunately, MGM discovered Cinerama to be too costly a process to justify its continued use and ended its association with Cinerama, Inc., in early 1963. Unable to find another filmmaking partner, Cinerama stopped making new movies altogether. They felt the name "Cinerama" still had value, however, so they developed an alternative to three camera/projector Cinerama. This, dubbed "Ultra Cinerama," used a single 70mm camera and a "squeeze" lens to compress a larger image onto the film; a special 70mm projector "unsqueezed" the image, producing a widescreen image that had the same aspect ratio (that is, height and width) as an original Cinerama image. However, its field of vision was only 80 degrees instead of the 146 degrees provided by original Cinerama. This was too narrow to simulate the effects of peripheral vision, so the result was a much less spectacular visual experience than original Cinerama. In many ways, Ultra Cinerama is much like IMAX; both produce large images but without the field of view or resolution that made original Cinerama so remarkable.

Cinerama licensed Ultra Cinerama for use in various movies (the most notable being 2001: A Space Odyssey) but it was not enough to keep the company solvent. In 1978, Cinerama, Inc. was acquired by Pacific Theatres, and they were mainly interested in the theater properties Cinerama owned and not the Cinerama filmmaking process.

Today, only three theaters in the world are still equipped for Cinerama and still show films made in original three camera/projector Cinerama: the Pictureville Cinema at the National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television in Bradford, England, the Seattle Cinerama in Seattle, WA, and the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, CA. Ironically, the latter was built by Cinerama, Inc., to show Ultra Cinerama films and showed no three camera/projector Cinerama films until it was renovated in 2002!

It's a shame no Cinerama theater is operating in a place that receives a ton of visitors, like Las Vegas. But if you ever find yourself in Los Angeles, Seattle, or Bradford and a Cinerama film is playing, by all means see it! It will be the greatest movie experience of your life.

I Wrestle Indiana Jones On YouTube

2008-10-22T18:49:00.003-05:00

I do Google and Yahoo searches on my name, and sometimes I come up with surprising links.

Like this one.

Is there really a professional wrestler out there named "Harry Helms"? Do I have a secret life I am not aware of? Would I really wear a tie and all-white in my professional wrestling matches? What significance do I have in the life of "carddealer758"?

I report. You decide.

How To Turn $3 Billion Into $1 In Ten Years

2008-10-20T11:17:00.005-05:00

The annual Frankfurt Book Fair is on. This is when book publishers from around the world are gathering in Germany to do a little business (mostly in foreign rights sales) and a whole lot of gossiping, eating, drinking, and cavorting. But increasingly events like Frankfurt and Book Expo America are starting to remind me of the masquerade ball in Poe's The Masque of the Red Death; yes, everyone's having fun at the party, but death is waiting for them just outside the gates.

Exhibit A in print publishing's decline: a little over a decade ago, Rupert Murdoch paid $3 billion for Triangle Publications, the publishers of TV Guide magazine. Last week, TV Guide magazine was sold for the princely sum of one United States dollar.

Think about that for a second-----almost $3 billion dollars of value in a media property evaporated in a little over a decade. Almost $3 billion!!!

While the case of TV Guide is an extreme one, the entire print publishing business is suffering severe financial problems and it's clear many (most?) magazines, newspapers, and book publishers are not going to survive in their current form. And other "legacy media," like AM/FM radio broadcasting, are also getting clobbered in financial operating results and the per-share prices of the companies that own them.

The big reason for this is the internet. It allows near-instantaneous global distribution of information at a near-zero cost. Barriers to entry are very low. The results were, in retrospect, inevitable. Newspapers are suffering because they are, in effect, "oldspapers"-----the most recent news in them is several hours old at best. By contrast, web sites can cover news that's only minutes old and they are invariably ad supported and free to visitors. It has been years since I read a print copy of, say, the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times, but I have both of their web sites marked and visit daily. But this means neither paper sells a physical copy to people like me, and the growth in ad revenues from their web sites has not been enough to offset the decline in circulation and ad revenues from their print editions. Other costs of the print editions-----like printing and distribution of papers-----have also been zooming, and the result is a terrible squeeze on the financials of both papers. (In fact, the office tower the New York Times owns is its most valuable asset now, more valuable than either the paper or the Boston Globe, which the Times also owns.)

The situation is similar for most magazines; their circulations and ad revenues have been static or declining while their associated printing and distribution costs have been rising. It's shocking to read a copy of Time or Newsweek at the doctor's office and see how thin such magazines are these days; they're more accurately described as pamphlets. And specialty book publishing, like technical and professional publishing, is getting squeezed by the amount of free information available on the internet. For example, I learned almost everything I know about ZigBee and WiMax from free "white papers" I downloaded from tech company web sites. A few months ago, Tim O'Reilly remarked that people looking to learn something like JavaScript no longer look for a book about the language. Instead, they search "JavaScript" at Google. In one of my last reports to Elsevier before I left my consulting gig last year, I said Elsevier and other technical publishers were facing a critical problem: how do you compete with tech companies that are distributing technical tutorials for free? Where can technical and reference book publishers add some value in the process? (I didn't have answers to those questions. I still don't.)

Ad revenues are being used to support most web sites, but ad revenues depend on the state of the economy and are now declining. Moreover, the amount of available ad dollars has not increased as rapidly as the number of publications, whether print or electronic, that depend on ad revenues; the pie hasn't grown as fast as the number of parties wanting a slice. Every media form that relies on advertising for a significant chunk of its revenues-----whether magazines, newspapers, or broadcasting-----is hurting now, and the pain is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And I have this strong feeling a lot of publications and broadcasters aren't going to make it through this difficult stretch.

The financial prospects for many publishers and broadcasters are made worse by the huge debt loads many of their parent companies are carrying. Refinancing those debts will be almost impossible, with a big reason being the steep decline in the value of media assets. That was what really caught my attention about the TV Guide story-----if an established, "brand name" media property can go from a multi-billion valuation to almost zero in a decade, how much is any advertising-dependent media property worth these days? Are the values of such established media properties as Time and the New York Times equally overstated and illusory? What is their true value, and how much blood will be shed during the "price discovery" process? If media companies can't refinance their maturing debts, they will be forced to liquidate many of their assets, and the results won't be pretty. It wouldn't surprise me to read about a major daily newspaper or AM/FM station being sold for a TV Guide price in 2009. For those working in the media, and for the stockholders of media companies, it's going to be a rough journey in the months ahead. For those who had enough foresight to stash away some cash during the fat years, there will be bargains available. But they are going to need a lot of changes and "repairs" to realize their full potential in the digital age.

As for book publishing, especially for specialized professional, technical, and other niche publishing, a migration to print-on-demand inventory and direct sales to end readers-----cutting bookstores, Amazon, other retailers, etc., out of the loop altogether-----seems inevitable. In fact, authors of books on niche topics might be better served by self-publishing through Lulu.com or Amazon's CreateSpace and bypassing conventional publishers altogether. And while eBooks have been The Next Big Thing for over a decade now, eventually some standard for eBooks and eBook publishing will emerge, and that will definitely impact book publishing, especially for material that has an "expiration date" (say, like a book on Windows Vista) and is not the sort of book you will keep for years and re-read.

I have no idea how all of this is going to play out. All I know is that I'm glad I'm retired from the publishing business and can watch this from the safety of the sidelines!

More Visual Detritus

2008-10-16T15:57:00.008-05:00

I've again been going through the random .jpeg files on my PC's hard drive, and I have located some more which defy easy categorization or even comprehension.

Take the one below. It's a photo I snapped in Bishop, CA, of a local bar. It's clear this establishment is not some fey little fern bar or a place where twentysomethings try to pretend they're Frank or Dino at the Sands. No, this looks like an honest, workingman's drinking place. . . . . . . a joint where Bob and Earl meet after work to knock back Scotch with beer chasers while they debate the merits of various pickup trucks ("Yeah, those Dodges got Hemi engines, but I like the way my Chevy handles mud!"). John McCain would doubtlessly be welcome here; Barack Obama would be eyed suspiciously. If there is really a God, the bartender at this place had to be named "Fred":

People who visit Las Vegas think Las Vegas is weird. But those of us who have lived in Las Vegas know it is actually normal compared to the rest of Nevada. Exhibit A: the billboard below which I photographed in Pahrump, NV. Yes, it is an actual billboard for a brothel. It was when I stopped doing double-takes at such billboards------when they started to look mundane and everyday to me-----that I realized I had spent too much time in Nevada and it was time for me to leave:

This sign graces a small grocery in Graham, Virginia. I took this photo when visiting my former LLH partners, Jack and Carol Lewis, at their new home in Eagle Rock, VA. Was this sign a subtle hint to any potential customer planning to offer a check or, God forbid, seek to purchase items on credit? I suspect Donald Trump would be in agreement with Mick and/or Mack:

The sign below stood near the Furnace Creek campground and store in Death Valley National Park; the "reservation" for the Timbisha Shoshone tribe was located behind Furnace Creek. As with most recent claims of "tribal rights," this is pure horseshit-----Death Valley had no permanent human population, only transitory occupancy during the winter, with no tribal group dominant-----and appears mainly an effort to get a cut of the lucrative tourist business. This particular radio station could be heard for about 15 miles either side of this sign, which is not bad considering the station had to be below sea level if it was operating from the reservation. The programming on Timbisha Free Radio consisted of tribal chanting and endless rants about how European culture had destroyed Native American ways. It's good to see the Timbisha Shoshone tribe was following in the footsteps of its ancestral elders and using traditional Native American methods, like electricity and FM radio, to get its message out:

When you hear "Hawaii," what's the first word that pops into your mind? It's "junk," of course, as exemplified by this little business I photographed near the Hilo airport on the Big Island:

I'll have more photos like these as I locate them. . . . . .

The Ghost Town Of Garlock, California

2008-10-11T15:45:00.009-05:00

Garlock is located in the southern Mojave desert, at the foothills of the El Paso mountains, between California highways 14 and 395, just south of Red Rock Canyon State Recreation Area. It came into being around 1887 because springs in the area provided water for travelers and a grazing area for their horses. In 1893, gold was discovered in nearby Randsburg. Because Garlock had a reliable supply of water, an eight-stamp mill was built in Garlock and miners took their nuggets there for refining into bullion. Garlock also became a supply center for miners in the region. By 1899. several hundred people were living in Garlock. It had a church, a school, and something called the "Garlock Literary Society," which was founded, according to its charter, "to be a positive influence on the town's morals." Garlock's ruins are on Garlock Road, accessible from either Highyway 14 or 395, and the site of Garlock is marked by the plaque below:

Garlock's fortunes were tied to Randsburg, and when the Randsburg mines began to fail so did Garlock. By 1903, Garlock was deserted. Today, all of the surviving buildings are located on private property behind fencing. While that means you can't explore the ruins, it also means the buildings are protected from vandalism:

The building below served as Garlock's school, then as a general store/tavern, and, supposedly, as a brothel/speakeasy for the remaining Randsburg miners during the 1920s. It has been closed for over eighty years and today is slowly falling apart:

Here's another view of the building above from the side:

Maybe Garlock's most enduring claim to fame is the fault named for it-----the Garlock Fault. This is the second longest fault in California and the only major one in the state running east-west instead of north-south. It connects the famed San Andreas Fault with the Death Valley Fault Zone. The Garlock Fault is not as well known (or feared) as the San Andreas and Hayward Faults, but it is geologically active (moving between 2 to 11 millimeters per year) and is overdue for a major rupture and earthquake. In other words, people in Bakersfield, Riverside, etc., need to be very, very concerned about the Garlock Fault. Meanwhile, Garlock itself now sleeps quietly in the high desert.

Still Lucky

2008-10-09T17:44:00.004-05:00

Today was my quarterly visit to my oncologist-----Monday was the day I got all the tests done------and I'm still almost giddy at the news: there has been no significant change from my last visit in July. Yes, that tumor's still on my liver, the blood markers indicate an active tumor, but there has been no apparent growth or increase in its activity over the last three months.

I had expected bad news this time. My phenomenal luck is still working. That guy who was both laughing and wiping away tears as he left Coastal Bend Cancer Center this morning was me.

Today is Yom Kippur, and Di has been fasting since sundown yesterday. While I believe none of what she does, I also fast with her as a sign of respect for her religion and also as a token of my love for her. We will be eating out tonight at sunset to break the fast, and tonight it will also be a celebration of the incredibly good news I've been getting since my last surgery in January.

Don't waste a day you've been given, my friends; enjoy, use, and savor every one of them.

A Little Rabbit Named Skittles

2008-10-07T10:51:00.004-05:00

Take a look at the photo below, The white, spotted rabbit on the left is a dwarf lop named Skittles:

This photo is over twelve years old; it shows Skittles next to his "cage mate," a Dutch dwarf called Scooter. Both Skittles and Scooter were two of the four rabbits owned by me and my previous wife Tina. The other three, including Scooter, died since Tina and I separated. And a couple of days ago Tina told me Skittles also died. He was over 13 years old.

In the grand scheme of things, the death of a rabbit is not a major event. Skittles was a very small and insignificant part of the universe.

But I remember how playful and curious he was when he was young. The shape of his mouth, including the fur color, made him look like he was always smiling. When he lay in my lap and I petted his head, it was as if all the tension and angst would drain right out of me. He would lick my fingers and rub his chin against me, which is what rabbits do when they want to mark something as theirs.

Yes, Skittles was small and insignificant, but so are subatomic particles like quarks, leptons, and bosons. When added together, they make up everything in the universe. And when you add together the happiness and fun that creatures like Skittles bring into life, the result is just as incredible. Add up all your interactions with animals like Skittles, and add to that your interactions with your friends and family, and you suddenly realize what the point of life is, what gives our existence here purpose. The meaning of life is not found in grandiose plans or by acquiring a ton of bling you can't take with you when you die. Instead, it is found in accumulating as many small, everyday joys as possible, like the joy of holding a cute little rabbit who wants nothing more than to play with you for a while.

Skittle was a sweet little boy and I'm going to really miss him.

Fact-Checking Harry Helms

2008-10-04T15:31:00.009-05:00

Well, somebody's gotta do it, so it might as well be me.

I do searches for my name on engines like Google, Yahoo, etc., and just a couple of days ago discovered a "prediction" page I created back in 1999 is still up and active. It's my "farewell address" upon selling a web site I created, DXing.com, to Universal Radio back in 1999. As you can see, the site dealt with topics in shortwave and ham radio as well as general personal communications topics.

The page that is the subject of this post can be found here. So how accurate were my predictions, given the hindsight afforded by nine years and four months? I'll address each using the same heading ("WHAT," etc.) that I used back in 1999.

WHAT: Pretty much self-explanatory, and Fred Osterman and the gang at Universal have done a terrific job with the site.

WHY: Things took a different turn than I projected here as my role with LLH proved more time-consuming than I expected. It also proved more lucrative than expected; we moved into the RF/wireless market at exactly the right time with such titles as Short Range Wireless Communications and RF Engineering for Wireless Networks. Not only did these sell well, they attracted the attention of Elsevier and culminated in our acquisition by them in August, 2001. I never got beyond a prototype for the hobby electronics site, and my plans to self-publish my own books under the Trephination Media imprint were postponed indefinitely due to LLH demands. After we were acquired, I have to admit I lost a good bit of my drive and need to constantly be doing stuff; it was like I had climbed my mountain and didn't feel like I had to prove anything more to myself or others. I was burned out from all the 60+ hour weeks, and the cash from the sale meant I could coast for a while. All that is a roundabout way of admitting I got lazy for a couple of years after the sale to Elsevier! But hey, that's why I have all these cool ghost town, etc., photos on this blog; instead of working on a book or web site, I went looking for stuff in the Big Empty of the American west. There is something to be said for taking a couple of years off from the rat race and simply pursuing your interests, wherever they may lead you. I'm glad I did!

HOW DID IT DO: Yes, DXing.com was actually a profitable site for me. It would probably be even more profitable today through such programs as Google's Adwords, etc.

WHY UNIVERSAL: Let me add that Universal is the only place I would buy a high end (say, over $300) item of shortwave or ham radio gear. I've been a happy customer of theirs since the 1980s.

MY THANKS TO: Yes, those people I cited were instrumental in the success of DXing.com. I am still grateful to them. And, yes, there was really someone in the "Office of the POTUS" (president of the United States) who was a regular visitor to the site! I had originating domain resolution software installed on my server, and the "Office of the POTUS" domain meant that visitor was using a computer in the White House, New Executive Office Building, or Old Executive Office Building. So who was it???

SHORTWAVE RADIO AND THE CALIFORNIA RAILROAD MUSEUM: My prediction here have largely been borne out, although satellite radio certainly has not taken off outside the U.S./Canada as I expected. The announcement a couple of weeks ago that Radio Netherlands is ending its English broadcasting to North America is just the latest nail in the coffin of international shortwave broadcasting to developed countries. One thing I totally missed was how rapidly wireless broadband has grown and become relatively commonplace and not that expensive; that is going to be the real "killer app' replacing terrestrial radio, not satellite radio.

WILL SHORTWAVE RADIO DIE SOON? No it didn't, but it is still doing a prolonged fade into irrelevance. It will never totally disappear, much like movies did not totally replace live theater, but it will become a very niche medium with only a fraction of the audience it had in the 1960s and 1970s.

PRIVATE SHORTWAVE BROADCASTING IN THE UNITED STATES: They are secular religious fanatics, and, like religious religious fanatics, are beyond the reach of logic or reason. There is even a moonbat idea circulating to use the 26 MHz band for digital broadcasting in the United States. Whatever. . . . .

WHAT ABOUT HAM RADIO? Despite removing all Morse code requirements for any class of ham license, growth essentially remains stalled. Since ham licenses are issued for ten years and a one year grace period for renewal following expiration, I suspect the total number of living hams, as opposed to "active" licenses, might be declining!

WHAT ABOUT PIRATE RADIO? It's over, and has been for some time. It's interesting to hear a pirate station from a strictly DXing perspective, but really creative people are developing programs for delivery via internet streaming, not shortwave.

THE Y2K STUFF: Did I nail that or what? But such hysterias are a constant part of American life, as witnessed by the supposed financial apocalypse of the past two weeks. Here's a hint, boys and girls; it was all a fraud concocted by financial institutions to get you-----that's right, you, the average taxpaying schlub-----to bail them out of a lot of terrible lending decisions over the past decade. In fact, it was almost like Joe Hill arrived on Wall Street and organized a strike: give us $700 billion, or we banks won't lend you any more money! And, of course, the assorted mountebanks and jackasses that overrun Washington, including presidents-to-be John "Grandpa Rambo" McCain and Barrack Obama, went along with this nonsense. Screw it all, says I; sell the country to the Chinese and let's get it over with.

But here's one more prediction on the communications front: a decade from now, most of us will be using something very similar to today's iPhone, a sort of mobile universal communications device. It will be a telephone, have wireless broadband internet access, be a MP3 and video player, and will store your contacts, photos, home video clips, etc., and maybe even have some sort of improved text/eBook reader. And every car will have a docking station for it. This is already starting to happen; our new Scion Xd has a built-in iPod port that not only plays music from an iPod/iPhone but also recharges it (I've tested it with my iPod Touch and it works great). These devices will be the killing blows for much of terrestrial and satellite radio, especially for U.S. broadcasting. For decades, their business model has been premised on government-sanctioned scarcity-----only so many radio stations can broadcast in a given area, and if you don't like what's on the dial locally in, say, New York you didn't have the alternative of listening to stations in Los Angeles. That's all going to change once these mobile universal communications devices become commonplace. Indeed, new "radio stations" will not use "radio" but instead rely on IP streaming via the internet. Anyone anywhere in the world with a PC, the appropriate software, and a broadband connection will be in the broadcasting business. This shift is already underway with the growth of internet radio listening at fixed locations like home and work, but when wireless broadband becomes common, and listening can move to cars and mobile devices, it will really rocket into the stratosphere. It's going to be an interesting "radio" world in another decade!

Anyway, bookmark this post and check back in 2017 to see how I did!

The Luckiest Boy In The World

2008-09-26T14:58:00.002-05:00

That's me!

Why?

Today is my birthday. I've made it to 56 years.

Slightly over two years ago, I got the news my colon cancer had metastasized to my liver and I was now at Stage IV. Less than 20% of colon cancer patients survive two years after it spreads to the liver (for example, former White House press secretary Tony Snow only lived an additional 17 months). Not only am I still here, but the only real signs something's wrong are weight loss, erratic sleep, and a lack of energy. I am still able to do many things I enjoy. When I got the news back in August, 2007 that the chemotherapy had failed to stop the return of my liver tumor, I wanted just one more good year. I got it, and I'm going to get some more time. That's a big reason why I am so lucky.

But an even bigger reason is people like you. Yes, you reading this blog!

Since getting sick, I have had incredible support from my family: my wife Dianna, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and my ex-wife Tina. It is easy to walk a tightrope when you have such a big, strong net under you. They have all given me the most precious gift any cancer patient can ever get, namely the knowledge that you matter to other people. I am so grateful. In particular, my "Princess Di" has been there for me.We have spent over half of our married life with me as a cancer patient. We had such big dreams when we bought the ranch in Smithville and planned to raise horses; all that went out the window just a few months later. Yet she has never complained, never uttered a word of regret, and has shown amazing grace and courage since then. I am so, so lucky to have her in my life.

And then there are my friends who have been with me during this time. Some have been my friends since junior high (like Hugh and Chuck), others (like Forrest Mims and Jon Erickson) I have known since the Carter presidency, and still others are those Di and I have made since returning to Texas. I can't find the words to describe how much I always enjoy hearing from them, whether by phone, e-mail, or visits to our home. (Notice to those who have done the latter: our new cat Stanley is now declawed, and you may visit us in safety.)

I had "virtual friends" long before the internet came along, and by this I'm referring to the people I got to know who were either readers of my writing or fellow radio hobbyists. I have communicated, in some cases for years, with such people through letters and, later, e-mail; in only a few cases have I ever met them face-to-face or even spoken to them on the telephone (although I have "spoken" to some of them via Morse code over my ham radio station). I now regularly exchange e-mails with people in places as widely separated as Japan, Germany, and Australia, and even though I will almost certainly never get to meet them I feel as if I know them intimately.

I am so grateful to everyone of you. You have given me so much, and I hope I have given something in return------but I know I got the better end of the deal because you have all been such special people. I am very lucky to know all of you.

And that's why I feel so lucky today. Your love and friendship is a gift I get all year long from you, and I treasure it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

I have nothing special planned for today. Di and I went out for lunch earlier today, and I went into a buying frenzy at the local Barnes & Noble. I also have a nice pitcher of azul margaritas in the refrigerator, and I plan to consume it tonight during the presidential debate; I'll be playing "Presidential Pass-out." I'll chug down a margarita whenever Senator Obama utters the word "change" during the debate, and I'll do the same whenever Grandpa Rambo. . . . . . . . er, I mean, Senator McCain makes some reference to having been a POW. I anticipate I'll probably be good and drunk twenty minutes into the debate. (Full disclosure: I voted for Obama in the Texas primary and will do the same in the general election.)

But seriously. . . . . . . my sincere thanks and gratitude to all of you. You mean so much to me!

The Eton E5 Versus The Sony ICF-7600GR

2008-09-22T17:22:00.005-05:00

I've owned numerous shortwave radios over the last 45 years, ranging from the very simple (like a three tube Hallicrafters S-119) to professional-grade units costing well over $1000 (like the Drake R8B, the best shortwave receiver I have ever owned). It's amazing how much performance can now be packed into a compact unit at a small price, as I noted a few months ago when I wrote about the Eton E5 shortwave radio. Much to my surprise, I soon found myself using the E5 for most of my listening due to its outstanding audio quality, sensitivity to weak signals, ease of use, and small size.

The best shortwave portable I have ever owned was the Sony ICF-2010, which I purchased back in 2000. Recently my unit started to develop a little "stickiness" in the frequency tuning knob, which told me the frequency encoder unit was starting to fail. Repairing/replacing that would have been a real pain in the nether regions, so I put my ICF-2010 for sale on eBay (with a full disclosure of the problem, of course!). Soon it was on its way to its new owner, and for the first time since 1982 I was without a Sony portable shortwave radio. I felt compelled to fill that void!

I began looking around for a replacement for the ICF-2010. I considered the Eton E1, but its quality control issues and size gave me pause. I did want a unit with good single sideband reception capability and synchronous AM detection, and the only unit fitting that bill other than the E1 was Sony's ICF-7600GR receiver. That and the Eton E5 are generally considered the best of the "compact" class of portable shortwave radios, and thus I was soon the proud owner of both models! In the photo below, the Sony is at the left and the Eton is at right:

Both of these radios are small. The Eton E5 (at right) measures 6.68x4.125x1.125 inches while the Sony ICF-7600GR to its left is 7.5x4.75x1.25 inches. Both are powered by 4 "AA" batteries and have AC "wall wart" power supplies. Each also has a built-in telescoping whip antenna and input jacks for external antennas. The "street price" of the ICF-7600GR is about $135-$150 while the E5 goes for $100-$125.

Both the ICF-7600GR and E5 tune from 150 kHz to 30 MHz, longwave through shortwave, in 1 kHz tuning steps. Both also tune the FM broadcast band in 10 kHz steps. Tuning in 1 kHz increments means its is not possible to "fine tune" frequencies-----if a station is operating on 3986.7 kHz, then 3987 kHz is as close as you can tune it-----but I have frankly not found that to be much of a bother when tuning AM mode broadcast signals. Each radio has a tunable beat-frequency oscillator (BFO) for tuning sideband signals, and the selectivity of both is such that tuning CW Morse code signals is no problem with the 1 kHz tuning step. Yes, some fetishists might argue it's essential to be able to tune to at least the nearest 100 Hz, but it's no big deal for 99% of listeners. Both models allow frequencies to be entered from the front panel keypads, much like entering a phone number.

Most reviews (like the one found in Passport to World Band Radio) rate the ICF-7600GR as being better than the E5. Both are fine receivers and I think most listeners would be very happy with either, but I prefer the E5 for most listening situations.

Why? The E5 is slightly more sensitive that the ICF-7600GR throughout its frequency range, except for a curious "blip" between 1800-3000 kHz where the Sony is significantly more sensitive; I have no idea whether this is a design flaw in the E5 or an anomaly peculiar to my unit. The internal noise level is slightly lower on the E5 than the ICF-7600GR (and both are noticeably quieter than the ICF-2010). While audio quality is very subjective, I feel the E5's audio is crisper and "cleaner" than on the ICF-7600GR. This difference goes beyond "it sounds nicer"-----weak signals are easier for me to understand on the E5 due to the better audio.

The E5 has two selectivity bandwidths, and the narrower bandwidth is a real help when, for example, listening to stations on 6175 and 6185 kHz when Cuba's powerhouse signal on 6180 is on the air. The same is true when tuning the ham bands on 75 and 40 meters, as the narrow bandwidth helps dig out stations covered by interference on the Sony. However, the Sony's one bandwidth is fully adequate for most reception situations.

On FM, there is no real contest between the two-----the Eton blows away the Sony. For example, I can hear KONO-101.1 in San Antonio most days with no trouble on the E5. On the the ICF-7600GR, 101.1 is covered by interference from a local Corpus Christi station on 101.3.

Where the ICF-7600GR has a clear advantage over the E5 is in single sideband reception. The Sony has selectable upper and lower sideband positions and a sideband fine tuning control. The result is sideband reception as good as that on the ICF-2010; it is stable and produces very impressive audio. If I were looking for a receiver to use with a low power (QRP) ham transmitter, the ICF-7600GR would definitely be my choice. The E5 can also receive sideband signals well, but the BFO tuning knob is very "touchy" and you have to readjust it every few minutes due to "drift" in the BFO circuit.

I am not impressed with the synchro AM detection circuit in the ICF-7600GR; it is much less capable than the one in the ICF-2010 (or Drake R8B). It works well, and improves the audio quality, when AM signals are relatively free of interference. However, it loses "lock" easily on signal fades and tends to get "confused" when more than one signal is on a frequency (such as on the AM broadcast band), producing "whooshing" sounds as it tries to decide which carrier to lock on to. It's a nice feature and I'm glad the ICF-7600GR has it, but it's not as useful as I had hoped. Because of the improved audio it produces, I normally leave the synchro detection on when tuning for AM signals but switch it off if it is having trouble keeping "lock" on a station's carrier.

The E5 has a tuning knob in addition to the keypad and "slewing" buttons for changing frequency. In contrast, the ICF-7600GR has 10 KHz and 1 kHz slewing buttons in addition to the keypad. I know it's just my personal preference, but I really like the tuning knob on the E5. I can sweep through a frequency band much faster with it than with the slewing keys on the ICF-7600GR.

Both units appear well made. I prefer the "stiffer" buttons on the E5. Only very light pressure is required to activate a button on the Sony, making it too easy to accidentally change frequency or a control setting. The controls on the E5 seem a little more intuitive to me than those of the ICF-7600GR. For example, to enter a frequency from the E5 keypad you simply enter the frequency and then press one button. But with the ICF-7600GR, you must first press a "Direct" button, then enter the frequency, and finally press an "Exe" button.

If top-notch single sideband reception is important to you, the ICF-7600GR is the way to go. Otherwise, I recommend the smaller and less expensive E5. You can't go wrong with either; I've done side-by-side reception comparisons and there was never a case where a signal audible on one wasn't audible on the other. I'm glad to own both!

The Ghost Town Of Carrara, Nevada

2008-09-18T14:13:00.005-05:00

Carrara is an Italian town famed for the quality of its marble; many surviving ruins of the Roman empire were made from that marble. It's not surprising that a Nevada town founded around a marble quarry would take the name "Carrara."

Carrara is located on Nevada Highway 95 about six miles south of Beatty, or about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. The Carrara townsite is clearly visible toward the east from Highway 95:

Marble deposits were first discovered here in 1904, and the town was formally incorporated, and a post office opened, in 1913. In short order it had a general store, a hotel, a restaurant, a newspaper called the Carrara Obelisk, and a population of a few hundred. It had everything necessary for success except a quality product from its quarry. Despite the hopes of its promoters, the marble found at Carrara was too fractured to make it commercially viable. The population started to drift away, and by 1924 the quarry and post office had closed. The desert began to reclaim the town.

Fortunately, marble was used in the construction of the quarry offices and other buildings at Carrara, making for some impressive ruins:

In the late 1930s, there was an attempt to use the marble to make "ruggedized" cement. That venture failed, but it did leave behind a cement plant. Here's a view from its ruins, looking down the hill toward the rest of Carrara and Highway 95:

Most of the other structures at Carrara were made from wood, and that wood-----along with any metal pipes, etc.-----was removed by scavengers a long time ago. Only rusted-out cans and bits of broken glass indicate this was once a town with people living there. I imagine a lot of visitors zooming north out of Las Vegas toward the Beatty entrance to Death Valley have seen the remains of Carrara in the distance and wondered what they were looking at!

The Ghost Town Of Dunmovin, California

2008-09-15T17:20:00.008-05:00

Highway 395 in California runs from Interstate 15 (just beyond Cajon Pass) up to the Nevada state line. For much of its route, it parallels the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada range and offers jaw-dropping mountain scenery. It is a road I have driven dozens and dozens of times, and is one of my all-time favorite highways. And along it you can see the ghost town of Dunmovin, California. If you like Dunmovin, you can buy it! Take a look at this photo:

Dunmovin is located about three miles north of the Coso Junction rest stop along Highway 395, but getting there is complicated because the rest stop is located on the northbound side of Highway 395 but Dunmovin is on the southbound side; you'll have to drive a little north and then loop back south. When you arrive, you'll find the town site is enclosed behind a fence (or at least it was last time I visited back in 2003). It's a very isolated area, and the chances of anyone knowing (or caring) that you trespassed on the property are remote. However, I preferred to respect the property rights of the owner(s) and instead looked at it from afar. Below is what seems to have been a store, judging from that faded and now illegible sign atop the front:

I've had zero luck in finding out anything about Dunmovin. According to post office records, there was never a post office there nor does the state of California have any record of an incorporated town at this location. It appears on some road maps (especially those from the AAA) but not others. My guess is this location served travelers back when Highway 395 was the main route between Los Angeles and Reno. The neon sign below was probably a welcome sight in the night for weary travelers way back when:

I'm guessing the structures below are some of the guest cabins, although I wouldn't be surprised if some of them also housed workers-----Dunmovin is a long way from any place to live (CalTrans workers at the nearby Coso Junction rest stop live in mobile homes belonging to the state). You can see a mobile home in the photo below, but looking at it through binoculars I saw that it was abandoned (door and windows open, etc.), The whole site seemed 100% deserted, with not even a caretaker on the premises:

I get the feeling this structure may have been a restaurant; it has "the look" of one, especially with those windows and curtains:

What is most puzzling about Dunmovin is its enigmatic web site, which offers no history or background about Dunmovin but does offer several photos of the construction of a mountain home (click the "Now Showing" link at the site) along with hosting server data (click the other links at the site). If anyone knows more about Dunmovin, I'd certainly like to hear from you!

Hell No, We Ain't Gonna Go!

2008-09-11T12:43:00.012-05:00

Okay, Di and I are going to ride out Hurricane Ike here in Corpus Christi. We were prepared for the possibility of leaving until we saw the 7:00 am National Hurricane Center forecast this morning. Ike is now strongly projected to pass to the north of us, and the odds of us getting hurricane force winds here are now less than 20%. The current forecast is for winds no stronger than 50 MPH and less than three inches of rain-----in other words, no worse than a severe thunderstorm. Our real concern here, living about a mile from the Gulf, was a storm surge but that now seems a very remote threat. We'll just lower our hurricane shutters tomorrow afternoon and hunker down. Like Travis, Bowie, and Crockett at the Alamo, I will stand my ground to the very end!

I do feel for the people in Galveston, as the chances for significant flooding from Ike's surge are high. I am also worried about the possibility of tornadoes Saturday in east Texas; I fear people in Tyler, College Station, Huntsville, Longview, etc., are going to fare much worse than we will.

At any rate, I'll be updating this post over the next couple of days to reflect what's happening/happened here in Corpus Christi.

Friday, September 12, 8:30 am: I drove a couple of miles up to Ocean Drive, and----zowie!!!-----the Gulf looks really angry this morning! Lots of waves, some very high ones, and it looks like high tide. . . . . . . . but low tide was around 8:15 this morning. It was odd to see such a violent ocean under blue, cloudless skies. I suspect there is going to be some flooding along the Corpus beachfront later today.

Friday, September 12, 12:30 pm: Clouds are starting to arrive in Corpus, although the water seems calmer than it was this morning (although the level is still elevated from normal). Below is a photo I took around 12:30 from Palmetto Park, which is located on Ocean Drive a couple of miles from my home. Normally you can see a sandy beach there, but not today. You can see downtown Corpus in the distance. Our home is adjacent to the Oso Beach golf course, and the course looks as crowded as a Saturday-----I guess a lot of people have the day off! It's almost unnaturally calm and quiet here------the proverbial "calm before the storm"-----and I fear things are going to be a lot nastier twelve hours from now.

Friday, September 12, 5:45 pm: The clouds are building up and starting to look angry. It's also weirdly silent; there are no birds flying or chirping/singing. Yet a few golfers were still out on the Oso Bay golf course when I walked out on it to take the photos below. The first is of a water hazard connected to Corpus Christi Bay. I'm going to use it as my reference point for any storm surge here. The first photo looks to the north and shows a wooden bridge across the hazard; I can already tell the water is higher than normal. The second photo shows how the hazard flows out to the bay under the bridge you see. Any storm surge in the bay will also flow into the hazard. I plan to go out as soon as I can tomorrow and check on the water level in the hazard.

I am astonished to hear that as much as 40% of the population of Galveston may have declined to evacuate and may still be on the island. It might be true, but there is something in me that refuses, or maybe is unable, to believe that figure. If it is true, a substantial number of those people will die for no reason whatsoever other than flat-out stupidity. I'm already hearing reports some people are trapped on rooftops and can't be rescued by helicopter because of winds. If I've learned anything from my situation, it is how fragile and precious life is, and it is beyond my comprehension that people, through a combination of lethargy and idiocy, would let themselves be trapped such a dangerous situation. If I had the opportunity to drive away from cancer, I'd be hauling ass down the highway right now!

I also dread what is going to happen when Ike moves inland and all the momentum in those cloud bands has to be dissipated in some fashion. The easiest way for Ike to shed it would be through a tornado outbreak, and I get this ugly feeling tomorrow is going to see a lot of twisters.

From a scientific perspective, a hurricane is a fascinating phenomenon. From a human perspective, it is an unmitigated disaster. I have this awful feeling a lot of people are going to die tonight.

Friday, September 12, 7:46 pm: I took our dogs out to let them relieve themselves, and saw an incredible sight as the light of the setting sun reflected off Ike's high-altitude clouds. I dashed back to grab my camera, and managed to catch the shot below. Unfortunately, it's not as spectacular a view as when I first saw the clouds:

Friday, September 12, 11:05 pm: I stepped outside and the moon is clearly visible through high, wispy clouds. Only a slight wind, and still very warm for this time of night. Are we going to dodge a bullet here in Corpus? I still want to stay awake long enough to see when/if the heavy stuff arrives here, but at the moment we seem to be incredibly lucky. Those poor people in Galveston-----back on Tuesday, it was looking as if that was going to be our fate.

Saturday, September 13, 12:45 am: Incredible! Not a drop of rain, not a strong gust of wind, and you can still see the moon here in Corpus! Maybe we'll pick up some rain and wind later tonight, but I don't think I'm going to be able to stay awake long enough to see it. I'm going to watch some more TV coverage of Galveston/Houston and probably call it a night in a half-hour or so. Unless something major happens here, this will be my last post until morning.

Saturday, September 13, 8:30 am: Absolutely nothing happened last night. No rain, no wind, no nothing. I was out this morning and the Gulf from Ocean Drive was calmer than it was yesterday morning. The water hazard on the Oso Beach golf course was still elevated, but it was about the same as last evening. On one hand, I feel lucky. On the other hand, I feel this was a demonstration that our models for projecting the path, intensity, and effects of hurricanes are badly flawed and much, much less reliable than they are purported to be. While I decided to stay based on the projection for low impact here, I now realize the opposite outcome-----namely, high winds and widespread damage-----was probably just as likely. We are still a long, long way from being able to make reasonably accurate (say within 20% of the actual outcome) predictions of hurricane behavior. If anything, this experience has probably made me more likely to leave in a similar case in the future. Oh well, this will be my last update to this thread; I'm going to now raise the hurricane shutters and get some light back into this place!

We Have A New Car!

2008-09-06T18:18:00.004-05:00

Di and I took delivery of our new 2009 Scion Xd yesterday. Above is a photo I took today at the beach here, with Di behind the wheel and Katiya, the dog princess, serving as co-pilot.

The Scion is one of Toyota's brands, and frankly we were looking for a new Toyota when stepped onto the lot at Champion Toyota in Corpus Christi last week. But the Scion quickly sold itself when we spotted some on the lot. The Scion brand is aimed at the under-35 age bracket, but I was quickly impressed at the package it offered for the money. It's a four door hatchback, very similar to a Honda Civic hatchback, and has the build quality and finish you associate with Toyota----there are no rattles, everything fits together snugly, the paint is smooth and even, etc. On the road, it has the same "Toyota feel" that I've enjoyed since I got my 4Runner years ago. Steering is nice and tight, the ABS brakes are smooth and act fast, the suspension lets you feel the road without jarring you, it turns in a small radius, etc. Acceleration is surprisingly good for a four cylinder engine. The Xd came with a boatload of standard equipment, including an iPod recharger and input port on the AM/FM/CD audio system; I can play my iPod through the audio system without draining its battery. The only options we have on our Xd are tinted glass and XM satellite radio.

If you're looking for a new car, I suggest you give the Scion Xd serious consideration.

The Ghost Town Of Coaldale, Nevada: The Saga Continues!

2008-09-05T20:44:00.003-05:00

Back in April, I wrote about the ghost town of Coaldale, Nevada. That was one of the more puzzling sites I've visited, and I asked if anyone had more information about it. In July, Maria Avtgis, a former resident of Coaldale, wrote with more information about the place.

Coaldale, Nevada is the gift that keeps on giving! Today I received an e-mail from Gary "Bunndini" Bunn, a fellow "desert rat" who recently visited Coaldale. With his permission, I'm reprinting his comments:

We just rode through Coaldale Junction (May 08) on our way to two days in Tonopah, then Goldfield and on to Stove Pipe Wells. Someone burned down the cafe and garage at Coaldale to the ground! There was a little sign someone wrote that said "To those who died here". What that meant I don't know. That big old house out back was wide open and empty.

"To those who died here"?? Huh?? What's that supposed to mean??

I can't say I'm surprised that someone vandalized the site; one of the depressing things about the American West is how many isolated historic sites-----like ghost towns and rock art sites----have been damaged or destroyed. But that sign makes me suspect that something major may have happened at Coaldale after my visit.

If anyone has more information about Coaldale, or any of the other sites I write about here, I'd love to hear from you!

Gary has a fascinating web site at www.vectorwarbirds.com. Drop by and take a look!

N.O. On The Mountains

2008-09-02T15:16:00.014-05:00

All the excitement about Hurricane Gustav hitting New Orleans reminded me about N.O., the world famous mountain-climbing stuffed toy penguin.

"N.O." stood for "New Orleans," and was a gift from my previous wife Tina. He got his name because Tina surreptitiously hid him in my luggage on a trip we took to New Orleans, and thereafter he became my traveling companion on various trips, including mountain climbs. And taking a photo of N.O. on the summit soon became a ritual for me.

For example, here's N.O.at the summit of Humphrey's Peak, the highest point in Arizona at 12,633 feet. Somewhere down behind him is the town of Flagstaff:

San Bernardino Peak rises to 10,649 feet in the-----surprise!------San Bernardino Mountains of southern California. Here N.O. relaxes below the summit marker after reaching the top:

Telescope Peak towers 11,049 feet above the floor of Death Valley, and N.O. looks down on the summit register for that peak:

N.O. also accompanied me on my climb of White Mountain Peak, and got his photo taken at 14,266 feet as a result:

And finally here is N.O.at Trail Crest on the Mount Whitney summit trail; this is at 13,777 feet with Trail Camp, the main overnight camping spot for Mount Whitney climbers, below at 12,039 feet near the lake at right:

Somewhere in all my moves from California to Nevada to Texas, I lost N.O. But if there's an afterlife, N.O. will be waiting for me there!

The Ghost Town Of Tonopah, Nevada

2008-08-30T17:20:00.024-05:00

The 2500 or so people who call Tonopah, Nevada home would probably claim it is not a "ghost town." After all, it has a couple of gas stations and places to eat, two casinos, three or four motels, a small supermarket, and is the county seat of Nye County, Nevada with an impressive county courthouse. But Tonopah is clearly in a steep decline. It reminds me of places like Blacksburg, South Carolina; it's not dead, but it's terminally ill. I imagine it won't be much longer before the county seat is moved to Pahrump.

Tonopah is located in west-central Nevada at the junction of Highways 6 and 95, approximately midway between Reno and Las Vegas. Tonopah was founded in 1900 following discovery of silver in the hills surrounding the town site. It grew rapidly; in 1905, it had a population of 3000 and the county seat was moved there from nearby Belmont. In 1907, Tonopah was home to five banks, five newspapers, two churches, and 30 saloons. The Mizpah Hotel was built in that year. Billed as the grandest hotel between San Francisco and Denver, the Mizpah had electric lights, steam heat, ceiling fans in each room, an ornate dining room and bar room, and, of course, a full casino. To keep order in Tonopah, Wyatt Earp arrived from Tombstone and spent a couple of years in town before moving on to San Francisco. A mine operator named Tex Rickard was managing partner in the Mizpah, and in 1913 he noticed that a young bouncer he hired to eject troublemakers from the Mizpah's bar was handy with his fists. That young bouncer was named Jack Dempsey, and Rickard would later manage Dempsey during his time as heavyweight chamption. Although it's now closed, the Mizpah dominates downtown Tonopah:

Tonopah's silver mining output peaked around 1920 and then began a slow but steady decline over the next five decades. The population declined to about 2000, and soon the Nye County government and nearby Tonopah Test Range became the economic foundations of the town. About the only excitement in that period was on January 12, 1957, when reclusive/crazy billionaire Howard Hughes married Jean Peters in Tonopah. The ceremony was performed by a local justice of the peace at the motel shown below; the ceremony was conducted in the second story room immediately to the right of the "Enter" sign. Hughes and Peters flew in from California for the ceremony, and spent only about three hours in Tonopah. The reasons why Hughes decided to get married in Nevada instead of California are not clear; maybe Nevada's easy marriage laws made a spur-of-the-moment wedding possible. At any rate, the site of the Hughes/Peters wedding has seen better days:

But things began to change around 1979. For one thing, there was a massive expansion of activity at Tonopah Test Range. Even though almost everyone who worked there lived on base, they still came into Tonopah to buy booze, gamble, and seek what little entertainment is available in the area. (The new activity turned out to be the first flight tests of the F-117 Stealth fighter/bomber.) A second and bigger cause of Tonopah's reawakening was Anaconda's investment of $240 million in a molybedium mining operation near Tonopah; the skyrocketing price of silver (which hit $50 an ounce in late 1980) also stimulated production of old mines.

Tonopah's population boomed from 2500 to over 4000 in less than a year. The school system enrollment was 475 in June, 1980; when classes resumed the following September, over 700 students showed up. Tonopah's lone grocery store had to go to 24-hour operation to accomodate shoppers. The Mizpah re-opened and was refurbished; former bank buildings were converted into apartments. At one time, over 300 mine workers were forced to live in mobile homes, RVs, and even tents at the mining sites.

And it was all over less than a decade later. The collapse in gold and silver prices caused the mines to close again, and a similar implosion of molybedium prices caused Anaconda to close down its operations and write off its entire investment. The Mizpah closed again along with many other businesses. The result is a city with many abandoned and crumbling buildings, now subsisting on tourism and the county government for survival.

It takes little imagination to see what a grand city Tonopah once was. Here is the Nevada First National Bank Building, with a view of the floor tiles at its entrance. Note the curtains in the upper windows of the building. That's because it was converted to apartments during Tonopah's second boom in 1979. Now those apartments and all businesses in the building are abandoned:

Here's a side view of the bank building above. I suppose the apartments above the bank must've been the "Belvada Apartments," and I love the name of that bar-----the "Alibi Lounge"! I would've loved to have seen the inside of that bar on a Saturday night!!

Business is no better in the rest of Tonopah. The Tonopah Liquor Company is no more, the same is true of the Ace Club and Club House; in fact, all of the buildings below are empty and falling apart:

Newer buildings in Tonopah are also abandoned. The Tonopah Garage below was empty, but someone seemed to have abandoned a NASCAR sportsman division race car under its awning:

Tonopah has a city web site, which is blatantly dishonest and misleading. It even has a "convention center" that looks like a small junior high scool gymnasium and has to be a white elephant-----I wonder if there has ever been a paying convention held there?

But Tonopah is an interesting place to explore for a few hours. You have to drive through it if you drive from Reno to Las Vegas. If you ever make that trip, allocate a little time for Tonopah.

Rediscovering H. L. Mencken

2008-08-27T18:14:00.007-05:00

I've spent the past few days re-reading The Bathtub Hoax by H. L. Mencken. As a college freshman, I first encountered Mencken and read everything by him I could find. Mencken turned out to be the biggest influence upon me as a writer, and his political and social views-----he was a "libertarian" long before the termed was coined-----shaped, and continue to shape, my social and political views.

Mencken wrote vigorous yet elegant prose; his writing combined both power and delicacy. He was a keen observer of people and society, and never was hesitant to make his opinions and feelings clear. Mencken was a practitioner of what is today called "the conversational style" (although he would've surely disdained and mocked the term). For Mencken, writing was a one-to-one conversation between an author and the reader, an act of intensely personal communication. He never hid behind such formalisms as "your author" or "the reader," nor did he geld his writing with such timidities as the passive voice. Reading Mencken for the first time was like my first taste of undiluted vodka-----it was a shock to my system and left a burning sensation. And I futilely tried to model my own writing on Mencken's. I like to think I eventually developed my own style as I matured as a writer, but it's obvious "my own style" has many elements of Mencken in it. Some are purely stylistic, while others are attitudinal. As an example of the latter, it was from Mencken that I picked up the technique of deliberately provoking readers by directly challenging their beliefs and assumptions. Mencken did so for a worthwhile reason, namely to get readers to analyze why they believed certain things to be true or just, and I often do the same (although I usually try to soften the blow with some humor).

While re-reading The Bathtub Hoax, I was repeatedly astounded at how often Mencken's social and political observations, mostly made in the 1920s and 1930s, are still very relevant today----or perhaps even more so than when originally written. Take, for example, the following paragraphs from an essay titled "Notes on Government" which was published in 1926:

The light began to dawn, I believe, at the precise moment when the prohibitionists ceased arguing that prohibition would cure all the sorrows of the world, and began arguing that it ought to be submitted to because it was the law-----in other words, at the moment when they introduced the doctrine of law enforcement. That doctrine, it soon became obvious, had little foundation in logic; it was almost purely mystical. What it amounted to was a denial that the citizens of a free state had any natural or inalienable rights at all. If, by whatever chicanery, a law was passed ordering them to cut off their children's ears, then they were bound to obey. If, by the same chicanery, a law was passed prohibiting them to wash the same ears, then they were equally bound to obey. It needed little gift for ratiocination to penetrate to the absurdity of this doctrine. Or to grasp the fact of its extreme antiquity. Even a moron could see it was simply the ancient dogma of the king's divine right in a new false face. It could not be disentangled from the concept of the citizen as a mere subject. Above him stood an occult something called the government, a force distinct from the people and superior to them. Did the people, under democracy, create it and give it the breath of life? Then, once created, it was nevertheless distinct from them and superior to them. They were forbidden to resist it.

When Mencken wrote the above, it was in reference to the Prohibitionists of the 1920s. Today, their ideological descendants are everywhere, hectoring us about too many "trans fats" (whatever the hell they are) in the foods we eat, not being sufficiently "green" and energy efficient, not using enough sunscreen, etc., etc. Mencken identified those ideological descendants as "wowsers," a word he first used in 1926 in an essay titled "Yet More Hints for Novelists":

Since the earliest days, as every one knows, American jurisprudence has been founded upon the axiom that it is the first duty of every citizen to police his neighbors. There is no such thing in this grand and puissant nation as privacy. The yokels out in Iowa, neglecting their horned cattle, have a right, it appears-----nay, a sacred duty!----to peek into my home in Baltimore and tell me what I may and may not drink with my meals. A Methodist preacher in Washington, inspired by God, determines what I may receive in the mails. I must not buy lottery tickets because it offends the moral sentiments of Kansas.

Such are the laws of the greatest free nation ever seen on earth. We are all governed by them. But a government of laws, of course, is a mere phantasm of political theories: the thing is always found, in inspection, to be really a government of men. In the United States, it seems to me, the tendency is for such men to come increasingly from the class of professional uplifters. It is not the bankers who run the ostensible heads of state, as the liberals believe, nor the so-called bosses, as the bosses themselves believe, but the wowsers. . . . . . Thus we are run by wowsers-----and wowser is an Australian word that I hereby formally nominate for inclusion in the American language. . . . . . What does it mean? It means precisely what you think of inevitably when you hear it. A wowser is a wowser. He bears a divine commission to regulate and improve the rest of us. He knows exactly what is best for us. He is what E. W. Howe calls a Good Man. So long as you and I are sinful he can't sleep. So long as we are happy he is after us.

And nothing has changed in the 62 years since Mencken wrote those words, except perhaps things are worse now. Wowsers now come from the left and right sides of the political spectrum and in all manner of guises. Those who are tormented by the idea of someone eating trans-fats are no different from those who are horrified by the notion of adults gambling with their own money in a casino; both are busybodies who can't stop sticking their noses into the private lives of persons engaging in peaceful activities they happen not to like. We are entirely too polite toward wowsers. We need to tell them to go to hell more often and, if that fails, we need to be more profane and threatening toward them. Instead of listening politely like Oprah and then thanking them for sharing their gibberish with us, maybe we should instead take them out back and bullwhip some sense into them.

Many called Mencken a cynic. He certainly did not take an optimistic view of the human condition, as the following illustrates:

What lies beneath all this is simply an ancient fact, noted long ago by William James, and before him by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, and before him by the Greeks, and before the Greeks by the first human politicians. It is the fact that the race of men is divided sharply into two classes: those who are what James called tough minded, and demand overwhelming proofs before they will believe, and those who are what he called tender minded, and are willing to believe anything that seems to be pleasant. It is the tender minded who keep quacks of all sorts well fed and active, and hence vastly augment the charm of the world. They find it wholly impossible to distinguish between what is subjectively agreeable and what is objectively true.

Is that cynicism? No. Instead, it is a powerful, simple statement of an unfortunate truth. In the paragraph above, Mencken neatly explains why so much goes wrong in the world, why so many grand schemes crash and burn, and why so many people waste their money on miracle diet pills, no-money-down real estate investments, and psychic weekends in Sedona, Arizona. If such foolishness was confined to the private sphere-----if it went no further than some goobers really thinking they can make $5000 a day from home with their own internet business-----it wouldn't be a big deal. But unfortunately our social institutions (like schools) and government are now overrun by the tender minded, the sort who sincerely believe everyone can be above average with the proper instruction and that you have solved a problem by passing a law. Trying to engage the tender minded in a rational dialogue is like trying to teach your dog to conjugate irregular French verbs. You'll only get frustrated for your efforts, and if you persist too long you'll go insane.

While he never attended college, Mencken was a believer in education. But it was "education" of a special sort, as he wrote in 1927:

The discovery of fraudulence, I believe, is one of the principal aims and achievements of true education, if not the first of them all. A man soundly fitted for life is not one who believes what he is told, as a schoolboy believes, but one trained in differentiating between the true and the false, and especially trained in weighing and estimating authority. If the young man at college learns nothing else save the fact that many of the bigwigs of the world are charlatans, and that positions and attainments do not necessarily go together, then he has learned something of the utmost value. The tragedy of the world is that the great majority of human beings never learn it.

I need to stop before I quote the entire text of The Bathtub Hoax. (The book's title comes from one of Mencken's essays, an entirely fictitious/satirical account of how the bathtub was invented in Cincinnati in 1842; despite its obvious ridiculousness, his essay was, to Mencken's delight/horror, taken as absolute fact by most readers.) If you want a definitive survey of his work, I recommend A Mencken Chrestomathy.

Mencken was kept well away from impressionable high schoolers when I attended four decades ago, and I suppose that is even more the case today. Indeed, America would be even more querulous, have many fewer people willing to quietly submit to established authority, and show much less empathy to those suffering from self-inflicted wounds if the majority of the population had some exposure to Mencken. You could make a strong case those would all be bad things.

On the other hand, we'd have fewer damn fools running loose if Mencken was part of our educational curricula, and that would be a very good thing. A very good thing indeed.