Wallet Found After 63 Years

Bill Fulton lost his wallet 63 years ago. It was found behind the bleachers of a middle school. Way to go cleaning crew. For 63 years they came up with excuses not to clean behind the bleachers. The wallet was found when the bleachers were removed for renovation. Mr. Fulton, 78, is confident that the condom inside the wallet is still good and plans to try it out at his first opportunity.

And then did you hear about the wallet found in Central Park after 27 years? It was found in a tree, stashed there by the pickpocket who took it during the 1982 NYC marathon.

What? There's no punchline. Move along, people.

Interstellar Mooning

Welcome back, moon. We missed ya. Here are a few of the first shots of the moon taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). These are basically just test shots taken near the moon's terminator (I'll be back ... er, the line between night and day, you are the one, only you beneath the moon or under the sun).

Click here to see NASA's article.

These Are the Geeky Years of our Lives

Yep. Pretty damn cool. One Dan Meth did this (click here to go there).

A Girl Named Maria

Maria was ten when she moved in with another family. Her own family could no longer support her. Several years later her "foster" family had another child and they, in turn, could no longer support her. That's how she found herself with a marriage broker who connected her with a bachelor in the United States. She corresponded with the man and agreed to marry him, if he wired the money necessary for the voyage from Italy.

The family story says that Maria Mormile was sixteen when she headed to America. Checking online Ellis Island information, there was a 20-year-old Maria Mormile who went through Ellis Island in 1904 ... the year of her marriage. Is this the same Maria? Did she lie to the custom's officials? Did they record the wrong age? Or over the past century did the family misremember her age? It could be any of these. [Update. According to her husband's death certificate, Maria would have actually been sixteen in 1904 ... so I'm guessing she lied to get on the ship.]

But she did make the voyage, by herself, and took a train from the East Coast to Florence, Colorado. Then onto Rockvale, a coal-mining town. It wasn't until she got there that she learned of the lie. The picture she had received of a young Italian man was not the man who waited for her in Rockvale. No. The man who waited was much older and was hobbled, walking with a cane.

She refused to marry him, hiding away in a local hotel. It was a small mining town and news traveled quickly. Another bachelor, Angelo, heard of Maria's plight. The two talked and agreed to be married, once Angelo repaid Maria's expenses. And so Angelo "Harris" and Maria Mormile married on July 2, 1904.

No, Harris is not your typical Italian name. His real name was Ariasi. It was quite common for names to magically change at Ellis Island. It took just the scrawl of a pen on paper to suddenly have an Anglo-sounding name. And just as magically, Maria Mormile became Mary Harris. Though on Angelo's death certificate, his name reads: Angelo Ariasi (Harris).

Angelo and Maria Harris were my great grandparents. The parents of the grandmother I never met. My grandmother, Minnie, died when my dad was young.

Wasted Daze

Sometimes I have a day where I don't remember one thing out of the ordinary. Not one thing stands out.

What a waste of a day.

But that's a matter of perception, of course. No matter how ordinary I think of the day, something extraordinary happened, but I failed to comment on it. Failed to note and remember it. Failed to see the wonderful that was there, waiting.

Right in front of me.

To me.

By me.

Comics Digest 1

Welcome to a new feature on this blog. The Comics Digest. Really it'll just be reviews of your modern-day comic book. But first, let me digress. I grew up reading comic books. My oldest brother (Jeff) collected comics when he was a kid and he was a major influence on my reading habits. However, I also found his stash of underground comix. Weird trippy tales with hardly a superhero to be found. Must say, they freaked me out a bit at the time. I'm sure I'm still scarred.

click to embiggen

But that's not what this new blog feature is about. I read his superhero comics and started buying my own (can you technically buy "your own" when the money comes from your parents?). Loved comics. At one point I had subscriptions to six or seven comics while buying others at the PDQ. The crappy thing back then was that for subscriptions the distributor folded the comic in half to put it in a brown mailing sleeve. Who wants a folded-in-half comic book?

Well, at some point I lost interest in comic books. The price per issue was becoming obscene (back then that meant a single issue was going for something like $1.25. When I first started buying them they were $.20 and $.25 cents. Now comic publishers are toying with the idea of $3.99 for a single issue. Wow. But whatever the reason back then, I stopped buying them.

Fast forward a couple of years. I still love the idea of superhero comic books, I just haven't bought any in quite awhile. I stumble across (I don't even remember the first one I stumbled across) a collection of comic books reproduced in a trade paperback format. You get the entire story (let's say the story ran for eight issues of the comic book) collected in one place. Very cool.

Sorry, no embiggening - already full size

But that's not why I started buying them again. Comic books were/are a part of my childhood. In picking up the trade paperback I was hoping to somehow recapture some of that childhood magic. Step back in time for a moment. As we all know, that's much easier said than done. More often than not you pick up something from your childhood, let's say a book you loved, re-read it and find it to be utterly dreadful. Only a child could have loved that book. My heart breaks a little bit each time that happens.

Cue victory music. That didn't happen. I picked up a few collections here and there and I found that I enjoyed them. That they really did recapture that magic I felt as a kid. The stories (and the artwork) had grown up with me. Sure, they're cheesy at times, over-the-top, and even silly, but they're still good. Some of them, as I'll review later, are excellent. Are they great literature? A couple here and there actually come close. But in whole, no. They're comic books. They're the equivalent of Taco Bell versus authentic Mexican food. But man I loves me some Taco Bell. I can appreciate Taco Bell for exactly what it is - and it's awesome. So if you can read modern-day comic books for what they are, you might love them (again) as well.

With all that said, I'm going to provide my first review in the next edition of Comic Digest because, frankly, this post has gotten kinda long. But let me throw in a couple of review caveats:

• I'm only going to review the comics that I enjoy. No bummer trips, unless something is so egregious, is such a slap in the face to readers, that it deserves to be called out.




• Most of the collections/graphic novels that I review will be superhero in nature. That's what I geek to, man. I suspect comic-book snobs (oh, believe me, they exist) will shudder at many of my selections. I'm cool with that.

Buck Fiddy

Stumbled across this rather cool site about our fair city (Denver, that is). Here's a quick blurb:

Over the course of the upcoming season we will offer up our favorite 150 different expressions of the city, its neighborhoods, people, and culture. All media whether in image, text, or video will be published. Along the way, we’ll be offering up some opportunities for getting together to share some new stories and some whisky too.

So far I've read stories about the old City Spirits Cafe and Muddy's and My Brother's Bar and Chuck's Do-Nuts. A nifty mix between old and new. Click here to go there:

buckfify.org

Laserbread Bridge

Um, so this guy in Denver (click here to see the pictures and his article) built a gingerbread bridge using a laser. Yes, a laser. First of all ... they sell lasers to regular people? He used the laser that a workshop club in Denver owns. The bridge looks quite amazing. And I totally want to play with the laser.

She Has the Power

Yes, yes, I know, she has large eyes. Welcome to the world of comics. This was drawn by someone calling himself Rantz (Randy Kintz) [click here to see more of his stuff] - who is a professional penciler. I colored it using Corel Painter X. In the world of comics, the drawing (without color) is known as "pencils" (click here to see the pencil version). It's been drawn, but isn't ready for prime-time. The next stage is someone inking it (literally using pen or brush with ink to trace the pencil lines - though in this day and age, it's also done on computer now). After the pencils are inked, then a colorist would go to work. Most comics are colored on computers now. Every once in awhile, I like to color just for fun. It's like an adult coloring book.

Oh, she's known as Power Girl and she may or may not be the cousin of Kal-El (Superman).

Click to embiggen

Donder is Pissed

In the original Clement Clarke Moore tale Twas the Night before Christmas: A Visit from St. Nicholas we have the following:

Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

The name was (and is) Donder ... not Donner. Just thought I'd clarify that. In case, you know, you were worried about it or anything. So in the Rudolph Christmas special, that would make Rudolph's dad being Donder. Not Donner. You know, in case you were worried. Next we'll discuss the deplorable living conditions of the reindeer, living in bleak unfurnished caves.

Geek Times Infinity

Found this on Gizmodo. It puts into perspective the awesome achievements of mankind:

Click the image to see some really cool details.

Don't Worry, I'll Grow More

Being the son of a man who had a heart transplant (and a bad ticker since his 40s - I'm now 45), I've been hoping for some medical breakthrough to make bypass surgery and, you know, stuff related to the heart ... um ... well ... easier. More reliable. Less intrusive. And all that jazz. At least five years ago I read reports about a patch of your own tissue, grown in a lab, that could be slapped onto the side of your heart where your arteries are clogged and it would start growing blood vessels and create your own bypass. No taking veins from your legs and making them act as arteries for your heart. Well, over five years later, I haven't heard anything new about that procedure. In fact, I don't hear anything at all about it anymore. Instead, doctors are using balloons to enlarge clogged arteries and placing stents in there and still doing "old-fashioned" bypasses.

But now I'm hoping the trachea has just opened the door for, not only the heart, but all kinds of "regenerative" surgery for one's body. In case you haven't heard about it, click here to read a CNN article about it. They used her own stem cells to grow a windpipe for her and then transplant it into her body. Now I'm not expecting them to grow new organs, but why couldn't they grow your own blood vessels for grafting onto your heart? I sure don't know, I ain't the science guy, but I would think it's getting closer to reality. And if they're just trying to graft a section of your own lab-grown tissue, could it not be attached non-surgically? Instead of stitching it into place, you "glue" it over the clogged arteries and wait for it to start attaching blood vessels to your heart. Maybe that could mean some type of arthroscopic heart surgery instead of the full-blown open-heart surgery.

And maybe monkeys'll fly out of my butt. Though, honestly, I'm guessing new heart procedures are much closer to reality than anus monkeys.

Thank You Very Much

Well, I guess we should thank them. These three men helped usher in the new Democrats. Without them, Dems wouldn't be running all three [sorry, just two - executive and legislative] branches of government (well, as of January 20, 2009). So thanks, fellas.


I'm still undecided, however, how to characterize them. Are they evil or just incredibly stupid? Or both. And I'm being serious. I would love to know if they were going about the destruction of the country (and parts of the world) thinking they were doing the right thing, but were simply too stupid. Or did they set out to help their friends (corporation, oil, etc.) and they just didn't care what the hell happened to the country or the world? I lean towards thinking that Iraq was all a ploy to drive up the price of oil to give Bush's oil buddies one last hurrah. Even these numbnuts know that oil is on a downward slide. Alternatives must (and certainly will) be found (I hope). So Bush did everything he could to make sure his buddies got their golden parachutes before the world heads away from an oil economy.

Now we have the Democrat Triumvirate [nope, no triumvirate, as noted earlier]. I honestly feel immensely relieved. But I'm also scared. Yes, Dems govern better than Republicans, but when you're the sole power, it's so easy to get full of yourselves. So to Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, all I have to say is: Don't be jackasses. Do the right thing. Remember that the MAJORITY of this country is in the middle. We have the right-wing nuts and the left-wing wackos, but most of us are stuck in the middle. Don't be too liberal, or the House will be back in Republican hands by 2010 or 2012. As with most things in life, moderation is a good thing. Yes, we'll need bold immoderate leadership in the beginning to get us out of this hell that Bush put us in. But please, please, please remember where most of us live ... in the middle.

A New Hope

Man, I haven't felt this much pride in my state

or my country in a long time. It doesn't wash away the Bush years, unfortunately, but it is a time of hope and relief.

The Early Worm

UPDATED November 4, 2008 - HAPPY ELECTION DAY

As of yesterday, November 3, here are the stats for early voters in Colorado:

Percentage of registered voters sent mail-in (absentee) ballots: 62% (wow)
In-person ballots cast: 365,215
Mail-in (absentee) ballots cast: 1,339,065 (82% have been cast)

That's 64.6% of registered voters.

Click here to go there.

A Water, "Whoa, dude."

Just watch this.

There's Batusi Flyin' All Over the Place

For whatever reason (and, really, who needs a reason?), Ty Buttars got some artist pals together to do their rendition of the Batusi. Here's the original:

And here's one of the new ones, featuring the ever-lovin' blue-eyed ...

Click to see the rest

This is a watercolor done by Evan (Doc) Shaner. Click here to see other stuff he's done.

I've Been Processed!

Well, Jefferson County has acknowledged my mail-in ballot, telling me it was received and processed on October 15. I can finally sleep at night.

And we just had a big rain and thunderstorm, which is pretty rare for this late into October (the thunder part).

Absenteeism at its Finest

Gotta love the absentee ballot. No, really, you gotta! Okay, well, I love it. My wife, step-daughter, and myself voted two days ago. I even got to wear the little "I Voted" sticker (nice touch voter people!).

Now don't get me wrong, without the absentee ballot I still would have voted, trundling on down to my polling place and casting my vote in person. But it's nice having this option. The last time I showed up in person was when my polling place switched to computerized voting four years ago (or so). Had to try it out. But my voting of choice has been the mail-in ballot, which I've used for many years now.

And now you can check online to see if they received it. Well, you can if you live in Jefferson County, Colorado. Shall we check? Okay, let's see, you click on this link right here: www.votejeffco.com. All right, now let's see. It's not really clear what you click on next. Ah, the big link at the top of the page that says: Look up my Voter Registration (woulda thought that meant your registration, not your ballot, but under it you'll see it says you can track your ballot).

Click (ain't this exciting?!).

Okay, enter my birthday (shhh, no telling) and my address number and click Search. Waiting a long time and ... hey, it's my voter information (though my name is not listed, which is probably a good thing). Shows that my voting status is Active and that I'm a Democrat (huh, who'da thought?) and ... that they have not received and processed my ballot yet. Ack.

Well, hang in there kids, we'll see what they have to say tomorrow (or maybe later today).

Stupid anti-climaxes.

John McPenguin

Uh, this is just too scary (if you want to cut to the punchline, just watch the second one):

You Betcha

Fargo, North Alaska:

It Ends Here - Let's Hope Metaphorically

The end of the world never looked so cool. This is an inside view of the Large Hadron Collider.

Some think there's a possibility that when fully functional (sometime next year) and they (the science guys, that's their official title) start pissing off protons by throwing them at each other at ridiculously high speeds (99.999999% the speed of light) that the LHC could, well, create a blackhole right here on Earth, pretty much destroying us all. But you gotta admit, the picture is way cool. Note the man at the bottom. This thing is friggin' huge!

They're Identical Cousins Attached at the Spine

Jon, take it away:

Really?!

Some stuff I didn't know about Sarah Palin that scares me:

• Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is "God's task."
• Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools.
• Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming.
• Palin is extremely anti-choice (actually, I already knew this)
• Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools.
• As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library (and get the librarian fired when she didn't cooperate).

My wife had this on her blog. It's pretty darn funny.

Sunday Ritual

The missus and I started a Sunday ritual about six weeks ago (Note: there're hardly any human and/or animal sacrifices). This was Shannon's brainchild and has turned into a cool Sunday morning thing to do. There's this shopping area near us called Belmar and every Sunday during the summer they have a farmers' market. Here we see the farmers setting up with tents and prepping for the day.

So we started getting there early, when the coffee shop first opens.

We grab a table and order coffee or chai and I usually get a chocolate chip muffin (imagine that).

The coffee shop, called The Press Coffee Company, is Colorado-owned. And according to the wife, it's the only other coffee shop she's found with chai as good as Starbucks.

We spend roughly two hours here, writing or people watching or maybe just surfing the 'net with their free WiFi. Then we wander the market and usually pick up some fresh produce. Lovin' it, man.