What's Happenin' Now?

Time to get back to this after another break. Where do I start? How about with the fact that some crazy things are going on with the weather, which is normal for this time of the year. There used to be an old commercial with the famous line, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!". Well, someone must have irritated her, because she has really been trying to drive us crazy with extreme changes. We had a big snowstorm two weeks ago which produced a beautiful scene. A fresh snow makes everything look clean, pristine and beautiful. If Mother Nature left it that way we could all enjoy it, but just twenty four hours later the temperature was in the high fifties and the snow melted into ugly slush. Last Tuesday, the temp was almost seventy, so down to the lake I went (no joy), and then the weather went into a nosedive. Last night we had about an inch of snow and today the high will be about thirty degrees; tomorrow it will be forty and by Wednesday and Thursday we're looking at temps close to seventy again. Who knows?

Last time I asked if anyone knew who Cassandra Peterson was. Well my friends Terry Tusa and Skip Dudley came up with the correct answer. When Cassandra puts on her black beehive wig, black makeup, black dress and black fishnet stockings, she becomes Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark. I love that lady. She's my type of woman. Of course, at my age, I might not survive the experience.

Here's a guessing game for us older types. One of the most successful singers of the late forties, the fifties and the sixties was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio. After he had his first number one hit, many others followed. He first sang publicly in 1930 and he passed on in 2007. With that info, I expect to get several correct answers.

I was fishing at the dam spillway recently when an Alma resident named Ron McConnell hooked into a terrific flathead catfish. He fought it for half an hour and when he finally got it near him, my fishing partner and neighbor, Steve Padgett, netted it for him. Ron took it to the closest bait shop to get it weighed, but their scale only goes to fifty pounds and Ron's fish passed that easily. He put it back in a tank to get it refreshed, then took to Fishermen's Corner here in Alma, where it topped out at 57 pounds. He later released it into the lake where it could enjoy its life in more swimming area than the spillway offers. That's his son with him as they stand outside the Fishermen's Corner. When he was really struggling to get the fish in, I asked him at one point, "What's he doing to you?" Ron answered, "Whatever he wants." There are some big, big fish in Harlan County Lake. My friend Steve last summer nailed a twenty pound striped bass, and another "Almanite" hauled in a fifteen pound northern pike. I'll have my turn.

A national "institution" has gone under. The Rocky Mountain News, which published a daily paper for 150 years, has closed its doors. Add one part of the terrible economy which has prompted many people to save money by cancelling their daily paper, add one part the trend toward more and more people getting their news from television and add another part which is people like me who get 90% percent of their news from the internet, and you have the perfect formula for newspaper business failure. Every daily newspaper in the country is feeling the effects of disappearing revenue, so we can expect to see more old time "dailies" cease publication. Time and technology constantly change the way we live and it could be that what seems like the the genuine American ritual of sitting down with a cup of coffee and leisurely reading the morning paper will go the way of those who made buggy whips and covered wagons.

I've also read of more and more people in these troubled times who are saving money by canceling their cable and satellite TV subscriptions and then using the internet to see their favorite shows. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that more and more TV favorites are available on-line the day after they play on TV. Another benefit of this arrangement is that a person can watch those shows at a time most convenient to him or her, not at a time dictated by a network.

In reading the on-line "paper" this morning, I couldn't believe my eyes when I read that a "gentleman" in Lexington, NE. had been arrested for driving on a suspended license. What made it interesting is that since 2002 this is the eighteenth time he has been stopped for driving on a suspended license. What? Obviously, he doesn't care whether it's suspended or not, he's going to drive whenever he feels like it. He posted $500.00 of the $5,000.00 bail and went home. Hmm, I wonder if he drove. I also wonder why the powers that be haven't put this yo-yo in one of the state's special hotels for people like him. Those centers are called jails, and I think he needs to go there and be kept in isolation for enough time to make him think twice about driving without a license. Eighteen times in seven years? I've been driving since 1950 and I haven't been stopped eighteen times. How can one person drive badly enough to attract an officer's eye that many times in that short a period of time? It's easy to see why his license was suspended in the first place.

I also had to scratch my head when I read of the guy in Tennessee who was arrested after buying some meth from an undercover police officer. As soon as the money passed from the buyer to the cop, the handcuffs were on and the arrest was made. But was it a legal purchase? After all, the money he bought it with turned out to be counterfeit. Somewhere, some "technicality" loving defense lawyer is rubbing his hands with glee. In the meantime, the "perp" now has to face charges from the federal government in addition to the local authorities. It seems the Treasury Department takes a dim view of those who print their own money, other than themselves, that is.

That little story reminds me that every owner of a color laser printer may not know that the manufacturer and serial number of the printer is printed on every copy they make with the machine. It takes a special light to make the information visible, but since those machines can make copies of money that will fool many people, the government requires that every printed page bear information that will allow the feds to track down the owner of the printer.

The same is true of CD and DVD burners in our computers. Each burner has a serial number, and when it burns a disk, whether it be CD or DVD, it burns the manufacturer's name and the serial number of the burner onto each disk. If the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA) or the Motion Picture Association (MPA) finds an illegal copy of music or a video, it can track down the obviously dangerous criminal who made the copy and threatens the very
fabric of truth, justice and the American way of life. Please, somebody give me a break here.
Both of those organizations have spent huge amounts of money suing people who make single downloads, when that money could have been much better spent going after the pirates who make thousands of illegal copies. I read one story where the motion picture people were suing an elderly man whose grandson had visited and, unknown to his grandfather, had illegally downloaded a movie. The last I read, they were prepared to take his house to satisfy their demands. Makes me want to quit watching movies.

The Hammer Falls

Wow - after all the talk about the mild winter, Mother Nature is sending us a heavy hit. The storm that drenched southern California a few days ago will arrive in Nebraska about midnight tonight. To make matters more interesting, a cold air mass moving down from Canada will cover the state at about the same time. That means heavy snow and high winds; almost blizzard conditions all day tomorrow. I'm going to take some before and after pictures from my doorway and post them tomorrow. I have to make a run to the market before 6:00 PM (that's when it closes on weekdays, 3:00PM on Sundays) because I am out of the little marshmallows, and tomorrow will definitely be a hot chocolate type of day, and a person absolutely has to have the little marshmallows with hot chocolate. Right?

OK. Who is Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg? Why, she is everybody's favorite - Jane Seymour. She is just a tiny lady and she had quite a physical time carrying and delivering twins a while back, so much of her life these days is dedicated to those new humans. She has her priorities straight.

For the next mystery celebrity, I've picked someone a little off the wall: Cassandra Peterson. She's an actress who has never appeared in a notable film or play. She's known for a single character who appears nationally about once a year these days. I'm in love with that character and I wish she were real. How could a man not like a character who (in one of her really bad movies) is arrested, placed in a jail cell, and then declares, "I know my rights. I'm entitled to a telephone call and a strip search!" Her character went from a single Los Angeles TV station personality to nationwide fame and spawned a video game, custom make-up for women, and a special Universal Studios, Florida, attraction. Here's her picture. Who's her character?

The rural areas of Nebraska took a hit last week when the largest paper in the state, the Omaha World Herald, discontinued delivery to the western half of Nebraska. The economy is not good and Newspapers everywhere have seen their circulation numbers plummet. The World Herald said it simply costs more to deliver the papers to that part of the state than it is making in subscriptions. Omaha, of course, sits on the Missouri river in the easternmost part of Nebraska, and to have trucks drive 200 to 350 miles each way to make deliveries to distribution centers is simply no longer affordable.

The economy hurts, but internet news hurts papers all over the nation, if not the world, and was doing so long before the economy went south. Several years ago, while still living in the L.A. area, I discontinued home delivery of the Times and started reading it on-line. Now, I still read it on-line as well as the Omaha World Herald and the Kearney Hub. Advertising works on the internet, so some money is being made there. Does it produce more profit than printed editions? I don't know, but the internet is slowly but surely taking over news dissemination world wide. That can create problems.

Nothing requires a news website to be impartial or non-partisan. Like Newspapers, many websites are created because someone has a news slant to present. It behooves the careful person to check various news sources on important stories. In addition to the newpapers mentioned above, I read the BBC news world headlines, a site called Journalism In The Public Interest, and two specialty news sites: Politifact.com and Factcheck.org. The latter two sites are in the business of checking the accuracy of what our politicians and political pundits are saying. Both sites are non-partisan, and after spending years debunking many of the Bush administration statements , they are now doing the same for the Obama regime. They play no favorites. I believe that if I read only the news sources I know will agree with and support my outlook on life and politics, I am not going to learn anything new. I read news sources from the left and from the right. As a result, I am registered as a non-partisan voter because I find that both the Republican and Democratic parties tend to irritate me no end.

If they would just let me run things, everything would be fine. Right?

It Might As Well Be Spring

Another shirtsleeves week weather-wise, and spring is on its way regardless of what that groundhog in Pennsylvania says.

First, let's clear up the answer to last week's celebrity name question. Who was Emmanuel Goldenberg? He was the great actor Edward G. Robinson. I think offering the fact that he was born in Bucharest, Romania sent some of the readers down the wrong path and I got a couple of comments that it was probably Peter Lorre. My Friend Erika was the only one who pegged Robinson as the correct actor. Before he passed away, I remember reading an interview in which he stated that had he known he would gain such fame and sign so many autographs, he would have selected something like John Doe for his screen name. He got very tired of writing out such a long name. His last film was Soylent Green in 1973, co-starring Charlton Heston. In that film Heston is seen crying as Robinson's character is dying. The tears were real; Heston was the only person on the set who knew that Edward G. Robinson had terminal cancer and had but weeks to live.

This week's guessing game should get at least two or three correct answers. Who is Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg? A great actress on the big screen as well as TV, she appears less frequently now because her primary role is that of wife and mother. She had her own hit series on TV for five years.

Today, the sky was at times filled with tens of thousands of geese flying north. It is a spectacular sight and is seen every year, but much earlier than usual this year. It's amazing how they make those "V" shaped formations and keep trading off the lead when the bird at the head of the formation needs a break. They are literally everywhere.

I'll be on the phone in the morning calling the Rowe Audubon Sanctuary to make a reservation to be in one of the blinds on the Platte River to watch the Sandhill Cranes next month. It's hard to imagine, but there will be approximately 600,000 cranes in one fifty mile stretch of the river. The state spends a lot of time and money tilling the ground along the Platte to keep it vegetation free. The cranes will not land in an area covered with weeds and tall growth, which is abundant on both sides of the river in many areas. Most of the grasses and weeds are not native to America, but they surely love to grow here. It is a never ending battle to keep invasive plants out of the areas along the Platte used for roosting by the cranes. Also, all those plants suck up a lot of water, reducing the flow of the Platte, which is a broad, shallow waterway. It's the famous river noted as, "Too thin to plow - Too thick to drink", but without its existence, the migration to the west in the old days would have been much, much different. The Platte and Nebraska played a huge role in the opening of the west. The cranes stopped here even then. I wonder what those old pioneers thought when they saw them. Probably thought it was dinner time.

We had our first rain in a while two days ago. It was light but was accompanied by a lot of wind, and I can't get over how different the wind sounds here in Nebraska as opposed to southern California. The wind here has a deeper more "threatening" sound to it, perhaps because it comes down from Canada and has no hills or mountains to break it up or change its course. The wind in L.A. comes to town after passing through the mountains and hills that surround the city, and it sounds fundamentally different. If the California wind is a tenor, the Nebraska wind is a basso.

Went fishing last week and caught myself a couple of nice catfish of about five to seven pounds. They are currently known as fillets in my freezer. I also caught a carp about 12-15 pounds and I snagged a gar that was about seven or eight pounds. Both the carp and gar wound up on the shore to serve as raccoon food. Who would believe it's warm enough to go fishing in Nebraska in February? And I don't mean ice fishing - all I needed was a light jacket as temps were in the middle fifties.

I have two trips to Kearney coming up this week, Wednesday and Friday, helping friends who don't drive make it to medical appointments. It's a long drive, but it gives me a chance to visit Burger King, Wendy's or Hunan's for a Chinese buffet.

A Bunch Of Things

Just got back from a two mile walk on the trail by the lake, and my legs are feeling the lack of exercise that generally goes with winter out here. Remember, my walks are not leisurely strolls - I step it out at pretty good pace. Of course, I started the day with some walking this morning in the city auditorium/basketball arena. Twenty-six times around the interior of the building equals one mile, but it's just not the same as walking the trail and watching for squirrels or deer, or scanning the lake (which is not frozen in the center) and watching a bald eagle try a stealthy swoop to grab one of the ducks still hanging around here. Last winter, the fish and game people counted sixty one bald eagles in and around the lake. A lot of them leave in the summer, but in the winter, there are other birds and fish to be had at Harlan County Lake.

A fella named Don Jardon volunteers to open the city auditorium every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from December 15 to March 15 and set it up for those who wish to exercise by walking in circles. A week ago Monday, 46 people showed up between 7:00 AM and 12:00 noon, a new record for a single day. Don tries to break up the boredom by setting up his boom box and playing his collection of old hits. He has almost every genre, from big bands of the forties and fifties to country western hits of recent vintage. Don is a retired school teacher who returned to Alma a few years ago after spending more than a dozen years in Japan teaching at a school on a U.S. Air Force base. He is an interesting guy to listen to.

In the center of what would be the basketball court, a bunch of rolled up pads are stored. These are rolled out in the afternoons for gymnastic practice by the team from Alma High. The kids come down from the school after the noon hour because the auditorium/basketball court at school is used by the boys and girl's basketball teams.

Oh Yeah, last post I asked if anyone knew the identity of Caryn Elaine Johnson. I didn't receive any emails with guesses, so I have to assume that none of my readers know that this is the true identity of View host Whoopee Goldberg. That's not the first time someone has taken a good looking name like Caryn Elaine and turned it into something else. A singer named Jerry Dorsey couldn't get a hit record until his agent changed his name to Engelbert Humperdink, and we all know his history. Let's see who can identify Emmanuel Goldenberg. Born in Bucharest, Romania, he was a great actor who appeared in over 100 films starting in 1916 and ending with his last film in 1973. He never won an Oscar for a specific performance, but he was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar before he passed away. Remember, you can give your answer by
clicking on the comments link at the end of today's post. It will send me an immediate email.

Tomorrow I travel north to Kearney to get a couple of things unavailable down here in Alma and I intend to visit a computer store recommended to me by a fellow computer junkie I met in Orleans, NE. While in Kearney, I may make a side trip to a branch of Cabela's to check out some fishing gear I can feel calling my name. I am not really obsessive compulsive about fishing. Well, most of the time I'm not. Ok, maybe just a little more than most people. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't sell my kids into white slavery for the right fishing boat, but it would be a close call.

On Thursday, I'll be running up to Kearney again to pick up my daughter Valerie, who is returning from a visit to Dallas to be with her youngest, who is my twenty-one year old grandson Vani. His full name is Giovani Jean Christopher Giunca, and his father (my daughter's ex) was born in Romania. I had always thought that the Romanian language and culture was basically Slavic, but it actually evolves from Latin and is thought to be the first of the "romance" languages to split off from Latin. I guess because Romania was behind the "iron curtain" imposed by Russia, I tended to view Romania as a Slavic nation. Not so. To be certain, there are Slavic influences and some Slavic people there, but the history of the country evolves from the Roman occupation before the fall of Rome.

In between trips to the north, I intend to take advantage of good weather and spend a good portion of Wednesday fishing at the spillway. The weather is forecast to be almost sixty degrees, which is, to me, amazing for this time of the year in Nebraska. In fact, through Saturday it will be spring like. One of the natives remarked to me that she could remember twenty years ago when the temperature hit twenty below and stayed there for two weeks. We certainly have not experienced anything close to that in the two winters I've been here. Of course, winter ain't done yet. Not by a long shot. So, stay tuned, folks, because you just never know what Mother Nature might do around here.