As you will have all seen, commented on, and tweeted about, the big talking point over the last week was whether guys should get paid for playing ball at the Olympics—kicked off by Ray Allen, and taken on by Dwyane Wade.
Here’s what DWade said, in case you missed it:
‘It’s a lot of things you do for the Olympics—a lot of jerseys you sell,’ Wade said. ‘We play the whole summer. I do think guys should be compensated. Just like I think college players should be compensated as well. Unfortunately, it’s not there. But I think it should be something, you know, there for it … The biggest thing is now you get no rest,’
‘So you go to the end of the season, (Team USA) training camp is two weeks later. You’re giving up a lot to do it. It’s something you want to do. But it’s taxing on your body. You’re not playing for the dollar. But it would be nice if you would get compensated.’
To be fair to Wade, he then took to Twitter to clarify:
“I responded 2 a specific question asked by a reporter on my thoughts of Olympians being paid. I never asked to be paid to PLAY.”
“What I was referencing is there is a lot of Olympic business that happens that athletes are not a part of—and it’s a complicated issue.”
“BUT my love 4 the game & pride 4 USA motivates me more than any $$$ amount. I repped my country in 2004 when we won the bronze medal and stood proudly to receive our gold medal in 2008 in Beijing. It’s always been an honor for me to be a part of the USA Olympic family and I’m looking forward to doing it again in London this summer.”
I’m not going to jump on the guy—although he probably should have dodged the question, as teammates LeBron James and Chris Bosh both managed to do when asked the same thing—but Wade is right, it is a complicated issue
To me, there are two sides to this. The first is around getting paid to play basketball at the Olympics.
The Olympics are the purest expression of sporting achievement. I think most, if not all athletes would agree that participating in the Olympics should be about the personal pride of having represented your country, your family, your home town and anyone who has helped you become an elite athlete, in front of billions of people. And that’s exactly the same whether you play basketball or soccer, run the hundred meters, swim, or ride bikes around a track.
So no, guys shouldn’t get paid for the physical act of playing basketball at the Olympic Games, they should be honored to get the opportunity.
The other side of the argument, the one that Wade hinted at, is one that people seem less keen to acknowledge because it dirties the purity of the Games.
The Olympics are a money making machine, the biggest money making machine in all of sports—bringing in billions of dollars for the host city, broadcasters, and a host of brands who clamor to be a part of the circus. Replica jerseys and apparel, shoes, and merchandise are big business. The London Organizing Committee has a revenue target of $1.5 billion for merchandise alone, and adidas paid $150 million to be an official 2012 sponsor.
By playing (and winning) at the Olympics, guys like Dwyane, LeBron and Derrick Rose are chalking up huge sales for the Organizing Committee, adidas, Nike and anyone else with a logo on a shoe or shirt this summer. In any other situation, that contribution would be recognized. Do they actually need a cut of profits? No, they are multi-millionaires, that is why it gets the rest of us fired up. Do they deserve a cut? Arguably, yes.
There was a time when it looked unlikely that Great Britain would be represented in the Olympic basketball competition this summer. To a lot of people it’s probably news that Great Britain even has a basketball team. But, after a lengthy campaign, they got approval from FIBA to take the ‘host nation’ spot in the final twelve—great news for Luol Deng and his team, and all UK hoops fans.
Not such great news for the team who’s spot at the Olympics Great Britain took—Russia, who would ordinarily have gained automatic qualification for finishing third at last summer’s European Championships, and now has to go through a qualification tournament.
Russia’s head coach, David Blatt, is not exactly cool with the situation, and told Ria Novosti:
“Only because the Olympics are in London this year, the British team received a free pass, and that was at our expense, basically,” Blatt said. Asked whether he felt the British deserved the berth as Olympic host, he replied: “Sports-wise, no.”
“That’s the politics of the situation, and that’s what it is. It’s part of the picture, not a whole lot that I can do about it.”
As a normal person with the ability to use reason and logic, I totally agree with Blatt. Great Britain are probably not good enough to play at the Olympics, and there are several teams that, in a basketball sense, deserve to be there more than them. As a basketball fan who happens to be British, I’m not so sympathetic. We’re the host nation. We have a basketball team. That team gets to play at the event, like every host team has, ever. Sorry, Russia. Maybe see you in the summer.
2012年4月15日星期日
2012年4月12日星期四
Robert Ballard On Hand To Open 'Titanic — 12,450 Below' At Mystic Aquarium
Dr. Robert Ballard, the rock star of the oceanography world, was surrounded by reporters from many nations on Wednesday, as he inaugurated the new Titanic exhibit at Mystic Aquarium. After his preliminary remarks, journalists waited in a long line to talk to the famed explorer.
But not the 26 members of Todd Hougas' 5th-grade class from Smith School in New Britain. They got their very own confab with Ballard, ahead of the grown-ups, and were allowed to ask him whatever they wanted.
Hougas thought his students rose to the ocassion. "They asked him about his inspirations, about his goals, about why he wanted to be an explorer," said Hougas, proudly.
The kids all left fired up about their Titanic-related school research projects.
"It was so cool to see how that underwater camera worked," said Jasmin Olmedo, 10. "Its name is Jason."
"I love how the iceberg in the exhibit is cold and looks like the iceberg that the Titanic hit," said Vinny Hin, 10. "It's amazing."
The pupils were as impressed as the large press corps that came to preview "Titanic — 12,450 Feet Below," a historical and scientific exhibit that opens Thursday at the Mystic entertainment complex, museum and research center, which is operated by the Sea Research Foundation. Ballard is president of the foundation's Institute for Exploration.
The opening of the new show coincides with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the legendary ocean liner on April 14-15, 1912. Ballard, who discovered the ruins of the Titanic in 1985 — and later the ruins of the Bismarck, the PT-109 and the USS Yorktown — helped design the exhibit along with Tim Delaney, a former "imagineer" from Disney.
It was appropriate that a Disney person helped Ballard with the show: Ballard first became interested in ocean exploration as a child, when he saw the 1954 Disney classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." "I grew up wanting to be Captain Nemo," he said.
But not the 26 members of Todd Hougas' 5th-grade class from Smith School in New Britain. They got their very own confab with Ballard, ahead of the grown-ups, and were allowed to ask him whatever they wanted.
Hougas thought his students rose to the ocassion. "They asked him about his inspirations, about his goals, about why he wanted to be an explorer," said Hougas, proudly.
The kids all left fired up about their Titanic-related school research projects.
"It was so cool to see how that underwater camera worked," said Jasmin Olmedo, 10. "Its name is Jason."
"I love how the iceberg in the exhibit is cold and looks like the iceberg that the Titanic hit," said Vinny Hin, 10. "It's amazing."
The pupils were as impressed as the large press corps that came to preview "Titanic — 12,450 Feet Below," a historical and scientific exhibit that opens Thursday at the Mystic entertainment complex, museum and research center, which is operated by the Sea Research Foundation. Ballard is president of the foundation's Institute for Exploration.
The opening of the new show coincides with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the legendary ocean liner on April 14-15, 1912. Ballard, who discovered the ruins of the Titanic in 1985 — and later the ruins of the Bismarck, the PT-109 and the USS Yorktown — helped design the exhibit along with Tim Delaney, a former "imagineer" from Disney.
It was appropriate that a Disney person helped Ballard with the show: Ballard first became interested in ocean exploration as a child, when he saw the 1954 Disney classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." "I grew up wanting to be Captain Nemo," he said.
2012年3月12日星期一
Fashion made fun
MARSHALL - Coming soon to the Marshall area: a grand opening for Urban Hollywood, a quaint little boutique offering a mixture of trendy new fashion and old Hollywood legends.
Owner Peggy Lamote, who opened Urban Hollywood around Valentine's Day, said she is excited about the store's potential, pointing out that the variety of merchandise would continue to grow with its customers.
"We'll have a mixture of Hollywood legends and New Age stuff," Lamote said. "And I'll keep getting stuff in. I'm open to opinions if someone wants something specific."
So far, the boutique, which is located inside the Bot Appliance & Electronics store on West Main Street in Marshall, offers trendy women's clothing, including shirts, skirts and L.A. idol jeans, and jewelry, belts, bags, scarves and hair pieces.
"I want it to be an upbeat and fun place," Lamote said. "I tried to get trendy stuff, but also a variety. I especially wanted to keep prices affordable for everybody."
Lamote also has 10 prom dresses for sale in addition to a small selection of high-heeled shoes.
"It's fun to dress up," she said. "I wanted to be able to supply people with clothes for the special events that come up."
Lamote hopes to order clothing specific to the seasons or holidays, as well as for events like Snow Week or Homecoming. She also wants her sparkly dressing room area to be a fun place for people to enjoy while trying on clothing.
"Some events are getting more formal," she said. "It gets people away from the jeans and ready for the work world. Urban Hollywood, right on Main, is just an all-around boutique."
Lamote has always had a love and respect for classic Hollywood movie stars, which is why she wanted to incorporate that concept into her new store. A cardboard replica of Dorothy and Toto will great customers at the door. People can also find a variety of products, such as glassware, magnets and coasters, of stars or characters like Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop.
"I wanted to have fun with fashion and old legends," Lamote said.
For a number of years, Lamote worked out of her home in Marshall, doing bookwork for multiple companies. When businesses cut back, Lamote found herself looking for new employment opportunities. It's when she realized she missed face time with the public.
"I found myself without a job because of the economy," she said. "I wanted more than just a job. I wanted to provide something to the community."
Lamote said the idea of showcasing Hollywood stars kept creeping up from the back of her mind. For more than 30 years, Lamote has carried around a well-kept scrapbook containing pictures of countless black-and-white beauties, including Ann Margaret, Elvis, John Wayne and Ricky Nelson.
"I loved the legends things," she said. "And, the admiration of it keeps going on, whether it's our generation or theirs. It's for all ages, from little kids to grandmas and grandpas. It's what we all watch today. It's fun to reminisce."
Lamote's daughter Arica is also attending college, pursuing a degree in business management.
"Arica helps decorate and rearrange in the store when she can," Lamote said. "This venture allows me to have a job, but I also look at it as allowing an opportunity to give someone else a job in the future."
Urban Hollywood also has body piercing jewelry and perfume available.
"People have told me that they don't have anywhere else they can get the jewelry around here," Peggy Lamote said. "I order from different companies and I'll keep getting stuff in."
In the near future, Lamote is also planning to designate a corner for visitors to the area. She'll also be getting in summer clothing.
Urban Hollywood is currently open Tuesday through Saturday. Customers can also look forward to the grand opening in the near future.
Owner Peggy Lamote, who opened Urban Hollywood around Valentine's Day, said she is excited about the store's potential, pointing out that the variety of merchandise would continue to grow with its customers.
"We'll have a mixture of Hollywood legends and New Age stuff," Lamote said. "And I'll keep getting stuff in. I'm open to opinions if someone wants something specific."
So far, the boutique, which is located inside the Bot Appliance & Electronics store on West Main Street in Marshall, offers trendy women's clothing, including shirts, skirts and L.A. idol jeans, and jewelry, belts, bags, scarves and hair pieces.
"I want it to be an upbeat and fun place," Lamote said. "I tried to get trendy stuff, but also a variety. I especially wanted to keep prices affordable for everybody."
Lamote also has 10 prom dresses for sale in addition to a small selection of high-heeled shoes.
"It's fun to dress up," she said. "I wanted to be able to supply people with clothes for the special events that come up."
Lamote hopes to order clothing specific to the seasons or holidays, as well as for events like Snow Week or Homecoming. She also wants her sparkly dressing room area to be a fun place for people to enjoy while trying on clothing.
"Some events are getting more formal," she said. "It gets people away from the jeans and ready for the work world. Urban Hollywood, right on Main, is just an all-around boutique."
Lamote has always had a love and respect for classic Hollywood movie stars, which is why she wanted to incorporate that concept into her new store. A cardboard replica of Dorothy and Toto will great customers at the door. People can also find a variety of products, such as glassware, magnets and coasters, of stars or characters like Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop.
"I wanted to have fun with fashion and old legends," Lamote said.
For a number of years, Lamote worked out of her home in Marshall, doing bookwork for multiple companies. When businesses cut back, Lamote found herself looking for new employment opportunities. It's when she realized she missed face time with the public.
"I found myself without a job because of the economy," she said. "I wanted more than just a job. I wanted to provide something to the community."
Lamote said the idea of showcasing Hollywood stars kept creeping up from the back of her mind. For more than 30 years, Lamote has carried around a well-kept scrapbook containing pictures of countless black-and-white beauties, including Ann Margaret, Elvis, John Wayne and Ricky Nelson.
"I loved the legends things," she said. "And, the admiration of it keeps going on, whether it's our generation or theirs. It's for all ages, from little kids to grandmas and grandpas. It's what we all watch today. It's fun to reminisce."
Lamote's daughter Arica is also attending college, pursuing a degree in business management.
"Arica helps decorate and rearrange in the store when she can," Lamote said. "This venture allows me to have a job, but I also look at it as allowing an opportunity to give someone else a job in the future."
Urban Hollywood also has body piercing jewelry and perfume available.
"People have told me that they don't have anywhere else they can get the jewelry around here," Peggy Lamote said. "I order from different companies and I'll keep getting stuff in."
In the near future, Lamote is also planning to designate a corner for visitors to the area. She'll also be getting in summer clothing.
Urban Hollywood is currently open Tuesday through Saturday. Customers can also look forward to the grand opening in the near future.
2011年7月28日星期四
Vans & Shortomatic introduce custom boardshort program
Vans and Shortomatic introduce our premium custom boardshort program, Vans Powered by Shortomatic, now live at vans.com/customboardshorts. Vans Powered by Shortomatic allows one to design their own version of Vans' popular Era Classic boardshorts choosing from an array of 16 colors, six customizable patterns and four vintage prints plus a rotating limited edition artist print kicked off by the legendary Neil Blender.
Inspired by Vans' classic Era shoe, the Vans by Shortomatic Era includes the features surfers want with a unique 14% 4-way stretch material that's lightweight, quick dry and anti-chafe. Vans by Shortomatic offers leg length options and the ability to ID the inner tongue of the shorts as well as to add a replica vintage Vans patch. Handmade locally in Santa Monica, the custom shorts start at $99.00 and are dispatched within two weeks of the order.
Vans Powered by Shortomatic continues Vans' tradition in offering custom designs, dating back to the 1966 beginning of the company when customers could enter a Vans store and create custom shoes from their own fabrics. In addition to Vans by Shortomatic, DIYers can choose from four classic Vans shoe styles, 20 colors and 28 prints and patterns at vans.com/customs to design their own Vans shoes.
“Since Day 1, we've tried to give customers exactly what they want and we've empowered them to create their own versions of our shoes,” said Vans Apparel Marketing Manager Russ Pope. “We're excited to bring this same concept to the Era boardshort and give self designers the chance to dip into our creative vault and spin a completely unique pair of shorts.”
Vans Powered by Shortomatic is the latest addition to Vans' expanding boardshort program. Earlier this year, Vans re-launched a broad range of styles developed with the Vans Surf team ranging from the technical, high performance Era Stretch short and the comfortable, heritage-influenced Era Classic to the retro surf style of Joel Tudor's signature short, the JT Trimline.
Shortomatic, which launched in 2010, makes custom printed boardshorts and is a spin-off of the popular Yogamatic (custom-designed yoga mats). Based in Santa Monica, CA Shortomatic allows customers to upload their own art design or browse designs from their artist's community.
Inspired by Vans' classic Era shoe, the Vans by Shortomatic Era includes the features surfers want with a unique 14% 4-way stretch material that's lightweight, quick dry and anti-chafe. Vans by Shortomatic offers leg length options and the ability to ID the inner tongue of the shorts as well as to add a replica vintage Vans patch. Handmade locally in Santa Monica, the custom shorts start at $99.00 and are dispatched within two weeks of the order.
Vans Powered by Shortomatic continues Vans' tradition in offering custom designs, dating back to the 1966 beginning of the company when customers could enter a Vans store and create custom shoes from their own fabrics. In addition to Vans by Shortomatic, DIYers can choose from four classic Vans shoe styles, 20 colors and 28 prints and patterns at vans.com/customs to design their own Vans shoes.
“Since Day 1, we've tried to give customers exactly what they want and we've empowered them to create their own versions of our shoes,” said Vans Apparel Marketing Manager Russ Pope. “We're excited to bring this same concept to the Era boardshort and give self designers the chance to dip into our creative vault and spin a completely unique pair of shorts.”
Vans Powered by Shortomatic is the latest addition to Vans' expanding boardshort program. Earlier this year, Vans re-launched a broad range of styles developed with the Vans Surf team ranging from the technical, high performance Era Stretch short and the comfortable, heritage-influenced Era Classic to the retro surf style of Joel Tudor's signature short, the JT Trimline.
Shortomatic, which launched in 2010, makes custom printed boardshorts and is a spin-off of the popular Yogamatic (custom-designed yoga mats). Based in Santa Monica, CA Shortomatic allows customers to upload their own art design or browse designs from their artist's community.
2011年4月26日星期二
Why Is IP Infringement Acceptable If You’re A VC?
Every time I write about Chinese Net companies and their recent efforts to crack down on intellectual property infringement, I inevitably get emails and comments that say “Yeah, they’re cleaning up their act now, but they built up their companies/traffic by granting access to illegal MP3s/videos/books.”
The question is, in other words, where’s the justice for so many years of bad acts?
My usual answer is that at some point, you have to let these things go. Sure, we can dwell on all that past IP infringement, but since there is no realistic way of forcing these sites to cough up damages for all that infringement, what’s the point is complaining about it?
But I saw something today that made me think of a related issue. Think back on China’s big portals, video file sharing sites, social media giants, online commerce sites, etc. Quite a few of them received venture capital (VC) funding, foreign and/or domestic, at one point or another.
And when these sites were roundly accused of ripping off IP owners, where was the criticism of the VCs? Yes, I’m sure someone out there at some point was shouting about it, but it didn’t seem to change any industry habits, did it?
Why is it that investors get a free pass?
Here’s some food for thought from the Signature9 blog:
Exhibit A of why Silicon Valley needs more women in the venture capital arena – at the very least during due diligence: Chinese online retailer Milanoo recently sent out a press release {via Tech Crunch} announcing a multi-million dollar investment from the Chinese arm of Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s largest and most well established venture capital investment firms.
[ . . . ]
The problem? A sizable portion of the merchandise on Milanoo is comprised of designer replica items and out and out ripoffs of everything from Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik shoes to Cate Blanchett’s lavender Givenchy Golden Globes dress and Kate Middleton’s blue Issa engagement dress.
The fashion industry is way out of my comfort zone, so let’s assume for the moment that all that information is true and that Sequoia has invested in a company that is a known infringer.
Let’s further assume that Sequoia is aware of this activity. I see that the blogger who wrote about this is being nice, starting off the post suggesting that perhaps the VC needs more help with due diligence.
I’m not buying that for a second. I worked at a law firm that did projects for Sequoia, and I can confirm that due diligence is part of the standard process. Moreover, if there was large-scale IP infringement going on, that’s something that would be mentioned in a DD report, unless the law firm in question is totally incompetent.
So I’m going to assume that all this is known to the VC. And yet they went ahead with the investment anyway. Why? Because the IP infringement is simply another business risk. The VC thought about the chances of the site getting in trouble, when the company plans to cease the infringing activity (if it even has plans to do so), and the timeline of the VC’s anticipated exit strategy (public listing or buyout). In the end, the VC thought the risk was worth it.1
I’m sure that the standard excuse is that the VC, or perhaps an angel investor, comes into these deals with plans to help the Net firm clean up its act. Or to put it another way “We’re not profiting on IP infringement, we’re getting on board with the express purpose of ending the IP infringement.” Maybe on occasion, particularly with late stage funding prior to a listing, but there are a whole lot of other VCs out there that are happily making lots of money off of IP infringement.
Just a question then: why are these guys allowed to do this sort of thing repeatedly with no negative consequences? They are enabling large-scale IP infringement, and even if the target company at some point gets into trouble, the VC never faces any direct negative repercussions from all this. Worst thing that happens is that their investment loses value.
Is this a problem or is everyone OK with this?
The question is, in other words, where’s the justice for so many years of bad acts?
My usual answer is that at some point, you have to let these things go. Sure, we can dwell on all that past IP infringement, but since there is no realistic way of forcing these sites to cough up damages for all that infringement, what’s the point is complaining about it?
But I saw something today that made me think of a related issue. Think back on China’s big portals, video file sharing sites, social media giants, online commerce sites, etc. Quite a few of them received venture capital (VC) funding, foreign and/or domestic, at one point or another.
And when these sites were roundly accused of ripping off IP owners, where was the criticism of the VCs? Yes, I’m sure someone out there at some point was shouting about it, but it didn’t seem to change any industry habits, did it?
Why is it that investors get a free pass?
Here’s some food for thought from the Signature9 blog:
Exhibit A of why Silicon Valley needs more women in the venture capital arena – at the very least during due diligence: Chinese online retailer Milanoo recently sent out a press release {via Tech Crunch} announcing a multi-million dollar investment from the Chinese arm of Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s largest and most well established venture capital investment firms.
[ . . . ]
The problem? A sizable portion of the merchandise on Milanoo is comprised of designer replica items and out and out ripoffs of everything from Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik shoes to Cate Blanchett’s lavender Givenchy Golden Globes dress and Kate Middleton’s blue Issa engagement dress.
The fashion industry is way out of my comfort zone, so let’s assume for the moment that all that information is true and that Sequoia has invested in a company that is a known infringer.
Let’s further assume that Sequoia is aware of this activity. I see that the blogger who wrote about this is being nice, starting off the post suggesting that perhaps the VC needs more help with due diligence.
I’m not buying that for a second. I worked at a law firm that did projects for Sequoia, and I can confirm that due diligence is part of the standard process. Moreover, if there was large-scale IP infringement going on, that’s something that would be mentioned in a DD report, unless the law firm in question is totally incompetent.
So I’m going to assume that all this is known to the VC. And yet they went ahead with the investment anyway. Why? Because the IP infringement is simply another business risk. The VC thought about the chances of the site getting in trouble, when the company plans to cease the infringing activity (if it even has plans to do so), and the timeline of the VC’s anticipated exit strategy (public listing or buyout). In the end, the VC thought the risk was worth it.1
I’m sure that the standard excuse is that the VC, or perhaps an angel investor, comes into these deals with plans to help the Net firm clean up its act. Or to put it another way “We’re not profiting on IP infringement, we’re getting on board with the express purpose of ending the IP infringement.” Maybe on occasion, particularly with late stage funding prior to a listing, but there are a whole lot of other VCs out there that are happily making lots of money off of IP infringement.
Just a question then: why are these guys allowed to do this sort of thing repeatedly with no negative consequences? They are enabling large-scale IP infringement, and even if the target company at some point gets into trouble, the VC never faces any direct negative repercussions from all this. Worst thing that happens is that their investment loses value.
Is this a problem or is everyone OK with this?
2011年4月17日星期日
Are You Sleeping?
Sometimes people fall asleep when they're not supposed to. At one time or another, we've all sat next to someone at a movie, play, ballet, school concert … who just nodded off. It can be mildly amusing, unless the sleeping person is the person you came with. Then it's embarrassing.
When is it not OK to fall asleep?
When you are an air traffic controller. Last week, a medical plane carrying a passenger needing emergency medical care, tried to land at the Reno-Tahoe, Nevada airport. They could not make contact with the control tower because the controller was sleeping. Fortunately, they were able to land themselves without incident.
A month earlier, at Reagan National Airport in Washington – a place where one would assume, that security measures would be most stringent – two jets had to land unassisted because again, the lone controller had nodded off. There was another sleeping controller in Knoxville, Tennessee, and – inexplicably – this past Monday, a Seattle controller was suspended for falling asleep, after already being punished for falling asleep twice in January. How is this possible?
We are so busy ensuring safe air travel that we can't carry a bottle of Poland Spring or wear shoes and security guards are busy patting down six year olds. And all the while, all over the country, air traffic controllers are napping through landings. AND, not getting fired!
Shouldn't safety start with those who are hired and trained to protect us? The real question isn't, why aren't these sleeping controllers fired on the spot? That's a rhetorical question. The real question is, why are they working alone with no backup? So in case there is a real emergency and they are incommunicado, there is someone else there to guide pilots?
These air traffic controller incidents have become so rampant, that after the latest near disaster in Reno this week, FAA Air Traffic Supervisor, Hank Krakowski, resigned.
Cleaning house will not solve the problem. There needs to be two controllers at all times, shorter, staggered shifts and more stringent zero tolerance rules among other things.
When is it also not OK to fall asleep?
When your boss is speaking. More specifically when your boss is speaking – and he is the President of the United States – and both of you are on TV. News cameras rolled on Wednesday when Vice President, Joe Biden was shown power napping during President Obama's federal budget speech. No doubt about it, the Veep was out cold. Not a particularly good sign when you are up for re-election and your right hand man can't force himself awake to listen to an important speech on a pressing issue.
Are there any other times when it's not OK to fall asleep?
When you are the US Postal Service. Last week it was discovered that when the USPS released their 2011 Forever stamps depicting The Statue of Liberty – there was one tiny mistake. It's not the actual statue of Liberty. At least not the one in New York Harbor. The Forever stamp shows a replica of the statue which is located at the New York, New York Casino in Las Vegas. The blunder was uncovered by a stamp enthusiast magazine. What tipped them off? The difference in the statue's hair and eyes. The USPS acknowledged the mistake but is keeping the stamps in circulation.
When have you been asleep for years?
When you are a major television network, like say … ABC, who announced that they are canceling All My Children and One Life to Live. I was an AMC Fan in the '70s and '80s and I do feel a tinge of sadness about losing it – there was some measure of comfort knowing that even though I hadn't watched in 25 years, I could if I wanted to. But the fact that I never wanted to, and neither did most people, for a really long time, is why the formerly popular soaps are getting axed.
Soap operas were created to sell soap. Cleaning products, to housewives who were home and watched afternoon television. The shift in our family structure – with far fewer stay at home housewives, caused a sharp decline in these traditional epic sagas' popularity. Life happens much faster now. If we want a dose of melodrama, we have our real lives, or Charlie Sheen's. So even though I think that ABC was asleep for a long time, letting these soap operas continue, way past their prime, I will always have fond memories of them. Pine Valley and Llanview – RIP.
Heads up to Joe Biden who might be out of a job, I hear that Donald Trump might be looking for someone.
WAKE UP!
When is it not OK to fall asleep?
When you are an air traffic controller. Last week, a medical plane carrying a passenger needing emergency medical care, tried to land at the Reno-Tahoe, Nevada airport. They could not make contact with the control tower because the controller was sleeping. Fortunately, they were able to land themselves without incident.
A month earlier, at Reagan National Airport in Washington – a place where one would assume, that security measures would be most stringent – two jets had to land unassisted because again, the lone controller had nodded off. There was another sleeping controller in Knoxville, Tennessee, and – inexplicably – this past Monday, a Seattle controller was suspended for falling asleep, after already being punished for falling asleep twice in January. How is this possible?
We are so busy ensuring safe air travel that we can't carry a bottle of Poland Spring or wear shoes and security guards are busy patting down six year olds. And all the while, all over the country, air traffic controllers are napping through landings. AND, not getting fired!
Shouldn't safety start with those who are hired and trained to protect us? The real question isn't, why aren't these sleeping controllers fired on the spot? That's a rhetorical question. The real question is, why are they working alone with no backup? So in case there is a real emergency and they are incommunicado, there is someone else there to guide pilots?
These air traffic controller incidents have become so rampant, that after the latest near disaster in Reno this week, FAA Air Traffic Supervisor, Hank Krakowski, resigned.
Cleaning house will not solve the problem. There needs to be two controllers at all times, shorter, staggered shifts and more stringent zero tolerance rules among other things.
When is it also not OK to fall asleep?
When your boss is speaking. More specifically when your boss is speaking – and he is the President of the United States – and both of you are on TV. News cameras rolled on Wednesday when Vice President, Joe Biden was shown power napping during President Obama's federal budget speech. No doubt about it, the Veep was out cold. Not a particularly good sign when you are up for re-election and your right hand man can't force himself awake to listen to an important speech on a pressing issue.
Are there any other times when it's not OK to fall asleep?
When you are the US Postal Service. Last week it was discovered that when the USPS released their 2011 Forever stamps depicting The Statue of Liberty – there was one tiny mistake. It's not the actual statue of Liberty. At least not the one in New York Harbor. The Forever stamp shows a replica of the statue which is located at the New York, New York Casino in Las Vegas. The blunder was uncovered by a stamp enthusiast magazine. What tipped them off? The difference in the statue's hair and eyes. The USPS acknowledged the mistake but is keeping the stamps in circulation.
When have you been asleep for years?
When you are a major television network, like say … ABC, who announced that they are canceling All My Children and One Life to Live. I was an AMC Fan in the '70s and '80s and I do feel a tinge of sadness about losing it – there was some measure of comfort knowing that even though I hadn't watched in 25 years, I could if I wanted to. But the fact that I never wanted to, and neither did most people, for a really long time, is why the formerly popular soaps are getting axed.
Soap operas were created to sell soap. Cleaning products, to housewives who were home and watched afternoon television. The shift in our family structure – with far fewer stay at home housewives, caused a sharp decline in these traditional epic sagas' popularity. Life happens much faster now. If we want a dose of melodrama, we have our real lives, or Charlie Sheen's. So even though I think that ABC was asleep for a long time, letting these soap operas continue, way past their prime, I will always have fond memories of them. Pine Valley and Llanview – RIP.
Heads up to Joe Biden who might be out of a job, I hear that Donald Trump might be looking for someone.
WAKE UP!
2011年4月11日星期一
Bay Area Renaissance Festival
Say huzzah to the wizards, warriors and commoners who populate this replica of a 16th century village with entertainment on multiple stages, street theater, live armored contact jousting, human chess matches, art, craft and other vendors, fire-eaters and more.
Insider tips: Fans of the RenFest show up in costume to get in on the fun, and children dress like princesses and fairies. Whatever your outfit, make sure it includes comfortable shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty. This is a field, not a paved mall.
There’s standard fair food, but get into the spirit and gnaw on a giant smoked turkey leg or try a Scotch egg (that’s a hard-boiled egg encased in sausage and deep fried) and wash it down with a pint of grog as you take in a medieval comedy show or knights jousting on horseback.
The throwback appeal is that it's outdoors, with the sounds of lutes playing and swords clashing and the smells of wood smoke and perfumed oils and salespeople keen on charming dollars out of your pocket with a magic trick or a jig. Bring lots of singles for tipping.
What's in store this weekend?
The festival's closing weekend features Huzzah to the King with the King's Birthday celebration, beer tasting, fencing competition and a Harvest Market.
Price: $14.95 advance, $6.95 ages 5-12 advance; $17.95 at the gate, $14.95 seniors at the gate, $9.95 ages 5-12 at the gate; $10 per pet.
Insider tips: Fans of the RenFest show up in costume to get in on the fun, and children dress like princesses and fairies. Whatever your outfit, make sure it includes comfortable shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty. This is a field, not a paved mall.
There’s standard fair food, but get into the spirit and gnaw on a giant smoked turkey leg or try a Scotch egg (that’s a hard-boiled egg encased in sausage and deep fried) and wash it down with a pint of grog as you take in a medieval comedy show or knights jousting on horseback.
The throwback appeal is that it's outdoors, with the sounds of lutes playing and swords clashing and the smells of wood smoke and perfumed oils and salespeople keen on charming dollars out of your pocket with a magic trick or a jig. Bring lots of singles for tipping.
What's in store this weekend?
The festival's closing weekend features Huzzah to the King with the King's Birthday celebration, beer tasting, fencing competition and a Harvest Market.
Price: $14.95 advance, $6.95 ages 5-12 advance; $17.95 at the gate, $14.95 seniors at the gate, $9.95 ages 5-12 at the gate; $10 per pet.
2011年4月7日星期四
We suppose this was inevitable: Princess Kate Middleton dolls go on sale…
As you know, we love a bit of naff Royal Wedding memorabilia however we don’t think we’ll be purchasing this new Kate Middleton doll which went on sale today. It scares us a tiny bit.
The “Princess Catherine” doll comes complete with the a miniature replica of the dress Kate wore to announce her engagement in plus a pretty (plastic) pink head accessory thing as well as a gold handbag and matching shoes. Apparently you pick one up from Hamleys for £35.
Tempting, tempting…. But not as tempting as this.
The “Princess Catherine” doll comes complete with the a miniature replica of the dress Kate wore to announce her engagement in plus a pretty (plastic) pink head accessory thing as well as a gold handbag and matching shoes. Apparently you pick one up from Hamleys for £35.
Tempting, tempting…. But not as tempting as this.
Macko And Mack: Two Generations Of Texas Rangers Fans
Joe Macko has been employed in professional baseball for 62 years. Mack Skeels has been alive for five. Age is no factor when it comes to excitement, though, and both were thrilled beyond belief at receiving an American League championship ring with a large T embedded on top.
Macko and Mack are the latest proof that in addition to bringing joy to a region, a sports franchise on top of its game can unify generations.
Macko, 82 years old and a Texas Rangers employee since the birth of the franchise in 1972, is an avowed optimist certain he'll be alive to see the team win a World Series title. For now, the AL ring he was handed at a lunch ceremony at the stadium Monday made him feel like a kid again. He reflected on the lean years, the close calls and his many friendships, from legendary Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Nolan Ryan to the anonymous clubhouse attendants he worked alongside for three decades.
Skeels felt like a kid because he is a kid. He was given a pewter replica championship ring as a gift on opening day at Rangers Ballpark -- same as the ones fans received at Monday's game -- and he showed it off to lunch patrons at Uncle Julio's restaurant and spent the afternoon hitting Wiffle balls in his backyard and dreaming of diamond glory. The son of attorney and former minor league player David Skeels and former Fort Worth Trinity Valley High and NCAA All-American distance runner Megan (Flowers) Skeels, Mack has been to six Rangers opening day games before his sixth birthday.
Macko and Mack, like countless others among the largest opening weekend crowd since the The Ballpark at Arlington opened in 1994, represent the past and future of Rangers' baseball while basking in its present.
A franchise struggling to develop an identity and the type of fan loyalty found in places like Boston and Chicago, New York and Los Angeles took a huge step by reaching the World Series in 2010. To follow that with a season-opening sweep of the Red Sox while mixing in the championship ring ceremony is the kind of experience that will linger for young and old alike.
Said Macko: "We've been at it a long time and came close many times. So this is something quite meaningful to me. This is something to be cherished."
Said Mack: "I had fun and I got to see Josh Hamilton. He's my favorite player."
Hamilton, the reigning AL MVP, and his teammates received their rings before Saturday night's game. They had conflicting emotions because the rings also reminded them they'd lost the World Series to the San Francisco Giants.
"It's bittersweet," said infielder Michael Young, the player who has been with the Rangers the longest. "Winning the AL was a great accomplishment, something this club had never done, but we still fell short of our ultimate goal."
Macko, whose playing career ended in 1964, will leave the what-could-of-beens to the current players. The ring is something of a lifetime achievement award in his mind and he plans to wear it every day along with the three others he almost never removes from his huge fingers.
"My ring finger is a size 17," he said. "I ordered this one in a 15 because I'm going to wear it on my index finger."
One ring is from the Major League Baseball Equipment Managers Assn., commemorating his three decades of service, and two are from the independent minor league Fort Worth Cats.
Macko has seemingly had some involvement with every minor league team in the state since he was signed by the Cleveland Indians in 1947.
"Each ring is a talking piece," he said. "I like to wear them because I like to brag about the game of baseball."
As a goodwill ambassador for the Rangers (that's his actual job title), Macko visits elementary schools and retirement homes, high schools and corporate functions, relating tales from his 18 years as a power-hitting minor league player and his nearly 40 years with the Rangers.
A few quick ones ...
• Nolan Ryan had his uniform jersey stolen from his luggage during his first road trip as a Ranger in 1989, apparently by somebody wanting valuable memorabilia. From then on, Macko put his clothes in Ryan's bag and Ryan's clothes in his.
"I never had mine stolen because I found a bottle of skunk spray at a novelty shop, and I'd spray some on a handkerchief and put it in the luggage," Macko said. "When they opened it, that's all they smelled."
• Ted Williams, the Rangers' first manager, and Macko were golfing in Irving, Texas, when Williams sliced his first drive into some trees and threw his club. On the second hole he sliced his drive again and became so enraged he broke his driver in half.
"He swung the broken piece of club at the golf cart, missed and hit his leg," Macko said. "Blood started running down his leg but we kept playing. When we walked you could hear the squish of blood in his shoes. He left a bloody imprint on every green."
The next day Williams had to explain to the team and to reporters why he was limping. He told Macko to back his story that he'd caught a hook in his leg while fishing. "He asked me to promise that as long as he was alive, I wouldn't tell the true story," Macko said.
Macko kept the promise, although since Williams passed away in 2002, he's probably recounted the incident a thousand times.
Macko and Mack are the latest proof that in addition to bringing joy to a region, a sports franchise on top of its game can unify generations.
Macko, 82 years old and a Texas Rangers employee since the birth of the franchise in 1972, is an avowed optimist certain he'll be alive to see the team win a World Series title. For now, the AL ring he was handed at a lunch ceremony at the stadium Monday made him feel like a kid again. He reflected on the lean years, the close calls and his many friendships, from legendary Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Nolan Ryan to the anonymous clubhouse attendants he worked alongside for three decades.
Skeels felt like a kid because he is a kid. He was given a pewter replica championship ring as a gift on opening day at Rangers Ballpark -- same as the ones fans received at Monday's game -- and he showed it off to lunch patrons at Uncle Julio's restaurant and spent the afternoon hitting Wiffle balls in his backyard and dreaming of diamond glory. The son of attorney and former minor league player David Skeels and former Fort Worth Trinity Valley High and NCAA All-American distance runner Megan (Flowers) Skeels, Mack has been to six Rangers opening day games before his sixth birthday.
Macko and Mack, like countless others among the largest opening weekend crowd since the The Ballpark at Arlington opened in 1994, represent the past and future of Rangers' baseball while basking in its present.
A franchise struggling to develop an identity and the type of fan loyalty found in places like Boston and Chicago, New York and Los Angeles took a huge step by reaching the World Series in 2010. To follow that with a season-opening sweep of the Red Sox while mixing in the championship ring ceremony is the kind of experience that will linger for young and old alike.
Said Macko: "We've been at it a long time and came close many times. So this is something quite meaningful to me. This is something to be cherished."
Said Mack: "I had fun and I got to see Josh Hamilton. He's my favorite player."
Hamilton, the reigning AL MVP, and his teammates received their rings before Saturday night's game. They had conflicting emotions because the rings also reminded them they'd lost the World Series to the San Francisco Giants.
"It's bittersweet," said infielder Michael Young, the player who has been with the Rangers the longest. "Winning the AL was a great accomplishment, something this club had never done, but we still fell short of our ultimate goal."
Macko, whose playing career ended in 1964, will leave the what-could-of-beens to the current players. The ring is something of a lifetime achievement award in his mind and he plans to wear it every day along with the three others he almost never removes from his huge fingers.
"My ring finger is a size 17," he said. "I ordered this one in a 15 because I'm going to wear it on my index finger."
One ring is from the Major League Baseball Equipment Managers Assn., commemorating his three decades of service, and two are from the independent minor league Fort Worth Cats.
Macko has seemingly had some involvement with every minor league team in the state since he was signed by the Cleveland Indians in 1947.
"Each ring is a talking piece," he said. "I like to wear them because I like to brag about the game of baseball."
As a goodwill ambassador for the Rangers (that's his actual job title), Macko visits elementary schools and retirement homes, high schools and corporate functions, relating tales from his 18 years as a power-hitting minor league player and his nearly 40 years with the Rangers.
A few quick ones ...
• Nolan Ryan had his uniform jersey stolen from his luggage during his first road trip as a Ranger in 1989, apparently by somebody wanting valuable memorabilia. From then on, Macko put his clothes in Ryan's bag and Ryan's clothes in his.
"I never had mine stolen because I found a bottle of skunk spray at a novelty shop, and I'd spray some on a handkerchief and put it in the luggage," Macko said. "When they opened it, that's all they smelled."
• Ted Williams, the Rangers' first manager, and Macko were golfing in Irving, Texas, when Williams sliced his first drive into some trees and threw his club. On the second hole he sliced his drive again and became so enraged he broke his driver in half.
"He swung the broken piece of club at the golf cart, missed and hit his leg," Macko said. "Blood started running down his leg but we kept playing. When we walked you could hear the squish of blood in his shoes. He left a bloody imprint on every green."
The next day Williams had to explain to the team and to reporters why he was limping. He told Macko to back his story that he'd caught a hook in his leg while fishing. "He asked me to promise that as long as he was alive, I wouldn't tell the true story," Macko said.
Macko kept the promise, although since Williams passed away in 2002, he's probably recounted the incident a thousand times.
2011年3月30日星期三
Civil War Program Focuses on Local Family Stories
Two days before Gen. Sterling Price's Confederate forces entered Pacific and destroyed railroad property, officers stopped at the Catawissa stone farmhouse of Riverboat Dan McAuley looking for horses.
Upon learning that McAuley had hidden his horses, they forced his wife to cook for them and kidnapped his two oldest daughters. They kept the girls, ages 18 and 19, for three nights before releasing them to return home. It was an incident that scarred the family for three generations.
"Gen. Sterling Price is no hero of mine," Billy Murphy, McAuley's great-great grandson, recently told an audience that packed the Pacific High School auditorium March 24. "After that none of the local men would have anything to do with those girls. It damaged their lives for years."
It was a story that had been whispered in Catawissa and told among family members, but not talked about publicly. Murphy said it was a story that needed telling to give a true look at the Civil War.
Murphy was one of eight speakers who related incidents of the Oct. 1, 1864, battle of Pacific that academic historians refer to as a skirmish - if they mention it at all.
As the nation observes the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, descendants of Pacific families were asked to relate their family's experiences.
The Meramec Valley Genealogical and Historical Society staged the program as part of the 2011-2015 Civil War Sesquicentennial celebration. The society, which collects local family histories, looked at its own archives to identify speakers.
Bobby Kommer, Catawissa, said his family fought on both sides of the war. His Musick ancestors, who had fought in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, joined the Missouri State Guard before the start of the Civil War and later joined the Confederate Army. His Whitworth relatives remained loyal to the Union and volunteered to fight for the north.
After he spoke, Kommer dropped down on the second-to-bottom auditorium step and watched the rest of the presentation, nodding in agreement as each of the speakers told their stories.
"Bobby is representative of Missouri, and of our region, because that's how it was, cousin against cousin," said Maggie Brundick Koetting, the program narrator.
Nancy Thater, MVR-III Odyssey director, said Missouri was unique in the Civil War, having two governors, two seats of government and two volunteer militia groups.
"It was all very confusing for citizens," Thater said. "Loyalties were divided across the state."
There were more than 1,000 battles and engagements in Missouri during the Civil War, the third highest of any state, Koetting said. And Pacific was a center of troop movements throughout the four-year conflict because it sat at the junction of two of the four railroads west of the Mississippi River.
It was the Pacific Railroad and its southwest branch that battalions, companies and regiments of Union solders were sent to guard. The Pacific rail center survived until the last months of the war when Confederate forces finally destroyed it.
On Oct. 1, 1864, Price's ragtag army torched the railroad bridge over the Meramec River south of town, looted stores on St. Louis Street and burned every railroad building in downtown Pacific to the ground, including the depot, eating commissary, repair shops, roundhouse, storage buildings and water towers.
After a four-hour conflict that included pounding Union forces with cannon fire, the rebels were driven from town. They took a railroad baggageman, known locally as Uncle Peter Morrison prisoner, robbed him of his shoes and sent him to walk home barefooted.
But in Gray Summit, at the home of the Ming family, Southern sympathizers who had barbecued the fatted hogs and baked big cobblers, they found what could have been the first good meal they had in months, according to local history writer Sue Reed.
"Johnny Ray, have I died and gone to heaven?" one Confederate foot soldier rhetorically asked another.
Reed uncovered the story of the barbecue held for Price and his men during oral interviews for her book on the Jeffries family. Like Kommer's relatives, Jefferies family members chose their sides and enlisted in opposing armies.
"At that picnic dinner, there actually were first cousins of the men they had just fought at Pacific," Reed said.
Local lore and stories told by grandparents were often what kept the Civil War stories alive in families, Reed said.
But there were documents that survived. Henry Alt displayed the original discharge that his great-uncle Charles Frise carried with him from the time of his discharge until the war ended.
"It's amazing that it's still in as good shape as it is," Alt said. "He couldn't put it away at home. He had to carry it with him all the time, folded up, to prove he wasn't a deserter in case he got stopped."
Many papers have been lost or not yet discovered. Dale Hoffman recalled that when he and his father demolished the old St. Louis Street mansion, called The Blue Goose, his father found a large scrapbook containing a diary and letters written by soldiers who had been patients in the army hospital set up in the building.
"I think my dad gave the scrapbook to a relative of one of the soldiers," Hoffman said. "I don't recall who he gave it to."
There were letters, too, that Robert B. Denny and his wife Maleta wrote to each other during his three years as captain of Company B, 26th Missouri Infantry, perhaps as many as a 100 letters, according to Bryon Denny, Catawissa, Denny's great-great-great grandson.
The husband-wife letters have not surfaced but the diary that Denny kept survived. Written in lead pencil, with an entry for each day, Denny recorded every time he received a letter from his wife Maleta and every time he wrote to her.
His company was with Sherman's forces at Atlanta, Ga., when the September invasion of Catawissa took place. Day after day he made a diary entry, ‘no mail from the north,' ‘no letter yet.' Finally on Oct. 26, he received a letter from Maleta.
"Old Pap Price only got one horse from me," the diary entry said. "That's all he got."
As Price's army moved north through Missouri it conscripted a growing number of wagons, horses and mules - all it could find, Koetting said.
Still there weren't enough horses to pull the artillery pieces, according to local Boy Scout Zach Myers, who researched what type of artillery a moving army would take with them so he could purchase an accurate replica for his Eagle Scout project.
"Because it was so hilly in the Ozarks they used the lighter 12-pound Howitzers. They wouldn't have been pulling the big Napoleon cannons that you see in pictures of Gettysburg," Myers said. "The 12-pounders were usually pulled by six horses, but by the time they got here they were usually only using four horses because they didn't have enough horses."
Bill McLaren owns the farm where the fenced Whitworth family cemetery is located and rents the adjoining Phelan property that overlooks the Meramec River and the railroad bridge, guarded for most of the war by Union solders.
"There's a Civil War campsite up there that's pretty clear," McLaren said. "You can envision the encampment."
McLaren said he had known about the burning of the railroad bridge most his life.
"I was about 4 or 5 when the late Jim Phelan's mother Annie Dailey Phelan, who was very old at the time, told me how she recalled when she was a small girl and the Rebel soldiers made the women and children carry brush onto the railroad bridge that they set on fire."
Portions of the presentation were a repeat of a program at the genealogy society's annual meeting at the Pacific Presbyterian Church last July.
"I'm glad we're doing it again because it gives me a chance to say what finally happened to my great-aunts, the McAuley girls," Murphy said. "When Riverboat Dan died he left each of his daughters $426 in cash.
The oldest one right away took her money and moved to Colorado. She later sent for her sister. They both married, one to a store owner and one to a miner. They ended up doing OK, but for a long time it was a sad, sad story. Neither one of them ever came back to Catawissa."
Henry Alt also had an after-the-fact story. He carried onto the stage with him a large spent shell that had been found in Pacific after the Civil War.
"We always had this on our farm, but I was almost afraid to claim it was from the Civil War," Alt said. "Last night I went to another Civil War event with Ron Sansone and there was an artillery expert there. I can confirm that this was definitely a Civil War shell and it was found in Pacific."
Patricia Sewell, Genealogy Society president, said additional research is being done in the society archives to locate correspondence and photographs that relate to the Civil War.
"We want to make the record as complete as possible," Sewell said.
Pauline Masson, who wrote the program script, said the use of the Pacific High School auditorium for the presentation was made possible Tom Sauvage, PHS principal. Fred Nolley and Cheryl Schlemper, MVR-III technology director who coordinated the video projection, sound and lights.
"Our little society never envisioned a program quite this grand," Masson said.
The Pacific Tourism Commission, Chamber of Commerce and Pacific Partnership sponsored the program, which Step Productions, New Haven, recorded on video.
Upon learning that McAuley had hidden his horses, they forced his wife to cook for them and kidnapped his two oldest daughters. They kept the girls, ages 18 and 19, for three nights before releasing them to return home. It was an incident that scarred the family for three generations.
"Gen. Sterling Price is no hero of mine," Billy Murphy, McAuley's great-great grandson, recently told an audience that packed the Pacific High School auditorium March 24. "After that none of the local men would have anything to do with those girls. It damaged their lives for years."
It was a story that had been whispered in Catawissa and told among family members, but not talked about publicly. Murphy said it was a story that needed telling to give a true look at the Civil War.
Murphy was one of eight speakers who related incidents of the Oct. 1, 1864, battle of Pacific that academic historians refer to as a skirmish - if they mention it at all.
As the nation observes the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, descendants of Pacific families were asked to relate their family's experiences.
The Meramec Valley Genealogical and Historical Society staged the program as part of the 2011-2015 Civil War Sesquicentennial celebration. The society, which collects local family histories, looked at its own archives to identify speakers.
Bobby Kommer, Catawissa, said his family fought on both sides of the war. His Musick ancestors, who had fought in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, joined the Missouri State Guard before the start of the Civil War and later joined the Confederate Army. His Whitworth relatives remained loyal to the Union and volunteered to fight for the north.
After he spoke, Kommer dropped down on the second-to-bottom auditorium step and watched the rest of the presentation, nodding in agreement as each of the speakers told their stories.
"Bobby is representative of Missouri, and of our region, because that's how it was, cousin against cousin," said Maggie Brundick Koetting, the program narrator.
Nancy Thater, MVR-III Odyssey director, said Missouri was unique in the Civil War, having two governors, two seats of government and two volunteer militia groups.
"It was all very confusing for citizens," Thater said. "Loyalties were divided across the state."
There were more than 1,000 battles and engagements in Missouri during the Civil War, the third highest of any state, Koetting said. And Pacific was a center of troop movements throughout the four-year conflict because it sat at the junction of two of the four railroads west of the Mississippi River.
It was the Pacific Railroad and its southwest branch that battalions, companies and regiments of Union solders were sent to guard. The Pacific rail center survived until the last months of the war when Confederate forces finally destroyed it.
On Oct. 1, 1864, Price's ragtag army torched the railroad bridge over the Meramec River south of town, looted stores on St. Louis Street and burned every railroad building in downtown Pacific to the ground, including the depot, eating commissary, repair shops, roundhouse, storage buildings and water towers.
After a four-hour conflict that included pounding Union forces with cannon fire, the rebels were driven from town. They took a railroad baggageman, known locally as Uncle Peter Morrison prisoner, robbed him of his shoes and sent him to walk home barefooted.
But in Gray Summit, at the home of the Ming family, Southern sympathizers who had barbecued the fatted hogs and baked big cobblers, they found what could have been the first good meal they had in months, according to local history writer Sue Reed.
"Johnny Ray, have I died and gone to heaven?" one Confederate foot soldier rhetorically asked another.
Reed uncovered the story of the barbecue held for Price and his men during oral interviews for her book on the Jeffries family. Like Kommer's relatives, Jefferies family members chose their sides and enlisted in opposing armies.
"At that picnic dinner, there actually were first cousins of the men they had just fought at Pacific," Reed said.
Local lore and stories told by grandparents were often what kept the Civil War stories alive in families, Reed said.
But there were documents that survived. Henry Alt displayed the original discharge that his great-uncle Charles Frise carried with him from the time of his discharge until the war ended.
"It's amazing that it's still in as good shape as it is," Alt said. "He couldn't put it away at home. He had to carry it with him all the time, folded up, to prove he wasn't a deserter in case he got stopped."
Many papers have been lost or not yet discovered. Dale Hoffman recalled that when he and his father demolished the old St. Louis Street mansion, called The Blue Goose, his father found a large scrapbook containing a diary and letters written by soldiers who had been patients in the army hospital set up in the building.
"I think my dad gave the scrapbook to a relative of one of the soldiers," Hoffman said. "I don't recall who he gave it to."
There were letters, too, that Robert B. Denny and his wife Maleta wrote to each other during his three years as captain of Company B, 26th Missouri Infantry, perhaps as many as a 100 letters, according to Bryon Denny, Catawissa, Denny's great-great-great grandson.
The husband-wife letters have not surfaced but the diary that Denny kept survived. Written in lead pencil, with an entry for each day, Denny recorded every time he received a letter from his wife Maleta and every time he wrote to her.
His company was with Sherman's forces at Atlanta, Ga., when the September invasion of Catawissa took place. Day after day he made a diary entry, ‘no mail from the north,' ‘no letter yet.' Finally on Oct. 26, he received a letter from Maleta.
"Old Pap Price only got one horse from me," the diary entry said. "That's all he got."
As Price's army moved north through Missouri it conscripted a growing number of wagons, horses and mules - all it could find, Koetting said.
Still there weren't enough horses to pull the artillery pieces, according to local Boy Scout Zach Myers, who researched what type of artillery a moving army would take with them so he could purchase an accurate replica for his Eagle Scout project.
"Because it was so hilly in the Ozarks they used the lighter 12-pound Howitzers. They wouldn't have been pulling the big Napoleon cannons that you see in pictures of Gettysburg," Myers said. "The 12-pounders were usually pulled by six horses, but by the time they got here they were usually only using four horses because they didn't have enough horses."
Bill McLaren owns the farm where the fenced Whitworth family cemetery is located and rents the adjoining Phelan property that overlooks the Meramec River and the railroad bridge, guarded for most of the war by Union solders.
"There's a Civil War campsite up there that's pretty clear," McLaren said. "You can envision the encampment."
McLaren said he had known about the burning of the railroad bridge most his life.
"I was about 4 or 5 when the late Jim Phelan's mother Annie Dailey Phelan, who was very old at the time, told me how she recalled when she was a small girl and the Rebel soldiers made the women and children carry brush onto the railroad bridge that they set on fire."
Portions of the presentation were a repeat of a program at the genealogy society's annual meeting at the Pacific Presbyterian Church last July.
"I'm glad we're doing it again because it gives me a chance to say what finally happened to my great-aunts, the McAuley girls," Murphy said. "When Riverboat Dan died he left each of his daughters $426 in cash.
The oldest one right away took her money and moved to Colorado. She later sent for her sister. They both married, one to a store owner and one to a miner. They ended up doing OK, but for a long time it was a sad, sad story. Neither one of them ever came back to Catawissa."
Henry Alt also had an after-the-fact story. He carried onto the stage with him a large spent shell that had been found in Pacific after the Civil War.
"We always had this on our farm, but I was almost afraid to claim it was from the Civil War," Alt said. "Last night I went to another Civil War event with Ron Sansone and there was an artillery expert there. I can confirm that this was definitely a Civil War shell and it was found in Pacific."
Patricia Sewell, Genealogy Society president, said additional research is being done in the society archives to locate correspondence and photographs that relate to the Civil War.
"We want to make the record as complete as possible," Sewell said.
Pauline Masson, who wrote the program script, said the use of the Pacific High School auditorium for the presentation was made possible Tom Sauvage, PHS principal. Fred Nolley and Cheryl Schlemper, MVR-III technology director who coordinated the video projection, sound and lights.
"Our little society never envisioned a program quite this grand," Masson said.
The Pacific Tourism Commission, Chamber of Commerce and Pacific Partnership sponsored the program, which Step Productions, New Haven, recorded on video.
Why Religious People Struggle with Economics
For years I've puzzled over the question of why religious people have such trouble coming to terms with economics. This problem applies only to modern religious people, for it was Catholics in 15th- and 16th-century Spain who systematized the discipline of economics to begin with. That was long ago. Today, most of what is written about economics in Catholic circles is painful to read. The failing extends left and right, as likely to appear in "progressive" or "traditionalist" publications. In book publishing, the problem is so pervasive that it is difficult to review the newest batch.
It's not just that the writers, as thoughtful as they might otherwise be on all matters of faith and morals, do not know anything about economic theory. The problem is even more foundational: the widespread tendency is to deny the validity of the science itself. It is treated as some kind of pseudoscience invented to thwart the achievement of social justice or the realization of the perfectly moral utopia of faith. They therefore dismiss the entire discipline as forgettable and maybe even evil. It's almost as if the entire subject is outside their field of intellectual vision.
Here is a theory (with a debt to Rothbard, Hoppe, Kinsella, et al.) about why this situation persists. People who live and work primarily within the religious milieu are dealing mainly with goods of an infinite nature. These are goods like salvation, the intercession of saints, prayers of an infinitely replicable nature, texts, images, and songs that constitute nonscarce goods, the nature of which requires no rationing, allocation, and choices regarding their distribution.
None of these goods takes up physical space. One can make infinite copies of them. They can be used without displacing other instances of the good. They do not depreciate with time. Their integrity remains intact no matter how many times they are used. Thus they require no economization. For that reason, there need to be no property norms concerning their use. They need not be priced. There is no problem associated with their rational allocation. They are what economists call "free goods."
If one exists, lives, and thinks primarily in the realm of the nonscarce good, the problems associated with scarcity — the realm that concerns economics — will always be elusive. To be sure, it might seem strange to think of things such as grace, ideas, prayers, and images as goods, but this term merely describes something that is desired by people. (There are also things we might describe as nongoods, which are things that no one wants.) So it is not really a point of controversy to use this term. What really requires explanation is the description of prayers, grace, text, images, and music as nonscarce goods that require no economization.
So let us back up and consider the difference between scarce and nonscarce goods. The term scarcity does not precisely refer to the quantity of goods in existence. It refers to the relationship between how many of these goods are available relative to the demand for goods. If the number available at zero price is fewer than people want for any reason whatever, they can be considered scarce goods. It means that there is a limit on the number that can be distributed, given the number of people who want them.
Scarcity is the defining characteristic of the material world, the inescapable fact that gives rise to economics. So long as we live in this lacrimarum valle, there will be no paradise. There will be less of everything than would be used if all goods were superabundant. This is true regardless of how prosperous or poor a society is; insofar as material things are finite, they will need to be distributed through some rational system — not one designed by anyone, but one that emerges in the course of exchange, production, and economization. This is the core of the economic problem that economic science seeks to address.
It is almost impossible to think of a finite good that is nonscarce. We can come up with a scenario, perhaps, like two people living in paradise surrounded by an ocean of bananas. In this case, the bananas would be a nonscarce good. They could be eaten and eaten forever, provided that the bananas do not spoil. Another proviso is that there can be no free trade between paradise and the rest of the world, else one of the inhabitants might get the bright idea to arbitrage between nonscarce bananas in paradise and scarce bananas everywhere else. In this case, the bananas would obtain a price and would therefore have to be called scarce goods, not nonscarce goods.
In the real world outside of the banana paradise, nonscarce goods are of a special nature. One feature is that they are typically replicable without limit, like digital files or the inspiration one receives from an icon that can be copied without limit.
As an example, consider the case of the loaves and fishes, an incident in the life of Jesus recorded by all four Gospel writers. Jesus is speaking to the multitudes, and the listeners grow hungry. The Apostles only have five loaves and two fishes: These are scarce goods. They could have thrown them into the air and created a food riot over who got what. They could have opened a market and sold them food at a very high price, rationing them by economic means. Both solutions would produce outrageous results.
Instead, Jesus had a different idea. He turned the scarce bits of food into nonscarce goods by making copies of the scarce food. The multitudes ate and were full. Then the food evidently turned back into scarce goods, because the story ends with Jesus instructing His disciples to collect what is left. Why collect what is nonscarce? Clearly, the miracle had a beginning and end.
The story nicely illustrates the difference between a scarce and nonscarce good. Jesus often used this distinction in His parables, which are mostly stories about the scarce world told in order to draw attention to truths about the nonscarce world. Think of the merchant who bought pearls at a low price and sold them at a high price. One day he found the pearl of the highest possible value, and he sold all he had just to buy and hold it. The pearl, of course, represents salvation and the love of God — nonscarce goods, because there is enough for everyone who desires them.
We are in fact surrounded every day by nonscarce goods exactly like the loaves and fishes. All ideas are of this nature. I can come up with an idea and share it with you. You can possess it, but in so doing, you do not take that idea away from me. Instead, you hold a replica of it — just as real and intact as the original version. Words are this way: I do not need to parse them out in order to save some for myself. Tunes in music are this way, too. I can sing a tune to you, and you can repeat it, but this action does not remove the tune from me. A perfect copy is made, and can be made and made again unto infinity.
This is completely different from the way things work in the realm of scarce goods. Let's say that you like my shoes and want them. If you take them from me, I do not have them anymore. If I want them again, I have to take them back from you. There is a zero-sum rivalry over our use of the goods. That means there must be some kind of system for deciding who can own them. It means absolutely nothing to declare that there should be something called socialism for my shoes so that the whole of society can somehow own them. It is factually impossible for this to happen, because shoes are a scarce good. This is why socialism is sheer fantasy, a meaningless dreamland as regards scarce goods.
The difference between scarce and nonscarce goods has long been noted within the Christian milieu. St. Augustine was once challenged to explain how it is that Jesus can speak for the Father in heaven though the Father is separate. He responded that there is a special nonscarce nature associated with words so that the Son can speak the same words and possess the same thoughts of the Father.
This is true on earth, too, Augustine continued:
The words I am uttering penetrate your senses, so that every hearer holds them, yet withholds them from no other. … I have no worry that, by giving all to one, the others are deprived. I hope, instead, that everyone will consume everything; so that, denying no other ear or mind, you take all to yourselves, yet leave all to all others. But for individual failures of memory, everyone who came to hear what I say can take it all off, each on one's separate way.
In saying these things, Augustine was both establishing and following up on a tradition that prohibited the buying and selling of nonscarce things. Jewish Halachic code prohibits a rabbi or teacher to profit from the dissemination of Torah knowledge. He can charge for time, the use of a building, the books, and so on, but not the knowledge itself. The Torah is supposed to be a "free good" and accessible to all. From this idea also comes the prohibition on simony within Christianity.
The moral norm is that nonscarce goods should be free. There is no physical limit on their distribution. There is no conflict over ownership. They would not be subject to rationing. This is not true with regard to material goods.
To further understand this, let's try an alternative scenario in which a nonscarce good like salvation (nonscarce because it is infinitely replicable) is actually a scarce good that must be rationed. Let's say that Jesus had not offered salvation to all but instead had restricted the number of units of salvation to exactly 1,000. He then put His Apostles in charge of allocating them. (When I mentioned this to a nonbelieving friend of mine, he said: "You mean like tickets to Paradise? I bought five of those in a mosque in Istanbul!")
The Apostles would have immediately confronted a serious problem. Would they give them all out immediately or dispense them over the course of a year, or ten years? Perhaps they suspected that the world would last another 100 years; they might limit the distribution of salvations to only ten per year. Or perhaps they needed to reserve them to last 1,000 years. Regardless, there would have had to be rules and norms governing how they were distributed. Perhaps this would be based on personal displays of virtue, of monetary payment, of family lineage, and so on.
No matter what the results, the history of Christianity would have been very different if Jesus had not made salvation a nonscarce good, but instead had limited the supply and charged the Church with allocation. There would have been no liberality in spreading the gospel. Forget the whole business of going to the ends of the earth or becoming fishers of men. Under a limited supply, the salvation could not be replicated. If, for example, the Apostles had chosen a 1,001st person to be saved, eternal life would have been taken away from the first person to receive it.
This might sound preposterous and even frightening, but this is precisely the situation that persists with all material goods in the real world. All scarce things are fixed, and all things must be allocated. Even under conditions of high economic growth and rapid technological progress, all goods in existence at any one time are finite and cannot be distributed without norms or property rights, lest there be a war of all against all. Another factor of production that is scarce is time, and this too must be allocated by some means.
As it happens, salvation is indeed a nonscarce good available to all who seek it. So are the intercessions of saints. No one fails to ask for the intercession of a saint, but no one knows for a fact whether someone else is employing that saint at the moment. No, we rightly assume that saints have no limits on their time for prayer. Indeed, the limitlessness of salvation is the prototype for all forms of nonscarce goods like music, texts, images, and teachings.
But consider people who have dedicated their life to the work of these nonscarce goods. One can easily imagine that they find immense power and glory in these goods. I certainly do. They are the things to which all religious people have devoted their lives. This is a fantastic thing — and truly, without nonscarce goods, the whole of civilization would come crashing down to the level of the animals.
At the same time, the world does not only consist of nonscarce goods. The economic problem deals with the issue of scarce goods. And this is just as important to the flourishing of life on earth. All things finite are subject to economic laws. We dare not ignore them nor ignore the systems of thought seeking to explain their production and distribution. Note that Jesus's parables deal with both realms. So should we all.
It's not just that the writers, as thoughtful as they might otherwise be on all matters of faith and morals, do not know anything about economic theory. The problem is even more foundational: the widespread tendency is to deny the validity of the science itself. It is treated as some kind of pseudoscience invented to thwart the achievement of social justice or the realization of the perfectly moral utopia of faith. They therefore dismiss the entire discipline as forgettable and maybe even evil. It's almost as if the entire subject is outside their field of intellectual vision.
Here is a theory (with a debt to Rothbard, Hoppe, Kinsella, et al.) about why this situation persists. People who live and work primarily within the religious milieu are dealing mainly with goods of an infinite nature. These are goods like salvation, the intercession of saints, prayers of an infinitely replicable nature, texts, images, and songs that constitute nonscarce goods, the nature of which requires no rationing, allocation, and choices regarding their distribution.
None of these goods takes up physical space. One can make infinite copies of them. They can be used without displacing other instances of the good. They do not depreciate with time. Their integrity remains intact no matter how many times they are used. Thus they require no economization. For that reason, there need to be no property norms concerning their use. They need not be priced. There is no problem associated with their rational allocation. They are what economists call "free goods."
If one exists, lives, and thinks primarily in the realm of the nonscarce good, the problems associated with scarcity — the realm that concerns economics — will always be elusive. To be sure, it might seem strange to think of things such as grace, ideas, prayers, and images as goods, but this term merely describes something that is desired by people. (There are also things we might describe as nongoods, which are things that no one wants.) So it is not really a point of controversy to use this term. What really requires explanation is the description of prayers, grace, text, images, and music as nonscarce goods that require no economization.
So let us back up and consider the difference between scarce and nonscarce goods. The term scarcity does not precisely refer to the quantity of goods in existence. It refers to the relationship between how many of these goods are available relative to the demand for goods. If the number available at zero price is fewer than people want for any reason whatever, they can be considered scarce goods. It means that there is a limit on the number that can be distributed, given the number of people who want them.
Scarcity is the defining characteristic of the material world, the inescapable fact that gives rise to economics. So long as we live in this lacrimarum valle, there will be no paradise. There will be less of everything than would be used if all goods were superabundant. This is true regardless of how prosperous or poor a society is; insofar as material things are finite, they will need to be distributed through some rational system — not one designed by anyone, but one that emerges in the course of exchange, production, and economization. This is the core of the economic problem that economic science seeks to address.
It is almost impossible to think of a finite good that is nonscarce. We can come up with a scenario, perhaps, like two people living in paradise surrounded by an ocean of bananas. In this case, the bananas would be a nonscarce good. They could be eaten and eaten forever, provided that the bananas do not spoil. Another proviso is that there can be no free trade between paradise and the rest of the world, else one of the inhabitants might get the bright idea to arbitrage between nonscarce bananas in paradise and scarce bananas everywhere else. In this case, the bananas would obtain a price and would therefore have to be called scarce goods, not nonscarce goods.
In the real world outside of the banana paradise, nonscarce goods are of a special nature. One feature is that they are typically replicable without limit, like digital files or the inspiration one receives from an icon that can be copied without limit.
As an example, consider the case of the loaves and fishes, an incident in the life of Jesus recorded by all four Gospel writers. Jesus is speaking to the multitudes, and the listeners grow hungry. The Apostles only have five loaves and two fishes: These are scarce goods. They could have thrown them into the air and created a food riot over who got what. They could have opened a market and sold them food at a very high price, rationing them by economic means. Both solutions would produce outrageous results.
Instead, Jesus had a different idea. He turned the scarce bits of food into nonscarce goods by making copies of the scarce food. The multitudes ate and were full. Then the food evidently turned back into scarce goods, because the story ends with Jesus instructing His disciples to collect what is left. Why collect what is nonscarce? Clearly, the miracle had a beginning and end.
The story nicely illustrates the difference between a scarce and nonscarce good. Jesus often used this distinction in His parables, which are mostly stories about the scarce world told in order to draw attention to truths about the nonscarce world. Think of the merchant who bought pearls at a low price and sold them at a high price. One day he found the pearl of the highest possible value, and he sold all he had just to buy and hold it. The pearl, of course, represents salvation and the love of God — nonscarce goods, because there is enough for everyone who desires them.
We are in fact surrounded every day by nonscarce goods exactly like the loaves and fishes. All ideas are of this nature. I can come up with an idea and share it with you. You can possess it, but in so doing, you do not take that idea away from me. Instead, you hold a replica of it — just as real and intact as the original version. Words are this way: I do not need to parse them out in order to save some for myself. Tunes in music are this way, too. I can sing a tune to you, and you can repeat it, but this action does not remove the tune from me. A perfect copy is made, and can be made and made again unto infinity.
This is completely different from the way things work in the realm of scarce goods. Let's say that you like my shoes and want them. If you take them from me, I do not have them anymore. If I want them again, I have to take them back from you. There is a zero-sum rivalry over our use of the goods. That means there must be some kind of system for deciding who can own them. It means absolutely nothing to declare that there should be something called socialism for my shoes so that the whole of society can somehow own them. It is factually impossible for this to happen, because shoes are a scarce good. This is why socialism is sheer fantasy, a meaningless dreamland as regards scarce goods.
The difference between scarce and nonscarce goods has long been noted within the Christian milieu. St. Augustine was once challenged to explain how it is that Jesus can speak for the Father in heaven though the Father is separate. He responded that there is a special nonscarce nature associated with words so that the Son can speak the same words and possess the same thoughts of the Father.
This is true on earth, too, Augustine continued:
The words I am uttering penetrate your senses, so that every hearer holds them, yet withholds them from no other. … I have no worry that, by giving all to one, the others are deprived. I hope, instead, that everyone will consume everything; so that, denying no other ear or mind, you take all to yourselves, yet leave all to all others. But for individual failures of memory, everyone who came to hear what I say can take it all off, each on one's separate way.
In saying these things, Augustine was both establishing and following up on a tradition that prohibited the buying and selling of nonscarce things. Jewish Halachic code prohibits a rabbi or teacher to profit from the dissemination of Torah knowledge. He can charge for time, the use of a building, the books, and so on, but not the knowledge itself. The Torah is supposed to be a "free good" and accessible to all. From this idea also comes the prohibition on simony within Christianity.
The moral norm is that nonscarce goods should be free. There is no physical limit on their distribution. There is no conflict over ownership. They would not be subject to rationing. This is not true with regard to material goods.
To further understand this, let's try an alternative scenario in which a nonscarce good like salvation (nonscarce because it is infinitely replicable) is actually a scarce good that must be rationed. Let's say that Jesus had not offered salvation to all but instead had restricted the number of units of salvation to exactly 1,000. He then put His Apostles in charge of allocating them. (When I mentioned this to a nonbelieving friend of mine, he said: "You mean like tickets to Paradise? I bought five of those in a mosque in Istanbul!")
The Apostles would have immediately confronted a serious problem. Would they give them all out immediately or dispense them over the course of a year, or ten years? Perhaps they suspected that the world would last another 100 years; they might limit the distribution of salvations to only ten per year. Or perhaps they needed to reserve them to last 1,000 years. Regardless, there would have had to be rules and norms governing how they were distributed. Perhaps this would be based on personal displays of virtue, of monetary payment, of family lineage, and so on.
No matter what the results, the history of Christianity would have been very different if Jesus had not made salvation a nonscarce good, but instead had limited the supply and charged the Church with allocation. There would have been no liberality in spreading the gospel. Forget the whole business of going to the ends of the earth or becoming fishers of men. Under a limited supply, the salvation could not be replicated. If, for example, the Apostles had chosen a 1,001st person to be saved, eternal life would have been taken away from the first person to receive it.
This might sound preposterous and even frightening, but this is precisely the situation that persists with all material goods in the real world. All scarce things are fixed, and all things must be allocated. Even under conditions of high economic growth and rapid technological progress, all goods in existence at any one time are finite and cannot be distributed without norms or property rights, lest there be a war of all against all. Another factor of production that is scarce is time, and this too must be allocated by some means.
As it happens, salvation is indeed a nonscarce good available to all who seek it. So are the intercessions of saints. No one fails to ask for the intercession of a saint, but no one knows for a fact whether someone else is employing that saint at the moment. No, we rightly assume that saints have no limits on their time for prayer. Indeed, the limitlessness of salvation is the prototype for all forms of nonscarce goods like music, texts, images, and teachings.
But consider people who have dedicated their life to the work of these nonscarce goods. One can easily imagine that they find immense power and glory in these goods. I certainly do. They are the things to which all religious people have devoted their lives. This is a fantastic thing — and truly, without nonscarce goods, the whole of civilization would come crashing down to the level of the animals.
At the same time, the world does not only consist of nonscarce goods. The economic problem deals with the issue of scarce goods. And this is just as important to the flourishing of life on earth. All things finite are subject to economic laws. We dare not ignore them nor ignore the systems of thought seeking to explain their production and distribution. Note that Jesus's parables deal with both realms. So should we all.
2011年3月29日星期二
‘Love Indonesian shoes’ campaign
To counter the inflow of imported products from China, the Indonesian footwear Association (Aprisindo) is cooperating with government institutions and schools to promote the use of domestically-made shoes.
Aprisindo chairman Eddy Widjanarko said in Jakarta on Monday that the association would soon hold an exhibition at the National Education Ministry as part of the “Love Indonesian Shoes” campaign.
The exhibition will be the second of the campaign program. The first expo was held in cooperation with the Trade Ministry early this month. Eddy said the association would also hold exhibitions at schools to promote locally-made shoes.
“We will also cooperate with the Foreign Ministry in organizing an exhibition at its building in May,” Eddy told The Jakarta Post.
He said promoting the use of domestically-produced shoes through exhibitions was necessary because foreign products, mainly those from China, the world’s largest footwear producer, dominated the domestic shoe market.
Aprisindo chairman Eddy Widjanarko said in Jakarta on Monday that the association would soon hold an exhibition at the National Education Ministry as part of the “Love Indonesian Shoes” campaign.
The exhibition will be the second of the campaign program. The first expo was held in cooperation with the Trade Ministry early this month. Eddy said the association would also hold exhibitions at schools to promote locally-made shoes.
“We will also cooperate with the Foreign Ministry in organizing an exhibition at its building in May,” Eddy told The Jakarta Post.
He said promoting the use of domestically-produced shoes through exhibitions was necessary because foreign products, mainly those from China, the world’s largest footwear producer, dominated the domestic shoe market.
2011年3月28日星期一
Fans go to extreme lengths to bag a ticket for mouth-watering game
The Very Very Important People (VVIP) list of those expected to come to watch the India-Pakistan match at Mohali tomorrow is growing by the day.
The Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) officials are in a mad rush to make sure the most comfortable seats are made available for them.
With Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani both expected, security screening to enter the stadium has been unprecedented.
As I entered the stadium yesterday, for the first time in this World Cup, I was frisked from top to bottom, with the policeman going to the extent of searching my socks and shoes.
I felt bad for these policemen who have to search every single leg entering the stadium.
Black market ticket rates are mounting by the hour. I've heard a Rs1,000 (Dh82) ticket was purchased by a visitor from Delhi for Rs25,000 (Dh2,047). "I cannot understand the madness in spending such money. For this money he could have bought an LCD 42-inch television and watched the match comfortably from his home!" said a PCA official.
It was nice to see Yuvraj Singh respecting PCA officials.
He touched PCA president I.S. Bindra's feet and hugged him. Bindra has played a big role in Singh's development.
Film actor Rahul Bose managed to get himself a ticket but screen villain Gulshan Grover has failed.
Security pressure
Superstar Shah Rukh Khan was supposed to attend the match but decided against as it could put additional pressure on the police.
Local newspapers here reported an Indian fan offering his kidney for a ticket!
A fan was permitted into the stadium while India were practising. He had a replica of the World Cup on his shaven head and wore a Sachin Tendulkar shirt.
Meanwhile, bookmakers are favouring India over Pakistan. Bets on the semi-final are expected to cross to dizzy heights. Ladbrokes, the British betting syndicate, has given the Indian team 4-7 odds. Bets have also been placed for huge amounts on whether Tendulkar will score a century.
The harsh treatment of Kamran Akmal by the fans has also continued. As he was boarding the team bus, a fan shouted: "Akmal, can you also drop me on the way?"
The Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) officials are in a mad rush to make sure the most comfortable seats are made available for them.
With Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani both expected, security screening to enter the stadium has been unprecedented.
As I entered the stadium yesterday, for the first time in this World Cup, I was frisked from top to bottom, with the policeman going to the extent of searching my socks and shoes.
I felt bad for these policemen who have to search every single leg entering the stadium.
Black market ticket rates are mounting by the hour. I've heard a Rs1,000 (Dh82) ticket was purchased by a visitor from Delhi for Rs25,000 (Dh2,047). "I cannot understand the madness in spending such money. For this money he could have bought an LCD 42-inch television and watched the match comfortably from his home!" said a PCA official.
It was nice to see Yuvraj Singh respecting PCA officials.
He touched PCA president I.S. Bindra's feet and hugged him. Bindra has played a big role in Singh's development.
Film actor Rahul Bose managed to get himself a ticket but screen villain Gulshan Grover has failed.
Security pressure
Superstar Shah Rukh Khan was supposed to attend the match but decided against as it could put additional pressure on the police.
Local newspapers here reported an Indian fan offering his kidney for a ticket!
A fan was permitted into the stadium while India were practising. He had a replica of the World Cup on his shaven head and wore a Sachin Tendulkar shirt.
Meanwhile, bookmakers are favouring India over Pakistan. Bets on the semi-final are expected to cross to dizzy heights. Ladbrokes, the British betting syndicate, has given the Indian team 4-7 odds. Bets have also been placed for huge amounts on whether Tendulkar will score a century.
The harsh treatment of Kamran Akmal by the fans has also continued. As he was boarding the team bus, a fan shouted: "Akmal, can you also drop me on the way?"
2011年3月22日星期二
Celebrations Spotlight: Andi Stabryla and Robert Stein
Andi Stabryla, 30, and Robert Stein, 29, married on October 30, 2010. The couple now resides in Gibsonia.
Q: How did you meet?
Bob: We met on October 30, 2004 at a club in the Strip District. Our wedding day was exactly six years later!
Q: Where did you each grow up?
Andi: I grew up in Ellwood City. Bob grew up in Monongahela.
Q: Who proposed? How?
Andi: Bob proposed in NYC at the bar in our favorite hotel. I ordered a Cosmo and, to my surprise, it arrived on a silver tray with an Indian scroll that was inscribed with a sweet note. When I looked up, he was holding a ring. (A replica of this very same scroll was used as our wedding invitation.)
Q: Where were you married? Why did you choose that site?
Bob: We were married at Heinz Chapel. We chose it because I work at Pitt and got my MBA there. It is beautiful!
Q: Where's the reception and honeymoon? Why did you choose those sites?
Bob: Our reception was at Carnegie Museum Music Hall. For our honeymoon, we went to Frankfurt, Germany then to Cairo, Egypt, then Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt and Amman, Jordan and ended up in NYC for a night at our favorite hotel. We thought it would be only right to end there. We both love to travel and neither of us had been to any of those places, so we wanted an adventure!
Q: What was the best part of your honeymoon?
Andi: Everything was perfect. We visited the Sphinx, pyramids, Petra and snorkeled daily in the Red Sea. Egypt and Jordan were beautiful!
Q: Who came the farthest?
Andi: Bob's cousin and our little flower girls travelled from Seattle to share in our day.
What was new, blue, borrowed at your wedding?
Andi: New --Chanel Camellia flower I wore in my hair given to me by our friend Kristen. Borrowed -- My grandfather's rosary which was in my bouquet. Blue -- Christian Louboutin shoes that were purchased at the boutique in NYC as a gift from my husband.
Q: What was the funniest thing that happened?
Bob: Our ring barrier, Lukas, was so shy. He only made it halfway down the aisle and his older (but still young) sister, Katrina, who was handing out programs, had to run and go get him.
Q: Who was your favorite wedding vendor? Why?
Andi: Anthony and the staff at Philip Pelusi in Squirrel Hill did a fabulous job with hair and makeup for the entire bridal party. I couldn't ask for anything more. Also, our florists at Hearts & Flowers Floral, photographers at R. Fritz Photography and Kelli Burns DJ all did a great job. We also had a photobooth from Shutterbooth Pittsburgh which was fun.
Q: What's the most creative wedding present you were given?
Andi: The most creative gift was wine from Bob's best man. He gave us three bottles to enjoy on our first, fifth, and 10th-year anniversaries. The wine, which was totally encased in about 20lbs of mints, was an inside joke between he and Bob. They would always take handfuls of mints from restaurants when they were in high school.
Q: What's the best marriage advice you received?
Andi: A family friend actually gave us this advice, "On your wedding day, hold hands as much as possible." We didn't really understand the importance of it until after the day was over. During our wedding day, we were being pulled in so many different directions, we stuck to that advice and it kept us side-by-side during the whole event.
Q: What is one item of your spouse's that you wish you could throw out?
Andi: His bright white sneakers that he keeps in tip-top shape.
Bob: Andi loves chapstick and she leaves them everywhere. In my opinion, she has too many. I'd throw some of those out.
Other details:
Andi: I have to be the luckiest person on earth to have married such a wonderful man and to get to wake up to him every single day of my life. Marriage is magical!
Bob: It's nice to be married to your best friend. We were also so lucky to have all of our friends and family share in our wedding day with us!
Q: How did you meet?
Bob: We met on October 30, 2004 at a club in the Strip District. Our wedding day was exactly six years later!
Q: Where did you each grow up?
Andi: I grew up in Ellwood City. Bob grew up in Monongahela.
Q: Who proposed? How?
Andi: Bob proposed in NYC at the bar in our favorite hotel. I ordered a Cosmo and, to my surprise, it arrived on a silver tray with an Indian scroll that was inscribed with a sweet note. When I looked up, he was holding a ring. (A replica of this very same scroll was used as our wedding invitation.)
Q: Where were you married? Why did you choose that site?
Bob: We were married at Heinz Chapel. We chose it because I work at Pitt and got my MBA there. It is beautiful!
Q: Where's the reception and honeymoon? Why did you choose those sites?
Bob: Our reception was at Carnegie Museum Music Hall. For our honeymoon, we went to Frankfurt, Germany then to Cairo, Egypt, then Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt and Amman, Jordan and ended up in NYC for a night at our favorite hotel. We thought it would be only right to end there. We both love to travel and neither of us had been to any of those places, so we wanted an adventure!
Q: What was the best part of your honeymoon?
Andi: Everything was perfect. We visited the Sphinx, pyramids, Petra and snorkeled daily in the Red Sea. Egypt and Jordan were beautiful!
Q: Who came the farthest?
Andi: Bob's cousin and our little flower girls travelled from Seattle to share in our day.
What was new, blue, borrowed at your wedding?
Andi: New --Chanel Camellia flower I wore in my hair given to me by our friend Kristen. Borrowed -- My grandfather's rosary which was in my bouquet. Blue -- Christian Louboutin shoes that were purchased at the boutique in NYC as a gift from my husband.
Q: What was the funniest thing that happened?
Bob: Our ring barrier, Lukas, was so shy. He only made it halfway down the aisle and his older (but still young) sister, Katrina, who was handing out programs, had to run and go get him.
Q: Who was your favorite wedding vendor? Why?
Andi: Anthony and the staff at Philip Pelusi in Squirrel Hill did a fabulous job with hair and makeup for the entire bridal party. I couldn't ask for anything more. Also, our florists at Hearts & Flowers Floral, photographers at R. Fritz Photography and Kelli Burns DJ all did a great job. We also had a photobooth from Shutterbooth Pittsburgh which was fun.
Q: What's the most creative wedding present you were given?
Andi: The most creative gift was wine from Bob's best man. He gave us three bottles to enjoy on our first, fifth, and 10th-year anniversaries. The wine, which was totally encased in about 20lbs of mints, was an inside joke between he and Bob. They would always take handfuls of mints from restaurants when they were in high school.
Q: What's the best marriage advice you received?
Andi: A family friend actually gave us this advice, "On your wedding day, hold hands as much as possible." We didn't really understand the importance of it until after the day was over. During our wedding day, we were being pulled in so many different directions, we stuck to that advice and it kept us side-by-side during the whole event.
Q: What is one item of your spouse's that you wish you could throw out?
Andi: His bright white sneakers that he keeps in tip-top shape.
Bob: Andi loves chapstick and she leaves them everywhere. In my opinion, she has too many. I'd throw some of those out.
Other details:
Andi: I have to be the luckiest person on earth to have married such a wonderful man and to get to wake up to him every single day of my life. Marriage is magical!
Bob: It's nice to be married to your best friend. We were also so lucky to have all of our friends and family share in our wedding day with us!
2011年3月13日星期日
Season o' shamrocks: Area parades celebrate St. Patrick's Day
A chilly wind may have blown down streets and boardwalks Saturday, but the mood was definitely spring as Atlantic City and two towns in Cape May County held their annual St. Patrick's Day parades.
Adults, children and even dogs sported green clothing as they watched bagpipe-and-drum bands, floats, community groups and vehicles make their way from one end of the Atlantic City Boardwalk to the other. Youngsters scrambled for candy, green beads and other goodies thrown from the floats and cars along the route.
Maddy, 10, and John, 7, Wood of Linwood started jumping for joy when they saw the lights of the police motorcycle at the head of the parade inch towards their spot.
Maddy Wood said she was anticipating the float from McGettigan's 19th Hole in Galloway Township, because they are family friends.
"I do an Irish jig when (the music) comes by," said Maddy, wearing a green beret with a white pompom and a shirt declaring, "Not only am I perfect ... I'm Irish too."
The parade, which took about a half-hour to pass any given spot on the Boardwalk, was led by a police motorcycle, the Atlantic City High School color guard and grand marshal Cathy Burke, owner of the Irish Pub, riding in a rolling chair.
A few riders on horses from the upcoming rodeo, scooters from the Seniors on the Go rental company, a trolley carrying members of the Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers and sporting pro-union signs and the Adopt-A-Setter group with dogs in green jackets and collars joined the more traditional participants in the parade.
Victoria Mancinelli, 19, of Absecon squealed with joy as she caught a small heart-shaped box of chocolate thrown from a passing vehicle.
"Show us your shoes," Mancinelli shouted as Ms. New Jersey Senior America Becky Orsatti, of Atlantic City, rode by in a 1929 Ford Phaeton. Orsatti happily complied.
Ten-month-old Patricia Casey, of Northfield, sported a green, shamrock-shaped bib that read "My First St. Patrick's Day Parade" with a bow in her hair to match.
Older brother Steven Casey, 9, said he hoped to spot a leprechaun in the parade. Sister Madeline Lynskey, 7, said she wanted to see a pug dressed like a leprechaun.
Parents Paula and Martin Casey said they came for the music and the Irish spirit.
Hundreds came out in North Wildwood to honor the patron saint of Ireland and bask in the only holiday where one nationality is celebrated by everyone.
The crowd sang the Irish national anthem and celebrated with a parade down Atlantic Avenue. The Irish flag was raised at City Hall and the crowd, many from Irish organizations in the area, listened to speeches. Members of the Angelsea Irish Society, Cape May County Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Cape May County Emerald Society talked about all their programs to support the community.
"Some people think we made this holiday up to have a party and get drunk. We are a giving-back organization," Hibernian Michael Maguire said.
The Irish wit was in abundance.
"We originally offered grand marshal to Charlie Sheen but he was busy today," joked Joe Rullo, the grand marshal of the parade.
Several priests were on hand to lead prayers. St. Patrick, who died March 17, 461 A.D., was above all a holy man, though he may be more well-known for driving the snakes from the Emerald Isle. Celebrations have been held in his honor on March 17 since around 800 A.D.
After the serious part of the program, it was time to parade. The procession included the Wildwood High School Marching Band, a 10-foot tall leprechaun, an organization trying to save turtles called Team Turtle, Miss North Wildwood Hannah DiBruno, firefighters and beach patrols, Duffy's String Band and many others.
Duffy's included local resident Cheryl Crowe who recently became the first female inducted into the Philadelphia String Band Hall of Fame. Crowe plays the banjo and bass fiddle.
"I've been doing this all my life, 59 years," Crowe said.
The parade included a replica of the legendary vessel Jeanie Johnson made by North Wildwood Public Works and escorted by Boy Scout Troop 185 of North Wildwood.
"It used to be a wooden lifeguard boat. We got it from Beach Patrol," said Tim Chester, of the Public Works.
The original Jeanie Johnson, a 408-ton three-masted barque, was famous for transporting Irish immigrants to America during the great potato famine. From 1848 through 1855 it made 16 crossings with more than 2,500 immigrants and not a single one died in spite of cramped quarters and almost two months at sea.
Historians credit the amazing track record to kind-hearted ship owner Nicholas Donovan and skilled captain James Attridge. The Jeanie Johnson always had a doctor on board. Sanitation was stressed and the immigrants were even pushed to take daily walks on the deck.
Sea Isle City held its 21st St. Patrick's Day Parade before hundreds lining the route along Landis Avenue. City Council President Mary Tighe said the Irish Weekend brings the seasonal residents back to town.
"The weekend people are down starting to open their homes up. They enjoy the parade and see people they haven't seen all winter. Everybody's Irish today," Tighe said.
As the Atlantic City parade wound down, Kai MacNeill, 6, of Galloway Township tallied up his booty collected from the floats.
His favorite part of the parade was "when they give out stuff," and he picked up lucky coins, beads, candy and a T-shirt.
"Daddy's going to wear that one," said his mom, Ginger MacNeill.
Sister Kiera, 4, said her favorite part was "seeing Grampy" march and play with the Atlantic City Sandpipers Band.
Dad Gavin MacNeill said he just enjoyed "watching the kids catch candy and wave to everyone who went by."
Adults, children and even dogs sported green clothing as they watched bagpipe-and-drum bands, floats, community groups and vehicles make their way from one end of the Atlantic City Boardwalk to the other. Youngsters scrambled for candy, green beads and other goodies thrown from the floats and cars along the route.
Maddy, 10, and John, 7, Wood of Linwood started jumping for joy when they saw the lights of the police motorcycle at the head of the parade inch towards their spot.
Maddy Wood said she was anticipating the float from McGettigan's 19th Hole in Galloway Township, because they are family friends.
"I do an Irish jig when (the music) comes by," said Maddy, wearing a green beret with a white pompom and a shirt declaring, "Not only am I perfect ... I'm Irish too."
The parade, which took about a half-hour to pass any given spot on the Boardwalk, was led by a police motorcycle, the Atlantic City High School color guard and grand marshal Cathy Burke, owner of the Irish Pub, riding in a rolling chair.
A few riders on horses from the upcoming rodeo, scooters from the Seniors on the Go rental company, a trolley carrying members of the Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers and sporting pro-union signs and the Adopt-A-Setter group with dogs in green jackets and collars joined the more traditional participants in the parade.
Victoria Mancinelli, 19, of Absecon squealed with joy as she caught a small heart-shaped box of chocolate thrown from a passing vehicle.
"Show us your shoes," Mancinelli shouted as Ms. New Jersey Senior America Becky Orsatti, of Atlantic City, rode by in a 1929 Ford Phaeton. Orsatti happily complied.
Ten-month-old Patricia Casey, of Northfield, sported a green, shamrock-shaped bib that read "My First St. Patrick's Day Parade" with a bow in her hair to match.
Older brother Steven Casey, 9, said he hoped to spot a leprechaun in the parade. Sister Madeline Lynskey, 7, said she wanted to see a pug dressed like a leprechaun.
Parents Paula and Martin Casey said they came for the music and the Irish spirit.
Hundreds came out in North Wildwood to honor the patron saint of Ireland and bask in the only holiday where one nationality is celebrated by everyone.
The crowd sang the Irish national anthem and celebrated with a parade down Atlantic Avenue. The Irish flag was raised at City Hall and the crowd, many from Irish organizations in the area, listened to speeches. Members of the Angelsea Irish Society, Cape May County Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Cape May County Emerald Society talked about all their programs to support the community.
"Some people think we made this holiday up to have a party and get drunk. We are a giving-back organization," Hibernian Michael Maguire said.
The Irish wit was in abundance.
"We originally offered grand marshal to Charlie Sheen but he was busy today," joked Joe Rullo, the grand marshal of the parade.
Several priests were on hand to lead prayers. St. Patrick, who died March 17, 461 A.D., was above all a holy man, though he may be more well-known for driving the snakes from the Emerald Isle. Celebrations have been held in his honor on March 17 since around 800 A.D.
After the serious part of the program, it was time to parade. The procession included the Wildwood High School Marching Band, a 10-foot tall leprechaun, an organization trying to save turtles called Team Turtle, Miss North Wildwood Hannah DiBruno, firefighters and beach patrols, Duffy's String Band and many others.
Duffy's included local resident Cheryl Crowe who recently became the first female inducted into the Philadelphia String Band Hall of Fame. Crowe plays the banjo and bass fiddle.
"I've been doing this all my life, 59 years," Crowe said.
The parade included a replica of the legendary vessel Jeanie Johnson made by North Wildwood Public Works and escorted by Boy Scout Troop 185 of North Wildwood.
"It used to be a wooden lifeguard boat. We got it from Beach Patrol," said Tim Chester, of the Public Works.
The original Jeanie Johnson, a 408-ton three-masted barque, was famous for transporting Irish immigrants to America during the great potato famine. From 1848 through 1855 it made 16 crossings with more than 2,500 immigrants and not a single one died in spite of cramped quarters and almost two months at sea.
Historians credit the amazing track record to kind-hearted ship owner Nicholas Donovan and skilled captain James Attridge. The Jeanie Johnson always had a doctor on board. Sanitation was stressed and the immigrants were even pushed to take daily walks on the deck.
Sea Isle City held its 21st St. Patrick's Day Parade before hundreds lining the route along Landis Avenue. City Council President Mary Tighe said the Irish Weekend brings the seasonal residents back to town.
"The weekend people are down starting to open their homes up. They enjoy the parade and see people they haven't seen all winter. Everybody's Irish today," Tighe said.
As the Atlantic City parade wound down, Kai MacNeill, 6, of Galloway Township tallied up his booty collected from the floats.
His favorite part of the parade was "when they give out stuff," and he picked up lucky coins, beads, candy and a T-shirt.
"Daddy's going to wear that one," said his mom, Ginger MacNeill.
Sister Kiera, 4, said her favorite part was "seeing Grampy" march and play with the Atlantic City Sandpipers Band.
Dad Gavin MacNeill said he just enjoyed "watching the kids catch candy and wave to everyone who went by."
2011年3月8日星期二
Archive Reissue Center Lo basketball shoes by PF Flyers
A cut above your average old school plimsoll, the PF Flyers Archive Reissue Center Lo basketball shoes takes things back to the beginning.
In this case, we're talking 1953, with the latest issue of the Center Lo being a replica of the original basketball shoe in a choice of five colours, two of which are pictured above. Details are much the same as you would expect - a canvas upper, rubber sole, cushioned footbed, ribbed toe guard and a diamond pattern outsole.
$45 is the price if you want a pair.
Find out more at the Stuarts of London website
Via His Knibs
Also, check out our newly-launched His Knibs men's style website
In this case, we're talking 1953, with the latest issue of the Center Lo being a replica of the original basketball shoe in a choice of five colours, two of which are pictured above. Details are much the same as you would expect - a canvas upper, rubber sole, cushioned footbed, ribbed toe guard and a diamond pattern outsole.
$45 is the price if you want a pair.
Find out more at the Stuarts of London website
Via His Knibs
Also, check out our newly-launched His Knibs men's style website
2011年2月22日星期二
Tampa Bay Comic Convention is a huge success
Comic book conventions are famous for bringing out the crazed fanboys, the creepy autograph seekers, a casual comic book collector and the connoisseurs of rare DVDs and toys. The Tampa Comic Convention didn't disappoint.
From Ghostbusters to Wolverine to an adorable child dressed as a lego Stormtrooper - the fans came dressed for a comic book convention as the ballroom at the Doubletree in Tampa was transformed for a few hours on a beautiful Sunday.
Comic book artists Arthur Suydam, Mike Perkins, Alex Saviuk and Frank Brunner headlined a list of creators who joined with legendary wrestler Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and the King of Independent films: Joel Wynkoop.
The convention bustled as fans scurried to snag deals on comic books, toys, DVDs and collectibles. The lines for autographs and photos were consistent but never too lengthy to be out of control. Haggling the vendors to knock $5 off of the price of a poster, questioning the authenticity of rare "Nightmare on Elm Street" Nike shoes or debating the print run of a comic book - odd behavior in other settings, but not at the Tampa Comic Convention.
The Doubletree proved to be a great venue with accessible ATMs, restrooms and snacks at the hotel. Darth Vader towered over fans, greeting them at the entrance while "Ghostbusters" were more than willing to put children in the replica containment unit for a photo or two.
A costume contest was an entertaining finale to a great show as both adults and children marched across the stage. They were met with cheers and laughter as the audience truly enjoyed the enthusiasm these guests brought to the convention.
The next show is scheduled for August 7, so mark that calendar.
From Ghostbusters to Wolverine to an adorable child dressed as a lego Stormtrooper - the fans came dressed for a comic book convention as the ballroom at the Doubletree in Tampa was transformed for a few hours on a beautiful Sunday.
Comic book artists Arthur Suydam, Mike Perkins, Alex Saviuk and Frank Brunner headlined a list of creators who joined with legendary wrestler Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and the King of Independent films: Joel Wynkoop.
The convention bustled as fans scurried to snag deals on comic books, toys, DVDs and collectibles. The lines for autographs and photos were consistent but never too lengthy to be out of control. Haggling the vendors to knock $5 off of the price of a poster, questioning the authenticity of rare "Nightmare on Elm Street" Nike shoes or debating the print run of a comic book - odd behavior in other settings, but not at the Tampa Comic Convention.
The Doubletree proved to be a great venue with accessible ATMs, restrooms and snacks at the hotel. Darth Vader towered over fans, greeting them at the entrance while "Ghostbusters" were more than willing to put children in the replica containment unit for a photo or two.
A costume contest was an entertaining finale to a great show as both adults and children marched across the stage. They were met with cheers and laughter as the audience truly enjoyed the enthusiasm these guests brought to the convention.
The next show is scheduled for August 7, so mark that calendar.
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