Leap Up, Fall Down – the Daylight Savings Scam
Medford, Oregon – Daylight Savies Day, 2017 — Before I share my handy tip with you, I gotta say that in my opinion, William Willett has a lot to answer for, because best I can tell he was the scurvy dog — not Benjamin Franklin — who actually “invented” what is now Daylight Savings Time. Or maybe I should say he was the scurvy dog who unleashed the Daylight Savings Scam upon an unsuspecting populace.
‘Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.’ — Indian Saying
Ain’t it just the truth!
And right here, right now I want to put to rest the scurrilous rumors that [Read more…]
Larry’s Last Gig
San Francisco, July 14, 1993: Today being ‘Bastille Day’, the French National Holiday, I was hired to play a gig at a French Restaurant on Polk Street. Wearing my tuxedo, with my tapping instrument and amplifier, I was wedged into a small niche near the door, and the wine was flowing freely as the evening progressed.
I’m playing my usual blend of Beatles, Bossa Nova, and Standards, when a fellow came up, introduced himself as Tom Bullock, and said he’d been a keyboard player. Over his wineglass, he started telling me about himself and his buddy Larry, a horn player.
The Gig from Hell
As a nominee for ‘The Gig from Hell,’ I think it merits attention. Here then is the sad, sad story of Larry’s last gig …
They were trying to get this regular gig at the Officer’s Club, and so they took this free gig at the Country Club, where the Colonel in charge of booking was supposed to come and hear them. They were to receive a free meal, and if they were a hit, then they would [Read more…]
A Report on Chinese Christmas Eve
Marin County, July 16, 2017 — For her birthday, Adrienne came down from her Oregon home to visit with her daughters and grandchildren. Her whole family was there: Layla, Celina, Jessica, Dameon, and even Rhiannon and her puppy “Penny,” who flew in from Germany. All of them remembered …
Marin County, December 24, 2007 –– In our house on Scenic Avenue in San Anselmo, I made up a Christmas Eve Tradition. Because the previous month at Thanksgiving, due to Layla’s insistence, we had enjoyed a wonderful dinner of Tofurky. Ha! Enjoyed? Who am I kidding?
The Tofurky Experience
We agreed unilaterally that we would NEVER have Tofurky again. Maybe it’s ok for some things, but as a substitute for a proper Thanksgiving dinner … thank you, but no. So here we are coming up on Christmass Eve, and dinner was a problem. Because Adrienne doesn’t cook; it’s against her religion. And franky I don’t know how to do a turkey, and it’s a lot of work, and so invention being the mother of necessity … I made up [Read more…]
Not Just a Good Idea
The Super Secret Missile Base at College
North Texas State University, Denton Tex 1965as, Fall: Just north of town was a super-secret Nike missile launching facility, and nobody was supposed to know about it. Here’s a picture of it —
The road at the top of the picture is “Locust Street,” or as locals called it “Missile Base Road.” Because how could you not know? I knew, and I was just an undergraduate.
You see, an engineer was brought in because it turns out that the missile pad was actually just a tiny bit too low for proper launching so as to wipe out some foreign city far away. And this guy needed to figure out how to raise is very slightly.
He stayed at the Holiday Inn, where I worked the night shift, and that’s how I know. After all, it was a secret but he told me because I was a trusted motel employee, right?
Then, a couple of days later, he came in to check out, with a huge bag of nickels. They were left-over nickels he explained. He was real happy. Turns out that the thickness of a nickel was exactly the amount they needed to raise the floor.
So he’d gone down to the bank downtown on the square, [Read more…]
Invincible Summer
Upgraded to Windows 10! Computer Still Working!
Medford, Oregon, July 14, 2016 — News Flash! I have upgraded to Windows 10 … and I am still alive … and so is my computer.
I was scared to do this. But finally I figured … what could be worse than that little popup nagging me worse than my mother ever did?
So finally I took the plunge, clicked the button that promised that all my files would be right where I left them. (Franky, that idea of leaving all my files was pretty scary, too.)
And then I watched it for about two hours, while it chugged away. Well actually I watched Limitless, almost three episodes.
And then it was done, and it looks a lot … like windows.
Go eat a fig.
