Saturday Special - Door Mats

The photo conundrum

Last week I was looking for a particular photo among all the printed photos that we have stored in boxes and folders and envelopes. To be sure, I was not even certain we had a photo that met my needs (more about that another time) so it was necessary to look at all the prints we had. Do you know how many pictures that is?

You do remember printed photos don't you? You know, that's what we used to get after we had used up the roll of film. Printed photographs. Two sets; one for us and one to share. Now, the only prints we need are for the ubiquitous Christmas card with all the kids and cousins on it. Or the occasional 5x7 to update the frames on the shelf.

Do you know how many printed photos one can acquire if you predate the digital age a hundred years or so? A lot. Albums of them. Boxes of them. Tubs of them. And I'm not even going to mention the 100 or so boxes of 35mm slides that we've collected along the way. And that's the conundrum. What does one do with them?

We have about a dozen albums full of family photos in nice archive-friendly protective sleeves. They are the result of a project to move the oldest snapshots out of corrosive albums that were slowly destroying the pictures. You know, the sticky plastic overlay pages, and even worse, the glued-down to black construction paper pages. But what about the boxes - literally - of prints that came back from Wal-Wherever, that we looked at, talked about, and then but back in the envelopes and consigned to the box?

Even worse, as a result of inheriting my mother's genealogical records, I have boxes of very old photographs; many from the portrait studio, and many in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. My immediate family members I recognize (for the most part) but fully half of the subjects in these old pictures are unknown to me. Unless there is a name penciled on the back, these folks are forever lost historically. So I am certain that these pictures will remain in the box.

But it may also be too late for pictures from the modern era as well. I'm sure there was a reason to take 24 photographs of a mountainside probably in Colorado - or was it New Mexico? - but I can't remember why. Or when. Once upon a time pictures had dates recorded on them, but that went out of style. Anybody know who these people are standing by this waterfall? Where was this? Hon, do you remember? Hmm. Me neither.

Put them in scrapbooks, you say? Do you know how old I am? I might not even be able to put them in archive-friendly sleeves, and for sure I would spend the kid's inheritance doing so. Oh well. The kids will know what to do with them when the time comes.

Monday Meanderings - July 26

I spent some time back in the office this past week. It was really refreshing to be back with my fellow workers, attending meetings, solving problems, diligently working on creative solutions to the customer's needs. But the best part was interacting with my fellow workers.

Why yes, they do read my blog from time-to time at the office. Why do you ask?

The other day, I saw a man mounted on horseback riding up the sidewalk on Braker, headed toward I-35. Earlier, you will recall, I saw a runner with an Olympic-style torch running on Braker. I think this settles it. We are definitely having some type of Olympic event here in Austin. At the very least, we are going to have a torch-lighting ceremony and equestrian events. Can't wait.

Last week Fedex Ground delivered a very large box full of A/C filters that I had ordered over the Internet. Stuck on the box was a little 3" tag that said "Delivery Notice. We delivered your package." I never would have noticed, otherwise.

Jaime's Spanish Village Cafe is closing. It is not on our dining-out list, but it was - 50 years ago. When in High School, whenever we would come to Austin for a UIL event, or Yearbook clinic, or whatever, the SVC was a must. I think we ate there once shortly after moving to Austin. Maybe we should have given them more of our business.

I guess it would really be poor form to reblog Jon Acuf's "Stuff Christians Like" two weeks in a row. So I'll just provide a link to a blog about "The Most Dangerous Vehicle on the Road" - the  church youth group van. Been there, driven that.

Memory Lane - Jackson, Wyoming, and Yellowstone National Park

I'm currently reading a series of books by C. J. Box that details the life and adventures of a fictional game warden in Wyoming. This particular game warden has a habit of stumbling over and involving himself in crimes that are not really part of his fish and game jurisdiction - a trait that does not endear him to the local sheriff or his employers. Warden Pickett is sort of an anti-hero; he's not all that good at solving crimes, but his tenaciousness and pig-headed devotion to what is right eventually see him through, and it makes an enjoyable read.  As a bonus, Box is very good at describing the beauty and natural appeal of Wyoming, so all-in-all I'm enjoying the series.

The last two books have especially resonated with me in that the first was centered in Jackson Wyoming and the current book has Pickett in Yellowstone National Park. In 1958 my family and the Woods family camped in Jackson and Yellowstone and many of the details in the books evoke memories of that trip. The antler arches leading to the Jackson town square, the tourist-trap stores in Jackson, the ski lift.

Notice the killer flat-top and the very fashionable turned up cuffs. Notice too that there is no safety belt. Also notice that I am holding on for dear life with one hand. I'm really surprised that I let go to wave.

Yellowstone is a big place. My memory is that we got as far as the middle - where Old Faithful is - camped there and made day trips to other areas of the park, such as the Fishing Bridge (where fishing is not allowed now) and the Geyser Basin and the mud pots. It was Yellowstone, where after supper one evening, we walked up to the Old Faithful Lodge to sight-see, and on the way back Steve Wood went skipping ahead, calling out, "There's a bear. There's a bear." Then we heard a shriek and heard Steve coming back at full speed, yelling "There IS a bear, there IS a bear." Sure enough, one of the camp bears had peeled open our cooler and was helping himself to some bacon and eggs. We shouted him out of camp and as he made his way through other nearby camp sites, we could hear others shouting at him. And no, we didn't pause to take Mr Bear's picture. This is some other camp that did without breakfast, but it perfectly captures the moment.

I'm told that encounters with bears in Yellowstone are rare now (except for bears getting run over by autos); the majority of animal/tourist conflicts are with elk and bison that roam freely throughout the park. I don't recall seeing a single example of either when I was there. But I remember Mr. Bear.

Monday Meandering - July 19

The location of Colt and Rachel's wedding was a big item in the news, in that nobody knew where it was going to take place. The TV stations all sent reporters sniffing around to caterers and bridal shops - and Westover, but no one spilled the beans. However, if you drove by the Westover building Saturday you would have seen a full parking lot and security guys at every entrance. Sunday morning there was a honkin' floral arrangement in front of the baptistery.

If you've been in our building, you know that the opening to the baptistery is quite large - but the bouquet filled that space. Sure enough there was a baptism Sunday and it took 4 people to set the arrangement on the floor. When I was up there after services I saw about 40 pounds of glitter on the floor, knocked off during the move. And no, I didn't do the sound. The husband of one of the church secretaries did. He sort of gave it away in the preceding weeks asking questions like, "How do you get a keyboard plugged into the system?, and "How would you mike a string quartet?" That's one wedding I'm glad not to have been part of.

Between the World Cup and the Tour de France announcers, it's a wonder we all are not speaking with a British accent. Recently we had a speaker born in South Africa telling about his family coming to Lubbock so his dad could go to school. "Now that's an accent," he said. "We were at the grocery store and the clerk kept saying, "Ya'll come back now," and his mother did  - 3 times - before someone explained to her that it was a figure of speech.

I like BBQ, but not as much as the guy at Pokey Jo's the other day. In addition to 4 - count 'em - pints of sides and an order of Texas Toast, he and his companion sat down to what looked like 3 orders of meat. I trust they were going to take the leftovers home. And eat off them for the next week.

Frontier Days in Round Rock this weekend. Normally it's the weekend around the 4th of July, but they had a rain delay this year. We went to a Frontier Days shortly after we moved to Austin and got to see the shoot-out between Sam Bass and the posse.  It was loud when the guns went off, and Rob, who was about 5, immediately covered his ears with his hands. Too bad he was holding a sno-cone at the time. We dug flavored ice out of his ear for several minutes. And you are welcome for reminding you of that, Rob.

My question is, where do you buy sea-side kitsch? Every room in the Sand Castle Condos at Port A are furnished with bamboo furniture and decorated profusely with flotsam and jetsam depicting the beach. Like this:

And this painting is in every condo. Every one.

We did see some little framed ceramic pieces (plates?)  this trip that that we liked. If you run across these somewhere, let us know. These were bolted to the wall.

Re-blogging

I have made a wonderful discovery. In the world of blogdom, when you blatantly steal material from another blogger, you don't call that stealing. No, you call that "re-blogging." Re-blogging may be exceeded only by the number of term papers copied entirely from Internet sources. It's that popular. Granted, some blog-writers take offense at having their material distributed in that manner, but I say that if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then out-right theft is pure adulation.

Now, having said that, most of what follows is re-blogged (see, isn't that a kinder gentler phrase?) from "Stuff Christians Like" posted by Jon Acuff. If you don't already follow his blog, you should. There. I feel better already.

The topic is the best ways to quickly identify a Christian urban legend email:

1. Fwd.
Although technically, those three letters mean the email has been “forwarded” to you from someone else, I want to redefine that. All too often if you see Fwd, what it really means is the email is going to be “Fake, Weird, Dumb.” Beware the arrival of an email that has “Fwd” in the subject line.

2. Crazy subject line.
If you see the word, “Horrible” or the phrases, “If you’re a Christian, you must read this,” or “Fourth horseman spotted outside Cleveland,” go ahead and delete that email immediately.

3. The phrase, “I never send these out.”
Yes you do. Stop saying that. This is the telltale sign of a serial urban legend fan. They always try to tell you that they never send these types of emails out but this one, this one is too serious to ignore. It’s the equivalent of the date you go on where a guy or girl says, “I’m not crazy, seriously, it’s not like I’m crazy.” Yes you are, that is what crazy people always say.

4. Prayer.
I think it’s awesome that we can use email to share prayer requests. I think it’s less awesome that we use it to spread urban legends about prayer. I got one recently about the National Day of Prayer being cancelled. It was so full of inaccuracies that it made my teeth hurt. The text was wrong, the photo in it was misleading, the information was shady. It was essentially the email equivalent of the officiating in the World Cup. Bottom line, if you get an exclamation laden !!!! prayer email be very careful.

5. The claim is gigantic.
The bigger the claim, the greater the chance is that it’s fake. A few months ago someone sent me an email from “James Dobson” that said all Sunday worship services on the radio or television were about to be removed from the air unless we signed a petition. Chances are, if thousands of gospel programs are going to be instantly removed from both radio and television, the first time you hear of this won’t be in an email from your friend “BillKingBeliever777.” Also, there are scams aimed at Christians that ask for your email address in order to keep prayer in our country. They just want your email. Avoid these like one of the plagues. The frogs for instance.


6. I checked this on Scopes.
I'm sorry. If it is this big a deal, and it is true, it would have been on CNN two days ago. Nobody can deal trash as quickly as CNN.

And then, of course, there is always the sender. If you get emails from certain individuals, you simply know that it is going to fit in one or all of the above categories. There must be a brotherhood of them, trolling for disaster and alerting all their fellow alarmists. It's sort of like stamp collecting, only instead of finding the 1918 Inverted Jenny Aircraft, it's a pending disaster to Christendom that they haven't ever forwarded before. Be still my beating heart!

For these people, the only solution is the "twit filter." In Gmail, that is under the link "Create a filter." Try, it. You'll love it. Only you wouldn't put my name in there would you? On rare occasions I have some really important, gigantic, Scopes-approved FWDs to send you.

Lost and found

On our way to Port A this past week we stopped for a break at the Dairy Queen in Kenedy. Back on the road, but only a few miles later, I realized that I did not have my wallet. At the DQ, I was waiting in line to order, then handed that chore (and my wallet) off to Barb while I visited the restroom. When I returned, in the business of handling drinks, Blizzards, etc., my wallet did not get put back where it belonged.

I am in the habit of checking my wallet when I leave a public place, but did not at the DQ. That habit may be, however, why I was only a few miles down the road when I realized my loss. Panic and dread set in (along with a few "Are you sure you handed it back to me?" accusations). Stop the car, check the floor board and seat. No wallet.

U-turn and a hasty retreat back to the DQ. I went straight to the counter to inquire and Barb went straight to our previous seats. She saw a wallet on the table and asked the couple sitting there if they had found it. I was still at the counter when I heard the man call, "Are you Mr. Anderson?" There was no way he would know that without having found the wallet and I can't tell you how happy I was to hear that question. I joyfully reclaimed that which was lost and learned that this nice couple (even if they were both wearing Aggie tee shirts) had already called my "In case of emergency" phone number - which was Rob's home phone number, by the way - lot of good that would have done me - to start the process of returning the wallet.

I write this with some trepidation, but I have never, ever lost my wallet. Really lost it. Or my keys. Or anything else important. I did leave a credit card at Chuy's once (distracted while visiting with one of our waitstaff friends, no doubt) but a quick phone call handled that and I picked it up the next day. That is not to say I don't worry about doing that. When we travel abroad, I take photocopies of the cards we are carrying to have the emergency information. We split the cards and cash among us, and we have photocopies of passports. Knock on wood, we have never needed those copies.

A friend of ours misplaced her passport while we were on a medical mission trip to El Salvador; it was disturbing to leave her behind when we returned, even though there was someone there who could help her get an emergency passport. Two days later she got home - and found her original passport. I spent some time canceling a bunch of credit cards for one of our children traveling abroad after an early morning phone call (these too, were found later). Was it my turn?

I fretted a good bit (OK, I panicked) last week as we rushed back to Kenedy, wondering about how we were going to get cards canceled - cards that we needed for this trip. What about the drivers license, Medicare cards, identity theft? Cash? But we were fortunate; I missed the wallet before reaching for it at the Condo check-in and the couple who found it had not moved on before we got back to the DQ. Plus, they were honest folks intent on returning it intact..

Quite an adrenalin rush, all in all. You know, I may just stay home from now on. Oh, wait. I do stay home. Now I know why.

Monday Meanderings - July 12

Meanderings is an apt description for the past week. We meandered down to Port A with Rob, Jana, Luke and Grace and played the role of beach bums with great enthusiasm. Even the trip down there was filled with meandering; first a stop at Black's BBQ in Lockhart to check off another Texas Monthly Best BBQ in Texas spot, then Barb and I checked out the City Park while Rob and family drove into and out of Lockhart State Park to check another Texas State Park off his list. You will notice that only BBQ joints are on my list.

And yes, we were in two cars. Barb and I haul a pretty good load of stuff when we go to the beach; Rob and Jana haul a pretty good load of stuff just to get as far as Austin. Add all the stuff we decided would be good to have on this trip and we were lucky not to have to rent a U-Haul to boot. And we didn't take all the things we talked about.

Apart from one BBQ place and one State Park we didn't have any other stops, except for... well, I'll blog about that part later... and then we got to the ferry. Barb and I have waited as long as 15 minutes for a ferry before. This trip was a 45 minute wait. Going to the beach in mid-summer is a lot different than in the Fall, or even mid-April (not Spring Break mid-April). But we got across and got situated and hit the beach. Any oil on our beach? Nope. Any jelly-fish? Maybe one. Any seaweed? Tons, and I mean literally. They were scrapping it up with a front-end loader and hauling it off in dump trucks almost the entire time we were there.

We ate sea food and watched the Tour and we ate hot dogs and we watched boats come in and out of the channel from an open-air restaurant, and the kids swam in the Condo swimming pool when they weren't on the beach. Rob et. al. went to Corpus one day to do the Lexington (hot and claustrophobic) and the aquarium (cool - and wet - if you sit in the "blue rows" at the Dolphin show).

And on Thursday, Tropical Depression "Bonnie" made her presence felt. You've seen the "rain bands" on the TV weather. A "rain band" in actuality means torrential downpour for a half-hour or so, then sunshine for a half hour or so. Repeat as needed. We sure felt sorry for the people who had to stand out in the rain to direct traffic onto the ferry boats.

And it made a huge difference at the beach. Here's a photo of the beach on Wednesday evening. To the far right, out of sight, is a line of posts marking where the beach ends and the road begins:

And this is Thursday morning - standing in the road:

There is no drainage in South Texas. The bar ditches (yes, I know they are "borrow" ditches - but I'm from Texas) and medians were overflowing and it was a bit of nervous driving for a while. We stayed in rain until Kenedy and then it cleared up and we got home in time for...rain.
 

Monday Meanderings - July 5th

Happy post-Independence Day to all of you. We had a family-filled 4th - Rob and family are here and if we can figure out how to get all of us and all our stuff there, the beach is in the forecast. Along with some rain.

Thank goodness the World Cup is winding down and we have some gaps between games - because it's time to watch the Tour de France. Of course, unlike some members of the family, we are not there in person but must watch on TV. On the other hand, we do get to see the beginning and end and all the important stuff in between, and not just stand there and get 20 seconds of peleton whizzing by.

During the Cup, we have been interested in the national anthems of the various participating countries. Some we are familiar with - most are new to us, and of course we don't understand the languages, so we can only guess at what the players are singing. Like we're pretty sure -

•  The Swiss team sang, "We have more cows than you and our cheese is better."
• Ghana sang, "Our fans are too busy doing the Elephant Dance to watch us play."
• The Brazilians were singing, "Ole, ole, ole. Brazil, Brazil." Now they are singing "Oy veh, Oy veh. Exile, exile."
• The Argentinians were singing,  "Our coach is shorter than your coach  and dresses better, besides."
• And the French were singing "We won't play together and you can't make us."

Seen on a tee shirt:  My Bad  -- Eve

And if you get your World Cup and your Tour de France recordings mixed up, here's what you get--