Some of these items come from me, some from newspapers, and some from The Week magazine, a wonderful sheet that hits all sides of a story.
01. Famous Book Sale. The well-known Smith College in Massachusetts has an active alumni group in Maryland. They put on an annual book sale that is a book-lover's dream. I first discovered the sale while I was waiting for my first daughter to be born at a Baltimore hospital. (I won't tell you how many years ago that was because maybe my daughter doesn't want you to know how old she is.)
Over the years, I purchased thousands of books for my collection, mainly at their sales. (They sell gently-used books on any and all subjects.) When we made plans to move to our current location, I realized that I could not take all of these books with me, so I boxed them up, knowing that I could always donate them to the current year's sale. However, when the time came, I was told that they already had so many books to sell, they had no place to put my 118 boxes of books. (I have already written how I finally got rid of the books, so, if you want to know, call me up or search my blogs for Salvation Army.)
Anyway, this year's sale is the 52nd annual sale. It will take place on April 9-11 at the exhibition hall of the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, MD. Apparently that is the only site big enough to hold all of the books. I guarantee that if you go, you will get hooked, and start to amass your own gigantic library of great books. (... at cheap prices)
02. Intelligent Billing: Elaine got a bill today from a well-known company. It was a bill for $0.00 ! A nasty note was attached, saying, in effect, "If we do not receive your payment by March 31st, you will be required to pay a $0.00 late fee!"
03. Tricky Timing: The usually completely accurate magazine I mentioned above, gave the following information: "2010 is the year of Mark Twain, ... it marks the 100th anniversary of the American author's birth, and the 125th of the publication of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn..." He sure was a darn good writer to get stuff published even before he was born.
03 1/2. Telephone Help Desk: At today's AARP meeting, I was able to give my stand-up routine about a telephone call I made a while ago.
I called the 800 # for a well-known Internet provider. I had a problem and was not able to access the web. The call went something like this:
"Allo, wat is your name?"
"Joseph Vaughan"
"Allo, Yosef, wat is your broblem?"
"I cannot access the Internet."
"Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I do not understand gable."
"May I speak to your supervisor?"
"May I help you?"
"Yes, I cannot access the internet."
"Wat is your name, sir?"
"Joseph Vaughan."
"OK, Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I don't know wat is gable."
"It's an electric line running into my house, like a telephone line."
"OK, Yosef, I will look that up. Where do you live?"
"I live in the U.S. In Maryland."
"I don't know wat is merrylend."
"Maryland is a State in the U.S."
"I'm sorry, Yosef, but I ave no record of merrylend."
"Do you have Massachusetts?"
"Yes, I see that, but no merrylend."
"Oh.. to hell with it! Goodbye!"
After explaining my frustrating experience to a County administrator, I was given a local number for the company involved. I called the number and a guy said: "Hey, how ya doin? What can I do for you?"
I told him my problem, he went away for one minute, came back and said, "is it ok now?" I checked, and it was. Total time for call and fix.. about two minutes.
04. Traffic cameras: We've talked before about speed cameras and red-light cameras.. now we have "rolling right turn" cameras. In Los Angeles, there now is a fine of over $400 for doing a rolling right turn. This must be a real money-maker, because it's hard for me to believe that the word has gotten out that you must make a full stop before making a right turn on a red light.
05. Air Traffic Controllers: They are getting younger and younger. Check out the youngster who gave instructions to several planes recently at the JFK Airport.(I know that President Reagan fired a lot of controllers years ago, but I didn't know that the Government had dropped the age requirement so they could hire more of them.)
06. Oink:Oink - This is the tenth anniversary of the successful cloning of a pig. (Name of Deli?)
07. IQ: An Israeli study has found that the lower a person's IQ is, the more likely that person is a heavy smoker. (Us former-smoker now-smart guys knew that already.)
08. Brushes: A lady named Dawn Stephens has invented an all-in-one toilet-bowl-cleaning brush. (My grandfather, Arthur Stephens Vaughan, in 1900, invented the all-in-one shoe brush, consisting of a "polish dauber" on the end of a handled "polishing brush.") If I could figure out how to put pictures on this blog, I would show what his prototype looks like today. I have it on display in my den.
09. Cursing: Nepal has an annual "cursing festival". One of the curses I like best is: "May your buffaloes all die of diarrhea!"
10. Fusion? Bloom Energy says they have developed a fuel cell that can generate energy without going through the process of combustion. More power to them!
11. Crabby? Marylanders love their crabs, but sometimes they get careless about getting them. Recently, Maryland environmental police found and pulled up over 1,500 abandoned or lost crab pots from inlets to the Chesapeake Bay. These pots endanger fish and crabs. I wonder what they did with any crabs (or their skeletons) found in these pots.
12. Exercise? I read that there is an aerobic exercise called "spinning"... please don't tell me what that is, I want to conjure up an image of this exercise... in my mind's eye.. just as I did years ago listening to the radio and visualizing the scene being described. Visualization is a great exercise for the brain.
... enough!
Showing posts with label Smith College. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smith College. Show all posts
Friday, March 05, 2010
Thursday, October 22, 2009
More Old News
Things are a bit hectic right now, so, to relax, I'm looking through my 1962 scrapbook again. Take a look over my shoulder, read the articles and enjoy the pictures.. let your mind wander back to that year.
01. A nice aerial view of Ocean City at the height of its flooding by a terrific northeaster in March. It was termed worse than the famous 1933 hurricane. The city is completely covered by the ocean; however, it looks like there is not much damage, except to a luxury apartment hotel on the beach at 39th street.
An expensive, at the time, $80,000 home survived the storm by being on steel pilings.
02. The Russians claim to be planning a 160 mile tunnel under the Caspian Sea, linking Baku with Krasnovodsk. They want to use atomic blasts to dig it out... but Western countries think that this is just a ploy for the USSR to get moving on secret weapons testing.
03. Frank Lloyd Wright made some sketches for a planetarium to be built on Sugarloaf Mountain south of Frederick, Maryland. The planetarium was never built.
04. University of California scientists have discovered that the chloroplast, like the gene and the virus, contains genetic material and controls its own reproduction within the living cell.
05. J. Robert Moskin, Look Magazine Senior Editor wrote: "In the next 25 years (1987!) it is likely that man will create life in a test tube. He will transform chemicals into living material that can grow and reproduce itself. He will perform an act of God."
Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate, foresees the day when scientists will be able to make artificial genes and put them into living bodies.
06. A cartoon of JFK sitting in an ambulance labeled Old Age Health. Running after him, hoping for a ride are three men, labeled: Health Insurance Companies, GOP Plan, and Rep Miller. (So, you see, even back in 1962 people were fighting over Health Insurance.. at that time it was for the elderly and was pushed through Congress as Medicare by Lyndon Johnson.. if Obama studies what Johnson did and he uses the resources that he already has, he should be able to push through universal health insurance.)
07. Mrs Leila Mae Simhof writes the Baltimore Sun that after paying their monthly rents, old people are left with the magnificent balance of from six to ten dollars for their month's food, clothing and insurance. (The time is right for Medicare.)
08. The Social Security Administration building in Woodlawn, Maryland, receives hundred of foreign visitors each week. It also sends out major press releases in 22 languages. They also publish pamphlets in Spanish, for distribution in New York City and in areas along the Mexican border and in southern California.
09. A woman in a coma delivers a baby. She had been injured in an automobile accident.
10. Robert M. Ball becomes Commissioner of Social Security and its 34,661 employees.
11. Maurice, the book man of Greenwich Village is having a problem with the subway locker people. Even though he stores hundreds of books in 49 lockers, and even though he pays for them with dimes every time he thinks of it.. the "Locker Nazi" wants him to get his books out of the lockers so people can use them for personal items. Maurice says that each subway station has lots of unused lockers and he really is a good customer for the company.
12. The Smith College Club of Baltimore is getting ready for their 4th annual used book sale. (As my daughter, Elizabeth, was being born in 1961, I was not allowed anywhere near the Delivery Room, so I went outside on the street to wait. Next to the hospital was an empty store and inside the 3rd annual Smith College Book Sale was going on. I bought a lot of books before I went back in to see my new daughter. To celebrate Elizabeth's birth, I visited all of the Smith College Book Sales for the next 40 years! Changes in location and prices has made the sale quite different than it was.. but it still is fun... if you want to get that book that you always wanted to read.. you will find it there.
13. Arthur C. Clarke quotes K. E. Tsiolkovski (1857-1935) : "Earth is the cradle of the mind: but one cannot live in the cradle forever." Clarke says: "... as we reach out into space, sooner or later we will discover that we are not alone. It may well be that our civilization is one of the most primitive now existing..."
14. A review of African Genesis by Robert Ardrey. "This book is presented as a personal investigation into the animal origins and nature of man." Ardrey's basic argument is that man is instinctively an aggressive and ruthless animal .. an innate killer. This is a very provocative and controversial book.
15. A Long Island supermarket has worked out a plan whereby customers turn cash register slips in to any local church. The store pledges to pay churches one percent of amounts shown on slips.
16. A beautiful picture of snow-capped Mount Fujiyama in Japan.
17. Some beautiful prints by Japanese artist Harunobu from around 1720.
18. An interesting article about Tokyo, titled: On Ginza, Glitter, Gastronomy and Girlie Shows.. and Geishas.
................................................................................................................................
01. A nice aerial view of Ocean City at the height of its flooding by a terrific northeaster in March. It was termed worse than the famous 1933 hurricane. The city is completely covered by the ocean; however, it looks like there is not much damage, except to a luxury apartment hotel on the beach at 39th street.
An expensive, at the time, $80,000 home survived the storm by being on steel pilings.
02. The Russians claim to be planning a 160 mile tunnel under the Caspian Sea, linking Baku with Krasnovodsk. They want to use atomic blasts to dig it out... but Western countries think that this is just a ploy for the USSR to get moving on secret weapons testing.
03. Frank Lloyd Wright made some sketches for a planetarium to be built on Sugarloaf Mountain south of Frederick, Maryland. The planetarium was never built.
04. University of California scientists have discovered that the chloroplast, like the gene and the virus, contains genetic material and controls its own reproduction within the living cell.
05. J. Robert Moskin, Look Magazine Senior Editor wrote: "In the next 25 years (1987!) it is likely that man will create life in a test tube. He will transform chemicals into living material that can grow and reproduce itself. He will perform an act of God."
Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate, foresees the day when scientists will be able to make artificial genes and put them into living bodies.
06. A cartoon of JFK sitting in an ambulance labeled Old Age Health. Running after him, hoping for a ride are three men, labeled: Health Insurance Companies, GOP Plan, and Rep Miller. (So, you see, even back in 1962 people were fighting over Health Insurance.. at that time it was for the elderly and was pushed through Congress as Medicare by Lyndon Johnson.. if Obama studies what Johnson did and he uses the resources that he already has, he should be able to push through universal health insurance.)
07. Mrs Leila Mae Simhof writes the Baltimore Sun that after paying their monthly rents, old people are left with the magnificent balance of from six to ten dollars for their month's food, clothing and insurance. (The time is right for Medicare.)
08. The Social Security Administration building in Woodlawn, Maryland, receives hundred of foreign visitors each week. It also sends out major press releases in 22 languages. They also publish pamphlets in Spanish, for distribution in New York City and in areas along the Mexican border and in southern California.
09. A woman in a coma delivers a baby. She had been injured in an automobile accident.
10. Robert M. Ball becomes Commissioner of Social Security and its 34,661 employees.
11. Maurice, the book man of Greenwich Village is having a problem with the subway locker people. Even though he stores hundreds of books in 49 lockers, and even though he pays for them with dimes every time he thinks of it.. the "Locker Nazi" wants him to get his books out of the lockers so people can use them for personal items. Maurice says that each subway station has lots of unused lockers and he really is a good customer for the company.
12. The Smith College Club of Baltimore is getting ready for their 4th annual used book sale. (As my daughter, Elizabeth, was being born in 1961, I was not allowed anywhere near the Delivery Room, so I went outside on the street to wait. Next to the hospital was an empty store and inside the 3rd annual Smith College Book Sale was going on. I bought a lot of books before I went back in to see my new daughter. To celebrate Elizabeth's birth, I visited all of the Smith College Book Sales for the next 40 years! Changes in location and prices has made the sale quite different than it was.. but it still is fun... if you want to get that book that you always wanted to read.. you will find it there.
13. Arthur C. Clarke quotes K. E. Tsiolkovski (1857-1935) : "Earth is the cradle of the mind: but one cannot live in the cradle forever." Clarke says: "... as we reach out into space, sooner or later we will discover that we are not alone. It may well be that our civilization is one of the most primitive now existing..."
14. A review of African Genesis by Robert Ardrey. "This book is presented as a personal investigation into the animal origins and nature of man." Ardrey's basic argument is that man is instinctively an aggressive and ruthless animal .. an innate killer. This is a very provocative and controversial book.
15. A Long Island supermarket has worked out a plan whereby customers turn cash register slips in to any local church. The store pledges to pay churches one percent of amounts shown on slips.
16. A beautiful picture of snow-capped Mount Fujiyama in Japan.
17. Some beautiful prints by Japanese artist Harunobu from around 1720.
18. An interesting article about Tokyo, titled: On Ginza, Glitter, Gastronomy and Girlie Shows.. and Geishas.
................................................................................................................................
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