What Would Jimmy Do?

So – back on Saturday, March 31, 2007 I began an experiment; I decided to try my hand at “blogging.” At that time, I didn’t know what a blog was, and to right now, I’m still not sure. Originally I intended to use it to replace the “Family Web Site,” that I decided wasn’t worth the effort as only about two or three members of the family ever read it (about the same number that have periodically checked out this blog) and discuss family matters, but basically just document our activities here in West Virginia.

Somehow, it evolved into me just writing down whatever happened to be on my mind when I decided to make a new entry. Chris and John (and sometimes Mike) often times provided the subject of some of the entries by asking insightful, thought provoking, and often world changing questions. Both you faithful readers know that I always provided scientifically accurate, well researched answers to their queries.

Recently, all sorts of things seem to have gotten in the way of my keeping this journal, or blog, up to date. I’ve decided that now that the weather is providing less and less good golf days, it’s time to get back to making “blogging” one of my more active undertakings.

I think this is a good time for a fresh start, so this will be the last entry is this blog. I’m going to change the format a bit and it will be moved to a new location on the Internet. Realistically, with the holidays approaching, I probably won’t do too much until January – but if you’re curious, you can periodically check http://jimmy.ekota.net to see what’s happening – that’s the new address for “In My Own Write.” I’ll probably be playing around with it for the next month or so. If you have any suggestions, I’d like to hear them.

After four years and seven months and 267, give or take a couple, entries, it’s time to move on to the next phase – it’ll still be a blog because I come closer to knowing what a blog is than a tweet or a woof or Facebook or any of those other things that people seem to use to publish every detail of their lives. I appreciate the readership – many thanks to you both.
-30-

Seems like I’m writing way too many of these lately.
Surviving the loss of a friend can be a difficult process – one of our closest friends, Marvin Smith passed away early this morning. None of our lives will ever the same without him.
Those of you that attended Kelly’s wedding will remember that the Smiths not only won the prize for being married the longest, but – had there been one – would easily have walked off with the prize for the best dancers.
There’s an old saying that nobody cares if you can dance well – just get up and dance. That probably sums up Marvin’s life pretty good. He had a couple of careers and still found time to have the best looking lawn in the neighborhood, he enjoyed going out for a good meal and finally figured out that a Martini is better if you just use vodka and don’t mess it up with all that other “stuff.” He enjoyed just going for a drive – exploring new things and places. He never mastered the slots, but Anne did, so Marvin rarely had to pay for dinner. He had a great philosophy for life — Marvin just danced!

I suspect that by now Marvin has got the greatest set of golf clubs and using them on the most beautiful fairway one could imagine – and – I bet he’s hitting them straight down the middle way more than 150 yards.
How lucky I was to have known such an unselfish person that lived by example and by the rules of integrity, hard work and treating people with respect.
I heard a quote once, and a usual didn’t write it down or remember who said it, but it went something like: To live in the hearts we leave behind, is not to die.
There always will be a place in our hearts for Marvin – may he rest in peace.
-30-

This time of year is always kind of busy around our house. This year is no exception; Thursday was Cinco de Mayo, yesterday was our anniversary, today we’re attending a friend’s wedding, tomorrow is Mother’s Day and Monday is Kelly’s birthday.

This is a yearly occurrence and we can always remember this stretch of activities because the Kentucky Derby and the Virginia Gold Cup races always fall in this period of activity.
For those of you who don’t know the Gold Cup is a Steeplechase type race held in Virginia on the same day as the Kentucky Derby and rivals the derby in terms of splendor – all the ladies wear hats, people tailgate using real silver and china and are served by “butlers.”
Of course the Kentucky Derby gets the most publicity and like the Gold Cup, people who don’t follow horse racing go just for the festivities.

On this date the year I was born (1938) the 64th Kentucky Derby was run – the winning horse was Lawrin and was ridden by a pretty famous jockey, Eddie Arcaro.
The winner of the Kentucky Derby has a leg up, of course, on winning the Triple Crown. The two other races that comprise the Triple Crown are the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico in Baltimore and the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.
There hasn’t been a Triple Crown Winner since 1978; in fact, there have been only 11 Triple Crown winners. The first was Sir Barton in 1919 and the last was Affirmed in 1978. The others are: Gallant Fox (1930); Omaha (1935); War Admiral (1937); Whirlaway (1941); Count Fleet (1943); Assault (1946); Citation (1948); Secretariat (1973); and Seattle Slew in 1977.
So whether you favor Mint Juleps or Margaritas – it’s always a busy time around here.
— 30 —

So it comes down to Butler and UConn – March Madness is coming to an end – in April. I really don’t follow college basketball very much, but I love March Madness. The NCAA tournament is fun – I like the set up with the winner having to win every game to advance. Maybe part of my looking forward to it every year is because it’s a sure sign that spring is coming.
But this year I’ve been particularly annoyed by the announcers. Actually, I’ve found them to be downright irritating. Overzealous is an understatement – I keep hearing “BRYANT FOR THREE!” and “OH, YEAH!!” and of course, the “POW!” I’m not sure why sportscasters can’t understand that just because you YELL, it doesn’t make it more exciting…

Here’s some of the phrases that I heard over and over this year (I guess I’ve heard them just about every year, but for some reason they were more annoying this year.)
They can’t buy a basket! – if you weren’t watching a basketball game, you’d think what the heck? Haven’t you ever gone to JoAnn’s or didn’t you ever hear of Longaberger?
Shooting from Downtown! – I guess any three point shot from behind the line must come from “downtown.”
Yesssssssssss! – Seems like I heard this a lot this year; hardly ever Nooooooooo!
Share the Sugar! – I believe this means that the player(s) should share the ball… I guess sugar sounds better than ball.
He has a hot hand! – Again, if you heard this and weren’t watching the game, you might well think that someone had stolen a prosthetic body part.
Take it to the hole! – This apparently means that a player drives to the basket instead of settling for a jump shot or shooting from long distance. Sounds more like it should be applied to a sport like golf.
Anyhow, you get the idea. So Monday night, if the game turns out to be a blowout, you can pass the time counting how many times you hear these cliches – unless, of course, you just turn the sound down.
-30-

Got a short note from Chris – she wanted to know if movie theaters still used film reels. The question is really do they still use film in movie theaters, and it’s an interesting question. Almost no one uses film to take pictures, or home movies these days – it’s a digital world. If fact, people don’t even take home movies anymore – they’re videos – a term that probably wasn’t even in the dictionary when a lot of our generation was taking “home movies.”

So given that digital technology has already taken over almost all the home entertainment market, one would think that theaters would get rid of film. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of motion pictures continue to be shot and distributed on film, just like they have been for years. Over the years, the film itself and the projection equipment have improved and produce the high quality pictures we see in theaters today.
Digital cameras and projectors are also getting better all the time and probably the biggest boost to the use of digital cinema came from George Lucas when he “filmed” “Star Wars: Episode II, the Attack of the Clones” entirely on digital video. Due to the popularity of the movie, most theaters showed it after it had been transferred to 35-mm film, but a number of theaters played it using digital movie projectors.

Obviously the days of film projection in theaters and even the capturing of the movie itself are numbered – everything will be digital – and fairly soon.
There are lots of advantages to making movies using the new technology – in all aspects of the process, production, distribution and projection. There are also lots of problems or “issues” associated with converting all movies to digital.

Currently film and video have a lot of differences in image quality or clarity, depth of focus and color range, but the biggest difference is frame rate. Film cameras shoot at (typically) 24 frames per second and TV (video) cameras shoot at 30 frames per second – but the big difference is that most video is interlaced (the picture is “printed” by scanning every other line from top to bottom, and it’s scanned again, printing the lines that it left out.) This process is used to reduce “flicker” in the picture. Anyhow, all these factors combine to give video a completely different flavor or look than film. The newer professional video cameras can now shoot at 24 frames per second and can “mimic” film cameras. Things are progressing really fast to make video look just like film..

One of the big expenses in the movie industry is distribution of the film. The movie company has to make many copies of the film (costly) and then spend even more money shipping the heavy reels of film to theaters all over the country or world. If the movie is in digital format, it’s basically just a big computer file that can be written to a DVD, or sent via cable or over a satellite link, so there aren’t any “transportation” costs and it doesn’t cost the company much more to show the movie in 100 theaters than in just one.

Of course digital projectors are getting better all the time too, and now rival the film projectors. One disadvantage of digital projector technology is the fact that individual pixel elements within the projector may become defective and when that happens, it degrades the image of every movie shown on that projector. In the film world, if a film print gets scratched, it’s only that particular print that’s bad – just change the film.

So, the short answer to the question is “yes,” but practically speaking, video or digital is going to essentially replace film -soon. Thats just reality and practicality taking over. Maybe it’s for the best, but old films on reels are considered works of art these days – I wonder if the same content on a DVD will ever be considered to be art…
-30-

Most of you have seen the TV ads that say “there’s an app for that.” Seems like there’s “an app” for almost everything. I was looking at the apps in the iTunes store a few days ago and ran across one called “Confession.” The description of the app contains the phrase, “the perfect aid for every penitent.” I am not making this up. The app costs $1.99 and is “approved by The Roman Catholic Church.”
The app apparently lets you pick a commandment and tick off all your sins associated with that commandment. If your particular sin isn’t listed, you can add your own… I didn’t see any thing that lets you randomly pick sins – I thought that might be handy – maybe in the next update.

It occurs to me that after you tick off a few sins, you might not want to leave your iPhone/iPod lying around – hopefully the app is password protected.
I’ve heard that the Catholics aren’t very progressive, but now with their own app – what will the Catholics think of next? Now you can sin on the go and confess on the go – future confessions will probably sound like, “Forgive me Father for I have sinned, my last confession was yesterday on my iPad.”
I’m thinking that you may see things like iCollectionBox – and – probably be able to use Paypal…

I know I’ve “made sport” of this app a little, but the fact is, it might not be such a bad idea – the church currently uses paper guides and pamphlets for various education programs such as CCD – I think it might be a good idea to provide that information to pre-teens and teens in an e-book or an iPad app.
I’m sure you’ll hear all about separation of church and technology, but who knows – there’s lots of ways to connect to God – maybe the Internet works, too.
-30-

We get an AARP newsletter and I rarely do more than glance at it, but there was an article that caught my eye a few days ago. It talked about how our language is changing and it listed some terms that, beginning now, will actually appear in the new dictionaries that are published. (What with the Internet, I suspect not many people buy dictionaries any more…)

Anyhow, I sort of like some of the new words, like:
automagically – automatic in a way that is magical.
bromance – a close platonic male friendship
catastrophize – to present a situation as worse than it is.
chillax – to calm down and relax.

Of course some of the words aren’t really new – they’re just old words that have taken on a new meaning, like “friend” – one of the new definitions of that word will be, “to add to a list of personal associates on a website.”  And “viral” – which gets the new meaning of, “circulating rapidly on the Internet.”
I’ve heard, and use, some words that weren’t listed, such as:
USian – a citizen or native of the United States of America.
textative – given to text messaging.
whinese – a language  spoken by children or spouses on long road trips.
quadrilemma – a difficult choice among four alternatives.
ebully – one who uses e-mail, blogs, forums, etc. to insult or threaten another person.
flusterpated – a feeling of intense frustration whiled being flustered.

Some words I’ve heard and sometimes use and like, I really don’t have any idea what they mean – of course that doesn’t stop me, I just remain beefuzzled as I send out a big woot to you all….
-30-

Received a HNY greeting and a question from Chris a few days ago:
“Here’s a question 4 u. How did wrapping gifts come to be?”

Well, I turned to the resident expert for help with this one. Claire is one good gift wrapper – the creases and folds are always sharp and fit like they were accomplished with a calculator and T-square. The tape always seems to be invisible – and – they have ribbons and bows, that she usually makes.
On every occasion when I need to wrap gifts, I look at it as a fresh new challenge. I always think I’ll remember the mistakes I made the last time. Over the years I’ve learned a lot of what not to do – not so much as to what to do… In years past, I usually got all the materials together and had a glass or cup or more of eggnog. The end results never seemed to get any better, so I figured it must be the eggnog. After a few years, I switched to wine, but the end results were still disappointing – after I finish, I step back to look at the finished product and **** ####!! What the heck happened? It usually looks like a three year old wrapped it. I’ve kind of solved the problem by using those “gift bags,” but somehow that seems like cheating. However, I’ve recently learned that if you buy your gift from Amazon, it comes already wrapped and ready to give!!! I’m thinking Amazon is going to be getting a lot of my business….

But it seems like I’ve gotten a bit off track here, the question was, “how wrapping gifts came to be?” I guess people have always given gifts – tribal leaders always expected, and received, gifts from their tribesmen as a token of loyalty and love. Over the years, people have given gifts to procure favor(s) – obviously that still happens today. Gifts are given for many reasons: cultural or religious occasions, birthdays, holidays, farewells, good luck, to show love, thank you, welcome and sometimes “just because.”

Anyhow, back to the question – Claire said gifts used to be wrapped in plain tissue paper, but the tissue paper was flimsy and sometimes the paper would fall off or tear before the gift was “opened.” Apparently, history credits Joyce C. Hall, the founder of the Hallmark Company with inventing not only the greeting card, but the wrapping paper used today. The wrapping paper turned out to be a fall-out from the greeting card, so it occurred as an accident, not a real invention.
My own opinion is that like most things in our house, wrapping paper started in China – if my memory serves me correctly, the Chinese invented paper, so that’s were it all started. I think the first wrapping paper that was similar to what we see today, evolved from England, where, in the 1500s, they used wallpaper to wrap gifts.

Whatever – Claire’s gifts will continue to look spectacular and professional, mine will continue to look pathetic. But I’ve always heard it said that, “it’s what’s on the inside that counts.” I think that’s true – not what’s in the box – what’s in the heart of the giver…
-30-

Too often we let special events in the lives of our friends just slip by without remembering them. I know it happens to us a lot.
Today, I just want to remember our friends George and Martha Washington (you may know of them – he was Father of Our Country.) Today would have been their 252nd wedding anniversary.
George and Martha were both 27 years old when they got married on January 6, 1759 in New Kent, Virginia. Martha had been married before – to Daniel Parke Custis – when she was 18. However, Daniel died seven year later; Daniel and Martha had four children. George and Martha did not have any children.
The newly married George and Martha spent their honeymoon in Williamsburg, Virginia. They made a nice couple – happy anniversary to them both.
-30-

Claire has asked me two or three times in the past few days if I’ve made any new year resolutions. I think I answered her with something like, no – but I guess I probably should. Every year, with the beginning of a new calendar, or year, people “resolve” to do, or not do, things in the coming year.
A study done by the University of Washington in 1997 found that 47 percent of the (estimated) 100 million Americans that make resolutions give up their goal(s) after two months. My suspicion is that if the study was done today, that percentage would be much higher.
I guess that the making of resolutions is a cleansing ritual of sorts where one makes an honest self assessment and vows repentance and a desire to do better, and if the intent is to be successful, it demands personal honesty.

The first symbol for the new year wasn’t the “baby” that we usually see, it was Janus – a mythical king of ancient Rome. You may have seen his image more recently used by Janus Insurance/Investment company – Janus is always depicted with two faces – one on the front of his head and one on the back. The Romans believed he was the god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances. With two faces, he could look forward and backward at the same time. At midnight on December 31, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new.

All the places and cultures of the world don’t celebrate New Year’s Day on the same date, but it is always a time for celebration and for customs to ensure good luck in the coming year.
So – not being one to break tradition – I decided that I should come up with some resolutions for 2011. This year I decided to be practical and only make resolutions that I have a good chance of keeping.

Here goes – in 2011 I resolve to:
• Watch more TV – it’s very educational (watching more means seeing more of the program before falling asleep…)
• I will never speak or text “LOL” – no matter how funny the joke or story is…
• Draw up a list of people that were nasty to me last year – I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with the list – yet…
• I will not tell the same story every time I’m around a group of people…
• I will get a haircut – probably more than once…
• I won’t yell at so many inanimate objects….
• I will always remember to specify that any drive-through order is “to go.”
• I will play more computer games – scientists say they’re good for you and improve your visual skills…
• I will be more imaginative…
• As I do annually, I vow not to tell anyone if I see a UFO….
-30-