Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
May 7, 2012
Movie sidekick, George “Gabby” Hayes, was born May 7, 1885. His biography from the Internet Movie Database reads:
American character actor, the most famous of Western-movie sidekicks of the 1930s and 1940s. He was born May 7, 1885, the third of seven children, in the Hayes Hotel (owned by his father) in the tiny hamlet of Stannards, New York, on the outskirts of Wellsville, New York. Hayes was the son of hotelier and oil-production manager Clark Hayes, and grew up in Stannards. As a young man, George Hayes worked in a circus and played semi-pro baseball while a teenager. He ran away from home at 17, in 1902, and joined a touring stock company. He married Olive Ireland in 1914 and the pair became quite successful on the vaudeville circuit. Retired in his 40s, he lost much of his money in the 1929 stock market crash and was forced to return to work. Although he had made his film debut in a single appearance prior to the crash, it was not until his wife convinced him to move to California and he met producer Trem Carr that he began working steadily in the medium. He played scores of roles in Westerns and non-Westerns alike, finally in the mid-1930s settling in to an almost exclusively Western career. He gained fame as Hopalong Cassidy’s sidekick Windy Halliday in many films between 1936-39. Leaving the Cassidy films in a salary dispute, he was legally precluded from using the “Windy” nickname, and so took on the sobriquet “Gabby”, and was so billed from about 1940. One of the few sidekicks to land on the annual list of Top Ten Western Boxoffice Stars, he did so repeatedly. In his early films, he alternated between whiskered comic-relief sidekicks and clean-shaven bad guys, but by the later 1930s, he worked almost exclusively as a Western sidekick to stars such as John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Randolph Scott. After his last film, in 1950, he starred as the host of a network television show devoted to stories of the Old West for children, “The Gabby Hayes Show” (1950). Offstage an elegant and well-appointed connoisseur and man-about-town, Hayes devoted the final years of his life to his investments. He died of cardiovascular disease in Burbank, California, on February 9, 1969.
You get extra points if you know the name of Roy Rogers’ Jeep.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged birthday, Gabby Hayes, Nellybelle, Roy Rogers, sidekick, western | Leave a Comment »
May 7, 2012
On May 5 the full moon achieved it closest approach to the earth at midnight. This has been called a super moon and is explained here.
I drove to a high spot with an unobstructed view and gazed toward what was (I hoped) east. And soon a ghostly white and very large full moon rose up from the horizon. I was surprised at how fast the moon rose – actually a function of how fast the earth is spinning. It was pretty impressive. I was not as impressed by my photos of the event, so I found the one above which is better.
I actually went outside later that night (3:00 am) and the moon was so bright that it made the trees cast very distinct shadows on the ground.
I read that the tides are higher at these times, as well, but living on Lake Erie with a tidal range of inches, it did not make much difference.
Here are the figures: the distance between the Moon and the Earth varies from around 356,400 km (at perigee) to 406,700 km (at apogee.)
My photos:
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astromony, geeky science blogging, moon, perigee, super moon | 2 Comments »
April 30, 2012
Walpurgis Night, the eve of May Day. The holiday has its roots in early fertility festivals . . . some ties to witches, again fertility festivals . . . mostly celebrated in Scandinavia and northern Europe. There is a lot written about St. Walpurgis and the origin of the holiday – just Google it. My take – it features a bonfire and sparkling drink, so I’m there.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bonfire, drink, holidays | 2 Comments »
April 28, 2012
The ship was named the Bounty: I was appointed to command her on the 16th of August, 1787. – William Bligh
Tyrannical leader – or captain of a crew of whiners and misfits – the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. However the real story is not the mutiny that took place on April 28, 1789, but the voyage that came after.
The Bounty mutineers, after setting Bligh and 18 loyal crew members adrift, returned to Tahiti while some made their way to Pitcairn. This is the story retold in the movies.
Bligh, however, succeeded in sailing his small open boat, across 3600 miles, taking 47 days, to the island of Timor.
The mutineers who remained on Tahiti were arrested and returned to England. The mutineers on Pitcairn eluded capture. Bligh went on to continued success in his career. He was eventually promoted to Vice Admiral. Don’t believe everything Hollywood tells you.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bligh, Bounty, bounty mutineers, mutiny, Pitcairn, sailing, Tahiti, Timor, william bligh | 1 Comment »
April 27, 2012
Sam Vimes, above, and Murphy, below.
Noodle is MIA – or MUS (missing upstairs)
I am having painters come on Monday to paint the dining room. So I am packing and shlepping everything that I can out of the room so the painters can work. Here is my crew lying down on the job.
One of the tasks is moving the 300+ cookbooks I own. I am seriously thinking that this may amount to hoarding and maybe I should de-accession some of them (and have my head examined.) This is the collection of two lifetimes – mine and my mother’s. I’ll have to think more about this.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged books, cats, cookbooks, hoarding, sappy cat blogging | 5 Comments »
April 26, 2012
I’m talking about the Glass Bubble Project. A Sunday morning event undertaken recently that culminated in the creation of this sun-catcher ornament.
I’ve done a couple of little workshops before and have a collection of glass paper weights to show for it. The nice thing about glass is that it is so intrinsically beautiful that even the unskilled practitioner can come away with something lovely. The instructors at the Glass Bubble are skillful and patient and, even though there was a crowd of people who had come to work that day, everyone was given ample time to create something great – even a six-year old.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, glass, glass blowing, paper weights, sun catcher | 2 Comments »
April 20, 2012
Moggies at Sea . . . This story from the U.S. Naval Institute on Cats in the Sea Services, carries photos of kitties on ships:
Sailors and cats have a special relationship that dates back thousands of years. It is likely that the ancient Egyptians were the first seafarers to realize the true value of having cats as shipmates. In addition to offering sailors much needed companionship on long voyages, cats provided protection by ridding ships of vermin. Without the presence of cats, a crew might find their ship overrun with rats and mice that would eat into the provisions, chew through ropes and spread disease. The more superstitious sailors believed that cats protected them by bringing good luck. It was also common for crews to adopt cats from the foreign lands they visited to serve as souvenirs as well as reminders of their pets at home.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cats, marines, sailors, sappy cat blogging, sea, ships, U. S. Naval Institute | Leave a Comment »
April 18, 2012
One of my favorites was a sign I saw outside a restaurant in southern Ohio announcing its policy:
Dirty Ernie’s
Eat here or we’ll come and beat you up!
Unfortunately, I cannot find my photo of it.
These are good, too.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged co-pilot, donuts, security, signs, travel | Leave a Comment »
Gunsmoke and Knitting 