Reflective Ruminations, by Fletcher Dodge

Interestingly, North Carolina is the South Dakota of the Carolinas.

Take off, eh

Around about this time in every election cycle you start to hear people threaten to "move to Canada if [insert name of other side's candidate] wins this election." Indeed, reports following the Super Tuesday elections were that "How to move to Canada" was the leading Google search by far.

Well search no more. Here's a little (not so) helpful advice:

How to Move to Canada If Trump Wins, By a Person Who Moved to Canada When Bush Won

Getting a student visa is not the same as becoming a Canadian permanent resident. You can extend the visa upon graduation, but you’ll need to find a job in order to keep it. I, personally, did not find a job in Canada after graduating with a degree in English Literature, and so I was kindly asked to leave.

Uh… your welcome…?

As Seen in Kansas: Paul Boyer Gallery

Anyone taking a trip through the northern third of Kansas is probably taking Highway 36.

It's not as speedy and high-octane as I-70, on which I've never seen a speed limit enforced (at least, not once you get passed Topeka). And Route 36 certainly doesn't have the historical cachet of its venerable cousin Route 66.

In many ways, Highway 36 is just a utilitarian point-A-to-point-B strip of tarmac. But it still has it's fair share of interesting side excursions for those not too busy to get off the beaten path.

One of my favorites is the Paul Boyer Gallery in Belleville, Kansas.

According to the museum, Boyer began carving and working with small machines as a child in Michigan. But when he lost a leg during an accident at the age of 35, he threw himself into carving, drawing and sculpting to help occupy his time.

The result has been a life's work in animated sculptures, or cartoons brought into the kinetic art world. And though many so-called "art experts" would look down their noses and derisively call his work "folk art," in my humble opinion Boyer is one of the artistic treasures of Kansas.



Many of his sculpture do focus on the humorous. He has fashioned a style of big-nosed, saggy-breasted hillbilly characters to be the target of his mischievous sense of humor. That's on the surface. But what lies beneath is a dizzyingly complex set of clockworks that would give any steampunk fan squeals of delight.

And on what I consider his finest pieces, those complex mechanics become the art itself.

My personal favorite is a set of models of mechanical wings. I think the piece is titled (something like) "Flight of Man, Flight of Bird," and it wonderfully demonstrates the grace and subtlety of Boyer's artistic vision.



I've tried to capture it and a couple of my other favorites in this quick video, but my videographer skills pretty much suck. Anyway, you really must visit yourself to get the full effect. There is a minimal admission fee to the gallery, which is operated by Boyer's daughters and is open May through September, Wednesday through Saturday from 1-5 p.m.

tagged: Kansas, travel, Belleville, Paul Boyer, art, folk art, motion

As seen in Kansas: Kaw Point

An unusual set of coincidences Saturday resulted in all the women in my house being out on a girls date and me with no plans.

Free time is a rare commodity these days.

So because the weather was so great, and because I've been hearing a lot about Missouri River flooding, and because I've heard nice things about the place, I pinged Xavier Onassis, King of the Wild Frontier, to see if he wanted to go on photo safari at Kaw Point in KCK.

I've lived in the KC area for way more than a decade and never checked out Kaw Point. It's a really nice river front park/trail on the west bank of the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. And it has a remarkable view of downtown KCMO.

I've always thought rivers, and the concept of rivers, was a great metaphorical device. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not claiming that as an original thought. Far better minds than me have had the same notion.

The river is a strong reminder that we are here but briefly. Water flowed down these channels long before we put up buildings and bridges. And despite our levies, dredgings and sandbags, it will overflow it's banks again. In the not too distant future, it will wash all evidence of our existence out into the ocean, leaving behind only a substance that is too thick to drink and too thin to plow.

That's a bit maudlin. I also like the river as an illustration of how we're all connected. Water that rushed passed us on Saturday was a few days earlier in Montana and South Dakota. And the same power that can uproot trees and destroy towns, can also lead to natural renewal.

The river has a kind of memory of its own. And while it can reflect the natural beauty of our world …

… it can also show us some of our own ugliness.

The river also provides an opportunity for us to bridge it. Calling to mind higher ideals like our drive to overcome obstacles and connect people and places in a positive way.

tagged: As seen in Kansas, Kaw Point, Lewis and Clark, Kansas, Missouri, river, photo, Kansas City, driftwood, mud, bridge

Putting the T&A in TSA

Just a few of my own thoughts (well, I suppose I'm not the only one with these thoughts) to close out the discussion on the TSA's aggressive security screenings…

Our own Midtown Miscreant rightly pointed out the other day that airport security screenings are not really that much worse than anything most ex-cons experience on a daily basis during their time in the big house.

His basic point, as with other proponents of the new measures, is that yeah it sucks to treat everyday, law-abiding citizens like the worst criminal in the world, but you have to do it for safety.

Is it the perfect fool proof solution? No. But I've yet to hear a workable alternative.

And this is part of the problem. MM, like decreasing majority of the American public, has bought into the scare tactics employed by bureaucrats and lobbyists who basically say "If you don't let us take naked pictures of you and grope you, you are going to be killed by terrorists."

In fact, many security experts have gone on record as saying none of these tactics would have foiled any of the terror plots that we've seen. Furthermore, the recent "tonor cartridge bomb" plot was discovered by other, less intrusive security measures.

Now don't get me wrong. I'd probably avoid the super backscatter scanning X-Rays they're using since I'm not crazy about having 1.21 gigawatts of radiation sent through my body (I like my chromosomes they way nature intended, thank you very much).

Of course, those of you more worried about modesty than radiation might not feel all that comfortable with a bunch of mall cop rejects checking out high-resolution scans of your nether regions. If you're one of those people, you might want to invest twenty bucks in some special X-ray shielded panties.

Personally, I enjoy a good groping by strangers as much as the next guy. And while I might consider having a sweaty, overweight guy with bad breath put his latex glove-covered hands down my pants at the airport a bonus, I can certainly see how some might find it objectionable, even invasive.

What concerns me more, however, is how we got to where we are.

It's like we've lost our minds here. We've been scared witless, and we're not thinking rationally. All the threats we've heard of — Shoe Bomber, Crotch Bomber, Tonor Bombers — are threats from abroad. Yet now we're clamping down on flights from Kansas City to Tallahassee? And that was only three or four cases out of hundreds of millions of flights.

So these measures, which are really just a kind of theater to make people feel like they're safer, have little real effect on a statistically insignificant problem.

I think a better approach is prudent and reasonable police work. The Israeli approach is probably pretty good. Use multiple checkpoints with security people actually trained in spotting real suspects — not frisking your 5-year-old niece.

Let's use our brains, citizens.

And there's one other germ of a thought that's been bouncing around in my brain lately. We, as a society, are expecting way too much out of our government.

Sure, the government likes it that way. The self-perpetuating bureaucracy loves the opportunity to assume more and more our responsibilities and is happy to accept more of our money and liberty in exchange for trying to keep us safe.

But the truth is, we have no reasonable right to expect to be 100 percent safe 100 percent of the time. A long, safe, healthy life is great. But for human beings, that's the exception, not the rule.

If I had lived 100 years ago, I'd probably have died before I reached my 38th birthday. Now I realize we live in the future and we've made advances in medicine and technology, but we're on a course toward asking our government to encase the world in Nerf for our own protection.

Anyway, there may be more on that line of thinking later.

tagged: TSA, travel, security, screening, airport, privacy, freedom, panties

Guest Post: TSA is here to protect the ingrates

As you know, from time to time I'll post guest editorials about various topical subjects. These guest posts do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the editorial staff of 3 AM. Today's guest post is from Nathan R. Jessep, a mid-level Transportation Security Administration agent, in response to recent criticism of the agency's aggressive screening tactics.

What? So a few prissy travelers in their faggoty business suits think I'm invading THEIR privacy? That's funny! That's a joke!

You want the truth? You want the TRUTH!? You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has airports, and those airports have to be guarded by men with latex gloves. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Mr. Jillette?

I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom! You weep for your groped genitals and you curse the TSA. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that the groping of your private parts, while tragic, probably saves lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives!

You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about on your blogs and on Twitter, you want me in that airport! You need me in your underwear! We use words like "bend over", "spread 'em", "cop a feel". We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something.

You use them as a punchline!

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a country that rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very safety that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "Thank you," grabbed a tissue to wipe your tears, and went on your way.

Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a body cavity search kit, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

You fuckin' people. You have no idea how to defend an airport. All you'll do with your National Opt Out Day is weaken the illusion of safety that I provide. That's all you'll do. You'll put people's lives in danger.

Sweet dreams, son.

tagged: TSA, travel, security, screening, airport, Nathan R. Jessep, satire

Woohoo! Road trip!

A cool new headline in the old feed reader this morning read: US scientists find potentially habitable planet near Earth".

It turns out that planet Gliese 581g (orbiting the Red Dwarf star Gliese 581 — only 20 light years away) may have areas that would support human life.

The planet… is orbiting in the middle of the "habitable zone" of the red dwarf star Gliese 581, which means it could have water on its surface.

Liquid water and an atmosphere are necessary for a planet to possibly sustain life, even if it might not be a great place to live, the scientists said.

The planet… has a mass three to four times that of Earth and an orbital period of just under 37 days. Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet and has enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere…

Given the close proximity of Gliese 581g to Earth, it seems a road trip is definitely in order. But before you pack your bags, there are a few things you might want to keep in mind.

First, scientists say the planet is "tidally locked" to it's star, meaning it's always daytime on one side and always night on the other. The planet is theoretically habitable in the "twilight zone" where it's perpetually evening (or morning, depending on your perspective).

This isn't terrible, given that you potentially would have a nice romantic sunset all day long. Unfortunately in that habitable area, temperatures are thought to range from -24 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit — much like North Dakota.

The other hitch is that the planet is three to four times more massive that Earth. This is good, since it means that it can hold an atmosphere, which is nice if you plan on breathing.

But you'd better be in some pretty good physical shape by the time you get there. If you weigh in at a svelte 180 pounds on Earth, you'll have to lug around a 720 pound body on Gliese 581g. And that Quarter Pounder with Cheese that you packed for a snack just became a One Pounder with cheese.

Still, it may be cold, rocky, and dark, and it may make your butt look fat in those jeans, but I bet Gliese 581g is still ten times nicer than Uranus.

tagged: science, astronomy, planet, Gliese 581g, twilight zone, North Dakota, Uranus

As seen in Kansas: Fr. Kapaun Memorial

Catholic leadership has been taking a lot of heat recently, and rightfully so. You can't give tacit (or even blatant) approval to pedophilia without getting some pretty serious backlash.

People just aren't going to put up with it. Nobody should.

I'm not Catholic, and I'm not going to make any excuses for any of that stuff. But I do think it's important to point out that there are a lot of people, Catholic and otherwise, that have contributed a lot of good to the world.

One person in particular was Father Emil Kapaun, a Korean War hero from the tiny Kansas hamlet of Pilsen.

Kapaun was the son of Czech immigrants, grew up on a small Kansas farm and graduated from Conception Abbey seminary college north of Kansas City.

He was serving as an Army chaplain in Korea when his army unit was overrun by a Chinese invasion force. Rather than retreating with the main Army force, he stayed behind with his battalion, ministering to wounded and giving medical aide.

Eventually, Kapaun and about 40 soldiers found themselves huddled in a trench surrounded by hundreds of Chinese. To the soldiers, who had heard rumors of the Chinese "take no prisoners" policy, surrender was suicide. But with the mortar rounds falling, Kapaun worked with a captured Chines officer to negotiate a surrender. He risked being shot in the back to stop the execution of wounded American soldiers at the hands of the Chinese.

Soldiers who survived the Chinese attack say Kapaun's negotiation and bravery is responsible for saving the lives of 40 men that day.

In the North Korean POW camp, Kapaun made it his duty to ministered to the other prisoners and keep up their morale. There are many accounts of him giving up his food rations and other personal items to fellow prisoners.

He died of exhaustion and pneumonia in the POW camp at the age of 35.

The Army awarded Kapaun the Distinguished Service Cross, and there is currently a bill in Congress to award Kapaun the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government.

The Catholic Church declared Kapaun a Servant of God, and he has become a candidate for sainthood. If his canonization is approved, he will be only the third Catholic saint to be born in the United States.

In his hometown of Pilson, Kapaun is memorialized in a bronze statue depicting him helping a wounded soldier off the battlefield. There are also many schools, Army bases and chapels and other sites named in his honor throughout the state, country and even the world.

tagged: Kansas, history, Pilsen, Emil Kapaun, Korea, war, hero

As seen in Kansas: The final resting place of Fokker Niner Niner Easy

A week ago today, and 79 years, the coach stood frustrated at Kansas City Municipal Airport after missing a reunion with his two sons. He boarded the plane to California, there to consult on a movie commemorating his career, and would never see his sons again.

A few hours later, Knute Rockne and five other passengers and two crewmen of the Fokker 999E plummeted into the Kansas prairie and were killed instantly.

By some early accounts, a freak storm caused the plane to crash. Those of us who've lived in Kansas for a couple of years wouldn't doubt it, especially in that era of aviation. But further investigation concluded that the crash was caused by the catastrophic failure of a wing strut on the Fokker 10AF Trimotor plane.

Regardless of the cause, the result was a scorched spot in the Kansas Flint Hills. You can imagine what it must have been like for the first people on the scene. Weather probably much like today's weather. Cool morning, moist grass. The smell of gasoline and hot oil hanging in the air.

It was a rather gruesome tourist attraction for weeks. Kansans from the area, unfortunately, had little respect for the deceased or for Rockne's surviving sons, 14-year old Billy and 12-year-old Knute Jr., who had returned that day to Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City after an Easter vacation in Florida. Newspapers reported people slogging their way through muddy fields to the crash site to walk away with various chunks of debris as grisly souvenirs -- a chunk of rubber from the plane's tire or a piece of its rudder. There's even one account of a person claiming to have found a gold tooth at the crash the site.

In the years since, the sensation of the incident has worn off and the site has been treated with more respect. A small, tasteful memorial on the site has been maintained for decades by Easter Heatherman who, at the age of 13, was one of the first people to arrive at the crash to render aide. And the Matfield Green travel center along I-35 also has an exhibit commemorating the accident.

While tragic, the resulting investigation into the crash revealed a flaw in the wing spars caused by moisture weakening the wood laminate. All US airlines at the time were forced to ground their Fokker FA10s and many were discovered to have the same flaw. No doubt many more lives were saved.

Also, the intense public interest in the accident forced the Aeronautics Branch of the US Department of Commerce (forerunner of today's FAA) to abandon its policy of keeping the results of aircraft accident investigations secret.

tagged: Kansas, Knute Rockne, Fokker, airplane, crash, Flint Hills, Matfield Green

It's Spanish for "The Vegas"

Let me just get this out of the way up front. Las Vegas is a horrible, awful city.

I know that's just one blogger's opinion and there are a lot of people who disagree. But from my perspective, what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas.

I was there over the weekend for some business meetings and the experience reinforced my view that Vegas is the apotheosis of all of the worst qualities of America.

The visitor to Las Vegas is greeted with an eye-bludgeoning array of tasteless architecture and gaudy signage. It's frankly offensive to my sense of aesthetic. I like to think of myself as understated -- even minimalistic. That is something Las Vegas is not.

Each hotel/casino/resort has a more gregarious facade than the last. They encourage you to experience places like New York, Paris, Venice, Como and even Egypt -- all while staying within one wallet-lightening city. After all, why bother visiting the real Statue of Liberty or Rialto Bridge when you can visit a 1/3-scale replica and take a gondola ride in an in-door swimming pool?

Americans are having a real problem with artificiality. We eat artificial food, watch artificial television and go to artificial places. And I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if there just wasn't so damn much of it in Las Vegas.

The place is a monument to waste and excess. For cryin' out loud, it's a metro area of nearly two million people in the middle of a desert. Those residents and the millions of additional tourists each year using up water that used to flow down the Colorado River. Thanks to Vegas and other desert metropolises like Las Angeles and Phoenix, the Colorado River no longer has enough water to flow all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Hell, the water level in Lake Mead itself is at a historical low. Some scientist worry that it will soon be too low to run the hydroelectric generators in Hoover Dam.

And the natural resources waste is only slightly worse than the waste in fiscal resources Las Vegas represents. The entire city is built upon the proposition of taking money from people who have more cash than good sense.

But the sight of bleary eyed, hungover, newly broke frat boys is comical compared to the poverty that you see if you drive 10 minutes from the Las Vegas strip. There are people living in concrete block hovels (in the desert, mind you) just a mile or two from ostentatious water displays.

There's not really anything to be done about it. Las Vegas is just another example of Americans entertaining ourselves to death. Eventually there won't be enough water in Lake Mead to power the hydroelectric generators that provide electricity to Vegas. By that time our economy will have really crashed and nobody will have the cash to lose to the casinos, let alone pay the airfare and extra baggage fees to get to the middle of the desert in the first place.

But the food there is pretty good.

tagged: Las Vegas, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, casino, travel, waste, environmentalist

Eastbound and down

We were driving home from a weekend mission into the deepest reaches of darkest western Kansas Sunday evening.

The details and purpose of the mission are not germane to this post, its enough to point out that we passed the I-70 East toll plaza at about 17:15 hours for the last stretch to home sweet home. About two minutes and two miles later, I was hitting the brakes¹ as traffic was coming to a standstill.

Needless to say, there was some doin's a transpirin'.

We weren't exactly parked on the highway, but we were moving slow enough that no speed was registering on the car's speedometer. After about 5 minutes of barely moving, the ADD kicked in. I decided to do a little recon to pass the time.

Since there was no traffic in the westbound lanes, it was a fair deduction that there was some kind of traffic accident ahead. But where? And when? What caused it? The weather wasn't great, but it wasn't a blizzard either. Were any deaths involved? Any decapitations? Should I watch for rolling noggins along the median?

50 car pileup started by a sticking Toyota accelerator pedal

So many questions, but no answers on the radio. And there's only so much you can deduce when your stuck in your car. Luckily, it was a bout this time that I heard the familiar sonar ping that signals the arrival of a new email on my kickass phone. Since we're not really moving, I start my email app and see that the message is a news alert from KMBC apprising me of a traffic delay on I-70 (no duh!) because of a 50 CAR PILEUP! caused by a flash blizzard whiteout.

I share this intelligence with my Supermodel Wife, who wondered aloud whether the Kansas City Scout system might have any additional details.

So I started up the web browser on my phone/tricorder and typed in the www for the Scout's web page. Before we had driven another 50 feet, I had the latest report in the palm of my hand.

"Major incident," the report read. "West bound I-70 passed K-7 exit. 3 lanes closed..."

There wasn't a lot of detail, but there was one item of importance. The report indicated that authorities expected the lanes to be cleared at 6:36 p.m. I checked the time on my phone/tricorder/chronometer. It was about 5:50 p.m. and the traffic was showing no signs of improving. In fact, a flashing light up ahead was telling all cars to merge left.

So with no other choice but to crawl, passed the time chit chatting and making jokes at the expense of other vehicles on the highway. The big Frito-Lay truck was good fodder puns for a few minutes.

After a while, we began to see a little more room between the cars ahead of us and behind us. We began to move a little faster until, almost without knowing it, we were up to normal highway speed. I checked the clock on the car's console.

6:26 p.m.

It may have been a coincidence, but it was amazing how accurate the Scout system was. And it was amazing how awesome my phone technology was that I could access it. This is what it's like to live in the future.

1. I'm a jackass for misspelling this word before.

tagged: travel, Kansas City, car crash, pile up, I-70, technology, Scout

Movie Mini Review: Leap Year

Title: Leap Year

Cast: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode

Plot Summary: Boy meets girl. Boy and girl hate each other. Boy and girl go on epic journey full of contrived events. Boy and girl fall in love and live happily ever after. I blow my brains out.

My Thoughts: Let's face it. This is a chick flick. With no apologies and no pretensions to be anything more or less. As an unabashed chick flick, this movie automatically get's my "unscoreable" score. However, because it was honest, and for a couple of other reasons, I will say that this is one of the very few watchable chick flicks I've had to sit through.

So let me fill you in on what you won't miss. We are introduced the female lead, Anna Brady, while she's working at her job as a real estate stager (ooookay?) dressing up condos/houses so they will sell faster. Her girlfriend drops a hint one day that Anna's boyfriend was spotted carrying a little red box out of a high-class jewelry story and that a proposal was imminent.

Of course, the dude doesn't want to get married (the box contains a crummy pair of 40-carat diamond stud earrings). They're two modern, urbane, sophisticated adults who don't have to truck with such trivialities as marriage. Then Anna's dad tells her about this Irish tradition that states women can ask a man to marry her on Leap Day and he has to say yes.

So much for being modern and sophisticated. Anna, bitten by the romantic bug, hatches a plan to surprise her beau at a conference in Dublin. But fate conspires against her. On her way to Ireland, she's stranded in Wales during a storm. She insists on hiring the SS Minnow to sail her across the Irish Sea to Dublin. The boat is blown off course (of course), and lands in Dingle on the southwest end of Ireland. This makes no sense when you look at the geographical relationships between Cardiff, Dublin and Dingle. But this is a chick flick, so there you go.

Anyway, in Dingle she meets the male lead and proprietor of the local pub, Declan, who immediately hates her because she is entitled and annoying. But again, this is a chick flick, and as fate would have it, he needs a load of cash to stave off creditors. So he offers to drive Anna to Dublin for the low, low price of €500 (I think that's, like, $1,500).

The next hour or so is comprised of the couple's misadventures as they travel by jalopy, foot, train and buss to Dublin.You learn about the tragic romantic history of hunky Declan while the two are placed into painfully contrived situations forcing them to fall in love.

There are all kinds of plot holes and time line inconsistencies to complain about (uh, it's like two years until the next leap year), but only if you're paying attention. But the biggest offenses are the extremely cliche situations foisted upon the audience. The car breaking down, only one room at the inn that the two have to share, missing the train, accidentally stumbling into a wedding. PUHLEEEZE!!!

The writers (if there were any writers) pulled out every overused chestnut in the "Romantic Comedies for Dummies." Really, you could pretty much outline the entire movie after the first 10 (5 probably?) minutes. You knew who was going to get the girl and why, blah, blah, blah.

But, as I said, this particular chick flick ranks as one of the more watchable for one important reason: The locations.

For all that the movie lacks in plot and originality, it makes up (somewhat) in beautiful, breathtaking even, wide shots of the Irish countryside and the Dingle Peninsula. In fact, I found myself thinking more about the logistics involved in shooting some of the scenery than the actual story (which, let's face it, doesn't require a lot of cognitive bandwidth).

Final Rating: Zero out of five stars (But three out of 5 on the chick flick scale).



tagged: movie, review, Leap Year, Matthew Goode, Amy Adams, Ireland, Dingle Peninsula

Bianco

It was a minor special occasion in the 3AM household yesterday, so we decided to pop open a special bottle of the special wine we've been keeping in our wine cabinet.

(We have a wine cabinet because we're neither hoity nor toity enough to have a wine cellar. Although, to be fair, our wine cabinet is in the basement...)

The wine wasn't expensive and it wasn't really exotic. Not a vintage that you would find on a list of the World's Most Famous Wines.

What made it special was that we bought the bottle of Avignonesi Bianco during our tour of Italy way back in 2001. It was our last big trip as DINKs. The last time my wife and I threw in with our "gang" our hang-out friends, cashed in our frequent flyer points and took off to show the bella vita in Tuscany.

And what a great trip it was. From arriving in Paris, the overnight to the Ligurian Coast, then two and a half weeks soaking up all of the art, culture and fermented Tuscan grape juice we could stand.

One of the biggest highlights of the trip was a totally spontaneous and unplanned trip to the Avignonesi winery. We just dropped in, unannounced, and were treated to lunch and a tour by the manager and daughter and of one of the owners. we left a couple of hours later with a couple of cases of wine.

One of the last bottles of which we opened last night.

The Bianco di Toscana is what the Tuscans would call a table wine. A blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, it's meant to be enjoyed immediately. As I pulled the cork, I was concerned that we had waited too long to drink it. It's been nearly 10 years since it was bottled, after all.

But it held up from the first sip. The color was more golden that I had remembered and the flavor was excellent, pears and some apricot. A buttery flavor emerged after 15 minutes or so. The it paired will with the tilapia fillets we had for dinner, and even better with the Honeycrisp apples we had on the side (though it was absolutely retched with the Chocolate Teddy Grahams we had for dessert).

Anyway, the point is it was a great eventing with the family, made even more special by reliving good times.

I still recommend any of Avignonesi's offerings. Though I don't think they make the Bianco anymore, if you can find their Rosso and especially their Vino Nobile go ahead and pick up a couple of bottles. You could do a lot worse.

tagged: wine, Italy, Avignonesi, tilapia, honeycrisp, food, Teddy Grahams

YouTube Tuesday: Many sons and a lot of guns

VBS.tv visits the largest illegal gun market in the world in Darra, Pakistan in the Khyber Pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This is a fascinating look into the the culture of gun violence in this area of the world. According to the reporting, scrap metal from the many wars and invasions into Afghanistan is recycled into firearms. Deaf men and children work in stone hovels making 1,000 guns a day by hand. For the past 70 years.

That's a lot of guns.



tagged: Afghanistan, war, video, YouTube, VBS.com, Khyber Pass, Pakistan

A sort of Hjemkomst

One of my personal philosophies about travel is that you should do your best to seek out the historical and cultural flavor of where ever it is you find you've traveled to.

I think every place has something to discover. Sure, it might be an easier search in, say, Florence, Italy, than in Liberal, Kansas. But the there is there for the curious and persistent to discover.

It was this kind of thinking that had us spend a little extra time in Fargo during our Grizwaldesque Thanksgiving road trip to North Dakota.

Actually, the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center is in Moorehead, Minn. It hosts various local art and history exhibits, but the anchor tenant (pun intended) is the Viking replica ship, Hjemkomst.

The ship was the dream of Moorehead resident Robert Asp, who wanted to build a Viking ship and sail it to his ancestral home in Norway. For those of you who don't spreken Norwegian, Hjemkomst translates to "homecoming" and is pronounced (near as my non-Norwegian ear can tell) "yom-komst."

The hull of the Hjemkomst is 76 feet long and 17 feet wide. It took Asp eight years, 100 oak trees and 7,000 rivets to build.

In 1980, while I was busy trying to figure out a Rubik's Cube, Asp sailed the completed Hjemkomst on Lake Superior. Unfortunately he died of leukemia before he could attempt the voyage to Norway.

Two years after his death, four of Asp's children were part of a 12-person crew to finally attempt crossing the north Atlantic in the Hjemkomst. The 6,100 mile voyage was treacherous as the Viking ship was buffeted in a severe nor'easter.

A rogue wave hit the ship so hart that one of the hull timbers split. The crew faced sinking in the cold waters before plugging the breach with burlap sacks.

Hull breach caused by rogue wave in the North Atlantic.

The crew's quarters on the deck consisted of sleeping bags on wooden planks, just like the original Vikings used circa 890 AD (the planks, not the sleeping bags).

After more than two months at sea, the Hjemkomst pulled into the harbor at Bergen, Norway to the celebratory greetings of their cousins.

The museum plays a 30-minute documentary about the project before the tour. Admission is only $7 bucks a person for adults. The admission attendant let our 6-year-old daughter in for free. The ship exhibit allows you to get up close and touch the ship, see the water marks and get an idea of what life aboard the ship must have been like for the Americans in 1982 and for the Vikings in the ninth century.

tagged: travel, North Dakota, Fargo, Moorhead, Hjemkomst, Norwegian, vikings, ship

Borealis

Here are a few of the things I learned on during our Grizwaldesque Thanksgiving road trip to North Dakota:

• Fargo is aptly named. The only thing it's close to is West Fargo (and Moorhead which, it turns out, is not aptly named).
  
  
• Stay away from the biscuits and gravy at the Fargo Holiday Inn. "Stick to your ribs" must have a unique colloquial meaning in North Dakota.
  
  
• The people of North Dakota are super nice, but they misspell and mispronounce "barbecue."
  
  
• You can make it from Fargo to Sioux Falls on a single tank of gas... just barely.
  
  
• It's only a matter of time before there's a Space Aliens Bar and Grill at either The Legends or the P&L District. But they damn well better spell "barbecue" correctly.
  
  
• I spent hours along a lonely highway looking for that bag of money, but I didn't find it so it must still be there somewhere.

tagged: Fargo, North Dakota, travel, barbecue, Morehead

As seen in Kansas: Atomic Cannon

If you drive far enough west of Kansas City on 1-70, you eventually come to a bend where the highway cuts south with Fort Riley on the west side and a steep Flint Hills bluff to the east side.

If you're paying attention to the scenery instead of the traffic, you may notice at the top of the bluff just as the highway makes a westward turn, a rather large looking cannon.

And, if you've got some extra time, if you're feeling adventurous, if you need to stretch your legs and if the weather is nice, you can pull off the highway into Freedom Park and find out just what the dealio is with that rather large looking cannon anyway.

When you park, you'll see a park shelter with some historical information and a plaque describing one of the few US Army atomic cannons still in existence. You'll also see the beginning of a switch back trail that leads up to the top of the bluff for a close-up view of this nuclear titan.

As you make your way up the switch backs (which are currently riddled with washouts so watch your step), you'll see an artillery piece rise up out of the prairie grass in front of you.

This isn't the Atomic Cannon. It's a rather run of the mill (though still impressive) M1 155 mm Howitzer. There's another one up the hill, aimed roughly in the direction of south Junction City. The WWII-era gun was used widely by the U.S. through the Vietnam war and is still in use by some countries.

Anyhoo, follow the trail a few hundred yards to the top of the bluff, brace yourself against the ubiquitous Kansas gale and catch your breath.

You have arrived.

The M65 Atomic Cannon, affectionately called "Atomic Annie" by the grunts back in the day, stands guard against the Flint Hills prairie chickens and hawks.

Standing next to the impressive weapon you get a sense of scale that you simply can't appreciate when you drive by at 80 mph on I-70 a couple hundred feet below.

The engineers behind this beast had some serious damage in mind when they came up with the idea of building a cannon that could fire a nuclear-tipped shell over 20 miles.

Yes, 20 miles. In it's current position, that puts the recently tornado ravaged hamlet of Chapman, Kan, well within range. Or, you could point the barrel in the opposite direction and lob a radio active round right into downtown Manhattan, though I don't know why anyone would want to do that.

The M65 was conceived and built to defend Europe from those evil Soviet devils back in a time when people used the word "atomic" rather than "nuclear" (or "nookyoular" for that matter).

It was the army's largest artillery gun, and the one at Ft. Riley is the largest of the twenty M65's made during the cold war. Only eight are still around. The one at Ft. Riley is on permanent loan from The Smithsonian.

Here are a few other fun facts about Atomic Annie:

• At 47 tons, the gun was transported at a top speed of 35 mph by two tractors which brought the total weight to 83 tons. The army considered it "highly mobile" in comparison to the strategic atomic weapons of the day.
• The drivers of the vehicles communicated with each other by means of a built-in telephone system.
• The 11-inch projectile fired by the gun weighed in at 550 pounds.
• The atomic cannon first went into service in 1952, and was deactivated in 1963.

tagged: gun, artillary, cold war, Atomic Cannon, Soviet, nuclear, Fort Riley, Kansas, Howitzer, Army, Military

As seen in Kansas: The answer, my friend...

It was an impressive site, even from 10 miles away.

The crystal clear sky and the straight and horizontal nature of I-70 west of Salina made the turbines of the Smokey Hills Wind Project visible long before we were actually along side it.

I'd been hearing about the wind farm project for months, and we had been as far west a Salina a couple of times but never drove the extra 20 miles to see it for ourselves.

So we took advantage of some free time while visiting the in-laws this past weekend to do just that.

The approach to the giant, electricity producing windmills is impressive. Whizzing past at 75 miles per hour on I-70, it's impossible for the first-time spectator not to be impressed. The turbines are truly on a monumental scale.

It's difficult to appreciate the size of these wind turbines.
For a sense of scale, note the conventional Kansas windmill
next to the trees in the foreground.

The farm, developed by TradeWind Energy of Lenexa, began producing 100.8 megawatts of electricity early this year when construction on the 56 turbines in Phase 1 was completed.

By the end of 2008, project planners say Phase II will be online, bringing the total to 155 wind turbines generating 250 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power a city of 45,000.

According to TradeWind Energy, the project will offset 450,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

One of the most dramatic (of many) views of the turbines was as we were traveling back east toward Salina. To get an idea of the monumental size of these power producers, the turbines above are about a mile north of the highway (and the SUV pictured in the lower left).

It's good to see Kansas playing in the home-grown energy game, beyond creating coal-fired nuclear power plants.

As a life-long Kansas, I can attest to the constant availability of wind power. Harnessing it seems like a no-brainer. It seems clear that wind power should be a part of the domestic energy mix that the US desperately needs to develop.



tagged: Kansas, Salina, energy, science, wind, Smokey Hills, environmentalist

Random Photo XI: Grand Canal (in miniature)

I was trying out a tilt-shift Photoshop technique that I recently read about. I chose a picture from our trip to Italy a few years ago.

Click to enlargify...

Venice, Grand Canal, 2001

What do you think?

tagged: Venice, Italy, Grand Canal, photo, Photoshop, picture, tilt shift technique

Cleared for takeoff

The corporate travel group at work sent out an email recently to apprise me of a great corporate perk.

We all had the chance to sign up for a service that will allow us to bypass security lines at most major airports around the country.

If you've flown recently, you've probably seen the booths for this company, Clear, popping up at airports near you. I've seen them in San Francisco, Atlanta and New York.

I only travel two or three times a year, but after my most recent experience at the Atlanta airport my interest in such a service was piqued. Who needs, thought I, a four hour security ordeal?

So I nibble on the bait sent out in the email and go to the Clear website for more info. The price, $130 bucks, is a bit steep, especially for a infrequent traveler like myself. My company wouldn't pick up the expense, but I might be able to justify it anyway based on some vacation travel we're planning for later in the year.

So I read on, and here's where they lose me.

Part of the "enrollment" process is that you have to give at least two pieces of approved government-issued identification to some stranger at one of their airport kiosks. Also, you have to voluntarily allow them to capture images of your irises and fingerprints, as well as a photograph.

So you're basically paying $130 to add your ID (finger prints and retinal scan) to a database that you can be damn sure will get into government hands -- maybe added to a list of some kind?

Now my knowledge of history isn't as good as, say, a San Francisco free-Tibet hippie freak, but I'm pretty sure that this kind of list would be similar to the kinds of list that people with names like Hitler and Stalin used.

And even if I'm wrong on that count, I KNOW that this kind of thing has been a significant concept in all kinds of post-apocalyptic dystopian literature and movies.

Look, I'm too paranoid to even use my real name on an inconsequential blog read by a bunch of losers (no, not you, you're the cool one). I'm still trying to figure out how to stop the NSA from tracking my Google searches. I need to focus on making sure my own government isn't using the British traffic cameras to spy on me.

There's no way a tinfoil hat-wearing, government-not-trusting, X-Files-believing suspicious sunuvabich like me is going to freely turn over my freaking retinal scan to the gubmint!

Don't even waste my time.

Now, I gotta go renew my Hen House shopper rewards card.

tagged: clear, privacy, travel, retina scan, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta