Ya Winn Some, Ya Lose Some

Thought for the day:  A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history... with the possible exception of handguns and tequila. [Mitch Radcliffe]

Like J.H. Goldfuss said, There is only one satisfying way to boot a computer.

Right. Actually, I can't blame my computer. Or my camera. It's (gulp) ME. (Ohhhh, the shame of it all...)

See, I had easy peasy plans for today's post. Last weekend, we went someplace really cool, and I took a bunch of pictures. So far, so good, right? Just post the pictures, add a comment here and there, and BANG! Done!

Except... I, um... lost the pictures. (And shhhh! This isn't the first time I've done it.) Talk about an oopsie moment! Somewhere between trying to transfer them from my camera to my computer, they got... lost. And natch, they automatically deleted from my camera, too. I found a folder where they should be, but I can't open it. Found two pictures, but the rest? Who knows where they are? So much for all of those cool pictures. (sigh)

So I found a handful of pics on Wikipedia and on our county's Historical Society webpage. They'll have to do.

[Gwinnett Historical Society]

We spent a sunny Saturday morning at a fun fair at the Elishu Winn House. The house was built in 1812, and served many government functions in the early days of our county. The barn's third floor served as a courthouse, and our county's first elections were held in the parlor. The county's first jail... which was actually a small barn... was also located here... and the first executions by hanging were carried out here, as well. This picture is the before picture... what the house looked like prior to restoration.

[wikipedia]

THIS is what the house looks like now. Touring the house was like taking a step back into history. The furniture! The quilts! The toys!

(ahem) Guess you'll have to take my word for it.

A one-room schoolhouse.

The jail.

The privy. Nope, I didn't go inside.

A couple re-enactors. Really nice guys.

One of the guns in action. The pics I took showed both guys shooting at the same time, and lots of smoke. (sigh) You'll have to take my word for it.

Well, dang. Now I can't find the two pics that I'd located before. (I'm beginning to suspect I'm too stupid to own a computer...) They were shots of the blacksmith at work. In addition to two fellas doing that hot work, there were other demonstrators, as well, showing things like weaving, quilting, and lace-making. Lots of interesting stuff to see. Lots of booths set up under white tents. Vendors selling food, artwork, crafts, etc. It was a fun outing, and I'm totally bummed I lost all those pictures. After spending waaaay too long trying to find them, I then spent waaaaay too long trying to find a funny essay about a grandfather grumbling about technology. No luck there, either.

But I did find this, a poem that I bet will resonate with a bunch of you. Unfortunately, I don't know who wrote it. I didn't, but I sure do relate to a lot of it...

A POEM -- THAT WAS US

A little house with three bedrooms,
One bathroom and one car on the street
A mower that you had to push
To make the grass look neat.

In the kitchen on the wall
We only had one phone,
And no need for recording things,
Someone was always home.

We only had a living room
Where we would congregate,
Unless it was at mealtime
In the kitchen where we ate..

We had no need for family rooms
Or extra rooms to dine.
When meeting as a family
Those two rooms would work out fine.

We only had one TV set
And channels maybe two,
But always there was one of them
With something worth the view

For snacks we had potato chips
That tasted like a chip.
And if you wanted flavor
There was Lipton's onion dip.

Store-bought snacks were rare because
My mother liked to cook
And nothing can compare to snacks
In Betty Crocker's book

Weekends were for family trips
Or staying home to play
We all did things together -
Even go to church to pray.

When we did our weekend trips
Depending on the weather,
No one stayed at home because
We liked to be together

Sometimes we would separate
To do things on our own,
But we knew where the others were
Without our own cell phone

Then there were the movies
With your favorite movie star,
And nothing can compare
To watching movies in your car

Then there were the picnics
at the peak of summer season,
Pack a lunch and find some trees
And never need a reason.

Get a baseball game together
With all the friends you know,
Have real action playing ball -
And no game video.

Remember when the doctor
Used to be the family friend,
And didn't need insurance
Or a lawyer to defend

The way that he took care of you
Or what he had to do,
Because he took an oath and strived
To do the best for you

Remember going to the store
And shopping casually,
And when you went to pay for it
You used your own money?

Nothing that you had to swipe
Or punch in some amount,
And remember when the cashier person
Had to really count?

The milkman used to go
From door to door,
And it was just a few cents more
Than going to the store.

There was a time when mailed letters
Came right to your door,
Without a lot of junk mail ads
Sent out by every store .

The mailman knew each house by name
And knew where it was sent;
There were not loads of mail addressed
To "present occupant"

There was a time when just one glance
Was all that it would take,
And you would know the kind of car,
The model and the make

They didn't look like turtles
Trying to squeeze out every mile;
They were streamlined, white walls, fins
And really had some style

One time the music that you played
Whenever you would jive,
Was from a vinyl, big-holed record
Called a forty-five

The record player had a post
To keep them all in line
And then the records would drop down
And play one at a time.

Oh sure, we had our problems then,
Just like we do today
And always we were striving,
Trying for a better way.

Oh, the simple life we lived
Still seems like so much fun,
How can you explain a game,
Just kick the can and run?

And why would boys put baseball cards
Between bicycle spokes
And for a nickel, red machines
Had little bottled Cokes?

This life seemed so much easier
Slower in some ways
I love the new technology
But I sure do miss those days.

So time moves on and so do we
And nothing stays the same,
But I sure love to reminisce
And walk down memory lane.

With all today's technology
We grant that it's a plus!
But it's fun to look way back and say,
HEY LOOK, GUYS, THAT WAS US!
************

Some of us, anyway. Can you relate to any of the stuff in the poem? Did you ever fetch bottles of milk from your front porch in the early morning, and find the cold weather had popped the top off above a big pile of yukky cream? (NOT a pleasant memory...) Have YOU ever managed to lose photos when you were trying to move them from your camera to your computer? Please tell me I'm not the only one.  (I sure never had this kinda trouble with my trusty ol' Brownie or Instamatic...)

                         Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

What a Way to Go!

Thought for the day: According to research, an average of forty thousand Americans are injured by toilets each year.

Forty thousand??? Well, that stinks, doesn't it?

Supposedly, these injuries occur in a multitude of rather creative ways. Lots of little boys sustain a major owie if the lid unexpectedly slams down when they're learning to use the big boy toilet, and I bet a bunch of 'em revert to a the-hell-with-that diaper-only attitude afterwards. But there are also cases of adults (even sober ones!) literally falling from commodes, of others pinching their bottoms in broken seats, and even instances of bites unceremoniously delivered to their buttocks by lurking black widow spiders. Then there's the folks who sit on the pot for so long... reading a book, working a puzzle, whatever... that their legs fall asleep, and they fall flat on their faces when they try to stand. (Technically, I don't think those injuries should be blamed on the poor toilets, do you?) Oh, and before you folks in other countries start feeling too smug about American carelessness, rest assured, folks in your countries probably incur numerous injuries while going about their business, too. My guess is your sneaky loos are every bit as culpable as our perilous potties.

If you find a lizard sitting on a toilet, is he a commode-o dragon?

(ahem) Okay, let's get serious. Forget about those minor bathroom incidents. They're nothing! Just as President Roosevelt spoke of a date which will live in infamy, I'm gonna tell you about a toilet that truly went down in infamy...

[image courtesy of wikimedia]

The saying about loose lips sinking ships was prevalent in the military during WWII, but it wasn't loose lips that led to the demise of Germany's U-1206. Believe it or not, it was a toilet.

[image courtesy of Buchandivers.com]

The U-1206, a VIIC class submarine, wasn't huge. Just over twenty feet abeam and 221 feet long, it supported a very... close... crew of fifty. Pretty much packed in there like human sardines, those poor guys had no choice but to be a tightly-knit group, and to make matters worse, they were forced to share one stinking toilet. (Do you think new crew members received relief maps to help them find it...?) There were actually two heads on the sub, but the one located next to the galley was used to store food, so the crew was left with one.  Not the best circumstances, as you can imagine. Especially if they ate a lot of beans, sauerkraut and sausages. (The wurst!) Just think of it. All of those men jammed together in close quarters. Poor ventilation. Stuffy. Sweaty. BO out the wazoo. The pervasive scents of diesel fuel and grease... not to mention the lingering smell of that aforementioned kraut and wurst.

But, wait! There was often another... pervasive aroma.  U-boat toilets had no holding tanks. They flushed directly into the ocean, but because of water pressure, they could only flush when the sub was at or close to the surface.  Soooooo.... when the sub was down deep, the men had to store their stuff in buckets and cans until they resurfaced, adding yet another level of olfactory hell to the tight-quartered mix. (If they'd had a mascot, its name would've been Stinker Bell.) 

The solution? A new and improved high-pressure toilet that could flush at those deeper depths.

Problem was... those toilets were so difficult to operate, they came with complicated instruction  manuals, and a crew member actually had to be trained as a toilet-flushing specialist. I kid you not. (Think they called him Flush Gordon...?]

[image courtesy of wikimedia]

So anyhow, on April 14, 1945, the U-1206 was cruising off the shore of Scotland at a depth of approximately 200 feet when first-time sub commander Captain Schlitt had the urge to, um... use that new and improved toilet. While doing his duty, he read the manual, and afterwards, he tried to follow the complicated directions to flush.

Oopsie! Problem. Didn't work. Then when the toilet specialist came to assist, he made matters worse. Not realizing that Schlitt had already opened the inside valve, he opened the outside valve to the sea.

Oopsie! Bigger problem. Instead of what was in the toilet being flushed out of the sub, the ocean was now flooding into the toilet... and into the sub.

Flush Gordon managed to close the valve, but their problems weren't over. Now they were reeeeeeally up Schlitt Creek without a paddle. In a less-than-brilliant engineering decision, the sub's batteries were located directly below the toilet... and now they were being drenched with salt water. The result? Deadly chlorine gas, which was rapidly filling the U-boat.

If they were going to survive, they had no choice but to surface. Which they did, making themselves visible and vulnerable to attack. An allied plane promptly dropped a bomb, which caused enough damage to make re-submersion impossible, so Schlitt ordered the crew into lifeboats and scuttled the sub. One man died in the bombing attack, and three fell overboard and drowned. Thirty-six were rescued by small boats, and ten made it to shore in their lifeboats and were captured. Those 46 weren't POWs for long, because the war ended 24 days later.

However, their U-1206 became the one... and only... warship in history to be doomed by its own... Schlitter.

Maybe I should ask Smarticus to install something like this. You know, for our own safety...

                        Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

Oopsie Moments Gone Bad

Thought for the day:  Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important. [Janet Lane]

[reddit]

 Have you ever done something so bone-headed, you would've liked to hide your head in a bag for a while? Or to crawl in a hole and lie low until things blew over?

Nowadays, that's easier said than done. Now that every Tom, Dick, and Mary seem to carry a phone capable of taking photos, and then they immediately post said pics on the Internet for all the world to see, doing something idiotic has never been more open to public scrutiny.

When out on a group date many years ago... in the good old days... after we all gorged ourselves on pizza, I was trying to be as fast as possible in the rest room, because I didn't want to keep everyone waiting. In my haste, I obviously didn't pull my red-and-white striped petti-pants (WITH a spiffy white fringe!) all the way up, because as we were walking to our cars, they, um... fell down! (Leading my date to refer to me as Droopy Drawers for some months afterwards.) It was hilariously embarrassing, but the other giggling gals very kindly shielded me from view while I yanked them back up again. Nowadays, something like that would have (shudder) been immortalized on the Internet forever. One moment of embarrassments turned into a lifetime's embarrassment... UGH!

Anyhow, what follows is a post that originally appeared on March 29, 2011 with the title Under the Looking Glass? It didn't get many visitors back then, so it will be new to almost all of you.

****************************

Thought for the day: No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

Ever have one of those great big oopsie moments? You know, where you do something unbelievably stupid and just pray nobody's watching? Or if they are, you hope they have a really crappy memory?

One of my stupid moments was caught under a brilliant spotlight. Lucky me, huh?

I was a senior in high school at the time, and was selected by my drama teacher to perform a scene from  Tea and Sympathy for a big PTSA open house. Now, I was a bit of a nerd, meaning I was all about the academics, and drama was an elective course for me. I enjoyed it, and was okay at it, but Meryl Streep I wasn't. Still, I was pretty excited at the idea of showing my stuff.

Unfortunately, my friend and fellow nerd Robby, who happened to be manning the spotlight, was also interested in showing my stuff...

In the scene, I was an "older woman" who was about to (ahem) get up-close and personal, shall we say, with a younger man. My closing line was, Years from now... when you talk about this... and you will... be kind. While delivering the line, I was also slowly unbuttoning my blouse. And oh man, I really nailed that line, if I must say so myself. That line was supposed to be the cue for my smart-ass buddy to fade the spotlight to darkness.

It would've been oh-so-dramatic.

Was supposed to be dramatic, damn it.

My "buddy" thought it'd be great fun to leave the light on to see what I would do. Oh yeah, it was hysterical.

So what did I, the academic nerd, do? I looked straight at the spotlight and snarled, "LIGHTS!"

Kinda spoiled the effect, ya know? (But he DID douse the light.)

OK, you got me. This isn't me, but it's pretty much how I FELT, only with a little more hair ...

Anyhow, what made me think about all this was the incredible train wreck I observed on the internet yesterday. A self-published writer from England committed an enormous oopsie. She had what amounted to an emotional melt-down over a review of her book. The funny thing was, the review wasn't even all that bad. The reviewer said that her story was quite good, actually, but because of the plentiful spelling and grammatical errors, he gave her a two-star rating. That should've been the end of it. But it wasn't. Her subsequent postings, which by the way, were chock full of misspellings, grammatical errors, and tortuously convoluted syntax, were laced with profanities. Dropped the f-bomb a couple times. Snarled at anyone and everyone who tried to soothe her anger or offer guidance. Insisted that there was nothing wrong with her writing, although, clearly, there was. All of this, mind you, on a website frequented by other writers, agents, and publishers. More and more people joined the fray, as news of the "happening" spread through Twitter and other websites.

She single-handedly put herself in the spotlight, and then committed professional suicide. It's a shame, really, but I suppose she could always ... change her name.

But the bottom line here is: remember, on the internet, you're more than in a spotlight.

                                                You're under the looking glass.

And it doesn't matter if the people watching you screw up have a crappy memory, either. Once it's on the internet, it STAYS on the internet... providing a potential eternity of shame. Thank God YouTube wasn't around when I was a teenager. For that, I am eternally grateful. (I'll bet YOU are, too!)

                                    Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.