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C-Notes, Part 9
Assorted thoughts in 100 words or less

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MAY 24, 2006:

I found this pair of pictures among my family's mementoes.  The only label identifies them as "Cabinet Portraits" by Miller & Bridges of Caldwell, Ohio.  My guess is that they are of my great-grandparents, Mary E. Curtis Buckingham (1851-1937) and J. Thomas Buckingham (1850-1908), and that the portraits were made within ten years or so of the 1885 birth of my grandfather Harry.

 

MARCH 31, 2006:

In light traffic, the aggressive driver switches from lane to lane and rockets past everyone else.

In moderate traffic, the aggressive driver hits his brakes several times a minute.  You can spot him by his blinking red lights.  Impatiently, he pulls up close behind the car ahead, then has to slow down to avoid a collision.

The safer driver leaves a little more space and rarely has to use his brakes.  An engineer has concluded that avoiding tailgating actually results in better traffic flow not just for the safer driver, but for his fellow travelers as well.

 

APRIL 21, 2006:

When I was in college, musical synthesizers were a fairly new development.  One afternoon I attended a performance at Warner Concert Hall of a new composition for tape recorder and string quartet.


The entrance to the concert hall as seen from the Japanese garden.  Silk screen print, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, by Kate Emlen Chamberlin.

The tape machine was set up on stage alongside the human musicians, and after they had warmed up as usual, someone pressed a button and the tape sounded an "A."  The musicians tuned their instruments to match it.  This is a perfectly reasonable extension of the usual tuning procedure, but the audience giggled at the idea of a robot concertmaster. 

 

MAY 5, 2006:

Suggested in an article by Free Inquiry's David Park Musella:

Baseball infielders originally stood near the three bases.

 

When a fourth infielder was added, he couldn't be the "4th baseman" — there was no 4th base.  Instead, he was slotted between 2nd and 3rd and given a special title.

Likewise, there are generally three full moons per season:  first, middle, last.

Approximately every three years, a season has a fourth full moon.  But it doesn't become the new "last."  It's slotted between middle and last and called a "blue moon."

Thus, once in a blue moon means on rare occasions.

MAY 24, 2006:

"I like your aftershave," the waitress said to me at breakfast.  "It reminds me of my father."

Upon reflection, I realized that I had been using a 30-year-old bottle of Brut that I had found in the back of the medicine cabinet.  That explains why it brought back memories of the previous generation.

If I want to remind the waitress of her grandfather, I have half a bottle of Seaforth! further back in the cabinet.  My father's dealership gave away this Old Spice knockoff to introduce the new 1955 Chevrolets.

 

JULY 24, 2006:

For me, most days are too chilly.  Winter, with temperatures in the 30s or below, lasts 27 weeks.

Or they're too hot.  Summer, with temperatures in the 80s or above, lasts 11 weeks.

The temperate seasons Spring and Fall are short, only about seven weeks each.

I calculated these numbers today from a graph of average temperatures for my old hometown.

"Spring" is seven weeks long, from about April 25 (lows exceed 40°) until June 15 (highs exceed 80°).

"Fall" is another seven weeks, from about September 1 (highs drop below 80°) until October 20 (lows drop below 40°).

JULY 20, 2006:

This USA Today story quoted six sources.  I ignored their names; passenger "Alfred Caproni of North Adams, Mass." means nothing to me.

But then at the end, somebody named Brams calls the incident "the most bizarre thing he's seen."

How much has he seen?  What are his qualifications to make that statement?  In short, who is Brams?

I rescanned the whole story before realizing that Brams was identified in the preceding paragraph.

l

passengers safely over the past
eight years.  They have an al-
most unblemished safety rec-
ord, says Mike Driscoll, editor of
Cruise Week newsletter.
   Benson says Princess is giv-
ing passengers on this week's
cruise full refunds and will pay
for any out-of-pocket expenses
related to the incident.  UBS
stock analyst Robin Farley esti-
mates that will cost Princess'
parent company, Carnival,
$6 million to $10 million.
   Travel agencies with custom-
ers on upcoming Princess sail-
ings say they're being flooded
with calls.  "Nobody is looking
to cancel," says David Brams of
World Wide Cruises in Fort
Lauderdale.  "I think most peo-
ple realize this is a fluke thing."
   Brams says the incident is
the most bizarre thing he's
seen in nearly 20 years in the
business.  "It's very unusual."

-

-

News articles should follow the style of some "notebook" columns by printing people's names in boldface on first reference, to make them easier to find again later.

l

passengers safely over the past
eight years.  They have an al-
most unblemished safety rec-
ord, says Mike Driscoll, editor of
Cruise Week newsletter.
   Benson says Princess is giv-
ing passengers on this week's
cruise full refunds and will pay
for any out-of-pocket expenses
related to the incident.  UBS
stock analyst Robin Farley esti-
mates that will cost Princess'
parent company, Carnival,
$6 million to $10 million.
   Travel agencies with custom-
ers on upcoming Princess sail-
ings say they're being flooded
with calls.  "Nobody is looking
to cancel," says David Brams of
World Wide Cruises in Fort
Lauderdale.  "I think most peo-
ple realize this is a fluke thing."
   Brams says the incident is
the most bizarre thing he's
seen in nearly 20 years in the
business.  "It's very unusual."

 

MAY 25, 2006:

Photo from 1993 Pitt Football Media Guide.  Pitt Stadium was razed after the 1999 season.  (That's Fitzgerald Field House in the background).

Televising football at Pitt was tough.  TV trucks parked in the lot on the right.  We obtained electricity from a lighting pole, but we had to stop traffic to "fly" audio and video cables above the street to the rickety pressbox.

Once a PSU-Pitt game had just begun.  A crowd of late-arriving spectators was still outside the nearby gate.  Suddenly, our power went out.  Someone had switched it off at the pole.  I think a frustrated fan tried to turn off the lights and delay the game long enough to get inside.  All he killed was our taping.

 

APRIL 23, 2006:

“First we give the punch line, and afterwards we set up the situation.  That’s stupid!  Once the reader figures out what we're talking about, he has to go back and read the punch line again.  Hopefully, the second time he gets it.”

— Graphics operator Tom Thomas, complaining about this oft-used "Quote of the Day" format in which the speaker and context are not revealed until the end of the graphic

 

JULY 16, 2006:

At the end of a sports event, we telecasters seek out jubies and bummage.

Jubies are scenes of jubilation, with the winning athletes hugging each other and proclaiming their number oneness.

Bummage refers to scenes of the bummed-out losers as they stare blankly or hang their heads.

To tell the story, we include both.  But, like any good game show, we lean towards jubies and happiness.

Incidentally, in a women's volleyball game I can best figure out which team has won a point by noting which team is engaging in the ritual jubies of mutual post-point congratulation.

 

JULY 26, 2006:

When our baseball crew is on the road but not televising a day game, some of us — freed from our TV truck — watch the game from the empty booth assigned to the visiting TV announcers.

At Wrigley Field about 1990, I found myself in the booth to the right of Harry Caray as he rose in the middle of the seventh inning to lead the crowd in "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

Some 38,000 people turned their faces in my general direction, enthusiastically singing a traditional tune. 

Let me hear ya!  (file photo)

It was like the biggest birthday party ever.

 

TBT

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