The other day I watched a wonderful documentary:

I realized this morning walking to work that this is the last day I will walk this route. The next time I walk to work I will be going to the new Public Safety Complex where our new dispatch center is located.
Here is a map showing the route I’ve been walking all these year in blue. It’s 1.3 miles. The new route is the one in red. It’s 2.0 miles.

I figure my walking time will increase by about 15 minutes.

I will take my camera and get some pictures of the new building and the new center to post here shortly.

This past weekend we went out of town to visit kids and buy some shoes and clothes for LaRue. At one point in the mall when she was looking at dresses I wandered over to a game store and picked up the following items:

Forbidden Island is a new game from the designer of Pandemic. It is a cooperative game where the players are trying to retrieve treasures from a sinking island. It’s a race against the game’s mechanics. I haven’t had a chance to read the rules yet, but just glancing through them it seems fairly easy to figure out. I’m looking forward to playing this one.
The other game is a card game – Family Fluxx. It’s one of the many Fluxx games which use the same rules and mechanics as standard Fluxx so it should be a lot of fun.

On the trip I also took out my old classical guitar to see if it could be repaired. It has a slight warping issue. Unfortunately, the guitar repair shop said it would be best to just retire the old guitar. But it does still play so I am going to restring it anyway. I did look at some of the guitars they had but the prices were quite a bit out of my range.

Later at the mall we walked past a music store that also had guitars. These were a bit less expensive since they were factory instead of hand made. But they did not have a classical guitar similar to what I was seeking. Then we spotted their selection of electric guitars and saw this combination that was too good to pass up. So I bought the follow:

It’s a Fender Squier with amp and all the accessories. I used to have an electric guitar, but traded it to a kid back in 1971 for a set of skis and a ski rack. It will be interesting and fun to play with an electric again after all these years.

Earlier this week I picked up the newest animated movie from DC:

Batman: Under the Red Hood

I have read a lot of good things about this one and really enjoyed all the other animated features they have released thus far. I am looking forward to taking the time to watch this one along with all the extra features.
————————————————–
After seeing this picture online I decided it would be worth building a two story house just to have a staircase like this one:

I had a nice Father’s Day. I had to work, but came home to a really nice meal.

I received an email from Liz. She informed me that since LaRue and I will be coming to Provo this Friday, she was not going to mail my present to me. I have to go to her house to pick it up:

I’m really excited to get this. It reminds me that I need to take my guitar to the music shop and have it looked at. It’s slightly warped and some of the strings do not clear the frets quite enough when playing resulting in the distorted sound. I took it to the guy several years ago for some work and he raved about the sound quality. I have had this guitar since 1964 and it was about 40 years old then. I like it a lot but would consider buying another one just for practice playing.
Anyway, I’m quite anxious to get this book and start playing some more.

I finished Flash Forward this morning. While it is not a full fledged novel, it is much longer than a short story. I did not read it because of the tv series; I have never watched any of the tv show based on the story.
I found the book interesting from the standpoint of the dilemmas faced by certain characters. The heavy science elements I just skimmed over since it didn’t really add that much to the events of the story.
There is one tense situation near the end of the story that had me “turning” pages rather rapidly. I put turning in quotes since I read it on my Kindle. But I found the ending a bit too bizarre and unsatisfying. However, I might see what else I can find by the author and try something else.
In the meantime I’m looking through the books I currently have on my Kindle. There are several old favorites like Dune, Childhood’s End, Tarzan of the Apes, etc. And a couple I have never read – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, The Living Shadow (the first Shadow story from the 1930’s), the second Sword of Truth book and the second Dresden Files novel – Fool Moon.
Life is just full of decisions.

I was recently prowling around the Internet Archive and came across a couple of Tarzan movies I hadn’t seen. So I took the time to download both. I will put links to the Archive pages below.

To begin with is the first Tarzan movie ever made – the 1918 silent film Tarzan of the Apes. Edgar Rice Burroughs was involved with this movie and it shows. The story depicted here is the closest to the actual novel than any movie has ever been since. The movies starred Gordon Griffith as the young Tarzan and Elmo Lincoln as the adult Tarzen. Enid Markey was Jane. Because he portrayed the young Tarzan it is technically correct to say that Gordon Griffith was the first actor to be Tarzan.

The second one is the 1935 film The New Adventures of Tarzan. It shows Tarzan as the character he was in the novels – an English Lord. This film is a condensed version of a 12 part serial – Tarzan and the Green Goddess.
I think that when this film was released a lot of people had never seen much footage of Africa because there are very long segments of scenery inserted into the film; almost too long. Having seen this I ordered the 12 part serial. Right now it is less than $6 on Amazon.

Links:
1918 Tarzan of the Apes I downloaded the 426 Meg DivX file.

New Adventures of Tarzan I downloaded the 3.5 Gb Mpeg2 file.

Elmo Lincoln

Enid Markey

Gordon Griffith

This house is located at 1702 Calumet Avenue in Beloit, Wisconsin. In 1954 it’s the address we lived at when I was 2 years old.

Earlier this afternoon I pulled out the old family album that has pictures going back to 1951. There are lots of old black and white pictures of my brother and me as babies. Near the end of the album that address was written above one of the pictures.

So, I went to Google Maps to see if the address still existed. And I found the house pictured above. I have verified it as the house where we lived by comparing the various Google views with pictures in the family album.

This is amazing because it is the only place I have ever found based on an address of anywhere we lived when I was growing up. I wish I knew some of the other addresses so I could search them out as well.

Don’t tell anyone….but last Thursday was my 58th birthday. We were out of town that day in Provo and the kids conspired to give me a little surprise party. We went to Andy’s house where they had prepared a birthday breakfast complete with birthday cake and more candles than I could count.
I got some really nice cards that had pictures of the presents I am going to get when they get shipped to me.
Liz and Gary got me a Trivial Pursuit game – The Beatles:

LaRue ordered me a nifty new hat. It’s an Indiana Jones type:

Andy, Laurie and Asher got me a gift certificate for Amazon.com. I’m excited about that because I have a couple of items in my Amazon shopping cart that I can now finish ordering.

The day before my birthday Andy, Laurie, Asher and I went to check out a game shop that we had never been in before. It was a small establishment but they have a really good selection of games and their prices are quite good; lower than anywhere else I have seen. Plus they offer board game rentals so you can play a game without having to buy it. Rental is just 10% of the purchase price. And if you like the game and want to buy it they apply the rental fee to the price.
But while we were there I picked up a little card game I have been interested in trying – Fluxx:

All in all it was a good trip out of town and a great birthday!

As you might have noticed, I changed the blog header image. That’s because I have been doing some organizing of my collection of old time radio programs. Originally I had the files on CD’s but that took up a lot of discs. For example, the program Suspense was on nine CD’s. I copied all the files to the computer and then burned them to two DVD’s. The same with The Adventures of Superman. I had over 1100 episodes on six discs. Now they’re on one DVD. Same with the entire run of The Shadow, X Minus One, Let George Do It, Man Called X, Nightbeat, Quiet Please, Tom Corbett – Space Cadet, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. I have many more, but these were the ones that really needed to be transferred to DVD. In all I think I took about 18 CD’s and moved the files to 4 or 5 DVD’s. My old CD’s were put in a package and shipped off to someone who is going to be surprised next week when they arrive in the mail.
I plan to start taking some old time radio programs with me in the car for listening to on future trips. Now to decide which to start with.

The other night I had a dream in which I was back in the town and at the house we lived in during the late 60’s when I was attending high school. One of the kids was with me and I was showing him the inside of the house and explaining some of its history to him including the changes we made when I lived there.
For some reason this dream has been nagging at me for the last couple of days. So, I jumped on Google Maps and plugged in the address. Lo and behold there was a “Street View” option available. I clicked it and found myself looking at the house:

I’m not sure how long ago the Google image was taken, but the house looks pretty much the same. It’s the house my Stroman grandparents lived and where my mother grew up.

Then I moved the viewer down the street about a block and found the house where my Grandpa and Grandma Bailey lived:

I then spent a fair amount of time using the street view to roam through the town. It was really interesting. I liked exploring that way.
It’s been 32 years since I was there last. Now I am actually considering a trip back there to see things in person. And there are some graves there that would be worth visiting and taking pictures.

With Andy’s help I got this site moved to a new hosting location. I just couldn’t justify having all my websites scattered around the internet and paying for each one separately. Now they are all hosted by one company at a single fee. All told I am saving $90 a year just on hosting.

Now I should start blogging about stuff more regularly.

The hosting I am currently using for JohnStuff is going to expire in the next couple of weeks. I am going to be moving the site to another host. However, I can’t get to it until after the current host contract expires. So, the site might “go dark” for a few days just after the beginning of April until I can get everything moved. The URL will remain johnstuff.net – no need to change bookmarks/favorites.

I just purchased and watched the newest animated movie from DC – Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.

Here’s a link to the movie trailer on YouTube – Justice League trailer

It’s another great movie from the DC universe. I have the other DC animated movies:
Justice League: A New Frontier
Wonder Woman
Green Lantern: First Flight
Superman Batman: Public Enemies
Batman: Gotham Knight

With the exception of Batman: Gotham Knight (which was okay, but not great) all the others have been excellent. And the bonus features included in the 2 disc versions of the dvd sets are well worth watching.

I enjoyed Crisis on Two Earths on several levels. It has some great animation, some moments of humor and an underlying philosophical message having to do with what happens when heroes cross the line for what they perceive as the greater good.

I recommend this dvd for any fan.

I am sorry to report that I didn’t get far into the HP Lovecraft colection. I was reading The Call of Cthulhu since I was interested in the Cthulhu mythos. But for some reason I either became distracted or just couldn’t get into it. So for now it’s on the back burner.

Instead I have transferred an ebook I already had to the Kindle and I’m starting the first book in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind – Wizards First Rule. The tv series Legend of the Seeker is based (sometimes loosely) on this series. I have been following the tv show and find I’m enjoying it quite a bit. So, now I’ve decided to begin reading the novels.

It’s been an interesting and life changing day.

First off I had to go in for my quarterly doctor visit. He’s the doctor who is helping me manage my diabetes. Unfortunately my A1C levels are not coming down as expected with the oral medications. So I now have to begin giving myself a daily injection of insulin. Hopefully this helps bring things back to a more normal level.

Second thing today was an email I received about my 40th high school class reunion. It was from one of those Classmates sites I must have registered with eons ago. Fortunately, they have no clue where I am. That’s good. I have absolutely no intention of attending. I hated high school and wouldn’t waste my time going back to see a bunch of now old guys (like me) that I didn’t like. Okay….I kind of take that back. Out of the 200+ members of my graduating class I might be slightly curious about 3 of them. But a class reunion is not my idea of a good time.

Last night I had a dream that was different from any I have ever had. I was teaching a music appreciation class. I think it was more of a Classic Rock appreciation class.

I remember the assignment I gave the class. I wanted them to come up with a list of songs that had the following structure – the songs had to begin slowly with minimal instruments and then slowly build up to a powerful climax; building layer upon musical layer.

I sited 3 songs as examples. They were:
1. Stairway to Heaven – Led Zeppelin
2. Child in Time – Deep Purple
3. Being Kind Can Hurt Someone Sometimes – REO Speedwagon

I am thinking that one of the reasons for the dream is that I always wished I could have taken some time with my kids to sit down and play some of my music for them (aside from what they normally heard) and explain in depth the reasons I not only love these songs but what makes the songs such works of musical art.

Well, I ain’t dead yet and I can always corrupt the grandkids.

I just noticed that I hadn’t updated the Currently Reading selection on the right. I actually got almost all the way through The Bat Strikes; I read 3 of the 4 stories. I intend to finish it soon. Following that I read the Heat Wave novel I got for Christmas. It was a fun, quick book. I am looking forward to the sequel that is scheduled for publication this next September.

Now with my Kindle I am reading through a collection of stories by HP Lovecraft. This collection has 67 stories. And the best part was the price – only 99 cents in the Kindle Store. I have done some checking and the story everyone seems to recommend to begin the Cthulhu mythos is The Call od Cthulhu. So that’s what I’m working on now.

As promised in the last entry I do have some thoughts about the Avatar movie. However, I’m going to refer you to the newest posting over at the main family site – Bailey Acres.
Yeah, I know. But there’s no sense rewriting it all here again.

Other than that I think I’m going to finally get a chance to play my new Arkham Horror boardgame this weekend. The kids came to visit and they brought it with them.

The title says it all. If I were a New Years resolution type of person it would be to do regular updates to the blog.

So, welcome to 2010. And just so you know – I’m saying two thousand ten NOT twenty ten. The latter feel’s awkward to me. I’ve been saying two thousand [whatever] for several years at work and I ain’t changing now! So there.

Loving the Kindle. I have transferred several ebooks from my computer onto it. I also have a peice of software that takes non-Kindle documents and converts them to something the Kindle can read. I did buy a couple of items from the Kindle ebook store. One of them was just $0.99 – the works of HP Lovecraft. I have never read any Lovecraft but have always wanted to. I got over 60 of his works for that low price.

About the Arkham Horror boardgame. I left it with the kids. They really wanted to learn to play. They have it all figured out now and will be bringing it to me then next time they visit. I am anxious to learn how it plays.

Only got about a fourth of the way into my It Might Get Loud dvd. Just haven’t had the time to watch it all. Soon though.

I guess that’s about all for now.