I't Spring break and so anything that shows up here over the next week will be incidental but probably pretty inspirational, too! It will take some hot stuff in my brain to motivate me. Have a nice week everybody...
and when we all get back? IT WILL BE TIME FOR THE BIG PUSH...TOWARD THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. THE POT IS BOILING!
Flirtatious: "Want to sit here with me and watch snow melt?"
Real Mood: Incestuously Intrigued
Prediction: There will not be another snowstorm in Santa Cruz, California the rest of 2006.
So I get back on line this weekend and get an e-mail from former student Kimmy Hidalgo. Kimmy is looking for a letter of recommendation for a summer internship. So?
Well then I get an e-mail from my sister Brenda telling me my nephew Matt, and his wife Michele, are seeing how long they can keep a SNOWBALL alive in the SUN in Santa Cruz, California (beach town). It's held up for two days now, and they think it may go three. Other than the fact it never snows in Santa Cruz? So?
Okay, try and stay with me on this one and see if you're mind can't be modestly blown. Kimmy grew up in Santa Cruz. In fact she did a demonstration in one of my classes on skim boarding (essentially surfing backwards).
Kimmy knows this, by the way, but in case the rest of you aren't up to snuff? There is no surf (except at WaterWorld) in Colorado.
My family had some close friends who ran the only hamburger stand on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. I'm not sure how long ago that was? (I remember the burgers as just being okay. They were a little rare for my taste.)
Matt's wife Michele also grew up in Santa Cruz and she may remember the burger joint. I'm sure her folks do. I doubt it's still there. Michele is probably more than ten years older than Kimmy, so they probably don't know each other, but you never know?
Now I have another former student, Melany Fehrenbach, an anchor on the weekly TV show students produce on campus. Well, Melany's MOTHER grew up in Santa Cruz.
Don't know if Kimmy, Michele and Melany's Mom could ever make a connection, or would even want to, but it tickles my fancy. Santa Cruz didn't used to be a very big town!
I'm not done yet.
Melany was born and partially raised in Ness City, Kansas.
Now my mother's sister's family, the Woolens, including cousin Sheila? Well, they partially grew up in Scott City, Kansas.
[On a side note my Weblog friend sighlemacaba from Yonkers, New York? Her name is Sheila.]
Scott City, Kansas is just a watermelon's toss from Ness City. So ?
Well Sheila, my counsin, dates and later marrys a guy named Larry Miller. I think Larry grew up in Ness City. I know he went on to be the High Jump champion in Kansas (sorry Larry I can't remember at what level).
[Cousin Bill Woolen writes to let me know Larry, just 5' 7" in length at the time, impressively high jumped 6' 4". And the Fosberry Flop hadn't even been invented at that time. I say, at that time, because Larry is my age. I'm guessing he's no more than 5' 6" long by now.]
I also know that after college Larry and Sheila return to Ness City where Larry teaches at the high school? He also coaches track and football I think?
Anyway, Melany checks for me?
Larry had at LEAST been Melany's DAD's teacher, and probably his football coach.
Melany's twin brother Matt is a pretty big guy, so I'm just jumping to conclusions that DAD had been out there on the gridiron.
Sometimes in that part of the country wheat harvest interferes with football practice.
So my sister Brenda's e-mail suggests I might want to do a BLOG entry on SNOWBALLS in Santa Cruz?
Well there wasn't a SNOWBALL's chance in DEATH VALLEY I was going to let all this go by.
And you wonder why I think somehow every thing is somehow connected?
Nephew Matt, (no known relationship to Melany's twin brother Matt) by the way, is an attorney into genealogy. There might be something here he can play with on one of those cold snowy winter nights in Santa Cruz, instead of fiddling with his briefs.
THIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE TOPICS I COULD HAVE SAVED FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. BUT WHAT I HAVE IN MIND WILL BURY THIS SNOW JOB. YOU'D BETTER BE THERE...APRIL 28TH. DON'T FLAKE OUT ON ME.
[Make sure you read the comment below from sighlemacaba.]
Flirtatous: "You know I don't like broccoli either?"
Real Mood: Portentous
Prediction: Someone will find a way to put broccoli in a pill form.
I am a firm believer in the notion that everything is somehow CONNECTED.
You may remember the PBS show CONNECTIONS? Creator and host James Burke takes any two historical inventions? Then he demonstrates how they find a CONNECTION in an electric pencil sharpener?
Well I see theory become reality today. Hang on.
It's always a delight to see the jaws of jaundiced 21 year olds drop.
I take my Broadcast Journalism Television Students on a lot of "field trips." I do this to illustrate to them that since everything is somehow connected? Then anything you see or hear is fair game for the story you're about to tell.
Today we head out to see my friend KMGH TV helicopter pilot Rich Westra. As my cynical gang stares inside the two million dollar TV toy? That nips away at the cynicism. But when Rich starts his speech on what "This Baby" can do? That's when the mandibles become detached.
Rich has been doin' this for 25 years. A few more years than that takes me back to my first close encounter with a helicopter.
With help from my close friend Nancy, I'm picking up my car from an empty parking lot on Beach Blvd in Orange County.
Nancy picks me up at Los Angeles International Airport as I depart a flight that's just been in an emergency landing.
I'm coming from a convention in Cincinnati. You hear a little KAH KLUNK just as we lift off the runway there.
[Rich always does this dramatic demonstration of how much safer a chopper is compared to a jet because it can auto rotate.]
I can see and hear the rush of emotion in the 13 year old girl sitting next to me. I can tell it's her first flight.
"Nothing to worry about. Just a premature jump on bringing up the landing gear."
"Really?"
"Uh, huh!"
"Thanks!"
Somewhere over Kansas the pilot makes a liar out of me. Seems we blow a few tires when we take off from the Cincinatti Airport?
[which is actually in Kentucky in case you didn't know.]
Well we all start drinking. That might be because the drinks are now on the house. All of us, save the 13 year girl sitting next to me. That would be illegal.
[ Strange that we would start drinking heavily over Kansas which has a law that says you cannot drink on any form of public conveyance. Verne Miller, the Kansas Attorney General, actually tries to arrest people on trains, busses and planes as they transvere his state. I guess we're lucky.]
This is the 13 year old girl who now informs me she is the niece of baseball's "Hall of Fameless" Pete Rose. Shortly thereafter I'm told by the flight attendant (called STEWARDESS in those days) that Pete Rose's sister's progeny is now MY responsibility. What are the ODDS? I drink to that!
Somehow we get down okay and clap for the brave pilot. (just like the movies.)
Meantime back at the empty parking lot at midnight I'm tossing my bags in the trunk. I can faintly hear the WHOP, WHOP, WHOP of rotor blades but don't think much about it.
ALRIGHT, OKAY, HERE COMES CHAPTER DEUX...My internet service took a break and so? So did I.
Okay, where were we?
I crank the ignition, and don't fasten my seat belt. It's not the law yet, just a suggestion. I gently meander my way out on to the road and head South.
[Why in most of Southern California is the Pacific Ocean always to the South?]
Time alone does not ameliorate the affects of innebriation. But let me suggest two events that will bring instant sobriety and end all threat of a lingering hangover.
Having a LIGHT from heaven shine on your face after midnight on Beach Boulevard is a pretty good starter. Since I appear to be the only oxygen breathing entity in sight? This light is clearly meant for "moi."
Top that off with the light speaking to you as you mosey down the highway?
And the Rotor Blade GOD SPAKE from on high, " PULL TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. PULL TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD NOW."
I can now touch my nose and walk a straight line all the way back to LAX.
This Rotor Blade diety is clearly only interested in handing down ONE COMMANDMENT.
Seems they think I've buglarized this office I work in, dumped the goodies in the trunk, and am now headed to find my fence.
That's enough of that story except to say it gets me to thinking about all the BIG BROTHER FICTION we are reading. To experience it first hand is, as I say, SOBERING.
Fortunately tight budgets have kept every public jurisdiction from "poppin'" for one of these ROTOR-GODS.
Many years hence I find myself up cruising around with Rich Westra hypothetically chatting through the head sets.
"You know Rich it's a little scary about how much THEY know about us. Satellites can pinpoint our location within a block, PhotoRadar can ticket us with no chance to argue."
"Yeah, I guess that's right."
"They have these digital cameras at every major intersection now?Anyone with a computer can access a data base that can tell them where I had breakfast this morning."
"Yeah. Hang on just a second. We got something coming up in the monitor."
What comes up in the monitor is a couple, in a miraculously contorted interface, performing the act of procreation, on top of a very large boulder. We can see this on a monitor from more than a mile away. This is not Paris Hilton asking for a closeup.
"Okay, what were you sayin' Paul?"
"Nothin'!"
Well, here we are, back at the HANGAR. I'm just glad these invasions of our privacy have gone just about as far as they can go.
Rich is talking to the class about his other enterprise. He now has a helicopter equipped to save Natural Gas companies at least millions of dollars. It can detect gas leaks.
"How, with a photographer's 20 thousand dollar camera?"
"Nope!"
"With the super expensive attached FLIR camera that can pick out your shirt label from a mile away?"
"Nuh uh!?""
"How then?"
"Remember the guy up in Canada who invented Lasik Eye Surgery? Seems he's had some time on his hands driving back forth to the bank. He's developed a laser technology that can detect pipeline gas leaks."
"What kind of gas Rich?"
"Methane."
"Now isn't Methane the gas we........?"
"Yeah, this baby can pick out one part per million. Two parts per million exist naturally in the atmosphere."
"So you're telling me....If I uh.....sitting in my car....standing in a crowded elevator not yet singled out...and you fly overhead with this thing?"
"Uh, huh!"
"And if I've had broccoli for dinner and I'm at the opera about to shake the hand of the Governor.....?"
"Yes sir!"
"And if I'm on Continental Flight 833 departed from Cincinatti headed for Los Angeles, still trying to digest the cheese and bean omelette I got at the airport concession stand, sitting next to Pete Rose's Niece? And now I've been drinking heavily because I've just been told this might be my last flight, and you happen to rotor by?"
" I'm 'fraid so."
Do I owe PETE ROSE an apology?
"Hey Pete, let's cut the deck for it, Ace high!"
"Cut what?"
THAT'S JUST ONE MORE TOPIC WE'LL NOT EXPLORE ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. APRIL 28th. I'M TAKING REQUESTS. I WONDER WHAT PETE ROSE'S NIECE IS DOING TODAY? SHE'S NO LONGER 13. I CAN TELL YOU THAT!
Flirtatious: You're flippin' wacky! Know that?
Real Mood: Simply out of my Gordian mind.
Prediciton: Some sense of sanguine sanity will some day surface.
Even before she gets her first novel published, Elena Brown is my favorite writer. She can get to the core of something faster than a Meer Cat. I ask her for a topic? Does she hestitate? Does she cogitate? Uh!Uh! "Do Discursive," says she. "Discursive it is," says he.
[Discursive: basically a non-academic essay randomly jumping from topic to topic.] [Yeee!Haaah!]
I asked some students to make a frame with their hands in front of their eyes. "Take a mental picture of that frame," says I. "Now, sans punctuation and other handcuffs, write like mad men and women describing your vision."
I don't ever ask a student to do something I wouldn't do.
I dedicate this to Elena.
White saline plastic spray bottle like a slick ICBM has a shadow below its nose cone that drops down like a lobster bib which says noon making one wonder what time it is in Dubais where even this time of year you fry when noon is nigh to the bottle I see a staple which reminds me of maple my favorite cereal flavor unless it's oatmeal but I digress as I look for focus in this mess by this stack of cds inside plastic that say saturn and its rings and other pretty things that are up in the sky but not right now before my eye thats where in the frame the rings are by a box of tissues with one lone vanilla ice cream holding cone standing up like an old person at attention having one flap catch the light that breaks the night sending out its dissention above the box with flowered images on baby blue so pretty when you think what the contents are there to do for you one angled corner diffused by a golden glass that softens background and mood with loops and shadows and scratches and a canoe sitting on a brown lake moving two and too fast for the garter snakesssss reflecting from wood their shadows as they should I guess is that a penny i see on yellow horror product of tree hugger sensitivity and a pen that is in long round form it too a missle but from a submarine aimed at a queen who is maybe mean the staple attached to the stapler that now seems like a walrus head with its tail tucked underneath and headed in reverse and the head of which has holes more like an orca or a punctured garden hose a shadow underneath its bottom what's holding it up could be a sea turtle were it the sea but with this brown wood that resembles a rotting pond shows a little square pad that is all alone. I'm sure there is some part of DISCURSIVE thats elusive here but WHAT FUN! TRY IT SOMETIME! Ever so often you hit a rhyme.
THAT'S JUST A SAMPLE OF WHAT YOU MIGHT READ AS I PLANT THE SEED FOR remember THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. WHAT OTHER SEEMINGLY SENSELESS RESULT [EDITOR'S INSTRUCTIONS: show subliminal length shot of page on calendar with bold PMM letters held up on cork board with a stick pen that looks like an ICBM] MIGHT YOU MISS IF YOU ARN'T HERE APRIL 28TH. [EDITOR'S INSTRUCTIONS: pre-production animation of pumping heart with the numbers 2 and 8 swelling and shrinking with the pumping heart.] DON'T BREAK MY HEART! BE THERE!
Not a drop, I swear to it1
Flirtatious: "Seen my new Belly Board?
Real Mood: Beachy
Prediction: You won't believe what time it is? Or maybe you will!
Forty Three (43) more days to go. Stock up on hot dogs and marshmellows but don't light the fire yet. These PMM first anniversaries have a way of sneaking up on you.
"I would like to thank THE ACADEMY blah, blah, blah and blah blah."
"Get the the hook, quick! I think she's sober."
"Rumor has it John Daily will be changing his name to John Monthly."
"Cut the vanity Lauren Bacall. Get some glasses. "
Folks this is not MOTHER'S day. Give DAD a little credit, will you?
I feel so exposed and ashamed. You now know I watched some of it.
"I think you should wear the 'Polka Dot Bikini' and your "Thongs" (aka flip flops). Really! That's what we called em! Ask your DAD."
IT'S GETTING CLOSE. YOU WON'T BELIEVE HOW CLOSE IT'S GETTING! (probably 'cause I lied to you once or twice or more about how close it was getting.) DON'T BE THE ONLY ONE ON THE SAND TO SAY, " I couldn't make it."
''SET COMING! SURF'S UP!"
Ask your Dad.
Flirtatious: "I could rub your shoulders, or I could introduce you to BACKWASH."
Real Mood: Intractable
Prediction: A bottle of Merlot will disappear.
I don't know how good this is going to be. I'd just written about a thousand words? I was getting ready to save? I don't know what I pushed, but it's all gone. Oh, what a sinking feeling. I am bemoaning my fate to Peggy? She simply says, "there's some merlot in the cereal cupboard."
I'll try not to drink the whole bottle.
Photographer Jim Weis and myself spent a good portion of the 90's at the local airport. We were so journalistically attached to the place that we would quite often begin and end our days on runways. There were weeks at a time when neither of us saw the insides of a newsroom.
Why? Well in the mid-90's Denver International Airport was a journalist's magnet. It was the largest and most expensive public works project in the country at the time. Don't hold me to these numbers, but I think there were seventeen thousand people working on it at one point.
Anyway it was some huge number. And it certainly generated some hot stories. Let's see? It's too far from town, construction fatalities, cost overuns in the billions, bond ratings drop, Continental pulls out, United moves in, a baggage system won't work, a train system breaks down, fiberoptic system keeps setting off alarms, noise complaints, porta pottie fires, bond ratings dive again, cracks in the runways, cracks in the tarmac, the parking garage will crash, how to get rid of antelope, art program gets panned, fountain over train system leaks.
I wish I'd had a microscope franchise at the time. Everyone owned one and had it aimed at DIA. We, reporters and photographers, spent a lot of time chasing our tails. If the National Enquirer was reporting there were Zombies living in the airport tunnels? We had to go check that out.
I loved the report that the tower was leaning 7 degrees off plumb. Wouldn't we notice? I still have students come up to me and tell me about all the secret tunnels where bodies are buried, and seditious acts are taking place. I shouldn't even tell you this. I've been in those secret tunnels. They're pretty boring!
The problem from my perspective is all this hot and not so hot news kept us from focusing on some of the superlatives and fun stories at this BIG FLYING PLACE. So Class!
With help from the airport's Chuck Cannon and Viviana Paz I'm going to tell you all about the other DIA.
So Elisa and Heather join me on a tour. We are not headed for the terminal. We are going to drive around the perimeter. This is where you can really get a feel for what 53 square miles look like. It's how you actually convince someone this IS the largest land mass airport in the world. Riyadh challenges that? But no other airport wants to fight.
Well Heather and Elisa, there is one urban myth out here I like to keep alive. It's that one salesman got the sales commission on all the fencing at the world's largest land mass airport. The figure I hear bounced around is 10 million dollars. It's probably not true. But when I'm driving by one of those 10 thousand square foot homes on a golf course? Someone in the car says, "who lives in those places, anyway?" My glib, quick response is, "the guy who sold all the fencing to DIA, for one."
Now Elisa from out here you get a good look at that tower that's supposed to be leaning 7 degrees. It may have been somebody in Amsterdam that started that rumor. You see DIA claims to have the highest tower in the world. By tape measure Amsterdam's is a few feet longer, but DIA argues that since Amsterdam is below sea level? This stuff can get a little petty at times.
But Heather, the fencing doesn't encompass the entire airport property. People are often surprised to discover the airport is actually in the agriculture business. It has a number of tenant farmers who pass on a real healthy commission to the airport. I don't think DIA's take has ever gone under a million.
Wake up Elisa! Take a look at those wheat fields and you notice they are sprinkled with oil and gas rigs. That's right! The airport is also in the fossil fuel depletion business. I'm just guessing now. I'll bet the fuel receipts are topping the cereal franchise. I can't remember which of those two airport enterprises is supposed to be unique in the world. Take your pick.
Oddly you guys, the oil and gas enterprise offers up a unique economic enigma. If fuel prices are low, airline costs are low, and business is good. DIA makes a bundle.
Conversely if fuel prices go up? Airline costs skyrocket. Business is bad. Buuuut, when those fuel prices go up? DIA still makes a bundle. I'm curious to know if anyone was clever enough to actually plan on that hedge against deflation.
Elisa your mother worked out here. She's heard these stories. From the very moment the first back hoe broke ground at DIA, rumors surfaced on WHOOOOO was buried on this sacred ground. At one point there was concern it might encompass a Native American Burial Ground. According to a least one Native American report, the plains indians didn't bury their dead. They burnt them above ground.
But catch this ladies. Heavy equipment did unearth some fossils. My DIA friend Dan Melfi made Jim Weis and me believers by showing us the remains of a fossil bed at a somewhat secret location at the airport. I say somewhat because I'm sharing this site with the two of you. Don't tell! And Dan, if your listening, it looks like the fossils are pretty well depleted. I think the secret is out!
When the airport was built so far away from town, there were many complaints. One bank of those complaints was DIA didn't offer any place like Stapleton where you could just sit under the runways and watch planes land and take off. ( There is really a very serious percentage of the population that's in to that? No Kiddin'!)
Well let me blow away another myth. Yeah there are at least two such places at this big ol' honkin' airport where you can do that. But I'm not telling. Neither are Elisa or Heather.
I overheard them talking about bringing their dates out here. They would just as soon you weren't anywhere near the place.
"I want to introduce you guys (Elisa and Heather) to a physical phenomenon that takes place when large jets land. Just stand here. Don't get impatient. This will take about 30 seconds."
30 seconds later?
"OOOhh"
"Wow!"
"Cool!"
"Weird!"
This eerie sound and sensation envelops you. I think it's called backwash by pilots, but I think physicists have another name for it. You have to get out of your car to experience it.
AND YOU'LL NEED TO GET OUT OF YOUR CAR TO TRULY APPRECIATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. IT'S GOING TO KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT WILL DO TO YOUR FEET. PLAN A PMM PARTY...JUST A MONTH AND A HALF TO GO.
i drank the whole bottle
Flirtatious: "That's a pretty cute construction trailer you got there!"
Real Mood: Self Servingly Amused
Prediction: "There will be a new, almost secret, 28 million gallon water reservoir in town in 2007."
A person can't preach "write every day" if that person ain't writin' every day. So let's just see where this goes. I've had a pretty interesting week with my TV journalism class.
On Tuesday I take seven of them to what appears to be a raised soccer field. I know better. This is my chance to point out that there is always more to a story than what's on the surface.
See, under that soccer field? There are two huge treated water reservoirs. Had I had more time I might have been able to finagle some access to them.
I've done stories on them, and they are eye boggling. With lights shining on their surface they look like huge Roman baths, sans all the art work.
It's strange that there are a slew of these reservoirs in our neighborhoods that go undetected.
And that may have been the case in this situation. Often things people tell you go unrepsonded to because those things are invisible. A normal level of skepticism says, "yeah, right! I gotta get to work!"
That may have been the case in this situation had I not done some snooping around. I lead my potential skeptics right into the middle of a construction site. There in front of us? Heavy equipment is knocking down concrete walls of this very large basin. I take one look and say to myself, "my credibility is home free on this one."
They are in the process of rebuilding a third reservoir. There the THING is without water. One of the better reactions I've had on one of these little discovery missions comes from Al Cardenas.
Al is a police officer who used to work in the city dispatch center. The dispatch center sits right next to what Al always assumed was just a soccer field.
Peripherally I see Al's Jaw drop.
"But what used to be here? I know something was here."
I think it was just some sort of soft macadam surface roof next to the soccer field. Without a briefing there was no way for Al to know there was 28 million gallons of water down there. And another 40 million gallons underneath the soccer field?
To me it's fascinating stuff. But try to sell anything that says "infrastructure" to a producer or news director? You gotta be good and lucky to pull that off.
In case anyone reading this is ever in that situation? Talk about the force of water, the dramatic sound it makes as it cascades down the path of gravity. Remind them of the passifying effect of negative ions that pop up from the rushing nectar of life.
None of that may work. If it doesn't? Tell them about the Metro State Journalism class confrontation with the construction site boss.
"Do you have permission to be on this property?"
"Hi! I'm an instructor at Metro State and just wanted to have my students get a sense of these underground reservoirs."
"Well you can't be here. You don't have any hardhats. You didn't check in at the trailer."
Now if I'd of thought you were headed my way with your camera?
"What do you mean I can't be here. I'm a taxpayer and this is Public Property! I'm gonna call the MEDIA!"
But I'd only be doing that so you could get your infrastructure story on the air. Since I was pretty sure you weren't coming?
"Sorry, we just stumbled on to it. We were just getting ready to leave when you walked up?"
"Okay, then!"
"Say, how many gallons of water this thing hold."
"28 million!"
"Wow class! For once I didn't exaggerate."
"Well you can't stay here!"
"Oh, I know. How much water you got under those soccer fields?"
"40 thousand gallons. Now you need to leave."
"Absolutely! Can I get your card in case I have any more questions?"
"Uh, yeah! Here! Next time check in at the trailer."
"Absolutely will."
Walking away I suggest to class?
" I just got the story while no one was looking!"
What I wish I'd said?
"In this business you quite often get more information with HONEY than JALAPENO."
I hope some Greek or Shakespeare didn't say that first.
Today I took two students out to look at some airport INFRASTRUCTURE. Tommorrow I'll share some of that excitement with you.
That gives you something to look forward to while you ANTICIPATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF PaulsModestMusings. IT'S NOT THAT FAR AWAY NOW! IT HAPPENS SHORTLY AFTER INCOME TAX DAY. FILE ELECTRONICALLY AND YOU'LL HAVE THAT REFUND MONEY IN TIME FOR THE CELEBRATION.
