Ray and Millie's Chair Rides Again

Across the street from us is a house that until recently has been occupied by a series of elderly folks.  It makes sense, its one story, in a safe part of town and is close to things.

Our favorite oldsters were a couple named Ray and Millie.  

This was at a time when we had active boys tearing around the neighborhood, often using our front lawn for elaborate games.  Ray and Millie would sometimes just set up their lawn chairs and watch.

After a few years they both passed away.  Ray had a sudden cardiac arrest one day. Millie just grew weaker and weaker until she was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. They were both swell people.

Somehow we ended up with a couple of their chairs.  Not the lawn chairs, but a pair of vintage blue velour covered easy chairs.  They never made the A-list furniture.  I think they had a brief stay in our family room, then they went to the lake cabin. Finally they ended up in ignored in our utility room...just a stay of execution until the weary old chairs "went away".

So it was excellent timing when an opportunity to put one of the chairs to good use came up.

Our FIRST Robotics team is going to be in the local parade.  And while our competition robot is cool, it lacks a certain something.  For one thing parade rules mean we can't fire up the ball shooter or the rope climber.  So its just a colorful box driving around.

We needed something a bit more eye catching, so I figured lets have our robot driven by somebody sitting in an old easy chair....which is itself being driven!  Hopefully they can chase each other around.  So, how to "robotize" Ray's old chair?

 We started by taking off the swivel base.

 Most of the "guts" of this project were left overs from my "Battlebot" Days.  It shows.

 Adding the electronics, which uncharacteristically fired up on the first attempt. 

The final result.  We have a bit of tweaking to do but it is basically parade ready.  Not bad for 4.5 hours of work.

My video skills are quite deficient, but I did shoot a few seconds of the mostly finished parade unit being driven for the first time. I can't help it.  After so many robots built over so many years the "Von Frankenstein" moment when a creation first powers up and moves is still special.

Its a tribute to our team's dedication that they came in to work on a summer vacation afternoon.  And seemed to be having a good time.

Ray and Millie would have enjoyed watching.

Minnesota Twins Report. A Season Ending Too Soon.

My "baseball" category on Detritus of Empire is a lightly used one.  The topic is covered extensively both on line and in the dwindling pages of the daily newspaper. But I like odd stuff...and baseball always is good for a bit of it.

My Major League team is the Minnesota Twins.  True, I have lived elsewhere for the majority of my life but the team you grew up cheering for will always be your team.  I could make an exception perhaps for somebody whose life took them say, from a National League city to an American league town, but otherwise anyone who frivolously changes one of their primary default settings is to be regarded as shifty. You just can't know where their loyalties really lie.

Last year the Twins were awful.  This year they came out of Spring training and were wonderful.  Thumbing their noses at the pundits who uniformly picked them to finish last in the league they actually were the best team around for a while.  And then....

Well baseball is a harsh meritocracy.  And as spring turned into summer they slipped. Out of first place.  Out of contention.  Under .500.  The usual story of course. Injuries. Young players promoted too soon.  A error here, a couple of days where your starting pitchers get knocked out early, a quirky schedule where you go up against a string of genuine contenders.  Things happen.  Bad things.

But unless you are a Yankees fan it is not reasonable to expect a Championship Season every year.  And you find other things to enjoy.  The odd stuff.

Item One.  Bartolo Colon.

So desperate were the Twins for any pitcher with a detectable pulse that they were willing to even fudge a bit on that minimum requirement.  At age 44 Bartolo is the oldest player in the Majors.  His weight is dubiously listed at 285 pounds.  Last year he became the oldest player in Major League history to hit his first home run.  2016 was one of those years (Cubs, Donald Trump, etc) when all manner of impossible things happened.  Observe and marvel:

Of course the Twins did not sign him for his bat.  Nor did his previous team release him without cause.  Hoping that his losing the last four starts for Atlanta, Minnesota took a flyer on him.  In his new uniform he has lost all three starts.  And in the American League pitchers don't even get to bat.

Item Two.  Chris Gimenez.

Generally speaking in baseball pitching is done by, well, pitchers.  When a position player takes the mound something very bad is going on.  Usually what has happened is your starting pitcher has gotten knocked out early.  And his replacement got knocked out soon after.  And then his replacement.  When the score becomes hopeless and you have to put somebody out there it is time for an emergency pitcher.  In the case of the Twins it means a call to Chris Gimenez.

Mr. Gimenez primarily a catcher.  So he does have the range dialed in to toss a ball gently back and forth over the proper distance.  With the Twins pitching staff being charitably described as "thin", blowout games are fairly common.  And by mid season Chris Gimenez set what seems to be a Major League record for pitching appearances by a non pitcher at six.  He has not won or lost a game yet....coming in when your team is already down by a ton makes either unlikely. Remarkably his Earned Run Average of 7.2 is better than that of six ACTUAL pitchers that the team has foolishly entrusted with the ball.

Ah but as a true fan I am always looking towards seasons yet to come.  And even there I find amusement.  Down on the farm, as they say when speaking of the minor league teams affiliated with the Big Club, there are some fascinating things happening.  The Chattanooga Lookouts recently got mired in a 21 run marathon game.  So much weird going on.  The winning pitcher of course was a position player, one Max Murphy who usually plays right field.  Why, he actually struck somebody out!  

In the American League, and their minor league affiliates, pitchers don't bat, that function being taken over by a "Designated Hitter".  But there are occasions where you have to make substitutions that eliminate your "DH".  For 11 of the 21 innings the Lookouts pitchers had to bat.  At least it appears that was what they were trying to do up there!

(THE 12 YEAR OLDS I USED TO COACH HAD BETTER SWINGS THAN THIS!)

Probably the Twins are going to finish with a losing record.  But I can still root for them.  Perhaps Chris Gimenez will be called on to pitch in an actual close game.  And maybe Bartolo Colon will be around long enough to be put in as a pinch hitter....the baseball world would hold its collective breath waiting for History to be Made.

Chub Fest 2017

With the summer of '17 slipping away from us it is time to document a few of its high lights. Starting of course with Chub Fest.

As best I can determine this, our second annual event, is the world's only fishing tournament devoted exclusively to chubs.  Which are to the uninitiated, nothing more than several related species of highly aggressive minnows.  

Here's a fine fellow.

Chub fishing is not like normal fishing.  The prime spots are the out flow from culverts running under rural roads.  The bait hardly matters, they will hit anything.  Here my team partner for the day struggles manfully to unlearn a life time of angling expertise.

Headquarters for the Northern Chub Anglers Alliance (NCAA) remains for the time being in a garage.  And with equal consistency this wily angler brought in the prize winning chub again this year, a leviathan that tipped the scales (well, just a little) at 4.8 ounces.

Preserved for posterity, the 2017 leader board.  8 teams went out this year.  The team names reflect the grave seriousness of the event.  All sponsorships are imaginary. 

In addition to recording the largest single chub, teams competed for maximum weight of their top ten fish.  Photographing chubs to make them marginally impressive takes a bit of guile.  Here I set them on a picnic table to alter the perspective a bit.

Of course Chub Fest is about more than fishing.  After weigh ins the grill gets fired up. With a high proportion of serious hunting and fishing types the menu can be rather exotic.

One of several four footed participants hopes that with regards to grilled left overs, every Dog will have her Day.  Disappointed, she fell asleep soon afterwards.

Its probably not helpful when trying to alter photographic perspective to put a gigantic toddler head in the foreground!

Chalk art, some of it of a taunting nature.  The state record for a creek chub by the way is a little short of 17 pounds five ounces.  Like, 16 pounds 11.4 ounces short of it.

Yard games were played.  Poorly, after a long day in the sun and a few beverages.

And of course, when fishing for what are usually considered "trash fish", some trash talk was in order.  Here I am as part of the second place team.  We have put the winners on notice that next year they are going to be dethroned as World Chub Champions.

Sounds legit to me.....I am a Lucky People!

I have a specific email address that I keep as a "Spam Catcher".  I check it every few days because a bit of legitimate email does go there.  But mostly it is a virtual museum of Spam.  

So many interesting people from far away lands.  The nicer ones want to sell me stuff. The less nice ones just want me to send them money.

Oh, we all get these emails.  Nigerian Princes who have magically found my name and determined that I am a suitable business partner for them to make off with a large sum of money to which they have no legal claim.  Sigh.

The majority of them are comically bad, seemingly written by somebody who does not speak English very well. Or, in an alternate version, somebody who is dumbing it down with intentional typos so that they can more convincingly pass as a foreigner who might just be stupid enough to offer a total stranger a huge pile of cash.  Many of the perpetrators of these scams actually live in the US or the UK.

Recently I "caught" the specimen that I enclose below.  Obviously I will not include the link they were asking me to click on.  It is somewhat better written, but notice the twist to this one....it offers to give you money that some powerful Trans National Spam Busters Corps has confiscated from nefarious African Spamsters!  With the OAU, the UN, the FBI, the IMF and the International Criminal Court at the Hague all on the case its not surprising that the offending scam Artists are now safely behind bars.

Saying that your email was found on their computers and suggesting you might have already sent them money is just the hook if the intended targets are sad, confused people who have already been defrauded once.

Entertainment value aside, these jerks prey on the vulnerable and should be regarded with profound contempt.  

-----------------

Attention,

This is to inform you that we have been working towards the eradication of fraudsters and scam Artists in Africa with the help of the Organization of
African Unity (OAU) United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) and FBI.

We have been able to track down some scam artist in various parts of African countries which includes (Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso Ghana and
Senegal with cote d'ivoire ) and they are all in Government custody now, they will appear at International Criminal Court (ICC) soon for Justice.

During the course of investigation, they were able to recovered some funds from these scam artists and IMF organization have ordered the funds recovered to be
shared among the 10 Lucky people listed around the World as a compensation.

This notice is been directed to you because your email address was found in one of the scam Artists file and computer hard-disk while the investigation, maybe
you have been scammed. You are therefore being compensated with sum of ($300,000.00) Three hundred thousand US Dollars valid  into an (ATM Card Number
506119102227445160).

Since your email address is among the lucky beneficiaries who will receive a compensation funds, we have arranged your payment to be paid to you through ATM
VISA CARD and deliver to your postal address with the Pin code as to enable you withdrawal maximum of $5,000 on each withdrawal from any Bank ATM Machine
of your choice, until all the funds are exhausted.

The ATM Card with Security Pin number shall be delivered to you via courier Service, depending your choice.

In order to proceed with this transaction, you will be required to contact the agent in-charge (Mr. Morgan Ress) Kindly look below to find appropriate
contact information:

---------------

Fiasco!

Seen at a Roman market that was obviously way over on the "touristy" side of the spectrum.  But what a great opportunity to ponder the origins of an interesting word!

What is being referred to here is a small bottle.  Or if you prefer, a little flask.  Flask is from flasco a Medieval Latin word for bottle.  How it snuck into Latin is unclear, it might have been a Germanic word or even a word borrowed by the Germans from the Celts.

Fiasco in the sense of a disaster or an embarrassing mishap is said to be "theater slang" first noted in 1855 and having the meaning of "a failure in performance".  

My go to source on such matters is The Online Etymology Dictionary.  It tosses out various theories as to the origins of this phrase but has to admit nobody really knows. The best candidate appears to be the Italian phrase "fare il fiasco" which means to play a game in such a way that the loser will have to buy the next bottle.  

No particular relevance to our recent trip to Italy.  We had the expected minor mishaps but nothing I would call a fiasco.  And, to the lasting disappointment of our friend Anthea back in the UK, we never ordered a second bottle of wine.

The Vatican Obelisk

You could do a pretty good one day "History in a Place" feature within a short stroll of this spot.  This is looking across the Tiber river to Castel Sant' Angelo, which originally was the Mausoleum of Hadrian.

A view from on the bridge.  It is by the way another Roman original, the Pons Aelius. It was built by Hadrian at the same time (AD 134 - 139) as the Mausoleum.

Hadrian and his wife Sabina were buried here, as in fact were subsequent Emperors at least as far as Caracalla in 217.  It fell on hard times along with the late Empire, in 405 Honorius incorporated it into the "across the river" section of the city Walls.  This did not prevent it from being sacked by Alaric's Goths five years later.  It is said that they tossed out the urns and scattered the ashes.  The Goths were a recurring problem of course, and Procopius records that in the Siege of 537 a surprise attack was repelled when the Roman defenders of this now fortress resorted to throwing the statues down off the roof!

Once a magnificent edifice it now has the look of what it spent most of its career being, a fortress.

In fact it was the refuge of last resort for the Pope when things got tough.  Because St. Peter Square is right behind it.

That's as close as I felt like getting on a busy Sunday.  But if you look at the exact center of the picture you will notice yet another obelisk.

This is the so called "Vaticano" obelisk and is noteworthy for being the only obelisk that has never fallen.

This obelisk is what I would consider Egyptian/Roman.  That is it was made in Alexandria in the 1st Century BC but for the Romans.  It was dedicated to Augustus. It is bare of hieroglyphics or other markings.

The open space you see in the above picture is in fact approximately where the Circus of Caligula once stood.  That Emperor in fact brought the obelisk over to decorate the circus. (Later called the Circus of Nero).  Although it has never fallen it has been moved a bit in the Middle Ages.  One reason the obelisk was preserved is that it was the traditional place where St. Peter was martyred "inter duas metas" which is between the two turning points of the circus...where the central obelisk would have stood.  The other legend, that the ashes of Julius Caesar himself were contained within a bronze ball at the top, has since been disproven.

By the way this is the other obelisk for which we have an ancient source regards its installation.  None other than Pliny the Elder discussed its transport by a huge "obelisk ship" which was subsequently sunk to form part of the base of the light house at the port of Portus.

Mussolini Memories.....

For most dictators fame is but fleeting.  This is especially true for those deposed by military action.  Usually the first thing that the populace does when freed is pull down all the statues.

Fascism being particularly out of vogue these days I did not expect to find much in Italy to remember Benito Mussolini.  I was wrong.

The biggest surviving monument is at the Foro Italia, which under the Previous Management had been called the Foro Mussolini. Here's a modern obelisk engraved Mussolini Dux.

Dux, or Duce as it was often said, was another attempt by Mussolini to recapture the Glories of Rome in the modern era.  It was a title going back to Republican days that meant "leader of troops".  In the latter Empire it became formalized in variations such as "Dux Brittanica", the Duke of Britain, indicating the commander of troops in that province.  

The Foro Mussolini was primarily a sports complex.  It was begun with the hopes that Rome would get the Olympics in 1944. Deteriorating political conditions caused Rome to lose out in the voting in 1939.  Hmmm, what is it with Sports and Authoritarian Regimes?  Berlin 1936.  The cancelled Tokyo 1940 Games, along with with Rome's near miss....

By the way, it is known that under the obelisk is a time capsule.  It contains a few gold coins, a medallion showing Mussolini wearing a lion skin reminiscent of Hercules, and a 1200 word manuscript in Latin extolling Mussolini, the Fascist movement generally and the construction of the sports complex specifically.

Here's an odd building.  It was along one of the bus routes we traveled.  It seemed to have active young people generally around it so I started calling it "Fascist High". The text translates roughly to: "If Victory is Necessary then Battle is Necessary".

Because I actually do a little research after arriving home I can report that this is not a school but another sports complex.  The message while not specifically political does have a bit of the old goose step about it.

Now imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Near the river Tiber, not far from the famous Boca Veritas we find a substantial public building with a surviving dedication to Benito Mussolini Duce.  The next line appears to memorialize somebody named Petrus Colunna as "Praf Ubs" I assume this means Prefect of the City. (Odd spelling aside this is certainly a reference to Piero Colonna, twice Mayor of Rome and once Governor of same (1936-1939)

It looks to me as if everything else has been removed in a sort of modern "damnatio memoria" but this part is nice and clean as if it has been until recently covered up by some other signage. Rome being Rome it will likely be years before anybody does anything about this.

The building is on the busy Via Luigi Petroselli.  It is still the Town Hall for the Municipio of Central Rome, i.e. the historic central city.

If brutal cement dystopias are your thing -  and hey, I'm not here to judge - the EUR center is the place to go.  I did not make it out there but one of our fellow travelers did and has some swell photos of same including a depiction of Mussolini in a modern version of Trajan's column.  Go visit MooseandHobbes.