A couple of months ago we signed up for Netflix. So far, most of what we've watched have been old TV shows. During the Christmas season though, we had rented "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". That's one I missed when it was out on the big screen; it was on my list of movies to see, but I just didn't get around to it. I had heard some comments that it wasn't as good as the other movies in that franchise. So I didn't have my expectations all that high, but I still wanted to see it.
I've got to tell you, I was pleasantly surprised. To me it wasn't quite up to the level of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", but it would have been mighty hard to equal that one.
"Crystal Skull" did have its moments. One scene I enjoyed in particular was early in the movie. Indiana and the Soviets were in the Area 51 warehouse, and Indy had just made a break to escape. He got away from all but one of the soldiers, a fistfight ensued, and they crashed through a couple of skylights to a lower floor. Indy lands on a vintage 1950's-era control panel,
which just happened to still be connected to electrical power,
and Indy just happens to hit the right button,
which activates a countdown to fire up a rocket sled (actually jet engine powered, by the looks of it),
which just happens to still have fuel in it after being stored away,
and the sled is still on it's track.
Indy just happens to get on board the sled just in time for the engine to fire up, and the sled roars off down the track,
through the opening (not blocked, as it happens) in the side of the mountain,
and as it happens there's exactly the right amount of fuel for the sled to slow down and squeek to a stop right at the bumper at the end of the track,
So Indy can get off safely and make good his escape...for a little while, at least.
Everything fell into place just so.
But! That's exactly the kind of chain of events we expect and watch for in an Indiana Jones movie.
I won't give away more of the plot (for those few of my readers who might not have seen the movie yet). If you've been a fan of Harrison Ford, or of the other Indiana Jones movies, check this one out.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Christmas Update part 3
Our family from California stopped on the way here, to visit my Son-in-law's family in the Denver suburbs. They had an extra day there; due to the blizzard across western and central Kansas, they had to wait for I-70 to be cleared. They arrived safely, and we had a great visit.
Video games
The Glowing Bush
Proof that the new LED lights don't give off enough heat to melt snow...
...and they won't melt icicles either.
Chutes and Ladders.
Video games
The Glowing Bush
Proof that the new LED lights don't give off enough heat to melt snow...
...and they won't melt icicles either.
Chutes and Ladders.
Christmas Update part 2
It was kind of a quiet season; Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the five of us stayed home. Unforutnately the sleet and snow kept us from making it to church, we just weren't confident we'd make it home without sliding into a ditch or something.
I think the pictures can do most of the talking here...
Mantle decorations
Neat and tidy: the calm before the unwrapping storm
Getting into the stockings
Kitchen table newly decorated
My Wife, selecting presents to hand out
Me: "Where did you find this?!"
My Wife: "Amazon used books. Who knows, it might be the one you had stolen from you."
Me: "No, my copy wasn't in that good of shape."
Ready for do-it-yourself Christmas sandwiches
It snowed and it snowed...
I think the pictures can do most of the talking here...
Mantle decorations
Neat and tidy: the calm before the unwrapping storm
Getting into the stockings
Kitchen table newly decorated
My Wife, selecting presents to hand out
Me: "Where did you find this?!"
My Wife: "Amazon used books. Who knows, it might be the one you had stolen from you."
Me: "No, my copy wasn't in that good of shape."
Ready for do-it-yourself Christmas sandwiches
It snowed and it snowed...
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
...and a western outlaw, too!
In 1964, actor Lorne Greene recorded the song “Ringo” (from the album “Welcome To the Ponderosa”). The lyrics were spoken, and spoke of outlaws and gunfights – themes familiar in the TV westerns popular in the early 1960’s.
I didn’t know then if Ringo was a made up character or was based on a real outlaw from history.
And who would have thought that I was related to the guy?
It turns out that the storyline of the song lyrics is pure fiction. The real John “Johnny” Ringo was an enemy of Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp and his brothers, and he rode with the Clanton gang, “The Cowboys”. Cattle were rustled, stagecoaches were robbed, and there was drinking and gambling. Johnny was reported in the papers to have shot and wounded a man in a bar once, for not drinking whiskey with him. This was all in and around Tombstone, Arizona in the early 1880’s. For all that, there’s no record of his being involved in a stand up one on one shootout in the middle of the street, as is often shown in westerns.
Photo from the Wikipedia article (see below)
Johnny Ringo was found dead of a bullet wound to the head, and his death was officially ruled a suicide. There are also four murder conspiracy theories; some say Wyatt Earp shot him from a distance, others that Doc Holliday did it. Other theories involved either “Buckskin” Frank Leslie as the murderer, or a gambler known by the nickname “Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce”. For all of that, you can read the details here
...and you’ll also find more about his days in Tombstone, and his prior involvement in the “Hoodoo Wars” in Mason County, Texas (1875, I think), and his earlier life. Wikipedia also has this article.
Now for the genealogy angle. As I mentioned in my last post, the Ringo family has been thoroughly researched, and there are postings on genealogy boards online. I particularly like this comment by Jim Ringo, from Ancestry.com:
“…Was out to Tombstone, AZ in March 03 to interview with the local Newspaper, Tombstone Tumbleweed. The purpose of the visit and interview was to let people know what a nice family the Ringo's are. Not sure they bought it…”
There’s some disagreement between researchers about which is the best book on the subject. Some say, “John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was”, by Jack Burrows, others maintain that “John Ringo”, by David Johnson is more accurate. My library had neither one, but it had “The Life and Death Of Johnny Ringo”, by Ray Hogan, so I checked out and read that. Mr. Hogan admits up front there is some mystery about the life and death of John Ringo, but he took the facts he found and wrote his book “…narrated in a fictional form to make its presentation more appealing. It has been a matter of clothing a skeleton with flesh…it could have been the way he lived and died.”
Ray Hogan presents John Ringo as having more education than most around him; smart enough to stay away from some of the more extreme plans of the Clanton gang (he was apparently not at the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral). At times Johnny would go off by himself, which was likely as much a result of his lonely, sometimes morose nature. He had few friends.
Also mentioned in the book was some years Johnny spent raising cattle. Even though he showed restraint at times, John Ringo was not what you’d call a good guy (but I suspect if you read much about Doc Holliday or the Earp brothers, you’d find they weren’t angels either). I gather that the citizens of Tombstone quickly learned who Ringo was, and knew it was wise to keep at a distance from him.
John Ringo was also a descendant of Philip Janszen Ringo (the Pirate – see my last post), but on an different branch of the family than I (I’m related to the Ringo’s through the Bird family, who married into the Yoakam family, who married into the Wingate’s). So if I’ve figured this right, Johnny Ringo was a fifth cousin three generations removed from me, on my Dad’s side.
Genealogists have told me before that it’s actually kind of fun to find a black sheep you didn’t know was in the family, a “skeleton in the closet” as the saying goes. They were right.
I didn’t know then if Ringo was a made up character or was based on a real outlaw from history.
And who would have thought that I was related to the guy?
It turns out that the storyline of the song lyrics is pure fiction. The real John “Johnny” Ringo was an enemy of Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp and his brothers, and he rode with the Clanton gang, “The Cowboys”. Cattle were rustled, stagecoaches were robbed, and there was drinking and gambling. Johnny was reported in the papers to have shot and wounded a man in a bar once, for not drinking whiskey with him. This was all in and around Tombstone, Arizona in the early 1880’s. For all that, there’s no record of his being involved in a stand up one on one shootout in the middle of the street, as is often shown in westerns.
Photo from the Wikipedia article (see below)
Johnny Ringo was found dead of a bullet wound to the head, and his death was officially ruled a suicide. There are also four murder conspiracy theories; some say Wyatt Earp shot him from a distance, others that Doc Holliday did it. Other theories involved either “Buckskin” Frank Leslie as the murderer, or a gambler known by the nickname “Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce”. For all of that, you can read the details here
...and you’ll also find more about his days in Tombstone, and his prior involvement in the “Hoodoo Wars” in Mason County, Texas (1875, I think), and his earlier life. Wikipedia also has this article.
Now for the genealogy angle. As I mentioned in my last post, the Ringo family has been thoroughly researched, and there are postings on genealogy boards online. I particularly like this comment by Jim Ringo, from Ancestry.com:
“…Was out to Tombstone, AZ in March 03 to interview with the local Newspaper, Tombstone Tumbleweed. The purpose of the visit and interview was to let people know what a nice family the Ringo's are. Not sure they bought it…”
There’s some disagreement between researchers about which is the best book on the subject. Some say, “John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was”, by Jack Burrows, others maintain that “John Ringo”, by David Johnson is more accurate. My library had neither one, but it had “The Life and Death Of Johnny Ringo”, by Ray Hogan, so I checked out and read that. Mr. Hogan admits up front there is some mystery about the life and death of John Ringo, but he took the facts he found and wrote his book “…narrated in a fictional form to make its presentation more appealing. It has been a matter of clothing a skeleton with flesh…it could have been the way he lived and died.”
Ray Hogan presents John Ringo as having more education than most around him; smart enough to stay away from some of the more extreme plans of the Clanton gang (he was apparently not at the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral). At times Johnny would go off by himself, which was likely as much a result of his lonely, sometimes morose nature. He had few friends.
Also mentioned in the book was some years Johnny spent raising cattle. Even though he showed restraint at times, John Ringo was not what you’d call a good guy (but I suspect if you read much about Doc Holliday or the Earp brothers, you’d find they weren’t angels either). I gather that the citizens of Tombstone quickly learned who Ringo was, and knew it was wise to keep at a distance from him.
John Ringo was also a descendant of Philip Janszen Ringo (the Pirate – see my last post), but on an different branch of the family than I (I’m related to the Ringo’s through the Bird family, who married into the Yoakam family, who married into the Wingate’s). So if I’ve figured this right, Johnny Ringo was a fifth cousin three generations removed from me, on my Dad’s side.
Genealogists have told me before that it’s actually kind of fun to find a black sheep you didn’t know was in the family, a “skeleton in the closet” as the saying goes. They were right.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Pirate genealogy
I've recently - the last several months - gotten back into doing some family tree research. I've always enjoyed looking at old family photos and hearing the old family stories, and I started learning about genealogy in the late 1970's. I found out early on that my grandmother was interested in that too, and had a family tree on her side back several generations into England. My mom told me that grandma was the one in the family with the interest, and that my grandfather, the one we called Poppy, really didn't want to dig into all that. For all he knew, we'd find an ancestor who was a horse thief.
The internet has speeded up much of the research, compared with back when all we had to look at were old papers, published books, and the census and other records on microfilm rolls, which had to be threaded into these big viewers at the genealogy library (those microfilms are still very useful, but I won't go into all the boring detail now). Not that all the information online is necessarily more accurate, but it's quicker to get to.
So about a year ago, I came across information on some Dutch ancestry I didn't know I had, on my dad's side. One of my great-to-the-eighth-grandfathers came from The Netherlands to New Amsterdam (now New York City); another thing I found out about him is that he died and was buried at sea.
And while I still haven't found any horse thieves, it looks like I found a pirate in the family today. I was looking for dates on a couple of families, to get an idea of when they came to the US, to see which individuals would likely show up in census records. I thought hey, the Ringo family has been well researched, and I haven't checked online for any information about them in months. So I typed in Philip Janszen Ringo genealogy on my search engine, and found quite a bit. One thing I hadn't seen before was a posting on genforum, from a Jim Ringo (I haven't figured out what kind of cousin relationship that would be, but we're apparently related). I won't copy the whole entry, but here's part...
"Ringo family members like to say that Philip Janszen Ringo was in the shipping business...During the period 1645-46 he managed to capture the Spanish Ship, St Antonio of Havana at the Bay of Campeachy (sp?) near the Mexican coast...Philip Ringo personally overcame by force one Manuel the Spaniard...was held for ransom at the Ringo family home...The Spanish considered his actions as piracy. The English and Dutch considered it as privateering."
I told the kids (they're all into the Pirates of the Caribbean movies)...there was much rejoicing.
The internet has speeded up much of the research, compared with back when all we had to look at were old papers, published books, and the census and other records on microfilm rolls, which had to be threaded into these big viewers at the genealogy library (those microfilms are still very useful, but I won't go into all the boring detail now). Not that all the information online is necessarily more accurate, but it's quicker to get to.
So about a year ago, I came across information on some Dutch ancestry I didn't know I had, on my dad's side. One of my great-to-the-eighth-grandfathers came from The Netherlands to New Amsterdam (now New York City); another thing I found out about him is that he died and was buried at sea.
And while I still haven't found any horse thieves, it looks like I found a pirate in the family today. I was looking for dates on a couple of families, to get an idea of when they came to the US, to see which individuals would likely show up in census records. I thought hey, the Ringo family has been well researched, and I haven't checked online for any information about them in months. So I typed in Philip Janszen Ringo genealogy on my search engine, and found quite a bit. One thing I hadn't seen before was a posting on genforum, from a Jim Ringo (I haven't figured out what kind of cousin relationship that would be, but we're apparently related). I won't copy the whole entry, but here's part...
"Ringo family members like to say that Philip Janszen Ringo was in the shipping business...During the period 1645-46 he managed to capture the Spanish Ship, St Antonio of Havana at the Bay of Campeachy (sp?) near the Mexican coast...Philip Ringo personally overcame by force one Manuel the Spaniard...was held for ransom at the Ringo family home...The Spanish considered his actions as piracy. The English and Dutch considered it as privateering."
I told the kids (they're all into the Pirates of the Caribbean movies)...there was much rejoicing.
Friday, January 1, 2010
01-01-10
This is just nuts, as I told my wife earlier in the day. 2010 already? When we were younger, The Year 2000 was a ways off yet, but it was something we could kind of imagine...it was on its way. Then, there was that movie 2001. But 2010? Yeah, right.
Where did the last 25 years go?
The kids spent New Years Eve with some good friends of the family, so my wife and I had the house to ourselves. We built some popcorn and watched a movie we hadn't seen in a long while, The Princess Bride. We enjoyed the quiet evening at home, and the kids had a good time at their party...stayed up until midnight even.
This morning after breakfast my wife and I bundled up and drove to the local Wally World to exchange the flannel pajamas I got for Christmas for the same thing in size XL. That, and we bought a few other things.
It's been bitterly cold all day, it may have made it up to 15. In the afternoon, I went out to sprinkle some snow melt chemicals on the worst of the icy patches, and to take the trash cans to the curb for tomorrow morning's pickup. Other than that, I've stayed in. The weather guessers say it may get down to one or two below zero tonight.
We're starting to put the Christmas decorations away, bit by bit, which always makes me a bit sad. That, and I had hoped to light the oven to bake some snack mix this evening. Our oven is tempermental about lighting, and it was nothing doing tonight.
Not much of a report, I know. But I thought it was interesting how today's date looked, using just the last two digits of the year. There will be some fun number sequences this year...08-09-10, 10-10-10, and 12-11-10, to list some obvious ones.
Where did the last 25 years go?
The kids spent New Years Eve with some good friends of the family, so my wife and I had the house to ourselves. We built some popcorn and watched a movie we hadn't seen in a long while, The Princess Bride. We enjoyed the quiet evening at home, and the kids had a good time at their party...stayed up until midnight even.
This morning after breakfast my wife and I bundled up and drove to the local Wally World to exchange the flannel pajamas I got for Christmas for the same thing in size XL. That, and we bought a few other things.
It's been bitterly cold all day, it may have made it up to 15. In the afternoon, I went out to sprinkle some snow melt chemicals on the worst of the icy patches, and to take the trash cans to the curb for tomorrow morning's pickup. Other than that, I've stayed in. The weather guessers say it may get down to one or two below zero tonight.
We're starting to put the Christmas decorations away, bit by bit, which always makes me a bit sad. That, and I had hoped to light the oven to bake some snack mix this evening. Our oven is tempermental about lighting, and it was nothing doing tonight.
Not much of a report, I know. But I thought it was interesting how today's date looked, using just the last two digits of the year. There will be some fun number sequences this year...08-09-10, 10-10-10, and 12-11-10, to list some obvious ones.
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