The Evening Rambler for November 15, 2009

This rambler will be short...

I meant to put this in my last post, in response to Cousin Mike's comment:

"A lot of warehouse-type places are named for Crazy Dave or Crazy Joe or some other guy who is crazy. Sure you can buy an end table...from Crazy Bill, but your fireworks? From a crazy man? No."

Actually the best fireworks warehouse around here is...

wait for it...

Mike's Fireworks in Riverside (okay, technically Kansas City north, but right on the edge of Riverside). They're kind of hard to find...unless you live right in that area or happen to be driving along Vivion Road and notice it, you'd have to find out how to get there and drive a bit out of the way.

They pride themselves on storing their stock properly. Other places may be cheaper, but if you buy from those other places you may have more duds; if you buy from Mike's you'll have more of a chance of everything working. At least, that's what I heard a salesman there say several years ago. It could be that some of the new places are now up to speed and equally good.

I do wonder about the place out east with the inflatable King Kong on the roof. Buy fireworks from a gorilla? Let me ponder that for a while.

Here's another post on Strange Maps...not a map actually, but a flowchart of The Lord Of the Rings. Click on this link right here, and you'll notice it's the movie version (Look at "Isengard Flooded" and you'll see the flowchart has both Saruman and Wormtongue die there).

Bob Day...the report

Cousin Mike's post was one of the highlights of the day. Can Bob resist making a few comments? Let's find out...

"No Bob Day Festival would be complete without fireworks, of course."

Well said; there's really nothing to add here.

"A lot of warehouse-type places are named for Crazy Dave or Crazy Joe or some other guy who is crazy. Sure you can buy an end table made of thick, heavy, dark wood in a style that matches nothing you own with a floor lamp sticking up through the middle of it for $39 from Crazy Bill, but your fireworks? From a crazy man? No."

I saw one of those heavy, dark end table lamp combination thingys at a garage sale for only $15, and I passed it by. I'm still kicking myself (figuratively speaking).


"Go to the garage and look for a box that used to have fruit drinks in foil pouches in it that you got from the bulk place (Crazy Egbert's!), but now has left over fireworks from the summer and you can use those for Bob Day. You may have to look behind the grass seed and some plastic device that came from an oscillating fan or an appliance or the car..."


Mike, how did you know where I keep my fireworks? That almost gives me the jibblies.

"...and you can't throw it away because you might need it some day."

Hey man, once it's gone, it's gone! Know what I'm sayin'?

"Anyway, light your left over fireworks for Bob Day and grab a Mountain Dew and raise a toast to Bob. If 78 percent of the fireworks go off, he'll be pleased."

Of course you realize that 78 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Actually it was a good day. Kind of quiet, but that was what I had in mind. My lovely young wife took me for breakfast at IHOP (okay, second breakfast...I was working on a bowl of cereal when she told me her plan). Throughout the day I got three birthday phone calls, from my Stepdad, my Daughter in California, and my Sister. She sang the birthday song to me, and we had a nice long conversation. At some point we got into the subject of lightning somehow. Sis had seen a program (Discovery Channel maybe) where they showed a lake or a river in South America which has the most lightning of anyplace in the world. So I got curious and did a search and found this. Interesting.

Back to the birthday. Earlier in the week I decided I wanted to spend some time on my day, at the Midwest Genealogy branch of the local library. Any of you readers who are into genealogy at all (hi, Trish!) have got to come here. It's like a candy store.

So I went there Thursday afternoon. They have lots of neat databases on their computer system, but the only downside is that you're limited to an hour. That's an automatic thing though, and I probably should have asked for an additional hour since there were plenty of empty terminals. Next time. Anyway, I found a couple of old census records, made a copy of one, and after my computer time ran out spent an extra hour browsing the periodicals and the rack after rack of family tree books. I've decided that in order to really use that resource and make additional progress on the family tree project, I need to schedule time to go there on a weekly, or at least bi-weekly basis. That and I need to take time to make a detailed list of what I might want to look for, before I go.

The rest of the evening was a traditional, small birthday party; just the four of us at home.



Ice cream cake from one of the local supermarkets. Delicious!


And presents.

And yes, earlier in the day I had Mountain Dew. Of course, that's like pretty much every day, but hey.

Found: A quote from The Lord of the Rings

I’ve been checking out the writings of Minnesota resident and master blogger James Lileks for a few years now, every since cousin Mike brought “The Bleat” to my attention. One of Mr. Lileks’ features is “100 Mysteries”, an ongoing “review” of a DVD compilation of old, mostly black-and-white mystery movies.

James describes today’s entry, “The Man on the Eiffel Tower” as the “Worst movie in the series so far”. Mr. Lileks has a great way with words, but as sometimes happens, there will be a quote from someone in the comments section that will really grab my attention.

So, check this out, and notice the blog entry begins with a photo of Burgess Meredith, who both directed and starred in the movie. Then, the first comment: “Isn’t that guy your new US Senator?”, followed five comments later by “THAT is funny. Funny, ha - ha, not funny in that, you know, Franken is really going to be a Senator. That’s just, I dunno… disappointing? Disturbing? Sumpthin.”

Then, 13 comments down from the top, “…That’s just, I dunno… disappointing? Disturbing? Sumpthin.”

“Where now the horse and the rider? where is the horn that was blowing? The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.”

That last is what really got me thinking. It’s not only a meaningful quote from “The Lord of the Rings”, but also a poetic statement on our current state of affairs. A lament, I suppose.

Now, I’m not all gloom-and-doom, I just can’t do that. But sometimes I have to wonder.