Happy news

I got a call from my daughter in California, and I'm officially a grandpa again! My second granddaughter was born 5:41 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Nine pounds and three ounces, and 19 1/2 inches long. Both mother and baby are doing very well.

The Evening Rambler for April 14, 2010 (Tax Day Eve)

When I was younger, my dad would deliberately wait until April 15th to send in his tax return. Mind you, he already had it done, but the IRS wasn't going to get his check any earlier than necessary. His quiet mannered form of protest, I suppose.

He got audited one year; someone at the IRS questioned the amount he deducted for meals and lodging. Gee, I wonder if they looked at the line where dad wrote his occupation...Airline Pilot. Do you suppose staying at a lot of motels when he was away from home and eating out in restaurants had anything to do with that? Anyway, I could tell he was steamed, and I remember him putting all the receipts - he'd saved each and every one, of course - in a shoebox and wrapped it up.

It was a Big shoebox. It could be he took it to the local IRS office, or maybe he mailed it in; I'm not sure now (this was back in the 1960's). Long story somewhat shorter...he got the box back; as if to say "You're okay, never mind".

For some years I followed in the wait until April 15th tradition, but in recent years I've opted to get it done early and save the last minute rush.

So this isn't really about taxes, that's not what I sat down to blog about anyway.

Let's see, where was I...

Easter 2010 was a quiet day, just the family. Church was good, and I had it in mind to choose a particular scripture from the service or line from a hymn to post here, as a follow up to my Good Friday post. But I couldn't choose, it was all good and encouraging. Choose your favorite Gospel account and read the whole thing.

He is risen indeed!

The passage that did catch my attention was from a devotion for Monday, April 12th, titled "Our Certain Hope in Christ". Romans 8:38-39 has been a favorite passage of mine for years, but the devotion began earlier, and I was struck by the power of the statement in these preceding verses (31-37), and it stayed with me since...

31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: "for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (New International Version, italics mine for emphasis)

There will be big news tomorrow. Daughter number one is scheduled for a c-section to deliver her second child.

The word excited doesn't begin to cover it here.

Happy Good Friday

You who think of sin but lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed;
See who bears the awful load;
It's the Word, the Lord's Anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.

"Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted"
verse 3

Take the tube

Recently in my basement, I found a stack of old Life magazines from the 1960's and 1970's. I'm in the midst of a de-cluttering project, and I no longer have the desire to keep a lot of magazines; but I looked through the stack to see if I should keep a couple. Maybe I'd find an article about the astronauts or something. One thing caught my eye, an article speculating about the future of transportation. There was a nice photo of the bullet train in front of Japan's Mt. Fuji. And a photo of what looked like a model of a pneumatic tube car.

Wait, what?

We all know pneumatic tubes from bank "drive-throughs", and In the past I've had some fun thinking about what if they tried enlarging the tubes and cars for a transportation system. You'd get in, fasten your seatbelt, probably put on earmuffs (quiet ride? Doubtful). When everyone was in their seats the door would close, a big fan would start somewhere, and off you'd go. Almost before you knew it you'd arrive at your destination. The car would stop, the door open, you'd unfasten your seatbelt and walk out.

I liked to tell myself that I had an original idea here, but obviously not.

So, should I save the old magazine for one photo? Hey, let's check the internet! I keyed in "pneumatic tube" and found that of course there were articles on such proposed transit systems.

Here's the jaw-dropper: it's actually been done before. Click here to read about The Beach Pneumatic Transit Company.

The Pneumatic Despatch opens at Holborn, 1865, through the larger tubes of the second phase of the system. Some of the staff put themselves into the cars for the occasion. From Beach, Pneumatic Dispatch, from an English source.

Unless this whole article is a hoax (it doesn't have that feel and I've found a reference elsewhere), they actually built this in England in the 1860's for transporting baggage. Apparently during the trial run a couple of people got in the car for the test.

What won't they think of next?

A day to recognize Irish heritage...and just have fun

A few posts back, cousin Mike remarked:

"Bob and I share some ancestry. I have it on good authority that it comes with the cousin gig. He is much more informed on it than I am, so I'm taking a bit of a risk here. I believe we have some Irish ancestors which makes the following story of interest."

Mike's been reading a book on the Brooklyn Bridge, and he went on to post about an Irish protest during the time approaching the Bridge's dedication (sounds like an interesting book, by the way).

I've been remiss in taking so long to respond. Then again, what better day to speak of one's Irish ancestry than St. Patrick's Day?

So Mike, that wasn't a risky statement at all. Our grandfather, Ira ("Poppy") Moore was Irish. Oh, you want details? That's where it starts getting tricky. My mom told me once that her dad was "half Scotts-Irish and half black-Irish". I didn't know what to make of that at first, until she explained that Scotts-Irish people were part Scottish and had red hair, and that "black-Irish" referred to a person who was Irish mixed with some ancestry other than Scottish. So instead of red hair, they were brunette - hence the "black" referring to hair color.

How much of each kind of Irish, and what were the other nationalities? Ask a genealogist and he or she will tell you that's not always easy to determine. Which is to say, I'm still working on it. In addition to the Irish and Scottish in Popppy's ancestry, it looks like he had some ancestors from England, and at least one who lived in Wales. I have to give credit to cousin Trish (Mike's sister) for that information, as she found it and passed it along to me.

And I doubt that Poppy knew any of that, except for the Scotts-Irish part. Our grandma had interest in family history, but not Poppy so much. Mom told me once that he said he wasn't interested in looking into that "because he might find a horse thief".

While that's interesting to me, a list of nationalities alone can be just names and labels. It doesn't shed light on the goodness of these people, their caring hearts and their sense of humor. But if I started on all that, where in the world would I quit? Another time perhaps, for the family stories.

Anyway, I'm wearing green today, not because I feel I have to, but because I want to. It's just fun. Whether you're Irish or not, here's my wish for a happy St. Patrick's Day to one and all!

In various places

With all the coverage of January's earthquake tragedy in Haiti, I guess I'm sensitive to such news; so I took note of Friday's earthquake in Japan. Kind of a big one, but Japan has quakes fairly often and they are more prepared to deal with them.

Today's news of the massive earthquake in Chile - some say the fifth most powerful in recorded history - did get my attention. My guess is that the death toll will be much lower than in Haiti due to the better construction, even though it was a more powerful quake. That said, what a calamity. The destruction must be enormous, and we'll get a better idea of that as the days roll on.

And just try to imagine the colossal amount of energy released, to send waves across the world's largest ocean - one fourth of the Earth's surface! - to a height of six feet in Hawaii. Such things are measured, but I can't grasp it.

Earlier today I was reminded of a Bible verse...Jesus had just told his disciples that a time would come when the temple would be thrown down; not one stone would be left upon another. Three of the disciples asked,

"Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled" (Mark 13:4, NIV)

Jesus replies, speaking of false Christs, and wars and rumor of wars, then

"Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains." - Mark 13:8 (NIV)

A familiar verse, and I remember hearing it mentioned often in the 1970's, when Hal Lindsay's book "The Late Great Planet Earth" came out, and Biblical prophecies of the "end times" were discussed. This seemed quite a new thing to us young Christians. Nothing wrong with studying scripture, but looking back now it seems we were so focused on the end of the world that that study took on a life of it's own.

No one in my circle of friends was totally convinced - we didn't sell out and head for the hills to await the end - but most of us thought there was something to this talk. I recall one conversation when the question came up, would we make it out of the seventies? Good question...boy, I don't know.

But you can't worry about such things, and after all,

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come." (Mark 13:32-33, NIV)

So the decades continued to roll, 1980 came, then 1990, 2000, and now 2010. Our lives continue, and even among those of the faithful, we've taken on a lot of cares. Speaking for myself, I now have the attitude of yes, Jesus spoke of the end times among many other things, but until He returns I have to walk in faith every day. I'm just not as focused on those exciting passages now, as I was in my college days.

That said, Jesus did tell his followers to be alert for such signs. And I do remember someone back then interpreted the "birth pains" in verse 8 meaning that earthquakes would occur closer together and be stronger.

I don't really expect another major earthquake in another place tomorrow (I'm not talking about aftershocks in Chile here). But just in case one does occur somewhere else, that will grab my attention.

It beats sparklers and snakes

Given this blog's interest in all things fireworks and NASA, I offer another excerpt from "The Great Bridge" by David McCullough. It's very long by blog standards, but I think it would suffer from being broken up into parts. The excerpt is a detailed description of the fireworks display which concluded the day-long celebration of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883.

Grab something to drink and enjoy!

Suddenly a solitary rocket shot into the sky over Columbia Heights and burst into a spray of blue stars. It had come from the mayor’s house, where the dinner for the President had been going on.

Almost instantly the lights on the bridge went out. For a moment not a thing could be seen of it. Then there was a long, distant hissing sound, a sudden roar, and fifty rockets exploded simultaneously high over the main span of the bridge, while at least twenty bombs burst higher still, from above the towers, and poured down great showers of gold and silver. “From an elevated point the city seemed to be in volcanic action, with the spouting crater on the suspension bridge.”

At its final meeting . . . , as its last official act, the Executive Committee of the Bridge Company had contracted with the New York firm of Detwiller & Street, Pyrotechnists, to put on a display of fireworks “worthy of the place and the occasion.” In all, fourteen tons of fireworks – more than ten thousand pieces – were set off from the bridge.

It lasted a solid hour. There was not a moment’s letup. One meteoric burst followed another. Rockets went off hundreds at a time and were seen from as far away as Montclair, New Jersey. Bombs exploded incessantly above the towers, bathing the bridge in red. In the strange light, firemen on the bridge could be seen in strong silhouette and the water from their hoses looked like molten silver. Meantime, innumerable gas balloons were being sent aloft. They were fifty feet in circumference and loaded with fireworks and as they swung into the sky, one by one, they scattered balls of colored fire over the river.

At each burst of a rocket a huge roar went up from the shores. Hundreds of thousands of people were watching – probably the biggest crowd ever gathered in New York until that time – and nobody, in all his days, had ever seen anything like this.

Nearly every boat on the water was making some sort of noise or display. Rockets and fireworks were shooting up from the middle of the river and down the bay. On one big excursion steamer, ablaze with lights, a calliope was shrieking out “America.” Bands were playing on board other boats.

Rockets were going up all over New York meantime – and in Brooklyn. From the middle of the bridge now came great thunderclap reports as zinc balls, fired from mortars, burst five hundred feet up, fairly illuminating the two cities, like sustained lightning.

And finally, at nine, as the display on the bridge ended with one incredible barrage – five hundred rockets fired all at once – every whistle and horn on the river joined in. The rockets “broke into millions of stars and a shower of golden rain which descended upon the bridge and the river.” Bells were rung, gongs were beaten, men and women yelled themselves hoarse, musicians blew themselves red in the face. And then when it was all over and nearly quiet again and the boats on the river were beginning to untangle themselves, there was one last memorable touch that not even Detwiller & Street, Pyrotechnists, could have arranged. “Hardly had the last falling spark died out,” wrote an editor who had been watching from the top of the (New York) Tribune Building, “when the moon rose slowly over the further tower and sent a broad beam like a benediction across the river.”

Amen.

The chapter detailing the celebration concluded with this anecdote:

In another time and in what would seem another world, on a day when two young men were walking on the moon, a very old woman on Long Island would tell reporters that the public excitement over the feat was not so much compared to what she had seen “on the day they opened the Brooklyn Bridge.”