Internet Headaches

My No.1 complaint about the internet is to be reading an article, then a pop-up ad covers up the article, which makes you have to X out the ad, so you can finish reading the article. Guess you can call this kind of pop-up a pop-over since it covers up an article. If the advertiser thinks pop-up ads will make me want to look at their ad, then they are dead wrong, since I will never buy a product, from a company that intrudes on my time on the computer.

Another culprit is the spammer who reads your blog and likes it and posting a phony message, about how much they like your blog, then you see it is a business trying to use your blog to advertise their business.

You Tube videos are another headache, when you expect to see a music video, but instead an advertisement starts playing for 30 minutes or 60 minutes. You are a prisoner to the advertiser, since you have no choice, but to watch their ad if you want to see the music video. I hate inserting a link in my blog, to a You Tube video that first shows an ad, since some viewers won’t want to sit there for 60 minutes watching an ad, before seeing the video.

Some websites are interminably slow to open a page, so eventually I will avoid those websites. For instance I have seen some websites take forever to open, but then go to ESPN which opens almost immediately, despite being graphic intensive website.

Then there are the websites, that require you to sign in with your email address and a password, just to view the content of that website. Another pet peeve of mine is going to a website that lets you read only part of an article, then says you have to pay to read the complete article.

There is nothing more aggravating, than to go to a website and start reading, then the page becomes unresponsive and you have to wait till the page lets you start scrolling again.

One thing that often happens on the internet is to go to a website and you get a message saying you need to download a program, before you can view that website. If you have problems downloading the program, then you have wasted several minutes for nothing.

Bloggers like me have another problem, by posting a photo found in a Google search, then go back to that page later and the photo is gone. Copyrighted photos should not show up in a Google search. I have about 925 posts in my blog, so it is impossible to go through each blog to see which photos or videos have been removed by someone.

Charging to view a website tells me it is time to forget about that website. That is why Facebook will not charge to use Facebook, because Facebookers will leave the site in droves, if they start charging. Facebook doesn’t want to tell their advertisers, that millions have closed out their Facebook accounts, so the advertiser will ask Facebook to reduce their advertising rates and Facebook surely doesn’t want to lose revenue.

The only internet service that I would ever consider paying for is if all the email services begin charging, for using their email service. Email is almost certainly the most widely used service on the internet, especially those that don’t use the social media for one reason or the other.

Note: Readers are welcome to list their complaints about the internet in the comments section. Any comments are appreciated.

Memories of a Lifetime: 2011-2013

2011 – We were living in Sulphur, Louisiana, a city of about 20,000 at the start of 2011. We were living on Live Oak Street in Sulphur and we found a home church in Calvary Baptist Church on Lewis Street. We were impressed by the pastor Rev. W.D. Darnell, who lived what he preached and only used the King James Version of the Holy Bible. We made many friends, among the members of the church. Rhonda was very involved with the activities at the church and I often sang special music on Sunday and Wednesday nights. Rhonda and me sang duets a couple of times and she sang On The Wings Of A Dove with another lady one time.

Rhonda liked living in Sulphur, since she had a sister and her mom living there. We lived close to the neighborhood, where my daughter and family had lived before moving to Groves, Texas.

I would return to working as a caregiver again in November of 2011. I worked with a disabled man with diabetes and lost the job at the end of the year, when his family changed to another caregiving company.

An international news story was when an earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan took 15,840 lives.

President Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden on May 1.

Casey Anthony was acquitted of the murder of her daughter Calee Marie Anthony, in a controversial verdict by the jury.

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computers dies on October 5 of cancer.

House were renting at $955 a month in 2011.

A gallon of gas cost $2.89.

Movie tickets were selling for $8.20.

 

2012 – I worked as a crossing guard at a school in Sulphur for a few weeks, toward the end of the school year. It was interesting work and enjoyed the job. The job could turn out to be the last job I will ever work, since I haven’t worked since becoming sick a couple of months later.

We moved to DeRidder, Louisiana in July and are living in a trailer, that is about halfway between Merryville, Louisiana and DeRidder. We are living in the country and liking it so far.

Knew something was wrong when I began vomiting up blood and lost about 35 pounds in less than two months during the summer. Found out in October in Houston VA Hospital, that I had duodenal cancer. It was a very disease to diagnose, since it mimics acid reflux and duodenal ulcers. It is very rare disease with only two percent of gastrointestinal diseases being duodenal cancer.

Surgeons in Houston performed a resection surgery on Oct. 16 to remove a blockage, which was cancerous and was successful. However I found out in November, that duodenal cancer has a history of returning and has a relatively low survival rate.

Chemotherapy started at the VA hospital in Pineville, Louisiana on Dec.13 and have had three chemo IV’s since that date, with five more to go. Have finished six of a 24 week program of chemotherapy. It seems like the side effects have been worse with each chemo IV. Had difficulty walking in a straight line after the last IV and sort of lurch from side to side.

2012 was a life changing year for us, with us being evicted, moving to a new city and finding out that I had cancer and had surgery a few days later. Spent a total of 32 days in hospital in Houston.

July 20 would be the first of two mass shootings in the United States, when a gunman killed 12 and injured 58 in an Aurora, Colorado theater.

December 14 would bring the second mass shootings of 2012, when a man kills 20 children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, along with six adults, before killing himself.

A gallon of gas would rise to $3.89 during 2012. It is about 64 cents a gallon cheaper now in 2013.

House rent average goes over the $1,000 mark for the first time, as it rose to $1,045 a month.

A pound of bacon which was $2.96 in 2008 had risen to $4.48 in 2012.

 

2013 – This year should be a very interesting year, as the chemotherapy continues through May and it will be interesting to learn the results of the bloodwork after the last week of chemotherapy. May 21 will be another important date for us as we return to Houston for another C-scan, which will show if the cancer is completely gone or has returned.

We don’t know what this year holds, but we plan to remain positive, even if the news is bad and I don’t plan on being negative, regardless of what happens in 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memories of a Lifetime: 2006-2010

2006 – I would return to my job at Louisiana Community Care, after losing my job with Coastal Culvert. I primarily worked in a group home with seven guys at the time. It was a very demanding job as I had to assist them with their hygiene and washed and dried all their clothes. I would walk in the door at the group home at 4:30 PM and wouldn’t sit down for the first time till about 11 PM, when I had to write down the events of the day for each individual client.

One time a client who ate too fast threw up and I was mopping up the mess and he came up to me and hit me in the head and stomach with a 1-2 punch. Needless to say I was more wary around that client from then on. Another time he woke up during the night wanting chips and when I didn’t give him any he overturned a table and dumped a pitcher of Kool-Aid on the kitchen floor.

I made a point of having all the clothes washed and put away and the floors all swept and mopped, by the time the 12:30 AM relief worker came in. I worked there till around Christmas and retired, since I was now 62 and eligible for Social Security.

Andrew and Rhonda in 2006 at Matthew’s baseball game.

Wikipedia lists very few newsworthy events during 2006 in the United States, with Twitter being launched that year, which turned out to be the most newsworthy event of the year.

Gasoline was selling for $3.03 on August 11, but had dipped to $2.21 by November 17.

 

2007 – We moved to Knoxville, Tennessee in August of 2007, as we followed my daughter, son-in-law, when he was named manager of a Knoxville Domino’s store. About three weeks later, when things didn’t work out well with the job they moved back to Pineville, Louisiana.

Since we had used our savings to make the move we remained in Knoxville till December of 2010.

We had a traumatic event that August, when Rhonda was driving down a Knoxville street and was hit by a car turning out into traffic, from an apartment parking lot. Rhonda sustained a broken foot in the accident and was unable to go for a job interview, that was scheduled the next week. We moved to another apartment in the same apartment complex in September and Justin and me moved everything by ourselves, which was a day long job, since Rhonda was unable to help.

Then I went to work for Luxottica, a company that makes lenses for eyeglasses in Knoxville. It was another typical manufacturing job, with pressure to produce the most lenses in the least time. I was operating four machines at once in the fining department. After finishing the fining, we would take the lenses to the next department the polishing department, which made the lenses look even better. This was another temporary Westaff job, so the job played out soon and was without work again. We were given an eviction notice from the apartment on Thanksgiving Eve, but managed to stay there till I found work the next month.

I went to work as a caregiver with Evergreen Ministries in Knoxville, whose headquarters are located in Haughton, Louisiana in December of 2007. The job went well and I remained there till August of 2008. I was required to take a test, to be allowed to administer meds to the clients and scored 91 on the test. I wasn’t allowed to give meds, till I had passed the test, but it made it easier to work in homes, that needed a certified meds person, since some workers never were certified to give meds.

This was the year that the Va. Tech student killed 30 people. My brother lived next to the campus and was driving on campus toward work, when he saw several police cars speeding toward the site of the shootings.

The big news in technology was the introduction of the iPhone and the Nintendo Wii.

Average income was over $50,000 but doubt many of those people worked at the Alexandria Town Talk.

Price of a gallon of gas was $3.38, which is more than it is now six years later, with it being in the $3.25 range in DeRidder, Louisiana area.

An ounce of gold is $630, compared to when I was growing up, when it was $35 an ounce. Someone that had bought 100 ounces of gold at $35 an ounce for $3500 would have seen their gold raise in value to $63,000 for that 100 ounces in 2007.

 

2008 – Would continue to work for Evergreen Ministries till August of 2008, when Rhonda found a better paying job at Comcast working in their call center. We only had one vehicle, since our Ford Contour had been totaled in the wreck in August of 2007, so only one of us could work.

Would move into this house in Knoxville in 2008:

Our home in Knoxville, Tennessee from August 2008 till December 2010.

 

We joined Piney Grove Baptist Church in Knoxville and would sing special music there many times and would sometimes be a replacement song leader. The prayers of the congregation had a lot to do, with Rhonda surviving a life or death surgery in 2010.

The average income dipped $10,000 during the year to $40,000.

Gasoline had risen one cent to $3.39 in 2008, while a barrel of crude oil was selling for a record $147.

The average rent for a house was now $800 and the housing market totally collapsed as the value of houses declined precipitously.

 

2009 – Rhonda drove me to Groves, Texas to spend time with my daughter’s family in June and attended a Astros-Cubs game on June 9. Rhonda drove back to Knoxville, while to boarded a plane to Knoxville from Houston later. While I was gone a tornado hit our home in Knoxville, but luckily the only real damage was to the deck as a tree fell on it.

A tornado hit our deck in June of 2009 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

 

Rhonda would experience the first signs of having a serious health problem about November of 2009, when she was sent home from work being very sick. The next year would see Rhonda have her large intestines removed and will have more on that in the 2010 post.

Monthly rent fell to $675 in 2009, while a gallon of gasoline dropped to $2.73, which is about 52 cents cheaper, than it is in 2013. A barrel of oil which had peaked at $147 in 2008 was now only $53 a barrel.

 

2010 – Westaff found me a temporary job working at a call center, which involved taking orders for Talbots a clothing company, which had an office in Knoxville. Temp job is an apt description for this job, since it lasted for about two hours. I completed one transaction and then heard the customer telling someone “If this order comes out right it will be a miracle”. My career as a call center employee came to a screeching halt about two minutes later.

March 1, 2010 was a monumental day for Rhonda, as she had her large intestines removed that day and she also smoked her last cigarette that day and hasn’t smoked since. The surgeon found out she had colon cancer that day, but the colon had already been removed and he also found out that Rhonda had diabetes.

The surgery was on Monday and it was on the Thursday night before Rhonda was to go home, that everything went terribly wrong. She went into septic shock and was moved into intensive care. The doctors were at a loss of what to do, before deciding the next day to perform an ileostomy on Rhonda. Her organs were shutting down and was having problems breathing when the surgery started. The surgery went well, but the surgeon told us, that he didn’t expect Rhonda to be alive the next Monday, after the Friday surgery was performed, but was shocked to see that she was still alive.

Rhonda and me after her second surgery in four days, while she was in a six day coma at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in March,2010.

 

Rhonda was in a coma for six days and didn’t wake up till March 11 on the 16th birthday of Justin. Her sisters had driven from Louisiana to Tennessee, but Rhonda was in the coma the whole time they were there. I did all the housework till Rhonda was feeling able to do it that next summer.

I would return to work at Evergreen Ministries in July of 2010 and would remain there till a couple of days, before we moved to Sulphur, Louisiana. I enjoyed the work and didn’t miss any days of work. Had one close call, when driving the clients home and the brakes failed. I managed to get up on the sidewalk, to avoid hitting a car and drove into a parking lot and stopped the company van.

After the hospitalization and recovery we were ready to return home to Louisiana and left Knoxville. It was 16 the morning we left Knoxville, but when we arrived in Sulphur it was 78 degrees, which is even warm for Sulphur late in December.

Our relatives helped us unload the truck in about a half hour or so. It had taken us three days to load the truck in Knoxville, so it was good to unload it fast.

2010 was a slow news year, with no major story listed at the Wikipedia site.

The Apple iPad is released in 2010.

A gallon of gasoline cost $2.73 and a barrel of crude oil was selling for $73.00 a barrel, which was $20 more than the 2009 price.

Price of gold had skyrocketed to $1237 an ounce, which was $1202 more than the price I remembered as a youngster.

 

 

 

Memories of a Lifetime: 2001-2005

Grandson Mark Geisel who was born one day after my birthday.

 

2001 – Mark Geisel was born on October 15, 2001 in Sulphur, Louisiana, while his father was the manager at the Domino’s Pizza place in Sulphur.  Mark has done very well in school and loves to read. He plays goalie and other positions on his soccer team. His red hair goes back a long way in family history. My mom had a red-headed brother, that was born in the 1920′s or 1930′s. My mom had two red-headed sons and a red-headed daughter and a daughter with auburn hair. I was the black sheep of the family with black hair.

We moved to Gibbons Street about this time and then moved to Linda Drive later that year in the Kingsville area.

September 11, 2001 – A day that will live in infamy.

 

September 11, 2001 was a day that none of us will forget. I had called the mechanic that morning checking on our car in his shop. He asked me if I had the television on and that is when I found out about the horrific events of that day. The memory of those planes slamming into the twin towers of the World Trade Center will forever be ingrained in my memory.

I couldn’t comprehend how four planes could be hijacked the same morning and that day let us know how lax our airport security was at the time. The nation was in chaos at the time, with aircraft being grounded all over the country. It was eerie hearing about passengers on these planes talking to loved ones, on their cell phones telling, about the horrors of what they were experiencing and then knowing those same people on the cell phones died a violent death minutes later.

It is difficult to believe that September 11 of this year will be the 12th anniversary of that horrific day.

The “War on Terrorism” begins with the invasion of Afghanistan.

Dale Earnhardt dies during a crash in the last lap of the Daytona 500.

Richard Reid known as the “shoe bomber” attempted to blow up an American Airlines plane.

The first iPod was released and Wikipedia was launched on the internet.

The average rent jumped $40 from $675 in 2000 to $715 in 2001. The price of a gallon of gas jumped from $1.26 in 2000 to $1.41 in 2001. A loaf of bread cost $1.82.

2002 – My favorite memory of this year was the 40th class reunion of Pineville High School. I had never attended a reunion until 2002. If I was scheduled to work on the day of reunion, then I would usually work, but this year I made sure I had that week off, so I could attend. It was great seeing classmates from the 1962 class, for the first time in many years. I hadn’t run into some of them even though they had never left Pineville. The saddest part of the reunion was when the members of our class that had passed on were mentioned in a Power Point presentation, with Duane Yates singing the Lord’s Prayer in the background. Sadly Duane died before our 50th reunion in 2012. Seeing the teachers and students from 1962 again made this a special time in my life.

The price of gasoline escalated to $1.61 a gallon, a 36 cent a gallon rise since the $1.26 gasoline of 2000, which was two years earlier.

 

2003 – This turned out to be the last full year that I worked at the Alexandria Town Talk newspaper. The paper was never the same, after it was acquired by the Gannett Corporation. The Christmas bonus we had received while the paper was owned by the Smith family and the Central Newspapers chain was the first thing to go, under the auspices of the Gannett mega corporation. That $150 we had received each Christmas was now a thing of the past, as was the free newspapers for employees.

Iraq is invaded on March 19 by the United States military.

Saddam Hussein is captured by the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.

Gasoline prices jumped to 1.83, a jump of 57 cents a gallon since 2000.

 

2004 – My 36 years at Town Talk and 38 years in newspaper production ended in 2004, when I retired with my last day of work being Halloween night. I spent most of my working life at Town Talk. In fact it was my first job after returning from Vietnam in 1966. I had seen my pay go from $1.40 an hour in 1966 to $13.50 an hour in 2004. Still I never took home more than $28,000 in any year, that I worked for the Town Talk.

We had a traumatic event  this year when my stepson Justin was sleeping in the den and was woken by a burglar, who was rifling through cabinets and drawers, while looking for painkillers. Neither Justin or the burglar knew anyone else was in the house. Thankfully, Justin thought the burglar was a relative, who told Justin he was taking stuff because his mom owed him money.

A few days before the burglary a man had knocked on our door and wanted to know if anyone lived in the trailer next door. Evidently, he was casing the house and had a timeline of when my wife Rhonda and me would be at work. Anyway he had left, about 30 minutes before I arrived home from work that night.

Justin followed him from room to room and the burglar told him to tell his mom, that he would return the next night. The burglar did have an encounter with our cat, when the cat bit him and the burglar said “ouch”. The burglar would be later caught due to his own stupidity. He overdosed and the paramedics noticed painkillers all over his trailer, which included some painkillers my wife had in our house, after having major surgery. He lived only about five houses up the street from us and was arrested for burglary and sent to prison.

Facebook was launched in 2004 and was originally only for students at Harvard University.

Strongest earthquake in 40 years hits near Indonesia and the earthquake and resulting tsunami would take 290,000 lives.

Martha Stewart is convicted of felony and sentenced to five years in prison.

Gasoline continued to skyrocket to $2.10 an increase of 84 cents a gallon from the year 2000. Oil peaked at $50 a barrel in 2004.

 

2005 – I returned to work in 2005, when I was hired as a caregiver by Louisiana Community Care in Ball, Louisiana. Sometimes I would start a shift at 8PM and would finish the shift at 8:30 AM the next morning. It wasn’t hard work, but it was detail work, that required a set schedule of administering medicine. I found out later in Tennessee, that anyone administering medicine in Tennessee was required to take a course and pass a test to give meds to a client. However, Louisiana required no certification to give meds. I was giving meds my first night. There was a voluntary meds certification, but it wasn’t required at this time.

Later that year I went to work for Plasti-Pak in Kingsville area and I learned how much work is involved with factory work. I operated a box making machine for Procter and Gamble products the first night there. We went to work at 6:45 PM and the shift would end at 7:15 the next morning, so we would get a full 12 hours per shift, with a half hour break to eat. It was tiring and exhausting work and dangerous work. I back over my foot with a hand truck, which resulted in losing two toenails. I bought steel-toed boots the next day. It was a temp job with Westaff and the job played out soon and I was one of first laid off, since I was one of the last ones hired.

Then I went to work for Coastal Culvert operating out of Eunice, Louisiana. It was the easiest job of my life, after working the hardest job of my life at Plasti-Pak. My job was to be the manager of a new Alexandria branch for the company. My main job was to check inventory of the culvert pipes outside the office. I had to call the Eunice office each morning, to verify I was at work. Then I would read the paper, listen to old-time radio shows or watch Andy Griffith shows on the DVD player till it was time to go home that afternoon. The job lasted from November till February of 2006, before they decided to close down the Alexandria office, since there was little to no business.

I can’t say enough good things about the Coastal Culvert executives. They invited me to their annual Christmas dinner and they gave me a $100 Christmas bonus, even though I had been there less than a month.

Some of the damage from Hurricane Katrina seen the day after.

The major event of 2005 in Louisiana is when Hurricane Katrina hit the southern coast of Louisiana and a break in the levee resulted in 80 percent of New Orleans being flooded. 1,577 died from Katrina in Louisiana. Many New Orleans residents waited five days for food and  water to arrive in the city. It was a colossal case of bad planning by government officials, who let people go for days without food or water.

Katrina didn’t cause much damage in Alexandria-Pineville area, but Hurricane Rita was a different story as many trees fell on houses in the area, with fallen trees closing roads.

Lance Armstrong won an amazing seventh Tour de France championship, as he demonstrated how he could live better through chemistry.

Video gamers saw the Microsoft X-Box 360 launched in 2005.

The price of gasoline climbed to $3.18 in 2005 an increase of almost $2 a gallon from the $1.26 price of 2000.

 

 

 

 

Memories of a Lifetime: 1996-2000

1996 – The Smith family sold the Town Talk to Central Newspapers for $62 million

The minimum wage was raised to $5.15, which was an improvement over the $1.40 minimum wage of 1966, when I was hired by the Town Talk.

March 13, 1996 – A gunman killed a teacher and 16 five and six-year-old children in Dunblane Scotland, which was eerily similar to the Sandy Hook tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut 16 years later in 2012.

Bomb explodes during 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ebay starts their auction website 17 years ago.

Gas cost $1.22 a gallon, which is about $2 a gallon cheaper than the $3.25 gasoline of today. A driver could save about $40 a fill-up in 1996 compared to 2013 prices, for a 20 gallon purchase.

Bread cost $1.15 a loaf.

1997 – Was chosen to be song leader at College Drive Baptist Church in Pineville, Louisiana and would remain in that position, till we moved to Tennessee in 2007.  I want to thank Rev. Charles Harrell and Paul Bonnette for letting me lead the singing during those years. I also want to thank Mrs. Frances Faulk for being the pianist most of those years. She had played for Governor Jimmie Davis for many years.

One of the major stories of 1997 was when Princess Diana was killed in a car accident 16 years ago. Mother Theresa also died in 1997 at the age of 87.

Microsoft became the most valuable company in the world and was valued at $261 billion.

Woolworth closes their last discount stores in 1997.

A gallon of gasoline remained steady holding at the $1.22 price of 1996. A pound of hamburger meat cost $1.38. Average rent climbed to $576 and a movie ticket cost $4.59.

 

1998 – Had a very short marriage in 1998 to a con artist, who left town with my credit cards and checkbook and our marriage license, plus ran my phone bill up to over $1,000 making calls to her boyfriend in Florida. The less said about her the better. Found out she had disappeared when I returned from family reunion in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and found the huge telephone bill waiting for me in the mailbox.

Think this was the summer that was so hot, that temperatures over 100 were common that summer. After not using the air conditioner since May of 1992, I was forced to plug-in the air conditioner, because of the extreme heat.

A gallon of gasoline dropped to $1.15 a drop of seven cents from the 1997 price.

Grocery Prices of 1998:

Loaf of bread – $1.26

Pound of bacon – $2.53

Pound of hamburger meat – $1.40

Dozen eggs – 88 cents

Average rent skyrocketed to $619 a month.

Grandson Matthew ready to travel to All Star game while playing for Ward 10 in Tioga a few years ago.

 

1999 – My first grandson Matthew Geisel was born on February 19, 1999 at Rapides Hospital in Alexandria, Louisiana to my daughter Debbie and son-in-law George. Matthew will be 14 next month and has done well in sports at the middle school in Groves, Texas and has played baseball in the Little League and Babe Ruth League. This will be his 11th season of youth baseball and he hopes to make the Port Neches – Groves high school team in 2014.  He has played football, basketball and track while in middle school. He played quarterback for the Groves Middle School 8th grade team. Matthew had runs of 18 and 50 yards in the game and totaled over 100 yards in the game. He played linebacker on defense and scooped up a fumble, while returning it to the end zone for a touchdown. Groves won the game 8-0 due to his fumble TD return.

Met my future wife Rhonda on the internet in 1999 and we would be married in 2000.

Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France. We will never know if he could have won without steroids, because steroids were an integral part of his training regimen.

Two boys 17 and 18 kill 15 in the Columbine school shooting in 1999.

Mattel’s Barbie Doll turns 40.

MySpace, Napster and Bluetooth came into existence in 1999 and all are 14 years old now.

Average rent continues to skyrocket to $645 after topping out at $619 in 1998.

The cost of a gallon rises seven cents as it  returns to the $1.22 price of 1996 and 1997.

Grocery Prices of 1999:

Pound of bacon – $2.59

Ground coffee – $3.41 a pound

Loaf of bread – $1.49

Dozen eggs – 89 cents

 

2000 – Married Rhonda on February 18, 2000 in College Drive Baptist Church by Rev. W.E.Efferson. We will have been married for 13 years on our anniversary in February. We would live on Burns Street in Pineville till we moved to Gibbons Street the following year.

Lifespan in United States in 2000 is 77.5 years.

President Bush would win the 2000 Presidential election, due to few hanging chads here and there. Democratic candidate Sen. Albert Gore polled 543,000 more popular votes, but lost the election by five electoral votes.

2000 was the year that dot-com bubble burst, as tech speculators lost thousands of dollars on companies that went bust.

Y2K starts with no serious problems.

Barrel of crude  oil tops $30 a barrel, while a gallon of gas rises to $1.26 a four cent increase, over the 1999 price.

Average rent prices escalated to $675 a year. Average rent had been $619 in 1998 and $645 in 1999, so prices had increased  $56 a month in two years time.

Grocery Prices of 2000:

Pound of bacon – $2.97

Ground coffee – $3.44 a pound.

Loaf of bread – $1.72

Dozen eggs – 89 cents

 

 

Memories of a Lifetime: 1991-1995

1991 – Visited my sister Jane and her family during the summer of 1991 in Pueblo, Colorado. My son Kenny and brother Tom also were on the trip.  My brother Daniel drove us up Pike’s Peak and will never forget how cold it was at the top. The brakes overheated on the way down, so had to let them cool off a few minutes.

Driving through Raton Pass with an altitude of 7,834 in a four-cylinder Toyota was not easy as we gained altitude. Enjoyed the time with my sister and her family while in Colorado. Jane is an executive with the Pueblo Library and we had the chance to visit the library.

911 emergency number was being tested during the year and the airbag was invented. Gasoline was being sold for $1.12 a gallon.

1992 – This was a sad year as my 22 year marriage to Elaine ended, with her moving back to Texarkana, Arkansas. Had to file bankruptcy after she left, so I could pay bills. It would be the first of six years with no air conditioning. We had one, just never used it, since had to choose between air conditioning and eating and eating won that battle. Ate cheese sandwiches most of the time and can’t remember going out to eat during this time.

With the Town Talk garnishing my wages to pay the bankruptcy and paying child support there was little money left for anything, but the bare necessities of life.

The divorce was finalized and it was sad to spend Christmas without the family for the first time since 1972, the year when Steve was born.

Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 and Miley Cyrus was born and will be 21 in November of 2013.  The cost of gasoline dropped from $1.12 in 1991 to $1.05 in 1992.

1993 – Flew to Knoxville, Tennessee this year with the financial assistance of my brother, to be present when Tusculum College in Greeneville, Tennessee honored my dad by naming a chemistry laboratory after him. Enjoyed hearing his students and others tell of my dad’s contributions to the Chemistry department at Tusculum. Then they served a dinner in his honor, which capped off a great evening.

My daughter Debbie missed by one word of making the National Spelling Bee in 1993. I was there that night in my alma mater Pineville High School auditorium, as she battled round after round before misspelling the final word.

I don’t handle change well and had a major change at Town Talk, when I was moved from composing room to camera shop, after having worked in composing room since 1966. I have to admit I was lost as I had to learn how to operate a full-page camera, tone photos and strip in negatives using the four-color process. The negatives had to have perfectly matched register marks, or the photos would be out of focus, which could be seen easily by readers if not aligned properly.

The price of gasoline rose to $1.16 a gallon, an increase of 11 cents a gallon compared with 1992 prices. Movie tickets had risen to $4.14 and a loaf of bread cost $1.57.

Harley Davidson motorcycles observed their 90th anniversary in 1993, which means they will observe their 110th anniversary in 2013. Beanie babies were first sold in 1993 and are now collector’s items twenty years later.

1994 – Remember watching O.J. Simpson and the low-speed chase by police as they followed him to his home. He was eventually arrested and charged with the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. This is the year that Tonya Harding had someone hit her ice skating opponent Nancy Kerrigan in the knee, hoping to gain an advantage over her injured opponent.

Can remember Bud Selig saying the dreaded words that there would be no 1994 World Series, due to a lengthy baseball strike. I had the feeling Selig almost enjoyed cancelling the World Series, as he seemed to be letting the players know that he was in charge.

The cost of gasoline dropped to $1.09 a drop of seven cents from the 1993 price.  The first satellite digital television service was launched in 1994 and Netscape was the leading browser that year.

1995 – College Drive Baptist Church lost their pastor Mark Norwood who had accepted another job with a church in North Louisiana, when Warren Steadman became the pastor that fall.

1995 was one of my favorite years since the Atlanta Braves, who I had been following since 1978 defeated the Cleveland Indians in the 1995 World Series. It was the first Braves win in a World Series, since the 1957 Milwaukee Braves defeated the New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series. The win over the Indians was only the second World Series championship for the Braves in the last 55 years.

Gasoline was still selling at $1.09 the same price as the 1994 price. Postage stamps were now selling for 32 cents. I remember back in 1963, when I was selling stamps for a nickel each and a book of 20 stamps cost only a dollar. 32 years later the same 20 stamp book sold for $6.40. Fast forward to 2013 and stamps are approaching 50 cents a stamp and a book would cost $10 for a 20 stamp book.

The biggest tragedy of 1995 was when a truck bomb exploded, while killing 168 people at the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh would later be executed for his part in the crime.

750 Chicagoans would die in a heat wave, when temperatures reached 104 degrees for five straight days.

Windows 95 is released by Microsoft and DVD’s are introduced.

O.J. Simpson is found innocent of the Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman murders and vows to catch the REAL killer. He searched golf courses all over the United States looking for the real killer, but was unsuccessful in locating the killer. He could have saved all that time and energy by looking at the mirror and finding the REAL killer there.

Grocery prices skyrocketed in 1995 as bread was selling for $1.15 a loaf. The days of buying five loaves for a $1 at the bread thrift store were now officially over. Ground coffee could be purchased for $4.07 a pound.

Average income was $35,900 a month except for Town Talk employees. I retired from Town Talk nine years later and never earned more than $28,000 a year, while working for the Town Talk.

Memories of a Lifetime: 1986-1990

For some reason my memory of the 1986-1990 period in my life is drawing a blank for the most part. Anyone with memories of what happened in Pineville-Alexandria during these years are welcome to comment.

1986 – Halley’s comet appeared in 1986 and won’t reappear till the year 2061. It had last appeared before 1986 in 1911. IBM launches the first laptop computer 27 years ago. Smoking was banned on all public transportation, in the United States which had to be tough for smokers on coast to coast airplane flights. The nicotine patch was invented in 1986. A Plymouth Colt could be purchased for $4,999. A gallon of gas only cost 89 cents. Average rent was $385 a month. Top Gun, Platoon and Crocodile Dundee were popular movies in 1986.

1987 – A Private First Class in the Army was earning $9,385.20 a year. When I joined the Army in 1962 a recruit earned $936 a year as a E-1. A gallon of gas was 89 cents, the same price as in 1986. The U.S. stock market crashed on October 19 with a 508 point drop. Fox Broadcasting made its debut 26 years ago. A seven-day Caribbean cruise cost $1195.

1988 – The price of a gallon of gasoline remained relatively stable, rising to only 91 cents, after being 89 cents the previous two years. Movie tickets were $3.50 and average rent was now $420. Yellowstone National Park had 250 separate fires in 1988 that destroyed 793,880 acres of the park, which was a third of the total acreage of the park. A Logitech mouse cost $89.99, while a Amiga 500 with a color monitor cost $849.

1989 – I had surgery in July of 1989 at Rapides Hospital. I would be off work for six weeks. I would then work from 1989-2004 at the Town Talk , while missing a total of one day of work and was in the hospital that day, after being admitted from emergency room, due to emergency room physician thinking I may had a blood clot, but it turned out to be a muscle tear. I think I got my work ethic from my dad who didn’t miss a day of work over a 40 year period.

That same month before the surgery I had gone to grocery store to get snacks to watch the 1989 All Star game. By the time I got back an earthquake had hit the San Francisco area and film was being shown of the players leaving the stadium with their families. Then we saw hours of coverage of the devastation in the area. Hard to believe 24 years have passed since that date.

Other big news in 1989 is that the Yugo cars went bankrupt. The Yugo is 39th on the list of worst cars in history. One feature was the rear window defroster, which kept your hands warm, while you pushed it. The car looked like it had been assembled at gunpoint. The article also has this to say about the Yugo:

The engines went ka-blooey, the electrical system — such as it was — would  sizzle, and things would just fall off.

1990 – I think this is the year my son Steve played football for the Pineville High School Rebels. He played end and endured practices from summer till the end of the season, but only played in the last game of the season, for only one play and the worst thing is that his mom had left the stadium, by the time he played in the game and I was at work, so no family member was there to see him in that one play. I still respect his work ethic to stick with it all season, even if he didn’t get to play but in that one play.

Gasoline had skyrocketed to $1.34 by 1990. Today gasoline is in the $3.25 range in our area. A Super Nintendo cost $159. Cabbage Patch Kids were $29.99. A six volt Batman car could be purchased for $199 and had a top speed of 3 MPH. A Smith Corona Daisy Wheel Typewriter could be purchased for $179, while a cellular car phone could be bought for $325.

Memories of a Lifetime: 1981-1985

1981 – The Town Talk started printing a morning paper in 1981, which meant that most of us in the composing room worked the night shift. I would work nights the last 24 years of my time with the Town Talk. The page makeup department would work from 4:30 PM till 1:00 AM.

1982 – Another year in which I am drawing a blank, as to what happened during that year. Nationally, the Gannett Corporation published the first copy of USA Today, which makes it 31 years old today.

Gasoline cost 91 cents in 1982. The first CD player was sold this year. A Sony 19 inch color TV was being sold for $499. You can buy a RCA 19 inch color TV at Wal-Mart today for only $124, a savings of $375 thirty-one years later.

One of the major events for me was that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was opened this year in Washington, D.C. The memorial is of particular interest to me, since the soldier that replaced me in Vietnam died two months after I left and his name and the name of my cousin from Maine are both on the wall. My cousin was a warrant officer flying a helicopter when shot down and killed.

1983 – This was the year we went to Disney World in Orlando, Florida and tickets only cost $18 back then. Epcot Center had opened the year before, so we also went to Epcot Center while at Disney World.

Later that summer we went to Greeneville, Tennessee to see my dad and his wife. You could walk out their back door and see the Smoky Mountains.

The Town Talk celebrated their 100th anniversary by giving each employee a coin, which can be cashed in during the year 2033. The paper will be 130 years old on March 17 of this year.

You could buy a Dodge RAM 50 truck for $5,665. You could buy a toy General Lee car from Dukes of Hazzard for $5.99.

1984 – By this time the years were running together with no particular memory of this year. By 1984 the price of a gallon of gas had skyrocketed to $1.10 a gallon, compared to 91 cents only two years earlier. The same Dodge RAM 50 truck that cost $5,665 in 1983 was selling for $8,995 in 1984. Movie tickets cost only $2.50.

1985 – Another year with no personal memories of it. Looks like when I hit my 40′s my memory bank had deposits less often.

Gasoline was a cent cheaper, than in 1984 with the price now $1.09. A Tandy computer and monitor system was $999. Bacon was a $1.65 a pound in 1985.

A Rolls Royce car for kids were being sold for $500. The vehicle was motorized with a top speed of 5 MPH and featured working headlights and brakes.

Will A Girl Ever Win American Idol Again?

Phillip Phillips became the fifth consecutive boy to win the title of American Idol last night in Hollywood defeating Jessica Sanchez.

It really was no surprise when Ryan Seacrest announced, that Phillip Phillips was the Season 10 American Idol. He became the fifth consecutive boy to win the coveted title. He joins David Cook, Season 7 winner, Kris Allen, Season 8 winner, Lee DeWyze, Season 9 winner and Scotty McCreery, Season 10 winner as American Idol winners, since Jordin Sparks won in Season 6.

Kelly Clarkson won Season 1, while Fantasia Barrino won Season 3, Carrie Underwood won Season 4 and Jordin Sparks was the Season 6 winner and are the only girls to win American Idol in 11 seasons.

The girls won three of the first four seasons, but the guys have won six of the last seven seasons. Jessica Sanchez was a much better singer, than Phillip Phillips, yet saw her American Idol dreams dashed last night.

American Idol needs to address the voting issue, to keep this trend of guys winning from continuing, whether they are best singer or not. The more votes cast, then the more chance of a guy winning. 

I have a feeling that the girls are voting early and often for the guys, especially when 132 million votes were cast on Wednesday night. It may be time to forget about announcing these huge vote totals and allow one vote per person. That change should give the girls a better chance of winning.

Taylor Hicks and Lee DeWyze are two guys that may have never been voted as American Idols, if the voters had been limited one vote. I know that American Idol doesn’t want the final vote for each singer released, but it would give us an idea of how the voting is slanted toward the guys.

Just my opinion but I think Josh Ledet and Jessica Sanchez should have been the two finalists last night, but Phillips voters kept Josh from having a chance to make the final two. 

Jessica was very fortunate that the judges hadn’t used their save on someone like Heejun Han, or she wouldn’t have been saved. It is difficult to believe that she received the fewest votes that week, since she was showing week after week, that she was the best female singer on the show.

American Idol lost almost six million viewers, compared to the 2011 final performances. The final performance show drew a record 31.78 million viewers in Season 5, but only 14.85 million voters tuned in on Wednesday night, a drop of almost 17 million viewers from the record.

The ratings for the finale last night have not been announced, but I look for it to be lowest total for a finale night.

The Voice and X-Factor have caused a huge dent in American Idol ratings. With The Voice and X-Factor returning in September, viewers may have tired of watching reality singing competitions even more, by the time American Idol returns next January. X-Factor is hoping to increase their ratings with the addition of Britney Spears and Demi Lovato, as judges to replace the departed Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul.

American Idol producers will be making changes to the show, hoping to slow the declining ratings. American Idol isn’t the juggernaut it once was, but it is usually near the top in the ratings.

Now American Idol has to deal with Phil Phillips having surgery very soon, since he will need four to six weeks to recover from his surgery and ma y not even be available for rehearsals for the summer tour.

Evolution of Phones: From Wall Phones to iPhones That Convert Speech Into Text

This wall phone reminds me of the wall phone at my grandpa's farm in Allendale Missouri on his 80 acre farm, back in the late 50's.

This rotary phone was seen in most American homes in the 50's and 60's.

This touch tone phone was found in almost any office for many years for office workers with a phone at their desk.

The latest cell phone today is the Apple iPhone 4s which looks nothing like the phones we grew up with over 50 years ago.

I remember back in the old days, when we would have to rent our phones from Bell South, paying a monthly charge to use the phones.

Now after the evolution of the phone from a wall phone, to a rotary phone, then to a touch tone phone found in most offices and also used at home.

It seems like it was only yesterday, when we only used phones to make phone calls and receive phone calls. Nowadays cell phones not only make and receive calls, but allow you to not call at all by using texts to transmit messages back and forth.

Cell phones have become a multi-purpose electronic device that enables owners to listen to music, watch television shows, movies and videos.

They can be used to play games, pay bills, make bank transactions on the phone, take notes, take photos and shoot HD quality videos. The iPhone 4s also can browse the web and remind you of an important event, that is approaching. If you get lost, you can use a built-in GPS to find your way.

The Apple 4s also has an intelligent assistant named Siri which will let you use your voice to ask questions:

It knows what you mean.

Siri not only understands what you say, it’s smart enough to know what you mean. So when you ask “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri will reply “I found a number of burger restaurants near you.” Then you can say “Hmm. How about tacos?” Siri remembers that you just asked about restaurants, so it will look for Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood. And Siri is proactive, so it will question you until it finds what you’re looking for.

This is taking smart phones to a whole new level.

It helps you do the things you do every day.

Ask Siri to text your dad, remind you to call the dentist, or find directions, and it figures out which apps to use and who you’re talking about. It finds answers for you from the web through sources like Yelp and WolframAlpha. Using Location Services, it looks up where you live, where you work, and where you are. Then it gives you information and the best options based on your current location. From the details in your contacts, it knows your friends, family, boss, and coworkers. So you can tell Siri things like “Text Ryan I’m on my way” or “Remind me to make a dentist appointment when I get to work” or “Call a taxi” and it knows exactly what you mean and what to do.

One of the best features is that the iPhone 4s takes dictation, then converts your spoken words into text. If you are sitting at a dinner table, trying to make conversation with a 4s user, it will be a futile endeavor, since they will be too busy using the features of the 4s, to even notice you are in the room.

iPhone 4S takes dictation.

Here’s another amazing way to get things done: just use your voice. Instead of typing, tap the microphone icon on the keyboard. Then say what you want to say and iPhone listens. Tap Done, and iPhone converts your words into text. Use dictation to write messages, take notes, search the web, and more. Dictation also works with third-party apps, so you can update your Facebook status, tweet, or write and send Instagrams.

Summary: We have come a long way from the wall phones of the past, which couldn’t be used to text or send emails, shoot videos or play music, to phones that are the electronic center of what is going on in our lives.

My problem is that I don’t have a cell phone, so still use a regular home phone to make and receive calls. The new technology is astounding, but if you can’t afford it, then it becomes worthless.

We all remember the high telephone bills of the past, when making a lot of long distance calls in a month. Owning a cell phone today may actually be cheaper, if someone was having $150 worth of long distance calls, month after month.

It becomes cost prohibitive to own a iPhone, a iPod and a iPad and a laptop not to mention paying for  monthly cable and internet service.

Steven Jobs Dies at 56 in Palo Alto, California

A young Steven Jobs pictured with three Apple computers.

Steven Paul Jobs was born February 24, 1955 in San Francisco. Jobs died yesterday (Oct. 5, 2011) at the age of 56. He was given up for adoption by his parents, who were two University of Wisconsin graduate students. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs and grew up in Silicone Valley.

His dad taught him how to take apart electronics and then rebuild electronics. He would spend a lot of time at Hewlett-Packard during his high school years and met his future business partner Steve Wozniak during those years.

Jobs quickly tired of the college scene, dropping out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon after only six months. He then went to work as a game designer for Atari, but left that job to travel to India and dabble in psychedelic drugs.

He and Wozniak founded Apple Computers when he was 21 years old and funded their operation by him selling his Volkwagen bus and Wozniak selling his scientific computer.

They developed computers which were smaller and easier to use. Their first computers were sold for $666 each and were part of the Apple I line. They earned $774,000 from the sales of that model. Then the Apple II took off and the sales totaled $139 million three years after its release.

By 1980 the value of the company was $1.2 billion. Then came a devastating blow when Apple president John Scully phased Jobs out of Apple. He left Apple in 1985 and bought an animation company, which later would become Pixar. He then invested $50 million of his own money into Pixar. The company would make huge hits like Toy Story and Finding Nemo and the company has made $4 billion in sales.

Jobs would return to Apple in 1997 as CEO with a contract of $1 a year. He was discovered to have pancreatic cancer in 2003. That tumor was removed in 2004.

The year 2007 would see Apple stock worth $199 a share. The company also recorded a profit of 1.58 billion with $18 billion in the bank. Even more amazing was the fact the company didn’t owe any debt.

The iPod and the iTunes music downloading service account for half of the revenue earned by Apple. The iPhone and iPad have kept the Apple name at the forefront of technology today.

Jobs resigned from his job as CEO of Apple on August 24, 2011. He died about six weeks later, yesterday in Palo Alto, California.

For a more extensive biography of the life of Steven Jobs:

http://www.biography.com/people/steve-jobs-9354805

S.H. Kress: Out of Business For 30 Years

This is the original S.H. Kress building built in the 20's or 30's before new building was built many years later on Third Street.

It seems like it was only yesterday that we were shopping at the S.H. Kress store in downtown Alexandria, Louisiana.

The original store was built on Third Street and would later be replaced by a new structure on the same street.

When we were kids, we did most of our Christmas shopping at stores like Kress where you could buy a lot of stuff with very little money.

The Christmas tree would have a lot of presents under it, but most of them would be from stores like Kress, Morgan and Lindsey and Ben Franklin.

One of my fondest memories is that of smelling the popcorn cooking in the popcorn machine in the store.

S.H. Kress stores became a center of controversy, when they refused to let blacks sit at their lunch counters and were sued numerous times for that refusal.

Part of growing up in central Louisiana were trips to the Kress store on Third Street in downtown Alexandria.

The first Kress store was opened in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania in 1887. Kress became a chain of 5-10-25 cent stores in 1896. Genesco purchased Kress in 1964 and 17 years later the company would no longer exist in the United States, and ceased operation in 1981. It missed by six years of surviving for 100 years.

Alexandria would see many other stores like Kress closed when their companies went out of business. Other chain stores that were located in Alexandria or Pineville including, W.T. Grant, Woolworth’s, Woolco, Ben Franklin, Morgan and Lindsey and many more that ended their presence in Alexandria or Pineville.

It has been thirty years now since Kress went out of the retail business. It was the same year that President Reagan took office on January 20 and would be shot in an assassination attempt by John Hinckley on March 30 of that year.

Other events that year include:

May 13 -

Pope John Paul II is shot and almost killed by a Turkish gunman inside Vatican City.

August 1 – MTV is launched.

October 6 – President of Egypt Anwar Sadat is assassinated during a parade.

December 28- Elizabeth Jordan Carr becomes the first test tube baby to be born and grew up to be a newspaper journalist.

Changes in My Lifetime: Things That Are Out of Style Now

Drive-in Movie theatre located next to a railroad track.

My home state of Louisiana has no drive-in theatres, left in existence the last time I checked. I can remember when we had the Fox Drive-in , Joy Twin Drive-in, Showtown Drive-in and Kings Drive-in located in Alexandria and Kingsville.

There are probably some others that were thriving at one time in the Cenla area.

I will never forget the speakers by the side of the car that let us listen to what the actors were saying on the screen. I remember stories of kids hiding in the trunks of cars to avoid paying to see the movies. 

Five years ago we went to a drive-in theatre in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. We saw a cartoon that night, so wasn’t too memorable, except for turning back the clock that one night, going back in time, even though the new technology let us hear the movie over the radio, if turned to a certain frequency. 

Eight track players came and left before I ever owned one.

Think most of us owned a record player before we owned a television since it

was only form of home entertainment before the radio and television in most homes.

I can still remember my dad wearing hats like these in the 50′s and

it used to be common for men to wear hats like these to baseball games.

A typical soda fountain back in the day.

There was something special about a trip to a soda fountain. Whether you bought an ice cream cone, a banana split, a root beer float, a milk shake or a sundae, it just tasted better coming from a soda fountain. I still have not found a cherry coke with the taste of a soda fountain cherry Coke.

Who can ever forget those 15 cent hamburgers at McDonalds when you could get a combo for less than a dollar. Those days are gone forever, but the memories of those days lingers on about 50 years later.

The Paramount Theater in downtown Alexandria where I watched No Time For Sergeants three times in a row without having to pay for the second and third showings.

 I can still remember kids delivering newspapers on their bikes. I also remember them selling papers on the street corners downtown. The demise of the afternoon newspaper ended for the most part the delivery of newspapers by kids as the grown-ups began to deliver papers in their cars and trucks, very early in the morning. The Alexandria Town Talk carriers would start their deliveries about 1 AM in the morning, but the last papers might not be delivered to 6 or 7 in the morning.

I know next to nothing about cigars, but am almost certain that there are no five cent cigars being sold in 2011.

The five cent cigars in the photo were apparently being sold during the 1968 presidential campaign by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey.

That campaign was 43 years ago, but it still may have been near the end of a time when cigars were being sold for five cents.

When was the last time you told a gas station attendant to “filler up”? There may be some full service gas stations still around, but they are getting harder to find all the time. The full service gasoline stations would fill your tank, wipe your windshield, check your tires and give or sell you a map, so you would know how to get to your destination. You used to get glasses or some other item when you bought gas. All you get now is high prices for gas we used to pay about 50 cents for.

I can remember selling books of 20 five cent stamps  for a dollar in the Army post office in Hawaii and Vietnam. The five cent price went into effect in January of 1963 and didn’t increase to six cents until 1968. So the five cent price stayed the same during my entire time working in the Army post office.

The penny postcard had risen to four cents by 1963. 

Today the five cent stamp of 1963 has risen to 44 cents and the $1 book of stamps is now $8.80. The penny postcard has risen to 29 cents. 

Predictions Made in 1950

 

The February 1950 edition of Popular Mechanics featured predictions of what products we would be using in the future.

 

Popular Mechanics magazine looked into the future and made some predictions on what life would be like in the year 2000. The writer of the article was Waldemar Kaempffert, science editor of the New York Times.

 

He predicts that the highways would be double-decked with the top deck for fast non-stop traffic, while the lower deck would be for shops alongside the highway.

 

One prediction that never materialized was the rockets that were to have flown from New York to San Francisco in two hours. A eight room house would only cost $5,000. We all know that never materialized either. Houses would not be built with wood, brick or stone in 2000, since the cost would be prohibitive, but instead built with metals and plastic.

 

Razors will be a thing of the past according to the writer, since a chemical solution will remove beards. Gillette, Schick and other razor companies are glad that prediction never came to fruition.

 

There will be no dishwashers in 2000, because dishes will be thrown away after being used. Two dozen plastic plates will cost a dollar, which isn’t too far off from the prices of 2011.

 

Soup and milk will be sold as bricks, but that never happened. Fast cooking electronic stoves will thaw a frozen steak in eight seconds and will be ready to eat in two more minutes.

 

Turning sawdust and wood pulp into foods is another prediction that went wrong. One prediction that did come true is that shopping by television, which is evident by the many products for sale on QVC and the Home Shopping Network.

 

The writer goes on to say that the housewife of 2000, will wash anything in the house with a water hose since the houses and everything inside will be waterproof. A calculator-weather forecaster machine will predict the weather.

 

Hurricanes will be stopped by igniting the water with oil. Wish it was that easy to stop a hurricane. Supersonic airplanes will travel 1,000 miles an hour. I can personally attest that this never happened since it took about two hours to fly from Houston, Texas to Knoxville, Tennessee which is about 200 miles less than 1,000 miles.

 

One prediction that has come true is the prediction that flying will be very expensive because of the high cost of fuel. The writer says a trip from Chicago to Paris would cost $5,000.

 

Families in 2000 will use helicopters, parked on their rooftop to get around fast, while the family car would be used for shorter trips of less than 20 miles.

 

Tuberculosis will have been cured by 2000. As far as I know there is no cure for tuberculosis 60 years after this article was written. Cancer will not have been cured by 2000, which is sadly the case today.

 

The prices shown in the magazine are as interesting as the predictions. The magazine shows a table saw for $15.95. Doubt if you could find one today for anywhere close to that price. Another item for sale in the magazine include a 65 pound boat for $35.

 

To read the complete article:

 

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/10/05/miracles-youll-see-in-the-next-fifty-years/?Qwd=./PopularMechanics/2-1950/next_fifty_years&Qif=next_fifty_years_00.jpg&Qiv=thumbs&Qis=XL#qdig

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old Time Radio Poll

The last old time radio show aired on September 30,1962. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar being the last old time radio shows to be broadcast.

The poll today breaks down by age groups of people who have heard old time radio shows either live from 1920′s till September 30, 1962 or media such as MP3 CD’s and downloads:

$6,000 Toilet With Touch Screen Remote Control

The Kohler company will introduce a new $6,000 toilet later this month. The toilet will include amenities like an MP3 player and a touch screen remote control.

The innovative toilet should sell well, even at $6,000. There are too many rich people, who like to be first to have a new product, for it not to sell well.

A complete toilet and tank can be bought at Home Depot for about $55. A consumer could buy 109 of the $55 toilets for what it cost to buy the $6,000 toilet.

This link shows what the toilet looks like:

http://www.toptechreviews.net/tech-news/new-kohler-toilet-will-appeal-to-tech-saavy/

Extreme Couponer Being Investigated

Jaime Kirlew, who was recently featured on Extreme Couponing is being investigated for fraud while using coupons.

She allegedly used $4 Schick Razor coupons to buy Schick Shaving Gel. You would think the coupons would be rejected.

This is such a complicated matter it may be better to go to this link, which explains in great detail, exactly how she is using the coupons.

http://jillcataldo.com/node/16170

Gasoline Cost 18 Cents a Gallon in 1950′s

With the average price of a gallon of gasoline close to $4.00, it is good to remember the good old days  when gas was 18 cents in the 1950′s.

I can remember driving from Louisiana to Kansas in 1969 when I found gasoline price of 24 cents a gallon. It was during a gasoline price war in Texarkana, Arkansas.

A ten gallon tank would cost only $2.40 at the time. Today that same ten gallons would cost close to $40.00.

In addition to the low gasoline prices, you could have your tires checked, oil and water checked and have your windshield cleaned.

Today there very few full service gasoline stations remaining in the United States. Now you have to pump the gas and clean your own windshield, not to mention checking to see if you are running low on any of the fluids required to keep a car running well.

No convenience store clerk is going to be able to help you with any automotive problems, since they have to stay behind the counter to work the cash register.

We are in another high gasoline price cycle, but this time it may be longer lived than most cycles. We are hearing in the news about gasoline going to five dollars before the end of the year.

The amazing thing is that consumers continue to buy the huge gas guzzling SUV’s knowing they will have to pay $70-$80 for a tank of gasoline. That same tank full in the 1950′s would cost less between about five dollars.

The price of a barrel of crude oil is at the highest since 2008, yet nobody in Washington seems inclined to do anything about it.

The state of Texas is even considering raising the speed limit to 85 MPH on the interstates. A tank of gas won’t last long driving that fast.

We hear the same old rhetoric coming out of Washington about using the millions of gallons stored in storage tanks, but so far the government has done nothing to give relief to the consumer.

Unless something changes in Washington, this country will continue to be held hostage by foreign countries producing gasoline that is sent to the United States.

 

Funny Facebook Status Updates

Facebookers know that some of the status updates their friends make are off the wall. This post lists some of the funnier Facebook status updates from Geeker’s Magazine.

When someone rings the doorbell, why do dogs always assume it’s for them?

People say that love is in every corner……gosh! maybe i’m moving in circles..

Why is a newspaper ten times more interesting when somebody across the table is reading it?

Yes, I know how to shut up. I just don’t know when.

Me and the gummy bears have a plot to rule the world but shhhhh its a secret.

I thinks my neighbor just caught me stealing his Wi-Fi internet.

¡ǝɯıʇ ǝɯɐs ǝɥʇ ʇɐ ʞooqǝɔɐɟ ǝsn puɐ puɐʇspuɐɥ ɐ op ʎןןɐuıɟ uɐɔ

I married my wife for her looks. But not the ones she’s been giving me lately!

All men are born free and equal. If they go and get married, that’s their own fault

U have 10 fish, 5 drown, 3 come back to life. How many fish do you have? Stop counting smart one. Fish cant Drown.

These status updates are from Squidoo.com:

Tomorrow I’m gonna write a blog post about procrastination.

You have a cough? Go home tonight, eat a whole box of Ex-Lax, tomorrow you’ll be afraid to cough

Why do men chase women they have no intention of marrying? For the same reason dogs chase cars they have no intention on driving.

Wouldn’t it be good if Ctrl+Alt+Del worked for ex husbands

60 percent of users are thinking about leaving Facebook. The CEO of Facebook said it will make changes starting tomorrow. If the percentage of people leaving goes past 80% it will start calling itself MYSPACE.

Hardcore Pawn: Detroit Pawn Shop on TruTV

Seth Gold, Les Gold and Ashley Broad (Gold) of the American Jewelry and Loan pawn shop in Detroit, Michigan depicted in Hardcore Pawn on TruTV.

Anyone who has seen Pawn Stars on the History channel, may expect more of the same kind of show, with Hardcore Pawn on TruTV, but they are completely different shows.

While Pawn Stars is more of a laid back show, Hardcore Pawn is more confrontational. While there may be some mild confrontations, on Pawn Stars, they pale in significance to those experienced, by the employees on Hardcore Pawn.

The actual name, of the pawn shop is American Jewelry and Loan. It is located in a neighborhood, that is not that safe. There are security guards nearby in the pawn shop to quell any disturbances that may arise. To show what kind of a neighborhood the show is filmed in, the camera focuses on the Eight Mile road sign.

The owner, Les Gold is a no-nonsense type of guy. He sometimes finds himself, breaking up fights between his son Seth and daughter Ashley. They are both headstrong types, who believe their way is the right way.

The following video shows a man who loses at the casino, pawns some items, then returns to the pawn shop after losing again.

One man in the video claims he was told he was told he could get $255, for the items he was wanting to pawn. The owner tells him he will get the $155 or could go home. The man becomes belligerent and is thrown out of the pawn shop by the security guards.

A lady comes in to pawn her wedding ring, after losing at the casino expecting to get a lot of money  to pawn it. She said her husband give her $300 to pay some bills, but she lost it at the casino. She winds up getting $30 and heads back to the casino.

The next customer brings in a OB-GYN examination table and takes $50 for it. Ashley, the daughter of the owner who made the deal is worried, they won’t be able to resell it. However,  a customer comes in and buys it for $200.

Pawn Stars has been a powerhouse in the ratings for the History channel, drawing over six million viewers an episode. Hardcore Pawn has not done so well, drawing only a little over two million viewers an episode.

While Pawn Stars focuses more on the value of the items brought in to be pawned, Hardcore Pawn features more of what is going on behind the scenes.

The pawn shop management decides to have a raffle in one episode, but it goes terribly wrong, when nobody has a winning number, after calling a bunch of numbers. The crowd becomes upset, but it ends well.

 

Missing Price Tags at Wal-Mart

Scanner found in Wal-Marts to tell customer price of an item from the barcode.

Is it just me or does it seem like prices are missing from more items at Wal-Mart lately? It is aggravating to not find a price, on the item or the shelf. Then the hunt is on to find a scanner which is not always easy to find.

Speaking for myself, I won’t buy an item without a price on it or on the shelf. Then the tricky part is matching an item with the price on the shelf. A lot of time is wasted by customers, looking for the same bar code number on the shelf, as is on the item.  This becomes even more of a problem when the item is out of place so its barcode number doesn’t match the number posted on the shelf.

You would think Wal-Mart would rather post a price, than to have the line at the register, held up by the cashier finding someone to find a price for them, if it doesn’t show up at the register either.

I like to avoid sticker shock so won’t even put an item with a disputable price in the basket, and just leave it on the shelf.

Sometimes the bar code scanner area is a dumping place for items, more expensive than thought as seen in the msnbc.com article.

The pile of goods abandoned beneath aisle bar code scanners at stores like Macy’s and Target prove that consumers don’t know how much things cost unless they go hunting, Dworsky said.

For those wanting more information on the missing price tags at stores:

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/03/another-nail-in-the-coffin-of-price-tags.html

Workers Evacuate Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

Workers have evacuated the Fukushima atomic power plant ending any hope of stabilizing the plant due to safety concerns for the workers.

The fight to contain nuclear radiation in Japan was dealt a huge blow when the Fukushima atomic power plant was deserted by fleeing workers who were being endangered by being exposed to the radiation.

This article gives the latest details on the nuclear reactor situation in Japan after Friday’s earthquake.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42084187/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/

Hindenberg Disaster

The Hindenburg airship explodes before landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937 taking the lives of 36 including passengers, crew and ground personnel.

May 6, 1937 was one of the most horrific days in United States aviation history. The airship Hindenburg exploded in mid-air shortly before landing at Lakehurst Naval Station in New Jersey.

The airship had been named for Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934), President of Germany  (1925–1934). He appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany, which enabled Hitler to seize power when Hindenburg died in 1934.

Fourteen months after the first flight of the Hindenburg in March of 1936, the airship would make its final disastrous flight in May of 1937.

It was amazing that smoking was allowed, in the smoking room of the airship. Passengers weren’t permitted to leave the smoking room with a lighted cigarette.

Aboard the plane the fateful day of the explosion were 36 passengers and 61 crew members. 36 people died from the fire including 13 passengers, 22 crew members and one ground crew member.

Looking at photos of the fire, once it hit the ground, it is remarkable that 23 passengers and 39 crew members survived, of the  97 that originally boarded the Hindenburg.

This horrific photo shows the Hindenburg in flames on the ground at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.

 

Herbert Morrison, a reporter for radio station WLS in Chicago was given instructions to cover the Hindenburg landing at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. Morrison went from describing a routine flight, before it exploded, to a hysterical report of it exploding in mid-air.

You could sense the disbelief of Morrison in his voice that he was witnessing one of the most tragic events in aviation history. He is still famous today for his “Oh, the humanity” line he uttered during the broadcast.

Morrison was 31 when he covered the event in 1937 and would live to the age of 83, dying in January of 1989.

Why Did Russia Send Dogs Into Space?

Laika the space dog was sent into space and died when the capsule overheated.

I don’t know the official reason Russia would send a dog into space but assume it was to see how an animal would fare in space.

Laika, a stray dog found in streets of Moscow apparently died from the capsule overheating. It has been 54 years since the death of Laika.

Despite the tragic loss of Laika, other dogs were sent into space by Russia. One can almost imagine what those dogs felt at takeoff when the spacecraft was thrust into space.

As far as I know the United States hasn’t sent an animal into space but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

Here’s hoping it never does happen.

Funny Facebook Status

Hubpages.com has posted some very imaginative funny posts for Facebook status pages.

These are some of the sample status page comments:

Dave is color blind and trying to solve a Rubik’s cube…this could take some time.

Katie is proud of herself. She just finished a jigsaw puzzle in six months and the box said 2-4 years.

Dave is wondering why his daughter’s diaper holds nowhere near the 22-27 pounds it promises.

Katie: Statistically 6 of 7 dwarfs are not happy.

To read the rest of the posts:

http://hubpages.com/hub/50-Funny-Facebook-Status-Ideas

Relics of the Past: Eight Track Players

The Stereo 8 eight track player made its debut in 1965 in Ford automobiles and in 1966 in homes.

The eight track player is one technological advance that completely passed me by. When I joined the Army in 1962 record players were still being used.

By the time I had finished my tour of duty in 1966 I knew of eight track players but never used one or had any idea of how they worked. A few years later after going to work, bought my first cassette deck and the eight track players seemed to disappear from the scene.

The popularity of the eight track player lasted till the end of the 70′s, before giving way to the cassette player. Then about 1982 the compact disc started to do to cassettes what the cassettes had done to eight tracks.

The eight track player had a very short life span compared to record players, cassette players and and compact disc players.

Audio systems today may include a record player, cassette player and compact disc player, but I haven’t heard of one that included an eight track player with an audio system.

Compact disc players for the last 29 years have become the primary source of music for listeners today, but have lost some of their market to MP3 downloads into computers which then download the music into MP3 players.

There are presently 254 eight track players for sale at eBay priced from $1.04 to $500. For someone who owns a lot of eight track music they can buy a player at a very cheap price.

The MP3 players are in vogue right now but who knows what technological advance is in the planning stages that could make them obsolete the way eight track players were made more or less obsolete with a few exceptions.

400th Post on Nostalgia and Now

Nostalgia and Now started in April 2009 and the article today by David Gasten was the 400th article posted at the website.

85,039 visits have been made to Nostalgia and Now. 2,102 visits have been made so far this week.

The first full month in 2009 showed 526 visits during May of 2009. The alltime high for one month was October of 2010 when 14,039 visits were made. That happened because an article on the death of Barbara Billingsley who played June Cleaver drew many more readers than usual to the website.

Twelve posts have brought over 1,000 visitors to the website. The following list gives the total visits for each post:

Classic Television: Leave it to Beaver….15,282

Home Page……………………………………………15,115

Dust Bowl: 1930-1940 What Caused It…  4,386

Reality TV: The Little Couple……………..  3,446

Classic Cars………………………………………….2,483

Radio Flyer Wagons: Then and Now……2,075

1950′s Prices……………………………………….2,004

Four Months in Vietnam……………………1,786

From the Past: Burma Shave Signs…….1,717

Growing Up With  Model Trains…………1,629

Drive In Movies Still Operating…………1,593

History of Baby Ruth Candy Bars………1,009

One of the fastest rising posts has been Lizard Lick Towing which was posted earlier this week and is already No.9 among all articles for the last 30 days with  156 visits. Towing News has linked to the Lizard Lick article from their website.

The biggest surprise to me is the large number of visitors who read the Dust Bowl article. I wasn’t really expecting much interest since it ended about 70 years ago. None of us can comprehend how it affected those people and how it affected the states of Oklahoma and California.

None of this would be possible without the loyal readers who have came to the website from Facebook, Twitter and Digg.

I want to think each reader that has visited the site. I have written so many nostalgia posts, that I am running out of topics, and  welcome anyone that has a topic that is nostalgic related, to send any ideas for nostalgic posts to:

Niteowl049@msn.com

13 iPads Stolen From Fla. Wal-Mart

One of the six thieves caught on surveillance camera as he enters into Wal-Mart before the six stole 13 iPads.

Wal-Mart store in Fort Myers, Florida will be re-examining their security measures, after 13 iPads were stolen. Six people were involved in the theft with one unlocking the case with the iPads and the others helping load them into shopping carts.

This was a well planned heist since they walked into the store individually to avoid suspicion and then waited while one of them unlocked the case.

The first question is how was this case unlocked without a key. The second question is how were they able to load the iPads into a shopping cart without being detected? Maybe because of the early hour there might not have even been a clerk in the department.

Makes me wonder if one of them diverted the attention of a clerk taking them to the other end of the electronics department away from the iPads (if a clerk was in the department).

The third question is how did the six people stuff the iPads into their clothing with them being 7.31 inches wide and 9.50 inches deep. How many people have pockets inside their clothing that are 7.31 inches wide? One of the six had to be carrying three iPads assuming they each took two each with one taking three iPads.

It would arouse suspicion if the six were all walking out of the store holding their coats closed to prevent the iPads from falling to the floor.

The main question is how did they get out the door with the iPads without the buzzer going off since they were unpaid items and where was the greeter? Did they disable something on the iPads to insure they could get out of the store without being detected?

One more question is why wasn’t someone monitoring the security camera for the electronics department? If someone was watching them they wouldn’t have time to even unlock the case .

It is inconceivable that they could steal thirteen iPads valued at $8,027, stuff them in their clothing and stroll out the store undetected.

Wal-Mart has surveillance video of the thieves but need help in identifying them.

http://www.northfortmyersneighbor.com/page/content.detail/id/508630/Tips-wanted-on-WalMart-thieves.html?nav=5164

The Crime Stoppers has more photos posted at their website and the release states that the thieves entered the store at 5:55 AM on February 25 and left the store at 6:05 AM. The photos in the following release from Crime Stoppers are very clear and it should be a matter of time before the thieves are behind bars.

All they need is some names to go with the faces. It is surprising they haven’t been arrested but they could be out of the area by now, considering it is over a week later and there are no followup stories about them being arrested. They may have been traveling hundreds of miles to hit this store and may be in another part of the country by now.

http://www.swflcrimestoppers.org/Press%20Releases/2011%20Press/110303_Photos%20Released%20Of%20Thieving%20Troop%20Who%20Stole%20Thousands%20From.html

Toy Tazers Bad Idea

My Source is selling this Toy Tazer for $3.40.

Do kids really need the Toy Tazer sold by My Source? I can’t believe a company is selling this as a toy when a real taser gun has killed 334 people in the United States between 2001 and August, 2008 according to Amnesty International.

Even if the toy only gives a a much lighter jolt than a real taser gun, it still teaches kids that a taser gun is a toy when in reality it is a gun that kills people.

Some officers almost certainly use taser guns in situations when the use of them could be avoided. The only time using a taser gun while making an arrest is justified is if it is a life or death situation where it is kill or be killed.

The low price of $3.40 makes this gun easily accessible which also troubles me knowing some parents will buy it because it is comparatively cheap compared to most electronic toys.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102×3652997

Relics of the Past: Rotary Telephones

Basic black rotary telephone is almost extinct today.

It has been years since I have seen a rotary telephone actually being used. Unlike the phones of today, the rotary telephones had to be dialed till touching the stop on each phone.

The touch phones of today are much faster and easier to use. Some numbers if they have been programmed into a phone can actually be called by touching one button.

The patent for the first rotary phone was filed in 1896. However it wouldn’t be used for the first time till 1919 when the Bell System began using rotary phones.

Forty-three years later in 1962 the first touch phone was introduced at the 1962 World’s Fair. It was the beginning of the end for the rotary phone.

I never thought operating a rotary phone was that complicated but there are videos like this one which go into detail on how to operate a rotary phone:

This lady demonstrates how to use a rotary phone properly.

1963 would bring the first commercially available touch phones signaling the end for the rotary dial phones which gradually have disappeared from the American scene.

Relics of the Past: Commodore 64 Computer

 

Commodore 64 computer keyboard.

It has been 29 years since the Commodore 64 computer was sold in 1982. It became the best selling personal computer ever.

From 1983-1986 it dominated the personal computer market selling between 30 and 40 percent of all personal computers sold during that span.

My mom bought a Commodore 64 computer in the 80′s from a computer store in Alexandria and gave it to her grandkids. If I remember right it cost $159 but the Commodore 64′s were selling at $595 when first introduced. The first models were only costing the Commodore company only $135 giving the company a huge profit margin.

It was not as user friendly as the computers today. We would buy Commodore 64 themed magazines and copy the programs line by line to get them to work on the computer. It was a lengthy process for some of the longer programs but when it worked after all the typing it was worthwhile.

It seemed like the Commodore keyboards were not made that well since the keyboards seemed to stop working in a very short time compared to the keyboards of today. The keyboard I am typing this on has lasted at least five or six years already while a Commodore 64 keyboard might stop working after a year or two at least in my experience using them.

One of my sons has a working Commodore 64 system today comprised of a keyboard, monitor and 1541 hard drive. He uses the GEOS (Graphic Environment Operating System) with the computer.

Today on ebay there are 106 Commodore 64 related products for sale at the website including keyboards, disc drives, monitors, software and other accessories.

We never had access to the internet with the Commodore 64 but if we had the right setup it might have been possible to go online.

Personally I think the Commodore 64 played a large part in the coming computer revolution since it brought computers into the home at an affordable price.

When more powerful computers were introduced Commodore 64 users opted for the new technology and the Commodore 64 gradually faded out of the popularity it had enjoyed during the middle 1980′s.

Even at $595 Commodore’s competitive pricing left Apple and Atari in the dust with the Apple IIe selling for $1,200 and the Atari 800 computer was selling for $899.

There were plans to release a Commodore 65 computer but they never materialized.

The Commodore 64 played a part in helping Americans become more computer literate thus leading to most home in the United States having at least one computer except for those who don’t embrace the new technology and wouldn’t use a computer if it was given to them.

Maybe the Commodore 64 is not a relic in the strictest sense of the word but the last generation has probably not even heard of them.

Archive.org: Great Multimedia Website

Archive.org will keep a reader entertained for hours.

Archive.org is probably the best source for audio and video online this side of YouTube.  The home page for the website as I write this article has a link to an audio version of a Grateful Dead concert at Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum at New Haven, Connecticut on May 11, 1981.

The concert is only one of 803,305 audio recordings at the website.  There are 2,214 old time radio related links to old time radio shows and magazines that were printed during the height of the popularity of old time radio.

One Roy Rogers episode has been downloaded 74,882 times showing that the website is available for downloading many of the old time radio shows we grew up with.

Old time radio fans will love looking at list after list of old time radio shows available for downloading including some of the more obscure shows which have very few episodes in existence.

The live music archive features 88,813 archives while the moving image archives total 451,934.

Avid readers will enjoy knowing that there are 2.694,639 texts including books and ebooks. The new Bookreader at the site includes Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin and is the example shown of how the Bookreader works.

http://blog.archive.org/2010/12/10/2685/

There is an audio version of some books but the one I listened to was not of the best quality and seemed to be a computer generated voice which probably would be tiring to listen to for an entire book.

Most readers may not enjoy the voice and instead opt to read the books without sound. For those that like the audio they should enjoy the feature that highlights the portion of the book being read by the voice.

The Mega Reader iPhone app provides access to the 1.8 million free books at archive.org so they each iPhone user can have their own personal reader.

Each volume of the Warren Report investigation of the assassination of  President John F. Kennedy is available to read.

The site is an excellent source of reading material for educators and students who are looking for books that are no longer copyrighted.

One word of caution: it could take hours just to look at what is available at archive.org. This website may have the most content of any website online and is worth going to the website to see for yourself what is available.

http://www.archive.org/

MP3 Players: Then and Now

Creative Nomad Zen Xtra Jukebox

It has been seven years since I purchased my Creative Nomad Zen Xtra Jukebox MP3 player and it is still working great in 2011.

The 40 GB player may not be as slim as the MP3 players being sold today but it has 4,092 songs in it that I recorded from CD’s I had in my collection which has used only 14 GB of the space in the player.

I have found that Windows Media Player is best for ripping the songs from a CD into the computer and then after that process is completed going to My Computer will find the music in the My Music folder.

Right clicking on the music folder for the album and sending it to the player is all that is needed for it to copy the music into the player.

The sound quality to me is excellent and the music can be listened to in many ways. FM transmitters can be used to play the music in a stereo system, from non MP3 radios and other music sources.

However I have encountered problems getting the exact frequency on the transmitter to listen to the music so seldom even try to use them.

When my wife bought me a record player a couple of years ago it had an MP3 connection in the back enabling me to just plug one end into the MP3 player and the other into the MP3 connection on back of the record player.

There are many speakers today that are easily connected to a MP3 player. At one time Dollar Tree had one for a dollar that while it wasn’t the best sound but it did work.

Last year I found a I-Pod radio selling at a garage sale for only $3 which also has a MP3 connection in the back and it is great to listen to music and old time radio shows.

The old time radio shows on MP3 CD’s go directly into the My Music folder in Windows after the CD has been inserted into the CD drive. So with the MP3 player connected to the computer and the folder for the old time radio shows on that CD open right clicking will send the shows to the MP3 player.

Most MP3 CD’s will hold 100 old time half hour radio shows which is 50 hours of listening pleasure. For instance I have over 800 Jack Benny episodes on 8 or 9 discs.

One MP3 CD in my collection has an entire baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees in 1934 with legendary Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson as an announcer. 77 years later it is still possible to listen to a game in which Lou Gehrig is playing but Babe Ruth was out with an injury that day.

There are also MP3 CD’s that are packed with radio shows that announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor and another about the Normandy invasion and you can hear the news broadcast those days over 60 years later.

Another MP3 CD includes a typical broadcast day from 1939 which includes every show that day that was broadcast from sign on till sign off and gives an idea of what it was like 71 years ago.

With my collection of over 17,000 old time radio episodes of many different shows it is easy to transfer several episodes of a particular show to the MP3 player and then after listening to them delete them from the player since they are on a MP3 CD so I can tell immediately if I have heard a show since I have heard it the episode would have been deleted.

If someone wants to buy old time radio shows it is much cheaper to buy them in MP3 form than on a regular audio CD since an audio CD may hold only four half hour shows and a cassette tape will only have a half hour show on front and back of the tape depending on how much the tape will hold.

2GB MobiBlu Cube MP3 player.

Move the calendar ahead to 2011 and MobiBlu has on the market a very small 2GB MP3 player that  only weighs .063 ounces and it is a .94 of an inch square.

The MobiBlu player shown in the photo is currently being sold at Amazon for $111.22 which seems a bit too pricey for such a small player.

The player includes an FM radio and a clock. It also includes a built in microphone and a voice recorder.

The radio also can save music or talk shows into the player for later listening.

The price still is a little steep for a player that holds only 32 hours of MP3 music and 64 hours of WMA music.

To me it is more of a novelty than a practical MP3 player.

 

My clunky looking Creative Nomad Zen Xtra Jukebox may not be as small as the MobiBlu player but it has provided a lot of listening pleasure the last seven years.

Someday my Creative player will be obsolete since it is not compatible with Windows 7 the last I knew and I am already getting not compatible with Windows Media Player messages already but it does still work with it.

The only problem is that I have misplaced the installation CD for the player and since our computer was repaired after the virus the software is no longer in the computer so I can’t download music and old time radio shows till I find the missing software.

However I can still listen to the music and old time radio shows in the player for many years to come. Buying electronic products can produce a myriad of problems but I can truthfully say the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra Jukebox is working as well today as when I received it in the mail back in 2004.

1941 Philco console radio.

I can still listen to old time radio shows that go as far back as 1928 which is 83 years ago. The MP3 CD’s have been a amazing development that enable listeners in 2011 to go back in time to the good old days of old time radio which lasted from the 20′s till September 30,1962 the day old time radio died.

I can still recall visiting my grandparents at their Allendale, Missouri farm in 1959 and listening to radio shows and Kansas City Athletics baseball games as they were broadcast on a radio similar to this 1941 Philco console radio.

However the MP3 player enables me to relive those days 53 years later as I listen to the same great old time radio shows that were being broadcast back then.

It is exciting to listen to the old comedy shows like Fibber McGee and Molly, Great Gildersleeve, Amos and Andy and the Jack Benny show.

Detective shows of that era come alive again as Boston Blackie, Dragnet, This is Your FBI and dramas likk the Family Theater and Lux Radio Theater can be heard today bringing back memories of the good old days when life wasn’t so fast paced.

Listening to the Christmas shows from those days are a special treat like A Christmas Carol, Amos and Andy Christmas show in which Amos recites the Lord’s Prayer to his daughter on Christmas Eve. Another favorite was the Lum N’ Abner show where neighbors walk through the snow to help a destitute family.

The Family Theater Christmas episode of A Daddy For Christmas will bring tears to your eyes as a mother and her son try to make it after her husband is killed in World War II and the son’s mom winds up marrying a department store Santa Claus.

MP3 technology has made it possible for us to hear those shows on MP3 CD’s that are nominally priced with Ebay showing  621 items under the old time radio CD’s listing.

Some of the sellers are selling huge numbers of shows on MP3 CD’s and DVD’s. One seller is selling 852 episodes of Jack Benny shows for $4.89 using Buy It Now with only a $1.69 shipping charge. The only caveat is that these episodes are all on one DVD while it would take about nine MP3 CD’s for these same episodes which would drive the price higher.

These shows will play on a computer but it will take more technical knowledge than I have to play these shows on other devices but most audiophiles should have no problem.

Anyone who misses the good old days of radio can listen to the old shows at several websites if they can’t afford or don’t want to purchase an MP3 player.

OTR.NET is one of the best to listen to old time radio programs for free with over 12,000 free shows to listen to including 610 Jack Benny shows.

OTRCAT.com is one of the best places to sample shows where almost every show sold on the site has a free sample of that show.

Happy old time radio listening!!

 

Life in the 1940′s

A young Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower is shown in the above photo as the Louisiana Maneuvers involving 400,000 U.S. soldiers took place north of Pineville, Louisiana in 1941. Four years later Col. Eisenhower would be a general commanding the D-Day invasion as the U.S. would enter the European theater of World War II on June 6, 1944. Less than a year later the war would be over in Europe when Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. Three months later on August 15,1945 the Japanese would surrender.

The war was just part of 1940′s history but affected the daily lives of those who stayed home during the war. In 1943 automobile production was halted so those materials could be used in the war effort.

American citizens experienced rationing of food supplies in 1943. Travel was limited in order to make tires last longer and drivers were told to not drive over 35 MPH to extend the life of tires.

Interesting Facts From the 40′s

The U.S. population was 122 million in the 1940′s and is as of this moment at over 311 million an increase of  189 million since the 1940′s.

The national debt in the 40′s was $43 billion but the national debt today stands at over $14 trillion. The minimum wage was 43 cents an hour and in 1966 when I started work at the Alexandria Town Talk in Alexandria, Louisiana the minimum wage was $1.40 an hour an increase of about a dollar an hour over what American workers were earning in minimum wage in the 40′s. The minimum wage today is $7.25

Many Had No Indoor Plumbing

Only 55 percent of  American homes had indoor plumbing in the 1940′s and outhouses were still being widely used.

The first commercial television stations went on the air in the 1940′s. The first digital computers weighed 30 tons.

Big Band Music Dominated

Big band music dominated the music scene during the 40′s as the bands traveled across the U.S. entertaining fans of big name bandleaders like Glenn Miller, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.

The 1940′s would be the last decade in which old time radio ruled  the airwaves as television began to convert radio listeners into television viewers.

1945 would see the development of the first TV dinner. At the end of World War II there were only 5,000 television sets in existence. In 1951 that number would increase to 17 million sets being used.

Window Air Conditioners Gained Popularity

Only 74,000 window air conditioners were sold in 1948 and that number increased to 1.45 million by 1953.  We didn’t buy our first air conditioner till about 1967 so was 9 years old when we first bought a television and 23 when we bought our first air conditioner.

I don’t ever remember being hot though since that was all we knew and didn’t have anything to compare it with.

The following website has even more details about the 1940′s and the events and entertainment from that decade.

http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade40.html

No Modern Electronics in the 40′s

Back in the 1940′s the cell phone,  MP3 players, HD televisions, DVD players, laptops, notepads and electronic readers were not yet in use leaving time for other activities. Life was simpler then with no ringtones being heard from a cell phone when a phone call or message was being sent.

The 40′s saw the birth of my oldest brother in 1941, my birth in 1944, the birth of a younger brother in 1947 and a younger sister in 1947.

No War at End of Decade

The decade ended without another major war but June of 1950 would see the start of the Korean War the war which has been more of a forgotten war except for the veterans of that war and their family members.

You seldom see any television documentaries about the Korean War while you can always find film from World War II and the Vietnam War on television programs.

The 1940′s ended 62 years ago but for those of us who lived during that decade it will be forever etched in our memories.

Unusual Mailboxes

This mailbox is not likely to be knocked over anytime soon.

A great mailbox for a railroad aficionado.

Postal delivery person had to do a doubletake when they saw this microwave oven monstrosity of a mailbox for the first time and is an excellent way to recycle.

Latest in mailboxes that receives email and regular mail in the same mailbox.

One way to stop bills from coming in the mail.

A colorful way to use markers that no longer work.

Manual Typewriters Almost Extinct

Manual typewriters like this should be extinct in the coming years as computers make it easier to type and make corrections without having to align paper.

Manual typewriters are coming closer to extinction as electronic typewriters and computers make it much easier to type than the typewriters baby boomers grew up with.

Sticking keys, making corrections and changing ribbons were just some of the headaches connected with using a manual typewriter. However they were the only way to write a letter besides handwritten letters and used in offices till the word processors and computers made a manual typewriter obsolete.

Electronic typewriters are still being sold today but the typewriter pictured is thought to be the first commercially sold typewriter in 1870.

The Hansen Writing Ball the first commercially sold typewriter first sold in 1870.

Electric typewriters were manufactured as early as 1902. The QWERTY keyboard first was used in 1874 and is still the standard for most keyboards built today.

Corrections are much easier using computers than the manual typewriters. Instead of dealing with an correction paper an error can be corrected on a computer in a matter of seconds.

There may be manual typewriters still in use but most offices today use computers to expedite typing of documents and business letters.

Jerry Lewis pretending to be using a typewriter in Who’s Minding the Store movie.

Navigating Without GPS Was Chaos

The GPS (Global Positioning System) device has changed the way Americans navigate streets and highways.

Before the Global Positioning System became widely used by American travelers most of us used paper maps to find our destination.

When traversing the American highways it was almost impossible to drive and read a map at the same time so it was imperative that there be a second person in a vehicle to read the map while the driver concentrated on the directions from the navigator.

It was easy for a navigator to lose their place on the map so they would have to find the right spot on the map again before they could help the driver find the right streets and highways to arrive at their destination.

Thirty seven years ago in 1973 the Global Positioning System was developed that enabled drivers to have a mobile device in their cars to give them directions to their destination. However the GPS was mostly used by the military at first and gradually was used more by civilians over the years.

Some of the earlier models gave only visual directions with no voice to tell them how far they were from the next turn.

Once the human voice was used to give the directions the devices became even more popular as it would give  a warning before a turn was to be made so the driver could be in the right lane.

For instance our GPS gives us a warning about seven-tenths of a mile before an exit off the interstate to give time to be in the proper lane to exit.

Having no sense of direction whatsoever the GPS has saved me many times from getting lost. After moving from a city of about 15,000 to a city of 173,000 we had to rely on maps to go anywhere until we bought a GPS and now if the physical address is logged in the GPS will take us to the destination most of the time.

The reason it works only most of the time is that new highways and streets won’t show up if they are built after the GPS was programmed. For instance we have  a street that was closed off but the GPS still tries to make us drive down that street.

There is a major street in Knoxville, Tennessee that is not even mentioned on the GPS because it was built after the GPS was programmed.

Having a job which involves much driving around the city from time to time the GPS has been a lifesaver. Not having the advantage of growing up in Knoxville and not knowing the city make the GPS even more important as we navigate the city.

If you don’t want to drive on interstate highways it is important to check shortest route to a destination since interstates are built to have exits on major streets. Otherwise the GPS will send you to the interstates no matter how much you want to avoid them.

My favorite feature is when the voice says recalculating when you miss your turn and the GPS will get you back to that street as soon as possible.

The technology involved with a GPS is too much to comprehend. It is hard to believe a satellite in the sky is tracking our destination for us.

GPS technology has made it easier for law enforcement officials to track criminals by installing tracking devices on their cars that lets them know what the criminal is doing.

We have seen many advances in technology over the last few years as cell phones, MP3 players and GPS devices have become more of a part of our lives with each passing year.