Friday Check In

Space great to see you made it back in one piece. Isn't it always the case you need a vacation from your vacation.

Ghem that movie all I can say is "Why Johnny Why???" that was so bad it was definitely not good it was just plain bad. How did Tommy get a budget for this? I mean it must have been $50 but still. Uniformly terribly acted. Script made zero sense. Plain nuts.

Seamus wrote:Space great to see you made it back in one piece. Isn't it always the case you need a vacation from your vacation.

Boss, you have no idea. If some of my plans hadn't been pre-empted by weather, comin' back in one piece would have been much more problematic. And the bucket list remains unfulfilled.

I am okay as long as you tell me you retraced every single location from the Goonies and have pics of it all.

Hi folks quiet friday evening -- printing out my final review draft of the suspense book update

Hey Everyone. Friday update happening on Saturday. Lovely day here is Ireland. Sunny and warm. Kids were in the pool then we had team badminton. Intervals when the dog would grab the bird and off he would run to the kids chasing him which is exactly what he wanted. Summer is going full tilt here the house is full of kids as cousins came in from America to stay for summer.

Whats everyone else doing?

Grey are you publishing a book on Suspense ?

The 2020 edition of "Suspense Collector's Companion" submitted to Amazon yesterday -- should be turned on there by Tuesday. Found a bunch of little items in the final edit that I forgot to put in! But it's all set. Hooray!! Last night got some more audio files to listen to from late in the run, and I have those reels that just came in to go through, with more on the way! I keep thinking the Suspense stuff is almost done... and then I received research done by someone who was deep into all this stuff in the early 1970s who met Spier, Lewis, Robson, Zirato, and interviewed them for hours! None of the work was ever published. It's such a volume of work that will keep Suspense posts going here at Cobalt for years!

A marvelous weekend here in NC, and anticipating a great one next weekend when I go to NYC for the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Mets with Greybelt the Younger who will fly up to meet me from Atlanta.

Getting ready to leave for the 50th Anniversary celebration of the 1969 Mets at Citi Field joined with Greybelt the Younger. We may depart when the 2019 game starts  Just kidding, but this season's team has turned really bad already. Bringing extra hankies for when they start talking about Gil Hodges... and Tommie Agee... and what's happened to Tom Seaver's health... and Bud Harrelson's... The Art Shamsky book about it all is good...

Enjoy the past with your son.
Great for bonding, the past.
Best regards
Art

Have a great time GB. The time we share is truly the greatest gift. As for my weekend, I've got two computers to work on. Neither of them mine...

Hey everyone went down to the ocean with the family. A hot day in Dublin. furry kid loving running around with other dogs in the water. Kids splashing out in the surf. Traffic was a bear. Went through seaside town found a vinyl store did some digging did not find much. Got home watched another episode of Dark S2 am totally lost in this show. After this season finishes I will watch S1-2 together so I can figure out whats going on. Weather is nice now so will veg in back yard tomorrow then head to the big monthly flea market in Dublin to see what we find.

Grey sounds great you are reliving that great time in baseball. I used to be an avid fan of the last 40's -50's era.

Whats everyone else up to...

Being retired, week ends and week days are all the same to me LOL. I'm busy getting the property up to the fire regulations. Living in southern California, even though we are up in the mountains, we still get hot and dry. So keeping the weeds down on a couple of acres is a hard job for this soon to be 80 year old lol. I work a little and then come in and listen to OTR, then back outside for a bit. When the temp gets to about 105 degrees, I come in or fall asleep in the shade. Typical old man. The earthquake hit here about an hour ago. No damage to us or our property. Thank GOD.

Take care y'all

Stay safe up there in big mountain country. Listening to OTR is a great break between tasks.

Hey Folks, Friday check in. Beautiful warm day in Ireland. Worked from home today so was happily ensconced in my home office working while listening to vinyl and Murder at Midnight.

Tonight is binge night for Season 3 of Stranger Things. Been looking forward to this all week. Nothing better than looking for all the 80's references in the show plus enjoying the action. I must say I loved S1 but was disappointed with S2. The charm of S1 was the kids interactions with 11 that made the show. S2 they separated 11 from the kids the show suffered hugely. Skuttle butt is S3 is back the formula of S1, 11 and the kids battle the big bad.

I finished Season 2 of Dark this week and was so bamboozled by the plot I had to take 3 days off TV to recover for the Friday binge of ST3.

How is everyone's summer going? I want deets and I want tall tales and over exaggeration. I want stories on par with Sheps "Olly Hopnoodles haven of bliss" someone tell me they are going across country in a tired automobile and camper.....Summer is not summer without a fiasco or two....

Hi Seamus, I won't exaggerate (well maybe a little lol). At almost 80 years old my exciting years are behind me, but like most old folks we like to tell stories of the "good old days".

I've been an outdoors person all my life, with over 150,000 miles hiked, 15,000 backpacking miles and 250 mountains climbed, 3500 night sleeping outside on the cold hard ground (no, my wife didn't kick me out).

The following story is true. Myself and 12 others were climbing Mt. Morrison the the California Sierras, when a 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit. None of us were hurt badly, but two climbers in Yosemite were killed by falling rocks. I'll give you the full story with details if you want, but this is it for now.

Take care,

Tom

We have been having a lot of severe storms with hail in Eastern Colorado.  
The hail has missed where I live, but we did get some pretty heavy rain last night.

As it was the 4th of July, some people like to set off illegal fireworks.  
The rain prevented most of them being set off last night, so we'll probably
experience them over the next couple of nights if we don't get more storms.

One of the things I did when I was in the Army was demolitions.  
One of my tasks was to to disarm or blow up booby traps.
Had a couple of close calls; definitely no fun.  
Because of this, I'm not a big fan of illegal fireworks.

Tom,

all stories welcome. Sounds like you have been putting a beating on life and getting it done. Life is about learning and doing. I kind of lament watching people on the train glued to their phones. Consuming word candy. Thats what I call scrolling through facebook nonsense incessantly. I read books on the train. Yesterday I hit book 51 for the year. My goal is to hit a hundred. I am lucky that every day I can walk down to the sea and walk with friends as we watch the ships sail in and out of the harbour. I row with friends in a four person dory as we go along the coast. We hike we swim we ride bikes and workout. Now that I am in my 50's I take care of my recoveries and ice. I don't slow down a tot not yet anyway. I beat back at life with abandon. I have traveled the globe and been more places that I can pin on a map. Always have an ear open for adventure. Last week we stacked in 2 high in the car and off to the beach we went. Always love the quote and I paraphrase you should slide drift into your grave beat to hell having lived a full life with a smile on your face and no regrets.

Boss, I'm right there with Ya, on the live life to the fullest theory. I'm in pretty good shape for bein' 60 years old. And I can't push the envelope like I used to. But every once in a while, Ya gotta take a plunge. I've been skydivin' since I was 19. The frequency dropped off quite a bit after the first 7 years and really plunged about 20 years ago, as my hips and lower back took progressively more damage. But I still manage 2 or 3 jumps per year. While the family and I were out west a few weeks ago, I had hoped to make 2 "Bucket list" jumps. One was cancelled due wind and poor timin'. But I did manage to do my first (and last) base jump. No details on this one, as it was only through much chicanery and much more dumb luck that I managed it without gettin' arrested. Do I regret it? Nope. Will I do it again? NO!!! Too many things that can go wrong, too much to think about and in too little time. Gimme about 13,000 feet and plenty of time to look around and enjoy the view.

But one of these days, I will jump The Grand Canyon.

Hi, Gang. Here in Michigan, we got 1.6 inches of rain in one day, which I understand is nothing compared to other states. But it allowed us to create a two-inch sewer water lake in our finished basement. Estimated damage is $8-9,000 as I lost two chairs, my Big Lebowski rug (that really tied the room together), a healthy helping of my books (many of which were my "teaching" copies filled with notes from my professorial days at the University) and a lot yet to be determined.

Thankfully it could have been much worse--my vinyl collection is intact and probably 90% of my library is okay. But all the book shelving units are toast (soggy toast) and a whole row of our kids' video games are spritzed, as are our kids' children's books--most of which can be replaced.

So my MAD magazine collection (complete from #29 on to today) and the thousands of comics are safe, the radio collection is fine, and the greatest number of my library collection is high and dry. Demolition begins Monday to secure a safe environment, but if we put things in the "new, improved basement" it will all be looking like the Upside Down as I'm hanging everything from the ceiling.

Other than that, life is sunny and humid in Michigan and in our hearts.
Jeff

Makes me glad I only have to put up with earthquakes every 10-20 years. Sorry about all your losses.

Tom

Given the choice, I'll take the water any time, Tom.
Jeff

Turning into a great thread folks as I hoped it would. Was out looking for vinyl today and my newer car decided to have an electrical problem. Under the hood I went to to look at all the computer controls (five in total) we put a man on the moon with less. Found loose cable in the power control bus. Fixed that and thankfully was able to land Buzz and myself at Tranquility base.

Its not like the days I worked in my Dad's garage when everything under the hood made sense but I can still trace and fix a problem. Back she goes to the dealer on Monday for the once over.

Ain't life a peach.... speaking of which got some at the market today I will enjoy later. Summer, fresh food nice weather and the company of fellow Cobaltians... what could be better....

Hey Jeff, My son always says "water always wins". He is a scientist, but I think he got that quote from a Doctor Who episode LOL.

Wish you luck with the cleanup and the insurance company.

We'll be praying for you.

Tom

Many thanks, Tom. It could have been worse. . . it could have been raining (*Young Frankenstein* allusion). We'll take any prayers anytime. Also glad you survived the quakes--prayers go out to you and yours as well.
Jeff

Like Losing An Old Friend

Today an old travel companion on many OTR research trips went to a recycling center:  my Sony laptop.

I bought it used prior to a series of 2002 research trips.  It accompanied me on
all my research trips through 2016.  

It had enough horsepower to run Microsoft Office.  I entered lots of information
into the Access databases I created for many OTR series.

It feels almost like I lost an old friend.

It's hard to replace an item that has meant so much

Best regards
Art