Category Archives: Over the Transom

Trans-Pecos & Llano Estacado 3,600+ Mile Drive Tidbits

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Along U.S. 90, not far west of the town of Comstock, Texas, the road crosses the Pecos River. The east end of the bridge has a place to stop and take in the view. This is looking upriver.

Downriver, toward the Pecos’ meeting with the Rio Grande.

Hard to believe there’s that much water in West Texas. Anyway, the river (of course) marks the beginning of the Trans-Pecos.

One of the grand hospitality properties of the Trans-Pecos is the Gage Hotel in Marathon, originally developed in 1927 by West Texas cattle baron Alfred Gage (born in Vermont), and designed by El Paso architect Henry Trost. Fifty years later, Houston businessman J.P. Bryan bought the rundown property and made it into a modern boutique hotel.

I didn’t stay at the Gage, though I had a good meal there and used its wifi. Instead, I stayed at the Marathon Motel & RV Park down the road. It has all the charms of a tourist court — separate cabin-like buildings of two or four units, even a bottle opener fixed to the wall — at a more modest price than the Gage.

There is an astronomy enthusiast at the Marathon Motel in the evenings, Bob, who sets up a couple of sophisticated telescopes a short walk outside the property and shows guests the night sky, which is pretty dark out in Marathon. I spent about an hour talking with Bob and looking his scopes the first night I was there.

Trouble was, the Moon was waxing gibbous, which made the sky a lot less dark. But we looked at some easy-to-find brighter objects, such as Jupiter and some of the Galilean moons, as well as Mizar and Alcor, and tried to spot the Orion Nebula. Orion was trending toward the horizon, about to bid adieu for the warm months.

Bob said the sky would be dark again a few hours before dawn, but I didn’t get up at that time until the last morning I was at the motel. At about 5 that morning, I woke (for the usual reason), but also got dressed and wandered outside for a few minutes. Bob was right. The Moon was gone, and there was what I wanted to see, no telescope necessary — the wispy, luminous edge of the Milky Way, billions and billions of stars at a glance. It was like seeing an old friend.

Speaking of nighttime spectres, not long after I left Marfa, I stopped along U.S. 67/90 at the Marfa Mystery Lights Viewing Center, which is essentially a rest stop with extra windows in the wall.

I wasn’t about to come that way at night and wait around for a glimpse of a desert will-o’-the-wisp, so I had to be satisfied with a daytime view of the direction of the Marfa lights. Eh.

While driving along I-20 in metro Midland-Odessa, I saw an official highway sign for the Midland International Air & Space Port. What? Space port? Seems a little optimistic on the part of the local airport authority.

Indeed, in 2014 the FAA approved the airport’s application to become first primary commercial service airport to be certified as a spaceport. XCOR Aerospace was due to start flying its Lynx spaceplane from Midland, but the company went bankrupt in 2017 before that ever happened. Oops. Maybe Fireball XL5 will start using Midland International soon. (That theme song has more traction than I realized. Even Neil Gaiman did a cover; once, anyway.)

In Amarillo, I saw another kind of sign. Fake street signs. I was driving along I forget which street, and saw a diamond-shaped sign, off to the side of the road but actually on private property, that said WE CALLED HIM COUNT DRACULA. It was a non-standard color, too: black with red letters.

Huh? But I had driving to do, and other cars not to hit, so the thought passed. Sometime later, I saw another sign — different color, similarly located — that said MINE BY RIGHT OF CONQUEST.

This got me to wondering, and I actually remembered to look into these odd signs. Doesn’t take long to find image collections of the signs, which are all over Amarillo, apparently.

According to Roadtrippers Chronicles — “The Raddest Stories From The Road” — “the strange signs are part of an art installation called The Dynamite Museum. Partially funded by oil heir and patron of offbeat art Stanley Marsh 3 (most famous for his work with Ant Farm on Cadillac Ranch), there are even a few in the nearby town of Adrian (it’s said that Marsh liked the idea of putting the signs in towns that started with the letter A).

“There was no rhyme or reason to the messages on the signs; the people behind the project would come up with ideas, or vote on suggestions sent in, and then install their favorites all over town.”

If I’d known that before I went to Amarillo, I would have looked for more.

The morning I left Amarillo, I had the radio to keep me company on the open road to Oklahoma City (I-40 in our time), and for a while I got a strong signal from Turkey, Texas, to the south. That day was Bob Wills Day in Turkey, and it sounded like a big to-do. The biggest shindig of the year for the town, probably. After all, Bob Wills is still the king.

I didn’t know until I looked it up that the King of Western Swing spent some of his youth on a farm near Turkey. The town of Turkey clearly remembers him. Sounded like fun, but it was too far out of the way. Just another thing missed because of scheduling.

These Vagabond Shoes Are Longing to Stray Right Through the Very Heart of It

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I try to take skyline pictures when I can, such as the modest skylines of Birmingham or Little Rock. I had the good luck of being near the highest point in Brooklyn when I was able to take a shot of Manhattan.

Actually, Brooklyn in the foreground, Manhattan in the background.

Topical humor, spotted on the subway.

A sign in Brooklyn offering a novel interpretation of “all day.”

I had an idea of taking pictures of construction sites in New York during this visit, as I managed to do in Denver last year. Pretty soon I got tired of it. The air was chilly, for one thing, but more importantly, construction sites seem to be everywhere. If nothing else, New York is a city always reinventing itself.

I took a few. Such as a high-rise underway at 161 Maiden Lane in Lower Manhattan.

It will be a residential tower. More deluxe apartments in the sky. Not all has gone smoothly.

I was also able to get a shot of the Ann St. sign, which I sent to Ann for her amusement.

As part of my walk in Lower Manhattan, I got a look at the South Street Seaport district, which I’d read about, probably even written about (it’s hard to keep track), but never seen.

From Wiki: “It features some of the oldest architecture in downtown Manhattan, and includes the largest concentration of restored early 19th-century commercial buildings in the city. This includes renovated original mercantile buildings, renovated sailing ships, the former Fulton Fish Market, and modern tourist malls featuring food, shopping, and nightlife.”

The drizzle made my walk-through a little less pleasant than it could have been, but I did enjoy seeing the restored buildings. I can imagine that on a pleasant summer weekend, the place is probably pretty busy.

At the edge of the district is South Street Seaport Museum, which I didn’t have time for. I did get a look at the nearby Titanic memorial, which is in the form of a lighthouse.

The plaque on the lighthouse says: “The lighthouse was originally erected by public subscription in 1913. It stood above the East River on the roof of the old Seamen’s Church Institute of New York and New Jersey at the corner of South Street and Coenties Slip. From 1913 to 1967 the time ball at the top of the lighthouse would drop down the pole to signal twelve noon to the ships in the harbor. This time ball mechanism was activated by a telegraphic signal, from the Naval Observatory in Washington D.C.

“In July 1968 the Seamen’s Church Institute moved to 15 State Street. That year, the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse was donated by the Kaiser-Nelson Steel & Salvage Corporation to the South Street Seaport Museum. It was erected at the entrance to the museum complex, on the corner of Fulton and Pearl streets, in May 1976, with funds provided by the Exxon Corporation.”

I got a look at, but did not board, the Wavertree, which is docked permanently at one of the piers, and which is part of the museum. It was built in 1885.

Wiki again: “The ship was launched in Southampton. It is 325 feet (99 m) long including spars and 263 feet (80 m) on deck. The ship is the largest remaining wrought iron vessel. Initially it was used for transporting jute from east India to Scotland, and then was involved in the tramp trade. In 1947 it was converted into a sand barge, and in 1968 it was acquired by the South Street Seaport Museum.”

One more image, also from Lower Manhattan, though at some distance from South Street Seaport. I just happened to walk by.

Engine 6 of the FDNY. The Tigers.

The New York State Museum says, showing a picture from before the tiger was added to the door: “On September 11, 2001, six firefighters from the FDNY Engine 6 Company were dispatched to the World Trade Center where they hooked the Engine 6 Pumper into a Trade Center standpipe on West Street. Four men from the Company — Lieutenant Thomas O’Hagan, Firefighter Paul Beyer, Firefighter William Johnson, and Firefighter Thomas Holohan — were killed in the tower’s collapse. Firefighters Billy Green and Jack Butler survived.”

The Mitzvah Tank

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Some New York subway platforms have electronic signs advising you how many minutes it will be until the next train. Sometimes I would notice x minutes to the next train, and then a few minutes later, it would still be x minutes. Gives new and opposite meaning to the term New York minute.

While wandering around Lower Manhattan during my recent visit, I had a New York experience — or at least one associated with the city. One of a small group of young Hasidim, who must have been no older than his late teens, approached me and asked if I were Jewish. I said I wasn’t, and on the group went.

They weren’t far from this RV.

It’s a Chabad Lubavitch “mitzvah tank.” Further investigation — the tank has its own web site — tells me that they first appeared in 1974.

“The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, had sent his tanks into the battle for the soul of the American Jew,” explains the web site.

“If a large part of American Jewry had ceased to come to shul each morning to don tefilIin and pray, the Rebbe was going to bring the tefillin to them. He was going to send one of his students to stop the American Jew on a city sidewalk. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ the lad would say. ‘Are you Jewish?’

“If the answer is affirmative, the young man would continue: ‘Would you like to put on tefillin today? It’s a mitzvah.’ The American Jew will be invited to step up onto the truck, roll up his left sleeve, bind the tefillin to his arm and head and recite a short prayer.

“If the American Jew is a she, she would be offered a free kit containing a small tin candlestick, a candle, and a brochure with all the information necessary to light Shabbat Candles that Friday evening — the proper time (18 minutes before sunset), the blessings in Hebrew and English, and a short message on the importance of ushering Shabbat into her home. He or she would also be offered literature on the Rebbe’s other ‘mitzvah campaigns’ or assistance in anything from having a mezuzah checked to finding Jewish school for their child.”

Apparently mitzvah tanks are on the move the eve of major Jewish holidays and Fridays before Shabbat. Passover was coming up when I saw the tank, actually a rental truck, so that fit. Also, though the trucks first rolled out in New York, they can be found anywhere Chabad is active.

I was asked the same question while wandering around Lower Manhattan during our short visit in 1995, though I didn’t see a truck at that time. Which reminds me of something else. Lower Manhattan seems to be a lot more busy these days on the weekend, especially with pedestrians. It has, in the 20-odd years since I spent much time there, become more of a residential neighborhood.

No Nostalgia for DSL

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Lately it’s been just like the bad old days of DSL around here. I wrote about it more often than I remembered: here, here and finally here, among other times. Does anyone use DSL any more? I hope not.

Last week, after a fairly long period of solid performance, the house wifi because testy. Then temperamental. Then unstable and often unusable. Calls were made, robots were spoken to, and then a human being in the Philippines. Earlier today, a technician came to the house and did things to the system, which fixed it fine for about four hours.

Another call was made. This time I think I was speaking to a domestic call center. “Dan” he said, and it didn’t sound like a nom de call center (Raji calling himself Bob, or Nadia calling herself Mary). Another tech is coming tomorrow. We shall see.

I knew I was talking to the Philippines the first time because I asked. I couldn’t quite place her dialect, a mostly intelligible voice with an element of sing-song, and curiosity got the better of me. After all, the last thing she asked me was, “Is there anything else I can help you with or tell you?” There was.

Recommendation Thursday

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Recommended: Terro Liquid Ant Baits. About two weeks ago, itty-bitty black ants started appearing around the kitchen sink. Maybe that’s a sign of spring.

At first, just a few. But as these things always go, a few more and a few more. Pretty soon anything left unwashed in the sink, or any stray bit of food, especially something sweet, would draw a crowd of the little bastards, eager to serve their queen and do their bit for world domination.

I bought some Raid Max Double Control Ant Baits. Double Control. How could you go wrong with a name like that? I set the traps — that is, I took them out of the package and set them on the counter, near the sink — and waited for them to do their extermination work.

The first time I encountered ant bait was in the early days of my time in Japan. One day, large black ants showed up and wanted to share my apartment with me. Larger than the more recent infestation, anyway. So I learned the Japanese for “kill ants” and visited a couple of retailers who might be able to help me.

If I’d been of a more poetic bent, I might have learned “the invader ants must die!” but in any case no language skills were necessary, since the box had a cartoon illustration of what it promised to do. I wish I’d kept it, since it was a gem of commercial manga. Ants see bait. Ants enter bait. Ants find poisoned goodies in bait. Ants take goodies back to nest. Ants feast on goodies. Ants die. Including the queen.

Sure enough, that’s what happened. The day after I put the bait down, I was surprised to see lines of ants entering and leaving the bait, which was a green bit of rectangular plastic with small holes on the side, carrying brown particles away with them. The next day, no ants were to be seen. Over the coming weeks, I’d see a straggler ant or two. Maybe they’d been out on long-range recon and returned only to find a dead colony. Soon even they were gone, and no ants infested my apartment again during the four years I was there.

With that happy experience in mind, I waited for Double Control to do its job. And waited. And waited. But the sink-ants didn’t seem interested. They were probably taunting me and farting in my general direction, inaudibly.

So I looked around for alternatives and found Terro Liquid Ant Baits, also easily available at your neighborhood hardware store. A product of Senoret Chemical Co. of Lititz, Pa., who seem to specialize in pest control.

I put a few baits down, next to the useless Double Control units, and the very next day, the little ants were inside the Terro baits. The Terro baits have a clear top, so you can see it working. This was on Sunday. On Monday, no ants were to be seen around the sink. I’ve seen one or two in the days since; must be that ants are keen on long-range recon.

It’s safe to assume that Terro worked while Double Control did not. What’s up with that, SC Johnson? You used to be so good at killing cartoon insects. Raid kills bugs dead. Not this time.

Thursday Debris, Online Edition

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As part of my work, I spend a fair amount of research time on sites devoted to news in specific cities, and besides the items I’m looking for, I see a lot else besides. It doesn’t take long to realize that murders and traffic accidents and fires still lead, even in the age of digital media. Pop any major city name in Google News and that much is clear.

Sometimes the headlines, or the lead paragraphs, are a little lighter. Even if violence is involved.

Wanted Akron Pimp Shot through the Ear in Cleveland

Painful, I bet, but with time and maybe plastic surgery, the Akron pimp might recover. He’ll also have a story to tell at the pimp conventions.

Then there’s news about things I’m only vaguely aware of. I don’t mind it if they stay that way.

Sharknado 6 is set to be released on July 25, 2018… the film will feature time travel, Nazis, dinosaurs, knights, and Noah’s Ark.

Six? Anyway, the movie will be full of things any 12-year-old boy might want. Left out were cowboys, astronauts, UFOs, and the Bermuda Triangle, though I guess boys aren’t quite as interested in those things as they once were. There’s always Sharknado 7.

News about thrill seekers. Type T people, I’ve heard them called. Nuts, that is.

Your Facebook and Instagram feeds are full of it: People on vacation pushing themselves to extremes by diving off rocks, skiing dizzying backcountry drops, walking rickety paths above death-assuring canyons.

My Facebook feed is full of no such things. But I do remember interviewing a real estate executive well over a decade ago, and the most interesting part was off the record — and not directly related to commercial real estate anyway. It was about him rafting on some river in Mongolia. Off the record because he didn’t want the other investors in his projects to think he was doing anything they’d consider dangerous.

And other oddities.

Saint Louis University is seeking a name for a Midtown district that straddles part of its north and south campuses and includes the Foundry and Armory projects. Voters can choose from Prospect Yards, The GRID, The Circuit, The 1818, or write in their own name.

I don’t much care for any of those, except maybe 1818. I suggest “Bob.”

Still in Old Assenisipia

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I was looking in a seldom-looked at file of images the other day and found a scan I’d made of a page from a collection of Thomas Jefferson’s writings. I’d forgotten I’d made ir. Here it is.

Nearly 15 years ago, I wrote: “Some years ago, I read a curious little document by Thomas Jefferson, who in 1784 made a report to Congress — the Congress under the Articles of Confederation — about how to create states from the Northwest Territory and what to call them.

“Jefferson suggested 10 states for the area that now contains six (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin). It was an exercise in hyper-rationality and hyperliteracy, though if his suggestions had been used, they would be normal and even venerated names — such is the power of custom.

“Hyper-rational because, instead of paying attention to natural features, Jefferson cut the district into rectangles measuring two degrees of latitude north-to-south and roughly four degrees of longitude east-to-west (‘roughly’ because the irregular Mississippi River forms the western boundary of the territory).

“Besides the Mississippi, geographic form did intrude in what we call lower Michigan — even Jefferson wasn’t going to ignore lakes Michigan and Huron in drawing lines — as well as a few other places on his map, but he was doing his best to apply Longitude and Latitude to the new states’ boundaries. It was as if Colorado- and Wyoming-shaped states were to be created in the Midwest.”

Naturally, other sites discuss this odd collection of non-realized states, such as (of course) Strange Maps.

Folderol for March 1

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In the wee first hours of March this year, I woke up to light rain. After I went back to sleep, weird and unsettling dreams came. I don’t know if that was connected with the rain, but I was surprised in the morning to see that a lot of rain fell as I slept, more than I would have thought. Rain that forms large puddles near the back fence.

In Andersonville last weekend, we saw a shop called Cowboys & Astronauts, just off Clark St. I liked the sign advertising the place.
Its web site says: “Cowboys and Astronauts, Chicago’s newest men’s lifestyle and supplies destination, is proud to announce that we have opened our storefront in the heart of Andersonville. We hope that you will swing by and check out our curated blend of apparel, accessories, grooming, travel supplies, home goods, and gifts.”

Curated men’s lifestyle and supplies, eh? I’m resisting the urge to mock that idea. We didn’t go in, so I can’t comment on the goods. But we could see that the store did have a faux space suit on display. I’ll give them that.

Next: eggs. Occasionally, I write on my eggs. Just for grins.

How often do you see a truckload of portable toilets? Of the plastic-molded outdoor cubicle type, loaded and ready go wherever they need to go?

Not often. I think the truck was delivering a few to the park behind the house. Maybe that’s an early sign of spring.

A Warm February Day on the Peabody Campus

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I can’t remember the last time I looked at my 1980-81 diary, but I did the other day, just a few samplings. I don’t have any memory of the following day, though it sounds like a good one, except for the bomb scare (you’d think I’d remember that, but no). It would have been a good week anyway, since even though classes were in session and tests still being taken, it was the week ahead of spring break. Pretty soon I was off to North Carolina with Neal and Stuart.

In early 1981 I lived, with many other VU sophomores, in a dorm on the Peabody campus. George Peabody College for Teachers had been a longstanding independent institution, but in 1979 Vanderbilt absorbed it. A couple of well-known alumna of that school, though I didn’t know it then: Bettie Page and Tipper Gore.

Wednesday, February 25, 1981

The day started at 8, roused from a near-conscious dream about trying to remember the license plate number of a truck, though I can’t say why. Shower. Class. To Sarratt [Student Center] afterward, read some Herodotus, napped in the chair. At around noon some kind of bomb scare was going on over at Stevenson [Science Center], but my early afternoon class wasn’t affected.

Later in the afternoon, returned to Peabody, sat outside on the lawn in near summer-like conditions, with Neal and Cynthia at first. By and by, Jim, Kathy, Julie, Layne, Mary and Donna wandered by and all sat on the lawn with us. Best part of the day.

About an hour before sunset, we went out separate ways. Neal and I took a walk around Peabody, and ended up on the far end of campus, at the Mayborn Building. By means of various prohibited fire escapes, climbed to the roof. Nice view from up there. Returning to East Hall, we stopped for a while at the Social-Religious Building, where we crawled through and around enough small holes to get under the dome on top of the building, but we couldn’t get outside on top.

Returned to room, chicken dinner later at the cafeteria, studied Latin for a while. Late in the evening, hung out with Neal and Stuart and ate some small pizzas. Stuart asked me all kinds of questions on post-WWII U.S. foreign policy, as if I were an expert. He has a test on it tomorrow. Before I left, he lent me Night by Elie Wiesel, which I spent time reading before bed. Not a happy book. Bed 1:30.

Gatsby Moving Rubber

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So far I haven’t bothered much with grocery store snapshots, as amusing as the labels can be. But not long ago I was in a small, mostly Japanese grocery store in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, and I saw something I’d never heard of before.

That’s a great example of a Japanese product’s English name. You think about it for a while, asking yourself, why did the makers pick that name? You think some more and ah ha! No… it made some kind of sense for a moment, and then it didn’t.

According to the product’s English-version web site, “Gatsby” is explicitly after the fictional character. Hair oil for wistfully dreaming of lost loves, I guess.