Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

The UCF is a pretty diffuse group -- and with its origins online, meat-ups in the real world are something of a big deal. The Big Furball is a connectivity map of the UCF and by no means have all members met each other or their UCF Auxiliaries.

So it's pretty cool to add two new links.


Random Michelle, Michael and Mrs. Dr. Phil on the Big Red Porch of the Big Blue House. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Random Michelle, Michael and Dr. Phil on the Big Red Porch. Alas, the camera got hysterical about the bright background and underexposed us by 2½ stops. It took some teasing to get this to come out. LARA uses Gimp 2.8, not Ulead PhotoImpact or Corel PaintBox Pro, and I haven't used it much, which complicated the photo teasing process. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


All of us from Michelle's camera on a tripod with a remote. Stolen via Facebook. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2015 Random Michelle (All Rights Reserved)


Eric The Lawyer (aka Evan), Kat and Dr. Phil. Like the picture above, there was a backlighting issue -- this one I caught and put the Nikon D100 on Manual and used the same exposure settings as in the next shot. Close enough. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Eric, Kat, Mrs. Dr. Phil -- they were having quite an animated discussion, and with shooting at 1/20th of a second at ISO 1600, I had to try to get in between big gestures. (grin) (Click on photo for larger.)
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Anyway, for those of you in the UCF or related auxiliaries, here's your Pictures Or It Didn't Happen.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

WorldCon in Chicago

My revised list of WorldCon panels:

Fri Aug 31 Noon-1:30:pm Game Show: Iron Chef Flash Fiction
Grand Suite 3 The aim of the game is to write a short story in less than 5 minutes. The moderator will give the panelists a subject to write about, and after 5 minutes our writers will each read their masterpieces and let the audience decide the winner before they head into the next round into the next challenge. Three rounds are planned but a fourth will be added if time permits.
Christopher J Garcia, Dr. Phil, Janet Freeman. Lawrence M. Schoen (M), Mur Lafferty

Fri Aug 31 4:30-6:00:pm Scale and Space: Seeing Neil Armstrong's Footprints
Columbus EF What can we see from space? Popular TV shows suggest we can infinitely enlarge any image without any loss, but the real world is both much more complicated and much more interesting. We know Neil Armstrong's footprints are still on the Moon - but can we see them? And from how far away? And what else can we see? The Internet is full of fascinating images. (This is an updated version of a Science presentation I made at ConFusion 2011 -- I wonder if the audience will be larger with this weekend's news of the death of Neil Armstrong?)

Sat Sep 1 3:00-3:30:pm Reading: Dr. Phil
Dusable
I'll be reading from the opening of my second unpublished military SF novel, Out of Ashes Rises The Phoenix and Ensign Marie Rossetti's Really Bad Day in Port Outboard Engine aboard the starship USFS Llewellyn.

Sun Sep 2 12:00-1:30:pm The Role of SF for Teachng Critical Thinking
Comiskey A discussion of science fiction's role in the academic world, and how using science fiction in the classroom promotes literacy and encourages students to think critically.
Chris Mirell, Dr. Phil, Erica Neely, Jonathan Vos Post, Val Ontell


And then there's the Wake For Wendy At WorldCon (WFWAWC):

Thursday 30 August 2012 -- 7pm

For years my sister Wendy tried to get us down to Atlanta over Labor Day for DragonCon. But she was going to come up to Chicago for WorldCon in 2012. Sigh.

This is the Official Notice that we will have the Wake For Wendy At WorldCon (WFWAWC). The dinner is at Ron of Japan -- Wendy was very fond of Teppanyaki. Indeed, we went to Ron of Japan in 1979 when she visited me at Northwestern after the Great Blizzard of '79.

Website with menus and pricing -- there are vegetarian options and I was asked about whether they do gluten free soy sauce or tamari -- they emailed and said they just ordered some gluten free soy sauce:
Ron of Japan
230 East Ontario Street, Chicago IL
Google Maps
Thursday 30 August 2012
7pm to 9pm ?

You don't have to attend WorldCon to be a part of WFWAWC -- several members of the UCF in fact already are likely to wake but not con. We're up to 15 friends and family so far. Teppanyaki is not cheap but it is one helluva show. If you want to be added to the reservation and come celebrate my sister Wendy K. Braxton, you can leave a comment here or email me at:
drphil at dr-phil-physics dot com

Afterwards... I still haven't taken a picture yet, but I HAVE received a Viking Boat via Amazon.com. There might be some sort of ceremony involving some of Wendy's ashes, the Viking boat and a fuel load of Jack Daniels... and the Chicago River is between the restaurant and the Hyatt.

I'll enjoy seeing you there and supporting me in remembering my sister.

Dr. Phil

What Sort of Holiday?

Memorial Day Weekend. The official start of summer. Memorial Day (Observed). Three-Day Weekend. No mail service on Monday. Garbage pickup delayed by one day all week.

What are we to make of Memorial Day? Well, I guess we do a better job of commemorating the official job of it than we do Veterans Day.

Of course not everyone makes it to parades. Or to cemeteries. Not everyone has served in the military, though my dad did and most of my uncles, a couple of cousins. Many, many friends. In the U.S. we give such short shrift to many working people in terms of vacation days and holidays, that making a big commercial deal of Memorial Day is inevitable.

It's the Indianapolis 500 -- won this year under caution as one driver tried a bold move on the start of the last lap and ended up crashing. It's baseball -- with the Cubs swept by the Pirates to complete a 12-game losing skid, mollified only by a dramatic 11-7 win on Monday against the Evil Padres. (If you don't know why they're evil, then you don't know Cubs history.) (grin)

It's the National Memorial Day Concert on the Mall in Washington DC, hosted by Joe Mantegna and Gary Senise, with dramatic readings of letters of those left behind by war, carried live by PBS... well up until the point that they had to switch to a tape of last year's concert, due to severe weather rolling in and having to clear the space.

Even were I to wish to go to any of the public celebrations, parking and my left leg and crowds would have made it difficult. We mostly stayed home.

War Movies

AMC in particular spent quite a lot of the weekend showing war movies -- it's how a lot of people who don't read, serve or talk to those who do, know anything about war. The weekend started, as I recalled, with Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which we hadn't seen before. Wikipedia says it's "Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date." More than Kill Bill? Amazing. And quite an entertaining train wreck of a movie. Think of it as The Dirty Dozen but more improbable. (grin) Then there's Midway, which aside from some silly personal plotlines, I've always liked Midway more than Pearl Harbor's Tora! Tora! Tora! *** -- you can't beat not knowing how many carriers there are, or "sinking" the Yorktown twice, to turn an assured defeat into a great victory. And thank goodness no one seemed to be showing that stinker Pearl Harbor. Patton, always a personal favorite of mine and George C. Scott's greatest, gravelly role. Heartbreak Ridge, is also improbable and implausible, but there's very little else that covers the invasion of Grenada to free the American medical school students. Call it a guilty pleasure, especially to watch Clint & Co. chew up the scenery. The Great Escape, a romanticized version of an actual breakout during WW II. From the age of Big Epic Movies. I'm surprised it isn't paired up with Stalag 17 for a killer POW double-feature every time.

Then they ran Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers followed by Letters From Iwo Jima, his bookend movies about Iwo Jima -- one about the American invasion and the using of the publicity machine regarding the raising of the flag(s) over Iwo Jima to sell War Bonds, and the other about the Japanese essentially abandoned in place and dug in to delay the Americans and die for the Emperor. I saw most of both, Mrs. Dr. Phil packed it in because the second was running into the early morning hours. We hadn't seen either in the theatres, particularly since (mostly) B&W films don't get booked much and I swear Letters From Iwo Jima was only shown for a couple of days shy of a week on one screen in one theatre-plex in Grand Rapids.

History Channel's six part/three-night miniseries Hatfields & McCoys also began airing on Monday, and given that the roots for the feud began during the American Civil War, which also prompted the historical roots for Memorial Day itself, I suppose it could also be grandfathered into the Memorial Day war movie filmfest.

So there you have it -- a day (or weekend) of Memorial and remembrance of those who have fallen, distilled down to a few public events and hours of movies. Thanks to all who have served, who are serving and who will someday sign up to serve.

From others in the UCF:
David on family who served.
Vince in a poignant Ken Burns moment.
Random Michelle starts with a WW I sad comment.
And then there's Jim Wright from last year, as only Jim can put it.

Dr. Phil

*** Ack! I knew it was Tora not Toro. Thanks! Corrected 5-31-2012.

In The Beginning...

Back in the spring, retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer, talented woodworker and good UCF friend Jim Wright taunted the world by extolling the marvelous wood he'd acquired.

For the woodworkers: gloat gloat gloat.

Today I scored a piece of Michigan (eastern) white pine. Nothing special, right? Wrong. This is a piece of the primal old growth forest, a forest made long extinct by the double-headed felling axe and the two-man cross-cut saw. This piece of wood was cut from a log salvaged from the frigid waters of Lake Superior, where it lay suberged for more than a century.

Now I remember when they salvaged that wood. Never occurred to me that I might ever get my hands on some. And he'd mentioned turning some pens. Though it was April, I asked if he could set aside some material to make pens for Christmas presents. Jim thought that could be arranged.

The salvaged pine is expensive. But the pens come out beautiful, at least the one I've turned so far. Apparently, people make flooring out of it, though you'd have to be a millionaire to have your kitchen done in it. Amazingly, since pine oil is not water soluble, the heartwood is still oily and pungent even after all these years (the frigid waters of Lake Superior help too), the whole huge shop smells like Pine-Sol when you cut into the wood.

In November I reminded Jim about the order and he said I had the last three billets. Well, they came the other week and were distributed today. Everyone loved them and they are quite beautiful. Look at that color after a century in the icy depths of Lake Superior!


Thank you, Jim! (Click on photo for larger.)

In case you're wondering, the pen guts use Cross refills and write beautifully.

Want your own fine Jim Wright wood creations? Check out some of the woodworking entries at Stonekettle Station.*** Or check out Jim's new Stonekettle store on Etsy. He put up 18 pens today for a start -- none of them with the old growth wood. mind you -- and 13 of them have sold.

Dr. Phil

*** - You're put on notice that reading Stonekettle Station is likely to cause explosive laughter, awe or fits of apoplectic rage. As my friends have learned, Do NOT Read Stonekettle Station while eating or drinking.

Last Thursday At An Undisclosed Location...

Jim Wright is a retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer, now living in Alaska, where he turns wood into sawdust and shavings, leaving very pretty leftovers. He also runs a most excellent blog at Stonekettle Station. If you've never read any of Jim's musings or rants, might I suggest you start with some of his posts on cats -- after all, the Internet was invented for showing pictures of cats and telling stories about cats -- such as his hilarious 2009 post There Ain't No Such Things As A Free Cat and one of the funniest things I've ever read, his 2008 Manly Bloggin' Thursday, before you tackle some of his wickedly biting political commentary such as the recent Reverse Engineering The Tea Party.

Jim actually grew up in West Michigan and his folks are still nearby in Middleville MI, but events conspired such that we couldn't do the whole same-place / same-time face-to-face real world meet last year. So we both worked hard to try to figure out something this summer. Despite coming down to the Lower 48 and spending days working on his parents' house, which up to his armpits in very un-Alaska-like temperature and humidity (he claimed that all he needed to hear was howler monkeys and he'd feel like he was back in Panama -- sorry, all we could offer was very loud cicadas) AND coming down with some sort of summer cold he blamed on the poor ventilation on the long flights to get here, we did come up with a plan.

So I left the office a bit early and drove up US-131, managing to pick the correct lanes to make good time and slip off the S-Curve and pick up Mrs. Dr. Phil at the downtown GVSU campus before hopping on I-196 and heading down towards 44th Street/Rivertown Parkway.

... For A Meat Up With Joe Chicago's Pizza


Dr. Phil and Jim Wright with their dueling Bluetooth Borg ear implants.

We met on neutral hallowed ground, a la Highlander, i.e. Joe Chicago's Pizza near Rivertown Crossings Mall at 6pm for some serious Chicago stuffed pizza. He was carrying an armload of technology -- an HP netbook, a Nikon D5000 SLR, a Blackberry, the inevitable Bluetooth earpiece and the remote key for the Dodge Charger the rental car company had "upgraded" him to. We ordered two mediums, so both parties could take leftovers home in a convenient box. Good planning is essential for these sorts of things. (grin) Pepperoni, black olives, mushrooms, garlic on the left. Sausage, roasted red peppers, spinach, black olives and mushrooms on the right. Or something like that:

Jim Wright and Mrs. Dr. Phil and Serious Pizzas.

We didn't quite close the place down, remember it takes 35-45 minutes just to bake a Chicago stuffed pizza (yum grin), but it was almost 9pm when we left, after covering war stories, science fiction, writing, West Michigan and Alaska politics, etc. And now that we've met in person, I might work my way through my telephone phobia and give him a call sometime when (a) he gets back to Alaska and (b) I send him some more stories to get his professional opinion on. (double-word-score-grin)

All that's left is figuring out how to get him to Greensboro NC to meet my parents, who are huge fans of his Stonekettle Station bloggerings.

Oh, and Jim? Those howler monkeys may be closer than we thought. Yesterday I found a half eaten banana at the end of our driveway, probably dropped by some monkey driving past...

Dr. Phil