It's an odd story. Election occurs in some small (700 residents) town in Missouri (Parma). For thirty-seven years.....the same guy has held the job. He was defeated by a black gal. Within days....the town attorney, the chief of the water department, the city clerk and the bulk of the cops in town (five out of six) resign. They also wipe the computers as they exit.
Normally, you'd look at this and ask some questions. Folks appear to have registered some dislike for the old 'regime' and the 'old-boys-network'.
Then you start to look at potential corruption. It's odd.....the eight people in town to handle money and funds? They up and leave.....erasing all computer records. The paper records? No one says much but I suspect there's no more than a year's worth of records in the cabinets there.
Generally, if you are running a corrupt funds department in town.....it'll show up with what the city attorney does, the paperwork that the clerk generates, the acts of the city cops, and the cherry on the cake is usually the city water department which can always hide expenditures easily.
If I were the new mayor.....I'd ask the state to come in with some investigation. The five cops who left? I imagine they will be hired within weeks by some small town nearby and they will continue their money-making talents for that organization. Why would you need six total cops for a town of 700 residents? That's another odd thing. Normally, a town of this size would not be able to generate enough income to pay the cops.....unless there's tons of tickets issued monthly.
Across the nation, there are thousand of Parma-like towns with the same issue. They've built up a network of 'good-buddies', and made the cops into revenue-generators. There ought to be a rule in every state that determines that a town of 1,000 residents can have as many cops as they want, and generate as much revenue via the cops as they want......until they get to a certain point in relation to the town's size.....then all cop-generated revenue would go to some state educational fund.
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Sunday, 19 April 2015
An Old Ad
An ad in the Daily East Oregonian newspaper (19 Apr 1915), page 8 (the back-page):
"Backtime (the theater)
A queen without a home; A king without a throne
Today's last chance
Elinor Glyn's
"Three Weeks"
in five parts
Sensational drama of thrilling love and royal intrigue in two-hundred-and-eighty scenes. Passed by the National Board of Censors"
-------------------------------------
Around this period of 1915, because of advancements in technology (marketing of trampy magazines, silent movies, and public interest in racy material).....we were advancing into a territory where people had lusty thrills and censorship needed to be a daily task.
Along came Elinor Glyn. She was born in 1864 to a simple middle-class family. Her father would pass on in her youth, and mom relocated the family from the Channel Islands (off the UK) back to Canada. Fairly well educated.....Elinor found herself at age twenty-eight with limited suitors and would eventually marry a successful British lawyer who was seven years older than her but fairly well known for being a spendthrift.
Spendthrift isn't a term that most Americans deal with today. If you were going to make a template and use it with today's society.....then a spendthrift is a guy who goes to buffet discount restaurants (the $6.99 dinner), drives a seven-year old car, would never spend more than $100 for a suit, shops mostly at Wal-Mart, drinks only tap-water and not the $3 bottles of French glacier water, and still wears clothing from two decades ago.
Writers tend to say that Elinor and her man (Clayton Luis Glyn) were a total mismatch. Her husband had a family history.....his father was a Lord Mayor of London, and he had various connections which meant invitations to parties and dinners.
By the age of thirty-six......Elinor was fairly bored with things and enjoying various relationships on the side. She wrote a book based on some letters she'd written and found a small audience of readers. A year or two later, she sat down to write "Three Weeks"....which is mostly a semi-fictional....semi-fact piece....over a highly sexed queen from the Balkans who gets all hot and bothered with a young British lad (at least fifteen years younger than the queen).
For some reason, "Three Weeks" turns into some hot lusty curiosity piece. Around this same time period......Elinor finally came up with a worldly phrase....."IT". It was supposed to be lust and charm all rolled into one. When some gal walked into a room in a skimpy gown.....and guys gawked at her....then she had "IT". "Three Weeks" was about "IT".
The book got Elinor noticed and brought in some revenue. Seven years would pass....her husband's health was failing...his income was limited....and Elinor became a book-a-year writer. As the silent movies arrived....the production teams were on the prowl for books and themes for their movies. Elinor's passions, writing skills, and creativity were a perfect match.
After the husband died in 1915 and movie production went into high gear after WW I....Elinor packed up and moved to Hollywood, California. At the age of fifty-six (1920), she became a big-time screen-play writer, producer, and director. In 1926, she took a twenty-year script idea of "IT" and combined with Clara Bow....making "Red Hair". Sex appeal, lust, and censorship all played together for it's success.
As for the ad in the Oregon newspaper? A guy sitting off in rural parts of the nation in 1915 was fairly desperate for risky weekend fun, and "Three Weeks" played into that effect. Toss in the notice of being censored to some degree, and it meant that it just barely made it out of censorship (many people would think that anyway).
"Backtime (the theater)
A queen without a home; A king without a throne
Today's last chance
Elinor Glyn's
"Three Weeks"
in five parts
Sensational drama of thrilling love and royal intrigue in two-hundred-and-eighty scenes. Passed by the National Board of Censors"
-------------------------------------
Around this period of 1915, because of advancements in technology (marketing of trampy magazines, silent movies, and public interest in racy material).....we were advancing into a territory where people had lusty thrills and censorship needed to be a daily task.
Along came Elinor Glyn. She was born in 1864 to a simple middle-class family. Her father would pass on in her youth, and mom relocated the family from the Channel Islands (off the UK) back to Canada. Fairly well educated.....Elinor found herself at age twenty-eight with limited suitors and would eventually marry a successful British lawyer who was seven years older than her but fairly well known for being a spendthrift.
Spendthrift isn't a term that most Americans deal with today. If you were going to make a template and use it with today's society.....then a spendthrift is a guy who goes to buffet discount restaurants (the $6.99 dinner), drives a seven-year old car, would never spend more than $100 for a suit, shops mostly at Wal-Mart, drinks only tap-water and not the $3 bottles of French glacier water, and still wears clothing from two decades ago.
Writers tend to say that Elinor and her man (Clayton Luis Glyn) were a total mismatch. Her husband had a family history.....his father was a Lord Mayor of London, and he had various connections which meant invitations to parties and dinners.
By the age of thirty-six......Elinor was fairly bored with things and enjoying various relationships on the side. She wrote a book based on some letters she'd written and found a small audience of readers. A year or two later, she sat down to write "Three Weeks"....which is mostly a semi-fictional....semi-fact piece....over a highly sexed queen from the Balkans who gets all hot and bothered with a young British lad (at least fifteen years younger than the queen).
For some reason, "Three Weeks" turns into some hot lusty curiosity piece. Around this same time period......Elinor finally came up with a worldly phrase....."IT". It was supposed to be lust and charm all rolled into one. When some gal walked into a room in a skimpy gown.....and guys gawked at her....then she had "IT". "Three Weeks" was about "IT".
The book got Elinor noticed and brought in some revenue. Seven years would pass....her husband's health was failing...his income was limited....and Elinor became a book-a-year writer. As the silent movies arrived....the production teams were on the prowl for books and themes for their movies. Elinor's passions, writing skills, and creativity were a perfect match.
After the husband died in 1915 and movie production went into high gear after WW I....Elinor packed up and moved to Hollywood, California. At the age of fifty-six (1920), she became a big-time screen-play writer, producer, and director. In 1926, she took a twenty-year script idea of "IT" and combined with Clara Bow....making "Red Hair". Sex appeal, lust, and censorship all played together for it's success.
As for the ad in the Oregon newspaper? A guy sitting off in rural parts of the nation in 1915 was fairly desperate for risky weekend fun, and "Three Weeks" played into that effect. Toss in the notice of being censored to some degree, and it meant that it just barely made it out of censorship (many people would think that anyway).
Saturday, 18 April 2015
Gov Mike Huckabee for President
There are ten potential folks running for the Republican nomination in 2016. There's supposed to be an announcement this week that Huckabee is also running.
The odds of him getting in the top three? Zero.
He has some limited appeal to a small audience across the south, and I suspect his end-game is to subtract votes from Jeb Bush in five or six states. Three percentage points here, six percentage points there, and limited to strictly six states (my guess: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana).
This will end up being a bit of a tough race and no clear winner prior to the convention. Since most states have dropped a winner-take-all point system for the primary.....folks get a percentage of delegates showing up for the convention. My humble guess is that Huckabee hopes to have five percent of the votes. He's doing this mostly to swing his votes around at the right time to another candidate.
As for a cabinet post later for Huckabee? Maybe he'll get some ambassadorship....like to Cuba or such.
The odds of him getting in the top three? Zero.
He has some limited appeal to a small audience across the south, and I suspect his end-game is to subtract votes from Jeb Bush in five or six states. Three percentage points here, six percentage points there, and limited to strictly six states (my guess: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana).
This will end up being a bit of a tough race and no clear winner prior to the convention. Since most states have dropped a winner-take-all point system for the primary.....folks get a percentage of delegates showing up for the convention. My humble guess is that Huckabee hopes to have five percent of the votes. He's doing this mostly to swing his votes around at the right time to another candidate.
As for a cabinet post later for Huckabee? Maybe he'll get some ambassadorship....like to Cuba or such.
Thursday, 16 April 2015
The Alabama State Parks Analysis
From my previous essay over Alabama State Parks on a closure list, there's some interesting history to the ones listed on the closure list.
Cheaha State Park: Carved out by the Roosevelt CCC-gang in 1933. It's on the highest point of Alabama, and for the first forty years.....had just a couple of stone cabins and one small lodge. In the late 70's, they added another lodge and a restaurant to the operation. Basically, there's a campground, some minor fishing, a swimming pool, an area for conferences/weddings/events, and a fair amount of hiking.
Bladon Springs used to be a health spa in the 1800s. The local area had gone down hill and the state acquired the property in the 1930s....again, in the middle of the depression. There's only ten spots for camping and a couple of pavilions for picnics. It is a bare-bones state park and it's questionable why anyone ever put money into it. Minimal profit operation and nothing really to add on it.
Blue Springs State Park is an operation which is bare bones. Beyond some swimming in the local springs and a picnic pavilion, there's nothing much there (barely 100 acres of state property). Zero potential for any profit.
Chickasaw State Park. It's a 500-acre plot of land with some picnic tables and a kid's wading pool. Toss in a couple of hiking trails and several pavilions, and that's it. Zero potential for any profit.
Buck's Pocket State Park. Twenty-odd miles of hiking trails, some picnic tables, a boat launch point, and a couple of primitive camping spots. Zero potential for any profit.
Paul M. Grist State Park. Minor-league park with eleven RV spots. Some Pavilions with picnic tables, and a 100-acre pond for fishing. Very minimum potential for profit. Maybe if they had forty RV spots and some cabins for rent....but it's nearest town is Selma and folks just don't go there for recreation.
Florala State Park. Good location on Ala-Florida border, but only forty acres. A couple of camping spots, some swimming in the local lake (500 acre lake). Some picnic pavilions. Zero potential for any profit.
Roland Cooper State Park. A curious park....it has a nine-hole golf course.....no plans to expand to eighteen holes. Built on the side of a reservoir with plenty of fishing opporunties. There's a couple vacation cabins, a bait and tackle shop, and a couple of picnic pavilions. With infrastructure money and expansion (toss in another forty cabins, some advertising, and a lodge).....it might have potential. Issue? It's in the middle of nowhere.....twenty miles south of Selma. Again, I'll ask....who the heck goes to Selma for recreation?
Rickwood Caverns. Basically, you've got a four-star cave, an Olympic-sized pool, some hiking, zero cabins, no lodge, a minor campground, three hundred acres which they advertise as a 'wilderness' but it's really just a heavily wooded area about twenty-five miles north of Birmingham. Has potential but you'd have to put in a real hotel.....market it for the caverns adventure folks....build up forty cabins and run the operation in a totally different manner.
Lake Lurleen State Park. It offers around a hundred RV camping spots on a fairly big chunk of property (1,600 acres). Lake front view, with more picnic pavilions, and roughly twenty miles of hiking trails. Big selling point? Mountain biking. No lodge, no cabins. Within twenty miles of Tuscaloosa. With development and more infrastructure for mountain biking.....it might attract a unique crowd.....but you'd need to bring forty cabins and remarket the operation.
DeSoto State Park. Another 1930s Roosevelt CCC-project. Three thousand acres of property.....all in high terrain areas, with mountain streams. Oddly, just twenty-five miles of walking trails and barely eleven miles of mountain biking trails. There is a lodge, a couple of cabins, a restaurant, and a decent camping area. It's a park which need redevelopment.....market it as a mountain paradise with adventure trails and triple the mountain bike trails. Close enough to Huntsville that you could advertise around the nation for a 'rough adventure' and have several hundred people a week fly in and want to have some type of bold experience.
Lakepoint State Park. This is one of those odd parks which ought to make it. It's hidden away on a 45,000 acre site near Lake Eufala. Sadly, it's in the middle of nowhere in central Alabama....far east side. They've got a convention center, a eighteen-hole golf course, 100-room lodge, and a huge 192-site campground. They've actually got almost forty cabins, and a boat marina area. More picnic pavilions, and a couple of minor hiking trails. It has success written all over the potential but has never been really marketed the right way. Everybody in Atlanta and Nashville ought to know about the golf course and marina. The convention center? It ought to work better but with only a hundred rooms in the lodge.....I'm not sure they have adequate rooms for the bigger conventions.
Guntersville State Park. A six-thousand acre park on Lake Guntersville. Has a lodge area, boat ramp, eighteen hole golf course, and convention center. Has a decent campground and beach area to the lake. Has a fair amount of potential. Advertised right? No. If the local community ran the operation....they'd have fishing derby situations all year-round, and probably add another hotel to the complex. It's near Huntsville and they could easily attract people to fly in for weekends and get a recreation blast from the lake.
Frank Jackson State Park. Another park in the middle of nowhere. Ninety minute drive northeast from Mobile. Underdeveloped. Basically a fishing and boating park, with some picnic pavilions. Limited RV and camping possible. Even if you added more money and structure to the park.....it's out away from the interstate and bigger cities.
Finally, Joe Wheeler State Park. Structured around a golf course, a boating marina, a significant convention center, a lodge and within three miles of highway 72. With 2,500 acres, they've got plenty of possible expansion situations. Advertised right? No. Toss in sixty cabins and another lodge, and upgrade the golf course.....you might triple the current income levels of the park. Barely a 2.5 mile looped area for mountain biking. Turn that into a twenty-mile mountain bike trail and you'd get some heavy interest throughout the south.
Here's the thing....at least six of these state parks are dead in the water. No matter what you do......they can't achieve any profits. The dimwits in the 1930s and all the way to the 1970s....never cared about profits. Now? It's important.
At least three of the sites ought to be turned over to local municipal communities and let them manage it better. Five or six of these could be turned in mega visitor sites.....if they were managed by a business operation.....built up more hotel space....went heavily on mountain biking potential.....and were advertised as adventure centers.
Sadly, the Alabama conservation folks are not the ones who ought to be managing this operation. And the state just refuses to get smart and realize the potential here if they were managed right (add one million more tourists a year if half of these were run the right way).
Cheaha State Park: Carved out by the Roosevelt CCC-gang in 1933. It's on the highest point of Alabama, and for the first forty years.....had just a couple of stone cabins and one small lodge. In the late 70's, they added another lodge and a restaurant to the operation. Basically, there's a campground, some minor fishing, a swimming pool, an area for conferences/weddings/events, and a fair amount of hiking.
Bladon Springs used to be a health spa in the 1800s. The local area had gone down hill and the state acquired the property in the 1930s....again, in the middle of the depression. There's only ten spots for camping and a couple of pavilions for picnics. It is a bare-bones state park and it's questionable why anyone ever put money into it. Minimal profit operation and nothing really to add on it.
Blue Springs State Park is an operation which is bare bones. Beyond some swimming in the local springs and a picnic pavilion, there's nothing much there (barely 100 acres of state property). Zero potential for any profit.
Chickasaw State Park. It's a 500-acre plot of land with some picnic tables and a kid's wading pool. Toss in a couple of hiking trails and several pavilions, and that's it. Zero potential for any profit.
Buck's Pocket State Park. Twenty-odd miles of hiking trails, some picnic tables, a boat launch point, and a couple of primitive camping spots. Zero potential for any profit.
Paul M. Grist State Park. Minor-league park with eleven RV spots. Some Pavilions with picnic tables, and a 100-acre pond for fishing. Very minimum potential for profit. Maybe if they had forty RV spots and some cabins for rent....but it's nearest town is Selma and folks just don't go there for recreation.
Florala State Park. Good location on Ala-Florida border, but only forty acres. A couple of camping spots, some swimming in the local lake (500 acre lake). Some picnic pavilions. Zero potential for any profit.
Roland Cooper State Park. A curious park....it has a nine-hole golf course.....no plans to expand to eighteen holes. Built on the side of a reservoir with plenty of fishing opporunties. There's a couple vacation cabins, a bait and tackle shop, and a couple of picnic pavilions. With infrastructure money and expansion (toss in another forty cabins, some advertising, and a lodge).....it might have potential. Issue? It's in the middle of nowhere.....twenty miles south of Selma. Again, I'll ask....who the heck goes to Selma for recreation?
Rickwood Caverns. Basically, you've got a four-star cave, an Olympic-sized pool, some hiking, zero cabins, no lodge, a minor campground, three hundred acres which they advertise as a 'wilderness' but it's really just a heavily wooded area about twenty-five miles north of Birmingham. Has potential but you'd have to put in a real hotel.....market it for the caverns adventure folks....build up forty cabins and run the operation in a totally different manner.
Lake Lurleen State Park. It offers around a hundred RV camping spots on a fairly big chunk of property (1,600 acres). Lake front view, with more picnic pavilions, and roughly twenty miles of hiking trails. Big selling point? Mountain biking. No lodge, no cabins. Within twenty miles of Tuscaloosa. With development and more infrastructure for mountain biking.....it might attract a unique crowd.....but you'd need to bring forty cabins and remarket the operation.
DeSoto State Park. Another 1930s Roosevelt CCC-project. Three thousand acres of property.....all in high terrain areas, with mountain streams. Oddly, just twenty-five miles of walking trails and barely eleven miles of mountain biking trails. There is a lodge, a couple of cabins, a restaurant, and a decent camping area. It's a park which need redevelopment.....market it as a mountain paradise with adventure trails and triple the mountain bike trails. Close enough to Huntsville that you could advertise around the nation for a 'rough adventure' and have several hundred people a week fly in and want to have some type of bold experience.
Lakepoint State Park. This is one of those odd parks which ought to make it. It's hidden away on a 45,000 acre site near Lake Eufala. Sadly, it's in the middle of nowhere in central Alabama....far east side. They've got a convention center, a eighteen-hole golf course, 100-room lodge, and a huge 192-site campground. They've actually got almost forty cabins, and a boat marina area. More picnic pavilions, and a couple of minor hiking trails. It has success written all over the potential but has never been really marketed the right way. Everybody in Atlanta and Nashville ought to know about the golf course and marina. The convention center? It ought to work better but with only a hundred rooms in the lodge.....I'm not sure they have adequate rooms for the bigger conventions.
Guntersville State Park. A six-thousand acre park on Lake Guntersville. Has a lodge area, boat ramp, eighteen hole golf course, and convention center. Has a decent campground and beach area to the lake. Has a fair amount of potential. Advertised right? No. If the local community ran the operation....they'd have fishing derby situations all year-round, and probably add another hotel to the complex. It's near Huntsville and they could easily attract people to fly in for weekends and get a recreation blast from the lake.
Frank Jackson State Park. Another park in the middle of nowhere. Ninety minute drive northeast from Mobile. Underdeveloped. Basically a fishing and boating park, with some picnic pavilions. Limited RV and camping possible. Even if you added more money and structure to the park.....it's out away from the interstate and bigger cities.
Finally, Joe Wheeler State Park. Structured around a golf course, a boating marina, a significant convention center, a lodge and within three miles of highway 72. With 2,500 acres, they've got plenty of possible expansion situations. Advertised right? No. Toss in sixty cabins and another lodge, and upgrade the golf course.....you might triple the current income levels of the park. Barely a 2.5 mile looped area for mountain biking. Turn that into a twenty-mile mountain bike trail and you'd get some heavy interest throughout the south.
Here's the thing....at least six of these state parks are dead in the water. No matter what you do......they can't achieve any profits. The dimwits in the 1930s and all the way to the 1970s....never cared about profits. Now? It's important.
At least three of the sites ought to be turned over to local municipal communities and let them manage it better. Five or six of these could be turned in mega visitor sites.....if they were managed by a business operation.....built up more hotel space....went heavily on mountain biking potential.....and were advertised as adventure centers.
Sadly, the Alabama conservation folks are not the ones who ought to be managing this operation. And the state just refuses to get smart and realize the potential here if they were managed right (add one million more tourists a year if half of these were run the right way).
Joe Wheeler State Park?
It's hard to believe. Alabama, the state, runs twenty-one state parks. They are actually run by the state conservation department.
They come to realize that over the years....so parks provide a profit and some don't. With a federal grant, they've somehow managed to survive. Well....up until now. The state is drawing up a plan for 2015.....to close down fifteen of the state parks.
Some parks.....like Bladon Springs, have been around since 1938.
The parks remaining? Well, you had to guess right on Gulf State Park, which is a four-star resort on the Gulf Coast. Wind Creek State Park? It'll be around as well, and is fairly well known for fishing competitions in the summer. Oak Mountain State Park has been around since the late 1920s and is just minutes away from Birmingham.
Some of the parks on the closure list? Guntersville State Park made it on the list . They actually had horseback riding potential, a championship golf course, and a fishing center.
Joe Wheeler State Park, from where I grew up.....made it on the closure list. It has a major boating center and a championship golf course. It also has a major hotel resort.....right on the water.
I admit five or six of the parks on the closure list.....just aren't pulling in enough customers to make them worth the effort of saving.
The closure business is not a guaranteed thing.....it's simply the first step and the state will go through the motions. My humble guess is that by December of this year.....at least three parks will go final and shut down. Maybe another three or four will shut down by the end of 2016.
My general view of the Joe Wheeler complex is that it's got all the dynamics to be a mega recreation center. The complex has been on plan A since it's beginnings in the early 1980s with the hotel and golf course. A few additions occurred over the last decade.....but they really haven't been forward-thinking or aggressive about visitors or use.
With the right advertising, a few added features, and some figure (TV star or entertainer) as a 'host'.....they could probably double the business that they currently achieve....all within three years. They could easily add more cabins and cottages. Another hotel could be put up on the property with more revenue potential. Advertising via national magazines would attract more RV visitors.
So, my suggestion is for the city of Rogersville (their next door municipality) to ask for the property and hire up a couple of smart folks to rebuild the image of the park.
I admit.....some of these state parks are practically dead and there's just not much you can save. These are parks that never should have been made into state parks.
Bottom line? This might be the best thing to happen to Joe Wheeler State Park....ever. And they might take the park to a whole new level within the next decade.
They come to realize that over the years....so parks provide a profit and some don't. With a federal grant, they've somehow managed to survive. Well....up until now. The state is drawing up a plan for 2015.....to close down fifteen of the state parks.
Some parks.....like Bladon Springs, have been around since 1938.
The parks remaining? Well, you had to guess right on Gulf State Park, which is a four-star resort on the Gulf Coast. Wind Creek State Park? It'll be around as well, and is fairly well known for fishing competitions in the summer. Oak Mountain State Park has been around since the late 1920s and is just minutes away from Birmingham.
Some of the parks on the closure list? Guntersville State Park made it on the list . They actually had horseback riding potential, a championship golf course, and a fishing center.
Joe Wheeler State Park, from where I grew up.....made it on the closure list. It has a major boating center and a championship golf course. It also has a major hotel resort.....right on the water.
I admit five or six of the parks on the closure list.....just aren't pulling in enough customers to make them worth the effort of saving.
The closure business is not a guaranteed thing.....it's simply the first step and the state will go through the motions. My humble guess is that by December of this year.....at least three parks will go final and shut down. Maybe another three or four will shut down by the end of 2016.
My general view of the Joe Wheeler complex is that it's got all the dynamics to be a mega recreation center. The complex has been on plan A since it's beginnings in the early 1980s with the hotel and golf course. A few additions occurred over the last decade.....but they really haven't been forward-thinking or aggressive about visitors or use.
With the right advertising, a few added features, and some figure (TV star or entertainer) as a 'host'.....they could probably double the business that they currently achieve....all within three years. They could easily add more cabins and cottages. Another hotel could be put up on the property with more revenue potential. Advertising via national magazines would attract more RV visitors.
So, my suggestion is for the city of Rogersville (their next door municipality) to ask for the property and hire up a couple of smart folks to rebuild the image of the park.
I admit.....some of these state parks are practically dead and there's just not much you can save. These are parks that never should have been made into state parks.
Bottom line? This might be the best thing to happen to Joe Wheeler State Park....ever. And they might take the park to a whole new level within the next decade.
Monday, 13 April 2015
Completed Fringe Finally
This past weekend, I finished up 'Fringe'. I admit....during the era when it aired, I probably watched five episodes of the entire series. With Netflix, I've finally sat down and watched Fringe from start to finish....all 100 episodes. It took me seven weeks but it's done. So five observations.
First, Fringe is what Lost, "V", Doctor Who, Stargate, Heroes, The X-Files and Twilight Zone all tried to be.....condensed into one single series. To be truthful....you could not afford to miss a single episode and you had to watch them all in sequence. Skipping one or two episodes per season simply left you without vital pieces of the entire story.
Second, Fringe had four-star writers from start to finish. With most series....you reach a point where you know the top writer or two have left the show and the epic points have disappeared. The script from day one worked....and you tended to admire some speech or frustration moment by a character.
Third, as bad guys go.....David Robert Jones and the Observers 'Captain' are five-star bad guys. The camera angles....the script and text of both characters....the dialog with the primary characters.....all lead to some successful stories.
Fourth, the alternate universe Fauxlivia....once introduced....was a heavyweight for each story.
Fifth, there is a simple fault with Fringe....in that you really need to watch three or four episodes a week and assemble the series within a limited time so that everything makes sense. To space it out over five years....probably make economic or business sense, but for the regular viewer.....one episode a week, and twenty episodes a year....simply delayed the potential effect of the series.
I would strongly recommend Fringe but you'd best plan an episode a day to make it work right.
First, Fringe is what Lost, "V", Doctor Who, Stargate, Heroes, The X-Files and Twilight Zone all tried to be.....condensed into one single series. To be truthful....you could not afford to miss a single episode and you had to watch them all in sequence. Skipping one or two episodes per season simply left you without vital pieces of the entire story.
Second, Fringe had four-star writers from start to finish. With most series....you reach a point where you know the top writer or two have left the show and the epic points have disappeared. The script from day one worked....and you tended to admire some speech or frustration moment by a character.
Third, as bad guys go.....David Robert Jones and the Observers 'Captain' are five-star bad guys. The camera angles....the script and text of both characters....the dialog with the primary characters.....all lead to some successful stories.
Fourth, the alternate universe Fauxlivia....once introduced....was a heavyweight for each story.
Fifth, there is a simple fault with Fringe....in that you really need to watch three or four episodes a week and assemble the series within a limited time so that everything makes sense. To space it out over five years....probably make economic or business sense, but for the regular viewer.....one episode a week, and twenty episodes a year....simply delayed the potential effect of the series.
I would strongly recommend Fringe but you'd best plan an episode a day to make it work right.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Barracks Story
The Barksdale AFB dorm (in Shreveport)? This is a shot of the old dorm I lived in (renovation around 1984, after I left). It was one of the worst places you can imagine before the renovation, and I actually stayed there for roughly two years.
It'd been built in the mid-1960s and was state-of-the art when it was built. But from like 1981 to 1983....it was in terrible shape.
The cooling unit was no longer able to cool. It was a shocker to survive the two summers I spent there with almost no cooling whatsoever.
The heating unit would only heat to a sufficient level (around 25-degrees). Anything below that and it just subtracted from the general comfort of the room. At some point, around minus-five degrees....the room temperature was around 32-degrees. Even the mini-heating unit I bought could barely add ten degrees onto the room, and it'd pop the circuit breaker after thirty minutes of use.
The cockroaches? In the middle of the night, if you got up and turned on the light.....the one sink in the room would have around a dozen cockroaches scrambling around. I'd keep a can of lighter fluid nearby and spray them with that.
Mice were a problem on the first floor....luckily, I lived on the third floor.
The water for the showers....if you didn't have a problem with water switching from mild-warm to extreme-cold in the winter months....it was Ok.
The ice storm in January of 1984? It covered the fire escape entirely and made it impossible to use as an exit.
The natural gas leak in 1982? It took two days for them to get the gas cleared out and make the dorm safe for usage.
It was the only barracks that I came eventually to hate with a passion. If I hadn't had orders to leave in January of 1984....I would have said enough and just applied for quarters pay and moved off-base.
From what I can figure....they renovated the place in 1984.....again in the late 1990s, and finally tore the entire building down two or three years ago.
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