After just posting 50 uncommon things I had done in my life, I thought it might be time for the dumb things I have done. Not sure I can make 50, but here goes.
1. Jumped fences in Bel Aire (Think Beverly Hills on steroids) California to be chased by the dogs. (We were, and after about the the 5th house, when the Rottweiler nearly got us, we decided this activity was not really worth pursuing.)
2. Stole golf cart path marker plastic chain from every hole on an exclusive country club. Then we got a bit of conscience and threw it all back over the fence the next night, except for the little bit my friend kept to make a hippie door.
3. Cruising in the mountains around Lake Arrowhead California at 110 mph whilst riding on the trunk and holding onto the roll bar of a two-seater Datsun 2000 convertible.
4. At age 14 I had a summer job working at a YMCA camp at Big Bear Lake in California. It was a great job, but I quit half way through the summer because I was home sick.
5. At the summer camp, I stepped on a scorpion with my bare foot in the shower. Major mistake.
6. Lit a firecracker and held it in my hand whilst it exploded to see what it felt like.
7 Threw water balloons at passing buses with open windows while a missionary during carneval in Peru in 1972. Hit a lady with a baby. That was what got me thrown into the South American Jail, from which I escaped. (They were going to keep me in jail for 24 hours and then send me to the judge. After the shift changed, I told the guard that the arresting officer told me I could go home after 5 hours, so they let me go.
8. Ate food from street vendors everywhere I went while serving as a missionary in Peru. Only got sick once, when I found out that what I thought was barbecue beef heart was actually dog meat. And I found out it was dog meat the next day, so it was purely psychological that I got sick.
9. Fell asleep while driving the Mitsubishi Lancer and rear-ended a Mercedes. Not wise at all.
10. Played soccer barefoot on the beach whilst a missionary. Broke my big toe when I got a shin instead of the ball.
11. I guess the missionary experience yielded several dumb things. I was way overweight on the luggage coming home, so I threw out my journal I had faithfully kept for 2 years.
12. Not sure how I did this, but whilst carrying a potted plant past the pool out to the car to use as a visual aid for a Sunday School lesson, I suddenly ended up in the pool wearing my suit and tie. My children have regaled everyone they know telling that story.
13. Worked late and got my truck stolen for my troubles. (obviously age and experience do not preclude me from continuing to do dumb things.
14. While we were driving around the mountains in the Datsun at 110 miles per hour we stopped at every snowman made on the side of the road and picked them up and put them right in the middle of the road. There were about 30 of them.
15. After a relative got pulled into the Pacific ocean by a fish he had caught and lost an expensive fishing rig in the process, he got back into the boat dripping and sopping wet, my first question to him was, "Uncle Sy, is your watch waterproof?
16. Tripped one of the train robber actors at Knott's Berry Farm in California. It was a glorious fall, let me tell you. He got up and whacked me on the knee with the butt of his very real gun.
14.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
50 Uncommon Things I have Done in My Life:
50 Uncommon Things I have Done in My Life:
1. Been on a hijacked airplane.
2. Stared down a wild bear about 5 feet away from me.
3. Been in three major deadly earthquakes.
4. Been chased by three tornados at the same time.
5. Been chased by three different lightning bolts within 5 minutes.
6. Dug up and reburied a human body.
7. Met a US President, the world’s richest man, and Walt Disney.
8. Climbed to the top of Huayna Picchu above Machu Picchu in Peru.
9. Climbed to the top of the pyramids of the sun and the moon at Teotihuacan in Mexico.
10. Seen Michelangelo’s David up close and, ah, personal. And a bunch more Michelangelo works.
11. Had dinner across the street from the church where Michelangelo practiced human dissection.
12. Been thrown in a South American jail.
13. And escaped from same.
14. Played at Carnegie hall – figure that one out.
15. Stood in 4 states at the same time.
16. Stood in the eastern and western hemisphere at the same time.
17. Crossed the equator man times.
18. Been skinny-dipping in the Pacific ocean. We will just leave that one alone.
19. Been on the field and in the locker room of the Rose Bowl during a football game.
20. Made nitroglycerin.
21. Been on ground zero at the World Trade Center
22. Walked DOWN the 687 steps in the Washington Monument.
23. Crossed the Rio de la Plata From Argentina to Uruguay.
24. Stalled an RV on a ferry and couldn’t get it started – kept all cars waiting for 20 minutes until they could get a tow truck down the ramp.
25. Worked as a chef in a restaurant on Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood, California.
26. Seen Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose before it went on public display
27. Kept a boat about 50 feet away from where PT 73 from the TV show McHale’s Navy was kept.
28. Fired a machine gun.
29. Flown (piloted) an airplane (I was in it, it was not on the end of a string).
30. Been nearly blown out of the water whilst trying to see the battleship New Jersey from the sea. (They were giving public tours from the dock inside the ship. We figured it was OK.)
31. Been quoted and pictured on the front page of a newspaper.
32. Kissed my wife under the Eiffel Tower.
33. Been a TV cameraman with my work on the air.
34. Held a real Oscar statuette.
35. Been an actor in 19 plays.
36. Have a full scale guillotine in my back yard that I built myself.
37. Sat in the US House of Representatives and Senate Chambers in Washington DC.
38. Seen the Space Shuttle land and take off on the back of its 747 whilst being transported from Edwards Air Force base in California. (Awesome).
39. Seen numerous missiles from Vandenberg Air Force base in California deliberately blown up in flight to prevent the errant missiles from landing on a populated area (Also awesome).
40. Touched a piece of the moon.
41. Saved a friend from drowning (After I convinced him he could dive into 15 feet of water).
42. Directed an archeological dig.
43. Know what the phrase “raising the level of the Thames” means.
44. Seen a ballet performance in the old Paris Opera House (Cinderella)
45. Saw Les Mis from the center seat in the 4th row two weeks before it closed on Broadway
46. Watched the filming of an episode of the original Starskey and Hutch TV series.
47. Been to 49 of the 50 US States (missing Hawaii).
48. Been inside Hoover Dam on Lake Mead.
49. Seen the Rosetta Stone
50. Watched Sandy Koufax pitch a no-hitter baseball game in Dodger Stadium.
1. Been on a hijacked airplane.
2. Stared down a wild bear about 5 feet away from me.
3. Been in three major deadly earthquakes.
4. Been chased by three tornados at the same time.
5. Been chased by three different lightning bolts within 5 minutes.
6. Dug up and reburied a human body.
7. Met a US President, the world’s richest man, and Walt Disney.
8. Climbed to the top of Huayna Picchu above Machu Picchu in Peru.
9. Climbed to the top of the pyramids of the sun and the moon at Teotihuacan in Mexico.
10. Seen Michelangelo’s David up close and, ah, personal. And a bunch more Michelangelo works.
11. Had dinner across the street from the church where Michelangelo practiced human dissection.
12. Been thrown in a South American jail.
13. And escaped from same.
14. Played at Carnegie hall – figure that one out.
15. Stood in 4 states at the same time.
16. Stood in the eastern and western hemisphere at the same time.
17. Crossed the equator man times.
18. Been skinny-dipping in the Pacific ocean. We will just leave that one alone.
19. Been on the field and in the locker room of the Rose Bowl during a football game.
20. Made nitroglycerin.
21. Been on ground zero at the World Trade Center
22. Walked DOWN the 687 steps in the Washington Monument.
23. Crossed the Rio de la Plata From Argentina to Uruguay.
24. Stalled an RV on a ferry and couldn’t get it started – kept all cars waiting for 20 minutes until they could get a tow truck down the ramp.
25. Worked as a chef in a restaurant on Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood, California.
26. Seen Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose before it went on public display
27. Kept a boat about 50 feet away from where PT 73 from the TV show McHale’s Navy was kept.
28. Fired a machine gun.
29. Flown (piloted) an airplane (I was in it, it was not on the end of a string).
30. Been nearly blown out of the water whilst trying to see the battleship New Jersey from the sea. (They were giving public tours from the dock inside the ship. We figured it was OK.)
31. Been quoted and pictured on the front page of a newspaper.
32. Kissed my wife under the Eiffel Tower.
33. Been a TV cameraman with my work on the air.
34. Held a real Oscar statuette.
35. Been an actor in 19 plays.
36. Have a full scale guillotine in my back yard that I built myself.
37. Sat in the US House of Representatives and Senate Chambers in Washington DC.
38. Seen the Space Shuttle land and take off on the back of its 747 whilst being transported from Edwards Air Force base in California. (Awesome).
39. Seen numerous missiles from Vandenberg Air Force base in California deliberately blown up in flight to prevent the errant missiles from landing on a populated area (Also awesome).
40. Touched a piece of the moon.
41. Saved a friend from drowning (After I convinced him he could dive into 15 feet of water).
42. Directed an archeological dig.
43. Know what the phrase “raising the level of the Thames” means.
44. Seen a ballet performance in the old Paris Opera House (Cinderella)
45. Saw Les Mis from the center seat in the 4th row two weeks before it closed on Broadway
46. Watched the filming of an episode of the original Starskey and Hutch TV series.
47. Been to 49 of the 50 US States (missing Hawaii).
48. Been inside Hoover Dam on Lake Mead.
49. Seen the Rosetta Stone
50. Watched Sandy Koufax pitch a no-hitter baseball game in Dodger Stadium.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
My Back Yard
General Douglas MacArthur said he would, but I actually have returned.
It is highly likely that I have the only back yard in Tarrant County, possibly in all of Texas, with an 11-foot tall guillotine in the yard. There is also a buckboard wagon, a lobster trap, and a pump in the yard. In the garage is a cradle, in the house is a bar, now used for my art supplies. All were made for various theatrical productions in the area. It has been great fun to build them, all from scratch, so I thought I would show off a few pictures of things that I have made for theatre. Some of the murals I have painted on theatre walls as part of sets for various other plays will be in the next post.
One not pictured here that I did was an old style ladder with dowel rungs I made for The Miracle Worker . I aged it and made it look like it had been sitting in a barn for years. I had originally made it 8 feet long, but we had to cut off a foot of it to get it through the stage entrances. When the theatre had to vacate the costume and set storage area of the theatre by order of the fire marshall, the ladder was one of the things that got thrown out. I was in an antique store about a month after the ladder got thrown out, and there was my ladder -- advertised as a “Vintage 7 foot ladder’ -- and on sale for $110.00. I laughed long and hard over that one. I guess I did pretty good work at aging it, for it to be worthy of being sold as an antique.
The 11-foot tall 7/8 scale guillotine was made for The Scarlet Pimpernel at Artisan Center theatre in Hurst in 2006. It has a real steel blade, which falls very quickly and makes a wicked nasty sound. But it is theatrical special effects, designed by me and enhanced by Christopher, and is perfectly safe. We had 2 people put their necks in it every performance, and they survived to do the show the next night. Wax images of the actor’s heads were made, so on stage they actually pulled their heads out of the basket. It is missing a piece of the lower yoke, which was made of foam rubber. The actor in the guillotine pushed his neck down on the foam so it looked liked his head actually got chopped off. Very nice special effect.
The Buckboard Wagon started out life as the Wells Fargo Wagon for the Artisan Center Theatre Production of The Music Man in 2008. Unfortunately I have no pictures of that iteration, but it had a canvas canopy over it with Wells Fargo Express painted on the sides. However, the wagon was modified to appear in the Plaza Theatre Company production of Smoke on the Mountain in Cleburne, TX, also in 2008. That version of it is pictured below. The wheels were borrowed from Chris White’s father. The box in the front of the wagon is a tool box, hand-made in about 1910 by Almer Ernst Libby, a great uncle of mine. The wagon does have a steering mechanism and is functional. It is about 9 feet long.
Up next are a bar, made for the 2008 Artisan production of The Foreigner, a cradle and a working, movable pump made for the 2007 Artisan production of The Miracle Worker, and an old-style lobster trap, made for set dressing for the 2008 Stolen Shakespeare guild production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Notice the weathering/aging effects on the pump housing and the lobster trap. It was fresh wood when I started. On the pump housing, you can see a replacement piece of cedar (the first top plank on the left) which is fresh wood. The wood in the pump housing and the lobster trap was aged with india ink diluted in water. My own invention -- and it works great. If you look at the cedar fence in the background, which is truly weathered, you can’t tell the difference. You can also compare the two aged pieces with the raw wood of the cradle, and you see how well my aging method works.
And the last of the set pieces is the trolley for Meet Me in St. Louis at the Artisan Theatre. It was 7 feet tall and in three pieces so that it could be easily stored off stage and so that it could come on stage easily from the corners. It was nicely detailed with decorative trim and advertisements from the early 1900’s. My favorite part of it were the old fashioned candle powered carriage lamps I put on either end, which I manufactured completely from scratch. The three pieces gave a really good impression of a full trolley car when on stage and packed with townspeople. Well into building the trolley I got called upon to be the trolley driver in the show, so it was fun working with the piece I had built on stage
It is highly likely that I have the only back yard in Tarrant County, possibly in all of Texas, with an 11-foot tall guillotine in the yard. There is also a buckboard wagon, a lobster trap, and a pump in the yard. In the garage is a cradle, in the house is a bar, now used for my art supplies. All were made for various theatrical productions in the area. It has been great fun to build them, all from scratch, so I thought I would show off a few pictures of things that I have made for theatre. Some of the murals I have painted on theatre walls as part of sets for various other plays will be in the next post.
One not pictured here that I did was an old style ladder with dowel rungs I made for The Miracle Worker . I aged it and made it look like it had been sitting in a barn for years. I had originally made it 8 feet long, but we had to cut off a foot of it to get it through the stage entrances. When the theatre had to vacate the costume and set storage area of the theatre by order of the fire marshall, the ladder was one of the things that got thrown out. I was in an antique store about a month after the ladder got thrown out, and there was my ladder -- advertised as a “Vintage 7 foot ladder’ -- and on sale for $110.00. I laughed long and hard over that one. I guess I did pretty good work at aging it, for it to be worthy of being sold as an antique.
The 11-foot tall 7/8 scale guillotine was made for The Scarlet Pimpernel at Artisan Center theatre in Hurst in 2006. It has a real steel blade, which falls very quickly and makes a wicked nasty sound. But it is theatrical special effects, designed by me and enhanced by Christopher, and is perfectly safe. We had 2 people put their necks in it every performance, and they survived to do the show the next night. Wax images of the actor’s heads were made, so on stage they actually pulled their heads out of the basket. It is missing a piece of the lower yoke, which was made of foam rubber. The actor in the guillotine pushed his neck down on the foam so it looked liked his head actually got chopped off. Very nice special effect.
The Buckboard Wagon started out life as the Wells Fargo Wagon for the Artisan Center Theatre Production of The Music Man in 2008. Unfortunately I have no pictures of that iteration, but it had a canvas canopy over it with Wells Fargo Express painted on the sides. However, the wagon was modified to appear in the Plaza Theatre Company production of Smoke on the Mountain in Cleburne, TX, also in 2008. That version of it is pictured below. The wheels were borrowed from Chris White’s father. The box in the front of the wagon is a tool box, hand-made in about 1910 by Almer Ernst Libby, a great uncle of mine. The wagon does have a steering mechanism and is functional. It is about 9 feet long.
Up next are a bar, made for the 2008 Artisan production of The Foreigner, a cradle and a working, movable pump made for the 2007 Artisan production of The Miracle Worker, and an old-style lobster trap, made for set dressing for the 2008 Stolen Shakespeare guild production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Notice the weathering/aging effects on the pump housing and the lobster trap. It was fresh wood when I started. On the pump housing, you can see a replacement piece of cedar (the first top plank on the left) which is fresh wood. The wood in the pump housing and the lobster trap was aged with india ink diluted in water. My own invention -- and it works great. If you look at the cedar fence in the background, which is truly weathered, you can’t tell the difference. You can also compare the two aged pieces with the raw wood of the cradle, and you see how well my aging method works.
And the last of the set pieces is the trolley for Meet Me in St. Louis at the Artisan Theatre. It was 7 feet tall and in three pieces so that it could be easily stored off stage and so that it could come on stage easily from the corners. It was nicely detailed with decorative trim and advertisements from the early 1900’s. My favorite part of it were the old fashioned candle powered carriage lamps I put on either end, which I manufactured completely from scratch. The three pieces gave a really good impression of a full trolley car when on stage and packed with townspeople. Well into building the trolley I got called upon to be the trolley driver in the show, so it was fun working with the piece I had built on stage
Friday, October 26, 2007
There is no ocean in Fort Worth Texas
To get a picture of me into my blog profile, I first have to post it to my blog. They make this high tech stuff so difficult to get along with. So here I am. I flagrantly stole it (the photo) from Cathy's blog. If the Band Nerd had done it, I would have to call it fragrantly rather than flagrantly, and then he would have given me the Axe for it. It struck me (the photo, not the Axe), as Cathy said, as just being me. Take note: At least it is not in the obituaries, which, by the way, I do have to check regularly to make sure I am not in them.
So, leaving the discussion of the great weekend that was had by all in my family to be described by my more glib and jabber-jawed children, I proceed with just a modicum of family history this time.
There being no ocean in Fort Worth, Texas, we will journey to the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1989 I did a watercolor for Mom of a fishing boat aground at low tide in Seal Cove on Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick, where her father was born. I named the boat Claire, Mom’s middle name. She, MommyMooCow, Hi Tech Honey, West Texas Cheers and I visted there in 1983. And boy, are there stories to tell from that trip. But that will be for another post.
The painting is below. Following it are three shots I found on the web of the same place from different angles, the first one at low tide, roughly from the same spot as where I took the picture I did the painting from. The boat would have been to the right of the old pier in the center of the first photo. The second two photos show buildings just across the narrow channel from where the painting was made, one at low tide and the other at high tide. Sounds like an advertisement for laundry detergent, doesn't it? Anyway, Grand Manan is at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy on Canada's rugged East Coast, where the highest tidal bores in the world can be found.
And so as not to bore you further with this little maritime history and geography lesson, just enjoy these and the rest of the pictures where key part of our family history happened. All are from Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada.
So I have this beautiful place on the Atlantic Ocean as part of my heritage, and I spent 13 years of my life about 2 miles from the Pacific Ocean, and I end up in Fort Worth Texas, 1500 miles from either ocean. What a life!
All pictures except the one of me and the painting came from www.flickr.com and were shot by others, not me.
This is the painting I did in 1989.
Some other neat Pictures of Grand Manan Island. Nice place for a visit.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Not funny but at least interesting
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Above: Longhouses in Ravno Selo, Vojvodina, Serbia.
This village was called Schowe when it was occupied
by my German ancestors from 1785 - 1939. These
longhouses were built very near to 1800 and have
been continuously occupied since that time.
I shot this photograph in November, 2006.
Though I cannot even begin to compete with the wry humor of my children, at least now with my own blog I can defend myself from spurious posts and their not so cleverly hidden attempts to paint me as an nothing more than an eccentric octogenerian.
But in keeping with my DiscoveryChannelesqueand professorial nature, I publish a few things here that are interesting to me and have been important parts of my life and which have nothing to do with PVC pipe.
Famous People I have met and talked to one on one:
1962 Southern Californina children's show host Engineer Bill -- at Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica. CA- On the green light you go and on the red light you stop, because no engineer would ever run a red light.
1964 or 1965 -- Walt Disney at Disneyland in California.
1965 Academy Award winning composer Georg Stolle - My great Aunt Katherine was his housekeeper, and I got to meet him and hold one of his Oscars at his home in Benedict Canyon, CA.
1966 US President Ronald Reagan in Santa Monica, CA - I was on his campaign staff when he ran for Governor of California.
1966 Actor Sebastian Cabot - he sat next to me in the audience for a marionette show.
1967 NBA Star Kareem Abdul Jabbar - I ran into him on the floor at Pauley Pavillion at UCLA in Los Angeles when he was Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor. I asked him what his shoe size was, and he told me 17 1/2
1971 LDS First Presidency Counselor N. Eldon Tanner - I met him at the Denver Stapleton airport on my way to serve as a missionary in Peru.
1972 LDS President Gordon B Hinckley - I was interviewed by him in Lima while on my mission. He was a member of the quourm of the 12 Apostles at the time.
1974 LDS President Spencer W. Kimball I met him in the Church Office Building Parking Lot.
1975 Actor Charleton Heston - I asked him an acting question on a radio call in talk show.
1977 LDS Apostle Neal A. Maxwell - he married us in the Provo LDS temple and we got to have an interview with him before we got married.
1978 LDS Apostle Dallin H Oaks. He was then President of Brigham Young University. I met him in the locker room at the Smith Field House.
1989 Actor Patrick Duffy (he played Bobby Ewing on the TV show Dallas) at the Sheraton Hotel in Dallas.
1996 World's richest man Bill Gates at a reception for Microsoft employees in Irving, TX.
Famous people I have seen up close but did not get a chance to talk to:
1963 - Sandy Koufax pitches a no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants. We were in Dodger stadium that night, about 12 rows up behind the third base dugout. Koufax pitched a perfect game until the 9th inning when he walked a batter.
1960's between 1964 and 1967: Composers Alfred Newman (How the West Was Won, Airport) and Ferde Grofe (Grand Canyon Suite, Mississippi Suite). I worked with and was directed by these composers as a junior high school choir member at programs in the Santa Monica, CA Civic Auditorium called Stairway to the Stars. Alfred Newman won 9 Academy Awards and was nominated for them 45 times.
1967 The Smothers Brothers at a concert at a theatre i n the round somewhere in the San Fernando Valley in California. Seats in the third row.
1976 Singer John Denver, at a concert in Salt Lake City. I had front row seats.
1983 - Prince Charles and Princess Diana in St Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada. We were about 10 feet away from their car.
2000 - French President Jacques Chirac - we just happened to be passing by the Elysee Palace in Paris when his car exited the building with him in it. We we were about 20 feet away from him.
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