One thing is for sure and this isn't it

Jumbo shrimp. Sensible politician. Electric engine.

          Oxymorons all. But they don’t compare to the stuff on our driveway today. That most oxymoronic of items is all over the neighborhood as this is written. It’s on roofs, cars, the streets, trees and bushes. You can see it on our patio and it is blowing like dust across town.

          It is dry snow.

          Snow starts out as water. It gets mixed up in the atmosphere and changes, sometimes, to ice. It falls toward the ground and changes consistency again to become snow. If it loses its water content on its glide path to the earth, it wouldn’t be anything. It might become humidity, I guess.

          What snow can’t be is dry.

Dry ice is man-made and costs money to purchase. It does not fall from the sky and, even more importantly, it is not sitting in my driveway today. There is no correlation between dry snow and dry ice.

I’ve heard of dry eyes and dry rot. I’ve heard of and even appreciate dry humor. Then there’s dry land (from the movie Waterworld), dry heat and dry counties.

But dry snow?

It’s weird. You go to the market and come outside to find your car has been dusted. You take a deep breath blow the stuff off the windshield or simply start the car and drive away. This powdery white stuff that isn’t even cold to the touch just blows right off. If only washing the car was always that easy.

So what to do about the driveway? I’ve decided to buy a dry mop and clean up the mess that way.

Well, the ideas have dried up, so I’ll stop. Thanks for reading.

2013: The year of the Gettysburg calendar

          It isn’t too late to buy a copy of my 2013 Gettysburg battlefield calendar for your office, kitchen, dining room, hallway and garage. I encourage you to visit the calendar on eBay. I have dropped the price due to a lack of popular demand and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the lower price.

          Don’t worry that you might order too many. I have plenty in stock.



Here is a dramatic, sunset image from my 2013 calendar.

          My first visit to Gettysburg was a life-changer. I walked from the Lewis Armistead marker to the Virginia Memorial, which is the reverse of Pickett’s charge, and then walked back. I knew nothing about the battle at the time and I remember telling my wife Amy that I then understood what the Confederates did but I had no idea how or why they did it.

          Since that initial visit, I’ve been back to Gettysburg six times for roughly 36 total days and I have read a great deal about the battle. I still haven’t seen the entire battlefield but I have managed to photograph most of what I’ve seen. I try to focus on specific areas each day I’m there but, somehow, I end up on Little Round Top almost every day.

          My next goal is to climb Culp’s Hill, but I’ll need a hiking partner for that job. The Hill is steep in places and I’d feel safer if I wasn’t alone. I’ll have to make the climb with my camera gear and that’s a lot of weight to carry on a hill climb, so there is a need to be careful.



Here is an historic view from my 2013 Gettysburg calendar.

          I have also photographed areas of the Chickamauga National Military Park and I have visited the site of the first battle of Bull Run.

          Photographers love National Military Parks. Many shooters capture dramatic images of statues and memorials at sunset or sunrise. I’ve done that, too, and some of those images are among the 14 shots I selected for my calendar.

          The real challenge for me is to capture history in a pleasing image. My calendar includes the view from Little Round Top and the ambush site on the cavalry field. I want the viewer to see where history happened in a way that helps understand what happened.

          If nothing else, go visit my add on eBay. My calendar is feeling a bit lonely.
 

          Thanks for reading.

Thoughts from the cheap seats of life

          A few thoughts from notes collected while moving through life at a moderately modern pace…

          While trying to get acclimated to a new computer, equipped with the new Windows 8 program, I tried to get Skype working on the new machine. Skype worked great on the old computer.

          It turns out the only contact you can’t make on Skype is with Skype itself. Skype does not allow customer support via telephone and does not answer the questions I asked via the questions forum.

          A communications network which does not communicate.

          I recall thinking how cold a 45-degree night was when I lived in Southern California.

          Three months in Ohio, the months of October, November and December, have changed that opinion.
          Live and learn.

          The new underwater images of the wreck of a Civil War-era Navy ship near Galveston, Texas might give naval historians terrific new information regarding the advance of ocean-bound technology.

          The ship, the Hatteras, was downed by a Confederate raider after the battle of Galveston. Some of the images reportedly show one of the holes inflicted by the guns of the Confederate ship during their battle.
          The Hatteras was a steam-powered paddlewheeler and much of the engine room is visible in the new 3-D images. The video crew used high-definition sonar to record the images. The story I’ve seen in the media said most of the crew was taken off the Hatteras but two sailors died aboard the Hatteras.
          The ship has been under water for 150 years and was more revealed by recently shifting sands moved by recent storms. Every once in a while, the shifting sands of time give us a glimpse of history.

          One of the best books about the Civil War is the autobiographical Company Aytch, or a SIDE SHOW of the BIG SHOW. Sam R. Watkins was a Confederate soldier. His book describes his view of the war, including the battle of Chickamauga.

          Watkins was a member of Company H of the First Tennessee Infantry Regiment during the war.
          Watkins does not spend time with discussions of sweeping army movements. He describes a foot-soldier’s view some generals. Generals Braxton Bragg and Joe Johnston, among others, get ink in the Watkins book. Those thoughts make the book especially important to anyone interested in the war and the era.
          One idea Watkins makes very clear his opinion of the Confederate government’s decision to change one-year Confederate States Army volunteer soldiers into three-year conscripts. Watkins had a very negative attitude about that decision.

          The woman who does the voiceover for the recent Nationwide Insurance television commercials sounds a great deal like actress Julia Roberts to me.

          Sportscaster Brent Musberger has gotten a lot of attention recently, but not for his announcing. Musberger has been among the most prominent network sports play-by-play announcers for many years but Vern Lundquist is a much better announcer, in my opinion. So is Jim Nantz.

       
          Thanks for reading.

Photography: It's an inside job

 

A white and gray day.

     

The various shades of white show the lines of the shingles, the grassy
areas and the trees in contrast with the even, flat street and driveways.

     We had a brief spat of snow this afternoon so, being the intrepid photographer I am, I hauled out my Sony Cyber-shot 5.0 Megapixel camera and recorded the event. Then I turned to my trusty Flip video camera and made a short film about the event.

          All while standing in front of the window upstairs in our condo. Read on.

        

Here you can see faint tracks where cars have driven by. Compare this with the next image, where the
sun has popped out less than five minutes after this shot was taken.

  It was cold out there. Real cold. I mean, intrepid is one thing. Stupid is something else again. I wasn’t about to go outside into that mess.




A few minutes can make a wonderful difference, as these last
two images show. Same camera, location and view.

          The first images you see here are the standard snow storm in the front yard stuff. I used Photoshop to ramp up the contrast and sharpen the features. The images face the west, which is where the storm came from, and you feel the grayness of the moment.

          A few minutes after I captured those images, the snow stopped and the sun flashed out for a while. That second event is the subject of the next set of images.

          Snow is not much fun to walk in and no fun at all to slip on, but it can make for a fun image. Fun, that is, as long as you’re inside the nice, warm condo.

          Thanks for reading.

NFL conference title predictions

          My predictions for the NFL divisional playoffs round could have been better. Actually, they weren’t too good at all.

          That in mind, here are my predictions for the conference championship round:

          The Patriots will beat the Ravens in the AFC. This is an easy pick, with the Pats playing at home. I think the quick pace of the New England offense will be too hard for the Baltimore defense to keep up with and I believe the Patriot defense will slow the Ravens’ offense enough for New England to post too many points to overcome.

          The NFC game is a tougher pick for me. The 49ers are playing very well right now, really rolling. But it is hard for me to pick against a home team in a conference title game. The pick here is Atlanta in a good football game. I believe Atlanta’s offensive line will protect the Falcons’ quarterback well enough for their outstanding wide receivers to get loose and have a big game.

 

          Thanks for reading.

The 2013 Gettysburg calendar on sale now

                I have published a calendar for 2013 with images from the Gettysburg battlefield.

          The calendar can be found on eBay. Search for “2013 calendar with 14 photographs of the Gettysburg battlefield.”

          I’ve had a lot of help with the project and I am grateful to everyone who, in one way or another, helped me get this done. The calendar was printed by Custom Printing of Oxnard, California. My friends there helped me avoid some classic production errors.

          My son, Sean, helped get the images right. He and my daughter, Regan, jokingly gave me a compass so I wouldn’t get lost on some Civil War battlefield, which I’ve done.

          My wife Amy has been extraordinarily supportive. I am not the world’s most fun guy when I get to Gettysburg because I am very focused on completing my to-do list. My to-do list seldom includes anything other than the battlefield when we are in Gettysburg.

          I hope you all like calendars.

 

          Thanks for reading.

This weekend's NFL winners will be...

Just for fun...

My NFL picks for the weekend are the Broncos over the Ravens, the Packers over the 49ers (I'm on shaky ground there, not too sure), the Falcons over the Seahawks and the Patriots over the Texans.

Only time will tell. What are your picks?

Thanks for reading.

Just one job to do...

            Don Liddle was a pitcher for the New York Giants in the 1950s and he was a member of the Giants team that played the Cleveland Indians in the 1954 World Series.

          Leo Durocher, who would later write the best baseball book I’ve ever read, was managing the Giants that season and he brought lefthander Liddle in as a relief pitcher in a tight spot in the first game of the Series.

          Liddle’s assignment: Get the next batter out so Durocher could bring in another pitcher to face the next guy. Liddle accomplished the goal and the game moved on.

          But how Liddle got the out and what he said after the out was recorded is part of baseball lore.

          You see, the next batter was Vic Wertz. Wertz, who had a journeyman career as a first baseman and an outfielder, crushed one of Liddle’s pitches toward centerfield. An absolute rocket.

          One reporter later wrote that Wertz’ bomb would have been out of every other major league park, including Yellowstone. But the game in question was played in the spacious New York Polo Grounds and there was a lot of room in centerfield.

          Lots and lots of room. There is no definitive source for the depth of centerfield at the Polo Grounds that day, but most sources say it between 460 feet from home plate to the wall and others say it was 485.

          Most estimates say Wertz hit the ball about 420 feet, but whatever the distance was, Willie Mays made a spectacular effort to run the ball down and catch it somewhere near the centerfield wall. Mays’ over-the-shoulder catch is one of the more celebrated defensive plays in baseball history. Watch it on Youtube; he looks like a baseball version of Elroy Hirsch, the Hall of Fame wide receiver.

          And every bit as great as the catch was Mays’ throw. Upon catching the ball, Mays whirled and hurled and the throw was good enough to keep any runs from scoring. There were runners at first and second base and the runner at second tagged up and went to third, but that was it. It was a stunning play by Mays.

          And so, as soon as the ball returned to the mound, Durocher came back out, took the ball from Liddle and brought in another pitcher.

          Liddle strolled to the dugout, fired his glove at the bench and sat down saying, “WelI, I got my man.”

          It’s a great line and it’s classic baseball.

          Thanks for reading.

Southern football up North

When Bear Bryant returned to Alabama as head coach in 1958 the Southeastern Conference was already a tough place to win. The schools were a part of the fabric of their cities and states, just as they are today. Every road game was a trip to a hostile environment and the teams played hard.

          But even so, one of the SEC coaches said a few years later, “Bear Bryant has made every coach in the SEC put his golf clubs away.”

          Today, the SEC has claimed its seventh straight national football championship. The state of Alabama has won its fourth straight national title.

          Roll Tide.

          To understand why the SEC is so successful in football, you have to understand the South. You have to understand how hard it is to play in those raucous stadiums, even where the home school has had an unsuccessful season. You have to understand what a rivalry is and how every SEC game is a rivalry game.

          It has always been that way in the SEC, but back when titles were decided by polls, regional prejudice played a part in determining the vote. When college football was televised by one network and the rule was a school could only host one national TV game a season, football fans away from the South did not have an understanding of life in the SEC. I guess they do now.

          But, just as Bryant forced his fellow conference coaches to give up golf all those years ago, Urban Meyer is about to do the same to the coaches in the Big 10 (why they still call it the Big 10, I have no idea). The Big 10 now has a former SEC champ in its midst and college football is about to change.

          Ohio State was undefeated this season, but the Buckeyes were not eligible to play in a bowl game. They’ll be bowl eligible in 2013 and should probably be among the favorites to earn a berth in the national championship game.

          Meyer is a relentless recruiter and a tremendous coach, much like Alabama’s current coach, Nick Saban. Saban is the only coach to have won BCS championships at two schools, having won at LSU before he came to Alabama. Meyer might become the second because he is that good a coach and he’s at a great football school.

          But that’s all in the future. We’ll see what happens.

 

          For now, thanks for reading and Roll Tide!!

ROLL TIDE

ROLL TIDE!!!

THREE NATIONAL TITLES IN FOUR YEARS FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AND FOUR STRAIGHT NATIONAL TITLES FOR THE STATE OF ALABAMA.

ROLL TIDE!!!

Basketball's finest voice

Most sports fans have a favorite announcer, a play-by-play man or woman who appeals for whatever reason. There are lots more fans than there are announcers, obviously, but it seems that every fan has a different reason for preferring a specific announcer.

          You go back a few years and you remember Lindsey Nelson and Ray Scott calling football games. Curt Gowdy must have called every sport there was, as did the great Keith Jackson.

I recall listening to Dick Enberg call LA Rams football and UCLA basketball games on the radio. One night Enberg promised to sing to the crowd if UCLA clinched the Pacific Eight conference basketball championship and I was in Pauley Pavilion the night he went down on the floor and sang a rendition of Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head.

Barney Hall and Ken Squire have been amazing at calling auto races, though they have very different approaches. Nice guys, too.

          I once saw a 30-minute interview show with LA Kings announcer Bob Miller, Dodgers play-by-play man Vin Scully and Lakers announcer Chick Hearn and I didn’t want the interview to end.

          If I had to pick a favorite, I’d hem and haw around for a while, but I’d end up choosing Hearn. My goodness, how that man could call a basketball game. We lost Chick a few years back, but it is hard now for me to watch a Lakers game and not hear, in my mind’s ear, Chick calling the action.

          I miss him.

          Hearn and Johnny Most, the Boston Celtics play-by-play legend, called an all-star game on radio one year. Each man took a half. I was a sportswriter back then and I wrote a column declaring Hearn the best. The Lakers ended up getting hold of that column and I got a signed photograph of Hearn, declaring me a super journalist. I still have it.

          There is a rhythm to calling basketball. I’ve called high school, junior college and college games and that rhythm has to be there or the audience won’t know what you’re talking about. Chick Hearn brought that rhythm into every home and automobile his voice could reach and he made the listener feel the flow of the game, the pace of the action. His brilliant, staccato delivery was the best basketball has ever had.

          Hearn wanted the Lakers to win, sure. But he was a great reporter and he’d tell you when the officials were right to call a foul on the Lakers.

          How many times did we hear him say, “What are these idiots booing about? You could’ve called that one in Braille.”

          Hearn called other sports, too. I heard him announce USC football games on television, and he was tremendous. I read somewhere, and I hope it was accurate, that he also called auto racing at a track in the Midwest very early in his career. Wish I could hear a recording of Chick Hearn announcing an auto race! If any announcer was suited for the frenetic pace and unpredictability of an automobile race, it would be Chick Hearn.

          I close with this, using the pentameter from Casey At The Bat:

 

In all parts of this land of sports the fans will have their way,

They’ll press the buttons on remotes and hear some play-by-play.

With cable and the internet, sports fans can make a choice,

 But in the sport of basketball, Chick’s was the brightest voice.

 

          Thanks for reading.

Football, football and more football

Reflections on a long weekend of football:

 

          I knew he enjoyed attending baseball games and horse races, but I had no idea that Chicago’s best-known historic figure was still involved with financial institutions. I guess he still is because I spent four enjoyable hours watching the Capital One Bowl between Georgia and Nebraska.

          Every time ABC showed the score on the screen, the thing was tagged the CAPONE Bowl.

          Ratta tat tat.

 

          It was no surprise when seven NFL head coaches lost their jobs after the final week of the season. But it was a little odd to see Rex Ryan hold on to his job with the Jets.

 

          Although the BCS National Championship game has rendered other college bowl games nearly pointless, the Rose Bowl remains an exciting game every year. The beautiful stadium, with its natural grass field, the California surroundings and the usually close matchups always make for great viewing.

 

          Speaking of the Tournament of Roses, we watched the parade this morning and were happy to discover that our cable provider had the CW Network’s coverage, announced by Stephanie Edwards and Bob Eubanks.

          Edwards and Eubanks remain the best announcing team for the parade and it was a taste of home to hear their voices again.

 

          South Carolina’s victory over Michigan was a thriller, but it is hoped here that someone will explain television to whoever designs Michigan’s uniforms.

          In the bowl game, Michigan wore white shirts with yellow numbers. Although the numbers were outlined in dark blue, the numbers were not readable for television viewers. If fact, the shirts looked to be blank.

          Michigan has one of the best-established programs in all of college football but someone made a dumb mistake with those uniforms.

 

          On each team’s first possession in the Rose Bowl, both Stanford and Wisconsin ran reverse pass plays with the flanker throwing the ball. That’s pretty wide open stuff!

          Decades ago the Big 10 champion came out west each year to play in the Rose Bowl and played a very conservative offense against the Pacific 8 champion’s typically more wide open offense. The difference between the two approaches was always a big part of the game.

          The differences tend to be program to program rather than region to region now. And both Stanford and Wisconsin played somewhat conservatively over the majority of the game. But it was an exciting game, close and hard-hitting.

 

          The announced attendance for the Rose Bowl today was a little more than 93,000. According to Wikipedia, the largest crowd for a Rose Bowl game was for the January 1, 1973 contest between USC and Ohio State, when 106,869 showed up to watch. The largest crowd at the Rose Bowl stadium for a Super Bowl was 103,985 when the Steelers beat the Rams on January 20, 1980.

          I attended both those games.