PSoTD

We all need to start realizing where we are as a society, and how every one of us has responsibility in the mess we've made. I think that's probably started, but we're early on in the stages of grief relating to our energy abuse. It's mostly the blame of others state - politicians, oil companies, oil countries, the news media - and not of ourselves, not of our lack of thought and vision into how the world was and is expanding, how wasteful we have been of relatively cheap energy. ALL OF US. I'm a sinner as well as you, perhaps more than you, in the scope of this point. But it is not too late for us, and particularly, it is not too late for the next generation.

We have to get past the grief of the passing of cheap energy for an unprioritized lifestyle. This will take some leadership. The institutions that provide that leadership - that reteach Americans how to create a life they consider wealthy regardless of the cost of gasoline - will be the institutions of tomorrow. There are opportunities for the institutions of today for that leadership. Clearly, science and educational institutions are part of that. But there are opportunities for local government, for community organizations, for churches, for neighborhoods, in the retrenchment of our values.

But we must get past the grief.

Demand rising in Hawaii.

Fireflies, also called Lightning Bugs, light up a magical evening. Welcome! You've just discovered the amazing Firefly Magic® Firefly Lights that have been developed to accurately recreate the life-like flashing, flickering, and fading of Mother Nature's real fireflies in your yard, garden, or home... all year long. So special and realistic are these patented and award winning electronic firefly lights that they're used by Universities for conduct firefly research. In addition, Firefly Magic® Firefly Lights are used in theme parks, natural science museums, hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, on stage, and in movies to accurately replicate the real look and feel of Mother Nature's fireflies.

Wow. Just wow.

photo by kaikne

It's pretty widespread - the end of the race for the Democratic nomination for President has shown a dropoff in political blog visits in a lot of places. This is from TalkLeft.

Sometimes a line reminds you of a song.

I saw a great show in Dillsburg last night. We were at the Haar's drive-in, it was 20 minutes or so before sunset, the skies were graying considerably to rain (which it did for most of Wall-E, then it stopped and we were able to comfortably sit in lawn chairs for Get Smart). Families and kids getting fully prepped for the movie that was about to begin... and next to us...

Was a field, and we've just entered prime firefly season here, and there were more lightning bugs flying in the field than I've seen in a long long time. And that's a lot, because our neighborhood is loaded with them, too. The entire field looked like it had been heavily laced with Christmas lights, and I realized that this scene, of nature and farm and drive-in theater, couldn't have been more dramatic if Steven Spielberg had set it up himself. I had to stand at the end of the drive-in and just watch the field.

I've had a different thought today. Business has started to realize that the beauty of insects, and our own lack of understanding of insects, can lend itself to opportunity. That's why butterfly gardens, and insect zoos, and vacation tours to watch insects, such as butterflies, exist. There's money in this niche.

It seems to me that somebody could put together a "Firefly Tour" as well, if the businessperson can string together places like Haar's Drive-In. It really was a spectacular show until it rained.

Why not firefly tourism in Pennsylvania? There are actually some activities like this already. Oh, and check this out:

Summer is around the corner but now is the time to begin looking for lightning bugs with at least one location in North Carolina already launching its annual firefly tours, officials in Ohio are still waiting because lightning bugs haven't been seen there yet.

Just outside Asheville, North Carolina there is a Firefly Twilight Tour on Saturday night offered by The Cradle of Forestry in America Historic Site in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest.

During this guided program people will learn more about the insects as they enjoy the evening woods, forest officials announced Friday.

It's a good place to see the flashing luminous insects because most adult fireflies are found near where larvae hatch and "most firefly larvae are found in rotting wood or other forest litter or on the edges of streams and ponds at night," according to the website of the Museum of Biological Diversity at Ohio State University.

Although fireflies are found in many areas of the United States, only fireflies east of Kansas glow, scientists say they don't know why.

Hey, you Westerners - come east and see the fireflies.

Something chomped my birch tree AND my best growing almond tree, leaving no leaves. I've caged all four of the new trees in, hopefully the attacked will recover.

Maybe I should have thought about the fact that we live in the squirrel and chipmunk capital of the world before planting almond trees.

We'll be watching this eventually, I suspect.

My Seattle-area brother and his wife have now twice sent us salmon as a Christmas gift. This is not a complaint, but a declaration of ignorance. The first time, the salmon sat in our refrigerator for, I believe, two years, in a foil packet. It's not that we don't like salmon, it's just that we haven't acquired that much of a "thing" for it, and so it has been much easier to prepare or eat almost anything else that has been in the house.

If I had a dollar for every time I said "we have to eat this salmon sometime" on the first go around I'd be able to buy my gas-powered bicycle. Eventually it disappeared, but we still haven't figured out something desirable and low-on-the-learning-curve to do with salmon.

And last year we received three packets of salmon.

If you're reading this, D & A, you know we love you, and you know we're proud and don't like to admit we're boneheads about anything, but you gotta help us out. Gifts of food are excellent for the initiated. Send me a box of breaded pork tenderloins, or steaks, and those babies will fly out of the freezer. But we need help on the salmon. I found a site that provides recipes for dishes that include smoked salmon, and we can find something that way. But personal recommendations are preferred.

So if you have any, send them my way. I'm clueless.

Kinda unique in the political career field: Building Maintenance/Support Supervisor. McCain's hiring!

Interesting post about the whims of the Google AdWords marketplace...

Preferential Pricing

Getting your account Google slapped is a well known phrase amongst many affiliate marketers. One day your ads are going great, and then the next day every keyword has a minimum bid of $5 or $10 per click.

I guess I really don't understand what is going on with Google's pricing. I have a regional purchase for the term "Camp Hill", it's not that effective but it's worth a shot. It keeps going up in price per clickthru - today my ad is inactive for search because I'm refusing to pay the new price of $1.00 per clickthru.

What I don't understand is why that is the price. There's ONE ADVERTISEMENT currently on that keyword. What is the deal? Market demand couldn't be responsible for the increase from twenty cents to 1 dollar per clickthru. What up with that, Google?

I will repeat what I said last month - the Lopez Brothers will be amongst the biggest draft flubs this year. Consider me completely unimpressed with both.

Quincy Douby gets one more year to figure out some real value for the Sacramento Kings. I hope the Kings make an offer to Jason Richards of Davidson fame, though. I also think that Patrick Ewing, Jr., will be interesting for the Kings.

Somebody's going to get a good pickup with Chris Lofton. Not drafted.

The Phoenix Suns are done as a major contender for a while. Old, and it doesn't appear like much help in this draft. Robin Lopez as the 15th pick? Bleh.

Specify your modem model in comments, or the bandwidth goon squad will open a file for you.

When I was in high school, I had this great teacher - Mr. Carlson - who taught a one year course, Field Biology. It had lots of benefits, and field trips, including backpacking trips and after school hikes and trips to check out elephant seals and various other kinds of nature studying events. It became so popular in our school that a second year of curriculum was developed, brilliantly named Field Biology II, with more of these kinds of activities and studies.

At that time I discovered birdwatching, or more accurately for me, bird checking. We were given a long list of birds that at that time were known to be in California, either for the year or as part of their migratory trek, and we tried to see as many as we could through the process of all these field trips, and indicate what we saw. What it did for most of us was take us from noticing there were birds all around, to noticing what kinds of birds were around, and what that meant about the ecosystem as far as food and predators and water and botany was concerned.

I've had a trusty Audubon Field Guide to Birds ever since, and it's rubbed off on the kids. I get excited about seeing new types of birds in our neighborhood, and I'll consult the book, and the kids and I will figure it out, and one of them will excitedly tell Mom what we saw at the first chance they get. This usually opens up a discussion as to why they might be around here when we've not seen them much if at all before. Sometimes birds show up around here and are common for a season or two, but then disappear and aren't nearly as visible for a while. This happened a few years ago with Baltimore Orioles - Cal Ripken drove up - scratch that, stupid joke - one summer we saw them in our yard all the time, which was a first, but we haven't seen much of them since. Sometimes they appear and stay - about 5 years ago goldfinches started showing up, and they're here every summer now. This year I've been seeing more blue jays in our part of the neighborhood. And gladly, at least for now, less crows.

Anyway, I just felt like recommending the activity. Central Pennsylvania is rich with places to bird watch, for different kinds of birds - rivers and creeks, "mountains", farmlands, and practically every suburban neighborhood. And with the richness comes the fact that birdwatching is actually very inexpensive, and flexible - you can take five minutes or 3 hours, depending on how much focus you want to give it. Binoculars and a reference for determining on the spot what bird you're actually seeing and you're set. You can build your own PA Bird Checklist to monitor with your kids here or here.

But not THAT surprising, from Pennsylvania State Bank...

In early April 2008, we officially joined PNC. Later this summer, the Sterling Financial family of banks will join the PNC Bank network.

We couldn’t be more excited about the possibilities of what we will accomplish together.

We have a well-deserved reputation for exceptional financial services professionals who provide outstanding customer service. And it is our highest priority that this tradition continues.

Still... We have a business checking account AND a line of credit at Pennsylvania State Bank, and the first I heard of this was when I saw a new flyer at the bank counter on Thursday. Kinda wish they told me before I ordered 400 more checks.

On the upside, the closest branch is a much closer drive.

Interesting review. As long as it doesn't rain tomorrow night, we're going to see it at the drive-in, along with Get Smart.

From the Laurel Manor website:

So, as this blurb shows, in the past this place has handled more than 1000 guests, and promotes that fact. This is location of the Michigan Republicans held their Max M. Fisher National Republican Award Dinner last night. Special guest: President George W. Bush. Fundraiser for Michigan Republicans. Bush is to give a speech. Big, big deal?

It drew a "crowd of about 325".

I wonder how many popped for $5000 for a photo with Bush. Seriously, in what universe would a photo of yourself with George W. Bush be worth $5000? What kind of skewed values would you need to have to make that cost/benefit decision?

According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which tracks wildlife recreation, birdwatching is now a hobby of 47.8 million Americans, with ''wildlife watching'' up 8 percent from 2000 to 2006.

And it's a tourism opportunity for rural America, as well.

Sure is cheap anymore. I remember how pricey this stuff used to be.

For those of us that travel west, this is sad but was a clearly impending development:

Harrisburg International Airport will lose daily nonstop flights to Pittsburgh at the beginning of September, airport spokesman Scott Miller said today.

US Airways has decided to eliminate its two daily nonstop flights from HIA to Pittsburgh, Miller said. US Airways did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

For the first 10 years that we lived in Central Pennsylvania, we probably flew US Airways 80% of the time. There were two main reasons for this:

The price out of Harrisburg on US Airways was very competitive with any other airport, as we were almost always flying to San Francisco.

We hate O'Hare as a transfer spot, and the Pittsburgh airport is great, and particularly easy when you have small kids.

So, cost and convenience, plus the flexibility of all the flights out of Harrisburg to Pittsburgh and then connecting directly to the West Coast, was cake.

Of course, US Airways' troubles ended that. First, their prices out of Harrisburg increased ridiculously, especially since we could find considerably lower priced flights out of Baltimore or Philly to the West Coast. Second, the cut back in flights out of Harrisburg to Pittsburgh made it a lot less convenient. It was a slow, but seemingly certain, demise in Harrisburg.

Harrisburg really needs a quality low-cost carrier to get flyers to a major hub to go elsewhere. Southwest would be great for Harrisburg. And could be great for Pittsburgh as well.

Surprisingly, only about 705 links so far.

These and other baby product recalls are being kept in the public eye by Keeping Babies Safe.

Maglev is fast.

Torson odriin mend hurgee! Just in case you need a translation.

Have one, and you'll be the envy of all at the ballpark.

There has to be a product in development for bigger parties called "The Prego" or something like that...

For years, one of the big items of talk around the General Assembly in Harrisburg was Maglev. I hardly ever hear talk about it anymore, but it's still floating around...

Maglev Inc.'s proposed Pennsyl vania project has the very practical application of whisking folks from Pittsburgh International Airport to downtown Pittsburgh initially, to later run out to the suburbs of Monroeville and Greensburg.

The longer-term vision is to extend the regional maglev system east to State College, Harrisburg and Philadelphia; west to Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago; north to Erie and Buffalo; and south to Morgantown and Charleston, and beyond.

While maglev projects have been proposed to link Baltimore and Washington and Atlanta and Chattanooga, they're merely on paper. The Maryland Legislature passed a law specifically prohibiting the state from spending any money on the study, development or constructions of a maglev system. As for the Atlanta-Chattanooga project, a decision has yet to be made whether to go with a maglev system or traditional steel wheel.

Pittsburgh's Maglev Inc., on the other hand, has been quietly developing the fabrication capacity necessary to build a ground-transportation system for the 21st century. And unlike other states where maglev systems have been proposed, Pennsylvania -- to its considerable credit -- has been financially supportive of maglev, which has proven particularly crucial over the last two years when federal maglev funding was nonexistent.

Maglev Inc. has not limited the scope of the advanced technology required to fabricate thousands of "individual and geometrically unique guiderail sections" on which the trains would run. It also has demonstrated its value in the construction of steel-hulled ships and girders for bridges.

Contracts with the Office of Naval Research for its stealth ship program have kept Maglev Inc. and its critical technology afloat.

The huge economic and employment potential of maglev also is reflected in the fact that Maglev's McKeesport facility is rapidly becoming a cutting edge industrial learning center where students from a growing number of institutions of higher education are coming to earn degrees in precision fabrication.

Celebrate them on Saturday, July 19, 2008.

Why does the city of Harrisburg believe that the cost of a parking ticket should be $14 if paid in the first 96 hours, and then $15 for 5-10 days after the violation? Why doesn't some intrepid Patriot reporter try to find out the believable reasoning for this price structure?

Now you can buy one of their old domains.

Exciting news in the sporting world!

LOS ANGELES (AP)—Candace Parker became the second woman to dunk in a WNBA game and the Los Angeles Sparks beat the Indiana Fever 77-63 on Sunday night.

Parker took a pass from Raffaella Masciadri, dribbled the length of the court and dunked with her right hand with 29 seconds to play.

“When I caught the ball and there was an open lane, it was a good opportunity,” Parker said. “I’m happy that I was able to do it in Los Angeles in front of the home fans.”

Lisa Leslie, her Sparks teammate, is the only other WNBA player to do it— throwing a shot down during a game in 2002.

I'm all for women playing basketball but have no idea why they put it on TV. They might as well televise our weekly old guy pickup games. You'll see about the same amount of highlight reel plays. Doesn't two dunks in five years say all that needs to be said?

You can get it done if you really want to know what breeds of dog your pet is...

Why are so many of us naming our dog the same name?

George Carlin passed away yesterday.

If there's been a more important comedian in my lifetime, I'm not sure who it would be. Yes, there have been more visible and more revenue-generating comedians. But for groundbreaking, mind-opening, life-altering humor - who compares to George Carlin? Not many.

The best thing you can really sum up about a person's life is that they tried to make a difference with their life, and that they did so beyond their biggest expectations. I hope George Carlin felt that way about his, it rings true to me. RIP, Mr. Carlin. And thank you.

You may want to contribute to your community's Wikipedia entry, particularly the history. It jumps from 1765 to 1950.

I discovered Saturday morning that we have a downy woodpecker that is chowing down on whatever is living in a dead limb of our lilac bush/tree. I heard the tap tap tapping and went to investigate, and there he was, and he didn't fly away until I was about 4 feet away. I inspected the branch - he's been busy, it's stripped almost all the way down to trunk, and a variety of hole depths. I looked on the ground, and found this stripped off bark - perfed by the woodpecker.

June 30, 1863.

How many will fall victim?

APTA has an online calculator that will help you compare the price of using public transportation with the price of paying at the pump and then parking your car in town, set with default values based on national averages for June, 2008.

Sorry, that's an old piece of strato baseball geek lore from my life a long long time ago. If you understand it, you're one of 4 or 5 people in the world, and how the hell are you anyway.

Back to the point - I always liked this guy as a ballplayer.

On June 18, Newark Bears manager Wayne Krenchicki led his team to his 1000th career managerial win with a 7-6 victory over the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf, MD. Krenchicki, the second winningest manager in Atlantic League history with 661, has also won games in the Arizona, Midwest, Texas-Louisiana, and Northern Leagues in a managerial career that began with the Milwaukee Brewers organization back in 1991.

Prices are pretty good. My meal was pretty good, and my dumpling soup was delicious. The menu, and pricing, makes it look like it's a pretty darn good lunch deal as well. This is a reasonable review based on our experience.

As an officer in a local association, I just have to say, every once in a while you run into a person that is a combination of paranoia and ignorance that makes dealing with him or her an ordeal too stupid for words.

And sometimes there are two, married to each other, multiplying their powers of dunderheadedness to a degree that leaves the rational utterly bewildered.

Might lead to a requirement of bicycle insurance. I can see a convergence of interests getting such an idea proposed as legislation.

These emails I get from Countrywide, they would be funny if they weren't so pathetic...

XXXXX, exciting news — we're offering a Special Online Discount1 only to select customers.

We've reviewed your account. Because you have kept your account current, made consistent payments during the past year, maintained a good loan-to-value ratio, and because your loan and property type meet our lending profile, we invite you to call 1-800-XXX-XXXX to see if you qualify to refinance.

Don't wait. Learn more about our wide variety of refinance programs — if you qualify, you may discover how a new refinance loan could:

* Allow you to save now with this Special Online Discount. * Reduce your monthly payments and interest rate for the life of the loan. * Give you access to extra cash from your available home equity to use however you wish. * Have a shorter term, saving up to thousands of dollars in interest payments over the life of the loan.

In theory, we could reduce the interest rate on the mortgage a bit, but perhaps a quarter percent at best. It's not worth it at this point to do this, and they know that. This is completely driven by their needs, not my mine.

Just fishing for comments about this online backup service, seems like an interesting idea.

I've only seen part of one of these movies, Showgirls, and that's because there was some week where Showgirls seemed to be on every television channel every time I turned the television on. I don't think I've seen the sex scene in that movie, it might have been cut out for television, but I was convinced that Elizabeth Berkley wasn't going to be in any movies that I paid for, ever.

Although Mercury Poisoning is a damn good tune.

They share the same facial expression in the following examples:

Dog: Barking at a dog that is going by. I take her head and scratch her behind the ears to try to calm her down, and she's looking at me, but all the while is thinking about getting back to the door to check if she needs to bark some more.

Kids: Yelling at each other about almost anything. I take them and tell them they need to settle it without yelling, arguing is fine but name-calling and loud voices are not. They look at me nodding but all the while thinking about how they are going to tell me it's the other person's fault.

Wheels turning, ears just for show.

I wonder if anyone ever looks for the old California Journal anymore.

Gotta remember to not try to drive through Mechanicsburg tomorrow afternoon after camp pick up. We've been to Jubilee Day before, and it's fine, but I'm not really hankering for funnel cake right now.

This should be required reading for small business owners.

Selling hot dogs never sounded so glamorous.

I'd go see Los Lobos at the Alameda County Fair in July. Looks like I'm going to have to wait before they're out here again.

It really does - a group that will promote that location as a hub for quality businesses. Not necessarily retail, but quality.

I'm talking primarily of the part of the Pike from the Naval center to the intersection of the Pike (aka Market Street) and the Camp Hill Bypass. Anyone that drives that section of the Pike realizes that there is a large and growing population of empty buildings for lease on that stretch of road.

As business grows along the Carlisle Pike to the West, it is clearcutting the strip malls and other buildings on the Eastern section of the Pike of their occupants. There are several reasons why certain retail businesses would find the western section of the Pike more attractive - land for construction, more parking space areas, 4 lanes of traffic rather than 2 - but one good reason is because the developers of the malls and other businesses on the Western side are trumpeting the location to any business who can hear.

Eastern Carlisle Pike has no such voice. And there are benefits to this area for business locations as well. I suspect that more people actually live within walking distance of the Eastern Carlisle Pike than the Western Carlisle Pike, as defined above. Some of it offers views of the Conodoguinet Creek. It has a more local building flavor than the Western CP, which basically looks like buildings you can see on any main road in the country. I'm sure there are more - but nobody thinks about it, and nobody promotes them.

The last thing that residents near the Eastern Carlisle Pike should want to see are continuing and structural vacancies on this main artery. That can be the first step in a slow decline of the whole area, particularly if economics pressure property owners to lease properties to less reputable businesses. The Eastern Carlisle Pike needs a citizen group to work towards improving the visibility and reputation of that stretch in a way compatible with the area.

Because Liebermanism doesn't seem to be liberalism to me. Two year old blogging of a mistaken identity:

The Moose denounces the swiftboating of Joe.

The Moose found one of the most despicable moments of contemporary politics was when John Kerry's heroism in battle was called into question during the 2004 campaign. It was an attempt to rewrite history to depict a war hero as an opportunist. It was vile and disgusting.

Now the left is engaged in a swiftboating of Joe Lieberman. It is an attempt to falsely portray him as right wing Bush supporter. It is a vile lie. The truth is that Joe Lieberman is in the mainstream of a Democratic Party that could become a majority party. But does that party exist anymore?

With apologies to August Bebel, anti-Liebermanism is the liberalism of fools.

As the Moose has pointed out, by any reasonable standard, Joe is a liberal Democrat in good standing. Yes, he supports the war, but it is a blatant misrepresentation to suggest that he is anything but a liberal. (The good folks at the must read Lieberdem did some marvelous research on this question - here)

...

Yesterday, the lefty bloggers attempted to spread the disinformation that Joe might run as a Republican despite the fact that he has made it clear that he will caucus with the Democrats even if he runs as an independent. The left knows no limit to their hatred of Lieberman. It is deep. It is irrational. And it has the potential to damage the Democratic Party for many years to come.

Wrong then. Wrong today.

Today's the day it comes out.

I see that Lanny Davis is going through his Liebermanism. Such is the way of all rejected whiners of the Democratic Party, as they are rejected as damaged BECAUSE OF THEIR WHINING, they take it to the one network, voice of the one party, that excels in reframing whining as some sort of legitimate political dialogue - Fox News of the Republican Party.

Good on ya, Lanny. Now even those who didn't notice your performances before on various news outlets can see you for what you really are.

Some posts to read:

Crummy Congressional DINOs should be nervous - bloggers are focusing on you. Time to say goodnight.

The Hummer brand might be discontinued. Has there been an economic result more due - more justified - than that?

What to read on a 28-hour plane trip?

What kind of a 1930's spouse are you? Apparently I am

70 As a 1930s husband, I am Superior Take the test!

Pollywogs! has a great post about camping out with a canoe on the Susquehanna.

Tax rebate blips, about to be overwhelmed.

Believe me, Disney has more inane programming than Hannah Montana. Does anyone proudly proclaim they write for "The Suite Life of Zach & Cody"?

Fools! You cannot stop the mighty Cheez-It. A little bit of trivia - apparently, Cheez-Its have been around since 1921, as the king of all cracker snacks.

Oh, and by the way, Cheese Nips are for total goobers. Cheez-Its rule!

(Can you tell I got a box of them for Fathers Day?)

I never knew there were so many kinds of lettuce.

This documentary was on PBS last night, and it was fascinating. The whole story of Donald Crowhurst - and many of the others that competed in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1969 - is tragic.

So what was the first concert you attended? I'm not talking about things your parents dragged you to, or some band in the park, but a professional show that you paid to see.

The first one I ever paid for was:

Rush and UFO
Memorial Civic Auditorium, Stockton, California
September 29, 1977

At the time I didn't know that much about Rush, but was a big UFO fan. That evening made me more of a fan of UFO, and I'd end up seeing them two more times. Maybe one of these days I'll see them again. And Rush was great, even though I wasn't the biggest fan of Geddy Lee's voice.

Speaking of Geddy Lee, here's a cool story about him, except for the part of cluelessness of who and who are not punk rockers:

A Canadian punk rocker with shoulder-length hair dressed in a brown leather jacket with sunglasses stood in the middle of the Coors Field of Legends next to boxes full of more than 200 autographed baseballs.

Bob Kendrick stated the obvious about what seemed like a strange situation.

"It probably surprised a lot of folks that a white, Canadian rock star would have this wonderful collection of Negro Leagues stuff to make available to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum," said Kendrick, director of marketing for the museum.

Geddy Lee of the group Rush is that Canadian rocker. He formally donated his collection of autographed baseballs to the Negro Leagues Museum on Friday.

"To me," Kendrick said, "it means even more because of where it's coming from. If Geddy can come here and do this, then other people are going to think, 'I can come here.'"

Lee's a self-professed baseball lover, and has been since he was a kid. As his fame in the music world grew, Rush could start collecting baseball memorabilia. During the past 20 years, he's bought his fair share of balls. His favorite is one that's autographed by Christy Mathewson. He also has one that John F. Kennedy threw out for the first pitch of the 1961 baseball season.

About a year ago, on that same Field of Legends, Lee got the motivation to start a greater collection. He saw the statues of Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. He read all the exhibits about the teams and the stories about the players' lives.

"I was just so impressed and so emotional about the stories this museum tells," Lee said, "and it just stayed with me. I thought so many baseball fans around the country had no idea how incredible this place was."

Soon after his visit, he learned that a collection of autographed baseballs from Negro Leagues players was available. He purchased them immediately with the intent of donating them to the museum.

That's just ridiculous.

A 62-year-old woman reported Thursday morning the theft of a $5,000 hot tub from a rear deck.

I see she's returned to more active blogging. Good for her.

Okay, I promise I'm going to drop the ice cream truck blogging. I know, I seem obsessed, I'm really not but I do find the whole little niche industry somewhat interesting. I actually had my first job - if you want to call it that - on an ice cream truck. I worked three days before I realized how bad the deal was going to be for me as an "employee" (how profit and cost were split) and quit.

Anyway, I ran into this website that sells ice cream trucks. It's not the fanciest web site in the world, but I guess I didn't realize there was such a business and trade.

Welcome to the $10,000 Pyramid. You have 60 seconds... now go!