Archive for August, 2024

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Hooray!

Friday, August 30th, 2024

Big Boy is coming to Texas!

No, not that one.

Not them, either. They are (or were) already good Texas boys. But I threw that in because I recently discovered a fun fact about one of the Big Boys, which I will put at the bottom of this post.

This Big Boy is Big Boy 4014, the Union Pacific steam locomotive. It is the second largest steam locomotive ever built, and the largest still in operation.

You may recall that I linked to a couple of videos on Big Boy during the recent unpleasantness.

Here’s the UP schedule for the “Heartland of America Tour”. The tour has already kicked off, but it doesn’t look like Big Boy will reach Texas until September 17th.

It will be in:

  • Dallas, September 18th.
  • Houston, October 6th.
  • Bryan, October 8th.
  • Fort Worth, October 10th and 11th.

Check the schedule for more details, and keep in mind that the schedule may change due to mechanical or other issues.

I’m trying to decide if I want to go to Bryan, which is slightly closer, but is “viewing only”, or Houston, which is a little further away, but seems to be more open to the public for touring. If I can pull it together to do one or the other, I’ll post a report here.

That fun Big Boys fact I promised you? Tim Kopra, who played horns with the band, went on to bigger and better things. He became a NASA astronaut. Here’s his NASA biography.

Unusual career trajectory, I think.

Posted in Geek, Music, Trains | No Comments »

Obit watch: August 30, 2024.

Friday, August 30th, 2024

Lawrence sent this over, but it was already on my radar and just waiting until I had time.

Johnny Gaudreau, winger for the Columbus Blue Jackets of the NHL, was killed yesterday along with his brother. He was 31. His brother was 29. NHL.

According to the reports, Mr. Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, were out cycling. A car moved over to one side to give them clearance as it passed: another driver, who was allegedly drunk, tried to pass that vehicle on the right and hit the two brothers from behind.

The driver, Sean Higgins, 43, is suspected of being under the influence of alcohol and has been charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle.

…

Both brothers, who were New Jersey natives, had been in the area to be groomsmen in their sister Katie’s wedding that was scheduled for Friday in Philadelphia.

Posted in Cycling, Obits, Sports | No Comments »

Land of 10,000 heart attacks.

Friday, August 30th, 2024

I do not want to say this is the highest and best achievement of Western civilization: that would be either Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or deep-fried butter on a stick, depending on my mood.

But this. This is up there.

At the Minnesota State Fair, you can get deep-fried ranch dressing.

…“ranch dressing filling made with ranch seasoning, buttermilk and cream cheese in a panko shell, deep-fried and dusted with ranch powder,” deep-fried ranch is accompanied by “a side of hot honey sauce crafted with Cry Baby Craig’s hot sauce.”

…

“People in Minnesota love their ranch dressing,” Charlie Burrows, co-owner of Lulu’s, told Fox News Digital in an email in July, noting that “diners will ask for a side of ranch with almost everything.”

Personally, I’m not that big a ranch dressing fan. Also, this loses points for not being on a stick (as far as I can tell). But it is a pretty solid effort. Perhaps we will see this at next year’s State Fair in Texas.

Posted in Food | No Comments »

“…he thought he was good.” (Random gun crankery.)

Thursday, August 29th, 2024

I have an impression that the Colt Woodsman looms large in American popular culture.

Chandler, in one of his stories (“Trouble Is My Business“), had two gunmen come through the door, one armed with “a Colt Woodsman with a long barrel and the front sight filed off. That meant he thought he was good.”

(Sorry. Just wanted to break the wall of text up a bit.)

(more…)

Posted in Books, Guns, Ruark | 3 Comments »

Flaming hyena update.

Thursday, August 29th, 2024

I wrote a while back about Robert Telles, the former public administrator of Clark County, who was charged with murdering Jeff German. Mr. German was a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal who had been covering Mr. Telles management of the office, and discovered all sorts of problems: hostile work environment, affairs with subordinates, those kind of things.

Mr. Telles went on trial a couple of weeks ago.

He was convicted yesterday of first degree murder. He’s already been sentenced to life in prison, though he can apply for parole in 20 years.

Coverage from the R-J by way of archive.is. Since it is close to the end of the month, I’m going to burn a NYT gift link to their coverage of the story.

Posted in Law, Media, Politics | No Comments »

Obit watch: August 28, 2024.

Wednesday, August 28th, 2024

Things have been kind of slow on the obit front. I don’t know if it just too hot for people to die, or what’s going on, but it just doesn’t seem like there’s been a lot to report.

I have had this one in my pocket for a few days now. I’m wondering if it will ring a bell with any of my readers: Mitzi McCall.

Ms. McCall was a pretty successful entertainer. She had a comedy act with her husband, Charlie Brill.

They got a big break on the night of February 9, 1964. They were booked to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show”. The lists of acts that night included:

…Fred Kaps, a Dutch magician; the cast of the Broadway musical “Oliver!” (which included a then-unknown Davy Jones, soon to be a member of the Monkees); the impressionist Frank Gorshin; the music-hall singer and actress Tessie O’Shea; and, finally, McCall & Brill.

Oh, yeah, there was one other act booked that night: a group of obscure British musicians that called themselves the Beatles.

In their sketch, Mr. Brill played a producer casting a young actress for a new movie. Ms. McCall played his secretary and three other roles: a nervous former Miss Palm Springs, a pushy stage mother and a Method actor. The sketch fell with a thud, except for some chuckles when Ms. McCall tossed in an ad lib as the stage mother.
“My little girl was waiting outside, you know,” she said. “She used to be one of the Beatles.”
“Oh, what happened?” Mr. Brill asked.
“Somebody stepped on her.”

They bombed. Their agent didn’t call them for six months. But they recovered:

They performed their act — which Mr. Brill said was influenced by the comedy of Mike Nichols and Elaine May — until the mid-1980s, opening for Ann-Margret, Ella Fitzgerald and Marlene Dietrich. They had a recurring role as the bickering “Fun Couple” on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In”; appeared on many variety and talk shows, and on game shows like “Tattletales”; and portrayed a detective and his fun-loving wife on the crime drama “Silk Stalkings” in the 1990s.

Ms. McCall was 93. Her husband, Mr. Brill, survives her.

On her own, Ms. McCall was seen on numerous sitcoms, including “Maude,” “Roseanne” and “Ellen,” and wrote episodes of “One Day at a Time” and “ALF.”

She was also the dry cleaner’s wife in that “Seinfeld” episode. Other credits include “Twilight Zone” (both the original and the 1986 revival), “The Jim Backus Show”, “The Dennis O’Keefe Show”, the 1990 “Dragnet”, and “Madman of the People”.

Posted in 1970s, History, Music, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Reminder.

Tuesday, August 27th, 2024

The Catholic Church has more compassion for people who have died by suicide than science fiction fandom.

Posted in Bagatelle, Religion | No Comments »

Memos from the Sports Desk.

Tuesday, August 27th, 2024

Lawrence and I have bet $5 straight across on the Houston Texans’s chances of making the playoffs. Lawrence is taking the pro-playoffs side, while I am skeptical enough about Houston sports teams in general that I am willing to put up $5 that they won’t make the playoffs.

This is probably a sucker bet, but I get more than $5 worth of entertainment out of my bets with Lawrence, and we haven’t done a bet in a while, so why not?

Lawrence also sent over a story from Not the Bee, though I was already on it and planning to cover it today.

Danny Jansen became a historical footnote on Monday. He was the first (and so far only) baseball player to play for both sides in a baseball game.

As a matter of fact, not just both sides, but both sides in the same inning.

How did this happen? He was playing for the Toronto Blue Jays on June 26th. In the second inning, he hit a foul ball off of Boston pitcher Kutter Crawford. Then the rain started and the game was postponed.

On July 27th, Mr. Jansen was traded to Boston for three minor league players.

The postponed game was resumed on Monday.

Before the game resumed at 2:06 p.m. ET Monday — a delay of 65 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes — Red Sox media relations coordinator Daveson Perez announced the changes in the Fenway Park press box: “Pinch hitting for Danny Jansen: Daulton Varsho. Defensive changes: Danny Jansen now at catcher.”
With Jansen behind the plate, Nick Pivetta struck Varsho out to complete the at-bat Jansen started. Then Jansen came up for the Red Sox with two outs in the bottom half of the frame, getting a nice cheer from a sparse makeup game crowd, and hit a lazy liner to first base to end the inning.

Toronto won, 4-1.

Posted in Sports, Wagers | No Comments »

Loser update: August 26, 2024.

Monday, August 26th, 2024

The Chicago White Sox lost their 100th game on Sunday.

In the modern era, only the 1916 Philadelphia A’s, who were 29-100-1, reached 100 losses in fewer games than the White Sox.

The Sox are currently 31-100, for a .237 winning percentage. Projected out, that comes to 123 losses.

Put another way, in order to go 43-119, and miss tying the record set by the 1962 Mets, the Sox will have to go 12-19 in their remaining games, for a .387 winning percentage. They play Detroit at home tonight: Detroit is favored about 55% – 45%.

Posted in Loser, Sports | 3 Comments »

Duke, Duke, Duke…

Friday, August 23rd, 2024

…not of Earl, Earl, Earl. I have two books by the late Mike “Duke” Venturino I want to get cataloged. And while I’m at it, I want to also hit another Samworth and another O’Connor. So why don’t we get started?

I think, before I insert the jump, that I do want to note: I know there are some people (including one reader here) who don’t care for Duke’s writing. I’m 100% okay with that. While I enjoyed reading him, I understand tastes differ. De gustibus non est disputandum and all that crap. Plus I don’t have a personal investment in people sharing my tastes. I remember having this discussion with one of my nephews once upon a time: I don’t want you to like the same things I do just because I like them, but I would like for you to be able to articulate why you do or don’t like things. (Again, that was one of my nephews. That’s not an issue with anyone here.)

Anyway, if you didn’t care for Mr. Venturino’s writings, you’re welcome to skip over the last two entries. Deal?

(more…)

Posted in Books, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia, O'Connor | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#125, #126, and #127 in a series)

Friday, August 23rd, 2024

Quel fromage!

Mike the Musicologist sent over a link from the Department of Justice: Trayon White Sr., who is a member of the DC City Council, was arrested Monday on bribery charges. (I know, a little old, but I missed this until MtM called it out.)

A corrupt DC city council member? What are the odds?

More from the WP (archived) which describes him as “a Marion Barry protege”.

Barry, for all his legal issues, never faced charges that he sought to enrich himself, although his associates were convicted of public corruption, including Ivanhoe Donaldson, a senior adviser who pleaded guilty to embezzling $190,000 in city funds.
“People looked at Marion’s issues as human frailties,” said Ron Lester, a veteran D.C. pollster whose clients included Barry. “Whether you liked or disliked him, Marion wasn’t someone accused of taking bribes. If these allegations prove to be true, Trayon doesn’t have a political future. It’s more clear-cut than anything Marion faced.”

The complaint alleges that, beginning in June 2024, White corruptly agreed to accept $156,000 in cash payments in exchange for using his position as a D.C. Councilmember to pressure government employees at Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE) and DYRS to extend several D.C. contracts. The contracts at issue were valued at $5.2 million and were for two companies to provide Violence Intervention services in D.C. As alleged, the $156,000 White agreed to accept in exchange for using his official position to pressure renewal of those contracts to particular companies was three percent of the total contract value. According to the complaint, White’s agreement with a confidential human source (the owner of the companies) – including the source’s payments to White of $35,000 in cash on four separate occasions (June 26, July 17, July 25, and August 9, 2024) and the source showing White a document reflecting how White’s three-percent cut was calculated based on those contracts – was captured on video.

In other news:

A grand jury on Friday indicted [name and age deleted – DB] who used to be AISD’s Executive Director of Compensation and Benefits, with stealing between $30,000 and $150,000 from the district using gift cards. Austin ISD and police haven’t specified the exact amount believed to be stolen.

According to KXAN, she resigned from the district in March of last year, and went to work for…the City of Austin.

Bond records list [name deleted – DB], another former AISD employee who worked in her department, as [name deleted – DB] co-defendant. City of Austin officials said in a statement to KXAN that [name deleted – DB] was also recently indicted in connection with her previous employment with AISD.

So just to be clear, that’s two former AISD employees, who seem to have worked in the same department, that have been indicted.

Yeah, the names are in the KXAN article, but I’m avoiding using them here. Why avoid using them, while at the same time naming Trayon White Sr.? Given the previous mess with an AISD employee, I’m not sure the district can be trusted to get it right, so I’m erring on the side of caution here.

Posted in Austin, Law, Politics | No Comments »

Marooned.

Thursday, August 22nd, 2024

I am seeing reports that the Seattle Mariners are going to fire general manager Scott Servais.

Right now, this is all just “sources” and nobody’s reporting anything definite yet. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network isn’t even covering the story.

Realistically, it was the culmination of two months of losing and failure following that apex day June 18.
Since that high-water mark above .500, the Mariners have posted a 20-33 record, losing their 10-game division lead in a span of 24 games and now trailing the Astros by five games. Only the hapless Chicago White Sox have had a worse record over that stretch (10-43).
Following Wednesday’s 8-4 loss in which they were swept in a three-game series by the Dodgers in Los Angeles to close out the trip, the Mariners fell to an even 64-64. The previous time the Mariners were at .500 was April 24 when they were 12-12.

When I see something beyond “sources say”, I’ll update here.

(I’m trying to keep the White Sox posts to one per week.)

Edited to add 8/23: official now. The Seattle Times story was updated in place, but here’s the ESPN story.

Posted in Firings, Sports | No Comments »

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