Pilot's Log

Hey.

Spent most of the afternoon in the library at Carson-Newman College today. Looking for something I saw years ago in an old issue of American Heritage magazine. The pros and cons about American Heritage:

PRO:
* Most libraries have the back issues, and they're often easy to find
* They're always well worth browsing if you're interested in History
* They're entertaining reads
* The magazine has a new website in which all their content is searchable

CON:
* The first twenty years of the run of the magazine was in HARDBACK format
* They tend to get beat up after years and years of use
* The website doesn't include the old illustrations, for copyright reasons (so sometimes context is lost)
* The website content is digitized via a optical character recognition software, and often posted without proofreading, so typoes creep into the on-line version (something of an annoyance)

Now, what I was looking for was definitely in the Hardback era of the magazine. I went through about a third of the Hardbacks in the C-N collection, and didn't find what I sought, so I will likely go back on Monday or Tuesday. Or I'll go through the on-line version and see if I can find what I want that, way...tho' I doubt that method has much chance of success.

Bah. If I was so interested in the subject matter the first time, I should have written it down the first time.

FP

My latest IPMS product review.

Hey.

Today, I moved the last of my collection of National Geographic magazines from old Xerox paper boxes to new comics long boxes. The collection fills almost three long boxes. Compared to other people's collections, mine isn't so great. My High School Sociology teacher had a stash dating all the way back to World War Two. Mine only goes back to the middle 1960s; most are from before my High School departure in 1985. I was given a gift subscription to the magazine around 1990 and kept subscribed for a few years, but eventually gave up on it.

I guess people today wouldn't know why this magazine is so appealing, even in back issues. It was one of the first periodicals to go full-color printing, and had perhaps the best production values of its times. The writers and photographers went all over the world and did everything they could to show the readership things they had never seen before. Overall, National Geographic possessed a sense of adventure and wonder that nobody else could approach. For me, they had some of the best coverage of the U.S. space program in the glory days of the Sixties and early Seventies.

I think the rest of the world caught up. There are few mysterious places left on Earth, and most people in America would rather they be left alone rather than have them explored. Is the print magazine, as a concept, now obsolete?

FP

Hey.

Because the service charges were getting higher than the interest, I pulled my money out of my savings account today. I hope to invest some of it in a replacement scanner, as my long-time unsupported Artec gave up at about the time the power surge kay-o'ed the hard drive on my mother's compy and led to other such problems. I think there's actually something physically wrong with the Artec, but I don't have any way to check. But I think I got about my money's worth from it.

I went to the M'Town Office Max and Sears this afternoon. OM only carries one brand of flatbed scanner and I wasn't very impressed. The Sears electronics department was being rearranged today, so there was no point in asking for help from a salesman. I'm not sure that Radio Shack bothers with computer peripherals anymore.

I just went to the websites for Office Depot and Staples. Staples has better selection but OD seems to have better prices. I'll probably try Best Buy as well...presuming I can get over to that side of town this week.

Don't they even make flatbed scanners bigger than letter-size anymore? I could actually use something a little bigger, for larger magazines and posters and books and blueprints and the like. It's kind of frustrating to have to make multiple scans of an object and then have to merge the files together to make it whole again.

FP

This is only to see if BellSouth, Vic and the household wiring are all on the same wavelength. I'll only believe it when I see it.

* * *

From dunkleza:


You belong in the Cat Who Walks Through Walls. You

are creative and cunning. Your works often

feel empty to you, though others love them.

You suspect that the universe and everyone in

it are just characters in someone else's

story.


Which Heinlein Book Should You Have Been A Character In?
brought to you by Quizilla

Which kinda fits me because I got hooked on Heinlein from Number of the Beast, which isn't in the Quiz but was printed in Omni--I still have the issue with the first installment.

* * *

New Knoxville Girl, New Knoxville Beer
One is gone--the other I fear
Won't be comin' round back here...
I'm gonna miss that beer
I'm gonna miss that beer--Todd Steed & The Sons of Phere

I heard the song on the UT Rock radio program on the way back from my IPMS meeting Tuesday, and I like it. I heard a rumor that their whole album is good and snarky.

And I haven't had so much as a six-pack since turning 21.

Hey.

I have always liked cars of one kind or another. I used to subscribe or buy or just plain sneak (from piles of back issues at library disposals or airport lounges) car magazines. I sometimes catch Motorweek on PBS. From kindergarten through high school, I used to doodle pictures of cars on whatever surface I thought they'd look good...notebook covers, manila folders, textbook overjackets made from paper grocery bags, and so on. I learned a little about the doodling part from George Trosley (http://www.georgetrosley.com/) and his CarToons comic books.

And so I have an idea of what makes a car interesting and what makes one boring.

Yet I have driven some rather boring machines in the twenty years I've been a driver. You think it's something I ought to psychoanalyze?

My current vehicle is a year 2001 Chevy Prizm sedan...which is actually a Toyota Corolla with only a few changes (a total of EIGHT parts--four of them hubcaps) to the trim. I'm the second owner--the first was a rental company on one of the smaller islands of Hawaii. It's finished in a rather unassuming metallic gray. I've had this car just over two years. I like the Prizm because it gets around 40 miles to a gallon of fuel (or about 16 klicks to a liter for you readers in the Metric world) and so I don't have to fuel up often. It's comfortable, at least for short and medium length trips. It can do superhighway speeds but I don't drive that fast often. It does everything I ask of it other than carry big cargo--and for that I can ask Dad to get his pickup truck on the job. It's got a CD-player which I don't use often enough. The only pieces of hardware I have problems with are the side mirrors (which have weird spots on them that won't wash off) and the rear window defroster (which doesn't work over the whole window) but I can live with both these foibles. I hope to keep this car not only till I pay off the loan but well after that.

But what does this car say about me? Do I really want to know?

FP

PS:

Starship Captian! by Uberdude
Username
What is the name of your starship?
Uptight First Officer	shortpacked
Closeted Helm/ Navigation	kevissimo
Token Alien Scientist	mravac_kid
Tarty Nymphomaniac Yeoman	walkerton
Substance Abusing Ship's Doctor	gwalla
Ensign Smith (aka "the victim")	kobold
Ship's Engineer /Drunk	muskrat_john
Arch Nemesis Alien Commander	jollyrb
Your ship's secret weapon	Death Ray
How dose your mission end?	Recruited by your Arch Rival
Quiz created with MemeGen!