Tag: history

Holiday: But Not For Me

Today is the day that used to be known as columbus day, before those of us who actually care about other people decided that chris columbus was a dick and giving him a holiday was in bad taste. Now it’s Indigenous Peoples Day and I much prefer the sound of that.

Unfortunately, it’s not a holiday for me. I have to work. Worse, I have to work in the office. Worse than worse, I have a 9:00 meeting. I left home super early out of fear that traffic would make me late for the meeting. I completely forgot that most of Massachusetts is off work today and there was so little traffic that I was in the parking lot over an hour early.

Oops. At least I won’t be late for the 9:00am meeting, right?

Happy Indigenous Peoples day to all who celebrate. Also, chris columbus was a dick who “discovered America” through nothing more than incompetence. Let’s not give him any more holidays.

Two Random Things

Here we have a post sharing two random things on this quiet Sunday evening that have nothing to do with anything anyone other than I would ever care about.

First, I watched an episode of The Trogly’s Guitar Show on YouTube today and accidentally learned something about my first Gibson guitar. It was a Les Paul Deluxe but I never learned what year it was made. Deluxes date from the late 60’s to the mid 80’s (I think). I bought mine in 1987 and always assumed it was from the late 70’s, but I had not learned how to get the manufacture date for a Gibson guitar until after my Deluxe was stolen in 1990.

Thanks to Trogly’s I can narrow the date down a little. The guitar had a Gibson chainsaw case. From a description on the episode I watched it was a version two chainsaw case. Trogly told us that Gibson introduced the version two chainsaw case in 1978. Therefore my guitar (assuming the case I had was the original case) could not have been built prior to 1978. That knocks about 10 years off of the possible dates. Thanks, Trogly!

The second item of note: The anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is coming this week. That means Jen and I are in now entering our annual 9/11 remembrance period where we binge a shit load of documentaries. We’re watching the first of the season right now. Things have already been super heavy around here due to my father’s passing. Now it’s going to get heavier still.

I just felt the need to share all of that with the wider universe. You’re welcome.

Chocolatey Goodness

Daily writing prompt
Describe your dream chocolate bar.
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Like all food related questions this one has two answers. One from before weight loss surgery and one from after.

Before the surgery I weighed 450 pounds. It shouldn’t take any difficult math to prove that chocolate was a huge part of my life. My love for chocolate was deep and passionate and a little weird. I just loved me some chocolate. I am also a very picky eater so I can’t say I devoured all chocolate bars, but I did eat massive quantities of those that I liked… and there were a lot of them.

Snickers, Milky Way, Nestle Crunch, 100 Grand, Fast Break, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, plain old ordinary Hershey Bars, and many, many more. I could eat them by the truck load and I had the waist line to prove it.

Post surgery things are different. My gutted, rewired digestive tract can no longer process more than the smallest amount of sugar. That means my chocolate bar devouring days are pretty much over.

Or are they?

I thought so when I agreed to the surgery, but since then I have found a lot of sugar free chocolate options. There are all sorts of no-sugar protein bars that I eat happily. Atkins makes some, Quest makes some, there are a couple of others as well. That’s cool. Possibly even sanity or (dare I say it) life savingly cool. Did you know, however, that both Hershey and Reeces make sugar free bite sized candy? Oh yes they do, and Robbie has made very good use of them. Oh yes, he has. If I had to pick one as a favorite it would probably be the plain old sugar free Hershey Bites, but the Reeces Peanut Butter Cup Bites are pretty amazing too. Do they taste like the real thing? Maybe. Is it close enough to not matter if they really don’t. Yup. Close enough for me at least.

So there you have it. Before surgery I ate chocolate like my life depended on it. Since? I still dig mme some sugar free chocolate. Life is good.

Fredericksburg Battle Site

Just before the traffic went down the shitter this morning we stopped at the site of the Battle of Fredericksburg. Back in December of 1862 the US Army got its ass handed to it while trying to cross the road in the town of Fredericksburg, VA. It was a really crappy few days for the United States.

It’s our third Civil War battle site. We went to the site of the two battles of Bull Run in Manassas, VA a few years ago, and 15 years ago this week, on our honeymoon, we went to the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. The USA won that one so we’ve got that going for us.

We didn’t stay long today. We went to the visitors center and we walked a short way down the sunken road. I took a couple of pictures that don’t really show anything.

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275/365 - June 1st
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Two Local Political Events

Today is March 5th here in Massachusetts. This year that means two things.

First and foremost, it is Super Tuesday today. That means it’s Primary Election Day here as well as a bunch of other states. I have not voted yet. I plan to vote after dinner tonight. It’s going to be tight as far as time goes, but the polls are open until 8:00pm so I should be able to get there with time to spare. Keep your fingers crossed.

March 5th also has another noteworthy event, historically speaking. Today is the anniversary of The Boston Massacre. On this day in 1770 a bunch of Bostonians were shot by English troops. It was an important event that turned into one of our nation’s most famous propaganda vehicles, thanks in part to this Paul Revere image:

Here’s a link to the wikipedia article, which I did not read but am willing to assume it is accurate because trust is a thing. Also, I took the image from wikipedia as well.

I could have sworn I had a photo of the victim’s memorial that is in the Granary Burial Ground in Boston, but I can’t find it anywhere. I guess I’ll just have to go for a walk down the Freedom Trail this summer to take another pic.

Anyway, go vote (where applicable).

Patriotism

Daily writing prompt
Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?
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Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Samuel Johnson

I don’t know how this works in other countries, but in the United States of America the word patriotic has two definitions. At least it used to. Now it seems to have developed a third.

I once heard a description of how Americans love their country from former US Senator and former Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken. I don’t remember the exact wording he used, but it came down to conservatives love their country the way a small child loves their parent. The country is always right and knows everything there is to know. A liberal loves their country the way an adult loves another adult. They see their flaws and accept them but also want to help them grow and learn and be better.

I fall into the liberal category. My country has always been a friggin’ mess. We have always made mistakes, many of them catastrophic. Despite that, I still love my country because I can see how good we can be. I see the positives along with the negatives. So am I patriotic? Not in the flag waving, We’re number one chanting way that conservatives are, but in a let’s fix our problems and be better than we are way. Yes, yes I am.

So what is our new, third definition of patriot in the USA? It comes from the maga cult, of course. It’s not a love or a respect for our country, it’s more like worship of an authority figure or a cult leader. The cult leader is above the law and free from repercussions for his actions. About half of the voting population sees their fuhrer figure as all knowing and all powerful and will agree with everything he says, no matter how idiotic or how un-american. Or how clearly nazi. Or how flat out evil. Half of our country is pro-fascist and it signals the end of everything we stand for. It’s just a matter of time at this point. It’s already over. Hitler didn’t need to win the second world war. He just had to be patient.

Our future looks a little like this, I think:

PC

Daily writing prompt
The most important invention in your lifetime is…
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I don’t know every invention that happened in my lifetime. I’m sure the military has some crazy stuff that would blow all of our minds if we knew about it. My lifetime started in May of 1971 and there have been a lot of things that have been invented over that time. There is one that stands out to me though.

The personal computer. Whatever it may have been. Google tells me the first PC was invented in 1971 so we may have to squint a little to put it into my lifetime, but you get the deal. IBM and Apple had the first consumer level computers that I knew of. The Apple II was everywhere when I was in school. Microsoft’s deal with IBM to license their Disc Operating System (DOS) rather than sell it allowed for IBM clones and soon enough they were everywhere too.

DOS led to Windows, the Apple II led to the Macintosh which eventually led to the iPhone which more or less brought us to where we are today. Everyone in the civilized (or should I write that as “civilized” because, ya know… nazis and shit) world has some sort of computer or smart phone. The internet is essential to operating our society now. Computers are basically our lifeline.

On a more personal note, the invention of the Personal Computer led to me having a career as a programmer. It led to my wife having a career as a software engineer and a software architect. It led to our family earning a living. I would call that a pretty important development, wouldn’t you? Damn right.

Hey Google Bard, generate an image of a jedi knight using a macintosh computer.

1971

Daily writing prompt
Share what you know about the year you were born.
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I was born in 1971. One super important event occurred that year but I am going to make you wait for it. First, I Googled “events from 1971” and figured I’d share a few things that I found.

This site gave a top 10 list. Allow me to share it:

  1. The New York Times begins to publish sections of the Pentagon Papers
  2. The Voting Age in the United States is lowered to 18 yrs old when the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution is ratified
  3. Border battles between India and Pakistan erupt into full-scale war
  4. The Walt Disney World Theme Park is opened in Florida
  5. The Soviet Union launches the first space station, Salyut 1, into low Earth orbit
  6. Ibrox disaster in Scotland when On January 2nd 66 die in stairway crush at Rangers v Celtic football match
  7. A new stock market index called the Nasdaq debuts
  8. Decimalisation in United Kingdom and Ireland both switch to decimal currency.
  9. Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher’s ends free school milk for children over the age of seven
  10. The US table tennis team visits to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) known as “Ping Pong Diplomacy”
https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1971.html

You can click the link to get more details. Interesting stuff. Americans, you’re welcome for the 26th amendment. Also, for Disney World.

This site also gave a short list. There’s a lot of cross over, but I’ll share a few highlights.

  1. The total number of American troops in Vietnam dropped to 196,700, the lowest amount since January 1966. On the other hand, the number of British troops stationed in Northern Ireland increased to 11,000.
  2. The Supreme Court “unanimously upheld the constitutionality of busing as a means to ‘dismantle the dual school system,’ of the South.”
  3. Charles Manson, along with three of his female followers, were convicted of the Tate-LaBianca murders.
  4. Here are some sports facts from 1971: The Pittsburgh Pirates won their 4th World Series, the Baltimore Colts were the Super Bowl champs, and the Montreal Canadiens clinched the Stanley Cup.
  5. Satchel Paige became the first African-American MLB player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  6. The first Starbucks opened at the historic Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington. The coffeehouse chain was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl, who later sold the company to Howard Schultz. Today, Starbucks has 32,938 retail locations worldwide.
  7. The South Tower of the World Trade Center “topped out at 1,362 feet, making it the second tallest building in the world.”
  8. In 1971, Amanda Holden, Corey Haim, Denise Richards, Justin Trudeau, Lance Armstrong, Mark Wahlberg, and Ricky Martin were all born.

Yup, my birth year sent Charles Manson to jail for what turned out to be the rest of his psychotic life.

So what is that one huge event that I teased at the start of this post? It’s mega. It’s universe altering.

In July of 1971, Rick Wakeman joined Yes. By the end of 1972 the universe had been granted the musical masterpieces that are the albums Fragile and Close to the Edge.

You’re welcome.

Ancestry

My beloved bride, Jennifer, has been poking around on ancestry.com and she found something in my family tree that is freaking awesome.

If the information is accurate, she has a branch of my father’s family tree going back to the American Revolution in the 1770’s. One family was living in White Plains, New York and at some point their family home was used as a headquarters for none other than George “Father of Our Country” Washington.

Ho… ly… shit.

Yeah, that’s right. Me and President Washington are old family friends. No big deal, really.

My wife may also have tracked a branch of my family tree going all the way back to the 15th century. Again, no big deal*.

*That is sarcasm. It is totally a big deal. It is an epically big deal.

Ireland: 1000 Years of History

As promised in my daily writing prompt post from early this morning, I have started brushing up on Irish history. My heritage. My people (sort of). It’s time I got myself at least a little bit up to speed on the place where my family came from.

I’ve started with this video. I’m up to the potato famine, about halfway through the video. I have 15-20 more videos on my Watch Later playlist.

ADDENDUM: Damn it! The video doesn’t embed. Friggin’ youtube. Here’s a link.