80s Celebrity Sightings

Milo O'Shea, he's at the bar of an Irish pub, I'm at a table. I tell the waiter to comp his next drink, he motions me to greet him. 'It's an honor meeting you,' I said, 'I very much admired you in Ulysses.'
'Ulysses is it, you wonderful man! I'm so pleased it wasn't Barbarella!'


Christopher Walken, dining alone in the corner of a neighborhood restaurant. Our eyes meet, and he knows he's been had. My friend and I ignore him; he finishes his meal, walks past us, leans down, puts his hand on my shoulder. 'Thank you so much,' he said.
I smiled. 'It wasn't easy!' He gave us the Walken laugh.

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Ya think I would've bought a damn t-shirt!

The longest game in Organized Baseball history occurred in 1981 between the Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings of the International League at Pawtucket's McCoy Stadium and lasted 33 innings. The game began on April 18 and lasted 32 innings before being stopped, with play to resume later in the season. On June 23, the game resumed with it only taking one additional inning to settle the game as Pawtucket won it by a score of 3 - 2 in the bottom of the 33rd inning. The game included future Hall of Famers Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken Jr. as the two third basemen. Bob Ojeda and Marty Barrett also went on to notable careers in the major leagues.
Oh, I almost forgot. Major League baseball was in the 11th day of the 1981 strike, which lasted until August. A friend and I felt so baseball deprived we drove out to McCoy Stadium (four hours from NYC) to witness the historic conclusion.

(published in honor of the Mets-Marlins 16-inning Holy Thursday game)

A Hormone Test

Three hours out of Anchorage, MATS Super Connie, starboard electrical fire, back to Sea-Tac. Seats in the upright position, all sharp objects out of pockets, put on inflatable life jackets, listen to stewardess's instructions.

After maybe five minutes of OMG! there was calm. I looked out the window at Canadian forest, and wondered how much good a Mae West would be. A few people had mistakenly inflated their jackets; the stewardess climbed over passengers, deflated the jackets and gave out new ones.

We landed without incident on a foam-covered runway, with emergency vehicles racing alongside. Women and children were automatically shunted to the exits. As we walked on the tarmac to the terminal, I remarked to my seat mate how lucky we were, and how we had a plane crash survival story to tell our grandchildren. He looked back and smiled.

'Did you see the ass on that stew, climbing over those seats? I'd do this again, just for that view!'

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Stawa Młyny - the Windmill that isn't

Stawa Młyny is a beacon in the shape of a windmill in Świnoujście, West Pomeranian Voivodeship,  in Poland. The beacon acts as a signal for vessels

entering the Port of Świnoujście, from the Baltic Sea; it is 10 meters in height, colored in white with a black roof, and was built between 1873-1874 during the modernization of the ship route into the port.

 The beacon is a popular tourist attraction on the Island of Uznam; it is featured on postcards of the town, and is a popular part of guided tours.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Awinouj%C5%9Bcie

The 400-year-old saga of: Huygens- Cassini - and a grand finale!

I swear folks, this is the greatest enduring achievement of humankind, Science and exploration, fellowship and fealty, with knowledge the only prize. If we could only stop killing each other, this could be our future.
(Click Huygens-Cassini, then go back to click the finale)

Jaxonia Redux: Huygens- Cassini -- Two guys joined at the hip: Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) was a Dutch scientist who discovered Saturn's rings and, in 1655, its largest moon, Titan. Italian Jean...

And now, the finale! (Click here)

The Wild Blue Yonder

1957- I was hitchhiking home from Kelly Air Force Base to Otis AFB on Cape Cod and I caught a ride on this long-range radar equipped Super Connie. You needed a Top Secret clearance to board one of these, so a qualified hitcher was unusual, and the flight chief checked my orders. When he discovered I was a Russian language voice intercept operator I got VIP treatment; it was a long flight, and I had a full-sized bed! We left around midnight, and the chief gently woke me around 5AM. Breakfast, he said, would be served directly, IN THE COCKPIT!

I padded forward. The flight engineer's station was usually right behind the co-pilot, but it had been replaced by a jury rigged diner grill, upon which the captain was busily finishing up my bacon, eggs, home fries, toast and coffee, which he handed me on one of those ubiquitous military chow hall trays. 'Take my seat, spy man,' he said.
I sat there in the pre-dawn dark, scarfing down breakfast at 20,000 feet, with a slender orange ribbon on the horizon. On my left I could see the spark-plug glow from the port engines. The captain asked all kinds of questions about my job, and he loved memorizing 'на посадочном шасси выпустил' (na posadochnom shassi veeposteel) which was what MIG pilots said when they were landing. (Final approach, gear down). "I can't wait to say that back at Kelly!" he laughed.
Yes, it was the time of my life!

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Targets for Spring

Mickey Mantle's on Central Park South opened in 1988, and Diana and I were there like we were shot out of cannon. Mickey's favorite - chicken fried steak and pan gravy - was our go-to meal.
The place had a decent run, closing its doors in 2012, but the memory of chicken-fried steak lives on. Now, thanks to a serendipitous Yelp review, the memory just may be taken off the injured list and re-activated.
There's a joint in Williamsburg, the Brooklyn Star, that features the Mantle fave -- with a Dr. Pepper on the side, no less.  They don't credit the Mick, and they serve it with classic southern gravy, but

what the hell -- I don't have much to do these days, and a cruise over the Willy B is still in my wheelhouse. Let's see if I can make this happen. Stay tuned.  

Dodger great Pedro Guerrero in grave condition at Bronx hospital

Pedro Guerrero, the former Dodgers and Cardinals slugger who shared MVP honors in the 1981 World Series, reportedly is fighting for his life in a New York hospital.
The 60-year-old was hospitalized after suffering his second stroke in a little over two years, ESPN Deportes reported. The Dominican newspaper Hoy said Guerrero is on a ventilator at a hospital in the Bronx.

2015  Old Timer's Day at Dodger Stadium: Pedro Guerrero
 returns to Dodger Stadium.

Guerrero previously was hospitalized in the Dominican Republic in February 2015 after a stroke but recovered quickly enough to attend an old-timer's game at Dodger Stadium three months later.
“It was serious. It was scary,” Guerrero said at the time, via MLB.com. “All the doctors that attended to me in the Dominican, they all said the same thing: ‘They can’t believe I’m alive.’ I’m serious. There’s one doctor who told me, ‘I don’t know if it’s the color of your blood or what, but 92, no 99 out of 100 people who had the same thing you had, they’re gone.’"
Guerrero was a five-time All-Star selection in 15 years in the majors and finished in the top five in National League MVP voting four times. His best season came in 1985, when he hit .320/.422/.577 and had 33 home runs for Los Angeles in 137 games.
He went 7-for-21 with a pair of homers and seven RBIs in the Dodgers' six-game win over the Yankees in the 1981 World Series and shared MVP honors with teammates Ron Cey and Steve Yeager.

(from MSN.com)

Chaos Incarnate

It is not difficult to extrapolate chaos from seeming order. Consider the universe as existing on a leaf, floating in a lazy arc in an eddy. The leaf will eventually be caught up in the whirlpool and dashed to pieces in the turbulent waterfall, but until then, serenity and logic appear to rule.

Now consider 23-year-old Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, a brilliant Polish-Cuban American who just may be the next Einstein. An M.I.T. 5.0 grad and Harvard graduate student, she's a dabbler in Physics, but considers some of her most rewarding achievements the times when she 'spots elegance within the chaos'. Click her name, read her story. We may be trapped in a universe that ultimately is mindless, but we're not going down without a fight!
(And thanks to FB-er/friend Jim Lent for discovering this gem.)

Incidental addendum: Isn't it refreshing to see how exciting our inclusionary, multi-cultural future can be? 

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