So This Happened

 7:06 AM

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So get this: pouring rain, heavy thunderstorm. About a quarter mile from work I see a car, facing the wrong direction, in a ditch. I pull over, pause to regret my decision, then run back to the other car. It's rear left tire is deep in the mud, the right half rear of the car up in the air two or three feet. ... I ask if everyone is ok. A woman and her teens is in the car. She says she pulled over bc it's her kids bus stop but went into the ditch. I told her she'd no oubt need a tow but we could try one time to push it out. LIke all teens, she had to yell at her kid to get out of the car and help. he was going to sit there and watch it didn't work. it made it worse. You sent but get this . . .the woman says "Are you Dan?" It was Jackie Sunn, Caitlin's ex-stepmom and Mom's friend

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Small world. Too unbelievable to be fiction for sure

The Bridge

I'm not sure these pictures are worth your time, but just in case the bridge is gone in 20 years and no one remembers it: here are some pics of the Wisconsin Ave bridge over the Milwaukee River being raised to allow a ship to navigate under it as we went downtown for Visit Milwaukee. 

Me, playing Pokemon Go Lately LOL

David McCallum

David McCallum, the American actor who gained fame playing Russian agent Illya Kuryakin on The Man From U.N.C.L.E  in the '60's, and found fame again on NCIS this century, has died. He was 90.

Buckle your seatbelts folks because this is dorky as heck, but as a kid around middle school or freshman year of high school I started watching The Man From U.N.C.L.E in reruns. At the time for whatever reason I wasn't interested in college or in grades at all, although I believe that was probably just a spell I would have grown out of on my own. 

Enter that TV show. Within a very short time I became obsessed with the idea of becoming a secret agent. I even went so far in those pre-internet days as to call the library's Ready Reference line and ask if U.N.C.L.E was a real agency. As I recall they couldn't give me a definitive answer (it's fictional) but all the same I figured at the very least I would need a college degree and good grades to be qualified for the job.

So in a way, David McCallum greatly influenced my future LOL.

RiP 

Brooks Robinson

Brooks Robinson, the 18th time All-Star and 16 time Gold Glove MVP, Hall of Famer,  and mainstay of a great decade of Baltimore baseball, has died. He was 86.

Robinson's era predates my arrival into  baseball fandom, but I'm very aware of his epic defense at the Hot Corner.  He's often ranked as one of, if not the, greatest third baseman in history.

I personally give that honor to Mike Schmidt, but I wouldn't fault you for naming Brooks.

RIP sir. 

Sawyer

pics by Smiley

My Big Grandpa's Coat of Arms

A year or so ago I posted this online: 

Before you say it, I know this is mail-order fake heraldry. All the same, I found it amongst my late Big Grandpa's effects almost 40 years ago and would appreciate some help blazoning it, and what it may have represented.

I received the following replies:

The "S" stands for "Slapczar..." (can't read the entire name). The eagles, blue shield overall, and paly-looking thing make it more heraldic-looking to people who don't know heraldry.

Even if it was actual heraldry, Eagles got picked a lot because they look cool. Generations later people could retcon all kinds of contradictory things into grandpa's decision to choose an Eagle, but they were almost certainly wrong. Grandpa just thought an Eagle was an important, prestigious, animal that looked cool on a surcoat. Palys are a nice, distinctive pattern that looks nice on a surcoat.

Letters are rare, and basically unknown outside of Iberia. This is partly because heraldry developed in the 1200s-1400s when literacy was minuscule, and partly because heraldry has to be legible on a dude's surcoat 300 ft away.

RE: Letters, interestingly enough, they pop up a few times around Silesia. For example in Zittau, or Wroclaw

Blazon for the shield could be something like:

Quarterly First and Fourth Or, Second and Third Tenné an eagle Azure, in the first a Gothic letter S Sable, in the Fourth a pallet and sides sinister and dexter all Sable, an inescutcheon Azure

Clinched!

The first 43 years of my life the Brewers made it to the postseason all of four times.

Tonight, they made it five times in the last six years 

It's a nice change. 

Now let's do some damage in the playoffs, shall we?

May 2nd, 2007 at 7:01 pm

A blast from the past: this is my old office at Job Prior, with six year old YaYa keeping me company.