Something Old, Something New & Expensive

Yahoo! News reports that an ancient meteorite was found in Kansas using new, ground penetrating radar. Yes, you read that right. Scientists went ahead and designed radar to penetrate the ground.
Now, if I didn't read any further, I would have walked away thinking that they needed this “Land-ar” (kind of like sonar, but for dirt) to be on the alert for giant, carnivorous moles that routinely terrorize the citizens of Kansas, and that would be a good thing. But no, this ground radar will be used on Mars. I have no idea what they are looking for up there, and I'm sure that scientists don't either. All I know is that my tax dollars were used to create this contraption and other useless machines like it to send to Mars because three quarters of the American population actually believes that there's a giant face carved in stone up there.
I'd be less annoyed if they continued to use that thing here on Earth to find more meteors, gold deposits, and loose change after the carnival leaves town. But hey, why am I complaining? Come to think of it, I want to see some up-close pictures of the giant face on Mars.

Modern Art & Microsoft Paint

Well you know, I think I have a new career. The colorful mess just beneath this post was a little something I cooked up using MS Paint. The other one is an image my young daughter made. I'll bet if I told someone they were real works of art from "artists", I'd get away with it. No one would think they were any good; but anyone told they were real pieces of modern art created by a new and upcoming artists would have no problem believing it.
For too long the art loving public has been duped into accepting "art" that is nothing more than crap, and some of it is actually made with...well...you know. Everything from graffiti to a crucifix in a jar of urine is given the stamp of legitimacy because they are labeled as art. Don’t you dare say otherwise or you’ll be labeled yourself. So, look at my "art" and learn to accept it because there's a whole lot more where that came from. Keep your eye on this site to see what I can do with the leftover mashed potatoes from tonight's dinner.

"Modern Art"

"Modern Art" By A Little Grudge

Ancient Technology

It has been reported that the ancient Sumerians created a working computer (not electronic, duh) which was highly complex and was able to perform mathematical computations. If this is true, they had better technology than what I currently possess.
I have two old, beat up Pentium III desktop computers at home. One of them I built myself, and the other I bought from a major electronics retailer. I'm one of those geeks who likes to squeeze every last drop out of everything I own. I have an old Honda which I intend to drive until it falls apart. My clothes are so old they are coming back in style. That leaves me with my computers, which unlike my car and my clothes, will die an unseemly death due to uselessness.
Even an old car can be carved up into parts because people like old cars and need things like radiators for them. The next time you're at a garage sale, take a peek at the crummy Pentium II 466 MHZ computer the sellers are practically giving away. Who the hell needs it? As for the parts, there's not a whole lot you want to do these days with a 16x CD-ROM drive. My point? My computers are outmoded and I'm too cheap to buy new ones.
That's where my old buddy comes in. I spoke to him recently and he stated that he has an old Pentium IV computer he wants to get rid of. Imagine that, my computers are so old that a Pentium IV 1.2GHZ computer with 512 MB of RAM looks enticing. Still, I'm going to snatch it up. I'll be using this thing Until Pentium XXVIIIs are out. But, that's okay. By that time one of my friends might be getting rid of a Pentium XXVII.

Worries

Since my mother died two months ago, I've experienced every symptom for every disease discovered by medical science. I need a vacation. Mom died horribly, gasping for air, and drowning in the fluid in her lungs. My eyes replay her final moments whenever I close them each night. Hers was not the first death I ever witnessed, many were violent and sudden. Gunshot wounds were typically the cause of these deaths. One person reached up to me from the ground, our eyes locked, and he passed away wondering why I was unable to help him. But, none of those people's untimely and awful endings had the same effect on me as watching my mother die. I miss her. Time will help ease the pain, but it will never erase her final moments from my memory. Also, it may never stop me from discovering yet another funny looking mole, feeling another lump, or having some pain. Doctors beware.

This Just In...

Nothing terrific going on here. Being new to blogging, I've run into the same difficulty that perhaps millions of others have: I want a blog but I need something to talk about. Since no one will be reading this, and I simply want to rant, who cares?

Islanders

During a recent cruise, my family and I toured St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Our destination was Magen’s Bay whose beaches are as enticing as any postcard. As alluring as the landscape is, I was taken back by the poverty there.

Our bus driver, a gentleman named Steven, drove us to a scenic overlook. Two men approached us carrying turtles and asked for tips while our children posed with them so we can take snapshots. It’s tough to earn a living that way and I felt a tinge of guilt as a sightseer in paradise. Without tourists, these men and their families might starve, I thought. Yet, technically, I was not a foreigner, and we had much in common.

Born and raised on Long Island, my family was not rich. My dad worked two jobs and my mother had a part time position at the library. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend on luxuries, much less a vacation to the Virgin Islands. Yet, like my fellow Americans in St. Thomas, I grew up near the water. The best my parents could do for us during summer was to take us to the beaches at Jones Beach or Robert Moses State Park.

There, I learned to swim, dig for clams with my feet, and to body surf. It was a local paradise where everyone could afford the sunlight and the surf. Rich families could sun themselves inches from our blanket and we would never know. The beach was an equalizer for me.

St. Thomas brought back memories, yet things had changed since my youth. My education took me to a level of affluence my father didn’t have. My children don’t wear hand me down clothes and the holidays are bountiful. Still, my wife and I work hard to maintain our standard of living. Then why did I feel guilty?

Perhaps I misjudged these folks whom I never met before and assumed that they thought like me when I was a boy, gaping at wealthy visitors to the South Shore. I wanted to explain to the driver and the men with the turtles that I was born and raised on an island too, and I lived in a small home with five siblings. My father worked eighty hours a week to support us, and our mom broke her back cooking and cleaning. I may have been a visitor, but I can relate to them.

Steven most likely does not remember me or my family. The men with the turtles may have been the happiest folks in the world. In much the same way I do not want others to look down at me with sympathy for my humble childhood; I should spare the inhabitants of St. Thomas my gratuitous empathy. The world is full of people with similarities and differences which should be celebrated and embraced. I prefer to remember my vacation with a fond fraternity with my fellow islanders.

-Michael J. Kannengieser

For The Love Of Books, And My Father

“You want to give me a dollar for this?” It was an insult; and I didn’t hide my scorn for this buyer. I stretched the corner of my mouth, rolled my eyes, and held the book in front of me as if I were holding a valuable artifact.

The guy, a middle aged man wearing cut off jeans, a scruffy beard, and a khaki, bush hat, waved me off and walked away. I felt justified. Not because I didn’t make the sale; but, because I validated the importance of my late father’s book collection.

If I wished to open a book store, this would be a great start. Dad’s compilation included works of World War II and American Civil War history, and an assortment of volumes about sailing vessels, old time railroads and their steam engines, and novels. Yes, there were hundreds of fine coffee table books, and official, U.S. Government historical records of famous battles. Yet, the value of each hardcover and soft back was set not by a bargain hunter’s “fifty cents” mindset; it was my sentimental attachment to the man who taught me to appreciate literature and history. I’m an avid reader today because of my parents; yet, my father set the high water mark with his astounding talent for comprehending and synthesizing every subject he studied.

My siblings were the ones who arranged this rummage sale, held on my father’s driveway in the sweltering June heat. It was a month after he passed away, and we were still cleaning out his home. Watching strangers casually toss aside my mother’s fine, blue plates, her sacred quilting paraphernalia, and various knick knacks she collected over the fifty years they resided in their home, I became territorial. That may be junk to them, I thought. But to me, these things were part of my life, items which were the backdrop to my youth.

It was when folks were chipping down the asking prices for my dad’s books that I became protective. He read every single one of them and remembered most of the subject matter. Often, he bought a book just to clarify something he read in another. So much of his identity was built around his understanding of the past that one of my sister’s friends, a full professor at a nearby college, once observed “Your father knows more about American History than most history professors I know.”

That statement was priceless, as my father was a humble mechanic who repaired oil burners, air conditioners, and refrigerators for a living. His service in the army during World War II left him with severe wounds which caused him pain for the rest of his life. He never had a chance at formal education, but that did not stop him from teaching himself.

While in the nursing home shortly before his death, my brother bought him a hefty, coffee table book on the Civil War. No doubt my dad was familiar with everything inside this volume; but he got it for him because dad stopped reading. He wouldn’t even look at a newspaper. We knew that if lost interest in his love of the written word, he was done. So, in an effort to revive his spirit, we tried to get him to crack a book.

I visited him in the day room with him seated next to me in a wheel chair. His breathing was distressed and he was hooked up to an oxygen tank. With the pages of the new book open before me, I showed him the pictures. He was disinterested, unwilling to glance at the sepia toned images and Daguerreotype photographs printed inside. At one point, I was so engrossed in the subject matter, that I almost forgot my father was seated next to me. In fact, he dozed off.

One photo grabbed my attention. “Hey look Dad, it’s the U.S. Sanitary Commission, they look so important, don’t they?” I chuckled as I could not believe that the grim faced men in the photo could be anything more than glorified government employees.

My dad stirred, examined the page, and with heavy breaths, said “They became one of the most important agencies after the Civil War, giving medical supplies to hospitals, taking care of war casualties, and staffing hospitals with doctors and nurses.” Then, he proceeded to name the men in the shot. That memory saddens me because, while he struggled with his own mortality, depressed and unhealthy; he still made it a point to educate his son.

More and more customers were turned away that day as I dutifully demanded fair compensation for this legacy of learning; mostly because I did not want to see them go. I fought for reasonable prices, parrying with the “I’ll give you a quarter for this” crowd; because, I imagined bits of my dad’s soul being carried away with each sale. At this time, my home is filled with this inheritance of printed text. My basement has a table stacked with an assortment of very old and fascinating hardbacks dated as early as 1840. Some are first editions in fine condition, others did not fare so well over time; but they were read, cherished, and saved for future generations.

One of my father’s neighbors came by the yard sale and browsed the covers displayed on the tables. She picked up one or two to examine them more closely. Then, she turned to my brother and said “Your dad was a very interesting man. I always knew he was a lot more than just a mechanic.” He was indeed, and I have a library full of facts to prove it.

-Michael J. Kannengieser