Author Archives: Bob Evans

My mind’s been blown to the 70′s

As a teenager in the 70’s there was a lot of thing I wanted that I could never have. My family never had much money so while I never wanted for the essentials of life and a few basic pleasures, I spent lusted for things in catalogs that I knew would never be mine.

One of my favorite catalogs to daydream in was from Edmund Scientific. Oh what wondrous items they had. Tonight on a whim I went to their website. To see what sort of things might still inspire and thrill me.

Here’s what I found.

That my friends is the CARDIAC cardboard computer. It as an educational tool for teaching someone the basics of how a computer worked. Seeing this at the website blew my mind because I remember by Brother-In-Law Thom (Pronounced ‘Tom’ he was and remains unique.) putting one of these in my hands. It was a throughly engaging and engrossing device.

Had I been a teenager a decade later that event would have sent me spinning down a life in computers. I am certain of it.

For decades later I would remember this device — never by name — and wonder upon its coolness. Edmund Scientific is selling them for $20 and it’s really tough to resist.

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Post election comments

Well, the Republicans both over performed and under-performed for my expectations.

60+ seats is a huge wave one that normally crushes everything beneath it. However, the senate remains in Democratic hands the only question is by how much. Oregon may go Democratic still. Alaska? No way, but right now the Republican and tea-party favorite Joe Miller is behind.

I was surprised to see the democrats hold onto both Colorado and Nevada. I though the wave would be strong enough to sweep both states, but apparently you can be too outside the main stream for even this wave. Frankly I am happy to have Angle and O’Donnell loss their bids.

Now the hard part come in for the Republicans. If the tea Party truly is an independent movement and not the Republican Party in Fancy Dress they are going to expect that this new Congress do more than just snipe from the sidelines. However if this Congress moves against big budget items that are popular — such as Medicare and Social Security — which they will have to do to balance the budget, they’ll see their number tumbles.

As we heard often during the health care debates the Senior Citizens hates socialized Medicine and love Medicare.

There are of course people already talking about what this mean for 2012. Dudes. it is way too early to speak about that.

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Final Vegas Posting

So after the Atomic testing Museum I ended up with more hours to kill than I had expected. I programmed the GPS in the rental for the Luxor and drove over there to see ‘Bodies: The Exhibition.’ This is an exhibition of dissected human bodies and various states of display. Some of detailed to show musculature, others focus on the organs, or other systems of the human body. It was quite interesting, but for my money I think I got a better deal from the Atomic Testing Museum. (certainly more bang for the buck.) Sadly like the Museum, no photography was allowed.

After visiting the Exhibition at the Luxor I returned to my room to shower and change into nicer clothes for dinner and the Concert. I drove to The South Point Casino and Hotel where I ate at their buffet. OH once again I was stuffed before I was finished. Truly, Vegas likes to feed you. I had more time to kill and I wondered around the casino for a bit.

Here is a photograph I took of a million dollars on display in the Casino. as you can see it doesn’t take up all that much space, but after all it is only a million dollars.

Here are a set of Slot machines that are themed on Star trek: The Original Series. Frankly all the advanced video slot machine leave me cold. I don’t know what combination are the winning combinations and frankly games of purse chance at not my bag baby.

While people played the games still from various episodes would display on the screens above them. (where you can see the orbiting Enterprise on the left.) Geek that I am I stood and played a game in my mind of how many still could I place. (Turned out to be quite a few.)

I wondered upstairs to the Bowling Alley and found a video game arcade, Ah, now this was more my speed. To my eternal delight I spotted the game pictured on the right. If you watched in the background at Pizza Planet in Toy Story you would have seen a game based on this very idea; Whack-a-mole but with chest bursters. I loved it in Toy Story and I positively giggled upon seeing that someone was un-PC enough to actually make one. I  moved towards the game to play it but a young boy I guess maybe 8 or so, dashed excitedly at the games. I stood back. Who was I to stand in the way of such fun and if had parents — I saw them there – that would allow him to play the game, then he NEEDED to play the agme.

I went back downstairs and passed the next forty minutes or so playing Blakcjack for money. As I have already noted, I left the table with $10 more than I had started. No bad for my first game ever.

By this time the doors had opened and I went in the Showroom to take my seat. I was way down front, an excellent position to watch the concert.

There was no opening act, Just Sheena Easton singing and chatting and interacting with the audience. This shot was done with little or no zoom, so you can get an impression of just how close I sat.

Sheena is now 51 and not the sex kitten of the 80’s anymore, that said I throughly enjoyed the show. She has a lively wit and sharp sense of humor along with her lovely singing voice.

I took plenty of photos, but she moved around a lot and has a very expressionistic face. These sort of people are not easy to photograph and have them look good. (just ask Joh McCain.)

I throughly enjoyed my trip to Sin City — even my sins were quite tamed and under control. I look forward to another trip someday with my sweetie-wife.

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Vegas continued

So if you read the postings I made during the trip then you pretty much know how I spent Saturday afternoon. What you do not know is the extent of political ads I was forced to endure.

Once I reach vegas itself I stopped using the ipod in the car. I listened at the Ipod by way of a small fm transmitter and there were so many FM stations in Vegas it was difficult to find a clear channel for my own music. Because of this and the TV in my room, (Cable but no premium channels.) I saw and heard a lot of political ads during those three days.

I never saw one ad that was pro-Sharon Angel. Oh there were endless ads anti-Harry Reid. Some of them quickly tricky. (“Ladies, Harry Reid wants to take away your right to chose.” Without explicitly stating that what they mean is chose your won healthcare.) To me the ads in Nevada were microcosm of the political winds blowing across the country. It isn’t that the Republicans are suddenly popular with their ideas, it’s that the Democrats are taking a pounding.

You can argue it is because of the way the Democrats passed their bills.

You can argue it is because they tried to push the country to far left.

You can argue it is because the economy is in the drain and they’re caught holding the bag.

You can argue it is because Obama is so arrogant and people hate that.

You can argue all these viewpoints on why, but you cannot prove any of them. You can not disentangle the factors enough to prove any single factor is the principle factor in the coming wave. However, the wave is coming, the question is what happens next year with the new Congress.

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More on Vegas

So after the Gun Store I drove over to the Atomic Testing Museum.

This place was very cool. IT took me about 2.5 hours to go through the entire thing and many of the exhibits were very informative. They had mock-ups of shells from both Atomic Annie and A Davie Crockett.

I also learned more of what JFK called for when he called for the USA to send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth. That was point 1 of his vision for space. The very next point was accelerating development of a nuclear rocket.

(chemical rockets are very limited. If you really want to scoot around our solar system, nuclear is the way to go.)

It’s a shame all anyone remembers is the decade to get to the moon.

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