The Highwaymen

As far as video streaming goes for my home entertainment, I have been late to the party. However, once there, I have realized how much of the video world I have missed.

Some of the bigger streaming companies are taking the place of Hollywood, and making their own movies and series.

So much so that for Netflix, Hollywood is starting to take them seriously and view them as a tough competitor.

Lost and Found

On occasion, I have a week’s free time or so, and have always used it for a road trip. I’ve used it for a Lexican get-together in Sandy Eggo, trips to the Southwest, Idaho, Oregon…

I wanted to see Crater Lake, OR back in 2017 and as it was, fellow Lexican ColoComment was going to be there at that time, too.

So we decided to see it together.

A Highway 50 Story

In all my years of driving, I try to take the roads less traveled, unless I have to get there reasonably fast. My one exception – where beautiful scenery and Interstates converged – was Interstate 70 when I was driving through the San Rafael Reef at sunset a couple of years ago. It was so breathtaking that I had to pull off to a rest stop and take this picture:

I-70 going though the San Rafael Reef at dusk

What the pilots say about the F-35

Before I read this, I thought it was just going to be people giving the company line – but I think it is interesting.

What truly differentiates a 5th generation fighter? Is it performance? (answer NO)

How will strategies change?

Worth a read.

And thanks to Smithsonian’s Air & Space magazine for publishing most of their magazine articles on the web.

Virginia City NV Part 4

History has always fascinated me because how we are today is because how we were. Economic forces, which in large measure affected political measures, and add a pinch of personalities to the mix.

So how did the Comstock Lode affect us today?

Virginia City NV Part 3

Before we proceed, I found an excellent overview of Virginia City today – both an aerial view and surface view.

During it’s heyday, there were about 25,000 people living here. Today, as of 2010, there’s 855.  Before our guide, Joe Curtis, had to leave to attend to the fire threatening Virginia City, he took us for a walk down the C Street, which is the main street. Imagine getting off the train, the Virginia and Truckee, and seeing a sky almost black from the smoke of the mills, running 24 hours a day. While the city was among the dirtiest, it was the richest and alive 24 hours a day.

I can’t readily find the number of saloons and other venues of entertainment in that era, suffice it to say there were many.

#MeToo

Renowned Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz makes a very good point:

If you are accused of a crime, you are entitled to the presumption of innocence. But in the age of #MeToo, people accused of sexual misconduct are subjected, at least in the court of public opinion, to a presumption of guilt. Worse, a claim of innocence—even a provable one—is itself treated as an offense, an assault on the accuser and on “survivors” in general.

Virginia City NV Part 2

I have been lucky during my life in that I have been able to travel extensively. Then too, I took advantage of every opportunity. Even getting fired. One thing that travel has given me is to expand my world view. You can get a different perspective on things.

Virginia City NV Part 1

As some of you know, one of my passions is history. Not the dull “names and dates” way most teachers and professors teach it, but living history. Showing how we got where we are by how we were.

My mind started peculating a day/2 ago when I wrote about Sierra Snows – thinking about how the small town of Strawberry – along the summit of our Sierras coming into Lake Tahoe – got its name.

And no, it has nothing to do with the fruit. It was a Pony Express and Stage Coach stop, and I learned its history through a little book I got at a small bookstore….in Virginia City. It was called Stories of the Sierras and darnit, I gave it to someone and never found another copy. It was at the Mark Twain Bookstore, which closed some time ago. And looking on the Net I have never seen another explanation for the origins of the town name of Strawberry. So my future revelation will probably be an Internet first.

Traffic Tickets

I’m not what you’d call a reckless driver, despite getting a speeding ticket now and then. And in over a million miles of driving (probably closer to 2), never had an accident other than some guy in West Virginia running a stop sign and my broadsiding him in my aunt’s ’66 Ford LTD station wagon.

When I was 16.

With some experience I probably could have avoided that too.