Now seems a good time to set down my personal memories from the events of 40 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas. I was 6 years old and attending first grade at Lindsborg grade school. Two particular memories stick out for me, and to some degree allow me insight into the degree of maturity and awareness my granddaughter possesses at the same age.
The first memory is embarrassingly trivial from an adult point of view; I remember coming home, and hearing something was going on, but not really appreciating what it all meant. What really upset me was the fact that the after-school cartoons weren’t on that day!
My second memory from this time is of an event that hinted at the depth and impact of the tragedy of JFK’s assassination. Early one morning a couple of days after the president was shot, the whole school gathered outside around the flagpole for a small memorial ceremony. What really sticks in my mind was how the grownups were all teary-eyed, sniffling and a bit distant; caught up in their own thoughts to a degree never really seen in a classroom setting. At that point I still didn’t appreciate the enormity of the assassination itself, but its dramatic impact on the teachers served to imprint that something significant had just occurred.
Simplistically, it does occasionally seem that a lot of what’s wrong in the world today can be measured from that day. If nothing else, it does serve as a marker signaling the beginning of worldwide changes in cultures and economies that would have been unthinkable in 1963.
During our stay we’ve had a variety of interesting meals; returning to sentimental favorites for the buffet at Ballys and the 10.99$ steak and lobster at the Stardust, plus a nice dinner at Postrio. The first two places still met expectations (and I did get enough of the peeled shrimp at Ballys); Postrio delivered a quality experience in terms of both food and service, living up to its reputation. We had a light dinner and skipped dessert. The white bean soup and bow-tie pasta were particularly noteworthy; the calamari perhaps a tad tough and the lasagne hearty and flavorful.
Here are a few photos taken the past couple of evenings while visiting Las Vegas’ famed strip: Las Vegas Boulevard.
Place mouse over images for caption.
I just noted, after reviewing my movabletype log, that mt-blacklist has already blocked at least 4 comment spam attempts. Yeah! Temporary victory or no, it’s still one to be savored.
Having been a mac owner for less than 2 months (15″ pbook; love it!) I was pleased when a recent tip of mine was published at macosxhints.
Mark Pilgrim presented an excellent overview of the fairly new blogging API known as atom at Apachecon on Monday. Created earlier this summer in a whirlwind of wiki activity (one that I hold up at work as an example of how much can be accomplished using wiki technology), atom’s modern, flexible approach to programmatically managing (creating, editing and deleting) online content like blogs is close to being adopted by the major blogging software vendors.
Mark’s presentation was educational, insightful and also somewhat humorous. If you know the recent history of various blogging APIs you probably joined in the laughter as various foibles of current solutions were explored. All the major blog related APIs were briefly reviewed and areas of weakness noted, which provided good contextual background for understanding atom as well as providing motivation for understanding the need for atom.
On Saturday we continued our journey, leaving Bishop after an always pleasing stop at Schat’s Bakery. The variety of baked goods there is amazing and the quality is top-notch.
North of Lone Pine we took time to drive through the camp at Manzanar, where Americans of Japanese descent were interned during WWII. It was a contemplative drive as we both know people who spent part of their childhood at the camp. We also reflected on the climate of fear at the time and noted the parallels to today.
We continued south on 395, and as we got close to Lone Pine, we took off on Moffat Ranch Road, an unpaved back road, then turned on Hogback road, and ended up near the Mt. Whitney Portal; nice ride with great views. Also, while these kind of roads are fun with our Highlander, between this and a few other off-road experiences with this car we’ve come to realize we want a 4-Runner again.
After descending Mt Whitney Portal Road we spent a few hours exploring the Alabama Hills, driving and hiking among the very familiar rocks (seen in many movies and TV westerns) before heading into Lone Pine. Dinner at the Seasons was very good; in my experience better than can usually be expected in a town the size of Lone Pine.
We spent the next morning on a return trip the now brightly sunlit Alabama Hills before heading down to Las Vegas. We stopped to explore an old dolomite mine along the way; didn’t do much more than peek into the entrance, not being equipped for true mine exploration.
The views from Padre Point, on CA 190, are vast and sweeping, almost beyond description.
We’ll end this entry with a photo of some sand dunes in Death Valley:
![[Valid RSS]](/images/blog/valid-rss-bbulger.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
