Friday, 6/28

Several things today, starting with this observation--

HOW THE HECK IS 2019 HALF OVER ALREADY???

As a question, it’s more rhetorical than most, but didn’t 2019 just start, like, last week? At least that’s how it seems. It just feels like it was just a week or so ago I woke up on a cold Tuesday morning, shook my head as I saw the detritus of leftover New year's Eve celebrations spread all around my neighborhood, and then went back to bed. Now after Sunday the year’s halfway gone, and what do we have to show for it? 121 blogs and lots of cold weather, at least by my account.

Geez...time really does fly, doesn’t it? I’ll have to remember that when I’m writing, in what’ll seem like a week or so, a blog about how 2019’s now over and wondering where it all went.

Geez.

*****

Today's a semi-big day in the Koski household, as the Bundesliga schedule for 2019-2020 comes out! I realize that's not a big deal for any sane person, but we're looking forward to it to see who RB Leipzig plays and on what weekend they play them. Why? Well, you never know if we might want to go back over there and see another game, like we did a few months ago.

It's just a thought right now. Just a concept. But the schedule should help decide whether it stays a thought and a concept or moves on to something else. We'll see.

*****

Finally, good news and bad news about the Mining Journal article I wrote for my “And Put Up A Parking Lot” tour. The good news is it's finished and turned in two days before it was due, a fact that would've shocked Procrastinator Jim back in college. The bad news?

It's scheduled to run next Thursday. You know—July 4^th. A day when no one reads a newspaper.

So if it happens to get re-purposed in here between the 4^th and the walk on the 10^th, you'll know why. I just want someone—anyone--to see it and read it.

8-)

On that note, have yourself a great weekend. And enjoy what's left of June and the first half of 2019!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 6/27

It's amazing how one word can brighten your day.

I had a great time yesterday on my half day, thanks for asking. I mean, it's been a very long, very cold spring, and we deserve the warmth of the past few days. Now, you'd think just the fact that I went to the beach would be enough to put a smile on my face (and trust me, it was), but when I was down there yesterday and saw a particular word written on the sidewalk; well, that smile grows by a couple of teeth.

If only because that word was, indeed, "smile".

You see, someone had written the word "smile" and drawn a smiley face next to it on the bike path right near the McCarty's Cove lilac trees. I first saw it Monday, on mile 3 of a 4-mile run, and let me tell you--coming across that word when you're huffing and puffing actually DOES put a smile on your face, and gives you an extra boost to finish that last mile (especially when you're a masochist and you know that last mile ends with you running up the Front Street hill from Founder's Landing to the Landmark Inn.). Both Monday and than again yesterday, I saw that the word, and automatically, without even thinking, did what it said.

And I know I'm not the only one, either. I've heard several people walking ahead of or behind me comment on that one word written on the bike path. I'm sure they have the same reaction I have, and, like me, probably have it without even thinking. Such is, I guess, the power of one word.

Such is the power of THAT word.

So to whoever wrote that one word on the bike path, just let me say "thanks". You'd be amazed to find out how many smiles you've put on faces of people you've never met. And with the way things are going on our world these days, to perform a feat like that is an amazing thing.

Heck—it might even put a, ahem, smile on your face.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

(ps--speaking of putting a smile on your face, look what I saw when I came home from work last night!)

Wednesday, 6/26

Guess what I'm gonna do for the first time all year today? If you said, “Well, Jim, I'm guessing you'll be taking a half day and going to the beach”, you're right.

And you've probably been reading these since the age of the dinosaurs, too.

For those of you who don't know, I take the vast majority of my non-Europe vacation days during the summer, on days when the sun is out and the temperatures are warm. I spend a couple of hours just doing whatever I want outside, then go back to work and do what I need to do. Since it takes a lot of effort to take a whole day off, this way makes a lot more sense, and it's a system that I've honed over the past decade and a half.

I'm really looking forward to it, too. I think this might be the latest in the year that I've taken my first half day. Of course, with the weather we've had so far this year I'm not surprised. I just know I've REALLY been looking forward to walking on a warm beach and soaking up the sun, and it's something I get to do a short while after I post this.

Woo hoo!!

However, before I actually do that I suppose I should fulfill my promise from yesterday. You remember this picture, right?

I posted it when talking about the “And Put Up A Parking Lot” tour I'm doing for the History Center two weeks from today, and I wondered if you knew what the building was and where it was located. Since I told you I'd give you the answer today, and since I try really hard to be a person of my word, here 'tis--

That's the original First Baptist Church of Marquette, a beautiful sandstone structure that burned to the ground in the early 1960s. They rebuilt after the fire at their current location near NMU, and now their original home—on the southeast corner of Front & Ridge—is the parking lot of the Landmark Inn.

More stories like that two weeks from today.

Okay...I did what I said I would. Now I'm going to the beach!!!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 6/25

I think I'll stretch the envelope one way, if not the other.

Two weeks from tomorrow I have the first Jim Koski ™ walking tour of the summer for the Marquette Regional History Center. This one's called “...And Put Up A Parking Lot”, and I've been doing all kinds of research for it, including writing a Mining Journal article that'll show up in the newspaper next week. In putting it together I've think I'll be able to try one thing new this time around.

But not the two I was hoping for.

If you've ever been on one of these walking tours you know it's me and 200 of my closet friends, wandering around Marquette and looking at things. I always try to put what I'm talking about in context, which means that I always like to show pictures, either of what I'm talking about or what used to be there. However, when you're on a downtown street with 200 of your closest friends, sometimes not everyone has the chance to look at the pictures.

And that's a bummer, especially on a tour where I'm talking about the buildings that used to sit in the parking lots where we'll be standing. And since I've come up with a few rare pictures of buildings that turned into parking lots, like this one--

(By the way, you know what that building is, and which parking lot now occupies the land? I'll gave you until tomorrow to figure it out. I'll write about it a little then.)

I want to make sure everyone has the chance to see them. So for this tour, I'm gonna be trying out a high-tech version of allowing people to see the pictures. I'll be putting them on a website, and then anyone on the tour who wants to use their phone or tablet can access the site, and see the picture I'm discussing. I'll still be showing the pictures by hand like I usually, do, but I also figured this might be an interesting way for more people to see the pictures, especially right as I'm discussing them.

We'll have to see how it turns out. I'm hoping it turns out well, at at least enables a few more people to see the pictures. We'll see.

The other new thing I was thinking of trying? Well, there always seems to be a group of people who can't make a tour because of schedule conflicts, and another group that can't make it because they're not in Marquette. So I was toying with the idea of doing the tour on Facebook Live; while the tour is actually going on, I'd have someone hold up a phone and stream the entire thing out on the History Center's Facebook page. People could then watch it at their leisure. I couldn't quite set that up for this tour, but maybe we'll try it again sometime in the future.

After all, I do have that walking tour of South Marquette coming up in August.

First things first, though. We'll have to see how picture website works out for “Parking Lot”, and if it does work like I hope, then I'll have another way to information out while acting in my role as the Pied Piper of downtown Marquette.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 6/24

Say hello to my little friend--

For those of you who don't know who that is (and I'm guessing that's almost every single one of you), that is Hong Kong Phooey. Who, you ask? Well, I answer, he was a cartoon legend when I was growing up. Well, okay, maybe “legend” is a little too florid. He was a cartoon god.

Well, Hong Kong Phooey was a god if you take the word “god” to mean a character from a cartoon that was only on for two years and even then only appealed to the geekiest of kids.

Not that anyone, say, writing this would be considered a geek. Nope. No way.

Now, I’ll admit “HKP” is probably not the first cartoon from our youth that most of us would recall, but for a small and certifiably, uhm, intelligent group, the “number one super guy” was the best reason to get up on a Saturday morning. HKP was actually Penrod Pooch, mild-mannered police janitor, who would slip into a file cabinet, change into a kung fu robe, and go out to fight crime whenever the need arose. Of course, he actually sucked at it, and kind of stumbled into solving the mysteries, but that was one of the charms of the show, and maybe why those of us who liked it REALLY liked it.

Unfortunately “Hong Kong Phooey” was never marketed the way some classic cartoons have been. I think I the doll pictured above may have the only toy ever made of a character from the show, which resides in my bedroom closet at home. I was so excited when I found it in a store a few years ago that I thought I was gonna cry. Loraine just looked at me and shook her head in bemusement.

In case you didn't know, she does that a lot.

Like so many things from our youth, I watched an episode of the show a few years ago and was, well, underwhelmed. The animation was very bad, and the story itself kinda creaky, but I still did find a great deal of joy in hearing the late, great Scatman Crothers voice the title character. And while I don’t know that I’d watch the 17 episodes of the show over and over and over (like I did as a kid, and like I still do with “Rocky & Bullwinkle”) I did indeed purchase the dvd of the show, just to have it.

One of these days, in fact, I might even watch it!

Finally, if you're wondering why I'm writing this, last week for some bizarre reason it came up in conversation with Jen. I don't know how, I don't know why; I just know it did, so I had to dig the doll up and bring it in. And then that made me think—you know how some people have skeletons in their closet?

I have dolls of Hong Kong Phooey. I think I like my way just a little better.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 6/21

It looks like our long, national nightmare may finally be coming to an end.

That's a picture I took at 845 this morning of the street construction outside of our apartment. As you may be able to tell the curbs are set, the sidewalls are being poured, and after the pavement has been laid hopefully (he says keeping his fingers crossed) we'll be able to leave Loraine's car sit in the driveway all week like normal people, and not have to store it in my parents' garage.

(And on that side note...thanks Mom & Dad. We really appreciate it!)

Because this is Michigan and because roads don't seem to like Michigan several of us in the neighborhood have been joking about starting a pool as to how long the new street will actually last before potholes form or before they have to dig it up to fix one of the water or sewer mains they just replaced. As with everything in life I'm trying to be optimistic about it, so I'm betting the street will last a whole year and a half. It'll hold up until December 2020 before repair work needs to be done on it.

Perhaps not surprisingly my guess is the farthest out in the future. THAT'S how good of a reputation Michigan has for its roads.

8-)

On an entirely different matter I have to send thanks out to listeners Shane and Audrey Marlow of Gwinn for their nice gift. Shane, noticing that my pal Mr. Sunflower makes weekly appearances on our station Facebook page, decided to give him his own portrait--

I know Mr. Sunflower appreciates it. And I sure do, too. So thanks guys!

Finally, happy first day of “summer”. Maybe it (summer) will actually show up one of these months. I mean, I'm not counting on it, but this year it'd be a nice bonus, wouldn't it? We'll just have to see about that. And on that note, have yourself a great first weekend of “summer”. Make sure you have your hat & mittens nearby, just in case!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 6/20

I don't know if it's the world most sustainable business model. But I'm not complaining.

After complaining yesterday about being called “old” I'm now going to admit something that may prove I am indeed partially fossilized—I still subscribe to a couple of magazines. Yup; I pay someone some money, and (usually) once a month printed pieces of paper, bound together, show up in my mailbox, where I can then peruse them at my leisure, even if there's no wi-fi or 4G available.

You know—like we old people did back in the 20^th century.

Well, a couple of months ago I received a notice—once again, by mail—that one of those magazines had violated federal law by illegally selling its subscriber list to third parties, and that, as one of those subscribers, I was entitled to financial compensation as part of a class action lawsuit. I filled out the card and mailed it back via that old company called the US Postal Service, wherein I promptly forgot about it. Or, I should say, forgot about until yesterday, when I received a check for 82 dollars and a handful of change, once again via that old company called the US Postal Service.

So there. I may look older than I sound, but at least I'm making money off of it!

The 82 bucks was a nice surprise; Loraine's already coming up with ideas for places for us to eat out, courtesy of the magazine's little transgression. But my first thought was about the business end of it. I received 82 bucks because they did something wrong. It's punishment; I just wish more corporations who jump over the wrong side of the ethical line were treated like that. However, the 82 bucks I received just about equals four years of the subscription price to the magazine. Just how serious was selling off the mailing lists? I realize magazines have several revenue streams, only one of which is subscriber fees, but to agree to pay such a settlement must mean that they did something really, really wrong.

Hopefully, they've learned their lesson. And hopefully, other companies that think about jumping over the wrong side of the ethical line take note of what I'm pretty such isn't a sustainable business model. I mean, I'm not counting on it, especially in today's “the bigger you are the less you have to worry about” world. But still...it's nice to see that at least someone gets more than a slap on the wrist for violating laws these days. Now, if we could just do the same to companies that do real damage by destroying the planet or turning half of its citizens into opioid junkies; well, then we'll have made real progress.

For now, we'll just have to hope that the magazine (to which I still subscribe, by the way) learned its lesson. We'll just have to hope that my privacy is not violated by someone else. And we'll just have to hope that Loraine has an inspired idea or two on how we can spent the $82 that showed up in the mail, just because, as we learned yesterday, I'm older than I sound, and have at least one habit to prove it.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)