Tuesday, 1/31

This may not work for you. Heck, it may not even work for me. But I think I've come up with a way to mentally, at least, handle this hellaciously cold snap we currently find ourselves in.

Just think of the (pardon the pun) polar opposite,

Now, let me explain. If you study weather or if you're just obsessed with temperatures like some of us, you know that winter is kind of a mirror-universe version of the summer. Even though the temperatures are cold and the precipitation is solid instead of liquid, winter and summer are like the matter and anti-matter versions of each other, or like the evil and good versions of each other.

Which, I guess, would make winter the Spock with the beard.

(And, hopefully, someone is currently rolling on the floor laughing out loud. Either that, or my jokes are just getting WAAAAAAY too specific).

So let's work from that theory, that Summer & Winter are the same seasons, just 180 degrees apart. In that theory, January and July are the yin and yang of the seasons. They both represent the extremes of their respective seasons (which, in real life they do, January being the coldest month of the year in Marquette and July the warmest). If something happens in January there would have to be something happening in July that's a mirror version of it. That would then mean that there is an equivalent version of this hellacious January cold streak, and it's the thought of that that's keeping me going.

Because, after all, the July equivalent of this cold streak would be a nice long streak of hot & humid weather in July.

From a meteorological point of view, both streaks are pretty much the same. They're both caused by weather systems that have stalled over the area or that have popped in from a place where they usually don't visit. They both bring extreme and uncomfortable conditions, and they both last longer than (some) people would like. When they finally go, people rejoice in the fact that “normal” weather returns. They're almost exactly like a mirror copy of each other.

Except one's brutally cold, and the other is heavenly warm. And while I can't speak for every single person, I know which one I prefer.

So that's how I'm (hopefully) gonna get through this next week. Whenever I shiver or have to throw on extra layers or, heck, even look out the window, I'm just gonna think—I'm in the Mirror Universe now. But soon, I'll be back in the real one. And when this summer's equivalent of this cold comes around, I'm gonna bask it in as much as I can.

Hopefully, that will work. Keep your fingers crossed.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 1/30

Could it be that I might actually have survived my five days from heck?

Keep your fingers crossed.

The five days to which I'm referring started last Thursday, when Jack & I did “Lights Camera, Marquette” at Kaufman Auditorium, followed by “High School Bowl” & work Friday, followed by announcing at the Noquemanon all day Saturday, followed by work stuff for three of my jobs Sunday, and to (hopefully) be wrapped up today by finally (finally!) having our new computers installed at work.

Once that installation is done (and computers, that's always a VERY big if) I just have to do the other of my TV gigs tonight and then, just maybe, I can sit down, stare at the wall, and wonder what kind of bozo has scheduled these last five days for me.

I honestly think whoever it is needs to be fired.

8-)

Of course, as I mentioned last week, there really does seem to be no rest for the wicked. Now that I'm past this batch of stuff I get to stare at the next batch of stuff. While there are only two more shooting dates for “High School Bowl” left on the calendar, I still have my other TV gig (and the attendant writing that goes along with it). Plus, I'm only a month or so away from the premiere of “The Greasier the Spoon”, the documentary I'm making for the Marquette Regional History Center.

So I won't be bored. That's for sure.

However, assuming the computer switch-over goes well today (and please keep your fingers crossed that it DOES go well) I might be able to actually catch a breath for a day or two. After all, miracles CAN happen, right?

Please say yes...

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 1/27

 So...how did it go last night for "Lights, Camera, Marquette" at Kaufman Auditorium?  Well, this is how it went--

I'd like to say more, but I have to be at a TV studio in a few minutes.  Then I have to go do radio stuff.  Then I have to announce a cross-country ski race.  Then I have to write something for my other TV gig Monday.  And it looks like Monday is also the day we finally get the new computers installed at the station.

If there is indeed no rest for the wicked, I'm wondering just what I may have done in the past to rate the next few days.

8-)

I'm off!!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 1/26

Well, tonight's the night.  Tonight's the night Jack & I get up on stage at Kaufman, show a bunch of old movies, and crack a few bad jokes.  Since I have a lot to do before that, would you mind if I re-purposed something?

I mean, at least it's something that's relevant to all this, as opposed to just being, well, irrelevant.  So we have THAT going for us.

Anyway, here's a Mining Journal article I wrote about the big show tonight.  Hope it at least gives you a little hint as to one of the things I've been working on the past few months.

(jim@wmqt.com)

                                                *******

A unique piece of Marquette history, which the public can see Thursday night, was literally rescued from a dumpster.

In the 1910s and 1920s the owners and managers of the Delft Theater in Marquette shot 35 millimeter movie footage of area events and activities. That film was then shown in the theater, placed before films starring such stars of the day as Charlie Champlin and Mark Pickford. There was also footage shot of several local businesses, in what may have been an early version of the pre-show commercials that populate movie theaters today.

Flash forward to 1980, when Jack Deo owned Superior View Studios, then located above Donckers in downtown Marquette. Looking out his window one day, Jack saw what appeared to be several canisters of movie film lying in a dumpster behind the Delft.

“I immediately ran down and talked to (theater owner) Paul Florence, who was cleaning out the theater. In the basement were all the old films from the Delft Theater, and he was nice enough to give them to me instead of throwing them away”, Deo said.

The footage he recovered was irreplaceable, chronicling both everyday life in Marquette–shots of schools, businesses, and life on Lake Superior–as well as special events, such as pageants at NMU, parades, and the arrival of Army generals on a nation-wide tour.

Screen shot of old Post Office and (now Old) City Hall taken at corner of Washington & Third in the 1910s

Deo sent the film away for preservation, a process he said involved two different processes–the films actually shown in the theater, and the negatives on which it was shot. The negatives were stored in tightly wound reels, but in 1980 sixty years after the footage was originally shot, big portions of the film reels had started to degrade.

“Some of the film had already started to turn to dust”, Deo said. “There was a George Shiras movie that was gone, among others. However, there were some that were still intact, so the negatives were sent off to the only lab in the country that could process them.”

Deo received some assistance from Russ McKee, who ran the Michigan DNR magazine at the time. Deo was working with the magazine, and showed McKee what he had found. “He knew they were worth saving”, says Deo, who ended up with two 16 millimeter reels of film.

Since then, the 16 millimeter reels, taken from the original 35 millimeter footage, have been transferred to several other formats, now digital. And while the original footage, some of which has experienced severe degradation over the past century, will never match today’s 4K television picture or IMAX movie screens, what remains is a vital link to Marquette’s past.

Instead of seeing mere still pictures of the area in the 1910s and 1920s, the movies bring to life an era of the city in a way that few have ever seen before.

All of which was saved from a dumpster 43 years ago.

*****

That footage (and more) will be screened, with commentary from Jack Deo and Jim Koski, as well as live silent movie-era music played by Bob Buchkoe, during “Lights, Camera, Marquette: The Silent Films of 1914-1949”, a fund-raising program for the Marquette Regional History Center Thursday, January 26th at 7 at Kaufman Auditorium. Tickets range from $15 to $25, and will be available online or at the door. For more information, call the History Center at (906) 226-3571, or visit www.marquettehistory.org.

Wednesday, 1/23

It's been almost exactly a month. Have you finished eating all of your Christmas gifts yet?

I don't know if you're like me, but a big chunk of the gifts I'm given over the holidays, maybe even half, consists of food. Chocolate makes up a large majority of it, but you could count cookies, nuts, fruit, gift cards used to buy food and, well, more chocolate as part of the sum total. I don't mind; after all, people know how much Loraine and I like certain kinds of food, and that makes us easy people for whom to buy, I guess.

Of course, that means that after the holidaze both Loraine and I have a lot of food to eat. The chocolate's not a problem, especially the huge collection sent to us each and every year by daily blog readers Floyd & Betsy of Reese (thanks, other Mom & Dad!), but the other stuff—especially the perishable items like fruit or semi-perishable stuff like cookies—do need to get eaten before they go bad. And that usually means they they need to be gone by, say, now.

We're almost done with those items. Are you?

I mean, you may not have to worry about it. You may not have a lot of food given to you over the holidays, and you may not feel the pressure to get it all consumed by a certain date. Maybe that's just us. And maybe that's just karma biting us on the butt for spreading out 30,000 calories worth of cookies to friends and family before the holidays, and maybe karma doesn't feel the need to pay back you and yours.

Maybe.

One system that we have found that works is this—we sample each and every thing we're given. More often than not, we end up consuming the whole gift. But on occasion, especially if it's one of several of a certain kind we've been given, or if it's of a taste with which we may not be totally enthralled, we'll “donate” the rest of it to Loraine's office mates. Unlike me, she works with a big staff of people, a staff of people who don't mind sampling food brought in by coworkers. In that way, it's a win-win—they enjoy it, and we manage to get all the food consumed before it goes bad.

See? We've thought this through.

We appreciate all the food we're given each year, and enjoy sampling every single thing that's given to us. And this year, it looks like we might actually make through all of them by, uhm, April or so. Wish us luck!

(jim@wmqt.com), who hopes that YOU'VE managed to eat your way through all of your yummy Christmas gifts!

Tuesday, 1/24

 So...was this a case of great minds thinking alike?

Or was it something entirely different?

As I said I would, I took my snowshoes out for the first time on Sunday morning, trekking over to Park Cemetery to take advantage of the foot of fresh snow we received at the end of last week.   For the past several years, when snowshoeing over there I've followed a very roundabout course I came up with, going halfway around the cemetery, then into the woods around the Fit Strip, avoiding the groomed trails but going up & down the wooded hills surrounding them, all before heading back into the cemetery and going the rest of the way around it.

It takes about an hour and a half, and since it avoids any or all of the places that someone would walk or ski, I get quite the workout, all while enjoying the solitude you get from being in a place where no one else goes.

Or so I thought.

When I got into the wooded part of my trek, I noticed that I was actually following in the snowshoe-d steps of someone else.  And those steps I was following were themselves following the exact same, meandering random course that I came up with a few years ago, a course that takes you off any beaten path and up & down hills that no one else in their right mind would go up & down.

It was weird.

As I was following the footsteps along the meandering course I came up with, I thought of two reasons why someone would have gone before me the exact same way I've been going the past several years.  One of the explanations would be that, if you were looking for a maximum aerobic workout on snowshoes, you might pick the exact same course that I came up with, including the same hills, valleys, and detours.  The odds on that happening are infinitesimal--perhaps on a par with the Lions ever winning a Super Bowl--but it COULD happen.  Maybe great (or at least similar) minds really do think alike.

Or maybe, just maybe, someone decided to (literally) follow in my footsteps after I went snowshoeing one of the times I went last year, thought the course I meandered was a good workout, and chose it as their preferred course ever since.  The odds on that are better than the Lions winning the Super Bowl someone else coming up with the exact same course on their own, but still...

You don't know.

I'll be curious to see what's up the next time I head out to snowshoe, probably after another heavy snow.  Will I be breaking a fresh trail by myself, or will someone else have gotten there ahead of me, following in my footsteps even before my footsteps had the chance to do it themselves.

We'll see.  And if those footsteps are there before me once again, that'll make me even more curious as to why they showed up in the first place.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 1/23

 Wow.  It's a Monday, and I'm about to go to work.  Why does that feel so weird?

Well, it feels weird because it IS weird.  I have had the past four Mondays off, for Christmas, New Year's, a medical appointment, and Martin Luther King Day.  I have no been to work on a Monday since, uhm, last year.

Well, I haven't been to work on a Monday since December 19th, but it sounds more impressive if you say "last year".  So let's just leave it at that.

8-)

It's a good thing I'm actually working on this Monday, as it starts my annual "week of insanity".  Yes, I know I have MANY weeks that could be labeled "weeks of insanity", but this one really is.  Aside from doing five days of radio I do a TV commentary tonight, the final interviews for "The Greasier the Spoon" tomorrow night, the big "Lights, Camera, Marquette" production with Jack at Kaufman Thursday, host another TV show Friday, and then spend all day Saturday announcing at the finish line of the Noquemanon.

And I have to remember to try to eat & sleep sometime in there, as well.

So I guess it's a good thing that I do actually go to work today.  After all, I have the feeling that every extra second I can get is a second that would (or at least should) be put to good use.

(jim@wmqt.com)