Puttering in the Study

"The Family" - the Kleypas siblings in Waco circa 1926

I love this picture - my grandmother is in front looking down, and her scrapbook has this page titled just "the Family".  I assume this is at the Kleypas home in Waco - little white frame house that's still there across from the Melody ranch, just south of the Circle.  I think there's one sister missing, but I could never keep them all straight anyway - everybody just looked like my grandmother with different colors of hair when I knew them.

Emma Kleypas scrapbooks

Just realized that the technology is now there to start posting (on Facebook) my grandmother Mom Demmer's scrapbboks, which I have indexed and boxed for preservation purposes.  This is the second of the four she made before marrying my grandfather in 1927, and covers 1925-1926, with a single page from 1929.  My favorite picture is this very nice one of her sister Elene and husband (or boyfriend, I'm not sure which at this point) Alan Miller.  Elen & Alan's son and granddaughter are on Facebook and ought to get a kick out of this.

The 1920-24 book has a glitch in the scan of one page and will need a little time to correct.  There is also an oversize album from her work at the local training base in Waco during World War I (1917-1918) and one of family portraits which I should be able to get shortly as well.

Star Trek - Season 2: The Doomsday Machine; Trials and Tribble-ations; Mirror Mirror

I have been waiting to get the second season of TOS on Blu-Ray since Grayson and Parker (and sometimes Collin) love watching TOS episodes.  Got the second season yesterday, and finally got to watch my overall favorite The Doomsday Machine, with the upgraded special effects, which transform the left shot  into the right shot , and show damage like this to the battered starship Constellation. 

The boys have already seen the TOS tribbles episode, as well as the animated one, so we watched the included Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode where that crew travels back in time to assist an unknowing Captain Kirk in foiling the Klingons.   I haven't yet watched the documentaries on how they intercut the footage, but it was lots of fun watching, and G & P really liked it.  An example of the frame from the original show and one with the DS9 actors in it is below.  We then stayed up for another episode, Mirror Mirror, because they thought the idea of Spock with a beard  sounded really cool.  Another great episode.

Interestingly, both Doomsday and Mirror were directed by Marc Daniels.  I just read up on Daniels, and was dumbfounded to learn that not only did he directed the first 38 episodes of I Love Lucy - he also introduced the three-camera technique of filming, and what's really important is that he wrote my very favorite Star Trek episode of all time - the animated One of Our Planets Is Missing.  Alan Dean Foster's novelization of that episode in Star Trek Log One , which I distinctly recall reading in fifth grade on bus trips home from school in Irving, was and is one of my favorite pieces of writing - it wasn't till much later that I realize that a big part of the special aura of starships in general and the Enterprise in particular was Foster's writing. 

I really need to go to bed now, or I'll start rambling...

Bond-o-Rama continues: The World Is Not Enough; For Your Eyes Only

Grayson is now addicted to Bond movies, so he and Parker and I are spending afair amoutn of Memorial Day working our way through Bond movies.  The rented almost the only older Bond movie Blockbuster had, The World Is Not Enough, which I really enjoyed.  I had thought Tomorrow Never Dies was pretty much the apex of the Brosnan Bond, but I think this one was actually better.  Edgier and not as much camp or gadgets.  I still think Brosnan is the best mature Bond - he's still young enough to be plausible, and he's cruel - a critical factor in playing Bond, to me, since I'm a stickler for the books.  Daniel Craig is the best overall in my book, but he's playing essentially a different character, albeit one closer to the book.

Made a run to Longview yesterday to reload and picked up what is probably my favorite Roger Moore Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only with the lovely Carole Bouquet, who, I was pleased to learn this evening, was not the late first wife of Pierce Brosnan.  Brosnan's wife was in the movie - she was Bond's other love interest in the film, Cassandra Harris.  Small world).  Grayson and Parker liked this one was well - lots of stuff blowing up.  They don't particularly like Roger Moore - he'd not Bond-like enough for them.  I have to agree - Bouquet looked impossibly young, and he looked impossibly old - and he had at least two more Bond movie still to go...

Tomorrow we have two more on deck - Sean Connery as Bond in From Russia With Love and Thunderball.  I think they'll like Connery.

Collin & Parker finish baseball

Collin and Parker finished their baseball season with the White Sox Saturday.  Attached are a couple of pictures showing Parker hamming it up at the plate , with Collin on deck behind him, and a close-up showing how, uh, good Collin's batting is.

Hub - new door

Closing up the front means not just new framing, windows, and insulation, but also weatherproofing, and we have hit the point where we needed the new door on the 111 side so that we could get the weatherproofing finished.  Yesterday Ray Lawson's crew from Harrison County Glass delivered the new glass door on the 111 side.  Here it is shown in place with the old door and sidelight next to it.  I might change out the handle later on, but I like the dark bronze color and the substantial surround.  Goes well with both the windows and the doors on the 113 side.

Hub - metal ceiling paint colors selected

Met with Amanda at the store this afternoon and picked the three colors for the 1897 ceiling on the 113 side.  We are focusing on that side in order to get my offices ready for move-in July 1 (yes, 2010). 

The original three-color paint job is still there on the right, and we picked the three colors below to duplicate their original appearance - the border is copper, the field gold, and the border frieze gray-green.  We are not at all sure what the border frieze really was - it actually looks unpainted more than anything else, but I liked the idea of having a gray-green to use on the beadboard trim throughout the building anyway, and it looks good with the other colors, and actually matches the existing ceiling better than anything else, so we went with it there rather than a deeper green.  It'll all look darker up anyway, especially with the complex pattern stamped on it, and we can control the light/dark by use of the track lights mounted on the conference room ceiling specifically to illuminate the ceiling.

   

  Anyway, we're pretty excited about it.  The new paint goes up next week.

One thing I have noticed about this ceiling is that in so many ways it is the major element of the entire building.  It is the major historical element in the building, the major design element, and a major part of the building's infrastructure as it now carries the heating/air conditioing ducts and sprinkler heads for the entire 113 side.

The Face of Battle (Illustrated) - John Keegan

This book originated as a 1976 non-fiction book on military history by English military historian John Keegan. It deals first with the structure of historical writing about battles, the strengths and weaknesses of the "battle piece," and then with the structure of warfare in three time periods by analyzing three battles: Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme.

The work was different in that it did not examine the battles only from the point of view of the generals or just accumulate quotes from ordinary soldiers. Instead, it focused on the practical mechanics of battle and what life was like for a ordinary solider in minute detail.  For example, Keegan notes the practical effects of the diarrhea that afflicted the British at Agincourt as they waited (some in armor, which was not easily got off) for the French to charge.  Yes, not a happy thought, and it obviously gets much worse from there.  The analysis of what it was like to be at Waterloo was fascinating, for example, because what it was like to engage in or receive a cavalry charge was often not what I'd read previously.  Basically if infantry stood their ground, a successful cavalry charge was unlikely to succeed - it decidedly did not at Agincourt, for example, as Keegan explains.

My copy was the 1988 Viking edition, The Illustrated Face of Battle, with additional maps, diagrams, paintings, and photographs, which helped, but not a whole lot. Overall, I liked it but it carried on quite a bit.  It's a lot to say about three battles and some pontificating about the effect of modern technology on the future battlefield.  All this was written immediately after Vietnam and takes it into account to some extent, but obviously doesn't reflect either Gulf War, so I'd be curious how Keegan would perceive those as affecting his thesis.

Invictus - Clint Eastwood

I  had been wanting to watch this, and when I saw it for the first time at Walmart yesterday I snagged it.  Great movie - I got so excited near the end I knocked over my wine glass (fortunately it was already empty).  I still have not a clue what the rules of rugby are, but it was a well-told story, with Morgan Freeman doing as good a job as anyone could to emulate Nelson Mandela.  As good as he was, though, he never really got across the benevolent side of Mandela - there was something missing in his smile - he just isn't as cherubic as Mandela.  But he got across the charisma, and the genuine affection and attention he had (has) for the people around him. 

And the amazing thing is that he's doing that with what is a - let's face it - really bad speaking style of the man he's playing.  I've seen Morgan play presidents before (the Armageddon movie that isn't Armageddon) as well as other characters with tremendous gravitas and charisma, and incredible vocal performances (who can forget March of the Penguins?) and he has to check all of that at the door with Mandela and get the man across with a chirping voice and poor speaking style, and a fraction of Morgan's one on one charisma (I keep using that word, but it's crucial here, because both men have it, but in very different ways).  Morgan can emote and express himself far, far better than Mandela, and here he has to do his job without those skills.  And with poor dentures (Mandela's teeth are far better than Morgan's, so he has temporary veneers, it looks like, and they're a little annoying.  But at least they remind you that this isn't Morgan, but he just doesn't look right smiling in them).

Okay, enough on Morgan.  Eastwood tells a great story here (the scenes at the prison Mandela was kept at are intense), and Matt Damon is terrific as well.  It says something when you're cheering for a team playing a sport you can't remotely understand (I see every sports movie through the lens of Remember the Titans, and at the end I knew what they had to do to win - stop the big boy whenever he got the ball - so I could hear the assistant coach from that movie bellowing my favorite line "I don't want them to gain another yard!  You BLITZ ... ALL ... NIGHT!!!"  I love that movie - actually watched my favorite parts Friday night - right after watching the same parts of The Blind Side.  I think I'm ready for football season to start.  Or at least the Cowboys cheerleader tryouts).

Anyway, bring a hanky because this movie requires it - you keep being struck by the sheer moral authority this man had (has) and every time you think our country has problems, just look at what this guy got handed as president of his country.  Great, great movie.  You have to see it.

Iron Man 2 - Jon Favreau

I was disappointed to read that critics didn't like the new Iron Man movie as much as the original, and seriously pleased that I could not have disagreed more when we all went to see it last Sunday.  I thought it was great, from the characters and acting to the action scenes (which I did not think were overdone a bit - I thought they fit the movie better than in the original).  When Scarlett Johannson is the weakest link, and you still can't think of anything negative to say about her - you've got a good movie on your hands.  (Okay, I think her lips are too full - I realize that's a minority opinion among men, but there it is).

Special call out to Don Cheadle, who's a favorite of mine and an upgrade at the position, and Mickey Rourke, who is just simple magnificent - when he's on screen you can't take your eyes off of him, and I was really disappointed he wasn't preserved for a sequel.  (I am stoked that Cheadle is).  Gwyneth Paltrow is good, and Robert Downey, Jr. is just terrific - as always.  And I like director Jon Favreau's extra screen time this time around for his role as Happy - he's a good comic relief, and plays well against Scarlett.  The scene where he almost wrecks the car watching her change into her costume in the back seat in the rear view mirror is funny - but when she calmly tells him to keep his eyes on the road and then whips that leg up in the air it becomes a classic.

Just a great franchise - I am really enjoying it.