Puttering in the Study

More work at the Hub

Did a lot of work this weekend both at home and at the Hub.  At the Hub, I added three more sections of track lighting, one in my office and two in the hallway.

The hallway lighting was toextend light all the way down the hall so that we can light up three or four more pieces of art.  As the attached before and after shows, the end of the hall was dark originally - now it's light (the post-its in the two news pictures show the locations for the three new pieces, which should be in tomorrow). It may not sound like a lot, but it really brightens up the office.

The third track, which is controlled from just over my stand-up desk, sits on top of the wall and provides light for reading on my stand in the morning or late in the afternoon and evening.  I can't accurately represent the change in light level with the cell camera, but this is pretty close.

Finally, and of course most importantly, today we got the old door chime from the Hub installed in its location at the entrance to the 111 side, as this video reflects.  Probably forty years of store customers heard that chime.  

 

Eisenhower in War and Peace – Jean Edward Smith

After getting snippets of Eisenhower's career in the Rick Atkinson and Citizens of London books, I decided I wanted a full biography of Ike so I could follow his background, and try to follow his rise from long-time major in the interwar army to commander of the European theater - whic h happened in less than a year, although it's not as easy to track precisely in this book, which was one of my problems with it.

This is a really fine book - well-written, thorough, and full of different judgments on Eisenhower's action, many of which the author is careful to point out and explain.  I ended up having a new appreciation for Eisenhower's abilities as an organizer and a leader, and especially for his nuanced performance in the presidency, where he made it look so effortless that it's easy to forget how masterful a performance he made as commander in chief during the Cold War.  His faults are just as interesting though - from letting the Suez crisis get out of hand while recuperating from serious health problems, to repeated tactical blunders during the actions in North Africa, Italy, and D-Day and after.  Eisenhower made lots of mistakes, Smith makes clear, but he got the big things right.

My problem was that the author for unknown reasons gets things out of sequence and I ended up wondering if there was a cause and effect in some cases.  For example, he mentions when Eisenhower got his second star in early 1942, then goes backwards a few weeks to when his father died, and then forward a week or two to when he prepared and presented the strategic plan for the war that was adopted by his superiors, including FDR.  But Smith doesn't explain why Marshall approved Eisenhower's second star in March of 1942, and on checking the dates I realized it was a matter of days after Eisenhower's plan was approved.  Were the two connected?  The reader wouldn't know because in the narrative Eisenhower already has his second star when his plan is approved by FDR.  But in fact it postdated that, or at least postdated the plan's approval by the War Department.  I would have been interested in knowing how this activity affected Eiszenhower's promotion.

Another example explained that the U.S. war leaders were facing a crisis in the South Pacific in the late summer of 1942 because four of its six available carriers were sunk and the other two were in drydock.  Therefore "on July ___, 1942" FDR did such and such to respond to this crisis.  The problem is that this is completely wrong.  In July 1942 the U.S. Navy had lost two carriers, but it had four healthy carriers underway to support the landings on Guadalcanal.  Now by November two more had been sunk and both the survivors heavily damaged, and Saratoga was in fact in drydock, but  one carrier - Enterprise - was on station.  My point is that thinsg were not ever as bad as Smith claims, and at the time he refers to, things were actually going swimmingly in the South Pacific - so the alleged motivation or the circumstances surrounding FDR's actions are simply wrong.  Not a major point, perhaps, but if this wasn't the reason for FDR's actions, what were? 

I also was really startled by the way the book trailed off at the end, and essentially had no conclusion.  That may have been because the conclusion was up front, but I had expected a wrapup to summarize what the significance of this man's life was, and was surprised that I didn't get it.

Heat Rises – Richard Castle

Call me shallow, but I really enjoyed this, the third Richard Castle book.  I have to agree with one reviewer that it's the best yet.

The Rook: A Novel – Daniel O’Malley

This book about a cross between James Bond, The Jasper Fforde Eyre Affair novels and H.P. Lovecraft got such a good review in the Dallas paper that I picked it up.  It started kind of slow, but by the time it ended I was really getting to like the characters.  The author ends up having a little too much fun letting the title character act out of character as the book goes along, but it sets up a nice little supernatural universe, and I look forward to more books in the series.

Enterprise – Barrett Tillman

This is a brand new book about CV-6 to add to the prior histories by Steve Ewing and Edward P. Stafford.  I picked up the audiobook and crunched it ina couple of weeks, I think it was. The narration was hard to follow because the narrator's voice varies in volume a little too much to follow easily, but the biggest problem was that the writing style is authentic 1940's over the top, which gets old after a while.  The quotes have to be, but the text follows form, and makes the book overly dramatic.  Obviously the subject is inherently dramatic, but the way that's conveyed is through a writing style that's pretty much right out of the narration of The Fighting Lady.

I did learn a lot I did not know about the Big E, though, and it's a must for a Pacific War collection.  I'm just intrigued what it would have read like if the writing style had not been quite so period.

Masters of the Air – Donald Miller

I spent several weeks listening to this exhaustive history of the Eighth Air Force's operations during World War II. It was actually not as interesting as the parts of Citizens of London on the same subject, and dragged on and on the story of the operations, which were much bloodier than I knew. While strategic bombing never accomplished what its prewar proponents claimed, it was interesting to ad that at the end of the war it did actually destroy German transportation and the German oil industry, which has been transforming coal into oil. So a good and thorough history, but not all that entertaining.

2012 Spring Break - Hawaii

Jamie and I took the boys to Hawaii for our spring break trip last month.  We flew direct from Dallas to Honolulu and stayed at the Disney Aulani resport on the leeward side of Oahu, expect for a one day trip over to the big island to see volcanos.

We spent a lot of time at the outstanding water park in the resort itself (just having dinner watching the sun set is an experience, but the snow cones were the highlight), but after a couple of days ventured out to do some things.  The first big event was a submarine ride off Waikiki where we took a boat out to a 68 person sub and went down just over 100 feet too see reefs and ship and plane wrecks. Very, very cool.

On the way to dinner at La Mariana with Gough cousins Ryan and Angela who are in Hawaii these days the boys each got a pearl out of an oyster and put them into necklaces, which they've saved with their Aulani tiki necklaces.

 

Next up was a luau at Paradise Cove, which happened to be next to Aulani, so not a bad drive.

Of course the highlight of any visit to Hawaii for the Smith boys is Pearl Harbor, where we took in the USS Arizona Memorial and its museums (with terrific gift shops), followed by an audio guided tour of the submarine USS Bowfin, followed by a great seafood lunch at a place next door to the museum. 

 

At this point Jamie decided that an afternoon nap in the car was preferable to the other two museums, so the boys and I rode the shuttle across the bridge to Ford Island where we did a very fast walking tour of the battleship USS Missouri, saw the USS Oklahoma Memorial, and did a quick run through the new Pacific Aviation Museum.

The trip ended with Collin and Parker getting their junior ranger pins after completing the really neat scavenger hunt booklets the Park Service had out for them.

Next up was a day trip to the big island, where we saw the southernmost point of the United States, and stopped at a black sand beach, which was really, really cool.  And that was before we saw the sea turtles sacked out on the beach.

We did the world's fastest tour of the volcano park, hot the M<auna Loa macadamia nut gift shop, and drove across the island to catch our flight back to Oahu. 

The next day we spent playing at the pool all day, then headed for the airport midafternoon for a night flight back to Dallas. 

All in all, a great trip. 

First phase of study ceiling completed

I haven't had a chance to post on it since last weekend, but I finally got the first phase of the study ceiling painting completed.  After putting up the ribs and the coffered sections over each end, last weekend I figured out how to do the skylight in the center.  I rolled on a very light flat blue, then painted faux parapets with recessed panels.&nbsp; The panels line up with the coffers and their sides (and the angles for the parapet corners) were set using a string from the center of the skylight so that from the exact center of the room, the perspective is correct.  That conflicts with the highlights and shadows through the rest of the room, which are correct more or less for one corner of the room, but I thought the skylight really needed to be set for viewing in the center. 

I also worked on the lighting in the room quite a bit.  Changes included:

• Raising the rope lighting behind the cornice so it casts a brighter light on the ceiling
• Cutting metal half circles to place on top of the the wall sconces so that they don't throw light up on the ceiling - just  the bookcases.
• Buying two torchere lamps to throw light on the skylight area to reinforce the illusion that it is daylight.  As they throw a lot of glare at eye level, I've smeared the inside of the alabaster globes with mahogany wood filler (a very thick stain-like material used to fill the pores of mahogany when a smooth surface is desired).  They need more, and I will probably add some oak to end with with an amber-looking globe.

I'm very happy with the way the skylight turned out, but it really does need clouds.  And I have already started on the plan to add a faux parapet above the bookshelves to help fill in the space on the sides

B-17 tour and ride

 Took the boys to Longview today to see the B-17, B-24 and P-51 on the Wings of Freedom tour.  We walked through the two bombers and saw the P-51 from outside the rope.

After taking the tour, Collin and Grayson waited with Papa while Parker and I took a ride on the old Flying Fortress.

It was really cool, and Parker, whose two favorite things right now are the Titanic and B-17s, thought it was really neat. 

Here's a video showing off the view from the bombardier's compartment, which provided a beautiful low-level view of the East Texas countryside as we cruised along.

Wall art changes at the Hub

Couple of new things at the Hub last week.

First, we got in plaques with copies of the Hub renovation's three front page appearances in the Marshall News Messenger, so we put those and our our awards for the renovation on a "renovation wall" in the reception area on the 111 side.

Second, I got around to framing six more prints from the 1939 Florsheim catalog that Louis and Audrey gave me (I scan the catalog originals and then print copies in frame-friendly sizes) and put them on the Louis, Jr. wall in the guest attorneys' office (because they're shoes, see?  It's sort of a theme we have around here).  That fit well with the track lighting and let us add Carol Pace's 2011 Christmas card watercolor to the room, where it benefits from a couple of tracks lights as well.  That wall (and that room) has always nagged at me, and I think it looks much, much better now.  It doesn't look quite as dramatic as the camera's light sensor thinks, but it still looks pretty cool.