The oldest Wedding Chapel in Nevada, where my wife and I were married.

No shotgun was needed, though they were readily available.....

I've joked about Donner Pass and the Donner Party a few times over the years here after Reno trips, saying I always get hungry as I go by on I-80.

Today, my wife and I stopped. We went to the lake, to the memorial, and to the museum.

It was time well spent. The vista picture below is from the western end of the lake looking east. The memorial picture is near the museum. Mine are iPhone pics. My wife has much better with her SLR.

I knew the Donner Party story....how they ended up where and when they did..... quite well... and have for years. My wife is very bright, but apparently in California The Donner Party story was not much more than a mention in her high school History classes.

The story of how they ended up where and when they did is truly more captivating to me than the resultant things at Donner Lake that are most well known.

The museum was staffed by a California park ranger who was great. The timing of our visit missed the 26 minute movie that is shown several times a day at the museum.

I mentioned to the park ranger that I believed some years ago I had recorded "the Ken Burns" documentary on The Donner Party. She corrected me with a smile and said, THAT was Ken's brother, "Ric." But she added, "you have the best work that has ever been done of the story." It originally aired on PBS in 1992.

I put it in one of our VCR's this evening, and it has been really nice to watch after having been there this afternoon.

CALI: Looks like you and the missus had a great time!

Thanks, JR. We certainly did.

One of our activities over the weekend I did not write about yet was our playing "looky looky, I spy a hooky (er)"

This trip probably had the most obvious hookers on the streets of any but one we've made to Reno in the last decade. I will note the Reno police are not sleeping as I picked out the obvious decoy for my wife and then we saw two Reno motorcycle officers a block and a half further down the street from her.

I won our competition.

Of course I brought my binoculars for our 16th floor vantage point.

I just wasted 20 minutes of my life catching Lady Gaga on The Letterman Show.

I've worried about our country and society before, and she certainly did not lessen my concerns.

http://www.stationcaster.com/player_ski ... 76&f=77908

Food Network stars Guy Fieri and Michael Symon talk food and promote Guy's tour.

Fieri is opening one of his "Johnny Garlic" restaurants a couple miles from us in Dublin CA soon.

http://www.johnnygarlics.com/

Interesting menu. I've never tried wagyu beef so I might try this appetizer to see what the rave is all about:

American Kobe Sliders

Wagyu Beef, Sweet Onions + Cilantro Lime Aioli

I listened to a bit of that podcast. Didn't know that Fieri has relatives in Cleveland.

His Aunt Polly is one.


Now I see that Fieri was actually born in Columbus.

For anyone who has Comcast On Demand, I'll recommend the Norm MacDonald 43 minute standup currently available via Comedy Central.

I probably like the first half on "attacking hearts", life "battles," and "Janice" the best.

The part about the disease of alcoholism is pretty good, too.

Next time you hear someone say, "blow it up your arse," you can think of this real life story:


Compressed air turns NZ trucker into human balloon

Wed May 25, 5:14 am ET



WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A New Zealand truck driver said he blew up like a balloon when he fell onto the fitting of a compressed air hose that pierced his buttock and forced air into his body at 100 pounds a square inch.

Steven McCormack was standing on his truck's foot plate Saturday when he slipped and fell, breaking a compressed air hose off an air reservoir that powered the truck's brakes.

He fell hard onto the brass fitting, which pierced his left buttock and started pumping air into his body.

"I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot," he told local media from his hospital bed in the town of Whakatane, on North Island's east coast.

"I was blowing up like a football," he said. "I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon."

McCormack's workmates heard his screams and ran to him, quickly releasing a safety valve to stop the air flow, said Robbie Petersen, co-owner of the trucking company.

He was rushed to the hospital with terrible swelling and fluid in one lung. Doctors said the air had separated fat from muscle in McCormack's body, but had not entered his bloodstream.

McCormack, 48, said his skin felt "like a pork roast" — crackling on the outside but soft underneath.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110525/ap_ ... an_balloon

CUYAHOGA FALLS

http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/191466 ... line-winds

Thanks, JR.

Tampa Steve knows I rarely miss any Falls news.....


.....and I doubt he does either.



I read the Akron Beacon Journal online every day, as well as the weekly Falls paper....and WAKR, the news radio station that had The Tribe when I was a kid.

The fire station that had the roof torn off is very near the parking lot of the long ago defunct bowling alley where the girl who later became my fiancee enticed me to go on the night I had originally planned to go to Municipal Stadium.

May 30th, 1977.

"Eck Eck, give 'em heck!"