The Life and Times of Jim
Hi, there. I'm Jim. Welcome to my phlog!
This site was written for Las Vegas, then LouisVille. Now, it seems to be about anywhere. In these phlogs, you'll see a lot of my personal notes and pictures. I like to post my observations here to remember life and celebrate it. I'm not religious. I don't pray for good fortune. I'm ecstatically grateful for the gift of life and I think our time should be remembered and not taken for granted. I'm not a writer. I think pictures tell stories so much better than words. I love just about everything in this life, and, I guess that would have to include you. So, if you've seen me, don't be surprised if your picture is in here somewhere. Of all the critters, people are absolutely the most interesting. 
<< 07/2008 < 06/2009 Calendar 08/2009 > 07/2010 >>Sign InView Other Logs
Wed 
07/01/2009 20:12:22
 jim  Vestal Park
Wed 
07/01/2009 06:51:54
 jim  Number, Numbers, Numbers!
Click here to read more: Pittsburgh dips to 60th in population among U.S. cities
Is it just me, or does this sound INSANE! I've been all over this country, and no way is Pittsburgh #60. If they'd quit using the boundaries drawn by whomever/whenever, and start using a circular reference from the city's center, these statistics would change immensely.
The way the census is run today, the population of Pittsburgh could easily double in one day based on the decisions In a Meeting! Don't believe me...check out the population of Louisville over the years, at a time when people are moving away!
Statistics people...don't trust them.
Half of the people quoting statistics state half of the facts, which is twice as many as those who don't.
Oscar Wilde - "The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
Mark Twain - "First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure."
Benjamin Disraeli - "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Bill Gates - "Then there was the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches".
"There is sanity in knowing you are insane."
"The four most important things you should learn in life are:
Learn to listen, pay attention, and to count".
Sun 
06/28/2009 17:13:20
 jim  Little Italy, Pa
Sun 
06/28/2009 16:44:10
 jim  Natural History - Indians
Sun 
06/28/2009 16:38:18
 jim  Natual History - Egypt
Sun 
06/28/2009 16:21:40
 jim  Natural History Displays
Sun 
06/28/2009 16:03:28
 jim  Pittsburgh - Museum of Natural History
Sun 
06/28/2009 15:55:30
 jim  Natural History Museum
Fri 
06/26/2009 20:23:50
 jim  Mt Pleasant, Pa - Evergreen Drive In
Fri 
06/26/2009 07:17:40
 jim  Michael Jackson Dies at 50
He preached music, love and peace. His performances rocked the world. Michael Jackson Dies at 50.
BTW - He was found innocent in court of child molestation, and he did pay out $20 million to quiet the whole thing. Money is a strong motivation.
After being on a grand jury, I don't believe most of the news
Fri 
06/26/2009 07:13:46
 jim  Farrah Fawcett dies at 62
She was my dream girl when I was growing up.
 My first wife had Farrah hair.
Wed 
06/24/2009 18:37:12
 jim  Wexford, PA - Car Show
Wed 
06/24/2009 07:13:01
 jim  Its Beautiful
I see natures overwhelming technology. It is more profound than a cell phone, a plasma TV, or a computer.
I see harmony. All the living things seem to know their tasks, and they do them very well.
I see love in the animals, mostly amoung their own species, but sometimes they share their love with me.

Sometimes, I walk on the soft grass with my bare feet, and I feel like everything here was made just for my pleasure.
But that is a mistake.
All things are given the choice of whether to love or hate their lives.

What I am saying is, Heaven and Hell isn't something we experience after we die.
It is something we create while we are alive. It is our choice to see what we want to see.

I used to want to live forever, but that would be greedy.
There are many others waiting to take my place.
And I hope when they come, they will see this life as I do.

For me, when the beautiy of life seems distant, when life becomes about bills, work, chores, and responsibilities,
I look at my sweet Becky sleeping, then walk outside. I hear the birds singing, smell the honeysuckle, feel the moist breeze, and see another day begin.

-- It is Beautiful --
Mon 
06/22/2009 20:27:32
 jim  Pittsburgh Skies
Mon 
06/22/2009 20:15:40
 jim  Duquesne Incline
Mon 
06/22/2009 20:02:44
 jim  Duquesne Incline Area
Mon 
06/22/2009 20:02:12
 jim  Pittsburgh View
Mon 
06/22/2009 09:59:14
 jim  Pittsburgh - Becky-n-Jen
Sat 
06/20/2009 21:04:38
 jim  Lake Erie, Pa
Sat 
06/20/2009 18:34:24
 jim  Niagra Park
Sat 
06/20/2009 18:30:54
 jim  Niagara Falls Park - 2
Sat 
06/20/2009 18:16:08
 jim  Niagara River
Sat 
06/20/2009 18:13:34
 jim  Toronto Canada
Sat 
06/20/2009 18:07:00
 jim  Niagra Park
Sat 
06/20/2009 17:23:58
 jim  Buffalo, Ny
Fri 
06/19/2009 19:00:02
 jim  Wexford - Cabana Bar
It's not easy finding the Cabana Bar in Wexford. It's not easy to find it on the internet either. What it offers is a very large athletic club, fine dining, and a Californian styled Cabana out back. The foods is good, but the idea is GREAT!
I love it!!! I think it gets most of its publicity via word of mouth.
Thu 
06/18/2009 18:35:12
 jim  Westview, Pa - Bella Rias
Sat 
06/13/2009 20:54:30
 jim  Sparta Nascar Race
Sat 
06/13/2009 19:17:02
 jim  Nascar Race Intro
Sat 
06/13/2009 18:44:08
 jim  Pat Green Concert
Sat 
06/13/2009 16:26:22
 jim  Nascar Group
Sat 
06/13/2009 13:16:26
 jim  Sparta Girls
Sat 
06/13/2009 11:44:36
 jim  Sparta Campsite
Sat 
06/13/2009 08:01:44
 jim  Bam
I usually don't tell stories, but this one touched my heart. This one is about a deer named Bam. She was found alone in the woods, assumed to be orphaned from her mother during hunting season. My wife took her in, went to the feed store, bought some cow nipples and powdered milk, and we nursed her.
We called her Bam.
Bam loved playing with our kids and she became as much a member of the family as any of us, but Bam was growing fast.
There came a time one spring, Bam was out in the barn, just going crazy to get out. I told my wife, you have to let her go. You'll have to believe she'll come back, but you have to let her go. My wife, with tears in her eyes, opened the door, and Bam ran off into the woods without looking back. 
Weeks had gone by. We weren't sure if they'd ever see Bam again, but my wife would go out everyday calling "Bam, Bam!" while holding two full bottles of milk.
It was on a beautiful spring day, a day much like today, she went out and called out to Bam. The bushes rustled and Bam came running out of the woods with her little tail wiggling. Bam hadn't forgotten us. Everyone came out, Bam drank both bottles and we all played. She was such a pleasure. That was years ago. The kids have all gone now. Bam would continue to pop in from time to time, and we'd have our bottles waiting for her in the fridge. We haven't seen Bam for quite some time, but every now and then, we'll see a fawn, up on the hill side, looking down at us, and we'll smile. And that, is my story of a much missed fawn named Bam. - Told by a retired couple at the campround in Sparta Kentucky.
Sat 
06/13/2009 00:07:30
 jim  Nascar Campsite - Night
Fri 
06/12/2009 19:26:14
 jim  Sparta, Ky - Skies
Thu 
06/11/2009 00:00:00
 jim  Camping near Cincinatti
WE will be camping with the gang at Kentucky Speedway Jun 11-jun 14th Busch nascar race on Saturday!
Its just south of Cincy on Highwya 71
Translation: Hwy 35 Rt 1, Sparta, KY‎ - (859) 567-3400‎
June NASCAR Nationwide Series Racing!
Mon 
06/08/2009 20:32:30
 jim  Down by the Creek
Mon 
06/08/2009 06:47:28
 jim  Two apartment weekends have gone by.
We've spent two weekends at home. I guess this weekend was a good one because I wrote a Yatzee program on Saturday. It was fun to do. Writing games is always fun. In my spare time, I can usually write one program a day. We're taking the neighbors out Tuesday, camping in Kentucky this Friday during the Nascar races. Jennifer will be coming to stay for a month on the 20th. We'll pick her up in Buffalo, NY. After that, every weekend will be spent traveling and having fun. I'm hoping we'll see Niagra Falls, New York City, Washingon DC, Kennywood and Ohio Pyle.
Mon 
06/08/2009 06:38:13
 jim  A Perfect Smile
Becky gets fitted for her new smile today. I've thought of her as lucky. She has a beautiful smile. I always wanted dentures. My Mom had dentures. She said she loved them.
Being a smoker and a coffee drinker almost all of my life, I have had a No Awards winning smile. On the flip side, I still have most of my teeth, which should count for something. I can still strip wires with my front teeth, which is darned handy.
Mon 
06/08/2009 06:14:30
 jim  Dealing with a bad brain
I don't remember when my memory went bad. har har
All I know is, I've always had to struggle with ways remember things all of my life.
Take for example: when 
I was a waiter at Mgm.
I worked the Exec Station. That meant that I couldn't refer to Clint Eastwood as 'Mr'. I had to say, 'Good evening, Mr Eastwood. May I offer you something to drink?'.
I remember Seigfried sat on my station once singing Framptons "I'm in You, You're in me". I had to think about that one for awhile.
I also had the floor execs.
One was Mr Green who was white, another was Mr White who was black. So, Mr White was black and Mr Green was white. That seemed like a memory grabber.
Then there were the show people:
they would cram 8 in a booth designed for 3.
They'd order their hearts of lettuce salads, their tea with the bag on the side, and so forth.
They never tipped more than 50 cents. I guess in England, food servers don't get tipped. We were lowly scullions.
But that was okay because occassionaly I'd date one of the show girls.
I remember, I offered a showgirl a nickel for her thoughts, and she ripped me off. She had NO thoughts, I mean NONE, but the girl sure could dance.
See now, I forgot what I was talking about.
Oh yes, memory.
These days I have an IPhone. I can just take someone's picture, then email it to myself with their name.
And if someone is talking about something I know nothing about, I google it. If someone is throwing abbreviations around, I can look that up too.
Take for instance, my title these days. I'm a CE in BISD representing ADI for FI. I can't find those in Google, but I can ask and take notes on my IPhone for these things.
I think it's pretty cool. In the current world, you don't need a good brain, all you need is an IPhone.
Sun 
06/07/2009 14:29:37
 jim  Check out my Yatzee Game
Look down on the bottom right.
It took about 8 hours to write a Yatzee game from scratch.
I love programming. It's a passion of mine.
I used four langauges to create it. I would have liked to use just one, but thats the way things have become of the last decade.
We were talking about new languages that have cropped up over the last 10 years or so.
I'd think most of them are passing fads. Many new languages promise to ease programming woes.
They hope to eliminate programmers.
All systems are simple in the beginning. 
Enhancements make them become complex.
When a new language is adopted, the systems have to be rewritten.
Its not the language that makes them simpler, its the rethinking about changes done after decades of time.
And it doesn't matter what language the systems are written in, ALL systems become complex. 
Programming isn't about knowing a language (I know quite a few).
Programming is about thinking logicially.
To create a system you must be able to hold a line of thought.
So I have to laugh at the people who more-or-less run to Best Buy and purchase packages that promise to eliminate programming !
Imagine how that might work:
A manager clicks a picture of an ATM and drags it over to a new Bank, and the programming is done. Maybe that will work someday. LOL!
Imagine now that the manager wants to trade stocks on the ATM, or add a donation, or whatever, and there isn't an option for it in his package.
Its the same old story. You can't update the package by simply hiring a programmer.
EVERYTHING has to be written from scratch, or the manager will have to pay extraordinary amounts of money to get the package enhanced.
What I'm saying is, you can't create a system without thinking.
A lot of places I've contracted with have off the shelf packages that they've forced on their workers.
We may deal with 10 packages, just to accomplish a simple task, like adding time to our time sheets.
And I think this may be where America has gone wrong.
Greatness doesn't happen by simply throwing money at something.
You have to plan and you don't need a plan for how to plan. You simply have to think.
Tue 
06/02/2009 18:30:23
 jim  Cranberry Fun Center

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