April 23, 2014
Jim Reeves
commentary, Personal
wanda bergman, Wanda Reeves, Woodlake, woodlake junior high
My family has roots in Woodlake, a small community 20 miles northeast of Visalia. A while back I joined a Facebook page “You know you’re from Woodlake if…” Today, while scanning a picture someone posted, I spotted my mother. She’s in a 7th grade class picture, taken on November 10, 1953. She’s 14 here. You can spot her in the back row, 5th from the left. I’m amazed at how many of my nieces I can see in her face, looking out from 61 years ago. What’s more amazing to me, is that in 4 years, she’ll be married and a mother.
I thought WordPress would allow the image to be clickable to a larger version, but apparently not. Here’s an enlargement of the section my Mother is in:
Wanda Faye Bergman (later, Reeves) Top row, middle.
April 17, 2014
Jim Reeves
commentary, Personal
El Paso, Jimmie Reeves, throw back thursday, USAF
It’s July, 1958. El Paso, Texas. “Big Jimmie”, as he will come to be called by his family now that he has a “Little Jimmie”, turned 20 this month, and is an airman in the United States Air Force. When I selected the picture for this week’s “Throwback Thursday”, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. I’ve always seen him in pictures of me, and that gets truer the older I get. Until today, however, I had never noticed my Mother in me. I see her in this one, however. Something in my face reminds me of her, and I wonder why I never noticed it before. I also see many of my other relatives. Or rather I see the common familial features we all tend to have as infants. We might all look very different as we grow up, but you can certainly tell we’re all related in our baby pictures.
Oddly, it reminds me of how I first became aware of Keanu Reeves.
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April 15, 2014
Jim Reeves
commentary, geek
blood moon, lunar eclipse, orbital dynamics, warning from god
A Lunar eclipse occurred last night, with the Moon slipping into the Earth’s shadow. The refraction of light through the Earth’s atmosphere created the reddish hue, not quite darkening our sister planet. (The Earth and Moon are more accurately a binary planet system, rather than a primary and satellite system.)
The term “Blood Moon” seems to be the result of the media glomming onto a doomsday prophet, ‘end of the world’, God is coming book seller. It doesn’t seem to have any historical relevance, but since it’s caught the fancy of reporters around the world, we’re stuck with it. Some have gone so far as to claim it’s a sign from God, warning President Obama (about something… pick a wingnut cause and use that, for all the sense they make).
Several more of these eclipses will happen in the next few years, just as they’ve happened ever since the Moon reached it’s current orbital distance from the Earth. (the Moon used to be much closer to Earth, but tidal friction and orbital dynamics have been moving it further away ever since it formed. Using devices left on there by the Apollo missions, we can measure that movement precisely.)
Space Cadet Jimmiejoe contributed to this blog.
April 5, 2014
Jim Reeves
commentary, Humor, Personal
aisle wanderings, Home Depot, home repair, Homo Depot, mr fixit
Searching Home Depot for a light fixture to replace one that failed. I only had to walk the aisles twice before I found what I was looking for. The staff is usually helpful, but I seldom ask where things are located, and the guys I did see working the floor were… shall we say… not the type to make me break old habits and ask for help. I hear so much about those stores, but I never see anything! I must be going at the wrong hours. 😉
March 17, 2014
Jim Reeves
commentary, geek, Personal
chinese space station, george clooney, gravity, ISS, sandra bullock, space movie, space shuttle explorer
They say you have to “suspend disbelief” to enjoy some movies, but when a movie is about something you’re really interested in, it becomes more difficult as the filmmakers take “artistic license” to the extreme. The new movie “Gravity” is one such example. Where to begin with all that’s wrong with this film?
First, let me tell you what was good. The technical aspects were first rate. The visuals, the micro-gravity, most of the movement were spot on. It looked almost like it was filmed in space! The scenes of the astronauts in orbit, the Earth, the space shuttle and space station looked incredibly real. The story line was mostly good, but some really odd things popped in from time to time, making one wonder “what the hell was that?” (the chinese guy talking with the barking dog and crying baby? huh?)
Now, for the bad…
[SPOILERS ALERT]
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March 5, 2014
Jim Reeves
commentary, geek, Personal
cell phone, communications satellite, hoverboard, I live in the future, jimmiejoe, SpaceCadet
A few minutes ago, I was sitting in my living room, holding a little piece of plastic and metal to my ear, no wires connecting me to any plugs on the walls, talking to a friend in Virginia as he drove down a highway. Space Cadet JimmieJoe was jumping up and down in my head again, amazed.
When I was 12, the Space Cadet often daydreamed about the future. There were spaceships and incredible computers. Meals would be selected on a screen, and be magically transported to the table by a conveyor. Communication anywhere on the planet would be simple, quick, and complete with video. Super sonic jets would whisk you to anyplace on Earth in a short time, and, of course, flying cars would be everywhere. Think – “The Jetsons”.
Well, the future is here, but it looks a bit different than Space Cadet JimmieJoe imagined.
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February 12, 2014
Jim Reeves
commentary, Personal
blogging online, Community Blogs, Jim Reeves, LGBT blogging, visalia, Visalia Times Delta
The local newspaper, The Visalia Times Delta, has, like most papers today, an online site.
There, readers can post comments about articles and letters. I enjoy reading and commenting, and it’s become a fairly regular thing to see my comments published in the print edition on the “Local” page. It’s been a rare thing these past several months where I haven’t had at least one comment make the paper each week. This week I made it three days in a row!
I used to open the paper to the editorial page first, to check out political cartoons and letters to the editor. Now, in a bit of vanity, I open it to 3A first, to see if I’ve made it to the print edition again. (Actually, I cheat on that a bit. Since I subscribe to both the electronic and print editions, I can see the paper online several hours before it’s actually delivered to my home. I’ll check out the e-newspaper edition first to see if they published any of my comments, then add the print edition to my “archives” storage bin if they did. I may have to get a second bin!)
I also have a ‘Featured Community Blog’ at the Times Delta’s site (one of only three), called Alternating Currents. Feel free to check it out.
January 27, 2014
Jim Reeves
commentary
boycott subway, first lady promotes healthy eating, FLOTUS, Michelle Obama, Subway Sandwiches
Photo: The White House
You can always rely on the wingnuts. In this case, rely on them to be all at once racist, hateful, and misinformed.
There’s been a long habit by some in the conservative fold for putting forth some really disgusting words and images about liberals, especially this President and his wife. George Bush took a lot of flack during his time in office, some of it undoubtably undeserved and unkind. Laura Bush, however, as best as I recall, never suffered from the abuse and slander at the hands of liberals as Michelle Obama has been forced to endure as First Lady. Some of the comments and photoshops are clearly hateful and racist. That’s bad enough, but when they start passing around lies in the wingnut echo-chamber, it really gets telling. Not only do they hate her, they’ll not do the slightest bit of research to verify what they’re being told and passing along.
Yesterday I posted a blog on Alternating Currents, my community blog on the local newspaper’s (The Visalia Times Delta) site. It concerned the calls for a boycott of Subway Sandwiches because they’ve joined the First Lady in a program to encourage children to eat healthy. Boycott Subway, because FLOTUS promotes healthy eating! Some folks really don’t like Michelle Obama!
I shared the link on my Twitter feed, and this is what I got in reply – More
January 18, 2014
Jim Reeves
9-1-1, commentary
9-1-1, 911, dispatch, dispatch loads, full moon, q word, quiet
Around 11pm on a Friday, just after a full Moon, on a winter day where the temperature hit 72 degrees that afternoon. It’s almost scary.
December 18, 2013
Jim Reeves
commentary, Gay, Humor, Personal
anti-gay, demon possessed, gay demons, gay persecution, LGBT, religion, visalia gay
Not my demon, apparently
Demon possessed. That’s what the ex-chaplain says. Gays have an “un-human demonic spirit” in them.
A local resident of Visalia, Sam Lukes, said we have a “diabolically twisted lifestyle” in a recent letter to the editor*.
Russian actor Ivan Okhlobystin is ready to toss us in the nearest oven. The government is not far behind, as the Duma (Russia’s Parliament) has passed into law sweeping edicts that seem to make even talking about homosexuality a crime. The 2014 Olympics are taking a hit over the crackdown.
We’ve made some impressive progress over the past few decades, and things, at least in the USA and some other progressive western nations, are getting better.
But to listen to some of these nutjobs talk, you’d think Satan himself was walking the Earth in a leather harness and spiked heels. As they describe what it is to be gay, I’m looking at myself and thinking…
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April 23, 2014
Jim Reeves commentary, Personal wanda bergman, Wanda Reeves, Woodlake, woodlake junior high 2 Comments
My family has roots in Woodlake, a small community 20 miles northeast of Visalia. A while back I joined a Facebook page “You know you’re from Woodlake if…” Today, while scanning a picture someone posted, I spotted my mother. She’s in a 7th grade class picture, taken on November 10, 1953. She’s 14 here. You can spot her in the back row, 5th from the left. I’m amazed at how many of my nieces I can see in her face, looking out from 61 years ago. What’s more amazing to me, is that in 4 years, she’ll be married and a mother.
I thought WordPress would allow the image to be clickable to a larger version, but apparently not. Here’s an enlargement of the section my Mother is in:
Wanda Faye Bergman (later, Reeves) Top row, middle.
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