Category: Life

Sunday’s Denver newspaper had an article about how Denver’s Boettcher Concert Hall is in need of repair. The photo at left (courtesy of The Denver Post, taken by Joe Amon) shows water stains on the ceiling. (It’s not a shot of the shroud of Turin.)

The article describes how the plan was to spend $100 million on a new symphony hall. The recession stepped in and caused the current plan, which is to use $1.5 million to make “stopgap fixes”. But officials still would like to spend $50 million to “renovate and expand” the existing facility.

Reality? Open your eyes, officials. Taxpayers do not want to spend another $48.5 million to have an amazing new symphony hall. The vast majority would be happy to have an improved hall – without going fully in the direction of buying a new top-of-the-line Rolls Royce.

I have seen a few concerts at Boettcher. It’s fine. I felt like I was going back in time to the early 70s, but what’s wrong with that? The acoustics are not quite up to the standards of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, but I could hear alright, even in our cheap seats.

Solution? Go for a more modest plan – spending maybe $4 million. Fix up the old hall without giving her a complete revamp. She’ll serve us fine. And I would propose that solution will work for any number of other plans civic officials come up with, worldwide. Using the car analogy – if you have a 2001 Toyota Corolla (which we do) and it’s showing its age, you might consider getting a 2008 Honda Accord, rather than a 2010 BMW 550i. (Thankfully, our Corolla is not showing its age – so we will be able to keep it for a while longer!)

Philo Farnsworth was the inventor of the TV. I saw his house last week. The most incredible thing about the home was how average it was. It is on an ordinary corner in an ordinary suburban neighborhood in an ordinary midwestern town.

Times have changed. If he were alive today, his third home would be on Seventeen Mile Drive in Pebble Beach.

“As a boy, Farnsworth saw television in the parallel furrows of his father’s potato field. His epiphany: Images could be scanned line by line.” (That’s from a Wired story.)

Moral of the story? Next time you’re viewing a field (or a forest, or a cityscape), look more closely. Your next great idea might be there.

I grabbed the photo from a video by Becky.

What kid in 1965 would be caught dead bringing this lunchbox to school? Maybe it was used by a pilot’s son who had no social awareness.

The wear and tear leads me to believe that whoever used it did so more than once. Maybe a pilot used it! But then, what pilot would be caught dead bringing a kids’ lunchbox to work in the morning?

Update: See the comments for some really valid points about this.

Again, from the Fort Wayne Air Museum.

“I think we both were wrong. And we both were right.”

Check out my post today over at 300 Words a Day.

(Earlier this week, I had the joy of spending some “in real life” time with Jon Swanson, that site’s creator and main writer. That real life joy also included Deb Brown, Glenda Watson Hyatt, Becky McCray and Nancy Swanson. We were all part of an unconference – a  very valuable time of refocusing).