Good evening, 919 Gang. I am a day late in re-starting the messages after our vacation because I returned with a cold. As I wrote earlier, we rented a house west of Yellowstone, and all nine Rebers congregated. That meant a lot to me because it is tough to get the whole group together.
Yellowstone was great, of course. Loved the scenery, but it's the animals which are the big attraction. Upon entry, each of the grandchildren was given a checklist to mark off the animals he/she saw. Giovanna, who turned 10 on this trip, took this task very seriously. On the first day she drew my attention to a tree that was across a river and at least 400 yards away. "See that black spot beside the tree?" she asked. "That's a black bear's butt." Well, I didn't argue. Later we saw black bears much closer, so it worked out.
To the 8-year-old's disappointment, we did not see a Sasquatch, but we saw almost everything else. A couple of times we pulled off the road to where people were all excited about an animal they identified as a wolf. But it wasn't. It was a coyote. Again, I didn't argue.
On our way home, we stopped in Las Vegas for four days. The kids enjoyed the pools and buffets; Grandpa and Grandma enjoyed the slots -- more some days than others.
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DAVID FARMER writes:
I mentioned a few weeks ago that Hinda
and I would be in a movie. It's called "Buried Treasure," a short
designed to screen at film festivals to demonstrate the skills of the makers.
They hope this will lead to future jobs.The subject is geocaching: hiding an object of significance to the person placing it. That person publishes the location's GPS coordinates on the internet. Geocachers who find it sign a paper saying so and leave it with the cached object. I'm just as confused about the object of this activity as I was before filming.
Our unpaid appearance was a favor to Leslie Hope, an actress friend, shown below with me, Hinda and the first AD. Leslie is the director.
We had to wake at 5 a.m. to be picked up at 6 and be transported to suburban Palmdale, one of the world's ugliest locations. The driver showed at 7 a.m., getting us to the "set" more than an hour late. Hinda and I agreed that we could have used the extra sleep.
The set was essentially bare desert, complete with Joshua Trees and a small catering area under a tent. Since we were late, we missed the pancakes, but I was able to grab a handful of M&Ms, a power bar and a bottle of water. Hinda skipped the "meal."
We then went to the "honey wagon," a production truck that contained dressing rooms, a makeup room, a couple of tiny offices, and bathrooms. We'd brought our own clothes, since this film is being made on an invisible budget. They did provide me with a baseball cap, and Hinda with a pair of canvas shoes. We got to bring them home, much like a star allowed to keep a designer dress worn on the red carpet.
We were to play an "elderly couple," which I mentioned previously is intolerable typecasting. But we did our best to look old.
I'll continue this diary tomorrow with details of our star turn as actors.
Part Two of my diary about shooting
the movie "Buried Treasure":
We actors reported to makeup, hair and
wardrobe, but the artist opted not to apply makeup to me. Either I have a
loathsome disease or I'm perfect as I am. I prefer the latter. He did put a
little on Hinda. Neither of us needed attention to our hair. Mine's short and
hers is shorter, and we both wore hats to keep off the High Desert sun. Then we walked along a sandy dirt road to the set. The scene for the day consisted solely of a kind of "altar" that resembled an Indian teepee, set in the desert with mountains in the distance. The idea was that some unknown (to us, at least) geocacher had placed a meaningful object inside. Hinda and I were instructed to approach the rickety structure and gaze at it. Then I got down on hands and knees and went inside to sign a kind of logbook to prove we'd been there. After that, we walked out of camera range, overcome with emotion.
It was interesting to get directions from Leslie Hope, the actress who was directing. (She's been in many films and TV shows, including the role of Jack Bauer's wife in the first season of the series "24".) It was like acting in an old-time silent movie. Leslie first told us what to do, then called out directions while we "acted." This was on the order of, "Now turn around and take a picture of Hinda." Since we had no dialogue, the sound didn't matter. All that was missing was a violin playing mood music, and Gloria Swanson elbowing us aside to demand a closeup.
There are other scenes in the movie, of course: interiors, different locations, but we're not in them. As I've resentfully reported, we were sadly miscast as an "elderly couple." They even made me use a cane, which I briefly considered breaking over Leslie's head. But we actors know that it's important to be able to "play older" or "play younger" than your real age. So far, no offers for me to portray someone in his 30s.
JIM
OKERBLOM writes:
I wrote and produced this video (link
below) for Cubic about Walter J. Zable, the company's founder and the world's
oldest CEO when he died June 23 at age 97. He was sometimes gruff and abrasive,
other times kind and gentle. I saw both sides in my one meeting with him,
shortly after I got hired at Cubic.I went to his office, planning to write a story about Cubic's 1960s optical vote counting system, called Votronics. It was pretty revolutionary for its time. The pages the machines would scan were the size of a full newspaper page. The system had a pen kind of thing with a spring contraption on the end that would fold back and ink a small pad, and fold down when you pushed on it to mark the ballot next to the candidate or ballot measure. The black marks were almost the size of a dime. The sheets were slowly fed through the machines, which read the black dots. The first machines had no transistors, only relays, and they worked well, though not very quickly.
I had done several interviews with old-timers who had worked on Votronics, including the wife of the late Cubic guy who invented it. I even had an old ballot with Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew as the presidential candidates. I thought I was going to have a nice stroll down memory lane interviewing the old guy, showing him how much I knew about Cubic. Hardly.
As soon as I explained what I was doing, he lit into me.
"Listen to me, I don't want you writing about that! That's in the past! We need to write about the future! You talk to Steve Sampson about the new laser system for combat ID we're building. Do you work full time or what? Nobody works full day around here anymore!"
I stammered about it being just a historical piece, and he wasn't having any of it. I thought I was going to be fired. Fortunately, I had just written a piece about the laser system, which I went and got.
He calmed down, said, "Look, I'm an old man, I've got pains everywhere, I've earned the right to act like this. I just want you to write about the future, not the past!"
I ended up liking and respecting him. He had a knee replaced in his mid 90s. In the end, he could barely walk. But he still came in almost every day. He didn't do e-mail, but I still got messages until shortly before he died that "WJZ" wanted this or that.
Here is the link to the video:
http://youtu.be/rPNQxquFo7s
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PRESTON TUREGANO writes:
Is there an "Enemies List"
at the UT? A former UT administrative employee tried to get the Features
department to do a story about their significant involvement in an upcoming
exhibit at a world famous museum in
--------------------------------------------
DAVID ELLIOTT writes:
Very nice of you to run on your blog the note from Preston Turegano, and the link to my last column at the Reader, a farewell essay.
I suggest that the term "let go," as in "We have to let you go," be expunged from the English language. I have heard it too often. It is a squishy, feckless phrase, a form of corporate camouflage with the suggestion that the boss was forced by some irresistible force, against his will, to let you leave his employ. I doubt that Aztec priests, when they heartlessly rolled a heart-less body down the side of the pyramid, said with wistful chagrin, "So sad. We had to let him go."
But I had a fun gig with the column, perhaps my last after five papers. Sic transit gloria criticum. On to new horizons....
(I told Holman at the Reader that no declining paper has ever saved itself by turning to its web platform. He seemed sheepishly puzzled).
In answer to your question, I believe I have written around 7,000 reviews in my career, perhaps 5,000 at the Union-Tribune. Plus many essays, interviews, listings, etc. But, much more than Keats, a critic's name is writ in water.
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ANNE MACLACHLAN writes:
Mr. Reber, in response to your
observation that "I have mentioned before the U-T questionnaires I am
asked to fill out at least weekly. Yesterday's was very interesting. All the
subjects were house ads the U-T had run in the printed paper saluting staff
writers. I was asked if I knew these people": I very much fear that the
general public is being asked to determine the future U-T staff roster. Not a
"star"? Goodbye.Thanks for these updates. It's a pleasure to read them.
SHARON REEVES writes:
Re: U-T TV: Did anyone else notice
that the two guys have actual laptops in front of them while the girl has a
little pink something? Does the color change according to what she wears???
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BOB ELLEDGE forwards:
JournalismJobs.com -- Job Listing SD
Biz Journalhttp://tinyurl.com/7594c5k
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OTTO KREISHER writes:
In support of the link Tim Wilson
provided on motor oils being basically the same. My dad was a truck driver and
while in junior high, I would accompany him of some of his trips. One I
remember, we went to a factory that was producing Quaker State motor oil - then
and now higher priced. Dad pointed out that it also put into cans with lower-priced
labels, oil that came from the same machines.And re the question of the derivation of "high ball" for a salute, I doubt many Army Air Corps, or Air Force, folks were familiar with hobo slang. We never used that term in the Navy. To a naval aviator, "high ball" means you are above glide slope coming in for a carrier landing.
------------------------------------------
JERRY RIFE writes:
We can all use a little
self-reflection from time to time. These reflections were captured in Paris at
the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the French army. They are not
Photoshopped images but the reflection of my face on the glass cases which hold
the exhibits. The museum also houses Napolean's tomb which looks a lot like
Grant's tomb in NYC except Old Boney's features glittering gold leaf and four
lush little churubs that would have made Ole Ulysses blush.
SHARON REEVES writes:
The entire library staff was among the
casualties at
REBER: Sharon refers to the Times-Picayune and
other printed papers being cut back to publication on only three days. Here's
another take on that move:
http://tinyurl.com/7b34jhy
CAITLIN ROTHER writes:
Just a little note about the release
of my book about the John Gardner-Chelsea King-Amber Dubois case. LOST GIRLS,
my eighth book and one of my most challenging projects to date (mostly due to
the extreme sensitivity surrounding this case, but also it was difficult
writing about a case that didn't go to trial because none of the documents were
available through the court system as they normally would be post-sentencing)
is finally about to be released. The official sale date is July 3, although the
news stories are starting the week beforehand, and will have hit the airwaves
before Jack gets back from vacation to post this. I want to invite everyone who
is interested to come out for one of several talks/signings I have scheduled in
San Diego or if you live in the OC, I have one up there as well. Here are the
dates:The launch is Thursday, July 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the Mira Mesa B&N, then I'll have one on Saturday, July 7 at 3 p.m. at the Encinitas library, then on Wednesday, July 11 at 6:30 p.m. at the Oceanside B&N. I am also doing a talk/signing at Book Carnival in Orange, in Orange County, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 14.
Hope to see some of you!
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GENE CIECHANOWSKI writes:
Thanks to all who responded to my
email about the vinyl records. A nonprofit will be getting them.
----------------------------------------
BOB
ELLEDGE writes:
Another banned word? Successfully, as
a breathless 10 News reporter gushed: "Nick Wallenda successfully crossed
Niagara Falls on a wire..."
WELTON
JONES writes:
Comma patrol to the rescue!
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DAVID
FARMER writes:
I encountered something rare on the
streets of Los Feliz recently. It was an International Harvester pickup truck,
made from 1907 to 1975. This is a 1968 model:
IH primarily turned out tractors and (surprise) harvesters. But it filled a niche for light trucks and even refrigerators and similar durable goods. It also manufactured M1 Garand military rifles for the U.S. Army. Now called Navistar, the company builds heavy trucks and buses.
IH managed to hang on in the light vehicle department with the Scout SUV, 1961-80. This is a Scout:
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REBER: We have a bunch of Internet links to share
tonight. This first one is my favorite. I don't know where or when it was taken.
RICK SMITH forwards:
Let's go for a boat ride.http://tinyurl.com/6psbncn
DIANA MORTENSON forwards:
The owl and the cathttp://www.wimp.com/catowl/
TIM
WILSON forwards:
Proof
it’s never to late to realize your dreams:http://tinyurl.com/7apgnm7
TIM
WILSON forwards:
A
brief history of Irish Slavery:http://tinyurl.com/cg4h5g8
DENNIS
FOLEY forwards:
A sure conversation starter:http://bit.ly/NeBQfi
DAVID
COHEN forwards:
This is for all the ancients who
remember what a typewriter was!! Enjoy.http://tinyurl.com/89slorp
RICK
SMITH forwards:
USS Arizona burials.http://tinyurl.com/7rve79v
GENE
CIECHANOWSKI forwards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=C6f_FvZpm3g
TIM
WILSON forwards:
How’s
this for a smart car:Volkswagen's The People's Car Project: Hover Car PART 1
GENE
CIECHANOWSKI forwards:
Humpback Whale Gives
Show After Being Saved P.O. Box 2239
Ramona, CA 92065
U.S.A.
