Please pull up to the second window

Heard a rumor out there that I was thought to be dead. Not true. You all know the Mark Twain line.

Speaking of dead, (how's that for a segue?) Karen Jones of Virginia Beach found a tombstone in her backyard a few weeks ago. I wrote about the mystery of where it came from in Saturday's paper.

Still, she got out a scrub brush and warm water and gently rubbed the dirt away. She exposed a beveled edge, and then another side, where it appears the stone had broken off from some other piece. Then she cleared off the words “In Loving Memory.” Then a name. “Susan M. Styron.” The dirt washed away to reveal more. “Died March 26, 1870. Aged: 63.”

I got a lot of phone calls and e-mails about this. Many readers say that as recently as 1985 (and maybe even later)  that tombstone was on North Landing Road. You can see where it may have fit on this page. No one knows how it ended up at Jones' house. I think that might be the most interesting story of all.

Two other quick columns to touch on briefly:

-  In today's paper I wrote about the use of purple, not gold, exterior sheathing. This sounds pretty mundane but it's one of those subtle changes that makes people notice new construction a little bit more.

Now, with a slow economy, contractors are desperate for work, and the yellow disappears more quickly. That’s good, because Norfolk is not a yellow kind of town. Norfolk is a town of battleship gray, where the ideal aesthetic is to fit in, to camouflage. That’s why Fort Norfolk Plaza is so startling. Still months from completion, the exterior looks like it was drenched in grape-flavored Kool-Aid or hyperactively waving to passersby, popping up over the horizon shouting, “HEY! Look at me! I’m the city’s first new medical tower since the early 1960s, and I’m PURPLE!” From the Elizabeth River, the site looks to be signal ing lost navy vessels. One if by land. Two if by Grimace.

- Last week, I wrote about the ever-expanding length of receipts. Lots of bloggers have also tackled the issue, as has the WSJ. This post, in particular, has an interesting way of breaking down the numbers and guessing that a place like Harris Teeter could save $2 million by getting rid of receipts altogether. (IMO, the savings are much less.)

Receipts are no longer fit for a wallet – they’re more suited for mummifying a pharaoh for the afterlife. It’s frustrating enough to make you give up on the not-so-little slips of thermal paper. But that would mean forfeiting some basic customer rights, like making returns or making sure the prices charged were accurate.

In other cash register news, the express line often isn't faster.

Bloggage:

This is just as horrible as it sounds but hrconnect allows you to listen to people in Hampton Roads order fast food. It's intriguing, but not interesting. Also, pretty boring.

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Super duper

I like the idea of a consequential stranger, as described in an NPR piece recently. I've probably been to the post office around 50 times this year and the idea of a consequential stranger helps explain why I wrote about Clyde Longest on Monday. (Those of you with incredible memories may recall that Lon Wagner wrote an excellent piece on Clyde in 1998.)

Here's an excerpt from Monday's column:

The Postal Service has not delivered. Since 2006, it has been slowly eliminating vending machines and drop boxes as the cost for repairs has soared. It has limited the automatic terminals, the very robots people crave, and instead has left customers with face-to-face service. That’s where Clyde Longest came in. Clyde was a talker. Post office workers ask the same questions every day. (Liquid? Fragile? Hazardous?) And Clyde’s way of making these mundane questions interesting was to add a folksy panache, as if your great-uncle were telling a joke.

Since the column ran, I've received a number of calls and e-mails about how Clyde's feeling. When I asked last week, he said "Super duper."

Saturday, I wandered the grounds for the ODU football game and ended up watching from the top of a parking garage. As much as people were excited about the game, football may have been secondary. The energy was for the crowd, for tailgating, for cornhole, for big grills and for ODU garb of every make and model. What I found most impressive about the whole day is from a fan perspective, it seems ODU plucked some of the best practices from other programs and incorporated them into their game day experience. (Monarch March, the scoreboard videos, the tents throughout campus)  I'm sure as the season goes on, difficulties will pop up, but the organization last week was incredible.

A little bloggage:

I've read two excellent back to school speeches in the last week or so and it got me thinking what I would want to tell myself 15 or 20 years ago. And I think the answer is nothing. I don't think I'd listen. I don't think I'd care. It's not that I was so disaffected as a kid, it's just that you're so bombarded with advice you don't really take it seriously.

That doesn't mean it's a fruitless exercise. It's a good way to recharge for the school year.

For the Obama crowd, I particularly liked this passage in today's speech:

Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you're not going to be any of those things.

For those of you who don't like the president speaking to school children, here's another public official offering inspiration at the beginning of the school year. This is an excerpt from the speech by the former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, who spoke at William & Mary last month as part of the opening convocation.

This place is important because the rest of the Real World is often too busy, too noisy, and too dangerous. It's very hard to find time there to pause and reflect. It's hard to find the space to question first principles, to find out how things got to be the way they are, to actually take something apart to learn how it works. There is simply too little time to shape - or re-shape - yourself.

They aren't looking to learn anything. It's a place where many people take a position rather than stating a belief. It is a place where people take sides, and care mostly about their side winning. It is also a place where people almost never step back to figure out if they are still on the right side.

Good advice. Not that anyone's listening.

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Dropping the ball

I dropped a foul ball at the Tides game last night.

Ordinarily this would be devestating. The ball shot back behind me, ricocheted off another section, then hit my outstretched fingers harder than I expected. Then, I literally and figuratively, dropped the ball. This kind of opportunity does not happen every game. It's the closest I've come to a live ball  in a long time.

But I'm OK with this. Here's why:

1) I already have a MLB home run ball so I feel like I've used up all my good karma for life

2) I already have two International League baseballs players have tossed to me at games. That's a pretty good track record.

3) Even if I had caught the ball, I likely would have had to give it to one of the nearby kids. In the bigs, it's OK to keep a baseball. In the minor leagues, you look like a jerk if you keep one.

4) I have already been booed at Harbor Park when I performed horribly during a Harris Teeter throw-the-ball-in-the-hole-game.

Still, if you feel the need to scream "butterfingers" next time you see me, I'd understand.

Last weekend, we were supposed to be deluged by Tropical Storm Danny. Didn't happen. Instead, I got a little sun and after initially worrying about a hurricane, I realized the storm wasn't going to ruin my weekend plans. But in this morning's paper I did wonder if we can't come up with a better system for naming hurricanes.

The problem, in part – and I may be exaggerating this point – was the storm’s name: Danny. Danny is a horrible name for a hurricane. The only thing more emasculating is when it’s referred to as Tropical Storm Danny. “Watch out for Danny. He might tinkle on you,” people would say, then open up their parasols for protection. Looking through this year’s batch of names for Atlantic-based storms, few stand out as particularly menacing: Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Grace, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Victor, Wanda. It sounds like a “Real World” reunion, not a series of natural disasters.

One item of bloggage:

This is the most riveting Wikipedia entry I've ever read: Dan Cooper.

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Dividers, not uniters

One of the new additions to Town Point Park that hasn't been talked about enough is a change to the benches. They now have armrests. I wrote about them in Monday's paper.

For dudes, the dividers are no problem. Dudes like distance. When it's all dudes out on a group man-date, dudes like the extra seat at the movie theater for the same reason they like the armrest. Because dudes don't sit close to other dudes. Dudes put their feet up and take up as much room as possible with sharp elbows and stanky feet. Dudes like space. When there are no armrests, dudes say things like, "Why you sitting so close to me?" 

In Saturday's paper, I wrote about the high number of false alarms from home security systems. The city says more than 95 percent of the calls it receives are false alarms. (One security company I talked to this morning thought that number was actually closer to 10 percent. The reason for the difference? The third-party vendor could make more money with more false alarms.)

The city added the equivalent of a defensive-driving class for the people who still couldn't figure it out: an online false alarm school. - Does your alarm system need to know if you have call waiting? (Yes!) - Can balloons be mistaken for intruders? (Yes!) - Is it OK to lock employees inside the building and turn on the alarm? (No? Really? Since when?) Already, three Suffolk residents, befuddled by their systems, have clicked through the online class so they can get their fines waived.

One other bit of news from the weekend. Did you see this story in the NYT about thead war between Apple and Microsoft? Who was mentioned in the lede of the story? Sean Siler, a Green Run grad, who we blogged about in October.

I'm going to be working on a column later this week about the length of receipts. If you know of any particularly long receipts (for just one item) shoot me an email or leave a comment here. I'm curious why all the fine print is necessary. I also want to see how long we can go.

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Good for you

I wrote about Michael Vick yesterday, not because he's an easy target (he is), but because there is a legitimate questions for sports fans about when it will be appropriate to wear the new Vick Eagles jersey. (He's set to make his debut tonight.) Here's the crux of what I wrote, FAQ-style:

I believe Michael Vick is committed to turning his life around and will be a model citizen. At the same time, I believe he will be an integral part of the Eagles offense for years to come. I want to show Michael Vick that I support him and his comeback. This means I can get a jersey, right? Let me think about it. No. Two words: too soon. You’re like the people who had the 1.20.2013 bumper stickers on their cars in November. Wait. At one point, it may become acceptable to wear his jersey. Not now. Better yet, write him a fan letter. You won’t look like such a boob.

Among the many, often angry responses:

- I'm racist. (Obviously, because I advocated for not wearing a white player's jersey and not wearing a black player's jersey)

- One woman called to say that she was buying a Vick jersey ... for her dog to wear at a costume party.

- One especially insightful email reminded me that the word "fan" is short for "fanatical." Worth noting. The people who spend $65 and upward on jerseys are doing so out of a deep-passion.

Moving on.

I am addicted to Tropical Storm Danny. Once the Weather Channel gets their "projected path" map out, I'm hitting refresh at least once an hour. I can't quite put my finger on what makes it so addictive, except that it may be the possibility of predicting the future.

A great story out of SF about one of my favorite magicians, The Amazing Randi. I had a collection of magic books as a teenagers in hopes of learning some pretty cool tricks. I learned a few, but only well enough to convince the small children I was babysat. I was never practiced enough to fool my friends.

Finally, blogging and tweeting is good for you. See? A Stanford professor says so.

The modern world of online writing, particularly in chat and on discussion threads, is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago.

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John Grisham, Virginia's Attorney General

A little over a month ago, you may remember an article in The Pilot about John Grisham, the popular legal-thriller writer who lives in Charlottesville. Grisham is writing a screenplay about the Norfolk Four. Then, a few weeks later came news that Gov. Tim Kaine had issued a conditional pardon for some of the men involved. The family of the victim issued a five-paragraph statement, which is normal in these circumstances, except in this case, much of the statement focused on John Grisham.

We do not believe it is a coincidence that Governor Kaine granted these pardons just a few weeks after the announcement that John Grisham intends to write a screenplay about this case. Stories about rapists and murderers who confess, then spend the rest of their lives in prison, do not make interesting movies.

Obviously, Mr. Grisham’s wealth and influence are far more important to Governor Kaine’s political aspirations and public image than truth or justice. Anyone who has questions about this relationship should research Mr. Grisham’s history of political contributions, where they will find that Grisham has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars, to Governor Kaine, the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic candidates.

This seemed a little bizarre and out of place to me. Instead of making the debate about the victim, they made it about Grisham and the governor. Ok. Fine.

Then I picked up this week's New Yorker. Inside, the fantastic Jeffrey Toobin wrote about the Norfolk Four in Talk of the Town. His report includes these  paragraphs about the slow-moving case:

The turning point may have come in 2008, when Leo, through a mutual friend, slipped the unpublished manuscript to John Grisham, who lives in Charlottesville. “They put together a very convincing story,” Grisham said the other day. Grisham decided to make his own appeal on behalf of the four men. “The Governor is an old ally of mine, and I know he does not discuss clemency with anyone,” he said. “Still, several months ago, we had a glass of wine. . . . Let’s put it that way. I feel sure he read the book.”

The book came out late last year, and on August 6th Governor Kaine gave the men—and the authors—a kind of vindication. Kaine awarded conditional pardons to Williams, Dick, and Tice, which meant that they could be released from prison immediately.

So what to think of all of this?

A few thoughts:

- "Ally." What a strange word. Not friend. Not acquaintance. Not frequent companion. Ally.

- For the record, Grisham has given about $135,000 to Kaine, according to VPAP. He's given another $40,000 to Kaine's PAC.

- If, as Toobin suggests, that Mark Warner and Kaine "showed little interest" in the case, why does it take John Grisham and a glass of wine to get people out of prison? I've never immersed myself in  the details of the Bosko case nor do I know what I would have done if I was in Kaine's position. (However, if an attorney with Kaine's background wasn't going to issue the pardon, what kind of governor would?)  Grisham's involvement though seems to hint at a worse prescedent, that unless your case is taken up by a donor or "celebrity," the pleas may fall on deaf ears. I know it's naive to believe business is done any other way, but it stinks to be reminded of it. Sigh.

Maybe Grisham should run for Attorney General. The jobs tasks include:

* Providing legal advice and representation in court for the Governor and the state government in general (!!) * Providing legal advice, official opinions, to members of the Virginia General Assembly and local government officials * Defending the state in cases of criminal appeals and suits against the state * Defending the constitutionality of state laws * Collecting money owed to various state institutions

Enough on that.

Saturday I wrote about how Chesapeake residents have ignored the city symbol. Here's the opening:

Hey Chesapeake, It’s me. The Blue Heron. Remember? THE Great Blue Heron? No. C’mon. We met back in 2006. At the mall. Big celebration and everything. Nothing? Doesn’t my bill look familiar? Lean in. See? OH! THAT HURTS?! I’M YOUR CITY SYMBOL! It’s starting to come back to you now? Well, sit down. Let me make things crystal clear: You need to pay attention to me!

Finally, today's the last day of the Cash for Clunkers program. I was curious about what former Norfolk Ford employees thought of the program and the data that shows the F-150 is one of the most turned-in vehicles.

The employees are still proud. They can still recite the brochure statistics off the top of their heads. The Norfolk plant was consistently ranked as one of Ford’s most productive and efficient. The truck itself was the top seller for 30 years. In short, the trucks they built are not clunkers. “They’re just gas eaters,” said Chris Kimmons, who served as the plant’s local union president. “A lot of them are in good shape. They’re not on the side of the road.” He wished the program, which is scheduled to end today, were called something a little more appropriate. Maybe “Cash for Gas Hogs.” Williams came up with the alliterative “Green for Guzzlers.”

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There's an app for that

I love the stuff that comes out of Suffolk innovation hubs. It's like they're purposely trying to recreate the toys from Bond movies. For example, ever want to play with an unmanned aerial vehicle during a war exercise? There's an app for that.

This communications system, implemented in shelterized, vehicle-mounted and manpack versions, connected the smartphones with enterprise-level application systems. The benefit of this approach is to net-enable warfighters down to the rifle squad level, providing them access to a full complement of applications on a low-cost, lightweight platform. This eliminates the information gap at the tactical edge, increasing both effectiveness and survivability.

Thank you Lockheed Martin in Suffolk.

One other piece of interesting technology news: "the smallest laser ever made" has ties to Norfolk State University. (Unlike James Bond, this sounds perfect for Austin Powers and his ill-tempered sea bass.) But beyond that, I won't lie, I've read this article twice and barely understand two sentences or the practical purposes but I'm simply enamored with the idea of the smallest laser ever made.

Finally, for those of you who have asked, no one's come forward yet with the cookbooks Wade Wommack sold. (Althouhg a few people have come forward offering to sell Wade OTHER cookbooks, which kind of defeats the purpose, but is a nice gesture nonetheless.) I wrote about his dilemma in Wednesday's paper.

Here's an excerpt:

For a homeowner, a garage sale is a confusing, fast-moving time when decisions must be made with a dangerous act-first, ask-questions-later mentality, and on the morning of Aug. 1, Wade Wommack was immersed. One woman offered $20 for that box of cookbooks, the cookbooks without the price tags, the box right on the edge by the garage, and woohoo! Look! Twenty dollars! Wommack was so disoriented, so enamored with the $20, he helped her carry the cookbooks to her car. Less than 24 hours later, he would feel the explosion in his stomach.

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Knickers and English Leather

Ok. I'm back from a few days off and made it through a long Monday. Last night and on the trip out of town I drove over over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. One of the perks of driving the CBBT? My dog got treats from the toll attendants both times. Sure, I paid $12 for those treats, but still, it's something.

Looking back to last week, I wrote Wednesday's column because I thought the similarities between Portsmouth Mayor James Holley and the characters in John Hughes movies were too true to pass up. I own the original DVD release of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Priceless. It includes a Hughes commentary. Here's a quick excerpt from the column:

But perhaps the untouchable attitude of authority, the bully behind the buffoon, is best captured in “The Breakfast Club,” when the principal, masterfully played by Paul Gleason, picks a fight with Judd Nelson’s character. “You think anyone’s gonna believe you? You think anyone is gonna take your word over mine? I’m a man of respect around here. They love me around here. I’m a swell guy.” According to Stokes, Holley used nearly identical lines. “You’re a nobody,” she says he once told her. “Who are they gonna believe, a nobody or the mayor?” While the city is offering counseling for the mayor, let me suggest an easier, more relaxing therapy: watching a few John Hughes movies.

I toyed with a Mayor Holley quiz.  Here are a few sample questions from the quiz:

1) Mayor Holley or MacCaulay Culkin in “Home Alone”

A) Regularly applies English Leather

B) Regularly applies aftershave

2) Mayor Holley or Duckie in "Pretty in Pink"

A) Wears knickers

B) Wears a bright yellow blazer

There has also been talk of a timed-event. How long would it take to find all the items on Mayor Holley's list of 44 demands. My guess. Over 15 hours.

Bloggage:

The tone of the story is: You don't know what Bob Dylan looks like? How dumb are you? Puh-leez. Do you know how many celebrities have probably walked right past you and you had NO IDEA who they were. My guess? At least one every five years. The secret is hats and (lack of) make-up.

John Quincy Adams, tweeter. He tweeted.

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The case for casting real people

I finally saw "Up" this weekend. It was cute and I enjoyed myself. Parts of the movie felt very saccharine and I fell for every one of the emotional devices Disney left in the script. But I wonder if Pixar is reaching a breaking point. This was not a movie about superheroes or rats or toys or cars or some other inanimate object that required animation to bring it to life. At its core, this was a movie about people. (Although I was a big fan of Doug the dog.) So why make it animated? What's the advantage? It's not the effects. (See Star Wars) I don't have a good answer except to believe that

1) It draws in kids

2) You can get away with more sugary sweet concepts than you could in a traditional live-action film. For example, would half as many people go to see the same movie as Up with Ed Asner in the starring role? Doubtful. Would you be allowed to have nearly the number of montages to advance the story? Critics would undoubtedly react with much harsher tones, (Up is currently the best reviewed movie of the year at Metacritic) but because it's animated, viewers put aside a little more cynicism and see the movie in a more fantastical element. It makes for good, and maybe even great, movies. It's just less convincing when the characters are human.

Moving on.

In Saturday's paper I wrote about the type of litter I've seen a lof of recently: CDs.

This is road rage at an unfathomable new depth. Someone who heard “Back That Thang Up” one too many times and said, “That’s it. Done. I can’t do this anymore. If I even see Juvenile staring back at me one more time from the front seat, I’m going to steer off this bridge.” And at the time, the only sane solution, the only way out of the circle of hate, was to roll down the window and, presto, the problem disappeared. Goodbye, slightly cracked, heavily scratched, outdated- but-not-yet-outdated-enough-to-be-hip album.

In Monday's paper I tried to answer the question as to why so many Virginians under the age of 30 have doubts that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Here's an excerpt:

Think of these results as a different kind of education issue. Certainly, geography and civics may be at play. But the findings from Wednesday’s survey are also about credibility. How does one generation verify what’s written? How does it consume media? How does it know the difference between a real birth certificate and one made up from the parody Web site “Republic of Kenya Birth Certificate Generator”? Most importantly, how can more than half of one generation be so lousy at critical thinking? How can they be so skeptical of everything that a man’s birth certificate can be manipulated as if it were a scene in “The Matrix”?

One other item of note:

- FAIL. The verb. Please use correctly.

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Water World

Three topics to get to today and all relate to water. None have to do with the rain.

1) Since I read this article a couple of days ago, I can't stop thinking about this idea

Gunn and other military specialists said that climate change could have broad effects on how the US military operates. It will likely expand the number of humanitarian missions the Pentagon will have to undertake, they said, and even change how it deploys its fighting forces.

For example, they warned that rising sea levels could swamp critical US military bases in the Indian Ocean and even the headquarters of the Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, Va., which could be under water after just a one-meter rise in the ocean level.

I can't stop thinking about it, mostly because  nearly everyone in Hampton Roads is pretty darn close to a military base, and if a one-meter rise in the ocean levels is going to put the Atlantic Fleet underwater (at least they're a little more prepared) what it would do to the rest of the area. Of course, the next question is "How likely is a one-meter rise in the ocean levels? How long until that happens?"

According to this article: In the year 2100.

Give or take a year.

Whoa.

On to lighter subjects.

2) I was surprised when I read in Wired's list of "100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About" that diving boards made the cut. Another favorite: neat handwriting. But my column Wednesday was about the rite of passage that comes each summer from jumping off diving boards. Here's a short excerpt:

It’s harder to maintain a grassroots interest in competitive diving without diving boards But there’s a loss of something theoretical as well. Without diving boards, there is no rite of passage at the pool. There is little to separate the kids who like to blow bubbles underwater and the kids who don’t mind blood blisters on their stomachs from belly flops.

I have a guess that diving will take a little longer to die out than some of the other items mentioned. Too many people called to say they had seen the same looks on children's faces as they jumped off the high dive for the first time.

3) A  hat-tip to my friend Mary who wisely suggested an article from one of my favorite magazines, The Believer. June's issue includes a review of the new collection of poems by Gary Copeland Lilley. Personally, I'm not a big reader of poetry but Lilley calls the Great Dismal Swamp his "ancestral home."  Plus, any story that starts with “Lester Yates, your blow-up doll / should have stayed in port" has won me over. Adding it to my list.

Finally, next week, how I'm more like LaSalle Blanks than I want to acknowledge.

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