Cool Setting Full Moon

 This pic of the full moon over the Colorado Front Range was shot at 6:45 a.m. on September 18th. 

Nice start to the day!

"Sailors Take Warning"...

 This morning I was delighted to catch sight of a rare morning rainbow here in Castle Rock.

There was an early morning thunderstorm rumbling through nearby Larkspur to the south, but the sun was just above the eastern horizon, shining through cloud layers.

Very cool....

A Little Bit Of 'Tuesday Morning' at Home

 This past month, my wife and I learned that the Tuesday Morning company had gone into bankruptcy and was set to close all of its Colorado stores.

She was a bit sad about this news, as TM is one of her favorite places to shop.

I would often accompany her to the store, and usually enjoyed my visits, as I would always find something unique or unusual there. I especially liked looking through their toy aisles. There was always some sort of game, wood toy, action figure, or other item that one would never find at Walmart or Target.

So, when we got word of the pending closure of our local Tuesday Morning store, we naturally ran down to see what kind of clearance sale was going on.

While I was there I noticed some signs saying that all store fixtures were for sale.

These turned out to be 2x4x6-high heavy duty metal shelf units, each with a 4x4 sheet of pegboard attached to the back.

$40 a pop!!

Wow! Even though these ones are used, you cannot touch a similar sized shelf unit at a big box store for less than $150 apiece.

I ended up buying three of them.

Since I don't own a truck, I had to make another trip to the store with my tool bag and a two-wheeled dolly to break the units down and fit them into the back of my SUV. 

A small price to pay.

A couple of days later, I went back to the store and found that more of the shelves had been emptied of merchandise, and the price was now reduced to $25 each.

I bought another one...

While I was there I found boxes of pegboard  hooks, 25 for $10. They also had a stack if spare 2 x 4 particle board shelves and support brackets - 2 for $5 ! I bought eight of those. 

One can never have enough shelves...

So now, after a couple days of building shelves and re-arranging furniture in the basement, I have a very spacious and adequate storage system for food and bulk supplies, as well as a large amount of space for the grandkids' toy and game collection.

All for a grand total of $165 and a little bit of elbow grease!

Cheers!

What's Up With The Goofy Drug Names??

 Whenever one turns on the TV, one can't help but to see several of those drug commercials targeted at curing this or that health condition.

The commercials depict someone, usually a boomer, happily enjoying a hobby or engaging in a pleasant outdoor activity, whilst the ad narrator describes a long list of possible side effects (including death) that the drug could potentially cause.

What has struck me lately with these ads is their use of incredibly corny product names accompanied by equally corny 'logo' representations.

Being the nerd that I am, I began closely studying and analyzing this phenomenon.

I've noticed that the product names typically are three syllables consisting of four consonants and three vowels.  The words are consistently heavy with the letters 'Q', 'Z', 'X', and sometimes 'Y'.

The accompanying logos usually consist of some random geometric shape or color splash which no one would ever remember.

Then, I thought, who is responsible for coming up with this drivel?

Are there teams of corporate marketing people that actually get paid big bucks to sit around a big conference table and concoct the silliest words they can think of to describe their particular product?

Then it struck me....

Right out of the blue!

SCRABBLE !!

Of course, that's got to be it !

Here's my envisioned scenario:

The setting is a corporate marketing 'think-tank' meeting in which the coordinator (boss) announces to the team,

"OK, people, we have a new drug product to think up a name for."

He or she then pulls out a Scrabble board game.

With this version of Scrabble, no game board is required.  The only needed pieces are the letter tiles and the wooden racks.  The tiles are already sorted into baggies - one containing all of the set's consonants, and the other, the vowels.  Obviously, the team has been through this process before. 

The blank tile pieces are not used here, 'cuz that would be cheating.

Each team member is given a letter rack, after which the tiles in the two piles are turned face down and thoroughly mixed up.

Each participant is instructed to select four tiles from the consonant pile, and three from the vowel pile.

The resulting group of seven letters is what each individual has to work with.

It might be noted that anyone lucky enough to land one or more letters from the QXYZ subset is the most likely to be in the money. 

Now, it's just a matter of coming up with the best word they can from their individual rack of random letters.

The coordinator (boss) can then decide which of the names is 'the one',

Easy-Peasy.

So, this is one of the few things that any of us can try at home.  This morning I pulled out my Scrabble game set and recreated this scenario.  

Here are the two piles of tiles - consonants on the left, vowels to the right:

Here are the four racks of letters I then picked out from the piles:

Hmmm....the middle two appear to have the greatest potential as they include some of the 'golden' letters.

After spending several minutes on each rack sorting and arranging some 'words', these are the best that I feel I came up with:

All of them would qualify for use as a corny medicine name, but I think HOLARIQ is clearly the winner!

Now, what about the logo?

I'm not going to take the time to design one for HOLARIQ, even though I do have some graphic arts background. Instead, I will merely envision a few ways that they might accomplish this:

1.  A real graphic artist might be employed to come up with just the right squiggly lines and colors.  This shouldn't take but a few moments of his or her time.

2.  The task is given over to a computer which is equipped with a random font/color/squiggle generator. Just a couple simple keystrokes and it's done.

3.  One of the team members is assigned to climb the nearest local bell tower and hand off a drawing pad and some colored pencils to the hunchback that lives there.

Now that we have a product name and logo in hand, my burning question is the one that is encouraged on the advertisements:

"Ask your doctor if HOLARIQ is right for you."

Will any doctor know what HOLARIQ is or what it's supposed to treat?

Probably not, at least without consulting a cross-reference database of corny drug names.

So, there you have it - my theory on how these silly-sounding drug monikers are originated.

If there are any drug company marketing types out there reading this, you are quite welcome to use my concoction - HOLARIQ - for your next product name.

Be sure to let Quasi-Moto know you're on the way.

I would even accept royalties!

Cheers....

The Day I Got To Hold An Emmy!

 Back between 1979 and 1989, I worked for Ampex Corporation at the company's large Colorado Springs manufacturing facility.

Ampex was a well-known producer of professional studio audio and video recording equipment used worldwide by television studios and production companies.

In 1983, Ampex marketed a device called ADO (Ampex Digital Optics).  Essentially it was a computer-driven unit that allowed studio operators to produce astounding video special effects in real time.

The company won an Emmy Award that year for the product.

Shortly after the Emmy Awards ceremony, the company brought the statue to the Colorado Springs plant.

I happened to be a member of the technician team that built and performed final systems testing and alignment on all of the ADO machines that went out the factory door.

Everyone on the team got to hold and heft the trophy, after which a group photo was taken, along with it and an ADO unit.

I just recently found the photo in an old box, so I scanned it for this post. I appear in the back row, far  right.

It was pretty cool for a reg'lar joe like me having the opportunity to actually heft a prestigious awards trophy that few people outside of the Hollywood scene ever even get to see!

I recall being surprised at how heavy the statue is...

Cheers!

Flipping The Denver Symphony Orchestra !

 Back in the late 1970s my good friend Mark T. and I were roommates sharing a small apartment in Colorado Springs.

With both of us being heavily into music, our stereo and record turntable were in constant use. 

Mark owned an LP recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony which we played to death.

The odd thing about this particular recording was that the entire work was crammed onto a two-sided LP.

This meant that the 3rd Movement of the symphony was split in half between side one and side two.  We played that record so many times that we were quite familiar with the note that ended side one, and at which the record had to be flipped to continue on with the movement on side two.

In 1977, we learned that the Denver Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to perform the 9th at the newly constructed Boeschert Hall in downtown Denver.

Mark wanted to take his Mom to the concert. I don't  recall if it was a birthday or Mother's Day gift for her.  Anyhow, we bought three tickets.

On the evening of the concert we arrived at the venue only to discover that the seats we had been assigned were in a section occupied by the large choir necessary for the performance. 

The Hall management recognized the oversight, and promptly assigned us new seats, but we had to be seperated since there were not three adjacent spaces available.

Mark and his mom were placed in awesome seats just behind and slightly left of the conductor!  

My seat was on the first row of a low balcony overlooking the orchestra's violin section.

I could literally lean forward and read the score on the music stand of the nearest violinist!

Mark and I had visual contact with one another.....

The concert progressed, to our immense enjoyment. Finally, the largo 3rd movement arrived.

When it reached the section that marked the familiar record-flipping time, I happened to glance over at Mark.

He looked up at me with a huge grin on his face and, right on cue, made the motion of picking up an LP record by its edges and flipping it over!

I had to maintain my dignity and suppress a chuckle.

The rest of the concert blew us away, especially the epic awesomeness of of the choral finale. The Denver Symohony absolutely killed it, despite being 'flipped over' in the middle of the performance!

I would wager that this was the first time in history that a couple of audience members found humor in the absolute softest passage of the Third Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symohony!

Cheers!

A Ghost in The House!

 Back in the mid 1990s, my family and I lived in a home on the southeast side of Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Our oldest daughter had gone off to college in New York State, and our two other daughters were still living at home.

We had recently finished the basement of our home and had an additional bedroom and bath there. Before moving out, our daughter had moved into this space.

Just prior to leaving for New York, one of her friends gave her an old army ammunition box which she stored on the top shelf of the bedroom closet.

After leaving for college, our youngest daughter took up residence in that basement bedroom.

It was then that she started noticing a lot of weird things beginning to happen in the basement:

Large man-sized handprints appearing on the walls.

A dome lid on a small plastic trash can in the bedroom turning around on its own.

The radio in the basement mysteriously tuned to the local country music station every single morning when it was first turned on.  At that time, none of the girls were into country music, favoring the pop stations of the day.

The real capper was when my daughter was seated on the leather sectional in the basement rec room watching a movie when she saw some handprints being pressed into the leather, REAL TIME, on an adjacent section of the couch!

This one kind of freaked her out a bit, and she finally told me about all of these incidents.  She wasn't overly frightened by these things, however, and remained using the bedroom.  

The girls even assigned a name to the ghost - Guerther! His antics were largely benign, and apparently he was a fan of country music.

For my part, I was quite skeptical about Guerther and all the goings-on in my basement. I was largely amused by all the stories of a ghost in our home. Besides, I spent a great deal of time in the basement and had never once heard or encountered anything out of the ordinary.

That all changed, however....

I got a call from a very old friend, Mark,  who happened to be passing through Colorado Springs. He and I had played a lot of music together, and he was my room-mate in the mid 70s. 

My wife and I extended an invitation for him to spend a night at our home.

That evening , Mark and I retired to the basement rec room where my stereo system resided.  He had brought a jazz CD that he wanted me to hear, so we settled down to give a good listen to the music.

Within minutes of taking in the first track of the album, we were greeted with a series of very loud stomps directly above our heads.

Perceiving that it was my wife signaling for me to turn the music down, I ran upstairs only to find everything dark. 

None of the girls were home, having gone out with friends.

M'lady was in bed and sound asleep!

 I woke her up and asked if she had been stamping on the floor.

She said no, and that she couldn't even hear the music!

Perplexed, I went back to the basement and resumed listening to the CD.

It happened a second time - half a dozen loud stomps right above our heads!!

Again, I hastened upstairs to find the same thing as before.  I didn't bother waking the missus up a second time.

Back in the basement, I explained to Mark all about Guerther, the ghost, and that he might be responsible for these loud interruptions. Mark was a little bit unnerved by the whole thing. 

We decided it was futile to further attempt listening to music.  Obviously, Guerther was not a fan of Avant Garde jazz!

The next day I gave my daughter, the owner of the box, a call and explained what had happened. We both acknowledged that if Guerther was ever to make his presence known to Mom, she would definitely freak!

So, it was agreed that our ghostly friend and his ammunition box had to go.

Later that day, I packed the box in the car and drove off to find a place to dispose of it.

I settled on a large trash dumpster at a nearby apartment complex.

That was the end of Guerther and his antics in our home. I was once again able to listen undisturbed to my anything-but-country music.

My basement-dwelling daughter reported an immediate cessation of unexplained events in the rec room.

One note of interest: 

When I had dropped the box in the trash, I had noted that the dumpster was completely empty. The box occupied the space all by itself.

To this day, I wonder if the next apartment resident who came along to dump his/her trash, might have looked in and noticed the unusual old item.

"Wow! What a cool box!! Why would anyone want to throw that away?"

Followed by a little dumpster diving....