Well, I found a better FalconCam. Campbell Ewald is an ad agency in Warren with a building that stands out in its field, so to speak, rising several stories over the usual inner-ring suburban low-rise sprawl. They’ve had peregrines visiting for a while now, but this year they finally got a nesting pair, and they have the HD video installation such a bird requires. The greatest-hits video blog is here, and the link to the livestream is here. The eggs hatched only this week, with one to go.
It’s really quite arresting, watching the parents come back to the nest with a dead bird in hand to do the regular feedings. I think they’re doing an eat-and-regurgitate thing for now, which makes sense.
As Campbell Ewald is an ad agency, the people running this are a little too cute for my taste. After only a day of occasional checks, I’m growing tired of the memes and anthropomorphizing, but oh well, it’s their camera. They can brand-build with it all they want, I guess.
Of course, now the 20th-century technology of Fort Wayne’s FalconCam looks pretty dim, but the chicks are older, and moving around the nest more, so there’s that.
And there’s bloggage:
A friend is doing some canning, and recalled the single best canning headline ever. Photo is just the lagniappe.
I recall the Freep slobbered all over this place when it debuted, so it’s only fitting they cover the inevitable failure. Yes, it’s another Mike Binder project, which I am shocked, shocked to see didn’t fly. Isn’t Los Angeles just DYING to eat shitty coney dogs? Binder obviously has passed the point of success — let’s call it the Binder Point — where forever after, no matter how many times you screw up, you can no longer fail. Lagniappe: At the time I’m posting this, the local “iconic” potato-chip brand name is misspelled in the story. Because it’s so iconic.
This happened to the son of a woman I worked on a project with a few years back. I get the feeling it happens every year, somewhere. Because BROTHERS.
Hump day is behind us, so let’s float down the other side.
Brandon said on May 16, 2013 at 2:25 am
Detroit-mania can go only so far, I guess. However, Barney Greengrass is doing well in L.A.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/barney-greengrass-restaurant-beverly-hills
==
How is Faygo soda?
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Deborah said on May 16, 2013 at 6:02 am
I had to look up lagniappe, new word! There’s a cathedral in Old Town that usually has a pair of Peregrine Falcons nesting in the belfry, but I haven’t seen them this year. I walk past there often and have seen many gross bird head remains on the ground.
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David C. said on May 16, 2013 at 6:12 am
Faygo isn’t soda, it’s pop… …and it’s OK. It’s not going to set a connoisseur’s heart aflutter, but it’s serviceable.
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coozledad said on May 16, 2013 at 6:45 am
Eric Holder spent a good deal of yesterday’s hearings mopping the floor with stupid Republican ass, but this one is for the ages. The Republican capacity for shame is not only encumbered by the lack of higher brain function, but also by shitty asparagus:
http://www.businessinsider.com/louie-gohmert-asparagus-eric-holder-comment-aspersions-2013-5
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 16, 2013 at 7:05 am
I’m probably no more in agreement with Holder’s political views that I am with Coozledad’s, but I’ve come to like his style. He maintains an even strain in hearings better than almost anyone I’ve ever seen, and it’s a minor miracle that he’s been willing to be in that thankless job this long. Hat tip, Gen’l!
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alex said on May 16, 2013 at 7:29 am
Gohmert’s rabble-rousing theatrics are purely for the benefit of his low-rent constituency, methinks. He has enough brain function to make political calculations, obviously, and being seen barking at an uppity black this one time will probably keep his sorry ass in office in perpetuity.
Well, my day started off with a phone call from a schizophrenic who’s off her meds. Hadn’t heard from her in about a year, and she’s talking even crazier than a Texas Republican. She tells me the government has been drugging her for the last fifteen years (Social Security Disability paying for Geodon, etc.) and she has finally liberated herself and sees the truth. I don’t know where she’s living or how to get ahold of anyone who can go help her.
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nancy said on May 16, 2013 at 7:45 am
Jeez, Alex, and here I thought we’d had a nice chat.
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beb said on May 16, 2013 at 7:52 am
Call the NRA since they seem to be very concerned about the mentally ill these days.
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Mark P said on May 16, 2013 at 8:53 am
The greater LA area has a population of around 10 million. If you can’t make a go of a restaurant with that many potential customers, you’re doing something very wrong.
And the cop was wrong about the frat brothers caring enough about their nearly-dead-drunk fellow to dump him in front of the ER with a note. They weren’t concerned about him, they were concerned about themselves. If that guy stays in that fraternity, he’s an idiot.
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Randy said on May 16, 2013 at 9:11 am
Peregrines in Winnipeg…
http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/falcon/
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BigHank53 said on May 16, 2013 at 9:22 am
The UMass library has a falcon cam, without much cute:
http://library.umass.edu/falcons
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Mark P said on May 16, 2013 at 9:30 am
No falcon cam, but Berry College in Rome, Ga, where I live, has a bald eagle cam:
http://www.berry.edu/eaglecam/
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brian stouder said on May 16, 2013 at 9:37 am
If that guy stays in that fraternity, he’s an idiot. It is tempting to say that THAT was already established(!) in the preceding paragraphs; but on second thought, I like the ring of forgiveness (of youthful ignorance) implicit in Mark’s remarks.
This past weekend, our fine young son went out the door, and 5 minutes later the phone rang, and I heard Pam ask (in that heightened vocal tone that makes me reflexively inhale-and-hold my breath) “Where?” and then “Are you OK?”.
Short version: he had his first car accident/nobody hurt/car totaled (I loved that car!). Pam checked his cell phone and found no texts in that time frame, so that was good. And indeed – given that Grant and the other driver were uninjured – how valuable must it be for him to have really seen and felt (and experienced) how quickly events that we think we’re controlling can go entirely beyond our control?
And maybe that frat boy learned something, too.
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Mark P said on May 16, 2013 at 9:48 am
Brian, I appreciate the credit you give me. College-age kids are not adults and, for the most part, their ethical selves are maturing as well. Maybe the other frat members will look back on what happened with a mixture of relief and shame, and maybe a little shame in the past is not such a bad thing.
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brian stouder said on May 16, 2013 at 9:52 am
Agreed!
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Judybusy said on May 16, 2013 at 9:57 am
I was not here yesterday, as I spent a wonderful day with my mom. She came to Minneapolis for my partner’s pinning ceremony–which many nursing programs do when you graduate. Formal graduation is next week! How is this remotely related? Birds. We took our dogs to the dog park and saw an American Redstart. It was so beautiful, and only about 30 feet away, flitting about on logs. We also saw an oriole.
If anyone visits Minneapolis, I’d like to recommend visiting the Lakewood Cemetary. It’s where all the mighty were/are buried, and it has one of the finest examples of Byzantine-inspired mosaic work in the country in its chapel. My mom wanted to visit, and it was all stunning. We stopped by a crew working on a floral display and I talked to the guy. They do all the displays based on research on what was grown during the Victorian era. Usually, I don’t like those formal bedding schemes, but these are gorgeous. It was my first visit, but I’ll be returning. I love still discovering gems in my city!
And Alex, you can have your wedding in the chapel!
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Judybusy said on May 16, 2013 at 9:58 am
Arrrrgh! I WANT THAT EDIT BUTTON. No matter how carefully I check, I sometimes screw up the HTML.
Please google American Redstart and Lakewood cemetary. I’m too embarrassed to try again.
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LAMary said on May 16, 2013 at 10:05 am
We might have 10 million people here but there is no shortage of restaurants. The neighborhood the Coney place was in is expensive turf. It’s near the Hustler store and there are loads of restaurants in that neighborhood. Also, if Tim Allen and Adam Sandler eat there, I’m not inspired to check it out.
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brian stouder said on May 16, 2013 at 10:08 am
Judybusy – your American Redstart link worked; and we’ll put a good word in for you, so that the proprietress doesn’t suspend you
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Julie Robinson said on May 16, 2013 at 10:19 am
The American Redstart link works, and I’m thinking you must have very sharp eyes to pick that one out, Judybusy. It’s something I’m not good at, and I tend to label most of the small birds as sparrows or finches. We have had a bluebird pair in our yard for the first time ever this spring. I’ve been told they’re not normally town birds. We also have a robin pair nesting on top of our front door light, with two little gaping mouths that pop up every time we open the door.
But, anyway, congratulations. I remember going to a friend’s pinning ceremony, as well as her capping at the end of her first year. Do they still have capping ceremonies? I haven’t seen a nurse in a cap in quite a while.
Brian, glad no one is hurt. Our insurance agent told us that boys are more likely to total cars, while girls mostly have fender benders, thus the rate discrepancies. Hope yours doesn’t go up too much.
Today I had planned on sticking around the house and taking care of duties for a volunteer job, but the electric company is here to replace poles and reroute wires. It’s been almost a year since we requested this, and we’d almost given up hope. We have a dead tree but no one will take it down because of the wires nearby; wires that apparently were not to code. So, I’m finding the work distracting even though they’ve mostly stood around so far. I’ll either have to close the blinds or give myself over to playing Mrs. Kravitz for the day.
And I think the thread win goes to the proprietess @6.
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Jenine said on May 16, 2013 at 10:37 am
I’d never heard of the American Redstart before, Judybusy, thanks for that. We all know that html is a harsh mistress.
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velvet goldmine said on May 16, 2013 at 10:51 am
I will have to share the pickles headline with my mother and aunt. At every holiday meal on my side of the family, we honor a great-aunt famous for calling down the table, “Anyone need a little butter up your end?” We are better at remembering to say that than we are at saying grace, regrettably.
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Judybusy said on May 16, 2013 at 10:54 am
Julie, my mom was an LPN for 47 years, and she had a capping ceremony. I think that isn’t done now, as nurses don’t wear caps. One of the extra cool things about the two days is it got my mom reminiscing about her nursing days and family history. She told me she’d wanted to be a nurse since age 4! She’d been playing doctor and nurse with a cousin.
The redstart was easy to spot, as it was moving a lot, and just a few feet off the ground. I’d never seen one before, and used my bird guide to find out what it was. That reminds me, I gotta email my mom that info.
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alex said on May 16, 2013 at 10:54 am
Judy, Lakewood is an impressive place. Of course, I’ve always dreamed of being able to have my ceremony here, but have always assumed it just wouldn’t be allowed, just because. I first came across this country chapel quite by accident while roadtripping doing Underground Railroad research in the area. It was such a spellbinding place, not just the building but its surroundings. I pulled off and took a walk on the property, including the cemetery in the woods behind it, which is considerably older than the church building. I was surprised to come across some illustrious names, including members of the Kellogg family (one of whom went on to found a health farm in Battle Creek where cereal was invented as a foodstuff) and a pioneer doctor who was one of the founders of the Fort Wayne College of Medicine, as well as Tri-State (now known as Trine) University in the mid-nineteenth century.
When I got home, I did some reading on the Powers Church and Cemetery in an old history book and it was quite a story. The Powers family had settled in this yet unpopulated area in the 1830s. The privations of pioneer life kept taking the lives of this family’s children, and the correspondence of the father to the family back east was heartwrenching. Upon the death of a son, he wrote that they searched for a burial site and decided upon a place unusual for its “singular beauty.” Almost two centuries later, I knew exactly what he must have been talking about because I found myself drawn there by exactly that which he had described.
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brian stouder said on May 16, 2013 at 11:15 am
If not Thread-Win, then Week Win!
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Julie Robinson said on May 16, 2013 at 11:40 am
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a note on the hull of the boat he was in: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/us/boston-bombing-developments.html?smid=pl-share
Judy, I don’t even try to do the html.
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brian stouder said on May 16, 2013 at 12:23 pm
More on AP (not the wire service) hot off today’s installments on Diane Ravitch’s interesting blog
http://dianeravitch.net/
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brian stouder said on May 16, 2013 at 12:25 pm
A more direct link:
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/05/16/what-is-the-value-of-ap-courses-and-tests/
(gotta love Ms Ravitch)
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candlepick said on May 16, 2013 at 1:10 pm
Here’s someone who would have loved the notion of a falcon cam: A latter-half 20th-century woman who lived an extraordinary, ordinary life. For fans of travel, and the kind of source material Carol Shields could have made fine fiction from. (Full disclosure: I helped usher this into print, so my tout is self-interested. But I promise always to be very sparing with my touts.) http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=61407
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Dexter said on May 16, 2013 at 1:29 pm
That college man was lucky. When I returned to civilian life in 1971 after an army stint, society had changed so much it was overwhelming. Not only were the high school kids wearing long hair and dressing like they had been inspired by The Haight experience and the Goose Lake Rock Festival, a new wave of drugs washed over the scene. I hadn’t even heard of MDA, then I had heard of it, then a few days later the 17 year-old brother of a high school classmate died when he became sick from an MDA-heroin combo, drank too much landing gear in the form of beer, choked on his vomit, dead. A month later an 18 year kid I knew from around town checked out the same way…choking after heroin. This is why I could identify instantly when Jim Carroll sung his song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBbuPnfG0Vo
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Judybusy said on May 16, 2013 at 2:20 pm
Alex, that church looks so peaceful. Is it far from you? Growing up, I went to a similar, small country church. When I returned many years later for my stepfather’s funeral, I was surprised to see how pretty is was, inside and out.
And candlpick, please feel free to tout away. That was superb!
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adrianne said on May 16, 2013 at 2:44 pm
Good friend of mine in the Hudson Valley is having her pinning ceremony tonight – she’s worked like crazy for the last two years in the R.N. program at SUNY Orange, graduating with a 3.7 GPA. Still on the hunt for permanent work because hospitals here are cutting back on staff, hours, etc.
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alex said on May 16, 2013 at 3:35 pm
Judy, the church is less than an hour away and remarkable for its fine state of repair and original furnishings that have never been messed with. Even the wallpaper is original, although a restorationist had to hand-paint some of the faded details onto it again. It’s a real treasure.
I found the passage that so moved me when I first went to look up the history of the place:
The Powers Family History available at the Carnegie Public
Library of Steuben County, Angola, Steuben County, Indiana,
on pages 41, 42, has this information about the Powers
Cemetery:
The death of little Morey was the first in the family
after they had reached the new homes in Indiana. It was then
the Powers Cemetery was established about one-fourth mile
north of Powers Corners. Little Morey was the first to be
buried in the Powers Cemetery. Winn wrote to his mother in
New York state on August 11, 1839:
“He died on August 2, and was buried on Clark’s land,
which he has designed for a family burying ground, twenty-
five rods south of my door.”
Stephen’s Elizabeth died the next day, August 3, and he
wrote:
“A place has been selected on brother Clark’s land for a
family burying ground. It seems to me like consecrated
ground and sometimes it seems as though I should like to be
buried there. I wish mother could see it. There is a charm
that hangs over the place that is not easily broken.”
In December of the same year, Calvin’s Lorenzo was taken
there to rest, and in October 1846, Clark’s William Edwin.
Winn wrote of the latter:
“We bore his little beautiful remains in silence without
ceremony to our little grove to sleep with its kindred and
mother dust.”
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Judybusy said on May 16, 2013 at 4:02 pm
Alex, those last lines are achingly beautiful, and so moving.
adrianne, good luck to your friend on the job hunt!
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mark said on May 16, 2013 at 4:10 pm
The Fort Wayne crowd may find this interesting/enjoyable. Others too, perhaps. The author is very bright and very interesting.
http://www.jg.net/article/20130514/FEAT/305149986/0/SEARCH
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Jolene said on May 16, 2013 at 4:12 pm
Very touching, indeed, Alex. Thanks for posting. The church looks like a lovely place.
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LAMary said on May 16, 2013 at 4:18 pm
adrianne, at least here in the LA area the new grad nursing situation has improved a bit. If your friend has a BSN the chances are better. For the first three years I worked at this hospital I hired 50 new grad RNs a year. Then we went to zero. In the last two years it’s been creeping back up. Last week we started 22 new nurses and we hope to do that many in September.
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Mark P said on May 16, 2013 at 4:20 pm
Judybusy, thanks for your link to the Cornell bird site. I had heard about it on NPR but had forgotten.
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nancy said on May 16, 2013 at 4:24 pm
Nurses must be a feast-or-famine thing. Dr. Frank told me about a quartet of nurses at his old hospital who would leave every winter to go work in Hawaii, and then come back to Indiana in the summer. They could get away with that because they were in such high demand.
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Judybusy said on May 16, 2013 at 4:30 pm
Wow, Nancy, I’m thinking those days are gone for a while.
One of the things hospitals have to take into account is the inexperience of the new nurse. So, they may have a lot of openings, but can take only so many new grads. My partner is very fortunate, as she was offered a position where she’s worked as a PCA for 8 years. But, it’s a night position, because that’s what’s available. She applied at other hospitals, but no luck. Hopefully, after a year, she can begin to apply for other positions. She’s not crazy about this unit for various reasons. On the plus side, she loves most of the other staff, and her learning curve will be less steep because she knows the unit layout, culture, etc.
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Brandon said on May 16, 2013 at 5:40 pm
Nurses must be a feast-or-famine thing. Dr. Frank told me about a quartet of nurses at his old hospital who would leave every winter to go work in Hawaii, and then come back to Indiana in the summer. They could get away with that because they were in such high demand.
Isn’t that something! We in Hawaii can use all the nurses and physicians we can get.
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MichaelG said on May 16, 2013 at 6:25 pm
Jolene, belated best wishes for a speedy recovery.
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Jolene said on May 16, 2013 at 7:44 pm
Thanks, everyone, for all the good wishes here and on yesterday’s thread. Right now, I’m impatient to find out what’s going to happen next and to get started on that path. My follow-up appointment is next Tuesday, so I’ll know more then. Will keep you posted.
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Brandon said on May 16, 2013 at 8:03 pm
To clarify, good, honest, and competent medical personnel.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 16, 2013 at 10:44 pm
Brian, glad your fine young man is well. I think a well timed minor accident can be a good thing, just as you say. At least that’s what I say not infrequently to parents who are horrified to be involved with the juvenile court with a 14 or 15 year old: “If this sort of thing happens on campus when they’re 19, this could have been much much worse, and if this becomes a learning and turning point, you’ll all celebrate this day . . . years from now!”
Alex, thanks for the pics and story. I have a similar feeling for the Farmer’s Institute, where I did some of my first preaching, far to the southwest of Lafayette, Indiana — it’s no longer operating or open, and may not be long for this world. Programmed meeting Society of Friends’ congregations in rural areas just don’t have much to keep them going.
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LAMary said on May 16, 2013 at 11:01 pm
It’s true. Hospitals can only take a few inexperienced nurses at a time and the really specialized units take even fewer. We have to have experienced nurses who have been trained to be preceptors to work with the new grads as well as perform their nursing duties too, so it’s complicated.
Brandon, I’m doint allied/ancillary hospital recruiting now, but when I did nursing only I read many resumes that showed some Hawaiian experience. Most of the time the nurse was Filipino.
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Brandon said on May 17, 2013 at 3:23 am
@LA Mary: Yes, we have a lot of Filipino nurses. I should try to find the statistics.
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LAMary said on May 17, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Every hospital has a lot of Filipino nurses. A lot of them have family in Hawaii so they spend a year or so working there either before coming to the mainland or as a break after working in some grim place. Hospitals in rural areas or in less than desirable locations pay companies to bring nurses over from the Philippines, so a nurse might spend two years in rural Texas or North Dakota and then start applying to hospitals in places like California or Florida. Or they might move to Hawaii for a while to hang with family now that they’ve completed their obligation to the company that sponsored them.
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