Monday, March 29, 2010

prodigal stun

What once was lost has now been found! Four months after I lost my digital camera, it has found its way back to me.

On the day after Thanksgiving, my kids and I purchased a new washer and dryer as a Christmas gift for my wife. They posed for pictures with the floor models of the appliances. Our plan was to give my wife the photos on Christmas day, since the machines wouldn't be delivered until the next day. That never happened because I lost the camera somewhere at the mall, probably in the parking lot.

This past week, I received the following message from a college student named Alayna. She used Facebook to look me up.
Over the Christmas holidays I found an Olympus camera in the West Town Mall parking lot. Once going through the pictures to try to find out whose it might be, I found there were many pictures of you and Alan Williams from channel 8 on it. If it is yours or you think you might know whose it is, please reply.
The photo of Alan Williams that Alayna saw was from the Signature Chefs Auction on November 8. She didn't mention the picture of Kristin Farley that was next on the memory card.



Obviously, I wrote back to Alayna and added her as a friend. Her busy schedule made it hard to arrange a meeting. However her parents lived reasonably close to the location of a remote broadcast I had on Friday afternoon. They arrived with the camera and told me the rest of the story. Surprisingly, I have "Fish Bait" to thank.

Like mine, their family went to the mall on Black Friday. Alayna saw my camera in the parking lot and picked it up. It must have wanted to be lost, because it promptly disappeared somewhere in her car. She was cleaning the vehicle recently and found the camera again. Fortunately, it still had enough battery life left for Alayna and her father to look at the photos and do some research.
As far as the detective work, I have to give the credit for actually figuring out that it was yours to him. I had looked through the pictures a few times to see if maybe I could figure it out from that. I recognized Allan Williams but with my busy schedule didn't have time to really figure out how to get in contact with him. Then last weekend, I was at home and up late working on a school project. My dad got hungry and we started talking about the camera. He started going through it again and found the picture of the film you were in, noticed you in it, Googled the film and found your picture. Then I just Facebooked you to see if it was you and as they say, the rest is history. Ha-ha! I wonder if it wasn't for the movie, if we would have ever figured it out. Glad you got it back. :)
Alayna's dad said it was these two pictures from the "Fish Bait" premiere that gave him the clues he needed. Now I have to figure out how to return the $27 in donations that I received for a replacement camera.

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Sunday, March 28, 2010

shell games

The torrential rain today meant that my wife and I had to suggest an indoor activity for our house-guests. My wife's sister and four of her kids are here on their spring break. We drove to tourist-friendly Sevier County and were slightly delayed by the last participant in the Knoxville Marathon. One of the cops who stopped traffic confirmed to me that I was watching the final runner cross Henley Street.

Three and a half years ago, my wife and I enjoyed a visit to RainForest Adventures. We thought her young nephews would want to go there too. They liked it, almost as much as I did. Because I'm a fan of tortoises, I tried looking eye-to-eye at one through the glass. Another glanced up at me from the middle of a huddle.

Another visitor bought pellets to feed some Australian pygmy goats. I saw two flightless birds out in the rain but didn't notice their egg until I got home and viewed the photos.

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Friday, March 26, 2010

bony baloney

The invitation from Susan and Mary Jo of the Bone Zones crew was enticing. They would set up some seats for me to fill with listeners who wanted to meet Jon Jefferson and Dr. Bill Bass at their book-signing event in Oak Ridge last night. I could use the opportunity to get copies of "The Bone Thief" autographed both for myself and for the Star 102.1 Radiothon to benefit East Tennessee Children's Hospital.

A long line of fans wrapped around the bookshelves at Books-A-Million. I offered to help by taking pictures of the event with Susan Seals' camera. I snapped a few of my own photos too. It was decided that Jefferson and Bass would sign books first and then take questions from the readers afterward.

A woman at the front of the line thought it would be fun if I signed the page on which I was acknowledged as a proofreader. Apparently Susan and Mary Jo had the same idea. They wanted me to sit at the table with the authors and sign page 359 for anybody else who cared to have it. I recalled that on the river cruise in December they had Dr. Al Hazari sign the page of "Death's Acre" where he was mentioned.

I felt a little awkward at first but the kind reactions of the readers put me at ease. The requests varied as some customers asked to have their books personalized and others did not. Many copies were bought as gifts. I remember writing "surprise" on one. My favorite was the one purchased nine months in advance as a Christmas gift. Jefferson and Bass wrote "merry Christmas" on the title page. I wrote "and a happy new year" on page 359.

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Thursday, March 25, 2010

anchors aweigh

"Wow, that photo is like your dreams come to life! Nice," said the message from my friend Bean, who had just seen a picture I posted to Twitter. Three morning news anchors from three different television stations had come in to be interviewed about their participation in Star 102.1's Dancing with the Knoxville Stars.

I danced in last year's version of the event and my wife made a donation to East Tennessee Children's Hospital on my behalf. Each dollar raised by the dancers counts as one vote toward their total. My wife and I will donate again this year and I thought we might divide our dollars evenly between the fundraising pages for Tearsa Smith, Abby Ham and Allison Kropff. On Monday night my wife came home from a Knoxville Choral Society rehearsal with a different idea. She would donate to Lucas Richman's account.

I should have thought of that sooner. After all, the Maestro is dancing with Emily Loyless, the new co-owner of Academy Ballroom, who was my partner last year. Also, I'm the one who invited Lucas to participate via Stephanie Burdette, the Knoxville Symphony's director of communications. On top of all that, Richman's total is lagging behind the TV women, who have been tirelessly promoting the event on their newscasts.

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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

come together

Tourism is big business in East Tennessee. Dollywood, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, recently hosted a forum for the gubernatorial candidates on the topic. I saw something in St. Louis recently that might be worth stealing for the Great Smoky Mountains region. An entrepreneur could even sell a ten-second advertisement to play before the message.

In the complex beneath the Gateway Arch, I saw a sign promoting a call-in service for sightseers like me. By dialing the toll-free number, tourists can hear more about the Arch or several other attractions in the area known as the Confluence. The only problem I had was that there was no cellular service in the underground bunker.

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Saturday, March 20, 2010

sweet seventeenth

No matter how late or how early Easter is each year, my wife's birthday always falls during Lent. As a result, we plan our Lenten sacrifices to exclude a sweet treat on her special day. This year's celebration was delayed because she's had a cold. We went out to dinner tonight and then someplace else to get dessert.

My Facebook and Twitter feeds had several posts about free Italian ice today at all Rita's Ice locations. Apparently it's a first day of spring tradition at the Philadelphia-based chain. This year, they have teamed up with another famous Pennsylvania company to create a special flavor that I had to experience for myself. I talked my wife into going to Rita's on Market Square tonight.

The store was crowded when we arrived. My wife wisely chose the sugar-free tangerine flavor while I took a cup of the new Peeps Ice. I expected it to be very sweet since the real Peeps are not just marshmallows but sugar-coated marshmallows. Unfortunately they added a vanilla flavoring that didn't work for me. It was as if I suddenly understood all the negative things people have said to me over the years about my love of Marshmallow Peeps.

The ice was sickeningly sweet. I don't believe it to be an accurate representation of a standard Peep, which I still crave. Maybe they were trying to make it more like the vanilla-crème flavored marshmallows that they sell for Valentine's Day, which I don't enjoy.

Rita's still has plenty of good flavors. Peeps Ice just isn't one of them. Next Saturday they will give away chocolate-covered Peeps at Rita's. I had one of those in January and loved it.

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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

see through

Bob Yarbrough has been anchoring WVLT's noon news solo lately. Allison Kropff got moved over to the weather desk when Jim Freeman left. They gave Freeman a cake on his last day and wished him well. They mentioned that he was not leaving the area, just the station. His departure came shortly before the surprising announcement that Michele Silva had been hired to co-anchor the early morning news.

Today Allison acknowledged that she had not worn green during the morning show but had changed into a green turtleneck for the noon newscast. She said to stay tuned because she would tell us why she hadn't started St. Patrick's Day in the green clothes. It was great fun to watch a few minutes later when she walked over to the weather wall and became a floating head!

Chef Walter did not disappoint either.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

unlucky charms

It's time to call B.S. on Gibson Greeting Cards. Last week when I was buying my wife a birthday card, I saw two cards in the St. Patrick's Day section that said "Happy Shamrock Day." That's just wrong. It would be less offensive if they discontinued all their St. Patrick's cards rather than publish ones that celebrate clover.

Back in the prehistoric days before I started this blog, I noticed some napkins with the same offending phrase on them. The idiotic marketing scheme has picked up more negative press since then, including a bit of a dust-up in Waco last year.

"Happy Shamrock Day" is as stupid as "Happy Turkey Day" on Thanksgiving. Not everyone eats turkey then. Maybe I should expect to see "Happy Hard-Boiled Egg Day" or "Happy Firecracker Day" in the near future. Would Gibson dare market a Passover card that said "Happy Flatbread Days?" I don't think so.

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Saturday, March 13, 2010

no bones about it

Jon Jefferson and Dr. Bill Bass start their publicity and book-signing tour for "The Bone Thief" in about a week. They fit me into their schedule one day last month to pre-record an interview that airs this week on the East Tennessee Report. You can download it as a podcast or listen to it by clicking on the "play" icon.

after recording the East Tennessee report on 2/24/10 The new book opens with the description of a dead news anchor. The fictional Maureen Gershwin worked at WBIR with a co-anchor named Randall Gibbons. From her physical description, I thought she might have been based on a real local anchor who planted a kiss on me at a charity function but I was wrong. She is mostly a figment of Jon Jefferson's imagination.

page 359 At the time we recorded the interview, Jefferson and Bass had not yet told WBIR's Russell Biven about the similarity between his name and that of the anchorman in the book. I saw John Becker the other day and told him that WBIR is featured in "The Bone Thief." I also didn't know until a couple of days ago that the authors had graciously mentioned my proofreading in the acknowledgments.

With the new novel about to come out, my Google alert for the Body Farm has been especially active lately. For example, one reviewer assumes, like most, that Dr. Bill Brockton is based on Dr. Bill Bass. I can tell you that Brockton is a lot more like Jefferson than Bass. Meanwhile, a local photographer posted a good picture on his blog of Dr. Bass during a slide show about the Big Bopper's exhumation.

In other decomposition news, Mesa State College has decided to not set up a temporary body farm near the intersection of 29 and D Roads. Instead they will continue searching for a more remote, permanent location. As one Colorado newspaper writer pointed out, the original Body Farm is within a mile of homes and within mere feet of the UT Medical Center parking lot.

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Friday, March 12, 2010

great future in plastics

along I-24 in Nashville The concept of plastination was more shocking when I first heard about it on "60 Minutes" or some similar newsmagazine. In the years since, I have learned a little bit about people who donate their bodies to science thanks to my conversations with Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. When I saw a billboard along I-24 promoting a display of plastinized bodies in Nashville, I knew I had to see it.

appetite suppressant? I had assumed that the exhibit was part of Gunther von Hagens' Bodyworlds although the fact that it was in a shopping mall instead of a science museum should have tipped me off. My son and I went to RiverGate Mall before I took him to the airport the other day. After lunch in the food court, we headed to a storefront next to Sears.

the ticket seller looks thrilled The show we saw was called Bodies Human, which appears to be a second class version of the original. Bodyworld solicits and accepts donated corpses. One of the employees at Bodies Human told us that the humans in their display were unclaimed corpses from morgues in Thailand. The thought of a tourist recognizing one of the cadavers as a missing friend or relative saddened me somewhat.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

when pigs fly



One of the best things about Nashville International Airport is the live music that you may encounter as you walk to your gate. I saw a sign for a "melody guy" that confused me because the singer was obviously a woman. It turns out that her name is Melody Guy.

I was at the airport to drop off my son, who is on his Spring break from college. Normally I would let him out of the car in the white zone, which is for loading and unloading only, and drive off. However this time he was traveling with some high-priced bacon. We were almost 100% sure that TSA would have no problem with the breakfast meat but we devised a back-up plan just in case. I would wait by the x-ray machines, ready to accept the pork if the officers rejected it. It all turned out fine and my son and his friends will be enjoying Benton's bacon for breakfast during his visit.

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Tuesday, March 09, 2010

sir francis bacon


An unassuming building along the side of the road has a direct link to some of the finest restaurants in the country. Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams is arguably more famous for their bacon than for their hams.


A recent issue of Metro Pulse inspired me to plan a field trip to Benton's with my bacon-loving son. They had articles about a hipster event called Baconfest founded by an ex-vegetarian. Meat-master Allan Benton was there when we arrived at the shop in Madisonville. His gracious and helpful employees showed us around and answered all the questions we had.


The raw hams and pork bellies arrive from Kansas City in big cardboard crates. The staff rubs them with salt on the curing table and allows them to age. They eventually get hung on racks and sent to the smoker.


My son and I bought some bacon to have for dinner that night and some for him to take back to school. On the way home, we picked up a head of lettuce, a tomato and some soft kaiser rolls at the supermarket. I fried some bacon and baked some, according to directions I found online. We preferred the bacon that was cooked at 400° on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. The first recipe called for nine minutes on each side but it did not need that much time, as posted elsewhere. It was the best BLT ever.

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Monday, March 08, 2010

archie's place

They say that New Yorkers don't visit the Statue of Liberty. I never have, even though I grew up in the nearby suburbs. I try not to repeat that mistake when traveling, which is why I'm surprised it has taken me this long to make it to the top of the Gateway Arch. The Arch is the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis.



On our 3,000 mile road trip in the summer of 2007, my family had the bad luck of visiting the Arch two days after a power outage caused all sorts of havoc. I got some nice pictures from the base, but did not ascend. We thought about going to the Arch in January, but it was completely engulfed in fog.



This past weekend, my wife and I made a quick trip through St. Louis after picking up our son at college. We had enough time on Saturday to go up in the Arch and to see the excellent (although dated) movie, "Monument to the Dream." I just put the DVD on my wish list.



The documentary shows how the landmark was constructed in the early '60s. It made me wish I could go back and see television news coverage from the raising of the last piece on October 28, 1965. I did find a good YouTube video with some pre-Arch history. A model outside the theater shows the last piece being raised into place.



The land below the Arch looks like a quiet, grassy park. It conceals an underground complex with two theaters, gift shops, a museum and more. The Museum of Westward Expansion featured lots of information about the Louisiana Purchase and an interesting smaller exhibit about baseball teams moving and expanding to the West. The warning not to touch the taxidermied animals amused me. Apparently not everyone knows that dead bison grow no hair.



The view out the city side of the Arch was more interesting than the view out the river side. Looking toward the north I could see the Edward Jones Dome. Looking toward the south I could see Busch Stadium. I really want to attend a Cardinals game there some day.



Because our plan was to leave early enough on Sunday to get home to watch the Oscars (we made it with minutes to spare), we wanted to go to a vigil Mass on Saturday night. St. Louis has a plethora of Catholic parishes and we hadn't decided which one to visit. I even asked my friend Fr. Ragan Schriver for suggestions. Once we had seen the movie and looked at the Museum of Westward Expansion, it was after 5:00 p.m. and we didn't have time to get to either of the churches Fr. Ragan had mentioned. I was collecting some brochures from the ranger at the information desk when I realized the answer was on a flyer in my hands. In fact, two hours earlier, I had photographed The Old Cathedral from 630 feet up. We could easily walk there in time for the 5:30 Mass.

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