Woodside building being covered

The third apartment house at Franke at Seaside had its roof sheathed this week and some of this hard work under a hot South Carolina sun may be seen in these pictures: (click on link) and choose "Slideshow."

Senator Edward Kennedy dies; he fought to make America fair, equal and just

For almost fifty years Senator Edward Kennedy carried the torch for Americans who needed it the most. He never lost his enthusiasm, his optimism, his core belief that America's best days always laid ahead. He was the premier Senator of the last half of the last century. He died today, August 26, 2009.

He was a rich man's son who carried the torch for those less fortunate. He never had to work for a laborer's salary but he fought always for those who did. Until late in life, he was generally healthy and robust, and he relentlessly found time and energy to work hardest for those who were sick and who depended on government assistance. He had a top-notch education himself and yet he fought to assure that "no child would be left behind" in this great nation.

Any domestic legislation in the last fifty years that benefits all Americans bears his imprint somewhere in the details. Americans owe "Teddy" a huge debt that can be repaid if we work together and remember his words at the 1980 Democratic convention: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”


We will miss you Teddy. God Bless you throughout eternity.

Working our way through summer

The heat and humidity in the Charleston, SC, area have been typical of August in this part of the country. Oppressive and stifling. Work is progressing on the third apartment building at Franke at Seaside despite the heat. On a recent trip to Charlotte, NC, I took this picture of a solar powered combination telephone and parking meter. First one I've seen. Interestingly enough, last night on a segment of This Old House, I watched the installation of a small solar powered water fall in a garden. One of the drawbacks is that on a cloudy day (s) the water fall won't work. The industry, however, is studying how to incorporate a battery in these solar powered garden additions at a reasonable cost. I had a pond and a waterfall at an earlier home (see photo) and ran the waterfall pump on electric power. This was an added expense to install the power line close to the pond and, of course, to run it 24/7. Solar power is the way I would go in the future. (Click on photos to see large image.)

Julie & Julia - Five Stars

This is my first five-star film rating. I don't have any standing in the world to give movie ratings but in my own little corner of this world I am bestowing ***** rating on this wonderful film which depicts events in the life of Julia Child and Julie Powell, a young woman who sets out to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook - Mastering the Art of French Cooking (now in its 49th reprinting) and write a blog about the whole darn experience. And, to do it all in one year.

Meryl Streep is the dot above the "i" in this this wonderful, laughing, tear-jerking at times comedy film. She has Julia Child dead-on center.

Amy Adams plays Julie Powell, a Queens housewife living in 900 square feet above a Pizza Parlor and cooking her way through Child's culinary masterpiece (when she isn't problem solving in a government cubicle in Manhattan).

Writer and director Nora Ephron interspersed joyful events in Child's life with Powell's trials and tribulations, successes and failures, joys and triumphs. It is a masterful blending of the past and the Internet age. If it were food it could take it's place in Child's cookbook. It really is that good.

If you only see one more film this year, make it this one.

Second story work in progress

Erection of the second residential floor (click on link for a slideshow of project photos) in the third apartment house at Franke at Seaside, Mt. Pleasant, SC, is underway. Pre-fabricated wall stud panels are being put in place and brick masons are working on the ground level. Utility work is also ongoing in the ground level garage area. The project is scheduled to be completed in mid-2010.

Leave gun laws to the states

The second amendment to the United States Constitution says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This is one of precious "rights" written more than two hundred years ago, long before the automobile, trains, airplanes and the Interstate Highway system. The founders could not have anticipated how easy it would be for people to travel from place to place; to travel long distances in short periods of time. Today, millions of Americans are on the road daily in a relatively free and safe atmosphere. So why does Senator John Thune of South Dakota want congress to make a law permitting gun owners to carry guns anywhere in the country without regard to the various states' laws?
Robert Morgenthau, the highly regarded district attorney for New York County since 1975, wrote (The Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2009) that Thune's bill would override the states' restriction on concealed-carry permits. Some states have more stringent laws than others. In Ohio and Missouri, for example, if you are not a felon nor been hospitalized for mental illness you can carry a gun. Under the Thune proposal the same carriers could take their guns into New York despite New York's more stringent rules.
Suppose a New Yorker can't get a permit in that state, could he travel to South Carolina, buy a gun and lawfully carry it in New York? And suppose, for argument's sake he was traveling by plane. Could he carry his South Carolina a gun on an airplane back to the Big Apple?
Years ago and probably still today servicemen being assigned to the Northeast have been cautioned not to carry weapons in their cars while traveling through Massachusetts. (It was suggested they include them in their personal goods shipments.) They have some strict rules on carrying guns in the Bay State. The folks in South Dakota might not like them but the people in Massachusetts do.
We hear a lot about states' rights and if these mean anything the right to regulate the carrying of weapons - concealed or otherwise - ought to be left to the states as they see fit.
Thune's amendment deserves to be defeated.

Understanding how your house is built

Work continues on the third apartment house at Franke at Seaside, Mt. Pleasant, SC. I find it enlightening because the third building is a copy of the second (where I live) and the first. Knowing how my house is constructed is helpful in many ways. I assumed my apartment had mental studding and that hanging large pictures and mirrors would be a challenge. But the construction above the parking garage starts with fabricated wood panels and studs. It is simple enough inside such an apartment to use a stud finder and hang whatever you want. Undoubtedly there is a tremendous savings in terms of man hours and dollars because all the walls have been pre-fabricated at some site, trucked to the job site and lifted into place. This week workmen started installing pre-fabricated floor joists to separate the first and second floors. Examples of this can be seen in the pictures (click on them for a larger view.)

Link corrected

The Walter Cronkite link in the earlier entry had a fatal error. It has been corrected.
Sorry.

Walter Cronkite

It is as if an old friend died. Walter Cronkite was that friend to millions of Americans. It has been written many, many times how he was 'Mr. Believable' and it sounds almost trite to write it here but no greater accolade could be laid on a newsman. I don't know of anyone doing the news today in whom I have as much confidence as I had in Mr. Cronkite. He largely disappeared over the last couple of decades and there are people today who were not even born when he was at the top of his profession as Managing Editor of CBS Evening News. But for those of us who remember that golden age he was the brightest star in the galaxy.

Swimming through life

I'm glad I did not go to the beach to swim as suggested recently by a friend. It has been a long time since I went swimming anywhere, so I went to the residents' pool where I live to check myself out. I was shocked to learn that while I know the mechanics, my body is rusty and swimming is not all that easy to jump back into as a pleasurable hobby or exercise. And getting back into a comfortable, safe and enjoyable swimming mode is very important safety factor.
All of us have seen stories, some as recent as the past week in the Charleston, SC, area, where people are swimming in the ocean and drown. Confident swimmers underestimate the currents, get caught up and, perhaps, over estimate their own capabilities. This is tragic.
Sometimes people drown when a boat they are in overturns, and it comes out after the fact that they did not know how to swim.
All of which says "be careful of the water." Swimming is a pleasure I have enjoyed since my early years. A trip to the lake was a good time. Swimming in the mill canals in and around Lowell, MA, was good fun in the summer to young boys, but in retrospect it was a dangerous stupid venture. The water was dirty, people threw all sorts of trash from tires to old bicycles to broken bottles and whatever in those waterways around the city. Periodically water power managers would shut off the water from the river and the canals would go dry. Looking into the bottom of the canal was an experience which should have told us: "Don't swim here, stupid." But, we were young and over confident, and as boys will do, we ignored the message. Those of us who did it and are still here to talk (write) about it had the good fortune to be watched over by a guardian angel who didn't take the summer off.
In my golden years I still enjoy the water, but I know and respect my limits. If it has been some time since you went swimming, check yourself out first in a pool with a buddy at your side. (Click on photo - taken at Isle of Palms, SC - to enlarge.)

Beautiful Waterfront Park Mt. Pleasant SC

I've added three new albums of photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/archinsc .
There are pictures taken at the beautiful new waterfront park beneath the massive Ravenel Bridge in Mt. Pleasant SC; some updates on the progress at the Woodside Apartment building at Franke at Seaside and a picture of decorating one of our tenants did outside his apartment door over the 4th of July weekend. Hope you enjoy some or all of these. (Click on pictures for full size image.)

A friend gets a well-deserved medal

Stephen M. Carney (right) is presented the French Legion of Honor medal by French Consul-General for the Southeast United States, Phillippe Ardanaz, in a ceremony Saturday, June 27, 2009, aboard the French schooner Belle-Poule, moored in Charleston as part of the Harbor Fest 2009 celebration. Carney was awarded the medal, France's highest merit for civilians and soldiers, for his service in liberating several French cities while serving as a member of General Patton's Third Army, in 1944-45. (Other photos of the event may be viewed.)
Carney is resident at Franke at Seaside, Mt. Pleasant, SC, and is a friend and down-the-hall neighbor.

Picture editing revisited

A short while ago two pictures (see last blog entry) seemed to be almost identical and I suspected one had the background grayed out. Not so it seems. A friend sent me a picture he took on the same occasion and says it was probably the angle at which each picture may have been taken than made me suspicious. As can be seen in the friend's photo the steps in the background resemble the background in the WSJ photo in the earlier blog. Thanks to a friend for clearing this up.

Picture editing interesting

Here are two images of S.C. Governor Mark Sanford taking the oath of office for the second time in 2007. The picture on the top is from The Wall Street Journal and the smaller one from The Post & Courier, Charleston, SC. It is obvious this is the same scene and the photos were taken within minutes of each other. Notice, however, that the WSJ image has grayed out the background group shown in the P&C image.

And we wonder if we ought to believe what we see in the newspapers or on TV.

BTW: Both pictures were used Thursday morning (June 25, 2009) in the stories about Sanford's absence from South Carolina for five days and his strange confession of dallying in Argentina with a woman not his wife.

Happy Father's Day to all Fathers

Some memories of father hood:
When our family was growing up my two oldest sons would sit at the supper table and swear on their mother's cheeseburgers and coke they would never be like their father and wear a blue pin-striped suit and wing-tips to work every day. Fast forward a decade or better and one of them met his brother at work one day and said, "Christ, look at us. We've become Dad - pin stripes and wing-tips."
On Friday I was exercise walking around six in the morning. I met a man pushing a stroller that carried a small boy. I told him I had to know: did he wake up the baby and take him out for a walk or did the baby wake him up? He laughed and said the boy woke him up.
Another of my sons used to take his son for a ride in the car in the early evening if the child could not get to sleep. A few blocks and the boy was off to lulu land for the night.
I hope all of you out there who are fathers have a nice day on this Father's Day, 2009.

500 Consecutive sellouts

When fans flocked to Fenway Park for Wednesday night's Interleague bout between the Red Sox and Florida Marlins, they did so as part of the 500th consecutive sellout at the iconic ballpark. A streak that began May 15, 2003 -- and surpassed the previous Major League record of 455 on Sept. 8, 2008, held by the Cleveland Indians from 1995-2001 -- continues to wade into unchartered waters.

Wanna buy a watch?

Watches have been on my mind for a couple of days so it was second nature to count the number of display ads for high-end, upscale watches in the first section of The Wall Street Journal today (June 16, 2009) and discover there were eight of them. Watches clearly outnumbered all other products. There was one half-page ad, two quarter-page ads and five smaller ads each averaging about a tenth of a page.
In this economy, it is obviously the seller of ad space to watch makers who is bringing home the bacon.
I did not go on-line and learn the prices of any of these watches. (The ads are not so gauche as to quote a price!)
Yesterday, I was in the local drug store for some dental floss and saw a pile of watches on the counter with a 75% off sign over them. I need a cheap watch (none in the Journal ads qualify) for when I walk on the beach to keep track of how long I am in the sun. I worry about the effect of sea air and sand on my good watch. I bought one that originally sold for $14.95 (wouldn't buy the box for those advertised in the Journal) and with the discount walked away for less than $5, tax included. So it only lasts through the summer, who cares?

Q-Tip's Birthday

It's Q-Tips 1st Birthday and you may see some pictures of him and his family - as well as some other groups of pictures taken recently. We have some beach scenes at Isle of Palms, and photos showing the progress on the third apartment house at Franke at Seaside. Click on the highlighted link, look in and enjoy!

Memories of the day

After yesterday's post regarding June 6, 1944, my youngest sister wrote: I remember going to church that morning. I do not think I really understood the big reason.

She was not alone. I remember the morning this way:

Dear Carol,

It was an early summer day, much like all the others. I went to St. Patrick's Boys' School and sat in my classroom; probably thinking about how many more days we had to go before school was over and the summer vacation would begin. Like you, I have no recollection of understanding the importance of the day, nor of the significance of what had started across the ocean on the shores of France. Then we were lined up and marched over to St. Patrick's church. All the students were there from the separate boys' and girls' schools. The boys shepherded by the Xavierian Brothers and the girls by the Sisters of whatever. We were in the lower church and it was crowded. There were some adults there as well. Probably from the neighborhood. Undoubtedly some had husbands, brothers, loved ones in the European Theater of operations and were praying for their safety. Our pastor Father John Meehan came out of the sacristy into the sanctuary and stood before the altar. Many of us in the back rows were too far away to have a good look at him but we heard his words. Then he knelt before the altar and began praying and all joined in responding to his prayers. When he finished he got up and turned to the rows of students and announced a school holiday. Some did not hear him clearly and "what did he say?" was heard throughout the crowd. Father Meehan responded that some of you didn't listen too well and he raised his voice and repeated his declaration of a school holiday. Did you hear that, he asked and there was a loud chorus of yeses. We left the church and went home and for the next few days followed the news in the paper about what was happening in France. I believe now it was several years before I came to fully appreciate what June 6, 1944, meant to all of us in America, and to the world and to history. In the movie The Longest Day, released in the early sixties, one of the characters (played by Rod Steiger) in charge of a large ship says we are on the cusp of a day that the world will still talk about long after we are dead and gone. How prescient he was.
Bud

Remember the Day

June 6, 1944