Another Year come and gone

It’s time to say goodbye to 2011 and welcome 2012.  So it’s appropriate to take a moment and reflect on the year now ending.

First of all let’s all let out a big sigh of relief, we are still here despite the arrival of ‘Doomsday’ in May.  Note to the prophets of doom, you don’t know when the world will end.  No one does, it will happen when it happens; so chill and enjoy the time you have instead of trying to stir everyone into a panic.

Notable Events

• Japan had a rough year between a major earthquake, a major tsunami and the devastating fires at several nuclear power plants.
• England celebrated the wedding of Prince William
• Political shake-ups in both Egypt and Libya
• Shades of 9/11 came back this year as we marked the 10th anniversary of this tragic event.  Osama bin Laden is finally killed and the war in Iraq is over.

Notable Deaths
We lost a lot of talented people this year the following list is of those that I personally took note of:
Anne Francis, Susanna York, Jane Russell, Elizabeth Taylor, Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage,Jeff Conaway,  Jackie Cooper, James Arness, Nick Ashford, Gil Scott Heron, Clarence Clemmons, Peter Falk, Bubba Smith, Steve Jobs, Harry Morgan, and Lex Gigeroff.


Who will ‘make it so’ now?
NASA launched it’s last shuttle mission this year.  So much for ‘boldly going where no man has gone before’.  But there is hope on the horizon in the form of Virgin Galactic.  Sir Richard Branson is taking space travel research where it has never gone before.  While NASA may have been known, the research that was being done by them really gave most of us one thing to look forward to; sitting on our couches watching NASA’s astronauts blasting off into space.  Virgin Galactic is taking a different approach-research into how to make space travel affordable and even possible for the masses.

So on midnight Saturday we raise our glasses in toast to a new year.  We say goodbye to those who have left us and look forward to what the future will bring.

A Bit of Nostalgia

I just got back from the Airport and feeling a bit nostalgic for the days when going to the airport was a treat.  Like it was when I was a kid.

In those days picking someone up at the airport was exciting.  You waited inside the terminal at the actual gate and the waiting area always seemed to have  large windows facing the runways.  You could watch the planes take off and land and for kids this was exciting.  I kind of miss that.  Watching those planes taxiing down the runway and taking to the air what a spark to the imagination of a child.

The Mad scientist inventors are running wild!

As Seen on TV.  A marketing phrase we see in almost every retailer these days.  Usually some madcap product that appears in stores a few months after the “Only available through this TV offer” disappears.  And usually the product fails miserably at living up to the hype.  Remember the Veg-o-matic?  Didi 7? No?  Don’t feel bad most people have forgotten these wonder products, you’re in good company.

It used to be that RONCO was the king of the TV offered product, but now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and some of the products seem to be best described as Frankenstein’s Failures.  But today I think I saw the most ridiculous product ever, microwavable slippers.

That’s right, they are called Hot Booties, slippers that you heat up in your microwave.  Maybe it is just me but the idea of putting something in my microwave that is meant to be in contact with the floor makes me rather ill.  You put food in your microwave, foot that you are planning to eat.  Your shoes are constantly in contact with the floor and no matter how clean you keep your floor it is not sterile.  Would you lick the sole of your stillettoes?  Okay I know that some people out there get their kicks from licking shoes but I am not one of them.

Oh yes they do give you a “Bootie Bag” to put the shoes in before you nuke them, but that bootie bag is not hermetically sealed it has a drawstring closure.  Might as well be the Grand Canyon when it comes to germs.  All those nasty little buggers being relocated to a new home in your microwave.  Ewww!

Please send this invention back to Victor’s lab and Doc, I’ll thank you to keep your next invention to yourself!

Iron chef actually means something now

I am an Iron Chef Fan and have been since the original Japanese version first showed up on the Food Network.  I loved the premise and hey we were presented with Iron Chefs.  Not much to do about that but  the understanding was that these chefs were the top chefs in their style of cooking.

Iron Chef America

Then we got our own Iron Chef America with our own iron chefs and that got me to thinking what exactly is the criteria to be an Iron Chef?  I could accept a couple of our Iron Chefs without question.  Iron Chef Morimoto is one of the original Japanese Iron Chefs and Bobby Flay made more than one appearance as a challenger on the original show.  I would give both of them a bye for that, but what exactly made Mario Batelli or Cat Cora an Iron Chef, someone in a boardroom just saying it?

Well now as we can see Iron Chef has become something that you earn.  I can’t argue with Michael Symon, Marc Forgione or Jose Garces being called an Iron Chef because all three of them earned it.  They competed against some of the best chefs out there to gain that tile and fully deserve it.  Tonight another chef will earn the right to be called an Iron Chef.  And when they do they will have earned it.

Geoffrey Zakarian, my odds on favorite to be the Next Iron Chef

It has been 70 long years

70 years ago today an event took place that shocked the world, the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  This event is what spurred the US to join WWII.  WWII is not only an important event in American history, it is an important event in black history.  It was during WWII that a group of young educated black men made a bold step toward equal rights in the military.  These men were the Tuskegee Airmen.

Between 1941 and 1946, hundreds of Young Black men trained as pilots for the armed forces.  These young men were known as the Tuskegee Airmen.  And WWII gave them the opportunity to not only train but eventually fight as pilots of the American  Armed Forces.  These men fought a war on two fronts first they fought abroad against the Axis Powers and they fought at home against racism and discrimination.  And they excelled at both.

Sadly, out of the hundreds Tuskegee Airmen only a few still survive.  I am very lucky to have met one of them, Dr Granville Coggs.  Meeting Dr Coggs and hearing from him the pride he holds being a documented original Tuskegee Airman makes me realize exactly what a major accomplishment it was to being one of those special men.  And Dr Coggs has not rested on his laurels.  He is a cancer survivor and takes part in the Senior Olympics as a runner.  Meeting him is something that I treasure because he is truly a living legend.  He’s well into his 90′s now and with the originals dying off soon we won’t be able to hear the stories of what these men accomplished from them.  Instead we will go to the Smithsonian Institute and look at replica uniforms and replica planes because that is all that will be left.