THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Good Day at the Red Cross

It was platelet and plasma donation day for me.

I watched five episodes (they were not the first 5 nor were they consecutive) from season 1 (1962-1963) of the Beverley Hillbillies.

They were all in Black and White since the show didn't become color until 1965. First image is from opening scene of each episode. Second image is when the Clampetts learn to use a phone.

The version I had was remastered. It did not have the 'Ballad of Jed Clampett' but had a 'no lyrics' banjo piece in its place (apparently, the company that remastered the episodes into DVDs did not want to pay the royalties for the BJC).

None the less, I found the episodes delightful. I laughed much more than the cumulative of the previous 3 times I'd been there watching movies. Of course the show would not be able to be made today since it shows women hunting husbands in non PC ways. At one point Granny compares getting a man to propose to getting a steer to walk into the slaughter house. Jed says something like, "I wish you wouldn't have made that comparison".

Interesting, the first year has Max Baer (who plays Jethro) playing the part of Jethrine (his cousin) although someone else did the voice of Jethrine.

Then at the end of the procedure I got some free caps that say "Platelets and Plasma" on it.

Also the Red Cross had Granola Bars which were Kosher (U) and parve.

posted by Martin Weiss # 7:46 PM

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Eewww! Brood X Cicadas 4 years early

For reasons unknown, some of the Brood X 17 year cicadas (also called the Great Eastern Brood) that are supposed to appear in 2021 have appeared 4 years early.

It isn't many of them. But if enough of them breed we will have a new Brood begun. The phenomenon seems to be concentrated in the Washington DC area even though Brood X covers an enormous part of the eastern US.

Anyway and also for reasons unknown, the early cicadas have left a number of their exoskeletons on the underside of my day lilies.

Don't enlarge the photos unless you want to see the exoskeletons in more detail.

More on Brood X is here.

Previous mention of cicadas in the Weiss Chronology was in May 2004.

A follow up article with a 'Cicada Expert' is here.

On the morning of 5-26, I heard the Cicada noise as I was getting the newspaper so there must be a lot of them out now and BroodX2 has apparently begun.

posted by Martin Weiss # 2:53 PM

Monday, May 08, 2017

A Surrealist Trip to NYC

Ann is a long time supporter of the Organization for Rehabilitation and Training (ORT). She is a past chapter President and we have donated many thousands of dollars to this charity over the years.

Ann was invited to attend one of the annual ORT meetings in NYC. I accompanied her.

The trip to NYC was very rainy and the Vamoose bus from Bethesda (direct-non stop) was a bit behind schedule and then we had a bit of a struggle to get a taxi in the rain when we got to NYC.

However we eventually did get to our hotel (which was very nice). Ann did attend her meeting and we managed to squeeze in a bit of touring also. One of the things we did was visit the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which was only about 6 blocks from the hotel.

I had always wanted to see the originals of some of the famous works they had at MoMA, for example, The Starry Night (first image) which Vincent van Gogh painted in 1889 while in a lunatic asylum after cutting off his ear.

Back in 2009, Ann and I had been to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam where they had some similar paintings but not the original of The Starry Night.

The MoMA has a fantastic collection of the all star painting of the Surrealist Movement. For example, the second image, The Persistence of Memory, a 1931 work by Salvadore Dali (which is also known as the "Melting Watches").

I love to look at these but, in a way, seeing the originals was a bit disappointing because they were both smaller than I expected them to be (about 1' by 1' in the case of Dali's painting and about 2' by 3' in the case of the Van Gogh painting - they seemed smaller because it was hard to get close to them with the crowds around them.)

The third of the all stars was the third image, Girl Before A Mirror, painted by Pablo Picasso in 1932. It is about 4' by 5' (much bigger than the two others).

This museum has many other paintings, including some that are not so good.

On Saturday, we went to a synagogue 4 blocks from the hotel.

It was the Central Synagogue which was built before the Statue of Liberty. It is a beautiful building and it contains a magnificent sanctuary done in the neo-Moorish style.

It turned out there was a double bar mitzvah that day for the 'early' minyan (began at about 9am). Also it turned out that there was a second morning service that started about a half hour after the double bar mitzvah.

It was cloudy but not raining Sunday and it was easy to catch a taxi. The vamoose bus actually made the trip back to Bethesda ahead of schedule.

All the images are from the respective Wikipedia pages for the subject. The one of the sanctuary is enlarged if you click on it.
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posted by Martin Weiss # 9:09 AM

Monday, May 01, 2017

A Career Game for Rendon

Going into the game April 30 vs the Mets, Anthony Rendon was not having a good year batting. He was batting .226 with no HRs, one double (0.238 slugging) and 5 RBIs.

In a 23-5 victory over the Mets, Rendon got 6 hits including 3 HRs and one double and 10 RBIs. The double came within a few feet of being a HR and if that had cleared the fence he would have been the first player to hit a solo, two run, three run and grand slam in the same game. Prior to this game, Rendon had not had a multi homer game in the 4+ years he has been in the MLB although he has had a 20 HR year and a 21 HR year before.

Metric   Before game:     After game:

BA           .226                   .278
Slugging .238                   .411
RBIs         5                        15
HRs          0                         3

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:10 AM