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FTV: …Has Left the Building

      By the time you read this article, I will be unemployed for only the second time since 1970.  Okay, being retired isn’t exactly like being unemployed, but it probably will feel like it for at least a little while.  I actually began putting together my thoughts about ‘tomorrow’ well in advance of my actual […]

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FTV: Bussolo or Compasso?

      The picturesque Italian village of Amalfi claims to have an illustrious maritime tradition, although the harbor there barely holds the couple of boats that remain in the local fishing fleet.  Even the tourists from the cruise ships plying the Mediterranean are bussed in because the ships can’t anchor there. In the town square, there […]

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FTV: The Great Ballantine

    Warning:  If you are able to identify the person named in the title above,  you are about to confront an age old conundrum. (or perhaps it is an old age conundrum).  It goes like this: If you make a cultural reference and no one else in the room has any idea what you are talking […]

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From the Vaults: ElonX.2

      Rumor has it that Robert Downey, Jr. used Elon Musk as his template for the billionaire industrialist playboy Tony Stark (see Stan Lee’s Marvel Universe under ‘A’ for Avengers and ‘I’ for Iron Man).  Certainly there are differences:  Stark has Pepper Potts, amazing holographic computer technology, no children, and, of course, there is that […]

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Playing for Change

Greetings – Just got the newest PLAYING for CHANGE CD – while we don’t normally push listeners and readers into causes, this is one that we can’t help but wave the flag for.  If you caught one of the first versions of this concept (Stand By Me was the first one I recall seeing some […]

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From the Vaults: ElonX

 “About four hours before a launch, the Falcon 9 starts getting filled with an immense amount of liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene.  Some of the liquid oxygen vents out of the rocket as it awaits launch and is kept so cold that it boils off on contact with the metal and air, forming white plumes […]

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FTV: The Big Carp Pond – Part 2

    In Part 1, we examined several ways that opening the Great Lakes to an ecological invasion of species began with the earliest attempts to ease transport of goods from the Atlantic Coast inland.  Using Dan Egan’s book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes as a guide, we looked at how opening the door, […]

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From the Vaults: The Big Carp Pond

       Prior to 1900, the Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan carrying with it a feted cargo of sewage from the growing metropolis of the same name.  Lake Michigan also served as the Chicago’s source of drinking water. The movers and shakers in the city decided the best way to solve their sewage/fresh water problem […]

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