Have you had a family grill out lately? If you did, it was probably on a gas grill or a good old fashioned charcoal grill, which is my personal favorite. Either way, we all owe a debt of thanks to Henry Ford for kick starting this little piece of Americana tradition. When Ford’s Kingsford, Michigan […]
As the pitchman for the XPRIZE Foundation, Peter Diamandis knew he had his work cut out for him when Dr. Yes (Richard Branson) said ‘no’ when asked to become a sponsor of the $10 million dollar XPRIZE. Peter drew up a list of people with deep pockets and began a six year courtship of […]
If the title above makes you think of the iconic line in The Wizard of Oz (Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!), then your mind must work a lot like mine. When I hear certain strings of words together, my brain has a tendency to attach them to the rhythm of some song […]
Part one of this column began when I was ruminating about things that get passed along to graduates by various commencement speakers. Somehow things kind of swerved into a discussion of how bullying each other has changed since I was in junior high those many eons ago. Being mean to each other with pencil […]
Every pet owner knows that their pet is the best ever – so we sadly announce the passing of our Mr Mittens aka Mittu, our wonderful Hemingway polydactyl cat. He was a large, shy black cat with probable Maine Coon genetics (a BIG boy) who brought us much joy. Alas, at approximate age 15 (he […]
neaToday (Spring 2017 – pages 24 – 25) reports that 1% of the Federal Budget is put toward education in the United States. Since 2001, the United States has spent a staggering $8.36 million per HOUR on war according to the National Priorities Project. In addition to this amount, $528.5 billion tax dollars per year […]
Among the many hats my father wore during his 40 plus year tenure as an employee of the State of Michigan, one was that of a detective. If one ponders the skills that make a good detective, it doesn’t take too much imagination to understand why I never found it in my best interests […]
We wrapped up our second Strive 4 a Safer Drive Campaign – DON’T be DISTRACTED public service campaign in mid-March of 2017. S4SD-DbD II was funded with a $1000 grant from the State of Michigan. We hope to post the PowerPoint slide show about the campaign in the near future. View our final campaign summary […]
{The following talk was presented at the monthly Ontonagon County Historical Society membership meeting held at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Mass City, MI on March 16, 2017 (St. Urho’s Day for you Finns out there). The talk was a prelude to the screening of Bill Mason’s 1968 film The Rise and Fall of the Great […]
In 1911, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was fired from his own company. The Canadian born, largely self-educated scientist had finally exhausted the patience of his Pittsburgh based investors who had bankrolled his experiments in radiotelephony. The National Electrical Signalling Company (NESCO) had succeeded in demonstrating the concept of wireless radio broadcasting in December of 1906, […]