Bottomry

Looking at admiralty court records (from 1839 and 1840) introduced me to some new words...

Bottomry is sort of like mortgaging a ship and/or its cargo. Ship owners strapped for cash for needed repairs would in effect mortgage the ship to raise funds needed for repairs until the ship could deliver its cargo, at which point the funds would be repaid. (I was not able to find any really good links describing the term -- Wikipedia for example only has a stub entry for it.)

Fun facts about the US Navy bureaucracy in 1918

I had my first stint of volunteering for the government today. It was about 3 hours spent refiling some fairly dry stuff from the Boston Navy Yard Commandant's Office in 1918.

OK, there's a small consolation. We were at war in 1918, so maybe you'd think interesting war-related stuff would turn up.

Uh uh.

The most interesting tid-bit I turned up (other than the fact that there were daily and weekly reports filed by the yard's forge on how much chain it produced, and what it cost to produce it) outside of the amazing quantity of reports being passed up the chain of command was that submarines were seen at the base. There were also some "reduction in force" (ooh, office-speak goes back that far?) reports that only occurred in December, after the armistice was signed.

I also saw monthly reports on the condition of the USS Constitution, including notations to the effect that (at the time) it was last painted in Portsmouth (NH) in 1897, and was basically in good shape.

I'm sure you all always wanted to know that back then they inspected their fire hoses quarterly.

I asked to be exposed to a different bureaucracy next week. It's looking like it'll be court cases, possibly more interesting reading.

Road Trip, Maryland and Pennsylvania

Driving last Saturday might not have been the swiftest move in some parts of the country due to the heavy rains, but I was blessed by not encountering much of it until I got into Pennsylvania. Even then, it wasn't much of a problem until it got dark. Dad was reached around 10PM, safe and sound.

On Sunday morning, I drove down to the suburbs of Baltimore to visit Alex, an old high-school buddy I've not seen in many years. (Our last encounter was when we were both in graduate school, I was at UCLA, pretending to work on a master's in Computer Science, and he was at U of Hawaii studying astronomy, which he seems to have parlayed into a good career.) He and I were both French Horn players in school, something I let go, while hanging on to the piano. So the first thing we had to do was play some music -- the Beethoven Horn Sonata being within both our abilities to mangle. We had an otherwise enjoyable afternoon, meeting his wife and son in the bargain.

On Monday, my dad and I went to Pennsylvania's Washington Crossing State Park, which most of the Americans reading this will probably understand (curious non-Americans are invited to follow the links to see why this place is important). We did NOT get to New Jersey's park, even though it was not that far away...

In the evening we drove into Philadelphia to see an 1807 and Friends chamber music concert, which was fairly enjoyable, even if there were occasional balance issues with the piano in quiet passages...

The drive home on Tuesday was blissfully uneventful.

Road Trip, Indiana

In driving from Wheaton, IL, to Bloomington, IN, I discovered just how flat parts of Illinois really are. Let's just say that you can drive at highway speeds on county roads (except in the villages -- slow down, folks). I had a decent, if unexciting crepe for lunch in downtown Champaign, Illinois.

Bloomington is home to the main campus of Indiana University. It's also home to Allisson and John and Belinda and Julia, which was why I went there. Allisson and I have a history that goes back to mutual friends we each met while (separately) at Syracuse University. We've generally only seen each other at weddings and funerals, so I thought a visit was in order, especially after the arrival of Zilla and the Bird aka Belinda and Julia, now about 1.5 years old. Given the nature of small children and their oft-frazzled parents, the visit was predictably low-key.

We had a lovely dinner and beer at Lennie's (thanks Allisson!) on Thursday night. Friday we managed to get out to the Encore Cafe for lunch. These two options showed that the Midwest is not completely devoid of eating possibilities for us vegetarians. (See my previous entry, where I mention the food offerings at Cedar Point's.)
After lunch we had a leisurely stroll around parts of the nearby McCormick's Creek State Park, punctuated by overly-difficult (and eventually abandoned) stream crossings, and an extended visit to the playground.

Fortunately I remembered to take a few pictures before I left.


Belinda liked my phone, so I took her picture with it.

Belinda liked the camera too

Allisson and Julia

Sorry, no room for John...(hey thanks for taking the pic tho')


Saturday was taken up by a long drive from Bloomington to my Dad's outside Philadelphia.

Road Trip, Illinois

I spent a few days visiting with Mom in Wheaton, IL. I've done this before, but have usually flown. On Tuesday we lovely afternoon in Chicago visiting this place:

The Oriental Institute is the University of Chicago's Near East Studies organization. Its museum has been under renovation for a number of years, so I never had chance to see it (also since we would be preoccupied by going to Chicago's other fine museums, like the Art Institute and the Field Museum. In any event, we had a great time there, spending considerably longer than either of us had anticipated. Anyone visiting Chicago should consider a visit there.

After that, we trundled up to the Navy Pier in Chicago, which is mostly a tourist trap and convention center. We went mainly to admire the contents of the Stained Glass Museum, which is essentially a free exhibit, skirting one side of the convention facilities, of a wide variety of stained glass windows.

On Wednesday, we again traveled into Chicago, this time to see the Art Institute's special exhibit on Toulouse-Lautrec, the well-known fin-de-siécle French artist. It was a well-staged exhibit, including many of his best-known works (quite a few of which were advertising posters, and are thus fairly recognizable). It also included vintage movie snippets from the time, as well as a later recreation of the Moulin Rouge scene from this movie.

While there, we met up for lunch with Karen, one the Earthwatch volunteers with whom I was in Spain. Hi Karen!

Road Trip, Ohio

I've not spent any substantial time in Ohio since I was in high school. (No offense to Ohioans reading this, but those have just been the turnings of my life.) At that time (1979), I went to Cleveland to check out Case Western Reserve University. It got dropped off my school candidate list at least partly because it was, well, located in Cleveland, which was none too attractive at the time.

For this visit, I drove right through Cleveland. But I do understand that times are better now than then, and this was not intended as a slight on Cleveland. It was mainly due to the fact that I had to drive 700 miles that day, so a sightseeing stop there was not in the cards. I did get a small sampling of radio stations, though. The local NPR affiliate has quite a variety of foreign language programs unlike anything we get in the Boston area. I heard parts of German, Russian (or some other Slavic tongue), and Hungarian programs.

My destination for the night was East Harbor State Park, which is located between Port Clinton and Marblehead, Ohio. This part of Ohio, about midway between Toledo and Cleveland, is fairly rural, and, being on Lake Erie, features a heavily boating- and recreation-oriented atmosphere.

I arrived at about 6:15, and was stopped by a ranger well before the checkin area. It turns out they were having some sort of Halloween celebration this weekend (and next), and I couldn't drive to my campsite until 6:30, due to trick-or-treat-like activities.

Halloween on October 1st? Huh?

Apparently, this part of Ohio celebrates Halloween for the entire month, or something, since Cedar Point was also decked out in orange and black. Whatever happened to celebrating (or recognizing) days like this on just that day?

I eventually got my camp set up, had some dinner (leftovers from the European trip -- thanks Eric), and eventually got to bed (err, sleeping bag) around 9, mostly avoiding the hay ride and haunted house.

On Sunday I was up fairly early (gotta learn how to shut down that sun detector if I'm ever going to sleep really late), and went for a short drive around the Marblehead peninsula. It's got some nice views of Sandusky and Cedar Point, which I didn't photograph since I didn't have the camera along.

I drove into Sandusky itself, which was predictably sleepy at 9:30 on Sunday morning. Things were already getting going at Cedar Point, though. I was through the gates shortly after 10.

I rode a whole bunch of roller coasters. Really! Top Thrill Dragster was closed. My favorites were the Magnum XL-200, Raptor, and Mean Streak, each of which I rode several times. I also rode Millenium Force twice, but it didn't make the cut due to its long(ish) line (about 40 minutes).

I also ate plenty of bad-for-you fair food. Based on the food offerings at Cedar Point, it's no surprise Americans are getting fat. (I don't think there was a single salad on offer in the whole park.) At least I didn't need to make dinner...

On Monday morning I again arose early, and this time prepared myself to take some pictures of the sunrise. These were taken between 6:30 and 8 AM.

The first view.

The first view, overexposed. What a difference!