What a difference 40 years makes

I had forgotten (until I saw this on a friend's Facebook) that Winston was the original sponsor of the Flintstones. Image any company making this commercial today.

The future of cars?

Someone I know from my past is working on this project. I've been a skeptic about electric cars, at least in the short term, but this is pretty exciting.

Time for "nice" sports news at Newsday

This article is interesting because of what it says about new newspaper owners and management and their desire to be "nice."

There's also a link in the story about the poor response to the online subscription effort at the paper. The bottom line - only 35 subscriptions to Newsday's online website during a three-month effort.

I love the Discovery Channel

Something fun for Saturday.

AJR: Detroit Free Press, Detroit News a year after the experiment

This is a look, even if not a very forthcoming one, on the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News a year after they cut publication days and started a new online product.

The Beatles called it a long time ago

In honor of Tax Day, here's the Beatle's Taxman:

Back from vacation, blogging to restart

After a two-week hiatus, FFE's is back.

Stopped over at AnnArbor.com for the first time in months and found that they are still wrestling over the moderation policies. There seems to be continuing hand wringing over the comment moderation policies at the site.

Anyway, here is some new information from AA.com.

SPARTANS! What is your profession?

In honor of the Michigan State University Spartans playing in the Final Four here is a relevant video for all Spartan fans:



Hoping for a win tonight. The season has already been overachieved.

The latest from Grandma's Recess

If you are interested, here's the latest posting from Grandma's Recess.

Over on Inside Out some reflections on some new newspaper products

Inside Out talks about the Flint Journal's new edition.

And another post about the new Saginaw, Bay City and Midland product.

Ran into a newspaper route driver recently who complained to me that the little bit of money he makes from the newsstand sales for the Tuesday edition is not enough to really make the trip to Clio or Flint worthwhile to pick up the papers and deliver them to the outlets.

Not sure if this is true or not, but the driver said they no longer receive mileage for the drive in to pick up the papers. He told me he's making about 1/3 of what he used to at the company.

It's a hard way to make a living anyway, so I feel for the drivers.

Moving on, in more ways than one

Curious how life sometimes gets in the way of our big plans. Last year we took our first trip with our new trailer early in April. We had big plans for more trips last year and early this year.

Then came April 30, 2009. That was the day Joan's mother had a severe stroke. As the main caretaker for Joan's father, her hospitalization required an immediate change of plans. Joan took a three week leave of absence and went to Buffalo to care for her father and keep tabs on her mother.

Since that time there have been a number of trips to Buffalo, including a sad one in late June and early July when Joan and I began our vigil with Red Uleskey and hospice at the family home. On July 7, 2009, Red died.

In the intervening months there have been a number of trips back and forth to Buffalo. Now, with Joan's mother safely and mostly happily living in a fine Catholic nursing home in Buffalo we are free once again to hit the open road.

So, the housesitter is in, and tomorrow morning we will hit the road for Florida, dragging our not-so-little home behind us for a two week adventure. Our daughter will join us there for a little fun and games.

We're visiting my aunt and uncle, a cousin and a friend of mine from high school. So we pray for smooth roads and low winds. You can follow us at Grandma's Recess blog, as some of you did last year.

For my Dad: Low fly bys

A friend sent me a link to a You Tube video of low airplance fly bys. It opens with a great scene from Top Gun, but then transitions into great real life fly bys. I'm posting this mostly for my Dad who loves airplanes. (Note, and thanks to Mark, there is some salty language in the opening "Top Gun" segment). I didn't review the video with sound when I first put it up. My apologies.

In any language, I'm fascinated by magicians

This came to me through e-mail and while it is in a foreign language it won't matter. Watch for a minute or so and maybe you'll be as amazed as me. I'm a sucker for this stuff.

Flint Journal Tuesday newstand edition out today

Today is the day the new Tuesday Flint Journal his the news stands. I hope this is the beginning of a return to 7-day a week home delivery because that's what people need. If you need to know where to find one MLive.com has a locater.

When goalies attack!

No one can deny that Sidney Crosby (I usually call him Cindy) is a great hockey player with excellent skills. But as a player he is a punk. Last year, he missed the tradional post-game handshake with the Detroit Red Wings after they won the Stanley Cup.

He is a notorious whiner. But last night he earned his punk label by going after Henrik Zetterberg when the game was over for the Penguins. That's when rookie goalie Jimmy Howard stepped in and backed up his teammate. Here's the video:

The Shot!

This shot sent the Michigan State Spartans to the Sweet Sixteen at the buzzer. Sweeeeeet!

Found the photo on Facebook without attribution, so if there is a credit to go with it, let me know.

Fess Parker RIP

This morning I heard that Fess Parker died. Of course, for boys raised in the 1950s he was, and will be forever Davey Crockett.

As soon as I heard that he died I remembered my late brother Mike running around the house wearing his coon skin cap and singing "Davey, Davey Crockett, king of the wild frontier...."

Funny how little things will suddenly bring up a remembrance like that. About an hour after I had that thought I received an e-mail from my father who remembered pretty much the same thing. He remembered that my brother like to sing the song for an audience, something I would have never wanted to do.

New mid-Michigan obituary service

Stopped over in Davison last week and found a new printed, daily obituary service was available at a number of locations. It's pretty basic, stapled sheets of 8 1/2 X 11-inches, but it includes color pictures and ads, plenty of ads.

The product is distributed at a number of places, mostly restaurants, stores and libraries, but they also offer daily e-mail delivery of the obituary.

If you want an e-mail copy send a request to bridges.obit@yahoo.com.

The senior citizens at Taecken's Terrace apartments in Davison said they really appreciate the daily printed obituaries.

You know, if these folks are smart they will start putting a little police and government news with the obituaries and, oh, never mind.

A spinning squirrel

Our bird feeders are plundered by squirrels. My wife doesn't mind (squirrels have to eat too, she says), but I want the bird seed to be for the birds. Let the squirrels have what falls to the ground. But it looks like this squirrel has met his/her match in this feeder. There's some pretty funny squirrel videos that will appear when this video is over. Be careful, some of the videos are not funny and show squirrels meeting an untimely end.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The story of the real St. Patrick is much more compelling than the story of a man who chased snakes out of Ireland.

Actually, that’s one of the things he didn’t do.

Kidnapped as a British boy, Patrick was brought into slavery in Ireland. No time today to tell you the wider story, but he eventually escapes, but is called by God to return to the country of his captors and evangelize Ireland.

As author Anita McSorley writes in “The St. Patrick You Never Knew,” his kidnapping and subsequent work was as significant to his world as the capture and story of Helen of Troy.

So, as a non-drinker, I hope and pray that some folks will skip the green beer today and find out the real story of St. Patrick and his incredible work and grace.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.