Tour Niagara Falls -- by helicopter!

 

This Google video documents an expensive helicopter ride over Niagara Falls. The flight originates on the Canadian side of the border. Take the ride for free here. The house in which I grew up is visible fleetingly as the helicopter flies over the American side of the border. The video has audio, so turn up those speakers!

Coffee this morning is Orange Seville at Wegmans Wireless Internet Cafe (see video of this Cafe in list at right).

My real Japanese name...

My Japanese name is:

川添 Kawazoe (riverside) 一真 Kazuma (one reality).

Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Two Valentine flowers...

Ann, my daughter, received flowers for Valentine's Day from Ted. The spray of blloms sat on the kitchen table looking beautiful for a few days. Yet, one mid-morning, when the sun spiked through the kitchen windows and created sharp contrast between light and shadow, the colors of the flowers became well-defined and vivid. There are moments when light and opportunity create sweet memories. This is, of course, why cameras are made. And, so, Ann, my dear photography major, took these fine photos:

"The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers." --Basho

Señor Wences...

Just found out that the paternal grandfather of a family friend was Señor Wences, the famous ventriloquist who died at the age of 103. He was on the Ed Sullivan Show often. Señor Wences would talk to his puppets with his face right in theirs, as if daring the audience to watch his lips, which, of course, never moved. One of his famous puppets was Johnny, which he made on stage by scrunching up his fist, drawing a mouth where thumb and index finger met and draping a blond wig over the top. He would stuff a hankie in Johnny's mouth and have the puppet speak with a muffled voice while he himself smoked a cigarette. Then he would give Johnny a drag, and the puppet -- that is, Señor Wences' hand -- would somehow emit perfect smoke rings. When he came to the United States in 1934 he was just "another ventriloquist with a dummy," as he put it. But two years later, en route to Chicago, his act was transformed when his dummy, Pedro, was crushed in a baggage car accident. Wences bought a box, stuck the head inside and, onstage that day, inquired if he was OK. Pedro replied, in a voice as gravelly as Johnny's was squeaky: "S'awright!''

"S'OK?" "S'awright!''

A is for apocalypse...

Apocalypse (ə-pŏk'ə-lĭps') n. [Middle English Apocalipse, from Late Latin Apocalypsis, from Greek apokalupsis, revelation, and apokaluptein, to uncover.] Anything viewed as a revelation, especially one that is highly significant for the person receiving it; a disclosure. Often used of a realization or revelation that changes a person's goals or style of life.