Whew, lots of travel in Pennsylvania during the last two days...

Rose Baker and I just arrived back from a two-day business trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Visited the Lancaster Workforce Investment Board, where Scott Sheely was our gracious host. Scott arranged tours of an Alcoa Mill in Lancaster, where they specialize in aluminum sheet and cast plate. The 1.3 million square-foot plant offers a variety of products--from painted sheet to blanked products. What they produce is found in a wide assortment of end products, such as truck cabs, cookware and construction materials. They also produce brazing sheet used by auto manufacturers to make evaporator and condenser components. Another capability, for which they are well known, is the production of machined cast plate used in a number of diverse products, ranging from robotics to medical instruments. Here is a video, in RealVideo format, describing environmental excellence at the plant.

Then, we toured the Turkey Hill Dairy in Lancaster County's Manor Township. The Dairy is named after the land it is built on -- a ridge called "Turkey Hill". The Susquehannock Indians who originally resided in the area named the ridge. They found the ridge to be a great place for hunting turkeys and called it "Turkey Hill". The ridge juts out into the Susquehanna river and the top has wonderful views of the river and York county across the river. Turkey Hill makes a full line of frozen dairy treats. They include Premium Ice Cream, Philadelphia Style All Natural Ice Cream, Light Ice Cream, Fat Free No Sugar Added Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt, Fat Free Frozen Yogurt, Frozen Yogurt Smoothies, Sherbet, Ice Cream Sandwiches, and Sundae Cones. Overall, they make about 80-90 different flavors and products every year. They also make an extensive line of Iced Teas and Fruit Drinks. This includes flavors like Lemon Tea, Raspberry Tea, and Peach Tea. The fruit drinks include flavors like Strawberry Kiwi Lemonade and Orangeade. They have added a line of Nature's Accents drinks. These drinks include flavors like Green Tea with Ginseng and Honey, Blueberry Oolong Tea with Vitamins C & E, and Diet Mango Green Tea. And, of course, they are a dairy. They offer a full line of milks --- whole milk, 2% reduced fat milk, 1% low fat milk, fat free milk, chocolate milk, vanilla milk, and strawberry milk. Ernie Pinckney gave us the tour, and he is a full library of knowledge about Turkey Hill and about commercial dairy processing, ice cream making, and tea making.

We ate breakfast yesterday morning at the Neptune Restaurant in Lancaster. Funnel cake for Rose; feta cheese and tomato omelet for me. Great Pennsylvania tastes.

A red and glorious sunrise in State College, Pennsylvania, on 27 November 2006...

My lungs are in terrible shape today. When I get a respiratory infection, I often end up with weeks of bronchitis and asthma. That feeling of not being able to get air is something I never can get used to. There are times when I am sure my final minutes will be consigned to drowning in two tablespoons of spit.

Ah, well, I will counteract these physical symptoms by concentrating on the beauty that is offered to me today. Ying, yang. 陰/阴; 陽/阳. There always is light, even inside the dark.

Sunrise on the Hills
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch
Was glorious with the sun's returning march,
And woods were brightened, and soft gales
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.
The clouds were far beneath me; bathed in light,
They gathered mid-way round the wooded height,
And, in their fading glory, shone
Like hosts in battle overthrown.
As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance.
Through the gray mist thrust up its shattered lance,
And rocking on the cliff was left
The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft.
The veil of cloud was lifted, and below
Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow
Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade;
Where upward, in the mellow blush of day,
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.

I heard the distant waters dash,
I saw the current whirl and flash,
And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,
The woods were bending with a silent reach.
Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell,
The music of the village bell
Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills;
And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,
Was ringing to the merry shout,
That faint and far the glen sent out,
Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke,
Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.

If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

You can receive rewards for getting up early in the morning just as dawn quickens. I have found, after many sunrises, that none stay the same for more than 10 seconds. Particularly in State College, where the sun rises over by Mount Nittany. So many continuous changes. The light is diffused in clouds. Some days, it is arrested by solid gray clouds to cast shadows in open spaces on all below. Other days, when the wather casts over the entire valley, a hint of pink leaks through and, then, is gone. Yes, Henry, we all need a lesson that will keep our hearts from fainting. So much in life can make us quiet and reflective. Waiting. Wanting. Wondering. Thinking. Hoping. Dreaming. Imagining life. Hail, Rosey-Fingered Dawn that inspires mirth and youth and sweet desire! I am so much in need of reading Homer one more time.

On 22 November 1963...

John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, was shot on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. Central US Standard Time. Kennedy was wounded fatally by gunshots while riding with his wife in a presidential motorcade.

I was in the10th grade at Bishop Duffy High School in Niagara Falls, New York. A long time ago, eh? Memories, though, of the day stay fresh and those that followed closely.

I was in a bus traveling across the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge to Canada from Niagara Falls. The sports boosters club was sending the high school football team on its annual outing. We were going to East Lansing, Michigan, to see Michigan State University play someone...can't remember what team. We would travel on Highway 401 across southern Ontario to Windsor, Ontario, and across the bridge to Detroit and, then, to East Lansing.

As our team passed through Canadian Customs and Immigration ("Where were you born?" "A citizen of what country?" "What are you bringing into Canada?"), one of the officers told us that President Kennedy had been shot. The information was numbing.

We traveled slowly across Ontario. Boys listened to their transistor radios in small, huddled groups. News came in slowly out of crackling, tinny speakers. I slept. Nothing else to do.

I woke not because of noise, but because of silence. All I heard was one radio playing. The voice from the radio was saying that the President was dead.

Nothing was said. The bus moved on.

We arrived in East Lansing at the stadium. The game had been cancelled. We looked at the stadium form the outside. It seemed immense. And, empty. The wind blew dust and scraps of paper around. We drove to Detroit.

The Detroit Lions did not cancel their game that night, a decision about which they were heavily criticized. We were able to obtain tickets. Our coaches spent the evening in a bar with Alex Karras, the former great player for the Detroit Lions.

When we returned to Niagara Falls, we all went to our homes to see the funeral. School remained closed for a week while we watched the terrible, black days. The next week, I saw Lee Harvey Oswald killed in Dallas on live TV. I will never forget the surprise.

I have bad asthma tonight. Had hot tea, not coffee

The warmest, darkest room in the house...

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. This is a day that is supposed to be set aside to allow us to step back and give thanks for all the blessings we have. And, they are considerable.

United States' President Abraham Lincoln released a proclamation on a Thanksgiving Day long ago while, as he described it, "a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity" raged:

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God....[and I] fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

Some petitions never go out of style and currency.

So, here we are on a day on which we have celebrated our harvests. My understanding is that Thanksgiving Day for many years in the United States was on 3 October. The day of celebration and remembrance was moved over the years to the Thursday during the third week of November to coincide with the kick-off of the Christmas holiday buying season.

I just cooked some butternut squash and gathered the insides to puree for a soup I shall make. By the time of the tasting, all I will add is light cream and some spices still unknown to me, for I tend to rely on whim and intuition in all things artistic. Cooking will always be an art for me, not a science. A solid core of some food to start, for sure. But, then, spices, liquids, which I add in a mad terpsichorean twirl around the kitchen, while deciding how long to torture the mixture over heat. I never will add salt, but shall I add pepper? I will not know until I am in the middle of the performance. Hah, a performance for one. No one sees this choreography. That's good, too. No practice sessions, just one mad splurge. Not all of these creations are great to the taste. But, never mind. For me, the cooking is the artistic moment, not the tasting. The solitary, feverish part is the moment; the tasting is for others.

A few minutes here at this blog before I put together a couple more items for the Thanksgiving Day meal. Ann, my daughter, and Ted, her boyfriend, will arrive for the meal soon. I need to remember that there is much -- very much -- for which to be thankful. All a person needs is one bright light in a life to make all worthwhile. In the absence of that light, the world would appear bleak and grayscale. There are reasons to die, and there are reasons to live. As encouraged in Deuteronomy 30:19, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." I have chosen life and will continue to do so as long as the light shines.

So, here in the warmest and darkest room in the house, the one behind my eyelids, I will list many of those things for which I am thankful today:

• For love. "If you have love in your life, you have life." - Bernhard Goetz
• For hope. "Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." - Arundhati Roy
• For friendship. "A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." - Arab Proverb."
• For moments. “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” - author unknown
• For memories. "We want time to pass, for new things to happen to us, we want to hold on to certain moments, we don't want our lives to end." - John Barton
• For wonderful literature expressed in books and movies. - "Vivid images are like a beautiful melody that speaks to you on an emotional level. It bypasses your logic centers and even your intellect and goes to a different part of the brain." - Steven Bocho
• For my parents, now long gone. "We all believe that our children are the most beautiful children in the world. But the thing is, what no one really talks about is the fact that we all really believe it." - Heather Armstrong
• For my children. "Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home." - Phyllis Diller
• For opportunity. "There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity." - General Douglas MacArthur
• For people who forgive my failings and errors. "The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods." - Elbert Hubbard; "Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it." - Mark Twain
• For my willingness to take a few intellectual risks in my work. "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for." - Grace Murray Hopper; "It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy." - Steve Jobs
• For Homer's Odyssey, which I have read countless times. "The story of Ulysses and Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Jesus, of the Good Knight of Chaucer, lives in every one of us." - James Lee Burke
• For Joyce's Ulysses.

  … and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
  - Molly Bloom's soliloquy, which are the closing words of the book; this is the most meaningful passage I have ever read in literature

• For Tennyson's Ulysses.

  There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
  There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
  Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me-
  That ever with a frolic welcome took
  The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
  Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;
  Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
  Death closes all: but something ere the end,
  Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
  Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
  The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
  The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
  'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
  Push off, and sitting well in order smite
  The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
  Of all the western stars, until I die.
  It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
  It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
  And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

  Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
  We are not now that strength which in the old days
  Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
  One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

L'chiam! And, mozel tovs to you all. I am thankful. Now, to cook.  

The podcast materials are available on iTunes and as streaming media for our presentation in the Penn State 2006 Teaching and Learning with Technology Innovators Series...

The full podcast and streaming video presentation on information markets that Rose Baker and I gave at the 2006 Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) Symposium sponsored by Penn State University now is available on iTunes<==link directly. You may subscribe to the RSS feed for the TLT Symposium series, also. You may download the video of our presentation or watch the video streamed.

The page on iTunes
Beginning of webcast.

Baker and Passmore


Baker



Article in symposium.tlt.psu.edu blog

Good time!