January to July
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HIGHLIGHTS - 1999 |
J A N U A R Y
The main event of this month was my return to La Atlántida in Tenerife [PIC] after an absence of over three years. [Bonnie & Bluebeary's Excellent Adventure] I have been away from 31 December 1998 to 21 January 1999, and now have to catch up on the pile of mail and bills sitting on my desk. The cats seemed to have missed my constant company and now seem overly anxious to make up for lost time! There are four on the monitor right now and two on my shoulders!!
It will take me days to update things on my site, so have patience!
I was shocked to learn of the death of a frequent visitor to the flea market, Mrs. Sigrid Robertson, on 13 October 1998. She would always stop by to tell me of her latest trip to Europe to see her son in Germany and her other activities, was always smiling and full of enthusiasm for LIFE. My sincerest condolecences to her family. I will also miss her!
F E B R U A R Y
I am slowly catching up on stuff-- VERY slowly!! In my few spare moments I did manage to add a couple new pages to my site : Celebrity Bears, Bamm Beano sport collectible bears, a Plush Toy Price Guide-- and I changed a lot of pages and still have more to do!! Also got some goodies up on my eBay auctions-- because I still have a stack of bills that I could not send in yet!!
Since I do NOT get The New York Times delivered anymore, basically for lack of $$, I am sorry to say that my comments of current affairs, deaths of notable people and other newsworthy items has sort of dwindled to a trickle-- sorry about that!
Since there are Price Guides for Beanies and other
toys and stuff on the Internet, I decided it was time for another
of my FIRSTS-- Sonny's FIRST Internet PG for
. It is a LOT of work, BUT I hope that I am helping
those who want to know what their critters are "worth"
on the collectible market.
So Bernie and friend went on another of their kewl trips-- this time to the Virgin Islands (GAWD, what a choice!). So, once again I have the honor of going over to the old place and taking care of the cats and Tracey (the Doberman) on a daily basis-- at least it gives me a chance to get out!
I had visitors-- what a delight! Ben and Jim. They came in by train from New York to see the Sphynx kittens I still have available. Ben is the choreographer and guiding light of his own ballet company. A thoroughly fascinating and creative individual! Ben and his Company will perform in New York from 18-21 March-- this will finally give me a chance to get out of Trenton and visit the CITY again!! They have gotten RAVE reviews and I can not wait to see him perform. Why are visits always so brief!!
M A R C H
I added a new section on Limited Treasures Bears. They are so cute!
Was able to attend the First Annual Ty Collectibles Convention held in Baltimore from 13-14 March. Bonnie, the Traveling Chick, did a report on the events-- with some pics! It was fun.
When I got back from the Convention I found that the heat was off in the house, probably for a couple days! The temperature reached 47 degrees BEFORE a repairman arrived and replaced the gas valve and thermocouple at over $400!! GAWD!! And guess what? It worked for about 3 hours and went off again!!
After frantic threatening phone calls to the guy, he finally showed up the next day, said he did not know what was wrong-- BUT made it work again!!
SPRING HAS SPRUNG!! And some flowers are starting to appear!! What fun.
I updated a lot of Beanie pages-- some of them for the first time in MANY months, adding the VERY RARE NANA, from my own personal collection, and reducing prices to BELOW COST on most of them-- just to try to sell something!! Also made some changes on the Attic Collectible pages and began to make a list of critters to sell, which I have NOT done until now-- it is not up yet-- have to do inventory first and take a load of photos!
GAWD, I missed the Academy Awards this year!! Guess I shall have to find the $$ to finally get the cable put back in!!
A P R I L
On 1 April 1999 a NEW NATION - TERRITORY in our vicinity will become reality!!
After decades of struggles the Inuit will finally have their own territory in the NORTHWEST TERRITORIES of Canada, roughly equaling the size of most of Europe BUT having a population of some small US red-neck towns, about 27k!!
Needless to say, Canada did NOT give away any really "prime" real estate-- just some wilderness that it didn't know what to do with anyway.
TYrant is planning a dog sled trek to the new capitol, Iqaluit, led by a team of Beanies with Nanook at the lead (after which he will donate the Beanie sled to the new Head of Government, Paul Okalik, to be auctioned off on eButt, posthaste)
A new Beanie bear with the NUNAVUT flag on its proud chest will appear shortly-- BUT ONLY available at TY's new Nunavut Trading Posts-- mostly guarded by "friendly" polar bears, so there are NEVER really long lines!!
For more exciting
news about this really historical event go to
.
MORE EXCITING NEWS FROM SONNY'S NEIGHBORHOOD!!
OK, so the fire seems like it is out already and I just got a new site AWARD!
Sunday-- great day to get out of the apartment into the semi-warmish wind to scrape, spackle and prime 2 ground-floor front windows and a door. Talked to more neighbors than in a long while. BUT, when I work I dislike being distracted and talking to someone, so the conversations were short and sweet.
Arbit Blatas, painter, sculptor and stage designer was born in 1909 in Lithuania. He was perhaps the youngest member of the School of Paris. Blatas was married to Regina Resnik, the mezzo sopranto and stage director of the Metropolitan Opera. He DIED on Tuesday, 27 April 1999 in New York at the age of 90. [Painting] [Sketch]
M A Y
It appears that the Chinese have been actively acquiring all kinds of "secret" stratigically important information over the past few years from the USA. And nobody ever noticed it until now?? These days it IS a lot easier to do the spy thing-- no more need for those miniature cameras a' la James Bond-- just a click of the mouse can transfer reams of information over the Internet at the speed of light. I wonder IF payment for such services is also wired just as quickly to some offshore bank account??
Why such top secret information is kept readily on computers which are seemingly NOT password protected and encripted with the same efficiency as those on the eBay auction site or several Beanie Baby trading boards is beyond me!! BUT governments were NEVER noted for their efficiency or thoroughness!!
The Chinese have been having alarming "suspicious" things happening in Peking (I like the old name better). They have tightened security after a miraculous appearance of hundreds of "sect" members right at the doors of their government buildings-- even though they were apparently only doing some esoteric exercises, their unannounced mass gathering caused a slight concern. WHY? The anniversary of the infamous Tiennamen Square incident is rapidly approaching. The Square itself has been virtually sealed off "due to maintenance work". YEAH!! GAWD, and they actually think that people believe that crap?
Then, by "accident", the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was blown up by NATO missles. Although it is vaguely possible that the maps they used were a tad outdated, which would NOT surprise me in the least, what IF it was NOT a "mistake"?? Like a signal to Chinece dissidents that, hey, we can accidently bomb their diplomatic mission, now it is your turn to make some changes at home!
Doonesbury had a series of cartoons related to the NATO "mistakes" and all the ready "apologies"-- I thought they were really on the ball. Hey, this is a WAR, NOT a computer simulation or video game. Things get bombed and people die-- that is the way it always has been and always will be, as long as people can not seem to be able to live and let live. If I worked at any foreign post in Yugoslavia, I would be on vacation somewhere in the Mediterranean until things blow over-- which they eventually will.
OK, Embassy gets bombed. Thousands of STAGED and ORGANIZED protestors appear at a couple embassys in Peking and elsewhere in China, with resultant damage due to Chinese "security forces" standing by and doing not a whole lot. WOW, what a cute propaganda effort! It takes the focus of the masses from the forthcoming T. Square anniversary and from their spying episodes. And, once again, ALL the sheepy media wanting more viewers/sales have to put the stupid shitass pics of the demonstrators all over the mass media. What would happen IF no live or canned footage was shown on TV or the weeping relatives of those theoretically killed in the embassy bombing did NOT appear in all the newspapers. GAWD, there are even talk shows on TV and "Comment Boards" and "Polls" about the thing on the Internet. Is this not EXACTLY what the Chinese want to happen??
Some have said that China is about to explode politically. I think that there are way too many business people with not only tons of $$$$ BUT also a loyal following, really powerful individuals (in the traditional Warlord tradition!), who have probably been waiting for the right moment to strike a death blow to the communist government as it is presently organized. Graft and underhanded practices are the rule, NOT the exception. Human rights abuses are rampant (even though they are NOT totally absent from ANY OTHER modern society!) The younger generation is NOT stupid or simply allowing themselves to be led by the leash, despite their invasive indoctrination. I envision the tidal wave of change to be rising at their doorsteps-- and their leaders see it also and are terrified of losing their present government jobs, among other things.
Kosevo
OK, and Kosevo?? I have not said a lot about this hotspot yet. NATO acted way too late to avoid all the buzzword "cleansing" that took place before they got off their asses and did a token something about it. A month already?? GAWD, even a tactical video game with 20 levels does not take that long to become skilled at! Replace all the generals and top staff with a dozen teenage DOOM addicts and let them call the shots-- they would get the job done in 3-4 days!! Or call the Israelis and have them do an overnight raid and kidnap (which has been their specialty in the past) that asshole Milesonabitch (and accidently drop him from their helicopter at 10,000 feet en route to Brusselles!!). Problem solved-- for the moment, at least! Has it occurred to anyone WHO will be paying the major portion for reconstruction, once this fiasco is over?? And do NOT contact your senator to tell him that you think the war is stupid and an obvious intrusion into foreign domestic concerns-- his state may just have a major military weapons supplier as a constituent!
Star Wars - Episode I
I had no idea that the new Star Wars movie was going to premier at midnight. I heard it on the radio at about 22h. Looked in the paper, found the telephone number of the movie and got a stupid recorded message with all the films they would have-- the LAST of which was the midnight show! So I jumped into the little Festiva and went to the mall on the other end of town (actually in Hamilton Township) and found loads of people milling around. Thought I would NOT find a ticket-- I DID GET ONE!! Came home, showered, told Sybil, my internet pal that she should do something kewl for her kids and wake them up and go to their local movie for the FIRST showing-- no dice.
I had read in the New York Times and on the Internet that several film critics had given their views of the film-- which was NOT supposed to be done until it actually appeared. Their views were NEGATIVE, so I was going to the movies for the first time since EVITA came out a couple years ago, with these reviews in mind. They said there was no story line, yada, yada-- BUT I guess they did have the satisfaction of seeing their reviews before anyone elses!!
I arrived about 15 minutes early-- wanted to get some munchies BUT the line was too long at midnight, and I hate going in when the movie started, so I left the line and went inside. NOT a whole lot of people, perhaps some 45. It was showing on 3 screens, and at least one of the others was packed. The blasted thing did not start until about 10 after midnight, which bugged me a tad.
I loved it!! Every moment of the some 2 1/2 hours of it!! Great music by John Williams (who also did the Trilogy score), special effects, fantastic animals-- and you all know how I like animals! It is a futuristic story about the forces of good vs. the forces of evil-- and the story of the discovery of the young Anakin Skywalker, a new Jedi apprentice. And, YES, there is a well defined story line. To those who may not remember the Star Wars Trilogy, Anakin Skywalker IS DARTH VADER, father of Luke Skywalker.
I heartily recommend the film-- which is actually an introduction to the 3 parts which came before it. How many years will it take to do EPISODE II??
By the way, a guy from PST.FM was there and interviewed me via tape recorder about what I thought. I should really get out more!! And I bet IF it gets an Academy Award, Lucas will NOT be as egotistic as that dork was with his Titanic film!!
I added an entirely new section on Star Wars collectibles.
Another Site Award
My site won another kewl award! This time from the U.K.!! Thanks Christian.
For whatever reason, some months ago I apparently pressed the SAVE ALL EMAILS button on aol and was wondering why emails took so long to load. After some searching for a cause, I stumbled onto files of a total of 13,614 emails from 4 March to 1 June!! It literally took me hours to DELETE them from the source!! Hey, even in my younger days I did NOT get/reply to that hoard of letters!! Now my emails load as they should.
J U N E
What a pleasant surprise. I went to see Tracey, my old faithful Doberman and found my Prickly Pear cacti in bloom!! I got them many years ago in the sand dunes in Cape May, near the southern tip of New Jersey. They survive the cold winters very well, look like shit in the Spring, but return to life as summer approaches. And if you have never tried the smallish fruits, they are really good served cold-- after removing the outer skin and spines, of course. The ones in the Canary Islands are hormongous and about the size of plums.
Cactus Exchange
I started a sort of cactus exchange with members of a Beanie news group-- already sent out 11 stems to various US and Canadian addresses. It was like, I send you a stem, you send me some cactus or whatever. If you might be interested, contact me at CACTUS.
House Work
OK, so I started working on the 2 iron-framed side windows of the shop downstairs. I had NOT previously done more than replace broken window panes in the about 15 years I had the place.
There was literally NO glazing left in most of the combined 60 individual panes, the frames were totally rusted and contact with the walls was basically open spaces!! Lack of a rain spout/roof drain, which fell off some years ago and was stolen by the nice neighbors, added to the deteoriation. Since I had never lived in the apartment before this, I never found the opportunity to notice the stuff and do anything about it.
I used FIVE 32oz cans of glazing compound over about 2 weeks to reglaze almost ALL of the 60 panes-- which amounted to 60 royal "pains" in the ass!! Some years ago, Horacio, sent me some of the special black iron paint that I use in Tenerife, and it came in handy for the final painting. While I was at it, I did the apartment doorway, iron basement window grills, side shop steel door and frame, shop air conditioner (which DOES NOT work!!) frame, another smaller iron window, and painted yellow lines in the street so that the neighbors can notice that there is a handicapped parking space and garages that they should NOT park in-- in spite of the signs already there!! They sure can read the tickets that they get when I call the cops because they are parked in prohibited spaces!!
J U L Y
Heat & Nostradamus
GAWD is it HOT!! The poor cats just lie flat on the table or bureau tops to keep a tad cooler!! I really have to get an air conditioner but do not have the $$ right now! On the 4th it was a sizzling 98.7 degrees in my study, where I spend most of my waking hours at the computer!! And it seems as if the heat will continue for a few more days!! Is this what Nostradamos predicted as the global catastrophe for the month of July?? In England they have bets that something will happen, and the LONDON TIMES printed the following in their 4th issue:
<<If the heavens should suddenly turn pitch black today - rent by bolts of lightning, buffeted by rolls of thunder, spewing hailstones the size of footballs - it's either the climax of the Wimbledon championships or the end of the world. According to the 16th-century soothsayer Nostradamus, today is the day when the King of Terror - variously described as resembling Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan - descends from the skies to wreak havoc. There will also be "so vast a plague that two-thirds of the world will fail and decay" and Islamic fundamentalist armies will simultaneously pour into Europe. It could spoil your whole weekend. Nostradamus is actually taken very seriously. At any rate, his collected prophecies, called Centuries, have sold 6m copies over the years, second only to the Bible. When Italy was rocked by earthquakes in 1997, bookshops sold out of his works overnight and La Stampa reported that people were "awaiting the hand of God". Recent surveys have shown that one-fifth of the French nation believes an earth-shattering cataclysm will happen in the next year, and the same proportion of Japanese think a world war will break out this month. The Japanese have even invented a "doomsday bra" containing a sensor on the shoulder strap that alerts its wearer to incoming missiles.
The supporters of Nostradamus certainly make big claims for their man, crediting him with predicting the great fire of London, the French and Russian revolutions, Napoleon, Hitler, the assassination of President Kennedy and the Gulf war - to name but a few of the events apparently vouchsafed to his psychic powers. Hitler certainly believed in Nostradamus, doctoring certain passages to anticipate the success of his campaigns. In Vichy France the authorities banned the book in 1940 because, when de Gaulle was in London, one prediction was of "a general returning in triumph". British intelligence thought it was worthwhile to drop their own versions of Nostradamus over Germany. >>
Hi, Ben. Hope your place is way cooler than mine!!
Aranjuéz
My first summer in Spain was spent in the northern coastal city of Santander on the Mar Cantábrico, where the then former Royal Family had a summer palace. It is there that I first saw Generalissimo Franco, learned some Spanish at the summer school, found large ammonite fossils, got around on my first means of transportation-- a scooter (Lambretta, as I remember), ate my first freshly-caught sardines roasted over coals, attended the weekly band concerts in the band shell in the park, visited the caves of Altamira and some archaeological sites accompanied by a Jesuit archaeologist, and did the research for my first Spanish publications-- among many other firsts.
It was at these concerts, AND the Festivales de España music and theatre programs held there that I first heard El Concierto de Aranjuéz, a remarkably haunting Spanish-style piece for orchestra and guitar. I always liked guitar music and even at one time tried to learn how to play. Rodrigo wrote some 26 pieces for the guitar.
Several years later I visited the beautiful town of Aranjuéz,some 30 miles SE of Madrid, toured its 18th Century palace, and churches, wet my feet in a large fountain, sampled the local gigantic strawberries-- and all the while humming the main theme from the Concierto. It seemed to fit in so well!!
In Madrid, where I obtained my Masters in Paleontología, I frequented the discotheques and a popular version of the second movement of his Concierto was often heard, sung in French, "Aranjuéz Mon Amour". The singer could have been Aznavour?? I should still have the record in Tenerife. I always associated music with events in my life for some reason-- much more so in the past than now, for some reason. Only 2 songs stand out in my mind over the last 15 years or so: Foreigner's I Want To Know What Love Is (from a disco in El Puerto, Tenerife, Christmas night, 1985) , and the theme song to the movie Evita (Madonna), because I was in Madrid when Peron lived there and I followed events in Argentina.
Marquis Joaquin Rodrigo was born on 12 November 1902 (1901 in some papers) in Sagunto (SE Spain). Blind after developing diptheria at the age of 3, he studied piano and violin in Valencia until 1927 when he went to Paris and studied with the composer Paul Dukas. ("Handicaps" have been known to heighten the creativity of the "afflicted" person in some manner) I have the CD of this work performed by John Williams playing on the computer as I write this. Rodrigo's works were influenced by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, another favorite of mine. They met in Paris. In 1991 King Juan Carlos bestowed the title of Marquis of the Aranjuez Gardens on Rodrigo.
Rodrigo died at his home in Madrid on Tuesday, 6 July at the age of 96 (or 97, depending on his real birth year).
While on the subject, I also heard Noches En Los Jardines de España by deFalla at a concert during the same summer in Santander (1964 ?). I was so impressed that I bought the 33 1/3 record and a battery operated Philips record player to listen to it-- in the famous palm garden near El Sardinero where the palace is located. So I went at midnight-- nobody around-- set the player up within the garden and lay on the grass with the Cantabrian breeze clammering through the palm fronds above me and closed my eyes, to be transported to a magical rhelm of sound and imagination!! And, despite a lot of things, I remain as helplessly a "romantic" today!!
Well, with B's invaluable assistance, the drain for the rain not on the plain in Spain was finally put up. You can see the "damage" to the painted bricks from the years of water running down the wall-- which also accelerated the deterioration on the adjoining window, which is already "restored", at least on the outside.
I shall never understand why the previous owners, now dead, ever painted the beautiful bricks gray!! I do NOT plan on repainting them!
Next job, whenever I have the $$, is to have someone look at the two shop air conditioners-- which do NOT work-- and in the current continuing heat wave, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do anything inside the shop except water the cacti every couple days.
R.I.P x 5
Carolyn Bessette, Lauren G. Bessette and John F. Kennedy, Jr. died as the result of reckless endangerment while piloting an aircraft under extreme conditions.
Moulay Hassan ben Mohammed Alaoui, heir to the Alawite dynasty, was born on 9 July 1929, son of Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Yossef of the then French Morocco. King Hassan II, ruler of an increasingly democratized Morocco (at least in the last couple years!) for some 38 years, pioneer peacemaker in the Middle East and moderate Islamic leader, died on 23 July in Rabat at the age of 70. I visited Morocco in the 70s, leading a field trip with a group of my science students from the American School of Las Palmas, and found what we saw and experienced of that country remarkably like an antiquated storybook-- old fashioned, intriguing, "user friendly", totally exotic and adventuresome and thoroughly enjoyable-- GAWD, I better start completing my memoirs (REMEMBRANCES OF SKIES PAST) dealing with my years abroad while my memory/mind storage device is still readable and my battery pack still has some power left!!
I took the Festiva for its yearly inspection. Will not have to return for 2 years this time due to a change in the law.
EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY - Evelio Delgado, born 11 October 1953 in San Miguel de Abona, Tenerife; died on 24 July 1991 in Lambertville, New Jersey at the age of 37.
NEW PROJECT
Although there are a couple sites on the Internet which deal with the specs of old VINTAGE computers, I thought it would be kewl to do my own section on them. Would like to get the computers, take pics of their parts, accessories, manuals, active screens and add them to some, as yet undetermined, data on what they can do, operating systems, etc. That means that, first, I have to get the functional machines, read up on how they function, play with each for a while to familiarize myself with the different models and then find the time and energy to do the pages.
They were apparently a LOT more hefty, had SMALLER screens, much LESS memory and speed, and may or may NOT have had graphics capability. It might be a great resource for those "newbys" of the next century who will ONLY be familiar with the electronic marvels and miniaturization of their times.
If any of my loyal readers might have a working computer in nice condition (with manuals / documentation, of course) from the early 80s (late 70s) and onward which is taking up space in your attic, I would appreciate hearing from you BEFORE you put the stuff in your upcoming yard sale. From the preliminary research which I have done, the following would be useful, either as desktops or "luggables" / portables: Altair, Apple, Commodore, Imsai, Kaypro, MITS, Northstar, Osborne, Sinclair, Tandy, Vixen-- and I am sure there are other makers, American and/or European. Any help would most certainly be appreciated. Ask around-- maybe a friend has something they do not use anymore. Credit will be given in the theoretical new section of my site to those who are able to help me, of course. I may be contacted at COMPUTERS. Hopefully I may still have the heart beats to do this in this lifetime!!
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