Someone's been busy...

Today, like other Tuesdays, is a day that Josh and I get out of the house for a while and try and do something adventuresome. It does not always work since we're trying to keep it cheap so we're usually just traveling to local parks, lakes and the like.

Today we went out to Turkey Creek Lake on the west side of Portsmouth and went creek-walking.

As soon as we showed up to the park, there was something that was different about the place. Large stones that had been part of the hillside since I was a kid had slid down and altered the landscape and the creek had altered its course. As my eyes followed up the length of the creek I was surprised to find that someone had been busy.

Stacked stone sculptures and monuments are as ancient as any human civilization. A rock might point out a boundary or barrier between one area and another. Circles of stones (some as large as those creating the stone circle of Stone Henge) are ancient symbols dividing the ground within the circle and the ground outside the circle as separate; perhaps as simple as the difference between the mundane world and the spiritual world.

Stacked stone monuments, such as the structure above, were commonly found across the European landscape as markers for everything from trails, burials, environmental dangers, etc. They require only time and patience to build since there is no mortar and creek stones are fairly plentiful if you just hunt around for them.

The thing that I find most disturbing about the discover and construction of this stone monument is that =I= didn't do it.

Given the time and inclination, this would have been something that I could have and probably would have built. I didn't think that there were people in this quaint corner of Ohio who would even contemplate the idea of creating a stacked-stone monument. Anyone can stack stones to create a small dam in a creek but it takes patience to collect the stone and stack them so that the shape is maintained.

Near the monument was yet another piece of construction - something that I found rather curious.
A few feet from the monument, someone had stacked and piled stone, sticks and leaves in what I can only best describe as a spiral. This picture doesn't quite capture the design that well, but if you look below there is a close up of the various layers of the form.

The dead sticks are piled at the center of the spiral and then, as it expands, the channel is filled with leaves that are only slightly wilted. I would surmise that this structure (or at least the leaves) were harvested and piled over the weekend since they haven't completely wilted.

So then I thought:

Who would have created two ancient symbols of stone; the monument and the spiral?

I have my own theories as to who -could- make such things but not necessarily if they would or not.

Again,

Someone's been busy.

Bones in Portsmouth?

From WSAZ:

PORTSMOUTH, OH (WSAZ) -- Police have found three bones in the backyard of a house in Portsmouth, but they are not those of a human, like they orginially thought.

This after Portsmouth Police and the Portsmouth Daily Times got identical letters that were very specific about the location of the bones. The anonymous lletter referred to a body being buried in late 1964.

Investigators found the bones Friday night at a house in the 2200 block of Vinton Avenue in Portsmouth.

After the discovery Portsmouth Police called forensic investigators from Cincinnati to take a closer look.

Investigators say at this point the case is closed, unless they get more information from the person who wrote those letters.

"The information contained in the letter indicated the person knew exactly what they were talking about," Portsmouth Police Detective James Charles said.

It's not that I'm superstitious...

But god I feel wiped.

I was doing good until the sun went down, or there abouts, and then it's like someone stole my thunder.

I have been sprawled on the couch doing some work for tomorrow's classes and almost zonked out a few times. It's not completely abnormal since the couch has a +3 life-sucking enchantment. But normally it doesn't hit me if I've work to get done. I just ignore the siren call of seventies furniture.

Later tonight, I heard that there's a lunar eclipse tonight. In fact, Sarah, the daughter of my friend June, took this picture of it. V. nice work for a hand-held shot.

I have read the studies that the moon's phases do have some (not a lot, but some) influence upon our physiology (two studies in the late 70's; one in Cleveland and the other in Miami), but a lunar Eclipse? Ugh.

It's messing up all my water-mojo.

Zonk!

-Me

School Shooting in Portsmouth

From: WOWKTV.COM

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio -- Police are investigating a shooting and possible stabbing near Notre Dame Elementary School.

Police confirmed that Christy Layne, a teacher at the school, has been shot. Her condition has not been released, but authorities have said the victim was taken to an area hospital then flown to a Columbus hospital.

Police believe this is a domestic situation.
Law enforcement and SWAT teams are now at a home in the 2500 block of Argonne Road. At this point, they believe the suspect, Michael Layne, is inside the residence. According to the Portsmouth Daily Times, shots were heard fired inside the home.

Police have locked down the elementary school and Notre Dame High School as they continue to search for a suspect. Police have also locked down nearby businesses and asked people who live in the neighborhood to stay inside their house.

Police said students have been accounted for and no students were injured.

FROM USATODAY.COM

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (AP) — A man shot his wife at her Ohio elementary school Thursday, but no children were injured, police said.

The condition of the woman was not immediately known, and the shooter escaped. Authorities said they were in the process of trying to apprehend the man, but did not elaborate.

The shooting happened at Notre Dame Elementary in Portsmouth, a community in southern Ohio near the Kentucky border.

The school and another Catholic school nearby were locked down, said Deacon Tom Berg, vice chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus.

"We are mobilizing our crisis team and sending them down," Berg said.

FROM WLWT.COM

Portsmouth's mayor, James Kalb, told a reporter that the man is barricaded in a home several blocks from the school with several weapons.

Raw Video: Ground Video From Standoff Scene
Video shows officers around the home, and a neighbor said at least five shots were fired in the home.

Layne was airlifted to Southern Ohio Medical Center, then Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, W.V., where she is listed in critical condition.

There are no reports of any injured students.

Parents, many with cell phones clutched to their ears, congregated in the parking lot across the street from the school. They began leaving with their children around 10:30 a.m., said Kathy Hall, office manager of Cornerstone United Methodist Church.

"I wasn't afraid for my own safety, I was afraid for the children, because these turn out so terrible, you know," Hall said.

The school and another Catholic school nearby were locked down, said Deacon Tom Berg, vice chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus.

"We are mobilizing our crisis team and sending them down," Berg said.

Public schools also were put on lockdown, said Superintendent Jan Broughton, who oversees the community's public schools.

About 160 children from preschool through sixth grade attend the three-story, yellow brick school, which has 15 teachers.

Corn dog Blues

It all began with a flaming corn dog. However, let me take you back...

Last week, on Black Friday, I was up in Huntington visiting my buddy Chris. It was a cool day and we were deeply involved with a game of Halo 3 on his new X-BOX. And then, in the middle of a mission to liberate a small air base, my phone rang.

Another buddy of mine, Josh, was calling from just outside his apartment. It was somewhat that he called since it was barely 3 p.m. and he usually works (at a bank) until 6. (BTW: He's a collections agent for the bank. Talk about evil.) He was calling me to ask for a favor; I could tell by the sound of his voice.

He asked if he could crash with me for the weekend.

It was no big deal for me since whether the house is known as the "Lime Green Leisure House" or the "Khaki Shack" it's still "Tomcat's home for wayward guys". So I told him how to get into the house (since I was still in Huntington and wouldn't be able to get back in time to let him in myself) and figured that I would get the whole story later that night.

His story begins with a tale of a Corn Dog.

The older man who lived next to him in his apartment complex was a bit absent minded. He was attempting to cook some corn dogs in a skillet. However, he walked outside to talk to the complex's handyman. After a few moments, a lady who lives above the older man came outside to say that she smelled smoke in her apartment. Within a few minutes, they had deduced that the old man had left the corn dogs cooking in the skillet when he went out to talk.

The old man's apartment was gutted.

The apartment above his was severely damaged.

Josh's apartment had the adjoining wall get scorched and a lot of soot damage. Everything smelled of smoke and he had to get most of his stuff out because the fire department obliterated his front door and windows.

The weekend became the week because the apartment complex couldn't find him a new apt to move into until later. So we spent the week washing everything he owned and then this weekend I went back up with him to move him from one building to another. This gave me the opportunity to grab pictures of the damage to the apartment next to his.

So a week with a house-guest, about a dozen or so loads of laundry and a visit from the 'Amazon Moving Company'.

And all for a damn corn dog.

-Tom

My Week

Monday All-Day:
Grading papers for take-home psych tests for extra credit.

Tuesday Morning:
Changed mind on house color from light gray to Tan (Coffee + Cream / Khaki)

Tuesday Evening:
Forgetting to pay cable: Last-minute payment.

Wednesday Morning:
I replaced the water pump on my car.

Wednesday Evening:
My buddy goes into the hospital with some heart problems.

Thursday Morning:
Another friend calls to tell me that she's in the hospital after an emergency Appendectomy.

Thursday Evening:
My tooth cracks and I end up accidentally swallowing it while giving a lecture in class.
It's broken off at the gum line.

Friday Morning:
Plan on buying some paint for the house
Find a dentist to pull tooth?

Saturday All-Day:
Painting the House?

Sunday All-Day
More painting?

Bladejester?

So here I am reading through my blogger hits to see if anything odd popped up and what'ya know...

One of the links was from the Chillicothe Gazette; a forum post actually.

So I looked it up and someone named Bladejester made this comment:

"mr. natural -

Contact the person who has the following blog.

http://tomsdigitalnotebook.blogspot.com/

Book binding and script are hobbies of his. He knows what he's doing, and if he won't do it for you, chances are that he will point you toward someone who will. He's a decent sort as a general rule"

So... I'm curious as to who would Bladejester be.

According to the forum profile, they're in software development.

The post was from November of last year and the guy, Bladejester, mentioned me by name.

How... curious. :)

I'm on forums now!

-Me

River Days 2007

It's that time again.

RIVER DAYS

Here in Portsmouth, we celebrate Labor Day by holding a celebration known as River Days. The downtown area is turned into a small fair with a band-stand and fireworks. This year they actually pulled in some of the standard fair fodder with some huge snake and a giant rat.

I went down to it on Saturday for a quick walk through (it was just too bright) and grabbed some pictures with my new camera; HP M537. Happy Birthday to me.

The conclusion of the River Days weekend is the big firework show. Well, it's not exactly a HUGE fireworks show because that's normally for the 4th of July, but it wasn't bad. So a few thousand people cluster on the river bank and crash out while they suck down lemon shake-ups, corn dogs, funnel cakes and all the unhealthy fair fodder you can think of. The police did their rounds and picked up a few rowdy, drunken idiots but I didn't see anything odd except for the plethora of blinky-light toys (as opposed to glowing toys) on every kid as far as I could see.

I got to play with the twilight setting on the camera and grabbed some shots of the clusters of people on the banks.

The breeze was cool and the sky was clear. It was an awesome night. I'm going to have to head back down to the river tomorrow night or something and see if I can get shots of the new bridge against the water with the new cam; it should be able to handle night-shots a lot better.

Here's the video of the fireworks.

I tried to get some footage of the finale' but I couldn't get my camera out of my thigh pocket fast enough; not with a half-numb ass.

-T

My favorite Perch

After 2 p.m.

I'm out in front of Hattie's for my weekly indulgence and they're still closing around 2 p.m. I hope they don't take their front tables in when they close as that's where I'm currently perched. Thunderclouds are rumbling in the distance and the weather's turning from hot and muggy to breezy, hot and muggy. I guess that Hattie's was doing badly with their business plan and so they've decided to cut their hours back to only open from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. Once they get a gelato machine installed to serve Italian ice cream, then they will re-open in the evening from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. to handle an evening crowd. I was hoping that they wouldn't have done so badly as to curtail their hours. It's a real treat to be able to hit the coffee house in my area of town and just get some thinking, working, writing done.

One of these days I'll have to grab a shot of the place so everyone else can see it.

The skies of darkened considerably and the wind has kicked up a notch. I think we're going to get a nice storm. But, of course, I'll be caught out in it and my car will leak and it will generally be annoying. I need a new (read as: different, a car that is not like the one that I have now, one that does not leak in heavy rains.).

And here comes the rain.

Oh look, a student. Gotta go.

Karma can be a bitch

So,

There I was in my office running back and forth to the copier to get the last of my Psychology final from the "Machine that Eats Paper" when I saw what looked to be smoke out of one of the windows. Sure enough that's what it was. I saw that there was a car on fire in the parking lot.

As you can see here, the fire is localized in the front, right quarter of the car as though it were centered near or over the break or front wheel. I would imagine that a break pad was froze and the friction of driving super-heated it.

The small fire continued to grow and whatever material that was covering the car began to melt.
I sat in my chair with a few other faculty members around my window and snapped a few pictures to document the fire.

Eventually the fire department did show up and put the fire out but it took a while. The car next to the one burning finally did get moved and was surprisingly undamaged.


After everything cleared, I found out that the woman whose car was parked in the handicapped spot wasn't where she was supposed to be. She had parked there to "just run in" and handle something. One person said that it was a final. Another person said that she was there to see a professor. Either way, parking in a handicapped slot when you want to can sometimes bite ya in the ass.

Karma is a bitch.

-T

It's Coming

Close all shops in the malls.

Hoard food.

Abandon the Elderly

Board up the Windows & Doors

Get the Sled Dogs

Dogs and Cats living together.

Mass Hysteria.

This has been an over-reacting bulletin from the general populace of Portsmouth, Ohio.

Oh yeah

I meant to post this shot a while back. Every day when I head down to campus to work out or for class, I drive past my old high school.

The city constructed a new facility across the street from the old one over the past few years and it opened this past fall. Back in December, they started to tear it down.

On the way home one day, I paused at the doughnut place to grab this shot.

They are, apparently, going to completely level the place. Rumor on campus suggests that the space left by the school (and the surrounding blocks) will be developed into a new stadium for the school or for the University (or both). I've not really looked into it but I do find it somewhat pleasing that this old edifice is no more.

-T