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Update: January-February 2024 Reads
Update: January-February 2024 Reads
Midnight Creed (Ryder Creed #8) –
Midnight Creed is the 8th book in Alex Kava’s Ryder Creed series The series was a spin-off of Kava’s Maggie O’Dell series. Since Maggie and her FBI colleagues are an intricate part of the Ryder Creed series, I’m going to call this book book 19 in the Maggie O’Dell has targeted homeless people up and down the east coast. While Ryder and his dogs are searching for a missing boy. Additionally, Ryder and his staff are awaiting a shipment of K9s that were left behind when our troops left Afghanistan. Read More
A Special 40th Anniversary Night!!
The featured picture at the top of this post was taken from the rear of the Beverly Presbyterian Church on August 23, 1975 the night Kathleen Anne Clarke and I were married! It is hard to believe that 40 years have passed since that night! They always say that time flies when you’re having fun and for the most part we’ve had fun, oh we’ve had our share of sorrows, the deaths of our parents, particularly Kathy’s mother who died at the age of 48 from breast cancer, losses of favorite Aunts and Uncles, but those sorrows have been more than made up for by our four children, although much of the fun was at the expense of Dad, now that fun comes from our grandchildren Zoe and Oliver.
Yesterday was a pretty nice 40th anniversary day. I started the day with a pretty good run although it was slightly messed up when I accidentally turned off my GPS tracking app when I turned off the music. But I did get through a solid three miles at an overall pace of just around 11:00/mile. After the run I went to Target where I did listen to the album that was to be the soundtrack for the run the latest from Royal Hunt. The album did become the soundtrack of today’s run so I will write about it tonight or tomorrow! When I came back from Target, I suggested to Kathy that we call the kids and see if they could all maybe meet us somewhere for dessert. Kathy suggested The Pop Shop in Collingswood. So we tested them and all could come except for Elizabeth.
We decided that we would go at about 6:00 hoping that it would not be as crowded on a Sunday, particularly close to the closing time of 8 o’clock. It was fairly crowded when we arrived and we had to wait about 15 minutes, which wasn’t all that bad. Well for everyone except Andrew who had a squirming Oliver on his shoulders!! Finally, we were seated and ordered our food some folks got dinner and some just dessert. The piggy me got a very LARGE banana split called The Lost Weekend and it was great! For the most part the kids were good both young and old!
We ended the day by watching an episode of Who do you think You Are?? For me the answer is a VERY LUCKY Man!!
Here are some snapshots from our visit…..
You know I have called Oliver and Zoe Yin and Yang because they are somewhat different i.e Zoe is calm…
Oliver not so much…….
speaking of bringing us laughter, yes he does!
Andrew whispers to Zoe: Yes, he is your cousin…..Oliver: I can’t hear you!!!!
All in all it was a VERY nice 40th Anniversary Day! The day was made extra special by our children and grnadchildren!!
Changes in the Karn Christmas Traditions!
Merry Christmas Morning to All! I hope everyone has a wonderful day today!! For the first time in 35 plus years Christmas morning will not be spent in our house! But I do believe that will be more than made up for by the presence of Oliver Edward and Zoe Isabella. This Christmas morning will be spent at son Andrew and Meaghan’s home. The other difference will be that Elizabeth will not be the first to open here presents, that honor will go to the youngest Ms. Zoe!!
My other fear is that young Oliver did not get a glimpse of Santa last nigh putting out his family’s presents and heaven forbid that he saw mommy kissing Santa!!
Now Zoe on the other hand was quite relaxed with Santa. Daughter-in-Law Melissa said it had nothing to do with age, it was just that Zoe realized that she knew that guy, he babysat me once!!
Ok so we’re heading out in a little while and our anticipated arrival is 11:00 am, as that time approaches all the members of the Karn family will head upstairs, leaving the front door unlocked of course. Once the presents that we are bringing for everyone are placed around the tree and “Thistlehair the Christmas Bear” is playing and you are told you may come down!! LOL – just joking (not really). Anyway it’s not Christmas until I hear the following. Merry Christmas Everyone!!
Discovering a Karn Cousin!
A few weeks ago, my daughter Elizabeth went to Target and when she checked out the cashier, an older gentleman, asked her for identification, since she was using her family team member discount card. After he checked the name, she thought he said “Karn, my mother’s maiden name was Karn”. When she came home and told us what he said, my wife and I couldn’t figure out the family connection. With not many Karn’s around the area, we knew he had to be related, but there was no one that we knew of who could be his mother! We needed to find out!!
The only way it would work is if he actually said that his grandmother’s maiden name was Karn! In that case his grandmother was probably Emma Karn, my grandfather’s sister. Emma married Fred Neuman and they lived on Creek Road in Delran. They were actually the next-door neighbors of my long-time boss Wayne Lippincott! Emma and Fred had three children two duaghters and one son, Fred. Since the name of the cashier was Fred, it was a good bet that the above case was true!! Fred and I often talk at the check out and he calls me “Young fella” telling him once that I’m old too, he said – but not as old as me and he is right, I’m ten years his junior!
Anyway a few days later, I went into the store and sure enough when we talked he said that he had told my daughter his grandmother’s maiden name was Karn, and she was Emma Rose Neuman!!
It’s really cool to connect with that side of my father’s family, because I never knew them. My grandfather, born in 1898, was the youngest of the five children of Henry and Pauline Karn. The oldest child Harry was born in 1888, followed by Emma born in 1890, Anna in 1891, and Charles in 1894. I don’t remember any of them well, including my grandfather who died in 1953. Of that side of his family my father was the closest to the children of Charles – Gloria and Charles. I do believe that we also visited Anna and my mother amd father were friendly with her daughters. But we were estranged from Harry and his children as well as Fred and Emma. One of causes of the estrangement between the family and Harry, I believe was, that my grandmother would not let Harry in to see my grandfather after one of his heart attacks. Another cause involved Fred and Emma, I always heard the story that the family was mad at them because they got money from the PSE&G easement that went across the family land on Creek Road. Ha – it’s many times about the money!
Anyway, I am looking forward to sitting down with Fred after the holidays and talking about his family. I hope that he can identify folks in some of the family pictures that I have as I don’t even know what Emma looks like!! Bottom line it’s a small world!
Norwegian Sven Magnus Carlsen retains his World Chess Championship! Go Norway!!
So this week I discovered another Norwegian writer Jorgen Brekke, who I really like, and another blues artist Magnus Berg whose music will find a home in my music library! Then today I read that the reigning World Chess Champion Norwegian Magnus Carlsen retained his title by defeating challenger Viswanathan Anand. Carlsen won after the completion of the 11th game of the 12 scheduled games. The match ended on November 23rd with Carlsen winning three games, losing one and drawing seven. So who is this Magnus Carlsen….. from WikipediaSven Magnus Øen Carlsen (Norwegian: [sʋɛn ˈmɑŋnʉs øːn ˈkɑːɭsn̩]; born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster, No. 1 ranked player in the world and reigning World Chess Champion in classical, rapid, and blitz. His peak rating is 2882, the highest in history.
A chess prodigy, Carlsen became a Grandmaster in 2004, at the age of 13 years, 148 days, making him at that time the second youngest grandmaster in history, although he has since become the third youngest. On 1 January 2010, at the age of 19 years, 32 days, he became the youngest chess player in history to be ranked world No. 1. On the January 2013 FIDE rating list, Carlsen reached an Elo rating of 2861, at that time the highest in history. In
On this date Nov 12, 1892 – Who??? Became the First Pro Football Player!!
If someone asked my this morning who William Heffelfinger was, I wouldn’t have known – do you?? Well, like I said I didn’t know until I read at Wikipedia that…..
….On November 12, 1892, Heffelfinger was paid $25 for his expenses and a bonus of $500 (far above and beyond even double his expenses) by the Allegheny Athletic Association to play in a game against the rival Pittsburgh Athletic Club. The game was played at Recreation Park, which was located on Pittsburgh’s north shore. The spot is marked by a historic marker.[5] Although the payment for Heffelfinger’s play was not published or admitted, his presence set off quite a controversy as Pittsburgh A.C. protested the presence of Heffelfinger and several other Chicago Athletic Association players in their line-up. Allegheny retaliated with the fact that Pittsburgh had imported players as well. The game ended in a 4–0 Allgheny win. Heffelfinger scored the game’s only touchdown on a recovered fumble. A touchdown was only worth four points at the time. Read More
Dad watches proudly as Elizabeth runs her first 10K!! Yes, our Elizabeth!!
Cross-posted from EKKarn’s Explorations
A month or so ago our daughter Elizabeth surprised her mother and I, when she told us that on November 8th we had to go with her to Trenton, where she would be running a 10K! It surprised us because she has never been athletic. She enjoys and follows sports, but never played any, or even showed any inclination to do so. When she had to run the mile in gym in high school, she mostly walked! Her brother Andrew ran cross-country as did I, and I also continue to run, but not Elizabeth. This running surprise comes after we were surprised at her graduation party for receiving her Master’s Degree from the University of Delaware, At the party, we were told by her friend, that Elizabeth is awesome when she works out with weights at the gym. Our Elizabeth???
Anyway, there I was on Saturday, the coldest morning of the fall, walking down Cass Street in Trenton, to join the crowd of runners who would be participating in the 3rd Annual Trenton 5K,10K and Half-Marathon! I haven’t run for about three weeks so I didn’t join in the festivities, but I didn’t mind because this was Elizabeth’s day!
Here’s a picture of her at the start of the race and here she is at the finish inside Arm &Hammer Stadium!!
She finished in about the time she thought she would 1 hour and 5 minutes, running at a 10:32 pace, which was good enough for an 8th place in her age group!!
Now I said I was surprised, but I don’t really know why I was because Elizabeth has never been one to stay within her comfort zone. When she was in her senior year at high school, where she was number one in her class, she became her class representative to the school board meetings because she thought that it would help her to speak before people! Both her mother and I would avoid a situation like that, like the plague!! Prior to that, she had attended a week-long Student leadership conference in Washington D.C. when she was in the 8th grade, and a three-week summer class at William & Mary when she was a high school sophomore!! Attending that class, may have helped her to get accepted at William &Mary a few years later. At a minimum, as a result of taking the class, she knew she liked W&M!
So I say to Elizabeth, congratulations on your run, your mother and I are very proud of you! Now if I can only learn from you how to live outside of my comfort zone maybe someday I’ll get to go to England and Ireland, or at least run that half-marathon that I keep saying I should try to run some day……how about the second Saturday in November next year, you think Elizabeth will be up for it!!
Hum, I think I’ll check out a half-marathon training schedule at Walk, Jog Run or Runner’s World!!……
Can Progressives Win the Hearts and Minds of Average Americans and Change the World?? I Hope!!
Can Bernie Sanders lead the way?
This afternoon I visited Truthdig, the first post I saw was the following, expressing similar thoughts to those that I wrote about this morning!!
This Democratic Party Is Going Nowhere. Can Progressives Take it Over and Change the World?
Tuesday’s crushing defeat of the centrist Clinton/Obama Democratic Party provides an opening for the American left. The next few years are not going to be pretty, but they could be the beginning of something beautiful.
In 2009, shortly after its most crushing national electoral defeat in 44 years, the GOP was sparked back to life by the tea party insurgency. America’s right wing revived its moribund conservative party with a stark challenge to the Republican establishment. The GOP gained 63 House seats in 2010.
Could the left do something similar to bring the Democrats back to life? Many barriers have to be confronted, but left progressives who are serious about making positive changes in our society need to get going now—for two reasons.
First: The moderate, pro-corporate, Democratic Leadership Council wing that has dominated the Democratic Party since 1992 is reeling, unable to compete with a well-funded and reactionary GOP. Without a charismatic frontman or -woman, this Democratic Party cannot mobilize its middle- and working-class base for the simple reason that it doesn’t represent their interests. Only left progressives stand for the welfare of average Americans, and they have to stand up, make this distinction and stake their claim before all focus turns to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Second: The country and the world are a mess. The economy, the justice system, the environment, education, immigration and foreign policy are all out of whack. Obama, Hillary and the centrist Democrats aren’t going to set these right; as for the GOP, God forbid. If left progressives really believe that their program for America is the best possible program, which they do, the state of the world demands that they get to it right away.
The time is right to strike now. The electoral left has a secret, albeit underutilized, asset. Almost no one in this benighted land knows that the Congressional Progressive Caucus is larger now than the Tea Party Caucus ever has been—yet given its relative influence on the national discourse, the CPC’s anonymity is no surprise. The progressive caucus is simply not as aggressive or as focused a political force as the tea party.
This has to change, and if it does, progressives will go into the next election cycle holding a winning hand. All they have to do is boldly introduce themselves to the public, establish very clearly what they stand for and present themselves as a unified front in 2016. Even if they just hold on to the seats they currently hold, the results will have the appearance of a national victory for a unified insurgent movement. Read More
The “Americans United” Party Part 1!! The Time has Come to Unite and Move Forward!
Back in the 1970s Richard Nixon called for the “Silent Majority” to step forward to stop the loud minority of Vietnam war protestors, those who he saw as trying to destroy America, while we saw ourselves as the ones trying to save America! Today I belive that the roles are reversed the “loud minority” are the ones that are hijacking our country and dividing it along racial and monetary lines! Fighting against this loud minority is a “Silent majority This “silent majority” elected a black man President, one who gave us all hope for a better and brighter future and yet that “loud minority” who lost the election succeeded in creating a political climate based on racial hatred and wedge issues like gay marriage, abortion and gun rights and unfounded fears of totalitarian takeovers, that the President’s administration is left in political shambles. From the start of his first term the Republican “minority” has done everything they can do to set him up fail, but yet we the silent majority still elected him for a second term. Why? Because he represents a majority of the people of our nation! It’s a majority that wants to see people be able to marry the person they love, who want to see sensible gun control and action to save the planet from global warming, and to take actions like the following from Richard Reich’s post Robert Reich: Why Dems Lost The Election And What They Can Do About It
We need to raise the minimum wage, invest in education and infrastructure, lift the cap on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes, resurrect Glass-Steagall and limit the size of the banks, make it easier for low-wage workers to unionize, raise taxes on corporations with high ratios of CEO pay to average worker pay, and much more. Read More
Reich concludes the post with the following….
In other words, we need an agenda for shared prosperity. Over the next two years the Democrats have an opportunity to advance one. If they fail to do so, we’ll need a new opposition party that represents the interests of the vast majority.
I believe that the latter is the case, we need a new opposition party to counterbalance the Tea Party! Many of the Tea Party members appear to be less than the smartest people around and yet they are winning! So they can’t be that stupid! Can you say sly like a fox! I can’t believe that there are not people of higher intelligence out there that can lead our new opposition party to great heights!! I for one am damn tired of hiding my liberalism! I am a liberal for one reason I believe in the precepts of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and we should love, honor and respect all humanity regardless of their race, creed or sexual orientation and that our government was founded on the ideal that government is there to promote the general welfare of the people of our nation, it says so right in the preamble of the Constitution….
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I don’t think that either political party has done that, and while I don’t think a new political party has a chance of supplanting the Democratic Party, I do think that a Americans United party has the ability to show the Democrats that, we the “Silent Majority” have their backs and if we do maybe they can grow a spine!!
So now I will adjust the words of Abraham Lincoln a little….
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently 1% rich and 99% poor,
I believe this government cannot endure permanently 1% politically powerful (can you say Koch Bros! and 99% feeling powerless and afraid!
It is time for those who believe that our government CAN promote the general welfare of all Americans to Unite and take our country back and return it to greatness by moving it forward into the 21st century! It is not a time to look back, the age where we are individuals is gone! Our country is a community not a collection of individuals going it alone!! So Americans Unite! Edward is now stepping down from his soap box… Any thoughts??