View allAll Photos Tagged intuitive
DadaKamikazeKnitting
Guerrilla knitting attack
in intuitive
sensitive
highspeed mode
tunic
dress
pseudo-poncho
wrap
multimedia
multitechnique
freeform & pattern crochet/knitting
Navajo 3-ply
& some more nonsense I cant´t remember
multi versatile
like most of my creations
endless wearing options
for fearless ladies with attitude
& urban drag queens
Two Intuitive Machines employees ready navigation pod sensors for the company's Nova-C lunar lander in preparation for testing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 18, 2022. The test involved flying the sensors over a simulated lunar surface at the Launch and Landing Facility on a private helicopter. Intuitive Machines is scheduled to launch two missions to the Moon in 2023 - one of which will carry NASA's Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo) instrument that will help analyze the chemical makeup of landing sites on the Moon, as well as study water on the lunar surface. Through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, the agency selected Intuitive Machines to deliver science and technology demonstration payloads to the Moon, contributing to NASA's goal of establishing a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface. Photo credit: NASA/Isaac Watson
Some of you may remember this from the scene in A View to a Kill where Max Zorin tells James Bond "Intuitive improvisation is the secret of genius" before tossing him in an elevator and setting the place ablaze. Christopher Walkin made being evil look so easy. Good times.
If they remade this movie today, Max Zorin wouldn't need to destroy Silicon Valley anymore. Corporate greed and China have done a good job of that already...
explored 9/18/2010
This is from the first set of professional Alphie photos. I didn't take this one.
KOM League Flash Report
For Week
of
February 1-6, 2015
After sending each Flash Report I look at the screen and ask myself if that will be the last one.
What is intuitively obvious, even to the casual observer, on first glance, these reports are “without form and void.” Thanks to the Book of Genesis for those words.
There is never any impulse to attempt to fabricate a story for I’m well aware of my limitations in the writing sphere. I was reminded of that by one reader who gave me a passing score for my efforts but congratulated me on the timing of and the inclusion of a recent Bill Clark article on the Valomilk. He deemed Clark to be the best writer of material in the last report, to which I wholeheartedly agreed.
Stay with me for a bit for I’m going to spend a little time on the aforementioned Mr. Clark. His Flash Report is sent at the same time as the rest of those on the mailing list. However, he neither turns a computer on or off and is reliant on a family member to find the report and then print it for him.
Clark keeps a busy schedule and goes more places and does more things, in a week, than I’ve done in the past ten years. When Monday rolls around I assume that anyone to whom the Flash Report was sent has read it or deleted it from the computer by that time. Late on this past Monday afternoon Clark’s wife, Barbara, called to let me know he thought he left a long message on my telephone answering machine earlier in the day. I was a bit puzzled until Barbara explained that she had received a call from a gentleman stating he had received a long message from her husband that didn’t make a lot of sense to him and obviously he wasn’t interested in the things about which Clark and I talk about on the telephone.
So, as I write this Clark doesn’t know that he hit “442” instead of “445” when attempting to call me. He got the right number, but it belonged to someone else. I now know, after speaking with Barbara. that he is going to write a story regarding a game he umpired at Clinton, Mo. when Ernie Banks played for the Kansas City Monarchs. Although I don’t know the details I’d guess it was the same summer—1952-- Banks and the Monarchs showed up in Carthage to take on the Indianapolis Clowns.
Since there is a real fan of Bill Clark who also reads these Flash Reports this is a heads up that he will have another article on baseball in his daily column. For all you Clark fans his work can be accessed at Columbiatribune.com That is a site that limits the number of times each month you can visit it so use your access judiciously.
_______________________________________________________________________
Conclusion to a previous Flash Report story
Speeding and running stop sign inspected. That was a headline appearing on page 12 of the Saturday September 12, 1953 Edition of the Omaha Evening Journal.
In a couple of recent issues, of this publication, a name arose who had no affiliation with the KOM league. He was a member of the Osage Tribe who pitched briefly for Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1949, before being replaced on the roster by Jack McCalman who had started that season with the Carthage, MO Cubs.
When information is located about former players who weren’t affiliated with the KOM league, and for whom I can verify their passing, I share that with Jack Morris who keeps tabs on former players who have crossed o’er the Jordan River.
When first mentioning the late Hutchinson pitcher I surmised that although I had found out a great deal regarding his early life that I might never learn of his date and place of birth and his fate. Shortly, I learned all of the above with the exception I didn’t know what led to his death at a very young age. Well, the Omaha newspaper of 1953 had this account of a car accident from a Saturday afternoon 62 years ago. “A 25 year old man was injured severely early Saturday when his car sideswiped another on East Locust Street, continued three hundred feet and plowed into a tree. The impact tore a shoe from the foot of the driver Herbert Hay (sp) Pitts, resident of the downtown YMCA. He was reported in fair condition Saturday at County Hospital. He suffered multiple cuts of the head, left arm and leg and both hands and a concussion. He was unconscious several hours.”
For the newspaper reference cited I have Jack Morris, baseball necrologist, to thank. The rest of what I knew about Pitts was basically contained in Ancestry.com files, some old Baseball Guides and the Hutchison News. Pitts had played professionally in 1948 with Odessa and Lubbock in the West Texas-New Mexico league and after being released by Hutchinson, in 1949, due to a sore right arm, (citation from Hutchinson News) he hooked on with Alexandria and Lafayette in the Evangeline league in 1950. He was an effective pitcher when he was able to perform. He had a winning record in his three seasons in pro ball.
On October 18, 1950 he entered the United States Army and received his discharge on November 1, 1952. In an ironic twist he passed away one year and one day later on November 2, 1953, most likely from his injuries suffered in the September car accident.
On December 22, 1953 an application was filed with the U. S. Headstone Agency for Military Veterans for their consideration. That information is part of the public record. . search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=QGHeadstoneApps&am... request was for a flat bronze marker. Sometime between the application date and January 18, 1954 it had been reviewed and marked up by someone using a red pencil. On the request was the word “undesirable” which was underlined twice.
With that information I went back to his Find A Grave site: msbdy=1928&msbpn__ftp=oklahoma&cpxt=0&catBucket=rstp&uidh=tk3&cp=0&pcat=ROOT_CATEGORY&h=38864566&db=FindAGraveUS&indiv=1&ml_rpos=2
The tombstone that now marks the spot of Herbert Pitts’ final resting place doesn’t contain a flat bronze marker as can been seen if you pulled up the previous URL. For those who didn’t or can’t, it is a very nice marble headstone. For anyone familiar with gray marble they will quickly recognize it as being Carthage Marble. In fact, one reader, of this report played for the Carthage Cubs in 1951 and worked the winter of 1951-52 at Carthage Marble and will verify the statement that the tombstone for the late Mr. Pitts is from the place he played ball and worked during one of the greatest years of his young life. Just because he met a pretty young lady in 1951 had NOTHING to do with him staying around Carthage for the off season, right WB? WB is the same guy who took Hank Aaron to the hospital during the 1952 Northern League All-Star game. That was a story in last week’s report. How many of you recall that story? Shucks, how many of you even recall last week?”
________________________________________________________________________
Another puzzler almost solved.
This story, like the previous one, has a common thread…an automobile accident.
Since the start of all the effort to locate a former member of an Iola ball club, in the early 1950’s, I’ve looked, scratched through all manner of records and looked again and again for a trace of him. I always thought he was born in Salina and later lived in a small town across the Smokey Hill River to the Southeast of the place he entered this world. However, in searching every document I could find I never uncovered what happened to him after he left the KOM league. In recent days I unraveled his past and now understand why I had a tough time tracing his ancestry.
For this story I’ll just call the guy Marvin. In my research I found through some family archives that, due no fault of his own, was born out of wedlock in 1932 to Raymond and Anna, both of whom had different last names as you might expect. Raymond was 25 at the time and Anna was 17. So, Marvin was adopted, given the last name of the adopted parents and grew up on a farm in Central Kansas. It appears that his mother, Anna, stayed in Salina but Raymond took off and went to Torrington, Wyoming where he married a girl by the name of Sarah, a year later. I don’t know what became of Sarah but Raymond lived another 60 years before his death in Parker, Colorado in 1994. Looking at stories like that I wonder if Raymond ever knew his son got a chance to play professional baseball. Also things like that raise the question as to whether Marvin ever saw or knew of his father.
The “mystery man” in this story was scouted by a former minor leaguer from Lecompton, Kansas by the name of Russell Sehon. Since Marvin came out of the Salina area and that town was a Philadelphia Phillies farm club at the time it is most likely Sehon signed him for the Phils and had him assigned to a Class D independent club, Iola. The young infielder showed up at Iola on May 28, of an unspecified year, and had six runs batted in, in one game, shortly after his arrival. Since he played at Iola during the years I was watching baseball I’m sure I saw him. Now, I wish I could find him but probably never will. One thing about the young man’s four score games with Iola was, he had a tough time hitting his weight and that spelled the end of his baseball aspirations.
Had Marvin taken the last name of his birth mother he would have had the same name as a great Brooklyn Dodger pitcher of that era. Had he taken the name of his “long gone” father, it would have been the only name of its kind in the history of organized baseball. As it turned out Marvin had the adopted last name of scores of men who played professional baseball.
Whether Marvin is alive is unknown but he had three half- sisters of which two are living and doing so in Salina, Kansas. I could make contact with the survivors to find out about Marvin but I’d be a little fearful of doing that. Notice I prefaced that with “a little.”
Follow-up to the story
While attempting to locate additional information regarding Marvin I came upon a Salina, Kansas Journal article written a dozen or so years after he left the KOM League. The headline was “Salinian Found Unconscious in His Car.” At the start I didn’t know if this was the same guy who played in the KOM league or not. I didn’t know the answer until I read down to the last paragraph. So, follow along and see what I found. (Some of verbiage in this article was a little hard to grasp but it is a direct quote.)
“Thirty-year old Marvin K. Anonymous, Salina RFD, was found unconscious, a 1.5 inch gash across the center of his forehead, on the floorboards of a car east of Salina Saturday night.
In Ditch
The 1958 model car was in a ditch on the south side of Marymount Road approximately 2.5 miles east of the city. The Sheriff’s Patrol said the car had a flat front tire but no other apparent damage.
Cause not known
The Sheriff’s Patrol said cause of the accident was not determined by late Saturday night.”
At this point I was still curious as to whether I had found a story on a “missing” KOM leaguer, or not. The article concluded. “It is believed Anonymous was employed at a Salina golf course. He is a former professional baseball and former star athlete at Anonymous (not Salina) High School.”
It appears the “missing” KOM leaguer stayed in the area in which he was born. I located three references to him in the Salina Journal and all of them were from April through June of that year in the early 1960’s. In all cases the references were due to hospitalizations.
Run the clock forward 30 years and there is a reference, in an obituary, that he was the brother to a deceased female. That caused me some concern for in the 1940 Census he was the only child mentioned in the family. However, in looking at that Census document I found that he had been adopted by a couple who were 42 years of age. It is possible that they had raised some children who had left the home by that time which made sense that they, at an advanced age of parenting a baby, did indeed adopt Marvin. The only thing that gives me pause that Anonymous was still in the Salina area in the early 1990’s is a plea in the April 28, 1976 edition of the Salina Journal. The plea was placed there by a lady trying to locate former graduates of the high school where Anonymous had attended and from where he had graduated nearly a quarter century earlier.
With all the research done on this matter I have reason to believe Marvin is still living and if I could go to a certain town in North Central Kansas, not Salina, I think I could speak with him and complete this tale. If I ever saw him I think I’d recognize him since I do have a photo of him taken almost 65 years ago. I’m sure he hasn’t changed…much.
Social commentary:
Keeping the name and most ways of identifying Marvin Anonymous from being determined was on purpose. I’m sure Marvin probably found out, some time in his life, the circumstances under which he entered this world. However, he might not have shared that with many people and it isn’t my role in life to spread that bit of information. When he was born the times were different. The unmarried mother many times left town on some “made up” reason and left the newborn in the custody of an agency who adopted it out to some family whether it was good or bad for the child. If the birth circumstance of the child was learned they often were called by a seven letter word that was far from flattering.
As I was finishing this story I heard a defensive back for one of the Super Bowl teams state that he didn’t know if he would play in the game on Sunday if his girl friend was giving birth to their child. The moral climate in this country has changed from Marvin’s day and even from the time I was a young and even older person. Now, anything goes and I’m not sure it is for the best. It used to be that Hollywood was known for its loose morals, and was the poster child for a way of life that residents in my part of the world never discussed or admitted in public knowing about. . The old joke was two youngsters who were sons of Hollywood starts were arguing. One youngster and says ‘My daddy can whip your daddy.’ To which the other youngster replied ‘My daddy is your daddy’.”
________________________________________________________________________
Many ballplayers were never scouted but sought out teams in various ways.
There are a variety of reasons the Flash Reports are read. How can I list all the ways? The answer is “I can’t and won’t even make an attempt.” However, when a former big leaguer passes away, who played in the KOM league, and there isn’t any record of who inked him to his first contract, I’ll get an inquiry. The latest case in point came when Charlie Locke passed away in early January.
It was time for me to reach out to the “far-flung” network of guys with great memories. Since Bill Ashcraft and Charlie Locke were from the same part of the country and signed the same year with the St. Louis Browns, I figured he could shed some light on the scout signing Locke. Here are a couple of responses provided some good grist for this edition.
•
John: I don't recall the name of the Scout who actually signed me. You may recall that in the 40s and early 50s some of the major league teams held "training camps where at a cost one could attend and play against his peers under the watchful eyes of various scouts. In 1950 I was invited to one of those camps which the Browns held in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. As I recall, the Browns had a training facility at an old "retired" US Military base there at Pine Bluff and that several baseball diamonds had been hewn out. We were housed in one of the old barracks and were given military type cots for sleeping on. I felt right at home. The Camp wasn't free by any means but the Browns indicated that the "Top Prospects" camp would have their tuition, bus fare, etc., refunded. I was lucky-my control was on and somehow I was selected Numero Uno and got my refund. I remember that Henry Peters, a Browns bigwig, was at the graduation ceremonies and I believe that he was the party who gave me my contract. Since I was still a "minor" they had to get my Dad's permission for me to sign although I had just been recently discharged from the Marine Corps (my first stint and I was called back in when the Korean War broke out which essentially did away with any baseball aspirations that I might have had). I met Peters again in 1952 when Bill Veeck, who had bought the team, directed that I come up and work out with the Big Boys immediately upon my second Marine discharge later that year. It was nice of Veeck but Hornsby, the Manager, readily saw that my arm was useless. Veeck was a good guy but Hornsby was an ass.
A bit later:
John: I tried to send you a reply but fouled up something-computerese is not my expertise. I guess that the Browns' experiment down in Pine Bluff could have been considered a try-out camp but as I recall most of try-out camps, as such, put on in the late 40s-early 50s were usually of the 1/2 or 1 day variety. I knew some of the local guys around Advance-Bloomfield who attended one of them and they indicated that they didn't get much of a chance to show their wares. My brother and a couple of his HS team mates around 1955-1956 went to one of the Cardinals camps in St. Louis and one of his friends could hit a ball as far as anybody I ever saw, but he said that he only got one at bat, and that was it. He could have easily played minor league ball and would probably have hit several home runs.
The Browns' camp at Pine Bluff was of a week or ten days duration and we had to pay to attend it. They brought several scouts in to watch the goings on The one day camps my brother's friends attended didn't cost them anything except for their road fare up to St. Louis and they had to bring their glove and shoes, perhaps a local uniform of some kind-but I don't recall if this was the case. The guys who attended our camp in Pine Bluff were from several locations around the country, people from Arkansas, Illinois, etc., the guy I mentioned who made it to the Big Leagues for a short period, Chuck Oertel, was from Pontiac, Michigan, and another guy who was in the camp was named Bill Zwirko from somewhere up in New Jersey-he also played for Enos at Baxley but I believe that he hung it up after a year or so.
The only guy at that camp that got a cup of coffee in the Big Leagues was Charles Oertel but it wasn't with the Browns, the White Sox I believe. He wasn't up in the bigs very long. It was funny but I was playing with the Camp Pendleton Marine team in early 1952 after my arm was shot and who would appear but Chuck Oertel, having also been called back in at the tail end of the Korean War. He and I had played with Baxley in the Georgia State League under the late Bill Enos.
Ed reply to all of the above:
Zwirko played one year at Hazlehurst-Baxley and hit .187. That may be the reason he quit.
Ed comment:
A few things in my years of research are universally the same. No matter with whom I spoke, who played for Rogers Hornsby, to a person they couldn’t tolerate him. But, there has to be an exception somewhere and as soon as I hear about it I’ll surely print the news. I even shared that sentiment a few months ago with a family member of the Hornsby’s who has a huge genealogy site. I’ve heard from a number of people who played for the late Bill Enos prior to his going into scouting. In his case, I never heard a disparaging word. As a visiting team batboy the year Enos was in the KOM league he was right at the top of my favorite managers list.
________________________________________________________________________
Now for the dessert.
In the last issue the Valomilk (VM) article by Bill Clark was saved for this part of the Flash Report. So, with a “sweet deal” going I’ll close with another Valomilk story.
John G Hall, you are now known as the “Guru of Valomilk”. After your story last week in the FR regarding Mr. Earl Sifers of Iola baseball and candy fame, you once again quirked my interest so I have been searching since for the old and familiar VM. And, if I had just followed your very explicit instructions I would not have wasted all my time, energy and $. I went first to Walgreen’s, as they have a huge candy department. No VMs. Went to Wally World. No VM. Went to Quik Trip. No VM. So, I finally decided perhaps should follow your guidance. Just went to my friendly Westlake ACE Hardware near my house. I found VM!!! Right at the checkout as you said. Told the clerk at checkout there was a special story behind my purchase so she had to hear it and of course I gave her a short rendition, including information on the KOM League. She, being an “older adult,” definitely remembered VM from the days far past. Time and the economy have taken their toll of course. It is now a 2-pack and sells for $1.99!!! My wife asked what it was “back in our days” and I cannot remember so thought perhaps you might? Sure it was only a single pack? And price?
The other famous one I remember from our swimming pool days with Keith and Norma is the Cherry Mash, manufactured then and now in St Joseph, Mo. And it is also on the candy checkout at ACE!!! My favorite though always was and still is a FROZEN Snicker bar!!!
But, thanks for the memories. And yes indeed, the address on the wrapper says 5112 Merriam Lane, Merriam, Kansas. If I had Paul Lindblad’s left arm I could hit that place with a rock from my home(well, almost). But since it is my lefty arm, I will drive there and drop the rock in their driveway. By the way the new name of company is Russell Sifers. I wonder if that is perhaps a son or even grandson?
Thanks for the memories John. Oh, by the way. I will not bother to look at the wrapper for the dietary info printed thereon. Just TYPING the word VALOMILK probably added 2 lbs to my weight---Ha!!”
Casey—Shawnee Mission, KS
One more thing before closing. I am glad it is a 2-pack. That means my bride of 46 years will have to share equally, which might prevent any “comments” re the nutrition value. That will be right after or before she has her Blue Bell Ice Cream of course!!!! Good thing she does not read these ramblings of mine!!
Ed reply:
Well, see if I can answer all your questions. The Valomilk cost one nickel and most of the nickels I received when selling them were Buffaloes.
The Cherry Mash was indeed made in St. Joseph, MO by the Chase Candy Company. However, it was at the top of the price list for candy. It cost one thin Roosevelt.
The Snicker and Milky Ways also sold for a nickel. But, when the corner grocery stores starting selling them frozen they upped the price to match the Cherry Mash. Snickers and Milky Way's were made by the Mars Candy Co. and they made a Mars Bar that had two almonds in each bar and that also brought a high price of ten cents. I thought all that candy was great until I tasted a Cadbury Caramello and then I kicked all those other confections to the side.
Earl Sifers was an uncle of Russell. Russell never saw Earl in his life as I recall him telling me at one of my purchasing forays prior to a KOM league reunion.. I told him things about the Iola operation he never knew. I also told him it was the preferred candy item of all KOM leaguers but he never gave me a price break on the hundreds of those things I purchased for a “few” reunions. I wearied of driving from Columbia, MO to Merriam, KS prior to each reunion so I finally talked Jim Jay into getting the Valomilks for me. He then became the most popular guy at the reunion. It seems to me that the double pack of Valomilks were 89 cents the last time I purchased them for a reunion. Maybe I got them cheaper since Sifers didn’t have to charge the freight costs.
_______________________________________________________________________
Some things just didn’t pan out
What KOM clubs anticipated at the start of spring training, in terms of roster composition, seldom turned out that way once the season started. This article from early spring of 1948 shows just how initial plans go awry. Even the manager who started out in the spring at Miami, Okla., Hank Gornicki had a change of heart about managing that club.
Miami News Record--THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1948 PITCHERS WORK FOR POSITIONS ON LOCAL CLUB --14 Hurlers Among New Crop Of Owl Candidates; .29 new candidates battling for 21 positions on the Miami Owl roster, 14 are pitchers and eight are infielders. The others, all of whom reported for spring drill late Monday, include five outfielders and two backstops. Because College field hasn't been conditioned for workouts, the plan for junior Owl prospects to toil on the campus has been abandoned. Instead, there will be two squads in action daily at the Fairgrounds park, the Topeka Owls working during the afternoon. following morning practice by the local athletes, who will report at 10 a. m. Manager Windy Johnson of the Topekans and pilot Hank Gornicki of the Miami outfit will get a line on their hurling talent Saturday night and Sunday in the two nine-inning games slated at the Fairgrounds. The Saturday game will begin at 8, the Sunday afternoon clash at 2:30 o'clock. Pitching and batting practices will dominate the training program until the week-end tilts.
Topeka breaks camp April 16 for a series of exhibitions and the local aggregation, while remaining here for most of its conditioning, will travel occasionally for competition. Miami will open its season May 5. The new arrivals: Pitchers— Robert Scheer, Old Bridge, N. J.; Edward Brennan, New Haven, Conn.; Dennis Torris, Peabody, Mass.; Robert Vogel, South River, New Jersey; Lawrence Pugliese, Greenwich, Conn.; Francis Wilson, Lynn, Mass.; John Doyle, Salem, Mass.; Glen Oxandale, Wetmore, Kas.; Dean Christman, Jamestown, Kas.; Alex Grieves, Burlingame, Kas.; Robert Moore, Ottawa, Kas.; Fred Rykert, Lenexa, Kas.; and Rudy Newman, South Hambar, Mass. Infielders—Dennis Heins, New Haven, Conn.; Anthony Mormino, St. Louis, Mo.; Vernon Stout, St. Louis, Mo;. George Gibson, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Manric Bauer, Pawnee Rock, Kas.; Everett Moore, Morrowville, Kas.; James Moore, Ottawa, Kas.; and Robert Newcomer, Lenexa, Kas. Outfielders—Russell Burkemper, St. Louis, Mo.; Benjamin DiPietro, New York, N. Y.; Harold Lee, Lenoir City, Tenn.; Bart Mantia, St. Louis, Mo.; and Thomas Quinnlan, Perry, Kas. Catchers—Byron Perrigo, Holton, Kas.; and Willard Grunow, Egg Harbor City, N. Y. (Ed note: That was actually Egg Harbor City, New Jersey. A member of the 1948 Carthage Cardinals was from that same town. His name was Howard Leonard Obergfell who passed away in Willingboro, NJ at age 39, the year was 1966.)
Ed note:
In the research conducted on that 1948 team I only found the following names, from that early spring roster who played in at least one game for Miami: Alex Grieves, George Gibson, Robert Vogel, Edward Brennan and Rudy Neumann. Robert and James Moore from Ottawa, KS were brothers. Robert had made the Chanute roster in 1947 but was not offered a contract in 1948 after the New York Giants took over. Neither he or James made the Miami club in 1948.
Rudy Neumann was listed as ”Newman” from South Hambar, Mass. But he was actually from Hoboken, NJ and died in New Brunswick, NJ some 60 years after appearing at Miami. I was never able to find a South Hambar anywhere. That had to be a newspaper misspelling.
If someone wanted a “fun” project they could take those names of guys who didn’t make the Miami club in 1948 and see if they played elsewhere before their youth had fled. I would suspect there are a number of misspellings of names on that list as I just cited with Rudy Neumann. Robert Scheer spent the 1948 season at Topeka.
Later
For the fun of it I ran Ancestry.com checks on nearly everyone who didn’t make it on to the Miami roster. I was surprised to have been able to track everyone of those listed and with the exception of two names the Miami paper had them spelled correctly. Most of the fellows trying out for Miami in 1948 were WWII veterans and one of them, Benjamin L. “Bennie” DiPietra was a highly decorated soldier in the war and was “Missing in Action” for a period of three months from late 1944 until early 1945. He passed away in 1963 and is buried in Bristol, Pennsylvania.
Others from the list who reported to Miami in 1948 went into the Korean War such as Everett Moore of Morrowville, Kansas. He spent four years in the service and lived until August 29, 2009 when he passed away in Concordia, Kansas.
There was a letter left out of Fred Rykert’s name. He is Fred Charles Ryckert who was listed as being from Lenexa, Kansas. He was born outside Lenexa in Johnson County in 1922 and at age 93 resides in Ft. Collins, Colorado.
If for any reason anyone would want any information on the members of the early Miami spring roster of 1948 I now have a pretty good profile on everyone of them. Can you imagine the surprise that some family members of all those guys would have if they knew their loved one once had a shot at playing professional baseball?
________________________________________________
Warning: Old KOM League correspondence is a potential health hazard.
Late last year the nearly two-decade accumulation of correspondence was wheeled out my back door, into a van and across I-70 to the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka. I have mentioned it a couple of times in the past but never dwelt on it. In recent days I received an update on the archival process.
This is the status of the project:
“John: Thought I would give you an update on the processing of the Hall-KOM collection.
Our volunteers and staff have made quite a dent in the collection. There are four cubic foot boxes of the correspondence left to go through. Initially there were 15 boxes. Everyone is having a good time reading through the stories and jokes. Some of the jokes are not really suited for printing.
We are finding the occasional photo left in the correspondence. I have one photo on my desk of Donald Buss taken at Pittsburg, Kansas in 1948. Another one is of Carl Pevehouse in his Oklahoma A&M uniform in the late 1940s. Would you want one or both of these photos back for your files?
I do have to report that we are having some problem with the correspondence from 1994-95. The mold growth has been difficult to get under control. Mold is the number one danger in the archives game. You would think it would be falling boxes, or bad backs from lifting too many heavy cubic foot boxes. Nope, it is mold induced respiratory infections. I warn every intern I teach to be very careful around the stuff. I am still trying to figure out how I can work the early correspondence without getting an infection.
Hope this finds you and your family in good spirits and health. Talk to you again soon.
Sincerely, Darrell
Ed reply:
Sorry about the mold. I knew it was in some of those boxes but I was encouraged to let you guys decide what to throw away. Throw it away before it makes you sick. I would like the photos of Pevehouse and Don Bruss. Mold was one of the reasons my wife said I had to pitch the files. Sorry about the bad jokes some of the guys told. One more thing if you decide there isn't any use for those questionnaires I sent to those guys, let me know.
A bit later
It's a great idea to throw out the bad jokes (and mold infested letters) and libelous statements made by any of those guys. I sometimes wonder if I should have made that stuff available for public consumption. Save me from being sued by blacking out all that borderline stuff.
Ed comment:
About the only material in that correspondence, needing to be deleted, was someone trying to relate an off color joke. I have a pretty good memory, or did until recently, and I don’t remember a single joke any sent. So, I guess they were only funny to the persons sending them. Taxing my memory I do recall one guy sending a joke and I didn’t print it in the newsletter and that was the last time he ever communicated with me. I do recall him sending the joke but I didn’t deem it suitable for distribution.
________________________________________________________________________
In time, everyone makes it into a Flash Report.
Until the discussion of Ray Rippelmeyer. and the death of his wife, Glenda, in the previous edition of the Flash Report, his name was never mentioned in this publication.
Then the information was shared with the Eichhorst family who are friends of Rippelmeyer. The Eichhorsts were going to share all the voluminous information that was shared by one of the readers regarding Ray’s career. In that material was a reference to Rippelmeyer hitting his only big league homer off Boston’s Billy Monbouquette. Shortly thereafter this note arrived Barry McMahon, the person who shared so much information about Rippelmeyer. “Ray Rippelmeyer hit his homerun off Bill Monbouquette and I just noticed Bill passed away on Sunday the 25th.” www.google.com/search?rls=aso&client=gmail&q=Bill...
With that news I sent the information about Monbouquette’s death to the Eichhorsts who are sharing the information with the Rippelmeyer family. Here is the response from Mrs. Eichhorst. “The day after Glenda's funeral. Will include this with all the information you have sent. Thanks again!”
This is a note received in regard to the Rippelmeyer family. “John, please pass our condolences on to Ray Rippelmeyer (through Barb) from us. I don't think that I ever met Ray's wife, Glenda. She was younger. What a beautiful lady! I remember Ray and we followed his career through the years. He was well known on SEMO's Campus because of his athletic prowess! My brother (also a SEMO Alum) lost his wife 2 years ago because of Alzheimer's! Praying for a cure in the near future. Blessings and sympathy to all. Bill & Shirley Virdon—Springfield, MO
________________________________________________________________________
That should do it for another week or so. As is stated in many of these reports it isn’t mandatory that they be sent your way. I like doing it but if you don’t want to receive them let me know and then you can say, like many others have, “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Adding to the record book
In looking at some baseball websites I noticed that Charles Richard Kohs was listed as being born in 1931 when he hurled for the Miami, OK Eagles at the start of the 1950 baseball season. I knew that was inaccurate for I spoke with him few years ago and he told me he was born April 14, 1925 in Lincoln, Park, Michigan. He had pitched for Muskogee, Oklahoma during the 1949 season.
Kohs got a shot with Pug Griffin’s Miami club in 1950 and the following explains why he returned to Michigan as a tool and die maker in the automobile industry.
May 5, 1950 Charles Kohs, tall left hander, started for Miami and was charged with the loss as all seven runs came across the plate during the 3 1/3 innings he worked. Kohs, although touched for only three hits, was troubled by wildness, giving up six free passes, which had him in hot water most of the night. George Edward Beaver relieved Kohs in the fourth inning after two runs had come across the plate and pitched shutout ball the rest of the way
May 12, 1950. Last night. at lola, the Eagles combined their six base knocks with smart base running and cashed in on the Indian miscues to chalk up their sixth victory. Charles Kohs.- erratic left-hander, started; on the hill for the Eagles .but was unable to control his wildness and was forced to retire in the third inning. Kohs walked eight men but hadn't given up a safe base blow. In the third, an error by the catcher, Jack Williams, and two bases on balls, loaded the hassocks. Then Kohs walked (Otis) Bomar, bringing in an Indian run and George Don Garrison was brought in from the bullpen. (Ed note: The mistake in that last sentence is that wasn’t Garrison’s middle name.)
May 16, 1950. Charles Kohs started on the hill for Miami and was sent down to his second defeat. Kohs went 7 2/3 innings and had all of the (Independence) Yank runs charged against him. He was touched for only seven hits but walked 13 men and let loose four wild pitches.
Well, that was Kohs career in the KOM league, in a nutshell. If you want to know more you can find him in Charlevoix, Michigan where in two months he will celebrate his 90th birthday.
What was said about Kohs forms the basis of the “Ninety and Over” society. The rest of this section lists those former KOM leaguers who have or will reach their 90th birthdays in 2015. And, since I’ve I went that far those over 90, and their current ages are also listed. If you care to know the team(s) for whom these men played and the years, go to this seldom used site. I’ve spent countless hours keeping this thing updated. komleaguebaseball.blogspot.com/2008/01/names.html
Those who are/will be 90 in 2015.
John Bulkley—January 5
Ralph Nassen “Whitey” Vold—January 5
John Wanda “Jack” Blaylock---February 11
Dean Rothrock---February 25
Ray Birch—March 29
Frank Borghi---April 9
Robert Kapinus---April 10
Francis Urban—April 11
Charles Kohs---April 14
Steve Kovach---May 22
Pete Maropis---September 17
Robert Ehrlich---September 19
Frank “Bobo the Clown” Nickerson—September 26
Louis Salreno---October 2
Christopher Haughey—October 3.
Those who are/will be 91 in 2015
Jasper Bono—March 15
Keith Willoughby---March 18
Thomas “Snuffy” Smith---March 19
Emery C. Wilson Jr.---May 30
Milton David Ward Jr.---July 10
John Piccone---July 16
Gerald Otto Beaman---August 7
Donald Spellum (umpire)---September 18.
James McCoy Abbott Jr.---November 4
Gerald D. Cross---December 15
Those who are/will be 92 in 2015
Reinhard William “Riney” Hay—July 6
Albert Robert Stadvec---August 8
Elden Edgar McHugh--September 20
David Cox---October 27
Casimir R. Stackowiak---December 5
Those who are/will be 93 in 2015
Joseph W. Turek---May 6
James Duncan (umpire)---August 18
Robert E. Field---August 27
Willis Frank Carruth—September 30
Those who are/will be 94 in 2015
Irvin W. Hayden (umpire)---May 13
Those who are/will be 95 in 2015
Not a single solitary soul.
Those who are/will be 96 in 2015
Shannon Willis Deniston---February 28
William Vernon Snow---September 11
Erby Rue Carroll---November 30.
So, I come to the end of yet another tedious report. But, in case you are ever on a game show and asked who the oldest and youngest former living KOM league players are the answer is: Joseph A. Tessier from Putnam, Connecticut was born June 13, 1934 and played for the Iola Indians in 1951, albeit a very short time. He now lives in Ft. Myers, Florida. The oldest is obvious from the above list. Deniston is still celebrating birthdays in Lakeside, California and has vowed to do so until he reaches the century mark.
His scientific works include a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Hawking is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the US. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and has achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; his book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.
Hawking has a rare early-onset, slow-progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that has gradually paralysed him over the decades. He now communicates using a single cheek muscle attached to a speech-generating device.
PRIMARY and SECONDARY SCHOOL YEARS
Hawking began his schooling at the Byron House School in Highgate, London. He later blamed its "progressive methods" for his failure to learn to read while at the school.In St Albans, the eight-year-old Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls for a few months. At that time, younger boys could attend one of the houses.
Hawking attended Radlett School, an independent school in the village of Radlett in Hertfordshire, for a year, and from September 1952, St Albans School, an independent school in the city of St Albans in Hertfordshire. The family placed a high value on education. Hawking's father wanted his son to attend the well-regarded Westminster School, but the 13-year-old Hawking was ill on the day of the scholarship examination. His family could not afford the school fees without the financial aid of a scholarship, so Hawking remained at St Albans. A positive consequence was that Hawking remained with a close group of friends with whom he enjoyed board games, the manufacture of fireworks, model aeroplanes and boats, and long discussions about Christianity and extrasensory perception. From 1958 on, with the help of the mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta, they built a computer from clock parts, an old telephone switchboard and other recycled components.
Although known at school as "Einstein", Hawking was not initially successful academically. With time, he began to show considerable aptitude for scientific subjects and, inspired by Tahta, decided to read mathematics at university. Hawking's father advised him to study medicine, concerned that there were few jobs for mathematics graduates. He also wanted his son to attend University College, Oxford, his own alma mater. As it was not possible to read mathematics there at the time, Hawking decided to study physics and chemistry. Despite his headmaster's advice to wait until the next year, Hawking was awarded a scholarship after taking the examinations in March 1959.
UNDERGRADUATE YEARS
Hawking began his university education at University College, Oxford in October 1959 at the age of 17. For the first 18 months, he was bored and lonely – he was younger than many of the other students, and found the academic work "ridiculously easy". His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said, "It was only necessary for him to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see how other people did it." A change occurred during his second and third year when, according to Berman, Hawking made more of an effort "to be one of the boys". He developed into a popular, lively and witty college member, interested in classical music and science fiction. Part of the transformation resulted from his decision to join the college boat club, the University College Boat Club, where he coxed a rowing team. The rowing trainer at the time noted that Hawking cultivated a daredevil image, steering his crew on risky courses that led to damaged boats.
Hawking has estimated that he studied about a thousand hours during his three years at Oxford. These unimpressive study habits made sitting his finals a challenge, and he decided to answer only theoretical physics questions rather than those requiring factual knowledge. A first-class honours degree was a condition of acceptance for his planned graduate study in cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Anxious, he slept poorly the night before the examinations, and the final result was on the borderline between first- and second-class honours, making a viva (oral examination) necessary. Hawking was concerned that he was viewed as a lazy and difficult student. So, when asked at the oral to describe his future plans, he said, "If you award me a First, I will go to Cambridge. If I receive a Second, I shall stay in Oxford, so I expect you will give me a First." He was held in higher regard than he believed; as Berman commented, the examiners "were intelligent enough to realise they were talking to someone far cleverer than most of themselves". After receiving a first-class BA (Hons.) degree in natural science and completing a trip to Iran with a friend, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 1962.
GRADUATE YEARS
Hawking's first year as a doctoral student was difficult. He was initially disappointed to find that he had been assigned Dennis William Sciama, one of the founders of modern cosmology, as a supervisor rather than noted astronomer Fred Hoyle, and he found his training in mathematics inadequate for work in general relativity and cosmology. After being diagnosed with motor neurone disease, Hawking fell into a depression – though his doctors advised that he continue with his studies, he felt there was little point. However, his disease progressed more slowly than doctors had predicted. Although Hawking had difficulty walking unsupported, and his speech was almost unintelligible, an initial diagnosis that he had only two years to live proved unfounded. With Sciama's encouragement, he returned to his work. Hawking started developing a reputation for brilliance and brashness when he publicly challenged the work of Fred Hoyle and his student Jayant Narlikar at a lecture in June 1964.
When Hawking began his graduate studies, there was much debate in the physics community about the prevailing theories of the creation of the universe: the Big Bang and Steady State theories. Inspired by Roger Penrose's theorem of a spacetime singularity in the centre of black holes, Hawking applied the same thinking to the entire universe; and, during 1965, he wrote his thesis on this topic. There were other positive developments: Hawking received a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College; he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology, in March 1966; and his essay entitled "Singularities and the Geometry of Space-Time" shared top honours with one by Penrose to win that year's prestigious Adams Prize.
CAREER
1966–1975
In his work, and in collaboration with Penrose, Hawking extended the singularity theorem concepts first explored in his doctoral thesis. This included not only the existence of singularities but also the theory that the universe might have started as a singularity. Their joint essay was the runner-up in the 1968 Gravity Research Foundation competition. In 1970 they published a proof that if the universe obeys the general theory of relativity and fits any of the models of physical cosmology developed by Alexander Friedmann, then it must have begun as a singularity. In 1969, Hawking accepted a specially created Fellowship for Distinction in Science to remain at Caius.
In 1970, Hawking postulated what became known as the second law of black hole dynamics, that the event horizon of a black hole can never get smaller.[83] With James M. Bardeen and Brandon Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics. To Hawking's irritation, Jacob Bekenstein, a graduate student of John Wheeler, went further—and ultimately correctly—to apply thermodynamic concepts literally.[85][86] In the early 1970s, Hawking's work with Carter, Werner Israel and David C. Robinson strongly supported Wheeler's no-hair theorem that no matter what the original material from which a black hole is created, it can be completely described by the properties of mass, electrical charge and rotation.[87][88] His essay titled "Black Holes" won the Gravity Research Foundation Award in January 1971.[89] Hawking's first book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, written with George Ellis, was published in 1973.
Beginning in 1973, Hawking moved into the study of quantum gravity and quantum mechanics. His work in this area was spurred by a visit to Moscow and discussions with Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich and Alexei Starobinsky, whose work showed that according to the uncertainty principle, rotating black holes emit particles. To Hawking's annoyance, his much-checked calculations produced findings that contradicted his second law, which claimed black holes could never get smaller,and supported Bekenstein's reasoning about their entropy.His results, which Hawking presented from 1974, showed that black holes emit radiation, known today as Hawking radiation, which may continue until they exhaust their energy and evaporate. Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. However, by the late 1970s and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a significant breakthrough in theoretical physics. Hawking was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1974, a few weeks after the announcement of Hawking radiation. At the time, he was one of the youngest scientists to become a Fellow.
Hawking was appointed to the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1970. He worked with a friend on the faculty, Kip Thorne, and engaged him in a scientific wager about whether the dark star Cygnus X-1 was a black hole. The wager was an "insurance policy" against the proposition that black holes did not exist. Hawking acknowledged that he had lost the bet in 1990, which was the first of several that he was to make with Thorne and others.Hawking has maintained ties to Caltech, spending a month there almost every year since this first visit.
1975–1990
Hawking returned to Cambridge in 1975 to a more academically senior post, as reader in gravitational physics. The mid to late 1970s were a period of growing public interest in black holes and of the physicists who were studying them. Hawking was regularly interviewed for print and television. He also received increasing academic recognition of his work. In 1975, he was awarded both the Eddington Medal and the Pius XI Gold Medal, and in 1976 the Dannie Heineman Prize, the Maxwell Prize and the Hughes Medal. He was appointed a professor with a chair in gravitational physics in 1977. The following year he received the Albert Einstein Medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.
In the late 1970s, Hawking was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.His inaugural lecture as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics was titled: "Is the End in Sight for Theoretical Physics" and proposed N=8 Supergravity as the leading theory to solve many of the outstanding problems physicists were studying. His promotion coincided with a health crisis which led to his accepting, albeit reluctantly, some nursing services at home. At the same time, he was also making a transition in his approach to physics, becoming more intuitive and speculative rather than insisting on mathematical proofs. "I would rather be right than rigorous", he told Kip Thorne. In 1981, he proposed that information in a black hole is irretrievably lost when a black hole evaporates. This information paradox violates the fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics, and led to years of debate, including "the Black Hole War" with Leonard Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft.
Cosmological inflation – a theory proposing that following the Big Bang, the universe initially expanded incredibly rapidly before settling down to a slower expansion – was proposed by Alan Guth and also developed by Andrei Linde. Following a conference in Moscow in October 1981, Hawking and Gary Gibbons organized a three-week Nuffield Workshop in the summer of 1982 on "The Very Early Universe" at Cambridge University, which focused mainly on inflation theory. Hawking also began a new line of quantum theory research into the origin of the universe. In 1981 at a Vatican conference, he presented work suggesting that there might be no boundary – or beginning or ending – to the universe. He subsequently developed the research in collaboration with Jim Hartle, and in 1983 they published a model, known as the Hartle–Hawking state. It proposed that prior to the Planck epoch, the universe had no boundary in space-time; before the Big Bang, time did not exist and the concept of the beginning of the universe is meaningless. The initial singularity of the classical Big Bang models was replaced with a region akin to the North Pole. One cannot travel north of the North Pole, but there is no boundary there – it is simply the point where all north-running lines meet and end. Initially, the no-boundary proposal predicted a closed universe, which had implications about the existence of God. As Hawking explained, "If the universe has no boundaries but is self-contained... then God would not have had any freedom to choose how the universe began."
Hawking did not rule out the existence of a Creator, asking in A Brief History of Time "Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence?" In his early work, Hawking spoke of God in a metaphorical sense. In A Brief History of Time he wrote: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God." In the same book he suggested that the existence of God was not necessary to explain the origin of the universe. Later discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the existence of God was also compatible with an open universe.
Further work by Hawking in the area of arrows of time led to the 1985 publication of a paper theorising that if the no-boundary proposition were correct, then when the universe stopped expanding and eventually collapsed, time would run backwards. A paper by Don Page and independent calculations by Raymond Laflamme led Hawking to withdraw this concept. Honours continued to be awarded: in 1981 he was awarded the American Franklin Medal, and in 1982 made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). Awards do not pay the bills, however, and motivated by the need to finance the children's education and home expenses, in 1982 Hawking determined to write a popular book about the universe that would be accessible to the general public. Instead of publishing with an academic press, he signed a contract with Bantam Books, a mass market publisher, and received a large advance for his book. A first draft of the book, called A Brief History of Time, was completed in 1984.
One of the first messages Hawking produced with his speech-generating device was a request for his assistant to help him finish writing A Brief History of Time. Peter Guzzardi, his editor at Bantam, pushed him to explain his ideas clearly in non-technical language, a process that required many revisions from an increasingly irritated Hawking. The book was published in April 1988 in the US and in June in the UK, and it proved to be an extraordinary success, rising quickly to the top of bestseller lists in both countries and remaining there for months. The book was translated into many languages, and ultimately sold an estimated 9 million copies. Media attention was intense, and a Newsweek magazine cover and a television special both described him as "Master of the Universe". Success led to significant financial rewards, but also the challenges of celebrity status. Hawking travelled extensively to promote his work, and enjoyed partying and dancing into the small hours. He had difficulty refusing the invitations and visitors, which left limited time for work and his students. Some colleagues were resentful of the attention Hawking received, feeling it was due to his disability. He received further academic recognition, including five more honorary degrees,[149] the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1985), the Paul Dirac Medal (1987) and, jointly with Penrose, the prestigious Wolf Prize (1988). In 1989, he was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH). He reportedly declined a knighthood.
1990–2000
Hawking pursued his work in physics: in 1993 he co-edited a book on Euclidean quantum gravity with Gary Gibbons and published a collected edition of his own articles on black holes and the Big Bang. In 1994, at Cambridge's Newton Institute, Hawking and Penrose delivered a series of six lectures that were published in 1996 as "The Nature of Space and Time". In 1997, he conceded a 1991 public scientific wager made with Kip Thorne and John Preskill of Caltech. Hawking had bet that Penrose's proposal of a "cosmic censorship conjecture" – that there could be no "naked singularities" unclothed within a horizon – was correct. After discovering his concession might have been premature, a new, more refined, wager was made. This one specified that such singularities would occur without extra conditions. The same year, Thorne, Hawking and Preskill made another bet, this time concerning the black hole information paradox. Thorne and Hawking argued that since general relativity made it impossible for black holes to radiate and lose information, the mass-energy and information carried by Hawking radiation must be "new", and not from inside the black hole event horizon. Since this contradicted the quantum mechanics of microcausality, quantum mechanics theory would need to be rewritten. Preskill argued the opposite, that since quantum mechanics suggests that the information emitted by a black hole relates to information that fell in at an earlier time, the concept of black holes given by general relativity must be modified in some way.
Hawking also maintained his public profile, including bringing science to a wider audience. A film version of A Brief History of Time, directed by Errol Morris and produced by Steven Spielberg, premiered in 1992. Hawking had wanted the film to be scientific rather than biographical, but he was persuaded otherwise. The film, while a critical success, was, however, not widely released. A popular-level collection of essays, interviews, and talks titled Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays was published in 1993, and a six-part television series Stephen Hawking's Universe and a companion book appeared in 1997. As Hawking insisted, this time the focus was entirely on science.
2000–present
Hawking continued his writings for a popular audience, publishing The Universe in a Nutshell in 2001, and A Briefer History of Time, which he wrote in 2005 with Leonard Mlodinow to update his earlier works with the aim of making them accessible to a wider audience, and God Created the Integers, which appeared in 2006. Along with Thomas Hertog at CERN and Jim Hartle, from 2006 on Hawking developed a theory of "top-down cosmology", which says that the universe had not one unique initial state but many different ones, and therefore that it is inappropriate to formulate a theory that predicts the universe's current configuration from one particular initial state. Top-down cosmology posits that the present "selects" the past from a superposition of many possible histories. In doing so, the theory suggests a possible resolution of the fine-tuning question.
Hawking continued to travel widely, including trips to Chile, Easter Island, South Africa, Spain (to receive the Fonseca Prize in 2008),] Canada, and numerous trips to the United States. For practical reasons related to his disability, Hawking increasingly travelled by private jet, and by 2011 that had become his only mode of international travel. By 2003, consensus among physicists was growing that Hawking was wrong about the loss of information in a black hole. In a 2004 lecture in Dublin, he conceded his 1997 bet with Preskill, but described his own, somewhat controversial solution to the information paradox problem, involving the possibility that black holes have more than one topology. In the 2005 paper he published on the subject, he argued that the information paradox was explained by examining all the alternative histories of universes, with the information loss in those with black holes being cancelled out by those without such loss. In January 2014 he called the alleged loss of information in black holes his "biggest blunder".
As part of another longstanding scientific dispute, Hawking had emphatically argued, and bet, that the Higgs boson would never be found.[182] The particle was proposed to exist as part of the Higgs field theory by Peter Higgs in 1964. Hawking and Higgs engaged in a heated and public debate over the matter in 2002 and again in 2008, with Higgs criticising Hawking's work and complaining that Hawking's "celebrity status gives him instant credibility that others do not have." The particle was discovered in July 2012 at CERN following construction of the Large Hadron Collider. Hawking quickly conceded that he had lost his bet and said that Higgs should win the Nobel Prize for Physics, which he did in 2013.
In 2007, Hawking and his daughter Lucy published George's Secret Key to the Universe, a children's book designed to explain theoretical physics in an accessible fashion and featuring characters similar to those in the Hawking family.[188] The book was followed by sequels in 2009, 2011 and 2014.
In 2002, following a UK-wide vote, the BBC included Hawking in their list of the 100 Greatest Britons.[190] He was awarded the Copley Medal from the Royal Society (2006), the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is America's highest civilian honour (2009), and the Russian Special Fundamental Physics Prize (2013).
Several buildings have been named after him, including the Stephen W. Hawking Science Museum in San Salvador, El Salvador, the Stephen Hawking Building in Cambridge, and the Stephen Hawking Centre at the Perimeter Institute in Canada.Appropriately, given Hawking's association with time, he unveiled the mechanical "Chronophage" (or time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College Cambridge in September 2008.
During his career, Hawking has supervised 39 successful PhD students. As required by Cambridge University regulations, Hawking retired as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 2009. Despite suggestions that he might leave the United Kingdom as a protest against public funding cuts to basic scientific research, Hawking has continued to work as director of research at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and indicated in 2012 that he had no plans to retire.
On 28 June 2009, as a tongue-in-cheek test of his 1992 conjecture that travel into the past is effectively impossible, Hawking held a party open to all, complete with hors d'oeuvres and iced champagne, but only publicized the party after it was over so that only time-travellers would know to attend; as expected, nobody showed up to the party.
On 20 July 2015, Hawking helped launch Breakthrough Initiatives, an effort to search for extraterrestrial life. In 2015, Richard Branson offered Stephen Hawking a seat on the Virgin Galactic spaceship for free. While no hard date has been set for launch, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is slated to launch at the end of 2017. At 75, Hawking will not be the oldest person ever to go to space (John Glenn returned to space at age 77), but he will be the first person to go to space with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). While this will be Hawking's first time in space, it will not be the first time he will have experienced weightlessness: in 2007, he had flown into zero gravity aboard a specially-modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft. Hawking created Stephen Hawking: Expedition New Earth, a documentary on space colonization, as a summer 2017 episode of Tomorrow's World.
In August 2015, Hawking said that not all information is lost when something enters a black hole and there might be a possibility to retrieve information from a black hole according to his theory.
Donna and I assembled a selection of four of her recent Embrodery works to be juried into the annual Metro Montage exhibition at Marietta’s art museum. She’s been creating pieces like these since early this year. Most of them are approximately 9 x 12 inches, with one being two inches longer.
This is my 4 and half years old daughter Raida.
Couple of weeks back, she planted the the seeds of this sunflower tree as a part of her class project. This small tree is like her baby now. She is feeding her on time, making sure she gets enough sunlight for her growth.
It just brought out the instinctive motherhood within her.
Won photo of the day contest @ www.digicamplus.com on the 29/05/08
The Burwood campus of Deakin University is a wonderfully created space. It feels like an oasis in the surrounding suburbia.
A Couple of Haiku Notes:
==============================
Intuitive thought
the beginning of wisdom
learn how to use it
==============================
It's all intrinsic
thoughts about the eightfold path
having mindfulness
==============================
The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.
1. Right View
Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truths. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.
2. Right Intention
While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
3. Right Speech
Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
5. Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
6. Right Effort
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.
8. Right Concentration
The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration also in everyday situations.
Seen here is Intuitive Machines’ navigation pod sensors for the company’s Nova-C lunar lander ahead of testing done at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 18, 2022. The test involved flying the sensors over a simulated lunar surface at the Launch and Landing Facility on a private helicopter. Intuitive Machines is scheduled to launch two missions to the Moon in 2023 – one of which will carry NASA’s Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo) instrument that will help analyze the chemical makeup of landing sites on the Moon, as well as study water on the lunar surface. Through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, the agency selected Intuitive Machines to deliver science and technology demonstration payloads to the Moon, contributing to NASA’s goal of establishing a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface. Photo credit: NASA/Isaac Watson
The little boy has his first encounter with the impressive wheels of a living steam locomotive, while his sister is jolly dancing in front of the engine ... He has not yet any words for the miracle he is seeing in this moment, but he is obviously deeply fascinated and forgets everything around him ...
Maybe he feels that crazy girls will confuse his future life well enough, but maybe he also feels intuitively that wheels, tracks and the steam locomotive as the eternal basis and symbol of railway is one of the greatest inventions mankind ever made to achieve essential progress ...
Ernstbrunn, 09 / 18
DadaKamikazeKnitting
Guerrilla knitting attack
in intuitive
sensitive
highspeed mode
tunic
dress
pseudo-poncho
wrap
multimedia
multitechnique
freeform & pattern crochet/knitting
Navajo 3-ply
& some more nonsense I cant´t remember
multi versatile
like most of my creations
endless wearing options
for fearless ladies with attitude
& urban drag queens
Intuitive Music Aberdeen performing at St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen.
Music by Stockhausen and Hodgkinson created a lovely atmosphere in a beautiful building. Part of the Cathedral at Noon concert series - every Saturday at Noon - free entry.
The acrobat, intuitive and very cute Chickadee. How not to differentiate her very unique call! A favorite for its very unique way of flying, its curiosity, very similar to the one of a child, and why not, its very lovely round head and body, "black cap" and friendliness.
More than once, while working on the garden, they fly around kind of guessing what the is the purpose of our actions. They are not afraid to come and eat to a near by feeder, but they are very cautious of danger too. More than once during Spring, I've seen them picking inside bird houses to see what is going on there! They are a very important guide to other birds, since they are the first ones to find sources of food.
The Chickadees, Tits, and Titmouse, are from the same family of the Paridae (Genus Parus)
This one was taking very close to the feeder, in fact he is about to jump!
If you want to know more about this very sweet bird, visit this site:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickadees
AND, this gentleman knows what he is talking about Chickadees:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=arRmaDHfUkk
"...There's always lots of things that we can see
You can be anyone we like to be
All those happy people we could meet..."
Do you like it as much as I do?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ft8WLX9G1I
~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~^^~~~~~~
I enjoy nature photography the most, since I love the outdoors and long hiking trips. Macro photography is a true passion for me, since I get to watch a miniature world that opens without limits, before the camera makes the funny sound.
Graphic design is another way to express myself. I love reinventing a photo that I have seen in different ways. Sometimes, I use my own textures to do so.
EXPLORE:
More of one hundred of my photos made it to Explore. One appeared on the front page, and others at 14, 25 and 52. If you’d like to see them, please go to my Explore set.
TO MY FRIENDS:
Flicker has giving me opportunity to meet a group of wonderful people. Thanks for making me feel so proud of what I do and love.
ABOUT GROUPS:
I only submit my photos to groups which pages are not private.
MY THANKS:
I appreciate your visit and your comment. Thank you!
Martha.
Copyright © 2016 OffdaLipp Images
This image is protected under the United States and International Copyright laws and may not be downloaded, reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without permission written or otherwise from OffdaLipp
Intuitive past editor of Harpers Bazaar and Vogue Magazines -Diana Vreeland The Eye Has To Travel the video is amazing for anyone interested in Fashion and Pop Culture... www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5er2GmusI
Seen here is a close-up view of Intuitive Machines’ navigation pod sensors for the company’s Nova-C lunar lander ahead of testing done at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 18, 2022. The test involved flying the sensors over a simulated lunar surface at the Launch and Landing Facility on a private helicopter. Intuitive Machines is scheduled to launch two missions to the Moon in 2023 – one of which will carry NASA’s Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo) instrument that will help analyze the chemical makeup of landing sites on the Moon, as well as study water on the lunar surface. Through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, the agency selected Intuitive Machines to deliver science and technology demonstration payloads to the Moon, contributing to NASA’s goal of establishing a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface. Photo credit: NASA/Isaac Watson
intuitive freeform fusion
DADA chaos knitting
highspeed crochet
poncho
tunic
wrap
lagenlook style
for bold individuals
& colorful birds
who are not afraid to spread their wings
asymmetric sleeve
also suitable as turtleneck
offering
multiple wearing options
Linhof Kardan Standard / Schneider Symmar / Agfa MCP direct paper shot
In 20 years, the design of the 35mm Exakta didn't change too much. A removable prism was added, and a wind lever too. A few details were improved, like the corrugation of the reflex chamber to prevent reflection inside of the camera, but this is essentially the same Kine Exakta of the 30s. I can understand the heavy criticism this camera recieved in the 30s when it was released: Contax & Leica proponents saw in the Kine Exakta a tool that was not suitable to their needs, mainly operating speed. An old photog I know told me that many pros didn't see in the Exakta a real alternative because the Leica was a camera much easier to shoot intuitively; many would set thir Elmar to f8, get it to infinity with scale focussing and just shoot guessing exposure. I have to concede that this is a much more difficult thing to do with and Exacta than with a Leica. Preferences would start to shift when the first convenient prism SLRs came into the market in the late 50s...
Solid version of an
intuitively processed
multimedia freeform tunic
wearable either way
not only while enjoying a tropical picnic
but also very delightful
on a rainy day in the Alps
intuitively knitted
asymmetric freeform tunica
with 1 kimono sleeve
material, color & technique combination
as it evolves in progress
wearable in at least 5 different ways
as shown in the stream
additional cape to complete the ensemble
intuitive freeform fusion
DADA chaos knitting
highspeed crochet
poncho
tunic
wrap
lagenlook style
for bold individuals
& colorful birds
who are not afraid to spread their wings
asymmetric sleeve
also suitable as turtleneck
offering
multiple wearing options
The Intuitive Machines lunar lander is seen, Friday, May 31, 2019, at Goddard Space Flight Center in Md. Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and Orbit Beyond have been selected to provide the first lunar landers for the Artemis program's lunar surface exploration. Photo credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
another intuitively created art piece, 15"x20" mixed-media (collage and acrylic) on watercolor paper. blogged here: creativeeveryday.com/creativeeveryday/2009/06/art-in-sile...