So, if you read the teaser post for this posting, did you picture a city park with multiple carousels spinning round and round filled with kids smiling from ear to ear as they rode up and down on wooden horses? I have to admit, that would be a pretty amazing sight to see.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the carousels that I’m referring to are the Kodak Carousel projectors (which was already given away in the title). During my years in high school in the early to mid ’70s, there was a traveling multimedia show that came to our school to show us a slide show. Now this wasn’t just any slide show with one projector and a tray of slides, and a person speaking in a monotone voice…”now class, this is the Amazon rain forest”…this show utilized multiple projectors timed to an audio track using a computer. It was absolutely amazing to see this presentation, because I had not seen anything like it before that time. If I remember correctly, the theme of this slide show was Japan, so there was images of landscapes, people and animals and more.

The screen that the show was projected on, was nearly the width of the classroom that we were in (we were in temporary bungalows at the time) and they must have had at least 40 Kodak Carousel projectors all mounted in a metal framed rig that locked each projector in place.

If there was a single image that filled the entire height and width of the screen, then there may have been multiple projectors projecting a portion of that image. All projectors together made up the entire image. They also were able to fade one or more projectors out and fade other projectors in to give what they call in video editing, a dissolve transition.

If the complexity of aligning and synchronizing the timing of each projector wasn’t enough, they added music to the mix which just layered on more complexity, because it had to be synced with the images being shown on the screen.

The Kodak Carousel slide show was the predecessor to today’s modern day digital multimedia slide shows. When you were talking about a slide show back in the 70′s, you were literally talking about a “slide” show, where you used slide film mounted in slide mounts and used a projector to show them on a projection screen. With today’s modern computers and software, just about anybody; professional and amateur alike, can put together a multimedia presentation with a fraction of the effort and equipment of these previous productions. Ya gotta love technology.

I’m really surprised that I couldn’t find much information about this on the web, because before digital video editing came to be, this method of presentation was pretty common place. The only thing I found was the black & white photo above which shows a typical projector setup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia

Find out what I’m talking about in my next post, coming soon.

Damn Yankees started life as a book then a Broadway musical on May 5, 1955. And in 1958, it was made into a film which eventually made it to my television set (I’m guessing this happened around the late 1960′s), where I saw it for the first time. Come to think of it, this was probably my first exposure to a musical too.

The movie starred Tab Hunter as Joe Hardy, Gwen Verdon as Lola, Ray Walston as Mr Applegate (both Lola & Applegate portrayed devils in the movie) and Robert Shafer as Joe Boyd. I remember Ray Walston for his television role as Uncle Martin on the sitcom, “My Favorite Martian”, where he played the martian who befriends Tim O’Hara, played by Bill Bixby. Damn Yankees also starred Jean Stapleton who later appeared on “All In The Family” as Edith Bunker with Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker.

In October of 2007, a friend sent out an email to see if a group of us wanted to go see the play Damn Yankees at UCLA (a university in Los Angeles, California). I said sure, and so did several others. November 24th rolls around and it was the night of the play. We all met at UCLA and gathered in the lobby of Freud Playhouse where the play was being held. It was time for the play to start, so we lined up to go into the theater and an usher told our group to line up along the wall, instead of lining up at the main doors like everybody else. He then escorted us outside the theater and around the back of the building. We then went into the rear entrance and we found ourselves backstage. We climbed some stairs and were told to sit in these seats which were right on the stage.

The photo below is not from the UCLA play, but the Damn Yankees play in Modesto in 2004. It shows a similar elevated bleacher setup like the one we were seated in that night.

Apparently, we were part of the play and it was supposed to look like we were spectators sitting up in the bleachers watching the baseball game. On one hand, it was neat to be a part of the play, but on the other hand, we saw everything from a different perspective than the main audience. I guess we should have looked more closely at the tickets, because instead of having the typical seat numbers, it said “Stage”, DOH!

Despite being seated on the stage, it was a good play, although we may think twice before letting our friend purchase tickets for us in the future. : D

If you get a chance, you should rent the movie, I think you will enjoy it! You gotta figure, if they are still creating plays and commercials based on the film, I can’t be that far off the mark.

Following are some YouTube videos of songs from the movie:

The song, “Whatever Lola Wants”, Sung By Gwen Verdon In The 1958 Movie:

“Whatever Lola Wants” Has Been Revived In This 2012 (54 years later) Pepsi Commercial:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051516/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Yankees_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Yankees

Can you guess which movie I’m talking about? Find out in my next post coming soon.

Do you have a favorite dream? Perhaps one that reoccurs time after time.

One of my favorite types of dreams as a young boy and still today, are dreams of flying. Now I don’t mean flying in an airplane, but flying without wings or any other external devices, just my body.

Some of my dreams of flying were connected with nightmares and others were not. One of my most vivid dreams that I remember as a child, took place on the block of my childhood home. My home was on a slight hill and in my dream I would run from the top of the hill down the sidewalk and in my path were a line of monsters, maybe 4 wide waiting for me to approach them. As I got closer to them, I pushed off from the sidewalk and was able to fly over them just barely missing their outstretched arms. I’m sure there was a psychological reason for this dream.

Another dream was again, running down my street, pushing off and flying over the tops of the trees in my neighborhood. It was such an awesome feeling, the only thing that has come close to this feeling today was from parasailing or flying in an ultralight aircraft, which I did many years ago in Mexico.

When I dream of flying, I am primarily in a vertical body position unlike the horizontal flying position of superhero character Superman, although I have seen him hover in the vertical position at times.

Unfortunately, I rarely, if ever have dreams of flying anymore. I guess if I want that feeling again, I’ll have to go parasailing or ultralight flying again or maybe jump out of a plane…hmmm.

Find out how I accomplished this feat in my next post.

I heard this story on a local radio show and found it interesting, so decided to share it with you.

What’s that you say, you don’t recognize the name in the title? Well, you very well may not, especially if you weren’t around in the late 1960′s. You may however recognize the name Liquid Paper, which is the topic of this post and how the product and company came to be.

As is the case with the majority of inventions, you have a need and you create a product to fill that need. That’s exactly what Bette Nesmith Graham did back in the early 50′s. She worked as a typist and like most people, made mistakes while typing and it wasn’t like our modern day computers/word processors where you just backspace or highlight, delete and continue typing. She was on a mission to come up with a way to correct her mistakes.

Starting in her kitchen using her blender, she made up a paint like product she called “Mistake Out”. She packaged her new product in a green bottle with a Mistake Out label affixed to it and started providing her product to her co-workers.

Unfortunately, one day she made a mistake that she failed to correct (she typed in her own company name instead of the banks) and was fired from her typist job. It was from this point forward, that she decided to devote her time on her correction fluid company.

Ms. Nesmith offered her product to Big Blue (IBM), but they declined. Bette had sold Mistake Out from her house for 17 years; the name was changed to Liquid Paper shortly after. By 1968, her product was making a profit, and in 1979 the Liquid Paper Corporation was sold to the Gillette Corporation for $47.5 million with royalties.

In 2000, Liquid Paper was acquired by Newell Rubbermaid. In some regions of the world, Liquid Paper is now endorsed by Papermate, a widely known writing instruments brand (also owned by Newell Rubbermaid).

Do you recognize Bette’s maiden name; Nesmith? If you were a fan of the 60′s rock band the Monkees, you may know this name from vocalist and guitarist, Michael Nesmith. Michael was the son of Bette Nesmith-Graham and the primary heir to her Liquid Paper fortune after Nesmith’s death in 1980.

Like many people, I used Liquid Paper for my own typing mistakes and/or handwritten mistakes or revisions.

Find out in my next post, coming soon.

The roar of 43 stock cars was heard loud and clear, in and around the Daytona International Speedway throughout the week in Daytona, Florida. The race was won by Matt Kenseth in the number 17 Best Buy car, but before Matt could to put the pedal to the metal for his celebratory burnout on the track, he and his fellow racers would have to endure one of the most unusual races in Daytona 500 history.

Matt Kenseth celebrating his win at the Daytona 500 race with a burnout

This was a race plagued with problems from the start. For instance, this was the first race in its 51 year history (under the Daytona 500 name) that was postponed due to rain and run during a weekday. The race was scheduled for Sunday, February 26, 2012, but the rain never let up in Florida, so the race was rescheduled for Monday evening, and at times it was touch and go with the weather again, but the weather cooperated and the race started and ended with no further delays due to rain. But rain was not the only thing that delayed this race–read on!

On top of the day and a half of rain delays, it seemed as if you were watching a demolition derby, rather than an oval track race because of all the bumping, skidding and crashes in this race, it was unbelievable. The first crash came just 2 laps into the race.

Then under the yellow caution flag, Juan Pablo Montoya in the number 42 car, was traveling along the low side of the track when something on his car broke and it caused his car to slide sideways and right up into one of two jet dryers that was circling and drying or blowing debris off the track. The jet dryer exploded on impact flooding the track with 200 gallons of jet fuel and sending flames high into the air and down to the in-field. The race was red flagged, stopping all of the cars on the track, away from the incident. It took 2 hours to put out fire, check the track for damage, clean the track, dry the track and prep the surface so the race could continue. Both Juan Pablo Montoya and the driver of the Jet Dryer truck are fine.

During this 2 hour period, the drivers began to exit their cars and start chatting amongst themselves. At one point, a group of racers started walking up the track towards where the fire broke out, but a track official stopped them and asked them to return to their cars.

One of the drivers, Brad Keselowski (seen in the blue Miller Lite jumpsuit above), just happened to have his phone with him and started tweeting during the 2 hour delay. At the beginning of the race, he had roughly 65,000 followers, but during this 2 hour period, he tripled that number to nearly 200,000 followers.

Here’s a picture that he tweeted from inside his car–his car was stopped of course.

This was one unusual race for sure!

Compilation video of the multitude of crashes during the race:

Juan Pablo Montoya Crashes into jet track dryer:

Danica Patrick Crashes Hard During Daytona Qualifier Race

Find out what it was in my next post, coming soon.