Mungerphut's Observations and Opinions

Hail Alma Mater

2009-05-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

WVU English Department has a blog.

A Sonnet

2009-05-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Written in response to the University of Arizona's poetry contest. They requested submissions of sonnets celebrating solar energy:

http://www.poetrycenter.arizona.edu/contest/sun_sonnet.shtml

To Coal

The future of energy is in coal.
America is rich in the black gold
Of Appalachian seams where the dark hole
Reveals a richness without peer. Untold
BTUs await our exploration.
Millions of tons sits beneath our feet,
Waiting. I suspect righteous oration
Will greet each load as trucks and trains repeat
The route from mine to plant to wall outlet.
"It's dirty," they'll say. "It detroys the land."
Fah! Turn Hephestian muscles loose! Unmet
Needs can be sated by coal! We can't command
The sun-- it's a nice idea to harness,
But not while the grid is under durress.

Minor League Baseball, 1903

2009-02-15T20:12:00.000-08:00

I created a map of minor league baseball teams and their league affiliations in 1903.

College Football: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

2009-01-25T10:44:00.000-08:00

I have been researching the sports pages of old newspapers lately, and I came across this article in the 1903 Milwaukee Journal regarding their upcoming college football season. The article, “Football Championship in Question Again,” laments that football fans will not have a definitive, conclusive end to their season because there is no adequate championship system in place to determine what team truly is the best in the nation. Sound familiar?

The unnamed author complains that the eastern teams refuse to acknowledge the strengths of western teams (meaning Midwestern by our geography) and will not entertain the idea of a Michigan or Chicago team as being better than Harvard, Yale, or West Point.

“The time will not be far distant when games will be arranged to settle this question. Comparisons, at best, are only problematical, and seldom hold good, but college men in general who are fair-minded would like to see the championship of the country proved conclusively rather than have critics haggling about it for months after the season ends.”

We have come a long way since 1903—journalists no longer count the number of deaths during each college football season as a result of injuries; we allow the forward pass; and not all the players are white. But we still don’t have a system that conclusively and uneqiuvaically determines what team is the best in the nation. I dont think we will until we make some major changes to the way the NCAA manages the game.

My Take on Morgantown Restaurants

2009-01-11T13:30:00.000-08:00

There are plenty of good places to eat in Morgantown. There are plenty of the ho-hum chain restaurants, but Morgantown has great places to eat in town. These are all sit-down places of varying degrees of formality. Most of them casual is just fine. The ones listed below are all operated locally by genuine entrepreneurs.

Blue Moose—downtown Walnut Street corner of Spruce Street. This is my favorite coffee shop. They serve good breakfasts and they have lunch service too for sandwiches.

Black Bear—Pleasant Street, downtown. They serve everything as a burrito, and they have a huge variety of meals. It’s all good, really good. A good place for kids too. In the evenings they have live music, which packs ‘em in. Not expensive and very casual for lunch or dinner.

Puglioni’s—Evansdale at the TCBY plaza off Van Vorhis Rd, down the hill from the hospital. Really good Italian food, great homemade bread, nice kids meals like personal pizzas. I always get Calzones. It’s all good here too. Dinner not open for lunch.

Madeline’s—downtown on High Street across from the Warner Theater. I like Madeline’s for dinner and we go there every once in a while. Good food and good specials too. They are open for lunch but I think of it as a dinner place. I returned there for lunch recently, and it was good. I had a chicken salad, a simple meal to mess up and a difficult meal to impress with. I was quite satisfied.

Maxwell's—on Wall Street, off High Street downtown. Maxwell’s has been around forever, good college town eats with good vegetarian food as well as a great variety of dinner specials. I eat there for lunch and always get the Elsie. I have had the same lunch meal for years, perhaps decades, and I love it. Love it. Sunday brunches are the best in town.

Yama—Fayette Street off High Street downtown. Yama is the Japanese restaurant in town where all the Japanese students eat. Win and I eat there together for lunch and we get chicken, soup, and sushi. Great for the winter when you want a nice bowl of soup. I went with a friend a few weeks ago. It was cold and she got soup. We admired it for a bit before eating, and it was a pleasure for the eyes and tongue.

Ogawa—University Ave in Evansdale down the hill from the Law School, near Towers. Another good Japanese place. Yama for lunch and Ogawa for dinner is good in my book. I like their sushi more than their meals.

Asian Garden—Evansdale on Universuty Ave. Threepeat Asian food with Thai, Chinese, and Malaysian. Really good, quaint little spot.

Lavender Café—Beechurst Avenue near downtown at the bottom of Stewart Street where it hits Beehchurst, near Papa John’s pizza. A new place and one of the best new places in town. They serve Taiwanese food. The new fave place for me and Win to go even though I feel like I am cheating on Yama. Winnie has been sneaking over there for lunch without me a lot lately. She loves it so much.

Pizza—Lots of good pizza places in Morgantown. The kids love Casa D.Amici at the top of High Street for slices and garlic knots. Pizza Al’s on University Ave near the 7-11 by Towers is good. And Pizzeria Italia at Suburban Lanes is the best cheap extra large cheese pizza ever, still. There is a calzone-only place on High Street called DP Dough—really good stuff.

Glasshouse Grille—On beechurst in the Seneca Center (an old glass factory turned shopping center) A nice place, take-your-date-out-to-dinner kind of place with very good food and excellent service. I go there for dinner a lot. I can't remember the last time I was in there without a tie, and the food is always very good. It is one of the few places where I will listen to and order the specials. They added an excellent fish market to the Seneca Center recently, a nice aaddition to the complex, and a great source of food for the Glasshouse menu.

Sargasso—Don Knotts boulevard on the river near Med Express and Sherwin Williams. It opened up not long ago and Win says the food is really good. I ate there for the first time with an august company of legal geniuses, and they judged it a fine place, a very good place from the appetizers to the desserts.

The Boston Beanery—downtown on High Street and in Evansdale on Patteson Drive across from Kroger. The kids love the Beanery. It is classic American food: burgers, sandwiches, big salads, etc. A Morgantown mainstay. Pat McAfee convinced me to chug a beer with him there recently.

For true Morgantown ambience, go to Gene’s for a chili dog or two and some red eyes (Wilson Ave, South Park) or to the Fishbowl for a big plate of food and one of those big beers.

See the Google Map!

Football

2009-01-07T10:08:00.000-08:00

Is Rush Limbaugh Still a Steelers Fan?

Rush Limbaugh is a well-known fan of pro football. If you listen to his show, you will hear him occasionally comment about the playoffs and give predictions about upcoming games. In 2003, he even served as a commentator on ESPN’s Sunday Countdown. His brief tenure as a commentator ended in controversey when he was heavily criticized for referring to Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Donovan McNabb as “black.”

Limbaugh is not just a football fan. He also claims to be a big Steelers fan. But what kind of Steelers fan picks his team to lose a game against the Ravens? During a December 12, 2008, conversation on the air with a caller from Baltimore, Limbaugh did just that. He picked the Ravens to defeat the Steelers in an important game. (http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_121208/content/01125109.guest.html)

Has Limbaugh gone sour on the Steelers? If so, he has good reason. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney publicly supported Barack Obama for President. Rooney provided a public endorsement of the candidate (http://kdka.com/local/Dan.Rooney.Obama.2.699251.html), and he appeared at regional rallies advocating Obama as the next president (http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/509274.html?nav=515). Limbaugh is not a fan of Obama. Is he still a fan of the Steelers?

Limbaugh can also fault the Rooney family for its insistence on what has become popularly known as the “Rooney Rule” in the National Football League (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule). Since 2003, the NFL has required all teams seeking a new head coach to interview at least one minority candidate, a form of affirmative action in professional sports. Limbaugh is not a fan of affirmative action.

If you listen to Limbaugh, you probably won’t hear about the Rooneys appearing at Obama rallies. And you won’t hear him refer to Joe Biden’s choked-up praise of the Rooney family for their simple yet profound humanitarian efforts (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2090449/posts). And you certainly won’t hear any praise for the Rooney’s practicing the liberal policies they preach; in 2007 the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin, an African-American, to replace Bill Cowher as head coach. Since taking over the team, Tomlin is 22-10 and has led the team to #2 spot in the 2008-09 AFC playoffs. Instead, you’ll hear Limbaugh picking the Ravens over the Steelers and praising the Ravens defense and its players.

The New Economy

2008-12-12T13:01:00.001-08:00

It looks like Best Buy is now more selective than Harvard:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=506759

"Admission to Harvard College became more competitive than ever this year, as the school accepted a record-low 9.1 percent of applicants for the Class of 2009, according to figures released on Thursday."

http://www.newsandtribune.com/local/local_story_326131405.html

"Best Buy has hired 21,000 seasonal employees this year, compared to 26,500 last year, spokeswoman Dawn Bryant said. The company has received more than 1 million applications. [2.1%]"

The Winter

2008-11-24T04:14:00.000-08:00

I love West Virginia for many reasons. One of the great features of our state is the climate. We get all four seasons. In the summer, it is hot. In the winter, it is cold and it snows. Our springs and falls are beautiful periods of transition-- life blooms in March and April, and our Septembers and Octobers are a burst of autumn color.

The summers are typically pleasant, and everyone loves a long summer of swimming and relaxing in the shade as the fireflies circle your hammock at dusk. But out winters are cold and quite bleak. The sky is a relentless gray from November until the end of Februray. It gets to you after a while, like Mother Nature's version of Chinese water torture. The first drop is painless. But give it time, and it starts to hurt. And drive you crazy.

When Hollywood decided to make a film version of Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road, they needed a location that was sunless, gray, and leafless. The Road is about post-Apocalypse America. Something has happened-- McCarthy does not say exactly what occurred-- and the world is mired in environmental disaster. Birds, cows, and trees are extinct. The sky is a constant gray. Ash rains from the sunless sky. Because there is no source of food, gangs of cannibals wander the blighted landscape looking for humans to capture, maim, and eat.

Where did Hollywood find their hell on earth? Southwestern Pennsylvania! Much of the movie was filmed about 30 miles north of Morgantown.

I Did Nothing

2008-11-22T05:58:00.001-08:00

Tree Graffiti, Morgantown

2008-09-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

I Ran with Toby This Morning

2008-09-04T04:41:00.000-07:00

On our run, Toby and I saw Antoinette watering her lawn. We saw Tamara running the opposite direction. We saw the teachers at South pulling into their parking lot. We pooped in front of the ice rink. The softball fields abide in the fog. A golden retriever played fetch on the trail.

Tour de Office Depot

2008-07-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning. I needed to print out a 100-page document I have been hired to edit. I have little toner in my printer, so I decided to head out to Office Depot to get my document printed out. Gas is expensive, and I need the exercise, so I took The Bike.

I modified my bike especially for this trip. I dug out the old iPod speakers that Miles got from a friend. I used zip ties to strap it to my handlebars. I secured the iPod to the device with clear packing tape.

It was hot, even in the early morning (10ish). I stopped by the Farmer’s Market. It was busy, and some vendors were shutting down, all sold out. I got to see Beth and family. The new baby is bigger and she was sleeping hard.

I picked the path of least resistance, which is pretty hard because Office Depot is on the other side of town and between my house and the Office Depot there is a big hill. You cannot go around the hill. You have to go up the hill. I chose Falling Run Road. As I wended my way up the hill, listening to Talking Heads, I stopped at the African woman’s house and asked for water. She heard my iTunes music and she liked it, The Great Curve by Talking Heads, heavily influenced by the African drummers they brought on board for that album. She got down with her baby with me, me and my new water.

I chugged up Falling Run road. Next to me, the guy pushing his mower moved faster. Where is the Falling Run on Falling Run Road? A cool breeze often blows down this road past the university, but I have never seen the run that runs through it.

I cruised past the stadium at bike speed. There was little traffic on this road, so I was comfortable and did not feel the need to look over my shoulder. Patteson Drive was a pain, difficult to cross. But I made it. I printed out my sheets, packed it up and listened to Jonathan Richman as I took a new route home, up University Avenue.

Mac was not around at the Superette. I bought a Powerade, asked for Mac and headed home on Beechurst. The ride down the steep hill from the Law School to the Life Sciences Building was a treat, a nice drift downhill.

I got on the trail at Knapp Hall. I rode to the dam and headed up Don Knotts Boulevard. I got home and peeled off my shirt and nobody knew the difference. “I thought you drove,” they said.

Larry E. Lester

2008-07-03T20:34:00.001-07:00

Larry E. Lester, 60, of Shady Spring, W.Va., went home to be with the Lord on Tuesday, July 1, 2008, at his home surrounded by his loving family. Larry’s last word to his fa-mily was “Victory,” letting us know that he has received his victory through the power of the Lord.He was born Oct. 10, 1947, at North Springs, W.Va.Larry served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1970, was a retired coal miner and a member of the UMWA. He enjoyed his family and friends. Larry also had a great passion for fishing and was a talented wood worker. He greatly enjoyed listening to his sons, Jamie and Travis, singing and playing the guitar and mandolin.He was preceded in death by his loving mother, Magnolia Lester; and a sister, Marie Lipe.Larry is survived by his father, Perry E. Lester and wife, Margaret, of Beckley; his loving wife of 30 years, Deborah, with whom he truly found the love of his life and his best friend; his sons, Jamie Darrel Lester and wife, Michelle, of Morgantown and Travis Perry Lester and wife, Melony, of Crab Orchard; his grandchildren, Hannah, Everett, Sophia and Lydia and a grandchild who will be born in December. He also had a special adopted granddaughter, Taylor Stewart. All his grandchildren lovingly referred to him as “Poppy,” and they all know that “Poppy” will be watching over them from the beautiful shores of heaven; a brother, John and his wife, Martha, and a sister, Samantha Kleinfelder and husband, Bill, all of Titusville, Fla.; sisters, Lucy Cooper and husband, Joe, and Sharon Atwell and husband, David, all of Beckley; a sister, Tabitha Maxey and friend, Alvin West, of Kopperston; a sister, Dare Cline and husband, Tony, of Lexington, N.C.; a stepbrother, Guy Bailey and wife, Shelly, of Chicago, Ill. Larry touched the lives of everyone he came in contact with and will be sadly missed by numerous nieces, nephews and friends.Funeral service will be noon Friday at the Oceana First Baptist Church with Pastor Jerry Cook officiating. Larry will be laid to rest in Palm Memorial Gardens, Matheny, W.Va. Friends may call 6 to 9 p.m. today at the church.Close family and friends will serve as pallbearers. Wyoming County Veterans Honor Guard will be conducting Military Graveside Rites.In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Hospice of Southern West Virginia at P.O. Box 1472, Beckley, WV 25802.E-mail letters of sympathy may be sent at www.staffordfamilyfuneralhome.comThe family is being served by the Stafford Family Funeral Home, Lynco.

Sorry I Mised Your Party

2008-06-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

This is a fine site: http://www.sorryimissedyourparty.com/2008/05/nice-faces.html

Miles and Arj in NYC

2008-05-27T19:14:00.001-07:00

O Bike

2008-05-21T18:35:00.001-07:00

This Year's Halloween Costume

2008-04-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

I get to be the husband.

Conversation with O

2008-04-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

"Dad, I was thinking that most people probably think that the Liberty Bell is the most famous bell."

"I think you are correct O. It is a very famous bell. Are you studying the Liberty Bell in school?"

"No, we're studying space."

Parking Garage Graffiti, Cumberland, Maryland

2008-04-14T21:38:00.001-07:00

Iranian Blogosphere

2008-04-05T19:34:00.001-07:00

The New York Times reported about the state of the Iranian blogosphere, news prompted by a report by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School . The survey of Iranian blogs produced a map of the Iranian "blogosphere," referenced in the NYT article. The article, however, does not list or link to any actual blogs. I took my curiosity one step further and tracked some down.

Some of the blogs are overtly political and support some opposition views. I found one that showed a video of the Quran being burned. Some are not political and are preoccupied with more mundane concerns. It is difficult to get a glimpse of life in Iran through traditional media, and I appreciate the views offered by these native voices.

I include in this list blogs that are pretty active and which talk about contemporary Iranian culture, politics, or society. I omit blogs that simply catalog or present news stories without any comment or response. I also omit blogs posting poetry or art and blogs that are not in English.

Pittsburgh-area couple sues Google over its Street View

2008-04-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a couple from Franklin Park, PA, north of the city are suing Google over a Street Map view of their property. If you try to look it up, you will find that the Street View image is no longer visible:

You can however, still zoom in from the satelite view and check out the two felled trees in the yard and the area cleared for the pool. It is quite a secluded spot, out in the country in a pretty remote suburb at the end of a country road:

The article states that Christine and Aaron C. Boring are suing over Google's invasion of their privacy. Ms. Boring, who is identified as a school teacher, might also take on The Asbury Park Press. This New Jersey newspaper published the salaries of all teachers in Pennsylvania, further infringing on Ms. Boring's privacy by making public her $42,945 salary with the Northgate School District.

Not a Good Start

2008-03-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in its breaking news headlines this afternoon that first-year Pirates manager John Russell posted the Opening Day roster for the 7:10 game against the Braves in Atlanta.

It appears that the Buccos will take the field with only eight men in the lineup.

As the lineup illustrates, the Pirates have had a difficult time replacing the long-departed Aramis Ramirez at third base since his trade to the Cubs. Go Bucs! Good luck!

I think it cheapens them as individuals

2008-03-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times obituary of Richard Widmark, Actor, age 93:

He also vowed he would never appear on a talk show on television, saying, “When I see people destroying their privacy — what they think, what they feel — by beaming it out to millions of viewers, I think it cheapens them as individuals.”

Naval Base Coronado Barracks in San Diego, California

2008-03-15T09:08:00.001-07:00

And here is the building in San Diego, also built by the U.S. government. At some point during the review of the blueprints and design drawings, you would think that somebody would have said, "That looks like a swastika. Maybe we should change the design." Image is from Google maps.

I also posted a Google map image of another swastika-shaped building in Alabama.

Wesley Acres Methodist Retirement Home in Decatur, Alabama

2008-03-14T05:48:00.000-07:00

The New York Times discusses the unfortunate shape of this government-built facility in Alabama. It is near Huntsville, the town where Wernher von Braun lived after being rescued from post-war Germany in 1945.

The image is provided by Google maps. You cannot miss it if you search "Wesley Acres Methodist Retirement Home in Decatur, Alabama."

The article mentions another building of a similar design.