Lee …

circumnavigator of the globe and Pacific Crest Trail thru-hiker, was born in Flint, Michigan, on this date in 1957. He hiked the PCT from Mexico to Canada in 2002, amazingly enough providing a journal along the way (on the tiniest of keyboards). Here’s an excerpt from NewMexiKen’s younger brother:

For the first time since I began this Odyssey I fear my life-long dream to do a single season thruhike of the Pacific Crest Trail could be in serious jeopardy.

Four consecutive days of 110 degrees didn’t stop me.

Streams deep and icy enough to make all men equal didn’t stop me.

High mountain passes clogged with ice and snow didn’t stop me.

Rattlesnakes, cougars, bears, howling packs of coyotes, ticks, wasps, bees, hornets, gnats, biting flies, and mosquitoes did not deter me.

Raging fires with smoke thick enough to give me headaches and a sore throat have not chased me off the trail.

God help me even a broken heart didn’t stop me.

So what insidious thing could hold me back on the threshold of my dream? The huckleberry!

“But how,” you ask? By slowing my progress to a veritable standstill! One can walk by only by so many bushes teeming with these succulent purple orbs of orgiastic delight without stopping! My God, I’m not made of stone!

So my pace seems to be half of what it was. Instead of the mighty 30 mile days I had looked forward to in Oregon I will be very lucky to eke out a meager 15 or less. There just isn’t enough time to reach British Columbia before winter sets in. I fear the only hope to salvage my trek may be to enlist the aid of a top-notch hypnotist to attempt to persuade my subconscious that I really don’t like wild huckleberries, at least until I get to Manning Park. Drastic measures indeed, but what else can I do?

Statehood

Ohio became the 17th state on this date in 1803.

Nebraska became the 37th state on this date in 1867.

NewMexiKen

In February there were 33,781 visits to 107,740 NewMexiKen pages from 22,881 different IP addresses in more than 100 countries.

But who’s counting?

Consolidation

Good-bye Famous-Barr, Filene’s, Foley’s, Hecht’s, Kaufmann’s, Meier & Frank, Robinsons-May and Strawbridge’s.

Hello Macy’s.

(May Company stores Lord & Taylor and Marshall Field’s are expected to keep their name.)

Retailing Giant Takes Shape as Federated Agrees to Buy May.

Thousands of layoffs are also expected, although other merchants, including Kohl’s, J.C. Penney and Nordstrom, are reportedly already lining up to take over some of the locations that Federated may jettison.

Once again, the small-minded people win

From BBC NEWS:

US food giant Kraft has decided to halt production of sweets shaped like roadkill – animals run over by cars.

Animal rights activists criticised the product, fruit-flavoured Trolli Roadkill Gummi candy, saying it encouraged acts of cruelty.

New Jersey’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NJSPCA) had threatened petitions, boycotts and letter campaigns to stop the product.

OK, so this wasn’t the best idea Kraft ever had, but why do people take this stuff seriously? Are little kids going to go out and run over puppies and kittens because of their candy? I don’t think so. They may go out and run over puppies and kittens because lots of kids are sadistic little monsters, but their candy is probably not a factor.

B & O

From Today in History from the Library of Congress:

On February 28, 1827, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad became the first U.S. railway chartered for commercial transportation of freight and passengers. Investors hoped a railroad would allow Baltimore, the second largest U.S. city at that time, to successfully compete with New York for western trade. New Yorkers were profiting from easy access to the Midwest via the Erie Canal.

Construction began at Baltimore harbor on July 4, 1828. Local dignitary Charles Carroll, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, laid the first stone.

The initial line of track, a 13-mile stretch to Ellicott’s Mills (now Ellicott City), Maryland, opened in 1830. The Tom Thumb, a steam engine designed by Peter Cooper, negotiated the route well enough to convince skeptics that steam traction worked along steep, winding grades.

Bronze and steal

From Sideline Chatter:

The Utah Jazz plan to honor John Stockton and Karl Malone with dual statues — 1½ times life size — about 20 feet apart outside Delta Center.

Added Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune: “No word on whether there’ll be a statue of Michael Jordan between them stealing the ball.”

It’s the birthday

… of Gavin MacLeod. The captain of the Love Boat and Mary Tyler Moore’s wisecracking news writer is 74.

… of Dean Smith. The hall-of-fame basketball coach is 74. Knew when to retire, too.

… of Mario Andretti. He’s in the left lane with his blinker on at age 65.

… of Bubba Smith. The football star turned actor is 60.

… of Bernadette Lazzara, known to us as Bernadette Peters. The star of stage, screen and television (beginning at age 3) is 57 today.

Tsunami photos

From CNN.com:

John and Jackie Knill of Vancouver, British Columbia, pose at a resort in Khao Lak, Thailand, on December 12, 2004. The couple were killed when the December 26 tsunami struck the resort. Their digital camera was found, and though the camera was destroyed, searchers were able to recover photos of the tsunami from its memory card.

Among the most dramatic photos NewMexiKen has scene. Take a look.

Link via kottke.

Well alright, Halle

From Yahoo! News:

[Halle] Berry was named worst actress of 2004 by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation for her performance in “Catwoman” and she showed up to accept her “Razzie” carrying the Oscar she won in 2002 for “Monster’s Ball.”

“They can’t take this away from me, it’s got my name on it!” she quipped. A raucous crowd cheered her on as she gave a stirring recreation of her Academy Award acceptance speech, including tears.

She thanked everyone involved in “Catwoman,” a film she said took her from the top of her profession to the bottom.

“I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of s—,” she said as she dragged her agent on stage and warned him “next time read the script first.”

Chronicles

NewMexiKen read Bob Dylan’s autobiographical Chronicles: Volume One Friday night and Saturday. Perhaps one has to be somewhat of a Dylan fan, and perhaps one has to have an interest in modern American music, but those are the only qualifiers I would put on this superb narrative. It is fast-paced, wonderfully written and vivid.

Some reviewers have questioned the books authenticity; that is, is Dylan telling what really happened or embellishing the myth.

Who cares?

Little Drummer Boy

NewMexiKen noted the passing of chorale conductor Harry Simeon last week at age 94 and thought this background from The New York Times interesting:

The most successful was his group’s rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy,” adapted from a Czech carol. Translated into English in 1941, it was first recorded in 1957 by the Jack Halloran Singers. According to Songfacts, a professional database, a disagreement over the release of that record brought the song and the singers to Mr. Simeone for a redo.

Originally titled “Sing We Now of Christmas,” the album on the Holiday label that included “Drummer Boy,” turned into an instant holiday classic when it appeared in 1958, and made the Top 40 charts in the United States until 1962. Since then “The Little Drummer Boy” has been recorded by artists from Bing Crosby, paired with the rocker David Bowie, to the Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Guards.

Honda Ridgeline

“Honda truck” is among the top Google search items bringing people to NewMexiKen these days, behind the ever popular Ron Howard’s brother. The original posts were here and here, but I thought I’d add this from Car and Driver Magazine:

The Ridgeline’s bed is also different, with a sheet-molding-compound coating that is dent and corrosion resistant—no bed liner needed. But the best part is the hatch in the floor of the bed that opens to expose a nine-cubic-foot trunk—large enough for three sets of golf clubs, a keg, or the Ridgeline’s chief engineer, Gary Flint. Think it would be difficult to load stuff into a trunk over a tailgate? So did Honda. That’s why the tailgate swings open from right to left like a door, in addition to its traditional tailgate moves, making it easy to get at the trunk.

It’s the birthday

… of Academy Award winning actress Joanne Woodward. She’s 75 today. Miss Woodward won the best actress Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve (1957). She was nominated for best actress three other times. Woodward and Paul Newman have been married 47 years.

… of two-time Academy Award winning actress Elizabeth Taylor. She’s 73 today. Miss Taylor won best actress Oscars for Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Miss Taylor is probably best known, however, for being the voice of Maggie on The Simpsons.

Trophy bride

From The New Mexican:

The female is shy and has never met a male. The male has been out of the mating game for quite a while. Then there’s that 29-year age difference.

No matter, officials at Albuquerque’s Rio Grande Zoo are hoping that hippos Moe and Karen become friends and maybe even soul-mates when they meet later this year.

Karen, a 3-year-old female, is considered on the cusp of sexual maturity. Moe is a 32-year-old bachelor whose last experience as a sire was more than two decades ago.

“Moe has been out of the game for 25 years,” said Rio Grande mammal curator Rick Janser.

The article goes on to say “if the couple are to mate, it will probably have to be Karen who sends out the right signals.”

A long throw of the dice

From an article in The New Mexican:

While other tribes are building resorts, golf courses and casinos on their land, Jemez Pueblo has only two economic developments in this isolated community: the Walatowa convenience store and a visitors’ center.

So the tribe is looking 300 miles south — to Anthony, N.M. — to build a casino.

The pueblo and Santa Fe art dealer Gerald Peters have an option to buy a privately owned parcel of land at a busy location next to Interstate 10 between Las Cruces and El Paso.

The pueblo is seeking to put 78 acres of the property into federal trust. In 2004, it submitted a trust application to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs regional office in Albuquerque. If approved, the land would become part of the Jemez reservation.

…

McCain’s bill would prohibit tribes from acquiring land in another state for gambling operations, according to the Times Union newspaper in Albany, N.Y. Although Jemez’s proposal doesn’t involve land in another state, other members of Congress want to add a measure requiring a tribe have an ancestral connection to land before it is put into trust.

Mount McKinley National Park …

now Denali National Park & Preserve was established on this date in 1917.

Denali.jpg

It’s more than a mountain. Denali National Park & Preserve features North America’s highest mountain, 20,320-foot tall Mount McKinley. The Alaska Range also includes countless other spectacular mountains and many large glaciers. Denali’s more than 6 million acres also encompass a complete sub-arctic eco-system with large mammals such as grizzly bears, wolves, Dall sheep, and moose.

Weak competition

NewMexiKen doesn’t want to to be just about the Oscars and movies but I did find these factoids in the Los Angeles Times interesting:

While all five candidates for the top Oscar have managed respectable ticket sales, they collectively have been seen by fewer moviegoers than any batch of best-picture nominees in 20 years.
…

At $436 million, “Shrek 2” far out-grossed the entire best-picture lineup combined. Add in “The Incredibles” ($259 million) and “Shark Tale” ($160 million), and the three animated nominees did more than 2 1/2 times the business of the five best-picture contestants.

The article has lots of details including a great graphic.

Is anything about merit anymore?

You might want to consider this article from the Los Angeles Times when you make your own Oscar picks:

Barely any A-list stars showed up at the Four Seasons Hotel for the “Maria Full of Grace” reception, just one of countless Oscar get-out-the-vote efforts that surface during awards season each year. A handful of people made cocktail party chatter with director Joshua Marston and star Catalina Sandino Moreno, sampled a few drab appetizers, then quickly went on their way, most with a modest parting gift: a copy of the film’s DVD.

The “Sideways” blowout a few weeks later stood at the opposite end of the spectrum. Hundreds of top show business talent and Oscar voters jammed the restaurant Vibrato, where they drank expensive Hitching Post Pinot Noir by the gallon. On stage, the film’s composer, Rolfe Kent, jammed with a jazz band.

Maybe only the naive consider the Academy Awards to be an evenhanded referendum on the best films, but rarely has it devolved into such a marked battle between the haves and the have-nots as it has with this year’s motley crop of large and small contenders.

Desperate to adorn their films with the valuable Oscar seal of approval, well-heeled studios now spend as much as $15 million promoting the award chances for such movies as “The Aviator” and “Million Dollar Baby.” Other films, such as “Finding Neverland” and “Hotel Rwanda,” try to stay in the race with a fraction of that.