Oh The Places I've gone

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Time Ticking Away

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't ever happen again. (until 3006 maybe)

You may now return to your (normal ?) life

Thanks to my wife for this bit of quirky trivia.

Touched by Terror

Today is the anniversary of the first bombing of the World Trade Centers. Back in 1993 I was in Newark, NJ walking through the bar at the Ramada when I saw the images of smoke coming out of the tower. I was there as part of a meeting and was about to head back north to New Paltz. I quickly found a pay phone and called my Mom to find out where my Dad was. My dad worked in Tower 1 on the 69th floor.

Rewind... my Dad got a job with the Port Authority back in 1966, I forget where he worked in the first years, but when they began to build the World Trade Centers his office was moved there. I know he was working there in the unfinished building, because family legend says that it was my mom's fear of going up in the unfinished upper floors that helped induce labor for my birth. So I have had a personal connection with the towers right from the start. Growing up we used concrete cylinders that came from the construction trash of the towers to hold open doors in the summer.

I went and visited my dad at least once on every school vacation up until high school, and even when I was in college I would sometimes take the bus down to NYC and meet up with him. Trips to the observation deck were a must and he always had tickets to the observation deck in his desk drawer so we could jump the line and get right to the elevator. I even had the opportunity to sleep on the observation deck as part of a special Boy Scout "camping" experience. After the bombing in 1993 it became a little harder to just pop in and see my dad, however us sharing the same name, did have its advantages.

I met my wife in college and whenever we saw the towers as we were driving, on a plane or train, we would always joke and wave to my dad. My dad retired from the Port Authority in January of 2001, and one of my last memories of the inside of the towers was that snowy night as my wife and I made our way through the lobby carrying a six foot ladder wrapped in fabric. It wasn't some sort of Christo project, we gave him a ladder for his retirement.

The towers were always a landmark and coming out of the subway I always looked for the towers I knew they we southeast on the island and depending where I was going I knew to walk towards or away from them. The last time I saw them was about a month before they fell as I was in NYC for a gift show. Banned Song List

The power of the Internet or Calling all Dickissons

So I was playing around tonight with a notebook that was in my great aunt's house of our family history. It must be at least 4 years since I last added information to my computerized family tree and for some reason I got distracted and began again tonight.

I have been looking at the book quite a bit lately trying to gain information about my Civil War ancestors. Seems on my wife's side of the family one of her ancestors was with the 13th NY Heavy Artillery who participated in the Seige of Petersburg. My mind begins to think about him seeing some of the sights after the Union entered the city that we see today. On my side they were not so lucky out of the 4 brothers who went to fight- 3 died with the 15th NJ Infantry and 1 that made it back alive moved to Michigan. I have not been able to find his records yet only the family history that he was captured twice. Anyway of of the 3 that died two of them died about 50 miles north of where we currently live. The 1 that lived may have made it this far depending on where he was captured.

Sorry, I got distracted from my original story. Since I was a kid I have been interested in the Civil War and just ask my wife no Civil War story has a quick ending. I think I have my telling of the Petersburg Campaign to just under an hour now.

So I am looking through the notebook and found a little piece of paper on which was written "Dickisson Picnic 3rd Sunday in August" So I thought I may Google "Dickisson familiy and NJ" to see if they still do it (this notebook was from the early 80s) and possibly they may have gone techno. So I did the search and I found this record of my great, great, great, grandparents. The John listed born 1816 is my great, great grandfather. (humm... married in Feb and born in July... must have been cold in November 1815) I can not tell you how cool that is to see that the national archives out of all the examples of "Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, ca. 1800 - ca. 1900 These items include fraktur submitted with Revolutionary War Pension applications" they have to use it it my ancestor's not just a cousin or uncle but my actual grandparents record that they used. The power of the internet!

** If anyone out there also has this family tree book I am #878 contact me for updates. **

January 9th Deletion day (observed)

I began deleting a year's worth of e-mail and wanted to hold on to a couple of things for future use.

"Those who would sacrifice their freedom for safety will find they inherit neither."
-Ben Franklin

"Many people assume that naming trends are driven by celebrities. But how many Madonnas do you know?"
-Christian Leaf

Violence and Bloodshed

ACT I

Over New Years there was a horrible murder in Richmond of a family of 4 plus 2 other people being shot. About a month ago this list was passed on to me by my wife no wonder Richmond made the list.

Top 25 Most Dangerous Cities 2005
Data compiled by Morgan Quitno

1 Camden, NJ
2 Detroit, MI
3 St. Louis, MO
4 Flint, MI
5 Richmond, VA
6 Baltimore, MD
7 Atlanta, GA
8 New Orleans, LA
9 Gary, IN
10 Birmingham, AL
11 Richmond, CA
12 Cleveland, OH
13 Washington, DC
14 West Palm Beach, FL
15 Compton, CA
16 Memphis, TN
17 Dayton, OH
18 San Bernardino, CA
19 Springfield, MA
20 Cincinnati, OH
21 Oakland, CA
22 Dallas, TX
23 Newark, NJ
24 Hartford, CT
25 Little Rock, AR

ACT II

Little background here... between Petersburg and Richmond the stretch of I-95 is ripe with Billboards (ripe meaning they stink.) One of my favorites last year was for Lite 98 FM featuring their morning guy wearing this festive scarf (this area of VA rarely gets more than a dusting and hardly ever stays below freezing for more than a day at a time)already he is looking like a dog driving a car, but add a goofy smile and he was the subject of relentless taunting for 6 weeks. Next Chesterfield County (the bridge between City of Petersburg and Richmond was voted last year as being the 17th best place to live in America. Someone's brain child was to advertise this so I got in another 6 weeks of taunting at their boasting being #17. With that said here is my response to my wife's message.

Can't wait to see these billboards....

Thank you for making Richmond #5 !

Take that Compton... Richmond new home of the O.G. !

Richmond... more dangerous than Petersburg.

Richmond... Thank your God you don't live in Camden.

Hey I'm Bill Bevins and I want to welcome you to Richmond the only North American city with class 4 rapids, more violence then Compton, and me in the morning! I had to stop wearing the scarf because I was fearing someone may try to strangle me with it.

ACT III

Completely unrelated, I was trying to find information about smashed pennies to help me with a work related project and came across this error I just had to add it Error Message Come to think of it this Act is related because while you are fearing for you life visiting Richmond you can also stop by the Poe Museum.