Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all our friends!

Today, the city of Los Angeles turns 160 years old. Happy Birthday, L.A.

It's also the anniversary of the day Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded "Micro-Soft," in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They adapted John Kemeny's BASIC computer language for H. Edward Roberts' Altair 8800.

Dr. Kemeny was the President of Dartmouth when I was a student there, and I had several private meetings with him (I discovered that students seldom took advantage of his office hours, so I'd just go in to chat with him about various issues. His secretary did not like me, as we always ran long). The New Hampshire license plate on his car was "BASIC."

Three hundred Ritz Camera stores nationwide begin clearance sales today as part of the chain's bankruptcy proceeding.

It's poet Maya Angelou's birthday. 

Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on April 4th, 1968.

Muddy Waters would have been 96 today. (He died in 1983.)

This is the day three years ago that Don Imus made his "nappy headed hos" remark about the Rutgers University women's basketball team, which eventually resulted in his being fired by CBS.

On April 4th, 1964, the Beatles had the top five singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Senator H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania died on April 4th, 1991, when his private plane hit a helicopter. I had an encounter with him too, when he came to visit the owner of a B&B where I was staying on Nantucket. His widow later married Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.

In 1581, Sir Francis Drake was knighted on the deck of his ship the Golden Hinde on April 4th by Queen Elizabeth I for circumnavigating the world. Never met him.

The Captain's Cabin of The Golden Hinde

Incidentally, Drake's plunder from his voyage was so great that the smallest share, which went to a cabin boy, was the equivalent of more than £1 million in today's money. A seaworthy and extensively sailed replica of The Golden Hinde, which can be visited in London today, can be rented as "an atmospheric maritime location for film or photography"—or for children's birthday parties (the website says, "Children may come dressed as pirates if they wish").

On this day in 1818, the U.S. Congress decided that the American flag should have a star added every time a new state was admitted to the union. The number of stripes was limited to 13, one for each of the original colonies.

In 1887, Susanna Medora Salter was elected Mayor of Argonia, Kansas, and became the first female mayor of an American town.

In Taiwan and Hong Kong, it's Children's Day.

And it's a beautiful cool sunny day here in Wisconsin. I hope you have a nice day.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Miserere]

Off to take a walk around Boston with the Oly E-PL1 + 17mm f/2.8 (+ OVF). Sunny, yet not too hot around here, which makes for great walking-around photography weather.

Enjoy your GF1 today, Mike. Your work at TOP is done and you deserve a walk in the doggie park ;-)

[Roger Moore]

Today, the city of Los Angeles turns 160 years old.

Angelinos would beg to differ. The "birthday" of Los Angeles is generally recognized as 4 September 1781, which is when the original Pueblo was founded by settlers from Mission San Gabriel. 4 April 1850 was the date of incorporation as a municipality in California, and isn't seen as an important date.

[erlik]

Happy Easter.

And thank you for reminding me of Pride in the Name of Love.

[Rob Atkins]

An interesting consideration of Roman Vishniac in to day's Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04shtetl-t.html?ref=todayspaper

Off for a long walk myself today: D2X and 85/1.8. A sunny day in Vancouver.

Hope you have a good day, too, Mike, and all.

[MJFerron]

Saw Muddy Waters in a medium size club back in the late 70's. James Cotton and Matt "Guitar" Murphy were part of the band. Had seen James many times before and Matt is probably best known for playing with the Blues Brothers. You might remember his bit with Aretha Franklin in the Blues Brothers movie. Cool thing about those guys, stars as they were is that they would play anywhere with anybody. Matt would play local clubs in my hometown area with lesser known bands. At break he'd come over with a beer and play a round or two of pinball with us before heading back on stage. These blues stars were down home folk. Not a snotty elitist among them.

[pissed]

Of the last 5 posts 4 have absolutely nothing to do with photography. I think I'm going to unsubscribe now.

[Vladimir Radivojevic]

Happy Easter, Mike!
It's nice here in Serbia too. I hope you'll have good light, too.
Христос Воскресе!

[Miguel]

And it is my son´s birthday.

[Roger Bradbury]

Mike

I had a fine old day, thanks. Out and about in Northamptonshire, just driving about, and if I spotted something worth photographing great, but if not I just didn't care. It was sunny and fairly warm, and even the badly timed cloud, the one that waits until you've framed the shot just so before obscuring the sun for a quarter of an hour, didn't even slightly annoy me.

I ended up in Althorp Church, where I had a long talk with the keyholder about the church and was shown a coat of arms carved onto a pew end belonging to the ancestors of a certain Mr G. Washington; three stars, five stripes.

I got home about an hour ago, limping, my dodgy foot hurting like hell because I kept stopping to take pix when I should have given up and gone home, but I'll do exactly the same next time.

Roger

[Mike Plews]

After a brutal winter in which the Epson 3880 I was going to buy had to become a Toro 826 snow thrower, I am glad to report the glacier in the front yard has finally disappeared.
I half expected to find the remains of a mammoth in there but no, just a mummified ground squirrel.
We are having an absolutely fantastic day up here in the Loess Hills of western Iowa.
My son and his family are home from school and he brought a Ziatype kit from Bostwick and Sullivan and has been teaching me the ways of this form of palladium printing.
Pulled out some old 4x5 negatives and they don't look half bad, especially considering this is a first attempt with this process.
After church a big meal out here on the farm and now four generations of my family are sawing logs in the living room. Perfect.
Hope you are all having an equally nice day.

[Nicholas Von Staden]

Ritz...from what I hear... they stiffed Nikon for 15 or 20 mil depending on who you talk to.....must be why the price increase...and Canon for a like amount. oh well... maybe we will get back the old local camera store, remember them?

[GKFroehlich]

Mike,
I assume you know that H. Edward Roberts died 2 days ago? See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03roberts.html, for example.
From Albuquerque,
GKFroehlich

[GKFroehlich]

Okay, I just read the previous post. Obviously you DID already know. Never was great at reading ahead before reacting...
GKFroehlich

[John Hall]

It was a perfect day here in Montreal. Took my camera for a walk and enjoyed the light.
Keep up the OT posts. I read this blog because I feel like I get to know the people who contribute to it. Then when you, or Ctein, or any of your other regular columnists makes a point about photography I know what your frame of reference is, and therefore what your opinion might mean to me.
YMMV, and to each their own, but I intend to re-new when my subscription comes up!
cheers,
john

[Barbu]

What a surprise this post was! A very nice way of sprinkling some salt and pepper over a decidedly lazy Sunday.
Even more, I'm glad that you found again your cheerful voice (well, writting) which I started to miss after all those news of photo theft, equipment blunders and the assorted stuff.
Welcome back, happy Mike!

[Don]

I still love Don Imus going back to his DJ days in the 70's in NYC.
My buddy had a customize van back in the 80's called the Captains Cab and looked similar to this. Happy Easter

[Rod S.]

Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on April 4th, 1968.

This tragedy overshadowed another event of that same day: the launch of Apollo 6, the second and last unmanned test flight of the Saturn V rocket. The vehicle experienced a 30 second period of severe pogo oscillations (longitudinal vibrations) which resulted in some structural failures and the premature shutdown of two engines. The causes were determined and the next Saturn V launch, in December 1968, took Apollo 8 with astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders on mankind's first flight to the moon.

On a photographic note, we regularly see 16mm film footage from remote cameras in Apollo 6 (and 4), showing the jettison of the first stage and the interstage ring, intercut into footage of the launch of Apollo 11. That film had to be recovered from the cameras that re-entered the atmosphere and parachuted to the ocean. What a feat.

[Poagao]

It's tomb-sweeping day in Taiwan, a national holiday. I am at home going through photos instead of actually sweeping tombs.

[Michael Korak]

Mike, keep up the good work. As I siad in an email earlier last week, maybe the camera manufacturers are just pulling in the reins on introductions, especially DSLRs in an effort to bolster their bottom lines. More is not Better.

Your line about Ritz/Wolf camera makes it sound as though they are closing 300 more stores. You did not use the past tense or insert a date in the Easter Day comment.

By the way, they "stiffed" Nikon for $26.6 million and Canon for $13.7 million. That is why they do not have Canon product to sell now. It is my understanding that the Canon inventory they had was secured through a consignment agreement and Canon was able to repossess all current stock in the stores and warehouse when the bankruptcy was filed. Nikon, on the other hand stayed with them in hopes of some recovery. And the Nikon inventory was not under consignment. That is what I was told.

Hope your Easter Day weather was as pleasant in Wisconsin as our was here in Tennessee.....