Geezer

There are 384 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 33 of 39).

Hunting Isaac Hunter’s tavern

Wake Forest Road in 1965


On a whim I looked back at the 1965 aerial photo I got from the North Carolina Geological Survey when I was researching the Raleigh Speedway. It turns out this photograph nicely covers the Wake Forest Road area north of the Beltline! This means it probably shows Isaac Hunter’s Tavern, but the question is where?

Looking at this shot you can see many residential-type buildings along the road. At the bottom is the Beltline, still being constructed and at the top of the photo you can see the eastern half of St. Albans Drive branching off. This area roughly corresponds to this modern-day view shown on Google Maps.

Now my Navy military-intelligence training did not make me a satellite imagery expert, but looking at this photo and comparing it to the roof of the tavern as shown in the Flickr images it’s pretty easy to rule out many of the buildings shown. Second-story homes cast longer shadows and the tavern is decidedly single-story. There are also homes with much fancier rooflines than the tavern, so those are easily ruled out. What does that leave? I’ve (crudely) highlighted two buildings that seem like good candidates.
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Isaac Hunter’s Tavern

Courtesy North Carolina State Archives

This post over at New Raleigh got me wondering again about the long-lost Raleigh landmark, Isaac Hunter’s Tavern. In its day the tavern was known far and wide. It drew our early state representatives together long enough for them to decide to create a new state capital, and thus decreed that this capital would be located within ten miles of the tavern. Yet, in spite of its historical significance to our city and state, no trace of the tavern still exists. Sad, isn’t it?
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Answering machines

I called someone at the city today and my call got sent to what sounded like an ancient voicemail system. I was subjected to a lengthy computerized lesson on how to leave a message and it struck me as so totally irrelevant here in the year 2010.

Answering machines have been around a long time. A man named Vlademar Poulsen invented the first one in 1898. Dubbed the telegraphone, it was a manually-operated means of recording a telephone conversation. It wasn’t until 1935 that a machine that could answer itself was invented by Willy Muller. It was later still (1960) before answering machines were first sold in the U.S.
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Lunchtime bike ride

I co-conducted a four-hour training session this morning at work, so afterwards I was ready to move around some. I’d been looking for someone to go biking with me during lunchtimes so Kelly volunteered to join me. She’s training for her upcoming triathlon so she was motivated.

We got in 45 minutes of intense riding on the Crabtree Creek Greenway, riding ten miles total. It was a pace I’m not used to riding as we usually have the kids along. And, uh, truth be told we were going faster than the greenway “speed limit” so don’t tell anybody!

Now it’s close to 10 PM and I’m feeling a little achy. It sucks getting old!

Able Archer: almost armegeddon?

I’m amazed sometimes that the world survived the year 1983. We came dangerously close to being blown up that year. Dangerously close. Able Archer was a NATO military exercise that place in November of that year. The exercise simulated an attack on Soviet forces, only the Soviets were convinced it was the real thing.

It was said that the misunderstanding so disturbed Reagan that he began to work towards defusing the standoff with the Soviets, leading to historic arms control treaties and eventually peace with the Russians. He toned down his rhetoric from then on, fortunately.

Able Archer 83 was a ten-day NATO command post exercise starting on November 2, 1983 that spanned Western Europe, centred on SHAPE’s Headquarters situated at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons. Able Archer exercises simulated a period of conflict escalation, culminating in a coordinated nuclear release. The 1983 exercise incorporated a new, unique format of coded communication, radio silences, participation by heads of state, and a simulated DEFCON 1 nuclear alert.
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CTE brain injuries

I read the sad story of Penn football player Owen Thomas’s recent suicide and its possible connection to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, is a degenerative brain disease brought on by repeated concussions. It can lead to a host of mental issues: depression, memory loss, aggression, confusion, and dementia. There is evidence that Lou Gehrig died of CTE and not Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I hadn’t heard of CTE before yesterday’s article.

Kelly and I are convinced we’re both on the fast track to dementia, thanks to a history of concussions. As a kid, I routinely received concussions from falling out of bed, and to protest being left in my crib I would repeatedly bang my head against the wall. I like to think I got smarter and less destructive as I grew older.

I do have days when little details don’t come to me the way they should, but I’m sure everybody experiences that once in a while. The question I want to know is whether CTE can be diagnosed without a peek at brain tissue as I’m still using my brain, addled as it may sometimes be. Regardless, I’m happy to see that knowledge about the brain is progressing so rapidly.

The bunker in the neighborhood

Dranesville AT&T bunker

My friend Craig forwarded me a link to a wonderful collection of information on AT&T’s old “long lines” infrastructure. It made me realize I’ve never told this story.

I’d seen this particular website before. I think a Slashdot story on AT&T putting up the old microwave towers for sale prompted me to do some Google searches, after which I spent a lot of time looking through this stuff.

I’ve found this map particularly interesting. I used to live in Northern Virginia near to the non-incorporated area known as Dranesville. You can see many of these routes converging at Dranesville. At the time I was intimately familiar with the phone phreaking technologies, possibly the only thing that Apple-cofounder Steve Wozniak and I have in common. Figuring out how the phone system worked was a fun challenge.
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Skylab and beyond

Skylab

The recent balloon launch and it’s subsequent pictures of near space has gotten my thoughts lifted skyward. I was pondering the 4-pound weight limit of the balloon and contrasting it to the heavy lifting that was once done in this country by rockets like the Saturn V. That led me to some online videos of Skylab.

Skylab was America’s first space station, launched in 1973 on a modified Saturn V rocket. The station itself was made from spent Saturn V rocket stages and was so roomy that it makes the current International Space Station look like a toy. Sadly, Skylab fell from orbit in July 1979.
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Sound Choice in the news again

I was delighted to read the story in today’s Charlotte Observer about Kurt Slep and Sound Choice, fighting back against illegal copying of their karaoke music. The company took a beating when unscrupulous karaoke jockeys (“KJ’s”) downloaded their music rather than paying for it.

While I was sad to hear how devastating music piracy has been to Sound Choice, I was glad to read about the history of the company, including the time in 1985 when I was one of its first employees.

Kurt, give me a call if you need a vocalist!