Farewell to Jewel Boxes

      Every once in a while Uncle Jack does something so brilliant that he feels compelled to share it with his readers.  This time he trained his razor-sharp mind, honed to a fine point by his four long years in Ashland, Wisconsin High School whence he graduated in 1948, to the knotty problem of what to do with his collection of 300+ classical and jazz CDs now that he has moved from a fairly large house into a much smaller condo. Nearly all of his CDs were housed in those infamous plastic containers known as "jewel boxes" which he has long despised for their tendency to fall apart in his hands every time he tries to open one..
      He packed them into three large boxes for the trip from Nags Head to Baltimore where they have been taking up entirely too much space on the floor in his livingroom/diningroom/office. A couple of weeks ago, prompted by the acquisition of a new CD player, he decided it was time to get them off the floor and into some kind of organized storage where he could quickly find the CD he wanted to listen to. But how and where?
     At this point he did the "something brilliant" mentioned above---he Googled "CD storage".  The 49,700,000 responses suggested that lots of people out there in cyberspace have been thinking about CD storage for a long time and  it became quickly obvious that many music lovers shared his disgust with the clunky  "jewel boxes" and had devised numerous ways to get rid of them.
     By far the most popular solution was a derivative of the old-fashioned photo album, adapted to hold CDs in pockets instead of photos.  They come in all sizes and shapes and degrees of elegance so a bit of hands-on investigation was required.  One trip to Uncle Jack's neighborhood Target  was all it took.  He found a well-made (in China of course), compact album for a mere $19.50 that would accommodate 150 of his disks with room in the pockets for all the printed material from the jewel boxes.  He bought two of them and in a frenzy of activity the next morning transferred his entire CD collection into two handy pouches where they are at his fingertips at all times and take up less than a tenth of the space required by the wretched jewel boxes.
       After two weeks of experience with his new system he is pleased to report that no unforeseen problems have appeared and he can unreservedly recommend this splendid solution to the problem of economical, space-saving, convenient, efficient CD storage. He is so proud of himself he can hardly stand it.
    

Follow me....

I have been trying to figure out how Twitter works without much success.  However it appears that if you can find baltimoreoracle's Twitter page you can become a "follower" which seems to have all kinds of  benefits like you will be notified when new tweets appear and you can easily exchange personal messages with me (not too personal, hopefully ) and probably a lot of other good things, too.

So far baltimoreoracle has 5 followers.  You can be one, too, by clicking on this link: http://twitter.com/baltimoreoracle

In the meantime he will be mixing the Kool-Aid.

Maybe this will work.

Having trouble finding baltimoreoracle (formerly Uncle Jack) on Twitter?  Try clicking on this and see where it gets you.  http://twitter.com/baltimoreoracle

The birdies go tweet, tweet, tweet....

       Shame on Uncle Jack for not at least letting his few remaining readers know that he is alive and on the planet once in a while.  If truth be told he is in somewhat of a quandary regarding his blog.  Since moving to Baltimore he seems to have much less time on his hands due to the many distractions of city life, accompanied by a shrinking inclination to sit down at his computer and blog when there are so many other interesting things to do---like watching the Ravens on his new 52 inch you-know-what.  Perhaps, after 25 years of column-writing and 5 years of more-or-less dutiful blogging he has grown weary of this self-imposed task.
      In any case he hates to just shut off the spigot and completely lose touch with those faithful readers who have professed interest in what he has to say no matter where he says it from and no matter how seldom. For this reason he is proposing to switch from blog to Twitter for a while to see how that goes.  He doesn't have a clue as to how Twitter works at this point but he is going to give it a try.  If you would like to participate in this adventure go to Twitter and search for baltimoreoracle  (his Twitter name) and see what happens. This could be the beginning of something wonderful.  Or not.
  

Blizzard in Bawlmer

     Uncle Jack feels like he is back in northern Wisconsin again after yesterday's blizzard dumped two feet of snow on Charm City and environs. He has to say that blizzards can be beautiful when observed from the comfort of a 7th floor apartment by someone who doesn't have to go anywhere and who doesn't  have to look forward to many hours of shoveling snow after the stuff stops falling.  So far the only real consequence of the storm is that his Sunday New York Times is now over three hours late and he is in danger of going into withdrawal any moment.
      While he gazes at the beauty of the new-fallen snow beneath his living room window a crew of 700 snow-shovelers is working frantically to clear two feet of snow from the seats and playing field of M & T Bank stadium downtown so the Ravens and the Bears can play iceball this afternoon.  The kick-off  has been moved back from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. to give the sweepers and shovelers a little more time to work so most of the game will be played under lights in sub-freezing temperatures.  Sound like fun?
     This has been a bad month for persons of Swedish descent like Uncle Jack.  First the news about Tiger Woods's multiple infidelities which came as a shock to all of us who know that he is married to a lovely Swedish woman named Elin Nordegren.  Uncle Jack's paternal grandmother's name was Elin so he felt personally violated by Tiger's unconscionable treatment of a fellow Scandinavian.  As a gesture of protest he promises that he will never buy another $20,000 Tag Heuer watch as long as he lives.
       As though the Woods caper were not enough the poobahs at General Motors announced yesterday that they are shutting down the Saab Motor Company for good, having been unable to sell the brand to any other automaker.  As a former Saab owner Uncle Jack would like to extend his condolences to the clever trolls of Trollhatten, Sweden who have been making these wonderful cars for many decades and who might have continued to do so if they had not been gobbled up by the GM monster.  Uncle Jack has many Saab stories to tell, like the night his brand new Saab caught fire on the way home from the dealer, but he will save them for another time.
      Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. will now wish everyone a Merry Christmas, or if that is not appropriate, at least a Happy New Year before they go into hiding for the next week or so.

        View from the seventh floor, Saturday noon.  About six inches had fallen by this time.

      Ditto Sunday morning after the snow had stopped falling.  The sun was blinding.

       Walking down the middle of a busy street is usually hazardous but not during a blizzard.

                                 The Ravens play the Bears here at 4 p.m. Sunday.  Maybe.

                Lucky for Uncle Jack the Mini spent the night in a warm, dry garage.

                          Blizzards can be fun, too.

Busy, Busy, Busy

     Once again Uncle Jack apologizes to all those faithful readers who have been clicking in vain for the past several days while nothing new appeared in this space.  It isn't as though he hasn't had anything to write about.  It has been another fun-packed week for sure but the doing has left little time and energy for the reporting.
     The highlight of last week was his first cultural excursion to D.C. which is something he and Mrs. U.J. have been talking about doing ever since they got to Baltimore.  Trains leave from nearby Penn Station every 45 minutes or so and the 40 minute ride costs senior citizens a mere $7.00 round-trip, making trips to our nation's capital both convenient and cost-effective.
     A play at the Kennedy Center was the catalyst for this adventure.  Called "August: Osage County" it's a sad but also very funny examination of an extremely dysfunctional family whose members gather at the homeplace for the funeral of their patriarch.  The part of the deceased's surviving wife is played by 82-year-old actress Estelle Parsons who is on stage for hours, yelling and stomping around like the lunatic she portrays.  She gives an incredible performance and one can only wonder how, at her age, she can do it twice on Matinee day which this happened to be.  Steroids perhaps. Or geritol.
      Neither Uncle Jack nor Mrs. U.J. had seen Union Station since its massive renovation of a few years back and he can tell you they were impressed.    When it was built a century ago it was the largest building in the country and one of the most ornate.  It languished after World War II when trains went out of favor but in its reincarnation you can almost imagine the grandeur of rail travel at its finest back in the first half of the twentieth century. Even the restaurants are first rate which is not usually the case in train stations these days.
      Look for another blog entry in a week or so if you are so inclined.  Happy shopping.

                Part of the vaulted interior of Union Station in D.C.  The building contains over 130 stores and restaurants and appears to be thriving as a shopping destination as well as a train depot.

The sign says that this Christmas tree is a gift of the country of Norway.  Uncle Jack is not sure what we have done for Norway lately but it is certainly a lovely tree.

  Union Station's exterior.  The Plaza in front of it is about to receive a multi-million dollar reworking, too.

                              One of the interior hallways in the magnificent Kennedy Center.

  This gentleman performed a rhapsody by Johannes Brahms at a concert of Christmas music Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. attended last week.

                        And here's a picture of Brahms himself at the piano.  Amazing.

 

Still here

     Shame on Uncle Jack for not at least letting his readers (are there any left?) know that he has not yet shuffled off his mortal coil---just incredibly busy since returning from Nags Head last week.  He still doesn't have time to write a proper blog entry but here are a few last pictures from the beach in Sonag (and elsewhere) that might help pass the time. It's time to watch the Ravens stomp the Packers into the snow up in Green Bay.

    Sunrise from the deck one day last week.  Uncle Jack is getting too old to walk down to the beach at 6 a.m. any more.  It was still worth getting up for, though.  Not many things are.

This pool at a Sonag development whose name Uncle Jack can't remember at the moment (Dunes South maybe?) has withstood many a storm over the past 25 years but not this one.

                                                        For sure.

Unusual doubledecker stairway shows how much sand gets pushed around during storms in Sonag.  It's a bonanza for carpenters who don't have houses to build at the moment.  Every cloud........

Chez Schneck, a few doors south of the Outer Banks pier, survived thanks to the massive dune built up over the past couple of years by judicious use of sand-fencing.  Time to start all over.  Get to work Polly.

The old Lifesaving Station at Oregon Inlet is looking better than it has for years.  All the ancillary structures built by the Coast Guard have been removed and new shingles applied to the original building.  Anybody know what the plans are for this marvelous survivor of countless storms over the past 100+ years?