Clarence makes his own fractal digital TV antenna (and it works in his basement!)

It’s not pretty, but it works, and it works underground, in my cloistered office, so that’s saying something.

I use a Hauppauge HVR-950Q USB tuner. Because Comcast (Xfinity) went all digital, I have to place a converter between the cable and the tuner, which means of course that the only signal I’ll see is what’s coming out of the converter, which means I can only DVR one channel, which kind of defeats the purpose, which is kinda Comcast’s goal.

Observations:

• I built my fractal antenna based on these easy instructions at HTPC-DIY.com: DIY Flexible Fractal Window HDTV Antenna >
• I added a 2nd clear plastic sheet for a sturdier frame.
• The tuner is just as important as the antenna. I hooked up the same antenna to a Toshiba REGZA and only got 3 channels (with the same antenna orientation and about 12 feet higher than my office).
• I later added an aluminum foil reflector behind it in my office, about 18 inches away; seems to help some. In my case, since the antenna is hanging near a wall, that simply meant a couple long sheets of standard kitchen foil attached to the wall.
• Don’t use glue stick to glue plastic sheets together. It dries very slowly and looks messy. But it is a great way to do everything in a few minutes and see if it’s worth the time to do it more neatly.

I did all this so I could record the new Cosmos, but found Me-TV and Retro-TV, both broadcast by WLLA. Neither are included Comcast and both are chock-full of old shows from my childhood with limited commercials.

Scanning for free over-the-air digital TV in Grand Rapids with a Hauppauge HVR-950Q.

Screen capture of a Progressive commercial on 41.1 WOTV (WOOD TV) (ATSC)

Clarence's fractal digital TV antenna (before I added the aluminum foil reflector behind it). That wall is also covered with artwork by Dee Dee now.

[2014-03-11]

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Cairns home movies circa 1962-1972 (watch video)

Mom and me outside our house in Erie, maybe 1965.

Once upon a time, we used to watch old 8mm home movies in Grandma and Grandpa Cairns’s house when they lived on East 37th in Erie, PA. Grandpa set up the screen on one side of the basement and on the other leveled the projector atop an antique radio.

There’s a scene of Dad carrying me out of that house when I was a baby (may not be in this set), and I distinctly recall, while watching it many years later, what high hopes he must have had for his baby boy, and what a disappointment I had become.

That’s not because he ever said anything like that, but because of what I was enduring at that time and how starkly it contrasted with those images.

If he can see me now (and I think he can, I talk to him frequently), I don’t think he’d be disappointed. I suspect he understands more in eternal hindsight than I ever will in this life.

I think we are too hard on ourselves in this life, but that doesn’t stop us, does it?

Cairns Family Memories Vol II circa 1962-72 with period soundtrack (~2 hrs)

Cairns Family Memories Vol II circa 1962-72 with period soundtrack. These films were shot on 8mm film circa 1962-72 by Thomas Graham Cairns, my grandfather. It includes the families of Ken Cairns, Charles Weston Cairns, and Dottie Cairns. Tom Tom Cairns (Ken's son) digitized them. I added some period vintage sounds. The last 10 minutes or so have no sound yet. Someday it would be fun to spend some time matching appropriate sounds to each event.

[2014-03-02]

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The new Cosmos.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of Cosmos.

The new Cosmos (Sundays on FOX, 9pm), hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, started a little weak. I eagerly anticipated this successor to the 1980 PBS series (like many science-minded teens in the 70’s, I was a big fan of Carl Sagan), but as things sometimes go, we are disappointed in equal measure to our hopes.

DeGrasse Tyson is an engaging speaker and scientist, one of the most accessible personalities to grace popular science in recent years, and his public remarks on science and religion have been generally sensitive. Unfortunately, he’s not a historian and he (and/or the producers and writers) chose to kick off Cosmos with a history lesson. His characterization of 16th century monk Giordano Bruno as a martyr to science was pretty unfair to Giordano Bruno and to history.[1]

The grand inquisitor in the 2014 Cosmos.

Granted, the boogeyman is not Christianity, but the old standby baddie, the Catholic church (as likely nowadays as Nazis to appear as villains); and Bruno does remain a sympathetic religious figure suffering as much for his faith as his science (he rises cruciform into the sky in one sequence). But spending 30 animated minutes on his life and execution was too much too soon. PBS, maybe, but not FOX.

I’ll listen to and watch deGrasse Tyson anytime I can, but I’m hoping Cosmos moves along now and focuses on science.

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FWIW, Bruno was executed primarily for heresies on traditional Christian doctrines (the Trinity, divinity of Jesus, virginity of Mary, etc), and not his science.

Does that make it okay? Of course not. Neither does it make him a martyr for science.

I don’t want anyone to whitewash the past, but if you’re going to tell it, tell it like it was.

Learn more about Giordano Bruno here >

[2014-03-09]

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Pope John Paul II with a crosier.

[1]

Crosses are plentiful in Cosmos’s animated version of Bruno’s life, and at one point, the inquisitor shoves his crosier into Bruno’s face before he’s executed. The symbols are unmistakably Catholic and most Protestants will likely take no offense, though they should. The relatively new Reformation denominations denounced Bruno too, and weren't unknown to burn a heretic or two (Michael Servetus >).

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Dee Dee gets her ears pierced.

Dee Dee gets her ears pierced.

[video deleted 2104-03-18 ; explanation to follow in a later post]



Dee Dee cries (but just a little).

[video deleted 2104-03-18 ; explanation to follow in a later post]

[2014-03-04]

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A recent picture of Daddy and Mimi (Kayla Marie)...

Clarence and Mimi in the hallway mirror on 2014-03-04

[2014-03-05]

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My first great hero worship disappointment.

Pete Dual (L) as Hannibal Heyes (alias Joshua Smith)

and Ben Murphy (R) as Jed 'Kid' Curry (alias Thaddeus

Jones). Alias Smith and Jones aired (1971-1973, 

when I would have been in 2nd-3rd grade.

My boyhood best friend, Rich Nickel, and I wrote and performed an Arbor Day play in 2nd grade based on the TV show Alias Smith and Jones. That was at Vernondale Elementary School in Erie, PA. We performed it before the entire school in the gymnasium.

Rich was Kid Curry and I was Hannibal Heyes. The play ended with us planting a tree and saying in unison, “We’ll never chop down another tree again.”

The 6th graders thought it was lame. You could hear the groans from the back.

Not long after we did that play, the actor who played Hannibal Heyes put a gun to his temple and killed himself.

That was in a day when we all shook our heads, said “how sad,” and went on with life. There was no 24/7 coverage with gory details about how he did it, coroner reports of what was in his system, speculation on why, or interviews with family and friends.

He was an actor I saw each week on TV, then a still photo over the shoulder of an evening news anchor, then just a footnote in Hollywood history.

Like most people faced with the suicide of someone they love or admire, the first feeling is one of betrayal. As I recall, a few more episodes aired that he had taped, but then his character was replaced by a new actor, and I, along with most of America, stopped watching, and the show was cancelled.

Alias Smith & Jones Opening

[2014-03-06]

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