The Wall

Bill Marshall passed on a link to the interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Typing in the name of the soldier will take you to that name on the wall and you can see a short biography. You can also upload photographs and personal comments.

Camden Visit ::

I'm afraid that when I got to Camden last Friday morning I found that my mother was back in the hospital suffering from pneumonia in addition to continuing to have some fluid around her heart. She just turned 89 earlier this month and, in addition to the physical problems, suffers from some degree of dementia. We're analyzing our options for long-term care right now so some amount of time was spent on that and I'm afraid that the options are, to some extent, limited. I'll probably be back over relatively soon.

I didn't have the time to do a lot of the things I had hoped to do, but I was able to carve out a short period of time to visit the Michael Christmas memorial site. I'm still sorry I was not able to get to the dedication, but I want to offer a salute to Buster and everyone who worked to make this memorial a reality!

I have never been to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, but back sometime in the 1970's the traveling wall came to downtown Atlanta and I spent some time visiting it and found Michael's name. I can tell you that it was a moving experience!

I had hoped to take quite a few photographs but I only managed a couple of panorama photos of the Revolutionary War site and a photograph of an old Oak tree. Maybe next time!

ISS And Space Shuttle Endeavour Sighting Opportunity Tonight ::

Endeavour has undocked and begun her journey back to Earth. The International Space Station, Endeavour, and the Jules Verne cargo ship should be visible tonight over Camden on this schedule:

ISS:

Visible for 4 minutes beginning at 8:02pm approaching from 10 degrees above the southern horizon reaching a maximum elevation of 16 degrees as it departs to 10 degrees to the East.

Endeavour:

The information for the Endeavour orbiter is the same as the Space Station other than the maximum elevation will be 17 degrees above the horizon.

Jules Verne ATV:

Visible for 2 minutes at 9:32pm approaching from 10 degrees above the western horizon reaching a maximum elevation of 23 degrees and departing to 23 degrees above the West-Northwest horizon.

Look for a bright light, actually 2 bright lights, at 8:02pm as Endeavour should be trailing the International Space Station. They will be traveling 17,500 mph so there is no chance of mistaking them for stars.

The skies here in Huntsville are very clear so visibility should be really good.

[update] The ISS flew over right on time with the Endeavour orbiter following behind and they were very visible until they got overhead and turned off to the Northwest. I check the overflight schedule for my area often and here is the link to tracking it in your area:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html

Over on the left choose your state and then the closest city. These sighting times are very accurate.

Visit Seems To Be On!

We should be getting into Columbia sometime late Thursday evening. The oldest daughter and her family live in Forest Acres and that is where we usually stay.

I never know what the schedule will be and this trip may be even more hectic. My mother has been having some serious medical problems which is not unusual given that she just turned 89 y/o. She has been an inmate of the Camden hospital several times in the past few months and has been admitted with conjestive heart failure once more just in the past few days.

My brother, Bill, and I have some family matters to discuss but I hope that we'll be able to take care of that business while I'm doing my part to spoil his grandchildren including his 2 month old granddaughter. (interestingly he has 3 grandsons and 1 new granddaughter. I have 4 granddaughters and 1 grandson although I do have an unknown sexed grandbaby on the way!)

I do plan to spend some time visiting the Michael Christmas memorial and taking some photographs in and around Camden. If anyone would like to down a coffee or two I can be reached at the cell phone number listed on this image:



You shouldn't have to use the area code, but I included it just in case. I will also have the laptop with me and I normally have some net access so I can be e-mailed at:
fred.deaton(at)gmail.com

Visiting Camden ::

Right now the plan is to leave here sometime Thursday so I should be hanging around Camden sometime Friday and Saturday although I may make a short run up to Gastonia. I normally stay in Columbia and travel back and forth. I'll post my cell phone number in a day or so when I'm certain of the plans. My brother, Bill, has a new granddaughter (his first although he has 3 grandsons)and I plan to spend an inordinate amount of time cooing to her!

This photograph was taken in early May, 2006 on Highway 521 at the site of the old Haigler market. It's funny that I have little sense of North, South, East, and West when I visit Camden. Here in Huntsville everyone is very aware of their compass directions and when I lived in and around Atlanta I always knew my orientation. I'll try to watch the sun more when I'm there this coming weekend!

Collecting E-Mail Addresses

I started a small project today to collect the e-mail addresses which the members of the graduating class might possibly like to have. Most of what I have comes from Buster's e-mail list and his list is pretty consistent, but I have been contacted by a couple of other classmates such as Doug Elliott and Keith Adams who were not on Buster's list that I normally receive. I would like to expand this list of classmates as much as possible and get as many electronic contacts as possible.

There are a couple of considerations I would like to address and Buster can help with some of them, but I would like to have the input of everyone who happens to read this.

First, these e-mail addresses will only be shared within the group submitting them and they will not be published on the web in any form from me. I have one active web site with a very robust spam filter and right now it probably is showing around 60,000 spams. I will not subject anyone else to such web abuse! What I am putting together is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with clickable links. I can send this as either the Excel document or as an Adobe PDF. The PDF would probably be most universally accepted.

There are some names and addresses on the list, especially from our female classmates, that I can not correlate to the maiden names and I would like to have some help on that. My list is fairly accurate based on what I have to work with but there are a couple of WAGs, so help me out.

You can leave your e-mail addresses in comments or you can e-mail them to me at the gmail address over on the right. I will compile the list and pass it on.

This has been an interesting exercise for me and I am personally grateful for the renewed contacts from those with whom I spent so many of my formative years! This electronic reunion has triggered many memories: some vivid, some esoterical, and some probably better forgotten.

Space Shuttle Endeavour ::

The launch is scheduled for 2:38 am EST or 1:38 my time. I seldom miss watching a launch, but this will be the first night launch in quite some time. Although I do often suffer from insomnia I think I'll probably miss this one. Here is a photograph of Endeavour on the pad:



I checked the International Space Station and Shuttle sighting schedule for the next couple of weeks earlier today and the orbiter and ISS should be visible in South Carolina in a bit over a week. I'll post the visibility link information as well as the sighting information later in the week.

New Photograph Pages ::

I've been putting up new pages but I'm having trouble getting the links to work. I'm sure it is some bone-headed mistake I'm making in linking and I'm troubleshooting it right now so check back in a bit!

[update] Ok, I think I have the links fixed. Each of the pages has a link to a higher resolution roughly 5x7 image, but these images do not seem to be rendering correctly in the browser and I don't know why although they should download and print fine.

Such are the joys of web publishing!

New Photographs ::

Richard and Buster have sent me some new photographs from the 2nd grade and the 6th grade. I'm in the process of getting them ready, but I'm doing some computer maintenance right now and this will probably take me a couple of days so stay tuned.