My 50th birthday is officially over. Thank you to all who sent cards. 85 cards creates an impressive pile.
Heck, I didn’t know I knew 85 people. Thanks!

Just found two Roosevelt dimes, one from 1964 in silver and one alloy from 1965. Never noticed how dull real silver one is compared to the alloy

Rest in Peace, Dennis

Reading this story in the latest Economist reminded me of the old Heinlein short story “-We Also Walk Dogs”. Both efficiently separate the rich from their money – RAH also throws in an intergalactic conference on the Moon.

Our old neighbor had her 50th birthday party last night at Pinstripes, a trendy bowling alley/restaurant/bocce court in a new mall in South Barrington. We had round banquet tables set up along the bocce courts in a back room with gas heaters overhead. The food was excellent, starting with crostini with mozzarella & tomato appetizers and various wine selections that the host of honor and her husband had picked. Family style dinner started with two salads & bread sticks. Then there was a stuffed chicken dish and then a beef roast dish and all were very good. The meal was finished off with coffee and ice cream cake.

In the meantime, we managed to get a couple of bocce games in. We are used to playing on grass, with a bit of friction to slow down the ball. In these courts, it is a hard surface covered with Astroturf and very fast. The slightest bounce is enough to shoot you well past the pallino. Our old neighbor Geno proved that he was the old Italian guy by stomping us with his short range precision.

They also rented out three bowling lanes and these are very nice bowling lanes with leather couches and TVs and really modern equipment.we do not bowl but it was a nice place. Outside, there were was a fire pit where a group from a different party was keeping warm.

A great evening, good food, and fun to catch up with the kids from the hood. Happy birthday Laura!

Pinstripes, South Barrington, IL

I have a Tai Chi instruction sheet with “White Stork Spreads Wings” and translated into French, “La grue blanche deploie ses ailes”.

So in the old adventure game Zork (Wikipedia), are you you afraid that “it is likely that you will be eaten by a stork”. Oooh, scary.

We rented a Prius at CLT for Sara’s wedding from National Car Rental. We showed up, the dude said “pick any car”, just like in the commercial. Took us 15 minutes and reading the manual to figure out that you have to press the brake BEFORE pressing the Power button. Or else you get an error message that does NOT explain the problem. Aargh. Here are some other notes.

Zippy. Powerful enough. Some issues up hills. We did many fast starts to beat people around turns to change lanes with no problem.

Cheap interior. Leaning on the console while rearranging your body causes alarming cracking noises. From the console, not the body. Not sure if it was broken or normal.

Fully equipped with audio aux jack and 12V plug in the console. Too bad I forgot the audio cable for the MP3 player. Lots of cup holders. Seats comfortable, normal three hour pains. Kinda low for folks with hip issues like me but doable.

We sat in traffic on the way from Charleston back to CLT for two extra hours and filled it up on $8 of gas. And that lasted enough to look full where we turned in the car, 50 miles later.

Controls sometimes confusing. Why is Reverse to the front, and Drive to the rear? Not intuitive to me. Hard to see miles till empty – small numbers, and a symbol, not letters.

Very loud – the car, not the motor. Love the shark sneakup. Hate the road noise.

Summary: If you drive a lot it, especially stop and go, and don’t care about loud – do it. I wish they would be a little clearer on the 5 year-$10K battery packs.

Back in the dark ages, circa 1985 or so, I worked for Richard Spielman Precision Electronics, on the north side of Chicago. The owner, Richard Spielman, was a great guy, an atheist, an entrepreneur, and a foodie before his time, as trips to restaurants were part of our all-night construction binges. (He has also disappeared from the face of the earth.) We made light-beam devices for counting linen, and one of our installations was at ALS ? (Associated Laundry Services? Systems?) in Los Angeles.

So when install time came, we shipped 30 boxes via UPS, checked a box of tools and an oscilloscope, and the 386 PC that ran the thing, 100 floppy disks (3 sets of backups because something always went wrong) and flew to Los Angeles.

Commercial laundries are generally very industrial, but this place was forbidding. Even the hotel parking lot was behind barbed wire, and you had to push a button to open the gate. Not a good neighborhood.

But that didn’t stop us from venturing out in search of food. Richie found this burrito place, and I was wondering about it the other day. I can’t remember what happened ten minutes ago, how will I remember this?

So google “Los Angeles Burritos”. They flip up. I find Rick’s, a longtime favorite of Steve Dahl. Ten pages later, click off to Yelp. Same search. On page 11, “El Rey Tacos“. I remember Tacos El Rey. Boy that whacks a brain cell. Read the 2nd review. “I wasn’t brave enough to try the GARBAGE BURRITO.” I think this is it…

King Blvd and Normandie (again with Normandie…) Bad neighborhood. So far everything fits. Check Google Street View. Could be. As the Magic 8-Ball says, “Answer Hazy”.

AFAIK, this is it. One piece of history, complete.