SOLAR BLAST: The ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded an unusually beautiful eruption on the Sun today. The giant "prominence" was bigger than 50 planet Earths from end to end. Visit SpaceWeather.com and see for yourself.
TOMORROW! DON'T FORGET THE SOLAR ECLIPSE! Across much of North America on Monday, June 10th, the setting Sun will become a strange-looking crescent when the Moon glides in front of our star. Follow the links at SpaceWeather.com for more information, including eclipse-safe observing tips.
WARNING: Never stare directly at the Sun. And never, ever look at the Sun through an unfiltered telescope. Even during an eclipse the Sun can damage your eyes. Also unless you have proper filtering, DO NOT POINT YOUR DIGITAL CAMERAS INTO THE SUN. IT CAN BURN OUT THE CCD'S AND WRECK THEM. And as normal... your warranty won't cover it. Okay?
The local paper in Illinois, the Moline Daily Dispatch and its sister publication the Rock Island Argus ran a story today of something which happened that makes me very proud. Chippiannock Cemetery, is the oldest public cemetery the area. While the Rock Island Arsenal's hold a very large number of veterans from every war including Union and Confederate POWs from the Civil War, those cemetaries on "the island" are strictly military. Chippiannock is a public cemetery, which means in the Fox Indian language literally "village of the dead." Chippiannock was opened back to mid 1880's, when the founding fathers decided there was a significant need for a public cemetery.
Chippiannock Cemetery has people from all walks of life, from millionare to pauper buried somewhere in its 95 acres of wonderfully wooded oaks, where markers are closer to works of art than tombstones. The cemetary was also the first public place to allow blacks to be buried in the county. And this is where the story begins...
It's a green expanse more than 200 feet long. For days and weeks, it lies disturbed only by the wind blowing through the grass or the occasional squirrel scampering down an old oak tree. When a visitor does look across this quiet space, his gaze is broken only by a half-dozen or so monoliths providing a reminder of days long, long ago. It's a special place among many special places at historic Chippiannock Cemetery in Rock Island. This 50-foot wide strip is the section of land where grave sites were cheaper and where many African Americans and whites of modest means were buried from 1855 until the 1920s. Chippiannock was one of the few cemeteries in the area to accept blacks. Many residents of this section lie long forgotten, their graves unmarked by any stone, the few guests who come here shuffling by -- unknowing -- overhead.
Among the forgotten at Chippiannock are nine American heroes -- black men who served their country and fought to eliminate slavery during the Civil War. Most were buried more than 100 years ago. All have been long-ago forgotten. There is no reminder, since their graves were marked with a long-lost wooden marker or no marker at all.
Until now.
After years of research by the staff at Chippiannock Cemetery and The Rock Island Argus and The Dispatch, these long-forgotten heroes again will be remembered. The research produced enough information on these men to have the Department of Veterans Affairs provide military headstones for seven of the nine Civil War veterans.
A February 1879 Act of Congress extended the privilege of government-provided headstones to soldiers buried in private cemeteries. All nine will be honored in a special memorial ceremony, titled Black Heroes Carved in Stone, at 10 a.m. Saturday at the cemetery.
My old buddy and former fellow BizPartner Scott Loftesness reports...
that inUSA Today: Wyndham cuts some phone charges. "One of my pet peeves is getting nickle and dimed by hotels for telecommunications charges. We recently booked a couple of rooms on Priceline and ended up staying at DoubleTree hotels in the Seattle and Portland areas. The hotels were fine -- except for their surcharging of local telephone calls. Now Wyndham is going to offer its ByRequest members free unlimited local and long distance calls along with Internet access. (That should read "no additional charge" rather than free -- kinda like Embassy Suites "free breakfast".) In addition, free faxes and copies are included. Details here. Smart strategy!"
Scott's got it right. I hate all these nickle and dime softshoe hotels charge these days on phone service.
We stayed at Hawthorne Suites recently when we went to NAB in Las Vegas. Hawthorne Suites are very similar to Wyndham or Embassy Suites and very apartment like. In the past The Vegas Hawthorne Suites had high-speed internet service available in the rooms. Cost was about $5 a day. It's one of the reasons we stayed there. If I'm covering an event for my forums the refridgerator/coffee maker and HBO are very important creature comforts which allow me to be able to work (just like home,) and upload all the press releases and info I need to get through a very short time. Trust me it gets really hairy when we're working the night before a major show opens and I have over 500 press releases to get through, and post notes on, if I didn't get them on embargo prior to the show. Plus Doug is thrilled because he gets a real bedroom with his own TV/HPO, a clock radio and use of the phone. Both of us enjoy the major space to spread out our crap and have people over to yack. Plus Hawthorne offers a nice FREE breakfast buffet and FREE cocktail hour daily to their guests.
However recently Hawthorne cut the cable, literally, on their high-speed in-room service and started a new policy of each room getting one hour of free local phone service per day. The overtime prices were obscene. So this time when we checked in, I found out they had cut off their broadband connection (with no warning,) because of potential security problems-- I bitched! I politely explained that the broadband service and the low phone time (especially at 56K) was a hardship on me, and their broadband service was one of the major reason we were guest$ in their hotel... I ended up getting comp'ed an extra hour a day.
Now they are offering special packages to guests who need online services. We'll see if the Wyndham deal changes things. I sure hope so.
