Category: Everyday Chit-chat

Tiffany & Gaylord Express & Exhibition Belt Plates: Exposed!

Hmm. . .somehow, I managed to get wind of yet another book that will soon be for sale on Amazon.com – “Tiffany & Gaylord Express & Exhibition Belt Plates: Exposed!” which is a reprint of the bogus Percy Seibert book on the fake Tiffany & Co., E. Gaylord, Mills, et al brass belt buckles that have been available since the 1960’s. Let’s just say that a “little bird” told me that this version will contain a new preface and an index.

In looking around the ‘net for copies of the first (and complete fraudulent) version, many continue to claim that this book is genuine and charge outrageous prices for it. In the past five minutes, Google searches have turned up copies running as high as $112.50, and some clown is also selling a copy on eBay for the same amount. As usual, this book is falsely attributed to the illustrious “Percy Seibert” and used book sellers falsely claim that it was printed in 1950 by Tiffany & Co. – it was really published twenty years later – circa 1970. Oh well. Hopefully the new edition will be a big hit among collectors of bogus buckles and it will rise to the top of Amazon’s Best Seller Lists! 🙂 I’ll post a link to the book on Amazon when it is available!

Accoutrements Belt Plates: Exposed!

The infamous catalog that promoted the fake Tiffany & Co. belt buckles, and touted them as geniune is coming to the collectors market in just a few short weeks. Click on the picture below to order your advance copy from Amazon.com. Should be a great book 🙂

Looks like an interesting book! Wonder who the author is? 🙂

Some really nice kids

I’ve been fortunate in having many really fine young people as bassoon students. As a rule they have all been exceptionally polite, well-mannered, and hardworking kids. One of the favorite parts of my week include the times when I’m giving private lessons: it’s always a joy to pass on the love of playing bassoon to others. Of all the things I do, nothing gives me as much pleasure than playing – whether it be one on one with a student, playing chamber music, or performing a symphony. Late yesterday afternoon, one of my students called because he had a sudden conflict with his work schedule (he’s a high school kid and just obtained his first job) that prevented him from playing Beethoven’s First Symphony last night. He called me in order to fill in for him (it’s almost hard to believe that there are kids like him that are responsible enough to do such a thing) and I agreed as I really wasn’t doing much else. Besides the fact that I basically sat through the concert cold (in other-words, I hadn’t rehearsed with the group first), it was an enjoyable experience. What was so impressive; however, is that I had other students (it was an orchestra made up of high school kids) come up to me afterwards and thanked me for playing with them. I can’t tell you what a joy it was to find such a fine group of well-mannered young musicians. In this day and age of kids into punk rock, gross disrespect for others, and other narcissistic behaviors, having a kid come up to me just to say “thank you” was a breath of fresh air!

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 detects currency!

While I’ve already posted once on this blog today – about the ten dollar bill that I obtained that had already been entered into “Where’s George,” a database that keeps track of bills that ordinary people enter into it, I thought I’d scan it and post it here. While I scanned the first bill I entered into “Where’s George” nothing unusual happend so when I received a WARNING from Photoshop right after I scanned the bill, I was really surprised (and couldn’t help but laugh at how clever it is) that the program must scan every image to determine if it just happens to be legal tender! Here’s a screen capture of what Photoshop coughed up:

Adobe Photoshop warning

Double click on the above image and you’ll see the warning that states,

“This application does not support the
printing of banknote images.”

Isn’t that amazing?! I really doubt that millions of people are going to simply scan money and then print it out on their ink-jet printers in order to make counterfeit currency! Just the same, I did a brief Google search only to find out that Photoshop not only detects U.S. bills, but also paper money from numerous other countries. Fascinating.

Up, up, and away

Taking OffA week ago yesterday, I took my boy to the Great Park Balloon, which is the largest tethered helium balloon in the country. We’ve noticed this many times over the past few months on our way to church and other events (as it is plainly visible from the freeway and toll roads) and I finally decided to look it up on the Internet; the balloon just started operations in July. To my surprise, I learned that this was a FREE ride that has been set up on the old El Toro Marine Base which was just closed a few years ago. After a tremendous amount of controversy, voters finally prevented a new commercial airport being established on the site and a huge park is now being now developed on the land (it will take many decades to finish it). The Great Park Balloon happens to be one of the first features of the park and is run by the City of Irvine.

As I had just picked up my boy and we were driving nearby, I Details of the balloon as it takes offdecided to try and find the “launch pad” for the balloon and was surprised at how difficult it was to locate (the road to it is not well marked) , but find it we did. To our delight, there weren’t too many people there (I would guess around a hundred or so) and we didn’t have to wait long. Again, I was really surprised that this was a FREE ride. Even more surprising is how big the balloon actually is and the site was beautifully done. While most of the park area still has, for all practical purposes, the appearance of a military base, the area around the balloon has been specially built up as the balloon will be a permanent attraction. According to one of the “flight attendants,” the gondola rises approximately 400 feet off Here’s my boy!of the ground and is anchored by a single steel cable that is connected to a winch in the ground. If I remember correctly, it contains enough helium to fill 250 million birthday party balloons and it is so large that it holds up to approximately two dozen people!

We probably waited no longer (after signing the usual waiver) than thirty minutes for our flight and watched it take several groups up. Unfortunately, I only had my cell phone camera with me and the sun was, obviously in the wrong direction in order for me to get some decent pictures. Just the samUp in the sky.e, it’s possible to not only see how large the balloon is, but also how high it goes; again, the gondola holds approximately two dozen people and, due to FAA restrictions (really!) the top cannot reach an altitude greater than 500 feet.

Once we boarded, both of us hung on for dear life (smile) but the ride was extraordinarily smooth and extremely quiet – in fact, other than the initial bumps at liftoff, it was difficult to gage just how fast it was actually moving. Considering that there was certainly a cool breeze blowing, the trip up couldn’t have been any more pleasant. As it was a clear day, we could also see quite a distance – unfortunately, I didn’t get too many photos. According to the information we received, night flights are also being planned and, I would imagine, those will also quite a beautiful view.

As with the trip up (BTW, the balloon is just tethered to a single cable), our descent was equally quiet and nearly imperceptible. Ironically, the balloon just received minor damage a couple of days ago and operations have been suspended for the next two weeks for repairs. Just the same, I’m looking forward to another flight.