Who would have thought the biggest import car lots in 2008 would be the ports? Import cars stuck at the port with nowhere to go. The screencap from CNN below is like a daylight graveyard.

With the current state of the economy, it’s no surprise people aren’t buying new cars. The car you’re already driving can probably make it another year or two. Buying a new car is usually a luxury purchase versus buying a good used car, unless you can find a really good deal like we did last year. In times like these, luxury purchases are ill-advised.

Here’s a radical thought instead of bailing out the big three automakers, maybe it’s time to send some/most/all of these imports back and for americans to buy primarily American made cars?

Fox News:

What we do know is that, without a bailout, GM will in all likelihood head in to Chapter 11. As with many other large companies before them, that entails restructuring and an actual hardnosed effort to return the company to profitability by making hard choices and changes. Easy? Painless? Absolutely not and no one should underestimate that.

We’re at the turn-in phase for our 4-year lease with our Saturn Relay. Most likely we’ll be paying the $400 drop-off fee and moving quickly for the exit, but if some insanely good deal is thrown our direction we’ll stop and listen. Adding into this round of buying criteria will be: is it American made.

Question for American readers, for your next car will you buy an American-made car? If not, why not?

Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you’ve probably heard something about UFOs, aliens and Roswell at least once in your lifetime. The year was 1947, some 21 years before I entered this earth and would not hear about Roswell for a good 10 more years or so.

The facts 

In years since I knew something happened, there was some kind of crash, on a farm Northwest of Roswell. A rancher by the name of "Mac" Brazel stumbled upon the wreckage and was worried about having it on his property because his sheep would not cross past it.

He gathered samples and took them into town to the sheriff. His story in the beginning was that he didn’t know what the material was and took it into town, wondering if it might be the wreckage of a flying saucer.

The sheriff phoned the local 509th bomber group and was routed to military intelligence officer Jesse Marcel Sr. who went out to the sheriff’s office to review the strange material. Marcel wanted to see where it came from and Brazel led him out to the spot where the wreckage was on his property.

Marcel took more samples of the material in his car. He stopped home and after swearing them to secrecy, showed his wife and his son what was discovered. He told his son — according to his son, Jesse Marcel Jr. — that it wasn’t anything he’d ever seen before. They touched the material which was like aluminum foil, only lighter and without one side being paper-like. They handled it carefully, not wanting to damage it.

Marcel took the material back to the base and after showing his superior, General Ramsey, the general checked  around with other military bases to see if it might be part of an experiment, a sensational press release was made that was retracted later. What was described as debris from a flying saucer was quickly amended to a misunderstanding: it was just a weather balloon.

This is where the story twists, depending on who or what you want — or are willing — to believe.

Common sense and Hollywood

It’s important to note that neither Marcel or son has ever claimed to have seen any aliens. They both only claimed to have seen material they hadn’t ever seen before. I was unclear on this until I read Marcel Jr.’s book, The Roswell Legacy, pictured above. This is the only book I’ve ever read on the subject, but I believe almost everything happened as Marcel’s son described.

The book isn’t laid out in story format. Instead it’s told in first person with little narrative and mostly descriptions of what Marcel’s son had witnessed firsthand and/or been told by his father of what really happened in 1947. It isn’t filled with a bunch of grandiose hypothesis about what might have happened, as I’ve seen to be the case with the Roswell incident over the years. It’s a mere 174 pages, including appendix.

The book also goes into a little bit of who his father was, his military credentials and what happened to him after Roswell. There was a TV movie in 1994 called Roswell starring Martin Sheen which takes some poetic license with the story, but remains somewhat faithful to what Marcel Jr. says really happened to him.

There are other stories portrayed in that TV movie which get much more difficult to believe — like there was a second crash site Marcel didn’t see that had the aliens, one of which was still alive. Don’t get derailed there though yet, let’s stay with Marcel who only said he saw material not of this world, later rebuffed by the government to be common material he should have been able to identify.

Marcel Jr. a surgeon has also been a career military man like his father and the only reasons he claims (and I believe) he wrote this story were:

1. to keep a promise to his father over getting the truth out about what really happened in 1947
2. to defend his father’s honor that was besmirched over mis-indentifying the Roswell crash debris as something other worldly instead of a weather balloon.

Marcel Jr. has served in Iraq as recently as 2005. He a credible source to me.

Marcel being part of the elite 509th bomber group, the unit behind the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have been able to easily identify the wreckage if it came from some known material. That only makes sense. Especially if it was a weather balloon, which was the government’s official story shortly after the first report put out by the 509th.

A weather balloon.  They’ve stuck by that story for the most part. Amending it later after reopening the investigation to a mogul balloon.

In the book, Marcel Jr. provides a scan of his father’s diploma from radar school dated September 8, 1945. He also lists his various military awards and despite his alleged gaffe identifying the debris, he was later promoted to lieutenant colonel in the reserves.

This doesn’t sound like the type of guy who would go out to a local ranch, bring back some material, show his boss the general the material, and then be part of putting out a press release that said it could be from a "flying saucer."

I did some internet fact checking to see if a copy of the original press release could be found online. Wikipedia, in fact, has a scan of the story in the Roswell Daily Record dated Tuesday July 8, 1943

 
Source: Wikipedia

So was there really a UFO crash in 1947 or not?

At least for this post I’m going to steer away from the hard to believe claims about seeing actual aliens at the second site, that one of them might have been kept alive for five years. Or that the government actually had an exchange program called Project Serpo from 1965-1978 where military personnel visited the planet Zeta Reticuli (and later allegedly died from "excess radiation"). You can visit YouTube, type in "Roswell" as the query and be treated to a bunch of clearly fake alien autopsy videos or use your favorite search engine for any of these terms to learn more if so inclined.

(But hey, if you want a good laugh then check out Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs — lol! Don’t you dig it when people try to be serious and it’s funny instead?)

Mea culpa: I wrote back in August 2006 that I believe aliens have visited earth and that the U.S government has proof of it. I’m not sure if this first happening was Roswell in 1947 and the book being reviewed here doesn’t try to answer that (and if it does, then it fails to be very compelling in that regard). What it does try to answer was if there was a crash of something not from earth. If you can’t go as far as me and believe in E.T then at least see if you can go as far as believing something crashed here not of this earth.

I am ready to believe the wreckage Marcel and his son touched wasn’t from earth. There are simply too many holes in the government’s response to believe otherwise. Weather balloon? Come on.

Where it came from, I don’t know, but if we knew it came from somewhere on earth what would be the harm in the government declassifying this information 60+ years later? Since the declassification hasn’t happened, one of the following possibilities must be true (pick your poison):

1. the government knows where it came from and doesn’t want to tell us
2. the government does not know where it came from and doesn’t want to admit this to us
3. the government knows where it came from on earth, and doesn’t want to tell us
4. the government does not know where it came from on earth and doesn’t want to admit this to us (yeah, similar to #2)

I was glad to be able to solve the lingering riddle in my mind about what happened in 1947 just outside Roswell. For that reason I give this book the highest Hmm Reviews grade possible. The book doesn’t get all "tinfoil-hat" to use the author’s own description of the fringe UFO crowd — and don’t worry readers, I’m not joining that crowd either. In fact, until the last chapter it doesn’t get too far afield of what the author and his father witnessed. That type of non-fiction works great for me.

In the last chapter the author explains why he thinks we’re not alone in the universe. I agree with much of his thinking there too. We can’t be alone and it’s arrogant to think we are. The universe is much too big and there are too many parts we know absolutely nothing about.

He thinks the aliens that have contacted us have been benign and that they might have some Star Trek like prime directive. That would make some sense as to why we don’t see aliens everywhere but they might have been in contact with the government.

The Russians have acknowledged crashed debris as being not of this earth while the U.S government has done so to date. I think before my death, assuming living out a ripe old age, I’ll see this happen.

I think it’s well past time for the government to declassify the material in 1947 that’s sitting on a base somewhere, waiting for further critical study and research. Why not?

Conspiracy theorist or realist

Now if I’m to be labeled conspiracy theorist for believing the government has botched up the Roswell cover-up, so be it. I put this one with the JFK assassination as far as believing the government lied to us. I’d also add in the more recent Bush administration lying about the whole weapons of mass destructions.

I think it’s harder to believe that the government has never lied to us, don’t you?

Conspiracy theorist or realist? I’ll take the latter. If you are looking for a story about what really happened in 1947 in Roswell, run, don’t walk, to the bookstore and get The Roswell Legacy. It feels about as close to the truth as we can get until the government declassifies what they are secreting away from us for our own [snicker] protection. Grade: A+

If you’re thinking with the current state of the economy that the timing couldn’t be worse for opening a brand new casino along the interstate in Washington state outside Seattle, you wouldn’t know it by the size of the opening weekend crowd at Snoqualmie Casino (warning: sound onload).

Let’s skip over the fact that the website just linked has one of the most annoying navigation schemes ever. You move your cursor down and the page jerks down and up and it jumps in reverse. Why?! You hover over something and it expands and plays a mini-movie. Congrats to some Flash designer who likely got paid a bunch of dough to frustrate site visitors.

Stay with me, this trend continues offline as well.

Via Seattle PI:

A modest roadside casino — instead of a lavish, multimillion-dollar facility — would not have worked, [tribal administrator Matt Mattson] said.

"Given the socioeconomic status, the sophistication of the people who live there, we think that doing more and starting out with a high-level property instead of a roadside casino gives us a better opportunity to succeed.

Kara and I hopped in the car and drove 43 miles to check it out last night. As the PI article indicates, you can’t see any neon sign or hulking structure from the interstate.

The first thing that struck me as we pulled around the stylish looking casino and drove downhill to self parking in the back and underneath the casino was the lack of sidewalks. $375 million and no sidewalks from the rear parking to the front? Nope, your choice is to wait among the crowd for the elevators or make a perilous uphill walk on a narrow road not intended for pedestrians.

Seeing sandbagging around the drains is an odd sight. The landscaping behind the casino looks a bit like an ice cream cone in 130 degree weather.

Of the many terrestrial casinos visited over the years I’ve never seen such a poor design from parking lot to casino. Sure, it’s great if there aren’t tons of people waiting for an elevator (which on opening weekend there were). It’s just … strange.

It caused confusion with others too, and there was nobody around to explain how or why the only way into the casino from the self-parking was through a bank of three elevators servicing 5+ levels of garage parking plus a huge rear self parking lot. When saw people coming down the parking garage stairs complaining that there was no way to get into the casino from the stairs. The stairs just go up and down to the parking lot.

We were joined by others who said screw it to waiting for the elevators and took our chances walking up the road — and being honked at by a few cars.

So if you’re planning on going this weekend then don’t do what we did, use the valet parking around the front at the top of the hill. Valet is the only way to fly.

The casino has a pleasant look to it around the front but when you walk in you get the immediate feeling you’re in a sardine can. There isn’t nearly enough space in the aisles to walk and slot machines and gaming tables are way too closely spaced. We were thirsty for some kind of soft drink and were surprised there wasn’t any serve yourself drink stations.

There are several bars, including a big luxurious one in the center of the casino. There were long waiting lines at the restaurants. There wasn’t an overly casino smoky air to it which was a positive. Another positive: you can use cash in the machines and they have ticket redemption machines so you aren’t forced to go to the cashier or wait in line to buy tickets to use in the machines.

But what about the gambling

We retreated to the least busiest area of the casino toward the end near the ballroom. Kara stuck $20 in some Egyptian slot and I stuck $10 into something with 7s and a bonus game. My machine quickly swallowed the $10 of which I stuck another $20 … and then another $20. Meanwhile Kara got into a bonus game and cashed out with $70.

As I was about to see my $50 disappear, I hit five symbols which paid $40. Then I upped the bet to the maximum $2.50 per digital spin. About five or six spins later I got 15 free bonus games. At the end of the bonus round my $50 had been turned into $150. I added Kara’s ticket to mine and cashed out.

Went to the nearest cashier station and the cashier informed me that she didn’t have enough twenties and could only pay us in big bills. The big cage in the center of the casino could help us. No thanks, we went to the machine thinking that might give us twenties. Nope, it spit out big bills too. Good thing these machines double as bill breakers so we just slid a $100 bill back in and got five crisp twenties.

Getting out easier than getting in

We’d had enough.

We exited via the elevators. Surprisingly, only one single guy was leaving at the same time as us. The elevator waiting area was eerily quiet. The elevator indicator lights turned red and door opened. After a full elevator of new arrivals passed by we entered, pressed ‘5′ for the level of the parking garage and in seconds were whisked back to the parking garage. We exited, got in our car and snaked our way out of the parking garage.

Of all the casinos we’ve seen, I’m sure it’s well over 100, we’ve never seen a casino that was designed to be easier to leave than to enter but hey, maybe this strategy will work for them. Add to the fact that they didn’t seem to have any of the machines we like to play: Keno or Bingo. I didn’t even see any video poker machines. They have 1,700 slot machines, mostly the ones with five symbols and dozens of winning combinations, so if that’s your thing you might dig it. They also have a bunch of table games. I enjoy craps but the tables were hopelessly crammed.

Hey, it’s opening weekend, not taking away any points in this review for them being busy. More power to them for being busy. I don’t know if it was in anticipation of Jessica Simpson playing, that it was less than 24 hours after they opened, it was a Friday night, that it was new and other gamblers were curious or some combination thereof.

I do know the experience wasn’t for us.

We enjoy visiting new casinos but doubt we’ll be back to this one any time soon. It’s not often we can say that about a casino where we spend 30 minutes there and leave first visit winners. If you’re going to enter and exit a casino, leaving a winner is always a good thing. I’d sooner recommend Emerald Queen which is off I-5 or if you’re taking the ferry over the sound, try Clearwater Casino. Clearwater in particular is a good example of a smaller casino geared for big crowds. Both those casinos offer bigger aisles and can better handle large crowds.

Grade: C-

This past weekend we were in Newport, Oregon and toured a wax museum. It sported this creepy realistic wax figure of Johnny Depp:

Johnny Depp weirds me out in real life but in wax he’s even more spooky. I had to do a double-take to make sure this was really wax and not some actor ready to lurch and cry: "boo!"

We also spotted DB Cooper’s parachute and Bigfoot next each other in the Ripley’s Believe it or Not exhibit.

Somebody get the SquatchDetective on this case. And even at the beach there’s no escape from politics. Check out the Newport, Oregon beach support for Obama by this homeowner:

 

Obama may need all the help he can get if faulty voting problems like this continue:

Among the list of bands I’d like to see get completely back together, Dennis DeYoung with Styx is near the top. He might be 61 but there is no reason — other than personality conflicts — I can tell anyway that he couldn’t and shouldn’t still be singing with Styx. I saw DeYoung perform for the first time at the Rockin’ The Rivers concert in Montana earlier this month and they rocked the place. His voice is in great shape.

Rockin’ The Rivers is billed as the biggest rock concert event in Montana of the year and this was the 10th time they’ve had the concert. It’s three days of bands that play from noon until 2am. People camp overnight, drink (lots) of beer and have a great time. At $120 for three days or $50 for one day this is among the best value concerts out there. Here’s what the official concert guide looks like:

The Van Halen cover band Hot For Teacher was impressive as well as Fran Cosmo singing Boston Songs. Wasn’t as impressed with Manny Charlton with Nazareth. We didn’t attend day 1 or day 3. That’s the only bummer I can think of regarding this concert: it’s like 650 miles from here. We’re planning on going again next year and maybe doing the camp out thing. Lots of fun.

Dennis DeYoung Rockin’ The Rivers 8/9/2008 Setlist
The Grand Illusion
Lady
Loralei
Don’t Let It End
Castle Walls
Light Up
Mr Roboto
Desert Moon
100 Years From Now
Rocking The Paradise
Sweet Madam Blue
Babe
Best Of Times
(encore) Come Sail Away

When I saw Matt Wardlaw post the House of Blues 8/24/2008 setlist from the band Styx including members Tommy Shaw, James “J.Y.” Young and Chuck Panozzo I was reminded to get this post out of the draft bin. Check out the same songs played by both bands, marked with asterisk, as well as the order:

House of Blues 8/24/2008 Setlist
Blue Collar Man
* The Grand Illusion
* Loralei
One With Everything
* Lady
Too Much Time On My Hands
Snowblind
I Am The Walrus
Boat On The River
Man In The Wilderness (Shaw acoustic)
Crystal Ball (beginning acoustic w/ Shaw only)
* Suite Madame Blue
Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) (Chuck Panozzo on bass)
Miss America
* Come Sail Away (Panozzo on bass)

Interesting to note that both bands closed with Come Sail Away and The Grand Illusion was Dennis DeYoung’s opener and the second song Styx played. Must admit I missed Tommy Shaw singing "Snowblind" and "Crystal Ball" and would have liked hearing Blue Collar Man in the Dennis DeYoung line-up. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the extended guitar solo version of Desert Moon and wouldn’t have wanted that axed in favor of Styx doing a Beatles cover.

I realize Styx sans DeYoung had a bit of success with their covers album but I don’t go to a concert with a band the calibur of Styx and want to hear songs they covered by The Beatles when that is in place of other, better songs like "Castle Walls" which DeYoung said Styx never played when he was with them.

What a haunting, beautiful song from the same album as "Come Sail Away."

The YouTube video of Desert Moon shown above (taken from the Arlington Heights show on July 6, 2008) and the one of Castle Walls (Chicago Ridge, Illinois on July 25, 2008) don’t do the live performances justice but are included here to give you a sampling of what it was like.

DeYoung played the title song from his new album 100 Years From Now that’s out in Canada and available via his website. He said it will be coming out in the states in January 2008. My wife didn’t care for the song, but I liked it. I’ll be buying this one when it comes out in the states, if not sooner.

A sweet moment in the DeYoung concert was when he dedicated "Babe" to his wife of 38 years Suzanne and she came out on stage and danced with him. Come on Dennis and Styx, mend those ties and get back together already!

As mentioned back in November 2007 and despite being within hours of the ocean, we usually only get out to the beach about once per year. We’re beach bound again today, this time not to Lincoln City, but to Ocean Shores. I collected pictures from the last Lincoln City trip that haven’t been posted and shared yet online and uploaded to my Google Picasa web space.

Slideshow embed (you will likely have to click thru from RSS reader to see this):

We are traveling to Ocean Shores with my sister and law and her two girls, one of which has never seen the beach before. Should be a great time if weather cooperates. According to Weather.com, it’s going to be a bit on the chilly side (high of 61F) tomorrow. The sun is supposed to be out both today and tomorrow, but it’s going to rain on Wednesday.

See you on the other side.

Note to Mac OS X readers: none of the IFRAME embeds in this post work at this time with the Mac. Sorry about that, Photosynth is a Windows-only thing at the moment although they say they are hard at work on a Mac version.

Note to Windows users: If you have trouble viewing any of the IFRAME embeds, just visit my Photosynth page to see all the synths. Update 6:59pm PST: I just removed all the IFRAME embeds, they weren’t working right and just screwing up display of text in the browser.

Day #1

As probably heard already, getting into Microsoft’s new Photosynth picture service on launch day was difficult. Saw too much of this:

 

I wasn’t going to let scaling woes deter me, I kept checking back throughout the day trying to get through the process.

Day #2 - First synth: 72% synthy

I finally got in and tried putting together my very first Photosynth of the Rockin’ The Rivers concert we attended recently in Montana feature Dennis De Young and the music of Styx as well as Manny Charlton playing with Nazareth. This is the largest annual rock concert in Montana:

Process seemed to go ok until about 85% of the way through where it just froze up and stared back at me like this:

At Get Satisfaction, a service for tracking customer service issues, I found numerous people complaining about the stopped during publishing phase issue.

Came back a couple hours later and my Photosynth was showing as ‘72% synthy.’ I’m embedding below using IFRAME which if you’re reading via RSS you might have to click over to this page too see and — a big, big sorry to all Mac OS X reader — readers on Macs can’t see the finished synths If the IFRAME is hosed you can see the synth directly here

Day #3 - more synths created and synth experimentation

Tried creating my second synth of the Pierce County Foothills trail which is near our office. I had 25 pictures for this collection. This was my first time where the process worked all the way through. My second synth only scored 10% synthy. Not very good. I almost deleted this synth since it only seemed to have used 2 of the 25 pictures.

Tip: use the SPACEBAR to get through all the photos. Here is the IFRAME embed of my 2nd synth (If the IFRAME is hosed you can see the synth directly here):

The difference between the two synths is the similarity between the pictures. Through trial and error I learned that pictures that were more similar were more synthy. So if I had started with one picture and then just moved and took more pictures.

I did the following planning for my third synth, starting at the edge of a road and walking toward a wooded trail:

• total of 105 pictures, my biggest synth attempt yet (nearly 250 MB worth of photos)
• every 10 steps I snapped a picture from about the same perspective and view
• every 100-200 steps I would alter the vertical level of the photo
• at scenic intersection I panned the camera left and right at about the same vertical position
• at the end of the road, where it turned into a trail, I took several shots so photosynth would (hopefully) detect I was still on the same path, only there was no more road straight ahead, I was not going into a wooded area
• at the end of the trail, I took a panaromic set of pictures from my position that led back to the road I’d just walked as well as to the river that blocked my path in front of me
• I took no close-up shots

Now how did this turn out? Same as my very first attempt: it froze up about 85% done at the "publishing synth" phase. I decided to pare back the number of photos with synth #4 attempt and only do the attempted panaromic pictures I took at the end of the wooded trail, which numbered about 25 in all.

This one finished at 55% synthy and wasn’t quite what I expected. It feels a little bit like you are walking through the trail. The panorama portion is broken. IFRAME embed:

At this point, I decided seek out how to make something closer to 100% synthy. While doing that I went to work on synth #5 attempt by taking a bunch of pictures around my desk. In this picture I:

• took more pictures of the same things with very small variations
• pictures were taken at different zoom levels
• I panned more up and down with pictures

This resulted in being 89% synthy, my best effort, IFRAME embed below:

This turned out to be the best created synth out of the 5 so far (only 4 of which have shown up). Use the + and - to zoom in and out and see different things around the desk. You can even see this very blog post in draft mode on my monitor in portrait mode inside Windows Live Writer. This might be a good way to start out with your first synth creation. Just take pictures around your desk or some other common area in your office.

While writing the last paragraph I got another idea for a new synth. I decided to make a synth using my Gibson Les Paul Studio red wine guitar and allowing viewers to stroll up the neck of the guitar. Sort of a synth journey of navigating the fretboard while playing a smoking guitar solo.

Turned out to be 0% synthy. Guess I’ll have to refine this idea and/or take better pictures. The results of this guitar experience swayed me from a 6th and final synth attempt for this blog post. I was going to take the screenshots I made — most of which weren’t used — in this post and combine them into a synth. Since my guitar one was a bust, I figured the screenshot one would be too, so forgive me bailing on the title idea.

Decided to leave the title alone because it describes the thought process one goes through when creating synths. Whenever I pick up the camera now, I’m thinking about synths. That to me spells a great way to start a new service. Features I’d like to see added — and forgive me for calling out the social card — the ability to add friends synths, create folders of favorite synths and more. Sure, there are a zillion bookmark tools out there, but it would be very cool to have these functions built in. How about a Stumble-upon like synth exploration feature?

I could go on and on. Yes, this is a FUN service, even though it’s getting pounded and off to a rough technical start and doesn’t work on a Mac yet. Photogs are going to love this. Most fun I’ve had checking out a new online service in awhile.

Every once in a great while I see people talking seriously about Bigfoot’s existence and shake my head.

And big surprise (not) that we shouldn’t believe in the most recent phony Bigfoot sighting either, cooked up by a car salesman and now-fired police officer:

On August 12, [Steve Kulls] said, Dyer and Whitton "requested an undisclosed sum of money as an advance, expected from the marketing and promotion." Two days later, after signing a receipt and counting the money, Dyer and Whitton showed the Searching for Bigfoot team the freezer containing what they claimed was the carcass: "Something appearing large, hairy and frozen in ice," Kulls wrote on the Web site.

Credit Mr. Kulls sleuthing who runs the site SQUATCHDETECTIVE.COM (pictured above) for giving me the best laugh of the week. Just look at the Squatchdetctive homepage and try not to at least smile. I especially enjoyed the tagline: "Investigation of The Bigfoot Enigma"

Umm, what enigma? I’m not some super outdoors guy but I’ve got grandparents who have been all over the Pacific Northwest and when I was younger I tagged along. The Pacific Northwest is supposed to be Bigfoot territory, right. In my grandparents 80-odd years in these parts and my nearly 40 years, we’ve never encountered Bigfoot.

I’m willing to believe (but not in a freak-like way) in the existence of extraterrestrial beings but it’s a big hairy no, no, no on Bigfoot. I’ll take my chances with Loch Ness being more real than Bigfoot.

But back to the laugh of the week, SquatchDetective (SD). The flaming logo which doesn’t have a transparent GIF background looks like it was cooked up using some online generator. The SD badge with ‘Bigfoot XING" looks like just the type of road sign we’d encounter while out hunting wild mushrooms or elk.

Add to that the Squatchdetective MySpace page and SD radio show every Monday night at 9pm EST. I’m curious what type of callers a show like the Squatchdetective gets? I decided to record my Squatchdetective eyewitness report, please listen to my terrified Bigfoot Utterz and see if it makes the cut.

I need your help solving the enigma!

Wondering what prison life was like in the 70s? Fortunately I don’t know what prison life is like in any era, including the present, but got a firsthand look at what it’s like, or rather used to be like as a tourist. Check out the castle-like look of the Old Montana Prison.

The Old Montana prison, originally constructed in 1893 in Deer Lodge, Montana hasn’t been used since 1979 and has become a tourist attraction. The wall shown above is twenty-four feet high and extends four feet underground. It was built entirely with convict labor and no inmate ever successfully tunneled under the wall.

At the time the prison was retired in favor of the new prison about 4 miles away it had around 300 inmates. The new prison has 3,000+. Old Montana Prison is located just off Interstate 90 heading east to Butte or west to Missoula.

View Larger Map

For $9 per person (good for both Saturday and Sunday, if it’s a weekend visit) you can tour most of the prison and get a feel for what it was like being a Montana prisoner as late as the 70s. It’s an unguided tour, but you can schedule a guided one if you want for more bones.

As part of the admission a tour brochure points out plenty of highlights, like the "out of bounds" written in the concrete in blood red paint with white writing. Inmates who passed this line without permission and/or guard escort could be shot by the guards above. It took three different keys to get through the gate to the outside, lowered by rope from the guard walkway above.

Too bad tourists are not allowed to walk along the guard walk-way. It would be great to see the prison though the guard’s eyes, but some of the prison is roped off for safety and liability reasons. As it is, the walkway on the ground are starting to crack and show their age.

I was kind of surprised by the size of each prison cell. Sure, not much space for two people, but I had imagined the cells would be even tighter conditions.

I so don’t look good wearing bars. Walking down the hall outside the prisons raised the hairs on the nape of my neck. Something downright spooky about the cold concrete floor outside the prison cells which counted 50 in number, four floors high. Ghosts of past inhabitants existence spiritually imprinted on the concrete?

 

Four floors above where this picture was taken in 1959 there was a riot that ended in a bazooka blast and a murder suicide of two inmates, Jerry Myles and Lee Smart who orchestrated the riot. The damage from the bazooka was never repaired and can be seen from outside in the second long window from the left in the picture below:

 

How did prisoners spend time in their cells? Some used their cells as hiding place as plotting ground for escape and contraband. The prisoner seized contraband exhibit showed off some elaborate shanks, rope made out of toilet paper, a bible with the center cut out for smokes and much more.

 

Inmates who repeatedly couldn’t follow the prison rules were subjected to a Hollywood-style hyped hole. Yes, the hole exists. After 10 days in the hole with only bread and water served twice daily, a physician would examine the prisoner and if he was ok, he’d go back into the hole for 10 more days. After the hole punishment was ruled "excessive" the hole was never used again. The memory remains.

 

Now look at the inside of the hole below and see if you can imagine being locked in this cell with no light, no human interaction for 10 days and only two rations of water and bread a day? I’d be thinking of roaches crawling around with me in the dark …

 

No thank you. Would rather stay on the right side of the law. Leave the ball and chain to others. If they aren’t doing this already, they should bus neighboring town school kids and take them through a guided tour of the prison. Deterrent, yes.

 

I’ll admit being curious how prison live in 2008 compares to prison life 30 years ago. Have you ever toured the inside of a prison either past or present? Or want to admit [gasp] to seeing the inside firsthand?

The order of restaurants to eat lunch at if concerned about calorie count below is ranked by most (worst) to least calories (best) using my preferred lunch order at each restaurant. These are well known chain restaurants that you might find in your area as well. The following restaurants were ranked (links to the nutritional pages/guies for other chain restaurants are included after the rankings):

1. Jack In The Box (most calories)
2. Little Caesars Pizza
3. Taco Bell
4. McDonald’s
5. Taco Time
6. Subway (least calories)

You might consider making your own meal calculations using these restaurants and see how the list looks for your dietary and nutritional concerns. All links lead to the nutritional information linked from the official websites of each restaurant.

Jack In The Box
After building my favorite Jack In The Box lunch with calorie count in mind only one word comes to mind: ouch!

My lunch includes the 974 calorie Ultimate Cheeseburger and 642 calorie natural cut fry. Throw in a 32 ounce soda and this badboy goes over 2,100 calories! Let’s forget the soda and maybe drop those three delicious mozzarella sticks and it’s still my whole calorie intake for the day. And I didn’t even factor in the marinara sauce for the mozzy sticks. With small soda: 1,998, without: 1,858.

Little Caesars Pizza

In our area Little Caesars has been making a major comeback by offering $5 cheese and pepperoni pizzas. You just walk in, tell them how man you want, pay and they hand them over. No waiting for the pies, as long as they are stocked. It’s working so well that nearby competitor pizza shops have begun to match their offer. Their nutritional guide:

I can just about devour an entire pizza myself. Let’s say 8 out of 10 servings which clocks in at a whopping 1,840 calories without soda or crazy bread, which I’m in for 1 crazy bread piece (100 calories) and about half the crazy sauce (22 calories). Add this up and it’s a calorie killer for the whole lunch. If I cut back and go with only 5 servings (half a pepperoni pizza), a small soda and no crazy bread, it’s still more than most of the other lunch options. I don’t know if I can cut this one out of my weekly lunch stops, calories be damned. With soda: 1,290, without: 1150.

Taco Bell

When it comes to Taco Bell it’s all about their sauce which according to their nutrition calculator has 0 calories? No way.

Put me in for 3 bean burritoes and a ton (10 at least) of their mild sauce and loads of tabasco sauce. I prefer a small soda to wash this down, but might be able to go with water only. With soda: 1190, without: 1050 (pictured).

McDonald’s
Who doesn’t have the golden arches nearby? According to McDonald’s Nutrition Calculator (link is on page toward bottom) my favorite meal at McDonald’s: quarter pounder with cheese, large fry and large drink is over 1,200 calories.

If I scale it back to a medium fry and small drink, it clocks in at 1020. By skipping the soda and going with water it’s down to 880, almost half my daily calorie intake at my height and weight. Not terrible, but it could be better. With soda: 1020, without: 880.

Taco Time

I love the crisp bean burritoes at Taco Time and my usual order consists of: 1 crisp bean burrito (394 calories), 1 soft bean burrito (377), 1 chips (150) and medium salsa (8), 1 sour cream (85) and small soda (140). I rarely eat the entire soft bean burrito, more like half or not at all, depends on how hungry I am. The calorie figures in parenthesis above use Taco Time’s nutritional info (PDF only).

Like Taco Bell I prefer a small soda to wash this down, but might be able to substitute water. As it turns out looking at the other restaurants, I don’t need to. I probably could not eat the soft bean burrito but the calculation that follows includes half the calorie count of a soft bean burrito. Without the soft burrito this would be among my best lunch choices. With soda: 816, without: 676.

Subway
Subway (nutrition PDF), you know that place where the guy lost weight with his only eat at Subway diet? At least from a calorie counting perspective, it looks like a promising place to eat lunch.

My sandwich of choice: 6" Roast Beef with cucumbers, onions, yellow peppers, mayo, mustard, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper is going to set me back about 350 calories.  I usually go through a small bag of BBQ chips which for every 20 chips is 150 calories. Factor in a small soda (140 calories) and a Subway lunch will clock in at 640 with soda and 500 without soda. I’m going to have to start eating at Subway more often. With soda: 640, without: 500.

Additional restaurant nutritional pages (not ranked)
Links to a few other restaurant websites nutritional calculators and/or guides I looked up and compiled alphabetically sorted:

Arby’s
Burger King - site is in Flash and doesn’t allow direct linking (?), go to this link and then choose "nutrition"
Domino’s (PDF)
KFC (PDF)
Panda Express
Papa Johns (PDF)
Pizza Hut
Quiznos - this guide is incomplete
Wendy’s (PDF)

Brown bagging it beats them all?
Subway looks like my best bet but I’m curious what is your best place to eat lunch at as far as calorie count is concerned? Brown bagging lunch like mom used to do is probably easier on the calories than any of the choices above. Mother knows best.