I recently came across a cassette recording of a telephone conversation that my dad and his brother, Eldon Cornelius, had in 1975. Uncle Eldon had farmed in the Madrid area for many, many years. One day in September 1975, he came across a dead cow in his pasture that had been thoroughly mutilated. He told my dad the story and my dad wanted to record the conversation. They agreed upon a date and time to talk.

The conversation took place on October 28, 1975 and lasted for about 65 minutes.

My recollection was that Dad made several copies of the conversation and arranged to give a copy to Dr. Allen Hynek of Northwestern University. Dr. Hynek was one of the best-known UFO researchers at the time and had studied other incidents of cattle mutilation. As far as I know, there was no follow-up with Dr. Hynek and the tape was never returned. He died in 1986.

Anyway, I found the cassette tape in a box and figured out how to hook up my old tape recorder to my PC. The transfer went fine and I burned a few CDs, including one for Eldon who is now retired and living in North Platte, Nebraska.

We had a couple of warm days recently so I brought the deck furniture out. Also gave me an opportunity to use the new laptop and the wireless network today. It was fun to be mobile! Just wish that it stayed warm. It’s now in the fifties with rain forecast for tomorrow.

Maybe this weekend…………

This old story has floated around cyberspace for years:

Two old men had been best friends for years and they both live to their early nineties. When one of them suddenly falls deathly ill, his friend comes to visit him on his deathbed and they reminisce about their long friendship. When the dying man's friend asks, "Listen, when you die, do me a favor. I want to know if there's baseball in heaven."

The dying man said, "We've been friends for years. This I'll do for you."

Shortly afterwards he dies.

A couple days later, his surviving friend is sleeping when he hears his friend's voice. The voice says, "I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there's baseball in heaven."

"What's the bad news?"

"You're pitching on Wednesday."

If anyone would like to follow me on Twitter, I’m at http://twitter.com/sscornelius.

I subscribe to Cigar Aficionado magazine and received the February issue today. Along with the magazine, they sent along a wall calendar which contains some interesting cigar-related quotes (my personal favorite is the George Burns quote):

• “If there are no cigars in heaven, I shall not go.” – Mark Twain
• “A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry is to a woman.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• “Burn them … one by one… slowly.” – Ambassador John Humes (ordering his deputy chief to destroy Havana cigars received as a gift).
• “The cigar habit. It’s one of the major happinesses. And so much more lasting than love, so much less costly in emotional wear and tear.” – Aldous Huxley
• “My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars.” – Winston Churchill
• “By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men’s souls.” – John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga
• “Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman – or a bad woman, it depends on how much happiness you can handle.” – George Burns
• “Tell him I’m out. And to convince him, smoke one of my cigars when you open the door.” – Winston Churchill (telling his valet how to get rid of a visitor).
• “A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.” – Rudyard Kipling

No, it’s not that kind of a wedding video!

I’m not sure if this is a joke, prank or an accident. Watch as the best man attempts to present the wedding ring!

One of the funniest sitcom episodes ever. This is the classic WKRP In Cincinnati episode from October 30, 1978. Station manager Arthur Carlson dreams up a “brilliant'” Thanksgiving promotion for his station. The promotion involves flying a helicopter over the Pinedale Shopping Mall -- and then releasing twenty live turkeys into the air.

Only one problem…turkeys can’t fly!

My favorite TV show is 24. Because of last season’s television writers strike, it’s been nearly two years since it last aired. The drought ends this Sunday with a 2-hour movie called: 24:Redemption.

Instead of the usual show being presented in real time, the movie will be a “normal” show with time compression. Rick Moran has a write-up on his blog.

I can hardly wait!

Update: I watched the show Sunday night. I saw some scenes from the 24 trailer and thought they were going to take place in the movie. Instead, they were scenes from Season 7 which begins in January. There was no time compression and the 2-hour movie took place in…two hours. My bad!

In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below...

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields...

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields...

-- John McCrae (1915)

I heard about this funny squirrel video on YouTube!

I am currently reading David Herbert Donald’s biography of Abraham Lincoln and am in the section of the book that briefly discusses a letter Lincoln wrote to Mrs. Lydia Bixby -- a Boston widow who was believed to have lost five sons fighting for the Union in the Civil War. Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew asked the president to send his condolences to the widow and the letter was also printed in the Boston Evening Transcript.

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864.

Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts:

DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

Abraham Lincoln

Afterwards, it was discovered that Mrs. Bixby had actually lost “only” two sons in battle. One son survived and was honorably discharged. A fourth son was a deserter and the fifth son either deserted or died as a prisoner of war. It was also later revealed that Mrs. Bixby was a Southern sympathizer who hated Lincoln. She later destroyed the original letter.

The authorship of the letter has been debated for years by scholars. Many believe the letter was written by John Hay, one of Lincoln’s secretaries. Whether Hay wrote the letter on his own or was directed to do so by Lincoln does not diminish the beauty and eloquence of the words.

Fans of the movie Saving Private Ryan may recall that, in the early part of the movie, the letter was read aloud by General George Marshall.

Compare Lincoln’s letter to a letter written by the German Kaiser to a mother of nine sons who died fighting for the Fatherland. In the letter, the Kaiser was “gratified” by the sacrifice and was “pleased” to send a framed and signed photograph to the mother. This came from a New York Times article dated July 30, 1918.

The official website of President-elect Obama is change.gov. The site invites readers to share ”…your story and your ideas, and be part of bringing positive lasting change to this country.” That’s fine except, according to the blog Polysigh, there are restrictions “governing” the use of a .gov domain. According to Wikipedia, it is “…a sponsored top-level domain restricted for use by government entities in the United States of America. The .gov domain is administered by the General Services Administration (GSA), an independent agency of the federal government.”

The official guidelines also state that:

The Gov domain is for the operation of government, not the political, political party, or campaign environment. No campaigning can be done using Gov Internet domains. The Gov Internet domain websites may not be directly linked to or refer to websites created or operated by a campaign or any campaign entity or committee. No political sites or party names or acronyms can be used. Separate webites [sic] and e-mail on other top-level domains (TLDs), such as .org, will have to be used for political activity.

So, is change.gov an official government site or an extension of the Obama campaign site?

I previously posted some photos of the Planet Mercury taken by MESSENGER. Here’s another cool photo from NASA’s website showing a crescent view of the planet. Click on the photo for an enlargement.

I just saw this video and wasn’t aware until now that it’s the most-watched election-related video on YouTube. It was made by an Iraq war veteran and it’s directed to Sen. Obama and his comments that the Iraq war was “a mistake.” It’s a pretty powerful message, especially as he walks away from the camera.

The "official” preview clip of the 7th season of ‘24’ has been released. The producers have taken a new direction and I like what I see.

MESSENGER—which flew close to Mercury on October 6th—has sent back some amazing photos from the innermost planet. MESSENGER was launched in August 2004 and will make a total of three passes by Mercury before settling into orbit in 2011. The photo above (click on the photo for an enlargement) was taken about 17,000 miles away. Nine minutes earlier, it took this photo when it was about 1,100 miles above the surface. It looks like a photo of the Moon’s surface!

More information about MESSENGER and its mission is here.

I’ve always found that the most interesting presidential elections are the ones in which there is no incumbent running.

My earliest election memory goes back to 1960, when John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon squared off. I was eight years old at the time and I remember my father was active locally in the Nixon campaign. I believe he served as a precinct captain or in some similar capacity. I remember having Nixon buttons and bumper stickers all over the house! [I wish I had some of them now!]

The 1960 election was certainly one of the closest elections with Kennedy pulling a narrow victory late in the evening. I stayed up late listening to the election returns on the radio (Fox News was not around!) and I had to go to bed before anything was official. I remember my father waking me up the next morning for school and I asked him who won. I recall how miserable he sounded when he told me that Nixon had lost! Of course, I felt bad if—for no other reason—because my parents supported the losing candidate.

Since then, the 1968, 1988, and 2000 elections have not included an incumbent. [The 1980 election felt like the incumbent wasn’t running, but only because President Carter chose to not actively campaign against Reagan.] We know how close the 2000 election was and it’s hard to know exactly how the 2008 election will turn out.

My dad also worked on the 1962 congressional campaign for Donald Rumsfeld. He actually lived in my neighborhood in Northbrook, Illinois for a little while and I believe my dad got to know him from the neighborhood. Rumsfeld won that race and served in Congress until 1969. A couple of years ago, I was driving my mother through the neighborhood and she showed me where Rumsfeld used to live. This was right about the time he stepped down under heavy criticism as defense secretary. I wonder if the current owners know of the house’s history.

In a few more weeks it will all be over and we’ll see a new chief executive in the White House.