Category: random

For years I have been working to be the best “Silent Leader,” possible.

A ‘silent leader’ is someone who acts in such a way, others might follow their example. This can be anyone from a CEO if a Fortune 500 Company to the person cleaning the restrooms and everyone in between.

Much of it is derived from the Book of Matthew in the New Testament. “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house,” Jesus said in Matthew 5:14-15.

So how does this tie into being a ‘silent leader?’ First off know that in my view the ‘silent leader’ is based on ‘interpersonal relationships,’ which is defined as an association between two or more people who may range from fleeting to enduring.

These kinds of relationships are not often thought of as a biblical topic, but advice about dealing with other people makes up a large part of the teachings of Jesus and the wisdom books of the Old Testament.  We spend our entire life interfacing with fellow humans.

Without interaction with others, our lives would have virtually no meaning or purpose. Yet, it is our relating that creates most of our difficulties.

Imagine your life without another person in it. No arguments, no fights, no obligations, no misunderstandings, but also no love, no joy, no laughs and no life.

Obviously, the answer to difficult relationships is not to withdraw from or avoid interaction with others.  Rather it’s to learn how to relate in a meaningful, honoring and constructive way to a person.

All of the New Testament teachings on relationships spring from Jesus’ commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

The English word “love” has many different meanings, but this “Christian love” of the Bible comes from the Greek word agape which means good-will and benevolent concern for the one loved. It is deliberate, purposeful love rather than an emotional or impulsive love.

“Love your neighbor” was not a new commandment, but the people of Jesus’ time had developed a rather narrow view of who should be considered a “neighbor.” In His parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus corrected that view and teaches us that a “neighbor” is anyone we come in contact with.

If you explore the Jesus story you begin to notice how He respected others, whether they were male or female, young or old. Jesus made it His priority to teach how to relate in every type of relationship.

In many ways, all of Jesus’ teaching addresses our responses in relationships. For example, Jesus also said in Matthew: “And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

Is the practice of being a ‘silent leader’ hard? You bet – but nothing good ever comes easy.

Finally, in the course of life we all come across difficult situations in which we are unsure how to relate. It’s how we respond that makes us either a ‘lamp on its stand’ — or one placed ‘under a bowl.’

A coroner has officially ruled that a dingo took and ate Azaria Chamberlain and that her mother had nothing to do with the infant’s death.

Azaria, a nine-week-old baby girl from Australia, lost her life in a dingo attack in August 1980, and her body never recovered. Just 20 years old at the time, I remember being horrified by the idea of a wild dog stealing a baby and making a meal of the infant.

Azaria’s parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain informed authorities that a dingo had taken their baby from their tent. However, investigators did not believe them because of the fallacy that “dingoes do not attack unless provoked.”

Despite the absence of evidence linking her to her daughter’s disappearance, Lindy found herself accused of cutting the throat of the infant. To this day, nobody has ever advanced a plausible motive.

A six-week trial resulted in a wrongful conviction that saw her imprisoned for over three years. Michael found guilty of being an accessory after the fact, was saved from prison by Justice James Muirhead, who disagreed with the verdict, gave him a suspended sentence, and put him on a bond.

In 1986, Lindy was released from prison after someone discovered Azaria’s jacket in an area frequented by dingoes. The revelation led to her being compensated $1.3 million for the wrongful imprisonment.

After Chamberlain’s conviction, there were other instances of dingo attacks on children, including the fatal mauling of nine-year-old Clinton Gage on Queensland’s Fraser Island in 2001. The attacks provided further evidence needed to end the nearly 32-year-old mystery.

Three weeks ago I decided to clean out some of my news notes I’d collected from work. I had nearly one-hundred pieces of paper regarding the disappearance of Steve Fossett.

In order to do this, I spent the day copying and transcribing these notes and such — creating a massive computer database file. By the time I was finished I realized I had more than enough information to write several short stories about the ‘Fossett Incident.’

As I organized these notes further, I knew I could take what I’d normally regard as ‘future story material,’ and write a booklet. To me that’s any publication that’s smaller than 80-page, in which case a publisher will not place the book’s title on the spine.

Called, “Final Flight,” it’s about adventurer Steve Fossett, who was lost in a plane crash in the Sierra Nevada mountain Range of eastern California in 2007. Since that time I’ve held onto or collected news articles from the wire and other sources in order to write a full account of not only his disappearance and recover, but of his life and achievements.

A quick read at only 84-pages, it documents many of the behind-the-scene events that lead up to his fatal crash, as well as those involving the search for the lost flier. It culminates with the discovery of personal items, the recovery of bone fragments and the finding of local and federal authorities.

You can order your ‘print-on-demand’ copy exclusively from FastPencil. And thank you for your support in advance.

Virginia City’s beginning is described by a Dr. Pierson in a letter to the Carson Tribune, dated August 1879:

“I visited the spot known as Virginia and found not a house, but two tents in the ground. One was owned by John L. Blackburn who died by an assassin’s knife. I saw the first mine and formed an acquaintance with Mr. Comstock, the man whose man is perpetrated everywhere mines ar known throughout the world.”

Dr. Pierson continues:  “I also met old Virginia for whom the place is named. On that day in June (1859), the writer saw $1900.00 in black gold valued at $11.00 an ounce washed out of the surface ground at the Ophir.”

By the late 1860’s, Virginia City had more than 30,000 people. Not bad for a place that boasted only two-tents when it was first established.

Why the big turn around? It was a simple chance encounter that created the eventual rush from the California gold fields to the Comstock’s silver mines.

Most of the miners in the area were plagued by what was known as “that infernal blue stuff.” The soft, blue-tinted mud got in the way of their serious work — the mining of gold.

It was simply shoveled out-of-the-way and forgotten.

Then one afternoon a Carson rancher named W.P. Morrison, having heard of the strikes being made in Gold Canyon went to have a look for himself. There he found the unwanted mud and intrigued by it, collected some of it.

Months later, Morrison had the sample analyzed. He jus’ happened to have some of the stuff with him the day he rode into Grass Valley, California, where he decided to have it assayed.

The assayer, J.J. Ott took the sample and checked it for gold. It assayed out at $1600.00 and ounce — but he felt compelled to double-check his findings because of what else he’d found.

After the second assaying, he knew his first findings were correct. The “infernal blue stuff” yielded $4,971.00 a ton and it was simply being thrown away.

By the next morning the word had spread throughout Grass Valley and the rush east over the Sierra Nevada was on.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to have the thing – let alone have it in her bedroom. Bette’s father had forbidden it and now she was sitting on the couch listening to him lecture on the evils of the Ouija Board.

“But its jus’ harmless game board,” Bette protested.

Her father either didn’t hear her or he ignored her completely. Instead he continued his rant on the evils of the Ouija Board and how it was a vulgar item in the face of their Catholic religion.

As he did this, she sat on the couch watching the thing burn in the living room fireplace behind her father. As she watched, the smoke curled and rolled up the chimney flue.

She became transfixed on the gray clouds as they grew darker and darker, until they nearly blacked out the flames engulfing the board. Bette could smell the smoke – it seemed tainted – like a burning steak.

She found herself smiling as the smoke started bellowing outward, hanging low along the shag carpet. Bette was no longer listening to her father’s voice as it suddenly sounded miles away.

There was a sudden flash – followed by a long fall into darkness. It seemed like hours before she wakened to the unfamiliar sight of flashing red lights and the feel of the chill of evening air.

“I don’t know what happened,” Bette heard herself say to the fire investigator.

It was then she realized she was sitting outside on the curb as what was left her parent’s home crumbled into an ash heap.  She was confused but otherwise unharmed.

Beside her rested the Ouija Board – undamaged.

Beijing, China based Xinyuan Real Estate Co. Ltd. purchased a portfolio of 325 finished lots and 185 acres of raw land across northern Nevada for $7.4 million, according to Lou Berrego of West Haven Development Group.

The properties, which had been owned by Wells Fargo Bank, extend from Wingfield Springs to Washoe Valley to Gardnerville, Berrego says. The deal was closed in May 2012 and was the first U.S. market property purchase the company has ever made.

The company, along with Lou Berrego, looked at over 100 properties across the United States, including properties in Miami, Chicago, Orange County and New York. The first deal picked was the Reno area properties.

All that was missing was a passable road through the area, so Hanson ordered one to be cut. A survey was made of the coast from the Klamath to Crescent City as 1855 was nearing its end.  Building a road in rugged and steep terrain had its trouble, but not as many as the difficulties with Capt. Robert G. Buchanan and his hot temper.

Buchanan’s temper prompted the man first ordered to create the Agency, S.G. Whipple to ask that the company of soldiers still in his area not be subject to orders from Fort Humboldt.  Whipple asked that the men be permanently assigned to the Klamath Reservation.

However, when Henley brought up the subject with Brig. Gen. John E. Wool, the commander of the Department of the Pacific, he was told that the detachment was being recalled because they had no quarters on the reservation. This left Whipple with 5,000 Indians who has recently “been hostile.”

As the year 1855 came to a close, Whipple busied himself purchasing flour from a mill near Kepel, directing his agents to ready gardens for the Indians to use for potatoes and other plants.  They bought gardening tools for them, along with seeds and twine for fishing nets.

And as the nearby war on the Rogue River ended, Whipple asked them to move to Wilson Creek. He promised them the government would help them until land could be cultivated and food grown.

He also promised to reimburse them for their fisheries and 900 square miles of land with money paid to them in their currency, Ali-cachuck.  But Whipple resigned in 1856 and was replaced by Agent by James A. Patterson.

Patterson repudiated the agreement, whereby the Tolowa returned to their Rancherias on the Smith River and the coast north of Crescent City.  In October 1856, Lt. Hezekiah Garder of the 4th Infantry concentrated them on Smith Island, where he issued those rations and clothing at the government’s expense.

Patterson was found so drunk in Crescent City in January 1857,  that he slept in his clothes in the bar of a local hotel.  He continued drinking the next day and passed out in a local stable’s stall and an investigation of his conduct was called for.

When the charges were substantiated, he was ordered removed, and replaced by V.E. Geiger. However, Geiger declined the appointment, so Maj. H. P. Heintzelman was nominated as sub-agent and told to take charge of the Klamath River Reservation. 

Unlike his predecessor, Heintzelman was industrious and “God-fearing.” He prohibited liquor and gambling on the reservation, ordered his employees not to drink or co-habit with Indian women on pain of discharge. 

He too, would soon find himself being discharged.

The Glass Pool Inn was a two-story motel at the southernmost end of the Las Vegas Strip. It’s most striking feature was its kidney-shaped, 54,000-gallon above-ground swimming pool with seven portholes that allowed passers-by to see swimmers underwater.

About the only structure on the desert when it was built in 1952, the Glass Pool Inn was a like a “mirage” to travelers exhausted from the heat of the Nevada desert. It was originally named the Mirage Motel, but changed its name with the arrival of the Mirage Luxury Resort.

It closed in 2003 and was demolished in 2006, leaving only the Glass Pool Inn’s sign standing alone in an otherwise vacant lot. Now the Neon Museum of Las Vegas is searching for it after it disappeared in May.

The sign itself was a landmark for its size and unique design of two light-blue, pond-shaped facades with the motel name and an advertisement for its slot machines. The large sign was being kept on the motel property behind a locked fence before its disappearance.

Unlike many of older ‘cabinet signs,’ the Glass Pool Inn sign is made of a curvy metal which can be damaged easily. Officials says if a crane wasn’t used to move it — it would have needed to be cut apart.

Given the size of the sign and what its extraction would require, the sign may not have survived its removal from the lot. For now the sign is gone and its whereabouts remain unknown.

It was a night for which I couldn’t have been prouder. I witnessed my son, Kyle walk across the stage and receive his high school diploma.

It might seem like a simple piece of paper to some, by to Kyle, I sure it feels like the achievement of a life-time. That’s because of all the trouble had getting to that stage.

First, he had ear infections as a toddler that were so bad he developed a hearing problem. He was unable to hear certain sounds and this set him back when it came to talking.

Because of this he was held back in Kindergarten. It was a tough decision but one that was correct none the less.

Like most kids — Kyle struggled with the discipline of school. He also found himself bored with many of the subjects, preferring to ‘self-educate’ himself on that which interested him, such as art, science-fiction, the latin language and Greek and Roman mythology.

Kyle attended Christian schools until his senior year, when continuing with a private education became financially impossible to handle for his mother or myself. Excited by the prospect of going to public school, he enrolled at Galena High.

And despite repeated assurances and an eleven credit load that he would graduate on time in 2011 he came up short by half an elective-credit. It came down to the title of one class — “Christian Studies” verses “Religious Studies.”

So, set back once again, Kyle refused to surrender and go for his GED (though he seriously thought about it), and instead stepped up for one more semester of high school. In that semester he took art, photography, small-engine repair and welding.

The final day of the semester he was told by his art teacher he had failed her class because he had turned in incomplete paintings and drawings. Once again it look as if he’d have to complete yet another semester.

However, an artist since before Kindergarten, Kyle overwhelmed that teacher with work he’d completed over the years and she relinquished — but jus’ barely. She gave him a ‘D’ — which doesn’t look like much — but is a passing grade none-the-less.

Since then, Kyle’s been attending Truckee Meadows Community College and carrying a ‘B’ average. He has plans to attend the Art Institute of San Francisco — because it’ll offer him a foot into Pixar, Disney or one of those places that make animated films.

There are not enough words to express jus’ how proud I am of his success — not only for finishing school — but for his internal fortitude! Where others may have and some did fail to press on, he stayed the path and earned a bright future!

It’s more than either his mother or I could have asked for.

The first chief executive to visit Lake Tahoe was Ulysses S. Grant, in October 1879, two-years after leaving office. And contrary to popular belief, John Kennedy’s visits to Tahoe were before he was elected president in November 1960.

It’s rumored he visited the Cal-Neva, which was owned by Frank Sinatra at the time, for a tryst with Marilyn Monroe. However the only documented account of Kennedy visiting Lake Tahoe was as a Massachusetts U.S. Senator seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Besides Monroe was in Los Angeles, rehearsing for the movie “Let’s Make Love,” at the time.

Less than a year after Grant’s visit, the first sitting president to visit Tahoe as well as Nevada, was Rutherford B. Hayes. On September 7th, 1880, he arrived in Northern Nevada along with the First Lady, General William Tecumseh Sherman and Secretary of War Alexander Ramsey.

After a brief stop in Reno to make speech, Hayes and company were driven to Spooner Summit by legendary stagecoach driver Hank Monk. Once there, the group took the train to Glenbrook, then boarded the steamboat, “Meteor” for a trip across Lake Tahoe.

One-hundred-seventeen years would pass before another President would officially visit the lake.

President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore hosted the Lake Tahoe Presidential Forum at Incline Village in 1997. Clinton eventually signed an executive order on July 26th of that year, creating an agency charged with management of Federal projects within the Lake Tahoe Basin.