Jet Fuel Cafe

I am blessed with clear skies and no light pollution and about once a week can see the International Space Station (ISS) fly overhead. It appears shortly after sunset as a bright star on the western horizon and moves overhead and eastward until it loses the reflected sunlight about 3/4 of the way through its arc.

Enter your US ZIP code or Canadian Postal Code at http://www.spaceweather.com/flybys to get your local flyby schedule. Other tracked objects include the Hubble Telescope and the errant ISS toolbag but they are not a bright or easy to spot.

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Tags: ISS, space station

The town dump is 35 miles away so when it came time to dispose of an old king mattress I put up a sign at the end of the street. Within 10 minutes there were competing knocks on the door & the Freaking Mattress was picked up & gone within the hour. Last year I put an old chest freezer on the curb and it was gone by the time I got inside & looked out the window.
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Tags: recycling

At the height of the Great Depression when jobs were scarce, and quitting one was ill-advised, Reg Smith quietly took out his frustrations at work by writing this on the underside of his desk:

140 King East
Toronto
Reg Smith
3 November /34
a hole of a place to work

The scrawl is on the underside of a printer’s drawer (see photos) that I picked up at a garage sale years ago. 140 King East is an old bank building that still stands on the northwest corner of King and Jarvis. The 3 story building contains offices on the upper floors and, I believe at that time, a Bank of Commerce on the ground floor.

Reg Smith is/was not an uncommon name - especially in anglo Toronto The Good in the 1930’s. I Googled Reg Smith and the best age match I could find was a Reg Smith in Napanee, 140 miles east of Toronto. In February 1934 this Reg Smith resided in Napanee when his 54 year old uncle died of a fractured skull suffered when he was a passenger in a truck that crashed into the 7th car of a freight train.

Professional hockey player Reginald ‘Hooley’ Smith also fits but appears to have been gainfully employed by the Montreal Maroons in 1934.

Any additional info on Reg or his employer would be welcome.

Tags: Canada, great depression, toronto

The Presidential election is over but the blame game for current and past economic woes continues. The charts below show historic monthly unemployment rates for the last 60 years and are color coded by Party in Power. The 4 charts highlight unemployment rates by Presidency, majority in the Senate and House, and the Perfect Storm - when one party controls the Presidency and both chambers of Congress.

There is enough ammunition here for both sides. Fight it out amongst yourselves.

Note: A reminder to non-Americans who universally associate red with their local left-lib parties: Red= Republican and Blue= Democratic. Go figure.

Click on a chart to enlarge.

Tags: economy, Politics, unemployment

Photographed at the Customer Service desk of my local Best Buy:

Tags: Best Buy

Last night the Critic’s Choice Awards surprisingly gave awards to movies that I have actually heard of and watched. That doesn’t excuse their past choices so I would like to present my favourite scene, Death of a Movie Critic, from the not critically acclaimed Lady in The Water:

Tags: Movies

This New York Times photo is captioned “A ground crew member checked the level of radiation near the Soyuz capsule after its landing.” The ground crew member has no protection and is testing for radiation by poking the soil with his finger. The photo is 9 months old. I hope he still has all his fingers.

Tags: Space

The New Year is here and as we ponder our credit card bills retailers are reporting their dismal holiday sales. Most retailers experienced a decline in year over year sales. I found haphazard reporting on the Web but no comprehensive list comparing results - so I scrounged the Internets, compiled a list, and made the chart at left. The chart will be updated as more retailers report earnings.

Not surprisingly high-end double-name retailers reported the largest same-store sales declines. Nieman Marcus (-27%), Williams Sonoma (-24.2%) and Abercombie and Fitch (-24%) led with the largest same-store sales declines as frugal shoppers made their money go further at lower end stores. Walmart (+1.7%) and Kmart (-1.1%) were little changed from last year as husbands splurged on toasters instead of lingerie (Victoria’s Secret was down 10%).

Few stores showed year over year increases. Big winners were casual wear mall stores including The Buckle (+13.5%), Aeropostale (+12%) and J Crew (+8.5%) while in hard goods GameStop (+10%) and Walgreens (4.9%) led the pack.

The same store sales chart at left shows the change in sales at stores that have been open for at least a year - and excludes sales data from new store expansion and store closings.

Tags: Christmas, Retailing

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ac erat. Donec pretium nibh et augue. Integer nec justo. Nam et tellus sit amet est luctus consequat. Aliquam vehicula augue eu odio. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Ut laoreet tincidunt risus. Praesent ultricies velit sit amet nunc. Suspendisse potenti. Aliquam erat volutpat. Curabitur elit. Nunc quam. Etiam tincidunt, turpis sed aliquet lacinia, magna velit accumsan nulla, et elementum dui nisi et justo. Phasellus lectus risus, ultricies vitae, pellentesque eget, porttitor ac, quam. Sed vel nisi. A new Year. A new Blog. A new Post. A new Hope.