Mattes's Musings by KC2GIK

Taps played with words Day is done Gone the Sun From the hills From the lake From the skies All is well God is night God Bless the men and women who fight everyday to make this country safe.

One of my favorite posts last year was The Hershey Miracle where I explained the trip out to the annual antique car show, little did I know I would be composing a squeal only a year after. Like the one last October, the trip was only planned in a few short weeks. Rick Krestchmer, a fellow ALPCA member, advertised a room to share in Hershey. If you recall he and shared a room at the 2007 ALPCA Convention in Huntsville AL and have kept in touch via e-mail. So when he was looking for someone to share a room with in Hershey, I jumped! I quickly e-mailed him and Rick responded he'd like room with me. The next thing I knew I was searching for Amtrak tickets into Harrisburg. I also tapped into the Dauphin County Paratransit system to get me from the train station to the Hershey Giant Center, the middle of everything. It was fine only the bus that picked me up broke down enroute to dropoff other passengers we had to wait for another bus, which set back my arrival time tremedously. I

Like so many of the recent posts I started this a week ago and just finishhing it now!! Sunday marked the 10 year anniversary of the tradgic day that changed our country forever. Ironically one of the things that I remember about both d ays was the weather wa perfect, a nice sunny fall day with a light breeze. Although unlike that day I wasn't glued to the police scanner, I decided scooter riding had to take priority. Like many towns Park Ridge had a ceremony attended by all the emergency services, including the OEM. I drove down to the ceremony to find the road closed to vehicle traffic, well most. I parked right by the memorial and joined the percession into the memorial park. It was a pointant ceremony were elected officials spoke and members of clegy lead us in moments of reflection. We then attended a reception at the American Legion Of course this entry wouldn't be complete without mentioning the monitoring. People think that because I live so close to New York City I

When am I going t o learn when it comes to Facebook one liners can cause just as much damage as a couple of sentences. It all came down to the taxi ride going there. Every now and then I make a stop at the TDBank to withdrawl money. Last friday evening I did the normal routine. During the ride I heard the taxi get his next fair to go from the Hillsdale train station. Since it wasa fairly new driver I decided as an act of good faith on my part I would leave the money on the back seat and I left the door open while I went into the bank. That was a m istake that I will never make again! The idiot got out of the cab took the money o=ff the back seat closed the door and proceeded to the Hillsdale train station, leaving toi walk the extra few blocks. Well I always give $20 on a $15 cab since they do pull in the driveway and do loop around right to the front. This time like an idiot when I poulled out my wallet I decided to leave @$20 on th e back seat because I didn't want to ppull

Well I continued my streak of attending ALPCA conventions, this makes my fifth in a row and seventh overall. This year I dragged my folks down to Charleston, West Virginia. We did the trip down in two days stopping halfway in Maryland at Rocky Gap State Park and Resort, it was such a nice resort I almost didn't want to leave....I said ALMOST. Every year that I arrive on Wednesday instead of Tuesday I also think going I am mmissing something but not being there as soon as the hall opens. This year wasn't any different, however the exception was I was setting up a table for the first time and didn't want to miss any sale. I found some friendly faces behind the registration desk handing out welcoming packets to members. I grabbed mine and hunted for my table. The covention center layout itself was a bit weird but doable. They had the bathrooms sort of in the middle, in a separate room that divided the hall up a bit meaning you had to go around the bathrooms to get to the

A few months back I blasted Google because they had the Pacman game running on their  search engine to celebrate the 40th Anniversary. It drove everyone using Firefox nuts because even if you  weren't on Google it still fed into Firefox, Pacman sound and all. I figured this out after uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox a few  timesI did a search and found that day on Yahoo the top search phrase was "how to get rid of the Pacman noise. It made a number of technology blogs, and because I sacraficed a mouse, I put my two cents in as well. Hey it was perfect writing material once  I figured out what was going on. The only way to get rid of the sound was to  disable the  Google search engine inFirefox. Once I did that the sound was gone. I have since updated Firefox and the  Google searchb is back in there, I'm leaving it alone.......for now. Today would have been guitar hero Les Paul's  95 th birthday and in is honor Google has a playable electric guitar on it's

It started out as a pretty normal Memorial Daqy. Chris, Natalie  and Zander came up this weekend, we went to  the Old Mill yesterday and while mom played with Zander I decided to do some laps. This morning I woke up earlier because I knew Mom wouldn't let me out of the house without some kind of breakfast. I woofed it down and waited for the car to be moved so I could get my scooter. I was a bit bummed because  my camera stopped working but still I was psyched. They call it the Tri-Boro parade because it goes through Woodcliff Lake Park Ridge and Montvale, every  year they alternate. Th is yea r the parade started at the Woodcliff Lake firehouse so I went down to hang out. I unexpectedly ran into a good friend Bob Hanna, actually I went to school with his son Robbie. Everytime he sees me he anno unces, "Here's trouble!", which is true and this time was no excpetion. Well he announced he put his 1931 Model T Pickup in the parade this year. After about a second he answe

While I don't usually comment on license plate sales on ebay \or otherwise, the Congressional Medal of  Honor plates need to be examined. It's a sticky issue because somewhere down the line there was a man or woman who made a great personal sacrafice to be award the medal.  People always say you dont "win" the award, you recieve it and it 's an honor that you can put a price tag on. I feel b uying the plate cheapens the meaning behind it. Although over the years collectors have definitely tried. The plates  have made appearances at plate shows every so often. Usually collectors stare at the plate and talk to the seller about it, maybe try to talk the price down or even figure out where the seller got the plate.  I even held one in my hand, but decided the price wasn't right. It wasn't the monetary  value, but I would prefer to have a story behind how I got the license plate rather than just say "oh I bought that license plate from another collector&q

This caught my eye while surfing the Internet. It seems a COBRA escaped the Bronx Zoo a few days ago. Obviously the news spread and the search for the snake (not to be confused with a NY politician) is that lastest and greatest to have a Twitter account. It seems someone is having a little fun with the incident with one Twitter  account for the Cobra, username "snakeonthetown", which is filled with extremely clever Tweets like " Leaving Wall Street. These guys make my skin crawl." and " On top of the Empire State Building! All the people look like little mice down there. Delicious little mice."   I was literally falling off the chair laughing as I compose this entry. Hey  you have to wonder what kind of person has the mind of a snake?  I could write more but nothing can match the whitty comments of this slimey reptile! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110329/ap_on_fe_st/us_missing_cobra_5 http://twitter.com/BronxZookeeper    http://twitter.com/#!/BronxZoo

I have been blogging for years and been reading articles on the Internet, mainly linked of Yahoo's site, even longer. After the articles there's a place where people can leave comments, the comments range fro-m intelligent dialogue to absolute absurdity. For the record I KNOW President Obama was born in Hawaii and George W. Bush WASN'T BEHIND 9/11! However every know and than someone posts a comment that blows me out of the water. Like everyone in America I am horrified about what's going on in Lybia.  Ronald Regan was right to call Ghadafi a "mad dog". Personally I co-uld come up with a few more colorful descriptions, but there's too much violence on the internet and I don't want to add to it. We all agree Ghadafi is a bad guy who needs to go. The problem is it isn't that simple, as we found out in Afganistan and later Iraq. However I agree now the United States can't fight on a third front.  Although we can't let him continue his brutal

The news from Northern New Jersey is focusing on mainly two things these past 24 hours, the massive flooding that has swept the area and the ongoing fight between Peter King and the Muslim community./ Well since  Hillsdale is indeed right next door, I should mention that the hot spot for news crew is the Ki=ngs parking lot. At first glance people would think it would b e good business for Kings, but then again showing the parking lot filled with water isn't exactly putting out the welcome mat. I  have yet  to ride  my scooter down the road to check the brook. Alright now down to business even if you totally disagree with Peter King, you have to  say he has guts. The problem here, as with most  government policies is if people sense their rights are going away, they'll jump up and down and scream. However once it's explained and parts implemented, then things calm down. King has struck a nerve with people who feel he's targeting a certaain group, the question is why was

Well it's a guilty pleasure of mine, I do watch the  Oscars. Maybe it's because such  a movie nut it's actually the one awards program I care about.  People say Oscar's evil twin, the  Razzies, which celebrate the WORST of the movies, is just as entertaining. The nominees for Best Picture, Black Swan, Inception, The Kids Are Alright, (I also enjoyed ) True Grit , The Fighter Toy Story 3, Wintere's Bone (I liked a lot) all deserved the nomination and truthfully I wouldn't have been surprised No matter who won this year. Admittedly I haven't actually seen The King's Speech yet, but everyone knows the story about how King George VI of Britain overcame a stutter to become England's King in one of the most important times history. The story is about the King ,played by Colin Firth overcoming his stuttering problem with the help of a speech therapist Lionel Logue, played by veteran English ac tor Geoffrey Rush.  I won't bother going into details. Th

It seems like I generally do more writing than reading, my grandmother always asked me if I was reading a book. My answer was I read the paper, although admittedly I have read books since high school, mostly autobiographies andnon-fiction. I alsolove reading other  people's aritcles and my absolutely favorite is Letters to the Editor. It's rare these days to find  a news article thatb I would considr worthy of calling them craftmanship, but letters are always from the gut Notice I said rarely but it does happen./ One such case is the article I linked to below. Written by  Jim Kocsis, WA9PYH, the Ham Radio Bucket List is a must read for all hams who are serious about operating. For those less seasoned  readers a bucket list is things you want to do before you die.  Things  like travel, write a book, whatever, this one is  geared for ham radio operators. Jim, who has been licensed longer than I have been alive (45 years) mixes humor and common sense with a dash of wisdom in the

Back in July I wrote about this idiot license plate collector I nicknamed "Jerkweed Jaun"(see below). He's still on the  Yahoo list and I'mp still on his case. Call it payback for accusing me of screwing  him out of pl-ates. I won't be satisfied until everyone in t he plate collecting community knows, what a Jerkweed he ha beco-me. His who-le approach to collecting i0s wrong, he tries to get p=lates for nothing, breaksx trade promises on a whim and other stunts that  would give a collector a bad  name. His pattern, make noise on the list for a few days and then  go back into hiding until his next st9upid request. Believe  it or not Jaun has tried to make truce saying he didn't mean to jerk me around, but I'm not buying into the scam. I am a big believer in giving people a second chance, but I don't think Jaun deserves that chance. On the contrary, I believe he needs to be taught a very hard lesson and I feel I need to teach it. While I won't accus

The news about theshooting of Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords is racing across TV screens and plastering the front pages of every front page in the US, if not the world.  I share the grief of all those who have been touched in some way. It's   even more heartbreaking to learn that 9 year old Christina-Taylor Green was also tradgically killed. Green, born September 11th, 2001, was from what I see as the true "American Girl".  She was very patriotic, loved baseball (America's favorite past time) and will surely be missed by family and friends. It  bothers me that people have again turned tragvedy int a fierce p;olitical debate. From Keith Olbermann suggesting placing picture of Giffords with crosshairs on Sarah Palin's website gave the shooter the idea to suggestions the Tea Party endorsed the shootmakes me mad. Case in point take my comment on Facebook: " The Arizona shooter is a self-described 'left-wing pothead, yet the media is pointing fingers at t