BOOK REVIEW: Sand, Snow, and Stardust

Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments
Gretchen Heefner
University of Chicago Press
Copyright 2025 by the author

The Army was caught by surprise in WWII. Not by the enemy, but by the conditions in North Africa. They were expecting a hot, dry, flat expanse of sand. That may have been the case in the east with the British, but in Algeria and Tunisia, the terrain was rough and rocky. In December, it got bitterly cold at night. And it rained, turning the dry land into a quagmire. None of the gear and equipment they had was useful.

The Army was going to have to learn – and quickly – how to function in deserts. Similar lessons about the fickleness of Nature would have to be learned in Alaska, too (though for some reason, Heefner barely mentions the military bases in the tundra there). Especially since – once the Nazis and Japs were defeated – they would quickly have to turn their attention to containing the Communist Menace, even if it meant bases in Libya and Greenland.

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The End is Near

I knew when I started this blog that it would not run forever. In pretty much every first post of the new year, I’d comment about how amazed I was that I’d been able to keep it going, and wonder if the new year would be the one where I finally ran out of steam.

Twelve years – and at least six hundred posts later – the well has gone dry.

I can’t think of anything further to say about baseball and the World Series, I no longer get excited over the Olympics, and the list of post ideas that I’ve been keeping doesn’t have anything I want to spend the energy on. I can’t even seem to bother writing a review of a book I’ve read or movie I’ve seen. I’m still grabbing books from the “New Arrivals” shelf at the library, but the interest in writing up a review and sharing it here just isn’t there anymore.

I do have a few reviews already written, and one “project” that’s nearing completion, so I’ll put those up before signing off.

I will maintain this website, because it’s cheap enough and it is kind of nice to have something to refer people to when questions come up about Great World Series games or a movie recommendation.

And there WILL be a final farewell post; I don’t want this to be like other blogs that just fade into obscurity because no one can ever tell if they are still active.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE – 2025

A salute to some notables who do not deserve to be forgotten as we head into the new year.

DICK BUTTON (1929-2025)

When Richard Totten Button was 12, he asked his father if he could trade a pair of hockey skates for figure skates. He was short and pudgy at the time and showed little promise. But after a summer of training in Lake Placid, New York, with Swiss-born coach Gustave Lussi, he quickly became adept at the sport. “I never remember a time I did not like skating,” he said in a 2010 video. “There was an excitement about the freedom of it, the ability to move — it was like flying. Something magical happened with it.”

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Overrated – Underrated: Christmas Movie

There are so many Christmas / holiday movies. The tropes of the holiday make it far too easy to whip up a boilerplate story and put it on the screen. Even the most plebeian of plots will find an audience. Not all can be classics; but with luck you’ll at least avoid making a stinker.

With the vast and growing holiday filmography, it shouldn’t be difficult to find some that are overrated and others that are underrated….

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Pond in a Jar – 11

Just a quick update since little has changed since the last time.

It’s still alive. There are two snails – at least that’s as many as I can see at any given time. Fun fact: snails are hermaphrodites. They can mate with themselves if the environment calls for it. No sign of that worm thing from earlier this year; I think it died. Not many swimming things. They seem to be most active in the morning (I wonder if they have an equivalent to ‘sleep’), and can easily be mistaken for spots of dust on the glass. The hornwort is growing slowly. It will be interesting to see it fight the other plant.

No photos this time – it hasn’t changed enough to warrant one. Maybe in January.

On This Year’s Hall of Fame Ballot

The Hall of Fame ballot has been released, and there’s one question on the mind of pretty much every baseball writer and fan.

Is ANYONE going to get elected this year?

Of the newcomers to the ballot, only Cole Hamels really stands out – and that’s only due to his helping the Phillies win the World Series in 2008. The “crop” is so weak I don’t even feel like doing brief recaps of their careers.

There are quite a few holdovers from last year, but the most likely candidates all have “problems”. Steroids for Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez; the “sign stealing” scandal for Carlos Beltran.

By the way, the sign stealing thing was several years ago. Can we STOP holding it against the current Astros team already?

There are plenty of “Hall of the Very Good” players on the ballot, some of whom should easily make their team’s “Hall of Fame” or even have their number retired – if they haven’t already. But enshrined in Cooperstown? I’ve seen a suggestion that one could approach the nominees by asking “Would it be an outrage or travesty if this person was NOT elected?” I don’t see anyone raising a fuss over any of them. Gossip among the baseball writers hints that it’s going to be hard to use up all ten of the votes that they are allotted.

I suspect Carlos Beltran will make it in; but that’s it.

Next year should be better, when Buster Posey becomes eligible. The year after that will see Albert Pujols (a shoo-in) and Yadier Molina, then Miguel Cabrera, Zack Greinke, and Joey Votto will hit the ballot for 2029.

BOOK REVIEW: Slither

Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World
Stephen S. Hall
Grand Central Books
Copyright 2025 by the author

Snakes.

Love ’em or hate ’em, there’s little in-between.

Hall, a professional science writer, would probably fall into the “love ’em” category. Here, he introduces us to some of the researchers studying them, presents in an easy-to-follow manner some of their recent findings, and comments on our strange relationship with the creatures over the millennia.

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On the 2025 World Series

The Dodgers were luckier than the Blue Jays.

That’s all that needs to be said.

You can blather all you want about the cliches like “good hitting beating good pitching, and vice versa”, or intangibles like “grit” and “resiliency”, but when you play more than eight games worth of innings in a seven game series, it’s going to come down to some pure random chance.

A ground ball hits a lump of dirt on the infield, takes a crazy hop to elude a fielder, and a game-winning rally is ignited.

On a blustery day, a gust of wind comes in at just the right time to turn a home run into a flyout on the warning track.

A ball smashed to left field with “run scoring triple” written all over it jams itself into the space between the padding and the ground on the fly for a “stuck ball, runners advance only two bases” ground rule double, and the Dodgers get out of the inning with their lead intact.

Yes, the Blue Jays had their share of lucky moments, too.

But the Dodgers had just enough more to give them the championship.

Congratulations to everyone on both teams.

Halloween Music

I came across a playlist of Halloween songs the other day; it was a selection of songs in the “heavy metal” genre. While appropriate for the occasion, I’m an “Old Fogey”, and I don’t particularly care to have people screeching at me and calling it “music”.

When it comes to Halloween music, it seems to me that we overuse the same old music – just as with Christmas. There’s a heck of a lot more out there that you can add to your own playlist.

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Keep Up The Good Work

Well, another “No Kings” rally has come and gone… which means people will put away their signs until the next one comes along.

But there’s no reason at all to stop resisting, and showing that resistance.

If only there were some way to demonstrate or show your support between rallies….

I note that there’s a Unicode symbol for each of the chess pieces – both black and white. The white king, for example, is U+2654…..and that every word processing program I’ve seen so far has, in their standard graphics add-ons, the circle-with-a-slash symbol for “NO” / “Prohibited”.

How hard can it be to combine the two, and put that on a button or sticker?

If people ask, it means you don’t play chess….