Author: UncleLar

The head orphan and eldest surviving member of the Fall Family Clan.
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African Water Hole Webcam

Click here for a live webcam that’s focussed on a water hole somewhere in Africa.

When I first went to the site about 8PM yesterday I was convinced it had to be a fake. There were literally about a hundred water buffalo wallowing in the water. I couldn’t believe the moment that I would pick the webcam would just happen to be the time the place was full of animals so I figured it had to be a tape. I kept looking at the thing trying to detect if it was looping (I also fully expected some screaming face to appear on the screen making me jump out of my chair). But it looked real to me.

I even logged off and logged back in to see if the scene would start all over anew at the beginning shot. Nope. It really did appear to be live. The shots had that eerie night vision look that’s so common on the cops and robbers reality shows but they sure seemed real.

Not wanting to look like an idiot if I immediately posted it here, I decided to wait a while and investigate a little further.

My research uncovered that it really is a live webcam. It’s located in the Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve, in South Africa. South Africa is eight hours ahead of Eastern Standard time so when I was looking at the water hole it was about 3AM. I have since learned that from that time on, i.e. the early morning hours over there, is really the best time to probably see some wildlife (second best time is supposedly around dusk).

I have gone back to the site about a half dozen times today to check it out. About half the time the camera has been on something. Once I saw a deer or antelope drinking and the camera followed him around as he nervously left the pond. The camera is obviously controlled somehow – most likely remotely (in fact I found one site that indicated that the cam could be controlled by the viewer but I haven’t found details of how that works quite yet) but the mikes sometimes pick up ambient noises that make me think that someone is there (oops – the camera just zoomed in one some birds curiously standing on one leg in the water).

I have also been able to determine that the camera is somehow affilated with the Nkorho Bush Lodge. How close the water hole is to the lodge I haven’t yet figured out.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did and let me know if you see anything unusual. I’m dying to get back on tonight but I’ll be at a basketball game during prime viewing hours.

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I figured out photos!


Now that I’ve figured out that the photo feature doesn’t like when there is punctuation in the name of the file, I can upload pictures of the house. Unfortuately, a lot were lost when my camera phone bought the farm. Here’s one of me ripping down wallpaper and plastering in one of the rooms in the house (I torn down wallpaper in 6 rooms). I think it’s my bedroom.

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Calling all Contacts


Hello All,

It has recently come to my attention (thanks, Mom) that I may have some serious media contacts within my reach through you guys! If you are comfortable with it, could you please email me their names and email addresses? At this particular moment, I need contacts on the Eastern Seaboard, preferably in the D.C. or Baltimore area. My work email is shannonatbissonbarcelona.com.

Thanks!

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Not quite a zombie but close…

Since I still haven’t been resurrected by the PSU Alumni Association, I thought I’d get some life out of it. My original idea was to be a zombie but I couldn’t find any costume that I really liked. Then I stumbled across this one:

Here’s one of those freaky strange moments that happen every now and then (really odd that it should happen on Halloween). When I stopped into the Tavern, Pat told me that he had just come from listening to Natalie Berrena sing at the Allen Street Grill (on Tuesday’s she sings at the Grill in a duet separate from her bands – actually I should say bands since she’s singing in two of them). Pat described Natalie’s costume (see photo below) as “a cowgirl riding a horse”. I decided to head up to hear a couple of songs and on the way thought that I’d walk in and jokingly ask her to sing “Wild Horses” by the Stones. I didn’t even know if it was in their repertoire but thought it would be funny anyway. Sure enough, when I walk in, she’s singing it. Downright eerie….

Here’s Nat and her Tuesday night singing partner, Ted McCloskey.

For more of my Halloween photos, check out my Flickr account.

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One for the Other Thumb

You may remember this post titled “One for the Thumb” from a year ago (yes it’s hard to believe but the blog has been going for over a year now – I should have put up a first anniversary post but I missed it).

Last night was the 10th Annual Mondo Martini Madness event at Tony’s Big Easy in State College. Originally, I had not planned on entering (I was going to judge instead) but last week my competitive juices got flowing and I signed up again.

Rather than just whipping up any old drink, I’m always looking for some inspiration (it helps to have a story about the cocktail to tell the judges as I’m whipping it up). This year I wanted to find a way to dedicate my drink to the Penn State students who have been incredibly supportive of the football team over the last couple of years. Kirk Herbsteit called them “the best student section in the country” during the Ohio State game last year.

If you’ve watched any of the Penn State games recently you’ve no doubt seen the kids bouncing around to a techno song whenever there is a big defensive play. The song is often mistakenly referred to as “Zombie Nation” (the real name of the song is Kernkraft 400 and the artist’s is Zombie Nation, sort of,… the actual artist is a German DJ named Florian Senftner aka Spank! who books himself as Zombie Nation) – for more on Penn State’s love fest with the song read this Pgh Post Gazette article).

The Zombie theme became the start of my inspiration. There is a drink called a Zombie that was invented by Don the Beachcomber many years ago. The original recipe is a secret and there are many variations out there but one of the more popular uses Apricot Brandy along with three types of rum and various fruit juices.

When I saw Apricot Brandy in the recipe, it got me thinking. One of the things that Joe Paterno is known for is Peachy Paterno ice cream, one of the more popular flavors put out by the world reknown Penn State Creamery (little known factoid – Ben and Jerry ice cream got it’s start when the founders took a correspondence course from Penn State on ice cream making).

Bingo. I now had a unique name for my drink, i.e. “The Zombie Joe” and it would be peach flavored. However, I didn’t think that just a simple variation like changing the brandy from apricot to peach would be original enough to impress the judges so I went after a more radical approach.

The next step was to find out what peach liquors that Tony’s had on stock at his bar. He didn’t have peach brandy nor did he have creme de peche two typical peach liquors. What he did have was peach schnapps and peach vodka. Also, Southern Comfort is considered by many to be a peach flavored liquor (the reality is that peach is only one of many flavors in Southern Comforts secret recipe). Those liquors became the basis for my drink experimentation.

I had one other idea that I wanted to incorporate. Another unique thing that has stood out about our student section the last couple of years has been their commitment to having a “White Out” for big games. They will dress in white, wear white to whatever it takes to make the student section all white for the game. Well white fits in perfectly with my Zombie theme. Check these PSU students out in a shot from the Michigan game – they are some definite Zombie looking fans. That meant my Zombie drink had to be white and just to be sure the judges got the connection with the students, I renamed the drink “The Zombie Joe aka The White Out”.

After much experimentation with the three liquors and various whitening agents, Godiva White Liqour, White Coconut Rum, and Half and Half, I eventually settled on a drink that had equal parts of Peach Schnapps, Peach Vodka, Southern Comfort, and Half and Half. The drink is well shaken and served in a chilled martini glass. As the final piece de resistance I float two dark Necco wafers in the drink to look like Zombie eyes staring back at you as you drink it.

Once again, the judges liked my work and I walked away with my sixth title in the last seven years (I am undefeated only having my string broken when I sat out a year).

For more photos from the event, check out this link.

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We old f*rts should get a kick out of this…

The Penn State Nittany Lion has earned himself a local reputation for some of the dances skits that he puts on every now and then during timeouts at the football games. Last year he had two that were classics that the student went absolutely nuts over. One was Nittany Dynamite, a reenactment of the dance sequence from Napoleon Dynamite. The other was Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which he did with a couple of Penn State Blue Band members.

Two weeks ago, he managed to top himself. His bit was called “The History of Dance” and a dozen or so dance steps that I’m sure we all can remember well. The video in this piece is much better than the others. The professionals have gotten wise and when the Lion comes out on the field during a timeout they have their cameras ready now. To see the “The History of Dance” click here, then choose “Lion Dance” on the right hand side.

So how many songs and dance steps did you recognize?

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Making me feel old…

I was down the Tavern Saturday night (like virtually every other Saturday night) when the bartender, Kevin, told me I should hang around later than usual because one of the waitresses, Brianne Kepler, was turning 21 at midnight and was going to stop into the Tavern for her first “official” drink.

Bri’s mother is Anne “Rip” Herpel, one of my ex’s, so I decided to hang around. I’m sure some of you remember Rip, we went out back in the early 70s, and I know she made at least one trip to Chicago. Rip was a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sister of Pat Driscoll, who was my roommate Pat Daugherty’s girlfriend (and later first wife) when I got out of the service in Dec 1970. Rip and I started going out around a year later.

Rip and I had an off and on thing for several years. I can remember being down at the Tavern one time sitting at a table with this older couple, Don and Betsy, who had dinner there almost every night. Betsy started giving me grief about Rip saying I really didn’t treat her well. All of a sudden, out of the blue, their son George who was my age and happened to be sitting with them that night, suddenly chirped up “I agree with Mom. Anne’s such a wonderful woman, I’d leave my wife for her.” I’ll skip some of the details but, sure enough, a year and a half later, he did. Needless to say, George is Bri’s dad.

Well at about 11:45 in come George and Anne to surprise Bri (not as big a surprise as Steve, Gary, Ronnie, and I showing up for Shannon’s 21st but a nice surprise for her anyway). Bri showed up right on cue a couple of minutes after midnight and was very much surprised to see her folks there. Here’s a photo of her having her first official drink (some special shot combination that the bartender made up for her) with Pat, Rip, and me (her dad didn’t join us at the bar for some reason).

Speaking of ex-girlfriends – I was recently sent this photo which I thought Marilyn would enjoy seeing. It was taken in St Martin in the Carribean. The woman on the far left is Diane Wooding, an ex of mine and an old roommate of Marilyn’s. Pat Daugherty owns a vacation home down there and invited Diane and a few others down for a vacation. The woman in the back right is Pat’s current wife Ruth.

The girls up front are some of my “nieces”. On the left is Natalie Berrena, whom I have talked about many times on the blog, the one in the middle is Lindsay Werner, whose father worked with Pat and me at the Tavern, and the one on the right is Kiley Campanis, whose parents I don’t know (at least I don’t think I know them). The girls all worked together at the Tavern (the other two women however are unknown to me).

Lindsay now works in NYC and emailed me the photo telling me about how she met one of my ex’s and got to hear Pat and Diane tell “lots of Larry Fall stories” (Given how one of Pat’s favorite sayings is “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, I can only imagine some of the things she must have heard).

Diane is now retired and living part time in Florida near her mother and part time back in Philly.

I get to feel old every time I run into some ex girlfriend or old friend who’s now retired or who has a kid starting college or turning 21, etc. Of course, one thing that I have successfully avoided that would make me feel really really old would be to have a grandchild (how’s that making you feel Steve B?) 🙂

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Utah Jazz

A friend of mine may soon show up in Kenny’s neck of the woods. Tyler Smith, a former Penn State basketball player, just made the Utah Jazz’s 18 man training camp roster (the Jazz camp doesn’t start until Monday and the roster won’t officially be announced until then).

Tyler is from the Chicago area. He played for Lake Forest High School graduating in 1998. He played four years at Penn State graduating in 2002. For the last few years he has been bouncing around the hinterlands of the pro basketball world pursuing his dream of playing in the NBA. Last year he played for a team in Peru.

Somewhat unbelieveably he’s close to making his dream happen. Tyler is the last guy you would ever expect to be an NBA player. Not only is Penn State not known for producing basketball stars, Tyler wasn’t even a star on PSU’s team. He didn’t become a full time starter until his junior year when he was the fourth leading scorer on the team (the team was pretty good though – making it to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAAs).

As a senior, Tyler was the third leading scorer on the team averaging about 12 points per game but the team was really bad (we went 7-21 and the coach was fired at the end of the year). Tyler’s list of Penn State basketball awards consisted of winning the team’s Scrappiest Player and Unsung Hero Awards at their post season banquet not exactly the type awards to build you an NBA portfolio (actually he also was a three time Academic All B10 player but academic awards don’t get you to the NBA either). On top of that, he was white man’s disease, i.e. he can’t jump.

He is a smart gutty team player though. He was a 6’8″ power forward at Penn State with a soft shooting touch. He’s worked very hard on his jump shot and can not hit it pretty well from NBA range.

His saga of how he wound up with the Jazz is pretty interesting. As I said Tyler played in Peru last year but foreign basketball contracts are strictly on a year by year basis. Tyler went to a west coast open tryout camp last month where he played exceptionally well. At the camp, he was invited to hang around for a second week for a tryout camp that a bunch of Chinese teams were having. Chinese teams are allowed to have two foreign players on the roster. Tyler excelled at the camp and was named to the camp’s all star team. Then came draft day when the Chinese teams held a draft to populate their squads. As a result of his camp, Tyler fully expect to be drafted in the first round. Nope. In fact, he slipped all the way to the 2nd pick of the third round. Bad news, because only players in the first two rounds get those guaranteed Chinese contracts. Tyler was extremely disappointed.

Right after the camp was over, Tyler was called aside by Rick Barry (yup, the Rick Barry) who was running the camp. Barry told him that the Chinese teams were under orders from management back home to bring in big black guys not white one. So Tyler is a victim of racial discrimination. However, that’s when the good news happened. Barry told Tyler he thought he had NBA level skills and would make some contacts to see if he could arrange a tryout. True to his word, Barry called a couple of days later and said he had arranged a tryout with the Jazz. Tyler went to the tryout last week with three other guys and at the end of the tryout Tyler was signed to the Jazz’s practice squad.

He doesn’t have the team made yet (the Jazz are taking 18 players to camp but can only keep 15) but he’s got a chance which is more than he thought just a month ago.

So Ken, if you see a tall white guy that looks like this:

tell him you are a real relative of Uncle Larry.

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I’m dead

evidently.

A week ago Saturday, I ran into a couple of my old college roommates, “Doc” Scarborough and Dave Hannum, down at the Tavern after the football game. In the course of our conversation, Doc said to me “Well, it’s good to confirm with my own eyes that you’re still alive”.

When I gave him kind of an inquisitive look he said “Didn’t you know that the Penn State Alumni Assocation published an obituary notice about you in their magazine a few months ago?” Doc added that he was shocked to see it and had emailed Dave about it. Dave replied back to him that he had just seen me a few weeks before and that I looked “remarkably healthy for a dead guy”.

That comment got me thinking. I hadn’t remembered getting the Alumni magazine recently and I had just received a bill from the Alumni Association for annual membership fees even though I am a paid up lifetime member. I jokingly told Doc that maybe the Alumni Association had killed me off to void my liftime membership so they could get me to rejoin.

I called the Alumni Assocation to get to the bottom of the issue last week. They told me that I had received the “dues notification” because I wasn’t flagged on their records as being a lifetime member. When I complained that I’ve been a member for over 20 years, they went into my detailed records and where able to find my payment so they adjusted my membership status.

When I suggested that perhaps the “obituary notice” might have been the cause of my getting dropped from the roles, the representative responded that my old roommate must have been mistaken because there was no indication on my record that I was deceased. When I replied that while I doubted that he had made a mistake, I couldn’t confirm it because I hadn’t been receiving my issues of the Alumni magazine. The rep offered to send me the last few back issues.

Those back issues arrived this weekend and I just got a chance to go through them. Sure enough, in the issue from last March, there I appear in their “In Memoriam” section.

What’s interesting is that I’m listed with our old Rolling Meadows address even though I’ve never lived there. What’s doubly interesting is that, even though I haven’t been getting the Alumni Magazine, I’ve continue to get all sorts of other mailings from them. Also, their online information about me has been correct because I check it every now and then. Strange indeed. I doubt I’ll ever get to the bottom of how it happened but I will be asking them to correct my obit.

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My recovery continues

Played 18 on Friday with no problems with the knee during the round. It was a little sore Friday evening but nothing too bad so I decided to play in the senior club championship afterall.

Seedings in the tournament are by handicap following the defending champ who gets the #1 seed. I was seeded seventh which meant that I had to play the #2 seed, the lowest handicapped player in the tournament.

I played as well as I have in a long time and had my opponent on the ropes for most of the match. I opened up with a par and a birdie and quickly went up 2 holes. My opponent fought his way back and managed to tie the match by the seventh hole when he executed a beautiful sand save for a par. I failed to get up and down from about three feet off the back of the green when I missed a five footer for my par.

On the eighth hole, I went one down when I was overly agressive on a downhill 12 footer to win the hole. I slid about four feet past the hole and missed the comeback putt.

My par on nine evened the match when my opponent failed to get up and down from the back fringe of the green. I wound up shooting a 41 for the nine.

Another par on the par three tenth put me one up when my opponent once again failed to get up and down from off the green. The next three holes were all halved with a bogey and two pars so going into 14 I still held onto a one hole lead.

The 14th is a long par five and I laced a drive just into the right hand rough while my opponent wound up in a fairway bunker so I felt comfortably in control. He did manage to advance the ball about 150 yards with a decent recovery shot. I good lie but a downhill stance but as I swung my right foot slipped right out from under me. I only advanced the ball about 40 yards still in the rough. I was about 250 out but the ball was sitting up in the rough so I decide to take an aggressive cut at the ball. Bad move. The ball went off of the toe of the club deep into impenetrable brush and trees to the right. I had to take an unplayable and the hole was basically lost right there as my opponent made par.

That evened the match up but my confidence was gone. I staggered over the next three holes with a bogey, double bogey, double bogey and my opponent went par, bogey, par to close me out 3-1.

All in all, I was pretty happy with my play though. For 13 holes, I was just six over, which is as well as I’ve played in a long time. Plus, the best part was that the knee held up just fine so it looks like I can get back to my normal 5 rounds or so a week.