This INCREDIBLE picture was taken in 1918. It is 18,000 men preparing for war in a training camp at Camp Dodge in Des Moines, Iowa.

What a priceless gift from our grandfathers.

T Boone Pickens is advocating the use of CNG (compressed natural gas) as a short term solution to the gas crisis. I considered making a change and switching to CNG, but there are some roadblocks.

First is the availabilty of cars that run on CNG.  There is only one manufacturer, but they are sold out and there is a waiting list.  There is the option of converting gasoline vehicles to natural gas, but it's expensive and there is probably no way to justify the cost with the difference in fuel prices.

Second is the availability of fuel. There are 17 CNG refueling stations in the entire state of Illinois. None of them are available to the public.  The only way to refuel in Illinois is to have a personal refueling station at your house.

This video was interesting and educational.

An elementary school class started a class project to make planters to take home.  They wanted to use a plant that was easy to take care of, so cactus was chosen.

The students were given green-ware pottery planters in the shape of clowns which they painted with glaze. Then the planters were professionally fired at a class outing so they could see the process.

It was great fun! They planted cactus seeds in the finished planters and they grew nicely, but unfortunately, the children were not allowed to take them home.

The cactus plants were removed and were replaced by a small ivy plant.  Only after the change were the children allowed to take the planters home.


The teacher said cactus seemed like a good idea at the time!

I got this in an email.  It is reprinted exactly as I received it. I wonder if they'll ever get together for another family photo.

THE BEARS AND I (By Tom Sears)

Black bears typically have two cubs, rarely one or three. In 2007, in northern  New Hampshire, a black bear sow gave birth to five healthy young. There were two or three reports of sows with as many as four cubs but five was, and is, extraordinary. I learned of them shortly after they emerged from their den and set myself a goal of photographing all five cubs with their mom, no matter how much time and effort was involved. I knew the trail they followed on a fairly regular basis, usually shortly before dark. After spending nearly four hours a day, seven days a week, for six weeks I had that once in a lifetime opportunity and photographed them in the shadows and dull lighting of the evening. Due to these conditions the photograph is a bit noisy as I had to use the equivalent of a very fast film speed on my digital camera. The print is properly focused and well exposed with all six bears posing as if they were in a studio for a family portrait:

I stayed in touch with other people who saw the bears during the summer and into the fall hunting season. All six bears continued to thrive. As time for hibernation approached, I found still more folks who had seen them and everything remained OK.

I stayed away from the bears as I was concerned that they might become habituated to me, or to people in general, as approachable friends. This could be dangerous for both man and animal. After Halloween I received no further reports and could only hope the bears survived until they hibernated.

This spring, before the snow disappeared, all six bears came out of their den and wandered the same familiar territory they trekked in the spring of 2007. I saw them before mid April and dreamed nightly of taking another family portrait, an improbable second once in a lifetime photograph. On April 25, 2008 I achieved my dream...



When something as magical as this happens between man and animal Native Americans say, 'We have walked together in the shadow of a rainbow.'

And so it is with humility and great pleasure that I share these photos with you.

Sincerely, Tom Sears

This is the story of how the works of Shakespeare led to the breaking of German codes during World War I.


Colonel George Fabyan was an eccentric, wealthy cloth merchant, who in 1905, purchased a small acreage which would grow to become a 300 acre estate near Geneva, Illinois, which is 40 miles west of Chicago (about five miles from our house). He hired Frank Lloyd Wright to remodel the house and began adorning his estate with improvements like an imported Dutch windmill, a Roman bath, a Japanese garden, and several exotic animals. He even had his own private train station built along the Fox River.

You have probably heard the theory that Sir Francis Bacon was Shakespeare. That idea was made popular by people like Fabyan. He was convinced that Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare and there were encrypted messages embedded in the original editions that would prove his theory and lead to great scientific discoveries.  He found the best cryptologists in the United States and brought them to Illinois. Led by Elizebeth and William Friedman their group began studying Bacon's "bilateral cipher" and other codes.  He had a cottage named "The Lodge" built for them and began acquiring all the first editions and manuscripts of Shakespeare that he could lay his hands on.

Did I mention that he was wealthy and eccentric?


                   "THE LODGE"                            "William & Elizabeth Friedman"

They had been at this work for five years when in 1917 the the "war to end all wars" began. The United States decided to begin a department (which eventually became The National Security Agency) that could decipher the coded messages of our enemies. When they looked around for expert cryptologists to staff their newly created group, they found that the best experts in the United States had already been hired and were working for Colonel Fabyan and led by the Friedmans.

Because Fabyan was a patriot and a publicity whore, he loaned his facilities and personnel to the government.  This team developed into the NSA and cracked enemy codes which aided in the victory in WWI and later in WWII.  During the war and for a time after it ended, all government code breakers were trained at Fabyan's estate. 

At another time, I'll tell the story of Colonel Fabyan's attempt to create levitation and where that venture led, but like I mentioned, that's another story.