Blog of Josh Hall

When I was a kid I played baseball at a field that was on the same street as my grandfather’s (Pappap’s) house, but a good mile down the road, and across a pretty heavily trafficked intersection.

Let me back up a little bit.  You have to know a little bit about Pappap.  I’m sure my family, and extended family for sure, have different impressions of who he was.  As a kid growing up in the house with Pappap, he was kind of just around a lot.  He’d wake up early, sit at the opposite end of the kitchen table where a small black and white TV displayed CNN while he drank his coffee.  He’d wear his white sleeveless undershirt for most of the morning.  At some point, he’d slip on down to the miner’s club and do whatever he did there.  When he was home at night, he was laying on the couch watching CNN.  Sometimes, there would be a small exchange of conversation, but it was usually pretty quiet.  He was certainly a gentle spirit, I never thought he was apathetic, just satisfied to cut the grass and come in and have a can of Old Milwaukee.

Anyway, he never expressed a lot of interest in me, but one day, I was playing outfield and I looked up at the bleachers up on the hill and saw Pappap.  He wasn’t sitting on the bleachers cheering, he was just standing to the side.   Anyone else wouldn’t have even noticed him, and that’s probably what he was going for.  He stayed for most of the game.  I remember wanting to call out and wave to him, to show him I appreciated him coming to my game.  It was such a surprise to see him.  He left before the end of the game.  I was going home with my dad that night, but the next time I saw Pappap, I told him that I saw and asked if he had driven over or if he was just passing by.  He said that he walked over just to see me play.

That meant the world to me.  To give you my perspective – My dad went to EVERY game any of us went to; not to cheer us on, but to critique us on every mistake we made.  My mom NEVER went to games, either for lack of interest or fear of my dad.  Pappap though, he came just to watch me play.  Oh, hello father figure.

As I grew up, I grew closer to Pappap.  I understood him and I loved his candor and wit.  When he moved into a private care home, I’d go down and hang out by myself, sometimes not even telling anyone else that I was going.

I can’t remember a single time he ever told me he loved me.  I don’t remember a single hug.  Yet, I have the feeling that he did it all the time.

Looks like the Hill’s grocery store is finally financially stable enough to move forward and be completed by late spring or early summer, but we’ve been told that before.  Also in the article is an announcement for new apartments and retail 1 block away from me.  Good news! – http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/funding-secured-for-hill-district-shop-n-save-660928/

If you are curious what is in plan for the Hill District in the coming years, here’s the recently completed master plan.  It’s not a quick read by any means at 146 pages, but you can at least scroll through the pictures.  TLDR;

Here’s some highlights:

• Reconnect the Hill to downtown’s street grid.
• Amphitheater at MLK park
• Shops along Centre avenue
• More fill in housing and mixed income developments
• Residential revival of Bedford avenue and further roads to capitalize on the amazing views above the Allegheny river and the Strip District.

http://greaterhilldistrictmasterplan.org/worktodate.html

don’t stick your hand in the elevator door.

If you still want to stick your hand in the elevator door, read these stories about people getting trapped and killed.  That should make you think again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/nyregion/elevator-accident-kills-a-woman-in-a-madison-avenue-building.html

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/elevator.asp

And here’s an elevator safety video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL9RiK8LDG0

The truth is, you’re not in that much of a hurry.  if you go to a floor below the people on that elevator, They may visualize harming you that whole way up to your floor.  Think about it, maybe they were in a hurry, and you just slowed them down.  Jerk.

Look, I’m not some super educated person, and I’ll never claim to be.  It’s very possibly, and probably likely, everyone already knows this, but this just dawned on me the other day.  I’m not even going to bother researching it further because 1)I’m sure it’s there and 2) I won’t understand what they’re talking about it to confirm if it really does exist.

Here’s my idea.  Read-only time travel is possible once we develop:

1) a powerful camera (or more than 1) in space aimed at earth traveling away faster than the speed of light

2) Wireless data transfer speeds from lens back to us faster than the speed of light.
We just need to go faster than the speed of light to “catch up” to the light from the past and then be able to send those images back.  It’s the same principle as some of the stars in the sky already being gone, but it’s just taken that long for the light of those stars to reach us.  If we sent the camera out at a speed faster than the speed of light, it would be outpacing all the light being sent out into space from earth.

As long as the lens is strong enough, we could send out access point satellites after it to relay the data back to earth.  If we sent of a bunch of these cameras as different angles, we’d be able to take the data and reconstruct 3D space of the video captured.  We could very well watch history unfold (after an initial folding) infront of our eyes.

The other awesome thing to think about is, the data isn’t going anywhere.  Well, I guess technically, it is GOING away from the earth, but it should all still be there.  It’s like God has been synchronous data backups since the dawn of time and all we need to do is to develop the technology to restore the archives.

Much like sidewalk in Michael Jackson’s video for Billy Jean, I always wanted some cool walkway that lit up.  I saw this show up in a friend’s facebook feed and thought it was awesome.  It might be a little much for a driveway, but I could definitely enjoy a nice little walkway around the side of the house or something.  Glow in the dark stones are a great idea for any subtle hit of light without having to worry about electricity.  http://www.buzzfeed.com/whitneyjefferson/how-to-have-the-coolest-driveway

Here’s the best part about those yellowed Legos:  You’re able to turn them back to their original color cheaply and easily!

I had just googled for a solution (pun intended) on getting all my discolored bricks back to normal.  All that playing in the sun really did a number on them.

As it turns out, all it takes is some Oxyclean and some hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).  I went to Family Dolllar, picked up 5 32 ounce bottles of 3% H2O2, and Kallie already had a box of the oxyclean powder for the laundry  (pro tip: oxyclean does wonders when your husband leaves chapstick in his pocket and cycles it through the washer and dryer).

Now, I’ve got a couple thousand of newly acquired white bricks that have been yellowed.  I sorted them by shape and then into shoe box sized plastic containers.  I poured in the H2O2, then a scoop of the oxyclean.  Give it a good stir and shake to start the reaction, and you’ll start seeing bubbles.  Now, let that sit in sunlight for a few hours.  I let mine sit for 6 hours total.  I stirred it around every 2 hours to make sure all the pieces got some sun light.   Depending on how many pieces you have, you might want to just get them to lay flat and leave space around them so you don’t have to stir.  The other obstacle to think about is that these plastic parts float!  I put enough hydrogen peroxide in so the whole clump of pieces floated about an inch above the bottom of the container, so sunlight could still get to those bottom pieces.

Here’s a before and after of some of the worst pieces I hand selected to test:

WOW, right?  No washing or scrubbing or anything.  Notice the 1×1 didn’t change much.  I realized afterward that it’s not a LEGO brick, but some imitation, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I’m super satisfied with how well they turned out!  Apparently, this can be done with any of those white plastic devices around your house that turn yellow over time, like printers, air filters, etc.

If you don’t like the results, add more oxyclean and let it sit in the sun longer.  It will work for all those discolored bricks too, not just white.  Let me know if you found this helpful and you end up doing it too!