My sledding souvenir

The start of the fateful sledding run

I spent this past week at the Veterans Administration’s War-Related Illnesses and Injuries Center (WRIISC), getting examined to figure out the strange health issues I’ve had since leaving the Navy (more on that later).

One issue I discussed with them has bothered me for the past few years.I’ve had a numbness that has developed along my right quadricep. It’s icy-cold sensation can wake me from a deep sleep and is quite aggravating. They asked me if I could recall any injury I may have had to my lower back.

At the time I could think of none. but when pondering it this morning the answer came to me and it is decidedly not war-related. Instead, it’s the long-delayed consequences from an injury I received from snow sledding with the family.
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The Book of Prince | The New Yorker

On January 29, 2016, Prince summoned me to his home, Paisley Park, to tell me about a book he wanted to write. He was looking for a collaborator. Paisley Park is in Chanhassen, Minnesota, about forty minutes southwest of Minneapolis. Prince treasured the privacy it afforded him. He once said, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, that Minnesota is “so cold it keeps the bad people out.” Sure enough, when I landed, there was an entrenched layer of snow on the ground, and hardly anyone in sight.

Prince’s driver, Kim Pratt, picked me up at the airport in a black Cadillac Escalade. She was wearing a plastic diamond the size of a Ring Pop on her finger. “Sometimes you gotta femme it up,” she said. She dropped me off at the Country Inn & Suites, an unremarkable chain hotel in Chanhassen that served as a de-facto substation for Paisley. I was “on call” until further notice. A member of Prince’s team later told me that, over the years, Prince had paid for enough rooms there to have bought the place four times over.

My agent had put me up for the job but hadn’t refrained from telling me the obvious: at twenty-nine, I was extremely unlikely to get it. In my hotel room, I turned the television on. I turned the television off. I had a mint tea. I felt that I was joining a long and august line of people who’d been made to wait by Prince, people who had sat in rooms in this same hotel, maybe in this very room, quietly freaking out just as I was quietly freaking out.

Source: The Book of Prince | The New Yorker

Our car’s keyfob was hacked – the question is how?

We were out of town over the weekend and at 5:30 AM Saturday I awakened to the sound of one beep of our car’s “alarm” horn. Thinking it was the neighbor’s car and knowing our car was locked, I went back to bed. When we walked to the car later that morning, the hatch was standing wide open. Nothing appeared to be touched or taken.

I was immediately concerned that somehow our keyfob had been hacked. Kelly thought something probably bumped up against one of our keyfobs and that caused it to open. We’ve had the car for years, though, and an “accident” like this has never happened. If something pressed a keyfob button, why would it sound just one beep of the horn alarm? Why not trigger it to sound repeatedly, as would happen if it were a single press of the button? Seems unlikely an accidental press of a button would cause one clean beep and then cause the hatchback to open.

So, naturally I am fascinated with whatever technology was used for this! There are a couple of approaches.
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Deed to the Christmas property

I spent a little time earlier this year traipsing through the Wake County Register of Deeds records, trying to find out more about the history of my community. I traced the ownership of my property back to the mid-1800s, including this deed for 109 acres for what became known as the Christmas property, filed in January 1899. Bridges was the owner of the Oak City Dairy Farm, if I recall correctly.

The property was sold for $2,616. According to one inflation calculator, $2,616 in 1899 dollars is equivalent to $80,731. An acre of land here appraises today for $43,200. You could say we’ve seen some growth. 🙂

Below is the deed as transcribed by me. Here’s a scanned PDF of the original handwritten version at the Wake County Register of Deeds.

North Carolina
Wake County

This deed made by Mary M. Christmas Executrix of the late Thomas B. Bridges to Lewis J. Christmas of Charleston, West Virginia. Witnesseth:

That whereas by his last will and testament the said Thomas B. Bridges directed that all his real estate be sold for cash after giving thirty days notice and appointed Mary. M. Christmas his Executrix, which will was duly admitted to probate in the Superior Court of Wake County before the clerk and said Mary M. Christmas duly qualified as executrix and letters testamentary were duly issued to her as such and whereas it being necessary to sell the lands hereinafter conveyed in order to pay the debts of said T. B. Bridges the said Mary M. Christmas as Executrix as aforesaid after advertisement for thirty days in the Times Visitor a newspaper published in Raleigh, N.C. and the court house door in Raleigh, N.C. did on the 27th day of December 1898 expose the lands hereinafter conveyed to public sale to the highest bidder at the court house door in Raleigh, N.C. for cash and at said sale said lands were purchased by said Lewis T. Christmas be being the last and highest bidder for said lands and whereas said Lewis T. Christmas has paid the purchase money for said lands in cash to wit the sum of $2616.00 for the tract of 109 acres known as the Home Place and the sum of $150 for the tract of about 58 acres known as the Brown tract:
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Go Tell It On the Mountain — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER

Great writing here.

I had a dream.

The Georgia General Assembly funded a memorial for Martin Luther King Jr. and his top aides to be carved on Stone Mountain.

The lawmakers commissioned a bas-relief of MLK and John Lewis and Andy Young, this to be beveled into gray granite beside Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. (A half-century ago, the Georgia General Assembly maneuvered to have that holy trinity of notable Confederates, along with their horses, carved onto Stone Mountain.)

At dream speed, hundreds of stonemasons dangled by rope down the side of the most famous … and infamous … pluton in the South. They lit the fuses on sticks of dynamite. They pounded chisels. They swung picks and fired up thermojet torches.

In no time, they sculpted a brand new Stone Mountain monument.When the artisans stood back to admire their work, they beheld the great black generals of the Civil Rights Movement. They stood side-by-side with the great white generals of the Civil War.

Here stood a New Stone Mountain.

Source: Go Tell It On the Mountain — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER

Rep. Joe John statement on Abe Zeiger’s arrest

NC House District 40 Representative Joe John was the person Abraham Zeiger was due to meet on Friday before Zeiger was arrested for carrying a pistol and two fully-loaded magazines into the North Carolina General Assembly building. Rep. John read the following statement on the House floor Monday night:

This gentleman actually had an appointment to see me. I made the following statement on the House floor Monday night:

Members, last week I had an 11:30 AM Wednesday constituent appointment with a resident of House District 40, whom I had not met previously, to discuss some fairly non-controversial issue. 11:30 came and went without the appointment being met, not all that unusual as many of you have experienced. When I went to lunch at 12:30, he was still a no-show.

We learned later that day the reason my appointment never arrived. He had been detained at our legislative building security check-in while attempting to enter this building with a loaded handgun and two full clips concealed in his bag, and had consequently been arrested and charged accordingly. He reportedly gave no explanation for his actions and was actually remarkably silent.

I want to thank publicly the members of the NC General Assembly Police Department who were on duty last Wednesday and acted expeditiously and appropriately. I would also like to thank the Legislative Services Officer and the Rules Chair for their follow-up and the many of you who expressed your concern.

That being said, in light of very recent events, I would ask each of you, for a moment, to imagine that the gentleman’s appointment was with you, in your office, rather than with me in mine. This incident after all took place, not hundreds of miles away in the distant states of Ohio and Texas, but right here, not only in our North Carolina capital city, but in this very building where we work and govern and spend so many hours. And as you reflect, I would ask you to consider whether it is now not time to throw partisanship and ideology into the trashcan, and to sit down for a full, frank and open-minded conversation about reaching a North Carolina common sense consensus with regards to role of firearms in our state.

I considered this often over the past weekend which Evelyn and I were able to spend at the coast with two adult children and three young granddaughters. I, for one, greatly enjoyed being “Pa” at the beach, I look forward to many more such weekends, and I am more than ready to have the conversation of which I spoke. If any of you feel the same, please let me know.

AP: Man with gun stopped by security at N Carolina legislature

Here’s an uncredited AP story on the arrest of Zeiger. It includes a quote from his attorney:

“It is unfortunate that any malice be attributed to such an upstanding citizen who merely made an oversight,” Gibson wrote.

Nice spin there, counselor! At the checkpoint, Zeiger was specifically asked whether he had any weapons in his bag. That should’ve been enough to trigger (so to speak) Zeiger’s memory that perhaps he did, in fact, have a weapon in his bag and that he should take it back to his vehicle. Oversight, my ass.

I look forward to Zeiger’s day in court.

August 2, 2019

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A man faces charges of carrying a concealed handgun into North Carolina’s legislative building, which this year implemented airport-style security measures for people seeking to interact with lawmakers.

Abraham James Zeiger, 36, of Raleigh was charged with trying to carry the gun into the building on Wednesday, police records show. He sought to enter the building to speak to his legislator and didn’t realize he was carrying the gun, attorney Emily Gibson said in an email Friday.

“It is unfortunate that any malice be attributed to such an upstanding citizen who merely made an oversight,” Gibson wrote.

The General Assembly’s police chief and its chief management officer didn’t return a call Friday seeking more details about the arrest.

Zeiger was stopped by officers who spotted a suspicious item as his bag passed through an X-ray scanner, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported . Officers found a 9 mm handgun and two magazines, each loaded with 15 bullets, General Assembly Police Chief Martin Brock told the newspaper.

The arrest marked the first instance of a gun being found during the screening process at the entrance to the state’s legislative building, which hosts staff and legislative offices, hearing rooms and the chambers where the 50-member Senate and 120-member House meet.

Legislative activities were minimal this week as lawmakers try to overcome Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the two-year state budget. On Wednesday, House members discussed a commission to oversee the purchase and sale of milk and approved legislation to expand the requirement for adults to report claims of child sex abuse to the authorities.

Letter to the editor on assault weapons

I sent this letter to the editor to the N&O today. I hope it gets printed.

I served four years in the U.S. Navy never having heard an AK-47. Then a week ago, hotheads brought their gun battle to my neighborhood. It became crystal clear hearing that cannon-like booming that these assault rifles are nothing less than weapons of war.

There is no justification for anyone outside of the military or law enforcement to posses assault weapons. Can we get to the well-regulated part of our “well-regulated militia” now?

Man who brought gun to NCGA expressed far-right views

Update 2019-08-14: I have been pondering Friday’s arrest of Abe Zeiger for bringing a gun into the North Carolina General Assembly and it’s possible that I was wrong about his intentions. Yes, I certainly did find a number of gun-themed and seemingly anti-government posts on his Facebook page but to be fair, these were all forwarded and not authored by Zeiger himself. Other photos portray Zeiger as a family man and I found no evidence that things weren’t going well with his life. I am sorry if I misinterpreted the digital breadcrumbs I was able to piece together.

On the other hand, I hope he sees how someone could draw this conclusion. The Bundy item was especially disturbing – celebrating the pointing weapons at law enforcement officers is no joke – and what’s more it wasn’t even remotely truthful. To repost this on Facebook a week before showing up at the state legislature with a pistol and 30 rounds is enough to put a community on edge.

Any why was the gun in his bag when he didn’t have a concealed carry permit (CCP)? Why didn’t he declare the gun when asked by officers at

While his intentions could have been completely innocent when he showed up with a gun, the truth is that no one could know that for certain. It only takes seconds for a mass shooting to occur and officers don’t have the luxury of trust.

Zeiger could very well be a stand-up guy, just trying to do the right thing. If so, I applaud his intentions though I’d rather he left the “good guy with the gun” role to law enforcement. At the same time, he made a big mistake by not removing his weapon before entering a secured building, and for carrying a weapon around in his bag without possessing a CCP. While I am not as concerned as I once was that he may be a threat to society, there is no getting around the fact that he was not being responsible with his gun.

Abe Zeiger

On Friday afternoon, a man was arrested at the North Carolina General Assembly for trying to sneak in a 9mm pistol and two magazines of 15 rounds apiece. The man, Abraham James Zeiger, age 36, was charged with unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon and violating legislative building rules. The story by Lauren Horsch in the N&O quoted the N.C. State Capitol Police as expressing surprise at their catching Zeiger as he was not on their radar, so to speak. The General Assembly implemented stricter security measures at the General Assembly in April of last year.

“I can’t be more pleased with the (screening) process,” General Assembly Police Chief Martin Brock said of the security measures that caught the gun. “It could have easily been missed.”

Since this story took place on a Friday afternoon – a time when news stories tend to get lost in the lull of the weekend – there didn’t seem to be many in the media who were asking just who is Zeiger? Also since I happen to know several people who work in the General Assembly, I wanted to know what might have motivated Zeiger and what he may have been planning to do with that gun. It didn’t take me long to find the answers.
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Newly Discovered Cellular Pathway May Mean New Approach For How We Treat Alzheimer’s and Cancer

They started out studying the immune response to brain tumors in children. But what they found may not only stop tumors from growing, but halt Alzheimer’s disease as well. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital—the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children—have discovered a pathway that prevents the buildup of a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The findings offer a possible new approach to treatment of Alzheimer’s and cancer.

Researchers of the study—published this month in the journal Cell—named the pathway LC3-associated endocytosis or LANDO. They hope to now find compounds that will allow them to restore functioning of the pathway to treat Alzheimer’s disease or block it to treat malignant tumors.

Source: Newly Discovered Cellular Pathway May Mean New Approach For How We Treat Alzheimer’s and Cancer