Tom Nichol's Blog

From Humble Beginnings--The Genesis of Callaway Gardens

2010-06-04T14:53:00.003-05:00

There's an old saying that "mighty oaks from little acorns grow." In other words, sometimes a little incident can produce unexpectedly big results. So it was that, just 80 years ago, an incident in the life of a Georgia businessman set in motion a chain of events that would change his life forever. This is the story of that event.

In the summer of 1930, Georgia industralist Cason Callaway, weary of the many business-related telephone calls that were even coming in on Sundays, began the custom of walking around a farm property that was for sale in the area of Pine Mountain, Georgia, some 75 miles south-southwest of Atlanta. The property in question was knowns as Blue Springs Farm. Like many similar properties in Georgia, its soil had been worn down by years of heavy over-cultivation and over-cropping, especially cotton. Yet, there were nooks and crannies, here and there, where there was still perceptible fertility in the soil. Although Callaway had been described by many of his friends as "a completely practical businessman," there was a strong streak of sensitivity in his character. That sensitivity made its presence known in a variety of ways, especially where his lovely wife, Virginia, was concerned. He was powerfully influenced by her love of nature, and he eagerly sought to share it.

On one Sunday in particular, Callaway was wandering around the more remote areas of Blue Springs Farm. Suddenly, he spotted a small valley he had never seen before. His curiosity aroused, walked deeper into the valley to investigate. He little dreamed that that investigation would alter the entire course of his life.

As he reached the far end of the valley, Callaway spotted a small stream, boiling out of the ground at a rate that later tests would disclose to be some 300 gallons a minute. From that point on, on either side of the stream, flowing like the lava from a volcanic eruption, stood wave after wave after wave of the most gorgeously blazing orange-red flowers Callaway had ever beheld. A closer look revealed that all of the plants were of the same variety. He recognized that they were some type of azalea, but they were of a type that Callaway had never seen before. As it turned out they would be a type of azalea he would never forget.

Callaway thereupon snapped off one of the flaming blossoms and took it home to his wife, Virginia, a self-taught and knowledgeable horticulturist. She promptly identified the flower as the plumleaf azalea (Rhododendron prunifolium). She explained to her husband that this particular variety of azalea was especially noteworthy, not only for its blazing orange-red color, but for its exceptionally late blooming season, which begins in June and, in some cases, extends all the way into early September. She further explained that this particular species was native only to an area within a 100-mile radius of the very area of Pine Mountain where he had found it. (Today, efforts are underway to have this species declared endangered.)

Virginia Callaway's explanation somehow struck a responsive chord within her husband. He promptly made arrangements to buy Blue Springs Farm, and began a campaign to nurture and protect this species from extinction. One of his first acts in this campaign was to employ a man to wander into the nooks and crannies, the ridges and valleys, of his newly-acquired property, and gather as many seeds of the plumleaf azalea as he could find. The resulting 20,000 seeds were carefully germinated and then tenderly planted beside the bubbling waters of the Blue Springs, in an area adjacent to the existing plantings. Five years later, to Callaway's great satisfaction, the transplanted seedlings burst into glorious, blazing bloom.

These were the first "baby steps" in the chain of events that would culminate in the formation, incorporation, and endowment of one of the premiere vacation resorts in the southeastern United States, appropriately named Callaway Gardens. Along the way, in 1946, the Garden Club of America presented Mr. Callaway with its Frances K. Hutcherson Award" in recognition of his efforts to preserve and nurture the plumleaf azalea.

Today, plumleaf azalea plants are readily available from selected vendors, both online and by mail order. And from June through September, visitors to what is now known as Callaway Gardens Resort can enjoy and admire the extensive plantings of the plumleaf azalea, as well as many other azalea and rhododendron varieties, that form the glorious and colorful backdrop--the foundation--the backbone of the resort that all started from this truly humble beginning.

For more information about Callaway Gardens Resort, go to their website at www.callawaygardens.com.

Spotlight on Shannon Garst

2010-06-04T14:22:00.002-05:00

Among the age group who grew up in the 1950's and 60's, there are many readers who fondly remember the writings of Shannon Garst. In a career that spanned nearly 4 decades, Mrs. Garst wrote some 38 volumes of the most popular and most respected children's literature of the 20th century, both fiction and non-fiction.

Born in Ironwood, Michigan on July 24, 1894, Doris Shannon (her step-father's surname) initially trained to be a school teacher and principal. She married Joseph Garst, an attorney, and settled in Douglas, Wyoming, the county seat of Converse County, Wyoming. Here she continued her teaching career, and began to write. Her first book, "The Story of Wyoming," was published in 1938. Because the publisher did not believe that a Western-themed book for young people written by a woman would be saleable, she adopted the pen name of "Shannon Garst," a name she would use for the rest of her writing career.

To both her surprise and the publisher's, "The Story of Wyoming" proved to be so successful that Mrs. Garst soon abandoned her teaching career and turned to writing on a full-time basis. Since she lived in ranch country, and with her background as a school teacher and principal, it was only natural that most if not all of her 38 books were oriented toward what today would be called a "tween" audience--that is, kids (especially boys) between the ages of 10 and 13--and that, especially during that era, cowboys and Native Americans would play a major role in most of those books.

In addition to juvenile Western fiction, however, Mrs. Garst authored a number of biographies of well-known figures of her time, including Will Rogers, Amelia Earhart, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Daniel Boone, and Wild Bill Hickok. Her last book, published in 1965, was a biography of Hans Christian Andersen. In addition, Mrs. Garst co-authored 3 books with her son, Warren Garst, who for many years was closely associated with the beloved TV series, "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."

After the death of her husband, Joseph, in 1965, Mrs. Garst, now in her 70's, retired from writing. She lived very quietly in her adopted home town of Douglas, Wyoming, until her death in 1981. The Children's Reading Room of the Converse County, Wyoming Public Library is named in her memory.

Sadly, with the changing tastes of later years, juvenile Western fiction has largely gone out of style, and the works of Mrs. Garst and other authors of her time and genre have been largely forgotten, and have been allowed to go out of print. Indeed, many libraries, due to space and budget constraints, have withdrawn Mrs. Garst's works from their collections, selling their copies in order to make room and raise much-needed funds for newer books. More's the pity, in my opinion, for Mrs. Garst's books, even today can still hold the reader's interest. One major reason for this is that character growth and development on the part of the characters in the stories involved is an integral part of the story lines in most if not all of Mrs. Garst's books, in a way that is sadly lacking in many tween-oriented books that are currently available.

Among the bst-known of Mrs. Garst's books are "Cowboy Boots" (1946), "Silver Spurs for Cowboy Boots" (1949), "Rusty at Ram's Horn Ranch" (1951), and "Ten Gallon Hat" (1953). All of these, and many if not most of Mrs. Garst's other works can often be found on eBay, Amazon, and such used book websites as Alibris, at extremely reasonable prices.

Computer-less--AGAIN!!

2009-11-09T14:35:00.002-06:00

The last time I posted in this blog, I had just received a used Gateway 450 ROG laptop, after the IBM ThinkPad I had been using was stolen. Although the Gateway generally performed well--and running Windows 7 Release Candidate 1, no less!--I soon began to experience problems, first with the battery (which I had expected in view of the laptop's age), and then with the power terminal which the laptop's AC adapter plugged into in the back of the unit.

The problem has now worsened to the point that the laptop has become flat-out unusable. I have therefore been compelled to attempt to sell the unit, and am now confined to using computers at the Nashville State Community College library, the Fairview Public Library, and, on occasion, at the Vanderbilt University Central Library.

Thankfully, I was able to transfer all of my data files to an external hard drive before the laptop failed altogether. Unfortunately, since I have now been unemployed for some six months, I have no way of obtaining another computer on my own. I will have to wait until I can get another job to progress any further as far as building a "living room" PC is concerned. Until then, I will be writing in this blog on other topics, including (but not limited to) severe weather safety, sourdough baking, and--believe it or not!--Western clothing and fashion, especially vintage-style Western clothing. STAY TUNED!!

A New Laptop--and back to Windows 7

2009-08-14T16:34:00.002-05:00

At the end of July, through an unusual series of circumstances, the IBM Thinkpad laptop I had been given by a friend in my church over a year before was stolen from the student lounge in the Kisber Memorial Library Building at Nashville State Community College. My copy of PrintMusic 2007, which was in the bag I had been using to carry the laptop, was also stolen. To say the least, I felt as though I had been violated! Naturally, I reported the theft to school security, but I have yet to hear anything from them.

Through the generosity of my former employer's son and daughter, I have now been given a new laptop (as before, new to me!). It's a Gateway 450ROG, with a Pentium 4 CPU @ 1.7 Ghz., 512 MB of RAM, a 20 GB hard drive--AND internal Wi-Fi! Thanks to the higher clock speed of the CPU, I was able to resume using Windows 7 RC1 as my operating system, at least for the next year. Due to the comparatively small size of the internal hard drive, however, I cannot, at this time, use a dual-boot setup with any distro of Linux. Hopefully, I will be able to swap out the current primary hard drive for a much larger one at some point in the future. In the meantime, I will use portable external hard drives for additional storage.

Also, I am currently exploring the use of music notation software OTHER than PrintMusic, due primarily to the latter's annoying habit of requiring the program to be "re-authorized" after ANY change is made in the contents of the hard drive on which it is installed--even after defragging! While I understand the concern of Coda Technology (PrintMusic's publisher) as to software piracy and the like, nevertheless I find this "solution" to be unacceptable--even paranoid! If the company does not find some other means of resolving this concern, in my opinion, they will be cutting their own corporate throats in the long term, as sooner or later customers will become too fed up with such draconian measures to put up with them any longer. Hopefully, I will be able to find an alternative music notation package that will not insist on such a paranoid approach to software security. Whether that package will run under Windows or Linux remains to be seen. Stay tuned!

Back to Linux and the Laptop

2009-07-20T14:24:00.003-05:00

After my previous tower system failed due to heat-related issues, I was fortunate enough to be able to transplant the innards of the system into a new (new to me, at least!) and larger case, with multiple fans and far better airflow. When, in November, I swapped out the power supply for a new one with dual fans, the remainder of the system came right back to life--that is, until mid-March of this year, when I again experienced heat-related system failure. At this point, I am unsure whether it was the power supply, the motherboard and CPU, or both. Thus, I am once more using the IBM ThinkPad A20m laptop.

About that time, the beta testing program for the upcoming Windows 7 began. Having already downloaded and burned a copy of the initial beta version, I tried it out on the ThinkPad for a time, only to discover that its Pentium III CPU, operating at a clock speed of 700 Mhz., simply was not quite fast enough to handle the load. Consequently, I have switched back to Linux, in a rather unusual combination: After initially installing Xubuntu, a Linux distribution designed specifically for older systems, I have added on the Ubuntu Studio desktop, a package of multiple audio-visual programs. I have also added on the Wine (Windows Emulator) package, and have installed Finale's PrintMusic 2007 for Windows, which I had purchased more than a year before. Unfortunately, I found it necessary to install this package due to the fact that it has several capabilities that Ubuntu Studio's notation programs do not--at least, not yet!

Chief among these is the capability of importing sheet music that has been scanned into the computer in a series of TIFF files. I had already bought a used HP ScanJet 4100c flatbed scanner on eBay right about the time I purchased the PrintMusic package. The problem is that, at least right now, my scanner, which I am reasonably sure is in good condition, simply refuses to work with X-Sane, Ubuntu Linux's built-in scanning package. I am attempting to resolve this mess, so that I can scan several works onto my laptop's hard drive, then use PrintMusic to arrange them, and finally use Denemo and LilyPond to secure the finest quality printed result possible, usng an Apollo P-2500u inkjet printer.

As for my tower system, I have now decided that I will need to replace the motherboard, RAM, and CPU. To reduce the heat load on the system, I will need to switch to at least a dual-core CPU. This in turn will almost certainly require a new motherboard and new RAM. While I will be keeping up with such packages on eBay and the TigerDirect websites, any specific action will have to wait until I get another job, for I quit my job at McDonalds of Fairview in mid-May of this year due to extreme job stress. While I am looking for work, I will be making new entries on this blog much more frequently than I have in the past, and on a variety of subjects. So, dear reader, STAY TUNED!

A Tribute to Pete Smith

2008-08-07T21:03:00.002-05:00

When I was growing up, one of my favorite television programs was the occasional showing of a batch of theatrical short films known as "Pete Smith Specialties." Filmed during the 1930's, 40's, and early 50's, they covered a wide variety of topics, including several of what may well have been the world's first cooking videos. Usually, these films were of a decidedly humorous nature, to the point of making me howl out loud with laughter. Some, however, were of a more serious tone, such as his story of Louis Pasteur's development of immunization, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and amateur radio. Even these, however, invariably contained that special touch of sly, dry wit that was Pete Smith's hallmark throughout his career. In all, over 300 of these films were produced and distributed to movie theaters throughout the United States over a 25-year period. Two of these, "Penny Wisdom" and "Quicker'N A Wink," won Academy Awards for Best Short Subject of 1937 and 1940, respectively.

In addition to producing and narrating these delightful cinematic gems, Pete Smith was for many years the head of publicity and advertising for MGM, where the films were made. Upon his retirement in 1954, he was awarded a special honorary Oscar in recognition of his unique contribution to American filmmaking.

Sadly, his post-retirement years were not kind to Mr. Smith, who had to be hospitalized more and more frequently. Finally, depressed and despondent over his failing health, Pete Smith committed suicide on January 12, 1979, by jumping out of his 9th-floor hospital room window. He was 86 years old.

Even more sadly, however, despite their widespread popularity both in theaters and on television, Warner Home Video (which apparently now owns them) has steadfastly refused to make the Pete Smith Specialties collection available to home video audiences, either on videocassette or DVD. Occasionally, however, the Turner Classic Movies cable broadcasts one or two in between other motion pictures, or in a special presentation, such as their "Marathon of Shorts". Also, a few of them are included in DVD collections of other films, such as those of Esther Williams.

Recently, I was surprised and delighted to find four Pete Smith Specialties on YouTube, of all places! The four shorts in question are "Menu," Radio Hams," "Penny Wisdom," and "Fisticuffs". I was glad indeed to be able to see them, to laugh at them, to enjoy them again. How I wish that somebody at Warner Home Video would have the brains--and the guts!--to make the entire collection available on DVD. I think they would be VERY pleasantly surprised at how popular they would once more prove to be! Warner Home Video, are you listening?

Starting Over

2008-08-05T20:57:00.002-05:00

Shortly after I posted my last blog entry in November 2007, a series of heat-related problems began to occur with ever-growing frequency. The root cause of the problem lay in the fact that the case I have used for my desktop PC since 2003 is, by current standards, too small to permit sufficient airflow to cool the system properly. Also, there were not enough openings for case fans to create the necessary airflow. The situation became even worse when I upgraded my system from 1 GB of RAM to 2 GB, consisting of 4 SDIMM units of 512 MB each. Although I applied aluminum heat spreaders to each one, the heat problem grew steadily worse, even when I left one side of the case completely open.

Matters finally came to a head in mid-June of 2008. I shut the computer down in order to go pick up and deposit my paycheck. When I returned, to my dismay and chagrin, the computer refused to start up! It would begin the power-up sequence, then abruptly shut down after about five seconds. At this point, I realized that, for all intents and purposes, my PC was dead as a doornail, and that I would have to build a new one almost entirely from scratch.

In assessing what I would need for such a new system, I determined that the SATA hard drive, the sound card, and the TV tuner card were all savalgeable, and I could safely use them in the new system. That would, however, still require a new case, power supply, motherboard, RAM, and a new video card. An online search revealed that a so-called "barebones kit" would most likely be the most cost-efficient approach. Due to an upcoming out-of-state trip, however, I would have to wait at least until November, and the beginning of the holiday season (and the numerous sales and specials hat would become available during that time) before I could even begin to contemplate such a purchase.

In the meantime, I still needed a PC to use in my apartment, as the computer facilities at my local public library are often in heavy use, especially by students. Thankfully, a very generous friend in my church was kind enough to allow me the use of a used IBM ThinkPad A20m laptop, complete with a wi-fi card, until I could get a new desktop unit built. Even so, I have had to upgrade the memory, and install a new hard drive and a DVD-ROM drive, as well as a complete re-installation of Windows and Linux, to get this new system to where I could really use it.

As of right now, "my" laptop is configured as follows:

IBM ThinkPad A20m with Pentium III CPU @ 700 Mhz
512 MB of RAM (the maximum amount the system will hold)
120 GB hard drive
NetGear wireless card
Windows XP Home Edition, upgraded to Service Pack 3
Xubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), operating in a "dual-boot" setup with Windows XP
DVD-ROM drive, which can be "swapped out" with the original CD-ROM drive if need be
An extra battery
Cooling pad containing 2 fans and a 4-port USB hub
Two USB external hard drives (one is 80 GB PATA-133, the other is 120 GB SATA-300),
which are primarily intended for home use and for backups

Future upgrades will be confined to a possible DVD burner drive (to replace the current DVD-ROM drive), possibly equipped with LightScribe capability (if the budget permits!), plus an upgraded version of InterVideo's WinDVD package. (I am currently using an OEM edition of WinDVD version 5, which is limited to strictly 2-channel sound; I may upgrade to the Platinum Edition of WinDVD version 6, which includes full Dolby Headphone surround support. Due to hardware constraints, it would be pointless to upgrade to any later version of this package, since the CPU's clock speed would not meet the package's hardware requirements.)

Despite the setbacks I have suffered along the way, I am still hoping to have a full home theater/media center desktop PC in operation by the end of 2008, or by early 2009. (I should note that, in place of Linux MCE, I will most likely be using the "Mythbuntu" Linux distribution (again as a "dual-boot" setup with either Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Media Center 2005) as the primary operating system. This is due to the fact that Linux MCE does not allow the end user to check for updates or add software manually, a restriction I cannot accept. Also, Linux MCE is designed more as a "whole-house" setup than a simple, "one-PC" system such as I am having to use (especially since I live in an apartment), and is therefore "overkill" in my situation.) Anyhow, stay tuned for further developments!

Decisions, Decisions!

2007-11-30T08:35:00.000-06:00

Since I posted my first entry in this blog, I've had occasion to re-think my plans as far as the hard drives on my system are concerned. It now appears that going with a fresh installation of Windows XP Home Edition, followed by installing Kubuntu 7.10 and Linux MCE 7.10, on my new SATA hard drive (which is due to arrive either tomorrow or Monday, December 3rd) makes the most sense. Then, too, I would still have the two old drives available for backup purposes.

The one major potential fly in the ointment, so to speak, will be porting over all of my old data files from my current primary hard drive to the new hard drive. While Windows XP does have a built-in facility to assist in this process, the fact that I have a dual-boot setup on my current system could pose a problem. It may, in fact, still be necessary for me to remove open SUSE 10.2 from my current system before I proceed with this step. This, in turn, would require that I use the "fixmbr" command to return the Master Boot Record in my Windows partition to its original state, a prospect that, to say the least, makes me nervous! Still, I may have no alternative to this procedure, unless I copy the data files over manually, which would take considerably longer.

Some readers of this blog may be wondering why I don't simply chuck Windows XP altogether, and simply go with a Linux MCE-only system. The answer is that there are several Windows applications which I am currently using for which I have yet to find a suitable substitute. Chief among these is Finale MusicPrint, a subset of the well-known Finale music notation program package. Because the church of which I am a member has chosen Finale as their preferred music notation software, and since I have several projects in mind for use by my church, it is necessary that I use Finale or one of its derivatives (MusicPrint in this case), which, of course, requires Windows XP. I am aware of the NoteEdit and Rosegarden packages for Linux, and have looked them both over. However, neither one of them has the specific features that I need for the kind of music arranging and writing I am working on, particularly with regard to organ scores. I may, however, see about using the Lily Pond package under Linux for typesetting purposes, since it is supposed to be able to accept Finale music files as input. I will need to go over Lily Pond's documentation to be certain on this point.

One other minor irritation at this point in time lies in the fact that the wheel in my optical scrolling mouse appears to have failed within the last few days. This will probably require me to buy a new mouse at some point in time. Unfortunately, the make and model of mouse I am now using is apparently no longer being manufactured. This, in turn, means that I will need to scour the Internet in an attempt to find a suitable replacement. With all the makes and models of computer mice now on the market, this will be a daunting task, especially with all the holiday specials and sales now underway. The amount of money involved probably will not be all that great, but the investment of time required, and the resulting aggravation, is quite another story! Still, it looks like I may have no other choice; this kind of research is basic to putting together ANY kind of computer system, no matter what the computer is to be used for.

In the meantime, since I am expecting my new DVD burner to be arriving any day now, I will also be checking on the Internet to see if I can download an "advance copy," so to speak, of the owner's manual for this particular drive. Hopefully, that document will have information as to what brands of blank CD and DVD media they recommend. I also hope that this new drive will not be as picky in this regard as my current drive is when it comes to writing DVDs!

The next few days are liable to be busy ones, as my new drives arrive, and I begin the actual process of installation of both hardware and software. Stay tuned!

My Linux MCE system--The Beginning

2007-11-27T21:03:00.000-06:00

Greetings! One of the purposes of this blog will be to document the development of my PC into a full-fledged "poor man's" Media Center or Home Theater PC. Right now, my setup is as follows:
Generic mid-tower case
Ultra X-Finity 600-watt power supply
Gateway "Midway 2 PE" (Intel d865-GRH) motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 2.3 Ghz. CPU
1 GB of DDR400 (Corsair) Value Select RAM (2 x 512 MB)
GeForce 5200 video card (Nvidia) (AGP)
1-120 GB ATA/133 hard drive
1-80 GB ATA/133 hard drive
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 sound card
ATI TV Wonder Pro TV tuner card
LG GSA-4163B DVD/CD-ROM burner
Westell WireSpeed DSL modem, operating in Ethernet mode
ISP: BellSouth DSL Extreme 3.0 (the highest speed DSL my phone line will accommodate)
OS: Dual-boot system using either Windows XP Home Edition with SP2 or openSUSE Linux version 10.2

I am currently in the final stages of planning a major upgrade/conversion to this setup. For one thing, I plan to switch my hard drive setup to a single, 400 GB SATA-150 hard drive. This will not only increase my total storage capacity, but my overall system speed as well. This will be especially important in terms of video playback and recording, particularly with regard to DVD and VHS playback. I have several VHS tapes that I wish to transcribe to DVD, but right now, my hard drives are simply too slow to permit this. Upgrading to a SATA hard drive will, I hope, help to solve this problem.

I am also preparing to upgrade to an ASUS LightScribe 18x DVD burner. This will help me in terms of labeling any CDs or DVDs I produce. Also, hopefully, the ASUS unit will be less "picky" as to the brands of blank media it will work with successfully, especially blank DVDs.

Later on, I will be upgrading from 1 GB to 2 GB of DDR 400 RAM. That, however, will depend on financial constraints. Later on, I may also add another SATA hard drive, depending on my finances, and on how the system as a whole operates.

The most important change, however, will be the removal of open SUSE Linux from my system, and the installation Linux MCE 07.10, which is due to be released within the next few days. (As readers may know, Linux MCE is an add-on to the Kubuntu distribution of Linux. For technical reasons, the version numbers of Kubuntu and Linux MCE must be the same in order for the installation to succeed.) This, in turn, will require me to remove open SUSE from my hard drive altogether, which I have never had to do before with a dual-boot setup such as I have. I am naturally somewhat nervous about this, and am checking to find out how best to proceed. My primary concern, as you might expect, is to prevent my Windows XP partition from harm, as I have a number of files there which I do not wish to lose, and I do not currently have a backup procedure in place that I can afford. I may, in fact, simply install Windows XP Home and Linux MCE on my new hard drives once it arrives, then copy my existing Windows data files onto it, keeping my two old drives as a backup system. Kludgey, I know, but that may be the only way that will work, given my circumstances. I will wait until my new hard drive arrives before making a final decision; by that time, I should have enough expert advice to guide me safely.

In days to come, I will be exploring other interests on this blog, but for now, I will center primarily on developing what I call a "poor man's MCE PC". Stay tuned!