Fast computed tomography for quantitative cardiac analysis - State of the art and future perspectives
E. L. Ritman
Physiology & Biomedical Engineering
Two fast computed tomographic scanners, designed primarily for imaging cardiac structures and function, have been in use since the early 1980s. The technical aspects of both systems have been described previously in detail, and a considerable body of scientific literature now documents the biomedical capabilities of these scanners. This review examines these biomedical capabilities as applied to quantitative analysis of the heart and pulmonary circulations. On the basis of this overview, some speculations about the current strengths and possible further developments of the fast computed tomographic approach in these applications are made.
Mayo Clinic Proceedings
Ritman, E. L. (1990). Fast computed tomography for quantitative cardiac analysis - State of the art and future perspectives. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 65(10), 1336-1349.
Fast computed tomography for quantitative cardiac analysis - State of the art and future perspectives. / Ritman, E. L.
In: Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Vol. 65, No. 10, 1990, p. 1336-1349.
Ritman, EL 1990, 'Fast computed tomography for quantitative cardiac analysis - State of the art and future perspectives', Mayo Clinic Proceedings, vol. 65, no. 10, pp. 1336-1349.
Ritman EL. Fast computed tomography for quantitative cardiac analysis - State of the art and future perspectives. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 1990;65(10):1336-1349.
Ritman, E. L. / Fast computed tomography for quantitative cardiac analysis - State of the art and future perspectives. In: Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 1990 ; Vol. 65, No. 10. pp. 1336-1349.
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Thomas Scott (preacher)
Thomas Scott (Crispijn de Passe (I), 1624)
Thomas Scott (or Scot) (c. 1580 – 1626) was an English preacher, a radical Protestant known for anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic pamphlets.
He was born about 1580, and occurs as one of the chaplains to James I in 1616, being then B.D. He was incorporated in that degree at Cambridge in 1620 as a member of Peterhouse, as a graduate of the University of St Andrews. [1]
The University of St Andrews is a public university in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. It is the oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, following Oxford and Cambridge universities, the third-oldest university in the United Kingdom and English-speaking world in general. St Andrews was founded in 1413 when the Avignon Antipope Benedict XIII issued a papal bull to a small founding group of Augustinian clergy.
He was rector of St. Saviour's, Norwich, and when Count Gondomar arrived in England to settle preliminaries for the Spanish Match, he published in 1620 an anonymous tract against the proposed marriage. It was entitled Vox Populi, and purported to give an account of Gondomar's reception by the council of state upon his return to Madrid in 1618. The ambassador is there made to explain his schemes for bringing England into subjection to Spain, to describe with satisfaction the crowds which went to assist at mass in his chapel in London, and to recount how he had won over the leading courtiers by his bribes. The whole story was a fabrication, but at the time it was widely received as a piece of genuine history, and caused a furore. John Chamberlain on 3 February 1621 informed Sir Dudley Carleton that 'the author of "Vox Populi" is discovered to be one Scot, a minister, bewrayed by the printer, who thereby hath saved himself, and got his pardon, though the book were printed beyond sea'. Joseph Mead, writing on 10 February 1621, told Sir Martin Stuteville that 'Scot of Norwich, who is said to be the author of "Vox Populi," they say is now fled, having, as it seems, fore-notice of the pursuivant'. In Vox Regis (1624) Scott gave in biblical language an account of the motives which induced him to write Vox Populi, and the consequences of that publication to himself. Vox Populi was suppressed by royal authority, and Samuel Harsnett, bishop of Norwich, was commanded to institute proceedings against him.
Norwich is a city in Norfolk, England. Granted historic city status, and situated on the River Wensum in East Anglia, it lies approximately 100 miles (160 km) north-east of London. It is the county town of Norfolk and is considered the capital of East Anglia, with a population of 141,300. From the Middle Ages until the Industrial Revolution, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important.
John Chamberlain (1553–1628) was the author of a series of letters written in England from 1597 to 1626, notable for their historical value and their literary qualities. In the view of historian Wallace Notestein, Chamberlain's letters "constitute the first considerable body of letters in English history and literature that the modern reader can easily follow". They are an essential source for scholars who study the period.
Samuel Harsnett, born Samuel Halsnoth, was an English writer on religion and Archbishop of York from 1629.
In 1622, Scott became preacher to the English garrison at Utrecht. There he continued writing pamphlets against the Roman Catholics, many of which were published in England after Scott's departure. He was assassinated by an English soldier named John Lambert on 18 June 1626, as he was coming out of church, accompanied by his brother William Scott and his nephew Thomas Scott. The assassin was tortured, but denied that Catholic priests or Jesuits had motivated him to act. Insane and subject to hallucinations, he was condemned to death and executed, his right hand being first cut off.
Vox Populi was one of two dozen pamphlets he wrote. It has been argued that through Scott the Scottish version of republicanism came to have an important impact in England. [2]
Classical republicanism, also known as civic republicanism or civic humanism, is a form of republicanism developed in the Renaissance inspired by the governmental forms and writings of classical antiquity, especially such classical writers as Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero. Classical republicanism is built around concepts such as civil society, civic virtue and mixed government.
He has tentatively been identified with the Thomas Scot or Scott (fl. 1605), poet, who described himself as a gentleman, and who wrote several poetical works. It appears from a letter addressed by Locke to Sir Dudley Carleton on 2 February 1621 that the minister of Norwich, then suspected of being the author of Vox Populi, had, in Somerset's time, been questioned about a 'book of birds'. The poetical writer published the following pieces:
Floruit, abbreviated fl., Latin for "he/she flourished", denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the word may also be used as a noun indicating the time when someone flourished.
'Four Paradoxes of Arte, of Lawe, of Warre, of Service [a poem]. By T. S.,' London, 1602.
'Philomythie or Philomythologie, wherein outlandish Birds, Beasts, and Fishes are taught to speak true English,' London, 1610; 2nd edit, 'much inlarged,' London, 1616. Some copies of the second edition are dated 1622; others 1640. One poem is entitled 'Regalis Justitia Jacobi,' in which Scott celebrates the impartial justice of King James in refusing to pardon Robert Crichton, 8th Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, for the deliberate murder of Turner, the celebrated fencer, in 1612.
'The Second Part of Philomythie or Philomythologie. Containing certaine Tales of True Libertie, False Friendship. Power Vnited. Faction and Ambition,' London, 1616 and 1625.
Vox Dei 1623 [3]
Robert Crichton, 8th Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, was a Scottish peer executed for the murder of a fencing teacher. He was the son of Edward, Lord Sanquhar. Robert is often styled "6th Lord Sanquhar."
Vox Dei is a political-religious pamphlet by Thomas Scott published in Utrecht in 1623. The pamphlet contains an attack on the Spanish match, and ends by anticipating the triumph of the 1624 parliament.
↑ "Thomas Scott (SCT620T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
↑ Markku Peltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought, 1570–1640 (2004), Ch. 5, Thomas Scott: virtue, liberty and the 'mixed Government'
↑ P. Salzman Literature and Politics in the 1620s: 'Whisper'd Counsells' 1137305983 - 2014 "Vox Dei recapitulates the history of the preceding few years, stressing the significance of the rejection of the Spanish ... a partisan perspective of course) how England had reached the current situation, while also continuing Scott's dramatic ."
The 1620s decade ran from January 1, 1620, to December 31, 1629.
Year 1567 (MDLXVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Thomas Middleton was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson among the most successful and prolific of the playwrights at work during the Jacobean period. He was among the few to achieve equal success in comedy and tragedy, and a prolific writer of masques and pageants.
Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Count of Gondomar, was a Spanish (Galician) diplomat, the Spanish ambassador to England from 1613 to 1622 and afterwards, as a kind of ambassador emeritus, Spain's leading expert on English affairs until his death.
Sir Samuel Argall was an English adventurer and naval officer.
Richard Montagu was an English cleric and prelate.
Francis Constable was a London bookseller and publisher of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, noted for publishing a number of stage plays of English Renaissance drama.
Samuel Ward (1577–1640) was an English Puritan minister of Ipswich.
Sir Robert Tracy, 2nd Viscount Tracy was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England variously between 1620 and 1640. He fought for the Royalists in the English Civil War.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Scott, Thomas (1580?-1626)". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
NLA-person: 970377
SNAC: w6n01drx
WorldCat Identities (via VIAF): 440078


Brian Alan Lane
Revision as of 20:02, September 25, 2019 by Archbot (Talk | contribs)
Brian Alan Lane is the screenwriter, playwright, and novelist who wrote the Star Trek: The Next Generation second season episode "Elementary, Dear Data". He is also an attorney and tenured college professor, teaching a variety of writing courses.
Besides TNG, Lane has written for such 1980s television shows as Remington Steele, Moonlighting and Hunter; he was a producer on the latter series, as well. He also co-wrote the story for a 1986 episode of MacGyver entitled "The Wish Child," directed by Star Trek III: The Search for Spock cinematographer Charles Correll and guest-starring Star Trek: The Original Series's George Takei.
Some of Lane's more recent writing credits include episodes of M.A.N.T.I.S., Matlock, and In the House. He created, wrote for and executive produced a short-lived dramatic series for A&E Television entitled Hollywood Detective, which received a number of nominations from the Cable ACE Awards. Another writer on this series was "Sins of the Father" teleplay co-writer W. Reed Moran.
In addition to his episodic television writing credits, Lane wrote two science fiction TV movies, 1988's Out of Time (directed and executive produced by Robert Butler and featuring Barbara Tarbuck) and 1991's The Girl from Mars (starring Edward Laurence Albert and Gwynyth Walsh).
Outside of Hollywood, Lane has written a number of non-fiction crime novels, most dealing with murders and serial killers. Among these is his bestseller, Cat and Mouse: Mind Games with a Serial Killer. He is also the publisher of the literary journal Sweet Fancy Moses and has written numerous short stories. One of those stories, entitled Body of Work, was adapted into a short film which he executive produced. This film became an Official Selection of the Newport Beach Film Festival in 2006.
Faculty page at California State University, Long Beach
Brian Alan Lane at the Internet Movie Database
Retrieved from "https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brian_Alan_Lane?oldid=2380192"


Inform 7/Gluxe
Reviewed by Snowblood
Richard Otter started in 1989 and has at least 19 text adventure games to his name already. That's good going. This guy is a veteran. My only encounter with his work came, funnily enough, in the 2006 Interactive Fiction Competition, where he entered Unauthorized Termination, which I reviewed. Let's take a look at what I had to say at the time:
Murder on the planet of the robots. Initial doubts about the sparse descriptions and lack of detail are swept away by the sheer level of consistency in the game world. Everything is brief, to-the-point, logical, as you would expect on a planet of robots. All the default responses, descriptions and dialogue are cleverly tailored to role-playing the character of an emotionless "robo-cop". While its blindingly obvious that your superior is somehow involved in a cover-up from the get-go, and the PC is given a surprising amount of leeway given the supposed massive conspiracy, it doesn't detract from the fun of going through the investigative routine and uncovering the pieces of the puzzle bit-by-bit. The conclusion is a little weak, with some rather odd character actions, but overall its a good romp well worth playing - despite some minor intermittent implementation issues.
I liked it a lot, with a few caveats. It ended up landing 10th place, and got a Xyzzy Award nomination for Best Setting, so clearly I wasn't the only fan either. 11 years later, Word of the Day just needs to fix some of those criticisms of the 2006 game, while also building on its strong points, to be deemed a big success. Let's take it line by line.
Murder on the planet of the robots.
Mass-murder on the spaceship of the aliens, this time round. The two games share some storyline elements: both are sci-fi mysteries in which a protagonist stumbles on clues to a grand conspiracy and unravels a devious plot piece-by-piece. While Unauthorized Termination followed a detective procedural path, Word of the Day is more concerned with exploration and survival: the player-character is an 'Outer-Worlder' working on a freight spaceship called "Word of the Day" with an 'Inner-Worlder' crew. She wakes up after a sudden explosion to find everybody dead. No, its not the pilot of Red Dwarf. Everybody's not dead, Dave. It's not entirely the "wander around an empty spaceship finding all the corpses and all the notes" game the initial phase suggests. Once you've explored as much of the map as possible, picking up memos, newspaper articles, and other assorted paraphernalia that slowly reveal what has been happening, you will discover that there are, in fact, survivors, and the game changes gear when they are encountered. There are conversations to be had, back-stories to be uncovered, and moral choices to be made.
Initial doubts about the sparse descriptions and lack of detail are swept away by the sheer level of consistency in the game world. Everything is brief, to-the-point, logical.
I would say that again there is not much brio in the writing. It's as cold and functional as before, but again this appears to be by choice. It's all in service of depicting the personality of the player-character, Kareene Veet.
All the default responses, descriptions and dialogue are cleverly tailored to role-playing the character of an emotionless "robo-cop".
All the default responses, descriptions and dialogue are cleverly tailored to role-playing the character of a heartless, arrogant, stuck-up, conceited, self-obsessed alien lady. Catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror, Kareene Veet remarks about how great she looks. Checking her dead colleagues' possessions, she laughs about how they failed to achieve her level in the Bio-Drive engineer exams. She then robs them:
"On your home planet stealing another's wealth is considered both illegal and immoral; put simply it is wrong. You have never felt that this applies to the property of the Inner Worlders. You are only living with them until you have amassed enough wealth to go home. Your dislike of the Inner Worlders has allowed you to overlook your double standards."
She takes any opportunity to demean the Inner-Worlders she has been working with, even when they're dead, mocking their physical appearances, and insulting their intelligence and their professional capabilities. She recalls memories of her time on board, a work environment where she feels she has been suffering discrimination and prejudice. But, hypocritically, she is completely blind to her own prejudices against the Inner-Worlders.
What is great about this player-character portrayal is that it's not the focus of the game at all. It's not about an evil character, in the way that Varicella (1999) is, or a monstrous character, in the way Coloratura (2013) is, this lady is the hero of her own story, she just also happens to be an alien. The many and varied responses to the "examine" verb reveal just how alien this woman is: she's physically different, biologically different, thinks differently and has her own weird code of ethics. She's just doing it the best she can. It's not a morality play: she doesn't get her come-uppance at the end (unless you get her killed, which is not a "true" ending), Nor is it treated as shocking plot twist: "ha ha, you were the bad guy all along!". It's instead just an aspect of her character that the player can choose to inhabit as much or as little as they would like. You don't need to poke and prod at the corners of the world model if you don't want to, the game can be played just fine as a puzzley exploration adventure with a protagonist just trying to get out of a bad situation, but if you choose to go further, you are rewarded with tons of extra content that fills out this universe, and especially fills out the personality of this remarkable player-character.
I love this character, because I hate this character. In the end, I chose to role-play to an ending that felt appropriate for Kareene Veet (the 'amazing' ending): but I should point out that there are at least six different endings, not including fail states (the game is absolutely stuffed to the gills with content as I mentioned), and so I imagine that it would also be possible to play out a "redemption arc" for her too? There is so much more here, I'm looking forward to plunging back in soon. The whole package is an improvement over Unauthorized Termination, some minor technical issues aside, but for me it's the brilliant player-character that really lifts Word of the Day into the stratosphere.
Reviewed by Jack Welch (dhakajack)
This is an obsessively detailed parser-based sci-fi story that took me the full two hours to play, albeit not all in one sitting. The richness of the game’s background, character backstories, and the number of rooms and detailed objects in them more than makes up for however many stories I have criticized as under implemented in this IFcomp.
The amount of detail is at first overwhelming, but I am sure it is only a fraction of the world that this author has generated. I don’t doubt that in creating this game, the author generated extensive histories of each alien world and extensive character sketches for each character, but had to make some tough choices about how much of this material to hold back on in order to condense the story to two hours of playing time.
[Some spoilers follow beyond this point]
The main character, Kareene Veet, starts the game on the bridge of a starship, disoriented by whatever disaster has just befallen the ship. She is trapped under a dislodged panel and can’t focus on anything else, so the player has an immediate sense of urgency, and instead of examining every object on the bridge and snagging all the knick-knacks within reach, Kareene is forced to focus on freeing herself. After that, surrounded by bodies of other crew members, she can begin to try to piece together what went wrong.
During the first part of the game, the player spends a significant amount of time exploring the ship, which provides the author a chance to gradually fill in background: what is this ship, what was its mission, who are the people on it, what are the larger political and cultural settings, and what current events in the world could influence the story on the ship?
It is a ton of exposition, but it is all interwoven into description of objects or mentioned in Kareene’s thoughts. The reader is never confronted with a solid wall of dense text; all the necessary background is broken up into digestible bits. Not all of it ties together immediately, so there is some burden on the reader to file it all away for future reference, but even at a fairly early point the reader can sense that the various threads will eventually come back together.
Nonetheless, at the start, the game world seems to expand exponentially and the reader may be anxious about keeping track of everything. A few minutes of wandering the ship is enough to understand that it is huge and that some sort of map is going to be necessary. A map is not included in the feelies, so I initially presumed I would need to draw one. However, the game’s extensive help system indicates that there is a “map” command. I tried it and got no response — it turns out that just a few turns later, the player comes across an in-game map, and from that point forward, the map command displays the map in the interpreter.
There is a lot of running around the ship in this game, and until the map burnt itself into my memory, I found it indispensable to have the map available for reference. The map command is a nice feature, but on my laptop screen I could only see the map for one or two moves before it scrolled away. To make my life easier, I screen captured the map and kept it open in another window for the rest of my sessions. I’d recommend doing that.
What seems like a sprawling canvas becomes manageable over time, and the game does its part by literally gating progress by locking or unlocking sections of the ship. Whenever I had explored all that there was to see and do in one section, I would hear a distant clanking denoting the furtive movements of another survivor. The mechanism is transparent, but works well enough in terms of story.
In addition to the game map there are two other classes of items that players need to keep track of: crew members and messages. Until the final part of the game, all of the crew members that Kareene encounters are dead, and their deaths do not look accidental. Every time she runs across a body, we learn not only their name, but what what Kareene remembers about them. As we search the bodies, we find out their role on board their ship, bits of their backstory, and gain insight into their personalities. The game also keeps track of how many crew remain unaccounted throughout the story, as this is one of Kareene’s top priorities.
On an television show, twelve crew members would not represent an unusually large cast, but any given episode would only be able to focus on at most a few of them. Over a season, the crew could gel into an ensemble, but we don’t have that luxury in a two hour game. So, I would like to suggest that the game would benefit from some sort of customized tool to keep track of the crew in the same way that the map command helps the player organize the physical space. Since this is a futuristic story, such an aid could be implemented as an in-game object, for example some sort of duty roster listing name, rank, shipboard duties, planet of origin and perhaps an area where Kareene has jotted notes as she learns about each crew member.
Along similar lines, Kareene finds a ream of interstellar messages as she searches the ship. As a body, they are a major source of information in the game. Each one is time-stamped, so the player is able to read throgh them and piece together a timeline of events up to the explosion on the bridge.
I picked up the first few messages in game, read them, and not knowing what to do with them, stuffed them into my carryall. After a half hour, I began to wonder if this was what the author had in mind. My carryall was stuffed full of the things. Once they are in inventory, they are jumbled up with everything else, which makes for a long and disorganized list. Here again, I think the game would have benefitted from some sort of assistive technology to put them in order — for example, if each printout had a QR code that could be scanned into a device that would then sort by date and list them by topic like emails, they would be more manageable.
These are fine points, though. The player doesn’t know it, but it really isn’t necessary to track all these details — the story will play out, regardless.
As written, I found the game enjoyable and very playable from start to finish without reference to the walkthrough. The author does a great job conveying Kareene’s (not all that likable) personality. She is alone for most of the game, but when we do finally meet other characters, the dialogue flows naturally. The plot is not elaborate, but it is strong because it plays on the background that the player discovers in the course of play. I did enjoy the ending that I reached, maybe not an objectively good outcome for society, but a brilliant success from Kareene’s point of view.
Story: 7
Voice: 8
Play: 8
Polish: 9
Technical: 7
JNSQ: 0
Preliminary Score: 7.8
Reviewed by Marco Innocenti
I actually woke up this morning, after playing WotD all night yesterday, finally grasping what was going on.
This is a well structured, almost puzzle-less sci-fi, with a brilliant PC and an incredibly detailed backstory, which could have aimed, imho, at a much higher outcome.
The most intriguing things revolve around racial (and racist) themes, told through the eyes of a special creature whose sole businesses in the universe seem to be procreation and money. And money because of procreation.
There are aspects of the subplot which are genius: the mating techniques of different races; how an Outworder sees us (provided the Inner Worlders are us); how racism can dwell in close environments; segregation.
Unfortunately, the story is presented through an endless array of posts and notes, and via the comments (on dead bodies) by a cold PC, who’s prime feature seems to be the lack of any empathy with anyone except her distant relatives and lovers. All of this sums up to a distinct vibe and a cool backstory that, in the end, fails in finding a route to the final outcome.
The atmosphere is strong (I was actually scared by the continuous opening and closing of doors, hinting at another survivor— the ship is full of dead bodies after an initial “incident”) although there is not much to do except reading tons of backstory. And this is first flaw of an otherwise impressive game.
Style apart (the text needs some more intense editing, due to the generative process it has to sustain), the fact that the main action you continuously do is reading notes or long flashbacks hinders the gameplay a bit. This sums up to the fact that navigation is hard due to a very symmetrical and squareish map (a map is provided and I would say it is fundamental for your survival).
But the main aspect — the thing that, eventually, lowered my experience most — is that, of all the important backstory told, the one which is central to the final twist (and there IS a final twist!) is overlooked enough that I simply forgot to notice. Saying more means spoiler, so I have nothing to add, if not that a much more “central” approach to something inside the ship would have done a better job in causing the final wow-effect.
Finally, the endgame, too, looks muddled and I failed to actually get what was happening in the ship until I woke up this morning with the proverbial epiphany.
To recap: I wish the main story was more “main” and the sub-plots (about race, gender, and the overall backstory) ended up being sub-plots and not the big finger in front of the moon. I wish I could understand more about the plot, something my “4-Good” ending didn’t convey (who was the one opening and closing the doors? I understood this after an 8-hours sleep, never having seen him during play!). I wish I could read less and do more, as a piece of Interactive Fiction should allow.
This said, I enjoyed this game a lot, and it frankly had me holding tight to the chair here and there, for some nice, perpetual sense of danger. A calm post-comp reset of the game is all it’s needed to put these few things straight.
Reviewed by Christopher Huang
Despite the title, this is not a Nord-&-Bert-y wordplay game. "Word of the Day" is the name of a ... somewhat junky spacecraft, and we are an "Outer Worlder" crewmember. Well, when I say "junky" ... it's still an enviable class of spacecraft, such that getting on it at all is an honour; it's just that it's the lowest class on the roster of these super-amazing ships that run on super-efficient bio-derived fuel rods.
This is mostly an exploration game. We wake up after an explosion of some sort has knocked us out; we appear to be the only survivor in the command centre--but what about the other crewmembers? Most of the game is spent seeking them out and learning about what happened, and in the process learning their stories. The main decisions to be made and puzzles to be solved come towards the end, and these don't actually feel so much like puzzles as ... natural issues to be resolved.
To make things interesting, we're the only Outer Worlder on the crew: everyone else is an Inner Worlder, and much of the exploration is about the relationships between the Inner and Outer Worlds. It would seem that the Inner Worlds are the dominant race: they're the ones running the star command, and our hero's inclusion on this crew is a major source of pride for her. So few Outer Worlders manage so much! Of course, she's very much aware of the racist attitudes against her; but she's also somewhat less conscious of her own racism....
Even if you don't care for any explorations into racism (and you don't have to read it that way) the worldbuilding that results is pretty engrossing. Neither the Inner Worlders nor the Outer Worlders are human, and it is by comparing the two that we can naturally discuss what each of them are without it sounding like an exposition dump.
I do suspect that, at some point of the design process, the characters were meant to be Earth humans, though. Most of the names look like variations on human names, and I did catch at least one reference to "Earth" in the descriptions.
So it's an interesting story, and an interesting exploration of worlds far different from our own. I liked the slow feed of information with respect to the mystery of what happened and the underlying plot. The final denouement sets up for some nice variations in the endings, with multiple ways of achieving whichever ends we want.
I think this is like a fruit yoghurt parfait, full of fruit chunks and granola. We're all focused on spooning the yoghurt into our mouths, and all the things that make it good are just there for the ride. Add some iced tea to follow ... or do we need the iced tea after all? You decide.
Review by Lynnea Glasser
Reviewed by Aziraphale
This is a well-executed space exploration game. It almost feels like the text version of an environmental storytelling based walking simulator: you explore a dead space craft, trying to figure out what happened to your crew, and doing some puzzle-solving along the way. This is a meaty game with a lot of content, very few errors, and quality craftsmanship, and it’s getting a lot of positive comments in the reviews I’ve read.
I hate being a dissenting opinion on something a lot of people like. It’s not a fun place to be in! It’s even worse when the reasons you don’t like a game are not what some people would call objective, but based purely in your treacherous, unreliable feelings. So, I am not pleased to report that I did not like this game. I don’t want to belabor the point, as I know a lot of people will like this game. I’ll just talk a little bit about why I did not have a good time playing it.
This game made me feel uncomfortable. Not with the premise, which is fine; nor even with the blatant assholeness of the main character, who happily strips her dead crewmates of valuables along the way. I actually enjoyed that quite a bit. What made me uncomfortable were the constant asides, the glimpses of worldbuilding we get. When the main character is examining the corpses of her coworkers, we get a lengthy aside about the shape and function of her genitals; definitely what most people’s minds go to, right? (Not to mention that the picture attached to the game is meant to be a representation of what said genitals look like. Eungh.)
I’m not a fan of alien racism. I think it’s hard to handle well, especially when you try to pull a “but she’s also racist against them!” like this game does. I didn’t like what we learned about the author’s alien OC race, how our main character’s only motivation is reproduction, how everyone is racist against her but also the entire crew is irresistibly drawn to her because of her sexy alien pheromones and also one of the dudes has an alien fetish and another dude definitely tried to rape her once, which we of course have to flashback to. So much of this game feels like a set-up to a weird alien porno. Did I mention that when this alien species reproduces, the males lose their dicks? Freud would seriously have a field day.
So, yeah. I wasn’t a fan of this game because it made me feel uncomfortable playing it, and eventually it made me so uncomfortable I didn’t want to play it any more, and that’s really all there is to it.
Reviewed by Brian Rushton as "MathBrush"
This game kind of threw me off at first; I used the walkthrough, which seemed super unmotivated, and some large pieces of occasionally-awkward text made me not like it as much.
But then lglasser said she loved it on her twitch stream, as did an Italian IFComp judge, so I gave it another shot, walkthrough-free.
This time around, I liked it. All reasonable commands seemed to be accepted. The game allowed a great deal of flexible exploration and a money system that worked. Exploration was all that was needed to trigger the story, and the hint system was just strong enough to get me through and just vague enough to make it a challenge.
It seemed oddly fixated an alien mating systems, but it was more National Geographic than anything else.


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Village of Port Jefferson
PJ Village Prepares for New Pickleball Courts
Port Times Record
by Kyle Barr - January 10, 2020
Site plans for the pickleball courts Photo by Kyle Barr
Port Jefferson village has put out bid requests to add several pickleball courts to a portion of the tennis space at the Port Jefferson Country Club.
Deputy Mayor Stan Loucks said the game has picked up in popularity, and has been reported as one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S.
The Sport and Fitness Industry Association reported that participation in the sport has increased by close to 10 percent over the past three years, with a total of 3.3 million participants in the country, compared to 2.815 million in 2014.
The game of pickleball is often compared to an enlarged game of ping pong, or a shortened game of tennis. Instead of rackets, players use large paddles to get a plastic perforated ball across a net. Unlike tennis, serves are underhand. It can be played one-on-one or two-on-two.
Many people attribute the sport’s popularity to it being relatively simple. It doesn’t require a lot of rapid body movement but requires good hand-eye coordination.
Loucks, the liaison to the country club, said original plans were to include the pickleball courts to the west of the current tennis courts, but that would have required extra revetments and erosion mitigation along that end of the bluff. The new designs show the three new pickleball courts to the north of the existing tennis courts, about 32 feet from the existing parking lot. Original estimates for the project range from $85,000 to $128,000, a total that combines both the landscaping and the building of the asphalt courts. Excavation started for the courts Jan. 7.
The village has struggled in recent years to get permits from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to build new revetments and structures to halt erosion on the bluff near the country club. Loucks said they are losing a few feet of bluff every year, making it precariously close to taking out the tennis courts. Mayor Margot Garant said the DEC is finalizing everything, and they are hoping to get those permits back “soon.”
“I think it’s a great move — we’re not losing any parking area,” Loucks said.
The pro shop for tennis will also cater to pickleball players. The village set the membership rates for pickleball at $400 for a resident, $500 for nonresidents, and each will pay a $50 annual assessment plus a $135 minimums fee. Country club members interested in playing pickleball will be charged an additional rate of $300.
Loucks said he hopes the sport will be popular. The only other two local pickleball courts are a private space in the Village of Belle Terre and a public court in Centereach.
“I’m hoping to 50 to 100 members the first season,” he said.
Final deadline for new bids is Feb. 6. After that the village will choose a contractor and then more work can begin. Loucks said that while asphalt companies don’t open their doors until April, he expects the project to be done by the beginning of May.
PJ Resident/Advocate Ahearn Says She’s Ready for 1st District Race
Village Beacon Record
by Kyle Barr - January 9, 2020
Laura Aheran. Photo from campaign
Laura Ahearn, longtime crime victims advocate, is ready to take on a new challenge, running for state senate. For 43 years the state District 1 seat has been held by Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), but she said it’s time for change.
“Many members of the community are grateful for his [LaValle’s] service as I am, but it is time now for a new voice and an advocate like me to fight furiously for our community,” Ahearn said.
For 25 years, the attorney said she has worked to keep the community safe from sexual predators. Ahearn also founded the Crime Victims Center “from a room in her home” and over the years established it into a nonprofit organization that has worked with local, state and federal law enforcement.
“There are some serious flaws in the criminal justice reform that took place Jan. 1 that makes our communities very vulnerable.”
— Laura Ahearn
The center’s educational programs have been shown in numerous school districts, along with local colleges and universities throughout Suffolk County.
“I want to take my advocacy experiences, my legal skills and use it to help our community, children and families up in Albany,” the executive director said. “I know my experience over the past 20 plus years positions me to take on other issues as well.”
Some issues Ahearn hopes to tackle is the recent bail reform issues and MS-13’s infiltration into Long Island schools.
“There are some serious flaws in the criminal justice reform that took place Jan. 1 that makes our communities very vulnerable,” she said. “Bail reform was absolutely needed, because people who couldn’t afford cash bail were incarcerated, that’s not fair. But we haven’t looked at what the implications are for the community and for victims.”
Ahearn said the recent reform needs to be amended to add some discretion for judges who may need to hold certain offenders who may be eligible for automatic release. In addition, she said law enforcement and probation officers need to be given more resources to further monitor offenders of violent crimes.
On the MS-13 front, Ahearn stressed we need to make sure we are giving schools the resources and funding they need to ramp up their security to protect students.
Cost of living and keeping young professionals in Suffolk County have been vexing issues for elected officials. Ahearn knows this firsthand.
“I have two grown children and they can’t afford to live on Long Island — high taxes are driving our kids out off the island,” she said. “We have to ensure that they have fair wages, educational opportunities, safe work environments and affordable housing.”
The Port Jefferson resident said in terms of job opportunities she thought Amazon would’ve been a great opportunity for the county and if elected will strive to continue to bring businesses into the district.
Other issues on the challenger’s radar are the ongoing opioid epidemic, curbing nitrogen pollution in local waterways, marine/wildlife conservation, phone scams targeting the elderly, tick-borne illness, among others.
Ahearn, who graduated from Dowling College, Stony Brook University and Touro Law School, recently had a campaign kick-off event Dec. 10 and said she is looking forward to meeting and learning from movers and shakers in the area. The senate district stretches from eastern end of Suffolk County to the eastern end of Town of Brookhaven.
“As time moves forward, I’m going to learn a lot from the advocates in the community — I’m not an expert on some issues and I want to learn from those advocates who are those experts. They have to educate me, so I can represent them,” she said.
The attorney said the position requires one to work with everyone, something she has done for two decades, helping develop, implement and manage crime prevention programs and assist in drafting a number of state, local and federal laws.
“I really love what I’ve been doing,” she said. “Voters have a decision to make and I have a demonstrated history of fighting for our community and if that’s what they want — someone who will fight furiously for them — then they should vote for me.”
PJ Village Gains Grant Funds for Coastal Resiliency Study
by Kyle Barr - December 20, 2019
‘Red’ marks the estimated depth where the water table is less than 11 feet. Image from Campani and Schwarting
A state agency has granted Port Jeff over $80k in funds to help plan for future storms and floods.
The New York State Regional Economic Council awarded Port Jefferson village $82,500 Dec. 19 to create a Climate Resilience Plan. This comes in response to hurricanes over the past decade, including Irene and SuperStorm Sandy, as well as other storm surge events. The promised plan will integrate sea-level rise predictions to propose solutions to mitigate flooding and storm surges, along with the impacts of rising tides due to climate change.
Michael Schwarting presents the study’s findings to village officials back in August. Photo by Kyle Barr
Nicole Christian, Port Jefferson’s grant writer, said the village would have to put conducting the plan out to bid sometime early in the new year, and should cost a total of around $165,000. The $82,500 from New York State was the fully awarded amount requested.
With the funds, she said, Port Jefferson will be one of the few North Shore communities whose waterfront revitalization reports will be “on the leading edge” of current technologies and data from storms.
The funds go back to June this year, when the village presented its Waterfront Revitalization Plan to the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, describing its intention to perform immediately needed maintenance of the storm drainage system and provide emergency equipment to deploy in a rain event to protect properties in the village in catastrophic flooding.
At its July 15 meeting, the village voted unanimously to apply for grant funds from the state Division of Planning’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, Empire State Development and any other applicable state agencies.
In September of last year, Port Jefferson was bowled over with water, with nearly 4 inches of rain collected in a short span of time. Buildings like the Port Jefferson firehouse and the venerable Theatre Three were drowned in 3 to 4 feet of water, causing thousands of dollars in damages in the case of the theater. In July this year, the village was hit with yet another flooding event, and while this year’s was not nearly as severe as 2018, it still left many villagers wondering what could be in the future.
Christian said when submitting the grant, the village included images of that 2018 flood, giving an example of what could happen in the future if issues are not addressed.
The area outside Theatre Three was under 2 feet of water July 22. Photo from Brian Hoerger
Back in August, architects from the Port Jefferson-based firm Campani and Schwarting displayed a draft report about trouble spots for Port Jeff flooding. Michael Schwarting, one of the architects, pointed out Port Jeff has a lack of permeable surfaces, a significant amount of hardscape, and a water table that lies as close as 11 feet to the surface.
The Long Island Explorium is planning to create rain gardens at several points in the village, which may have the added benefit of creating permeable land for water to seep into during heavy rains. The gardens originally had a deadline of the end of this year, but the explorium’s Executive Director Angeline Judex said their grant was given an extension to June 1, 2020.
In a release, the village thanked Cara Longworth, chair and director of the LI Regional Economic Development Council and Denise Zani, deputy of the LIREDC, along with other state, county and town officials for continued support.
St. Charles Cuts Ribbon on New Maternity Wing
Katherine Lewin with her newborn son Jonathan at St. Catherine Hospital's new maternity wing. Photo by Kyle Barr
St. Charles Hospital’s nearly $4 million new maternity wing has one thing at the top of the mind, privacy.
St. Catherines officials cut the ribbon on the new maternity wing. Photo by Kyle Barr
At a ribbon cutting for the new renovated 16-room maternal/child pavilion Dec. 19, hospital officials boasted rooms with “hotel-like atmosphere,” that focus on letting families stay together with their newborn in relative quiet.
“Today the standard in the community is probably for privacy for mothers, because now their husbands stay with them, so you need to have more people in the room,” said Jim O’Connor, the president of St. Charles Hospital.
O’Connor said the new wing cost around $3.8 million, most of which came from the hospital’s capital budget, and took around 10 months to build. During that time patients were moved to the 3-West wing, in order to avoid the disturbance of construction for the doctors, nurses and patients.
The hospital’s foundation and auxiliary contributed about $500,000 to the construction, said Lisa Mulvey, executive director of the hospital’s foundation. Funds were raised through trustees and events such as their annual golf outing and spring luncheons. The end result, she said, was well worth it.
“It’s beautiful,” Mulvey said. “I couldn’t have pictured something more beautiful.”
Each room features new beds and more accommodations for person’s significant others with new sofa chairs and larger, walk-in showers. The rooms also include more modern isolettes for newborn children.
One of the new rooms at St. Catherine Hospital maternal unit. Photo by Kyle Barr
Dr. Jerry Ninia, the director of obstetrics and gynecology at the hospital, said the new wing’s technology helps in emergencies, but it’s always moreso the staff involved.
“It goes beyond the nice showers and the nice digs, so to speak,” he said. “It helps the staff, it’s always nice to work in a nice facility.”
The wing officially opened about three weeks ago, and patients are already making use of the facilities.
Ed Casper, an architect from Stantec engineering company that worked on the new wing, said just that morning he had become a grandfather, his grandson being born right there in the new wing.
“Our experience through the night last night was absolutely phenomenal,” he said.
One of the first children to be born in the new maternity ward was young Jonathan Lewin, less than a week old. His sparse, brown hair is already as long as thumbtacks. His mother, Katherine Lewin, 31, a nurse from Wading River, said her care there was “excellent, everyone here is great.”
She is excited to take her new son home, where she expects her 2 ½ year-old daughter is excited to be a sister.
“She asked if she could bring him home,” Lewin said.
Historians Lead Way in Digitizing Port Jeff History
Downtown Port Jeff circa 1906. Both original photos by Arthur S. Green. Digitized images from Preservation Long Island.
Time destroys all things. Photos fade, film degrades, buildings crumble. To stop entropy and the inevitable march of time, local historians, both local and regional, have been working to digitize a number of vintage Port Jefferson films and photos for more people to enjoy.
The Port Jefferson Train Station circa 1900. Original photos by Arthur S. Green. Digitized images from Preservation Long Island.
Cold Spring Harbor-based Preservation Long Island purchased a collection of glass slide photographs from renowned late 19th- and early 20th-century photographer Arthur S. Greene, who took photos from all over Brookhaven Town, many of which ended up on postcards and in books promoting Long Island as a tourist destination.
It wasn’t until 2018 that Preservation LI curator Lauren Brincat said the historical nonprofit was able to place the very delicate glass slides where people could see them. The Palmer School of Library and Information Science at Long Island University supplied Preservation with a grant as part of the school’s Digitizing Local History Sources project, funded by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. The grant brought two LIU students to Preservation’s headquarters to digitize the photographs.
Only one problem, there was no guide or template on how one should scan something as fragile as a glass slide. Brincat said the two LIU students had to start from scratch, creating their own guides and frames for photos of different sizes, 4×6, 5×7, etc. The group covered the flatbed with Mylar and used spacers to prevent the scanner from touching the artifacts.
It was a “tedious and labor-intensive” job, Brincat said, but the result is worth it. Hundreds of images are now stored online for anybody to peruse.
“There are great benefits to this,” the curator said. “It prevents having to go back to the original material, which could result in breaking them, emulsion or impact on the negative which are very light sensitive.”
The collection of photographs, Brincat said, captures the Island at a different time, especially how it developed from an agricultural, rural setting into its suburban commercial-based future.
“These pictures show the introduction of electricity and the automobile,” she said. “Many of the streets were dirt roads, which is hard to imagine today.”
Other people closer to home have also set themselves to the task of digitizing Port Jefferson history, items that have helped both village residents and historians understand their roots.
Chris Ryon, the Port Jefferson Village historian, has been working with Belle Terre historian John Hiz on numerous projects, including getting a number of donated film reels from the Childs family digitized. Ryon said Hiz was instrumental in negotiating that donation to the Port Jeff archive.
“I just wanted to make sure they were kept in the community,” he said.
A video of Belle Terre includes reels of pergolas, things that Hiz said he’s only seen in print. Without such items, he said, historians don’t have that tangible way to look back on the locals’ past.
“It makes things come to life,” he said. “Having access is the most important thing. There’s probably tons of materials stored in people’s attics or basements, but being able to have access is critical.”
A woman and child burn leaves in a digitized film reel gathered by local historians. Video from Port Jeff Maritime Facebook page
The reels depict numerous scenes from 1928 through 1940, including of a woman in a fur coat burning leaves in Belle Terre, of parades, and even of a picnic in Montauk, among others. One reel even shows flooding in Port Jeff reminiscent of recent events from this year and last.
The reels were sent to a historical group in Chattanooga, which has digitized the reels at $15 a piece. The Port Jefferson Harbor Education & Arts Conservancy provided funds.
“It blew my mind once I first saw it,” Ryon said. “Everyone I showed it to had the same reaction — to see it come alive is another level, another dimension.”
The PJ historian is still waiting on five more reels to come back, which he expects will be in a few weeks. The videos are all being displayed in the public Facebook group Port Jefferson Maritime, though Ryon said he may look for some video to be posted to the Port Jefferson website.
“Once it becomes digitized, we can send it all over the world,” Ryon said. “Everyone who wants to can see it.”
PJS Family Dedicates Time and Trains to Dickens Fest
Top, William, Charles and Marie Reed at the harbormaster building in Port Jeff. Below, William and other volunteers make sure the trains run smoothly. Photos by Kyle Barr
William Reed helps set up the trains at the Harbormaster building during the 24th Dickens Festival. Photo by Kyle Barr
Boy Scouts of Troop 354 helped set up the trains during the 24th annual Charles Dickens Festival. Photo by Kyle Barr
As the Dickens Festival filled in the chilly outdoor air with 19th-century charm, the harbormaster building itself piped into the village a different kind of old-time allure, that of locomotives and steam engines. More than 20 miniature trains ran in inexhaustible loops, little jets of steam puffing from their chimneys. Boy Scouts of Troop 354 hovered over the tracks, along with Charles, Marie and William Reed of Port Jefferson Station.
Charles, the father, owns the trains and knows how to put all the complicated parts and tracks together. William, who makes the words “train enthusiast” seem an understatement, knew each of the models and could do “train talk” with something of a dizzying speed. Ask the youngest Reed, who’s an Eagle Scout with Troop 354, about trains and he’ll tell you about trains in far-off places.
“Korean railways is the national railway they have there, some of their high-speed trains are French derived, based on the French models like the KCX1 and 2,” he said.
The young man dashed around and between the tables, adding liquid to the trains’ stacks and helping his father fix the tracks.
The Reed family has been chugging along for the last several weeks setting up the train display, although in earnest the family spent several months beforehand gathering all the materials it needs to have on hand. Setting up the public display has meant several long nights, carting box after box of train collections, laying it out and making sure each is in operating order. The family asks for donations at the door, where on average around $1,400 is raised for Toys for Tots.
“We don’t need them in the boxes, that’s why we can take them out and share them,” Marie, the mother, said.
In previous years, another man used to set up trains during the Dickens Festival. After he moved away, the Reed family stepped in. Marie said that, while he would have a score of volunteers, the Reed family only has themselves and a few people from the Scout troop.
Charles said that each year since they started, six years ago, they have added more tables. At first, they had six tables with 10 trains. Today they set up 10 tables with 20 trains.
“It’s crazy, but it comes together eventually,” the father said.
The amount of effort the family puts into it was recently acknowledged by Mayor Margot Garant at a Port Jefferson village meeting in November.
24th Dickens Festival Brings Classic Cheer for All to Hear
Village Times Herald
by Kyle Barr - December 9, 2019
Port Jefferson hosted its 24th annual Charles Dickens Festival Dec. 6-8. Photo by Kyle Barr
A silent night Dec. 6 opened up the weekend with Port Jefferson Village’s annual lantern dedications, but as night turned to day, Port Jeff was suddenly filled with characters straight out of a classic 19th century Dickens Classic. For the 24th year in a row, the village was suffused with the sights and sounds of Christmas spirit during the annual Charles Dickens Festival.
Volunteers acted scenes from A Christmas Carole and other Dickens books, such as a live, local musical version of Oliver Twist. Visitors could visit the Village Center for ice skating, the festival of trees or a live reading of A Christmas Carol. A constant supply of marshmallows were up for grabs to roast over a fire, and businesses all shared Christmas and Dickens themed dinners and specials. Over at Theatre Three, A Christmas Carol was acted out Friday through Sunday, and is going on all the way until Dec. 28.
Port Jeff Church Declares New Name and Independence
The Island Christian Church in Port Jefferson will soon be officially called Harborview Christian Church. Photo by Kyle Barr
The Island Christian Church in Port Jefferson will soon be under a new name, Harborview Christian Church.
The well-known church at the corner of East Main and Prospect streets hung a banner from its porch declaring its name change. Rev. Pete Jansson said the church is splitting off as a branch of Island Christian, with the other, much larger site in Northport.
“It’s a step of faith,” the reverend said.
He said when the two branches of the church went up, it was said that if the two became too distinct they would have to look into separation. The Northport branch is a much larger campus and congregation, with many more church programs for multiple age groups and other, larger events. The smaller church in Port Jeff, he said, had become distinct in both its activities and number of churchgoers.
The church hung the banner off its porch to get residents used to the name before becoming a fully separate church starting the first Sunday of January 2020.
Splitting off also has some disadvantages, namely the church having to fully pay its own bills, meaning more dependence on the donations of churchgoers instead of having the backing of the larger branch.
“We’re dependent on paying our own bills,” Jansson said. “But we feel God is moving us in that direction.”
Port Jeff Declares Best Slice of Residents’ Home-Baked Pies
by Kyle Barr - November 28, 2019
Judges taste pies made by local residents, making the decision on both taste and texture. Photo by Kyle Barr
PJSD student in the aftermath of the pie-eating contest. Photo by Kevin Wood
Pie to die for was served up at the Village Center in Port Jefferson Nov. 23 as the village hosted its first Pie Bake Off and Eating Contest, sponsored in part by Torte Jeff Pie Co. and the Village of Port Jefferson.
Residents and locals, even one who hailed from across the Sound in Connecticut, sent over two versions of their home-made pumpkin pies to see which would be the cream of the crop. Six judges, including Mayor Margot Garant and trustee Kathianne Snaden, as well as Torte Jeff Pie Co. owner Lisa Harris tried slices of 33 pies, judging them on crust, taste, sliceability and more. By the end, it was general surgeon Dr. Lawrence Kelly of Port Jefferson who won first place. Second place was tied between Tom Capodanno and Beth Whitford. The pies were raffled off for those wanting to take them home, and over $250 was donated to the food pantry at Infant Jesus Church in Port Jeff.
After the judging, both adults and kids from Port Jefferson Elementary School took part in a blueberry pie-eating contest, with Luke Musto winning in the children’s division. In a contest between the village and school, the village barely managed to pull ahead. Finally, Jimmy Purificato won in the public pie-eating contest.
Port Jeff Looks into Adding Electric Car Chargers
Nick Dattilo, a salesperson for Nesconset-based electrical supplies company Kelly & Hayes, during his presentation to the village board Nov. 18. Photo by Kyle Barr
Port Jeff village officials are considering installing an electric car charger into an existing parking space toward the west end of the lot off Barnum Avenue.
Nick Dattilo, a salesperson for Nesconset-based electrical supplies company Kelly & Hayes, presented to the village board Nov. 18 about the possibility of installing a Charge Point electric vehicle charging station. Each station comes with two extendable charging ports and can be accessed with either an app or with a device that usually comes with a standard electric vehicle.
Kevin Wood, parking and mobility administrator, said the village is looking to make use of a New York State Energy Research and Development grant, which will provide up to an 80 percent rebate for such projects, from $250,000 up to a max of $500,000. The village would have to put the money upfront to be reimbursed. Mayor Margot Garant said she wanted to make sure the grant was in place before signing any contract for Charge Point.
Wood said the village could benefit, as the demographic of electric car owners is on the rise.
“As soon as you drive in [to the parking lot] you drive right into these,” Wood said. “I just like the idea that a person could come to Rocketship Park with their kids and charge their car.”
Officials said the hope is people with electric vehicles would shop while waiting for their car to charge. Each charge takes from three to five hours for a full charge.
The station includes an 18-foot retractable cord that winds up like a vacuum electric cord.
Though each station comes with two ports, Wood said he would like to see only one port be used with one space as a pilot. He added the village’s parking committee is usually hesitant to give up even a single space.
“If we saw it being used a lot, we’d open the second one up,” he said. “This town can’t afford to give away spaces.”
There are several electric vehicle charging stations in the immediate area. One set is in the parking lot of Heritage Park in Mount Sinai, and another set is provided at Stony Brook University, whose services are not billed for use.
The village board would still have to decide upon cost to the driver, with the rate depending on how long a car is being charged. Garant mentioned, depending on cost, the service could be offered free to attract people into downtown Port Jeff.
The board plans to reassess the feasibility of the charging station at the next board meeting, Dec. 2.
Wood said his goal is for installation of the charger next to Rocketship Park to take place in the first quarter of 2020.
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Majority-black Georgia county rejects plan to close 7 of its 9 polling places
Kira Lerner Political Reporter, Think Progress
The election board in majority-black Randolph County, Georgia voted Friday morning to reject a proposal to close seven of its nine polling locations before the November election.
The vote comes shortly after the county announced it had fired the elections consultant, Mike Malone, who conceived of the plan. Malone was initially hired to temporarily fill the role of an elections supervisor, but he undertook efforts to close all but two of the county’s polling precincts instead.
The racial implications of the plan generated immense backlash. The county is over 61 percent black, and one of the polling locations that would be shuttered serves a precinct where more than 95 percent of voters are African American. Before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the closures would most likely have been blocked by the Department of Justice.
Voting advocates, including representatives from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, attended Friday’s voting, vowing to file a lawsuit if the county approved the plan.
“This is a victory for African American voters across Georgia who are too often subject to a relentless campaign of voter suppression,” Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee, said in a statement. “The defeat of this proposal also shows the power of resistance and the impact that we can have by leveraging our voices against injustice.”
The county issued a statement crediting the public for pointing out the issues at the root of the plan.
“The interest and concern shown has been overwhelming, and it is an encouraging reminder that protecting the right to vote remains a fundamental American principle,” the statement said, according to a CNN reporter.
Malone was attempting to justify the closures using federal disability law, claiming the seven polling places were not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Voting advocates told ThinkProgress it was “diabolical” to use one civil rights law in an attempt to infringe another, the Voting Rights Act.
Voter suppression efforts in Georgia are not rare. Earlier this year, GOP lawmakers in the state similarly attempted to eliminate Sunday voting in Atlanta, a move that would disproportionately hurt black voters.
Andrea Young, executive director of the state’s ACLU, told ThinkProgress that closing polls is even more disruptive than other forms of voter suppression, like cutting hours — and that the effects are felt especially hard in rural Georgia, where many voters fought for the passage of the Voting Rights Act during the Civil Rights Era.
“What we see in Georgia is that every tool in the voter suppression toolkit is in use,” Young said. “I’m not surprised to see a new theory for voter suppression.”
Reposted from Think Progress
Kira Lerner is a Political Reporter for ThinkProgress. She previously worked as a reporter covering litigation and policy for the legal newswire Law360. She has also worked as an investigative journalist with the Chicago Innocence Project where she helped develop evidence that led to the exoneration of a wrongfully convicted man from Illinois prison. A native of the Washington, D.C. area, Kira earned her bachelor's degree at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.


Alcohol Abuse Content from the guide to life, the universe and everything
Created May 31, 2002 | Updated Dec 1, 2009
The reasons for alcohol dependency are numerous and for many too complex or painful to detail. What is uniform though is the effect it has on the sufferers and their families and friends. It is a painful trial which can result in loss of earnings, loneliness, and in some cases death.
It is because of Researcher experiences, like the one below, that we asked the h2g2 Community to turn its attention to dealing with alcohol abuse. This is the heartfelt, wise and all-round excellent Entry that resulted.
It's very difficult to watch someone you care about slowly drinking themselves to death. The screaming DTs, blindness for the last couple of years, steadily failing health, repeated hospitalisations towards the end. Deadly stuff indeed for those who don't find the strength and support to break the addiction.
University Drinking Culture
Alcoholism is a problem, however, alcohol abuse is a much wider issue. What concerns a lot of people is the excessive drinking culture which exists with students and other young people when they are at college or university.
When I arrived as an innocent new undergraduate at Durham University, I was completely unprepared for the scale of alcohol abuse. When I went out with my friends at home we only ever had one or two drinks and never had a problem. However, I soon realised that things were different at university.
In the freshers' week1 I was introduced to college drinking games, the idea that to go out every night and drink five to ten pints was normal, and a myth that to get drunk was desirable. Anxious to fit in and make friends I went along with all this, for a few weeks, until one night I drank far too much, was thoroughly sick and made a complete fool of myself. After that I didn't drink at all for six months.
Drinking is a problem, not only at Durham University, but at many educational establishments throughout the world. For one thing, the beer is usually ridiculously cheap. There's often also a macho, male, competitive sports-team culture vibe to many colleges and universities, where binge drinking is a rite of passage.
Some Good Advice to Students
Don't let anyone talk you into drinking more than you know you can handle.
Don't get involved with drinking games.
Don't pretend that getting drunk is desirable. If you think it is, you have got a problem. Seek help.
If someone asks you to get them half, don't buy them a pint.
If you ask someone to buy you a half and they buy a pint, just drink half of it.
My experience with alcohol was a shock. I know many people think I'm being silly - 'everyone gets drunk once or twice, can't you handle it?' - however, alcohol abuse kills thousands of people each year, far more than any illegal drugs. I was given hours of drugs education at school, but I've never found that a problem. I knew people at university who took drugs, but it was always accepted as something some people did. Some people didn't, but nobody was under pressure to try anything they didn't want to. Unfortunately, that was not the case with alcohol.
Although it might be a shock for new students to go to college and experience a 'drinking schedule' unlike anything they've ever experienced before, there are those that argue that it's all part of the college experience, and not necessarily damaging or harmful. It is a choice, after all.
When was I ever going to get the chance to live this way again? After college, I got a job and assumed more responsibility than I'd ever known. Drinking in college equates to (for most students), hanging out with friends, socialising, trying to meet members of the opposite sex, being a little more comfortable with yourself at a very crucial and transitional stage in your life. I'm not saying that drinking on college campuses is wise, or even right. But, let's face it, I prefer for these students to get their heavy-drinking years out of the way, before they hold down jobs, have families, and are out in the 'real world'. And it sure beats students doing 'e' and coke!
OK, each of us does have the choice to drink or to abstain, but the thing that comes through here is that there's an enormous amount of pressure on students (newbies, especially) to drink and get drunk, even if their better instinct tells them not to. The mentality that you must drink, found in so many JCRs (Junior Common Rooms), can exert, at worst, a slightly pernicious influence goading folk into mad boozing binges.
In my first week at uni, all you got from every direction was 'hey come to this club/pub/ball and get absolutely hammered.' A lot of people went because they thought it was the 'done thing' and wanted to fit in. A lot went out of sheer boredom. What is there to do in fresher's week if you don't go to all these places and get rat-arsed?
Drinking Culture at Work
There is a massive drinking culture in some professions too:
I used to be a full-time journalist, and it was a case of - 'Right, work done, whose round is it?' after work every night. All too tempting, after a stressful day dealing with deadlines and nagging, idiotic PR people. I enthusiastically participated in said drinking culture, to the detriment of my mental, physical and financial well-being.
It wasn't just after work, either. Put it this way: 'Private Eye' magazine called their journalist character 'Lunchtime O'Booze' for good reasons. God, it's a wonder we ever got anything written...
Drowning Your Sorrows
You can't drown your sorrows because sorrow floats.
How often do you see this situation portrayed on TV or in films? Someone has just suffered some heavy loss; maybe they've lost their job, their spouse has left them, their kids say they hate them, for whatever reason they are suddenly feeling very depressed. So they walk into a bar or pub, and start drinking heavily. The dialogue is usually cliché-ridden.
I'll have a whisky. Actually make it a double. No, a triple...
I've done it from time to time. I've found it to be a useful temporary distraction. It doesn't solve problems, but some problems don't have immediate solutions. They have to be dealt with in the morning. Having a drink is something to do until then. I wouldn't recommend it to a person prone to alcoholism, but I don't seem to be.
Usually the person drinks spirits, usually whisky, downs the first glass in one and then straightaway asks for another. In film/TV terms it's an easy way for the scriptwriters to show that someone is very depressed and upset - but it's all too common an occurrence in real life, and can lead to serious problems. Getting drunk doesn't solve depression, which doesn't go away, and instead it can make it far worse.
As a society we can try to encourage people not to turn to drink when they are depressed, making drinking a social act rather than a solitary one. As individuals we can try and provide people with support and a sympathetic ear when they are depressed or suffer some kind of loss, and let people know that it is okay to turn to these kinds of support networks.
This won't solve alcoholism, but it could be a step in the right direction.
What must have been a very painful posting to write (and the h2g2 Community was quick to recognise this and praise the Researcher for her strength and courage) the following tale will help other people to understand some of the dangers associated with alcoholism.
My mum was an alcoholic.
The thing is they can never see they have a problem then when they can't ignore it any longer they blame everyone around them for that problem. The only thing you can try to do is not get drawn into their mind games, do not accept the blame thinking you are making it easier on them, point out that you are not holding a gun to their heads and forcing them to drink they do that all by themselves. The following is a tale of caution.
My mum had had several falls and had done quite a lot of damage to her head. She was so drunk one day she fell down the stair and really bashed her head, she had to go into hospital and a blood clot formed on her brain. She could not be operated on as she had pernicious anaemia which causes the blood not to clot properly so the doctor wanted to wait until the clot had hardened so he could do a much smaller operation where he would just be able to suck the clot out.
My Dad got a call from the doctor on the Tuesday morning saying that the pressure had built up to such an extent in mum's head that he had to operate - he was still hoping to do the smaller operation.
He went ahead and on Tuesday night and we went to see her. When we got there, the nurse was tickling mum's feet to check for a response, and she was responding to it (before she couldn't feel any thing) so I got really excited. The nurse said she was not out of the woods and not to get our hopes up.
When we went to see her on Wednesday they had her sitting up in bed which was fantastic. But on Thursday we got a phone call asking us to go to the hospital straight away as mum was very sick. When we got there they had taken all the machines off her and she just had a tube draining fluid off her head and a tube up her nose draining off what looked like blood.
We asked what was wrong. Alcoholics get varicose veins on the inside of their throats, these had burst, there was nothing the doctors could do - and she basically bled to death. Not a pleasant way to die.
We got to the hospital at 8pm; she died at 5am Friday morning.
There are no easy answers - just lots of clichés, prejudice and innumerable 'good' and 'plausible' explanations. And the above Researcher is painfully right - it is very difficult for an abuser of alcohol to admit that he or she is one.
I am presently in treatment for alcohol abuse. And still I do not see myself as an alcoholic, incurable or unwilling to change my habits. It is so difficult to admit that there are factors in life you cannot control. I would ask everyone who knows somebody who drinks too much, to break 'the news' to them. In a proper way of course. Respectfully, but also seriously. Explaining how you feel, what you see, and what you wish for this friend, colleague or family member of yours.
An abuser of alcohol is a person whose abuse creates emotional and social problems for the abuser and dependant people, most obviously, the family. WHO's (the World Health Organisation) definition of Alcohol Dependency (paraphrased) involves having three of the following six symptoms:
An urge, need or lust for alcohol
An increasing usage (tolerance)
Abstinences (restlessness, unease, fast pulse, sweat)
You continue to drink although you know the negative consequences
A slighter interest in the social world surrounding you - because of alcohol
Loss of control (to continue to drink although you have made the decision 'not to')
But What Can You Say?
It's hard to know what to say. People who have any kind of medical condition needing treatment have to accept help, and sometimes they just aren't willing to do this - for whatever reason. Each person has their own reasons, though they may never have put them into words. Fear is probably the most likely reason. For example, someone may be afraid to see a doctor in case they are told they have cancer. Yet if the doctor starts treatment as soon as possible, their chances of recovery are much higher. And where alcohol is involved, shame and embarrassment are difficult barriers to overcome.
Probably the best way for others to bring up the subject with someone who has a problem is for them to choose a time when the person is in a conversational mood and, hopefully, able to remember. They could perhaps chat about how they themselves felt washed out, ill and depressed after drinking a lot at a social event, and they felt a lot better after 'resting their body' for two days (ie, abstaining from alcohol) plus taking vitamins/minerals (especially B-complex and zinc), sleeping naturally, eating good food, doing some kind of enjoyable activity, mixing with positive company and tackling any difficult issues/problems in a realistic and systematic way.
If the person with the problem thinks you're just sharing your own experience of a bad hangover, they'll listen more readily, perhaps open up a bit, and be willing to talk. If you haven't experienced a hangover yourself, tell them you knew someone who used to have terrible hangovers a lot. You can then suggest other things they can do. You can also mention guidelines for their drinking:
'Resting' for the next two days, and then ensuring they have a rest from alcohol for at least two consecutive days in each and every week
Limiting their drinking to a maximum of 21 units per week for men and 14 units per week for women
Spreading their drinking over a number of days, instead of drinking 21 units in one day
Drinking at a reasonable time (ie, not before midday and preferably not before going to bed)
Drinking only with or after food
Drinking socially, but not with people who will encourage drinking
If any of these guidelines present difficulties (and they will, if the person has a problem), you can encourage the person to see that alcohol is a central part of their life, that it's an obstacle and a hindrance, and that it controls them and deprives them of freedom, health, and opportunities. Parts of it or all of it will be difficult, but support from others is available in many forms, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, from doctors, medication, counselling, AA groups, other groups. Different people/agencies/methods focus on different aspects of the problem, in different ways and at different times. And all are available, so the person with the difficulty can work out and choose their own path to recovery, and choose their own means of support for each aspect of the problem.
When the person is challenged or made to feel shameful, they can become defensive or secretive, or feel that they are different from others and hopelessly lacking in self-control. It's important to make the person feel they will be able to take control, even in small things and for short periods of time.
A More Open Attitude is Needed
It must be exceedingly hard to give up alcohol when so many people advocate its consumption. People are always going to drink, prohibition not being generally noted for its success.
What is needed, some would argue, is a more open attitude to the fact that alcohol can be addictive, that it's dangerous, can kill and should be respected as such rather than thought of as simply a jolly good laugh.
The misuse of alcohol to dangerous levels seems to be part of a view of the world in which a crutch is needed, be it smoking, drugs, whatever. Other than the chemical addictions which can occur from these it is the mental addiction which is causing the problem. the feeling that we need these things to get us through the day. to get us from work to home and from tea to bed. Is life so awful for so many people?
Well, basically, yes, life can stink. For some people there really seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. But a lot can be solved or at least made easier by altering how we look at the world. Accepting there are some things we can change and some we can't and by learning healthier coping mechanisms. And a lot of our drinking is habit, a sort of unconscious reflex that we no longer really think about.
Quite a lot of people go for the drinking lifestyle, and then eventually, out of force of habit they choose drinking over everything else on offer. It's not a conscious choice, but one that creeps up on you. You find yourself being able to answer any question with: 'Sod it, let's just go down the pub instead'. It's when 'habitual' becomes 'compulsive' that problems start to crop up. There are so many people who are just 'in the habit' of pickling themselves daily. The best thing to try and do is to find another way to cope. Buy a big dog or go to an evening class instead of the pub. Or learn to talk out your problems rather than drinking through them till they go away. Try and find a different way to cope.
Beware the Hair of the Dog
Having some experience of this subject, I'd like to suggest that the point at which you're really getting in trouble with drinking is when you start regularly succumbing to the 'hair of the dog' syndrome. That is, waking up in the morning with a stinking hangover and then drinking more booze to cure the hangover.
And it works! The 'hair of the dog' is an effective remedy! But then, after your 'medicinal' drink, it's all too easy to fancy another one. Or two. Or six. And then you're well on your way to another hangover... which you might want to fix with another drink. And so it goes on. Beware the hair of the dog...
My Experience, Strength and Hope
We'll leave the final word of this Entry to a Researcher who knows deeply the struggle that recovery presents, but also knows hope and progress, and who provides us all with a message that things really can change for the better, that we can get well in the end.
I am a recovering drug addict with a little over six years clean. Alcohol was the drug I used most, the one that got me in the most trouble, and the one that led to my being arrested, which led me to a 12-Step fellowship and a new way of life. I could go on for pages about my story, but I will try to limit myself to addressing the questions asked.
It's usually easy for an outsider to recognise if someone has a problem: when she drinks, is it always to excess? Does she black out? Does she put herself in dangerous situations? Does she spend too much money on alcohol? Does she do things in order to get alcohol that she wouldn't do otherwise? Does she break promises or commitments because she's too busy partying or too hung over? When I started asking myself these questions and answering them honestly, I began to believe my life had become unmanageable. I believe that Alcoholics Anonymous UK has a pamphlet of 40 or so questions that if answered a certain way indicate the likelihood of a drinking problem. I'm sure it's available online.
I don't know if there is a tactful way to broach the subject nor is it something to be taken lightly. Many have tried interventions - close friends and family members with the help of a professional drug counsellor surround the drinker and confront her with examples of her behaviour and its consequences. You can always simply let the person you're concerned for know, with love, that you have seen A, B, and C which leads you to believe there may be a problem and you are afraid for their health and their safety. Negative attacks are never going to work - they will only serve to make the drinker want to isolate further.
I have found that I need two different kinds of help in my life: I need unconditional understanding and support, but I also need to pay the consequences of my actions. Many loved ones make the mistake of getting the drinker out of trouble or rescuing her by paying her debts or letting her live at home no matter how outrageous her behaviour. It is vital that the problem drinker be made accountable - unfortunately, many of us will not quit until we are in so much pain that we are willing to try something different. If we are always saved from our pain we will never understand exactly how damaging our behaviour is. But we also need - at least I need - a group of people who have been where I've been and understand what it means to be an addict. They understand how my brain works, how I am my own worst critic, and how to teach me to live life one day at a time without drugs.
Though we as a fellowship try not to distinguish between drugs, alcohol does stand out as one of the only legal, readily available ones. Someone in the grip of addiction is already full of fear and self-loathing - some turn it inwards into depression and some turn it outwards into anger, but it usually all boils down to fear. I still find myself acting like a shrew against my will - I'll revert to being bitter and judgemental simply because I'm afraid I am 'less than', envious of someone's success, or feeling some other emotion I don't feel strong enough to express.
Try to remember that the drinker is in at least as much pain as she is causing others and that recovery cannot begin for her until she admits that it is necessary. The good news is that the higher power I've found only needed the tiniest little crack in my defensive armour to get through. I'm far from well but I am better than I used to be, and as long as I am clean and breathing there is hope.
Please Note: h2g2 is not a definitive medical resource. If you have any health concerns you must always seek advice from your local GP. You can also visit NHS Direct or BBC Health Conditions.
1The first week of a student's life at college or university where they are introduced to all the clubs and societies on offer, and when heavy drinking is rife.
Not that bad
Units?
My experience, strength, and hope
researcher missed!
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Harbison House saw the Nut Tree flourish
Jerry Bowen
Residence once on U.S. 40 now has I-80 view
I drive by the now-empty parcel that once held Vacaville’s famous Nut Tree several times a week, and when I see the Harbison House I can’t help but wonder what the Allisons and the Harbisons would have to say about what they would see today.
They would have an unobstructed view of noisy Interstate 80 with speeding cars and the factory stores on the old orchard land. At one time the road that passed in front of the Allison house was the old Benicia-Sacramento Road, unusable during the winter. Later, in 1906, the view from the new Harbison house looked upon the new Lincoln Highway, later known as U.S. 40.
What we know as the Harbison House today wasn’t the first one built on the ranch. The first house was built in 1855 where the airport is today and a second one close to today’s Harbison House.
When Josiah Allison brought his family overland from Ottumwa, Iowa and settled here just three years after Vacaville was established, it was his second trip to California. He had been here once before, joining the many “gold rushers” who didn’t do particularly well before going back home. At the time the land was covered with a dense growth of horseback-high wild oats brought to the region by earlier Spanish explorers.
Josiah Allison established one of the early fruit orchards on his 225 acres where he and his wife, Julia Baldwin Allison, raised their seven children including Hester, who was born on the ranch.
In 1858, Josiah wrote to his sister, Mrs. Alpha Brown, her husband and daughter Sallie Fox, urging them to move the family to the ranch. They left for California as part of the Rose Wagon Train in March 1858, with Sallie’s stepfather, Alpha Brown, as manager of the group taking the southern route. On Aug. 30, 1858, Mohave Indians attacked the train at the Colorado River. Alpha was killed and Sallie was wounded by an arrow.
The wagon train retreated to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they stayed until resuming their journey with another group in 1859. During the return trip to Albuquerque and somewhere near today’s Seligman, Arizona, Sally picked up some black walnuts and kept them in her apron. She later planted them in Allison’s orchard, and one grew up to shelter what would later become the Nut Tree Fruit Stand.
Once the children were raised, Josiah decided to give up farming, sell the ranch and go into business. He moved to Elmira and opened the Allison Store there. The Allison Store was in the same building as the Elmira Post Office and was located alongside the railroad tracks. Josiah remained there until his death in 1895. After his death, his wife, Hester, returned to the home in Vacaville, where she lived the rest of her life with her daughter Hester. She died in 1903.
Before Josiah sold the ranch, his youngest daughter, Hester, married a local nearby rancher, Luther J. Harbison, whose 30-acre ranch was between today’s Coffee Tree (now abandoned) and Leisure Town. When Josiah quit farming, he sold his ranch holdings to Luther and Hester, where they raised four daughters, Edith, Julia, Harriet and Helen.
After the turn of the century, Luther and Hester decided to build a new home and hired prominent local builder George Sharpe, who built many of the Buck Avenue homes, to build the house, which was designed by Hester. This was the house we know today as the Harbison House. It was built in 1906 at a cost of about $6,000.
Hester was an accomplished pianist and held a bachelor’s of science degree. The house was of southern colonial style, with the interior planned for comfortable living in all seasons. With temperatures that often reached 100 to 105 degrees, particular attention was given to plenty of cross ventilation in the upper story for quick cool-off in the evening after a hot summer day.
On Edwin I. (Bunny) Power and Helen’s wedding day, his father, Edward C. Power of San Jose, gazed up at the Roman Ionic capitals atop the six columns and quietly remarked, “I made those capitals. I remember shipping them to Vacaville to Mr. Sharpe.” This was not too surprising, as it was well known that he had executed much of the statuary that graced the courts of the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
In 1921 Helen Harbison Power set up a fruit stand right next to Highway 40 under the oak tree planted by Sallie Fox. Her efforts were fully supported by her husband, Bunny, who set up the stand, placed fresh flowers at each end and erected a flag and made sure fresh water was available for the travelers who stopped to buy fruit. Little could they know then that their meager beginnings would become a landmark that was known around the world. It became so well known that people who didn’t know where Vacaville was could easily tell you where the Nut Tree was.
Eventually the Harbison home was given to Helen and her husband. They set up a life estate for Helen’s two unmarried sisters, Edith and Julia, who continued to live in the house until their deaths in 1969.
The beautiful old house was witness to years of growth of the Nut Tree Restaurant, as many of us knew it. After opening as a fruit stand, a restaurant was established in 1922. Specialty packaged fruits were offered during the 1920s. In the 1930s a new 200-foot awning sheltered the growing buildings. A flower shop was added in the early 1940s and an aviary was built into the dining room during the same decade. With a new kitchen added in 1949, the facility continued to prosper. In 1952, a toy store was established, and the Nut Tree railroad was added. The paved Highway 40 encroached on the old oak tree, and it finally died in the mid 1950s.
In 1955, Ed Power Jr. realized a lifelong dream by opening up the Nut Tree Airport, and the train was extended to it in 1956. The 1950s also saw the candy kitchen open and the restaurant remodeled. By 1960 the Nut Tree Plaza and bakery was added, and on Nov. 1, 1962, the Nut Tree had its very own post office.
In early 1970, Helen began to restore the Harbison House to its former elegance. Many items that had been so much a part of the house had since been sold or disappeared. Using old photographs of the house’s interior, Helen began to replace many of the bits and pieces that had once been in the home. In a stroke of luck, after sending some pictures of the furniture that had been in the house during her grandfather’s days to an old friend, Helen Fountain Bailey, she received a reply that she had furniture just like it in her home. A deal was made, and Helen was able to purchase the entire contents of Bailey’s home. The furniture was moved into the house in January 1971. By 1973 tours were being given in the stately old house.
The Nut Tree Airport was dedicated to Solano County in 1973, and in 1979 the Pumpkin Patch was in full operation. Over the many years of operation, numerous people added to the greatness of this landmark, including Vacaville’s favorite artist, Don Birrell, who was responsible for designing much of the many facilities at the Nut Tree. What a fine legacy he and the Power family was responsible for!
Sadly, by 1996 the Nut Tree was closed, and since then many pending sales have fallen through. Responsibility for the Harbison House was given to the Vacaville Museum. Talk of moving the home was raised and dropped. Many deals and plans for the Nut Tree arose and failed. Then this year, Vacaville’s favorite landmark The Nut Tree Restaurant was torn down.
Once again the venerable old home is witness to what lies across the road where the fruit stand once stood. As I write this, today’s paper had a new plan for the property, and in the background is the Harbison House. Let’s hope it can remain as one of Vacaville’s cherished historical structures from our past.
Jerry Bowen and Sabine Goerke-Shrode alternate ''Solano: The Way It Was,'' delving back about 150 years. This archive has been set up to preserve these articles.
Solano, The Way It Was
Solano In Retrospect
James E. Kern
Echos Of Solano's Past
Around Vacaville
Ernest Wichels
The way it was: Poor road conditions in Solano
It’s been a fun ride, but I’m ready to explore the West
Poor road conditions brought the citizenry together
Annie Lizzie Gill: A pioneer in every sense
It was primitive, but settlers celebrated Fourth
Starting an orchard barely panned out for Gills
Benicia Tannery was one of the state’s best
Making a life in Vallejo wasn’t easy for the Gills