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Sunday Bulletin Board: How a collector of postcards became a collector of ribbons!

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

Dept. of Neat Stuff . . . The Best State Fair in Our State DivisionGREGORY J. of Dayton’s Bluff reports: “I attended my first Minnesota State Fair in 1958 and have been hooked ever since.“At some point, I realized I wanted to be a participant and enter something to be exhibited at the Fair and possibly win a bona fide State Fair ribbon.“It was a long journey. I finally got around to doing it in 2010.“One major stumbling block was figuring out what to exhibit. It was fairly easy to eliminate such things as cows, pigs, chickens, giant vegetables, and anything that requires artistic ability, baking skills or handiwork of any kind. However, I do collect stuff — but there is no category for Neat Stuff as such. Creative Activities does have a postcard-collection category, and I also collect postcards, beginning with, you guessed it, Dayton’s Bluff postcards and others related to St. Paul.“So in 2010 I put together a postcard frame titled ‘A ...

Rockies Journal: Ryan Feltner takes big steps three months after skull fracture

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

In the blink of an eye, Ryan Feltner’s life was upended.His season, his career and even his long-term well-being were put in jeopardy May 13 at Coors Field. For those who saw the game live, or later on replays, it was a chilling moment.Now, remarkably, Feltner is edging closer to returning to the big-league mound. In a difficult Rockies season colored by injuries and mounting losses, Feltner’s comeback is something for fans to hold on to. For Feltner, returning this season is vital.Three months ago, in the second inning, the Phillies’ Nick Castellanos scorched a 92.7 mph line drive toward the mound. Feltner had just enough reaction time to avoid getting hit in the face, but the baseball struck Feltner in the back of his head, just above the right ear.He sprawled on the mound, blinking his eyes and shaking his head, not quite knowing what had happened. Castellanos crouched near first base, hands to his face, eyes wide, as he hoped for the best.Feltner, a 26-year-old...

Why CU Buffs’ return to Big 12 has some parents singing Pac-12 blues: “It’s a little bit sad.”

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

BOULDER — Kevin Moschetti will go to Moon and back to watch his daughter play soccer for the Buffs. Although from his home Irvine, Calif., Morgantown, W.Va., might as well be the Mare Tranquillitatis.“As far as travel, sure it’s a bummer,” said Moschetti, whose daughter Angelina is a freshman defender for the CU women’s soccer team. “(Angelina) played club soccer in both the Seattle area and in Southern California, so she had friends and former teammates from every former Pac-12 school. And we had parent friends at all those schools, too. So we’re looking forward to being able to reunite with them and to (be) around to watch her play.”Last season, the Buffs played twice in Northern California and twice in Washington. This fall, they’re slated to play once in Southern California, twice in Washington and twice in Oregon.Suddenly, the news of CU re-joining the Big 12 next year, a league they’d left in 2010, could make the 2023 regular season, which kicks off Thursday night agains...

Mathews: Which is more dangerous, ‘Oppenheimer’ or ‘Barbie’?

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

Which region is the greater threat to humanity: Northern California or Southern California?That’s the most urgent question raised by 2023’s great cinematic contest between “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie”.Sure, these are entertaining films about a physicist and a doll. But both movies are also, in no small part, California-based stories about global nightmares, about the earth-altering threat of bombs and bombshells alike.Embedded in those nightmares are warnings about the damage that Northern and Southern California can do when we send our ideas out into the world.Oppenheimer is the Northern California nightmare. While much of Christopher Nolan’s film takes place in New Mexico, where the first atomic bombs were built, the most important moments occur at Berkeley, where J. Robert Oppenheimer was a a professor from 1929 to 1943.It’s there that he meets the Manhattan Project’s military chief, Leslie Groves, and befriends the physicist Ernest Lawrence (the Lawrence of...

Opinion: Why grocery stores are no longer her happy place

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

Some people seek a bar or nature hike when they feel low. I go to the supermarket.My spirits lift as I stroll the aisles. I bop along to easy listening music. Exchanging pleasantries with cashiers lessens my loneliness. I celebrate the small wins — I procured broccoli (OK, and ice cream) — and leave with renewed purpose.As someone with depression, I find that brick-and-mortar businesses help me avoid isolation by providing a space to be alone with others. But my happy places — supermarkets and pharmacies — say they have seen increasing theft and violence.Locked glass cabinets safeguarding merchandise are now ubiquitous in chains like Target, Walmart and Walgreens. Asking clerks to retrieve detergent and baby formula is demoralizing enough, but businesses are implementing more severe security measures that erode customers’ spirits and our social fabric, even though it’s unclear whether shoplifting has become the national crisis that some retailers claim.A grocery run shouldn’t feel l...

One of the hardest roles of a lifetime? Being a successor trustee

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

Question: Last month, my eldest brother’s wife began her role as successor trustee on behalf of a deceased out-of-town aunt. The aunt owned a large home. The disposition of the aunt’s belongings is underway. Next is the home sale. Yesterday I heard my brother praising the relinquishing of his designation as the successor trustee for our parents’ trust. Fascinating, considering this brother’s insistence 20 years ago to be named the successor trustee. It’s interesting timing. What does my brother now know that my parents, siblings and I do not?Answer: Your brother has been experiencing a real-time, first-hand education of the duties and challenges of a successor trustee. He’s unpleasantly surprised. Perhaps your brother thought a successor trustee operates like a CEO. The successor trustee acts in many roles — especially as the investigator. Full stop. The immense loss of time a successor trustee spends pursuing paperwork and information is avoidable. Many successor trustees search a ...

Review: ‘Heart of Stone’ is an impressively generic spy film

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

By Jake Coyle | Associated PressIt’s turning out to be quite a summer for superspies and supercomputers.A month after the action feast of “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part I,” in which Tom Cruise faced off with an AI supervillain called “the Entity,” comes a very “MI”-like international espionage thriller with an equally fancy and powerful machine.“Heart of Stone” stars Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone, an agent for an elite and clandestine intelligence agency called the Charter. Like “Mission: Impossible,” “Heart of Stone” hits glamorous global destinations (the Italian Alps, Lisbon, Senegal, Iceland) and features lengthy actions sequence including a wingsuit skydive.Whereas “Dead Reckoning” pushed old-school filmmaking to extremes for a gripping theatrical experience, “Heart of Stone” revels in its digital wizardry, feels vaguely algorithm-y in its conception and was made for Ne...

Belarus’s Lukashenko says he wants to improve relations with Poland

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko said he is seeking to improve relations with Poland, amid heightened tensions over border issues between the two countries. The Belarusian dictator said Minsk should avoid souring relations with Western countries, adding that Belarus “should not discard contacts with the high-tech West,” according to a report by Belarusian news agency Belta.“Now we make money mainly in the East: in Russia, in China. But we should not discard contacts with the high-tech West. They are close, the European Union is our neighbor. And we should maintain contact with them. We are ready to do that, but we have to give due consideration to our own interests,” he said on Friday, according to Belta.“We need to talk to the Poles. I told the prime minister to contact them. If they want, we can talk, mend our relations. We are neighbors, and this cannot be chosen, neighbors are given by God,” Lukashenko said.The Polish government is i...

Sale faces Cabrera for last time, jokes, ‘I helped you get to Hall of Fame.’

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — Chris Sale retired Miguel Cabrera on a groundout for the second out in the fifth inning, the 14th straight Tigers batter to go down quietly.Then the Red Sox starter said something to the 2012 AL Triple Crown winner and two-time MVP as Cabrera jogged back to the dugout.“Well, it wasn’t fun learning how to pitch in the big leagues as a starter during his Triple Crown and MVP years. I can tell you that,” Sale told reporters afterward. “But I knew that this was going to be the last time I faced him, and I just wanted to know that I have a lot of respect for him, and I obviously appreciated the competition throughout the years.”Cabrera came to the plate 70 times against Sale, batting .288 with four homers and 19 strikeouts.“You’re welcome, Miggie. I helped you get to the Hall of Fame,” Sale told reporters with a laugh. “You look at his career and what he’s done, I just wanted to say a little something to him and let them know that I appreciate what we’ve been through ...

Haverhill sinkhole displaces 20 people from multi-family home

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 12:50:33 GMT

A few neighbors in a Haverhill neighborhood have a sinking feeling after a massive sinkhole opened up near a multi-family home Tuesday. More than 20 people were forced to evacuate the home because of the sinkhole, which is 20 feet wide and 20 feet deep.The Haverhill mayor declared a state of emergency, and the city posted signs barring people from entering the home.Marcos Cruz lives next door but has been told his home is not in danger.“I’m not worried about it,” he said. “They say we’re ok. We’re safe but as soon as we see something strange I’ll get my family out of here! But we’re ok for now.”The hole opened up on Tuesday night and is big enough to swallow multiple cars. Officials said a sewer pipe was damaged in this week’s torrential rain.  “The pipe’s buried pretty deep and the  pipe I don’t know if it’s collapsed or blew out but when the pipe goes all the soil goes and kind of goes right down the pipe,” Haverhill Public Works Director Robert Ward said.Old ...