12.30.2018

8 TOP COOL RETRO INVENTIONS OF THE 1960S


Valium invented 1963

Diazepam was first made by Leo Sternbach and commercialized by Hoffmann-La Roche. It has been one of the most frequently prescribed medications in the world since its launch in 1963.

In the United States, it was the highest selling medication between 1968 and 1982, selling more than two billion tablets in 1978 alone.


The LASER 1960:

The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow.
1960

May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard Before Mercury Launch

First US Space Launch

Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., in his silver pressure suit with the helmet visor closed, prepares for his Mercury Redstone 3 launch on May 5, 1961. Shepard's Freedom 7 Mercury capsule lifted off at 9:34 a.m. from Launch Complex 5 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and flew a suborbital trajectory lasting 15 minutes and 22 seconds. He became the first American to fly into space.



The Audio Cassette Invented 1962

In 1962, Philips invented the Compact Cassette medium for audio storage, introducing it in Europe on 30 August 1963 at the Berlin Radio Show, and in the United States (under the Norelco brand) in November 1964, with the trademark name Compact Cassette. The team at Philips was led by Lou Ottens in Hasselt, Belgium.


Spacewar, the first computer video game invented 1962.

Steve Russell - Inventing of Spacewar. It was in 1962 when a young computer programmer from MIT named Steve Russell, fueled with inspiration from the writings of E. E. "Doc" Smith, led the team that created the first popular computer game. Spacewar, the first computer video game invented.


Kevlar invented 1965

Stephanie L. Kwolek. In a polymer research lab at DuPont, Kwolek discovered the super fiber known as Kevlar. In 1965 Stephanie Kwolek created the first of a family of synthetic fibers of exceptional strength and stiffness. Kevlar invented by Stephanie Louise Kwolek.


First Computer Mouse Invented1968

Douglas Engelbart, (born January 30, 1925, Portland, Oregon, U.S.—died July 2, 2013, Atherton, California), American inventor whose work beginning in the 1950s led to his patent for the computer mouse, the development of the basic graphical user interface (GUI), and groupware.


ARPANET Invented 1969

The precursor to the Internet was jumpstarted in the early days of computing history, in 1969 with the U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). ARPA-funded researchers developed many of the protocols used for Internet communication today.



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FORTUNE RECORDS: DETROIT'S LEGACY OF SOUL


Fortune Records 3942 Third Ave Detroit Michigan



Ron Murphy is Detroit’s premier music authority and has worked in the music industry in Michigan for over 40 years. Ron’s story first appeared in a Michigan music magazine called R.P.M. in September of 1983.


The first songs cut in the new (11629 Linwood) Fortune Studio were recorded on a Magnacord tape machine. In 1953, they purchased an Ampex model 350 which was used to record all of the Fortune masters, until the early sixties.



Fortune Records used simple basic recording techniques and just a few mikes that let the quality of the voices, and musicians playing shine through without any gimmicks.




The first time I visited Fortune Records was February 1960 and I was going to be a singer, so my best friend and I skipped school to go make a demo record. When we got down to the Fortune studio on Third Street and walked in, a man wearing a hat and an overcoat came out said “Hi boys, are you lost or what?”

Then he laughed and I explained that I had called last week about making a demo, then I asked again about the price just to be sure and he said “that’s right, I’ll give you couple of takes on a tape and then cut the dub for $7.50 – so are you ready? I said yes and gave him the money and we went to the studio in the back.

3942 Third Ave in 2001 just before demolition

I recorded one song and went into the control booth to listen back. While listening the man said, “Well how do you like it?” I told him it sounded pretty good. He replied “What do you mean pretty good? I’m giving you my best sound!”


The Fortune Records story started almost 40 years ago. Devora came to Detroit from Cleveland, Ohio and was introduced to Jack Brown through a blind date set up by a friend. Devora was already writing poems and songs, even though Jack was working as an accountant at the time, he liked her songs and encouraged her to send them to a few music publishers.


Devora Brown: songwriter, pianist, record store owner, producer, engineer, song publisher and co-principal of Detroit-based Fortune Records...Jack Brown: co-principal of Fortune Records with their daughter, Janice

By this time Devora married Jack Brown, and in 1947 after little response from other publishers, they decided to start a publishing company and record the songs themselves.


Jack and Devora Brown set up the publishing company with Devora’s brother helping out. In 1956 the Browns purchased the building at 3942 Third Street and moved into what was to become Fortune’s permanent home.

When Motown Records started to become successful around 1962, I remember asking Devora how come they let Motown get ahead of them. She replied “We had all those people down here but they sure didn’t play that way for us.”

Unlike most record companies of the 50’s, Fortune Records had a sound all of it’s own. You knew it was a Fortune Record without looking at the label. Just like Motown in the 60’s.

Other than the J-V-B record label started by Joe Von Battle in 1945 (which folded in 1968), Fortune has now become the oldest steady record producer from Detroit, Michigan. Out of all the record companies started in Detroit, including Motown who left, Fortune Records outlasted them all.

Ron Murphy

September 1983

Read More About Fortune Records:


MURDER AT SEA: WHAT KILLED DETROIT RESTAURANTEUR CHUCK MUER ?


Chuck Muer 1975

It's been almost 25 years since Chuck Muer, his wife and two friends disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. There is very little info on this disappearance. No photos and no videos remain..You'd think with the fame and fortune Chuck had acquired, that more of an effort to solve this tragedy would have been made...


Chuck Muer was a VERY successful renovator of historical buildings and restauranteur. He was from Michigan and had many high profile restaurants in SE Michigan.  Yesterday I photographed one of Chuck's greatest renovations, the Gandy Dancer in Ann Arbor.  Read that story here.

While I was working on that story I wondered whatever became of the search for Muer who's 40 ft boat disappeared on a trip from the Bahamas to Jupiter Florida in 1993.

Talk about a COLD case...I can't find a photo of his boat "Charley's Crab". Can't find a photo of Chuck and his wife...weird... A week after the disappearance this case totally dropped off the radar. They searched for him and his party as peenie wallie humorously describes.



Chuck Muer

Chuck is famous for leaving his sales job at IBM and jumping into building restaurants. That decision resulted in a restaurant empire that grosses more than $60 million annually. The Pittsburgh/Lake Erie train station became the 500-seat Grand Concourse (above), his single biggest money-maker.

Then the unthinkable happened...Chuck, his wife, Betty, and their friends, George and Lynn Drummey, disappeared at sea when a monster storm pummeled the East Coast. His red-hulled 40-foot Charley`s Crab was last seen on March 12, 1993, sailing northwest from the Bahamas, apparently en route to Jupiter, where it was due on March 13. They never made it to port...


LANTANA -- At 4:25 a.m. March 13, 1993, a call came into the 911 emergency center in Palm Beach County.

An operator took the call but could hear nothing but the crackle of static.

The weather had been clear and calm two days earlier when Charles and Betty Muer, joined by lifelong friends George and Lynn Drummey, set sail from the Bahamas for the trip back to Florida. Now, in the early morning darkness, they were losing a desperate battle against 30-foot seas and winds of 70 miles an hour.

At 4:27 a.m., a second call to the 911 center. Again, nothing. Nothing but static. It was the last anyone would hear from Charley's Crab.

20 years later, no trace of the 40-foot ketch or its four occupants has ever been found. They remain unaccounted for -- presumed victims of the "Storm of the Century."

Crew members aboard a Coast Guard Falcon jet were among the last to see his boat the Charley`s Crab. The jet, on routine patrol, flew over the boat at 2:45 p.m. March 12 as the Charley`s Crab headed northwest from Chub Cay toward the Great Isaac Light, a light tower used as a local landmark on the western edge of the Bahamas.

The location of the boat ``would have put it on a track headed home,`` Coast Guard spokesman Joe Dye said.

The Charley`s Crab also had been seen the previous day, March 11, at Chub Cay.

He came in, he circled around the marina, and he went back out,`` said Gerreth Roberts, dock master at the Chub Cay Club Marina.

The last time anyone on the boat was heard from was on March 11 when George Drummey called his son from Nassau, Mari Muer said. ``He just said, `We`re in Nassau; see you on Saturday,``` she said.

Muer, a skilled sailor, apparently left only a general itinerary with his business associates and seven children. He sailed from Florida on March 2 or 3, and his wife and the others flew to meet him in Paradise Island. They were to sail from Nassau to Chub Cay in the Berry Islands chain and leave there on March 11 for Jupiter.

"That's a huge area. That's an unsearchable area, and the fact that the Gulf Stream is involved makes it even more difficult. We need to narrow that down. We need to find somebody who's talked to them in between those two ports (Berry's Islands and Jupiter)," Coast Guard Lt. Mark Dolan said.

Sailors at Chub Cay said Muer might have thought the weather would be much less severe than it was, based on forecasts received on March 11.

``Nobody expected that severe a storm,`` said Donald Farrar, of Connecticut, who weathered the storm in his 26-foot Snapdragon off Chub Cay. ``The forecast was for 30 to 40 knots, with occasional gusts. Nobody expected 70 to 80 knots. It was a wicked thing.` Read More


This is from my friend Michael McDaniel..

Chuck Muer was my first culinary hero. At 10 years old in 1964, my father took me to his friend who lived next to Charley's Crab on Pine Lake (before it burned down). I was mesmerized by all the cars and beautiful people who valet parked and enjoyed his restaurant on a warm summers evening. When I moved to West Bloomfield in 1984, Muer had a restaurant at Maple and Orchard Lake Roads. "Mussels a la Muer, Teacup Bread with Honey Cinnamon Butter, and Crab Stuffed Flounder" were but a few of his trademark recipes.

I met him several times at this location, always cordial and dressed in his signature bow tie. 20 years ago this March, he and Betty were lost at sea (along with George and Lynn Drummey of the Drummey Oldsmobile dealership fame).

The family published two cookbooks posthumously which I bought and truly treasure. One has a picture of Chuck and his beautiful wife Betty which I share here. His passing ended a hallmark in the Detroit restaurant establishment that has been rarely duplicated since. Michael McDaniel

FROM A READER:

Hi Kimmer,

Just read your post about Chuck’s disappearance, it had been a while since the topic of thought has come up. Bud and Chuck had been family friends as I was growing up. I was also living at Jupiter Harbor at the time and in the marina every day I wasn’t in school, working on boats. One of our slips was directly next to Charley’s Crab- the Boat AND the restaurant.

The boat itself was mostly an art piece to keep at the dock for Charley’s Crab patrons to look at while eating. The round hull, small scuppers, and inadequate bilge pumps made it very unseaworthy in a storm. MANY people, my father included, warned Chuck AGAINST coming back from the Bahamas on that trip. Chuck decided to try to outrun the storm because “He had outrun a hurricane once.” and thought that he could do it again.

We weathered that storm in Jupiter and I remember it along with the hurricanes in the same house. When Chuck hadn’t been heard from (12 or 24 hours), we all started getting concerned. My father was in contact with authorities and their family during the first couple of days and weeks. We watched and waited in the marina, no red boat showed up. You claim that the search had stopped after a week, it went on for much longer, though potentially privately,

HOWEVER, within 48 hours of being overdue with no contact, the paternal unit made a few predictions about what potentially happened, based on knowing the boat, owner, and “crew.”

His take on it, which I still accept, yet paraphrase, since it HAS been a few decades. (was a kid then, old now)…

“Chuck tried to outrun the storm because he had before. With the storm coming from behind [and the lack of seaworthiness of the boat in a storm], they probably caught a wave from behind or from the side and it swamped the boat. The scuppers and bilge pumps couldn’t keep up and it went down like a rock.”

As far as Chub Cay….. My mother lived there for a few years and I’ve had the pleasure of visiting a few times. Chuck would be better off and probably here today if he hadn’t tried to outrun a "winter storm of the century.” and had either stayed in harbor or asked a friend for a plane ride back.

Again, it has been a very long time since remembering this this subject existed. I wanted to try to provide you with a more accurate recollections from there and then, as someone “on the dock at the time."

Try to outrun a storm like that and might as well ask Davie Jones what else he’s got in his locker.

I’ve loved and will continue to remember both Chuck and Bud extremely favorably since being a youngin running back and forth over Royal Palm Highway.

RK: Why do you think no evidence ever washed ashore anywhere?

That was always our take, that there would be nothing left. There was no internal flotation, and IIRC, there was no survival package (life raft) onboard above decks. There was very little onboard that would have survived the pummeling of that storm. That storm was brutal, even on land.

I do remember the controversy in the news about how nothing had been found, but…. there wasn’t much TO be found.

For once, i agree with my father, that It would swamp and go down in one piece in 30 seconds or less. As there was also very little life gear onboard being 1993…..and do not remember seeing any life raft canisters on deck.

That boat was never meant for 20-30 foot seas. Try imagining a 20-30 foot swell coming in quickly from behind and just putting a paw down on the transom then a few tons of water swelling up inside what was up until now, your safe place and mode of transportation.

We all REALLY wanted the red boat to come back to the dock, but it never arrived :(.

A Slightly Salty Cheers!

INSIDER TALKS ABOUT HENRY FORD AND HIS MISTRESS EVANGELINE DAHLINGER

Evangeline Cote Dahlinger and Henry Ford 

I started at Ford Motor Company in 1955, quickly delved into the company history and the Ford family history.. In 1956 my wife and I bought a home equidistant between the Dahlinger estate, and John and Barbara Dahlinger's home.


In 1958 I was in a car wash in Dearborn and admired a light blue '58 Continental At that time I was designing the 1961 Lincoln. The owner a vivacious blue-eyed blond introduced her self as the owner, and although I was too naive to know better she came on to me.

I was designing the 1961 Lincoln

She was Barbara Dahlinger, the car wash owner told me after she drove away, as he asked what she saw in me. Years past and I met John and he kindly autographed his book for me.

  Edsel Ford

Because there was a large portrait of Edsel in our building I immediately noted the similarity of John to Edsel. It was about then that I learned my son and buddies would play on the Dahlinger. estate until Mrs. Dahlinger would roar up in a Jeep with a shotgun on her lap and run them off. Dearborn was a small town, with a large percentage of Ford employees and it was common knowledge about Henry and Evangeline.

Evangeline Cote Dahlinger and Henry Ford

While working at Ford I soon learned that four co-workers attended the Village schools in Greenfield Village with John Dahlinger. One of whom is still alive, and they all knew that John Dahlinger was Henry Ford I's illegitimate son...


It was about 1958, and on one Sunday morning a guard at Fairlane called me and said, "if you come over in about 15 minutes I'll give you a tour of Fairlane" . I was on my way as it was only a mile away.

  Fairlane

What a tour that was, just the guard and myself. He even showed me Henry's boat house that housed Henry's electric skiff that he would use to go the half a mile up the Rouge River to see Evangeline.

The Dahlinger mansion had a ground level door on the South side, which opened to a stairway that led directly to Evangeline's bedroom. Interesting!

KNIGHT OF PENTACLES: GOOD NEWS AND FINANCIAL REWARD


Today could bring you good news of financial reward for your tenacity and hard work.

Your good work ethic and practical approach will start to pay off for you today, provided of course you do have such an ethic!


Much like the other court cards of this suit, the Knight of Pentacles revolves around work, effort, and general responsibility.

The Knight of Pentacles is about the daily tasks and the responsibility that one has to gain through a specific project. This knight has the patience to accomplish all his given duties and is considered by others reliable and committed to his work.

To see this card is an indication that there is a need to be trustworthy and reliable. Read More

12.25.2018

WISHING YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS 2018


May the melody and spirit of the holidays 
fill your home with love and peace. 

xoxoKimmer

12.24.2018

DISNEY CHRISTMAS DAY PARADE TO FEATURE DCAPPELA!


What an Incredible season! Tune in to the #DisneyChristmasDayParade tomorrow morning at 10e|9c|p on ABC for some magical surprises from Walt Disney World & DCappella featuring our friend JOE SANTONI!!

Come See DCappella On Tour 
In A City Near You!


The “Disney Parks Magical Christmas Day Parade” airs tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 25, from 10 a.m.–12 p.m. EST and 9-11 a.m. CST/MST/PST on The ABC Television Network and on the ABC app. (Note: airtimes vary, so be sure to check local listings).

During the special, guests will get a behind the scenes look at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, opening at Disneyland Resort in summer 2019 and at Walt Disney World Resort in fall 2019.
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