Les Jones

Movies to Watch

So I used to have a Palm back in the Palm III era. I got a cell phone shortly after that and decided that carrying both made me a technology victim. Ditching the Palm was an easy decision. The one thing I miss about it was the notepad feature. It meant that I always had something to write on, and one of the pages in my notepad was a list I kept of movies I wanted to rent.

Fast-forward to 2005. I'm going to try keeping those lists on my blog. There's nothing I mind anyone seeing, and publishing the list may provoke some helpful advice I would have missed out on if I had scribbled this on a Post-It Note and stuck it in my glovebox.

UPDATE: Crossed-out movies are ones that I've seen after adding them to the list.

UPDATE 2: I've joined Netflix, so I'm going to manage my movies to watch in my Netflix Queue from now on. Netflix is very cool, BTW. Without it, there'd be no way to find many of the older movies on this list.

Movies to Watch

Hickey and Boggs
The Music Room, by Satyajit Ray
Sin City
Million Dollar Baby
Batman Begins
Fantastic Four
Logan's Run
1984
MASH (believe it or not, I've never seen the movie)
Caligula
Outland
Gangster No. 1 (Malcolm McDowell)
If (Malcolm McDowell)
Showgirls, which won the Worst Movie Poll.
Battlefield Earth (runner-up in the worst movie poll)
Sunset Blvd.
All About Eve
Team America

These next movies were all recommended in the comments to this post about The Usual Suspects actors and other movies with twist endings.

The Vanishing (Dutch version)
Hero
Big Top Pee Wee
The Last of Sheila

Movies to Watch Again

Snatch
Capricorn One
Casablanca

Lists for Inspiration

Jeff Goldstein's '70s Movies Picks

Goofy Trips To-Do List

Goofy trips are what Melissa and I call little day trips and weekend trips within a couple hours of Knoxville. When we first moved in together we made a list of different things we wanted to do. Some of them were things neither of us had done and some of them one of us had done, but we wanted to do them together.

With a long weekend coming up we've been thinking about goofy trips. I used to keep this list in Excel on my computer, but I'm moving it to the blog. This is the list we'll look at when we have a free weekend day and need something to do.

Things To Do

All cities are in Tennessee unless they're not.

- Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia
- Sharp's Chapel ferry ride
- Whitewater rafting on the Ocoee
- Scottish Games and Festival in Gatlinburg
- Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) in NC (Memorial or Labor Day)
- Parkway Drive-in Movie Theater in Maryville
- Abbingdon, Virginia theater and antiques
- Visit Mark in Bristol
- Kings Island theme park, Ohio
- Visit Tammy in Atlanta, Georgia
- Hot Springs, North Carolina weekend trip
- Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburgh
- Smokies baseball game at the new stadium in Kodak
- National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough
- Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg
- Gethsemani Monastery in Bardstown, Kentucky
- Jefferson Co. Fair (July/early August)
- Rent a boat on Douglas Lake
- Alvin C. York birthplace (could combine this with the next two, which are in the same area)
- Historic Rugby
- Northrup Falls hike at Colditz Cove State Natural Area
- Jack Daniels BBQ Festival in October
- Lake Lure, NC

Trip Reports and Pictures

Some of these were on the list, too.

- Alleghany Falls and Alleghany Springs Hotel in Maryville (Blount County), Tennessee
- Asheville, North Carolina
- Athens, Tennessee
- Boone and Banner Elk, North Carolina ski trip
- Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Cades Cove, Tennessee (Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Crossville, Tennessee
- Dayton, Tennessee, part 1: Scopes Trial Museum and Downtown
- Dayton, Tennessee, part 2: Stinging Falls Pocket Wilderness
- Dandridge, TN and Tennessee's Covered Bridges
- Eintstein Simplified (Knoxville improv/sketch comedy group)
- Elkmont Synchronized Lightning Bugs (2nd week of June in the Smokies)
- Grainger County Tomato Festival
- Gregory's Bald Azalea Backpacking Trip Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Hwy. 30 - Mayfield Dairy Tour, Etowah's L&N Depot, Reliance, Ocoee River Whitewater
- Horse Racing at Keeneland in Kentucky
- Jonesborough, Tennessee
- Jonesborough, Tennessee Fifth Wedding Anniversary Trip
- Kephart Shelter Backpacking Trip, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Knoxville Zoo
- Ladies night at the pistol range
- Millennium Manor in Alcoa (Memorial Day)
- Morristown, TN and Its Unusual Downtown Walkways
- Mt Airy, North Carolina
- Mt. Cammerer Firetower Hike, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Tennessee Valley Fair
- Townsend and Walland, Tennessee
- Virgin Falls Pocket Wilderness Backpacking Trip, Middle Tennessee-
- Waynesville and Sylva, NC
- World's Longest Yard Sale on Hwy. 127

Links to some other things we did on our list:

- Knoxville homes tour at Christmastime
- Foothills Fall Festival in Maryville
- Teddy's play
- Palace Theater concert in Maryville
- Turkey dinner in Georgia
- Etowah antiques shopping
- Valleyfest Film Festival (now defunct)
- Pleasant Hill, Kentucky Shaker Village
- Crossville/Muddy Pond
- Steve Kaufman Guitar Camp Concerts at Maryville College

Blog Posts To Do

My to-do list for posts I've been meaning to do or complete.

Mostly-finished Posts

- William Petersen's '80s Movies
- Guns of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven
- A Cautionary Hiking Tale
- Review of Battlefield Earth

Pre-digital Travel Pics to Scan

I really, really hate scanning photo prints, so there's no telling when these will happen. To do it right, I'd also need to put some thought into the write-ups.

- New Orleans 1986
- New Mexico 1990?
- St. Louis 2001
- Southern California 2002

Misc.

- Scan Kenny Chesney's yearbook photos
- Lexington, KY trip report
- Pleasant Hill Shaker Village trip report
- Knoxville Zoo trip report (may have to re-take some of the photos)
- Nashville Zoo meerkats

Emergency Supplies

In light of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans I've been thinking about emergency plans for the Jones family. My main concern is being caught in a blizzard like the one we had in 1994, with the potential loss of power, heat, and telephones. There's also a remote potential for an earthquake. East Tennessee is on a large, but largely inactive, fault line. This should also encompass even more common occurences such as medical emergencies, fire, car breakdowns, power outages, etc.

This is me thinking out loud. Any advice appreciated.

What we have now

• Propane grill, 1 cylinder, propane heating attachment bought two winters ago UPDATE: replaced the radiant heater with a Mr. Heater Buddy from Lowe's as a Christmas present
• Lots of candles and flashlights (mostly StreamLight TwinTasks) and lots of batteries bought in bulk at Home Depot or Lowe's
• Battery-powered radio for AM/FM/UHF/Weather Band (the UHF TV is actually more useful than the FM/AM - local TV news has great reporting during bad weather)
• Cell phones
• First aid kits in backpack and house, though both need re-thinking/replenishing UPDATE: added all-new OSHA-approved kits from Beprepared.com.
• Plenty of guns, ammo, holsters, etc. if the SHTF. Plan is to take a couple of concealable hanguns and a long gun for basic self-defense.
• Pocket knives, sheath knives, and Swiss army knives and multi-tools on person, in car, and in house, compact shovel in car
• Tarps and ropes UPDATE: added ratcheting tie-down straps (4 for $15 at Home Depot) which make it easier to tie down loads tightly
• Tools and gardening tools
• Arkansas credit card (gas siphon hose) UPDATE: it turns out the cheapie model I had didn't work well at all when one of our cars ran out of gas because the hose was too wimpy to force into a gas tank; I'm going to get a better model with a more substantial hose and handpump)
• Fire extinguishers in cars, house, bedrooms
• New FirstAlert OneLink smoke and CO2 detectors with wireless links and voice alerts
• Computer backups &important documents offsite in bank safe deposit box (cheap at $38/year)
• Car emergency kits (road flares, booster cables, tow cables, blankets, tire inflator, etc.)
• Lots of backpacking equipment (tents, sleeping gear, water treatment, packs, lightweight stoves and mess kits, flashlights and LED headlamps)

What I know we need off the top of my head

• Emergency baby food supply
• Emergency pet food supply
• Hurricane lanterns UPDATE: got them in the camping section at Wal-Mart for $4.50 each; they burn lamp oil, kerosene, and tiki torch fuel, which is handy since we always have a few gallons around for the patio torches
• Multiband crank radio (and I'm not talking about Art Bell) UPDATE: got the Coleman Outrider model, which works very well with minimal cranking, and also runs for 20 hours on the internal rechargeable battery
• Propane-powered stove burner and spare propane cylinders UPDATE: got the spare propane cylinder as a birthday present, and got a propane turkey fryer (which is basically an outdoor burner) at an after-Thanksgiving sale for 50% off
• Spare butane cylinders for the backpacking stoves UPDATE: got them
• Power inverter (for running small AC electrical equipment off of car's DC cigarette lighter - also handy for car camping and other things) UPDATE: we got this Xantrex model from Amazon; it isn't clear in the Amazon photo, but it can connect to either a cigarette lighter adapter, or directly to the car's battery posts (which is necessary for higher wattage appliances); both cables are included Also got this Husky power box which contains a car battery, inverter, a compressor to inflate tires, and cables for jump-starting a car.
• Information for bank and insurance accounts and other important info.
• Gasoline containers UPDATE: got three five-gallon cans ($6 each at Wal-Mart) and a spare spout
• Utility trailer for evacuating (I want one anyway for moving furniture and such) UPDATE: I may ditch the utility trailer idea and get a receiver hitch rack which is less expensive, takes less space when not in use, and is easier to maneuver; we now have a mini-van, which makes for a better bug-out vehicle; it has a GPS nav system, roof rack, trailer hitch, and much more room and seating capacity; we keep a state atlas in the van
• UPDATE: we now have an appliance dolly ("hand truck"); along with ratcheting tie-down straps this is a great way to stay mobile if we run out of gas
• Pair of hand-held ham radios; will need to get trained and licensed; also useful for hiking, backpacking. UPDATE: Bought a set of inexpensive FRS/GMRS radios for $10 each, and a Cobra Road Trip CB radio.
• Water storage and treatment strategy (have iodine and household bleach, may get one of these MSR units - also useful for backpacking) UPDATE: got extra iodine tablets ($3 a bottle in Wal-Mart camping section), three seven-gallon potable water containers ($7 each at Wal-Mart), and two flats of bottled water ($4 each at Home Depot)
• Decide on a place to keep emergency supplies for easy access in a hurry UPDATE: using overnight backpacks we use for camping
• Create a supply check list

Links
- Inexpensive Alternatives to Emergency Generators
- Emergency Communications over Two-way Radio
- Government recommendations (Ready.gov)
- Doc Russia's recommended first aid kit part 1, part 2
- Countertop's thoughts
- Preacherman's lessons learned from his New Orleans bug-out
- Water supply and storage
- Storing gasoline
- Head's experience evacuating from Hurricane Rita

Gift List

I've been meaning to post this for a while. When it comes time to buy presents I'm usually at a loss. (And my firends and family have at worse - I'm a guy so I just buy what I want when I need it.) Here's my attempt to remember what to buy for other people and what to buy and or request for family members and myself.

Gifts for others:

- Candles and soaps
- Picture frames (Melissa's right - everyone has pictures they need to frame)
- Smoky Mountain Field School classes
- Good flashlights
- Coleman Outrider crank radio (we really like ours during electrical storms)
- First aid kits
- Leathermen and Victorinox Swiss Tools
- Mommy Knows Worst for new parents

For Katie and Natalie:

- DVDs: Disney, etc. After Natalie was born we bought a mini-van with a rear DVD entertainment system so we get a lot of use out of kids DVDs.
- something to measure height progress
- For determining age, Katie was born September, 2004, and Natalie was born June, 2006
- Books (we really like Susan Boyington's books; we have Dogs, Opposites and Blue Hat, Green Hat)
- No stuffed animals, please. We have more than we know what to do with.

For Melissa:

- Photo printer
- Narrow-necked crystal flower vase
- Glass to complete her set of green sherbert glasses
- One day: curio cabinet (next house)
- One day: Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer (next house)
- You can really never go wrong with jewelry, Les
- Sapphire ring
- Tanzanite earrings
- Mother's necklace

For us as a couple:

- At Christmastime, a place setting in this year's new Fiestaware color
- Fiestaware 10" serving bowls; any color except Fiesta Yellow, Cobalt (dark blue), Plum, or Tangerine
- Fiestaware oval serving platters; any color except antique Rose or dark purple (Plum)
- Kitchen Aid salad spinner in white
- Electric skillet for frying chicken

For me:

- Anything from my Amazon wish list (lots to choose from)
- The Android Clock or the Hourglass Clock
- Heimo Roselli Puukko, carpenter's , grandfather's, or hunter's model, or for a small present a Viking whetstone
- Monogrammed handkerchiefs
- Personalized stationery