A Little Detail on One Big Event in Space That Happened Just Before I Was Born – The Apollo 13 Mission That Almost Led To Death of the Three NASA Astronauts On Board

     Of course, Apollo was the famous American space project of 

manned rockets from NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Administration),and Apollo’s mission seemed to put American astronauts in orbit, or to the moon. It was, from reading American history and studying it as a teenager, a prelude to a new swath of space missions from NASA—called The Space Shuttle.

   It is pretty admirable and felicitous that Apollo 11, of course,

was the most-famous of the Apollo space missions—urged on by President John F. Kennedy at the time. It was that mission that involved a successful first moon landing of an American spaceship, and where astronaut Neil Armstrong walked from an already-landed LEM (or lunar extraction module) into the partial gravity milieu of the

moon with his timeless quote on his own comlink – “one step for

man….one giant leap for mankind.” All of the astronauts then went from the moon to the earth and re-entry to the atmosphere and splashdown went almost textbook perfect with virtually no problems. So it took watching the film “Apollo 13” (1995) to figure out what would be called one of the most unorthodox missions than any other Apollo mission in NASA’s space history.

    Now, Apollo 13 was going to get its shot like what Apollo 11 did---another shot to the moon. But there would be no Armstrong on the flight – three new astronauts joined up for this mission. They would be Fred Haise, Jimmy Swigert, and Jim Lovell. Ken Mattingly was going to be the lunar module pilot but regrettably contracted the measles indirectly with no chance of being protected so he was kicked off the primary crew and Jimmy Swigert came in Ken’s place.

    On April 11, 1970, at 1:13 p.m., the rocket blasted off, and about a few minutes into the blast off, one of the 5 engines prematurely shut down and there was a bit of fear that the mission would be scrubbed but Mission Control said the mission is still go.

At 12 minutes and 34 seconds, final main engine cutoff and that was

it. 

    Apollo is now in orbit and eventually takes its route from orbit to the moon. A required docking configuration to allow landing of the moon took place—called CSM (or Command and Service Module) docking—and after the dock was completed with success,  then the LEM (the lunar extraction module) did its extraction from the outer skin of the spent main rocket and the Apollo 13’s LEM, as well as the service module and the command module (all attached to the LEM) was destined for the moon. 

    The mission was for Apollo 13 to land on an area of the moon called the Fra Mauro highlands, an area not used by the Apollo 11’s LEM when it landed on the moon.

    Then, the order from Mission control involved stirring the two

oxygen tanks around the SM (or service module) of the spacecraft. The cryostir, as it is called, is started by Jim, starts and then, master alarms go off, then several loud bangs and shimmies, and Fred, Jimmy and Jim realize that something major is happening to the craft—in a very serious way, but not to their liking. Then even worse for the spaceship as the crew finds out more master alarms go off, and they respond to them. They shut off main switches and start others, and as they try to go around the ship to find something wrong from that famous quote Jim said, “Houston, we have a problem!”, Jim finally finds the culprit of the series of problems outside—-from the part of the SM where the explosion happened….venting of something, a gas…and Jim realizes that the spacecraft is leaking oxygen. Mission Control is astounded, and so are they. Now, Mission Control realizes that 2 fuel cells responsible for the oxygen needed to shut down, and the astronauts do shut down the cells, but sadly, Jim tells the other crew members the sad reality…“We lost the moon.” Then, they realize that the explosion caused a major loss of battery power in the other undamaged parts of the spacecraft, and fearing that they could die in the middle of space with no battery power left to go home, they decide to turn off any unnecessary power to the command module and move their operations to the LEM. But a wrench came into their attempted shutdown came when they temporary lost guidance and gimble control of the spacecraft, and realizing that the spacecraft could go way off course and not reach the moon at all, the astronauts did find a way to get back control of the spacecraft with help of Mission control, and finally, control of the ship was gradually going back to normal. 

   Turning off the command module would create an awful side

effect of losing any heat power from the batteries but it had to be

done, so the command module’s temperature eventually went down as

low as 10-15 degrees while they were quite warm in the LEM.

    But there was another problem as Mission Control decided that

the best way for them to return home was a FRT (Free-Return

Trajectory); Mission Control feared that if they re-fired the SM

engine that was damaged, another explosion would result and could

cause complete disintegration of the whole spacecraft and all three

astronauts would die, so the best careful option was to get them

around the moon without landing on it, and then make a re-fire using

not the SM engine, but the LEM engine. And it cannot be done until

they went around the moon, so Apollo 13 went around the moon and

headed towards Earth.

    So, as the astronauts felt the freezing draft from their powered-off CM, Mission Control’s data readout for the saving off power was underestimated and they learned that if they continued to keep the LEM at full power at that point (because the mission specialists now feared that unneeded amperage in the LEM had caused a rapid wasting of necessary battery power, which means power would die and re-entry would be impossible), the spacecraft would miss way off their re-entry mark and miss Earth entirely and the crew would die of hypothermia and starvation if they missed re-entry). So Mission Control placed a dranconian measure on the crew—the astronauts were told to turn off unneeded power to the LEM, and that included the heat too. 

So the astronauts were now faced with much more cold (at this point, temperatures went down as low as -5 to 0F--enough to create ice) and

even worse, Mission Control had found out that the CO2 scrubbers were compromised in the explosion, and caused an increase in concentration in CO2 levels in the spacecraft (the gauges for the C02 levels already were at 8-9, and were going to go past 15, which meant the astronauts would pass out from hypoxia from excess CO2 exposure and eventually black out and die); and not only that, what made it worse for this new problem with the CO2 levels was that incompatability of the scrubbers (the mechanisms that kept excess CO2 out of the craft)because the LEM scrubbers were round and the CO2 assemblies on the LEM were designed only for square scrubbers. 

So Mission Control made up an idea to use the different-shaped scrubbers just in time just before the astronauts passed out from asphyxiation from breathing in more and more CO2 that infiltrated more of their area. That idea worked and eventually the CO2 levels were back to normal—and not dangerous—-levels.

    Now the crew, very cold and very weary, had to do what is called a CCB—corridor control burn, a very special type of burn probably never been done on other Apollo missions, with the LEM engine. And when the LEM engine fired, Mission Control still warned them from using the computer to control the corridor because they still needed to save power in the LEM for re-entry, so they had to do all of that stuff manually using manual controls, so Fred was picked to control

the manual features of the craft that especially controlled the pitch and Jimmy controlled the time, and Jim did the rest – using the earth as a focal point. Then the LEM engine fired and it did fire, and then when shutdown happened, they got good news from Mission Control. The new data came out and said that they have enough power left to go to Earth.

   In the meantime, Ken Mattingly was forced up from his sleep by

NASA officials, explaining what happened to the Apollo spacecraft and was ordered into a simulation area that involved a replica of a

command module. Ken was to figure out the power-up sequence for the

command module that was powered off and the object is to get enough

amperage but not too much of it to cause a total permanent shutdown

of the craft. Several tries failed in his planned sequences, but then, just at the critical mark, he found a power-up sequence that would work. There was about at least a 30-minute delay for the crew to getKen’s power sequence to them so they remained really cold until then.

    Then, it was time. Ken’s successful sequence is rushed to the Mission Control room, and then, he gets the main comlink to the

astronauts. The main worry at the start of the power-up was conden-

sation on the panel controls—which could mean a short and the whole

sequence could fail if it happened, but each one of the power

apparatus was lit one at a time – and finally, the computer was on

and that was it—everything was back on. Now the worries are on the

pyrotechnic batteries for the parachutes—were they frozen up when thecommand module had to be turned off?

    Now, with the earth becoming bigger and bigger every time, it

was time to say goodbye to parts of the Apollo 13 spacecraft with

two jettisoning procedures. First, they had to separate the SM,

which they did, and they saw the major damage to part of the

spacecraft due to the oxygen tank explosion. Then, as they tried

to make sure that the pyro batteries were still good, they had to

move everything they needed into the command module just before they

had to say goodbye to the LEM with another jettison procedure that

separated the LEM from the command module. The separation was

successful but it was sad to see that ship that saved them from

complete doom go off into the vast regions of space as simply “space

junk”.

     Now, the biggest worry was the heat shield on the CM. Did it

get damaged in the explosion? (If the shield was damaged when it

re-enters earth, the whole craft would burn up and all three crew

members would die of incineration.) And what about the parachute

batteries? (If the parachute batteries do not work and the chutes do

not open on splashdown, the spacecraft would land in the water at 300 mph, and even with seat belts, the astronauts would still hit their heads so fast and die of traumatic concussion, instead of 20 miles per hour if the chutes were to work.)

   As they was about to go into the earth atmosphere, fortunately, the computer aligned the craft for re-entry, which would be somewhere near Iwo Jima in the Pacific, but sadly, there was a typhoon approaching near the splashdown zone. But Mission Control decided that it is still time for them to go home, so with radio silence completed for about 4-5 minutes as the CM goes into re-entry and the craft goes into a fiery wick, everybody who was involved in the mission were holding its breath – worried that the heat shield could not work. 

    The hope for the astronauts now was that the craft would survive re-entry so they can go out of the radio blackout zone and tell Mission Control that it was a successful re-entry.

    Then about 5 ½ minutes later, word from the crew to Mission

Control—the re-entry was successful – the heat-shield did its job

and the parachutes finally opened up several miles above the water.

Then the water embraced the craft as the CM splashed down into the

open water and just floated there. A battleship approached the CM

and rescued the 3 astronauts who were finally home after what would

have been a disastrous mission.

A NEW ASIDE – I See Some Major Changes in the CTA Rail Cars

      I realized that there is a new series of transit rail cars by the CTA called the 5000-series.  The

2400-series rail cars are still used by the CTA but because of the recession and the need to get rid

of outdated items that can cause budget-busting maintenance repair costs in the future, I understand

that these 2400-series cars are going to be eventually phased out. I can remember those 2400-series

cars being awashed in red-white-and-blue (an allusion to the 1976 Bicentennial) with untouched parts

awash with dark and white gray trim. I also observed that the front and rear ends of the trains also

featured 8 LED buttons with the colors red, yellow, green and white on one side, and the reverse colors on the other, almost resembling the pinwheel multi-color setup on the top of Comiskey Park’s

exploding scoreboard.  Later on, I observed that there was another line of 2400-series cars that did not have the American flag colors aforementioned and only were white and two shades of gray on its

exteriors.

      I was informed on TV news that starting January 15, the 2400-series cars will be like the dinosaurs, 8- track, and Betamax recorders—no longer in service anymore. Dead.

    How did I feel about the end of the 2400-series? Not terribly angry, but with the main complaint of

these cars I rode in hundreds of times---the iconic squealing on the trains’ banks left or right, and the

hard bumping noises as the trains go past the interlock track sections (that is, where the tracks seem to crisscross---these tracks are often used for re-routing purposes), I felt a bit of relief that the old series trains are going to be gone.

        So, as I experienced my first rides on the new CTA 5000-series cars, let me tell you what I

experienced…

1.               I realized that the “door closing” signal now has a doorbell sound and the pre-recorded message

that said “Doors closing”. As an extra precaution, there is an additional warning signal, 2 higher-tones released 3 times just before the doors close---an indirect allusion on how they close doors

in the Parisian subway trains.

2.              In the past, those train cars I saw did not have too many sideward-facing seats, but now, I realized that the new car series have much more sideward-facing seats, eliminating almost all

of the forward- and backward-facing seats. I am guessing that this would allow extra standees

to be in the aisles during the rush hour.

3.               I also realize a bit of a quieter sound—the new car series is welded better, so there is less

outside wind noise, even as the train goes through aboveground or on the subway at 50 to

60 mph.

4.                In the old cars, especially the 2400 series, the major complaint also comes in the door area,

especially the swinging type of doors, which give off loud squeaks as it opens or closes.

     I can only guess that this was caused by not lubricating the areas of the doors that can trigger such noises. In the 5000 series, you hardly hear a squeak, so I think the lubrication in those doors were much better.

5.                 I saw that the cars’ interiors and exteriors now have LED signage, and in the interior, you get

a lot more information on screens at the ends of the car, indicating time, date, the next

station stop that is going.

6.                  CTA in the 1990s cut back the door operators during hard times when the CTA had to cut

its budget several times in the 2400 series cars, leaving the motormen and motorwomen

much heavier responsibilities of calling the stops and opening the doors. But in the 5000-

series cars, I realized that conductors have less responsibility thanks to pre-recorded messages.

7.       Better aesthetics color-wise on the 5000 series—I observed that the seats, that were

lavender trim with dark brown in the 2400-series, are now light blue trim with dark blue

seats. Guessing that because the CTA had been a watering hole for robberies and crime

in the past, I am guessing that the CTA used “blue” as some color that tries to depict peace

and calm. 

PREPARING FOR JURY DUTY – PART 1

Just in case I do get a jury summons and I have to go to court to possibly serve jury duty, I was thinking of doing a checklist of my own just in case I do end up as an active juror (which I hope I do not get).

Right now I am writing down what cases I could possibly have to serve in in court. Here I lay out what I know about the civil and criminal offenses where the defendant may be charged with and the possible defenses to them.

CIVIL TRESPASS

--the act of entering a property when you are unauthorized to do so

--the person trespassed usually will warn the trespasser of being sued, and then the trespassed sues the offender if that offender does not heed the warning

--Often happens in rural and country areas, such as farms

Defenses to a Civil Trespass Charge

--the person has an authorization to be there

--the person has a permit or license that allows that person in that area

--the person is a family member or friend

--the person who already had warned the person that one is trespassing fires a warning shot using a

  firearm, or, in worst cases, fires a shot directly at the trespasser, whether or not the shots hit the

  person or miss that person

CRIMINAL TRESPASS

--usually happens only in city or urban areas, and less often, college towns

--the modus operandi is the person enters the building or place of business when he is not authorized to do so

--often trespassers are wanderers, lollygaggers, or homeless people who sleep in such establishments without consent, necessity, or a reason to be in there.

--also usually happens when an unauthorized person remains in the business location after closing hours, where the person refuses to leave the place after being warned during closing hours

--usually such trespassers will be given warnings to leave the area, and refusal to leave will mean either an escort by police off the premises in the area one had trespassed, or, in most cases, lead to an arrest for criminal trespass

Defenses to a Criminal Trespass Charge

--the person has identification or authorization to remain on the property

--the person is an employee, faculty member, or staff member of the building involved (especially colleges and universities)

--the trespasser had an official copy of the lease if one was in the apartment and one trespassed

--never had any intent to commit burglary or other crimes when that person is caught trespassing

--has no criminal record or arrest record for criminal trespass

--mental unstableness or mental incompetence

SHOPLIFTING (aka RETAIL THEFT)

--Usually falls into two major categories under the states’ penal codes

   Misdemeanor retail theft (usually carrying penalties of up to 1 year in jail)

   Felony retail theft (usually carrying penalties of up to 2-5 years in jail)

--shoplifting is the intention to steal merchandise from stores or other businesses without paying for the merchandise.

--a person caught usually will not be arrested if he gets caught stealing items before one gets past

   the cashiers’ area (in this case, the person caught will be a trespasser and will be asked to leave the premises upon threat of arrest for trespass)

--the shoplifter who runs out of the store or business with stolen merchandise to avoid being captured by police can face more charges, such as resisting arrest and/or eluding police

Defenses to a Retail Theft/Shoplifting Charge

--the person arrested has no criminal record

--the person who shoplifted did not intend to do any other crimes

--the person showed remorse or apologized to the business where one had shoplifted

--the person had a valid receipt of proof of purchase with the merchandise

--a person sets off an anti-shoplifting device at the store’s entrance even though the person paid for the items before leaving the store

EXTORTION

--often used in mob talk—the act of using force by way of threats to obtain money from somebody else, with or without a dangerous weapon

--often used also by street gangs when drug deals go bad

--a dangerous weapon used on the person committing the extortion increases the severity of the charges of extortion against that person.

Defenses to Extortion

--the extortion involved low or no sums of money

--the defendant was willing to be arrested for this act without incident

--the defendant showed remorse or took responsibility for the extortion action one has done

--the defendant was unwilling to carry the threat or harm and/or death, and tried to recover

     damages to the person or person(s) being extorted 

TAX EVASION

--basically this means willfully refusing to report taxable income when required to do so under the

tax laws, with the intent to defraud the IRS or state tax agency (that is, you do not reveal how much taxable income you have under false pretenses)

--using what happened to Leona Helmsley, found out that generally when you are sentenced after

a conviction of tax evasion, generally there is a fine of up to $25,000 and/or a jail term of 5 years

--using tax shelters that are forbidden by law in your country or another foreign country might be

   tax evasion

--failing to report taxable income that you have in a foreign bank, foreign trust, or foreign securities or stocks can also be evasion

Defenses to Tax Evasion

---every receipt by the defendant was documented—any receipt, bill, or invoice that was saved

---the defendant’s tax preparer made mistakes in making deductions or finding deductions which were not allowed in the current tax year

---an honest attempt was made by the defendant to pay back taxes, liens, and other penalties for

failure to report taxable income or underreporting of taxable income

--identity was compromised trying to report income or taxable income

PLAGIARISM

--derived from the Latin word, plagiarus, which means “kidnapper”

--a civil offense where the writer, artist, or musician takes someone else’s words, art, graphics, and/or music and passes it off as one’s own creative work

--Intentional plagiarism can lead to possible punitive damages as well as compensatory damages to the

defendant who loses a plagiarism case

--Unintentional plagiarism is the lesser of these civil offenses

Some common types of plagiarism include

A.      Self-plagiarism – the writer, for instance, composes an essay with the same content that one used to send to the professor for a past assignment towards one’s new assignment.

B.      Copying-and-pasting – this is the worst form of intentional plagiarism, where you copy and

paste large amounts of text from the Internet or blogs of other people and pass these off as

one’s own work. (Also, such an act gives grounds to the defendant for additional liability for

copyright infringement.)

C.      Close paraphrasing – mainly this means doing a lot of patchwork phrasing and sentence

arranging (also patchwork style) and other swindling techniques to make the paraphrased

passage so close to the original, without using quotation marks on the gray areas of the

passage.

D.      Unintentional plagiarism – this usually happens when you cite in the wrong format as required

by your professor, or publisher, or editor (for example, using APA instead of required MLA citation format), citing articles that you have never read, or forgetting to put quotation marks on

borrowed passeges even though you may have attributed or indebted the borrowed quotes properly.

Defenses to a plagiarism charge:

----The defendant did not show any intentional “substantial similarity” to the borrowed passages of the work he used

----There was no attribution to any borrowed passage that was common knowledge

----There was an effort by the writer to organize a footnote or endnote page where a list of works cited

     was already done

Purdue Ballroom Classic in the Late 1990s Almost Marred Me Through Unexpected Balloon Pops

After doing research on the reasons for the spontaneous balloon poppage I experienced during the Purdue Open Invitational Dance competition somewhere in the late 1990s, The pops made me wonder if I could dance off time or off balance during a competition heat.

I think I got the answer today on why it happened. I can remember that the emcee of the dance competition remarked on one of the balloon pops saying that it was like a starting gun firing for some relay race.

Inert static electricity (and I think that competition was on a very dry, very cold day) caused the sudden balloon pops. The dance competition floor was wooden (it was a basketball court) and the balloons were hand-blown (no helium pump), two ironies here but it still doesn't matter. Very dry air was still the culprit, and as I saw those usually innocent-looking balloons move across the floor, it created friction, and then with that friction, inert static---even if you did not see the actual sparks--built up and eventually the balloons popped as a result.

I also remember what my Dad told me about static electricity that causes irritating shocks on dry, cold days. If I can get those shocks during these times of day, I guess these things happened to those balloons - the static build-up also.

New Idiomatic Expressions (Part 1)

barbecue(v.)--to let something set on fire; to be exposed

to extreme heat or fire. Also: be toast(v.)

baseline(n.)--the area where the end of the horizontal, long

boundary ends and the vertical, short boundary begins

blast(n.)--a great event; an explosive sight; a successful

happening

boogie(v.)--to dance swing-style in freedom

boogie down(v.)--to dance freestyle to dance or dance-mix music

break(n.)--a situation where an offender runs free of the

defense on the way to the other opponents' basket (basketball); a section in jazz, pop, or rock music where the drummer and accompaniment is quiet and the solo instrument makes an improvisation, usually for a short time, usually 2 measures (music)

bring someone to its knees(v.)—to make someone pay attention

charge(n.)--a charging foul(basketball)

come clean(v.)--to free oneself from suspicion or reprehensibility

cry foul(v.)—to protest that something is wrong or unfair

explode(v.)--to run hastily; to get angry suddenly

fast-paced(adj.)--hurried; quick-thinking

first-of-its-kind(n.)--brand new; original; something not seen before

follow(n.)--a back-up shot or second-effort shot that a

player attempts after a rebound (basketball)

field goal(n.)--a 2-point or 3-point shot(basketball);

a 3-point kick (American football)

general skinny(n.)--same as the word 'lowdown'

gully-washer(n.)--a heavy rainstorm; a downpour; a deluge

heads-up(adj.)--something done with a lot of attention or

concentration(basketball)

heartthrob(n.)--famous star young people admire or look up to

hoopla(n.)--haranguing; pandemonium; a lively craze; cheering

household name(n.)--a very famous name

hypercoaster(n.)--a roller-coaster that is said to reach new

heights in its use of thrills

jammage(n.)--refers to the word 'jam', a pitcher's technique

of throwing a bail so fast that the batter won't have time to hit the ball with the meat of the bat at the right time, keeping the ball in the ball park

jam sandwich(n.)--same as the word 'jammage'

kaplooie!(n.)--another way of saying 'kaboom!'

live large(v.)--to live overweight or obese

lowdown(n.)--events or anything else happening right now

make some noise(v.)--to become famous; to start being

noticed

make waves(v.)--to start being attractive or famous

nitty-gritty(n.)--basics

pump up(v.)--to shoot(basketball); to raise something

penetrate(v.)--to go through the defenders (basketball)

reach base(v.)--to go safely to a base by means of a hit or a walk

run(n.)--a situation where a team is on a winning streak in

the game by shooting opportunistic baskets due to an op-

posing team's turnovers, missed shots, etc.(basketball)

run(v.)--to be ejected; to be thrown out

sacked(adj.)--referred to the bases being loaded, such as bases sacked (baseball); also, a quarterback being tackled by a defender way behind the former person's line of scrimmage (football)

schlew(n.)--crowd

skip(n.)--manager(baseball)

smoker(n.)--smoke grenade

suck(v.)--a disapproving reaction to bad or horrible conditions

three(n.)--a 3-point shot(basketball)

three-bagger(n.)--triple(baseball)

to play by the rules(v.)--to follow rules or regulations

two-bagger(n.)--double(baseball)

upper tank(n.)--upper deck(baseball)

2007 - A Short Story Focusing on The Cut-Throat Effect of Texas Hold 'Em Poker

There were only two people in one hot Texas Hold Em' final at the Ravi Penthouse

on the north side of Chicago, during a private party involving 14 office executives

who played the game.  On the 24th floor, 12 were eliminated from the table and had to sit a distance from the table on party chairs on another table that was not part of the game, leaving only Daniel and Sue..

An official, dressed like a regular basketball referee, walked around the table to make sure that no cheating was allowed in the game.

The winner of the poker game, who earned at least $10,000 in chips, would win an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris, France.

Daniel had $4,000 in chips, and Sue had about $5,000.

The dealer then gave two hole cards to each player, and then, the players hide the cards face down. The dealer gave two cards to Sue, first.

Sue, who wore a dark blue velvet dress and had a blonde pony tail, held a deuce of spades and a four of spades, both black.

Then, with the dealer going to Daniel to give two cards, Sue

snatched the two original hole cards from the table, put them in an inside shirt pocket, and replaced them with two red cards, an ace of diamonds and jack of diamonds.

Daniel was given a five of spades and an eight of spades, both black.

Then, as the dealer comes back to face Sue, Sue says to the dealer that she will play the hand, and Daniel also says that he will play his hand.

Sue then bets all of her own chips by putting them in front of the dealer, saying "All in,"

The dealer then introduces a flop of all diamonds--a red three, five, and seven. Sue widened her mouth round, and said "Yea".

Daniel was frozen, as if he was about to fold to Sue.

Then, the dealer gives the turn, a red four of diamonds. Daniel hit his head on the fist, and says, "I fold!", and gives his hole cards back to the dealer.

The dealer then realizes Daniel's plight, and decides not to do the turn card.  Sue hops up and dances around in place. "I just won $10,000 and I am going to Paris!

Soon after, an official comes in and accosts Sue. "I think I saw you replace the hole card by deception."

"I don't think so."  Sue then widened her mouth without trying to make the mouth in a circle. "I was just trying to scratch under my shirt."

The official then leers at her. "I think that you are lying about it."

"No, I am telling the truth." Sue then bursts out laughing.

The dealer then puts a pointed finger down to the floor. Then the official said "You have been disqualified for illicit replacement of a hole card, and thus you forfeit all of your winnings."

Daniel then jumped several times and raised his left fist in the air, as the official, saying "Daniel's the winner", as he raised Daniel's left arm high. The other eliminated players then applauded him.

Sue then put on her brown trench coat, droops her face and went out the door, slamming it. The other executives almost stood still.

Daniel then shook hands and hugged the other eliminated players, and then, he faced the official, who raised his eyes in the air.

"Yes, Texas Hold-Em is deceptive, Daniel, but I had never seen poker deception going way too far."

Daniel then put one of his right hands in his pocket. "Yea, it happens."

First Person Review--The "Red Swan" At Links Hall Shows Dancer Asimina Chermos at Her Best (December 17, 2007)

From the wooden dance floor that was there for all of Chicago's contemporary dancers to perform in for over 30 years---Links Hall---"The Red Swan" was more than I had expected to see in a typical contemporary dance show. It is not just dancing....but it is the feelings that come from dancing. And Asimina Chermos, the main star of the show, showed why she is the best of the "newest" dancers out there.

She is probably the most famous Chicago area contemporary dancer around. But I also liked the fact that she also mixes in ballet---perhaps the best ballet I had seen from any contemporary dancer.

As a contemporary/performance art dancer myself, I had appreciated the fact that this was the first live contemporary dance show I ever seen in this dance space.

It was like you are in the original Blues Brothers movie as the loud noise of the CTA "L" train passes by occasionally near Links Hall, but most of the dancers and the audience didn't see to mind.

This venue on Clark and Sheffield, right in the heart of Wrigleyville on the North Side of Chicago and a long "stone's throw" away from Wrigley Field, looks almost like a loft room, but it was the place where hundreds of contemporary dancers create their independent dance shows ranging from Field Sessions to Poonie's Cabaret.

The "Red Swan" basically is a dance project by Asimina herself....the show's premise is to create a movement-based homage to famous ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn, although with contemporary twists....taking care not to segregate classical ballet (that Ms. Fonteyn is famous for) from contemporary dance. The result is a multifacted dance.... that is, you see some ballet, then contemporary, then you see some ballet again, and so forth.

The "Red Swan" dance show was in three distinct parts, and I used this to create my own comments related to the show the show.

PART I

Well, as the house opened to low lights, dancing had already started---something like a "pre-show", as I sat down on stage. It was a full house of about 90 people after about 19 minutes into the show.

This first part was what I call a contact improvisation "warmup dance" greeting the crowd. (Contact improvisation is a type of contemporary dance where at least two dancers communicate through movement, but focusing on touching in various areas, and reacting to those sensations.)

In this improvisation, I saw 2 men and 4 ladies converge, converse, contract and expand.

Out comes Asimina......away from the contact improvisation circle, doing a handstand, and going back to the contact improvisation circle.

They are doing what I call call a "sixsome", a type of orgy based on the sexual intimacy position called "threesome".

Then, the six break up into groups of 2 people, for a total of 3 groups, for approximately 4-5, changing poses constantly, and each group fluctuates in a different pose

in the changes.

Then, 2 dancers in black--one man, one woman--separate from the contact improvisation pack for only about 25 seconds before they come back in the "blob".

Asimina then pulls one of the black-donned dancers as if it were a cart, and then, Asimina takes the lead, giving the red swan ballet tutu to one of the red-donned dancers, and then Asimin falls on the floor again.

The swan-tutu seems to be like and endless moving prop as it is passed from one dancer...to the next...and back to that dancer again.

A knock is heard from the east side of the room. Asimina responds and opens up the escape door to the dance studio, and it is a tall man who was in winter garb. After he takes off the winter garb, he is in khaki pants and a tee shirt. I was anticipating that he was going to be in a black leotard and a ballet shirt because this work is in honor of

Margot Fonteyn, but this bizarre garb tells me that this is going to be a contemporary reaction to Margot Fonteyn....not a strict "homage" to it.

After Asimina walks up and stops at the end of stage right, going into a ballet move called a posé (where the free leg is in tendu en avant, in front of the back leg, and one of the arms is forward and straight out, and the other arm is straight back but more to the side), the tall man runs up to Asimina so that he is behind her very closely...he invites her to reciprocate. After a few seconds, she is invited and then he throws Asimina right into a ballet lift where she splits the legs while her back is arched (this is called a grand jété cambré profonde assis), and then, he makes her land and she goes down the the floor in modern dance stag movements (A stag is a folding of the legs in opposite  directions, which is very common in jazz dance). Then, she

gets up, runs back to stage R.

This was in homage to Margot Fonteyn's pas de deux dances

(or "dance for two", or "duet"), where she was lifted by the lead dancer so many times into positions like the fish dive. Regrettably, no fish dive (which is called pas poisson in French---literally, it means "fish step) poses were done in the show but the grand jeté lift was enough.

Then the dance sequence is repeated several times, sometimes with some variations.

One of the variations was quite comedic is the

"reverse role" variation, where the tall man goes up into his posé, and Asimina pretends to be a male ballet dancer. She approaches, she invites contact with the man, and then she was thinking of lifting him up. She starts but she stops and refuses to lift him in jest....causing a slight laugh in the audience.

PART II

Here, a gray/silver partition permeates stage right, and

focus is on the ballet barre of the studio. Here, Asimina dons the red swan tutu and makes a slightly strict homage to Margot Fonteyn.

A slide projector is used to create something like a sea picture on the south wall as a backdrop, yet it also allows a shadow silouette of Asimina when the projector light shines on her.

The part starts off with Asimina with the ballet barre on the right. Several barre exercises are demonstrated as the music slowly starts----including a

développé (done several times; this is a ballet move where the free leg slides up on the other leg that is already in relévé, or on half-point, and then the free leg is extended out straight to the side so it

is horizontal to the floor), ronds de jambe (leg circles

with the leg straight and usually not letting the toe leave the floor), and various cambré positions (leaning positions with the upper body so you lean forward, or back, or to the side).

Next, she goes away from the partition to do centre work

(so-called because you use the center of the stage to do ballet movements). The swan tutu was the main focus of her

work as the lighting turned semi-dark but allow the brightness of the red tutu to show her great dance skills.

The music is described as mainly white noise with a voice doing some syllabic spoken word, especially she runs around in pas couru en pointe (little walking steps on point or on toes) as she runs around. The bizarre part was when during her pas couru sequence, she seems to tap on every pas couru, a feat not usually seen in lady ballet dancers. That is what makes Asimina so different than even the best female ballet dancers. As she does those running steps in several series of circles on the floor, the music increases

volume as the spoken word voice goes away, leading to continous electronic taps, and as she leaves the stage, the electronic taps (probably for reactionary purposes) continue to the loudest apex....and then, as soon as the music began....the taps suddenly stop.

PART III

Then, a guitarist comes in for his improvised music, as Asimina changes into a jazz dance garb in all black, including leotard tights. Most of the time, the guitar music is improvised, with sudden stops, sudden accelerations, brief runs of various numbers of notes, and a lot of distortion techniques.

This time, she does another solo dance, but much differently this time. There are elements of ballet, but more of a combination of jazz, contemporary, and modern all at the same time.

I am thinking that Asimina was honoring jazz dancer Christy Lane more than Margot Fonteyn, but I also see homages to Debbie Allen and probably Twyla Tharp and Katherine Durham here. She does a lot more floor work in the part, doing various amounts of stunt falls and stag body rolls, and several times, she goes into the "swan" pose on the floor...that is, a common ballet move where one leg is folded and flexed in front or in the back, and the other leg is out in front, straight, and the upper body flexes forward so that the head touches near the toes, and the arms are forward and outstreched, also straight.

In the middle of the dance, she does a arabesque penchée

(or "leaning arabesque"), probably the best one ever that I had seen from any ballet dancer.

The show lasted 54 minutes but it was the best contemporary dance show ever because I had seen a wide variety of dances. Asimina Chremos was not recognizable to me until I saw her in the John Cage Musicircus in Chicago in October 2007, which I myself performed in as a pianist....but after seeing "The Red Swan", now I know why I need to recognize this dancer so highly.

Learning From OJ Simpson’s Conviction on Armed Robbery, Kidnapping, Assault, and Conspiracy Charges at a Las Vegas Hotel

I am a bit saddened that OJ’s freedom was now taken away for good from being in trouble with the law again, and learning from what happened in his downfall made me get inspired to bring you tips so that way you do not end up like what happened to O.J. Simpson – end up in prison.

Especially if you use a conceal-carry firearm (which a lot of jurisdictions allow these days).

I was a former fan of O.J., but when he ended up in the slammer, my days of me being a fan is over. His freedom is over. I don’t want your freedoms to be over like him.

 Basically, the lesson is this---

 1. Even if you carry an official and current conceal carry firearms permit and a FOIC (Firearms Owners’ Identification Card), using your gun with the intent to commit a crime except for self-defense can cause your criminal charges to be escalated from what would be misdemeanors to felonies. Very serious enough!

 2. The Laurie Dann shooting spree, and more particularly, The Columbine High School massacre, caused a widespread response by a lot of U.S. jurisdictions by making tougher penalties related to gun crimes. 

3. Certain crimes committed while using a firearm (except in self-defense) are now punished like those defendants who are convicted of hate crimes. That is, the original offenses that are enhanced to hate-crime status can mean a much stiffer sentence as the sentence will likely be enhanced. For example, in the state of Nevada, certain crimes with a deadly weapon can, upon conviction, cause the original prison sentence to be enhanced by 1-6 years (called “12 to 72 months enhancement” under the penal codes of the state of Nevada, and some of the crimes that O.J Simpson were convicted of got these enhanced sentences)

 4. If OJ and his accomplice were to not have guns, the sentence for both O.J. Simpson and his accomplice would have been much more palpable in 2008…..about 50 percent less severe a prison sentence. I am guessing that O.J. could only face up to 6-8 years in prison (instead of up to 16 years or more).

 5. Remember that undercover police work is a way to help deter would-be criminals from committing felonies and other major crimes, and if you do it, most likely expect to meet up with unsuspecting people with a wire—even if you are not informed that there will be one. And usually, if the person is an FBI informant, they will not tell the criminals that he or she is one before the people who commit the crimes eventually get arrested for. Sadly, Simpson’s robbery trial had very damning evidence—the tapes and the informants with the wire—that caused him to be convicted.

Email marketing and Dealing With Anti-Spam Laws

I am trying to self-teach myself (through watching a lot of YouTube videos) how to do email marketing because as a pianist, composer, arranger, writer, and also the co-founder of Celebration of Joy, Inc. (a non-profit founded in 2014), I realize that good email marketing practices can draw a lot of web traffic as well as email traffic to your domain email name, and create a major boost to your resume.

But I realize that bad email marketing practices, especially when you send emails in bulk, can get one in trouble. Sometimes big trouble in a way that you could be shut down email-wise, criminally and/or civilly fined, and/or be put into the slammer. You could run afoul of the anti-spam laws like CAN-SPAM from the USA (or the "Control and Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing") or CASL from Canada (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation).

 I realize that such bad practices can lead to mild to extremely painful legal implications and consequences--ranging from being warned of permanent shutdown of your email account from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or ESP (Email Service Provider)--all the way to having your email business or account shut down temporarily or permanently by anti-spam blacklists---all the way to having a knock on the door by an FBI agent and then you are taken away in handcuffs and sent to jail for all of this. When you are flagged as a spammer, and already have a third-party bulk email marketing service that you use (Constant Contact, MailChimp, Mad Mimi, etc.), and you do not do good practices to mitigate these accusations ro avoid being flagged in the future (aka "reported"), it can cause severe damage to you as a email marketer. With this, I classify these implications and consequences into three categories...

1. Mild Penalties
2. Moderate Penalties
3. Severe Penalties

  MILD PENALTIES
1. The ESP will email your with a warning that you will be sanctioned on your email account for bad marketing practices, which usually a shut down of your email temporarily without being on an email blacklist, most often through a suspension of your email account, if you continue spamming.

2. Often, the recipients will warn you individually that you emailed them with the intent to spam them---and often they will report you as such and say that they will take further action on you if you continue to email them without asking first.

 3. The ESP will probably drop your email reputation score 5-10 points.

 Often, you will get these penalties for........

1. Several or more incidences of hard bounces, but not too much.
2. Lots of soft bounces.
 3. Several incidences of low open rates or high bounce rates on your email campaigns.

MODERATE PENALTIES 
1. The ESP can temporarily stop you from sending mass emails or email blasts if you send emails in bulk, especially if you do that using bad email lists (they will usually have very bad SPFs--sender profile formats) or lists from people that you did not get consent by them to send the emails if you do this in bulk. Usually from 7 days to up to 28 days.

 2. The ESP can drop your email sender score (or reputation score) about 30-40 points. 2. The ISP on your own website could place your IP address on a red-flag and you may get a warning from any of the anti-spam companies (after being informed that the IP address was flagged) that if you do not change your practices for the better, they will blacklist you.

 Often, you will get these penalties for... 
1. A moderate amount of hard bounces and not doing everything you can to cut back on them on your email campaigns.
2. Doing email blasts or email bulk sends with outdated email addresses.
3. Sending blasts to 500-1000 recipients where a lot of these email addresses are spoofed or had been red-flagged in the past as emails coming from known spammers.

SEVERE PENALTIES
1. Spamhaus, Barracuda, and other similar DBLs (Domain Block Lists, also known as anti-spam blacklists) can put a domain email address - or even worse - a domain IP address - on a blacklist or two for serious spam violations you do. You get a 100 percent shot of being blacklisted for repeat serious spam violations. If that happens ("blacklisted"), you cannot send email at all, or even use your website at all. Any email that you send when you are blacklisted will head straight to the junk folder or your recipient's spam box--all the time!--even if the emails are lawful to send and even if you have permission from the recipients to send it---Every time. When you try to open up your own website, you realize that you got blocked and you cannot open the site. I am imagining a lot of online email marketers and businesses who ended up bankrupt or disbanded or even homeless when they get blacklisted by DBLs. Trying to get off a blacklist so you can do email again is not easy for most of the DBLs that you face. In most cases you have to petition the DBL or DBLs that you were accountable for the violations and you are doing better practices--this is the only way usually to get yourself off a blacklist. But in some DBLs, it is not guaranteed if you try to get yourself off one.
(Blacklisting is one of the several legal remedies under CAN-SPAM.)

 2. Authorities like the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) will send you mail that you will not like at all and extremely abhor--a notice that you are going to have to pay a very heavy fine---$16,000, for each violation of the CAN-SPAM act. Also known as a summons. If you are a Canadian business owner who uses email marketing and you seriously violate CASL, expect bad news from the Canadian authorities when you get a civil summons that requires you to pay up to a maximum $10,000,000 fine in Canadian dollars for violating that law. I don't know about some of the other ways other countries punish with their anti-spam laws but I do have a bit of a hunch that the consequences are going to be similarly or near-similarly strong.

 3. The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) also can be involved--as well as the FTC, and you will get an arrest warrant and you have days to turn yourself in to police for serious spam violations. You may even get a summons to appear in criminal court without being arrested, but still, being summoned by the FBI is extremely serious. You get convicted criminally as a spammer on a violation that will send you to federal prison, and you will have a stain on your rap sheet especially after you get out of federal prison. A felony conviction will mean that employers will see this as public record--such criminal records are going to be difficult to efface or expunge--and that means most of these employers might disqualify you from the job that you love or desire--even if it is not a security-sensitive job---through all of those pre-employment background checks that are commonly done by employers.

 4. Finally, the email reputation score will certainly go down 70 to 80 points, maybe even up to 90 points, so you get something like a reputation score of 5 to 10, or 1 to 5, or even 0. If your sender score goes down to 0, it is like getting the lowest point on a grade of F in college. It can ruin your future or even your life! Your reputation score in your domain email address is a bit like your FICO credit score. 90-100 is a great sender score, 80-89 is good, 70-79 is average, 60-69 is fair, and 59 or lower is poor. 

You get these penalties by a lot of these "no-no" practices that are really against the law, but here are some of them...

 1. Using dictionary attacks by way of an automated program to steal these email addresses (and even their passwords) in order to make your email lists.
2. Harvesting thousands of email addresses from unclean lists in order to build your email lists.
3. Harvesting email addresses without telling those recipients how you got these email addresses in order to build your email lists.
4. Excessive incidences of not honoring opt-outs or unsubscribes in your email campaigns.
 5. A master load of incidences of hard bounces on your email campaigns and not doing good-faith methods to keep these hard bounces low.

HOW TO KEEP YOUR EMAIL CAMPAIGNS FROM RUNNING AFOUL OF THE ANTI-SPAM LAWS 

Well, basically, I found out that the CAN-SPAM law is a good way to go for me to help me follow the anti-spam rules. Most of the requirements in this anti-spam law I can get.......

  1. You cannot lie in the subject line. That is, your subject heading in the line has to correlate to the email body message that relates to it. If not, you are in trouble.

  2. You cannot use a deceptive email address.
Generally you steer away from trouble if you make an email address from a reputable ESP like Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, or Google (or Gmail) which require you to make a username and password for your made email address. Then those ESPs do several required protocols (DKIM, DNS Feedback loops, reverse DNS lookup, etc.) to make sure that the email address IS the email address that you send to recipients--that is, a real email address, not an unreal one.

3. To avoid the risk of recipients opening up pornography where they are not allowed to be shown such, CAN-SPAM requires that emails that do have pornography have "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" in caps and in quotation marks--in the subject line. 

4. If the email is promotional, the law requires that such emails are an advertisement. At the end of the email, you should say something like this....

 "This is an advertisement from (name of company)."

 This is a simple way to do it but there are variations on how you can do it.

 5. Promotional emails require that you have a physical website that you can be reached (and an email address), or a physical address. 

Then there are the more tricky parts of the law.

 6. You need to have express permission from the email recipient or recipients to send promotional emails to the recipient or recipients. 

I realize that it is hard to do this manually, and the best way out of this is to use a third-party email service that will do a double opt-in process (common now for permission-based email), such as Constant Contact, MNB (Mail Newsletter Builder), or MailChimp. They will have protocols that will do the permissions for you so that the recipients can sign up for your email lists. Double opt-in is where those third-party email services do a background check on those email addresses who want to subscribe with permission to see if they are fake, scam, or deceptive addresses before the emails go through to finish the permission process. If the email addresses are bad, those third parties automatically jettison such emails off the list ASAP.

 7. You need to tell the email recipient or recipients a way to opt-out of your emails. (In other words, "unsubscribe'.)

 This is probably easier to do under CAN-SPAM than trying to get permission from the recipients. Opt-out means that the recipient decides to not want any more emails from you. That's basically it. I could do this sentence in my email campaigns, like so:

If you at anytime you want to opt-out or unsubscribe from this email list, you can contact me directly through email and I will get you off the list in 6 hours."

 I understand that under this section of the law, the opt-out needs to work for 30 days. Third-party email services often do this for me more easily than I can do on my own. But to make sure that I honor the opt-outs, I can write down something like my own email blacklist....a list of email addresses of recipients who want to opt-out so I do not accidentally send these emails to them again.

Anti-spam laws, especially CAN-SPAM and also CASL, are not going to be easy for me. I know these laws are very serious business and I need to follow them. 

Do you have any other pointers on how I can be a better email marketer? Please put on the comments below.

Thanks.