Sorry, I'm Not That Larry Stone

I'm one of the shrinking number of Americans that have a cell phone and haven't cut the cord to their landline.  When the home phone rings it's usually my dad calling on his trusty home phone.  The next most frequent caller is my girlfriend; third is my buddy Craig who still has my home number programmed on his cell's speed dial.  The rest of the callers are solicitors and people trying to reach another Larry Stone.

A lot can happen when you and other guys have the same name.  In the latter half of the 1990's and most of the 2000's another Larry Stone and I lived at separate addresses on Rancho Mission Road, a short street in San Diego's Mission Valley.  Occasionally I got his mail and phone calls and maybe he got mine, but we never met.  All I know about him is he might have had a delinquent account and the last four digits of his social security number do not match mine.

One time I was mistaken for a more famous Larry Stone.   During restaurant week -- the annual days when participating restaurants offer prix fixe menus for $20, $30 or $40 per person -- my girlfriend and I went to Molly's, a steakhouse then located inside the downtown Marriott Marina.  I gave my name to the hostess who seated us immediately, the first indication I wasn't who they thought I was.  As we looked over the prix fixe menu choices, the house sommelier stopped at our table and with a hint of expectation asked me,  "Are you Larry Stone?"  I looked at her trying to figure out if she was a former classmate or maybe looking for another Larry Stone.  With nothing more to go on, I just replied boastfully, "Why, yes I am!"  She introduced herself as Lisa Redwine, and asked if I was Larry Stone the sommelier from Northern California.  That brought us both back to earth.  I had to tell her no, a fact she could have just as easily discerned from my decidedly unsophisticated knowledge about wines.

There are two more Larry Stones of some repute and I crossed paths with one.  There's Larry Stone the county assessor in Santa Clara, California.  We both wear glasses and have thinning hair, but in his online profile he wears the easy smile of someone headed for a good pension.  The other is perhaps the most reknown Larry Stone, a sports columnist for The Seattle Times.  I emailed both of them about this post and asked if they had ever had experiences like mine.  Larry Stone the sports writer replied with alacrity and added to the Circle of Larry:

Hi, Larry. I feel like I know you. Sounds like a great blog post – can’t wait to read it.

When I was working at the San Francisco Examiner, I actually interviewed Larry Stone, who was then the mayor of Santa Clara and is now the county assessor you mentioned. He was heavily involved in a movement to get the Giants to San Jose, if I recall, and I was doing a story about that. I called him up and we had a good laugh about the fact that Larry Stone was interviewing Larry Stone. I think we put a disclaimer at the end of the story that we weren’t related.

When I moved to Seattle to cover the Mariners for the Seattle Times, there was a freelance radio reporter named Larry Stone who also covered a lot of Mariners games. That led to some confusion. One time, we both went on a road trip to Colorado to cover the Mariners in a big interleague series. I had arranged for a parking pass, but when I went to pick it up, they said, “Oh, Larry Stone already picked up the pass.” The other Larry Stone had taken my pass!

There is a long-time outdoors writer in Iowa named Larry Stone. He used to work for the Des Moines Register, but now I think he’s freelance.

And that’s about the extent of my Larry Stone knowledge. Feel free to use what you want. 

Take care, Larry.

Larry

Thanks, Larry.

Readers of this blog may know another Larry Stone or one that uses the more formal nom de guerre Lawrence Stone.  We're everywhere.  We're dentists, doctors, civil lawyers, teachers and professors, politicians, fitness coaches, corporate CFO's, pastors, newspapermen, wine experts, photographers and authors.  One collects WWII memorabilia.   Another repairs guns.  There's the guy researching his family tree.  If you're calling for one of them, sorry, I'm not that Larry Stone.

Novelty Bets

 

My first time in a casino was a novice gambler's dream.  I hauled in $105 at a two-dollar minimum blackjack table at Bally's Las Vegas by recklessly doubling  my bet after each losing hand and unconventionally  doubling down on 12.  It's not a system I recommend as I've been unable to duplicate that success in any casino or controlled experiment. 

There are a myriad of ways you can lose in a casino, but for my money none are as creative as the sportsbook.  I have to admit to some fascination by how the odds are determined.  On any day, why, for example, are the Lakers favored by 9 points over the Suns,  and the Chargers's chances of winning it all next year are an astronomical longshot of 500:1?  It helps to understand the odds are not a prediction by oddsmakers.  Their expertise is in crunching the player and team stats and setting the odds to induce the gambling public to put down roughly the same amount on either side of the bet.  The casino profits regardless of the payout, except when the underdog triumphs in a big upset.  That's why odds can change as the bets roll in.  In essence, gamblers try to predict the winners with their dollars.

On line, you can bet on almost anything.  Which team will win the next Super Bowl.  Who will be your next president, mayor, congressman or prime minister.  What Wills and Kate will name their baby.  The Oscars winners.  The choice to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.  You can enter a "ghoul pool" and bet which celebrity will be the next to die.  The only limits are your imagination and someone's willingness to take your money.  Got stocks? The stock market, says one investor I know, is the world's biggest casino. 

Hesitant to bet?  You already gamble every day.  Drive or walk through an intersection and you're betting a driver in cross traffic won't run a red light at the same time.  If you take out life insurance or a reverse mortgage, you're laying down a bet on your life span.  When you drink and drive, you're calculating the odds and betting you'll arrive home safely. 

Here's a sample web site where you can place your bets.  Good luck.  I'll be over at the slots.

http://www.paddypower.com/bet/novelty-betting

The Helium Shortage

Super Bowl XLVII had its surprises.  There was the 35-minute delay when half the stadium lights went out.  The 49ers mounted a near-comeback in the second half.  And Ravens coach John Harbaugh was not soaked in a Gatorade shower by his players after they won the game.  But another surprise rippled that day and has grown to threaten our economy.  Folks, the world is running out of helium.

Imagine calling Party City and being told you cannot place a phone order for helium balloons.  That happened to me Sunday while on my way to a friend's Super Bowl party.  I called ahead to order two bunches of balloons in the teams's colors.  The clerk said the store was not accepting phone orders.  My girlfriend Marilyn surmised this was due to the helium shortage she heard about on the news.  "I'll bet some people don't pick up their orders," she said.  "You can write about it on your blog."

Sure enough, a Google search reveals this is the worst helium shortgage in decades.  One British chemist is calling for a ban on the sale of helium balloons.  Another web site has a gloomy prediction for Valentine's Day.  The number of helium balloons you can add to a flower arrangement may be limited, if you can get them at all.  By the middle of this century, the supply of helium could be depleted. 

Blame the gas companies.  Helium is a by-product of natural gas production and two of the major plants in the U.S., the country that supplies 75% of the world's helium, are down for repairs.  I don't entirely buy this supply-and-demand explanation.   My 8th grade science teacher, Mr. Cameron, taught us helium is the second most-abundant element in the universe.  If helium is born free and roams wildly, American ingenuity can find a way to capture it in shiny metal canisters.

Thanks for the story idea, hon.  If something's missing at your next birthday party, for your sake I'm glad it won't be due to a shortage of Costco All-American Chocolate Cake.

How I Lerned to Prooffread

One thing about writing a blog: it helps punch up your proofreading skills.  The ability to proofread is vital even in this electronic age.  Spell checkers miss words that are misspelled but form another word, so they don't tip you off if your writing condemns a pubic display or reports about the loins at the zoo.

For instilling this ability I owe a debt of gratitude to my CSUN journalism 110 professor, Tom Reilly.  A former newspaper reporter and editor for the Valley News, he taught with an eye toward preparing students for the real world.   There was no slack for late assignments or poor spelling.  Each time he'd grade assignments and hand them back he'd report to the class the spelling, grammar and factual mistakes he caught.  He delivered the news with a slight grin that said he was half-bemused, but only half, and his method helped us improve without embarrassment.  A dedicated teacher, even during the final exam he couldn't refrain from throwing in a good lesson.  For extra credit, he wrote a sentence that went something like "He wasn't phased when he received the news his favorite uncle had passed away" and gave instructions to find the spelling error.  For the record, the word should be "fazed". 

The hardest lesson I learned in that spring semester of '78 was the result of a proofreading error I'll forever remember as "The Louis Mistake".  One day Professor Reilly brought to class the head of a news agency, a man named Louis, and held a mock press conference in which we each queried Louis  about his job and wrote a thumbnail sketch.  In the story I wrote, my only error, factual or otherwise, was once omitting the "u" in his first name, which changed the pronounciation and gender.  For that mistake, Professor Reilly scored my paper 5 on a scale of 12.  After class I griped to him how unfair it was to knock off seven points and give a failing grade for what was essentially a typo.  "It is unfair," he replied.  "I should have given you a zero."

My final grade was a B.  It was a high B, I'm sure, and it would have been a shame if I had been seven or fewer points away from an A.

Sadly, Professor Reilly passed away in 2002 at the young age of 67.  His obituaries online credit him with chairing CSUN's journalism department twice and rebuilding it after its destruction in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.  He took a sabatical between chairing appointments, traveled the world and authored books on journalism history.  He died when printed newspapers were still viable but the competition in the 24/7 news cycle was already compromising good reporting skills like fact-checking and spelling to the point where sloppy reporting often is the story.  In some eternal classroom, Professor Reilly is commenting about these practices and he isn't fazed.