The Good Feet Store. Location: Visalia, California. Mooney Blvd. Next to Staples and Taco Bell. Across the street from Costco.

Perhaps you've seen the infomercials on tv. You know...the ones saying that you need to put these plastic arch support devices into your shoes to relieve your foot pain, back pains, etc. I'm flat footed and years ago I had my podiatrist make me some orthodics to relieve the pain in my feet. I've had these orthodics for years and the pain never really went away. I've heard a Fresno talk-show host (Ray Appleton) tout the wonders of this product on his radio show. Curious, I decided to walk into their Visalia store and take a look. The saleswoman gave us the rundown on the product and explained that there is no fitting or molding done. The only thing required is to take a measurement of one's foot. You basically step on a pad that takes a carbon-copy of your footprint, then your feet is measured with that metal device that one finds at all shoes stores. The lady goes in the back office and pulls out the arch support that closely matches your measurements.

The clincher for me was the simple physical exam. Take your shoes off and simple stand up. Hold up one hand with your palm up about belly button level. Take your other hand, palm up, and put it underneath your first hand. Now have someone stand in front of you, make a fist, place their fist into the palm of your upturned hand, and apply downward pressure. Meanwhile, you try to resist the downward pressure by moving your hands upward. If you have bad foot support, your heels should lift off of the floor and your body will start to topple forward. The salesperson would then place your correctly sized arch supports on the floor, make you stand on them, and repeat the entire process all over again. This time you can simply stand there and resist the downward pressure without falling forward. In my case, we did the same procedure a third time. This time with my professionally made orthodics crafted from a mold of my foot. My upper body moved forward like a toppling stack of phonebooks. The theory does make sense. My foot was never perfect to begin with (flat foot). So why make a mold of my foot (a bad structure) and then make an orthodic from that mold (a copy of a bad structure). I'm no physical therapy expert, so if this is a scam or a simple physical trick to deceive the consumer, please let me know.

One more thing, before installing the arch support, remove the thin foam cushioning from inside of your shoe. Otherwise, the support will sit in your shoe at an uneven angle, negating the postive effects of the device.

So the arch supports are inserted into the shoes and a thin liner is placed on top of the arch support. This keeps your foot from shifting on the device, a problem I had with my old orthodics. How does it feel with the new support: like a golfball underneath your feet. It's not painful, it's certainly not uncomfortable (for me, at least). Interestingly enough, I put on my shoes without sitting down. I stood on one leg and got on one shoe and repeated the procedure for the other shoe. And I did it with no problems at all. Usually, I would have to lean against something, or I would wobble around to gain my balance. That's one plus mark for these arch supports.

So let's get to it. How much for these things? $249.95 for a pair of the Classic model. $17.50 for the liners. $20.00 in sales tax. You do the addition. However, these things are hundreds of dollars less than what I paid for at the food doctor's office. My motto is you don't know how well a product works until you try it for yourself.

On a totally different subject, the following info was given to me at the Lemoore Sportsman's Club. If you need any transmission work done, there is a guy by the name of Mel Maderas who has a shop on Seventh Street. As you drive down Seventh Street toward the Monday sale (a local swap meet that takes place each Monday on the outskirts of town), there are several motels located in that area. When you reach the first motel on the street, the transmission shop should be right across the street from the motel in a metal building. My source tells me that he is the best guy in town to go to for transmission work. I need a second or third confirmation from another party to verify the validity of this claim.

Enjoy your weekend.

Jerry Goldsmith: 40 Years of Film Music

Disc 1:
1 to 5. The Blue Max 16:24 6. Television Themes - Medley The Man from U.N.C.L.E./Doctor Kildare/Room 222/The Waltons/Barnaby Jones 9:46 7. In Harm's Way 9:38 8. Motion Pictures - Medley The Sandpebbles/Chinatown/A Patch of Blue/Poltergeist/Papillon/The Wind and the Lion 14:24 9. The Generals MacArthur/Patton 5:26 10. Tora! Tora! Tora! 3:30 11. The Wild Rovers 2:09 12. Pursuit 2:21 13. The Wind and the Lion 9:12
TT: 73:09

Disc 2:
1 to 5. QB VII 13:39 6. The Waltons 3:56 7. Papillon 3:54 8. Police Story 2:03 9. The Omen 11:47 10. Capricorn One 3:16 11. The Swarm 7:41 12. The Boys from Brazil 7:08 13. The (First) Great Train Robbery 4:56 14. Alien 4:51 15. Star Trek: The Motion Picture 9:18
TT: 72:47

Disc 3:
1. Masada 5:39 2. Poltergeist 4:17 3. First Blood/Rambo II 5:57 4. Twilight Zone: The Movie 6:27 5 to 8 Under Fire 15:14 9. Gremlins 7:42 10. Baby-Secret of the Lost Legend 7:23 11. Legend 7:12 12. Lionheart 4:07 13. Rambo III 3:02 14. Total Recall 2:35
TT: 69:52

Disc 4:
1. Star Trek: Voyager 2:00 2. Basic Instinct 2:31 3. The Russia House 5:12 4. Gremlins II 5;33 5. Medicine Man 4:14 6. The Shadow 2:37 7. Forever Young 5:12 8. First Knight 11:10 9. Powder 4:29 10. Airforce One 1:30 10. L.A. Confidential 4:44 12. The Mummy 2:54 13. The Haunting 2:53 14. Star Trek: Nemesis 7:39 15. The Sum of All Fears 5:43
TT: 68:33
The Philharmonia Orchestra/The Nation Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Jerry Goldsmith
The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus Crouch End Festival Chorus Conducted by Nic Raine/James Fitzpatrick
Silva Screen Records Ltd. 2005

It finally arrived. Four CDs. Sealed in plastic. Brand new. This is a great companion piece to Varese Sarabande Records' "Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox" collection. This will save a movie soundtrack fan from having to buy individual CDs for each movie. In my personal opinion, Jerry Goldsmith was THE movie music composer. Yeah, John Williams was responsible for "The Towering Inferno," "Jaws," "Star Wars," etc., etc. But I believe he peaked out years ago. Probably around the time of "Born on the Fourth of July." John Barry had the market cornered for decades with the James Bond franchise. But Goldsmith had variety. He could move between genres with ease. Western, action, science fiction, you name it he did it. But each movie had a different distinct style. He worked on both good and bad movies. But even with the bad ones like "Damnation Alley," the music stood out and was memorable even after the visual images of the film were forgotten. He did television too. Do you remember "The Waltons?"

I still remember the first time I was exposed to Jerry Goldsmith's work. It was when I was in elementary school. The local independent tv station (Channel 26/KMPH) used to show old movies starting at 1:00 p.m and ending at 3:00 p.m. By the time I came back home from school, I was just able to see the last twenty minutes of a movie. So I had no idea what the movie was about or what was going on. One afternoon in the mid-1970s, I came home, kicked off my shoes, and pulled the "on" plug on our tube tv with the wood cabinet. Yes, back in those days, wood could be found on a tv set. Georgory Peck was sneaking out of a compound in an Asian country. Arthur Hill play a military man with a patch over one eye, obviously the heavy in the picture. He was playing a special tape that was to broadcast a specific frequency. It seemed that an explosive device was planted in Peck's temple. If he failed to make it over the border, the tape would be played, the device would be activiated, and Peck would be killed, keeping him out of the hands of the "enemy." So I sat there in front of that glowing glass screen as Hill ordered the tape to be played and Gregory Peck was running across an empty frontier with the Chinese army hot on his tail, firing off mortars and AK-47 rounds in his direction. Meanwhile, Jerry Goldsmith's music was playing in the background. Talk about edge of your seat excitement. I was at an impressionable age and never forgot that score to this day. I then started to get a tape recorder and hold it up to the tv speakers in order to record those magical tunes.

However, I won't just buy just any movie soundtrack. I'm very selective on that score (so to speak). If the tune is memorable, I'll buy it and play it until my ears bleed. If I think I've gotten enough psychological joy from hearing the same tune over and over again, I'll sell it. I've sold David Shire's "Taking of Palhem One Two Three." My best purchase was for Goldsmith's "Twilight's Last Gleaming." I bought it from a guy on eBay for $10.95 and sold it to someone on Amazon.com for $111.50. So it pays to know what you want to buy. If I recall correctly Jerry Goldsmith died of cancer back in 2005. Joel Goldsmith follows in his late father's footsteps.

Stockton Asparagus Festival

It was still raining in Hanford when we hit the road about 8:30 a.m. to Stockton. I put some Rain-X on the car's windshield, but it was impossible to tell if the stuff worked or not as the wipers were on most of the time. Before we left Stockton, we topped off our gas supply ($2.95 regular unleaded), and I used the opportunity to clean the bugs off the glass. I must admit, it didn't require that much scrubbing on my part to loosen the dead insect remains.

Stockton weather was overcast, but there was no rain at all. There was zero parking spaces to be found near the festival. We eventually found street parking a few blocks away. At the front gate we discovered that they were searching bags and backpacks and baby strollers for water bottles. Instant conficscation. It made sense. After all, what better way to sell drinks inside of the festival. I watched one angry woman throw her bottled water into the bright yellow garbage container filled with other people's "contraband" liquids. Inside there was a booth selling $2.00 tickets for drinks. Once you had obtained a ticket, you could then go to one of the booths that had drinks and only then could you quench your thirst.

For the amount of people there, I was surprised at how clean it was. Law enforcement was everywhere. I resisted the urge to ask the police what type of bullets they used in their Sig-Sauer semi-auto pistols. As we left the festival, hours later, people were dumb enough to jaywalk right in front of 6 policeman on horses. Obviously, they were shouted at and told to use the crosswalks.

Deep-fried asparagus is highly overrated and for you health sensitive people, this is one guaranteed way of getting a sore throat for the rest of the day. A friend tells me that asparagus makes your urine smell funny. This was confirmed with a visit to the men's restroom in the Civic Auditorium. Whoo-wee. It is the first thing you notice when you push open the door.

There was food and rides and games and for those with a lot of disposable income left over, there was always the Arts N Crafts area. A Ford dealer had a few vehicals on site to entice the purchasers of big-ticket items. The prices were good, but there was just one catch: you had to get your financing through Ford.

Was it worth the price of admission? Yes.

The Ed Dames Remote Viewing Forecasts:

Natalee Holloway's present disposition: "Her body has been stuffed into a weighted lobster cage and sunk immediately off the coast of Aruba." In a week, Dames will pinpoint the body's location on a map.

Children will starve in the future because of lack of milk. Dairy cows will be wiped out by Mad Cow disease. Timeframe: 'Within the next five years to a decade."

Next location of a non-man-made crop circle in North America: "Ten kilometer radius...northern Alberta, near the British Columbia border...just to the west of a little town called Clear Praire, Alberta."

Location of two French pilots who tried to beat Charles Lindbergh in an attempt to be the first to make a Paris to New York flight. The pilot and navigator left Paris for New York and were never seen again. 12 days later, Lindbergh arrived in Paris. The French airmen "made it to North America. The crew did not make it to New York. We're saying that they crashed about 400 kilometers north of New York city. Into the mountains of New Hampshire, just across the Maine border."
Dames says, "We're going to recover the remains...we don't want to tell people exactly where the aircraft is. We want the glory of recovery. That operation is scheduled for September (2006)."

Wheat rust: "The 'royal fungus'-that's how it translates into Latin. There's a mutation that occurs...an extremely damaging fungi. It float over, on the tradewinds, to South America and moves up into North America eventually and ravages wheat crops."

On the Kennedy assassination: "There was a flechette (dart) that was remotely fired from the dashboard of the car that that man (Kennedy) was in and went through his adam's apple." It has been theorized that something "froze" or paralyzed Kennedy, keeping him still just long enough for the shooter or shooters to fire off their shots.

On the massive solar flares that will hit the earth (the Killshot): "After a series of these solar flares, there is going to be a Mad Max sceanario for quite a while." Before the Killshot, there will be a war going on. "Remote viewers describe three warring parties on the ground fighting. Everybody looks up in the sky and sees something physical in the sky that is so impactful that they forget about the fighting and go home to their families. Their priorities change by something physically in the sky. Something happens in earth's atmosphere that is unprecedented."

The statements above are typical of what can be expected from the mouth of Ed Dames during one of his interviews on the Coast to Coast AM show. Now that I have made a short transcript of what Dames has said, both you and I can hold his feet to the fire, so to speak. Only time will tell if Ed Dames is right.

Consider this to be a hobby of mine. I keep a record of what people who make predictions say and see if their prognostications come true. Many would consider this a waste of time. But the same could be said for watching an episode of "Desperate Housewives" or "Survivor" or "24" on television. It doesn't educate you, it doesn't put money in your pocket. This activity does not improve your health, nor does it make the world a safer place to live. This is purely for fun and entertainment. For the few minutes that it takes for you to read these words, you do not have to think about the rising price of gas, you don't have to worry about the Iranians developing nuclear weapons, or mull over the latest body count from the happy country of Iraq. Enjoy yourself. Life is too short.

Coast to Coast AM

I discovered the Coast to Coast AM radio show back in 1993. During a bout of insomnia, I decided to move the dial of my analog radio across the AM band in the hopes of coming across something more interesting than discussions of sports and politics and religious sermons and Spanish music. I listened as the host (Art Bell) said that one of his upcoming guests was a man by the name of Gordon Michael-Scallion (www.matrixinstitute.com) who had something to say about upcoming earthquakes. Obviously, this got my attention. How often do you have someone come on the radio predicting earthquakes? As each evening passed, Bell had on his show a wide variety of guest ranging from the odd (two twins who claimed to have been abducted by aliens) to the serious (the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese Communist). As the month and then years passed, Bell interviewed ghost hunters, experts on serial killers, researchers who saw man-made structures on the moon and Mars. While these topics would not be considered cutting edge science, they were definitely on the edge--and sometimes right over the edge. Broadcasting from his home in Parumph, Nevada ("over the hill from Las Vegas"), Bell dominated the overnight radio ratings. He did more to bring the paranormal and parapolitics (conspiracy theories) into the mainstream than ten syndicated television shows hosted by people who could talk to the dead. I must admit that Bell's style of letting his guest say anything they wanted to did get way out of hand in the months leading up to the year 2000. There was a time period where it seemed as though every month Bell had a guest on who claimed that things would become very dire for America and the world. And each sceanario was always different from guest to guest. A comet would hit the earth, the Russians were going to launch a sneak nuclear attack, a plant pathogen embedded in a metor would come to earth and wipe out all of the green plants on earth, California would break up into a series of island (see Scallion's Future Map of America--he keeps changing the dates on his maps. I believe one printing of his map had the time period of the big California earthquake in the late 90s. A new printing of his map now shows the time period ending in 2012.) At his peak, Bell hosted Coast to Coast AM Monday through Friday, 10:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. West Coast time. On Sunday evenings, Bell hosted a show called "Dreamland." (Dreamland was later taken over by author Whitley Streiber. The show left the airwaves and the new permutation can be found at: unknowncountry.com). There was a Saturday show hosted by San Francisco radio personality, Barbara Simpson. Ian Punnett covered the times when Art took off on vacation.

Then Bell's life seemed to imitate the flavor of his show. His teenaged son was kidnapped and raped by a school teacher with AIDS. The last I heard, the teacher was doing time in prison. Bell abruptly retired from the airwaves saying that he needed to be with his family. A series of fill-in guest hosts tried to take Bell's place (Hilly Rose, Barbara Simpson, etc.), but no one could emulate Bell's unique on-air style. The ratings dipped. Then Bell returned again. After a period of time, Bell semi-retired and a new host was brought in, George Noory. Coast to Coast AM is no longer as wild and woolly as it once was in the late 90s. Even with the topics covered by this program, there are limits to how far the hosts can be pushed. There was the time where Bell kicked off the Amazing Kreskin live on the air. Noory did the same to Wayne Green and David Booth when Booth refused to tell Noory what a nun told him regarding the Third Secret of Fatima.

Presently, there is Coast to Coast AM Live with Ian Punnett (who has a great sense of humor) on Saturdays from 6:00 p.m to 10:00 p.m. Noory handles the Monday to Friday slot from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. And Bell handles the Saturday and Sunday evening time slot. In January 2006, Art Bell's wife, Ramona, died in her sleep suddenly of an asthma attack. Yesterday evening, Bell announced that he had returned from the Phillippeans where he had just married his new wife. She is in her twenties and Bell is 60. Since his new wife is unwilling to move to America, Bell said that he would be going to where his wife is. Plans are in place to have Bell continue his broadcast career from the 19th floor of his apartment in the area near Manila. A far cry from the high desert of Nevada.

Tonight's guest is Edward (Ed) A. Dames. Dames is a teacher of remote viewing. In a nutshell, remote viewing is an "attention management skill." In other words, with this skill, one can become a psychic on command. By his own admission, Bell says that Dames is "the most hated and the most loved guest he has ever had on his show." In due time, I will post Dames' predictions. Most of the time, Dames' predictions never pan out. But his predictions do make for great entertainment.

I hope you all have had a happy Easter.

Saturday afternoon in a somewhat sunny Hanford, California.

5:00 p.m.
The library should be closed by now. There is a light wind blowing and clouds in the sky. Chance of rain possible for Easter Sunday tomorrow.

I'm currently reading book one of Peter Levenda's trilogy "Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft." Here is his Web site: http://www.sinisterforces.info/

April 14, 2006

Tomorrow is the last day for free income tax assistance at the Hanford Public Library. Saturday afternoon from 12:30 p.m to 4:00 p.m. Assistance will be given at the meeting room on the second floor of the library. The meeting room door is located on the North side of the building.