Two summers ago I posted audio of my cousin Lorrie’s telling of her family story growing up a part of a carnival act. Her Dad, Billy Outten, was famous for his high dives, and the whole family (Lorries parents and her sister) performed as well. Outten’s big act was a “double fire dive” where he lit his pants on fire at 110 feet and dove through a lit hoop below into a 6 foot tank.

I’d heard these stories before and was glad to have Lorrie allow me to record them in audio. The pictures on that blog post where shots I made at her house in Wyoming of some of the articles about her Dad.

The story gets really interesting when they found out that a MovieTone clip of her Dad was used in the movie The Right Stuff (where they sought out the characteristics of dare devils).

After that July 2011 post I did get an appreciative email from a man who said he remembered seeing the act and that his father was a photographer at one of the parks where Lorrie’s family performed. Just last week, Ed posted an exciting comment to the blog post:

A couple years ago I emailed you about my father being the photographer for West View Park, when Billy Outten and family performed there. All his photographs were assumed lost, when he passed. However, my nephew found a bunch of photographs that my sister (now deceased) placed in storage, and he scanned them and posted them on a web page. (Private).

I downloaded about 8 photographs that were taken at West View Park (outside of Pittsburgh, Pa), that had to be from the late 40″²s or early 50″²s. If you want copies of these, let me know and I’ll be glad to send them to you.

Needless to see, my cousing was excited when she saw these photos. Below are the ones Ed sent. I’m eager to hear Lorrie tell me what she remembers or identifies in them, but just for now, the serendipity just makes me giddy.

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Alan Levine During my weeklong visit to Fairbanks Alaska I was fortunate to have met and been asked for a podcast interview with Chris Malmberg, who does this “Digital Beards” series for the University of Alaska Fairbanks eLearning and Distance Education group. Here I am […]

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by Margaret Almon UPDATE: Nov 2, 2013: See the final application and goofy Alan at Stonehenge video I’m scrambling somewhat to prepare by the end of the month a proposal for a Shuttleworth Foundation fellowship; below are bits or bypass by waffling and go to […]

I am humbly honored to have been part of a stellar invited panel for Monday’s Minding The Future event at the University of Mary Washington (I don’t mind it at all BTW). Along with Audrey Watters, Kin Lane (first time meeting, he is a genius), David Wiley, and Gardner Campbell (subbing eminently for Jon Udell, we missed ya Jon), I prepped a 10 minute “FredTalk”

I kept the description vague not to to tip the hat for how I would discuss my topic

If asked whether they would like to be remembered, almost no one would answer “No”. But multiple choice questions can be trickier than they seem. The education future some are painting for us is a path focused on a destination, reached via an unmemorable journey.

Rather than the normal, plop the slides into Slideshare (well after having to convert Keynote to PDF), I am just embedding them below with the rough notes. I don’t use a script, so the notes are the gist. Or the grist