ernie harwell

Ernie Harwell: Long gone, never forgotten

The Ernie Harwell died Tuesday night, ending his battle with cancer at the age of 92, but his voice and spirit will live on forever in the ears and minds of many.

Tears were shed in the press box at Joe Louis Arena while the Red Wings were playing the San Jose Sharks when the news spread. As cynical and callous as reporters can be, this story was tough to treat as it was just another death because Harwell treated anyone he ever met like a friend.

Yours truly was one of the lucky ones.

I'll miss Harwell's greeting "HELLO! Larry!" on the phone and in person and hearing him say "Phi Alpha!" in a nod to our brotherhood in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

My first vivid memory of Harwell other than listening to him call Detroit Tigers games on the radio growing up in Ann Arbor, Mich. was during the mid-1990s at Tiger Stadium.

Harwell, actor Jeff Daniels, writer Jack Ebling, whom I worked with at the Lansing State Journal, and I spent about 15 minutes shooting the breeze behind the backstop while Ken Griffey Jr. was hitting homers during the Seattle Mariners' batting practice.

It was one of the coolest moments of my life.

Like no one could, Harwell compared Griffey's talents with Willie Mays in one breath and the next, he talked about playing cards with Jackie Robinson on road trips with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Harwell barely knew me back then when I was making $25 an article as a freelance writer but he gave me genuine respect as if I was an important member of the media or society. As I got to know him better, I found out he was like that with everyone.

The true test of people is how they treat someone who can do nothing for them and Harwell passed that measure of a human being better than anybody. Harwell greeted everyone the same rich or poor, young or old, famous or unknown and that made his legend grow beyond the borders of the state he loved and the sport he adored.

Getting to know him away from crowds was simply special.

Spending time with him and his beloved wife, Lulu, at their rented home in Lakeland, Fla., at their previous house in suburban Detroit where her roses were breathtaking or their apartment at a posh retirement center was simply priceless.

When he announced in February 2002 that season would be his last in the broadcast booth, I bought him a Motown baseball cap from the new terminal at Detroit's airport and was tickled every time he wore it. Harwell, though, gave me more intangible gifts than I ever could've given him.

On Monday, Nov. 30, 2009 less than two months after he announced he had inoperable cancer Harwell agreed to let me pay him a visit. He didn't want a story written that day, growing tired of the hype that surrounded his declining health, and I was OK with that because I welcomed another opportunity to spend time with him.

Harwell looked and sounded really good on that afternoon, saying he was wasn't in pain and was unafraid of dying. He asked about my family and job as he always did and prayed with me for the first time, a surreal few minutes I'll never forget.

His health deteriorated so much recently that he needed around-the-clock care and the months he had to live dwindled to days.

Even though all knew this day would come and no one was more prepared than Harwell Michigan is melancholy at best. It's sad to lose a once-in-a-lifetime icon such as Harwell, but strangers and friends alike should be glad he's at peace.

youtube down

No YouTube Is Not Down (And You Can Still Watch Brigitte Daguerre or any other Videos)

There's a swirling message going around today saying that youtube was down but in fact www.youtube.com is working just fine and you can still search for hot topics like Brigitte Daguerre. There are alot of videos you can watch at youtube, if I had to make a suggestion check out a guy called Redneckrickem on there. He's good for a few laughs.

Apparantly, some users weren't able to log onto the YouTube website earlier today around 7 o'clock in the morning. They saw a message telling them that the service was unavailable.

Anyone who is looking for anything, can literally find some sort of a video of it on youtube whether you're looking for sports, news, politics, cartoons, movie clips, and all around comedy - it's all there.

tiny youtube converter

With these eleven downloads and Web-based services, you can share large files, save ink, monitor action items, and accomplish even more.

DoPDF Free PDF Converter: Want to turn a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, or Web page on your PC into a PDF? Simply install this download and then choose the Print command in whatever program you’re using. Select the DoPDF “printer” and tweak the settings, and your PDF is done.

Drop.io for Outlook: If there’s an easier way to share big files than the Drop.io Web service, we haven’t found it. And now you can grab the beta plug-in for Outlook (or add-ons for Chrome and Firefox). It allows you to select up to 100MB of files and then choose your own custom download URL to share them.

Ecofont: This font set looks a lot like the familiar Arial typeface, but with one key difference. Each letter has lots of holes punched in it, and so requires less ink to print–which means that you’ll spend less money on ink cartridges.

Illustration by Andrew Bannecker
Everything: A search tool on steroids, this app indexes all of the items on your hard drive and then performs lightning-fast searches for files and folders. The tiny program takes the place of the regular search function in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7, and it produces dynamic real-time results.

FlockDraw: If you have an idea that you need to express visually to people who aren’t in the same room, this Web-based service can act as a shared cocktail napkin. Invite other people to view your drawing and even to draw along in real time.

Fonolo: Sick of navigating phone menus? This Web service, which gives you access to the phone menus for common customer service numbers, lets you pick any menu item and then connects you right to it, helping you bypass the hassle.

iCurrent: Personalize this free news site to match your own interests. This beta service shows you the latest news in your chosen areas, in the familiar format of a daily paper. It can take some work to set up, but it is a good way to keep track of a broad range of subjects.

Liaise: Many e-mail messages represent action items, namely things you need to schedule, track, and get done. This Outlook add-in automatically recognizes action items as you type a new message, and then keeps tabs on them and helps you finish them on time.

MakeSomeTime: Invoice management poses a real challenge for the self-employed. Sign up with MakeSomeTime to keep tabs on invoices, clients, projects, and billable time, all within the confines of your browser. The free plan lets you manage up to five clients and send one invoice per month.

ScreenToasterScreenToaster: Say that you need to show Uncle Al (who lives halfway across the country) how to copy and paste text in Word. The easiest approach? Create a “screencast”–a recording of your own computer screen–and then send him the video. Sign up at the ScreenToaster site, press Alt-S, and you’re recording. Once you have finished recording, you can add captions and then upload the video to the site’s servers or to YouTube, or download it as an AVI file.

Tom’s Planner: Gantt charts, with their neat sets of overlapping color lines or blocks, are a nice way to visualize a project schedule. In some apps, however, creating them can involve huge amounts of painful data entry. With Tom’s Planner (free for a year with sign-up during the beta), you go straight to the final product.