Agent Palmer

I saw my first Tucker at the America On Wheels Museum in Allentown, Pa., a few years ago. With just that taste, I found a thirst for more knowledge of this mesmerizing car, and I’m not what you would call a car guy.

This lead me to a the movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Jeff Bridges as Preston Tucker in Tucker: The Man and His Dream. But the movie wasn’t enough, and I later ended up receiving Preston Tucker A Biography: The Indomitable Tin Goose by Charles T. Pearson as a gift from my family.

WarGames is a classic 1983 American Cold War science-fiction film. The film is about hacker David Lightman, played by Matthew Broderick, who unknowingly hacks into the United States Military WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) computer when trying to get early access to some ProtoVision video games.

What is it about this movie that makes it a classic and one of my favorites? Is it the acting? The plot? The Lesson? The Nostalgia? It’s a wonderful combination of the acting, the plot, the lesson, and most recently the nostalgia that sets it apart for me.

Joseph Ferdinand Cheval was a French postman who spent 33 years building Le Palais idéal (the “Ideal Palace”) in Hauterives, France.

The building began in earnest in April 1879, at first with stones from his pocket. It gradually moved to stones in a basket and eventually included a wheelbarrow to move larger stones. It took him 33 years to build the palace, 20 of which were spent on the outer walls alone. From one stone to another along his postal route, he collected them while thinking to himself, “Since Nature is willing to do the sculpture, I will do the masonry and the architecture.”