Been two months.

I can’t believe it has been two month’s. 

Charles Kiesling, SR.

I have not posted about this on my personal page yet, but the last three months have been insanely difficult.  Back in December, on my fathers birthday, he was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia and COPD.  After a few week’s of fighting the pneumonia, he lost the fight on January 2nd, 2014.

One of the hardest thing’s I have ever had to do in my life was to help write the following for the memorial.

Charles Allan Kiesling, Sr, originally of Murdock MN, passed quietly on January 2, 2014 at the age of 83.  Charles was surrounded by his wife and family at his passing.  Charles is survived by his wife, Nancy; daughter, Dorothy (Lyaman) McPherson; sons, Charles Jr. (Rose), Gregory (Stacey), Howard (Paul Massmann), and Douglas (Neva Andersen); and five grandchildren – Alaina McPherson, Ashley (RJ) Reyes, Thomas (Mandi) Kiesling, Candace Kiesling, and Nicholas Kiesling.  Charles is also survived by his sisters, Muriel, Margaret and Janet; and brother, Donald.

Charles worked for Sperry Rand through its various incarnations, including Sperry Univac and finally Unisys in the electronics engineering and developmental department until he retired after 38 years of service in 1993.  Charles’ many accomplishments while working with Sperry include the creation of some of the first computer networking systems in the early 1960’s for private industry and the government.  He was also credited with patents US 3497760 A and US 3531796 A.   He was the father of the Logical expansion circuitry for display systems, or “Graphical Computer Video Card” and the flashing or “Blinking Cursor.”  Charles’ visionary computer designs and ideas in the 1960’s and 1970’s helped lay the foundation for our modern computer world today.

Along with his large family, Charles was proud of his service with the US Navy and his Navy family.  As a crew member of the USS Collette DD 730, he was part of the Sitting Duck Squadron at Inchon during the Korean War.  He was the most recent editor and publisher for the USS Collette Association newsletter and enjoyed the ship’s company reunions.  Over the years, Charles was very active in his community including the Boy Scouts of America, Clan MacBean Association of America, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5555.


While he was sick and in the hospital I put work on hold for the most part and made it a point to get down to see him at least every other day.  The last time I saw him was on New Years Eve.  I told him I was heading up north for CNN to cover the record breaking insane cold and that I was I would be back later on Friday, the 2nd to see him again and the weekend. 

I did manage to fulfill the promise of the goal that I told him about to get into the record breaking cold of -40F air temp and colder.  I even did the idea I was kicking around with freezing an egg in the -40F temps.

Freezing Eggs at -40



The funny thing about “The Ice Box” of International Falls.  Their are no banks with the time and temp signs in the city.  I had to look around to find this at sunrise to show how cold it was.

Outside Air Temp -40, it is just COLD!!!

Soon after I took this photograph, I got a phone call from my sister telling me I needed to get down to the hospital and that it was not good and they did not think he would make it through the day.  When I told her I was up in International Falls, I was told to hurry back.   

I wrapped up my video shoot with the daylight conditions and raced back as fast as I could legally drive… 
Here is the video shoot for the daylight footage.

Hella Cold Outside

I kept giving my family updates on my location and when my brother Greg called and told me to hurry, I knew it was not good.  I told him to tell Dad I was racing down there to say goodbye but just outside of Minneapolis on the 694 loop, I got the call to slow down, it was too late and he was gone.

So with heavy heart, I have to say the last two month’s have been very hard.  But it is still fun to remember everytime I look at a computer, I can still remember him saying telling me how and why he wrote up the blinking courser code and saying “I Made It Blink” sand with that, those are his final words on his tombstone.

He made it blink.

Also in the 1970s when Apple Computer’s came out with the Apple II, he was pissed since he said that Apple pirated the code and Sperry did not go after them on it. I’m sure when he got to heaven and saw Steve Jobs, he gave him a piece of his mind.