Posts resume SEpt 24 2012

My mom, who is 75, wants to go up to teeny tiny town near Rapid City, to see her sister, who is 80. They live in a house in the boonies and have no internet.

I'll be back online on Monday the 24th and promise not to miss another day.

Please bear with me, your patience is appreciated!

Today I Learned that...I need to learn how birds find food

I have a small garden outside my first floor...and I put a bird bath in the middle of it. I expected a passing bird to stop in and have a bath.

But it was under-used until my dad put a bird feeder adjacent to it.

First there were ten birds there, then twenty. Today when I looked out I swear there were a hundred birds clustered around that feeder.

How do they find out? Birds don't have a sense of smell...so I guess they must be flying by and see some other birds clustered around something and descend to investigate...and once they've found a source of food they don't leave it..

My mom's got bird feeders on her side of the house (top floor, in the opposite direction from where my bird feeder is) and she gets hundreds of birds too. I wonder if they are the same birds that fly to each feeder, or if each bird has staked out their own territory.

60 is the new 40

On August 10, 2012, the Cheyenne chapter of the AARP hosted a seminar called Gray Matters - which was free and provided a free lunch - unfortunately fish and cheesecake, blech - from 4 to 6 was a reception for all travelers who had come in for the AARP National Spelling Bee to be held on the 11th.

I attended that and it was a lot of fun. The emcee introduced a few folks, we talked about words, there was a "mock" spelling bee (which only consisted of about 20 people getting up and being questioned on one word...._ and so on. And there were finger foods there - Chinese food to be precise. Don't know where they got it from or if they cooked it on site (Little America is a hotel and resort where people come to play golf among other things) but it was delish.

The spelling bee started at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am (Well...8:30 is not so ungodly but I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 to get there in time for registration, etc.) It started with 4 rounds of 25 words each - which was a Written Test.

The first 25 words were extremely easy. They asked words like "Greetings" and "Navel" and "Mince." I suppose a few might have been considered difficult... "Animus" and "Lacuna."


The second 25 words were equally easy, but I did miss MUGWUMP.


I assume they did this just to help everyone settle the nerves and get new people used to what was going on. People had trouble hearing some of the words (hey, they were all over 50 and most over 60) and the Pronouncer  would come down and tell them the word face to face and have them say it back, etc. Indeed, the Pronouncer did an excellent job.


Third round was where they started asking the difficult words.


I missed:
QUESTIONARY INERCALATE
TUATARA
SKOSH
VIRIDITY
WIMBLE

The fourth round was the real killer. I only got 12 out of 25 right. I missed:

FELICIFIC
DOVEKIE
FLYTING
NAPERY
COTYLEDONARY
WELTSCHMERRZ
OPPUGNER
AECIOSPORE
SYNCYTIAL
KNUR
IRIDIUM
TUYERE
HYOSCYAMINE

I then stayed for the Oral rounds and was joined by one of my friends from my Scrabble Club. (I think an audience could have assembled for the Written rounds, too. There were chairs there and family were in them...but I think most people only wanted to come see the Oral rounds where you actually saw the speller's faces as opposed to their backs, etc.)

Two of the people I met last night at the reception made it to the Orals. One of them it was his first trip to the Bee and he was successful his first time out. Made it through about 10 rounds. (In the Orals, you miss two words and you're out.) Another one was an elderly woman from Minnesota who also got through about 10 rounds before being knocked out.

There were three sisters and a brother who had come as a sort of family reunion. The eldest sister made it to the Oral rounds but was bounced after only two rounds. This was too bad and it was because she was a bit unlucky - she got two 6-syllable words in a row while some of the others were getting much easier ones (but still, not ones I could have spelled). But she was disqualified along with several other people in the same round, so hopefully she didn't feel too bad.

The words in the Oral Rounds were extremely difficult. Several times more difficult than the toughest words in the final round of the Written.


But, had I studied for a year, I think I could have handled them.


And it is my intention to study for a year and  get into the Orals next year.


So, why is the title of this blog entry 60 is thenew 40?


Because it is.


People are living longer. You don't want to outlive your money and more importantly you don't want to outlive your sense of enjoyment of life. And learning new things every day is enjoyment and keeps the mind active.


The AARP Spelling Bee is held every year, and it gives you an excellent reason to travel to Cheyenne and see The Cowboy State. You'll meet lots of interesting people.


You do have to study.


I studied very desultorily for about a month...combine all the time I studied and it was about 10 hours. Not nearly enough, but then, I'm a good speller so the Written Rounds were relatively easy - except for that killer last round.


Why learn words that you'll never, ever say in real life?Well, because they're interesting. And the concepts of what you'll learn, you can apply in other areas. So it's a win win.


So start planning to live a long, healthy, active, intellectual life, and do it now, however old you might be!

Today I learned that I've really got to kmow when to keep my mouth shut

I want to write some travel guides to Cheyenne. I've only lived here 2 years and haven't really explored...this acquaintance of mine, that I had blogged about twice before, has lived here 16 years and seems to know the streets pretty well.

So...I ended up respnding to her text, "I think I really messed up."

I texted back, "How so." 

She texted back, "Let's meet for coffee at the library or at thePancake Breakfast at the Depot."

I texted, 9 am, Depot.

(Every year, during Frontier Days, there is a free pancake breakfast at the Cheyenne Depot. This was my first time going.)

So we meet, and she tells me, she messed up going to the Dazbog Coffee House interview. She thinks it was a setup .

First off, of course, she arrived at the Depot on a bike. A nice bike. A bike that she could easily have used to bike from her home to Dazbog Coffee and back each day if she'd gotten the job. It was about 5 miles each way, and if you need a job or are going to get kicked out of your apartment, I'd think biking 10 total miles a day to and from work are no brainers!

Now, here's where I made my mistake. I was so shocked when she said this that I said "Why? Because it's a Russian coffee house? You think someone will think you're a commie?"

 She tried to explain, but after just one sentence I scoffingly interrupted, so she stopped explaining to me. And of course that was a mistake on my part because I really, really want to know why in the world she thinks going to this Coffee House to get an application was a "set-up." How and why could it be a "set-up" especially since, even though she filled out an application, someone else was hired before she was even interviewed.

(She had started to say that the woman at Job Service had told her about the opening, but didn't seem concerned about how she was supposed to get there. I said something about her bike...that's when she got annoyed and said, "If you're going to question me I'm not even going to tell you about it."

And at this point I was fed up and said, "Yeah, let's just drop it."

She just came across as paranoid to me, a conclusion which was cemented when she then said that she had figured out that someone was stalking her. "Who," I asked. "I don't want to say," she answered.

There again, I didn't scoff, but it was so out in left field that I didn't bother to ask her any more quesitons,

She's in her fifties, still looks reasonably attractive, I suppose, but who would be stalking her and why? Her ex-husband? I'd think he'd avoid her like the plague, assuming he still lived in town. She's got a son and a daughter, apparently (who don't live in the state and whom apparently she cant borrow money from), and brothers and sisters. Doesn't get along with her sister, and her brothers, neither, although I think one of these must have leant her rent money.

But...who would stalk her? She's unemployed and has been for a long time. Seems to spend most of her time at the library. Even if she was employed, she'd be a clerk or something non-consequential. No one would stalk her.

But maybe if I'd just kept my mouth shut and let her talk, instead of scoffing and trying to make her see sense, she'd have said more and then I could know a bit more about what is going on in her head.

It's also been three weeks since I helped her sign up to Textbroker. She had to fax in or email a scan of her driver's license. I asked her if she'd done this, she said no.

So that's three weeks where she could have been earning money that she hasn't been earning money.

So I gave up any thought of working with her right then and there. You just can't help some people.

However, in future...I MUST curb my tongue should someone say such strange things to me. I've got to shut up and let them talk and not offer an opinion until I've heard the whole story. I doubt if it'd be very logical, but at least I'd know who she thinks is setting her up and why...and how getting her to go to a job interview could possibly be a "set-up"!

Today I learned that I do not want to help some people

Well...I didn't learn it today, but it fits in with my conceit about how I title my blog entries.

I told the story a few weeks ago about an acquaintance of mine. Several months ago the Library had had a Meeting Day, where everyone in Cheyenne who had a club could sign up new members. This woman stopped by...and I didn't really care for her at the time, but she wasn't so egregious that I wouldn't want her in the club - the more members the better.

So she comes to the club one day, and everything was a bit hectic, so I asked one of our other members to take her in hand and show her how to play the game. He plays well, shes an absolute beginner, but she spent the two hours telling him what to do!

So I was glad when she didn't come back.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I saw her talking to one of my other scabble club members, another beginning player, a guy. And this guy lives on my way into town and the library where we play, so I pick him up. And he mentioned this. So I'm walking outside and see the woman sitting on a bench, and she says, "Do you give people rides?" and I say yes, if they come to my Scrabble club...or if its an emergency.

Long story short. I gave her my email and phone - though I specificed she was not to call me on the phone - I really, really dislike talking on the phone and use it only for emergencies.

Next day, she's clalling me on the phone, asking for a ride. It's urgent.

Well, I gave up my dinner and drove her around to various churches, where she was asking for money to pay her rent that was due that day. (I had no discretionary funds to loan her and wouldn't have anyway...she has no job and I need to be paid back when I loan folks money.)

Also took her out to a place where she could pick up an application - this despite the fact that she ":didn't know if she wanted to work for them. She just wanted to look at it." I'm thinking "You need a job, you're about to be kicked out of your apartment for non-payment of rent, you can't be choosy."

Anyway, I told her about Textbroker, and a couple of days later tried to get her set up with that. First she had to get a Paypal account - Textbroker pays via Paypal, as well as send in her ID to Textbroker so they'd know she lived in the US.

And I don't think she's done that yet.

So, she comes back to Scrabble a week and a half ago...I'd been upstairs showing her something on the computer. I was in a bad mood because the guy I was playing was beating me badly and I was not getting any tiles...so she sits next to me and tries to tell me what to play. Then she sits next to the guy beating me and tries to hell him what to play.

We neither of us paid much attention to her - we were playing the game. We weren't actively rude, just kind of not paying attention to her.

So, she leaves.

That night I email her and say, "Sorry I was so brusque, I don't like losing when I have bad tiles. Let me know if you need more help."

And that was it. Seven days went by and I didn't hear from her. I was surprised but pleased.

This last Saturday, I drove into town to start my week-lomg housesitting of my sister's house. I was at the library, saw her looking at a shelf, walked past her, she said hi, I said, how's it going, did you get on to Textbroker. (Because the last time we'd talked, she'd needed to send in her ID by fax and didn't seem in much of a hurry to do it.)

She said she was having problems getting her Paypal account going.

I said, "Well, I have an errand to run right now but I can be back at 3 o'clock and we can get you set up."

She said, "Well, text me first, to make sure something doesn't come up." That's a paraphrase, but it's neaqr enough. And it's at that point that I gave up on her completely. She's unemployed. It's a Saturday. Yet she's not sure if she can meet me at 3 pm so I can get her paypal set up so she can start earning money???

So...I had no intention of texting her or talking to her ever again. Turned out to be a moot point because instead, she texted me, telling me she'd gotten her paypal account working. I texted back, "OK" - and that was it. No further interest.

So today, Tuesday, 4 days after that, she texts and says, "I think I really messed up."

Well, I don't care enough to text her back and say, "How so."  If she'd wanted me to respond, she should have texted me with her actual problem, or emailed me.

So, I'm not bothering with her at all. I su ppose there's a chance she'll stop by the meeting room where we play Scrabble, on Thursday, but I'll just tell her I'm too busy playing, sorry.

I was willing to help her, twice, but that's it.

Today I Learned That ...There's No Helping Some People

I have an acquaintance who is down on her luck. Has no job - and apparently cant' keep any job that she does get. Can't pay her rent and can't get any help to pay her rent until she gets a job.

So, I told her about Textbroker.com.  If you're a good writer, you can make money at this site. It's nicer than Elance because you don't have to bid on jobs and wait until you're chosen - the work is there, waiting for you. A single article doesn't pay a lot. It pays peanuts, frankly. But if you sit on your couch all day watching TV, why not watch TV and write at the same time! Make $40 a day or so, and at the end of a month it all adds up.

We were at the library. (She had a computer at home but it was in the shop.)

Well, first she had to set up a Paypal account.Textbroker pays via Paypal. (And they are a legitimate site, by the way, I've worked for them for many years.) Paypal asks for an email. This woman didn't want to use her current email account, so she created a new one. With a new password. I told her to write down her password, and apparently she did so. She didn't choose one that was easy to remember, that's all I can tell you.

Then she set up her Textbroker account, and chose a *different* password. Again, one not easy to remember. I told her to write down that password, too, and she did so.

So then she had to write a 200 word sample article. After five days or so Textbroker would get back to her.

That was Friday.

On Monday, she couldn't get on to either site so I came into town (I live 15 miles away) and helped her with that. For some reason she hadn't brought the sheet of paper on which she'd written her emails. So she changed the password on  one of them...then I had to take her to a coffee shop to get a job application, then we went to her apartment so she could get the paper on which her passwords were written,..and she could get into Textbrokerto see if she'd been approved to start writing yet. She hadn't. (But she wrote a good article, I know because I helped her with it.)

Now, she's emailing me (I don't talk on the phone) saying her passwords for Gmail and Textbroker don't work. (She'd had her computer in to get fixed, it's back now.)

Well, I'll try to help her tomorrow, but I think she's a lost cause... I mean I seriously doubt that within the space of two days someone would have hacked both a brand new gmail account and a brand new Textbroker account. Especially when each password was one that had letters and a gazzilion numbers (I couldn't see *what* she was typing when she did her passwords, but I could see *where* on the keyboard she was typing.).

I'm wondering if she's deliberately sabotaging herself for some psychological reason...

Today I learned that ...a Grape Nehi is not spelled Kneehigh

The only time I've ever heard of a Grape Nehi was when I heard Radar O'Reilly ask for one on MASH. Since I'd never seen it spelled, only heard it, I assumed it was spelled Knee High, and was a reference perhaps to adults who don't drink alcohol, so they are children who only come up to the knee of adults...something of that nature.

But in reading Four-Letter WOrds And other Secrets of a Crossword Insider, by Michelle Arnot, I learned it was spelled Nehi.

And I looked it up at WIkipedia;

Nehi is a flavored soft drink that originated in America. It was introduced in 1924 by Chero-Cola/Union Bottle Works. The "Nehi Corporation" name was adopted in 1928 after the Nehi fruit-flavored sodas became popular. In 1955, the company changed its name to Royal Crown Company, after its RC Cola brand. It was founded by Claude Hatcher, a Georgia grocer, who began bottling ginger ale and root beer in 1905. As of the middle of April 2008, Nehi had become a brand of Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

History

The Chero-Cola company added Nehi Cola to its line of sodas in 1924 in order to offer a broader variety of flavors. It originally offered orange, grape, root beer, peach, and other flavors of soda. Nehi was instantly successful and outsold Chero-Cola entirely. The company changed its name to Nehi Corporation in 1928 and was listed on the New York Curb Exchange. Business went well until 1930 when a major crisis occurred. Reflecting the Great Depression, which followed with the stock market crash of October 1929, Nehi Corporation's sales figures dropped one million dollars in 1930 from a high of $3.7 million in the previous year. Sales continued to decline until 1932, the only year in which the company had ever lost money.

By 1933, the low point had been passed, and the business was just beginning to stabilize when another tragedy struck. Claude Hatcher, the company's president and guiding light from its formation, died suddenly December 31, 1933. Hatcher was soon replaced by H. R. Mott, vice president of the Nehi Corporation for several years beforehand, and who had been associated with the company since 1920. As new president, he was greeted with a great amount of debt. His all-consuming ambition, however, was to make the company debt-free as quickly as possible and to keep it that way. He updated operations, obtained extensions of credit, and cut expenses. Within a year, the Nehi Corporation was debt-free and ready to move ahead once more.

In the early 20th century, the advertising logo of Nehi was a picture of a seated woman's legs, in which the skirt was high enough to show the stockings up to the knee, suggesting the phrase "knee-high," to illustrate the correct pronunciation of the company name. This was referenced in Jean Shepherd's story "My Old Man and the Lascivious Special Award That Heralded the Birth of Pop Art" in the book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, as well as in the film A Christmas Story, which was adapted from the book.

Robert Ripley helped the Nehi Corporation, when he advertised for them on his radio show "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" By 1940, Nehi products were available in forty-seven of the forty-eight states. In 1946, the pace for the Corporation accelerated tremendously. The company began to enhance its advertising by using celebrities. Bing Crosby, Joan Crawford (before joining the Pepsi Cola Company board of directors), Bob Hope, and many others joined in selling the products of Nehi Corporation. When World War II was over, the company and its bottlers joined whole-heartedly in a progressive program of expansion and improvement that made 1947 one of the great years in the history of the enterprise. In that year, glamorous Hedy Lamarr was pictured in point of purchase advertising signs. At that time, Nehi Corporation offered more than ten flavors. Those included Dr. Nehi, Nehi Chocolate, Nehi Root Beer, Nehi Lemonade, Nehi Wild Red, Nehi Blue Cream, and its more classic flavors Nehi Orange, Nehi Grape, and Nehi Peach. Many of these flavors were later dropped as their novelty and popularity waned.

Later, the Nehi Corporation reformulated Chero-Cola, naming it Royal Crown Cola. "RC" Cola sold so well that the company changed its name to Royal Crown Cola Co. Internationally, Royal Crown rebranded the Nehi flavors as RCQ

Today I learned that: Loose lips don't always sink ships

I'm reading Four-Letter Words and Other Secrets of a Crossword Insider, by Michelle Arnot.

She tells the story of how the British military were very nervous when crossword puzzle clues started appearing in crosswords, with the answers the same as the names for the upcoming D-Day invasion.

I went to the internet to see if it was true, and found the story also told at http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Crossword-Panic-of-1944/:

During World War II the daily newspapers were at their most popular …even though they consisted of only a few pages. People throughout Britain could find out what was happening in the parts of the world where our troops were engaged in the fight against Hitler and the Nazis

At the beginning of the war, the news was mainly bad with the German blitzkrieg advances throughout Europe, but as the years rolled on, the news slowly became better …and in October 1942 British morale was greatly bolstered by General Montgomery’s famous success at El Alamein in North Africa.

But it wasn’t just the news that was eagerly sought in the papers; there were other matters of interest. Nearly all newspapers had crossword puzzles in them and they were very popular as they helped fill in the hours spent in the Air-Raid Shelters, waiting for trains or just simply engaged in that great British tradition of queuing.

One of the popular ‘Dailys’ of the time was the Daily Telegraph, and so too was its crossword puzzle.
It was in January 1943 that the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D Roosevelt met and agreed that the future of the war must include an invasion of northwest Europe or a ‘return to the Continent’.

Planning for the invasion started almost immediately, and after extensive research it was decided that the sheltered Normandy coastline with its wide sandy beaches presented the best option for the surprise attack that was to be the D-Day landings. The assault was code-named Operation Overlord by Churchill himself.
The US General Dwight D Eisenhower was made overall commander of Operation Overlord in December 1943, with the British hero General Bernard Law Montgomery assuming control of ground troops. It was in early May 1944 that Eisenhower decided that D-Day would fall on 5th June 1944.
A huge security blanket had been thrown over all aspects of the operation, including the place and exact date of the landings, in order to maximise the element of surprise and minimise casualties. One US major-general was even demoted and sent home for simply speculating at a cocktail party on the date of the invasion.

But while some members of MI5, Britain’s counter-espionage service, were whiling away their spare moments in May 1944 by doing the Telegraph Crossword, they noticed that vital code-names that had been adopted to hide the mightiest sea-borne assault of all time, appeared in the crossword.
They noticed that the answer to one clue, ‘One of the USA’, turned out to be Utah, and another answer to a clue was Omaha. These were the names, given by the Allies, to the beaches in Normandy where the American Forces were to land on D-Day.

Another answer that appeared in that month’s crossword was Mulberry. This was the name of the floating harbour that was to be towed across the Channel to accommodate the supply ships of the invasion force. Neptune another answer, referred to the code-name for the naval support for the operation.

Perhaps the most suspicious was a clue about a ‘Big-Wig’, to which the answer was Overlord. This was the code-name given for the entire operation!

Operation Overlord and the Normandy beaches

Alarm bells rang throughout MI5 …was the crossword being used to tip-off the Germans?
Two officers were sent immediately to Leatherhead in Surrey, where a man called Leonard Dawe lived. He was the crossword compiler, a 54 year-old teacher.
Why, the officers demanded to know, had he chosen theses five words within his crossword solutions?
“Why not?” was Dawe’s indignant reply. Was there a law against choosing whatever words he liked?
MI5 eventually became convinced of Dawe’s honesty and he managed to convince them that he had no knowledge of the coming D-Day invasion.
His crossword solutions it appears were perhaps just another of life’s astonishing coincidences!

Footnote

The above article was originally compiled by Historic UK researchers in 2004, based upon the best information available at that time. We have however, recently been contacted by Mr Richard S J Wallington, who updates the article with some fascinating facts that reveal that the solutions were perhaps not, after all, simply astonishing coincidences!

"Mr Dawe was and had for some time been the Headmaster of Strand School - originally a part of King's College, London. In 1939 the school was evacuated from its home in South London to the area of Great and Little Bookham in Surrey. The school buildings it occupied were in Effingham. Both boys and masters were billeted in that general area.

Mr Dawe was a compiler of puzzles for the Daily Telegraph and it was often his practice to call in 6th formers and ask them for words for inclusion. At that time the US Forces were liberally strewn through Surrey, particularly in the Epsom area and there is no doubt that boys heard these code words being bandied about and innocently passed them on. I should know as I was then a 6th former there myself, although not involved with this particular matter.

Mr Dawe was a disciplinarian and a man of extremely high principle and one could not imagine anyone less likely to be involved in anything incorrect."
Richard S J Wallington

Today I learned that ...I'm never going to procrastinate again!

Finally got this one project done that I've been procrastinating for several weeks. It has not been a good feeling.

Will NOT procrastinate again!

Today I learned that...procrastination sucks!

I think I've posted this before...

Today I learned that procastination is a bitch

Can't go in to details...but won't be posting here til Friday night.

Today I learned that...lawyers suck!

Well, we've all known that, haven't we? Korea memorial sculptor entitled to more from postal service

Reuters) - An 87-year-old sculptor is entitled to more money from the U.S. Postal Service after it made tens of millions of dollars from using an image of his Korean War memorial on stamps and merchandise, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday.

Frank Gaylord, who is now 87 and a World War Two veteran, won a government-sponsored contest to build a memorial to Korean War veterans in 1990, and his work, consisting of a platoon of 19 steel soldiers, became the centerpiece of the Korean War Veterans' Memorial in Washington.

In 1995, photographer John Alli captured a ghostly image of the steel soldiers after a snowstorm which the U.S. Postal Service paid $1,500 to use in a commemorative line of 37-cent postage stamps in 2002.

The postal service sold 86.8 million of the stamps and licensed the image to retailers, reaping estimated revenues of $30.2 million, but failed to request Gaylord's permission for use of the image of his sculpture.

Gaylord sued in 2006 but his request for a 10 percent royalty, plus interest, was rejected and he was instead granted $5,000 -- the most the postal service had ever paid to license an image.

In Monday's ruling, the appeals court said Gaylord consistently licensed images of the work for a 10 percent royalty and the earlier court ruling should have determined what deal he and the postal service would likely have reached.

The U.S. Postal Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department declined comment.

The thing is, these memorials are NOT copyrighted. Anyone can use their image.

But if you can get the right kind of lawyer on your side...

Today I Learned about Roden Crater in Arizona

I've got a book called Writing To Learn, by William Zinsser. Fascinating book. One of the excerpts is about the Roden Crater:

Several years ago he [Russell] went to Flagstaff, Arizona to see what he called "the most ambitious work of art now under construction in the United States -" the reshaping of Roden Crater, the crater of an extinct volcano, by the artist James Turrell.

The book was published in 1988.

Checking Wikipedia today, there's not much info about the Roden Crater today, 24 years later.

Roden Crater is a cinder cone type of volcanic cone from an extinct volcano, with a remaining interior volcanic crater. It is located northeast of the city of Flagstaff in northern Arizona, United States.

Art project
The artist James Turrell, for his Land art project, acquired the 400,000-year-old, 3-mile-wide (4.8 km) crater's land. Turrell has since been transforming the inner cone of the crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for the viewing and experiencing sky-light, solar, and celestial phenomena. The fleeting Winter and Summer solstice events will be highlighted.

Future
The Dia Art Foundation is continuing to advocate for the development of James Turrell's Roden Crater project in the Painted Desert in Arizona which was begun in the 1970s with Dia's support. James Turrell, who purchased the Roden Crater in 1979, had plans to open the crater for public viewing in 2011.

However, there is a website for the project:

http://rodencrater.com

Today I learned that... time zones play havoc with cell phones

I'm sitting in a cabin about 10 miles outside Rapid City, SD. I thought Rapid City was in the same time zone as Cheyenne, but now I don't know.

My laptops - which are apparently right - are telling me it's 8.10 am, my cellphone is telling me its 9.10 am.

This matters because I'm supposed to attend a "time share" presentation at this resort at 9 am. If I miss it, I don't get my deposit back, and what is supposed to be a free two night stay here will end up costing me money.

The reason I'm puzzed is this. I drove up here yesterday, using my cellphone only for time, and it was right on the money. It said 6 pm, and businesses that we were in shooed us out at 6 pm so they could close.

So why is it that this morning, my cellphone is an hour off and the laptops are right? 

I don't understand it...but it cost me an hours worth of sleep!

I crave your indulgence

My mother's sister is visiting for three days.


My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days.


So I'll be posting back here Thursday.


Thanks for your patience.

Today I learned that German Chocolate Cake did not originate in Germany

I'm writing a story that takes place in Germany, so I was doing research on German cuisine and, in particular, desserts. I looked up German Chocolate Cake (my favorite cake in the whole world!) only to find out that it did not originate in Germany!

It was some guy in the US named German who invented it!

From Wikipedia:
In US German chocolate cake, originally known as German's chocolate cake, is a layered chocolate cake filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. It owes its name to American Sam German, who developed a brand of dark baking chocolate used for the cake. Sweet baking chocolate is traditionally used for the chocolate flavor in the actual cake, but few recipes call for it today. The filling and/or topping is a caramel made with egg yolks and evaporated milk; once the caramel is cooked, coconut and pecans are stirred in.Occasionally, a chocolate frosting is spread on the sides of the cake and piped around the circumference of the layers to hold in the filling. Maraschino cherries are occasionally added as a garnish.

History

Contrary to popular belief, German chocolate cake did not originate in Germany. Its roots can be traced back to 1852 when American Sam German developed a brand of dark baking chocolate for the American Baker's Chocolate Company. The product, Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate, was named in honor of him.

In 1957, the original recipe for "German's Chocolate Cake" was sent by a Dallas, Texas, homemaker to a local newspaper. This recipe used the baking chocolate introduced 105 years prior and became quite popular. General Foods, which owned the Baker's brand at the time, took notice and distributed the cake recipe to other newspapers in the country. Sales of Baker's Chocolate are said to have increased by as much as 73% and the cake would become a national staple. The possessive form (German's) was dropped in subsequent publications, forming the "German Chocolate Cake" identity we know today and giving the false impression of a German origin.



The recipe still remains popular to this day and has been adopted by baking companies such as Pillsbury, and many others.

Today I learned that American cheese isn't really cheese

I never paid much attention to the fact that American cheese - the cheese that comes pre-wrapped in slices - isn't actually cheese...it's "processed" cheese - probably like "pink slime" hamburger.  Made simply so that it will melt easierI think I'll be getting different cheese from now on!

From Wikipedia:
American cheese is a processed cheese. It is orange, yellow, or white in color and mild in flavor, with a medium-firm consistency, and melts easily. American cheese was originally only white, but is usually now modified to yellow. In the past it was made from a blend of cheeses, most often Colby and Cheddar. Today’s American cheese is generally no longer made from blended cheeses, but instead is manufactured from a set of ingredients such as milk, whey, milkfat, milk protein concentrate, whey protein concentrate, and salt. In the United States it may not be legally sold as "cheese", and must be labeled as "processed cheese", "cheese product", or similar—e.g., "cheese food". At times even the word "cheese" is missing in the name on the label, e.g. "American slices" or "American singles". In Canada, exactly the same product, often by the same manufacturer with the same label design, used to be sold as "Canadian cheese" or "Canadian slices". Today most such cheese in Canada is vaguely labelled just "slices" or "singles". In the United Kingdom, packs are labelled as "singles", although it is commonly called cheese slices.
The marketing label "American cheese" for processed cheese combined with the prevalence of processed cheese in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world has led to the term American cheese being used in the U.S. synonymously in place of processed cheese. The term "American cheese" has a legal definition as a type of pasteurized processed cheese under the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.
American cheese is used in American cuisine, for example on cheeseburgers, in grilled cheese sandwiches, and in macaroni and cheese.

Today I learned that entering drawings works

Last week I went to Home and Garden Show at the Cheyenne Fairgrounds. (Cheyenne, WY, by the way. There are a couple of other cities named Cheyenne in other states.)

I wasn't able to stay long because I was with an elderly relative who tired quickly, but I had time to enter a few drawings.

In some cases, this is a bad idea. All some companies want to do is get your phone number so they can call you with a sales pitch.

But in this particular instance, it paid off for me, and I get to go spend 2 nights at Rushmore Shadows Resort, which is in Rapid City, five hours away from where I live. I will have to sit through a 90-minute presentation for a time share...but hell, cheap at the price.

I hope to visit Mount Rushmore and a cavern that's near there as well, although I'm blanking on the name of it now...

Today I learned there was landscape fabric and landscape plastic

I'm putting in a rock garden, with the rocks surrounding three 3 X 5 wooden frames into which I was going to put dirt and flowers. A couple of weeks ago I went to Lowes, and to Walmart, and priced landscape plastic. Eac h store had a display of this stuff - and only of this stuff. So I didn't realize there were two types of these lanscape material - fabric that would let water go through, and plastic that wouldn't.

I bought the only thing that was available, the plastic.

And put it on the bottom of my wooden frames, that were going to contain flowers that I didn't want to drown, on the off-chance that we'd ever get any measurable rain here in Cheyenne, Wyoming!

Which of course is no good.

So I have to shovel out the dirt I've already put into each of these frames, replace plastic with fabric, and replace all the dirt.

I am not amused.

Today I learned that: I didn't know how to spell psychedelic

I've signed up for the AARP Spelling Bee that is being held in Cheyenne on August 11. <P>

That gives me about 90 days to learn thousands of obscure and never-used-except in spelling bee words.<P>

Today I learned that I'd better brush up on normal words too. I took a test of "frequently" mispelled words and discovered that I was unsure of the spellings of which words that end in -ible and which in -able (For example permissible. I learned a tip - if the word ends in two s's, it takes -ible  rather than -able.

And I was sure that "psychedelic" was spelled psychadelic - but no, not so.

So it's a good thing I started my serious training today!

Today I haven't learned anything....

Watching the Players tournament - I want to see Tiger get a total of 4 birdies so that he'll be at minus -2, so that maybe tomorrow he and Phil Mickelson will play together. Failing that, I want him to miss the cut entirely!

Today I learned: Always wear a hat and sunscreen/long sleeves to a baseball game

Went down to Denver yesterday to watch the Rockies at an outdoor stadium - Coors Field. A very nice stadium, all sorts of places to buy food, plenty of ticket takers so that although lines were long, they moved quickly.

Seats weren't that comfy for wide bottoms, but what can you do?

My brother and I went down, and were seated in the upper section by the right field line..not sure what direction the sun was but it was to our left - I know this because my left arm is more sunburned than my right.

I'd been too cheap to buy a Rockies cap, so my face got a little sunburned, not too severe, though.

Overall it was a fun time. Yes, the food is priced outrageously, but it was good. And that's part of the ambiance of going to a ball game, eating all the food.

I did think it was interesting - no one was ever given any plastic caps for their big plastic cups. So people are walking up all these stairs, occasionally being jostled by other peple going up and down, and they're carrying full-to-the-brim cups of liquid, and no lids? For a $6 thing of beer, you'd think the vendor could spend an extra 2 cents each for a plastic lid.

But that wasn't all. I saw someone next to us get a tin bottle of beer. The vendor took the cap off and kept it, and passed the open bottle along to his customer. Why? Caps with sharp edges can be used as weapons? Please! Just like one-inch nail files in finger nail clippers - who is going to be afraid of that? (I once had to give up my fingernail clipper when I went into an air show. I'm five foot 4 and tubby. If I'd tried to threaten anybody with a one inch nail file they'd have laughed in my face!)

Today I learned that Rockies' defense sucks!

Well, I'd actually known it before - I watch the Rockies when Jamie Moyer is pitching and they usually score very few runs for him, and make errors behind him. Today, in one inning, they've made two errors, causing him to have to throw about 6 more pitches. For a 49-year old guy, that's a lot of extra pitches! Tomorrow I will hopefully learn how to get to the Rockies Ballpark with ease - I'm driving down from where I live, Cheyenne, to downtown Denver, to see a game live. I'll share info upon my return.

Today I learned that...Galacticus's shape *did* appear in the Fantastic Four movie...?

I never saw the first Fantastic Four...but did go to see the second one..

The guy who played Johnny Storm just annoyed me - he was much better in the subsequent Captain America... but at the very end... I was pret-ty sure that we never saw the Galacticus of the comics, only a shapeless void, when the Silver Surfer flies up to sacrifice himself so the earth might live.

I just tuned in to it at the very last where the Surfer is up there, absorbing Galacticus' energy, and there in the void was the face, the helmet, etc... just for a second.

I"ll have to research that... did t hey put it in in the "extended" cut, or was it always there and I just never noticed before because I really, really didn't care for the movie?

The movie makers kind of wimped out...I guess they didn't see how they could create a formidable Galactus that wouldn't look silly, trading philosophical talk with the Silver Surfer, but I think the movie would've been a helluva lot better if they'd figured out how to do that.

Today I learned that...Ichiro sucks!

Well, I knew it for some time, but today confirmed it. Ichiro Suzuki, right fielder for the Seattle Mariners, has gone hitless in 2 games and his batting average has dropped below .300 again. He just doesn't have it any more... His arm remains strong, apparently. He threw out someone at the plate tonight... but the Toronto Blue Jays have taken a 5-3 lead going into the 9th inning and its the bottom of the Mariners order, so I doubt if they'll be able to come back. But Jeter of the Yankees must get a hit or my MLB Fantasy Beat the Streak streak will be over. He's 4-0 so far...

Today I learned that I'm not much of an artist

I've been doodling for decades, but I've never been very good at drawing.

But I've got a lot of books I need illustrated, and I can't find anyone to help me, so I've got to start learning how to draw on my own. I bought a couple of sketchpads - one for my car and one for my house.

First thing I tried to draw were the proportions of my alarm clock. It sure doesn't look 3-dimensional.

So, I've got a heckuva lot of work to do.

Today I learned why the Mona Lisa is called the Mona Lisa

Was looking up the Mona Lisa painting today.

The painting is "supposed to be" of a woman named Lisa Gherardini.

Mona is a contraction of Madonna.

According to WIkipedia:

"In Italian, ma donna means my lady. This became madonna, and its contraction mona. Mona was thus a polite form of address, similar to Ma’am, Madam, or my lady in English. Though traditionally spelled "Mona" (as used by Vasari[4]), in modern Italian, this short form of madonna is now usually spelled Monna. The title is therefore sometimes given as Monna Lisa, but this is rare in English. "Monna Lisa" is the normal spelling in modern Italian."

Today I learned that Pop up Books are actually Movable Books

The term pop-up book is often applied to any three-dimensional or movable book, although properly the umbrella term movable book covers pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each of which performs in a different manner. Also included, because they employ the same techniques, are three-dimensional greeting cards.

Pop-up types
Design and creation of such books in arts is part of paper engineering, a term not to be confused with paper engineering- the science of paper making. It is akin to origami in so far as the two arts both employ folded paper. However, origami in its simplest form doesn't use scissors or glue and tends to be made with very bendy paper, pop-ups rely on glue, scissors and stiff card. What they have in common is folding.

Transformations
Transformations show a scene made up of vertical slats. By pulling a tab on the side, the slats slide under and over one another to "transform" into a totally different scene. Ernest Nister, one of the early English children's book authors, often produced books solely of transformations. Many of these have been reproduced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Volvelles
Volvelles are paper constructions with rotating parts. An early example is the Astronomicum Caesareum, by Petrus Apianus, which was made for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles in 1540. The book is full of nested circular pieces revolving on grommets.

Tunnel books
Tunnel books (also called peepshow books) consist of a set of pages bound with two folded concertina strips on each side and viewed through a hole in the cover. Openings in each page allow the viewer to see through the entire book to the back, and images on each page work together to create a dimensional scene inside. This type of book dates from the mid-18th century and was inspired by theatrical stage sets. Traditionally, these books were often created to commemorate special events or sold as souvenirs of tourist attractions. (The term "tunnel book" derives from the fact that many of these books were made to commemorate the building of the tunnel under the Thames River in London in the mid-19th century.) In the United States, tunnel books were made for such attractions as World's Fairs and the New York Botanical Gardens.

Recently the tunnel book format has been resurrected by book artist Carol Barton and others as a sculptural book form. Artists are interested not only in the book's interior views, but also in treating the side accordions and covers as informational and visual surfaces.

History
The audience for early movable books were adults, not children. It is believed that the first use of movable mechanics appeared in a manuscript for an astrological book in 1306. The Catalan mystic and poet Ramon Llull, of Majorca, used a revolving disc or volvelle to illustrate his theories.[1] Throughout the centuries volvelles have been used for such diverse purposes as teaching anatomy, making astronomical predictions, creating secret code, and telling fortunes. By 1564 another movable astrological book titled Cosmographia Petri Apiani had been published. In the following years, the medical profession made use of this format, illustrating anatomical books with layers and flaps showing the human body. The English landscape designer Capability Brown made use of flaps to illustrate "before and after" views of his designs.

While it can be documented that books with movable parts had been used for centuries, they were almost always used in scholarly works. It was not until the 18th century that these techniques were applied to books designed for entertainment, particularly for children.

The first real pop-up books were produced by Ernest Nister and Lothar Meggendorfer. These books were popular in Germany and Britain during the 19th century.

The great leap forward in the field of pop-up books came in 1929 with the publication of the Daily Express Children's Annual Number 1 "with pictures that spring up in model form". This was produced by Louis Giraud and Theodore Brown. Four more Daily Express Annuals followed and then Giraud setup his own publishing house, Strand Publications, this produced the groundbreaking series of Bookano books. There were seventeen Bookanos before the series came to an end with the death of Giraud in 1949. In the United States, in the 1930s, Harold Lentz followed Giraud's lead with the production of the Blue Ribbon books in New York. He was the first publisher to use the term "pop-up" to describe their movable illustrations.

The next advance in the field was made by the astoundingly prolific Vojtěch Kubašta working in Prague in the 1960s. His lead was followed by Waldo Hunt in the USA with his founding of Graphics International. He and two companies he established, Graphics International and Intervisual Books, produced hundreds of pop-up books for children between the 1960s and 1990s. Although intended for U.S. audiences, these books were assembled in areas with lower labor costs: initially in Japan and later in Singapore and Latin American countries such as Colombia and Mexico. Hunt's first pop-up book was Bennett Cerf's Pop-Up Riddle Book, published by Random House as a promotion for Maxwell House Coffee and showcasing the work of humorist Bennett Cerf, who was then president of Random House.

The team of Waldo Hunt and Christopher Cerf created a total of 30 more children's pop-up books for publication by Random House, including books that featured Sesame Street characters. According to Bennett Cerf (in his book At Random), pop-up books were profitable for Random House.[2] In addition to his collaborations with Christopher Cerf at Random House, Hunt produced pop-up books for Walt Disney, a series of pop-up books based on Babar, and titles such as Haunted House by Jan Pienkowski and The Human Body by David Pelham.

Notable works
Some pop-up books receive attention as literary works for the degree of artistry or sophistication which they entail. One example is STAR WARS: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy, by Matthew Reinhart. This book received literary attention for its elaborate pop-ups, and the skill of its imagery, with the New York Times saying that "calling this sophisticated piece of engineering a 'pop-up book' is like calling the Great Wall of China a partition" The 1967 Random House publication Andy Warhol's Index, was produced by Warhol, Chris Cerf and Alan Rinzler, and included photos of celebrities together with pop-up versions of Warholesque images such as a cardboard can of tomato paste, as well as a plastic tear-out recording, an inflatable silver balloon, and other novelties.

Easter Pause

So sorry to have missed so many days of posting - unexpected family matters cropped up.

And now it's Easter, so more family matters.

Will get back on track Monday.

Thanks for your patience.

Today I didn't learn the difference between VACCINE and INNOCULATON

I've got a couple of blogs for Scrabble players, and I'm going through the Scrabble Dictionary and sharing definitions.

I'm working on the Vs right now, and it's starting out with a variety of Vs - VACCINE, VACCINAL, VACCINEE, etc.

Here's the Wikipedia history section of VACCINE

Prior to vaccination, inoculation was practised, and brought to the West in 1721 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who showed it to Hans Sloane, the King's physician.

Sometime during the 1770s Edward Jenner heard a milkmaid boast that she would never have the often-fatal or disfiguring disease smallpox, because she had already had cowpox, which has a very mild effect in humans. In 1796, Jenner took pus from the hand of a milkmaid with cowpox, inoculated an 8-year-old boy with it, and six weeks later variolated the boy's arm with smallpox, afterwards observing that the boy did not catch smallpox. Further experimentation demonstrated the efficacy of the procedure on an infant. Since vaccination with cowpox was much safer than smallpox inoculation, the latter, though still widely practiced in England, was banned in 1840. Louis Pasteur generalized Jenner's idea by developing what he called a rabies vaccine, and in the nineteenth century vaccines were considered a matter of national prestige, and compulsory vaccination laws were passed.

The twentieth century saw the introduction of several successful vaccines, including those against diphtheria, measles, mumps, and rubella. Major achievements included the development of the polio vaccine in the 1950s and the eradication of smallpox during the 1960s and 1970s. Maurice Hilleman was the most prolific of the developers of the vaccines in the twentieth century. As vaccines became more common, many people began taking them for granted. However, vaccines remain elusive for many important diseases, including malaria and HIV.

And here's what INOCULATION means:

Inoculation is the placement of something that will grow or reproduce, and is most commonly used in respect of the introduction of a serum, vaccine, or antigenic substance into the body of a human or animal, especially to produce or boost immunity to a specific disease. It can also be used to refer to the communication of a disease to a living organism by transferring its causative agent into the organism, the implanting of microorganisms or infectious material into a culture medium such as a brewers vat or a petri dish, or the placement of microorganisms or viruses at a site where infection is possible. The verb to inoculate is from Middle English inoculaten, which meant "to graft a scion" (a scion is a plant part to be grafted onto another plant); which in turn is from Latin inoculare, past participle inoculat-.

This article covers variolation, inoculation as a method of purposefully infecting a person with smallpox (Variola) in a controlled manner so as to minimise the severity of the infection and also to induce immunity against further infection. See vaccination for post-variolation methods of safeguarding as if by inoculation by administering weakened or dead pathogens to a healthy person or animal with the intent of conferring immunity against a targeted form of a related disease agent.

Today the terms inoculation, vaccination and immunization are used more or less interchangeably and popularly refer to the process of artificial induction of immunity against various infectious diseases. The microorganism used in an inoculation is called the inoculant or inoculum.

So I'm kind of confused. If inoculation and vaccination mean the same thing...why does the history section for VACCINATION say that the practice of INOCULATION existed before VACCINATION did?

Today I Learned That...Gorda Cay No Longer Exists

I'm reading the book called: Sunken Treasure: Six Who Found Fortunes, by Robert Burgess, copyright 1986. The book gives bios and history of 6 treasure hunters, starting with Arthur McKee, Jr. The section on McKee starts out by describing McKee walking along the ocean bottom near Gorda Cay, an island in the Bahamas, by a dead coral reef - dead because some fishermen from nearby islands had poured bleach into the reef holes to drive out the lobsters, making them easier to catch, and incidentally killing the coral, so that once those lobsters were gone...there would never be any more. I decided to look up Gorda Cay at Wikipedia, to find out if the reef had ever recovered...only to find that the island was now called Castaway Cay and belonged to Disney, who had purchased it from the Bahamian government. All of Disney's cruise ships stop there. But, apparently, people don't stay on the island. They just get off for a visit - and if some of the reviews at a cruise review website are to be believed, the staff on the island aren't very friendly, the food is poor, and since there can be a couple of cruise ships there at a time, apparently, the beaches are all crowded with 5,000 people and if you're not lucky you're stuck int he back away from the ocean, ya da ya da. If I ever win the lottery, though, I'd love to visit this place. Apparently two of the submarines from the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea adventure ride - which used to be at Disneyworld years ago, are now located just off the beach and snorkelers and scuba divers can swim around them. That would be fun.

Today I learned that: there is such a thing as Shark Callers

I'm reading a book called Demon Fish, and read about these folks on Papua New Guinea: Wikipedia doesn't have an article on shark callers, so here's a bio on Ryan Johnson: Ryan Johnson (30 January 1977) is a marine biologist specializing in researching sharks. He is best known for the shark documentaries that he features in and hosts. Biography
Early life
Ryan Johnson grew up in the coastal town of Mount Manganui, New Zealand. As an avid sailor, rower and snorkeler, his passion for the oceans was established early. Growing up his other passion was Rugby where he gained his provincial age group colours and represented Tauranga Boys' College's 1st IV in 1993 & 1994 as a flanker.

South Africa
In 1998 he moved to South Africa, from his native New Zealand, to pursue a scientific career researching the Great White Shark. At the University of Pretoria he conducted his honours, masters and doctoral theses. During this time he spent a year living on Dyer Island where he began his research into the Great White Shark's life history. In 2007, he co-founded Oceans Research with three colleagues.

Personal life
At present, Ryan lives in Mossel Bay, South Africa with his partner Fiona Ayerst and son Finn Johnson where he conducts research as a Scientist in Residence at Oceans Research, while also directing the work of other divisions of the Oceans such as multimedia design company Oceans Interactive and great white shark inspired clothing range Carcharias.

Research highlights
Ryan was part of the first South African team to successfully attach a satellite transmitters to a great white shark on 24 July 2001.8 His major scientific discoveries have been the satellite tracking of Nicole (a 3.6m great white shark) on a return migration from South Africa to Australia and back21, and documenting the Great White Shark hunting Cape fur seal at night time, a previously unknown behavior.

Between 2001 and 2005 Ryan conducted research on the controversial practise of chumming great white shark for tourism, often called cage diving, where he discovered evidence of conditioning, however he did not link this to increased numbers of attacks on human beings.11,13

In January 2008 he led a pilot study to Ponto Do Ora (Mozambique) on the Zambezi shark, also known as the Bull shark22.

Television programs
Between 1998 and present Ryan has featured as a marine scientist in numerous documentaries including Naked Science (National Geographic)15, Earth Investigated (National geographic), Animal Camera (BBC) and After the Attack (Discovery Channel). Since 2006 he has hosted Shark Tribe with Dave Salmoni (Discovery Channel)3, Sharkville (National Geographic)5,6,7,17,18 and Shark Pit Mystery (National Geographic) 24. In 2008, Ryan was a guest on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer, The O'Rielly Factor with Bill O'Reilly25, Fox and Friends, Inside Edition and Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld1.

Ryan has appeared locally on South African television in productions such as pasella23, 50/50, Carte Blanche and the Big Question debate show.

* Sharkville - National Geographic2
While on a study in Sharkville, a shark-infested area off Africa's coast, shark expert Ryan Johnson made the discovery of a lifetime, great whites hunting at night. For the first time on film, witness this remarkable sight

* Shark Pit Mystery - National Geographic24
The discovery of what native Mauritian diver and keen naturalist Hugues Vitry calls 'shark pits' is the origin of unanswered questions about the unusual behavior of sharks in underground caves off the coast of Mauritius. Why do dozens of sharks aggregate in these pits? Why do they act so strangely while there? In a bid to answer these questions, Hugues teams up with shark scientist Ryan Johnson. We join them as they enter the underwater world of Mauritius to explore the mysteries of 'The Shark Pit.

* Shark Tribe- Discovery Channel3
Rogue Nature's Dave Salmoni and shark scientist, Ryan Johnson, journey to the wild tribal shores of New Ireland, New Guinea, to unravel the mysterious secrets of the shark whisperers who "call" in sharks without bait and catch them by hand

* Escaping the Great White - National Geographic 24
shark shoots skyward, tackling a herd of seals, as Nat Geo expert Ryan Johnson heads to sea with researcher Alta De Vos. Join the pair as they unravel a mystery surrounding Seal Island. Explore what seals do to avoid the great whites' jaws.

* Squid vs. Whale - National Geographic3
This is the story of two marine giants - the largest toothed predator on Earth, and one of the largest of all squid. One predator. The other prey. And following them, Ryan Johnson and a team of marine biologists who want to attach a remote camera to a sperm whale to record what happens a thousand feet beneath the sea. This high seas adventure will test everything theyve got. Its a mission into the deep, a mission into the unknown. A scientific quest to understand one of the great wildlife mysteries on our plane

* Hooked: River Shark - National Geographic3
Forget the notorious Great White. Today, a different shark is making headlines with stories of sightings and attacks not in oceans but far inland: the bull shark. With its special ability to tolerate freshwater, the bull can take its jaws where virtually no other shark can go: upriver! As human populations grow and bull shark habitats shrink, where and how will people and bull sharks collide? One obsessed team -- a famed marine biologist Ryan Johnson and an expert angler - is determined to find answers and sets out to catch and explore this unique apex predator: fifty miles upriver!

New posting schedule

Starting with the week beginning Feb 27, I will be posting in this blog at least twice a week, but sometimes no more than that. However, rest assured that there will be at least 2 posts a week.

Today I learned that: I am the proud owner of 20-year old computer magazines

I volunteer once a week at my local library's used book store. Last week, someone had donated about 10 years worth of 20-year old computer magazies - Byte and Personal Computing. We're not supposed to take computer magazines - at least not ones that are 20 years old, because who wants them? They're all obsolete. Well, I wanted them. I intend to share histories of the various applications and computer ads in the pages of these mags. I think it will be a lot of fun. I had put a note on the carload of magazines saying that if it was decided not to keep them (and I didn't think we would) I would take them all. And today I got the call - they are all mine. Right now they're sitting in the trunk of my car - I'll bring 'em in tomorrow when hopefully Cheyenne's killer wind will subside. SO that's what you've got to look forward to, starting tomorrow!

SPECIMEN on reproductions of art on stamps

I received an envelope from Australia today - I'd bought a first day cover featuring a cachet of Amelia Earhart - and on that envelope was a $2 stamp.

The text, below the picture of a woman sitting with her back against a tree, looking out at wilderness, is:

Fred McCubbin, On the Wallaby Track, 1896. Art Gallery NSW.

And on the right hand side of this stamp, in red, is the word SPECIMEN.

And I'm wondering, what is that word doing there? Does it have to be put on all reproductions of art so that somebody doesn't attempt to blow it up and make a forgery out of it? How could they do that to a teeny tiny stamp - blow that thing up to 3 feet by 5 feet and it would just be a blur!

So, why SPECIMEN?

And as you can see from the scan above, the two stamps on the envelope did not receive a franking stamp indicating they'd been used, but rather someone just drew a line across them with a blue marker.

What's up with that??

In doing a google search on this stamp, I came across this page:

http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/australian-fine-art-stamps.php

It shows the stamp without any word SPECIMEN on it.

So my search for enlightenment continues.

Welcome new subscribers!

I haven't posted in here in a while...I confess my posts are predicated on how many subscribers I have, and when I lose subscribers, I begin to doubt the quality of my writing. And so when I get a dozen subscribers, I feel vindicated. So I'd better get back to posting.

Today I Learned That: There Are Only 5 Female Pilots on American stamps

Women Pilots
Airmail
1. Amelia Earhart on US Airmail Stamp 8 cents 1963

2. Blanche Stuart Scott Airmail 28 cents 1980

3. Harriet Quimby 50 cents 1991

Regular Mail
4. Bessie Coleman 32 cents 1995

5. Jacqueline Cochran on US Stamp 50 cents 1996

Male pilots
1. Glenn Curtiss 1980 2.-5. 1985 - Pioneers: Alfred Verville, Lawrence Sperry, Samuel Langley (who never flew) Sikorski an inventor, William Piper 6. - 7. Charles Lindbergh has two stamps, 1993 and 1998 8. Billy Mitchell 1999

Today I learned that people are silly

Many folks - parents and kids who were watching the Superbowl on TV as a family event - are upset with NBC and the NFL because during half-time, some "Singer" "named" MIA said "I don't give a shit" - as part of whatever song she was singing, apparently - but then gave the entire viewing audience the finger. A vulgar gesture, certainly...but nothing that five year olds in certain parts of towns probably don't see every day of the week. I was much more offended by the commercials that permeated the entire Super Bowl - as I am every year. As I am every day, actually. The vulgarity of giving someone the finger is one thing, but what about these commercials glorifying sex? Not romantic sex. Not sex as a gesture of love and intimacy between two people. Just pure "You're a woman so do some prancing and simpering for me because that's all you're on this planet for" sex. I think young boys would be more harmed by that - in the sense that that is the way they will start treating girls and women now if they don't already do so - then by some moron making a vulgar gesture.

Today I learned that Chicken McBytes are awful

Well...actually I learned this a few days ago, but it was just brought to my mind again today because I just saw a commercial for them: When you buy chicken nuggets, you get a nice mouthful of white-meat chicken and a little bit of breading. With the McBytes, which are their form of popcorn chicken, you get a teeny tiny piece of chicken - if you are lucky, and the rest of it is breading. Even if the breading were delish, it wouldn't be good enough. When I buy something that has the word "chicken" in it, I want chicken! I will be buying no more McDonald's McBytes.

Today I learned that there's something wrong with this blog template

Normally I don't look at my blog entry afrter I've posted it. I write it, I use paragraphs appropriately, I post it.

Today, I did look at this blog...and not a single post has paragraph breaks.

This blog account is one that got "upgraded" a few days ago. Everything's been moved around and nothing is straightforward anymore.. I have no idea why I'm not getting spaces between paragraphs when I compose the blog entry that way...and I have no idea how to fix it.

And now I see. Now I have to do the extra step of adding the html code

for paragraph. God I hate "upgrades."

Today I learned that some charities send money to other unrelated charities

There has apparently been a controversy in the last few days. The Susan Komen Breast Cancer foundation said it would stop donating to Planned Parenthood - which is under fire because it councils girls and womens to get abortions if they want them. And I have no problem with that. If a girl or woman doesn't want a child - can't afford a child - why should she be forced to have a child who will just become another burden in our welfare rolls? But that's not the point. The point is this. If I donate money to something called the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation - I expect every last cent of my money donated to go to ... you know... research to end breast cancer. I don't expect them to turn around and send my money - and other people's money - to other charities which have nothing to do with breast cancer! If I wanted to donate to Planned Parenthood, I'd do so! Truth to tell I don't donate to either charity, but this has raised a red flag. Next time I am tempted to donate somewhere... I will make damn sure that the place where I'm donating money actually uses it for the purpose stated in its name!

Today I learned my dad does NOT have prostate cancer

It's been a tough week for me, as I've been dealing with health scares from both of my parents - but a rougher week for them, obviously. But now all is joy. My mom got some kind of food poisoning and was sicker than a dog for 3 days. She refused to go to the hospital and so we didn't force her, but it was very worrisome. Yesterday she perked up, and today's she fine. My dad, meantime, had had a biopsy done last week. He was sure he had prostate cancer, but according to the doctor today, he doesn't have it. So I haven't posted anything in the last 5 days, and that's why. My regular posting schedule should begin again tomorrow.

Today I learned that there's a Swiss town named Duffel

I'm annotating a Clive Cussler book, and he had a character hand up a duffel bag to another character. I decided to try to find out the history of the duffel bag, and thanks to Wikipedia, it took no time at all. A duffel bag (or duffle bag, kit bag, gym bag) is a large cylindrical bag made of cloth (or other fabric) with a drawstring closure at the top. The name comes from Duffel,[1] a town in Belgium where the thick cloth used to make the bag originated. More recently, a duffel bag typically refers to the specific style of bag, though the phrase may also be used to refer to any large generic holdall or a bag made of thick fabric. It is often used to carry luggage or sports equipment by people who travel in the outdoors. Duffel bags are also often used by military personnel. When used by sailors or Marines they are sometimes called seabags or "ditty" bags. Now, why do sailors call them "ditty" bags? Wikipedia didn't say. I'll save that research for another day.

Today I learned tha tI might have been precipitate...

While I don't care for some of what blogger has done...there is one sweet feature - I can now see Page views for all my blogs. In a way it's sad - I get a lot of page views for these blogs but not a one has bought any books from my Amazon ads... - the main purpose for the blogs! I've stopped posting in a few of them, as my Amazon subscribers dwindled down to 0 - but page views from folks on their computers was actually pretty good. But again - no Amazon purchases, so no income for me. And I dont really have the time to post in these blogs unless i'm making money from them... even just a few coins here and there! Ah, well.

Today I learned that: Atom Bomb Girls were used to popularize the atomic age

While surfing the web, I came across a blog called http://missatomicbomb.blogspot.com/, which had a link to a PDF entitled: Nevada National Security Site History. On Dec 18, 1950, President Truman authorized the establishment of a continental testing site for nuclear weapons, in Nevada. Tests began in 1951. When new tests were held in 1952, TVs across America covered the blasts live. "Designers of everything from clocks to lamps to corporate logos soon adopted what became known as 'Atomic Style' into their work. It was a form of design that commonly included rays and spheres simulating a path of electrons around the nucleus of an atom." In Las Vegas, the first known photo of an atomic pin-up girl appeared on May 9, 1952, in the Dixon Illinois Evening Telegraph as well as the Statesville, North Carolina Daily REcord. It depicted Miss Atoic Blast, otherwise known as Las Vegas dancer Candyce King.. The captaion stated 'radiating loveliness instead of deadly atomic particles, Candyce King, actress appearing at Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, dazzled US marines who participated in recent atomin maneuvers at Yucca Flats.' The last Miss Atomic Bomb appeared in the news on May 24, 1957. Lee A Merlin wore a cotton mushroom cloud affixed to the front of her swimsuit.

Today I learned that: there's a name for people who study Mars

I'm going through my Scrabble dictionary. The scientific name for people who study Mars is Areology. Or rather - that's the study of the planet Mars. According to the dictionary, there's no such word as Areologist.

Today I learned that: blogger.com is an idiot

I have a lot of blogs. And I like to be able to see each blog, and look at my posts. And I can no longer do that, thanks to blogger's new "sleek" interface that they've saddle me with - without warning. Two hours ago everything was normal, now I've got a list of my blogs, and no options but to post. No way to look at past posts. God this is so damn annoying!

Today I learned that: Mitt Romney only payed $3 million in taxes last year

According to Yahoo news, which always refers to Republicans in pejorative terms in their news headlines.

To the news I say, so what?

Apparently he also gave a lot to charity - that charity probably being the Mormon Temple.

I don't actually know anything about the Mormon Religion, except of course that it was originally founded by polygamists - guys who wanted 40 wives or more, nice work if you can get it.

Also one of two founders was given tablets or something by an angel named Moroni. Don't ask me how I know that.

I'm an atheist. My interest in religion is based on...who creates it, and what it's used for, and why do people believe it.

It's these cults that interest me - like that James Jones cult in Guyana where they left family and friends all to be with Jones, and if I remember correctly he had his way with all the women... why why why would people abandon a normal life in order to go into a compound to be the literal slave of the "prophet."?

I'll be doing research on this as the days go by.

Today I learned that: you should always carry your cellphone

I don't have my cellphone attached to my ear like so many people today. I have a cellphone for emergency purposes only, and if I have an emergency the only person I'd call would be my dad.

So today, since my dad and I were together, I didn't bring my cellphone. And neither did he.

So of course I needed it.

He was having a biopsy done at the local hospital, and would be given anesthesia so I needed to be there to bring him home. My mom is deaf as a post and mobility impaired. She walks with a walker and if she falls down it takes two of us to get her up...so we don't like to leave her alone for more than a couple hours at a time.

So after two hours at the hospital my dad's biopsy had yet to even begin, and I was informed that there would be another half hour weight before it started, and then it'd be a half hour, then another hour before he regained consciousness, etc.

He wanted me to call my sister - who lives in town - to drive out to our house to check on my mom.

But I couldn't because I didn't have my cellphone.

In Hampton Roads, VA a couple of years ago, when he'd had cataract surgery, I'd had to stick around and absolutely could not leave...but at this hospital they were a bit looser. As long as i was back in an hour it was fine.

So I zoomed home - a 15 minute drive, checked on my mom who was just fine, busily cooking chili - pocketed my cellphone and returned to the hospital.

Alls well that ends well, but that taught me a lesson - no matter where you go or who you're with, always bring your cell phone!

Today I learned how to pronounce Boyardee

I have seen the Chef Boyardee food on my supermarket shelves for as long as I can remember. Surely I must have seen commercials for it too.

I have always pronounced it in three evenly accented syllables: BOY AR DEE.

However, watching Tool Time today on TV land at 6.15 pm Mountain time, they showed an old Chef Boyardee commercial that actually had someone who claimed to be Chef Boyardee himself. And he pronounced his name:

Boy- yarrrrrdeee

Who knew?

(Except folks who understand Italian, I suppose.)

Today I learned that: Edgar Allan Poe was born on this day

Farley Granger and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train

Dipping into my Mystery Book of Days book, I see that:


19 January 1809
The father of the detective story, Edgar Allan Poe, was born in Boston. The book calls him a "notorious gambler, drunkard and opium addict," but this wasn't really true. He certainly had a weakness for alcohol, but all the bad things said about him..well, most of the bad things... were said by his literary executor - whom Poe didn't realize hated him when he made the appointment. After his death - some suspect of rabies, not of alcohol poisoning, this executor did his best to ruin Poe's reputation.

19 January 1921
Patricia Highsmith is born in Texas. She's the author of the book Strangers on a Train (1950), that Alfred Hitchcock made into a movie in 1951 with Farley Granger and Robert Walker. It was her first book. Two men meet on a train. Each wants someone they know, dead. They agree to swap murders, so that they can provide themselves with an alibi for "their" murder, and no one will suspect the other person. (This plot has been used many times since then.)

Today I learned: the location of the color code for a car

I had to write an article for someone on where to find the color code for a car's paint job. I'd never ever given this thought before - although my poor 1998 Toyota Camry is getting a bit of rush on the rear panel and I do need to excise that rust and touch it up.

Every car manufacturer has a small "data plate" on which they put information about the car - tire pressure, ya da ya da... and at the bottom - usually, but not always! - is a 3 number or letter code which is the code for the paint color. Some of the data plates identify this code with another code, C/T. (That means color of the trim). Others come straight out and id by the word Color:

When you open the front door of your car, look at the door jamb and there is the data plate. On my Dad's Toyota Echo, the code is right there, id'd by the C/T:

On my Toyota Camry - the data plate is there but there's no color code.

However, all is not lost. All anyone really has to do is a websearch. Put in the make and model of their car, and there will be some website that will tell you what the colors were for that year.

Today I learned that: I Love A Mystery radio show debuted today

Dipping into The Mystery Book of Days for today, I learned that:

16 January 1939
I Love A Mystery - a radio mystery program featuring Doc Long, Reggie York and Jack Packard premieres on the NBC radio network

16 January 1911
I Wake Up Screaming is released on this day. The movie stars Victor Mature, Betty Grable, Carole Landis, and Laird Cregar. It's based on a novel by pulp writer Steve Fisher, which features an inside view of Hollywood, but producer Darryl F. Zanuck forces a change to New York City.


I Love a Mystery cast (l to r): Russell Thorson (who portrayed Jack Packard) watches Athena Lord (as Jerri Booker) and Jim Boles (Doc). In real life, Lord and Boles were married.
I Love A Mystery
As an old-time radio fan, I had heard of I Love a Mystery before and indeed I have a few tapes of it (Bury Your Dead, Arizona). I didn't know that bit about Walter Paterson having committed suicide (which is said in the Wikipedia article about it). I know Tony Randall had played Reggie York - to my regret I later learned that he actually didn't care much for radio acting.
I Love a Mystery was a radio drama series about three friends who ran a detective agency and traveled the world in search of adventure. Distinguished by the high octane scripting of Carlton E. Morse, the program was the polar opposite of Morse's other success, the long-running One Man's Family.

The central characters, Jack Packard, Doc Long and Reggie York, met as mercenary soldiers fighting the Japanese in China. Later, they met again in San Francisco, where they decided to form the A-1 Detective Agency. Their motto was "No job too tough, no adventure too baffling." The agency served as a plot device to involve the trio in a wide variety of stories. These straddled the genres of mystery, adventure and supernatural horror, and the plotlines often took them to exotic locales. Over the years, Jack was played by Michael Raffetto, Russell Thorson, Jay Novello, Jim Bannon and John McIntire. Doc was played by Barton Yarborough and Jim Boles. Reggie was portrayed by Walter Paterson and Tony Randall. The agency's secretary, Jerry Booker, was played by Gloria Blondell. After Paterson committed suicide in 1942, his friend Morse could not bear to recast the role and Reggie was written out of the series. In later shows, Jerry's role was increased, and she replaced Reggie.


I Wake Up Screaming
A film I've never seen but would like to, as I like actor Laird Cregar.
I Wake Up Screaming (originally titled Hot Spot) is a 1941 film noir.[1] It is based on the novel of the same name by Steve Fisher, who co-wrote the screenplay with Dwight Taylor. The film stars Betty Grable, Victor Mature and Carole Landis, and features one of Grables's few dramatic roles.

Plot
A young promoter, Frankie Christopher (Mature), is accused of the murder of Vicky Lynn (Landis), a young actress he "discovered" as a waitress while out with ex-actor Robin Ray and gossip columnist Larry Evans.

Frankie hides out with Vicky's sister Jill (Grable), with whom he is falling in love, but is eventually captured and interrogated by the cops. An obsessive police officer, Cornell, knows that Frankie is innocent but because the evidence is completely incriminating, he tries to put the suspect behind bars anyway. Frankie escapes and eventually finds the murderer's true identity.

Today I learned that: the Man From Uncle aired its last ep on this date

I've been watching football all day - and all yesterday - so haven't learned anything new in these two days.

I decided to dip into The Mystery Book of Days (William Malloy, Mysterious Press, 1990) to see what happened today, mysteriously speaking.

15 January 1947
The body of Elizabeth Short, viciously mutilated, was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. I think that her nickname of The Black Dahlia was actually made up by the newspapers and not something she was actually called - I'd look that up if I cared but it's such a gruesome story that I don't want to do so. (Some years ago, I'd tried to read Who Killed the Black Dahlia by Max Collins, but couldn't get through it.)

15 January 1968
The Man From Uncle aired its final episode on NBC. It starred Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo, David McCallum as Ilya Kuryakin (who looks surprising like Dr. Donald Mallard on NCIS today) and Leo G. Carroll as Alexander Waverly.

The show is replaced by Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

Today I learned that: No Word Rhymes With Angel

I visit http://dictionary.com often. The front page of the site always has a quiz question or something to stimulate thought.

Today, the question was, "This common word does not have a rhyme."

And the answer is ANGEL.

There are words that come close...like wrangle... wrangle. (As in, to wrangle a horse.)

Yes, angel has a soft g and wrangle has a hard g, but it still comes close enough, I would think for lyricists or limerick writers.