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.