Soaking It Up?

I always thought rainwater should contain traces of vitamins and minerals,but didn't really know which ones or how exactly they got in the rainwater. Theory has it that B-12 is contained in seawater,rivers and ponds in relatively large amounts and as the water evaporates it is carried on the wind and then mixes with the precipitation. If I would have ventured a guess on what vitamin could be found in rain,I would have went with vitamin D but I found no mention of anything good for you other than B-12. Now to really rain on your parade...because of pollution and other traces of bad stuff found in rainwater not only should you not drink it,but some claim the pollution also debilitates the B-12,so back to the drawing board! And to think I got wet walking in the rain today for no apparent health benefit,other than exercise.

Interesting Etymology

The word maverick was first used to describe Samuel Maverick as independently minded. Maverick was a Texas lawyer,politician and land baron,because he refused to brand his cattle,cattle which were not part of a branded herd were also known as mavericks. Other ranchers claimed Maverick's no branding policy on his disinterest in ranching plus it allowed him to claim any unbranded cattle as his own,but Maverick's stated reason for not branding his cattle was that he didn't want to inflict pain on them.
With those two definitions in mind for the word maverick,why would a car company chose to name a car Maverick? Would you really want either a car that was independently minded,or not part of a branded herd? Out of those two choices I would lean toward the second definition if I were inclined to buy a car known as a Maverick,but that is just me.

Community Service

Today's blog is yet another prompted by a question on Millionaire that I found surprising. Target stores (400 worldwide,not every store) have their own forensics lab,it started as an in store lab to combat shoplifting,fraud and personal injury cases,70% of the lab time is still spent on in store crimes,but police departments often turn to Target for help as not only is their equipment more up to date and extensive,they are also certified in the same way the FBI,state and other forensic labs are certified,plus they can do the work more quickly. Many of the labs personnel are former law enforcement officers. But wait! There's more...in case you are wondering what financial impact this has on the overburdened law enforcement budgets,the answer is none! All they ask for in return for their services is a patch from the police departments they help. The main office in Brooklyn Park,Minnesota where the first Target lab was established has 136 patches on display. I say hats off to Target!

An Affliction

This is a new one for me,I never heard of it before today so I can count it as my something new learned for the day. At first it doesn't sound that bad,more like something wouldn't mind having,but once you hear the rest of the story what at first you thought seemed like it could be fun,turns into the good times aren't really good at all.
Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder (PGAD) aka Restless Genital Syndrome (ReGS or RGS) is spontaneous,persistent and uncontrolable genital arousal in women,with or without orgasm and unrelated to feelings of sexual desire. The arousal caused by this syndrome can be intense and last for extended periods. The symtoms can be debilitating and cause discomfort that becomes painful.
The cause has yet to be pinpointed but is thought to be caused by an irregularity in sensory nerves and has a tendency to strike post-menopausal women,or those who have had hormone treatments. Again...be careful what you wish for!

School for Liars

I am still trying to digest this as it is a difficult task to get children to tell the truth,but to offer them a reward for bending the truth? Sorry,I don't get it. An independent school in England has incorporated a 10 second rule,meaning if the pupils could come up with an explanation for their behavior in 10 seconds they would escape punishment. The head of the school explains out-and-out falseness would not be allowed,but white lies would. The belief is that this "skill" would help create the next generation of entrepreneurs,and regardless of academic skills the children need to know how to communicate effectively. He explained he wasn't teaching the children to lie,but to bend the truth. Excuse me,but what ever happened to integrity and standing by your word? Apparently those qualities are being rejected for this "skill" which need no teaching and if you ask me should be discouraged not rewarded.

Silly Bets

I couldn't tell you how long I have been doing this,or when it started. It could have been something I was taught to do as a child,though I have no recollection of it. What I am talking about is coming to the end of the toothpaste tube,when it gets to the near empty point I start mentally betting with myself how many more brushing I will be able to get from that tube before I give up and throw it in the trash. Now mind you at this point I usually have already purchased a new tube of toothpaste and there is no reason for me to battle the last little bit out of the old tube...other than for the challenge. You may be thinking that I should look for something meaningful to challenge me,but the point is I would do it anyway,it is like a tease to see how much more is really in there. I have at times in the past stopped to think that maybe the tube needed to be redesigned in order to end the battle,but what would be the fun in that? While I have no real evidence of this, I firmly believe that I am not the only one that puts up the good fight for the last squeeze,it just seems so human I couldn't be the only one...could I?

Where Did That Come From?

As I was going about my morning I found myself thinking about a rather unique coffee table that had been described to me the day before,except instead of mentally calling it a coffee table I substituted cocktail table. I then found myself wondering how the word cocktail ended up meaning mixed drink,here is what I found.
Although there is no exact answer to this question,and not all mixed drinks are considered cocktails,these are some of the more interesting explanations. Rumor has it that bartenders used to drain of the dregs of all the barrels,mix them together and serve them at a reduced price. Cock was another word for spigot and the remains of the barrels were the tailings so the resulting drink was called cock-tailings. A more simple theory is that a potent drink will "cock your tail",or get your spirits up. Another possibility comes from a non-thoroughbred horse being called a cock-tail,as their tails were bobbed to denote their mixed breeding,and a cocktail drink is a mix of spirits. None of these are cast in stone nor are they the only offerings as to the origins of the word,there are nearly as many explanations as there are cocktails!

Food for Thought

Today's blog is one of my accidental ones...something I found while looking for an unrelated item. Most of these I have never heard of before,so count it as a learn something new day.
On an ear of corn each row will always have an even number of kernels (I will try to remember to count next time!). An American will eat the equivalent of 28 pigs in their lifetime. Garlic is not only good for repelling vampires,it is also effective against other bloodsuckers,mosquitoes and ticks. Have you heard of cooking meals on your engine's manifold? In the days of Attila the Hun the warriors preserved their meat by placing fresh meat under their saddles. As they rode throughout the day fluids were squeezed from the meat and the horse's sweat salted and removed further moisture. When they stopped at days end they had a dried and salted meal. In the Middle Ages lemon was served with fish because it was thought he juice would dissolve any bones that were accidentally swallowed. Carmel was invented by the Arabs as a depilatory (hair remover) for the women in a harem. The earliest fast food was taken from the partially digested contents of the animals the hunters killed (flashback to yesterday's python blog!).

Snake Wranglers

You are too late to participate in this year's Python Challenge (the 2013 challenge ran from January 12-February 10) but you have plenty of time to plan for next year. Nearly 1,500 hunters registered for this years hunt. The winner who bags the most snakes gets $1,500,the biggest python is worth $1,000. At this point you may be wondering why the hunt was organized,the answer is that the pythons are bio-pollution and are pushing native mammals to the edge of extinction.
The snakes are easy to catch but difficult to find as their brown and black coloration makes for nearly perfect camouflage. The Challenges rules stipulate that the snakes must be killed in the field. The first python caught in the Everglades was in 1979 since that time their population has dramatically increased. In 2010 more than 130 snakes were caught,in 2011 that number increased to 169. Meanwhile raccoons sightings have decreased by 99% opossums 98% and bobcats 88%. There have also been undigested deer found in larger pythons.
This bio-pollution was caused by irresponsible pet owners that released their pets into the wild when they either grew tired of them or they became too expensive to keep. So please think and do your research before acquiring any pet.

Nothing to Fear

Franklin Delano Roosevelt said the following about fear: "Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I thought that would be an appropriate quote to begin today's blog about phobias.
You would not believe the number of phobias,I was astounded. There must have been over 50 just starting with the letter A. I am just going to list some of the least known of the offering,but it is still pretty interesting to think about all the things that people fear no matter how irrational.
Arachibutyrophobia-Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.
Ashenophobia-Fear of fainting or weakness.
Ataxophobia-Fear of untidiness
Atychiphobia-Fear of failure.
Autophobia-Fear of being alone or fear of oneself.
Achluophobia-Fear of darkness.
Agyrophobia-Fear of streets or crossing the street.
Alektorphobia-Fear of chickens.
Allodoxaphobia-Fear of opinions.
Amaxophobia-Fear of riding in a car.
Anthophobia-Fear of flowers.
Anuptaphobia-Fear of being single.
These are just some for you to give some thought to for now...there will be a test at a later date!

Commercially Speaking

Like most people when I watch TV I tend to tune out the commercials,in fact to facilitate the process I keep reading material close at hand to aid me in that venture. So when I am distracted by a commercial I figure it is either extremely good or extremely bad. Call it morbid fascination with the bad ones,but some of the enjoyable ones leave me equally mystified. Last night I heard one for a local mattress warehouse and I am not sure if I misheard, or if it was a blooper,or maybe it was intentional,but what I thought I heard was "Huge President's Mattress Sale"...so does that mean they were selling mattresses for the extra large presidents? If so it would be a shame that our heaviest president,William Howard Taft had not lived to partake. Taft was over 350 pounds,but in all fairness he was 6 feet tall and in pictures doesn't look too overweight. On the flip side of the biggest of our fearless leaders,the smallest president was James Madison at less than 100 pounds and standing 5 feet 4 inches. Enough about that ad,the one that I think really deserves mention is the Kia Hamsters commercials,not only do the grab and hold your attention but by the time they are over I haven't even considered it odd that there were hamsters driving,but maybe that is just me?

Hold the Applause...PLEASE

The first thing I thought of when I heard about the Clap-Off Bra was the blog I had done about the gal with the ZZZ cups (from 1/24/2013). Can you imagine someone clapping her bra off and not standing out of the danger zone? or at least wearing a hard hat? Then I started wondering where it would be practical to wear a Clap-Off Bra,since applause is not limited to any one place. Does the world really need a Clap-Off Bra? Other than for prank purposes it seems to take some of the romance out of undressing. In case you are not surprised by the invention itself,maybe where it was invented will help you out in that respect...Syria. It seems like that pretty much blows my impression of sexually repressed Arab cultures,but then again maybe I am just out of touch with reality.

Skate Tunes

You probably thing today's offering is going to include popular music to skate by,but it goes back to the first roller skates. The first patented roller skate was introduced in 1760 by a violinist named Joseph Merlin (presumably no relation to the magician). He wore them to a party where he had been invited to perform with his violin and crashed into a mirror,after that excursion the skates were put aside. In 1863 an improvement was made on the original design allowing skaters to be able to easily turn,this improvement was the beginning of skating as a popular pastime. There have been periods when skating falls from favor,but it always seems to make a comeback.
I was surprised to learn that skates were invented that long ago,and by a violinist,but those creative types are full of surprise!

Creepy!

One look at these guys and my first thought was sci-fi movie. They look somewhat like a jellyfish,but  apparently the similarity ends there. They are called salps and have been washing up on beaches in Washington (north of where I am located) and showing up in crab pots and fishing nets. They are from more southern warmer waters and are thought to be here as a result of climate changes. I wonder if they could be here as result of some other ocean disturbance but at this time the experts aren't too concerned. In 2002, I believe it was, they washed up on Oregon beaches,but didn't cause any further problems at that time.
I have been meaning to mention for over a week that I have had my first Pussy Willow sighting,as you long time readers will recall they are my official harbinger of spring. I also saw an eagle in an Alder tree about an hour ago while I was out for a walk,I don't often see them that close to the ground,and hear them more often that see them so that was a treat.

Service?

Last week (2/6) the Postal Service announced its plan to discontinue Saturday delivery on 8/5/2013. They expect to save $2 billion a year with this cut. I don't think it will have much impact on the general public,as the service isn't all that reliable to begin with (thus the nickname Snail Mail),but I wonder about the elderly that are living on a shoestring and how it might affect them? I imagine there are a number of people that have never been able to afford a computer that one less day of mail delivery might be an extreme inconvenience. Never mind that Obama is meanwhile promising to create jobs and this move will impact 22,500 jobs. Part of the plan is to use more part time workers,the flaw with that being that people trying to raise families will lose out on work since part time work tends to not be family friendly. Congress still may step in and thwart the plan but the current Postmaster General didn't see that as a likely problem. I guess we will see in time if this is a solution to the losses they suffer on a yearly basis.

What Next?

Today's blog is another little something I gleaned from Millionaire,Ape Apps. Apparently there is more than one research project ongoing with different members of the primate family,but the one I am exploring today is being conducted with bonobos (a bonobo is similar to a chimpanzee but a separtate species). The most recent work is being done with a Motorola Xoom tablet with special icons that allow the animals to communicate. Through the tablets they can ask questions,make requests and sometimes tell jokes. What I found to be the most impressive about this work is the way it was being applied to the animals general health and well being. They are able to find ways to make their living areas more comfortable and in one case though there was no lexigram for toothache the researcher typed in the word and a new symbol appeared to the bonobo along with a mechanical voice that said the word,which the animals then connected to the pain it felt.
The only puzzling part of this to me is...would I get a bonobo joke?

A Great Wit

I have mentioned in the past that what we know today as Daylight Savings Time was perpetuated by a comment Ben Franklin made while in France about them saving their candles by changing the time. That wasn't the only hoax good old Ben was responsible for,it was only one of many. His first was at the age of 16 while working for his brother who was a printer. Ben started writing a soon to be popular series of letters supposedly by a middle aged widow named Silence Dogood. She poked fun at various things,drunkenness,religious hypocrisy,the persecution of women,hoop petticoats and the pretensions of Harvard College. She received several offers of marriage through the paper. After Ben confessed to his brother his brother was quite angry. Not long after his confession he ran away to Philadelphia to seek his fortune. One only has to look at a picture of Franklin to see that spark of mischief.
That is one thing I miss about work,I managed to pull several hoaxes over the years and found that success comes easily if the hoax is something people want to believe. My best one had to do with telling all my customers that the toll bridge was all paid for,so it would soon be a toll free bridge. After the DOT office was flooded with calls it turned out it was indeed paid for and the toll was removed. The moral is good can come from less that noble means!

An Optimist

Earlier today when I went grocery shopping I was sitting at the blood pressure machine waiting for it to perform and looking around. A man stopped in the hair care aisle and picked up a container of mousse,at this point I should mention he was bald,nothing struck me as out of the ordinary about that,he could have been picking it up for someone else or for a totally unrelated reason but his next stop told me differently. He was now selecting a hair restoring product and debating between Rogaine or other brands. If I hadn't been otherwise occupied I think I might have spoke to him  and told him that he was probably more concerned about his lack of hair than anyone else and he would be better off to save his time and money. I don't know about everyone else but hair is one of the last things I notice about a man,unless of course it is really greasy or styled in an unusual manner. I would even go so far as to say I prefer a bald man to an unkempt one. Then again,I have been known for my less than normal tastes!

A Whole New Meaning

I was shocked and appalled to discover misinformation in my latest issue of "Mental Floss". They claimed that the word gay (to mean homosexual) was first used by Gertrude Stein in 1922 in her short story "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene". As it turns out it had been in use meaning homosexual before that story. In the mid 17th century according to an Oxford dictionary of that time the meaning of the word was "addicted to pleasures and dissipation's,of loose and immoral life",in addition to the original meaning of the word (joyful,carefree). By the 19th century the word gay referred to a woman who was a prostitute and a gay man as someone who slept with a lot of women,which is oddly the opposite of the modern meaning. Also the phrase "gay it" meant to have sex. In the 1920s and 1930s the word took on the meaning of men having sex with other men. At this time homosexual women were referred to as lesbians not gay. By 1955 the word gay officially acquired the new added definition of homosexual males. Since then the new definition has steadily become the primary meaning of the word gay. In the 1980s another definition started being used for gay,meaning "lame or stupid". Odd how a simple three letter word could take on so many meanings and changes in a relatively short time span.

Comical

Today's little tidbit came once again,from a question on Millionaire. I happened to know the answer from hours spent reading comic books on rainy days as a child. The question was something like "William Martson,inventor of the lie detector also invented which comic book character who used a Golden Lasso of Truth?" The answer was Wonder Woman. That prompted me to find out more.
Martson was a psychologist educated at Harvard in the 1920s. He lived with his wife and another woman in a polyamourous relationship,the Wonder Woman character was based on these two women. He originally named Wonder Woman Suprema,but an editor replaced that name with Wonder Woman. From his psychological work Martson had found women to be more honest and reliable than men and could work faster and more accurately. It was his wife that suggested to Martson that when she got excited her blood pressure seemed to climb,and from that he created the systolic blood pressure test,which is a component of the modern polygraph and links that device to the Lasso of Truth.

Odd Jobs

This job isn't that strange considering the time,but the name of the job should get at least a few snickers. A Knocker-up was a person in England and Ireland that woke people up so they could get to work on time (I have no idea who woke the Knocker-up!). This occupation started during the Industrial Revolution and lasted into the 1920s,before alarm clocks were affordable or reliable. Several methods were used to knock people up,some used a stick to rap on doors,others used pea-shooters to shoot at upper windows,also long bamboo poles were employed for tapping on upper windows. The pay was minimal,only a few pence a week,but Knocker-ups were often a secondary job. Police sometimes did the job while on their rounds. So what you have here is a job with an odd name,low pay and chances are you weren't popular with your clients.

Timing

I was reading how long things take and though these are only average times it is still fairly interesting. In the U.S. people spend 1 hour and 40 minutes a month clothes shopping in stores and 1 hour 43 minutes clothes shopping online. (I am going to keep track of the time I spend on clothes shopping because I bet I don't spend that long in a years time,grocery shopping easily takes that much time a month,or more.) How often are workers interrupted? Every 3 minutes and 5 seconds (4.4% of these are self interruptions). Here is one that everyone can relate to,time spent waiting in line. The answers vary from country to country but in the U.S. it is between 2 and 3 years of your life! The average American spends 8 hours a day in front of screens (monitors and television). Children spend more time watching television than the hours they spend in school. On the lighter side the average hug is 3 seconds long. On average a person spends 1 hour a day chewing. When you start breaking down the small everyday things you do it is easy to answer that age old question...Where did the time go?

Local Heroes

Back in the 1970s a special agent of Law Enforcement for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was assigned to coordinate endangered species investigations around the country. Initially it doesn't sound like a daunting task,but unlike forensic labs for humans there were no samples to compare with and provide proof that the animals (that were sometimes in parts) were indeed endangered,so most cases didn't have a positive outcome. A former police crime lab director was hired to set up the program,in 1988 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Laboratory opened in Ashland,Oregon. Today the lab is still the only one of its kind in the world. The lab covers all 50 states as well as 173 countries. They conduct crime scene investigations, determine cause of death,determine if a crime occurred,and provide expert testimony in court. They have a team of 33 people and handle about 900 cases a year. With this team on the job endangered animals finally have a fighting chance.

Trees and Salt

What is she going on about now? What do trees and salt have to do with each other? In 1855 newspaper editor Julius Sterling Morton started building a modest house in Nebraska that as time went by expanded into a 52 room White House lookalike. After completion he realized that the house sat on a prairie with no neighbors. In an attempt to rectify the problem he started planting trees and proposed a holiday on which fellow Nebraskans could join in. The State Board of Agriculture signed on with the idea and on April 10,1872 more than a million trees were planted. The tradition caught on and was made a legal holiday (Arbor Day) in 1885,the date was changed from the 10th to the 26th so it would fall on Morton's birthday. Soon the rest of the country and eventually the world was celebrating Arbor Day.
His son founded Morton Salt Company in Chicago in 1848,known for its motto "When it rains it pours" and also the iconic logo "The Morton Salt Girl" aka "Umbrella Girl". The logo became one of the 10 best known symbols in the U.S. She has gone through six changes since her first appearance in 1914,sadly she has never had a name.

Stairway To Heaven

Since it's Sunday I decided it would be fitting to do a blog about tree house churches. When I read about one in France I assumed it was unique,but the one I read about is one of three in France and there are also at least one in the U.S. (Tennessee). The Chapel Oak is between 800-1,200 years old. It was struck by lightning,gutting its trunk. Two monks began work on the hollowed interior. After completing the first chapel they decided to add a second chapel further up the tree,which is reached by an external spiral staircase. In an ongoing effort to preserve the tree shingles have been added and poles are used to provide support in various places. Mass is still held in it twice a year.
I am going to go out on a limb here (pun intended) and bet that most of you are still attending plain old churches!

Fingers Crossed

Let's hope that Phil (the groundhog) is correct this year and that spring is just around the corner. I wanted to include the semi-local Frognosticator "Snohomish Slew" but his event takes place from 11-1 and I have no idea when someone will post the Groundfrog results. If I remember to check back tomorrow I will let you know what his prediction was.
After deciding on the title for today's blog I was planning on offering the history behind crossed fingers,but other than invoking the shape of the cross (I don't see it as cross like at all) it just means hoping for a good outcome. The only other meaning I found was when Christians were persecuted by the Romans they used crossed fingers to be recognized by fellow Christians. Whatever the case,keep your fingers crossed for Spring!

Spunky

It's already time for the first calendar flip of 2013. February is Spunky Old Broad Month,Yeah Us!
2/1 Working Naked Day (Kind of takes the fun out of being retired)
2/2 We all know Groundhog Day,but also Ice Cream for Breakfast Day
2/3 Dump your Significant Jerk Day
2/4 Quacker Day (I am guessing ducks)
2/5 Weatherman's Day (They get to be wrong today...wait,no difference there)
2/6 Digital Learning Day (or digit learning if you prefer)
2/7 Wave ALL Your Fingers at Your Neighbors Day
2/8 Laugh and Get Rich Day
2/9 Read in the Bathtub Day
2/10 Plimsoll Day
2/11 Satisfied Staying Single Day
2/12 Extraterrestrial Culture Day
2/13 Get a Different Name Day (Try this,it is really fun!)
2/14 National Call in Single Day
2/15 National Hippo Day
2/16 Innovation Day
2/17 My Way Day
2/18 Cow Milked While Flying In an Airplane Day
2/19 Single Tasking Day (multiple tasking prohibited)
2/20 Northern Hemisphere Hoodie-Hoo Day (at noon everyone yells Hoodie-Hoo to chase winter away)
2/21 International Mother Language Day
2/22 National Margarita Day (I can get behind this!) Naturally followed by...
2/23 Open That Bottle Night
2/24 National Tortilla Chip Day
2/25 Pistol Patent Day (Samuel Colt)
2/26 For Pete's Sake Day
2/27 Inconvenience Yourself Day
2/28 National Tooth Fairy Day
Enjoy Your Month!