Sunday

I went to a friend’s house last night for dinner and an astronomy slide show. It was a great dinner and the slide show was very interesting. As a renowned, retired astrophotographer and a Canadian, he went to Chile for two weeks to see the southern sky with some other Canadians. Turns out, Chile has some of the best views of the southern sky in the world. They have some of the best telescopes, and lots of them. We also learned about the Hubble Dark Sky program. It is amazing stuff. It makes me wonder how anyone can believe that Earth is the only planet that has intelligent life. There are just too many other galaxies out there. Maybe someday we will contact them, or they will contact us. Maybe in my lifetime there will be some contact. The slide show couldn’t help but get one interested in what is really out there.

The clouds came, the clouds left. They chose to not drop any rain today. They kept the temperature about 80°. That meant that the neighborhood could enjoy the great outdoors.

I just watched a good ’60 Minutes’ on the life of Don Hewitt. Whatever happened to the news reporting of those days? I’m not talking about the hidden camera, ‘gotcha reporting’ they did early. I’m talking about the in depth news stories that really let us know the people that went with the news. Hopefully it will return.


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Random Facts…

Spotted skunks do handstands before they spray.

Crazy Stuff in the News…

HINGHAM, Mass. - Police Massachusetts said they arrested a woman who attacked a store clerk with a Slim Jim meat snack and a bottle of apple juice. Hingham police said the woman, identified as Nancy Ward, 46, of Hingham, became enraged Aug. 7 because a Cracker Barrel store did not have an item she wanted and she believed she had been overcharged by a clerk, The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Mass., reported. The woman allegedly threw a bottle of apple juice at the clerk, striking him in the head, and punched him before throwing the Slim Jim snack at him. Then, police said, she tore down the store’s flag and drove
away in a black Saab convertible. Police were alerted to be on the lookout for the woman, and Ward was spotted the next day playing music loudly and singing in her car. She was arrested and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery, disorderly conduct and malicious destruction of property.


Month long events in August

Edinburgh Festival is an internationally famous arts festival that takes place during August National Immunization Awareness Month… National Psoriasis Awareness Month… Women's Small Business Month... National Back to School month…American Adventures Month…Golf Month…National Inventor’s Month…National Win with Civility Month…What will be your legacy Month

Week of Aug 24…
National Be Safe At Home Week

22 Aug…

236 days so far this year…129 days remain in 2009
National Waffle Day
*Ukraine: Independence Day for USSR--1991


BIRTHS ON THIS DAY…

1899….. Jorge Luis Borges Argentina, writer of fiction, essays (Labyrinths)

1759….. Wilbur Wilberforce England, crusaded against slavery

1912….. Durward Kirby Indianapolis Ind, TV announcer (Garry Moore Show)
1938….. Mason Williams Abilene Tx, writer (Smother Brothers Hour), musician “Classical Gas”
1961….. Cal Ripken Jr all-star shortstop (Balt Orioles)
1965….. Marlee Matlin Ill, deaf actress (Children of Lesser God-Acad Award)



Events on this day…

79….. Mt Vesuvius erupts, buries Pompeii & Herculaneum

1456….. The printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed.

1853….. 1st potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum (Saratoga Springs, NY)
1869….. Waffle iron invented

1909….. Workers start pouring concrete for Panama Canal
1949….. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established
1967….. Liberian flag designed
1969….. Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant premiered in both New York and Los Angeles.
1985….. A toxic leak at the Union Carbide factory on December 3rd has been blamed on a chain of human errors and mechanical safeguards failing.
1987….. Announcement of possible Martian tornadoes
1989….. Voyager 2 flies past Neptune



Riddles from BrainFood.com

Can you guess what each of these riddles is describing?

1. What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?
2. You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What did you eat?
3. What goes up and down the stairs without moving?
4. What can you catch but not throw?
5. I can run but not walk. Wherever I go, thought follows close behind. What am I?
* Bonus: What's black and white and red all over?
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Answers:
1. A towel.
2. An ear of corn. Or A chicken.
3. A rug.
4. A cold.
5. A nose.
*Bonus: An embarrassed skunk., A zebra painted red., A sunburned penguin., A newspaper