Celebrating My Team

No matter what you do or aspire to do, this day was dedicated in honor of your labors. Enjoy!!

Kowalski Heat Treating has always been a fairly “simple” business – have a vision, hire great people, give them the tools, training and right equipment, along with the freedom and responsibility to make good decisions. Then work like the dickens to do great work for our customers. Of course, like all businesses, it’s the “labor” that makes it happen.  So, for this upcoming LABOR DAY weekend, I want to salute my amazing team, and thank them for their commitment to excellence, while working on all of those PIA jobs!  Without my team there really would be no Kowalski Heat Treating.

Here’s a bit about the history of Labor Day and a request to all – enjoy YOUR labor, your families, friends and thank those working on this traditional holiday weekend.

  1. Labor Day is a public holiday in the United States and falls on the first Monday in September. This holiday honors the contributions of workers in the American labor movement to the well-being of the United States.
  2. In the U.S it is known as the “unofficial last day of summer.” Canada also has a Labour Day and that falls on the first Monday in September as well. All throughout the rest of the world, over 80 countries celebrate Labour Day, also known as May Day and International Workers’ Day, on the first day of May.
  3. Prior to the beginning of the Labor movement, conditions in American factories and mines were often deplorable during the 18th and 19th centuries. While some states had passed laws that prevented children from working, in some states children as young as 5 years old were working. For many workers, conditions were also extremely unsafe and there were very few laws that limited how long a workday should be. The labor movement began as a way to address these issues, fighting for better wages, safer working conditions, an end to child labor and providing health benefits for workers.
  4. In the United States, Labor Day was first proposed as a September holiday between 1880 and 1890. The idea was borrowed from Canada after American labor leader Peter McGuire witnessed labor festivals that had occurred in Toronto to fight for the rights of printers. He took the idea back to the United States and organized an American version of Labor Day. On September 5, 1882, the first official Labor Day Parade was held in New York City and was attended by over 10,000 workers.
  5. The labor movement in Europe began during the industrial revolution. At the time, the idea of an organized labor movement was met with quite a bit of resistance. In fact, sometimes there were grave consequences for workers organizing. For instance, Tolpuddle Martyrs of Dorset were charged with forming a secret society when they formed their union. However, that didn’t prevent the movement from moving forward, and groups such as The International Workingmen’s Association began to gain power and give the labor movement more of an international voice.
  6. In the U.S., Labor Day is an official federal holiday. This means that all government offices and schools, as well as many businesses, are closed on this day. In some parts of the country, public parades, firework displays and barbecues are organized. It is considered by many to be the unofficial end of summer – a time to have some fun before school resumes or before summer vacations end.
  7. There are often many unrelated fairs and festivals that occur around this time. Some of these include the Festival of Iowa Beers in Amana, Iowa; The KC Irish Fest in Kansas City, Missouri; Big River Steampunk Festival in Hannibal, Missouri; and, the Cleveland Oktoberfest in our local city Berea, Ohio.
  8. In Canada, most of the celebrations aren’t much different from how Americans celebrate their Labor Day. Many people all across the country see it as a good time to go on one last summer trip; to have a BBQ with friends and family; or attend a picnic or some kind of festival. Some Canadians will celebrate the day with fireworks. Canadian football fans usually spend the day watching the Labour Day Classic.
  9. As you can imagine, Labour Day is celebrated in different countries in different ways. In the U.K., this day is still celebrated in many small towns and shires with the crowning of the May Queen and it’s still celebrated by some people as Beltane Day. Usually, there are a number of parades and protests which take place on this day to promote and protect the rights of workers.

And for some very interesting information….

  1. In Bulgaria, the day involves snakes and other reptiles, which have prompted many people to devise rituals to drive away these creatures and keep them from biting people. People all over Bulgaria light fires and make lots of noise to scare these snakes away. In Germany, Walpurgisnacht is celebrated and in Finland, Walpurgis Night is celebrated.

_______________________

 

 


 

Oh So Good!

 

The tomato. Grow them or eat them. There’s nothing quite like them. Read on and check out some fabulous recipes at the link below.

It’s tomato time! That wonderful time of year when our summer gardens finally give up their fresh, ripe, glorious tomatoes. For me, I can’t get enough. Right out of the garden, or a basket-full from the farmer’s stand down the road, I’m in tomato heaven.  For breakfast, we’ll devour them drizzled with a little olive oil alongside scrambled eggs.  Lunch means magnificent BLTs of course, or just cut up alongside a sandwich or in a salad. At snack time, you can’t beat a perfectly ripe tomato simply sliced into wedges and sprinkled with a little sea salt (and a dash of pepper – no one can eat a tomato without pepper!). And when dinner rolls around, we consult the recipes.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the insights and history and allrecipies.com for the amazing recipes – I think Jackie and I will try every single one before the harvest season is over. (tomato/cucumber salad with onions … stop the bus!!)  Here are some of our must-have recipes when tomatoes are at their peak. And remember, keep those garden-fresh tomatoes out of the fridge — Cold dulls flavor. Enjoy!  (and if you have an abundance from the garden, just drop them off at KHT headquarters – I’ll be sure to lap them up and share with the crew).

  1. The word “tomato” comes from the Spanish tomate, which in turn comes from the Nahuatl word tomatl meaning “the swelling fruit. The native Mexican tomatillo is tomate meaning “fat water” or “fat thing”.  When the Aztecs started to cultivate the Andean fruit to be larger, sweeter, and red, they called the new species xitomatl (or jitomates) (pronounced [ʃiːˈtomatɬ]) “plump with navel” or “fat water with navel”).
  2. The usual pronunciations of “tomato” are /təˈmeɪtoʊ/ (usual in American English) and /təˈmɑːtoʊ/ (usual in British English).  The word’s dual pronunciations were immortalized in Ira and George Gershwin’s 1937 song “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”.
  3. Botanically, a tomato is a fruit, a berry, consisting of the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant. However, the tomato is also considered a “culinary vegetable” because it has a much lower sugar content than culinary fruits, typically served as part of a salad or main course of a meal, rather than as a dessert. Tomatoes are not the only food source with this ambiguity; bell peppers, cucumbers, green beans, eggplants, avocados, and squashes of all kinds (such as zucchini and pumpkins) are all botanically fruits, yet cooked as vegetables.
  4. Of course, this confusion led to legal dispute in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables, but not on fruits, caused the tomato’s status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled this controversy on May 10, 1893, by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use, as they are generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304)).
  5. Tomato plants are dicots, and grow as a series of branching stems, with a terminal bud at the tip that does the actual growing. When that tip eventually stops growing, whether because of pruning or flowering, lateral buds take over and grow into other, fully functional, vines. Tomato vines are also typically pubescent, meaning covered with fine short hairs. These hairs facilitate the vining process, turning into roots wherever the plant is in contact with the ground and moisture, especially if the vine’s connection to its original root has been damaged or severed.
  6. As a true fruit, tomatoes develop from the ovary of the plant after fertilization, its flesh comprising the pericarp walls. The fruit contains hollow spaces full of seeds and moisture, called locular cavities. These vary, among cultivated species, according to type. Some smaller varieties have two cavities, globe-shaped varieties typically have three to five, beefsteak tomatoes have a great number of smaller cavities, while paste tomatoes have very few, very small cavities.
  7. The first commercially available genetically modified food was a variety of tomato named the Flavr Savr, which was engineered to have a longer shelf life.  Scientists continue to develop tomatoes with new traits not found in natural crops, such as increased resistance to pests or environmental stresses. Other projects aim to enrich tomatoes with substances that may offer health benefits or provide better nutrition.
  8. An international consortium of researchers from 10 countries began sequencing the tomato genome in 2004, and is creating a database of genomic sequences and information on the tomato and related plants. The Tomato Genetic Resource Center, Germplasm Resources Information Network, AVRDC, and numerous seed banks around the world store seed representing genetic variations of value to modern agriculture.
  9. While individual breeding efforts can produce useful results, the bulk of tomato breeding work is at universities and major agriculture-related corporations, resulting in significant regionally adapted breeding lines and hybrids. Corporations including Heinz, Monsanto, BHNSeed, and Bejoseed have breeding programs that attempt to improve production, size, shape, color, flavor, disease tolerance, pest tolerance, nutritional value, and numerous other traits.
  10. The tomato is native to western South America.  Wild versions were small, like cherry tomatoes, and most likely yellow rather than red.  A member of the deadly nightshade family, tomatoes were erroneously thought to be poisonous by Europeans who were suspicious of their bright, shiny fruit.
  11. Aztecs and other peoples in Mesoamerica used the fruit in their cooking. The exact date of domestication is unknown; by 500 BC, it was already being cultivated in southern Mexico and probably other areas.  The Pueblo people are thought to have believed that those who witnessed the ingestion of tomato seeds were blessed with powers of divination. (hence the expression – “God, this is good” – ha.)
  12. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés may have been the first to transfer the small yellow tomato to Europe after he captured the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, in 1521, although Christopher Columbus may have taken them back as early as 1493. The earliest discussion of the tomato in European literature appeared in an herbal written in 1544 by Pietro Andrea Mattioli, an Italian physician and botanist, who suggested that a new type of eggplant had been brought to Italy that was blood red or golden color when mature and could be divided into segments and eaten like an eggplant—that is, cooked and seasoned with salt, black pepper, and oil.
  13. After the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish distributed the tomato throughout their colonies in the Caribbean. They also took it to the Philippines, from where it spread to southeast Asia and then the entire Asian continent. The Spanish also brought the tomato to Europe. It grew easily in Mediterranean climates, and cultivation began in the 1540s. It was probably eaten shortly after it was introduced, and was certainly being used as food by the early 17th century in Spain.
  14. The recorded history of tomatoes in Italy dates back to at least 1548, when the house steward of Cosimo de’ Medici, the grand duke of Tuscany, wrote to the Medici private secretary informing him that the basket of tomatoes sent from the grand duke’s Florentine estate at Torre del Gallo “had arrived safely”.
  15. Tomatoes were grown mainly as ornamentals early on after their arrival in Italy. The earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692, though the author had apparently obtained these recipes from Spanish sources. Unique varieties were developed over the next several hundred years for uses such as dried tomatoes, sauce tomatoes, pizza tomatoes, and tomatoes for long-term storage.  Most often the names corresponded to the place or origin.
  16. In America, the earliest reference to tomatoes being grown is from 1710, when herbalist William Salmon reported seeing them in the South Carolina area, possibly introduced from the Caribbean. By the mid-18th century, they were cultivated on some Carolina plantations, and probably in other parts of the Southeast as well.
  17. Alexander W. Livingston receives much credit for transforming the tomato from its natural state in which it produced small, sour fruits, and for developing numerous other varieties of tomato for both home and commercial gardeners.  When Livingston began his attempts to develop the tomato as a commercial crop, his aim had been to grow tomatoes smooth in contour, uniform in size, and sweet in flavor. In 1870, Livingston introduced the Paragon, and tomato culture soon became a great enterprise in the county. He eventually developed over seventeen different varieties of the tomato plant.
  18. In 2014, world production of tomatoes was 170.8 million tons, with China accounting for 31% of the total, followed by India, the United States and Turkey as the major producers. In 2014, tomatoes accounted for 23% of the total fresh vegetable output of the European Union, with more than half of this total coming from Spain, Italy and Poland.
  19. Tomato varieties can be divided into categories based on shape and size:
    • Beefsteak tomatoes are 10 cm (4 in) or more in diameter, often used for sandwiches and similar applications. Their kidney-bean shape, thinner skin, and shorter shelf life makes commercial use impractical.
    • Plum tomatoes, or paste tomatoes (including pear tomatoes), are bred with a lower water /higher solids content for use in tomato sauce and paste, for canningand sauces and are usually oblong 7–9 cm (3–4 in) long and 4–5 cm (1.6–2.0 in) diameter; like the Roma-type tomatoes.
    • Cherry tomatoes are small and round, often sweet tomatoes, about the same 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in) size as the wild tomato.
    • Grape tomatoes are smaller and oblong, a variation on plum tomatoes.
    • Campari tomatoes are sweet and noted for their juiciness, low acidity, and lack of mealiness, bigger than cherry tomatoes, and smaller than plum tomatoes.
    • Tomberries, tiny tomatoes, about 5 mm in diameter
    • Oxheart tomatoes can range in size up to beefsteaks, and are shaped like large strawberries.
    • Pear tomatoes are pear-shaped and can be based upon the San Marzano types for a richer gourmet paste.[citation needed]
    • “Slicing” or “globe” tomatoes are the usual tomatoes of commerce, used for a wide variety of processing and fresh eating.  The most widely grown commercialtomatoes tend to be in the 5–6 cm (2.0–2.4 in) diameter range.
  20. To facilitate transportation and storage, tomatoes are often picked unripe (green) and ripened in storage with ethylene, a hydrocarbon gas that many fruits produce, which acts as the molecular cue to begin the ripening process. Unripe tomatoes are firm. As they ripen they soften until reaching the ripe state where they are red or orange in color and slightly soft to the touch. Tomatoes ripened in this way tend to keep longer, but have poorer flavor and a mealier, starchier texture than tomatoes ripened on the plant.
  21. A machine-harvestable variety of tomato (the “square tomato”) was developed in the 1950s by University of California, Davis’s Gordie C. Hanna, which, in combination with the development of a suitable harvester, revolutionized the tomato-growing industry. This type of tomato is grown commercially near plants that process and can tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. They are harvested when ripe and are flavorful when picked. They are harvested 24 hours a day, seven days a week during a 12- to 14-week season, and immediately transported to packing plants, which operate on the same schedule.
  22. A massive “tomato tree” growing inside the Walt Disney World Resort’s experimental greenhouses in Lake Buena Vista, Florida may have been the largest single tomato plant in the world. The plant has been recognized as a Guinness World Record Holder, with a harvest of more than 32,000 tomatoes.  The vine grew golf ball-sized tomatoes, which were served at Walt Disney World restaurants.  Unfortunately, the tree developed a disease and was removed in April 2010 after about 13 months of life.
  23. Tomatoes keep best unwashed at room temperature and out of direct sunlight. It is not recommended to refrigerate them as this can harm the flavor. Tomatoes stored cold tend to lose their flavor permanently.  Storing stem down can prolong shelf life, t may keep from rotting too quickly.
  24. The US city of Reynoldsburg, Ohio calls itself “The Birthplace of the Tomato”, claiming the first commercial variety of tomato was bred there in the 19th century.

MMMM-mmmm-MMMM-mmm-mm…

Go to Allrecipes.com now! They have some great, great recipes for your tomatoes…

 

 


 

Buzzzzzzzzzz

The periodic Cicada. Read on…  And check out the videos below.

It’s the “dog days” of summer here in NE Ohio and I’m lovin’ it.  (bonus trivia:  the ancient Romans called the hottest, most humid days of summer “diēs caniculārēs” or “dog days.” The name came about because they associated the hottest days of summer with the star Sirius, known as the “Dog Star” because it was the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog).  When I was a kid, I tried to get everything in these last few weeks before school started.  Football practice (two-a-days) was a rite of hubris passage.  The days are sticky, and the nights are starting to cool down with just the slightest dew on the lawns in the morning.  This time of year, one of my favorite things to do is kick back in a lounge chair and listen to the songs of the cicadas.  I love the way their piercing sound cuts through the daytime air, reminding me to stay outside and enjoy the weather as long as possible. Now Jackie on the other hand can’t fall asleep to their “beautiful” music! I realized I really don’t know much about the cicadas (other than they buzz and are pretty ugly looking), so I went to my favorite Wikipedia to learn more.  Enjoy the info, and the next time someone remarks about them, you can be the “cliff klavin” in the group who says …. “did you know, the cicadas…”

  1. The cicadas are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in a suborder with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers, with more than 3,000 species described from around the world.
  2. Cicadas have prominent eyes set wide apart, short antennae, and membranous front wings. They also have three small ocelli located on the top of the head in a triangle between the two large eyes, with mouthparts that form a long sharp rostrum that they insert into plants to feed.
  3. The “singing” of male cicadas is not stridulation such as many familiar species of insects produce, crickets, for example.  They have an exceptionally loud song, produced by vibrating drum like tymbals rapidly. Comparatively large insects, they are conspicuous by the courtship calls of the males. The male abdomen is largely hollow, and acts as a sound box. By rapidly vibrating these membranes, a cicada combines the clicks into apparently continuous notes, and enlarged chambers derived from the tracheae serve as resonance chambers with which it amplifies the sound. The cicada also modulates the song by positioning its abdomen toward or away from the substrate. Partly by the pattern in which it combines the clicks, each species produces its own distinctive mating songs and acoustic signals, ensuring that the song attracts only appropriate mates.
  4. The adult insect, known as an imago, is 1-2 inches in total length in most species, with a wingspan of about 3-4 inches.  The largest species is the Malaysian emperor cicada with a wingspan of up to about 8 inches (yikes!).
  5. The surface of the forewing is super-hydrophobic; it is covered with minute waxy cones, blunt spikes that create a water-repellent film. Rain rolls across the surface, removing dirt in the process. In the absence of rain, dew condenses on the wings. When the droplets coalesce, they leap several millimetres into the air, which also serves to clean the wings.
  6. Cicadas typically live in trees, feeding on watery sap from xylem tissue and laying their eggs in a slit in the bark. Most cicadas are cryptic, singing at night to avoid predators. The annual cicadas are species that emerge every year. Though they have life cycles that can vary from one to nine or more years as underground larvae, their emergence above ground as adults is not synchronized so some appear every year.  The periodic cicadas spend most of their lives as underground nymphs, emerging only after 13 or 17 years, which may reduce losses by starving their predators and eventually emerging in huge numbers that overwhelm and satiate any remaining predators.
  7. In some species of cicada, the males remain in one location and call to attract females. Sometimes several males aggregate and call in chorus. In other species, the males move from place to place, usually with quieter calls while searching for females.
  8. For the human ear, it is often difficult to tell precisely where a cicada song originates. The pitch is nearly constant, the sound is continuous to the human ear, and cicadas sing in scattered groups. In addition to the mating song, many species have a distinct distress call, usually a broken and erratic sound emitted by the insect when seized or panicked. Some species also have courtship songs, generally quieter, and produced after a female has been drawn to the calling song. Males also produce encounter calls, whether in courtship or to maintain personal space within choruses.
  9. Cicadas have been featured in literature since the time of Homer’s Iliad, and as motifs in art from the Chinese Shang dynasty. They have been used in myths and folklore to represent carefree living and immortality. Cicadas are eaten in various countries, including China, where the nymphs are served deep-fried in Shandong cuisine.
  10. Cicadas are commonly eaten by birds and sometimes by squirrels, as well as bats, wasps, mantises, spiders and robber flies. In times of mass emergence of cicadas, various amphibians, fish, reptiles, mammals and birds change their foraging habits so as to benefit from the glut. Newly hatched nymphs may be eaten by ants, and nymphs living underground are preyed on by burrowing mammals like moles.
  11. Cicadas have been featured in literature since the time of Homer’s Iliad, and as motifs in decorative art from the Chinese Shang dynasty (1766–1122 BC.).  They are described by Aristotle in his History of Animals and by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History; their mechanism of sound production is mentioned by Hesiod in his poem Works and Days “when the Skolymus flowers, and the tuneful Tettix sitting on his tree in the weary summer season pours forth from under his wings his shrill song”.
  12. Cicadas have been used as money, in folk medicine, to forecast the weather, to provide song (in China), and in folklore and myths around the world.  In France, the cicada represents the folklore of Provence and the Mediterranean cities.
  13. In the Chinese tradition, the cicada symbolizes rebirth and immortality. In Japan, the cicada is associated with the summer season; the song of Meimuna opalifera, called “tsuku-tsuku boshi”, is said to indicate the end of summer, and it is called so because of its particular call.
  14. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, the goddess Aphrodite retells the legend of how Eos, the goddess of the dawn, requested Zeus to let her lover Tithonus live forever as an immortal.  Zeus granted her request, but, because Eos forgot to ask him to also make Tithonus ageless, Tithonus never died, but he did grow old. Eventually, he became so tiny and shriveled that he turned into the first cicada.
  15. Cicadas were eaten in Ancient Greece, and are consumed today in China, both as adults and (more often) as nymphs, in Malaysia, Burma, Latin America, North America, and central Africa female cicadas are prized for being meatier.  Shells of cicadas are employed in traditional Chinese medicines, and some are fried and eaten as a protein source (crunch, eeeewww).
  16. Cicadas are not major agricultural pests but in some outbreak years, trees may be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of females laying their eggs in the shoots. Small trees may wilt, and larger trees may lose small branches.  Cicadas sometimes cause damage to amenity shrubs and trees, mainly in the form of scarring left on tree branches where the females laid their eggs. Branches of young trees may die as a result.

INTERESTING CICADA VIDEOS                               

(left) A great BBC four minute Cicada docudrama.
(right) A close-up of a summer cicada making some noise by a guy in Franconia, PA. One minute.

COOL CICADA MUSIC VIDEOS                                

(left) Cicada Serenade by The Pheromones. A really fun music video.
(center) Hannah Gansen sings about a love affair seventeen years in the making.
(right) “I Ate A Cicada Today” An excerpt from a CD by the author, illustrator, songwriter, Jeff Crossan.

 

 


 

Cruisin’

(row one l) Ralph Teetor, in shirtsleeves, showing an unidentified man his invention. (row one r) Teetor’s patent drawing. (row two l) The 1958 Chrysler ad featuring Teetor’s “Auto Pilot”. (row two r top) Close-up of the “Auto Pilot”. (row two r bottom) Close-up of modern  “Adaptive Cruise Control”. (rows three & four) Adaptive Cruise Control promises to help avoid massive traffic problems due to accidents. (bottom) A whole different kind of cruise.  The Caribbean Princess at sea has nothing to do with the topic at hand but isn’t that a gorgeous shot??

 

The other day I was visiting a customer, something that I really love to do, to check in on our delivery and performance and to once again thank him for the business.  On my way down, almost without thinking much about it, I used the cruise control on the heat mobile.  Zipping along the freeway, it got me to thinking about how amazing our automobiles have become, the thousands of engineers who were able to overcome the problems, and all of the PIA Jobs we take for granted that have been solved over the years.  Amazing gas mileage, high performance engines, super resistant paints, clear glass curved windows, struts and springs that react to the road, and of course , the ease of which the transmission and engines work (I’m a bit partial to transmission and engine parts…).  Back at the plant, I fired up the computer and found a great story for this week’s blog post, a really fun article from 99% Invisible written by Kurt Kohlstedt about Ralph Teeter, a blind engineer who brought cruise control to modern cars. Enjoy, and thanks to all our reengineer friends we work with in or blogosphere – you remain amazing!

 

  1. Born in 1890, young Ralph Teetor was a perpetual tinkerer. He was blinded by an accident at the age of five but didn’t like to talk about his disability growing up. His father recognized his aptitude for building things and created a workshop for him when he was just ten years old, populating it with a variety of materials and tools. Then, as a young adult (at a time when many colleges rejected his application out of hand), Teetor pushed hard to get accepted at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering.
  2. After university, Teetor worked to dynamically balance steam turbines for U.S. Navy vessels. He was aided in part by his highly developed sense of touch — “His hands were his eyes,” recalls his biographer. Ever innovating, he also invented an early version of the powered lawn mower as well as creative locking mechanisms and other devices.
  3. Teetor eventually returned to his hometown in Indiana, where he went to work in the family’s vehicular manufacturing and supply business — one with a long history of working on bicycles, trains and cars. Over the years, Teetor rose up through the ranks of Perfect Circle, (a Teeter family business, originally a bicycle company founded in the 1800’s that went on to perfect the piston ring). He went on to become the president of this growing company, overseeing nearly 3,000 employees. Along the way, though, he continued to work on his own designs, and had an idea that would take vehicles in a new direction.
  4. As the story goes, Teetor was riding around one day in a car with his patent attorney, who often drove him places, when the discomfort of speeding up and slowing down gave him the idea for cruise control. Teetor noticed that his driver would accelerate when listening and decelerate while talking. Nauseated by these shifts, he began tinkering with a device to manage speed, receiving a patent in 1945. Over the course of its development, he variously called his invention things like Controlmatic, Touchomatic and Pressomatic before settling on Speedostat.
  5. This wasn’t the first time a speed-controlling technology had been developed — other limited examples were used in early automobiles, and even earlier to manage steam engines. Still, it was Teetor’s design that would lead car companies to adopt cruise control.
  6. 1950 patent for a “Speed Control Device For Resisting Operation of the Accelerator”. His first prototype featured a dashboard speed selector with a governor mechanism that pushed back on the gas pedal, pressing a speeding driver to slow down. To test it, Teetor got down on the floor to depress the pedal while a sighted person sat and steered. Still, this version only helped slow a car, not keep it at a constant speed. He later added “speed lock” functionality (using an electromagnetic motor) to keep a car at one steady pace until the brake pedal was tapped.
  7. In 1958, Chrysler began putting “auto-pilot” devices in luxury cars as an optional add-on before rolling out the Speedostat more broadly. General Motors coined the name “cruise control,” which stuck. In the 1970s, with spiking gas prices driven by oil embargos, this novel feature became an essential component for American automobiles. The technology helped save over 150,000 barrels of oil a day at the time.
  8. The company had been sold by that point, but Teetor’s influential efforts did not go unnoticed. During his lifetime, he served as president of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and received two honorary degrees: Doctor of Engineering at the Indiana Institute of Technology and Doctor of Laws at Earlham College. In 1988, six years after his death, he was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
  9. Today, Teetor’s legacy lives on — his inventions paved the way for other technological advances, and started the automotive industry on a road toward automation that will shape driving for decades to come.

 

 


 

Those Who Play, Understand

Golf is a game for all ages and skill levels. It’s a game where no one is booed, everyone gets a big cheer for an outstanding shot and we all feel the pain when we see a hit into the trees or a missed putt because of a blade of grass. It’s a great sport that way. Even when the best players find themselves in the sand, they muster their skills to figure out that PIA (pain in the @%$) Job! And win!

 

There are certain rules in life, and in sports.  Step over the line, and you are out of bounds.  Grab an opponent incorrectly, and you are holding.  Interfere with play, and the ref blows the whistle. Then there is Golf.  An odd name for sure, and truly an even odder sport to perfect. A friend of mine shared with me the fine insights listed below, and I just had to pass them along.  Many thanks to the millions of players over the centuries who helped compiled these words of wisdom and marvelous “rules to play by”.  Oftentimes life just makes you smile and laugh!

Enjoy, and may the sun shine on your game.

  1. Don’t buy a putter until you’ve had a chance to throw it.
  2. Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing. (my longtime foursome companion’s favorite … “get new friends”).
  3. When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls.
  4. If you’re afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have two options: you can immediately shank a lay-up or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there.
  5. The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about your golf swing.
  6. No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to play worse.
  7. The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all of your other swing errors.
  8. Everyone replaces his divot after a perfect approach shot.
  9. A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponents’ luck.
  10. It is surprisingly easy to hole a fifty-foot putt. For a 10.
  11. Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.
  12. Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts
  13. It’s not a gimme if you’re still 5 feet away.(but, pick it up anyway, and confidently walk to the cart)
  14. The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree.
  15. You can hit a two-acre fairway 10% of the time and a two inch branch 90% of the time.
  16. If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age.
  17. Since bad shots come in groups of three, just think of your fourth bad shot as the beginning of the next group of three.
  18. When you look up too early, causing an awful shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball, if you ever want to see it again.
  19. Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.
  20. If you want to hit a 7 iron as far as Tiger Woods does, simply try to lay up just short of a water hazard.
  21. To calculate the speed of a player’s downswing, multiply the speed of his back-swing by his handicap; I.e., back-swing 20 mph , handicap 15, downswing = 300 mph.
  22. There are two things you can learn by stopping your back-swing at the top and checking the position of your hands: how many hands you have, and which one is wearing the glove.
  23. Hazards attract; fairways repel. Keep this in mind
  24. A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.
  25. If there is a ball on the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is the one buried in the footprint.
  26. It’s easier to get up at 6:00 AM to play golf than at 10:00 to mow the lawn.
  27. A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game.
  28. Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you always end up having to pray a lot.
  29. A good golf partner is one who’s always slightly worse than you are….that’s why I get so many calls to play with friends
  30. If there’s a storm rolling in, you’ll be having the game of your life.
  31. Golf balls are like eggs. They’re white. They’re sold by the dozen. And you need to buy fresh ones each week.
  32. It’s amazing how a golfer who does any repair work around the house will replace his divots, repair his ball marks, and rake his sand traps.
  33. If your opponent has trouble remembering whether he shot a six or a seven, he probably shot an eight (or worse).
  34. It takes longer to learn to be a good golfer than it does to become a brain surgeon. On the other hand, you don’t get to ride around on a cart, drink beer, eat hot dogs, talk smack, tell bad jokes, and fool yourself you are good at this if you are performing Brain Surgery !!!!