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It’s A Comin’

February 19, 2021/0 Comments/in Friday Afternoon, Snow, Trivia /by Dan Fauver

Ever see a snowflake really close? My microscopes and macro lensed cameras can help. Beautiful, aren’t they. So, snowy days may bring some shoveling chores (I work it into my exercise routine) but everything else about a winter snowfalls are awesome!!! Enjoy it while it’s here!!!!!! :)))

Yep, it’s here again. After two exciting days this week of snow fall, slow roads and frustrated drivers, we got hit with another load. No just in NE Ohio, but all the way down to Texas. As a kid, and still to this day, I “love” the snow. Call me crazy, but I still enjoy going for walks and high-stepping in drifts. As kids, we used to make these enormous “forts” and have wonderful games. Then from time to time we would make the snowballs, go behind the house and see if we could throw them over the house and hit the street), and back when there were bumpers, we’d hitch a ride every now and then (don’t tell Mom!!). Once my own girls got big enough we would all go outside and make the Kowalski snowman, that would be the one that is 10’ tall! We actually needed a ladder to put the hat on top! (see picture above, lower right)Here’s some facts and trivia about snowflakes, drifts and records we’re glad do not happen here in Ohio. I’ll take the sunny days, even when there’s white on the ground. Enjoy! And thanks to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Britanica.com, weather.com and You Tube for this classic old song.

The snowflake might be the world’s favorite symbol of winter. These surprisingly complex and beautiful shapes are made of ice, nature’s simplest hydrogen bond crystal, and under the right conditions, can pile up to significant heights.
A snowflake begins to form when an extremely cold water droplet freezes onto a pollen or dust particle in the sky. This creates an ice crystal. As the ice crystal falls to the ground, water vapor freezes onto the primary crystal, building new crystals – the famous six arms of the snowflake.
The ice crystals that make up snowflakes are symmetrical (or patterned) because they reflect the internal order of the crystal’s water molecules as they arrange themselves in predetermined spaces (known as “crystallization”) to form the six-sided snowflake.
Ultimately, it is the temperature at which a crystal forms — and to a lesser extent the humidity of the air — that determines the basic shape of the ice crystal. Typically, long needle-like crystals form at 23 degrees F and very flat plate-like crystals form at 5 degrees F.
The intricate shape of a single arm of the snowflake is determined by the atmospheric conditions experienced by entire ice crystal as it falls. A crystal might begin to grow arms in one manner, and then minutes or even seconds later, slight changes in the surrounding temperature or humidity causes the crystal to grow in another way. Although the six-sided shape is always maintained, the ice crystal may branch off in new directions. Because each arm experiences the same atmospheric conditions, the arms look identical.
It’s said that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. That’s because individual snowflakes all follow slightly different paths from the sky to the ground —and thus encounter slightly different atmospheric conditions along the way. Therefore, they all tend to look unique, resembling everything from prisms and needles to the familiar lacy pattern.
Blowing and drifting snow are similar, but not exactly the same. Blowing and drifting snow are often misunderstood not only among the general public, but also meteorologists who use the terms in their forecasts. While they share many similarities, blowing and drifting snow can be very different.
Blowing snow is defined as snow lifted from the surface by the wind, at a height of 8 feet or more, that will reduce visibility. While blowing snow is to be expected during a snowstorm with gusty winds, you may also see it in your local forecast after the snow has stopped falling, even if it’s a sunny day. If winds remain strong enough behind a snowstorm, that fresh powder can still be picked up by the wind, reducing visibility with each gust.
Drifting snow, like blowing snow, is defined as snow lifted from the surface by the wind. The key difference is that the lifted snow remains below 8 feet. Once it rises to 8 feet or higher, it becomes blowing snow.
Drifting snow generally doesn’t reduce visibility as much as blowing snow does, since it’s not lifted as high into the air. The blowing and drifting snow has to end up somewhere, which is how snow drifts form. If the winds are blowing in the same direction for several hours, the snow is also going to blow in that direction, allowing snow drifts to continuously grow larger.
When snow drifts grow higher than the windows and doors in your house, you may not be able to exit during an emergency. As the snow continuously gets blown against your home, it can be nearly impossible to get any doors open. Should this happen, just relax pull out a good book or turn on your favorite show and enjoy the peace and quiet!
Ever wonder why snow melts even when it’s below freezing? If the sun is out, the energy of the sunlight can be sufficient to raise the temperature of the parcels of snow to above freezing, despite the ambient air temperature, especially if the snow is on other objects such as pavement or roofing which readily absorb solar energy. This effect typically doesn’t occur if it is colder than about 0 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
And, why does the snow pack down so much, especially at the apron of my driveway? The snow itself undergoes a settling process after it is on the ground or another object like pavement. The air pockets that are originally caught between the flakes slowly escape and the snow “compresses”… typically as much as 3 inches per foot of snow in a days’ time. When the plow goes down the street, the snow compacts, and gets stronger and heavier. This could cause it to appear to have melted, as there isn’t as much snow there today, for instance, as there was yesterday, but actually it’s just packing down.
And we complain?? … The most commonly accepted figure of the most snow that fell in 24 hours is the 75.8” of snow accumulation in Silver Lake, Colorado on April 14-15, 1921. State by State records
And about those drifts … Tamarack in California claims the record for the deepest snow ever recorded: 11.5 metres (>37 feet)on March 11, 1911. That was clearly some year in the Sierra Nevada, as Tamarack also recorded the largest snowfall in a single month in the US: almost 10 metres (~33 feet).
Austria is home to the world’s tallest snowman, after entering the Guinness World Records. The snowman, nicknamed “Riesi,” which roughly translates as “giant” in English, measures a gigantic 38.04 meters (125 feet) smashing the previous record held by a snow-woman 37.21 meters tall, named “Olympia,” in the US state of Maine in 2008.
And yes, catching snowflakes on your tongue still rocks!!

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I. Love. My. Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good. :-))))
Have fun!!

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The Bard

February 12, 2021/0 Comments/in Friday Afternoon /by Steve Kowalski

If you’re alive, breathing, seeing, smelling & touching…you know that there’s nothing like being in love. Here’s to a purrrrfect Valentines Day!

Love stories. As old as the hills. Unsuspecting encounters, a first glance and then something special happens, that changes things forever. Today marks a special anniversary – the date believed to be the first enactment of William Shakespeare’s world-renowned play Romeo and Juliet. Written sometime between 1591 and 1595, it stands in the historical record as one of the greatest love stories ever written. Retold many times in playhouses and theaters and a wealth of film adaptations of both traditional and modern interpretations it has become part of our culture and vernacular still today. In pre-celebration of Valentine’s Day on Sunday, and lovers throughout the ages, here are some surprising facts and tidbits you most likely never knew. Be sure to spoil all those in your life who you love in your own special way, and thanks Will for this amazing story. And tons of love to my family, friends, KHT team and customers! Thx to You Tube for the videos and ancient-origins.net and howlifeunfolds.com for the insights.

Click on these links and enjoy the music while reading:
The Pointer Sisters
Bruce’s Live Version

For those who skipped their middle school reading assignment, here’s a recap: “An age-old vendetta between two powerful families erupts into bloodshed as a group of masked Montagues risk further conflict by gatecrashing a Capulet party. A young lovesick Romeo Montague falls instantly in love with Juliet Capulet, who is due to marry her father’s choice named Paris. With the help of Juliet’s nurse, the women arrange for Romeo and Juliet to marry the next day, but Romeo’s attempt to halt a street fight leads to the death of Juliet’s own cousin, Tybalt, for which Romeo is banished. In a desperate attempt to be reunited with Romeo, Juliet follows the Friar’s plot and fakes her own death. The message fails to reach Romeo in time, and believing his beloved Juliet dead, he takes his own life in her tomb. Juliet wakes to find Romeo’s corpse beside her and filled with anguish, kills herself. The grieving family agree to end their feud.”
or as some have recapped – “just a couple of sneaky, spoiled rich teenagers getting all jazzed up over each other, and then, when they can’t get their way, overdoing it in the end.”
Historians have researched Romeo and Juliet and believe in fact, that the play was not of William’s own creation – but rather a variation on a story told many times from the 1400s onwards. Centered on the theme of star-crossed lovers, borrowed from poets as far back as ancient Greece, Romeo and Juliet’s tale was told at least a century before Shakespeare actually wrote it.
The first certain tale of the woes of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet descends from Italian author Masuccio Salernitano (1410-1475). Published a year after his death, Salernitano’s 33rd chapter of his Il Novellino tells of Mariotto and Giannoza, a pair of lovers who come from the feuding families of Maganelli and Saraceni respectively. In this account, their love affair takes place in Siena, Italy rather than in Verona and is believed to have occurred contemporary with Salernitano’s time. Mariotto and Giannoza fall in love and marry secretly with the aid of an Augustine friar. Shortly thereafter, Mariotto has words with another noble citizen—in this case, not his love’s cousin—and kills the nobleman, resulting in his fleeing the city to avoid capital punishment. Giannoza, distraught, is comforted only by the fact that Mariotto has family in Alexandria, Egypt and makes a good home for himself there. However, her own father—unaware of her wedding—decides it is time for her to take a husband, putting her in a terrible position. With the aid of the friar who had wed her and Mariotto, Giannoza drinks a sleeping potion to make her appear dead, so she can be smuggled out of Siena to reunite with her husband in Alexandria. Of course, this plan goes terribly awry, and her letter to explain their plan to Mariotto never reaches him, though news of her death quickly does. While she flees to Alexandria to finally reunite with him, Mariotto returns to Siena – risking his own life to see her corpse one final time. It is then that he is captured and taken to be executed for his previous crimes, beheaded three days before Giannoza’s own return to the city. Giannoza then, heartbroken, wastes away of a broken heart, supposedly to be finally reunited with her beloved husband in heaven. Like Shakespeare’s account of Romeo finding Juliet sleeping but believing her dead, Salernitano’s earlier story contains a scene in which Mariotto finds the sleeping body of Giannoza, and believes she has died. Like Shakespeare’s account of Romeo finding Juliet sleeping but believing her dead, Salernitano’s earlier story contains a scene in which Mariotto finds the sleeping body of Giannoza, and believes she has died.
The themes of feuding families, the forbidden love, the sleeping potion, and the terrible communication mishap all lead to the parallel ending of mutual death of the star-crossed lovers. Writing only a hundred years apart, Shakespeare could well have come across Salernitano’s work, or one of the many other variations that were written before the story reached the Bard’s desk.
Luigi da Porta in the 1530s wrote a similar compilation, telling the tale of Romeo Montechhi and Giulietta Cappelleti, moving the setting of their lives from Siena to the Verona – the same place where Shakespeare would locate it. The pair again wed in secret with the aid of a friar, only to be torn apart by Romeo’s accidental killing of Giulietta’s cousin and their subsequent deaths—Romeo by Giulietta’s sleeping potion, and Giulietta by holding her breath so she could die with him.
Despite the numerous versions of Romeo and Juliet’s story that preceded William Shakespeare, it cannot be denied that it was his work that transformed their love affair into one of the greatest stories ever known. The Bard might have borrowed heavily from Salernitano, Bandello, and Brooke, but the audience which his play was presented to took the text into their hearts and spread it throughout Elizabethan England until the characters’ names became interchangeable with the mantra “meant to be”.
Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet’s undying affection have made the passionate story immortal, and it remains one of the foremost inspirations for modern romantic literature.

And for my trivia buffs out there:

1. William Shakespeare wasn’t the first person to write about the Montagues and the Capulets. The two families were kicking around long before William Shakespeare got a hold of them. In “Divine Comedy,” the epic poem that took Dante more than 10 years to complete, he makes the following reference, written more than 250 years before Shakespeare was even born.
“Come and see, you who are negligent, / Montagues and Capulets, Monaldi and Filippeschi: / One lot already grieving, the other in fear. / Come, you who are cruel, come and see the distress / Of your noble families, and cleanse their rottenness.”
2. It wasn’t always called Romeo and Juliet – When it was first published, Romeo and Juliet went by a much more descriptive—and much longer—title: The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.
3. The first publication of Romeo and Juliet is thought to be an unauthorized version of the play. Romeo and Juliet was originally published in 1597, in the First Quarto. But Shakespeare scholars have long argued that this version of the play was not only incomplete, but unauthorized. The 1599 version, published in the Second Quarto, is the version of Romeo and Juliet we all know and love today.
4. Juliet is just 13 years old – We know that Romeo and Juliet are a young couple in love—but it’s easy to miss just how young Juliet is. In Act I, Scene III, Lady Capulet says that Juliet is “not fourteen.” She is actually just about two weeks shy of her 14th birthday. Romeo’s exact age is never given.
5. The couple’s courtship was indeed a whirlwind – Talk about a whirlwind romance! Given that we know Juliet is just 13 years old, her impetuousness might seem more understandable. But from the time they meet to the time they marry Romeo and Juliet have known each other less than 24 hours.
6. There is no balcony in Romeo and Juliet’s “balcony scene.” – One of Romeo and Juliet’s most iconic moments is what has become known as “The Balcony Scene,” which occurs in Act II, Scene 2. There’s just one problem: The word balcony is never mentioned in Shakespeare’s play. There’s a good reason for that, too: according to Merriam-Webster, the earliest known usage of the term, originally spelled balcone, didn’t occur until 1618—more than 20 years after Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. According to the play, the scene takes place at Capulet’s Orchard when “Juliet appears above at a window.”
7. It wasn’t until 1662 that a woman played the role of Juliet – As anyone who has seen Shakespeare in Love knows, back in the Bard’s days and up until 1660, all stage roles were performed by men. But in 1662, actress Mary Saunderson stepped onto the stage as Juliet; she is believed to be the first woman to play the iconic role.
8. One writer dared to give Romeo and Juliet a happy ending – Irish poet and lyricist Nahum Tate, who became England’s poet laureate in 1692, had a penchant for messing around with Shakespeare’s words. In addition to rewriting Shakespeare’s King Lear as 1681’s The History of King Lear—in which he tacked on a happy ending to the tragedy (Cordelia married Edgar)—he did the same with Romeo and Juliet. Unlike his version of King Lear, which became quite popular, his alternate ending for Romeo and Juliet didn’t seem to stick.
9. Romeo has become shorthand for a male lover – Romeo and Juliet has had a lasting effect on the English language, including its popularization of words like ladybird and phrases like wild goose chase. But Romeo, too, has his own dictionary entry: in addition to being defined as “the hero of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet who dies for love of Juliet” by Merriam-Webster, Romeo has also come to mean “a male lover.”

BONUS: Turns out, 58 million pounds of chocolate are purchased in the seven days leading up to Feb. 14 and 225 million roses are grown and cultivated for Valentine’s Day.

You Can’t Say That

February 5, 2021/0 Comments/in Friday Afternoon, Trivia, TV /by Steve Kowalski

Controversy was never funnier. Many of you may never have heard of them, but the Smothers Brothers were so darn funny!!! They poked fun at everything and everyone. Especially the president which at the time was the 36th president, Lyndon B. Johnson who wrote a letter to the brothers. (Above near the top) That letter from President Johnson was verified on snopes.com. And check this out: Tommy Smothers does a dead-on imitation of Johnny Carson (Another guy many of you may never have heard of) on Feb 20, 1992.

Free speech. One of our American rights we cherish and challenges us to protect every today. Over 50 years ago, television writers and producers at CBS were up against a tough adversary – a successful western show that had a secure, nationwide audience. At that time, westerns dominated television, with shows like “Gunsmoke”, “Have Gun Will Travel”, “The Rifleman” and “Wagon Train”. The number one show on TV in the mid 60’s was “Bonanza”, another western that ran on rival NBC. Trying to pull away viewers – talk about a PIA (pain in the @%$) Job! – CBS, after many flops, took a chance on two “hip” and “edgy” young stars, brothers actually, to appeal to the under-30 generation. Right smack in the middle of the civil rights movement, the hippie revolution, the war, political upheaval and major shifts in music, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour debuted on this day in 1967 and took the country by storm – later becoming what some consider the most controversial show in TV history. Starring Tommy and Dick, two folk singing brothers (‘mom always liked you best”), with amazing timing and childlike banter, they pushed the envelope with the help of some soon-to-be star writers and comedians and broke the dominance of Big Hoss and Little John. Enjoy. And thanks to dailykos.com, Wikipedia and mtsu.edu for the info and YouTube for the amazing videos. (be sure to watch the videos – classics!)

The Smothers Brothers are Thomas (“Tom” – born February 2, 1937) and Richard (“Dick” – born November 20, 1939), American folk singers, musicians and comedians. The brothers’ trademark double act was performing folk songs (Tommy on acoustic guitar, Dick on string bass), which usually led to arguments between the siblings. Tommy’s signature line was “Mom always liked you best”.
Their own television variety show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, became one of the most controversial American TV programs of the Vietnam War era. Despite popular success, the brothers’ penchant for material that was critical of the political mainstream and sympathetic to the emerging counterculture led to their firing by the CBS network in 1969. One show was left unaired.
After a brief time in a folk group called the Casual Quintet, the brothers made their first professional appearance as a duo in February 1959 at The Purple Onion in San Francisco. They were a popular act in clubs and released several successful top 40 albums for Mercury Records, the most successful being Curb Your Tongue, Knave! in 1964. – Their first national television appearance was on The Jack Paar Show on January 28, 1961. On Sunday night, October 4, 1963 the Smothers Brothers made an appearance on the CBS variety series The Judy Garland Show which also showcased Barbra Streisand. Tom and Dick inherited Garland’s time slot when their own variety series began in early 1967.
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour started out as only a slightly “hip” version of the typical comedy-variety show of its era, but rapidly evolved into a show that extended the boundaries of what was considered permissible in television satire at that time. While the Smothers themselves were at the forefront of these efforts, credit also goes to the roster of writers and regular performers they brought to the show, including Steve Martin, Don Novello, Rob Reiner, Presidential candidate Pat Paulsen, Bob Einstein, Albert Brooks, and resident hippie Leigh French. Enjoy a Pat Paulson editorial.
The series showcased new musical artists to whom other comedy-variety shows rarely gave airtime, due to the nature of their music or their political affiliations. Stars included George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Joan Baez, Buffalo Springfield, Cass Elliot, Harry Belafonte, Cream, Donovan, The Doors, Glen Campbell, Janis Ian, Jefferson Airplane, The Happenings, Peter, Paul and Mary, Spanky and Our Gang, Steppenwolf, Simon and Garfunkel, The Hollies, The Who and even Pete Seeger were showcased on the show, despite the advertiser-sensitive nature of their music.
In 1968, the show broadcast in successive weeks “music videos” (not called that at the time) for The Beatles’ popular songs “Hey Jude” and “Revolution”. Before a rowdy crowd at the Los Angeles Forum, Jimi Hendrix dedicated “I Don’t Live Today” to the Smothers Brothers, as heard on The Jimi Hendrix Box Set.
The performance by The Who in 1967 was another defining moment in the series; as the group often did during that period, The Who destroyed their instruments at the conclusion of their performance of “My Generation”, with the usual addition of mild explosives for light pyrotechnic effect. The piece would end with guitarist Pete Townshend grabbing Tommy’s guitar and smashing it. On the Smothers Brothers show that night a small amount of explosive was put into the small cannon that Keith Moon kept in his bass drum. But it did not go off during the rehearsal. Unbeknownst to Moon, a stagehand had added another explosive before the taping, and later Moon added another charge so that now there were three explosive charges in the cannon instead of one. When Moon detonated it, the explosion was so intense that a piece of cymbal shrapnel cut into Moon’s arm; Moon is heard moaning in pain toward the end of the piece. Townshend, who had been in front of Moon’s drums at the time, had his hair singed by the blast; he is seen putting out sparks in his hair before finishing the sketch with a visibly shocked Tommy Smothers. The blast allegedly contributed heavily to Townshend’s long-term hearing loss.
With its focus having evolved toward a more youth-oriented one, the show became both popular and controversial. Three specific targets of satire — racism, the President of the United States, and the Vietnam War— wound up defining the show’s content for the remainder of its run, eventually leading to its demise.
The brothers soon found themselves in regular conflict with CBS’s network censors. At the start of the 1968/69 season, the network ordered that the Smothers deliver their shows finished and ready to air ten days before airdate so that the censors could edit the shows as necessary. In the season premiere, CBS deleted the entire segment of Belafonte singing “Lord, Don’t Stop the Carnival” against a backdrop of the havoc during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with two lines from a satire of their main competitor, Bonanza. As the year progressed, battles over content continued, including a David Steinberg sermon about Moses and the Burning Bush.
With some local stations making their own deletions of controversial skits or comments, the continuing problems over the show came to a head after CBS broadcast a rerun on March 9, 1969. The network explained the decision by stating that because that week’s episode did not arrive in time to be previewed, it would not be shown. In that program, Joan Baez paid tribute to her then-husband, David Harris, who was entering jail after refusing military service, while comedian Jackie Mason made a joke about children “playing doctor”. When the show finally did air, two months later, the network allowed Baez to state that her husband was in prison but edited out the reason.
After three seasons, network CEO and President William S. Paley abruptly canceled the show on April 4, 1969. The reason given by CBS was the Smothers refusal to meet the pre-air delivery dates as specified by the network in order to accommodate review by the censors. This cancellation led the brothers to file a successful breach of contract suit against the network. Despite this cancellation, the show went on to win the Emmy Award that year for best writing.
The Smothers Brothers starred in several other television and Broadway shows, but with moderate success. In 1988, Tom and Dick reunited with CBS for a special celebrating the 20th anniversary of their variety show. The brothers used the special to pay tribute to their network and also poke fun at it for cancelling them years earlier. The success of the special led to The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1988–1989). This show began production during a 1988 Writers Guild of America strike as the WGA had agreed to settle with the show’s producer and grant the show an exemption from the strike and allow writers to go back to work for the series.
The brothers have worked independently as well; Dick has appeared as an actor in films, including a rare dramatic role as a Nevada state senator in Martin Scorsese’s Casino. Tom appeared in the 2005 made-for-television movie Once Upon a Mattress.
After more than 51 years of touring, the Smothers Brothers officially announced their retirement from touring during their final performance at the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday May 16, 2010. The affair was kept low key with some family members and friends in attendance.

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