Buzzzzzzzzzz

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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’

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(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.

 

 

 

We Love Your PIA (pain in the @%$) Jobs!

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Since the third century BC we’ve taught punctuation to our kids to help make written thoughts clear and understandable. Then in 1962 the interrobang was born. It had a few years of popular use then was forgotten. Now people are talking about it again. In fact, now you can put it on your walls, wear it on clothing and wear it on jewelry. Just Google interrobang. You’ll be astounded at what you can find. So maybe the interrobang will enjoy a resurgence as a pop symbol. But will probably still be relegated to the typographic back alley.

For years now, tackling PIA Jobs has become a way of life here at KHT. Initially started by my Dad, it’s become a signature of our brand and is deeply embedded into our culture. Every single employee looks forward to when one of our customers (or perspective customers) sends us a part that’s just not consistently performing the way it should be, and asks – “think you can figure it out”? And we do! Part experience, part science, part challenge, and part sheer determination, we jump on it, experimenting, checking, testing, and trying alternate approaches until we nail it. Best of all, as the head guy, I often get the pleasure of calling my frustrated customers to say – “Yep, we figured it out”. Or for those folks who really know me, my favorite term is “THAT’S EASY!” (while writing this, I think I’m gonna add a loud bell that rings through the buildings every time we do it – just so the gang knows we did it again). And, for those who are nice enough to ask, since I just can’t stop telling anyone who will listen. It’s fun to get all technical, walking them through the details, and watching their faces sort of scrunch up – and then they simply smile and say “oh, that’s interesting” (just ask Jackie). Working with my marketing and social media teams, I make sure we include our “PIA” tag line on just about everything…and remind them “don’t forget the exclamation point!” This got me to thinking about where punctuation marks came from, and that led me to a great podcast and article from 99% Invisible. Here’s a capture of the story, and the “PIA Job!” a gentleman encountered while trying to launch a new end mark. Enjoy!

  1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was … well, actually, there was just one word … one long, endless word. For thousands of years, in some written languages, there was no space between words. People were expected to figure out sentences and clauses while reading aloud – (talk about PIA!)
  2. Scriptio continua was the dominant form of writing for the Greeks and the Romans. Sometimes, this never-ending string of letters would execute what was called an ox-turn, first reading left to right, then switching to read back from right to left.
  3. In the 3rd century BCE, a librarian in Alexandria named Aristophanes introduced the idea of putting in dots to indicate pauses, like stage directions for people performing texts out loud. Dots of ink at the bottom, middle, or top of a given line served as subordinate, intermediate and full points, corresponding to pauses of increasing length. This thinking led to: a partial thought, followed by the shortest pause, was called a comma, a fuller thought pause was called a kolon; and a complete thought, followed by the longest pause, was called a periodos – eventually lending their names to the comma, colon and period we know today.
  4. More punctuation followed. Medieval scribes gave us the earliest forms of the exclamation mark. And in the 8th century, Alcuin of York, an English scholar in the court of Charlemagne, quietly introduced a symbol that would evolve into the modern question mark. Ever since, we’ve ended our sentences with one of three ancient marks, called end marks (period, exclamation, question marks).
  5. There have, however, been attempts to expand this typographical toolkit, and include other end marks. One such example has made it into dictionaries: the interrobang (‽), created by an ad man named Martin Speckter in the spring of 1962. He realized something: many ads asked questions, but not just any questions — excited and exclamatory questions — a trend not unique to his time. (ex. Got milk?! Where’s the beef?! What’s up?! Can you hear me now?!). So he designed a mark that made it clear (visually on a page) that something is both a question and an exclamation?!
  6. The interrobang was a new kind of end mark. It denoted a question that expressed surprise or incredulity. This also made it useful for rhetorical questions, most of which are also incredulous. In an article he published, Speckter was already envisioning exclamatory-slash-rhetorical advertising slogans that could take advantage of the new mark, such as “What?! A Refrigerator That Makes Its Own Ice Cubes?!”
  7. Speckter laid out a few different potential ideas for what the interrobang should look like, but quickly zeroed in on a favorite. His design collapsed the question mark and the exclamation point into a single glyph. The two marks, instead of being placed back to back, were now conjoined, sharing the same dot at the bottom.
  8. At Speckter’s request, readers of the article also wrote in with proposals for alternate names, including “emphaquest,” “interropoint” and “exclarogative.” But he stuck with the original name — “interro” for interrogate and “bang” for the proofreader’s word for the exclamation point. (When giving dictation, people didn’t use the phrase “exclamation point.” They would just say “bang.”)
  9. But, as punctuation expert Keith Houston explains, “it’s not easy to invent a mark of punctuation that actually sticks.” Houston loves the interrobang but notes that history is littered with failed attempts to create new end marks. “Around the 16th century,” for instance, “the percontation mark, this rhetorical question mark, lasted about fifty years before it disappeared. There was one invented by a kind of renaissance man called John Wilkins who proposed an irony mark and it went nowhere.”
  10. And then there’s the interrobang, which, seemingly from the day it was born, faced a string of bad luck. For example, an article praising the interrobang appeared in the New York Herald Tribune in 1962. In the Tribune article, the writer called the interrobang true genius. Unfortunately, his article was published on the first of April and it may have been that the readers took it as an April Fool’s joke.
  11. In 1966, a company called the American Type Founders — a legendary design firm that created some of the most widely used typefaces of the 20th century — unveiled a new typeface called Americana that included an interrobang, but the foundry was in decline, and Americana was the last type typeface they ever cut.
  12. Then, in 1968, the iconic typewriter company Remington announced that their latest model typewriter would feature an optional interrobang key. Still, it was optional — an extra — costing extra money and it failed to catch on.
  13. Today, the interrobang is just barely hanging in there. It has its own character in Unicode, the common directory of symbols which all computer fonts must reference. But Keith Houston points out that it still hasn’t cleared the biggest typographical obstacle of all: “I think that in order to really consider it to be a regular mark of punctuation, people have to use it without thinking about it.” In other words: a truly remarkable mark of punctuation must be unremarkable.
  14. Alas, banality is not one of the interrobang’s strong suits. After Remington’s brief attempt to give it a key, it never made it onto any standard keyboards. And, now, if it is included in a font, it’s accessible only within a nested series of menus and selections.
  15. Houston says these are rare, but has found at least one genuinely banal interrobang, used by a man named Frank Easterbrook. Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Frank Easterbrook used it arguing the interests of the United States in the Supreme Court. In May of 2011 Easterbrook was writing a ruling for a case, the case of Sears vs. Crowley, when he realized he’d written himself into a corner. “I reached a point where I had written a rhetorical question where I was tempted to use, you know, “question mark, exclamation point, question mark, exclamation point,” he recalls. Then he remembered the interrobang. His clerks thought it was a typo, but he assured them it was quite intentional. He said he wasn’t showing off and he didn’t publicize his usage.
  16. His form of punctuation was spotted by a legal blog and added to the interrobang’s Wikipedia page. When Easterbrook learned this, he laughed. He said he never intended to draw attention to the interrobang. He just thought it was the right mark to use.

Be sure to look for my upcoming blog on when I say … “That’s easy!”

 

 

 

One Small Step for…

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Apollo 11 blasts into space on July 20, 1969 for a couple of guys to take an historical walk on the moon!! 

 

Recently, Kowalski Heat Treating received a wonderful hard earned accreditation – we are now NADCAP™ certified for aerospace heat treating.  For those who may not be familiar, NADCAP™ (National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program), is an unprecedented cooperative industry effort to identify a select group of top-quality vendors for the aerospace and defense industries. Special thanks to my entire team for all their hard work, and focus on quality. To put it mildly…..“I’m thrilled!”

To celebrate a bit, I went back to one of those special events locked in my memory, that still to this day amazes me, as today marks a special anniversary, not only in America, but throughout the world (and all of mankind), when almost 50 years ago today, mission commander Neil Armstrong, module pilot Buzz Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael Collins circled the moon and then landed their lunar module named Eagle on the moon. An accomplishment like this is filled with tons of facts and trivia, so for your pleasure, I picked some of my favorites – read along and check out the links, and thanks to NASA and Wikipedia for the info.

  • Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It was the fifth manned mission of NASA’s Apollo program.
  • The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages – a descent stage for landing on the Moon, and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit.
  • After being sent to the Moon by the Saturn V’s third stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered into lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into the lunar module Eagle.
  • The crew assignment was Neil Armstrong as Commander, Jim Lovellas Command Module Pilot (CMP) and Buzz Aldrin as Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) officially announced on November 20, 1967.Due to design and manufacturing delays in the Lunar Module (LM), Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 swapped prime and backup crews.  Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong was then expected to command Apollo 11. Mike Collins, scheduled for the Apollo 8 crew, began experiencing trouble with his legs. Doctors diagnosed the problem as a bony growth between his fifth and sixth vertebrae, requiring surgery. Lovell took his place on the Apollo 8 crew, and, when he recovered, Collins joined Armstrong’s crew as CMP.
  • After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy, assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote to Manned Spacecraft Center director George M. Low to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. During early mission planning, the names Snowcone and Haystack were used and put in the news release.  The Command Module was later named Columbia after the Columbiad, the giant cannon shell “spacecraft” fired by a giant cannon in Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moonand the Lunar Module was named Eagle for the national bird of the United States, the bald eagle, which was featured prominently on the mission insignia.
  • The Apollo 11 mission insignia was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for “peaceful lunar landing by the United States”. At Lovell’s suggestion, he chose an eagle as the symbol, put an olive branch in its beak, and drew a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. NASA officials felt that the talons of the eagle looked too “warlike” and after some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the claws. Armstrong was concerned that “eleven” would not be understood by non-English speakers, so they went with “Apollo 11” and decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would “be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing”.
  • When the Eisenhower dollar coin was released in 1971, the patch design provided the eagle for its reverse side. The design was also used for the smaller Susan B. Anthony dollar unveiled in 1979, ten years after the Apollo 11 mission.
  • Neil Armstrong’s personal preference kit carried a piece of wood from the Wright brothers’ 1903 airplane’s left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing,along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Deke Slayton by the widows of the Apollo 1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on Apollo 1 and given to Slayton after the mission but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton and Armstrong took it on Apollo 11.
  • In addition to thousands of people crowding highways and beaches near the launch site, millions watched the event on television, with NASA Chief of Public Information Jack Kingproviding commentary. President Richard M. Nixonviewed the proceedings from the Oval Office.
For the aeronautic – engineering gang or those of you who just want to win a bet at your favorite watering hole!
  1. A Saturn V launched Apollo 11 from Launch Pad 39A, part of the Launch Complex 39 site at the Kennedy Space Centeron July 16, 1969, at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 a.m. EDT local time). It entered Earth orbit, at an altitude of 100.4 nautical miles (185.9 km) by 98.9 nautical miles (183.2 km), twelve minutes later.
  2. After one and a half orbits, the S-IVB third-stage engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later, the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver was performed: this involved separating the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) from the spent rocket stage, turning around, and docking with the Lunar Module still attached to the stage. After the Lunar Module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the rocket stage flew on a trajectory past the Moon and into orbit around the Sun.
  3. On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbitsthat followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) about 12 miles (19 km) southwest of the crater Sabine D (0.67408N, 23.47297E). The landing site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers along with the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft and unlikely to present major landing or extravehicular activity (EVA) challenges.
  4. On July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module Eagle separated from the Command Module Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged. As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were passing landmarks on the surface four seconds early and reported that they were “long”; they would land miles west of their target point.
  5. Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above the surface of the Moon, the LM navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected “1202” and “1201” program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, computer engineer Jack Garmantold guidance officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated “executive overflows”, meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them.
  6. Due to an error in the checklist manual, the rendezvous radar switch was placed in the wrong position. This caused it to send erroneous signals to the computer. The result was that the computer was being asked to perform all of its normal functions for landing while receiving an extra load of spurious data which used up 15% of its time. The computer (or rather the software in it) was smart enough to recognize that it was being asked to perform more tasks than it should be performing. It then sent out an alarm, which meant to the astronaut, I’m overloaded with more tasks than I should be doing at this time and I’m going to keep only the more important tasks; i.e., the ones needed for landing.
  7. When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer’s landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300-meter (980 ft) diameter crater (later determined to be West crater, named for its location in the western part of the originally planned landing ellipse). Armstrong took semi-automatic controland, with Aldrin calling out altitude and velocity data, landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20 with about 25 seconds of fuel left.
  8. Throughout the descent, Aldrin had called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting the LM. A few moments before the landing, a light informed Aldrin that at least one of the 67-inch probes hanging from Eagle‘s footpads had touched the surface, and he said: “Contact light!” Three seconds later, Eagle landed, and Armstrong said “Shutdown.” Aldrin immediately said “Okay, engine stop. ACA – out of detent.” Armstrong acknowledged “Out of detent. Auto” and Aldrin continued “Mode control – both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm – off. 413 is in.”
  9. Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin’s completion of the post landing checklist with “Engine arm is off”, before responding to Duke with the words, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Armstrong’s unrehearsedchange of call sign from “Eagle” to “Tranquility Base” emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful. Duke mispronounced his reply as he expressed the relief at Mission Control: “Roger, Twan – Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.”
  10. Two and a half hours after landing, Aldrin radioed to Earth: “This is the LM pilot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.” He then took communion privately.
  11. Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his Portable Life Support System (PLSS). According to veteran Moon-walker John Young, a redesign of the LM to incorporate a smaller hatch had not been followed by a redesign of the PLSS backpack, so some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress.
  12. At 02:39 UTC on Monday July 21, 1969, Armstrong opened the hatch, and at 02:51 UTC began his descent to the lunar surface. The Remote Control Unit controls on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) folded against Eagle‘s side and activate the TV camera, and at 02:56:15 UTC he set his left foot on the surface.
  13. Despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth.  Although copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were accidentally destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA.
  14. While still on the ladder, Armstrong uncovered a plaque mounted on the LM descent stage bearing two drawings of Earth (of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres), an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon. The inscription read: Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.
  15. Six hours after landing, Armstrong stepped on to the moon’s surface, and declared, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”  He was joined by Aldrin about 20 minutes later and then spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected 47.5 pounds of lunar material to bring back to Earth.
  16. Armstrong said that moving in the lunar gravity, one-sixth of Earth’s, was “even perhaps easier than the simulations … It’s absolutely no trouble to walk around.” Testing methods for moving around included two-footed kangaroo hops. The PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backward, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagle‘s shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, though the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow.
  17. The astronauts planted a specially designed U.S. flag on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Sometime later, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission which Nixon called “the most historic phone call ever made from the White House.

Nixon: Hello, Neil and Buzz. I’m talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. I just can’t tell you how proud we all are of what you’ve done. For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world, I am sure they too join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man’s world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one: one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.

—————

Taking a break. Advertising people…you gotta love ’em. This art was developed for a Carlsberg Beer ad. While this is a marvelous image, (you can find posters of it on ebay & Amazon) the links below are totally real and even more incredible.

CLICK – Video of the very first moon landing of the apollo 11 mission in 1969! Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon with his now legenday words “One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.” This is a truly amazing video and it was in 1969!!! If you think about it, you have orders of magnitude more processing power in your mobile phone than they did in the whole space craft!! Incredible!

CLICK – A NASA page with full audio of Armstrong preparing to walk on the moon with a transcript to follow as you listen.   Also, scroll down half way to see Neil collecting moon dirt and rock samples. (originally16 mm film)  Then scroll to the bottom to see the guys taking the US flag to plant from two angles. (TV transmission from the ground and 16mm film from the lander) WOW!!

CLICK – On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men on the moon when they landed in the Sea of Tranquility. During their initial 21-hour foray onto the lunar surface, they received a telephone call from President Nixon. This is historic footage of that interaction. (The call was made around midnight, so some reports list the call as happening on July 21.) Nixon himself considered it the most important call he had made during his time in office, even more specifically, “the most historic phone call ever made from the White House.”

 

 

… and the Comets

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(left column top to bottom) That’s the man, Bill Haley. The real King of Rock ‘n Roll! ; The band with the bassist and the sax player doing their thing. I imagine this horrified the parents of the day; If that guy in the military uniform looks like Elvis Presley, it is. Back stage at Haley’s 1958 European tour in Germany. That bottom photo of teens dancing is from the movie “Rock around the Clock” and represents what really did horrify parents of the day. But they dressed nice and not a tattoo in sight. (right column top to bottom) Loads and loads of albums and 45 RPM singles produced in his fabulous game-changing career.

The other morning, I arrived earlier at the office than I usually do (5am), took an extra-long morning run in down past the Rock ‘N Roll Museum and then logged on for the daily production reports.  I took pause of the amazing efforts of my staff, monitoring all the jobs that run overnight, keeping everything on track for the morning shift to come in and pick up where they left off.  In sort of a crazy way, it got to thinking about each hour – one o’clock, two o’clock, and it reminded me of that great fun dance tune by Bill Haley and the Comets (perhaps it was my encounter with the Rock Hall earlier).  Yep, you know what happens next – I started singing the song in my head, over and over, and then finally sat down at the computer to see what I could dig up.  And sure enough, some fun trivia and history on Bill and his famous Cleveland Rock Hall inductee band. So, for my music trivia gang, here you go (I included some early history, as I’m always intrigued where musicians came from, their families and influences – be sure to click on the links to some really great tunes – and special thanks to history-of-rock.com, You Tube and my guys who keep the shop humming all night long.

  1. Billy Haley and his Comets fused elements of country music, Western Swing, and black R&B to produce some of rock and roll’s earliest hits.
  2. Bill Haley was born in Highland Park, Michigan on July 6, 1925 to William and Maude Haley. The couple’s second child, Haley had a sister Margaret who was born two years earlier. When Haley was four while having an operation to repair an inner ear ailment the doctor accidental cut an optic nerve. The result was that Haley would never ever see out of his left eye.
  3. The Haley’s had moved to Detroit from Firebrick, Kentucky, where William Sr. found work in a nearby service station as a mechanic while his wife gave piano lessons in their home for twenty-five cents an hour. Maude Haley, a woman of strong religious convictions, had come to America with her family from Ulverston in Lancastshire, England before the First World War. Later the family moved to Boothwyn, near the town of Chester, Pennsylvania.
  4. At thirteen Haley received his first guitar. His father taught him to play the basic chords and notes by ear. It was at this time he began his dream of becoming a singing cowboy like the ones he idolized every Saturday afternoon at the movie houses in nearby Marcus Hook or Chester.
  5. In June of 1940, just before his fifteenth birthday, Haley left school after finishing the eighth grade and went to work bottling water at Bethel Springs. This company sold pure spring water and fruit flavored soft drinks in a three-state area. Here he worked for 35 cents an hour, filling large five-gallon glass bottles with spring water.  Only the absolute best of the best were making a living from making music. At 18 he made his first record “Candy Kisses” and for the next four years was a guitarist and singer with country and western bands.
  6. After time on the road with the Down Homers, Haley returned to his parents’ home in Booth’s Corner in September of 1946. He was ill, disillusioned and so broke he had to walk from the train station in Marcus Hook four miles to Booth’s Corner. His only request to his mother was not to tell anyone he was home, not even his fiancé Dorothy. Bill fell into bed and slept thirty hours. Over the next two weeks Mrs. Haley slowly nursed her itinerant son back to health.
  7. By the age of 21, Haley felt he wasn’t going to make it big as a cowboy singer and ill left the ‘Downhomers’ and returned to Chester to host a local radio program. At this time, he also married his childhood sweetheart Dorothy Crowe a beautiful part American Indian girl.
  8. Haley was hired in 1947 as musical director for radio station WPWA.
  9. It was during this time that he put together a band The Four Aces of Swing that performed on his show.
  10. In the summer of 1950, through the efforts of Jimmy Myers, Bill Haley and his Saddlemen cut their first records. They were on Ed Wilson’s Keystone label, a small Philadelphia independent publisher. The songs were standard western swing tunes: “Deal Me A Hand” /” Ten Gallon Stetson” and “Susan Van Dusan” /” I’m Not to Blame.”  They were the first recordings of the band that would become the nucleus of the world-famous Comets.
  11. With their new, exciting sound, the name “Saddlemen” no longer seemed appropriate. According to Marshall Lytle, it was Bob Johnson, Program Director at WPWA who first suggested the name Haley’s Comets. “Ya ‘know, with a name like Haley, you guys should call your group the Comets!”
  12. Just before the Thanksgiving holidays in 1952, Haley’s band changed their name and their image for the last time. The four young musicians, turned their backs on their beloved country/ western music and bravely faced an unknown future as “Bill Haley and His Comets”.
  13. One example of that change was “Rock the Joint” which sold 75,000 copies. In 1953 he wrote “Crazy Man Crazy” which became the first rock and roll record to make the Billboardpop chart reaching the Top 20.
  14. On April 1st, 1954, Myers, Gabler and Bill Haley met in Decca’s New York offices. The three men discussed a contract for four records a year, a standard royalty of 5% of sales, $5,000.00 in advance royalties and the understanding that Decca would mail out each release to two thousand disc-jockeys with full support publicity. Support included full page ads in Billboard and Cash Box magazines! With the deal set and signed, the three men shook hands and agreed on a recording date four days after the Essex contract was due to expire.
  15. It was while at Decca that Haley fell under the influence of Milt Gabler who had produced Louis Jordan. Gabler would convince Haley to change his sound. That change would be evident when on April 12th 1954, at Pythian Temple Studio with the recording of “Rock Around the Clock.” The song that introduced rock & roll to America. “Rock Around the Clock.” The song was a modest hit, until it was used as the title track of “The Blackboard Jungle,” a movie about juvenile delinquents, some 12 months later, and then it exploded.
  16. His next record a cover of Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll’ was a top ten hit.  It was the first rock & roll record to sell a million copies
  17. The next really big hit came with “See You Later Alligator” which sold a million copies within a month.
  18. In September 1955 band members Dick Richards, Marshall Lytle and Joey D’Ambrosio went to the Comet’s manager Jim Ferguson and asked for a raise. Turned down, they gave two weeks notice, and went and signed with Capital Records and recorded as the Jodimars. Lytle was replaced by Al Rex,Haley’s original basist from the Saddlemen, D’Ambrosio by Rudy Pompilli and Richards by Ralph Jones.
  19. In 1957, Haley began touring in Britain as his popularity began fading at home. The first American Rock and Roll star to come to Britain, he was met with large and enthusiastic crowds. The British soon found out what American teenagers already knew. Haley with his spit curl was old (30), overweight and rather mechanical when compared to Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent and Elvis who were younger and who’s music was more exciting. Bill Haley & His Comets were there first, but now they were part of the “establishment”.
  20. After 1957 Haley had a few minor hits but spent the remainder of his life touring and playing Rock and Roll Revival shows throughout Europe and the US. In the early morning hours of February 9th, 1981, Bill called two of his sons, Scott and Jack, and had his last known conversations. He died, in his sleep of an apparent heart attack, about 6:30 that morning at his home in Harlingen, Texas.
  21. Although several members of the Comets became famous, Bill Haley remained the star. With his spit curland the band’s matching plaid dinner jackets and energetic stage behavior, many fans consider them to be as revolutionary in their time as  the Beatles were a decade later. Haley and his band were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Oh, What the Heck, Crank Up the Sound!

“Bill Haley was a celestial body that inhabited planet earth. He gave the teenagers something they never had before – their own music!”  –Unknown

CLICK – Clip from the movie “Rock Around the Clock” (1955)
CLICK – Bill Haley & The Comets sing one of their biggest hits – Shake Rattle & Roll.
CLICK – Bill Haley & His Comets – See You Later Alligator
CLICK – “Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie” or “Razzle Dazzle” is a 1952 song composed by Bill Haley and first recorded by The Esquire Boys in 1952. It was recorded by Bill Haley and the Comets on September 22, 1955 and was released in October of 1955 as a single in the U.S. on Decca, backed with “Burn That Candle”. It reached #23 on Billboard, #24 on Cash Box, and #4 on the RU charts in January, 1956. The song was featured in the 1956 movie Rock Around the Clock (Wikipedia).
CLICK – Bill Haley and the Comets sing “Tequila” (live in Belgium, Brussels 1958) at the Royal Flemish Theatre.

 

 

Stars and Stripes Forever

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From Betsy Ross to Buzz Aldren to our hometown streets, our flag has so much meaning to us. It’s our common bond. It’s our badge of honor. Representing the freedoms, opportunities and choices we’re all guaranteed to have.

 

This past week I had the pleasure of celebrating the Fourth of July with friends and family.  I go all in of course – all the classics of food, fun and drinks, and of course fireworks.  In my small community, we have a tradition called Bay Days, where a traveling carnival comes to town – rides, arcade games, dunk tanks, live concerts, politicians walking about, car shows, an old vintage baseball game and a whole bunch of local clubs and organizations selling everything from grilled Italian sausage – golden brown with yummy sweet peppers and caramelized onions, on a crunchy roll topped with spicy mustard wrapped in aluminum foil of course – (not that I enjoyed one or two or….??), Boy Scout’s selling ice cream, Men’s Club pizza, Kiwanis curly fries, and classic sugar-coated waffle cakes.  Unlike most people who come mostly for the rides – I’m not conflicted at all between the food and the entertainment.  It’s all about the food – just ask Jackie!  From the park where all of this fun takes place, I can see downtown, the amazing sunset over Lake Erie, and the American Flag flying over City Hall.  It got me to thinking how lucky we are in our county to live and work together with so many people of all backgrounds, ages and beliefs, all under one meaningful flag. I did a little searching and found some cool trivia about our glorious flag.  Special thanks to pbs.com for the trivia. Enjoy.

The history of our flag is as fascinating as that of the American Republic itself. It has survived battles, inspired songs and evolved in response to the growth of the country it represents. The following is a collection of interesting facts and customs about the American flag and how it is to be displayed.

  1. On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed an act establishing an official flag for the new nation. The resolution stated: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
  2. The origin of the first American flag is unknown. Some historians believe it was designed by New Jersey Congressman Francis Hopkinson and sewn by Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross.Perhaps the best-known figure from the American Revolutionary era who wasn’t a president, general or statesman, Betsy Ross (1752-1836) became a patriotic icon in the late 19th century when stories surfaced that she had sewn the first “stars and stripes” U.S. flag in 1776. Though that story is likely apocryphal, Ross is known to have sewn flags during the Revolutionary War.
  3. The name Old Glorywas given to a large, 10-by-17-foot flag by its owner, William Driver, a sea captain from Massachusetts. Inspiring the common nickname for all American flags, Driver’s flag is said to have survived multiple attempts to deface it during the Civil War. Driver was able to fly the flag over the Tennessee Statehouse once the war ended. The flag is a primary artifact at the National Museum of American History and was last displayed in Tennessee by permission of the Smithsonian at an exhibition in 2006.
  4. Between 1777 and 1960 Congress passed several acts that changed the shape, design and arrangement of the flag and allowed stars and stripes to be added to reflect the admission of each new state.
  5. Today the flag consists of 13 horizontal stripes, seven red alternating with six white. The stripes represent the original 13 Colonies and the stars represent the 50 states of the Union. The colors of the flag are symbolic as well; red symbolizes hardiness and valor, white symbolizes purity and innocence, and blue represents vigilance, perseverance and justice.
  6. The National Museum of American History has undertaken a long-term preservation project of the enormous 1814 garrison flag that survived the 25-hour shelling of Fort McHenry in Baltimore by British troops and inspired Francis Scott Key to compose “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Often referred to by that name, the flag had become soiled and weakened over time and was removed from the museum in December 1998. This preservation effort began in earnest in June 1999 and continues to this day. The flag is now stored at a 10-degree angle in a special low-oxygen, filtered light chamber and is periodically examined at a microscopic level to detect signs of decay or damage within its individual fibers.
  7. After a British bombardment, amateur poet Francis Scott Key was so inspired by the sight of the American flag still flying over Baltimore’s Fort McHenry that he wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” on Sept. 14, 1814. It officially became our national anthem in 1931.
  8. In 1892, the flag inspired James B. Upham and Francis Bellamy to write The Pledge of Allegiance. It was first published in a magazine called The Youth’s Companion.
  9. In 1909, Robert Peary placed an American flag, sewn by his wife, at the North Pole. He also left pieces of another flag along the way. It is the only time a person has been honored for cutting the flag.
  • On Aug. 3, 1949, President Harry S. Truman officially declared June 14 as Flag Day.
  • In 1963, Barry Bishop placed the American flag on top of Mount Everest.
  • In July 1969, the American flag was “flown” in space when Neil Armstrong placed it on the moon. Flags were placed on the lunar surface on each of six manned landings during the Apollo program.
  • The first time the American flag was flown overseas on a foreign fort was in Libya, over Fort Derne, on the shores of Tripoli in 1805.

Some tips on how to proudly display the Stars and Stripes:

  1. There are a few locations where the U.S. flag is flown 24 hours a day, by either presidential proclamation or by law:
  • Fort McHenry, National Monument and Historic Shrine, Baltimore, Maryland
  • Flag House Square, Baltimore, Maryland
  • United States Marine Corps Memorial (Iwo Jima), Arlington, Virginia
  • On the Green of the Town of Lexington, Massachusetts
  • The White House, Washington, D.C.
  • United States customs ports of entry
  • Grounds of the National Memorial Arch in Valley Forge State Park, Valley Forge
  1. The flag is usually displayed from sunrise to sunset. It should be raised briskly and lowered ceremoniously. In inclement weather, the flag should not be flown.
  2. The flag should be displayed daily, and on all holidays, weather permitting, on or near the main administration buildings of all public institutions. It should also be displayed in or near every polling place on election days and in or near every schoolhouse during school days.
  3. When displayed flat against a wall or a window, or in a vertical orientation, the “union” field of stars should be uppermost and to the left of the observer.
  4. When the flag is raised or lowered as part of a ceremony, and as it passes by in parade or review, everyone, except those in uniform, should face the flag with the right hand over the heart.
  5. The U.S. flag should never be dipped toward any person or object, nor should the flag ever touch anything beneath it.

 

John Wayne Recites and Explains the Pledge of Allegiance (1972) CLICK HERE

 

 

 

Let’s Hoop It Up!

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(row 1, l to r) Richard Knerr, foreground, and Arthur Melin, co-inventors of the Hula Hoop; 1958 was the beginning of the Hula Hoop’s incredible rise in global popularity. (row 2, l to r) Two housewives in Holland take a hula hoop break while hanging the wash; At a fashion show in Germany these models add hula hooping to the fashion show. (row 3, l to r) Hooping it up in Paris, France; Glasgow, Scotland; and in the 1962 film Lolita with Sue Lyon (hula hooping) and James Mason (sitting) directed by Stanley Kubrick. (the rest of the images) Hula hooping really is a great family activity or a solitary activity or a fun with friends activity— no matter your age.

 

Over the weekend I was digging in the back of the shed, looking for some lawn stuff, and came across on of the girl’s hula hoops.  Wow, did that take me back.  I remember how much fun they had in the driveway just spinning around, laughing. Now, keep in mind…I happen to be a spectacular hula hooper!! Just ask all of my ladies at home! Going online, I found out that the craze hit the US 50 years ago in the summer of ‘68, so I gathered some fun trivia for you to enjoy.  Like many things from the 50’s, hula hoops have found a resurgence, and are now a staple with kids, exercise groups and meditating adults around the world.  Thanks Wikipedia and Smithsonian for the info. Whirl away!

  1. A hula hoop is a toy hoop that is twirled around the waist, limbs or neck. The modern hula hoop was invented in 1958 by Arthur K. “Spud” Melin and Richard Knerr, but children and adults around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history. Hula hoops for children generally measure approximately 28 inches in diameter and for adults around 40 inches.
  2. Now 94, Joan Anderson, the subject of the new documentary short Hula Girl, is finally getting her due for helping kick off the country’s hoop mania six decades ago. In 1957, while visiting family in Australia, she joined her cousins playing with a rattan hoop in the backyard. She brought the idea back to the U.S., and shared it with Spud Melin in the parking lot of the Wham-O plant.  The rest just spun off from then on.
  3. The trademarked name evoked the still-exotic Territory of Hawaii and it’s sexy but still family-friendly hula dance and then launched a marketing campaign that was downright viral. The men took the hoops to Los Angeles parks, demonstrated the trick to kids and sent a hoop home with everyone who could keep it spinning. Company executives took the hoops on plane trips, hoping fellow passengers would ask about the odd carry-ons. And Wham-O tapped the powerful new medium of television with hokey, seemingly homemade advertisements. The word spread.
  4. Before it was known and recognized as the common colorful plastic toy (sometimes with water or sand inside the actual hoop), the traditional “hula hoop” used to be made of dried up willow, rattan, grapevines, or stiff grasses. Even though they have existed for thousands of years, they are often misunderstood as having been invented in the 50’s.
  5. According to authorCharles Panati, there was a “craze” of using wooden and metal hoops in 14th-century England. He reports that doctors treated patients suffering from pain and dislocated backs due to hooping − and heart failure was even attributed to it. Panati also says that the name “hula” came from the Hawaiian dance in the 18th century, due to the similar hip movements.
  6. Native American Hoop Danceis a form of storytelling dance incorporating anywhere from one to thirty hoops as props. These props are used to create both static and dynamic shapes, which represent various animals, symbols, and storytelling elements. The dance is generally performed by a solo dancer with multiple hoops.
  7. The hula hoop gained international popularity in the late 1950s, when a plastic version was successfully marketed by California’sWham-O toy company. In 1957, Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin, starting with the idea of Australian bamboo “exercise hoops”. With giveaways and national marketing and retailing, a fad was started in July 1958, when twenty-five million plastic hoops were sold in less than four months, and in two years, sales reached more than 100 million units.
  8. Carlon Products Corporationwas one of the first manufacturers of the hula hoop. When the hula hoop craze swept the country, Carlon was producing more than 50,000 hula hoops per day.
  9. The hula hoop craze swept the world, dying out again in the 1980s, but not in China and Russia, where hula hooping and hoop manipulation were adopted by traditional circuses and rhythmic gymnasts.
  10. Recently there has been a re-emergence of hula hooping, generally referred to as either “hoopdance” or simply “hooping” to distinguish it from the children’s playform. The jam bandThe String Cheese Incident is widely credited with fostering a renewed interest in hooping. Band members started throwing larger adult-sized hoops into their audiences in the mid-1990s, encouraging their fans to hoop and dance, spreading the word and the fun. It wasn’t until 2003 with the launch of Hooping.org that these small bands of hoopers began to find each other online and a real community and movement began to grow.
  11. Bay Area Hoopers began in San Francisco at that time holding regular “hoop jams” with music to hoop to and the hooping group began being replicated in cities around the world. In 2006 Hoopin’ Annie had the idea to create a hooping holiday and the first World Hoop Day was held in 2007. Modern hula hooping is seen at numerous festivals and fairs in the USA, UK, Australia and Europe.
  12. Many modernhoopers make their own hoops out of PVC piping, or polypropylene tubing (known as polypro). The polyethylene hoops, and especially the polyvinyl chloride hoops, are much larger and heavier than hoops of the 1950s. The size and the weight of the hoop affect the style of the hooper. Heavier, larger hoops are more often used for beginner dancers and easier tricks, while lighter, thinner tubing is used for quick hand tricks. These hoops may be covered in a fabric or plastic tape to create more of a visual image and distinguish between the hoop and dancer. Gaffer Tape is also used to line the inside of a hula hoop to add grip or when using a bare hula hoop it can be roughened by using sandpaper. Some use glow-in-the dark, patterned, or sparkling tape, and others are produced with clear tubing and are never filled with materials (usually hoops for children are filled with an array of materials). LED technology and programmable ‘Smart Hoops’ are available which provide a range of special effects and some can even be customized through an application on a mobile device.
  13. Hooping now includes many ‘on body’ moves and many ‘off body’ moves. A few examples include breaks, isolations, leg hooping, and double hooping. Hooping has also become a popular fitness activity, with classes taking place in many towns and cities across the world. It is easy for beginners to get started with many great online resources popping up.
  14. After the sales blitz, sales never again reached those heights, yet the plastic child’s toy has evolved over the years into art, exercise, even a form of meditation. It has been adopted by both counterculture—it is a fixture at Burning Man—and digital culture. This summer, a company called Virfit introduced the Vhoop fitted with sensors and a Bluetooth transmitter to monitor a user’s every twist and turn via smartphone app, marrying the quintessential 1950s obsession to the latest fitness-tracking fad. The price got an update, too: Wham-O’s original hula hoop sold for $1.98; the Vhoop is a much more modern $119.
  15. The hoop was inducted into theNational Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York, in 1999.

RECORDS:

  • 74 hours, 54 minutes– the longest verified record for keeping a hula hoop spinning is held by Aaron Hibbs fromColumbus, Ohio who kept a hoop spinning for 74 hours and 54 minutes between October 22, through 25, 2009.  THIS MAN HAD WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS!
  • 245– most hula hoops caught and spun in one minute – Sheng Xue, China
  • 39 seconds– fastest time to climb 50 stairs while hula hooping – Ashrita Furman, USA
  • 16 Min. 13 Sec.– longest time to balance a hula hoop on head while swimming – David Rush, USA
  • 203– most hula hoop rotations on the leg in one minute – Ashlee Male, UK
  • 10in.– diameter of largest hula hoop spun – Yuya Yamada, Japan
  • 71 seconds– Roman Schedler spun a 53-pound tractor tire for 71 seconds at the 5th Saxonia Record Festival inBregenz, Austria.
  • 70 hoopers– on Team Hooprama hula hooped theMusic City Half-Marathon to raise awareness and funds for Hooping for Hope.
  • 407 participants– the largest hula hoop workout (407 participants) was achieved atRavenscraig Regional Sports Facility in Scotland by North Lanarkshire Leisure and Powerhoop Fitness.

 

 

 

 

 

Shocking

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(top) This isn’t how it actually happened but it’s a pretty cool painting done around 1816 by Benjamin West (1738 – 1820) titled “Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This digital depiction embellished in 2018 by an unknown artist. 🙂 (middle left) Lightning over the great plains. (middle right) Lightning over the lake. (bottom left) Lightning in volcanos is common, too. (bottom right) Franklin was one very smart man.

With summer and warmer weather comes thunders storms.  I love ‘em.  From my office, I can see out across the lake, and get a real sense of when a storm is rolling in. What is most amazing from my office, is the way the storms will actually follow the Lake Erie shoreline and highway here in Cleveland. I can watch the storms literally come around the corner toward KHT! The skies darken, the wind picks up and bam, they hit – lightning -thunder and rain.  It’s so cool.  It got me to thinking about the story of Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment. I did some searching on the internet and found some fun facts and a good rendition of what happened.  Enjoy, and thanks Wikipedia, The Franklin Institute and Kids Discover.com for the details.  Here’s how the story goes … with some lightening trivia at the end.

On a June afternoon in 1752, (some say it was 266 years ago today, June 15th) the sky began to darken over the city of Philadelphia. As rain began to fall and lightning threatened, most of the city’s citizens surely hurried inside. But, not Benjamin Franklin. He decided it was the perfect time to go fly a kite.  Franklin had been waiting for an opportunity like this. He wanted to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning, and to do so, he needed a thunderstorm.

He had his materials at the ready: a simple kite made with a large silk handkerchief, a hemp string, and a silk string. He also had a house key, a sharp length of wire and a Leyden jar (a device designed to capture a high-voltage electric charge from an external source that’s collected between electrical conductors on the inside and outside of a glass jar. … The Leyden jar was used to conduct many early experiments in electricity, and its discovery was of fundamental importance in the study of electrostatics). His son William assisted him.

Franklin had originally planned to conduct the experiment atop a Philadelphia church spire, according to his contemporary, British scientist Joseph Priestley (who, incidentally, is credited with discovering oxygen), but he changed his plans when he realized he could achieve the same goal by using a kite.

So, Franklin and his son “took the opportunity of the first approaching thunder storm to take a walk into a field,” Priestley wrote in his account. “To demonstrate, in the completest manner possible, the sameness of the electric fluid with the matter of lightning, Dr. Franklin, astonishing as it must have appeared, contrived actually to bring lightning from the heavens, by means of an electrical kite, which he raised when a storm of thunder was perceived to be coming on.”

Despite a common misconception, Benjamin Franklin did not discover electricity during this experiment—or at all, for that matter. Electrical forces had been recognized for more than a thousand years, and scientists had worked extensively with static electricity. Franklin’s experiment demonstrated the connection between lightning and electricity.

To dispel another myth, Franklin’s kite was not struck by lightning. If it had been, he probably would have been electrocuted, experts say. Instead, the kite picked up the ambient electrical charge from the storm.

Here’s how the experiment worked: Franklin constructed a simple kite and attached a wire to the top of it to act as a lightning rod. To the bottom of the kite he attached a hemp string, and to that he attached a silk string. Why both? The hemp, wetted by the rain, would conduct an electrical charge quickly. The silk string, kept dry as it was held by Franklin in the doorway of a shed, wouldn’t.

The last piece of the puzzle was the metal key. Franklin attached it to the hemp string, and with his son’s help, got the kite aloft. Then they waited. Just as he was beginning to despair, Priestley wrote, Franklin noticed loose threads of the hemp string standing erect, “just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor.”  As Franklin moved his finger near the key, the negative charges in the metal piece were attracted to the positive charges in his hand and he felt a spark.

“Struck with this promising appearance, he immediately presented his knuckle to the key, and (let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment) the discovery was complete. He perceived a very evident electric spark,” Priestley wrote.  Using the Leyden jar, Franklin “collected electric fire very copiously,” Priestley recounted. That “electric fire”—or electricity—could then be discharged at a later time.

Franklin’s own description of the event appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette on October 19, 1752. In it he gave instructions for re-creating the experiment, finishing with:

As soon as any of the Thunder Clouds come over the Kite, the pointed Wire will draw the Electric Fire from them, and the Kite, with all the Twine, will be electrified, and the loose Filaments of the Twine will stand out every Way, and be attracted by an approaching Finger. And when the Rain has wet the Kite and Twine, so that it can conduct the Electric Fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the Key on the Approach of your Knuckle. At this Key the Phial may be charg’d; and from Electric Fire thus obtain’d, Spirits may be kindled, and all the other Electric Experiments be perform’d, which are usually done by the Help of a rubbed Glass Globe or Tube; and thereby the Sameness of the Electric Matter with that of Lightning completely demonstrated.

Could any of us imagine today the following statement…  let’s go outside and play with the lightening!

Franklin wasn’t the first to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning. A month earlier it was successfully done by Thomas-François Dalibard in northern France. And a year after Franklin’s kite experiment, Baltic physicist Georg Wilhelm Richmann attempted a similar trial but was killed when he was struck by ball lightning (a rare weather phenomenon).

After his successful demonstration, Franklin continued his work with electricity, going on to perfect his lightning rod invention. In 1753, he received the prestigious Copley Medal from the Royal Society, in recognition of his “curious experiments and observations on electricity.”

Lightening Trivia:

  1. A lightning bolt is about 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit — roughly five times hotter than the surface of the sun!
  2. Lightning flashes more than 3 million times a day worldwide — that’s about 40 times a second. Not all those flashes hit the ground — some happen between or inside clouds.
  3. An average lightning bolt can release enough energy to operate a 100-watt light bulb for more than three months straight (about 250 kilowatt-hours of energy).
  4. Lightning starts in cumulonimbus clouds — aka thunderheads — which have a positive charge up top and a negative charge below. We don’t know how the charges start, but water droplets and ice crystals carry them.
  5. That negative charge in the cloud creates a positive charge on Earth below, and the two charges start trying to connect and create a circuit. Ever seen electrical sparks jump across a space? It’s like that, but way bigger.
  6. The air between the clouds and Earth blocks the connection — until the charge gets so strong that an electrical impulse called a “stepped leader” shoots down from the cloud. The leader drops in steps of about 150 feet each at about 136,000 mph, until it almost reaches the ground. That’s when an electrical charge called a streamer rises up to meet it and complete the circuit.
  7. Then a bolt of electricity streaks back up along the leader’s path at about 62 million mph and creates lightning. More bolts can rise up the same path again right after. Because it all happens so fast, all we see is one bolt of lightning.
  8. All that energy travels along a bolt path about as wide as your thumb!
  9. The streamer can travel up through a building, a tree, or even a person, which can be fatal.
  10. Lightning kills about 2,000 people a year, so stay inside during lightning storms.

On a more optimistic note – for all of my really – really smart readers.   Can anyone tell me a cost-effective way to capture all of this free electricity, and transfer it in to KHT to help run my machines?  This would certainly help me cut my bills!

How to Photograph Lightning

A couple You Tube links HERE and HERE with advice for taking photos of lightning.

 

 

 

FATHERS

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Fathers hold a special place here at KHT.  It’s Dad who got this whole thing going over 40 years ago – on a dream to do something special for his family.  Along the way, he and Mom decided to raise a family … all 18 of us!  To this day, even though I was part of it, I can’t imagine the amount of love and effort and caring that went into keeping us all together. Thanks Dad! And many thanks to all the Father’s out there.  Enjoy your special day with family – love your wives, kids, grandkids, great grandkids and if so blessed great great grandkids!  Finally, keep being the role model you know you need to be.  Life is an amazing gift.  I still remember holding each of my wonderful daughters when they were first born and today they are all grown up. I could not be prouder of each of them.  I am one incredibly blessed Dad!

Here’s a favorite of mine, from the famous Paul Harvey, “the rest of the story” archives.  Enjoy!

 

Paul Harvey on Fathers

A father is a thing that is forced to endure childbirth, without an anesthetic.

A father is a thing that growls when it feels good–and laughs loud when it’s scared half to death.

A father never feels entirely worthy of worship in his child’s eyes. He never is quite the hero his daughter thinks, never quite the man his son believes him to be. This worries him, sometimes, so he works too hard to try and smooth the rough places in the road for those of his own who will follow him.

A father is a thing that gets very angry when school grades aren’t as good as he thinks they should be. He scolds his son although he knows it’s the teacher’s fault.

Fathers grow old faster than other people.

And while mothers can cry where it shows, fathers stand there and beam outside–and die inside. Fathers have very stout hearts, so they have to be broken sometimes or no one would know what is inside. Fathers give daughters away to other men who aren’t nearly good enough so they can have grandchildren who are smarter than anybody’s. Fathers fight dragons almost daily. They hurry away from the breakfast table, off to the arena which is sometimes called an office or a workshop…where they tackle the dragon with three heads: Weariness, Work and Monotony.

Knights in shining armor.

Fathers make bets with insurance companies about who will live the longest. Though they know the odds, they keep right on betting. Even as the odds get higher and higher, they keep right on betting more and more.

And one day they lose.

But fathers enjoy an earthly immortality and the bet is paid off to the part of him he leaves behind.

I don’t know where fathers go when they die. But I have an idea that after a good rest, he won’t be happy unless there is work to do. He won’t just sit on a cloud and wait for the girl he’s loved and the children she bore. He’ll be busy there, too…oiling the gates, smoothing the way.

–––––– : : ––––––

I wish I could have found a recording of Paul Harvey reading this but it just isn’t available. But, HERE is a link to Paul Harvey reading an incredible letter one of his listeners wrote to his late father and wanted to share with everyone.

 

 

 

 

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!

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(top) KYIV, UKRAINE – OCT. 9, 2017: Croatia scores a goal during a FIFA World Cup 2018 qualifying game between Ukraine and Croatia. Croatia won 2-0. (row two left) The very first official international association football match was played between Scotland and England in 1872. The final score? Read on. 🙂 (row two right) A cool photo I found. (row three) The yellow card and the red card. What do they mean? They are explained below. (row four) Ticket prices. (1 US Dollar = 62.08 Russian Rubles) So for the finals, a prime seat would be $1,063 and a cheap seat around $113.40. (row five) Ukraine (yellow) and France fighting for the ball during a FIFA 2014 qualifying match. The action is really awesome. (row six left) For noshing while watching, try Betty Crocker’s Borscht Recipe – BettyCrocker.com. (row six right) Or some tasty Chicken Pelmeni. More Russian food ideas below. (row seven) To wash down your Borscht try a refreshing glass of Kvass – a drink made from bread. Or a very healthy for you caramel milk product called Ryazhenka. Or try another healthy Russian milk product called Kefir. Or maybe not. 🙂 

Are you ready for some football? (no, not the pointy ended ones I’m most familiar with), but international football (soccer). Now in full and complete transparency.  I am not a “football” fan.  Growing up I just could not wrap my brain around a game where you had to do so, so, so much running just to have the opponent kick the ball over my head and have me start all over again! BUT!  next week begins an amazing sporting event – the World Cup, hosted this year by the Russian Federation. Estimates include a worldwide viewership of nearly 3.5 billion people, with over 1 billion watching matches online (that’s about half the world’s population folks). Since there are  just few folks actually interested in this sport!! I thought it would be fun for you to pick up some info and trivia, so when you find yourself in front of a TV, watching your favorite team or superstar like Ronaldo or Messi, you can join in the chatter.  Enjoy, and thanks to multiple sites for the trivia and info.

  1. The FIFA World Cup was first held in 1930, when FIFA president Jules Rimet decided to stage an international football tournament. The inaugural edition, held in 1930, was contested as a final tournament of only thirteen teams invited by the organization. Since then, the World Cup has experienced successive expansions and format remodeling to its current 32-team final tournament preceded by a two-year qualifying process, involving over 200 teams from around the world.
  2. The first official international football match was played in 1872 in Glasgow between Scotland and England, although at this stage the sport was rarely played outside Great Britain. By 1900, however, football had gained ground all around the world and national football associations were being founded. FIFA was founded in Paris in 1904 – comprising football associations from France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, and Germany.
  3. The 2018 World Cup will be played in twelve different locations throughout Russia. Building new stadiums, infrastructure, hotels, training grounds and more, the country is estimated to invest $12-13 billions dollars.  Click HERE to see the awesome stadiums.
  4. Ticket prices are reasonable.  Three categories of tickets will be available, with Category 1 the most expensive.  The cheapest seats, Category 3, will cost from $105 for group stage matches, to $175 for the quarter-finals and $455 for the final. Category 1 seats will cost between $550 in the group stage and $1,100 for the final. There is also be a Category 4 price band, available only to Russian residents at discounted prices varying between 1,280 roubles ($22.19) for group stage games to 7,040 roubles for the final.
  5. Obviously, there is some variation depending on the position they play—midfielders run the most; the goalie not so much—but it’s not uncommon for a player to average seven miles per game, with hard working players running as much as 9.5 miles in a game.
  6. The first World Cup hat-trick was achieved by Bert Patenaude of the U.S. in the Americans’ 1930 3–0 win against Paraguay.
  7. In Brazil, calling someone by their first name or nickname is a demonstration of intimacy (as naming conventions often include 4-5 names). Names like Pele’, Neymar, Hulk and others are world famous.  Another soccer player, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, is believed to have gotten his nickname “Kaka” because it was as close as his brother could get to saying “Ricardo.”
  8. Matches are 90 minutes in length, with a halftime.  The center referee, who has the final control of a match, has the option to add extra time or “injury time” based on his/her discretion. The fourth official will hold up an illuminated sign board, showing the additional time added.
  9. A yellow card is given to a player who consistently infringes on the game or who, in the opinion of the referee has played with unnecessary carelessness to opposing players.  It can be given for dissent, failing to respect required distance, or leaving the field.
  10. On average, a soccer ball, when struck, reaches a speed of 65-80 mph.The fastest shot on goal during an English Premier League game was recorded at 114 mph, when a football kicked by David Hirst (UK), playing for Sheffield Wednesday, hit the crossbar from 13. 5 m (14.8 yards; 44 ft), during their match against Arsenal at Highbury, London, UK in September 1996.
  11. A red card is given to a player who, in the opinion of the referee, is guilty of abusive language, serious foul play or violent conduct, including reckless tackles, striking or spitting on an opponent, denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity or receiving a second yellow card.
  12. Two different hand-sewn leather balls were used in the first final (Argentina supplied the first-half ball (the ‘Tiento’) and Uruguay supplied the second-half ball (the ‘T-Model’ which was larger and heavier).  This year, the ball will be the Telstar, made by Adidas.  The original Telstar used in the 1970 FIFA World Cup was the first football to show a black and white pattern, done to ensure that television audiences would know where the ball was while games were in operation, due to many televisions at the time sporting a black and white screen. Although the original Telstar had 32 panels, the Telstar ‘18 has six textured panels. They are not stitched, but seamlessly glued together.
  13. The 2018 game balls have an embedded near-field communication (NFC) chip. However, it is of no value to players, providing no information about their kicks or headers of the ball.  Consumers who purchase a Telstar 18 are able to connect to the chip using a smart phone to access content and information that is unique to that ball, personalized and localized, providing the consumer with interactivity themed on the upcoming World Cup competition.
  14. While every match will have its hero’s, stars to watch this year include: Timor Werner and Toni Kroos (Germany), Kylian Mbappé (France), Gabriel Jesus and Neymar (Brazil), Luis Suárez (Uruguay), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Isco (Spain), Lionel Messi and Paul Dybala (Argentina).

Top 10 Russian Dishes To Serve While Hosting a Party:

  1. Pelmeni – small pieces of minced meat wrapped in dough and boiled in salted water.
  2. Pirojki – salty pirojki (little pies) with cabbage, with rice and egg, with minced meat, and sweet pirojki with apple and berries
  3. Blini – thin pancakes with stuffing. The most delicious are prepared with salmon, caviar or minced meat.
  4. Borscht – a main soup of East Slavic cuisine, it has a bright burgundy color that’s obtained through the addition of beetroot. Even if you hate beetroot, try borscht with pampushkas (little buns) rubbed with garlic and with small pieces of salo.
  5. Shchi – In addition to beetroot Russians love cabbage. It can be brewed for the winter with carrots and cranberries. You can order it as salad in a restaurant. But soup with cabbage is called shchi; it’s very nutritious and healthy.
  6. Ukha – a fish soup for real men, cooked over the fire, and a shot of vodka is added just before serving.
  7. Olivier – a Russian classic made with ‘doctor’s sausage,’ peas, pickles, potatoes and carrots – the original Tsarist-era recipe that used crab and caviar.
  8. Kholodets – is a jelly with pieces of meat, and it is very tasty when eaten with hot potatoes and dill.
  9. Kvass – is a drink made from bread, and it quenches thirst very well.
  10. Kefir and ryazhenka are fermented milk products that are very healthy for your stomach. Kefir has a little sour taste, and ryazhenka a caramel one. Drink them in the evening before going to bed, and the next day you’ll feel great and ready to continue watching the World Cup.

Click below to find your favorite World Cup finals trivia.

Year Host Winning Team Captain Head coach
1930  Uruguay  Uruguay José Nasazzi Alberto Suppici
1934  Italy  Italy Giampiero Combi Vittorio Pozzo
1938  France  Italy Giuseppe Meazza Vittorio Pozzo
1950  Brazil  Uruguay Obdulio Varela Juan López Fontana
1954   Switzerland  West Germany Fritz Walter Sepp Herberger
1958  Sweden  Brazil Hilderaldo Bellini Vicente Feola
1962  Chile  Brazil Mauro Ramos Aymoré Moreira
1966  England  England Bobby Moore Alf Ramsey
1970  Mexico  Brazil Carlos Alberto Torres Mário Zagallo
1974  West Germany  West Germany Franz Beckenbauer Helmut Schön
1978  Argentina  Argentina Daniel Passarella César Luis Menotti
1982  Spain  Italy Dino Zoff Enzo Bearzot
1986  Mexico  Argentina Diego Maradona Carlos Bilardo
1990  Italy  West Germany Lothar Matthäus Franz Beckenbauer
1994  United States  Brazil Dunga Carlos Alberto Parreira
1998  France  France Didier Deschamps Aimé Jacquet
2002  South Korea
Japan		  Brazil Cafu Luiz Felipe Scolari
2006  Germany  Italy Fabio Cannavaro Marcello Lippi
2010  South Africa  Spain Iker Casillas Vicente del Bosque
2014  Brazil  Germany Philipp Lahm Joachim Löw