Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The Fun Side Of Senility

The nice thing about being senile is you can hide your own Easter Eggs.

My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.  Oh and by the way, my memory's not as sharp as...my memory's not...okay, nice to see you.

It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffee maker,

Don't think of it as getting hot flashes - that's just your "inner child" playing with matches.

Remember, you don't stop laughing because you grow old.  It's the reverse which is true.

                                     " THE SENILITY PRAYER "

Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference. 

 ====Courtesy of my Jerry             

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, October 27, 2006

Marriage By Any Other Name?

Here in New Jersey, the State Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry and enjoy ALL the rights as any married couple - property, inheritance, taxes, custody, everything.  One thing though:  Our state legislators have decreed that they cannot be considered "married" in the traditional sense (huh?) because it was felt it sublimates those who've married "traditionally".  (This really confuses me).  The end result is that sex-same couples will be considered joined in a "civil union" in New Jersey, but with all the legal benefits of traditional marriage.  Massachusetts is the only other state in the country which allows this, but they call it marriage.

On the one hand, if I were gay I'd be thrilled to be called anything as long as my marriage was recognized as legal and I was entitled to all the same benefits of any married couple.

On the other hand, what's a "traditional" marriage anyway these days?  I know the intent and see how crafty the Courts are in running the issue in circles, but is this really enough for same-sex partners?  It's a great leap forward but something's missing.  Homosexuals and lesbians fight so hard for these simple, sensible and civil, constitutional rights, why cloud the issue with this "civil joining" moniker? 

Still, it's a step forward.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

PLEASE HELP OUT

As you can see in Gina's JLand Convention Journal http://journals.aol.com/motoxmom72/j-land-convention/ You will notice we have a spredsheet we need J-Landers to fill in, takes less than a few seconds, WHETHER YOU'RE GOING OR NOT.  Can you all please kindly click on this link here Convention Lodging - iRowsand just type in your information.  This will help Gina so much!!  Just put "Yay" if you're going, and "Nay" if not.  We need to get an idea of numbers.

This is all going to be a very sweet memory, and if someone brings a laptop (internet service at Sea Mist!) I can bring a webcam so those who can't make it will still see us. 

Gina has the hotel pricing information on the Convention site, so I really hope many of you will go!  It'll be very worth it - please visit the site for more information!  Thanks!

 

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Photo of the Day - AOL Research & Learn

Photo of the Day - AOL Research & Learn : Take a moment to look at this, you'll be so awed by its clarity.  Two gallaxies colliding a few hundred million years ago, making them one of the nearest and newest  examples of colliding gallaxies.  Take a look into the past, we are only now able to see.

Skywatch Alert - Meteors!

I've that sinking feeling it may be too cloudy (read polluted) to get any good view of this, the Orionid Meteor Shower which peaks from Oct. 20-24.  Halley's Comet adds a trace to the earth's mass every October (these are very ancient particles from that comet).  As for direction you need only look for the darkest area of the sky and stay fixed.  This isn't a partcular showy event this year, Orionids travel very fast, but if you get to view it, it's lovely to see. 

Orion produces up to 20 meteors visible every hour before dawn from the 20th to the 24th and given good sky conditions, those interested will definitely enjoy it.  Since the moon is new this year, it will be absent from the morning sky and cause less hinderance to sightings.

The Orions are very ancient.  They are actually debris left by Halley's comet, and the first recorded one was by the Chinese in 288 A.D. 

There's just so much to our known Universe, things we aren't aware are happening as they do.  Events that will easily shape our future are taking place right now, out there in the vast still-unknown.  What is known can be a true wonder to be part of. 

Basic info coutesy Skywatcher - Sky & Telescope

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

J-Land Convention Taking Shape

As most already know, Journalers are planning a nice, friendly get-together in March and we've already firmed up alot of details.  Gina (Motoxmom72) has been getting hotel/lodging information, and Guido (Pharmolo) is helping with every detail involved, especially the activities.  I know there will be alot to do and see, and no one is obliged to stay the full time but so far, we have: 

 Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, March 23-26.  We'll need a list of people interested in going, so we can better plan the activities, especially the hotel. 

Why not post this in your own Journal to better pass the word, and if you seriously feel you can go, leave your name and state with the Journal at:

http://journals.aol.com/motoxmom72/j-land-convention/

I'm looking forward to enjoying the kinship and good times we'll all have together, so please think about being there and letting us know!  We'll continue to firm up the plans as we know more about who's serious about going, so if you can decide by December 1st, that's our deadline.  Thanks!

 

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Lost My Mind Somewhere ...

Is there any possible way I could be more feckless and addle-brained?  That's right, I got the time zones backward and thought out chat was for tonight at 8 PM EST, when in fact - well, if you were there at 3 PM that's why you didn't see me.  I cannot believe my brain, why is it betraying me in the simplest of matters?  How could I get this wrong?  Well, I was there in spirit, which is almost as good, yes?  Uh...no.   

Mega-volcano!

75,000 years ago a quarter of the earth was destroyed.  Famine, disease, death.  The planet endured more than 1,000 volcanoes in the same time 50 usually occurred, which was a year.  Imagine how it was!  We look to the poles for much of our genealogical information.  Polar ice is over 100,000 years worth of snowfall, and will explain the condition of the planet at a given time.  A history in ice.  We do this with rock as well which is much more difficult and expensive, but offers more explanations in differing fields. 

Back to polar ice.  Back 75,000 years ago.  The earth took a sudden leap in the amount of sulphuric acid, about 2-4 megatons, which is 24 times more than usually produced in a year on the globe.  A poisonous yellow haze blanketed the planet and left its chemical mark in the ice.  It left more:  a layer of volcanic ash.  How could this be?  Volcanic ash is very unique.  Magma explodes into ash only if a tremendous force is exerted.  Volcanic ash travels no more than 3-6 mph.  But the evidence of all this testing showed that at one time, it covered more than one quarter of the earth's continents!  Sound familiar?  The timing is accurate since rapidly cooling magma produces glass , and the decay time of U238 determines the time of an eruption.  When the samples from the cataclysmic event, and the high sulphuric-content ice were compared, they were both 75,000 years old!  What in the world happened that could reap such havoc?  And at the exact same time? 

A Mega-volcano.  Some call them Super volcanoes.  We know of four Super volcanoes on the planet:  Mt. Pinatoba, Long Valley,Tailipo and Yellowstone.  Earth's most massive event hides its evidence beneath the rock of Yellowstone.  We know it takes many tens of thousands of years for a volcano to store enough sweltering magma before the accumulation and force cause the eruption.  But what of the Super volcano?  Something that it always produces is called a paraplastic flow.

Think of 9/11 a moment, and the giant billows of smoke pouring out into the streets, people running for their lives.  A paraplastic flow looks exactly like that, only gray, and you WOULD be running for your life but you'd never make it.  Poisonous gas, choking ash, hurtling rock, all this conspires to kill anything in its path, which is does.  Volcanoes not labeled "super" or "mega" can also produce paraplastic flow.  If you're caught near it, you will die along with any other living thing.  

When testing at the poles the cataclysmic event of 75,000 years ago, a great deal of paraplastic flow evidence was found.  Because of our atmosphere, this poison ash went around the globe.  We know a quarter of the world was wiped out.  But where does this incredible amount of ash go?  It's hiding in plain sight:  Mt. Pinatoba.  

How did this massive event effect life on the planet?  We know it takes about 1,000 years of rain to form an average-sized lake, and all life requires water.  75,000 years ago there were many animals, except humans, which were sparse.  Humans had already started their long migration up the Ruso-Asian east, the Mongolians who would survive and eventually cross the Bering Land Bridge (now Sea Straits) and walk into Alaska to colonize North America - the ancestors of the Native Americans.  But as this migration was well under way, something interrupted what we might think is the "natural order of things" and a Super volcano at that time would've eliminated all life as anything which breathed would inhale ash and glass, but the worst?  Sulphuric acid.  This chemical keeps sunlight from the planet.  It spread to large areas of the globe, and since earth was already in its cooling phase, it sparked an early Ice Age, our Glacier Age, or "Volcanic Winter", long before its natural time.  It shows us in one act how very UN-natural our world is, how unpredictable and amazing.  The ash mixture and paraplastic flow made the surface of the earth lighter, causing cooler temperatures, since "white" light reflects back into space.  We've understood for years that what we think of as color is merely the effect of light on an object depending on the time of day or night.  

One-quarter of the world, plants, animals and the new animal, humans, starved.

Gradually, the planet warmed and life grabbed a delicate foothold once again.  As the glacier receded, it formed our great mountain ranges of today.  But the pressing question is, under what conditions could a Super volcano be forming even now?  Our technology tells us much, the main thing being that we can depend upon very little.

Global scientists tell us that beneath Lake Pinatoba is a ticking time bomb.  Predicting as close as possible, we estimate that Mt. Pinatoba explodes in a Super volcano on a 400,000 year cycle.  Yellowstone, every 600,000.  It will certainly doom life on much of the planet, and too many of the inter-connecting systems are already in place.  

75,000 years ago the earth suddenly entered an Ice Age when no forewarning in atmospheric climate or timing was evident, according to samples taken by scientists at the poles and elsewhere.  This planet is approximately 4.6 billion years old, yet in only a few thousand years the climate has dropped an alarming 10 degrees F.  That's far and away too fast.  We know this from examining the earth's inner surfaces and the polar ice.  A "greenhouse effect" will eventually bring on freezing temperatures.   

Although volcanology and cosmology are young sciences, everyone is in agreement that it's just a matter of time. 

And we cannot truly prepare for it.  We won't be here.  The technology of the future may stave off mass extinction, but nothing can hold off nature.          

    

 

Pondering

There comes a time when a person just needs to PONDER, you know?  I was doing that today, and arrived at some redundancies, pedacilloes, assorted lunacies and just plain funnies.  Think about this:

                          How redundant are these:

Moisterizing mouth wash

Spray-on salad dressing

The to-be-built WALL around our southern borders (true!)

Infant-sized safety equipment (tiny helmets, knee pads, etc) think about what this mother is planning for her child!

A guy is robbing a store, puts a PLASTIC bag over his head, goes in and demands the dough.  TV news, can't beat it.

                               Something I actually heard:

"I knew it was dangerous before I tried it."

"There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers."  (I swear, this was an adult!) 

"Although the jockey fell off the horse, the judges have ruled that if it gets past the finish line, a rider-less horse still wins the race."

                               Biggest quote gaffe of all time

"One step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  Now, you'd THINK we'd get it right for the first MOON LANDING for petes sake but nooo, I think Mr. Armstrong was so nervous of little green men coming at him with ray guns he just forgot thatall important "a" in one step for a man...etc.  Redundant gaffe.

                    Actual Everyday Sayings I Got Mixed Up As a Kid

KILLER BE KILLED ("Kill or be killed")

STICKY END OF THE SHORTS (I couldn't find  "the short end of the stick" nor grasp why it would be bad luck - to me, REAL bad luck would be the reverse - having sticky ended shorts)

HEY, LET'S STALK ("Hey, Let's Talk")

MEN WALK PAST GIRLS MADE OF GLASS (ok laugh)

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Some ponderings are not funny at all, but think of the odds:  You have three young women all considered the ideal of beauty, they're big TV stars making a mint, everyone adores them.  Several years go by and all three, still beautiful, end up with cancer.  Yet - in reality, these are now the USUAL odds for women.  BTW, those women are the "smart" one, the "classic" beauty and the "dipsy" sexy blonde.  

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But for a lack of $2500. I was unable to pursue a little invention I thought up years ago, after seeing dark-skinned women in the summer who used talcum powder on their arms and neck area - it looked ridiculous and they felt that way.  My chemist would help to "invent" a talcum powder that disappears upon application.  It's a simple idea but I didn't have the entrance fee, only enough to patent it - along with the zillion other could-be-great ideas gathering dust. 

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Here's another one I thought would work:  No one likes wrinkles, although some will SAY they do "I earned those!" but they'd rub in that cream if they knew it worked, really worked.  So I thought, well, what's a wrinkle anyway, except a scar?  In a manner, on the face we create this scarring by facial exressions used more than others, combined with a dash of DNA.  Since there's already a facial cream on the market called "Megaderm" which softens the look and feel of a scar until it's barely noticeable, why wouldn't this work on a laugh line or two?  Think I'll try it when I get a wrinkle.  

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I was Iming with a friend about human dynamics when she suddenly asked, "So what's D and A anyway?"  We talk about other things now.

 

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Sunday Night Cafe Chat

Greets to all:  For those who've forgotten, tomorrow night is a chat time for any Journaler interested: 

                  TIME:  USA 3 pm  -  UK 8 PM

                                                Special Interests - Journals Cafe  

Saturday, October 7, 2006

Quick Reminder - JLand Meet

As most already know, we've been planning a way for those who wish, to get together for a few days, meet and greet, all that good stuff.  The info is in Pharmolo's Northern Trip Journal, or go directly to Gina's place (Motoxmom72) for Convention info,  Input is needed! 

Please visit J-Land Convention Info for basic start of itinerary.  THANKS! 

Dedicated to Pharmolo For All His Help

                                      HURRICANES

A hurrican is a powerful, rotating storm that forms over warm waters near the Equator.  Another name for a hurricane is a Tropical Cyclone.  Hurricanes have strong, rotating winds, at least 74 mph (119 kph) a huge amount of rain, low air pressure, thunder and lightening.  The cyclonic winds of a hurricane rotate in a counterclockwise direction, around a central, calm eye.

If this type of storm forms in the western Pacific Ocean, it is called a Typhoon.

Hurricanes often travel from the ocean, to the coast and onto the land.  This is where the wind, rain and huge waves cause extensive destruction.

Generally, when it moves over land or warm waters, the storm weakens and quickly dies down, because these storms are fueld by warm water.

On average, there are 100 tropical cyclones each year, with 12 forming in the Atlantic, 15 forming in the Pacific, and the rest in other worldwide areas.

HURRICANE SEASON is the time when most Atlantic hurricanes occur, from June 1 to November 30.  In the eastern Pacific, it is from May 15 to November 30.

The weather symbol for a hurricane looks like a large, thick "S" shape.  Marine flags that alert boaters to a hurricane are two red flags with black squares in the center.

Thank you, Guido, for always keeping us posted about the when and where of these incredible forces of nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Bit Of Help For Those In Pain

"I see that you have at last found the secret of true peace:  not to examine your present state, and to abandon the past and future entirely to God's mercy; to have a great idea of God's goodness, which is infinitely greater than you can express, and to believe, in spite of anything that tries to persuade you to the contrary, that YOU ARE LOVED BY GOD in spite of all your miseries."

                       St. Claude De La Colombiere

Prayer For All Souls

At the request of Jude from the previous entry, here is the prayer for departed souls, on the reverse side.  For anyone who's "lost" a beloved one, here are the comforting words:

Gracious God of Life, I am grateful for the saints and souls you have graced my life with.  My heart is touched as they pass into eternal llife.

With great confidence, I comend to You my loved ones, family members and friends, who are no longer here on this earthly journey of faith.

At times of sadness, when You call them home, may my sorrow be comforted by faith in Your goodness - that life is merely changed, not ended, even though they are unseen to me.

Lord Jesus, welcome me, and all those for whom I pray, into eternal life to share Your Resurrection with God in glory.

St. Therese, intercede for me.

St. Therese, welcome my loved ones.

St. Therese, strength my faith.

====================================

 

 

Friday, October 6, 2006

St. Therese of Lisieux - Something Special

I was raised Roman Catholic and though many things have gone by the wayside, my faith is strong.  Over the years, my brother Chris likes to send me different interesting spiritual things, and I truly enjoy getting them.  The above is both sides of a Prayer for November using the intercession of St. Therese of Lisieux, who many of my online friends admire.  Not to be confused with the great St.Theresa of Avila, this is "The Little Flower of Jesus" known for her "little ways" of looking at and dealing with the foibles of life.  

Thanks Chris!   

Thursday, October 5, 2006

Shine On, Harvest Moon

Tomorrow night just after sunset, the Full Harvest Moon will rise in all her glory and we're once again the fortunate humans who will witness the autumnal equinox as it shows off.  Thanks to the great Caesar, Julius, we have two extra months in the year so farmers had enough time to harvest their crop - hence the name "harvest moon".  For centuries untold, farmers worked by the light of Luna Maria, shining as if it were a great powerful beam of the softest, most ethereal heavenly glow.  There's nothing that comes close to the way moonlight looks on people and things, I say.  And to that, I'd like to add a few interesting facts:

Did you know that moonlight "steals" color from whatever it touches?  If you look at a rose under moonlight, it's brightly lit and casts a shadow but the red is gone, replaced by shades of pale gray.  The whole landscape is that way!

And if you stare at the gray landscape long enough, it turns blue.  The best places to see "blueshift" is in the countryside, far from artificial lights.  As your eyes become adapted to the dark, that's when the blue appears.  Film makers often use blue filters over their lens when filming night scenes to create a more natural feel.  Artists add blue paint for nightscenes for the same reason.  Yet if you look at the moon, it is certainly not blue. 

Moonlight won't let you read!  Open a book beneath the full moon - it seems bright enough.  Yet when you try to make out the words, you can't.  And if you stare at the page too long, the words may just disappear!  Moonlight blurs your vision and creates a little blind spot.

This is all very strange, yes?  Actually, moonlight is no more exotic than sunlight reflected from the dusty surface of the moon.  The only difference is intensity:  moonlight is about 400,000 times fainter than direct sunlight.  So why does this all happen?  The reason is our eyes:

The RETINA is like a digital camera.  We have two kinds of "pixels"called rods and cones.  The cones allow the eye to take in colors, like red roses, and fine detail, like words in a book.  This all works only in bright light.  After dark, the rods take over.  They are 1000 times more sensitive than the cones.  They allow us to see at night, yet rods are colorblind!  Thus, roses at night appear blue.  The basic principle is, when we think we see color, we're actually seeing the effects of light - reflected, refracted, absorbed, etc.  It is the explanation for what appears to be a "blue" sky or ocean, yet pick up a handful of the sea and it's colorless.  Just as our atmosphere is. 

I've left out alot of information about the composition of the eye and why things appear as they do, but the moon is still a very mysterious and incredible object which most believe was once part of planet earth.  Whatever our feelings about Luna Maria, she is still a wonder to behold!

Basic info courtesy of Skywatcher Alert, Sky & Telescope

CAVEAT LUNAR:  This is a generalization about how people perceive things under the full moon, but as with all things human, there are exceptions.  Some people can read by moonlight, others have no trouble seeing the red petals on a moonlit rose.  These people have "MOONVISION" which is caused by having extra rods or extremely sensitive cones.  Maybe YOU'RE one of them?  Find out tomorrow night! 

 

 

Sunday, October 1, 2006

How To Kill A Penquin

Who alive could ever forget the great Captain Hazelwood, drunk as a loon, at the helm of the giant oil tanker "Exxon Valdez" as he steered it directly into the rocks off the Prince Edward Isles?  I can picture still those boomers put out into the far reaches of the ocean trying to contain the black tary slime before it went further out to sea.  But what will always stay with me is the image of self-less Greenpeace workers and many hundreds of volunteers out there cleaning rocks with soap and water and a scrub brush.  They were hearty.

Something that wasn't so wonderful, however, was the way they tried to save the water fowl, the penguins, all manner of sea life, which came ashore caked in oil and unable to fly or swim.  People got out their pails of soapy water and ever-so-gently washed away the oil from each creature, then setting it free in the unpolluted area set aside for that purpose.  It took many months (yes!) before marine ornithologists took to their alerts and explained that all this soap, no matter the good intent, was killing these animals, as it removed their most essential life-saving feature:  waterproofing.  That layer is what kept those animals from drowning, from hyperthermia, from starvation.  Once removed by this soapy mixture the water fowl would soon, within only a day or two, either freeze or starve to death.

It was when their little corpses started to wash ashore that the human animal realized their tragic mistake and though their intentions were of the most noble in orientation, the result was catastrophic, as many of us remember.  These good folk truly worked hard, for as we all know, oil and water don't mix, so they spent many hours using elbow grease (scuse the pun) scrubbing those penguins and sea otters - but removing their one source of survival in the cold waters off the sound.

The world learned from this lessen - it would seem. 

Just last week I saw something that brought all those memories back, and it boiled my britches.  The makers of "Dawn" Liquid detergent have a commercial out showing a woman and her daughter bonding (in suitable slow-mo) as they scrub a little penquin clean with a toothbrush and - need I say it?  That soapy ooze.  Either they have short memories or something's gone terribly wrong with the world, but when you remove the extremely valuable waterproofing of these fowl it's akin to removing our own skin - we'd die of infections within, what, hours?

I'm also adding a little medical info, just for frustration's sake:  The more you use these liquid "Anitibiodic" soaps, the more immune germs will become to any effectiveness they may have on your hands.  These liquid "anti" soaps are the biggest rip-off health hazards and no one cares since money flows and people think they're protecting themselves against germs.  They're actually making themselves more prone, more susceptible.  The best soap in the world is one with no color, perfume or added "anti" anything.  But we'll continue to help what are fast becoming "super-bugs" which hospitals all over the world have already seen developing for years.  Wide-spectrum antibiotic rounds do little to stave off the fevers and lesions associated with these germs.  And it's all because we thought we weren't CLEAN ENOUGH! 

I'm going to sleep, dream about mud puddles.