National Basketball Association

The top-payed player in the first year of the NBA was the Detroit Falcon's Tom King who made $16,500. He managed this salary by not only playing for the team (salary $8,000 plus a $500 signing bonus) but also by convincing the team owner to hire him to be the publicity manager and business director for which he was paid an additional $8,000. Photos exist of King, still in his uniform with a typewriter on the bleachers, hammering out a press release after a game.

Chuck Conners, best known as 'The Rifleman', played for the Boston Celtics in the first year of the NBA.

The silhouette on the NBA logo is Jerry West. He is also the silhouette for the Mountaineer which stands outside the Mountainlair (student center) at West Virginia University.

Pied Piper

Below is an excerpt from the famous Grimm brothers version of the very famous tale of the Pied Piper in which the small German town of Hamelin loses all of its children to the Piper when the mayor refuses to pay him for ridding the town of rats.

“The long procession of children soon left the town and made its way through the wood and across the forest till it reached the foot of a huge mountain. When the piper came to the dark rock, he played his pipe even louder still and a great door creaked open. Beyond lay a cave. In trooped the children behind the pied piper, and when the last child had gone into the darkness, the door creaked shut.”

Here is a quote from the wall of the Piper’s House in Hamelin today: “In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul, the 26th of June, 130 child­ren born in Hamelin were seduced by a piper, dressed in all kinds of colors, and lost at the calvary near the koppen.”

The story is largely true, with some exaggerated parts. Many theories abound as to the factual events of that day, but the most logical seems to be that the piper represents death (death was depicted as a skeleton wearing pied clothing in the middle ages) and that the children who died were killed by the plague.

Pied means 'having two or more colors'. The word comes from middle English and is taken from the word “magpie.” Thus, the pied piper was a man wearing clothing of many colors.

Listerine

Walmart pulled Listerine off shelves in 1989 after a woman claimed it burned her mouth. After testing, they restocked it. Turns out that’s just how Listerine tastes. I could have told them that.

Caught Red Handed

“Caught red handed”, has its origins in Scotland around the 15th century. Given the context it was often used in the earliest references, the phrase “red hand” or “redhand” probably came about referring to people caught with blood on their hands.

The first known documented instance of “red hand” is in the Scottish Acts of Parliament of James I, written in 1432. It subsequently popped up numerous times in various legal proceedings in Scotland, nearly always referring to someone caught in the act of committing some crime, such as “apprehended redhand”, “taken with redhand”, etc.

The first documented instance of the expression morphing from “red hand” to “red handed” was in the early 19th century work Ivanhoe, written by Sir Walter Scott.

10,000 Zambonis

The ice making business was booming way before household refrigerators were common. In 1939 Frank Zamboni and his brother had been in their ice block business for years, but refrigerators were becoming popular enough that they saw things quickly changing.

They had an inventory of many large refrigeration units, so they decided to open an ice rink. It was there that Frank came up with a way to resurface the ice. Originally it took three men an hour and a half to get it done, but in 1949 he invented the precursor of the ice machine we know today.

Now one man could resurface an ice rink in ten minutes. Like Xerox and Kleenex, Zamboni is a trademarked word that we now use to refer to all ice resurfacing machines. In April 2012, the 10,000th Zamboni was sold and delivered to the Montreal Canadiens.

Free Google Calendar

Free online calendar application called Google Calendar. If you have a Google account, you can create a Google Calendar. If you don't have one, you can register for a free account.

You can use Google Calendar to schedule events and invite people to participate. By sharing folders, you can compare your schedule with other users. If everyone keeps his or her calendar up to date, it's easy to avoid conflicts. A single user can open multiple calendars and view all the scheduled events in a single window. Google displays each calendar's events in a different color.

Google includes its search feature within the Google Calendar system. You can search for specific calendars. Calendar owners can choose to keep a calendar private or share it openly with everyone. you can also set it up to send you an email to remind you of events in the calendar.

The Charleston

The Charleston was one of the biggest dance crazes of all time It was popularized in a song of the same name in the 1923 Broadway show Runnin’ Wild.

The choreography for the show was most likely original, but the style came from the Juba dance moves that originated among slaves on plantations and in southern cities like Charleston, South Carolina, where the name comes from. Here are a few super examples Charleston moves set to dubstep. LINK

What's in a Name, 5

One of the characters in the Peanuts universe was “555 95472,” or “5” for short. Introduced in September 1963, 5 explained that his father was so upset about people being seen as “just a number,” he renamed the entire family as a series of digits.

The family’s last name is taken from their ZIP Code, though when spoken, 5 insists there’s an accent on the 4. The ZIP Code, by the way, is the real one for Sebastopol, California, where Charles Schulz lived at the time.

5’s sisters 3 and 4 made a few appearances in the strip before disappearing, but 5 was occasionally a background character until 1981. You’ve probably seen 3, 4, and 5 already and didn’t even know it. All three appear in the famous dance sequence in 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'. 3 and 4 are the twin girls in purple dresses, while 5 is the spiky-haired kid in orange.

Happy Friday

“Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.” - Linus Pauling

Although my curiosity will never be sated, my Friday Thoughts always help me have a Happy Friday!

What's in a Name, Reno

It was in 1868 that a little town in Northwestern Nevada was officially named, Reno (after General Jesse Lee Reno, a Union officer of the Civil War).

Actually, the town just over the border from California, already existed before this date. It was first settled by the Washoe Indians who used the area for festivals and ceremonies. As settlers moved in, it was known as Fuller’s Ferry, and later, as Lake’s Crossing.

In the mid 1800s, Reno was just another settlement of silver miners. When the Comstock Lode was discovered in the Virginia City area, fortune hunters throughout the world came to the area to strike it rich. Today, they still come to strike it rich at Reno’s glitzy gambling casinos.

Reno is also a haven for quickie divorces (six-week residency is required), is known as the biggest little city in the world, the winning slogan from a contest held in 1929. If you look on a map you will find that Reno is actually west of Los Angeles.

Glass Slippers

Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600's. The glass slipper is likely to have arisen from a confusion between the French, "une pantoufle en vair" (a fur slipper) and, "une pantoufle en verre" (a glass slipper.)

Sports Names

In the four major US professional sports, (Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Hockey) there are only eight teams whose nicknames do not end with an "S."
Basketball: Miami Heat, Utah Jazz, Orlando Magic.
Baseball: Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox.
Hockey: Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning, Minnesota Wild.
Football: None.
The only reason I find this interesting is because my name starts with an S.