National Potato Chip Day

Yep, March 14 every year marks the day we celebrate the thin and crispy snack, the potato chip.

Potatoes were originally cultivated in South America, probably in Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. More than 400 years ago, the Inca Indians in those countries grew potatoes in their mountain valleys.

During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush, (1897-1898) potatoes were so valued for their vitamin C content that miners traded gold for potatoes.

Potato Chips were first made in 1853 while Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was on vacation in Saratoga Springs, New York.  At one restaurant, he kept sending his fried potatoes back to the kitchen because he said they were "too thick".  The chef, George Crum, decided that he would cut them into paper-thin slices, boil them in oil, fry them, and salt them as a joke to the Commodore.  It backfired.  They became an instant success and the restaurant was well known for them.

It was the invention of the mechanical potato peeler in the 1920s that paved the way for potato chips to soar from a small specialty item to a top-selling snack food. For several decades after their creation, potato chips were largely a Northern dinner dish. I can still make a dinner of nothing but chips.

Of course, I am partial to Detroit's Better Made Potato Chips. Detroiters eat an average of 7 pounds of chips per year, vs. 4 pounds in the rest of the country  Better Made has even been sending chips to our troops in Iraq.

Chip facts - Chips are available in other countries, and are also called crisps and Saratoga chips. Potato chips have become America's favorite snack, and  US retail sales of potato chip are over $6 billion and 1.2 billion pounds a year. The thickness of an ordinary potato chip is 55/1000 of an inch. Ridged chips are 4 times thicker, 210/1000 of an inch. 50.4% of US potatoes come from Idaho. The potato was the first vegetable to be grown in space.

For those who have been wondering, yes, there are bacon potato chips. Who's Your Daddy makes handmade bacon potato chips. They are available on the web and in selected stores around San Francisco.

Quotable

Your best years are when the kids are old enough to help shovel snow, but too young to drive the car.

Hair Color Facts

Hair color helps determine how dense the hair on your head is, and natural blondes, top the list. The average human head has 100,000 hair follicles, each of which is capable of producing 20 individual hairs during a person's lifetime. Blondes average 146,000 follicles. People with black hair tend to have about 110,000 follicles, while those with brown hair are right on target with 100,000 follicles. Redheads have the least dense hair, averaging about 86,000 follicles.

Lincoln Logs

Frank Lloyd Wright was born Frank Lincoln Wright, but he legally changed his name when his parents were divorced. Lloyd Jones was his Welsh mother’s maiden name and Frank changed his name to honor her.

Lincoln logs were invented by his son and named after his father's real middle name.

One of my favorite quotes of his, "Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities."

Crash Blossoms

I know you have seen them. The name emerged last year as a description of those funny headlines that can be taken more than one way. Here are a few real headlines for your reading pleasure.

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge
Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim
McDonald’s Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers
Gator Attacks Puzzle Experts
Eighth Army Push Bottles Up Germans
Lotto Winner's Body Remains Identified
US Eyes Boom in Nuclear Reactors
Jessica Hahn Pooped After Long Day Testifying

Shadow Caddy

For you golfers in the crowd, you may be soon using one of these as spring is quickly approaching.

Shadow Caddy is a robotic caddy that follows you around the course, carrying your bags just like a human caddy. Set your bag on your Shadow Caddy and off you go, free to concentrate on your game without the distraction of dragging your clubs around. It has two settings, follow and park.

It is completely hands free. It follows a small transmitter attached to your belt. It has a sophisticated detection avoidance system which prevents collisions with other carts, people, trees, etc., then picks up the transmission and goes right back to following the game. The Shadow Caddy will also carry drinks, sand buckets, etc. Another good feature, no tips required.

The caddy has been around for a while as a rental on selected golf courses. Here is a LINK to watch it on YouTube

Census 2010

The census forms are coming in a few weeks. There will be ten questions and none have anything to do with income. No one will come to your door if you fill it out and mail it in on time with no errors.

The ACS is done annually, and is separate from the Census, but run by the Census Bureau. They changed the fine this year to $5,000 from $100 if you don't fill it out. This is the part where they ask you about income, etc. Each year approximately 3 million housing unit addresses in the United States and Puerto Rico are selected.

The American Community Survey (ACS) began full implementation of housing unit address in 2005. Since 2005, the ACS interviews samples of housing units in all counties in the United States (including the District of Columbia) and in all of the municipalities in Puerto Rico.

It is interesting to note that the census from 1870 asked for value of the house and value of the 'estate' of the main person in the house. It also asked about country of origin and native language. I have census copies from from my genealogy research. The census reports are available online after 75 years.

When You Were Born

Check this site out and put in the year of your birth to discover some interesting things that happened that year. LINK

Canadians Love Bacon

Canadians also love bacon. In a recent survey conducted by Maple Leaf Foods -

* 43% of the respondents said they would rather have bacon than sex
* 23% of men ranked bacon as their number one favorite fragrance
* 82% who said they love bacon also said they are good lovers
* 23% wondered if ‘my partner loves bacon more than me’

The survey was conducted from December 1 to December 2, 2009, among 1,006 randomly selected Canadian adults. The results of the online survey have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure samples representative of the entire adult population of Canada. The study didn't say whether it was back bacon or American style. Hmmm, 82%. . .

Olympic Cheescake

Cheesecake is believed to have originated in ancient Greece and was served to the athletes during the first Olympic Games held in 776 BC.

Cheese making can be traced back as far as 2,000 BC, and anthropologists have found cheese molds dating back to that period.

Cheesecake was mentioned in Marcus Porcius Cato's De re Rustica around 200 BC and he described making his cheese libum (cake) with results very similar to modern cheesecake."

VPIKE

Want to see a picture of someone's house and don't want to use Google? Here is an alternative. When you enter an address you will see a picture of that place.  You can move up and down the block and magnify, also drag around in a circle to see the other side of the street.. Works like Google  VPIKE

Fixing Split Ends

Although there are hair care products which are marketed as being able to repair split ends and damaged hair, there is no such cure. A good conditioner might prevent damage from occurring in the first place, but the only way to get rid of split ends after they appear is by a hair cut.

Tax Day Coming

More Americans than ever will be subject to scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service this year as the government pumps billions of dollars into tax collection.

More than 1.4 million Americans were audited last year. Even more audits are expected as the Obama administration plans to spend $8.2 billion in tax enforcement initiatives in 2011, a nearly 10% increase over last year. That is one stimulus that may pay off for the government. . .

Mangle

I am sure you heard someone say this or that is all mangled. A mangle is a device that used to be used for drying clothes. Sometimes it is also called a wringer. A mangle iron is used to press clothes and usually has steam coming from inside the roller.

The word mangle was coined in the early 20th century after many of the first industrial ironers had crushed and dismembered those who got to close to the feeder end or chain drives of the machines.