What's in a Name, Dr. Seuss

 The “Dr.” in “Dr. Seuss” was in homage to Theodore Geisel’s father’s hope that his son would get his PhD. Geisel instead dropped out of the PhD program at Oxford. He did eventually receive several honorary doctorates.

“Seuss” was his mother’s maiden name as well as his own middle name. 

Geisel first used the pen name “Seuss” in college after being removed as the editor of the Dartmouth College’s humor magazine 'Jack-O-Lantern' and being banned from writing for that magazine after he was caught drinking by the dean.

He subsequently started publishing under various pen names, including T. Seuss.   and Dr. Theophrastus Seuss, which was shortened to Dr. Seuss.  He also had an alternate pen name that he also wrote under which was Theo LeSieg.  The “Theo” is short for “Theodor”, and “LeSieg” is “Geisel” spelled backwards.
  
The proper pronunciation of Seuss is actually “Zoice” (rhymes with “voice”) as it is a Bavarian name.  Due to the fact that most Americans pronounced it incorrectly as Soose, Geisel later gave in, stopped correcting people, and decided mispronunciation was a good thing because it is “advantageous for an author of children’s books to be associated with Mother Goose.”

He would have been 108 years old this month. He died in 1991.

Nutmeg and Potatoes

Add just a dash of nutmeg to your next potato dish for a great taste.

Wordology

The only word that consists of two letters, each used three times is the word "deeded."

A hamlet is a village without a church and a town is not a city until it has a cathedral.

The 'v' in the name of a court case does not stand for 'versus', but for 'and' (in civil proceedings) or 'against' (in criminal proceedings).

The word "karate" means "empty hand."

Bratwurst Bust

The beloved Nürnberger Bratwurst is the latest victim of escalating tensions over Iran's nuclear program. German butchers complained that the diplomatic crisis was driving up the price of sausage casing. In shock news for Germans everywhere, the sausage industry is feeling the rising cost of importing sheep intestines from Iran, leading Nürnberger Bratwurst producer Claus Steiner reported.

The Nürnberger Bratwurst is made of finely ground pork, cased in intestinal lining and seasoned with marjoram. By European Union regulations, it can only be called a Nürnberger Bratwurst if it's made in the Nuremberg area.

Sheep intestinal lining, a key ingredient in making the sausage, is largely imported from Iran, which has a 500-year history of trading animal by-products. This may change, as the price of sheep gut has almost tripled during the past 18 months.

A year and a half ago 90 meters of intestinal lining cost just €6.30, but now the same length costs a whopping €17.20. War is hell.

The Scale of Things

Received this link from Bud. It is a fascinating look at the scale of everything from things so small that they cannot yet be seen with modern technology to things so large that they are yet to be seen with technology. Slide the scale slowly or you will miss many details. LINK

Six Interesting People Facts

Shirley Temple always had 56 curls in her hair.

Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.

Hulk Hogan's real name is Terry Bollea.

The Earl of Condom was a knighted personal physician to England's King Charles II in the mid-1600's. The Earl was requested to produce a method to protect the King from syphilis.

Stalin was only five feet, four inches tall, his left foot had webbed toes, and his left arm was noticeably shorter than his right.

The only real person to be represented with a Pez head was Betsy Ross.

Annie Get Your Gun

Phoebe Anne Oakley Mozee was five feet tall. She was also a crack shot with rifles, pistols, and shotguns. Annie Oakley was born in a log cabin in Patterson Township, Ohio and starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for seventeen years.

March 5, 1922, Annie broke all existing records for women’s trap shooting by hitting 98 out of 100 clay targets thrown at 16 yards while at a match at the Pinehurst Gun Club in North Carolina. She hit the first fifty, missed the 51st and 67th.

In one day she used a .22 rifle to hit 4,772 glass balls out of 5,000 tossed in the air. She could hit the thin side of a playing card from 90 feet and puncture it at least five times before it hit the ground. It was this display that named free tickets with holes punched in them, Annie Oakleys.

She was immortalized in Annie Get Your Gun, which was later made into a musical for the stage. In 1985, another film, Annie Oakley, was made for TV. It included silent-film footage of the record-breaking sharp-shooter, taken by Thomas Edison. There was also a weekly TV show about her during the fifties.
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Happy Friday

Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you have never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.

I am working and loving and dancing my way toward a Happy Friday!

Happy Texas Independence Day

Today is the celebration of the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. Settlers in Mexican Texas officially broke from Mexico, creating the Republic of Texas.

Baseball Clothing Rules

Basketball and hockey coaches wear business suits on the sidelines. Football coaches wear team-branded shirts and jackets and often ill-fitting pleated khakis. Baseball managers are the only ones who wear the same outfit as their players.

It goes back to the earliest days of the game, when the person known as the manager was the business manager, the guy who kept the books in order and the road trips on schedule.

The person we call the manager today, who arranges the roster and decides when to pull a pitcher, was known as the captain. He was usually also on the team as a player. There were also a few captains who didn’t play for the team and stuck to making decisions in the dugout, and they usually wore suits. With the passing of time, it became less common for the captain to play and on most teams they had strictly managerial roles. The rules do not state that a manager should wear a uniform or not.

Wordology

Jumbo was a large African Bush Elephant, born 1861 in the French Sudan, imported to a Paris zoo, transferred to the London Zoo in 1865, and sold in 1882 to P. T. Barnum, for the circus. The giant elephant's name is now a common word 'jumbo', meaning large in size.

ENIAC Facts

 In February 1946, the first ever general purpose digital electronic computer was dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania.  The machine was called the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer).  It cost over $500,000 ($6 million today), weighed about 57,000 pounds and took up 1800 square feet.  It had 17,468 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 7,200 diodes, 10,000 capacitors, and 5 million hand soldered joints. It used enough electricity to power 114 homes. The longest time between vacuum tube failures was 4 days and 20

The first task it was to perform calculations pertaining to the development of the hydrogen bomb. It stayed in service for nine years.

Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Before and After

Here are some stunning pictures of the incident in March 2011 and one year later. Amazing cleanup. Click on each picture for the after. LINK

How to Squish Beans

Are you having a bad day? Feeling frustrated? Use this site to squish some beans. LINK  Just click on the beans and watch. Now you will feel better.