Happy National Doughnut Day

National Doughnut Day is celebrated on the first Friday of June each year. (Doughnut is the dictionary spelling, but donut is becoming more acceptable each year.)

National Doughnut Day started on June 7, 1938 when a young military doctor by the name of Morgan Pett was sent to a military base. On his way there he stopped at a bakery and picked up eight dozen doughnuts. When he arrived at the base he started helping many wounded soldiers, and would give them a free doughnut. One man he helped was a Lieutenant General by the name of Samuel Geary. Samuel Geary decided to make a fund raiser with Morgan Pett to give every wounded soldier, and the needy a doughnut. This fund raiser was later joined with the Salvation Army. Many donut shops still give out free donuts on this day.

In honor of the day Krispy Kreme, with no purchase necessary, will hand out a free donut of choice to each customer.

Dunkin Donuts (which began the new spelling) will give out one free donut with the purchase of any beverage.

Incidentally, International Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day is widely recognized as June 8.

The Real D-Day

When Allied troops stormed the beaches at Normandy. It was a turning point of WWII, and not a day the world will soon forget. According to the National WWII Museum, June 6th, 1944 wasn’t the only “D-Day.” The term was used for any important operation. “D-Day” was the day of the operation itself, and the days leading up to and after the operation were indicated with “+” and “-”. So the “D” is a variable. If June 6th, 1944 was “D-Day” then June 1st, 1944 was “D-5″, and June 8th was “D+2.”

Since the variable references a specific day, “D” in “D-Day” essentially stands for “Day.”

The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins says the French meaning of the D is “disembarkation,” and it also quotes a letter from Eisenhower’s executive assistant, Brigadier General Robert Schultz, in 1964 who responded to a letter to Eisenhower asking to clarify the meaning of “D-Day.” Schultz wrote, “Be advised that any amphibious operation has a ‘departed date’; therefore the shortened term ‘D-Day’ is used.”

D-Day has become synonymous with June 6th, 1944 because of the significant impact that particular operation had on World War II and world history.

Oregon Owns Water

According to Oregon water laws, all water is publicly owned. Therefore, anyone who wants to store any type of water on their property must first obtain a permit from state water managers.

A rural Oregon man was sentenced in 2012 to thirty days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.

Oregon law that says all of the water in the state of Oregon is public water and if you want to use that water, either to divert it or to store it, you have to acquire a water right from the state of Oregon before doing that activity. The law states that the city of Medford, Oregon holds exclusive rights to “all core sources of water.”

Car Tire Colors

Car tires were initially off white, due to the natural color of the rubber used. Pure vulcanized rubber is soft and wears out very quickly and tends to heat up and deform under load. Tire makers mixed zinc oxide in with the rubber that added temperature stability and hardness, and which made the tires bright white in color.

As the benefits of adding carbon black to the compound became known, that additive was used just on the tread portion, while the side of the tire remained the natural color, the original whitewall tires. Adding carbon black made the tires darker, and they lasted four to five times longer.

Binney & Smith began selling their carbon black chemicals to Goodrich Tire Company (now Michelin). Binney & Smith would later switch to making school products, and, eventually, re-name their company after their most popular product, Crayola Crayons.

There are a few tire manufacturers that make specialty color tires, mostly for car shows, and during 1961, Goodyear Tires introduced an experimental tire that was illuminated from the inside. Small incandescent bulbs were mounted inside the tire through holes inside the rim and the tire was made from a single piece of synthetic rubber. The synthetic rubber was created much thinner than a regular tire to allow for the light to penetrate the rubber. Due to the strict laws regarding the manufacturing of street-legal tires and the obvious hazard of having fragile glass inside them, Goodyear’s illuminated tires never actually saw mass production.

Ant Life Facts

Spring is here and the ants have become active. The life of an ant starts from an egg. If the egg is fertilized, the progeny will be female; if not, it will be male. All females, except the queen are workers who feed the babies, take out the trash, and forage for food and supplies, and defend the nest. Males have one job, to mate with the queen.

Males can deliver 5 to 6 million sperm, which the queen can store and use for the rest of her life. The queen can produce a few thousand eggs a day and up to a million or more during her lifetime. She also decides which eggs to fertilize.

Queen ants can live for up to 30 years, and workers live from 1 to 3 years. Males, however may survive for just a few weeks.

Incidentally, there are an estimated 22,000 species of ants. Also, all male ants have a grandfather, but no father, and their grandfather had only a grandfather, but no father.

The Real William Shakespeare

A true, only known, actual portrait of William Shakespeare was recently found in a botany book. He was presumed to be about 33 at the time.

Botanist and historian Mark Griffiths claims in the new issue of Country Life Magazine that he has identified the “first and only known demonstrably authentic portrait of the world’s greatest writer made in his lifetime.” It was discovered on the title page of a 16th century botany book called “The Herball” by John Gerard.

Recipes and Rx

Retail prescription drugs in the US are over $200 billion annually. The origin of the Rx symbol comes from medieval time as an abbreviation for a form of the Late Latin word recipere meaning 'to take' or the imperative form of recipe, meaning 'take'.

By the late 1500s it came to mean medical prescription. This meaning lasted until the mid-1700s, when it was also applied to food preparation.

Physicians typically begin their directive with the command recipe, abbreviated to Rx. Other abbreviations used in the medical field for charting are “dx” (diagnosis), “sx” (signs and symptoms), and “hx” (history). Incidentally, females in the US fill almost fifty percent more prescriptions per capita than males.

Happy Friday

Don't hold on to life. Grab the reins and ride it like crazy.

I always have a great ride, especially on a Happy Friday!

Pinch Bum Day, Oak Apple Day, Shick Shack Day

Monarchists would wear oak leaves on May 29 for Oak Apple Day, also known as Pinch-Bum Day. It is called 'Oak Apple Day' in memory of the time when the king hid in an oak tree following the Battle of Worcester.

"Parliament had ordered the 29 of May, the King’s birthday, to be for ever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny and the King’s return to his Government, he entering London that day." The official holiday was abolished in 1859, but continues to be fondly celebrated in many parts of the commonwealth.

In parts of England where oak-apples are known as shick-shacks, the day is also known as Shick-Shack Day.

It is traditional for monarchists to decorate the house with oak branches or wear a sprig of oak on 29th May. The oak is the national tree of England. It is also traditional to drink beer, dance, and eat plum pudding. (An oak apple is also known as an oak gall. It is caused by the larvae of a cynipid wasp. The gall look like an apple.)

Those who do not participate can have their bum pinched. Since few recognize or celebrate this holiday, have some fun by finding your favorite person and pinch their bum today - men and women can participate.

Incidentally, Everest, the world's tallest mountain was conquered at 11:30 a.m. on 29 May 1953. Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal, become the first explorers to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which at 29,028 feet above sea level is the highest point on earth.

Obscura Day

May 30 is Obscura Day and the day to celebrate the hidden wonders of the world. There are more than 150 events in 39 states and 25 countries, all on a single day, and all designed to celebrate the world's most curious and awe-inspiring places. Be careful, you could get lost for hours at the Atlas Obscura site. LINK

Types of Potato Chips

The United Kingdom and Ireland, crisps are potato chips which are eaten cold, while chips are similar to french fries and are served hot. Americans, Canadians, Australians, Indians, New Zealanders, many Europeans, and those in the West Indies use chips. Many other countries also call them chips. People in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland call them Kartoffelchips. The Japanese call them chippu.

In Ireland, the word Tayto is synonymous with potato chips after the Tayto brand and can be used to describe all varieties of chips, including those not produced by Tayto. In fact, the word has become a genericized trademark.

Seasonings have come into vogue around the world and now potato chips have such flavorings as dill pickle, ketchup, barbecue, salt and vinegar, sour cream and onion, and ranch dressing. There are wasabi chips, poutine, maple bacon, Jamaican jerk chicken, cheddar and lemon-lime, Greek feta and olive, Ballpark hot dog, and barbeque baby back ribs, among others.

In Germany they have red paprika and ready salted along with sour cream and onion, cheese, oriental, chakalaka, currywurst, red and white with tomato ketchup and mayonnaise. The Japanese have pizza-flavored chips along with nori and shiyo, consommé, wasabi, soy sauce and butter, garlic, plum, barbecue, pizza, mayonnaise, and black pepper. Chili, scallop with butter, teriyaki, takoyaki and yakitorie.

There are prawn cocktail, Worcester sauce, roast chicken, steak and onion, smoky bacon, lamb and mint, ham and mustard, barbecue rib, tomato ketchup, sausage and ketchup, pickled onion, Branston pickle, and Marmite.

You can also find Thai sweet chili, roast pork and creamy mustard sauce, lime and Thai spices, chicken with Italian herbs, sea salt and cracked black pepper, turkey and bacon, caramelized onion and sweet balsamic vinegar, stilton and cranberry, mango chili, and American Cheeseburger, English roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

If you like them hot, you can find Mexican limes with chili, salsa with mesquite, Buffalo mozzarella tomato and basil, mature cheddar with Adnams broadside beer, Soulmate cheeses and onion, crawtator, Cajun dill, voodoo, and Creole onion.

Affronts and Aspersions

An affront is an insult, indignity, or something offensive. As a verb, it means to insult or offend. Affront comes from comes from French affronter "to face, to brave, to confront". It can be used in a sentence as, "These laws are an affront to our free speech."

Aspersion comes from aspergere "to sprinkle on, spatter" based on ad- "(up) to, on" and sparger "to strew, scatter." An aspersion means a spattering or sprinkling, especially of holy water. It also means that which bespatters or besmirches someone's character, slander, defamation of character. People usually use the term 'cast aspersions', as in spatter someone with metaphorical mud.

Incidentally, Asperger's syndrome is named for Hans Asperger and totally unrelated to the word or word root above.

Carbon Dioxide Facts

Carbon Dioxide gets a bad rap from the press, but it is natural and essential to life. CO2 is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic gas and it is not a pollutant. Trying to control CO2 by regulation is trying to regulate and control nature. Without CO2, plants die off and without plant life the earth's biological food chain would be terminally broken.

Plants require carbon dioxide to conduct photosynthesis. Greenhouses enrich their atmospheres with additional CO2 to sustain and increase plant growth. Plants can grow as much as 50 percent faster in concentrations of 1,000 ppm CO2 when compared with ambient conditions. If carbon dioxide is increasing so much around the globe, it would be logical that plants and trees would be growing faster than they previously did, but they are not.

CO2 is reduced by photosynthesis of plants. A photosynthesis-related drop (by a factor less than two) in carbon dioxide concentration in a greenhouse compartment would kill green plants, or completely stop their growth. Increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations result in fewer stomata developing on plants, which leads to reduced water usage and increased water-use efficiency.

Deforestation for agriculture is just replacing one type of vegetation with another. Both trees and plants reduce CO2.

Photosynthesis by phytoplankton consumes dissolved CO2 in the upper ocean and promotes the absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. Photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and water to produce sugars from which other organic compounds can be constructed, and oxygen is produced as a by-product. Sea urchins convert carbon dioxide into raw material for their shells.

Carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean to form carbonic acid (H2CO3), bicarbonate (HCO3) and carbonate (CO32). There is about fifty times as much carbon dissolved in the sea water of the oceans as exists in the atmosphere. The oceans act as an enormous carbon sink, and take up about 30% of the total released into the atmosphere.

In medicine, up to 5% carbon dioxide (130 times atmospheric concentration) is added to oxygen for stimulation of breathing after apnea and to stabilize the O2/CO2 balance in blood.

Liquid and solid carbon dioxide are important refrigerants, especially in the food industry, where they are employed during the transportation and storage of frozen foods. Solid carbon dioxide, dry ice is used for small shipments where refrigeration equipment is not practical.

Carbon dioxide is used in enhanced oil recovery where it is injected into or adjacent to producing oil wells, when it becomes miscible (mixed) with the oil. It acts as both a pressurizing agent and, when dissolved into the underground crude oil, significantly reduces its viscosity, and changes surface chemistry enabling the oil to flow faster.

Carbon dioxide is used to keep the pH level from rising in swimming pools.

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide fluctuate slightly with the change of the seasons. Concentrations of carbon dioxide fall during the Northern Hemisphere spring and summer as plants consume it, and rise during the northern autumn and winter as plants go dormant or die.

Up to 40% of the gas emitted by some volcanoes during eruptions is carbon dioxide.

Various proxies and modeling suggests larger variations in past times. 500 million years ago CO2 levels were likely 10 times higher than now.

Take a deep breath, exhale and out comes carbon dioxide. All the carbon in our body comes either directly or indirectly from plants, which recently took it out of the air. When we breathe out, all the carbon dioxide we exhale has already been accounted for. We are simply returning to the air the same carbon that was there to begin with, so humans are carbon neutral.

Incidentally, during 2009, energy-related CO2 emissions in the US had their largest absolute and percentage decline, seven percent (which followed a three percent drop in 2008), since the start of US Energy Information Administration comprehensive record of annual energy data that began in 1949.

Tylenol vs. Advil vs. Aleve

Here is a handy chart which shows the best uses for these common pain killers. I think Aspirin is a bit under reported in the chart.