May 19, 2017

Taco Bell Beef

Taco Bell 'meat' is made up of 36 percent beef. The other 64 percent includes: water, isolated oat product, wheat oats, soy lecithin, maltodrextrin, anti-dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch and sodium phosphate, as well as beef and seasonings.

Two Amazing Costco Facts

Costco sells over 100 million hot dogs a year, according to the Daily Meal. That is more than all the major league baseball parks combined sell in an entire season. I also think they are better dogs than sold in many of the stadiums, and they are cheaper.

 It is also one of the largest pizza chains in the US.

Natural Foods

Natural is a broad term used to describe products that are minimally processed, and free of synthetic dyes, coloring, flavorings and preservatives. Products labeled “natural” can still contain fructose corn syrup and GMOs. The term is largely unregulated by the USDA. Even meat, poultry, and egg products can still have antibiotics and growth hormones, and can be fed on GMO feed. The US FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives.

The USDA says,  claims indicating that a product is natural food, such as “natural chili” or “chili - a natural product” would be unacceptable for a product containing beet powder which artificially colors the finished product. However, “all natural ingredients” might be an acceptable claim for such a product.
The UK FSA guidance states: "The term ‘natural’ without qualification should be used ... to describe single foods, of a traditional nature, to which nothing has been added and which have been subjected only to such processing as to render them suitable for human consumption."


Natural or all natural labels are more marketing than fact based. Naturally, this is all unnatural label mumbo jumbo that means little, but makes us feel good.

Divorce Rate

Just read that 67% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages end in divorce. The average divorce rate for first marriages is about 41% in the United States, and the divorce rate figures have been declining.

YouTube Tips

Here are a few YouTube keyboard shortcuts to increase your viewing pleasure.

K = pause or play
J = rewind 10 seconds
L = fast forward 10 seconds
M = turn off the sound
Number 0 = jump to the start of the video
Numbers 1 to 9 = jump to between 10% and 90% of the way through the video.

Find your favorite artist’s page - type # + the artist’s name (without spaces) in the search bar.
To use theater  or full screen mode, click on the small rectangle or the open box next to it in the lower right corner of the video.

To change the speed of a video, click on the gear symbol in the lower right corner of any video.

Thomas Edison Phonograph

This was written during 1877 about his phonograph. The same might be said about social apps and smart phones today.
“He has been addicted to electricity for many years,” the phonograph, with its ability to record speech, “will eventually destroy all confidence between man and man.”

Another paper of the time outlined ways phonographic technology might go wrong: greedy thieves might trick elderly millionaires into vocally amending their wills; sketchy neighbors might use opera recordings to lure women out of their homes; and wives might frighten their husbands out of sleep by playing a tape that yells “POLICE! FIRE!” over and over again. Editorial fear-mongering has not changed much during the past 140 years.

What is DLNA

TVs and many devices usually include DLNA as one of the features. For most of us, it is unimportant and we do not even know what it means. Since it is a standard, manufacturers and stores to not use it as a selling point, because almost all devices have the feature.

DLNA stands for Digital Living Network Alliance, the trade group founded by Sony in 2003 to define the interoperability guidelines.

It separates multimedia devices into 10 certified classes subdivided into three broad categories: Home Network Devices (PCs, TVs, AV receivers, game consoles), Mobile Handheld Devices (smartphones, tablets, digital cameras), and Home Infrastructure Devices (routers and hubs). All DLNA-certified devices use Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) to discover and talk to each other on the network.

May 12, 2017

Happy Friday

Family and friends are not our whole life, but make our lives whole.

Family and friends always make my life whole, especially on a Happy Friday!

National Limerick Day

It is observed annually on May 12 and celebrates the birthday of English artist, illustrator, author, and poet Edward Lear. He is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry, prose, and limericks.
National Limerick Day also celebrates the limerick poem, a very short, humorous, nonsense poem. Within a limerick, there are five lines.  The first two lines rhyme with the fifth line and the third and fourth line rhyme together. The first, second, and fifth lines must have seven to ten syllables while rhyming and having the same verbal rhythm. The third and fourth lines only have to have five to seven syllables, and have to rhyme with each other and have the same rhythm. The limerick also has a particular rhythm which is officially described as anapestic trimeter
A limerick example of a nursery rhyme.
    “Hickory, dickory, dock,
    The mouse ran up the clock.
    The clock struck one,
    And down he run,
    Hickory, dickory, dock.”

There once was a man named Lodge,
who had seat belts installed in his Dodge.
When his date was strapped in,
He committed a sin,
without ever leaving the garage.


A bather whose clothing was strewed
By winds that left her quite nude
Saw a man come along
And unless I am wrong
You expected this line to be lewd.

Mother's Day

In the US, Mother's Day is celebrated May 14. In the UK, Mothering Day was celebrated March 26, where it is always celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent, three weeks before Easter Sunday.

Anna Jarvis had originally conceived of Mother's Day as a day of personal celebration between mothers and families. During 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure officially establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day in the US. It wasn’t to celebrate all mothers. It was to celebrate the best mother you have ever known, your mother.

The day took off in Britain when a vicar's daughter, Constance Smith was inspired by a newspaper report of Jarvis' campaign and began a push for the day to be officially marked in England. Smith founded the Mothering Sunday Movement and even wrote a booklet, "The Revival of Mothering Sunday" in 1920. Interestingly, neither Smith nor Jarvis became mother’s themselves.

The French celebrate Mother's Day on the last Sunday in May. Mother’s Day in Spain is celebrated on December 8th.

Wordology, Donnybrook

A  donnybrook is a free-for-all or brawl and is usually a public quarrel or dispute. Usage of the word stems from history of a place in Ireland. The word donnybrook comes from Domhnach Broc, meaning 'The Church of Saint Broc'. A donnybrook is larger than a fight, but smaller than a brouhaha or hubbub.

The Donnybrook Fair was an annual eight to fourteen day event held in Donnybrook, Ireland from the 1200s to the mid 1800s. The fair was legendary for the vast quantities of liquor consumed, the number of hasty marriages performed during the week following it, and for the frequent brawls that erupted throughout it. From the 1790s on there were campaigns against the drunken brawl the fair had become. The event was abolished in 1855, but not before its name had become a generic term for a free-for-all.

Incidentally, there is an annual Donnybrook Fair held in Walsh, Ontario, Canada named after the Dublin fair.

Five Time Tips for Success

Planning for success is necessary for achieving success. Remember the old adage, "Failure to plan means planning for failure." Here are a few tips that might help increase your chances for success.

Take time at the beginning of each day tо рlаn your dау. If you do not know what you are going to do, you will never know if you achieved it.

Create your ToDo list with A,B,C priorities, with A being most important to you. Spend Eighty percent of your time on A items, fifteen percent of your time on B items, and the remainder on C items. If you do this each day, you can satisfy your own needs as well as others, but with the proper priority for your own success.

Take time before еvеrу call аnd tаѕk tо dесіdе what rеѕult you desire. Define success and you can achieve it. When on the phone smile, it will do wonders for your attitude.

Do not answer the phone, email, or text just because they happen. I call this letting others steal your time. In order to be the most productive, schedule time to put phone in airline mode and shut down email and text. When you are ready for others, turn them back on and answer with your priorities, not others'.

Every day, compliment at least one person. Also, try to smile at people more often. An engaging smile is a precursor to success.