Oct 5, 2018

National Emergency Nurses Day

It is celebrated October 10. These are special people. The best thing you can do is hug a nurse and tell him or her thanks.

Bacon Spam

To many, especially Hawaiians it does not seem possible to make Spam any better. Most agree it takes a lot to make spam taste better. Hormel has done it. Brand owner Hormel Foods has 16 varieties of this iconic canned meat, including Spam with Real Hormel Bacon.

Eight Healthy Banana Facts

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One medium banana contains 422 milligrams of potassium, or about 12 percent of your daily value of the mineral, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Bananas help keep you hydrated by helping regulate the balance of fluids in your body, especially the electrolytes you lose, like sodium, magnesium, calcium, and potassium after a sweaty workout.

One medium banana has 3 grams of filling fiber (about 10 percent of your daily intake).


Bananas are the perfect pre-workout fuel. Research suggests that bananas have unique compounds that can enhance athletic performance and they may help boost post-workout recovery.

One of the best reasons to eat bananas is the naturally sweet taste and soft texture that makes them an ideal ingredient in many baked goods. You can’t sub in bananas for sugar in every recipe, but you can look for recipes that have already done that work for you.


Bananas are rich in vitamin B6 and contain nearly one third of your daily value, which is important for brain development during pregnancy and enzyme reactions involved in metabolism.

Bananas contain a type of fiber called resistant starch, which seems to help people eat fewer calories and manage their appetite.

Wordology, Quents

Did you know the opposite of eloquent is pauciloquent "Uttering few words; brief in speech."

More '-quents':
falsiloquence - deceitful speech
flexiloquent - speaking ambiguously or using words of doubtful meaning
inaniloquent - prone to foolish or empty babbling
mendaciloquence - lying speech

Also good to know: sialoquent - spitting greatly while speaking.

What's in a Name, India Pale Ale

The term pale ale originally denoted an ale that had been brewed from pale malt. The pale ales of the early 18th century were lightly hopped and quite different from today's pale ales. By the mid-18th century, pale ale was mostly brewed with coke-fired malt, which produced less smoking and roasting of barley in the malting process, and hence produced a paler beer. One such variety of beer was October beer, a pale, well-hopped brew popular among the landed classes, who brewed it domestically; once brewed it was intended to cellar for two years.

IPA stands for India Pale Ale, a hoppy style of beer within the pale ale category. Double IPAs are a much hoppier style of IPAs with alcohol content above 7.5 percent by volume. The India pale ale name is a result of its popularity with British troops stationed in India in the 19th century, when the subcontinent was still a British colony.

YouTube Keyboard Shortcuts

The YouTube video and window must be active for the following to work.
Play and pause a video - Press the spacebar or the 'k' key on your keyboard. Holding down either of these keys also plays the video in slow motion.
Jump to start of a video - Press the 0 (zero) or home key on your keyboard.
Jump to the end of a video or go to the next video - Press the end key on your keyboard. If you are playing a playlist, it goes to the next video in the playlist.
Fast forward or rewind - Press the left or right arrow keys. If you need to jump more than five seconds hold down the Ctrl key and press the arrow key for the direction you want to jump in ten second increments.

Skip to video sections - Pressing the number keys from 1 to 9 jumps to that percentage of the video, one jumps to 10%, etc.

Make the video full-screen or normal - Press 'f' on the keyboard. Pressing Esc exits full-screen mode.

Turn up and down the volume - Press the up or down arrow keys. Pressing 'm' on the keyboard also mutes and unmutes the volume.

What is BMI

BMI is the two-digit number that medical professionals use to determine how expansive your butt is. Anything higher than 30 means you are obese. BMI is a simple formula calculated based on height and weight.

It was created by the World Health Organization's International Obesity Task Force (IOTF). During 1997, following two years of study, the IOTF lowered the "overweight" cutoff to 25 from its previous value of 27. As a general rule, anyone attempting to define a human being in two digits leaves much to be desired.

A new study finds that about 54 million Americans who are labeled as obese or overweight according to their body mass index are actually healthy.
Body mass index is calculated by dividing a person's weight by the square of the person's height. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a "healthy" BMI is 18.5 to 24.9, an overweight BMI is 25 to 29.9 and an obese BMI is 30 or higher. Over time, researchers have begun to suspect that people with so-called healthy BMIs can be very unhealthy and those with high BMIs can actually be in very good shape. According to his BMI, 34.3, the Dwayne The Rock Johnson is obese.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently proposed rules that would allow employers to penalize employees for up to 30% of their health insurance costs if they do not meet 24 health criteria, which include meeting a specific BMI. If BMI does not accurately reflect health, then those with high numbers potentially could be overcharged for no reason.
To find out whether BMI correlated with actual markers of health, a team of UCLA researchers analyzed data from 40,420 individuals who participated in the 2005-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They looked at individuals' blood pressure, triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose, insulin resistance and C-reactive protein data — markers that are linked to heart disease and inflammation, among other issues.
They found that 47.4%, of overweight people and 29% of obese people were, from a metabolic standpoint, quite healthy. They also found more than 30% of individuals with "normal" weights were metabolically unhealthy.

Their results showed that using BMI as the primary indicator of health means that 74.9 million adults in the United States are being mis-categorized as healthy or unhealthy. That includes the 34.4 million people who are considered overweight and the 19.8 million people considered obese, according to BMI.

Alexa Marriage Tips

Say, "Alexa remember our anniversary is June 10." Anytime you ask when your anniversary is, Alexa will reply, "Your anniversary is June 10."

Say, "Alexa, remember Sue’s birthday is June 15." Alexa will reply: ‘Okay, I’ll remember Sue’s birthday is June 15.’ When you ask, “Alexa, when is Sue’s birthday?” the response will be, “Sue’s birthday is June 15.”

To make either or both more special say, "Alexa set reminder for our anniversary or birthday (date and time a few days before event) so you have time to get flowers. You are welcome.

Sep 28, 2018

Happy Friday

You do not need to speak of your happiness, a smile will suffice.

I like to show my happiness with a smile, especially on a Happy Friday!

More Benefits of Laughing

Some gelotology (study of laughing) findings have shown laughter produces some of the same positive effects as exercise. In fact, laughing intensely for an hour can burn as many calories as lifting weights for 30 minutes.
Researchers had 300 volunteers watch clips from either a stressful movie “Saving Private Ryan” or a comedy “There’s Something About Mary”. In addition to the difference in audible laughs, results showed a 30 to 40 percent increase in diameter of the heart’s blood vessels during funny scenes compared to tense ones. Those changes to blood vessel dilation are similar to what happens during exercise

Laughing exercises several muscles in the body, including the abdomen, back, shoulders, and 15 facial muscles. In another recent study at Oxford University, scientists tested the correlation between laughter and decreased pain threshold on a group of volunteer subjects.  Researchers demonstrated that pain thresholds of volunteers would increase after watching comedic videos, but not after viewing boring documentaries.

Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hopes, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert. It also helps to release anger and be more forgiving.


The ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health.

One of the benefits of laughter is that it can help you tone abs. When laughing, the stomach muscles expand and contract, similar to when you intentionally exercise your abs.

Laughter is also a great cardio workout, especially for those who are incapable of doing other physical activity due to injury or illness. It gets your heart pumping and burns a similar amount of calories per hour as walking at a slow to moderate pace.

Endorphins are the body’s natural painkillers. Laughing releases endorphins, which can help ease chronic pain and make you feel better.

Laughter can increase your overall sense of well-being. Doctors have found that people who have a positive outlook on life tend to fight diseases better than people who tend to be more negative. Laugh and live longer. . . and happier.

Another California Law

The Californian politicians in power have found a new way to spend tax dollars on enforcement - A new state bill would give children two options with their meals at restaurants, water or milk "to make the default beverage water, sparkling water, or flavored water, as specified, or unflavored milk or a nondairy milk alternative, as specified". Senate Bill 1192 makes water or milk the default drink for kids meals in a push "to reduce obesity and reduce access to sugary drinks for children".
"A person who violates any provision of the code is guilty of a misdemeanor with each offense punishable by a fine of not less than $25 or more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in a county jail for a term not exceeding 6 months, or by both that fine and imprisonment." Under the bill, the 2nd and 3rd violations within five years would be punishable by fines of not more than $250 and $500, respectively.
One of the reasons given is paragraph (f) "By enacting this act, it is the intent of the Legislature to support parents’ efforts to feed their children nutritiously by ensuring healthy beverages are the default options in children’s meals in restaurants."


The bill passed the Assembly and signed by Jerry Brown September 20, 2018. California, not surprisingly the first state in the nation to have such a law. Oh, and whatever they drink, they will not be using a plastic straw, because another recently approved Assembly Bill 1884 “prohibits dine-in restaurants from automatically providing plastic straws” to customers. 

Presidential Alert System

Former President Barack Obama signed a law in 2016 requiring FEMA to create a system that lets US presidents send cellphone alerts regarding public safety issues like natural disasters and terrorism.

US cellphone users will not be able to opt out of the alert system. The test message on Thursday, Oct 3, 2018 is scheduled for 2:18 p.m. EDT and will read: "THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed."

What's in a Name, Cocktail

There are almost as many stories about the origination of the word cocktail relating to drinks as there are types of cocktail. Most concede that the word is of US origin.

A computerized newspaper database showed up an 1803 article from New Hampshire satirizing the fast young men of its day by printing what was purportedly an extract from one of their diaries - "Drank a glass of cocktail—excellent for the head...Call'd at the Doct's, found Burnham—he looked very wise—drank another glass of cocktail."

On May 13, 1806, the Balance and Colombian Repository of Hudson, New York, answered a reader’s query as to the nature of a cocktail: "Cock-tail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, in as much as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else."

In one of James Fenimore Cooper's more obscure novels the salty Elizabeth “Betty” Flanagan keeps a rough tavern, and Cooper characterizes her as “the inventor of that beverage which is so well known at the present hour 1821, to all the patriots who make a winter's march between New York City and Albany, and which is distinguished by the name of ‘cock-tail."


Another theory as to the origin, is ginger was used in the horse trade to make a horse stick its tail up. If you had an old horse you were trying to sell, you would put some ginger up its butt, and it would cock its tail up and be frisky. That was known as “cock-tail.”

Battery Cost

Here is the cost and value of various batteries.