What Would Jimmy Do?

Well, here it is June — in a few weeks, we’ll be half-way to Christmas. Usually around Chinese New Years time, I at least mention the Chinese Zodiac and I’ve noted several times how it plays a more prominent role in the lives of the Asian culture than our zodiac “signs” do in our day to day lives. Nonetheless, it’s kind of a fun topic whether you believe in it or not. According to a study a few years back, the words horoscope and astrology are the two most searched topics on the Internet. 

A few days ago I ran across an article that discussed how the month in which a person was born determined that person’s characteristics. For instance, the article concluded that more millionaires were born in the month of September than any other month. I thought that was interesting, but not interesting enough to take time for extensive research on the subject — so it might be true or maybe it’s not.

But because today is the beginning of June and three members of our (immediate) family were born in June, here’s what the report says about them:
“June babies have the best personalities and are the life and soul of the party. They love to make new friends and are extremely outgoing. Those born in June are expert flirts and therefore often have very attractive partners. They are insanely hot. June babies more often than not have an affinity for vinyl so they have massive record collections. They are film connoisseurs and could even become a famous actor/actress one day.”

So there you have it — if you know Claire, David and/or Chassie, draw your own conclusions. I think the part about often having very attractive partners is true, though….
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There’s been a lot of talk recently about “re-opening sports.” Many people and organizations have different ideas about how all sports can safely resume. Baseball has proposed having games only in Arizona, with no spectators, and having games in various stadiums around the country, with no spectators, or fans, and having a shortened season with regularly scheduled games and a limited number of fans permitted to attend each game. And probably at least a hundred variations of these guidelines. 

I guess the good news is that for most sports, except maybe basketball and hockey, the games are played outside… I know, before you say it, a lot of football games are now played “indoors.” 

But no matter where the games are played, it seems like social distancing is maybe the major issue. It’ll be hard enough to enforce social distancing with the fans — I don’t know how basketball players can adhere to those guidelines during a game — it probably would cut down on fouls, though. Social distancing by the players in any team sport seems just about impossible to me. Maybe golf would have the best chance of pulling true social distancing off.

Anyhow, a lot of smart people are working on this this all out and each sport is figuring out how they can resume — safely. Seems to me football might be ahead of the other sports in their planning — just about every player on every team already wear face masks, so they’re obviously progressive thinkers….
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There’s been a lot in the news lately about the unrest in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has always been just about my most favorite city. So you probably figure that today’s blog is going to be about Hong Kong… well, not exactly. Today’s topic is airports. My first time in Hong Kong was in the 1960s. My first flight into the city was on Cathay Pacific airways. I had dosed off and woke up during the landing — when I looked out the window I was literally eye-to eye with a woman hanging laundry on the balcony of an apartment building. If any of you have landed at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak International Airport, you know exactly what I mean — if you haven’t, it’s almost impossible to imagine what it was like. 

I should probably pause here and let you know, or remind you that the Kai Tak airport closed about 20 years ago. Today, Hong Kong’s main airport is generally known simply as Hong Kong International Airport. It was built a distance from downtown on reclaimed land on the island of Chek Lap Kok. The airport is also referred to as Chek Lap Kok International Airport or Chek Lap Kok Airport, to distinguish it from its predecessor, Kai Tak Airport. 

But back to what was my favorite airport in my favorite city. Kai Tak was built in 1925 on reclaimed land in Kowloon Bay, opposite Hong Kong Island. It sat in a bowl, surrounded by mountains and water — later untold number of apartment buildings sprung up around it. In 1958, with demand on the airport increasing, a new runway was built. For those into airplane/airport talk — it was Runway 13/31. The runway jutted out into Victoria Harbor, and it soon earned the nickname “Kai Tak Heart Attack.” 

Kai Tak was probably one of the last major airports where ILS (Instrument Landing Systems) weren’t/couldn’t be used. Pilots had to be trained to to get into and out of the airport and had to rely on basic flying skills — not instruments. Landing on Runway 13/31 meant making  an approach across Victoria Harbor (one of the world’s busiest ports) and densely populated Kowloon. The pilot had to visually find “Checkerboard Hill” (an orange and white painted marker above a park.) Then the pilot had to veer right, making a 47 degree turn at low altitude (and about 200 miles an hour.) This maneuver was made just two miles from the runway — after that, the aircraft flew over/between apartment buildings and busy streets to get to the runway. 

Departures had their own challenges. the runway was short, and once off the ground, the aircraft had to turn sharply to avoid Beacon Hill and Lion Rock, two mountains each about 1600 feet high. 

Landing in Hong Kong was like nothing I’d ever experienced before — and never have since.

While we’re on the subject of airports, on my first flight to La Paz, in Bolivia, the pilot announced that we were starting our ascent to the airport — not descent, but ascent. It turns out that El Alto International Airport is the highest international airport, and the sixth highest commercial airport tin the world. After I thought about this, I looked it up and the airport sits at an altitude of 13, 325 feet. It doesn’t fit into the same category of “favorites” as Hong Kong, but because of its altitude, it falls into one of my “unique” flying experiences.
Just a side note… while checking on the altitude of the airport in La Paz, I discovered that the highest airport in the world is Daocheng Yading Airport, located in China’s Sichuan province — it’s almost three miles above sea level. I’ve never been there, but I expect you have fly up to land there, too.

I’ve heard that much of who we are is where we’ve been —  I think maybe that also applies to how we got there….
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Today is Memorial Day — the day that traditionally kicks off the beginning of the summer season. Of course that isn’t what Memorial Day is all about. It’s an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May that honors the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. 

Even though the “holiday” originated in the years following the Civil War, it only became an official federal holiday in 1971.

The Civil War ended in 1865 and claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history… so many that it required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. By the late 1860s, people in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and holding prayer services.

Most people probably know that Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day. On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance — “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and who’s bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” Logan called the the occasion Decoration Day, and the date was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle. 

On that first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there. 

Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and by 1890 each state had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states continued to honor their dead on separate days until after World War I.
Confederate Memorial Day is still celebrated in several states and this year it was April 26 in Floriday, April 27 in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi and May 11 in parts of South Carolina.

John Logan selected May 30 as the date for Decoration Day and it continued to be the date the day was observed even after it became to be referred to as Memorial Day. But in 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May — in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees. The change went into effect in 1971, and Memorial Day was made an official federal holiday.

You may not know that every year on Memorial Day a national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time. 

Old records show that one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations was organized by a group of freed slaves in Charleston, South Carolina less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865. But Charleston isn’t acknowledged as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. That honor goes to Waterloo, New York. Waterloo first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866. Apparently the New York location was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags. 

The first year or so after we moved to Shepherdstown, we were out and drove by the Elmwood cemetery here in Shepherdstown where many Confederate soldiers that were killed in the battle at Antietam, are buried. [Even though there is an Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, no Confederate soldiers were allowed to be buried there — because they fought for the South.] Small Confederate flags had been placed on all those graves here in Shepherdstown. Claire was initially a little shocked, and wondered why they weren’t American flags. The reason is because the Confederate flag is the flag they fought under — and died for. I know that the Confederate flag has caught a lot of flack lately, and rightfully so, but I think in this instance, and on Memorial Day, decorating those graves with the Confederate flag is fitting and proper. Like everything else in this blog, it’s my opinion….

Anyhow, happy Memorial Day to everyone — it’ll probably be a little more subdued this year, but the reason we celebrate it hasn’t changed at all, and this year it just may be more meaningful to everyone…..
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I know the month of May is full of special days for our family — there’s at least six family birthdays this month, and probably other family events that I’m not even aware of. But in our house, today, May 22, is known as Anniversary Day. 

Wedding anniversaries have been celebrated for a long time — at least as far back as the Holy Roman Empire when husbands crowned their wives with a silver wreath on their twenty-fifth anniversary and a gold wreath on the fiftieth. Initially, only those two anniversaries were celebrated — the others generally passed unnoticed. During the 19th century it gradually became popular to celebrate other wedding anniversaries, probably because of the growing emphasis on family and home life. 

The most important lesson to be learned from the history of anniversaries is that they started out as a reason to celebrate and relieve the stress of daily life. They are a way to remember and rekindle those feelings that made you decide to get married in the first place.

Kelly and Chris, along with Mike and Sue are celebrating their anniversaries today. I think it’s 16 years for Kelly and Chris… that would make it 21 years for Mike and Sue. 
I’m not really into the Bible, but a short verse in Romans seems to provide some good advice…”Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”
Happy Anniversary to the Anniversary Day celebrants.
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Another relatively slow day around here — this week is mostly rainy, or threatening rain almost every day. The first tropical storm (Arthur) is hanging around off the coast and supplying us with a lot of clouds. So big outdoor projects are on hold for a few days. (Just to put things in perspective, mowing my lawn is a “big outdoor project” for me.)

Anyhow, a lot of us (especially older folks) are still hang around home most of the time, even though I guess technically the “quarantine” has been lifted…
I got to thinking about all the clever remarks I’d heard from people in isolation… some I heard so many times, I’m sick of them, like “I never thought my hands would consume more alcohol than my mouth” or “better 6 feet apart than 6 feet under.” But some I haven’t heard so often and I kind of like them — especially the ones about home-schooling. We don’t have to do that anymore, but I can still identify with what a lot of parents are going through. Here’s a couple I particularly liked:

Home schooling is going well. 2 students suspended for fighting and 1 teacher fired for drinking on the job.
Day 5 of Homeschooling: One of these little monsters called in a bomb threat.
Day 6 of Homeschooling: My child just said, “I hope I don’t have the same teacher next year” … I’m offended.

And even though these aren’t about home-schooling, I Like these too… 
I don’t think anyone expected that when we changed the clocks we’d go from Standard Time to the Twilight Zone.
Went to this restaurant called “The Kitchen.” You have to gather all the ingredients and make your own meal. I have no clue how this place is still in business. 
Well, enough for a rainy day… think I’ll go check out the booze supply.
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I got a little busy yesterday and never got around to this blog. So today, we’re going to pretend it’s not today, it’s yesterday — May 17. 

First off, happy Norwegian Independence Day and a happy birthday to Mike Hauke. If you don’t know Mike Hauke, too bad — he’s a nice guy. He was best man at our wedding. Anyhow we can always remember his birthday because he was born on Norwegian Independence Day, or maybe we always remember Norwegian Independence Day because it’s Mike Hauke’s birthday….

On May 17, 1814, the Constitution of Norway was signed at Eidsvold, Norway. The constitution declared Norway as an independent nation. 
But — Norway was ruled by the kings of Denmark for many centuries. In 1814, Denmark was penalized for its support of Napoleon by giving Norway to Sweden. However, before the transition was carried out, Norway declared itself independent (on May 17.) So Norway retained some degree of independence even though it became a subject of the Swedish Crown. In 1905, again on May 17, Norway declared its complete independence. 

So — May 17th is the official National Day of Norway… known as Norwegian Constitution Day. The day is referred to simply as “Syttende Mai (17th of May) or Grunnlovsdagen (The Constitution Day.)

Norwegian Constitution Day is kind of unique in that it is very non-military in nature. All over Norway, children parade, many waving flags. The parades take the children through the community, often making stops at homes of senior citizens, war memorials, etc. 

The Constitution Day celebration is very much about the children, but all Norwegians eat, drink and make merry during the month of May to celebrate the most significant month in their history.
So happy Norwegian Independence Day and happy birthday Mike.
You may now return to today (May 18th) — already in progress….
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My neighbor’s car battery died a day or so ago — he had just paid off his car loan, and wouldn’t you know it — dead battery. He thought it might be something else because the battery seemed just fine until it just up and died. But that’s what batteries do these days. Years ago, they gave you some warning they they were on their last legs, but not today. they just work until they don’t.

Batteries have evolved along with the cars that use them. When I was growing up, all the cars used 6-volt batteries. And if my memory is correct, they just about all had positive ground systems — the vehicle chassis was directly connected to the positive terminal of the battery. 

Originally, cars were started by manually turning a hand crank. I’m old, but not old enough to remember cars with cranks to start them. My uncle did have and old Ford that had a crank, but even back then it was considered an antique, and it wasn’t practical to get from point A to point B.

But back to batteries… I got to wondering when did cars start to use 12-volt batteries instead of 6-volt batteries? And why? The why is easy — car manufacturers started to use new, higher compression engines that need more starting power — and — new features such a power seats, power windows, and such were putting more demand on electrical systems. 

When is a little murkier — my extensive research on the subject seems to indicate 1955 might be the year of the big changeover. GM started using the 12-volt system on the Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Buick in 1953, but it appears that 1955 is the year that 12-volt electrical systems became pretty much the automotive industry standard. 

My research also discovered that the Hudson Motor Car Company was the first to use a standardized battery — in 1918. The Battery Council International (BCI) is the organization that sets the dimensional standards for batteries. 

As I said — originally, cars were started by manually turning a hand crank. Besides the convenience of not having to hand crank the engine to start it, as electricity became more common, people wanted the convenience of electric lights on their cars. So, for that and a number of other reasons, it became necessary for cars to have an electrical system. The electrical systems required a DC generator of some kind to keep the battery charged. A 6-volt system was chosen, as far as I can tell, for no particularly good reason. A six volt battery only required 3 lead -acid cells and 6-volt DC generators could be made small and inexpensively… maybe that contributed to the choice.

It appears that the start of the downfall of the 6-volt battery started when electric starters came along. Electric starters draw a lot of current. That meant that heavier wires had to be used to connect the battery to the starter. Then engines got bigger and required greater torque to start… that led to larger starters and larger wires. 

So — 12-volt systems were introduced. As anyone familiar with electricity knows, when you double the voltage, you can halve the current and still produce the same amount of power. By going to 12-volt systems, more powerful starter motors could be produced without increasing the size.

Cars have used batteries for well over 80 years — a lot of people never knew that they weren’t always 12-volts. Some of us though, the mighty few remember the 6-volt days. I guess you can chalk that up to “life experience” — or maybe old age…..
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Nice day today — been working in the yard. Came in and thought I’d read the news before I took a shower. The President visited a plant in Pennsylvania yesterday and spoke about health care workers. Here is an exact quote from the President of the United States of America: 

“They’re running into death just like soldiers run into bullets, in a true sense. It’s incredible to see. It’s a beautiful thing to see.”
……….. I’ve gotta stop reading the news.
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Well, since I have nothing particular on my mind today, and I just finished reading the news, and a couple of articles talked about the President’s news conferences, and it seems like the news conferences consisted mostly of name calling, finger pointing and various other types of school-yard behavior…. I thought we might talk about kindness today.

When I was young, I was told to be kind — always. Of course when you’re a kid, that kind of advice goes right over your head. But like a lot of things you hear when you’re a kid, it begins to makes sense and the older you get, you realize it’s really good advice. 

There are a lot of reasons to be kind — in fact I’ve heard that it’s actually good for your health. Research has shown that the act of being kind releases a range of natural feel-good hormones in your body, including oxytocin and endorphins. So, theoretically, at least, practicing kindness, compassion, and appreciation can make you happier, boost your immune system, reverse signs of aging, relieve pain, and even help you live longer. Call me a pessimist, but I don’t think the President is going to push this a a cure for COVID-19, even though it might make more sense than bleach…

Kindness is about treating others the way you want to be treated. It’s more than just holding your tongue when you’re tempted to say something unkind. Kindness is the way you interact with people to  remind them they’re not invisible, alone or insignificant. Compassion usually goes right along with kindness — it enables you to see a situation from someone else’s perspective and agree with them or at least give them the benefit of the doubt. Generally speaking, when you show kindness and compassion to others, you benefit as much — or maybe more — than they do.

There’s an old saying that kindness begets kindness. Kindness also makes you a better person. Again, no real point — just that even though my parent’s advice to “be kind — always” was and is good advice… it somehow seems more important these days.
The Dalai Lama has a good quote: “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
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