What Would Jimmy Do?

Super Bowl LIV is on tap for this Sunday. For some reason I haven’t heard quite as much hype about it this year… maybe San Francisco and Kansas City just don’t generate that much interest. From what I’ve heard, Kansas City seems to be favored to win, but I’m not sure of the current point spread. I guess it really doesn’t matter about the favorite — as the saying goes, “that’s the reason they play the game.”

This year’s game is in Miami — I’m not sure what the weather forecast is, but I’m pretty sure it won’t snow. Snow has yet to fall during a Super Bowl. The other thing that probably won’t happen is either team failing to score. Every team that has played in a Super Bowl has scored. But in six Super Bowls the offenses did fail to score a touchdown. 

I think it’s interesting that no team has ever played in a Super Bowl hosted in its home stadium. A couple of times games have been hosted in their metropolitan areas, but in a different stadium. The Minnesota Viking are the only team to have come within one win of playing the game in their home stadium. The 2018 Super Bowl was scheduled to be played in the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, but the Vikings lost in the NFC Championship Game that year.

The closest, geographically, the two Super Bowl participants have resided was in Super Bowl XLI when the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears faced each other — the teams homes were separated by only 164 miles. 

Four teams have never reached the Super Bowl — the Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns and Jacksonville Jaguars. In addition to these four teams, 12 others have yet to win a Super Bowl: the Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Chargers, Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans.

The Baltimore Ravens, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (and of course the four teams that never reached the big game) have yet to lose a Super Bowl.
There has never been a Super Bowl that neither team has failed to score a touchdown.

The record for the most consecutive Super Bowl appearances  is held by the Buffalo Bills — they played in Super Bowls XXV, XXVI, XXVII and XXVIII… and lost all four. The Minnesota Vikings also managed to lose four Super Bowls, but not consecutively.

There seems to be a Super Bowl record for just about anything you can name that’s in any way associated with the game. I remember watching the first Super Bowl in 1967 — I had no idea it would become the annual spectacle it’s become today — or — that I’d have a use for those Roman Numerals  I had to learn in grade school….
— 30 —

Well, we’re now into the 2020s (“twenty-twenties”) or “two thousand (and) twenties” decade in the Gregorian calendar… but the Chinese New Year doesn’t begin until today (January 25th.) And the festival will last until February 8th — about 15 days. The Chinese New Year 2020 is the Year of the Rat. The Chinese zodiac is much too complicated to get into an in-depth discussion here, but I guess technically, 2020 is the Male White Metal Rat year. But most of us will just refer to it as the Year of the Rat.

We’re almost a month into our new year, and I’m doing really well on my resolutions, but now its time to turn my attention to Chinese New Year — a holiday that we always celebrate — besides finding it interesting, it always occurs between January 21 and February 20. That just seems like a good time for a celebration. We’re done with all the Christmas and New Year celebrations, the weather is usually crappy, so what better time for a festival. In China, it’s even referred to as the Spring Festival. Since the dates are based on the lunar calendar, many countries refer to it as the Lunar New Year or Lunar Festival.

The lunar calendar is still very important in China, even though it has officially moved to the Gregorian calendar like the rest of the world. The Chinese still celebrate all the traditional lunar holidays and days such as the Winter Solstice.

I write something about Chinese New Year every year, and by now I’ve just about run out of anything “new” to write about it. So if it seems like you’ve read some of this before, it’s because you probably have. But anyhow, here we go… 2020 is the Year of the Rat. Some of the animals in the Chinese zodiac aren’t particularly well liked, such as the Rat, Pig, and Snake. But the Chinese believe those animals positive traits are bestowed on people born in those years. The zodiac in China plays a much bigger role than in Western cultures. The animal of your birth year can decide your career, health and relationship success. 

The year of your birth is known as your benming year and is the year of your zodiac animal. Of the 12 year zodiac cycle, your benming year is the unluckiest for you. There are multiple explanations as to why — the Chinese believe that children can easily be taken by demons, and your benming year is your rebirth year. When your benming year rolls around, your weapon of defense is the color red. People decorate their homes in red for protection (and fortune) but they also wear red clothing. Many people will wear red underwear every day of the year. Some add red shirts, pants, jewelry and other items of apparel.

In China, you have a “real age” and a “fake” nominal age. The real age is the one we all know about. You grow one year older on your birthday. The nominal age, though, increases with the Spring Festival. This was the age most people went with until recent times. 

The Chinese have a saying that there’s no manner and/or etiquette without wine. This means that you need to have wine for every ceremony, festival or important dinner. There’s wine for engagement dinners, weddings, birthdays and, of course, the Spring Festival. When you’re eating with someone older than you, as is the case with New Year’s dinners, you need to follow strict toasting etiquette rules. That includes the order of the toasts, seating, how you hold the wine glass, etc. 

The new moon time determines the new moon date. The new moon time is at 5:43 on Saturday, January 25, 2020, in China’s time zone. Therefore, Chinese New Year Day is Saturday, January 25, 2020. The new moon time is at 21:49 on Friday January 24, 2020, in the United States Pacific Time zone. So — the 2020 Chinese New Year Day is on Friday, January 24, 2020 in California. Where we live, it’s already past midnight, so Chinese New Year Day here is on Saturday.

The New Year greeting in Chinese is xin nian kuki le. The phrase literally means “Happy New Year.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself….. 
— 30 —

Every year, sometime before the first pre-season NFL game is played, I use my excellent analytic and forecasting ability to predict who will play in the Super Bowl. Here’s the way it works — I write down the name of the two teams that I think will play in the Super Bowl at the end of the upcoming season. I only pick the teams that I think will play in the game, I never pick a team to win. I also — every year — make a prediction as to what the Redskins win/loss record will be.

I write these predictions down, seal them in an envelope and don’t open it until the week before the Super Bowl. This is only for my own entertainment — if someone asks, I’ll tell them my choices, but only during the week before the Super Bowl. I know this all sounds kind of stupid, but it doesn’t take much to entertain me.

I thought this year, I’d reveal my predictions here rather than just keeping them to myself. In case you’re wondering, I’ve never picked the two teams that actually played in the game — I’ve picked one of the teams several times, but not both. 

So now that I have you on the edge of your seats, here were my predictions for Super Bowl LIV. The San Diego (actually I guess they’re now technically in Los Angeles) Chargers and the Philadelphia Eagles. Yep, my prediction had the Eagles playing the Chargers in next week’s game. Obviously this wasn’t my best year, but I did predict the Redskins record would be 3-13 — which, incidentally, happens to be exactly correct. So I batted a little over .300… that’s not too bad.
— 30 —

I’ve mentioned numerous times in the past that we often go out for Asian food. Before we moved from Vienna, we went to a Chinese restaurant pretty much every week. Since moving here to Shepherdstown, we often go to Kome — an Asian restaurant that advertises itself as Thai, but it’s really more “Asian.” Some time back, the restaurant started providing “throwaway” chopsticks. They come in a little paper wrapper and must be broken apart to use them. They’re really too short and just generally not acceptable (to me.) Not that I’m an expert when it comes to chopsticks, but I’ve been using them for more than fifty years — so I at least know what I like.

Well, every time I go to Kome, I complain about the chopsticks. Many times, we go to the restaurant with our friend, Anne. Apparently she got tired of hearing me complain and for Christmas, she gave me a set of chopsticks made out of titanium — and — they came in a titanium case. 

Even though I’ve written about chopsticks here before, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do it again… especially given the fact that Chinese New Year will be here in a few days. 

Chopsticks have been around for between 3,000 and 5,000 years. They originated in China and it’s thought that the Chinese philosopher Confucius had a major influence on their development as eating tools. Chonfucius’ nonviolent teaching philosophy was that instruments such as knives, with the connection people make with them for war and violence, were not to be used at the dinner table.

Using chopsticks involves over 30 joints and 50 muscles in the fingers, wrist, arm and shoulder as well as thousands of nerves.
February 6th is National Chopstick Day.
Almost one third of the world uses chopsticks every day — about as many as use a knife and fork.
80 percent of chopsticks made in Japan are made in the small city of Obama (spelled the same as President Obama) — it has a population of about 32,000.
The fear of chopsticks is called “consecotaleophobia.”

The Chinese use longer style chopsticks than other countries, usually made of wood that come to rounded or blunt end. These are the ones I prefer.
The Japanese use short, wooden sticks that come to a sharper pointy end.
Koreans use shorter, metallic, wood or plastic sticks that are often blunt at the end.
The Vietnamese also use longer sticks that come to a blunted end, like in China — often made of wood, but many are plastic.

So next time you visit us in Shepherdstown, we’ll take you out for some Asian food — but be warned, I’ll be using my titanium chopsticks — you’ll be on your own.
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The moon was especially big and bright a few nights ago and I just stayed outside and watched it for several minutes. The “sky” has been in the news a good amount lately — a student discovered a new planet, some new stars have been located in the Milky Way and a number of black holes have been mis-behaving, or at least not behaving the way astronomers say they always have….

Since we moved here to West Virginia, I’ve done a fair amount of sky watching, since there isn’t near the amount of ambient light that we had when we were living in Virginia. My neighbor and I often watch the International Space Station when it’s visible from Shepherdstown. We’ve even become pretty good at picking out some of the planets and constellations. 

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but the “sky” is different depending on where you are on Earth. When we lived in the Philippines, we often checked out the Southern Cross — a constellation not visible in the United States. Well, actually that’s not quite true. For much, if not most, of the Northern Hemisphere the Southern Cross never rises above the horizon, so it can never be seen from about the middle of the United States northward. You can see it from Hawaii. In the contiguous U.S., to view the Southern Cross, you need to be in southern Florida or Texas — specifically, you must be at 26 degrees north latitude, or further south. Even in those few locations in the U.S. there is a limited viewing window to catch the Southern Cross — it has to be the right season of the year, and the right time of night. Of course, you also have to look in the right direction…. south would be good.

I’m not an astronomer, but I’ve learned that there are (I think) 88 constellations — the Southern Cross is the smallest of those constellations. But it is a prominent one and one of the best known constellations in the Southern Hemisphere. The Southern Cross was originally (and sometimes today) known as Crux — a Latin name that means “the cross.” The cross shape is formed by the constellations five brightest stars.

Once again, there’s no real point to this — but, I like stars. I’ve been fortunate enough (or unfortunate enough, depending on your point of view) several times to be places that the view of the stars is magnificent. I’ve never been to space, but if the view is any better than a few I’ve had here on Earth, it must be mighty special. Stars are cool — they don’t say anything or judge anyone. Someone once said that you should never complain beneath the stars about the lack of bright spots in you life….
— 30 —

Some time back, I talked about barns and why they were painted red. One thing that often/usually existed on older barns was a weathervane. At one time, these things were considered essential for farmers to have… today they’re more decorative, but they do still perform the same function and sometimes I think they are about as accurate as weather satellites when it comes to predicting the weather. 

So you guessed it — today’s topic is weathervanes. The components of a weathervane are the vane, the mast, and the directionals, which display the four points of the compass — North, South, East and West. The vane usually resembles an arrow shape, often with some decorative figure on top. The vane rotates freely and points in the direction the wind is coming from. The directionals remain stationary. So if the arrow is pointing north, that means the are coming from the north indicating a “north wind.”

Originally, people tied strings or cloth to the tops of buildings so that they could see which way the wind was blowing. Later, banners became a popular ornament and that’s where we get the “vane” in weathervane — it’s an Old English word that meant “banner” or “flag.”

Probably the first real weathervane (not simply a piece of cloth) was on top of the Tower of the Winds, a First Century B.C. octagonal tower in Athens, Greece. The tower was topped by a bronze wind vane in the shape of Triton, the sea god. The vane was designed so that Triton, who was holding a rod in his hand, would turn so that the rod pointed in the direction of the blowing wind. Obviously weathervanes work best when they’re placed on top of the tallest structure available because there’s less obstacles to obstruct the wind. Before long, weathervanes like the one on top of the Tower of the Winds spread throughout Europe, often on top of towers and church steeples. Usually those on churches were adorned with a cross or an image of a patron saint…. but they all served the same purpose — to turn and point in the direction of the wind.

It seems that he most popular weathervane “topper” now is the rooster. Since church steeples were often the highest structure around they were popular spots for weathervanes. The rooster is an important symbol in Christian churches — primarily because of the story of St. Peter after the Last Supper. The Bible writings tell us that Peter would deny Jesus three times “before the rooster crowed.” The rooster became known to many Christians as the symbol of St. Peter. 

In the 9th century, Pope Nicholas decreed that all churches must display the rooster on their steeples or domes as a symbol of Peter’s betrayal of Jesus. In accordance with the decree, churches started using weathervanes with the rooster. We have a rooster at our church — not on a weathervane, but on a pole. As centuries passed, the rule about placing roosters atop churches went by the wayside — but roosters stayed on weathervanes. 

So today, you mostly see weathervanes on Barns — usually one of the taller structures on a farm, and many of them are adorned with a rooster. I’m not sure why roosters are that popular for weathervanes on farms, but a rooster is a farm animal and the shape of a rooster (especially their tail) makes it the perfect shape to catch the wind. If you wanted to get dramatic about it, you could say that the rooster is the first to see the rising sun and announce the day — it represents the victory of light over darkness while warding off evil….
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Politics and Religion are usually good topics to stay away from. I think I usually avoid those subjects for the most part, and when I do discuss them I’m only expressing an opinion…. not trying to influence anyone else’s opinions or thoughts. 

This past weekend at church, the homily/sermon was about John the Baptist. My mother was a Baptist, my father was a Methodist and I was confused. When I was growing up, religion was always a troubling subject with me. Not that I was an accomplished analyst at 6 or 7 or 8 years of age, but all the things I was hearing just didn’t make sense to me — logically or otherwise. I spent a lot of time in various religious classes and courses over the years trying to make some sense of it. 

Anyhow, what prompted me to write about this today, was the mention of John the Baptist. It reminded me of a story when I was young — my mother told me that she was a Baptist because John the Baptist was a Baptist. Now even though I was probably only 7 or 8 years old, I knew that wasn’t true. I remember that during the discussion, she admitted that really she was a Baptist because my granddad and grandmother were Baptists. I’m not sure why I remember that conversation, but I usually think of it when John the Baptist is mentioned. 

So — with that background, let’s talk about John the Baptist. John was the son of Zachariah and Elizabeth. His birth was foretold by the angel Gabriel to Zachariah. He was born about six months before his cousin, Jesus of Nazareth. John lived as a hermit in the desert of Judea. After a period of solitude in the desert, he started his ministry preaching repentance on the banks of the Jordan River converting and baptizing  people. (He wasn’t baptizing them into any religion (i.e., Baptists) — he was baptizing them into repentance for the coming of Jesus.) Just to prove I was paying attention in church this weekend — a lot of people flocked to hear John the Baptist and Jesus joined this group…. John recognized Him as the Messiah and baptized him saying that “It is I who need baptism from You.”

The “power” of John the Baptist increased and he was placed under arrest by Herod who had him imprisoned in chains in a facility on the banks of the Dead Sea. John the Baptist had preached against (and condemned) Herod because he had divorced his first wife and married someone who had formerly been married to his brother. Salome was the daughter of Herod’s second wife and Herod promised her any reward she chose in exchange for her dancing. Salome demanded that the head of John the Baptist be brought to her on a platter. So that was the cause of John the Baptist’s death — beheaded.

John the Baptist was not a Baptist — one large group split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century and insisted that adults be baptized by immersion in order to join the church. This original group fractured — the more conservative elements eventually  became the Mennonites and Amish. The more liberal became the various Baptist organizations. Some people argue that Baptist is the only religion mentioned in the Bible, but today’s Baptist religion didn’t get its name until the 16th century.

There you have it — a lesson in religion according to Jimmy….
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When I was growing up, the term “Morse Code” was familiar to most people. Many/most people couldn’t read Morse Code and most weren’t even sure what it was, but they had at least heard the term. That’s probably not the case today. Morse Code uses a unique series of dots and dashes, called “dii and dah” for each letter of the alphabet and the numbers 0 through 9. The system was developed in 1836 by Samuel Morse, Alford Vail and Joseph Henry. 

Obviously, morse code played a very important role in the development of timely long-distance communications and it is celebrated by two special days each year. Today, January 11 is Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day. In a few months, we celebrate Morse Code Day, on April 27. These two special days every year are celebrated for similar, but slightly different, reasons. 

As I mentioned earlier, Morse Code was developed in 1836 — a couple of years later, on January 11, 1838, Samuel Morse and Alford Vail demonstrated the use of the electric telegraph to transmit a message in morse code for the first time. The date for Learn You Name in Morse Code Day was chosen because that was the date of the first successful electric transmission of the code over wires. 

Sending Morse Code over telegraph lines allowed for instant, coast to coast communication of information. Even after radios arrived on the scene, Morse Code continued to be a major means of communications. Morse Code was in use in the military, ham (amateur) radios and other means of communication for decades. It remains in use, although limited, even today. As a communication tool, morse code in being replaced by modern technology. There is no mainstream use of Morse Code now and the system is, in fact, in danger of disappearing as a means of communication. The ability to send and receive Morse Code was always a requirement to be able to obtain a ham radio license. However, in 2007, that no longer was required to obtain a license from the FCC. 

Morse Code Day celebrates the invention of Morse Code and the electric telegraph machine. The celebration date was chosen to be Samuel Morse’s birthday — April 27, 1791.

Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day was created to stir up interest in Morse Code, to encourage people to learn and use it — and — to keep it from disappearing altogether. 
I did have to learn Morse Code when I was younger and used it a number of times over the years…. so, here’s my name in morse code:
(J) • — — —
(I) • •
(M) — —
(M) — —
(Y) — • — —
Happy Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day — maybe we should all learn it, then we’ll have two “secret” ways to communicate — morse code and cursive….
— 30 —

Did you ever have a bowl of Cheerios and notice that when there are only a few Cheerios left floating on top of the milk, they tend to cluster together in little bunches — usually around the edge of the bowl? Did you ever wonder why they do that? Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve wondered about that for many years. 

If you’ve read this blog over the years, you know there are a lot of things that I wonder about. Sometimes I wonder about something for some period of time and finally I just don’t wonder about it anymore. Or, sometimes I solve the puzzlement to my satisfaction and then I stop wondering.

It turns out that I wasn’t the only one wondering about that mysterious behavior of Cheerios. Finally, the scientific community took action and performed a scientific study to explain the behavior. Thanks to Brown University for looking into this phenomenon. 

Here’s what’s happening — it has to do with surface tension, the tendency of molecules on the surface of a liquid to stick together, forming a thin film across the surface — and — gravity. Small objects like Cheerios aren’t heavy enough to break the surface tension of milk, so they float. Their weight, however, does create a small dent in the surface film. When one Cheerio dent gets close enough to another, they fall into each other, merging their dents and eventually forming clusters on the milk’s surface. 

That certainly puts my mind at ease. The study went on to develop a method to measure the forces that cause small object to cluster together on the surface of a liquid. I really don’t care about the forces involved — I just needed to know why they congregated. 

The study did, however, name the phenomenon the “Cheerio effect.” I do like the name — now I can truly enjoy my next bowl of Cheerios….
— 30 —

A few days ago we were driving near Boonsboro in Maryland. We passed a couple of nice barns and Claire remarked that they should be painted red — they were both white. Well, that got me to thinking — when we’re driving, a lot, if not most, barnes we see are painted red. You’ve probably guessed by now that this is a subject that just begs for some of my extensive research. 

Turns out, barn paint is an interesting subject. Many years ago, farmers didn’t have a choice for paints or sealers and had to be resourceful in finding (or — usually — making) a paint that would protect and seal the wood on their barns. Hundreds of years ago, many farmers would seal their barns with linseed oil, which is an orange-colored oil derived from the seed of the flax plant. They usually mixed milk and lime to the oil, but also ferrous oxide. (Ferrous oxide is basically just rust.) Rust was plentiful on farms and because it killed fungi and mosses that might grow on barns, it was a very effective sealant. When mixed with the linseed oil, it turned the mixture red in color. Years later, when paint became more available, many farmers chose red paint for their barns because of tradition. 

My research could have ended there, but it was a slow day and I dug a little deeper. Another theory as to the red color claimed that, farmers (especially rich farmers) mixed the linseed-oil/milk/lime concoction  with blood from a recent slaughter. As the paint dried, it turned from a bright red to a darker, burnt red. (Actually, the term “barn red” isn’t the bright, fire-engine red that we often see today — it’s more of a burnt-orange red.) At any rate, no matter how a farmer tinted his paint, having a red barn became a fashionable thing. 

Now I should mention that the road in Maryland we were driving on is known as the Old National Pike. My research uncovered the fact that while red barns are still a tradition in most US farming regions, white barns are the norm along the Old National Pike. One reasonable explanation that the red barn tradition never took root along that path is because the road made freight, including white lead, accessible to nearby farmers. Basically, lead paint simply wasn’t available in most rural areas before the 1880s except in very narrow corridors with good transportation (like the Old National Pike.) 

So red barns were originally red for a reason — seems like everything is more interesting when you know the “rest of the story.”
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