What Would Jimmy Do?

Well, tomorrow, Christmas will be here. I’ve always liked Christmas and the Christmas “season.” Seems like this time every year, people are just a little nicer and most people are generally in a better frame of mind.

I hadn’t thought much about Santa Claus for a number of years, but in the last few, with the arrival of grandkids, he’s come up more often. I know Santa Claus is from the North Pole, but I wonder how he chose a place like that to live? You’d think he’d opt for Miami Beach or someplace warm. And his name — Santa Claus — I wonder if Claus is his last name or middle name? I’ve never known anyone named Santa besides, well, Santa.

Turns out that the legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. He was born and lived a couple of hundred years after the birth of Christ in what is now modern-day Turkey. St. Nicholas was quite a guy and became the patron of lots and lots of groups, ranging from sailors to entire nations.
But he became a legend when he became known as a patron of children and a magical gift bringer. A number of stories detail his devotion to children and his kindness shown by delivering gifts to them.
For hundreds of years St. Nicholas was the unchallenged bringer of gifts and the toast of celebrations centered around St. Nicholas Day, on December 6.

In 1821 an illustrated poem (The Children’s Friend) was instrumental in shaping the modern Santa and associating him with Christmas. The poem took the magical gift-bringing of St. Nicholas, and handed this duty to Santa. The poem indicated that Santa brought gifts to good girls and boys, but he also carried a birch rod for those not so good. The poem’s Santa rode in a thin wagon and was pulled by a single reindeer.
Then in 1822, Clement Clark Moore wrote “The Night Before Christmas” — it went “viral” and the modern Santa was born.

Some people think Santa Clause detracts from the real meaning of Christmas — I don’t agree. Santa Clause isn’t just someone that knows when you’re naughty or nice and brings presents. Santa Clause represents goodness, generosity, kindness and brings along that “Christmas Spirit” we all wish could stick around all year. But it’s good that that spirit gets renewed every year. As I mentioned a little while back when discussing the Polar Express adventure we took with Emily, it’s mostly about believing… and every year about this time we all seem to believe a little more in good and a little less in evil. So thanks, Santa.
Merry Christmas to all.
— 30 —

I’ve been fortunate enough during my working career to be involved in a number of interesting projects. Recently, a movie was released about an incident that occurred in 1960 – the capture of an American pilot, Gary Powers, after he was shot down while “spying” over the Soviet Union. The airplane that Powers was flying was U-2. This is one of the programs I was fortunate enough to have worked on.

From what I can tell, the movie seems to indicate that this was Powers first mission in the U-2. The fact is that it was his 28th mission. When Gary Powers was shot down, the US had been flying U-2 reconnaissance missions over Russia for nearly four years. The Soviets knew these overflights were taking place, but didn’t have the capability to shoot down an airplane flying at 70,000 feet – the altitude that the U-2 operated to take photos. Powers last mission was the first south to north traversal of the Soviet Union — previously, flights into the Soviet mainland generally turned around and went back the way they came.

The U-2c that made the first overflight of the Soviet Union on July 4, 1956 is on display at the Air and Space Museum. The U-2 gave the U.S. a capability to capture high-resolution images of huge plots of land. It proved the “missile gap” and “bomber gap” the U.S. thought heavily favored the Soviet Union was nothing but a myth.
The installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles of Key West, Florida was detected by U-2’s in 1962 and sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Kelly Johnson, Lockheed Aircraft’s chief engineer (and his team) was responsible for designing and building the world’s first dedicated spy plane for the CIA. Amazingly the task was accomplished in a little over eight months.
The U-2 is still flying intelligence-gathering missions today — almost 60 years after its first flight. It has been challenged by satellites, the SR-71 Blackbird and unmanned drones, but the U-2 continues to produce valuable intelligence — flying above 70,000 feet for up to 12 hours at a time.
I’d call this a success story…..
— 30 —

Wow! As always, there’s so much to be thankful for — not just today, but always…
Not to belittle other things, but here’s my Top Ten list for today.

Claire
Kelly
David
Chris
Chassie
Emily
Locke
Claire’s extended family
My extended family
Health
Friends [bonus — if you’re counting]

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!!
— 30 —

Last Friday evening we took a trip to the North Pole on the Polar Express. In case neither one of the faithful readers know the story, one Christmas Eve many years ago, a boy went to bed after being told by a friend that Santa didn’t exist. He listened for the bells of Santa’s sleigh, but he heard something different, looked out the window and saw a steam engine parked on the lawn. The conductor invited him to board the Polar Express — a train filled with children on their way to the North Pole. The train took the children to the center of the city where Santa and the elves had gathered for the giving of the first gift of Christmas. The boy was chosen to receive this first gift. Even though he could choose anything in the world, he decided on a simple gift — one silver bell from Santa’s sleigh. Santa cut a bell from a reindeer’s harness and the boy slipped it into his bathrobe pocket just as the clock struck midnight and the reindeer pulled Santa and his sleigh into the sky. When all the children got back on the train, the boy realized the bell had fallen through a hole in his pocket. On Christmas morning, his little sister found a small box with the boy’s name on it among the presents. Inside was the silver bell. The boy and his sister were enchanted by the bell’s beautiful sound, but their parents couldn’t hear it. The boy continued to believe in the spirit of Christmas and was able to hear the ringing of the bell even as an adult.

The book was read during the train trip and when we got to the North pole, Santa boarded the train and talked with everyone — and those that believed, got a silver bell!! Emily seemed to have had a great time, as did all of us.

The story conveys a great message about believing. A friend of ours has a sign that reads, “Everyone should believe in something; I believe I’ll have another beer.”
But whether we realize it or not, we all believe…. I got a silver bell, and I can hear it ring. Before Santa gave it to me, he asked, “Do you believe?” He didn’t ask if I believed in Santa — just, “do you believe?” I answered truthfully — I do believe
… in true love
… that people are in our lives for a reason
… you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance
… that one should never say never
… that life is about choices
… the world is a beautiful place
We all have a list of what we believe in — the list changes over time, but some things on it don’t.
I guess we all need a ride on the Polar Express from time to time to remind us how important it is to believe.
— 30 —

Back around the first part of October, I rambled on here about punctuation and touched a bit on how people no longer use correct punctuation, but don’t even rite or spel very gud… what with the texting and all.

Well, apparently even I didn’t realize the extent of the movement (problem?) — every year the Oxford English Dictionary chooses a Word of the Year. And guess what? This year’s  Word of the Year isn’t even a word!! Both you faithful readers remember that in October, I mentioned something called “emoji.” The Oxford English Dictionary chose the 2015 Word of the Year to be — a “smiley” face with tears — 😢.
Now does that look like a word to you? It doesn’t have any letters! Words are made up of letters! According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the chosen word “best reflects the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015.” Good grief!

The term emoji comes from the Japanese e meaning “picture” and mojo meaning “letter” or “character.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “Emojis are no longer the preserve of texting teens. Instead, they have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and one which can cross language barriers.”

In some ways I blame Apple for this movement — back in 2011 they added a readily accessible emoji keyboard to iOS 5 for the iPhone. I thought it was silly then and I still do. Emojis look like cartoons of faces, flags, food, symbols, vehicles, , etc, From what I can tell, the intent was to illustrate a point, but now they seem to be used to replace words altogether at least when we communicate with each other electronically.
If you have a smartphone (who doesn’t) emoji are available to you as an optional written language, like English, French or Arabic. On my iPhone, the emoji keyboard is right between the Dutch and Estonian keyboards.  I’ve heard, but am not interested enough to do my normal extensive research, that the entire text of Moby Dick has been translated into emoji.

If communicating (accurately) with each other isn’t hard enough, we’ve now invented a whole new confusing way to “communicate” with each other. We now have a new language or vocabulary to tell people we love them, they’ve made us sad, that we’re laughing or job well done.
I suppose that for the modern world, picking the “Tears of Joy” emoji is a good choice.
We all express our thoughts and feelings in different ways, but today when most people seem to have trouble with face to face or even voice communications, maybe this is the perfect way to send those thoughts/feelings to that special someone and it be understood completely.
— 30 —

Both myself and Claire have been involved with people and projects lately that seems to have elicited a fair amount of criticism (or as we like to say — critique) from both of us. Fortunately, we both have expressed that criticism/critique only to each other — I hope.

Anyhow, that got me to wondering about criticism and critique — what’s the difference in the two, or are they the same? Seems like this just begs for some extensive research so here’s what I found….
The bottom line, it turns out, is there is no difference. The base meaning is to “pass judgement on,” but in reality the usual use of both words has come to mean “pass negative judgement on.”
I was always of the opinion that when something is critiqued, one is expressing s view — by stating what you like, and why as well as what you don’t like, and why. Criticism is just the negatives. When something is criticized, there are no positives — only the “bad” things are mentioned.

During my extensive research, I ran across an article that attempted to explain the difference between the two words. I thought it was pretty good, but probably doesn’t reflect reality in the way both terms are used today….
Criticism finds fault/critique looks at structure
Criticism looks for what’s lacking/critique finds what’s working
Criticism condemns what it doesn’t understand/critique asks for clarification
Criticism is negative/critique is positive
Criticism is vague and general/critique is concrete and specific

It’s too bad these distinctions have sort of morphed into one.
Since criticism is so easy to dish out, we should all learn how to deal with it. Norman Vincent Peal said, “The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”
I guess it’s true that the only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.
— 30 —

Today is a very special day for Chassie and Dave — their second wedding anniversary. It was good to see them a little while today. They say a successful marriage requires falling in love many times — always with the same person. Seems like so far they’ve achieved that. Happy Anniversary to a very special couple!!
— 30 —

I’ve always heard that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. Most people have probably heard it and if you asked then what they know about snowflakes, I bet the thing most people would say first is that, “no two are exactly alike.” But is that really true? In all of time and in all the snowstorms that have hit the earth, has there never been two snowflakes alike?
Now the fact is, if you’re like most people, it’s not a big deal to you and you’d just as soon leave well enough alone and assume it’s true — or not true.

Although snowflakes are one of the things I wonder about occasionally, I’m not really concerned enough to do my usual extensive research on the subject.
But I got to thinking — snowflakes seem to get a lot of credit for being unique in that there aren’t any two alike. I’m thinking there are other things that fall into this “not alike” category.

If “no two alike” means exactly — then that includes almost everything. Almost nothing in nature is exactly alike. I don’t ever remember seeing two leaves or two trees or flowers that are exactly alike. And I’m told that no two people have the same fingerprints….

Actually no two situations are alike and no two people are exactly alike and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under normal or abnormal conditions.
I think that’s a good thing — even though I admire certain attributes in others, I prefer being my own unique person — kind of like a snowflake, I guess….
—30—

Back in March, I rambled on about why I use the number “30” at the end of each blog entry. If you really don’t know, and are interested, you can check it out in the archives. Thirty is an interesting number, not just because I use it to end my blog… Before most clocks became digital, the number 30 was very important to a clock… a clock face is divided into 12 sections (hours) around the circle that makes up the face. The circle is 360 degrees. If you divide 360 by 12 you get — 30. Thirty is also half of 60, the number of minutes in an hour and the number of seconds in a minute. They say you can’t trust anyone over 30 and even the Bible weighs in on the importance of the number — Christ was 30 when he began his public ministry on earth and Christ was sold out by Judas for 30 pieces of silver. Noah’s Ark was 30 cubits high. There was a 30-year war (from 1618 to 1648.) And if that’s not enough, the atomic number of Zinc is 30.

As important and impressive as 30 is, my favorite number has always —well, maybe not always but for at least a long time — been 33.
During the Vietnam War, the local beer of South Vietnam was Ba Moui Ba or Biere 33. The label had a big “33” on it. And while on the subject of beer, the Rolling Rock Beer Co. uses what they call “The 33 Mystery.” The number 33 appears on all their bottles and supposedly means 3 things. You can check their web site or call the company and find out that the 3 things refer to the repeal of prohibition in 1933 and there are 33 words in the paragraph on the bottles — and — there are 33 letters in the list of ingredients. This isn’t where I originally was headed with this blog, but I find it interesting that there is a huge disagreement over the 33 on the Rolling Rock bottle. Some of the theories are:
• The reservoir that was used by the brewery for its main water source was fed by 33 streams.
• The brewery workers were members of the Local #33 union.
• There were exactly 33 steps from the brewmaster’s office to the brewing floor.
• The Rolling Rock brewery was started with money won at the horse track (the winning bet was placed on #33 and that’s why there is a horse and the “33” on the bottle.)
• It was the 33rd version of the recipe that became what is now Rolling Rock.

Anyhow, back to 33 — the Hershey company has the capacity to make about 33 million Hershey’s Kisses a day.
Groundhog Day occurs on February 2, the 33rd day of the year — that means there are 332 days left in the year, so if you count backwards from the year’s end, it’s the 333rd day.
The U.S Air Force’s first jet trainer was the T-33 Shooting Star.
The Russian alphabet has 33 letters.
The State of Texas Constitution states, “The Senate shall consist of 33 Senators, and no more.”
The chicken in the background of the “The Simpsons” has the number 33 as its wing. Baseball’s longest game (Rochester Red Wings vs. Pawtucket Red Sox – April, 1981) lasted 33 innings.
••• Roswell, New Mexico is located at 33ª [37’] N latitude. •••
California has 33 state prisons. The Republic of China has 33 regions. Mexico has 33 states.
The BBC World Service news website offers news in 33 languages.
The first Powerball jackpot over 1 million dollars — the Powerball number was 33. Michelangelo was 33 years old when he started work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
33 is the atomic number for arsenic. Jesus was 33 when he was crucified in 33 A.D. and 33 is the numerical equivalent of AMEN — 1+13+5+14 = 33.

Possibly my fondness for 33 can be traced back to Indian heritage. According to Apache belief, “… from the time of the Harmonic Convergence (1987) until 2020, we’ll be in the chaos of the world, like a red ray leaving and a purple ray trying to get a foothold… There will be such imbalance that everyday will be a juggling act — a challenge to remain in harmony and not be thrown off by the chaos of these two powerful energies, war and peace. This is a 33-year cycle.”
So we just need to hang in there for a few more years.
And if all that isn’t enough to make my favorite number double 3’s, We got married when I was — 33.
— 30 —

As both faithful readers know, I celebrate a lot of holidays. This year I intended to celebrate a holiday that I usually don’t — National Punctuation Day. As I said, this isn’t a day usually celebrated by me — not because I don’t think its important, but I have come to celebrate a lot of holidays and I have to leave some days free to just not celebrate.

But I thought I’d talk a bit about it this year because like all subjects, there are some things about punctuation that annoy me — lately, the most annoying thing is the lack of punctuation in text messages and even e-mails….

I often say that Claire talks without any punctuation — she just goes from one subject to another without inserting a period, or even a comma.
But before this becomes all about me and my thoughts on punctuation, we should all remember that this holiday is to celebrate the importance of proper punctuation. However, punctuation, like everything else it seems, is changing — what used to be proper isn’t anymore. It used to be that when punctuation was discussed, it would be about the proper use of commas, periods, hyphens, question marks, exclamation marks, and things like that. Today, something called emoji(s) are being touted as punctuation. Emoji are basically little pictures that supposedly express emotions, like a smiley face (remember when everyone thought it was cute to end a sentence with :)? In my mind that was bad enough, but now you can use an actual smiley face, or frownie face, or whatever.

The younger generation, that knows how to text things, but doesn’t know how to write anything, are apparently of the opinion that punctuation isn’t even needed. Young people, or “text-ers” of any age, don’t believe there’s any confusion by omitting the punctuation. But one thing I’ve noticed — text-ers seem to use a lot of exclamation marks — all over the place, not where people who write would think they’re appropriate.

Hyphens are another punctuation mark that is disappearing — a lot of words we use today used to be hyphenated, like today used to be written to-day. Same for lots of words. You may have noticed that I use a lot of dashes (not hyphens) in my writing. You may or may not be wondering why — probably not, but I’ll tell you anyhow…. When I took Freshman English, we had to write a theme every day. If you made a comma error by placing a comma where one didn’t belong, it earned an automatic “F.” The professor didn’t read any further, it was just and F. So — I figured out that if I wasn’t sure about the use of a comma, I used a dash. The professor might knock off a point or so for it, but no automatic fail. From that time forward, I’ve been fond of the dash and I use and over-use them all the time.

But back to the day itself — it was on September 24th. Since I intended to celebrate it, I wondered about how to celebrate it, since I’d never celebrated it before. I thought since it’s a holiday, I’d sleep late, maybe go out for breakfast, check the Internet and count all the punctuation errors I find in the first couple of pages, and maybe make an entry in the blog that is completely punctuation error free. But since I missed it this year, I’ll have more time to plan for it next year.

Before I leave the subject of punctuation and start planning for next year’s celebration, what is the correct name for (!) — is it Exclamation Mark or Exclamation Point? Just wondering…
— 30 —