What Would Jimmy Do?

March Madness, as usual, has had some pretty exciting games. There’s always a “Cinderella” team — This year it was St. Peter’s, being the first 15th seeded team to make it to the Elite Eight. But after all the smoke has cleared, the Final Four is here — the Final Four is the two games that determine which teams play for the national title.
Until 1978, the “Final Four” was just referred to as the tournament’s semifinal. But after 1978 “Final Four” was used almost exclusively and the NCAA eventually trademarked the term.

The lowest seed to make a Final Four is Number 11 — and five teams have done it. LSU in 1986, George Mason in 2006, VCU in 2011, Loyola Chicago in 2018, and UCLA in 2021. Unfortunately, no Number 11 seed has ever advanced to the championship game.

No matter where the Final Four is played, the hardwood court always comes from the same place. The “Final Floors” are produced by Connor Sports using hardwood sugar maple from northern Michigan. The wood goes to Amasa, Michigan, for the assembly of the floor panels and then to Idaho Falls, Idaho, to be finished. From there, there floors go to the stadium where it takes about five hours to install.

The most appearances by a team without making the Final Four is BYU they’ve only been able to make it as far as the Elite Eight.
Five schools have made it to more than 10 Final Fours — Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and North Carolina. This year’s Final Four will features appearances by Kansas, Duke, and North Carolina.
The NCAA Tournament was first broadcasted by NBC in 1969 — CBS brought the rights in 1982 and since then March Madness has evolved into the major TV event it is today.
The 1979 championship game between Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores and Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans still holds the record for television viewership for any college basketball game.

The Final Four was originally hosted in arenas in various cities across the country. The arena that hosted it the most times was Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium — the Final Four was played there nine times (between 1940 and 1964.) In the mid 90s, the Final Four moved to domed stadiums. The stadium hosting the games the most times is the New Orleans’ Superdome, where this year’s games will be played — the sixth time the Final Four has been played in the Superdome. One of four teams will be really happy come Monday night.
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Today’s subject is something I admit I don’t know much about (I know, you’re wondering how this is any different than everything else I write about) — but today is the beginning of Ramadan.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim, Islamic calendar, a religious annual observance and month of fasting that is considered to be one of the five Pillars of Islam.

The Five Pillars of Islam include Sawm – fasting during Ramadan, Hajj – a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their life, Zakat – giving to the poor, Salat – five-time daily prayer, facing Mecca, including absolution prior to prayer, and Shalada – declaration of belief in one true God.

If a non-Muslim meets a Muslim during the month of Ramadan, the appropriate greeting for good wishes is “Ramadan Mubarak” which means “Have a blessed Ramadan.”

Ramadan falls on the ninth .lunar month in the Islamic Calendar. The lunar calendar means the start of each month is based on various factors, such as the sighting of the moon, so like all Islamic months, the beginning of Ramadan can move as many as 11 or 12 days each year. 

During Ramadan, Muslims are encouraged to read the Quran and in some countries it is a crime to ignore Ramadan and break the fast.
Throughout Ramadan, people fasting are expected to abstain from food, drinks and other pleasures from dawn to dusk. Participants are supposed to focus their mind on prayer, purity, spirituality and charity. Fasting is a reminder of the importance of self-control and the suffering of the poor. Ramadan fasting rules help to cleanse your body and mind. 

At the end of Ramadan there is a large festival called Eid ul Fitr to celebrate the end of the fast. Eid ul Fitr is celebrated by wearing one’s best clothes, giving gifts, having a large meal, and spending time with one’s family. Muslims also use this time to ask for forgiveness for sins and to praise Allah (God.)
So the month of Ramadan is a blessing. A time to reflect on cleansing, prayer, religion, and remembrance of those around us —  Ramadan Mubarak.
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Today is April Fool’s Day, also sometimes called All Fools’ Day. As I’ve mentions in previous April 1st blogs, even though its been commemorated for centuries by a multitude of cultures in various locations, its precise origin is actually unknown.

The first recorded mention of the day as being special was in the Nun’s Priest Tales in 1392 by Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales. In the tale, a vain cockerel is tricked by a wily fox, very much like in an Aesops’ fable. Written in old English, the line says, “Syn March was gon.” This can be translated as “since March was gone.” The sentence led historians to believe that a special occasion occurs on April 1st, in which others can be tricked.
Some historians have linked April Fools’ Day to festivals such as Hilaria (Latin for joyful,) which was celebrated in ancient Rome at the end of March by followers of the cult of Cybele. It involved people dressing up in disguises and mocking fellow citizens and even magistrates and was said to be inspired by the Egyptian legend of Isis, Osiris and Seth.
There’s also a theory that April Fools’ Day was tied to the vernal equinox, or first day of spring in the Norther Hemisphere, when Mother Nature fooled people with changing, unpredictable weather. 

But this isn’t what I intended to write about today — I’ve decided that this blog has for too long been about nothing. It just rambles on about insignificant things, so I’m going to change the format to a more formal, meaningful dialog about things that are important and make a sincere effort to do my part to make this a truly better world. 
Is this an April Fool’s joke? Check this blog the next few days for the answer to that….
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Today is the last day of March and an important day for all of us. It’s World Backup Day. It really would be nice if we could back the world up to a time when it seemed to be a kinder, more peaceful place — but — given that we can’t do that, we can at least take steps to protect our information.

Today’s blog can be considered a public service announcement — to remind you to backup all the data on your electronic devices. This is one of those things you should practice at least weekly, if not daily. 
A lot of people only go to church on Easter, and maybe Christmas — that’s better than not at all but…. same with backing up your data — if you only do it on World Backup Day, that’s better than not at all, but…

Before computers, there was no need for a World Backup Day, although it was still important to keep track of important papers and information — by keeping valuable documents in a safe deposit box, or maybe a fireproof safe. Those things worked until the computer came of age and we suddenly became overwhelmed with data.
The real need/problem started with the disk drive, capable of storing lots and lots of information. Then, if that wasn’t enough, along came “cloud storage.” Naturally, loss of huge amounts of data can be devastating — and finally Ismail Jadun, who was a student at the time, created World Backup day, mostly as a joke. But it became legitimate and it’s no joke.
Back up and keep at least one extra copy of your data on a separate storage device, or even in the cloud will protect you in case your original copy becomes destroyed or damaged or for some other reason is inaccessible.

Another threat —ransomware — has become a bigger problem recently and a backup, or multiple backups can be a way to protect against losing access to data from such malware.
However you do it, be sure to back up your dat regularly, and in more than one place. 
Maybe it’s appropriate that March 31 was chosen as backup day because if people lose their data, by accident or some other means, it’ll make them a real April Fool.
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Our neighbor has a cat — actually I’ve mentioned his cat a few times on this blog site (check the archives for “Pippin” if you’re interested.) Anyhow, our neighbor kept his brother’s dog for a few weeks a couple of months ago and he said that while he likes dogs, he will never have one of his own because they require too much attention. 

That’s true — I’ve often said that having a dog is like having a two year-old child that never grows up. But that said, I’m still more of a dog person than a cat person. I don’t dislike cats — they just have a lot of annoying characteristics that I don’t care for. Since I’m still waiting for the grass to get green and need mowing, I thought I’d examine some of the differences in dogs and cats, at least as I see them. (I also did a little extensive research on the subject.)

Dogs were probably domesticated maybe 40,000 years ago — to help early humans to hunt. Cats were only domesticated about 12,000 years ago when agriculture evolved, and cats were used for pest control. But even though dogs evolved from species that would have been able to hunt in packs, they haven’t retained their hunting behavior like cats have. I read something that said that cats need to be able to express their natural hunting behavior because it releases “happy hormones” in their brains. So it’s important for indoor cats to have the opportunity to stalk and pounce on toys and things like that. 

Provided they have a nutritionally balanced diet, dogs do not necessarily need to eat meat. Cats must have meat in their diet in order to get all the nutrients they need to keep them healthy. 
According to one web site I looked at, it is a common misconception that cats cannot be trained like dogs can. The site insists that with positive reinforcement, cats can be taught all sorts of things, like responding to their name and to sitting on command. I’ll just leave that here… no cat I know does these things.
I do have to admit that on rainy nights, cats go up a notch or two on my list — cats using a little box is a lot better than taking dogs outside and they always seem very picky about the exact piece of grass to “go” on.

I’m not trying to convince anyone one way or the other — if you prefer cats, fine and if you prefer dogs, that’s fine too. But — I should point out that dogs are mentioned 44 times in the Bible — 35 times in the Old Testament and 9 times in the New Testament… cats are never mentioned.
So I guess this all boils down to attitude — not your attitude — your pet’s attitude. Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God.
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A few days ago Claire said there was something coming on TV in a few weeks that we should watch. She said it looked interesting — she had seen the trailer for it earlier. I hadn’t heard the term “trailer” for a while — but when I was growing up in Oklahoma it was the only term I knew for what are now called movie “previews.” Today, I always use the term preview — so I got to wondering if the term trailer was specific to a geographical location or it was a universal term that just changed over time. Since the term was obviously familiar to Claire and she grew up in Ohio, it didn’t seem to be related to any one location. 

Well, without doing any of my extensive research, I remember when I was a kid, movies were the main source of entertainment in Maysville, Oklahoma. There was no such thing as television and live concerts pretty much didn’t exist — especially around Maysville. I think there were some amateur theater groups in the state, but probably none closer than Oklahoma City. And Oklahoma City, even though it was only about 50 miles away, was considered a trip — you didn’t just jump in the car and go to Oklahoma City….

(In Maysville, at least) every Saturday, afternoon and night, the movie theater showed western or “cowboy” movies. The regular (non-cowboy) movies were shown at night during the week. Here’s the way it worked back then: The movies started at one o’clock on Saturday afternoon and ran until about midnight. The movies started with an animated cartoon and then there was usually a “newsreel” that showed world events and sports, then there was a serial — in Maysville it was usually a “western” story of some kind — but at the end of each segment, something would happen to put the characters in some sort of a peril, and a screen would pop up urging everyone to come back the following week to see what happens. After the serial, the movie (the main feature) started. when the movie ended, they showed the “coming attractions” and these were called trailers — probably because the “trailed” the movie. After the trailers, the whole thing started over. The movie lights never came on after one o’clock until the final showing about midnight. 
There wasn’t a specific “play time” for the movies, it started and played in a continuous loop until it stopped for the night.

In Maysville, if you were younger than six, movies were free — when you turned six it cost ten cents to go to the movies and when you were twelve years old, you were considered an adult and it cost twenty-five cents for admission. The admission fee just got you in — you could sit there and watch the movies for as many times as you wanted, until the theater closed. If you came in in the middle of the movie, you could just sit there until the movie started again and leave when the movie got to where you came in. A lot of people did just that. I remember on a lot of Saturday afternoons, especially if the weather was bad out, sitting through the cowboy movies two or three times — that’s really getting your 10 cents worth….
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A few days ago, we had to restore a friend’s computer back to where it was so she could play a particular game that she liked. The reason this was necessary, was because someone had re-configured the screen to make it “easier” for her. After we were finished, we told her to be careful when “nerds” offered to help — they often don’t think like other people.

You may have guessed — this all got me to thinking about the term ‘nerd.” I seem to remember reading somewhere that Dr. Seuss came up with the word. That made some sense to me, because he used lots of kind of made-up words in his writings. I did some checking and in his book If I Ran the Zoo, published in 1950, I found the word….
….. And then, just show them, I’ll sail to ka-troo
And bring back an It-kutch, a Preep and a Proo,
A Nerkie, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too! …..

Actually, being a big fan of Dr. Seuss, I should have just stopped there and given him all the credit, but my extensive research instinct urged me to go further. 
In 1951, Newsweek published an article about the latest slang that included the word nerd. The article noted that “In Detroit, someone who once would be called a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd, or in less severe cases, a scurve.”

Like Dr. Seuss needs more controversy, but there are two sides — one side is convinced that nerd originated with Dr. Seuss and the other says the good Doctor didn’t really make it up and it originated before the publication of his book.

Another name mentioned as a possible source of the word is Mortimer Snerd — Edgar Bergan’s ventriloquist’s dummy modeled on a country bumpkin. The thought is that Snerd reminded radio listeners of a “drip” or someone looked upon as annoyingly dull. Edgar Bergan’s radio show was popular in the late 1930s through the 1950s and some think that Dr. Seuss had Snerd in mind when he wrote the rhyme — of course, there is no proof of that.

Another idea is that nerd developed in colleges from knurd — a coinage formed by spelling drunk backwards. The implication is that a “knurd” would rather study than party.

Gradually, the “socially inept but brainy” connotation became associated with the term. By the 1980s, the image of the nerd as someone who has a knack for computers and sports a “nerd pack” (a plastic penholder) in his shirt pocket and unsightly glasses came into being.

Even though, the subject of this entry is “nerd,” there is a a closely associated term, “geek.” For the sake of completeness, I should probably touch on that….
The term originally was used to describe sideshow freaks in the circus. It was typically attributed to those circus performers who were known for doing crazy things like biting off the heads of various small live animals or eating live insects and things like that.These performances were often called “geek shows.” The word itself, “geek,” came from the word “geck,” which was originally a Low German word which meant someone who is a “fool/freak/simpleton.”

Today, being labeled a nerd is something often worn with pride. It’s a word that implies that a person possesses a depth of knowledge in a particular area, whether it’s in science, books, words, gaming, or whatever. Today a nerd is brainy and a bit geeky, but that’s pretty cool.
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The other evening Wheel of Fortune came on TV and I watched it for a few minutes. It’s a word guessing game and I suspect that the people that play it and are good at it, are knowledgeable of the frequency in which letters are used in the English language. It always amazes me that sometimes some of the players don’t seem to have a clue. The other night a three letter word had a “T” and an “H” showing and the contestant said they’d like to buy a vowel — they bought an “E.” Now if it’s a three letter word “TH(blank)” — you don’t need to spend your money buying a vowel. The word is “THE!” Guaranteed.

Well anyhow I decided to do some extensive research as to what letters occur most frequently in our language, and I came up with something surprising, or maybe not so surprising….
The most commonly used letter in the English language is “e.” The most common consonant is “t,” and the most common second letter in a word is “h.” Now for the surprising, or maybe not surprising part — the most common popular word in the English language is “the.”

I think I’m ready to apply for that game show…. and I won’t be wasting my money to buy a vowel if two of the three letters in a word are T and H.
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A few days or weeks ago, I discussed the pirates of the Great Lakes in response to a question asked by one of our nieces. Some of you know that one of my favorite days is Talk Like A Pirate Day, and that I’ve alway been fascinated with pirates. Unfortunately a lot of the “colorful” things that pirates did and said, simply turn out to not be true, or at least not as romantic and adventuresome  as we wish they were.

For instance, walking the plank… we’ve all seen movies where the blindfolded captive, prodded at cutlass-point is forced out onto a narrow board dangling over the sea — pirates must have done this, don’t you think? Actually, there is no proof that swashbucklers ever made their enemies and victims walk the plank. 

One of the earliest definitions of the phrase “walking the plank” appears in the 1799 book A classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, which explains it as “a mode of destroying devoted persons or officers in a mutiny on ship board.” 
Daniel Defoe who wrote Robinson Crusoe, was the first English writer to make his characters walk the “plank.” In his book A General History of Pyrates, he described ancient swashbucklers in the Mediterranean running a ship’s ladder out over the waves and telling their Roman captives they were free to go, so long as they were willing to swim for it.

In the 1800s, writers like Charles Ellms and Robert Louis Stevenson turned the ship’s ladder into “the plank.” Ellis’ book The Pirate’s Own Book included the drawing of a prisoner tumbling off the “death plank” into the sea. In 1887, Howard Pyle’s dramatic painting of “walking the plank” for a Harper’s Weekly article turned the plank into a visual icon that inspired all the pirate storytellers to come.

Most historians conclude that, while plank-walking did exist, it was relatively rare. If pirates did need to get rid of someone, it was much faster to simply push them overboard rather than set up a plank and have them do it themselves. In those rare instances when pirates had people walk the plank, it was probably simply because the pirates did it to amuse themselves on those occasions when there was time for it.
Another interesting theory as to why people were made to walk the plank was that the pirates couldn’t be tried for murder — after all the people walked off the plank themselves. This theory doesn’t hold much water though, because pillaging and piracy were generally hanging offenses anyway, so if they were caught, a murder charge on top of everything else wouldn’t make much of a difference. 
But actually, I kind of like this theory — from what I can determine from my extensive research, no records exist of charges being brought against anyone who forced people to walk the plank, so maybe those old scalawags were on to something….
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The first day of spring will officially occur this morning —  Sunday, March 20, 2022 at 11:33 a.m. EDT (in the Northern Hemisphere.) That date and time is the arrival of the Vernal (Spring) Equinox.

Traditionally, the first day of spring has ben celebrated on March 21, but the astronomers and calendar makers now say that the spring season starts on March 20th, in all time zones in North America. In case you’re interested, back in 2020 spring fell on March 19th — the earliest first day of spring in 124 years….

Every year I usually talk about the equinox and often get into the debate as to whether eggs and brooms can stand alone, but this year I’ll just stick to the equinox itself and the fact that it marks the official start of the spring season.

Vernal translated to “new” and “fresh,” and equinox is derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night.) That basically means that our hours of daylight — the period of time each day between sunrise and sunset — have been growing longer each day since the winter solstice in December. The days start getting longer after December 21st and the vernal equinox marks the turning point when daylight begins to win out over darkness.

There’s always some confusion between equinoxes and solstices. Seasons are caused by the Earth having a slight tilt on its axis. As the Earth wobbles around the Sun, different points of the Earth receive more or less sunlight throughout the year. If the Earth wasn’t tilted, the Sun would just shine directly on the Equator all year long and we’d have no seasons.

Solstices designate the point where the Sun’s path in the sky is the farthest north or south from the Equator — that occurs around the 20th and 21st of June and the 21st and 22nd of December. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year and the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year.

The equinoxes are when the Sun is right over the equator. They occur around March 21st and September 23rd and mark the beginning of spring or autumn. We call the beginning of spring the vernal equinox and the beginning of autumn is the autumnal equinox. You just have to remember that solstices are the longest and shortest days of the year and equinoxes mark the times when the day and night are equally as long. 

Some people are more connected to the Earth than others and these events take on a deeper spiritual meaning…. many believe the equinox is the period of struggle between darkness and light, death and life. They believe that the equinox is definitely the best period of the year to focus on some new projects, or get rid of something which doesn’t serve us anymore and to find the balance we need in life. Their belief that the Spring Equinox is physically, emotionally and spiritually a special time of energetic opportunity certainly seems like a good time to celebrate to me — not to mention the fact that winter is finally in the rear view mirror.
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