What Would Jimmy Do?

I got busy yesterday cutting grass and didn’t get around to mentioning that August 17 is a very special day in Indonesia.
Back in the 1970s, one August 17th I was in Jakarta, Indonesia — it’s easy to remember that day, because it was Indonesia Independence Day. On August 17, 1945 a group of nationalists declared Indonesia’s independence from the Netherlands. The day was designated a national holiday by government decree in 1946.

Indonesia had been under Dutch colonial rule for over 300 years until its independence was declared in 1945. The struggle didn’t end with the declaration of independence —the struggle for their freedom and liberation took four more years of turmoil and diplomacy before Queen Juliana of the Netherlands formally granted Indonesia her independence. 

I remember Independence Day in Jakarta being a huge celebration. Buildings were decorated with large red and white banners. Today, the stores all offer special Independence Day discounts. 
The Constitution of Indonesia recommends every Indonesian fly the national flag in front of houses, office buildings, schools and public institutions throughout the country on Independence Day. Diplomatic offices abroad are requested to fly the national flag on August 17 to commemorate the national holiday. At 7 A.M. local time on August 17, cities and regencies throughout Indonesia hoist the national flag in a ceremony held at their respective city halls. 

Indonesia was formerly known as the Dutch East Indies, and  is comprised of over 17,000 islands, making it the largest island nation in the world.
The Grasberg mine in West Papua, Indonesia, is the biggest gold reserve in the world, and — the second biggest copper reserve. 
Even though “Bahasa Indonesia” is Indonesia’s official language, there are more than 700 other languages and dialects spoken throughout the islands.
Indonesia’s motto, “Bhinneka Tunggal lka” means “Unity in Diversity.”
Happy (belated) Independence Day.
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One of our neighbor’s sons and his girlfriend are getting married soon. Of course they’re busy preparing for all the festivities and a few days ago, they went to Costco in Washington, D.C. to purchase all the things they needed to stock the “bar” for the reception. They went there because Costco doesn’t sell booze in Maryland or Virginia, and the prices were much cheaper. 

That got me to thinking about when I first moved to the Washington area — I lived in Virginia and at the time ( the 1960s) the state had “blue laws.” You couldn’t go to a restaurant and order a drink and any alcohol, or “spirits” had to be purchased at a store owned and operated by the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Authority. These ABC stores were closed on Sundays and election days, operated on fairly restricted hours and were generally not a particularly friendly place to do business.

So because of that, most everyone I knew bought their liquor in the district (Washington, D.C.) If you were having a Christmas party, or any kind of a party for that matter, a trip to D.C. was a must. Most everyone that I knew usually went to Calvert Liquors, located on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. It was easy to get to — just go across the Key Bridge and you were practically there, and their selections and prices couldn’t be beat. 

I mentioned about going to Calvert’s “back in the day” and, not surprisingly, they had never heard of it. Of course that’s the way life and the world is — it changes. 
If Austin and Abby were getting married 50 years ago, they’d have gone to Calvert Liquors.
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I mentioned a while back that it seems like every month has at least one day devoted to some kind of booze. Today, 16 August, is National Rum Day. A friend of ours always drank Meyers dark rum — never mixed it with anything, just drank it straight. In Vietnam, after things settled down a bit after Tet, we sometimes got Saturday or Sunday afternoon “off,” and we started a tradition of going to one of our houses and making huge pitchers of Daiquiris. Our maids usually made lots and lots of chà ciò (Vietnamese spring rolls, or more accurately, “pork rolls.”) It was something we looked forward to when we got some down-time on those Saturdays or Sundays. And rum and coke is usually one of the first “mixed drinks” people try when they become drinking age…

But today is National Rum Day, so it’s only proper that it get an entry in my blog…. when we think of rum, we tend to think of the Caribbean, but it’s actually a very international spirit.

We know that rum is an alcoholic beverage and pirates like rum, but what exactly is rum, and what makes rum —rum?  Rum is an alcohol distilled from byproducts of sugarcane. Some varieties are made from molasses, others from sugarcane juice, but all rum, after it’s distilled, is clear. The color you see in some rum is from additives or seasonings. 

Rum was first created in the Caribbean after it was discovered that molasses could be fermented into alcohol. It turns out that it was the slaves who made the discovery — but it was the Colonials who discovered how to distill it into “true” rum. 
Sugarcane, the crop from which rum is produced, was actually domesticated in New Guinea as far back as 8000 BC, and there is evidence to suggest that some kind of sugarcane spirit was produced in India sometime around 300 AD. Sugarcane wasn’t imported to the Caribbean until much later — probably in the mid-16th century, and then rum production exploded and made the Caribbean both the “practical and spiritual home for rum production.”
People think that because rum is made from byproducts of sugarcane that the final product is loaded with sugar, but after the distillation process, rum has just about the same amount of sugar as any other spirit.

There’s a saying that “wine is fine, but liquor is quicker.” I suppose that applies to rum, and I’ve heard that the best ideas come while sipping rum. The best rum slogan that I remember was a sign behind a bar in Bangkok — it read, “Have a glass of rum and see what you’ll become.” Good advice for National Rum Day.
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We have some new residents in our neighborhood — they moved here from Leesburg, but their nationality  is Indian. So I thought a fitting topic for today would be India and it’s independence. In fact, today is the National Day of India — Indian Independence Day — always celebrated on August 15th. In India, it’s also known as “I-Day” — a public holiday that marks the date, in 1947, when India became an independent country. India’s Independence Day is a “dry” day in India — the sale of alcohol is not permitted. 

By the 19th century, Great Britain had become the dominant political power on the subcontinent and India was seen as the “Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire. The British Indian Army played a vital role in both World Wars. Years of nonviolent resistance to British rule, led by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, eventually resulted in Indian independence in 1947. 
The Indian Independence Bill, which carves out the independent nations of India and Pakistan went into force at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947. The long-awaited agreement ended 200 years of British rule. 

The Indian national flag is a horizontal tricolor of saffron, white and green. A chakra, or wheel, is in the center of the flag. The color saffron represents courage, sacrifice and renunciation, the white denotes truth and purity and the green stands for life, faith and chivalry. The wheel symbolizes unceasing motion and progress. The flag was approved on July 22nd 1947 and presented to the Indian nation on August 15th 1947.
Happy Independence Day to our Indian friends….
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Fifty-one years ago, yesterday, Claire and I went on our first official date — we went to see Blood, Sweat and Tears in a bordering state (Maryland.) Yesterday, Claire and I attended Newsies, a musical in a bordering state (Virginia.)
The performance we attended was in Leesburg and was a Disney production of the Tony Award-winning musical Newsies — based on the 1992 musical film Newsies, which was inspired by the real-life Newsboys Strike of 1899 in New York City.

The production was very well done and well attended… all the actors were very talented. Of course we all know who the real star of the show was — Emily Gifford…. who, just happens to be our granddaughter. She did great!!! Wonder if she’ll get her own apartment when she moves on to broadway….. 
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I’ve mentioned it in past years, but August 13 is kind of a special day around here. Both you faithful readers know that August 13 was the day we went on our first official date and August 13 is also my dad’s birthday. 

My dad was born in 1908, so today would have been his 114th birthday…. our first date was in 1971, so today marks 51 years since we first went out.

Happy birthday to my dad and happy “anniversary” to us — a special day indeed.
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Like I say every year about this time — are you ready for some football? The NFL pre-season starts this weekend. I always look forward to football season, even thought I don’t like the fact that summer is ending, and the fact that the NFL has become so political the past few years, I have to say I’m not as big a fan as I was some years ago. 

One big question mark hanging over the upcoming season is the Deshaun Watson suspension over the multiple sexual-abuse allegation against him — will the suspension be more than six games? Will he beat the rap? I guess this falls into the news category, but it certainly detracts from the game of football…

Like every year, some thing will be different this year. The Arizona Cardinals will try to become the third NFL team to win a Super Bowl at their home stadium. The Rams (last year) and the Buccaneers (2020) are the only two to have accomplished that so far.
Tom Brady needs 2,431 more yards to become the first NFL play to amass 100,000 career passing yards.
With 321 wins, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick needs four more to surpass the legendary George Halas who currently holds the record for most victories across the regular season and the playoffs.
This year, Thursday Night Football will be broadcast in the US exclusively on Amazon Prime Video and Twitch.
According to the latest NFL rules, each game must have 36 approved footballs available.
A football game is divided into four 15-minute quarters, but the typical game takes 3 hours and 12 minutes to finish.

The NFL has altered its rules to ensure both teams get at least one possession if a playoff game goes into overtime. If the score remains even after each team has had the ball, the result will be decided by sudden death. This will be the second regular season in the history of the NFL with 17 games, and 18 weeks.
If the Chiefs win 10 games or more in the regular season, Andy Reid will surpass Tom Landry’s record of 16 seasons with at least 10 victories.
This year, three NFL games will be played in London, one in Mexico City and, for the first time, one in Munich.
Last season, the NFL accrued $11 billion dollars in revenue. Each organization received $343 million.

We’re into the pre-season with the regular, 103rd season, scheduled to begin on September 8. The regular season will end on January 8, 2023, with the playoffs scheduled to start on January 14. Super Bowl LVII will be held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on February 12.
And the “new” team this year will be the former Washington Redskins, now re-appearing (after two seasons with a “placeholder” name) as the Washington Commanders.
So whether you’re ready for some football or not — it’s here.
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When I was in school and learning about electronics, there was no such thing as “integrated circuits.” In my last year of school I had a course on something called “transistors.”
Electronic devices, at the time, consisted mostly of radios and the newer radios with a picture — televisions. Computers existed, but in kind of a rudimentary form — they took up entire rooms, weighed thousands of pounds and were nowhere near as powerful as the computers we carry in our pockets today. 

All these electronic devices were made up of something called thermionic valves, or as they were better known — vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes were lightbulb-looking devices that are now more or less obsolete, with a couple of notable exceptions. But in their heyday, “tubes” were critical to the design of most electronic systems from radios, TVs, telephones to computers. 

The basic working principle of a vacuum tube is a phenomenon called thermionic emission. Here’s how it works — you heat up a metal, and the thermal energy knocks some electrons loose. In 1904, English physicist John Ambrose Fleming took advantage of this effect to create the first vacuum tube — he called it an oscillation valve. 

Fleming’s device consisted of two electrodes, a cathode and an anode — they were place at either end of an encapsulated glass tube. When the cathode was heated, it gave off electrons via thermionic emission. Fleming found that by applying a positive voltage to the anode, those electrons were attracted to the anode and could flow across the gap. By removing the air from the glass tube to create a vacuum, the electrons had a clear path from the cathode to the anode and an electrical current was created. 

The “Fleming Valve” consisted of only two electrodes — this type of device is called a diode. The term diode is still used today to refer to an electrical component that only allows an electric current to flow in one direction. In the case of the vacuum tube diode, electrons can only flow from the cathode to the anode — but if you’re an electrical engineer, you remember that the direction of conventional current is opposite to the actual movement of electrons — something that always annoyed me in engineering classes. Diodes are commonly used for rectification — converting an alternating current (AC) to a direct current (DC.) 

While the Fleming Valve, a diode, was a significant invention and handy to have around, it only had one function — rectifying electrical current. In 1907, an American inventor, Lee de Forest, added a third electrode to the Fleming Valve, creating a triode tube. The third electrode, called the control grid, enabled the vacuum tube to be used not just as a rectifier, but as an amplifier of electrical signals. The control grid was placed between the cathode and anode. The grid is in the shape of a mesh, so the holes allow electrons to pass through it and by adjusting the voltage applied to the grid, the number of electrons flowing from the cathode to the anode can be controlled.

The triode is able to amplify signals because a small change in the control grid voltage leads to a large change in the anode current. This allows a small signal at the grid (like a radio wave) to be converted into a much larger signal, with exactly the same waveform at the anode.

As tube technology developed, additional grids were added to vacuum tubes — tubes with four or five grids were/are referred to as tetrodes and pentodes, respectively. 

So until I was well into adulthood, the vacuum tube was the heart of electronics equipment. Although it took a few years, the beginning of the end started in 1947 when three physicists — William Shockley, Walter Brattain and John Bardeen created the world’s first transistor. The transistor could replicate all the functions of tubes, like switching and amplification, but was made of semiconductor materials. Once transistors were able to be mass produced, vacuum tubes were on their way to extinction. Transistors are much more durable, much smaller, and require much less power to function.

So me and vacuum tubes had our day, but the world has moved on and the world today is powered by solid-state devices. What does the future hold for electronics? It’s anybody’s guess what the next wave of technological advancement will bring us…..
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In continuing to think about time…. I recently discussed how time seems to go faster when you get older. I’ve often heard that time flies when you’re having fun. But on the other hand, does time seem to go slower when you’re bored?

A bit of extensive research on my part found out that even though we feel sluggish and tired when we’re bored, at a physiological level it’s actually “a high arousal” state (as measured by a faster heart rate.) In turn, it’s well-established that greater arousal speeds up our brain’s “internal clock,” so that we feel that more time has passed than actually has. 

Another theory is that the apparent slowing down of time is a kind of signal our brain sends to itself to convey that the current situation is unfulfilling and we should do something else….

Time goes too slow for those who are bored, too quick for those who procrastinate, too long for those without goals and too short for those without focus. But for those who live a life pursuing purpose, timing is perfect — and their time is always now. 
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A lot of times when we go to Costco, I get muffins — and of course at Costco, you get a lot of muffins.
Claire puts some in the freezer…. I like the muffins and it’s an easy breakfast — just eat them, or, if they’re frozen, pop them in the microwave for a few seconds. 

I’m not sure how this subject came up, but it did and a friend told me that muffins are just ugly cupcakes. I’m not sure if that observation was made to offend me or just made to see where the conversation would go. But it did get me to thinking…. I guess maybe it’s kind of true. But I like muffins and I like cupcakes — and — I’ve always heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

I figured this was a good subject for some extensive research — you may not be surprised that I found absolutely no data that would support calling a muffin an ugly cupcake. But — I did run across some interesting stuff… a lot of states have official foods of some sort, like official state cookies or cakes, etc. 

If you’re a muffin fan, you may want to jot down this information….
I understand that this may be startling news to you, but I’m pretty sure that no state has an official state cupcake — but muffins are another story. 
Three states have passed legislation making certain types of muffins official in their states:
Minnesota  — Blueberry Muffin
Massachusetts — Corn Muffin
New York — Apple Muffin

Four states have unofficially declared state muffins, but legislation to make it official is pending:
Hawaii — Coconut Muffin
California — Poppyseed Muffin
Texas — Chocolate Chip Muffin
Washington — Blueberry Muffin

(I’m a little concerned that Washington is contemplating the Blueberry Muffin after it has already been claimed by Minnesota. It may not seem like a big deal, but civil wars have grown our of seemingly insignificant events….)
So to cupcake lovers, muffins may be ugly, but legally they have more status.
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