Until the 1950's European Grand Tour bicycle racers used wine as a performance enhancing drug. About that time they started to develop ones that actually worked.
The founders of the Ortega chili company were descended from Juan Ortega, the first white man to look across the Golden Gate from land. He was the chief scout for the Portola expedition. This was the first European exploration of the California coast by land. Portola and the main expedition of about a hundred men and sixty pack animals were camped near where Stanford University now is. They turned back to return to San Diego after Ortega reported the uncrossable obstacle. Scouting trips up the east side of San Francisco bay encountered the Miwok, whose numbers were large enough to give caution. They named their final camp Palo Alto because they found there the largest tree, a coast redwood, they had ever seen. It still stands. It's image is on the seal of Stanford.
must've been a very retro idea back then. useless thought:: kids nowadays have no idea how dial using a phone like that.
Kids these days don't know you still have to dial a 1 before the area code when using a land line. We had to built that into our training manuals, as all stores still have land-line house phones. "Homer, the phone is broken." "Did you dial a one before the area code?" "Why would I do that?" "Well, Janey, before they invented cell phones...."
The smell of death. These eight gases create the distinctive odors associated with a decomposing body: Cadaverine Putrescine Skatole Indole Hydrogen sulfide Methanethiol Dimethyl disulfide Dimethyl trisulfide
in 1909 while still in Russia Igor Sikorsky held the record for the largest flying machine made to date. He fled to the U.S. after the Bolshevik Revolution and founded Sikorsky Aircraft in White Plains New York. Last I heard it had become United Technologies. It may have morphed since then. I have limited knowledge of history, but have followed the history of technology, particularly in aviation. The image in the logo of Red Baron Pizza looks nothing at all like the stiff backed, clean cut Prussian nobleman, Manfred Von Richthofen.
Von Richthofen commanded a Luftwaffe squadron. His second in command was a guy named Herman Goering. Had he survived the war, and the one that followed, he may have very well gone on trial at Nuremburg.
Ah, but *which* Von Richthofen? Manfred, Lothar or Wolfram? (Obviously Manny, but all three of them were WW1 flying aces).
Is it myth that Da Vinci devised a helicopter-type contraption that could have taken flight had it been motorized? Herman Goering had a younger brother Albert who was acquitted in Nuremburg when testimony from Jewish families he had rescued from the Nazis were presented to the court. I did not know this until stumbling over a documentary on TV.
Albert may well have been illegitimate, as he didn't resemble his father or his brother. In fact, he strongly resembled his Jewish godfather.
That point was raised in the documentary but I thought it speculative. When you think about it, if true, it does throw some strange complications into a nature v nurture discussion, though that's more debate room territory.
Georing was not terribly ideological or big into the tenets of racial theory, which with his aristocratic background and profligate habits, which would seem to make sense. If you're already atop the social hierarchy, there's little need to fabricate a reason. He also was not terribly on-board with the idea of mass murder and global conquest, though he certainly played along and offered no serious dissent that would have hurt his political status. Still a douche bag, but not a Himmler, Heydrich, Goebells, ideological maddog type. He definitely played along and did everything he could to maintain his standing, though that waned considerably throughout the war.
Permit me to be old and nostalgic. 'Charge of the Light Brigade' Every time I see that poem, old memories trickle back to me. Growing up, we had to type out/write out prepared documents as punishment for whatever we did. I don't understand why, though. Never saw the purpose of that. Don't think it ever worked. Well, I saw this poem, wanted to type it out (because I was then, as I am now, a huge history nerd) ... so I... quietly asked my history teacher if I could do it. I can't remember the specifics -- I may have begged her, or maybe did something stupid to really piss her off enough to make me do it. Regardless, I was able to obtain a copy of that poem. Ah, I'm now remembering a moment in that class when we were discussing another teacher, and one of the students blurted out, 'She's a Yankee!' Of course, I was 14 at the time and thought he was being stupid. Of course, she's a Yank. We were in the United States, and presumably she was born in this country. Yankees = Americans = People living in the United States. He may as well have declared that the sky was blue. No shit, dude. But looking back, I think he was trying to insult that teacher. See, in the Deep South, a 'Yankee' is referred to anyone that lives in the North. So, he was basically saying she wasn't 'one of us'. As in, because of that, she didn't deserve respect. Granted, the teacher in question WAS toxic, ableist (she used to give me shit for my hearing loss) and was absolutely the embodiment of narcissism (she had photos of herself lining the back of the classroom wall.) Still, you don't have to be from the northern states to be all that. Ah well, thanks for letting me indulge in some old memories. I'll let you young'uns get back to it. *hobbles away*
I wrote this: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/charge-of-the-heavy-brigade-793-words.163764/ It's about the charge of the heavy brigade, a rather more successful cavalry charge that took place earlier on the same day as that of the light brigade.
When we referred to someone as a Yankee, it meant "from Up North, so make allowances for any cluelessness about local customs." A few years ago, my daughter and I spent Christmas in Orange Beach, Alabama. I was sitting in the whirlpool end of the swimming pool with a pleasant lady who asked if I was from Up North. I was surprised how riled I felt to be mistaken for a Yankee. I said politely that I was from Arkansas but had lived in the Rocky Mountain west for many years. Then I asked why she thought I was from Up North. She smiled and said, "Because it's December and you're sitting with me in a swiumming pool. People from around here think it's too cold for swimming." I laughed out loud at that. Growing up on the Gulf Coast of Texas, we used to marvel at the snowbirds who thought January was a fine time to play in the surf. I never expected to do it myself.
It would have worked, after a fashion. I have seen models made. None of them flew well. No way to really control it. Sikorsky figured out a way to somewhat stabilize and control it. The collective pitch swash plate is still used to this day.
Yeah, true that. Fellow travelers. Follow the herd. Don't make waves. Have an opinion but don't have too many opinions. If everyone else is doing it then, shit, it can't be too bad, right? Mob mentality. Diffusion of responsibility. It won't be my fault....
Jeanne Louise Calment (February 21, 1875 – August 4, 1997), the oldest verified human (documented lifespan 122 years and 164 days) quit smoking when she was 117 years old.
