Saturday, December 31, 2011


HAPPY NEW YEAR

IT'S THE PLEDGE, 4-WAY TEST, GRACE, LET'S EAT


HERE'S HELP FOR YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESULOTIONS

I did complete all of those tasks.
Image via Wikipedia
Conquering the To-Do List
Too Many Tasks, Ambitious Items Make Chores Feel Never-Ending; Start 2012 With the Right List



The first item on a highly successful to-do list: Make a better to-do list.
With the new year comes the urge to accomplish all the things that were meant to be done the year before, and it often starts with long to-do lists. The lists themselves can fuel anxiety, says Sasha Cagen, an Oakland, Calif., life coach and author of a book on to-do lists. She sees many new clients at this time of year and often advises them to put more tasks on their list that they genuinely enjoy. Some 23% of list-makers spend more time making the lists than doing the tasks on them, according to a 2006 online survey of 600 people conducted by Ms. Cagen. (click below to read more)

TUNE IN TODAY

A Night at the Opera
A Night at the Opera (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

MARX BROTHERS MARATHON
TCM, All day until 8 p.m. ET
All day, until prime time, TCM is rolling out movies by the Marx Brothers. You could do a lot worse than watch them all – but if you want to cherry-pick or record the absolute classics, start with 1935’s A Night at the Opera at 12:30 p.m. ET, followed at 6:45 p.m. ET by 1933’s Duck Soup. It’s a gala day for fans of Groucho, Chico and Harpo – and that’s good, because a gala day is about all I can handle.
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TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 31
1972:Dick Clark begins one of the 20th century's most memorable New Year's Eve traditions as he hosts Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve for the first time with guests including Al Green, Helen Reddy and Three Dog Night. Since 2005, Clark has cohosted the annual bash with Ryan Seacrest

1967: Daredevil Evel Knievel attempts to jump the famed fountains at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, but fails with dire consequences — he is left in a coma for 29 days with a fractured skull, a broken pelvis and broken ribs, among other injuries.

1993: Barbra Streisand performs her first paid concert in more than 22 years, singing before a sold-out crowd with guests Marlon Brando and Mike Myers at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.
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GREAT 2011 INVENTION

Leveraged Freedom Chair
Rolling around a city in a wheelchair is difficult enough without ramps and elevators. Toss in unpaved roads full of rocks and mud, as found throughout the developing world, and it becomes impracticable.
A new wheelchair created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mobility Lab could be the solution for millions of disabled people in these countries, a large share of whom live in rural areas and travel upwards of two to three miles to get to work or school, or simply stay at home.
Built with bicycle parts found cheaply and abundantly in developing countries, the Leveraged Freedom Chair costs only about $100 to make—compared with a few thousand dollars for conventional push-rim wheelchairs—and is designed with a special lever system that enables the user to muscle over rough terrain and up steep hills.
After several years of testing, the chair will begin production early next year in India, with other countries likely following.

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Friday, December 30, 2011


MENSA Q & A

What's the next number in this sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66 … ?
(click below for the answer)

WE LOVE TO HAVE VISITORS




WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FACEBOOK MUSIC?

ÄŒesky: Logo Facebooku English: Facebook logo E...
Image via Wikipedia
On Facebook, people befriend people who are already very much like themselves, and their cultural tastes change only slightly in response to the tastes of others, a study finds.
Researchers followed the Facebook pages and networks of about 1,600 students at one college for four years (looking only at public information).
The strongest determinant of Facebook friendship was proximity—living in the same building, studying the same subject—and people also self-segregated by gender, race and place of origin.
On the cultural front, people who liked the genres of "lite/classic rock" and "classical/jazz" tended to seek each other out, as did devotees of films featuring "dark satire" or "raunchy comedy/gore."
"Jazz/classical" was the only taste to spread from people who possessed it to those who lacked it. The study also found that people whose friends liked "indie/alt" music tended over time to shed that interest themselves.
"Social Selection and Peer Influence in an Online Social Network," Kevin Lewis, Marco Gonzalez and Jason Kaufman Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Dec. 19 online)
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TIPS ON HOW TO STAY HEALTHY AT 30,000 FEET

Where Germs Lurk on Planes
What to Do When Stuck at 30,000 Feet Next to Sneezers and Coughers


It's a common complaint: Fly on a crowded plane and come home with a cold. What's in the air up there? (click below to read more)

TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 30
1924:Astronomer Edwin Hubble announces his discovery of the Andromeda Galaxy, indicating that the Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the universe. Hubble used a 100-inch telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, Calif., to see Andromeda, located more than 2 million light years away from Earth. Hubble's discovery also proves that the universe is much larger than was previously thought.

1927: The Tokyo Underground Railway opens the first section of subway in Asia, between Ueno and Asakusa (now known as the Ginza Line) in Tokyo. The line became so popular back then that passengers happily waited two hours for a five minutes trip on the train. The Tokyo subway was founded by Japanese businessman Noritsugu Hayakawa after he was inspired by a ride on the London Undergound. The Tokyo subway system is currently the busiest and most extensive underground mass transit system in the world, with 282 stations and a daily ridership of 8.7 million people.

1936: Employees at the General Motors Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint, Mich., begin one of the first sit-down strikes in U.S. history, demanding recognition of the United Auto Workers union and the acceptance of a list of pro-worker reforms. The strike lasts 44 days.
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AND I QUOTE

"A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company."-Gian Vincenzo Gravina

Thursday, December 29, 2011

DO YOU FEEL A YAWN COMING ON?

English: A 13 year old Tortoiseshell cat yawns.
Image via Wikipedia

What determines whether a yawn spreads? The emotional closeness between the yawner and people nearby, a study shows. Watching people on trains, at meals and in other public spaces, Italian researchers noted whether those sharing yawns were family members, friends, acquaintances or strangers. They recorded information about gender, country of origin, social context and physical orientation of yawners. A yawn counted as contagious if it occurred within three minutes of an initial yawn.Family members caught each other's yawns more often, and more quickly, than friends did. Yawn contagion was weaker among acquaintances. Similar mental networks get activated when a friend is sad as when a friend yawns, the researchers noted.
"Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens," Ivan Norscia and Elisabetta Palagi, PLoS ONE (Dec. 7)
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TOP 5 ROTARY STORIES OF 2011

From the tsunami in Japan to the launch of strategic partnerships that will help Rotary expand its reach, 2011 was an eventful year for Rotary International and Rotarians. As the year winds down, we share our list of the top five Rotary news events of 2011.(click below to read more)

AND MY SECRET TO SUCCESS IS...




MENSA Q & A

If "bovine" denotes a cow, what denotes a sheep?
(click below for the answer)

SPACE

M27: The Dumbbell Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Bill Snyder (Bill Snyder Photography)
Explanation: The first hint of what will become of our Sun was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th object on Messier's list, now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula, the type of nebula our Sun will produce when nuclear fusion stops in its core. M27 is one of the brightest planetary nebulae on the sky, and can be seen toward the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula) with binoculars. It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, shown above in colors emitted by hydrogen and oxygen. Understanding the physics and significance of M27 was well beyond 18th century science. Even today, many things remain mysterious about bipolar planetary nebula like M27, including the physical mechanism that expels a low-mass star's gaseous outer-envelope, leaving an X-ray hot white dwarf.
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TUNE IN TONIGHT

THE GREAT ZIEGFELD
TCM, 8 p.m. ET
TCM’s salute to “Star of the Month” William Powell continues – and concludes – with this last batch of samples from Powell’s lengthy cinematic resume. Starting the evening is this lavish 1936 biographical musical drama, in which Powell stars as legendary stage showman Florenz Ziegfeld. Myrna Loy, who launched the Thin Man movie series opposite Powell two years previously, plays opposite him again. This time she portrays Billie Burke (who, in real life, was three years away from playing Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz when this film was made). And there are other stars to watch as well: Fanny Brice, later immortalized by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, plays herself. Playing himself, also, is Ray Bolger, who was about to join Burke in the Oz cast (as the Scarecrow). And co-starring, as Ziegfeld associate Billings, is Frank Morgan, who shortly would play the title character in guess which movie? (That’s right: The Wizard of Oz.) And if you’ve seen the Broadway show Follies, the lavish costuming and presentation of “The Ziegfeld girls” is what that musical was striving (quite successfully) to evoke.
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TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 29
1984:Rajiv Gandhi, son and grandson of former Indian prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, respectively, is effectively elected to the same post with a landslide victory for his Congress Party.

1845: Texas is admitted to the union as the 28th state, ending two tumultuous decades that included a war of independence from Mexico, the creation of the independent Republic of Texas and eventual annexation by the United States.

1963: New York's WMCA is the first U.S. radio station to play The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand." And thus, American Beatlemania begins!
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LET'S TAKE A TRIP IN THE ZEP


The Goodyear blimps don't take paying customers, but the Farmers Airship—the world's largest zeppelin, and the only one in North America—does. It also has huge seats, windows that open and a bathroom with a view: you can see why the original zeppelin folks thought the idea would catch on for travel. This one is safer than the 1930s model (helium, not hydrogen, provides lift), and flies regularly from historic Moffett Field near San Francisco, with occasional flights in Southern California and elsewhere. $375 per person for a 45-minute flight; airshipventures.com
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011


GORILLA LOVE

HOW DO YOU TREAT YOUR ONLINE FRIENDS?

Why You Didn't Hit 'Reply'
Online, friends still get premium treatment


It's hard to imagine a world without email. It's now the dominant form of exchange, with the typical American adult spending more than an hour a day managing the inbox. (People under 25 now spend more time texting from their cellphones than talking on them.) The shift has been most dramatic for "knowledge workers" like computer programmers and lawyers, who devote nearly half their workdays to email. (click below to read more)


TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 28

1944:Composer Leonard Bernstein's first big musical On The Town, featuring the hit show tune "New York, New York," opens at the Adelphi Theater on Broadway. The show, with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, tells the story of three sailors on shore leave in New York City during World War II, and of the three women who catch their fanc

1897: Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac is first performed at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, France, with Constant Coquelin in the role of Cyrano, a dashing 17th century poet and soldier with an enormously large nose. After the play's premiere, the audience applauds for a full hour.

1958: In a match-up often called "the greatest game ever played," the Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants 23-17 in sudden death overtime to win the 1958 NFL championship game at Yankee Stadium in New York. An estimated 45 million Americans watch the game, televised by NBC, marking the beginning of a surge in the popularity of football in the United States.
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MENSA Q & A

Czarnina is a Polish soup with a very unusual ingredient. What is it?
(click below for the answer)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, SEE YOU NEXT YEAR




AND I QUOTE

"You can only be young once. But you can always be immature."-Dave Barry

Tuesday, December 27, 2011


DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, OR ON THE MOUNTAIN

BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR IN THE 50-50 DRAWING





BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

An Emoticon in the Sky
The Fühlometer—literally translated, feel-o-meter—is an emoticon, 16 feet in diameter, fashioned from neon tubes and designed to be placed atop a building. The device's Berlin-based creators most recently installed it on a lighthouse in the Bavarian town of Lindau (at right) and are now in talks with officials in their home city about showing it there.
The brainchild of three artists interested in the issue of surveillance, the installation includes a camera that snaps photographs of nearby crowds at regular intervals. Face-recognition software analyzes the expressions in each photograph and produces a formula capturing the general mood, which then appears on the neon face—smile, frown or anything in between. (No ironic winks, however.)
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ROTARY TIME CAN BE FAMILY TIME

When Bill Simmermon joined the Rotary Club of Highlands Ranch (Littleton), Colorado, USA, six years ago, he wanted to be an active member without sacrificing time with his family.   (click below to read more) 

TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 27
1932
John D. Rockefeller Jr. opens Radio City Music Hall in New York City as a "palace for the people," with the aim of offering affordable entertainment during the Great Depression. The over-the-top opening night performance features Ray Bolger and Martha Graham, but the Hall is now best known for its high-kicking Rockettes and the annual Christmas spectacular. The art deco style building remains the largest indoor theater in the world.:

1831: Twenty-two-year-old British naturalist Charles Darwin goes aboard the HMS Beagle, departing from Plymouth, England, bound for the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. During the five-year voyage, Darwin conducted much of the research contributing to his theory of evolution by natural selection.

1900: Temperance advocate Carrie A. Nation smashes up a saloon for the first time, destroying the bar at the upscale Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kan. Although Nation was later jailed for causing hundreds of dollars worth of damage, she would continue her anti-alcohol "hatchetations" around Kansas, using her trademark hatchet to take the enforcement of the state constitution's prohibition of alcohol into her own hands.
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Monday, December 26, 2011


YOUR VOTE COUNTS


I have seldom if ever asked the Family of Rotary to vote for an outside of Rotary Project but when I see a reliable airline like United/ Continental involved I have to take note.  If we get moving and vote every day plus spreading the word with our contacts we will get a chance to get part of the 10 Million Charity Miles as mentioned on their site to vote.     

Rotary International
Vote for Rotary International
You can vote only once a day. from each browser you use, and each computer or mobile device that you own, between now and December 31, 2011 here: http://10millioncharitymiles.com/

When you click on the link you will see symbols and the Rotary Wheel will be included for you to click on to vote for Rotary.  

Viva Rotary!

Frank Devlyn
Past Rotary President of Rotary International 
Past Chair of The Rotary Foundation
and RGHF member

AND I QUOTE

" A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."-Carl Reiner

MENSA Q & A

 Which is the westernmost mainland European capital city?
(click below for the answer)

KEEPIN' THE SPIRIT ALIVE

MIDDLE-AGE CUTTHROATS

The fire of competitiveness doesn't dwindle after age 25 along with brain mass and steroid levels, it appears.
Psychologists had 543 men and women in a mall, ages 25 to 75, take a test that involved quickly evaluating whether a series of arithmetic problems had been properly solved. Participants had the choice of being compensated 25 cents per correct answer or getting 50 cents per answer if they beat the score of a randomly chosen fellow participant—but nothing if they lost.
As expected, the researchers found that men were more competitive than women—a pattern unaffected by age—and that the gap couldn't be explained by ability. Just over half of the men chose the competition track, versus just over a third of the women. But for both sexes, the will to compete climbed from the youngest ages up to 50, when it finally began to decline.
The authors urged more studies, to nail down whether the pattern was general or limited to generations living today.
"Competitiveness Across the Life Span: The Feisty Fifties," Ulrich Mayr, Dave Wozniak, Casey Davidson, David Kuhns and William T. Harbaugh, Psychology and Aging (forthcoming)
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TODAY IN HISTORY

December 26

1776:George Washington defeated the Hessians at Trenton.

1865:James H. Nason received a patent for a coffee percolator.

1966:The first Kwanzaa is celebrated.

1972:The 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, died in Kansas City, Mo.

2004:In the Indian Ocean, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the largest in 40 years, triggered a tsunami that ultimately killed more than 280,000.


Sunday, December 25, 2011

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

TODAY IN HISTORY

DECEMBER 25, 1991

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announces his resignation as the leader of the Soviet Union, days after 11 former Soviet republics joined the newly created Commonwealth of Independent States. The Soviet Union formally dissolves the following day, effectively ending the Cold War between the communist superpower and its rival, the United States.

1914: Five months into World War I, soldiers along the Western Front participate in a spontaneous cease-fire known as the "Christmas truce." British and German (and some French and Belgian) troops leave their opposing trenches to exchange gifts and Christmas greetings, and even play soccer in the barren no-man's land between their respective positions. The truce is not sanctioned by the leadership of either army, and fighting resumes on the following day, not to halt for good until November 1918.

2002: Katie Hnida of the University of New Mexico becomes the first woman to play in a Divison I-A football game when she attempts to kick an extra point for the Lobos during the Las Vegas Bowl against UCLA. The kick is blocked.
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