Friday, September 30, 2011

PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE

The man who approached tellers at the Eastern Bank in South Boston on Aug. 25 eventually fled empty-handed, but only after one teller had refused his order for "all your money" (she told him she was "closed") and another had scolded him for breaking into the front of the adjacent line and for not removing his hoodie. [Boston Globe, 8-27-2011]

VINTAGE AD-1940


DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME


SPACE

Explanation: Part of Mars is defrosting. Around the South Pole of Mars, toward the end of every Martian summer, the warm weather causes a section of the vast carbon-dioxide ice cap to evaporate. Pits begin to appear and expand where the carbon dioxide dry ice sublimates directly into gas. These ice sheet pits may appear to be lined with gold, but the precise composition of the dust that highlights the pit walls actually remains unknown. The circular depressions toward the image center measure about 60 meters across. The HiRISE camera aboard the Mars-orbiting Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the above image in late July. In the next few months, as Mars continues its journey around the Sun, colder seasons will prevail, and the thin air will turn chilly enough not only to stop the defrosting but once again freeze out more layers of solid carbon dioxide.
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DO YOU REMEMBER?

Six times the candy
Goes six times as far
Six times the flavor
In a Bit-O-Honey Bar
Chicago has long held a reputation as the candy capitol of the United States. And, in 1924, the Schutter-Johnson Company launched a unique new chew to the windy city, one that would delight children and dentists alike. Christened as the Bit-O-Honey, it was guaranteed to give a kid’s jaw muscles a workout like no other. (click below to read more)

A DREAM COME TRUE


TODAY IN HISTORY

From left to right (front): Chamberlain, Dalad...Image via Wikipedia
SEPTEMBER 30
1927:In the New York Yankees' second-to-last game of the season, Babe Ruth sets the MLB record for most home runs in a single season, hitting his 60th homer off a pitch by Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. The Babe's record will stand until Roger Maris breaks it in 1961.

1846: Dentist William Morton uses inhaled ether as an anesthetic, painlessly extracting a tooth from local merchant Eben Frost at his Boston dental office. Morton will give the first public demonstration of the anesthetic at Massachusetts General Hospital the following month.

1938: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, appeasing Hitler's demands for German annexation of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Returning home to England later that day, Chamberlain proclaims that the agreement has secured "peace in our time."
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Thursday, September 29, 2011

MEETING PROGRAM SEPT. 29, 2011

Brad Winn, Lewis & Clark Interpretative Site superintendent, presents a program about the leadership skills of the aforementioned explorers and how you can use those skills in managing your business. For additional information LINK HERE

FUTURE VISION'S FIRST YEAR

One hundred Rotary districts and their member clubs set a brisk pace in the first year of the Future Vision pilot, recording many milestones along the way. 
The Rotary Foundation awarded 208 global grants, totaling almost US$12 million, in 2010-11. These grants supported large-scale, sustainable activities aligned with Rotary’s areas of focus in 46 countries. (click below to read more)

SMILE


PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE

Clearly taking his cues from Pixar's Up or the lesser known Danny Deckchair, American adventurer Jonathan Trappe found a unique way to cross the Alps. Last week, the 38-year old from North Carolina, strapped 54 helium balloons to a chair, took flight, and soared high above the iconic European mountain range. (click below to read and see more)

TODAY IN HISTORY

SEPTEMBER 29
1979:Pope John Paul II makes an impassioned appeal for peace between Catholics and Protestants before a crowd of 300,000 people in Drogheda, Ireland. It is the first visit to Ireland by a pope.

1988: Stacy Allison becomes the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1990: Construction of Washington National Cathedral is completed, exactly 83 years to the day after President Theodore Roosevelt presided over the laying of its cornerstone.
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SEE YA NEXT WEEK!




Wednesday, September 28, 2011


WENDELL REMINDS EVERYONE THAT YOU CAN'T WIN IF YOU DON'T PLAY




GIFTS BEAT CASH

Gifts can boost worker productivity on a scale that cash can't match, a study shows.

In 2007 and 2010, researchers recruited subjects for three hours' work, cataloging books at a university economics department for €12 ($16.30) an hour. Before workers started, some were told they'd get an extra €7—a random bonus. Others got a thermos, also worth about €7, wrapped as a gift.

The researchers measured productivity by counting characters in the workers' database entries. Workers who got the gift were 25% more productive than a control group who got nothing, while the "cash" group's productivity boost was statistically insignificant. The beneficial effect on productivity persisted when subjects were told the thermos's value, and even when they could choose to take the thermos or cash. (Strikingly, more than 90% picked cash).
"The Currency of Reciprocity—Gift Exchange in the Workplace," Sebastian Kube, Michel AndrĂ© MarĂ©chal and Clemens Puppe, American Economic Review (forthcoming)
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VINTAGE AD-1957


LET IT BE, IN ARKANSAS

Photograph of The Beatles as they arrive in Ne...Image via WikipediaBeatles Said a Fast Hello, Goodbye but a Tiny Town Won't Let It Be
A Fleeting Stopover in Walnut Ridge, Ark., Forty-Seven Years Ago Launches a Festival


WALNUT RIDGE, Ark.—It was more than a day in the life for folks in this sleepy southern farm town.
Forty-seven years ago, at the height of Beatlemania, three teenagers here in the Lawrence County seat in northeast Arkansas ventured out one quiet Friday night to investigate reports that a large plane was mysteriously buzzing over a dusty World War II-era airstrip.
They came back with a fantastic story: It was the Beatles. They'd just hung out. (click below to read more)

FORMER PEACE FELLOWS JOINING E-CLUBS

Daniel Sturgeon knew he’d be a Rotarian someday. He just imagined a day far off in the future, not one a few days shy of his 30th birthday. But since 2007, this former Rotary Peace Fellow has been a member of two Rotary clubs. (click below to read more)


IT SEEMED EVERYONE WAS EAGER TO GET THEIR 50-50 CHANCES




TODAY IN HISTORY

SEPTEMBER 28
1941:Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox boosts his batting average to .406 during a double-header against the Philadelphia Athletics; he is the last Major League Baseball player to end the season with a batting average over .400.

1542: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator sailing for Spain, becomes the first European explorer to reach California when he arrives in present-day San Diego Bay, in search of a legendary water route across the North American continent.

1928: Alexander Fleming observes the antibacterial properties of a fungus growing in petri dishes at St. Mary's Hospital in London. That fungus will be the source of penicillin, one of the most important antibiotics in modern medicine.
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AND I QUOTE

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."-Herm Albright

Tuesday, September 27, 2011


CLEAN SELLS


As someone who's been on the frontlines of the branding wars, I've spent countless hours with CEOs, advertising executives and marketing mavens at some of the biggest companies in the world. I've seen—and, honestly, been disturbed by—the full range of psychological tricks and schemes that some companies use to prey on our most deeply rooted fears, dreams and desires in order to persuade us to buy their brands and products. (click below to read more)

WATER

ROTARY PEACE CENTER

The Rotary Peace Centers program provided Alejandra Rueda Zarate, of Bogota, Colombia, with skills that she’s now using to help poor villagers in her nation’s countryside.
"Thanks to the program, I complemented my years of work experience with international knowledge and learning, allowing me to start my own initiative on rural development and poverty alleviation," says Zarate, a 2010 graduate of the Rotary Peace Center at the University of California, Berkeley, who had worked in the agricultural industry before her fellowship. "The strategic platform brings capacity building to peasants in the countryside, and has had significant results for conflict alleviation in Colombia."(click below to read more)

ROTARY HELPING TO BUILD PEACE

MENSA Q & A

Cloche: what do you do with it (eat/drink it, wear it, spend it or play it)?
 (click below for the answer)

NO TIPPING REQUIRED



TODAY IN HISTORY

SEPTEMBER 27
1938:Queen Elizabeth, queen consort of King George VI of the United Kingdom, christens the RMS Queen Elizabeth, a 314-meter-long ocean liner named in her honor, at the ship's launch in Glasgow, Scotland. At the time of the launch, the Cunard Line vessel is the largest passenger liner ever built.

1540: Pope Paul III officially charters the Society of Jesus, founded by Spanish priest Ignatius de Loyola six years earlier. The Jesuit order will play a crucial role in the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation and missionary work around the world.

1998: St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire hits his 70th home run of the year in the last game of the Cardinals' season, at home against the Montreal Expos. McGwire sets a new Major League Baseball record for most homers in a single season, winning a de facto competition with Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs, who finishes the season with a respectable 66 home runs. Earlier in the month, both men broke Roger Maris' record of 61 single-season home runs, which had stood for 37 years. Three years later, San Francisco Giants left fielder Barry Bonds will break McGwire's record with 73 home runs in the 2001 season.
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WHERE TO NEXT?

New Generation of Global Jet-Setters
20-Somethings Rack Up Frequent-Flier Miles to Take Far-Flung Journeys; Flying to Fiji for Lunch

When class is out, most college-age students flock to the beach or schlep home to mom and dad. But 18-year-old Andy Nguyen jets around the world: London, Frankfurt, Bangkok, Tokyo, Ho Chi Minh City. (click below to read more)

Monday, September 26, 2011


AND I QUOTE

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death."
Joan D. Vinge

COMPUTER PROBLEMS, LITERALLY

ANIMALS IN ACTION





SMILE



SNAPSHOT


TODAY IN HISTORY

SEPTEMBER 26
1991:Four men and four women enter Biosphere 2, a self-contained, life-supporting dome mimicking the ecosystems of the Earth, in Oracle, Ariz. They will remain in the sealed dome for two years, growing crops and studying the ecology of the biosphere, which includes a miniature rainforest, desert, ocean and savannah.

1789: Thomas Jefferson, then serving as ambassador to France, is appointed by President George Washington as the first U.S. secretary of state. John Jay is confirmed as chief justice of the United States on the same day.

1957: Larry Kert and Carol Lawrence star as Tony and Maria, star-crossed lovers in Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. The musical, a gritty reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet set amidst ethnic tensions in 1950s New York City, premieres at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre.
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ANIMALS IN ACTION






FOR BRAD, WORK NEVER STOPS