Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween



















Halloween or Hallowe'en (a contraction of "All Hallows' Evening"), also known as All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly celebration observed in a number of countries on October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows (or All Saints). According to many scholars, it was originally influenced by western European harvest festivals and festivals of the dead with possible pagan roots, particularly the Celtic Samhain.Others maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has Christian roots.
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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Harry Houdini Died Halloween




Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz, later Ehrich Weiss or Harry Weiss; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stunt performer, noted for his sensational escape acts. He first attracted notice as "Harry Handcuff Houdini" on a tour of Europe, where he sensationally challenged different police forces to try to keep him locked up. This revealed a talent for gimmickry and for audience involvement that characterised all his work. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to hold his breath inside a sealed milk can.
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You don't have to look it up, I did it for you.

German submarine U-559 - Oct 30,1942


The German crew hurriedly scrambled overboard without destroying their codebooks or Enigma machine and, crucially, having failed to open sea-water vents to properly scuttle the U-boat. Three British sailors, Lieutenant Anthony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and NAAFI canteen assistant Tommy Brown, then boarded the abandoned submarine. There are differing reports as to how the three British men boarded the U-boat. Some accounts say that they "swam naked" (such as that of Kahn),  to U-559 but Sebag-Montefiore states that they either leapt from Petard or, in Brown's case, from a whaler, which was sinking, but slowly. They retrieved the U-boat's Enigma machine and the codebooks with all current settings for the U-boat Enigma key. Two German crew members, rescued from the sea, watched this material being loaded into Petard's whaler, but were dissuaded from interfering by an armed guard. Grazier and Fasson were inside the boat, attempting to escape, when the U-boat foundered; both were drowned.
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Sub pictured is U-36


Friday, October 26, 2012

P-51 Mustang - 1st flight 10/26/1940



The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and several other conflicts. During World War II, Mustang pilots claimed 4,950 enemy aircraft shot down.
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Thursday, October 25, 2012

Amazon


My wife ordered a piece of software from Amazon, when it arrived I tried to load it on her lap top computer. It gave me a warning message that the program was not compatible with the operating system. The computer was running Vista with a single core processor, the software needed a dual core, therefor was incompatible. This was totally my falt for not reading what the software needed to run. My wife went to the Amazon page and filled out a very short form to return the software. She printed out the return lable and dropped the post paid package at UPS. This was 3pm. The next morning she received an email telling her credit card had been credited the total amount plus shipping, As I said before this was totally my falt that it would not load. Amazon has a no questions asked return policy and they stand behind this promise. I highly recomend this company, I will keep buying from Amazon.com



Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Boeing 707 first commercial flight 10/25/1958



Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris, France
http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/707.html

Former Qantas 707-138B owned by John Travolta
http://blog.flightstory.net/45/john-travoltas-boeing-707

Monday, October 22, 2012

The Cuban missile crisis


I talked with my son about this and from the conversation I found he knew little about this. It was a very nerve racking week for our family. We derived a plan for our safety in case the missiles were launched. All that were not born (like my son) or know little about this should take a few minutes to read this article. .......Jack

Cold War: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced that Soviet nuclear weapons had been discovered in Cuba and that he had ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.

Hear John F. Kennedy's address to the nation on October 22, 1962, explaining of the buildup of arms in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Read the main article  from wikipedia.org

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Troy Hooton Video in the early 50s of Versailles and near.


This is a video from the early 1950s from the camera of the late Troy Hooton. I have been granted permission to share it with you. The original was about one hour. I have edited the parts out that pertain to the Versailles, Indiana area. Thank you to the family for sharing this walk into times past.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

(Big Foot) Patterson film October 20, 1967


Bigfoot:
Both Patterson and Gimlin have consistently dismissed allegations that they had hoaxed the footage by filming a man wearing a costume. Patterson died of cancer in 1972. Patterson's friend and business associate, Gimlin, has always denied being involved in any part of a possible hoax with Patterson and claims that he and his partner had encountered a real Bigfoot. Gimlin avoided publicly discussing the subject from at least the early 1970s until about the year 2000 when he began giving interviews and making appearances at Bigfoot conferences.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012

first practical transistor radio 1954


I had one of these little jewels when I was 14 years old. It was AM only and it had very low output to the speaker, an earphone worked much better. I put it in my pocket and ran the earphone up my sleeve so to conceal it from the study hall teacher. I listened to WLW radio to heard the world series. ....... Jack

The Regency TR-1 was announced on October 18, 1954 by the Regency Division of I.D.E.A., was put on sale in November 1954, and was the first practical transistor radio made in any significant numbers.
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Sunday, October 14, 2012

Thank you to the six

Do you know that most days no one reads this blog. On a big day, 6 people read it. It is a good thing that I just like to write in it........ Jack

1st flight Curtiss P-40 Warhawk 10/14/1938



The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was an American single-engine, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and enabled a rapid entry into production and operational service.
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from: Wikipedia

Thursday, October 11, 2012

10 11 12

Today is
ten eleven twelve
10/11/12

Ripley County's part in WWI 1917 - 1918



I know everyone is not interested in history like I am but if you would like to read an online book about Ripley County's part in the first world war (WWI) you can find it here.
Click this link
Thanks to Mike Stratton for alerting me to this book, and now you.
If you type F11 it will display full page for easier reading.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

What a day !


Today was a total disaster beginning with my wife's church sending her 5 music files in I-Tunes format. They played fine on her computer but she wanted them to play in her car. I loaded a recording program and played the 5 songs, then saved them to .WAV format. I them burned them to CD in music format. All of the rig-a-marow took about two hours. I gave her the CD, but about one hour later she handed it back. It was way over driven and sounded awful. I have not a clue why, I have did this many times before with success. I told her to call or email the church to send them in MP3 format next time.

Then I was emailed a photo and was told to put a Logo and some printing under it. I found the logo with Google images with no problem. I had to down size it to have the correct size. I loaded the photo with a graphics editor and pasted the logo in the bottom left, entered the text in pretty white, It looked grate. I burnt the picture to CD in JPG format and took it to the drugstore to have it printed. The machine at the drugstore could not read the CD. Back home I popped the CD in the drive and up it came, not a problem with the CD. I then went to CVS's photo web page and up-loaded the photo. I paid the fee with my credit card and in about an hour I received an email stating my photos were ready for pick up. Off to CVS I went, but I failed to look at the prints. You guessed it they cropped off half of the logo and printing. I will try to get a refund in the morning. I had to get them printed by tomorrow to deliver to the customer so I fired up the color laser printer and printed 4 5x7 and 4 8x10s. They came out grate on matt paper. I cut them on the cutting board and they are laying on the table ready for delivery in the morning. I hate to use my color printer and high dollar ink and paper but I could see no other way to make the deadline.

I was watching TV and just got into a good movie and the power went off.