Tiger, Tiger In Your Lair...

I'm pretty sure my cat, Tommy, thinks he comes from a royal line of Siberian Tigers.  He throws his 20 pounds around like he is the king of the household.  Unsheathed claws claim new territories and everyone stands aside when he walks by.  But what about his distant relatives? I know Tommy's pretty special to me, but how special are those other cats?

1.  You can hear the sound of a tiger's roar from over a mile away.

2.  A tiger can eat more than 100 pounds of meat a night which is the same as someone sitting down to 400 hamburgers for one meal.

3.  Tiger's vision is six times stronger than man's.

4.  Most tigers have more than 100 stripes and no two tigers are alike.

5.  Tiger's urine smells like buttered popcorn.

I can assure you that while Tommy may think he's a tiger, the litter box definitely does not smell like a movie theater!  Tommy also can't do this trick...

Tornado Alley

No, you haven't stepped into a time warp and gone back in time to yesterday.  With Master testings, Master demos, ten year anniversary celebrations and awards ceremonies to plan for as well as everyday writing,  I am being challenged to my limits.  For some strange reason I have been thinking about tornados lately...maybe because I feel I'm caught in a whirlwind of activity these days.  But when I woke up this morning and realized I had been dreaming about tornados for the past two nights and even forgot about last night's post, I thought it was time I gave a shout-out to some of the weird events surrounding wild Mother Nature...

1.  Longest distance traveled by a tornado...275 miles across Lake Ontario, New York and Lake Champlain.

2.  Longest time on the ground...one South Dakota tornado was seen hovering in a field for 45 minutes.     The average life span of a tornado is only 15 minutes.

3.  I'm sure the chickens were wondering what was happening when a 16 X 16 chicken house was picked up by a tornado and wedged between two trees.  No damage was done, not even a single window broken and the hens were still sitting on their eggs when they were discovered the next day. 

4.  One Kansas tornado picked up five horses and carried them one quarter mile from their barn and set them down unharmed and still hitched to the same rail.

5.  Three out of every four tornados created in the world happen in the United States.

Neahkahnie Mountain

Off the coast of Oregon lies Neahkahnie Mountain, shrouded in mystery and overlooking the site of many a wrecked merchant ship from centuries gone by.  One of the local indian legends involve a 16th century Spanish merchant ship wrecking on Nehalem Beach where it dumped tons of beeswax into the waters which still wash ashore more than 300 years later.

Another legend told by the Indians of the Pacific Northwest speaks of a Spanish galleon anchored off the beach, also during the 16th century, where a chest full of unknown treasure was taken ashore and buried somewhere on the mountainside.  The location was marked with some inscribed rocks.  To make sure no one would dare come near the burial site, a black man was murdered and buried with the treasure so the ghost would guard the site forever.

Even today, you can discover beeswax and bits of broken pottery in the sands near Neahkahnie Mountain.  Those mysterious rocks with the inscriptions which have never been deciphered can be found at the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum.  And as for the priceless treasure said to be buried somewhere on the mountain?  The landscape is riddled with holes where treasure seekers have gone in search of the Spanish bounty but none have yet to find the burial site.

Welcome To The Twilight Zone...

Where the name of the game is how weird can things get?  Well, how about this?

1.   Svetlana Pankratova made the Guinness Book of World Records in 2009 for the longest legs in the world.  She stood 6 foot 4 inches tall and 4 foot 4 inches of her was LEGS!

2.  The smallest roadworthy car was created by Perry Watkins from the United Kingdom in 2009.  The car measured 41 inches high and 26 inches wide and 52 inches long.  It took seven months to build and I can only imagine it gets great gas mileage.

3.  The longest fingernails for a female belong to Lee Redmond of the United States.  She began growing them in 1979 and had a world record in 2008 when they measured twenty-eight feet four and one-half inches long.

4.  In case you're wondering, the longest fingernails on a male belonged to Melvin Boothe of the United States.  His fingernails measured just over thirty two feet long.  Makes you wonder what's our fascination with growing our nails over here?

5.  And while we in the states may have a fascination with our nails, the person with the most body piercings on a senior citizen belongs to John Lynch of the United Kingdom.  As of 2008, he had 241 piercings, including 151 on his head and neck.  

Ahhh, a face only a mother could love...

Trivia Time In Tennessee

In honor of my sister, Janet, who is a true trivia buff, I thought I would throw out some trivia questions and see who might take a shot at them.  No peaking though until you've written down your answers...;~)

 

1.  How many different animal shapes are there in a regular box of Animal Crackers?

 

2.  There is a two-foot long bird in New Zealand which likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows.  What is this animal called?

 

3.  What do you call the fear of being around beds?

 

4.  It is illegal to do something while you are sitting on a curb in St. Louis.  What is it?

 

5.  How long a tunnel can a mole dig in just one night?

 

6.  Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin.  What name did it change to?

 

7.  Which great inventor was afraid of the dark?

 

8.  The blesbok, a South African antelope, is what color?

 

9.  In Corpus Christie, Texas, it is illegal to raise what animal in your home?

 

10.  In North Carolina, it is against the law for which two animals to fight?

 

 

Okay, now that you have written down your answes to this fun trivia contest, let's see how many you got right.  The answers are listed below.  Did you get them all?

 

 

1.  18

 

2.  Kea

3.  Clinophobia 

 

4.  It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket

 

5.  300 feet long

6.  Today it's known as Tennessee

7.  Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark

8.  The blesbok, a South African antelope, is almost the same color as grape juice

 

9.  Alligators

 

10. Dogs and cats

The Rougarou

I can remember many childhood ghost stories while growing up in the marshy lands of southern Louisiana.  My father, coming from a deep Cajun culture, would fill our heads with the stories  he was told as a young lad. You can believe I made sure to walk the straight and narrow...behaving as I should...lest I come face to face with one of the creatures reported to be lurking in the mist...

There is a place...back in the darkest swamps of Louisiana...where the natives there whisper the stories of a creature known as the Rougarou (also known as the Loup Garou).  Steeped in history are the tales of this "wolf-man" who lives in swamps of the deep south, feeding on the flesh of those unlucky enough to cross it's path.

Some say the stories of Rougarou were originally made up by elders to convince Cajun children to behave.  Others say the swamp creature will kill any Catholics who are not observing Lent properly.  There is also some stories which describe the Rougarou as a person caught under a dark spell for 101 days.  Then the curse is transferred onto the creature's latest victim.

No matter which tale you might find interesting, keep in mind when you are lying awake late at night and you suddenly hear a low, rumbling growl coming from under your floorboards, you might want to pull the covers closer and pray for the morning to come...

Cooking With Style

I'm watching Master Chef and thinking how amazing Christine is...a blind competitor who continues to inspire me and Monti, a single mom not unlike myself ,who grows in confidence with her ability and cooking talent.  But, it also makes me think about how all the chefs over the centuries still managed to create visions in the kitchen with far less than what these cooks have.  So, I challenge you to look at these five cooking utensils from the 17th & 18th centuries and see if you can guess how they were used in those kitchens from long ago.  Remember, no peaking at the answers until you have written down your guesses!  ;~)



1.

2.

3,

4,

5.

1.  Eighteenth century antique wrought iron Scotch Broiler...mainly used throughout the United Kingdom.  This type of broiler was used to cook meat or poultry and could even be used to toast slices of bread.

2.   Nineteenth century wooden Wall Spice Box...usually found hanging near the open hearth or stove and used to store different spices or home essentials such as candles.

3.  Nineteenth century Antique Forged Iron Utensil Rack... this piece would have been used to hold fireplace cooking utensils as well as holding small game or fowl and root vegetables until needed.

4.  Eighteenth century French Egg Spoon...often used in France to create a meal centered around an egg cooked in the spoon before being placed on toasted bread.  

5.  Eighteenth century Barrel Churn...sometimes the entire churn would be turned by the handle or the handle would operate a crank turning paddles inside the barrel to produce butter.

Wild Wednesday

Every year in November, fellow Aussies gather together to celebrate the human spirit and sense of ingenuity during the Red Bull Flugtag.  The WHAT?  Flugtag...a competition where participants build original flying machines and then embark on a journey not unlike the Wright Brothers when they attempted their first flight in a winged contraption.  The main difference is these are way cooler looking and most of them simply took a quick dive into Sydney's Harbour.  Over thirty groups competed in 2010 and the surrounding businesses simply make a day of it as crowds come from all around to see the sight.    

This event has since spread across the waters and this year the Flugtag will be held in a number of US cities...Chicago and Philadelphia in September while Miama and San Francisco will perform theirs in November.

The only thing I'm thinking when I look at some of these pictures is...unless I'm kicking someone in class, I'm glad I always try to keep BOTH feet on the ground at all times!

Vanishing Without A Trace...

Everyone has seen keys, glasses, even money disappear without a trace before.  But a person? Or how about a whole village?

When I was a senior in high school, I had gym class the first thing in the morning.   High school was not necessarily the best time of my life and gym was at the bottom of my list so I always made sure I went straight there to get it over with.  My high school was connected to a separate building housing the gymnasium by a covered walk way.  There was basically only one way TO the gym from the high school and only one way BACK which is the route I took that day.  Even now no one can explain to me what happened but I managed to lose my entire gym class one fall day.  No one in the locker room, no one in the showers, no one wandering the school grounds between the buildings.  My entire class had simply VANISHED before my eyes and it shook me so profoundly I had to leave school for the rest of the day.

Mysterious disappearances happen all the time but for your reading enjoyment and to make up for my emergency of last week preventing my posting a Wild Wednesday blog, I have included two instances where someone or something has vanished without a trace...

On one chilly December morning in 1910, prominent socialite, Dorothy Arnold, decided to take a stroll through Central Park.  She was the daughter of a wealthy perfume importer and was hoping to purchase a new party dress.  She was last seen at a bookstore where she made a purchase and ran into a female friend.  That was the last person to probably see Dorothy Arnold alive as she never returned home that night and a private investigation performed by the Pinkertons could find no trace of her.  Dorothy's father, Francis Arnold, would end up spending over $100,000 over the years  in a sad attempt to locate his daughter and by the time Francis died in 1922, he had given up all hope of ever seeing Dorothy alive.

There is much controversy about what happened to the 30 Inuit men, women, and children living in an isolated village on Lake Anjikuni one cold November night in 1930.  Canadian fur trapper, Joe Labelle, came across the village and instead of being greeted by the inhabitants, Joe found deserted huts and the people gone.  What was so bewildering was all the things left behind like food, clothing, tools and there was even some talk that the ceremonial graves of the Inuit ancestors had been dug up and the bodies removed.  Even an extensive search by the Canadian Mounties failed to turn up any clue as to what happened to the villagers.  To this day, the debate goes on as to what really happened.

The Voynich Manuscript

When I was a middle schooler I was fascinated with the idea of Egyptian hieroglyphs.  How lovely to imagine an ancient civilization creating its own language so unique it took centuries to break the code.   For the longest time I thought this was the last "unknown" language to be discovered.  But I was wrong.

Some time during the early sixteenth century, there was a manuscript written in an unknown script and in an unknown language, which to date, has STILL not been cracked.  Named after the gentleman who purchased the book in 1912, scholars studying the document believe it might have come from northern Italy during medieval times.  

Some of the pages are missing and there are a lot of illustrations without rhyme or reason.  There has been debates throughout the years over who wrote the actual script and for what purpose.  It is suggested that the book was broken into six parts.  Those parts include herbal, astronomical, biological, cosmological, pharmaceutical, and recipes.  Top code breakers in the US during both World War I and World War II tried their hand at cracking the code with little success.  Finally in 1969, the Voynich manuscript was donated to the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University.

I wonder who took the time all those centuries ago to create such a book?  Here I am, working so hard to create a little mystery of my own, and here's one practically right under my nose!

Wild Wednesday

 

Harry Houdini, one of the greatest escape artists of all times, made a living being mysterious.  Eighty six years after his death, people today still are fascinated with the life and time of this famous magician.  You might know some of his famous escape tricks like the Chinese Water Torture Cell or the Milk Can Escape, but did you know these facts about him?

1.  Houdini died on October 31, 1926 from a ruptured appendix after being hit in the abdomen as part of a stunt gone wrong.  His wife, Bess, attempted to contact her husband through a series of seances for the next ten years and in 1936 closed down the shrine created in his honor.

2.  Dixie Dooley, a Las Vegas magician, holds a seance during his magic act that once had 20 people attend but now performs for crowds of up to 5000 at a time.

3.  Before Bess died, she passed the seance torch to Walter B Gibson, an American author and magician, who held the seances at the Magic Town House in New York City.  The torch was then passed to Dorothy Dietrich, American magician, who held the seances at the Houdini Museum in Scanton, Pa.

4. Harry's house at 278 West 113th Street in New York is thought to be haunted and is owned by an escape artist.

5.  Harry starred in six Hollywood movies and nine movies were made about him after his death.

6.  He began his career at nine years old when he performed as a trapeze artist under the name Ehrich, Prince of the Air.



Independence Day Oddities

So you think you know all about Independence Day, right? The Fourth of July in the US is celebrated because that is when all those people signed the Declaration of Independence back in 1776, right?  WRONG!  Read on and discover some unusual facts about this day in American history...

1.  The Declaration of Independence was NOT signed by all of the participants on July 4th, 1776.  John Hancock was the only one of the original 56 signers to actually sign it on July 4th.  It took until 1781 for one of them to finally sign it!

2.  The Liberty Bell was not rung on July 4th, 1776 because the paperwork was neither signed nor proclaimed on that date.  The bell was rung on July 8th after most of the 56 signers had finally completed the paperwork.

3.  Williamsburg, Virginia is the only city which celebrates Independence Day on July 25th instead of July 4th because that is when the actual declaration was adopted.

4.  Rough and Ready, California tried to break away from the union on April 7th, 1850 but quickly decided to rejoin the country on July 4th when saloons in the area made it clear that no liquor would be sold to non-citizens!

5.  Three presidents died on Independence Day.  Jefferson and Adams died within minutes of each other on July 4th, 1826 and Monroe died on July 4th, 1831.