Picture Monday, July 7, 2008

These good gentlemen are the Main's. More precisely, Bob Main's family on Chris's mother's side. Starting in the lower right section is Bobby's grandfather; lower left is Bob Main's father; upper left is Bobby's uncle; finally at the upper right there is "?". Sorry! That's what it says on the back of the picture.

The next picture is Myrtle Norris. This is Chris's grandmother. Chris says that the picture was probably taken around 1918. I like the hat. Wouldn't the women of today look grand wearing hats like that now? Nah, I really didn't think so either.

Myrtle again. Looks like June and Virginia in tow.

Look at this mischievous lad. Looks like he can't wait for the picture taking to end. Must have important things to do. Oh this is a picture of Chris's dad, Henry, when he was but a lad.

My, my, my. Look at him now. Well, not really now, but then. You know; when this picture was taken about 9th or 10th grade.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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What Won't They Do For Science?

I was searching last night for sugar-free recipes. As one thing led to another I eventually looked up Splenda. This then led to Sucralose. Person that I am I was intrigued when I saw a page that promised to detail it's history; so I clicked and read.

Wow! It turns out that the discovery of Sucralose was a total accident. According to an article on Shapefit.com, two scientists working for Tate & Lyle in England were searching for a new insecticide. In their search the scientists were working with sugar. More precisely, the selective chlorination of sucrose. ????? I don't know what it means either!

Anyway, one day, one of the scientists asked the other to "Test" the substance that was just created. The second scientist thought he was told to "Taste" the substance. So he did. It was sweet. Ka-ching!!! Splenda is born.There's one thing I don't understand though. If you're working on making a new insecticide why would you think your partner told to "Taste" it? And even more puzzling, why would go ahead and taste it?? I suppose you have to be a dedicated scientist.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Wham-O, Just Because I Like the Way It Sounds

Slept late. Tested my blood sugar and it was 160. YIKES!!! It happens most of the time after a birthday party. I didn't really party, I just stayed up late and ate later than normal.

Yesterday afternoon Julie got a brilliant idea. "Let's go to Toys-R-Us and buy a Slip-N-Slide for Jace." So we packed up and went to Toys-R-Us in Waco. Pitiful. Pitiful. Now understand, for whatever reasons, I just don't like going to Toys-R-Us. Maybe it's the prices. But the store in Waco seemed half stocked. Maybe they did a bang-up business the day before we came! I don't think so. It just seemed that they weren't doing very well; but I digress. No Slip-N-Slides. Nada, nothing. We looked at shoes for Jace. Nothing worth a toot!

My Mother never could say "Toys-R-Us" the right way. She always called it "Toys-For-Us". Oh well!

After Toys-R-Us we headed to Target. BINGO. A shelf full of Slip-N-Slides. And cheaper too. Julie bought the Slip-N-Slide. Chris and I bought shoes for Jace, supplies for my classroom, and a host of other things.

We brought the loot home and Julie got to work on the Slip-N-Slide. And waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Scott, Jess, and Jace came over. Jace and Julie slipped and they slid. They got wet and they made a mess. It got dark, I went inside. I watched the "Music Man" and sang along. Fortunately no one else was inside to listen.

Did you know that Meredith Wilson wrote the "Chicken Fat" song? Yeah, and Robert Preston sang it. It's interesting, the song was commissioned by President Kennedy for his big push on physical fitness.

After the movie I stepped out on the back patio to watch fireworks. After a few minutes I came in and watched them on TV. After the fireworks I watched an Alfred Hitchcock interview on the Dick Cavett Show. It was recorded, not live. Very good though.

It was a good 4th of July!
© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Happy Birthday America #232

Happy Fourth of July and may God Bless America!
© 2008 Barry T Horst


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More Notgeld #2

In my posts Is That History Peering Back At Me? and More Notgeld - Installment 1 I have shared some scans of a portion of my Notgeld collection.

Today, instead of new scans I am going to share some more information I have found while researching Notgeld. Richard Holmes has a lot of great information on Notgeld, as well as informative links, on his web-page German Inflationary Notgeld 1922 - 1923.

Richard states on his web-page: After WWI, Germany was plunged into one of the worst inflations ever to hit a western country as the government struggled with the truly massive punitive damages demanded by the Treaty of Versailles. During this brief period of hyper-inflation, people who did not convert their savings into tangible assets lost them completely . Many bank accounts were closed because even large pre-war sums of 100,000 Marks were longer worth even the price of a postage stamp. The middle class was by and large reduced to poverty, theft and petty crime soared, pensions became worthless and many people starved to death.

Below are two examples of "high value" notes that were printed to cope with the runaway inflation of the day. The first note is a Private Company Issue by Phoenix Mining, 5 Billionen Mark (5 Trillion Marks).

This is a Reichsbahn (German Rail) Issue, 10 Billionen Mark (10 Trillion Marks).

I thought that the one below was quite interesting it is a Munster Landesbank Regional Issue, 4.2 Goldmark / 1 Dollar deniminated.

* Note that in German "eine Milliarde" means 1,000,000,000 (an American billion) and "eine Billion" means 1,000,000,000,000 (an American trillion)

These three scans are courtesy of Richard Holmes. Please visit the Richard Holmes's Homepage.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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And Now The Weather--No Wait!

Many people say that my daughter Julie is related to me. When they say this they are meaning that she is very much like me. It seems that I tend to do things a lot like her. Or more precisely, she does things like me many times. We can be watching TV and hear someone say something that is less than intelligent and both of us will often comment about it at the same time.

Last night we were watching the local news on KWTX-DTV, the local CBS affiliate. When the broadcast begins each evening the anchor does their teases for the news, weather, and sports before going to their first news story. One of the teases they announce each evening is their signature "No Wait Weather". Last night Julie commented, "Why do they call it "No Wait Weather" and then make you wait before they do it?

Along those same lines this same station tends to have a difficult time with some of their broadcasts. There are many times that we are watching the local news on this same station and will see captions misspelled or the pictures running have nothing to do with the story being presented.

And now for something completely different. We were watching some episodes of "How Do They Do It?" yesterday that I had recorded on the DVR. In one episode the show was telling about how solid rocket boosters are tested. Because the test facility is in Utah the story was describing the wide open countryside and during the description they were showing a rancher with an extremely long handle bar mustache riding on horseback. Good! A later episode was explaining how silicon chips were made at Texas Instruments at a plant in Texas. As a lead in to all things being big in Texas they showed a close up of the very same above mentioned rancher and his handle bar mustache. Or maybe it was his twin brother, or perhaps sister!

Nah!!!

Probably just never thought someone would notice.
© 2008 Barry T Horst


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