Category: Trivia

Napoleon Bonaparte was at one time a self-proclaimed Emperor who had conquered nearly all of Europe.

Napoleon died an early death from stomach cancer when, despite his military genius, he was defeated and banished to a small island in the South Atlantic over 180 years ago.

Now it appears that Napoleon may not have died from cancer after all. A new toxicological report shows a “toxic form of arsenic, used for centuries as rat poison, was found in Napoleon‘s hair samples at 37 to 42 times above the normal level.” .

Although the house is quiet now, soon the sounds of Christmas morning will be everywhere.

Still in this period of calm, as I reflect on the many blessings that I have, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Wonderful Kwanzaa, or great whatever you celebrate. And if you don’t celebrate anything, have a good day anyway!

When I was a kid, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was a big deal. Everyone would watch it… and I mean everyone.

Not just kids waiting for the turkey to be done, parents and grandparents would join their kids to watch as the marching bands, floats, convertbles with celebrities, and character balloons passed by.

And speaking of character balloons, did you know that the first were Felix the Cat, the Dragon, the Elephant, and the Toy Solider who appeared in the first Macy’s parade in 1927.

Here are a few other things that I’ll bet you didn’t know about the parade:

1] The first balloons used in the parade were filled with helium, and would have exploded had they reached too high an altitude!

2] The second year Macy’s came up with a helium and air mixture that is still used to this day.

3] Starting the second year and for the next three years, the balloons were released into the air at the end of the parade. Cash prizes were offered to those who found and returned the balloons.

Clarence Chamberlain, a pilot flying above New York City, caught the Pig Balloon in midair in an effort to be first to collect the prize money; and the following year, an aviator almost crashed into Broadway in an attempt to be the first to get a balloon. Due to stunts like these the practice of releasing the balloons at the end of the parade was stopped in 1933.

So here we are over 70 years later and the parade is still on, but does anybody watch anymore? Seems like even parade organizers are having trouble getting celebrities to come to the darn things. I guess we live in a world that is just too fast paced. We don’t have time for a good parade anymore.

And that’s too bad, because when I was a kid…

Believe it or not, Daytona Beach is in the direct path of the third hurricane in just over a month! [It would have been four but the last one turned.]

I’ll be assisting in getting a shelter open on Saturday morning and hoping that Jeanne takes a sharp turn to the right!

If the SZ is late with an update this weekend, you’ll know why.

Two hurricanes hit us in three weeks. The odds against this are astronomical.

But it happened.

We had plenty of warning. We knew that Frances was coming.

The crazy thing is, hurricanes quite often change their paths. And Frances was so big if you planned to leave, where could you go to be safe?

I worked at a shelter on Thursday and Friday and then came home to ride out the worst with the wife and kids. It had been raining a little bit each day since Hurricane Charley hit three weeks ago, and on Saturday, it really started coming down… and down… and down.

We lost power on Saturday morning. Then the winds picked up. From about 10 AM until well after midnight the rain fell and strong winds blew. On Sunday the winds finally began to die down but the rain just kept coming.

Monday came and so did more rain. The entire county went under a curfew. Most people were without electricity and parts of the city [and many homes] were flooded. Hurricane force winds had destroyed homes and businesses. And many streets were under so much water that they were impassible. You can imagine what that much water did to homes. Luckily no fatalities have been reported.

We finally got our electricity back on today. Our house had very minor damage and just a bit of water came in. We had to cut down some trees, but other than that we were spared. I have friends who weren’t so lucky, but each of them has said it could have been so much worse.

And they’re right.

It’s amazing how spoiled we’ve become and how lucky we are. After four or five days of being trapped in a house without electricity… no AC, no phones, no internet, no hot meals or hot showers, you begin to suddenly appreciate the small things.

Believe it or not, there’s another hurricane out there brewing. The odds of it hitting the same part of Florida again so soon after the last hurricane are astronomical…

… but unfortunately not impossible.

I’ve lived in Florida for 30 years. And in those 30 years we’ve had our fair share of hurricane scares. We’ve even been grazed by a hurricane or two in my area. Now it looks like we’re going to get hit with the second one in less than three weeks.

The good news is that hurricane Frances‘ path has shifted a bit. Last night it looked like Daytona Beach was going to be dead center of Frances‘ trip through the Sunshine State. Now we’ll probably just get a glancing blow. And this blow will be stronger than Charley who came through a couple of weeks ago.

With Charley we lost power for three days. And we were lucky. Some people lost their lives, others lost their homes and personal possessions. Beatty‘s house had two huge tree limbs come through the roof … and he considers himself lucky since no one was hurt.

You’re probably wondering why we don’t just leave when there’s a hurricane coming. The fact is that many people do. The highways have been backed up all day. The traffic crawls and tempers rise. When we attempted to leave five years ago, we got caught up in the traffic crawl and saw more accidents and people arguing and bad behavior… the roads ended up being more dangerous than the weather.

The other fact is that most hurricanes are so big and change their paths often enough that you really don’t know where they’re going to end up. For Charley some people headed to the Daytona Beach area and wound up right in the path after Charley shifted. Frances is as big as the state of Texas…

The bad weather is supposed to start tomorrow with the worst of it hitting us on Saturday [and going into Sunday]. We’re probably going to lose power for a while [and nothing else I hope]. At any rate, I’ll post an update as soon as I can after that.

And if Frances shifts even father away from Daytona that loud noise you hear will be my sigh of relief. ; )

One of the funniest [and coolest] things that I’ve seen lately has to do with Transformers.

Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either… Transformers!

Even if you’re too old or young to have played with them, you’re probably aware of ’em. They were toys in the shape of cars, trucks, and just about anything that with a few twists could be, uh, transformed into something else.

At any rate I discovered the link while checking out Dean Trippe‘s new blog… click on THIS LINK and check out the coolest Transformer ever.

And I swear on all that is good… Big Beatty used to dance just like that!

Since my blog is geared towards fun stuff, I usually don’t discuss politics too much. But this story was just too good not to mention.

Florida’s Governor, Jeb Bush, was speaking to a group of 200 honors students and opened it up for questions. An 18 year old student asked the Governor if he could answer an FCAT Math Question.

FCAT is the test that students are required to pass in order to get a diploma. And while I think the idea of FCAT is a good one, I do have some problems with the way its implemented… but I digress.

According to the article, “the governor gave a steely grin and then stalled a bit. “The angles would be … If I was going to guess … Three-four-five. Three-four-five. I don’t know, 125, 90 and whatever remains on 180?”

As you’ve probably already figured out, the answer was wrong.

Does that mean that the Governor is stupid? No. Does it mean that he shouldn’t be allowed to be governor? No. Does it mean that he couldn’t pass the test? No.

I don’t think that we should judge a person on the basis of one test. But that’s what they do with the FCAT.