The Big Sneeze

 

You: "Aaaachoo!!"

Me: "Bless you..."

There's a good reason for me to say that.

The Big Sneeze is no joke.

After you take in gobs of air with the 'Aaaaa' portion of it,

you expell that air at around 100 miles per hour.

A hundred miles per hour is hurricane force winds.

A category 2 storm actually, not to mention

the 100,000 germs that shoot out with it.

So what do you do?

Be polite and try to hold it in,

or just let it out?

Let 'er rip, pal.

No holding back.

That's the worst thing you can do for yourself.

Forcing this eruption to remain contained

brings with it the possibility of

muscle strains, blood vessels bursting,

and in some cases even a hernia or broken ribs

due to the extreme pressure created in the diaphragm.

Then too there is that huge cluster of germs

mentioned above that go along for the ride.

So the next time you're at someone's 100th

Birthday Party, and the guest of honor sneezes

hard enough to blow out all 100 candles

at the same time, you might just want to quietly

decline the piece of cake that you'll be offered.

Just a thought...

What Is Mona Missing?

Ahhh, The Mona Lisa,

probably the most famous painting in the world,

and yet we all mstakenly name her Mona Lisa.

Mona isn't her name at all.

Mona, translated, means My Lady,

so the real name of the painting is

My Lady Lisa.

So... for the most part, we really didn't know

the name of the most famous painting in the world.

There's something else about the painting

that for most of us has gone unnoticed.

Where are her eyebrows,

or eyelashes for that matter?

Her's the real painting, take a good look.

Do you see any eyebrows?

Eyelashes?

I don't.

Leonardo Da Vinci was considered an

absolute perfectionist,

so why no eyebrows or lashes?

Did he just miss it?

Really?

He was often quoted as saying his works

were never finished.

Was that the case with My Lady Lisa.

Apparently so, because the painting was never

delivered to its original customer,

Francesco Del Giocondo, Lisa's husband.

DaVinci kept the painting with him whenever he

moved, and continued to work on it till he died.

So again, what abut those brows and lashes?

In 2007 a French photographer claimed that by using

a high dfinition camera the eyebrows and eyelashes

are indeed visible, so hence were originally there.

Do you see them now?

Nope, neither do I...

Delaware Chickens

Delaware, The First State,

so called because they were the first to ratify

the US Constitution.

It's also number one as a financial hub

with over 60% of Fortune 500 companies incorporated there.

Wilmington, the state capital,

is also known as the Chemical Capital of the World,

a trend that took root when Dupont built

a gunpowder factory to serve a growing country.

Now the industry is more research driven,

producing materials like Nylon, Teflon, and Kevlar.

There is another area where Delaware can claim

a number one status, and that is in raising chickens.

That's with a C - and an H - is in... chickens.

1923 - Ocean View, Delaware.

A local farmer named Cecilia Steele placed

her annual order for 50 chicks from a nearby hatchery,

but someone in the hatchery office added a zero

to the order and sent her 500 instead.

Chickens at the time were predominantly raised to lay eggs,

but Ms. Steele took the mistaken order as a sign

that maybe it was time for her business to grow,

and kept all 500 of them.

Her idea was to sell the whole chicken, not just the eggs,

and within a decade the industry slogan became

"A Chicken In Every Pot".

Today the poultry industry accounts for 75%

of the states' total agricultural income.

In chicken numbers that's 200 million

broiler chickens per year.

200 million...

And yes, that's number one in the country,

all beginning in a lowly chicken coop

that measured 16 feet long by 16 feet wide,

in tiny little Delaware,

and is now proudly on display at the

Agricultural Museum in Dover.

The Other Mayflower

 1620 - The voyage of the Mayflower, England to America. 

Pretty straight forward, right?

You leave England, sail across the Atlantic

and land in America, except...

it didn't quite go that way.

Unknown to a lot of us [myself included],

the Pilgrims weren't from Jolly Olde England,

they were from the Netherlands,

and sailed first from there to England

to meet the Mayflower.

The ship they sailed on was the Speedwell,

which I am calling the 'other' Mayflower

because it too was to make the voyage to America.

It was problems with the Speedwell

that actually caused the Pilgrims to end their

voyage by landing in Plymouth

instead of their original destination

of Northern Virginia.

You see, the Speedwell leaked, a lot.

It leaked so badly it had to be repaired after

that comparatively short jaunt

from the Netherlands to England.

After a week or so for the repairs to be completed,

the two ships departed together for America,

but didn't get too far from the English coast

before the Speedwell leaked again.

After pulling into another port for further repairs,

both ships set off once more,

but not for long.

After just a couple of days at sea

the Speedwell leaked yet again,

severely enough that both ships turned

back to where they had started.

This time the Pilgrims gave up on the Speedwell

[good move I would say]

and transferred the passengers and cargo

onto the already crowded Mayflower.

The repairs and multiple departures by then

had extended the voyage to a point that

by the time they managed to get across the Atlantic

and close to the American coastline

they were sailing right into storm season,

and heavy seas forced them to give up on continuing

to Virginia and instead they made land at Plymouth.

PS:  I've been up there to Plymouth Rock,

and the locals say that's not 'really' where

the landing occured...

but that's a whole other story.