Author Archives: James

John F. Kennedy (50 years)

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963)

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, according to the conclusions of multiple government investigations, including the ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963-4 and the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976-9. This conclusion initially met with widespread support among the American public, but polls, since the original 1966 Gallup poll, show a majority of the public hold beliefs contrary to these findings. The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories (even the HSCA, based on disputed acoustical evidence, concluded that Oswald may have had unspecified co-conspirators), though these theories have not generally been accepted by mainstream historians and no single compelling alternative theory has emerged.

The Progress Bar

The Progress Bar

Happy Birthday, ISS

On November 20, 1998, the first segment of the ISS, the Zarya FGB, was launched into orbit on a Russian Proton rocket, and was followed two weeks later by the first of three ‘node’ modules, Unity, launched aboard STS-88.

Wikipedia Link

RIP “Mr. Whipple”

 

 

Mr. Whipple

Dick Wilson as Mr. Whipple with the Charmin.

Dick Wilson, born Riccardo DiGuglielmo (30 July 1916 – 19 November 2007), was a British-born American character actor who played the role of finicky grocery store manager Mr. (George) Whipple in over 500 Charmin toilet paper television commercials (1965–1989, 1999).

Happy Birthday, Calvin & Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger. The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th-century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century English political philosopher. The strip was syndicated daily from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. To date, more than 30 million copies of the 18 Calvin and Hobbes books have been printed.

Wikipedia Link

I think it is safe now…

I think it is safe now...

Hikers and Bikers

Hikers and Bikers

Gravity

Gravity

Google Street View captures Shuttle on 747

Google Street View Captures Shuttle

Space Shuttle Enterprise last flight towards New York was captured by Google Street View

Tourist

Guess that makes me a tourist

Veteran’s Day

Veteran's Day

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Edmund FitzgeraldThe SS Edmund Fitzgerald, May 1975.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a cargo ship that sank suddenly during a gale storm on November 10, 1975, while on Lake Superior. The ship went down without a distress signal in 530 feet (162 m) of water at 46°59.9′N 85°6.6′W, in Canadian waters about 17 miles (15 nm; 27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew perished. Gordon Lightfoot‘s hit song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, helped make the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping.

He Did It!

He Did It!

Great Turtles

Great Turtles

Getting Real Tired

Getting Real Tired of Your Shit Spiderman

Bunny Foo Foo

Bunny Foo Foo

Bunny

Bunny

RIP Michael Crichton

John Michael Crichton, M.D., (October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008 ) is best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of NBC’s ER.

Crichton’s books have sold more than 150 million copies worldwide. He was the author of The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Rising Sun, Timeline, State of Fear, Prey, and Next. He was most famous for being the author of Jurassic Park, and its sequels.

His most recent novel, Next, about genetics and law, was published in December 2006.

He had won an Emmy, a Peabody and a Writer’s Guild of America Award for ER.

Submarine surfaces from Milan Street


On Tuesday morning Milan residents were greeted with the unlikely sight of a submarine emerging out of the street in the city center. The submarine, its dazed crew, and a hectic crowd of emergency personnel were all part of an elaborate marketing stunt for Europ Assistance, an insurance company. The stunt was orchestrated by ad agency M&C Saatchi Milano.

Submarine emerges in Milan StreetSubmarine emerges in Milan Street

Tiny (and I mean TINY) Horseshoe Crabs

Tiny Horseshoe Crab

Early one morning in August, an aquarist at Jenkison’s Aquarium in New Jersey came across some tiny surprises: several hundred Horseshoe Crab babies had hatched in an off-exhibit holding tank. They have been doing very well and some are now on exhibit in the aquarium’s classroom to promote a message of shoreline conservation, as migratory shorebirds depend on Horseshoe Crab eggs for a food source during their long migrations.

The Atlantic Horseshoe Crab has been called a ‘living fossil’ because we find fossilized Horseshoe Crabs from over 200 million years ago. They are actually more closely related to spiders and scorpions than to crabs. This arthropod is in a class by itself though – Merostomata – which means ‘legs attached to the mouth’. Trilobites that lived over 500 million years ago are actually a closer relative to this creature.