Happy Halloween!!

Hope everyone has a safe Halloween. If you're out there driving tonight, be careful of big and little ghosts and goblins running around....'tis the season!! LOL It's nice that it fell on a Friday this year! Weather is perfect for it here. Had been cold all week but today it's sunny and in the 60's so the kiddies should have a good time. Living out in nowhere-land we don't get any trick-or-treaters except family. I suspect we will get a visit from Spiderman and a Lady Bug. The other 2 live an hours drive away and last year Faith went around their big neighborhood and got a bucket full of candy....so doubt if they make it by tonight but maybe sometime over the weekend.


Here's some Halloween superstitions and bad luck omens:

According to Webster's dictionary, superstition is: n. any belief that is inconsistent with the known laws of science or with what is considered true and rational; esp., such a belief in omens, the supernatural, etc.

Halloween is traditionally the time when common superstitions, folklore, myths and omens carry more weight to those who believe. Superstition origins go back thousands of years ago. Beliefs include good luck charms, amulets, bad luck, fortunes, cures, portents, omens and predictions, fortunes and spells.

Bad fallacies far outweigh the good, especially around Halloween when myths run rampant. When it comes right down to it, many people still believe that omens can predict our destiny and misfortune -- particularly for the worse.

Superstitions & Bad Luck Omens

• Black Cats-Black cats have long been believed to be a supernatural omen since the witch hunts of the middle ages when cats were thought to be connected to evil. Since then, it is considered bad luck if a black cat crosses your path.

• Broken Mirrors-An ancient myth our ancestors believed was that the image in a mirror is our actual soul. A broken mirror represented the soul being astray from your body. To break the spell of misfortune, you must wait seven hours (one for each year of bad luck) before picking up the broken pieces, and bury them outside in the moonlight.

• Ladders-In the days before the gallows, criminals were hung from the top rung of a ladder and their spirits were believed to linger underneath. Common folklore has it to be bad luck to walk beneath an open ladder and pass through the triangle of evil ghosts and spirits.

• Owls-If an owl looks in your window or if you seeing one in the daylight bad luck and death will bestow you.

• Salt-At one time salt was a rare commodity and thought to have magical powers. It was unfortunate to spill salt and said to foretell family disarray and death. To ward off bad luck, throw a pinch over your shoulder and all will be well.

• Sparrows-Sparrows are thought to carry the souls of the dead and it is believed to bring bad luck if you kill one.
  

• Unlucky Number #13-The fear of the number 13 is still common today, and avoided in many different ways. Some buildings still do not have an official 13th floor and many people avoid driving or going anywhere on Friday the 13th.

Good Luck Superstitions

• Horseshoes-To bring good luck, the horseshoe must lost by a horse and be found by you, with the open end facing your way. You must hang it over the door with the open end up, so the good fortune doesn't spill out.

Another origin of the 'lucky horseshoe' is the belief that they ward off witches. Witches, it was once believed, were opposed to horses, which is why they rode brooms and pitchforks instead. By placing a horseshoe over a door, the witch would be reluctant to enter.

• Four Leaf Clover-Clover is believed to protect humans and animals from evil spells and is thought to be good luck to find a four leaf clover, particularly for the Irish.

• Rabbit's Foot-These lucky charms are thought to ward off bad luck and bring good luck. You mush carry the rabbit's foot on a chain around your neck, or in your left back pocket. The older it gets, the more good luck it brings.

• Wishbones-Two people are to pull apart a dried breastbone of a turkey or chicken and the one who is left with the longer end will have their wish come true.

News Today...for real!!

A couple samplings from around the Internet that caught my eye today:

This one just cracked me up. I could picture all these people running around chasing a poodle. For 17 hours!! Now where was Homeland Security?

Dog escapes at airport, eludes personnel for 17 hours

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS • October 28, 2008

BOSTON — Choochy the poodle is a “runway runaway.”

Boston’s Logan International Airport officials say Choochy escaped from her kennel as she was being unloaded after a flight from Detroit Saturday night and scampered across runways and taxiways.

Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella says the poodle evaded airport personnel for more than 17 hours and delayed at least eight flights.

About 15 state police, firefighters, operations personnel and even electricians chased Choochy late into the night, delaying flights for up 30 minutes.

Orlandella says the poodle was frightened, tired and hungry when she was finally lured to safety with food early Sunday afternoon.

The dog was treated for minor injuries at an animal hospital and returned to her family.

'Good Samaritan' saves crying woman's foreclosed home

(CNN) -- Tracy Orr sat in the back of the room and prepared to watch her foreclosed home go up for auction this past Saturday. That's when a pesky stranger sat down beside her and struck up a conversation.

Tracy Orr faced losing her home to foreclosure when Marilyn Mock, a stranger, stepped in to buy it.

"Are you here to buy a house?" Marilyn Mock said.

Orr couldn't hold it in. The tears flowed. She pointed to the auction brochure at a home that didn't have a picture. "That's my house," she said.

Within moments, the four-bedroom, two-bath home in Pottsboro, Texas, went up for sale. People up front began casting their bids. The home that Orr purchased in September 2004 was slipping away.

She stood and moved toward the crowd. Behind her, Mock got into the action.

"She didn't know I was doing it," Mock says. "I just kept asking her if [her home] was worth it, and she just kept crying. She probably thought I was crazy, 'Why does this woman keep asking me that?' "

Mock says she bought the home for about $30,000. That's when Mock did what most bidders at a foreclosure auction never do.

"She said, 'I did this for you. I'm doing this for you,' " Orr says. "When it was all done, I was just in shock."

"I thought maybe her and her husband do these types of things to buy them and turn them. She said, 'No, you just look like you needed a friend.' "

"All this happened within like 5 minutes. She never even asked me my name. She didn't ask me my financial situation. She had no idea what [the house] looked like. She just did it out of the graciousness of her heart, just a 'Good Samaritan,' " Orr says. "It's amazing."

Orr says she had taken out a mortgage of $80,000 in 2004 when she first bought the home. At the time, she says she worked for the U.S. Postal Service. But she lost her job a month after taking out the loan when she says the Post Office fired her over a DWI while off-duty. She says a wrongful termination lawsuit is pending.

Without a job, she fell behind on her home payments. She sold some property in 2006 for $12,000 and paid it to the mortgage company, thinking she had done enough to save herself from foreclosure -- but to no avail, she says.

"It's just been a bad deal," says Orr, who now works at All Saints Camp and Conference Center, a Christian group with ties to the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, Texas.

With the foreclosure auction approaching, she planned to make the nearly 80-mile drive to Dallas this past Saturday with an investor friend. But she says he ditched her at the last-minute. She went to the auction with her family, and suddenly found herself in the back with Mock.

"I always talk to everyone around me," Mock says. "I mean you can always find out all kinds of interesting things when you talk to people around you. So I just asked her, 'Are you here to buy a house?' "

Mock, who is known as the "Rock Lady" for her small business selling flagstone and other rocks in Rockwall, Texas, says she went to the auction with her 27-year-old son to help him buy his first home. He bought his home, and soon afterward Mock came across Orr.

Mock says she's using one of her business dump trucks as collateral for the $30,000 sale price. "I can't afford to just give [the house] to her," she says.

As for Orr's payments, Mock says, "We'll just figure out however much she can pay on it. That way, she can have her house back."

Why be so generous?

"She was just so sad. You put yourself in their situation and you realize you just got to do something," says Mock, who says she has trouble walking by homeless people on the street and not helping them out.

"If it was you, you'd want somebody to stop and help you."

When she told her husband of 30 years that she'd just bought a home for a stranger, she says his reaction was: "Whatever."

"He's used to it," she says with a booming laugh.

Mock says she's excited for another reason too. Orr's house is located near a Texas fishing hot-spot. "She says I can come up there and fish, and I love to fish!"

Orr, who nearly lost her home, says her newfound friend has "given me back faith and hope to keep going and hold my head up."

"Things happen for a reason," Orr says.

I had to get the tissues after this one. Talk about your 'random acts of kindness'! I've bought the lunch of the person behind me at the drive-thru but $30,000.00 is beyond kindness!! You go 'Rock Lady' and God Bless you!.

Take care ....until next post....

Whew!

For 2 weeks I've been covering for someone here that had back surgery. But, yeah!!, back to normal now!! Was so nice to come into work and have time to visit some sites on the Internet. My volcano blog and web cams still show the volcanoes. Apparently, the world does keep spinning whether I have time to browse it or not. Although the Chaiten volcano has been making itself known again for several days. The bulletins that have come out say the seismic activity shows no sign of more eruptions and the plumes are mostly water vapor but what a show they put on! :)

Last night we made it official. We took out the window air conditioners. :( Summer is officially over. Most of the soybean fields are harvested and the farmers are getting a start on the corn fields now. Bow deer season started and firearm season is just around the corner. Sure hate to see the end of summer. The older I get the less I like the cold weather. We spent most of Sunday morning checking out electric furnaces online. We currently have a fuel oil eater and with the prices going up, up, up we need to make a change.

When we moved in (1989) fuel oil was $.89/gal. I think the last time I got some (2 yrs ago since I'm stingy with it and we have alternate heat source) we paid almost $4/gal!! With grandkids around I don't want to use the heaters anymore for safety reasons but we don't want to pay $800 to fill the tank up. The tank only lasts us about 6-8 weeks and when it gets cold and very windy (lots of open area around us once the fields are down) it may only last 4 weeks. Have I said before how flat Indiana is where we live? lol As a pancake, I tell ya! At least gas prices are back down again. $2.73/gal here this morning!

Friday night I received this text message: Halloween Pumpkin Lilly

Is she a darling or what!!!?? I've got the greatest and cutest grandkids on the planet! And, yes, I'm partial LOL....very!

Today In History:

October 20, 1803

U.S. Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase

On this day in 1803, the U.S. Senate approves a treaty with France providing for the purchase of the territory of Louisiana, which would double the size of the United States.

At the end of 18th century, the Spanish technically owned Louisiana, the huge region west of the Mississippi that had once been claimed by France and named for its monarch, King Louis XIV. Despite Spanish ownership, American settlers in search of new land were already threatening to overrun the territory by the early 19th century. Recognizing it could not effectively maintain control of the region, Spain ceded Louisiana back to France in 1801, sparking intense anxieties in Washington, D.C. Under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, France had become the most powerful nation in Europe, and unlike Spain, it had the military power and the ambition to establish a strong colony in Louisiana and keep out the Americans.

Realizing that it was essential that the U.S. at least maintain control of the mouth of the all-important Mississippi River, early in 1803 President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe to join the French foreign minister, Robert Livingston, in France to see if Napoleon might be persuaded to sell New Orleans and West Florida to the U.S. By that spring, the European situation had changed radically. Napoleon, who had previously envisioned creating a mighty new French empire in America, was now facing war with Great Britain. Rather than risk the strong possibility that Great Britain would quickly capture Louisiana and leave France with nothing, Napoleon decided to raise money for his war and simultaneously deny his enemy plum territory by offering to sell the entire territory to the U.S. for a mere $15 million. Flabbergasted, Monroe and Livingston decided that they couldn't pass up such a golden opportunity, and they wisely overstepped the powers delegated to them and accepted Napoleon's offer.

Despite his misgivings about the constitutionality of the purchase (the Constitution made no provision for the addition of territory by treaty), Jefferson finally agreed to send the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification, noting privately, "The less we say about constitutional difficulties the better." Despite his concerns, the treaty was ratified and the Louisiana Purchase now ranks as the greatest achievement of Jefferson's presidency.

October 20, 1944

Natural gas explosions rock Cleveland

Two liquid gas tanks explode in Cleveland, Ohio, killing 130 people, on this day in 1944. It took all of the city’s firefighters to bring the resulting industrial fire under control.

At 2:30 p.m., laboratory workers at the East Ohio Gas Company spotted white vapor leaking from the large natural gas tank at the company plant near Lake Erie. The circular tank had a diameter of 57 feet and could hold 90 million cubic feet of the highly flammable gas. Ten minutes later, a massive and violent explosion rocked the entire area. Flames went as high as 2,500 feet in the air. Everything in a half-mile vicinity of the explosion was completely destroyed.

Shortly afterwards, a smaller tank also exploded. The resulting out-of-control fire necessitated the evacuation of 10,000 people from the surrounding area. Every firefighting unit in Cleveland converged on the East Ohio Gas site. It still took nearly an entire day to bring the fire under control. When the flames went out, rescue workers found that 130 people had been killed by the blast and nearly half of the bodies were so badly burned that they could not be identified. Two hundred and fifteen people were injured and required hospitalization.

The explosion had destroyed two entire factories, 79 homes in the surrounding area and more than 200 vehicles. The total bill for damages exceeded $10 million. The cause of the blast had to do with the contraction of the metal tanks: The gas was stored at temperatures below negative 250 degrees and the resulting contraction of the metal had caused a steel plate to rupture.

Newer and safer techniques for storing gas and building tanks were developed in the wake of this disaster.

October 20, 1947

Congress investigates Reds in Hollywood

On October 20, 1947, the notorious Red Scare kicks into high gear in Washington, as a Congressional committee begins investigating Communist influence in one of the world's richest and most glamorous communities: Hollywood.

After World War II, the Cold War began to heat up between the world's two superpowers--the United States and the communist-controlled Soviet Union. In Washington, conservative watchdogs worked to out communists in government before setting their sights on alleged "Reds" in the famously liberal movie industry. In an investigation that began in October 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) grilled a number of prominent witnesses, asking bluntly "Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" Whether out of patriotism or fear, some witnesses--including director Elia Kazan, actors Gary Cooper and Robert Taylor and studio honchos Walt Disney and Jack Warner--gave the committee names of colleagues they suspected of being communists.

A small group known as the "Hollywood Ten" resisted, complaining that the hearings were illegal and violated their First Amendment rights. They were all convicted of obstructing the investigation and served jail terms. Pressured by Congress, the Hollywood establishment started a blacklist policy, banning the work of about 325 screenwriters, actors and directors who had not been cleared by the committee. Those blacklisted included composer Aaron Copland, writers Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman and Dorothy Parker, playwright Arthur Miller and actor and filmmaker Orson Welles.

Some of the blacklisted writers used pseudonyms to continue working, while others wrote scripts that were credited to other writer friends. Starting in the early 1960s, after the downfall of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the most public face of anti-communism, the ban began to lift slowly. In 1997, the Writers' Guild of America unanimously voted to change the writing credits of 23 films made during the blacklist period, reversing--but not erasing--some of the damage done during the Red Scare.

October 20, 1962

Kennedy press secretary misleads press

On this day in 1962, the White House press corps is told that President John F. Kennedy has a cold; in reality, he is holding secret meetings with advisors on the eve of ordering a blockade of Cuba.

Kennedy was in Seattle and scheduled to attend the Seattle Century 21 World’s Fair when his press secretary announced that he had contracted an "upper respiratory infection." The president then flew back to Washington, where he supposedly went to bed to recover from his cold.

Four days earlier, Kennedy had seen photographic proof that the Soviets were building 40 ballistic missile sites on the island of Cuba--within striking distance of the United States. Kennedy’s supposed bed rest was actually a marathon secret session with advisors to decide upon a response to the Soviet action. The group believed that Kennedy had three choices: to negotiate with the Russians to remove the missiles; to bomb the missile sites in Cuba; or implement a naval blockade of the island. Kennedy chose to blockade Cuba, deciding to bomb the missile sites only if further action proved necessary.

The blockade began October 21 and, the next day, Kennedy delivered a public address alerting Americans to the situation and calling on Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to remove the missiles or face retaliation by the United States. Khrushchev responded by sending more ships—possibly carrying military cargo—toward Cuba and allowing construction at the sites to continue. Over the following six days, the Cuban Missile Crisis, as it is now known, brought the world to the brink of global nuclear war while the two leaders engaged in tense negotiations via telegram and letter.

By October 28, Kennedy and Khrushchev had reached a settlement and people on both sides of the conflict breathed a collective but wary sigh of relief. The Cuban missile sites were dismantled and, in return, Kennedy agreed to close U.S. missile sites in Turkey.

Until next post.....

Johnny Depp and the Indianapolis Colts!?!

Life has been a whirlwind lately but I saw this posted at JDR and just had to share it on the blog. Two of my favorite things together! Isn't this picture just like Johnny and Hunter? Wonder what they were really up to lol!!! Gotta run....have a safe weekend all....until next post :)

From the Gonzo Photo book with intro by Johnny Depp. The picture credit reads: "Johnny Depp with football helmet".

The photo appears on a page of Polaroids in which Hunter also appears in drag. It is dated 18 July 1997 and appears to be taken at Owl Farm... the background is very dark but similar to others in the "series."

Credit and thanks to Cindy and Dharma Bum from The Zone and BuccaRoux at JDR

Championship Hopes Dashed and Investment Advice

Well, the race last weekend was highly disappointing!! Gordon crashed while trying to avoid a spinning car and finished 38Th after running very well up to that point. Then several more championship chasers wrecked which minimized the points damage but probably not enough. One of the highlights of the weekend was the Colts game. Fourth quarter and 6+ minutes left in the game, score is 10-27 Texans. Colts fans say it all the time and last week proved, "It not over until it's over!". What a come back! Even we had said their 'done', right before they sacked the Texans quarterback, made him cough up the ball and ran it for a touchdown! Twice!! Sweet!! Colts win 31-27 :)

The state of the economy is still spiraling downward. Not just here but the world economy is failing. News is out that AIG took the $85 billion bailout and 4 days later treated their top executives to a Spa over the weekend for $440 thousand. Now lawmakers are thinking about making them pay them back the $440...ya think!?! Geesh!! The stocks keep falling and our 401K retirement is dwindling. It's beginning to look like those of us 50 or over can kiss retirement goodbye until we hit 90, if we live that long. Here's some valuable investment advice I came across that maybe we should have taken:

If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would have $49 left.

With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the original $1,000.

With AIG, you would have less than $15 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214 cash. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

Here's an interesting story for you to read while I go drink beer to raise money to retire...

October 8, 1871

Fire rips through Chicago

The Great Chicago Fire begins on this day in 1871. It goes on to kill 250 people, leave 100,000 people homeless and destroy thousands of buildings. All told, the fire was responsible for an estimated $200 million in damages (more than $3 billion in today's money), approximately one-third of the city’s entire worth. At the time, slightly more than 300,000 people lived in Chicago, which was quickly becoming a transportation hub for goods and people traveling between the East Coast and the burgeoning frontier.

The fire began near the home of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary at 137 De Koven Street in southwest Chicago at about 9 p.m. Legend holds that the fire started when the family's cow knocked over a lantern, but it is unknown whether this is actually true. What is known is that within 90 minutes, the fire was completely out of control and rapidly moving toward the city center.

Blinding hot ash and dust swirled as the blaze grew—at its height, it was as much as a mile wide. The winds were so strong and unpredictable that firefighters found it virtually impossible to establish safe positions from which to battle the blaze. Lake Michigan proved to be the only thing that could halt the fire as it raced four miles west. The fire continued to burn wildly throughout the following day, finally coming under control on October 10, when rain gave a needed boost to firefighting efforts.

Of the 18,000 buildings that were destroyed by the fire, the most notable was the city’s courthouse, which had cost over $1 million to build. The Field and Leiter department store was also lost, with an estimated $2 million of merchandise inside.

The fire prompted an outbreak of looting and lawlessness. Five companies of soldiers stationed in Nebraska and Kansas were summoned to Chicago and martial law was declared on October 11, ending three days of chaos. The military stayed for two weeks restoring order. Meanwhile, refugees filled the beaches of Lake Michigan, waiting until they could safely return to the city.

The following month, Joseph Medill was elected mayor after promising to institute stricter building and fire codes, a pledge that may have helped him win the office. His victory might also be attributable to the fact that most of the city’s voting records were destroyed in the fire, so it was next to impossible to keep people from voting more than once.

Chug, chug...until next post...

FireStorm

I've heard about this for several weeks, following the rumors and speculation with trepidation. Wasn't sure when the unveiling would be, this season or waiting for Speedweeks 2009, but the best kept secret in NASCAR is out! On the Today Show, Jeff Gordon revealed the new paint scheme for his car and crew for next season: FireStorm

I'm glad it stayed similar to what he's had the past 8 years but it's different enough that I will have to go out and buy some new souvenirs. The flames blend further back on car, the yellow graduating to orange on the front make it necessary for me to update my collection. Sigh, the trials and tribulations of a fan LOL. I actually like this paint scheme a lot. It was designed by Sam Bass, as all his cars have been. It's better than some of the specialty paint schemes he's used off and on. The Nicorette (green) car and some of the Pepsi cars are hard to see and keep track of during the race. I am used to looking for that bright orange/red so hopefully this car will stand out against the others next year.

Jeff still has a chance to win the championship this year as you can see from my "At A Glance" in the sidebar. I think it's a slim chance but at least he's not out of it yet. From the way it looks, his teammate Jimmie Johnson is going to steal the show again. But how cool would it be if Jimmie were to win 3 championships in a row?!

Notice how I didn't bring up anything political or the word debate? I'll save that for later...

Off to get some work done that I'm actually getting paid to do :P Have a safe weekend

Until next post....

Back to normal...blah

Maybe it's a bad thing to take a vacation. I thoroughly enjoyed my time off. My first time taking a whole week in 5 years!! I got so many things done around the house. Not only did I get the playroom set up, I got a lot of cleaning done that you just don't have time to do when working 40 hours a week. The down side to that is I really don't want to work now. If last week was bliss....this week is hell. But, work is work and it's not going to change anytime soon.
On Saturday, we cleaned out the garage of all the summer stuff so we could put the vehicles in for winter. Then we tackled the woodshed that we have been cleaning out. All the wood is in the barn now and it's the first time in about 20 years that we've seen the whole cement floor in the woodshed!! We joked that the wood was the only thing that was holding it up. Guess we were wrong because it's still standing. It's coming down anyway because we have plans to take it down and put one of those wooden play sets there for the grandkids next spring. All the kitties aren't to happy with us, they stayed in the woodshed, since they had to find places to sleep in the other barns. That reminds me, Tiger Momma is expecting again....ugh!! I'm waiting for Hubby to explode about being infested with cats! Love me, love my cats....
I surprised myself by not even turning on the TV most days. No CNN, NASCAR! I did watch my Pirates DVDs one day and when the kids were there Jack watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory over and over and over!! LOL I was so out of touch with the rest of the world. I didn't even know about hurricane Kyle until it was almost to land but I did hear about Paul Newman when I checked qualifying on Friday. He was a hell-of-a guy. I can't choose a favorite movie of his but it would be between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or The Sting. I just love those two together! Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of James Dean. It's big around here since we are less than an hour away from his birthplace. They have all kinds of festivals, car shows and such, around here for his birthday.
Once I was back at work I checked my news sites and saw that the Chaiten volcano is still making it's presence known. Check out this web cam from Chile...

http://teletrece.canal13.cl/t13/html/Chaiten/index.html

Also, Fournaise, in France, had an eruption. Check out the web cam here:

http://www.fournaise.info/webcam06.php

Just keep in mind the time difference. Daytime here is night time there ;)

How about a blast from the past? It's been awhile since I posted from the History site:

Today in History:

How many of you remember.. or ."One of these days, one of these days...POW! Right in the kisser!" or "To the moon, Alice!" No? Remember this one? "Har har, hardee har har!"

October 1, 1955

The Honeymooners debuts

The Honeymooners debuts on CBS. The TV comedy, which starred Jackie Gleason, enjoyed enduring popularity despite the fact that it aired only 39 episodes.

The show originated in 1951 as a sketch on Gleason's variety show Cavalcade of Stars. He continued the sketches when he launched a new program, The Jackie Gleason Show, in 1952. In these skits, Gleason played bus driver Ralph Kramden, and Audrey Meadows played his long-suffering wife, Alice, who deflated his get-rich-quick schemes but often saved the day. Art Carney played friend and sidekick Ed Norton, and Joyce Randolph played Ed's wife, Trixie.

By 1955, Gleason had tired of the hour-long variety-show format and wanted to try something new. He suggested creating two half-hour programs instead. One would be The Honeymooners, a sitcom, and the other would be Stage Show, a musical-variety show that Gleason would produce. Among Stage Show's many musical guests was first-time TV performer Elvis Presley, in January 1956.

In a departure from most TV shows at the time, The Honeymooners was filmed in front of a live audience and broadcast at a later date. To allow Gleason more time to pursue other producing projects, he taped two episodes a week, leaving him free for several months at the end of the season.

Unfortunately, the two shows did not do as well with audiences as Gleason had hoped, and only 39 episodes of the The Honeymooners aired. In 1956, Gleason returned to his hour-long variety format, occasionally including Honeymooners skits. In 1966, he began creating hour-long Honeymooners episodes, which he aired in lieu of his usual variety format. From 1966 to 1970, about half of Gleason's shows were these hour-long episodes. In 1971, the episodes were rebroadcast as their own series. On May 9, 1971, the final episode aired. Gleason died in 1987 at the age of 71.

October 1, 1890

Congress creates Yosemite National Park

On this day in 1890, the United States Congress decrees that about 1,500 square miles of public land in the California Sierra Nevada will be preserved forever as Yosemite National Park.

Once the home to Indians whose battle cry Yo-che-ma-te ("some among them are killers") gave the park its name, Anglo-Americans began to settle in Yosemite Valley as early as the 1850s, eventually driving out the native inhabitants. Early settlers quickly recognized the unique beauty of the narrow Yosemite Valley with the sheer-faced Half Dome Mountain looming nearly a mile above the valley floor and three stunning waterfalls. At that time other awe-inspiring natural wonders like Niagara Falls were already becoming popular American tourist destinations, and a few early settlers tried to profit from the wonders of the Yosemite Valley by charging tourists hefty fees. But thanks to the popular paintings of Albert Bierstadt and the photographs of Carlton Watkins, Americans who would never see the magnificent valley in person began to call for its preservation from crass commercial development. In June 1864, President Abraham Lincoln agreed, signing a bill that ceded the small Yosemite Valley area, along with the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees, to the state of California with the requirement that it be held as a national public trust "for all time."

But in subsequent years, the state of California proved a less than vigilant caretaker of the Yosemite, inspiring the famous naturalist John Muir to publish several widely read articles exposing the destruction of the valley by large herds of sheep that Muir called "hoofed locusts." In 1890, Muir's efforts, as well as those of the newly founded Sierra Club, convinced Congress that Yosemite would be better protected as one part of a 1,500-square-mile national park. Though later reduced in size to 540 square miles, Yosemite National Park has ever since been one of the most popular nature preserves in the world. Today the park receives more than four million visitors annually.

(here's a link to the geyser web cam http://www.nps.gov/archive/yell/oldfaithfulcam.htm ) I've never made it that far west but hope to someday. I want to see the Grand Canyon too!

Ok, I better get busy here. Until next post.....