Ah, ceci est ma vie!

It's not even the weekend yet and the kids are filling it up for us...Amanda and Tom need some work done to the brakes of their van so they are coming over tonight after work to do that. Then, Jeremy called me at lunch to see if I could watch the girls Saturday night....and so it begins. I need to be cleaning carpet in the living room. Bob fell asleep on the couch the night before last and when he stretched or something he knocked over his glass of tea, which scared the cat sitting by me so she jumped spilling my Pepsi. Needless to say I had a mess at both ends of couch. The girls are older now so maybe I can still get it done. Somehow, I used to be able to do that kind of stuff when I had my kids at home, of course, I was 20 years younger too! Ah, ceci est ma vie! Hopefully they won't be there all day Sunday so I can catch the race.

Speaking of racing....Jeff Gordon was fastest in practice this morning, yea!! Jimmie Johnson is 5th but Jr is down to 21st. I wore my #24 shirt to work today hoping it would bring him some luck.

In China, weather is hampering the efforts to drain the lake caused by the earthquake. They are hopeful that they can control the draining but with the rain they are getting the water is rising and it's a race against time and mother nature before it burst. They say tens of thousands children were orphaned and because of the 1 child law parents have lost their only child. Very sad situation.

I still haven't caught to much on the earthquake in Iceland but then again, I haven't had time to surf the web since it's last day of the month...invoice, invoice, invoice....

This Day In History:
My first one is about the Indy 500 which is only about a 50 minute drive for me..Check out this Hot Rod!! :)

May 30, 1911

Indy 500 sees first winner

Ray Harroun won the inaugural Indianapolis 500, averaging 74.6mph in the Marmon Wasp. The Indy 500 was the creation of Carl Fisher. In the fall of 1909, Fisher replaced the ruined, crushed-stone surface of his 2.5-mile oval with a brand-new brick one. It was the largest paved, banked oval in the United States. Fisher then made two decisions vital to the success of the Indy 500. First, he determined to hold only one race per year on his Indianapolis Motor Speedway; second, he elected to offer the richest purse in racing as a reward for competing in his annual 500-mile event. By the second year of the Indy 500, 1912, it was the highest-paying, single-day sporting event in the entire world. The purse alone guaranteed that Indy would attract the media's undivided attention. Add to Fisher's marketing tactics the fact that European racing suffered from an absence of major events due to the ban on public road racing, and you have the ingredients that made Indy instantly successful. The media attention, in turn, meant that the best drivers in the world would come to Indy to make their reputation. Manufacturers acknowledged that a car bearing their name would mean millions in free advertising. It's a simple formula by today's standards, but in Fisher's time the risk of putting so much money down was rarely taken. In the very first race at Indy, Harroun's Marmon became nationally recognized. The car was owned, built, and entered by the factory, and Harroun drove as a hired employee. Among the Marmon Wasp's novel features, it is cited as the first car fitted with a rear-view mirror. But if the Indy 500 was responsible for attracting the industry to racing, it was even more responsible for creating racing as an industry. In 1911, the typical race car was built off the chassis of a big luxury car. They had huge four-cylinder engines. Instead of the heavy body of the luxury cars, the race cars were fitted with "doghouse" bodies that just covered the car's engine and cockpit. The floorboards were wood boards, the wheels were made of ash wood, and the seats were metal buckets bolted firmly to the floorboards. The cars were equipped with rear-wheel drum brakes only. Bolster tanks, like tubular sofa bolsters, held the oil and gasoline. Due to the ill-fitting pistons, gaskets, and valves that comprised the cars' innards, the best cars dropped nearly a dozen gallons of oil on the brick racetrack over the course of the 500-mile event. So these cars, equipped with no suspension, raced at speeds near 80mph on a brick track covered in oil. Only a decade later in 1922, nearly all the cars that started the Indy 500 were purpose-built race cars. All of them carried aerodynamic bodies, with narrow grills and teardrop-shaped tails. Knock-off wire wheels made for quick, efficient tire changes, and the new straight-sided tires lasted much longer than their early pneumatic counterparts. The best cars were equipped with four-wheel hydraulic brakes and inline 3.0-liter V-8 engines made of aluminum. The cars were smaller, lighter, more efficient, and far more expensive. They resembled nothing that could be purchased in a storeroom. Ray Harroun's speed of 74.6mph would have finished him 10th at the 1922 Indy 500. It wasn't the speeds that had changed so much as the driver's control over the car. Racing, at least partly because of Indy, had become a sport rather than an exhibition. In the mid-1920s, the Miller and Duesenberg cars took racing to another level. Indy became what it is today, a high-paying event for the world's most expensive cars.

May 30, 1431

Joan of Arc martyred

At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy.

Long article but interesting. For more check out this site:

http://tinyurl.com/5v6vrw

May 30, 1927

Waters of Kentucky River peak

On this day in 1927, the Kentucky River peaks during a massive flood that kills 89 people and leaves thousands homeless. Torrential rains caused this unprecedented flood.

An account from the Mountain Eagle newspaper out of Whitesburg, Kentucky, in Letcher County, provides a detailed look at the disaster:

“The flood hit just after 11 o'clock Sunday night, and within a few minutes the whole camp of the Consolidated Fuel company was under water. The house in which Brent Breeding and his family were living was swept against the railroad trestle and then crushed to pieces. Not a plank of it is to be seen there now. All of the members of the family were saved except a five-year-old girl. The body has not yet been recovered.

Jimmy Higgins, superintendent, says that he heard at 11 o'clock that his sub-station was on fire and started up Smoot creek to see about it. The rain became so hard that he turned back and climbed the hill to his home overlooking the depot there. A prolonged flash of lightning showed him that the camp already flooded. He rushed back down the hill and began to direct the rescue work. They had to chop into the roofs of some of the houses to get the occupants out, for the water from below had trapped them. Swimmers went in at the risk of their own lives and carried out occupants. One home had thirteen children, all of whom were saved.”

This flood had a serious long-term impact on the communities of the region: 12,000 people were left homeless and men were out of work for months as the mines in which most worked had to be shut down. As with most floods, it was the flooding of small streams rather than a major river that caused the most deaths. Major rivers that flood can cause serious property and agricultural damage, but do not usually cause deaths because it takes more time for them to flood, usually providing ample warning to people nearby. Smaller rivers and creeks tend to flood suddenly when inundated by local storm bursts; the sudden waves of water that kill people usually come out of these smaller rivers.

Floods are the deadliest weather phenomenon in the United States, causing about 140 deaths annually.

That's all for now. Have a safe weekend!