Some of my
Favorite Links

Visit chami.com/tips/ for 
Windows, Internet and programming 
related tips/mini-tutorials

Google
Kartoo
Yahoo


More
Good Links

Nonags 

Another of
My Sites-
cecate.com

Art Institute
of Chicago

Planning a Trip?
Look Here

Buy Wholesale

A Learning Place

Alternative News
(a directory)

Internet Resources
(a directory)

Librarians' Index
to the Internet

The Internet Public
Library

Check This Site


If You Like Trains

Have a nice day,

cort

 

For our Brea Friends: PhotoAlbum Oso Flako Lake; January 2008

Music a few songs if you are interested.


January 10, 2009RSS syndication
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Spotlight: The Rubicon is a small, reddish river in north-central Italy that spills into the Adriatic. It would still be meandering in obscurity had Julius Caesar not decided to cross it with his army on this date in 49 BCE. What made his decision noteworthy was the fact that the Rubicon was the border between his province, Cisalpine Gaul, where he was allowed to have an army, and Italy, where he wasn't — so his crossing the river was in effect the declaration of a civil war within the Roman Republic (which he won). To cross the Rubicon now means to take a fateful, irreversible step. Other river-based idioms are to swim the Tiber, meaning to convert to Roman Catholicism, and its converse, to swim the Thames — to convert to Anglicanism.

Quote: "Ālea iacta est" (the die is cast) — Julius Caesar upon crossing the Rubicon
See previous spotlights: Seeing Eye, Evelyn Wood, cookbook

January 03, 2009RSS syndication
Alaska's Muldrow Glacier
Alaska's Muldrow Glacier
Spotlight: Alaska is 50. The territory once known as Seward's Folly became the 49th and largest US state on this date in 1959. US Secretary of State William Seward bought the 587,875 square miles (1,522,595 sq km) in 1867 for $7.2 million. Here are some other tidbits of trivia about the state that makes up America's extreme northwest: the state motto is "North to the future"; its flower is the forget-me-not. The state bird is the willow ptarmigan; the fossil is the wooly mammoth; the insect is the four-spot skimmer dragonfly and the state sport is dog mushing. Alaska is an exclave of the US, separated from the other mainland states by British Columbia, Canada.

Quote: "It was the best purchase ever made." Richard Nixon, of Alaska
See previous spotlights: spider webs, J. D. Salinger, Jacques Cartier

December 21, 2008RSS syndication
Snow White and Friends
Snow White and Friends View Poster
Spotlight: Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all? Generations of readers were frightened and delighted by the story of Snow White, terrorized by her wicked, jealous stepmother. The film version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered in Hollywood on this date in 1937. The first full-length, animated feature film was made by Walt Disney and cost $1.5 million. Some 750 artists made nearly one million drawings for the 83-minute film, 250,000 of which were used. In the film based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, the dwarfs were given names: Happy, Bashful, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey and Doc.

Quote: "A frog in love would not be enchanted to learn that her beloved had turned into Prince Charming." Mason Cooley
See previous spotlights: Berlin Wall, Altair 8800, The Rolling Stones
December 20, 2008RSS syndication
Peering Through a Gap In the Berlin Wall
Peering Through a Gap
In the Berlin Wall
Spotlight: For the first time since it was erected in 1961, the Berlin Wall was opened on this date in 1963. It remained open for the holiday season, but closed again on January 6, 1964. Some 4,000 people crossed over to visit relatives during this period. The wall had originally been erected by East Germany to prevent its citizens from defecting to the West. Over the course of the Wall's existence nearly 200 people were killed trying to escape to West Germany. In November 1989, the border was finally reopened. Over the next few days, Berliners celebrated by breaking off pieces of the Wall.

Quote: "It was the first female-style revolution: no violence and we all went shopping." Gloria Steinem, on the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989
See previous spotlights: Altair 8800, The Rolling Stones, Wright brothers
December 17, 2008RSS syndication
Wrights' Flight
Wrights' Flight
Spotlight: The Wright brothers made their historic first airplane flight on this date in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, NC. First Orville and then Wilbur took their invention to the sky for about a minute each. Though others had flown in gliders and balloons, the Wright brothers' flights were considered the first gas-powered, sustained flights in a heavier-than-air vehicle. Orville's flight lasted 12 seconds, and traveled 37 m/120 ft. Wilbur flew the only controlled flight of the day, 279 m/852 ft in 59 seconds.

Quote: "If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance." Orville Wright
See previous spotlights: Wassily Kandinsky, Ludwik Zamenhof, Nostradamus
October 26, 2008RSS syndication
Hansom Cab
Hansom Cab
Source
Spotlight: Ask people to think of a romantic activity in New York City and many will immediately conjure up images of a couple, bundled cozily under a blanket, riding around Central Park in a hansom cab. The clop-clop of the horse's hooves adds to the atmosphere. Joseph Hansom designed the first hansom cabs in 1834 to take people around the busy London streets. Hansom, an architect who designed Birmingham Town Hall, Mount St. Mary's College near Sheffield, and some 200 other buildings, was born on this date in 1803.

Quote: "Costs less to keep than a horse. Doesn't get sick. Doesn't eat when it doesn't work." Advertisement for US Electric Carriage Co. of New Chicago, c. 1898
See previous spotlights: Pablo Picasso, harmonica, Smurfs