ALL THE REST –    February 5
  

The Blizzard is HERE. Quotations, facts and words will all pertain to snow over the next week or so!

Today's Quotations — SNOW
 

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His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow.

— Matthew, 28:3

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

— Henry David Thoreau, Journal January 5, 1856

 
 

God makes sech nights, all white an' still,
Fur'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.

— James Russell Lowell  The Biglow Papers. Series II  

Step softly, under snow or rain,
To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
That we may lose the way.

— Gilbert Keith Chesterton

 
 

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree.

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

— Robert Frost, Dust of Snow 

 

word puzzleToday's Word – SNOW-BLINK

 



  snow·blink
noun A white sky glow reflected from snow fields.

Definitions from American Heritage Dictionary

 

Today's Fact

   
Snowflakes
 
 
   
 
How full of the creative genius is the air in which these are
generated! I should hardly admire them more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat.  

Henry David Thoreau 

 

The Blizzard (two weeks of Daily Miscellany SNOW facts)
- Day 8 -

Snowflakes 8 - Snow Related Terms

Snow

In the language of the Arabs, we've been told, there are many words for "sand." Sand is a feature of daily life for many Arabs. Just as sand is important to those who live in the desert regions, snow is important to those who live, work or play in snow. Over the past week I have used words associated with snow for the 'Daily Word.' There are numerous names for the different types of snow and ice formations. The list below is just a beginning of the more than one-hundred names for snow.

Snow crystals: Individual, single ice crystals that grow directly from condensing water vapor in the air, usually around a nucleus of dust or some other foreign material. Their sizes range from microscopic to at most a few millimeters in diameter.

Snowflakes: Collections of snow crystals, loosely bound together into a puff-ball.

Rime: Supercooled tiny water droplets (typically in a fog), that quickly freeze onto whatever
they hit.

Graupe: Loose collections of frozen water droplets, sometimes called "soft hail."

Hail: Large, solid chunks of ice.

Diamond dust: A type of little known snowfall that occurs in cloudless skies. In extremely cold weather, ice crystals can condense directly from the air and sift earthward from an otherwise clear sky.

Ice flower: Huge flower-like ice crystals that can sometimes form in quiet, slowly freezing bodies of water.

Sleet: (Known technically as ice pellets) Frozen raindrops.

Powder: Light, powdery snow of little water content - great for skiing. Light, dry snow

Corn snow: Snow that has melted and refrozen into a rough, granular surface.

névé: The granular snow typically found at the head of a glacier

red snow: Snow on which red-pigmented algae has grown, commonly found in Arctic and Alpine regions.

... Tomorrow a look at snowfall records.

Sources Include: The Handy Weather Answer Book - Walter A. Lyons -Visible Ink Press

 

 

clown
Today's SMILE

 

 

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."

Joseph Addison

 

 

A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22 (NIV)

 
   

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What day is it?

Over breakfast one morning, a woman said to her husband, "I bet you don't know what day this is."

"Of course I do," he indignantly answered, going out the door to the office.

At 10 AM, the doorbell rang and when the woman opened the door, she was handed a box containing a dozen long stemmed red roses. At 1 PM, a foil wrapped, two pound box of her favorite chocolates arrived. Later, a boutique delivered a designer dress.

The woman couldn't wait for her husband to come home.

"First the flowers, then the chocolates and then the dress!" she exclaimed. "I've never had a more wonderful Groundhog Day in my life!"


A Couple of true stories submitted by Kasha Linka


CREDIT CARD TROUBLES

In March 1992 a man living in Newton near Boston, Massachusetts,
received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away.

In April he received another and threw that one away too.  The following
month the credit card company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his card if he didn't send them $0.00 by return of post. He called them, talked to them, they said it was a computer error and told him they'd take care of it.

The following month our hero decided that it was about time that he
tried out the troublesome credit card figuring that if there were purchases on his account it would put an end to his ridiculous predicament.

However, in the first store that he produced his credit card in payment
for his purchases he found that his card had been cancelled. He called the credit card company who apologized for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it.

The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now
overdue. Assuming that having spoken to the credit card company only the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out.

The next month he got a bill for $0.00 stating that he had 10 days to
pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt. Finally giving in he thought he would play the company at their own game and mailed them a check for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the credit card company nothing at all. A week later, the man's bank called him asking him what he was doing writing a check for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank replied that the $0.00 check had caused their check processing software to fail.  The bank could not now process ANY checks from ANY of their customers that day because the check for $0.00 was causing the computer to crash.

The following month the man received a letter from the credit card
company claiming that his check had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a check by return post they would be taking steps to recover the debt. The man, who had been considering buying his wife a computer for her birthday, bought her a typewriter instead..

From: Kasha Linka



Subject: 1812 overture -- please don't try this at home

August, 1998, Montevideo, Uruguay

Paolo Esperanza, bass-trombonist with the Simfonica Mayor de Uruguay, in a misplaced moment of inspiration decided to make his own contribution to the cannon shots fired as part of the orchestra's performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture at an outdoor children's concert. In complete seriousness he placed a large, ignited firecracker, which was equivalent in strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into his aluminum straight mute and then stuck the mute into the bell of his quite new Yamaha in-line double-valve bass trombone.

Later, from his hospital bed he explained to a reporter through bandages on his mouth, "I thought that the bell of my trombone would shield me from the explosion and instead, would focus the energy of the blast outward's and away from me, propelling the mute high above the orchestra, like a rocket."

However, Paolo was not up on his propulsion physics nor qualified  to use high-powered artillery and in his haste to get the horn up before the firecracker went off, he failed to raise the bell of the horn high enough so as to give the mute enough arc to clear the orchestra.

What actually happened should serve as a lesson to us all during those delirious moments of divine inspiration. First, because he failed to sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled the mute between rows of players in the woodwind and viola sections of the orchestra, missing the players and straight into the stomach of the conductor, driving him off the podium and directly into the front row of the audience.

Fortunately, the audience were sitting in folding chairs and thus they were protected from serious injury, for the chairs collapsed under them passing the energy of the impact of the flying conductor backwards into row of people sitting behind them, who in turn were driven back into the people in the row behind and so on, like a row of dominos. The sound of collapsing wooden chairs and grunts of people falling on their behinds increased logarithmically, adding to the overall sound of brass cannons and brass playing as constitutes the closing measures of the Overture.

Meanwhile, all of this unplanned choreography not withstanding,  back on stage Paolo's Waterloo was still unfolding. According to Paolo, "Just as the I heard the sound of the blast, time seemed to stand still. Everything moved in slow motion. Just before I felt searing pain to my mouth, I could swear I heard a voice with a Austrian accent say "Fur every akshon zer iz un eekvul und opposeet reakshon!"

Well, this should come as no surprise, for God Himself set this up for a textbook demonstration of this fundamental law of physics.  Having failed to plug the lead pipe of his trombone, he allowed the energy of the blast to send a super-heated jet of gas backwards through the mouth pipe of the trombone which exited the mouthpiece burning his lips and face.

The pyrotechnic ballet wasn't over yet. The force of the blast was so great it split the bell of his shiny Yamaha right down the middle, turning it inside out while at the same time propelling Paolo backwards off the riser. And for the grand finale, as Paolo fell backwards he lost his grip on the slide of the trombone allowing the pressure of the hot gases coursing through the horn to propel the trombone's slide like a double golden spear into the head of the 3rd clarinetist, knocking him unconscious.

The moral of the story? Beware the next time you hear someone in the trombone section yell out "Hey, everyone, watch this!"

From: Kasha Linka



What doctors say, and what they're really thinking:

"This should be taken care of right away."
I'd planned a trip to Hawaii next month but this is so easy and profitable that I want to fix it before it cures itself.

"Welllllll, what have we here...?"
He has no idea and is hoping you'll give him a clue.

"Let me check your medical history."
I want to see if you've paid your last bill before spending any more time with you.

"Why don't we make another appointment later in the week."
I'm playing golf this afternoon, and this a waste of time.
--or--
I need the bucks, so I'm charging you for another office visit.

"We have some good news and some bad news."
The good news is, I'm going to buy that new BMW. The bad news is, you're going to pay for it.

"Let's see how it develops."
Maybe in a few days it will grow into something that can be cured.

"Let me schedule you for some tests."
I have a forty percent interest in the lab.

"I'd like to have my associate look at you."
He's going through a messy divorce and owes me a bundle.

"I'd like to prescribe a new drug."
I'm writing a paper and would like to use you for a guinea pig.

"If it doesn't clear up in a week, give me a call."
I don't know what it is. Maybe it will go away by itself.

"That's quite a nasty looking wound."
I think I'm going to throw up.

"This may smart a little."
Last week two patients bit off their tongues.

"Well, we're not feeling so well today, are we...?"
I'm stalling for time. Who are you and why are you here?

"This should fix you up."
The drug company slipped me some big bucks to prescribe this stuff.

"Everything seems to be normal."
Rats! I guess I can't buy that new beach condo after all.

"I'd like to run some more tests."
I can't figure out what's wrong. Maybe the kid in the lab can solve this one.

"Do you suppose all this stress could be affecting your nerves?"
You're crazier'n an outhouse rat. Now, if I can only find a shrink who'll split fees with me ...

"There is a lot of that going around."
My God, that's the third one this week. I'd better learn something about this.

"If those symptoms persist, call for an appointment."
I've never heard of anything so disgusting. Thank God I'm off next week


Some Airline Humor

Occasionally, airline attendants make an effort to make the "in-flight safety lecture" and their other announcements a bit more entertaining.  Here are some real examples that  have been heard or reported:


"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of the airplane..."

"Smoking in the lavatories is prohibited.  Any person caught smoking in the lavatories will be asked to leave the plane immediately."

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Washington National, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker:  "Whoa,
big fella.  WHOA!"

"Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines."

And from the pilot during his welcome message:  "We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry...unfortunately none of them is on this flight"



TRUE FACT ...

Humans begin laughing at two to three months of age. Six year olds laugh about 300 times per day, while adults laugh from 15 to 100 times per day.

SOURCE: NYT, Dr. William F. Fry, Stanford University

 

smile

 


Why are there 5 syllables in the word "monosyllabic"?

 

 


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Phillip Bower

 

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Today in History February 5

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Copyright Information: Phillip Bower is not the author of the humor, and does not claim to own any copyright privileges to the jokes. Sources of jokes are listed when known. Birthday's and Happenings for the date, and quotations are public knowledge and collected from numerous sources. Quotations are public knowledge and sources are listed when known. Weekendspirations are written by Tim Knappenberger who has copyright privileges. Cathy Vinson authors Whispers from the Wilderness and owns copyright privileges. Weekendspirations and Whispers from the Wilderness are used with permission by the respective authors. Other devotions are written by Phillip Bower unless otherwise stated. In all cases credit is given when known. The Daily Miscellany is nonprofit. Submissions by readers is welcome.