Guy Fawkes Day, British history: Love seeing on twitter the bonfires in London … “Remember, remember the fifth of November when gunpowder, treason and plot. I know of no reason, why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!”
Here is a fun English holiday to celebrate…
On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was found in the cellar of the Houses of Lords with a large amount of gunpowder, while attempting to blow up parliament.
To celebrate parliament (and King James I) being saved, every November 5th in England, an effigy of Guy Fawkes is burned on a large bonfire and the evening ends with an extravagant fireworks display.
Now that my family lives in the U.S. we have chosen not to burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes… it seems a little strange to explain to our kids when no one else is doing it! We do however eat British foods, like Scotch Eggs, and talk about the political structure of the United Kingdom and how democracies give their citizens a voice. This year I made my girls each a spoon doll of Guy Fawkes.
\”Remember, remember the fifth of November when gunpowder, treason and plot. I know of no reason, why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!\”
by Helen Bird
kith/kin, baseball, replica bats: An interesting story about an interesting member of my husband’s family!
Rayburn really likes baseball, and he has ever since he was a kid.
“Baseball, I think, was a little bit of an equalizer,” he says. “You didn’t have to be the best looking kid in the class – the best liked in the class, but if you were good, or at least worked hard and tried to be good, you could be an equal on the playing field.”
Credit Austin Ramsey/WKMS News
He’s retired now, but he spent years in real estate, freight and university athletics. And in retirement, he builds baseball bats that resemble those from the game’s early history. He even restores bats – many of which were used in the game’s early history.
Plus, he single-handedly produces the entire line of bats for one of the nation’s largest classic baseball memorabilia producers in his garage.
Each day, Rayburn occupies the small shop adjacent his home west of town.
Inside, walls are lined with bats of various shapes and stages of completion. He has a series of new bats with oddly-shaped handles. He says they represent the dead ball era, when a baseball was softer and more emphasis was put on field positions and strategic bunts.
With each new bat, he starts with a three-inch billet of Ash or Maple, which he marks and whittles down on a lathe, carefully carving away excess wood in one-inch increments. As he carves away, using different sized tools, the corrugated form of a bat appears.
via Local Man Brings to Life Replica Baseball Bats from Past | WKMS.
Christmas, The Christmas Scale: An early Christmas Gift. I may re-gift it in a month!
via ▶ The Christmas Scale – YouTube.
Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, movies: Add this to my movie list.
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
Charlie Trotter, Charlie Trotter’s Restaurant-Chicago, RIP: I ate at Charlie Trotter’s once while we lived in Chicago. It was very good, a true culinary dining experience. I cannot say I would do it again, but I can thank my lovely in-laws for the once in a lifetime experience. RIP
Trotter burst on the scene in 1987, when the self-taught chef opened Charlie Trotter’s restaurant on Armitage Avenue. In short order, the chef’s intense creativity and never-repeat-a-dish dictum made Trotter’s the most talked-about restaurant in Chicago, and his fame quickly spread throughout the country and beyond.
He was named the country’s Outstanding Chef by James Beard Foundation in 1999; in 2000, Wine Spectator magazine called Trotter’s the best restaurant in the nation. More awards and accolades followed, including a 2002 Beard Award for Outstanding Service; at the time, Trotter called it the award he was most proud to receive, as it represented “a team award.”
The mercurial chef was a stern taskmaster who demanded the absolute best from everyone who worked for him. He was also a man of uncommon generosity, creating the Charlie Trotter Education Foundation to provide scholarships for culinary students. He received the James Beard Foundation’s Humanitarian of the Year award in 2012.
“Charlie was an extreme father figure to me when it came to not just cooking, but life, and seeing things in a different way,” said chef Graham Elliot Bowles, one of many famous chefs who worked for Trotter. “I just can’t put into words how saddened I am by all of this. It’s a huge loss, not just personally, but for the culinary world.”
via Charlie Trotter dead: Famed Chicago chef dies – chicagotribune.com.
Just earlier today I posted 11.5.13 … I don’t talk sports that often … but I have to admit I pulled for the Red Sox because I like their fans a wee bit better … and now I have to take two exceptions: Davidson Basketball and the Carolina Panthers.
Davidson Wildcats at #4 Duke Blue Devils
Friday November 8, 7PM (ESPNU)
I’m not sure how much a chance Davidson has against Duke, but I\’ve learned to never count out Bob McKillop and his Wildcats. McKillop is one of the few who won\’t \”abandon all hope\” when he enters Cameron Indoor Stadium on Friday night.
Though Davidson lost Nik Cochran, Jake Cohen, and others, the Wildcats still return a talented squad who will compete with Elon for a Southern Conference title in their last year in the conference. Leading that veteran laden group is De\’Mon Brooks. Brooks has been the SoCon\’s Player of the Year before and is a two-time SoCon Tournament MVP. The 6\’7 forward averaged nearly 14 points and 6 boards a year ago and is going to need all of that and more against the Blue Devils.
Beyond Brooks, McKillops will rely on the rest of his senior core Chris Czerapowicz, Tyler Kalinowski, and Tom Droney to step up big on Friday. This may also be the coming out party for Miami (Ohio) transfer Brian Sullivan, who averaged over 10 points per game his freshman year while being named to the All-MAC Freshman team.
Duke is the other Tobacco Road team that struggled a bit in their preseason warm up. The Blue Devils found themselves down to Drury 38-34 Saturday afternoon, but they pulled away in the second half for a 81-65 victory. Freshman Jabari Parker and Mississippi State transfer Rodney Hood will be the story for Coach K\’s team. Parker is expected to be a top five pick in the NBA Draft, while Hood is considered among the nation\’s top transfers. Rasheed Sulaimon missed the Blue Devils tune up due to illness, but expect him and Quinn Cook to be firing on all cylinders Friday night in Durham
via Mid-Major Upset Alert: Opening Weekend Trouble on Tobacco Road? – Mid-Major Madness.
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Last year I wore red socks inside my boots to the Panthers v. Falcons game … This year I left the red socks at home. I figure the Falcons are a lost cause and I really ought to put my mouth (and socks) where my money is.
2013 Georgia Florida St Simons Island Beach Celebration: And then I could not pass this one up from last weekend’s GA FL Game:
2013 Georgia Florida St Simons Island Beach Celebration
via ▶ 2013 Georgia Florida St Simons Island Beach Celebration – YouTube.
Mexican Coke:
Well, fear not, soda snobs. All those reports are wrong.
Monterrey, Mexico-based Arca Continental, which bottles Coca-ColaKO -0.03% in glass bottles for U.S. consumers as part of a nostalgia project that began in 2005, assures that its fizzy pop destined for the U.S. market will continue to be sweetened entirely with cane sugar.
A street vendor carries bottles of soda to customers in Mexico City
That’s not the case for Coke sold in Mexico. The soda chugged in vast quantities by Mexicans has long been sweetened with a mix of high fructose corn syrup and cane sugar. The mix varies, depending on which sweetener is cheaper, with local bottlers aiming to limit HFCS to conserve taste and their relationships with Mexico’s powerful sugar industry.
Currently Mexico’s largest soft drink bottler, Coca-Cola FemsaKOF.MX -3.25%, uses HFCS to cover 60% of its sweetener needs, CFO Hector Treviño told analysts last month. Mr. Treviño said his bottler is at maximum capacity for HFCS and that, if anything, going forward it will buy more cane sugar—which is very cheap right now. Mexico is the world’s fifth-biggest sugar producer, and domestic bottlers have their own sugar refineries.
via Have No Fear, Your Mexican Coke Will Remain as Sweet as Ever – Corporate Intelligence – WSJ.
Roman Sculpture, London, archeology, new discoveries:
Archaeologists excavating at the future site of a 16-story hotel in London have uncovered a 1,800-year-old statue of an eagle with a writhing serpent in its beak.
The statue was carved in limestone from the Cotswolds and stands two feet (65 centimeters) tall. The right wing has broken off from the body, but otherwise the sculpture is intact.
The foundations of a mausoleum were also found at the site. Experts have concluded that the sculpture once adorned the tomb of a Roman-era Londoner, likely a high-ranking official or a prosperous merchant.
man’s best friend, corgis:
In today’s edition of worst possible news ever: corgis — the dogs popular among the entire Internet and, of course, Queen Elizabeth — could soon earn a place on the endangered breed list. The stubby-legged bundles of cuteness are now on Britain Kennel Club’s “at watch” list and are set to be classified as a “vulnerable native breed” by January, AFP reports.
The club said only 241 Pembroke Welsh Corgis were registered this year, and it seems unlikely that they’ll reach the 300 registrations needed to stay off the vulnerable breeds list. The club says this decline correlates with the rise in popularity of smaller foreign breeds, like French bulldogs. (Which, for the record, are really ridiculously cute too.)
The Daily Telegraph, however, blames the decline on a 2007 ban on tail-docking, the practice of cutting off part of the animal’s tail. The Telegraph reports that many breeders say they can’t achieve the desired corgi look without tail-docking, and so many have simply given up on the breed.
So, it’s probably a combination of factors — horrible, terrible, no-good factors — that are coming together to try to wipe out our precious corgis and deprive us of the most divine cuteness the world has ever known.
Of course, it’s the viral content factory BuzzFeed that will probably take this news the hardest, as the site’s business model can be summed up as “mo corgis mo money.”
via Corgis Becoming Endangered: Queen’s Favorite Dog Breed At Risk | TIME.com.
Raymond Loewy, Google Doodle, “Father of Industrial Design”, TIME.com:
Today’s Google Doodle honors what would have been the 120th birthday of Raymond Loewy 1893-1986, often referred to as the “father of industrial design” who ”made products irresistible at a time when nobody really wanted to pay for anything,” as TIME once wrote.He is the man behind the Lucky Strike cigarette pack, Coca-Cola vending machines, the Greyhound bus, the S1 Locomotive, logos for Shell and Exxon, plus the interiors of President John F. Kennedy’s Air Force One and NASA’s Apollo and Skylab “orbiters.” When he “streamlined” the Coldspot refrigerator design, sales at Sears went up, illustrating his famous line “between two products equal in price, function, and quality, the better looking will outsell the other.”
via Raymond Loewy Google Doodle Honors the “Father of Industrial Design” | TIME.com.
Moving Dollies, Buckhead’s Randolph-Lucas House, Around Town – Buckhead GA Patch:
On Wednesday morning, the moving dollies arrived onsite at the historic Peachtree Road home that was built in 1924 for Hollins Nicholas Randolph, a great, great grandson of Thomas Jefferson.
Due to the wet weather in Friday\’s forecast, the move will likely not take place this week. But it is coming and soon as foundation work at the Ansley Park locale has continued throughout the month as the attached Youtube video depicts.
For the move, the home will be horizontally split above the first floor, lifted by cranes and then transported on flatbeds. Utility lines will need to be moved temporarily as well.
Every piece of the home, except the kitchen, will be completely renovated and moved to the new location at 78 Peachtree Circle, about two miles away. The kitchen will be updated to a more modern one, but will still complement the home, according to HGTV Front Door.
via Moving Dollies Arrive for Buckhead’s Randolph-Lucas House – Around Town – Buckhead, GA Patch.
60 Signs You Studied Sociology In College: I learn a lot from my children, so I actually got a few of these.
26. You’ve given up on trying to bridge the “natural science vs social science” divide.
Dennard's Clipping Service 