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05/29/19 01:17 PM #5436    

 

David Mitchell

We have an air show every spring up in nearby Beaufort (Mary Ann's home) and it includes a show by Blue Angels. Pretty amazing flying. They also suffered an unfortunate accident a few years back where one of the team crashed and was killed - no civiial injuries thank God.  It was on the final manuever of the show - a young Major who was new on the team. If I recall correctly, they think he may have blacked out during one of those "high-G" manuevers. What they do is not only highly dangerous precision close flying, but it places the body under extreme stress. 


05/29/19 02:16 PM #5437    

 

David Mitchell

News Headlines: (I'll stay off the main topic of today's main item)

The news is so crazy lately. Horrible crimes, weird politics, scandals, actors and athletes occupying the headlines about how important they actually think they are - - - - really?

 

A couple items really grab my attention;

That crazy congessman King from Iowa with another assinine statement about his racism and white supremacy ideas - wow! How can somebody be that sick in the head? - - and get elected !

On a less political story - have any of you seen the USAToday photo of the solid line of hundreds of climbers nearing the peak at Everest - and just stuck there - waiting for the others to come back off the peak. You can't move forward and you can't turn around and go back - at 29,000 feet!  And on the way up you have to step over dead bodies - crazy!  (you should view that photo to appreciate my question)

 

But mostly,

I can't help feeling how odd it is to be reading of the rain and flooding in Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. while we here are suffering such broiling heat and drought. Wish they could pump the rain into rail cars and ship it down here.

 


05/29/19 03:08 PM #5438    

 

David Mitchell

This is the photo I was referring to. Look close at that line of people. And there is no room for two abreast - no room to step aside and pass someone. How do you get back down? Crazy!


05/30/19 09:11 AM #5439    

 

David Barbour

Hey, Jim,

I remember seeing the Thunderbirds in maybe 1958 at Lockborne Air base south of Cbus.

They were flying F-100's and towards the end of the show a single aircraft crossed the field, maybe

1/2 mile from the crowd 100 ft. off the deck.  In front of the stands he hit the afterburner and 

broke the sound barrier- very impressive to say the least.  They can't do that anymore, too bad!

There were four of us on the roof of the car watching the show, can't do that anymore either!  Oh well.


05/30/19 11:30 AM #5440    

 

Michael McLeod

Musings on weather from various perspectives, including an interplanetary one:

Sure wish things had worked out differently with Mars, which was, for billions of years, covered in lakes and rivers larger than any we now have on the earth, according to some fascinating new research. Lord knows we could have used a second chance at inhabiting a planet without ruining it, as we now seem intent on doing. Unfortunately Mars did not have a strong magnetic field, as we do, thanks to our molten metal core, and its atmosphere and water we stripped away by the solar wind.

Closer to home:

I got a text from my daughter in Dayton a few days ago -- she was in her basement hiding from the tornadoes. They made it ok but with severe damage around them. It has been bone dry down here and our two weather experiences are connected (as everything is when it comes to climatology). The moist air from the gulf -- which usually brings us afternoon thundershowers on a clockword basis this time of year -- was drawn up north in that weird weather system that created all the chaos.

Too early to tell if the system is part of the ongoing climate change predicament we're facing, but I can tell you that global warming is up close and personal in my life, having made Florida a much, much hotter place in the years I've been living here.  

 


05/30/19 12:45 PM #5441    

 

David Mitchell

Silly me. I thought it was because you lived so clsoe to that Pizza oven.


05/30/19 01:01 PM #5442    

 

James Hamilton, M. D.

Dave B.,

Yeah, those were the good old days when the sound barrier could be broken (probably along with some windows) near populated areas. By the way, I was wrong about the date of graduation: it is today (going on right now with the President speaking as I type), not yesterday. My Bad!

Anyway, today is beautiful and the usual afternoon rain will probably hold off until after the TBirds show and flyover with the traditional cadet hat toss.

Jim


05/30/19 01:04 PM #5443    

 

David Mitchell

As many of you recall, the world took a sharp turn towards the mundane a few years ago. In one same year we stopped hearing "Omaha, Omaha" being yelled out from behind the the line of scrimmage in Denver Bronco games, AND we saw the conclusion of Downton Abbey - the finest TV series - EVER! 

I have been recoverig from that double whammy ever since - filling many of my days with prayers for those of us who number ourselves among the "lost tribe of Elway" and wishing that I could just KEEP CALM, and let Carson manage all that matters in my life.

They say hope springs eternal!

Just this week God has answered my prayers for renewed life. 

First, It has been announced that "Downton Abbey" the movie will be coming to the silver screen

- Thankyu Jeesuss!!!

And there are numerous sightings of "The Peyton" wandering a golf course in a place called Dublin, OHHHHH.

Truly there must be a God!


05/30/19 01:07 PM #5444    

 

David Mitchell

However, I do have a friend who suffers from doubt.

He is a dislexic, agnostic, insomniac.

He sits up all night wondering if there really is a doG


05/30/19 06:15 PM #5445    

 

Michael McLeod

I was just thinking that we had some pretty racy girls in our class.

I mean, the kind of girls who wouldn't wait until an hour after they ate to go swimming. 

That's how wild they were.


05/30/19 07:50 PM #5446    

 

David Mitchell

Didn't that give you polio?

(I always thought it was two hours)


05/30/19 08:11 PM #5447    

 

Mark Schweickart

For all you grammarian comedians out there who love telling jokes that begin with "A (fill in the blank) walks into a bar..." here's some silliness:

A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

A question mark walks into a bar?

A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out — we don’t serve your type.”

A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

A synonym strolls into a tavern.

At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar — fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

A dyslexic walks into a bra.

A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.

A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.


05/31/19 01:07 AM #5448    

 

David Mitchell

All Hail the king!  

(I think we have a winner - the Forum is closed. There can be no better post after that - - - except for this one)

 

Mark,

I think this may be the funniest thing I have ever read. I can't decide which one is the funniest, and, truth be known, there were two or three that I don't even know the meaning of.

 

(I cannot recall what a gerund is - nor do I know what a chiasmus is. But am damn sure they are both funny)

 

05/31/19 08:38 AM #5449    

 

Michael McLeod

I am so using this in class, Mark.


05/31/19 09:01 AM #5450    

 

Michael McLeod

Hey I looked up that swimming after eating thing. It was 30 minutes. My parents enforced it, I do remember. The theory, since disproved, was that your blood supply and thus your energy was diverted to your digestive tract so you'd have less energy to stay afloat. And Dave don't try to trick me you know damn well you got polio from eating ice cream.


05/31/19 10:43 AM #5451    

 

Mark Schweickart

Dave & Mike - so glad you were amused. To be clear, I certainly did not write this. I wish I had. It was just a facebook re-post that my wife sent me, but a damn wonderful one. And I too did not know what a chiasmus was. And I had to think about the last one for a while before I got the joke about hyphenated and non-hyphenated ("non-hyphenated" being the word with a hyphen, and "hyphenated" being the one without). Sorry, I know I shouldn't explain a joke, but I thought others might be scratching their heads on that one also.


05/31/19 11:12 AM #5452    

 

David Mitchell

Oh Mark,

I thought the hyphenated one was one of the best.

I would like to meet the person that wrote that.


05/31/19 12:31 PM #5453    

Timothy Lavelle

Was Sr Antonio the tall young one who taught geometry? That was a good class where I actually enjoyed learning something. Pythagoras, you wild man you.  She and Sr Gilmary are good memories for me. 

Mark, google "eggcorn". Intensive purposes. Your article is so good. Great choice to pass along. I honestly enjoyed diagramming sentences once upon a,  and the first thing was to identify the adjectives and adverbs and so on as you remember. Yeah, interesting...I loved the noun turning down the conjugation addicted verb! But a turkey flying in a strong wind...love that.    


05/31/19 12:48 PM #5454    

 

Michael McLeod

I'd say Mark's post was useful for all intensive porpoises. 

 


05/31/19 03:37 PM #5455    

 

David Mitchell

 Mike,

the ones swimming off the end of my dock are not so intensive. 

---------------

Tim's post reminds me of a conversation with Keith Groff some years back. Keith has taught English, Writing, and Lingusitics and I don't know what all, literally around the world. He was telling me one time about a period when he was a Prof. at Boise State.

(that was all before Eastern Oregon, Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Philadelphia, and finally Franklin Univ in Columbus as their founding Dean of the new School of Arts and Sciences - you should see his C.V. !!) 

He was saying how often he received compliments from his own fellow professors (at Boise State), and was repeatedly asked how he became so good with grammar, sentence strucure, etc. And he told me he always gave the same answer; "I was taught by Dominican nuns".

 


05/31/19 03:43 PM #5456    

 

David Mitchell

Just splicing a few thougths together from differenct posts here.

I wonder if Pythagorus went back in the pool before 30 minutes was up after lunch?

I just know that Sister Norbertine was quite adament about the square of the hypotenuse - cause that's just the way she rocked!


06/02/19 01:43 PM #5457    

 

John Maxwell

Pretty funny.

Fr. Durbin: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Fr. VanHorn: I don't know.
Fr. Durbin: To get to your house.

Fr. Durbin: Knock, knock.
Fr. VanHorn: Who's there?
Fr. Durbin: The chicken.

This proves it doesn't take much to amuse me.

06/02/19 08:59 PM #5458    

 

David Mitchell

Thanks Jack.

At least someone is trying to break the sad silence.

Here's my attempt at some good cheer.

 

Happy Birthday Larry


06/03/19 12:26 AM #5459    

 

David Mitchell

Maybe we could all use a little pick-me-up?

"Playing for Change" is sort of a World Peace Through Music kinda thing.        Found this about 6 years ago. Almost forgot about it.

Enjoy.

 




06/03/19 12:25 PM #5460    

 

John Maxwell

And here all this time I thought you lost your sense of humor, Dave. But then I half expected to trade recipies on this site. I was kinda hoping to find out how to make Sopaipilla or Beurre noire and curried apricots. And, besides Larry Foster, who are the other great American artists, what's popular on tv now, where to get a deal on Grecian antiquities? I really sound like I'm whining. After interviewing some of the other forum readers out there it has come to my attention that, although grateful that the forum was begun, it has digressed to just a few dominant contributors, that seem to repel some and intimidate others, resulting in less contributions. I believe in optimization. So if anyone has woodworking tips, auto maintainence suggestions, how to: manage retirement funds or scams being run on old people. I guess everyone could use some help now and then, and this site could provide some. Or not. I'm probably dreaming again.
Please don't think me too critical of everyone's contributions, I'm just sensitive to the diversity of our group and yet we all bonded at some time or another, so it just makes sense to be encouraging to each other in contributing to the forum. People want to, but are intimidated by the some of the sensational aspects of others. Me, I don't. I could care less about the glory of war,or the proper use of grammar or puntuation?#×.;". I just want to have fun. Maybe if some of the major contributors could take a sabbatical others might come to the party and more folks can be heard. You know, the often forgotten. If I've offended anyone, good. Consider it payback. It's a delicate balance I know, but we all have value and who knows maybe someone could rock our worlds with a phrase or two. So I'm inviting more contributions from all those who wish. If anyone wants to give me a piece of their mind, please do off-line in private. I'm not just all mouth. I got ears to. I really don't want to regret this posting, I'm sorry if I've offended anyone.

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