Semi-Daily Nugget Of Knowledge

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Tuesday, 2-7-6

Interesting baseball stat.

One of the greater pitching feats ever preformed was by a guy most of us have never heard of. In today's world where the only baseball highlight reels are ALL homeruns and a pitcher's duel is considered "bad for business", it is less likely that people will hear or appreciate what a man named Harvey Haddix did in 1959. Not any of the million-dollar names, not any of the legendary names. Just some guy.

On May 26, 1959 the Pittsburg Pirates were playing the Milwaukee Braves and the game was a 0-0 tie. It went into extra innings and in the top of the 13th inning, a home run broke the tie, Pittsburg didn't score in the bottom and Harvey Haddix added one to his "L" column. So if he was the losing pitcher that night, what was so astounding? Until the 3rd batter in the 13th inning, he had a perfect game.
38 up, 38 down. No hits, just outs. He's only the 9th pitcher to lose a no-hitter. A perfect game is rare and something to celebrate. This was the longest perfect game on record yet few have heard his name. Baseball fans know Don Larsen because his perfect game came in a World Series (1956). I guess you've got to have the right PR guy on your payroll... 12.2 innings perfect and his name meant nothing more to me than the local convenience store clerk.

That's another thing, I don't much care for the way we record innings. 12, 12.1, 12.2, 13. WTF!!?!?! If you're counting by outs it should be 12, 12.33, 12.66, 13. Why not count by batters?

Relief pitcher stats can be misleading that way. We're both pitchers and we both pitch 1.1 innings. I faced 4 batters while you faced 20. See, misleading. It forces another stat (like ERA or something) to verify the first stat and soon, you sound like a freaking almanac...
And why not count by time? Suppose a pitcher is brought in to face one hitter and that guy foul tips balls for 20 minutes? Huh? What about that? See, something should be done. When I'm Emperor of Earth© (see separate rant) I'm going to change it to counting by the number of times the guy scratches (adjusts) his cup. 3 and you're out!

This guy doesn't remember pitching his no-hitter, or where he parked his car, or how many...

Monday, 8-15-5

On their recent drive cross country to see the sights, my niece brought back a dreamcatcher for me. She knows I have a deep respect for Native American ways and thought I'd like one from "out west". Isn't she sweet?
After looking at it for a while, I noticed it had no hole in the center. "Odd" I thought, but I didn't know enough detail about dreamcatcher lore to know what it meant. So I looked it up and this is what I found...
There are (generally) 2 schools of thought on the dreamcatcher legend. Don't blast me if I get this wrong, I'm only reporting what I read...
The Ojibwe believe that the spirits of good dreams slip through the hole to us and the spirits of bad dreams get caught up in the web. When the dawn breaks, the bad dreams caught in the web are destroyed with the sunlight.
The Lakota believe that the bad dreams pass through the hole and keep going while the good dreams are caught in the web and slide down the feathers to those sleeping below.
I can't find and information on dreamcatchers without a hole. If nothing else, It's a beautiful ornament and special that Lizzy thought of me on her trip.

Someone's list of dream symbols. Freud would be proud, Jung would roll in his grave...

Thursday, 7-21-5

Crossing the river Styx. A euphemism for dying. Listening to Styx, a euphemism for being old. Ahh, couldn't help it, just had to take the easy jab. We went to the 80's laser light show last weekend and amid all the other music, they played Mr. Roboto. Of all the decent music this band put out (I am not a fan but they were decent) is this how they will be remembered? Domo Arrigato Mister Roboto? Sucks to be them...

There were actually 5 rivers in Dante's Inferno.

Acheron: The river of woe.
Styx: The river of unbreakable oaths.
Cocytus: The river of wailing.
Phlegethon: The river of fire.
Lethe: The river of forgetfulness.

Funny how the easiest to remember is the one about forgetfulness. Lethe, lethargic. Phleg is fire so that one's easy enough to remember.

Secret secret, I've got a secret...

Thursday, 7-7-5

FDR passed the Social Security Act August 14th, 1935
Employers got the first forms 1 year later on Monday, 8-16-1936 asking how many employees they had. The official forms were issued on the following Tuesday, 11-24-1936.
The first SS record was for 055-09-0001 John D. Sweeney, Jr. The son of a wealthy business man from New Rochelle, New York. The papers claimed he had the first card but no one knows who got the first card, Sweeney only had the first processed record.
The first person to receive a SS payment was Ernest Ackerman. He received a one-time lump payment of 17 cents. Ida May Fuller was the first to receive monthly benefits.

The first 3 digits are a geographical code, telling which state the person lived in when they applied for the number. Mine starts with a Florida code even though I was born in Connecticut because I didn't have a SS number until the tax laws changed in the 80's and we were already in Florida.
The lowest possible number is 001-01-0001 (or 81 if you are a computer. Binary joke, forget it) They tried to issue it to the board chairman but he refused, and it was eventually issued to Grace Owen of Concord, New Hampshire.
The geographic numbering code goes from the northeast to the southwest. The reason New Hampshire has a lower number than Maine is because of this attempt to issue the lowest number to the Social Security Board Chairman.

Roughly 415 million SS numbers have been issued so far. They estimate they issue 5.5 million numbers a year and won't run out for years. They have no plans to re-issue numbers from the dead because the SS number has become so closely related to identity. There are exactly 1 billion possible combinations using a 9 digit number and assuming you start at 0 and don't skip any along the way. But there are some invalid numbers.

A wallet manufacturer once included a mock card in the wallets they sold. They used the company secretary's (Hilda Whitcher) number 078-05-1120. 40,000 people ended up using the number. It has since been dubbed the "Woolworth Number" and is invalid.
The numbers from 987-65-4320 to 987-65-4329 are reserved for advertising. The geographical code of 666-xx-xxxx has been skipped but no official declaration has been made for that but they have said that they will not use the 000-xx-xxxx code.
So, allowing for various invalid numbers, the closest estimate is 988,911,099 numbers total and should be enough to take us into the next century.

Of course, not everyone wants a number.

Wednesday, 7-6-5

I have been going by my last name a lot recently. Answering the phone, meeting new people, it just seems to clear up a lot of the confusion. Too many Chris' around. There were 475,641 Christophers born in 1972.
2.79% of the guys my age answer to the same name.
The lowest it has gone on the SSA popular name list was 376 in 1933. It has become increasingly popular and peaked the year I was born at #2 in 1972. Chris floundered between #2 and #3 until 1996 and has been falling since. Chris is only #10 on the list now.

I could do worse, I could switch to my middle name. Michael. It has been #1 or #2 since 1958 and has never gone below #56 in the last 100 years.

Morgan as a first name is on the list but it stays down between 200 and 400.
Another list shows Morgan at the #53 most popular LAST name too. I'm just not very exotic am I?

Of course, I could go with a fictional name.

Tuesday, 6-28-5

I'm not much for fishing and until I started scuba diving, my interest in the ocean was passive. I had heard the name "Jewfish" before but I had no idea what it looked like. The Jewfish is a member of the grouper family and can easily weigh over 300 pounds and be 6-7 feet long. The current world record is 680 pounds. They live 30 to 50 years and are a protected species in Florida waters. The fish has officially been renamed (as of May 16, 2001) the Goliath Grouper, all in the name of PC.
The "Square Grouper" is a whole different animal... Back in the 1980's, they used to float in the north gulf stream waters in schools of 10 to 100 at a time. Smugglers would spot a Coast Guard ship and toss them overboard. It has become increasingly hard to spot the square grouper. That either means that the government is actually doing an efficient job (right!) of controlling the drug smugglers or that the smugglers have found more efficient means of transportation...

Are they re-naming Jewfish, Florida too?

Friday, 6-24-5

Trains have tires. I didn't know that. I'm not talking about subways or monorails but actual freight trains. The ones that we have to stop traffic for. They have a steel tire that is heated and expanded until it fits over the steel (or iron) wheel. When the tire wears, it can be turned on a lathe or replaced.
They started doing this because replacing the whole wheel was expensive but it also took more time. There were many different types of wheels and fitting them to the locomotive could screw up the gear hinges (Sun and Planet gear) that moved the train.
I never would have guessed it. I just figured the wheels were on the track.

The history of a "narrow guage" railroad from my childhood.

Thursday, 6-9-5

Wuhan, China is actually comprised of three towns. Wuchang, Hanyang and Hankou. The 3 towns are separated by the Yangtze and Han rivers. On Snake Hill in Wuchang sits Yellow Crane Tower.
The legend has it that it was originally the site of a wine store. The owner of the store always offered the local Taoist monk free wine. In gratitude, the monk drew a magical picture of a crane on the wall. The crane would come to life and dance whenever it heard clapping. People came from miles around to see the yellow crane dance and the wine shop was always full of happy customers.
Years later the monk returned. He played his flute and the crane came right off the wall. The monk rode the crane into the sky never to be seen again. The wine shop owner built the tower to watch for the monk's return.
It was originally built around 223 CE but has been destroyed and rebuilt time and time again. It was most recently rebuilt in 1981. Externally it appears to be the same (somewhat larger) building but internally it was rebuilt with modern materials and even includes an elevator.

I found all this out quite by accident. I was trying to find prices on these. And yes, I DO need a second one of them. Teresa is trying to keep me from spending money I don't have. "You already have one" she says. Wait until she finds out I'm also buying a set of these as well.

Friday, 5-20-5

Yesterday, a friend of mine asked me if I was interested in taking a trip to New Orleans. I couldn't type, "YES!!!" fast enough. I started making a list of all the cool stuff we could do and see. I ran through half a dozen things and spouted out "Cafe du Monde eating beignets and drinking um... that coffee". I couldn't remember what kind of coffee it was. I was busy so I didn't look it up at the time. When I got home, I mentioned it to Thom and he knew, Chicory. He told me an interesting story that I wanted to look up, so here I am and it seems he is right but there is more to it.

Without going into the history of coffee, (It was rare and very special in Paris until a sultan visited in 1669 and brought tons of the stuff over.) In the late 1700's, revolutions in coffee producing nations that supplied the cheapest beans, (Haiti and Santo Domingo) cut the coffee supply off and France imported the pricier beans from Arabia but cut it with chicory to 'stretch' the coffee.

Coffee replaced tea in America because of the Stamp Act, which subsequently caused the Boston Tea Party.
The practice of cutting the coffee with chicory was used again in the civil war. It was especially prevalent in the south after the Union blockades. Again during WW1 and WW2 chicory was used to make the coffee supply last.

So now, not only do I remember that it was 'chicory' coffee, but now I learned why they serve it there.

I really hope this trip happens. I'd like to get a picture of one of the tombs that I can't get out of my head. I saw it but we didn't have a camera with us. They say the cemeteries are prime mugging territories. It's a tomb with an angel slumped over a pedestal like she is grieving. I have a crystal clear image of it in my head and I love it!

I'd like to go back and get a picture...

Thursday, 5-19-5

Roulette wheels.
I've only played roulette "for real" once. I went in with $100 and came out with $250. I put the $100 in my pocket, gave Teresa $50 for her slots, I dropped $50 on the tables and bought breakfast for everyone on the way home with the last $50. Counted myself as a winner. Whenever I go gambling, I take a set amount of money, plan on losing it and call it an entertainment expense.
Anyway, I noticed that 11 and 13 came up more often than others and played them. I actually won on those numbers a couple of times.

There is a system called "wheel bias" that does just that. They have teams of people just watching the wheel and noting which numbers come up. Feed it into a computer and see where the natural imbalance lies.
Wear and tear on the wheel and the manufacturing process will naturally give it a little bias but it is so minute that you'd have to watch 10,000 spins or so to notice any patterns worth betting on.

The original roulette wheels had 0 as red and 00 as black. Europe went to the single 0 wheel and colored the 0 green. American casino's adopted the 0, 00 wheel. The house advantage with a single 0 wheel is 2.76%. The house gets 5.26% with the 0, 00 wheel.

Don't let them catch you working any kind of system or you'll end up in here....

Wednesday, 5-18-5

I watched "Engineering Disasters" on the History Channel last night.
Lake Peigneur is in Louisiana. In 1980 an oil rig miscalculated one of their triangulation points and drilled into the roof of a salt mine at 1300'. Of course, water dissolves salt so the 14 inch hole rapidly became a quarter of a mile wide as the entire lake drained into the mine. Everyone got out of the mine in time but the hole swallowed up 11 barges, 4 tractor-trailer trucks, 2 oil rigs, 150' trees and a nearby botanical garden.
The Delcambre Canal connected the lake to the Gulf of Mexico. When the lake was empty, the canal reversed flow and the Gulf waters flowed north into the muddy lakebed creating a waterfall over a hundred feet high.
It used to be a freshwater lake from three to eleven feet deep. Now it is a saltwater lake with a 1300' depth changing the entire eco-system. The locals say that the fishing has greatly improved.

The Wieliczks salt mine Everything is carved in salt, even the chandeliers are salt crystals.

Friday, 5-13-5

This morning I was running late so I put my shoes on without dumping them upside-down first. There was a small pebble in the left shoe and as soon as I felt it, I couldn't get out of the shoe fast enough. I think I even yelped. I'm always worried that one day there will be a mouse or a scorpion in there waiting to chew my toes off.

I saw an infant bitten by a tiny scorpion once. The mother called 911 and I caught the scorpion. The paramedics basically "kissed the boo-boo" and said not to worry. They almost chastised the mother for calling them out for such a minor problem. Scorpion bites range from a mild nuisance to deadly. How are we supposed to know the difference? I looked it up on line and read a whole bunch of gibberish. To a more educated man it may make sense but I dum. I not reed good.

"Multiple cerebral infarcts, bilateral optic neuropathy with limb ischemia, following scorpion bite is documented. Vasospasm and autonomic storm due to envenomation is a plausible explanation for this symptom complex."

I'm in way over my head. This made me feel really inferior. I'm not the world's most educated man but I can normally get the idea of a passage once I read it. I had to look up several words to decipher this one.

It basically means (I think) that;
The good doctor inspected a patient after a reported scorpion sting. He found multiple "dead" spots in the brain, damaged nervous system effecting both eyes, decreased blood flow to the limbs. Constricted blood vessels and involuntary functions freaking out due to the venomous bite are possible reasons all of this is happening.

The secret is out. The 8-years doctors spend in school is not to learn the body. Anybody with a 6 month biology class at the Jr. College is ready to do surgery. The other 7 and a half years is spent learning the DoctorSpeak Language. Latin/Greek and Psychobabble with a mixture of made up crap! I hate feeling dumb.

The only album cover art that ever bothered me was a Scorpions CD. There's a "Pungent Stench" CD and almost all the "Cannibal Corpse" CD covers that should make this list.

This guy's missing a few bad CD covers

Thursday, 5-12-5

Keith Thibodeaux. Any one know who he is?
He played "Johnny Paul Jason" on the Andy Griffith Show but his big claim to fame is that he played "Little Ricky" on I Love Lucy.
As a 3-year old drummer he auditioned for the part and got it when he impressed Lucy and Desi with his drumming. Most people believe that Little Ricky was actually played by Desi Arnaz Jr. but he wasn't. So many people believed it that Keith Thibodeaux is said to have actually had an identity crisis because if it.

15 minutes of fame and then what?

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