Tinkering with Time, ugly shoes, and insects for dining

Good Morning, Don!

Glad to hear that you got the tees off your chest. I'm not a fan of tees with advertisements on them. But I admit that I have several that have incredible pictures on them. I'm almost afraid to wear them because I'm not sure how they would take being washed and dried. I love the picture of the vw – I'd think that once I got over the shock of seeing someone wearing my car on their chest, I'd take it as a compliment. I have to admit, I hadn't thought of them being an ice breaker. I'll have to remember that.

Insects are amazing! One of my students did her research paper on the value of insects. She talked about the insects that we could do without, and which other insects can help us get rid of the unwanted. I was most surprised to hear that the only value of a mosquito was as fresh food for almost all other carnivorous insects.  I'm not that much into watching the little buggers, but I just might take it up this summer. Even here we keep certain foods in Ziploc bags – we have armies of little sugar ants and I don't want to entice them into the house with "easy food." I think one of the things I really didn't want to know was how nutritious bugs could be. And, believe it or not, they could be the answer to a food crisis.

And in answer to your question of did I watch the 50 year salute to the landing of the Beatles in North America – Yes. I talked about this several blogs back. Sorry you didn't get to see the Mexican Beatle Tribute Band. We had a concert this weekend with John Adams, a man from the Netherlands who does John Denver. Incredible! It reminds me of Gomer Pile – you just don't expect such beautiful sounds from such a different source.

You mentioned going from lizards to blizzards – read an article about El Niño. Apparently we should expect one to take control of our weather come summer. It will mean a warmer summer, but the winters will be less severe, especially in the north east. Hopefully it will bring rains to California and most of the southwestern states that are in drought. That includes Colorado. It could mean harsher winters in Europe. Southern China will be warmer too. I'll remember not to go there during the summer months.  

So the biggest news here is Day Light Savings Time starts Sunday. I remember when it started back in the 60s.  My cousin, who was farming at the time, really complained that it screwed up his milking times. Not sure how that happens, but I also remember a cartoon of Nixon cutting an hour off of the morning side of a 24 hour strip of day and sewing it onto the evening side while saying "This is how we get more time..." Someone made a comment that Americans just have to tinker with time...

I actually found an article on day light savings. Apparently it was originally hoped that day light savings would actually help say energy. Over the years, it has increased the amount of time used to air condition, so whatever saving there were has been wiped out. And not all states have to observe it – We give credit to Ben Franklin but in reality he was poking fun at those who slept all day and played all night - it would help with the cost of candles if one got up with the sun... 

Over all, the most important suggestion for keeping day light savings is for fighting obesity. People are more active outside during the summer because of the increased day light. TV viewing actually goes down 15% during the first weeks of day light savings. Movie theatres also experience less people. Keeping that in mind, there is an increase in the number of barbeques sold and the amount of barbeque food sold. A solution to obesity – really?

Congratulations to gold-medal Canadian goalie Shannon Szabadoes. She's signed a contract with the Southern Professional Hockey League's Columbus Cottonmouths. About time someone noticed that women are just as good at hockey as men.

And I ran across a strange one sentence advertisement: there is a talk show for pot smokers. As there aren't too many places in the US that are friendly to pot smokers, I'd think a talk show would be a bit risky.

The other strange thing I ran across is photos of the shoes for Fashion Week inEurope. I've included the url – not sure that shoes are something people should be tinkering with – at least not without a doctor on hand: http://shine.yahoo.com/photos/those-are-shoes-fashion-week-s-strangest-footwear-1394217113-slideshow/julien-david-photo-1394216127073.html

Have a great week, everyone. Don, when do you travel back north?

Carolyn 

All images downloaded from Google Images

Fig 1 – Thai Insects popular snack food retrieved from importfood.com

Fig 2 – John Denver's Greatest Country Hits retrieved from www.seekacover.com

Fig 3 – Daylight savings Continuum Cartoons retrieved from www.jantoo.com

Fig 4 – Shannon Szabados Canada Hockey retrieved from olympicgirls.net

Fig 5 – Kristen Szanto Creative – Ugly shoes retrieved from www.kristinszanto.com