Beach Hike

Scheduling a hike in May in the Olympic National Park always brings the risk of rain, but we caught a break. We had three days of dry weather with a fair amount of sun. On the ferry ride, I got a cute photo of the woman known as Mamurd. The hike went south from Third Beach to Toleak Point. We were surprised to find several steep places with ropes lying in the trail.By making the trip this early, we were able to find the fertile frond on a deer fern slowly unraveling.

Big tree on a small island...
Rest stops usually involved logs high on the gravel beach.
This rope climb did not have a "ladder".
Skunk cabbage in bloom.
The old guys rested in the sun after the hike into camp.
Beach scene from camp.
This limpet looked like a tiny space ship.
Live shrimp in the center (about an inch long).
Snails and muscles and barnacles...
Granddaddy and an bald eagle walking on the beach together.
Six (?) star fish, including a lovely dark purple one.
Beach scene approaching Toleak Point. We already have two of our group climbing up on that rocky "island".
Who says the Washington coast does not have blue water?
Beach scene from a bluff just north of camp.
Flowers on twin berry are another early bloomer.
Two of our group left early on the last day, but we caught sight of them from the top of a waterfall.
Beach strawberry.

Just Asking

Does this look like something that an 88-year-old should be doing? Just asking!
Photo credit: Mamurd

Example of Media Bias

A whole lot of folks don't see any media bias, but here is a clear example. The Yahoo headline says "Republicans block Obama pick for Interior deputy." And I thought to myself, that can't be right, the Republicans don't have enough votes to block anything right now.

Buried deep in the story are the facts: "The 57-39 vote was three short of the 60 needed to advance David Hayes..." and "Three Democrats, Sens. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland as well as John Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, did not vote. Their presence would have left Hayes with 60 votes".

Perhaps a less biased headline would have been "Three Democrats block Obama's pick for Interior deputy by abstaining."

Not Authorized to Discuss Results

Quote from a news article by Daniel Wagner and Sara Lepro, AP Business Writers

"American Express Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. will not be asked to raise more capital when federal officials announce the test results Thursday afternoon, according to people briefed on the results. The people requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the results."

Huh?? Why was Anonymous talking to reporters??? Does Anonymous not understand the concept of "not authorized to discuss the results"?

I would say that Anonymous cannot be trusted to keep a his/her mouth shut and clearly needs to be banned from further meetings regarding confidential matters, and perhaps deserves to be fired. Would you trust Anonymous with confidential information in the future? I would not. I wonder if the other meeting participants are working to identify all those who leaked information to the reporters.

Quick, Henry, the Flit!

And another odd phrase my dad used 50 years ago was, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!"

Wikipedia says: "Flit is the brand name for an insecticide with the primary active ingredient of pyrethrum. It is most often used to control adult mosquitos. ... Flit is best known today because in 1928, when Standard Oil Company manufactured it, they promoted it with a very successful and long running advertising campaign. Theodor Seuss Geisel created the artwork for this campaign, years before he started writing the children's books that made him famous as Dr. Seuss. The ads typically contained the tagline "Quick, Henry, the FLIT!" and showed people threatened by whimsical, menacing insect-like creatures that will look familiar to fans of Dr. Seuss's later work. This advertising campaign continued for 17 years and made "Quick, Henry, the FLIT!" into a national catchphrase."

http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dsads/index.shtml

So my dad heard and saw the advertisements from age 8 to age 25. No wonder he remembered the phrase!

Fire When Ready, Gridley

When I was working with my father on the family farm 50 years ago, he would often use the phrase, "Fire when ready, Gridley." It turns out that Gridley is a real person, and the phrase was first uttered on May 1, 1898 on the bridge of the USS Olympia:

"Just after midnight on May 1, 1898, the USS Olympia led the United States’s Asiatic Squadron quietly through the calm, glassy waters of the Boca Grande Channel, between the island of Corregidor and the coast of Luzon in the Philippines. The United States was at war with Spain, and the American squadron was preparing to attack a Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. As Sunday morning dawned hours later, the Olympia’s commander, Captain Charles Gridley, waited for the order to fire his ship’s guns. The order would come from the squadron’s commander, Commodore George Dewey, who watched from atop the Olympia’s flying bridge as shore batteries fired harmlessly at the advancing column of American ships. At 5:40 A.M. Dewey finally hailed Gridley with the now-famous words, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.”

by Richard Harris
http://www.historynet.com