My Heavens Above -- Take a Flying Leap on FRI 4/1/05

**No Joke** here-- Look celestially on Friday, April 1 @ 10:20:41 seconds AM EST!

Get ready to Jump and maybe get a zero-gravity rush?! oOo oOo
At 10:22:41 a.m. tomorrow (Friday), Mercury will be near Inferior Conjunction, Venus will be near Superior Conjunction, and Jupiter will be approaching Opposition (see a Planetary Summary chart @ heavens-above.com and you can check the alignment out + other Amazing CoOol space stuff .

Also, the Moon should be generating a NeapTide. Since Mercury and Venus are our nearest planetary neighbors, and Jupiter is so massive (it is heavier than all the other planets, moons, comets and asteroids combined), the gravitational effects could be significant due to this unique alignment.

In the past, when similar events have occurred, there have been reports of “a strange floating sensation” oOo oOo by individuals who jumped up exactly at the time of the event oOo oOo (one such event occurred in April of 1976, at 4:47 a.m. EST – so most Americans were asleep in bed)! oOo oOo oOo oOo

I’m going to try to be in the Quad about 10:20 for this event tomorrow. . . You must have your watches set very precisely oOo oOo -–get the Exact Time here. It'll be interesting to see what happens! oOo oOo oOo oOo

G. Craig Flowers, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physical Science
Bluefield College
Rom 8.28, Phil 4.4

** Quote of the Day **

[Too late from much online researching to poOost of significance today. Will get into the bloOog rhythm for this site soOon. . . oOo. . . So here is a beginning thread of quote-sharing that I will embark on-- and you are invited to share your favs with us here as well. Consider it a chaining meme of sorts (?) ] oOo oOo

"Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence."

-- O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)
American author (1862-1910). oOo oOo

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Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

--Ecclesiastes 9:7 oOo oOo oOo

"The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings."

-- Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss critic (1821-1881).

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"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he hoped to make it."

-- Sir James Matthew Barrie
Scottish dramatist-author (1860-1937) oOo oOo oOo

oOo oOo oOo <><>

Mans and Womins--

My husband came home with a tube of KY jelly and said, "This will make you happy tonight!" He was right. When he went out of the bedroom, I squirted it all over the doorknobs. He couldn't get back in. oOo oOo

oOo oOo "It's just too hot to wear clothes today," Jack says as he stepped out of the shower. "Babe, heh heh, what do you think the neighbors would think if I mowed the lawn like this!?" "Probably that I married you for your money," she replied. oOo oOo oOo

Cellblock 13 -- Ms. M. Stewart, #1244785 Alderson, WV

A Fracas over boiled Bobby-- what Would Martha think?

MSNBC - Fracas over boiled egg lands Bobby Fischer in solitary

oOo oOo oOo Good ole Grandmaster Bobby Fischer-- What was he(has he been) thinking? Whatever happened to moving solitary figures over a checkered board, instead of ending up a solitary figure with a checkered past? oOo oOo Are we witnessing a strange bit of Middle-gaming in his life, or is this quickly devolving into bizarre End-game strategy? oOo oOo

And just what is a "fracas" nowadays!? oOo oOo Surely not "fist-to-cuffs" from the chess pundit and wunderkind of yesteryear!... the boyhood oOo intellectual idol, the great wizard of secret moves and dazzling N8 - K2 /R-Q dbl fork/checkmate gambits? oOo oOo Maybe it's some kind of boiled-egg thingy, like an omelette, or maybe mixed up with other chicken parts into some sort of Japanese delicacy... oOo oOo oOo

oOo oOo And speaking of delicate edibles, "It's a Good Thing" that Ms. Martha is newly released upon us all from nearby Alderson prison ...just in time for Spring Planting, oOo as one of our local-yocal reporters phrased it on the "telly" the other day. Whoa boy, are we coming up in the world... oOo oOo oOo

First Post (May 17, 2001)

[ Ed. note: This was the first post from the original email version of the SoOoApBoOoX. See the Archives for other earlier blurbs of interest! ]

   oOo oOo oOo For Some WATERY NEWS oOo
   oOo oOo

There's a rather Large TITANIC EXHIBIT coming   oOo oOo
oOo The presenters of an exhibit of artifacts recovered from the ocean liner Titanic say they are stressing the human side of the tragedy in their presentation. The Nashville Tennessean says that the major exhibit, to open at Opryland,
  oOo oOo
will even have a tank of water [ WoOoW! what a Novel idea! ]
-- chilled to "iceberg waters" temperature -- to show people just how cold it was in the North Atlantic for the survivors. [ Anyone for a Dip? ]
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oOo
There's a ton of trivia connected with the ship, including:
The Titanic would cost about $400 million to construct today.
The entire movie "Titanic" cost half that. The original design for the ship was sketched on a napkin.
  oOo
oOo [ It held up just a "little" better in Steel... ]

At a time when wealthy passengers -- such as John Jacob Astor -- were paying$4,000 for their passage, the radio operator on Titanic was being paid $20 a month. Finally, two dogs survived the sinking, spirited into lifeboats by animal lovers.
oOo...gLUb...oOo [ I think there's another Reality-TV SURVIVOR CRUISE idea in here, if anyone wants to put it together... ] oOo
   oOo oOo

-----------------------------------------------------------
 oOo oOo New Testament Verse for the Day:
1 John 5:14-15

" This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him. "

oOo oOo [ Therefore, Our Task is to ask,discover and seek to know God and HIS WILL, and to do it !(live it and practice it!). This means we will have (some kind of) a relationship with God, hopefully a living and interactive bond with him,
(by becoming a disciple)
~~a supernatural connection~~ not just a "spiritual" one.

oOo oOo And then we will know what we have from God--
a truly abundant life full of challenges, pitfalls, pain, trials and triumphs.
Just what you've been asking for all these years, right!?
   oOo oOo

oOo oOo But there will also be great surprises,
second chances,
new beginnings,
security, promise, oOo oOo
love, vision,
growth and strength,
oOo oOo peace and purpose.
...and the list goes on... ] oOo oOo

So that,in the end--knowing that we've lived a
life well-spent, having served God and other people--
we will gain the victory over death that Christ has won,
that gives us an eternal communion with our Creator. oOo
oOo oOo oOo
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   oOo oOo

PUZZLER: Why are naïve rural people
sometimes called "country bumpkins?"
    oOo oOo
oOo Well I suppose it might have something to do with the urban stereotype of people from the backwoods intermarrying a lot more than is healthy. That would make them bumpkins because wherever go they can't help colliding with a relative.   oOo oOo

But no, etymology is not usually that neat.
[RaTs! it sure fit MY definition. ]
oOo I'm afraid that for the truth of the matter,we will have to return to that perennial etymological scapegoat, the Dutch. Bumpkin is thought to have come from the Dutch word,"boomken", a small tree. It was originally applied to Dutchmen
-     oOo oOo naturally by people who were not Dutch -
[ NatUraLLy... ] to suggest that Hollanders tended to be somewhat squat individuals with not very heightened perspectives. You know, bumpkins.
oOo oOo [Maybe similar to "hobbits" ? ] oOo
oOo Mind you, that word was "squat." If it was
"squash," they could be country pumpkins. oOo


---End of SoapBox---Have a great Day, Ya'll!

JIM <><

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