08:21 – The blast of frigid weather is fading. The high today is to be a few degrees above freezing, and by Sunday the high is to be 59F (15C).
I’m still making up solutions and filling bottles. Yesterday, among others, I made up two liters of Lugol’s iodine solution, enough for 66 more 30 mL bottles. Just out of curiosity I checked our records. I’d made up six liters of Lugol’s on 20 March 2013, another four liters on 16 September, and another two liters on 19 November, for a total of 14 liters in the last 10 months, or about 460 kits’ worth.
We’re out of chemical sets for the biology and forensic kits, so my top priority for today is to bottle the 10 or so chemicals that we need in stock to make up a couple dozen more chemical sets for each of those.
11:11 – I saw this in the paper yesterday and wondered if the nationals would pick it up: North Carolina sheriff swaps Bonnie and Clyde-era ‘Tommy Guns’ for new arms
FoxNews appears to be confused. This is our local sheriff, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, not South Carolina as FoxNews seems to believe.The two guns in question are 1928 Thompson SMGs, as indicated by the vertical front grip and the Cutt’s Compensator at the muzzle. I’ve shot the 1928, 1928A1, and M1A1 Thompsons a fair amount and put a couple magazines through a 1921 Thompson. They’re fun to shoot, but the fact that the top of the buttstock is below the axis of the barrel means the muzzle climbs when they’re shot full auto, much like the AK47. Trading two of these relics for 88 Bushmasters is a very good deal for the Sheriff’s department and our local taxpayers.
At 18 years, I lived in Boston far longer than any other place in my life, and I guess it rubbed off. Taking the latest NYTimes dialect test
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0
I come out with Boston, Providence, or Greensboro, NC as my dialect. I don’t really speak with a Boston accent, but I do use words they use out there, instead of the ones more common around here. People around my part of the Midwest used “coke” for any carbonated soft drink, but now say “soda”. I use “pop” which is what most people in Boston say, if they don’t use “tonic”. I also say “ah-nt” instead of “ant” for “aunt” and what they call “roundabouts” here, I call “rotaries” like New Englanders do, which is just easier to say than “roundabout”. Although my generation was probably conditioned by the Yes song “Roundabout”.
They don’t test on words like “DEE-tails” or “FI-nance”, which is ugly Midwestern for the proper words “duh-TAILS” and “fi-NANCE”, that I was properly taught in grade school, and reinforced by speech training for broadcasting. “can-NOT” is another prevalent incorrect pronunciation of the word, which is “CAN-not”. Don’t rely on any modern dictionary for pronunciation; Webster’s Second Unabridged is the only one not compromised by stupidity. Even the NBC announcers handbook gives awful advice. They approve of the pronunciation “REAL-a-tor” when that is a made-up and trademarked word of the national Realtors Association, and they repeatedly tell everyone there IS NO “A” in “realtor”.
Hmm. They say I’m Fresno, Bakersfield, and Lincoln (Nebraska), but I’m pretty much red to orange the whole width of the country from the Canadian border down to the deep South other than New England.
Two things:
Weather: Predictions of warming, is AlGore going on vacation?
TV sports talkers: “Auburn has two timeouts left.” Is that why it takes 8 talkers to describe the activities of 22 players?
Took that a couple of weeks ago. Fresno, Modesto and Salt Lake City. Of course I am from Bakersfield and doubt there’s much difference in any San Joaquin valley city. (I used to work for Mormons. mmmmmmmm)
I’ve spent my whole life in NC except for the 18 months I was in San Diego en route to 14 years outside of Dallas. While my map is dark red in most of North Carolina, there’s also a concentration centered in Alabama and Mississippi (and my 3 cities are Montgomery, Mobile and Birmingham). I think my time in Dallas caused me to pick up enough to just shift my dialect to the east and south.
As a specific example, there are very few places around here (Winston-Salem) that have a road along the freeway/interstate/expressway. Growing up, I remember people referring to the frontage road near the Greensboro airport. However, it seems that almost every limited-access road in Texas has a parallel road, and I got in the habit of referring to them as service roads. Below my national map, the first 2 specific examples show Montgomery & Mobile as the area represented by my “most distinctive” use of service road, with the highest concentration being south Louisiana but also extending NW into North Texas and Oklahoma.
I am Dallas, Houston and Honolulu. Weird. Honolulu since I said firefly instead of lightening bug.
Chuck wrote:
“At 18 years, I lived in Boston far longer than any other place in my life, and I guess it rubbed off. Taking the latest NYTimes dialect test
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0”
I came out as having a SE USA accent/dialect (but excluding Florida) that also matched the NYC area. It was amusing to watch the progress score as it shifted around the country as I answered questions.
I’d be interested to know what those Thompsons sell for; if they have consecutive serial numbers I would think that the pair would be a lot more valuable. I’d also like to know just how many rounds have been put through those two, but I doubt that anyone who buys them is going to do a lot of shooting with them.
That test got it more or less right for me, guessing Baton Rouge, Jacksonville, and Fort Lauderdale. A reasonable set of places for someone born and raised in the Florida panhandle, a/k/a Lower Alabama.
Too bad Australia, the US, UK and Arabs don’t have a government with the foresight of the Norwegians:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-09/all-norwegians-become-millionaire-shareholders-in-world27s-big/5191480
Yes, it is!
A government with foresight – isn’t that an oxymoron?
I’ve live too many places. Aside from the New York area, pretty much the whole map was red. There were 3 or 4 questions where I couldn’t decide what answer to pick (example: “semi” and “18-wheeler” both sound right to me). It would up putting me in the Southeast, where I have only ever been briefly.
As a Canadian who has spent much time watching American TV, I wondered what the dialect test would provide me. Many of the answers gave me solid dark blue for the entire map, while others gave me strong and very specific regional similarities. Then it placed me as somewhere between Seattle/Tacoma and Spokane, which is eerily accurate, as I’m 5.5 hours from Seattle and 5.15 hours from Spokane.
With them placing me in Fresno, Bakersfield, and Lincoln, Nebraska, mine was eerily inaccurate; i.e., they couldn’t have been much farther off if they’d tried. I’ve been in California exactly twice in my life: for a few days in 1979 and a few more days in 2008. I think I caught a connecting flight once in Nebraska in 1980, but that’s about it.