Sunday, December 16, 2007

Fun Facts About Texas

Again . . . not really a quote, but interesting tidbits that need to be stored somewhere. I've actually seen this list on several websites, but I have no verification that all the information is factual. Likewise, I have no reason to doubt it either. I actually received this in an email.

Here are some little known, very interesting facts about Texas .

1. Beaumont to El Paso : 742 miles

2. Beaumont to Chicago : 770 miles

3. El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas

4. World's first rodeo was in Pecos , July 4, 1883.

5. The Flagship Hotel in Galveston is the only hotel in North America built over water.

6. The Heisman Trophy ws named after John William Heisman who was the first full-time coach at Rice Universityin Houston .

7. Brazoria County has more species of birds than any other area in North America .

8. Aransas Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of North America 's only remaining flock of whooping cranes.

9. Jalapeno jelly originated in Lake Jackson in 1978.

10. The worst natural disaster in U.S . history was in 1900, caused by a hurricane, in which over 8,000 lives were lost on Galveston Island .

11. The first word spoken from the moon, July 20, 1969, was " Houston .."

12. King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island .

13. Tropical Storm Claudette brought a U.S. rainfall record of 43" in 24 hours in and around Alvin in July of 1979.

14. Texas is the only state to enter the U.S. by TREATY, (known as the Constitution of 1845 by the Republic ofTexas to enter the Union ) instead of by annexation. This allows the Texas Flag to fly at the same height as the U.S. Flag, and may divide into 5 states.

15. A Live Oak tree near Fulton is estimated to be 1500 years old.

16. Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in the state.

17. Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. There is no period in Dr Pepper.

18. Texas has had six capital cities: Washington-on-the Brazos, Harrisburg , Galveston , Velasco, West Columbia and Austin .

19. The Capitol Dome in Austin is the only dome in the U.S. which is taller than the Capitol Building in WashingtonDC (by 7 feet).

20. The name " Texas " comes from the Hasini Indian word "tejas" meaning friends. Tejas is not Spanish forTexas .

21. The State Mascot is the Armadillo (an interesting bit of trivia about the armadillo is they always have four babies. They have one egg, which splits into four, and they either have four males or four females.).

22. The first domed stadium in the U.S. was the Astrodome in Houston .

Living in Texas

Well, it's not exactly a quote, but it's interesting information and I wanted to document it somewhere, and this was as appropriate a place as I could think of. I received it an email. I actually looked up one of the missing zip codes myself and then checked a few others and they were right, so I stopped there. I'm assuming the rest are correct.

A little info that even Native Texans might not know, and all non-Texans should know...

Need to be cheered up?

Happy, Texas 79042
Pep , Texas 79353
Smiley , Texas 78159
Paradise , Texas 76073
Rainbow , Texas 76077
Sweet Home , Texas 77987
Comfort , Texas 78013
Friendship, Texas 76530

Love the Sun?

Sun City , Texas 78628
Sunrise , Texas 76661
Sunset, Texas 76270
Sundown, Texas 79372
Sunray , Texas 79086
Sunny Side , Texas 77423

Want something to eat?

Bacon , Texas 76301
Noodle , Texas 79536
Oatmeal , Texas 78605
Turkey , Texas 79261
Trout , Texas 75789
Sugar Land , Texas 77479
Salty, Texas 76567
Rice , Texas 75155
And top it off with:
Sweetwater , Texas 79556

Why travel to other cities? Texas has them all!

Detroit , Texas 75436
Colorado City , Texas 79512
Denver City , Texas 79323
Klondike , Texas 75448
Nevada , Texas 75173
Memphis , Texas 79245
Miami , Texas 79059
Boston , Texas 75570
Santa Fe , Texas 77517
Tennessee Colony , Texas 75861
Reno , Texas 75462

Feel like traveling outside the country? Don't bother buying a plane ticket!

Athens , Texas 75751
Canadian, Texas 79014
China , Texas 77613
Egypt , Texas 77436
Ireland , Texas 76538
Turkey , Texas 79261
London , Texas 76854
New London , Texas 75682
Paris , Texas 75460

No need to travel to Washington D.C.

Whitehouse , Texas 75791

We even have a city named after our planet!

Earth , Texas 79031

And a city named after our State!

Texas City , Texas 77590

Exhausted?

Energy , Texas 76452

Cold?

Blanket , Texas 76432
Winters, Texas

Like to read about History?

Santa Anna , Texas
Goliad , Texas
Alamo , Texas
Gun Barrel City , Texas
Robert lee, Texas


Need Office Supplies?

Staples, Texas 78670

Men are from Mars, women are from...
Venus , Texas 76084

You guessed it..it's on the state line..
Texline , Texas 79087

For the kids...

Kermit , Texas 79745
Elmo , Texas 75118
Nemo , Texas 76070
Tarzan , Texas 79783
Winnie , Texas 77665
Sylvester , Texas 79560


Other city names in Texas , to make you smile.....


Frognot , Texas 75424
Bigfoot , Texas 78005
Hogeye , Texas 75423
Cactus , Texas 79013
Notrees , Texas 79759
Best, Texas 76932
Veribest , Texas 76886
Kickapoo , Texas 75763
Dime Box , Texas 77853
Old Dime Box , Texas 77853
Telephone , Texas 75488
Telegraph , Texas 76883
Whiteface , Texas 79379
Twitty, Texas 79079


And our favorites...


Cut n Shoot, Texas
Gun Barrell City , Texas
Hoop And Holler, Texas
Ding Dong, Texas and, of course,
Muleshoe , Texas

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A Double Whammy on the First Amendment

During an email discussion about people taking down posters advertising events that the people objected to, one discussion participant closed his email with these two quotes:

Voltaire: “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.”

Hubert Humphrey: “The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”

Sunday, September 16, 2007

God's answers

I believe that God only gives three answers to prayer:
1. "Yes"
2. "Not yet"
3. "I have something better in mind."

~Author unknown

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I found this as the email signature of someone I don't know. It was buried in all the "forwards" of a forwarded email. I think it's waaay cool. I DO believe it. And I love it when the answer is #3 which it is most of the time in my life.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Punny Email

I don't know why, but I love great one-liner puns. Here's a great collection that I received via email.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger.
Then it hit me.

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Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

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Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off?

He's all right now.

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The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.

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The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

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To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

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When fish are in schools, they sometimes take debate.

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The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

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A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

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A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement.
He became a hardened criminal.

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Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.

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We'll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply.

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When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.
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The math professor went crazy with the blackboard.
He did a number on it.

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The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.

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The dead batteries were given out free of charge.

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If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.

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A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.

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A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

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A will is a dead giveaway.

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Time flies like an arrow;
fruit flies like a banana.

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A backward poet writes inverse.

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In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

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A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

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If you don't pay your exorcist, you can get repossessed.

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With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

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Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

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When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

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The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

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A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France. It resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

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You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

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Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.

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He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

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A calendar's days are numbered.

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A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

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A boiled egg is hard to beat.

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He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

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A plateau is a high form of flattery.

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Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

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When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

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If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

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When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

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Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

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Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

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Acupuncture: a jab well done.

Looking for Einstein

There's a great quote by Einstein about how when he has time, he loves to re-prove old mathematical proofs . . . not because he doesn't remember them but for the sheer joy of that kind of thinking.

I read it a long time ago and always remembered that it existed, but unfortunately, it was before I started this blog to help me remember great quotes and I can't find it again.

If you know of this quote, please comment and share

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Growing up

If you haven't grown up by age 50, you don't have to.

(No author cited)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Seen on the desk of Debra Khoury as I was checking out of UNT. It was just a little plaque she had to decorate her office. How appropriate that at age 50, as I start a whole new career of fun and excitement, that I get that kind of positive reinforcement. . . . especially on one of my last days in the career I'm leaving behind. :-)

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Happiness depends on our dispositions

"The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not our circumstances."

Martha Washington

Monday, June 18, 2007

What have Americans to be thankful for?

"What have Americans to be thankful for? More than any other people on the earth, we enjoy complete religious freedom, political freedom, social freedom. Our liberties are sacredly safeguarded by the Constitution of the United States, 'the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.' Yes, we Americans of today have been bequeathed a noble heritage. Let us pray that we may hand it down unsullied to our children and theirs."

B.C. Forbes in 1953

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

mentioned in the article Made in the USA: Spoiled brats by Craig Smith in WorldNetDaily
Posted: November 20, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
retrieved 6/18/2007 from http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53028

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Einstein on miracles

"There are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle."

Albert Einstein

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was a signature line in the middle of an email that had been forwarded many times. I don't even know the person who had it as their signature, but Einstein can even bind strangers.

BTW, I choose to live my life in the latter of the two ways.

Monday, May 28, 2007

idealistic people

"Idealistic people tend to not be very pragmatic."

Garry Mayes in a conversation 8/25/2005

what our schools used to be

Given the many demands made of schools today, the wonder is not that they do so poorly, but that they accomplish so much. Our society has stuffed additional burdens into the time envelope of 180 six-hour days without regard to the consequences for learning. We agree with the Maine mathematics teacher who said, "The problem with our schools is not that they are not what they used to be, but that they are what they used to be." In terms of time, our schools are unchanged despite a transformation in the world around them.

from 1994 Department of Education report Prisoners of Time

retrieved May 28, 2007 from http://www.ed.gov/pubs/PrisonersOfTime/Dimensions.html

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Things turn out best . . .

"Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

as seen on a picture frame in Albertson's Grocery Store in Denton, TX

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Education is not a preparation for life but life itself

"I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living."

My Pedagogic Creed by John Dewey
School Journal vol. 54 (January 1897), pp. 77-80
ARTICLE TWO. WHAT THE SCHOOL IS

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That's the closest I can come to an actual quote by Dewey, though many many places you'll see, "Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself."

If you know the source of the second quote, please comment and share.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Einstein on problem solving (but not necessarily mathematical problems)

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
---Albert Einstein

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the email signature of:
Dr Paul J Gies
Chair, or rather, "Chair,"
Dept. of Math & Computer Science

He's such a liberal arts thinker which is so fabulous but sometimes rare in math and science folks.

I read this and think of examples: NCLB is a problem that exists in the world today and truly there's no one in the Bush administration that can "solve" it . . . not only because they don't even understand that it's a problem but for the reasons that Einstein states, that level of thinking can't even comprehend how to undo the damage that's been done.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Dancing With God

Dancing With God

When I meditated on the word Guidance, I kept seeing "dance" at the end of the word. While reading, I began thinking that God's will is a lot like dancing. When two people try to lead, nothing feels right. The movement doesn't flow with the music, and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky. When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead, both bodies begin to flow with the music. One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back or by pressing lightly in one direction or another. It's as if two become one body, moving beautifully. The dance takes surrender, willingness, and attentiveness from one person and gentle guidance and skill from the other.

My eyes drew back to the word Guidance. When I saw "G: I thought of God followed by "u" and "i". "God, "u" and "i" "dance." God, you, and I dance. As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust that I would get guidance about my life. Once again, I became willing to let God lead.

My prayer for you today is that God's blessings and mercies be upon you on this day and everyday. May you abide in God as God abides in you.

Dance together with God, trusting God to lead and to guide you through each season of your life.

This prayer is powerful and there is nothing attached. If God has done anything for you in your life, please share this message with someone else. Truly, prayer is one of the best gifts we can receive. There is no cost but a lot of rewards; so let's continue to pray for one another.

And I Hope You Dance

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was an email I received on 3/22/2007. Often I get these and it's the millionth time I've seen 'em, but this one was new to me. And often, when I get them, they're judgmental or make you feel guilty. But this one, I loved. It really spoke to me. I wonder if it would have the same impact on someone who doesn't do a lot of dancing or who isn't passionate about dancing with a partner. For me, I love ballroom dancing; and country-western is a close second. I'm not all that great at dancing and I don't get to do it often, but it's a thrill for me whenever I get to dance. When I read this, a flood of dancing memories came rushing into my head, mostly good ones or great ones. But I have a few bad dancing memories and those non-examples really made this ring even truer for me. Okay, you probably can't be true, truer, or truest, but you get my drift.

I would love to see this in calligraphy. I wanted to leave out the next to the last paragraph because that's getting into that "pass this on or else" syndrome that so many email messages have on them. But I so like the ending of the paragraph "continue to pray for one another" which is the perfect lead-in to "And I hope you dance" that I kept the rest of the paragraph in.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The Holy Spirit intercedes for us

The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that same Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.
--Romans 8: 12-27

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've loved this promise from the Bible for as long as I can remember. How awesome that even if we don't know what to pray for, the Holy Spirit can pray for us on our behalf. Gotta love the Holy Spirit.

I'm not familiar with this translation, but I haven't been able to find the quote for so long that I'm just thrilled to have a reference. Now I can read different translations until I find the one I really want. But in the end, the translation doesn't matter. It's all about the promise. :-)