Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Death of a Friend – Joe McCord

I first met Joe McCord over lunch.  Some mutual acquaintances told me he was quite a character and had a varied background.  Joe was a person who was affable and fun and love to tell stories.  He had a long career of service in the military, the community, and for his family and friends.  Later I worked with him while he was on the Governing Board of Directors for the Peoria Unified School District.  We found we had a mutual interest in writing.  Unfortunately, his writing group was too far away though he invited me numerous times.  I did proof some his literary work, but I am not sure if he ever finished the book he was writing.  It was based on a very interesting and mostly true story of a man in World War 2 Italy and his ups and downs and finding love.

Joe loved most to talk about the children he would entertain for free on the Challenger Space Program.  He loved to show them the Tesla coil and light bulbs coming on without wires and their hair raising up.  He invited me to come see him do it several times, but I always figured I would do it later.  Now I regret not having taken the time.  We had our hip replacement surgeries near the same time, although his was from age and wear and tear while mine was from a drug reaction, it gave us more to chat about.

Whether it be the school district, air quality, community work, children or friends, I never saw Joe get angry.  You could always depend on him to give you a smile, a warm handshake or hug, and a great story.  It makes you think about how life is short, and we are remembered very little no matter how much good we do.  I have attached the story from the arizona.newszap.com below.  It just doesn’t seem like enough is ever said about those good people we know that never dream of fame or fortune, but simply live to help others.

Rest in peace Joe McCord.

joe mccord

By Rusty Bradshaw
Independent Newsmedia, Inc. USA

Updated January 3, 2014

PEORIA, Ariz. — Peoria Unified School District Governing Board member Joe McCord died on New Year’s Day 2014.

Mr. McCord left a legacy of community service behind him. He served as a PUSD Governing Board since 2009, and provided service on the Maricopa County Mining Committee and theVentana Lakes Board of Directors through the years. Some of these posts were served at the same time.

An advocate for children and community volunteer, Mr. McCord was once a magazine and newspaper publisher. In addition, Mr. McCord served 28 years before retiring as a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel. He taught physics and astrophysics to children at the Challenger Space Science Center, 21170 N. 83rd Ave., Peoria. In 2012,

“Mr. McCord was a tireless advocate for students and it will be difficult to replace the expertise he brought to the Peoria Unified Governing Board. He will be deeply missed,” said Peoria Unified Governing Board President Hal Borhauer.

Annually, Mr. McCord made it a point to visit each of PUSD’s 39 schools to get a hands-on look at how things were done in the classroom.

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Car Dashboards as Artforms

This is a collection of car dashboards.  Which one would you pick?  Of course, some come attached to pretty awesome cars as well.  I have also included a couple that I own or have owned…  Enjoy!

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A Zimbabwean villager fistfights crocodile to save child, says local media

A Zimbabwean villager fistfights crocodile to save child, says local media

Published December 27, 2013

Associated Press

HARARE, ZIMBABWE – State media in Zimbabwe says a villager fought a crocodile with his bare hands to free his son from its jaws in northeastern rural Mutoko. The Herald newspaper reported Tafadzwa Kachere and his 11-year-old son Tapiwa were trying to cross a river on Christmas eve when the crocodile attacked the boy. It reported that Kachere jumped onto the crocodile’s back and tried to force open its jaws, beating at its head with his fists and poking at its eyes with reeds. The crocodile released the child and turned on Kachere who wrestled free of its grasp. The newspaper says the child lost a leg and his father’s arm was severely gored. Both survived. Crocodile attacks are common in rural Zimbabwe during the rainy season but many go unreported.

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Cosplay Pictures for your Saturday

Cosplay pictures for your Saturday.  Enjoy!

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Antarctica sets low temperature record of -135.8 degrees

Antarctica sets low temperature record of -135.8 degrees

Published December 10, 2013

Associated Press

WASHINGTON –  Feeling chilly? Here’s cold comfort: You could be in East Antarctica which new data says set a record for “soul-crushing” cold.

Try 135.8 degrees Fahrenheit below zero; that’s 93.2 degrees below zero Celsius, which sounds only slightly toastier. Better yet, don’t try it. That’s so cold scientists say it hurts to breathe.

A new look at NASA satellite data revealed that Earth set a new record for coldest temperature recorded. It happened in August 2010 when it hit -135.8 degrees. Then on July 31 of this year, it came close again: -135.3 degrees.

The old record had been -128.6 degrees, which is -89.2 degrees Celsius.

Ice scientist Ted Scambos at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said the new record is “50 degrees colder than anything that has ever been seen in Alaska or Siberia or certainly North Dakota.”

“It’s more like you’d see on Mars on a nice summer day in the poles,” Scambos said, from the American Geophysical Union scientific meeting in San Francisco Monday, where he announced the data. “I’m confident that these pockets are the coldest places on Earth.”

However, it won’t be in the Guinness Book of World Records because these were satellite measured, not from thermometers, Scambos said.

“Thank God, I don’t know how exactly it feels,” Scambos said. But he said scientists do routinely make naked 100 degree below zero dashes outside in the South Pole, so people can survive that temperature for about three minutes.

Most of the time researchers need to breathe through a snorkel that brings air into the coat through a sleeve and warms it up “so you don’t inhale by accident” the cold air, Scambos said.

On Monday, the coldest U.S. temperature was a relatively balmy 27 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in Yellowstone, Wyo., said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private firm Weather Underground.

“If you want soul-crushing cold, you really have to go overseas,” Scambos said in a phone interview. “It’s just a whole other level of cold because on that cold plateau, conditions are perfect.”

Scambos said the air is dry, the ground chilly, the skies cloudless and cold air swoops down off a dome and gets trapped in a chilly lower spot “hugging the surface and sliding around.”

Just because one spot on Earth has set records for cold that has little to do with global warming because it is one spot in one place, said Waleed Abdalati, an ice scientist at the University of Colorado and NASA’s former chief scientist. Both Abdalati, who wasn’t part of the measurement team, and Scambos said this is likely an unusual random reading in a place that hasn’t been measured much before and could have been colder or hotter in the past and we wouldn’t know.

“It does speak to the range of conditions on this Earth, some of which we haven’t been able to observe,” Abdalati said.

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Film School Thesis Generator

This is one of those strange sites I come across that tickle my funny bone.  This site basically comes up with film school thesis statements for you to base an appropriately erudite and pretentious analysis for your film school professors.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/4oBZ8c/:1JsCLPyr_:Q-+4SX6T/wonder-tonic.com/filmthesis/

film school

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1893: Patent for Rygg’s Mechanical Horse

1893

Rygg’s mechanical horse

Ryggs-Mechanical-Horse

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Carnivorous fish injure 70 Argentine river bathers

Carnivorous fish injure 70 Argentine river bathers; 7 children lose parts of fingers or toes

Published December 26, 2013

Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA –  A surprise attack by a school of carnivorous fish has injured 70 people bathing in an Argentine river, including seven children who lost parts of their fingers or toes.

Director of lifeguards Federico Cornier said Thursday that thousands of bathers were cooling off from 100-degree temperatures in the Parana River in Rosario on Wednesday when bathers suddenly began complaining of bite marks on their hands and feet. He blamed the attack on palometas, “a type of piranha, big, voracious and with sharp teeth that can really bite.”

Palometas

Palometas

Paramedic Alberto Manino said some children he treated lost entire digits. He told the Todo Noticias channel that city beaches were closed, but it was so hot that within a half-hour, many people went back to the water.

pal

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Amazing Art Made by Snowshoe

English based artist Simon Beck created these amazing works of art by stomping around French ski resorts with nothing but a pair of snowshoes.

“I made a work of art out of snow in my high school football field once. It was displayed on the news and I got suspended.”

Reposted from repost on The Chive.  Enjoy!

 

 

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Largest gathering ever of exoskeleton-wearers walk for charity

The bionic bunch: Largest gathering ever of exoskeleton-wearers walk for charity

By Sasha Bogursky

Published November 18, 2013

FoxNews.com
  • rewalkgroupnyc.jpg

    ReWalk inventor Dr. Amit Goffer (bottom row) and other ReWalkers participate in a 5K walk in New York City’s Riverside Park.(ARGO MEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES)

Using new exoskeleton technology that allows the paralyzed to walk again, the largest gathering ever of ReWalk users from across the world came together in New York City on Sunday to participate in the Generosity 5K to raise money for the Bronx Veterans Medical Research Foundation.

ARGO Medical’s Rewalk suit is living up to its promise: to revolutionize the way paraplegics and other people with disabilities live.

“Regardless of whether it’s from ARGO or another company, it’s a technology that none of us realize how big of a difference it makes in the health of a patient,” ARGO Medical Technologies CEO Larry Jasinski told FoxNews.com.

Although it rained in New York City on Monday, the rain stayed away Sunday while seven ReWalkers and hundreds of supporters successfully made their way through Manhattan’s Riverside Park.

“I think the most important thing was that the ReWalkers completed the walk,” Jasinski said.

Among the participants was the inventor of the suit, Dr. Amit Goffer. Goffer is himself a quadriplegic who became frustrated by the outdated wheelchair and wanted to create something that would allow people with spinal cord injuries to walk again.

“What’s unique about ReWalk is that behind the left elbow of the user is a motion sensor that picks up a user’s movement when they walk,” Jasinski said. “That is attached to a computer that can replicate human gait to create a non-robotic walking step.”

Most other types of technologies cause an unnatural, stiff walk closer to a robot than to the way humans stride. ReWalk helps to create a more natural and human-like step.

“It’s the closest to walking that I can get. It’s a very good feeling,” ReWalker Gene Laureano, a father of four who became paralyzed 12 years ago after falling from a ladder at his construction job, told theNew York Post.

The 44-pound ReWalk suit is composed of two motorized limbs that strap to the legs, hips and trunk. The motion sensors detect when the user leans forward and begins moving.

The suit is currently available only in the Middle East and Europe, but Jasinski says he hopes to have FDA approval to sell the suits in the United States for an approximate $65,000.

“We believe the cost of the device will be more than offset by cost savings in reduction of medication and medical care,” he said.

“When we ask people why they buy the suit, the top five answers do not include walking again,” Jasinski told FoxNews.com. “Reduction in pain, medication and overall improvement in their wellbeing are more important. [ReWalk] is really making a difference in people’s lives.”

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