4th Quarter 2012Week 44

Oct 28 -Nov 2Page 1

TABLE OF CONTENTSISSUE 2012.44

Roller Coasterspages 1-4

Overcoming the OddsPhineas T. Barnum

pages 5-6

Ape Intelligencepages 7-8

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ROLLER COASTERby Janet Spencer

A team of seven people went to California in order to set the world record for the most roll-er coasters ridden in 24 hours. The group rode on 40 different roller coasters at eight different amusement parks in California, starting at 5:00 p.m. on October 14, 2000 and ending at 5:00 p.m. the next day. Come along with Tidbits as we ride the world’s tallest coaster!• From the days of the first roller coaster ride

to today, a competition to build the tallest, longest, scariest roller coaster on earth has pushed the industry forward into new realms. In 2004, this competition spurred Six Flags Great Adventure theme park in New Jersey to announce that they were building the highest and fastest roller coaster on earth. They named it Kingda Ka, after the 535-pound Bengal tiger who resides at the park, although some people joke that “Kingda Ka” is actually Swahili for “OhMyGawd what a ride!”

• In 2005, Kingda Ka opened for business, claiming the title of both the fastest and the tallest roller coaster on the planet. The coaster cars rocket to the top of a 456-foot tower, accelerating from 0 to 128 mph within 3.5 seconds, before a stomach-clenching cork-screw drop back down to earth. A second 13-story hill gives riders a few moments of weightlessness before the ride is over, less than 60 seconds after it began.

Q: What’s a ghost’s favorite carnival ride?

A: The roller ghoster!

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The gap between the health care received by men and women veterans is closing. So says the Depart-ment of Veterans Affairs.According to its website, women’s health care through the Women Veterans Health Program focuses on a number of areas: Comprehensive primary care: The plan is to include gender-specific care at every VA site, including physi-cal rehab, maternity care, acute and chronic illness, disease prevention and screening, and more. Women’s health education: The VA is training more and more health-care providers to work specifically with women. Reproductive health: The VA is increasing its coor-dination of female-specific treatments to provide a full range of medical services, including Pap tests,

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birth control, mammograms and breast cancer care. A recent press release by the VA says that it leads the nation in breast cancer screening rates with 87 percent of eligible women veterans receiving screening. It has 45 facilities with digital mammography, and mobile mammography in rural areas of the country.Special populations: Women veterans who live in rural areas or are homebound can take advantage of mobile clinics, e-clinics and home-based services. Older women veterans can take advantage of treatments for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and menopause.If you’re a female vet and you haven’t hooked up with the VA for any of your health care, check it out. You can start online at the Women Veterans Health Care web-site: www.womenshealth.va.gov. You can apply online and fill out the VA Form 10-10EZ. Look for the video that will walk you through the enrollment process. Or you can call the VA Health Benefits Call Center at 1-877-222-8387 if you have questions about enrolling or any other benefits. At the website you can locate a facility in your area. For a non-emergency, it’s required that you be scheduled for an appointment within 14 days.

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KINGDA KA (continued):• The secret to Kingda Ka’s thrill is all in the launch sequence. Whereas standard older roller coasters employ a cable system which slowly and laboriously winches a car to the top of a hill, the Kingda Ka uses space-age hydraulic engineering to launch a car in exactly the same sort of way an aircraft is launched from an aircraft carrier, with similar thrust and G-forces involved. The system is basically a high tech catapult, with a giant hydraulic launch system delivering 12,500 horsepower in a single colossal blast – twelve times the horse power of a Formula One race car. Eight military grade 500-horsepower hydraulic motors – which took a year to construct – charge up the accumulators, forcing hydraulic fluid into the chambers under great pressure. When a trigger is pulled, the pressure is released and the car is launched at rocket speed. It’s similar in many ways to blowing up a balloon and then letting it go. Kingda Ka is one of only two roller coasters in the world that uses this technol-ogy. The experience has been compared to being in a jet fighter, or being a drag racer. QUICK BITS• It takes only ten seconds to go from launch to being 456 feet in the air on top of the tower.• The highest point of the ride is 45 stories tall, which is about 4/5ths the height of the Wash-ington Monument. It’s tall enough that the entire Statue of Liberty would fit under the main arch with 100 feet to spare.• On foggy days, you can’t see the top of the tower from the bottom.• The ride cost $25 million to construct.• The entire track is just over 1,000 yards long.• Fittingly enough, the very first passengers were the engineers who built it.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My entire family has lice. I am starting a support group for families who have had to experience this awful invasion of their scalps. I have reached the breaking point. Give me a plan for treatment and a timetable for their eradication from our home. -- Name Withheld Lest Neighbors Find Out

ANSWER: One of nature’s smallest creatures, the head louse upsets domestic tranquility with more re-vulsion than most health-endangering illnesses. Head lice bring no disease with them. They are tiny, only 3 millimeters (1/10 inch) in length. They feed on blood and die within a day or two off the scalp. After feed-ing, lice have a reddish-brown hue. The mother louse glues louse eggs to hair, and those structures are called nits. They are only 1 millimeter (4/100 inch) long. The eggs hatch in six to 10 days. If nits are more than a quarter of an inch from the scalp, the baby louse has already hatched, and the nit is no longer a problem. In an average life span of three months, the mother louse can lay up to 300 eggs.Lice are not an indication of poor hygiene. Most of the time, they’re introduced into a family by a child who caught them at school. They can infest other fam-ily members quickly. Transmission comes from direct contact with an infested individual and, less often, from contact with inanimate objects used by that indi-

vidual, like hats, combs, brushes and bedding. You’re not alone. Six to 12 million Americans come down with head lice yearly. Almost all people with head lice have intense scalp itching. A number of methods effectively rid you of the problem. The first medicines used are permethrin (Nix) or pyrethrins (Rid), which are cheap and usu-ally effective, although lice are becoming resistant to them in some locations. A second treatment is given seven to 10 days after the first. Ovide (malathion) is used if lice linger after Nix or Rid. And should Ovide not work, the oral medicine Stromectol (ivermectin) is available. A new medicine is Natroba (spinosad) suspension. It is held in reserve as a last resort. This nightmare should be over in two to three weeks. ***DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My husband was told he had prostate cancer in 2010 and had his prostate removed. Now his doctor wants him to have PSA testing. He says he might need radiation because he has prostate cancer. If he has no prostate gland, how can he have prostate cancer? -- D.R.ANSWER: The doctor wants to be sure that cancer cells did not spread from to other body sites. Even though the gland was completely removed, not all the potential sites for cancer spread were removed. That’s all but impossible to do. The PSA test will show if prostate cancer is active in those other places. If it is, then further treatment is required.The booklet on the prostate gland discusses the PSA test and prostate cancer in detail. Readers can order a copy by writing: Dr. Donohue -- No. 1001W, Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Enclose a check or money order (no cash) for $4.75 U.S./$6 Canada with the recipient’s printed name and address. Please allow four weeks for delivery.

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This summer, the U.S. Department of Education asked colleges across the country to help potential students determine their true costs for a college education. Colleges were asked to provide each accepted stu-dent with a “shopping sheet” to make it easier to com-pare the costs of attending their college versus other schools.The sheets include details such as tuition and fees, housing, books, grants from the school, Pell Grants and grants from the state. Further down the page are the net costs that the student will be expected to provide, as well as the options for paying those, such as work

study, loans and family contributions.Other handy information on the page details the graduation rate of the school, and whether it’s consid-ered low, medium or high. The loan default rate also is shown for the school, comparing it with the national rate. One of the most helpful sections of the sheet is the loan-repayment information. The section shows the average levels of borrowing for the school, as well as the expected monthly rate of repayment over 10 years. Students will know going in what their repayments are likely to be.To see an example of the college shopping sheet, go tocollegecost.ed.gov/shopping_sheet.pdfFor students just starting the process of applying to schools, the Federal Student Aid site (studentaid.ed.gov) has a wealth of information on financial aid for college. Who gets aid (the criteria) and the types of aid (work study, grants and loans) are linked, with special

sections on avoiding scams and aid for serving in the military or being a spouse or child of a veteran. There are links to calculators for repayment comparisons of subsidized and non-subsidized loans, and Income-Contingent Repayment Plan (ICR) Income-Based Re-payment Plan (IBR) loans.Determining just how student aid is calculated can be a big help when it comes to selecting a school. Look for The EFC Formula 2012-2013 information.Dependent students who have already started the online process for financial aid (and who must include the parents’ income in the calculation) can update their information online should there be a change in the family’s financial situation.Students who were accepted at schools that didn’t provide the “shopping sheet” information should ask for it.The Department of Education awards $150 billion per year in grants, loans and work-study opportunities.

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1. Is the book of Ruth in the Old or New Testament or neither?2. From 2 Samuel, who commanded the rebel army when Absalom rebelled against David? Arioch, Abner, Abishai, Amasa3. In the Old Testament, who said, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening”? Noah, Isaiah, Samuel, Adam4. Who wrote most of the Proverbs? David, Solo-mon, Paul, Isaiah5. What’s the Sea of Galilee called in John 6? Tibe-rias, Dead, Jordan, Geneva6. Who was the mate of Zipporah? Hosea, Amos, Moses, Malachi

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this activity by increasing the amount of time you play with him -- if you dangle a cat toy in front of Frank for five minutes every hour so, increase that to 10 minutes each time. It’s also very important to follow the dietary guidelines set down by the veterinarian. Usually a pet diet involves reducing the amount of calories taken in each day. That means serving smaller portions at feeding time. Food treats must be avoided as well, so the extra calories don’t go straight to your cat’s midsection.Keeping Frank’s weight down now will help prolong not only his life, but the quality of that life. Being obese will eventually lead to a host of expensive health problems -- diet and exercise cost mostly time and patience.

DEAR PAW’S CORNER: My cat “Frank” has been classified as obese by the veterinarian. Frank doesn’t look that fat, and he moves around fine and plays a lot. How can the vet call him obese? Trying to get him to exercise more doesn’t work, either. -- Susan J., Phoenix

DEAR SUSAN: Cats, like people, sometimes put on weight so gradually that it’s the scale that sounds the first warning, rather than looks or lack of activity. Frank may not seem too fat, and he gets around just fine, but that good health won’t last if the weight stays on him.He has quite a bit in his favor. It sounds like Frank is a healthy cat who stays active. You can encourage

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local boys’ school, bringing with it the boys’ choir director. Natasha also co-stars in “The Bronx Bull,” which is a continuation of the story of boxer Jake LaMotta that was first brought to the big screen in 1980’s “Raging Bull.” Look for it in theaters sometime next year. ***Q: My husband and I enjoyed “Hatfields & McCoys” on the History Channel, but we missed the third part. How can we see it in its entirety? -- Sandy M., Port Charlotte, Fla.A: The award-winning miniseries -- which earned Emmys for Kevin Costner and Tom Berenger, and a nomination for Bill Paxton -- is now available on DVD at most major stores and outlets for your viewing pleasure.

1. GEOGRAPHY: Where are the Balearic Islands located?2. ANATOMY: Where is the ulna located in the human body?3. ANCIENT WORLD: Who kidnapped Helen of Troy, an event that started the Trojan War?4. LITERATURE: Who wrote the novel “Light in August”?5. HISTORY: In what year was the first Zeppelin flight?6. INVENTIONS: What did Elisha Otis invent?7. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: Where is original Mayo Clinic located? 8. U.S. STATES: In what state is Mount Rushmore located?9. ANIMAL KINGDOM: What is a group of ducks called?10. RELIGION: What is a more common name for the religious group called United Society of Be-lievers in Christ’s Second Appearing?

weird derailment of last season. Can you give me any spoilers for season five? -- Bridget M. in GeorgiaA: I spoke with series star Michael Steger, who plays Navid Shirazi, and he told me to look for the darker side of Navid to come out. “Navid is thrown off-kilter a bit to where his character is tested when he learns Silver has chosen Teddy to be the father of her baby,” he said. “After almost having a one-night stand, he’s really not thinking. It’s completely out of character for him. He’s trying to get back to Silver, so he’s doing as much as he can in that area.”Michael and the rest of the cast are thrilled to celebrate a show milestone: They just filmed the 100th episode. “I feel like everybody’s in a place of gratitude and surprise that we’ve made it this long, and it’s nice to see. We’re hard at work with this new season, so we hope fans will enjoy it.”***Q: One of my favorite actresses is the gorgeous Natasha Henstridge. Can you tell me what I can see her in next? -- Dustin R., via e-mailA: The Canadian beauty can be seen next in the Hallmark Channel original movie “Christmas Song,” which pre-mieres Saturday, Nov. 3, at 8/7c. Natasha plays a music teacher (named Diana Dalton) at a girls’ prep school who must fight for her job when her school merges with the

Q: I finally caught up on season one of the new “Dal-las,” and I can’t wait to see more! Please tell me it will return for another season. If so, when? -- Deena W., via e-mailA: TNT’s hit reboot of “Dallas” -- which stars Larry Hag-man, Patrick Duffy, Josh Henderson, Jesse Metcalfe, Jordana Brewster and Brenda Strong -- definitely will be back for another round of family intrigue, alter-cations and double-dealings. A 13-episode second season premieres Jan. 28. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what Cliff Barnes and his daughter (!) have planned for JR, Bobby and the rest of the Ew-ing clan. ***Q: The CW’s “90210” is really off to a great start -- it seems to be getting back on the right track since its

¥ On Nov. 7, 1776, Congress chooses Richard Bache to succeed his father-in-law, Benjamin Franklin, as postmaster general. Franklin invested nearly 40 years in the establishment of a reliable system of de-livering mail. He was fired in 1774 for opening and publishing Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s correspondence.

¥ On Nov. 5, 1895, Rochester, N.Y., patent attorney George Selden wins U.S. Patent No. 549,160 for an “improved road engine” powered by a “liquid-hydro-carbon engine of the compression type.” With that, as far as the government was concerned, George Selden had invented the car -- though he had never built a single one.

¥ On Nov. 10, 1928, the first installment of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Erich Maria Remarque’s ac-claimed novel of World War I, is first published in serial form. Remarque’s realistic depiction of trench warfare from the perspective of young soldiers was eventually translated into more than 20 languages.

¥ On Nov. 11, 1942, Congress approves lowering the draft age to 18 and raising the upper limit to age 37, increasing the number of draftees. During the first draft in 1940, 50 percent were rejected for health reasons and 20 percent of those who registered were illiterate.

¥ On Nov. 8, 1951, Yankees catcher Yogi Berra is voted the American League’s most valuable player for the first time in his career. He went on to be the league MVP twice more, in 1954 and 1955.

¥ On Nov. 9, 1965, the biggest power failure in U.S. history occurs as all of New York state, and parts of seven neighboring states and eastern Canada are plunged into darkness. The blackout during the evening rush hour trapped 800,000 people in New York’s subways and stranded thousands more in of-fice buildings and elevators.

¥ On Nov. 6, 1977, the earthen Toccoa Falls Dam in northeastern Georgia gives way, and 39 people die in the resulting flood. A volunteer fireman had in-spected the dam and found everything in order just hours before it suddenly failed, sending water ap-proaching speeds of 120 mph thundering down the canyon and creek.

KINGDA KA (continued):• The braking system, done with magnetic fields generated by 473 magnets, means there’s no friction to wear parts out. It’s silent, efficient, and fail-safe.• The roller coaster has four cars, and each car seats 18 passengers. About 1,400 people per hour take the ride.BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSESo where should you sit to get the best ride? Depends on what you’re looking for. Sitting in the very back of a coaster train yields the wildest ride since the last car is being pulled by the weight of the front cars, making for some nice whipping action, especially if they are long trains on steep hills. However, sitting in the front has benefits too. The very first car will hang over the first drop waiting for the rest of the cars to crest the hill before the big plunge. Front cars also have better low-G moments when the train is going over the top of low hill, leading to better stomach-lifting airtime. The ride is usually smoothest in the middle of the train, a good spot for beginners.SAFETY CONCERNS• Two weeks after the grand opening, a bolt unexpectedly sheered off, damaging the brake sys-tem. Custom-made bolts were ordered and installed to fix the problem and prevent it from happening again.

• In 2009, the roller coaster was struck by lighting in the middle of the night when the park was closed. It suffered serious damage and was closed for repairs.• Because it is so close to the Jersey Shore, the coaster is capable of withstanding hurricane force winds. Nevertheless, damage occurred during Hurri-cane Irene in 2011, and the ride was closed for repairs once again.

No one has ever been killed while riding the Kingda Ka. The odds of being injured on an amuse-ment park ride are 1 in 23 million. According to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, in 1999 over 600,000 people were injured on bikes, just under 100,000 on trampolines, nearly 50,000 while using golf equipment, while 7,260 were injured on amusement park rides, and only 138 of those people needed to be hospitalized. Most injuries are due to people failing to follow rules rather than equipment failure.OUCH! Kingda Ka does not operate when it’s rain-ing, because being hit by raindrops at 128 mph is not fun.G-FORCE FACTS Normal earth gravity has a g force of 1. Astro-nauts in orbit float around in zero g’s. Jet pilots black out at 10 g’s. On a roller coaster, g forces decrease on the way down a hill (making you feel lighter) and increase on the way up (making you feel heavier). At 3 g’s a 100-lb person feels like they weigh 300 lbs. On the way down a hill riders may feel 0 g’s, although most coasters only go down to about .2 g’s, making a 100-lb. person weigh 20 lbs. A typical roller coaster offers a maximum of 3.5 g’s. More than that makes the ride too much. That’s about the same g forces as astronauts feel during a space shuttle launch. Three coasters outside the U.S. generate over 6.5 g’s. ONE-UPPED Kingda Ka was the world’s fastest roller coaster until Formula Rossa opened in Abu Dhabi in November 2010, which reaches a speed of 150 mph, reaching that speed in 4.9 seconds following launch. The hydraulic launch system is identical to the one used on the Kingda Ka. However, Kingda Ka still retains the title of the world’s tallest roller coaster.

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APE INTELLIGENCE• Primates are profoundly intelligent, and one of the ways they display this is in the many creative ways they find to escape from their enclosures. Con-sider the following stories:• In a Texas zoo, an orangutan foiled the electric fence and managed to escape by grabbing clumps of grass in order to create an insulating mitten, then climbing over the electrified wires without being shocked. • When a worker at the Washington National Zoo mistakenly left several large barrels in the enclo-sure housing several orangutans, one of the ingenious animals, named Bonnie, simply stacked the barrels up and climbed over the fence, followed by her compan-ions, and then liberated a picnic basket from a shocked tourist. When zookeepers found her, she was calmly munching on some fried chicken and drinking orange juice. • Jonathan, an orangutan at the Los Angeles Zoo, was an escape artist. Keepers designed a new outdoor area for him, then invited media and dignitar-ies to watch while Jonathan was released into the area to explore it. Jonathan, on entering the new play area, took one look around, uprooted a nice tree that had been planted for his pleasure, leaned it against the wall, and climbed over the wall as keepers, dignitar-ies, and visitors watched. Later, while being held in an escape-proof exhibit, he entertained himself by taking burlap bags he’d been given to play with and whipping them through the bars of his cage, snagging steam pipes along the wall and pulling them loose. When

Here in New England, our evening walking group has stopped for the season. It was a nearly unanimous decision, given the recent daily rain, dropping temperatures and earlier sunsets. I was the only holdout in the vote to stop walking until spring.

If I’m going to continue to get any exercise as fall moves into winter and it’s too cold to go out, I’m going to have to plan for it and buy a few small pieces of equipment to keep in the house.

If you’re also forced indoors by cold weather, a “mini stepper” can serve as a temporary replacement for outdoor walking or using a treadmill at the gym. The mini stepper has a place for both feet, and you just walk in place.

The one I have my eye on is the The Wagan Compact Mini Stepper Exerciser, Model 2272. I found it on the Safe Home Products website (www.safehomeproducts.com). This stepper has a tubular steel frame with handholds for better balance, adjustable tension for a harder or easier workout, and it only takes up about 1 square foot of floor space.

If you aren’t sure of your balance, a “peddler” might be perfect for you. With a peddler, you sit in a chair and peddle like you’re on a bicycle.

To make sure of getting an upper-body workout, take a look at handheld weights. If weight on your hands is a problem, you might want the kind that strap to your wrist. Either one would give a mild workout to shoulders and arms.

Before you purchase any exercise gear, ask your doctor if he thinks it would be right for you.

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keepers removed the bags and gave him a cardboard box instead, he ripped the box up, made spikes out of the cardboard, and used them to break the ceiling lights.• Fu Manchu was an orangutan in the Omaha Zoo. One day in 1968, a zoo worker ran to the head curator to report that Fu Manchu and all the other orangutans had escaped from their outdoor enclo-sure and were hanging out in the trees nearby. After coaxing the animals back into their cage, the curator investigated, and found an access door had evidently been left unlocked. He chewed out the staff and locked the door. Several days later, the orangutans es-caped again, and again the curator found the access door unlocked. “I was getting ready to fire someone,” he reported. Several days later, a breathless keeper came running up to the curator insisting he had to come quick and witness what Fu Manchu was doing. The curator watched as Fu Manchu produced a piece of stiff wire, slid it between the access door and the casing, slipped the latch, and popped the door open. He escaped, followed by the rest of the orangutan clan. Now that they knew how the escapes were hap-pening, the question was where the wire was coming from. Investigation revealed something shiny in Fu Manchu’s mouth. The wire, bent into the shape of his jaw, was hidden between his lip and gum. After this story got considerable publicity in the papers, the American Association of Locksmiths made Fu Manchu an honorary member.IT’S A FACT• Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates and routinely use tools. • Orangutans have a natural ability to tie knots.• ‘Orang-utan’ is Indonesian for ‘person of the forest’.• Because of human activity and poaching, oranutans are now critically endangered in the wild.

The news that hit NASCAR just before its fall weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway was a shocker ... and almost totally unexpected.Dale Earnhardt Jr., the most popular driver in the sport, wasn’t racing in the Bank of America 500. Or, for that matter, in the Kansas Casino 400 a week later.It turned that Earnhardt, one of 12 drivers eligible for the championship through the Chase for the Sprint Cup format, had been hiding a concussion originally suffered while testing at Kansas Speedway a month earlier.When Earnhardt was involved in another crash, on the final lap of the Good Sam 500 at Talladega on Oct. 7, his difficul-ties recurred, and Earnhardt thought it best to consult doctors, who determined it would be best for the 38-year-old veteran to sit out at least two Cup races. Regan Smith substituted for Earnhardt at Charlotte and will do so again in Kansas.“Just for my own well-being, I couldn’t ... if I didn’t need to go get in a race car and get hit again, I needed somebody to tell me that, because I was going to have a hard time making that decision for myself,” Earnhardt said. “I feel perfectly fine, but I don’t want to keep getting hit in the head.”To a man, all of Earnhardt’s peers united in support of his decision. Some revealed that they had suffered concussions themselves without seeking medical attention.It was a sobering week for observers who began considering whether they had been lulled into a false sense of compla-cency and security over the revolutionary advances in safety that had occurred since father Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash in the 2001 Daytona 500.Shortly after marveling that every driver walked away from a spectacular 25-car crash at Talladega, many realized that walking away and being OK aren’t necessarily the same.Sometimes it’s more than a 500-mile race among 43 cars. Sometimes it’s a race between speed and safety, and in that competition, safety is a moving target.

Monte Dutton covers motorsports for The Gaston (N.C.) Gazette. E-mail Monte at nascarthisweek@yahoo.com.

Junior’s Absence Casts Pall Over Charlotte

Tidbits® of Hoover, Pelham, Alabaster & Helena! Page 6

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Peter is one of the best session guitarists in Los Angeles, but he’s having a hard time playing tonight. Six years sober, he’s usually able to play through a riot with the con-centration that comes from almost triple that amount of time playing on stages in bars and clubs. He’s supposed to be recording tonight, but he can’t take his eyes off the game.“Dude ... Swisher looks like he’s on heroin,” he declares. “He completely lost the game for us! What is he? Like, one for 40?”Peter doesn’t really think Nick Swisher, the rightfielder for the New York Yankees, is on heroin, but he does think he’d be a better choice in right than Swisher. Even he could go hitless and not catch any hard hit ball coming his way, he reasons. After a few swigs of orange Fanta, Peter gets back into the pocket during a commercial. The sound on the TV is off while he plays, and he starts recording the track.He stops playing when Derek Jeter goes down. He stands up. “Oh my god! Did Jeter just break his ankle?” The replay shows it all ... and as replays are wont to do, it shows a diving Derek Jeter breaking his ankle, again and again. At this point, nobody is really certain that Jeter, the best shortstop in Yankee history and the only player to gather 200 hits in postseason play, did actually break his ankle. Watching him get carried off the field is excruciating enough, but the sound has to be turned up to confirm.Ron Darling and John Smoltz surmise that he may have broken his ankle. “Whatever,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Thanks, guys.” The TV is again muted, and he signals to the engineer that he’s ready to play. He takes a deep breath and launches into what ultimately would be just one of about 20 takes that night. The singer misses his mark, and he stops in frustration. “They had, what? Fifteen runners on base tonight? This game should been over in the fifth inning,” he says. The singer says Jeter’s career is over. “He’s got a bum wheel now ... that’s chronic pain,” he says. “I sprained my ankle 20 years ago, and I still can’t put my work boots on when it’s raining.” Peter shakes his head and tries to get back into the song. He takes a deep breath and strums an A chord. He stops again and pulls out his iPhone. After a few clicks, he an-nounces the verdict. Swisher, again, doesn’t fare well.“It’s broken. And Swisher looked like he was on heroin, bro.”He shakes his head and goes back to the guitar. It’s going to be a long night. “Jeter, man,” he says. “Jeter.”

A SPORTING VIEWBy Mark Vasto

L o c a l l y O w n e d

P r o m o t i n g L o c a l B u s i n e s s e s

Down Goes Jeter

BIBLE TRIVIA ANSWERS:1) Old; 2) Amasa; 3) Samuel; 4) Solomon; 5) Tiberias; 6) Moses Answers

1. Mediterranean Sea2. Forearm3. Paris4. William Faulkner5. 19006. Elevator safety brake7. Rochester, Minn.8. South Dakota 9. A gaggle10. Shakers

“Put Tidbits In The Subject Line”

¥ Those who study such things say that if all the gold in the world were combined in one lump, it would result in a cube that measures 20 yards on each side.

¥ If you’re planning a trip to Lima, Peru, you might want to add Puente de Piedra to your sightseeing list. Though the Spanish name means “Bridge of Stone,” the span is popularly known as the Bridge of Eggs. Legend has it that in 1608, the builders the used the whites of 10,000 seabird eggs in the mortar that holds the stones together.

¥ Pumpkins are native to the Americas, not Europe. This is why the original jack-o’-lantern was a turnip.

¥ What do the words “obscene,” “tranquil,” “mediate,” “catastrophe,” “dire,” “critical,” “vast” and “apostrophe” have in common? All of them appeared in print for the first time in the works of William Shakespeare.

¥ If you’re contemplating a move to Corpus Christi, Texas, be sure to keep in mind that in that town, it’s illegal to raise alligators in your home.***Thought for the Day: “One fool can ask more questions in a minute than 12 wise men can answer in an hour.” -- Vladimir Lenin

¥ In this season of bitter partisan rivalries, it would be well to remember the following sage observation: “Do not trust to the cheering, for those persons would cheer just as much if you and I were going to be hanged.” The man who first made that observation was Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell, considered by some to be a hero of liberty, by others to be a regicidal dictator. He died in 1658, probably from septicemia. He was so reviled that, three years later, he body was exhumed so that he could be posthumously executed, his body thrown into a pit and his head displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall.

The Greater Birmingham Humane Society, found-ed in 1883, is the largest and oldest humane soci-ety in Alabama. Over the course of our history we have witnessed the changes in our community and yet have never left the original mission of Dr. Phil-lips “to promote respect for life through education and prevention of cruelty to animals and people”

Animal Adoption - 205.942.1211 - 300 Snow Drive, Birmingham, AL 35209 - WWW.GBHS.ORG

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Any Questions or ConcernsEmail us at: kkeith@gbhs.org

The Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) is a nonprofit in Birmingham, Alabama that has been serving abused and abandoned pets in Birmingham since 1883. The Greater Birmingham Humane Society was one of the first humane societies in the United States. Today the GBHS cares for nearly 9,000 animals a year and serves pets and people through their various programs which include, but are not limited to, pet adoptions, animal cruelty prevention, and humane education.

Please email us your questions to kkeith@gbhs.org

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