Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, November 7, 2021
through
Saturday, November 13, 2021
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It’s Saturday, November 13, 2021
Welcome to the 1,265th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Signing the armistice
Signatories of the armistice ending World War I
Unknown author - Press photo published all over the world. F.ex. Jan Dąbrowski "Wielka wojna 1914-1918" ( The Great War 1914-1918) Warsaw 1937
This photograph was taken in the forest of Compiègne after reaching an agreement for the armistice that ended World War I. This railcar was given to Ferdinand Foch for military use by the manufacturer, Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Foch is second from the right.
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Commentary
I am hosting a dinner party for my children and the children of my siblings. No spouses or children are allowed, nor are any f my sisters. With my exception, it is a tightly genetically connected group with common experiences, the common being my sisters and I, alike and different. I will do my utmost to stay out of the conversation.
I am 80 years old [or will be in four months] and I think my age spares me from being reprimanded when I speak to someone as ‘dear’ or ‘sweetheart. Or maybe because I have three sons and a daughter and address them all as dear and sweetheart. Indiscriminately.
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Reading and Writing
I am on track to complete this early phase of Part Two on Sunday.
Then it’ll go out for comments.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill.
Our antagonist is our helper.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
These two thoughts from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
With hundreds of businesses desperate to hire – signs advertising available jobs populate in every store window I see - our graduates shouldn’t have any problem finding jobs. My friend Mary in York, Maine, age 85, is working for free at the highly popular local diner from 5 am until 8 am, when the regular wait staff comes in. Her friend, the boss, can’t find anyone willing to get their butts out of bed to fill this employment need. (Mary works for free because her friend supported her in a hundred ways when Mary was in dire circumstances. At her age, Mary shouldn’t feel obligated to fill in the gap – she does it to help her friend. If Mary doesn’t do it, evidently no one else will.) There’s no shortage of jobs out there – there’s a shortage of people willing to do the jobs.
I always enjoy your meal descriptions. The dinner I just put in the oven is beginning to send heavenly scents up to the office here. Roasted root-crop vegetables, diced and tossed with Lipton’s onion soup mix and olive oil, topped with strips of bacon. When the bacon is crisp, the vegetables are done. White potatoes, sweet potatoes, Brusssels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, beets, rutabaga, onions, and (lots of) whole cloves of garlic, along with some cranberries that I thought might make a great flavor addition to the mix. Roasted at 300 F for about four hours. (it’s a BIG batch – I have no idea how to regulate the quantities! As long as the whole mess fits in the roast pan, I’m happy.)
Go well, my friend!
Sally
Blog meister responds: However, my dear, the jobs advertised in store windows are not likely to be the skilled jobs the college grads hope to find.
Thanks for your praise of my meal descriptions.
Sally sent this follow up of her cranberries:
Post-meal update: The cranberries weren’t bad in the veggie-roast, but they didn’t contribute anything notable or significant, so I won’t bother next time. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, though. I don’t regret the effort. More garlic, though. Roasting whole garlic cloves results in very gentle flavor, more subtle pungency, most lovely. We made a big dent in the finished product. Mmmmmm …
Blog meister responds: Mmmmmmmmmm…..
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday night we had a great dinner event. My cousin Lauren made a pesto sauce and a Chicken Cacciatore.
Both were absolutely terrific.
As were the guests, Tod and Ashley.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Greenway with a green path
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Short Essay*
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, sea and air in World War I between the Allies and their last remaining opponent, Germany. Previous armistices had been agreed with Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Also known as the Armistice of Compiègne from the place where it was officially signed at 5:45 a.m. by the Allied Supreme Commander, French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, it came into force at 11:00 a.m. Paris time on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a defeat for Germany, although not formally a surrender.
The actual terms, which were largely written by Foch, included the cessation of hostilities on the Western ront, the withdrawal of German forces from west of the Rhine, Allied occupation of the Rhineland and bridgeheads further east, the preservation of infrastructure, the surrender of aircraft, warships, and military materiel, the release of Allied prisoners of war and interned civilians, eventual reparations, no release of German prisoners and no relaxation of the naval blockade of Germany. The armistice was extended three times while negotiations continued on a peace treaty. The Treaty of Versailles, which was officially signed on 28 June 1919, took effect on 10 January 1920.
Fighting continued up to 11 a.m. of the 11 November 1918, with 2,738 men dying on the last day of the war.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Friday, November 12, 2021
Welcome to the 1,264th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
First Nations
Conference between the French and First Nations leaders by Émile Louis Vernier.
Émile Louis Vernier - Alamy.
Conference Between the French and Indian Leaders Around a Ceremonial Fire by Vernier.
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Commentary
Not only am I revamping my diet, but I am investigating changing fitness centers from Planet Fitness to the Boston Sports Clubs. Reason being: To work out at Planet Fitness during inclement weather, takes a great effort: a trip out after dinner in the dark and the very cold.
The alternative, Boston Sports Club, has a gym 100 feet away from Blue Bottle where daily I do my writing. My plan: when I finish work, simply walk over in an air conditioned space, do my lifting, and then go home and stay home in the cold and dark.
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Reading and Writing
I am researching websites with extreme messages. Need it for my manuscript.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“No matter where you go, there you are,”
― Yogi Berra
When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!:
Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Tucker J, a gamer, a computer technician, a sales person, has been helping me with my manuscript. Recently, we been involved in a detailed discussion of the concept of websites as relates to my manuscript. Tucker did a bit of research and sent this summary. I thought I’d share it. Tucker approved.
Hi Dom,
I did a little looking and there were a number of platforms used to plan Jan 6.
Youtube was used by a conspiracy theorist urging people to go to DC on Jan 6.
A private website – wildprotest.com was set up for this purpose as well.
Of course Facebook was a big site for this stuff too. One of the largest sites for this far right activity was a site called Parler. This site was a haven for radical posts/behavior because it really wasn’t heavily moderated by anyone.
The reality is the internet is so big that no one can possibly find all the activity occurring. There were/are hundreds of pro-Trump sites and since they are all privately operated it’s a real issue of “who watches the watchmen?”
So I think the idea of the Devil gathering followers in the form of private messages to people, promising money for criminal activity could easily snowball into those same messages directing them to a site or sites with the promise of biggest acts for bigger money.
If you really want to go in depth with it he could even pay people to create and maintain these sites so the Devil himself remains behind the curtain and no one can actually trace anything to him.
Blog meister responds: The world of the Internet is pretty fantastical.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
a couple of foods that I have added to my diet am seem to be working are:
An oatmeal cup from Red Mill bought at W Foods. It’s a large number of calories [210-240] but contains a huge 7 grams of fiber. A winner.
Also a winner: Iggy’s Seven Grain Whole Wheat, 3#, long [half loaf] 2oz of the bread has 160 calories but a substantial 5 grams of fiber.
Beets, a one cup serving having only 58 calories and delivering a respectable 3.8 grams of fiber.
Chuck white bread. Doesn’t belong in our diets except as a rare moment of indulgence.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Leaves on the Boston Common
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Short Essay*
The First Nations (French: Premières Nations are groups of Canadian indigenous peoples, who are classified as distinct from the Inuit and Métis. Traditionally, the First Nations were peoples who lived south of the tree line, and mainly south of the Arctic Circle. There are 634 recognized First Nations governments or bands across Canada. Roughly half are located in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.
Under Charter jurisprudence, First Nations are a "designated group," along with women, visible minorities, and people with physical or mental disabilities. First Nations are not defined as a visible minority by the criteria of Statistics Canada.
North American indigenous peoples have cultures spanning thousands of years. Some of their oral traditions accurately describe historical events, such as the Cascadia earthquake of 1700 and the 18th-century Tseax Cone eruption. Written records began with the arrival of European explorers and colonists during the Age of Discovery in the late 15th century. European accounts by trappers, traders, explorers, and missionaries give important evidence of early contact culture. In addition, archeological and anthropological research, as well as linguistics, have helped scholars piece together an understanding of ancient cultures and historic peoples.
Although not without conflict, early colonists' interactions with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit populations were less combative than the often violent battles between colonists and native peoples in the United States, and far less than those of other British colonies in modern-day Australia and South Africa.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Thursday, November 11, 2021
Welcome to the 1,263rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Daniel Travanti
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Commentary
In October the High Street Cannabis Group came before the Wharf District Council seeking the Council's support for a proposed retail cannabis dispensary at 200 High Street and a proposed on-line order pick-up location on 131 Broad Street. My residential group supported this.
Wonder when I can just go across the street and buy a joint?
I’m not a user but I am happy they can do business there.
The pressure on our recent graduates who are out looking for a job is tremendous. In fact, we have so many times that we face similar pressures that it’s a wonder we can enjoy life.
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Reading and Writing
My manuscript writing is delayed for additional research involving websites that pop up in the story. It’s a little frustrating but nothing to be done.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Even Napoleon had his Watergate.”
― Yogi Berra
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from daughter Katherine: SKDK’s announcement of Kat’s hire.
https://www.skdknick.com/staff/kat-capossela/
Blog meister responds: I’m proud of Katherine.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Tuesday night cousin Lauren and I had salmon steaks sauteed, served with Swiss Chard and butternut squash. Following, we had a plate of fruit.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Kat skdk
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Short Essay*
Daniel J. Travanti (born Danielo Giovanni Travanti; March 7, 1940) is an American actor. He is best known for playing police captain Frank Furillo in the television drama series Hill Street Blues (1981–1987) for which he received a Golden Globe Award and two consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards from many nominations.
Travanti, one of five children, was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to Italian immigrant parents John and Elvira Travanti. His father worked at the American Motors assembly plant in that city. He attended Mary D. Bradford High School, where he was an all-star football player; he received athletic scholarship offers to several colleges, but decided he wanted to be an actor rather than an athlete. A good student, he was offered scholarships to Harvard University, Princeton University, and the Alfred P. Sloan Scholarship to Dartmouth College, although he eventually took the General Motors Scholarship to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1961. After that, he attended the Yale School of Drama on a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. In 1978, he graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a master's degree in English.
In 1957, before his senior year of high school, he attended the youth government and leadership program called Badger Boys State.
His first credited role was in an episode of Route 66 called "Child of a Night". In 1964, Travanti guest-starred in the episode "Murder by Scandal" of CBS's drama about newspapers, The Reporter. He made his feature film debut in 1965 (credited as "Dan Travanty") playing a deaf mute nightclub bouncer in the psychological thriller Who Killed Teddy Bear? starring Sal Mineo and Juliet Prowse.
In 1966 he played the role of radio talk show host and murderer Barney Austin in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Midnight Howler". He (credited as Dan Travanty in all four) was the lead guest star in the Season 3 episode "Collision Of Planets" of Lost in Space in 1967, appeared in the episode "The Octopus" of the single-season crime drama The Silent Force in late 1970, was featured in the Season 5 episode "Murder Times Three" of Mannix in late 1971, and appeared in the Season 6 episode "Image" of Mission: Impossible in early 1972. Also in 1972 he played a fugitive in "The Devil's Playground" episode of Cannon with his future Hill Street Blues co-star James B. Sikking. In 1974 Travanti appeared briefly in The Bob Newhart Show episode "The Battle of the Groups".
Years later, Travanti earned five nominations and two Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Hill Street Station Captain Frank Furillo. And in 1982, Boston's Emerson College chose him as the commencement speaker, and gave him an honorary Doctorate degree. In 1983, Travanti starred in the TV movie Adam, for which he received another Emmy nomination. Since then, Travanti has appeared in a number of TV movies and has made appearances in television programs such as Poltergeist: The Legacy (1997) and Prison Break (2005). In 1986, HBO broadcast the made-for-cable biographical film Murrow, with Travanti's portrayal of Edward R. Murrow receiving a Cable Ace nomination. He co-starred in the film Millennium (1989) and as Lt. Ray McAuliffe in the television series Missing Persons (1993).: 696
Travanti has publicly acknowledged his past as an alcoholic who found sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous, calling alcoholism a "disease of loneliness and secrecy". In 1981, he made such a confession to Rona Barrett in an interview on NBC and even recited, from memory, all of the organization's "Twelve Steps" on camera. Captain Furillo, his best-known character, was also a recovering alcoholic, and the character was shown multiple times taking part in AA meetings.
From January to March 2007, Travanti appeared off-Broadway in Oren Safdie's The Last Word... at the Theater at St. Clements in New York City, and from November to December 2008, Travanti played the "Con Melody" in an off-off Broadway production of Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet for Friendly Fire Theater in New York.
In 2010, he appeared in an episode of Criminal Minds as a 75-year-old serial killer with Alzheimer's disease.
Travanti had a recurring role on the Starz television series Boss. He also appeared on The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas as Captain William Fletcher in the audio adaptation of "The Little People".
In 2017, he played Callen's father in NCIS: Los Angeles.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Welcome to the 1,262nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Venus
As it sped away from Venus, NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft captured this seemingly peaceful view of a planet the size of Earth, wrapped in a dense, global cloud layer. But, contrary to its serene appearance, the clouded globe of Venus is a world of intense heat, crushing atmospheric pressure and clouds of corrosive acid.
NASA/JPL-Caltech - https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/2524/newly-processed-views-of-venus-from-mariner-10/
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Commentary
Yesterday I took another long walk in the middle of a cool, crisp sunny day.
Fall is a great New England season.
My comments yesterday re: abandoning masks drew both support and criticism in equal measure. Delighted to incite thought. But I am not advocating abandoning masking if it is not safe to do so.
I love the growing ranks of anti-Trump Republicans. Chris Christie recently joining. The Republicans must bite the bullet and purge the Trumpians. It’ll mean losses in the short term but healing and strength in the long term.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Society is a partnership of the dead, the living and the unborn.”
― Edmund Burke
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
These emails I received in the wake of my comment re: the end of masking.
From Sally:
Oh, boy, am I ready for the demise of the masks! I’ve been ready for – oh, lemme see – eighteen months
Sally
From a dear friend who wishes to remain anonymous:
“The mask mandate ended months ago in many other places. For example, there has not been a mask mandate on the Cape, or at least where I live, for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.”
From a second dear friend who wishes to remain anonymous:
“Are you nuts? Stay with the science.”
From Colleen G:
Hey Dom,
Yes--looking forward to being past covid. It seems like things are getting better but then it seems the numbers in Mass are static or tick up every now and then (I have a good friend who is sick with Covid along with her kids and husband currently), unlike summer when deaths were in the single digits and hospitalizations and cases were down significantly. Looking forward to that and wishing it would happen soon. On two good notes:
My husband took the younger three of my kids who had not yet qualified for vaccine to get their first shots on Friday. Their second shot will happen two days after Thanksgiving.
We attended our first Broadway in Boston production at the Opera House since everything shut down and was cancelled March 2020. According to the playbill the theatre has been 603 days without an audience. Of course, in this day and ridiculous age we're living in, there was a protest going on so there was a heavy police presence, but the mob stayed away from the area we were in and so we had lunch at Back Deck and then in to see Hadestown (photo ID with vaccination card and masks required for all). It was mobbed--full house. It didn't feel unsafe, though and everything seemed to run smoothly.
It felt like a good sign that perhaps life was slowly chugging back in the direction of sunlight. We shall see. It would be great if we could start to see the numbers dip, at least back down to their lowest point.
Hopefully by Christmas we'll be beyond masks--but I won't hold my breath.
Stay well:)
Cheers,
Colleen
Blog meister responds: I just don’t want inertia to decide that we should continue to mask up. If it’s the science, I’ll follow the science. But I’ll bitch and moan from now on, every time I put on my mask.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
So much is changing in my food life. Breakfast yesterday was an egg on a thick slice of tomato instead of white bread or even instead of whole wheat bread.
An early lunch was a trail mix that I am composing. Every ingredient has some significant quantity of fiber.
And dinner was a smaller than usual size of chicken soup supplemented with a plate of fresh fruit and yogurt.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Moon and Venus at 5.30pm on Boston Common
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Short Essay*
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. As the brightest natural object in Earth's night sky after the Moon, Venus can cast shadows and can be, on rare occasions, visible to the naked eye in broad daylight. Venus lies within Earth's orbit, and so never appears to venture far from the Sun, either setting in the west just after dusk or rising in the east a little while before dawn. Venus orbits the Sun every 224.7 Earth days. It has a synodic day length of 117 Earth days and a sidereal rotation period of 243 Earth days. As a consequence, it takes longer to rotate about its axis than any other planet in the Solar System, and does so in the opposite direction to all but Uranus. This means the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Venus does not have any moons, a distinction it shares only with Mercury among the planets in the Solar System.
Venus is a terrestrial planet and is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" because of their similar size, mass, proximity to the Sun, and bulk composition. It is radically different from Earth in other respects. It has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96% carbon dioxide. The atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is about 92 times the sea level pressure of Earth, or roughly the pressure at 900 m (3,000 ft) underwater on Earth. Even though Mercury is closer to the Sun, Venus has the hottest surface of any planet in the Solar System, with a mean temperature of 737 K (464 °C; 867 °F). Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light. It may have had water oceans in the past, but these would have vaporized as the temperature rose under a runaway greenhouse effect. The water has probably photodissociated, and the free hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field.
As one of the brightest objects in the sky, Venus has been a major fixture in human culture for as long as records have existed. It has been made sacred to gods of many cultures, and has been a prime inspiration for writers and poets as the "morning star" and "evening star". Venus was the first planet to have its motions plotted across the sky, as early as the second millennium BC.
Its proximity to Earth has made Venus a prime target for early interplanetary exploration. It was the first planet beyond Earth visited by a spacecraft (Mariner 2 in 1962), and the first to be successfully landed on by Venera 7 in 1970). Venus's thick clouds render observation of its surface impossible in visible light, and the first detailed maps did not emerge until the arrival of the Magellan orbiter in 1991. Plans have been proposed for rovers or more complex missions, but they are hindered by Venus's hostile surface conditions. The possibility of life on Venus has long been a topic of speculation, and in recent years has received active research.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Tuesday, November 9, 2021
Welcome to the 1,261st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Spacex Dragon capsule
Dragon capsule after recovery from ocean landing in December 2010, following the first operational Dragon mission COTS-1
SpaceX - http://www.spacex.com/media-gallery/detail/1649/159 (cropped from File:COTS-1 Dragon After Return from Orbit.jpg)
On December 8, 2010, the Dragon spacecraft landed safely in the Pacific Ocean, making it the first commercial spacecraft to successfully return from orbit. Dragon rests on a barge as it makes the trip back to shore.
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Commentary
Monday was a very busy morning: regular chores plus rushing out to do some work to help my sons with their Italian citizenship efforts. While at the bank, getting my mobile app up and running on my new Duo cell phone. Learning technology takes time. Then I scooted to the Pru to work on my editing and write my blog. It was noon time by then.
Don’t you feel that we are past Covid? I’m in favor of ending the mask mandates. Or at least set a date for their demise, like Dec 1, 2021.
Had a great conversation with my dear friend, the doctor.
He helped me with the passage in my manuscript re: triage.
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Reading and Writing
Continue to love Gentleman in Moscow. One of those books you hate to see coming to an end.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Even Napoleon had his Watergate.”
― Yogi Berra
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
We got several notes referencing Chris’ podcast and You tube interviews. All positive.
Blog meister responds: Mr. Tally Meister, please add my name to the plus side.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night I had a large plate of fruit, (I mixed melons, blueberries, apple, pear, tangerine.) followed by Chicken Soup with fregola. The fruit and the fregola both added to my diet for their fiber counts.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Lauren and Winnie the pooh
When we visited Winnie at the MFA a couple of years ago.
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Short Essay*
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer, space transportation services and communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. SpaceX manufactures the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, several rocket engines, Dragon cargo, crew spacecraft and Starlink communications satellites.
SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008), the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon in 2012), the first vertical take-off and vertical propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017), and the first private company to send astronauts to orbit and to the International Space Station (SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 in 2020). SpaceX has flown and reflown the Falcon 9 series of rockets over one hundred times.
SpaceX is developing a satellite megaconstellation named Starlink to provide commercial internet service. In January 2020 the Starlink constellation became the largest satellite constellation ever launched. SpaceX is also developing Starship, a privately funded, fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary spaceflight. Starship is intended to become the primary SpaceX orbital vehicle once operational, supplanting the existing Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon fleet. Starship is planned to be fully reusable and will have the highest payload capacity of any orbital rocket ever on its debut, scheduled for the early 2020s.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Monday, November 8, 2021
Welcome to the 1,260th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Eva Olsson
Swedish professor Eva Olsson, Chalmers University of Technology
Bengt Oberger - Own work
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Commentary
Boston weather has been spectacular. These 45* days with sun have been invigorating. Assuming, of course, that you have warm clothes to wear outside and heat in your apartment.
The switch to a more fibrous diet seems to be working from the approach of a better-balanced eating pattern.
Coupled with my 16/8 approach to when I may eat (Eat nothing for 16 hours, in my case, from 6pm to 10.00am) I think I may be on to something that works well for me.
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Reading and Writing
Part Two edits are proceeding on schedule.
Three more days of 20pp per day should do it.
Then three more days to change the dates of the events and do some finer editing, by next Sunday the doc will be ready to send out for a professional editing.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“He must have made that before he died.”
― Yogi Berra
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
I got two conflicting emails, both from friends who don’t mind staying in the background.
One saying, “Enough about bowel movements. Please.”
The other saying, “As long as you’re not exaggerating, be as candid as needed to describe the situation.”
Blog meister responds: For my part, I prefer to lay out things that I am going through. As an 80 year-old, I will be subjected to illnesses and ailments in increasing and more serious iterations. My purpose with the blog is to provide an open forum to discuss medical issues quietly and in a helpful way.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Sunday night I had a small plate of whole wheat spaghetti and clams followed by two pork bones I had cut from chops I served a couple of days ago. I also served myself several chicken wings, also from a past meal. I also served some broccolini.
A healthier menu than past meals: more fiber and less meat.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Blue Bottle business coming back
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Short Essay*
Eva Olsson (born 12 October 1960) is a Swedish physicist who is a professor at Chalmers University of Technology. She is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and part of the selection committee for the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Olsson was an undergraduate student in Gothenburg at the Chalmers University of Technology, where she specialized in engineering physics. She worked on mirror furnaces for her undergraduate diploma. After graduating, she remained at Chalmers and started a doctoral research project studying the interfacial structures of zinc oxide varistor materials. She moved to the United States as a researcher with David R. Clarke at IBM. She returned to the Chalmers University of Technology in 1991, where she was eventually awarded her docent degree.
Olsson was appointed associate professor at Chalmers in 1996. She was appointed professor at Uppsala University a year later, where she worked for four years before returning to Chalmers as a full professor.
Olsson develops novel characterisation techniques for materials. She is mainly interested in materials for emerging technologies, including catalysis, photovoltaic and quantum devices. In particular, Olsson works with electron microscopy. In 2013, Olsson was awarded SEK 33 million from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, with which she developed soft microscopy. Soft microscopy involves developing ways to use electron microscopes to study soft and semi-hard materials, creating new avenues for advances in material science.
When characterizing gold using an electron microscope at the highest level of magnification, it was discovered that they could force gold to melt at room temperature. The initial discovery was made by Ludvig de Knoop[9] who was a researcher in her group. He noticed that the surface of gold lost its bonds under the bombardment with electrons within an electron microscope. Knoop and Olsson were among those who wrote the paper for the journal Physical Review Materials in 2018. Olsson could see applications of this phenomena for sensors and transistors. In 2018, she was awarded a further SEK 25 million to study plasmon-exciton coupling.
Olsson is a member of the Nobel Prize in Physics Selection Committee. When men won all of the science Nobel prizes in 2021, Olsson said "We want to have more women nominated".
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Sunday, November 7, 2021
Welcome to the 1,259th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Chris Columbus Film Director
Permission details
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Luigi Novi You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
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Commentary
It’s possible that I am winning the Battle of the Bulge? My last movement was effortless and robust. And it’s been a week since I stopped taking the stool softeners that I started taking six months ago.
I ascribe the improvement to my substantial change of diet. The most recent entry to my diet is the pizza made by Sweet Earth that they call: Veggie Lover’s Pizza. Excellent.
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Reading and Writing
So I edited up to p115, 175 the goal for now. At twenty pages a day, I have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to finish it. Then I expect three more days to change all of the dates. I started writing this well before covid but dated the story to happen on the 2020s. Ha! Covid added events totally unaccounted for. My solution: redate the story to occur in 2019.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“It ain't the heat, it's the humility.”
― Yogi Berra
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This is Chris’ interview as shown on You Tube.
Inside the Mind of a Modern Leader, with Chris Capossela || Finding Mastery - YouTube
Blog meister responds: Great stuff.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
For dinner:
1st Course: Whole Wheat Spaghetti in a cream and cheese shop.
2nd course: broccolini in olive oil and lemon juice and a single left over beef rib.
3rd Course: Chicken Soup
Full of fiber.
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Community Photos**
Fall in Boston Public Garden
How rich and lovely
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Short Essay*
Chris Joseph Columbus (born September 10, 1958) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, Columbus studied film at Tisch School of the Arts where he developed an interest in filmmaking. After writing screenplays for several teen comedies in the mid-1980s, he made his directorial debut with a teen adventure, Adventures in Babysitting (1987). Columbus gained recognition soon after with the highly successful Christmas comedy Home Alone (1990) and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).
The comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), starring Robin Williams, was another box office success for Columbus. He went on to direct several other films throughout the 1990s, which were mostly met with lukewarm reception. However, he found commercial success again for directing the film adaptations of J. K. Rowling's novels, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), which are his highest-grossing films to date. In addition to directing, Columbus was a producer for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), and the drama The Help (2011). He also directed the fantasy Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) and the 3D action comedy Pixels (2015).
Columbus is the co-founder of 1492 Pictures, a film production company that has produced some of his films since 1995. More recently, he co-founded another production firm with his daughter in 2014, called Maiden Voyage Pictures. In 2017, he launched ZAG Animation Studios, alongside Michael Barnathan, Haim Saban, and Jeremy Zag.
*The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Community Pictures with Captions are sent in by our followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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