Fact O' The Day

[Krandall]

'Two vice presidents have served under multiple presidents.'


George Clinton (under Jefferson and Madison) and John C. Calhoun (John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson) both served as vice president under two different men. Clinton was Jefferson's replacement for Aaron Burr, who proceeded to run for Governor of New York, subsequently lost, then shot Alexander Hamilton and fled to Europe. John C. Calhoun has the distinction of serving as vice president for two different political parties (J.Q. Adams' Democratic-Republicans and Jackson's Democrats).

[Krandall]

'The first professional football player was paid $500.'


Though players had been reimbursed before for services or expenses, the honor of being the first football ringer to receive cash for his services was bestowed upon William "Pudge" Heffelfinger, who in 1892 was paid $500 by the Allegheny Athletic Association of Pittsburgh. The game was part of an intercity rivalry against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, for whom Heffelfinger had originally intended to play. He only found out he'd been lured to the opposing team when he showed up for the game dressed in their uniform.

[Lady4Fiddy]

Been hearing a lot about divorce and troubled marriage lately... so I thought I would share this. (I know this is so girly of me).

7 Habits of Happy Couples

We've all seen those annoying couples walking hand in hand, gazing into each other's eyes, feeding chocolate Danish chunks into each other's mouths as they snicker with childish glee. Sickening? Perhaps. But what if they actually know something we don't? One of the most important things I have learned while researching the idea of the "happy couple" is that sometimes you have to open yourself up to the idea that good relationships are not handed over on a silver platter, but rather earned through a conscious effort of ritual and rules.

1. Fill Their Love Cup at Least Once a Day

Couples therapist and author Tina Tessina reminds us that happy couples are sometimes more about ritual than natural intuition. In other words, we can't all be Romeo and Juliettes, but we can follow a daily program designed to keep our love cups from running on empty (this is when trouble begins). Such daily love bites may include curling up on the couch together, walking the dog as you share the day's events, or leaving the occasional "love-minder" post-it note in random places around the house.

2. Be Curious

Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, is by far one of the top selling books of all time, and for good reason. It works. One of the best ways to make a connection with another human being is to be honestly interested in them. We all began our relationships intrigued by our partner, but the stress of life can sometimes nudge us into forgetting to foster that curiosity. If you ever find yourself at a loss for words, let your curiosity take over and watch the conversation flourish.

3. 10-Second Rule

Whenever you're in a disagreement and you can feel your inner kettle boiling, remember to give yourself at least ten seconds to think about what you're about to say and the consequences that might follow. We often say hurtful things out of anger that we don't really mean, but which have a lasting effect on our relationships.

4. If You Must Argue... Do it Right

Happy couples have ground rules when it comes to arguments. Unless you're versed on the delicacies of debate, many people allow their emotions to get the best of them, saying and doing things that could do more damage than good. A few rules to live by are to start and end every argument on a positive note; listen; respect your partner; stay on topic; ask questions; compromise; and use the word "I" rather than "you" to avoid putting your partner on the defensive.

5. Two Year Rule

Studies have shown that the majority of couples (approximately 86 percent) who choose to stay together and work through their differences emerge in happier, more fulfilling relationships. It has even been suggested (by author Mike McManus) that over half of divorces could be curbed by giving couples the opportunity to cool down and work things out over the course of up to two years. McManus theorizes that one of the greatest faults to divorce is that they're just too easy to get. All that's needed is one partner to make a hasty decision, and a marriage can be dissolved in a matter of weeks under "no fault."

6. If You Don't Have Time to Walk the Walk... Talk the Talk

Couples argue about sex (a lot). The stereotypical scenario is that she thinks he wants it too much, and he thinks she wants it too little. Regardless of where you stand on how much you do it, one way to satisfy both sides is to engage in vocal sex each day. This is simply sexy talk, reminding your partner of how sexy and irresistible you find them, and possibly a few promises of what you plan to do to them later in the week. The important thing is that it lets the partner know you are thinking about them. That, along with the build-up of expectation, can leave couples satisfied until the next bout of horizontal mambo.

7. Daily Weather Checks

Happy couples make time for each other in what they call "daily weather checks." These could be anything from a short e-mail, to an hour lunch away from the office. The idea is keep up with each other, so that even when apart, you're still connected on some level. This minimizes the scenario of one partner coming home in a solemn mood after work, and the other not knowing if it's because something bad happened, or because they're not excited to see them. Keeping contact throughout the day minimizes the chance of these moments putting a crutch on a perfectly good evening.

By Eric J. Leech

[Peelz]

very cool

[Magz]

 

[Mad Dog]

8. Don't be stupid enough to marry some evil witch to begin with.

[Lady4Fiddy]

8. Don't be stupid enough to marry some evil witch to begin with.

Well that's just a asshole thing to say! 

[Peelz]

9. Be single fo life like MD. at least after saying things like that he might be.

[Colorado700R]

9. turn gay like MD. at least after saying things like that he might be.

[Lady4Fiddy]

There are 25 flavors on the Blizzard Celebration Menu... 3 of those are in our house right now!!! 

[disco]

I have to agree with MD on this one.  He's not saying ALL women are witches.... 

[Krandall]

'One former Soviet Republic is a primarily-Buddhist chess mecca.'


The nation of Kalmykia, now officially a republic of the Russian Federation, is the only European nation in which Buddhism is the official state religion. The Kalmyk people, descended from Mongolian nomads, have maintained Buddhist traditions despite systematic oppression (Stalin closed or destroyed most Buddhist buildings and deported the Kalmyks to Siberia). Until this month, the republic's head of state was also the president of the World Chess Federation, and oversaw the construction of Chess City, a complex built specifically to house major chess tournaments.

[Krandall]

'Freud's term for the instinctual subconscious was literally "The It."'


The psychological terms as we know them (id, ego and superego) are translators' attempts to capture the meaning of Freud's Latin phrasing. He employs the German phrase, "Das Es," (The It) when describing the id, the sum of instinctual drives underlying conscious thought. Freud actually owes this term to another writer and physician, Georg Groddeck, whom he credits in "The Ego and the Id," mentioning Groddeck's insistence that "we are 'lived' by unknown and uncontrollable forces."

[Krandall]

'There is an ATM in Antarctica.'

McMurdo Station in Antarctica, home to between 200 and 1,000 people, depending on the season, is also the location of the continent's only ATM, which is maintained by Wells Fargo. The station actually contains two ATMs, though only one is operational at a time. The machines do see preventive maintenance, though only occasionally, due to the difficulty of actually getting to the station (hence the second backup ATM). According to Guinness World Records, these are the southernmost ATMs in the world.

[frog69]

Read to the very end....
>
>
>  Honestly, this is a very interesting email RAILROAD TRACKS
>
>
>
>   The   US  standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
> 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
> Why was that gauge used?
> Because that's the way they built them in England and English
> expatriates designed the US railroads.
>
>
> Why did the English build them like that?
> Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built
> the pre-railroad tramways and that's the gauge they used.
>
>  Why did 'they' use that gauge then?
> Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools
> that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
>
> Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
> Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would
> break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because
> that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
> So who built those old rutted roads?
> Imperial   Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including
> England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.
>
>  And the ruts in the roads?
> Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to
> match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.
>
>  Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike
> in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard
> railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original
> specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live
> forever.
>
>
> The next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and
> wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly
> right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to
> accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' butts.)
>
> Now - the twist to the story:
> A Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad has two big booster rockets
> attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket
> boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah .
>
> Engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a
> bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory
> to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run
> through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through
> that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and
> the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses'
> behinds.
>
> So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the
> world's most advanced transportation system, was determined over two
> thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.
> And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important!
>
>  Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.
> CURRENT Horses Asses in Washington are controlling everything else.
>