The Singing Returns

Sister Christina Scucci wows audience and judges on The Voice Italy with her rendition of " Girls just gotta have fun."  You have to see it to believe it.  Not a dry eye in the house.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmoujQrEGOI

I met one of my wives in such an establishment; can't remember which one.

How to Play your best Golf EVER!!

Most amateur golfers do not improve very much unless they pay a top notch teacher to help them improve their technique.  Even then most amateurs gradually lose whatever improvements they've made, even when they spend a lot of time practicing what they've learned..

Those amateurs that go it alone and simply practice, practice, practice, make only nominal gains when compared to the amount of time they spend swinging at the driving range.

Why?  Don't ask!  "Why" is the worst question that can be asked   A better question is HOW!!  How can they spend so much time trying to improve and not improve?  Here's the answer:
 Often a bad swing on the course is the result of physical issues, muscle fatigue, mental fatigue, dehydration.  The golfer quickly makes a half-ass assessment of his bad swing and makes adjustments on the next swing - which is likely to be different but affected by the same issues, i.e. fatigue, etc.  The golfer gets more and more frustrated and less and less able to make optimal changes.  This is even more evident on the practice range.  Most golfers hit as many balls as they can, as quickly as they can, deluding themselves into thinking that if they keep at it they will find the "right swing".  Couldn't be more wrong.  The muscles and ligaments and bobolinks do not have time to rest and recover, and as practice continues the effect is greater and greater and ...THE GOLFER ENDS UP PRACTICING HOW TO MAKE A BAD SWING!!.  Your game does not improve and may even get worse.

Even Professionals' become less effective late in the round when fatigue affects them, and they spend a lot of time working to be in "optimal golf condition", John Daly being the one exception. To find out how to make REAL, Dramatic Improvements, click Read More.

easter dinner

jpr: I'm serving salmon and raost beef to some kids from the college

aphorisma or quotopia, you pick

"It's harder for me than most to do without or to expend a lot of effort at something.  It's new for me. Most people go without and work hard all the time, and hell they oughta be used to it by now." - Me

"Twilight years, oh yeah, I'd better start banking some Karma." - Me

medieval medicine

the cadfael chronicles

In medieval England, many monasteries had cottage hospitals attached to them. The monks who worked in these hospitals had basic medical knowledge but they were probably the best qualified people in the country to help the poor and those who could not afford their own physician. By 1200, there may have been as many as 400 hospitals in England.

jpr: This was undoubtedly true for the whole of Europe!

vernal pools

good place to find a snapping  turtle

Spring Pools by Robert Frost

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods --
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.

María del Carmen García Galisteo

played Mary Magdalene in Cecil B Demille's King of Kings

jpr: My favorite Christ film of all times. Can't really say why?

Inventor Michael Jackson - who knew!

While his videos used wires, guylines and other technical stuff for tricks and illusions, his live stage performances required special foot gear which MJ invented.

check out this video courtesy Smithsonian, to see what illusion i'm talking about 

largest eggs

Ring Galaxy AM 0644-741 - A Cosmic Easter Egg?

AM 0644-741 is an unbarred, lenticular, ring-galaxy located about 300 million light-years away in the direction of the Volans constellation. 

Easter all year ??

These egg-shaped dwellings might just be the ideal form of a sustainable home. Made from wasted wood and recycled car tires, these delectable prefabricated dwellings are 750-square feet of modular masonry and passive utilities. With their shape enabling them to harness the sun, the wind and the rain, KasaUovo Houses are 90% recyclable and 70% more efficient than most residential properties. 

Designed by Roberto Casati with renderings by Matteo Puggelli, an egg-shaped community may be coming to a town near you.

Early Evidence that Jesus was Married redux

Preliminary translation of "Jesus' Wife document"

"don't forget to take the matzo out of the oven when you get home;

my mother and brothers will be coming over for supper and to keep peace,
do not, i repeat do not mention anything about the Pharisees, Temple, or Caesar;

oh and you need to level the table; one leg is slightly shorter, as usual when you

let your dumb uncle work in the shop."

Priest Surprises Wedding

It's not often a priest steals the show at a wedding.  But that's what happened to couple Chris and Leah O'Kane when they were recently married at the Oldcastle church in Meathe, Ireland, by Father Ray Kelly who broke into an incredible custom-made cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."...  stunned and overwhelemed a packed church.  

Y'a gotta listen http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-26957527 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygmlF_tAChY

Cheers for France, Cheers for Socialism

In the new world of technology, work does not stop for many when they leave the office.  Job  emails continue with, for many, expectations that they will be dealt with regardless of the hour or day. Now France, home of the legally mandated 35 hour work week, has decided to act. It has introduced rules to protect about a million people working in the digital and consultancy sectors from work email outside office hours. Those are taken to be before 9am and after 6pm. The deal signed between employers federations and unions says that employees will have to switch off work phones and avoid reading emails and firms are prohibited from demanding otherwise.  And France is not alone.  VW, for example, prohibits all emails from 30 minutes after and 30 minutes before the work day.  VIva la liberte.

Who said this? I can't remember.

"You haven't had too much to drink as long as you can still hang on to the floor."

The Leopard Man of Skye

For 20 years the Leopard Man of Skye could be glimpsed living in a derelict stone cottage in the far north of Scotland, recognisable for his head-to-toe tattooed spots. Tom Leppard, as he is known to his friends, moved five years ago into a more comfortable home on the mainland at 73 years of age – not bad for a cat.  It takes all kinds.

Promissory Materialism - What if they are wrong?

The widely accepted idea that, although we do not yet know how to explain many, many things through material processes, we eventually will.  This applies to mind, consciousness, and soul.  Truth, today, is only what science reveals and everything will eventually be explained in a such a materialist framework, because everything is only matter.  Most scientists do not necessarily agree but enough do.  What if they are wrong? What if their confidence exceeds their grasp?  What if the true workings and aspect of the cosmos on every scale exceeds even our capacity to imagine?

There is more in this world than man can percieve or understand.

Nine year old Nandana Unnikrishnan, an autistic child in India, has demonstrated the unusual ability to read her mother’s thoughts.  Using a keyboard, when asked to, Nandana will type her mother’s thoughts is a long running sentence with no spacing and some spelling errors.  The child has performed the ‘magic’ in front of journalists and psychiatrists.  Typical experiment has the mother think of something in a separate room, write it down, and then the child is asked to type her mother’s thoughts.  It only works with her mother.  Science has  offered no explanations.

Best Winning Record in Porofessional Sports -- The All Blacks

New Zealand's National Rugby Team the All Blacks doing a pre-game HAKA.

Rugy is the national sport of New Zealand and its national team, the All Blacks, founded in 1884, is the current world champion.  The team has a 75% winning record through its history, the best wiunning record of any professional team in any sport.  The team performs a HAKA before each game,  a collection of physical movements, facial gestures and war cries traditional to the native Maori as a war or challange dance to frighten the enemy.  The crowd goes wild everytime.   Apparently it works. 

exciting to watch   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwWrGx4a80A

april showers

                                                          

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWWVGyxvSCk

                                                                    

                                                April Showers"

Looking for an angel in these hills
Looking for a map to find what we left behind
Knowing that we will

Always end up right where we start
Cause I got time on my hands and hope in my heart
We both understand we weren't meant to be apart

April showers bring May flowers
I have seen rain before
But if Sunday morning lets that sun in
What are we waiting for
Cause love leaves an open door

most popular names for ponies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtUVDPkm1rU

•                                                 
• 1. Star                                                             2. Dakota
• 3. Cheyenne
• 4. Spirit
• 5. Misty
• 6. Cowboy
• 7. Blaze
• 8. Lucky
• 9. Chief
• 10. Stormy

Another April First Classic

 

Subway Car crashs through the tunnel ceiling, 2001.

An April fool in Denmark, regarding Copenhagen's new subway. It looks as if one of its cars had an accident, and had broken through and surfaced on the square in front of the town hall. In reality, it was a retired subway car from the subway of Stockholm cut obliquely, with the front end placed onto the tiling and loose tiles scattered around it. Note the sign "Gevalia" and the accident site tape with the words "Uventede gæster?" (unexpected guests?). Gevalia coffee's advertising featured various vehicles popping up with unexpected guests.

about april 1st

A judge in Melbourne, Australia, told two robbers they were a 'pair of fools' before sending them to jail for a crime committed on April 1, 2007. Not only had they stolen a bag of bread rolls from a restaurant thinking it was full of money, but one robber shot the other in the buttocks by mistake as they were fleeing.

“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year,” (Mark Twain)

on this day in 1976  Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

Greatest April Fools' Joke

The Annual Spaghetti Harvest of 1957  remains one of the greatest April Fools' jokes of all time.  One of the BBC’ s most serious television news programs broadcast a feature reporting on the successful spaghetti harvest in Switzerland accompanied by video of the ‘strands’ growing on trees, being harvested by local workmen.  The stunt fooled many including the head of the BBC and Jay and I as kids.

well worth a look  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXmaS1ZzpA8