Borbyrygmi= Stomach Rumblings

T-Bone Walker said it best: "I woke up this morning, and I was in an awful mood". The Fatthew Challenge calzone would put a hurting on you- 5.5 pounds of mozzarella cheese, dough, chicken tenders, french fries, and mozzarella sticks.
To date, there have been over 100 attempts @ Scottie's Famous Pizza- None finishing.

Recycle America

As a young kid, I can remember holding an empty plastic strawberry container and wondering what I could do with it? Put a string on the pint sized, green, plastic basket and make a little tram out of it? There must be another use for this (seemingly) ingenious container (instead of just throwing it in the trash), I thought to myself.

Now, fast forward 30 years, my passion for recycling and has taken me through college, around New England, around the United States, and across the oceans. My quest for waste reduction and has played a vital role in my life.

“Freight and Barrel,” 2004, Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, crushed plastics. Steven Siegel.

After a month-long cross country to Montana, last winter, I came to the realization that what our country could benefit from is a good 'Spring Cleaning' to recycle all the unused, unwanted, or ignored infrastructure throughout the USA. Utilizing the USA's expansive and low cost railroad systems- A national, regional and/or local scrap recycling program would station railroad freight cars, strategically and geographically across the United states to saturate the whole USA, with Rolling Recycling Cans.

This freight could be shipped to recycling facilities and shipping ports, en route to smelters and blast furnaces across the globe.

This is already happening in Detroit (on a different level), where cash strapped Detroiter's are taking to old, abandoned factories and dismantling and recycle. We need to turn this desperation into middle america's gold rush.
I feel our consumer waste recycling (low weight/high volume) stream in the USA can learn a lot from the high weight/low volume business of scrap metal recycling. Hopefully people will just as passionate about recycling plastics, paper, and glass as Copper and Aluminum. http://www.freep.com/article/20131112/OPINION01/311120014/
rust belt scrap iron- help rebuild this country- through America's heartland- quest

Lee Lorch: mathematician + civil rights activist + professor + WWII vet= all around amazing guy

Lee Lorch, who is this guy I stumbled upon, while researching Stuyvesant Town? In my opinion, Professor Lorch (at 98 years young) should be given the Nobel Peace Prize, or similar type medal of commendation. Dr. Lorch, after receiving his Ph.D, worked in the war effort stateside, only to enlist during WWII in the US Army. After returning home after the war, and building upon the racial injustices seen in WWII, Lee Lorch began teaching Math and simultaneously began his own war against racial inequality in the United States of America. A recent NYTimes article (of which i borrowed the header picture) does a tasteful job of outlining this Colorful Patriot. A great tribute to Lee Lorch is given by Dr. Scott W. Williams, Professor of Mathematics, University of Buffalo

Jimi Hendrix and Time Magazine's (other) top 9 Lefties of all time.

While watching American Masters, "Jimi Hendrix- hear my train a comin" on PBS, I realized that in addition to being an innovator, icon, and one of the most talented musicians ever, Jimi Hendrix was also one of the most intelligent, humble, dynamic, and captivating Icons of the 20th century. Maybe unknowingly, Jimi was also a Patriot and beacon for social change, peace, justice, and individuality.

While in London, Jimmy died Sept, 1970- he was only 27 years old.

Here's Time magazine's top 10 Lefties
Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Babe Ruth, Napoleon Bonaparte, Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, Aristotle, Ned Flanders, Jimi Hendrix,
Read more: Complete List - Top 10 Lefties - TIME http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1916052,00.html #ixzz2jpfEPwMY

Rocky was a Southpaw

Southpaw=Left handed fighter. Everybody knows that Apollo Creed and his management was weary of ROcky Balboa in Rocky. After the passing away of the venerable Tommy "the Duke" Morrison; who starred in Rocky V as Tommy Gunn, a character of himself, that would foreshadow Morrison's own downfall. After Morrison's passing on Sept. 1st, of complications from AIDS; I watched some Youtube videos of the great fighters of the 80's and 90's. Tommy was a great two handed boxer, who could hit hard with both hands. I found an interview from 2006, where he talks about fighting a southpaw from Russia in '96.http://www.boxingscene.com/tommy-morrison-still-walking-tall--3179 Anyways, here's a great interview with him My all time favorite was "Iron" Mike Tyson, not a lefty, but a two handed wrecking machine and in my opinion the best of modern times.

Uncle Fester and Bubbles jr.

I was working this past weekend into yesterday with two of the craziest dudes i've ever encountered- Uncle Fester and Bubbles jr. I didn't have enough, time, energy or wherewithal to snap a picture of these guys, but they were classic. They both looked and acted just like their namesakes, Bubbles is a character from the Iconic Canadian series- Trailer Park Boys. Bubbles jr. was from Southie and was more biker and had some USMC ink. Uncle Fester (his real nickname) was a cross between The Munster and Armish Puri- the bald headed guy from indiana jones. Fester was the boss, and he's the guy that contacted me about the work. I should have known it was gonna be a joke when he says, "can you work tomorrow" (Sunday)? What kind of contractor starts a job on a Sunday? We were to be jacking up a house and ripping out rotted framing members. I reluctantly agreed an OK'd the idea. Sunday was cool, and we just ripped off the old material worked for two days and basically got prepped for Monday- when we would jack the house up and take care of business. Monday, i wasn't on my game and these two knuckleheads had me all fucked up. "Work like Gentlemen"- to quote Mike Dangelo; would be easier said than done with Bubbles jr. and Uncle Fester.

Three Chirps

"The dreaded three chirps "

http://bit.ly/13mVmz4

Switzerland's conundrum

Although Switzerland is an armed neutral country, and Geneva is where humane war rules have been written (4 times)- it's a country of great intrigue to me. First, because of Switzerland's huge arms industry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Firearms_manufacturers_in_Switzerland
Second, because of their Swiss banking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_Switzerland
Now, after watching Special Flight a POV (point of view) documentary tonight on PBS: about the immigration, deportation, and detainment of workers coming to make a better life for themselves. For a country with such high moral standards, this documentary piece is visceral.

Watch Special Flight - Trailer on PBS. See more from POV.

Tanya Stephens- These Streets- acoustic

Tanya Stephens - These Streets by elmokozo

Famous Left-handers

After visiting the great city of Bloomington, Indiana this winter-- which Dali Lama called "the center of the universe". I agree with his assertion that it could be the center of the universe, after seeing that they too, are left-hand centric.

Although I joke and tell people that left-handed citizens are minorities, living in an oppressed, right-handed world, I truly feel that our brains are wired differently. As I sit here and listen to the Howard Stern Show while Howard interviews Jerry Seinfeld, the iconic, irritable comedian, makes me think he's left handed. I do a quick Google check for famous lefts.

Low and behold, Indiana University has created a website devoted to cataloguing famous left-handed people in their primate department. http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/left.html

"Print is dead" - Dr. Egon Spengler

Most websites would kill for increased traffic. Buying ad-space from Google and increasing their online presence by cleaning up their pages with meta-tags blah, blah... So why is it that certain websites; mainly stodgy, old "newsprint networks" insist on driving away traffic? Requiring usernames and payment? I get it, they can't make money with print anymore, so they must resort to online revenue to keep them afloat.

Filling up the boarders with banner ads for Acai berry diets doesn't really pay, and instead of figuring out a better model for online marketing, news networks are incresingly require an account be created- the user may or not have to pay $$$ for the same news you can read for free by just googling.

I will choose the latter and not support the printing press dinosaurs. Instead, I'll rely on Google, Reuters, Associated Press, and social media- for free and current, news and events. Everybody out there is a journalist these days, with news/information being uploaded worldwide instantaneously through online publishing. Social media and independent news is the way it's gonna be, so get with the program.

Rectify

rec·ti·fy /ˈrektəˌfī/ Verb Put (something) right; correct: "mistakes made now cannot be rectified later". Purify or refine (a substance), esp. by repeated distillation: "rectified alcohol". Synonyms correct - amend - redress - straighten - emend - mend



www.lefthandedliving.com is (in) my domain again. I will forward all traffic to my blogger page until new site is developed.

Wooden bats in MLB

A few years ago, I began researching the rules and regulations of wooden bats used in Major League Baseball, MLB. With all the shattered baseball bats in recent years (blasting players and spectators), I began thinking about possible reasons for all the broken bats. The traditional species of wood used in baseball bats was Ash, a ring porous hardwood (similar to oak or hickory) specifically white Ash. I hypothesized that it was diffuse porous woods, such as Sugar Maple (acer saccharum) that was the main culprit.
And http://www.woodbat.org agrees, stating that- in the early 90's, bat manufacturers began using maple more often, likely because A. saccharum' physical properties are 5-10% > Ash.
MLB Official Rules:
1.10 (a) The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 23/4 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length. The bat shall be one piece of solid wood. NOTE: No laminated or experimental bats shall be used in a professional game (either championship season or exhibition games) until the manufacturer has secured approval from the Rules Committee of his design and methods of manufacture. (b) Cupped Bats. An indentation in the end of the bat up to one inch in depth is permitted and may be no wider than two inches and no less than one inch in diameter. The indentation must be curved with no foreign substance added. (c) The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from its end, may be covered or treated with any material or substance to improve the grip. Any such material or substance, which extends past the 18 inch limitation, shall cause the bat to be removed from the game. NOTE: If the umpire discovers that the bat does not conform to (c) above until a time during or after which the bat has been used in play, it shall not be grounds for declaring the batter out, or ejected from the game. (d) No colored bat may be used in a professional game unless approved by the Rules Committee.
What struck me when looking over the rules above /\ was what wasn't there- wood species. It's my feeling that not specifying wood species is important as size and weight regulations for Major League Baseball bats.
Here is a good article from NYTimes that I just found (from 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/sports/baseball/25maple.html?_r=0.

We destroy and rebuild

This fuckin' house has taught me the 3 P's: Persistence, perseverance and pain.