For all us coin finders this is a great day!  It’s National Penny Day!  So when you are walking into or out of Walmart today, look down and hopefully you will find a penny!  And if you do, pick it up and celebrate like it was a million dollars.  People who watch and hear you will think you are nutso, but so what?  You are celebrating the finding of someone elses loss and the wonderful National holiday it is!

WOOOPPPPEEEE!  I FOUND A PENNY!  (dance around)  YAAAAHHOOOOO!  A PENNY!  I FOUND A PENNY!  IT’S YOUR DAY PENNY!  (keep dancing and working your way to the car or to the front door of the store).  And then tuck it in your LEFT pocket!  Left pocket so you keep it separated from the rest of the coins in your pocket.  After all it is a very special penny.  You found it on National Penny Day and it should be kept separate from all the others.

A secret I have found about coins, especially pennys.  If you really, really, really, really want to find a penny, go to a McDonalds drive through window area, those kids who drive through there picking up their big meal, fries and a coke, toss those bad boys all over the ground!  Almost GUARANTEED you will find a penny around that window.  Maybe look on the passenger side of the car and perhaps a bit toward the outer curb where then tend to roll once dropped.  Oh Ya!

National Penny Day!  Put one in your shoe for good luck.  But as a word of caution don’t do that if you are in a marathon race or hiking any distance.

Enjoy the day!  National Penny Day!  I knew a girl named Penny when I grew up.

Bears Butt

May 23, 2012

Making my lovely wife breakfast this morning got me thinking about eggs.  As I smacked two eggs together and one of the shells broke, I separated the shells and the egg plopped out onto the pan, I did it again with the same result and after three were in the pan, I had only one left and so I smacked it against the counter top.  I could have used the edge of the pan, but chose not to.  So there I had four eggs resting in the pan as it heated.

My mind races sometimes and this time it was really going strong.  Thinking to myself, I wonder if there is a world record for the number of eggs one egg has cracked before its own shell cracks?  I’ll bet that one has not been attempted yet.  If this gives you an idea to get the Guiness guys together go for it.  I’d like to see the results.  I’ll bet a beer you won’t get 10 eggs cracked before the one doing the cracking cracks.  Are we on?

So, of course after breakfast I attacked the internet to find out my answer.  Now, you must consider I am doing this for you as much as for myself because I seem to have more time on my hands than you do for such important things such as this.

I did not find anything that talked about using one egg to crack a bunch of other eggs.  So, I’m fairly certain you could easily get into the record book.  What I did find was these useful bits of information.

In order to enter into an egg cracking exhibition you have to know some basic rules.  You need to use both hands if you are going for a record of the number of eggs cracked in one hour.  However, you can use just one hand if you are going for the record of eggs cracked in one minute.

In both events, NO EGG SHELLS can enter into the pan/bowl or whatever during the time.

Pretty simple and straight forward rules.  I would expect the same to be true while using one egg to crack as many others as you can.  Just keep that in mind.

Ok, so back in 2011 the record for the total number of eggs cracked in one hour was broken by Bob Blumer.  That guy was an egg cracking sucker let me tell you.  He cracked a total of 2,318 eggs in one hour!  Of course using both hands and cracking without getting shells in the bowl.  When the judges got together they tossed out 248 cracked eggs because of shells and so the record stands at 2,070!

Also, in 2011, (it must have been the year of the egg) a man named Ross McCurdy broke the record of eggs cracked in one minute.  He cracked eggs in one hand and then in the other.  Like a machine he cracked eggs and plopped them into a bowl.  Like a young Dry Dog at the Red Baron Cafe making breakfast for the threshers, he cracked eggs!  32 eggs fell without so much as an inkling of an egg shell!  Now that’s crackin!

So, there you have it and you don’t even have to go anywhere else to seek out this information.  I have done the research for you and you are certainly allowed to quote this in any assignment you may have in your future.

I think you really should proceed with the record of the most eggs cracked using one other egg.  I found no record of that anywhere!

Bears Butt

May 22, 2012

Today is a weird national holiday, National Buy A Musical Instrument Day.  HMMMMM.  I suppose all the music shops around the country will be flooded with folks looking to buy a jaw harp or a violin, but not for me.  I have all the musical instruments I think I can play.

Duck call, goose call, rabbit in distress call, 3 different turkey calls and of course my air guitar.  That’s enough.

Wanna hear me play?  Quack, Honk, wwaaahhhaaahhaaaaaa queealllll, yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp, well she broke my hort at wallgreens and I cried all the way ta sears!

Boy howdy, THAT IS ENOUGH!

Have a great day and don’t forget to visit the Deseret Industries store, they usually have a boat load of musical instruments for sale, and cheap too.

Bears Butt

May 22, 2012

Yesterdays lunar eclipse had me wondering just how I was going to view it.  I recalled many, many years ago, an hobby astrologist I worked with brought in a box one day and we were able to set it up in the parking lot at work and view an eclipse.  I went to work looking up how it was done on line.

The on line help said I needed to build a box a minimum of 6 feet long!  That seemed a bit much to me and I did not recall my astrologist friend having a box that long.  And so, I decided all I needed was a short box and an end with a pin hole in it.  I could cast the suns light on something far enough away to make it visible and hopefully we could see the shadow of the moon as it crossed in the suns path.

About 6:45 p.m. Brandon called and I told him what I was up to.  He wanted to come and see and so, it wasn’t but a couple of minutes and here were the kids to see.  I did not realize just how quickly the eclipse would take place.  I figured we had plenty of time.  We headed out to find a likely spot to set up our pin hole box.

Luckily for us there was an old metal door laying in the metal recycle pile we could use to project the sun against and when we set it up…wholey moley, the eclipse was already happening.

McKenzie and Conner had to get into the picture and I’m glad they did.  Proof that I was not alone in this adventure.

And so, with camera clicking away I was able to capture some of the images of the moon passing between the earth and the sun.  Remember, this image is reverse of what you would have seen if you could have looked directly at the sun.  It’s sure a lot easier on the eyes than looking directly into the sun and we did not have to use welders masks or plastic garbage bags to view the event.

This was the first picture and you can see we were late getting into the action.  So for next time I will be setting things up at least 45 minutes before the total eclipse happens, maybe sooner.

And so, even though the pictures aren’t that good, at least you can see what we saw by using just a pin hole in a piece of aluminum foil and rabbit ears over our head.

We did this in Northern Utah on May 20.  The total eclipse was seen about half way through the state to the South.  They got to witness the “ring of fire” as it’s called, but we were too far north to see that.  We still had fun and it did not cost us anything to go down there.  This sort of thing is not dangerous, it is informative, somewhat scientific and fun.

Bears Butt

May 21, 2012

Today marks the National celebration of Eliza Doolittle but unlike her last name Eliza really did quite a bit.  Of course she had a whole lot of help doing it.  Sort of like Bears Butt.  I have a lot of stage crew that keep my image high (in your mind at least), why else would you keep hanging around this site reading the obscure?

Behinds the scenes of Eliza’s life are people of eloquence and grace.  She, after all was just a poor, almost homeless lass who barely could speak the language and be understood.  She was not very clean in her early days as she didn’t have the advantages of the richer folks and therefore had to take cold baths when ever that occasion presented itself.  How often would you take a cold bath?  I too would rather put up with smelling and being dirty until I just couldn’t stand myself before venturing into a cold bath.  Kind of like being on the muzz hunt with a bunch of guys.

She could speak the language, but was really rough and talked “street talk” quite well.  Since she was a girl, the boys gave her a wide range.  She could handle herself well with the roughest of the boys out there.  But, when she came into favor with a rich woman who could see she was a blossoming lass, the best of the best of teachings were thrown her way and she learned quickly just how to say the words properly and how to carry herself among the well to do.

I’m a lot like that myself, only pretty much self trained.  Notice how I swagger when wearing my leathers.  Not too closely boys!  I like girls.  Notice how my language changes with whom I’m speaking.  Notice how I know just what to say and when to say it.  Some of you might think I have had just a few too many bubblies, but I almost always remember what went on.  Just a spoon full of sugar you know.

Eliza Doolittle, went from a street lass to a high class lady in less than the time it takes Bears Butt to draw a Crawford tag.  And her countenance was quite the opposite of one who might have heard, “Your countenance makes time stand still”!  (In other words, you are so ugly, you could stop a clock).  She was a beauty in every way.

As for Bears Butt in this parody, I may not be the most handsome, I may not be the most intelligent, I may not be the tallest, the thinnest or have perfect teeth, but I will offer you a drink and tell you a story.  Did I every mention about the “Rain in Spain falling mainly on the plain”?

Bears Butt

May 20, 2012

Have you ever wondered what it is they put in propane fuel that smells so bad?  Well, yours truely has done all the research you need on the subject and I’m here to share it with you right now.

Chemically speaking it’s a combination of a Thiol group and a Ethyl group.  Ethyl groups are groups that have multiple Carbon atoms, while the Thiol groups have Sulphur atoms.  It’s quite easy if you do a bit of study.  You see the Ethyl compound is stated as CH3CH2, clearly two atoms of Carbon (C) and 5 atoms of Hydrogen (H) and the Thiol group is simply one atom of Sulpher and one atom of Hydrogen or SH…combine the two and you have the existence of some very stinky stuff CH3CH2SH.

Now I’m not a chemist but in my little pea brain I can not seem to understand why those little C’s and H’s don’t get together and make the whole thing C2H6S, that seems like it would stink even more than CH3CH2SH.  I mean sound it out:

CHCHSHHHHHH  vs CUHUSSSSSSS  The later sound just sounds more smelly to me.  Maybe I’m a little hard of hearing, but it just does sound more smelly.  And if you were to be attempting to hook up your BBQ to the propane tank and you kept smelling that nasty odor time after time of trying to get it connected without any leaks, you would be cussing up a storm, right!  That would be smelly!  Now look again at the sounds…which is closest to “cussing”?  Of course, CuHuSSSSSS (cussssss).

Ok, I’ve kept you in suspense long enough, the word for the additive that smells so bad that they add to propane and other odorless gases is called Ethyl Mercaptan:  Ethyl = Ethyl Group, Mercaptan = Thiol Group.

In my extensive research, I also found where the Guiness Book of World Records lists Ethyl Mercaptan as the “foulest smelling substance in the world”.  I suppose it could be, but have you ever smelled yourself after a “you know” while wearing chest waders?  I guess the Guiness folks would have had to of been there.

Ethyl Mercaptan, that’s what you are smelling, not propane, it don’t stink.

Bears Butt

May 18, 2012

It’s National Visit Your Relatives day!  When I announced it, Sherry said, “At the cemetery”?  Well, I guess you could do that, but I was thinking about the living ones.

It’s currently quite rainy outside, something we really needed and I suppose some of our deceased relatives had something to do with that.  Perhaps it was their way of paying us a visit!  It sure has brought a smile to my face!

So to all of you “my relatives”, even if I don’t get to see you face to face, consider this a visit from the old Bears Butt!

Enjoy!

Bears Butt

May 18, 2012