Bill Butler

Milan,

Please accept my belated thanks for the BD e-card this week.  Glad there were only 5 candles because they’re worth 10-yrs. each, right?

My irrational excuse for this delay is due to preoccupations with:

Strenuously WORKING OUT…. math solutions, EXERCISING memory, RUNNING software, FIGHTING the Dark Force, WRESTLING philosophical conundrums, STRETCHING reality, TACKLING paradoxes, EVADING senility, ELIMINATING doubt, DEMOLISHING myths, EXECUTING ideas, computer files, and mice in the attic, THROWING monkey wrenches, BEATING around the bush and eggs for omelets, BREAKING new scientific ground,  DRIVING home a point, PUSHING reforms, FALLING out of bed, SHOOTING off my mouth, STRIKING balances, MILITATING against indifferences and falsehoods, HITTING 138mph on my Triumph Bonneville (with no training wheels!), UNRAVELING mysteries, TRACKING computer gremlins, JUMPING for joy, CATCHING my breath and hell from my wife, PLAYING devil’s advocate, CHALLENGING dogma, FLOATING hypotheses, STEALING Zeus’ thunder, PASSING gas, CHASING cogent clues, PUSHING deadlines, SWEATING reprisals, SQUELCHING rumors, THROWING up, DEFLECTING insults, SPLITTING hairs and infinitives, LIFTING spirits, WREAKING havoc, REVERSING entropy, and STRUGGLING to stay awake.

Phew!  That’s exhausting.  So , you see that I really was busy.  But the least strenuous part of WORKING OUT is WISHING The Super Class of 1962 a safe and healthy 2019!  May everyone have a happy BD this year.  Lastly, Milan, we appreciate your tireless and invaluable efforts to keep classmates in touch with one another.  Mucho mucho gracias, amigo.

Milan Jackson

Love that, Bill. Good laugh. We all need laughs now and then. :)

Milan Jackson

Happy Birthday Donna Fogel Phillips !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

George King

Milan I posted The date jan4 you said you post them the day befor .In my hasty i did thank you for The Brithday wich,sorry keep up the good work ,George R. King. 

Milan Jackson

Happy Birthday Sandy Dorrell !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Milan Jackson

After searching for several years, I finally found a small obituary for Ellen Wilcox. Her info is now posted in our In Memory sectiion. I think we have all of the teachers so far. Let me know if I have missed any. 

Milan Jackson

Happy Birthday Robert Rush !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Milan Jackson

You folks who live locally, be careful out there. I just skated out to our mailbox and it is very slick. As it freezes tonight, tomorrow will be a mess. Be careful !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Larry Shoup

Thanks for the warning, it got down to 69 last night here. Tee Hee!

Milan Jackson

All but Larry Shoup be careful out there folks. 

Richard Center

Cold there? Well here in Mn super cold, darn that global warming!

Milan Jackson

Richard, how is it up there in the frozen tundra?   :)

Sonja Jones (Davis)

We're OK here in Phoenix.....thanks for your concern!

Richard Center

Minus 50 here with wind Wed time to shovel 10 inch of snow also, but warm with fireplace

Milan Jackson

Looks like we are trying to be the frozen tundra :)

Milan Jackson

Happy Birthday Earl Hargis !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Phil Hershey (Hershey)

Golfing here in Dallas, Texas today but going too be too cold the rest of the week.  

Happy Birthday shout out to my old friend Earl Hargis. 

Earl Hargis

Thank you Milan and Phil for the birthday wishes

Earl

Larry Shoup

Earl, judging from the photo you just never seem to age! Going to be picking up palm fronds so I can mow grass tomorrow. Given a choice I'd rather be mowing grass than scooping snow. What fun!

Earl Hargis

You are right Larry.  This photo was taken of me yesterday on my birthday. People say I look like a famous actor now but not sure who they mean. What's up Doc?

Larry Shoup

I thought that might have been the situation. It's good to record the stages of life so we don't forget how far we've come. I especially like the long ears. The Indians should have used rabbits rather than fise in their corn fields...waait for it... they would have gotten bigger ears! Sorry.

Bill Butler

Milan,          I noticed some comments about the deep freeze in the Midwest.  Having just returned from Lake Wobegon, probably near where Richard Center lives, I can assess this problem and offer some insight into its cause.  Notice that super cold and very deep snow are no problem for Richard.  He’s accustomed to it just like us in the Colorado mountains.  You can tell these northern dwellers by the way they walk on their perpetual glare ice… always taking fast little steps.  Most have evolved larger feet and have mastered walking in deep snow without snowshoes, …and they don’t shovel snow, they just keep driving over it to pack it good and solid.  Yeah, these hardy people get 2 days of spring, 1 day of summer, 2 days of fall, and 360 days of winter and love it.

          OK, so, my assessment of that cold weather is no doubt due to the infamous Polar Vortex that grabbed the N. American continent and spun it around counterclockwise to the north.  In the theory of plate tectonics, drifting continents create mountains and ocean basins and explain everything geologic.  As the Midwest goes north, Antarctica is pushing in our direction to replace it.  Larry Shoup may be in for a big surprise!  (Larry, invest in snow shovels now and throw out your flip-flops!)  My hypothesis needs some more work, but if the Sun isn’t running out of hydrogen to burn, or the Earth’s rotational axis isn’t experiencing some extra wobble, this has to be right.

          Now, my advice to those people I see on the news who look cold and miserable.  What I do during super-cold snaps is just open the freezer door to warm up the house.  The temperature gradient reverses and the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics wins.  However, the big problem is because the air is so cold, it doesn’t compress, so when someone speaks, words just fall on the floor in mixed up piles.  During their thawing, some of the funniest things are said.  Also, the photons from sunlight are so cold they have contracted wavelengths so everything is seen in ultraviolet.  Very weird but cool, literally.  And the super-cooled gravity waves are shortened and I lose about 10-lbs. of weight during big winter storms.  But Midwesterners shouldn’t despair because I’m sure the Australians are willing to sell some of their record-breaking hot air cheap with free shipping.

          Well, I gotta go now and shovel the snow away from the top of my chimney so the smoke can get out.  All this shoveling develops extra arm muscles so I kinda look like The Hulk (but I’m not green).  Oh, if anyone needs my mailing address, just add a few digits to the street number because the glacier behind my house pushes it downhill several feet a day.  My physical address keeps changing and it drives the tax assessor crazy.  Smile and stay warm, Bill.

Milan Jackson

You guys are a hoot  :)

Larry Shoup

Bill, I’m impressed! Having lived a few years in Northern Minnesota I don’t know how you could have kept your fingers warm enough to write such a long note. 

Bill Butler

Larry,        …good insightful question. I don’t tell just anybody the secrets to keeping fingers warm in super-cold climates, but here goes.  Please understand that there may be liability issues.  If you have ever seen the TV program The Red Green Show filmed in remote northern MN, there is this unsuccessful inventor guy named Bill.  OK, yeah, I admit it, that’s me on sabbatical.  So here’s my warm-fingers solution.

        First, keep a cup of 175 deg. coffee on each side of the keyboard and wrap hands around cups once every 3-min.  Make sure you have a lot of extra keyboards available.  Cold hands commonly knock things over.  BTW, the stronger the coffee, the higher the specific heat capacity.  If frostbite sets in, just drink the coffee to dull the pain and get circulation going again.

        Next, use my new office chair invention that circulates boiling water through the seat and arm pieces.  The downside is that if you turn the temp up too high, you’ll never have any more children.  Do not become intoxicated or fall asleep in this chair!  The timer is set at 5-minutes to eject any person still sitting in it.

        Thirdly, use my invention #2 which is really neat.   It is a microwave with finger holes.  Can you believe no one has thought of this before?  127-seconds on level-3 does the job.  A couple seconds longer gets you a deep uneven tan, and a few seconds too long curls the fingernails upward.  The upside, however, is that you’ll never have to worry about nail fungus.  Make sure you have pain-killers handy if you set the power dial wrong.  A pair of gloves will hide any cosmetic deformities.  Caution: a level-4 warm-up makes fingers look like charred bratwurst.  Tingling sensations are not good and you should immediately pull fingers out.  Hey, there are pluses and minuses to everything, right?  18 lawsuits out of 50 clinical trials isn’t too shabby.  This microwave is the prototype so keep it under wraps, OK?  I’m still waiting to get the patent on this puppy.  Hope this helps, …or if it doesn’t, just learn to type really fast -- it may be a safer alternative.  Bill