Posts Tagged ‘animals’

My wife recounted to me a recent news story she had seen about a man in Daytona Beach, FL, who looked out the window and spotted a black bear in the hammock swing in the back yard! Here's a picture of the bear:

That news story and another one the other day about Smokey the Bear turning 70 this year made me think I ought to do a blog post about bears. First, there's a fun, short YouTube video about his birthday, and then I've posted two jokes that have bears in them.

Those of you reading this post in e-mail or in a blog reader might have to go to this blog post itself to see the video.
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Some of the most bizarre stuff comes my way from people who read my blog. I'm not sure what exactly to think of that sometimes, but it definitely keeps life interesting. I recently learned about a website where you can learn to yodel. That may be just the thing some of you were looking for and didn't know existed! I have not explored the site much at all, but let me know if you find it helpful....

One of my father-in-law's favorite songs was Cattle Call by Eddy Arnold. It contained some great yodeling. Here's a little sound clip of Cattle Call.

Each year when I'm gearing up for a new school year, I visit the beloit.edu site to see what the frame of reference of this year's freshmen will be.

From Beloit's long list, here are some of my favorite bits of information about this year's freshmen:

States and Velcro parents have always been requiring that they wear their bike helmets.

The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.

There have nearly always been at least two women on the Supreme Court, and women have always commanded U.S. Navy ships.

American tax forms have always been available in Spanish.

Amazon has never been just a river in South America.
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Did you see the news story recently about the zoo worker in Knoxville, Tennessee who was accidentally killed by an African elephant? Apparently the elephant had not been aggressive and is not considered dangerous to other workers. It's just one of the risks zoo workers take working closely with animals that weigh tons, although the zoo has made some changes since the accident. This zoo is just down the street from one of our favorite places in Knoxville — Pizza Palace. My wife told on her blog about how we discovered it.

This story got me thinking not only about the potential dangers in the zoos of the world, but also about the pictures of some zoo signs that have been sitting patiently in a folder on my computer.

Zoos really do try to warn people of potential dangers and of uncomfortable situations. Some zoo signs sugar coat their warnings with a touch of humor.

I don't know what is written in the Asian language on this next sign, but the English seems to indicate that it may have something to do with reincarnation.
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I don't usually think much about genetics, but lately it's been brought back into focus in our lives. Our appearance and myriad other physical traits come from our ancestors through our parents. Among those traits are tendencies toward certain ailments, allergies, etc. It's all written into our DNA. For instance, diabetes does not run in my family — it gallops! I knew that it was not a matter of if, but rather when, I would become diabetic. On my mom's side of the family, at least three generations before mine have all developed type 2 diabetes. I am now dealing with being officially pre-diabetic, doing my best through lifestyle changes to delay the development of diabetes as long as possible.

My wife Becka learned some years ago that she is allergic to aspirin (more accurately salicylates), just as her mother was. Through our daughter Nora's recent experiences, it appears that she has inherited the same allergy. Our son Mark has had the same reaction I had to the cleaning agent now used on blood donors. Fortunately our kids have inherited Becka's good eyesight and not my poor vision. Unfortunately Mark has inherited my flat, narrow feet. And if what we're told about diabetes and genetics is true, my children will probably all develop diabetes at some point in the future, as will my grandchildren, and so on. Sorry, kids.

Some time ago, I found a fun picture that illustrates how genetics works.

Twins, especially identical twins, hold a special fascination for many of us. I loved both of the following geeky explanations for twinning.
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Have you ever felt like what they call a "marked man?" This past week I had three different men tell me that they felt as though they had a target painted on them for one reason or another. With each of these men I joked about the Far Side cartoon below:

Then the other day I stumbled upon a picture of a cat with an interesting set of markings on its back:

As I ruminated on Hal's birthmark and the cool cat with the black cat marking (which looks to be authentic), I decided to see if I could find any other pictures of animals with interesting markings. Here are two where I'm certain the markings are not something the animals were born with.
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