Tree grow inside another Tree

The Moped

An elderly man on a Moped, looking about 100 years old, pulls up next to a doctor at a street light. The old man looks over at the sleek shiny car and asks, "What kind of carya got there, sonny?" The doctor replies, "A Ferrari GTO. It cost half a million dollars!" "That's a lot of money," says the old man. "Why does it cost so much?" "Because this car can do up to 320 miles an hour!" states the doctor proudly. The Moped driver asks, "Mind if I take a look inside?" "No problem," replies the doctor. So the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around. Then, sitting back on his Moped, the old man says, "That's a pretty nice car, all right... But I'll stick with my Moped!" Just then the light changes, so the doctor decides to show the old man just what his car can do. He floors it, and within 30 seconds the speedometer reads 160 mph. Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror. It seems to be getting closer! He slows down to see what it could be and suddenly... WHOOOOSSSHHH! Something whips by him going much faster! "What on earth could be going faster than my Ferrari?" the doctor asks himself. He presses harder on the accelerator and takes the Ferrari up to 250 mph. Then, up ahead of him, he sees that it's the old man on the Moped! Amazed that the Moped could pass his Ferrari, he gives it more gas. He passes the old man and is feeling pretty good until he looks in his mirror and sees the old man gaining on him AGAIN! Astounded by the speed of this old guy, he floors the gas pedal and takes the Ferrari all the way up to 320 mph. Not ten seconds later, he sees the Moped bearing down on him again! The Ferrari is flat out, and there's nothing he can do! Suddenly, the Moped plows into the back of his Ferrari, demolishing the rear end. The doctor stops and jumps out and, unbelievably, the old man is still alive. He runs up to the banged-up old guy and says, "Are you okay?.... Is there anything I can do for you?" The old man whispers, "Unhook my suspenders from your side mirror."

‘Map of the World’ Egg Laid by Hen in China

‘Map of the World’ Egg Laid by Hen in China

One very interesting and amazing egg has been laid recently by a hen in Zaozhuang City, China.

The egg looks very similar to a world globe. The patterns on the egg show the seven seas and all four oceans, as well as Greenland and Hainan Islands in China.

Motorist plunges over 220ft cliff and survives - and so does his dog

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:58 PM on 15th June 2008

A motorist and his sheepdog had a brush with death when their car careered over a 220ft cliff.

The driver was thrown clear of his Vauxhall Frontera 4x4 as it somersaulted down the cliff and smashed into pieces this morning.

The 42-year-old man ended up buried in undergrowth with both his legs broken. Unable to move, he cried out for help.

MAngled: The wreckage of the Vauxhall Frontera

Luckily, his shouts were heard by the crew of a yacht moored in a bay at Chapman's Pool, near Swanage, Dorset.

Coastguard rescue teams located him by helicopter and winched him to safety.

He is having surgery on his legs and being treated for severe cuts to his face.

The sheepdog was also thrown clear. Astonishingly, it was uninjured and was able to walk up the cliff to a farm where it was found cowering under a table in shock.

A coastguard spokesman said it was a riddle how the motorist drove off the cliff, adding: 'The car went across two fields and a fence to reach the edge.'

Police were not treating the incident as suspicious.

Cliff drama: The scene at Chapman's Pool, where driver and dog were thrown clear of the vehicle (circled)

Postal Service Pinched by Rising Gas Costs

Sunday, June 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — Suburban moms and commuters are not the only ones feeling the bite of rising fuel costs — every time the price of gasoline goes up a penny it costs the U.S. Postal Service $8 million.

"We are definitely feeling the pressure," Deputy Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe told The Associated Press.

Transportation cost the post office $6.5 billion in 2007, $500 million more than the year before.

The post office operates the largest civilian fleet of vehicles in the country — 215,000 motor vehicles — and also faces rising costs for fuel from its contract carriers including truckers and airlines.

It's both a matter or costs and usage, Donahoe explained — looking for ways to reduce costs and change use patterns to reduce the need for fuel.

It's easier for the post office to raise rates than it used to be — the price of sending a letter went up a penny to 42 cents in May.

Another price rise is expected next May, but postage increases are legally limited to the rate of inflation.

That limit does not seem to apply to fuel costs which now top $4-a-gallon (3.8 liters) nationwide.

"We've been looking at this, working on this, for the last couple of years," Donahoe said.

One advantage the post office has is the ability to buy in bulk, so it can get gasoline and diesel fuel at a discount.

Donahoe did not say what prices the agency has been able to negotiate, but even though it is less than retail, it still goes up over time.

Highway transport of mail cost the post office $3.1 billion last year, up 5.8 percent from the year before.

Still, the deals allow the post office to set up bulk storage to supply its vehicles, and it provides special credit cards to long-haul contractors so they can also take advantage of the discount rather than simply passing along their higher costs.

Another step is simply packing the mail more tightly.

If you can cram mail that used to go into four trucks into three, that's one truck that's not burning diesel fuel, Donahoe explained.

"The key is really usage. The best price on a gallon is the gallon not used," he said.

Likewise for airplanes, where more tightly packed mail can take up less cargo space in airline holds or on contract carriers such as FedEx or UPS.

Even so, the cost of air transport of mail jumped 7.9 percent to $3 billion last year, at least partly due to rising fuel costs.

Of the many trucks and cars the agency owns, about 190,000 are those delivery vehicles that roam through American neighborhoods.

Donahoe said the post office is introducing global positioning system technology to streamline delivery routes.

"We're ramping up now just to get more efficient on that line of travel," he said. They expect a savings of about 7 percent along improved routes, not just in fuel costs but also in work hours spent delivering the mail.

And sometimes the old fashioned "tried and true" methods can be brought back to save money.

For example, in cities some letter carriers can walk or takes a bus from the post office to their delivery route rather than driving.

At least in some cases, taking the vehicles out and letting people go back to walking saves more in fuel expenses than it costs in terms of extra time spent, Donahoe said.

In addition, in some warm-weather areas such as Florida, Texas and Southern California, consideration is being given to launching bicycle routes, he said.

"Moving away from a vehicle is also environmentally a good thing to do," he said.

Hydrogen fueled vehicles are also under consideration, he said. The agency is working with General Motors on such a vehicle, which could be tested in California where hydrogen filling stations are being established.

"We think it's an opportunity if the fuel is available," Donahoe said.

Hybrid vehicles also can save fuel, but they may not be best for the Postal Service, he said, because the agency tends to keep its vehicles for a long time. While hybrids save on fuel, if they are kept so long the batteries have to be replaced, and that can be quite expensive, he said.

And transport costs are not the only energy problem. Just like homes and offices, the costs to heat and cool and light the post office's 34,000 facilities across the country are also on the rise.

Sunken British Warship

Sunken British Warship From American Revolution Found in Lake Ontario

Friday, June 13, 2008

Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville

June 13: The decoratively carved scroll bow stem of the sunken 228-year-old British warship HMS Ontario in Lake Ontario.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A 22-gun British warship that sank during the American Revolution and has long been regarded as one of the "Holy Grail" shipwrecks in the Great Lakes has been discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, astonishingly well-preserved in the cold, deep water, explorers announced Friday.

Shipwreck enthusiasts Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville used side-scanning sonar and an unmanned submersible to locate the HMS Ontario, which was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale in 1780.

The 80-foot sloop of war is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes, Scoville and Kennard said.

"To have a Revolutionary War vessel that's practically intact is unbelievable. It's an archaeological miracle," said Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith, who chronicled the history of the HMS Ontario in a 1997 book, "The Legend of the Lake."

The finders of the wreck said they regard it as a war grave and have no plans to raise it or remove any of its artifacts. They said the ship is still considered the property of the British Admiralty.

Although the vessel sits in an area where the water is up to 500 feet deep and cannot be reached by anyone but the most experienced divers, Kennard and Scoville declined to give its exact location, saying only that it was found off the southern shore.

The sloop was discovered resting partially on its side, with two masts extending more than 70 feet above the lake bottom.

"Usually when ships go down in big storms, they get beat up quite a bit. They don't sink nice and square. This went down in a huge storm, and it still managed to stay intact," Scoville said. "There are even two windows that aren't broken. Just going down, the pressure difference, can break the windows. It's a beautiful ship."

Smith, who was shown underwater video of the find, said: "If it wasn't for the zebra mussels, she looks like she only sunk last week."

The dark, cold fresh water acts as a perfect preservative, Smith said. At that depth, there is no light and no oxygen to hasten decomposition, and little marine life to feed on the wood.

The Ontario went down on Oct. 31, 1780, with a garrison of 60 British soldiers, a crew of about 40, mostly Canadians, and possibly about 30 American war prisoners.

The warship had been launched only five months earlier and was used to ferry troops and supplies along upstate New York's frontier. Although it was the biggest British ship on the Great Lakes at the time, it never saw battle, Smith said.

After the ship disappeared, the British conducted a sweeping search but tried to keep the sinking secret from Gen. George Washington's troops because of the blow to the British defenses.

Hatchway gratings, the binnacle, compasses and several hats and blankets drifted ashore the next day. A few days later the ship's sails were found adrift in the lake. In 1781, six bodies from the Ontario were found near Wilson, N.Y. For the next two centuries, there were no other traces of the ship.

Explorers have been searching for the Ontario for decades, and there have been numerous false finds over the years, said Eric Bloomquist, interpretative programs manager at Old Fort Niagara.

Kennard, an electrical engineer who has been diving for nearly 40 years and has found more than 200 wrecks in the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, the Finger Lakes and in the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, began searching for the Ontario 35 years ago but quit after several frustrating and fruitless years.

Six years ago, he teamed up with Scoville, a diver who developed the remote-controlled submersible with students from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Since then, the pair have found seven ships in the lake.

Over the years, Kennard obtained documents from British and Canadian archives on the Ontario, including the ship's design plans. Even then, it took the pair three years of searching more than 200 square miles before they found the vessel earlier this month.

After locating the wreck with the sonar, the explorers used the submersible to confirm their find, documenting their discovery with more than 80 minutes of underwater video.

"Certainly it is one of the earliest discovered shipwrecks, if not the earliest," said Carrie Sowden, archaeological director of the Peachman Lake Erie Shipwreck Research Center of the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermillion, Ohio. "And if it's in the condition they say, it's quite significant."

A rare feature that helped identify the ship: the two crow's nests on each mast. Another was the decoratively carved scroll bow stem. The explorers also found two cannons, two anchors and the ship's bell.

The clincher was the quarter galleries on either side of the stern — a kind of balcony with windows typically placed on the sides of the stern-castle, a high, tower-like structure at the back of a ship that housed the officers' quarters.

Kennard said he and his partner have gathered enough video that it will not be necessary to return to the site. He added that they hope to make a documentary about the discovery.

There are an estimated 4,700 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, including about 500 on Lake Ontario.

Time for a Quick Round of Golf?

Time for a Quick Round of Golf?

An interesting new trend is taking South Korea by storm. Golfers who want to play golf, but are too busy or do not have the space have begun playing indoor courses.

Indoor simulated golf allows players to tee off from Pebble Beach in California, St. Andrews in Scotland, and other world famous courses, without ever having to leave South Korea.

“Six p.m. to midnight is the peak. But some patrons play until 5 a.m. This is quite addictive,” Kwon said. “But it’s also good exercise, because you swing real clubs and hit real balls. Here you can play your golf anytime, rain or snow, day or night.”

The sheer pace at which simulated indoor golf is growing in Asia is amazing. It is being reported as the fastest growing technology since the Internet, with active users tripling each year.

Personally I am more of a football man, so watch out mum - I am about to break some furniture if this keeps up.