Weather ~ Picture of the Day ~ Parking Lots ~ Peanut Butter Bars ~ National Navy Day ~ National American Beer Day ~ National Black Cat Day

  

Good dark 30º morning. 

 

 

Yesterday we had blue sky, fluffy white clouds, and contrails......  we topped at 62º.

 

Picture of the Day...super odd town name!😃

 

 

Interesting about parking............

 

A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surface. In most jurisdictions where cars are the dominant mode of transportation, parking lots are a major feature of cities and suburban areas. Shopping malls, sports stadiums, megachurches and similar venues often have immense parking lots. 

 

Parking lots tend to be sources of water pollution because of their extensive impervious surfaces, and because most have limited or no facilities to control runoff. Many areas today also require minimum landscaping in parking lots to provide shade and help mitigate the extent to which their paved surfaces contribute to heat islands. Many municipalities require minimum numbers of parking spaces for buildings such as stores (by floor area) and apartment complexes (by number of bedrooms). In the United States, each state's Department of Transportation sets the proper ratio for disabled spaces for private business and public parking lots. Modern parking lots use various technologies to enable motorists to pay parking fees, help them find unoccupied spaces and retrieve their vehicles, and improve their parking experiences.

 

Urban planning

The effect of large-scale in-city parking has long been contentious. The replacement of historic structures by garages and lots has led to historical preservation movements in many cities. The massive acreage devoted to parking is widely seen as disruptive to walkable urban fabric, maximizing convenience to each individual building but hampering foot traffic between them. Large paved areas have been called "parking craters", "parking deserts", and similar terms, emphasizing their "depopulated" nature and the barriers they can create to walking movement.

 

Criticism

Due to a recent trend towards more livable and walkable communities, parking minimums (policies requiring each building to have at least a minimum number of parking spaces) have been criticized by both livable streets advocates and developers alike. For a time, the British government recommended that local councils should establish maximum parking standards to discourage car use. American cities such as Washington, DC, are now considering removing parking minimums as a way to add more housing for residents while encouraging the use of public transit. Parking lots designed specifically for bicycle parking are also becoming more prevalent in response to increased environmental and health consciousness. These may include bicycle parking racks and locks, as well as more modern technologies for security and convenience. For instance, a growing number of bicycle parking lots in Tokyo include automated parking systems.

 

Legal issues

United States

 

In the United States, each state's Department of Transportation sets the proper ratio for disabled spaces for private business and public parking lots. Certain circumstances may demand more designated spaces. These reserved spaces are mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines.

 

Modern parking lots use a variety of technologies to help motorists find unoccupied parking spaces using parking guidance and information system, retrieve their vehicles, and improve their experience. This includes adaptive lighting, sensors, indoor positioning system (IPS) and mobile payment options. The Santa Monica Place shopping mall in California has cameras on each stall that can help count the lot occupancy and find lost cars.

 

In outdoor parking lots, GPS can be used to remember the location of a vehicle (some apps saves location automatically when turning off the car when a smartphone breaks communication with a vehicle's Bluetooth connection). In indoor parking lots, one option is to record one's Wi-Fi signature (signal strengths observed for several detectable access points) to remember the location of a vehicle. Another alternative is to use smartphone applications that does inertial dead reckoning, detection of turns made by the car while driving indoor, correlations of travel time between turns, and machine learning algorithms, to infer the rough location of the parked car based on a map or floor plan.

 

Land usage

A parking lot needs fairly large space, around 25 square meters or 270 square feet per parking spot. This means that lots usually need more land area than for corresponding buildings for offices or shops if most employees and visitors arrive by car. This means covering large areas with asphalt.

Services

Some lots have charging stations for battery vehicles. Some regions with especially cold winters provide electricity at most parking spots for engine block heaters, as antifreeze may be inadequate to prevent freezing.

 

 

 

From Mr. Food

 

Peanut butter is a favorite food of kids of all ages, so bake up a batch of these yummy peanut butter bars today. Start with a cake mix, add chunky peanut butter and a couple other ingredients then get ready for the applause!

 

• 1 (16.5-ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1 (10-ounce) package peanut butter chips
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

 

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
    
2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, eggs, peanut butter, and butter; mix well. Press half the mixture onto bottom of an ungreased 9- x 13-inch baking dish. Bake 10 minutes.
    
3. Remove peanut butter base from oven, top with peanut butter chips, and drizzle with sweetened condensed milk. Crumble remaining peanut butter mixture then sprinkle over top. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden.
    
4. Allow to cool completely then cut into bars.

 

****For chocolate peanut butter bars, you can substitute chocolate cake mix for the yellow, or chocolate chips for the peanut butter chips.

 

 

 

Historically this date............

1936 – Mrs Wallis Simpson files for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.

1961 – NASA launches the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.

1962 – Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.

1988 – Ronald Reagan decides to tear down the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow because of Soviet listening devices in the building structure.

2004 – The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years.

 

And births this date include...

1858 – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1919)

  

1920 – Nanette Fabray, American actress (d.2018)

1939 – John Cleese, British actor and writer

1940 – John Gotti, American crime boss (d. 2002)

 

1946 – Carrie Snodgress, American actress (d. 2004)

 

 

 

 

All I know. Nuff said. Have a good Friday. Ciao.

xo Sue Mom Bobo

Navy Day on October 27th salutes all of the military personnel who have served, both past and present, in the United States Navy.

 

The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It’s also one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy currently stands as the largest, most powerful navy in the world, with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage. The service engages over 340,000 personnel on active duty and more than 71,000 in the Navy Reserve.

Navy History

Throughout the Revolutionary War, their importance grew. Today, the United States maintains 40 naval bases across the country, including the world’s largest Naval Station Norfolk, in Norfolk, Virginia.

Below the sea, submarines became a part of the Navy during World War II. While experiments began in the late 1800s and during the Civil War, they did not become a large part of the Navy inventory until World War II. At that point, subs became necessary for surveillance and rescue, even though they were also armed.

With the advent of the airplane, the Navy became vital stations for the Air Force as well. As a result, the Navy modified ships into floating landing strips. Today, joint Naval and Airbases such as Pearl Harbor-Hickam provided necessary fleets of the sea and air defense.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Navy

Between 1922 and 1972, the Navy celebrated its birthday on October 27th in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt’s birth. He elevated the U.S. Navy to a premier fighting force. During his term as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he built up the power and strength of the U.S. Navy. Roosevelt’s pursuit of the naval aircraft advanced the U.S. Navy. As president, Roosevelt was the first president to submerge in a submarine and also the first to fly. His support of the Navy led the former Secretary of the Navy, John F. Lehman, to say, Theodore Roosevelt, “was one of the architects of our modern Navy.”

 

NATIONAL NAVY DAY HISTORY

The Navy League of the United States organized the first Navy Day in 1922. They chose October 27th honoring the birth of President Theodore Roosevelt.

and...........

National American Beer Day raises a glass to the rich American beer making history and those who savor the continued traditions. Pour your favorite pint with millions who enjoy the storied brews across the nation.

U.S. Brewing History

Brewing beer in America begins long before Europeans arrived since Native Americans brewed beer from a variety of ingredients. They used corn, birch sap, and water to ferment their beverage. Then when the first colonists arrived in Virginia, they began combining their brewing traditions with the supplies at hand – that included corn, too. Since then, brewing and brewers became a principal occupation in the colonies. Interestingly, the first white child born in Manhattan grew up to be the first brewer born in America.

Today, the brewery established by David G. Yuengling is the oldest producing brewery in the United States. He established the Eagle Brewery in 1929. Amazingly, the brewery still remains in the family to this day.

Unlike most other breweries of the time, the Eagle Brewery survived Prohibition. In fact, very few survived. Those that did survive tried various legal and illegal tactics. In the Eagle Brewery’s case, they reduced their alcohol content to within the legal limit. They also branched out. Ice cream anyone? Yes, the Yuengling’s started a dairy. Others turned their beer making supplies into other products.  When prohibition lifted, they returned to full-fledged beer making.

Despite these efforts, nearly every brewer existing before prohibition dissolved. Out of just over 1,300 brewers, only about 100 remained after prohibition. Today, we recognize the names of many of those surviving breweries.

The skill of a brewer requires years of practice in the trade. It’s revered even. In Milwaukee, their professional baseball team is named after the brewer. In St. Louis and Denver, the stadiums are named after prominent brewers.

More than 2,100 breweries are manufacturing beer in the United States. They range in size from industry giants to brewpubs and microbreweries.

American Beer Facts

• The U.S. produced 196 million barrels of beer in 2009.
• Americans consume roughly 20 US gallons of beer per capita annually.
• In 2008, the United States ranked sixteenth in the world in per capita consumption. However, total consumption was second only to China.
• After Congress repealed prohibition, the industry consolidated into a small number of large-scale breweries.
• The majority of the new breweries in the U.S. are small breweries and brewpubs. As members of the Brewers Association, they are termed “craft breweries” to differentiate them from the larger and older breweries.
• Larger breweries most commonly produce the American lager.
• However, smaller breweries (many founded in the 1980s) produce a range of styles.
• Beer styles originating in the United States include:
  • American pale ale
  • Pennsylvania porter
  • American IPA
  • steam beer
  • amber ale
  • cream ale
  • Cascadian dark ale

 

 and............

 

Don’t be superstitious on National Black Cat Day! October 27th celebrates the beauty of these sleek creatures. The day also seeks to raise awareness about the low adoption rates for black cats.

This time of year, many black cats may decorate many thresholds for Halloween and windows for spooky decor. However, these felines deserve the love and attention just as much as their tabby equivalents. Old notions have given these furry critters a bad reputation.  The day is about turning that reputation around.

Their black canine counterparts also face similar adoption problems. So, it’s not all about myth and mystery. However, increasing support for the black feline’s plight is the goal of this companion holiday.

NATIONAL BLACK CAT DAY HISTORY

Cats Protection, an animal charity in the United Kingdom, founded National Black Cat Day to raise awareness concerning the lower rates of adoption for black cats.