Liviu Bibrescu was born in Poliesti, Romania back in 1930.  His family was deported to a labor camp in Transnistria.  He survived the Holocaust and was repatriated to Communist Romania.  He studied aerospace engineering the at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest graduating in 1952.  Continuing his education, he earned his Ph.D. in fluid mechanics in 1969.From 1979 to 1986 he was a Professor of Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering at Tel Aviv University.  He left for the United States serving as a Professor at Virginia Tech in its Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics where he remained until his death in 2007, he was 76.What you may not know about Liviu is that during the Virginia Tech shooting, he held the door to his lecture hall closed, allowing all but one of his stu... 06/01/2021

Beirne Lay Jr., was born in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia back in 1909.  He attended St. Paul’s School in Concord and Yale University graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1931.  He enlisted in the United States Army in 1932, shortly he began pilot training at Randolph Field, Texas.He earned his pilot’s wings in 1932, commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve at Kelly Field.  He was assigned to the 20th Bombardment Squadron at Langley Field, Virginia.  In 1935, he left active duty but remained a Reserve officer being promoted to 1st lieutenant in 1936.  He worked for The Sportsman Pilot becoming its managing editor.  He returned to active duty just after the outbreak of WWII in 1939.  He was transferred to Headquarters USAAC in Washington, D.C. in early 19... 05/02/2021

George Joseph Laurer III was born in Manhattan, New York back in1925.  As a teenager he contracted polio which he recovered from. While he was in the 11th grade he was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II.  After his discharge he graduated from the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland in 1951.In 1951, he began working for IBM as a junior engineer.  By 1969, he had been promoted for senior engineer/scientist moving to the company’s officer in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.  He held 25 patents and authored 27 published Technical Disclosure Bulletins.  In 1976 he was given the Raleigh Inventor of the Year Award.  He stayed with IBM for 36 years, he died in 2019, he was 94.What you may not know about George is that he developed the Universa... 04/19/2021

Paul Leland Kirk was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado back in 1902.  Sorry I can’t provide any other information except what is coming.  He graduated from Ohio State University with a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry and his Master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh.He continued his education receiving his Ph.D. in biochemistry from UC Berkeley.  In 1929, he worked as a professor of biochemistry at UC Berkeley.  While there he became interested in forensic science.  Law enforcement asked him to do a microscopic examination of a rape victim’s clothing.  With what he found authorities were able to get a conviction.  In 1937, he became the leader of UC Berkeley’s criminology program.  He was asked to join the Manhattan Project working on the process to isolate fissiona... 02/22/2021

Joseph James Kinyoun was born in East Bend, North Carolina back in 1860 to John and Elizabeth.  The family moved to Post Oak, Missouri in 1866.  His father was a general practitioner, Joseph studied medicine with his father’s guidance.  He attended the St. Louis Medical College and Bellevue Medical College graduating with a M.D. in 1882.He completed his postdoctoral studies at the Carnegie Laboratory where he became the first bacteriology student studying cholera.  In 1886, he began his career at Marine Hospital Service at Staten Island as an assistant surgeon.  In 1891, the chief surgeon left placing the 26-year-old Joseph in charge of the nation’s first federal bacteriology laboratory.  Later he was a professor of bacteriology and pathology at George Washington University.  Afterwards... 02/15/2021

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary to Emil and Gertrud.  Her father was a bank manager and her mother was an accomplished pianist. At the age 12 she won a beauty contest in Vienna.  As a child she would take long walks with her father as he explained how various technologies in society functioned.One day, she forged a permission note from her mother and was hired at the age of 16 as a script girl.  By the time he was 18, she was in the movie business.  She married Friedrich when she was 18.  However, Fredrich was a controlling husband, she disguised herself as a maid and fled to Paris.  She arrived in London in 1937.  From there she made her way to Hollywood in 1938.  Her career lasted 28 years.  She died in 2000, she was 85.What you may not know about Hedwig i... 02/03/2021

Barbara Karinska was born Vavara Andreevna Jmousky in Ukraine, back in 1886.  She studied law at the University of Kharkov.  In 1908 she married Alexander, he died the next year, just before the birth of their daughter Irina.  In 1909, she married N.S. Karinsky and the family moved to Moscow.She developed her own form of painting applying pieces of colored silk gauze to photographs and drawings.  Her husband was appointed Attorney General and Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeals for the District of St. Petersburg.  She divorced Karinsky after he moved to America, arriving in 1923.  She moved to New York in 1939, following France and England’s declaration of war on Germany.  She was given a room at the fledgling School of American Ballet in New York City.  She designed costumes for ... 01/11/2021

Elliott Proctor Joslin was born in Oxford, Massachusetts back in 1869.  He was educated at the Leicester Academy, Yale College and Harvard Medical School.  After graduation he opened he medical practice in 1908.  He carried out extensive metabolic balance studies examining fasting and feeding in patients.He especially kept records regarding the benefit of carbohydrate and calorie restricted diets.  Patents were admitted to units at New England Deaconess Hospital, helping to initiate a program to help train nurses to supervise the rigorous diet program.  He died in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1962 he was 92.What you may not know about Elliott is that he was the first doctor to specialize in diabetes and the founder of Joslin Diabetes Center.  It was the world’s first diabetes care facili... 12/29/2020

Michael Johnson was born in Framingham, Massachusetts back around 1723.  He worked as a sailor on a whaler spending much of his time at sea.  He also found work among the docks along the Atlantic seaboard.In 1768, British soldiers were sent to Boston to control growing colonial unrest.  Instead of controlling the Americans, their presence served to further inflame them.  On March 5, 1770 according to reports he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.   For you see Michael Johnson was an alias for Crispus Attucks, the first person killed in the Boston Massacre.  Therefore, he was the first American and an African-American killed in the American Revolution.  It is believed he took the alias because he was an escaped slave according to what I’ve read.Your day is worthwhile when you make ... 12/22/2020

Harold Lloyd Jenkins was born in Friars Point, Mississippi back in 1933.   When he was 10 the family moved to Helena, Arkansas.  His first love was music and his second was baseball.  He received an offer to play with the Philadelphia Phillies after high school, but was drafted into the United States Army.  He served in the Far East, while stationed there he organized a group of fellow soldiers to entertain the men and women.  After being discharged he moved to Memphis where he worked with Sam Philips at Sun Studios.  Deciding his real name wasn’t a catchy one he saw a towns name in Arkansas and one in Texas.  More on that later.  Most of his recordings were with Decca Records (now MCA Records).  He lived for many years in Hendersonville, Tennessee, just north of Nashville.  From 1963-1... 12/14/2020

Barend Coenraad Petrus Jansen was born in Zwolle, Netherlands back in 1884.  In 1904, he enrolled at the University of Amsterdam graduating in 1909 with a degree in chemistry.  After graduation, he became an assistant to Professor G. van Rijnberk at the Physiology Department of Amsterdam University. While he worked for Professor Rijnberk he became interested in biochemistry.  In 1913, he became Doctor of Chemistry at the University of Utrecht.  Later he was the head of the Physiological Chemistry in Amsterdam.  He moved on to be the head of the Department of Pharmacy and Chemistry at the Medical Laboratory in Java.  He died in 1962, he was 78.What you may not know about Barend is that in 1926 he isolated in crystalline form the first vitamin to be obtained in pure form, that vitamin was... 11/24/2020

I’ve been absent from AR a couple of weeks now. Not by choice, but by circumstance and technology challenges...We set out on the road for Missouri on the morning of August 11, 2015 with my 1st wife Bev and her husband of 38 years, Keith. We’ve been good friends forever and share a daughter Tawnya and 3 grandkids Tyffanie, Jake, and Tannyr...That said... :O) ... It was an amazing 5400 mile trip across country and back. We drove a 1998 Dodge 3/4 ton diesel 5 speed manual with a 28 foot trailer. Something I’m not used to doing, but for the most part, it was a blast and I only thought I was going to die 4 or 5 times.Headed east on Interstate 90 near St Regis, Montana, August 11, 2015.The years went by so fast and the kids are grown and now married and the youngest Tannyr is 13 now, and 6 fe... 09/02/2015

FHA Loan Joplin MOIf you're looking to purchase a home in Joplin, Missouri then look no further than the Darren Copeland Mortgage Team of LeaderOne Financial.  Darren and his team at KC Loan Tips are mortgage experts, specializing in home loans from FHA, VA USDA and even conventional loans.  They been in the business for over 12 years and can help you make the right decisions when it comes to buying a home in Joplin, Missouri, especially if you're looking to use and FHA Mortgage.I hope you've already watch the above video and learned some of the great benefits to this mortgage program which was first offered to soldies returning from WWII.  The FHA mortgage program was designed to help these soldiers, by allowing them to pay a smaller down payment in exchange for a small monthly fee and... 04/23/2015

  Trivia 321       I want this to be information one just usually doesn’t hear.  If you have I would like to know if you haven’t all the better you’ve learned something today.  With that being said here is the information for you to consider today.   Not telling my age but when I was knee high to a grasshopper I watched “Wagon Train”, it was a TV series with a young Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood).  The original Star Trek series was advertised as “Wagon Train to the Stars”.  Glad they didn’t keep that title.   Now go out and tell the world of your new found knowledge.  Smile it will make people wonder what you’ve been up to.  Join us tomorrow for another journey into the wonderful world of Wordsmith.  Click on the link below.  Who knows you may learn something along the way and some of the... 09/11/2014

  Trivia 315   I want this to be information one just usually doesn’t hear.  If you have I would like to know if you haven’t all the better you’ve learned something today.  With that being said here is the information for you to consider today.   One more time it seems back in the days a representative in Oklahoma tried to get a law passed by legislating neither party will snore, the toothpaste will be squeezed from the bottom of the tube among other things.   Talking about government intervention.  Who knows we still may be headed in that direction   Now go out and tell the world of your new found knowledge.  Smile it will make people wonder what you’ve been up to.  Join us tomorrow for another journey into the wonderful world of Wordsmith.  Click on the link below.  Who knows you may ... 09/03/2014

  Trivia 310   I want this to be information one just usually doesn’t hear.  If you have I would like to know if you haven’t all the better you’ve learned something today.  With that being said here is the information for you to consider today.   One more thought on food or food products then I’ll move on to something else for a while.  People have long used garlic to repel vampires but it is also effective against two other bloodsuckers.  That being of course mosquitoes and ticks.  Now where did I leave those capsules?    Now go out and tell the world of your new found knowledge.  Smile it will make people wonder what you’ve been up to.  Join us tomorrow for another journey into the wonderful world of Wordsmith.  Click on the link below.  Who knows you may learn something along the way... 08/29/2014

  Trivia 307   I want this to be information one just usually doesn’t hear.  If you have I would like to know if you haven’t all the better you’ve learned something today.  With that being said here is the information for you to consider today.   Here’s one for you history buffs and baseball fans.  Ever hear of Moe Berg?  He was a third-string player.  Why would he go with a top notch team to play in Japan in 1934?  Well he was a spy working with the CIA.  He spoke 15 languages and was parachuted into Yugoslavia to work with the partisans.  During his trip to Japan he filmed locations from a hospital roof and was instrumental in the Doolittle Raid by looking at the film he took.  He was also helpful for several raids on Germany. All in all he was awarded the Medal of Freedom (highest aw... 08/26/2014

  Trivia 304   I want this to be information one just usually doesn’t hear.  If you have I would like to know if you haven’t all the better you’ve learned something today.  With that being said here is the information for you to consider today.   I know it may be a little early to think about it but I believe it is time.  The flu season is just about upon us.  It’s time to start thinking about those flu shots.  Now did you know that the Spanish flu circa (1918-1919) killed between 50-100 million people?  Sad still is that annually in the U.S. about 36,000people die in flu related deaths.  Something that can be treated with a simple injection.    Now go out and tell the world of your new found knowledge.  Smile it will make people wonder what you’ve been up to.  Join us tomorrow for anot... 08/23/2014

  302       I want this to be information one just usually doesn’t hear.  If you have I would like to know if you haven’t all the better you’ve learned something today.  With that being said here is the information for you to consider today.   I found a sexual trivia section today.  Trying to pick one out and write about it without getting banned from the Rain was difficult and downright impossible.  So therefore today’s trivia is a big fat nothing. Thanks for stopping by we’ll resume our journey tomorrow. :)   Now go out and tell the world of your new found knowledge.  Smile it will make people wonder what you’ve been up to.  Join us tomorrow for another journey into the wonderful world of Wordsmith.  Click on the link below.  Who knows you may learn something along the way and some of... 08/21/2014

  Trivia 296       I want this to be information one just usually doesn’t hear.  If you have I would like to know if you haven’t all the better you’ve learned something today.  With that being said here is the information for you to consider today.   We all know women have the right to vote but do you know which State gave them that right?  It was Wyoming they also had the first female governor elected in 1924.    Now go out and tell the world of your new found knowledge.  Smile it will make people wonder what you’ve been up to.  Join us tomorrow for another journey into the wonderful world of Wordsmith.  Click on the link below.  Who knows you may learn something along the way and some of the words may even bring a smile to your face.      08/15/2014