Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, May 2, 2021
through
Saturday, May 8, 2021
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It’s Saturday, May 8, 2021
Welcome to the 1093rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
The moss display at the hostess station was very pretty.
Al’s Place menu was diverse and interesting
Hamachi at Al’s Place
Wonderful.
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2.0 Commentary
San Jose warm and lovely.
San Francisco cold.
Some Notes of Al’s Place in San Francisco:
Don’t you think that reactions to masks are disconcerting?
In restaurants, staff can’t approach you unless you are wearing a mask.
At least six times during my dinner I had different reactions to being without a mask at the wrong times. The most pleasant, the hostess who laughed with me when she reminded me; the most unpleasant a younger woman who almost chastised me for forgetting.
The restaurant was clean and orderly.
A large kitchen staff: ten or more to prepare dinners for 38 or so people.
Felt good to see how much work they put into their food.
I was alone and had begun a strict diet the morning of my departure to San Fran,
Perverse, perhaps, planning great meals in the face of a diet.
The combination of my diet and being alone meant that I could only manage to eat two ‘small’ plates and a dessert.
The first course was their Hamachi, pictured above.
Wonderful! A large offering of sashimi, the equivalent of ten pieces of sashimi in a Boston Japanese restaurant and as fresh and flavorful as any of them. The potatoes were knockouts. Each had a crust that attractively snapped when crunched and a soft, opulent center. The fava bean/spinach bagna cauda provided a lovely, tasty dressing. The cucumbers were crisp and refreshing.
I didn’t feel those strawberries added anything.
The second course was a green pea curry soup with lime-black cod. A good dish. Worthy of most restaurants. Not worthy of a restaurant with a star.
And the dessert was a not-very-good brownie, etc.
I had three different wines, the equivalent of two glass, ten ounces. All tasting well.
Not a restaurant to rave about.
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3.0 Reading and Writing Events
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti:
We are forming committees to pursue goals we hadn’t the time to get to with the smaller manpower.
3.4 Blog: I publish this blog every day. Have been doing it for more than 1090 days. Still at it.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that
a cat has only nine lives.
~Mark Twain
Chapter 7. The Unknown Nymph, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from my friend Ann re: my inability to get an Uber at 4.15am:
Safe travels - there is a thing on your uber app that you can schedule an uber ride and they get you typically within the 10-minute time frame - I do it all the time. I'm sure you can have someone show you. Really cuts down on the stress. It is on Lyft too.
xoxoxo
Ann Heimlicher
Boston Spot-Lite, Inc.
"The Concierge Specialists"
617-247-0001
visit our website at www.bostonspotlite.com
Blog meister responds: I’ll use it on the return. Thanks, my dear.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
See Al’s Place above.
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Marvin Gaye
Publicity photo of Marvin Gaye in 1973, during recording sessions for the album Let's Get It On at the "Hitsville West" Studio in Los Angeles. Gaye's record label, Motown, distributed the publicity photo in the early to mid-1970s. Scans of original copies can be seen at WorthPoint, Heritage Auctions, and the Detroit Public Library Digital Collections (promoting Gaye's 1976 appearance at the Kool Jazz Festival).
Photograph by Jim Britt, whose other (copyrighted) photos of Gaye from the same session—many of them in full color—can be seen at his website. Originally distributed by Motown Records. - Scan via NYTimes. Retouched by uploader.
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It’s Friday, May 7, 2021
Welcome to the 1092nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Japanese Tea Garden
San Francisco
Asamudra at English Wikipedia
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2.0 Commentary
I woke at 3.30am with a wake-up call from the building’s concierge.
Simultaneously, the alarm on my phone went off and the two kitchen times both sounded.
Without shaving and without making coffee, I dressed, closed my suitcase, my backpack, and hitched my waist pouch.
4.00am ready to call Uber.
Due at airport @ 4 but a domestic flight and all checked in and only 20 minutes away.
Not worried.
Waited 20 minutes w/o a driver picking up.
The concierge dialed every cab company he had a number for.
No one answered.
Clock ticking.
Back to Uber.
A total of 53 minutes after calling Uber I got picked up.
Check in and boarding a little hurried but all ok.
Lauren somehow got passengers and staff to move seating about so she and I sat next to each on the two legs of the trip to San Jose,
So much nicer being beside someone you love.
I paid $16.00 for Internet access on American Airlines.
Really a lifesaver for me.
I got most of this blog done while en route.
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3.0 Reading and Writing Events
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti:
I worked on get the first mailing out to the amalgamated groups, now just the one, our own Memorial to acco and Vanzetti, Inc.
3.4 Blog:
I publish this blog every day. Have been doing it for more than 1092 days.
3.5 Reading Closer: francesca@readingcloser.com
This is the last week of reading for the class.
Visible Man, Ralph Ellison.
A wonderful read although the descriptions of the treatment of black people difficult to take.
3.8 San Francisco via San Jose:
Am in flight as I write!
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because
he was disappointed in the monkey.
~Mark Twain
Autobiographical Dictation (November 24, 1906)
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Lots of hubbub re: melding the two groups.
Blog meister responds: If I finish the blog in time I will work on it.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Tuesday night I enjoyed leftover Chinese Food.
I made a soup with stock that I had in the freezer adding carrot, celery, onion, lettuce, tomato paste, and chicken wings and spare ribs scraped from the bones.
I threw the bones in for added flavor.
Soup was delicious.
After my dinner, I made 8 wraps using up the rest of the duck.
We enjoyed the duck wraps on Wednesday during our flight.
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The Japanese Tea Garden (Japanese: 日本茶園) in San Francisco, California, is a popular feature of Golden Gate Park, originally built as part of a sprawling World's Fair, the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894.
Though many of its attractions are still a part of the garden today, there have been changes throughout the history of the garden that have shaped it into what it is today.
The oldest public Japanese garden in the United States, this complex of many paths, ponds and a teahouse features plants and trees pruned and arranged in a Japanese style. The garden's 3 acres contain sculptures and structures influenced by Buddhist and Shinto religious beliefs, as well as many elements of water and rocks to create a calming landscape designed to slow people down.
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It’s Thursday, May 6, 2021
Welcome to the 1091st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Blue Origin
This is the logo for Blue Origin.
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2.0 Commentary
The meeting with the other group going forward with the installation of a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti was exhilarating.
In the coming days we will meld the personnel into a single working group.
Our combined energies and knowledge and experience augurs well for the success of the project.
On another happy note, I found a little beige jacket I had misplaced.
I actually placed it properly: at my hair stylists store.
And walked out without it.
It was exactly where I had left it and forgotten.
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3.0 Reading and Writing Events
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti:
The meeting to meld the two groups looking to create a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti was an unmitigated success.
We will go forward as one.
3.4 Blog:
I publish this blog every day.
Have been doing it for more than 1090 days.
In the next day or two, and lasting for a week, I’m going to try to codify my travels to San Fran with hotographs and comments.
3.5 Reading Closer:
francesca@readingcloser.com
This is an online workshop teaching and discussing literature and writing classes for middle schoolers through adults. My granddaughter, Francesca Capossela, conceived the idea and teaches the classes. This term I signed on for Modernism and Existentialism.
The final book of this term is Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man and today is the penultimate class.
3.8 San Francisco via San Jose:
Taking advantage of a reduced air fare for an early May trip.
I will take an Uber at 3.45am to American Airlines and be in San Fran mid-aternoon local time.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral?
It is because we are not the person involved.
~Mark Twain
Chapter 9. Tom Practices Sycophancy, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
My daughter texted me that she missed the stories I had been constructing through Storyworth.
Blog meister responds: The scam and the meetings with the Sacco and Vanzetti groups and the planning for the trip to San Fran have garnered all my time. My manuscript has suffered the same fate. I will get back to normal.
Cause that’s where we go when crises and events are in our rear view mirrors.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night I hosted a dinner party for seven to usher in the Zoom meeting with the other Sacco and Vanzetti group.
I bought a bucket of Chinese food that was only decent.
At least it was expensive.
We had fun choosing from many bottles of liquor and a variety of plates.
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Blue Origin Federation, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington.
Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles.
Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president.
Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight,[citation needed] with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company motto is Gradatim Ferociter, Latin for "Step by Step, Ferociously".
Blue Origin is developing a variety of technologies, with a focus on rocket-powered vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL) vehicles for access to suborbital and orbital space. The company's name refers to the blue planet, Earth, as the point of origin.
Initially focused on suborbital spaceflight, the company has designed, built and flown multiple testbeds of its New Shepard vehicle at its facilities in Culberson County, Texas. Developmental test flights of the New Shepard, named after the first American in space Alan Shepard, began in April 2015, and flight testing is ongoing. Blue Origin has moved the date for first passengers back several times, with one recent planned timeframe being 2019 as of September 2018. In the event, it has not yet begun commercial passenger flights, nor announced a firm date for when they would begin.
On nearly every one of the test flights since 2015, the un-crewed vehicle has reached a test altitude of more than 100 kilometers (330,000 ft) and achieved a top speed of more than Mach 3 (3,675 km/h), reaching space above the Karman line, with both the space capsule and its rocket booster successfully soft landing.
Blue Origin moved into the orbital spaceflight technology business in 2014, initially as a rocket engine supplier for others via a contractual agreement to build a new large rocket engine, the BE-4, for major US launch system operator United Launch Alliance (ULA). By 2015, Blue Origin had announced plans to also manufacture and fly its own orbital launch vehicle, known as the New Glenn, from the Florida Space Coast. BE-4 had been expected to complete engine qualification testing by late 2018, but the test program continued into 2019.
In May 2019, Jeff Bezos unveiled Blue Origin's vision for space and also plans for a moon lander known as "Blue Moon", set to be ready by 2024. On 30 April 2020, Blue Origin's National Team, which includes Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper, was awarded $579 million to develop an integrated human landing system as part of NASA's Artemis program to return humans to the Moon.
On Apr 16, 2021, NASA awarded the Artemis moon lander work in full to the rival SpaceX bid.
On April 26, 2021, Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office, citing NASA's failure "...to allow offerors to meaningfully compete for an award when the Agency’s requirements changed due to its undisclosed, perceived shortfall of funding...", as well as the Agency's performance of a "...flawed competitive acquisition in contravention of BAA rules and requirements".
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It’s Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Welcome to the 1090th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
The Cehennemağzı Caves
a cave system of three caves lined side by side, located in the Karadeniz Ereğli district of Zonguldak Province, northern Turkey
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2.0 Commentary
These past ten days have not been regular for me.
The scam that used up so much of my time,
the trip to San Francisco now upon me, and
the important meeting of two groups of advocates of a Sacco and Vanzetti memorial, the meeting testing whether we will cooperate have all colluded to make it difficult, impossible, really, for me to work on my manuscript, to plan the trip to Tuscany, to write for Storyworth.
While writing this I got a call from the storage facility I use: payment invalid.
I explained and we went through the process of changing payment methods.
But I added them to a list that I hadn’t created before: the companies who take automatic payments from me.
Goodness. I forgot. The utilities.
But at least two of the three events are positive.
And even the scam led me to a better grip of my accounts and links.
So smile.
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3.0 Reading and Writing Events
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti:
Only five hours away from our important meeting.
Will report.
My group is going to enjoy some drinks and Chinese feed in advance of the meeting.
Then, seated and separately plugged in, we will zoom into the meeting.
It should be fun.
3.4 Blog:
In a couple of days the Blog will feature more photographs as I begin my trip.
That’s actually how I began the blog some 1090 entries/days ago.
3.8 San Francisco via San Jose:
Been organizing my packing.
Not pressured so enjoying it
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
In the first place God made idiots.
This was for practice.
Then He made School Boards.
~Mark Twain
Chapter LXI, Following the Equator (1897)
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
The mail continues to be filled with communiques from the Sacco and Vanzetti gang.
Blog meister responds: We’ll know tomorrow what direction we will be taking in our pursuit of a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Sunday night I enjoyed a casserole of a variation of a Bolognese Sauce.
Large dice of carrots, onions, garlic, celery, bell pepper, chili pepper, and porchetta, and beef stew meat softened and then braised in white wine, chicken stock, and tomatoes.
I mixed the sauce with rigatoni, added several cheeses and baked it.
Loved it.
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The Cehennemağzı Caves are a cave system of three caves lined side by side, located in the Karadeniz Ereğli district of Zonguldak Province, northern Turkey. One of the caves, which was used as a church in the early Christianity, is a show cave.
The cave system is located in the Uzunmehmet neighborhood of Karadeniz Ereğli, the region known in the Antiquity as the Acheron Valley. The caves are an archaelogical site affiliated with the Ereğli Museum. There are three caves lined up side by side.
The first cave is arranged in two sections. In the first section, the floor is paved with a mosaic of original plants and geometric motifs. There are columns, capitals and oil lamp niches. A small apse was opened on the eastern wall of the second section, and there are steps in front of it. This cave, which is a very old Christian church, was used as a secret place of worship in the first years of Christianity.
The second cave is located on the about 10–12 m (33–39 ft) high slope by the roadside. It is called the Koca Yusuf Cave by the local people. The cave, which is reached by a 3-step vertical staircase through a narrow entrance on the slope, continues into the mountain for 1.5 km (0.93 mi). Since a rock falling from the ceiling closed the road in the 1960s, it can only be reached to a depth of 350 m (1,150 ft). This cave, which is considered to be dug out by humans as seen from the traces of stonemasonry work, covers an area of about 400 m2 (4,300 sq ft), and is supported by two massive pillars.
The third cave is the largest in terms of area. Its floor is covered with groundwater. The manmade cave served as a water source cistern for the first and second caves.
According to the Greek mythology , the Cehennemağzı Mağaraları (for "Hell's Mouth Caves") is the place, where the divine hero Herakles landed in the Land of the Dead to kidnap Cerberus, the hound of Hades, the god of the dead and the king of the underworld. These caves are known to be one of the two most important prophecy centers of antiquity. The other is in the Greek city of Delphi.
The caves were opened to the public as a show cave in 2001. Also a religious tourism destination, the cave is open for visiting between 9-19 hours local time. It is closed on Mondays and weekends. It was reported that a total of 26,853 tourists visited the caves in 2016.[6] In the first six months of 2018, the caves attracted about 13,000 domestic and foreign visitors. The number of visitors in the last five years totaled around 140,000.
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It’s Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Welcome to the 1089th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden being interviewed by Hamid Mir, circa March 1997 – May 1998.
Hamid Mir - http://www.canadafreepress.com/
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2.0 Commentary
Permit me to exhort everyone to join a gym.
Make regular visits to the gym integral to our lives.
Accept that workouts will make us healthier.
Extend our lives.
As for my own workouts, I’m doing well.
I didn’t think I would get back to my pre-pandemic level but I have.
My weight, however, resists my attempts at control, and
keeps edging upwards.
I’m at a loss as to how to go forward.
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3.0 Reading and Writing Events
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti: I’m working on establishing a memorial to two victims of social injustice.
3.2 Conflicted:
Working on a manuscript that I’m recasting in a new format.
Target for completion is July 4th.
Am working on edits proposed by my editor.
Hoping to incorporate them within a week.
3.4 Blog: I publish this blog every day. Have been doing it for more than 1088 days.
3.5 Reading Closer: francesca@readingcloser.com This is an online workshop teaching and discussing literature and writing classes for middle schoolers through adults. My granddaughter, Francesca Capossela, conceived the idea and teaches the classes. This term I signed on for Modernism and Existentialism.
The final book of this term is Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man.
We have two more classes and this session is over.
3.6 Trip to Tuscany
The Tuscany gang is showing great enthusiasm for a Labor Day trip.
Assuming the restaurants and museums in Tuscany are open.
But I’m not reporting on this until after Wednesday’s trip to San Francisco.
3.8 San Francisco via San Jose:
Am packing.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
~Mark Twain
Chapter 8. George'Diary - Continued, The Refuge of the Derelicts (1905)
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
My inbox is swamped with discussions on our upcoming meeting
with a second group with the same goals.
Blog meister responds: I hope we strike the right tone.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Here is a recipe I’ve just created.
It’s a variation of a Bolognese Sauce.
Rigatoni Aromatica
½ cup chicken stock to finish cooking pasta
SMALL DICE:
1 t olive oil
1 TB butter
Render 2oz bits of porchetta to dark brown, 10 minutes
Add and soften, about 7 minutes after pot begins to sizzle, small dice each of:
4 cloves garlic, minced
1oz each:
peas
Bell pepper
Chili pepper
onion
carrot
celery
½ t anchovy paste
1 TB tomato paste
8 oz of chuck roast in large dice
! TB flour
3 TB chicken stock
½ t dried oregano
1 bay leaf
½ t salt, 1 t freshly-ground pepper
Heat first and afterwards add:
½ cup milk
½ cup white wine
½ cup chicken stock
Simmer for 30 minutes
Then add:
olives
2 TB cream
3 TB basil, chopped
3 TB parsley, chopped
Finish cooking the pasta in chicken stock
Cover with sauce and serve.
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Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also rendered Usama bin Ladin, was a founder of the pan-Islamic militant organization al-Qaeda. The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Laden's father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until U.S. pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 and prompted the United States to initiate the War on Terror. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, Bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of U.S. President Barack Obama. Under bin Laden's leadership, the al-Qaeda organization was responsible for, in addition to the September 11 attacks in the United States, many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
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It’s Monday, May 3, 2021
Welcome to the 1088th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Tianhe core stage center
at the clean room of the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site.
中国新闻网
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2.0 Commentary
Is Biden that good?
Thinking: no way he’s going to get $6 trillion dollars,
especially after the latest posted growth in the economy: 6%.
Half what he’s asking for might get passed.
Is half what he really wants?
Or at least, what he’d really be happy with?
The Republicans and moderate Democrats will crow that they kept Biden chained up.
The economy will grow at breakneck speed.
The Democrats will end up with a net gain in the mid-term elections.
Biden will pass the rest of what he wants.
Was this his plan from the get-go?
That good?
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3.0 Reading and Writing Events
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti:
Our group is ready for our Monday night meeting.
All of us must remain cooperative.
3.2 Conflicted:
The scam has brought my work on this to a halt.
Hoping my thoughts are forming.
3.4 Blog:
I publish this blog every day. Have been doing it for more than 1086 days.
3.5 Reading Closer: francesca@readingcloser.com This is an online workshop teaching and discussing literature and writing classes for middle schoolers through adults. My granddaughter, Francesca Capossela, conceived the idea and teaches the classes. This term I signed on for Modernism and Existentialism.
The final book of this term is Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
3.6 Trip to Tuscany
Not reporting on this until after my May trip to San Francisco.
3.8 San Francisco via San Jose:
What is the best way to get from San Jose airport to downtown San Francisco?
That is the next subject of planning my itinerary.
Trip Advisor has a decent idea.
This evening I’ll call the hotel and ask for their ideas.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Life would be infinitely happier if
we could only be born at the age of eighty and
gradually approach eighteen.
~Autobiography with letters by William Lyon Phelps (1939)
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday night I planned to buy an order of Jumbo Shrimp in Lobster Sauce.
I took a trip to W Foods to buy more Watermelon Popsicles of which I’ve grown quite fond.
Only 40 calories.
They seem to have discontinued them.
While there, however, a piece of dry-aged sirloin was waving to me and I bought it.
Decided to saute some onions in butter and smother the steak with them.
I did.
Delicious.
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The Tianhe (Chinese: 天和; pinyin: Tiānhé; lit. 'Harmony of the heavens'), code name TH, or Tianhe Core Module (TCM) is the first module to launch of the Chinese large modular space station. It was launched into orbit on 29 April 2021, as the first launch of the final phase of Tiangong program (Project 921), part of the Chinese space program.
The TCM follows in the footsteps of Salyut, Almaz, Kosmos 557, Skylab, Mir, International Space Station, Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 space stations. It is the first module of a third-generation Chinese modular space station. Other examples of modular station projects include the Soviet/Russian Mir, Russian OPSEK, and the International Space Station. Operations will be controlled from the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center in the People's Republic of China.
In 2018, a fullscale mockup of TCM was publicly presented at China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai. In October 2020, China selected 18 new astronauts ahead of space station construction to participate in the country's space station project.
Functions and systems
The Core Module provides life support and living quarters for three crew members, and provides guidance, navigation, and orientation control for the station. The module also provides the station's power, propulsion, and life support systems. The module consists of three sections: the habitable living quarter, the nonhabitable service section, and a docking hub.
The living quarters will contain a kitchen and toilet, fire control equipment, air processing and control equipment, computers, scientific apparatus, and ground communications equipment. Similar to the MIR Lyappa arm, it will also have a bigger robotic arm, so it can move subsequent modules to different ports of the core module.
Electrical power is provided by two steerable solar power arrays, which use photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity. Energy is stored to power the station when it passes into the Earth's shadow. Tianzhou resupply ships will replenish fuel for the module's propulsion engines for station-keeping, to counter the effects of atmospheric drag.
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It’s Sunday, May 2, 2021
Welcome to the 1087th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Crucifixion by Orcagna, c. 1365
with very elaborate tooling.
Fragments from an altarpiece, in a 19th-century rearrangement.
Orcagna -
This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy
Crucifixion of Jesus
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2.0 Commentary
The repercussions of the scam on my life have been way out of the ordinary.
The time it’s taken from my working day is ridiculous.
I’m playing catch up on so many projects I feel like I’m going to mess everything up.
Not only the scam, of course, but a dinner party for eight, leaving on Wednesday morning for a week in San Francisco, a medical issue not worth discussing, an important meeting re: the Sacco and Vanzetti memorial, and on.
The country is exploding with joy on a quickening return to pre-pandemic normalcy.
Our economy will grow at historical rates.
Let’s not waste this opportunity.
Employers all over the country will be scouring the ranks of the unemployed for employees.
And filling their jobs will get more and more difficult.
$25.00 per hour is the new minimum wage.
Minimum. The least amount necessary to pay the rent of a barely livable apartment in a barely functional school district.
$25.00. A minimum.
Spending trillions of dollars?
Direct them.
$25.00 per hour.
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3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti:
Have just completed my presentation for Monday night’s meeting with another group looking to accomplish the same thing. We’re all hopeful for a connection.
3.2 Conflicted:
I’ve had to give up on the manuscript until I get control of my time.
3.3 Storyworth:
I’ve had to give up on this work until I get control of my time.
3.4 Blog:
I publish this blog every day. Have been doing it for more than 1082 consecutive days.
3.5 Reading Closer:
Just two more weeks of classes.
I’ll stay with it.
3.6 Trip to Tuscany
Not reporting on this until after my May trip to San Francisco.
3.8 San Francisco via San Jose:
Focused on packing.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
To spell correctly is a talent, not an acquirement.
There is some dignity about an acquirement, because it is a product of your own labor.
It is wages earned, whereas to be able to do a thing merely by the grace of God and not by your own effort transfers the distinction to our heavenly home--where possibly it is a matter of pride and satisfaction but it leaves you naked and bankrupt.
~Mark Twain's Autobiography
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Friday night I enjoyed leftover ribs with fried peppers and stuffed artichoke.
To add a refresh, I bought a can of baked beans. I rendered some small cracklings of porchetta and then fried a bit of bell pepper and red onions in the fat. Then added just a bit of chopped tomato before pouring the beans into the pan and permitting the flavors to percolate.
It was very tasty and a welcome enhancement.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Gold ground (both a noun and adjective) or gold-ground (adjective) is a term in art history for a style of images with all or most of the background in a solid gold color. Historically, real gold leaf has normally been used, giving a luxurious appearance. The style has been used in several periods and places, but is especially associated with Byzantine and medieval art in mosaic, illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings, where it was for many centuries the dominant style for some types of images, such as icons. For three-dimensional objects, the term is gilded or gold-plated.
Gold in mosaic began in Roman mosaics around the 1st century AD, and originally was used for details and had no particular religious connotation, but in Early Christian art it came to be regarded as very suitable for representing Christian religious figures, highlighting them against a plain but glistering background that might be read as representing heaven, or a less specific spiritual plane. Full-length figures often stand on more naturalistically colored ground, with the sky in gold, but some are shown fully surrounded by gold. The style could not be used in fresco, but was adapted very successfully for miniatures in manuscripts and the increasingly important portable icons on wood. In all of these the style required a good deal of extra skilled work, but because of the extreme thinness of the gold leaf used, the cost of the gold bullion used was relatively low; lapis lazuli blue seems to have been at least as expensive to use.
Christ and archangels mosaic, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, 7th-century with later restoration
The style remains in use for Eastern Orthodox icons to the present day, but in Western Europe fell from popularity in the Late Middle Ages, as painters developed landscape backgrounds. Gold leaf remained very common on the frames of paintings. There were pockets of revivalist use thereafter, as for example in Gustav Klimt's so-called "Golden period". It was also used in Japanese painting and Tibetan art, and sometimes in Persian miniatures, and at least for borders in Mughal miniatures.
Writing in 1984, Otto Pächt said "the history of the color gold in the Middle Ages forms an important chapter which has yet to be written", a gap which perhaps has still only been partly filled. Apart from large gold backgrounds, another aspect was chrysography or "golden highlighting", the use of gold lines in images to define and highlight features such as the folds of clothing. The term is often extended to include gold lettering and linear ornamentation.
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