Argentina is the world’s fifth leading producer of wine.
Chile, on the western side of the Andes across the border from Argentina, and with less than a third of Argentina’s land area, is the world’s seventh leading producer of wine. However, a more ancient alcoholic drink of Chile, going back to prehistory, is chicha, a maize beer.
The first consumer protection law ever written was enacted by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria in 1516. It was a purity law limiting barley, hops and water as the ingredients of beer.
Barvaria has the highest mountain in German, the Zugspitze, which is 9,718 feet (or 2,962 meters) above sea level. Three of Germany’s five glaciers are found on the Zugspitze, include the two largest.
Currently, 10 percent of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice, including glaciers, ice caps, and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Glaciers store about 75 percent of the world’s fresh water.
Justin Hartley portrayed Fox Crane on the NBC daytime soap opera Passions from 2002 to 2006. He then played the starring role as Aquaman in a television pilot for The CW titled Aquaman (or Mercy Reef), but it was not picked up as a series. Hartley did a seven-episode run as billionaire Oliver Queen on the CW series Smallville later that year. In 2008, he returned to Smallville as a regular cast member.
Oceania’s Great Barrier Reef has over 900 islands stretching for approximately 1,600 miles. It is roughly half the size of Texas.
Richard Friedman had an early interest in chess, and was chosen at age seven as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous games in Houston, Texas. Reshevsky won all 50 games, but Friedman was, by far, the youngest competitor.
Friedman later went on to become one of Texas’s favorite songs, Kinky Friedman.
The longest game of chess that is theoretically possible is 5,949 moves.
The musical Chess had a checkered (pun intended) history on Broadway. Despite music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA and lyrics by Tim Rice, and songs that were hits before the musical opened (“One Night in Bangkok”, “I Know Him So Well”) as well as 3 years on London’s East End, it ran for only 68 performances on Broadway in 1988.
(I saw a production, not on Broadway, and don’t know why it wasn’t a hit)
A little over 2 minutes into “One Night in Bangkok”, there is a flute solo using a difficult flutter tongue technique similar to that used on many Jethro Tull songs. It was played by a Swedish musician named Bjorn Jason Lindh.
Technically, a flute is any open tube that you blow into to produce sound. Even an empty bottle of Coke is a flute.
The nose flute was a popular courting instrument in old Hawaii. It is made from a single bamboo section. According to Arts and Crafts of Hawai`i by Te Rangi Hiroa, old flutes in the Bishop Museum collection have a hole at the nose area for the breath, and two or three fingering holes. In the three-finger-hole specimen, one fingering hole is placed near the breath hole. Lengths range from 10–21 inches (250–530 mm). Kumu hula Leilehua Yuen, who can play the nose flute while chanting, is one of the few contemporary Hawaiian musicians to perform in this manner.
Bishop California has an annual celebration called Mule days. Mule days is held on the memorial day weekend each year, and celebrate the contributions of mules, and pack mules, that help settle the region by hauling supplies and materials up and over the high sierra Nevada mountains. Mule days is quite unique.
The High Sierra Trail is a hiking trail in Sequoia National Park, California. From the plateau of the Giant Forest at Crescent Meadow, the trail travels 49 miles to the junction with the John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest Trail.
Whorehouse Meadow is a meadow located on the western slope of Steens Mountain southeast of Frenchglen, Oregon, United States. It lies within the Steens Mountain Wilderness. Entrepreneuring women from Vale, Oregon, would set up wood and canvas tents in the meadow to provide services to the sheepherders and cattlemen of the area. The name was changed in the 1960s to “Naughty Girl Meadow” on Bureau of Land Management maps, but in 1981 the old name was restored after public outcry.
Cool. I will be going to Steens Mountain in a couple of weeks to see the wild mustang herds there. I will also be going to…
(In play) The Pillars of Rome, just west of the town of Rome, Oregon are 100-foot high formations that measure about five miles long and two miles wide. The community of Rome in Malheur County received its name from these nearby formations of fossil-bearing clay that look like Roman ruins.
Missed the edit window for this note. I located Whorehouse Meadow, along Steens Mountain Road which I plan to explore. Funny thing is, Whorehouse Meadow is right next to Honeymoon Lake.
gMap: Google Maps
Roman ruins can be found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some of these sites include the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul, Leptis Magna in Libya, Teatro Romano de Mérida in Spain, the Roman Arena in Pula, Croatia, and Hadrian’s Wall in England.
The Roman Baths complex is found in the English city of Bath. The house is a well-preserved Roman site for public bathing. The Roman Baths themselves are below the modern street level. The buildings above street level date from the 19th century.