Trivia Tappers

Facts

How Many is One Billion?

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D. A billion days ago no one walked on the earth on two feet.

A History Lesson

Did you know this?

It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square-based pyramid, with one ball on the top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.

Thus a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem--how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling out from under the others.

The solution was a metal plate with sixteen round indentations called, for reasons unknown, a monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make them out of brass--hence, brass monkeys.

Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.

Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And all this time you thought that was just a vulgar expression, didn't you?

(Thanks to Diana and her Aunt Rhonda.)

Tidbits and Trivia

When I initially began writing Runner's Moon, I had originally entitled the series RUINOS MOON. But about midway through Jebaral, I realized people might have difficulty remembering or pronouncing "Ruinos", so I changed it to "Runner's".

Tidbits and Trivia

I thought I'd start a little something new on my blog, and title it Tidbits and Trivia. When I do, I'll tell you a little bit about what's going on with my books, how a story came about, what I included "for fun" in a story, and...well, tidbits and trivia! :D

This time around I want to tell you about my blue kiss picture, which I use as my avatar and icon on all my web places.

You know how the old adage says "one picture is worth a thousand words"? In this case, this picture was the inspiration for an entire book -- HEARTFAST. I couldn't get the expression of love and anticipation on their faces out of my head, so slowly the idea for HF came about. And you can "find" that picture in my story (if you've read the book, you know exactly where it is!)

A thousand words? More like 103,000.