iamkaym's New Writeups

Blue Moon (person)

2009-12-31T00:45:49Z

When a month has two full moons, the second one is called a blue moon.

This blue moon cycle is 2.72 years, or roughly every third year. This is not at all unusual, but when it happens on New Year's Eve, as it will on December 31, 2009 in the Western Hemisphere, this is a bit rarer as it is a 19-year occurrence. The last such one occurred in 1990, the next one will not be until 2028.

Australia and Asia, being in the Eastern Hemisphere, will not experience it until January 1. On New Year's Eve, with a new decade being introduced, there will also be a partial lunar eclipse. This not be visible in the Western Hemisphere but will be viewed by people in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Chances are the moon viewed on the night of December 31, 2009/January 1, 2010 will not be blue in the meterology sense, but it will qualify for the "Once in a blue moon" title.

www.huffingtonpost.com/wires/2009/12/29/rare
http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon

Alzheimer's (person)

2009-02-27T01:58:07Z

I am coming to terms with my mother's dementia. What began for me as a sad and horrifying acknowledgement has now become an accepted fact of life. I wrote about this back in October. At that time she was still being taken out of bed twice a day for meals and social gatherings.

Since then her physical condition has deteriorated; she is in her hospital bed 24/7. Her attention span these days is too short to follow television; even with all the naps she takes, the days are certainly long for her. Perhaps that is why, with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, the stories she tells me are becoming more and more elaborate.

Like many Alzheimer's patients, she believes she is meeting relatives who have been dead for some time. I visit her daily now; recently every visit has included a long, disjointed narration about my deceased cousin, Buddy. Yesterday's conversation was typical.

Buddy appears several times a week in the nursing home's chapel with a friend.…

Investing in Uncle Sam (idea)

2008-12-11T01:03:19Z

The American public first had the opportunity to loan money to the United States Government in 1776 when private citizens shelled out more than $27 million for government bonds to help finance the American Revolution. This tradition has continued down through the years. By buying bonds, American families have bankrolled not only the cost of various wars but have helped purchase the Louisiana Territory and financed the building of the Panama Canal, as well as many other major acquisitions and public works projects.

Buying savings bonds is an old American tradition. During WWII the workers in defense plants were encouraged to buy bonds with automatic payroll deductions. School children brought nickels to school on "Bond Day". Each nickel purchased a stamp which was pasted into a "bond book". When the book was full, it was exchanged for a savings bond.

The nice thing about these bonds is that they were purchased at a discount; a bond could be purchased for $18.75, held for…

egg for chicken (event)

2008-11-08T01:05:32Z

Working and living as an expatriate in West Africa has its perks and its problems. Sometimes they are one and the same. Not the least among these two-sided blessings is the subject of local servants.

Today Africans can watch television like the rest of the world. Today all members of the global village are aware of the customs and cultures of their fellow villagers. The following true story took place in the days when the Dark Continent was a very different place than it is today. There was no satellite television or telephone, consumable supplies were brought in by freighter rather than by cargo plane, and illiteracy was common among the the older members of the lower and middle income population.

Jacob was our houseboy. He could read, but only very slowly and aloud, with a finger below each word. I once showed him a photo I had taken of him and he didn't understand how he could be on that piece of paper. But he was trustworthy and a hard worker.

…

free port (thing)

2008-11-07T03:58:06Z

A free port is a port of entry for goods shipped into a country. No duty is imposed while the goods are stored in the port. Ships loading and unloading are likewise exempt of duty. Often the goods are there for transhipment only; cargo from Africa being shipped to the Far East, for example, is often transhipped via free ports in Holland.

Hong Kong is one of the earliest and most famous free port. There custom duties are not payable by the end user, which makes the city an attractive place to shop as imported goods are cheaper for the purchaser. Today there are a number of cities in island nations in ocean cruise areas such St. Maarten which are free ports. Shopping bargains are an added inducement for cruise ships to stop in their ports.

Most international airports are also free ports but can be patronized only by outward bound airline passengers. Goods are not sold until after the passenger has passed through custom control, usually in an area called "Duty Free Shopping".

A…

Loophole (thing)

2008-11-06T05:07:39Z

In current English, the word "loophole" is something not quite nice, implying possible exploitation, generally by large corporations or unscrupulous individuals. A way to get around the law while not actually breaking the law, it is based on an ambiguity, a flaw or omission in a set of rules or the text of a contract.

There are tax loopholes which, with the help of a good tax accountant or lawyer, can help the client avoid a sizeable tax liability. Politics and elections, criminal justice and divorce law, all have been manipulated by existent loopholes.

The definition is strictly one of this and the previous century. Prior to that a loophole was a physical entity : a hole in a wall.

First appearing in Middle English during the period of the 12th to the 15th Centuries, a loophole was originally a vertical slit in a wall, often the wall of a fortification such as the tower of a castle. Its purpose was to allow bowmen to discharge arrows at an enemy…