The Dagley Dagley Daily

By Janet Dagley Dagley
Covering the world from the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

ISSN 1544-9114

Add this blog to your My Yahoo! page:

Or click here to read our Atom feed:

Support The Dagley Dagley Daily:
Click to contribute

Your choice

Check out our Dagley Dagley Daily souvenir merchandise!

Visit our ONLINE STORE!

The Dagley Dagley Daily
is brought to you by:

Bohemian Hillbillies

Buy our CD
Once Removed
at CDBaby

The Dagley Dagley Daily
ARCHIVES
01/26/2003 - 02/02/2003 02/16/2003 - 02/23/2003 02/23/2003 - 03/02/2003 03/02/2003 - 03/09/2003 03/09/2003 - 03/16/2003 03/16/2003 - 03/23/2003 03/23/2003 - 03/30/2003 03/30/2003 - 04/06/2003 04/06/2003 - 04/13/2003 04/13/2003 - 04/20/2003 04/20/2003 - 04/27/2003 04/27/2003 - 05/04/2003 05/04/2003 - 05/11/2003 05/11/2003 - 05/18/2003 05/18/2003 - 05/25/2003 05/25/2003 - 06/01/2003 06/01/2003 - 06/08/2003 06/08/2003 - 06/15/2003 06/15/2003 - 06/22/2003 06/22/2003 - 06/29/2003 06/29/2003 - 07/06/2003 07/06/2003 - 07/13/2003 07/13/2003 - 07/20/2003 07/20/2003 - 07/27/2003 07/27/2003 - 08/03/2003 08/03/2003 - 08/10/2003 08/17/2003 - 08/24/2003 08/24/2003 - 08/31/2003 08/31/2003 - 09/07/2003 09/07/2003 - 09/14/2003 09/14/2003 - 09/21/2003 09/21/2003 - 09/28/2003 09/28/2003 - 10/05/2003 10/05/2003 - 10/12/2003 10/12/2003 - 10/19/2003 10/19/2003 - 10/26/2003 10/26/2003 - 11/02/2003 11/02/2003 - 11/09/2003 11/09/2003 - 11/16/2003 11/16/2003 - 11/23/2003 11/23/2003 - 11/30/2003 11/30/2003 - 12/07/2003 12/07/2003 - 12/14/2003 12/14/2003 - 12/21/2003 12/21/2003 - 12/28/2003 12/28/2003 - 01/04/2004 01/04/2004 - 01/11/2004 01/11/2004 - 01/18/2004 01/18/2004 - 01/25/2004 01/25/2004 - 02/01/2004 02/01/2004 - 02/08/2004 02/08/2004 - 02/15/2004 02/15/2004 - 02/22/2004 02/22/2004 - 02/29/2004 02/29/2004 - 03/07/2004 03/07/2004 - 03/14/2004 03/14/2004 - 03/21/2004 03/21/2004 - 03/28/2004 03/28/2004 - 04/04/2004 04/04/2004 - 04/11/2004 04/11/2004 - 04/18/2004 04/18/2004 - 04/25/2004 04/25/2004 - 05/02/2004 05/02/2004 - 05/09/2004 05/09/2004 - 05/16/2004 05/16/2004 - 05/23/2004 05/23/2004 - 05/30/2004 05/30/2004 - 06/06/2004 06/06/2004 - 06/13/2004 06/13/2004 - 06/20/2004 06/20/2004 - 06/27/2004 07/04/2004 - 07/11/2004 07/11/2004 - 07/18/2004 07/18/2004 - 07/25/2004 07/25/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 08/08/2004 08/08/2004 - 08/15/2004 08/15/2004 - 08/22/2004 08/22/2004 - 08/29/2004 08/29/2004 - 09/05/2004 09/05/2004 - 09/12/2004 09/12/2004 - 09/19/2004 09/19/2004 - 09/26/2004 09/26/2004 - 10/03/2004 10/03/2004 - 10/10/2004 10/10/2004 - 10/17/2004 10/17/2004 - 10/24/2004 10/24/2004 - 10/31/2004 10/31/2004 - 11/07/2004 11/07/2004 - 11/14/2004 11/14/2004 - 11/21/2004 11/21/2004 - 11/28/2004 11/28/2004 - 12/05/2004 12/05/2004 - 12/12/2004 12/12/2004 - 12/19/2004 12/19/2004 - 12/26/2004 12/26/2004 - 01/02/2005 01/02/2005 - 01/09/2005 01/09/2005 - 01/16/2005 01/16/2005 - 01/23/2005 01/23/2005 - 01/30/2005 01/30/2005 - 02/06/2005 02/06/2005 - 02/13/2005 02/13/2005 - 02/20/2005 02/20/2005 - 02/27/2005 03/20/2005 - 03/27/2005 07/02/2006 - 07/09/2006

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Who Links Here

My blogroll:

My Technorati Profile

Comments: Post a Comment

As you can see from the hit counter below, we’ve already had tens of visitors to this site, some of whom have taken a moment to write us. And some of THOSE are not even relatives.

Frank Hofmann’s photo of the birds of paradise in his front yard inspired my friend Dolores Brandon, author and Executive Director of AIR, to send this haiku, which she wrote while visiting Los Angeles a few years ago:

“California Haiku

Birds of paradise
Anchored in their nests of leaves;
Cars fly the freeways.”

Thanks, Dolores. Very eloquent, such efficient use of language, and I’m sure it will remind Frank of his first visit to the Golden State, even when he’s stuck in traffic on the freeways there these days. Like me, Dolores is a member of the National Writers Union, as is my friend Joe Harkins, who is as good a raconteur as he is a writer, and since he’s been everywhere and done everything, he’s got some great stories to tell. After reading the item I wrote about Virginia Kettering (and the inventions of her father-in-law, Charles Kettering), Joe wrote:

“Your mention of Freon brings back two memories from the same day and place. In the mid-60's I was a regional sales manager to the emerging aerospace industry and computer memory-cores for the leading manufacturer of ultrasonic cleaning machines. As such, we were DuPont's biggest distributor for the liquid version of Freon used in the U/S immersion. I was brought to Wilmington for a training course in the stuff.

The course, presented to four of us, was given jointly by the chief chemist and the marketing manager of that category. Freon is not a single product. It is a collection of many variation of trichloro-trifloro-ethane, a tricky to make hydrocarbon — explosive at certain stages due to the violent potential of pure flourene in combination with pure chlorine — oh and the military chlorine gas is a stage by-product. The chemist told us an astounding story about the discovery of Teflon, the solid polymer form of Freon.

He had taken some pressure tanks (like welders tanks) of Freon out of the laboratory storage room where, unknown to him, they had been through a fortuitous cycle of temperature changes while at the perfect pressure. When he opened the valve to extract some gas, nothing came out. Yet the weight of the tanks indicated they were full. Removing a valve had no effect.

Out of curiosity, he sawed open a tank and found the interior coated with a solid now called Teflon.

Second anecdote. Not told but witnessed.

The marketing guy wanted to demonstrate to us that the liquid form of Freon is more stable and safer to be around than nasty old perchlor and trichlor (more common cleaning solutions in those days) both recognized as insidiously toxic and addictive to alcoholics even then. He had a jar of liquid Freon on his desk — and a box of donuts. As he described the stable properties of Freon, he casually dunked the donut, waved it about as he spoke about its virtues (to let the highly volitile liquid evaporate) and then ate the donut.

They wanted us to repeat the demo when we returned to our customers. I never did. I never went to college but I ain't stupid.

Over the years since then Freon has been recognized as more poisonous than its simpler chlorinated solvent cousins. It works slower but does more damage to just about every organ in the body.”

That’s from Joe Harkins, joe@travelthenet.com

I’m working on some improvements here: a better archive, a search feature, optional automatic notices when the blog is updated so you don’t have to keep visiting all day, and I’ll be posting an mp3 of my WYSO commentary soon also for those who missed the broadcast/webcast. I’ve applied for an ISSN from the Library of Congress, so that this can become a “real” publication, and I’m working on getting The Dagley Dagley Daily listed by the Open Directory Project so that it will turn up on a Google search. But none of that is going to happen today.

Michael took some great new photos of the fish, and we’ll be posting some of those soon also.

posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @6:25 PM

25.2.03