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It's about time.
Our new Best of Pod is Write4801's Riverboats, Steamboats, Sternwheelers, Sidewheelers at http://members.tripod.com/~Write4801/riverboats.html. It's an exhaustive resource on the individual crafts and the people associated with them. Dave has plenty of fun stuff to read and look at whether you're looking for something specific or not. Yeah, how nice it'd be to just be lazily floating down the great Mississip right now, surfing the Web as the heartland landscape passed by.
For a different aspect of transportation history, truck on by http://www.nauticom.net/www/pdi/history2.htm for some trucking history by real truckers. It was put there for truckers but that's the fun of the Web--we can read it, too. And there's nothing they can do about it, except block me on the interstate as I'm trying to make it to an historical conference before the first talk starts.
If you don't care to have any truck with that, stop by Suzanne Visser's history of traffic signs at http://www.euronet.nl/users/tanpopo/traffichis.htm. It'll give you something to think about the next time you're sitting at a stop sign (instead of paying attention to the boring traffic.)
I finally found a fun corporate history at http://www.kraftfoods.com/oscar-mayer/om/history.htm that you may relish. If you can mustard the courage for another slice of transportation history, catch up with http://www.kraftfoods.com/oscar-mayer/wmobile/wm_timac.htm.
What was the deal with that heat wave? I slowed way down and so did my computer. Apparently modern computers aren't meant to operate at over 100�. Every time there's been a blizzard or cold snap or drought or hot spell, our local newspaper columnist pulls out the old weather bureau data, which invariably show that the seeming new record months were actually simply average. She hasn't done that yet for July, as she's off on vacation, but I know what's coming. 'Mean degree-days for July are the same as ever.'
I think we should all complain to the Weather Pod. In fact, that Poderator's name (cyberdudeNC) sounds suspiciously like that of an evil scientist. Perhaps that whole heat wave was simply his attempt to boost the number of participants for his next pod chat. Speaking of chat, the next Historians Pod session will be next Saturday, the 14th, from noon to one Eastern Time.
I oughta look for some advice at the Legal Issues Pod about suing the people behind the heat wave. Hey, that Poderator's name (legalissues) sounds suspicious, too. That's almost as bad as twisting the name of your pod around to come up with a poderator-name, oops. What I should be doing is looking around the Web for old Weather Bureau records to see how this summer compares to 'the hottest summer ever.' That's how my parents refer to the summer I arrived on deck. I wonder if that's relevant.
To put my whining about a little heat into perspective, drop by http://members.tripod.com/~ride157/winter.html to read about the Dutch Hunger Winter. Pod member Kate Jewell alerted me to it three months ago . . . but that heat wave delayed me mentioning it. Hmm, it wasn't hot back in May yet. . . .
Hey look, there's a wool pulling factory at http://davidsr01.home.mindspring.com/. What's that? That's what the link's for.
There's some Liz Phair rock history at http://www.angelfire.com/ca/DontWalk/lizpapercover.html or, as some may word it, her biography. How nice that we've progressed to the point where college papers can be written on rockers. (Perhaps they were in my college days, too, but I wouldn't know; I was in engineering.)
Ian Histor
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