I changed the translator I have available on this blog.  I am now using Google Translate which can translate these pages into more than fifty languages instead of the eight that was available with Babblefish. If you wish to use it, or just try it out, you have to go directly to the blog (not through a news reader) and you will find it about halfway down the sidebar.

Does anyone remember that Halloween used to be a religious day?  It was called All Souls Day and a small number of people still celebrate it as such.  It is supposed to be a day to pray for the souls of departed friends and relatives  to help them get to Heaven.

A few days ago, I was researching the available online college courses and degrees and I found one that was interesting.  As you probably know, in addition to degrees, many colleges today offer professional certificate programs in which you take just a few courses directly related to the profession to get the certificate.  The UC Berkeley extension offers one called Professional Program in Wine Studies.  Unfortunately, It's not an online program.
Smiley Face 


"People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering." ~  St. Augustine



The mayor of a French town near Paris decided to solve the problem of traffic jams on a highway through the town by making it one-way, thus sending traffic speeding into the next town down the road.  The mayor of that town reacted by making the section of the highway going through his town one-way also — back the other way.  Federal authorities are now trying to solve the dilemma of a highway where the border between the two towns cannot be passed because to do so means going the wrong way.

A man in Florida has spent the last six years creating a giant ball of rubber bands nearly seven feet in diameter.

A man in Somali, who claims to be 112 years old, has thirteen children.  The youngest is eighty year old.  The old man recently got married for the sixth time to a 17 year old woman.  No word on whether he survived the wedding night.