Amazing pictures of sights all around the world

CHICAGO FROM AFAR

A DESERT OASIS IN LIBYA

THE ALPINISTS

INSIDE THE OLD METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE

TITANIC’S ENGINES UNDERWATER

SUNRISE OVER LONDON’S TOWER BRIDGE

((((((((((OUR SUN ERUPTS))))))))))

SNOWMOBILING THE NORWAY-SWEDEN BORDER

A TINY HERMIT CRAB CLOSE-UP

THE COCONUT OCTOPUS

A CLOUD ILLUMINATED BY LIGHTNING

A TINY RIVER HOUSE IN SERBIA

A SUBMARINE SURFACES THROUGH ARCTIC ICE

A WALL OF FALL

AN AIRPLANE CROSSES THE MOON

LIONESSES AT THE WATERING HOLE

DEATH BEGETS LIFE

MOUNT FUJI FROM ABOVE

THE VENEZUELAN POODLE MOTH

THE PERSEIDS METEOR SHOWER

AN X-RAY OF A STINGRAY

MOTH TRAILS AT NIGHT

JUST A PINCH

EVOLUTION OF THE NEW YORK SKYLINE

AN ELEPHANT MEETS A SEA LION

AN OLYMPIC FULL MOON (now this was a clever idea!)

BASE JUMPING IN RIO

THE BOMBING OF DRESDEN

WHERE THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA MEETS THE SEA

THE CHICAGO SKYLINE FROM INDIANA

LIVING ON THE EDGE

THE MOLOKINI CRATER IN HAWAII

IF JUPITER WAS THE SAME DISTANCE AS THE MOON

A SEAHORSE INSPECTS A DIVER’S WATCH

EVERYBODY WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING

MOUNT RAINIER CASTING A SHADOW ON CLOUDS

The cost of beer….

Image result for pic of beer and airplane

A conversation between a man and woman. Please note that she asks five or six questions which he answered quite simply, but then she is speechless after he ask only one simple question. l bet this happens more often than not:

Woman: Do you drink beer?

Man: Yes

Woman: How many beers a day?

Man: Usually about three

Woman: How much do you pay per beer?

Man: $5.00 which includes a tip (this is where it gets scary!)

Woman: And how long have you been drinking?

Man: About 20 years, I suppose

Woman: So a beer costs $5 and you have three beers a day which puts your spending each month at $450. In one year, it would be approximately  $5400 correct?

Man: Correct

Woman: If in 1 year you spend $5400, not accounting for inflation, the past 20 years puts your spending at $108,000 correct?

Man: Correct

Woman: Do you know that if you didn’t drink so much beer, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 20 years, you could have now bought an airplane?

Man: Do you drink beer?

Woman: No.

Man: Where is your airplane?

*
*

Flying high

Image result for pic of a backpack parachute

There were five people aboard an airplane having engine trouble getting ready to crash, however, there were only four parachutes. Everyone wondered what should be done to determine who should get the parachutes.

One person said that he was the smartest thing that hit the face of the Earth, and that he was too smart to die. So, he took one of the parachutes and jumped out of the aircraft. The second person said that she was too important to die, she had children and a family to take care of, and they depended on her to care for them. So, she took one of the parachutes and jumped out of the aircraft. The third person said that he was too important to die because his family depended on him for survival. He was the head of household and the sole bread winner. So, he took one of the parachutes and jumped out of the aircraft.

Finally, there were only two people left, and one parachute. One person was a 12 year old boy, and the other was a 65 year old man. The old man said, “Well son, I have lived a good life, and you are too young to die, you have a long life ahead of you. So, you take the last parachute. The boy asked, “Why, Sir?” The old man said, “Well, there is only one parachute left.”

The little lad said, “Sir there are really two parachutes left.” The old gentlemen asked, excitedly, “Yeah? How?” “Well,” replied the boy, “you know that guy who thought he was the smartest and greatest thing that hit the face of the Earth? He grabbed my backpack.”

*
*
*

TODAY’S MEMES

 

 

 

 

This is interesting….

Fascinating Stuff . . .

Railroad Tracks 
The U.S. Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
That’s an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used?
Because that’s the way they built them in England,
and English expatriates designed the U.S. Railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.
Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used
for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons have that particular Odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So, who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match
for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome,
they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches
is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
In other words, bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or process, and wonder,
‘What horse’s ass came up with this?’, you may be exactly right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough
to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.
Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad,
you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.
The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger,
but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains
and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.
The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know,
is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.