Time for a Benefits Checkup

The National Council on Aging wants to be sure you are receiving all the benefits you are entitled to--if you are over 55. They've developed the Benefits Checkup site for that purpose.

"BenefitsCheckUp helps thousands every day to find programs for people ages 55 and over that may pay for some of their costs of prescription drugs, health care, utilities, and other essential items or services."

There are two checkup surveys. The Benefits Checkup (10-15 minutes to fill out) will check to see what financial, health, and prescription benefits you may have available. The Benefits Checkup RX (5-7 minutes to fill out) focuses primarily on prescription savings

Archeoastronomers

What? These are folks who study the astronomy of ancient cultures. It appears that at the Chaco Canyon an early group were most observant skywatchers. Furthermore they left records of sorts. If you are fascinated by the ancients interpretation and knowledge of the heavens visit the Chaco Canyon Observatory website.

Public Transportation in Chicago--Schedules

The Chicago Train Schedule and Map is something every Chicagoan should have in their favorites list. All Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train routes are mapped and timetables are available. A link at the bottom of the map will allow you to find schedules for the bus routes as well. If you use public transportation in Chicago, you need to use this site.

Who's Craig and What Kind of List Does He Have?

Are you looking for a job in the San Francisco Bay area? A drummer for your band in Chicago? Maybe you need computer service in Austin. It's all here at Craigslist. Started by Craig Newmark in 1995, the list has grown from covering only the San Francisco Bay area to other cities around the United States. The site is non-commercial and plain vanilla but packs quite an information punch.

Food Definitions

Did you ever wonder just how much is a dash? Or a pinch? Or maybe what is a Ganache? Well, thanks to the folks at Crisco you can find out about all these cooking terms and more at the Crisco Cooking Terms website.

Never Forget

The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names "...undertook to retrieve the names of the Jewish victims and to preserve their memory." The site contains information on nearly three million of the six million Jews killed during World War II. It is a work in progress and continues to grow.

Turkeys, Turkeys, and More Turkeys

Here are some recipes that focus on the holiday bird of choice. Along with recipes some of the sites have additional information on thawing, preparing, carving and more. May all readers of this blog have a pleasant and safe Thanksgiving.

Butterball--All sorts of helpful tips as well as recipes. Stuffing, carving, thawing, roasting, leftover tips, turkey calculator (?).

Hormel Foods--Features a recipe for Holiday Herb Roasted Turkey.

Turkey Frying with LouAna--Emphasis here seems to be on frying Turkey. The emphasis at this site is to fry food using the LouAna Peanut Oils and Marinades.

Turkey the Perfect Protein--Contains a database of over 1,500 turkey recipes.

Opera--Not the Browser

Lots of folks like the musical form known as opera. Some like opera to the extreme. The creator of Home of the Bohemian Opera certainly is one of these. He has created a data base of operas and other classical music that were used in part within major motion pictures. Almost everyone knows the William Tell Overture was used as the Lone Ranger theme both on radio, television and in the movies. Remember the theme (Ravel's Bolero) from "10," or Also Sprach Zarathustra (Ode to the Sun) by Richard Strauss used in 2001: A Space Odyssey? These and over 2,300 musical entries and nearly 1,100 movie titles are listed.

Videos of the Development of Man

The best way to describe the Archaeology Channel is that it is like viewing a window to the past. The site contains links to a collection of archaeological videos. The cultures presented cover a wide range. Videos come from all over the world--Greece, Thailand, Italy, Guatemala, England. They also cover more than a state or two here in the U.S.--Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Arizona, Maine, Ohio, and more. Archeology fans, this sites for you. You'll need to have high resolution graphic capability on your monitor or the images will be less than you might like.

Eye Witness to an American Tragedy

MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) recently aired a one hour program on RadioWorks. It featured recordings of survivors and family members of victims of the 9/11 tragedy. Much of the recorded material comes from witnesses testifying at the 9/11 hearings. Get a first hand view of the terror, bravery, sorrow, and courage of people who were there.

Desperately Seeking Blogs

Finally a Blog Search Engine that works like other search engines. Type in your topic and find blogs discussing what you want to read about. It found my blogs when I performed an appropriate search term. Fast and easy.

The Best of Everything

What a descriptive name for a web site. But it really is the best. There are hundreds of categories and links to resources for each. The Best of everything site contains links to the best: almanacs, dictionaries, computer buying guides, cyberculture, fashion, genealogy, and dozens and dozens more.

What's the Weather Like At Your End?

Check the weather in your part of the country or maybe to your travel destination site. Five day forecasts and lots of maps are available from Anything Weather. Enter the zip code for the area you want to check. Anything Weather will present you with weather stations in the area. Pick the site closest to you and you have highs, lows, dew points, humidity, barometric pressure, everything.

How Do They Make...?

How do they make jelly beans? How do they make airplanes? Everyday we use common items. Seldom do we think about the fact that somebody or some company had to manufacture that item. But how do they do it. How Everyday Things Are Made attempts to answer that question. Through the use of about 4 hours of manufacturing videos the site allows both children and adults to see how things are made from jelly beans to glass bottles to airplanes.

Who Made America?

Answer: They Made America.

In their own words: "American history is filled with the stories of influential innovators, whose ideas and entrepreneurial spirit gave birth to commercial milestones like the steamboat and cultural touchstones like the Barbie doll. Twelve of these individuals are profiled..." This site is based on the PBS (WTTW) They Made America series from the producers of American Experience.

Lost and Found Around the World

Are you the victim of absent mindedness? Have you ever lost your laptop, PDA, or cell phone? Maybe you set it down, got distracted, and forgot it. Maybe it fell out of your purse or pocket. At StuffBack they provide some very impressive statistics on this topic. In many independent test, several made by the media, somewhere between 60% and 85% of items purposely "lost" were returned to the owner. The cost of labels, shipping & handling, and reward fees are more than reasonable.

More than Just a Catalog

Most folks think of Sears as being the first of the catalog stores. But it was much more. It took marketing to new heights--or lows--depending on your point of view. At the Sears Archives you can view catalogs and product lines, read about the history of Sears, view a timeline of the companies developments and changes.

You can even view photographs of the Sears homes. That's right. Sears sold homes. Not just home supplies but homes. Sears began supplying home building materials in 1895 and by 1908 they were selling "building plans" featuring 22 different styles. How good were the homes? If you've ever driven around the suburbs of Chicago, there's a strong likelihood you driven right past one or more. Many are still being used today.

The catalog can be a great source of info concerning material costs during the period. Historical fiction writers will love it as a resource.

Food Finder

The other day I was supposed to meet my wife and her mother at a restaurant near my home. The problem was I'd only eaten there once before and I forgot exactly where it was. Restaurantdb to the rescue. With this very thorough and complete online database you can search for specific restaurants by cuisine, area, name, and even include or exclude fast food restaurants. In less than a minute I had the info I needed and made it to the meal on time. If I was totally unfamiliar with the area, I could've had a map.

Plastic Military

Looking at the offices of my colleagues this next site is not that difficult to comprehend. It seems like nearly everyone has some type of plastic soldier or military type on display. It might be a miniature American soldier, Star Wars Trooper, or a Samurai warrior. The Plastic Soldier Review caters to a very special group and focuses on 1:72 scale plastic soldiers. In my college days students and faculty would spend countless hours engaged in refighting historical battles like Gettysburg, or Battle of the Bulge. Later I got into the scene playing Dungeons and Dragons using little lead figures to represent the various fantasy characters. The military miniature collection hobby still exists and is being nurtured by this site.

The Paperback Revolution

While most of us have grown up reading paperback books, they are a relatively new phenomenon in book publishing. It all started when Penguin started publishing papercovered books in 1935. That's less than 100 years ago. To find out more you want to visit the Paperback Revolution for a fascinating history of the huge paperback book market.

Hero Miles

Whether you agree with the government's policies concerning the war in Iraq or not, there are a lot of American young men and women serving their country and in some cases making the supreme sacrifice. These folks need some help. And you might be able to provide it.

If a soldier needs to return to the states for a family emergency, the U.S. will provide transportation to one of three airports in the U.S. Until recently the soldier then had to pay his/her own freight back to his family from there. If a soldier is wounded and is brought to medical facilities in Germany or the United States the families had to pay their own way to visit and care for the wounded. Some of that has changed. This is where you come in. You can donate your frequent flyer miles and they will help not only with transportation but also lodgings for families that need to spend extended time with wounded loved ones. Operation Hero Miles has information about how you can help in this most unique fashion.

What Do We Look Like from There?

We've all seen the moon on a clear night, photos of the earth from orbiting satellites and the moon. But what does the earth look like from Mars? What does Saturn look like from Jupiter? That's what the NASA Solar System Simulator will do for you. You enter what you want to view and where you want to view it from. The simulator does the rest. While it defaults to today's date, that date can be changed so you see the view the way it was or will be on any given date.

Minnesota Genealogy

For those seeking birth certificates of ancestors born in Minnesota from 1900-1907, there now exists a Minnesota Birth Certificate Index. The site assures that more dates will be added to the database as they become available. You're asked for the first and last name, mother's maiden name, year date range, and even county. Right now the database has a small window but it has plans to grow. If the info you want isn't there now, try again in several months.

History=Mystery

This PBS web site, History Detectives, takes a different approach to presenting history. Instead of dry facts and figures about this is what happened at thus and such a time, the History Detectives explore those historical mysteries. Some of the historic mystery investigation include: the bullets that may have killed Bonnie & Clyde, the "Pop" Lloyd Baseball field-named after an African-American in the 1940s, dueling pistols used in the last great duel on U.S. soil. They also have games and quizzes, info on investigative techniques, and classroom references.

Graveyard of the Pacific

Shipwrecks have a mystique all there own. Perhaps because of the mystery associated with the sea. Whatever the reason, at Graveyard of the Pacific, shipwrecks along the western coast of Canada are explored and reported. Having written a magazine article, about a shipwreck in the Great Lakes during the early 1900s, I know the curiosity and the nearly addictive desire to find out more. Since the sight is Canadian that means it is bilingual and can be viewed in English or French. The link here is to the English version.

How Long to Graduation Day?

Bachelor degree graduates' lifetime earnings are roughly 75% higher than those with only a high school diploma. Over 2.5 million students will graduate (includes associate, bachelors, & graduate degrees) from colleges this academic year ending in 2005.

Sounds impressive, doesn't it? But let's look at both sides of the coin. Less than 37% of first time incoming freshman will graduate within four years. Only 63% of four-year college students will earn their degrees within six years.

The Graduation Watch web site provides graduation statistics on hundreds of colleges around the country. Not all colleges are included but a large number. It's all subject index searching (not keyword) so you're definitely stuck with the colleges they provide at the site. If you want information about a college not listed here you might try contacting the recruiting or public information departments of the school.

Cheat Sheet for Google

This is a one-page Google Cheat Sheet that has a collection of some of the more esoteric, seldom used features of Google. There are no long detailed explanations. Just words/operators, meaning, and an example. Take a look at what's here and you might just find the tweak you need to narrow the search from a million down to a hundred.

Free Wi-Fi

Whether you travel around the world, around the country, around the state , or around your city, the Wi-Fi Free Spot database should interest you. The site contains "...a listing of Wi-Fi enabled locations that offer Free Wireless High Speed Internet Access." The USA and states come first followed by other countries of the world.

Forgotten No Longer

After Tuesday's election, I wonder if Forgotten Ohio will change its name. The site contains information about buildings, mining sites, deserted and rarely visited spots in the state. Having traveled through the state by car more times than I wanted to, I must confess I haven't seen any of the places listed here. Quite frankly Ohio has always been just a state between me and where I want to go. Maybe next time I'll stop and visit one these forgotten treasures.

Geek Words

A dictionary for the geek community. It's called FOLDOC and stands for Free OnLine Dictionary of Computing. The site originates in Great Britain and has a few peculiar spellings (from American eyes) of common words but is pretty much right-on when it comes to technical computer terms. It is one of the few Internet-based computer dictionaries I've seen that differentiates between Internet and internet (with and without an uppercase first letter). There is a difference and FOLDOC will let you see it.

Dream of Flight

To commemorate the Centennial of Flight, the Library of Congress has created an exhibit depicting the development of flight. From the Wright Brothers to the present. There's a timeline, list of public programs, and an exhibition overview. If you fly (as passenger or pilot) regularly, you'll want to visit the Dream of Flight.

Corporate Name Origins

The Wikipedia is a source of general information on a great number of topics. One spinoff site is a collection of the etymologies (word origins) of company names. Some companies were named after their founders (i.e. Honda from founder Soichiro Honda, Rolls-Royce after founders Charles Stewart Rolls and Frederick Henry Royce), others are acronyms (i.e. Sabre = Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment, Yahoo! = Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle), and others were named just to call them something. So if you ever wondered why a computer company would call itself Apple or a gym shoe company might call itself Nike visit the Wikipedia List of Company Etymologies and find out.

Make Mine a Small

I don't usually list commercial sites here but this one is a little different. Minimus.biz has hundreds of travel size items available. Little mustard packets, individual tea, cocoa, toothpaste and more. This is a great site for the traveler that can't take it all with them--but wants to.

High School Biology for @Home Schooling

The National Institute of Health has put together a teaching package covering Cell Biology. It includes full lesson plans and student activities.

Who Would've Thought?

Not being a smoker I seldom think much about tobacco companies. But at the Guildford Depository near London, England, a most amazing archive is being compiled. It houses somewhere around "...6-7 million pages of internal corporate documents related to British American Tobacco Company..." The collection will continue to grow at roughly 200,000 pages per month until everything is entered. That should be sometime in 2007. You can search this giant archive by subject, document, author, date or date range. What does chocolate or martial arts have to do with tobacco? Type each of these terms in and find hundreds of documents.

Do You Have Roots In Arkansas

For those that might like to check their genealogical roots in Arkansas there is the Arkansas Historical Commissions web site. It has collections of archives, photos, resource links, and more. The site also boasts an Arkansas historical facts page and a link to the Arkansas Black History Advisory Committee.

Parks Going to the Dogs

Wouldn't it be nice to take your favorite pup out to the park and play Frisbee (without a leash) or just let your dog run and jump to his/her heart's content? Well Animal Planet's data base of Dog Parks in the United States brings that idea a little closer to reality. For there are dog parks all over the U.S. There not in every city and town but at least now there is a data base allowing you to find the closest dog park to you.

The Man Who Made Modern America

This is how this site bills itself. It talks about the only non president to appear on United States paper currency--Alexander Hamilton. The New York Historical Society is having a special exhibition through February 28, 2005 and this web site is a result. The site is filled with interesting information about this historical American and how he has influenced the development of our country.

AARP Health Guide

As part of the AARP web site, the AARP Health Guide is filled with health related information of interest to all. The home page has links to generalized areas of information such as Alzheimer's, Osteoporosis, suggestions on how to search for good health care, and find ways to prevent medical errors. To perform keyword searching you have to click onto another page ("quick search AARP Health Guide).