A - Z of You

Greetings!
Oh boy, did I have an interesting day on Friday. We did a tour of the Markets of Warwick Street. Now this is something I’ve driven past a number of times with my doors locked, windows up and a general feeling of panic, bordering on hysteria, but always intrigued by this other world on my doorstep. So off we went to explore. It consists of 9 different markets (mostly made up of informal traders), including the Bovine Head Market and the Muti Market both of which I found utterly fascinating. For someone who drifts between La Lucia Mall and Gateway, this was like been dropped onto another planet. We had a most excellent knowledgeable guide and were accompanied by someone from the CPF (Community Policing Forum) and TAC (Traders Against Crime) all the way so felt safe and unthreatened the entire 3 hours. It has recently been declared a World Heritage Site so it doesn’t look as though that fancy Mall is going to happen any time soon. It is really well worth a visit, especially if you’re entertaining overseas visitors. Let me know if you’d like me to forward the brochure. I could wax on but that’s not what this newsletter is about.

I’m afraid that those of you who have only produced male sprogs, This Weeks Page is not going to appeal. The A – Z of YOU and it’s all in pink and other girly colours and has sticker words: A Adorable, B Beautiful, C Charming, D Daring, E Exceptional down to Z (which naturally made me think I should do the page of myself but I was put off by the V = Vintage). Then others of you are not going to like it because it only has 4 portrait pics on the page. The idea of course would be to use 4 stunning pictures with some meaningful journaling. I don’t think it has to be necessarily of a young child, I’m going to do it of my 23 year old niece (what! again!).
Now, if you only have testosterone fuelled boys, you could still do the layout, we’d just put co-coordinating squares where the sticker words are and use boy paper.
If you no likee, you can use the opportunity to finish pages or do a past page or just come along and stare blankly at the wall.
I still have to take the pictures for my page (this arvie hopefully) but will get the page off to you asap.

I’ve had a sneak peak of the new range of Art From The Heart papers – again a lovely nice bright range that co-ordinates beautifully with the Fizz Pop/Lemon Twist range, plus a beautiful Autumn range. Then Fab Scraps are about to launch their new range which would be absolutely stunning for heritage. Lovely matching papers with these co-coordinating booklets with tags, phrases, tabs etc. Prepared to be amazed.

Apparently, or so I’ve been told, we will now have the Wednesday evening class on a TUESDAY, alternating with a Thursday. So this Week’s Evening Class will be on Thursday 15th.

That’s about it for this week. What the heck are we going to do when there’s no more soccer to watch? Boo hoo! In the meantime HIP HIP HOLLAND!!
Take care and hope to see you for a bit of scrapping.
Regards
Alison

I’ll end with this piece that will set you thinking……

Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.Be sure to read everything before the final paragraph; your understanding of it will depend on the earlier part of the content.

The US 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 US railroads.Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroadTramways, 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. Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/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. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, 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 fatter, 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. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else!!!!!