google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, June 28, 2012 Angela Olson Halsted and Doug Peterson

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Jun 28, 2012

Thursday, June 28, 2012 Angela Olson Halsted and Doug Peterson

Theme: Classical Elements, mixed with people...


20A. Tree-hugging actress? : DORIS EARTH DAY. Doris Day is a real classic. So is Earth Day - save the world, plant a tree.

33A. Inner-tubing activist? : ROSA WATER PARKS. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, and became a legend for civil rights. Water parks are ...um, unrelated to civil rights?

40A. Poor-shooting comedy star? : LUCILLE AIR BALL. Lucille Ball was a real air-head, to be sure. An air ball misses the target completely, which is something our next entry would NEVER do!

57. Pontiac-driving basketball player? : LARRY FIRE BIRD. Larry Bird, the ex-Boston Celtics superstar, just announced his retirement as the President of the Pacers. Live long and prosper, my friend! The Fire Bird is a classic car (from the same era as Larry Bird and the Celtics).



Marti here, to take you through the other elements of this puzzle...

Across:

1. Melodramatic "Rats!" : ALAS

5. Rooms with microscopes : LABS

9. Descendant : SCION

14. "There Is Nothin' Like a ___" : DAME. From "South Pacific"

15. 1988 World Series MVP Hershiser : OREL

16. NJ-based supermarket chain : A AND P. "The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company"

17. "Yeah, right" : I BET

18. Life in León : VIDA

19. Subordinate to : UNDER

23. "Entourage" agent Gold : ARI. Never heard of this. "Vapid" description must be why...

24. WWII journalist : PYLE. Gomer? No, ERNIE!

25. Yellow Brick Road accessory : OIL CAN. I'm a bit rusty, can you refresh my memory on this one?

28. Silver Bullet Band leader Bob : SEGER. These guys.

30. Old map inits. : SSR. Real old.. Soviet Socialist Republic

32. "___ we alone?" : ARE

38. Blows away : AWES

39. Ohio-based faucet maker : MOEN. I like their ad. (Ooops, that's Delta's ad that I like!) Moen? Booorring!

46. Campfire remnant : ASH

47. 1994 speed skating gold medalist Jansen : DAN. His sister died from leukemia.

48. Backup crew : B-TEAM

50. Uncommon : SCARCE

53. Nonstick kitchen brand : T-FAL

56. ___ gratias : DEO

60. Trooper on the road : ISUZU

62. Modest attire : MAXI

63. Show you're in : ANTE

64. Ruthless bosses : CAPOS

65. Mötley ___ : CRUE. Music (?) link. 4:42

66. Stalk in the garden : STEM

67. Target competitor : KMART. "Attention Kmart shoppers!"

68. Cranks (up) : AMPS. See 65A...

69. TV brother whose real name was Eric : HOSS. "Bonanza" role played by Dan Blocker.

Down:

1. Brand with a three-stripe logo : ADIDAS. Correctamundo!



2. Peon : LABORER

3. Mapmaker Vespucci : AMERIGO

4. UFO-tracking org. : SETI. Search for Extra Terrestrial Intellignce.

5. ___-dovey : LOVEY

6. Serif-free font : ARIAL. LIKE THIS

7. Physician's prescription : BED REST. (I think I need some right now!)

8. Crate piece : SLAT

9. King Abdullah, for one : SAUDI

10. Grand ___ : CANAL. In Venice. Anyone else been? You either love it or you hate it...

11. Race-sanctioning biggie : INDY CAR. They even have their own web site. Dang'd if I know what it's all about...

12. Homage in verse : ODE

13. "Science Friday" network : NPR. National Public Radio.

21. Urban planner's concern : SPRAWL

22. "Saw" genre : HORROR. I never saw it...

26. Torah container : ARK

27. Nintendos Super ___ : NES. (Nintendo Entertainment System)

29. Morales of "NYPD Blue" : ESAI. This guy.

31. Many-axled roller : SEMI. Why are they called "semis". Are they only half-finished?

34. Masked worker : WELDER. Vague clue. I was looking for a Zorro type...

35. On the Aegean : ASEA. Our obligatory "A" word

36. Zen garden bit : PEBBLE

37. Future RN's course : ANAT.omy

40. Refrain syllables : LAS. meh

41. Pac-12 member : USC. University of Southern California, or University of South Carolina? "Pac" leads me to believe it is the former.

42. Taco Bell menu item : CHALUPA. Looks like heart-attack material, to me.



43. Army base? : ANT FARM

44. Provided a segue for : LED INTO

45. Ophelia's avenger : LAERTES. From "Hamlet"

49. Dial-up hardware : MODEMS

51. Tonsorial tool : RAZOR. From the Latin tōnsōrius, relating to shaving.

52. Pie maker's pride : CRUST. Not mine...you wouldn't want to eat it, trust me!!

54. Bring together, dating-wise : FIX UP

55. Sign before Taurus : ARIES

58. Classic disco hit : YMCA. Oooh, I just couldn't resist...(Makes reading this whole write-up worth it, don't you think???) Our own Lemonade was the FL lawyer for The Village People...is that where you get all you dance moves, lemony??

59. Major party : BASH

60. "That's disgusting!" : ICK

61. Newsman Donaldson : SAM

Answer grid.

That's it for this week. Any questions? E-mail me!

Hugs,
Marti

56 comments:

Lemonade714 said...

Wow a Puzzle Girl and Doug P. offering dissected by our own divine miss m. Happy Thursday all, and thanks for the Village People shout out, but that was sort of a secret as 98% of my entertainment law work was and is with rock and roll bands, like my boys in AXE , who coincidentally toured with Motley Crue.

I felt a definite New England feel with Larry Bird, and Dennis OIL CAN Boyd, a former Red Sox star pitcher; Entourage (bad language warning) which was created by Mark Wahlberg born in Dorchester, also known as Marky Mark . And finally, the last SCION which was the character played by Linda Fiorentino in the movie DOGMA starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, two New England boys. Whewe.

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Fun puzzle today. I totally ignored the theme answers on my first pass through the horizontals and by the time I finished my first pass through the verticals the theme answers were mostly filled in. After that, it was a breeze to go back and fill them the rest of the way in, especially since the theme was pretty obvious by then.

I struggled a bit with the crossing of AANDP and NPR. Wasn't familiar with the former and didn't know that the latter had a show called "Science Friday". Couldn't think of any other "network" that had the initials N_R, however, so it worked out OK.

I learned today that MOEN is based out of Ohio. Given the name, I always assumed they were from outside of the U.S.

Oh -- and I have to object to the cluing for SETI. SETI operates radio telescopes searching distant star systems for any radio signals that would indicate intelligent alien life. As far as I know, they have nothing whatsoever to do with tracking UFOs. And if I'm wrong, I'm sure somebody will soon correct me...

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, Marti and friends. Fun Thursday puzzle. It seemed a tad easier than many Thursdays, but I really liked the theme.

Fun seeing ARE We Alone? and SETI in the same puzzle.

ARI Gold was supposedly based on Rahm Emanuel's Hollywood brother, Ari.

I visited Venice and liked the city, but really liked Padua, which is nearby, much better.

ALAS, I had my second flat tire in two months just last week. In all the years I have been driving, I had never had a flat tire.

I download NPR's Science Friday's on my iPod.

I once worked in a LAB with a microscope with a lineage that dated to Louis Pasteur.

Favorite clue was Stalk in the Garden = STEM.

QOD: The more modest and impractical the kitchen, the more likely one will be invited to stay for a meal. Show me a fancy house with a top-of-the-line gourmet kitchen, and I'll show you a family that eats out a lot. ~ Firoozeh Dumas

Anonymous said...

Nice to "hear from" Puzzle Girl. Good job.

Following Lemonade's lead-in, Orel H. & Lucy were both born in NY.

Mari said...

Good morning all! One day closer to the weekend.

Fun puzzle, once I caught the theme it was smooth sailing.

I'm surprised you didn't link the new controversial Adidas shoes.

I enjoyed the clue for 43D Army Base? ANT FARM.

Learning moment: 51D Tonsorial Tool: RAZOR. I didn't know what tonsorial meant so I looked it up and learned a new word. I wonder how I can use it during the day. Does it work for beauticians too, or just barbers?

DH and I are driving to Louisville, KY tomorrow to attend a movie convention. 5 hours in the car might make me stir crazy. I'll be working on tomorrow's puzzle. Good thing Friday puzzles are usually brain benders.

Have a good one everybody!

Yellowrocks said...

Thanks Puzzle Girl, Doug and Marti for a swell start to my day.

I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I had FIRE and easily added BIRD for the Pontiac, which led to LARRY. Seeing how the theme answers were formed helped move things along quickly.

My favorite was Trooper on the road, ISUZU.

X-words always have AANDP. You never see that in real life. It is A&P.

IMO These days KMART is well below TARGET in quality and service. I stopped shopping at KMART long ago..

Hahtool, your QOD is too true. I had a dear friend who built a home with a state of the art kitchen, of which she was inordinately proud. She didn't use it for fear of messing it up. She and her husband always ate out.

It’s been a busy week. My blog yesterday afternoon disappeared as I was publishing it and I had no time to redo it. Sorry if neglected anyone. I’m out the door again for most of the day.

Yellowrocks (hugs) from Kathy

Lucina said...

Good day, Marti and fellow puzzlers. I love YMCA, thank you for linking it.

Mostly I sashayed through this with only a few bumps on the way. Several unknowns were revealed to me: MOEN is based in Ohio, NPR airs Science Friday and ADIDAS has three stripes!

I really liked army base, ANT FARM.

One major error for me was at LUCILLE not realizing the double L and missing WELDER altogether. I have to say, Marti, that LUCILLE BALL was anything but an AIR head as she was the brains behind DESILU but the character she created, Lucy Ricardo certainly was.

As for OIL CAN in the Wizard of Oz, think of the tin man when it rained. He was so rusty he couldn't move and required OIL.

This was fun, thank you Ms. Halsted and Mr. Peterson.

Have a superb Thursday, everyone!

Husker Gary said...

Well, dopey old me, I missed the classical elements and just got the names with funny inserts on this fun puzzle that had more than I thought! The four elements are big, although brutal, parts of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons.

Musings
-Planting a tree is a big deal here in the state that started Arbor Day.
-Larry Bird is testimony to hard work and determination “gettin’ it done”
-There IS nothing like a dame, but can you even say that in 2012?
-Big song with VIDA
-I’ve never seen SSR sans the U
-We’ve all spent time on the B TEAM, well, maybe not today’s Renaissance woman blogger.
-The state fair always has someone pitching T FAL to an enthralled audience
-I went for ARS gartia artis and wagged the E in dEo/laErtes (Shakespeare and Latin can be from Natickville)
-A MAXI is like a tarp over a Corvette
-Hmmm… I wonder what team wears ADIDAS gear?
-The Grand CANAL had rotting structures in dirty water but still magnificent! Our gondolier was on his cell phone constantly!
-The Japanese pavilion at EPCOT had PEBBLES frozen in a block of ice suspended over a series of large bells. As the ice melted a lovely random sound was produced
-Our YMCA here in Fremont is the second largest in the world and with the addition of a 20,000 sq ft aqua center next year will become the biggest

Husker Gary said...

Pebbles In Ice “sculpture” over various sound producing media. Site has audio and video. Cool!

With an infinite number of pebbles and infinite structures, maybe we’d get Beethoven’s 9th. Nah, it’d probably be more like Motley Crüe.

Abejo said...

Good morning, folks. Thank you, Angela and Doug, for a swell puzzle. Thank you, Marti, for the great write-up.

Thought I had a real problem in the NW, until I realized I had entered AMERIGO in the 2nd column instead of the third. Fixed that and all was well.

Slowly got everything. The themes came easily. LARRY FIREBIRD was my first.

Did not understand 44D. Got with perps.

Did not HOSS was Eric. I watched that show many times as a young person and never picked up on that. Interesting.

To Anon: I think Lucille Ball was born in Celeron, NY, if I remember right. i used to live there and I think I heard that. Near Jamestown.

All is well with this one. Off to the rest of my day. Supposed to be 101 degrees today. we will see how that goes. We really need some rain. It has been a few weeks.

See you tomorrow.

Abejo

HeartRx said...

Lucina, of course you are right about LUCILLE BALL. She certainly had business acumen, as well as a sharp wit. I was thinking of Lucy Ricardo as I was blogging!

Husker G., great sculpture of pebbles in ice. What creativity! Apropos of nothing, here is another creative artist's work. It is done using a single unbroken strand of thread, wound around thousands of nails to produce these portraits.

Irish Miss said...

Good morning:

Vey clever and challenging puzzle, Angela and Doug. Nice expo, Marti.

I had a couple of write-overs but eventually everything fell into place. Like others, enjoyed the clue for ant farm and Isuzu.

Hatoolah, loved the QOD. One of my sisters is a top- notch cook and her kitchen would never be described as state-of-the-art. But her food would be!

Happy Thursday everyone.

Ron Worden said...

Good morning to all and happy Friday eve. thanks to Puzzle Girl and Doug for a really good puzzle. Thanks Marti for your musings. I wish more M.D.'s went with 7D rather than all the pain meds people are addicted to today. Lemon very interesting,but do the village people have to split royalties with the actual Y.M.C.A.?Have a great day to all. RJW.

James said...

It was pure coincidence that just the other day I was showing someone that Reebok is named after an African antelope. While searching I was curious on the other brand Adidas and learned that is the founders name Adi Das.

Another coincidence, yet another hair metal clue, Motley Crue (it would have been interesting had they somehow incorporated the umlaut!) and I learned that Anvil (wiki it) will be playing in Taipei.

Is K-Mart even still around? They were all but gone from my city before I left a year ago.

Bring on Friday!

Cheers

Lucina said...

Forgot to mention how much I loved Venice! In both visits we rode the gondolas and were serenaded by a gorgeous gondolier!

eddyB said...

Miss the other blog.Especially Rex.

Jill off to Asilomar for the weekend.

Brian off to Alameda NAS to test drive the new Jags. One of 50 chosen.

I'm waiting for laser surgery to
remove scare tissue caused by the
Intraocular lens.

On the menu are pork back ribs with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce.

Indycar.com is bookmarked.

Take care. eddy

Sfingi said...

What does it say about you if you get LAERTES but can't finish the SE because you can't get HOSS?

Looked up SSR to see how many things it stood for - and saw the cutest Chevy convertible truck! Never seen by me in real life.

A&P used to be a NYC company. My mother won $500 in the '50s from the store which was in walking distance. There was an Ann Page distribution area near Binghamton that I often passed.

Thought the theme was a bit lame.

Recently, Alan Alda gave a prize to whomever could best explain Fire better than, "It's rapid oxidation." The "Ancients" were so boggled that they thought it was an element.

@James - I've been wishing for an Umlaut at crosses for a long time.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone. Good write-up, as usual, Marti.

Found this one rather tough, but got it eventually. Had trouble in the NE, but finally saw A AND P. Grew up with A&P in the upper Hudson Valley. Sigh. Finally got the theme with LARRY FIREBIRD. Great concept. Don't go to Taco Bell so did not know CHALUPA. But K-MART and ISUZU were easy so it didn't matter. Nice mix of easy and hard fill and cluing. Liked the ANTE clue.

Abejo - 44d - A segue means a change in direction without pause. It is used as a verb or a noun. Thus LED INTO fits the clue. Hope this helps. Funny to see you mention Celeron. I used to do water resources planning in the Jamestown area.

Have a great day.

Jazzbumpa said...

Hi gang -

Just about right for a Thus.

I was thinking "MEH!" on the theme, but totally missed the retro elementary connection. Thanks for the insight, MArti.

With that in place, I say KUDOS!

Thus and Fri are pencil and paper days with Freep home delivery. Nice change from the rest of the on-line week.

Forecast in the high 90's here today, with thunder storms later - though you wouldn't guess so looking at the sky now. Probably will come in time to mess up the park concert.

Cool regards on this warm day!
JzB (as in B-TEAM)

Anonymous said...

Barry G. Your right about SETI
MUFON (mutual ufo network) tracks
UFO's

Jazzbumpa said...

In know SEGUE as a musical term. In context, it means to go from one piece to the next without pause.

The last park concert before July 4 always has a patriotic theme, and the grand finale starts with America the Beautiful and continues with serial SEGUES through John Williams' Olympic Fanfare, the Armed Forces Themes, and God Bless the USA, ending with The Stars and Strips Forever.

They've been doing it this way since long before I started playing with them.

Kellogg Park, Plymouth, MI, 7:30. Stop by if you're in the area. It's a great time and it's free!

After, we go for ice cream.

Cheers!
JzB

Misty said...

Angela, are you really the Puzzle Girl? How nice to run into your and Doug's puzzle! How are the kids? I really loved your blog in the old days!

Marti: fun write up, as always.

Who knew that Hoss was really named Eric? I just learned from a terrific Judy Garland special that all those years of watching 'Bonanza" made me miss her show, which must have been amazing.

Have a great Thursday, everybody!

LaLaLinda said...

Hi All ~~

I really enjoyed this puzzle ... thanks, Angela and Doug. A wonderful write-up, Marti - always such fun to read!

I really made this MUCH more difficult than it actually was. I had so many write-overs - just silly mistakes -- Egad before ALAS, tincan/OILCAN (OK, I was thinking of the Tinman), setup/ FIXUP and I spelled ARIAL wrong - thinking of the movie, I guess, with 'Ariel.'

Well, it all worked out and I really liked the theme idea. As others have mentioned, I missed the four "classic elements" ... even more clever! Favorite was 'Show you're in' / ANTE. Also loved learning that Hoss was ERIC.

Lucina ~ I'm really happy that your eye surgeries went so well. Enjoy your new outlook! :-)

It's really heating up here on the east coast - heading for another heat wave.

Enjoy the day, everyone ~~

Anonymous said...

While the clue is amusing, I doubt that an 'ant farm' has ever been a base for a legion of army ants to go on a raid, and then by definition return. I guess funny but wrong = OK.

Tinbeni said...

PuzzleGirl & Doug P. Thank you for a FUN Thursday.

Marti: Wonderful write-up & links (as always!).

Quite a slog for me today.
Learned about T-FAL.
Fave was the 'Ruthless bosses' CAPOS.
Write-over for 'set-up' to FIX-UP.
The Bonanza where Eric/HOSS was born was shown on TV-Land on Monday.

When this 'Tin-man' received 18" of rain from Debby, it was the Pinch bottle, not an OIL-CAN, that kept him from becoming rusty ...

Cheers to all at Sunset.

Bill G. said...

Happy Thursday! I'm very agreeable on this pretty morning locally. I agree with Barry G. about SETI. They have nothing to do with UFOs as far as I know. And I agree with Gary about MAXIs.

Here's another easy but cute little word puzzle.

For each sentence, change just one letter in one word to reverse the sentence’s meaning. For example, “The guard will not let you through the gate,” you would change the T in “not” to a W for, “The guard will now let you through the gate.”

1) Given the choice of gloves, I prefer these. 2) The poker player decided to hold his cards. 3) In the race, our car was fast. 4) The ocean cruise was everything I’d dreamed. 5) Maybe the investors will spur on the deal. 6) I want to prevent the rap concert. 7) Cook the turkey for another 30 minutes.

Anonymous said...

These/those, hold/fold, fast/last, spur/sour, prevent/present/, cook/cool.

Anonymous said...

Forgot dreamed/dreaded.

CrazyCat said...

So nice to see Puzzle Girl and Doug P together again. Thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle and the theme. Had a few mess ups, but nothing that caused major trouble.

Thanks for your write up Marti.

Husker G 9:21 The Pebbles in Ice sculpture made my dog growl. Weird!

Ol' Man Keith said...

A pleasant puzzle. I finished the theme answers before getting the concept.
Some answers I had marked as tentative (when changing TINMAN to OILCAN, for instance) but they turned out to be right.

dodo said...

Hi, everybody,

A really good one, Angela and Doug. I thought I had it made right up until "LarryRareBird" Which really messed up what I thought was going to be an ACe! It
just wouldn't come after that so I had to go DNF! Otherwise it was a breeze. Marti, I haven'tead your writeup yet, but I hope to get back before night falls! I know it will be another of your 'up' epics!

Bill G. said...

My natick was DEO crossing LAERTES. I guess my classical education is lacking.

Pretty day here. Temperature will get to about 70, just about perfect for me. I can look toward the Pacific and see that it's still under a bank of moisture though it's blue skies over my house. It was pretty enough that I got a full-service car wash and read more of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on my Nook while I was waiting. I'm about a third of the way through and I am still uninvolved with the plot and the characters.

Speaking of plot and characters, I took the recommendation from some of you and recorded a couple of episodes of the new Sherlock Holmes on Masterpiece Theater on PBS. I don't care for it much. Sherlock Holmes is just too arrogant and unappealing for me to care what happens to him. On the other hand, a couple folks mentioned "Suits." That seems enjoyable so far. In order to better understand what is going on, I bought the Pilot on iTunes for the princely sum of $2.99. I liked it and the two more recent episodes I've watched so far.

Marge said...

Hi all,
Hard puzzle for me today, didn't finish. I did read the blogs.

I didn't know A and P stores still existed. They have been gone from here for 25 years. I looked them up and they seem to be only in NY and NJ.
Marge

PK said...

Great puzzles and blogs the last three days, guys! Enjoyed and finished them all. Didn't blog because I was sicker than a dog. Still not wanting food much.

My husband was one of three brothers who the locals called "the Cartwright Brothers" in the heyday of Bonanza. Mine was nicknamed "HOSS". He was a WELDER (among other talents).

I really listened to YMCA today. Do they still have facilities to house young men these days? I think the local one just has a pool and workout equipment.

Maybe they call it a SEMI because the tractor and trailer are each half of the truck.

When I still cooked, my pie CRUST was very good. I used Crisco and milk for the liquid. Family snarfed it up in half the time used to make it.

Lemonade714 said...

I am surprised we have not had a larger turnout of Confidential converts pleased to see puzzle girl and doug p. again. Is it because it is summer and everyone is outside? I hear it is much hotter in most of the nation than hear in sunny SoFla. Well I have a fine time and enjoyed marti's work, time to go.

HeartRx said...

Did you know? Until the '70s, clothing of any kind was strictly prohibited in YMCA pools. Because the filtration systems were not as sophisticated, the lingering detergents in the clothes or the fibers from wool suits were thought to clog up the filters. Then, when women began showing up for swimming, they quickly changed that policy...

Yellowrocks said...

Several times on TV Land I've seen the Bonanza episode where Eric (Hoss) was born. Many times on TV Land they show the same episode of a series two days straight. Sometimes the same episode is shown several times in one month. You would think computer randopmization would solve this.

Tinman, I am sure that after your toast at sunset you are "well oiled" without the need of an oilcan.

We still have a run down K-Mart here . My MIL in the Phila. suburbs had a fairly decent K Mart, not quite up to Target standards , but not too bad.

I buy most of my groceries at A&P, not (A and P). That designation looks weird and only appears in crosswords.

In the final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union officially consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR)
An SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) was just one of the entities within the USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Lucina said...

K-MART no longer has a presence in Scottsdale, but about thirty years ago it was a fairly good place to shop for household items, cleaning supplies, auto accessories and some other items. My daughter had her first job there while in high school and I liked the Martha Stewart products.

Anonymous said...

A vehicle with front and rear sets of wheels is a "trailer", frequently seen behind a farm tractor but sometimes behind a semi in a double set up. The typical tractor-trailer that one sees on the highway consists of the tractor and a "semi-trailer", which has only a rear set of wheels and must rely on the tractor for support in front.

Avg Joe said...

PK, I had to laugh about your comment regarding the Cartwright dubbing. At the coffee shop in my home town, they did a similar thing. Members of the same family (multi-generational, not all brothers) are referred to as "The 3 wise men from the East".

Manac said...

Didn't Sears and K-mart elope a while back? K-Mart kept her maiden name? Sears has some good hand tools but lousy lawn tractors ( sorry CED but I thought it was common knowledge.)

Angela, as a "Confidential convert" as someone put it.. It was great to see your name again.

Manac

windhover said...

Anon @ 5:27,
Here where I live, the equipment you describe is called a wagon. A trailer may have from one to three (or more) axles, but they are all rear of center. If it has front wheels and is steerable, it is a wagon. I realize there are regional differences.
BTW, 102 degrees w/20% humidity today in the Outer Bluegrass. No rain for weeks, and none in the forecast. We're all gonna die. Eventually.

Bill G. said...

Windhover, 20 percent humidity? Isn't that unusual? The summer weather I remember from Virginia, the humidity was usually up to between 70 and 95 percent.

I just got an e-mail from my brother in St. Louis. He said it's 108 at the moment. Geez...

Avg Joe said...

Heartland weather report. 90 at 8:15.last I heard dew point was 75 and heat index was 105.

It's hot! But at least the wind was below 20mph today.

Spitzboov said...

Windhover - That would equate to a Dew Point of about 53º. Seems possible to me if you got some really dry air in there, say, from the NW.

Lucina - BTW I forgot to say how glad I am that your operation went well.

PK said...

Very hot here today, 106! I talked to my farmer yesterday who is worried about my milo crop which was planted recently before a hard rain. The hot weather has baked a crust which may not allow the little plant to come through. Milo is a very hardy plant, but still.... Oh well, I only have 55 acres of it.

Thanks to whoever recommended Dana Stabenow books. I'm now on my third in the Kate series this week. Reading about people slogging around in Alaskan snow seems to keep me cooler (when aided by my AC).

PK said...

His "semi" is what my husband called his truck tractor with two axles/eight wheels and a "fifth wheel" connector for trailers. We had both stock and grain trailers, each with four axles with four wheels on each axle.

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Haven't had time to read the blog yet, but thought I would check in and say thank you for the past two fine puzzles and great write-ups!

Just got home from second half of deep teeth cleaning. Hurt all over!

More later (at some outrageous hour) perhaps. Am watching an old movie with Harvey--Firefox. Things were different 30 years ago. Anyone recall it?

Cheers!

Bea from Fargo said...

We're down from 5 K-Marts to one. I don't believe they were ever a serious threat to Target. The remaining K-Mart is dirty, poorly lit and somehow creepy. Our local Sears is still an anchor store in our largest mall, but the merchandise is poor. The sales staff is only interested in selling Kenmore and selling warranties. There are whole blogs devoted to that warranty thing! Happy Friday to everyone.

Bill G. said...

I've never heard of Firefox. Is that with Clint Eastwood? Is it any good?

CrazyCat said...

Bill G - just got back to Claremont after 4 days in Montecito, CA. I think it is the most perfect weather in the world, but what do I know?

I always knew HOSS as Dan Blocker. He had some friend that lived in our little town, Swarthmore, near Philadelphia.

Bill G. said...

Bea from Fargo, I liked your movie! :>)

I don't know about you but I have hardly ever bought an extended warranty for two reasons. One, I know that the warranty company expects to make money, so on the average, I will lose money. Second, I buy insurance only for things I can't afford to happen; like a home fire or being successfully sued for an automobile accident, etc. Those are big ticket items that I can't afford to pay for. But even if my microwave craps out after the warranty period, I will be unhappy but I can certainly afford to buy a new one.

CrazyCat, I totally agree. I think the weather all along the west coast from San Diego to San Franciso and beyond is perfect for me. Montecito is maybe a very little bit cooler than Manhattan Beach but it's hard to fault the weather anywhere along the coast. Some people like it hotter in the summer but I love the weather here. Of course, I do miss the beautiful fall leaves back east and the occasional snowfall I experienced in Virginia growing up but I sure don't miss the hot, humid summers.

Doug P said...

Thanks for nice writeup today, Marti. And for the record, PuzzleHusband came up with the original theme idea. It was a good one!

fermatprime said...

Yes, Firefox movie is Eastwood. Pretty exciting stuff. Harvey is ex air force. (He's not here that often so we watched on the installment plan.) Imdb lists a whole slew of "goofs", but was fun to watch--a sci-fi element. Great models.

PK--Hint: read D.S in order!

Lucina--happy for you (and will spare you my story).

Anonymous said...

windhover @ June 28, 2012 7:14 PM
Since I raise horses I am aware that a trailer used on the farm is generally known as a wagon. It is still a form of trailer. As an extension to the diecussion I offer the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-trailer

Anonymous said...

Saw Motley last year with my kids. Tried to explain to them that it was as much about the showmanship as the music. It was awesome. awesome close seats for $50 a ticket bought outside 5 mins before show started from Tickethold.com ..If I had the chance to see motley I would want to be more close.