July 2013 Archives
How to Brown Meat and Poultry: Tips: Bon Appétit
Why you want a hot skillet, how to tell when it's ready to turn over, and why too crowded a pan will result in "grayed" meat instead of properly browned meat.
Bureau of Land Management: Legal Description and Land Status: A Self-Study Guide
Our rectangular system of legally describing land as fractions of square mile sections in townships and ranges from an initial point.
October 22, 1913, news story on International Dry Farming Congress in Tulsa
El Paso Herald reports on this major international conference that brought delegates and exhibits from 20 nations (including China, Russia, Roumania, and Turkestan) and all the western states. The exhibition grounds were on the east side of N Lewis Ave, between Archer and the Frisco tracks. The central focus of the exhibition's parallelogram shaped campus was the Oklahoma Kaffir Corn Palace. Kaffir Corn is known nowadays as sorghum. I wonder whether the building was decorated with kernels like the famed Corn Palace in Mitchell, S. D.
There's a display ad on the same page for the Sunset Limited, a daily train from El Paso to New Orleans (35 hours away) and New York (75 hours away) with oil-burning locomotives.
An item in the Pipeline & Gas Journal chides Tulsa for their plans to light the conference grounds at night with a pillar of fire generated by a natural gas well, with a pressure sufficient for a 600' high column of gas that, when lit, would be visible for 500 miles around, using 15 million cubic feet of gas per night.
Here's the Tulsa Star's coverage of the conference. And there's also an item on the front page mentioning a special pavilion exclusively for "colored farmers." (The Star was the leading paper for Tulsa's African-American community prior to the 1921 Race Riot.)
The "mother of all demos" -- Engelbart and team demonstrated word processing, shared-screen collaboration, hypertext, dynamic linking -- and introduced the world to the computer mouse. Via Technology Review article, Doug Engelbart's Unfinished Revolution.
The religion of Will Rogers, cowboy entertainer
The religious and educational influences on Will Rogers, who grew up in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, whose mother wanted him to be a preacher, and who was enrolled in and expelled from the Cherokee Female Seminary in Tahlequah.
Very cool and inexpensive hack
When The HR Guy Tells You You're Confusing -- This Happened to Me -- Medium
"I need to apply for a job where they aren't actually looking for anyone, I think. I need to tell someone they need me but hadn't realized it. I need to take them by surprise." A brilliant, outside-the-box solution, nicely told by Julie R. Neidlinger.
Dramatic photos from the Great Depression, many of Oklahoma and the American southwest.
Tillman County Chronicles: County School Districts
In 1930, Tillman County, Oklahoma, had over 50 school districts, and already there had been a round of consolidations. Today the county has only 4 districts.
Swanson County, Oklahoma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Pete Best of Oklahoma's 77 counties, Swanson County (county seat Mountain View) was created in 1910 as the 77th county, formed from the southern part of Kiowa County and the western part of Comanche County to better serve the residents. Within a year, it was gone, by proclamation of the Supreme Court. (A majority of the affected Comanche County residents voted against the change.) Its brief life was marred by violence over the location of the county seat. The new 77th county, Cotton County, was created the following year in a different area out of the southern part of Comanche County. The only lasting change to the map was the transfer of Kiowa County's southernmost township to Tillman County. Maps showing the county are rare; one, published by Cram, is hanging in the upper dining area of the Meers Store.
Downton Abbey meets the Flintstones: England's Abandoned Rock Houses | Messy Nessy Chic
Did these centuries-old houses, built in the rocks near Kinver in Staffordshire, inspire J. R. R. Tolkien's notion of Hobbit holes?
