Here’s a list of my top blog posts of this year. A few things this teaches me:
* The # 1 post for the year is a collection of Kyle Duffy’s pictures of the landing of Space Shuttle Endeavour. Great pictures; check them out if you haven’t already.
* What primarily attracts people to MowryJournal … are words. Who knew? I write stuff, and you read. Thank you for your attention!
* Please note that a couple of posts from MrsMowry are in the top 15 … so her quality is complementing my quantity nicely.
* Some of the things I care about don’t get much response (I note none of the Portraits series are in the top 15). As one of my first favorite bands said, “It don’t matter to me…” I’m going to keep writing about the things I’m passionate about. Take what you like, ignore the rest.
I mean, who doesn’t? 
Here are links to the top 15 posts of 2012:
Space Shuttle Endeavour
I am an Eagle Scout
Orange Liqueur Taste Test
My President
BattleShots!
Our University-Obsessed Society
Tequila
John Wooden’s Statue
2012: It’s a Wonderful Year
Black and White
Babies Have It Easy
The Perfect Sunset
Your Family Tree
The Use and Abuse of Facebook
Hawaii’s Botanical Gardens
Any suggestions on what you’d like to see us cover in 2013? Please leave comments, thoughts & suggestions!
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San Francisquito Creek Trail, Santa Clarita, CA
San Francisquito Creek Trail
Oleander is a common poisonous plant. Ugly, deadly. Hate them!
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Love big ideas. Lov’em.
Big ideas require big efforts to achieve them. Check.
Big ideas require lots of time for prep and execution. Check.
Big ideas are extremely gratifying: they are worth the effort and time.
You with me?
I’ve accomplished a few big ideas in my day … I’ve written about losing weight to go backpacking with my boys at Philmont. I’ve written about the 2012 plan. The latest big idea is completing the family photo scrapbooks for each of our four families … and that project will be DONE by December 31.
And I do know one more thing about big ideas … when they’re done, I need another one. I have no time to live in the past. I can only focus on what’s in front of me.
So, what comes next?
- Woodworking … like the projects I didn’t get done for Christmas?
- Re-doing the downstairs ceilings … because the cottage cheese has got to go?
- Landscaping, because I have a growing hatred of wax leaf privets? (love it when puns happen organically) (sometimes I kill me)
- Getting ready for marathon # 9?
I love big ideas … but sometimes it is disappointing that I can’t live without one or more of them in front of me!
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Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865 – 1923)
The 29th President of the United States, 1921 – 1923
AKA: No nicknames found
From: Ohio
College: Ohio Central College
Married to: Florence King
Children: Marshall (a step-son)
Party: Republican
Previous Jobs: journalist, teacher, insurance man, Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, Senator
In His Words: “In the great fulfillment we must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.”
“Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote.”
“Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little.”
“The black man should seek to be, and he should be encouraged to be, the best possible black man and not the best possible imitation of a white man.”
“I don’t know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don’t know where the book is, and maybe I couldn’t read it if I found it.”
Not true: A quote frequently attributed to Harding is not his quote; it was actually an exchange between a journalist and Senator Boies Penrose, 1919:
“I don’t know much about Americanism, but it’s a damn good word with which to carry an election.”
“What is Americanism?” “Damn if I know, but it’s going to be a damn good word with which to carry an election.”
True: Harding married the daughter of his political rival … and his father-in-law disowned the couple, and did not speak to them for 8 years.
Nine years later, his father-in-law secretly bought Harding’s debt and tried to call the loans for immediate payment.
Harding was nominated on the tenth ballot at the Republican Convention, and Mrs. Harding was so startled she accidentally stabbed her husband’s campaign manager with her hat pins.
Harding was the first sitting Senator elected President.
Warren G. Harding was the first president to give a speech over the radio.
Some conspiracy theorists believe Harding was killed, or perhaps the victim of medical malpractice. The truth is we don’t know, and his wife insisted on an immediate autopsy, with the President’s body embalmed and on its way to its final rest within hours.
The Official Portrait: Edmund Hodgson Smart painted the official White House portrait of Harding in June, 1922. Smart was famous for painting world leaders, and also painted Kiing Edward VII of Britain, Marshall Foch of France and Admiral William Sims of the US Navy.
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