Happy Monday to you and the beginning of a new work week. I hope this day finds you well and refreshed from your weekend.

We just got back in town from visiting my 90-year old parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was a good visit and I was able read “Mary and the Red Shoes: A Haunted Closet Story” to my mom. It was a special time.

Flying back this morning, the pilot noted that the temperature will be cooler today in Dallas than in Minneapolis, which is surprising. Minneapolis was going to 102 F (39 C), while the predicted Dallas high today is 93 F (34 C). Quite a change from when I grew up in Iowa. We would travel to Minnesota to cool down.

What is climate change?

A simple definition may be that climate change is the making and melting of ice.

Although ice, frozen water, takes up more volume than liquid water (ice expands when it freezes) much of the ice on our planet is above the surface of the water or on the land and in the mountains. When this elevated ice melts and enters the oceans, sea levels along the coasts rise. When sea water evaporates and freezes on the mountains, sea levels fall. Rising and falling sea levels are indicators of climate change. When ice melts anywhere on the planet, at the poles or in the mountains, surrounding temperatures go up. When water freezes at those locations, temperatures fall. Rising and falling temperatures are also indicators of climate change.

These cycles of frozen and liquid water suggest that climate change is ice related. As such, the current climate change discussion might be characterized as a debate on what it takes to make or melt global ice.

To resolve this discussion, perhaps the debaters could gather at a local convenience store, say a corner 7-11. Each participant would purchase a cup, add ice and soda, take a sip, hold the filled cup in their warm hands, watch the ice melt and the soda warm, and then take another sip. Adding the ice to the soda is global cooling – when hot, add ice. Holding the soda cup in your hands is global warming – when cold, add heat. Depending on the direction you favor, the solution is to add more ice or hold the cup longer. The soda doesn’t mind. It’s comfortable either way. It’s the transformation of the ice that matters. Control the change in the ice and you control the change in the climate.

Enjoy that cold drink, don’t hold it too long and have a pleasant day.

Grandpa Jim

Happy Friday the 13th!! I hope this special day finds you well, waiting and looking for wonder.

The numbering of the days is complete. From September 15, 1896 to today, Mary and Marie have arrived and are anxious to share their adventures with you. Of course, Jakub and Jim are pretty happy too. Or is it four? Read the story for more.

And I am also anxious. So, here it is, the second Mary story, a bit earlier than scheduled, appearing at 7:36 AM CST, or thereabouts, on your home screen.

May Mary and the Red Shoes bring a smile to your face, a skip to your walk, and happy thoughts to your morning, day, evening and night.

Don’t worry about that Haunted Closet. It’s really not that scary. BANG! What was that sound?

Have a day of wonderment,

Grandpa Jim

A glorious “only 1 more day” to you before Mary appears in her new story!

People are fascinated with numbers. So fascinated, that they sometimes invent them. A hoax circulated on the Internet yesterday that 7 11 2012 was the date in the Back to the Future II (1989) sequel when Marty McFly flew to the future in Dr. Emmett L. Brown’s very souped-up Delorean car/time-machine. All three movies are worth the watch, but if you check that timepiece in the car from Movie 2, the actual date was 10 21 2015.

At this point, I can’t resist a plug for the Sieve of Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes was a Greek mathematician born in 276 BC. He was the third chief librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria. And, he liked to sort, or sieve, things. His sieve of numbers is a way to identify all the prime numbers. A prime number is a number which is only divisible by the number 1 and itself (“1”, as the very first number and the start of it all, is so special that it is considered much more than a prime number). The neat thing about prime numbers is that there is no known equation or formula to calculate them. You have to sort them by brute force (not me, someone on the Internet used the phrase “brute force”), using a procedure, or algorithm, like Eratosthenes’ sieve, as opposed to an equation or formula.

This how Eratosthenes did it and you can too.

You start with a list of numbers (as many as you want, but let’s use 1-100 to start). Cross out 1 because it is not a prime number, next circle 2 (this is the first prime number) and cross out all remaining numbers on the list that can be divided by 2 which are all the even or whole numbers so you are left with only odd numbers (yes, prime numbers are all odd except 2 – one commenter referred to them as “meddlesome troublemakers”), next circle 3 as the second prime number and cross out all remaining numbers that can be divided by 3 (you now have 2 and 3 as prime numbers), the next remaining number not crossed out is 5 so circle it as prime and cross out all numbers divisible by 5 that have not already been crossed out (you now have 2, 3 and 5 as prime numbers), the next number not crossed out is 7 so circle it as prime and knock out all numbers divisible by 7 that haven’t been X’d out yet. At this point, for 1-100, you have beaten out by brute force that 2, 3, 5 & 7 are prime numbers. To find more numbers, you add more numbers in the sequence, say 1-500, and keep going — you can go four more steps and find that 11, 13, 17 and 19 are also primes. Keep going if you want to find all primes, but it will take all time. Don’t worry, there are algorithms on the Internet that have already identified primes quite a way up there.

Whew! At this point, I think you can see that Eratosthenes was a very persistent guy.

Why, primes, you ask? As you have just seen, the simple answer is that they are difficult to find. You can only find a prime in one direction – you can’t back track easily. And, it is difficult to use or manipulate a prime – they are only divisible by one and themselves. So, if you want to hide things and make it difficult to find them, you may be able to hide them in prime numbers and programs or codes that use prime numbers. Also, if you have a lot of computing power and an Eratosthenes persistence, you might be able to use a prime approach to develop a unique way to sort through an incredible jumble of data by using little prime windows to look and move things with similar properties. Don’t tell anyone, but this might be what your Internet search engine just did. Shhhh, now, we don’t want this to get out.

We do want the next Mary story to get out. She should arrive tomorrow morning, right here, in just 1 day – a unique number “1” for a unique lady and her very special story. Don’t miss it.

See you tomorrow,

Grandpa Jim

PS: I love it that my 7 & 17 and Mary’s 13 (for tomorrow’s date) are Eratosthenes prime numbers. All together, the three numbers add to 37, which is another prime number. I view this as a propitious and favorable numerical conjunction or alignment, and I hope you will too.

PPS: And, 7 & 11 from yesterday’s post are also prime numbers, and the granddaughters of those ages heard the first storytold version of tomorrow’s story. It’s getting even better.

Happy 7 10 12 to you!

Numbers are important in our lives. Today’s date, birthdays, anniversaries and other memorable occasions all have associated numbers that become significant to us and cause us to reflect when we see those digits or digital combinations. Many of us have lucky numbers for dates, times and good happenings that we remember.

There are many theories about lucky numbers, mathematical series manipulations and analyses of past, present and future occurrences and thoughts. But, I think most lucky numbers are numbers we like for some reason personal to us, and I think that is the way it should be. So, thank you Eratosthenes, Dante and the rest of you great thinkers, writers and expounders, but I think I will stay with my own number.

717. It was a test score. I remember the day I took the examination. It was a crisp saturday morning with a clear blue fall sky. After I finished the test, I jumped into a car full of friends for a drive to a football weekend in another town. I felt good about that test, which wasn’t always the case; and when the results came in, I felt even better. So, now when I see 7, 17 or 717, I smile and think things are looking pretty good. Oh, by the way, in the rush to take the exam, I forgot my luggage for that football weekend; but it was still a great weekend and it is a great number and numbers.

There are numbers in the next Mary story, and one you will recognize from the last. The new story will post on 7 13 12. So get ready for 7 13 and “Mary and the . . . .” Oops, I almost forgot, I can’t tell you the name of the story until Friday, lucky Friday the 13th.

Keep counting, tracking and remembering each day — they’re all great,

Grandpa Jim

Happy Second Week of July on this Second Monday Morning of this Seventh Month of the Year.

Start preparing. The second Mary Story arrives this Friday at 9 AM. Get ready.

I am getting ready too because I have some finding to do. Editors have questions and questions mean looking for more of the story.

I will tell you a secret. I don’t write the story. I find the story. The story is already there, like a statue inside a piece of marble. To Michelangelo, sculpture was the taking away of chipped pieces of rock to reveal the marble statue that was always inside the block of stone. I am no Michelangelo, but I like his thought of finding things that are right in front of our eyes. He found people in rocks. I find stories in words. The stories are already there. You just have to keep chipping away.

Work at your day – you never know what you may find,

Grandpa Jim