Uncle John’s Briefs (9 page)

Which is bigger: Juneau (Alaska) or Los Angeles? Juneau, at 3,108 sq. mi. (LA is 458 sq. mi.)

WRINKLES IN TIME

Time travel has fascinated scientists and writers for centuries. While the mainstream scientific community continues to research it, some already claim to have done it. Are they brilliant visionaries, or just lunatics?

T
IME TRAVELER:
Father Pellegrino Ernetti
BACKGROUND:
In 2002 Francois Brune, a French priest, wrote
The Vatican’s New Mystery
, a book about how his friend, Ernetti, an Italian priest, invented a machine he called the
chronovisor
in 1952. Housed in a small cabinet (like a TV set) it displayed events from anytime in history on a screen (like a TV set). The user selected where and to what year they wanted to “travel” with a series of dials (like a TV set). Ernetti said it worked by picking up, decoding, and displaying “radiation” left behind by the passage of time. He claims he was helped on the project by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi and Nazi rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun. Ernetti said he used the chronovisor to visit ancient Rome to view and later produce an English translation of
Thyestes
, a Latin play thought to be lost. He also heard Napoleon give a speech in Italy in 1804 and saw Christ die on the cross. So what happened to the chronovisor? Brune says the Catholic Church forced Ernetti to disassemble the machine because of its potential for espionage.

WHAT HAPPENED:
Scientists have never found any evidence that the passage of time leaves a trail of radiation. And the existence of the chronovisor has never been confirmed.

TIME TRAVELER:
John Titor

BACKGROUND:
In 2000 Titor posted messages on Internet paranormal discussion boards claiming he was a soldier from the year 2036 sent back in time to retrieve a computer to fix software bugs on machines of the future. He made more posts, offered pictures of his time machine and its instructional manual, and gave incredibly detailed accounts of world events between 2000 and 2036. For instance, Titor claimed an escalating global war ends in 2015 when Russia drops nuclear bombs on the United States, China, and Europe, instantly dismantling all governments
and killing three billion people. (Millions more die of mad cow disease.) Survivors group into agricultural communes. Despite the bleak post-apocalyptic landscape, technology is well advanced, with wireless Internet providing all phone service, television, and music. Titor achieved a huge following on paranormal websites and talk radio. Many thought he really could be a bona fide time traveler. But a few months later (in March 2001), Titor announced that he had found the computer he needed and he “returned” to the future. He was never heard from again.

WHAT HAPPENED:
“Titor” contradicted himself all over the place, claiming that World War III had destroyed all governments, but also that the U.S. government sent him back in time. Other “predictions” just didn’t pan out. He said a second American civil war would take place from 2004 to 2008, and that the 2004 Olympics were the last ones ever held. Also, when asked how his time machine (a modified 1967 Chevrolet, which somehow survived nuclear annihilation) worked, Titor claimed ignorance, calling himself a hired hand, not an engineer. So who was Titor? Some speculate it was a hoax concocted by the late author Michael Crichton.

Aw, shoot: It's illegal to use a firearm to open a can of food in Indiana.

TIME TRAVELER:
Darren Daulton

BACKGROUND:
Daulton was an all-star catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and Florida Marlins during the 1980s and ’90s. But he’s also an amateur metaphysicist. He claims that a little-known dimension causes all objects on Earth to vibrate slightly, and that only a handful of people, Daulton included, can detect it and use this ability to manipulate objects, the weather…and time. Daulton says that instead of dreaming, he leaves his body every night and travels into the future (but not the past). One event he’s witnessed: the end of the world, which he says will occur on December 21, 2012. However, Daulton has also been arrested several times for drunk driving, charges he says he’s innocent of. “I’ve been thrown in jail five or six times,” he says. “My wife blames everything on drinking. But I’m not a drunk. Nicole just doesn’t understand metaphysics.”

WHAT HAPPENED:
Daulton was a career .245 hitter. If he could manipulate time and objects, one would think he’d be able to give himself a better batting average.

In 2003 New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur took the NHL Stanley Cup to a movie theater and ate popcorn out of it.

(BAD) DREAM HOUSES

Everyone thinks their own horror stories about buying a new home are the worst, but they’re not—these are. Note: Some names have been changed to protect the gullible
.

D
ream House:
In 1998 John and Mary Jones found theirs in South Carolina.

From Bad…
They didn’t get a home inspection before closing. Result: Right after they moved in, problems started. The kitchen sink backed up, the washing machine overflowed, and when the plumber came to fix the leaks, the bathroom floor caved in.

…To Nightmare!
Then the air conditioner stopped working. The repairman figured the system was missing a filter, so he went into the attic to explore. But instead of a filter, he found bats—thousands of them. Even worse, over the years hundreds of gallons of bat guano had soaked into the insulation and wood of the structure, rendering the home a health hazard and completely uninhabitable. (Mary Jones developed a rare disease due to exposure from bat guano.)

Dream House:
Bill Barnes of southern Maryland was trying to sell his house. Ari Ozman, who claimed to be a traveling salesman who was moving his family into the area, didn’t want to buy—he wanted to rent. The market was a little slow, so when Ozman offered six months’ rent in advance, Barnes jumped at it.

From Bad
…Ozman wasn’t a traveling salesman—he was a scam artist. He put an ad in the local paper, offering Barnes’ house for sale at a bargain price and—no surprise—had more than 100 calls. And when buyers saw the space, they couldn’t resist the deal. Ozman’s terms: he’d reserve the house—for a $2,000 cash deposit.

…To Nightmare!
He repeated the scam 30 times, collected $60,000, and then took off. Barnes was left with nothing except Ozman’s security deposit and 30 angry “buyers.”

Dream House:
Jack Oldman purchased his in Virginia in 2001.

From Bad…
A few nights later, Oldman was asleep in bed when a squadron of fighter jets tore across the sky. He practically jumped out of his skin. It
turned out that there was a military base nearby and flight training took place 15 nights a month. Still, Oldman decided to tough it out. Until the house started to smell.

…To Nightmare!
Oldman couldn’t locate the source of the odor, so he called the Department of Environmental Quality, which found the cadaver of a rotting animal in the foundation (the foul smell was filtering in through cracks in the concrete). What else could go wrong? Plenty—the roof structure was caving in; the chimney was disconnected from the house; and the ground under the house was shifting. Oldman’s recourse: He had none—the builder had long since filed for bankruptcy and disappeared.

Dream House:
Alan and Susan Sykes moved into theirs in West Yorkshire, England, in 2000.

From Bad...
One evening a few months after moving in, the couple was watching a TV documentary about Dr. Samson Perera, a dental biologist who murdered his 13-year-old daughter and hid her dismembered body throughout his home and garden. Suddenly they recognized the house on TV: it was
their
house. When they got to the part that said the child’s body—which had been cut into more than 100 pieces—was never fully recovered, the Sykeses packed their bags, moved out that same night…and never went back.

…To Nightmare!
They sold the house (at a loss) and filed suit against the former owners, James and Alison Taylor-Rose, for withholding the house’s history. The judge said that since the Taylor-Roses were unaware of the murder when
they
bought the house in 1998 (they only placed it on the market after a neighbor told them about it), they were not liable, so the Sykeses lost the suit.

Dream House:
Cathie Kunkel found hers in Ontario, California.

From Bad...
In August 2001, four months after she moved in, Kunkel had a pond dug in her backyard. After removing only a foot of earth, workers discovered something putrid. “We thought it was a dead chicken,” said Kunkel. “The smell was horrendous.” The contractor filled in the shallow grave, but the odor lingered. Kunkel and her three children had to move out.

...To Nightmare!
It wasn’t a chicken—it was a dead cow wrapped in plastic. The development was built on 18,000 acres of former dairy land… and they still don’t know how many dead cows are buried there.

At one time, a Minnesota tax form required you to list your date of death.

COLD, HARD FACTS

…about the cold, hard continent of Antarctica
.

• Antarctica isn’t completely covered in ice—98% of the continent is. The ice averages 1.34 miles thick, and is 3 miles at its thickest.

• At 5.5 million square miles, Antarctica is the fifth largest continent (only Europe and Australia are smaller).

• Antarctica is the driest continent. One region has received no precipitation for the last two million years.

• The Bentley Subglacial Trench is 8,383 feet below sea level—the lowest dry location on Earth.

• If Antarctica’s ice sheets melted, the world’s oceans would rise about 200 feet.

• There are 145 liquid lakes (and counting) beneath the Antarctic ice. One, Lake Vostok, is under 2.5 miles of ice and is about the size of Lake Ontario.

• The lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was in 1983 at Russia’s Vostok Station: –128.6°F.

• Cold, dense air being pulled by gravity down Antarctic mountains create the most extreme
katabatic
(Greek for “go down”) winds on the planet. They have been clocked at 200 mph.

• Antarctic ice accounts for 70% of the world’s fresh water.

• The largest non-migratory land animal in Antarctica is the
belgica
, a wingless midge (gnat) less than half an inch long. They don’t fly (the winds would blow them away); they hop like fleas and live in penguin colonies.

• The Antarctic Treaty, drawn up in 1959, reserves the continent for exploration and scientific research and prohibits its use for military purposes. To date, 47 countries have signed the charter, technically the first arms-reduction treaty of the Cold War.

• Seven countries claim to own parts of the continent: Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Hiking the entire 2,174-mile Appalachian Trail takes an average of 5 to 7 months.

HOLLYWOOD’S #1 STAR

For some reason, “answering the call of nature” has worked its way into nearly every Tom Hanks movie
.

•
The Money Pit
(1986):
Beleaguered homeowner Walter Fielding (Hanks) notices a cherub statue in his yard is having trouble “peeing.” “Prostate trouble?” he asks. Later, Walter pees on a small tree in his garden and it falls down.

•
Joe Versus the Volcano
(1990):
Joe pees off of the luggage raft.

•
A League Of Their Own
(1992):
Washed-up baseball star Jimmy Dugan pees for nearly a minute in the girls’ locker room. “Boy, that was some good peein’,” comments Mae (Madonna).

•
Forrest Gump
(1994):
When Forrest meets John F. Kennedy, he informs the president, “I gotta pee.”

•
Apollo 13
(1995):
Astronaut Jim Lovell urinates into a collection tube. “It’s too bad we can’t show this on TV,” he says.

•
Saving Private Ryan
(1998):
Captain John Miller and Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) talk about an old war buddy named Vecchio, who would “pee a ‘V’ on everyone’s jacket, for Vecchio, for Victory.”

•
The Green Mile
(1999):
Warden Paul Edgecomb suffers from a painful urinary tract infection that has him “pissing razor blades.”

•
Cast Away
(2000):
Marooned Fed-Ex executive Chuck Noland is peeing on the beach at night when he sees the faint light of a passing ship.

•
Road to Perdition
(2002):
Mob hit man Michael Sullivan is asked if coffee makes him sweat. His reply: “It also makes me piss.”

•
The Terminal
(2004):
Stranded immigrant Viktor Navorski must hold his pee for hours while waiting for a pay phone call at New York’s JFK Airport.

Ironically, one of the few movies that Tom Hanks
doesn’t
pee in, or even mention it, is…1984’s
Splash
.

Neither can you! A cat cannot see directly under its nose.

LET’S DANCE!

Even non-dancers will like the story behind this dance craze
.

T
HE POLKA
This fast-paced dance is simple to learn, even for Uncle John. And it has a fun origin story, too…depending on who’s telling it. The Bohemian version—the one most often cited—claims that in 1834 a young peasant girl named Anna Slezak was bored one Sunday and decided to make up a new dance. She choreographed a hop-step-close-step pattern while singing a Czech folk song (“Uncle Nimra Brought a White Horse”). A local schoolmaster walked by and asked Anna to show it to him; he wrote down the steps and then introduced the polka (from the Czech word
pulka
, meaning “half-step”) in ballrooms in nearby Prague. The Polish version is similar: In the 1830s, a Bohemian man was visiting Poland when he saw a little girl dancing the polka (which may actually date as far back as the 1600s) and took the dance back home to Prague, where it was christened
polka
, meaning “Polish woman.”