The Annual Mooning of Amtrak

When is it? It occurs the second Saturday in July each year.
It happens all day from approximately 7 am until about 11 pm. For the approximate times of the trains, check out Amtrak's web site is: www.amtrak.com.

Who is in charge? No one. No one organizes or is responsible for this annual event. Everyone who attends helps make it a safe, fun & successful day.

What does the event cost? There is no admission charge


What about the police? Sheriff: As in past years, the area will be patrolled by the Orange County Sheriff for the City of Laguna Niguel. That said, there can be absolutely NO "controlled substances", carrying an alchoholic beverage outside, exposing certain prohibited body parts or hasseling with the sheriff deputies. The deputy people have been very considerate and liberal in the past. Please don't ruin it for the future.

Will there be newspapers & TV cameras? Every year you can count on reporters & photographers from the newspapers and Videographers for TV. They usually come around noon, stick around for an hour or so interviewing people, then leave so they can make their late aftrnoon deadline. How you interact with the press is up to you, but since you are in a public place they have the legal right to take your picture.

What if I want to see it from the train? On the train you'll only be able to photograph or video through the glass windows as the train rolls by. Some train engineers slow down for the event, others speed up (like Metrolink.) Some trains will have windows that open (which will eliminate glare on your photos) but most do not. Amtrak has nothing to do with this "show."

What happens after dark? After 8pm, Night Mooning starts. Bring a flash light with plenty of batteries, or better yet, bring a Coleman propane or gasoline fuel camping lantern. Some bring a wire coat hanger to make a hook to hang your lantern from the chain link fence. The area is dark at night as there aren't any street lights along the road here. Night Mooning is better because: it is less crowded, cooler temperature, and more authentic.

Must I "moon", or can I just watch? No, You can watch.

Does It get hot here in July? Yes, mid-day it is usually about 95°F (35°C) and humid.

Should I bring food & drink? If you wish. Mugs Away Saloon will be serving cold beverages. An outdoor vendor will be grilling hamburgers for sale and another selling souvenir event T-shirts.

Are pets O.K. to bring? Yes, you can bring your dog, cat, snake, parrot, or iguana. Don't forget water for them.

Can I decorate my butt? Yes, that's O.K.

What happens in the saloon? There are two successive bands inside the Mugs Away Saloon from Noon till closing, which is about midnight.

Can the physically handicapped get around this area? Yes, a wheel-chair should work just fine. There are no stairs to climb. Close-in car parking spots may be difficult to find.

Disclaimer: Attending this event may be hazardous due to the large concentration of silly people, cars, motorcycles, motorhomes, concrete vehicle wheel-stops, potholes in the parking-lots and pets. Everyone present is responsible for their own actions. If you trip on something, or hurt yourself, you alone are responsible. There is no one to sue. No one either promotes this nor charges admission. If you do come, act safely! If you're accident prone, go somewhere else where you'll be safer. Neither Mugs Away Saloon, The City of Laguna Niguel nor Amtrak are responsible for this event, nor for assuring your safety. The City & the railroad would rather you didn't bother coming to this event. No one is carrying public liability insurance for this. Besides, would any insurance underwriter insure an event called, "Mooning Amtrak"?

Many many thanks to: The City Council of Laguna Niguel, The Sheriff of Orange County, OCRRA (owners of the rail rightof- way), Metrolink Rail Agency and of course, our beloved AMTRAK, for their tolerance and contemporary open-mindedness.

HOW THE TRADITION STARTED

The best answer the story of the birth of the Mooning tradition, says 20 years ago (1979), at The Mugs Away Saloon, a K.T.Smith told his buddies he'd buy a drink for all who would run outside to the rail road tracks and "moon" the next train, which many did. Word spread, and the local newspaper, The Orange Country Register, ran a story about it. The story attracted more people to the bar, and the tradition began. In order to keep the mooning under control the Orange County Sheriff’s Department made a verbal agreement with the bar not to arrest anyone as long as it only happened one day each year and certain rules of decorum were maintained. The mooning tradition has prevailed, but there is no longer a volunteer to buy free drinks for thousands of "Mooners". Locals estimate that more than 8,000 people annually participate in the tradition. \

AND THE TRADITION CONTINUES!

It occurs the second Saturday in July each year and lasts for but a brief few seconds each hour. At any given time there are bout a hundred people gather along the chain link fence in the parking lot. When that crowd leaves it is replaced by a new group who can’t wait to bare their butts to the next set of passing trains. It is most crowded between 10am and 4pm.

The year we went, there was a definite carnival atmosphere among the crowds of people with cars, camper trucks, motor homes and motorcycles parked all along the street. Some people brought their pets along: I saw dogs, cats, a snake, a parrot, and even an iguana. There was even a guy in a wheelchair, who carefully stood up for a few seconds and dropped his pants as the train rolled by.

“The law enforcement deputies have been very considerate and liberal in the past,” said one non-organizer. “We warn people not to expose anything except their butts to the train. As long as we follow those guidelines, we never get hassled.” Those may be the unofficial rules, but at least once each hour you can count on a pair of female breasts being revealed as well.

For passengers on the train, this also seems to be an anticipated event. The Amtrak line parallels Interstate highway 5, and trains carry passengers between Los Angeles and San Diego. Unlike most Saturdays, the Amtrak cars are filled to near-capacity with passengers to see the "moon show." Most trains actually slow down to half speed as they approach “Ground Zero” so that people with cameras and camcorders can record the view through the large glass windows.

Inside Mugs Away is a wall of photos commemorating the rears of hundreds of people who have participated over the years. The bar also sells souvenir T-shirts and even a DVD movie. Adding to the festivities, a band named the “Moonies” (what else?) plays inside from noon until the last train passes around midnight. During the day the bar serves cold beverages and an outdoor vendor grills hamburgers.

After dark, “Night Mooning” has become popular also. Participants bring flashlights or Coleman propane or gasoline fuel camping lanterns and hang them on the chain link fence with wire coat hangers. Said one mooner, “I like night mooning better because it is less crowded, the air temperature is a little cooler.

Locals claimed that in 26 years they have never made an arrest or ticketed any of the participants, until 2008. That year, police broke up the event after someone complained about public nudity and drinking. Apparantly a very loud pair of drunken women started lifting their tops to the train, and there were a few people who decided to be total nude. No arrests were made, authorities said.

[If you have ever been to the event, this is nothing new. It happens every year and nobody cares. – Ed.]

In anticipation of the 2009 event, the Laguna Niguel City Council approved two new ordinances that will make it unlawful to consume alcoholic beverages in public and urinate in public. According to Laguna Niguel Mayor Robert Ming, “Thousands of rowdy partiers from out of town have forced us to take this action. This event happened for many years without problems, but it has now gotten out of control. We cannot allow a situation where public safety and our local businesses are threatened.”

If you don’t go, you can follow the fun on Twitter at: www.Twitter.com/LagunaNiguelCA. Also: http://www.moonamtrak.org
Source:http://www.socalnaturist.org/

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When Will The World End?

When Will The World End?
Answer 1:With the recent oddball predictions of the end of the world from a one Harold Camping, and the ever impending 2012 Mayan calender prediction in just a year and a half, talk of the end of the world has been rife among many sources. But just when will it end? Well, in this piece we will be disregarding any religious, cultural, or supernatural predictions (there are hundreds of those, we'd be here all day), and instead focusing on scientific theories, backed up with evidence and cold, hard logic.

Here are a few 'end of the world' predictions, or at least factors that could contribute to the destruction of our world:

• Stellar evolution of our sun
• Andromeda Galaxy collision
• Eventual heat death of the universe

Our sun has a finite resource of hydrogen (the fuel needed to keep it burning) at its core, and the evolution of stars theory suggests that once this reserve has been exhausted, the Sun will balloon in size and so the Earth would then only orbit at 250,000 miles from the star. Unlike most ideas, the Earth will not be consumed by the Sun itself, although most if not all life on the planet will perish due to the Sun's proximity. But, the Earth's orbit will be disrupted heavily due to a phenomena called tidal drag, causing it to enter the Sun's expanded atmosphere. The Earth's oceans will evaporate entirely before the planet is finally pulled apart by gravitational forces. This will happen in approximately 7.4 billion years.

Calculations also suggest that our nearest galaxy (the Andromeda galaxy at about 2.5 millions light years away) is on a crash course with our own galaxy, The Milky Way. Even at an alarming speed of 87 miles per second, it would still take the galaxy 3 billion years to reach us. The following merging of galaxies could cause the solar system to be ejected on an eccentric orbit to and unwanted position, meaning our planet will become near uninhabitable within The Milky Way.

The eventual heat death of the universes is a theory that suggests the universe will diminish to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and so can no longer sustain motion or life. It's basically the eventual cooling down of everything in our universe, ever. In the language of physics, the universe will have reached maximum entropy. It is understood that the universe will reach maximum entropy after a time period much greater than the 13.4 billion years it has taken for the cosmos to get this far, so you don't have much to worry about. Yet.

Source: http://www.blurtit.com/

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Where Is The World's Biggest Library?

Where Is The World's Biggest Library?
Answer: In terms of shelf space, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest library in the world. It is located across three different buildings and it is the de facto national library of the United States. It is also the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States.

The shelf space of the Library of Congress is 530 miles (850 km) in length. This is longer than the next largest library in the world; the British Library in London, which has 388 miles (625 km) of shelf space. While the Library of Congress has the most shelf space, it does not house the most items of all libraries in the world, however.

The Library of Congress holds around 130 million items, including 29 million books, but the British Library holds 150 million items, including 25 million books.

The 3 buildings of the Library of Congress are:

- The Thomas Jefferson Building (opened 1897)
- The John Adams Building (opened 1938)
- The James Madison Memorial Building (opened 1981)

The Thomas Jefferson Building is the main building of the library and the John Adams Building is its annex. The James Madison Memorial Building serves as the headquarters of the library.

The head of the library is referred to as the Librarian of Congress. The current holder of this position is James H. Billington, who is the thirteenth person to do the job and has been in the role since September 1987.
Source:http://www.blurtit.com/

                                                     Library of Congress Washington DC


The US Library of Congress is the oldest national establishment for culture in the country, and provides Congressional policymakers with research services, as well. With over 130 million pieces on over 500 miles of shelving, it is the most extensive library collection worldwide. The library"s purpose is to facilitate congressional and public access to its resources, and to maintain a comprehensive depository of learning and creativity for countless American generations to come. The majestic Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress Washington DC, with its Italian Renaissance design full of sculptures, mosaics, paintings and murals, is one of the US"s most distinguished accomplishments in architecture.

The history of the Library of Congress reflects the extent to which people of the time celebrated and preserved learning. After its founding in 1800, the Library was housed in a boarding house and later in the Capitol. Its first permanent building -- now called the Thomas Jefferson Building -- was opened in 1897. The John Adams Building was completed in 1939 and the James Madison Memorial Building in 1980. A true work of the people, over 50 talented Americans gave their artistic skills in sculpting, painting and mosaic to the structure. It was meant to showcase the culture and artistic style of the fledgling Republic, and is still today one of the most admirable buildings of that era.

Some of the most significant treasures and history of the Library of Congress" enormous holdings are exhibited in rotation at the recently added "Treasures Gallery," which is on the Great Hall"s second floor in the Southwest Gallery and Pavilion. Individual items will change from time to time for preservation reasons. Displays from Thomas Jefferson"s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence to the piano and other belongings used by American composers Ira and George Gershwin, can be enjoyed. Also, The Gutenberg Bible and the Giant Bible of Mainz are on permanent display on the first floor of the Great Hall. Other changing exhibits are mounted in public areas and reading rooms in the three buildings.

Today"s US Library of Congress is an unequalled world resource. Its collection of over 130 million items includes more than 29 million cataloged books and print materials in 460 languages; more than 58 million manuscripts; the most extensive collection of hard-to-find books in North America; and the biggest assembly in the world of audio recordings, films, music scores, maps and legal documents.

The best part of visiting the Library of Congress Washington DC is the spectacular Great Hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building, whose stained class ceiling soars 75 feet above its marble floor. Stairways and columns, also of marble, and beautiful paintings and mosaics make this one of America"s loveliest public buildings. Visitors may take one of several free guided tours offered daily and view a 12-minute film about the US Library of Congress in the Visitors" Center of the Jefferson Building. The Library of Congress Washington DC celebrates America"s gifts to the body of universal knowledge, and its buildings serve as monuments to the learned individuals who championed this cause.
Source:http://www.destination360.com/

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How Many Languages Are There in the World?

Answer 1:There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers.

The most popular language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 1,213,000,000 people in the world that speak that language. You might also like our list of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

Source: How Many Spoken Languages — Infoplease.com

Answer 2:One of the challenges we face as a language solutions provider is covering demand for the languages that our clients request on a daily basis. So how many languages are there in the World and how do we go about providing translation and interpreting in all of them….?

The invaluable Ethnologue quotes 6909 living languages, that’s one language for every 862,000 people on Earth. Let’s look at some more figures from Ethnologue’s database.

Europe, with ¼ of the World’s population has only 234 languages spoken on a daily basis.

Although English does well as the World’s business language-at least for the time being- it is only 3rd in the league table of native speakers of a first language, with 328M, only 1m behind Spanish but a long way from the 845M Mandarin speakers.

94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the World’s population, which tells us that there are hundreds of languages with just a few thousand [or hundred] speakers.

Many of these languages would be classified by some as dialects i.e. languages that have evolved from but are still quite closely related to another. This definition, of course, falls down very rapidly as most Western European languages can trace their roots to Latin but would not normally be described as dialects. Some of the African and Caribbean Patois are still seen as dialects, as was Ulster-Scots until fairly recently when it was recognised as a language. http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/

The most famous phrase “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy” is wrongly attributed to Yiddish scholar Max Weinreich, who was probably quoting an anonymous teacher from New York, but it is a neat way to make the definition.

So how many of these languages are regularly translated by Applied Language? Well, it’s a lot but not quite 6909…….we reckon that about 200 languages are translated regularly by our global offices into documents, websites, brochures and anything else you can imagine. The range of languages required by our interpreting team is rather smaller at about 100.

The difference is no mystery; companies that translate their promotional material may be selling into every part of the globe and therefore their need is very broad whilst a hospital in Manchester, for example, will only have to deal with the resident non-native speakers and unwell tourists that come through its doors. Although the interpreting requirement is significant, it rarely exceeds 100 different languages.

Some of the most difficult requests are for languages that unfortunately don’t exist; enquiries for “Indian” or “Eastern European” do pop up occasionally. Similarly, “African” or “South American” can have us scratching our heads.

As a final thought for those of you currently learning another language you might be slightly discouraged by a report from Swarthmore College linguist K. David Harrison who predicts that 90% of the World’s languages will be extinct by 2050. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4387421/

This might make finding translators a little easier, but would surely make our World a rather less interesting place?
Source:http://www.translationblog.co.uk/

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