Ho Chi Minh Trail - also called Annamite Range Trail, was a logistical network of roads and trails that ran from North Vietnam to South Vietnam through the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. The system provided support, in the form of manpower and materiel, to the Viet Cong (or "VC") and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), during the Vietnam War. Construction for the network began following the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos in July 1959. The trail was named after Ho Chi Minh, the president of North Vietnam. During the 1960s, the Ho Chi Minh Trail (actually a network of trails, footpaths and roadways) moved several tons of supplies each day through rugged mountain ranges and dense jungle. U.S. military forces—aware of the amount of weaponry that the trail supplied to the Viet Cong, its enemies in South Vietnam—had the Ho Chi Minh Trail in its sights as American involvement in Vietnam increased over the 1960s. In 1965, more than 30 U.S. Air Force jets struck targets along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. This was just one part of several American ground and air strikes against villages and roads along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

In the early days of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, bicycles were often used to transport arms and equipment from North to South Vietnam.

YouTube

The Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh Trail

The Pennsylvania Veterans Museum is dedicated to preserving, protecting and promoting the legacy and dignity of all veterans of the United States military. O...

Inntel Hotel Amsterdam Zaandam (This visually 4-star hotel has an impressive façade. The structure is a lively stacking of various traditional houses to be found in the Zaan region. The interiors of the modern hotel rooms also reflect the rich history of the Zaan area: the traditional products, the pioneers of the local craft industries and the families which made the area world famous. In short, it provides the best of tradition combined with modern-day comfort. Inntel Hotels Amsterdam Zaandam offers besides nostalgic rooms, a Wellness Club with swimming pool, Bar & Restaurant Puur Saen and free Wi-Fi. The hotel is not only the ideal place to stay when discovering the Zaan area, but as well for a trip to Amsterdam. The train journey will take 12 minutes to Amsterdam Central Station, and you can travel to Schiphol airport in only 18 minutes. Inntel Hotels has respect for people and the environment, and contributes to a healthy planet and beautiful society. With the Surprisingly Sustainable program, the hotel group is working towards a sustainable future)

FYI: From my Accommodations topic folder

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Off to work.......................

June bug - Cotinis nitida, commonly known as the green June beetle, June bug or June beetle, is a beetle of the family Scarabaeidae. It is found in the eastern United States and Canada, where it is most abundant in the South. It is sometimes confused with the related southwestern species figeater beetle Cotinis mutabilis, which is less destructive. The green June beetle is active during daylight hours. The adult is usually 15–22 mm (0.6–0.9 in) long with dull, metallic green wings; its sides are gold and the head, legs and underside are very bright shiny green. Their habitat extends from New Brunswick to Georgia, and as far west as California, with possible population crossover in Texas with their western cousin, the figeater beetle. The complete life cycle for the green June beetle is one year.

Kiss & Cry (is the area in a figure skating rink where figure skaters wait for their marks to be announced after their performances during a figure skating competition. It is so named because the skaters and coaches often kiss to celebrate after a good performance, or cry after a poor one. The area is usually located in the corner or end of the rink and is furnished with a bench or chairs for the skaters and coaches and monitors to display the competition results. It is often elaborately decorated with flowers or some other backdrop for television shots and photos of the skaters as they react to their performance and scores. The term was coined by Jane Erkko, a Finnish figure skating official who was on the organizing committee for the 1983 World Figure Skating Championships which were held in Helsinki. Erkko came up with the name when visiting television technicians who were mapping the arena prior to the event wanted to know what the area was called. The first formal off-ice waiting area at the Olympics appeared in Sarajevo 1984. The term "kiss and cry" was widely used by the early 1990s, and is now officially a part of the International Skating Union Regulations. Showing the "kiss and cry" area has personalized the sport and has helped make figure skating more popular in televised Olympic competition. Many national federations, including the Americans, train skaters on how they should appear on camera while waiting. A kiss and cry area is now featured at some gymnastics competitions)

Meryl Davis & Charlie White in the Kiss & Cry area at the Sochi Olympics............

you can see Kiss & Cry on the badge (for security purposes) around the neck of the coach............

Calling it a night.........................

Libby - is a mobile app which supports users in accessing library services. It is a product of OverDrive, Inc. Upon use, Libby requests the reader's library card. With the library card, Libby connects to the user's account at the library and provides support in checking out books. The intent is improved service and ease of accessing the library instead of using the library's own website. A reviewer for Literary Review of Canada praised Libby's management of reading data, including books read and books in queue for reading. A reviewer for Time called Libby one of the best apps of 2018. Popular Mechanics named Libby as one of the best apps of the 2010s. Free library services of the sort that Libby provides are an unusual historical custom for providing free access to media when in contemporary time, almost all such services come from commercial vendors.

Comment: I finally got a library card back in October and started using Libby. I use it on my laptop to get the books and then click that I want the book on Kindle. Then it takes me to Amazon where I can download the book to my Kindle. I love it. Granted I may have to wait weeks or even months before a book is available, but that's okay with me. I've definitely cut down on the number of books I was purchasing. In the past 5 months I've borrowed and read 16 books and currently have two I'm reading from Libby. 

The Mukaab (is a proposed Saudi Arabian architectural project to build a mammoth cube shaped skyscraper which volumetrically could hold within it twenty Empire State Buildings. The massive undertaking was announced by the Kingdom's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The design has been the subject of some criticism for its similarity to the Kaaba at the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine. The interior as currently planned will feature enormous holographic projections which will be aimed at transporting viewers to other paradigms, realities, times, and places. The interior will also feature a swirling tower within for observation decks, restaurants, and from which the projections will emanate. The Mukaab is planned to be the centerpiece of a giant new downtown built within the Saudi capital city of Riyadh called New Murabba. It will be the world's largest single built structure with around 2 million square meters of interior floor space. The project will be undertaken by the New Murabba Development Company of which Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is the President. The cube is intended to be 400 meters tall and 400 meters wide on each of its four sides. Plans for the Cube are part of the Saudi Vision 2030 project. The building's design is inspired by the modern Najdi architectural style. The Mukaab will also feature a rooftop garden)

FYI: I actually learned about this from an ad that ran on my iPhone while I was playing a Match 3 game, thought it was pretty cool. 

Calling it a night.............

Nail polish - (also known as nail varnish or nail enamel) is a lacquer that can be applied to the human fingernail or toenails to decorate and protect the nail plates. The formula has been revised repeatedly to enhance its decorative properties and to suppress cracking or peeling. Nail polish consists of a mix of an organic polymer and several other components that give it colors and textures. Nail polishes come in all color shades and play a significant part in manicures and pedicures. 

Nail polish originated in China and dates back to 3000 BCE. Around 600 BCE, during the Zhou dynasty, the royal house preferred the colors gold and silver. However, red and black eventually replaced these metallic colors as royal favorites. During the Ming dynasty, nail polish was often made from a mixture that included beeswax, egg whites, gelatin, vegetable dyes, and gum arabic. In Egypt, the lower classes wore pale colors, whereas high society painted their nails reddish brown, with henna.[3][4] Mummified pharaohs also had their nails painted with henna. In Europe, Frederick S. N. Douglas, while travelling in Greece in 1810–12, noticed that the Greek women used to paint their nails "dingy pink", which he understood as an ancient custom. Early nail polish formulas were created using basic ingredients such as lavender oil, carmine, oxide tin, and bergamot oil. It was more common to polish nails with tinted powders and creams, finishing off by buffing the nail until left shiny. One type of polishing product sold around this time was Graf's Hyglo nail polish paste. Modern nail polish consists predominately of a film-forming polymer dissolved in a volatile organic solvent. The most common polymer is nitrocellulose, although the more expensive cellulose acetates such as CAB are claimed to give better performance. In gel nail varnish the polymer is usually some sort of acrylate copolymer. The solvents are commonly butyl acetate or ethyl acetate. Low levels of various additives are included to give the desired finish.

Operation Aphrodite (was the World War II code name of a United States Army Air Forces operation to use Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated PB4Y bombers as precision-guided munitions against bunkers and other hardened/reinforced enemy facilities. A parallel project in the United States Navy was codenamed Anvil.[2] The missions were not generally successful, and the intended targets in Europe were either overrun by the ground advance of Allied troops or disabled by conventional attacks by aircraft. It was hoped that Operation Aphrodite and Operation Anvil would match the British success with Tallboy and Grand Slam ground penetration bombs but the project was dangerous, expensive and ultimately unsuccessful. Of 14 missions flown, none resulted in the successful destruction of a target. Many aircraft lost control and crashed or were shot down by flak, and many pilots were killed, though a handful of aircraft scored near misses. The program effectively ceased on 27 January 1945 when General Spaatz sent an urgent message to Doolittle: "Aphrodite babies must not be launched against the enemy until further orders".)

One notable pilot death was that of Lt Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., USNR, the elder brother of future US President John F. Kennedy. Last known photograph of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. on day of flight, August 12, 1944..................

FYI: From my Encyclopedia topic folder

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Calling it a night.............................

24 hours...................

Park Güell (is a privatized park system composed of gardens and architectural elements located on Carmel Hill, in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Carmel Hill belongs to the mountain range of Collserola – the Parc del Carmel is located on the northern face. Park Güell is located in La Salut, a neighborhood in the Gràcia district of Barcelona. With urbanization in mind, Eusebi Güell assigned the design of the park to Antoni Gaudí, a renowned architect and the face of Catalan modernism. The park was built from 1900 to 1914 and was officially opened as a public park in 1926. In 1984, UNESCO declared the park a World Heritage Site under "Works of Antoni Gaudí")

This picture looks so familiar, I think it was used as an HOS scene in a hidden object game about Spain I played............

FYI: From my Architecture topic folder

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Calling it a night..........................

Quartz clocks and watches - are timepieces that use an electronic oscillator regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks and watches are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than mechanical clocks. Generally, some form of digital logic counts the cycles of this signal and provides a numerical time display, usually in units of hours, minutes, and seconds. Since the 1980s, when the advent of solid-state digital electronics allowed them to be made compact and inexpensive, quartz timekeepers have become the world's most widely used timekeeping technology, used in most clocks and watches as well as computers and other appliances that keep time. The relative stability of the quartz resonator and its driving circuit is much better than its absolute accuracy. Standard-quality 32768 Hz resonators of this type are warranted to have a long-term accuracy of about six parts per million (0.0006%) at 31 °C (87.8 °F): that is, a typical quartz clock or wristwatch will gain or lose 15 seconds per 30 days (within a normal temperature range of 5 to 35 °C or 41 to 95 °F) or less than a half second clock drift per day when worn near the body.

A basic analog quartz clock

Circuit board of an e block from a chronograph-wristwatch. Quartz oscillator crystal on right.

Picture of a quartz crystal resonator, used as the timekeeping component in quartz watches and clocks, with the case removed. It is formed in the shape of a tuning fork. Most such quartz clock crystals vibrate at a frequency of 32768 Hz.

YouTube

How a quartz watch works

The amazing everyday wristwatch: We never think about it, but only because engineers have made it so reliable and durable that we don'tneed to. At its heart ...