The SS Minnetonka

Tonnage: 13,440 tons gross, Length: 600.7’, Beam: 65.5’
Builder: Harland & Wolff, Belfast
Launch Date: December 12, 1901, Maiden Voyage: May 17, 1902
Destruction: Torpedoed January 30, 1918
Operated by A.T.L.: 1900 - 1917.

Notes: Twin screws, quadruple expansion engines by builder with cylinders of 30″, 43″, 63″ & 89″, stroke 60″. Steam pressure 180 lbs, 1,227 n.h.p. 16 knots, Passengers: 250 first class, Depth of hold: 39-5’, Port of registry: Belfast.

The SS Minnetonka and her sisters were among the first ships to be fitted for wireless telegraphy, and at least two of them were clearly using their equipment by February of 1902. On the 5th of that month the New York Times reported Minneapolis’s wireless communication with Minnetonka, which had just defeated the Etruria in a chess match by wireless telegraphy. It would seem that a lot of fun was being had with this new toy! Two years later when the Journal of the Telegraph named all of the passenger ships fitted with Marconi wireless apparatus there were still only 32 vessels on the list. The call letters for Minnetonka were “MMK.”

In mid June 1907 Mark Twain (Sam Clemens) traveled to England on board Minneapolis to receive an honorary degree from Oxford University. He returned home from this, his last European trip, on Minnetonka in July. Twain befriended several children on the voyage, but in his own words “made a particular pet of little Dorothy Quick,” an 11-year old returning home to Brooklyn with her mother. Dorothy became a frequent houseguest of Twain’s, both at his Tuxedo Park home, in New York City, and in Redding, Connecticut, and their friendship lasted until his death in 1910. Quick became a writer and poet herself, and her book Mark Twain and Me: A Little Girl’s Friendship With Mark Twain formed the basis of a TV movie in 1991.

Minnetonka was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-64 40 miles from Malta on January 30, 1918, with the loss of four lives. The ship was carrying mail from Port Said to Marseilles at the time and there were no troops aboard.

Some fascinating history about the Internet.

In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”

I’m pretty proud of my gardens in the back yard. I wanted to share this patriotic picture from yesterday:

…note the red, white and blue wild flowers…not quite my Mothers’ Garden

I have a HUGE veggie garden that is well on it’s way to producing an excellent harvest. I have pictures over @ Just Raven, but for here I wanted to share scanned images of my Mothers Victory Garden Book she had from WW2 days.

Read the rest of this entry »

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

-Laurence Binyon

More @ the Pirate’s Cove.

It’s been happening since 2004: The war on terror warriors have been going soft. September 11th has been forgotten, even by those who swore they never would forget.

U.S. officials are being advised in internal government documents to avoid referring publicly to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as Islamic or Muslim, and not to use terms like jihad or mujahedeen, which “unintentionally legitimize” terrorism.

“There’ s a growing consensus [in the Bush administration] that we need to move away from that language,” said a former senior administration official who was involved until recently in policy debates on the issue.

When we forget history, it repeats itself.

Never forget.