Debbi forwarded this moving rendition of a classic hymn. It’s purportedly a performance by four combined High School choirs and a group of grade school children, with the recording and presentation made by the father of one of the students. The song, of course, is Battle Hymn of the Republic. I grew up singing this hymn and hearing it always makes me proud to be an American.

The hymn was born during the American Civil War when Julia Ward Howe visited a Union Army camp on the Potomac River near Washington, D. C. She heard the soldiers singing the song “John Brown’s Body” and was taken with the strong marching beat. She wrote the words the next day:

“I awoke in the grey of the morning, and as I lay waiting for dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to entwine themselves in my mind, and I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses, lest I fall asleep and forget them!’ So I sprang out of bed and in the dimness found an old stump of a pen, which I remembered using the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”

First appearing in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862, the hymn was sung at the funerals of British statesman Winston Churchill, American senator Robert Kennedy, and American presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. (Requires Flash Player)

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, the folks at The Line Is Here and Shortbus from The Edge of Reason…

This would be pretty amazing if real. What we’re apparently seeing is a rather stupid surfer/amateur stunt guy “fishing” for a great white shark off his board, then being “towed” by the hooked shark passed other surfers. Do I believe it? Well, let’s just say I’m dubious. I have to ask myself, if I was a surfer and a great white shark swam right by me towing another surfer, would I just watch as these guys appear to be doing, or would I walk run on water to reach shore as quickly as possible? In addition, it looks like a wake in front of the shark as though it’s (ahem) “chasing” an RTV or jet ski. Hmmmm… And the shark appears to be swimming parallel to the shore in shallow water… and leaving a wake. Hmmmm… Now, I wasn’t there, but…

Today marks the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby, affectionately known as the Run For the Roses and considered by many to be “the most exciting two minutes in sports.”

The classic American horse race, the Derby is the oldest consecutively run Thoroughbred race in America. It is run annually on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Preceding the Preakness in mid-May and the Belmont in early June, it’s the first jewel of the coveted Triple Crown of Thoroughbred racing. Won by only eleven horses since 1919, Triple Crown winners include memorable names like Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Whirlaway and Affirmed.

The first Kentucky Derby was run May 17, 1875, before a crowd of 10,000 from around the city, state and surrounding areas. A field of fifteen three-year-olds ran a one and a half mile course with the race won by H.P. McGrath’s Aristides. The following year, the distance was shortened to the present mile and a quarter…

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With 1360 participants, Belgium broke the official Mentos Fountain World Record on April 23th…

“Ahhhh… Was it good for you?”

“Shut up!”

We’ve all seen Quicktime panoramas made by “stitching” still images. But this video offers a very different and unique experience.

Called “Spherical Storytelling,” the 360° video panorama “drives” you down New York’s infamous 42nd Street providing a “sun roof” view! Click the play button and, as the video loads, scroll with the mouse to watch in any direction within the video. Amazing!

Via Immersive Media. Requires Adobe Flash® and a broadband connection to view.

This week’s fly-by features a montage of video clips of the F-22 Raptor’s first full tactical air show demonstration, performed at Langley AFB in April 2007 by pilot Major Paul Mogataken. It includes cobras, backflips, super-high-alpha flight, hovering with its nose pointed straight up, super-fast pitch-ups, and some sonic shock condensation cones and wingtip vortex contrails (“vapor”) at the very end.

As you may already know, the F-22 is essentially invisible to the enemy in combat; in simulated war games, its pilots consistently “kill” the enemy while remaining undetected. In addition, the Raptor has the fastest cruise speed of any aircraft currently flying (MACH 1.5 - 1.75, depending on whom you ask). It’s capable of breaking the sound barrier while in a straight up vertical climb, fully loaded, and is highly sophisticated in how it manages, shares and integrates information and presents it to the pilot.

During this exhibition, the USAF allowed one more thing about the F-22 to be shown to the public: its amazing maneuverability. No other American fighter in history has so empowered its pilot and provided such impressive combat performance capabilities.

Movie audiences gasped when Roger Moore’s 007 took his white Lotus Esprit for a surprise dip to evade the enemy in the film The Spy Who Loved Me. The famous scene, shot using a model, triggered the imagination of countless gadget-lovers, who wondered if such a car could be made.

Well, it can and it has been. Rinspeed will present its new sQuba, the worlds first diving car, at the Geneva Motor Show March 6-16. The car is not only able to drive on roads autonomously (without a driver, passenger or further assistance) with a push of a button, it can also transform into an amphibious vehicle which can be submerged in water up to 33 feet (10 meters). An electric motor with powerful torque drives the rear wheels, while the propulsion on the water is ensured by two propellers in the stern and two powerful jet drives in the bow propelling the vehicle under water while diving. When underwater, the driver and passenger are enclosed in the vehicle thanks to light weight body components made of futuristic Carbon Nano Tubes and are supplied with fresh breathing air by the self-contained on-board system.

Q would have been proud - 30 years after James Bond disappeared under the waves in his specially adapted Lotus, car designers have done it for real! More…

Sometimes, guys, even the best laid plans for a perfect romantic evening fall flat…

Dawn told me about this yesterday. She’d heard the song clip on one of our morning drive time talk shows and couldn’t wait to share it with me.

Now, I wasn’t familiar with Sarah Silverman (I don’t mean that figuratively) but she’s apparently got a show on Comedy Central and is appearing this month in Las Vegas. The shorter song video clip has gone viral since her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s January 31 five-year anniversary TV show, but because I thought she was so funny, I’m posting the longer version which includes her intro. Enjoy!

Another comical skit from The Vacationeers…

I’m one of those people that hates to read instructions. I’d much rather either figure it out myself or, better yet, watch it being done before tackling it myself. So this new service seems right up my alley…

A New York City startup called Howcast launched yesterday and wants to be the “YouTube of instructional videos.” In fact, the three founders—Jason Liebman, Daniel Blackman and Sanjay Raman—are ex-Google employees who worked on Google Video and YouTube before leaving eight months ago. They’re apparently going for a little more polished look than YouTube, trying to bring some production values to the world of Web video.

The site provides professionally produced instructional videos on everything from “How to Groom Your Cat” (see below) to “How to Hang a Picture” and “How to Paint a Room”. There’s a familiar formula for each one: The Howcast graphic, an intro explaining what you’ll need for the task at a hand, and step-by-step instructions explained in a voiceover. The site’s video player lets you jump to different chapters, or steps, zoom in for a better look, and provides the transcript as well. Viewers can add comments in the form of tips, warnings and facts to each video. And the Flash-based site lets you browse the video directory on the left hand side while you are watching a video without interrupting it or going to another page. More…

Although a few similar sites already exist, I’m looking forward to trying some of these as Howcast’s library broadens. Lord knows there are a lot of things I need to learn how to do!

The Auto Assault 12 Combat Shotgun is the first built from the ground up specifically for the military. “There’s no way that anybody within 200 yards can face this weapon and survive it. It’s just destroying everything in it’s path. …”

Great game notwithstanding, for some the Super Bowl is all about the commercials. There were some pretty good ones this year. These were some of my favorites:

Bud Light - Breathe Fire

Pepsi - Magnetic Attraction

Diet Pepsi Max - What is Love

Audi - Truth in Engineering

Budweiser - Clydesdale Team

FedEx - Carrier Pigeons

Bud Light - Wheel Suck

Bud Light - Jackie Moon

Mike sent this in response to last week’s post about exotic juices. A hidden camera settles the debate once and for all…

The German Bo-105 is a light twin engine multi purpose utility helicopter initially developed by Bölkow, and then built by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) which now belongs to the Eurocopter Group. Eurocopter sold the Bo 105 until 1997. It was replaced by the new EC 135.

Being the first light twin-engine helicopter in commercial service, it gained widespread use over rural areas (police and EMS/medevac) as well as offshore. The four-blade hingeless main rotor with composite blades ensures extreme maneuverability. All main systems (hydraulics, electric, fuel, lubrication) were designed to be fully redundant. The pilot is Charlie Zimmermann, German helicopter aerobatic champion.

Thanks Michael!