Today is the first day of Black History Month. I thought I would acknowledge the month by letting you know about Marian Croak. Have you not heard of her? Well, she is one smart Black woman. She was born in New York City in 1955. She obviously had great parents who helped inspire her to reach her dreams. Marian now works for Google, but worked for many years at AT&T. She is the owner of more than 200 patents. One of these patents is for VOIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol. You can make calls on the internet due to her hard work. During the pandemic, I worked from home for a few months and was grateful to keep working. Little did I know much of this was due to Marian Croak. (Source: Wikipedia)
–Photo from the National Inventors Hall of Fame
Meanwhile, in Dallas:
We are in the midst of one of those annual Dallas/Ft. Worth ice storms. Only this one is worse than the usual in that it has lasted more than a day. I am glad I decided to get to the store on Monday afternoon. There is no way I will get out in this weather. It has been ice raining and sleeting, forming a nice thick layer of ice on the roads. I was startled by the ice thunder yesterday, too. So odd to hear that. Looks like it won’t be over until sometime tomorrow. Fingers crossed. Luckily, the grid is holding up and most people have power. Hopefully, the ones that don’t will get power quickly. Most of the power outages are due to ice on the lines or trees snapping under the weight and hitting lines. The first picture is from Oak Cliff, across the Trinity River looking at downtown. The second is from the southern part of the county. Nice to see such teamwork from the jeep group. I am sure the trucks were grateful.
I am finishing a book I began a while back. It’s a book on British history (always a fascinating subject for me). This book is easy reading and a simplified version of British History. Just right for me! The title is:
From Amazon:
Mike has lived in Britain all his life and generally loves the place, warts and all. He first learned history on his dad’s knee and went on to study medieval and modern British and European history at university. He was planning on teaching it, but then drifted into a career running his own business. Despite having worked with some of the UK’s most prestigious firms, he is often at his happiest with his nose in a history book, or exploring a historic site where the past is close. Several years ago, Mike began a blog – now an authoritative website – ‘A Bit About Britain’. He had to write a bit about Britain’s history for the website, and it seemed only sensible to put the material into his first book, ‘A Bit About Britain’s History’.
–Mike Biles
I’ve been following Mike’s blog for years. I have learned so much about the history of that intriguing island from Mike Biles. I also find Mike to be quite a nice guy. Cheers to Mike!