NGC 281

Supermoon as seen from space. Quite an awesome sight.

#supermoon

So this is the origins of

"Kilroy was here" ☺️

Kilroy Was Here!

He’s engraved in stone in the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC – back in a small alcove where very few people have seen it. For the WWII generation, this will bring back memories. For younger folks, it’s a bit of trivia that is an intrinsic part of American history and legend.

Anyone born between 1913 to about 1950, is very familiar with Kilroy. No one knew why he was so well known….but everybody seemed to get into it. It was the fad of its time!

          At the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC

So who was Kilroy?

In 1946 the American Transit Association, through its radio program, “Speak to America,” sponsored a nationwide contest to find the real Kilroy….now a larger-than-life legend of just-ended World War II….offering a prize of a real trolley car to the person who could prove himself to be the genuine article.

Almost 40 men stepped forward to make that claim, but only James Kilroy from Halifax, Massachusetts, had credible and verifiable evidence of his identity.

“Kilroy” was a 46-year old shipyard worker during World War II (1941-1945) who worked as a quality assurance checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts (a major shipbuilder for the United States Navy for a century until the 1980s).  

His job was to go around and check on the number of rivets completed. (Rivets held ships together before the advent of modern welding techniques.) Riveters were on piece work wages….so they got paid by the rivet. He would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in semi-waxed lumber chalk (similar to crayon), so the rivets wouldn’t be counted more than once.

                                     A warship hull with rivets

When Kilroy went off duty, the riveters would surreptitiously erase the mark. Later, an off-shift inspector would come through and count the rivets a second time, resulting in double pay for the riveters!

One day Kilroy’s boss called him into his office. The foreman was upset about unusually high wages being “earned” by riveters, and asked him to investigate. It was then he realized what had been going on. 

The tight spaces he had to crawl in to check the rivets didn’t lend themselves to lugging around a paint can and brush, so Kilroy decided to stick with the waxy chalk. He continued to put his check mark on each job he inspected, but added ”KILROY WAS HERE!“ in king-sized letters next to the check….and eventually added the sketch of the guy with the long nose peering over the fence….and that became part of the Kilroy message.

   Kilroy’s original shipyard inspection “trademark” during World War II

Once he did that, the riveters stopped trying to wipe away his marks.

Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint. With World War II on in full swing, however, ships were leaving the Quincy Yard so fast that there wasn’t time to paint them. As a result, Kilroy’s inspection “trademark” was seen by thousands of servicemen who boarded the troopships the yard produced.

His message apparently rang a bell with the servicemen, because they picked it up and spread it all over the European and the Pacific war zones.

Before war’s end, “Kilroy” had been here, there, and everywhere on the long hauls to Berlin and Tokyo. 

To the troops outbound in those ships, however, he was a complete mystery; all they knew for sure was that someone named Kilroy had “been there first.” As a joke, U.S. servicemen began placing the graffiti wherever they landed, claiming it was already there when they arrived.

As the World War II wore on, the legend grew. Underwater demolition teams routinely sneaked ashore on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific to map the terrain for coming invasions by U.S. troops (and thus, presumably, were the first GI’s there). On one occasion, however, they reported seeing enemy troops painting over the Kilroy logo!

Kilroy became the U.S. super-GI who had always “already been” wherever GIs went. It became a challenge to place the logo in the most unlikely places imaginable. (It is said to now be atop Mt. Everest, the Statue of Liberty, the underside of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and even scrawled in the dust on the moon by the American astronauts who walked there between 1969 and 1972.

In 1945, as World War II was ending, an outhouse was built for the exclusive use of Allied leaders Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill at the Potsdam Conference. It’s first occupant was Stalin, who emerged and asked his aide (in Russian), “Who is Kilroy?”

To help prove his authenticity in 1946, James Kilroy brought along officials from the shipyard and some of the riveters. He won the trolley car….which he attached to the Kilroy home and used to provide living quarters for six of the family’s nine children….thereby solving what had become an acute housing crisis for the Kilroys.

                     The new addition to the Kilroy family home.

                                        *          *          *          *

And the tradition continues into the 21st century…

In 2011 outside the now-late-Osama Bin Laden’s hideaway house in Abbottabad, Pakistan….after the al-Qaida-terrorist was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs.

                                         *          *          *          *

A personal note….

My Dad’s trademark signature on cards, letters and notes to my sisters and I for the first 50 or so years of our lives (until we lost him to cancer) was to add the image of “Kilroy” at the end. We kids never ceased to get a thrill out of this….even as we evolved into adulthood. 

To this day, the “Kilroy” image brings back a vivid image of my awesome Dad into my head….and my heart!

Dad: this one’s for you!

Got the munchies 😁

@santigold Tumblr @irlirl at @jacksnyc 99¢

Aurora over Jokulsarlon by BSGuyIncognito

I wonder what the animators were actually going through. It must've been a dark time in their personal life.

😱

This had me laughing

Spiders by Lars Didricksson Via Flickr: Spiders but mostly jumping spiders

These are some awesome closeup photos of 

Jumping Spiders. 🕷

Engineering at its finest.

I need to download and try some of these.

Apps To Kill Time On

Keep seeing some posts circulating about popular websites and wanted to make a version for apps.

These are apps I’m way too addicted to. Am I missing any?

P.S. I’m on an iPhone so these are iPhone apps, but probably have an Android version too.

Edit: Sorry for all the time I’ve taken away from your life

Commaful - popular fanfiction, story, and poetry community 👑

Bettr - the reason my friends are jealous of my Insta

Sweatcoin - get paid to walk

Tiktok - coolest videos on the internet (top 10 app in the world)

Spellbound - addictive horror 👻 and romance stories

Helix Jump - legit the most addicting game on my phone

Calm - Award-winning app for meditation and sleeping better

Tenkyu - tilt your phone and watch the relaxing magic happen

Slime Road - bet you can’t hit the bullseye ⚾️

Hempire - become a plant mogul

Dune! - Ride the sand dunes like a baller!! so much fun

Hotspot Shield - free proxy/VPN to bypass school filters

Betternet - free proxy VPN, like Hotspot, try both and see which you prefer

Terrarium - build the ultimate garden empire

Golf Orbit - ever played golf on mars?

Sling Drift - beep beep - level 70 is insane 🚗

1Q - get paid to answer simple questions 

Bee Factory - become a honey tycoon

Wind Rider - fly through a city in a wing suit

Spill it - drop balls and break glass

Fire Balls - shoot balls at obstacles. gets pretty hard

Paper - can you conquer all the territory and win?

Two Dots - a fun puzzle game. easy time killer

Planet Bomber - let’s nuke some planets

Ice Racing - race down a mountain at record speeds

Splashy - bounce the ball accurately to survive. requires focus

Snakes Vs. Blocks - even more fun than the original snake hehe

Twenty48 Solitaire - best toilet game

Knock Balls - shoot down blocks with a canon - surprisingly relaxing

Wishbone - fun game for comparing stuff like hair, celebs, sports

Hole - fuck up a city muahaha

Dosh - get paid to shop

Yarn - stories that are seriously creepy af

You’re welcome 😉

Reminds me of me when I was younger. lol.

Hyperloop revealed: Elon Musk foresees rapid transit in a tube

(Image via Tesla Motors)

Electromagnetic acceleration: That’s the high technology behind the high-speed transit concept that billionaire Elon Musk calls the Hyperloop.

Continue reading

LA to San Francisco in 35 minutes for less than a plane ticket. Would you use it?