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Are there any other Ohioans? I’ve grown up near Columbus my whole life. We live in the country on a small farm/zoo (the farm part consists of chickens and sheep, and the zoo part is 8 cats, and 3 dogs). 🙂
A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
@Daeus, Yes I had forgotten that North Carolina is also first in flight. However, Ohio gets no credit whatever for any of it…It already lost its chance when the Wright brothers traveled all the way down here because no suitable place could be found up there. The Wrights chose Kitty Hawk because it had enough Wind and enough space to fly, therefore Ohio can only get so high! 😉
Some Ohio fun facts:
-I think there are 7 presidents from Ohio (Virginia has the most presidents, but Ohio’s second)
-Neil Armstrong is from Ohio.
-Ohio’s state flag is pendant-shaped, and it’s the only state flag not rectangular-shaped in the United States.
-Cedar Point (in Ohio) is one of the best amusement parks in the US (some people say in the world).
-50% of the United States population lives within a 500 mile radius of Columbus, Ohio.
@ingridrd, Yeah, there are lots of other Ohioans here.
(Ingrid and I are sister, by the way. 😉 )Yes, I think we win actually. There’s you, Greta, Kate, and me. I’ve lived near Columbus most of my life, so chances we probably have some mutual friends or something.
Ok, you can get a piece of the pie. Fact is though, they didn’t have to choose Kitty Hawk, but the people who actually did all the work (and 95% of it in Ohio) where Ohioans and that is something that the Wright brothers are stuck with and could not have changed if they wanted to.
Ok, instead of fighting over the pie, we may as well eat it. Here’s to flight. *Eats pie* Mmm, blackberry!
🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢
Ahem! Thank you to whoever tagged me, because I had no clue this discussion existed.
Hi. I am originally from North Carolina, and I would like to protest that it is a beautiful state, despite the smallish bit of snow in the Piedmont region. 😛 (There is plenty of snow in the mountains…) Also, I do know why it is called the Tar Heel State! (Yay for studying NC history in 3rd grade…) Well, actually, consensus varies, but the version I learned is that it was a nickname given during the Civil War because the North Carolinian soldiers stood their ground like there was tar on their heels holding them there. 😛 Other opinions say that the name came from NC’s history in the tar/turpentine industry.
Here’s a quote about that Civil War version:
In the third volume of Walter Clark’s Histories of the Several Regiments from North Carolina in the Great War, the author explains that the nickname came about when North Carolina troops held their ground during a battle in Virginia during the American Civil War while other supporting troops retreated. After the battle, supporting troops asked the victorious North Carolinians: “Any more tar down in the Old North State, boys?” and they replied: “No, not a bit; old Jeff’s bought it all up.” The supporting troops continued: “Is that so? What is he going to do with it?” The North Carolinian troops’ response: “He is going to put it on you’ns’ heels to make you stick better in the next fight.”
So. Fun stuff. 😛
In any case, my favorite thing about NC was the beautiful nature. From beaches to mountains to beautiful forest, waterfalls, and caves, NC has it all and I had a wonderful childhood exploring so much of it.
But moving on…I’ve been a Floridian for almost 6 years now. 4 years more and I can be considered an official Florida Cracker. (Which…has a history, as well, but basically it means someone who’s an honorary native, even though you weren’t born there.) PSA about Florida:
– It’s not all beaches, folks. In fact, the central strip of Florida is as old-fashioned-southern-rural as you can get. Florida has a large population of cows.
– It’s also not all palm trees. (Thank goodness.) We have quite a lot of pine trees and evergreens, as well as shrubbery and tropical flowers.
– We have a lot of water all over the state. If you look at a Google map of Florida, you’ll quickly find it’s littered with lakes. There’s standing water everywhere you turn, whether it be a drainage pond or swampland. Florida is very…wet.
– We’re officially in sub-tropic zone. That means the name Sunshine State means absolutely nothing from about May-October, when it we have tropical thunderstorms an average of once a day. Did I mention Florida is WET?
– We have a lot of water birds and not many “normal” songbirds, at least where I live. We get a few varieties of birds of prey (hawks and falcons and the like), and then as for the songbirds: a few cardinals, mourning doves, and the occasional robin or chickadee. That’s about it.
– That being said, we do have armadillos. Yes. Armadillos. I know this is not Texas, but still.
– We also have some coyotes, though those are much more rare.
– All this aside, my section of west-central Florida (that’s about halfway down, on the west coast) is very much like any other area in the south. It’s a city with suburbs and normal people living normal lives. No one goes to the beach every day, okay. Or even every weekend.
– A final note on weather: It varies, but in a “typical” year, my region has its coldest weather in January, with cool to cold nights and mornings (40s to 50s), and cool days (50s to 60s). January is usually when the leaves will do most of their dropping, on the trees that do such things. February is pretty much cool day and night, with the occasional cold night. Average temperature is 60s, with some low 70s, climbing to higher 70s towards the end of the month. This time of year (late February through mid-March) is spring, with the last bit of cool mornings (60s) and daytime mostly in the mid-to upper 70s. And then April is pretty much transition into summer, with 70s in the mornings and starting to hit 80s during the day. May through October is the rainy season with typical temperatures being 80s through low 90s (upper 80s and the 90s only being June-August). November is a repeat of April. December varies, but it’s usually most like February. Imagine wearing jeans and a t-shirt on Christmas day and decorating your yard full of palm trees with Christmas lights and you’ve got Florida Christmas.Anyway, I hope this is interesting to someone. 😛
Nope sorry. I shall not be attending said event. 🙂
You live on the hot n dry side right?
@hannah-c Boo. Ivy Rose and I are. We could have had a kingdom pen party. 😛
No, actually. I’m nearer to Seattle. ‘Tis thunderstorming outside as I type.Wow, @bluejay. Good job finding all those tags. It seems to have worked somewhat. XD
It has occurred to me before that Australians and Floridians share a certain kinship around Christmas weather. 😛
Hey Australians, do y’all find the songs that talk about snow and such as ridiculous as we do? 😉
(To the rest of you, imagine listening to/singing songs like “Jingle Bells” and “Let it Snow” while sweating as you haul out the Christmas lights.)
@writefury well we’re having one now. 😀
How lovely! Its sprinkling here and the birds are ever so happy. It sounds like Spring.:)HC
@Daeus
Yeah, I realized that after I submitted my comment! 🙂 Ohio definitely wins!A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
We really do celebrate the 4th of July with fireworks, hot dogs or hamburgers, chips, pop, and watermelon; at least some of us do. It’s not just stereotype.
Basketball is a fairly large sport here in Indiana, not just football.
Indiana is the Hoosier state; meaning, yes, we call ourselves Hoosiers. There are many stories of where ‘Hoosier’ came from, mainly involving the slurring of words, like ‘who’s here’.
Oh, and the US Navy SEALs are the best!
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
@hannah-c I live on the hot and dry side of WA. 🙂 Where are you located?
@ivy-rose I live on the wet and cold side lol. Right now we’re having spurts of Sun between cold downpours of rain. 😀 Gotta love Washington weather.
Fact: They say in Washington if you don’t like the weather where you’re at then drive 30 miles and you’ll find a different type.
HC
@bluejay – Wow, you know more about Arizona than I do. 🙂 We’ve driven by Tombstone, but we didn’t see the rose bush. Australia has some of the coolest wildlife, I think. Frilled lizards are better than rattlesnakes. Have you ever been to the Great Barrier Reef?
And, if you haven’t noticed, Ted Cruz is the BEST presidential candidate.
@writefury – Did you say you’ve been to Israel?The main problem in Oklahoma has less to do with the wind and more to do with the wind ferrets that come with it. They’re a serious problem.
Like, we all want to give the indigenous species room to exist and do their thing, but the ecological ramifications of having wind ferrets in your state is something the local government has really struggled with. They are very hard on crops, they deplete vast quantities of liquid resources, and they smell bad.
Arkansas recently outlawed them (or, rather, made it legal to bite them until they die, which has effectively solved the problem) and there’s not enough wind in Texas or Kansas to support them except in singular units, which take much less effort to control. A single wind ferret can be tolerated, but in Oklahoma, we get wind speeds of 30-50 mph regularly, which is more than enough to support flocks of 70-80 wind ferrets.
I saw such a flock attack a Volkswagen Beetle once.
Oklahoma economy is almost entirely based around the oilfield, which is dangerous due to the boom/bust nature of the industry. Right now we have extreme unemployment issues because of such a bust, and it really takes a toll on every business in the area.
Busts in the oilfield happen when the wind ferrets’ acidic pee gets all over the oil rigs, causing significant structural issues that make drilling either very dangerous or impossible. Most employees go through some level of tennis-racket-based combat training to defend the rigs, but again, at high wind speeds, larger flocks are able to hold together and there’s very little that can be done on an individual level. One oil venture this past October invested in a fire machine to be used in such cases, and I’m gonna be honest, watching the night skies lit up by flaming wind ferret flocks and the spurts of flammable gases into the air was kinda beautiful. It’s gotta be similar to what folk back during the civil war felt watching canon fire in the distance from their windows.
All the oilfielders died that night.
So, yeah, anyway, kinda a long rant, but that’s Oklahoma in a nutshell. Pretty cool state.
@Daeus Ha! Very good point….I just got rather heated when Mr. Ramm claimed the glory of the first flight for his own state. 😉
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