Game of Thrones Season 6: Tease (HBO)

No idea?

THE : FUTURE : LABORATORY > Top Tech Trends 2016



Bloomberg Business spoke to Peter Firth, Insight Editor at the Future Laboratory about what he thinks will be the top tech trends for 2016. (Video By Austin Brown & Muhammad Darwish).
The brief 2:22 video was uploaded three days ago December 23, 2015 @ 3:08 a.m. MST. Readers can view the video with this link >>
http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/watch/top-tech-for-2016/vp-BBnQA8R 

Firth, seen in the image to the right, talks about three macro trends:
1. Social Commerce [S-Commerce]
2. Facial Recognition
3. Artificial Intelligence + Machine Learning

Hi Jolly! A Syrian On A Camel Spotted Here In Arizona

A Timely Saga Almost Forgotten In Arizona History >
How fast the political backlash and fears for safety strike out from Arizona Governor Ducey and both 5th District Congressman Matt Salmon and 9th District Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema calling for actions restricting immigration from Syria and The Middle East.
Yet "once upon a time and not so long ago" what was then the United States in the mid-19th century -  oops! this territory was once part of The Confederacy - decided to establish a Camel Military Corps involving 77 dromedaries imported from The Ottoman Empire, along with six Turks and a Syrian named Hadji Ali for military purposes and reconnaissance.

Hi Jolly Monument in Quartzite [Tyson;s Well]

Unwilling or unable to pronounce his name correctly, the Confederate army gave Ali a corrupted nickname. The moniker stuck, and throughout the rest of his life, the displaced cameleer-immigrant was known simply as “Hi Jolly.”

The story of Hi Jolly began in 1855 when Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was told of an innovative plan to import camels to help build and supply a Western wagon route from Texas to California. It was a dry, hot and otherwise hostile region, not unlike the camel's natural terrain in the Middle East.

Davis, convinced of the idea, proposed a Camel Military Corps to Congress. "For military purposes, and for reconnaissance, it is believed the dromedary would supply a want now seriously felt in our service," he explained. Congress agreed and appropriated $30,000.

Efforts to span the deserts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California had been largely unsuccessful using horse and mule transports, but communication and transportation were crucial to controlling the region.

In a report from June 1857 Lieutenant Edward Beale, leader of one of the expeditions, indicated the great advantages of  camel travel. The camels, he noted, did not need grass but could eat all forms of desert brush and managed for days without water. He reported that “they are the most docile, patient, and easily managed creatures in the world,” even in the trying conditions of the harsh American southwest.  
Readers can look into more details here in an account called "Strangers in a Strange Land: Hi Jolly and the U.S. Camel Corps" on the History Bandits website.
It begins with this: In Quartzsite, Arizona, an odd monument stands just off Highway 95. Erected in 1935, it is inscribed as “the last camp of Hi Jolly.” This marker, crowned with a copper camel, seems out of place in the desert of western Arizona. It stands as a testament to the bizarre experience of a group of strangers brought to the American west in the mid-19th century. These foreign imports, both men and beast, served American expansionism for a time, and then were rejected as something too exotic to be included in the exclusive American frontier.
Oddly, 150 years later there are many corps of people and human refugees fleeing the U.S. military expansion in the Middle East and what's left of The Ottoman Empire.

Official Arizona historian Marshall Trimble has  some important details to add in  this article
from Russia Today RT.com
Other details readers might find interesting can be found here

Climbing Aboard History Again > WW2 Air Force Vet DJ "Red" Ibeling, B17 398th Bombardment Group

How to make a long story short?

Please note, dear readers, this is a personal story where Red's path and mine happened to intersect at the bookstore in the Mesa Main Public Library where yours truly volunteers. But first let's fast-forward into the future for a happy chapter: on Saturday, December 26th at noon World War II VET Red Ibeling will once again be getting onboard a 20-minute Boeing B17 flight taking off on a runway at the Commemorative Air Force Museum located at Falcon Field.
Red, the only one who is not deceased, can be seen standing back row first on the left in the May 12, 1945 image of Bowman's Crew.

He's 92 now and got so royally pissed-off when he was asked to pay $20 to take a nostalgic walk aboard a Boeing B17 Flying Fortress -one of only ten in the United States fit-to-fly - stationed at Airbase Arizona CAF that he wrote his own straight-from-the-gut 11-page pamphlet "Mission Memories: 8th AF 398 BG 602SQ".

On Saturday, thanks to the interest and efforts of friends, he will be taking off on a Sentimental Journal on this plane
B-17G 44-83514
Sentimental Journey

Commemorative Air Force Museum @ Falcon Field
https://www.azcaf.org/


[readers can see other posts about the Commemorative Air Force and Falcon on this site]

B-17G Flying Fortress
Boeing B-17 Sentimental Journey Ride Details:

Climb aboard the legendary B-17 bomber that became known as WWII’s Flying Fortress for a flight that will truly take you back in time. The price for this historic flight is only $425 per waist seat ($850 for nose seats), minimum of five passengers need to be signed up per flight.

As passengers prepare for their flight, a quick tour of the plane will show where each of the 10 crew members were stationed. Passengers will then board and be seated in either the forward section (nose) or aft section (radio room/waist gunners).

The 398th was part of the 8th Air Force 1st Air Division during WWII and was one of many B-17 Bomb Groups stationed in England. The 398th was formed in the United States in 1943 and was stationed in Nuthampstead, England from April 1944 until June 1945.
During that time they flew 195 missions. All missions left from Nuthampstead and were to Germany unless otherwise specified.
Non-Germany missions included locations in France, Holland, and Czechoslovakia.
Readers can see the whole archive in this list >> http://www.398th.org/Missions/Missions_Listing.html

 

Time for Trends > Urban Land Institute Conference January 2016

The Urban Land Institute is a 501[c][3] nonprofit research and education organization supported by its members. The Institute now has members in 95 countries worldwide, representing the entire spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines working in private enterprise and public service.  As the preeminent multidisciplinary real estate forum, ULI facilitates an open exchange of ideas, information, and experience among local, national, and international industry leaders and policy makers dedicated to creating better places.

The ULI Arizona District Council was formed in the early 1980s, as a direct response to the need for educational forums and events at a local level.  ULI Arizona has been a statewide convener for dialog among industry leaders, providing an unbiased and non-partisan exchange of ideas relevant to Arizona communities.  ULI Arizona boasts nearly eight hundred members, and has one of the highest member participation rates of any ULI District Council.

 

The mission of the Urban Land Institute is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide.
Trends Day 2016 The Next 10 Years January 20, 2016
J.W. Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa
7:15 am Registration
8:00 am – 4:00pm Program
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Reception and Masterplan Jam
Complete Information go here >>
http://arizona.uli.org/event/2016-uli-arizona-trends-day-conference/

Arizona Economy Expected To Accelerate in 2016



That's what George W. Hammond, Director and Research Professor @ EBRC has to say in a report today 24 December 2016 [connect on link below]
The Arizona economy is expanding at a solid, but unspectacular and uneven rate . . .  The Phoenix metropolitan statistical area (MSA), composed of Maricopa and Pinal counties, accounted for most of the state’s job growth during the past year.
https://realestatedaily-news.com/hammond-arizona-economy-expected-accelerate-2016/

More data, reports, research and statistics here:
https://www.azeconomy.org/

Holiday Cheers + A Happy New Year to The Grand Man On Main Street

It was an unexpected honor, surprise and pleasure to get the opportunity to meet Mr. Wayne C. Pomeroy just the other day, thanks to a mutual friend Don Stapley.

Striking a smile in his office upstairs at the store with a lifetime of achievements to enjoy.