Questions for our American friends

[demsal8]

Hi again billy,
If you want to see what Area 51 is about, take Yahoo maps, satellite view, and key in "Area 51", it will show you an areial view which you can zoom in all you want, but you won't see any action. They do most of their top secret stuff at night. For example, the F117, now known as the stealth fighter was flight tested and developed at Area 51 where it was known as the "black jet." There are rumors now that they are testing a hyper-sonic plane which I think I may have seen at one time. I was at my mother's house in California east of SF, went outside at 2am and saw a contrail going East to West at an altitude so high nothing could be heard. I got my binoculars which are 10 power image stabilized and I couldn't see anything at the front of the contrail. No running lights, etc. I have also read an article, I think in the papers, where a seismologist in California claims to have been tracking this plane. Seems the sonic boom, which cannot be heard at that distance, was triggering the seismographs placed liberally along the San Andreas Fault and leaving a footprint behind. He claimed the evidence showed the indication of an object moving at Mach 5, first southbound then later northbound off the California coast. Fastest plane known to date was the SR71 which went Mach 3.

By the way, the name Area 51 was derived from a vast area of the Nevada desert which the government appropriated initially to run nuclear tests. They divided it into a bunch of different sections which could be used independently without interfering with each other. Area 51 happened to contain an old dry lake known as Grooms Lake and was perfect for constructing long flat runways with no adjacent rocks that might cause a surprise for the pilots. It was in the middle of a valley with hills all around and so became a perfect place to hide secret developments.

[dbailey]

Do my American friends 'stand in line' stand on line' 'wait in line' or 'queue up'

We queue up in Britlandcestershire and we put groceries in a bag.

Holidays are what you call vacations in the USA and have nothing to do with Xmas or Easter.

Public holidays are bank holidays and we walk on the pavement and drive on the road.

And I think a sub roll is possibly a baguette.

And I am coming to San Diego for a holiday in a fortnight (two weeks time)

[keefriff]

Originally Posted by dbailey

Do my American friends 'stand in line' stand on line' 'wait in line' or 'queue up'

We queue up in Britlandcestershire and we put groceries in a bag.

Holidays are what you call vacations in the USA and have nothing to do with Xmas or Easter.

Public holidays are bank holidays and we walk on the pavement and drive on the road.

And I think a sub roll is possibly a baguette.

And I am coming to San Diego for a holiday in a fortnight (two weeks time)

I also heard a crazy rumor that you drive on the left side of the road too.

Have fun in SD and don't forget to take the wife and kids to the San Diego Zoo. It's well worth it.

[demsal8]

We stand in line or wait in line only that I know of.

Groceries are place in a bag or a grocery bag or sometimes a large paper bag know as a commissary bag (from the military grocery stores know as commissaries).

Holidays here are official time off from work due to a date that celebrates something in our past. Vacations are when people take time off from work anytime when they have accumulated enough vacation days due to working long enough. However, occasionally you will hear someone refer to a vacation as a holiday.

Sometimes official federal government holidays are referred as bank holidays because usually the banks are closed on those days. But there are also state holidays, and sometimes religious holidays which don't apply to everyone such as Jewish Yom Kippur or often the Blacks in the country will take Martin Luther King's birthday as a holiday whether it is approved or not.

We walk on the sidewalk, walkway, or path and drive on a road, street, lane, avenue, parkway, highway, freeway, tollway, Interstate, thruway, and who knows what other names. The 'pavement' is usually reserved for motor vehicles.

A sub roll is a small loaf of bread of varying dimensions, about 2 inches thick, three wide, and 6 to 12 inches long. When sliced horizontally down the middle, opened, and filled with condiments, meats, vegatables, and who knows what else, it becomes a submarine sandwich (for the resemblance to the water craft), sub for short, a hoagie, poorboy, etc. This sandwich is available in virtually every American city due to a chain called Subway.

Yes, I understand fortnight, but that knowledge is not universal in this country. Someone here would just say two weeks.

Expanding on Keefriff's statement, the San Diego Zoo is one of the three best in the country and maybe in the world. The other two are St. Louis Zoo and the Brookfield Zoo in a suburb of Chicago.

[Jasper Lamar Crabb]

Standing on line is an east coast thing, I think.

[Ace1965]

Originally Posted by keefriff

Same is true in Minneapolis. The typical Upper Midwest accent that you may have heard in the movie Fargo certainly exists but very few people, especially in the cities, actually talk that way.

I worked for a long time with a woman from Minneapolis. She was as close as you could come to the accents in the movie "Fargo". Everytime she wanted to ask someone a question she began with "Say ah...".

My desk was 10 feet away from hers and a lot of the time I could not come close to understanding what she was saying. When her daughter would come down to visit she was much worse than her mother to understand.

She said they hated "Fargo" up there just like we hated "Deliverance" down here.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by billybunter

What really goes on in area 51...

Area 51 does not exist.

Seriously, the US Federal Government does not recognize the existence of any government or military facility by that name or in that map section of Nevada.

[Night Haunter]

Originally Posted by dbailey

Do my American friends 'stand in line' stand on line' 'wait in line' or 'queue up'

We queue up in Britlandcestershire and we put groceries in a bag.

Holidays are what you call vacations in the USA and have nothing to do with Xmas or Easter.

Public holidays are bank holidays and we walk on the pavement and drive on the road.

And I think a sub roll is possibly a baguette.

And I am coming to San Diego for a holiday in a fortnight (two weeks time)

Be warned my friend San Diego is very very hot, while there you must visit the Zoo (largest in the world) you could spend all day there and still not see everything, the Koala's particulary are quite funny, there all spaced out of there heads on Eucalyptus leaves and just fall off branches.
Have a great Vacation.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by DTravel

Area 51 does not exist.

Seriously, the US Federal Government does not recognize the existence of any government or military facility by that name or in that map section of Nevada.

Would this be the same US Government which said that Hydrogen bomb tests in the desert were completely safe? Of course, the easiest way to prove that there is no secret government research facility in Area 51 would be to go there...

The aliens and flying saucers are the stuff of B Movie fantasy but it does stand to reason that the US Government does have research facilities, if not at Area 51, then somewhere. If I were a senior person in the CIA I would hugely value the Area 51 myth and do everything I could to encourage it, including making public denials. They might as well give Captain Paranoia a hobby horseto play with, to keep him amused and out of their hair. It's called "disinformation."

[Night Haunter]

Is it true there are signs on surrounding fences say 'Trespassers will be Shot'