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Carol H Tucker
Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
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beladona Memorial
Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
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what we don't know...
Today is the 4th day of the 47th week, the 20th day of the 11th month, the 324th day of 2019, and:
- Africa Industrialization Day
- Beautiful Day
- Future Teachers of America Day
- Geographic Information Systems Day
- Globally Organized Hug a Runner Day
- Latina Women's Equal Pay Day
- Name Your PC Day
- National Absurdity Day
- National Educational Support Professionals Day
- National Peanut Butter Fudge Day
- Transgender Day of Remembrance
- Universal Children's Day – in 1959 UN adopts Universal Declaration of Children's Rights
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1521 - Arabs attribute shortage of water in Jerusalem to Jews making wine
1886 - Sherlock Holmes's first story "A Study in Scarlet" is accepted by publisher Ward and Lock with payment of £25
1888 - Willard Bundy patents timecard clock
1889 - Gustav Mahler's First Symphony is performed
1914 - US State Department starts requiring photographs for passports
1923 - Garrett Morgan patents his traffic signal design, an important development in automobile safety
1945 - The Nuremberg war trials begin as 24 Nazi leaders are put on trial before judges representing the victorious Allied powers
1966 - "Cabaret" opens at Broadhurst Theater NYC for 1166 performances
1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1971 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1979 - US's first artificial blood transfusion occurs at University of Minnesota Hospital
1980 - Steve Ptacek in Solar Challenger makes first solar-powered flight
1983 - An estimated 100 million people watched the controversial ABC-TV movie "The Day After." The movie depicted the outbreak of nuclear war.
1984 - SETI Institute (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) is founded.
1985 - Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released
1986 - The one billionth Little Golden Book was printed. The title was "The Poky Little Puppy".
1990 - The space shuttle Atlantis landed at Cape Canaveral, FL, after completing a secret military mission.
1995 - Princess Diana admitted being unfaithful to Prince Charles in an interview that was broadcast on BBC Television.
1998 - Forty-six states agreed to a $206 billion settlement of health claims against the tobacco industry. The industry also agreed to give up billboard advertising of cigarettes.
2008 - After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997.
2018 - Sell-off in technology stocks leads stock market losses wiping out all 2018 market gains
2019- NASA Voyager is 20 hrs 32 mins 48 secs of light-travel time from Earth
Writing prompt of the day:
How do you think the colors of the traffic light: red, yellow and green, were decided upon? The short answer is that the color scheme was lifted from the railroads, but that doesn’t explain why the railroads used them.
Picture an archeologist of the future pondering over an artifact that has been dug up from a Weans dig. The questions abound – why three lights? Were all three on at the same time, or two at a time, or just one? When were the lights lit and for what purpose did they festoon the city streets? It seems almost a universal color scheme – we know that red stands for stop or danger, yellow means caution, green means okay or go. – but how would our archeologist know that? They might speculate the color red was used because the wavelength of the color is the longest in the visual spectrum, and therefore the easiest to see from a distance – but how would they figure out the meaning? They might speculate as we do today that red stood for danger years because it is the color of our blood and of fire. Along those lines, green can be seen as a symbol of life because of trees, brush, and grass – and therefore of safety. Yellow, despite being the color of sunshine, could be associated with cowards, madness, jaundice because the toxic materials used created the yellow pigments [cadmium, lead, chrome, and urine]. Think of all the misconceptions our unknown, intrepid explorer could form – and realize just how little we know today about the world of our own ancestors.
No wonder so many outre theories abound!
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artificial
Today is the 3rd day of the 47th week, the 19th day of the 11th month, the 323rd day of 2019 [with only 35 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- American Made Matters Day
- "Have a Bad Day" Day
- Equal Opportunity Day
- Gettysburg Address Day
- International Men's Day
- National Blow Bagpipes Day
- National Camp Day
- National Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day
- National Entrepreneurs' Day
- Parents Day (Tuesday of National Education Week)
- Play Monopoly Day
- Rocky and Bullwinkle Day – in 1959 "Rocky & His Friends" debuted on ABC
- Women's Entrepreneurship Day
- World Philosophy Day
- World Toilet Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1493 - Christopher Columbus discovers Puerto Rico, on his 2nd voyage
1620 - The Mayflower reaches Cape Cod and explores the coast
1621 - Rabbi Isaiah ben Abraham aha-Levi Horowitz arrives in Israel
1805 - Lewis and Clark expedition, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, reaches the Pacific Ocean, first European Americans to cross the west
1835 - A ship carrying 500 armed Maori from Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga arrives on the Chatham Islands; those Moriori (indigenous people of the Chatham Islands) that are not killed are enslaved
1861 - Julia Ward Howe committed "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to paper
1861 - The first petroleum shipment (1,329 barrels) from the U.S. to Europe leaves Philadelphia, USA, for London, England on the Elizabeth Watts
1863 - US President Abraham Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg address beginning; "Four score and seven years ago..."
1872 - E.D. Barbour of Boston is awarded the first U.S. patent for the first 'calculator', an adding machine capable of printing totals and subtotals
1881 - A meteorite lands near the village of Großliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.
1893 - the first newspaper color supplement (NY World)
1894 - the first mushroom on a stamp (China 1 & 5 Ap)
1895 - American inventor Frederick E. Blaisdell patents the pencil
1911 - NY receives first Marconi wireless transmission from Italy
1916 - Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures, the company later became one of the most successful independent filmmakers
1947 - a 200" mirror arrives at Mt Palomar
1951 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1962 - Fidel Castro accepts removal of Soviet weapons -- 57 years later, Russia is contemplating putting them back again
1965 - Kellogg's Pop Tarts pastries created
1969 - Apollo 12's Charles Conrad and Alan Bean become the 3rd and 4th humans on the Moon
1970 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1971 - Disney World's Fort Wilderness opens
1987 - France performs nuclear test
1995 - CNET launches www.shareware.com />
1996 - Space Shuttle STS 80 (Columbia 21), launches into space
1997 - STS 87 (Columbia 24) launches into orbit
1998 - Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of the Artist Without Beard" sells at auction for $71.5 million
2017 - Oumuamua first detected by scientists, 400 meters long and reddish, first known interstellar object in our solar system first and of possible alien origin
I remember the annual ritual of Education Week very well. Once a year, parents were invited to sit in the back of our classrooms and observe a “typical” day of their kids’ educations. The days, of course, were anything BUT typical. Everyone put on their very best performance for the company. Teachers dressed nicely and had lesson plans designed to be interesting and interactive, speaking to their students in deliberately honeyed tones. Students were also dressed nicely and everyone was on their best behavior, excessively polite to each other and the teacher, raising hands to give answers instead of ignoring questions. The lunch room was immaculate and the food aromas from the steam table smelled enticing as the cafeteria ladies primly ladled food out. There was usually an assembly scheduled for the afternoon. Every single thing about the day was scrubbed, sanitized, and staged.
I hated it – both when I was a student and then when I was a parent.
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it can wait one day....
Today is the 5th day of the 45th week, the 7th day of the 11th month, the 311th day of 2019, and:
- Hug a Bear Day
- Employee Brotherhood Day
- International Merlot Day
- International Project Management Day
- International Stout Day
- Little League Girls Day - in 1973 NJ becomes the first state to allow girls into the Little League
- National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day
- National Canine Lymphoma Awareness Day
- National Cash Back Day
- National Men Make Dinner Day (Must Cook. No BBQ Allowed)
- Notary Public Day
- Read for The Record Day
ON THIS DAY ...
1631 - Pierre Gassendi observes transit of Mercury predicted by Kepler
1665 - the first edition of "London Gazette" published as "The Oxford Gazette"
1786 - The oldest musical organization in the United States is founded as the Stoughton Musical Society.
1805 - Lewis and Clark Expedition first sights the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River
1874 - the first cartoon depicting elephant as Republican Party symbol, by Thomas Nast
1875 - Verney Cameron is the first known European to cross equitorial Africa
1885 - Canadian Pacific Railway completed at Craigellachie
1904 - Broadway musical "Little Johnny Jones" written by George M. Cohan, featuring the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy" opens in New York
1910 - The first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken by the Wright Brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse.
1918 - Robert Goddard demonstrates tube-launched solid propellant rockets
1932 – the first broadcast of "Buck Rogers in the 25th century" on CBS-radio
1933 - Pennsylvania voters overturn blue law, by permitting Sunday sports
1957 - Cold War: The Gaither Report calls for more American missiles and fallout shelters.
1961 - France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria
1963 - First use of the instant replay machine invented by CBS in US Army vs Navy football game
1967 - Surveyor 6 launched for soft landing on Moon
1968 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1981 - France performs nuclear test
1990 - "Those Were The Days" opens at Edison Theater NYC for 126 performances
2012 - Voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington approve measures for same-sex marriage
2017 - Opera soprano Audrey Luna sings highest-ever note at Met Opera in New York, A above high C
2018 - World's oldest figurative painting of a beast at least 40,000 years old identified in Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave, Indonesian Borneo
This morning when I stopped at Starbucks, I noticed they had posted their holiday hours for Thanksgiving Day, and I thought that was kinda sad.
Blue laws were a fact of life when I was growing up. I remember most gas stations were closed, but I think supermarkets and restaurants were open – I know that bakeries did a thriving business with the after-church crowds – but shopping malls and retail stores were closed as were bars. I think you could still buy beer at the sporting events. As time passed, more and more of the restrictions were loosened, but I was an adult when the first retail stores got permission to stay open for limited hours [noon – 5 PM] during the Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Slowly but surely, the idea of there being one day where just about everyone had off and families were together fell by the wayside. Ocean City NJ held out for a long time, but finally caved to the tourists who wanted to play miniature golf, shop on the boardwalk and/or drink seven days a week. At least the holidays were still there for us!
Then somebody decided to be open on New Year’s Day for a special promotion, and other stores quickly followed suit. Easter Sunday became a work day because not everyone celebrated that. Last to fall was Thanksgiving, the first store pushing the Black Friday envelope back to Thursday at midnight, then Thursday at dusk. For a long time Christmas Day itself stayed sacrosanct – although the movie theaters pushed that boundary pretty quickly -- but nowadays, there are even places that stay open late on Christmas Eve or open Christmas Day for regular business hours.
While I don’t have strong feelings about Sunday being a holy day, and I understand that we don’t all celebrate the same religious holidays, I am rather sorry that we just don’t take an official break anymore, that there isn’t one day left in the entire year where you can reasonably expect everyone to be off work. It just makes life feel more frenetic all the way around for everyone.
I can’t change the trend, but I can and do make a point of NOT shopping on holidays
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a choice that was made
Today is the 4th day of the 45th week, the 6th day of the 11th month, the 310th day of 2019 [with only 48 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- Basketball Day
- Button Day
- International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict - on the anniversary of the last oil fire in Kuwait set by retreating Iraqi troops being extinguished in 1991
- International Stress Awareness Day
- Marijuana Recreational Legalization Day (Colorado & Washington)
- Marooned Without a Compass Day
- National Eating Healthy Day
- National Nachos Day
- National Saxophone Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1528 - Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca becomes first known European to set foot in Texas
1572 - Supernova is observed in constellation known as Cassiopeia
1862 - New York to San Francisco direct telegraphic link established
1879 - Canada celebrates their first Thanksgiving Day
1910 - SDAP/NVV initiate campaign for general males/female suffrage
1917 - [OS Oct 24] Bolshevik revolution begins with bombardment of the Winter Palace in Petrograd during the Russian October Revolution
1923 - USSR adopts experimental calendar, with 5-day "weeks"
1928 - Colonel Jacob Schick patents 1st electric razor
1935 - the first test flight of Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft
1936 - RCA displays TV for press
1941 - USA lends Soviet Union $1 million [equivalent in purchasing power to about $17,466,598.64 in 2019, quite a difference over 78 years]
1945 - The first landing of a jet on a carrier takes place on USS Wake Island when an FR-1 Fireball touches down
1946 - Karol Wojtyla (future Pope John Paul II) holds his first Mass as newly ordained Catholic priest in Wawel Cathedral's crypt
1947 - NBC's "Meet the Press" debuts - US's longest running TV show
1955 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1966 - for the first time, an entire lineup was televised in color (NBC)
1966 - Lunar Orbiter 2 launched
1967 - US launches Surveyor 6; makes soft landing on Moon Nov 9
1971 - US performs underground nuclear test at Amchitka Island Aleutians
1977 - "Hair" closes at Biltmore Theater NYC after 43 performances
1982 - Joe Altobelli succeeds Earl Weaver as Oriole manager ((it was the end of an era for the O's))
1985 - 22nd Space Shuttle Mission (61A) -Challenger 9- lands at Edwards AFB
1985 - Space shuttle Challenger lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California
1991 - Keck II, biggest telescope in use at Mauna Kea Hawaii
1991 - Maximus 2.0 BBS released
2005 - "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", the 4th film based on the books by J. K. Rowling, premieres in London. Goes on to become most successful film of the year, earning almost US$ 900 million.
2018 - Great Britain's Prince Charles calls slavery "an indelible stain" but stops short of an apology in a speech in Accra, Ghana
2018 - Colorado votes to abolish slavery as a form of punishment in state constitution
2018 - Human longevity less than 10% dependent on genetics according to study published in journal "Genetics" based on 400 million people from Ancestry
2019 - NASA Voyager is 20 hrs 30 mins 58 secs of light-travel time from Earth
When the road version of Hair came to the Morris Mechanic, I was a redcoat – not an usher but part of the paid staff that helped the ushers. As such, we used to get to see the performances several times and would get to the point where we would interact with the cast sometimes. At the end of Hair, audience members were encouraged to run down and join the cast dancing on the stage, and I always did so – usually dancing with a very tall man who’s dreadlocks seemed to have a life of their own. On the last night, he pulled me aside and suggested that instead of going home, I leave for San Francisco with him. I remember staring up at him and I was wildly tempted and suddenly I realized that I could go. Like a flash, I could see the choice laid out before me – the estrangement from my family, dropping out of college, the excitement of the road, becoming a gypsy and living a lifestyle I had only read about. It was such a great contrast to the plain Jane life I was living…. When I shook my head, he took my hand and told me that I had to get out of my cage; I don’t remember what I said next, but I didn’t go.
To this day, some 48 years later, while I cannot say I have ever regretted my decision, I still look back and wonder where I would be, who I would be, today if I had gone.
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I remember....
Today may have been Grandmom Hughes’ birthday. I’m not quite sure when you come right down to it. I know that my daughter was born on the 27th and that my cousin’s oldest daughter was either born two days earlier or two days later and Grandmom always joked that neither one of us got it right, missing her birthday by only a day. I’m not quite sure what year she was born in either – unlike my mother’s mother whose age I always knew because she was 23 when she had my mother and my mother was 23 when she had me. I think she was a couple of years younger than my maternal grandmother, but I’m not sure by how much.
But I remember Grandmom. I remember sitting in her living room after finishing in the kitchen, cleaning up from the big dinner, the menfolk yelling at the TV sport of the season and smoking, just talking until the talk would fade away and we would all start singing. I remember the taste of those rolls – she gave me the recipe and I used to bake a lot of bread, but I never managed to make those dinner rolls like she did. I remember the smell of the boxwoods when getting out of the car to go into her house. I remember that we always went in and out of the back door because she was probably in the kitchen and who used the front door anyway? I remember that she took the name off Grandpop’s boat before she sold it and then was sorry she did because the buyer never renamed the Nim Nell, although he joked once that if he ever did, it would be “Captain Harry’s Old Boat” because that was what folks would say to him out on the water. I remember that she taught me about unconditional love even while telling me off when she didn’t like my behavior. I remember that everyone like visiting her for family dinners because after we ate, you could go for a walk or watch TV or sit and read or go down the basement and play pool or play outside or do anything you wanted. I remember getting exasperated because she talked so often about who would get what when she died only to appreciate how clearly she left her feelings and desires be known because not one of the three children or six grandchildren had a single dispute about the settlement of her estate. I remember arguing with her hotly about politics, about religion, about just about anything that could be argued about, then veering off to talk about something else. I remember playing pinochle and 500 rummy. I remember that Thanksgiving was your holiday when we all tried to gather.
But most of all? I still sing the old songs, Grandmom, and I have taught them to my granddaughters.
I remember you.
And I always will.
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Today is the 6th day of the 43rd week, the 25th day of the 10th month, the 298th day of 2019 [with only 60 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- Chucky, The Notorious Killer Doll Day
- Frankenstein Friday
- International Artist Day
- National Bandanna Day
- National Breadstick Day
- National Cartoonists Against Crime Day
- National Greasy Foods Day
- National I Care About You Day
- National Pharmacy Buyer Day
- Punk for a Day Day
- Sourest Day
- St. Crispin's Day – bringing shaming to a new level
- World Lemur Day
- World Pasta Day
- World Pizza Makers Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1521 - Emperor Charles V bans wooden buildings in Amsterdam
1616 - Dutch East India Company ship "The Eendracht" discovers Dirk-Hartog Island, Australia
1854 - The infamous "Charge of the Light Brigade" during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War results in over 100 killed
1870 - Postcards first used in USA
1906 - US inventor Lee de Forest patents "Audion", a 3-diode amplification valve which proved a pioneering development in radio & broadcasting
1911 - London's last horse drawn omnibus made its way from London Bridge Station to Moorgate
1923 - Senate committee publishes 1st report on Teapot Dome scandal
1929 - Former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall convicted of accepting $100,000 bribe in the Teapot scandal - 1st US Cabinet member to go to jail
1943 - Burma railroad completed and opens
1952 - First Dutch edition of children's magazine "Donald Duck"
1960 - the first electronic wrist watch placed on sale, NYC
1961 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1962 - the first Belgian nuclear reactor begins operation
1964 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1964 - Rolling Stones appear on Ed Sullivan for the 1st time
1971 - United Nations votes to expel the Chinese Nationalist ruled Taiwan and admit the Communist People's Republic of China
1975 - USSR's Venera 10 makes day-side Venus landing
1977 - Digital Equipment Corporation releases OpenVMS V1.0.
1978 - "Halloween", directed by John Carpenter, starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut, is released
1979 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1984 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1985 - Kosmos 1700 communications satellite placed in geostationary orbit
1988 - France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
1995 - "Victor/Victoria" opens at Marquis Theater NYC for 738 performances ((this was a great movie with Julie Andrews later))
2000 - A team led by Brigitte Senut and Martin Pickford discover Orrorin tugenensis, one of the earliest species on the human family tree that lived about 6 million years ago, in the Tugen Hills, Kenya
2001 - Windows XP first becomes available
2007 - The first Airbus A380 passenger flight, operating for Singapore Airlines, with flight number SQ 380, flying scheduled service between Singapore and Sydney, Australia.
2017 - First fossil of a ichthyosaur (marine reptile, 152 million years old) found in India. Reports published in "Plos One" science journal.
2018 - First work of art produced by artificial intelligence "Edmond de Belamy" concieved by Obvious sells for $432,500 at Christie's in New York
Quote of the day:
“One day when I was studying with Schoenberg ((Austrian-born American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter, widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century)), he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, ‘This end is more important than the other.’”
~ John Cage, Silence
In my younger days, I lacked a robust editor and had to learn to keep some things unspoken by a lot of hard knocks. I’m still not that good at it, which has an upside as well as a downside for while being considered less than tactful at times, there is a reputation for not being duplicitous at least. One of the symptoms of dementia is that you lose the social filter – that self-editing tool that makes sure everything that comes into your mind does not come out of your mouth – and I have occasionally wondered if anyone would notice if I did start losing it since I’m already seen as being so blunt. I hadn’t actually realized how much I do censor myself [in public at least] until after the 2016 US presidential election when I found myself starting to post or comment and would quietly delete it rather than add to the cacophony of shouting.
So just how far do you go with self-editing these days?
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Today is the 5th day of the 43rd week, the 24th day of the 10th month, the 297th day of 2019, and:
- 40-Hour Work Week Day – despite all the dire predictions of economic collapse resulting, the US Fair Labor Standards of 1938 comes into effect on this day in 1940, setting both a minimum wage [25 cents per hour. Adjusted for inflation, that would be worth about $4.45 today] and a 40 hour week
- Black Thursday
- Food Day
- National Bologna Day
- National Crazy Day
- National Good & Plenty Day
- Recycle Your Mercury Thermostat Day
- Take Back Your Time Day
- United Nations Day -- the Charter of United Nations comes into effect in 1945
- Unity Day
- Wear Purple for Domestic Violence Awareness Day
- World Development Information Day
- World Polio Day
- World Tripe Day
ON THIS DAY ON ...
1260 - The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; now a UNESCO World Heritage Site
1818 - Felix Mendelssohn aged 9 performs his first public concert in Berlin
1836 - Earliest American patent for a phosphorus friction match by Alonzo Dwight Phillips of Springfield, Massachusetts
1851 - William Lassell discovers Ariel and Umbriel, satellites of Uranus
1861 - First US transcontinental telegram is sent (from San Francisco to Washington, DC)
1881 - Levi P Morton, US ambasador to France drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty
1901 - Daredevil Anna Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. She was 63 years old.
1908 - Billy Murray hits the charts with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"
1911 - Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina setting a new world record that stood for 10 years.
1926 - Harry Houdini's last performance, at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan
1929 - "Black Thursday", start of stock market crash, Dow Jones down 12.8% as investors dumped more than 13 million shares
1938 - US forbids child labor in factories
1939 - Benny Goodman records "Let's Dance"
1939 - Nazi require wearing of Star of David by Jews
1939 - Nylon stockings go on sale for first time (Wilmington, Delaware)
1946 - A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket, launched from Whites Sands US, takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
1948 - The term "cold war" was used for the first time in a speech by Bernard Baruch before the Senate War Investigating Committee.
1951 - United Nations publishes its first postage stamps
1954 - Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States' support to South Vietnam ((what a slippery slope that turned out to be))
1971 - Harry Drake sets longest arrow flight by a footbow (1 mile 268 yds)
1973 - John Lennon sues US government to admit FBI is tapping his phone
1979 - Guinness Book of Records presents Paul McCartney with a rhodium disc as all-time best selling singer-songwriter
1980 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1984 - Intelsat 5 re-enters Earth's atmosphere 5 months after it failed
1989 - France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
1990 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1992 - The Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-U.S. team to win the World Series.
1995 - Total solar eclipse in SW/S Asia (2m09s)
2001 - NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft successfully entered orbit around Mars.
2002 - Microsoft Corp. and Walt Disney Co. announced the release of an upgraded MSN Internet service with Disney content.
2003 - Concorde makes its last commercial flight
2006 - MESSENGER spacecraft performs a Venus flyby
2009 - First International Day of Climate Action, organized with 350.org, a global campaign to address a claimed global warming crisis.
2017 - Albert Einstein's "Theory of Happiness", written as a note for a bellboy instead of a tip in Tokyo in 1922 sells for $1.56 million
2018 - Scientists confirm East Island in Hawaii, half a mile long, has been wiped out after contact with Hurricane Walaka
2018 - EU directive bans single-use plastics by 2021
This morning as I came down the hall I noticed a plastic bottle in the middle of the walkway. It was position just on the edge of the five steps that go down to the exit to the garage door. At first as I walked towards it, I thought it had been dropped, but then I could see it was about 2/3 filled with water and the top was off. Where it was positioned? I stopped as I realized this was no accident, the bottle was clearly left there deliberately. There was no way to go past without knocking it over, which would not only soak the walker’s feet but would throw water all over the steps as well, making them slippery. There was no one around to see or laugh at the reaction of the person who was going to get wet or fall, but the intent to cause that was there. While not an horrendous an act of cruelty, someone took the time and energy to booby trap the steps – and why?
Hearing a family coming up behind me, I quickly stooped and picked it up, discarding it in the trashcan as I walked to my car, shaking my head and pondering whether or not this was just a harmless prank or an expression of casual cruelty.
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Today is the 4th day of the 43rd week, the 23rd day of the 10th month, the 296th day of 2019, and:
- Event Organizers Day
- International Print Day
- Lung Health Day
- Medical Assistants Recognition Day
- National Boston Cream Pie Day ((I was in elementary school when I first tasted this treat; it became and remains my very favorite kikd of cake or pie))
- National Canning Day
- National Croc Day
- National iPod Day – Apple released the iPod in 2001
- National Mole Day
- National Slap Your Irritating Co-Worker Day
- Paralegal Day
- Swallows Depart from San Juan Capistrano Day
- TV Talk Show Host Day
- Unity Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1760 - First Jewish prayer books printed in North America
1775 - Continental Congress approves resolution barring blacks from army ((so much for liberty and equality for all))
181 -3 The Pacific Fur Company trading post in Astoria, Oregon is turned over to the rival British North West Company (the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest was dominated for the next three decades by the United Kingdom).
1814 - the first plastic surgery is performed (England) ((I included this but couldn't verify it, indeed, if you google the topic you'll find that cosmetic surgery has been performed throughout human history))
1819 - the first ship sails through the Erie Canal from Rome, New York to Utica, New York
1910 - Blanche Scott becomes the first woman to fly at a public event in the US at Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1915 - the first national horseshoe throwing championship (Kellerton, Iowa)
1933 - John Dillinger and his gang rob Central National Bank, in Greencastle, Indiana. They take $75,000 [equal to $1,438,356.87 in 2019]
1934 - Jean Piccard & Jeanette Ridlen attain balloon height of 17.341 m (rec)
1941 - Walt Disney's animated film "Dumbo" released
1958 - USSR lends money to UAR to build Aswan High Dam
1958 - The Smurfs first appear in the story "Johan and Pirlouit" by Belgium cartoonist Peyo
1961 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1964 - Time Magazine uses term "op art" for 1st time ((do you remember those psychedelic design pictures from the late 1980’s that you had to cross your eyes to see the 3-D picture they depicted?))
1972 - "Pippin" opens at Imperial Theater NYC for 1944 performances
1972 - Access credit cards introduced in Great Britain
1977 - Paleontologist Elso Barghoorn announces discovery of a 3.4-billion year old one-celled fossil, one of the earliest life forms on Earth
1981 - US national debt hits $1 trillion ((38 years later, as of June 2019, federal debt held by the public was $16.17 trillion and intragovernmental holdings were $5.86 trillion, for a total national debt of $22.03 trillion.))
1984 - STS 51-A launch vehicle moves to launch pad
1987 - France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
1987 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1989 - US 62nd manned space mission STS 34 (Atlantis 5) returns from space
2009 - The United Nations "Rotterdam Rules" convention regulating international maritime carriage of goods is ratified with its twentieth signature.
2018 - Microplastics found in human stools for the first time by Austrian scientists
2018 - World's oldest intact shipwreck, ancient Greek vessel 2,400 years old, found at bottom of the Black Sea by archaeologists
My friend and I went to see Everybody this past weekend – an old morality play where God wants Death to deliver to Him Somebody to explain what they have been doing with their lives. In the end, Everybody got Death’s okay to bring Somebody along, but only gets to take Love and Every Shitty and Evil Thing You Ever Did with them into the afterlife to give a presentation to God about what living was about – nothing else wants to come along, not friends nor family nor stuff nor even Mind and Understanding make that final trip into the unknown.
Now the fact that they stripped Everybody of mind and understanding surprised me in retrospect. In many ways, I consider my ability to think and to comprehend as part of my spirit, or the essence that makes me “me”, or my soul if you wish. Certainly if there is to be an afterlife in any way, shape, or form, my spirit or essence or soul would be what would be in residence, neh?
I always wanted to leave a Carol-sized hole in the world when I left it, but in my self-centered hubris, I hadn’t realized that it would only be the size of a single, tiny grain of sand – a thought that is both humbling and comforting as I get older.
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Today is the 3rd day of the 43rd week, the 22nd day of the 10th month, the 295th day of 2019, and:
- Clean Up the Earth Day
- Eat a Pretzel Day
- INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY
- International Stuttering Awareness Day
- Kof Awareness Day ((not to be confused with “kef” ))
- National Color Day
- National Knee Day
- National Make a Dog's Day Day
- National Nut Day
- Simchat Torah
- Smart is Cool Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
362 - The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside of Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire
1797 - Andre-Jacques Garnerin makes the first parachute descent from a balloon in Paris
1861 - the first telegraph line linking the US West and East coasts completed
1875 - First telegraphic connection in Argentina.
1897 - World's first car dealer opens in London
1907 - Ringling Brothers Greatest Show on Earth buys Barnum & Bailey circus
1930 - the first concerto of BBC Symphony Orchestra, under Adrian Boult
1936 - the first commercial flight from mainland to Hawaii
1938 - Chester Carlson demonstrates the first Xerox copying machine
1939 - NBC becomes first network to televise a pro football game; Brooklyn Dodgers beat Philadelphia Eagles, 23-14 at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field
1951 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1956 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Maralinga Australia
1962 - US President John F. Kennedy addresses TV about Russian missile bases in Cuba and imposes a naval blockade on Cuba, beginning the missile crisis
1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1964 - US performs underground nuclear test at Hattiesburg, Mississippi
1966 - USSR launches Luna 12 for orbit around Moon
1968 - Apollo 7 returns to Earth
1971 - USSR performs nuclear test
1975 - Soviet spacecraft Venera 9 soft-lands on Venus, becoming the first lander to return images from the surface of another planet
1976 - Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs. The dye is still used in Canada.
1977 - International Sun-Earth Explorers 1 and 2 launched into Earth orbit
1979 - Walt Disney World's welcomes its 100-millionth guest
1981 - Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization decertified, which many consider the start of the disenfranchising of unions and the decline of the middle class
1981 - US national debt tops $1 trillion
1981 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1987 - "Cabaret" opens at Imperial Theater NYC for 262 performances
1992 - Space Shuttle STS 52 (Columbia 13) launches into space
1993 - Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Serebrov makes record 9th space walk
1997 - Compaq testifies Microsoft threaten to break Windows 95 agreement if they showcased a Netscape icon
2008 - India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
2008 - Google Play is launched, the official app store for the Android operating system
2016 - AT&T buys Time Warner for $85.4 billion
Okay, I’m going on a rant here, so if you want to ignore the rest of the post, please feel free to just skip to the bottom of the post for the usual picture..
<rant>
And like so many rants, it is triggered by something very trivial – in this case the toilet paper in the ladies room at work. Now I get that owning a building involves a lot of costs, and that if you contain costs you increase your net income – which is why the business exists. But how much money do you really save by putting in a roll of toilet paper that is so thin one can see their hand through it? To get a decent wipe, one has to pull of over a yard of toilet paper, and sometimes do that multiple times, which means the paper runs out more quickly, so explain to me how you are realizing any cost savings again? And on top of it, the paper is so thin that a chunk will tear off before the roll starts to roll – which results in a litter on the floor of each stall of little pieces of torn paper. Looks unsightly and unclean, two vibes you don’t want to subject tenants or visitors to!
</rant>
*takes a deep breath*
Okay I feel better now.
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Today is the 2nd day of the 43rd week, the 21st day of the 10th month, the 294th day of 2019, and:
- Back to the Future Day - In Part II of the iconic movie trilogy that spawned a generation of “Make like a tree and get outta here” quipsters, Marty McFly travels forward in time to October 21, 2015.
- Apple Day ((the fruit not the company))
- Babbling Day
- Celebration of the Mind Day
- Check Your Meds Day
- Count Your Buttons Day
- Garbanzo Bean Day
- Global Iodine Deficiency Disorders Prevention
- International Day of the Nacho
- Lung Health Day
- Multicultural Diversity Day
- National Clean Your Virtual DesktopDay
- National Pets for Veterans Day
- National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day
- Reptile Awareness Day
- Shemini Atzeret - observed the 22nd of Tishri in the Hebrew calendar
- Xterra World Championship
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1520 - Explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his fleet reach Cape Virgenes and become the first Europeans to sail into the Pacific Ocean
1803 - English scientist John Dalton reads his paper on the absorption of gases by water, the fist outline of his atomic theory, to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
1854 - Florence Nightingale with a staff of 38 nurses is sent to the Crimean War
1869 - the first shipment of fresh oysters comes overland from Baltimore
1948 - UN rejects Russian proposal to destroy atomic weapons
1948 - Facsimile high-speed radio transmission demonstrated (Washington, D.C.)
1949 - Author of 'Brave New World' Aldous Huxley writes to congratulate George Orwell on his new novel '1984'
1957 - Jailhouse Rock starring Elvis Presley opens in Memphis, Tennessee
1961 - USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR
1964 - Film version of "My Fair Lady" directed by George Cukor and starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn premieres in New York (Academy Awards Best Picture 1965)
1965 - Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun.
1969 - Leonard Gersh's "Butterflies are Free" premieres in NYC
1971 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1975 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1990 - The first Apple Day, is held in Covent Garden, London.
2003 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.
Quote of the day:
"Life is mostly about mundane experiences. When you start thinking that only your most thrilling experiences are significant, you have already lost the most precious thing in life, the ability to fully immerse yourself in every experience."
~ Brad Warner, “It’s the Journey, Not the Trip”
Back in the day, long before emails and other social media, we had a thing called “pen pals” - strangers that you wrote letters to and got letters back from telling you both about your lives and trying to get to know them through that medium. What you quickly learned was that if you waited until something “important” happened to write, the relationship languished and expired. The way to keep a flourishing correspondence was to talk about stuff that was happening around you, day in and day out. This was directly in contrast to the soap operas that just kept piling event upon event, catastrophe after catastrophe, to keep their viewers entertained – the routine stuff turned out to be better for engagement. I was later to take this skill to a different level when I created the story line of “As the Bank Turns” which kept readers up to date watching the throes of a small community bank thrashing through organizational changes. And even later, when I was online and in Second Life, some of the more fun role plays were not about the big things, but when you could take an everyday happenstance and get an entire group involved with something simple and slightly absurd – like trying to cook a huge meal for an entire group, then serve them, in a tent on a windy day.
As the old saw proclaims, life really is what is going on while you are waiting for something to happen.
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putting TGIF in perspective
Today is the 6th day of the 42nd week, the 18th day of the 10th month, the 291st day of 2019, and:
- Air Force Birthday
- Chiropractic Founders Day
- Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day
- Hug A Greeting Card Writer Day
- International Day Against DRM
- International Legging Day
- National Ceiling Fan Day
- National Cheeseburger Day
- National Chocolate Cupcake Day
- National Exascale Day
- National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day
- National Mammography Day
- National No Beard Day
- National Rehabilitation Day
- National Respect Day
- National School Backpack Awareness Day
- World Menopause Day
- World Student Day
- World Water Monitoring Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1767 - Mason Dixon line, the boundary between Maryland & Pennsylvania agreed upon
1776 - In a bar decorated with bird tail in Elmsford, New York, a customer requests a glassful of “those cock tails” from bartender Betsy Flanagan
1867 - Alaska Purchase: US takes formal possession of Alaska from Russia, having paid $7.2 million
1878 - Edison makes electricity available for household use
1892 - the first commercial long-distance phone line opens (Chicago-NY)
1951 - USSR performs nuclear test
1952 - Date of the first Mad Magazine issue
1961 - "West Side Story", directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, the film adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical, starring Natalie Wood, is released (Academy Awards Best Picture 1962)
1962 - US launches Ranger 5 for lunar impact; misses Moon
1962 - US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Johnston Island
1967 - Walt Disney's "Jungle Book" film is released
1969 - Soyuz 8 returns to Earth
1975 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1979 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1979 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1984 - Discovery moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating of STS 51A mission
1984 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1988 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1989 - US 62nd manned space mission STS 34 (Atlantis 5) launches into orbit
1991 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1993 - STS-58 (Columbia) launches into orbit
Writing prompt of the day:
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious - You get some incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?
How do you celebrate? My first instinct would be to make a loud, joyous exclamation and maybe break into a dance. And then I would give thanks – nothing formal like a real prayer, just a shouted THANK YOU into the aether. If there were folks around me [such as at work], I’d be telling them. If I was home alone, I would pick up the phone and call on of my two close friends and babble at them. I would text my son and my daughter – and follow up with a phone call if they were available. Then I would post on social media.
Now what would qualify as “incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully fantastic news “? Something wonderful happening for someone that I love. Finding out that I am 100% hale and hearty. Hearing “I love you” from someone I love. Winning the lottery.
Or after you get the good news, do you wait for the other shoe to drop?
Like when you know you’ll pay for a three day weekend with a four day week that feels much longer than the normal five day work week?
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When you have an ex
Today is the 5th day of the 42nd week, the 17th day of the 10th month, the 290th day of 2019 [80% of the year is over], and:
- Black Poetry Day
- Conflict Resolution Day
- Edge Day
- Forgive an Ex Day
- Four Prunes Day
- Get to Know Your Customers Day
- International Credit Union Day
- International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
- International ShakeOut Day
- Mulligan Day
- National Get Smart About Credit Day
- National Pasta Day
- National Playing Card Collection Day
- Pay Back a Friend Day
- Spirit Day
- Spreadsheet Day
- Wear Something Gaudy Day
- World Trauma Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1456 - The University of Greifswald is established, making it the second oldest university in northern continental Europe (also for a period the oldest in Sweden, and Prussia)
1829 - Delaware River & Chesapeake Bay Canal formally opens
1888 - Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie)
1907 - Guglielmo Marconi's company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and Clifden, Ireland
1919 - Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is created as a subsidiary of General Electric
1933 - Albert Einstein arrives in US as a refugee from Nazi Germany
1939 - "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur, is released
1956 - "Around the World in 80 Days", based on the book by Jules Verne, directed by Michael Anderson and starring David Nivon and Cantinflas, premieres in New York
1959 - Queen Elizabeth is fined $140 for withdrawing her race horse
1963 - The Beatles record "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at EMI Studios in London
1965 - "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever" opens in NYC for 280 performances
1967 - "Hair" premieres on Broadway
1967 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1969 - Soyuz 7 returns to Earth
1975 - UN passes resolution saying "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination” which was later revoked in December 1991
1976 - China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
1978 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1982 - the first live orchestra on a US commercial network since 1954 (National Symphony)
1982 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1990 - "Les Miserables" opens at Imperial Theatre, NY & His Majesty's Theatre, Perth
2007 - The Dalai Lama receives the United States Congressional Gold Medal
2008 - Iran's attempt to create the world's largest sandwich (1,500 metres) fails when crowds eat it before it can be measured
2012 - Exoplanet Alpha Centauri Bb discovered orbiting Alpha Centauri announced (later thought to be a false finding)
2016 - Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou-11 launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northern China
2018 - Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch puppeteer Caroll Spinney leaves "Sesame Street" after 50 years
Quote of the day:
"You show up on time. When you say you're going to do something, you try to do your best at it. You don't backstab people. You don't bitch and complain about what you're doing. Being compassionate is big. And it's always important to act like a gentleman."
~ Scott Eastwood on the code taught by his father Clint Eastwood, American actor
I have two ex-husbands, each of them the father of one of my children. On this day that is devoted to forgiving an Ex, I poke my feelings towards them. A long time ago, I realized that the opposite of love is not hate, and I worked on achieving indifference as far as what happened between them and me. Forgiving what they have each done to their offspring? That comes a bit harder. My son has come to a place where he accepts his father for what he is and doesn’t have any negative emotional investments in the relationship for the most part, so I have been able to let my first husband go completely. My daughter? I do not understand how her father can live each day without speaking, without knowing about her health saga and his granddaughters, and so I am annoyed with him even after 34 years. I’m not sure how to forgive him for his intransigence and arrogant pride that causes the rift between him and our daughter, but it’s no skin off my nose and he is the loser thereby, so is forgiveness even mine to grant or withhold?
*looks a little sad*
I don’t think either of them have forgiven me for my part in the failed relationships. Sometimes, if I think about it, knowing there are two people who might actively wish me ill is rather dispiriting.
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End game
Today is the 4th day of the 42nd week, the 16th day of the 10th month, the 289th day of 2019 [with only 69 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- BRA Day USA
- Breast Reconstruction Day
- Department Store Day
- Dictionary Day (Noah Webster's Birthday)
- Global Cat Day
- Global Dignity Day
- Hagfish Day
- Information Overload Day
- Love Your Body Day
- National Boss Day
- National Cut Up Your Credit Card Day
- National Department Store Day
- National Dictionary Day
- National Feral Cat Day – but winter is coming
- National Fossil Day
- National Learn a Word Day
- National Liqueur Day
- National Support Your Local Chamber of Commerce Day
- National Take Your Parents to Lunch Day
- Steve Jobs Day
- Thank Your Cleaner Day
- World Food Day
- World Spine Day
ON THIS DAY IN ....
1847 - Charlotte Brontë's book "Jane Eyre" published
1867 - Alaska adopts Gregorian calendar, crosses international date line
1913 - George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" premieres in Hofburg Theatre in Vienna, Austria
1916 - Margaret Sanger opens the first birth control clinic in the US at 46 Amboy St, Brooklyn
1923 - Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio founded
1923 - John Harwood patents self-winding watch (Switzerland)
1950 - The first edition of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" is released in London
1957 - USAF sends two aluminum bullets into space
1958 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1964 - China becomes world's 5th nuclear power
1968 - Americans Tommie Smith (gold 19.83 WR) and John Carlos (bronze) famously give the Black Power salute on the 200m medal podium during the Mexico City Olympics
1969 - Soyuz 6 returns to Earth
1976 - Soyuz 23 returns to Earth
1980 - "Brigadoon" opens at Majestic Theater NYC for 133 performances
1982 - Mt Palomar Observatory is the first to detect Halley's comet on 13th return
1982 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1983 - "Zorba" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 362 performances
1985 - Intel introduces 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip
1986 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1987 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1992 - "Gilligan's Island" TV pilot filmed in 1964 is 1st shown on TV (CBS)
2002 - Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.
2017 - Findings published of neutron star collision that occurred two months prior on August 17, the first cosmic event seen in gravitational waves and light. Confirms heavy elements such as gold the result of such collisions
Quote of the day:
"The end of life often offers rare opportunities to affirm and deepen our highest human values—reconciling conflicts, sharing forgiveness and gratitude, deepening a sense of loving intimacy, and rising above our myopic experience of ourselves, our lives, and the world."
~ Joseph Loizzo, “So the Darkness Shall Be the Light”
As time goes by, one becomes aware that there are more days behind one than before one. While all of us know that tomorrow is promised to no one, as I approach 70, I find myself realizing like Bilbo, there will be a time “… when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.“ Neither of my grandmothers nor my mother made it past their 85th birthday, so I feel as though my expiration date is just over the horizon at times. I look at the news and wonder what kind of world my granddaughters will grow up in, what they will choose to be, whether they will remember me. I wonder about my kids, what their lives will look like when they are my age. And, of course, I wonder what will happen to “ME”, the soul or spirit or essence or kernel of consciousness that makes up my personality and being.
And I reflect rather wryly that those with a strong and simple faith have a lot more confidence as they reach the inevitable conclusion of their story…..
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Today is the 6th day of the 41st week, the 11th day of the 10th month, the 284th day of 2019, and:
- "You Go, Girl" Day - celebrated on the anniversary of Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan's spacewalk in 1984
- General Pulaski Memorial Day - commemorating his death from wounds suffered at the Siege of Savannah on October 9, 1779 and to honor the heritage of Polish Americans.
- International Day of the Girl Child
- Kimberly Day
- Kraken Day
- Myths & Legends Day For All Fantasy Movie, Books and Legends Cephalopods
- National Family Bowling Day (or Kids Bowl Free Day)
- National Coming Out Day
- National It's My Party Day
- National Sausage Pizza Day
- Southern Food Heritage Day
- Stem Cell Awareness Day
- Vet Nurse Day
- World Day Against the Death Penalty
- World Egg Day
- World Obesity Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1521 - Pope Leo X titles King Henry VIII of England "Defender of the Faith". Of course, 11 years later he left the Church and took England with him
1811 - The Juliana, the first steam-powered ferryboat, begins operation
1881 - David Houston patents roll film for cameras
1887 - A Miles patents elevator
1929 - JC Penney opens store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 U.S. states.
1939 - Albert Einstein informs FDR of the possibilities of an atomic bomb
1950 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issues the first license to broadcast television in color, to CBS
1956 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Maralinga, Australia
1958 - 2nd US Moon probe, Pioneer 1, reaches 113,810 km, falls back
1961 - USSR performs nuclear test
1968 - Apollo 7 (Schirra, Eisele & Cunningham) made 163 orbits in 260 hours
1969 - Soyuz 6 launched; Soyuz 7 & 8 follow in next 2 days
1975 - "Saturday Night Live" created by Lorne Michaels premieres on NBC with George Carlin as host
1977 - American inventor Gordon Gould issued his first US patent for a optically pumped laser amplifier, 20 years after first claiming to have invented the laser
1980 - Cosmonauts Popov & Ryumin set space endurance record of 184 days
1980 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1981 - Unknown rocker Prince opens for Rolling Stones at LA Coliseum
1983 - Last hand-cranked telephones US went out of service as 440 telephone customers in Bryant Pond, Maine, were switched over to direct-dial
1984 - NASA launches space vehicle S-208
1994 - Space shuttle STS-68 (Endeavour 7), lands
2000 - The 100th Space Shuttle mission (STS-92) is flown.
2018 - Russian Soyuz spacecraft makes emergency landing when rocket fails two minutes after liftoff, with American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut aboard
2019 - NASA Voyager I is 20 hrs 26 mins 45 secs of light-travel time from Earth
Quote of the day:
"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking."
~ A. A. Milne, English author best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh
While we claim to honor the renegade, the lone person who speaks up against what they perceive as injustice, the fact is that anyone who stands out in everyday life finds themselves being bullied pretty quickly. Heaven help the kid who looks different, the teen who doesn’t fit in with the popular crowd, then worker who gets out of step with the office clique
Thinking independently is not easy – I guess that is what the quote means by making those minds first rate.
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mental well being....
Today is the 5th day of the 41st week, the 10th day of the 10th month, the 283rd day of 2019, and:
- Hug a Drummer Day
- International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction
- International Newspaper Carrier Day
- International Stage Management Day
- Motorsports Memorial Day
- National Angel Food Cake Day
- National Cake Decorating Day
- National Depression Screening Day
- National Handbag Day
- National Hug-a-Kevin Day
- National Love Your Hair Day
- National Metric Day
- National SHIFT10 Day - a nonprofit initiative encouraging shoppers everywhere to shift 10% of their spending to local, community-driven businesses
- National Tuxedo Day
- Powers of Ten Day
- Squid and Cuttlefish Day
- US Naval Academy Day - first called the Naval School, it opened in 1845 in Annapolis, MD where it remains
- World Day Against The Death Penalty
- World Homeless Day
- World Hospice and Palliative Care Day
- World Mental Health Day
- World Porridge Day
- World Sight Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1846 - Neptune's moon Triton discovered by William Lassell
1886 - the first dinner jacket (tuxedo) worn to autumn ball at Tuxedo Park, NY
1899 - African-American inventor Issac R. Johnson patents the bicycle frame
1932 - Dnjepr Dam in USSR put into operation (world's biggest at the time, to be replaced by the Hoover Dam, and now the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world)
1957 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1957 - A fire at the Windscale nuclear plant in Cumbria, England becomes the world's first major nuclear accident
1958 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1958 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1959 - Pan Am begins regular flights around the world
1961 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1963 - "From Russia With Love" 2nd James Bond film based on a novel by Ian Fleming, starring Sean Connery and Daniela Bianchi, premieres in London
1965 - The Supremes appear on Ed Sullivan Show
1966 - The Beach Boys release their influential single "Good Vibrations" ((a song that has weathered the years much better than their surfing songs))
1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1969 - "Jesus Christ Superstar" soundtrack album by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice is recorded
1973 - US Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns after pleading no contest to allegations of tax fraud
1976 - Greece's 98 year-old Dimitrion Yordanidis, is oldest man to compete in a marathon; he finishes in 7:33
1990 - US 67th manned space mission STS 41 (Discovery 11) returns from space
1991 - Ex-postal worker Joseph Harris kills 4 postal workers ((giving rise to the slang phrase "going postal" meaning "becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment"))
Quote of the day:
“Humor is the antidote to overthinking. It’s a way of saying that life is paradoxical. Humor contains contradictions; it does not resolve them but revels in them. It says that the right way to exist among the contradictions, paradoxes, and absurdities of life is to cope with them through laughter.”
— Bob Mankoff, How About Never: Is Never Good For You?
Although humans have been described as the only animal that laughs, there have been studies showing that animals, well some of them at least, seem to have a sense of humor too. As we live through the upheavals brought on by our changing economies and social structures, keeping a healthy perspective on the quintessential absurdity of life is all that stands between sanity and taking ourselves way too seriously.
If you cannot look in the mirror at times, see what a funny concoction you are, then laugh? Then I truly pity you.
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a heavy day
Today is the 3rd day of the 41st week, the 8th day of the 10th month, the 281st day of 2019, and:
- Ada Lovelace Day
- Alvin C York Day – in 1918 he single-handedly attacked a German gun nest, killing at least 25 and capturing 132 Germans
- American Touch Tag Day
- Headspace Day [Australia] – what if taking care of your mind was as “normal” as getting a checkup?
- International Lesbian Day
- National Face Your Fears Day
- National Fluffernutter Day – a fluffernutter is a sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallow creme usually served on white bread ((since I had to google it I figured others might need to know as well))
- National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day
- National Pierogi Day
- National Salmon Day
- Own Business Day
- World Child Development Day
- World Octopus Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1480 - Great standing on the Ugra river, standoff between forces of Akhmat Khan, Khan of the Great Horde, and Ivan III Grand Prince of all Rus, Tataro-Mongols retreat, leds to disintegration of the Horde
1769 - Captain James Cook lands in New Zealand (Poverty Bay)
1818 - Two English boxers are first to use padded gloves
1871 - Great Fire of Chicago kills 200 people and destroys over 4 square miles (10 square km) of buildings and the original Emancipation Proclamation
1927 - "The Second Hundred Years" silent short film was released starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, which marks the first time with Laurel and Hardy appearing as a team
1942 - Comedy duo Abbott and Costello launch their weekly radio show
1945 - Microwave oven patented
1958 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1964 - Ringo Starr passes his driving test
1965 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1971 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1980 - USSR performs nuclear test
Yom Kippur starts at sundown this evening and runs through tomorrow. Tomorrow is my mother’ birthday; she would’ve been 92. It seems to me to be appropriate these two things happen on the same day as I always get introspective on her birthday, wondering what I could’ve done or said or been differently to enable my mother and I to have a better relationship, which seems quite appropriate for a day of atonement and repentance. I remember my last conversation with her a couple days before she died, if it could be called that, for she was too weak to even speak. I told her then that it was okay that she had made the decision to stop eating, that I understood her weariness, that I wished things had been better for the two of us. She just looked at me. Did she hear me? Did what I said make any difference? Although I got to say goodbye, I don’t actually feel like there was a resolution – but over the past six years I have come to understand that there couldn’t be any closure because the core issue was that my mother wouldn’t or couldn’t accept me as I am rather than as she would have me be.
Through the years, I have struggled with feelings of failure, but have tried really hard to make sure the weight of my expectations do not weigh as heavily on my relationships with my son and daughter.
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the first Monday in October
Today is the 2nd day of the 41st week, the 7th day of the 10th month, the 280th day of 2019, and:
- Bathtub Day – did you know the earliest bathtubs we have found date back to 1700 BCE?
- Blue Shirt Day/World Day of Bullying Prevention
- Child Health Day
- Day of unity
- National Chocolate Covered Pretzel Day
- National Consignment Day
- National Flower Day
- National Forgiveness & Happiness Day
- National Frappe Day
- National Inner Beauty Day
- National LED Light Day
- Team Margot Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Registration Day – since 2014
- World Architecture Day
- World Habitat Day
- You Matter to Me Day – since 2010
ON THIS DAY IN ....
3761 BC - The epoch (origin) of the modern Hebrew calendar (Proleptic Julian calendar).
1492 - Christopher Columbus misses Florida when he changes course
1520 - first public burning of books in Netherlands, in Louvain
1806 - Carbon paper patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgwood
1816 - first double decked steamboat, Washington, arrives in New Orleans
1900 - The term "orienteering" is first used for an event
1916 - Georgia Tech, coached by John Heisman, defeats Cumberland, 222-0; most lopsided score in the history of US college football
1919 - KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines, established (oldest existing airline)
1931 - the first infra-red photograph taken in Rochester, NY
1942 - the US & UK governments announce establishment of United Nations
1952 - First "Bandstand" broadcast in Philadelphia on WFIL-TV (Dick Clark joins in 1955 as a substitute-host)
1958 - US manned space-flight project renamed Project Mercury
1959 - Far side of Moon seen for the 1st time, courtesy of USSR's Luna 3 space probe
1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1963 - JFK signs ratification for nuclear test ban treaty
1978 - USSR performs nuclear test
1979 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1982 - Musical "Cats" opens at Winter Garden Theater on Broadway NYC and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.
1985 - 21st Space Shuttle Mission (51-J)-Atlantis 1 lands at Edwards AFB
1994 - China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
1996 - Rupert Murdoch launches Fox News with Roger Ailes as CEO
2008 - Music, podcast, and video streaming service Spotify is launched by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon
Yeah that about sums up today
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the house of the mouse
Today Is the 2nd day of the 40th week, the 30th day of the 9th month, the 273rd day of 2019, and:
- Ask a Stupid Question Day
- Chewing Gum Day
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil Day
- International Blasphemy Rights Day
- International Podcast Cay
- International Translation Day
- National Hot Mulled Cider Day
- National Love People Day
- National Mud Pack Day
- National Preparathon! Day
- Recovery Day – a reminder that one can always start anew, defeating addiction in all its forms one day at a time
- Rosh Hashanah [since sunset of the 29th]
- The Time for Yoga
- Thunderbirds Day
ON THIS DAY IN ....
1659 - Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked (according to Daniel Defoe)
1791 - Mozart's opera "Magic Flute" premieres in Vienna
1841 - Samuel Slocum patented the stapler
1846 - Anesthetic ether used for first time by American dentist Dr William Morton who extracts a tooth
1880 - American amateur astronomer Henry Draper takes the first known photograph of the Orion Nebula
1927 - Babe Ruth hits record setting 60th HR (off Tom Zachary)
1949 - American chemist Percy L. Julian at the Glidden Company announces an improved method for producing cortisone
1950 - Radio's "Grand Ole Opry" is broadcast on TV for the first time
1955 - American actor and cultural icon James Dean is killed in a car crash aged 24
1958 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1960 - On Howdy Doody's last show Clarabelle finally talks "Goodbye Kids"
1960 - "The Flintstones" the first animated sitcom created by Hanna-Barbera premieres on ABC in the US
1966 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1967 - BBC starts its own popular music radio station (Radio 1)
1967 - USSR's Kosmos 186 & 188 complete first automatic docking
1968 - the first Boeing 747 rolls out
1973 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1977 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1977 - Due to US budget cuts, the Apollo program's ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are shut down.
1980 - Ethernet specifications published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation.
1986 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1989 - NASA closes down tracking stations in Hawaii and Ascension
1994 - Space shuttle STS-68 (Endeavour 7), launches into orbit
1997 - Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 4
Quote of the day:
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia."
~ Charles M. Schulz (1922 - 2000)
((This thought has often occurred to me, especially when celebrating the coming of a New Year, which is one reason I thought it so appropriate that mankind met its end On the Beach in Australia))
I have been listening to Disney Wars while driving, fascinated with the office politics and simple aghast at the amount of money the top executives walked away with, literally millions upon millions of dollars each year. And the most stunning thing of all? They thought they were worth more! I found it interesting that Disney’s website offers to do a job search using your LinkedIn profile to find a good fit – unfortunately, it seems they have zero interest in someone with a Loan Servicing background at this time, so I’m not in line either to make that kind of money or to work in “the happiest place on earth”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a rabid Disney fan and pine if I don’t visit the House of the Mouse regularly, but I do wish there was less money spent on the executives and more money put back in making the theme parks all that they could be.
*sighs*
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Today is the 6th day of the 39th week, the 27th day of the 9th month, the 270th day of 2019, and:
- Ancestor Appreciation Day
- German Butterbrot Day
- Google's Birthday
- Hug a Vegetarian Day
- Love Note Day
- Morning Show Hosts Day
- National Bakery Day
- National BRAVE Day
- National Chocolate Milk Day
- National Corned Beef Hash Day
- National Crush a Can Day
- National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
- National Scarf Day
- Native American Day – first celebrated in 1916
- Save the Koala Day
- Sport Purple for Platelets Day
- Vegan Baking Day
- World Tourism Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1066 - William the Conqueror's troops set sail for England
1590 - Pope Urban VII dies 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history.
1822 - French scholar Jean-François Champollion announces that he has deciphered the Rosetta stone
1825 - George Stephenson's "Locomotion No. 1" becomes the 1st steam locomotive to carry passengers on a public rail line, the Stockton and Darlington Railway in England
1892 - Book matches are patented by Diamond Match Company
1905 - The physics journal Annalen der Physik publishes Albert Einstein's paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", introducing the equation E=mc².
1908 - Henry Ford's first Ford Model T automobile leaves the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Michigan
1912 - WC Handy publishes "Memphis Blues", considered the first blues song
1921 - American swimmer Johnny Weismuller sets his first 2 world records in the 100m and 150yd freestyle events the A.A.U. Nationals meet in Brighton Beach, NY ((I still say he was the best Tarzan, although not the closest to the book character))
1937 - the first Santa Claus Training School opens (Albion NY)
1937 - Balinese Tiger declared extinct.
1960 - Europe's first "moving pavement" (travelator), opens at Bank station on the London Underground
1962 - Rachel Carson publishes 'Silent Spring' about the deleterious impacts of pesticide use in the US on the environment
1964 - Findings of the Warren Commission into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy released, finds Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone
1967 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1971 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1973 - Soyuz 12 carries two cosmonauts into Earth orbit where they stayed for 2 days
1973 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1973 - “The Way We Were” single released by Barbra Streisand (Billboard Song of the Year 1974)
1978 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1978 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1979 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1990 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
2003 - Smart 1 satellite is launched.
2008 - CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang becomes the first Chinese person to perform a spacewalk while flying on Shenzhou 7.
2012 - The Mars Curiosity rover discovers what evidence of a fast-moving streambed-in Mars
2015 - A "Supermoon" coincides with a lunar eclipse creating a "Blood Moon" over much of the earth
2018 - Half of all orca could die through pollution involving polychlorinated biphenyls in the ocean, according to study published in "Science"
The pacing of what we call progress with the full hubris of humankind is rather interesting sometimes. From having a book of matches considered an innovation worthy of being patented to Einstein’s famous E=mc² was only a span of 13 years. From Rachel Carson’s warning about the impact of pesticides on the land to the warning about PCBs in the ocean is a stretch of 56 years – obviously we didn’t listen very well. It took three years from finding the stream bed to actually finding water on Mars. In the 82 years since the Balinese tiger went extinct to July 2019, there are now only 3,900 tigers in the wild all over the world. Want to talk about human impact on ecology? How about seven [7] nuclear tests over a 23 year period? I don’t remember hearing much about conspiracy theories before the Warren Commission report, but finding Oswald acted totally alone seems so improbable that to this day there are so many unanswered questions. Was this the start of popular conspiracy theories?
I’m just glad it’s Friday.
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an apple a day ...
Today is the 5th day of the 39th week, the 26th day of the 9th month, the 289th day of 2019, and:
- European Day of Languages
- Forget-Me-Not Day
- Human Resource Professional Day
- Johnny Appleseed Day
- Lumberjack Day ((see National Pancakes Day))
- Mesothelioma Awareness Day
- National Better Breakfast Day
- National Compliance Officer Day
- National Dumpling Day
- National Pancakes [AKA johnnycakes, griddle cakes or hotcakes] Day – it used to be called Lumberjack Day and is one week after Talk Like a Pirate Day ((and here you thought it was back on Shrove Tuesday))
- National Situational Awareness Day
- Remember Me Thursday – it’s all about the pets languishing in shelters awaiting adoption
- Shamu the Whale Day or why whales shouldn’t be kept in captivity
- World Contraception Day
- World Maritime Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1580 - Frances Drake completes circumnavigation of the world, sailing into Plymouth aboard the Golden Hind
1738 - Scottish philosopher David Hume enters into a contract to publish the first two volumes of his seminal work "A Treatise of Human Nature" with John Noon in London
1772 - New Jersey passes bill requiring a license to practice medicine
1892 - first public appearance of John Philip Sousa's band (NJ)
1946 - 1st edition of Tintin (Kuifje), publishes until June 1993
1957 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1958 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1960 - the first of four TV debates Nixon & Kennedy took place (Chicago)
1964 - "Gilligan's Island", starring Bob Denver as Gilligan, debuts on CBS ((and inevitably I find myself adding "for a three hour tour"))
1968 - first broadcast of "Hawaii Five-O" on CBS-TV
1969 - The Beatles release "Abbey Road" album
1971 - Jim Palmer is fourth Oriole pitcher to win at least 20 games this season
1973 - Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic (Washington, D.C. to Paris) in record-breaking time (3h33m).
1974 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1979 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1980 - Soyuz 38 returns to Earth
1981 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1983 - Cosmonauts Titov and Strekalov are saved from exploding Soyuz T-10
1986 - Dallas jumps the shark when Bobby (Patrick Duffy) returns to Dallas, his death is attributed to his wife Pam's bad dream (erases all of last season)
1988 - US space shuttle STS-26 launched
1992 - Tsuruhiko Kiuchi rediscovers Comet Swift-Tuttle, the first time it has been spotted since 1862
2008 - Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel.
2017 - World's second-largest gem-quality diamond, the "Lesedi La Rona", sells for $53M
Johnny Appleseed was actually a real person who was born on this day 245 years ago in Leonmister, Massachusetts. His real name was John Chapman, but he earned his nickname by working as an orchardist [which is still a profession today], wandering about the frontier – back then most of Pennsylvania and Ohio was considered wildland. He would plant the trees, establish a land claim, then circle back later and make hard cider – all of which draws a very different picture than the whimsical wandering eccentric of folklore.
I wonder what John Chapman would think about being remembered as Johnny Appleseed?
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Today is the 4th day of the 39th week, the 25th day of the 9th month, the 268th day of 2019 [with only 90 shopping days left until Christmas], and:
- Banned Websites Awareness Day
- Binge Day
- International Ataxia Awareness Day
- Math Storytelling Day
- National Comic Book Day
- National Crab Meat Newburg Day
- National Food Service Employees Day
- National Lobster Day
- National One-Hit Wonder Day
- National Psychotherapy Day
- National Research Administrators Day
- National Tune-Up Day
- National Women's Health and Fitness Day
- See You at the Pole
- World Dream Day
- World Lung Day
- World Pharmacist Day
- World School Milk Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1492 - Crewman on Pinta sights "land"-a few weeks early
1513 - Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Panama Isthmus becoming first European to see the Pacific Ocean
1639 - First printing press in America
1639 - Suzuki Shosan, Samurai monk of Zen Buddhism, found awakening
1789 - US Congress proposes the Bill of Rights -- the first ten amendments to the newly ratified Constitution, ratified in 1791 and guaranteeing such rights as the freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship.
1804 - Twelfth Amendment to the US Constitution, establishing the procedure for electing the President and Vice President, becomes effective
1820 - French Physicist Francois Arago announces electromagnetism in his discovery that a copper wire between the poles of a voltaic cell could laterally attract iron filings to itself
1878 - British physician Dr. Charles Drysdale warns against the use of tobacco in a letter to The Times newspaper in one of the earliest public health announcements on the dangers of smoking
1906 - Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the Telekino at Bilbao before a great crowd, guiding a boat from the shore, considered the birth of the remote control
1926 - Henry Ford announces an 8 hour, 5-day work week because he wanted to provide a customer base for his product
1932 - Poona Act signed by Madan Mohan Malaviya and B R. Amedkar in India, reserving legislative seats for depressed classes (untouchables)
1949 - Evangelist Billy Graham begins his "Los Angeles Crusade" in a circus tent erected in a parking lot
1956 - Transatlantic telephone cable goes into operation from Newfoundland to Oban
1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1965 - Beatle cartoon show begins in US
1973 - 3-man crew of Skylab 3 make safe splashdown in Pacific after 59 days
1974 - Scientists first report that freon gases from aerosol sprays are destroying the ozone layer
1980 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1980 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1982 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1983 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya, USSR
1992 - US Mars Observer launched from Space shuttle
1997 - STS 86 (Atlantis 20) launches into orbit
2008 - China launches the spacecraft Shenzhou 7.
2016 - World's largest radio telescope at 500m wide in Guizhou Province, China begins operating
Today I highlighted a couple of the historical events.
In 1878, there was already concern about tobacco, nicotine addiction, and the health of users. It took 86 years to react to those concerns, and even longer to get smoking banned in public places such as restaurants and work, and there are still those who scoff at the evidence and smoke.
In 1926, Henry Ford, the father of the assembly-line and a great believer in productivity, making a god of efficiency, understood the working class had to have both money and leisure time in which to spend and enjoy it. This is a lesson that apparently the oligarchy that rules us all hasn’t grasped in the ensuing 93 years. The old saw about the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer” was never so apt as it is today.
In 1974, we knew that human activity was affecting the ozone layer. Now, 45 years later, we are still arguing with folks who don’t believe climate change is real and not doing enough to mitigate the human impact upon the environment.
We know what has to be done. We’ve known for years. The 1% put their profit ahead of everyone else’s wellbeing. It’s that simple
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Today is the 3rd day of the 39th week, the 24th day of the 9th month, the 267th day of 2019, and:
- Festival of Latest Novelties
- Gallbladder Good Health Day
- Innergize Day – for all you folk who want a reason to take a mental health day off
- Kiss Day – yes another one if you missed February 13th
- National Bluebird of Happiness Day
- National Cherries Jubilee Day
- National Familial Hypercholesterolemia Day
- National Punctuation Day
- National Voter Registration Day– If you haven’t registered, please do so. If you have? Please verify your registration is current.
- National Woman Road Warrior Day
- Schwenkfelder Thanksgiving
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1493 - Christopher Columbus embarks on his second expedition to the New World, setting sail with a fleet of 17 ships
1657 - first autopsy and coroner's jury verdict is recorded in Maryland
1852 - Henri Giffard, a French engineer, makes first engine powered dirigible/airship flight with steam power
1853 - first round-the-world trip by yacht by Cornelius Vanderbilt
1889 - Alexander Dey patents dial time recorder
1951 - USSR performs nuclear test
1952 - American fast food restaurant chain "KFC" [Kentucky Fried Chicken] opens its first franchise in Salt Lake City, Utah
1958 - first welded aluminum girder highway bridge completed in Urbandale, Iowa
1960 - USS Enterprise, first nuclear power aircraft carrier, launched
1964 - first Minuteman II ICBM was tested
1966 - France performs nuclear test at Fangataufa Island
1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1970 - Soviet space probe Luna 16 lands on earth after first unmanned round trip to moon
1978 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1979 - CompuServe began operation as first computer information service
1979 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1981 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1983 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1987 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
2015 - Pope Francis becomes the first pope to address the US Congress. Names Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day as his American heroes.
2017 - Plastic polystyrene rubbish discovered for first time only 1,000 miles from the north pole by international team of scientists
2019 - NASA Voyager is 20 hrs 23 mins 34 secs of light-travel time from Earth
Writing prompt for the day: “For a moment today, time stands still — but you can tweak one thing while it’s stopped. What do you do?”
Well I am going to assume that one cannot change the past – so no going back and wiping out something you regret or setting yourself up to succeed. Plus you cannot do something like grant yourself the winning lottery ticket because you don’t have today’s number. No, it has to be something that you can do right now. And I know what I would change – I would take my daughter’s pain away.
You see, she won the war against cancer – she defeated stage 3C breast cancer. But as she puts it, she won the battle and now she has to live with the battlefield – a body that for two years was deliberately and systematically poisoned, radiated, and mutilated. Her body and her mind have been unbearably battered, and she pays the price every single hour of every single day as she tries to come back to health and well-being. So if time stopped, if between one breath and the next, I could take away her pain I would.
But I can’t. All I can do is admire her indomitable and gamin spirit as she continues to get up and faces each and every day
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99 days left in 2019...
Today is the second day of the 39th week [and the year is 3/4th over], the 23rd day of the 9th month, the 266th day of 2019, and:
- Autumn (Autumnnal Equinox) 3:50AM EDT
- Celebrate Bisexuality Day
- Family Day
- International Day of Sign Languages
- Mabon – although tied to the equinox, it actually started on the 21st and ends on the 29th.
- National Checkers Day or National Dogs in Politics Day
- National Falls Prevention Awareness Day
- National Great American Pot Pie Day
- National Snack Stick Day
- Native American Women's Equal Pay Day
- Proposal Day
- Restless Legs Awareness Day
- Teal Talk Day – actually a day to raise awareness of ovarian cancer
- The First Day of Fall
- Za'atar Day – an herb and spice blend used in Middle Eastern cooking
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1561 - King Philip II of Spain forbids Spanish settlements in Florida
1806 - Lewis & Clark return to St Louis from Pacific Northwest
1879 - Baldwin steam motors tram first tried in Sydney Australia
1879 - Richard Rhodes invented a hearing aid called the Audiophone
1913 - Roland Garros is 1st to fly over Mediterranean Sea
1938 - Time capsule, to be opened in 6939, buried at World's Fair in NYC (capsule contained a woman's hat, man's pipe & 1,100' of microfilm)
1941 - The first gas murder experiments are conducted at Auschwitz. concentration camp
1958 - Great Britain performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island
1962 - ABC's first color TV series - The Jetsons by Hanna-Barbera - first broadcast
1964 - "Fiddler on the Roof" with Zero Mostel premieres in NYC
1969 - "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" directed by George Roy Hill and starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford premieres ((SRSLY, this film is 50 years old?))
1973 - Largest known prime, 2 ^ 132,049-1, is discovered
1976 - Soyuz 22 returns to Earth
1977 - third test of Space Shuttle Enterprise
1980 - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad opens at WDW
1982 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1986 - Congress selects the rose as US national flower
1993 - "Les Miserables" opens at Playhouse, Edinburgh
1994 - "The Shawshank Redemption", directed by Frank Darabont and starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, is released
1999 - NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.
2002 - The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released
2018 - Japan's space agency is the first to place two robotic explorers on an asteroid - Ryugu, from its Hayabusa-2 spacecraft
Quote of the day:
"Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero or a saint."
~ Henry Ward Beecher (1813 - 1887), American Presbyterian Minister
Over the years, I have slowly come to accept that there are people who just plain don’t like me, for one reason or another. Yes, I know, one should not worry about what others think about you because they probably aren’t thinking about you at all. But it is only fairly recently that I stopped beating myself up over it. I have spent countless hours trying to figure out what I could’ve said differently in various social situations, wondering if I could’ve dressed different to fit in better, or just worried that my aura was projecting some sort of “hate me” vibe. I would try and rehearse interactions, but then I would get all contrary and act like a rectal cavity, trying to be as bad as I was being treated. It took a long time to understand that it was all about meeting their expectations if you wanted to belong while I always felt that meeting MY expectations of me was more important. It took an even longer time to understand that didn’t mean I was wrong or misguided, just me.
Thank you, my friends
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not what I planned....
Today is the 6th day of the 38th week, the 20th day of the 9th month ((if you can figure out where September has gone, please let me know)), the 263rd day of 2019, and:
- Constitution Day/Pledge Across America
- International Grenache Day
- National Concussion Awareness Day
- National Doodle Day
- National Fried Rice Day
- National Gibberish Day
- National Pepperoni Pizza Day
- National POW/MIA Recognition Day
- National Punch Day
- National String Cheese Day
- National Tradesman Day
ON THIS DAY IN ....
1814 - "Star Spangled Banner" published as a song, lyrics by Francis Scott Key, tune by John Stafford Smith
1839 - fist railroad in Netherland opens (Amsterdam-Haarlem)
1848 - The American Association for the Advancement of Science is created.
1873 - Panic sweeps NY Stock Exchange (railroad bond default/bank failure) NY shut banks for 10 days due to a bank scandal
1893 - The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts
1904 - Orville & Wilbur Wright fly a circle in their Flyer II
1946 - Churchill argues for a 'United States of Europe' ((how ironic as BREXIT continues to loom))
1951 - first North Pole jet crossing
1954 - first FORTRAN computer program run
1958 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1961 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1963 - JFK proposes a joint US-Soviet voyage to the moon
1973 - Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in battle-of-sexes tennis match
1984 - "Cosby Show" premieres on NBC-TV
1985 - Walt Disney World's celebrates its 200-millionth guest
1990 - Both East and West Germany ratify reunification
1990 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1992 - Space shuttle STS-47 (Endeavour 2) lands
1994 - Space shuttle STS-64 (Discovery 20), lands
Quote of the day:
"Even though we cannot see clearly how it’s going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts."
~ Joanna Macy and Sam Mowe, “The Work That Reconnects”
So many first day of school pictures – and some, like my granddaughters’, showed their current answers to “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, the thought being it would be fun to see how it changed through the years. Me? I always wanted to be a teacher. Yup, I loved school that much – thought about being a librarian when I was a bit older but couldn’t afford the extra money to go through librarian school after getting my undergraduate degree. I had it all figured out -- I was going to teach for two years [I was on the tuition waiver plan] and then decide if I was a good teacher. If I was? I would teach until I retired. If I wasn’t? I was going to quit and join the Peace Corps. The only question was which topic would I teach and at what grade level?
History, specifically ancient and medieval history [the world went to hell in a handbasket it seemed to me in modern times, although I dearly loved Napoleon and Stonewall Jackson], turned out to be my major, along with minors in Education and Anthropology. I added to the background by taking classes in political science and economics, which prepared me [or so I thought] to teach Social Studies. As for the level? I figured out pretty quickly that I didn’t want to teach elementary school – I have a tremendous amount of respect for those teachers, but I knew I wasn’t interested in teaching Johnny how to read. Didn’t want to teach high school either, having a vivid memory of the mouth and attitude that age group brought to school each year. No, I wanted to teach in what used to be called Junior High – middle school these days – and my target was 6th and 7th graders.
Well, things didn’t work out quite the way that I planned. Although I did my student teaching and some subbing, I never actually taught. Instead I got married, and after my kids went off to school, I started working retail, then landed in community banking where I have worked the past 34 years. There was one point in the early 90’s when I thought about switching back to teaching. I took the competency test that was then required in Maryland, and was appalled when I only scored a B-, then was even more flabbergasted to find out that teachers who only made 28/100 were being hired for some inner city schools! I found I had to take classes so I could teach reading as apparently Johnny’s reading abilities had become worse since I graduated from Towson. And I learned that teachers weren’t actually needed anymore, at least not in the area I was living, so I stayed where I was in Loan Servicing.
And here I am, light years away from where I thought I would be.
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arrrrgh....
Back in the day?
Facebook had a "pirate" language option and In Second Life, just about every avatar rigged themselves out appropriately
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yes we remember
Today is the 4th day of the 37th week, the 11th day of the 9th month, the 254th day of 2019, and:
- "I Want to Start My Own Business" Day
- Libraries Remember Day
- Make Your Bed Day
- National Day of Service and Remembrance
- National Emergency Responders Day
- National Hot Cross Bun Day
- National No News is Good News Day
- Patriot Day
- Remember Freedom Day
- Women's Baseball Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1773 - Benjamin Franklin writes "There never was a good war or bad peace"
1792 - The French Blue gem (later the Hope Diamond) is stolen with other French crown jewels from Royal storehouse in Paris during Reign of Terror
1847 - the first singing of Stephen Foster's "Susanna" (in Pittsburgh)
1853 - the first electric telegraph used - Merchant's Exchange, San Francisco to Pt Lobos, California
1875 - the first women's baseball game where fans were charged and players were paid took place. It was between "Blondes" and "Brunettes" and was held in Springfield, Illinois.
1906 - Mahatma Gandhi coins the term "Satyagraha" to characterize the Non-Violence movement in South Africa.
1914 - WC Handy "Father of the Blues" publishes his most famous composition "St Louis Blues"
1930 - Stromboli volcano (Sicily) throws 2-ton basaltic rocks two miles
1940 - George Stibitz pioneers the first remote operation of a computer.
1945 - Physician Willem J Kolff performs the first successful kidney dialysis using his artificial kidney machine, the Netherlands
1946 - the first mobile long-distance car-to-car telephone conversation
1950 - the first typesetting machine to dispense with metal type exhibited
1950 - Dick Tracy TV show sparks uproar concerning violence
1959 - Congress passes a bill authorizing food stamps for poor Americans
1961 - Foundation of the World Wildlife Fund.
1965 - Beatles' "Help!" album goes #1 & stays #1 for nine weeks
1966 - France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
1967 - US Surveyor 5 makes first chemical analysis of lunar material
1969 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1978 - The last known person dies of smallpox - medical photographer Janet Parker through infection in a laboratory, in Birmingham, England
1983 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1985 - International Cometary Explorer (ISEE 3) passes Giacobini-Zinner by 7900 km
1986 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1986 - Dow Jones Industrial Avg suffered biggest 1-day decline ever, plummeting 86.61 points to 1,792.89. 237.57 million shares traded
1995 - Soyuz TM-22, lands
2003 - The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety enters into effect.
2007 - Russia tests the largest conventional weapon ever, the Father of all bombs.
Quote of the day:
“Forever—is composed of Nows—"
~ Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Today, 18 years ago, a lot changed in the US. For a time we came together, and then the fracture lines appeared. There were those who looked upon any foreigner [defined by not looking like “us” whether visitor, immigrant, or citizen] with suspicion because the terrorists had lived amongst us before they struck. The polarization seemed to start there – I remember losing a friend I had known for years because I tried to be even-handed about strangers in our land. He, shook with grief and loss of someone close to him, would have none of it and rounded on me, never to speak to me again. I wonder sometimes if our annual revisiting of this day exacerbates rather than assuages our grief, impeding our progess to togetherness. I wish I could talk to Grandmom Hughes about Pearl Harbor Day, but then again, they had the catharsis of WWII afterwards whereas for us there has been no real resolution, just more and more Homeland Security.
Yes we all remember – I just hope we are remembering the right things
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just be there....
Today is the 4th day of the 36th week, the 4th day of the 9th month, the 247th day of 2019 [with only 111 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- Eat an Extra Dessert Day
- Global Talent Acquisition Day
- National Macadamia Nut Day
- National Newspaper Carrier Day – in 1833 the first newsboy (Barney Flaherty, 10 years old) was hired by the NY Sun
- National Wildlife Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
476 - Romulus Augustulus, last Western Roman Emperor, abdicates after forces led by Odoacer invade Rome. Traditional end of the Western Roman Empire
1609 - Navigator Henry Hudson first European to discover island of Manhattan
1682 - English astronomer Edmond Halley observes the comet named after him
1781 - Los Angeles is founded by 44 Spanish speaking mestizos in the Bahia de las Fumas (Bay of Smokes)
1807 - Robert Fulton begins operating his steamboat
1882 - in its first large-scale test, Thomas Edison's light bulb is used to light NY's Pearl Street Station
1888 - George Eastman patents the first roll-film camera & registers "Kodak"
1893 - English author Beatrix Potter first writes the story of Peter Rabbit for a 5 year old boy
1912 - First accident (collision) in London Underground; 22 people injured
1920 - Last day of Julian civil calendar (in parts of Bulgaria)
1922 - William Walmsley and William Lyons officially found the Swallow Sidecar Company (later Jaguar Cars) in Blackpool, England
1936 - "Swing Time", directed by George Stevens, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, is released
1945 - American chess grandmaster Reuben Fine wins four simultaneous rapid (10 seconds per move) games blindfolded in New York City
1950 - NASCAR’s first paved super speedway, Darlington Raceway hosts Southern 500, first 500-mile event in NASCAR history; winner Johnny Mantz in a Plymouth
1964 - NASA launches its first Orbital Geophysical Observatory (OGO-1)
1965 - Beatles' single "Help!" goes #1 & stays #1 for three weeks
1967 - Jerry Lewis' 2nd Muscular Dystrophy telethon
1972 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1972 - "The Price is Right" - US's longest running games show debuts on CBS
1977 - "Godspell" closes at Broadhurst Theater NYC after 527 performances. It played at the Morris Mechanic for nine weeks and we got to know much of the cast who went on to Broadway! I loved that show.
1982 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1992 - "Scared Silent" is 1st non news program to be seen on three networks simultaneously. (CBS, NBC & PBS), about child abuse hosted by Oprah
1998 - Google is formally incorporated by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University
2018 - F.B.I. announces they have recovered Dorothy's ruby red slippers from "The Wizard of Oz", stolen 13 years ago
Quote of the day:
“Most of us are experts at solving other people’s problems, but we generally solve them in terms of our own and the advice we give is seldom for other people but for ourselves.”
~ Nan Fairbrother, The House in the Country
When somebody starts to share their story with you, just listen. Don’t try and solve their problem, don’t try and fix what is wrong. You see, sometimes what is needed is a shoulder to cry on and a willing sympathizer, not advice.
Seriously, you can tell YOUR story another time
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Happy Labor Day
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escape
Today is the 4th day of the 34th week, the 21st day of the 8th month, the 233rd day of 2019 [with only 125 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- International Day of Remembrance and Tribute To The Victims of Terrorism
- Internet Self-care Day
- National Brazillian Blowout Day
- National Medical Dosimetrist Day
- national Senior Citizens Day
- National Spumoni Day
- Poet's Day
Quote of the day:
“Read at whim! Read at whim!”
~ Randall Jarrell, American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist
That about describes how I read and why I always have different books laying around in various stages of consumption. Long before the concept of binge watching was known, I was immersed in binge reading and now that I live alone, there is absolutely nothing to stop me from diving into the printed page and not emerging until absolutely necessary. Now and then, especially after I mention I have been reading, I get asked what I am reading. Now usually if I rattle off the titles, there is a short silence and then the person who asks then talks about the books they would like to read. Unspoken is the context of “purposeful reading”. Now there are times when I am reading for information, but nine times out of ten? I am reading for pleasure and entertainment and that makes me rather sheepish when questioned because I seldom read non-fiction for those purposes.
So, what do I read? Science fiction. Comedy. Adventure. Fantasy. Historical romances. Arthurian adaptations. Short stories. Sherlockian adaptions. Fan fiction. Lovecraftian horror. Disney guidebooks, magazines, etc etc and so forth. And I reread books – I have lost count of how many times I have been to Middle Earth, or played Ender’s Game, or agreed that God is an Englishman, shivered at The Stand, chuckled at Georgette Heyer, indulged in Harry Potter, flown with the dragons of Pern, visited the Source and Hawaii, or travelled to Darkover or Dune. I could go on and on listing favorite books that because I read quickly I get to go back to again and again and again – Watership Down, Battleship Earth, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Cities in Flight, Little Women, The Last Unicorn, and the list grows and grows even as I think about it.
When I say I live a 2nd life, I don’t just mean the avatars that romp through online worlds – I mean the world of imagination that I discovered as soon as I learned how to read. In some ways my 2nd life has always been more real to me than this so-called “real life” we stumble through each day.
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Hiroshima Day
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Today is the 2nd day of the 32nd week, the 5th day of the 8th month, the 217th day of 2019, and:
- Assistance Dog Day
- Civic Day
- Green Peppers Day
- International Traffic Light Day
- National Doll Day
- National Oyster Day
- National Underwear Day
- Work Like a Dog Day
The first of four Mondays in August and vacation is “only” 124 days away.
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1583 - Humphrey Gilbert claims Newfoundland for the British crown - first English colony in North America and the beginning of the British Empire
1884 - Cornerstone for Statue of Liberty laid on Bedloe's Island (NYC)
1891 - The world's first traveler's cheques issued (American Express)
1912 - Japan's first taxicab service begins in Ginza, Tokyo
1914 - The first electric traffic light installed in the USA on the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio
1926 - Houdini stays in a coffin under water for 1½ hrs before escaping
1953 - "From Here to Eternity" based on book by James Jones, directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra is released (Academy Awards Best Picture 1954)
1957 - "American Bandstand" premieres on network TV (ABC)
1957 - Comic strip "Andy Capp" makes its debut
1957 - WJZ-TV in Baltimore MD begins radio transmissions
1966 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1969 - Mariner 7 flies past Mars
1973 - USSR launches Mars 6
1981 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1982 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1986 - It's revealed Andrew Wyeth of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, had secretly created 240 drawings and paintings of his neighbor Helga Testorf
1989 - NASA Venus probe Magellan launched from Space shuttle, the first to do so
2011 - NASA launches its Juno space probe from Cape Canaveral to orbit and study Jupiter
It has been a rough weekend here in the US -- there have now been 248 mass shootings this year. 246 people have been killed and 979 wounded.
This is going to take a lot more than thoughts and prayers to fix.
((picture courtsy of Sandra Boynton))
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Today is the 6th day of the 31st week, the 2nd day of the 8th month, the 214th day of 2019, and:
- Braham Pie or Homemade Pie Day – apparently this is an event in Braham, Minnesota as Braham was declared the Pie Capital of Minnesota by former Governor Rudy Perpich in 1990
- Dinosaurs Day – as happens with many of these holidays, there is no indication of why TODAY is the day to celebrate these awesome beings. Maybe it was the day they think the asteroid hit?
- International Beer Day
- National CAD [computer-aided design] Day –
- National Coloring Book Day – since 1990, it hasn’t been just for kids anymore
- National Ice Cream Sandwich Day - The original ice cream sandwich, some vanilla ice cream pressed between two thin graham crackers, sold for a penny in 1900 from a pushcart in the Bowery neighborhood of New York. The name of that inventive vendor has never been found
- National Water Balloon Day
- Tomboy Tools Day – those pink tools quickly became ubiquitous
- Twins Day
Quote of the day:
"You are the light, with your ability to be conscious and mindful, and to act with wisdom and foresight. To serve the light means to show up—by which I mean, to be present—for yourself, as your best and highest self, and to show up for others in your life as well."
~ Dawa Tarchin Phillips, “What to Do When You Don’t Know What’s Next”
No the quote doesn’t have anything to do with my … well I guess rant is the only applicable word
My doctor visit on July 9th wasn’t exactly pleasant. For the past nine years, after being diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, I have been successfully managing my blood sugar levels with a combination of diet and medication. The wheels seemed to have come off the bus back at the beginning of the year and my A1C level, which indicates an average bloods sugar level in the bloodstream, suddenly started climbing despite my best efforts to manage it. The doctor told me on that Tuesday that I would have to go on low-level insulin to try and get things back under control. As much as I hated and dreaded the idea of giving myself daily injections, I agreed and she suggested getting a pen as a delivery system.
But in this day and age, the space between the doctor’s prescription and actually taking medication has to be negotiated via insurance. Now insulin, especially via pen is a tier 2 to 4 drug – translation? The patient pays 30% to 100% of the drug cost even in its generic form and there has been a lot of publicity about how much prices have soared. Medicare does not provide any coverage for insulin, so it was all about what the Baltimore County Retired Police Officers had negotiated with Cigna. After a long phone call and much research into the formulary, I was astonished to discover [1] there were different types of insulin, not just different strengths, and [2] that certain types of insulin were 100% covered by my plan. I copied the formulary and submitted it to my doctor – unfortunately the type she wanted to use was not on that plan but she was able to find one she though would work, and then they sent in the prescription
Now this insurance company prefers you use their mail service to fill prescriptions. Back and forth, phone calls to Cigna and the doctor’s office. And then there is the time for shipping. So finally, on July 31st the insulin pens arrive. One small problem – the doctor’s office had prescribed “supplies” and didn’t specify needles, so no needles were sent and no instructions on how to do injections. Another doctor visit and a trip to Walgreens and I finally was able to take my first injection on August 1st, over three weeks after the doctor’s diagnosis.
And I am quite aware that I am one of the lucky ones that has insurance coverage and the medication is covered,for now at least. The doctor is frustrated with the wait, the bureaucracy, and the fact I am not taking what she thought best to use.
This is health care in America.
There has to be a better way.
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Today is the 5th day of the 31st week, the 1st day of the 8th month, the 213th day of 2019 [with only 145 shopping days until Christmas], and: - Homemade Pie Day
- India Pale Ale Beer Day
- International Can-It-Forward Day
- Lammas (Merry Loafmas)
- Lughnasadh
- National Girlfriends Day
- National IPA Day
- National Mahjong Day
- National Minority Donor Awareness Day
- national Raspberry Cream Pie Day
- Planner Day
- Play Ball Day
- Respect for Parents Day
- Rounds Resounding Day
- Scout Scarf Day
- Spider-Man Day
- Start Up Day Across America
- US Air Force Day
- Woman Astronomers Day
- World Lung Cancer Day
- World Wide Web Day
- Yorkshire Day
It seems as though once we get past the 4th then July is over. August is just as fleeting as the back-to-school advertisements have us looking towards September long before it comes. Fortunately our governor has all Maryland schools starting after Labor Day, which comes very early this year. At least August has five Fridays and only four Mondays, so that is a point in our favor.
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Today is the 2nd day of the 31st week, the 29th day of the 7th month, the 210th day of 2019, and:
- Army Chaplain Corps Anniversary – created back in 1775 and consisting of ordained clergy who are commissioned Army officers who serve as military chaplains
- Earth Overshoot Day [AKA Ecological Debt Day] - started back in 2007, the calculated date on which humanity's resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year.
- International Tiger Day
- National Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day - supposedly this is about saving your house from mice. You are supposed to buy some cheese today and "sacrifice" it by putting it on a mouse trap to rid your house of any mice.
- National Chicken Wing Day
- National Lasagna Day
- Rain Day
Quote of the day:
"When you look at getting stuck in traffic as an opportunity to slow down (literally!), it can seem like more of a blessing than a nightmare. Getting stressed out won’t make those cars go any faster. Finding ways to enjoy it is a lot more rewarding. It makes it feel less like wasting time."
~ Brad Warner, “How to Not Waste Time”
I posted this picture on Facebook and poked my cousin who is a bit of an introvert and has now taken up residence in a tourist area to see if I could get a chuckle. To my surprise, several people responded that it was a great place mat and that got me to thinking about how the concept of “visiting” has changed over the years.
Both of my grandmothers’ homes enjoyed almost a constant stream of people who just dropped by. Some were neighbors who walked over, sometimes it was family on their way to one place or another, sometimes it was friends or acquaintances who were out for a drive and just decided to come by, their arrival only heralded by the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway and/or the barking of the dog [back in the day]. It never seemed to bother anyone to find the house closed up and the occupants not home – sometimes they would stick a note in the door or mailbox telling them that they had been by, sometimes they didn’t. It never seemed to fluster Grandmom, who would greet the visitors effusively and wave them into the house, stopping whatever it was that she was doing and sitting down to talk a spell. And you never let anyone leave without servicing refreshments! The table had to be set and the drinks poured and there were always cookies or some cake or pie that could be put out as conversation lingered over the table until the visitors decided it was time to head back home or someone produced a deck of cards or a board game.
Nowadays we make appointments in advance, deliberately clearing our schedules and making a visit an event rather than just a causal dropping in. I think it started with our parents, at least I don’t remember my mother and father treating visits as casually as my grandmothers did, nor do I remember folks just dropping in at our house. In my own homes, very few people ever just dropped in – even family would call ahead and make sure we were going to be home and that it was convenient.
I wonder what changed – was it that our neighborhoods became less community oriented? Was it that family moved so far away that just stopping by wasn’t practical? Did we all become so busy that we couldn’t just hang out or didn’t know what to say if we had to just sit and talk? How did the concept of individual dwellings become that of isolation from one’s fellows? Is this a temporary phase our society is going through or the direction of the future? I wonder….
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TGIF
*whew* Finally! Today is the 6th day of the 30th week, the 26th day of the 7th month, the 207th day of 2019, and:
- Americans With Disabilities Day - Americans with Disabilities Act comes into effect in 1990
- Armed Forces Unification Day – in 1947 President Truman signed National Security Act (1947), establishing Department of Defense, CIA, National Security Council and Joint Chiefs of Staff
- Aunt and Uncles Day
- Lumberjack Day
- National All or Nothing Day
- National Bagelfest Day - In 1986, Murray Lender, owner of Lenders Bagels, started the festival in Mattoon, Illinois, home of the world's largest bagel factory
- National Coffee Milkshake Day
- National Get Gnarly Day – does “gnarly” get a bad rap? The day was established in 2016 as the result of a Whirlpool employee motivation campaign
- National Talk in an Elevator Day
- One Voice Day
- System Administrator Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1267 - Inquisition forms in Rome under Pope Clement IV
1903 - the first automobile trip across the United States (San Francisco to New York) completed by Horatio Nelson Jackson and Sewall K. Crocker
1945 - Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva depart Kirtland Army Air Field to transport the plutonium core for the Fat Man bomb (bombing of Nagasaki) to the island of Tinian where the bomb is assembled
1957 - the USSR launches the first intercontinental multistage ballistic missile
1958 - the US Army launches the fourth US successful satellite, Explorer IV
1963 - US Syncom 2, 1st geosynchronous communications satellite, launched
1971 - Apollo 15 launched (Scott and Irwin) to 4th manned landing on Moon
1972 - Rockwell receives NASA contract to construct Space Shuttle
1974 - France performs nuclear Test at Mururoa atoll
1974 - USSR's Soyuz fails to dock with Salyut 3
1975 - Soyuz 18B returns to Earth
1977 - USSR performs underground nuclear Test
1978 - France performs nuclear Test at Mururoa atoll
1983 - Light flashes seen on Jupiter moon Io
1993 - Mars Observer takes its first photo of Mars, from 5 billion km
2005 - Space Shuttle STS-114 Mission - Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003
2018 - Observation of a black hole by The Very Large Telescope in Chile proves Albert Einstein's prediction of "gravitational redshift", published in "Journal Astronomy & Astrophysics"
Quote of the day:
“In each moment our experience is determined to a great extent by seeds from the past that are bearing fruit right now. In each moment, too, we can plant a seed intentionally that will create fruit in the future.”
~ Ben Connelly, “Cleaning Out the Storehouse”
This is one of those statements that just make you stop and think. It’s kinda a nicer way of saying “as ye reap, so shall ye sow”
I have always believed “I” [as in the person who I am right now] was crafted by the choices I have made in the past. For example, if I had stayed married to my second husband, I wouldn’t be working at 69+, I would be home every day doing things around the house instead of getting up with the sun [or before the sun as the days shorten] and heading out to the workplace. In that sense, I chose to be working at my age, although I may not have realized that would be a consequence of divorcing him and marrying Frank. It makes me wonder what choices I am making today, what seeds am I sowing, that will impact my future self’s well being or very state of being? Makes you look at the entire butterfly concept of consequences on a very personal level – everything is connected not only with your present wellbeing but your future self. And think about it – if you could change just one thing and unravel the entire tapestry of your life, then what one thing are you doing today that will cause the warp and woof of your future to take form and substance?
Category: #becarefulwhatyuowishfor
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it is Friday's Eve at least
Today is the 5th day of the 30th week, the 25th day of the 7th month, the 206th day of 2019 [and despite being known as “Christmas in July” there are 152 shopping days remaining until Christmas], and:
- Culinarians Day - a special day for anyone who cooks. ...
- Feast of Saint James
- Health and Happiness with Hypnosis Day
- International Red Shoe Day
- National Carousel Day or Merry-Go-Round Day - William Schneider of Davenport, Iowa patented the design for the modern carousel in 1871
- National Chili Dog Day
- National Hire a Veteran Day
- National Hot Fudge Sundae Day
- National Intern Day
- National Refreshment Day
- National Wine and Cheese Day
- Thread the Needle Day – for those who sew and those who tread warily amidst clashes of opinion
- Video Games Day – but why today?
ON THIS DAY IN...
1814 - English engineer George Stephenson introduces his first steam locomotive, a travelling engine designed for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway named Blücher
1832 - the first railroad accident in US, Granite Railway, Quincy, Massachusetts, kills one person
1837 - The first commercial use of an electric telegraph successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone between Euston and Camden Town in London
1850 - Gold discovered in Oregon (Rogue River)
1854 - Walter Hunt is awarded the first U.S. patent for a paper shirt collar
1908 - Ajinomoto Co. is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers a key ingredient in Konbu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), patents a process for manufacturing it.
1917 - Sir Thomas Whyte introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).
1957 - US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site
1963 - US, Russia & Britain sign nuclear Test ban treaty
1969 - The Apollo 11 command module Columbia with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin aboard splashed down at 11:49 AM CDT
1982 - France performs nuclear Test
1983 - first non-human primate (baboon) conceived in a lab dish, San Antonio
1984 - Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to walk in space
1985 - US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Siteand and USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1987 - USSR launches Kosmos 1870, 15-ton Earth-study satellite
1990 - US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site
2019 - NASA Voyager is 20 hrs 12 mins 03 secs of light-travel time from Earth
Quote of the day:
"Do not be afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact."
~ William James (1842 - 1910), American Philosopher and Psychologist
What makes a week, especially a work week, "long"? And why is that perception unexpected shared not just with office mates or even folks who work closely together online, but with others further away or even complete strangers? I can understand if my co-workers agree with me, after all, they are working in the same environment. But to hear the same plaint from elsewhere makes me wonder what is going on. No, being busy does not always make the time go faster. In fact those are the worst days when you are functioning at warp speed but the clock seems to be in a time warp of its own!
And yet, despite the fact that this particular week feels like it has stretched on forever, making last weekend a remote memory, I find it rather appalling to realize July is just about over
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getting over the hump
Today is the 4th day of the 30th week, the 24th day of the 7th month, the 205th day of 2019, and:
- Amelia Earhart Day
- Cousins Day
- International Self Care Day
- National Drive-Thru Day
- National Tell an Old Joke Day
- National Tequila Day
- National Thermal Engineer Day
- Pioneer Day
Quote of the day:
“Don’t worry about the future; don’t worry about the past. Stay right here. Ultimately you get so that you can’t say that you’re going forward, you can’t say that you’re going back, you can’t say that you’re staying in place. There’s nothing to be attached to.”
~ Ajahn Chah, “The Last Gift”
Musing: My mind is skittering about today. I blame Facebook. And the weather. And the political news.
Reading a book and listening to it are two very different ways to appreciate a story. I have been listening to James P Hogan’s Inherit the Stars and his brand of science fiction is very precise with technobabble carefully explained and illustrated in a way that I might’ve been tempted to skim over had I been reading instead of listening. The cultural assumptions are rather dated – women are pretty docile, there is a great respect for the alpha male, and everyone smokes even in the office – but it is still an interesting tale and I’ll probably spring for the sequels.
Just a stray … well it is more than a thought but less than a rant…. Back in the day, my daughter had a very successful podcast known as Bucket ((no you won’t find it online, it was a long time ago)). One segment that she always did personally was “Potty Talk” where she railed against such things as folks wanting to talk to you while you were pooping – things like that. My personal gripes are the ladies who come into a stall and immediately flush the toilet, not because has the remains of a former occupant’s business mind you, but just because they want clean water in which to deposit their…. er, contribution. Now I can see the point when there is something in the toilet, but not just to have a fresh bowl of water! Nine times out of ten, the same ladies will stand on one foot and use their foot to accomplish the flushing, so not only do they waste water, but the next person who doesn’t perform the same gyration gets to touch a handle onto which they have scraped all the possible germs they picked up from the bathroom floor. My guess is that they do this because they assume the same hand that wipes is the hand that flushes [which might be valid in all fairness]. And then, having preserved themselves from possible biological waste contamination, they then wash their hands, dry them, then get another dry paper towel so they can not touch the handle of the ladies room door and leave. Makes me wonder what kind of environment they live in or came from….
Looking forward to the weekend is really just another way to be “wishing your life away”, as Grandmom Hughes used to say.
Why is Christmas in July a thing when it would make more sense for June 25th to be the midpoint between one Christmas and another?
And last:
That seems to be a pretty good note to end on.
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OMGIM
Today is the 2nd day of the 30th week, the 22nd day of the 7th month, the 203rd day of 2019, and:
- Fragile X Awareness Day - About 1 in 151 females and 1 in 468 males carry the fragile X permutation, which causes different developmental issues
- Global Hug Your Kid Day
- Hammock Day - Developed by the Mayans of Central and South America for sleeping or resting, a hammock is a sling made of fabric, rope or netting, which is suspended between two points such as posts or trees.
- Lion's Share Day – did you know the saying comes from one of Aesop’s Fables?
- National Penuche Fudge Day - according to Wikipedia, Penuche is a fudge-like candy made from brown sugar, butter, and milk, using no flavorings except for vanilla.
- National Ratcatcher's Day - commemorates the Pied Piper of Hamlin
- PI Approximation day [AKA Casual Pi Day] – 22/7 is a common approximation of π
- Spoonerism Day - Today is the birthday of William Archibald Spooner, a long-serving Oxford don with a reputation for absent-mindedness, and a tendency to mangle the syllables in a spoken phrase
- Summer Leisure Day
ON THIS DAY IN...
1633 - Galileo Galilei forced to recant his Copernican views that the Earth orbits the Sun by the Pope (Vatican only admits it was wrong on Oct 31, 1992)
1847 - First ring doughnut supposedly created by Hanson Gregory [or did he invent the doughnut hole?)
1874 - Dr Andrew T Still, discovers the science of osteopathy
1874 - Game of lawn tennis introduced
1939 - Princes (future Queen) Elizabeth meets future husband Prince Philip of Greece (Midshipman Mountbatten, RN)
1947 - a record setting 12" rain falls in 42 mins (Holt, MO)
1959 - Vanguard SLV-6 launched for Earth orbit (failed)
1972 - "Man of La Mancha" opens at Beaumont Theater NYC for 140 performances
1976 - "Godspell" opens at Broadhurst Theater NYC for 527 performances
1977 - Walt Disney's "Rescuers" released, first Disney film to get a sequel
1978 - James Christy's discovery of Pluto's moon Charon announced
1980 - Pope John Paul II beatifies Kateri Tekakwitha, making her the 1st Native American to be beatified
1983 - first time a satellite is retrieved from orbit by Space Shuttle
1989 - Business Day reports that SA is about to test an intermediate range ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads
1991 - Underwater volcano, Mount Didicas, erupts in Philippines
2015 - JAMA Internal Medical Journal announces obese Americans now outnumber those just overweight
2019 - NASA Voyager is 20 hrs 11 mins 33 secs of light-travel time from Earth
Quote of the day:
"The fact that we don’t know—that nothing is certain and we therefore can’t hold on to anything—can evoke fear and depression, but it can also evoke a sense of wonder, curiosity, and freedom. Some of our best moments come when we haven’t yet decided what will happen next."
~ Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, “Open Stillness”
There is something wrong with any month that has five Mondays and only four Fridays.
Just saying…..
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one small step
50 years ago today a man walked on another planet for the first time
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thinking about thinking about moving
Today is the 5th day of the 29th week, the 18th day of the 7th month, the 199th day of 2019, and:
- Get to Know Your Customers Day
- National Caviar Day
- National Sour Candy Day
- Nelson Mandela International Day
- Perfect Family Day
On this day in ...
1178 - Five monks at Canterbury report something exploding on the moon shortly after sunset (only known observation)
1583 - Richard Martin of London takes out first life insurance policy, on William Gibbons; premium was £383
1767 - Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sights Tahiti, considered the first European to reach the island
1898 - the first amusement pier opens in Atlantic City, New Jersey
1928 - American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the 1st woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean landing at Burry Port, Wales
1948 - American Library Association adopts Library Bill of Rights, which states "Libraries should provide points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval."
1959 - the first telecast transmitted from England to US
1972 - US Supreme Court, 5-3, confirms lower court rulings in Curt Flood case, upholding baseball's exemption from antitrust laws
1977 - Space Shuttle test model "Enterprise" carries a crew aloft for 1st time, it was fixed to a modified Boeing 747
1980 - Mrs Shakuntala Devi mentally multiplies 2 13-digit #s in 28 sec
1983 - the 7th Shuttle Mission-Challenger 2 launches Sally Ride as 1st US woman in space
1989 - Comet Churyunov-Gerasimenko at perihelion
2003 - Google launches AdSense, a program that enables website publishers to serve ads targeted to the specific content of their individual web pages, many of which like On This Day (then HistoryOrb.com) go on to start their own publishing businesses
2015 - Pope Francis blames human selfishness for global warming in his encyclical, named "Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home"
2016 - Soyuz capsule returns to Earth the first British International Space Station astronaut Tim Peake, Russian Yuri Malenchenko and American Timothy Kopra after 186 days
2018 - President Trump orders US military to set up sixth branch of the military - a space force
2019 NASA Voyager is 20 hrs 10 mins 55 secs of light-travel time from Earth
Quote of the day:
"Nothing exists separate from all the other things in the universe. Every person lives only by relying on the support of others."
~ Jeff Wilson, “Born Together With All Beings”
Moving is a major undertaking, and for those of us who have too much stuff, it is a daunting prospect. While I am not at all a fan of minimalist living, if you have to be easily mobile I can definitely see the allure. I tend to stay put as a result. But things at the Enclave are continuing to deteriorate and I feeling rather pessimistic today about the owners’ commitment to let the management company have adequate resources to manage the property effectively, so I am looking about rather casually to see what is available. To start the process, I had to reflect on what I really want in the way of amenities:
- washer and dryer in the unit – I have dealt with having to pay quarters to wash and dry clothes and I am not going to do that anymore.
- be pet-friendly – I’m not getting rid of Panda
- high speed internet availability – many older buildings just do not have robust wiring. In addition, I prefer FIOS to Comcast
- a garage – this was not on my list originally, but after having this luxury for over a decade, it has become a need
- either a second bedroom I can use for storage or onsite storage – even if I trim things down radically and clear out the Disaster Area, it seems to me that I still am going to have things like Christmas decorations and such that will need to be stored.
Location is going to be key. I really don’t want to have to drive an hour to get to work for one thing [and we may be moving in the spring of next year] and I really don’t want to be an hour from my daughter’s domicile for another [or I might as well move to Florida and work for the House of the Mouse]. This limits where I am going to look. And last, price is a consideration – a BIG consideration. Right now my housing cost [rent and utilities] is around 46% of my gross income and fiscal prudence would have it around 30%. Problem is that there aren’t a lot of places with those amenities in nice areas at that price point….
If Satan offered me the “right click and take into inventory” feature in what we call “real life” I just might be tempted …..
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let it go
Today is the 4th day of the 29th week, the 17th day of the 7th month, the 196th day of 2019 [with only 160 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- Disneyland Day – after three years of construction, the park was unveiled during a special televised press event on the ABC Television Network in 1955.
- National Hot Dog Day
- National Peach Ice Cream Day
- National Tattoo Day
- Take Your Poet to Work Day
- Victims of Baton Rouge, Louisianna Attack Day
- World Day for International Criminal Justice
- World Day for International Justice
- World Emoji Day
- Wrong Way Corrigan Day
- Yellow Pigs Day
Londo Mollari: But this…this, this, this is like… being nibbled to death by, uh…Pah! What are those Earth creatures called? Feathers, long bill, webbed feet…go "quack".
Vir Cotto: Cats.
Londo: Cats! I'm being nibbled to death by cats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ66wHRhe2U
The litany of minor annoyances:
- The cat fountain is making an infernal racket and the new one I ordered on the 5th is nowhere in sight
- There was a bug on the wall of the kitchen and little tiny bugs around Panda’s food.
- Playing Diablo III fails to relax me in the morning as my necromancer stumbles around and dies easily
- Panda won’t cuddle and hides under the bed
- A slat of the balcony blinds falls off when I close them
- Can’t find the sandals I want to wear – and the ones I do find? The strap breaks when I put then on and they go in the trash
- It is 85 F in the shade at 7:30 AM.
- Got behind a student driver who carefully drove five miles under the speed limit and was going the exact same way I was on the way to work.
- Quartz has decided to put its content behind a paywall after three free articles.
- Two minutes after Walt Disney World’s call center opened, there were 750 callers and the wait time was 186 minutes – my travel agent is trying to arrange for the Disney dining plan for our December vacation and running into constant roadblocks.
And ALL of this before 9 AM.
Now, what am I going to do with the rest of the day? My head hurts, I’m at work dealing with picayune issues, there is a whole job list of chores I have to do when I get home, it’s hot and humid. The state of my finances, the country, the world, the economy, and the climate are all a mess. I feel ruffled, impatient, angry, and close to tears. Counting my blessings doesn’t seem to be working and it really doesn’t help to know that I can choose my mood, choose how I react. What I really want to do is scream at the universe “GIVE ME A F***KING BREAK!!!” and then break down
*sniffles*
At this point? I need to remember that life is not fair, therefore, I have to cope. It’s one of those days where I just need to go hour by hour. I can do this – and so can you. We’ll make it!
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scribbling about scribbling
Today is the 5th day of the 28th week, the 11th day of the 7th month, the 192nd day of 2019 [with only 166 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- All American Pet Photo Day
- Bowdler's Day – the birthday of Thomas Bowdler who epitomizes the folly of political correctness
- Free Slurpee Day or 7-11's Birthday
- International Essential Oils Day
- Make Your Own Sundae Day
- National Blueberry Muffin Day
- National Cheer Up the Lonely Day
- National Mojito Day
- National Rainier Cherries Day
- National Swimming Pool Day
- World Body Painting Day
- World Population Day AKA Day of The Five Billion – this year the UN is stressing reproductive health and gender equality
Quote of the day:
"To see clearly—to perceive things as they are—we must break the chain between the percept and the concept. This break comes after the senses connect with the object of perception, but before the great flywheel of mental habit boxes that perception in stale cubbyholes of thoughts and feelings."
~ Interview with Tara Bennett-Goleman, “Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart”
((a counter argument to my oft-repeated chant of “perception IS reality”))
It has been 13 days since my last post. In that time, I have babbled on in my personal journal seven times, but didn’t manage to write here at all. I have to ask myself why the difference, why blog at all if I am not going to babble here. Isn’t like this is a professional blog, not like the one I used to keep back in the day called “As the BankTurns” and the WIKI I kept updated with resources and comments on the financial services, organizational development, and knowledge management scenes. [Both of them are gone, by the way, lost to server changes and failed backups, but I digress]. I blog for the same reason that I share links in social media, to share things I find interesting. I blog because I like to write. But I don’t chit-chat a lot here. Although I share more than my one friend is comfortable with at times, I don’t go into a lot of personal details. I don’t talk about my daughter’s struggles after surviving cancer – that story is for her to chronicle and she does. I don’t talk about my granddaughters very much because I have been asked not to. Although I mention my friends in passing, I don’t talk a lot about them. I haven’t shared a funny work story since I left TWSB back in 2007… Hmmm, I had to look that up and am surprised it was only 12 years ago. Should I be babbling here instead of in a private journal?
Then too, this blogging platform has its limitations. I cannot embed video and pictures have to be posted somewhere online before I can add them to a post, and then I cannot format the text around them. There is a hard limit to the length of posts here as well. Alternatives? WordPress seems to have a steep learning curve, I don’t trust Google to keep Blogger alive since they have such a history of axing applications, and Penzu has some of the same limitations as this platform.
*ponders*
I guess I’ll just keep scribbling my graffiti, literally throwing thoughts against the wall and seeing what sticks for now
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who is next door?
Today is the 6th day of the 26th week, the 28th day of the 6th month, the 179th day of 2019 [with only 179 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- Drive Your Corvette to Work Day
- Insurance Awareness Day
- International Body Piercing Day
- INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY
- National Food Truck Day
- National Logistics Day
- National Tapioca Day
- Paul Bunyan Day – you could eat flapjacks to celebrate
- Tau Day – arguing that PI is not the way to define a circle
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1820 - Tomatoes are proven to be non-poisonous by Colonel Robert Gibbon eating a tomato on steps of courthouse in Salem, New Jersey
1846 - The saxophone is patented by Antoine-Joseph "Adolfe" Sax
1859 - The first recorded dog show is held (Newcastle-on-Tyne, England)
1861 - Leipzig Observatory discovers short-period (6.2 yrs) Comet d'Arrest
1870 - The U.S. Congress creates federal holidays (New Years Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day), initially applicable only to federal employees
1928 - Louis Armstrong makes 78 recording of "West End blues"
1935 - FDR orders a federal gold vault to be built at Fort Knox, Kentucky
1951 - "Amos 'n' Andy" premieres on CBS TV
1973 - New Zealand ship HMNZS Otago sails for Mururoa nuclear test zone after France’s refusal to accept an International Court of Justice injunction against its atmospheric nuclear testing. France reacted strongly, sending commandos to board and seize protest ships.
1983 - NASA launches Galaxy-A
2019 - Voyager I is 20 hrs 08 mins 09 secs of light-travel time from Earth
Last week sometime I got a flyer addressed to “White Oak Resident” telling me all about the community at Nextdoor.com and giving me a code so that I could register and log in. It sounded like a pretty good idea, when I checked it out, so I started to register, giving them my name, street address, email address and phone number. There were the standard privacy disclosures that no one reads and an additional comment that the phone number would not be sold, it was just for verification [like we all haven’t heard that before]. And then I got an error – something was “wrong with my address”. I thought they meant the email addy and I fired off an inquiry stating I have had that email since Gmail first started up [back when you had to have an invitation to join] and asking what the problem was
Yesterday I finally get a reply from Chester in Support. Seems that three years ago, there was a registered sex offender in my building – different floor, different apartment number that doesn’t even look vaguely like mine – and sends me a copy of the report that shows someone of a different age, sex, and ethnicity than me. This company wants a copy to verify that person is not me, so asked me to submit a photo ID and/or “some other supporting documentation” that includes my unit number so the hold can be cleared. Their rationale? “Given the sensitivity of the information shared on Nextdoor, as well as the fact that everyone on the website is a real-life neighbor, it’s very important for us to be extra cautious.”
I gave them a blistering review, then sent them a scanned copy of a bank statement envelope that clearly shows my name and unit number. No way am I sending them a copy of my photo ID – I know nothing about them!
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sum-sum-summertime
Today is the 6th day of the 25th week, the 21st day of the 6th month, the 172nd day of 2019, and: - Anne and Samantha Day
- Atheist Solidarity Day
- Cuckoo Warning Day - if you hear a cuckoo on June 21st, you will have a wet summer.
- Global Orgasm Day: 21 Link (Always on Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice)
- Go Skateboarding Day
- International Day of Yoga
- International Day of Surfing Day
- Midsummer – well now, I think the middle of summer is more like August 7th actually. The pagan holiday of Midsummer [AKA Litha] is actually on Monday, June 24th this year.
- National Daylight Appreciation Day
- National Day of Payer for Law Enforcement Officers
- National Day of the Gong – but it has nothing to do with the Gong Show, more’s the pity
- National Peaches and Cream Day
- National Seashell Day
- National Selfie Day
- National Take Back the Lunch Break Day
- Summer Solstice [it will be summer until 9/23 - 94 days]
- Take Your Dog to Work Day
- Tall Girl Appreciation Day
- The First Day of Summer
- The Longest Day
- Ugliest Dog Day
- World Giraffe Day
- World Handshake Day
- World Humanist Day
- World Hydrography Day
- World Music Day
- World Peace and Prayer Day
Today is a day when the shadows flee from the sun. While we civilized folk tend to be a bit blasé about it, or more interested in the scientific explanations of why it is notable, it is a traditional day of festivity and celebration. The Celts celebrated with bonfires, Christians attempted to replace Litha with the feast of John the Baptist, and it is also the festival of Li, the Chinese Goddess of light. Folklore tells us that on Midsummer’s Night, the field and forest elves, sprites, and faeries abound in great numbers. And yet there is an awareness that after today, every day will be just a little shorter and the darkness will creep over us just a little earlier each evening.
I hope there is some sunshine and joy in your day today and every day
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what is sauce for the goose
Today is the 3rd day of the 25th week, the 18th day of the 6th month, the 169th day of 2019 [with only 189 shopping days until Christmas], and:
- Autistic Pride Day
- Clark Kent's Birthday (Superman)
- Go Fishing Day
- International Panic Day
- International Picnic Day
- International Sushi Day
- National Cherry Tart Day
- National Splurge Day
- Sustainable Gasteronomy Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1178 - Five monks at Canterbury report something exploding on the moon shortly after sunset (only known observation)
1767 - Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sights Tahiti, considered the first European to reach the island
1873 - Susan B. Anthony fined $100 for voting for US President
1892 - Originating in Australia, the Jordan brothers planted macadamia trees on the Big Island. Although the first macadamia tree was planted in 1881 by William Purvis, it was the Jordan brothers who made them popular among the sugar plantation owners.
1928 - American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the 1st woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean landing at Burry Port, Wales
1977 - Space Shuttle test model "Enterprise" carries a crew aloft for 1st time, it was fixed to a modified Boeing 747
1983 - 7th Shuttle Mission-Challenger 2 launches Sally Ride as 1st US woman in space
1989 - Comet Churyunov-Gerasimenko at perihelion
1999 - Hindi film "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam" premieres directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, starring Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn and Aishwarya Rai
2003 - Google launches AdSense, a program that enables website publishers to serve ads targeted to the specific content of their individual web pages, many of which like On This Day (then HistoryOrb.com) go on to start their own publishing businesses
2005 - David Tennant's first appearance as the Tenth Doctor in BBC "Doctor Who" episode "The Parting of the Ways"
2006 - The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat is launched
2015 - Pope Francis blames human selfishness for global warming in his encyclical, named "Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home"
2016 - Soyuz capsule returns to Earth the first British International Space Station astronaut Tim Peake, Russian Yuri Malenchenko and American Timothy Kopra after 186 days
2018 - President Trump orders US military to set up sixth branch of the military - a space force
Quote of the day:
"At the heart of the matter lies a fundamental question: Do we support our long-cherished ideals of democratic fair play or the “by any means necessary” approach that is becoming more prevalent in the current political climate?"
~ Jason Rezaian, Global Opinions writer, Opinion | The State Department has been funding trolls. I’m one of their targets
We have to ask ourselves if our indignation over the Russian meddling in our politics isn’t misplaced. Actually it is simply the United States being served with its own sauce – not only the CIA but the State Department has been doing this for years without it coming to the attention of the general public. Finding this out explains to me why the US is so despised in the world and why it is so difficult for Americans to understand how they are regarded by other peoples.
*takes a deep breath*
This too shall pass
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leaving this world
Today is the 3rd day of the 24th week, the 11th day of the 6th month, the 162nd day of 2019, and:
- Call Your Doctor Day
- Corn on the Cob Day
- Cousteau Day
- King Kamehameha Day - [AKA Kalani Paiʻea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiʻikui Kamehameha o ʻIolani i Kaiwikapu kauʻi Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea] united the Hawaiian Islands into one royal kingdom in 1810
- National Cotton Candy Day
- National German Chocolate Cake Day
- National Making Life Beautiful Day
- World Pet Memorial Day
ON THIS DAY IN ....
1184 BC - Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes
631 - Emperor Taizong of Tang of China, sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk for the release of Chinese prisoners captured during transition from Sui to Tang from northern frontier; succeeds in freeing 80,000
758 - Diplomatic dispute at Tang Chinese capital Chang'an when Abbasid Arabs and Uyghur Turks both arrive to offer tribute. Settlement reached when both enter at same time through two different gates.
1644 - Florentine scientist Evangelista Torricelli describes his invention of the mercury barometer in 1643 in a letter to Michelangelo Ricci
1742 - Benjamin Franklin invents his Franklin stove
1770 - Captain James Cook discovers the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running aground on it
1788 - Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reaches Alaska
1793 - the first American stove patent is granted to Robert Haeterick
1816 - Gas Light Co of Baltimore founded [later to become today's BG&E]
1892 - The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia
1935 - Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States, at Alpine, New Jersey
1939 - King and Queen of England taste their first "hot dogs" at FDR's party
1953 - "Amos 'n Andy" TV Comedy, also radio from '29; last aired on CBS [except for reruns and syndication]
1962 - Brothers John and Clarence Anglin and fellow inmate Frank Morris escape from Alcatraz Island prison, the only ones to do so, butno one knows what happened to them
1964 - Manfred Mann record “Do Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Do”
1966 - "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever." closes at Mark Hellinger NYC after 280 performances
1977 - the Main Street Electrical Parade premieres in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World
1982 - "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore, is released
1984 - Michael Larson shown winning record $110,237 on American TV game show "Press Your Luck" by memorizing patterns
1985 - Russian space probe Vega 1 lands on Venus
1991 - Microsoft releases MS DOS 5.0
1993 - "Jurassic Park", directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum opens, sets box office weekend record of $502 million
2002 - "American Idol" created by Simon Fuller with judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson premieres on Fox
2017 - Japan passes law allowing Emperor Akihito to abdicate
2018 - Net neutrality is officially repealed by The Federal Communications Commission in the US
Quote of the day:
“Perhaps it is only in childhood that books have any deep influence on our lives. In later life we admire, we are entertained, we may modify some views we already hold, but we are more likely to find in books merely a confirmation of what is in our minds already…What do we ever get nowadays from reading to equal the excitement and the revelation in those first fourteen years?”
~ Graham Greene, The Lost Childhood
Well now, I will admit that it takes me a little more searching to find a book I can fully dive into without getting annoyed at the repetition of “stuff” I have heard – or rather read – before. But the books I imbibe still make me think, still make me question my perspective and sometimes my perceptions. The first 14 years? I hadn’t found Middle Earth yet and had barely started exploring science fiction, So I have to say I most emphatically disagree with Greene
I cannot imagine what my life would be like without books, for they were my introduction into a 2nd life…..
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75 years ago
It is called World War II for a reason -- waged in the skies, the oceans, and the lands on five separate continents and involved 21 combatant nations, who fought for six years, and killed on average 27,000 people a day, many of them civilians Often framed as “the last good war”, it changed the way we look the use of force to enforce our sense of rightness and morality, embracing the concept of “total war” versus a clash of armies. I may have been unduly swayed by the stories of my parents’ generation about why they personally fought, but I feel none of that moral ambiguity changes the fact that Hitler’s Nazis implemented the Holocaust and dictatorship, and that was what was defeated..
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TGIFridays redeems itself
Today is the 4th day of the 23rd week, the 5th day of the 6th month, the 156th day of 2019, and:
- Apple II Day
- Festival of Popular Delusions Day
- Global Running Day
- Hot Air Balloon Day
- National Attitude Dy
- National Gingerbread Day
- National Moonshine Day
- National Tailors' Day
- National Veggie Burger Day
- Sausage Roll Day
- World Environment Day
ON THIS DAY IN ...
1661 - Isaac Newton admitted as a student to Trinity College, Cambridge
1794 - US Congress passes the Neutrality Act, banning Americans from serving in foreign armed forces
1799 - Naturalists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland set sail in the Pizarro from A Coruña and begin their 5 year Latin American expedition
1805 - The first recorded tornado in "Tornado Alley" (Southern Illinois)
1927 - Johnny Weissmuller sets 100-yard & 200-yard free-style swim record
1933 - US drops the Gold Standard when Congress enacts a joint resolution nullifying creditors right to demand payment in gold
1937 - Henry Ford initiates a 32 hour work week
1948 - "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend" single released by Stan Jones
1964 - Davie Jones & King Bees debut "I Can't Help Thinking About Me"; group disbands but Davie Jones goes on to success as David Bowie
1981 - World's first today in history program with editable data "TODAY", invented by Michael Butler runs for the first time on a mainframe computer
1991 - Space Shuttle STS 40 (Columbia 12) launched
2007 - MESSENGER spacecraft performs a second flyby of Venus
2019 - NASA Voyager is 20 hrs 05 mins 52 secs of light-travel time from Earth
A year ago yesterday, I decided to celebrate my work anniversary by taking myself to dinner at TGIFriday’s right after work. I got there befodre 5 PM and it was not crowded. Seated quickly, I sat and watched servers chatting with each other, talking to the manager, and waiting on the few other customers that were there, without a menu and without even a glass of water. After about 10 minutes, I asked a passing server who’s table this was and was told that s/he would be with me shortly. At the 20 minute point, I got up and left without a word. Subsequently I shared my experience online and was surprised to get an email from TGIFriday’s management asking me to give them another chance and sending me a coupon for a free meal. I didn’t make my way back until yesterday evening because I was not inclined to give it another shot. But the coupon was going to expire, so I took a chance. The server was attentive, quick, and very friendly – and that made for a pleasant experience that wiped out the sour tastes the previous visit had left. That one server made a huge difference and I’ll probably start patronizing the place again.
Moral of the story: if you are going to do a job that involves customer service, then DO it and do it without resentment or lollygagging. You may only get once chance to keep or lose a customer.
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One Decade
Today is the 3rd day of the 23rd week, the 4th day of the 6th month, the 155th day of 2019.
I started at my current job ten years ago today. I have been reflecting about my work history for a couple of days now, looking thoughtfully back at the past. Haven’t come to a lot of conclusions though, but I thought I would share three of the formless musings….
There is a difference between having a job and having a career and the difference is NOT whether or not you are in a management position. For the first seven years I was at C&F, I was definitely in worker bee mode – it was a job pure and simple. Jobs are a clean clear contractual arrangement -- you pay me I work; you don’t pay me, I don’t work. And then thanks to a charismatic leader and a great HR pro, both of whom became friends, I dived into organizational development and discovered I wanted a career. I became immersed in knowledge management and teams theory and was an early advocate of the concept of employees being free agents. For the next 13 years, I spun off the knowledge, skills, and abilities into a career as I moved from one community bank to another, tending to processes and procedures. And then in 2007, I accepted a job with a non-bank commercial lender and found myself unexpectedly pegged once more as a worker bee, and my wings were clipped. While I missed not being part of the strategic planning of the organization, I soon realized there were advantages to having a job as when I left the office, I left work behind. In 2009 when I was let go, the HR person rather snidely informed me that I needed to look at working for larger organizations that would supply more internal support and more chances for advancement to be successful. And I did indeed interview for several career building positions, but in the end, I chose to take a job with a tiny CUSO with only three other employees. It was a conscious decision, for as the saying goes, I work to live, not live to work
Charisma is a vital attribute to have in a career and helpful to have in any job. You have to be able to communicate effectively with many different levels and do so in such a way that it builds your creditability. I must’ve rolled a one in this category. I do not know how to fit in gracefully. I do not know how to say the politically expedient thing without my very expressive face clearly mirroring my internal conviction of BS. As a result, I really only bloomed when I had someone in senior management who appreciated both my intellect and my willingness to tell it like it is to anyone, including the higher ups. When I had someone like that, who understood what I did even though I was inarticulate when it came to promoting myself, I thrived. Without that person, I struggled
Organizations do not pay your for what you know. They pay you for what it is you are doing, what role you are filling. That is something college graduates all had a really hard time wrapping their minds around! I could sympathize because I hate those talks about “market value” and “roles” myself, but C&F gave me an excellent example to explain it. Donna, who was a retired HR professional for a large corporation, started with the bank as a part-time switchboard operator. C&F therefore paid her the minimum wage a switchboard operator would get. After a couple of hears, the VP in charge of HR left and Donna applied for and received the position. At that point, C&F paid her what a VP of HR would make. She had not changed, her KSA had not changed, but her role had.
Conclusion? Yes I wish I could retire, but since I have to work, I don’t have it so bad.
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CEOExpress
