11.30.07
Christmas Songs
White Christmas
Everyone knows that the song was introduced in the movie Holiday Inn, but many don’t know that it was a song about being stuck in sunny and warm LA and dreaming of a White Christmas. The original first verse is:
The sun is shining
The grass is green
The orange and palm trees sway.
I’ve never seen such a day
In Beverly Hills LA.
But it’s December the 24th
And I am longing to be up North…
This part is rarely performed with the song (The Carpenters version does) and was never recorded by Bing Crosby.
Have Yourself A Very Merry Christmas
This Judy Garland song was written for and first introduced in the movie Meet me In St. Louis. The original intent for the song was to say that by next year things would be brighter. The original lines were;
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
May your heart be light
In a year our troubles will be out of sight
From now on
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
In a year our troubles will be miles away
At the request of Judy Garland it was changed to:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light,
From now on our troubles
Will be out of sight.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on our troubles
Will be miles away.
This sure makes for it to be a merrier, Merry Christmas song.
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
The song was written in 1943 and recorded in that same year by Bing Crosby. Placing it in that time period it’s obvious that the song was about a soldier at war and his Christmas wish. If it wasn’t for White Christmas this would probably be His Christmas song. (Although his version of Silent Night sold more copies) The song remained on the charts for 7 weeks and well pass Christmas.
Silver Bells
The song was written by the prolific movie composers Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for the movie The Lemon Drop Kid, staring Bob Hope. It was originally going to be Tinkle Bells, until Livingston’s wife told him that to millions of american women the word tinkle meant something else and not something that would generally go over good in a Christmas song. The word tinkle was replaced with silver. Now the next time you hear the song replace the word ’silver’ with ‘tinkle’ and see if it doesn’t have a slightly different song.
Frosty the Snowman
Frosty the Snowman was written with one thought in mind. Just before it was written Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer had be a huge commercial hit and the team of Jack Nelson and Steve Rollins wanted to write the next ‘Christmas Classic’. By the end of the winter they had put together two holiday songs to pitch to Gene Autry. Autry was sold and recorded Frosty for the next Christmas season.
Oh, the other Holiday song they pitched. It wasn’t a Christmas song, but the Easter song Here Comes Peter Cotton-tail.
A Christmas Song
In the hot heat in the summer of 1945, Mel Torme visited his friend Bob Wells. Earlier in the day Wells had written phases in a notebook in an effort to stay warm. A couple of these were; “Chestnuts roasting … Jack Frost nipping … Yuletide carols … Folks dressed up like Eskimos.’
Torme also in an effort to try to cool off, thought that maybe writing a winter song would help. They took these phrases and in 40 minutes much of the music and some of the lyrics of one of the most recorded Christmas song was completed.
11.29.07
About Re-Gifting
3 Dos and 3 Don’ts about regifting.
Dos
1) Think before regifting. We all get those gifts that we just don’t need or want. If we know of someone who may appreciate it, Why not?
2) Remember some re-gifting can be funny. In some ways the old joke about there only being two fruitcakes is true. And if it’s a running joke among friends and family, it can be fun.
3) Consider selling old gifts on eBay and not give as presents.
Don’ts
1) Re-gift used items. That’s just tacky at best.
2) Re-gift an item that is no longer in production or labeled from a store that is no longer in business. It’s not new if the store has been out of business and it’s been in a closet for 6 years,
3) Forget who gave you the gift. You don’t want to make the mistake of re-gifting an item to the person who gave it to you. Yo may not remember the vase that Aunt Joy gave to you, but she may remember exactly when, if it’s back in her hands.
11.28.07
Same Name; Different Person
1) Anne Hathaway
- American Actress
- Wife of William Shakespeare
2) Michael Jackson
- American Singer
- American Football player in the 1990’s
- (born 1940), New Zealand, professor of social anthropology and writer
- (born 1936), developer of software development methods
- 20th century), chairman and CEO of AutoNation
- (born 1960), British writer, known for The Underground Man
3) Muhammad Ali
- American Boxer (1942-) original name Cassius Clay
- Viceroy of Egypt (1769-1849)
- Pakistani Actor (1928-2006) Spelled Mohammad
- Pakistani Cricket player (1975-) Also spelled Mohammad
4) Twice in American history there has been Presidents with the same name, each time it was a father then a son.
- John Adams
- John (Quincy) Adams
- George (Herbert Walker) Bush
- George (Wilson) Bush
5) Stephen King
- Stephen King, an American author
- Steve King (radio), an American radio personality
- Stephen King (conservationist), a New Zealand conservationist
- Steve King, a U.S. Representative from Iowa
- Steve King, an American football player
- Steven King (footballer), an Australian football player
- Steven King (ice hockey), an American hockey player
- Stephen King (paedophile), a British convict
6) Steve Atkinson
- Steve Atkinson – News Co-Anchor KGTV San Diego
- Steve Atkinson (1948-2003) Hockey player
- Steve Atkinson – Artist, living in Minneapolis, Minn.
- Steven G. Atkinson (Yours Truly)
11.27.07
J. Allen Hynek
1) Josef Allen Hynek was born on May 1, 1910 in Chicago, Ill. He died on April 27, 1986 at the age of 75 from a malignant brain tumor at Memorial Hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona
2) His education includes a B.S. from the University of Chicago received in 1931 and completed his in astrophysics at Yerkes Observatory in 1935.
3) He joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio State University in 1936. He specialized in the study of stellar evolution and in the identification of spectroscopic binaries. By 1950 he had risen to become a full professor.
4) He is best remembered with research into unidentified flying objects. In 1949 he was invited by the US Air Force to become the astronomical consultant to Project Grudge, based at nearby Wright Field (later Wright-Patterson AFB), in Dayton, Ohio. He continued in this position with the subsequent and much longer Project Blue Book.
5) By the time that the US Government discontinued Project Blue Book in 1970 he had changed his opinion from having some skepticism to one in which he believed that UFOs represent “an aspect or domain of the natural world not yet explored by science.” In 1973, four years after the cancellation of Project Blue Book, Hynek founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), based in Chicago.
6) He created a 6 point classification scheme for UFO’s.
| Type of UFO sighting | Description |
| Nocturnal lights | Bright lights seen at night |
| Daylight disks | Usually oval or disklike |
| Radar-visual | Those detected by radar |
| Close encounters of the 1st kind | Visual sightings of an unidentified object |
| Close encounters of the 2nd kind | Visual sightings plus physical effects on animate and inanimate objects |
| Close encounters of the 3rd kind | Sightings of occupants in or around the UFO |
11.26.07
Happy Birthday to ‘6 Things to Consider’
1) 6 Things to Consider’s first post was one year ago on November 26, 2006 with http://6thingstoconsider.com/2006/11/26/when-starting-a-web-log-blog.
2) There has been nearly 250 different posts on just about every subject. The Month of April was filled with baseball with each day featuring a team. (In hindsight it was probably a mistake devoting a full month to one subject.) Over the course of 6 Things to Consider, I do plan to do posts relating to each of the NFL teams.
3) The site has had over 28,000 hits with the most popular post being, http://6thingstoconsider.com/2007/06/09/female-athletes-in-playboy/. One of the most popular topics are the posts with Silent Films as part of the Subject.
4) Starting soon (probably at the start of 2008) each of the posts will be somehow related to the day. I’ve had a few in the past such as a repost about The Edmund Fitzgerald on the Anniversary of its sinking, The Great Boston Fire and Thomas Nast on the Anniversary of the first printing of one of his famous cartoons.
5) Please feel free to comment on the post or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.
6) A Big Thank You to all of those who have read a 6 Things to Consider during its first year. A Bigger Thank You for those who read it on a regular basis or have it on a RSS feed. And Thank You too for those who are reading a 6 Things to Consider for the first time. I really do appreciate it.
11.25.07
Cyber Monday
1) The Monday after Thanksgiving has been termed ‘Cyber Monday’, with the belief that employees who do not have access to the Internet from home or only have dial-up access will be doing on-line shopping that day.
2) The term was created as a Internet Marketing term in 2005. Is ‘Cyber Monday’ the busiest Internet Shopping day? In most years that answer has been NO. We’ll just have to see how it turns out this year.
3) It is estimated that as many as 55 percent of office workers will be doing some shopping from work. This is up from 51 percent in 2006 and 45 percent in 2005.
4) Many retailers are gearing up for increase sales that day. It’s estimated that 72 percent of the retailers, up from 43 percent in 2006, will have on-line specials that day.
5) There is a site dedicated to ‘Cyber Monday’, CyberMonday.com, where more than 550 retailers have signed up to post their promotions. In 2006, 300,000 people visited the site. Will it reach over a Million in 2007? It wouldn’t be surprising.
6) One problem with on-line purchasing in the past has been shipping costs. 2/3 of the shoppers interviewed by Forrester Research, INC, said they be ‘more likely’ to buy if the shipping was free. In 2007 many on-line retailers, estimated at 8 out of 10, will be offering free shipping once a minimum order price has been reached.
11.23.07
When shopping on-line
1) Create an on-line shopping email account.
You may not want to use your regular email account for on-line shopping, since when entering an email address this does give the seller the right to send other promotional information.
2) Use secure Internet connections.
You don’t want to shop using public computer like one at the library. It’s possible that others could see personal information. Also check that your session to the seller is ‘locked’. You can do this by checking to see that there is a closed padlock displayed somewhere on the browser. It may also be checked by looking at the web address. Those using https are secure while those with http are not.
3) Pay by credit card.
There are more consumer protections available when using a credit card. Under federal law there is a maximum $50.00 liability for unauthorized charges. If the good do not arrive or in a damaged condition you may also dispute the charges through the credit card company.
4) Do not send personal information via email.
Email is not a secure form of communication. Information such as Credit Card or Social Security numbers should never be sent through email.
5) Check and understand the terms.
These terms should detail information such as warranty, right of return, ship fee and time and other information about the sale. Keep records of the terms, date of sale, promise shipping and any other information about the sale.
6) If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.
The best sites to use are those that you trust. If you or your friends haven’t heard or shopped at the site, and it doesn’t feel right, shop elsewhere. There are plenty of honest locations, but there are those that are only out to get your money.
11.22.07
Electronic gadget to give as a gift
1) A digital camera. Digitals cameras now can be purchased inexpensively that will give good to great printed photos. Recommendation is for the camera to have no less than 6 mega pixels and 3X optical zoom.
2) Memory card. If you know someone who already has a digital camera, give a memory card. The cost for these have been steadily decreasing and for less than $ 25 one of a GB or greater can be gotten for many cameras. Just be sure that the memory card is the correct one.
3) Portable disk drive. As with the memory card, a portable drive can be gotten for a reasonable price. Having one of those will allow the recipient to have his data with him at all time.
4) A MP3 player. Everyone has music that they would want to listen to while waiting, give a MP3 player and no one will be alone. You can even download news broadcast and TV shows onto some of them.
5) If you have a young person to purchase a gift for, all three of the major video game manufacturers have released new systems. These however may be hard to find and they aren’t inexpensive.
6) A gift card from an electronic outlet. This will allow the person getting the gift to get what they want or need.
11.21.07
When giving an office gift
1) Know the reason for giving a gift. It shouldn’t be thought of as something that you are required to do, but as giving to someone who has helped and supported you throughout the year.
2) Even if the office has a secret Santa policy, you can give a gift to someone you appreciate. Many bosses don’t expect a gift, since to some it’s looked upon as ‘kissing-up’.
3) Give something that you feel they would enjoy. Find out a hobby or interest and give accordingly.
4) Don’t give a gift if you feel weird giving that person one. They may feel just as weird getting one from you.
5) If you decide to give someone a gift, plan to give it at the last minute.
6) The IRS allowance for a ‘professional gift’ is 25.00.
11.20.07
When attending an office party.
1) Eat, drink and be merry, but don’t go to extremes. These are your managers and co-workers. What happens at the office party rarely stays at the office party.
2) Dress accordingly. It may be alright for a woman to wear a low-cut short red dress for a night out on the town, but it doesn’t look very professional at an office party.
3) Introduce yourself to everyone. Many times the only time you may be able to meet and talk with the CEO and other VP’s is at the office party. It’s alright to talk with them, but don’t be a pest.
4) Find out who is invited. The party may only be for employees and bringing the family would be out of place. But it may be for the family with a chance for the kids to meet Santa.
5) Pay attention to the time. You may not want to be the first at the party, but you don’t want to arrive just a few minutes before it ends. Don’t stay after the end, unless invited.
6) Thanks to all who deserve it. Saying Thank you to the ones who organized the party will make them feel good. Saying Thanks to the managers will show them that you are appreciated. If you are a manager saying thanks to those who assisted you over the year will create a good team.
