01.01.08
Remembering 2007
1) They Died in 2007.
Brad Delp lead singer for the rock group Boston died on March 9th.
Kitty Carlisle died on April 17 at the age of 96.
Lois Maxwell, who we all fondly remember as Miss Moneypenny died on September 29.
Joey Bishop, the last member of the famed Rat Pack, died on October 17.
Teresa Brewer, who sang Music, Musi, Music in the 60’s, also died on October 17.
Dick Wilson, Don’t Squeeze the Charmin’s Mr. Whipple, died on November 19.
2) Sports Championships:
College Football ended with Florida defeating Ohio State, even though Ohio State returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown.
Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning finally won their Super Bowl defeating the Chicago Bears.
Men’s College Basketball Championship went to Florida who defeated Ohio State. The Woman’s winner was Tennessee with Rutgers losing the game.
In Pro Basketball the San Antonio Spurs won the championship in four games over the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Phoenix Mercury, who wasn’t in the 2006 playoffs, won the WNBA Championship over the 2006 Champions Detroit Shock by winning the fifth game of their five game series.
The Hockey season ended with the Anaheim Ducks defeating the Ottawa Senators by winning 4 of the first five games.
The Boston Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies to win the World Series, even though the Rockies went on an incredible late season run to make the playoffs and then won each of their National League series in sweeps to go to their first even World Series.
3) Entertainment
The Grammy for best album of 2006 was awarded in 2007 to The Dixie Chicks for their first CD since their political statements about President Bush.
The Best Picture Oscar went to The Departed.
Helen Mirren won awards for playing both Queen Elizabeth I and II. She won an Oscar for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II and an Emmy for playing Queen Elizabeth I.
4) Events
Even though the national election was nearly 2 years away the race for US president began early in both of the political parties.
The year ended on a sad note for Pakistan when Benazir Bhutto’s life ended on December 27th.
5) Technology
Microsoft finally released their newest Windows Operating System, Vista. It was not the success that they had hoped with many remaining with with older XP systems.
Apple rocked the world by releasing their iPhone. The new touch based cell phone sold only on the AT&T network in the United States, but sold better than anticipated.
Apple also released new iPods, including one that uses many of the same features as the iPhone as well as an upgrade to their computer operating system.
One of Apple’s biggest announcements came just after the first of the year when they announced that they were dropping the world Computer from their name and would be simply Apple, INC.
6) Changing from one year to another is just a way of measuring time. There is nothing special about 2008 that makes it any different than 2007 or even 1908. We all live one day at a time, one minute to the next.
12.26.07
About the Islamic Religion
1) Islam is a one deity religion based upon the teachings the 7th century Arab religious and political leader Muhammad. It is the second-largest religion in the world with an estimated 1.4 billion followers. The followers are known as Muslims. Only about 20% reside in the Arab countries. 69% of the Muslims reside in Asia, and less than 1% in North America.
2) It is the Muslim belief that the God Allah gave the Qur’an to his final Prophet, Muhammad. They believe that the Qur’an was revealed by the Angel Gabriel. The Islamic text show that Judaism and Christianity are prophetic successor in the teachings of Abraham.
3) Muslims believe that the Virgin Mary (Miriam) gave a miraculous birth to Jesus and he is one of God’s prophets. There is even a chapter in the Qur’an named for Mary.
4) The Muslims follow the Five Pillars of Islam. The first pillar, Shahadah, says “I testify that there is none more worthy of worship except God and I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” The second pillar, Salat requires them to pray at fixed times five times a day facing toward Mecca. The third, Zakat, is charity giving to the poor based upon the wealth one has accumulated. The fourth, Sawm is that during the month of Ramadan they are to abstain from food, drink and sexual intercourse from dawn to dusk. The fifth, Hajj is the pilgrimage during the month of Dhu al-Hijah in Mecca. Each Muslim who can afford it is obliged to make the pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime.
5) There are a number of Islamic religious denomination. The major schools of Sunni and Shi’a. The Sunni is the largest with present estimates of approximately 85%. The Shi’a with approximately 15% differ from the Sunni in that they reject the authority of the first three caliphs, Islamic leaders, and feels that only descendants of Muhammad should be given this right.
6) The act of terrorism cannot be justified under any valid interpretation of the Qur’an. It speaks a message of hope, faith and peace through the faith in God. Only by using snippets of verses used out of context can those using the Qur’an to justify their actions.
12.21.07
Holiday Shopping Safety Tips
These are tips that Police Departments are publishing:
1) Lock your doors even after you get in the car.
2) When traveling with young children, everyone should enter on one side of the vehicle.
3) Park in a well-lit area.
4) Remember where you park.
5) Secure valuables and shopping bags inside your trunk.
6) Never carry a lot of cash, and don’t show all of your cash when making a purchase.
Hope that everyone has a Very Merry Christmas.
12.19.07
Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’
1) A Christmas Carol by English novelist Charles Dickens was first published on December 19, 1843. It had illustrations by John Leech.
2) The story is divided into Staves and not chapters. A stave, which is similar to a stanza, is found in music as a recurring pattern of meter and rhyme. Dickens felt this added humor as it relates to the title.
3) When Scrooge is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his old partner and friend Jacob Marley, Marley’s ghost informs “Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one. … Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The Third, upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has cease to vibrate.” In the end the three spirits visited him on one night.
4) A Christmas Carol has been adapted for nearly every form of entertainment including theatre, opera, film, radio and television. The first film version was made in 1901 called Scrooge. In 1908 Thomas Edison also produced a film version of the story.
5) Lionel Barrymore’s radio production of him playing Scrooge was so popular that plans were made for him to do a film version. However, before it was filmed he was confined to a wheelchair with crippling arthritis and the role was played by Reginald Owen.
6) One of the best acclaimed film version of A Christmas Carol starred Alastair Sim as Ebeneser Scrooge. The English produced film was released with the title Scrooge in England and A Christmas Carol in the United States. It however did not attain its stature until the 1970’s when it turned up each year on US TV. Prior to this the most popular version of the filmed story in the US was the 1938 version with Reginald Owen.
12.05.07
Highs and Lows
Temperatures
1) The highest recorded temperature in the world was on September 13, 1922 at El Azzizia, Libya. It was 136 Degrees Fahrenheit/58 Degrees Celsius. This is two/one degrees higher than the 134/57 reading on July 10, 1913 at Death Valley California. The highest temperature recorded at the South Pole is 7.5/-14 on December 27, 1978.
2) The lowest recorded temperature in the world was on July 21, 1983 at Vostok in the Antarctic. It was -129 Degrees Fahrenheit/-89 Degrees Celsius. The 2nd lowest was recorded at two location in Russia. On February 6, 1933 at Oimekon, Russia and on February 6, 1892 at Verhoyansk, Russia it was recorded at -90/-68. On Mauna Kea, Hawaii the lowest recorded was 12/-11 on May 17, 1979.
3) Wind speeds
At 1:21 pm on April 12, 1934 a wind gust of 231 mph/372 kph was recorded on Mt Washington. Between noon and 1 pm of that day there were frequent values at 220 mph with gusts up to 229. The neatest challenge to this record occurred on December 16, 1997 on the Island of Guam when a gust was reported at 236 mph. However that measurement has never been substantiated due to accuracy of the meter at that speed.
First to reach the Poles:
4) North:
The North Pole lies on a Ice Mass above the Arctic Sea. On April 6, 1909 the expedition of Robert Peary, which included Matthew Henson and four Inuit men named Ootah, Seeglo, Egigingwah, and Ooqueah reached the area they determined to be the North Pole.
5) South Pole
The South Pole lies on the continent of Antarctica, and is the site of the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, which was established in 1956 and has been permanently staffed since that date. The first to reach this part of the world is credited to Norwegian Roald Amundsen when he and his party reached the point on December 14, 1911.
Admiral Richard Byrd is credited to be the first to fly over each of the poles. The South Pole flight was on November 29, 1929 and the North Pole was on May 9, 1926.
6) Deepest sea dive
On January 23, 1960, the Trieste, a bathyscaphe, designed by Swiss scientist Augste Piccard, reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean’s Marianas Trench. This is thought to be the deepest undersea location. The depth of this record was 35,810 feet and since that time no one has come within 10,000 feet of this depth. At that depth the pressure exceeds 16,000 pounds per square inch.
12.04.07
Strange and Weird Coincidences
1) Author J.R.R Tolkien died on September 2, 1973.
When you reverse;
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
It’s 1973.
2) On Jun 28, 2000 Oregon’s Columbian newspaper mistakingly printed the Lottery Numbers of those in Virginia as the numbers for the Oregon Lottery, which had not been picked. The numbers 6-8-5-5 then were actually drawn.
3) In 1898, the novel ‘Futility’ written by Morgan Robertson was published. It’s a story about a giant ship, the Titan, which collided with an iceberg on it’s maiden voyage in April. The Titan was considered unsinkable and only carried the minimum number of lifeboats required by law – 24 – able to carry 500 people. There were over 2000 passengers on board.
On the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titantic, a ship considered virtually unsinkable was struck by an Iceberg and sank. The ship carried the minimum number of lifeboats and could only carry about 1000 people.
4) Claude Volbonne killed Baron Rodemire de Tarazone of France in 1872. 21 years earlier, the Baron’s father had been murdered by somebody else called Claude Volbonne.
5) The Mayan calendar predicted that a pale-faced man-god would arrive in 1519. So when the Spanish explorer Cortés arrived in Mexico in 1519 the Aztecs assumed Cortés to be the legendary man-god, and allowed him to capture the city and Mexico.
6) Some of the reported the coincidences between the assassinations of Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln.
- Lincoln was shot in the Ford theatre: Kennedy was shot in a Ford car, model Lincoln.
- Lincoln sat in Box 7 at Ford’s Theatre. Kennedy rode in car 7 in the Dallas motorcade.
- Both presidents were shot on the fifth day of the week.
- Lincoln was elected president in 1860; Kennedy in 1960. Lincoln was elected to the House of Representatives in 1846, Kennedy in 1946
- Both were slain in the presence of their wives, who were unharmed.
- Both were shot from behind and in the head.
- In each assassination, another man was injured, but did not die.
- Their successors, both named Johnson, were southern Democrats, Andrew Johnson was born in 1808 and Lyndon Johnson in 1908.
- Their assassins were born in 1839 and 1939 respectively.
- Kennedy’s secretary, whose name was Lincoln, advised him not to go to Dallas.
- Booth shot Lincoln at a theatre and was cornered in a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was cornered in a theatre.
- Both assassins were killed by a single shot from a Colt Revolver before being brought to trial.
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)
11.26.07
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.
