Weekly Fun Facts

Welcome to the Monday edition of the Weekly Fun Facts. We are now between our last two holidays of the year, Christmas has ended and we are all looking forward (eagerly) to the beginning of the New Year. This week's fun facts will include some New Years facts along with just plain strange fun facts. Hopefully you can use some of these odd tidbits in your upcoming holiday party...

This Friday we will be saying goodbye to 2010 and at midnight welcoming in the new year 2011. For many of us, we will be very glad to see 2010 go, but then again, we said the same thing for 2009... Did you know where the tradition of welcoming the new year came from?

In Agrarian times, the new year was celebrated during the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox (the first day of spring). This was the most logical time for celebrating the "New Year" because with Spring comes rebirth and new life. Over time, as the Romans tried to manage the calendar, the dates and schedules got more and more confused. Julius Caesar in 46BC established the "Julian Calendar" which established January 1 as the new year. As you know, not even this calendar was entirely accurate, every 4 years we have to add a day to our calendar to synchronize it with the sun.

The tradition of creating New Year's Resolutions did begin during the time of the Babylonians. Usually they just resolved to return borrowed farm equipment. Now we make resolutions that can range from losing weight or being a better person.

Speaking of resolutions, did you know that 63% of the people still keep their resolutions after the first 2 months?
67% of people actually make 3 or more resolutions each year?
The top resolutions usually involve promises to exercise more (37%), increase the time devoted to study or work (23%), losing weight, stop smoking or drinking and to eat healthier.
People make more resolutions to start a new habit (84%) rather than to break an old one (16%).
65% of the people made their resolutions between December 28th and New Year's Day
Of those who actually achieved their top resolution, 40% of them did so on the first attempt. The remainder made multiple tries with 17% finally succeeding after more than 6 attempts.


Do you know when the use of a baby began to symbolize the new year? This tradition began in Greece around 600 BC. They carried around a baby in a basket, representing the annual rebirth of Dionysus (the god of wine...go figure...) . Early Egyptians also used a baby as a symbol of rebirth and fertility.

Traditionally it was thought that you could affect your luck for the upcoming new year by what you ate or what you did on the first day of the year. Japanese will sit up to watch the first sunrise of the new year. Others celebrate the first few minutes of a brand new year in the company of family and friends. Certain foods are also believed to bring luck if eaten on New Year's Day (Donuts (YEAH!!!), black-eyed peas, cabbage, hog's meat and rice to name a few).

1907 is the first year that New York drops the famous ball from Times Square. At that time it was a five foot ball made out of weed and iron and weighed 700 pounds.

As of 2011 the ball is now 12 feet in diameter made out of Waterford Crystals and weighs 11,875 pounds. It is illuminated by 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LED's (light emitting diodes). By mixing the four colors (the ball now has 12 red, 12 blue, 12 green and 12 white LED's or a total of 8,064 LEDs of each color) the ball can now create a palette of more than 16 million colors and billions of patterns. For 2011, Waterford Crystal has designed 288 new "Let There Be Love" crystal triangles featuring a romantic pattern. 288 triangles are emblazoned with last year's "Let there be Courage" design defining triumph of courage over adversity and 1,152 triangles sparkle with "Let there be Joy" design. The remaining 960 triangles are the original "Let There be Light" design of a stylized radiating sunburst.

This ball has dropped every year except in 1942 and 1943 due to wartime lighting restrictions.

For those of you planning on drinking champagne this weekend - a raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top...

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos. Now how do the people in the casino's celebrate New Years?

And lastly, for those of you who live in the warmer desert regions - a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death. Now you know what to do with that liquor you didn't drink on New Year's eve...

Have a wonderful New Year's and be safe. Enjoy your weekly fun facts and enjoy amazing your friends with your new-found knowledge... If you are looking for some way to earn extra money in the new year, you may want to see what opportunities we have to offer on our website. We may have something that you would love to do. Or, if you are making a resolution to keep your vehicle cleaner, we have a variety of waterless cleaning products to help you to achieve that resolution.

Until tomorrow...

Halloween, Whats so great about it?

Tonight's subject is intended for fun and more trivial facts that you can bore your friends with. We celebrate Halloween in the United States every October 31st. On this day, people dress up in costumes, have parties and go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. We all hear about witches, ghosts and goblins and listen to very scary stories about ghosts and hauntings. We may even go to a "Haunted House" to get frightened by things that go bump in the dark.

The big question here is, Halloween, what is so great about it? For some, Halloween is the highlight of their year. Some people will get married on October 31 because it is Halloween. OK, so what is so great about it? What are the origins and why do we still celebrate?

Depending on where you look or who you talk to, Halloween either originated with the Christian tradition of celebrating the lives of Christian martyrs or, Halloween originated with the Celtic people of pre-medieval Europe. The word "Halloween" has its origins in the Catholic Church. The word comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve, All Hallows Day or All Saints Day. Pope Boniface IV established May 13, 609 AD as a day of celebratory remembrance for all the Church's martyrs. Pope Gregory III later changed the date of remembrance to November 1, when he dedicated the chapel in St. Peter's Basilica to "all saints", hence November 1 became All Saints Day.

If you opt for Halloween originating from Celtic tradition, the Celts divided their year into halves: the "light half" and the "dark half". The "light half" covered basically Spring and Summer, when the days were longer, and the "dark half" covered Autumn and Winter, when the days were shorter. The Celts celebrated the end of the light half of the year with a festival of "Samhain" which became a fixed date in the Julian calendar of November 1st. The name Samhain is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". This time of year was the Celtic New Year.

One belief is that on the last day of the Celtic year, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. They believed this was their only hope for afterlife. Since the living did not want to be possessed by the dead, on the night of October 31st, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes (making the homes cold and undesirable) and then they would dress up in all types of ghoulish costumes and parade around the neighborhood, possibly trying to frighten away the spirits looking to posses them. The custom of Halloween was brought to America by the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing Ireland due to the potato famine.

The custom of trick-or-treating may have had it origins from the medieval practice of souling, when poor people would go door to door, receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day. Currently, Trick-or-Treating may carry an implied threat that if the children do not receive "Treats" (candy), they would perform a "trick" or some kind of mischief to the homeowner or on the home owner's property. The practice of Trick-or-treating does not appear to have become very popular until the 1930's.

Halloween costumes traditionally are of ghosts, witches, ghouls, goblins, or skeletons - basically supernatural figures. Over time, the types of costumes extended to include popular fictional and real characters, or the alter-ego of the person creating the costume. Modern costumes worn by today's trick-or-treaters are now intended for entertainment and amusement. Sometimes they scare neighbors and often compete with others for the most original, scary, ugly, funny, or pretty costume.

Overall, Halloween is a time that reconfirms the social bond of a neighborhood (because you walk from door to door visiting your neighbors) and allows you to interact with strangers which you may not have opted to do on a "normal" day. The real value in Halloween comes not necessarily from winning a costume contest, but from interchange with strangers and neighbors, thus exorcising our fear of strangers, and reaffirms our social bonds with the people in our neighborhood. This time of year may be the only time we actually go around and talk to all of our neighbors.

So, enjoy your Halloween evening and have fun reconnecting and possibly frightening people this Halloween.

Until tomorrow...

What is a Harvest Festival

I know many of you already believe you know what a harvest festival is, but perhaps you were not aware of all the history related to Harvest festivals and Harvest Moons. Tonight we are going to answer the question, what is a Harvest Festival, and cover some of the traditions related to it. In today's mechanized society, the need for harvest festivals is pretty slim and this time of year just seems to rush by and quickly turn into the holiday season. Tonight, I would like to take a little time to stop and smell the proverbial dried leaves...

What is a Harvest Festival? A harvest festival is the annual celebration which occurs around the time of the main harvest of a particular region. Each region has it's own harvest time, so the dates are not necessarily set in stone. These festivals traditionally include large meals with family and friends. Usually the meals are centered around the particular crop that has been harvested. The concept behind the festivals are to give thanks for a plentiful harvest. The hard work is now done and it is a time for farmers and families to celebrate. These celebrations will include eating, playing, music, contests and romance.

The word, "harvest" is from the Anglo-Saxon word, "Autumn". It then came to refer to the season for reaping and gathering grain and other farmed products. It is a celebration of the food grown on the land. As we talked about last week, the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox is called the Harvest Moon. This is why, in ancient traditions Harvest Festivals were traditionally held on or near the Sunday of the Harvest Moon. Early English settlers took the tradition of harvest thanksgiving to the United States (at the time North America), the first harvest Thanksgiving was held in the U.S. in 1621 by the Pilgrims.

Harvest Festivals remind Christians of all the good things that God provides for them. This makes them want to share with others who are not so fortunate. In schools and in Churches, people bring food fro home to a Harvest Festival Service. After the service, the food that has been provided is usually made into parcels and given to people in need.

At the start of the harvest, communities would appoint a strong and respected man as their "Lord of the Harvest". He was responsible for negotiating the harvest wages and organizing the workers. The end of the harvest was celebrated with a big meal called the Harvest Supper. The "Lord of the Harvest" would sit at the head of the table and a goose stuffed with apples was the centerpiece of the table along with a variety of vegetables.

Encyclopaedia Britannica traces the origins of Harvest Festivals to the "animistic belief in the corn (grain) spirit or corn mother." In some regions, the farmers believed that a spirit resided in the last sheaf of grain to be harvested. To chase out the spirit, they beat the grain to the ground. Other places wove some blades of the cereal into a 'corn dolly' that they kept safe for luck until seed-sowing the following year. The corn dolly had a place of honor at the Harvest Banquet table.

Now you too can answer the question, 'what is a Harvest Festival?'. Hopefully you enjoyed this little bit of historical trivia. Have a wonderful evening.

Until tomorrow...

Bashas' Outdoor Festival

Today we attended the Bashas' Outdoor Festival in Scottsdale, AZ. You could not have ordered up any better weather for this event. The sun was out, but the air was cool, which is especially rare for late April in Arizona. You can bet all of the participants really enjoyed the brief reprieve from the warmer Arizona weather.

There were quite a few vendors attending the Bashas' Outdoor Festival in Scottsdale today. We had several awesome jewelery people, some really original artists were in attendance today. The people wandering around the booths seemed to enjoy themselves, and took the time (since it wasn't blistering hot today) to look at what everyone had to offer. The food area seemed to be the busiest of all. They had fresh Navajo Fry Bread (which smelled heavenly), fresh tamales, roasted chili (YUMM!!) and barbecued chicken, ribs and tri-tip. Even after eating, my mouth continued to water because of all the wonderful scents coming from the food area.

We also got to clean a Saturn Sky today. It was a beautiful metallic blue roadster with the top down. If I had been more awake, I would have remembered to take a picture of this wonderful car, but we will have to suffer with a generic picture. The car was a real looker, especially after we treated it with UltraLuster Waterless Car Wash.

Today's event was the last for the Scottsdale location until September of this year. At this point in time, we are on borrowed time for cool, comfortable weather. As we experienced earlier this week, the temps have been in the low 90's and will continue to go up until late August. Nobody in their right mind will really be willing to attend any outdoor events during the summer months here in the Phoenix area of Arizona. As the summer progresses most people will rush from one air conditioned area to another.

Because of that, the attitude among the vendors today was festive, but tinged with sadness. We all know that we really won't be at any more local events after the end of this month, unless we really like sitting in a parking lot in the hot-baking sun. As we all packed up at the end of this event, we all said good by and wished each other well through the summer months.

Many of us will start our travel schedule, following events and rallies around the country. Several others will be heading back to their "other" home state and will return again when it cools here in Arizona. We will continue to keep you posted on local events here in Arizona along with the events we will be participating in around the country.

As always, this was a great opportunity to network with other vendors and let customers know that you are in business. Even if you do not sell a lot of product at these events, if you have a home based business with a limited advertising budget, this is one of the best ways to let people know that you are in business and a great way to generate interest in what you have to offer.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Until tomorrow...

Outdoor Festivals and Business in General

Well, yesterday caught some kind of stomach yuch, and ended up sleeping from early evening through to this morning. Had grand and glorious plans to get several blogs written today along with finances, and all that got blown to bits when I received the call that my Stepmother passed away this morning. There will be the blog tonight, and probably no other one until I return from the funeral, probably this Saturday. Things are still in flux with my father, so am not sure what my schedule will be. You are not being ignored, but family will always come first, then everything else. Hopefully you will all understand.

Tonight's blog was supposed to be posted yesterday, but such is life. As you might remember, Saturday we had the Outdoor Festival at Bashas' Grocery store in Gold Canyon, AZ. We all had a great time, we even received an early visit from the Easter Bunny. We were even able to talk the Easter Bunny into posing on my motorcycle... The weather was wonderfully warm, but it got breezy later in the day.

Speaking about the breeze, we were able to witness the effects of that breeze on the un-weighted tents that some vendors had up. There was one particular strong wind (more like a big dust devil, without the dust - none of us saw it coming) that took several tents straight up into the air. We were extremely lucky that the tents came crashing down on a few other tents and did not hurt any of the participants of the event. It was wild to see these two tents in particular going up about 30 feet into the air, turn upside down and then come crashing down onto tents across the aisle. It looked like perhaps two tents sustained some damage, but over all, the damage was very minimal. The tents that decided flight was fun, did have gallon jugs of water tied to them (approximately about 8 pounds, not enough to keep one of these puppies on the ground...) so, when they crash landed on the other tents, the people got a big gallon water jug spraying them with water.

After all was said and done, and all the jitters were gone, it was a pretty funny sight, especially when you realize that those gallon jugs broke open and basically turned into giant water balloons... Good thing it wasn't cold out on Saturday. Again, nobody was injured and it did not appear that any merchandise was significantly damaged...perhaps a tad damp, but no real damage was had. We were all extremely lucky this time.

As I mentioned in the opening, there will not be any blogs posting for the next 4-5 days due to a death in the family. The joy of being your own boss is that you can put your business to the side to take care of family matters. You don't have to beg for that time off to take care of your family. If you are in need of assistance though, we will continue to check e-mails for urgent issues (hawgwash1@yahoo.com) , but we humbly ask that if it can wait, please let us know. We should be back in the saddle by this Saturday, April 3rd. You can check out our website at www.hawgwash.net for what we have to offer in direct sales and in business opportunities.

Until later this week...

Outdoor Marketplace in Chandler

Today we participated in Bashas' Outdoor Marketplace and had a wonderful time. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera so cannot provide you with pictures of this event. We were at the Bashas' in Chandler, Arizona from 10-4. There were approximately 50 vendors in attendance, including some local eateries.

We got to Bashas' relatively early, around 7:15 am in anticipation of setup. By 7:45 all of the early vendors had located spaces and began the fun setup process. For those of you who have not had the joy of setting up a booth, this is something that can either be quite entertaining, or extremely frustrating. Since we have done this a time or two in the past, we quickly located a spot, and began setting up the booth. Within about a half an hour the majority of our booth was ready for business.

The really fun part about setting up so quickly is that it allows us the opportunity to either visit with other vendors, or to watch the late arrivals try to find a spot and then wrestle with their set up. Being a vendor at a local event is great if you enjoy people and all the fun that goes with people setting up in a constrained area. By 9:30 almost all the vendors were placed and predominantly finished with their setup. As we were setting up, customers wandering into this shopping area had the ability to wander around and watch what was going on.

There was a reasonable amount of people wandering around our Outdoor Marketplace most of the day. We were pleased with the numbers, especially since Spring Break started and as a general rule, people leave town on Spring Break. The only real excitement we had was around 11 am when a very strong stray wind (and I mean WIND) blew through the area and took out about 5 vendor booths. This wind felt like it may have been a dust devil without the dust. It came up very fast, very strong, tossed several tents, umbrellas and canopies in the air, cleared several vendor tables of their contents and knocked over a beautiful display of clay masks.

Luckily only a few vendors sustained damage to their products, the worst being the artist who lost the majority of his clay masks. What makes these events really worth attending is seeing all vendors band together in a crisis and help each other out. Once the wind dissipated, all the vendors who were not affected, came to the aid of the vendors who sustained some damage. It is a wonderful sight to see people helping each other with no ulterior motive involved.

It was also wonderful to see some familiar faces with their products and services at this event. The vendors we were next to included Celebrating Home, obviously Bashas' was there, as was Lights Out Exterminating, Toms Bar B Que, Paw Print Artists, and Life Care Animal Hospital. There was also a bouncy building for kids to jump around in and a climbing wall.

In a nutshell, the day was perfect for an Outdoor Marketplace and there were plenty of vendors and activities to suit all who were interested. Hopefully we will see you at next week's Outdoor Marketplace in Gold Canyon. If you would like a schedule of where we will be, please check our our website and click on the link, Schedule of Events.

Until tomorrow...

Outdoor Festival at Basha's and Roasted Chile

Yesterday was our Outdoor Festival at the Basha's in Scottsdale. Even though the news reported a potential for rain yesterday, we had no rain and great weather for the Festival. We experienced a little overcast sky in the morning, but by noon the sun was out in full force. We watched the clouds build later in the afternoon when we started breaking down.

This Festival was located at 8423 E. McDonald, Scottsdale. The Basha's there is absolutely beautiful. When I first walked in, I thought it was one of those fancy gourmet stores. The Director, Dan, was the organizer of this month's event and he had everything clicking away very efficiently. Even though the official event time was from 10-4pm, vendors were not supposed to appear to set up until 8 am. Vendors appeared by 7 am and Dan was already there to direct them into the assigned spots. What was really neat about this particular Festival was that Dan had put about half of the vendors in the covered parking spots. If you have ever had to set up and tear down a tent each event, you really come to appreciate the benefit of having a cover that you don't have to set up. We all brought our tents if necessary, but it was very enjoyable not having to set them up.

What else was fun about this festival is that I finally worked up the courage to try the roasted chilies. The other Basha's Outdoor Festivals we have been to also offered the roasted chilies, but as good as they smelled, I didn't have the courage to try them. Saturday was the first time I had the fresh roasted chilies, and I am in love... At these events, Bashas has a large tumbler where they put a lot of those large green chilies. They then turn on four jets of flame and literally char the chilies as the tumbler turns. The scent of roasting chilies will really get your mouth watering.

What we learned is that to properly eat those roasted chilies, you need to scrape off the charred portion of the chilies and then eat the tender insides. I expected to have my first bite turn into my last. My usual experience with green chilies has been very spicy hot. Not so this time. I am not sure if the roasting took some of the spice out of the chilies, but boy, they were tasty. There were several people who still believed the chilies to be spicy, but I found the spicy to be more of a general warmth, not one of mouth-melting heat. The flavor of the roasted chili is like nothing I have tasted before. I am now a real believer in roasted chilies.

We purchased additional chilies to bring home. They can be frozen but we ended up stuffing the ones we brought home with cheese. Boy, were they tasty too. Needless to say, we don't have any additional roasted chilies to chop up and add to other dishes, but there will be another Basha's Outdoor Festival (in two weeks for us specifically) and we plan on purchasing more of those wonderful fresh roasted chilies.

Until tomorrow...

Update on Basha's Outdoor Festival

Today we did not expect much out of the weather other than bad weather. The weather reports had indicated we would have rains starting either in the afternoon or evening and you all know how reliable the weather people can be. When the sun started to rise today, it looked like it was going to rain well before the afternoon. Being the brave souls that we were, we still took our chances and headed off to the Basha's Outdoor Festival in Gold Canyon.

Boy, was that the right thing to do. The weather remained very overcast, cool and at times windy, but by mid-afternoon, the clouds started breaking up and you could even cast a shadow on the ground. Once the clouds started thinning out, the air temperature seemed to rise a bit and you could see vendors taking off one of many layers of clothing. Even the customers seemed to not be concerned with the threatening clouds in the early part of the day. We had a significant amount of foot traffic, more than what I think any of us expected. Granted, I am always looking for the silver lining, but even I was pleased to see as many people wandering around the vendor booths as there were.

As the weather improved, we did find more people coming out to see what was going on in the Basha's parking lot. We had a wide variety of vendors offering anything from food to beautiful jewelery to photography, to paintings to shirts, to nutritionals and waterless vehicle wash (us...of course...). There was one vendor even offering children's t-shirts that could be colored on, then washed and then be able to re-color them. That I thought was great for the young artist in the family. Basha's did a great job in collecting vendors from all different walks of life, providing their customers with a wonderful selection to browse through. Along with the selection, the people themselves were awesome.

Again, I was very impressed with the customer participation in this event, especially in light of the fact that this weekend hosts not only the Renaissance Fair (running through March 28th) but the Lost Dutchman Days Rodeo and Fair in Apache Junction. People had a wide variety of venues to look at this weekend, so we were extremely blessed to have had such a good turnout.

Next week we will again be attending another Basha's Outdoor Festival on Saturday. With luck, the weather reports will be more favorable and there won't be as many other events we have to compete with. If you have the time, come on by and visit all of us. We always have a great time, and it is a wonderful opportunity to meet other small business people and home based business people that live and work in the area.

Until tomorrow...