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...

Did you survive Christmas?

Well, did you all survive another Christmas? Hopefully you all were able to celebrate they way you wanted to for this holiday. For us in Arizona, we enjoyed wonderful weather for this holiday weekend. Unfortunately many other parts of the country did not fare as well, so again, hopefully, even with the weather issues, you all had a wonderful Christmas weekend.

The 24 hours of Christmas music is now off the radios, and on Sunday, those who did not receive what they really wanted could go shopping for items at great discounts. Since I am not very fond of shopping, I stayed away from all the areas shoppers would frequent today. Today was spend catching up on household chores and watching football. Overall, it was a great weekend for me too.

I must say, it has been a great build-up this year for Christmas. With luck, many merchants will be able to see increased sales this year over last. If they start seeing increases, then that means we may actually be on the very long road to economic recovery. If this thought and Christmas wish does come true, many Americans will no doubt breath a sigh of relief. It has been a very long, hard several years, with the government not recognizing any economic crisis until at least a year after we all have noted the decline. No matter who sees what, the best Christmas wish I have had this year was to see the end of this economic mess we are in and to start seeing signs of improvement. I would love to see less home foreclosures and more people back at work.

So, here is to hoping that my Christmas wish comes true, a good, solid economic recovery and a significant decline in home foreclosures for the remainder of this year and on through 2011.

Until tomorrow...

What happeed to the days before Christmas

Hi everyone. I have a big question tonight...what happened to the days before Christmas? This is a two-fold question. The first is...where did the time go? Last time I looked we had at least a month before the holiday...and now we are less than 3 days away... what happened?

The next question I have is, what happened to the "goodwill toward men" in the days leading up to Christmas? Have you noticed how people tend to keep their heads down when walking around? Sometimes I think they are keeping their heads down so they can better head-butt you if you accidentally wander into their path. Have you noticed that few people are smiling lately too? What happened to the good cheer? Right now the only cheer I have heard is "get outta my way..."

We won't even talk about the driving this time of year. My goodness, when did we sign up for an Indy race team? Where is everyone going in SUCH a hurry? Did anyone notice the beautiful sunsets that have been occurring? What about the beautiful sunrises? I know there are many places in the country right now that don't have the greatest weather, but that does not really give anyone the right to be mean and/or rude. Is it me, or are people ruder now than they have been in the past.

I hate to really note how much I have aged, but PLEeeaseee!!! do you have to not only cut me off on the freeway, but to flip me off too? Why did you have to squeeze into that one car space in front of me just so that you could slam on your brakes and almost crash into the back of the car I had been following? When did this time of year turn into a frantic race? By the way, what are we racing and where are we racing to?

Even the news has gotten really depressing. Many people seem to want to take advantage of so many other people. There are a record number of scams going on this time of year, people taking advantage of the few of us left who believe in the goodness of mankind. When did we forget about the real meaning behind Christmas? Even if you don't want to delve too deeply into the religious aspect of Christmas (that is for another time...), the concept of Christmas was to help your fellow man. Right now, it appears the large majority of people are out to help themselves, and forget about their fellow man.

What can we do to recapture the feeling of goodwill toward men? We have all allowed our day-to-day work lives to overflow into our home lives. I can freely admit to not very nice thoughts this time of year too. This time of year is always stressful, the desire to find the "RIGHT" gift for that certain person, the issues with not spending too much money, the extra demands on your time... all of these add up to a whole bunch of very grumpy people.

We all (myself included) to learn to stop and take stock of what we do have and to remember to be grateful for what we do have. We need to learn to stop looking at what we don't have and look at what we don't need instead. This is not an easy task, but once we get past the hard part (actually stopping for a minute or two...) the rest is not so hard to do. Tomorrow, I promise to not be as crabby, and to remember to smile (even though I may not WANT to SMILE) when I meet anyone. It is truly amazing how people light up when you smile at them for no particular reason (and no, snarling is not smiling...). I even took the opportunity tonight to wish a phone solicitor a Merry Christmas as I was completing a phone call. It was really amazing to hear their voice change when they realized I wished them well.

Take care, and let's all try not to get too stressed these last few days before Christmas. As much as we might strive to capture our child-like wonder of Christmas, we need to remember that we are now adults and need to look at Christmas as adults. We still need to be nice to others, and help when and where we can. It is amazing how much better you feel when you have helped someone, even if helping may only mean that you helped someone reach an item from the top of a grocery store shelf.

Hopefully we will finally realize what happened to the days before Christmas. We just forgot to be a little bit less stressed. With luck, we will all find the time to slow down just a tad and enjoy this special holiday time of year.

If you are stressing about finding that "right" gift for the impossible person to buy for, check out our website, we have a wide variety of items that are not run-of-the-mill. We have vehicle cleaning accessories for that mechanic in the house. We also have some really cool headwear for those who like to ride motorcycles. Take a brief wander through our site, you may find just what you needed for that special someone this holiday season...

Until tomorrow...

Hello, Mother Nature

I am not overly fond of spiders, and if they are very large, will actually try to catch and then release them outside. Smaller spiders are asked to leave, and if they do not vacate the bedroom immediately are immediately squished. Yes, I have conversations with critters that do not belong in my bedroom...

big spider 2

I find spiders fascinating, but not in my bedroom. There are different responses to finding a large spider in my bedroom. If I find a large spider in my bedroom, and the spider is too close to my face, my first reaction is to yelp. That is usually not very useful in making the spider go away, so I then take a really hard look at the big spider.

Depending on how large the spider is depends on my next set of reactions. If the spider is large, but not as big as a silver dollar I would usually bounce around the room hoping I might accidentally step on the spider. Usually that doesn't work too well because the spider is more times than not on either the wall or ceiling. The next step I take is the then stop, take stock of what type of footwear I am wearing, and decide if the footwear would be appropriate for squishing the large spider to kingdom come. If I do not have the proper footwear that can be used, then I rush around the bedroom looking for an appropriate squishing device while keeping a wary eye on that blasted spider.

Once an appropriate squishing device has been located, I go into action. I will strive to squish the spider without embedding it into the wall or ceiling. This usually doesn't work well because if I don't hit it hard enough, the spider doesn't die. Then I smack it until it turns into a dark spot on the painted wall.

Again, depending on the type of spider (if it is poisonous or not), I may just be brave enough to grab a glass and a piece of cardboard so that I can catch and release the spider back into the cruel wide world outside of the house. This also the technique I would use for spiders larger than a silver dollar (unless they are larger than a breadbox).

Now if I get a multi-legged creature in my bedroom, or any other room of the house that is bigger than a bread box, what I have done in the past has been to go to bed and hope it goes away. (Yes, I really did that...I had a millipede in the house that was longer than my shoes and easily as thick around as my thumb). I ended up crawling into bed and hoping it wouldn't crawl in with me. Days later I found a dead millipede in another part of the house.

The reason I didn't kill the millipede was that I didn't have anything big enough to kill it with. I don't believe in killing half of a creature, and there really was nothing I had that would kill the whole millipede. I didn't even have a container that would have held that sucker. I am forever grateful for all the residual bug spray along the baseboards of my home, because I suspect that was the ultimate downfall of the millipede.

In a nutshell, I do not like spiders or scorpions for that matter but really don't like to squish them. Scorpions get squished all the time, but I will try to save most spiders and put them back outside. If I think I have a brown recluse in the house though, that sucker gets squished. Actually, I still have the remains of a squished brown recluse on the wall of my closet as a warning to other spiders to stay away. Since I have seen no other signs of spiders, I hope my warning worked.

Hopefully we will not see any spiders the remainder of this year (yeah, a whole 10 days).

Until tomorrow...

Fun Facts and a Total Lunar Eclipse

As you may remember, on our blog last week, we discussed the upcoming total Lunar Eclipse for Monday night (tonight...). Well, in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, the weather is not too conducive to seeing the eclipse. Even here in Arizona, where the weather is great most of the time, we have some light cloud cover. The good news is that we can still watch the eclipse. The cloud cover only makes the moon look fuzzy, but you can still see the full moon and as I run back and forth, I can see the beginnings of the Lunar Eclipse. The total eclipse should be about 12:40 am MST and will last approximately 72 minutes.

If you have the opportunity to run outside, the Lunar Eclipse is just beginning (approximately 11 PM MST). hopefully you can get a glimpse of this year's Eclipse, especially since it falls on the Winter Solstice. The reason this particular eclipse is so unique is that it falls on the Winter Solstice. The last time a full Lunar Eclipse fell on a Winter Solstice was 372 years ago on December 21st 1638. The next full Lunar Eclipse that will occur on a Winter Solstice will be on December 21st, 2094. I am not sure, but I don't think I will be in attendance for that one...

Ancient documents from Asia, Europe and the Middle East are full of references connecting eclipses with subsequent dark events such as famines or the death of a monarch.

In many traditional cultures, a total lunar eclipse occurs not when the moon enters Earth's shadow, but when a mythological creature swallows the moon.

The Chinese believed the heavenly dog swallowed the moon, the Maya sometimes depicted the eclipse creature as a serpent, while in the Andes, it was often a puma.

In Iraq, lunar eclipses were believed to have been eaten by a whale.

For most people the majority of the time, most eclipses meant trouble. Eclipses were regarded as disruptions of the world order.

In Japan, people still cover wells in order to avoid being poisoned by the disease of the moon during the eclipse.

Native residents of Arctic regions have been known to turn over their utensils to avoid contamination.

The arrangement of boulders in England (Stonehenge) have long been associated with celestial meaning. It has been discovered that if you place stone markers strategically atop 19 columns in the array, a known 47 month cycle of lunar eclipses becomes apparent.

Do you know why the moon turns reddish during a Lunar Eclipse? - Earth's thick, dust-filled atmosphere filters the sunlight shining through it, resulting in the rusty hue of a total lunar eclipse.

Hopefully you enjoyed tonight's fun facts about total lunar eclipses and also had an opportunity to view this years Total Lunar Eclipse on the Winter Solstice.

Until tomorrow...

Working hard for the Holidays?

Bet you guys are super busy this time of year. Nothing like trying to balance your normal work life with the family and add to that all the additional activities that go on during this time of year. It is amazing how much more we squeeze into a day this time of year. We all thought we were busy before, but during the Holidays, we seem to double up on the things that must be completed.

The advantage to this whole mess is that there is a definite beginning and end to all of this activity. By the beginning of January, all the holiday parties will be completed and all the extra visiting will have been done. January is when we all sit down and end up taking stock of where we ended up. This is not a bad thing, but we should not just rely on once a year to take stock of where we are versus where we wanted to be.

In all the rushing around, we need to be sure we have not lost sight of our priorities. If you have trouble remembering priorites when you are slammed from all directions from everyone in your life, you may want to write a list of things that are important, and post that list on the bathroom mirror or the kitchen refrigerator. This way, at least twice a day you see that list and remind yourself of your true priorities. This list should also reinforce why you are doing all these extra activities during the holidays.

In deference to the importance of prioritizing, this blog tonight is going to be short. I continue to run out of time to get everything done, but do not want to leave you all in the dark as to what is going through my mind (sometimes not very much...). In keeping with my personal priorities, I continue to keep to a pretty strict schedule so that I do not end up running myself into the ground by the end of the year. Because there are so many additional demands on our time, we sometimes forget why we are doing what we do, and we may tend to forget why we are so busy. As more tasks get added to your plate this month, continue looking at what else you are doing and start making the decision to let some of the other priorities drop in rank for a short period of time.

It is more critical to keep your health by good time management rather than sacrificing all your health for the good of everyone else. That is actually self-serving and ultimately, you will not enjoy this time of year at all. You will have a much better quality of Holiday fun if you learn to drop some priorities for the short term so that you can complete all the additional tasks that have magically appeared on your plate. Remember, if you don't take care of yourself, no one else will either. You do yourself and your family a disservice if you allow yourself to be controlled by circumstances rather than you controlling the circumstances.

Have a wonderful Holiday Season.

Until tomorrow...

Weekly Fun Facts

Welcome to this weeks installment of Fun Facts. Because this time of year can not only be fun, but extremely stressful, it is always a good idea to take a few moments out of your hectic week and laugh. Hopefully this weekly update will allow you to chuckle a little and forget all the stresses of the week for at least a few brief moments.

For those of you who have had the wonderful opportunity to place a computer tech call to India, did you know that the number of births in India each year is greater than the entire population of Australia? Now you know why all of your calls go to India and why that won't change anytime soon..

Sunday night we talked a little bit about the full lunar eclipse that will occur next Monday, December 20th. Did you know that every year, the moon moves 1/2 an inch further from the earth? That begs two questions, one - who is measuring and how do you know the earth's surface is not shrinking? and Two - how long before we can't see the moon anymore??? As if we REALLY care???

Thinking about space (or was that just being spacey???) in space you cannot cry because there is no gravity to make the tears flow. So, if you stub your toe in the Space Station, you won't cry, but probably just whimper.

Did you realize that the Roman Catholic Church did not acknowledge that the earth revolves around the sun until the mid 1990's?

Also on Sunday we discussed the meteor shower that occurred last night. As you watch the "shooting stars" you do realize that the lights are basically rocks and debris falling into our atmosphere? Two objects have actually struck the earth with enough force to destroy a whole city (no, not a movie line...). Each object, one in 1908 and again in 1947, struck regions of Siberia. Not one human being was hurt either time.

We now have a great definition of an island - In the Scottish Hebrides, an island is defined as being an island only if it is big enough to sustain 1 sheep. So, does that mean you don't need a sheep herder???

For those of us typing much of the day - a typist fingers travel over 12 and a half miles in an average day. Wow, too bad you can't lose weight that way...

Despite a population of over a billion, China has only about 200 family names...I think I know some places here in the US that have similar statistics....hehehe...

If you told someone that they were one in a million, you'd be saying there were 1,800 of them in China...

Lastly, if you are in traffic and hear people beeping their car horns, did you know that American car horns been in the tone of F?

Hopefully this Weekly Fun Facts got you to smile for a little bit. Perhaps you can use some of this mostly useless information to entertain friends, family or irritate co-workers. Have fun and strive to not get too stressed out this week. The new year is just around the corner.

Until tomorrow...