A nice change from red and pink, this yellow daffodil, and many others like it, have popped out in our garden for the early spring.
Culture
A Hot Pink Calandiva
Very pretty and bright pink, these Calandiva succulent blossoms are out just in time for Valentine’s Day.
St. Valentine’s Day
Long celebrated as a religious feast, St. Valentines Day has become the second most popular day of the year to exchange greeting cards, Christmas being the most popular. Eighty-five percent of Valentines Greeting cards are purchased by women.
From WikiPedia:
St. Valentine’s Day falls on February 14, and is the traditional day on which lovers in certain cultures let each other know about their love, commonly by sending Valentine’s cards, which are often anonymous. The history of Valentine’s day can be traced back to a Catholic Church feast day, in honor of Saint Valentine. The day’s associations with romantic love arrived after the High Middle Ages, during which the concept of romantic love was formulated.
And finally, for those disappointed in love or who lack faith, there is this SAD alternative: Single Awareness Day (SAD)
Valentines Day Plan
Starting at about 14 February 2005, 0100 GMT (5PM on the 13th PST) or so, Damsel gets control of the blog. She’ll be sending the girly-girl stuff associated with Valentine’s Day, and I’ll chime in if and when I have a post. This should persist for about 24 hours until things revert to normal. Happy St. Valentines Day!
Happy Groundhog Day
We tend toward more scientific data collection for weather prediction, but he folks in Punxsutawney seem to be having fun with this, so we’ll take Phil’s word on it.
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who fans claim is never wrong, predicted six more weeks of winter on Thursday, matching the forecast of professional meteorologists.
“Phil is incapable of error. If he says six more weeks of winter, you can take it to the bank,” said Mike Johnston, one of the 15 members of the Groundhog Club Inner Circle in Punxsutawney, site of the annual Groundhog Day ceremony.
Visit Groundhog .org – the Official Site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club
A WWII Tribute in Song and Pictures
Maybe some of you folks have already seen this. A friend sent this to me today, and I had not seen it before. I grew up in the years just after WWII, my Dad fought in it and I found it deeply touching – so keep the tissues box handy . . .
Image: Aerial View of WWII Memorial, Washington D.C. (Photo by Rick Latoff/American Battle Monuments Commission)
The elderly parking lot attendant wasn’t in a good mood!Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, a Delray Beach, Fla. , eye doctor, business consultant, corporate speaker and musician, was bone tired after appearing at an event.
He pulled up in his car, and the parking attendant began to speak. “I took two bullets for this country and look what I’m doing,” he said bitterly.
At first, Bierstock didn’t know what to say to the World War II veteran. But he rolled down his window and told the man, “Really, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you.”
Then the old soldier began to cry.
“That really got to me,” Bierstock says.
Cut to today.
Bierstock, 58, and John Melnick, 54, of Pompano Beach – a member of Bierstock’s band, Dr. Sam and the Managed Care Band – have written a song inspired by that old soldier in the airport parking lot. The mournful “Before You Go” does more than salute those who fought in WWII. It encourages people to go out of their way to thank the aging warriors before they die.
“If we had lost that particular war, our whole way of life would have been shot,” says Bierstock, who plays harmonica. “The WW II soldiers are now dying at the rate of about 2,000 every day. I thought we needed to thank them.”
The song is striking a chord. Within four days of Bierstock placing it on the Web http://www.beforeyougo.us/ , the song and accompanying photo essay have bounced around nine countries, producing tears and heartfelt thanks from veterans, their sons and daughters and grandchildren.
“It made me cry,” wrote one veteran’s son. Another sent an e-mail saying that only after his father consumed several glasses of wine would he discuss “the unspeakable horrors” he and other soldiers had witnessed in places such as Anzio, Iwo Jima, Bataan and Omaha Beach. “I can never thank them enough,” the son wrote. “Thank you for thinking about them.”
Bierstock and Melnick thought about shipping it off to a professional singer, maybe a Lee Greenwood type, but because time was running out for so many veterans, they decided it was best to release it quickly, for free, on the Web. They’ve sent the song to Sen. John McCain and others in Washington. Already they have been invited to perform it in Houston for a Veterans Day tribute – this after just a few days on the Web. They hope every veteran in America gets a chance to hear it.
GOD BLESS every veteran…and thank you !
CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO HEAR THE SONG AND SEE THE PICTURES:
Space Lottery
Lottery: a tax on mathematically-challenged people.
I found this concept to be interesting. From SPACE.com:
A Space Lottery: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
I suggest a National Space Lottery as a new way of funding space flight systems, promoting space tourism and paying for the tickets of those who would fly. Many have spoken of our goals in space, but few offer ways to pay for them. The following proposal offers a possible solution.
The National Space Society should promote creation of a National Space Lottery. Ideally, this might become an International Space Lottery, and would offer the possibility of space flight, as a prize, to every man, woman and child on earth.
A Space Lottery would generate enormous worldwide publicity, a new fascination with space. Prizewinners would be followed like those of modern “Reality TV†shows. An International Space Lottery would be ideal. People all over the world, rich and poor, would share in the possibility of a ride into space. Space tourism could soon become a reality. Men, women and children everywhere sense that the destiny of humanity is elsewhere, and want to be part of the dream.