The End is Coming!

Really.

We are on the downside, if you think of a year as a hill.

It's closer to the coming end of the year than it is to the beginning.

As of today, only 166 days left to go.

So, all of those things you really wanted to do this year: Go For It!

It's time to step up the pace.

Start holiday shopping early, if you do any.

If you wanted to lose a certain amount of weight or reach a fitness goal, revise it a bit for the time you have left, and get to it.

My idea was to get the paperwork in order this year. So i bought the Freedom Filer basic kit, and now it is here. Time to get the other parts to the system and get to work.

The End is coming. Time sneaks away like a thief, Get that goal out and polish it and get to it. You still have time.


Today is

Anti-Bigot Day -- doesn't seem to be sponsored by any particular group, which is good on a day to practice tolerance of all

Birthday of Nepthys -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (sister of Isis)

Constitution Day -- Uruguay

Global Hug Your Kids Day

La Guelaguetza a/k/a Los Lunes del Cerro -- Oaxaca, Mexico (folk dance, music and costumes about, today and next Monday)

Mandela Day

Munoz-Rivera Day -- Puerto Rico

National Caviar Day -- no one knows how it started, but even The Russian Tea Room in New York has celebrated it for years and caviar importers know all about it; pair it with ice cold vodka or a Burgundian pinot or unoaked chardonnay, but never with champagne!

National Get Out of the Doghouse Day -- the day to work out any troubles with people you care about, so that you "get out of the doghouse"

President's Day -- Botswana

St. Philastrius' Day

Umi no hi / Marine Day -- Japan (remembering the importance of the sea)


Birthdays Today

Chace Crawford, 1985
Priyanka Chopra, 1982
Vin Diesel, 1967
Richard Branson, 1950
Martha Reeves, 1941
Joe Torre, 1940
Paul Verhoeven, 1938
Hunter S. Thompson, 1937
Dick Button, 1929
Screamin' Jay Hawkins, 1929
John Glenn, 1921
Nelson Mandela, 1918
Harriet Nelson, 1914
Richard "Red" Skelton, 1913
Hume Cronyn, 1911
George "Machine Gun" Kelly, 1895
Vidkun Quisling, 1887
Margaret "Unsinkable Molly" Brown, 1867
William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811
Robert Hooke, 1635


Today in History

A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome, BC390
The Great Fire of Rome begins in the merchant area of the city, 64
King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews (numbering about 16,000) from England; this was Tisha B'Av on the Hebrew calendar, a day that commemorates many Jewish calamities, 1290
Matthew Flinders leaves England to circumnavigate and map Australia; it was he who gave the continent its name, 1801
The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility, 1870
Britain introduced voting by secret ballot, 1872
Marie and Pierre Curie announce the discovery of a new element and propose to call it polonium, 1898
Adoph Hitler publishes Mein Kampf, 1925*
The Intel Corporation is founded in Santa Clara, California, 1968
Nadia Comaneci became the first person in Olympic Games history to score
a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics, 1976
Beverly Lynn Burns becomes first female Boeing 747 airline captain, 1984
On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufriere Hills volcano erupts; over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee, 1995
Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River, beginning one of Quebec's costliest natural disasters ever, 1996

*Note: Most of his highest officers and officials never read it; they noted it was "too boring."