How Long?

Well, i thought it was today, so i went back and checked.

Yes, it was.  This day, 3 years ago, i started a blog.

It's been fun, and it still is.

If it ever becomes not fun, i guess i will stop.  Meanwhile, i have to write.  In school, i used to say that i can't dazzle them with brilliance, so i will baffle them with bull manure.  Then i would, on every essay, every term paper, every report.  It's like the words just have to come out, and this is as good a medium as any.

Especially since my term paper/essay test days seem to be over.

And on a totally different note, i noticed a headline saying that a Salvador Dali drawing which was stolen last week was returned.  By mail, of all methods.  From Europe, using a bogus address.

The person who took it was caught on the security camera, but i guess it didn't get a good enough shot of his face for them to immediately be able to identify him, i'm not sure.  Either way, he apparently has changed his mind.  Maybe it was because he found out they had the security camera pic and was afraid of being caught.  Maybe there was so much publicity about the theft he was afraid to try to sell it.  Maybe it was because his conscience was bothering him.

Personally, i hope it was the latter.


Today is

10,000 Crestonians 4th of July Celebration -- Creston, IA, US (through the 4th; avg. attendance, 10,000)

Build a Scarecrow Day

Canada Day -- Canada

Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day -- A great way to start off Ice Cream Month; try a new one and you just might find a new favorite.

Day to Celebrate All the World's Creatures -- commemorates the day in 1975 that endangered species became internationally protected.

Distressed Elves Day -- Fairy Calendar

Doctors' Day -- India

Ducktona 500 Family Festival -- Sheboygan Falls, WI, US (lots of fun for everyone, culminating in the annual plastic duck race)

Emancipation Day -- Sint Maarten

Halfway Point of the Year Day -- because 2012 is a Leap Year, at midnight tonight, exactly 1/2 of the year will be behind us; related observances
     Half-Year Day -- China

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day -- Hong Kong

Hug a Cowboy Day -- always on Canada Day

Independence Day -- Burundi(1962); Rwanda(1962)

Intact Day -- celebrating genital integrity, as far as possible from the Feast of the Circumcision on Jan. 1

International Chicken Wing Day -- some sites say the 2nd, celebrate today or tomorrow, your choice

International Joke Day -- as declared by many internet sites, but i can't find out why today; then again, why not?

International Tartan Day -- anniversary of the repeal, in 1782, of the Act of Proscription which banned the wearing of Tartans; celebrated especially by Scottish diaspora in Australia; New Zealand

July Morning -- Bulgaria (dates back to the '70s, young and old people hitchhike to the Black Sea in late June to greet the dawn of July 1 with Uriah Heep's hit song July Morning; began as a suble anti-communist protest, now in memory of the fall of communism and to celebrate the start of summer vacation)

Keti Koti -- Suriname (Emancipation Day)

Madeira Day -- Madeira

Memorial Day -- Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Mount Fuji Official Climbing Season begins -- Japan (through Aug. 31)

Moving Day -- Quebec, Canada

National Boating Day -- US

National Financial Freedom Day -- can't find how this one started, but it's as good a day as any to take a good look at your finances, and start learning how to better manage them.

National Gingersnap Day

Punxsutawney Ground Hog Festival -- Punxsutawney, PA, US (through the 7th; because the groundhog is worth more than just one cold day in February!)

Republic Day -- Ghana; Somalia

Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo -- Halifax, NS, Canada (through the 8th)

Skiraphoria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival of cutting and threshing the grain)

Sir Seretse Khama Day -- Botswana

St. Serf of Culross' Day (patron of the Orkney Islands)

Territory Day -- British Virgin Islands

U.S. Postage Stamp Day -- first US postage stamp issued this day in 1847

Yukon Gold Panning Championships -- Dawson City, YT, Canada

Zip Code Day -- US (inaugural anniversary in 1963; when you mail that letter, zip it up! no zip, slow trip; wrong zip, long trip)


Birthdays Today

Liv Tyler, 1977
Ruud Van Nistelrooy, 1976
Pamela Anderson, 1967
Princess Diana, 1961
Carl Lewis, 1961
Michelle Wright, 1961
Alan Ruck, 1956
Dan Aykroyd, 1952
Deborah Harry, 1945
Karen Black, 1942
Genevieve Bujold, 1942
Twyla Tharp, 1941
Jamie Farr, 1934
Jean Marsh, 1934
Leslie Caron, 1931
Farley Granger, 1925
Olivia DeHavilland, 1916
Estee Lauder, 1906
Charles Laughton, 1899
Ignaz Semmelweis, 1818


Today in History

Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor, 69
La Noche Triste: a joint Mexican Indian force led by the Aztec ruler Cuitláhuac defeat Spanish Conquistadores led by Hernán Cortés, 1520
Lexell's Comet passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u., 1770
American privateers attack Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, 1782
A system of the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths is established in England and Wales, 1837
U.S. Postage stamps went on sale for the first time, 1847
In the first instance of photojournalism, a French photographer's daguerreotypes of Paris riots were turned into woodcuts so as to be published in the weekly newspaper L'Illustration Journal Universel on this date in 1848
Keti Koti (Emancipation Day) in Suriname, marking the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands, 1863
The British North America Act of 1867 takes effect as the Constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation and the federal dominion of Canada; Sir John A. MacDonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada, 1867
The Philadelphia Zoological Society, the first US zoo, opens; admission twenty-five cents for adults and ten cents for children, 1874
The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States, 1881
SOS is adopted as the international distress signal, 1908
Grant Park Music Festival begins its tradition of free summer symphonic music concert series in Chicago's Grant Park, which continues as the United States' only annual free outdoor classical music concert series, 1935
NBC makes the first scheduled television broadcast, 1941
Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved; since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city), 1943
The merger of two princely states of India, Cochin and Travancore, into the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala) in the Indian Union ends more than 1,000 years of princely rule by the Cochin Royal Family, 1949
Zip Codes are introduced for the U.S.mail, 1963
The first color television transmission in Canada takes place from Toronto, 1966
The European Community is formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission, 1967
Sony introduces the Walkman, 1979
O Canada officially becomes the national anthem of Canada, 1980
German re-unification: East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany, 1990
The People's Republic of China resumes sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule, 1997
Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC, 2004
Smoking is banned in all indoor public spaces in England, 2007