Did you know that the word “serendipity” means “making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident.” It was coined by the English writer Horace Walpole, who took it from the title of an old fairy tale, The 3 Princes of Serendipity. The heroes in the story are always “making discoveries they are not in quest of.” For example, it’s just serendipity that:
HOLLYWOOD STARS PUT THEIR PRINTS IN CEMENT AT GRAUMAN’S CHINESE THEATER
In the early days of Hollywood, Sid Grauman’s movie theater, fashioned after a Chinese pagoda, was the biggest and fanciest of its kind.
It’s Serendipity: One day in 1972, movie star Norma Shearer accidentally stepped in wet cement as she walked in the courtyard of the theater. Rather than fill the prints in, Graumann got other stars to put their hand and footprints in the cement. That turned it into one of Hollywood’s biggest tourist attractions.
THAT YELLOW PAGES ARE YELLOW
The phone was invented in 1876, and the first Bell business directory came out in 1878, and it was printed on white paper. So were subsequent editions all over the country.
It’s Serendipity: In 1881, the Wyoming Telephone and Telegraph Company hired a printer in Cheyenne to print its first business directory. He didn’t have enough white paper to finish the job and didn’t want to lose the company’s business. So he used the stock he had on hand - yellow paper. Other companies around the country adopted it, too . . not realizing it was an accident.
We have had a target date in mind of March 2nd - which was his birthday, and that date has come. Our oldest daughter has cut down in her smoking a whole heck of a lot also, which means that it is up to me to quit also, bummer.
Just bought a carton a few days ago and we are now planning on that being our last purchase of the “coffin nails”, there are so many benefits of quiting the habit so I will of course go along with the smoke out. It would be nice to have a smoke free house, I know our youngest will be grateful.
Hubby and I don’t get very many visitors, (although it seems that there is always someone at the door asking for our oldest daughter) but one good friend of the entire family that does visit a few times a week is trying to quit so he hasn’t been coming around very much lately since we are smokers and it makes it hard on him. He and Hubby play Yahtzee and Cribbage while drinking coffee and smoking. Well, it used to be that way but lately they are having me make them tea, very rarely does my coffee maker get used anymore, when it used to be in operation day and night most of the time.
Daughter waited until right before bedtime to ask me if one of her newest shirts that she just got was clean for her to wear in the morning to school. I reminded her that I was not going to get into the habit of running around at the last minute for things, just like what is going on right now. Hopefully she got the message, but I am now stuck waiting around for longer than I wanted to, I was looking forward to maybe getting some decent sleep, oh well why should tonight be any different than any others. I always plan on getting a good night sleep, but something always make it not happen.
Was watching the beginning of the Tonight Jay, I always enjoy Jay’s monologue, I thought that some of the jokes were familiar but just shrugged it off. But the longer I watched the show the more I realized that this is re run, can’t be so, the writer strike just came to an end and all of a sudden we get re runs, I want to know what gives.
My brother apparently has a computer for me that just needs delivering and setting up. I need to email him and let him know that I am so very anxious for him to bring up here to the house. I am going crazy sharing this computer with three other people and my daughter is tired of people in her bedroom 24/7 on the computer.
I think I will have my brother set up the new PC in the dining room, on the table. We never eat on it anyway, it is always filled up with junk, so we might as well use it for something productive. The dining room will be a good central location, but there isn’t any T.V. I guess I’ll have to drag out the old mini T.V. that is stashed in the basement. It won’t pick up the satellite dish channels, but I’m hoping that it will at least pick up a few local channels enough for me to understand what they are saying. It doesn’t matter if the picture is good, I just like the sound in the background, white noise if you please.
Well I’m signing off now, it is after midnight and my oldest daughter wants to get on to her MySpace.
Leap years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth’s revolutions around the sun. That is about all I know about leap year, except of course that falls on February 29th, but I thought it happened every four years, I found that not to be true. I’ve known a few people in my time who were born on a leap year and been to a few leap year birthday parties also. So I thought this was interesting enough to share on my blog:
| Leap day (February Leap Day
Leap day, also known as leap year day, is an extra day added to the month of February in a leap year. February 29 is the 60th day of a leap year in the Gregorian calendar. It occurs every four years in years evenly divisible by four except for centenary years not divisible by 400. Brief History of Leap DayIn ancient Rome, leap day was on February 24 due to February being the last month of the calendar. The original Roman calendar added an extra month every few years to maintain the correct seasonal changes. The Julian calendar was implemented in 45 BCE, resulting in a leap day being added to the end of February every four years. |
I thought this was interesting as well:
February 30 Was a Real Date
| February 30 was a real date at one point in time in Sweden and the Soviet Union. However, the introduction of this date was temporary. In Sweden, February 30 resulted from an error with calendar conversion in the 18th century. About two centuries later, the Soviet revolutionary calendar featured February 30 as a result of an attempt to cut seven-day weeks into five-day weeks and to introduce 30-day months for every working month. |
