Aug 21
Today’s the day!
Here in Fairfax, the Eclipse will be about 81 percent of the sun covered.
You can also use this interactive Google map to find the spot of the longest eclipse. And an interactive map with additional events throughout the U.S. is found here.
Aug 19
Today is another of those “Who Knew” holidays.
I was recently talking to someone about our upcoming trip to Scotland and she reminded me to take lots of pictures. Then, she said to be sure to print them out so she could see them.
Um, no way! I haven’t printed out pictures since probably the 1980s – or earlier.
All the work that went into that. Taking the film somewhere, getting back to the store to pick up the prints, buying scrapbooks, and those little corner holders, sorting, writing the people’s names on the back, the place. Then, finding the right scrapbook to show people…
No, NO NO!
These days. I keep most of my photos online. There are 53,568 photos right now in my Flickr account and it’s so much easier to share online.
It’s interesting about photos. A couple of my first real jobs were working in photo processing.
When I was first out of college, I worked for Technicolor, processing negatives into photos.
Back then, the film had to be processed entirely in the dark.
When the door of the machine was open, the light-proof curtain of the cubicle was shut tight.
I learned how to thread huge, heavy rolls of photo paper into a machine – in total darkness. Over, under, around, over…
Neither the undeveloped paper nor the negatives could be exposed to any light – ever.
Someone else had cut the end of the roll of negatives square and stuck it to a “leader” using special tape which wouldn’t peel off during the developing process.
The leader featured small rectangle holes like old movie filmstrips. The holes catch onto sprockets which guide the leader card and film through the processing machine.
After being sure we had enough paper in the machine, we would feed the leader end of the negatives into the side and that automatically moved the leader card forward.
We’d be sure that the machine was set for the type (size) of film it was (mine were usually 110 or 35milimeter) and feed the roll of negatives through the machine, making minor corrections using a special keyboard. Different amounts of cyan, magenta and yellow were added or subtracted to each photo to ensure the color was correct.
Adjustments are also made for exposure to each individual photo, and sometimes we’d recenter the subject (or what we guessed was the subject). Sometimes, we had to choose between 2 or more photos to find the one that was “best”.
Then we’d (finally!) get the prints, package them up and start again.
The whole thing was on piecework so the faster, the better. The faster we worked, the more money we made.
The young women who had worked here longer than I had got really good/fast at this and they were able to work with newer machines that let them work in a large room out in the light and have others to talk with. As I recall, those machines only processed the 110 film, which was becoming more popular with amateur photographers.
It was a boring job, but it was a job. I worked there from late afternoon until midnight, so it gave me lots of time to hang out by Lake Metacomet where I was living with a roommate.
Somehow, my roommate had managed to get us an apartment right on the shore of the lake and it was much easier to hang out there in the sunshine than to drive to work and be in the dark all evening.
Sometimes, I’d call in “sick” LOL
Tom and I moved to Milwaukee so he could go to grad school. While I was there, I did substitute teaching for public school music classes around the Milwaukee area.
And, after school, in the evenings, I did photo processing for a small photo processing company.
They hired me on the spot because I knew how to thread that machine. I didn’t have to do that for long, though. Somehow, I got promoted to wedding photos, those that took a lot of care, color corrections, perfect centering…and I was mostly in the light. No more piece work because I had to spend so much time on each photo, striving for perfection.
Fond memories, all of them. To this day, I am very good at telling if things are centered properly, level, and if the color matches.
In the greater scheme of things, World Photo Day is an international photography event on August 19th that celebrates the passion for photography in our communities.
Go out and get some pictures. Print them, if you want – or not 🙂
Jul 16
National Ice Cream Day is observed each year on the 3rd Sunday in July and is a part of National Ice Cream Month. This day is a fun celebration enjoyed with a bowl, cup or cone filled with your favorite flavor of ice cream.
Thousands of years ago, people in the Persian Empire would put snow in a bowl, pour grape-juice concentrate over it and eat it as a treat. They did this when the weather was hot and used the snow saved in the cool-keeping underground chambers known as “yakhchal”, or taken from the snowfall that remained at the stop of mountains by the summer capital.
It is believed that ice cream was first introduced into the United States by Quaker colonists who brought their ice cream recipes with them. Their ice cream was sold at shops in New York and other cities during the colonial era.
HOW TO OBSERVE
Enjoy National Ice Cream Day by sharing some with your family and friends! Post on social media using #NationalIceCreamDay.
HISTORY
National Ice Cream Day is a holiday declared by President Ronald Reagan back in 1984 to promote the economic well-being of the U.S. dairy industry. It was a nod to the fact that the frozen treat is produced using nearly ten percent of U.S. dairy farmers’ milk supply.
Reagan’s proclamation also called on the people of the United States to do their duty and pay tribute to ice-cream with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.” So who are we to argue?
DATES
July 16, 2017
July 15, 2018
July 21, 2019
Jul 10
The above image is from last year, but you get the idea.
You should feel very balanced this week. Why? Because it’s palindrome week! July 10 – July 19, 2017 are all Palindrome Days (m/dd/yy).
A palindrome exists when letters, numbers, or phrases are the same forward and backward. For example, the words “racecar” and “kayak” are palindromes along with the phrase “Was it a car or a cat I saw?”
The dates this week are all five-digit palindromes. Today is 7-10-17; it’s the same if you read it forward and backward.
From 2015:
From https://www.timeanddate.com/date/palindrome-day.html
Depending on date formats, palindromic dates can be rare. Aziz S. Inan, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Portland, Portland, U.S.A. has calculated that in the mm-dd-yyyy format, Palindrome Days tend to occur only in the first few centuries of each millennium (1000 years). The last palindromic date in the second millennium (years 1001 to 2000) in this format was August 31, 1380 or 08-31-1380.
According to Dr. Inan, in the mm-dd-yyyy format, the first Palindrome Day in the current millennium (January 1, 2001 to December 31, 3000) was October 2, 2001 (10-02-2001) and the last such day will be September 22, 2290 (09-22-2290).
There will be 12 Palindrome Days in the 21st century in the mm-dd-yyyy format. The first one was on October 2, 2001 (10-02-2001) and the last one will be on September 2, 2090 (09-02-2090).
In the dd-mm-yyyy format, there are 29 Palindrome Days in the current century. The first was 10 February, 2001 (10-02-2001). The last is a special one – it’s a leap day! 29 February, 2092 (29-02-2092) will be the last Palindrome Day of the 21st century.
Jul 04
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain.
Independence Day fireworks are often accompanied by patriotic songs such as the national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner”, “God Bless America”, “America the Beautiful”, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”, “This Land Is Your Land”, “Stars and Stripes Forever”, and, regionally, “Yankee Doodle” in northeastern states and “Dixie” in southern states. Some of the lyrics recall images of the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812.
Have a safe and happy Fourth of July! Share on XA bit of audio for your listening pleasure, as played by Vladimir Horowitz…
And, just for fun:
Jun 18
Father’s Day is observed annually on the third Sunday in June. This day is set aside to honor and celebrate fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. Many countries celebrate it on the third Sunday of June, though it is also celebrated widely on other days by many other countries.
After the success of Mother’s Day, Father’s Day observations began to appear. The road to this national observance was not easy.
Jun 09
National Donald Duck Day is observed annually on June 9th. This day commemorates the birthday of the funny animal cartoon character, Donald Duck. Donald made his first screen debut on June 9, 1934, in The Wise Little Hen.
Donald Duck usually wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie and is most famous for his semi-intelligible speech along with his mischievous and irritable personality.
Donald Duck has appeared in more films than any other Disney character. Donald was also declared in 2002 by TV Guide as one of the 50 greatest cartoon characters of all times.
It was in Donald’s second appearance in Orphan’s Benefit that he was introduced to his comic friend, Mickey Mouse. Donald’s girlfriend, Daisy Duck, along with his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, were introduced shortly after that.
From 1934 black and white to 1941 colorized and other slight character changes. Donald’s beak gets a bit rounded as time goes on.
(From the Wikipedia article “Orphan’s Benefit,” section “Remake”)
In the summer of 1939, in anticipation of Mickey Mouse’s 12th anniversary the following year, Walt Disney commissioned a two-reel short film tentatively called MICKEY’S REVIVAL PARTY. The plan was for this film to open with the characters arriving at a cinema where they would watch scenes from several old, mostly black and white Mickey Mouse films (among them “Orphan’s Benefit”). The story artists envisioned the characters humorously interacting with themselves on the movie screen. This therefore required that the old footage could not be simply added as-is to the new film, it had to be redrawn completely.
It was during this process that Walt Disney decided to completely reproduce several of these old shorts in color. It was also an opportunity to update the character models, since many characters had changed in appearance since the early 1930s.
“Orphan’s Benefit” was the first of these films to be redone. The result was an almost exact shot-for-shot version of the original, except for the added color and updated characters. The film was directed by Riley Thomson and used almost the entire original soundtrack, the only change being the final line, from “Aw nuts!” to “Aw phooey!” which had become a common catchphrase for Donald by that time. The title of the film also saw a small change making it more grammatically correct, although this was not reflected in some promotional material such as the film poster. Orphans’ Benefit was released to theaters on August 12, 1941 by RKO Radio Pictures.
The next film scheduled for reproduction was “Mickey’s Man Friday” (1935), but it was never completed. The original concept for MICKEY’S REVIVAL PARTY was shelved and “Orphan’s Benefit” became the only Disney film to be recreated scene for scene. It is unknown what led to the cancellation, although animation historian David Gerstein speculated that World War II or the Disney animators’ strike of 1941 may have played a role, or that Walt Disney simply preferred to work on all-new films rather than “extensively revisit the past.”
In addition to animation, Donald is also known for his appearance in comic books and newspaper comic strips.
One of Donald Duck’s famous sayings is “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.”
From http://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/national-donald-duck-day-june-9/
Jun 03
DURING WORLD WAR I, A grandmother in Belgium knitted at her window, watching the passing trains. As one train chugged by, she made a bumpy stitch in the fabric with her two needles. Another passed, and she dropped a stitch from the fabric, making an intentional hole.
Later, she would risk her life by handing the fabric to a soldier—a fellow spy in the Belgian resistance, working to defeat the occupying German force.Whether women knitted codes into fabric or used stereotypes of knitting women as a cover, there’s a history between knitting and espionage. “Spies have been known to work code messages into knitting, embroidery, hooked rugs, etc,” according to the 1942 book A Guide to Codes and Signals.
During wartime, where there were knitters, there were often spies; a pair of eyes, watching between the click of two needles.
Read more: The Wartime Spies Who Used Knitting as an Espionage Tool – Atlas Obscura
May 29
Thanks, Grandpa… You weren’t American, but you fought valiantly for the cause overseas.
I never met my grandfather. He had died in Peshawar, India, fighting for the Black Watch during World War l. Peshawar was on the northern frontier of British India, near the Khyber Pass.
In 1947, Peshawar became part of the newly independent state of Pakistan after politicians approved merger into the state that had just been carved from British India.
We have a trunk of his belongings, though, and it’s very interesting to recreate his life.
My dad was born in Scotland in 1913.
In 1914, my grandfather was involved in this:
On the outbreak of war there were seven Black Watch battalions – for in addition to the Regular 1st and 2nd Battalions and 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion there were a further four Territorial ones which had become part of the Regiment in 1908. They were the 4th Dundee [Mary O’Note: I’m pretty sure this was his, since that’s where my dad was born], 5th Angus, 6th Perthshire and the 7th Battalion from Fife. The 1st Battalion was in action at the very start of the war taking part in the Retreat from Mons before turning on the Germans at the River Marne and the subsequent advance to the Aisne. Trench warfare then set in and the 2nd Battalion arrived from India, both battalions taking part in the Battle of Givenchy. Meanwhile the Territorial battalions had been mobilised at the start of the war but only the 5th was in action in 1914.
I guess this is why I love the Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch so much.
Thanks, Grandpa!
Last summer, we went to the Edinburgh Tattoo for the second time. This had been on my bucket list for a long time since my grandfather was in the Black Watch and I just love to hear bagpipes. Even my cellphone ringtone is Scotland, the Brave.
My mom says that my Grandfather’s name is inscribed as a war hero in Edinburgh Castle, where the Tattoo is held.
When we were there last time, I didn’t quite make it to the top of the hill but this year, maybe…
You know, I’ll find that, sooner or later.
Thanks again for your service, Grandpa – and everyone who served!
May 25
Another of the Who Knew?-type posts. It’s National Tap Dance Day. When I was a little kid, I took the “required” ballet and tap classes for a year. My mom has a picture of me in my tutu and one in my majorette costume for the tap recital. I imagine I only took for the year because those costumes cost extra money.
Later on, I bought tap shoes – still unused – and signed up with a friend for a local adult tap class. Unfortunately, we were the only ones who signed up for the class and it was cancelled. It was a major nightmare trying to get our money back. They wanted to give us a credit for the next time, but that would cost more money which we didn’t want to pay.
But, I digress.
National Tap Dance Day falls on May 25 every year and is a celebration of tap dancing as an American art form. The idea of National Tap Dance Day was first presented to U.S. Congress on February 7, 1989 and was signed into American law by President George H.W. Bush on November 8, 2004. The one-time official observance was on May 25, 1989.
Tap Dance Day is also celebrated in other countries, particularly Japan, Australia, India and Iceland.
National Tap Dance Day was the brainchild of Carol Vaughn, Nicola Daval, and Linda Christensen. They deemed May 25 appropriate for this holiday because it is the birthday of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a significant contributor to tap dance.
Even Legos can tap to Puttin’ On The Ritz! A tribute to Fred Astaire, in the classic scene from the 1946 musical, Blue Skies, with the music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Although originally written for vaudevillian Harry Richman in 1930, the lyrics were readapted along with a brand new dance sequence some 16 years later.
Here’s the original from Blue Skies, although some has been cut with stills of Fred inserted:
And another version, with Michael Jackson 🙂
Just for comparison, the real original 1930 movie footage of Irving Berlin’s world-famous song, sung by Harry Richman, from the film of the same name.
And something completely different with my old favorites, The Nicholas Brothers from the film Stormy Weather.
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