~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥
April 21, 2014

★~Today’s Quote: If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently. ~ Bill Watterson

★~Dyngus Day:

In Poland, Easter Monday is known as Wet Easter Monday, when boys try to drench girls with buckets of water, squirt guns, or whatever’s available. In some towns, they use twigs to switch the girls. The tradition has it that if a girl receives a drenching or switching, she will marry within the year. In some Polish villages, Dyngus Day is celebrated by loading up the family rooster and going from house to house asking for treats – kind of like trick or treating, but you must take along the family rooster. Why? I have no idea.

Dyngus Day (Easter Monday) is all about the joy of Easter and celebrating love – ancient and new – and life – new and eternal – with wonderful if not somewhat childish pranks. And, dancing. And, food. And yes, beer.

★~  World Creativity and Innovation Day:

World Creativity and Innovation Day has been celebrated in over 46 countries since 2002 and encourages people to make the world a better place.   Today is the day to celebrate your creativity and new ideas!

★~ Chocolate Covered Cashew Day:

Roasted cashews coated in rich milk chocolate! And it gets even better…Cashews are rich in all kinds of things that are good for you so they are a treat you can eat without guilt.

★~ Today in History:

 

♥~ 1856 –The first rail train to pass over the mighty Mississippi River between Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island, IL made its journey across a newly completed bridge between the two rail centers. Check out the video above of the 112-foot long train that set a new Guinness World Record as the longest chocolate structure.

♥~ 1959 – The largest fish ever hooked by a rod and reel was landed by Alf Dean. Ol’ Alf told the fellas down at the marina about the 16-foot, 10-inch white shark that weighed in at 2,664 pounds!  Dean made the historic catch in South Australia.

♥~ 1963 –The Beatles and The Rolling Stones met for the first time together, at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, England. The Stones opened show.

 ♥~ 1977 – The Broadway musical, Annie, opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. Andrea McArdle played Orphan Annie

♥~ 1984 – Michael Jackson’s Thriller album slipped a couple of notches from number 1 to number 3 on the pop album charts.  Thriller was number one for 37 weeks, setting a record in music history for the longest run at the top.

♥~ 1986 – A large television audience watched as the long-sealed vault of racketeer, Al Capone was opened during a much-hyped TV special. All that Geraldo found were broken bottles and no trace that Capone and his gang had ever stashed anything there.

♥~ 1997 – The ashes of 1960s LSD guru Timothy Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry were blasted into space (actually an orbit of the Earth) in the world’s first space funeral. The remains on board also included  space physicist Gerard O’Neill and rocket scientist Krafft Ehricke among others.  Each family paid $4,800 (a commemorative video of the launch was included) to  blast off  7 grams of their loved ones’ ashes.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 753BC -Happy 2,766th birthday Rome! Though Rome may be the Eternal City,  she never misses a birthday celebration. According to legend – and the calculations of Lucius Taruntius Firmanus, a Roman astrologer and mathematician who lived in the 1st century B.C. – Romulus founded the city on April 21, 753 B.C.  Romans mark their city’s birth, known as the Natale di Roma, with raucous popular festivals involving large quantities of eating, drinking, joke playing and other forms of merrymaking. Feel free to do as the Romans do, and celebrate Rome’s birthday. I would skip the candles, just sayin’

♥~ 1782 –  Friedrich Froebel-  Friedrich’s experience as an educator led him to the conclusion that playtime can be very instructive; an essential part of a child’s education. He founded the first kindergarten for this purpose in 1837 in Blankenburg, Germany. This directed playtime led to his invention of a series of toys that were designed to stimulate learning.  Architect  Frank Lloyd Wright Mother gave her son a set of Froebel’s maple wood blocks to play with and Wright often spoke of the value the blocks had brought him throughout his life.

♥~ 1915 – Anthony Quinn Academy Award-winning actor: Viva Zapata! [1952], Lust for Life [1956]; The Guns of Navarone, The Inheritance, The Old Man and the Sea, Zorba the Greek; died June 3, 2001

♥~ 1926 – Queen Elizabeth II (Elisabeth Mary) Queen of the United Kingdom [1952- ]; eldest daughter of George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon; married Philip Mountbatten [1947]: four children: Charles [Prince of Wales], Anne, Andrew, Edward

♥~ 1951 –Tony Danza actor: Family Law, Who’s the Boss, Taxi, Angels in the Outfield, Baby Talk; TV talk show host: The Tony Danza Show [co-executive producer]

★~ Good To Know: Some links to encourage the creative juices to flow 

♥~ Idea Champions Free the Genie free trial.  It’s an online area to be directed through solving a challenge in stages.

♥~  Roger von Oech’s creative Whack on the Side of the Head.  Click on the upper left corner of his webpage for a view  his daily idea stimulus cards.

♥~  Eyewire – Creativity card simple thought stirrers. Downloadable, you can make your own cards from their pdf to carry around.

♥~ New & Improved has 15 online, downloadable Gator Breaks – ways to overcome knee-jerk negative reactions to ideas.

♥~ Creativity Toolbox by Peter Lloyd gives online help to anyone who is stumped in a number of areas:  brainstorming, mind mapping, name generating. Lots of fun here, even a quote generator! Creativity Toolbox.

♥~ Like playing with words?  Here’s a random word, phrase, sentence and paragraph generator.  Lots of potential here.  Click any of the words below the website name: watchout4snakes.

♥~ More into visual that verbal?  Here’s a site where you can create your own Picasso Head.

♥~ Looking for or have practical/business ideas?  Check out  Idea A Day for practical suggestions and insights.

♥~ New trends in thinking and business based on social, technological, environmental, economic and political shifts  can be found at the World Future Society website.

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My teen sent me a text from Albuquerque,  “Grandaddy was carded at Walmart.” Sigh. There goes all my efforts at persuading my dad to step outside the big box stores. Walmart is evil, I tell you! There is no limit to how low they will go.

Best line of the weekend:  My BIL (brother-in-law), the chocolate maker, dropped by to deliver a shopping bag filled with beautiful boxes of chocolate and as we chatted curb side, he admired our house (his dad built it) and I agreed that our house is wonderful. He ended our conversation by saying, “Yeah, to bad Joey (dearly departed Joe) isn’t around to enjoy it. Happy Easter.”  When I told Cole he laughed with me and said, “I love Uncle BIL and his chocolate too.” Family is the best.

Merry Monday!

Odd Loves Company