~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
March 23, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote:  I think it’s OK to be confident in yourself. ~ Lady Gaga

★~ Puppy Day:

Everyone ready for a collective awwwww? It is Puppy Day. We are celebrating the puppy that wags and prances around the house, playing catch me if you can with your favorite shoe in her mouth. Always remember: There is a reason God made puppies so darn cute. We love puppies at camp and are very happy to welcome a new crop of puppy babies to our camp door every spring,  keep in mind that the adorable ball of fur you love today will need the same kind of love as when grows into a big dog. Every dog needs a forever home.

★~OK Day:

OK, it’s quiz time: You probably say it dozens of times every day. It may be the most widely used expression in the world? Name that word…. (answer and more…below)

★~Near Miss Day:

Near Miss Day commemorates today in 1989, when a large asteroid missed the Earth by a mere 500,000 miles – a very near miss indeed! According to NASA, impact would have equaled the strength of 40,000 hydrogen bombs, created a crater the size of the District of Columbia and devastated everything for 100 miles in all directions. Watch out for ‘near misses’ today!

★~ Chips and Dip Day:

Chips and dip are the iconic American party snack. Whether you prefer tortilla chips, potato chips, or corn chips, there are dozens of dips to complement your snack of choice. I like Fritos for a dipping chip.

Humans have been dipping their food into sweet and savory sauces for centuries. Some of the earliest dips were humans hummus,  and olive oil, which originated in the Mediterranean region and are still popular today. Salsas and dips made with sour cream became popular in the United States in the 1940s. After the Great Depression, many middle-class families found themselves without a maid for the first time and had to prepare their own go-to party dish, and pouring a bag of chips into a bowl and opening a container of onion dip was something they could prepare without household help!

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1743 – It was the first London performance of Handel’s Messiah, and King King George II was in the audience. In the middle of the Hallelujah Chorus, the King rose to his feet in appreciation of the great piece! The entire audience followed suit out of respect for the King. And so began the custom of standing during the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus.

♥~ 1794 – Josiah G. Pierson patented a rivet machine. Do you find this riveting?

♥~ 1944 – Nicholas Alkemade fell 18,000 feet without a parachute and lived. Nicholas was the tail gunner in a British Lancaster bomber on a night mission to Berlin. His plane was attacked by German fighters. When the captain ordered the crew to bail out, Alkemade discovered that his parachute was in flames. He chose to jump without the parachute rather than to stay in the burning plane. He fell 5,486 meters, landing in trees, underbrush, and drifted snow. He twisted his knee and had some cuts, but was otherwise alright. And then was shot by the enemy.

♥~ 1965 – Astronaut John Young became the first man to eat a corned beef sandwich in outer space.  Young smuggled the sandwich on board in order to supplement the astronauts’ meals of dehydrated foods, corned beef went well with Tang.

♥~ 1989 – Helen Gainville unveiled a wedding dress in Paris, with embroidered diamonds by Alexander Reza. History’s most expensive dress was valued at $7.3-million.

♥~ 1994 – Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe’s National Hockey League career record with his 802nd goal.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1904 – Joan Crawford (Lucille Fay LeSueur) Academy Award-winning actress: Mildred Pierce [1945]; A Woman’s Face, Night Gallery, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Above Suspicion,Grand Hotel; died May 10, 1977

♥~ 1966 – Marin Hinkle actress: Two and a Half Men, Once and Again, Imagine That, John’s Hand, Turn the River, Friends With Money, I Am Sam, Frequency, I’m Not Rappaport

♥~ 1966 – Marin Hinkle actress: Two and a Half Men, Once and Again, Imagine That, John’s Hand, Turn the River, Friends With Money, I Am Sam, Frequency, I’m Not Rappaport

♥~ 1976 – Keri Russell actress: The Upside of Anger, Mad About Mambo, Dead Man’s Curve, When Innocence is Lost, The Lottery, Clerks, Honey I Blew Up the Kid

♥~ 1990 – Princess Eugenie (Eugenie Victoria Helena Windsor) British royalty: daughter of Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York [Sarah Ferguson]

★~ Did You Know:

Ready for the answer to our quizz— the word “OK.”

It is said to be the most frequently spoken (or typed) word on the planet, bigger even than an infant’s first word ma or the ubiquitous Coke. And it was the first word spoken on the moon.

It’s America’s answer to Shakespeare.

It’s an entire philosophy expressed in two letters.

It’s very odd, but it’s . . . OK.

Yes, OK. Just two simple letters.. But these two simple letters (or four, if you use its genteel alter ego okay) anchor our agreements, confirm our under­standings, and choreograph the dance of everyday life.

It started one day in 1839, when a few newspaper editors were joking around.

“They had a lot of abbreviations that they were using and made up on the spot and thought they were terrifically funny,” Metcalf says. “And OK was an abbreviation for ‘All Correct.’ ”

Now most of those jokey abbreviations faded blissfully into history. But OK’s star was rising — thanks in part to President Martin Van Buren’s re-election campaign in 1840.

The mutton-chopped incumbent hailed from the town of Kinderhook, N.Y.

“He got the nickname Old Kinderhook, and early in 1840, OK clubs sprung up with the slogan, ‘OK is OK.’ So taking that funny little word and making it a mainstay of the political conversation in 1840, suddenly OK was way OK,” the author says.

Unfortunately for Van Buren, though, the election didn’t turn out OK — he got drubbed by William Henry Harrison.

The man Van Buren succeeded as president, Andrew Jackson, even got roped into the “OK” story — because of a campaign dirty trick, Metcalf says.

“One of Martin Van Buren’s opponents who also opposed Jackson because they both were Democrats, claimed that Andrew Jackson had been a terrible speller, and so he would get a document and when he approved it he would write O period K period on it indicating that it was all correct.”

Even though the story wasn’t true — Metcalf says Jackson was actually quite a good speller — it stuck. And within the next two decades someone else began writing OK on documents as a sign of approval.

Soon, OK was being used for the telegraph, like an early form of the LOLs and OMGs we send in text messages today.

But Is OK OK? Maybe.

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Spring break is happening at camp, so we’ll have plenty of chances to celebrate pups of all ages. The weather is suppose to be a balmy 37 today, so hopefully, we can play outside a little, and take a few pictures!

It won’t be posted for a little bit but when when it goes live this weeks ‘Odds and Ends’ will share some fun links, congratulate the winner of last weeks give away, and announce a new giveaway. Hope to see you on Odds and Ends in a bit. Ok?

Have a super Ok Saturday!

♥~