★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
July 20, 2013

★~ Today’s Quote:  You might be a redneck if… the blue book value of your truck goes up and down depending on how much gas it has in it. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

★~ Moon Day:

Cousin Abigail took this video from Florida of the recent rocket launch.  Cool!

The Eagle has landed. On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 left Kennedy Space Center, and on  July 20, 1969, the Eagle, a lunar module, landed on the moon at 4:17 p.m. EDT. Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, spent the next 2 1/4 hours “walking” on the moon’s surface with Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. They left behind an American flag and a plaque, which reads, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”  Which foot did Armstrong use to step on the grainy, grayish, lunar soil? His left.

★~ Ugly Truck Day:  

Your truck is so ugly…I want to shake its bumper! Ugly trucks aren’t just unsightly vehicles plowing down the road, barely passing emissions; they are the companions of hard-working American people. Sure, a new shiny truck has room for the whole family, offers options never dreamed of 20 years ago, and is, by far, the most comfortable to ride in. But an old ugly truck has character; it’s been on adventures. When you talk to ugly truck owners, they all have a story to tell about hauling Christmas trees, driving the fields, and working the farm; these trucks suffer kids learning to drive a stick and handle a clutch and they are useful long after most cars have been buried in a landfill. Instead of writing “Wash Me” on the side of a dusty dirty old truck–write “Good Job!” El Morno friend Carol painted this fun picture of an old abandoned pick up truck to share with us.

* Dodge Brothers Company offered one 3/4 ton pickup between 1924 through 1927.

* “Pickup sales in 1980 fell more than 50 percent from the industry’s best year of 1978” due to the energy crisis, according to PickupTruck.com.

* 1970s: The Mudflap girl made her debut on truck mud flaps.

★~ Lollipop Day: 

Lollipop lollipop

Oh lolli lolli lolli

Lollipop lollipop…

Everyone loves a Lollipop!

During the Civil War, it is believed that little pieces of hard candy were put on the ends of pencils for children to nibble. In 1908, George Smith claimed to be the first to invent the modern lollipop. Smith applied an idea of putting hard candies on a stick to make them easier to eat. He decided to name the treat after his favorite racing horse, Lolly Pop, and later trademarked the name. Lollipops were successful until the Depression. Smith stopped production on lollipops and the name fell into the public domain.

Celebrate Lollipop Day by enjoying the lollipop of your choice. And if See’s Candies is in your hood stop by for a FREE lollypop!  But remember–when you are done with it, put it on a plate in the kitchen and wash those sticky fingers!

★~ Today in History: 

♥~ 1801 – A 1,235 pound cheese ball was pressed at the farm of Elisha Brown, Jr. The huge ball of cheese was later loaded on a horse-driven wagon and presented to President Thomas Jefferson at the White House.

♥ ~ 1875 –  that the largest recorded swarm of locusts in American history descended upon the Great Plains. An estimated 3.5 trillion locusts made up the swarm. It was about 1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide, ranging from Canada down to Texas.

♥~ 1965 – Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone was released. It was his first big hit.

♥~ 1985 – Treasure hunters began hauling off $400 million in coins and silver ingots from the sea floor in the biggest underwater jackpot in history. The bounty came from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha. The Spanish galleon sank 40 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida in 1622. It was located by treasure hunter Mel Fisher. The 40 tons of gold and silver and was the richest treasure find since the opening of King Tut’s tomb in the 1930s

★~ Born Today:

♥~ 1919 – Sir Edmund Hillary explorer: first to climb Mt. Everest;died Jan 11, 2008

♥~ 1938 – Natalie Wood (Natasha Nikolaevna Gurdin) actress: From Here to Eternity, West Side Story, Splendor in the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause, Marjorie Morningstar, Gypsy, Love with the Proper Stranger; died Nov 29, 1981. .

♥~ 1958 – Billy Mays ‘King of Infomercials’: TV pitchman: OxiClean, Orange Glo, Mighty Putty; died Jun 28, 2009

♥~ 1967 – Reed Diamond actor: Spider-Man 2, Scared Silent, The Breed, Madison, Her Hidden Truth, Memphis Belle, The Summer of the Swans

♥~ 1971 – Sandra Oh actress: Grey’s Anatomy, Ramona and Beezus, Falling, 3 Needles, Big Fat Liar, Bean, The Journey Home

★~ This Weeks Odd News: 

♥~ Changing the Future through Plastic Surgery:  If a palm reader told you your future is dim because of the lines in your hand, you can change it. Japanese plastic surgeon Dr. Takaaki Matsuoka has a booming practice in changing the lines on palms.

“If you don’t have the marriage line, it means you will most likely not get married. So the job of the doctor is to create a marriage line.” Dr. Matsuoka

Dr. Matsuoka uses an electric scalpel to lengthen or add lines as requested, a procedure that takes 15 minutes and costs $1,000.

♥~ Bedbugs held in Contempt:  Spectators at Manhattan Criminal Court panicked and fled on Tuesday when they saw bedbugs crawling up a defendant’s neck. Responding to the chaos, court officials cleared three rows of seats and continued the proceedings. Twenty minutes later, the court was evacuated. Some of those present said they saw bugs jumping off the man, but no evidence of bedbugs was found after the room was cleared. Still, an exterminator was called in to spray that area of the courtroom.

♥~ Ghostly  Experience: A woman in Feidong, Anhui Province, China, took a shortcut through an alley that was so narrow she became stuck. She was there seven hours before help arrived, because passers-by said they assumed the wailing came from a ghost! Firefighters spent half an hour breaking through one of the walls to free her.

♥~ Timing is Everything:  The longest-running scientific experiment in the world is a pitch drop experiment that began in Queensland, Australia, in 1927. The setup is basically putting pitch ( black carbonic substance) in a funnel and see if it drips out. The point is to prove that pitch is a viscous liquid that will flow, instead of a solid. The problem is that it takes years for a drop to actually drop, and has never been witnessed. A similar experiment was begun in 1944 at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Now, for the first time, a drop has been recorded! Scientists notice a drip forming several weeks ago, and set up a web cam to capture whatever happened. Then a week ago, a drop fell into a cup, and was captured on video! The Australian pitch drop has dripped eight times, but has never been witnessed or recorded.

♥~♥~♥~On a more somber note: 

The ashes of Sean Misner, one of the 19 firefighters who died in Arizona’s fire, were being transported by his wife back to their hometown on Tuesday. On every overpass for nearly 500 miles there was a tribute similar to this one.

#

Ahhhh, the humidity broke in Chicago last night and dropped the temperature to 77 degrees. It will still be hot today (by Chicago standards) but the temps should be in the 80’s next week, for Cousin Carla’s visit who enjoy escaping the Florida heat for a few days, so we do out best to accommodate her during her summer visits.

As soon as my son rises, we will show off last weeks painting and building project. I know, I’ve been saying that for a few days. I was overly optimistic, everything took a little longer than we expected. But, so worth it. We can’t wait to show it off. 

What are you up to on this fine and friendly Saturday?

Odd Loves Company!