International Parking Day

Couldn't resist adding a few pics from International Parking Day, held last week around the globe. It started about five years ago when a company paid the meter for a parking spot for 24 hours. Each year it gets bigger as people grab a spot and decorate it for a day. Here is the site http://parkingday.org

New Guinness World Records

Susan Boyle is in the book for the fastest selling debut album. Her debut album sold 411,820 copies in its first week in the UK. She is also listed as the oldest person to reach number one with a debut album. Other singers to make the new edition include Sir Tom Jones, the oldest artist to have a number one single, and Lady Gaga, who was crowned the most searched-for woman on the internet.

Bringing Home The Bacon

It has become more expensive than in the past, because of shortage of supply and increased demand. On the store shelves, average retail prices have risen more than $1 per pound since last year, to more than $4, the US Department of Agriculture reports. This is happening in the middle of other price reductions and discounts, due to the poor economy.

Bacon was once thought of only a breakfast food, but now is a round-the-clock food showing up as a garnish on all manner of dishes, including concoctions from a variety of chocolate makers. Almost two billion pounds of bacon are consumed in the United States each year, according to the National Pork Board.

One analyst suggests that demand is up because restaurants, seeking to regain business lost to the tight economy last year, have been adding more bacon to sandwiches and salads to spice up flavors.

Top Ten Dead Celebrities Incomes

Income for 2009.

10. Michael Crichton - $9 million (Author)

9. Albert Einstein - $10 million (Mainly gained from licensing his likeness)

8. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) - $15 million (Children's books)

7. John Lennon - $15 million

6. Charles Schulz - $35 million (Creator of Peanuts cartoons)

5. J.R.R. Tolkien - $50 million (Lord of the Rings)

4. Elvis Presley - $55 million

3. Michael Jackson - $90 million

2. Rodgers & Hammerstein - $235 million (Composers, South Pacific, Oklahoma, etc.)

1. Yves Saint Laurent - $350 million (Clothing designer - derived mostly from the auctions of his estate)

Zettabyte

Humankind will generate over one sextillion bytes of digital information this year, surging into a zettabyte. In 2010, 1.2 zettabytes of digital information will be created, according to a new Digital Universe study from IDC, sponsored by IT firm EMC Corporation.

A zettabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes (that's 21 zeroes for those counting). Think of a zettabyte like watching an hour long tv show continuously for 125 years.

Hospital Facts

There are 5,815 registered hospitals in America with a total of 951,045 staffed beds. These serve 310,265,000 US citizens as of September 17, 2010, about 1 bed for every 325 people.  US contains 4.52% of the world's population.

Climate Change

It sure shows that scientists are flexible. First it was Global Cooling, then Global Warming, now the buzzword is just Climate Change. Personally, I prefer Change Happens.

Bacon Skates

This photo was taken in November 1931 in Chehalis, Washington at the town’s Egg Festival. The occasion was a try to break the world record for largest omelette. Two women tied bacon to their feet and skated around the warming skillet to grease it. Then a team of chefs cracked and beat 7,200 eggs and made a breakfast delight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bacon_Day

Happy Constitution Day

Constitution Day (or Citizenship Day) is an American federal observance that recognizes the ratification of the United States Constitution and those who have become U.S. citizens. It is observed on September 17, the day the U.S. Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in 1787. Australia also observes a Citizenship Day on this date.

Dancing With The Stars

The amount each star makes for agreeing to be on the show and dancing in the first two episodes is $125,000.00. Stars then earn $10,000 each for weeks three and four and $50,000 each for the final two episodes. Not bad for a little pitter patter.

Lights Out

 The last major GE factory making incandescent light bulbs in the United States is turning out the lights, literally. It is closing this month, marking an exit for a product that began in the 1870s.

It is the result of a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescent bulbs beginning in 2012. Other countries are doing the same. Some stores have announced phasing out incandescents as early as the end of 2010.

Much controversy remains as to whether the high cost of replacement bulbs is really offset by the savings in electricity. Of course, the US does not produce the replacement bulbs, they all come from overseas, so US jobs are leaving with the bulbs. My bet is that LEDs will emerge as the winner over all the others. If you love your ordinary bulbs, stock up, because they will cost more as they become less available.

Unions

Seems unions are suffering based on labor figures by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The overall unionization rate in the US was 12.1 percent, down from 12.4 percent the previous year.

The private sector, for the first time ever, employed fewer union members than the public sector. The number of union workers employed in the private sector fell from approximately 7.91 million in 2008 to 7.19 million in 2009, while the number of public-sector union workers dropped from 7.86 million to 7.76 million.

In California, the highest unionized state, unionization rates were down across a range of groupings, with the most significant losses in:

    * Transportation and utilities fell from 41.7 percent to 36.4 percent
    * Public administration fell from 58.1 percent to 52.1 percent