Pete's 49th Birthday

Happy 49th birthday Pete! Not a bad birthday so far ... his phone has been ringing off the hook with birthday wishes, his severance deposit was made, & We have a Dallas Stars game to attend this evening. Yesterday we left late & picked Kyle up from school, got to the Social Security office & they were CLOSED. Their hours are only M-F 9-3 EXCEPT Wednesday where their hours are 9-noon. What? They have a 23 hour work week after you take out lunch hours? Seriously?! And I thought the bank was bad. We stopped & got something to eat & then I went to Michael's, hopeful for some pony beads in large quantities. I hit the jackpot. No more Amazon for beads unless I want the variety packs. Michael's sells large single color bags of beads (580 beads per bag) for $3.99 each. WOOHOO! I bought 3 bags of white & 1 bag of red. I'm completely covered for my current project. When we got home I went through the mail, had it out with the boys over chores, rewrote the chore list, Josh did everything & made up for the past couple days, Kyle did his stuff, & all is good now (as long as everyone keeps up their end of the bargain). I started to go to work on eBay but Angela called, so we chatted for a while, then I passed the phone to Pete & while they were chatting I did a little bit of work on eBay (only had 17 minutes left). I checked facebook, the FD got toned out to a vehicle fire, I sync'd my iPhone, searched for local restaurants, looked for some new restaurant apps, purchased a new song (Whitney Houston, I will always love you), made macaroni & cheese for Pete & I for lunch, & then started a new craft that I call quilt crocheting. I love it! It's basically small 3" granny squares assembled into a quilt pattern. The great part about these squares is that they can be split into 2-colors diagonally, creating some amazing quilt pattern effects! I created the pattern in PSP & then started crocheting as we watched TV. I still haven't done my latch hook or needlepoint this week. Busy week & I'm not going to be home today, either. Pete is one of the most go-go-go people I know. As long as he's unemployed, I'm not going to see much of the inside of this house. Today is Knit Wit day, which I'm REALLY going to miss as it's one of my favorite crafts of the many I do. With most things closed on Sunday, that will probably be the day that I just do a movie marathon & catch up on 5 crafts from the week @ 2 hours per craft. That's 5 crafts, 5 movies, 10 hours. That is of course unless he finds a way to be out of the house all day on a Sunday. :)

Decorate your cubicle with a beanbag chair.

Del Shannon dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound (1990):

Born Charles Westover in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1934, the singer/songwriter known as Del Shannon committed suicide on this day in 1990. In a period when the American pop charts were dominated by cookie-cutter teen idols and novelty acts, he stood out as an all-too-rare example of an American pop star whose work reflected real originality. His heyday as a chart-friendly star in the United States may have been brief, but on the strength of his biggest hit alone he deserves to be regarded as one of rock and roll's greatest.

Legend has it that while on stage one night at the Hi-Lo Lounge in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1960, the young and unknown Del Shannon stopped his band mid-song to have his organ player repeat, over and over, an unusual chord sequence he had just ad-libbed: A-minor to G. Charlie went to work the next day in his job as a carpet salesman with those chords stuck in his mind, and by the time he took the stage that night, he'd written a song called "Little Runaway" around them—(A-minor) As I walk along I (G) wonder, what went wrong...". It would be three more months before Shannon and his band could make it to a New York recording studio to record the song that Shannon now saw as his best, and possibly last, shot at stardom. As he told Billboard magazine years later, "I just said to myself, if this record isn't a hit, I'm going back into the carpet business." Del Shannon sold his last carpet a few months later, as "Runaway" roared up the pop charts on its way to #1 in April 1961.

"Hats Off To Larry" and "Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow The Sun)" were Shannon's only other top-10 hits in the United States, but he enjoyed a much bigger career in the UK, where he placed five more songs in the top 10 over the next two years. Like most stars of his generation, Shannon was primarily regarded as an Oldies act through the 70s and 80s, but he was in the midst of a concerted comeback effort in early 1990, with a Jeff Lynne-produced album of original material already completed and rumors swirling of his taking the late Roy Orbison's place in The Traveling Wilburys. This only added to the shock experienced by many when Shannon shot himself in his Santa Clarita, California, home on February 3, 1990. Shannon's widow would later file a high-profile lawsuit against Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the antidepressant Prozac, which Shannon had begun taking shortly before his suicide. That suit was eventually dropped, but the case brought early attention to the still-unresolved question of the possible connection between suicidal ideation and SSRIs, the class of drugs to which Prozac belongs.

Fuel Smarter. Use consumer advocacy site gaspricewatch.com or the free app GasBuddy to find the cheapest fuel in your area at any given time. And, when you can, fill your tank early in the week: Gas prices tend to rise closer to the weekend, when more drivers are running errands. Potential savings: $120-$250/yr.

GasBuddy:

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Gas prices only for USA and Canada

In all of life, there are sequential stages of growth & development. A child learns to turn over, to sit up, to crawl, & then to walk & run. Each step is important & each one takes time. No step can be skipped.

Model UN:

The Model UN App is the single best source of easy-to-access information about countries and their backgrounds! Quickly access socio-cultural, infrastructure, and geographic data- all without the need for an Internet connection!
Features include:
FACTBOOK:
Search or browse all countries AND territories in the word.
PRE-AMS and OPERATIVES:
Access our lists of pre-ambulatory and operative clauses.
NGO LIST:
Search of browse a massive database of NGOs alongside detailed information such as their website, area(s) of work, regions, and short description!
UN CHARTER:
Access the entire UN Charter, separated by chapter for your convenience.
UN NEWS WIRE:
Access up-to-the-minute news updates directly from the UN NewsWire service!
AND MANY MORE FEATURES....

Most well-known dancers top 10:

1. Anna Pavlova
2. Michail Baryshnikov
3. Rudolf Nureyev
4. Michael Jackson
5. Sammy Davis Jr.
6. Martha Graham
7. Fred Astaire
8. Gregory Hines
9. Gene Kelly
10. Patrick Swayze

N.Y. Governor Mario Cuomo is asking for a 4%, what he calls a "Twinkie Tax," on junk foods to help cut the deficit. Now does that seem a little unfair? It seems to me, because the people who eat a lot of Twinkies are the least likely to be a burden on society by living to collect Social Security. -Johnny Carson 1991

Warrenn Sapp isn't on the most well-known dancers list, & that's just wrong; football players are great dancers. Dance floor moves are simple compared to the complicated moves on the field!

When The Sound of Music was released in South Korea, it was so popular that one theater owner sought to maximize his profit by showing it more often. His solution was to shorten the movie by cutting out all of the songs!