What Drops on New Years Eve
For the past two years, I have compiled posts (2006, 2007) with a list of interesting or stupid things that towns and cities across the US “drop” (or lower) from downtown buildings. These civic celebrations are based on the ball that drops in Times Square in New York. My reasons for compiling this list is because I am also influenced by Raleigh’s acorn and Mt. Olive, NC’s pickle.
Last year I discovered this Wikipedia article which greatly simplified my search. The following list of items comes from this article and previous searches:
acorn, anchor, antique trunk, apple, bag of potato chips, ball, beach ball, bologna, bottle of Yuengling beer, broasted chicken, canal boat, carp, cigar, cigar held by a lion, coal, conch shell, cow, crab, drag queen, Ford Edge, frog, goat, gumbo pot, hard hat, Hershey Kiss, hog, huckleberry, Indy car, lollipop, M&M, Moravian star, mossbunker fish, nugget, orange, peach, pear, Peep, pickle, pine cone, ping pong balls, pirate wench, planet earth, possum, pretzel, red rose, sardine, sausage, shoe, sled, sphoctogon, spring, star, steamroller, strawberry, sunburst, ukulele, walleye, white rose, wildcat, wooden duck, wrench
Out of 61 things listed, 30% are food, while 15% are animals. The only live animal I know about is the possum in Brasstown, NC. Many of the items are related to the town’s name (Shippensburg, PA: anchor) or a town’s best-known product (Hershey, PA: Hershey Kiss, Pottsville, PA: Yuengling).
Geographically, the following 19 states are represented in the article, and Pennsylvania has the most drops with 36 cities and towns listed.
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin
There are many states not included. I would like your help, and your friends’ help, in expanding this list. Please comment below if you know of anything else that drops, or a state not listed that has a drop. Please include a link if possible, and I can update Wikipedia.
Thanks for your help and have a Happy New Year.
Downtown Raleigh Photos
After my meeting in Raleigh yesterday, I headed to downtown Raleigh to take some photos. It was a gray day and I was taking pictures of railroad tracks and abandoned warehouses, so it was the perfect subject matter for black and white. Here’s a link to the Flickr Slide Show of the pictures.
Twittering during the Patriots Game
I just watched the Patriots go 16-0 and watched my Twitter stream throughout the game. Many people I follow were also watching the game, so many comments (including my own) were about the game. Twitter allowed us to create a shared experience with friends across the country, rather than sitting alone in my living room.
Holiday Card Friendship
I have some friends that I keep in touch with only through holiday cards. And that’s not even necessarily ones who send holiday letters. It may be a picture of the kids, or even just a short note, but the mere fact that we remain on each others lists is connection enough. In some cases this has been augmented with e-mails over the year, and lately LinkedIn, Facebook and blogs.
Well, through a series of email exchanges, I discovered that a friend of mine from college is in a similar life situation to me. We have not seen each other in about 17 years, but we had a phone conversation the other night and it was as if we had been in touch all along. And we will probably get together in the Spring or Summer, after the thaw (he lives in Boston). The essence of friendship is that we can reconnect after all this time, and it just feels very natural.
How Popular am I?
The US Social Security Administration has an online tool to check the popularity of names based on United States births. The first thing I checked was how popular my name was the year I was born. It was 10th. Here’s the list of popular boy’s names from that year in the mid-1960s:
1 Michael
2 John
3 David
4 James
5 Robert
6 William
7 Mark
8 Richard
9 Thomas
10 Jeffrey
Over the years, it has declined in popularity. It peaked at 9 in 1966 and dropped to 11 in 1970. By 1980 it was down to 27, and 43 by 1990. The downward slide in popularity picked up the pace through the 90s and into the new century at 104 in 2000 and finally at 180 in 2006.
Here’s the list of popular boy’s names in 2006. They are mostly still traditional names, but they are just a little different selection from 40 years ago:
1 Jacob
2 Michael
3 Joshua
4 Ethan
5 Matthew
6 Daniel
7 Christopher
8 Andrew
9 Anthony
10 William
Raleigh Tweetup
This morning I went to a local Social Media group that has formed around twitter and SocialCarolina.org. Wayne, Francis, Ryan and Ginny were there, and I am now following all of them on Twitter and they are following me. It was definitely a new media event, as everyone had laptops, Wayne twittered the topics of conversations, plus we had a video camera running and tapped into ustream. This allowed other local folks (over 20 of them) to watch and listen to the conversation and join in via twitter.
It is always interesting to be the marketing guy in a group of techies. It allows me to bring a different perspective to the conversation.
Mid- to Post-Hoilday Wrap-Up
Here are the last few things about Christmas before we move on:
Peter and Grace Christmas Morning
After prying the kids away from their handheld video games, and pausing the DVD player, I managed to get the kids to pose for a picture. Most of the detritus of the unwrapping frenzy is not visible in the frame. Note Grace is standing in a box.
Dr. Floyd’s “How Dr. Steve Stole Christmas”
With a big nod to Dr. Seuss, the Dr. Floyd Radio Show podcast (my kids’ favorite and the only thing they listen to on my ipod) presented their Christmas special. Click here to go to the show’s home page and listen to this episode.
Twas the night before Christmas
Here is a dramatic reading of the famous Clement Moore poem read by broken Macbook Pro laptops. Here’s the MP3 file directly and a link to the page.
Only US-Made Toys for Jack and Emma
from WRAL (AP):
The wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said she had a hard time tracking down gifts made in the U.S. after she and her husband promised to avoid putting Chinese-made toys under their Christmas tree this year.
“My kids will not have toys coming from China,” John Edwards said during a Democratic presidential debate Dec. 4.
After making the no-Chinese toys pledge during the debate, the former North Carolina senator told the AP he had to check with home. “Of course, I immediately had to come out and get on the phone with Elizabeth and say, ‘We’re not. I’m right about this, right?’”
The Edwardses decided not to buy Chinese-made toys after millions were recalled this year for containing high levels of lead – a tough task given that roughly 80 percent of U.S. playthings are made in China.
The Edwards campaign said Elizabeth Edwards did find U.S.-made toys but would not get into the specifics as not to spoil anyone’s gifts.
“We were careful to read the labels on everything we picked up, from toys and books to puzzles and dolls,” Mrs. Edwards said in an e-mail response sent to the AP from the campaign.
She said she shopped online (“a blessing for anyone campaigning up until Christmas”) and used toy-rating Web sites as her guide. She bought most of the children’s items at local stores in North Carolina, she said.
“Even at the local toy stores, it was incredibly time-consuming to find anything made in the United States, particularly among the highly advertised toys on so many children’s lists,” she said.
Their younger children, Emma Claire, 9, and Jack, 7, are making presents for family and friends.
Quotable Grace
While watching The Polar Express, Grace uttered, after seeing Santa’s elves for the first time, “I thought they had brown pants.”
Chinese Industrial Landscapes
A few months ago I saw a documentary about photographer Ed Burtynsky and his trip to China to shoot industrial landscapes. Here is a link to a Wired gallery of Burtynsky’s photos with his commentary.