In honor of my favorite holiday next week, Halloween, here is some interesting reading:
Some Halloween History
- Many experts believe the druids were the first to observe Halloween. Dating back to 700 B.C., they celebrated the festival of Samhain (the end of the harvest and a time to honor the dead) on November 1. In the ensuing years, the night before became known as the Eve of All Hallows, a.k.a. Hallow Even, a.k.a. Hallow e’en.
- Ever wonder how trick-or-treating got started? On the evening before Samhain, people left food on their doorsteps to keep hungry spirits from entering the house. Festival-goers started dressing in ghost, witch, and goblin costumes so wandering spirits would leave them alone. To this day, these are Halloween’s most popular costumes.
- The word witch comes from the Saxon word “wicca”, which means “wise one.”
Spooky Animals
- Black cats, those customary Halloween icons, were originally believed to be witches’ familiars, a kind of cosmic sidekick who protected the witches’ powers from negative forces.
- Some so-called vampire bats do drink blood, but they’re not from Transylvania. They live in Central and South America and feed on cattle, horses, and birds.
Pumpkins and…Turnips?
- The biggest pumpkin in the world tipped the scales at a whopping 1,337.6 pounds. This gigantic gourd was weighed in October, 2002 at a pumpkin festival in Topsfield, Mass.
- Of all canned fruits and vegetables, pumpkin is the best source of vitamin A. Just a half-cup of the orange stuff has more than three times the recommended daily requirement.
- The very first jack o’ lantern was made out of a turnip.
I’ve recently created a listing for my freelance company CheckEngine USA on a site called Which Web Design Company. It’s kind of a marketing ploy, but seems pretty professional and legitimate. I’ve also written an article for the site Business Reasons for Web Accessibility.
So I traded in my beautiful “legend lime” colored Ford Mustang a few weeks ago for a 2-door Ford Focus. It was quite a bummer, but quite necessary financially now that I have two kids, and oh, I recently purchased a new Honda Rebel motorcycle! I get an incredible 70 MPG with that little bike which will save a considerable amount of gas. I commute almost 30 miles to work and the gas bill in the Mustang was hurtin’. No worries now when I drive either the Rebel or the Focus. The Focus gets almost 35 MPG highway when I’m not stuck in a traffic jam.
I was fortunate enough to recently attend the An Event Apart, San Francisco (you can view a collection of ALA SF photos on Flickr). The first thing to mention is, to my pleasant surprise, how funny Jared Spool and Jeffrey Zeldman were! In addition to the sessions, the atmosphere was electric, a made a few good professional contacts, and the food was excellent 
I also had the opportunity to personally speak (even though briefly) with Eric Meyer, Jeffrey Zeldman, and Joe Clark.
It would be great if every web designer and developer in the world could attend this conference as it promotes the right way to do web development–namely web standards and accessibility. There were also a couple excellent sessions on web design.
Eric Meyer, the infamous CSS guru, presented twice. He showcased his data table-to-bar chart CSS, which was really impressive. The second session focused on CSS and IE7, mostly about CSS selector techniques. Jeffrey Zeldman also presented twice–on Writing the User Interface and Selling Design. Other notable presenters include Jason Santa Maria of Happy Cog, Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering, and Kimberly Blessing of PayPal.
A few good quotes used in the presentations were:
I’d have written it shorter if I had more time.
Design helps people read less.
An interface is worth a thousand pictures.
I finally came across a WordPress theme that looks professional, satisfies my taste, and is standards-compliant. (I sure don’t have time to create one myself!) A few minor adjustments and voila! Here it is…the new look of my blog. Hope you like it.
Every once in a while, one comes across an establishment that is unique and one soon comes to love. I recently discovered one of these places, Barefoot Coffee Roasters.
This coffee shop is unlike all others. First of all, they take pride in great coffee. In their words, Barefoot Coffee is great coffee, coffee as a culinary art and sustainability.
The coffee is roasted right on the spot, and the coffee shop has won many awards. And besides coffee, you can purchase something to eat such as an oatmeal & raisin cookie (my favorite).
Just as good as the coffee is the atmosphere. There are always many “interesting” and “creative” individuals hanging out. Local art decorates the walls, and even some of the furniture is art. Even the walls of the bathroom are blackboards with chalk writings and drawings. The music is unique, hip, and no matter how diverse, always seems to mesh well with the atmosphere. In the outdoor seating, enjoy a smoke and/or listen to the guy with the acoustic guitar. Free Wifi is provided, which is essential, and the prices are reasonable.
If you’re in the South Bay area, make a visit to the Barefoot Coffee Roasters.
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