Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Dadstice

This weekend is the date of the Summer Sailstice, a festival of sailing that as far as I can see has no point whatsoever other than to encourage people to go sailing on a day when anyone remotely interested in the sport in the northern hemisphere would be sailing anyway. According to their website...
Summer Sailstice is the global holiday celebrating sailing held annually on the summer solstice, the longest sailing day of the year. This international event was founded to connect the global sailing community in a fun, creative, multifaceted, multi-location sailing holiday.
Which of course is total nonsense. If it's a "global holiday" it's not the "longest sailing day of the year" for anyone south of the equator. It's the shortest day of the year for them. The founder, John Arndt, apparently sails on San Francisco Bay so that probably explains everything.

Sunday is also Father's Day which is when we all celebrate having fathers (something quite hard to avoid, though with gay marriage and IVF and all that I guess its possible) or being fathers (which is actually relatively easy to achieve judging by world population trends). Several websites perpetuate the myth that Father's Day was supposedly invented by Sonora Smart of Washington in 1909 while listening to a Mother's Day sermon at her church. Whereas we all know the real truth that it was actually created by the electronics and hand tool industries in order to boost sales of their products.

Tillerman will be celebrating the weekend by driving up to Massachusetts to see cutest granddaughter in the world again, and of course her Mum and Dad, the Laser sailor recently renamed by one of my commenters as the "whippersnapper". We hear that CGITW has recently learned some new tricks including manic hyperkinetic body shaking in an effort to turn over her Exersaucer so we can't wait to see that. And Whippersnapper has been racing at the sailing club at his local lake and humiliating the other Laser sailors there with his awesome racing prowess. So if the weather forecast looks good I will take up my Laser and there will be another Whippersnapper vs Tillerman Laser showdown to celebrate Dadstice Day.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that Tillerman would make up holidays and excuses just to come see his granddaughter... :D

Tillerman said...

Of course. Next up... Grandfathers Day.

Anonymous said...

Gagagagagagagaga!!!!!

Carol Anne said...

But Grandparents Day isn't until September. You need to come up with something more immediate. I'm trying to remember whether National Peanut Butter Month has come and gone, or whether you still can look forward to it.

Tillerman said...

There really is a Grandparents Day? I thought I had just invented it. Oh well - I'll just have to find some other excuses - Celebrate Connecticut Highways Day perhaps - or A Day Without (Legal) Immigrants.

Pat said...

You might THINK that any self-respecting sailor would be out on the water on the weekend before the longest day of the year (for those of us who stand right-side-up on the globe), BUT examination of any large marina will, sadly, tell you it ain't so. So, whatever excuses we need to take people sailing are what we gotta use.

On this day in history...
Birthdate of
1330 Edward the black prince, prince of Wales (1343-1376)
1942 Xaveria Hollander [DeVries], Surabaya Indonesia, auth (Happy Hooker)
1937 Waylon Jennings singer of innumerable country songs (Ramblin' Man)
1973 Neil Patrick Harris Albuquerque NM, actor (Doogie Howser)


763 -BC- Assyrians record total solar eclipse event on clay tablet
1215 King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede, England
1649 Margaret Jones of Charlestown became the first person tried and executed for witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts.
1785 2 French balloonists die in world's 1st fatal aviation accident
1851 Jacob Fussell, Baltimore dairyman, sets up 1st ice-cream factory
1878 1st attempt at motion pictures (used 12 cameras, each taking 1 picture) done to see if all 4 of a horse's hooves leave the ground
1896 Tsunami strikes Shinto festival on beach at Sanriku Japan
27,000 are killed, 9,000 injured, with 13,000 houses destroyed
1924 Native Americans are proclaimed US citizens
1956 John Lennon (15) & Paul McCartney (13) meet for the 1st time as Lennon's rock group The Quarrymen perform at a church dinner
1968 John Lennon & Yoko Ono plant an acorn at Conventry Cathedral
1982 Riots in Argentina after Falklands/Malvinas defeat
1989 Ronald Reagan is knighted by Queen Elizabeth

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Arkansas : Admission Day (1836)
Denmark : Flag Day/Valdemar Day (1219)
Idaho : Pioneer Day (1910)
Korea : Farmer's Day-day to transplant rice seeds
Oregon : Treaty Day (1846)
Paraguay : Chaco Peace Day (1935) - - - - - ( Sunday )
US : Father's Day (Remind the guy how much you care) - - - - - ( Sunday )

Tammy Brierly said...

Take pictures and me thinks whippersnapper must be a chip off yee ole block!

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