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"Thank you for dancing with me!" Matt invited people in 39 countries on all 7 continents to come out and dance...
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Matt Harding is a 32-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on.
In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he'd saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is. A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said "Hey, why don't you stand over there and do that dance. I'll record it." He was referring to a particular dance Matt does.
President Kennedy feeding a deer. Next morning wonders why no toast at breakfast, told he fed entire supply to deer
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Caroline Kennedy
This card, from the US Senate-hopeful, read: "In this season of Joy, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum thanks you for your friendship and good will and we wish you a year of peace and happiness."
In the photo, President Kennedy fed bread to a deer in Lassen National Park, Calif., in September 1963. The next morning when the president asked why there was no toast with his breakfast, he was told he had fed the entire supply to the deer.
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Photos courtesy of Cecil Stoughton
Original Source: Boston Globe
Oldest WWI survivors join commemorations on Remembrance Day, pay tribute to fallen millions in 1st, 2nd World Wars
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This year’s Armistice Day anniversary, com- memorating the millions of lives lost in the so-called War to End All Wars, comes 90 years after the guns fell silent in 1918. Anyone who was a part of it would have to be at least 108 by now. Astonishingly, there are still three men who fit the bill, three survivors who were in uniform 90 years ago as the First World War drew to a close. Yesterday, this trio marked Remembrance Sunday to the best of their abilities.
The men - all well into their 100s - will attend a service at the Cenotaph in central London. Harry Patch, 110, a veteran of the horrors of Passchendaele, is the only survivor of the trenches. He ignored the rain and attended a parade at Wells, near his Somerset home. Allingham, Britain's oldest man at the age of 112, was an aircraft mechanic who saw action at sea, in the Battle of Jutland, and ashore on the Western Front. Bill Stone, a young pup of 108, ended up fighting two World Wars for the Royal Navy. Today, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, all three men will be on parade in London at the Cenotaph to mark the exact moment when the guns fell silent. Of the five million men and women who served in Britain's armed forces in the war, only four are still alive. The other surviving veteran, Claude Choules, 107, lives in Australia and will mark the 90th anniversary at local events there. read more »
Feel young at heart? In your 30s,40s...? They sure do in their 80s,90s, singing & performing: Young@Heart Chorus
A movie you must see –
"Young @ Heart" documents the true story of the Young at Heart Chorus, a singing group whose average age is 81, as they rehearse for a concert in their hometown Northampton, Massachusetts, celebrating "25 Years of Unpredictable Art." Their music is unexpected, going against the stereotype of their age group, performing punk, rock, and disco songs, for example, by James Brown, and Sonic Youth. Many of the 24 members must overcome ill health and other hardships to participate, adding new songs to their repertoire - including "Yes We Can Can", "Schizophrenia" and "I Feel Good" - with the help and encouragement of chorus director Bob Cilman. Although they have toured Europe and sang for royalty, this account focuses on preparing the new songs, not an easy endeavor, for the concert in their hometown, which succeeds in spite of several real heart breaking events. (Movie directed by Stephen Walker, 2007)
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When the Young@ Heart began in 1982 the members all lived in an elderly housing project in North- ampton, MA called the Walter Salvo House. The first group included elders who lived through both World Wars. Anna was a stand-up comic who at 88 told jokes that only she could get away with, she sang with the group until she was 100. read more »
Historical flight - Swiss ‘Rocketman’ Yves Rossy crosses English Channel with homemade jet wing in 10 minutes
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TO INFINITY and beyond. But first, Kent. Daredevil Swiss pilot Yves Rossy soared into the record books yesterday by making the first solo flight across the English Channel - using a single, homemade rocket-powered wing strapped to his back. Mr Rossy, nicknamed "Fusionman", navigated the crossing from Calais to Dover in less than 15 minutes before proclaiming it was now possible for all of mankind to "fly a little bit like a bird".
Yves Rossy, 49, who calls himself Fusionman - half man, half bird - made the 21-mile, jet-powered flight from Calais, France, to Dover, England, in just less than 15 minutes while traveling at speeds of more than 125 mph, The Daily Telegraph said.
An airline pilot by day, Mr Rossy's attempts to traverse the 22-mile stretch had twice been thwarted by typically overcast British weather conditions. But by yesterday lunchtime, a crisp autumn day allowed the 49-year-old to drop from a light aeroplane 8,000 feet above the French coast and set off into clear blue skies.
15 Sep 1795 "Lyrical Ballads" published by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
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Coleridge first met William Wordsworth in 1795, when he traveled to the Dorset home where the poet lived with his sister Dorothy. He walked 50 miles to get there, and as he approached Wordsworth noticed that their over-excited visitor "did not keep to the high road, but leaped over a gate and bounded down a pathless field by which he cut off an angle." The two bonded instantly. When Wordsworth learned that Coleridge moved to Nether Stowey, he and Dorothy packed up and moved there too.
For a solid year between 1797 and 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge were in close, daily contact. They took long walks together and spent hours discussing poetry and literature. The two men were at the forefront of what is now known as the Romantic period. For Romantics, nature was the only source of real inspiration, the only place where men could truly connect to their deepest and most powerful emotions. In the rugged beauty of the Lake District, Wordsworth and Coleridge had nothing but inspiration. They began to talk of a new kind of poetry, one that relied on the reader's imagination and the honesty of simple language to evoke powerful feelings. They decided to write a collection of poetry together. Wordsworth's job was to write poems about everyday topics; Coleridge would tackle poems about "persons and characters supernatural" that were true enough to provoke in readers "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
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Image courtesy wordsworthclassics.com
World's most decorated penguin: Sir Nils Olav, honorary colonel-in-chief of Norwegian King's Guard, now a knight
*UPDATE 22 Aug 2016* Knighted penguin Sir Nils Olav inspects his guard and gets promoted to Brigadier
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For the com- manding officer of the Nor- wegian King's Guard, it was a moment as surreal as it was moving. As Lieutenant-Colonel Ingrid Gjerde surveyed the scene before her in Edinburgh yesterday, she must have wondered whether she was dreaming. For the King's Guard was about to award a knighthood to what was already the world's most decorated penguin.
Nils, or now Sir Nils Olav, waddled into the history books Friday when he was knighted by a visiting royal Norwegian regiment in Scotland. The king penguin became the first black-and-white pint-sized Norwegian Sir with wings after inspecting the Norwegian King's Guard, which is visiting Edinburgh for the annual Military Tattoo. read more »