Today is...

[IceWizard]

05 Feb 2017


Western Monarch Day



Get out your tiara…wait no! It’s not that day. It is Western Monarch Day. It is a day to celebrate the Western Monarch butterfly. It travels from place to place but this day specifically we give thanks for their return to the central California coast. Why is this so important? It is important to watch and make sure that they do return. The monarch butterfly is facing a terrific decline in numbers. Many conservation groups are calling for it to be protected as an endangered species and claim that the number of declines could be as high as 90%!

History of Western Monarch Day

The Monarch butterfly is a stunning mix of grace and beauty. With rich tones of gold, red, yellow and orange they fly across the landscape and take over the job of pollination. They somehow know when it is time to move. Their migration can be tracked from north and east to south and west, and then back again. Amazingly each way of the migration takes four generations! Can you imagine? Taking into account how much they pollinate, and the fact that their migration takes such a toll on their population it is imperative to understand what their decline really means. Can you picture the toll when I say the decline of Monarch population is near 90%? Let me share a visual with you. Let’s talk people instead of insects. If we were to make a comparison, the loss to the butterfly would be as if all the people in the United States of America died except for those in Ohio and Florida. Stunning isn’t it?

With that picture in mind, can you now see why there is a Western Monarch Day? A day to bring awareness to this frightening decline? A day to find a way to make a difference!



And



National Chocolate Fondue Day



My two favorite things combine to make Chocolate Fondue Day! What does fondue conjure up when you hear it? I think melty, creamy, hot cheese that you dip a variety of breads and meat into. So, hold the phone, Chocolate Fondue Day? Oh yes! Get your dipping tools ready because it is time to melt down some great chocolate and get to work. I know you can do it, you can, right?

History of Chocolate Fondue Day

I’m sure that there has been chocolate fondue forever but now it has its own day. A full day of devotion! 24 hours of guilty pleasure for all the chocoholics out there. There is no guilt to be had when you are merely celebrating a holiday! That is what we tell ourselves during the winter holidays, so why not now? Makes perfect sense to me.

What exactly is fondue you may ask. Fondue is defined as a dish in which small pieces of food are dipped into a hot sauce or a hot cooking medium such as oil or broth. Even the definition makes my heart skip a beat! It doesn’t have to be just cheese as one normally thinks, and a prize should go to whoever was the first person to pop a chocolate bar into their fondue pot!

There are nice restaurants throughout the world that are making a name for themselves with fondue. If you have one in your city or town I would make time to stop in today to honor Chocolate Fondue Day. If there isn’t a fondue type eatery near you, you could head over to your favorite search engine and pick a few recipes and turn your dining room into a fondue heaven. Just invite some friends and pick up your skewers and have some fun!

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February 5 Birthdays



Al Kooper - 73



Christopher Guest/Nigel Tufnel - 69



Bobby Brown - 48



Hank Aaron - 83



Duff McKagan - 53



Trayvon Martin - (1995 - 2012) (17)







February 5th

2006: The Rolling Stones performed the halftime show of Super Bowl XL in Detroit. The NFL imposed a five-second delay & censored lyrics considered too explicit. The Stones had agreed to the censoring.

1998: Elton John & Stevie Wonder performed at a White House dinner for President Bill Clinton & U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.

1991: Kiss drummer Peter Criss appeared on Donahue together with the man who claimed to be Criss in a story for The Star tabloid “Kiss Star Hits The Skids”.

1983: Def Leppard’s third album Pyromania entered the Billboard 200 Album Chart at number 69. The album would peak at number two, spend 116 weeks on the chart & sell ten million records in the U.S.

1981: Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau inducted Joni Mitchell into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the twelfth Juno Awards at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto.

1972: Neil Young released “Heart of Gold”, which went on to become his first and only number one single in the U.S.

1972: Badfinger peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart with “Day After Day” which was their third and final top ten single in the U.S.

1971: Black Sabbath began recording their third album Master of Reality at Island Studios in London. The album would go on to become their first top ten album in the U.S.

1957: Bill Haley & His Comets arrived in the U.K. to begin their tour of the U.K. Haley was the first American rock star to tour the U.K.



Birthdays:

Hal Blaine - Drummer for The Wrecking Crew born in 1929

Al Kooper born in 1944

Christopher Guest/Nigel Tufnel - Guitarist for Spinal Tap born in 1948

Duff McKagan - Bassist for Guns N’ Roses & Velvet Revolver born in 1964