A Study in… Christmas Traditions

We’ve never done anything extra special for Christmas, just some quirky family traditions added in with the normal. I, like most American children, was always really into Christmas. I LOVED getting new toys to play with and always hated getting clothes. Our family tradition when I was younger was always to wait until 8:30 or 9:00 to get out of bed. We weren’t allowed to get out of bed before my dad, or we wouldn’t get any of our presents. So I would lay in bed staring at the ceiling until finally after an eternity he would knock on my door. Then came more torture, we would have to wait for my mom to make breakfast, and then eat it. After this we would all gather in the living room and stare at the presents, at least I did, while my dad read the Christmas story and tried to redirect my focus off the presents. Finally we would get to the presents. I normally got to go first, unless I was really rowdy, then I would have to wait till last. As I got a little older things changed, I wasn’t as excited about the presents and was more interested in the sleep. This was when my dad started waking us up at 3:00 in the morning to open our presents. I liked this about the first two years it happened. Then my brothers got married and had kids, so now we spend Christmas Eve with them eating, playing games, and exchanging gifts. Christmas day, normally in the morning we finish opening the gifts we got from our parents and they open their gifts. The rest of the day we spend watching Christmas movies, eating junk food, and just being lazy. One of my traditions has been to put up the Christmas lights on Thanksgiving day, but I flubbed that this year. I was too lazy, and then went to the Eagles game that night, but the past couple years some people in my family have wanted to skip the Christmas tree, that hasn’t happened yet, and hopefully it never will. I still do like Christmas a lot, and it is one of my favorite times of year. I love sitting in the living room looking at the tree all lit up and reading a book, or just drinking coffee. I even like Christmas music, mostly because it is only played for just over a month every year, so it always seems fresh and new.  So that’s what happens here on Christmas. Oh, and tonight at 6:45 EST we are starting the live streaming of our churches Christmas cantata, so tune in if you want to! There should be a red box on the main page of our website indicating that we are streaming.

(Edit)

Wisemen tradition… It really isn’t torture, it’s just something we started to make our manger scene more biblical. We take the wisemen and their camels and place them in the kitchen, on top of the microwave so that it looks like they are traveling to Israel, following the star. That’s all… Oh and the snow if to symbolize sand dunes…

A Study in… Busy

Ha, yeah, so I’ve been busy lately, plus I was just too lazy to post. So after a short sebatical, I am back! Yeah, that is a picture of a set of steps that were built for our Church cantata, or “Christmas play with a biblical message” for you people in Alaska! Anyway we were going to a first centuryish look, so I poured gasoline on them and lit them up. They turned out pretty good, and structurally sound, I think.  Christmas is almost here and things are starting to get even more busy. I do however plan on posting a little more often than once every two weeks, LoL.

A Study in Bee’s

Due to the recent influx of bee’s at our house, all trying to escape the cold, I figured I would do a “Study in Bee’s”.

There are nearly 20,000 known species of bee, in nine recognized families, though many are undescribed and the actual number is probably higher. They are found on every continent except Antarctica, in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants.

 

-Bees fly an average of 13-15 mph.

-A bee travels an average of 1600 round trips in order to produce one ounce of honey; up to 6 miles per trip. To produce 2 pounds of honey, bees travel a distance equal to 4 times around the earth.

-Honeybees visit about 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey.

-During honey production periods, a bee’s life span is about 6 weeks.

-Just a single hive contains approximately 40-45,000 bees!

-Honeybees are the only insects that produce food for humans.

-About 8 pounds of honey is eaten by bees to produce 1 pound of beeswax.

-Beeswax production in most hives is about 1 1/2% to 2% of the total honey yield.

-The average hive temperature is 93.5 degrees.

-Queens will lay almost 2000 eggs a day at a rate of 5 or 6 a minute. Between 175,000-200,000 eggs are laid per year.

-Bees from the same hive visit about 225,000 flowers per day. One single bee usually visits between 50-1000 flowers a day, but can visit up to several thousand.

-Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

-A colony of bees have to fly almost fifty-five thousand miles and tap two million flowers to make one pound of honey.

-A honey bee strokes its wings about 11,500 times a minute.

-Bees can communicate with other bees by dancing. Their dance can alert other bees as to which direction and the distance nectar and pollen is located.

-It takes 12 honeybees to make one teaspoon of honey.

-In one day, a queen bee can lay up to 1500 eggs in one day.

-In a lifetime, on average a honey bee produces 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey.

-Honeybees use the sun as a compass which helps them navigate.

-A honey bee has four wings

-Honeybees are the only bees that die after they sting.

- Honeybees are entirely herbivorous when they forage for nectar and pollen, but can cannibalize their own brood when stressed.

- Honey speeds the healing process and combats infections.

- Honey never spoils.

- It would take about 1 ounce of honey to fuel a honeybee’s flight around the world.

- Honeybee colonies have unique odors that members flash like ID cards at the hive’s front door, so the guard bees can recognize the entering bees.

- Honeybees are responsible for the pollination of approx 80% of all fruit, vegetable and seed crops in the U.S.

C. Jeykumar of Dhalavaipuram, Tamil Nadu covered his entire body with 60,000 Italian honey bees for 24 hours from 12 noon on Sept 24 to 12 noon the following day. He also kept 175 bees in his open mouth for 3 min 7 sec. This exercise took place before the general public and Rotarians of Rajayapalayam.

 

This is a yellow jacket nest, I just thought it looked cool…

A Study in Skateboarders

Skateboarders dress mostly the same, long, scraggly hair, a beanie or flat brimmed hat, tight jeans (ICK), some turned up at the bottom, normally an iPod blaring away, cellphone in hand, shirts and shoes supporting their favorite brand, some tattoos or piercings, most are just miniature punks not even old enough to shave. Skateboarders are generally classified as rebellious troublemakers. People generally look on them with disdain, for good reason too. Their attitudes more often than not match their stereotype. On a recent trip to B&N, a group of skateboarders came in. They walked up to the Starbucks counter, headphones in ears, and proceeded to order their drinks. Never once did they take their ear buds out. They raised quite a raucous yelling at each other above the music each was listening to. Pretty much everyone in B&N was mad at them, sighs of relief went up as they stepped out. So I decided to sketch this sketch of one of the skateboarders that was particularly stupid…

Sorry if it’s a little hard to see, the scan kinda made it messier. Note the stupid look on his face, that’s a norm for skateboarders too, it comes from low IQ levels…