Feeling Blue?

Did the recent "news" of a new Crayola® blue crayon being introduced and a favorite yellow color going into retirement, excite you?

Me neither.

But then, it's been quite a long time since I used any crayons. 

In case you haven't heard, bright-yellow dandelion is on its way out of the crayon box and a(nother) blue color will be join the crayon ranks. 

Why a new blue? That's America's favorite color crayon so says U.S. crayon-maker Crayola. The yet-unnamed blue will join its crayon buddies in a 24-count Crayola box, but not until Dandelion leaves or should I say "retires" as that's the term that Crayola uses. Dandelion's retirement leaves a lone yellow crayon in the box. 

The new blue is described as brilliant blue and its color is “inspired” by a blue pigment, “YInMn” blue from yttrium, indium and manganese oxide, elements that comprise the pigment. (Right, I knew that. Not really.) 

The story goes that the color was accidentally discovered by Oregon State University chemists years ago in 2009. Chemists were mixing and heating chemicals to find new materials for electronics use. In 2016, NPR reported that a sample heated to a temperature of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit came out "strikingly blue." Crayloa executives heard of the pigment find and contacted the chemists about using it. 

Color blue aficionados, and anyone else, could help name the new blue by submitting name suggestions on Crayola’s website. In early September, Crayola will announce the fan-selected name winner. It will have to wait until late 2017 to join the crayon pack. That's because as a newly-discovered pigment, it must go through regulatory approval. (Sort of like drugs and chemicals and wondering why this wasn't done earlier.)

Shed no tears for dandelion yellow which, since 1990, has spent 27 years in the crayon business. It's on a crest of pre-retirement fame and going out celebrity style. There's a North American retirement tour and Instagram updates with “requests” for its next stop. It will also enter the Crayola Hall of Fame. (What more could a crayon want?)

And, anticipating a run on dandelion yellow, the company started selling 64-packs of all dandelion crayons after the retirement news. (I'll bypass that buy.)

• Crayola didn’t invent the crayon, that claim goes to Europe.
• Crayons are made primarily from paraffin wax and color pigment.
• Early crayons were made from a mixture of charcoal and oil. Powdered pigments of various hues replaced charcoal. It was found that substituting wax for oil in the mixture made the sticks sturdier and easier to handle. 
• Crayola crayons were invented by Edwin Binney and his cousin C. Harold Smith in 1902 and first sold in 1903. 
• Edwin Binney was color-blind.
• The Crayola name was coined by Mrs. Binney by merging the French word "craie," (stick of chalk) and "ola" from "oleaginous (oily).
• Crayola marked its centennial year in 2003 and makes over 3 billion crayons annually.

And now you know the story of a new and a retiring crayon. While it wasn't the biggest news story of the day, it was a pleasant diversion from recent news events.

NOW for a question — My favorite color(s) are purple & red, and YOURS ?

Bear With Us

Recently we took a road trip to celebrate the 20th anniversary of our 1st date and posted highlights here. 

What wasn't shown was our trip to "bear" country, not to see live bears — but teddy bears.

Vermont Teddy Bear Company is now the largest U.S. teddy bear manufacturer with an output of 150,000 bears annually. It began in the 1980s when a Vermont resident, John Sortino, found that his children’s stuffed toys, including teddy bears, were non-USA made. Working from his garage, he stitched together a bear and named it “Bearcho,” (an ode to Groucho Marx). Sortino later added movable body parts, re-naming the bear “Buddy.”

During the first year, he sold 200 bears from an outdoor market in Burlington, Vermont. When a visiting tourist asked to have one sent to her home, he added packaging and mailing bears and created the "Bear-Gram." It featured a customized teddy bear placed in a box (complete with "air hole"). Today, bears are still packaged this way.

Sortino opened a factory in 1985, followed a decade later by the facility we visited in Shelburne, Vermont. Another factory is in Newport. Each bear consists of 20 parts and 14 layers of fur. There are various stations along its path to completion, such as the Sewing Station, where parts are stitched inside-out to hide the seams and the Stuffing Station, where, a machine shoots recycled bottle fillings into the bear at 100 mph. 

Not only are all teddy bears assembled in Vermont, but most of the component materials come from America as well; the bear "fur" is made in Wisconsin. The eyes of every bear contain the phrase “Born in Vermont” as does a rear tag.

Each bear comes with a lifetime guarantee and will be repaired or replaced, at any time, as long as the tag on the bear’s rear is identifiable. Injured bears go to the Bear Hospital for treatment. If the injury is too serious, the bear will be replaced. During our factory tour, we saw several bear "tragedies" including burned when used as a pot holder, chewed by a dog, melted in the dryer, and run over by a lawn mower. 

We met the "head" (or rather very large) bear" during our factory tour. And, we couldn't leave (actually we could have, but decided not to) and brought home our own teddy bear, who we named "Shelby."

Friday Funnies

Out of this world or perhaps part of a Tim Burton fantasy? (Burton is an American film director and producer known for eccentric and quirky fantasy films like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas.)

That's what we thought about these art works on display in the Nashua (NH) Public Library park this week. There were no explanation about these creations by artist Jerry Beck, who has done previous exhibits in the city as part of the city's ARTVentures project. The sculptures are made from discarded items and bound together with lots of tape. One thing is certain they are colorful and very unique.

Enjoy your weekend, Everyone.

Thanks to everyone who left comments on the previous post about Hands-on CPR. It's a procedure we also hope not to have to use, but it's good to be prepared "just in case."

Check, Call, Compress

It's all about possibly saving someone's life and doing it to the beat of a pop song.

The post title are the 3 basic steps to follow for Hands-Only CPR (cardio-pulmonary) without using the former mouth-mouth resuscitation method. In April, 2008, the American Heart Association (AHA) took steps to simplify the process of helping victims of cardiac arrest by introducing "hands-only" CPR. More information is on the AHA website.

You don't need formal CPR training to understand how to perform this type of resuscitation. The rescuer starts compressions over the heart, at about the nipple line, and compresses at a regular rhythm. It's simple, but helps to maintain brain and heart perfusion. The rhythm is similar to the beat in the popular song Staying Alive. In essence, that's all someone needs to do until medical help or an AED (automated external defibrillator arrives.  

It's estimated that each year, about 310,000 Americans, who died of cardiac arrest at home or in a public place, did not receive help. Bystanders were afraid to initiate CPR for fear they would "do something wrong" or "won't know what to do." Others were reluctant to perform mouth-to-mouth breathing for fear of contracting an infection.

That's why the AHA proposed the new guidelines. It allows bystanders untrained in conventional CPR or who fear "making a mistake" a way to offer help. According to medical professionals, doing something is preferable to not doing anything.

It consists of these steps:

1. Call 9-1-1 yourself or ask someone else to do that.
2. Interlock your hands and position them in the center of the person's check, keeping your elbows straight.
3. Push hard and fast in the center of the chest for up to 100 compressions per minute. 

You can see the technique presented in this AHA video, which includes the Staying Alive song. While the presentation may appear light-hearted, the message is serious and could save a your life — perhaps your own or that of someone you know (or don't know).

NOTE: This video was done by the AHA and embedded from YouTube. I was unaware that it's only one of several provided by the AHA, so you may want to not watch them all.

The local ambulance service here in Nashua recently presented a program at the Senior Center which we both took. Later this month we're taking an advanced course. While most folks hope to never need to do this, it's good to know how to do it (just in case).

Check in your area as well. The AHA is conducting a nationwide campaign to spread awareness of this life-saving technique and this week it was featured on a segment of ABC's Good Morning America program.