Learning Something New Everyday

I've made it a point in my life to try and learn something new everyday. I believe that life isn't worth living if you don't learn something new. Something new causes you to think, to imagine and to learn something you hadn't known before.  The new nugget of information doesn't have to be something monumental. Something simple would do just fine.

A good source that I found resides right on the Google home page. If you look under the search bar on Google's page, you'll see a clickable box called "I'm Feeling Lucky". Clicking on this box takes you to the Doodle 4 Google page which shows the Google logo drawn in honor of different event such as Days of Independence of various countries and birthdays of different historic figures. If looking at those doodles and what they signify doesn't peak your curiosity I don't know what will. 

To go back to my original point of learning something new everyday day, what have I learned that's new. Last night while watching an episode of How It's Made on Science Channel On Demand, I saw how Barbershop poles are made. Not only that, but the narrator explained why those poles were important historically. Not that I doubted the narrator's description of the history of the barber pole, but I decided to do some research of my own.

According to Barberpole.com:

The modern barber pole originated in the days when bloodletting was one of the principal duties of the barber.  The two spiral ribbons painted around the pole represent the two long bandages, one twisted around the arm before bleeding, and the other used to bind is afterward.  Originally, when not in use, the pole with a bandage wound around it, so that both might be together when needed, was hung at the door as a sign.  But later, for convenience, instead of hanging out the original pole, another one was painted in imitation of it and given a permanent place on the outside of the shop.  This was the beginning of the modern barber pole.

See what I mean? How many of you out there can say you knew that. 

Today I came across an article on one of my favorite blog pages called Past Imperfect which is hosted on Smithsonianmagazine.com. This blog site has a variety of historical articles. The one I read recently was about Pablo Fanque. Fanque was an expert equestrian, tightrope walker, acrobat, showman–and Britain's first black circus owner. Not to spoil it for you (since I know you will read it now that I included the link for you ;P) but there is a connection between Pablo Fanque and Beatle John Lennon. 

So go out and read, load up your RRS reader with a multitude of informative blogs and articles, explore and learn something new today and everyday.

FH