Word of the day

Immanent – existing, operating or remaining within; inherent; spread throughout; subjective; taking place within the mind and having no effect outside of it.

Happy’s in your head

Quote of the day:

It’s not where you’re at, it’s where your head is at.

Your happiness is determined by your thoughts, and if you’re not focused on your surroundings and what you’re doing, they don’t matter.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree who goes on to quote Matthew Killingsworth and Dan Gilbert:

“…how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.”

And Buddha:

We are what we think.  All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 300,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 5 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

The top referring sites were:

1. nominister.blogspot.co.nz
2. kiwiblog.co.nz
3. nzconservative.blogspot.co.nz
4. keepingstock.blogspot.co.nz
5. asianinvasion2006.blogspot.co.nz (Cactus Kate)

The post which got the most comments (51) was water quality concern for all.

The people who made the most comments were:

• 1 robertguyton 375 comments (who blogs eponymously)
• 2 Andrei 343 comments (who blogs at NZ Conservaitve)
• 3 Gravedodger 172 comments (who blogs at No Minister)
• 4 adam2314 161 comments (who blogs at Inquiring Mind)
• 5 robertguyton 160 comments

Robert Guyton # 1 and # 5 is the same person, I think he gets two spots because some comments are linked to his blog and others aren’t.

Thank you all for visiting, those who link and hat tip from their blogs and those who join the conversation.

I appreciate your comments, whether or not I agree with them. A conversation among several is far more interesting than a one-woman diatribe.

I especially appreciate that almost everyone debates the topic and critiques arguments rather than resorting to personal criticism.

I think I had to delete only one comment last year and only rarely had to take a deep breath.

And thanks to WordPress for the blogging platform and excellent service on the very rare occasions I’ve needed help.

Click here to see the complete report.

Get fit hits ACC

RadioNZ reports that the first five days of the New Year are likely to cost the Accident Compensation Corporation about $1 million in claims, as New Year ‘get fit’ resolutions are put into practice.

I ended 2012 with a reminder that exercise can lead to injuries.

As I got to the top of Mt Iron yesterday I reached for my phone to check how long it had taken me, tripped and fell.

My left thumb swelled and my leg is sporting a large multi-coloured bruise and graze but it’s nothing that requires medical assistance or an ACC claim.

It did prompt a resolution for 2013 though – I’ve resolved to take more care to look where I’m going.

Old year, new marriage

We went over to Wanaka last Monday, spent a very happy Christmas Day there with extended family then enjoyed a week of exercise, reading and socialising.

As always happens the population increased through the week and the town was packed when we left yesterday to come home for a wedding.

Finishing the old year with celebrations of a new marriage among happy people was fun.

We counted down to midnight and welcomed 2013 in with Auld Lang Syne with good people full of love and good will which is a very good foundation for whatever the new year brings.

As I look out the window while typing this, the sky is blue, the grass is green and I’m counting my blessings.

 

Happy New Year

Maybe I don’t want a Happy New Year, he said. Maybe I want an intense New Year with a lot of growth experiences

& I had to admit I’d never thought of that.

Brian Andreas @ Story People.

(Click the link for the picture).

 

January 1 in history

45 BC  The Julian calendar took effect for the first time.

1001 – Grand Prince Stephen I of Hungary was named the first King of Hungary by Pope Silvester II.

1449 Lorenzo de’ Medici, Italian statesman, was born.

1651  Charles II was crowned King of Scotland.

1735 Paul Revere,  American patriot, was born (d. 1818).

1772 – The first traveller’s cheques, which could be used in 90 European cities, went on sale in London.

1779  William Clowes, English printer, was born  (d. 1847).

1788  First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, was published.

1800  The Dutch East India Company was dissolved.

1801 The legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland was completed to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1801 The dwarf planet Ceres was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi.

1803  Emperor Gia Long ordered all bronze wares of the Tây Sơn Dynasty to be collected and melted into nine cannons for the Royal Citadel in Huế, Vietnam.

1804 French rule ended in Haiti. Haiti becomes the first black republic and second independent country on the American Continent after the U.S.

1808  The importation of slaves into the United States was banned.

1810  Major-General Lachlan Macquarie CB officially became Governor of New South Wales.

1833 The United Kingdom claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.

1833 Robert Lawson, New Zealand architect, was born  (d. 1902).

1859 Pencarrow, New Zealand’s first lighthouse, was lit for the first time.

1860 First Polish stamp was issued.

1861  Porfirio Díaz conquered Mexico City.

1876  The Reichsbank opened in Berlin.

1877  Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.

1879 E. M. Forster, English novelist, was born (d. 1970).

1880 Ferdinand de Lesseps began French construction of the Panama Canal.

1890  Eritrea was consolidated into a colony by the Italian government.

1892  Ellis Island opened to begin processing immigrants into the United States.

1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal,was officially opened to traffic.

1895  J. Edgar Hoover, American FBI director, was born (d. 1972).

1899 – Spanish rule ended in Cuba.

1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia federated as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton was appointed the first Prime Minister.

1912 The Republic of China was established.

1912  Kim Philby, British spy, was born  (d. 1988).

1919 J. D. Salinger, American novelist, was born (d. 2010).

1925  American astronomer Edwin Hubble announced the discovery of galaxies outside the Milky Way.

1934  Alcatraz Island became a United States federal prison.

1939  William Hewlett and David Packard founded Hewlett-Packard.

1948 The British railway network was nationalised to form British Railways.

1951 – The New Zealand Legislative Council was abolished.

1956  The Republic of the Sudan gained independence.

1958 The European Community was established.

1959 Fulgencio Batista, president of Cuba was overthrown by Fidel Castro‘s forces during the Cuban Revolution.

1960 The Republic of Cameroon achieved independence.

1962 Western Samoa achieved independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa.

1962 – United States Navy SEALs established.

1982 – Peruvian Javier Pérez de Cuéllar became the first Latin American to be Secretary General of the United Nations.

1983 – The ARPANET officially changed to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.

1984 – The Sultanate of Brunei became independent.

1985 The Internet‘s Domain Name System was created.

1985 – The first British mobile phone call was made by Ernie Wise to Vodafone.

1990 – David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City’s first black mayor.

1993 – A single market within the European Community was introduced.

1994 – The North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect.

1995  The World Trade Organisation came  into effect.

1995 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea was detected, confirming the existence of freak waves.

1997 – Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Annan was appointed Secretary General of the United Nations.

1998 – The European Central Bank was established.

2006 – Sydney, sweltered through its hottest New Years Day on record. The thermometer peaked at 45 degrees celsius, sparking bushfires and power outages.

2007 – Adam Air Flight 574 disappeared over Indonesia with 102 people on board.

2009 – 66 died in nightclub fire in Bangkok.

2010 – A suicide car bomber detonated at a volleyball tournament in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan, killing 105 and injuring 100 more.

2011– Estonia officially adopted the Euro currency and becomes the seventeenth eurozone country.

2012 – Kim Jong-un was officially declared the new Supreme Leader of North Korea.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.