lozzy penguin day - april 25, 2009
april 25, 2009, is a a special day in history. first it is the day when lozzy, alias stephanie, second oldest of the grandchildren on the benefield side, reaches the magic age of 18. second it is national/international penguin day.
of lozzy, i’ll hold off the long version. the important thing is that she is a beautiful intelligent person who has fought the powers that be for many a day and today achieves legal control of her life which she richly deserves.
of penguin day, a variety of happy stops. A few years back i wrote to penguin types about the unofficial penguin day. there were actually at least two different claimants for the prize. today when google reminded me of the day, i found that the variety was in uses of the concept. One of those is so good that i must feature it and give you links to the other celebrations.
a woman named connie celebrates penguin day with humor and history - and links it to chocolate. her happy penguin day 2009 is the kind of page that really deserves to be seen by itself rather than quoted. but, of course, i have to include some of it and there’s really nothing that can be left out:

penguin day began many years ago when someone at nwc (naval weapons center in ridgecrest, california) became aware of the migration habits of the antarctic penguin, the harvest cycle of california strawberries, and the shipping data of worldwide chocolate exporters.
On april 25th of every year, the formally-clad penguins of the antarctic continent begin an incredible northward migration. Penguins are unique in that they are the only migratory birds that don't fly (they swim). They are also unique in that unlike, say, the crested egret, apparently penguins don't take migration all that seriously. In fact, the
penguin's migratory habits are an embarrassment to most instinctively compulsive species. They start their migration in that same wonderfully grand fashion that, say, the canadian geese do. On cue, in synchronicity with some mysterious call of nature, penguins of great number and varied breeds all dive into that "wild blue under" and head north.
Curiously, they only swim about a hundred miles or so from the ice shelf (or whatever) and, after enjoying an extended "krill break", they all shrug (as only penguins can) and seem to lose interest in migrating. After bobbing about for a while like millions of undecided, leaderless penguins (which they are), they all head back south and are home by suppertime.
Incredibly, on april 25, on that very same day that the penguins are involved in the above-described odyssey, the great california strawberry harvest takes place. More strawberries are picked, washed, and boxed up in the san joaquin valley on that day than in all other places worldwide all year long.
Finally, just to round out the symmetrical convergence of these otherwise unrelated events, the world's biggest chocolate exporter, nestle, always ships its greatest tonnage of chocolate during the week of april 25th. It all has to do with cocoa bean futures, swiss bank practices, and international export regulations.
One may be hard-put to imagine another day of the year that
cries out for recognition more eloquently than does april 25th. We call it penguin day.

a hockey fan from philadelphia does an almost as cute bit on happy penguin day 2009 while waiting to see if the pittsburgh penguins will eliminate her team from the stanley cup playoffs. they did and she deserves a quick look at least in sympathy.
on the technical side of the world: first, it turns out that a bunch of computer folks with good politics have a super-organized set of events which make today national penguin day . i am nowhere close to being able to literally understand what they are doing. but i do know that they seek to keep the internet free to the people in the tradition of the original internet developers and

linus torvalds

. torvalds is the maven of linux and he and his followers have always been the natural enemies of microsoft and the internet as big business. i learned about torvalds early in my penguin internet searching/learning because he made tux, the penguin, the mascot of linux and one of my first internet guides was a young english woman who sold his software. today i learned we share the same birthday.
second, i refer you to a page about a german company that has developed a robotic penguin] which the author says ‘ must surely get the prize for most awe-inspiring robot of 2009.’ I always thought the japanese had the lock on penguins [batz-maru] and robots. little did i know the germans have been making penguin robots for a while and now have one that swims and can communicate with its robot penguin siblings. check the site for a youtube video - i won’t impose it on you.
happy 18 darling lozzy. happy penguin day world.