Hey, Northerners!

North of the equator, that is…today is the Winter Solstice—a magical day of the year. This day is a reminder from Mother Nature of just how harsh and unforgiving she can be. That’s especially so this time of year the further north you go. We’re located in Northern Wisconsin here at Everything Summer Camp, where Winter Solstices are always cold, dark, and typically covered in ice and snow. But we only scratch the surface of winter brutality!

Some theorize that Stonehenge was built to establish when exactly the Solstices would occur.

This year, we’ll see just under nine hours of daylight in Boyd, Wisconsin (roughly the same amount as New York City). If you travel to Helsinki, Finland, you’ll be getting something shy of six hours of daylight! That’s less than a typical school or workday. And, even worse than that, if you go to Barrow, Alaska, you won’t even see a sunrise!

As you can imagine this cycle made our ancient ancestors pretty nervous with the concern that the sun would continue to grow more and more distant until one day it simply blipped out of sight completely. Without a better scientific understanding of the natural cycles of earth, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable concern.

In the heliocentric model, while the North Pole hadn’t seen a sunrise since October, the South Pole is being showered in nightly sunrays until March. Which is when things here in Northern Wisconsin will start to warm up; it’s time for the planet’s second winter solstice.

It’s easy to be“hemisphere-o-centric”—after all, the vast majority of people on the planet live in the northern hemisphere—but the other side of the planet certainly gets a winter solstice as well. Since Earth’s orbit is tilted on its axis the hemispheres trade off over the course of a year on which one sees direct sun. So,while we’re celebrating our Winter Solstice on December 21, folks south of the equator are seeing their Summer Solstice. They’ll get their Winter Solstice around June 21—when we get our Summer Solstice.

It can be hard to visualize just from reading about it, so I’ve included the most helpful visual I could find.Enjoy as many hours of daylight as you can today and stay nice and warm during the dark! As always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Football Fans!

To kick off the arrival of the football season, I began September on the Blog by going around the office to see what teams we here at Everything Summer Camp predict to see playing in Suberbowl LI. With our prized teams in mind, everyone here has their fingers crossed that our predictions come true. With the seventh week of the regular season just having passed, next week marks the season’s halfway point, so I thought we’d review our employee’s predictions and see how our teams are looking so far.

As you’ll have it with a bunch of Wisconsinites, lots of us are rooting for the Packers to take the Superbowl and predicting that we’ll play against the New England Patriots. People who made this prediction include our company president, Ed; our Operations Manager, Brian; our Graphics Department Manager, Nate; our Assistant Shipping Manager, Mike; and our Printing Technician, EJ. So far the Packers are sitting at 4 wins and 3 losses while the Patriots have 5 wins and 2 losses.

In other offices, our Vice President, Mark says it’s going to be a close Packer win against the Tennessee Titans who also have 4 wins and 3 losses. And our Graphic Artist, Amy, thinks the Texans who are currently 3 and 3 will be taking the backseat in a Superbowl against the Pack. Our Sales Director Matt thinks the Packers are going to match up with the Pittsburgh Steelers and that the Steelers are going to win! The Steelers are currently 5 wins and 2 losses.

Tim’s prediction being the only one that didn’t include the Packers, he says we’ll see the Dallas Cowboys who are 3 and 3 match up with the Oakland Raiders at 3 wins and 4 losses. He believes the Cowboys are going to take the Superbowl.

The season still has a whole half to go, but this is where our Employee NFL Picks stand for now. The odds look likelier for some teams more than others, but you can’t quite tell at this point in the season just who will be moving into the playoffs and who doesn’t stand a chance. Join us at Everything Summer Camp and enjoy the rest of the NFL season. And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Mystics!

I have some bad news for all of you. Today is Friday the 13th—a decidedly UNlucky day. It’s a day that twists the arms of many to avoid typical daily events like running errands or hanging out with friends. Some folks opt to avoid going outside entirely and, even further, a select few of those folks won’t even venture out of bed, save kitchen and bathroom trips. Under most circumstances, I’d say this reaction is ridiculous…

Today, however, I’m singing a different tune.

Friday the 13th is bad enough, but to make matters worse, today’s unlucky matchup of day and date falls in the spookiest of months: October. The month of harvest celebrations, All Hallow’s Eve, and candy corn (*gross*), October sets a beautiful, but somber tone as we enter the thick of the autumnal season and advance toward the end of the year.

Belief in the superstition of bad luck and other supernatural ideas lends the notion that today truly is a perfect storm of unlucky signs: an unlucky day of the week falling on an unlucky date of the month in the unluckiest month of the year. It’s so bad that you may just want to take such ridiculous precautions like not leaving your home. I say, if it means avoiding something…unlucky…sign me up.

I’m not typically one to believe in such superstitious hullabaloo, but when it gets to this point, I’d feel stupid if I didn’t take precautions. I’ve bolted my doors, turned off all phones, I even have my black cat locked up in the other room. He’ll forgive me tomorrow. Until then, I’ll be right here with my head underneath the pillows, avoiding the day as best I can. I wish the same to all of you. And, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Bubbly Blog Buddies!

Today we celebrate something that we all know and love. It’s important to anyone who ever sent a package by mail, received a package by mail, or sought a therapeutic solution to boredom. Today is National Bubble Wrap Day. Let’s take a closer look at this packing material, turned cultural obsession and learn a little about it today.

HISTORY
Believe it or not, bubble wrap was originally invented to be used as wallpaper—not packing material. In 1957, an engineer named Fielding and an inventor, Chavannes, put their minds together to create a textured wallpaper by sealing two shower curtains together, capturing air bubbles in-between.

Their ‘wallpaper’ flopped, but in the next three years, a member from Fielding and Chavannes’ marketing team, named Bowers, suggested using it for secure shipping of breakable items. By 1960, Fielding and Chavannes founded the Sealed Air Corporation to sell what they called ‘Bubble Wrap’.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?
A lot, actually! The same way that the popularized Kleenex brand name started being used to refer to facial tissues, Bubble Wrap is not a generic term for packing material, but actually the product name specific to Sealed Air’s invention. We just call it all ‘bubble wrap’ because of how catchy the name is. Other manufacturers of air bubble rolls, however, are OmniStar Creative, Alliance Rubber, RDH Packing Solutions, and many more.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllBUBBLE FUN
Of course we love Bubble Wrap for delivering all our breakables to us in one piece, but our love for it doesn’t stop there. Its practical use may be over, but, now that its job is done, who can resist releasing all those trapped little pockets of air? Denver Boy Scouts know how fun popping bubble wrap can be! Just two years ago, they set a world record for Most People Popping Bubble Wrap at once—2681 Scouts. Way to go, fellas!

SUSTAINABILITY
Everyone is worried about sustainability nowadays—and rightly so. One thing we don’t have to worry about, however, is bubble wrap. It was a revolutionizing product in the first place, reducing package size, package weight, and using less protective material—not to mention reduced damage to shipments as well. And as for the product itself, most bubble wrap manufacturers (like Sealed Air and the others listed above) now make bubble wrap from 100% biodegradable material.

A favorite for many, popping bubble wrap is considered exciting (like when you jump on a sheet and burst a bunch all at once) as well as therapeutic (like methodically popping a whole sheet of bubble wrap one at a time). Bubble wrap popping has even inspired some creativity as you can see in the video below. Have fun popping your bubble wrap today and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Penguin People!

Penguins are a favorite for lots and lots of people and it’s no surprise since they’re one of the most unique and interesting birds on our planet. Their species developed in what we call the ‘Era of the Mammals’—around the same time as the first horses, whales, and monkeys of the world. However, while penguins may have arrived at the same time, they aren’t mammals…or are they?
There is much debate as to how penguins should be classified. Clearly, they’re one of the rare species of flightless birds like ostriches, emus, cassowaries, certain ducks, auks, and a few others. But they also have blubber which is mainly a mammal thing. They also spend the vast majority of their life underwater like a fish, but they walk around on land too, as amphibians do.

How weird is that?! No wonder we have a day dedicated to this confusing bird! Celebrate Penguin Awareness Day with us and check out these facts that I put together about this amazingly bizarre bird!

They’re Not Slow.
Notorious for their upright posture and their waddling locomotion, penguins are typically depicted as slow-moving animals. This presumption, however, is completely inaccurate. In fact, there are some penguins out there, like the Adelie Penguin, that can actually move faster than most humans are able to run. And when they really need to cover some ground and FAST, they just hop on their bellies and move like toboggans!

They’re Not Fat, They’re…well, okay…they kind of are...
They need that layer to survive, though! As all marine mammals like seals, otters, orcas, and whales, penguins wear a layer of blubber under their skin too. The only bird with blubber, penguins are smart to have evolved with this trick of aquatic mammals—they would never survive the arctic temperatures without this special layer of fat.

They Drink Salt Water.
“Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”—such is the case when you’re lost at sea, but not if you’re a penguin. While salt water just won’t work with human bodies because of how salty it is, penguins can drink the stuff down all day. Thanks to a gland they have that actually filters the salt from the water, penguins will never die of dehydration by salt water.

They’re Not Afraid of Us.
Especially in comparison to other birds, penguins aren’t afraid of people. They don’t really have a reason to care much about us because penguins don’t typically have an abundance of land predators. What penguins need to watch out for are circling birds of prey overhead—that’s their biggest threat.

They Dress in Camo.
The black-and-white plumage of penguins—often associated with a white shirt and tailcoat—are actually camouflage. Camouflage from the water, that is. Their black backs are lost in the dark depths of the sea and their white stomachs are easily mistaken for the sunlight that reflects off the water’s surface. Of course, their black backs are easily seen against the snow, but I suppose it’s more important to be unseen in the water when you spend 75% of your life in the wet stuff!

It’s no wonder that we find these creatures so fascinating! Happy Penguin Awareness Day, Everyone! Learn more about our feathered friends here and, as always, thanks for reading.
 

- John