We all know Labor Day, April Fool’s Day, Groundhog Day and Earth Day. These holidays are nationally known and often make headlines. In our lifetime, we’ve all probably celebrated one or all of these (one way or another). There are federal, national, religious, secular and lastly, weird and unusually named holidays. If you’re taking entries, how do I get my holidays on the list? How do I make it official? I guess my first step is to research if any of my days are already taken.

Not surprisingly, I found that there is a “day” for nearly every day of the year. Some days have multiple celebrations. Most of the strangely named and unusual celebrations are not officially recorded by presidential proclamation or congressional records. Go figure. I did find a few I could get on board with: Book Lovers Day, Eat Outside Day & Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day. Some I would not be a supporter of: National Chocolate Covered Insect Day & No Pants Day which is celebrated on the 1st Friday in May, thankfully not at AW. When polled, a few associates came up with celebrations they’d like to add to the list. Continue Reading »

I don’t know about you, but for some reason it always makes my day when Google features one of their custom logos. For those of you that have managed to miss this occurrence, don’t worry. You’re bound to catch one eventually. While usually these alternative logos are in celebration of holidays and historic events, Google also commemorates birthdays of famous artists and scientists. A special colorless logo has appeared in recognition of major tragedies, and on Earth Hour the site switched its background to black symbolize “turning out the lights”. Google Custom Search even hosts a landing page called Blackle, that serves as encouragement to users to save energy. It displays a black background and uses grayish-white font color for search results. Considering the popularity of the search engine, these colors supposedly consume less energy. But, more importantly, the site is a reminder for people to take small steps in their everyday lives to save energy.

Among one of the most fun Google logo alternatives was the recent observance of the 30th birthday of Pac-Man. This interactive logo contained an accurate recreation of the Pac-Man game that could be played in a browser. Google later released a permanent Google Pac-Man site. Another geeky way to have fun with Google is by designing your own home page at Google My Way. Give it a try. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Contributed by: Ashley Popham

The pill. No, not a pill, but THE pill. The pill that sexually revolutionized women and the control over their bodies. The pill that wrapped itself in religious dilemma and political controversy. The pill that to this day still raises concerns over morality and safety.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of this medicinal wonder. Often misunderstood, this hormonal remedy has walked a littered road of controversial backtalk and revolutionary movements. Therefore, like most things taboo, interesting, or just pretty, it has earned itself a Time magazine cover, adequately accessorized with a very detailed and fascinating article. I mean, I read the entire thing.

Whether you’re for it, against it, on it, or a boy, this article gives an intriguing outlook about the history of birth control as a concept, how it transformed into a drug, and ultimately how it became a way of life for many women…and, of course, the chaos that shadowed it.
Check out the Time article here, and leave your thoughts/feelings below.

FYI, today roughly 100 million women around the world use the pill.

Contributed by: Keri Lynch

We’ve talked a lot about how brands are trying to add “Green” to their corporate color palette, sometimes with real, valuable initiatives and sometimes with just words. (Green: Who Can Claim It? and Greenwashing) So in honor of this Earth Day, the 40th Anniversary actually, we’d like put some of those brands to the test to “verdify” how green they really are.

Last month, SunChips introduced the world’s first fully-compostable chip bag. The new bags, made of plant-based materials, should fully decompose in 14 weeks (under typical hot composting conditions). A few weeks later, Snyder’s of Hanover announced it too would be using sustainable packaging (on its organic line of pretzels).

I don’t have a compost pile, much less the perfectly mixed 1-2-2-2-1 “hot” compost that SunChips recommends, but I do find the random scrap of trash in my yard after trash day. Would the bags eventually decompose in my yard or on the side of the road? We plan to find out.

For our Earth Day experiment, we have staked one of these composting bags to the ground to simulate errant trash. We will photograph our progress and share the results on the blog.