Agathe von Trapp, the eldest daughter of the von Trapp family made famous in "The Sound of Music," who took exception to the way her father was portrayed, died December 28 at the age of 97. "She had been rabidly negative about the musical and film," said her physician, Dr. Janet Horn, who with her husband financed the publication of 3,000 copies of Miss von Trapp's memoir, which she wrote to set the record straight about her family's exploits. She said that Miss von Trapp, who was depicted as Liesl in the musical, continued to sing around the house until about three years ago. Friends said she spoke matter-of-factly and did not care for some of the twists added to her family's story for the 1959 Broadway musical and 1965 Academy Award-winning film. She wanted people to know that her father, Capt. Georg von Trapp, a widowed Austrian aristocrat who was played by Christopher Plummer in the film and Theodore Bikel on Broadway, was not cold, unfeeling and distant. She insisted that he was a kind and loving father who helped her and her siblings to sing. She also adored her mother. "Agathe von Trapp cried when she saw the show at its Broadway opening in 1959. She would have been just as enchanted as the rest of the audience had the characters' last name been Miller. But this was her family's name, and it was not her family's story," according to an article in The Baltimore Sun in 2003. The article noted that in the movie that broke box-office records, she came out of her shell at "16 going on 17," but the reality of her life was different. "It's very strange for me; I've been living a very quiet life. All of a sudden, these people want to see me," she said at the time she published her autobiography, in which she sought to differentiate between fact and fiction in the Broadway libretto and screenplay. Among other liberties, the children's first names and sexes had been changed. In real life, Agathe von Trapp had an elder brother, but in the musical the eldest child was a girl, Liesl. As the eldest daughter, Agathe von Trapp had assumed that was her. Miss von Trapp said the nun (played on Broadway by Mary Martin) who became her stepmother was not a governess. She was a tutor for one of the von Trapp sisters, who was too weak from scarlet fever to make the 45-minute trek to school. Miss von Trapp said the family did not cross the Alps to escape Austria. They crossed the street and boarded a train. December 29, 2010 by Jacques Kelly, The Baltimore Sun
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-12-29/news/bs-md-ob-agathe-vontrapp-20101229_1_agathe-von-georg-von-janet-horn

The New Year Bells
Ding, dong, ding, dong. (4 x)
Ring out the old, ring in the new, ring out the false, ring in the true.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

January by Alice E. Allen
Sparkling world and shining sky, sleigh bells jingling, jangling by,
Skates that gleam and sleds that fly, make up January.

Snowy world and low-hung cloud, snowflakes whirling in a crowd,
Winds a-whistling long and loud, make up January.

Snow and shine, and shine and snow, days that swiftly come and go,
Thirty-one of them, you know, make up January.

Q. Should a house sign with a surname on it use an apostrophe? For instance, would it be The Smith's or The Smiths.
A. Either is acceptable. The Smith's means The Smith's house. The Smiths refers to the family.

Full moon calendar for 2011
Wednesday, 19 January 2011, 10:21:24 pm
Friday, 18 February 2011, 09:35:42 am
Saturday, 19 March 2011, 07:10:06 pm
Monday, 18 April 2011, 04:44:00 am
Tuesday, 17 May 2011, 01:08:42 pm
Wednesday, 15 June 2011, 10:13:36 pm [*]
Friday, 15 July 2011, 08:39:36 am
Saturday, 13 August 2011, 08:57:30 pm
Monday, 12 September 2011, 11:26:42 am
Wednesday, 12 October 2011, 04:05:42 am
Thursday, 10 November 2011, 09:16:06 pm
Saturday, 10 December 2011, 03:36:24 pm [*]
Time specified in Central European Time (CET) or Summer Time (CEST)
http://www.fullmoon.info/en/fullmoon-calendar.html

The full moon calendar 1900-2050
There are exactly 1,867 full moons between 1900 and 2050. Would you like to know if you or your loved ones were born during full moon? Here you will find the answer. We have also compiled some events in the full moon telegram in the corresponding category, that happened during full moon. http://www.fullmoon.info/en/fullmoon-calendar_1900-2050.html

Some people go to court hoping to win millions of dollars. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have already won tens of millions. But six years into a legal feud with Facebook, they want to give it back — for a chance to get more. The Winklevosses — identical twins and Harvard graduates — say that they, along with another Harvard student, Divya Narendra, had the original idea for Facebook, and that Mark Zuckerberg stole it. They sued Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg in 2004, and settled four years later for $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook shares.
They have been trying to undo that settlement since, saying they were misled on the value of the deal. See much more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/business/31twins.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=busln

It may have been word of the year in some wheelhouses, but "refudiate" wasn't looked upon favorably by many who sent in nominations for Lake Superior State University's 36th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness, which was released on New Year's Eve. In a busy U.S. election year, "the American People" told LSSU they were tired of not only "refudiate," but also "mama grizzlies" who wanted their opponents to "man up." But words and phrases related to technology and the way we communicate dominated the list for 2011, including "viral," "epic," "fail," and the use of websites "Facebook" and "Google" as verbs. "Viral" received the most nominations. The "back story" on LSSU's popular list began on Jan. 1, 1976, when former LSSU Public Relations Director Bill Rabe and a group of friends each contributed a few expressions that they disliked to form the first list. After that, the nominations stacked up for future lists and Rabe's group, known then as The Unicorn Hunters, didn't have to make up its own list again. LSSU receives well over 1,000 nominations annually through its website, lssu.edu/banished. See the 2011 list at: http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php