No Thanksgiving?

It's "Turkey Day" in the U.S.A. today. Happy Thanksgiving!

Canada celebrated Thanksgiving last month. Happy (Much Belated) Thanksgiving!

Different countries celebrate different holidays, or the same holidays on different days. I was thinking about Thanksgiving here, and why it was started in the United States, and how that history is not history of the country I'm going to be started. Does that mean my country won't be celebrating Thanksgiving? Not necessarily. But it does mean if there is a Thanksgiving, it won't be the fourth Thursday of November each year.

So just what holidays will be celebrated and observed? Well, based on my preferences, there will be eight to start. Most of the reasons why are personal, and it seems they may eventually lead to a religion discussion in relation to the country. But this entry isn't about what religion(s), if any, will be the official religion of my country. It's about what holidays will be official.

My Birthday - This is a personal holiday I take every year. To make my life happier, in my country it will be a holiday for everyone! Or, this will probably translate to everyone gets a personal holiday on their own birthday.

Vernal (Spring) Equinox
Easter
Summer Solstice
Autumnal Equinox
Halloween
Winter Solstice
Christmas

What about other holidays? No New Year's?
Well, if we do one, January 1st being the most obvious, we really have to do them all I think. Including the Chinese New Year, the Islamic New Year, Halloween as the Witch's New Year, and whatnot.
No Thanksgiving?
As I started with, if a Thanksgiving does come about it will very likely be on a different day due to a different history.
What about all major religious holidays?
And just how many is that!

As with many countries, there will likely be a holiday for the establishment of the country as well. But since the country doesn't exist yet, there's no way to know what the date of that will be nor what the history of it is. Keep checking here to find out as it evolves!

Let There Be Light

From what I've read so far, it's said that the real cost of an island is that of putting things on it a person needs to live there. Shelter, plumbing, and whatnot. Hey, I'm willing to live with wood heat and an outhouse. Fire is happy! But I can't live without electricity. Not because I need lights. No no, everyone knows "dark == good" when it comes to me. But because I need electronics, and electronics need power.

Given that the country will be on an island, it seems the easiest solution to the power problem would be hydro-power. It's clean, renewable, and the water that it runs off of is all around! Whether by using a change in elevation, the changing tides, or new technology seems to think power can also be generated off the difference in water pressure, I think I could build my own small-scale Hydroelectric generator on the island to meet my needs. I have no idea at this point how much power the island would need. It's possible I'd have to build or buy a large Hydroelectric generator. Either way, when buying the island we should keep in mind power plans and make sure the island has some place that will support it.

It's not like running power lines to an island is an option, unless the island is right next to land and I'm willing to pay the local power company, which I wouldn't be. How can a country be establishing itself without basic independence? Then again, selling power back to the local power company from the island's own power source would be a possible source of revenue.

Exports: Apple beer and power.
Heh.

Other thoughts on powering the island have been wind towers and solar panels, again because they are clean and renewable. I expect importing for some type of fossil fuel power will become prohibitive pretty quick. The only problem with those two is they are not constant or consistently reliable sources due to weather. Nor do they generate as much energy for the investment as hydroelectric power.

Or I could get this guy to build me a small fusion reactor! Then all I'd need would be some way to generate the electricity to restart the core if it ever stops. A wind tower that feeds into a storage battery would probably do the trick.

Tower of Babble?

It has been decided that the official language of my country will be English, and that "text-speak" is not allowed unless you are actually using a cell phone to send text. All other correspondence and text forms of communication require real words, punctuation, and capitalization! You do not need to know how to spell, but if you don't then you have to use a spell checker. Word processors that allow you to write however you wish but then are used to correct before your writing is done are allowed.

How did this edict come about? Well, after noting to each other that we knew the U.S. doesn't have an official language (nowhere in any legal U.S. documents is English named the language of the U.S.), my co-worker and I were discussing possible languages for my country. We initially liked Latin, until he mentioned only us, a few archaeologists, and a bunch of Catholic priests would be talking to each other. And I don't even know Latin.

We agreed we liked the dead language concept, but didn't come up with one we liked enough before I realized I wasn't going to learn a new (non-programming) language anytime soon, and declared it's English because that's what I know the best.

We also realize the language might end up being another variation of English by the time I'm done with it. You know, like there is British English, American English and Australian English. Mine will probably be called German English, because (currently) my last name is German. Many of my friends have been joking about my country being full of Germans, or being a dictatorship because it's German, or being called Germany which would cause amusing confusions. But I think that won't stick once actual names for the Island and country are known.

However, the way people write it today bothers me to no end! I don't mean bad grammar or the occasional missed misspelling. I mean the blatant lack of caring. My name is Jennifer, not jennifer. It's a matter of respect, people. I am a person and that makes me important, a proper noun, worthy of being capitalized. If you don't think so then you're not important enough for me to care about either. And using punctuation: it allows people reading your ideas to understand what the heck you are actually saying. Otherwise you simply have one long run on of lowercase letters and words that is not worth the effort to try and decipher. In the end, you only make yourself look unintelligent by writing that way. (No, not lazy, but in fact stupid, because no one is so lazy they can't hit one more key to make things correct.) Ditto for using actual words instead of the letter the word sounds like, or a character that means something similar but is a misuse of the character (such as money versus $).

Please don't get me started on missing vowel words, text-speak acronyms, and multiple exclamation marks. Sufficed to say, all bad habits that will not be tolerated in my country. Oh, and all capitals means you are yelling. No exception.

Though oddly enough, those little text faces don't bother me. Ah, the contradiction that I am.

As a side note, the official programming language of my country is LISP. :)

The First Lists

Another thing about me that those who know me know, and the rest of you will learn, I make lists. It started years ago because my memory can be pretty flaky, and lists are an excellent way of keeping track of things. So here are the first lists for the island and country of things that will need to be figured out for them.

Island
Power source(s)
Up Link
Other amenities?
Transportation - Duck boat to begin with?
Money with which to buy it

Country
Flag
Anthem
Revenue source
Currency? - Completely electronic
Government structure

And one thing I didn't even think about that both will need: A name!

News Flash

Another co-worker of mine says she will design my country's website! She does awesome design, so I'm completely excited.

A Real Country According to Frank Zappa

"You can't have a Real Country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer." - Frank Zappa

The day after I decided to buy an island so I could start my own country, I was at the Ann Arbor Brewing Co. waiting for Patrick Stewart, and one of the patrons that passed by had a shirt on with the above quote. It got me thinking. In addition to everything else, apparently my country will need a beer.

As everyone who knows me knows, I don't drink. Not at all. So this is not going to be an easy task for me. There's no way I would know good beer from bad beer! Some friends I brought that topic up with suggested apple beer, because it typically has a low alcohol content and is tasty. Since I'd prefer an island up here in the Northern part of the world where there's a winter and all, it should be very possible to grow apple trees. This means my island will need to have a micro brewery on it, as well as a place to plant apple trees, if it doesn't have some already.

You're Doing What?

On Wednesday, September 27th, I ran across this article on cnn.com about how to start your own country. This lead to amusing discussions between co-workers and myself. However, unlike what the article claims, I think terrain is important. Since the idea was just for fun anyway and completely unattainable, the chatter were short lived.

A couple days ago, on November 7th, the talk of starting my own country was reignited between my co-worker and I, though today neither of us remember why. (I think it was related to the stuff about starting a religion we had discussed the day before.) During the country conversation I said that it can't be one of these virtual things, it has to be real. Which means having land. That lead our discussion to Richard Branson, who had bought his own island from a foreign country. But being more local to my current life would mean having to set up near the U.S. At which point Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway, was brought into the conversation because he owns an island off the coast of Connecticut, and my co-worker knew all this because years ago he had refused to move to work for Mr. Kamen.

Once the idea of owning my own island was in my head, a quick internet search on Google discovered that buying a private island isn't as momentous a task as one would think. In 2002 Forbes.com listed the World's Best Private Islands, an article which says that private islands can be bought for as little as $20,000! Well that sparked enthusiastic talk and more searching online. There are at least two land brokers that deal only with private islands. Prices range from tens of thousands to tens of millions, depending on size and amenities already in place. And best of all, there are islands for sale right here in the state of Michigan! The decision was made: Since I don't have any dreams to aspire to, and that's sad, this was going to be my dream. I'm going to work towards starting my own country!

It's a simple plan really. The key is to first buy an island, and once the land is owned then the country can be started. This blog is where I shall be chronicling my progress.