FIAMMA'S FUN FACTS FRIDAY

Tom, I'm just getting "warmed up" in the heat! I love the summer when I can have my favorite treat, hibiscus flowers, which I like the color and the taste. Hibiscus flowers are used to make herbal teas and jams, especially in the Caribbean. Many species are grown to attract bees and butterflies. I always eat the flower first and then my greens and veggies! 

There seems to be an apple growing in my climbing tree - oh, wait, that's a Dell, not an Apple! This is what I use to write my post every Friday! I'm planning on getting an Apple computer and thought you might want to hear some fun facts about the Apple company.

• The very first Apple logo featured Sir Isaac Newton sitting under a tree, with an apple about to hit his head. The Newton logo was designed by Apple founder Ronald Wayne (the guy who sold his stake (that today would be worth $22 billion!) to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak for $800. The logo was only used briefly in 1976, since the detail didn't really show up that well when shrunk down and stuck on a product. The rainbow apple, designed by Rob Janoff, replaced Sir Isaac and remained the symbol of the company for many years until the simpler apple logo of today was introduced in 1998.
• In order to raise enough money to buy parts and build the first few orders of the Apple I, Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen van, and Wozniak (then an HP employee) sold his Hewlett-Packard 65 scientific calculator for $500.
• The Apple I cost $666.66 - not for any Satanic reason! Wozniak explained that the wholesale cost to stores was $500, and adding a third to get the retail price made it around $667, which he changed to $666.66 because it "was just easier to type.”
• The name "Macintosh" was named by Apple employee Jeff Raskin after his favorite apple variety, the "McIntosh." 
• The name "iPod" was inspired by 2001: Space Odyssey. When copywriter Vinnie Chieco saw the white iPod, he thought of 2001 and "Open the pod bay door, Hal!" and added the prefix "i, as in iMac.
• Apple’s first iPod came with a little secret - an Easter egg - in the form of a game that could be accessed if you knew the right combination of buttons to press. Go to the ‘About’ menu, hold down the center button for about three seconds, and you’ll get a Breakout (Pong) game to play while you listen. Breakout was a product that both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak worked on together at Atari, where legend has it that Jobs cheated Wozniak out of thousands of dollars of bonus money.
• The name John, or Johnny Appleseed comes up time and time again in Apple history, but so far there is yet to be an official explanation as to why. One explanation is that it was the pen-name Apple investor and former CEO Mike Markkula used when he wrote programs for the Apple II.  John Appleseed also shows up in the iPhone ads and related iPhone and Mac imagery.

There really was a Johnny Appleseed and his real name was John Chapman. He was born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774. His dream was to produce so many apples that no one would ever go hungry. Over a period of nearly 50 years, owned many nurseries in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, where he grew his beloved apple trees. He always carried a leather bag filled with apple seeds he collected for free from cider mills. He soon was known as the “apple seed man” and later he became known only as “Johnny Appleseed.” He made friends with many Indian tribes and was known to have learned many Indian languages well enough to converse.

I know you enjoyed all my "juicy" facts today, and I hope I've "planted a seed" for you to learn more on your own!  Let's watch Elmo talking to Ben about healthy snacks!

Let's say our alphabet with Elmo, too!