Silly Photo of the Day- Day Without Shoes Day 2013

 

Even though we are politically liberal here at "The Daily Vampire" (apologies to Oak Ridge Boys fans), we are not inclined to take part in Day Without Shoes Day, although we are taking a yoga class at the Northern Arizona Yoga Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., later today (this is a joke: Though there is an actual place called the Northern Arizona Yoga Center, we don't live anywhere near Flagstaff_ not even in the same time zone).

 

The day is meant to recognize starving children in places like Ghana, Guatemala and Tahiti (well, we suppose rich people also go around barefoot there).

 

With this in mind, we are featuring an image of the British women's beach volleyball player Zara Dampney, who has one of the few professions where one can go to work barefoot every day!

 

SIDEBAR: On a more serious note, we want to take a moment to recognize the three people killed and scores more who were injured in yesterday's bomb blast at the Boston Marathon. For me personally, this brings to mind Amanda Rigg, a 22-year-old Australian tourist who was killed in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before September 11th. I was in close proximity to that blast and I will never forget it. We wrote a story about Rigg in a 2011 entry here:

 

http://nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com/2011/09/ten-years-later-remembering-australian.html

 

 

Other links:

 

http://www.northernarizonayogacenter.com

 

http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com

 

Ten Years Later- Remembering the Australian Tourist (Part One of Two)

"She died alone and all her family got was a letter" was the headline of a story that ran in the Aug. 7, 2007, edition of "The Brisbane Times," which had published a "Sydney Morning News" story from that day about Amanda Rigg.

I had never met Rigg, who was a 22-year-old Australian tourist traveling in Istanbul. But, we walked down the same street in the busy Taksim district of Istanbul near a Chinese restaurant on Sept. 10, 2001, some 10-15 minutes apart.

I was in my since-deceased aunt's apartment that we heard the blast around 5:00 p.m. At the time, we were packing to go Buyukada, an island off the coast of Istanbul. The blast would turn out to be from a suicide bomber, though we weren't entirely positive of that at the time. In fact, I had read in a Turkish newspaper the next day, a mere 20 minutes before I found out about the Twin Towers, that the suicide bomber was a woman. While researching this piece, I found out that the bomber was actually a man named Ugur Bumbul.

Bumbul died in the blast as did two Turkish police officers whom I had seen alive just a quarter-hour before their untimely, unexpected deaths.

Rigg turned out to be the third victim of the blast, but she did not die on the moment of impact. She had lost one of her arms, and she went to a hospital. I would not know of Rigg's death which happened a few days after Sept. 10th until a shopkeeper in ther resort town of Kusadasi, some seven hours south of Istanbul, informed me of the tragic news.

Long before arriving in Turkey, we had planned to go to Kusadasi. And even in the nice tranquil Aegean beaches of Kusadasi, it was hard not to think about what happened and then what happened next.

PERSONAL NOTE: This is the end of Part One. For the sake of the privacy of my family members and brevity, some personal details, such as the fact that we were at a bank before going to my aunt's apartment, were not included.

Tomorrow, I hope to post information about the struggles that Rigg's family faced in Australia in the aftermath of the Sept. 10th Istanbul bomb blast through Internet research.

Initially, this was planned to be a three-part series, but I've decided to shorten it to two simpler entries.

Things We Learned on Google Today- Juventus FC's Star Player Is...

While researching this piece which is continuing to look at famous soccer teams from around the globe, we learned that current Juventus FC star Alessandro Del Piero, 36, holds the team record for most appearances in a team uniform at 635 and team goals scored at 281. Del Pietro is also the team's captain. Juventus FC will face rival Parma on Sept. 11th.

The Italian powerhouse Juventus FC plays its home games in Turin, and the team has a new stadium which is one of the main subjects of discussion amongst European soccer fans.

Del Pietro's teammates include fellow Italians Simone Pepe and Fabio Grosso as well as Serbian star soccer player Milos Krasic.

But, Del Pietro will have to continue playing for five more years to be the oldest player ever to wear a Juventus FC uniform. That distinction belongs to goalie legend Dina Zoff who played until age 41 when he retired from soccer in 1983. Zoff was also the oldest player ever to captain a World Cup-winning team. When he was 40, he tended goal for the 1982 Italian team which won it all in Spain.

Juventus FC won the UEFA Champions League by defeating Ajax Amsterdam in 1996.

SIDEBAR: Starting tomorrow, I will start a three part series on an Australian tourist named Amanda Rigg, who was killed as a result of a suicide bombing by far-left terrorists in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sept. 10, 2001. I happened to walk on the exact same street that she did on that fateful afternoon, which was alas sadly forgotten because of the even more horrific events of the next day.

The series will also discuss my feelings about being so close to one terrorist act as another one happened in my home country the very next day.

SIDEBAR TWO: They were finally able to play tennis today at the U.S. Open in New York. We had mentioned Russian up and comer Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who has perhaps the longest surname in the tennis world. Today, she lost to Serena Williams. But, we wish her well in her seemingly very promising career.