4-18-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day:   / Week: 16 
Today: L 36°H 69° Ave. humidity: 24%
     Wind: ave:   9mph; Gusts:  12mph  
     Average Low: 29° Record Low:  16° (1978)
    Average High: 59° Record High:  79° (1989)
           
Quote of the Day
Today’s Historical Highlights
1506 - The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica is laid.
1775 - Paul Revere & William Dawes ride warning the "regulars are coming!"
1783 - Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, 8 yrs to the day since it began.
1853 - 1st train in Asia (Bombay to Tanna, 36 km)
1861 - Battle of Harpers Ferry, VA
1879 - Trial of Standing Bear-Crook on Indians citizen rights begins
1902 - Denmark is 1st country to adopt fingerprinting to identify criminals
1924 - 1st crossword puzzle book published (Simon & Schuster)
1925 - World's Fair opens in Chicago
1949 - Republic of Ireland withdraws from British Commonwealth
1958 - A US federal court rules poet Ezra Pound released from an insane asylum.
1968 - 178,000 employees of US Bell Telephone System go on strike
1968 - London Bridge is sold to US oil company (to be erected in Arizona)
2013 - Two earth-like planets are discovered orbiting the star Kepler-62
 
  Today’s Birthdays:   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Figuring out Windows 8.1…made some big breakthroughs this morning and am much more comfortable with the show thing.
Our group got together for a good lunch at Red Lobster. Mary is expecting her sister and her high school boyfriend this next week in Phoenix. Should be a good weekend for her. Cheryl is also having visitors—her grandson, his girlfriend, her parents and a couple of her brothers. They are only visiting Cheryl and her grandson will stay with her next week while the other family stays at a motel. They are planning on doing Bearizona, Grand Canyon, and other local sites. Cheryl has been busy preparing her house for visitors. It is always clean, but she wants it sparkling for the visitors.  I shared my Cuba pics and they seemed to enjoy them…iPad was great for that.
I returned home to see that HOA group with their little notepad standing in front of my house writing away. I asked what the problem was…the bitchy lady asked why I had tape on an upstairs window that is a tall, narrow window in the stairwell. I explained that the tape was put there by the fix it   man about 6 years ago because the window won’t close properly. I also mentioned that I was tired of their inspections, since the pine needles keep piling up in their big rock solution in our front areas and they are doing nothing about that mess. She made some silly statement that she had written up the tape before. I said she hadn’t. Then the guy said, I think we wrote it up for the next unit, because we didn’t know that the window was for your unit. Idiots never looked at a drawing of the building to see who had what window. Since the same guy owns my unit and the one next door, I know they didn’t write it up in the past, or the window would have a better solution. Oh well, small minds love to deal with this kinda stuff.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Decipher this phrase:
FAIRY
WOLF
DUCKLING
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
OK Then…
A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice.
Bill Cosby
Harper’s Index 
Number of the 17 people bitten my LA Sheriff’s Dept. dogs in the first half of 2013 who were Black or Hispanic: 17
Unusual Fact of the Day
The tallest giraffe of today is less than one-third the height of the tallest dinosaur from the past.                           
Joke-of-the-day
A sweet little boy surprised his grandmother one morning and brought her a cup of coffee. He made it himself and was so proud. He anxiously waited to hear the verdict on the quality of the coffee. The grandmother had never in her life had such a bad cup of coffee, and as she forced down the last sip she noticed three of those little green army guys in the bottom of the cup.
She asked, "Honey, why would three little green army guys be in the bottom of my cup?"
Her grandson replied, "You know grandma, it's like on TV, 'The best part of waking up is soldiers in your cup.'" 
Rules of Thumb:   
SAFE FOLLOWING DISTANCE
 Leave three 'Mississippis' of space between your car and the car in front of you. It works at any speed. They pass a fixed object, e.g. telephone pole. You count 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi. Adjust distance accordingly.
Yeah, It Really Happened
DAVIS, Calif. (UPI) - If CO2 levels continue to rise as expected, staple crops like wheat, barley and potatoes could become less nutritious. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, conducted a field study showing wheat crops were less efficient at converting nitrates into proteins under conditions of heightened CO2 levels. Previous studies have shown that CO2 inhibits the assimilation of nitrates in plants, but this is the first time the phenomenon has been demonstrated in field-planted crops. "Food quality is declining under the rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide that we are experiencing," said Arnold Bloom, lead author of the new study and a professor in UC-Davis's Department of Plant Sciences. "Several explanations for this decline have been put forward, but this is the first study to demonstrate that elevated carbon dioxide inhibits the conversion of nitrate into protein in a field-grown crop," he added. Bloom and his fellow researchers -- including two scientists from the USDA's Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center in Arizona -- estimate that in the coming decades the proteins available for human consumption in wheat, rice, tubers and other grains will decline by roughly 3 percent. This latest study, published in the online journal Nature Climate Change, arrives only a few weeks after a group of international scientists estimated crop yields will decline by 2 percent each decade as the planet continues to warm.
Somewhat Useless Information   
A nap is known to be a short period of sleep, usually after lunch or during working hours. Napping was found to be both physiologically and psychologically beneficial. But what’s the duration of the ideal nap? Well,  according to NASA the perfect nap should last 26 minutes!
God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, also known as the Decalogue, which are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and Christianity. The Ten Commandments include instructions related to morality, as well as prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, theft, dishonesty, and adultery, which all of them make in total 297 words!
Calendar Information        
Today Is                                                                      
Adult Autism Awareness Day
International Amateur Radio Day
National Stress Awareness Day
National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day
Passover (Jewish - begins at sundown)
Pet Owner's Independence Day
Third World Day
<> 
Patriot's Day (Mass. and Maine)
Independence Day (Zimbabwe-1980 from Rhodesia)
 
Today’s Events through History  
1521 - Diet of Worms: Cardinal Alexander questions Maarten Luther
1676 - Sudbury, Mass attacked by Indians
1934 - 1st "Washateria" (laundromat) opens (Fort Worth, Tx)
1983 - 12th Boston Women's Marathon won by Joan Benoit Samuelson in 2:22:43
1983 - A lone suicide bomber kills 63, at US Embassy in Lebanon
1994 - 23rd Boston Women's Marathon won by Uta Pippig of Germany in 2:21:45
 
Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Barbara Hale, actress (Della Street-Perry Mason) is 92
Hayley Mills, London, actress (Parent Trap, Pollyanna) is 68
James Woods, actor (Salvador, Against All Odds) is 67
Jane Leeves, actress (Murphy Brown, Daphne Moon-Fraiser) is 53
Conan Chris O'Brien, TV host (Late Night) is 51
Eric McCormack, Canadian-American actor (Will and Grace) is 51
Melissa Joan Hart, Sayville NY, actress (Clarissa, Sabrina) is 38
America Ferrera, American actress is 30
 
Remembered for being born today
1480-1519 - Lucretia Borgia, murderess (poison)/daughter (Pope Alexander VI)
1857-1938 - Clarence S Darrow, defense attorney at Scopes monkey trial
 
Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer, 2002, @87
Dick Clark, radio and television personality, 2012, @ 82
Albert Einstein, Nobel laureate, aneurysm, 1955, @76
William King, US VP, TB, 1853, @67
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, American socialite, 1942, @67
Ernie Pyle, American journalist, Japanese machine-gun fire, 1945, @45
Brain Teasers                                         
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.
All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.
§    And That Is All for Now  §
 

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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.