8-13-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 225 / Week: 33 
August Averages: 78° \ 50°
Today:
    Average Sky Cover: 60%
    H 70° L 55° Ave. humidity: 73%
    Wind: ave:   1mph; Gusts:  19mph 
    Average High: 79° Record High:  90° (2002)
    Average Low: 51° Record Low:  39° (1999)
         
Quote of the Day
 
Historical Highlights for Today
1521- Montezuma’s nephew, and successor, Cuahtemoc surrenders to Cortés.
1624 - Cardinal Richelieu appointed Chief Minister of France by Louis XIII
1814 - Cape of Good Hope formally ceded to British by the Dutch
1868 - Earthquakes kill 25,000 & causes $300 million damages (Peru & Ecuador)
1889 - William Gray patents coin-operated telephone
1907 - 1st taxicab (NYC)
1913 - Invention of stainless steel by Harry Brearley.
1914 - Carl Wickman begins Greyhound, the 1st US bus line, in Minnesota
1923 - US Steel Corp initiates 8th-hour work day
1960 - USSR draws advisors out of China
  Birthdays Today:   
How many can you identify? Answers in Birthday’s Today below
My Rambling Thoughts   
Another monsoon this afternoon. A light and steady rain to help our forest. Nice!
Mental illness is at a crisis stage here in the US and we still refuse to talk about it. Most school mass shootings have involved mental illness. Former soldiers are committing suicide every day—22 a day. Homeless people, many with mental illness, refuse help when offered. Robin Williams is in the headlines for his career and his suicide. It is time our government recognizes the importance of providing help for the millions of mentally ill people living in our country. Robin Williams is one of the few who readily admitted he had problems and still, for him, there was no way to get him the help he needed to deal with our world. So sad.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
W+H+E+R+E

ROYGBIV
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
OK Then…
<> <> <> <> <>
Paraphernalia 4 the Brain :     
Brief History…
Thomas Crapper Invented the Flush Toilet.
Although Crapper had a plumbing company and invented a variety of devices making toilets better, he did not invent the flush toilet.  Ancient people a few thousand years ago had toilets with water washing away the waste, as did the Romans.  The more modern variety began to appear in 1596 with an invention by John Harrington and an “S” trap version by Alexander Cummings in 1775 became popular.  In 1778 Joseph Bramah patented an improved model with a water closet and flap valve and George Jennings continued developments in the mid-19th Century.  Crapper was one of many who contributed improvements, but did not invent flush toilets.
Common Sayings from the Bible…
Every day is miserable for the depressed, but a lighthearted man has a continual feast
All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. Proverbs 15:15
Computer Facts…
Song stuck in your head but can’t think of the name? There's a website called midomi.com that allows you to sing or hum a song into your computer or phone and it will find the actual song.
Earth Facts…
Oceans cover about 70% of the Earth’s surface, much of which has never been explored.
Flagstaff, AZ History…
75 YEARS AGO
On Tuesday Billie Rodgers, aged 11, was killed instantly by passenger train #3. He had gone to drive the family cow to the corral across the track from his home. There was also a heavy freight train on the second track and it appears that he neither saw nor heard the passenger train. He was thrown 60 feet and death was instantaneous.
++
Over the past weekend there were 90 fires in the national forest. The recent storms have helped with their control. It remains extremely dry in Oak Creek, where practically no moisture has fallen.
Harper’s Index
Percentage change in the Facebook activity of a newly single person on the day he or she is dumped: +225 
Language Facts…
The word 'mortgage' comes from a French law term that means 'death pledge'.
Rules of Thumb…   
SETTING YOUR RATES
Freelance artists and graphic designers should determine their hourly rate by dividing their annual income requirements by 1,000.
Superstitions…
An acorn at the window will keep lightning out
Unusual Fact of the Day…
Minnows have teeth in their throats.
World Heritage Sites…
Situated in the north-western Congo Basin, where Cameroon, Central African Republic and Congo meet, the site encompasses three contiguous national parks totaling around 750,000 ha. Much of the site is unaffected by human activity and features a wide range of humid tropical forest ecosystems with rich flora and fauna, including Nile crocodiles and goliath tigerfish, a large predator. Forest clearings support herbaceous species and Sangha is home to considerable populations of forest elephants, critically endangered western lowland gorilla, and endangered chimpanzee. The site’s environment has preserved the continuation of ecological and evolutionary processes on a huge scale and great biodiversity, including many endangered animal species.
Joke-of-the-day
For his entire working life, a dedicated and hardworking Astrophysicist tried in all earnest to find the existence of other being somewhere in the universe. After 58 years of constant effort, he finally receives a response from a planet 30 billion light years away.
“What is your planet like?” groaned the extraterrestrial from the other side of the Galaxy.
“It is 12,756 Kilometers in diameter, is 93,000,000 miles from the nearest star, our sun, has an average temperature of 72 degrees F. We breathe oxygen, live about 75 years, and have both men and women” answered the Physicist.
“Do you get along with the women on your planet?” the extraterrestrial asked slowly.
Puzzled by the question, but not wanting to insult the female Physicists nearby, he answered “Why yes. We get along quite well here.”
The extraterrestrial perked up “Can we send you ours?”
Yeah, It Really Happened
DARMSTADT, Germany (UPI) - For ten years, the Rosetta space probe has been chasing comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Today, it finally caught up, and is currently preparing to sling intself into orbit around the space rock -- marking a new phase in its 3.7-billion-mile-and-counting-long journey.
Other spacecraft have approached comets at close range, but Rosetta is the first to orbit one. The process of positioning itself into a stable orbit will take a few days.
Once in orbit, it will stay there for a few months, documenting the rock as it whizzes around the sun. But Rosetta and its European Space Agency controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, have larger ambitions than just orbiting a comet. They want to land on it.
On November 11, Rosetta will send down a lander vehicle called Philae. The craft will attempt land on the surface of the comet using two harpoons. There are number things that could complicate the attempt.
First is the fact that scientists don't know exactly what the comet is made of. Will the harpoons properly pierce and grab hold? Second, the comet is a binary comet -- two rocky spheres, one large and one small, seemingly fused millions of years ago in a low-velocity collision. It looks like a rubber duck or a snowman, and the odd shape will make it hard to find a suitable landing site.
If Rosetta and Philae are able to overcome these difficulties it will be a monumental achievement. Astronomers believe comets likely preceded the formation of stars and solar systems and planets, and that they contain the building blocks for life. Studying one up close could offer new insights into how humans came to be.
Already, Rosetta is documenting the comet from close range. Magnificent imagery of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko can be seen on ESA's website.
Somewhat Useless Information   
In 1966, Time Magazine predicted, "By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy." In that year too CoCo Chanel said about miniskirts: "It's a bad joke that won't last. Not with winter coming."
In 1954, a concert manager fired Elvis Presley, saying, "You ought to go back to driving a truck." In 1962, Decca Records rejected the Beatles, "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
In 1894, A.A. Michelson, who with E.W. Morley seven years earlier experimentally demonstrated the constancy of the speed of light, said that the future of science would consist of "adding a few decimal places to the results already obtained."
After the invention of the transistor in 1947, several US electronics companies rejected the idea of a portable radio. Apparently it was thought nobody would want to carry a radio around. When Bell put the transistor on the market in 1952 they had few takers apart from a small Japanese start-up called Sony. They introduced the transistor radio in 1954.
Irish scientist, Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859) didn't believe that trains could contribute much in speedy transport. He wrote: "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers 'would die of asphyxia' [suffocation]."
In 1943, Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM forecast a world market for "maybe only five computers." Years before IBM launched the personal computer in 1981, Xerox had already successfully designed and used PCs internally... but decided to concentrate on the production of photocopiers. Even Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, said in 1977, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Check Your Calendar
Observances This Week:
9-16
Gay Games
National Scrabble Week
10-16
Feeding Pets of the Homeless Week  
National Resurrect Romance Week 
Elvis Week  
Weird Contest Week 
Today Is  
International Lefthander's Day
National Garage Sale Day
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Independence Day (Central African Republic-1960-from France)
Independence Day (Chad-1960-from France)
Women's Day (Tunisia)
                                                        
Today’s Events through History  
1950 - Pres Harry Truman gives military aid to Vietnamese regime Bao-Dai
1953 - Pres Eisenhower establishes Government Contract Compliance Committee
1987 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee ties world record with 24'5½" jump
Birthday’s Today                                                        
Fidel Castro, dictator/prime minister/president (1959-2008) is 88
Pat Harrington Jr, actor (1 Day at a Time) is 85
Kevin Tighe, actor (Another 48 Hours) is 70
Betsy King, LPGA golfer (1990 US Women's Open) is 59
Danny Bonaduce, actor (Danny-Partridge Family)/Chicago DJ is 55
Remembered for being born today
Johann Christoph Denner, inventor (clarinet) (1655-1707)
George Gabriel Stokes, physicist/mathematician (spectroscope) (1819-1903)
Annie Oakley [Phoebe Ann Moses], sharp shooter (1860-1926)
Bert Lahr, [Irving Lahrheim], US comic/actor (Lion-Wizard of Oz) (1895-1967)
Alfred Hitchcock, London, director (Psycho), (1899-1980)
Ben Hogan, PGA golfer (US Open 1950, 51, 53) (1912-1997)
Don Ho, Hawaii, ukulele player (Tiny Bubbles) (1930-2007)
Dan Fogelberg, rocker (Same Auld Lang Syne) (1951-2007)
Historical Obits Today                                                           
Julia Child, American chef and television personality, 2004, @91
Edwin Newman, American broadcast journalist, 2010, @91
Helen Gurley Brown, American author/publisher, 2012, @90
Florence Nightingale, English nurse, 1910, @90
H. G. Wells, English writer, 1946, @79
Kate O'Brien, Irish writer (Pray for the Wanderer), 1974, @76
Joe E Ross, comedian (Toody-Car 54), heart attack, 1982, @68
Jack Ryan, inventor (Barbie Doll, Hot Wheels, Chatty Cathy), 1991, @65
Mickey Mantle, baseball great (NY Yankees), cancer, 1995, @63
Brain Teasers                                         
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
sum where
[over]
the mnemonic device for the colors of the spectrum (the rainbow)

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.