10-29-14

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Almanac: Day: 302  / Week: 44 
October Averages: 63° \ 31°

Holiday Observances Today:
Hermit Day
Internet Day
National Cat Day
National Forgiveness Day
National Frankenstein Day
World Psoriasis Day
++
Republic Day (Turkey-1923)
           
Quote of the Day



Historical Highlights for Today
529 BC - Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, declares the 1st charter of human rights in the world also known as Cyrus Cylinder
1390 - First trial for witchcraft in Paris
1618 - English adventurer, Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded
1792 - Mount Hood (Oregon) is named after the British naval officer Alexander Arthur Hood by Lt. William E. Broughton who spotted the mountain near the mouth of the Willamette River
1833 - 1st US college fraternity to have a fraternity house founded
1863 - International Committee of Red Cross forms (Nobel 1917, 1944, 1963)
1929 - "Black Tuesday" Stock Market crashes triggers "Great Depression"
1942 - Alaska Highway completed
1945 - First ball point pen goes on sale, 57 years after it is patented
1955 - Belgium signs accord for 5 day work week (45 hours)
1956 - Chet Huntley & David Brinkley, NBC News, team up
1958 - Boris Pasternak refuses Nobel Prize for literature
1964 - Star of India & other jewels are stolen in NY
1964 - The United Republic of Tanganyika & Zanzibar renamed United Republic of Tanzania
1966 - National Organization of Women founded
1974 - Law bans discrimination of sex or marital status in credit application
1988 - 2,000 US anti-abortion protesters arrested for blocking clinics
1994 - National Museum of American Indian opens (NYC)
1998 - 77-year old John Glenn become the oldest person to go into space
2012 - Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in NJ- 110 deaths and $50 billion in damage
·        •  •
  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today



My Rambling Thoughts
Nice day weather-wise. Strange day otherwise.
I got up late, about 6:30 and looked out the bedroom window. Decided it was time to wash the upstairs windows as they were really dirty. So I took out the one window in each bedroom, washed the 2 windows inside and out. Nice to see clearly out of them again.
Then I turned on my computer. I have this really cool mouse that hasn’t really worked right since I got the new computer. It has two buttons on the side of the mouse that should let the user change go forward or back when on a webpage. I didn’t use it that often on my old computer but it was a nice shortcut. Anyway…so I decided today is the day to make it work. I go to the internet machine and find a site that has the latest drivers for the mouse. It says that my computer has registry problems that is causing the problem. They will do a one-time fix for $300. They also say that I have some strange foreign IP addresses that log on to my computer. Scary. I decline. Then I go to the mouse’s company website and they connect me to a tech guy for free. He gets onto my computer and shows me the problems. About 10 different foreign IP address have logged onto my computer this week. He can connect me to a Microsoft tech who can fix it and give me lifetime protection for $300. I go ahead and do it. It takes about an hour while the guy in India or somewhere is working and I can watch what he is doing to my computer. He also connects another guy to my computer to make the mouse work. Interesting. Then he calls me and has me check my mouse, which is now working fine. And the windows protection that was somehow turned off is now turned back on. Cool, expensive, but cool. Then he talks to me about how the protection I bought from Geek Squad when I bought the computer had never been optimized which is what probably allowed the malware. Really? He optimized it for me. Geek Squad sold me the damn program when I bought the computer and never said anything about ‘optimizing’ it. After I downloaded the program, no message to optimize. The guy, a certified Microsoft tech, also said that Geek Squad is not Microsoft certified so if I had taken the computer to them to fix, they probably wouldn’t have known how to do it but would have still charged me and told me it was fixed. Scary again.
·        •  •
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
What is this Rebus?
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Found on You Tube with some relevance to today




           
OK Then…


·        •  •
Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
Brief History…
Hitler Danced a Jig after Taking over France
In 1940 Adolf Hitler went to a defeated Paris to bask in the glory of having conquered France.  A famous film clip shows him dancing a jig in joy at this accomplishment.  In reality, the film clip was an altered piece of film of Hitler merely walking, but played back and forth to make him appear to be dancing.  This myth is so pervasive photos of it appear in history books as genuine, the authors unaware of the propaganda trick.

Educator’s Answers…
“If you really cared about kids, you wouldn’t worry about the salary.”
I love my students. I love teaching. I also love being able to support my family and feed my kids.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
100 YEARS AGO
-A big motor truck from the Southern California Auto Club was here Saturday posting signs along the Old Trails Route. They are neat and contain all the information necessary for the traveler over this great scenic route.
-There was heavy rain both Sunday and Monday nights and Jack Frost is creeping in occasionally. Tuesday there was a light coat of snow on the San Francisco Peaks.
           
Harper’s Index…
Factor by which a woman is more likely to interrupt a woman that to interrupt a man: 2.9    
Halloween Facts…
-Halloween is thought to have originated around 4000 B.C., which means Halloween has been around for over 6,000 years.
-In 1970, a five-year-old boy Kevin Toston allegedly ate Halloween candy laced with heroin. Investigators later discovered the heroin belonged to the boy’s uncle and was not intended for a Halloween candy.
-In 1974, eight-year-old Timothy O’Bryan died of cyanide poisoning after eating Halloween candy. Investigators later learned that his father had taken out a $20,000 life insurance policy on each of his children and that he had poisoned his own son and also attempted to poison his daughter.

Law Facts…
-In Breton, Alabama, there is a law on the town's books against riding down the street in a motorboat.
-The people most often killed in robberies are the robbers.
           
Religious Facts…
-Pope Francis was once a nightclub bouncer.
-There is a Swedish religion called Kopimism whose sole tenet is that all knowledge should be available to everyone - and thus, using CTRL+C and CTRL+V are sacred acts.

Rules of Thumb…
CUTTING FIREWOOD
One person, working alone, can cut, haul, and stack about a cord of firewood a day.
           
Unusual Fact of the Day…
100,000,000,000 solar neutrinos pass through every square inch of your body every second.
·        •  •
Joke-of-the-day
SICK DAYS:
We will no longer accept a doctor statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work. 

SURGERY:
Operations are now banned. As long as you are an employee here, you need all your organs. You should not consider removing anything. We hired you intact. To have something removed constitutes a breach of employment. 

PERSONAL DAYS:
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturday and Sunday. 

VACATION DAYS:
All employees will take their vacation at the same time every year. The vacation days are as follows: Jan. 1, July 4 & Dec. 25 

BEREAVEMENT LEAVE:
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or coworkers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend to the arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early, provided your share of the work is done enough. 

OUT FROM YOUR OWN DEATH:
This will be accepted as an excuse. However, we require at least two weeks notice, as it is your duty to train your own replacement. 

RESTROOM USE:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the restroom. In the future, we will follow the practice of going in alphabetical order. For instance, all employees whose names begin with 'A' will go from 8:00 to 8:20, employees whose names begin with 'B' will go from 8:20 to 8:40 and so on. If you're unable to go at your allotted time, it will be necessary to wait until the next day when your turn comes again. In extreme emergencies employees may swap their time with a coworker. Both employees' supervisors in writing must approve this exchange. In addition, there is now a strict 3-minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, and the stall door will open. 

LUNCH BREAK:
Skinny people get an hour for lunch as they need to eat more so that they can look healthy, normal size people get 30 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain the average figure. Fat people get 5 minutes for lunch because that's all the time needed to drink a Slim Fast and take a diet pill. Sondra gets none. 

DRESS CODE:
It is advised that you come to work dressed according to your salary, if we see you wearing $350 Prada sneakers and carrying a $600 Gucci bag we assume you are doing well financially and therefore you do not need a raise. 

Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions comments, concerns, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternations or input should be directed elsewhere. Have a nice week. 
-- Management

           
Yep, It Really Happened
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (UPI)
It's only natural to assume small-brained animals like fish would care about little outside of the quest for food and mates, but according to a new study by researchers at the University of Tennessee, some of them -- like cichlid fish species -- like to play. 
Of course, scientists can't ask a fish if it is having fun; they must develop a definition of fun that works in the context of the animal kingdom. That's what Gordon Burghardt, an evolutionary biologist at Tennessee, has done, allowing him to finger such organisms as wasps, reptiles and invertebrates as capable of play -- of having having fun. 
"Play is repeated behavior that is incompletely functional in the context or at the age in which it is performed and is initiated voluntarily when the animal or person is in a relaxed or low-stress setting," said Burghardt, lead author of the new study on cichlid fish. 
While studying three cichlid fish over the course of two years, Burghardt and his colleagues observed a behavior that fits his definition of play. The three fish would periodically strike at a bottom-weighted thermometer, and would do so regardless of the presence or absence of food or other fish. The researchers believe the fish, like other animals, are drawn to the righting motion that happens when the thermometer is pushed down and then returns to its original position. 
"We have observed octopus doing this with balls by pulling them underwater and watching them pop back up again," Burghardt said. "This reactive feature is common in toys used for children and companion animals." 
Burghardt says it's important for scientists to readjust their understanding of play and see unexplained behaviors as part of an animal's evolutionary development -- not random. 
"Play is an integral part of life and may make a life worth living," Burghardt concluded. 
The study was published this week in the journal Ethology. 


Somewhat Useless Information
It is said that bats cannot take off from the ground, but is it true?
The answer is “yes”. Most bats cannot take off from the ground. They spend their entire lives flying or upside down.
In addition, there are only two known species of bats that have the ability to walk on the ground: the lesser short-tailed bat and the American common vampire bat.
+++
Five things that happily married couples don’t do
Have you ever wondered what are the tips for a happy marriage? Well, there may be many but we have gathered and present you things that happily married couples never do!
-They have one of those wild tempestuous marriages and they don’t trust each other.
-They don’t find joy in little things, which may be a concert or sitting down and watching TV together.
-When arguing, they don’t fight fair, using unkind words.
-They don’t feel lucky having each other.
-They don’t support each other.
·        •  •
Check Your Calendar
Observances This Week:
--- 24-30
Disarmament Week
Prescription Errors Education & Awareness Week

World Origami Days
International Magic Week
Asexuality Week
Give Wildlife a Brake! Week 
Kids Care Week
National Infertility Awareness Week 

·        •  •
Today’s Events through History
1682 - William Penn lands at what is now Chester Pennsylvania
1787 - Opera "Don Giovanni" is produced (Prague)
1832 - The PIANKASHAW, and WEA Indians receive land in Kansas, in exchange for their lands in Illinois, and Missouri
1904 - First intercity trucking service (Colorado City & Snyder, Texas)
1905 - Hottentot chief Hendrik Witbooi fataly injured
1960 - Muhammad Ali's (Cassius Clay) 1st professional fight
1969 - Supreme Court orders end to all school desegregation "at once"
2002 - Ho Chi Minh City ITC Inferno, a fire destroys a luxurious department store
·        •  •
Birthday’s Today
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia is 77
Melba Moore, [Beatrice], singer/actress is 70
Richard Dreyfuss, Brooklyn, actor (Mr Holland's Opus) is 68
Kate Jackson, actress (Charlie's Angels) is 67
Winona Ryder, [Horowitz], actress (Edward Scissorhand) is 44
Brendan Fehr, Canadian actor (Bones) is 38

Remembered for being born today
Harriet Powers, US, slave/writer (Creation of Animals) (1837-1910)
Albert von Rothschild, Austrian banker (1844-1911)
Charles Ebbets, (namesake of Ebbets Field, Brooklyn) (1859-1925)
Fanny Brice, singing comedienne (Ziegeld Follies, Baby Snooks) (1891-1951)
[Paul] Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Information and Propaganda (1897-1945)
Betty Evans Grayson, softball pitcher (Hall of Fame 1959) (1925-1979)
Johnny Lewis, actor (Sons of Anarchy), (1983-2012)
·        •  •
Historical Obits Today
Woody Herman, bandleader/composer (Thundering Herds), 1987, @74
Dwight B. Waldo, American educator and historian, 1939, @74
Walter Raleigh, English scholar/poet/historian, beheaded for treason, 1618, @65
Joseph Pulitzer, American newspaperman, 1911, @64
·        •  •
Brain Teasers Answers
 Getting up before the crack of dawn.     
·        •  •
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 contains mistakes and sadly once 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.