11-24-14

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Almanac: Week: 48 \ Day: 328 
November Averages: 51° \ 22°



Holiday Observances Today:
Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day
D.B. Cooper Day

Observances This Week:
21-27 
National Farm-City Week: 
24-30

GERD Awareness Week; National Bible Week; National Game & Puzzle Week; Better Conversation Week; Church/State Separation Week; National Family Week
• • • •
Quote of the Day



Historical Highlights for Today
1642 - Abel Janzoon Tasman discovers Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)
1703 - 1st Lutheran pastor ordained in America, Justus Falckner at Phila
1759 - Destructive eruption of Vesuvius
1859 - Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species"
1869 - American Woman's Suffrage Association forms (Cleveland)
1871 - National Rifle Association organized (NYC)
1874 - Joseph F Glidden patents barbed wire
1922 - Italian parliament gives Benito Mussolini dictatorial powers "for 1 year"
1932 -  FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory officially opens.
1936 - Pacifist/anti fascist writer Carl Von Ossietzky sent to concentration camp, award Nobel Peace Prize
1947 - John Steinbeck's novel "Pearl" published
1947 - Un-American Activities Committee finds "Hollywood 10" in contempt because of their refusal to reveal whether they were communists
1954 - Air Force One, 1st US Presidential airplane, christened
1964 - For 1st time since 1800, residents of Wash DC permitted to vote
1966 - 1st TV station in Congo, Kinshasa (Zaire)
1966 - New York City experiences the smoggiest day in the city's history
1969 - Lt William Calley charged with massacre of over 100 civilians in My Lai
1979 - US admits troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic Agent Orange
1991 - Monica Seles, sets female tennis record winning $2,457,758 in a year
1993 - Brady bill passes establishing 5-day waiting period for handgun sales
1995 - Ireland votes to end 70-year-old ban on divorce (50.28% to 49.72%)
2012 - Gangnam Style becomes the most viewed youtube video surpassing 808 million views 
• • • •
  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today


My Rambling Thoughts
Quiet Sunday with lots of wind. All my deck stuff survived last night’s hard wind. I have a couple of very enterprising squirrels nearby. I keep the bird seed in one of those plastic containers with a lid that clips on the top on two sides. The d#*n squirrels figured out how to open it and have a feast on the sunflower seeds that are mixed in. The first time, I thought I might have forgotten to use the clips. The second time I knew I had locked it. So I put a brick on top. They actually chewed through part of the plastic top to try and get to the food. I think the current setup with the birdseed in the bottom container, another container on top of that and bricks on top of that will stop them. Time will tell.
Watched my Sunday morning news shows and as usual, Fareed filled my mind with lots of new information I hadn’t thought about. I did some laundry, since it was too windy to spend much time outside. I’m watching the Cards game…they aren’t doing well in the first half. Also watching the Broncos who aren’t doing well either.  Both teams have the second half to recover.
• • • •
Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
What does this mean?

cHIMp           

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today




           
OK Then…


• • • •
Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
Actor Facts…
¤ Clint Eastwood was in a plane which crashed into the sea. He and the pilot escaped the sinking aircraft and swam 3 miles to safety.
¤ Heath Ledger asked Christian Bale to actually beat him for the interrogation scene in the Dark Knight.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
From 1889
¤ Mr. Hall, just returned from the Grand Canyon having made the trip in four days, There was no passenger or mail train from the east on Friday -- it being so much behind from a cause unknown reports heavy snow fall in that section or that it was abandoned.
¤ The snow storm this week has caused considerable delay in the construction of David Babbitt's new building and of Dr. Brannen's addition to his drug store.
           
Harper’s Index…
Portion of adults in Great Britain who believe their nation fought WWI against the Nazis: 1/5
           
That’s Outrageous from Reader’s Digest…
Make important decisions when you (really) gotta go
People with full bladders may be better at making big decisions, according to a Dutch study. If you show self-control in terms of a bodily function (such as going to the bathroom), you’re more likely to show self-control in decision making.

Pilgrim Fact…
The Mayflower Diet
Those poor Pilgrims were stuck on the Mayflower for over two months, battling the rough seas and stormy weather. The trip might have felt a little smoother had they had better nosh aboard. Their diets mainly consisted of hardtack, a cracker-like biscuit; salt pork; dried meats, including cow tongue; pickled foods; oatmeal and other cereal grains; and fish.

Rules of Thumb…
USING A MOVIE CAMERA
Count at least ten seconds every time you press a movie camera's start button. The biggest single error that novice film makers make is taking many shots in very short spurts.   

Unusual Fact of the Day…
Duncan Hines was a real person. He was a popular restaurant critic who also wrote hotel recommendations.
• • • •
Joke-of-the-day
"Honey," said this husband to his wife, "I invited a friend home for supper." 
"What? Are you crazy? The house is a mess, I didn't go shopping, all the dishes are dirty, and I don't feel like cooking a fancy meal!" 
"I know all that." 
"Then, why did you invite a friend for supper?" 
"Because the poor guy is thinking about getting married."   


Yep, It Really Happened
OMSK, Russia (UPI)
A Russian 12-year-old may become the first real-life X-Men hero after an electric shock apparently magnetized his body. Nikolai Kryaglyachenko, 12, said he leaned on a lamppost with faulty wiring on his way home from school one day and the resulting electric shock turned him into a living magnet that attracts metal objects. "When I woke up the next day and got out of bed, I found some coins that had been lying on the mattress had stuck to my body. Then when I was having breakfast and dropped my spoon, it stuck to my chest," the boy told Omsk TV and Radio Company. Kryaglyachenko, who has been compared to X-Men villain Magneto, said he doesn't have much control over the magnetism. "I can do things I couldn't do before, but I don't have a lot of control over it. Even when I do not want to do it, I still attract things. Once I even attracted a glass -- it just moved towards me," he said. Stories of human magnets stretch back to the 19th century, with one woman being recorded in 1990 supporting 15 pounds of weight with her palm held vertically. However, some scientists have said stories of human magnetism can be attributed to nothing more than unusually sticky skin.    

Somewhat Useless Information
Did you know that there is a version of the Bible translated into Hawaiian Pidgin called ‘Da Jesus Book’?
¤ Wycliffe Bible Translators, publisher  of the book, is the world’s largest organization involved in translating the Bible into the languages of native people.
The translation is the result of a 12-year effort and Linguistics professor Joseph Grimes worked with 26 Pidgin speakers.
As www.gohawaii.about.com points out, Grimes was a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1986 and later moved to the Waianae coast of O’ahu to work on this project after his retirement from Cornell University.
¤Norway had to close a tunnel as it was full of burning cheese
Back in 2013 a road tunnel in Norway closed, as about 27 tons of caramelized brown goat cheese caught light as it was being driven through the Brattli Tunnel.
The fire caused toxic gases and the tunnel got badly damaged, so it had to stay closed for several days.
“We can’t go in until it’s safe,” geologist Viggo Aronsen had told Norwegian broadcaster NRK back then.
• • • •
Today’s Events through History
1434 - River Thames freezes
1639 - 1st observation of transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree - helped establish size of the Solar System
1715 - River Thames freezes
1951 - British auto manufacturers Austin and Morris Motors merge
Birthday’s Today
Oscar Robertson [The Big O], NBA guard is 76
Pete Best, British drummer (Beatles) is 73
Dwight Schultz, actor (A-Team) is 67
Katherine Heigl, actress (Grey's Anatomy) is 36

Remembered for being born today
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, novelist/satirist (Tristram Shandy) (1713-1768)
Zachary Taylor, 12th President (1784-1850)
Collodi, [Carlo Lorenzini], Italian author (Pinocchio) (1826-1890)
Frances Hodgson Burnett, author (My Secret Garden) (1849-1924)
Bat Masterson, American gunfighter (1853-1921)
Dale Carnegie, author (How to Win Friends & Influence People) (1888-1955)
Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Sicily, Mafia gangster, (1897-1962)
Kirby Grant, Butte Mont, actor (Sky King) (1911-1985)
Howard Duff, actor (Flamingo Road, Knots Landing) (1913-1990)
John V Lindsay, Mayor-NY (1921-2000)
William F. Buckley Jr, conservative author\commentator (1925-2008)
Todd Beamer, passenger and hero on United Airlines Flight 93 (1968-2001)
• • • •
Historical Obits Today
George Raft, actor (Scarface, Johnny Angel, Mr Ace), 1980, @85
Arthur Hailey, British-born author (Hotel), 2004, @84
Diego Rivera, Mexican painter, 1957, @70
Joseph Brant [Thayendanegea], Mohawk leader, 1807, @ 64
Héctor Camacho, Puerto Rican professional boxer, gunshot injuries2012, @50
Freddie Mercury, British singer (Queen), AIDS, 1991, @45
Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK's assassin, shot, 1963, @24
• • • •

Brain Teasers Answers
Making a monkey out of him 
• • • •
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.