11-29-14

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Almanac: Week: 48 \ Day: 333 
November Averages: 51° \ 22°



Holiday Observances Today:
National Day (Albania-1944-end of Nazi control)
• • •
Electronic Greetings Day
International Day of Solidarity with The Palestinian People-since 1978
National Day of Giving
Small Business Saturday
Square Dance Day

Observances This 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
  526 - Antioch in modern day Syria struck by Earthquake, about 250,000 die
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army moves into Manchester & occupies Carlisle
1775 - Sir James Jay invents invisible ink
1825 - 1st Italian opera in US, "Barber of Seville" premieres (NYC)
1864 - Sand Creek Massacre, Colorado militia kills about 150 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians
1870 - Compulsory education proclaimed in England
1887 - US receives rights to Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, Hawaii
1901 - East 182nd Street in Bronx is paved & opened
1910 - The 1st US patent for inventing the traffic lights system is issued
1915 - Fire destroys most of the buildings on Santa Catalina Island, California
1932 - Cole Porter’s musical "Gay Divorcee" premieres in NYC
1942 - US rations coffee
1944 - John Hopkins hospital performs 1st open heart surgery
1948 - "Kukla, Fran, & Ollie" debuted on NBC
1948 - KOB TV channel 4 in Albuquerque, NM (NBC) begins broadcasting
1953 - American Airlines begins 1st regular coml NY-LA air service
1963 - LBJ sets up Warren Comm to investigate assassination of JFK
1964 - Roman Catholic Church in US replaces Latin with English
1967 - Robert McNamara elected president of World Bank
1972 - Pong (the 1st commercially successful video game) released
1975 - Pres Ford requires states to provide free education for handicapped
1994 - Seoul, Korea, celebrated the 600th anniversary of its founding
  526 - Antioch in modern day Syria struck by Earthquake, about 250,000 die
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army moves into Manchester & occupies Carlisle
1775 - Sir James Jay invents invisible ink
1825 - 1st Italian opera in US, "Barber of Seville" premieres (NYC)
1864 - Sand Creek Massacre, Colorado militia kills about 150 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians
1870 - Compulsory education proclaimed in England
1887 - US receives rights to Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, Hawaii
1901 - East 182nd Street in Bronx is paved & opened
1910 - The 1st US patent for inventing the traffic lights system is issued
1915 - Fire destroys most of the buildings on Santa Catalina Island, California
1932 - Cole Porter’s musical "Gay Divorcee" premieres in NYC
1942 - US rations coffee
1944 - John Hopkins hospital performs 1st open heart surgery
1948 - "Kukla, Fran, & Ollie" debuted on NBC
1948 - KOB TV channel 4 in Albuquerque, NM (NBC) begins broadcasting
1953 - American Airlines begins 1st regular coml NY-LA air service
1963 - LBJ sets up Warren Comm to investigate assassination of JFK
1964 - Roman Catholic Church in US replaces Latin with English
1967 - Robert McNamara elected president of World Bank
1972 - Pong (the 1st commercially successful video game) released
1975 - Pres Ford requires states to provide free education for handicapped
1994 - Seoul, Korea, celebrated the 600th anniversary of its founding
• • • •
  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today


My Rambling Thoughts
I got up as usual but waited until about 9:30 to go out. Only stop was Home Depot. For the past 5 years I’ve gotten a 99cent Red Poinsettia there. This year they were very nice and larger than last year. One is enough for me, even though they had a 15 limit. Not sure how they pull this off, but they do every year. I walked around and ended up spending about $50, including an Amaryllis for only $5, so I guess their loss leader really works. Found some stuff I can use at home, and even a couple of Christmas gifts.  
It was a really warm day here, for a change, and I could keep the front door open for about 30 minutes…nice!
It was ‘flip the mattresses’ and ‘change the furnace filter’ day. Did both before taking off for the store.
• • • •
Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
Can you complete this grid of letters? Each line is a valid 5 letter word with its first and last letters missing. The missing letters form a word when read downwards and the same word appears both at the start and at the end. What is the missing word? 

_OMI_
_EVE_
_ROM_
_OAK_
_ATC_

           
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today





           
OK Then… 

• • • •
Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
Actor Facts…
¤ Jackie Chan’s mother was an opium smuggler and his father was a spy.
¤ Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest and lost.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
50 YEARS AGO
¤ Bureau of Reclamation Director Frank M. Clinton says lack of precipitation may lead to stopping power production at the Glen Canyon or Hover Dams.
¤ First snow fell on Wed. when we received 2" of icy granules which made for slick streets. This is the first moisture falling in the past 2 months. It was a mixed blessing for hunters making the fire hazard lower. There was 5-6 inches of slush at the Snow Bowl which melted quickly. The cinder trucks were kept busy but other city equipment was required.
           
Flagstaff’s Iconic 50…
The Gandy Dancer
A statue at Old Flagstaff Depot dedicated to railroad track laborers.
N 35° 11.817 W 111° 38.881 to see it on Google Maps.

Harper’s Index…
Factor by which the number of recalls GM has issued this year exceeds the number of cars it sold in the previous two years: 5 
           
Rules of Thumb…
LISTENING TO PEEPERS
When the spring peepers (frog) start, the maple sugaring stops.     

Unusual Fact of the Day…
America got its first true pizzeria when Gennaro Lombardi opened up a small grocery store in NYC’s Little Italy. An employee named Anthony “Totonno” Pero started selling pizzas out of the back, and in no time, Lombardi’s was concentrating on its burgeoning pizza business instead of plain old groceries.
• • • •
Joke-of-the-day
Q. What do you call a polar bear with ear muffs?
A. Anything you want, he can’t hear you!         


Yep, It Really Happened
Competitive eater Joey Chestnut just won a turkey-eating contest in Connecticut, setting a record by devouring an entire bird.
Ten contestants vied to see who could eat the most of a 20-pound turkey in a competition at Foxwoods Resort Casino.
Chestnut ate 9.35 pounds of meat off the bone in 10 minutes. According to Major League Eating he bested the previous record, which was held by Sonya Thomas, who ate 5.25 pounds of turkey in November 2011.
Chestnut, a San Jose, California, resident who just turned 31, is ranked the top competitive eater in the world.
He took home a $5,000 check after stuffing his face with turkey. The remainder of the $10,000 purse was divided among other contestants.
           

Somewhat Useless Information
When was the first webcam invented?
Did you know the circumstances under which the first-ever webcam was invented?
It was back in 1990 and some officers at the University of Cambridge created the first webcam so as to watch a coffee pot in the break room.
So, they didn’t have any excuse to kill time, as they didn’t need to get up from their desks to see if there’s fresh coffee. Genius!
• • • •
Today’s Events through History
1877 - Thomas Edison demonstrates his hand-cranked phonograph for the first time
1897 - 1st motorcycle race (Surrey, England)
1926 - W Somerset Maugham’s "Constant Wife" premieres in NYC
1933 - 1st state liquor stores authorized (Pennsylvania)
1952 - US President-elect Eisenhower visits Korea to assess war
2012 - UN votes approves Palestine’s status change from observer to observer state

Birthday’s Today
Vin Scully, Bronx, sportscaster (Los Angeles Dodgers) is 87
Don January, pro golfer (1976 Vardon Trophy) is 86
David Reuben, author (Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex) is 81
Diane Ladd, actress (Wild Angels, Wild at Heart) is 79
Chuck Mangione, jazz hornist is 74
Garry Shandling, AZ, comedian (Garry Shandling) is 65
Howie Mandel, Toronto, comedian (Dr Wayne Fiscus-St Elsewhere) is 59
Cathy Moriarty, Bronx, actress (Raging Bull) is 54
Kim Delaney, actress (NYPD Blue) is 53
Don Cheadle, actor (Boogie Nights) is 50

Remembered for being born today
Christian Doppler, Salzburg, physicist (Doppler effect), (1803-1853)
Louisa May Alcott, author (Little Women) (1832-1888)
C. S. Lewis [Clive Staples], Belfast, sci-fi author (Chronicals of Narnia), (1898-1963)
Adam Clayton Powell Jr, (Rep-D-NY)/minister (1908-1972)
Merle Travis, Country singer (1917-1983)
Madeleine L'Engle, [Franklin], US, sci-fi author (Wrinkle in Time) (1918-2007)
Frank Reynolds, news anchor (ABC Evening News) (1923-1983)
• • • •
Historical Obits Today
Ralph Bellamy, actor (Rosemary's Baby), 1991, @87
Cary Grant, actor (Charades), 1986, @82
Gene Rayburn, American game show host, 1999, @81
Coleman Young, 1st black mayor of a major city, 1997, @ 79
Claudio Giovanni Monteverdi, Italian composer (L'arianna), 1643, @76
Giacomo Puccini, Ital composer (Mme Butterfly), cancer, 1924, @65
Horace Greeley, US founder/publisher (NY Tribune), long illness, 1872, @61
George Harrison, English singer, guitarist and songwriter, cancer, 2001, @58
Godfrey Cambridge, actor (Watermelon Man), heart attack, 1976, @43
Natalie Wood, actress (West Side Story), drowns, 1981, @43
• • • •

Brain Teasers Answers
CLASH
• • • •
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.