1-28-14

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 05 / Day: 028   

Today: L 27°…H 53°… Ave. humidity: 31%

Wind: ave:   11mph; Gusts:  17mph  

Average Low: 17° Record Low:  -13° (1918)

Average High: 44° Record High:  63° (1986)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1099 - 1st Crusaders begins siege of Syria

1547 - 9-year-old Edward VI succeeds Henry VIII as king of England

1813 - Pride and Prejudice is first published in the United Kingdom.

1851 - Northwestern University (Chicago) chartered

1887 - World's largest snowflakes, 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick Fort Keogh, MT

1914 - Beverly Hills, Ca, is incorporated

1915 - US Pres Wilson refuses to prohibit immigration of illiterates

1932 - 1st US state unemployment insurance act enacted (Wisconsin)

1935 - Iceland becomes 1st country to legalize abortion

1960 - NFL announces Dallas Cowboys (1960) & Minnesota Vikings (1961) franchises

1984 - Record 295,000 dominoes toppled, Fuerth, West Germany

1986 – Challenger Explosion

2013 - John Kerry succeeds Hillary Rodham Clinton as the US Secretary of State

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Beautiful Monday here in our little mountain town.

 

I wish all the politicians would stop talking and do something. They mostly seem to be egomaniacs who have their own ideas and won’t listen to anyone else.  Every politician says we need more jobs to fix our economy, but will not compromise on how to reach that goal. Really, with CEO salaries so high and so many large corporations paying minimal taxes…through loopholes…they are not going have no reason to create more US jobs…they are doing fine.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Using the following hints, how can you get from the first word to the fourth word to the seventh word?

Word 2 is a synonym of Word 1. One letter of the second word has been changed to make Word 3. Word 3 was changed to present tense to make Word 4. Word 5 is a synonym of Word 4. One letter was removed from Word 5 to make Word 6. Word 7 is a synonym of Word 6.

Giant _____ _____ Bite _____ _____ Chop

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Arthur Rubinstein - Improvising 1980

• Barnaby Jones Opening

• CNN: Challenger Disaster

• Jackson Pollock 51 - Phoenix – 1901

• Stranger on the shore ~ Acker Bilk

• TODAY SHOW monkey business in the morning

• William Butler Yeats - The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Suggested New State Mottos:

• Delaware: We Really Do Like The Chemicals In Our Water

• Michigan: First Line Of Defense From The Canadians

Remembering TV’s great shows:

"Breaking Bad" From the first tragicomic escapade to the blistering finale, Vince Gilligan's ­immorality tale was as addictive as the blue meth that made Walter White into a criminal legend. Bryan Cranston's transformative performance is one for the ages.

Phrases Shakespeare invented:

• break the ice--The Taming of the Shrew

• breathe one’s last--Henry VI, Part 3

Words Shakespeare invented

Majestic

Definition: Large and impressively beautiful

Origin: From "majesty," which appeared in the 1300s, meaning "greatness." "Majestical" was first used in the 1570s.

Quote: "This is a most majestic vision" - The Tempest

OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

Minimum amount venture-capital firms have invested in cybersecurity start-ups in the past 2 years: $1.6billion

Unusual Fact of the Day

It is never mentioned that there were specifically "three" wise men in the Bible. The number could have been anything, even numbering in the hundreds.

Joke-of-the-day

A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and tapped him on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb, and stopped just inches from a large plate glass window.

For a few moments everything was silent in the cab, and then the still shaking driver said, "I'm sorry but you scared the daylights out of me."

The frightened passenger apologized to the driver and said he didn't realize a mere tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much.

The driver replied, "No, no, I'm sorry, it's entirely my fault. Today is my first day driving a cab. I've been driving a hearse for the last 25 years."

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

UNDERGROUND TEMPERATURES

The internal temperature of the earth increases with depth. In most places, the temperature increases about 16 degrees Fahrenheit per 1,000 feet.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

Philadelphia resident Fabian Bonanni had a plan when a particularly heavy snowstorm was predicted on the very day his wife Shirley was due.

Sure enough, as more than a foot of snow was falling on the northeast earlier this week Shirley went into labor.

"The contractions went from 10 minutes apart to, 'Oh, she's delivering right now,'" Bonanni said. "She couldn't walk; she was going into labor with every step."

As the neighbors looked on Fabian started pulling his wife through the snow on his sled, but things began moving faster than he anticipated.

Fabian delivered his daughter right there on the sled, scooping her into his arms as his wife braved the morning's subzero temperatures.

He took her into a neighbor's house where paramedics were called.

"It was like something you'd see in a movie," the neighbor said. "At first, I thought they were having fun. It's probably the strangest thing to ever happen here."

At last report the entire family was doing fine.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• A study by a University of Oxford academic reveals that in the Elizabethan theatre children were forced to work in theatres and used to face exploitation, violence and abduction. People of that time talked of street kidnappings, which were absolutely legal as the theatre owners had licenses to forcibly recruit children. Shakespeare refused to use abducted children in his plays as he disapproved of this practice.

• The Jetsons was an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1962 and  Hanna-Barbera’s Space Age counterpart to “The Flintstones”. The main characters were George and Jane Jetson, Judy and Elroy Jetson, Rosie, Astro the dog, Orbitty and Mr Spacely. Jane Jetson, George’s wife  and mother of two children, is 33 years old and her daughter Judy is 15!

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

24-29

World Leprosy Week
Kid Film Festival
26-31

Catholic Schools Week
Meat Week
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Week
National Medical Group Practice Week

International Hoof Care Week
US National Snow Sculpting Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Data Privacy Day

·        Fun at Work Day

·        National Kazoo Day

·        Thank A Plug-in Developer Day

Today’s Events through History  

1807 - London's Pall Mall is 1st street lit by gaslight

1854 - 30 miners attack a peaceful Indian village on the Coquille River. 16 Indians are killed.

1934 - 1st US ski tow (rope) begins operation (Woodstock Vermont)

1953 - J Fred Muggs (the chimp) joins NBC's "Today Show"

1958 -  Lego company patented their design of Lego bricks, still compatible 

     with bricks produced today.

1973 - "Barnaby Jones" premieres on CBS TV

1990 - Super Bowl XXIV: SF 49ers beat Denver Broncos, 55-10

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Acker Bilk, singer (Stranger on the Shore) is 85

Alan Alda, [Alphonso D'Abruzzo], NYC, actor (Hawkeye-M*A*S*H) is 78

Susan Howard, actress (Donna-Dallas, Petrocelli) is 70

Mo Rocca, American writer and comedian is 45

Joey Fatone, singer, dancer is 37

Elijah Wood, actor (Lord of the Rings) is 33

Remembered for being born today

5 - Saint Thomas Aquinas-feast day

1706 - John Baskerville, English printer (typeface inventor)

1887 - Arthur Rubinstein, Lodz Poland, pianist

1890 - Robert Stroud, convict, the Birdman of Alcatraz (d. 1963)

1912 - Jackson Pollock, Cody WY, expressionist painter (Lavender Mist)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Jerry Siegel, comic book writer (Superman), 1996, @81

Hal Smith, actor (Otis-Andy Griffith Show), heart attack, 1994, @77

William Butler Yeats, Irish poet (Nobel),  1939, @73

Charlemagne, German emperor/Roman Emperor (800-814), 814, @71

John Banner, actor (Schultz-Hogan's Heroes), hemorrhage, 1973, on62nd birthday

Henry VIII, King of England (1509-47), obesity, 1547, @55

Francis R Scobee, Wash, USAF/astronaut, dies in Challenger disaster 1986 @46

Michael J Smith, Cmdr USN, astr, dies in Challenger 1986 @40

Greg Jarvis - Crew of Space Shuttle Challenger 1986, @41

Ellison S Onizuka, Mjr USAF/ast, dies in Challenger disaster 1986 @39

Christa McAuliffe, astronaut, dies in Challenger disaster 1986 @37
Judith Arlene Resnik, astr, dies in Challenger disaster 1986 @36
Ronald E McNair, astr, dies in Challenger disaster 1986 @35

Brain Teasers

Giant to Big to Bit to Bite to Chew to Hew to Chop.

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  §