10-18-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 291 / Week: 42 
October Averages: 63° \ 31°



Holiday Observances Today:
Bridge Day-over water; not the card game
Hard Boiled Guy/Girl Day

International Newspaper Carrier Day 
National Chocolate Cupcake Day
No Beard Day

Sweetest Day 
World Menopause Day
++
Alaska Day (Alaska-transfer of land from Russia to US-1867)
Independence Day (Azerbaijan-1991 from Soviet Union)
Persons Day (Canada-1929 court case that allows women to serve in Senate)
           
Quote of the Day



Historical Highlights for Today
1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church's foundations down to bedrock.
1386 - Opening of the University of Heidelberg
1648 - 1st labor organization forms in North American colonies (Boston Shoemakers)
1767 - Boundary between MD & PA, Mason Dixon line, agreed upon
1776 - In a NY bar decorated with bird tail, customer orders "cock tail"
1867 - US takes formal possession of Alaska from Russia ($7.2 million)
1878 - Edison makes electricity available for household use
1889 - 1st all NYC World Series NY Giants (NL) play Bkln (AA)
1892 - 1st commercial long-distance phone line opens (Chicago-NY)
1898 - American flag raised in Puerto Rico
1910 - E.M. (Edward) Forster publishes "Howards End"
1922 - British Broadcasting Company (BBC) founded (later called British Broadcasting Corporation)
1945 - Nazi war crime trial opens in Nuremberg
1953 - Willie Thrower becomes 1st black NFL quarterback in modern times
1954 - Texas Instruments Inc. announces the first transistor radio
1967 - Soviet Venera 4 becomes 1st probe to send data back from Venus
1967 - Walt Disney's "Jungle Book" is released
1968 - Bob Beamon of USA sets long jump record (29 ft. 2½ in.) in Mexico City
1968 - Circus Circus opens in Las Vegas
1968 - US Olympic Committee suspends Tommie Smith & John Carlos for giving "black power" salute as a protest during victory ceremony
1969 - Federal government bans use of cyclamates artificial sweeteners
1992 - 1st non-US team to win a World Series Game; Toronto 5, Atlanta 4
2007 - After 8 years in exile, Benazir Bhutto returns to her homeland Pakistan
·         
  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today



My Rambling Thoughts
Because we sit in the middle of a National Forest, we are the subject of controlled burns, which means that with fall conditions, there are lots of controlled burns around. The current burn, about 15 miles from me is providing us with smoke. To add to that, there is a front here that makes things cloudy. Can’t tell the smoke from the clouds, except in the early morning…and of course the smoke smell. We had worse smoke this summer, but we certainly know there is a burn somewhere.
Two days ago I decided to watch a Netflix movie, only to discover that my TV was not recognizing the Roku or the Roku wasn’t working. I played around a little but couldn’t get it to work. Today I decided was the day to make it work. There is a reset button on the Roku, but I was afraid to push it, for fear that it would erase all my information. With little planned for today, I decided to try the reset button, figuring I would have time to reprogram everything. Well, all the reset button does is reset the Roku stick and after pushing it, everything is working again. Good lesson I guess. Ready for a weekend of movies.
·         
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
What is this rebus?

NOSE
your money
CHIN 

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today





           
OK Then…


·         
Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
Brain Facts…
Caffeine boosts memory.
Blueberry juice boosts memory.
           
Children Facts…
Children's sense of smell is better than adults'.
The most children born to one woman was 69, she was a peasant who lived a 40 year life, in which she had 16 twins, 7 triplets, and 4 quadruplets.
In Brazil, there's a species of cockroach that eats eyelashes, usually those of young children while they are asleep.
           
Computer Facts…
By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.
MySpace reports over 110 million registered users. Were it a country, it would be the tenth largest, just behind Mexico.
           
Flagstaff, AZ History…
From 1889: The universal opinion of the stockmen of this section is that prices of beef cattle will advance as winter approaches and they will realize a good price for their steers.
A defect in the engine in the big mill necessitated the shutting down of that institution this week. The boys are all taking in the town.
The barn of W. J. Murphy caught fire Tuesday night and but for the fact that it was very damp and no wind prevailed we might have had a large conflagration. His loss figures at about $50.
We had several good showers this week. Wednesday we were visited by a terrific wind and hail storm. It only lasted about 5 minutes, but it blew down a good number of trees and broke some windows.
           
Harper’s Index…
Minimum number of Muslims living in Norilsk, Russia, the sight of the world’s northernmost mosque: 30,000
Average daily number of daylight hours Norilsk has during Ramadan this year: 23.8    

Law Facts…
Porn is illegal in the Ukraine, unless it’s prescribed for medical use.
There’s a law in Canada called the “Apology Act” which prevents parties from using an apology as a statement of fault in court.
           
Rules of Thumb…
SPOTTING A FRACTURE
If you feel nauseous after injuring an arm or leg, you've probably fractured it.   

Unusual Fact of the Day…
In 1972, Nick Nolte was the cover model on the packaging of Clairol's Summer Blonde hair lightener.
·         
Joke-of-the-day
Two classmates were chatting in their lunch break...
"I know how to get money real quick" says one,

” How?"
"Go to your dad and say, "I know the truth" and he'll give you money"
So the young boy went home and said "dad, I know the truth" and his dad gave him ten dollars and told him not to tell anyone 'the truth'.
He then went to his mother, " Mom, I know the truth” he said.
"Please don't tell your dad" she said and gave him twenty dollars.
Content with thirty dollars he went outside to go to the arcade and saw the milkman. "I know the truth,” he shouted out.
The milkman replied "Well come and hug your real father then"    


Yep, It Really Happened
It is a little early for Halloween stories, but this one certainly qualifies; that is if you consider venomous spiders boiling out of your walls and ceiling by the thousands terrifying. 
A family was driven from their suburban St. Louis home when the spiders started oozing from the walls.
Brian and Susan Trost bought the $450,000 home overlooking two golf holes at Whitmoor Country Club and soon afterward started seeing brown recluse spiders everywhere. Once when showering, Susan dodged a spider as it fell from the ceiling and washed down the drain.
She told a St. Louis television station the spiders "started bleeding out of the walls," and at least two pest control companies were unable to eradicate the infestation.
The couple filed a claim in with their insurance company and a lawsuit against the home's previous owners for not disclosing the brown recluse problem.
At a civil trial in St. Charles County University of Kansas biology professor Jamel Sandidge estimated there were between 4,500 and 6,000 spiders in the home. 
The jury awarded the couple slightly more than $472,000, but the former owners declared bankruptcy, the insurance company still didn't pay anything and the couple moved out two years ago.
The home, now owned by the Federal National Mortgage Association, was covered with nine tarps this week and workers filled it with a gas that permeated the walls to kill the spiders and their eggs.
"There'll be nothing alive in there after this," said Tim McCarthy, president of the company hired to fix the problem once and for all.

           
Somewhat Useless Information
If you're a comic book fan, you likely already know David Letterman and Stephen Colbert exist in the Marvel Universe. Letterman appeared as himself in issue No. 239 of The Avengers which features hero Wonder Man asking his fellow Avengers to appear with him on Late Night with David Letterman. Colbert appeared in issue No. 573 of The Amazing Spider-Man. 
Former View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck was the fourth to last person voted off the island during Survivor: The Australian Outback. Hasselbeck used Filarski, her maiden name, during the show.
Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson wrote a book about becoming an American citizen. Ferguson is a Scottish immigrant who became an American citizen in 2007. The book, American on Purpose, describes his journey from moving to America, battling drug addiction and depression, become a TV and film star, and eventually choosing to become a citizen of the United States.
Johnny Carson secretly wrote jokes for David Letterman. In a January 2005 interview, former Late Show with David Letterman producer Peter Lassally revealed that the former Tonight Show superstar would send Letterman jokes for his monologue, well after his retirement and Letterman's move from NBC to CBS.
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno was the first show to air in HD. The show started broadcasting in HD on April 26, 1999.
Conan O'Brien aired a Claymation version of his Late Night program. The May 15, 2003, show was entirely filmed with animated clay and featured celebrity guests Johnny Knoxville and Richard Lewis, with musical guest, David Bowie. The program included a clay version of the opening credits and an animated audience.         

·         
Check Your Calendar
Observances This Week:
--- 12-18
Bone and Joint Health National Awareness Week
Earth Science Week
Getting The World To Beat A Path To Your Door Week
National Chestnut Week
National Food Bank Week
Teen Read Week
Veterinary Technicians Week
YWCA Week Without Violence
World Rainforest Week
National School Lunch Week
YWCA Week Without Violence
--- 17-24

Food & Drug Interactions and Awareness Week   
·         
Today’s Events through History
1356 - Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroyed the town of Basel, Switzerland
1685 - French King Louis XIV revokes Edict of Nantes cancelling rights of French Protestants
1962 - Dr Watson (US) & Drs Crick & Wilkins (Britain) win Nobel Prize for Medicine for work in determining structure of DNA
1973 - Congress authorizes bi-centennial quarter, half-dollar & dollar coin
·         
Birthday’s Today
Chuck Berry, rocker (Roll over Beethoven) is 88
Keith Jackson, sportscaster (ABC Monday Night Football) is 86
Dawn Wells, actress (Mary Ann-Gilligan’s Island) is 76
Mike Ditka, NFL coach/tight-end (NFL rookie year 1961) is 75
Martina Navratilova, tennis (Wimbledon 1989,79,82-87) is 58
Thomas Hearns, American boxer is 56
Erin Moran, actress (Happy Days) is 54
Jean-Claude Van Damme, Brussels Belgian, actor (Kickboxer) is 54

Wynton Marsalis, jazz trumpeter (Grammy 1983) is 53
Ne-Yo [Shaffer Chimere Smith, Jr], pop\R&B singer and songwriter is 32
Zac Efron, TV actor (CSI: Miami, ER), is 27

Remembered for being born today
Edward Winslow, Plymouth Colony founder (1595-1655)
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, (L) 15th Canadian PM (1919-2000)
George C. Scott, actor/director (Patton, Dr. Strangelove) (1927-1999)
Inger Stevens, Stockholm, actress (Katy-Farmer's Daughter) (1934-1970)
Peter Boyle, actor (Everybody Loves Raymond) (1935-2006)
Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin (JFK), (1939-1963)
Laura Nyro, Bronx, singer/songwriter (Eli's Coming) (1947-1997)
·         
Historical Obits Today
Bess Truman, 1st lady (1945-53), 1982, @97
Thomas Alva Edison, inventor, 1931, @84
Tom Foley, American politician, 2013, @84
Julie London, American singer and actress, long illness, 2000, @74
Dee Dee Warwick, American soul singer, long illness, 2008, @63
Walt Kelly, US comic strip artist (Pogo), long illness, 1973, @60
Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, palsy, 1541, @51
Jon-Erik Hexum, actor (Bear), gun loaded with blanks, 1984, @26
·         
Brain Teasers Answers
 Put your money where your mouth is. 
·         
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.