1-14-15

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Almanac: Week: 03 \ Day: 014 
January Averages: 43°\16°
86004 Today: H 37°\L 30°
Ave. humidity: 94%     Average Sky Cover: 80%
Wind ave:   8mph\Gusts:  18mph
Ave. High: 43° Record High:  65° (1943)
Ave. Low: 16° Record Low:  -15° (2007)

Observances Today:
Caesarean Section Day
International Kite Day
National Dress Up Your Pet Day
Organize Your Home Day
Orthodox New Year
Ratification Day

Observances This Week:
8-14
Universal Letter Writing Week
11-17

Cuckoo Dancing Week
National Vocation Awareness Week
14-18

National Soccer Coaches of America Week
No Tillage Week

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Quote of the Day 


Historical Highlights for Today
1539 - Spain annexes Cuba
1690 - Clarinet invented, in Nurnberg, Germany
1699 - Massachusetts holds day of fasting for wrongly persecuting "witches"
1794 - Dr Jessee Bennet performs 1st successful Cesarean section operation in US on his wife
1799 - Eli Whitney receives government contract for 10,000 muskets

1813 - Gideon Hawley becomes 1st state school superintendent in US (NY)
1878 - US Supreme court rules race separation on trains unconstitutional
1914 - Henry Ford introduces an assembly line for Model T
1963 - George C Wallace sworn in as governor of Alabama, his address states "segregation now; segregation tomorrow; segregation forever!"
1979 - President Jimmy Carter proposes Martin Luther King's birthday be a holiday
1989 - 1,000 muslims burn Salman Rushdies' "Satanic Verses" in Bradford, England
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  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today


My Rambling Thoughts
Nice winter day. Woke up to light snow showers, then some sun, and in late afternoon more snow. Not a lot of it is sticking, but the moisture is always welcome.
Mary and I had lunch today at a new authentic Mexican restaurant. The owner is from Mexico City and everything is made from scratch. Very nice décor with tables and chairs from Guadalajara and all are handmade. Never sure about new places, especially since the last 3 restaurants in this location have failed. This one sure seems like a winner. Mary is headed for Phoenix as her daughter and her whole family are coming in for the long weekend. She is very excited, even with having to drive through the snow. Her daughter is in Chicago, so is looking forward to warm Phoenix weather. Cheryl couldn’t make it as she didn’t want to drive in the snow.
Tomorrow has to be laundry day as all the hampers are full. It will be easy if it is snowing, but if the weather is nice, I doubt it will get done.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
What am I?

You may praise your good fortune and curse all you hate,
Yet I rule all your chaos and gamble your fate.
By some I'm avoided by others I'm game, 
Called by fat or slim, my meaning's the same.

           
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
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Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
60’s Inventions…
1962
The audio cassette invented.
The fiber-tip pen invented by Yukio Horie.
Spacewar, the first computer video game invented.
Dow Corp invents silicone breast implants.

**NEW**Emotion Facts…
--Dogs can detect sadness in humans and often attempt to make their owners happy by initiating cuddling.
--Elephants are among the most emotional creatures in the world - they have even been known to rescue other animals, such as trapped dogs.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
75 YEARS AGO
At the Orpheum this week: “Gentlemen from Arizona” with Joan Barcly and John King. This is a Monogram picture. Live onstage: Ruthie Reese, Arizona’s Little Sweetheart in person, plus music, news and cartoons in Technicolor.

Flagstaff’s Iconic 50…
Jay Lively Ice Arena
Rachelle Lively Duncan is in awe of how things have come full circle for her, her family and hockey in Flagstaff.
That’s the feeling she left with after she and her family were given a No. 7 jersey in a pregame ceremony before a Northern Arizona University hockey game to honor Jay Lively, Rachelle’s brother, who died in March of 1984 at the age of 17.
A Flagstaff-based youth hockey player and stick boy for NAU’s hockey club, Lively was making the trip home to Flagstaff following a hockey practice in Tempe when his truck was hit by a drunk driver going the wrong way along a treacherous section of I-17.
The accident left him and six others dead, including a young man from Prescott who was also killed in the accident when the horse trailer the drunk driver was hauling went over the top of Jay's car and hit the car behind him.
Today, in the median of the I-17, on the northbound lanes near the New River exit 232, just North of Phoenix, a small roadside memorial with a hockey stick attached to it mark the location of the accident where Jay lost his life.
The drunk driver survived the crash and served all of her 7-plus-year prison term.

Harper’s Index…
$25,000
Minimum amount paid by the Museum of Death in Hollywood for Jack Kevorkian’s Thanatron suicide device.

Rules of Thumb…
SPOTTING A BEGINNER
If signers finish mouthing their names before their hands finish spelling the letters, they've had less than a year's practice at fingerspelling.

Unusual Fact of the Day…
Invented in the 1940s in Tennessee, Mountain Dew was meant to be mixed with whisky. In fact, its bottles were designed to look like moonshine, and the original Mountain Dew labels featured outhouses, stills, and hay-chewing yokels.
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Joke-of-the-day
Two guys were sitting in a double hole outhouse doing their business, when #1 gets through and pulling up his pants, a quarter falls out of his pocket and falls into the depths of the hole. As they both peer down the hole, #1 pulls out his wallet and throws a 20 dollar into the hole. "What did you do that for?" inquires #2.
#1 replies "You don't think I'm going to climb down there for a lousy quarter, do you"


Yep, It Really Happened
Norwich, England
People's love for their pets reached a new high in December when a British man paid a veterinarian the equivalent of $500 to perform delicate surgery on a sick office goldfish (typical pet store "replacement" price: $1 to $5). Vet Faye Bethell of North Walsham, England, told the Eastern Daily Press in December that there was "nothing special" about the fish, but that the customer "just liked it a lot." In fact, the goldfish likely did not even have a pet name -- as Bethell in an interview spoke intimately of another patient by name (Cadbury, the skunk). (Bethell's procedure involved removing the patient from the bowl, flooding its gills with anesthetic-fortified water, and using a tiny scalpel to remove lumps that were causing it constipation, with the surgery guided by a miniature heart-rate monitor.)

Somewhat Useless Information
Do you know the exact age of two global landmarks, that of the Brooklyn Bridge and Tower Bridge?
Tower Bridge, the iconic symbol of London, consists of two towers tied together at the upper level by means of two horizontal walkways. It had been built from 1886 to 1894.
Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest bridges in the United States and it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was built in 1883.

Gizmos
LAS VEGAS (UPI)
Toyota wants to build a hydrogen society. But first, they want the Toyota Mirai -- the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to be released commercially -- to be a hit on the market. To spur excitement (and to encourage fuel cell innovation, Toyota officials say), the company is releasing some 5,680 patents related to the technology that powers the Mirai. 
Of the released patents, 1,970 are related to Toyota's stacked fuel cell technology. Another 290 are related to the company's high-pressure hydrogen tanks, and 3,350 protect the technology involved in Mirai's fuel cell software system. Some 70 patents reveal technology related to hydrogen production and supply. 
The mass release of the patents was announced by Toyota officials at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. 
"There will be an application process to ensure what the technology will be used for, and then a royalty-free license will be issued that will get us through this initial introductory phase," Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations at Toyota, told Popular Science. 
There are plenty of benefits to fuel cell technology -- chiefly, a hydrogen fuel cell produces only heat and water vapor, no carbon emissions. Additionally, hydrogen is plentiful. 
"Seventy-five percent of the universe is made out of hydrogen," theoretical physicist Michio Kaku told audience members at a presentation on the Mirai. "You want to see hydrogen? Go outside, take a look at the stars, the galaxies, the sun. 
"Hydrogen is the most plentiful substance in the universe," Kaku added. "And contrast that now to oil, black gold, one of the rarest of substances on the planet Earth. Nations will kill to secure supplies of oil." 
But fuel cells need hydrogen. Currently, hydrogen refueling infrastructure is nearly nonexistent. The company is building refueling stations in California, where the car will first go on sale in the fall for around $60,000. Economists estimate a tank of hydrogen fuel will cost about $50. Toyota says that will get its Mirai drivers a range of 300 miles. 
Experts say the patent release isn't really about sharing secrets, but encouraging collaboration; a variety of other automakers are working on similar fuel cell cars. But an immature market and the high cost of research is holding back the industry -- not technology. 
In order for the hydrogen fuel cell industry to take off, refueling infrastructure needs to be built up and fuel cells need to become more efficient. 
"I don't think the technology that Toyota has is that groundbreaking," David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's not a patent issue." 
"It's historic the amount of collaboration that's occurring," Cole added. "If automakers don't, we're not going to get down the fuel cell road as far and as fast as we like."         

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Today’s Events through History
1129 - Formal approval of the Order of Templars at the Council of Troyes
1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army leaves Glasgow
1967 - Sonny & Cher release "Beat Goes On"
2014 - American journalist David Satter is expelled from Russia
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Birthday’s Today
Jack Jones, singer (Love Boat Theme), is 77
Julian Bond, (D-Ga) civil rights leader is 75
[Dorothy] Faye Dunaway, actress (Bonnie & Clyde) is 74
Holland Taylor, actress (Bossom Buddies) is 72
Joseph Henry "T Bone" Burnett, musician and producer is 67
Carl Weathers, actor (Apollo Creed-Rocky) is 67
Steven Soderbergh, producer, director, writer (Ocean's Eleven) is 52
Shepard Smith, American news anchor is 51
LL Cool J, [James Todd Smith], St Albans NY, rapper (Bigger & Deffer) is 47
Jason Bateman, actor, is 46
Pitbull (Armando Christian Pérez), American rapper is 34
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Remembered for being born today
Mark Antony [Marcus Antonius], Politician and General  83BC-30 BC@53
Benedict Arnold, US general turned traitor 1741-1801@60
Alice Pike Barney, American painter 1857-1931@74
Albert Schweitzer, doctor/humanitarian/organist (Nobel 1954) 1875-1965@90
Hal Roach, early film director/producer (1 Million BC) 1892-1992@100
William Bendix, actor (Life of Riley), 1906-1964@58
Mark Goodson, game show producer 1915-1992@77
Andy Rooney, CBS news correspondent (60 Minutes) 1919-2011@92
Guy Williams, actor (Zorro, Lost in Space), 1924-1989@65
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Historical Obits Today
Conrad Bain, Canadian-born actor, (Different STrokes) 2013, @89
Ricardo Montalbán, Mexican actor (Fantasy Island), 2009, @88
Shelley Winters, actress, (Poseidon Adventure), 2006, @85
Edmond Halley, English scientist, 1742, @85
Ray Kroc, founder of McDonalds/owner San Diego Padres, 1984, @81
Blossom Rock, actress (Grandmamma-Addams Family), 1978, @81
Peter "Peerke" Donders, missionary (Father of Melaatsen), 1887, @77
Lewis Carroll, writer (Alice in Wonderland), influenza, 1898, @65
Donna Reed, actress (Donna Reed Show, Dallas), cancer, 1986, @64
Jeanette MacDonald, soprano (When I'm Calling You), heart disease, 1965, @63
Peter Finch, actor (Network, Nun's Story, Judith), heart attack, 1977, @60
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Brain Teasers Answers
Chance ... the luck of the draw in life! We praise it when it goes our way and curse it when it doesn't, some avoid risk and others gamble at every chance. There is no difference between a fat chance and a slim chance. Good luck in life!
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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.