1-16-15

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Almanac: Week: 03 \ Day: 016 
January Averages: 43°\16°
86004 Today: H 43°\L 22°
Ave. humidity: 52%     Average Sky Cover: 0%
Wind ave:   11mph\Gusts:  25mph
Ave. High: 43° Record High:  60° (1974)
Ave. Low: 16° Record Low:  -8° (1915)

Observances Today:
US-VA-Lee Jackson Day-for birthdays of Robert E. and Stonewall
\/
Appreciate A Dragon Day
Hot and Spicy Food International Day
International Fetish Day
National Nothing Day
Nothing Day
Religious Freedom Day

Observances This 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
1412 - The Medici family is appointed official banker of the Papacy.
1492 - The 1st grammar of a modern language, Spanish, is presented to Queen Isabella.
1831 - Mushulatubbe ("Determined to Kill") says he will step down as Chief when the removal of the CHOCTAWs to Indian Territory begins.
1868 - Refrigerator car patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit
1877 - Color organ (for light shows) patented, by Bainbridge Bishop
1883 - Pendleton Act creates basis of US Civil Service system
1920 - The 18th Amendment is ratified, prohibiting the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages (repealed 1933)
1936 - 1st photo finish camera installed at Hialeah Race track in Hialeah Fla
1936 - Screen Actors Guild incorporates with King Vidor as president
1938 - 1st jazz concert held at Carnegie Hall (Benny Goodman)
1951 - World's largest gas pipeline opens (Brownsville Tx, to 134th St, NYC)
1969 - Soviet Soyuz 4 & Soyuz 5 perform 1st transfer of crew in space
1970 - Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects
1974 - "Jaws" by Peter Benchley is published
1985 - "Playboy" announces end of stapling centerfolds
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  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today


My Rambling Thoughts
Sun, clear blue sky, a little wind…nice day for melting our snow.
This has been a crazy week for lunches…today Cheryl and I went to the new Mexican place. Another good meal.
Cheryl had pics of Christmas with her family in CA. some really great pics.
The worldwide terror thing is just getting worse. An interesting story on NPR…back in August a Frenchman did a political cartoon about a politician and his Jewish girlfriend. He was fired from the newspaper for the cartoon. In another story about Muslims, it was pointed out that many times people feel it is OK to make jokes about Muslims while not OK to make jokes about Christians or Jews. And finally, starting tomorrow, the chapel on the Duke University campus will do the ‘call to prayer’ for Muslims on campus every Friday at noon. They already ring a bell on Sunday for Christians. Lots of on campus discussion about that decision.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
I'm quite a show
And people know;
Spinning threads
For capture of heads.

My limbs are many,
But I may be less than a penny.
One prick of me,
And in pain you will be.

I may fly and float as a baby,
And I swing when I'm older, maybe.
I can live in dark,
And have homes of bark.

I peel and fight,
Some people eat me in a bite.

What am I?   


Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
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Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
60’s Inventions…
1964
Acrylic paint invented.
Permanent-press fabric invented.
BASIC (an early computer language) is invented by John George Kemeny and Tom Kurtz.

Emotion Facts…
--Most people smile when they are frustrated, according to a study.
--The use of emoticons affects our corresponding brain areas and can actually trigger emotions.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
50 YEARS AGO
Flagstaff greeted the New Year with 4 feet of snow. There were 13 accidents and six cars just plain left running in middle of the street when they could go on further. They were towed.
Flagstaff’s Iconic 50…
Joe Sorren Mural
During the last decade, Flagstaff has seen a wondrous flourish of public art and murals — from the Centennial mural at the train station to the Route 66 mural along Phoenix Avenue at the Lumberyard and more. But one of the originals is a standout of storytelling and surreal wonder.
Artist Joe Sorren added his wondrous artistic strokes to the downtown Flagstaff scene with “The Veridic Gardens of Effie Leroux.” Completed in 2000, the famed mural draws people for repeated visits, as they discover new characters and moments in the complex world of Effie.
People who sit outside to eat at Diablo Burger at Old Town Shops get the best view, as the mural wraps around the cylindrical wall outside of the eatery. It measures 20 feet by 45 feet and took Sorren approximately one year to complete.
The mural is full of clever visual references, including miniature representations of paintings from old masters such as Picasso’s “Guernica” and a tiny version of Klimt’s “The Kiss,” but it takes a clever eye to spot them. The mischievous-looking boy in the red represents Sorren’s son and the girl in the oversized shirt symbolizes his daughter.

Harper’s Index…
$3,731,057
Amount Americans spent last year on UNICEF donations to trick-or-treaters
$330,000,000
On Halloween costumes for their pets  

Rules of Thumb…
KEEPING UP WITH MEDICINE
The half-life of knowledge in medical school is four years. Fifty percent of what you learn as a freshman is obsolete when you graduate.

Unusual Fact of the Day…
Michael Jackson wanted to do a Harry Potter musical. J.K. Rowling said no.
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Joke-of-the-day
Jim, a collections specialist, was on his first day of work for his new employer and was assigned to collect a past due balance from a company that was a customer of his employer. He had been provided with a standard script that he was to use where he was to ask for "Accounts Payable" when calling the customer so that he could talk with someone about the payment of the past due bill.
He made the call, asked the receptionist for "Accounts Payable", and waited for what seemed to be forever on hold. Finally, after a very long time, the receptionist, who was also on her first day on the job and new to the world of business, came back on the phone and stated, "I am sorry, but I have looked down our list of employees and I do not find anyone named Accounts Payable."
           
Yep, It Really Happened
SAN DIEGO (UPI)
A full-sized boa constrictor slithered out of a toilet at a public relations firm in Southern California last week, according to a press release from the company. When Stephanie Lacsa, co-founder for Vertical PR + Marketing, noticed a higher-than-usual water level in one of the San Diego office building's toilets last Wednesday, she went to work with a plunger. Something then began to emerge from the toilet drain.
"I thought my eyes were deceiving me," Lacsa said, according to a statement from the firm published on San Diego Animal Control's Facebook page. "But as soon I saw the flicker of its tongue, I definitely knew that it was in fact a large snake heading straight toward me." The snake was a Colombian Rainbow Boa, a non-venomous constrictor native to South America. At 5-feet long, the boa was at average full-grown length. Lasca said she shrieked and ran from the bathroom, taping up the door until animal control arrived and captured the snake.
"The animal control officer said that she had never witnessed anything like this in her career," Lasca said, according to the statement. "She referred to the incident as 'The Stuff of Urban Legends' and I would have to agree." Holly Wells, Lasca's co-worker and the co-founder of Vertical PR + Marketing, noted that the office was very old. "Our building, which is the Old San Diego City Hall, was built in 1886 so we are accustomed to the old pipes and stubborn plumbing," she said, according to the release. "But we were definitely not prepared for this." San Diego Animal Control said Friday in a comment on its Facebook page that the boa was claimed by a friend of the owner, and that its name was "Bella." Boa constrictors are considered an invasive species in places such as Florida, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, where they thrive in the subtropical climate and are mostly introduced through "escape or release by pet owners." While it does not list boa constrictors as one of the state's invasive species, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife notes, "Some of the animals that are currently, or were in the past, brought into California as sources of food, fur, or pets have turned into major pests."  

Somewhat Useless Information
Did you know that somewhere in the world a cat is the honorary mayor since July 1997 and that every afternoon it goes to a nearby restaurant and drinks water out of a wineglass laden with catnip?
This city is Talkeetna, Alaska and the cat is ‘Stubbs’ born in 1997.
Stubbs is still mayor, as well as a tourist attraction, having been flooded with cards and letters, and drawing 30 to 40 tourists each day!

Gizmos
BOSTON (UPI)
An international team of scientists claim to have created one of the most powerful antibiotic drugs in decades, capable of killing the microorganisms that cause pneumonia, staph, tuberculosis, blood infections and more. And they found it in a pile of dirt. 
The new antibiotic, teixobactin, operates differently than previous antibiotics; its power and uniqueness has moved some scientists to suggest germs may never be able to develop resistance to it. 
"Our impres­sion is that nature pro­duced a com­pound that evolved to be free of resis­tance," explained lead researcher Kim Lewis, a professor at Northeastern University. "This chal­lenges the dogma that we've oper­ated under that bac­teria will always develop resistance. Well, maybe not in this case." 
While that notion has been dismissed by a number of other researchers who believe that eventually, bacteria will develop a resistance to anything, the new drug still holds great promise in the medical field. Given the growing concerns over resistance to today's common antibiotics, the new discovery has many health researchers, doctors and officials excited. 
"It brings back the notion that there are lots of unanticipated surprises still lurking in the soil," Gerald Fink, a microbiologist at the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the MIT Technology Review. 
Researchers at MIT, Boston University and Northeastern teamed up with scientists in Germany and England in order to develop the new antibiotic. Most of the world's bacterial resistance strategies are hidden in the dirt, but less than one percent can be recreated in the lab. Researchers have long been looking for a way to utilize the other 99 percent. 
Now there is a way to grow uncultured bacteria in their natural envi­ron­ment, thanks to a device called the iChip that was developed by Lewis and his colleague, North­eastern biology professor Slava Epstein. The iChip has allowed scienitsts to grow single cell organisms in their natural environments. 
Teixobactin is one of more than two dozen new antibiotics discovered using the technique -- it's also the latest and most promising. Though it is yet to be tested on humans, it has cured a variety of bacterial infections in mice. Lewis told MIT that it may be two years before teixobactin is tested on human volunteers.       

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Today’s Events through History
1547 - Ivan IV the Terrible (17) crowns himself 1st tsar of Moscow
1908 - Pinnacles National Monument, California established
1954 - "South Pacific" closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 1928 performances
1965 - "Outer Limits" last airs on ABC-TV
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Birthday’s Today
Jim Berry, cartoonist (Berry's World) is 83
A. J. Foyt, racing driver (Indy 500 - 1961, 64, 67 & 77), is 80
Jim Stafford, singer (Spiders & Snakes) is 72
Ronnie Milsap, country singer (Legend in My Time) is 72
John Carpenter, director (Halloween, The Thing) is 67
Debbie Allen, dancer/actress (Lydia-Fame), is 65
Sade (Helen Folasade Adu), Nigerian-born singer is 56
David Chokachi, actor (Baywatch) is 47
Kate Moss, English model (Calvin Klein) is 41
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Remembered for being born today
Fulgencio Batista, president/dictator of Cuba 1901-1973@72
Ethel Merman, stage & screen actress (Anything Goes) 1908-1984@76
Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean, HOF baseball pitcher (St Louis Cardinals) 1910-1974@64
Susan Sontag, author/film director (Benefactor, 1966 Pol Award), 1933-2004@71
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Historical Obits Today
Pauline Phillips, American advice columnist ‘Dear Abby’, 2013, @94
Russell Johnson, actor, "The Professor"-Gilligan's Island, 2014, @89
Arturo Toscanini, Italian US conductor (NBC), 1957, @89
Robert R "Bob" Jones, founder (Bob Jones University), 1968, @84
Marshall Field, founder of Marshall Field and Company, pneumonia, 1906, @71
Ma Barker (Arizona Donnie Barker), American criminal, shot, 1935, @61
Edward Gibbon, English historian (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), infection, 1794, @56
Ted Cassidy, actor (Lurch-Addams Family), surgery complications, 1979, @46
Carole Lombard, actress (To Be or Not to Be), plane crash, 1942, @33
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Brain Teasers Answers
A spider.
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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.