2-24-15

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Almanac: Week: 09 \ Day: 055 
February Averages: 45°\19°
86004 Today: H 44°\L 32°
Average Sky Cover: 90% 
Wind ave:   7mph\Gusts:  20mph
Ave. High: 46° Record High:  66° (1904)
Ave. Low: 21° Record Low:  -4° (1909)

Observances Today:
Canada: National Cupcake Day
US: Spay Day

National Tortilla Chip Day
Single Tasking Day
World Bartender Day
Observances This Week:
     Feb 21-28
National Entrepreneurship Week
National Engineers Week
National FFA Week
Bird Health Awareness Week
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week
National Invasive Species Awareness Week

« »  « »
Quote of the Day 

« » 
US Historical Highlights for Today
1730 - With both sides running out of ammunition, the French, and the Natchez agree on a peace settlement.
1803 - US Supreme Court 1st rules a law unconstitutional (Marbury v Madison)
1839 - Steam shovel patented by William Otis, Philadelphia
1857 - 1st perforated US postage stamps delivered to government
1863 - Arizona Territory created
1864- Territorial Governor John Noble Goodwin instructed U.S. Marshal Milton B. Duffield, shown here in an undated portrait, to take the first Arizona Territorial Census-Arizona had 4,573 residents.
1868 - 1st US parade with floats (Mardi Gras-Mobile Alabama)
1868 - House vote 126 to 47 to impeach President Andrew Johnson
1888 - Louisville, Ky, becomes 1st government in US to adopt Australian ballot (i.e. secret ballot on standard voting forms)
1893 - American University is chartered by an act of the Congress
1909 -  Hudson Motor Car Company is founded
1924 - Johnny Weissmuller, swims 100m record (57 2/5 secs)
1938 - Du Pont begins commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles
1968 - Discovery of 1st pulsar announced
1977 - Pres Carter announces US foreign aid will consider human rights
1979 - Highest price ever paid for a pig, $42,500, Stamford, Texas
1981 - Jean Harris is convicted of murdering Scarsdale diet doctor Tarnower
1987 - LA Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scores his 36,000th NBA point
1996 - Cuba downs 2 US planes
1999 - State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national involved in an armed robbery, in spite of Germany's legal action to attempt to save him
2002 - XIX Winter Olympics closes in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Today’s World Events through History
1821 - Mexico gains independence from Spain
1895 - Cuban war for independence begins
1924 - Mahatma Gandhi released from jail
1946 - Juan Peron elected President of Argentina
1969 - Northern Ireland Stormont parliament elections are held; the Unionist party fragments into 'Official Unionist' and 'Unofficial Unionist'
1989 - 150-million-year-old fossil egg (oldest dinosaur embryo) found
1998 - Elton John knighted
2008 - Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba after nearly fifty years
2014 - A 4.4 billion-year-old Crystal is discovered to be the oldest known fragment from the earth's crust
« » « »
  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today


My Rambling Thoughts
A snowy Monday. Not a lot of sticking, but snow all day, on and off. Flag school district closed all its schools from fear of ice. A slight overreaction. I guess they have all their snow days left and want to use them up. It’s a tough call as many parents don’t have child care available and many bosses aren’t happy about employees staying home to take care of their kids. Yet, if the roads do get icy, the parents get all upset when their kids are late home. Win some, lose more. It wasn’t that cold outside but I saw no kids playing outside on this day off. I did enjoy watching the snow from my front window, and office window.
I watched several videos of the Oscars. Glad I didn’t watch the almost 4 hour thing. All the news shows were giving me more than enough news about them.
My amaryllis had 7 flowers at its height, still have 3 after almost 2 weeks of blooming. Enjoying.
I really wish there was a station that reported the news without the hype. They have all redrawn the lines between entertainment and news. I am tired of the cutesy comments by the news people in the studio following a story. I am tired to the teasers to stories that have little if anything to do with the story that comes after the teaser. Read me the news, show some relevant interviews with the parties involved and some video of the event. I can even deal with some experts comments as long as they don’t have an agenda. I’m tired of the Brian Williams story and now the Bill O’Reilly story. I never trusted the latter because he always has an agenda. I seldom watched Brian Williams but won’t watch him at all if he ever returns. Just give me the news without personal commentary.  Also, stop telling me that you aren’t going to show a video but then spend 5 minutes telling me what was in the video I can’t see.
« » « »
Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
What can be deeper than the sea,
More intriguing than stars and space,
Simple as can be,
Duller than an empty place,
As innocent as a gentle word,
And guilty like a mean jailbird,
From whence comes most of the things we see,
Which otherwise just wouldn't be.
What can it be, what can it be?

           
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
• George Gobel – comedian            
« » « »
Agriculture Facts…
-- There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people.
--In 1984, a Canadian farmer began renting ad space on his cows.

Book Facts…
-- Why Do Old Books Have a Distinct Smell?
The reason why old books have such a distinct smell is because hundreds of organic compounds in the pages break down over time and release chemicals that smell like almond, vanilla, and grass.
--A man with locked-in syndrome, named Jean-Dominique Bauby, wrote an entire book by blinking his left eyelid.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
100 YEARS AGO-1915
 “Bar” D. James is back from Agua Claliente and says the rains have made the range conditions splendid there in the desert. High winds and heavy snow drifting here in Flagstaff.

Harper’s Index…
51
Percentage of US flights accounted for by private planes
96
Of fatal US air crashes

Kindness Facts…
-- Paul Walker was in a jewelry store one day when he noticed a young U.S. military veteran with his fiancée shopping for a wedding ring. Paul went to the manager and said “Put that girl’s ring on my tab.”
--Leonardo Da Vinci loved animals so much that he used to buy caged animals at the market just to set them free.

Rules of Thumb…
CHECKING A BEEHIVE
One thousand to 1,500 bees die per day under normal summer conditions. All or most are removed from the vicinity of the hive. An accumulation of 3 or 4 dead bees per day in front of the hive entrance is cause for suspicion.

Unusual Fact of the Day…
Strawberry Shortcake started out as a greeting card character. As her popularity grew in the 1980s, she began to appear on dolls and toys and even starred in her own TV show.
« » « »
Joke-of-the-day
An ancient Greek walks into his tailor's shop with a torn pair of pants. 
"Euripides?" Asks the tailor. 
"Yeah, Eumenides?" Replies the man.

« »
The teacher said; "Take a pencil and paper, and write an essay with the title ‘If I Were a Millionaire.'" 
Everyone but Joe, who leaned back with arms folded, began to write feverishly. 
"What's the matter," the teacher asked. "Why don't you begin?" 
"I'm waiting for my secretary," Joe replied.      


Yep, It Really Happened
Irving, Texas
Most people would consider waking up, still drunk, in a box at a landfill with no recollection of what happened, the conclusion of a very bad night. But on the other hand, this story happened in Texas, so...
The woman in question was found alive in a box at a dump in Irving, Texas Saturday morning, nine miles from where she had last been seen.
She was spotted by a passerby, who saw what was believed to be a half-naked woman's body in a box near the entrance to the dump around 9 a.m.
Police say the woman was with a friend at a nightclub several hours earlier.
The woman needed help getting to her car, so a man offered to help while the woman's friend got their car. Both were gone when her friend got back with their car. That's when the woman's friend called Dallas Police and reported her missing.
Irving Police say the woman was very drunk when they found her.
Initial exams showed no signs of sexual assault. The woman said she doesn't remember how she ended up at the landfill.    


Somewhat Useless Information
--The first Academy Awards were held in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16, 1929.
--The famous golden statuette is officially named the Academy Award of Merit. According to the Oscars, the nickname's origins are unclear. The most widely known story goes that Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who had the gig in the 1930s, saw the statue and said it looked like her Uncle Oscar. (The Academy didn't adopt the nickname officially until 1939.)
--The design of the Oscar statuette, by Cedric Gibbons, is a knight holding a crusader's sword while standing on a film reel. There are five spokes on the reel representing the five original branches of the Academy: writers, technicians, producers, actors and directors.
--The first televised Oscars show was on March 19, 1953. That year, Gary Cooper won the Oscar for best actor for High Noon (and it was accepted by John Wayne). Shirley Booth took home the best actress prize for Come Back, Little Sheba. The first color broadcast was in 1966, when The Sound of Music won best picture.
--The more-than-5,000 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are the ones who choose the winners. Among that group, more than 1,000 are actors.
--Seventy-two million U.S. viewers tuned into last year's Academy Awards. In comparison, this year's Super Bowl had 114.5 million viewers and Sunday's #SNL40 performance had 23.1 million viewers.
« »« »

Birthday’s Today
Abe Vigoda, actor (Barney Miller, Fish) is 94
Joe Lieberman, (Sen-D Connecticut) is 73
Edward James Olmos, actor (Miami Vice) is 68
George Thorogood, singer and guitarist (Bad to the Bone) is 65
Paula Zahn, news anchor (ABC, CBS This Morning) is 59
Billy Zane, actor (Titanic) is 49
Floyd Mayweather, Jr., featherweight boxer (Oly-br-96) is 38
« »
Remembered for being born today
Wilhelm Karl Grimm, story teller (Grimm's Fairy Tales) 1786-1859@73
Winslow Homer, US, painter (Gulfstream) 1836-1910@74
Chester Nimitz, US admiral (commanded Pacific fleet in WW II) 1885-1966@80
Marjorie Main, [Tomlinson], Action, actress (Another Thin Man) 1890-1975@85
James Farentino, Brooklyn, actor (The Final Countdown), 1938-2012@73
Steve Jobs, computer entrepreneur\co-founder of Apple 1955-2011@56
« » « »
Historical Obits Today
Henny Youngman, comedian (Take my wife please), 1998, @91
Don Knotts, actor (Barney Fife), 2006, @81
Dennis Weaver, actor (Chester- Gunsmoke), 2006, @81
Dinah Shore, singer (Chevrolet), cancer, 1994, @76
Jean Rogers, actress (Flash Gordon, Hot Cargo), after surgery, 1991, @74
George Gobel, comedian (George Gobel Show), after surgery, 1991, @71
Malcolm Forbes, CEO (Forbes Publishing), heart attack, 1990, @70
Johnnie Ray, singer (Cry), liver failure, 1990, @61
Franz Waxman, German composer (Day at the races), cancer, 1967, @60
Robert Fulton, steamboat pioneer, TB, 1815, @49
« » « »

Brain Teasers Answers
Thought.
« » « »

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…§

No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers

Total Pageviews

Blog Archive

About Me

My photo
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.