7-30-15

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Almanac: Week: 31 \ Day: 211
July Averages: 82°\50°
86004 Today: H 88° \ L 50° Average Sky Cover: 75% 
Wind ave:   6mph\Gusts:  18mph
Ave. High: 82° Record High: 92° (1943) Ave. Low: 51° Record Low: 40° (1913)
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Observances Today:
Cheesecake Day
Father-In-Law Day
Friendship Day Health Care Now!  Medicare's Birthday
International Day of Friendship
National Chili Dog Day
National Support Public Education Day
Paperback Book Day

Independence Day (Vanuatu-1980-from Britain/France)
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Observances This Week:
AFRMA Fancy Rat & Mouse Week ->8/1 
Satchmo Days: ->8/2
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Quote of the Day 

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US Historical Highlights for Today
1619 - House of Burgesses Virginia forms, 1st elective American governing body
1729 - City of Baltimore founded
1733 - Society of Freemasons opens 1st American lodge in Boston
1836 - First English language newspaper published in Hawaii
1863 - President Lincoln issues "eye-for-eye" order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every black prisoner shot
1863 - Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, promising to stop harassing the emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah.
1869 - The Charles, considered the world’s first "oil tanker", departs from US headed for Europe with a bulk capacity of 7,000 barrels of oil
1898 - Will Kellogg invents Corn Flakes
1921 –AZ Governor Thomas E. Campbell canceled the State Fair to save Arizona taxpayers $90,000.
1928 - George Eastman shows 1st color motion pictures (US)
1930 - 1st broadcast of "Death Valley Days" on NBC-radio
1932 - 10th modern Olympic games opens in Los Angeles
1935 - 1st Penguin book is published, starting the paperback revolution
1942 - FDR signs bill creating women's Navy auxiliary agency (WAVES)
1954 - Elvis Presley joins Memphis Federation of Musicians, Local 71
1956 - US motto "In God We Trust" authorized
1965 - LBJ signs Medicare bill, which goes into effect in 1966
1990 - The first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line.
2008 - "Slumdog Millionaire" based on the novel "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup, premieres at the Telluride Film Festival (Best Picture 2009)
2014 - The EU and US extend sanctions on Russia to include banks, energy, and defense firms; Moscow denies the allegation that Russia is arming rebels in Eastern Ukraine
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World Historical Highlights for Today
1792 - 500 Marseillaisian men sing France's national anthem for 1st time
1811 - Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican insurgency, is executed by the Spanish in Chihuahua, Mexico.
1870 - The Republic of Klipdrift is proclaimed by Transvaal President Andries Pretorius after the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1866 resulted in a flood of treasure hunters; ownership of the diamond fields was contested by the Boer republics
1948 - Emile Zatopek runs Olympic record (10K - 29:59.6)
1970 - Riots hit Belfast, North Ireland
1987 - An ANC car bomb directed at the headquarters of the Wits Command in Johannesburg South Africa kills 1 person and injures 68
2003 - The last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line in Mexico
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Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthdays Today 

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My Rambling Thoughts
Headed over to Sam’s Club for my weekly visit. Their gas station was shut down…guess I’ll have to go back tomorrow. I save a good 10-15 cents a gallon by getting the gas there.
While the US Dept of Education is spending money on the ‘Race to the Top’ to help students, it seems AZ is running a ‘race to the bottom’.  AZ has the worst graduation record for college students, tied with Alaska, in the US. AZ is usually 47 or 48 in spending on education. Seems our legislature wants our students to win the ‘race to the bottom’…book learnin’ stuff just leads to problems. The head of our education system ran on the plan to end Common Core in our state. She can’t really do that, but has already unsuccessfully tried to fire two assistants who wanted to keep Common Core. The State Board that oversees our education has moved out of the Education building to another location for fear of her daily retaliation. I seem to live in a state of ‘flat earthers’ running the educational direction of the schools.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
Inside each set of the following words, there is a pair of smaller words. By putting & between them, lo & behold, you'll make a familiar phrase. For example, "Thighbone/Swallowtail" conceals "High & Low." 

1. Firecracker/Misconstruing 
2. Blockbuster/Doohickey 
3. Shunting/Bespeckled 
4. Proliferation/Climbable 
5. Heartstrings/Consciences

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Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
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…Cool Facts…
There is a fruit called The Miracle Berry that, when eaten, causes sour foods to taste sweet, and has been used to treat diabetes, among other things.

There's a swing on the edge of a cliff in Ecuador. It has no safety measures and is called the 'Swing at the End of the World'.
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…Flagstaff, AZ History…
75 YEARS AGO-1940
Even the bugs are different here! W. B. Medear, Research Assistant of the Etymological Society, says there are more uncaptioned insects in this area than in any other area of the nation.

There were 29 forest fires this week.
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…Harper’s Index…
+42 – estimated percentage increase in popcorn a person eats when watching a drama rather than a comedy.
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…Instagram Photo of the Day… 

natgeoPhoto by @stefanounterthiner | At dawn, this solitary male standing sentinel on the brow of a hill, scanning the landscape for threats. This is the moment, between darkness and daylight, when guanacos are in most danger from pumas. Torres del Paine NP, Chile.
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… Life Lessons…
5. Maintaining your position.
A turkey was chatting with a bull. 'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.'

'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. It's full of nutrients.' 

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. 

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story: Bull sh*t might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.
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…USA Facts…
There is a superhero supply store in Brooklyn with a cape fitting room that has a wind tunnel. They also sell oxygen gum, bottled chaos and have an invisibility testing center.

Forest growth in the US has exceeded harvest since the 1940’s. Today, we have more trees than any time in the past 100 years.
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…Unusual Fact of the Day…
The small "You Are Here" sticker that indicates your position on a map has a name — it's called an ideo locator.
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2 jokes for the day
“Please keep your dog beside you, sir,” a woman said crossly to the man sitting opposite to her on the bench at the park.
“I can feel a flea in my shoe.”
“Midnight, come here,” replied the man. “This woman has fleas.”

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A family was having dinner and the little boy said, "Dad I don't like the holes in the cheese!"
Well son, eat the cheese and leave the holes on the side of the plate.         

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Yep, It Really Happened
HAFRSFJORD, Norway - The groundskeeper of a Norwegian golf course said a mystery pooper targeting course holes must be a man "because the poos are too massive to be from a woman." Kenneth Tennfjord, groundskeeper at the Stavanger Golf Club, said he has been finding human feces and toilet paper in course holes since 2005. "He has a couple of favorite holes," Tennfjord told the Rogaland Avis newspaper. "And we know it is a man because the poos are too massive to be from a woman." "He poos only on weekdays. On weekends I have never found poo on the golf course," Tennfjord said. He said the fecal discoveries are usually accompanied by used toilet paper. Steinar Floisvik, managing director of the club, said the mystery pooper used to arrive via bicycle. "In the early morning dew we observed bicycle tracks on the course. Footsteps showed that he had done his business, and the bicycle tracks disappeared back the way they came," Floisvik said. Frode Jormeland, another groundskeeper, said the club installed high-powered spotlights to discourage the defecation, but the poop-etrator disabled them. "He climbed up a tree next to the lights and wriggled far out on a branch and dismantled the spotlights. How he managed the feat without electrocuting himself or falling is a riddle," he said. Floisvik said the pooper's motives are unknown. "Our idea is that it could be someone who, for unknown reasons, hates the game of golf. Alternatively, the person may have a fetish or suffer from mental problems," he said. 
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Somewhat Useless Information
Legend has it that hot dogs or frankfurters originated in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany around 1484.

Hot Dog season lasts from the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day, until the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day. During this time about 20 billion hot dogs are consumed, which means more than 800 hot dogs per second are eaten in the U.S.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt served frankfurters to King George VI of England when he visited the United States in 1939.

Nearly 90 percent of hot dog eaters choose mustard as their go-to topping, but get ready to cringe if you're not from one of these regions. In Chicago, they like to use cucumber, tomato, pickle, onion and pickle relish and in Los Angeles they use mayonnaise and cheese. New Yorkers, however, prefer mustard.

The famous Nathan's hot dog began when Nathan Handwerker created a business on the Coney Island boardwalk in 1916. Back then, you could buy a Nathan's hot dog for a nickel!

The annual Coney Island eating contest on the Fourth of July supposedly started after four immigrants agreed to determine who was most patriotic by eating the most Nathan's hot dogs.

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Birthdays Today
92 - Henry W. Bloch, American co-founder of H&R Block
82 - Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, LA, actor (77 Sunset Strip, Jack the Ripper)
81 - Bud Selig, owner (Milwaukee Brewers)/acting baseball commissioner
76 - Peter Bogdanovich, Kingston NY, director/producer (Last Picture Show)
75 - Patricia Schroeder, (Rep-D-Colorado)
68 - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austria, body builder/actor/politician (Terminator, 38th Governor of California)
61 - Ken Olin, actor (Hill St Blues, Michael-30 Something)
59 - Delta Burke, Orlando Fla, actress (Suzanne-Designing Women)
52 - Lisa Kudrow, Encino California, actress (Phoebe-Friends, Romy & Michele)
51 - Vivica A. Fox, American actress (4th of July)
45 - Simon Baker, Australian actor (The Mentalist)
41 - Hilary Swank, American actress (Boys Don't Cry, Million Dollar Baby)
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Born this day…Died in __@__
Casey Stengel, baseball manager (Yankees (1949-60)/NY Met's 1st)-1975@85
Henry Ford, industrialist and auto maker (Ford- model T)-1947@83
Emily Brontë, English novelist (Wuthering Heights)-1848@30
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Historical Obits Today
Claudette Colbert, French-born American actress (It Happened One Night)-1996@92
Ingmar Bergman, Swedish stage and film director-2007@89
Otto Von Bismarck, German "Iron" chancellor-1898@83
Buffalo Bob Smith, American television host (Howdy Doody)-1998@80
Bill Walsh, 49er’s football coach, leukemia-2007@75
William Penn, English Philosopher, Quaker\founder of Pennsylvania (No cross, no crown)-1718@73
Joyce Kilmer, American poet, sniper during WWI-1918@31
Lane Frost, American bull rider, after bull ride-1989@25
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Brain Teasers Answers
1. Rack & Ruin 
2. Lock & Key 
3. Hunt & Peck 
4. Life & Limb 
5. Arts & Sciences

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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.