1-6-15

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Almanac: Week: 02 \ Day: 0 
January Averages: 43°\16°
86004 Today: H 53°\L 20°
Ave. humidity: 65%     Average Sky Cover: 0%
Wind ave:   8mph\Gusts:  13mph
Ave. High: 42° Record High:  61° (1948)
Ave. Low: 16° Record Low:  -22° (1910)

Observances Today:
Statehood Day-New Mexico-1912-47th state
Bean Day
Christian: Epiphany or Twelfth Night
Christian: Three Kings Day

Observances This Week:
1-7
New Year's Resolutions Week
Celebration of Life Week 
Diet Resolution Week 
Silent Record Week

2-8
Someday We'll Laugh About This Week
4-10
Home Office Safety and Security Week
National Folic Acid Awareness Week 
National Lose Weight/Feel Great Week

6-9
International Consumer Electronics Show
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Quote of the Day



Historical Highlights for Today
1605 - The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid
1639 - Virginia is 1st colony to order surplus crops (tobacco) destroyed
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army draws to Glasgow
1864 - To force the NAVAJOs to move to the Bosque Redondo Encampment, the Army gets Kit Carson to mount an expedition against the NAVAJOs in the Canyon de Chelly

1893 - The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress
1896 - 1st US women's 6-day bicycle race starts, Madison Square Garden
1907 - Maria Montessori opens her 1st (Montessori) school (Rome)
1929 - Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta begins work amongst India's poorest and diseased people
1939 - Daily newspaper comic strip "Superman" debuts
1942 - Pan American Airlines becomes the 1st commercial airline to schedule a flight around the world ("Pacific Clipper")
1963 - "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" with Marlin Perkins begins on NBC
1975 - Last full-blooded MANDAN dies today in Twin Buttes, ND @108 years old
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  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today


My Rambling Thoughts
Busy Monday…headed out about 9a and returned about 1p. Found things I didn’t know I needed and couldn’t live well without. Didn’t spend a lot but had fun. I also planted my Amaryllis that I bought before Christmas. I’ve planted in January for two years now so that I don’t miss any of the growth over Christmas. Enjoyable to watch during January.
I keep asking myself why I waited so long to get Netflix. Finding some great movies and some good Showtime and HBO stuff I hadn’t watched. Only problem, I stay up too late watching some of these movies.
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Brain Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
I am one simple word, but I mean different things
One of my meanings brings great forceful swings,
The other of me, may have curve, like the first...
But only one meaning can help quench a thirst.
One of my meanings will often bring cheers,
Either of them could hold a few beers.
What word am I?

           
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today



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Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
50’s Inventions…
1954
Oral contraceptives invented - the pill.
The first nonstick Teflon pan produced.
The solar cell invented by Chaplin, Fuller and Pearson.
Ray Kroc started McDonalds.

Education Facts…
>< In Finland, you are given a top hat and a sword when you get a PhD diploma.
<> Eminem repeated the 9th grade three times.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
25 YEARS AGO
The first leg of the FUTS is now ready. It is 6,500 feet in length along the floodplain of Rio De Flag, from O'Leary to just south of the I-40. It is graded, level and closed to motorized vehicles.

Flagstaff’s Iconic 50…
Orpheum Theater
The Orpheum Theater, a local landmark in historic downtown Flagstaff, Arizona, was built by John Weatherford. Following months of extensive renovations, the theater reopened in late 2002 poised to entertain a new generation of Flagstaff residents and visitors.

Harper’s Index…
34
Age at which a female worker in Britain reaches peak earning power
50
At which a male worker does

Rules of Thumb…
POLITICAL PLANNING
People moving into a new tract development are politically inert for five years.

Unusual Fact of the Day…
It is bad luck to whistle in a theatre. The superstition dates back to the time when off-duty sailors would run the fly system in theatres, and the sailors would whistle the cues to each other. Therefore, if you were to walk through a theatre carelessly whistling a tune, you might cause a scenic piece to fall on your head.
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Joke-of-the-day
A helicopter carrying passengers suddenly loses engine power and the aircraft begins to decent. The pilot safely performs an emergency landing in water, and tells the passengers to remain seated and to keep the doors closed, stating that in emergency situations, the aircraft is designed to stay afloat for 30 minutes, giving rescuers time to get to them. Just then a man gets out if his seat and runs over to open the door.
The pilots screams at him, "Didn't you hear what I said, the aircraft is designed to stay afloat as long as the doors remain closed?!" 
"Of course I heard you", the man replied, "but it's also designed to fly, and look how good that one worked out!!"          


Yep, It Really Happened
UNIONTOWN, Pa. (UPI)
Police in Pennsylvania said a suspect's story about being forced into a robbery unraveled when a toilet paper note was matched to a roll of tissue in his home. Uniontown Police said Eric W. Frey, 29, walked into Michael Maria's Pizza at 7:39 p.m. Dec. 27 and handed an employee a sheet of toilet paper with a handwritten message, "I have a gun. Give me $300."
The police report said Frey told another worker there was a man with "a gun on me right now, and if I don't come out of here with the money, I'm going to get shot."
One of the workers hit a panic button and Frey, who was still inside the eatery when police arrived, told police he was forced to commit the robbery by a large, bearded man who cornered him in a nearby alley and held a gun to his back.
Lt. Tom Kolencik wrote in the arrest report Frey consented to a search of his apartment and officers discovered a package of toilet paper on his table. One of the rolls had "writing engraved in it that matched the exact wording on the piece of toilet paper that Frey handed" to the worker, the police report said. Police said Frey attempted to change his story and said the man confronted him in his apartment. He "then noticed three males walking on Jefferson Street, and stated, 'That's them.'" However, officers said they spoke to the men and determined they were not involved in the crime. Police said they obtained a search warrant and found 91 grams of marijuana in the apartment along with syringes and spoons bearing drug residue. Frey was arrested and jailed in lieu of $25,000 bond.
           
Somewhat Useless Information
Did you know that the largest object in the known universe theoretically should not exist, as it is over 10,000,000,000 light years across?
Initially, astronomers thought it was a “filament” of galaxies known as the Sloan Great Wall. However, recent research suggests a different structure is even … bigger!

Gizmos
SOUTHAMPTON, England (UPI)
A group of students at Southampton University in England are looking to grow lettuce on Mars. The researchers -- a combination of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students -- are currently lobbying for their lettuce-growing experiment to be included on the Mars One lander payload. 
Mars One is a Netherlands-based non-profit organization with plans to establish a permanent human colony on Mars by 2025, beating NASA's current aim to send astronauts to Mars by more than a decade. The mission includes plans to launch of a series of unmanned exploratory and supply missions ahead of time. Any lettuce growing apparatuses would be included on the 2018 launch of the Mars One lander. 
The lettuce experiment would see seeds frozen for a multi-week trip to the Red Planet. Once on the Martian surface, the lettuce seeds would be grown inside an inflatable greenhouse that would maintain a constant temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Researchers working on the #LettuceOnMars project recently fielded questions as part of a Reddit AMA. Reddit users grilled researchers on the risks entailed by introducing foreign organisms to the planet. 
The students did their best to explain the precautions they will take to ensure the Red Planet remains uncontaminated. 
"First, we will use a lab strain of lettuce that is as clean as it gets," project leaders wrote. "Then we will sterilize all equipment including the surface of the seeds, so the greenhouse will be as virus free as it gets." 
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have previously cultivated lettuce. The greens have been grown in Mars-like conditions on Earth as part of experiments at space agency labs. 
Mars One has been fiercely criticized by a range of space experts and former astronauts. 
"Even ignoring the potential mismatch between the project income and its costs and questions about its longer-term viability, the Mars One proposal does not demonstrate a sufficiently deep understanding of the problems to give real confidence that the project would be able to meet its very ambitious schedule," Chris Welch, director of Masters Programs at the International Space University, said in an interview in 2012. 
Mars One estimates the cost of sending and sustaining a group of astronauts on Mars, from arrival through death, will cost some $6 billion. So far they've raised -- through donations and an IndieGoGo campaign -- roughly $600,000.        

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Today’s Events through History
1494 - The first Mass in the New World is celebrated at La Isabela, Hispaniola
1681 - 1st recorded boxing match (Duke of Albemarle's butler vs his butcher)
2005 - Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect in 1964 murders of 3 Civil Rights workers
2013 - The NHL reaches an agreement to end a 113 day lockout
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Birthday’s Today
Grant Goodeve, actor (David-8 is Enough) is 63
Malcolm Young, Glasgow Scotland, guitarist (AC/DC-Highway to Hell) is 62
Rowan Atkinson, England, comedian/actor (Mr Bean, Blackadder) is 60
Nancy Lopez Knight, pro golfer (1981 Dinah Shore) is 58
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Remembered for being born today
Joan of Arc, Saint\national heroine of France (legendary date) 1412-1431@19
John Smith, English explorer (Jamestown) (baptised) 1580-1631@51
Charles Sumner, leading Reconstruction senator, 1811-1874@63
Carl Sandburg, US, poet/biographer of Lincoln 1878-1937@89
Tom Mix, silent screen cowboy actor (Dick Turpin), 1880-1940@60
Samuel Rayburn, speaker of the House 1882-1961@79
Khalil Gibran, Lebanon, mystic poet (The Prophet) 1883-1931@48
Loretta Young, actress (Farmer's Daughter, Stranger) 1912-2000@87
Danny Thomas, comedian (Danny Thomas Show) 1912-1991@79
Sun Myung Moon, evangelist (Unification Church-Moonies), 1920-2012@92
Vic Tayback, Brooklyn, actor (Mel-Alice, Khan) 1930-1990@60
Bonnie Franklin, TV actress (Ann-1 Day at a Time), 1944-2013@69
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Historical Obits Today
Robert H W Welch Jr, US founder/leader John Birch Society, 1985, @85
A. J. Cronin, Scottish writer, 1981, @84
John B "Dizzy" Gillespe, blues trumpeter, cancer, 1993, @75
Lou Rawls, singer, cancer, 2006,@72
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th Pres (1901-09), blood clot, 1919, @60
Rudolph Nureyev, Russian ballet dancer (Kirov), AIDS, 1993, @54
Louis Braille, French teacher of the blind and inventor of braille, TB, 1852, @43  
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Brain Teasers Answers
A pitcher
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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.