Apr 14

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Apr. 14, 2020 Week: 16 Day: 105

86004: H 55° \ L 37° \ Average Sky Cover: 50%

Wind: 8mph\Gusts: 20mph Visibility: 10 mi

Nearest lightning: 18.4mi.; Nearest active fire: 346mi.

Record High: 75°[1937] Record Low: 5°[1972]

Apr. Averages: 60°\27° (3 days with moisture)

Today’s Quote

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count.

It's the life in your years."

-Abraham Lincoln

Random Tidbits

Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, was this weekend. It celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion and it is probably the oldest Christian observance after the Sabbath. And you might be surprised to learn that it doesn't have anything to do with colored eggs or bunny rabbits.

Giving eggs is a tradition that dates back even farther than Easter. The Easter egg is said to symbolize and represent joy, celebration and new life. Egg dyes were once made out of natural items such as onion peels, tree bark, flower petals, and juices.

The Easter Bunny tradition made its way to the US in the 18th century. It is believed to have originated in Europe where it was actually the Easter Hare. Other Easter traditions include wearing Easter bonnets, making Easter baskets and having Easter egg hunts.

The White House of tradition of the Easter Egg Roll started back in 1878, with President Rutherford B. Hayes.

In 1885 the Czar of Russia commissioned the jeweler Faberge to design an enameled egg each Easter.

The first Faberge egg contained a diamond miniature of the crown and a tiny ruby egg.

Of the 50 Imperial Easter Eggs made, most are now in museums.

The Third Imperial Faberge Egg, a jeweled and ridged yellow gold egg standing on its original tripod pedestal with a surprise lady's watch inside, was found in an American flea market by a scrap-metal dealer who bought it for $14,000. He later sold it at auction to a private collector for an estimated $33 million.

Observations This Week

Week of The Young Child: 11-17 Link
Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week: 12-18 Link 
National Dog Bite Prevention Week:12-18 Link 
National Public Safety Telecommunicators (911 Operators) Week: 12-18 
National Student Employment Week: 12-18 Link
Orthodox Holy Week: 12-18
Pan American Week: 12-18 
World Hula Week: 12-18 
National Occupational Health Nursing Week: 13-17 Link
Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week: 13-19 Link

Observations for Today

Be Kind to Lawyers Day

Children with Alopecia DayDyngus Day

Free Cone Day (Ben & Jerrys) Link Cancelled due to COVID-19
International Moment of Laughter DayInternational Plant Appreciation Day

Look Up At The Sky Day  Link
National Be Kind To Lawyers Day Link
National Dolphin Day

National Ex-Spouse Day Link
National Gardening Day Link
National Pecan Day Link
National Peach Cobbler Day

National Perfume Day Link
Pan American Day
Pathologists' Assistant Day LinkRAINN Day  (Rape Abuse Incest National Network) 

Reach as High as You Can Day

Scrabble Day

My Rambling Thoughts

Easter sure didn't feel like Easter. No neighbor kids having egg hunts. No people celebrating. I stayed at home, had a steak dinner, and watched Netflix. I talked and/or video chatted with brother and friends. Too lazy to do a post yesterday.

My phone sent lightning alerts for about 3 hours last night. We got a good rain, and probably some snow in the late night. When I got up, it was still raining. It started clearing up about 10a. The Navajo have many winter stories that are told to children on those long winter nights. All those stories stop when there is 'first thunder'. The stories will begin again after the first frost.

A neighbor came by about 9a this morning. He and his father and brother had a fight and he needed a ride to a relative's house. He's a nice guy and about 25 years old. I decided it was better to take him to his relative's house so his family wouldn't come by looking for him. A quick trip about 4 miles away. No one came by. This stay-at-home thing is tough of families.

With the anniversary of Apollo 13, I was reminded that one of the astronauts on that flight was our family ophthalmologist's son. We knew the family, and the father had helped my family for years. I remember that my mom had the TV on in her sewing room, keeping up with the latest information on that flight. It ended well, but was certainly a few days of terror.

The big storms don't seem to care that most of America is in stay-at-home mode. Lots of storms have destroyed homes. As if that is not bad enough, these families are now having a hard time finding a place to stay isolated. It's devastation on top of devastation.

I just don't get it. The Governor of Kansas banned groups of over 10. A church was not happy, it being Easter and all, and they found a loophole. So they held a regular service claiming that all those present (about 50) were part of the choir. Crazy.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of the page

What letter comes next in the following sequence?

D R M F S L T_

Historical Events

1775 - The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

1828 - Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language.

1863 - The US Patent (No. 38,200) for a continuous-roll printing press was issued to William Bullock, enabling two sides of a newspaper to be printed at once. It was first used by the New York Sun.

1865 - John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play (Our American Cousin) at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC.

1912 - RMS Titanic hit an iceberg, killing 1514 people that evening, and into the next day.

1933 - Jack Mackay and his wife reported seeing the Loch Ness Monster - 'Nessie', although the earliest report was in 565 AD, when St. Columbia turned away a giant beast that was threatening a man in the Ness River, which flows into the lake.

1935 - 'Black Sunday Storm' - the worst dust storm of the US Dust Bowl, hit from the Oklahoma Panhandle and Northwestern Oklahoma to the Texas Panhandles. The Duststorm of April 14th, 1935 is also immortalized in the Woody Guthrie song "Dusty Old Dust" aka "So long been good to know you."

1939 - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was first published by the Viking Press.

1953 - The CIA started to give unwitting subjects LSD in a search for a mind-controlling drug.

1961 - The man made element 103 - Lawrencium (Lw), was produced in the US by Albert Ghiorso, Torbjørn Sikkeland, Almon Larsh and Robert M. Latimer.
1969 - Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) and Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) tied for Best Actress Oscar.

1994 - The 24-hour movie channel Turner Classic Movies made its debut.

2003 - The Human Genome Project was completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.

Birthdays Today

88-Musician, Loretta Lynn (1935)

@87-Actor, Bradford Dillman (d. 2018)

80-Actress, Julie Christie

79-Baseball player, Pete Rose (1941)

@77-Actor, Rod Steiger (d.2002; pneumonia)

60-Actor, Brad Garrett (1960)

52-Actor, Anthony Michael Hall (1968)

47-Actor, Adrien Brody (1973)

42-Actress, Sarah Michelle Gellar (1977)

23-Actress, Abigail Breslin (1996)

Puzzle Answer:

D – each letter represents one note in the diatonic musical scale: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do