Jul 15

 

 

 

Jul  15, 2021 Week: 29 Day: 196

Ave. Sky Cover: 80%\Visibility: 10 miles

Local Temp:  75°\ 56°

Wind: 7mph\ Gusts: 8mph

Low risk of fire

Active fire: 28mi. \ Lightning: 3mi.

Jul Averages: 82°\51° (9 days w/moisture)

 

Today’s Quote

 

 


 

Random Tidbits

 

·        A snail breathes through its foot.

·        Polar bear fur is transparent, not white.

·        Cat kidneys are so efficient they can rehydrate by drinking seawater.

 

True Things

 

Ewwwww

The Wellington Correctional Center in New South Wales, Australia, is being evacuated so that crews can clear the prison of dead and decaying mice and repair chewed electrical wiring, the Associated Press reported. Australia has been overrun with mice for months, which scientists say happens when rain follows several years of drought. Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin explained that "the mice have got into wall cavities, into roof spaces. They're dead, but then they start obviously decaying and then the next problem is mites." [Associated Press, 6/22/2021]

 

Idioms Origins

 

Rest on One’s Laurels

In ancient Greece, the laurel was a plant that was sacred to the god Apollo, thus appropriate for winners of the Pythian Games, much like the ancient Olympics. The Romans ‘borrowed’ the tradition of granting laurels to give respect. Initially, for the first 2000 years or so, it was referred to as in a ‘retirement’ sense. In 1825, it was first referred to as a sign of laziness and coasting on an older achievement as a backhanded compliment to writer Maria Edgeworth in The Literary Chronicle.

 

Weekly Observations

 

Tour de France Link

Thru 7/18

 Family Golf Week Link

National Farriers Week

National Vodka Week Link

National Therapeutic Recreation Week Link

Operation Safe Driver Week Link

 

 

11-17  

National Ventriloquism Week Link

14-17  

National Cancer Survivor Sibling Week Link  

15-18  

Rabbit Week

15-21

 

Today’s Observations

 

 

Be a Dork Day

Bon Festival (Japan’s Feast of Lanterns)

Cow Appreciation Day

Get to Know Your Customers Day 
Give Something Away Day

Gummi Worm Day Link
I Love Horses Day

International Sister Cities Day Link 
National Give Something Away Day

National Gummy Worm Day

National Pet Fire Safety Day Link  Link
National Tapioca Pudding Day

Orange Chicken Day

Saint Swithin’s Day 
World Youth Skills Day

 

 

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

 

Loving the monsoon, not so much for the flash floods. The burn area from a fire two years ago played havoc on some neighborhoods yesterday and will continue as long as the monsoon continues. No lasting damage, but a real mess to clean up. The forest just reopened a few days ago, now the forest is open, but many of the roads into the forest are muddy and are now closed to all motorized vehicles. As my mother used to say, ‘can’t win for losing’. There has already been a 20-minute rain and the clouds are still coming over the mountain, so I expect more today. As the second storm hit, the power was off about 15 minutes. Oh well.

The Russian Hacker group REvil, the ransomware guys, has ‘gone dark’. That means they are not sure if they are taking a vaca with the money they got, or that Russian government shut them down or at least asked them to stop for a while, or that the US cyber people shut them down.  Time will tell I’m sure.

Tennessee will not longer encourage any vaccines for children. That means no outreach, no in-school vaccinations, no reminders sent to parents. The new law is not just about COVID vaccines, but ALL vaccines. This is insanity for sure.

I must really need to travel. For over a decade I have used photos from my most recent trip as my wallpaper on my computer. I find the best pics, i.e. the one’s I like the most, and make them my wallpaper for two weeks to a month, then I change to another. My most recent adventure was the Trans-Siberian Rail trip…now two years ago. This morning as I was perusing the internet machine, I found a program for Bing (the search engine guys) that automatically puts a new picture as my wallpaper every day. I had used a similar one back when I was working, before I started my traveling. I’m happy with it so far.

 

2 New Puzzles Everyday

Answer: bottom of the page

 

 

TOSYOBWN

 

 

Pofishnd

 

 

Historical Events

 

1149 – The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulcher was consecrated in Jerusalem.

1799 – The Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.

1823 – A fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy.

1834 – The Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded after nearly 356 years. Several thousand people were executed over this time, averaging about a dozen per year.

1838 – Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Christian Community was not pleased.

1916 – In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing, and George Conrad Westervelt incorporated Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).

1954 – First flight of the Boeing 367-80, the prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series.

1955 – Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others.

1979 – US President Jimmy Carter gives his Malaise Speech, where he characterizes the greatest threat to the country as “this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.”

1994 Hundreds of thousands of Hutus flee to Zaire in the Congo near the end of the Rwandan Genocide

1998 Donatella Versace launches her first couture collection for her brother's Versace label, a year after his murder

2018 8-year-old girl finds pre-Viking-era sword in Vidostern lake, Sweden

2020 Heavy monsoon flooding in Indian north-eastern state of Assam affects more than 2 million people, kills more than 50

 

Birthdays Today

 

@77 – Alex Karras, NFL player, wrestler, actor (d. 2012; cancer/dementia)

@74 – Jan-Michael Vincent, American actor (d. 2019; heart attack)

71 – Arianna Huffington, Greek-American journalist and publisher

70 – Jesse Ventura, American wrestler, actor, and politician, 38th Governor of Minnesota

65 – Joe Satriani ‘Satch’, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

60 – Forest Whitaker, American actor

49 – Scott Foley, American actor

48 – Brian Austin Green, American actor

45 – Gabriel Iglesias, Mexican-American comedian

 

Puzzles Answer

 

The boys are back in town                                              Big fish in a little pond

 

 

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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.