Jan 20

 

 

Feb 20, 2021  Week: 7  Day: 51                                 Visibility: 10 miles

Local: H 52°\ L 27°\Ave. Sky Cover: 5%                   Wind: 5 mph/ Gusts:  8mph

Nearest Lightning: 1182mi.                                         Moderate Risk of Fire:  Active fire:  356mi

Record: 65°[1977]  Record: -11°[1955] 

Feb. Averages: 47°/19° (5 days with moisture)            

Today’s Quote

A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love. ~Max Muller

Random Tidbits

The earliest surviving opera (written by Jacopo Peri and Ottavio Rinuccini) is Euridice which was performed in Florence in 1600. Opera quickly spread from Florence to Rome, Venice, and all other major cities in Italy.

Richard Wagner revolutionized opera by disposing of existing operatic rules and structures. He also created the "Leitmotif" (or leading theme), which is a musical theme that is associated with a main character. For example, in Star Wars, there is a different musical theme associated with Princess Leia, with Luke Skywalker, with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and with Yoda.

A Little Humor

Why did Cyclops close his school?

He only had one pupil.

.....

Dracula gave up on his girlfriend.

He finally realized that the greatest love of his life was all in vein.

Presidential Trivia

Jimmy Carter won a Nobel Peace Prize after leaving office.

Carter is probably one of the few leaders whose post-presidency accomplishments are more recognized than when he was president. Since leaving office in 1981, he's won a Nobel Peace Prize, built homes for needy families, and written over two dozen books.

Ronald Reagan was the first divorced president.

Although Reagan left his acting career behind to pursue politics, Hollywood certainly left a mark on him. He was partially deaf in one ear thanks to an accident on a movie set, where a gun went off next to his head. He had also married actress Jane Wyman, but the pair divorced in 1948, making him the first president to enter office divorced.

George H.W. Bush once shaved his head.

Bush surprised his friends and family in 2013 when he decided to shave his head (for a very sweet reason). The son of one of his Secret Service guards was diagnosed with leukemia.

Weekly Observations

Date (Fruit) Week Great Backyard Bird Count Link	12-21
World Irish Dancing Week National Entrepreneurship Week Link	13-20
Children of Alcoholics Week  Link  International Flirting Week   Jell-O Week   Love a Mensch Week  National Secondhand Wardrobe Week: 14-20  Through With The Chew   Link	14-20
National Condom Week National Nestbox Week NCCDP Alzheimer's & Dementia Staff Education Week	14-21
Brotherhood / Sisterhood Week Link	15-20
Lent [Christian]	17-4/3
National FFA Week Link	20-27

 

Today’s Observations

Clean Out Your Bookcase Day

International PechaKucha Day  Link
Love Your Pet Day Link Link   (or Love Your Dog Day)  
National Cherry Pie Day

National Muffin Day

Northern Hemisphere Hoodie Hoo Day

Student Volunteer Day
Women in Blue Jeans Days: 20-21  Cancelled
World Day for Social Justice
World Pangolin Day  Link  
World Whale Day Link  

 

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

I headed out this morning to do my weekly shopping. Got what I needed and came back home.  It reminds me of my early days on the Rez, when I was working where the only store was the local Trading Post. At Shonto, the prices were high and the selection was extremely limited. I remember one time, I forgot to by razor blades in Flagstaff. I had to use an increasingly dull razor to shave every morning.  I bought a double supply the next time I was in town and always kept extras after that week.

I watched the landing of Perseverance on Mars. It was spectacular. What an incredible feat. Can’t wait for the helicopter to fly…especially with 38% less gravity.

When I came to Flag in the 1970’s, The Museum Club was the ‘hot spot’ on weekends…a live band, large dance floor and lots of seating. Decades earlier it had been a Museum and still had some of the taxidermy around on the high beams of the place. It was sold and then closed a few years ago. The new owners opened and had decent crowds until Covid. They closed it again a few months ago. Today’s paper shows pictures of the newest owners with hopes of opening by summer.

Ted Cruz didn’t like the cold and took his family to Cancun for the long weekend. He was back the next day, without his family, after his vacation hit the news. Dumb move.

But not as dumb as ERCOT, the Texas company that controls the electricity. The board decided year ago not to be part either National Grid, because of the many Federal Regulations. Yesterday I read how the Chairman of the Board and several members of the board do not even live in or near Texas and never have. Talk about dumber moves.

I updated the Focus Travel Club site with new information on upcoming trips. I still have some work to do, but most information is there. I can’t fix the PDF on the Canadian Rockies true that has a typo. The true cost of the trip is $9,995. I’ll eventually figure out how to fix it.

Daily Puzzle

Answer: bottom of the page

 Four cars come to a four way stop, all coming from a different direction. They can’t decide who got there first, so they all go forward at the same time. They do not crash into each other, but all four cars go. How is this possible?

Historical Events

1792 – The United States Post Office became a cabinet position under President George Washington. In 1971, the Post Office became an independent corporation.

1816 – Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.

1872 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City.

1872 – Luther Childs Crowell (#123,811) received the patent for a machine for manufacturing square-bottom paper bags. We still use the design today.

1877 – Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake gave its premiere performance at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

1931 – San Francisco got approval from the US Congress to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

1943 – American movie studio executives agreed to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.

1962 – Launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Hershel Glenn Jr. successfully went into space aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut.

1979 – This Old House premiered on PBS.

1986 – The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station into orbit.

1986 – After about a century of planning and a millennium of wishing, it was announced that the “Chunnel” between the UK and France would be built. Construction began in December 1987 and the “chunnel” was finally completed in 1994.

1998 – American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest gold-medal winner at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan

2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested and charged with spying for the Russians for 15 years.

2003 – Great White’s pyrotechnics went out of control, burning down Rhode Island’s ‘The Station’ nightclub, and took 100 lives.

2013 – The smallest extrasolar planet, Kepler-37b was discovered.

2012 Scientists successfully regenerate the flowering plant, Silene stenophylla from a 31,800-year-old piece of fruit, greatly surpassing the previous record of 2,000 years

2013 Estonia becomes the first country to establish a national system of fast chargers for electric cars.

2018 Venezuela becomes the first country to launch a virtual currency, the petro, to counteract their financial crisis.

2020 Trump associate Roger Stone sentenced to 40 months imprisonment for obstructing a congressional investigation.

Birthdays Today

@95 – Gloria Vanderbilt, American actress, fashion designer, socialite (d. 2019)

94 – Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor

@89 – Gale Gordon, American actor (d. 1995)

87 – Bobby Unser, American race car driver

@82 – Ansel Adams, American photographer and environmentalist (died in 1984)

@81 – Robert Altman, American director and screenwriter (d. 2006)

80 – Buffy Sainte-Marie, Canadian singer-songwriter

79 – Mitch McConnell, politician

75 – Sandy Duncan, American actress, singer and dancer

@71 – J. Geils, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2017; natural causes)

@69 – William Prescott, American soldier, coined the term “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.” (d. 1795; dropsy)

67 – Patty Hearst, American actress and author

58 – Charles Barkley, American basketball player and sportscaster

55 – Cindy Crawford, American mode

37 – Treavor Noah, of the Daily Social Distancing Show

33 – Rihanna, Barbadian-American singer-songwriter

Puzzle Answer

They all made right hand turns.