Mar 28,
2021 Week: 14 Day: 87
|
Visibility: 10 miles |
Ave. Sky Cover: 5% |
|
Local:
H 48°\ L 24° |
Nearest Lightning: 1167mi. |
|
Wind:
4mph/ Gusts: 15mph |
Moderate Risk of Fire: Active fire: 318mi |
|
Record: 70°[2015] Record: -7°[1975] |
Mar. Averages: 53°/23° (6 days with moisture) |
Today’s Quote
Avoid popularity; it has
many snares, and no real benefit.
~William Penn
Random Tidbits
The oldest known recipe
is for a 4,000-year-old beer made by the Sumerians.
Sumeria's neighbors, the
Egyptians, built the pyramids under the influence. Workers at Giza received
about four liters of beer a day, according to Patrick McGovern, a biomolecular
archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
A Little Something to Think About
If you can drink a drink, why can’t you food a food?
If a writer writes and a speaker speaks, does a grocer groce, an usher
ush, and a haberdasher haberdash?
True Things
A Georgia teenager eased
his pandemic lockdown boredom by building a roller coaster in his family's back
yard.
Ben Tolliday said the
lack of activity amid the COVID-19 pandemic left him feeling bored, so he spent
three weeks constructing a roller coaster from wooden beams, PVC pipe, cinder
blocks and sandbags in the back yard of his family's Sandy Springs home.
Tolliday said he was
confident in his work, but his first ride on the completed coaster was tense.
"I was absolutely
terrified. But I guess because I built it, I knew how sturdy it was. So, I was
pretty confident I'd be OK, but I was screaming my head off. It was
crazy," Tolliday said.
Tolliday's mother, who
took a ride on the coaster in a video the teen posted to TikTok, said she
enjoyed the ride, but she'll be happy when it's gone.
"I'm looking forward
to getting my yard back. I've got some plants trying to grow underneath. Yes,
this is not going to be a permanent fixture in my yard, I can tell you
that," Katherine Tolliday said.
The teenager, who will
begin college in the fall, said he is now considering a career in the roller
coaster business.
"That would be my
dream job, to build stuff like this for people and then see their reaction when
they go down it for the first time. Yeah, I had so much fun building it,"
he said.
Weekly Observations
|
Lent [Christian] Passover [Jewish] |
Thru 4/3 Thru 4/4 |
|
Passiontide |
21-4/3 |
|
National Cherry Blossom Festival Link |
20-4/10 |
|
Wellderly Week |
21-28 |
|
National Physicians Week Link |
25-31 |
|
Holy Week |
24-4/3 |
Today’s Observations
Barnum & Bailey Day
Endometriosis March Day Link
National Black Forest Cake Day
National Triglycerides Day Link
Palm Sunday
Respect Your
Cat Day
My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts
No clouds, slight wind, a nice day for a walk. After several days of
clouds and snow, this is a great and the snow has mostly soaked in!
When I was teaching ESL at Jr. High, we discussed many of Beverly
Cleary’s books. She passed yesterday at 104.
Looking at history, the Roaring 20’s followed the horrific flu epidemic.
While there was a lot of happy times, many Americans were left behind
struggling in cities and rural area across the country. The stock market was, back
then, reaching unbelievable highs as the rich just got richer. The market and
the country crashed in 1929. Our leaders in business and government need to
review their history of that era so the same mistakes are not made again. We
should all review that history before voting.
In their emergency session yesterday, the Flagstaff City Council voted
unanimously to uphold the mask mandate in our little town. This will probably
end up in court, since our Governor is all knowing has ended all state, county,
and city mask mandates.
Daily Puzzle
Answer: bottom of the page
The “Monty Hall” problem was made famous when it
appeared in Parade magazine’s “Ask Marilyn” column in 1990, and it was so
counterintuitive it had everyone from high school students to top mathematical
minds questioning the answer—but rest assured, the solution is accurate. Named
for the Let’s Make a Deal game show host, the puzzle goes like this: You are given three doors to choose from, one of which contains a car
and the other two contain goats. After you’ve chosen one but haven’t opened it,
Monty, who knows where everything is, reveals the location of a goat from
behind one of the other two doors. Should you stick with your original choice
or switch, if you want the car?
Historical Events
1920 – Douglas Fairbanks
and Mary Pickford got married; it was the first high profile celebrity wedding.
1930 Turkish cities
Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara.
1949 – Fred Hoyle coined
the term “Big Bang” in a radio interview.
1960 – Stanley Kramer was
the first to get his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
1964 (Earthquake) Alaska
– the 8.4 on the Richter scale quake killed 125 people.
1979 – Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster happened when a pressure
valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island failed to close.
1990 – President George
H. W. Bush posthumously awarded Olympic athlete Jesse Owens the Congressional
Gold Medal.
2009 The first cases of
H1N1 swine flu in the United States occur in two people in California.
2013 Pope Francis becomes
the first Pope to wash the feet of women in the Maundy Thursday service.
2017 US President Donald
Trump signs Energy Independence executive order undoing Obama climate-control
measures.
2020 US President Donald
Trump makes grim projection that 240,000 American could die from COVID-19, even
with restrictions in place
Birthdays Today
@81 – Marlin Perkins,
American zoologist, television host (d. 1986)
@64 – Frederick Pabst, German-American brewer, founded the Pabst
Brewing Company (d. 1904)
66 – Reba McEntire,
American singer-songwriter and actress
51 – Vince Vaughn,
American actor
40 – Julia Stiles,
American actress
@37 – Raphael [Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino], Italian painter, architect (d.
1520; ‘exhaustion from romantic endeavors’)
35 – Lady Gaga [Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta], singer-songwriter, actress
Puzzle Answer
You should switch. At the beginning, your choice starts out as a one
in three chance of picking the car; the two doors with goats contain 2/3 of the
chance. But since Monty knows and shows you where one of the goats is, that 2/3
chance now rests solely with the third door (your choice retains its original
1/3 chance; you were more likely to pick a goat to begin with). So, the odds
are better if you switch.
