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
|
Bon Festival (Japan’s Feast of
Lanterns) Get
to Know Your Customers Day Gummi
Worm Day Link International
Sister Cities Day Link National
Pet Fire Safety Day Link Link Orange
Chicken Day Saint
Swithin’s 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
