Apr 25

FYI: Click on any blue text for a link to more information!

♪Happy Birthday To: ♪ 

Today’s  Historical  Highlights

1507 - Geographer Martin Waldseemuller 1st used name America

1684 - Patent granted for thimble1719 - Daniel Defoes publishes "Robinson Crusoe"

1859 - Ground broken for Suez Canal

1867 - Tokyo opens for foreign trade

1898 - US declares war on Spain over Cuba Spanish-American War

1967 - Abortion legalized in Colorado

1981 - More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation during repairs of a nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan.

1990 - Hubble space telescope is placed into orbit by shuttle Discovery

Free Rambling Thoughts   

Such great weather today. Outside, out and about most of the day. Very nice.

Social networking certainly has its place. Earlier this week, I got a friend request from one of my high school classmates. We knew each other but didn’t travel in the same circles. He does have a nice blog that I have been following. When I checked out his page, I found my college roommate that I haven’t seen since college graduation. We have sent back a couple of emails to catch up and he connected me with another of our roommates. The three of us had gone to high school and college together. Nice to be able to connect after all these years. The second guy is a judge in Denver. He wrote me back and said that judges are not allowed, by policy, to have social networking accounts or private email accounts. Interesting. All his email goes through the account he has with his job. Guess we won’t be reliving any wild times in college through email. LOL

Game   Center   (answers at the end of post)

Brain Game—A close up picture of what?

NPR Sunday Puzzle

Each answer is a familiar word, name or phrase that begins with the letter P and ends in X. For example, if the clue is "showy flower," the answer would be "phlox."

1.     Capital of Arizona:

2.     Aunt Jemima product:

3.     Where hockey players sit after an infraction:

4.     Castor’s brother in Greek Myth:

5.     Source of much funding for public schools:

6.     A body of troops in close array:

7.     Maker of ‘Cross Your Heart’ undergarments:

8.     Statistic on the average cost of goods:

9.     What  ‘re’ is in review:

10.  Word to describe ‘when people are always picking on you’:

Riddle of the day

Daniel, my son, is exactly one fifth of my age. In 21 years time, I will be exactly twice his age. My wife is exactly seven times older than my daughter, Jessica. In 8 years time, my wife will be three times older then Jessica. How old are Daniel and Jessica now?

Anagram: unscramble—numbers represent the number of letters in each answer word

Lifestyle  Substance     

Harper’s Index         

Number of Italian earthquake experts currently on trial for manslaughter for downplaying the risk of a 2009 earthquake: 7

Found on You Tube 

        Guide Dog Training

Planet Earth—

Joke-of-the-day

Three buddies die in a car crash, and they find themselves at the pearly gates.

They are all asked, "When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning upon you, what would you like to hear them say about you?

The first guy says, "I would like to hear them say that I was the greatest doctor of my time, and a great family man."

The second guy says, "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher who made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow."

The last guy replies, "I would like to hear them say... LOOK!!! HE'S MOVING!!!!!"

Rules of Thumb   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

You generally need three volunteers to make training them worthwhile. If you have to train one volunteer, you will save time if you skip the training and do the work yourself.

Yeah, It Really Happened

  They don't teach you this in gun safety class: A man in Roanoke, Va., shot himself in the hand while in class -- and then the bullet continued on and struck his wife in the leg.

Michael Deel, 54, and Michelle Deel, 49, were treated at a local hospital, Roanoke.com reported.

Bedford County Sheriff's deputies responded to a call from the firearms safety class taught by Thomas Starke, who had briefly left the room when the shooting happened.

About five people were at the class last Saturday when Michael Deel fired the .45 caliber handgun, deputies said.

An investigation was opened, though Michael Deel called it a "stupid accident," according to The Associated Press.             

Somewhat Useless Information   

Only 2% of high school couples end up married and not divorcing.

Men in a relationship lie twice as often as women do.

Calendar Information        

…Happening This Week:

19-5/4

Kentucky Derby Week

20-29 

National Dance Week

21-28

Money Smart Week
Administrative Professionals Week
National Crime Victims Rights Week

National Playground Safety Week
Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week

Preservation Week
Sky Awareness Week
Week of The Young Child
(Spring) Astronomy Week

Safe Kids Week

24-30

National Scoop The Poop Week:
Fiddler's Frolic
Gathering of the Nations PowWow

National Dream Hotline
National Pie Championships

Today Is                                                                      

20-Something Service Day

Administrative Professionals Day or Secretary's Day

DNA Day

Hairstylists Appreciation Day

Hug A Plumber Day or Plumbers Day

International Guide Dogs Day

Malaria Awareness Day

National Zucchini Bread Day

Red Hat Society Day

Smigus Dyngus/Dyngus Day/Wet Monday (symbolizes cleansing, with the coming of Spring)

State License Plate Day

World Penguin Day

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Australia: (remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, originally commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War I)
Egypt: Sinai Day (Celebrates the final withdrawal of all Israeli military forces from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982)

Israel: Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) 

Italy: Liberation Day (1945 by Allied Troops)
Portugal: Liberty Day (1974 revolution)

South Africa: Family Day
Swaziland: National Flag Day

Today’s Other Events                                                             

1500’s

1541 - Coronado leaves Alcanfor en route to Quivira. While in Quivira, Coronado had killed many of the inhabitants of Tiguex Pueblo

1600’s

1607 - Battle at Gibraltar: Dutch fleet beats Spanish/Portuguese fleet

1660 - London Convention Parliament begins  Parliament meets & votes to restore Charles II

1700’s

1774 - Michael Cresap is one of many "frontiersmen" in Kentucky who wishes to instigate a war with the local indians. He hopes that the Indians would lose the war, and be forced off their highly coveted lands. Cresap, and a few friends, come across a Shawnee and a Deleware Indian traveling through the woods. Cresap's group kills them both.

1800’s

1849 - The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots

1862 - Battle of New Orleans LA - US Admiral Farragut occupies New Orleans

1886 - Sigmund Freud opens practice at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna

1900’s

1901 - In last of 9th, Detroit Tigers, trailing by 13-4, score 10 runs to win one of greatest comebacks in baseball (1st game in Detroit)

1927 - Spain routes 20,000 soldiers to Morocco (uprising Rifkabylen)

1928 - Buddy, a German Shepherd, becomes 1st guide dog for the blind in Germany

1938 - 1st use of seeing eye dog in US

1950 - Chuck Cooper becomes 1st black to play in NBA

1953 - Scientists identify DNA

1960 - 1st submerged circumnavigation of Earth completed (Triton)

1971 - About 200,000 anti-Vietnam War protesters march on Washington

1976 - Elections in Vietnam for a National Assembly to reunite the country

1982 - In accordance with Camp David, Israel completes Sinai withdrawal

1994 - 14" of snow in Southern CA

2000’s

2005 - The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937.

2007 - Boris Yeltsin's funeral - the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894

2011 - At least 300 people killed in deadliest tornado outbreak in the Southern United States since the 1974 Super Outbreak

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

In their 80’s

Meadowlark Lemmon, basketball star (Harlem Globetrotter ) is 80

In their 70’s

Al Pacino, actor (And Justice For All, Godfather, Scorpio) is 72

In their 60’s

Talia Shire, actress (Adrienne-Rocky) is 66

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In their 40’s

Hank Azaria,  American actor (The Birdcage) and voice behind many characters in The Simpsons (Moe, Apu, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, Carl Carlson) is 48

Jason Lee, actor and skateboarder is 42

Renee Zellweger, actress  is 43

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Remembered for being born on this day

Oliver Cromwell, Puritan lord protector of England (1653-58) in 1599

Ella Fitzgerald, Newport News VA, jazz singer (Is it live or Memorex) in 1918

Guglielmo Marconi, Bologna Italy, inventor (radio, Nobel 1909) in 1874

Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, de facto ruler of England in 1287

Edward R Murrow, Pole Creek NC, newscaster (Person to Person) in 1908

Today’s Obits                                                           

Beatrice Arthur, comedian, actress, singer, (Maude ,  Golden Girls ) dies in 2009 at 86

Anders Celsius, Swed astronomer (Centegrade Thermometer), dies of TB in 1744  at 42

Art Fleming, game show host (Jeopardy), dies of pancreatic cancer in 1995 at 70

David Langton, British actor (Upstairs Downstairs), dies in 1994 at 82

Saint Mark, the first Pope of Alexandria and the founder of Christianity (Coptic) in Africa dies in 68 at 68

Dorothy Provine, actress, dies in 2010 at 75Ginger Rogers, actress/dancer ( Top Hat, Stage Door), dies in 1995 at 83

George Sanders, actor (Mr Freeze-Batman, Ivanhoe), suicide in 1972 at 65

Don Wilson, TV announcer (Jack Benny Show), dies in 1982  at 81

Answers                                                                                                                                            

Brain Game: Close Up Picture

Riddle of the day

Daniel is 7 years old and Jessica is 4 years old.

NPR Sunday Puzzle

1.     Capital of Arizona:

a.      Phoenix

2.     Aunt Jemima product:

a.      pancake mix

3.     Where hockey players sit after an infraction:

a.      penalty box

4.     Castor’s brother in Greek Myth:

a.      Pollux

5.     Source of much funding for public schools:

a.      property tax

6.     A body of troops in close array:

a.      phalanx

7.     Maker of ‘Cross Your Heart’ undergarments:

a.      Playtex

8.     Statistic on the average cost of goods:

a.      price index

9.     What  ‘re’ is in review:

a.      prefix

10.  Word to describe ‘when people are always picking on you’:

a.      persecution complex

Anagrams

Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.

All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.

☺    And That Is All for Now  ☺

Apr 24

FYI: Click on any blue text for a link to more information!

♪Happy Birthday To: ♪ 

                    Returns tomorrow

Today’s  Historical  Highlights

1558 - Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland marries French crown prince Francois

1833 - Jacob Evert & George Dulty patent soda fountain

1884 - National Medical Association of Black physicians organizes (Atlanta)

1913 - The skyscraper Woolworth Building in New York City is opened

1928 - Fathometer, which measures underwater depth, patented

1961 - JFK accepts "sole responsibility" following Bay of Pigs

1967 - Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily."

1968 - Leftist students take over Columbia University, NYC

1989 - 10s of thousands of students strikes in Beijing China

2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

 

Free Rambling Thoughts   

Hot damn…what a great day in Flagstaff. Opened all the windows about 8a and kept them open all day. What a good way to start the week. I did some laundry and got it all put away…quite a feat for me. So nice to have great weather here…especially as I listen to my brother, who is in snow in NY, and friends who are having heat problems in Southern AZ.

Our well-known Governor made an interesting decision this week. While she and her entourage will be in the Supreme Court audience to hear questions from the judges to the lawyers regarding our ridiculous SB1070, she did not offer one of her seats to the author of the bill. Of course, he was the first sitting president of the Senate in AZ to be ousted by a recall election. The guy tried to make the news by saying he was upset, since it was his bill. Good for her.

Game   Center   (answers at the end of post)

Brain Game—A close up picture of what?

NPR Sunday Puzzle

For each category given, the answers are things within the category that start with the letters, M, I, N, S and K. For example, given "two-syllable girls' names," the answer could be "Mary, Ingrid, Norma, Sarah and Kathy."

1.     Makes of automobiles:

2.     Parts of the human body: :

3.     Indian Tribes: :

4.     Words of 5 or more letters ending in K: :

Riddle of the day

A woman walked into an office building, looked at the guard, and said her name was Jenny. The next day she walked into the same building, looked at the same guard and said her name was Julie. What is going on? 

Hint: use psychology

Anagram: unscramble—numbers represent the number of letters in each answer word

Lifestyle  Substance     

Harper’s Index         

Percentage of Icelanders who belive that the existence of elves is ‘probable’ or ‘certain’: 25

Found on You Tube 

Who's on first?        

Planet Earth—

Joke-of-the-day

This man in a Ford Granada pulls up next to a guy in a Rolls Royce at a stop sign. Their windows are open and he yells at the guy in the Rolls: "Hey, you got a telephone in there?" The guy in the Rolls says,

"Yes, of course I do." "I got one too... see?"

"Uh, huh, yes, that's very nice."

Then the man in the Granada says, "You got a fax machine?"

"Why, actually, yes, I do."

"I do too! See? It's right here!" "Uh-huh."

The light is just about to turn green and the guy in the Granada says, "So, do YOU have a double bed in back there?"

And the guy in the Rolls says, "NO! Do you?"

"Yep, got my double bed right in back here — see?!"

The light turns and the man in the Granada takes off. Well, the guy in the Rolls is not about to be one-upped, so he goes immediately to a customizing shop and orders them to put a double bed in back of his car. About two weeks later, the job is finally done and he picks up his car and drives all over town looking for the Granada. He finally finds it parked alongside the road so he pulls his Rolls up next to it. The windows on the Granada are all fogged up and he feels a little awkward about it, but he gets out of his newly modified Rolls and taps on the foggy window of the Granada. The man in the Granada finally opens the window a crack and peeks out.

The guy in the Rolls says, "Hey. Remember me?"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember you. What's up?" "Check this out — I got a double bed installed in my Rolls."

 And the man in the Granada says, "YOU GOT ME OUT OF THE SHOWER TO TELL ME THAT?!"

Rules of Thumb   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

The average paint roller will apply two to three square feet of paint per dip.

Yeah, It Really Happened

Most people have likely experienced brain freeze — the debilitating, instantaneous pain in the temples after eating something frozen — but researchers didn't really understand what causes it, until now.

Previous studies have found that migraine sufferers are actually more likely to get brain freeze than people who don't get migraines. Because of this, the researchers thought the two might share some kind of common mechanism or cause, so they decided to use brain freeze to study migraines.

Headaches like migraines are difficult to study, because they are unpredictable. Researchers aren't able to monitor a whole one from start to finish in the lab. They can give drugs to induce migraines, but those can also have side effects that interfere with the results. Brain freeze can quickly and easily be used to start a headache in the lab, and it also ends quickly, which makes monitoring the entire event easy.

The researchers brought on brain freeze in the lab by having 13 healthy volunteers sip ice water through a straw right up against the roof of their mouth. The volunteers raised their hands when they felt the familiar brain freeze come on, and raised them again once it disappeared.

The researchers monitored the blood flow through their brains using an ultrasound like process on the skull. They saw that increased blood flow to the brain through a blood vessel called the anterior cerebral artery, which is located in the middle of the brain behind the eyes. This increase in flow and resulting increase in size in this artery brought on the pain associated with brain freeze.

When the artery constricts, reining in the response to this increased flow, the pain disappears. The dilation, then quick constriction, of this blood vessel may be a type of self-defense for the brain, the researchers suggested.

"The brain is one of the relatively important organs in the body, and it needs to be working all the time," study researcher Jorge Serrador, of Harvard Medical School, said in a statement. "It's fairly sensitive to temperature, so vasodilatation [the widening of the blood vessels ] might be moving warm blood inside tissue to make sure the brain stays warm."

This influx of blood can't be cleared as quickly as it is coming in during the brain freeze, so it could raise the pressure inside the skull and induce pain that way. As the pressure and temperature in the brain rise, the blood vessel constricts, reducing pressure in the brain before it reaches dangerous levels.

If other headaches work in the same way, drugs that stop these blood vessels from opening up, or that could make this blood vessel constrict could help treat them, the researchers say.

The work was presented during a poster session Sunday at the Experimental Biology 2012 meeting in San Diego.               

Somewhat Useless Information   

"Don't pull down the blinds! I feel fine. I want the sunlight to greet me." -Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor and sex symbol.

"Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." -Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and writer.

"Nothing but death." -the response of Jane Austen, English writer, when asked "Is there anything you require?"

"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis." -Humphrey Bogart, American actor.

"I just wish I had time for one more bowl of chili." -Kit Carson, American frontiersman.

"I'm bored with it all." -Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, before slipping into a coma and dying nine days later.

Calendar Information        

…Happening This Week:

19-5/4

Kentucky Derby Week

20-29 

National Dance Week

21-28

Money Smart Week
Administrative Professionals Week
National Crime Victims Rights Week

National Playground Safety Week
Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week

Preservation Week
Sky Awareness Week
Week of The Young Child
(Spring) Astronomy Week

Safe Kids Week

24-30

National Scoop The Poop Week:
Fiddler's Frolic
Gathering of the Nations PowWow

National Dream Hotline
National Pie Championships

Today Is                                                                      

Genocide Remembrance Day

Library of Congress Day

Mother, Father Deaf Day

National Pet Parent's Day

National Pigs In A Blanket Day

National Teach Your Children To Save The Day

Today’s Other Events                                                             

Before 1000CE

1184 BC - The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional date)

1000’s

1061 - Halley's Comet sparks English monk to predict country'll be destroyed

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1200’s

1288 - Jews of Yroyes France are accused of ritual murder

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1500’s

1596 - Pacificatie of Ireland drawn 1800 - Library of Congress establishes with $5,000 allocation

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1700’s

1754 - Delaware Chief Teedyuscung will lead a group of 70 Christian Indians out of the village of Gnadenhuetten today. They will leave to live in the village of Wyoming, Pennsylvania.

1800’s

1802 - State of Georgia will cede its western lands to the United States, with the proviso that the Federal Government obtain the title to Indian lands as soon as "can be peaceably obtained on reasonable terms."

1877 - Last federal occupying troops withdraw from south (New Orleans)

1895 - Joshua Slocum completes around-the-world voyage in 11-m boat

1900’s

1907 - Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees, is opened

1950 - Pres Harry Truman denies there are communists in US government

1953 - Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II

1962 - MIT sends TV signal by satellite for 1st time: CA to MA

1969 - Paul McCartney says there is no truth to rumors he is dead

1981 - Bill Shoemaker wins his 8,000th race, 2000 more than any other jockey

1993 - An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London.

1994 - Bomb attack in center of Johannesburg, 9 killed

2000’s

2004 - The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.

2006 - King Gyanendra of Nepal gives into the demands of protesters and restores the parliament that he dissolved in 2002

2007 - Iceland announces that Norway will shoulder the defense of Iceland during peacetime.

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

In their 70’s

Shirley MacLaine,  actress/mystic (Irma la Douce) is 78

Barbra Streisand singer/actress/award winner (People) is 70

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In their 50’s

Vince Ferragamo, NFL/CFL quarterback (LA Rams, Montreal Alouettes) is 58

In their 40’s

Jamie Brown, NFL tackle (Denver Broncos) is 40

In their 30’s

Kelly Clarkson, American singer and winner of the inaugural season of TV series American Idol is 30

Remembered for being born on this day

Peter Vivian Daniel, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1784

Jill Ireland, London, actress (Breakout, Assassination, Chino) in 1936

Siegfried F Nadel, Austrian/British anthropologist (Black Byzantium) in 1903

Robert Penn Warren, 1st US poet laureate (All the King's Men) in 1905

William I of Orange in 1533

Today’s Obits                                                           

Bud Abbott, comedian (Abbott & Costello), dies in 1974 at 78

Estée Lauder, American cosmetics entrepreneur dies in 2004 at 97

Pat Paulsen, comedian (Smothers Brothers Show), dies in 1997 of brain and colon cancer at 69

Louis Alexandre Piccinni, composer, dies at 70 in 1850

Bessie Wallis Warfield Simpson, (Edward abdicated for her), dies in 1986  at 89

Answers                                                                                                                                            

Brain Game: Close Up Picture

Riddle of the day

The woman has Multiple Personality Disorder. This happens when a traumatic experience causes so much pain that they make another personality to cope with the situation.

NPR Sunday Puzzle

1.     Makes of automobiles:

a.      Mazda Isusu Nissan; Saturn; Kia

2.     Parts of the human body: :

a.      Mouth; Instep; Neck: Stomach; Knee

3.     Indian Tribes: :

a.      Mohawk; Iroquois; Navajo; Sioux;  Kiowa

4.     Words of 5 or more letters ending in K: :

a.      Matchstick; Icepack; Nudnik; Stock; Kiosk

Anagrams

Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.

All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.

☺    And That Is All for Now  ☺