2-19-14


FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Flagstaff Almanac:
Week: 08 / Day: 050   
Today: L 27°…H 59°… Ave. humidity: 44%
Wind: ave:   13mph; Gusts:  22mph  
Average Low: 19° Record Low:  -6° (1942)
Average High: 46° Record High:  65° (1981)

Quote of the Day
 
Today’s Historical Highlights
1600 - Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes-most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America.
1807 - VP Aaron Burr arrested in Alabama for treason; later found innocent
1856 - Tin-type camera patented
1861 - Russian Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom
1878 - Thomas Alva Edison patents gramophone (phonograph)
1906 - WK Kellogg & Ch Bolin find Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Co
1913 - 1st prize inserted into a Cracker Jack box
1928 - 2nd Winter Olympic games close at St Moritz, Switzerland
1968 - 1st US Teachers strike (Florida)
1977 - Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" album released
1984 - 14th winter Olympic games close at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
1984 - 1st brother combo to win Gold & Silver in same event at Olympics 
     (Phil & Steve Mahre-Slalom)
2001 - Oklahoma City bombing museum dedicated at Oklahoma City National Memorial.

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Another beautiful weather day. I stayed up late last night watching the Olympics, and then some sci-fi movies. Didn’t get to bed until after 1a, but enjoyed the movies.
 
Back in the day I found Ted Nugent’s music enjoyable. Later, when he was talking about hunting, I was still his fan. Then he went off the deep end with the 2nd Amendment crazies and I quit listening to his talk…and had long since listening to his music. Today he really went bonkers with his Anti-Obama talk. The man called our President ‘a sub-human mongrel’…at a campaign event for a hopeful Texas Governor candidate…and the candidate didn’t say anything to step back. This is crazy, not to mention unpatriotic.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
When you curtail a word, you remove the last letter and still have a valid word. You will be given clues for the two words, longer word first.
Example: Begin -> Heavenly body  Answer: The words are Start and Star.
1. To look for -> To perceive 2. Use the mind -> Slender, narrow 3. Enclosed army vehicle -> A colour; darkening of the skin 4. A colour -> Thin, pointed piece of metal 5. Tree covering -> Metal rod 6. Timber; board -> Design; a scheme developed in advance 7. Bare, plain; blunt -> Celestial night light 8. Descended in water -> Celestial night light with orbiting planets

Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Remembering TV’s great shows:
“The Ed Sullivan Show": From the sublime (Elvis, the Beatles) to the ridiculous (Topo Gigio, Señor Wences), the king of variety put on a really big show.
Words Shakespeare invented
one fell swoop
Macbeth Act IV Scene 3MACDUFF:He has no children. All my pretty ones?Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?What, all my pretty chickens and their damAt one fell swoop?
Bizarre Punishments
The Cone Of Shame
As we have seen, bizarre school-related punishments are apparently very popular in Florida and the “Cone of Shame” that students were forced to wear in one teacher’s classroom is no different. After watching the movie Upwith her freshmen science students, Laurie Bailey-Cutkomp brought in her own Cone of Shame to put on students as punishment. The Cone consisted of a plastic dog collar that Bailey-Cutkomp obtained from her previous veterinarian job, where it was used to stop pets from disturbing their wounds. While she claims it was just a joke and that she never intended to truly embarrass her students, the school board definitely wasn’t as amused—especially after those wearing the collar had their pictures taken and uploaded to Facebook by other students. The use of the Cone lessened after criticism began rolling in and Bailey-Cutkomp was quickly put on unpaid suspension, with the possibility of losing her job.
Strange Obsessions of famous people
Soren Kierkegaard--Family Curse
Before Kierkegaard (1813–1855) had reached the age of 25, five of his siblings and both of his parents had died. Just a few years before, his father had confessed to his son that he was destined to watch all of his children, including Kierkegaard, die before him because he had brought God’s wrath down upon them when he had cursed God as a young boy. Kierkegaard fully accepted his father’s conclusion about their family’s bad luck and he accepted the idea that he was facing an early death.
Although his father died in 1838, with Kierkegaard still alive and well, Kierkegaard still believed that he was cursed and that God would take his life at an early age. This knowledge sparked Kierkegaard to write prolifically in an attempt to say everything before his early passing. He preceded one of his early works, written shortly after his father’s death, with a telling quotationfrom King Lear, Act 5, Scene 4, a part of which reads: “A guilt must weigh on the entire family, God’s punishment must be upon it; it was meant to disappear, expunged by God’s mighty hand, deleted like an unsuccessful attempt.”
Like Camus, Kierkegaard’s fears came to fruition when he died in 1855. He was just 42 years old.
OK Then…
 
Harper’s Index 
Portion of wages paid in Manhattan that come from the financial-services industry: 1/3
Unusual Fact of the Day
Clifton Keith Hillegass is the “Cliff” behind Cliff's Notes. He started his company in 1958 when he published 16 Shakespearian study guides.
Joke-of-the-day
It was snowing heavily and blowing to the point that visibility was almost zero when the little lady got off work. She made her way to her car and wondered how she was going to make it home. She sat in her car while it warmed up and thought about her situation.
She finally remembered her daddy's advice that if she got caught in a blizzard; she should wait for a snowplow to come by and follow it. That way she would not get stuck in a snowdrift. This made her feel much better and sure enough in a little while a snowplow went by and she started to follow it. As she follows the snow plow she was feeling very smug as they continued and she was not having any problem with the blizzard conditions.
After quite some time had passed she was somewhat surprised when the snow plow stopped and the driver got out and came back to her car and signaled for her to roll down her window. The snowplow driver wanted to know if she was all right as she had been following him for a long time. She said that she was fine and told him of her daddy's advice to follow a snowplow when caught in a blizzard.
The driver replied that it was OK with him and she could continue if she wanted but he was done with the Wal-Mart parking lot and was going over to K-Mart next.  
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
GOING INTO DERMATOLOGY
You need one dermatologist for every 40,000 people.    
Yeah, It Really Happened
-- World's Laziest Dog Sitter: Tyler Smith, 23, was charged in December with violating the city animal care ordinance in Greenville, S.C., after a photograph was posted on Facebook of his father's dog being lowered by rope from the second-story balcony of an apartment. According to the posting, it was time for the dog to make a call of nature, but it was raining, and Smith preferred not to go downstairs with him. [Associated Press via Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.), 12-17-2013
Somewhat Useless Information   
 This is going to sound a bit weird, but you can stop scissors from sticking by using coffee grounds. Unused coffee grounds act as a natural abrasive that scrapes off any residue that has built up. Put on a pair of gardening gloves so you don't cut yourself, then work the grounds into the scissor blades, paying extra attention to where they join together. When you're done wash your scissors with soap and water, dry and they'll be just as good as new.
Freezing them slows the breakdown of the capsules in the stomach, reducing fishy burps. This is according to Mayo Clinic researchers.
Spill a some wine on your clothing? No worries...simply wet a cloth with warm water and blot it on the soiled area, repeat process with club soda - the bubbles in the club soda will help break up the stain. Then wash as usual.
Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
☼13-19☼
World Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Awareness Week9 
☼14-21☼
National Condom Week 
National Nestbox Week
NCCDP Alzheimer's & Dementia Staff Education Week
☼16-22☼
Brotherhood / Sisterhood Week 
Build A Better Trade Show Image Week)
Through With The Chew
National Date (fruit) Week
National Justice for Animals Week
National Engineers Week
National Entrepreneurship Week

Today Is                                                                      
·        Chocolate Mint Day
·        Iwo Jima Day (Landing) International
·        Tug-of-War Day Single Tasking Day
+++++
·        Japanese-Amerian Internment-- Executive Order 9066-1942

Today’s Events through History  
1945 - Brotherhood Day-1st celebrated
1949 - 1st Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Ezra Pound

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Smokey Robinson, R&B singer-songwriter (The Miracles-Tears of a Clown) is 74
Lou Christie [Lugee Sacco], singer-songwriter (Lightning Striking Again) is 70
Jeff Daniels, actor, musician is 59
Seal, English vocalist/songwriter (Killer, Crazy, Kiss by a Rose) is 51
Justine Bateman, actress (Mallory-Family Ties, Satisfaction) is 48
Benicio Del Toro, Puerto Rico, actor (Usual Suspects) is 47
Haylie Duff, actress, producer is 29

Remembered for being born today
1473 - Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish mathematician and astronomer
1893 - Cedric Hardwicke, Stourbridge England, actor (Richard III)
1911 - Merle Oberon, Calcutta India, actress (Assignment Foreign Legion)
1924 - Lee Marvin, actor (Paint Your Wagon, Cat Ballou)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
1997 - Deng Xiaoping, head (Chinese Communist Party), 1997, @92
1998 – Grandpa [Louis Marshall] Jones, comic/banjo (Hee Haw), 1998, @84
1962 - Georgios Papanikolaou, Greek doctor, inventor of the Pap smear, 1962, @78  
2003 - Johnny PayCheck (Donald Eugene Lytle), country singer/songwriter, 
     asthma, 2003, @64

Brain Teasers
1. Seek -> See 2. Think -> Thin 3. Tank -> Tan 4. Pink -> Pin 5. Bark -> Bar 6. Plank -> Plan 7. Stark -> Star 8. Sunk -> Sun
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  §
Posted by No comments:

2-18-14


FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Flagstaff Almanac:
Week: 08 / Day: 049   
Today: L 20°…H 58°… Ave. humidity: 43%
Wind: ave:   14mph; Gusts:  26mph  
Average Low: 19° Record Low:  -11° (1942)
Average High: 46° Record High:  65° (1977)

Quote of the Day


Today’s Historical Highlights
1678 - John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is published
1688 - Quakers conduct 1st formal protest of slavery in Germantown, Pa
1735 - 1st opera performed in America, "Flora," in Charleston, SC
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie’s troops occupy Inverness Scotland
1804 - 1st US land-grant college, Ohio University, Athens Ohio, chartered
1856 - American (Know-Nothing) Party abolishes secrecy

 
1857 - Insurrection of Chinese in Sarawak, Borneo
1885 - Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," published

1908 - 1st US postage stamps in rolls issued
1929 - The first Academy Awards are announced.
1930 – Flagstaff astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto
1954 - The first Church of Scientology is established in Los Angeles
1960 - 8th Winter Olympic games open in Squaw Valley, Cal
1968 - 10th Winter Olympic games close at Grenoble, France
1979 - -52°F (-47°C), Old Forge, New York (state record)
1979 - Snow falls in Sahara Desert
1998 - 2 white separatists arrested in NV plotting a biological attack on NYC subways.

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
A federal holiday…flag hung…refuse to go to any stores that are open. I must admit that when I was working I would come into town on this holiday to some things that I couldn’t do on weekends…when some stores used to be closed on weekends. I lived 75 miles or more from Flag back in those days and it was difficult to get some things done just on Saturday or Sunday. It isn’t like that anymore…don’t know of any businesses that aren’t open on Saturday or Sunday. Not sure about State offices. Anyway it was a good day to enjoy our spring weather. Windows could be opened a little for most of the day. Fresh air coming inside is always nice.
 
Awaiting yet another form to fill out for the Cuban trip…seems like Cuban travel office wants to be sure we really want to go. Now they are also requiring that we have travel insurance. That is yet another twist to the many requirements to get there.
 
As I was growing up I was taught that everyone has a good side, that might be hard to find. As I got older I learned that cultural differences play a big role in determining ‘right from wrong’… or ‘good from bad’. For example, it is wrong/bad to enter a Navajo home to borrow a cup of sugar without first finding out how everyone is doing. Cutting to the chase is seen as poor etiquette. When I have heard about the repressive regime in North Korea, I have been skeptical figuring it was mostly cultural differences. Then the UN put out a frightening report today about the horrific conditions in political prisons. The report is not the first time the UN has gotten involved in internal matters in a country…one example is the apartheid issue in South Africa. So, now that I have been informed from a reliable source that used many personal accounts, the world needs to stand up and help the people in the N. Korean political prisons.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Lovely and round, I shine with pale light, Grown in the darkness, A lady's delight.
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Remembering TV’s great shows:
"Sesame Street": This boulevard of sweet dreams has weaned wee ones on the joys of learning — through Muppets magic, animation and music — for more than 40 wondrous years.
Words Shakespeare invented
neither a borrower nor a lender beHamlet: Act 1, Scene 3 LORD POLONIUS: … Neither a borrower nor a lender be;For loan oft loses both itself and friend,And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.This above all: to thine ownself be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
Bizarre Punishments
Wearing A Sign
Trying to effectively punish your kid for bad grades is usually quite difficult—unless you’re the Florida parents who forced their son to wear a signbroadcasting his less-than-impressive scholastic achievements. Michael Bell Jr. was given a sign by his parents proclaiming: “Hey, I want to be a class clown. Is it wrong?” The back of the sign read: “I’m in the 7th grade and got three Fs. Blow your horn if there’s something wrong with that.” The teen was then forced to stand on a popular street corner in Miami for several hours.
After failing math, civics, and language art, Bell Jr. spent his whole spring break on the corner with the sign, even inspiring other parents to try out the punishment as well. A second Florida mother decided to punish her son by having him stand on a Tampa street with a sign saying: “I did four questions on my FCAT and said I wasn’t going to do it…GPA 1.22…honk if I need (an) education.” Unsurprisingly, many honked in support of the punishment, although others viewed it as cruel and overly humiliating.
Strange Obsessions of famous people
Immanuel Kant: Rigid Schedule
Obsession was a way of life for Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). While Kant is often noted for his hypochondria, he had an even more intense and prolonged obsession with his daily routine. In 1783, just after purchasing a home, Kant decided that it was necessary to structure his daily schedule. Thus began the rigid routine Kant would follow until his death in 1804.
Timed precisely, Kant would awaken just before 5:00 AM, drink a cup of tea, and smoke exactly one pipe. He would then work on his lectures and writings until his lectures began at 7:00 AM. After his lectures ended at 11:00 AM, Kant worked on his writings again until his 1:00 PM lunchtime.
After lunch, rain or shine, Kant took his legendary one-hour walk in the heart of Konigsberg. The walk was so consistent that it is said his neighbors could set their clocks by it. The path Kant walked was later named the Philosophengang, or “The Philosopher’s Walk.”
After his walk, Kant would sometimes socialize with a friend or two, and then he would head home to work and read until 10:00 PM, at which time he went to bed.
OK Then…

Harper’s Index 
  • Percentage change in the S&P 500 since its pre-crisis peak: +8
  • In the price of financial stocks: -44

Unusual Fact of the Day
During WWII, Tootsie Rolls were added to soldiers' rations thanks to their durability in all weather conditions.
Joke-of-the-day
Q. How do you know when a man is going to say something smart? A. It will start with "She said..."
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
DESIGNING A SUBMARINE
A submarine will move through the water most efficiently if it has a length-to-beam ratio of between 10 to 1 and 13 to 1.    
Yeah, It Really Happened
-- South Korea is a well-known hub for cosmetic beautification surgery, with a higher rate per capita than the U.S., but the procedures can be expensive, inspiring many young women recently to resort to do-it-yourself procedures for their professional and romantic upgrades. A December Global Post dispatch noted that some might try to force their eyes to stay open without blinking (using a novel $20 pair of glasses for hours on end) as a substitute for costly "double-eyelid" surgery. Also in use: a $6 jaw-squeezing roller device for the face to push the jaw line into a fashionable "oval" form. One teen told the reporter she applies an imaginative contraption to her face for hours a day to pressure her nose into more of a point, which is considered a desirable Western look. [Global Post (Boston) via Denver Post, 12-19-2013]  
Somewhat Useless Information   
1. Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself – and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is.--Jim Morrison
2. Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.--Bruce Lee
3. Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.--Aristotle
4. Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.--Oscar Wilde
5. Where there is love there is life.--Mahatma Gandhi
6. I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.--Martin Luther King, Jr.
7. I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.--Mother Teresa
8. A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.--Ingrid Bergman
9. Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.--Albert Einstein
10. We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.--Friedrich Nietzsche
Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
☼13-19☼
World Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Awareness Week9 
☼14-17☼
Great Backyard Bird Count
☼14-21☼
National Condom Week 
National Nestbox Week
NCCDP Alzheimer's & Dementia Staff Education Week
☼16-22☼
Brotherhood / Sisterhood Week 
Build A Better Trade Show Image Week)
Through With The Chew
National Date (fruit) Week
National Justice for Animals Week
National Engineers Week
National Entrepreneurship Week

Today Is                                                                      
·        Battery Day- (Volta's birthday)
·        Cow Milked While Flying In An Airplane Day
·        Great Backyard Bird Count (Feb. 18-21)
·        Pluto  Day (Planet is Discovered by Clyde Tombaugh) 
+++++
·        Independence Day (Gambia-1965-from UK)
·        National Democracy Day (Nepal-1951)

Today’s Events through History  
1797 - Trinidad is surrendered to a British fleet 
1884 - Police seize all copies of Tolstoy's "What I Believe In"
1915 - Germany begins a blockade of Britain
1972 - California Supreme Court abolishes death penalty
2013 - $50 million worth of diamonds stolen--armed robbery at Brussels Airport, Belgium

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Barbara Hale, actress (Della Street-Perry Mason) is 92
George Kennedy, actor (Cool Hand Luke, Airport, Blue Knight) is 89
Yoko Ono Lennon, [Mrs John Lennon], Tokyo, singer and artist is 81
Cybill Shepherd, actress (Moonlighting, Last Picture Show) is 64
Juice Newton, [Judy Cohen], vocalist (Angel of the Morning) is 62
John Travolta, actor is 60
Vanna White, [Rosich], TV host (Wheel of Fortune) is 57
Matt Dillon, actor (Flamingo Kid, Tex, Kansas) is 50
Dr. Dre, [Andre Romelle Young], rapper and record producer is 49
Molly Ringwald, actress (16 Candles, Pretty in Pink) is 46

Remembered for being born today
Mary I Tudor, [Bloody Mary], queen of England (1553-58)
Nikos Kasandsakis, Greek writer and philosopher (Zorba the Greek, The Last 
     Temptation of Christ)
Wendell Wilkie, Presidential candidate (R-1940)/author (One World)
George "The Gipper" Gipp, football star (Notre Dame)
Enzo Ferrari, racing car manufacturer, Modena
Bill Cullen, TV game show host (over 20 different games)
Jack Palance, [Walter Palanuik], actor (City Slickers)
Helen Gurley Brown, US author/publisher and editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Charles Lewis Tiffany, American founder of Tiffany & Co., 1902, @90
Michelangelo Buonarroti, Italian sculptor/painter (David), 1564, @88
Harry Caray, sportscaster (Chicago Cubs), 1998, @83
Kublai Khan, Mongol Emperor, 1294, @78
Andy Devine, [Jeremiah Schwartz], actor, leukemia, 1977, @71
Thomas Hazlehurst, English soap and alkali manufacturer, 1942, @63
Martin Luther, biblical scholar/religious reformer, stroke, 1546, @62
Robert J Oppenheimer, creator of atomic bomb, cancer, 1967, @62
Dale Earnhardt, American race car driver, racing crash, 2001 @49

Brain Teasers
A pearl.
It is pretty and near spherical, usually white, grows in an oyster, and worn by ladies as jewelry.
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  §
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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.