3-22-14


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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 081   / Week: 12  
Today: L 26°…H 57°… Ave. humidity: 34%
     Wind: ave:   17mph; Gusts:  33mph  
     Average Low: 24° Record Low:  -1° (1952)
    Average High: 51° Record High:  68° (2004)

Quote of the Day
 
Today’s Historical Highlights
1457 - Gutenberg Bible became the 1st printed book
1622 - 1st American Indian (Powhattan) massacre of whites Jamestown Virginia, 347 slain
1630 - 1st colonial legislation prohibiting gambling enacted (Boston)
1790 - Thomas Jefferson becomes the 1st US Secretary of State 
1794 - Congress bans US vessels from supplying slaves to other countries
1841 - Cornstarch patented (Orlando Jones)
1946 - 1st US rocket to leave the Earth's atmosphere (50 miles up)
1960 - AL Schawlow & C H Townes obtain patent for the laser
1972 - Congress approves Equal Rights Amendment (never ratified)

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
A nice day in Flag, clear cloudless sky, nice temps, and just a bit of wind…except for the occasional gusts.

Correction: I saw the Maasi in Tanzania, not Ethiopia. A friend and fellow traveler corrected my bad memory. We did also see one of the young men draw and drink a cow’s blood. A very interesting event for our group.

I got all my tax stuff together today, so tomorrow I will drop it off with my accountant so that he can figure it out while I am enjoying sunny Cuba. I went to the bank to get my traveling money and the manager came up to me to see how my ‘bank issue’ was going. I told her a brief version and she shook her head and asked for a copy of the letter I had received from the bank.

I also figured out the Concentra problem. I thought that my Medicare started on my birthday, not the first day of my birthday month, so I didn’t tell them I was a Medicare patient. I called and got it straightened out in about 5 minutes. Cool.

So interesting to listen to the Plane search. CNN is running out of news so is sadly talking about the cost of the search...other cultures place a much higher importance on life than the cost. And now we have cockpit communication is translated from English to Chinese and back to English. Really nice for everyone to learn about the problems with this translated communication. 'Lost in double translation' takes on new meaning.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Each of the sentences below use two words which are synonyms of each other, but here in these sentences, they are not used with the same meaning. Can you find the words ?
1. You cannot ______ to imagine what a _____ you gave me.
2. Service is my ______ name, you will always find me in the community _______.
3. The cook used the largest ______ to make a stew for the full compliment of the _____.
4. They agreed to meet outside the _____ of justice for their _____.
5. I know you will _____ me for this purchase, I cannot _____ you.
6. The ______ of bids for the ______ of Eros was unparalleled.

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

Books that Changed the World
The Republic by Plato
Forget 20th century politics – let’s travel back to 380 BC. The Republic is considered the definitive Western text on political life and philosophy, discussing what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s just.
While Plato’s work might seem overly complicated and difficult to read for today’s audiences, it remains an important political and philosophical work that influences much of the philosophy and ethics we have today.
Breakthroughs that Changed the World
Semiconductor electronics, mid-20th century
The physical foundation of the virtual world
OK Then…
 
Harper’s Index 
  • Cost of admission to the New Year’s Eve party at the Marriott Marquis’s viewing room overlooking Times Square: $3500

Unusual Fact of the Day
When asked in 1993 why The Professor couldn't just fix the boat's hole, Bob Denver said, "He absolutely had no talent for boat building."
Joke-of-the-day
A young man at this construction site was bragging that he could outdo anyone based on his strength. He especially made fun of one of the older workman. After several minutes, the older worker had enough. 
"Why don't you put your money where you mouth is?" he said. "I'll bet a week's wages that I can haul something in a wheelbarrow over to the other building that you won't be able to wheel back." 
"You're on, old man," the young man replied. "Let's see what you've got." 
The old man reached out and grabbed the wheelbarrow by the handles. Then nodding to the young man, he said with a smile, "All right. Get in."  
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
USING A PAINT ROLLERThe average paint roller will apply two to three square feet of paint per dip.    
Yeah, It Really Happened
-- Ms. Blondie Bennett (her recently acquired real name), 38, is not just a California model selling provocative "Barbie doll" photos of herself online (featuring her recently augmented 32JJ breast implants). She is at work on a longer-range project to remake herself completely as a human Barbie doll -- to include the popular critique that Barbie represents not only bodily perfection but mindlessness. Bennett said she has had 20 hypnotherapy sessions to "help" her appear more confused and vacant, according to news reports. "I want people to see me as a plastic sex doll, and being brainless is a big part of that." She said she is doing well, in that she recently got lost driving to her mother's house. [Daily Mail, 2-19-2014; Huffington Post, 2-19-2014]  
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • The French Foreign Legion is a military service wing of the French Army established in 1831, unique because it was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces.
  • The original purpose of the Foreign Legion was to remove disruptive elements from society and put them to use fighting the enemies of France. Recruits included failed revolutionaries from the rest of Europe, soldiers from the disbanded Swiss and German mercenary regiments of the Bourbon monarchy, and troublemakers in general, both foreign and French.
  • Historically, the American film industry portrayed the Foreign Legion as having a reputation as a haven for cut-throats fugitives from justice. This image is largely out of date since the legion now conducts extensive background checks via Interpol.
  • Some Americans disagreed with the United States' initial refusal to enter WWI and so they joined the French Foreign Legion or the British or Canadian army. A group of U.S. pilots formed the Lafayette Escadrille, which was part of the French air force and became one of the top fighting units on the Western Front.

Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
16-22 
American Chocolate Week
Campfire USA Birthday Week
Health Information Professionals Week
National Animal Poison Prevention Week
National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week
Termite Awareness Week
Flood Safety Awareness Week
17-23
Act Happy Week
Flood Awareness Week
Wellderly Week
Wildlife Week
World Folktales & Fables Week
21-27
Week of Solidarity with People's Struggling Against Racism & Discrimination

Today Is                                                                      
·        American Diabetes Association Alert Day
·        As Young As You Feel Day
·        Education and Sharing Day
·        International Day of The Seal
·        International Goof-off Day
·        World Day for Water (aka World Water Day)
·        World Day of Metta-- change in the climate of global consciousness so that the basic needs of ALL beings may be met
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·        Emancipation Day (Puerto Rico-1873)
·        New Years Day (India-for several Hindu sects)

Today’s Events through History  
1638 - Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony
1765 - Stamp Act passed; 1st direct British tax on colonists
1822 - NY Horticultural Society founded
1914 - World's 1st airline, St Petersburg Tampa Airboat Line, begins
1928 - Noel Coward's musical "This Year of Grace" premieres in London

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Pat Robertson, televangelist (700 club) is 84
William Shatner, Montreal, actor (Star Trek, T J Hooker) is 83
Roger Whittaker, Nairobi Kenya, country singer (Durham Town) is 78
Jeremy Clyde, rocker (Chad & Jeremy-Yesterday's Gone) is 73
Andrew Lloyd Webber, London, composer (Phantom of the Opera, Cats) is 66
Wolf Blitzer, American television journalist is 66
Bob Costas, Queens, sportscaster/talk show host (Later) is 62
Matthew Modine, actor (Full Metal Jacket) is 55

Remembered for being born today
1846-1886 - Randolph Caldecott, England, illustrator (Caldecott Medal namesake)
1868-1953 - Robert A. Millikan, physicist (photoelectric effect; Nobel 1923)
1887-1961 - Chico Marx, [Leonard Martin], NYC, comedian (Marx Brothers)
1908-1988 - Louis D L'Amour, Jamestown ND, author (Hondo, Jubal Sackett)
1912-2009 - Karl Malden, Chicago, actor (Mike-Streets of SF, American Express)
1920-1981 - Ross Martin, Grodek Poland, actor (Mr Lucky, Wild Wild West)
1923-2007 - Marcel Marceau, Strasbourg France, mime (Barbarella, Silent Movie)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Walter Lantz, US cartoonist (Woody Woodpecker), 1994, @93
William Hanna, American animator and studio founder, 2001, @90
James W. Black, Scottish Nobel Prize-winning doctor, 2010, @85
Karl Wallenda, falls walking high-wire, 1978, @73
Ban Johnson, founder of baseball's American League, 1931, @67
Michael Todd, producer (Around the World in 80 Days), plane crash, 1958, @48

Brain Teasers
1. You cannot BEGIN to imagine what a START you gave me.
2. Service is my MIDDLE name, you will always find me in the community CENTER.
3. The cook used the largest VESSEL to make a stew for the full compliment of the SHIP.
4. They agreed to meet outside the COURT of justice for their DATE.
5. I know you will CHARGE me for this purchase, I cannot BLAME you.
6. The NUMBER of bids for the FIGURE of Eros was unparalleled.
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:

3-21-14


FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 080   / Week: 12  
Today: L 18°…H 57°… Ave. humidity: 35%
     Wind: ave:   13mph; Gusts:  30mph  
     Average Low: 23° Record Low:  5° (1948)
    Average High: 51° Record High:  70° (2004)

Quote of the Day
 
Today’s Historical Highlights
1st foreign language course broadcast on US radio
1824 - Fire at Cairo ammunitions dump kills 4,000 horses
1857 - Earthquake hits Tokyo; about 107,000 die
1859 - Scottish National Gallery opens in Edinburgh
1907 - US invades Honduras
1924 - 1st foreign language course broadcast on US radio (WJZ, NYC)
1925 - Edinburgh's Murreyfield Stadium officially opens
1935 - Persia officially renamed Iran
1947 - Truman signs Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees 
      to have allegiance to the US
1963 - Alcatraz federal penitentiary in SF Bay closed
1975 - Ethiopia ends monarchy after 3000 years
1984 - Part of Central Park is named Strawberry Fields honoring John Lennon
1998 - Good Friday Agreement signed in Northern Ireland.

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Clock is ticking for our trip to Cuba. Still have lots to do, but all is doable within the given timeframe. That’s good.
 
I had a great lunch with our retirement group today. Mary had some great stories about all her grandkids being in Phoenix last week. Two live there, two in Chicago. Cousins don’t always get along that well, but this trip seemed to have been very successful. Cheryl is leaving Monday to spend a week with her son and his family in CA. She should have a great time too. One of her nieces is adopting 2 little ones from Haiti. Everything was set and last week they headed to Haiti to pick up the kids from the orphanage. Upon arrival they found that not all the paperwork had been approved and are stuck there for who knows how long…with only two days of clothes. They are still positive that this is a small bump, but are starting to wonder. We won’t get together again till I get back. Cheryl and I will both miss the annual Home Show here in Flag. It is always enjoyable to spend a couple of hours seeing indoor and outdoor stuff, getting some freebies, and lots of ideas. Guess that will make next year even better.
 
The drama of the missing plane just keeps many of glued to the TV. Now they think they have found some wreckage, near Australia, that is floating. All resources are headed that way. With today’s modern travel, one forgets just how big the Indian Ocean is and how small that plane is in comparison. As tragic as these new developments are, at least it may give the families some answers.
 
My maternal grandmother was born on the first day of spring in 1897. She was a pre-insulin diabetic and lived until 1958. I still have fond memories of her. She would have been 117.
 
Amazing internet machine fact: Right after 9/11, the Maasai tribe (Kenya) donated 14 cattle to America to help us during the tragedy. A book was even written: 14 Cows for America.  How cool is that! I visited the Maasai in Ethiopia and didn’t know about this until today.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Even though the Tasmanian Tiger is classified as a carnivore, why doesn't it eat meat?
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Books that Changed the World
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
This iconic political work divided the world for half a century. Written in 1848 by a German philosopher, Marx’s controversial political tome had a far greater effect in other countries than his native Germany.
While the communism espoused in Marx and Engels’ book promised a society free of “capitalist dictatorship,” the reality wasn’t as promised. The Communist Manifesto’s influence on the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and other countries makes it one of the world’s most influential books.
Breakthroughs that Changed the World
Penicillin, 1928
Accidentally discovered in 1928, though antibiotics were not widely distributed until after World War II, when they became the silver bullet for any number of formerly deadly diseases
OK Then…
 
Harper’s Index 
Estimated number of domestic workers employed in NYC homes: 200,000
Unusual Fact of the Day
A yellow baseball (thought to be more visible to batters, fielders and spectators) was tested in a 1938 college game in New York City, between Fordham and Columbia.
Joke-of-the-day
Two men were walking through the woods and came upon a big black, deep hole. One man picked up a rock and tossed it into the hole and stood listening for the rock to hit bottom. There was no sound.
He turned to the other guy and said "that must be a deep hole...let's throw a bigger rock in there and listen for it to hit bottom." The men found a bigger rock and both picked it up and lugged it to the hole and dropped it in.
They listened for some time and never heard a sound. Again, they agreed that this must be one deep hole and maybe they should throw something even bigger into it.
One man spotted a rail-road tie nearby. They picked up the tie, grunting and groaning, and lugged it to the hole. They tossed it in. No sound. All of a sudden, a goat came flying out of the woods, running like the wind, and flew past the men and jumped straight into the hole. The men were amazed.
About that time, an old hayseed farmer came out of the woods and asked the men if they had seen a goat. One man told the farmer of the incredible incident they had just witnessed...they had just seen this goat fly out of the woods and run and leap into the big hole. The man asked the farmer if this could have been his goat.
The old farmer said "naw, that can't be my goat...he was chained to a railroad tie."  
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
STACKING MAGAZINES
To prevent a stack of magazines from falling over, change the direction of the binding every sixth issue.    
Yeah, It Really Happened
BIRMINGHAM, England - A robot created by a pair of British engineers broke a world record by solving a Rubik's cube in 3.253 seconds. David Gilday, a principal engineer at ARM, and Mike Dobson, a security systems engineer for Securi-Plex, said they spent 18 months building the CubeStormer 3 robot and the device made its debut at the Big Bang Fair at the National Exhibition Center in Birmingham, England, the Birmingham Mail reported Monday. The robot was able to beat the record of 5.27 seconds set by the duo's previous robot, CubeStormer II, two years ago. "The record-breaking attempt is a bit of fun for us," Gilday said. "Our real focus is to demonstrate what can be achieved with readily available technology to inspire young minds into taking a greater interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. There is now potential for robots to cope with disruption." "Our big challenge now is working out if it's possible to make it go even faster," he said.  
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • Leonardo da Vinci was a vegetarian and animal rights activist; he would buy caged birds and set them free.
  • Salvador Dali believed he was his dead brother's reincarnation. There is also a portrait or a silhouette of Dali in every one of his paintings.
  • Auguste Rodin's "The Age of Bronze" was so realistic people though he sacrificed a real person inside the cast.
  • Georges Braque was the first living person to have art displayed in Louvre.
  • Claude Monet's father disapproved of his painting; he wanted him to be a grocer.
  • Henri Matisse's Le Bateau was put the right way up after hanging upside-down for 46 days without anyone noticing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
16-22 
American Chocolate Week
Campfire USA Birthday Week
Health Information Professionals Week
National Animal Poison Prevention Week
National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week
Termite Awareness Week
Flood Safety Awareness Week
17-23
Act Happy Week
Flood Awareness Week
Wellderly Week
Wildlife Week
World Folktales & Fables Week
21-27
Week of Solidarity with People's Struggling Against Racism & Discrimination

Today Is                                                                      
·        Afghanistan Day
·        Brain Injury Awareness Day
·        International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
·        International Day of Forests and The Tree
·        International Day of Nowruz [Iranian/Persian New Year]
·        Memory Day
·        National Common Courtesy Day
·        National Day of Action On Syringe Exchange
·        National Puppy Day
·        National Single Parent Day
·        Poetry Day
·        Spring Fairy Fun Day
·        World Downs Syndrome Day
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·        Canberra Day (Australia-1913 naming of area)
·        Independence Day (Namibia-1990 from South Africa)
·        Human Rights Day (South Africa)

Today’s Events through History  
1697 - Czar Peter the Great begins tour through West-Europe
1984 - NFL owners passed the infamous anti-celebrating rule

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Timothy Dalton, North Wales, actor (James Bond-Living Daylights) is 70
Eddie Money, [Mahoney], Bkln, singer/guitarist (Take Me Home Tonight) is 65
Gary Oldman, actor (Criminal Law, State of Grace) is 56
Matthew Broderick, actor (WarGames, Biloxi Blues) is 52
Rosie O'Donnell, comedienne (League of Their Own, Flintstones, Rosie) is 52
Kevin Federline, American dancer/hip hop artist is 36

Remembered for being born today
1768-1830 - Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, mathematician/Egyptologist
1806-1872 - Benito Pablo Juarez, Oaxaca Mexico, president of Mexico
1869-1932 - Florenz Ziegfeld, producer (Ziegfield Follies)
1906-1978 - John D Rockefeller III, billionaire philanthropist (oil)
1929-1987 - James Coco, Bronx, actor (Man of La Mancha, Murder by Death)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Chinua Achebe, Nigerian poet and novelist, 2013, @82
Macdonald Carey, actor (Days of Our Lives), 1994, @81
Michael Redgrave, actor (Goodbye Mr Chips), Parkinson's, 1985, @77
Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, burned at stake, 1556, @66
Dack Rambo, actor (Jack Ewing-Dallas), AIDs, 1994, @52
Dean Paul Martin, actor (Billy-Misfits of Science), Nat’l Guard crash, 1987, @35
Pocahontas, Tsenacommacah Alliance, smallpox? TB?, 1617, @25

Brain Teasers
Because it's extinct!
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.