Tuesday

~~~Free Ramblings
Here I am at T-4—I leave on the 22nd—and I did get a lot done for the trip. I got both my still camera and my video camera ready. I had to clean up the camera stick from Egypt. That was easy. Then I tried to erase the stuff off my video camera. It is one of those with a 30 gig hard drive. Well I finally gave up and went to the manual. Turns out you can only delete data from the camera from the camera. That means you can’t do it from the computer. I had about 10 short 3 minute or less movies on there. I followed the instructions and it took 45 minutes to delete those files. I did get a little nervous as it asked me three different times if I really wanted to do that. But everything seems to be working fine. And I will have a clean hard drive for my Safaris. Cool.

Tomorrow I will lay out all my stuff. Then on Wednesday I’ll actually pack it. It needs to sit out for a day, so I can study it. Don’t want to forget anything. I will also measure my second bag to be sure it can be a carry on. I have several sizes of suitcases and some make the measurement, some don’t. Amazing how organized I sound. I just wish I felt organized. I’m hoping I don’t forget anything I really need. I also don’t want to take anything I don’t need. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

On my trip to Egypt, I returned to find out I had missed out on most of the Susan Boyle story. Luckily, thanks to the internet I was able to catch up on that story fairly quickly. I wonder if I will miss any big news while I am gone this time.

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. We hit a rather balmy 71° and it only dropped to 43°. The nice breeze picked up to a quite a bit this afternoon, to about 35mph. Earlier in the day there was a small fire just north of The Peaks. It was contained to 100 acres. The wind made even that more difficult. It seems it was from an unattended campfire on private land. There are currently 4 fires within 75 miles of Flagstaff. This dry weather needs to end.
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~~~Random Facts
The launching mechanism of a carrier ship that helps planes to take off could throw a pickup truck over a mile

The higher the income, the more likely an American man will cheat on his wife.

~~~Unusual News
WESSON, Miss. – A Mississippi high school student says she is fighting to get her picture in the yearbook after officials rejected it because she wore a tuxedo. Ceara Sturgis of Wesson, a senior at Wesson Attendance Center, said officials rejected her senior portrait because she chose to wear a tuxedo for the picture instead of traditional feminine clothing, WLBT-TV, Jackson, Miss., reported Thursday.
“It makes me feel I’m not important enough. Like just because I’m wearing a tux I can’t be in my senior yearbook. It’s like I never even went there. That’s my yearbook. This is my senior year and I’m not gonna be able to be in there because I’m wearing a tux. I don’t think it matters what we’re wearing” said Sturgis, who is openly gay. A Copiah County School District spokeswoman said yearbook photo decisions are left up to the principal. Principal Ronald Greer declined to comment. Sturgis’ mother, Veronica Rodriguez, said she has hired an attorney to help get her daughter’s picture in the yearbook.

~~~Before They Were Famous
Eva Longoria can be seen in a 2000 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. Her acting career didn't start until after she had graduated from college with a degree in Kinesiology.

In the 90s, Jennifer Lopez was a back-up dancer for Janet Jackson.

Patty Lovelace was a waitress at Alston Bridges Barbeque restaurant in Shelby, NC before making it big in Nashville.
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~~~October Month Long Observances

Birthstone: Opal Birth flower: calendula
Adopt A Shelter Animal Month ~ Apple Month ~ Celebrate the Bilingual Child Month ~ Domestic Violence Awareness Month ~ Emotional Intelligence Month ~ Gay & Lesbian History Month ~ Halloween Safety Month ~ Month of Free Thought ~ Nat’l Arts and Humanities Month ~ Nat’l Book Month ~ Nat’l Cyber Safety Awareness Month ~ Nat’l Popcorn Poppin’ Month ~ Nat’l Sarcastic Awareness Month ~ Photographer Appreciation Month ~ Squirrel Awareness Month ~ Vegetarian Month

~~~Week of 17 Oct
Food & Drug Interaction Education and Awareness Week
Teen Read Week
Nat’l Chemistry Week
Nat’l Character Counts Week
Nat’l Forest Products Week
Nat’l School Bus Safety Week

~~~20 OCT Observances
293 days so far this year…72 days remain in 2009
National Support your Chamber of Commerce Day*
• Bahá'í Faith – Holy Day – Birth of the Báb [1819 Mirza Ali Mohammad]
• Buddhist-Laos: End of Buddhist Fast

*Not to be too political but the Chamber seems to loosing paying members due to its stance on environmental issues.

~~~Births on this day
~ The ARTS
1889__Margaret Dumont actress-Marx Brothers' foil

1905__Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay) author: mystery series
1913__Grandpa (Louis Marshall) Jones Country Music Hall of Famer: Hee Haw
1928__Dr. Joyce Brothers psycholgist
1932__William Christopher actor (Father Mulcahy-M*A*S*H)
1934__Martin Landau actor (Mission Impossible)
1936__Bobby Seale political activist: cofounder: Black Panthers
1953__Tom Petty singer (Heartbreakers)

~ATHLETICS
1931__Mickey Charles Mantle NY Yankee, home run slugger
1953__Keith Hernandez NY Met 1st baseman (9 golden gloves)

~POLITICS/BUSINESS/EDUCATION
1856__James Mann lawyer; U.S. Congressman: authored the Mann Act aka the White Slave Traffic Act
1859__John Dewey philosopher, educational theorist/writer
1925__Art Buchwald Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist
1946__Connie Chung news anchor
1951__Richard Frazier brother extraordinaire and CFO

~SCIENCE/RELIGION
1632__Sir Christopher Wren England, astronomer/great architect

~~~In Remembrance–
1935__Arthur Henderson Scottish politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize founded Labour Party in Great Britain @ 72
1936__Anne Sullivan American teacher to Helen Keller @ 70
1964__Herbert Hoover 31st President of the US @ 90
1990__Joel McCrea, American actor @ 85
1994__Burt Lancaster, American actor @ 81
2006__Jane Wyatt American actress @ 96

~~~Historical Events on this day
1803__US Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase
1818__49th parallel established as the border between US & Canada

1944__30 blocks of Cleveland OH burn after a liquid gas factory explodes
1962__With Halloween just around the corner, Bobby “Boris” Picket and the Crypt Kickers reached the top of the charts this day (for two weeks) with The Monster Mash
1973__President Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibold Cox and abolished the Watergate prosecution force. He also accepted the resignation of Attorney General Elliot L Richardson and fired all his deputies.
1973__OPEC oil embargo begins
1990__Antiwar protest marches begin in 20 US cities (US-Iraq)

~ Holy Mackerel
1947__The House Un American Activities Committee began investigating alleged Communist activities involving Hollywood entertainers.
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Jeopardy Categories Quiz
(these are all artists whose works express a vision of reality beyond that of the visible world)
1. He is a Spanish surrealist painter whose most famous work, Persistence of Memory, is known for its dreamlike images of insects and melting clocks.
2. One of the most famous Pop Artists, this painter helped make the musical group Velvet Underground and other members of his studio "The Factory" famous.
3. This Irish writer explored shifts in consciousness in his monumental novel Ulysses.
4. This English novelist used stream-of-consciousness in such works as Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One's Own.
5. This British rock group gained fame with such psychadelic-influenced albums as Dark Side of the Moon, and incorporated light and laser spectacles into their live performances.
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Answers:
1. Who is Salvador Dali? The painting is also known as Melting Clocks
2. Who is Andy Warhol?
3. What is James Joyce?
4. Who is Virginia Woolf?
5. Who is Pink Floyd?

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