Friday

~~~Free Ramblings
Our Tuba Group had lunch at a new BBQ place here in Flagstaff. Not bad. Catching up was nice. I won’t see them again till I get back from Africa. I’m sure they will do just fine. Mary’s mom had to move into a higher level care center. She’s 97 and still in good spirits. Cheryl had quite a saga to tell. She had to change her home flight when her mom passed. The return flight cost only a few dollars less than the round trip. Otis, her dog, had to stay a few extra days at the doggy care place and those few days cost a lot more, because she hadn’t planned it. Her house was not in danger from the Williams fire, but turns out, the fire was on the mountain not that far away. She said the neighbors, while not in danger, could watch the whole thing from their front yards.

An interesting political story made the front page of our local paper. Mayor Sara was meeting with a colleague at a local park. She noted that another park goer appeared to be selling drugs. So she sat on the bench while her colleague went to call the police. Cops arrive and an arrest follows. Then Mayor Sara walked around the park introducing herself to young park goers and giving a business card to them. She then asked the kids to have their parents give her a call. She told reporters that if any parent called she would tell the caller that their children are hanging out in a park where there is drug activity. Hmmm. I’m sure most of the kids figured the Mayor was just campaigning at the park. Won’t they be surprised if one of his/her parents actually calls the Mayor. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the idea of dealers in parks. I just don’t like Mayor Sara seeing it as her responsibility to notify parents, when none of the young people she talked to were involved in the incident. If the park is a known drug dealer area, then as mayor, she should work to get the park to be a safer place. Mayor Sara has many other alternatives that don’t include scaring parents who allow their kids go to the park. The parks should be for young people. She needs to know that most kids are not at the park to ‘make a deal.’
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~Random Facts
10% of us switch tags in the store to pay less for an item

Dirty snow melts faster than clean snow

~~~Unusual News Story
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A woman being driven around in a rented limousine pulled up at a coat store and announced she'd won the lottery and would pay for everyone's purchases, police said, but she ended up causing a riot when customers realized it was a hoax.
Angry customers threw merchandise around and looted, leaving the store looking as though a hurricane had passed through it, police said.
Linda Brown was arrested Tuesday after an hours-long shopping spree that began when she hired a stretch Hummer limousine to drop her off at a Burlington Coat Factory store, police Sgt. Lt. Michael Deakins said. Brown walked to a cash register and loudly announced she had won the lottery and would pay for each person's merchandise up to $500, he said.
"Well, of course, people like to hear that," Deakins said. "Apparently they were in line calling relatives who were not at the store and told them to come."
People flooded the registers as cashiers began ringing up purchase after purchase, but Brown had not yet paid the bill, Deakins said. At least 500 people filled the aisles and another 1,000 were outside trying to get in, he said.
"She was telling people she won $1.5 million," Deakins said. "But it ends up she didn't win anything. She had no money to pay for anything."
About an hour later, Brown had the limousine driver take her to a bank to withdraw money, but she returned empty-handed, police Detective Steven Nace said. By then, store employees had called in two dozen police officers to handle the crowds.
Shopper Candace Jordan said she told Brown she didn't need clothes, she needed help paying her rent.

~~~Before They Were Famous
Just before being signed by MGM, Angela Lansbury was working in Bullocks department store in Los Angeles with her mother Moyna.

Queen Latifah worked for a short time at Burger King.

Cyndi Lauper used to have a job cleaning out dog kennels.

Ralph Lauren sold sweaters and gloves at department stores.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~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 12 Oct
National School Lunch Week
World Rainforest Week

~~~16 OCT Observances
289 days so far this year…76 days remain in 2009
World Food Day
Nat’l Boss’ Day
Dictionary Day
Mammography Day
^Jewish Holy day Succoth-feast
^Poland Pope John Paul II Day

~~~Births on this day
~ The ARTS
1854__Oscar Wilde [Fingal O'Flahertie Wills], Dublin author
1888__Eugene (Gladstone) O’Neill Nobel Prize [1936] and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright

1913__Alice Pearce NYC, comedienne/actress (Gladys Kravitz-Bewitched)
1925__Angela Lansbury London England, actress
1927__Günter (Wilhelm) Grass novelist: Dog Years, The Tin Drum; won 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature
1946__Suzanne Somers San Bruno, CA actress

~ATHLETICS
1900__Leon (Goose) Goslin baseball hall of famer
1941__Tim (James Timothy) McCarver baseball: catcher

~POLITICS/BUSINESS/EDUCATION
1758__Noah Webster lexicographer (Webster's Dictionary)
1886__David Ben-Gurion Plonsk Poland, 1st PM of Israel

~SCIENCE/RELIGION
1752 – Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, German theologian @ 75-Father of New Testament criticism

~~~In Remembrance–
1774__Robert Fergusson, Scottish poet @ 24 (head injury)
1793__Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (executed) @ 38

1981__Moshe Dayan, Israeli general @ 66 (heart attack)
1992__Shirley Booth, American actress @ 94
2007__Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress @ 86

~~~Historical Events on this day
1846__Dentist William T Morton demonstrated the effectiveness of ether
1848__1st US homeopathic medical college opens in Pennsylvania
1859__John Brown leads 20 in raid on federal arsenal, Harper's Ferry, Va
1869__Hotel in Boston becomes the 1st to have indoor plumbing

1916__Margaret Sanger opens 1st birth control clinic (46 Amboy St, Brooklyn)
1923__Disney Co founded
1928__The frosted electric light bulb was patented
1946__10 Nazi leaders hanged as war criminals after Nuremberg trials
1946__President Truman lifts the price controls placed during the war on the sale of meat.
1962__Cuban Missile Crisis begins
1964__The People's Republic of China becomes the fifth country in the world with atomic bomb capability joining the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France.
1974__Rioting prisoners set fire to the Long Kesh Maze prison near Belfast.
1995__The Million Man March a political march convened by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan marches on Washington, DC.

~ Holy Mackerel
1940__American men are registering for draft and signing up at a rate of 1 million or more an hour. That’s 13+ months before Pearl Harbor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeopardy Categories Quiz
Correction: yesterday the answer to #1 should have been Georgia O’Keefe. To my knowledge there is no state named Irmgard and while she did write a book named ‘Red Poppy’, she was not a painter.
(these subjects are connected by an interest in light.)
1. This Polish astronomer of the 1500's laid the foundation for modern astronomy. He theorized that the sun was the center of our planetary system.
2. This French clergyman used height and light in his design for the first Gothic cathedral.
3. He was blinded by the light on the road to Damascus, and went on to spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.
4. This Greek philosopher felt that all human beings were locked in a dark cave, unaware of the light of truth.
5. This Dutch painter's interiors seem to contain their own sources of light. He is known for such works as Young Woman with a Water Jug.

^
^
^
^
Scroll down for answers
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
Answers:
1. Who is Nicolaus Copernicus?
2. Who Is Abbot Suger?
3. Who is Paul?
4. Who is Plato?
5. Who is Johannes Vermeer?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~