Friday August 20

This is Week 33 of 2010►Day 232 with 133 days left.

FREE RAMBLING THOUGHTS

My car radio is set to NPR-talk. Whenever I am out and about I am listening to one of their many shows. I have listened to many stories over the years where I get to the place I am going, park, and sit in the car to hear the rest of the story. NPR calls it a ‘driveway story’ as you listen to the rest of the story in your driveway before going into the house. Today there was program on ‘bed bugs’. I had just seen a 60 minutes story on them. I parked at the restaurant, and was late to our lunch, to hear the program. I am usually not a real paranoid person. My upcoming trip may change my mind. It turns out it is not a NY problem, but a worldwide problem. I heard specific instructions of things to look for at a hotel room before putting your suitcase in the room. The same is true for any hospital, any dormitory, any apartment complex, any nursing home, for anywhere one is going to sleep. These little freaky creatures are found in every hotel chain, no matter what you pay. How do they get into your bed? Obviously they are brought in by previous people or from the housekeeping staff or from your neighbors. No, it is not mean people or crazy people carrying around a jar of them to leave behind. The other place mentioned is your local clothing store. Somebody buys a piece of clothing, takes it home, throws it on a bed or chair, while they prepare to try it on. They put it on and it doesn’t fit or isn’t the right color. They take it back to the store and get something else. Well, if they have bed bugs, the little critters crawl on the new clothing and are now off to a new home. Why are bed bugs making such a comeback? All the chemicals that kill them have been banned to all but professional exterminators. I guess that mom was right when she vacuumed and turned the cushions on the couch on a regular basis. I’m expecting nightmares tonight. Thanks NPR for another great driveway story.

We had a really good lunch and conversation today. I only briefly mentioned my new knowledge of bed bugs as it wasn’t really good for mealtime conversation. Mary and hubby Michael went to Sedona for a break. Of course she found and bought a nice bracelet. They didn’t continue to Phoenix—their original plan—as it was just too hot. Cheryl has been working on her home repair list, by having her handyman come in to make the list shorter. Cheryl is headed for some surgery in November and gets to go through all the pre-test maze. She did her first EKG this morning and returns in a couple of weeks for the stress test. The doc asked her how fast she could walk. She said it depended on how badly she wanted to get where she was walking to. The doc and the nurse just cracked up.

Two local stories caught my eye today. The head of the Dept. of Corrections released a report on the recent private prison escapes. Everything in the escape points to poor management and poor oversight. Lots of private and state government jobs are now on the line. Our non-elected governor is more interested in the press she gets by arresting illegals than keeping the convicted criminals inside the prison. The other story showed that the state has been caught ‘embellishing’ the figures regarding kidnappings in Arizona. The state figures show that there was almost one kidnapping every day in AZ in 2008 and this has allowed our state to get millions in Federal funding—mostly from Homeland Security—to decrease the numbers. AZ took the money, the figures remained fairly stable. Phoenix had the highest kidnapping rate in the US. Now the revised figures show that during that time period, there were 38 kidnappings. Those figures have affected every homeowner or land owner in the state with higher insurance premiums and possibly lower property values. I sure hope heads roll on that too.

FYI: I am not one of the nearly 20% of Americans who believe that Obama is a Muslim. The story will not die. The pollsters keep asking. The more they ask, the more people who start to believe it. I guess 20% is a small group. There are 6% of people who believe we never landed on the moon.

There was no rain in Flag today. We reached 80° with a nice breeze to keep it tolerable. Nice to be outside, nice day for a walk. Flagstaff is a great place to live.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), Clergyman, historian: A quiet conscience sleeps in thunder.

HOLY MACKEREL: 1986 Mail carrier Patrick Sherrill, Edmond Ok, shot 14 fellow workers dead—thus ‘going postal'

SOMEWHAT USELESS INFORMATION about The Bard

~Shakespeare, one of literature's greatest figures, never attended any university.

~With 1,787 lines and 14,369 words, The Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare's shortest play. The shortest of his tragedies (with 1993 lines) is Macbeth.

~In 1582, at the age of eighteen, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway who was seven or eight years older than the young playwright.

~Shakespeare is said to have played the Ghost in the original production of Hamlet.

~None of Shakespeare's original manuscripts have survived, due partly perhaps to the fact that they were written, many of them hastily, strictly for stage performance.

GREY MATTER PUZZLE 1—Jeopardy Answers

Christmas, Easter, or Bermuda, for example

Europe's only wild monkeys live on this "rock"

1/3 the size of U.S., this royal kingdom has no rivers or lakes but lots of oil

Largest country entirely in Europe

Clocks in Lima, Peru, read the same as in this U.S. time zone

UNUSUAL NEWS ITEM

VIENNA — No kangaroos in Austria? Wrong! The search is on for a missing marsupial in the Alpine republic.

Sumsi disappeared from a private zoo in the southern village of Preding about two months ago and is keeping locals busy by popping up and then quickly getting away again.

Tourists to Austria can buy T-shirts with the slogan "No kangaroos in Austria" because this European country is sometimes confused with Australia, where the marsupials are native.

Recently, local firefighters sealed off a corn field after a Sumsi sighting — but to no avail. Not even a feeding station set up by kangaroo-crazy kids has done the trick.

Zoo operator Magrid Brauchart said Thursday she's convinced the five-year-old male was stolen and worries her charge could get hurt.

A LITTLE LAUGH

A young man I know, who recently became law clerk to a prominent New Jersey judge, was asked to prepare a suggested opinion in an important case. After working on the assignment for some time, he proudly handed in a 23-page document.

When he got it back, he found a terse comment in the judge's handwriting on page 7: "Stop romancing—propose already."

GREY MATTER PUZZLE 2--Riddle

You are in a room with 3 monkeys. One monkey has a banana, one has a stick, and one has nothing. Who is the smartest primate?

FOUND ON ‘YOU TUBE’

Overture of 1812 Finale: Click Here!

GREY MATTER PICTURE

This is a close up of what object?

SOME CALENDAR INFORMATION

♦ Weekly Observances ♦

15-21: National Aviation Week

……….Weird Contest Week

♦ Today’s Observances ♦

National Radio Day

Men's Grooming Day

Virtual World's Day

Estonia: Restoration of Independence Day, re-declaration of the independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Nepal: Father's Day

Hungary: Constitution Day (1949)

Senegal: Independence Day (1960 from Mali Federation)

♦ Hit Songs on this date ♦

Rock-A-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody Al Jolson 1918

A Tisket, A Tasket Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb 1938

Little Star The Elegants 1958

People Got to Be Free The Rascals 1968

Grease Frankie Valli 1978

Roll with It Steve Winwood 1988

♦ Today’s Births ♦

• The Arts

Isaac Lee Hayes Jr., composer (Shaft) … born 1942…Covington, TN

Robert Plant, 62, singer (Led Zeppelin), born Bromwich, England

Salvatore Quasimodo, poet/critic/translator (Nobel 1959) … born 1901… Modica, Sicily

Alan Reed, original voice of Fred Flintstone…born 1907…NYC, NY

Jim (James Travis) Reeves, first big country-crossover artist… born 1923… Galloway, Panola County, TX

Al Roker, 56, television personality (“Today Show”), born Brooklyn, NY

Jacqueline Susann, author: The Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine… born 1918…Philadelphia, PA

~~~

Shirley Booth, actress (Hazel-Hazel, A Touch of Grace) … born 1907…NYC, NY

• Athletics

Donald (Don) King, 79, boxing promoter, born Cleveland, OH

Graig Nettles, 66, 3rd baseman (Yankees, Padres, Indians) … born San Diego, CA

• Business & Education

Connie Chung, 64, journalist, born Constance Yu-Hwa at Washington, DC

• Politics

Benjamin Harrison, 23rd Pres… born 1833…North Bend, OH

Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme, leader of Chile: ‘Liberator of Chile’… born 1778… Chillán, Chile

• Science/Religion

Hideki Shirakawa, 74, Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize laureate for Chemistry…born Tokyo, Japan

♦ Today’s Obituaries ♦

Charles Floyd, only fatality of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, colic or ruptured appendix @ 22 in 1804

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic explorer, @ 82 in 1961

Leon Trotsky, Bolshevik Marxist leader, ice picked by Frank Jackson @ 61 in 1940

♦ Today’s Events ♦

• The Arts

1882 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.

• Athletics

1939 1st black bowling league formed (National Bowling Assoc)

1945 Tommy Brown of Brooklyn Dodgers, became the youngest player (17 years, 8 months and 14 days old) to hit a home run in a major-league ball game.

2000 Tiger Woods won the 82nd PGA Championship in Louisville, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open) in one year.

• Business & Education

1896 Dial telephone patented

• Indigenous People

1789 Juan de Ugalde is Commanding General of all Spanish forces in Coahuila, Nuevo León, Nuevo Santander, and Texas. He starts a major expedition against the Apache.

1789 An "Act Providing for the Expenses Which May Attend Negotiations or Treaties with the Indian Tribes, and the Appointment of Commissioners for Managing the Same" is approved by the United States.

1794 Gen Mad Anthony Wayne routes Indians at Fallen Timbers, Ohio

• Politics (US)

1865 Pres Johnson proclaims an end to "insurrection" in Tx

1866 Pres Andrew Johnson formally declares Civil War over

1942 Dim-out regulations implemented in SF

• Politics (International)

1741 Alaska was discovered by Danish navigator Vitus Jonas Bering

• Science / Religion

1912 Plant Quarantine Act goes into effect

1980 Reinhold Messner of Italy is 1st to solo ascent Mt Everest

GREY MATTER ANSWERS

↔ 1

Christmas, Easter, or Bermuda, for example: What are islands?

Europe's only wild monkeys live on this "rock": What is Gibraltar?

1/3 the size of U.S., this royal kingdom has no rivers or lakes but lots of oil: What is Saudi Arabia?

Largest country entirely in Europe: What is France?

Clocks in Lima, Peru, read the same as in this U.S. time zone: What is Eastern Time Zone?

↔ 2

You are.

↔ Picture

A Snoopy doll

TODAY’S NATIONAL PARK PHOTO SHOTS

Kings Canyon Nat’l Park, California, since October 1, 1890, 3rd Park Home to several Giant sequoia groves and the General Grant Tree, the world's second largest, this park also has part of the Kings River, site of the granite Kings Canyon, and San Joaquin River, as well as the Boyden Cave

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