This is Week 40 of 2010►Day 279 with 85 days left.
FREE RAMBLING THOUGHTS
We took a short flight from KL to Kuching…yep pronounced just like the pop culture sound of a cash register. It is the Capital of East Malaysia, Sarawak with a population of just over ½ million. Charles Brooke was the White Rajah during British occupation. He believed in allowing the culture of Sarawak to thrive and is still seen as a hero. Kuching (Cat in Malay) has been watched over by white cats since its inception. September has the lowest rainfall average at 210mm (8”), while December is the wettest at 520mm (20.4”). The daily temps here in Sept average 23° at night to 32°C during the day—(75 & 89°F). It was a tad warmer while we were there. We are now in an area where one drips whenever outside. The flora is amazing. The Chinese Museum is awesome. We are now in an area where, up until 1941, the indigenous tribes used darts to kill their enemies and then hung their smoked heads at the entrance to the long house to ward off invaders. Tattoos are also a big deal with the indigenous tribes, as is ear piercing of women so they have a long earlobe with a big hole—ah, thanks to National Geographic in the 1950’s I did know a little about these practices. We visited a Mosque and adjoining cemetery where many of the headstones were covered with white or yellow cloth. Ramadan had just ended and families make a year trek to the cemetery to clean up the area. The white or yellow cloth lets everyone know this person is still missed. Zack is our guide and is very engaging. He is the kind of guide who really enjoys sharing his knowledge. His presentations are colorful and certainly not canned speeches. He is known to wander around the topic a little most of the time, and get completely off track sometimes. He is a certified guide for Bako and for our upcoming visit to the Orangutans. For me, this is exciting because he knows the staff at both places and they know him so we get some of the latest info not given to the general public. Zack does freelance guiding and so wants to provide a good experience so that our evaluations that go back to Pandow are good. For me, this makes the trip much more personalized. Susan did not appear to be a freelance guide and seemed to have her job no matter what we said.
We travel on to Bako National Park where we will see Proboscis monkeys and take a nice river cruise in a small boat. The best way to beat the heat and the humidity is a boat ride. The park is very green and has lots of foliage. I am seeing many ‘houseplants’ we can buy in their full glory. I once had a huge Boston Fern in my house—it was about 18” in diameter. Turns out that is a sickly fledging of the ferns in the park. I am learning about the layers of the forest. There are the groundcover plants and animals, those that live within trees at 8 feet or more, and then there are the birds in the highest part of the forest. The monkeys are plentiful, but haven’t learned how to pose for pictures yet. You just see them running along the ground or swinging through the trees. It is great for viewing, not great for photographing. We have been told several times that to photograph, you have to find a spot, sit quietly for an hour or so get good shots. We are on a schedule, and I’m not sure I could just sit quietly in this heat and humidity for that long.
Flagstaff weather has been all over the news. Four tornadoes touched down just outside West Flagstaff. Luckily it was early in the morning and no one was killed or had serious injuries. Several semis were overturned on I-40; an RV dealership had much of its inventory moved from the pad just off I-40 into the middle of the highway, 50-100 power poles were knocked down. About 20 RR cars were derailed. Several homes lost their second story and others lost their roofs. We had a tornado watch from about 5am until 5pm tonight. Flagstaff had two tornado warnings right in a row—one about 11am, another about noon. Our small city emergency response teams went into action and a hotline was open, there were constant updates on the radio and TV, with lots of blue boxes popping up to tell you what to do if a tornado is spotted. We don’t have a tornado siren system, like they do in Rapid City and Pine Ridge, so we didn’t know if one was spotted close. I am close to the mountain and on the east side of town, while all the excitement was on the west side and even farther west towards Williams. Our side of town had rain most of the night and most of the day, sometimes just a mist, sometimes a hard rain. About 10am, with a temp of about 50°, we suddenly were hit with pea sized hail that quickly covered the sidewalks and streets. It fell for all of five minutes and stopped. Within three more minutes, the hail had melted. Weird. I always have birds at my feeders on the back deck. Seldom do I have birds in the Blue Spruce in my front area. Today, every time I looked out at the Spruce, there were about a half dozen birds including a big blue jay, an almost white pigeon, and a bunch of colorful finches. The tree is big and a lot denser than the ponderosa in my back area. It was as if they were hiding, rather than feeding.
Tornado and Flagstaff are never heard in the same sentence. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if Flagstaff has ever had a tornado before. None of the newscasts nor weathermen have give a date for the last touchdown, they seem too involved in reporting the danger, than the history…understandable. A quick search on the internet yielded no results. I am quite sure that this is the first one ever recorded to cause damage of this magnitude. 2010 will certainly be one for the ‘Flagstaff Knows Mother Nature’ book—huge snowfall during the entire winter, devastating forest fire and consequent flooding in the summer, four tornadoes in one day this fall. What next? No, don’t tell me, let me be surprised.
Flag…H—54°; L—37°; RH—87%; and wind at 15mph. The tornadoes kinda put a damper on everything today.
QUOTE FOR THE DAY
Just like a crab, teaching its young how to walk straight
(meaning of proverb: parents advise their children to do the right thing, but they themselves don't do what they say)
HOLY MACKEREL: 1737 40 foot waves sink 20,000 small craft & kill 300,000 (Bengal, India)
SOMEWHAT USELESS INFORMATION--Bacteria
Dentists recommend that you keep your toothbrush at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid contamination.
A seventh grader in Florida recently won her school science fair by proving there are more bacteria in ice machines at fast-food restaurants than in toilet bowl water.
GREY MATTER PUZZLE 1—Double Jeopardy Answers—HOMONYMS
$200- Dave Garroway's sign-off, or a slice of cake
$400- What Oliver Twist wanted, or Susan Anton's diminutive date
$600- Olympic swimmer, or what a tobacco chewer does into a spittoon
$800- Expensive onion, or what happens when there's a hole in the bucket
$1000- A peasant, or where you hang 10
UNUSUAL NEWS ITEM
NEW YORK - A New York man said police gave him a ticket for trespassing while he was standing outside of his own apartment. Lindsey Riddick, 36, who joined a class-action lawsuit against the New York Police Department alleging officers gave out illegal summonses to meet quotas, said he and his brother were ticketed by police while outside of his apartment building, the New York Daily News reported. "I told the officer, 'I live here and I have the key,'"
Riddick said. "You're giving me a summons? Come on, man. You got to be kidding me." Jon Norinsberg, a lawyer representing the brothers and 20 other plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, said police handed out the summonses illegally to meet quotas.
"This is another example of police trespassing on people's constitutional rights just to fill a quota," Norinsberg said. "There's something terribly wrong with how the NYPD operates and it has to be fixed."
A LITTLE LAUGH
Returning home from work, a blonde was shocked to find her house ransacked and burglarized. She telephoned the police at once and reported the crime. The police dispatcher broadcast the call on the channels, and a K-9 unit patrolling nearby was the first to respond.
As the K-9 officer approached the house with his dog on a leash, the blonde ran out on the porch, shuddered at the sight of the cop and his dog, and then sat down on the steps.
Putting her face in her hands, she moaned, "I come home to find all my possessions stolen. I call the police for help, and what do they do? They send me a blind cop..."
FOUND ON ‘YOU TUBE’
Video made by local in Kuching…amazing. Click Here to View
GREY MATTER PICTURE
This is a close up of what object?
SOME CALENDAR INFORMATION
¤ Weekly Observances ¤
1-7: Universal Children's Week
2-9: No Salt Week
3-9: National Newspaper Week ^ National Work From Home Week ^ Fire Prevention Week ^ Mental Illness Awareness Week ^ Mystery Series Week ^ National Carry A Tune Week ^ Nuclear Medicine Week
4-10: Customer Service Week ^ Financial Planning Week ^ Spinning & Weaving Week ^ World Space Week
5-10:Great Books Week
6-12: Physicians Assistant Week
8-12: Kids' Goal Setting Week
8-10: New York Comic Con Week
10-16: Build Your Business with Business Cards Week ^ Emergency Nurses Week ^ Home-based Business Week ^ National Chestnut Week ^ National Food Bank Week ^ National Metric Week ^ Take Your Medicine Americans Week ^ World Rainforest Week
11-17: Fall Astronomy Week ^ National School Lunch Week
17-23: Food and Drug Interaction Education and Awareness Week ^ Getting The World To Beat A Path To Your Door Week ^ International Credit Union Week ^ Teen Read Week ^ National Chemistry Week ^ National Hospital and Health-System Pharmacy Week ^ YWCA Week without Violence ^ National Character Counts Week ^ National Forest Products Week ^ National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week ^ National School Bus Safety Week
18-24: Freedom From Bullies Week ^ Freedom of Speech Week ^ Medical Assistants Recognition Week ^ National Food Bank Week ^ National Infertility Awareness Week ^ National Massage Therapy Week ^ National Businesswomen's Week
24-31: Disarmament Week ^ Give Wildlife a Break Week ^ Pastoral Care Week ^ Peace, Friendship and Good Will Week ^ Prescription Errors Education & Awareness Week ^ International Magic Week ^ National Respiratory Care Week
27-11/3: World Hearing Aid Awareness Week
¤ Today’s Observances ¤
National Frappe Day
Fiji: Deed of Cession (1874)
German Dem Rep: Constitution Day (1949)
Libya : Evacuation Day
Nagasaki, Japan: The first day of Nagasaki Kunchi (Harvest festival famous for showing off gardens)
¤ Hit Songs on this date ¤
1895...The Band Played On / Dan Quinn
1905…Dearie / Corrine Morgan & Haydn Quartet
1925...Yes Sir! That's My Baby / Gene Austin Click Here to Hear!
1935...Cheek to Cheek / Fred Astaire Click Here to Hear!
1945…Till the End of Time / Perry Como Click Here to Hear!
1955…Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing / The Four Aces
1965…Yesterday / The Beatles
1975…Bad Blood / Neil Sedaka Click Here to Hear!
1985…Oh Sheila / Ready for the World Click Here to Hear!
¤ Today’s Births ¤
╬ THE ARTS
Toni Braxton, 43, singer
Thomas Keneally, 75, novelist (Schindler’s List), born New South Wales, Australia
Yo-Yo Ma, 55, cellist, born Paris, France Click Here to View!
John Cougar Mellencamp, 59, singer, songwriter Click Here to View!
♦♦♦♦♦♦
June Allyson, actress (Till the Clouds Roll By, Vegas) in 1917
Joy Behar, 67, comedienne, television personality
Simon Cowell, 51, television producer, personality (“American Idol”)
Andy Devine [Jeremiah Schwartz], sidekick actor to many actors—(Jingles in Adv of Wild Bill Hickock), born in Flagstaff and raised in Kingman, in 1905
Al Martino, 83, actor, singer (Hello Dolly, Phantom of the Opera)
╬ ATHLETICS
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╬ BUSINESS & EDUCATION
Martha McChesney Berry, founded Berry School for Children in 1866
╬ POLITICS
Joe Hill, Jevla Sweden, organizer (IWW)/songwriter (Union Scab)/martyr in 1879 Click Here to View!
Oliver Laurence North, 67, US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel (retired)
Vladimir Putin, 58, former Russian president
Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary leader/writer (Diary in Exile) in 1879
Henry Wallace, 33rd Vice President of U.S. [1941-1945], in 1888
╬ SCIENCE & RELIGION
Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, expanded quantum physics (Nobel 1922) in 1885
Elijah Muhammad (Elijah Robert Poole), leader of Nation of Islam: influential to Malcom X, Muhammad Ali, and Louis Farrakhan, in 1897
Desmond Tutu, 79, South African archbishop, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
James E Webb, head of NASA (1961-68) in 1906
¤ Today’s Obituaries ¤
Mario Lanza, singer, heart attack @ 38 in 1959
Leo Durocher, baseball coach/manager (Dodgers, Giants), @ 86 in 1991
Edgar Allen Poe, poet, overdose @ 40 in 1849
¤ Today’s Events ¤
╬ THE ARTS
1957 "American Bandstand" premieres
1982 Cats, opened on Broadway (7,485 performances followed)
╬ ATHLETICS
1916 222 points are scored in a football game between Georgia Tech & Cumberland University of Lebanon, TN 222-0
1965 Robert Mitera’s tee shot, aided by a 50-m.p.h. tailwind, traveled 447 yards to the pin, and dropped in for the longest hole-in-one in golf history.
╬ BUSINESS & EDUCATION
1868 Cornell University (Ithaca NY) opens
1968 Motion Picture Association of America adopts film rating system
╬ INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
1672 White Mountain APACHEs raid the ZUNI pueblo of Hawikum, and kill a priest named Pedro de Abila y Ayala today.
1701 In a farewell address to William Penn, SUSQUEHANNAH Chief Oretyagh, along with other SHAWNEE leaders, request, again, that traders be prevented from selling alcohol to the local Indians. Penn assures them that the Pennsylvania assembly is do just that.
╬ POLITICS (US)
1765 The Stamp Act Congress convenes in NY
╬ POLITICS (International)
1571 Turkish fleet defeated by Spanish & Italians in Battle of Lepanto
1886 Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba
╬ SCIENCE & RELIGION
1737 40 foot waves sink 20,000 small craft & kill 300,000 (Bengal, India)
1924 160 consecutive days of 100ø at Marble Bar, Australia begins
1958 US manned space-flight project renamed Project Mercury
1995 A crowd of some 125,000 people were sitting or standing in Central Park to see Pope John Paul II.
GREY MATTER ANSWERS
↔ 1
$200- Dave Garroway's sign-off, or a slice of cake: What is peace/piece?
$400- What Oliver Twist wanted, or Susan Anton's diminutive date: What is more/Moore?
$600- Olympic swimmer, or what a tobacco chewer does into a spittoon: What is Spitz/spits
$800- Expensive onion, or what happens when there's a hole in the bucket: What is a leek/leak?
$1000- A peasant, or where you hang 10: What is a serf/surf?
↔ PICTURE
A straw hat
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