This is Week 44 of 2010►Day 309 with 56 days left.
Flagstaff Weather: H—68°; L—°; RH—31%; clear sky—wind— 3 mph
QUOTE FOR THE DAY—Henry David Thoreau
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
FREE RAMBLING THOUGHTS
I got an email today from my neighbor-friend Bob’s daughters. Turns out his next birthday will have him turning 80. Time sure flies when one is having fun. Bob is the guy I am planning to go to England with this spring. I knew he was in his 70’s when we went to Scotland, and somehow I guess he didn’t age after that. Amazing. His daughters are doing a cool thing for the big day, besides the party. They are making a ‘memory jar’ which will be stories and anecdotes from his friends and relatives on pieces of paper, folded and put in the jar for him to read whenever he wants to. My brother and I did a memory album for our parents for their 50th anniversary. We had about 60 people who sent letters with an anecdote, then my brother had an artist-type friend put them into an amazing album. It was treasured by them both for years, and was still being read by my mom when she is in the care facility.
We had another beautiful day here in Flagstaff—I keep looking at the calendar to be sure that it really is November.
Some of you might recall my loud neighbor who lives about 4 doors down from me. She is the one who was screaming at a neighbor that the entire facility was racist. An acquaintance of mine from Leupp was looking to rent that townhouse. She met with the lady, paid a good-faith deposit to rent it. After a few weeks she checked with the lady, and the lady said that she had raised the monthly rent and someone else had rented it at the higher price. While the story hardly seemed ethical, the renter said she was upset and asked for her good faith deposit back. The lady said it would be ready in a week, in case the other renter backed out. Even stranger. So the week went by, no check. She called the number and the cell had been turned off. She stopped by and no one would answer the door. Today the lady moved out. Even that was strange. A U-haul truck pulled up, the lady driver of the U-Haul watched as the lady and her friends loaded the U-haul. I was emptying trash about an hour later and the driver was opening a sealed envelope with a padlock and key in the envelope. She gave the padlock to the lady, who promptly put it on the back of the truck so it couldn’t be opened. The driver appeared to keep the key, got in the truck and drove off. Then the lady and her friend drove off. I know this sounds like I am a very nosy neighbor, but when I am in my upstairs office, at the computer, I can glance out the window. I did watch the lock part and was being nosy, but the other parts were mere glances out the window. So I guess my friend lost her good faith deposit, my screaming neighbor is gone, and we may soon have a new neighbor—or not. I had told the lady from Leupp that I thought that lady was just a renter. When they moved in about a year or so ago, there was never a for sale sign on the unit. My guess is the lady who lived there pulled off a scam and that my acquaintance from Leupp was only one of several who were taken in.
Back in the 60’s and early 70’s my mom was a poll worker at the local polling place. That was the day of the pull the handle and the curtain closed, you pushed down the levers for your candidate, and pulled a handle to vote and magically the curtain opened. At the end of the day, the workers would go behind the machine, unlock and open the secret box container, and take the box, unopened to the county election headquarters. The election results were published the next morning or you could watch TV to see the results. Now it is 2010. Poll workers still show up at the voting place about 5am and stay until about 8pm. I don’t think any states still use the old lever machines as technology has convinced the states that there are better, safer, easier, more accurate machines these days. Back in the olden days, very few people ever got absentee ballots and there was no such thing as ‘early voting’. So my question is—why does it now take days, weeks or months to find out the results of a close election? When the Minnesota Senate race was close back in 2008, it took until mid January or February to find out that Al Franken was the winner. I remember this, only because I always enjoyed Franken’s humor and wondered how he ended up running for the Senate. Well Minnesota had a close election for governor. Results aren’t expected until February. AZ has a couple of ballot measures that still haven’t been announced and two Congressional districts that were not announced until late this afternoon. Several other states are still not calling some of their counts either. If the elections had a near 100% I might find it a little more understandable. Why is it taking so long to get results? It seems to me that the recorder’s office would be able to plan ahead and have enough staff around election time to make this process go a bit faster. When the people of Afghanistan had to make their thumb purple in order to vote, the results were in with a couple of days. Afghanistan is about the size and population of Texas, has 4 official languages. Minnesota has a population about ¼ that of Texas. No US state is as isolated, as undeveloped, or as involved in a war like Afghanistan. Maybe I just expect too much.
HOLY MACKEREL: 1935▬Parker Brothers launches game of Monopoly
JEOPARDY PUZZLE—(1984 games)(answers below)--Trivia
$100-Words used instead of the cursing in Watergate tape transcripts
$200-Specialty store in which you'd buy lug nuts & feeler gauges
$300-Speed of an LP
$400-Number of vowels on the bottom row of keys of a standard typewriter
$500-Howard Garis' bedtime tale-teller whose last name is Longears
SOMEWHAT USELESS INFORMATION—Recordings
→Magnetic recording was invented in 1898 by Valdemar Poulson of Denmark. Called the “telegraphone,” it was used to record telephone messages by applying magnetic pulses to a steel wire.
→The patent for the invention of the phonograph was awarded to Emile Berliner in 1887. But the recording format of choice would become the iron oxide-coated tape, a paper version of which was invented in 1927 by Joseph A. O’Neill and a film version of which was invented in 1928 by Fritz Pfleumer.
→The tape recorder, or “magnetophone”, was invented in 1936, the year that the Volkswagen Beetle was launched. Dutch company Philips introduced the audio cassette in 1963.
→The video recording machine was invented by the Ampex Corporation of California in 1956. The first video recorder, the Ampex VR1000, stood 3 ft 3 in high [or more than 6ft when fully assembled] and weighed as much as a small car: 1,466 lb.
→The home video recorder was introduced in 1972 by Philips. JVC introduced the VHS system in 1976. Sony introduced the first handheld film camera, the Sony Mavica camcorder, in 1981.
→The first musical film was made in 1896 by George Thomas. It was a series of still shots depicting the song The Little Lost Child by Edward B. Marks and Joseph W. Stern.
UNUSUAL NEWS ITEM
MSNBC--An elderly couple who won around $11 million from a lottery ticket in Canada have given the money away to good causes and family, according to media reports.
Violet and Allen Large, who live in rural Nova Scotia, decided they had no need for the money and, four months after the Lotto 6-49 win, have given virtually all of it to churches, animal charities, hospitals and other groups, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald reported.
'We have each other' "That money that we won was nothing — we have each other," Allen Large told the newspaper, which said he choked back tears as he spoke. Violet Allen had her final course of chemotherapy last week, the Chronicle-Herald said. "I've been very fortunate not to be bedfast," she told the paper. The Chronicle-Herald said after giving some money to family, the couple made donations to various good causes such as: the local fire department; churches; cemeteries;the Red Cross; the Salvation Army;hospitals in Truro and Halifax that treated Violet Large for cancer; and organizations that fight cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes.
"We're the lucky ones. I have no complaints," Violet Allen said. Click Here for full story!
A LITTLE LAUGH
One of my college friends asked a group of us for advice on organizing his final report for the year. "Why don't you use Roman numerals to head the different sections?" another friend suggested.
"I already thought of that," he replied. "But my keyboard doesn't have Roman numerals on it."
FOUND ON ‘YOU TUBE’
Johnny Horton did great songs: Sink The Bismark! Battle of New Orleans
GREY MATTER PICTURE
This is a close up of what object?
SOME CALENDAR INFORMATION
¤ Weekly Observances ¤
1-7: Intimate Apparel Market Week
Give Wildlife A Break Week
National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week
Give Wildlife A Break Week
National Patient Accessibility Week
World Communication Week
7-13: National Nurse Practioner's Week, Pursuit of Happiness Week, National Rad Tech Week , Fraud Awareness Week, Dear Santa Letter Week, National Young Reader's Week, World Kindness Week
14-20: American Education Week, Geography Awareness Week, National Hunger & Homeless Awareness Week, National Global Entrepreneurship Week
19-25:National Farm-City Week
21-28: National Bible Week, National Family Week, National Game & Puzzle Week, National Teens Don't Text and Drive Week, Better Conversation Week, Church/State Separation Week
¤ Today’s Observances ¤
Gunpowder Day
National Medical Science Liaison Awareness & Appreciation Day
Pumpkin Chunkin Days: hurling pumpkins by mechanical device: Championships held in Delaware and Belgium.
El Salvador: 1st Cry for Independence (1811)
Sweden: All Saints Day
United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Canadian province of Newfoundland & Labrador: Guy Fawkes Night, failure of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament in 1605 is celebrated with bonfires, fireworks and burning of effigies.
¤ Top 10 songs of 1961 ¤
I don’t always remember these songs by their title, but after the first few notes, memories flow.
Click on Song Title to see and hear the original
¤ Today’s Births ¤
╬ THE ARTS
Bryan Adams, 51, singer, songwriter
Will Durant, writer/historian (Story of Civilization), born in 1885
Arthur (Art) Garfunkel, 69, singer (Simon and Garfunkel), actor (Carnal Knowledge)
Kevin Jonas, 23, singer (The Jonas Brothers), actor (“J.O.N.A.S.”)
Peter Noone, 63, rocker (Herman-Herman's Hermits-Silhouettes)
Sam Shepard, 67, dramatist, actor (Buried Child, The Right Stuff), born Samuel Shepard Rogers
Ike Turner, AKA EX-Mr Tina Turner!, singer (A Fool in Love), born in 1931
Geoffrey Wolff, 73, author (The Duke of Deception, The Age of Consent)
♦♦Actors♦♦
Joel McCrea, actor (Marshal-Wichita Town), born in 1905
Roy Rogers (Leonard Slye), cowboy (Happy Trails, Roy Rogers Show), born in 1911 Happy Trails
Natalie Schaeffer, actress (Lovey Howell-Gilligan's Island), born in 1912
John McGiver, actor (Patty Duke Show, Jimmy Stewart Show), born in 1913
Vivien Leigh (Vivian Mary Hartley), (Gone With Wind) Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn, born in 1913
Jon-Erik Hexum, actor (Voyager, Cover-up), born in 1957
Tatum O’Neal, 47, actress (Oscar for Paper Moon; The Bad News Bears)
Elke Sommer, 69, actress (A Shot in the Dark, The Prize), born Elke Schletze
╬ ATHLETICS
Javy Lopez, 40, baseball, born Ponce, Puerto Rico, Braves, Red Sox, Orioles
William Theodore "Bill" Walton III, 58, broadcaster, Hall of Fame basketball (Trailblazers, Celtics, Clippers)
╬ BUSINESS & EDUCATION
Moe Biller, labor union officer (AFL-CIO, Postal Workers), born in 1915
Ida Tarbell, muckraker (Standard Oil was very unhappy), born in 1857
╬ POLITICS
Benjamin F Butler, Union general/presidential candidate (anti-monopoly), born in 1818
╬ SCIENCE & RELIGION
Bernard Chazelle, 55, French computer scientist
Paul Sabatier, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate, born in 1854
¤ Today’s Obituaries ¤
Ward Bond, actor, heart attack @ 55 in 1960
Al Capp, cartoonist (Lil' Abner), emphysema @ 70 in 1979
Vladamir Horowitz, pianist, @ 85, in 1989
Johnny Horton, singer (Ballad of New Oreleans), auto accident @ 35 in 1960
Guy Lombardo, orchestra leader (Auld Lang Syne), heart attack @ 75 in 1977
Fred MacMurray, actor (My Three Sons), leukemia @ 84 in 1991
Stafford Repp, actor (Chief O'Hara-Batman), heart attack @ 56 in 1974
Barry Sadler, singer (Green Berets), shot in robbery in Guatamala @t 49 in 1989
¤ Today’s Events ¤
╬ THE ARTS
1930▬Sinclair Lewis, novelist, playwright, and social critic, won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was the first American to win the prize and went to him “for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters.”
╬ ATHLETICS
1971▬The Los Angeles Lakers began the longest winning streak in the history of pro sports by winning the first of 33 consecutive basketball games
╬ BUSINESS & EDUCATION
1492▬Christopher Columbus learns of maize (corn) from the Indians of Cuba
1973▬BART starts San Francisco-Daly City train shuttle service
╬ INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
1768▬The Iroquois sell some land. According to many historians, the treaty signed at Fort Stanwix, near modern Rome, New York, causes such anguish among Indian tribes, it leads to Dunsmore's War. The treaty is signed at a meeting of several thousand Indians.
1857▬The Tonawanda Band of the Seneca sign a treaty (11 stat. 735).
╬ POLITICS (US)
1781▬John Hanson elected 1st "President of the US in Congress assembled"
1872▬Susan B Anthony fined $100 for trying to vote for Ulysses S Grant
1917▬Supreme Court decision (Buchanan v Warley) strikes down Lousiville KY ordinance requiring blacks & whites to live in separate areas
1935▬Maryland Court of Appeals orders U of M to admit (black) Donald Murray
1946▬John F Kennedy (D-MA) elected to House of Representatives
--Presidents elected today
1912▬Woodrow Wilson (D) beats Theodore Roosevelt (Prog) & President Taft (R)
1940▬President FDR (D) wins unprecedented 3rd term beating Wendell Willkie (R)
1956▬Britain & France land forces in Egypt
1968▬Nixon (R) beats VP Humphrey (D) & George C Wallace for Presidency
╬ POLITICS (International)
1605▬Gunpowder Plot; Catholics try to blow up English Parliament. Plot uncovered & leader Guy Fawkes hanged
╬ SCIENCE & RELIGION
1987▬Iceberg twice the size of Rhode Island sighted in Antarctic
╬ BONUS: Guy Fawkes Refrain still chanted today
Remember, Remember the Fifth of NovemberGunpowder, Treason, and Plot.I see no reason why Gunpowder Treasonshould ever be forgot.Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes twas his intentTo blow up the houses of Parliament,With three score barrels of powder below,Poor old England to overthrow.But by God’s providence he was catched,With darkened lantern and slow burning match.Holloa boys, Holloa boys, ring bells ring,Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God saved the King!
GREY MATTER ANSWERS
↔ JEOPARDY
$100-Words used instead of the cursing in Watergate tape transcripts
What is ‘expletive deleted’?
$200-Specialty store in which you'd buy lug nuts & feeler gauges
What is a auto supply store?
$300-Speed of an LP
What is 33 1/3 rpm?
$400-Number of vowels on the bottom row of keys of a standard typewriter
What is zero?
$500-Howard Garis' bedtime tale-teller whose last name is Longears
Who is Uncle Wigley?
↔ PICTURE
Video game controller
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