Dec 1, 2012


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Flagstaff Almanac:  Week: 48/ Day:    
Today: H   54°L 28° Averages: H  45° L 19°
Records: H   66°(1995)L -4°(2010)
Wind: ave:   12mph; Gusts:  21mph Today’s ave. humidity:  62%
Quote of the Day:

Today’s Historical Highlights:
1st Christmas Club payment made, to Carlisle Trust Co, Pa—1909
1st color photograph of Earth from outer space—1959
1st drive-up gasoline station opens (Pitts) —1913
1st White House telephone installed—1878
AIDS awareness day—1991
AIDS virus is officially recognized—1981
Boys Town founded by Father Edward Flanagan—1917
Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford (car every 2:38) —1913
Gasoline rationed in US—1942
Hans Christian Andersen published his 1st book of fairy tales—1835
Jacques Charles & Nicolas Roberts make first untethered ascension with 
     gas hydrogen balloon in Paris—1783
James Naismith creates the game of basketball—1891
Michael Jackson releases "Thriller"—1982
Our Lady of Angels School burns, killing 92 students & 3 nuns (Chic) —1958
Sam Cooke and Buddy Holly and Crickets debut on Ed Sullivan Show—1957
Sherlock Holmes 1st appears in print: "Study in Scarlet"—1887
Westinghouse formally changes its name to CBS—1997

     Happy Birthday To: ♪. ♪   
How many can you identify?…answers in Today’s Birthdays

Free Rambling Thoughts:   
Started out as a nice Friday but afternoon clouds look like moisture ahead…even though the weatherman doesn’t think so. I checked the extended forecasts for my Christmas travel, and if it all the forecasts stand I will have easy travel to Chicago…still too early to check the weather on the return trip.

Ongoing tax saga: called the supervisor and while she had babbled that she would personally handle it, it turns out that all that means is she would ‘forward it’ to the correct department. I asked for a timeline, and she said “when they get to it.” Is that a week?...silence…a month?…silence…six months…”I don’t think it will take that long.” This is the craziest thing I have dealt with in a very long time. Will anyone notify me when they review it? “I think they will, if they need more information”, what if they don’t need more information? “I think they should.” Thanks for your time.

Can’t believe it is already December…time is just flying by this year. Soon I will be in Chicago, then a few weeks later in Uganda. Wow.

Game  Center: (answers at the end of post)
Duplicate Letter Puzzles
Find common words with certain letters duplicated in the given positions. V stands for a duplicated vowel, C stands for a duplicated consonant, L stands for any duplicated letter, and _ stands for any letter
 V _ L V L (2 solutions)
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Old Saying Explained:
GO TO POT…Any farm animal that had outlived its usefulness such as a hen that no longer laid eggs would literally go to pot. It was cooked and eaten.
Ok, then?

TV Theme Songs you may remember:
The Andy Griffith Show - Earle Hagen, Herbert Spencer and Everett Sloane
Bonus
Andy Griffith sings TV Show Theme Song
Read This Headline Carefully!!
If strike isn't settled quickly it may last a while
Beautiful Scotland:

Bet You Didn’t Know…from History Channel
During much of the Ottoman Empire's history, each new sultan murdered all of his own brothers, along with any other relatives who might pose a challenge to his succession.
Harper’s Index:         
  • Estimated proportion of US prison population that are held in solitary confinement: 1/27
  • Estimated portion of prison suicides that are committed by inmates in solitary: 1/2
Ruminations:
If a man serving a life sentence dies in prison, but only to be revived minutes later, has he served his sentence?
Unusual Fact of the Day:
Cheetah, the chimpanzee that appeared in 12 Tarzan films, died at about 80 in 2011. He resided at a sanctuary in Palm Springs, California, for retired show business animals.
Found on You Tube: 

Joke-of-the-day:
Q. What did the digital clock say to the analog clock? A. Look, No hands!
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
FIXING YOUR FACE FOR TV…For TV appearances, match the color of your make-up to the color of the tip of your tongue.   
Yeah, It Really Happened
Talk about your worst nightmare (for most men, anyway), a Belgian man is seeking to have his marriage annulled after discovering that his Indonesian wife of 19 years had been born a man.

The man, only named as Jan, married Monica, his family's former au pair in a previous marriage, in 1993 despite legal difficulties raised by the Belgian immigration authorities.
But it was only in recent weeks that he discovered that his wife had originally been a man and had undergone a sex change.
"I feel I've been assaulted," he told a local newspaper. "I brought her to Belgium. That was not easy. The Belgian courts had serious doubts about the authenticity of her birth and her identity papers, but eventually they accepted it anyway. I thought she was an attractive woman, all woman. She had no male traits."
Jan, 64, said that he and his wife had decided not to have children because he had two by his previous marriage and she fooled him by pretending to menstruate.
"Even during sex, I never noticed anything," he said.
Sounds like a pretty successful operation to me!
For many years the couple lived a normal family life until their marriage started to come under strain. Rumors began to surface after Jan found "amorous messages" from other men on her computer.
Once he started investigating a friend told him that he had heard Monica was actually a sex-changed man.
"I pushed her against the wall and said: Now I know the truth. Are you a man? She then announced that she was born as a boy and that she had been operated on. She was now a woman, and so she did not need to tell me about her past as a man. My world collapsed. That evening came to blows. The police came."
Jan, who is undergoing psychiatric treatment following the discovery, has started legal proceedings to have the marriage annulled but the Belgian courts have so far refused to allow him to turn her out of the family home.
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • The Emmy Awards finally gave daytime shows their own category in 1974. The first show to win for Outstanding Daytime Drama was The Doctors, which beat out rivals Days of Our Lives and General Hospital.
  • If you think soap operas got their name from the soap companies that advertised heavily during the programs, then you're correct. Advertisers knew that housewives and stay-at-home moms were a perfect, captive audience for their goods.
  • The Young and the Restless star Jeanne Cooper underwent a facelift in 1984. She pitched producers the idea of including real filmed footage of the surgery in the show, as if her character (Katherine Chancellor) had experienced the same procedure, and they incorporated it into the soap's storyline.
  • In the first deal of its kind, the soap opera Passions announced in April 2007 that it wasn't being cancelled after all, but that the show would leave NBC and continue airing new episodes as an exclusive to subscribers of the DirecTV satellite service.
  • The familiar theme song for the long-running daytime soap Days of Our Lives was co written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who were best known for penning many late-1960s pop hits, including The Monkees' "Last Train to Clarksville."
  • Bo Derek may have been a 10 in the movies, but her 1998 evening soap opera Wind on Water lasted only two episodes before NBC pulled the plug.
Calendar Information        
Happening This Month:
·        Bingo's Birthday Month [the game dates back to the 1530’s]
·        Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month
·        International Safe Toys and Gifts Month
·        National Critical Infrastructure Protection Month
·        National Drunk & Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month
·        National Tie Month Link
·        National Write A Business Plan Month
·        Operation Santa Paws
·        Quince and Watermelon Month
·        Root Vegetables and Exotic Fruits Month
·        Seasonal Depression Awareness Month
·        Spiritual Literacy Month
·        Tomato and Winter Squash Month
·        Universal Human Rights Month
·        Worldwide Food Service Safety Month
·        Young Children's Safe Toys & Gifts Awareness Month
·        World Aids Month

Happening This Week:
1-7> Cookie Cutter Week; Tolerance Week

Today Is                                                                      
Bifocals at the Computer Monitor Liberation Day
Earmuff Day or Chester Greenwood Day-since invention in 1877
Special Kids Day
Civil Air Patrol Day Day
With(out) Art Day
Rosa Parks Day—she rode the bus in 1955
Skywarn Recognition Day
World Aids Day
National Pie Day Eat A Red Apple Day
Portugal > Independence Day (1640 from Iberian Union)
Romania >  National Day (1918=unification of Transylvania into 'Greater Romania')

Today’s Events through History  
1st American school to offer manual training courses opens, Md—1750
Arabic Congress names Abdullah of Trans Jordan, King of Palestine—1948
Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican—800
Erie Canal closes for entire month due to cold weather—1831
Iceland becomes independent state under Danish crown—1918
Mass becomes 1st colony to give statutory recognition to slavery—1641
Pasha Muhammad ibn Farukh tyrannical gov of Jerusalem, driven out—1626
Peter Pitchlynn, and 400 other CHOCTAWs, board the steamer Brandywine 
     in Memphis today. The steamer will transport them up to the Arkansas 
     Post on the White River—1831
Ruth Nichols becomes 1st woman pilot to cross continent—1930
South Africa government says children of white fathers are white—1965
To renegotiate the flint River Treaty of November 3, 1804, the United States 
     invites 6 CREEK Chiefs to Washington to meet with Secretary of 
     War Henry Dearborn. They agree to pay the CREEKs $206,000 for their 
     two million acres instead of $200,000. But, the payments will be made over 
     ten years, instead of in cash. The CREEK also agree to allowing a road 
     through their lands—1805
US Civil Air Patrol (CAP) organizes—1941
US Post Office establishes philatelic agency—1821

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
In their 70’s
Woody Allen [Allan Stewart Konigsberg], actor is 77
Lee Buck Trevino, Dallas Tx, PGA golfer (US Open 1968, 71) is 73
In their 60’s
Bette Midler,actress and singer (Beaches, Wind Beneath my Wings) is 67
Treat Williams, actor (Flashpoint, Hair) is 61
In their 50’s
Charlene Tilton, actress (Lucy Ewing-Dallas) is 54
In their 40’s
Sarah Silverman, comedienne is 42
Remembered for being born today
W A "Tony" Boyle, United Mine Workers president (1904-1985)
David Doyle, Omaha Neb, actor (John Bosley-Charlie's Angels) (1929-1997)
Mary Martin, Weatherford Tx, actress (Peter Pan) Larry Hagman's mom (1913-1990)
Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, French astronomer (1580-1637)
Richard Pryor, Ill, comedian/actor (Lady Sings the Blues, Stir Crazy) (1940-2005)
Lou Rawls, American singer (d. 2006) , actor (Zelig, Annie Hall) (1933-2006)
Dick Shawn, Buffalo NY, actor (Producers, Maid to Order, Angel) (1923-1987)
Matthew Shepard, Hate Crime murder victim (1976- 1998)
Rex Stout, Noblesville Indiana, American mystery writer (Nero Wolf novels) (1886-1975)
Minoru Yamasaki, architect (World Trade Center, NY) (1912-1986)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Paul Benedict, actor[The Jeffersons]—natural causes—2008—at 70
David Ben-Gurion, founding father of Israel—1973—at 87

Answer: Duplicate Letter Puzzles
EASES, ENDED
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.
All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.
§    And That Is All for Now  §

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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.