7/17/13

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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 29/ Day: 198   Today: H 70°…L 59°

Wind: ave:   2mph; Gusts:  8mph  Ave. humidity:  63%

* Average Low   Average High     Record Low        Record High

           51°                    83°                 40° (1904)            91° (1980)

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

1st quadraphonic studio in UK is open by Moody Blues…1974

21st Olympic games open in Montreal…1976

British humor magazine "Punch" 1st published…1841

British Royal family changes its name from Hanover to Windsor…1917

Congress authorizes paper money…1861

Disneyland construction begins…1954

Disneyland opens its doors in rural Orange County…1955

Dr Leakey discovers oldest human skull (600,000 years old)…1959

Potsdam Conference (FDR, Stalin, Churchill) holds 1st meeting…1945

Spanish American War - Spaniards surrender to US at Santiago Cuba…1898

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

How many can you identify?…answers in Today’s Birthdays

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

The day started out overcast then it cleared up. Early in the afternoon a thunderstorm hit with very hard rain for over an hour. The people below the burn area had roads covered with debris and water. There is a small pond near a very cool restaurant just outside of town. The deluge filled the pond with debris and the earthen dam began leaking. Pre-evacuation notices were sent out to residents across the highway from the pond. No updates yet. We are a small town and don’t have a bevy of reporters or news helicopters to hit the airways, so we have to wait for FB updates until tomorrow’s paper gives us the details. The Phoenix metro area had their huge storm yesterday, and most evening programming was interrupted by the constant updates either with live reports or that news banner that goes across the screen.

 

I remember when I was working in Tuba, I began much of the information that turned into this blog.  It was part of my daily bulletin to give teachers a little history for their classrooms. During our recent heat wave, I read that Death Valley held the record for the hottest recorded temperature on earth. I checked a couple of sources when I heard this, because I recalled posting the highest temperature being in the Sahara Desert in the 1920’s. All sources said it was Death Valley. So for a couple of weeks I have been wondering how my brain could store something like that and be so wrong. Thanks to CNN today I found out my brain was working just fine. Last year a group of American scientists reviewed the information from Libya’s record setting temperature in 1922 at 136°. These scientists determined that the gauges used way back then were deemed not to be reliable. This meant that the world’s leading meteorologists studied the data and decided that Death Valley is the record holder. In 1922 Libya was under Italian occupation. Interesting.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Can you decipher this phrase?

T _ _ E

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• To Tell the Truth (1957)--My name is Mickey Spillane

• What's My Line? Erle Stanley Gardner
 

• Gale Garnett
 We'll Sing In The Sunshine

• Spencer Davis Group - 'Gimme Some Lovin'

Hmmmm…Oxymorons

Definite maybe Deliberate thoughtlessness Dry wine

Ok, then?

Harper’s Index    

• Number of on-air minutes during the last fall’s campaign season that CNN devoted to climate change: 23

• To Joe Biden’s smile: 43

Picture of the Day: Hybrid Animals

Unusual Fact of the Day

The only father-daughter collaboration to hit number one on the Billboard pop chart was “Something Stupid” by Frank & Nancy Sinatra in 1967.

Joke-of-the-day

There was a man sitting at a bar, and he looks over at the gentleman sitting next to him and says, "Hey, you look familiar.

Are you from around here?" The man answers, "Yeah, I live down the street."

"No kidding?" says the first man, "Well, so do I. And hey, you look about my age. Where did you go to high school?"

"Oh I went to Francis Lewis over on Utopia. Graduated in '66.

How 'bout you?"

"Get out. I went to Francis Lewis. And I graduated in '66, too." "Where'd you go to college?"

"Beloit, in Wisconsin."

"No way! I went to Beloit too. What dorm?"

"Kevin Sullivan dorm."

"Sullivan? You're not going to believe this . . ."

Joe the bartender walks over, and the first guy says, "Joe, you won't believe it in a million years. This guy went to the same high school as me, graduated the same year I did, and went to the same college. We were even in the same dorm. Isn't that amazing?"

Joe looks at them both and says, "Yeah, that's just plain amazing."

A third man comes in and says, "Hey Joe. What's new?" Joe says, "Not much. The Johnson twins are drunk again."  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

GETTING RID OF BACK PAIN

 If your back hurts more when you walk down stairs, down a hill, or sit down in a chair, you need to do flexion exercises.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

SAN DIEGO — School officials say lunchtime dares to drink a weird concoction that included hot sauce, carrots, salt and milk likely caused 22 students to get sick at a San Diego elementary school – if all of them were actually ill.

San Diego schools spokesman Jack Brandais says Friday that children at Audubon Elementary dared each other to drink from the mixture Thursday. Some reported upset stomachs and nausea afterward.

Teachers then made a general announcement to see if other students had stomach problems. Brandais says that call brought out students "who may not have had problems at all."

Of the 22 students, 18 were taken to the hospital, and all were later released.

As a precaution, the school's kitchen, cafeteria and outdoor lunch areas were sanitized overnight.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• LEGO means to play well. It comes from the combination and abbreviation of two words in Danish "leg godt". LEGO should always be written in capital letters. 

• The LEGO brick was named "Toy of the Century" by Fortune magazine and the British Association of Toy Retailers.

• Approximately 19 billion LEGO elements are manufactured each year. 

• LEGO Bricks are made in Billund, Denmark.

• A LEGO element is rejected if is does not meet the company's standards. LEGO estimates that out of every one million elements that are produced, only 18 end up being rejected.

• LEGO should never appear by itself, but should be paired with a noun: LEGO piece, LEGO set, LEGO universe.  

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

14-20
Everybody Deserves A Massage Week
Sports Cliché Week
Rabbit Week
National Baby Food Week
National Ventriloquism Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Get to Know Your Customers Day

·        National Peach Ice Cream Day

^^

·        South Korea: Constitution Day

Today’s Events through History  

1st US dental school, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, established…1867

Beatle's animated film "Yellow Submarine" premieres in London…1968

Douglas (Wrong Way) Corrigan leaves NY for LA, wound up in Ireland…1938

Military uprising under Gen Franco/begins Spanish civil war…1936

Sir Walter Raleigh arrested…1603

Tiger Woods wins his 10th major winning The British Open Championship by 5 strokes…2005

US army authorized to accept blacks as laborers…1862

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

In their 70’s

Diahann Carroll, actress (Julia, Claudine, Dominique-Dynasty) is 78

Spencer Davis, Wales, vocalist (Spencer Davis Group-Gimme Some Lovin) is 74

Gale Garnett, Auckland NZ, singer (We'll Sing in the Sunshine) is 71

Donald Sutherland, Canadian actor (M*A*S*H, Body Snatchers) is 78

In their 60’s

Camilla Parker Bowles (Duchess of Cornwall), 2^nd wife of Prince Charles is 66

David Hasselhoff, actor (Night Rider, Mitch-Baywatch) is 61

Remembered for being born today

John Jacob Astor, Germany, richest man in US, banker/fur trader [1763-1848]

James Cagney, actor (Yankee Doodle Dandy) [1899-1986]

Phyllis Diller, comedienne (Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number) [1917-2012]

Erle Stanley Gardner, US detective writer (Perry Mason), [1889-1970]

Gordon Gould, inventor of the laser [1920- 2005]

Art Linkletter, Saskatchewan Canada, TV host (People are Funny) [1912-2010]

Eelco Refer, linguist (Dictionary for the Dutch translator) [1830-1880]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Nicholas II Alexandrovich, last Tsar of Russia…executed…1918…at 50

Ty Cobb, baseball great (Det Tigers)…cancer…1961…at 74

John Coltrane, jazz sax/composer (Round Midnight)…liver cancer…1967…at 40

Walter Cronkite, broadcast journalist…2009…at 92

Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean, pitcher/sportscaster…heart attack…1974…at 64

Billie Holiday, jazz singer…cirrhosis…1959…at 44

Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, French fur trader and explorer…yellow fever…1704…at 47

Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher…painful illness…1790…at 67

Mickey Spillane, crime novel author…2006…at 88

Answer: Brain Teasers

I'm out of time. I M are out of T I M E.

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  §