10/1/13

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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 40/ Day: 274   

Today: H 71°…L 35°…Ave. humidity: 52%

Wind: ave:   3mph; Gusts:  18mph  

Average High: 69° Record High:  85° (1980)

Average Low: 36° Record Low:  23° (1982)

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

1st baseball World Series, Pittsburgh Pirates vs Boston Pilgrims (Red Sox) …1903

1st postcards are issued (Vienna, Austria) …1869

1st state fair Berkshire Cattle Fair held in Pittsfield Mass…1910

1st Tonight Show w/ Johnny Carson, Joan Crawford guests…1962

Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence (a/k/a "Lawrence of Arabia") capture Damascus…1918

California becomes the 1st US state to ban conversion therapy for minors…2012

California Supreme Court voids state statue banning interracial marriages…1948

Cartoon Cable Network premieres…1992

Closing ceremony of the XXVII Olympics in Sydney, Australia…2000

Congress creates Weather Bureau…1890

Department Of Energy established…1977

EPCOT Center opens in Orlando Florida…1982

Free Speech Movement launched at University of California-Berkley…1964

John Philip Sousa becomes new director of US Marine Corps Band…1880

Little Golden Books (children books) begins publishing…1942

National Geographic magazine publishes for 1st time…1888

Plaza Hotel (5th Av & 59th Str, NY) opens…1907

Roger Maris sets record of 61 HRs (off of Tracy Stallard) …1961

South African President Nelson Mandela visits US…1994

Stanford University opens its doors…1891

Storm breaks Leiden dike Holland; drowns 20,000 Spanish soldiers…1574

University of Chicago opens…1892

Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida opens…1971

Yosemite National Park forms…1890

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A really beautiful day here in Flag…and it’s Monday. Amazing. Had to run over to Home Depot this morning to get a new aerator for my kitchen faucet. The old one had the swivel part fall off so when I turned the faucet on, water just came out and splashed everywhere.

 

Thank you NPR for another great story. As a Federal worker, I never had to deal with a government shut down until 1995. I wondered always wondered why. Well it turns out that before 1995 there were many times the elected leaders didn’t fund the government by Oct. 1, but there was never a shutdown. Prior  to that all workers just kept coming to work and when the budget got worked out, they got paid. It all changed when a Clinton lawyer discovered an old, old statue that stated that only essential workers could remain on the job and if employees that were not essential stayed, they were illegal volunteers and subject to prosecution. So since 1995, no budget, no work. Another weird thing is that it is the President who determines who is essential and not subject to being sent home. This time around Obama has determined that many, including those working on the Affordable Care Act are essential. And of course, the Congress has determined that they should get paid during the shutdown. So it looks like many will get to sleep in tomorrow. One last thing, since the National Parks will be closed, all the vendors who operate within the park will have no customers so will have to close and not pay their employees. What a way to build the economy.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

The Agents of F.C.I. have amusing anagrams to match their characteristics, for example, AGENT SOUL, whose name anagrams to LANGOUSTE, likes seafood. Try to determine the Anagrams for the following Agents.

AGENT DEE is very young. AGENT YIP specializes in Pharaohs and Sphinxes. AGENT MIC has attractive abilities.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Creative Quotations from E. B. White

• Theme from Exodus - Played by Roger Williams

• RetroBites: Walter Matthau

• Tribute to Stella Stevens

• Julie Andrews Speaks at CU

Hmmmm…Fearsome Phobias

If you have an irrational fear of... Dryness (and dry places)
You're suffering from... Xerophobia Greek xero ‘dry’

If you have an irrational fear of... Dust
You're suffering from... Amathophobia Greek amathos 'dust'

Interesting Disney

Harper’s Index    

Number of years in prison to which a Texas man was sentenced recently for stealing a $35 rack of pork ribs: 50

Unusual Fact of the Day

While the abacus is commonly associated with the Far East, it was also used in ancient Greece and Rome.

Joke-of-the-day

Embarrassing Situations!

A very shy guy goes into a bar and sees a beautiful woman sitting at the other end. After an hour of gathering up his courage he finally goes over to her and asks, tentatively, "Um, would you mind if I chatted with you for a while?"

To which she responds by yelling, at the top of her lungs, "No, I won't sleep with you tonight!"

By now, the entire bar is staring at them. Naturally, the guy is hopelessly and completely embarrassed and he slinks back to his table.

After a few minutes, the woman walks over to him and apologizes. She smiles at him and says, "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. You see, I'm a graduate student in psychology and I'm studying how people respond to embarrassing situations."

To which he responds, at the top of his lungs, "What do you mean $200!"

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

THROWING A KNIFE

If your knife balances more than one inch from the tang on the handle side, it is handle heavy and should be thrown from the blade. Likewise, if it balances more than one inch from the tang on the blade side, it is blade heavy and should be thrown from the handle.   

Yeah, It Really Happened

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A 7-year-old boy is suing a Pennsylvania school district over its weapons policy after he was suspended for having a novelty pen on a bus, his lawyer said. Officials in the Derry School District in Dauphin County, Pa., gave the boy -- identified in the federal lawsuit as G.B. -- a four-day suspension and branded him a "weapons offender" for possessing the pen, which emits a small electrical shock when the cap is pressed, the Philadelphia Daily News reported Thursday. G.B. is a second-grader at Hershey Elementary School in Hershey, Pa., the newspaper added.

"A sharpened pencil is probably a more dangerous item than this pen was," said the boy's attorney Aaron Martin, who noted the goal of the suit is to clear the boy's name and to clarify what can be brought to school. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg, Pa., claims the boy is classified as a violator of the school's weapons policy, his disciplinary record is permanently "marred," and he is "relegated to the same category as violent criminals" and terrorists.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The first apple trees were planted by Pilgrims in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

• An apple tree will start bearing fruit 8-10 years after it is planted. A dwarf tree starts bearing in 3-6 years.

• Apples are not self pollinating. They need bees to pollinate the flowers to form the fruit.

• Most apple blossoms are pink when they open but gradually fade to white.

• Apples are a member of the rose family of plants along with pears, peaches, plums and cherries.

• Twenty five percent of an apple's volume is air; that is why they can float.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Month:

Happening This Week:

1-7

Universal Children's Week
World Dairy Expo

Today Is                                                                      

·        CD Player Day 1982 first commercial compact disc

·        Fall Astronomy Day

·        Fire Pup Day to recognize canine firefighters

·        International Day of Older Persons

·        Model T Day introduced in 1908 for $825

·        National Lace Day

·    World Card Making Day Celebrate the creativity of handmade cards and the personal connection that they create between friends and family

·        World Vegetarian Day

~~~~

·        China: National Day (founded 1949)

·        Cyprus: Independence Day (1960 from UK)

·        Nigeria: Independence Day (1960 from UK)

·        South Korea: Armed Forces Day since 1950 with 38^th parallel treaty

Today’s Events through History  

1st Hawaiian stamps issued…1851

2nd (and current) Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is opened in New York…1931

Bonnie Prince Charlie flees to France…1746

Generalissimo Francisco Franco establishes state of Spain…1936

Pullman Co formally recognizes Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters…1937

Russian army ends a millennium of Muslim domination in Armenia…1827

SF cable cars declared a national landmark…1964

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Jimmy Earl Carter, Plains Ga, 39th Pres is 89

Julie Andrews, Surrey, actress/singer (Sound of Music, Mary Poppins) is 78

Stella Stevens, actress (Girls! Girls!, Manitou) is 75

Rod Carew, baseball slugger (AL Rookie of Year 1967) is 68

Randy Quaid, actor (Midnight Express, Vacation, Saturday Night Live) is 63

Esai Morales, actor is 51

Mark McGwire, 1st baseman (AL rookie of year 1988, Oakland A's, Cards) is 50

Remembered for being born today

James Lawrence, naval hero (War of 1812-"Don't give up the ship!") [1781-1813]

Bonnie Parker, outlaw (Bonnie and Clyde) [1910-1934]

Ahmad Amin, Egyptian historian/author [1886-1954]

George Peppard, actor (Banacek, A-Team, Blue Max) [1928-1994]

Walter Matthau, actor (Odd Couple, Bad News Bears) [1920-2000]

Richard Harris, Irish actor (Man Called Horse)/singer (MacArthur Park) [1932-2000]

Roger Williams, pianist [1924-2001]

William Rehnquist, Supreme Court/chief justice [1924-2005]

James Whitmore, White Plains NY, actor (Give 'em Hell Harry) [1921-2009]

Tom Bosley, actor (Howard-Happy Days, Murder She Wrote) [1927-2010]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

E. B. White, US author (New Yorker, Charlotte’s Web)…1985…@86

Curtis E LeMay, USAF General/VP candidate…1990…@83

Walter B Cannon, US physiologist (Traumatic Shock)…1945…@73

Louis Leakey, English anthropologist…heart attack…1972…@68

Brain Teasers

AGENT DEE, who is TEENAGED, is very young. AGENT YIP, who is EGYPTIAN, specializes in Pharaohs and Sphinxes. AGENT MIC, who is MAGNETIC, has attractive abilities.

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  §