9/13/13 FRIDAY!

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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 37/ Day: 256   

Today: H 72°…L 42°…Ave. humidity:  76%

Wind: ave:   2mph; Gusts:  2mph  

Average Low: 43°

Average High: 74°

Record Low: 25° [1985]

Record High: 88° [1990]

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

"Outer Limits" premieres on ABC TV…1963

11 guards & 31 prisoners die in take over at Attica State Prison…1971

1st airplane flight in Europe…1906

1st broadcast of "Rockford Files" on NBC-TV…1974

1st TV broadcast of "Waltons" on CBS…1972

1st TV viewer discretion warning-Soap…1977

Building begins on Hadrian's Wall…122

"Car 54 Where are You?" premieres on TV…1961

Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the U.S. after the September 11, 2001 attacks…2001

Desmond Tutu leads biggest anti-apartheid protest march in South Africa…1989

Francis of Assisi is afflicted with stigmata…1224

Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David…1503

NY City becomes 1st capital of US…1788

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

I had a great lunch with Mary and Cheryl. Ate way too much, but had some good conversation. Cheryl is heading for CA in a couple of weeks; Mary’s daughter was here in AZ for 5 days and had some great pictures of all her grandkids. We were at a local restaurant that just added great desserts to their menu. We don’t usually order dessert, but today we did. I had a gluten free chocolate cake that was really good, but was not calorie free. The chef even came out to check on how we were enjoying the new dessert menu. Cool.

 

Our nights have become too cool to keep my windows open all night. Guess Fall is in the air. Time to start thinking about giving up my Tevas and my short cuts for the winter.  Also time to get the deck ready for winter. Time sure flies.

 

I talked to Bob this afternoon about my trip to Cuba. He also caught me up on all the flooding and problems in his area of Colorado. As expected, much of the flooding is due to the horrific fires they had last year. While no land is ever ready for 6” of rain in one day, the fire areas have made it hundreds of times worse. My alma mater closed today because of campus flooding. Amazing to see the photos of Boulder and my old stomping grounds as water rushed down some of the streets.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

What does the following rebus represent?

1. Do Do 2. Dew Dew 3. Due Due

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Governor Ann Richards Keynote Address

• Tupac Amaru Shakur Interview

• Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme performing scat

• Nell Carter singing How Great Thou Art on Gimme a Break

• Bill Monroe - Blue Moon Of Kentucky

Hmmmm…Fearsome Phobias

If you have an irrational fear of... Church
You're suffering from... Ecclesiophobia: ecclesio- 'church'

If you have an irrational fear of... Clergymen
You're suffering from... Hierophobia: Greek hieros 'sacred, holy'

It is Illegal…

It is illegal to die in London’s Houses of Parliament

Privileges granted to people in the U.S. (and many western nations) for being Christian…

You can go into any career you want without it being associated with or explained by your faith.

Ok, then?

Harper’s Index    

Estimated number of political assassinations in the Philippines since 2001: 589

Unusual Fact of the Day

Gilbert L. Loomis of Westfield, Massachusetts, was the first American to purchase an auto insurance policy in 1897.

Animals with the strongest jaws…

Hippopotamus 1821 psi

This is one big powerful herbivore. The hippo is one of the most feared animals in Africa. Being highly territorial and aggressive, it has been known to knock over small boats and attack the crew. Only the female hippos bite force has been measured since the male was much too aggressive to test, but it measured at a whopping 1821 pounds per square inch. The word Hippopotamus comes from the Greek “water-horse” due to the hippo’s fondness for water. The hippo’s closest cousins are whales and cows. They belong to the order Artiodactyla which includes most hoofed animals, so camels, horses and goats are also related to hippos.

Joke-of-the-day

An out-of-towner drove his car into a ditch in a desolated area. Luckily, a local farmer came to help with his big strong horse named Buddy.

He hitched Buddy up to the car and yelled, "Pull, Nellie, pull!" Buddy didn't move.

Then the farmer hollered, "Pull, Buster, pull!" Buddy didn't respond.

Once more the farmer commanded, "Pull, Coco, pull!" Nothing.

Then the farmer nonchalantly said, "Pull, Buddy, pull!" And the horse easily dragged the car out of the ditch.

The motorist was most appreciative and very curious. He asked the farmer why he called his horse by the wrong name three times.

The farmer said, "Oh, Buddy is blind and if he thought he was the only one pulling, he wouldn't even try!"  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

WINNING A WAR

 To carry out an amphibious assault, you need a five to one superiority.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

MADISON, Wis. - Water ice dredged up from deep in Saturn's atmosphere by a monster storm marks the first time such ice has been detected so high, U.S. scientists say. In a paper published in the journal Icarus, researchers say the storm in late 2010 -- as large as any storm ever observed on the planet -- churned up water ice from great depths that was subsequently detected by near-infrared measurements by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. "The new finding from Cassini shows that Saturn can dredge up material from more than 100 miles," said Kevin Baines, a co-author of the paper who works at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It demonstrates in a very real sense that typically demure-looking Saturn can be just as explosive or even more so than typically stormy Jupiter." Water ice, which originates from deep within the atmosphere of gas giant planets, doesn't appear to be lofted as high on Jupiter, the scientists said. The classic model of Saturn's atmosphere posits a layered sandwich with a deck of water clouds at the bottom, ammonia hydrosulfide clouds in the middle, and ammonia clouds near the top. But this storm appears to have disrupted those neat layers, the scientists said, lofting up water vapor from a lower layer that condensed and froze as it rose. The Saturn storm worked like the much smaller convective storms on Earth, where air and water vapor are pushed high into the atmosphere resulting in the towering, billowing clouds of a thunderstorm, the scientists said. "We think this huge thunderstorm [on Saturn] is driving these cloud particles upward, sort of like a volcano bringing up material from the depths and making it visible from outside the atmosphere," Lawrence Sromovsky, also of the University of Wisconsin, said.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• On US Currency: The two circular drawings on the reverse of the bill are actually parts of the two-sided Great Seal of the United States. Although we don't see the entire seal outside of our wallets too often, the notion of having a great seal is actually as old as the country itself. The Continental Congress passed a resolution on July 4, 1776, to create a committee to design a great seal for the fledgling nation. 

• The obverse picturing the eagle is a bit easier to explain. The bird holds 13 arrows to show the nation's strength in war, but it also grasps an olive branch with 13 leaves and 13 olives that symbolize the importance of peace. (The recurring number 13, which also appears in the stripes on the eagle's shield and the constellation of stars over its head, is a nod to the original 13 states.)

• The symbolism of the pyramid on the seal's reverse is trickier. The pyramid has 13 steps the designers apparently never got tired of the 13 motif and the Roman numeral for 1776 is emblazoned across the bottom. The all-seeing Eye of Providence at the top of the pyramid symbolizes the divine help the early Americans needed in establishing the new country. The pyramid itself symbolizes strength and durability. 

• The Latin motto Annuit Ceptis appears over the pyramid; it translates into "He [God] has favored our undertaking." The scroll underneath the pyramid reads Novus Ordo Seclorum, or "A new order of the ages," which was meant to signify the dawn of the new American era.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

8th-15th

International Housekeepers Week
National Assisted Living Week 
National Historically Black Colleges & Universities Week
Substitute Teacher Appreciation Week 

Suicide Prevention Week

9th-14^th

Line Dance Week

12th-15th

Hummingbird Celebration

Today Is                                                                      

·        Blame Someone Else Day

·        Defy Superstition Day

·        International Chocolate Day

·        Kids Take Over The Kitchen Day

·        National Celiac Awareness Day

·        National Peanut Day

·        Roald Dahl Day: World's No. 1 Storyteller

·        Stand Up To Cancer Day

Today’s Events through History  

1st US University for Blacks, Xavier University, opens in New Orleans…1925

33,000 people are evacuated after Guatemala's Volcano of Fire erupts…2012

American-Mexican war: US Gen Winfield Scott captures Mexico City…1847

Battle of Quebec takes place. The French lose…1759

IBM introduces the first computer disk storage unit, the RAMAC 305…1956

Lewis Latimer invents & patents electric lamp with a carbon filament…1881

Margaret Chase Smith (R-Me) elected senator, 1st woman to serve in both 

    houses of Congress…1948

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Barbara Bain, actress (Cinnamon-Mission Impossible, Space 1999) is 82

Fred Silverman, broadcasting exec (ABC/NBC/CBS) is 76

David Clayton-Thomas, singer (Blood Sweat & Tears - Joy to the World) is 72

[Winifred] Jacqueline Bisset, England, actress (Class, Deep, Secrets) is 69

Jean Smart, actress (Charlene-Designing Women) is 61

Michael Johnson, 200m/400m runner (4 Olympic- gold/8 world champion) is 46

Tyler Perry, actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter is 44

Ben Savage, actor (Boy Meets World) is 33

Remembered for being born today

Daniel Defoe, London, English novelist (Robinson Crusoe) [1660-1731]

Samuel Wilson, probable namesake of Uncle Sam [1776-1854]
Walter Reed, US Army Surgeon, proved mosquitoes transmit yellow fever [1851-1902]
Milton S. Hershey, chocolate tycoon and philanthropist [1815-1945]

John J. Pershing (Blackjack), US commander (WW I) [1860-1948]

Claudette Colbert, [Lily Chauchoin], Paris, actress (Texas Lady) [1903-1996]

Bill Monroe, country singer (Blue Moon of Kentucky) [1911-1996]

Roy Engle, actor (Police Chief-My Favorite Martian) [1913-1980]

Roald Dahl, Cardiff, author (Over to You, Taste, 2 Fables) [1916-1990]

Nell Carter, actress (Nell-Gimme a Break, Lobo) [1948-2003]

Mel Tormé, American singer [1925-1999]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Ambrose Everett Burnside, Union general/Senator…heart attack…1881…@57

Dorothy McGuire, actress…2001…@85

Joe Pasternak, producer (Spinout, Big City)Parkinson's…1991…@73

Ann Richards, 46th Governor of Texas…cancer…2006…@73

Tupac Shakur [2Pac], rap star/actor (Juice, Bullet)…drive by shooting…1996…@25

Brain Teasers

To Do List (Two "do/dew/etc." list)

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  §