12/30/13

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 01 / Day: 364   

Today: L 21°…H 34°… Ave. humidity: 54%

Wind: ave:   21mph; Gusts:  36mph  

Average Low: 16° Record Low:  -16° (1911)

Average High: 42° Record High:  62° (1917)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1731 - 1st US music concert (Peter Pelham's great room in Boston)

1809 - Wearing masks at balls forbidden in Boston

1835 - After gold discovery in Ga, Cherokees forced to move across Miss R

1817 - 1st coffee planted in Hawaii (Kona)

1873 - American Metrological Society forms (NYC) weights, measures & money

1879 - Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance," premieres

1911 - Sun Yat-sen elected 1st pres of Republic of China

1918 - John E Hoover decides to be called J. Edgar Hoover

1933 - -50°F (-46°C) in Bloomfield, Vermont (state record)

1935 - Italian bombers destroy Swedish Red Cross unit in Ethiopia

1940 - California's 1st freeway, (Arroyo Seco Parkway), opens

1963 - "Let's Make A Deal," debuts on NBC-TV

1965 - Ferdinand Marcos inaugurated as president of the Philippines

1973 - 1st picture of a comet from space (Comet Kohoutek-Skylab)

1993 - Vatican recognizes Israel

2012 - Opening of Line 6 of the Beijing subway--longest metro network in the world at 442km

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A chilly windy day…it is winter afterall.

 

Stayed up late last night watching movies…so today was a lazy day. The local paper listed the top stories of our little mountain town…number 1 was the closing of the Grand Canyon during the insane government shutdown. That closure cost lots of people their paychecks during a high point in tourism. So interesting to see how both political parties blame the other side. We, as Americans, have sure picked ineffective people to represent us. Sadly, I still believe that a major part of the problem is that there are way to many Americans who do not believe we can have a Black President…even though he is biracial, they don’t want him leading our country, so they are going to do whatever they can to make him look bad. Such childish behavior.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Thanks to my reader Wes, here is another puzzle of dropping one letter from this word to make a new word. Continue dropping one letter until only one letter remains: splatters

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Del Shannon – Runaway

• BO DIDDLEY 1965

• Artie Shaw : Begin the Beguine

• Jack Lord accepts an Oscar in 1964

• Bert Parks Miss America

Odd Lawsuits…

Drinking Problem

In 1991, Richard Overton attempted to sue Anheuser-Bsusch for $10,000. After drinking copious amounts of Bud Light, beautiful women didn't show up at his doorstep, as the commercial promised. He was outraged.

New Years Eve Drops

As New Year’s Eve is nearing…many towns in America have their own way of welcoming the New Year at midnight:

• Atlanta, Georgia: The capital city of the peach state has a Peach Drop

• Ball Bangor, Maine: A beach ball covered in Christmas lights 

• Beavertown, Pennsylvania: A beaver is dropped

• Brasstown, North Carolina: A plexiglas pyramid containing a living opossum

• Carlisle, Pennsylvania: An Indy car is dropped

• Cornelia, Georgia: Cornelia hosts a "Little Red Apple" Drop

• Detroit, Michigan: A metal cursive D is dropped in front of the Hard Rock cafe 

• Duluth, Georgia: A disco ball called the Soaring Spirit Ball

• Easton, Maryland: A red crab is dropped

• Easton, Pennsylvania: A ten-foot Crayola crayon is dropped

• Eastover, North Carolina: A three-foot tall, thirty-pound wooden flea

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

• Ratio of physicians to inhabitants in the Soviet Union: 1:270

• Ratio of physicians to inhabitants in the United States: 1:520

• Ratio of prison inmates to inhabitants in the United States: 1:520

Unusual Fact of the Day

The consistency of your ear wax is genetic.

Joke-of-the-day

How can this be? Scientists say the world began with a Big Bang 13 billion years ago. All mankind got hit on the back of the head, and now astronomers see stars Millions of Light years away.

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

JOB INTERVIEW PREPARATION

When asked the popular question, tell me about your self; have a 3 or 4 sentence response prepared that talks to your leader ship skills, successful projects that you started, was a major player in, or successes that you take pride in.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

DULUTH, Ga. - An Atlanta-area woman says she is appealing her son's expulsion from high school for hugging a teacher. April McNair told WSB-TV, Atlanta, that her teenage son's future will be ruined if he is expelled from Duluth High School in Gwinnett County. Sam McNair, a football player at Duluth, had been hoping for an athletic scholarship to college. "We're not in a financial position to put him in a private school. If he's expelled from Gwinnett County, no other county is going to want to accept (him) in school. So you are derailing his future for him," April McNair said in a report broadcast Tuesday. The teacher filed a sexual harassment complaint against Sam, 17. He says he hugged her several times in the past and believes that if she had a problem with it she should have talked to him or his parents before filing the complaint. Both mother and son said their family hugs a lot.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The highest speeding fine has been $200,000 so far and it has been issued in Finland. The Finnish law allows speeding tickets to be relative to the offender’s last known income.

• Tomato is the red fruit of the plant Solanum lycopersicum, it is rich in lycopene and belongs to the nightshade family. Tomatoes originally come from Mexico and they have spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americans.

• Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete, and his queen Pasiphae and she is known for her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus in the Labyrinth. Ariadne’s name derives from Hesychius’ listing of Άδνον, a Cretan-Greek form for ‘arihagne’ which means ”utterly pure”.

• ‘Pizza Net’ was the worldwide network through which users could order pizza online from a local Pizza Hut restaurant and it was initiated to its customers many years ago. It was based on SCO Global Access, the first commercially licensed and bundled Internet Operating System and Pizza Hut did it still from 1994, being quite innovative at that time!

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

25-31 It's About Time Week
26-1/1: Kwanzaa

Today Is                                                                      

·        Bacon Day

·        Falling Needles Family Fest Day

·        National Bicarbonate of Soda Day

·        No Interruptions Day

·        Oh My! Day

Today’s Events through History               

1703 - Tokyo hit by Earthquake; about 37,000 die

1861 - US, banks stops payments in gold

1903 - American Political Science Association founded at New Orleans

1987 - Premier Mugabe elected president of Zimbabwe

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Sandy Koufax, Dodger pitcher (Cy Young '63, '65, '66, perfect-1967) is 78

Paul Stookey, singer/musician (Peter, Paul, & Mary) is 76

Michael Nesmith, rocker (Monkees-Last Train to Clarksville) is 71

Meredith Viera, journalist, television personality, and game show host is 60

Matt Lauer, TV host (Today Show) is 56

Ben Johnson, Falmouth, Jamaica, Canadian 100m runner (Olympic-gold-1988-disqualified) 

     is 52

Jason Behr, film and television actor is 40

Eldrick Tont 'Tiger' Woods, golfer (16 Majors and 74 PGA wins) is 38

LeBron James, Miami Heat basketball player  is 29 

Remembered for being born today

Titus, 10th Roman Emperor (79-81), conqueror of Jerusalem b. 39

Rudyard Kipling, Bombay, author (Jungle Book, Gunga Din-Nobel 1907)b. 1865

Simon Guggenheim, philanthropist (died aboard Titanic) b. 1867

Al Smith, American politician and first Roman Catholic presidential candidate b. 1873

Sri Ramana Maharshi, Hindu philosopher/yogi (Maharshi Research Inst) b. 1879

Jeanette Nolan, actress (Richard Boone Show, Virginian) b. 1911

Bert Parks, [Jacobson], Atlanta Ga, TV host (Miss America) b. 1914

Jack Lord, American actor (Hawaii 50, Stony Burke) b. 1920

Bo Diddley, [Ellas Bates], rock `n' roll pioneer b. 1928

Skeeter Davis, [Mary Penick], Dry Ridge Ky, singer (End of World) b. 1931

Del Shannon, [Charles Westover], rocker (Runaway) b. 1934

Davy Jones, singer (Monkees-Last Train to Clarksville) b. 1945

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Artie Shaw, American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader in 2004 @94

Saddam Hussein, deposed Iraqi dictator is hanged in 2006 @ 69

Sonny Liston, World heavyweight boxing champion of OD in 1970 @38

Ling-Ling, 1st panda China gave US in 1992 @23

Brain Teasers

splatters: splatter, platter, latter, later, late, ate, at, a

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  §