1-13-14

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 02 / Day: 013    

Today: L 26°…H 48°… Ave. humidity: 56%

Wind: ave:   10mph; Gusts:  22mph  

Average Low: 16° Record Low:  -6° (1963)

Average High: 43° Record High:  59° (2000)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1559 - Elizabeth I crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey

1695 - Jonathan Swift ordained an Anglican priest in Ireland

1794 - Congress changes US flag to 15 stars & 15 stripes

1830 - Great fire in New Orleans thought to be set by rebel slaves

1863 - Thomas Crapper pioneers one-piece pedestal flushing toilet

1888 - National Geographic Society founded (Washington, DC)

1938 - The Church of England accepts the theory of evolution.

1942 - Henry Ford patents a method of constructing plastic auto bodies

1957 - Wham-O Company produces the 1st Frisbee

2012 - Cruise ship, Costa Concordia, runs aground in Italy, at least 15 deaths

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Enjoyed this Sunday…morning paper and morning news shows were all full of interesting things. Right now I’m enjoying a great football game with the Broncos. The playoffs are one of the few times I can actually watch a full Bronco game on TV. One of the very few disadvantages to living in AZ.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

RIDDLE ME THIS

Not born, but from a Mother's body drawn, I hang until half of me is gone. I sleep in a cave until I grow old, then valued for my hardened gold. 

What am I?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Animal Facts: The Platypus

• Carol Wayne Tonight Show Halter Top Blouse

• Robert Stack Interview

• Sophie Tucker - Some Of These Days (1927)

• The Beatles - Yellow submarine (Video Official)

Actual Complaints… These are actual complaints received from dissatisfied customers by Thomas Cook Vacations (based on a Thomas Cook/ABTA survey):

"It's lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time -- this should be banned."

Suggested New State Mottos:

Arkansas: Literacy Ain't Everything

Something to Ponder in your free time…

• Why are a 'wise man' and a 'wise guy' opposites?

• Why do 'overlook' and 'oversee' mean opposite things?

Auction Prices

A 200-year-old taxidermy Ostrich.

A part of the "Out of the Ordinary" sale hosted by Christie's in London, this massive stuffed bird comes straight off the famous Italian compound known as "Little Versailles" and dates back to 1785. Oh, and it cost $33,150.

OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

• Percentage increase in South Korean exports to the United States in 1984: 30

• Percentage increase in direct foreign investment in the United States since 1979: 144

Unusual Fact of the Day

"Salmonella" gets its name from Daniel Elmer Salmon, a veterinary pathologist who ran a USDA microorganism research program in the 1800s.

Joke-of-the-day

A guy was driving when a policeman pulled him over. He rolled down his window and said to the officer, 

"Is there a problem, Officer?" 

"No problem at all. I just observed your safe driving and am pleased to award you a $5,000 Safe Driver Award. Congratulations. What do you think you're going to do with the money?" 

The driver thought for a minute and said, "Well, I guess I'll go get that drivers' license." The lady sitting in the passenger seat said to the policeman, "Oh, don't pay attention to him - he's a smart butt when he's drunk and stoned." The guy from the back seat said, "I TOLD you guys we wouldn't get far in a stolen car!" 

At that moment, there was a knock from the trunk and a muffled voice said, "Are we over the border yet?"  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

DECLARING SOMEONE DEAD

For hypothermia victims, nobody's dead until they're warm and dead.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

PITTSBURGH - A Pennsylvania prison inmate filed a motion against the NFL challenging the San Diego Chargers' eligibility for the playoffs. Daniel Spuck of Mercer, whose motion was filed via inmate mail from the Pennsylvania department of corrections, alleged in his U.S. District Court filing the Chargers should not have made it to the postseason due to a missed call in a game against the Kansas City Chiefs and he is seeking "a temporary emergency injunction" to stop the team from playing, the Baltimore Sun reported Thursday. The motion alleges officials failed to call an illegal alignment formation against the Chargers, which would have allowed Kansas City kicker Ryan Succop to re-kick his missed 41-yard field goal attempt. A Chargers loss would have sent the Pittsburgh Steelers to the postseason as the wildcard team. Spuck's motion suggests the court order the NFL to delay the playoffs to allow Succop to re-kick the field goal attempt or allow the Steelers to play the Chargers in a final game to determine who goes to the playoffs.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• An unlikely mix of duck, beaver, and otter, the male platypus also has poisonous stingers on his rear feet.   

• The platypus is among nature's most unlikely animals. In fact, the first scientists to examine a specimen believed they were the victims of a hoax. The animal is best described as a hodgepodge of more familiar species: the duck (bill and webbed feet), beaver (tail), and otter (body and fur). Males are also venomous. They have sharp stingers on the heels of their rear feet and can use them to deliver a strong toxic blow to any foe. 

• Platypuses hunt underwater, where they swim gracefully by paddling with their front webbed feet and steering with their hind feet and beaver-like tail. Folds of skin cover their eyes and ears to prevent water from entering, and the nostrils close with a watertight seal. In this posture, a platypus can remain submerged for a minute or two and employ its sensitive bill to find food. 

• These Australian mammals are bottom feeders. They scoop up insects and larvae, shellfish, and worms in their bill along with bits of gravel and mud from the bottom. All this material is stored in cheek pouches and, at the surface, mashed for consumption. Platypuses do not have teeth, so the bits of gravel help them to "chew" their meal.

• On land, platypuses move a bit more awkwardly. However, the webbing on their feet retracts to expose individual nails and allow the creatures to run. Platypuses use their nails and feet to construct dirt burrows at the water's edge. 

• Platypus reproduction is nearly unique. It is one of only two mammals (the echidna is the other) that lay eggs. 

• Females seal themselves inside one of the burrow's chambers to lay their eggs. A mother typically produces one or two eggs and keeps them warm by holding them between her body and her tail. The eggs hatch in about ten days, but platypus infants are the size of lima beans and totally helpless. Females nurse their young for three to four months until the babies can swim on their own. 

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

8-14

Universal Letter Writing Week  
11-17

Cuckoo Dancing Week
13-19

National Vocation Awareness Week  
National Soccer Coaches of America Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        National Clean Off Your Desk Day

·        Public Radio Broadcasting Day

·        Rubber Duckie Day

·        Stephen Foster Day

^^^^^^

·        Liberation Day (Togo-1967-Coup)

·        Tyvendedagen (Norway- marks the official end of Yuletide)

Today’s Events through History  

1610 - Galileo Galilei discovers Callisto, 4th satellite of Jupiter

1920 - NY Times editorial (falsely) reports rockets can never fly

1953 - KOLD TV channel 13 in Tucson, AZ (CBS) begins broadcasting

1964 - Hindu-Muslim rioting breaks out in the Indian city of Calcutta

1969 - Beatles release "Yellow Submarine" album

1989 - Subway gunman Bernhard Goetz begins 1-year jail sentence

1992 - US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer pleads guilty but insane

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Rip Taylor, actor and comedian (Gong Show, $1.98 Beauty Show) is 79

Billy Gray, actor (Bud-Father Knows Best) is 76

Richard Moll, actor (Night Court) is 71

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, comedienne (SNL, Seinfeld, VEEP) is 53

Patrick Dempsey, actor (Mike-Fast Times; Grey’s Anatomy) is 48

Orlando Bloom, actor (Lord of the Rings) is 37

Remembered for being born today

1832 - Horatio Alger, Jr., American minister and author (Lost at Sea, Work & Win)

1884 - Sophie Tucker, [Kalish], Russia, singer/last of red hot mammas

1919 - Robert Stack, actor (Eliot Ness-Untouchables, Airplane)

1931 - Charles Nelson Reilly, actor (Match Game, Ghost & Mrs Muir)

1949 - Brandon Tartikoff, TV exec (NBC)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Wyatt Earp, US marshall (OK Corral), dies at 80

John H. D. Anderson, Scottish scientist and inventor in 1796 @69

Hubert Humphrey, (Sen-D-Minn, VP) cancer in 1978 @66

Schuyler Colfax, 17^th US VP of heart attack in 1885 @61

James Joyce, novelist (Ulysses) of perforated ulcer in 1941 @58

Carol Wayne, Johnny Carson's teatime movie hostess accidental in Mexico in 1985 @42

Stephen Foster, composer (My Old Kentucky Home) of fever & fall in 1864 @37  

Brain Teasers

Cheese!

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  §