1-24-14

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!

Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 04 / Day: 024   

Today: L 18°…H 42°… Ave. humidity: 45%

Wind: ave:   17mph; Gusts:  32mph  

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1679 - King Charles II disbands English parliament

1722 - Czar Peter the Great begins civil system

1847 - 1,500 New Mexican Indians & Mexicans defeated by US Col Price

1848 - James Marshall finds gold in Sutter's Mill

1922 - Eskimo Pie patented by Christian K Nelson of Iowa 

1923 - Aztec Ruins National Monument, NM established

1962 - Jackie Robinson is 1st Black elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

1972 - Japanese Sgt. Yokoi is found hiding since the end of World War II in a Guam jungle

1984 - Apple Computer Inc unveils its revolutionary Macintosh personal computer

2003 - Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Cheryl and I had lunch while Mary is still vacationing on the East Coast somewhere.   Good food and great conversation. It took 6 days for CenturyLink to come and fix her landline. They called yesterday and confirmed that she would be home between 11a and 5pm, promising to have her phone working by 7:30p. Well they called her at 11:05 to see if her phone was working and it was. They said it was a problem with phone line that they fixed. Really, they never came to her house. She had originally called to have their answering service turned off as anyone who calls just gets a message that the mailbox is full. She can’t get into the box to empty calls and since she has her own answering machine, she just wanted it turned off. Turns out that they didn’t turn it off at all. She is wary of calling again for fear that she won’t have a landline for another week. What a mess.

 

My friend in Phx hospital is slowly recovering from his medical problems. No word yet on when he will be out, but family says that each day he is stronger and now is becoming his jovial self. Tough times for all concerned but sounds better each day.

 

Not the best weather day here…windy and chilly…but still no moisture. Slowly heading for a record.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Each group of three definitions describes three words that are spelled the same, except for one letter (each group describes a different set of words). Example: king, ring, wing.

1a) inexperienced 1b) to address with expressions of kind wishes 1c) unreasonable selfish desire ^^ 2a) highly skilled 2b) to conform 2c) to accept formally and put into effect ^^ 3a) a committee for judging and awarding prizes 3b) conceal or hide 3c) violent anger ^^ 4a) a rounded shape 4b) spoken 4c) a gemstone

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Gordon MacRae Medley

• John Belushi - March Comes in Like a Lion

• Neil Diamond - Coming to America

• Ray Stevens - The Mississippi Squirrel Revival

• The Best of Moe & Larry

• Yakov Smirnoff on Johnny Carson

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

"There were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."

Suggested New State Mottos:

• Minnesota: 10,000 Lakes ... And 10,000,000,000,000 Mosquitoes

• Mississippi: Come And Feel Better About Your Own State

Remembering TV’s great shows:

"The Twilight Zone"

Even 3-D pales next to the endlessly inventive "dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind" created by Rod Serling, TV's multifaceted Dickens. His anthology of fantastic stories bridged the worlds of sci-fi and horror with whimsy and an abiding faith in humanity.

Auction Prices

The 'Lost' Beach Boys archive. Boxes of unblemished Beach Boys material sat forgotten in a storage unit in Florida for years before it hit the bidding block this year. Including thousands of documents, what appeared to be the band's first royalty check, dozens of signed contracts, and handwritten and copied scores to "Good Vibrations", "California Girls" and many other hits, the treasure trove of music nostalgia has a tentative estimated price of "several million dollars."

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Acts of terrorism in the United States in 1983: 30

Unusual Fact of the Day

Fathers were not allowed in the delivery room until Jay and Marjie Hathaway found a doctor that allowed Jay to be present for the birth of their son James in 1965. The couple went on to found the American Academy of Husband-Coached Childbirth.

Joke-of-the-day

A rather old fashioned lady, always quite delicate and elegant, especially in her language, was planning a weeks holiday in Sydney with her husband, so she wrote to a particular camping ground and asked for a reservation.

She wanted to make sure that the camping ground was fully equipped, but didn't know quite how to ask about the toilet facilities. She just couldn't bring herself to write the word "toilet" in her letter.

After much thought, she finally came up with the old fashioned term "Bathroom closet" but when she wrote it down, she still thought she was being too forward, so she started all over again, rewrote the letter, and referred to the bathroom closet as the B.C.

"Does the camping ground have its own B.C." is what she wrote.

Well, the camping ground owner wasn't a bit old fashioned, and he just couldn't figure out what the old lady was talking about, so he showed the letter around a few of the campers and the only thing they could come up with was that B.C. stood for Baptist Church, so he wrote the following reply.

Dear Madam,

I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but I now take the pleasure of informing you that a B.C. is located nine miles north of our camping ground, and is capable of seating 250 people at one time.

I admit that it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of campers go there and many take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive nice and early and stay quite late.

The last time my wife and I went was six years ago, and it was so crowded we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that there is a special supper planned there to raise money to buy more seats so that everyone will be able to sit in comfort.

I would like to say that it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly, but it is surely no lack of desire on my part, just that I am so busy most of the time.

As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort to go, especially in the cold weather. If you decide to come down to our camping ground perhaps I could go with you the first time you go, sit with you and introduce you to all the other folks.

Remember this is a very friendly community

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

CONSULTING

A consultant should charge at least three times the rate he or she would expect to receive for comparable full-time work with fringe benefits.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - University of Maryland undergraduates have impressed professional astronomers by finding a rare pair of asteroids that orbit and regularly eclipse one another. The students in an undergraduate astronomy class confirmed that a previously unstudied asteroid, dubbed 3905 Doppler, is in fact two asteroids gravitationally tied to each other, the university reported Tuesday. Fewer than 100 asteroids of this type have been identified in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, said Melissa Hayes-Gehrke, who teaches the hands-on class for non-astronomy majors in which eight students made the find in the fall semester 2013. Discovered in 1984, 3905 Doppler in subsequent decades attracted little attention until the students observed it for four nights in October. Puzzling changes in the observed light from the object -- known as its light curve -- were finally determined to be a result of one of the asteroid pair eclipsing the other. The two asteroids -- the smaller one is about three-quarters the length of the larger one -- are probably roughly potato-shaped and pocked with impact craters made by strikes from other space debris, Hayes-Gehrke said. Her students picked 3905 Doppler and two other asteroids from an astronomy journal's list of asteroids worth observing because they were well positioned in the autumn sky and were scientific enigmas. "This is a fantastic discovery," UM astronomy Professor Drake Deming, who was not involved with the class, said. "A binary asteroid with such an unusual light curve is pretty rare. It provides an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the physical properties and orbital evolution of these objects."  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Gagea bohemica is the botanical name of the plant that is more commonly known as the Early Star-of-Bethlehem or Radnor Lily.  It is a representative of the genus Gagea and belongs to the family Liliaceae.

• It can be met mostly in the Mediterranean region and central Europe but can grow further north, for instance, in France and Germany.

• The Early Star-of-Bethlehem flowers much earlier than the majority of other species of Gagea, and is typically in bloom from January to March or April.

• This flowering plant is capable to attain the height from 2 to 6 cm and usually has the one pair of twisting, basal leaves in the shape of thread. They bear a couple of lance-like leaves located beneath the

• blossoms. There are up to 4 6-petal blooms on every plant. They come in yellow and are 0,5 cm across.

• This specimen has been found at a single site in the Welsh county of Radnorshire.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

16-26

Sundance Film Festival
18-26

International Snowmobile Safety and Awareness Week  
Week of Christian Unity
Clean Out Your Inbox Week
Healthy Weight Week
Hunt For Happiness Week
19-24

National Activity Professionals Week   
National Nurse Anesthetists Week
National Handwriting Analysis Week
20-24

No Name Calling Week  
Sugar Awareness Week
24-29

World Leprosy Week
Kid Film Festival

Today Is                                                                      

·        Beer Can Day

·        Belly Laugh Day

·        National Compliment Day

·        National Peanut Butter Day

·        Talk Like A Grizzled Prospector Day

Today’s Events through History  

1568 - In Netherlands, Duke of Alva declares William of Orange an outlaw

1656 - 1st Jewish doctor in US, Jacob Lumbrozo, arrives in Maryland

1857 -University of Calcutta formally founded; the 1st full-fledged university in south Asia.

1862 - Bucharest proclaimed capital of Romania.

1899 - Rubber heel patented by Humphrey O'Sullivan

1927 - Director Alfred Hitchcock releases his first film, The Pleasure Garden, in England.

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Ray Stevens, singer (Ahab the Arab, Streak) is 75

Neil Diamond, Brooklyn NY, singer/actor (Jazz Singer) is 73

Yakov Smirnoff, Russia, comedian (It's a wonderful country) is 63

Mary Lou Retton, gymnist (Oly-gold/2 silver/2 bronze-84) is 46

Remembered for being born today

1800 - Edwin Chadwick, British social reformer

1862 - Edith Wharton [-Jones], Pulitzer prize-winning novelist (Ethan Frome)

1911 - C[atherine] L[ucille] Moore, US, sci-fi author (Judgment Night)

1917 - Ernest Borgnine, actor (Ice Station Zebra, McHale, Marty)

1918 - Oral Roberts, Televangelist, founder Oral Roberts College

1943 - Sharon Tate, actress (Valley of the Dolls)

1949 - John Belushi, comedian/actor (SNL, Blues Brothers)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Winston Churchill, PM of Britain,1965,@90

Thurgood Marshall, 1st black Supreme Court justice,1993,@84

Pernell Roberts, actor & singer, last surviving star of Bonanza,2010,@81

Blil W., American co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, phenomena,1971,@75

L[aFayette] Ron[ald] Hubbard, author (Scientology),stroke,1986,@74

James Farentino, actor, dies heart failure,2012,@73

J Carrol Naish, actor (Charlie Chan-Adv of Charlie Chan),emphysema,1973,@73

Larry Fine, actor (3 Stooges),strokes,1975,@72

Gordon MacRae, singer (Oklahoma, Carousel), cancer,1986,@64

Ted Bundy, serial killer of up to 100 women, executed,1989,@42

Ira Hayes, American World War II hero,1955,@32

Brain Teasers

1) green, greet, greed 2) adept, adapt, adopt 3) jury, bury, fury 4) oval, oral, opal

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  §