1-25-13

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 04 / Day: 025   

Today: L 27°…H 41°… Ave. humidity: 51%

Wind: ave:   15mph; Gusts:  21mph  

Average Low: 17° Record Low:  -17° (1937)

Average High: 43° Record High:  61° (1975)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1554 - Sir Thomas Wyatt gathers an army in Kent, rebels against Queen Mary

1554 - Founding of São Paulo city, Brazil.

1579 - Treaty of Utrecht signed, marks beginning of Dutch Republic

1721 - Czar Peter the Great ends Russian-orthodox patriarchy

1870 - Soda fountain patented by Gustavus Dows

1877 - Congress determines presidential election between Hayes-Tilden

1890 - United Mine Workers of America forms

1905 - Largest diamond, Cullinan (3106 carets), found in South Africa

1924 - 1st Winter Olympic games open in Chamonix, France

1961 - 1st live, nationally televised presidential news conference (JFK)

1961 - Walt Disney's "101 Dalmatians" released

1981 - 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived back in US

1998 - Super Bowl XXXII: Denver Broncos beat Green Bay Packers 

2011 - Egyptian Revolution of 2011 begins in Egypt

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A little cool for my taste, but certainly bearable, compared to much of the US. As my brother said in a FB post…the next 5 days lows, when added together, is still not warm enough for me.

 

Saw a FB post that one of my old bosses retired. He was an amazing Superintendent, a great leader at GreyHills High, and leader of the NN Dept. of Education. He brought lots of changes wherever he worked and is a real out-of-the-box thinker and leader. He deserves only the very best in his next stage of life. Hope to see him in the next week or so. Also, we are the same age.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Fred ran a flag making business. Things were looking bleak when, out of the blue, someone called from the Paraguayan Embassy. They needed an urgent consignment of 1000 Paraguayan flags by the following week.

Fred got to work straight away. He got a picture of the current Paraguayan flag, got hold of the required cloth and he and his staff worked without stopping until the flags were dispatched. The business was saved, or so he thought.

Unfortunately, the Embassy refused to pay and returned them all. Fred has now lost his business, but why?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• AL CAPONE INTERVIEW

• W Somerset Maugham On the Relationship between Life and Art

• Whats my line? - Ava Gardner

• The Story of Robert Burns

• Alicia Keys - Fallin'

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

• "We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning."

• "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."

Suggested New State Mottos:

• Nevada: Whores and Poker!

• North Dakota: We Really Are One Of The 50 States!

Remembering TV’s great shows:

"The Wire" Hot-button issues — the war on drugs, political corruption, the failures of the education system — deeply resonated in David Simon's unvarnished journey into the heart of Baltimore's urban darkness. The result was so vérité, it often felt more like a documentary than a drama.

OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

• Robot population of the United States: 8,000

• Of Japan: 16,500

Unusual Fact of the Day

The bonnets and caps of city fire hydrants are painted certain colors to alert firefighters to the amount of water pressure available from that hydrant.

Joke-of-the-day

A man was pulled over for speeding down the highway; the officer came to the driver’s window and said, "Sir, may I see your driver’s license and registration?"

The man said, "Well officer I don't have a license, it was taken away for a DUI."

The officer, in surprise, said," What, do you have a registration for the vehicle?"

So the man replied, "No sir, the car is not mine I stole it, but I am pretty sure I say a registration card in the glove box when I put the gun in it."

 The officer stepped back, "There is a gun in the glove box?!?"

The man sighed and said, "Yes sir, I used to kill the woman who owns the car before I stuffed her in the trunk."

The officer steps toward the back of the car and says," Sir do not move, I am calling for backup."

The officer calls for backup and about ten minutes another highway patrolman arrives. He walks up to the window slowly and asks the man for his driver’s license and registration.

The man said," Yes officer here it right here."

It all checked out so the officer said," Is there a gun in the glove box sir?"

The man laughs and says," No officer why would there be a gun in the glove box." He opened the glove box and showed him that there was no gun.

The second officer asked him to open the trunk because he had reason to believe that there was a body in it. The man agrees and opens the trunk, no dead body. The second officer says, "Sir I do not understand, the officer that pulled you over said that you did not have a license, the car was stolen, there was a gun in the glove box, and a dead body in the trunk."

The man looks the officer in the eyes and says, "Yeah and I'll bet he said I was speeding too."  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

FINDING YOUR IDEAL WEIGHT

An ideal weight for an endurance athlete, in pounds, is twice his height in inches.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

A falling porcupine landed on the head of a Brazilian woman Wednesday, leaving her with 272 quills in her scalp. 

Sandra Nabucco, of Gavea, told Globo she was walking her dog when the spiky creature fell off a lamp post.

"An old person or a child would have died," the 52-year-old said, according to a translation of Globo by HuffPost UK.

A surgeon was able to remove the quills with tweezers. Nabucco is now taking antibiotics to prevent infection.

Nabucco told The Dodo that though the incident was "frightening and very painful," she's glad she is happy the 10-pound critter survived

"I saved its life," she said. "He broke his fall on my head."

She's lucky a bigger animal didn't land on her. Last year, a Delaware woman was killed by a falling llama.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Fontana di Trevi, designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Pietro Bracci, is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world. According to a traditional legend, if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome. Around 3,000 euros are thrown in the fountain every day, in other words 1.095.000 euros per year!

• Did you know that China has 32.7 million more males than females under the age of 20 according to a new demographic study conducted by Chinese researchers?People use to talk of the ‘male generation’ as for every 100 girls, 120 boys were born in China in 2005. It is said that this  population imbalance is due to the opportunity that parents have to determine their child’ s sex. The Chinese government has expressed concern over issue, which is going to become more extreme over the next ten years or so.

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
24-29

World Leprosy Week
Kid Film Festival

Today Is                                                                      

·        A Room of One's Own Day

·        Macintosh Computer Day

·        National Irish Coffee Day

·        National Seed Swap Day

·        Robert Burns Day

·        Visit Your Local Quilt Shop Day

·        National Speak Up and Succeed Day

Today’s Events through History  

1825 - 1st US engineering college opens, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Troy, NY

1856 - Battle of Seattle; skirmish between settlers & Indians

1915 - Transcontinental telephone service inaugurated (NY to SF)

1919 - Founding of League of Nations, 1st meeting 1 year later

1945 - Grand Rapids, Michigan becomes 1st US city to fluoridate its water

1969 - US-North Vietnamese peace talks begin in Paris

1970 - Robert Altman's M*A*S*H premieres

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Dean Jones, actor (Ensign O'Toole, Company, Love Bug) is 83

Dinah Manoff, actress (Elaine-Soap, Carol Weston-Empty Nest) is 58

Alicia Keys [Cook], \singer-songwriter (Fallin) is 33

Remembered for being born today

Robert Boyle, Ireland, physicist/chemist/author (experiments with color)

Robert Burns, Alloway Scotland, poet (Auld Lang Syne), (d. 1796)

Charles Curtis, (R) 31st US VP (Kaw Tribe)

[William] Somerset Maugham, Paris, British novelist/poet (Of Human Bondage)

Virginia Woolf [Adeline] , London, author (Jacob's Room, To Lighthouse)

Shirley Mason, psychiatric patient (Commonly known as "Sybil")

Etta James [Jamesette Hawkins], singer (Roll with Me, At Last)

Corazon Aquino, 11th President of the Philippines

Diana Hyland, actress (Peyton Place, 8 is Enough)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Jean Dixon, psychic (Gift of Prophecy), heart attack,1997,@79

Ava Gardner, actress (Barefoot Contessa),pneumonia,1990,@67

Al Capone, Chicago gangster, neurosyphilis,1947,@48

Brain Teasers

Paraguay's flag has two different sides. Fred's picture only gave one side and that design was used front and back. Had he used a real flag for reference he could have turned it over and seen the difference.

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  §