2-6-14

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 06 / Day: 037   

Today: L 24°…H 36°… Ave. humidity: 68%

Wind: ave:   4mph; Gusts:  11mph  

Average Low: 18° Record Low:  -21° (1899)

Average High: 45° Record High:  65° (1963)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1693 - Royal charter granted College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Va

1820 - 1st organized emigration of blacks back to Africa (NY to Sierra Leone)

1832 - 1st appearance of cholera in Edinburgh, Scotland

1843 - The first minstrel show in the US

1869 - Harper's Weekly publishes 1st picture of Uncle Sam with chin whiskers

1911 - 1st old-age home opened in Prescott, Arizona

1932 - 1st Olympic dog sled race, Lake Placid, NY (demonstration sport)

1933 - 20th Amendment goes into effect: Pres term begins in Jan not March

1935 - "Monopoly" board game goes on sale for 1st time

1948 - 1st radio-controlled airplane flown

1959 - Fidel Castro is interviewed by Edward R Murrow

1968 - 10th Winter Olympic games opens in Grenoble, France

1971 - 1st time a golf ball is hit on Moon (by Alan Shepard)

1998 - Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.

2012 - Queen Elizabeth II marks 60th anniversary as British monarch, only 2nd to do so

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Started out as an OK day, then the clouds came in, then there were light snow flurries. I was really ruined by the many days in January of 50-60° temps. This is like winter.  Oh, right, it is. Nice pot roast and all the fixins in the slow cooker…smells really good!

 

Getting ready of the Sochi Olympics…saw a good special last night. Something about the Olympics gets me excited…the athlete’s dedication, the back stories, and the competition. Sure hope this turns out to be a great event. Of course the media always likes to point out all the flaws, but I’ve heard most of that before. Every Olympics in this century have been preceded by the media reporting that the venues aren’t ready, there isn’t enough security, there were billions spent without much oversight, and yet, each Olympics has been very well done, with lots of media backtracking after they begin.   A little scary that the media is saying that the airlines are checking toothpaste tubes for explosives. I can imagine standing at some TSA point and having to open my toothpaste tube and getting it checked. Really, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.  I also have to say the Olympic committee was aware of all these terrorist things when they selected Sochi some 7 years ago. I’m sure it is all just more media hype to gain viewership.

 

I watched the Bill Nye vs Creationist Ken Ham on the internet machine last night. It was interesting, and I certainly learned some things about science and the creationists. I seriously doubt that anyone had their belief changed but there was sure a lot to think about. Knowledge is an amazing thing, as is belief. Both quoted numerous ‘scientists’ that held their belief. Well worth a watch, and the internet machine still has the whole thing.

 

Our little local newspaper does not do a great job, but over the years we have had one person who has had great human interest type stories, introducing the community to members of some import, places of some import, and enjoyable reading. She has just announced on FB that she is leaving the paper in early April. What a great loss for our small community. I sure hope that she is not reading the writing on the wall and that the paper is not going to make some big announcement.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

We two are strung together with a line, Stuck behind bars but have done no crime. Our whole is a fraction of something much bigger, But we are extremely important, as one might figure.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Bob Marley - redemption song

• Fabian turn me loose

• Golf on the Moon

• Natalie Cole LIVE – Unforgettable

• Sweet Child O' Mine Music Video

• The Adventures Of Wild Bill Hickok

• Tribute to Carl Wilson

Suggested New State Mottos:

• Massachusetts: Our Taxes Are Lower Than Sweden's (For Most Tax Brackets)

• Oregon: Spotted Owl ... It's What's For Dinner

• Wyoming: Where Men Are Men ... and the sheep are scared !!!

Remembering TV’s great shows:

"Saturday Night Live" "SNL" has been berry, berry good for comedy for four decades, creating superstars and ­defining the pop-culture conversation.

Phrases Shakespeare invented:

• flaming youth Hamlet Act3 Scene 4

• fancy-free Midsummer’s Night Dream Act 2 Scene 1

Words Shakespeare invented

UndressDefinition: To take your clothes off
Origin: "Dress" comes from the Old French "dresser," meaning "prepare, arrange, straighten, put right." Shakespeare was the first to add the prefix "un-."
Quote: "Madam, undress you and come now to bed." - The Taming of the Shrew

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Portion of Americans with individual health insurance plans who will receive subsidies under Obamacare: 1/2

Unusual Fact of the Day

Slumber Party Barbie of 1965 came with her own "How to Lose Weight" book. One of the tips: "Don’t eat."

Joke-of-the-day

Why did the belt get locked up? He held up a pair of pants!  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

PLAYING POKER

It is time to quit playing poker when you get so sleepy that you can't remember your hole card and you have to keep checking it.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

 A Texas man claims he's seen an animal that he believes to be the legendary "chupacabra" running around in a gated community.

Resident Scott Black took photos of the animal in the back yard of his condominium in Houston's Memorial neighborhood last Sunday. Black, who has seen the dog-like animal four separate times, believes it is a chupacabra, a mythical beast believed to feed on the blood of goats and other animals.

“Big, long ,pointy ears, long tail, had no skin, or no fur, but you could see splotches of gray,” Black told KXAN.

After snapping photos of the alleged chupacabra, he sent them to a trapper from Ohio, who visited and left cages to try and capture it.

Houston animal control expert Claude Griffin believes the chupacabra could be the result of crossbreeding by exotic pets.

"People are actually inbreeding the animals and letting them go and claiming that they're catching them," Griffin told KOKH. "They are practicing the perfection of in-breeding."

Chupacabra sightings occur with some frequency in the Southern United States, but there's debate as to what the bizarre animals actually are.

In October, a chupacabra spotted rummaging through garbage in a Mississippi neighborhood was thought to be a coyote with a particularly bad case of mange.

About a month before that sighting, a man in northern Mississippi claimed to have killed a chupacabra on his property after the animal got into his chicken coop. Local animal officials told WJTV that it was probably just a mangy dog.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The average strawberry has 200 seeds.

• To symbolize perfection and righteousness, medieval stone masons carved strawberry designs on altars and around the tops of pillars in churches and cathedrals.

• Strawberries are a member of the rose family.

• Strawberries, as part of a 5 a day fruit & vegetable program, can help reduce the risk of cancer & heart attacks.

• Over 53 percent of seven to nine-year-olds picked strawberries as their favorite fruit.

• Eating strawberries, which are rich in nitrate, can increase the flow of blood & oxygen to the muscles by 7%.  This prevents muscle fatigue, making exercise easier.

• Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in the spring.

• Strawberries are low fat, low calorie; high in vitamin C, fiber, folic acid, potassium

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

☼1-7☼

African Heritage & Health Week

Solo Diners Eat Out Weekend
Women's Heart Week

☼2-8☼
Boy Scout Anniversary Week
Children's Authors & Illustrators Week
Dump Your Significant Jerk Week
International Coaching Week
Just Say No to PowerPoint Week
Publicity for Profit Week

☼3-7☼
International Networking Week
International Friendship Week 
National School Counseling Week 

Today Is                                                                      

·        Canadian Maple Syrup Day

·        Lame Duck Day

+++++

·        Waitangi Day (New Zealand- commemorate the signing of New Zealand's founding document - the Treaty of Waitangi)

Today’s Events through History  

1685 - Duke of York becomes King James II of England and VII of Scotland

1815 - NJ issues 1st US railroad charter (John Stevens)

1902 - Young Women's Hebrew Association organizes in NYC

1911 - Great fire destroys downtown Constantinople 

1926 - NFL rules college students ineligible until college classes graduates

1974 - US House of Reps begins determining grounds for impeachment of Nixon

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Zsa Zsa Gabor, [Zsa Sari], Budapest, actress (Queen of Outer Space) is 97

Rip Torn, actor (Coma, Summer Rental, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) is 83

Mamie Van Doren, American actress is 83

Mike Farrell, actor (BJ Honeycutt-M*A*S*H, Battered) is 75

Tom Brokaw, news anchor (NBC Nightly News)is 74

Fabian [Fabiano Anthony Forte], vocalist (Turn Me Loose, Tiger) is 71

Natalie Cole, vocalist (Pink Cadillac, Miss You Like Crazy) is 64

Axl Rose, [William Bailey], Lafayette In, vocalist (Guns & Roses) is 52

Remembered for being born today

1665 - Anne Stuart, Queen of England (1702-14)

1756 - Aaron Burr, 3rd US VP (1801-05), dueler

1833 - James Ewell Brown "JEB" Stuart, Major General (Confederate Army)

1864 - John Henry Mackay, Scottish/German author/poet (Anarchists)

1895 - George Herman (Babe) Ruth, baseball great (NY Yankees)

1911 - Ronald Reagan, actor; 40th US President

1912 - Eva Braun, mistress (Adolf Hitler)

1945 - Bob Marley, Jamacian reggae musician and singer-songwriter (Whalers-No Woman)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Frankie Laine, American singer, 2007, @93  

Joseph Cotten, actor (Citizen Kane), dies at 88

Peter Breck, actor (Big Valley), 2012, @82

Danny Thomas, comedian (Jazz Singer), heart attack, 1991, @79

Jack Kirby, cartoonist (X-Men, Spiderman, Hulk), heart failure, 1994, @76

Guy Madison, actor (Wild Bill Hickok), emphysema. 1996, @74

Carl Wilson, rock vocalist (Beach Boy), lung cancer, 1998, @51

Brain Teasers

Two eighth or sixteenth notes.

We two are strung together with a line > Eighth or sixteenth notes are often tied together with a bar.

Stuck behind bars but have done no crime > The bars of the staff.

Our whole is a fraction of something much bigger > A whole note.

But we are extremely important, as one might figure > All notes are important for composing music.

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  §