3-5-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 064   / Week: 10  

Today: L 28°…H 50°… Ave. humidity: 65%

     Wind: ave:   17mph; Gusts:  23mph  

     Average Low: 21° Record Low:  +5° (1948)

    Average High: 48° Record High:  68° (1910)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1623 - 1st American temperance law enacted, Virginia

1746 - Jacobite troops leave Aberdeen

1824 - First Burmese War: The British officially declare war on Burma.

1836 - Samuel Colt manufactures 1st pistol, 34-caliber "Texas" model

1841 - 1st continuous filibuster in US Senate began, lasting until March 11

1868 - Stapler patented in England by C H Gould

1904 - Nikola Tesla describes the process of the ball lightning formation.

1923 - 1st old age pension plans in US established by Montana & Nevada

1933 - FDR proclaims 10-day bank holiday

1946 - Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech (Fulton Missouri)

1956 - "King Kong," 1st televised

1982 - Russian spacecraft Venera 14 lands on Venus sends back data

1985 - Mexican authorities find body of US drug agent Enrique "Kike" Camarena Salaazar

2013 - Willcom announces the world’s smallest mobile phone, weighing 32 grams

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Cloudy and looks like rain or snow, but feels like rain. Nothing yet so just wait for the ominous clouds to do something.

 

I went to see my Congressional office today. Signed the document. Not expecting a lot but a few headaches for the bank from her office. I should hear in about 48 hours. Then this afternoon I got a secure email from the bank stating that they released the check today. Strange, since I was told it was released Friday and mailed yesterday. Lies continue to fall from the mouths of these bureaucrats. I called the local bank manager who is also upset that she was given incorrect information and put her signature on letter that may not be true. Oh, well.

 

Yesterday my brother called to say that he was stuck in Houston airport. He and a high school friend met there to head for his place in Merida. They went to the ticket counter to change their seats so they could be together. He pulled out his passport then put it back in his backpack. He walked over to the Starbucks for a coffee, with his friend. When their flight was called…about 10 minutes later, he opened his backpack to find that his passport and Mexican pesos were gone. Thankfully there was a passport office in Houston, he got his new passport, and they got a 6p flight to Mexico City and a connection to Merida. His original flight was direct to Merida and only flies a couple of times a week.

 

Another friend sells inventory from her closed bookstore through Amazon. She has been doing this for years. Today Amazon dropped her as a seller because some of her books had not been sent out in their timeframe. She’s working with Amazon to become a seller again, but we all know how big business handles it support. Sure hope things work out as she still has a fairly extensive inventory of books.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

We are many guards of a precious gate Sometimes we lean backward and sometimes we stand straight Some of us are short and some are tall We never quit the fight but we might fall We wear war paint and cover in black We always defend but never will attack

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• ANDY GIBB Dont Throw It All Away

• Churchill Sinews of Peace (Iron Curtain)

• Graphic Language- Comic Relief "Marsha Warfield" Stand Up

• Jay Silverheels: The Man Beside The Mask

• My Fair Lady - Rex Harrison - Why Can't The English?

Remembering TV’s great shows

"Jeopardy!"--Answer: It's the habit-forming quiz show that moves at lightning speed and always makes us feel smarter. Question: What is "Jeopardy!?"

Lexiophiles Delights

. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

. When you've seen one shopping Center you've seen a mall.

Ancient Sports

Pato--Culture: ArgentineanDerived from the Spanish word for duck and also known as horseball, pato is the official sport of Argentina and an eclectic mix of polo and basketball. The youngest sport on this list, it was created in the 1500s and was originally played with a duck in a basket rather than the ball that today’s participants use. A violent sport, riders would often attack each other in order to win, often because a large amount of money was at stake. Throughout its history, the sport has been banned numerous times, mostly due to the increasing violence which often resulted in the deaths of many of its participants. In the 17th century, the Catholic church was so concerned with the sport that they would excommunicate anyone found playing. Up until the 20th century, it remained underground, until rule changes made it much safer to play; the duck in a basket was also replaced with a unique ball with six leather handles. The goals themselves have changed over time, evolving from a simple box on the ground to a hoop with a net that is in use today.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Cartons of cigarettes the ATF lost during a blotched sting operation last year: 2,100,000

Unusual Fact of the Day

Just before the Nazis invaded Paris, H.A. and Margret Rey fled on bicycles. They carried the manuscript for Curious George.

Joke-of-the-day

Selling at an auction was halted when the auctioneer announced, “Someone in the room has lost his wallet containing $2,000. He is offering a reward of $500.00 for its immediate return.” After a moment of silence, there was a call from the back of the room, “$550.00”  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

WRITING A FINAL SENTENCE

When writing, if you're searching for a final sentence, you've probably already written it.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

URBANA, Ill. - Plastic shopping bags littering much of the Earth can be converted into diesel, natural gas and other useful petroleum products, U.S. researchers report. The conversion process produces significantly more energy than it consumes and results in transportation fuels such as diesel that can be blended with existing ultra-low-sulfur diesels and biodiesels, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said Thursday. Other products such as natural gas, solvents, gasoline, waxes and lubricating oils also can be obtained from shopping bags, they said. The technique, which involves heating the bags in an oxygen-free chamber in a process called pyrolysis, is very efficient, researcher leader Brajendra Kumar Sharma said. "You can get only 50 to 55 percent fuel from the distillation of petroleum crude oil," he said. "But since this plastic is made from petroleum in the first place, we can recover almost 80 percent fuel from it through distillation." Previous studies have used pyrolysis to convert plastic bags into crude oil, but Sharma's team took the research further by converting the crude oil into different petroleum products. Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually, the Worldwatch Institute says, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports only about 13 percent are recycled.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

Do you sleep properly? If not, then you’ d better start doing it. Getting enough sleep is vital for health and productivity. Loss of sleep can cause, among others, loss of reaction abilities. Eight hours of sleep per day are fine, but if you sleep six hours then the possibilities of reduced reaction abilities are increasing. Moreover, too much sleep -more than 9 hours- can also be harmful for our health, so try to find the balance somewhere in the middle!

Staring up at the blue sky we sometimes see white non static spots scattering all about. This is called blue field entoptic phenomenon and Richard Scheerer, a German ophthalmologist , first drew clinical attention to it in 1924.‘Blue field entoptic phenomenon’ or Scheerer’s phenomenon is the appearance of tiny bright short-lived, visible for a second or less dots moving quickly along squiggly lines in the visual field, especially when looking into bright blue light such as the sky. What are these dots? They are white blood cells moving in the capillaries in front of the retina of the eye!

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
1-16

Iditarod Race
1-7

National Cheerleading Week
National Ghostwriters Week
National Write A Letter of Appreciation Week
Universal Human Beings Week 
Will Eisner Week
2-8

Celebrate Your Name Week
National Consumer Protection Week
National Invasive Species Awareness Week
National Pancake Week
National Pet Sitters Week
National Schools Social Work Week
National Severe Storm Preparedness Week
National Sleep Awareness Week
National Words Matter Week
Professional Pet Sitters Week
Read an E-Book Week
Return The Borrowed Books Week
Save Your Vision Week
Severe Weather Preparedness Week:
Telecommuter Appreciation Week

Women in Construction Week

3-7
Newspaper in Education Week
National School Breakfast Week
Share A Story - Shape A Future Week

3-9
Women of Aviation Worldwide Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Crispus Attucks Day—1^st casualty of Am Revolution

·        Discover What Your Name Means Day

·        National Absinthe Day

·        Saint Piran's Day-Patron St of Cornwall

·         

·        Carnival (Brazil, French West Indies, Malta)

·        Christians: Ash Wednesday beginning of Lent

Today’s Events through History  

1917 - 1st jazz recording for Victor Records released

1934 - Mother-in-law's day 1st celebrated (Amarillo, Tx)

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

James B Sikking, actor (Hill St Blues, Star Trek 3, Doogie Howser) is 80

Dean Stockwell, actor (Werewolf of Washington, Blue Velvet)is 78

Marsha Warfield, comedian/actress (Roz-Night Court) is 60

Remembered for being born today

1574 - William Oughtred, mathematician/inventor (slide rule)

1794 - Robert Cooper Grier, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (d. 1870)

1898 - Mei-ling Soong, Madame Chiang Kai-shek

1898 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (d. 1976)

1908 - Sir Rex Harrison, actor (My Fair Lady, Dr Doolittle)

1958 - Andy Gibb, singer/TV host (Solid Gold)Dean Stockwell will be 78

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

1999 - Richard Kiley, Broadway actor, bone marrow disease, 1999, @77

1929 - David Dunbar Buick, Scottish-born American automobile pioneer, cancer, 1929, @74 

1953 - Joseph Stalin, Premier of the Soviet Union (1941-53), stroke, 1953, @73

1974 - Billy DeWolfe, actor (Good Morning World), cancer, 1974, @67

1980 - Jay Silverheels, Canadian Mohawk actor (Tonto), stroke, 1980, @67

2013 - Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, respiratory failure, 2013, @58

1770 - Crispus Attucks, slave, 1st killed during Boston Massacre, 1770, @47

1982 - John Belushi, comedian (Sat Night Live), OD, 1982. @33

1695 - Henry Wharton, English writer. 1695, @31

1963 - Patsy Cline, country singer (Crazy), plane crash, 1963, @30

Brain Teasers

Eye lashesz

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  §