4-16-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 105   / Week: 16 

Today: L 30°…H 64°… Ave. humidity: 8%

     Wind: ave:   6mph; Gusts:  12mph  

Quote of the Day

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Today’s Historical Highlights

 See below

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫  

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My Free Rambling Thoughts   

OK, technology is not my friend today, or for the next few days. After waiting over a week to hear from the computer guy, Dr. Dan I decided it was time to get a new computer and use the old one for backup. So I bought a new tower today. It of course was on sale, which is good, and an easy set up.  The problem is that it is a Windows 8.1 computer that has a fairly steep learning curve. To add to my misery, Dr. Dan finally called and said ‘I’ve never seen anything like this, your hard drive is empty.’ That means that all my saved data is gone. Thankfully I have backup of all my pictures, and some stuff is floating around in a cloud somewhere, so all is not really lost. I just have to find the right cloud, remember the right password and account name. I know most will be recovered over the next week. Therefore many of today’s usual things will be missing, as I don’t have time to search them out.

 

The news since my computer demise and my last blog still hasn’t changed much, but I am sure tired of the ‘new’ CNN which has been the missing plane channel. I am very tired to ‘breaking news’ saying that nothing has been found, and basically that the breaking news is that nothing is either breaking or new. I used to enjoy Crossfire, but that was even taken off the schedule for a week and while it now back on the list, it is still ‘breaking news’, now catching us up on the Ukraine Crisis. The one thing I have learned by the missing plane search, the many satellites out there that are ‘watching everything’ really aren’t doing that. In fact, any spying being done is probably through the internet machine and now I even question how much of that is going on.

 

I have been posting pics and videos of my Cuban Adventure on Facebook. They have been well received. Lessons from the trip: Cuba is a fantastic place to visit. The Cuban people are very poor, even more so than some of the African countries I have visited. The socialist government makes sure that everyone has a job, even if they are paid very very little. The government supports education, the arts, and have given many the ability to follow their artistic passion, making the island even more beautiful. Finally, it is time to stop the embargo we have against Cuba. We support many nations with less freedom, probably because of those countries oil reserves. Our neighbors need our help too and mistakes were made on both sides during the Revolution.  

 

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

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Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

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OK Then…

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Harper’s Index 

Portion of US baby food that is delivered in squirtable pouches: 1/5

Unusual Fact of the Day

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Joke-of-the-day

After the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car, his father asked him three times what was wrong.

Finally, the boy replied, "That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home and I wanted to stay with you guys."

Rules of Thumb:   

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Yeah, It Really Happened

YUBA CITY, Calif. (UPI) - A California teen was so determined to raise money for a prom dress that she enlisted the help of a minor to help her sell brownies that were laced with pot. Unfortunately for Saira Munoz, she got caught and was taken out of River Valley High School in handcuffs. In addition to being sentenced to four years probation for employing a minor to sell marijuana, the Yuba City teenager is now in danger of being deported back to Mexico. "People make mistakes," Carlos Robles, a friend of Munoz, told CBS Sacramento. "I was hurt, because she got arrested, and nobody wanted to see somebody we cared about go away. There's people that deserve to be deported, and she just wasn't one of them. There's people that do way worse." Munoz came to the United States with temporary permission in 2000, and immigration officials are still reviewing her case after being alerted by the Sutter County Probation Department. "It's too much trouble to deport somebody for that," student James Steerstold told Fox 40. "She should not be deported for making weed brownies. I know lots of students who do that," said student Dursimrim Kalar.

Somewhat Useless Information   

With her two albums and the first two singles from 21, “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You”, she became the first living artist to achieve the feat of having two top-five hits in both the UK Official Singles Chart and the Official Albums Chart simultaneously since The Beatles in 1964!                    

With her two albums and the first two singles from 21, “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You”, she became the first living artist to achieve the feat of having two top-five hits in both the UK Official Singles Chart and the Official Albums Chart simultaneously since The Beatles in 1964! With her two albums and the first two singles from 21, “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You”, she became the first living artist to achieve the feat of having two top-five hits in both the UK Official Singles Chart and the Official Albums Chart simultaneously since The Beatles in 1964!

Its primary role was to act as a bomb resistant method of exchanging scientific information and intelligence. In the 1970s and 80s other networks such as the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) emerged, linking the net to research agencies and universities. In the 1970s and 80s other networks such as the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) emerged, linking the net to research agencies and universities. After the Cold War PCs became even more widespread and the Internet grew more publicly accessible and user-friendly by both fans of technology and common people.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

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Today Is                                                                      

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Today’s Events through History  

1071 - Bari falls to Robert Guiscard, ending Byzantine rule in Italy.
1509 - French army under Louis XII enters Alps
1521 - Martin Luther arrives at Diet of Worms
1582 - Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta, Argentina.
1705 - Queen Anne of England knights Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge
1724 - 1st Easter observed (OS=Apr 9)
1746 - Battle of Culloden, the last battle on British soil: Royalist troops under the Duke of Cumberland defeat the Jacobite army.
1777 - Battle of Bennington-New England's Green Mountain Boys rout British

1789 - George Washington heads for 1st presidential inauguration

1854 - San Salvador destroyed by earthquake

1861 - US president Lincoln outlaws business with confederate states
1862 - Slavery abolished in District of Columbia
1862 - US Confederate Congress approves conscription act for all white males (18-35 years)

1881 - In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle.

1900 - US Post Office issues 1st books of postage stamps
1908 - Natural Bridges National Monument forms (Lake Powell Utah)

1912 - Harriet Quimby becomes 1st woman pilot to cross English Channel

1917 - Lenin returns to Russia to start Bolshevik Revolution

1926 - Book of the Month Club sends out its 1st selections "Lolly Willowes" & "Loving Huntsman" by Sylvia Townsend Warner

1929 - NY Yankees become 1st team to wear uniform numbers
1935 - 1st radio broadcast of "Fibber McGee & Molly"

1943 - Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD.

1956 - 1st solar powered radios go on sale

1962 - Brazil nationalizes US businesses
1962 - Walter Cronkite begins anchoring CBS Evening News
1964 - 9 men sentenced 25-30 years for Britain's 1963 "Great Train Robbery"

1977 - Alex Haley finds his Roots in Juffure, Gambia

1980 - Arthur Ashe retires from professional tennis

1987 - Peter Taylor's "Summons to Memphis" wins Pulitzer Prize for fiction
1987 - Pulitzer prize awarded to August Wilson for "Fences"

2007 - Virginia Tech massacre: The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, kills 32 people and injures 23 others before committing suicide.

2012 - For the first time since 1977 no Pulitzer Prize is awarded for fiction

                     

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

1660-1753 - Hans Sloane, England, physician/naturalist/founder (British Museum)
1661-1715 - Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, British poet and statesman (d. 1715)

1682-1744 - John Hadley, mathematician/inventor (1st reflecting telescope)

1867-1912 - Wilbur Wright, of aeronautical fame (Wright Brothers)

1921-2004 - Peter Ustinov, London, actor (Death on Nile, Logan's Run, Billy Budd)

1924-1994 - Henry Mancini, Cleveland, composer/conductor (Pink Panther)

1927 - Pope Benedict XVI [Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger], Marktl, Bavaria, Germany

1935 - Bobby Vinton, Pitts Pa, singer (Roses are Red, Blue on Blue)

1939-1957 - Dusty Springfield, [Mary O'Brien], London, vocalist (Growing Pains)

1947-2011 - Gerry Rafferty, Paisley Scotland, guitarist/vocalist (Baker Street)
1947 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, [Lew Alcindor], NBA center (Mil Bucks, LA Lakers)

1965 - Jon Cryer, actor (Pretty in Pink, Superman IV)
1965 - Martin Lawrence, comedian (Martin)

1971-1995 - Selena, Texas, tejano singer (Grammy-1994)  

 Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

1756 - Jacques Cassini, Fr astronomer (Discover rings of Saturn), dies at 79

1788 - Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, French naturalist (b. 1707)

1850 - Marie [Gresholtz] Tussaud, maker of wax figures, dies at 88

1859 - Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian (b. 1805)

1946 - Arthur Chevrolet, Swiss-born race car driver and automobile designer (b. 1884)

1968 - Fay Bainter, actress (Jezebel, Our Town, State Fair), dies at 76

1991 - David Lean, director (28 academy awards), dies of pneumonia at 83

1992 - Neville Brand, American actor (Stalag 17), dies of emphysema at 71

1994 - Ralph Waldo Ellison, US writer (Invisible Man), dies at 80

2002 - Robert Urich, American actor (b. 1946)

2013 - Pat Summerall, American NFL player and sportscaster, dies from cardiac arrest at 82

 

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  §