4-17-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 107  / Week: 16 
Today: L 34°H 66° Ave. humidity: 30%
     Wind: ave:   6mph; Gusts:  12mph  
     Average Low: 27° Record Low:  16° (1924)
    Average High: 59° Record High:  77° (1946)
           
Quote of the Day
 
Today’s Historical Highlights
1397 - Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the 1st time
1534 - Sir Thomas More confined in London Tower
1704 - 1st successful US newspaper; published in Boston by John Campbell
1817 - 1st US school for deaf (Hartford, Conn)
1865 - Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in Lincoln's assassination
1875 - Snooker invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain
1907 - Ellis Island, NY-11,745 immigrants arrive
1912 - 1st unofficial gold record (Al Jolson's "Ragging The Baby To Sleep")
1920 - American Professional Football Association forms (NFL)
1937 - Cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Elmer J Fudd & Petunia Pig, debut
1941 - Office of Price Administration forms (handled rationing)
1947 - Jackie Robinson bunts for his 1st major league hit
1956 - Willie Mosconi sinks 150 consecutive balls in a billiard tournament
1961 - 1,400 Cuban exiles land in Bay of Pigs; attempt to overthrow Castro
1972 - 1st Boston Women's Marathon won by Nina Kuscsik of NY in 3:10:26
1983 - Grete Waltz runs female world record marathon (2:25:29)
1986 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Larry McMurtry for "Lonesome Dove"
1995 - 24th Boston Women's Marathon won by Uta Pippig of Germany in 2:25:11
2013 - Same-sex marriage is legalized in New Zealand
 
  Today’s Birthdays:   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Back in the early 90’s I bought a cheap computer hutch from WalMart or similar store here in Flag. I think I paid about $25.  It is made of that cheap compressed wood, covered with an oak-finish paper. Through several computer setups, it has seen better days. I went over to Office Max today with a friend who stopped by and got a new metal/glass computer table. It weighs a ton, but as soon as I get it together, it will make a better home for my new computer. Since I don’t really trust the story that the guy who was fixing my computer gave me, I got up this morning and spent about an hour changing all my passwords. The broken computer and all I read about this heartbleed virus thing, it was a good idea. I thought I was being real smart by having all my passwords in a special folder on my computer. It required a code to open it, but with all the data lost on the old computer, I have reverted to the old style hands on address book for the passwords. Now I will have them at my fingertips. I also had all my regular sites for email and stuff remember my password so they would open right up when I got to the computer…no more of that either. I never set my bank account to remember my password. Now that I see all the steps it takes to reset a password, I’m leaving as little as possible to chance.
While I was getting the new computer table I did my now quarterly pedicure. There is a guy who does a great job and at first I thought it was weird to have a guy cutting my toenails and massaging my feet. But it turns out it is much less uncomfortable for me than having a not known woman do it. He is from Viet Nam and has been here in the US for years as he was a small child during the boat people arrival. We had a good conversation about my trip to Cuba as he knew a lot about Castro and the crazy politics. He suggested that I take a trip to his homeland and said, ‘I know you would enjoy it…you really like talk about the people you meet. ‘
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Five words that contain AT as a letter pair have had all of their other letters removed and placed into a pool. Put those letters back in their proper places. What are the words?
AT****, *AT***, **AT**, ***AT*, ****AT
 
Pool: C, C, E, E, F, G, H, H, H, I, M, M, N, O, O, O, R, S, U, W
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
OK Then…
I believe that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade... And try to find somebody whose life has given them vodka, and have a party.
~Ron White
Harper’s Index 
Number of spermatozoa in Washington State University’s apian-sperm bank: 3,250,000,000
Unusual Fact of the Day
The white part of an egg is called the "albumen." (Fr)
Joke-of-the-day
Bill: Where did you get that gold watch Joe?
Joe: I won it in a race.
Bill: How many people participated in it?
Joe: Three, a policeman, the owner of the watch, and me!! 
Rules of Thumb:   
MEN VS. WOMEN
Women tend to act smarter than they really are at work and dumber than they really are at home. Men tend to act just the opposite.
Yeah, It Really Happened
CULPEPER, Va. (UPI) - A Virginia jury has ordered a 53-year-old man to pay $5,001 to his former coworker after he admitted to putting something in his coffee -- and it wasn't cream and sugar. A jury in Culpeper County Circuit Court ordered James Carroll Butler to pay Michael Utz for spiking his coffee pot with pee in March 2009 while they were both working at the town's wastewater plant. The jury found that Butler, who had worked at the plant for 17 years before leaving in 2009, had "personal ill will and spite" towards Utz. When the tainted coffee pot was tested, lab results revealed that the strange brew contained urine and fecal material. The plant mechanic had been seeking $378,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages. "I done something I am very much ashamed of to a co-worker for [reasons, which are] stress-related [and] things going on in my life on and off the job. I am very much ashamed of my stupid and childlike behavior," Butler wrote in a letter from March 2009. Utz's attorney, Michael Sharman, told the Star Exponent that his client is "really, really happy about the victory and he's glad it's done."
Somewhat Useless Information   
The Gettysburg Address was 269 words. The Declaration of Independence is 1,337 words. Versions of the Bible range from 750,000 to 775,000 words. According to Forbes.com, the U.S. Tax Code is about four million words, "just under four times the number of words in all of the Harry Potter books put together."
Roots of the personal income tax and the Internal Revenue Service go back to the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln and Congress in 1862 created the first income tax to help pay for the war. It was repealed in 1872. Congress revived the income tax in 1894, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1895.
The 16th Amendment authorizing the income tax was adopted Feb. 3, 1913, when Delaware, Wyoming and New Mexico voted to ratify it, putting the amendment over the required 36-state threshold. Four states rejected the amendment. And two other states never considered it, Florida was one of them.
The primary filing form has always been Form 1040. It comes from a four-digit numbering system in 1913 when the first income tax forms were created; the numbers started with 1,001. By the time this particular form was finished, 39 others had been completed already.
President Gerald Ford was the first modern-day president to publicly release a summary of his income tax returns; every president since then has released their personal returns. President and Mrs. Obama's return for 2012 showed an adjusted gross income of $608,611, itemized deductions of $258,385 and a refund of $16,815.
The filing deadline for 1913 taxes was March 1. In 1918, the deadline date was changed to March 15. In 1955 Tax Day was changed to April 15.
 
Calendar Information        
This week:
¨      International Wildlife Film Week: 12-19
¨      Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week: 13-19
¨      National Animal Control Appreciation Week: 13-19 
¨      National Environmental Education Week: 13-19
¨      National Library Week: 13-19
¨      National Public Safety Telecommunicators (911 Operators) Week: 13-19
¨      National Student Employment Week: 13-19
¨      Pan American Week: 13-19 Undergraduate Research Week: 14-18
¨      Health Information Privacy and Security Week: 14-19 
 
Today Is                                                                      
·        Bat Appreciation Day (Emerge from hibernation)
·        Blah! Blah! Blah! Day
·        Ellis Island Family History Day
·        Ford Mustang Day
·        Get to Know Your Customers Day
·        High Five Day   (Third Thursday.)
·        National Ask An Atheist Day
·        National Haiku Poetry Day
·        Nothing Like A Dame Day
·        Poem In Your Pocket Day
·        Support Teen Literature Day 
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·        Flag Day (American Samoa)
·        Independence Day (Syrian Arab Republic-1946 from France)
 
Today’s Events through History  
1492 - Christopher Columbus signs contract with Spain to find Indies
1861 - Virginia is 8th state to secede from the Union
1932 - Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia ends slavery
1964 - Ford Mustang formally introduced ($2,368 base)
1969 - Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Sen Robert F Kennedy
1970 - Apollo 13 limps back safely, Beech-built oxygen tank no help
1982 - Canada adopts its constitution
1988 - Ethiopian Belayneh Densimo runs world record marathon (2:06:50)
1991 - Railroad workers go on strike in US
2013 - 5 people are killed in Wana, Pakistan, by a United States drone attack

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Olivia Hussey, Buenos Aires, actress is 63
Sean Bean, actor is 55
Boomer Esiason, NFL quarterback (Jets, Bengals) is 53
Jennifer Garner [Affleck], actress (Sydney Bristow-Alias) is 42
Victoria Beckham [Adams], Posh Spice is 40
Remembered for being born today
1699-1746 - Robert Blair, Scottish poet (Grave)
1741-1811 - Samuel Chase, judge (signed Decl of Ind)
1837-1913 - J. P. Morgan, banker/CEO (US Steel Corporation)
1918-1981 - William Holden, Ill, actor (Stalag 17, Bridge Over River Kwai, SOB)
1920-1996 - Joan "Maudie" Warburton, painter
1923-1991 - Harry Reasoner, newscaster (60 Minutes, ABC, CBS)
 
Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Kitty Carlisle, American actress and television personality, 2007, @96
Eva Novak, actress (Medicine Man), 1988. @90
Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father, inventor, ambassador and writer (Poor Richards Almanac), 1790, @84
Jean Perrin, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate, 1942, @71
Ralph David Abernathy, US civil rights leader, blood clots, 1990, @64
Linda McCartney, photographer and wife of Paul McCartney, 1998, @56
Frank McGee, Today show host, cancer, 1974, @52
Eddie Cochran, rocker, car crash, 1960, @ 21
Brain Teasers                                         
ATOMIC, FATHOM, SCATHE, WREATH, NOUGAT
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  §
 

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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.