5-27-14


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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 147  / Week: 22 
May Averages: 68° \ 34°
Today: Average Sky Cover: 30%
    H 79° L 46° Ave. humidity: 56%
    Wind: ave:   9mph; Gusts:  24mph  
    Average High: 72° Record High:  87° (1974)
    Average Low: 37° Record Low:  23° (1916)
       
Quote of the Day
Today’s Historical Highlights

1607 - Virginia - first significant battle between Indians and European settlers.
1679 - Habeaus Corpus Act (no false arrest & imprisonment) passes in England
1703 - St Petersburg (Leningrad) founded by Peter the Great
1907 - Bubonic Plague breaks out in San Francisco
1921 - After 84 years of British control, Afghanistan achieves sovereignty
1930 - Chrysler Building in NYC, the tallest man-made structure opens
1937 - Golden Gate Bridge, SF, dedicated
1951 - Chinese Communists force Dalai Lama to surrender his army to Beijing
1961 - 1st black light is sold
1985 - Britain agrees to return Hong Kong to China in 1997

  Today’s Birthdays:   

How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays below
My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Good Memorial Day today. I watched the PBS show last night…becoming a tradition for me. They do a great concert in DC and this year was no different. They always have lots of Vets, tell several tear jerker stories and show footage of various battles along with top notch patriotic music. Every time I watch one, I think I should go there for a live performance…then I think about the crowds and realize I would be in the nosebleed seats and wouldn’t enjoy it as much as the one on TV.

My brother and his wife are continuing their fantastic business trip in Russia. What a great place. While they have had to do a substantial amount of work on presentations at numerous venues, they are also seeing a lot of sights. It is truly a working vacation.

Our fire continues, the smoke comes in throughout the morning, then dissipates at night, only to return the next day. We are all very tired of this scenario as we begin the second week of the fire. Thankful that no one has been hurt and no structures have been lost.  The two housing areas that have been under ‘pre-evacuation’ notice since the fire started were told they are no longer in danger and the order was lifted. Can’t fathom what it would be like to be told to be ready to evacuate immediately for a full week. It was pretty warm today, thinking how it must be for the firefighters.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers
Can you decipher this common phrase?

eyeeseeexcept

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today






OK Then…
Harper’s Index 

Percentage change since last year in the amount of untaxed income Americans are allowed to spend on mass transit: -47

On parking: +2

Unusual Fact of the Day

Birds cock their heads at the ground not to listen for prey (such as insects or worms) but to better see them.

Strange Things That Washed Up On Beaches…

3 A Century Old Message in a Bottle
For a journey that lasted just under 98 years, this bottle sure didn’t get very far. In fact, the world’s longest recorded floating bottle was recovered less than 10 miles from where it was released! We know the bottle’s age and the distance it travelled with amazing precision, because it was released as part of an experiment tracking tides and currents around the UK. Thus the message in this near hundred-year-old bottle was sadly banal: it contained information about the date, 6/10/1914, and the latitude and longitude from which it was set adrift.

Presidential Fun Facts…

THE MOST COMMON religious affiliation among presidents has been Episcopalian, followed by Presbyterian.

**

THE ANCESTRY of all 44 presidents is limited to the following heritages, or some combination thereof: Dutch, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Swiss, German, and African.

What happens every minute on the internet machine…

70 new domain names registered

15,000 tracks downloaded on iTunes

Joke-of-the-day

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. As they lay down for the night, Holmes said:” Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what you see?"

Watson said, "I see millions and millions of stars."

Holmes: "And what does that tell you?"

Watson: "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Theologically, it tells me that God is great and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorogically, it tells me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"

Holmes: "Somebody stole our tent."

Rules of Thumb:   

CLEANING ANTIQUE WEAPONS
Anything a novice does to improve the looks of an antique weapon probably will lower its value or destroy it as a collector's piece.

Yeah, It Really Happened

A story of a Tennessee man who was arrested after he walked into a bar and tried to have sex with an ATM machine.
49-year-old Lonnie Hutton was apprehended at The Boro Bar and Grill in Murfreesboro. According to police, an officer was dispatched to the bar, where a witness said that Hutton walked to the ATM and "pulled down his pants and underwear exposing his genitals and then attempted to have sexual intercourse with the ATM."
After his encounter with the ATM, Hutton began to walk around the bar nude, thrusting his hips in the air.
Hutton was subsequently escorted from the bar and told to sit at a wooden picnic table. But once outside the bar, Hutton allegedly "again exposed himself again and engaged in sexual intercourse with the wooden picnic table."
To the surprise of no one police reported that Hutton smelled of booze, had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech.

Somewhat Useless Information   

Have you ever tried to stay awake for over five or four days in a row?
The scientifically documented record for the longest period without sleep is 11 days, 24 minutes.
It was by a high school student who presided over a press conference on the 11th day where he spoke without slurring or stumbling and appeared to be in excellent health.

**

Did you know that Mark Twain, the American author and humorist, hated Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”?
He said: “I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

**

Have you ever wondered why do frogs’ eyes blink while eating?
The answer is that frogs use their eyes to force their food down their throats, as they don’t have the necessary muscles to chew their food.
It is their eyes which are actually sinking down inside of its skull to push down on the food.
The same happens with frogs’ hearing, which also comes from near its eyes!

Calendar Information        

This Week’s Observances:

25-31
Week of Solidarity With The People of Non-Self-Governing Territories
Hurricane Preparedness Week

Black Single Parents Week


Today Is  

Body Painting Arts Festival
Cellophane Tape Day - 1930
National Wig Out Day
                                                      
Today’s Events through History  

1895 - British inventor Birt Acres patents film camera/projector
1935 - Supreme Court declares FDR's Natl Recovery Act unconstitutional
1943 - US forbid racial discrimination in war industry
1995 - Christopher Reeve is paralyzed after falling from his horse
1999 - The International Criminal Tribunal indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes\crimes against humanity

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Herman Wouk, novelist (Caine Mutiny, Winds of War) is 99
Christopher Lee, actor (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit) is 92
Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State/Nobel Peace Prize is 91
Lee Meriwether, Miss America ; Barnaby Jones is 79
Ramsey Lewis, pop jazz artist is 79
Louis Gossett Jr, Brooklyn, actor (Officer & Gentleman, Deep) is 78
Todd Bridges, actor (Diff'rent Strokes, Fish) is 49
Jamie Oliver, British chef and television personality is 39

Remembered for being born today

1794-1877 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, millionaire (B & O railroad)
1837-1876 - "Wild Bill" Hickok, [James Butler], cowboy/scout
1907-1964 - Rachel Louise Carson, biologist/ecologist/writer (Silent Spring)
1911-1978 - Hubert Humphrey, Sen\38th VP\1968 Pres candidate
1911-1993 - Vincent Price, actor (House on Haunted Hill, Fly, Laura)
1912-2002 - Sam Snead, PGA golfer
1925-2008 - Tony Hillerman, American writer

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Ed Yost, American inventor (modern hot air balloon), 2007, @87
Jawaharial Nehru, Independent India's 1st PM, stroke, 1964, @74
Robert Koch, German bacteriologist (TB, Cholera, Nobel), 1910, @66
Jeff Conaway, American actor, OD, 2011, @60
Jean Caulvin, [John Calvin], priest/church reformer, 1564, @54
Archibald Campbell, Scottish politician, beheaded, 1661, @53
Jeffrey Hunter, actor (Christopher Pike-Star Trek), stroke, 1969, @43

Brain Teasers                                         

I before E except after C

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.