7-22-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 203 / Week: 30 
July Averages: 81° \ 51°
Today: Average Sky Cover: 8%
    H 82° L 55° Ave. humidity: 42%
    Wind: ave:   7mph; Gusts:  14mph 
    Average High: 82° Record High:  92° (1996)
    Average Low: 51° Record Low:  38° (1955)
     
Quote of the Day
Historical Highlights for Today
1582 - Willem van Orange moves from Antwerp to Delft
1686 - City of Albany, NY chartered
1729 - Diamonds found in Minas Geras Brazil
1893 - Katharine Lee Bates writes "America the Beautiful" in Colorado
1912 - 5th Olympic games in Stockholm, Sweden closes
1918 - Lightning kills 504 sheep in Utah's Wasatch National Park
1939 - 1st black woman judge (Jane Matilda Bolin-NYC)
1942 - Gasoline rationing using coupons begins
19551955  - 1st VP to preside over cabinet meeting-R Nixon
1960 - Cuba nationalizes all US-owned sugar factories
1967 - Jimi Hendrix quits as opening act of the Monkees' tour
1988 - 500 US scientists pledge to boycott Pentagon germ-warfare research
1991 - Jeffrey Dahmer confesses to killing 17 males in 1978
1995 - Susan Smith found guilty of drowning her two children in South Carolina
  Birthdays Today:   
How many can you identify? Answers in Birthday’s Today below
My Rambling Thoughts   
Beautiful Monday. Not too warm, not to windy, a great summer day. Took a nice walk around the neighborhood. Great way to wake up and welcome the new week.
Terrorism is always scary. I have to say with all the airplanes in the sky everyday it is an odd coincidence that two Malaysian airlines planes would have these problems in such a short time.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
I was on a road trip with a friend when we drove past a very tall radio tower. I told my friend "That thing has to be at least a thousand feet tall!" He looked out the window for a moment, and said "I'll bet it's closer to 1500 feet." We stopped at a gas station and asked how tall the tower was, and it was exactly 1500 feet tall! Now that I owe my friend a steak dinner, how could he tell how tall the tower was?
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today
OK Then…

Harper’s Index 
Percentage of spending last year by Our County Deserves Better, the largest US Tea Party PAC, that went to fundraising: 79
That went to campaign contributions: 0.09
Unusual Fact of the Day
Moths are falsely blamed for eating clothing. It's actually their larvae that cause the fabric damage.
Popular Native Languages…
Sioux
Sioux includes three dialects spoken in North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska. According to the UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, the Yankton-Yanktonai dialect is primarily spoken on the Yankton and Crow Creek Reservations and on the northern part of the Standing Rock Reservation. Teton (Lakota) is spoken on the Cheyenne River, Lower Brule, Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Sisseton Reservations and the southern part of Standing Rock. Off-reservation speakers live in Rapid City, Minneapolis, and other upper Midwest cities. Sioux is also spoken in several Canadian provinces.
Common Sayings from the Bible…
Nothing but skin and bones
Job 19:19-20 All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me. I am nothing but skin and bones
Big Lies…
The First Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was named after an entire tribe’s massacre—not a peaceful meal between pilgrims and Indians.
In 1621, Wampanoag Indians investigated gun and cannon fire at a Pilgrim settlement to see them celebrating a successful harvest. The Indians—all male warriors, were fed as a gesture of peace. The act was not repeated annually.
RELATED: What Really Happened at the First Thanksgiving? The Wampanoag Side of the Tale
In 1636, when a murdered man was discovered in a boat in Plymouth, English Major John Mason collected his soldiers and killed and burned down the wigwams of all the neighboring Pequot Indians who were blamed for the murder.
The following day, Plymouth Governor William Bradford applauded the massacre of the 400 Indians, including the women and children. The Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, William Newell, proclaimed: “From that day forth, shall be a day of celebration and thanks giving for subduing the Pequot.” For the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a governor was in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.
People Facts…
On average, men's noses are 10% larger than women's.
Historical Facts…
In 1700s, the deer skin was a common medium of exchange between the trading settlers and the native Red Indians in America. This is how a buck became a slang for a dollar.
Retro Native Humor…
What did the Dine' lady say first time she went into Pizza Hut?
"Who threw up on my fry bread?"
Common Phrase Origins…
Go the Whole 9 Yards
Meaning: To try one’s best
History: World War II Fighter pilots received a 9-yard chain of ammunition. Therefore, when a pilot used all of his ammunition on one target, he gave it “the whole 9 yards.”
Flagstaff, AZ History…
The city was named after a shaved pine tree with a U.S. flag atop it. For years, several flagstaffs vied for the right to be “THE” flagstaff that inspired the name “Flagstaff.”
Three flagstaffs were main contenders. One, called “1876 flagstaff,” was raised July 4, 1876, to celebrate the nation’s Centennial by a party of settlers on their way from Boston to Prescott; another one stood in the vicinity of Old Town, called the “Old Town flagpole”; and one stood near the railroad right-of-way at the foot of Switzer Mesa, called the “East tree.”
The matter, after lengthy research by local historian and newspaperman Platt Cline, has been, on the whole, settled.
And the winner was the “1876 flagstaff.” The flagstaff was located in the China Canyon area, which is near the current location of the former Flagstaff Middle School and Frances Short Pond off Thorpe Road. In 1876, it was a good spot with water for settlers to camp. A survey map of 1878 confirms the general location.
The research indicates that because the tree had been dead when turned into a flagstaff, it eventually rotted and fell.
In 1985, Flagstaff native Gov. Bruce Babbitt dedicated a new flagstaff in the same general area as a historical monument. A plaque reads: “Dedicated July 4, 1985, by Governor Bruce Babbitt to honor the Boston settlers of 1876, whose patriotic spirit gave our city its name.”
Joke-of-the-day
In a beauty contest among birds, the finalists believe it or not were a chicken, an ostrich and a flamingo. And soon after the show, the judges were unanimous in reaching the final choice. And guess who won? The chicken, of course! The judges admitted that both the ostrich, and flamingo legs were beautiful, but the chicken had prettier laid eggs. 
Rules of Thumb:   
SELLING A NEW CAR
Your customer has decided to buy the car when he or she asks what colors are available. Stop selling and close the deal.
Yeah, It Really Happened
Here's a gift for someone who has everything: A tiny town in far northeastern Wyoming named Aladdin.
You won't need a genie in a bottle to buy it. Just $1.5 million gets you 30 acres and 15 buildings, including a 118-year-old general store that's still operating.
Rick and Judy Brengle bought the town 28 years ago and now want to move on from the full-time job of running it.
"We bought this place because I had empty-nest syndrome," Judy Brengle said. "All our kids had gone to college, so my husband bought me a town."
Aladdin doesn't have a government population count but about 15 people live in the town on a state highway midway between Devils Tower National Monument and Sturgis, South Dakota, famous for its huge annual motorcycle rally.
Recreation opportunities abound in the nearby Black Hills and Bear Lodge Mountains.
Aladdin isn't the only Wyoming town to hit the market. Last year, the southeast Wyoming town of Buford, population 1, sold for $900,000 and was renamed PhinDeli Town by its new owner to promote a brand of Vietnamese coffee sold there.
The Brengles haven't changed a thing about the two-story general store in Aladdin, except to put on a new roof. A pot-bellied stove provides heat, the Gillette News-Record reported.
The place sells fishing supplies, groceries, antiques, art, beer and hardware. It doesn't have running water, but there are two working outhouses nearby.
Aladdin got its name in 1894 from folks who hoped to strike it rich just like the fellow in the Arabian Nights folktale.
Owning Aladdin has been a full-time job and then some for the Brengles. When Judy Brengle isn't ordering clothes or doing inventory, she's sorting mail or selling beer and cigarettes.
She said she has grandkids who will keep tending the store and post office indefinitely.
"We've had several interested buyers, but not very many people want to work seven days a week," Brengle said.
Somewhat Useless Information   
There was an extended period (1347 – 1750) in which Europe suffered from intermittent bubonic plague epidemics.
In England the Great Plague (1665–66) was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague and killed an estimated 100,000 people, which was 15% of London’s population. It was transmitted through the bite of an infected rat flea.
Check Your Calendar
Observances This Week:
18-25
Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) Education & Awareness Week
20-26
Everybody Deserves A Massage Week; National Parenting Gifted Children Week; Captive Nations Week; National Independent Retailers Week; National Zoo Keeper Week
Today Is  
Casual Pi Day (22/7)
National Penuche Fudge Day 
Pied Piper Day
Rat-catchers Day
Spooners (Spoonerism) Day
                                                       
Today’s Events through History  
1790 - United States enacts a law for the formal regulation of trade with Indians titled "An Act providing for Holding a Treaty or Treaties to Establish Peace with Certain Indian Tribes."
1963 - Sonny Liston KOs Floyd Patterson in 1 for heavyweight boxing title
1992 - Colombia drug baron Pablo Escobar escapes prison
Birthday’s Today                                                        
Robert J Dole, (Sen-R Kansas, 1969-95)/presidential candidate is 91
Orson Bean, actor/comedian (To Tell the Truth) is 86
Oscar de la Renta, Dom Rep, designer (Coty Hall of Fame-1973) is 82
Alex Trebek, Ontario, TV game host (High Rollers, Jeopardy) is 74
George Clinton, rocker (Parliament-Funkadelic) is 73
Danny Glover, actor (Lethal Weapon) is 68
Don Henley, rock drummer/vocalist (Eagles-Desparado) is 67
Rob Estes, American actor is 51
David Spade, comedian (SNL, Tommy Boy, Black Sheep) is 50
John Leguizamo, Bogotá, actor is 50
Selena Gomez, American actress is 22
Prince George of Cambridge, 3rd in line to the English throne is 1
Remembered for being born today
William Archibald Spooner, London, reverend/inventor (spoonerisms) (1844-1930)
Emma Lazarus, poet ("New Colossus" - base of Statue of Liberty) (1849-1887)
Edward Hopper, US painter (House by the Railroad) (1882-1967)
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, mom of JFK, RFK & Ted, (1890-1995 )
Amy Vanderbilt, American authority on etiquette (1908-1974 
Historical Obits Today                                                           
Carl Sandburg, poet (Abraham Lincoln: Prairie Years), 1967, @89
Estelle Getty, American actress, dementia, 2008, @84
Dennis Farina, American actor, pulmonary embolism,2013, @69
John Dillinger, shot dead at Biograph Theater in Chicago, shot, 1934, @33
Marie Francois Xavier Bichat, a founder of histology, fall, 1802, @30
Brain Teasers                                         
Radio towers are always painted with alternating red and white stripes. If the tower is over 700 feet tall, every stripe is 100 feet high. My friend just counted the 15 stripes and knew immediately it was 1500 feet tall. This only works if it's over 700 feet; if it's under 700 feet, the tower will always have seven stripes. Bonus Factoid: The top stripe on the tower is always red.
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.