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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 01 / Day: 002   

Today: L 25°…H 48°… Ave. humidity: 52%

Wind: ave:   14mph; Gusts:  26mph  

Average Low: 16° Record Low:  -21° (1919)

Average High: 42° Record High:  60° (1902)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1492 - Spain recaptures Granada from the Moors (Granada Day)

1602 - Spanish force in Ireland surrender to the English army at Kinsdale

1776 - 1st revolutionary flag displayed

1811 - US Sen Thomas Pickering is 1st senator censured 

1839 - 1st photo of the Moon (French photographer Louis Daguerre)

1882 - Because of anti-monopoly laws, Standard Oil is organized as a trust

1893 - World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago

1910 - 1st junior high schools in US opens (Berkeley California)

1929 - US & Canada agree to preserve Niagara Falls

1938 - Book publisher Simon and Schuster founded

1944 - 1st use of helicopters during warfare (British Atlantic patrol)

1947 - Mahatma Gandhi begins march for peace in East-Bengali

1965 - NY Jets sign quarterback Joe Namath

1966 - 1st Jewish child born in Spain since 1492 expulsion

1975 - US Dept of Interior designates grizzly bear a threatened species

1983 - Gary Trudeau takes a 20-month break from writing "Doonesbury"

1995 - Most distant galaxy yet discovered found by scientists using Keck telescope in Hawaii (est 15 billion light years away)

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

So the new year has begun.  The sun rose, it was a warm day. Ready for the new beginnings. No big plans for this year, just to have a good year.

 

I talked to several people last night and it seems I must be getting old-er as everyone I called or who called me were home. I went to the internet machine to check out the pine cone drop on a web cam only to discover that there are no longer any web cams downtown. There had been 3 that I would check occasionally. Turns out, according to the sites, that the building owners decided that they would no longer rent 3 sq feet of space on any of their roofs for the cams. The site said their reasoning was that the cams were not increasing business and in some cases, the cams were showing competition’s business on the web cam. The site also claimed that most of their traffic was from out-of-towners just checking to see our little town. They also claim the police had used the cameras to solve crimes. Because of my service provider, I would be counted as an out of towner as my signal comes up from Mesa. I am sorry to see them go, but didn’t check them that often.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Each pair of definitions is for two words, where the second word is the first word with a letter deleted (example: brand & band). The length of the first word in each pair is provided, along with the position of the deleted letter to obtain the second word.

1) covered with soft thick hair (5 letters) & (delete 3rd letter) violent anger, wild rage

2) a fabric made of fibrous material (5 letters) & (delete 5th letter) to coagulate

3) the relative resistance of a material to scratching or denting (8 letters) & (delete 4th letter) the straps by which a parachute is fastened to a person

4) a hypnotic, cataleptic, or ecstatic state (6 letters) & (delete 4th letter) a barely perceptible amount

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• A tribute to Anne Francis

• Asimov and Religion

• Erroll Garner plays Misty

• Julius La Rosa Eh, Cumpari

• Roger Miller - King of the Road

• Tex Ritter--The Deck Of Cards

Odd Lawsuits…

Cheating Wife

After a Long Island doctor received divorce papers from his cheating wife, he decided to sue her for $1.5 million for a gift he gave her eight years earlier- his kidney.

New Years Eve Drops

• Raleigh, North Carolina: A 900-pound copper-and-steel acorn

• Richland, Pennsylvania: A cigar is dropped

• Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: An anchor is dropped

• Show Low, Arizona: A deuce of clubs 

• St. George's, Bermuda: A paper-Mache Bermuda onion

• Tallapoosa, Georgia: An opossum drops on odd years.

• Traverse City, Michigan: A cherry is dropped at midnight

• Vincennes, Indiana (near Terre Haute): The giant 18-foot, 500-pound steel-and-foam Watermelon  

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Percentage of American sixth-graders who cannot locate the United States on a world map: 20

Unusual Fact of the Day

President John Quincy Adams kept an alligator in the East Room.

Joke-of-the-day

An 85-year-old widow went on a blind date with a 90-year-old man.

When she returned to her daughter's house later that night, she seemed upset.

"What happened, Mother?" the daughter asked.

"I had to slap his face three times!"

"You mean he got fresh?"

"No," she answered. "I thought he was dead!"  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

ORDERING FROM A CATALOG

If it doesn't say it, it doesn't have it.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

HONOLULU (AP) — A Hawaii woman whose last name is 36 characters long has finally gotten the whole thing to fit on her driver's license and state identification card.

Janice "Lokelani" Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele (KAY'-ee-hah-nah-EE'-coo-COW'-ah-KAH'-hee-HOO'-lee-heh-eh-KAH'-how-NAH-eh-leh) received her new license and ID after her campaign to get her full name on the cards prompted the state Department of Transportation to change its policy and expand how many characters can appear on them.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• A French philosopher and political analyst talking on abuse of power, said that humans are ruled and as such, they are in solidarity. That great philosopher was Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984) who dealt mainly with the relationship between power and knowledge and how they are used as a means of social control.

• Before Mona Lisa was put on the walls of the Louvre Museum for public display, it had been hosted in other ‘houses’, as well. Firstly, it used to be on the walls of the French royal family palace up until the French Revolution. Secondly, Napoleon removed the painting, as he liked it so much, and placed it in his bedroom for several years. Lastly, the painting was removed and placed in an unknown, till today, place, during the World War II.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

1-7

New Year's Resolutions Week
Celebration of Life Week
Diet Resolution Week
Silent Record Week
Someday We'll Laugh About This Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        55-MPH Speed Limit Day (1974)

·        Happy Mew Year for Cats Day

·        National Buffet Day

·        National Motivation and Inspiration Day

·        National Personal Trainer Awareness Day

·        National Science Fiction Day

^^^^^^

·        Ancestors' Day (Haiti-remembering all who fought for Haiti)

·        Kakizome (Japan-for the first calligraphy written at the beginning of a year)

Today’s Events through History  

1791 - Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the 

     Northwest Indian War.

1903 - Pres T Roosevelt shuts down post office in Indianola Miss, for refusing 

     to accept its appointed postmistress because she was black

1921 - 1st religious service radio broadcast in US, KDKA-Pittsburgh

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Julius LaRosa, Brooklyn, American singer (fired by Arthur Godfrey on the air) is 84

Dabney Coleman, actor, (That Girl, Mary Hartman, Buffalo Bill) is 82

Jim Bakker, televangelist (PTL Club)/rapist (Jessica Hahn) is 74

Jack Hanna, American zoologist is 67

Cuba Gooding Jr, actor (Boyz N the Hood, Glaadiator, Few Good Men) is 46

Taye Diggs, actor is 42

Dax Shepard, American actor, comedian is 39

Kate Bosworth, American actress (Superman Returns) is 31

Remembered for being born today

1902 - Barry Goldwater, American politician

1920 - Isaac Asimov, Russia, scientist/writer (I Robot, Foundation Trilogy)

1936 - Roger Miller, country singer (King of the Road, Dang Me)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Anne Francis, American actress (Honey West) in 2011 @80

Alan Hale Jr, Skipper on Gilligan's Island of cancer in 1990 @68

Tex Ritter, country singer (5 Star Jubilee) of heart attack in 1974 @67

Pete Postlethwaite, English actor of cancer in 2011 @64

Dick Powell, actor/director (Dick Powell Theater) of lymphoma in 1963 @58

Erroll Garner, jazz pianist (Misty) of heart attack in 1977 @53

Brain Teasers

1) furry & fury 2) cloth & clot 3) hardness & harness 4) trance & trace

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  §