1-19-14

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 03 / Day: 019   

Today: L 16°…H 53°… Ave. humidity: 35%

Wind: ave:   10mph; Gusts:  16mph  

Average Low: 17° Record Low:  -13° (1943)

Average High: 43° Record High:  62° (1986)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1785 - First manned balloon flight in Ireland

1903 - New bicycle race "Tour de France" announced

1920 - US Senate votes against membership in League of Nations

1929 - Acadia National Park, Maine established

1937 - Cy Young elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

1955 - "Millionaire" TV program premieres on CBS

1955 - "Scrabble" debuts on board game market

1972 - Sandy Koufax, Yogi Berra elected to Hall of Fame

2013 - 4 climbers are killed by an avalanche in Glen Coe, Scotland

2013 - Lance Armstrong admits to doping in all seven of his Tour de France victories

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A really nice Saturday here in our little mountain town…still way too dry, but still nice.

 

Our discussion group meets tonight on Military Technology which should be interesting. The articles talked about the change in history and how the military establishment has met with the many changes from the early 20^th century. While I still have a hard time dealing with the many ‘advances’ we have in killing other people while trying not to kill our own, the changes over the last century have been very interesting. Just like with so many changes, the establishment in the military has usually been against most of the changes. First they were happy with the horses and then the tanks most fought and many lost their careers by not accepting the changes. No different today and it seems we have learned little from history. Waiting to hear what the others have to offer.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

When NASA was considering animals to experiment on in space, they picked birds, because of the low maintenance. Although NASA was aware that most birds require gravity to swallow and would not survive the weightlessness of space, they did manage to find two types of bird that would survive the trip. Which birds were they?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• All In The Family - Edith's Accident

• Dolly Parton – Jolene

• Guy Madison Tribute

• Janis Joplin - Piece Of My Heart

• Katey Sagal talks "Married with Children," "Sons"

• Tribute to the Late Suzanne Pleshette

Actual Complaints… These are actual complaints received from dissatisfied customers by Thomas Cook Vacations (based on a Thomas Cook/ABTA survey):

• "Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers."

• "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."

Suggested New State Mottos:

• Arizona: But It's A Dry Heat

• Connecticut: Like Massachusetts, Only The Kennedy's Don't Own It Yet

Something to Ponder in your free time…

• Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?

• Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?              

Auction Prices

Andy Warhol's unemployment rate drawing.

In 1984, Andy Warhol drew a relatively accurate depiction of the U.S. unemployment rate from 1980 to 1984. Christie's put that picture up for auction this February and the image -- roughly the length and height of two rulers -- sold for $32,500.

OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

• Percentage of Broadway tickets that are bought by companies and deducted as a business expense: 20 

• Of tickets for National Hockey League games played in the United States: 62

Unusual Fact of the Day

Sixty miles per hour is the maximum speed limit throughout Hawaii. It's the only U.S. state with a statewide limit under 65.

Joke-of-the-day

Three buddies die in a car crash, and they find themselves at the pearly gates.

They are all asked, "When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning upon you, what would you like to hear them say about you?

The first guy says, "I would like to hear them say that I was the greates doctor of my time, and a great family man."

The second guy says, "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher who made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow."

The last guy replies, "I would like to hear them say... LOOK!!! HE'S MOVING!!!!!"

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

MAKING A SCARF JOINT

Two pieces of wood can be attached end to end by tapering each piece and overlapping the tapers. The splice that is formed is called a scarf joint. For planking a boat, the length of the tapers should be 12 times the thickness of the boards being joined.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

WASHINGTON - A NASA space observatory has made the first-ever Gamma-ray measurements of a gravitational lens to observe a distant cosmic object, the space agency reports. A gravitational lens is a kind of natural cosmic telescope formed when a rare alignment allows the gravity of a massive object to bend and amplify light from a more distant source. The accomplishment by astronomers using NASA's Fermi spacecraft opens new avenues for research, including a novel way to probe emission regions near supermassive black holes, a NASA release said Monday. "We began thinking about the possibility of making this observation a couple of years after Fermi launched, and all of the pieces finally came together in late 2012," astrophysicist Teddy Cheung at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington said. In September that year Fermi's Large Area Telescope detected a series of bright Gamma-ray flares from a source known as B0218+357, located 4.35 billion light-years from Earth. Long before light from B0218+357 reaches us, it passes directly through a face-on spiral galaxy -- one very much like our own -- about 4 billion light-years away. These powerful flares, passing through a known gravitational lens system, provided the key to making the lens measurement, the scientists said. Such Gamma-ray observations in this and other lens systems could help provide new insights into the workings of powerful black-hole jets and other cosmic phenomena, they said.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• America, one of the greatest economies in the world, used to have a day, that it had no debt and it was 178 years ago. That day was January the 8th in 1835 and Andrew Jackson was the President at that time. A senator rose to make the big announcement: ‘Gentlemen … the national debt … is PAID.’ That was the only time that the United States were free of debt and it lasted only one year.

• Although Europe and most Western countries no longer consider attempted suicide as a criminal offense, it used to be a time when the state would not be very tolerant. In the Christian church people who attempted suicide were excommunicated. During the 19th century in Great Britain people would be punished by hanging in case of attempted suicide, as it was deemed to be equivalent to murder. In the United States the state imposes penalty in the case of an attempted suicide, whereas it remains a criminal offense in many Islamic countries.

• Singapore is considered to be one of the world’ s high developed countries, despite the income inequalities. It is such a developed country that most millionaires in the world live there! One out of every six Singaporean households have at least one million US dollars in disposable wealth. This calculation excludes property, businesses, and luxury goods. If they had been included they would further increase the number of millionaires, especially as property in Singapore is among the world’s most expensive.

• Adriano Celentano composed a song with lyrics in American slang meaning nothing and it became a hit in the 70s. His intention was to prove that the Italian audience would be willing to adopt with nthusiasm and popularize any song in English or American irrespective of the level of accuracy. This song was “Prisencolinensinainciusol” performed by Celentano and his wife, singer/actress-turned-record producer Claudia Mori. “Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, because I like American slang — which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian — I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn’t mean anything”, Celentano said.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

13-19

National Vocation Awareness Week  
National Soccer Coaches of America Week
16-26

Sundance Film Festival
17-23

National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week
18-19

Bald Eagle Appreciation Days
18-26

International Snowmobile Safety and Awareness Week  
Week of Christian Unity
Clean Out Your Inbox Week
Healthy Weight Week
Hunt For Happiness Week
19-24

National Activity Professionals Week   
National Nurse Anesthetists Week
National Handwriting Analysis Week 

Today Is                                                                      

·        Popcorn Day

·        Tin Can Day

·        World Religion Day

^^^^^^

·        Confederate Heroes Day (Texas)

·        Timket (Ethiopia- Orthodox celebration of Epiphany)

Today’s Events through History  

1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie’s troops occupy Stirling 

1981 - US & Iran sign agreement to release 52 American hostages

1983 - Klaus Barbie, SS chief of Lyon in Nazi-France, arrested in Bolivia

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Shelly Fabares, actress (Donna Reed Show, Coach) is 70

Dolly Parton, country singer (Dolly, 9 to 5) is 68

Paula Deen, American chef and restaurateur is 67

Desi Arnaz Jr, actor (Craig-Here's Lucy, Fakeout, Joyride) is 61

Katey Sagal, singer/actress (Married With Children/Sons of Anarchy) is 60

Jodie Sweetin, actress (Stephanie Tanner-Full House) is 32

Felicity Jones, English actress is 30

Remembered for being born today

1736 - James Watt, Scotland, inventor (steam engine)

1807 - Robert E. Lee, Confederate General in Chief, (d. 1870)

1809 - Edgar Allan Poe, Boston, author (Pit & the Pendulum)

1839 - Paul Cézanne, Aix-en-Provence Provence, French painter (d. 1906)

1922 - Guy Madison, [Robert Moseley], California, actor (Wild Bill Hickok)

1923 - Jean Stapleton, NYC, actress (Damn Yankees, Klute, All in the Family)

1938 - Phil Everly, singer (Everly Bros-Wake Up Little Susie)

1943 - Janis Joplin, bluesy rock singer (Down on Me)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Stan Musial, American MLB hall of famer 2013 @92

Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-born actress 2000 @85

Suzanne Pleshette, American actress respiratory failure 2008 @70

Carl Perkins, singer/songwriter cancer 1998 @65

Wilson Pickett, American singer heart attack 2006 @64

Hal March, actor ($64K Question) cancer 1970 @49

Brain Teasers

Doves and Pigeons. 

Since most birds swallow water by tilting their heads back and using gravity to let the water run down their throats, they would dehydrate in space. Doves and Pigeons are the only birds that can drink without tilting their heads back.

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  §