1-27-14

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 05 / Day: 027   

Today: L 18°…H 54°… Ave. humidity: 42%

Wind: ave:   mph; Gusts:  mph  

Average Low: 17° Record Low:  -13° (1979)

Average High: 44° Record High:  61° (2003)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1302 - Dante becomes a Florentine political exile

1785 - 1st US state university chartered, Athens Georgia

1825 - U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory--"Trail of Tears"
1870 - After accepting 15th amendment, VA is readmitted to Union

1915 - US Marines occupy Haiti

1918 - "Tarzan of the Apes," 1st Tarzan film, premieres at Broadway Theater

1948 - 1st tape recorder sold

1967 – Apollo I pre launch fire kills 3 astronauts

1977 - 1st broadcast of "Roots" mini-series on ABC TV

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Nice lazy Sunday with a few high clouds…

 

Saw my Sunday morning news shows…interesting…but not anything earth shattering or that new.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

A man working for a secret organization goes into town but does not want to be discovered. So he makes up another name. That name was Horobod. Can you decipher his real name?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• "Roots" 1977 – Scene

• Laverne & Shirley Show Opening

• Montage - Tarzan of the Apes (1918)

• Remembering J.D. Salinger on NPR

• Sing Along With Mitch

• Trail of Tears Documentary

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

• "I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."

• "My fiance and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

Suggested New State Mottos:

• Pennsylvania: Cook With Coal

• Oklahoma: Like The Play, Only No Singing

Remembering TV’s great shows:

"M*A*S*H" Laughing in the face of death, Hawkeye, Trapper John, B.J., Hot Lips and the other cutups of the 4077th made war a little less hellish."M*A*S*H" wore its Purple Heart on its bloody sleeve, and we cared deeply for these reluctant heroes on the front lines of daring satire.

Phrases Shakespeare invented:

be all and end allMacbeth

Words Shakespeare invented

LaughableDefinition: Bad in a way that seems foolish or silly
Origin: Derived from the verb "laugh."
Quote: "Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable." - The Merchant of Venice

OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

Number of times the HAS violated court orders or internal rules on surveillance in 2011: 2776

Unusual Fact of the Day

Ian Murphy is the king of the old-school computer hackers. In 1981, he and three accomplices broke into the AT&T phone system and changed its internal clocks so that customers would get midnight discounts in midday, while late-night callers got stuck with outrageous bills. For the incident, Murphy became the first hacker to be charged with a computer crime.

Joke-of-the-day

A man was sick and tired of going to work every day while his wife stayed at home. He wanted her to see what he went through each day, so he prayed :-

"Dear Lord, I go to work every day and put in 8 hours of hard work, while my wife merely stays at home. I want her to know what I go through, so please create a trade in our bodies".

God, in His infinite wisdom, granted the man's wish.

The next morning, sure enough, the man awoke as a woman. He arose, cooked breakfast for his mate,

awakened the kids, set out their school clothes, fed them breakfast, packed their lunches, drove them to school, came home ..... picked up the dry cleaning, took it to the cleaners and stopped at the bank to draw money to pay the electricity and telephone bills. He drove to the electricity company and the phone company and paid the bills, went grocery shopping, came home and put away the groceries. He cleaned the cat's litter box and bathed the dog. By then it was already 1:00 pm, so he hurried to make the beds, do the laundry, vacuum, dust, and sweep and mop the kitchen floor.

He rushed to the school to pick up the kids and got into an argument with them on the way home which he had to sort out in a gentle 'motherly' fashion. He set out cookies and milk and got the kids organized to do their homework, then set up the ironing board and was able to watch a bit of TV while he did the ironing. By then it was 4:30 pm, so he began peeling potatoes and washed greens for salads. He prepared the chops and fresh vegetables and got everything ready in time for an early dinner.

After supper, he cleaned the kitchen, ran the dishwasher, folded laundry, bathed the kids, and put them to bed. At 9:00 pm he was exhausted and although his chores weren't finished for the day, he went to bed where he was expected to make love, which he managed to get through without complaining. The next morning he awoke and immediately knelt by the bed and said :-

"Lord, I don't know what I was thinking. I was so wrong to envy my wife's being able to stay home all

day. Please, O please, let us trade back!"

The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, replied, "My son, I feel you have learned your lesson and I will be happy to change things back to the way they were. You'll just have to wait 9 months though, because you got pregnant last night!!!"

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

TAKING CARE OF YOUR CAT

When your cat cries and he has food, check the water.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A California grandmother who went with a friend to a concert at a restaurant said she was shocked to find "Old Ladies" printed at the top of her bill. The woman, who did not want to be identified, said she and a friend won tickets to the concert at the Bull Shed Bar and Grill in Bakersfield and they discovered their bill for the food they ordered at the show had been labeled "Old Ladies," KERO-TV, Bakersfield, reported Thursday. "Not everyone is a stereotype person and I think the idea of tabling, tables with names that are appropriate for people, they can be at table one, table two, table three, whatever, but our table was named 'Old Ladies,'" she said. "At first, I was like 'oh, no way,' and my girlfriend that was with me, she thought it was funny and said it's funny, but to a point," the woman said. A picture of the bill posted on Facebook garnered numerous comments supportive of the women and critical of their server. Angel Gonzales, owner of the restaurant, said the server had only been working for a few weeks and was likely overwhelmed on the night of the concert. "This is not the way we run our business," he said. "That night, it was extremely busy. It was the night of the concert. It's not an excuse. It shouldn't of happened, no matter what," he said. Gonzales said he personally apologized to the woman. "The lady took the time to come down here to talk to me. I explained to her what happened and I apologized to her," he said.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The Ghost Flower has the botanical name of Mohavea confertiflora. It represents the figwort family- Scrophulariaceae and grows in America. It thrives in desert washes and rocky slopes beneath 2,500 feet. 

• This erect annual plant is capable to attain the height from 4 to 16 in. It produces long, covered with hairs, greenish leaves with the length of up to 4 in.

• The plant’s translucent flowering heads gave rise to its common name Ghost Flower.  The blooms come in creamy to yellow tints, blooming in springtime. They are about 1, 5 in across, bearing pinkish to purplish dots on the inner surface of five lobes forming a cup. Lower petal features reddish-purple spot with two yellow stamens that curve upward over it.

• The Ghost Flower gives no nectar but is a very uncommon plant that is a delight to behold.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

24-29

World Leprosy Week
Kid Film Festival
26-31

Catholic Schools Week
Meat Week
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Week
National Medical Group Practice Week

International Hoof Care Week
US National Snow Sculpting Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Auschwitz Liberation Day

·        Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day

·        Holocaust Memorial Day

·        International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust

·        Mozart Day

·        Thomas Crapper Day

·        Viet Nam Peace Day

Today’s Events through History  

1556 - Willem of Orange becomes knight of Guilder Flies

1662 - 1st American lime kiln begins operation (Providence RI)

1888 - National Geographic Society organizes (Wash DC)

1944 - Leningrad liberated from Germany in 880 days with 600,000 killed

1961 - "Sing Along with Mitch" [Miller] premieres on NBC TV

1973 - UCLA's basketball team wins 61st consecutive game (NCAA record)

1976 - "Laverne & Shirley" spinoff from "Happy Days" premieres on ABC TV

1984 - Michael Jackson is burned during filming for Pepsi commercial

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Mikhail Baryshnikov, ballet dancer (That's Dancing) is 66

Keith Olbermann, news/sports presenter is 55

Bridget Fonda, actress (Scandal, Single White Female) is 50

Remembered for being born today

1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, musical prodigy/composer (Figaro)

1832 - Lewis Carroll, [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], author (Alice in Wonderland)

1850 - Samuel Gompers, Dutch/US 1st president (American Federation of Labor)

1900 - Hyman G Rickover, US Admiral (father of modern nuclear navy)

1908 - William Randolph Hearst Jr, newspaper publisher (Hearst Publishing)

1918 - Skitch Henderson, orchestra leader (Tonight Show)

1919 - David Seville, [Ross Bagdasarian], (Alvin & Chipmunks)

1921 - Donna Reed, actress (From Here to Eternity, Wonderful Life)

1936 - Troy Donahue, actor (Surfside Six, Cockfighter, Hawaiian Eye)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

J. D. Salinger, American novelist, 2010, @91

Jack Paar, American television show host, 2004, @85

Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer, stroke, 1901, @77

Claude Akins, actor (Rio Bravo, Lobo), cancer, 1994, @67

John James Audubon, conservationist (Audubon Society), 1851, @65

Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer (He Got the Whole World), heart failure, 1972, @60

Virgil I (Gus) Grissom, astronaut, in Apollo I fire, 1967, @40

Edward Higgins White II, astronaut (Gemini 4), in Apollo I fire, 1967, @36

Roger B Chaffee, astronaut, dies at 31 in Apollo I fire, 1967, @31

Brain Teasers

Robin Hood

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  §