2-17-14

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!

Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 08 / Day: 048   

Today: L 32°…H 57°… Ave. humidity: 44%

Wind: ave:   14mph; Gusts:  31mph  

Average Low: 19° Record Low:  -8° (1956)

Average High: 46° Record High:  66° (1996)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1621 - Miles Standish appointed 1st commander of Plymouth colony

1776 - 1st volume of Gibbon's "Decline & Fall of Roman Empire" published

1801 - US House of Representatives breaks electoral college tie, Jefferson over Burr

1817 - 1st US city lit by gas (Baltimore)

1876 - Sardines 1st canned (Julius Wolff-Eastport, Maine)

1897 - National Organization of Mothers forms (Parent Teacher Association)

1904 - Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly," premieres in Milan

1913 - 1st minimum wage law in US takes effect (Oregon)

1931 - 1st telecast of a sporting event in Japan (baseball)

1933 - 1st issue of "Newsweek" magazine published

1933 - US Senate accept Blaine Act: ending prohibition

1957 - Suez Canal reopens

1958 - Comic strip "BC" 1st appears

1959 - 1st weather satellite launched, Vanguard 2, 9.8 kg

1962 - Beach Boys introduced a new musical style with their hit "Surfin"

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A good non-tech Sunday…all my tech stuff is finally working fine again. Hard to believe how dependant I have become to tech stuff. While I certainly enjoy all the news and information available to me at any time I want it, when something fails it is very distracting.

 

Speaking of technology…when I was a youngster, it was black and white TV and having to get up and walk across the room to change the channel. Now I have HDTV with fantastically clear pictures. The issue is that not all channels are HD. Watching a non-HD channel is like watching black and white TV. I remember when a family friend got a color TV. It was amazing to watch NBC, the only color channel at their house. Another neighbor had a console TV that had a remote control with a cable that went around the walls to the couch. You could sit on the couch and change the channel…it was amazing. Our house was not the first on the block to get color TV, but when we did, it too was amazing.   We certainly have made TV more enjoyable and easier than those old days.

 

Caught up on my Sunday news shows…in HD, of course and read the Sunday paper, which hasn’t changed much since I was a kid…with the addition of the occasional color photo. Guess the reporting of news is still just reporting the news. Our paper is available on line, it’s on Facebook, and now they have just announced that they will have an app to get the latest news. I may get it, but not that much breaking news really happens in our little mountain town, so maybe not. I’ll see how much the app costs before I download it. While I do use apps, so far, all of them have been free. I’m such a cheapskate.

 

As a kid and as a young teacher we recognized Lincoln’s birthday and Washington’s Birthday at school. I made so many Feb bulletin boards with silhouettes and red hearts, there must have been a paper shortage of black, red and white during February. Later we added Black History month. Somewhere along the line, Washington’s Birthday became Presidents Day, or President’s Day, or Presidents’ Day. Officially it is still Washington’s Birthday that gives Federal workers a day off. Turns out that no matter how you punctuate it, it was changed by retailers across the country, and not anybody in DC. Washington’s Birthday Sale just didn’t have enough punch, so they just started calling it a Presidents Day Sale…with or without that all important apostrophe located somewhere. Not many business owners are into picky grammar. Now it is called that by most of the country.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Your task is to change ONE letter in each of the following eight words to discover a common theme. 

LOIN STEAL BILLET FRYING CLANK LINE CAKE STEED

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• "Surfin" - The Beach Boys

• Hal Holbrook Mark Twain Tonight!

• Larry the Cable Guy - Shopping at Wal-Mart

• Michael Jordan Career Highlights (Hall of Fame 2009)

• TOWN WITHOUT PITY

Remembering TV’s great shows:

"ER": With a pulse-quickening pace and a roster of hot docs — get us George Clooney, stat! — this electrifying smash revived the hospital drama.

Words Shakespeare invented

method in his madnessHamlet Act 2, Scene 2Hamlet:Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.Polonius:[Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.

Bizarre Punishments

Holding Hands While Being Laughed At

Usually when two students get into a fight at school they face suspension or possibly expulsion. However, at Westwood High School in Mesa, Arizona, two students who got into a brawl were faced with an ultimatum. They were given two options—either accept suspension or sit in the courtyard holding hands with each other for 15 minutes. The students quickly agreed to hold hands—but little did they know their punishment would soon go viral. Other students pointed, laughed, and took pictures and videos as the two miscreants tried to hide their faces.

The students also made lewd comments about the kids’ sexual orientation and called them embarrassing names. While some local parents apparently supported Principal Tim Richard’s bizarre punishment, it was strongly frowned upon by the Mesa School District. Both students were thoroughly embarrassed by the ordeal, as students continued teasing them far beyond the 15 minutes during lunch—although they have said that they’ve learned their lesson and don’t plan on ever fighting at school again.

Strange Obsessions of famous people

Albert Camus--Fear Of Early Demise

The noted philanderer and philosopher, Albert Camus (1913–1960), grew up in an impoverished household with no running water or electricity. As head-of-household, Camus’s stern grandmother used a bullwhip to keep her family in line. Even with this difficult start to life, Camus managed to earn a scholarship that enabled him to attend high school. At the age of 17, however, he narrowly survived a bout with tuberculosis and was forced to take a year off from school to recover. Yet again, Camus persevered, returned to school, and became a published author even before entering the University of Algiers.

In spite of his ability to survive and his early successes in life, Camus was obsessed with the notion that he would die at an early age. He once told a girlfriend that he “sensed evil floating in the air.” For Camus, this fear created an obsession with death in general. Not only did he carry a suicide note written by a friend of Leon Trotsky’s in his pocket, but he asked an American girlfriend to send him copies of Embalmer’s Monthly magazine.

Filled with pessimism and fueled by fear, Camus was determined to complete his writings before he died. Even winning the Nobel Prize was something of a bad omen to Camus, who believed that the award was a stamp on the end of a person’s career. The pressure he felt to complete hismagnum opus intensified and continued to haunt him until his death, when his fears came to fruition. On January 4, 1960, Camus died in a car crash at the relatively young age of 46.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

• Number of people Obama has pardoned since becoming president: 38

• Number of turkeys: 8

Unusual Fact of the Day

During the 2002 Iraqi election, Saddam Hussein's campaign song was Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."

Joke-of-the-day

A guy walks into a bar and orders a shot of whisky. He gulps it down and peeks into his shirt pocket. He orders another shot of whisky, gulps it down and peeks into his short pocket. He orders a third shot and does the same thing. After the sixth shot, he asks the bartender for the bill, pays and starts to walk out.

Curiosity gets the better of the bartender and he says to the guy, "Excuse me, but I noticed that every time you drank a shot, you kept looking into your pocket. I was wondering what's in your pocket."

The guy slurs, "Well, I have a picture of my wife in my pocket. I keep drinking until she starts to look good."  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

WATCHING YOUR BREATH

When you see your breath, it is below 45 F.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

The semi-obscure Florida Statute 790.15 took center stage in January following a Miami Herald report of a resident of the town of Big Pine Key who routinely target-shoots his handgun in his yard, with impunity, to the consternation of neighbors. The statute permits open firing on private property (except shooting over a public right of way or an occupied dwelling), and several cities have tried, unsuccessfully, to restrict that right, citing "public safety" in residential neighborhoods. (A 2011 lobbying campaign by the National Rifle Association, and a state supreme court decision, nixed any change in the law.) "Negligent" shooting is illegal, but only a misdemeanor. Thus, even skillful shooting next door to a day care center or in a small yard that abuts a high-trafficked pedestrian street is likely perfectly legal. One Florida legislator who was originally from Alaska noted that even in Anchorage people cannot fire at will in their yards. [Miami Herald, 1-26-2014]

Somewhat Useless Information   

10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Valentine’s Day!

• Men spend almost double the money that women do.

• 15% of women in the United States, buy themselves flowers. Don’t ask why.

• Condom sales increase by 20 to 30 per cent during that period, according to Durex.

• Pregnancy test sales also increase in March!

• On Valentine’s Day in Japan, women have to give to men chocolate. Men, are supposed to return the favor on the White Day (March 14th). (And as you know, chocolate is considered to be aphrodisiac!).

• What do Americans “offer” as a gift on Valentine’s Day? According to U.S. Census Bureau:

• Greeting Cards              65%       Plush 21%

• Date Night                     44%       Other Gifts 17%

• Candy                              38%       Perfume/Cologne 12%

• Flowers                           32%       Jewelry 11%

• Gift Cards                       29%                     

• In Pakistan, Valentine’s Day is considered as “a shameful day”.

• Teachers seem to be the luckiest during Valentine’s Day, as they receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, closely followed by children, mothers, wives and partner.

• About 3 per cent of pet owners will give gifts to their pets in Valentine’s Day.

• Each year are exchanged about 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards. Though in Victorian times it was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine’s Day card.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
☼13-19☼

World Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Awareness Week9 
☼14-17☼

Great Backyard Bird Count
☼14-21☼

National Condom Week 
National Nestbox Week
NCCDP Alzheimer's & Dementia Staff Education Week
☼16-22☼

Brotherhood / Sisterhood Week 
Build A Better Trade Show Image Week)
Through With The Chew
National Date (fruit) Week
National Justice for Animals Week
National Engineers Week
National Entrepreneurship Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Champion Crab Races Day

·        My Way Day

·        National PTA Founders Day

·         World Human Spirit Day

+++++

·        Washington’s Birthday (US)

·        Presidents Day, President’s Day, Presidents’ Day (US)

Today’s Events through History  

1600 - Philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned alive at Campo de' Fiori in Rome, 

     charged of heresy

1795 - Thomas Seddal harvests 8.3-kg potato from his garden Chester, England

1878 - 1st telephone exchange in SF opens with 18 phones

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Hal Holbrook, actor (All the President's Men, Mark Twain) is 89

Jim Brown, NFL full back (Cleveland Browns)/actor (Dirty Dozen) is 78

Mary Ann Mobley, Biloxi Ms, Miss America-1959 is 75

Dodie Stevens, actress (Mary Hartman!) is 68

Lou Diamond Phillips, Philippines, actor (La Bamba) is 52

Michael Jordan, NBA guard/forward (Chicago Bulls) is 51

Larry the Cable Guy (Daniel Lawrence Whitney), comedian is 51

Billie Joe Armstrong, singer/musician (Green Day) is 42

Jerry O'Connell, actor (Scream 2, Andrew-My Secret Identity) is 40

Paris Hilton, American actress and heiress is 33

Remembered for being born today

1758 - John Pinkerton, Scottish historian

1844 - A Montgomery Ward, found mail-order business (Montgomery Ward)

1908 - Walter L "Red" Barber, Miss, sports announcer (Bkln Dodgers, NY Yanks)

1914 - Arthur Kennedy, Worcester Mass, actor (Fantastic Voyage, Peyton Place)

1942 - Huey Newton, Black Panther leader

1941 - Gene Pitney, Hartford Ct, vocalist/songwriter (Town Without Pity)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Molière, [Jean Baptiste Poquelin], French playwright (The Misanthrope), TB, 1673, @51

Geronimo (Goyaałé ) [one who yawns], Apache chief, pneumonia, 1909, @79

Lee Strasberg, acting coach/actor (And Justice for All), 1982, @80

Mindy McCready, country singer, suicide, 2013, @37

Brain Teasers

Lois Steel Bullet Flying Clark Lane Cape Speed

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  §