3-4-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 063   / Week: 10  

March monthly extremes: Hi 73°(2007) Low -19 (1966)

Today: L 28°…H 49°… Ave. humidity: 78%

     Wind: ave:   3mph; Gusts:  14mph  

     Average Low: 21° Record Low:  -19° (1966)

    Average High: 48° Record High:  68° (1910)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1797 - John Adams inaugurated as 2nd president of US

1801 - 1st president inaugurated in Washington DC (Thomas Jefferson)

1809 - Madison becomes 1st president inaugurated in American-made 

     clothes

1825 - John Quincy Adams inaugurated as 6th president

inaugurated1829 - Andrew Jackson as 7th US President

1837 - Martin Van Buren inaugurated as 8th president

1861 - Lincoln's inaugurated as 16th pres; 1st time US has 5 former pres

1865 - President Lincoln inaugurated for his 2nd term as president

1869 - Ulysses Grant inaugurated as 18th US President

1881 - James A Garfield inaugurated as 20th president

1885 - Grover Cleveland inaugurated as 1st Democratic pres since Civil War

1889 - Benjamin Harrison inaugurated as 23rd president

1893 - Grover Cleveland (D) inaugurated as 24th US president (2nd term)

1901 - President William McKinley inaugurated for 2nd term as president

1909 - President Taft inaugurated at 27th president during 10" snowstorm

1913 - Woodrow Wilson inaugurated as 28th president

1929 - Charles Curtis (R-Kansas) becomes 1st native American VP

1929 - Herbert Hoover inaugurated as 31st US President

<> 

0051 - Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis 

     (head of the youth).

1792 - Oranges introduced to Hawaii

1861 - Confederate States adopt "Stars & Bars" flag

1885 - Gilbert & Sullivan's opera "Mikado," premieres in London

2013 - The Papal Conclave begins to select the successor of Pope Benedict XVI

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

My Bank story just goes on and on. Today it was 2 hours on the phone, since I never got an email releasing the funds, and 45 min with my local bank manager. Now I’m told the check will arrive on or before Mar 11. I had the bank fax a letter to the tour operator regarding their mess up.  They got it and are very understanding. I was so frustrated that I contacted my US Reps office about the banking regulations and miscommunication about my money with my bank determining how I spend my hard earned money. Such a crazy bureaucratic mess up.  To continue the sage, I emailed a privacy release form, as directed my US Reps office and then got an email back that the bank will not honor an electronic signature and I must go to her local office to sign the damn form.

 

I’m not a big Academy Awards fan…people thanking everyone and everyone’s pet for helping them get an award. But, the highlights have been fairly amazing.  Guess this year was different than most years. Oh well. Ellen tweeted a pic that crashed Twitter…and Samsung Galaxy5 phones have donated almost $3million to charity for the number of re-tweets after Twitter got back on line. Cool.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

A 3-letter-word has been taken out of each of the following words. Can you figure it out?

AR_ _ _A NO_ _ _ RE_ _ _E _ _ _AM

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Chaz Bono's Reveal -- The Doctors

• Everybody loves Raymond - Patricia Heaton

• Let It Go (Disney's "Frozen") Vivaldi's Winter

• Minnie Pearl tells jokes with Roy Acuff

• Mitchell Butel - Tit Willow - The Mikado

• Rick Perry: OOPS

Remembering TV’s great shows

"NYPD Blue"--Anticipating the spate of antiheroes, this down-and-dirty police drama shattered network taboos.

Look back at History

Apollo 11

For once, we will end on a major chord. In just about a week we remember the significant events of July 20, 1969, when humanity did itself proud, in spite of all its wars, sadism, hatred, and insanity. We set foot on another world. We have no choice but to remember the awful things our species has perpetrated on itself and on Planet Earth. But we can now choose to think of ourselves as ultimately good. Beneath it all, we are a decent species. We did not, until this date, possess or even deserve a universal common ground on which to agree. Now, no matter what else happens, if extraterrestrial life ever learns of us, they will learn that we walked on our own moon, studied it up close and personal, and returned safe and sound.

And it was the United States of America who saw it through. After tragedies uncountable, the most notorious of which was the fiery death of Virgil Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. But NASA and most Americans understood that the prize at the end of the race was worth finishing. England can claim some pride, in that Sir Isaac Newton was proven right about everything he said. Without him, NASA wouldn’t have known which way was up.

Yet, some have detracted from America’s almighty achievement of the Moon Landing with the argument that America achieved its goal in order to beat the Soviets to it. Thus, it was an achievement born out of hatred and distrust. But that isn’t fair. Once the Cold War was over, Russia and America worked, and have worked, together in space exploration, interested only in science and discovery. It is not NASA’s fault, nor the fault of Russia’s space program, that Capitalism and Communism didn’t get along.

America’s distrust and loathing of Communism is most directly attributable to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who saw in denouncing it a chance to gain power for himself. He preyed on people’s fear, and this works like a charm. Today, Russia is no longer Communist, and cooperates with America’s and other space programs to study and reach the stars.

But only Americans have walked on the Moon, 12 of them. No one of any other nation has. There are five different flags on the Moon: the first planted is from the USA; out of respect for other superpowers, the USA has planted the flags of the Soviet Union, Japan, the European Union, and India.

NASA is now very intent on going back, and someday the next, much more giant leap will be taken: to Mars. Whoever it is who speaks first on Mars must remember the sentiment Neil Armstrong expressed, “We came in peace for all mankind.”

Lexiophiles Delights

. A will is a dead giveaway. . With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

Ancient Sports

Buzkashi: Culture: Turkic

Developed by the Turkic people sometime between the 10th and 15th centuries, the sport of buzkashi is still played to this day, predominately by the descendents of its inventors. The national sport of Afghanistan, it involves two teams, riding on horseback, whose goal is to drag a headless goat carcass across the field and drop it inside a predetermined area, usually a circle. Occasionally, a sheep or calf is used instead of a goat.

Banned under the Taliban’s rule, buzkashi is a violent sport, with the riders equipped with whips with which to beat the other riders’ horses. They’re not supposed to use their whips on the riders themselves, but that rule is often disregarded. Often, the social status derived from owning the horses of the winning team is enough to cover the costs associated with maintaining the health of the animals between matches. The origins of this violent sport are lost in time, but the story goes that Genghis Khan and his Mongols would steal livestock from the Turkic people, who would brave death to snatch it back from them on horseback.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Percentage increase in ‘employee misconduct’ at the TSA between 2010 and 2012: 26

Unusual Fact of the Day

If your doctor is going to perform an auscultation on you, don't worry; he or she will just be using his stethoscope.

Joke-of-the-day

A man takes his place in the theater, but his seat is too far from the stage. 

He whispers to the usher, "This is a mystery, and I have to watch a mystery close up. Get me a better seat, and I'll give you a handsome tip." 

The usher moves him into the second row, and the man hands the usher a quarter. 

The usher looks at the quarter, leans over and whispers, "The wife did it."  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

SETTING COLUMN WIDTH

Avoid columns of type more than 65 characters long. Longer lines cause readers to read the same line twice.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

-- The Super Bowl may be the "holy grail" for Las Vegas sports gambling, but outside the United States, horse-racing, soccer and, surprisingly, pro tennis dominate. Tennis provides bettors with 19,000 matches a year (compared to 1,200 NBA games, 2,400 Major League Baseball games and fewer than 300 NFL games), with betting on 400,000 individual games and even on individual points, of which there are nearly 2.5 million, according to a January New York Times dispatch from Melbourne, Australia. In January's Australian Open, a routine fourth-round women's match between players ranked ninth and 28th in the world attracted more than $4 million in wagers -- on just the first set. [New York Times, 1-22-2014]  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The ballpoint pen was invented by a Hungarian who manufactured them in a factory in England, which was eventually taken over by a French company called Bic.

• The inventor of cellophane was trying to make a stainproof tablecloth and came up with the first clear food wrap instead.

• A miler at the University of Oregon heated some rubber in a waffle iron to get the kind of traction he wanted on the soles of his running shoes. He started a shoe business and named the shoes Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory.

• The idea of shopping carts didn't take off right away, so the inventor decided to hire some phonies to push the carts around and pretend they were shopping.

• Vending machines have been around since the 17th century. The first one, in England, dispensed one pipe full of tobacco for a penny.

• The word yo-yo means "come-come" in Tagalog. It was used as a hunting weapon in the Philippines.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
1-16

Iditarod Race
1-7

National Cheerleading Week
National Ghostwriters Week
National Write A Letter of Appreciation Week
Universal Human Beings Week 
Will Eisner Week
2-8

Celebrate Your Name Week
National Consumer Protection Week
National Invasive Species Awareness Week
National Pancake Week
National Pet Sitters Week
National Schools Social Work Week
National Severe Storm Preparedness Week
National Sleep Awareness Week
National Words Matter Week
Professional Pet Sitters Week
Read an E-Book Week
Return The Borrowed Books Week
Save Your Vision Week
Severe Weather Preparedness Week

Telecommuter Appreciation Week

Women in Construction Week

3-7
Newspaper in Education Week
National School Breakfast Week
Share A Story - Shape A Future Week

3-9
Women of Aviation Worldwide Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Benjamin Harrison Day

·        Courageous Followers Day

·        Holy Experiment Day

·        International Scrapbooking Industry Day

·        March Forth-Do Something Day

·        Mardi Gras Pancake Day

·        National Day of Unplugging

·        National Grammar Day

·        National Grammar Day

·        National Pancake Day (IHOP)

·        Old Inauguration Day Toy

·        Paczki Day

·        Soldier Day

·        Unique Names Day

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·        Admission Day (Vermont-1791-14th)

Today’s Events through History  

1913 - Dept of Commerce & Labor split into separate departments

1933 - FDR inaugurated as 32nd pres, pledges to pull US out of Depression &

      says "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"

1964 - Jimmy Hoffa convicted of jury tampering

1966 - John Lennon, says "We (Beatles) are more popular than Jesus"

1980 - Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF wins parliamentary election in Zimbabwe

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Paula Prentiss, [Ragusa] actress (Parallax View, He & She) is 76

Rick Perry, Governor of Texas is 64

Patricia Heaton, actress (Debra-Everybody Loves Raymond) is 56

Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, boxer (killed a boxer in the ring) is 53

Steven Weber, actor (Brian Hackett-Wings) is 53

Chaz Bono [Chastity Sun Bono], actress (Sonny & Cher Show) is 45

Remembered for being born today

1394 - Henry the Navigator, Prince/sponsors Portuguese voyages of discovery

1678 - Antonio Vivaldi, Venice, Baroque violin virtuoso/composer (4 Seasons)

1847 - Karl Bayer, Austrian chemist

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Harry Blackmun, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1999, @90

Arthur Babbitt, animator (Mr Magoo, Goofy), 1992, @84

Minnie Pearl, country comedienne (Grand Ole Opry), 1996, @84

Thomas Eagleton, American politician, heart complications, 2007, @77

Wesley Bolin, Governor of Arizona, while in office, 1978, @68

Matthew Perry, U.S. naval officer opened Japan, alcoholism, 1858, @63

Jesse Chisholm, pioneer of the Chisholm Trail, food poisoning, 1868, @62

Adam Rainer, only man in recorded human history ever to have been both a dwarf 

     and a giant due to pituitary tumor, 1950, @51

Joan of England, Queen Consort of Scotland, wife of Alexander II, 1238, @27  

Brain Teasers

MAD.
ARMADA NOMAD REMADE MADAM MADONNA

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  §