5-6-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 126  / Week: 19 

Today: L 39°…H 70°… Ave. humidity: 27% Red Flag
    Wind: ave:   5mph; Gusts:  17mph  
    Average High: 64° Record High:  82° (1947)
    Average Low: 32° Record Low:  14° (1975)
         
Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

1527 - Spanish & German Imperial troops sack Rome; ending Renaissance

1626 -Purchase of Manhattan--Shinnecock or Canarsee Indians, sell to Peter Minuit.
1833 - John Deere makes 1st steel plough
1851 - Linus Yale patents Yale lock
1889 - Universal Exposition opens in Paris, Eiffel Tower completed
1890 - Mormon Church renounces polygamy 
1910 - George V becomes King of UK upon the death of his father, Edward VII.
1940 - Pulitzer prize awarded to John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath)
1941 - Joseph Stalin became premier of Russia
1954 - Roger Bannister of Britain breaks 4 minute mile (3:59:4)
1957 - Pulitzer prize awarded to John F Kennedy (Profiles in Courage)
1967 - Maureen Wilton runs female world record marathon (3:15:22)
1987 - Mario Andretti sets one-lap speed record at Indy at 218.204 MPH
1994 - Nelson Mandela & his ANC, finally confirmed winners in South Africa
1997 - Michael Jackson & Bee Gees inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
2001 - In Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes 1st pope to enter a mosque.
2013 - Wal-Mart becomes the largest company by revenue on the Fortune 500 list
2013 - The US Senate passes a bill enabling taxing of online sales
 
♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫  

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

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

I had lunch with a former colleague at one of my favorites, and ran into Mary who was having lunch with one of her friends from the pool. Good lunch, nice to see that John is enjoying his retirement and looking forward to his wife’s upcoming retirement. He has a 4^th grandchild due in Sept. He and his wife have a good chuck of money in Thrift Savings, a program for Federal employees. I think I convinced him that he needs to at least talk to a financial advisor to see if he can get a better return after his wife retires. TS is a good program for many and has a decent long term return, but there are lots of ways to make more with not a lot of risk. Time will tell and we will probably meet for lunch in a couple of weeks.

I head to the dentist tomorrow for another crown. I don’t like the numbing, but the rest is OK. Sure would like to have a dentist that doesn’t have to send out for the crown as if I lived in Phoenix, I could get same day service. The temporary is always a concern and two of the three I already have would come out before the permanent one arrives in our little mountain town. However, the weather and crowds in Phoenix makes a choice of living there crazy, at least for me.

I am not a Vet but worked with and know many vets. What is happening with the VA is inexcusable. These Vets put their life on the line every day of their service. They deserve the best care we can give them. DOD has a huge budget and wastes lots of money on things we don’t need. The VA has to fight Congress for every penny. How can the War Mongers in Congress keep sending our young men and women into combat situations around the world and then not care for them when they return injured either physically or mentally. It makes no sense. I lived through the Draft and learned that the local draft boards seldom sent the rich or famous to war during that time. Now these youth are volunteering to serve and are returning home to find that they are thanked for their service at every airport and many other places, but when they need medical treatment, they are put on horrific waiting lists. It is time to do something.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Beginning with "de", add letters from the given pool to create a seven-letter word which means "to withhold something". Do not rearrange the letters as you go.

Pool: E R V P I

1) DE

2) _ _ _
3) _ _ _ _
4) _ _ _ _ _
5) _ _ _ _ _ _
6) _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Bob Seger - Against the Wind

George Lindsey-My Home Town

Marie Montessori

Orson Welles on Hemingway

Touched By An Angel--Roma Downey

**Comment--Found on FB and worth the watch!**
Thank You for Your Service--Moment of Truth

OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

Estimated value of goods and services distributed for free on the Internet in 2011: $376,000,000,000

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.

Number One Country in the world…  

Italy: Go-Karts

Considering how good Italy is at virtually every kind of sport that involves strapping a driver into a fiberglass coffin and asking him to go around hairpin corners at 200 MPH, it’s probably not surprising that they whup ass at the mini version of that too.

In a way though, it is surprising. This completely confirms a stereotype we’ve all been too scared to admit. Just for a second, rack your brains and see if you can think of a fictional Italian with a penchant for go-kart racing. Yes, Mario Kart isn’t just stupidly good fun. It’s also an accurate representation of how much ass the Italians kick at karting.

Largest Animals in the world…

The Tallest Land Animal in the World: The Giraffe

The giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) is an African even-toed ungulate mammal and the tallest living terrestrial animal in the world. It stands 5–6 m (16–20 ft) tall and has an average weight of 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) for males and 830 kg (1,800 lb) for females. The giraffe has an extremely elongated neck, which can be over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in length, accounting for nearly half of the animal’s vertical height. The long neck results from a disproportionate lengthening of the cervical vertebrae, not from the addition of more vertebrae.  

Joke-of-the-day

A nursery school driver was delivering a van full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog’s duties.

‘They use him to keep crowds back,’ said Tommy.

‘No,’ said Billy, ‘he’s just for good luck.’

Peter brought the argument to a close. ‘They use the dogs, he said firmly, to find the fire hydrants….'

Rules of Thumb:   

MOWING A WET LAWN

The lawn is too wet to mow until all the puddles evaporate from the asphalt driveway.

Yeah, It Really Happened

It seems a former guard at a Cripple Creek casino in Colorado figured out a way to skim the place for a staggering $100,000 in cash. The story doesn't say, but we can assume he did this over a period of time.

But I guess the lure of all that cash laying around under his mattress was too much of a temptation. After quitting the casino he casually walked into a Harley Davidson dealership and plopped down $6,000 for a used motorcycle. That is $6,000 in $20 bills.

Investigators into the money leaking out of the casino began to suspect the former guard, who earned a little over a thousand dollars a month, when he spent $35,000 in one month, in cash.

But he wasn't completely unprepared for being caught. He had a story all cooked up. He told investigators the money was from payoffs from Honduran drug dealers.

Somewhat Useless Information   

Did you know that the human eye is so sensitive that could spot a candle flame flickering up to 30 miles (48 km) away, assuming the Earth was completely flat and dark? It is really impressive, especially if we take into account that the approximate field of view of an individual human eye is 95° away from the nose, 75° downward, 60° toward the nose, and 60° upward, allowing humans to have an almost 180-degree forward-facing horizontal field of view.

Calendar Information        

This Week’s Observances:

1-7
Choose Privacy Week  

3-11
Dystonia Awareness Week
National Tourism Week

4-10
Be Kind To Animals Week
Children's Mental Health Week
Dating and Life Coach Recognition Week
Drinking Water Week 
Flexible Work Arrangement Week 
Goodwill Industries Week 
Kids Win Week
NAOSH Week 
National Alcohol & Drug Related Birth Defects Awareness Week
National Anxiety & Depression Awareness Week
National Correctional Officer's Week
National Family Week 
National Hug Holiday Week 
National Occupational Safety & Health Day  
National Pet Week
National Post Card Week
National Raisin Week 
North American Occupational Safety & Health Week  
PTA Teacher Appreciation Week 
Public Service Recognition Week  

5-11
Screen-Free Week
Spring Astronomy Week
Teacher Appreciation Week
Update Your References Week
National Wildflower Week
Spring Astronomy Week

6-12
National Nurses Day and Week      

Today Is 

Asthma Day  

Beverage Day
Buddah Day
Give Local America  
Joseph Brackett Day-- Shaker religious leader
No Diet Day
No Homework Day
Nurses Day or National RN Recognition Day     
No Diet Day
No Homework Day
No Pants Day World
<>
Vom HaAtzmout (Israel Independence Day-1948)
                                                           
Today’s Events through History  

1794 - Haiti, under Toussaint L'Ouverture, revolts against France

1935 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Audrey Wurdemann (Bright Ambush)
1957 - Last broadcast of "I Love Lucy" on CBS-TV
1963 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Barbara Tuchman (Guns of August)
1987 - Gary Hart denies affair with model Donna Rice

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Willie Mays, baseball centerfielder (Giants, NY Mets) is 83
Bob Seger, folk singer (Silver Bullet Band) is 69
Tony Blair, British Prime Minister is 61
Tom Bergeron, game show host (DWTS) is 59
George Clooney, actor (Dr Douglas Ross-ER, Batman) is 53
Roma Downey, Derry Ireland, actress (Touched by an Angel) is 54

Remembered for being born today

1758-1794 - Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary
1829-1921 - Phoebe Ann Coffin, 1st female ordained minister in New England
1856-1920 - Robert Edwin Peary, US, arctic explorer (North Pole)
1856-1939 - Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist \ father of psychology
1895-1926 - Rudolph Valentino, sheik/actor (Eagle)
1898-1974 - Daniel Gerber, beloved by babies at mealtime
1915-1985 - [George] Orson Welles, actor (Citizen Kane, War of the Worlds)
1937-2014 - Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, boxer whose murder convictions were overturned after 19 years in prison

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

George Lindsey, actor (Goober Pyle), 2012, @83

Maria Montessori, Italian physician/educationist, 1952, @81
William J Casey, director of CIA (1981-87), brain tumor, 1987, @74
Edward VII, King of England (1901-10), heart attack, 1910, @68
Guy Williams, actor (Zorro, Lost in Space), aneurysm, 1989, @65
Frank Lyman Baum, author (Wizard of Oz), stroke, 1919, @62
Henry David Thoreau, US writer/pacifist (Walden Pond), TB, 1862, @44

Brain Teasers                                         

1) DE
2) DIE
3) DIVE
4) DRIVE
5) DERIVE
6) DEPRIVE

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  §