7-5-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 185 / Week: 27 

June Averages: 78° \ 42°
Today: Average Sky Cover: 50%
    H 70°… L 55°… Ave. humidity: 43%
    Wind: ave:   4mph; Gusts:  23mph  
    Average High: 82° Record High:  97° (1913)
    Average Low: 49° Record Low:  32° (1912)
    
Quote of the Day

Historical Highlights for Today

1295 - Scotland & France form alliance, Auld Alliance, against England.

1643 - 1st recorded tornado in US (Essex County, Massachusetts)
1865 - Great Britain delegate's world 1st maximum speed laws
1865 - US Secret Service began operating under the Treasury Department
1871 - Trial against Kiowa chief Satanta (White Bear) & Big Tree, begins
1937 - Spam, the luncheon meat, introduced into the market by Hormel.
1973 - Isle of Man begins issuing its own postage stamps
1985 - Premier Robert Mugabe wins Zimbabwe elections

♫  Birthdays Today: ♫  

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

My Rambling Thoughts   

4^th is going much better than previous days. I was able to move around with some pain. So much better than yesterday.

Today is Mary’s birthday so I stopped by her place for a picnic on her new patio. Very nice. Both of her kids and all the grandkids were there, as well as her husband and another friend. Her son and I had a great conversation about his recent business trip to China. He was there 2 weeks and had many very perceptive observations about China, and cleared up some of the stereotypes of China. Much about China was the same as Cuba. Very interesting. One of the best stories was when they were with some locals. They asked about USA and gun violence. They could not believe that one could walk into a store and buy a gun legally. Nor could they understand why anyone would want to own a gun. He was in some ‘not popular tourist attraction’ cities. He said people would point and smile…seeing a white guy. Locals would even ask if he would hold their baby so they could take a picture. Just cute. And Mary’s husband made the best potato salad I have ever had. It was really nice to sit on the patio, and not have to walk around. Lots of seating made it possible to talk to everyone during the afternoon. Mary’s husband has had gout and suggest ‘tart cherry juice’ as a way to keep it away. I tried some and it really isn’t bad…will get some tomorrow.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

In this teaser, your job is to try and discover the car model within each sentence.
The model is hiding in the consecutive letters within a sentence.
Example: This recipe calls for only one onion. Answer: Neon (oNE ONion)

1. The zookeeper gave the chimp a large banana.

2. The police had the home of the pyromaniac cordoned off.
3. There are galactic areas where our starship has not travelled.
4. Do math majors find people with a nice compass attractive?
5. I once saw a gambler from Mexico roll a seven five times in a row.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Dean Martin and Milburn Stone

Edie Falco: Her Journey from Carmela Soprano to Nurse Jackie

Harry James and Buddy Rich – Cherokee

Huey Lewis And The News - The Heart Of Rock & Roll

Inky Dinky Duet - Jimmy Durante and Mrs. Miller

P. T. Barnum Museum

OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

Percentage change since 2004 in the number of people using Texas’ long term care Medicaid programs: +612  

Unusual Fact of the Day

The first disposable diaper was called a “boater.”

Trivia about AZ…

The original London Bridge was shipped stone-by-stone and reconstructed in Lake Havasu City.

The capital of the Navajo Reservation is Window Rock.

Interesting facts about Islam…

Muslims accept the original unaltered Torah (the Gospel of Moses) and the original Bible (the Gospel of Jesus) since they were revealed by God. However, none of those original scriptures are in existence today, in their entirety. Therefore, Muslims follow the subsequent, final, and preserved revelation of God, the Holy Qur'an.

Weather Facts…

The Earth sees about 760 thunderstorms every hour, scientists have calculated.

People Facts…

In 2002, Kenyan Maasai tribespeople donated 14 cows to the US to help with the aftermath of 9/11.

Historical Facts…

In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant that she accepted.

Joke-of-the-day

So there's this man with a parrot. And his parrot swears like a sailor, I mean he's a pistol. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself.

The trouble is that the guy who owns the parrot is a quiet, conservative type, and this bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy.
One day, it gets to be too much, so the guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard, and yells, "QUIT IT!" But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever.
Then the guy gets mad and says, "That's it. I'll get you." and locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet.
This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of invective that would make a veteran sailor blush.
At that point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer.
For the first few seconds, there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly goes very quiet.
At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minutes of silence, he's so worried that he opens up the freezer door.
The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on."
The man is astounded. He can't understand the transformation that has come over the parrot.
Then the parrot says, "By the way, what did the chicken do?" 

Rules of Thumb:   

TESTING A DIRECT-MAIL CAMPAIGN

For a reliable direct-mail test, you should mail enough pieces to get at least 300 responses.

Yeah, It Really Happened

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (UPI) - Dark matter is everywhere. According to astronomers, it makes up some 80 percent of all matter in the universe. But since it doesn't absorb or emit light, scientists have never seen dark matter. They don't even know what it is exactly.

But a recent spike of x-rays originating from 70 different galaxy clusters has some scientists excited at the off chance it's a signal from decaying dark matter.
"We know that the dark matter explanation is a long shot, but the payoff would be huge if we're right," said Esra Bulbul, who led the research into the strange spike in x-ray emissions, recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.
"We're going to keep testing this interpretation and see where it takes us," added Bulbul -- an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Because it's never been seen or observed, what dark matter is composed of exactly is highly theoretical. So far, scientists best guess is that dark matter is made up of a sterile neutrinos -- a type of neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle.
The mysterious x-ray spike was picked up by the highly sensitive NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite. But scientists say they need even more precise observations of the x-ray emissions if they're going to arrive at more definitive conclusions.
"We have a lot of work to do before we can claim, with any confidence, that we've found sterile neutrinos," admitted study co-author Maxim Markevitch, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "But just the possibility of finding them has us very excited."
"Our next step is to combine data from Chandra and JAXA's [the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's] Suzaku mission for a large number of galaxy clusters to see if we find the same X-ray signal," explained co-author Adam Foster, one of Bulbul's colleagues in Cambridge.
Though normal matter could be responsible for the spike, scientists say the pattern doesn't mesh well with how hot gases are understood to give off x-rays.

Somewhat Useless Information   

Once in England, because of a water spout, it rained frogs!

Almost two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered by water. If the earth were flat, water would cover everything in a layer two miles deep!

During a solar eclipse, the shadows of leaves make the same crescent shape of the eclipsing sun. The image is made by light passing through tiny holes in the leaves.

Monks in the 16th century recorded seeing a giant explosion on the side of the Moon. It most likely was a large meteor that slammed into the Moon and left a large crater. It was a good thing the Moon was between us and the meteor!

See the rings of Saturn while you can. They slowly wobble up and down over the years as Saturn’s poles point away from then towards the sun. The rings disappear when edge on to our line of sight. Currently they are almost at their widest point and can be seen even in binoculars and small telescopes.

Check Your Calendar

Observances This Week:

1-7

National Unassisted Homebirth Week

3-6
Beans and Bacon Days; International Gay Square Dancing Week

4-10
Freedom Week

Today Is  

Bikini Day: 5
Hop A Park Day: 5 
International Day of Cooperatives: 5 
International Cherry Pit Spitting Day: 5 

World Environment Day
/\
Independence Day (Algeria-1962-from France)
Independence Day (Venezuela-1811-from Spain)
                                                        
Today’s Events through History  

2012 - South Korea announce plans for "scientific' whaling of minke whales

Birthday’s Today                                                        

Huey Lewis, rocker is 64

Richard "Goose" Gossage, relief pitcher (Yankees, Padres, A's) is 53
Edie Falco, actress (Sopranos) is 51

Remembered for being born today

1794-1851 - Sylvester Graham, developed graham cracker

1801-1870 - David Farragut, Admiral ("Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!")
1810-1891 - Phineas Taylor Barnum, circus promoter (Barnum & Bailey)
1902-1985 - Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr, Sen-/ambassador/VP candidate
1904-1980 - Milburn Stone, actor (Doc-Gunsmoke)
1909-1989 - Andrei Gromyko, diplomat/USSR President
1911-1974 - Georges Pompidou, President/Prime Minister of France
1996-2003 - Dolly the sheep, 1st mammal to be cloned; in Scotland

Historical Obits Today                                                           

Mrs. Miller, singer (Tonight Show), 1997, @90

Ted Williams, baseball hall of famer (Red Sox) 2002, @83
Harry James, swing-era bandleader/trumpeter, cancer, 1983, @67
Ben Alexander, actor (Dragnet), natural causes, 1969, @58

Brain Teasers                         

1. Impala (chIMP A LArge)

2. Accord (pyromaniAC CORDoned)
3. Regal (aRE GALactic)
4. Passat (comPASS ATtractive)
5. Corolla (MexiCO ROLL A)

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  §