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Almanac: Week: 01 \ Day: 003
January
Averages: 43°\16°
86004 Today: H 31°\L 4°
Ave. humidity: 61% Average Sky Cover: 2%
Wind ave: 6mph\Gusts: 24mph
Ave. High: 42° Record
High: 62° (1918)
Ave. Low: 16° Record Low:
-19° (1937)
Observances
Today:
Alaska
Statehood-1959-49th state
<>
Drinking
Straw Day
Festival of Sleep Day
Fruitcake
Toss Day
J.R.R.
Tolkien Day
Memento
Mori "Remember You Die" Day
National
Chocolate Covered Cherry Day
Observances This
Week:
1-7
New
Year's Resolutions Week
Celebration of Life Week
Diet Resolution Week
Silent Record Week
2-8
Someday
We'll Laugh About This Week
« »
Quote of
the Day
Historical
Highlights for Today
1431 - Joan of
Arc handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon
1496 - Leonardo
da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine
1521 - Martin
Luther excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Catholic Church
1746 - Bonnie
Prince Charlie’s army leaves Glasgow
1780 - Danish
national anthem "Kong Kristian...," 1st sung
1825 - Scottish
factory owner Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony
utopian community
1852 - 1st
Chinese arrive in Hawaii
1870 - Construction
begins on Brooklyn Bridge in New York; completed May 1883
1871 - Oleomargarine
patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY
1899 - The
first known use of the word automobile, editorial in New York Times
1938 - March of Dimes established to fight
polio1956 - A fire damages the top
part of the Eiffel Tower
1958 - Edmund
Hillary reaches South Pole overland
1961 - US breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
1962 - Pope John XXIII
excommunicates Fidel Castro
1970 - "Mame" closes at Winter Garden
Theater NYC after 1508 performances
1972 - The
Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb in Belfast, 60 injured
1977 - Apple
Computer, Inc incorporates
1985 - Israel government confirms resettlement of
10,000 Ethiopian Jews
« »
♫
Birthdays Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today
My
Rambling Thoughts
No snow today, lots of sunshine, but still a little cool for my
taste. I did get rid of my cabin fever by heading out this morning. Picked up necessities…my
cupboards were fairly bare…and some not so necessary things. Nice to be out and
about. Ready for a quiet weekend. Actually found some good sales. Sam’s had a
box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts with a Hawaiian picture on the box.
Regular price $9.98, today $5.26.
« »
Brain
Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
What
types of desserts are represented below?
Note: Most are Rebuses, some of which are implied by the language.
1) MrIxolite: "Aaaaaagh!"
2) Ban ana
3) King & Queen Cherry ascended the throne 25 years ago today.
4)
Lem
Elk
5)
Strawberry Cak
6)
Full Full Full
7)
Claires on the internet
Found on
You Tube with some relevance to today
« »
Paraphernalia
4 the Brain:
50’s
Inventions…
1952
Mr Potato Head patented.
The first patent for bar code issued
to inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver.
The first diet soft drink sold…Kirsch
Bottling in Brooklyn with NoCal Ginger Ale
Edward Teller and team build the
hydrogen bomb.
Education
Facts…
<> There’s a Swedish power metal band called “Sabaton” who
teach history through their music, including an album devoted to teaching about
World War Two.
<> In 1987, an 18 year old freshmen named Mike Hayes funded
his education by asking 2.8 million people for one penny.
Flagstaff,
AZ History…
50 YEARS
AGO
Rudolph leading his reindeer and sleigh is being hung in front of
the depot. This is the fourth year of the lighted display, which includes the
Nativity, the three Wise Men, Santa and Rudolph. Sigma Chi Omega of ASU is busy
mounting 200 trees throughout downtown, with 20 trees from Long Valley.
Flagstaff’s
Iconic 50…
Matt
Kelly Memorial Bridge
The Matt Kelly Urban Trail Bridge makes a graceful arch over Cedar
Avenue, connecting Buffalo Park on the north side of Cedar Avenue with McMillan
Mesa open space on the south side, and providing bicyclists and pedestrians
safe and pleasant passage over a busy section of roadway. It is located on the
Flagstaff portion of the Arizona Trail, which is part of an 800-mile trail
system that stretches across the state from Utah to Mexico.
The structure has a span of 138.5 feet, and a total length of
194.5 feet. It is 14 feet in width, and rises 19 feet above Cedar Avenue at its
midpoint.
Southwest Contractor magazine awarded the bridge Arizona's
"Best of 2007" for a concrete project.
The bridge is named for a young man who, while riding his bicycle
along Cedar Avenue, was struck and killed by a drunk driver, at a spot not far
from the bridge.
The Matt Kelly Urban Trail Bridge was dedicated in 2007.
Harper’s
Index…
30
Percentage of
Americans who said they were satisfied with their freedom to
choose what to do with their lives in 2006
79
Percentage in 2014
Rules of
Thumb…
UNICYCLE
SEAT POSITION
The unicycle seat post should go into
the stem at least two and a half times its diameter.
Unusual
Fact of the Day…
"http://" (in web URLs) stands for "Hyper Text
Transfer Protocol."
« »
Joke-of-the-day
A guy found a penguin and showed him to a
policeman.
The policeman said, "Take that penguin to the zoo, now."
Next day the policeman sees the man with the penguin again.
The policeman stops the guy and says, I told you yesterday to take the penguin
to the Zoo, what on earth are you doing with the penguin in your truck
again?"
The guy says, "What is there to do? Yesterday I took him to the zoo and
today I'm taking him to the movies."
Yep, It
Really Happened
Houston
For her Advanced Placement World History class at Magnolia (Texas)
West High School in December, Reagan Hardin constructed an elaborate diorama of
a Middle Ages farm -- which her dog ate on the night before it was due.
Veterinarian Carl Southern performed the necessary scoping-out on Roscoe,
extracting the plastic chicken head, horse body, sheep and pig, along with wire
that held the display together. Warned Dr. Southern: "Don't put anything
past your dog. We all say my dog would never eat that, and that's the main
thing he'll eat."
Somewhat
Useless Information
Ten
quotes by Marilyn Monroe
<>
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely
ridiculous than absolutely boring.
<>
Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.
<>
It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.
<>
A smart girl leaves before she is left.
<>
The nicest thing for me is sleep, then at least I can dream.
<>
Designers want me to dress like Spring, in billowing things. I don’t feel like
Spring. I feel like a warm red Autumn.
<>
One of the best things that ever happened to me is that I’m a woman. That is
the way all females should feel.
<>
A strong man doesn’t have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn’t match his
strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the
world.
<>
Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although
the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour;
it’s based on femininity.
<>
We should all start to live before we get too old.
Gizmos
ZURICH, Switzerland
(UPI)
New
research suggests the incessant touching of our smartphones is making our
thumbs extra sensitive.
The human sciences are only just starting to catch up to technology, only
scratching the surface on the ways smartphone use and Internet addiction affect
our relationships -- how we interact, behave, raise our children. Those
findings are mostly in their infancy.
A new neuroscience study, on the other hand, seems to offer a more definitive
conclusion -- our smartphone use is changing our brain -- specifically the
connection between our thumb tips and brain.
Researchers the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, monitored
the brains of study participants mechanically touching their thumb, index and
middle fingertips. Those who regularly used smartphones (compared to those who
still use older mobile phones) showed greater brain activity in areas connected
to touch when their fingers were stimulated.
Because smartphones have battery usage logs that suggest how much and when a
phone has been used, researchers were able to tell which participants were most
active on their smartphones over time. The more active smartphone-users showed
a heightened neurological response to the three-finger touching.
"I was really surprised by the scale of the changes introduced by the use
of smartphones," lead researcher Arko Ghosh said in a press release.
"I was also struck by how much of the inter-individual variations in the
fingertip-associated brain signals could be simply explained by evaluating the
smartphone logs."
The study was published this week in the journal Current Biology.
"What this means for us neuroscientists," Ghosh said of the way
technology affects research, "is that the digital history we carry in our
pockets has an enormous amount of information on how we use our fingertips --
and more."
« »
Today’s
Events through History
1823 - Stephen
F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the gov’t of Mexico.
1831 - 1st US
building & loan association organized, Frankford, Penn
1834 - The government of
Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City
1932 - Martial
law declared in Honduras-stop revolt by banana workers fired by United Fruit
1947 - 1st
opening session of Congress to be televised
1952 - "Dragnet"
with Jack Webb premieres on NBC TV
« »
Birthday’s
Today
Robert
Loggia, actor (Officer & a Gentleman) is 85
Dabney
Coleman, actor, is 83
Stephen
Stills, songwriter/guitarist (Cosby Stills & Nash) is 70
Victoria
Principal, Fukuoka Japan, actress (Pamela-Dallas) is 65
Mel
Gibson, actor (Mad Max, Lethal Weapon) is 59
Eli
Manning, football player and quarterback (NY Giants) is 34
« »
Remembered
for being born today
Cicero, Roman
statesman and philosopher 106BC-43 BC@63
Father
Joseph Damien de Veuster, Belgium, helped lepers in Hawaii 1840-1889@49
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien,
South Africa, writer (Lord of Rings) 1892-1973@91
ZaSu
Pitts, American actress 1894-1963@69
Ray
Milland, Wales, actor (Lost Weekend-Acad Award) 1907-1986@79
Victor
Borge, [Borge Rosenbaum], Copenhagen, pianist/comedian 1909-2000@91
Betty
Furness, actress/journalist/consumer activist, 1916-1994@78
Sergio
Leone, Italian, director (Fist Full of Dollars) 1929-1989@60
« »
Historical
Obits Today
Conrad
Hilton, US founder (Hilton Hotels), 1979, @91
Pat
Hingle, American actor, 2009, @84
Phillip "Phil"
Everly, musician ("The Everly Brothers"), lung disease, 2014, @74
Edgar
Cayce, American psychic, stroke, 1945, @67
Josiah
Wedgwood, British, ceramic craftsman/woodworker, 1795, @64
Jack Ruby,
assassin ofLee Harvey Oswald, cancer, 1967, @55
Bennelong,
Australian aboriginal interlocutor, 1813, @49ish
« »
Brain Teasers Answers
1) Ice cream (I scream)
2)A Banana Split
3)Cherries Jubilee
4)Lemon Mousse (Lem on Moose)
5)Strawberry Short Cake
6)Trifle (Tri Full)
7)Eclaires or E-Claires
« »
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 contains mistakes and sadly once 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…§