1-3-15

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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


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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
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  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.
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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



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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."
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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."        

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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

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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…§


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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.