Feb 24

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!

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Feb 24, 2018 Week: 08\ Day: 56

86004 Today: H 39° \ L 6° \ Average Sky Cover: 100% 

Feel like: 18°

Wind ave.:   17mph\Gusts:  0mph Visibility: 525 yards

Record High: 66°[1904]   Record Low: -4°[1909]

Feb Averages: 46°\19°

Feb Records: H: 71° (1986) L: -23° (1985)

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Today’s Quote

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process,

you don't know what you're doing.

  W. Edwards Deming

Harper’s Index

11-Factor by which the director of the Australian postal service earned more in 2016 that the Prime Minister

$167,000,000-Net loss the service reported in 2015

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Observances This Week

16-25

Date (Fruit) Week

17-24

National Entrepreneurship Week Link
National FFA Week Link

18-24

Bird Health Awareness Week Link  
Build A Better Trade Show Image Week
National Engineers Week
Through With The Chew Link
Brotherhood / Sisterhood Week Link

20-23

American Camp Week Link
International Petroleum Week  Link
Learning Disabilities Week

22-25

American Birkenbreiner Race

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Observances for Today

Forget Me Not Day  Link 
International Sword Swallowers Day
National Dance Day
National Tortilla Chip Day

Open That Bottle Night
Women in Blue Jeans Days Link 

World Bartender Day Link

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Today’s Significant US Historical Events

≈Today’s Significant International Historical Events 

1800’s                                          

1803 US Supreme Court 1st rules a law unconstitutional (Marbury v Madison)

≈1804 London's Drury Lane Theatre burns to the ground, leaving owner Richard Brinsley Sheridan destitute

1857 1st perforated US postage stamps delivered to government

1863 Arizona Territory created

1868 1st US parade with floats (Mardi Gras-Mobile, Alabama)

1868 US House of Representatives vote 126 to 47 to impeach President Andrew Johnson

1888 Louisville, Kentucky, becomes 1st government in US to adopt Australian ballot (i.e. secret ballot on standard voting forms)

1893 The American University is chartered by an act of the Congress of the United States of America

1899 Western Washington University is established

1900’s

1909 The Hudson Motor Car Company is founded.

≈1917 German plan to get Mexican help in WW I exposed (Zimmerman telegram)

1925 Thermite explosive 1st used to break up ice jam, Waddington, NY

1938 Du Pont begins commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles

≈1942 Voice of America begins broadcasting (in German)

≈1977 US President Jimmy Carter announces US foreign aid will consider human rights

≈1981 Britain's Prince Charles announces engagement to Lady Diana Spencer

1985 Yul Brynner reprised his role in "The King & I"

1987 LA Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scores his 36,000th NBA point

1989 150 million year old fossil egg found in Utah with a fossilized dinosaur embryo inside, the oldest dinosaur egg yet found in the Northern Hemisphere

≈1997 Qatar inaugurates the world's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporting facility and formally launches Qatar Liquefied Gas Co.

≈1998 Elton John knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in London

≈1999 The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national involved in an armed robbery, in spite of Germany's legal action to attempt to save him.

2000’s

2002 19th Winter Olympic Games close at Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

≈2008 Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba due to ill health after nearly fifty years

≈2010 Europe risks a double-dip recession after bad results emerge from France, Germany and Italy, it is reported today; the Eurozone only grew by 0.1% in the last quarter of 2009

≈2013 Raúl Castro is elected to a second term as the President of Cuba

≈2014 Pope Francis creates a second Secretariat with the power to audit any Vatican agency at any time

≈2016 Oldest Muslim graves in Europe, from the 8th century, identified at a buriel site in Nimes, France

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My Rambling Thoughts

Our retirement group met for lunch and talking. Lasted longer than expected, but well worth it. Didn’t have time to post yesterday.

Woke up to snow this morning. For the first time in forever, it is actually accumulating on the ground, trees, sidewalks, etc. Glad I can stay home and not have to deal with the bad road conditions. By late afternoon, looks like the HOA will have to bite the bullet and bring in the snow removal crew. We now have a good 4” and it’s still coming down and still piling up. If this keeps up, I’ll have to know the snow off my blue spruce as the branches will be bent to the sidewalk.

I began a great teaching career just as the world was switching from quill pens to fountain pens. Tee Hee. Since the beginning of teaching in the US, teachers have always had ‘other duties as assigned.’ For many it was stoking the fire every morning so the classroom would be warm. When I started it was raising the flag on campus every day of the week. Teachers now have after school conferences, before school meetings, training beyond the regular school day, recess duty, morning bus duty, afternoon bus duty, … Now 45 wants to add conceal/carry to some teacher’s duty. While this is a dumb idea, he at least is suggesting ‘bonus’ pay will suddenly appear from the magic money pit. Every military person and every educator and most gun enthusiasts will say that ‘the good guy with the gun has one job…stop the perp.’ What happens to the students under that teacher’s care? Are they now on their own? Then I heard about ‘the safest school in America’ on the news. It is in middle America. Every classroom has bullet-proof glass, every teacher has a panic button, every hallway has security cameras that have a live feed to the local police department. And to top it off, every hallway has smoke bombs that can be detonated to confuse the shooter. So happy to be retired after a great career.

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Birthdays Today

@-  indicates age at death

90’s

@94- Abe Vigoda,

American actor (Barney Miller, The Godfather),

born in NYC

(d. 2016)

70’s

76- Joe Lieberman,

(Sen-D Connecticut)

@74- Winslow Homer,

American painter (Gulfstream)

@73- Wilhelm Karl Grimm,

German story teller (Grimm's Fairy Tales),

born in Hanau, Hesse-Cassel, Holy Roman Empire

infection (d. 1859)

71- Edward James Olmos,

actor (Miami Vice, Stand & Deliver, Triumph)

60’s

68- George Thorogood,

 American singer and guitarist 

(The Delaware Destroyers-Bad to the Bone),

born in Wilmington, Delaware

67- Debra Jo Rupp,

American actress (That 70’s Show)

62- Paula Zahn,

news anchor (ABC, CBS This Morning)

60- Sammy Kershaw,

country vocalist (Cadillac Style)

50’s

@56- Steve Jobs,

American computer entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple,

born in San Francisco, California

cancer (d. 2011)

52- Billy Zane,

actor (Titanic, Dead Calm),

born in Chicago, Illinois

40’s

41- Floyd Mayweather,

featherweight boxer(Olympic bronze 1996),

born in Grand Rapids Michigan

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Historical Obits Today

90’s

@91-1998 Henny Youngman,

American comedian and violinist (Take my wife ... please)

80’s

@88-2012 Jan Berenstain [Janice Marian Grant],

American author (The Berenstain Bears)

@81-2006 Don Knotts,

American actor (Andy Griffth Show, 3's Company)

@81-2006 Dennis Weaver,

American actor (Chester-Gunsmoke, Duel, Battered)

@81-1986 Tommy Douglas,

Canadian politician

"Father of Medicare"

70’s

@76-1994 Dinah Shore,

singer (Chevrolet),

cancer

@71-1991 George Gobel,

comedian (George Gobel Show),

following heart surgery

@70-1990 Malcolm Forbes,

American publisher of Forbes Magazine,

heart attack 

40’s

@49-1815 Robert Fulton,

American inventor and engineer

(first commercial steamboat),

TB

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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…☼☼☼☼