Nov 9

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Nov. 9, 2019 Week: 44  Day: 313

86004:   H 60° \ L 26° \ Average Sky Cover: 5%

Nearest active fire:  87mi.  Nearest lightning:  1911mi

Wind:   9mph\Gusts:  19mph  Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 71°[1993]   Record Low: 3°[1898]

Nov. Averages: 53°\23° (3 days with moisture)

Today’s Quote

“The only way that we can live is if we grow.

The only way we can grow is if we change.

The only way we can change is if we learn.

The only way we can learn is if we are exposed.

And the only way that we are exposed

is if we throw ourselves into the open.”

~ C. JoyBell C.

author of poetry and literature books

Random Tidbits

The rarest hair color in humans is red. Approximately 1-2 percent of humans in the world have red hair.

Lilith, the supposed first wife of Adam, is said to have had red hair. She was ultimately kicked out of the Garden of Eden because she refused to be subordinate to Adam.

Observances This Week

7-13

Dear Santa Letter Week

8-14

Geography Awareness Week Link 
National Nurse Practioner's Week Link  Link
National Radiologic Technology Week Link  
National Split Pea Soup Week Link
Perioperative Nurse Week Link
Snowcare For Troops Awareness Week
World Kindness Week Link  
National Book Awards Week

9-13

National Young Readers Week Link

Observances for Today

Carl Sagan Day  Link  Link
Chaos Never Dies Day

Kristallnacht
Microtia Awareness Day  Link
National Child Safety Council Day
National Greek Yogurt Day

Sadie Hawkins Day  Link  Link

(Always First Saturday.  A Sadie Hawkins Dance can be held anytime a school or someone wants to have one. Also, some call Leap Year Day - Feb. 29 as Sadie Hawkins Day also because tradition states that women can ask the men to marry them on that day. Leap Year Day is not Sadie Hawkins Day and they are two separate observances.
 Asking a guy to a dance is different than asking him to marry you.
 Although...in the cartoon strip, once the single gals caught their guys in the annual footrace, the men were forced to marry the gal that caught them aka a shotgun wedding per se.

World Freedom Day
World Orphans Day

My Rambling Thoughts

A sad day. Last night Bob Eckhardt passed away at 88 years old. He was my neighbor in Wheat Ridge and my brother and I grew up with his two daughters, Lori and Lisa. Our two families spent more than 50 Christmas Eves together. When I retired, he called me to see if I wanted to go to Scotland with him. We went with Focus Travel Club and that was the beginning of a great retirement with Focus for me and many of the trips with Bob. About a decade ago, Bob called and asked if I had ever rafted the Grand Canyon. I told him I hadn’t, but had hiked down to the bottom. We agreed that since it was on his bucket list, we should do it. Fourteen days on a non-motorized raft trip is near the top of my list of great times. Bob was in his late 70’s when we did the trip. The crew spent the first few days really hovering over Bob. It was driving both of us crazy. I sat down with the head guy and told him Bob had hiked all the 14,000 peaks in Colorado and for his 65^th birthday, he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and that he knew his limits without the hovering. The hovering stopped, and at the last camp dinner of the trip, the crew recognized Bob for his amazing stamina and told him he was welcome back anytime to our entire group of 20. He almost made it to 89. His last few years were tough on him and his family as dementia set in. He spent the last months in a care facility. There will be an announcement of his passing on the Focus site as soon arrangements are made. His generosity, humanity, and friendship will be missed by anyone who knew him.  

Our local University is in a dilemma. In the late 1990’s the University commissioned a bronze statue, about 13’ high, of the school mascot, Louie the Lumberjack. It was outside the bookstore for a time but had to be moved when the bookstore expanded. It is now in front of the Student Union. The current president has formed a committee to determine the fate of the statue. The guy who made it is now in prison for attempting to murder his sister following an argument.  Poor Louie is in the middle of something he had nothing to do with.

Still following the killings in Mexico of the Mormons. The latest twist to this horrific story has to do with assault weapons.  It turns out that the Mexican police have confiscated over 150,000 such weapons between 2001 & 2018 and that 70% of those were AR-15’s that were legally purchased from US dealers and then smuggled into Mexico. Seems the US hands are not clean regarding the cartel violence in Mexico.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of this page

You use me from your head to your toes.

The more you use the thinner I grow.

For years I was not often used,

Not using me now is not excused.

Historical Events

In Germany, November 9th is called Schicksalstag (Fateful Day) it was the day that Robert Blum was executed in 1848, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated in 1918, Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Kristallnacht in 1938, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte became dictator (first consul) of France.

1842 - The first U.S. design patent (Design Patent # D1) was issued for typefaces and borders patented by George Bruce of New York City.

1857 - The Atlantic was founded in Boston, Mass.

1862 US General Ulysses S. Grant issues orders to bar Jews from serving under him

1872 - The Great Boston Fire of 1872. 13 people died.

1887 - The United States received rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

1906 - Theodore Roosevelt became the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. He did so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.

1925 - Robert A. Millikan confirmed the existence of cosmic rays from outer space in a speech to the National Academy of Sciences at Madison, Wisconsin. He also helped find the charge in an electron, which is a key part of the constants in physics.

1938 - Al Capp, cartoonist of Lil' Abner created Sadie Hawkins Day. It was now "celebrated" on the first Saturday after November 9th.

1953 - Supreme Court ruled Major League baseball exempt from anti-trust laws. Basically, it was a mechanism to make sure a player could not just quit one team to work for another team.

1957 - Gordon Gould began writing his description of a laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).

1961 - The X-15 rocket plane achieved a world record speed of 4,093 mph (Mach 6.04) and reached 101,600 feet (over 19 miles) altitude, piloted by US Air Force Major Robert M. White.

1965 - Several U.S. states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours in the Northeast Blackout of 1965.

1967 – 1st issue of Rolling Stone magazine was published.

1974 - #1 Hit: Bachman-Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

1980 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declares holy war against Iran

1985 - Garry Kasparov, 22, of the Soviet Union became the youngest World Chess Champion by beating Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union.

1985 - #1 Hit: Jan Hammer - Miami Vice Theme

1989 - The Berlin Wall fell. It was constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on August 13, 1961.

1994 - The chemical element Darmstadtium (#110) was discovered/created in Germany. It was named in honor of the city of Darmstadt, where it was discovered.

1996 - #1 Hit: Blackstreet featuring Dr. Dre - No Diggity

1997 - Broadway Show - The Lion King (Musical) opened

1991 - #1 Hit: Prince & The New Power Generation - Cream

2002 - #1 Hit: Eminem - Lose Yourself

2011 - At 2:00 PM EST, all US TV and radio stations in the Emergency Alert System were tested simultaneously, the first nationwide test of the system since the 1997 inception of the EAS.

2018 Amid Californian forest fires US President Donald Trump accuses state forest management of "gross mismanagement", threatens to withhold funding

Birthdays Today

@85 – Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-American actress and inventor

(died in 2000)

@77 – Spiro Agnew, American soldier, lawyer, and politician,

 39th Vice President of the United States,

(died in 1996; undiagnosed leukemia)

@72 – Mary Travers, American Singer/Songwriter

(died in 2009; leukemia)

68 – Lou Ferrigno, American bodybuilder and actor

@62 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist,

cosmologist

(died in 1996; pneumonia)

46 – Nick Lachey, American Singer/Songwriter,

producer, and actor

@42 – Dorothy Dandridge, American actress, singer, dancer

(died in 1965; OD or fat embolism)

41 – Sisqó ,

Mark Althavan Andrews,

American Singer/Songwriter, producer and actor

39 – Vanessa

(née Minnillo) Lachey,

Filipino-American TV host and actress

31 – Nikki Blonsky, American actress, singer, and dancer

Puzzle answer:

Soap.