Jul 20

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Jul. 20, 2019 Week: 29 \ Day: 201

86004:   H /83° \ L 54° \ Average Sky Cover: 40% 

Nearest wildfire:  10mi. Nearest lightning:  361mi

Wind:   13mph\Gusts:  24mph

Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 91°[1939]   Record Low: 42°[1940]

Jul Averages: 82°\542° (8 day with rain)

Today’s Quote

Better keep yourself clean and bright;

you are the window through which

you must see the world.

George Bernard Shaw

Random Tidbits

Before the Civil War, schools did not have summer vacation. In rural communities, kids had school off during the spring planting and fall harvest while urban schools were essentially year-round. The long summer holiday didn't come about until the early 20th century.

If you have to choose between being bit by a venomous snake or touching a poisonous frog, you might want to go with the snake. As it turns out, snakes don't always inject venom when they bite: Some 20 percent or more of bites from venomous snakes are "dry bites" that create a wound but don't include venom. Poisonous animals can't choose when to apply their toxins.

Some animals you might not know are venomous; the duck-billed platypus, the gila monster, centipedes, Millipedes, the komodo dragon and coral!

Observances This Week

6-28
Tour de France

14-20

Everybody Deserves A Massage Week Link 

15-21

Rabbit Week

17-20

National Baby Food Week Link
National Ventriloquism Week  Link

18-21

Comic Con International
Hemingway Look-Alike Days   Link 
World Lumberjack Championships

18-25

Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) Education & Awareness Week

19-21

National Parenting Gifted Children WeekLink

20-24

National Scrabble WeekLink 

20-28

National Moth Week Link

Observances for Today

Celebration of The Horse Day: 19-21 
Robin Hood Day: 19-21 

Fortune Cookie Day

International Cake Day 
 Moon Day

National Bridal Sale Day 
National Ice Cream Sundae Day

National Lollipop Day

National Lollipop Day Link
Space Exploration Day  Link
Strawberry Rhubarb Wine Day   Link
Toss Away "Could Haves" and "Should Haves" Day
Ugly Truck Day

Woodie Wagon Day
World Jump Day Link
 

My Rambling Thoughts

I am updating the Focus Travel Club site. It should be completed by tomorrow. I did finish updating the Home page, but still have some new adventures to add.

I was out and about early this morning to pick up some much-needed things. As with most trips like this, I also found stuff I didn’t know I needed, but picked up anyway. I had to make three trips to get the stuff into the house. My young next-door neighbor was in her car, she saw me with the first load, got out of her car and asked if I needed help carrying stuff in. Nice, but I was doing just fine. Not sure if this is a perk of being a senior, or if I should be offended. I’ll take it as a perk.

Vlad, our Russian tour guide, has left Hong Kong and is headed to Moscow through Vietnam. He keeps me posted on his Facebook page. He also mentioned he hopes to see Focus in Denver, someday.

Slowly getting back to a normal life in Flagstaff. Tomorrow our discussion group meets to discuss Nuclear Negotiations. I’m expecting a good discussion at one of our newest member’s home. I’ve got a bit of reading to do to prepare for the discussion. Guess there is no late-night partying tonight. Haha.

Flying long-haul flights is always interesting. On the Beijing to Newark flight, I had the aisle seat. A young Chinese businessman was in the middle, and Annette, a Focus traveler had the window seat. The Chinese guy and I had an interesting discussion about culture, acceptance, and living in the US today. He really liked the ‘Salad-bowl’ concept vs the ‘Melting Pot’ concept. ‘Salad-bowl’ means that America is made better with letting individual cultures keep their identity instead of simply ‘melting’ in to a grey soup with no real identity. He also mentioned how impressed he was with our ‘liberal’ views…something he had not expected on his journey. Then we all slept.

I talked to Ellie yesterday. She was in a great mood and said that it was because she is seeing a chiropractor that fellow Focus traveler, Betty, has been using for years. Ellie said that she had been fearing that her pain would become part of everyday life but that the chiropractor has done wonders and that she will keep up the adjustments for a pain-free life. Great news.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of this page

When I’m first said,

I’m quite mysterious,

But when I’m explained,

I’m nothing serious.

What am I?

Today’s Highlighted Historical Events

1300’s

1304 Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle - King Edward I of England takes the last rebel stronghold of the war

1700’s

1749 Earl of Chesterfield says "Idleness is only refuge of weak minds"

1800’s

1810 Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia), declare independence from Spain

1837 Euston railway station opens in London as the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR), the city's 1st intercity railway station

1878 1st telephone introduced in Hawaii

1881 Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, surrenders to US federal troops

1900’s

1917 Pact of Corfu signed: Serbs, Croats & Slovenes form Yugoslavia

1921 Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson becomes the first woman to preside over the floor of US House of Representatives

1924 Tehran, Persia comes under martial law after the American vice consul, Robert Imbrie, is killed by a religious mob enraged by rumors he had poisoned a fountain and killed several people

1926 A convention of the Methodist Church votes to allow women to become priests.

1928 The government of Hungary issues a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians

1933 In London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism

1942 1st detachment of Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, begin basic training

1953 The United Nations Economic and Social Council votes to make UNICEF a permanent agency

1964 1st surfin' record to go #1-Jan & Dean's "Surf City"

1969 Apollo 11 lunar module carrying Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins lands on the surface of the Moon; Aldrin and Armstrong walk on the moon seven hours later

1975 India expels three reporters from "The Times", "The Daily Telegraph", and "Newsweek" because they refuse to sign a pledge to abide by government censorship

1977 The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments

1989 Burma government puts author Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest

1989 Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's show opens at Washington, D.C.'s Project for the Arts after the Smithsonian Institution's Corcoran Gallery cancels it

2000’s

2000 Terrorist Carlos the Jackal sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him

2005 Canada becomes the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, after the bill C-38 receives its Royal Assent

2017 Elon Musk tweets he has "verbal government approval" to build 29-minute Hyperloop between New York and Washington D.C.

2017 China announces a plan against “foreign garbage” banning 24 categories of plastic and recyclable waste from 2018

Highlighted Birthdays Today

356 BC Alexander the Great,

Macedonian king and military leader, born in Pella, Macedonia (modern Greece) (d. 323 BC: @32: fever)

1822 Gregor Mendel,

Austrian monk and geneticist (discoverer of laws of heredity), born in Heinzendorf, Austria (d. 1884: @61)

1919 Edmund Hillary,

Explorer and Mountaineer (1st to scale Mt Everest with Tenzing Norgay), born in Auckland, New Zealand (d. 2008: @88)

1931 Marina Popovich,

Soviet Air Force colonel, engineer and test pilot (102 world records), born in Leonenki, Smolensk Oblast, USSR, birth date uncertain (d. 2017: @86)

1938 Natalie Wood

[Natasha Gurdin],

American actress (Gypsy, Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story), born in San Francisco, California (d. 1981: @43: drowning)

1958 Billy Mays,

ENTREPRENEUR, TV commercials (d. 2009: @50: OD)

80’s

81- Diana Rigg,

Doncaster England, actress (Emma Peel-Avengers, Hospital)

70’s

72- Carlos Santana,

Mexican rock guitarist (Santana-Black Magic Woman), born in Autlán de Navarro

60’s

62- Donna Dixon,

American actress, former beauty queen, and wife of actor Dan Aykroyd (Couch Trip, Bossom Buddies), born in Alexandria, Virginia

40’s

48- Sandra Oh,

Korean Canadian actress (Grey's Anatomy), born in Nepean, Ontario

46- Omar Epps,

Actor

Highlighted Historical Obits Today

80’s

@85-2005 James Doohan,

Canadian actor (Star Trek)

@80-2007 Bill Flemming,

American journalist and sportscaster (ABC's Wide World of Sports)

60’s

@65-2007 Tammy Faye Bakker (Messner),

American Christian singer and former wife of Jim Bakker (The PTL Club), dies from cancer

@63-1937 Guglielmo Marconi,

Italian engineer/marquis (radio, Nobel 1909), dies of a heart attack

50’s

@59-1983 Frank Reynolds,

news anchor (ABC Evening News), dies from multiple myeloma

@55-1923 Pancho Villa

[José Doroteo Arango Arámbula],

Mexican revolutionary general and guerrilla leader, murdered

@52-1984 Jim Fixx,

American jogger and writer (Jim Fixx on Running), dies after heart attack

40’s

@48-1926 Felix Dzerzhinsky

[Iron Felix, Bloody Felix],

Soviet statesman, established and developed Soviet secret police (Cheka, forerunner to the KGB), dies after heart attack

30’s

@32-1973 Bruce Lee

[Lee Yuen Kam],

Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor (Enter the Dragon), dies of cerebral edema

Puzzle answer:

RIDDLE.