May 27

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May 27, 2020 Week: 22 Day: 148

86004: H 79° \ L 41° \ Average Sky Cover: 5%

Wind: 7mph\Gusts: 15mph Visibility: 10 mi

Nearest lightning: 761mi.; Nearest active fire: 196mi.

Extreme Risk of Fire

Record High: 87°[1974] Record Low: 23°[1916]

May Averages: 68°\34° (3 days with moisture)

Today’s Quote

"Do not go where the path may lead,

go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Random Tidbits

Before alarm clocks, people were hired to wake up others by shooting dried peas at their window

Not your typical wake-up call. The “knocker upper” was a common sight in Britain before 1970. They would use long sticks like fishing poles or soft hammers to tap on windows as a wake-up call or used pea shooters in which they blow-dried peas up at the window of the sleeper.

One problem these employees faced was waking people up for free because the noise they made would inadvertently wake up the neighbors who did not pay.

Have a smile

A friend sent these to me

"Left NYC to go to my parents' house—I was presenting to 100+ people on zoom and my dad walked through at 9:30am yelling, 'Is it too early for a drink?'"

Circulating in Germany: What borders on stupidity?

                                           Canada and Mexico.

Observations This Week

Fleet Week (NY): 20-26
National African Violet Week: 24-30
Healthy and Safe Swimming Week: 25-30 Link
National Backyard Games Week: 25-6/1Scripps National Spelling Bee: 25-28 Cancelled due to COVID-19.
Week of Solidarity With The People of Non-Self-Governing Territories: 25-31

Observations for Today

Cellophane Tape Day
Joe Cool Day Link
National Grape Popsicle Day

National Italian Beef Day

National Senior Health & Fitness Day Link
Sun Screen Day

World Orienteering Day: 27 Link Cancelled due to COVID-19
World Otter Day

My Rambling Thoughts

Warm day...just glad I'm in the high country...Phoenix is an oven the rest of the week. Phoenix has never recorded 110+ temps in May. This year they are expecting 4 such days.

Help my friend Andy set up his portable cover for his vehicle. It is big, metal, with a tarp cover in five pieces. We got about ½ done before it got too hot. Finishing it tomorrow starting at 8a. I put on lots of sunscreen to avoid another sunburn.

Excited to watch the Space X launch for 2 US astronauts trip to the space station. It's been a long 9 years since the last US launch. Grew up watching these, and still excited to watch.

Good news: nearly 1500 Navajo have recovered from Covid19. And I know a few of them, they reported 105 new cases on Memorial Day. There has also been 157 deaths from the virus...and sadly, I knew a few of them too.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of the page

returns tomorrow

Historical Events

1199 - John (December 24, 1166 - October 19, 1216) became King of England. He's the one who signed The Magna Carta, which was the first document to offer people individual rights.

1796 - The patent (#X0116) for a piano was issued to James Sylvanus McLean of New Jersey, for "an improvement in piano fortes."

1890 - Two U.S. patents (#428,750,#428,751) for the first jukebox were issued to Louis Glass and his business associate, William S. Arnold for a “coin actuated attachment for phonographs.”

1919 - Pyrex glass was issued a patent (#1,304,623). The inventors, Eugene C. Sullivan and William C. Taylor for Corning Glass Works.

1930 - Masking Tape was patented (#1,760,820) by Richard G. Drew of St. Paul, Minnesota for his employers, 3M.

1931 - Auguste Piccard and Charles Knipfer took man's first trip (in a pressurized cabin) into the stratosphere when they rode their balloon to an altitude of 51,800 feet.
1933 - The Century of Progress World's Fair opened in Chicago.

1937 - The Golden Gate Bridge, connecting San Francisco with Marin County, California opened. Today was "Pedestrian Day" - cars were allowed the following day.

1941 - The British navy sank the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic near France, killing over 2,000 Germans.

1983 - Benton Fireworks Disaster, Tennessee

1987 - U2 played in Rome so loud that they set off earthquake alarms in 2 different neighborhoods.

1988 - Microsoft Windows 2.10 was released.

1994 - The National League and American League Baseball M.V.P.s were Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas, respectively. Jeff and Frank were both born on the exact same day: May 27, 1968.

1994 Writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returns to Russia after 20 years in exile

1997 Russian President Boris Yeltsin signs a historic treaty with NATO

1999 The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo

2014 The director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde calls for "tougher regulation and tighter supervision" of banking sector

2019 World's rivers widely contaminated with antibiotics according to new global study of 711 sites

Birthdays Today

@93-Actor Christopher Lee (d. 2015)

85-Actor Lee Meriwether (Miss America 1955)

85- Jazz composer Ramsey Lewis

84-Actor Louis Gossett Jr (1936)

@82-Horror Actor Vincent Price (d. 1993)

59-Actor Peri Gilpen Roz on Frasier

56-Rapper Dr. Dré [Andre Romelle Young ]

49-Actor Paul Bettany

45-Chef Jamie Oliver

45-Rapper Andre 3000

@39-Folk Hero Wild Bill Hickok [James Butler Hickok] (d. 1876; shot)

@30-Rapper Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes (d. 2002;car accident)

Puzzle Answer:

Returns tomorrow