17 Dec

17 December 2022

Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 51 Day 351 \ Ave. Sky Cover 5% \ Visibility 10 miles Flagstaff Today 24° \2° 
Wind 5mph \ Gusts 15mph  Air Quality: Fair \Very Low Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire 339mi \ Nearest Lightning 1986mi
Dec Averages for Flagstaff: 43° \ 17° `
Sunshine & Brisk

Today’s Quote

 

Weekly Observations

Andisop (Meteorological Fiddling): 5-24   Link
Human Rights Week: 10-17
Christmas Bird Count Week: 14-1/5 Link 
Halcyon Days: 14-28 
Halcyon Days: 14-28 
Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over: 15 - 1/1/23  Link 
Posadas: 16-24
Saturnalia: 17-23

Daily Observations

National Maple Syrup Day
Pan American Aviation Day
Wright Brothers Day
A Christmas Carol Day (Story)
Clean Air Day
National Wreaths Across America Day Link
Wright Brothers Day

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

Another  cold morning. I warmed up to a sweltering 24° by noon.

Many were awaiting Trump’s big announcement. The wait was over when he introduced, for a mere $99, anyone could purchase an NFT Trading Card about Trump. He said you could follow his life by buying the set. The Conservatives are yelling about how bad the economy is and their leader wants them to buy a digital trading card that you can never really touch. I can’t wait to see how many are actually sold.

I follow a conservative guy on Facebook as he also runs a good site on happenings in Flagstaff. He posted that he is looking for a new church because his current church is not holding Christmas Day services because Christmas is on a Sunday this year.  I am dumbfounded that a Christian church would not honor the birth of Christ. I must be missing something.

Favorite Memes

Actual temps from this morning.

Did you Know?

Run your fingers along the edge of a dime and you’ll notice the coin has a crimped edge. If you were to count those tiny grooves and valleys, you’d find 118 ridges, one less than is found on a quarter.

But not all American coins have ridges, and here’s why. Rippled edges on larger-denomination coins have been a part of American currency since the U.S. Mint’s early days, and they were a clever solution to a massive currency conundrum: counterfeiting and fraud. Around the 1700s, coins were an easy target for money-generating schemes, including coin clipping: People would clip or shave off slim portions of a coin’s outer edge, cashing in the scraps of precious silver and gold. In Great Britain, coin clipping was so common that the crown deemed it a form of treason. In early North American settlements, “coining” — the actual production of fake coins — was equally problematic.

Knowing this, American coin makers added grooved bands — called reeded edges — to the thin sides of dimes, quarters, and larger coins then made from silver, in order to prevent shaving and make fraud more difficult. (Pennies and nickels remained smooth-sided since they were pressed from less-valuable copper and nickel.) But reeded edges lost some of their utility when the Coinage Act of 1965 changed the composition of dimes and quarters from silver to a copper-nickel blend. Reeded edges remain today as a design choice, and because they help people with visual impairments differentiate among coins.   

Slang Origins

1938: Socko

Meaning: strikingly impressive, effective, successful

This word doesn’t come from the socks on your foot, but rather a "sock" to the face. It was used to describe something so impressive that it hits you in the face, like a movie with a socko actor.

Corny jokes

Why did the scarecrow win an award?
Because he was outstanding in his field.
….
Where can you buy soup in bulk?
The stock market.
….
If athletes get athlete’s foot, what do elves get?
Mistle-toes.

Historical Events

1843 – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was published.
1903 – The Wright brothers make the first controlled powered, heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1969 – Project Blue Book: The United States Air Force closed its study of UFOs.
2101 – The Arab Spring began
2014 – The US and Cuba re-established diplomatic relations after severing them in 1961.

Birthdays Today

@91 – Alison Uttley, English children’s book writer (d.  1976)
86 – Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio), Argentinian priest
@84 – Arthur Fiedler, American conductor (d.  1979)
77 – Ernie Hudson, American actor, the ‘other’ Ghostbuster
“When someone asks if you’re a god, you say YES!”– Ernie Hudson
76 – Eugene Levy, Canadian actor
73 – Paul Rodgers, English singer-songwriter
“Live music is where you get the inspiration and creativity. I just try to keep an open mind, and that’s the way a lot of good things happen.”– Paul Rodgers
@54 – Burt Baskin, co-founded Baskin-Robbins (d.  1967; heart attack)
47 – Milla Jovovich, Ukrainian-American actress
44 – Chase Utley, American baseball player
“I’ve always been taught to play the game hard. Baseball is such a tough game, it really humbles you at times, you just have to try not to get too high or too low.”– Chase Utley
36 – Emma Bell, American actress