Feb 27

 

Week: 10 Day: 58	Ave. Sky Cover:  5% Visibility: 10 miles
Local Temp:   34°\ 6° Wind: 6mph\ Gusts: 7mph	Low risk of fire Active fire: 291mi. \ Lightning: 1523mi.
Feb Averages: 46°\19° (5 days w/moisture)

 

Today’s Quote

Weekly Observations

 

27 - 3/5

Telecommuter Appreciation Week

 

Daily Observations

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

A nice winter day…sun shining, barely any wind, snow melting.

Our discussion group meets tonight to discuss Changing Demographics. Should be a great discussion as there are several new people coming and the readings were very interesting. Looking at how the world has changed through time is amazing. The fastest growing demographic is Africa. Many developed countries have birth rates below the replacement rate. 20% of the world population is refusing vaccination for Covid. These and many more demographic markers will affect the world for the next generations.

The People’s Convoy came through Flagstaff on I-40 heading for DC to protest Biden at his Mar. 1 State of the Union. Increasing gas prices are not deterring the truckers.

After a horrific crash this summer, Flagstaff put up pole barriers along the most used bike lanes. I guess no one thought about snow here. The bike lanes can’t be cleared with the present equipment the city has. The city has one small bobcat to clear the several miles of bike lanes that were affected. The solution of getting more bobcats will take several months. Total lack of preparation.

A Belarus hacker group is attempting to hack Ukrainian soldier’s email accounts. This will give them information of location, names of family and friends to deal with after the planned takeover of Ukraine by the Russians. So sad.

I stayed in contact on social media with Vlad…our tour guide on the train in Russia and China. I knew he spent much of his last summer in Ukraine. With all that is going on, I IM’d him on Facebook last night. His responses: ‘Hello, Thank You, I am ok, except for the heartache and shame. How about you?....I’d love to take a train and leave somewhere far from here. Not that I’m not safe here, but it just feels wrong… I opened an art space, and we do a lot of events but mostly just organizing. Still, it’s fun. But I’m hoping to be back on stage someday….” I’m glad he is doing well.

Favorite Memes

 

A bit of Humor

Husband: Will you still love me when I am old and wrinkled?

Wife: I do.

Trivia

Q: His wife was Roxana. His horse was Bacephalus. He was ________.

Q: What Was The 9th Century Tax Levied To Fight The Vikings?

Q: In 1969 Richard Cawston Made A Documentary For The BBC About Which Famous Family?

 Q: What did Temujin change his name to?

 

 

 

ANSWERS:

Answer 1: Alexander the Great

Answer 2: Danegeld was a tax raised to pay tribute to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged.

Answer 3: The Royal Family

Answer 4: Genghis Khan 

Historical Events

W                 1703 – The first Mardi Gras was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703.

W                 1812 – Lord Byron gave his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire.

W                 1827- Masked and costumed students danced through the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the first of the city’s famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

W                 1879 – Saccharin, the artificial sweetener, was discovered by Constantin Fahlberg,

W                 1900 – German chemist Felix Hoffmann was issued the patent (#644,077) for ‘Acetyl Salicylic Acid’. We now call it Aspirin.

W                 1933 – Germany’s parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was set on fire.

W                 1936 – Shirley Temple received a new contract from 20th Century Fox that paid the seven-year-old star $50,000 per film.

W                 1951 – The 22nd Amendment to the Us Constitution was passed, limiting the tenure of holding the presidential office to two terms.

W                 1960 – The US Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviet Union in the semifinals at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, California. The next day, the US team beat Czechoslovakia to win its first-ever Olympic gold medal in hockey.

W                 1973 – The American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

W                 1974 – People magazine was published for the first time

W                 2006 – The African Burial Ground National Monument was established in Lower Manhattan, New York. Over 15,000 Africans, slave and free, were buried there from the 1690s through the 1790s.

Birthdays Today

@96 – Marian Anderson, American singer, performer (d. 1993)

88 – Ralph Nader, American lawyer, politician, activist

85 – Barbara Babcock, American actress

@81 – Howard Hesseman, actor (d. 2022)

@79 – Elizabeth Taylor, English-American actress (d. 2011)

@75 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet (d. 1882; peritonitis)

@65 – Constantine the Great, Roman emperor (d. 337)

@66 – John Steinbeck, journalist, author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)

51 – Sara Blakely, American businesswoman, founded Spanx

42 – Chelsea Clinton, American journalist, personality

42 – Josh Groban, American singer-songwriter