9 Nov

 

9 November 2022

Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 46 Day 313 \ Ave. Sky Cover 5% \ Visibility 10 miles Flagstaff Today 55° \31° 
Wind 19mph \ Gusts 10mph  Air Quality: Fair \Moderate Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire 124mi \ Nearest Lightning 410miNov Averages for Flagstaff: 53° \ 23° (3 days of moisture)

Today’s Quote

 

Weekly Observations

World Origami Days: 24-11/11
Drowsy Driving Prevention Week: 5-11  Link   
Give Wildlife A Brake! Week: 5-11  
Give Wildlife A Brake! Week: 5-11  Link 
National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week: 5-11 
National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week: 5-11 Link   
National Radiologic Technology Week: 5-11 
National Radiologic Technology Week: 5-11 Link  
National Book Awards Week: 5-11
Polar Bear Week: 6-13
Children’s Book Week: 6-11 
National Book Awards Week: 5-11
Polar Bear Week: 6-13
Children’s Book Week: 6-11 Link  (Also May 2-8) 
National Patient Accessibility Week: 6-10  
National Young Readers Week: 6-10 (Pizza Hut) 
National Patient Accessibility Week: 6-10  
National Young Readers Week: 6-10 (Pizza Hut) Link
Dear Santa Letter Week: 7-13

Daily Observations

Carl Sagan Day  Link
Go to an Art Museum Today Day
International Tempranillo Day Link
Kristallnacht-10
Microtia Awareness Day  Link
National Child Safety Council Day
National Louisiana Day
National Scrapple Day
World Freedom Day

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

Windy day….storm a brewin’ for tomorrow….weather computer says 1-3” of snow, I’ll wait and see.

I went to the dentist this morning to get measured for the crown. He explained what happened, and sort of apologized. I’ll give him one more chance. They ‘laser measured’ my mouth for the crown. No more biting on that clay stuff to get an impression. I hope to get a good fit.

After the dentist I stopped at my polling place to vote. There was no line, but they had at least a dozen stands to vote. The sign-in is all computerized with my driver’s license and then I sign an iPad. They still use a paper ballot marked in ink. My ballot had 14 propositions. It took a while, but I was out in about 15 minutes. I hope everyone voted.

I learned something about polls I hadn’t realized. Most of the polls rely on landlines for their polls. That was OK back-in-the-day when almost all voters had one. Today many voters do not have a landline anymore. The upside is that they don’t get all those polling phone calls, the downside is that they don’t get many voter’s opinions. I don’t listen much to polls anyway as they are seldom right when the election results come in.

Whatever the outcome of Nov. 8 results, we are still a United States of America and voting is very important. If it wasn’t important, why would the far-right try so hard to make it difficult to vote?

Favorite Memes

Best Instrumentals

"Sirius" by The Alan Parsons Project (1982)

The opening track and lead-in to the band's hit "Eye in the Sky" off the album of the same name. These two tunes are perhaps the most recognizable from the band. And this instrumental opener should be quite familiar to fans of the Chicago Bulls. It's the song that plays during the club's starting lineup introductions. It was made super popular during those dominant Michael Jordan championship years of the 1990s. 

Meaning/history of a phrase

Mad as a hatter

This one is fairly easy to associate with the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s book 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.'

But the character himself is quite dark. Back in Victorian times, men were actually suffering from mental health problems caused by exposure to mercury, which was used to make felt hats more flexible.

Historical Events

1857 – The Atlantic was founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
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.
1938 – Al Capp, cartoonist of Lil’l Abner created Sadie Hawkins Day. It was now “celebrated” on the first Saturday after November 9th.
1938 – Crystal Night (Kristallnacht) took place in Germany. 30,000 Jews were arrested and nearly 100 were killed.
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.
1955 – The National Child Safety Council (NCSC) was founded.
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- Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, set himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.
1965 – There was a blackout over much of the Northeastern United States, more than 30 million people were affected.
1967 – The first issue of Rolling Stone magazine was published.
1989 – The Berlin Wall fell. It was constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on August 13, 1961.
2005 – The Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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.

Birthdays Today

@85 – Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-American actress, inventor (d. 2000)
“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”-Hedy Lamarr
@77 – Spiro Agnew, American soldier, politician 39th Vice President, (d. 1996; leukemia)
@72 – Mary Travers, American Singer/Songwriter (d. 2009; leukemia)
71 – Lou Ferrigno, American bodybuilder, actor
@62 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist (d. 1996; cancer)
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
“In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist’s signature.”– Carl Sagan
49 – Nick Lachey, American Singer/Songwriter, producer, actor
44 – Sisqó, American Singer/Songwriter, producer, actor
@42 – Dorothy Dandridge, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 1965; OD)
“I can’t play a slave.”– Dorothy Dandridge
42 – Vanessa (née Minnillo) Lachey, Filipino-American TV host, actress
34 – Nikki Blonsky, American actress, singer, dancer