3 Jan

 

 3 January 2023

Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 1 Day 3 \ Ave. Sky Cover 80% \ Visibility 3 miles Flagstaff Today 47° \22°  Wind 3mph \ Gusts 5mph 
Air Quality: Fair \ Very Low Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire 366mi \ Nearest Lightning 756mi
Jan Averages for Flagstaff: 44° \ 16° \5 Days of moisture
Mostly Overcast with occasional snow

Today’s Quote

Monthly Observations

National Be On-Purpose Month
National Braille Literacy Month Link
National Cheesy Sock Month
National Clean Up Your Computer Month
National Codependency Awareness Month Link
National Conscience Month
National Glaucoma Awareness Month
National Hot Tea Month
National Mail Order Gardening Month
National Mentoring Month  Link
National Personal Self-Defense Awareness Month
National Personal Trainer Awareness Month Link
National Polka Music Month Link  Link
National Poverty in America Awareness Month
National Radon Action Month
National Skating Month
National Soup Month Link
National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month Link
National Stalking Awareness Month Link
National Sunday Supper Month  Link
National Volunteer Blood Donor Month Link

 

Weekly Observations

Dec 14-Jan 5 
Christmas Bird Count Week: Link 
1-7
Diet Resolution Week 
National Folic Acid Awareness Week   Link
Dating & Life Coaches Recognition Week
National Lose Weight/Feel Great Week
Silent Record Week
2-8
International Consumer Electronics Show
Someday We'll Laugh About This Week
3-6
No Tillage Week

Daily Observations

Festival of Sleep Day Link
J.R.R. Tolkien Day
Memento Mori "Remember You Die" Day
National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day Link
National Drinking Straw Day
Women Rock! Day

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

Our little mountain town got another 3” or so and more is still expected. Yesterday afternoon and into the evening, I-40 was closed for the 100 miles between Ash Fork and Winslow, which includes Flagstaff. I-17 was closed for about 44 miles just south of Flag.

When I went to bed last night the schools were on a 2-hour delay for this morning. When I got up around 7am, all schools were closed for the day.

Kudos to our HOA for getting a snow blower for the main sidewalk around our complex. This allows them to blow the snow away from the parked cars. Since I moved in, every time it snowed there would be a mountain of snow between each and every parked car. Now that snow is blown into our front area, making getting to the vehicles much easier. Good job.  

Sunrises around the world

Facts…

In a strange twist of fate, one of President Abraham Lincoln’s final acts was the creation of the Secret Service. Signed into law on April 14, 1865 — the same day Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre — the Secret Service was established as a group of investigators with an entirely different mission than their purpose today. During the 1800s, one-third of all American currency was counterfeit, a problem so staggering that Lincoln created a commission to find a fix. The solution was an investigative squad that could bust the bogus banknote problem, giving way to the first iteration of the Secret Service. The Secret Service initially served under the Department of the Treasury, though officers would occasionally provide security for the President if other law enforcement was unavailable. It would take another President’s assassination — William McKinley’s in 1901 — for Congress to assign the Secret Service to permanent presidential detail, though the department is still responsible for investigating financial crimes and fraud today. 

Slang Origins

1953: Uncool

Meaning: lacking in assurance, sophistication, or self-control

Teens, reliable creators of slang, spend most of their time trying to figure out whether what they’re doing is cool enough to pass muster with their peers. They tend to be trend-setters, and as the consumers of tomorrow, brands are very concerned with their definition of cool and more importantly, what is uncool.

Mysteries…

WHERE IS THE HOLY GRAIL?

The Holy Grail, the cup that Jesus drank from at his last supper with his disciples before his crucifixion, has never been found and almost certainly never will be. In fact, it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that there was much interest in it, after those writing some of the King Arthur stories described the search for the Holy Grail as a quest that King Arthur and his knights took on.

There are no serious scholarly attempts to find the Holy Grail, although it continues to be popular in fiction, being used as a plot device in films like “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” where it was used to heal Indiana Jones after he was shot by the Nazis. 

WAS THERE A REAL KING ARTHUR?

The story of King Arthur has been told and retold numerous times over more than 1,000 years. Camelot, the knights of the round table, the wizard Merlin and the sword Excalibur are all famous parts of the Arthurian tales.

However, if King Arthur did really exist, the reality was likely less magical. The earliest surviving accounts date to the ninth century and tell of a leader (perhaps not even a king) who fought several battles against the Saxons; even the accuracy of these accounts is debatable.

There are a number of sites in Britain that legends link to King Arthur, such as Tintagel, a coastal site that was supposedly King Arthur’s home; but excavations have not confirmed whether Arthur ever lived there or even existed. Ultimately, it seems unlikely that scholars will ever know for sure whether there was a real King Arthur or whether the man was purely fictional.

Historical Events

1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.
1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduced the first electric watch.
1938 – The March of Dimes is established as a foundation to combat infant polio by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1993 – George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
2009 – The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Birthdays Today

97 – W. Michael Blumenthal, American economist, politician
91 – Dabney Coleman, American actor
@91 – Victor Borge, Danish-American pianist, and conductor (d. 2000)
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.– Victor Borge
84 – Bobby Hull, Canadian ice hockey player
@82 – John Sturges, American director, producer (d. 1982)
@81 – J.R.R. Tolkien, English writer, poet, and philologist (d. 1973)
The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.
– J.R.R. Tolkien, in The Return of the King
@79 – Ray Milland, Welsh-American actor, director (d. 1986; lung cancer)
78 – Stephen Stills, American singer-songwriter
Once you decide that it is the art that is important and not how popular and well received you are, you no longer have an albatross.– Stephen Stills
@77 – Glen A. Larson, American director, producer, screenwriter, created Battlestar Galactica (d. 2014; cancer)
77 – John Paul Jones, English bass player
73 – Victoria Principal, American actress
67 – Mel Gibson, American-Australian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
@60 – Sergio Leone, Italian director, producer, screenwriter (d. 1989; heart attack)
48 – Danica McKellar, American actress
If anyone tells you it’s impossible to be fabulous and smart and make a ton of money using math, well, they can just get in line behind you – and kiss your math.– Danica McKeller
42 – Eli Manning, American football player
@36 – Anna May Wong, American actress (d. 1961; heart attack)
20 – Greta Thunberg, Swedish environmental activist