16 January 2023
Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 3 Day 16 \ Ave. Sky Cover 95% \ Visibility 5 miles Flagstaff Today 43° \19° Wind 6mph \ Gusts 14mph
Air Quality: Fair \Very Low Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire 330mi \ Nearest Lightning 1523mi
Jan Averages for Flagstaff: 44° \ 16° \5
Days of moisture
Snow
Today’s Quote
Weekly Observations
14-22
International Snowmobile Safety and Awareness Week
15-21
Healthy Weight Week
Hunt For Happiness Week
Idiom Week
National Activity Professionals Week
Sugar Awareness Week
16-20
No
Name Calling Week Link
Daily Observations
Appreciate A Dragon DayBlue Monday Link Book Publishers DayCivil Service DayGet to Know Your Customers DayInternational Hot and Spicy Food DayMartin Luther King DayNational Crowd Feed Day National Day of Service Link National Good Teen Day
National Nothing DayNational Quinoa DayNational Good Teen DayNational Nothing DayNational Quinoa DayRid The World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks DayRobert E. Lee Day Rid The World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks DayWithout A Scalpel Day Zeta Phi Beta Day
My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts
I woke up to about a foot of snow, and it is
still snowing. Looks like the weather guy got this storm correct. No need or
plans to go anywhere for a few days. All good.
I
spent the morning deep cleaning the two bathrooms I use. Not my favorite
cleaning task, but the bathrooms now shine.
Last
week the AZ Cardinals broke a fairly new 5-year contract with their head coach
and fired him. The guy took the pay-off with no real publicity and bought a
one-way ticket to Thailand. It is believed he has no plans to coach again.
Thailand is a nice country. Hope he enjoys it.
It
is amazing to me how Ukraine is still fighting Russia. I hope we keep
supporting them.
As
the Biden probe into classified documents intensifies, it is interesting to me
that Biden, with his decades in the government was not aware of his issues. Even
stranger is that he is not being very transparent. I thought the mantra of
long-time politicians was to admit a wrong and apologize before it becomes a
bigger issues. Maybe this really is a way for Biden to not run in 2024. No
election should be an excuse to not tell the whole truth.
The Big 5 of Africa…lions, leopards,
elephants, African buffalo, & rhinoceroses
Facts…
Sand dunes can “sing.”
Most rock formations found in nature are
revered for their stoic appearance — think snow-capped mountains or monoliths
like the Rock of Gibraltar. But some more active landscapes, like ever-shifting
sand dunes, have a livelier presence: They can “sing.” An estimated 35 sand
dunes around the world, including some in the United Arab Emirates, Chile, and
the U.S., are known to produce eerie, vibrational hums in a variety of tones.
Some even produce booms or croaking sounds. Marco Polo noted the phenomenon during
his travels, and many communities surrounding dunes have developed their own
superstitions about the songs. Yet for centuries, no one really understood why
or how these sounds happened.
Slang Origins
1966: Marvy
Meaning: marvelous; delightful
Less ubiquitous than groovy,
"marvy" was often used to convey the same feeling. Occasionally,
“marvy” was combined with “groovy” to create “marvy-groovy,” ironically used to
call something bad, the opposite of today’s use of “sick” to describe something
great.
UNESCO sites…
America's First National Park Was Also
One of Its First UNESCO Sites
The list of the first 12 places to be
named World Heritage Sites featured two locations in the United States:
Yellowstone National Park (located in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana) and Mesa
Verde National Park in Colorado. On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant
designated Yellowstone National Park the country's first national park. Today,
the park is famous for being home to approximately half of the world's
geothermal sites, including the Old Faithful Geyser. Mesa Verde National Park,
on the other hand, features 5,000 known archaeological sites, 600 of which are
cliff dwellings made of sandstone and mud mortar. The park offers a glimpse
into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people, who lived in the southwestern
Colorado area for centuries.
Historical Events
The first ‘Modern Novel’ was published in
1605; The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book
One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes, in Madrid, Spain. About 500 million
copies have been printed.
1920 – The League of Nations held its
first council meeting in Paris, France.
1944 – Dwight Eisenhower assumed command
of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe).
1991 – The Gulf War began.
Birthdays Today
88
– A.J. Foyt, American race car driver
80
– Ronnie Milsap, American singer
79
– Jim Stafford, American singer-songwriter
@78 – Andre Michwlin, French industrialist, founder of Michelin
Tire Company (d. 1931)
@76 – Ethel Merman, American actress and singer (d. 1984; cancer)
I
can never remember being afraid of an audience. If the audience could do
better, they’d be up here on stage and I’d be out there watching them.– Ethel
Merman
75
– John Carpenter, American director
@71 – Susan Sontag, American novelist, essayist, and critic (d.
2004; leukemia)
To
me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an
enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do we have from the past? Art and
thought. That’s what lasts. That’s what continues to feed people and give them
an idea of something better. A better state of one’s feelings or simply the
idea of a silence in one’s self that allows one to think or to feel. Which to
me is the same.– Susan Sontag
@70 – Johannes Schöner, German astronomer and cartographer (d.
1547)
@64 – Dizzy Dean (Jay Hanna Dean), baseball player, sportscaster
(d. 1974; heart attack)
It
ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up.– Dizzy Dean
64
– Sade (Helen Folasade Adu),
Nigerian-English singer-songwriter
Social
order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.– Sade
60
– James May, British journalist/co-host of Top Gear
Nothing
in this life worth achieving is easy, nor is it impossible.– James May
@53 – Dian Fossey, Gorilla advocate (d. 1985; murdered)
49
– Kate Moss, English model
What
people say isn’t going to stop me. I have to do things for myself.– Kate Moss
43
– Lin-Manuel Miranda, stage actor
38
– Joe Flacco, American football player
36
– Jake Epstein, Canadian actor
@22 – Aaliyah, American singer and actress (d. 2001)