13-31-13


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Flagstaff Almanac:
Week: 01 / Day: 365   
Today: L 46°…H 11°… Ave. humidity: 61%
Wind: ave:   8mph; Gusts:  12mph  
Average Low: 16° Record Low:  -16° (1911)
Average High: 42° Record High:  62° (1945)

Quote of the Day
 
Today’s Historical Highlights
1492 - 100,000 Jews expelled from Sicily
1600 - British East India Company chartered
1695 - Window tax imposed in England, shopkeepers brick up their windows to avoid the tax.
1783 - Import of African slaves banned by all of the Northern states
1831 - Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.
1857 - Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as new capital of Canada
1890 - Ellis Island (NYC) opens as a US immigration depot
1897 - Brooklyn's last day as a city, it incorporates into NYC (1/1/1898)
1904 – 1st New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square, (Longacre Square) 
1907 - For 1st time a ball drops at Times Square to signal new year
1911 - Marie Curie receives her 2nd Nobel Prize
1953 - Willie Shoemaker shatters record, riding 485 winners in a year
1955 - General Motors becomes the 1st U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion in a year.
1961 - 1st performance of Beach Boys
1962 - "Match Game" debuts on NBC with host Gene Rayburn
1970 - Congress authorizes Eisenhower dollar coin
1991 - USSR, last day of existence
1999 - Control of Panama Canal reverts to Panama
2004 - The official opening of Taipei 101, standing at a height of 509 meters (1,670 feet).

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Did some major shopping for food today, cupboards were bare. Nice day and was able to spend some time outside. I was also able to finally pick up my new glasses. So much easier to read the newspaper. Also stopped by the PO to pick up my held mail. I was not the only one to do so today. The line went way out into the lobby. They were helping those with non-monetary requests but that line had 6 people ahead of me. Guess I wasn’t the only one holding mail over the holidays as all those in front of me were picking up held mail. One lady who lives in Doney Park outside of town had to remind the guy that there are two streets in Flagstaff with the same name, hers and one inside the city limits. Her search took a lot longer than mine.
 
Had a nice talk with my travel friend and former neighbor Bob this afternoon. I had tried calling him since Christmas Eve, since we had spent over 50 years of Christmas Eve’s together. He and his two daughters and son-in-law just got back from a trip to Reno to see his great grandbaby girl, who is 9 months old. They drove and had some dicey weather in Wyoming, but otherwise an easy trip. He had a great time, everyone in his family are doing well. We are both getting excited about our upcoming trip to Cuba.
 
Before my trip I will be glued to the TV for the Olympics. Sad to see the terrorists are alive and well in a little over 3 hours from the Olympic Games in Sochi.  I sure hope the games go off without any terrorist attacks. This should be a time to see the world’s best athletes.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Find all ten words described below.
-------------------
The first word you'll need
is a tool used to snare.
Reverse and add one:
a dwelling filled with fresh air.

Append the letter H
to find a metric sort of part.
Now change N to E to get
a smile, at its heart.

Tack on an 'I N G'
to make a baby's cross to bear.
Remove the center two
and find a golfer's action there.

Add an S and drop the E's:
A painful bite you'll see.
Add one to the end: you will make
penny-pinching, miserly.

Put first 2 and last 2 out the door,
What's left is really cool.
Only keep the first half of that
And now you find the fool.

Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Odd Lawsuits…
Crazy Neighbor
In the summer of 2005, two teenage girls appeared on their neighbor's doorstep with freshly baked cookies. It seems innocent enough, but the neighbor was so shocked to see people at her door, that she had an anxiety attack and sued for the medical damages. She won $930 for her trip to the emergency room.
New Years Eve Drops
  • Eastport, Maine: A sardine is dropped in a nod to the area’s history in the herring fishing and canning industry
  • Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania: A giant M&M is dropped at midnight
  • Elmore, Ohio: A sausage is dropped
  • Flagstaff, Arizona: A pine cone is dropped 
  • Frogtown, Pennsylvania: A frog is dropped
  • Gainesville, Georgia: The "Chuck the Chicken" Drop 
  • Hershey, Pennsylvania: A Hershey Kiss replica is raised
  • Hilton Head Island, South Carolina: A giant, lighted golf ball is lowered
  • Ickesburg, Pennsylvania: A french fry is dropped
  • Key West, Florida (801 Saloon): drops a ruby slipper with drag queen Gary "Sushi" Marion
  • Marion, Ohio: A ball of popcorn 

OK Then… 
Harper’s Index 
  • Dollars spent on health care in the United States in 1983: $354,600,000,000
  • Percentage of that amount paid by the government: 43
  • Number of abortions per every 100 live births in the United States: 42.6
  • In Japan: 155

Unusual Fact of the Day
Crayola means "oily chalk." The name is derived from the French words craie, or "chalk," and ola, an abbreviation for "oleaginous," or "oily."
Joke-of-the-day
A Cajun named, Jean Paul, moved to Texas and bought a donkey from an old farmer named Ben for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day, Ben drove up and said, "Sorry, but I have some bad news. The donkey died."
"Well, then, just give me the money back," said Jean Paul
"Can't do that. I went and spent it already." Replied Ben
"OK, then. Just unload the donkey," said Jean Paul.
"What ya going to do with him?" asked Ben.
"I'm going to raffle him off," said Jean Paul.
"You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" uttered Ben.
"Sure can. Watch me. I just won't tell that he's dead," said Jean Paul.
A month later Ben met up with the Cajun and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?"
"I raffled him off, I did. I sold 500-hunderd tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898," said Jean Paul.
"Didn't anyone complain?" inquired Ben.
"Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back,” said Jean Paul.
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
OVERCOME JETLAG
On average, it will take one day per hour difference to get over your jetlag    
Yeah, It Really Happened
MIAMI - A Florida man who tried to trade a live alligator for beer at a convenience store said he didn't know trapping the gator was illegal. Police said Fernando Caignet Aguilera, 64, brought the 4-foot alligator in a cardboard box to the Santa Ana Market in Miami's Allapattah neighborhood Dec. 10 and asked clerk Javier Herrera to accept the reptile in exchange for a 12-pack of beer, CNN reported Wednesday. Herrera told WFOR-TV, Miami, he told Aguilera to leave, and the man attempted to make the same trade with a customer. Aguilera said he found the alligator shortly before the incident and didn't know it was illegal to trap the animal. "I just picked it up here," Aguilera said. "I seen it here in the grass and I tied it up." He said he wasn't going to accept just any beer in exchange for the gator. "I wanted a Corona, because if he brings me a Natural Light or something like that I don't want it. I want a Corona, because the alligator is so beautiful," he said. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission cited Aguilera for three charges related to the illegal capture of the alligator. He faces as much as six months in jail or a $500 fine if convicted. The FWC said the alligator was released into the wild.  
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • Spiderwort flowers have a very short life - only a single morning - after which the petals wilt and turn to a jelly-like fluid. However, each plant will produce 20 or more flowers per stem.
  • The False Hallebore or Indian Poke is a plant which grows in eastern and western America but not central. Native American tribes used it to determine their chiefs. If one was able to survive eating the very toxic plant (the roots and foliage are poisonous), they were worthy. 
  • Low-pollen sunflowers have been developed in recent years which not only help asthma sufferers, but also extend the flower's life. Before the advent of modern materials, sunflower stems were used to fill life-jackets.
  • Pliny the Elder, a Roman scientist of the first century AD named the Gladioli flower. Struck by the resemblance between the sheath of the flower and the weapon that was carried by Roman soldiers, he called the flower "gladiolus" from the Latin word "gladius" which means sword.
  • The Rafflesia arnoldii, which can be found in the rainforests of Indonesia, is the flower with the world's largest bloom; it can grow three feet across and can weigh up to 15 pounds.
  • The Amorphophallus titanium has also been called the "corpse flower" for its unpleasant odor, which smells of rotting flesh to attract pollinators. The "corpse flower" is not a single flower but a cluster of many tiny flowers, called an inflorescence. The plant can reach heights of seven to 12 ft and can weigh as much as 170 lbs.

Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
25-31 It's About Time Week
26-1/1: Kwanzaa

Today Is                                                                      
·        First Night Celebrations
·        Leap Second Time Adjustment Day
·        Make Up Your Mind Day
·        New Years Eve
·        No Interruptions Day
·        Universal Hour of Peace Day
·        World Peace Meditation Day
·        Unlucky Day

Today’s Events through History  
  406 - Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gallia.
1744 - James Bradley announces discovery of Earth's nutation motion (wobble)
1781 - Bank of North America, 1st US bank opens
1935 - Charles Darrow patents Monopoly
1990 - Iraq begins a military draft of 17 year olds
1995 - Cartoonist Bill Watterson ends his "Calvin & Hobbes" comic strip
1997 - Microsoft buys Hotmail E-mail service

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Anthony Hopkins, actor (Elephant Man, QB VII, Magic, Bounty) ia 76
Ben Kingsley, Scarborough England, actor (Gandhi, Betrayal, Maurice) is 70
Tim Matheson, actor (Animal House, Fletch, Up the Creek) is 66
Bebe Neuwirth, actress (Lilith-Cheers, Damn Yankees) is 55
Val Kilmer, actor (Top Secret, Top Gun, Willow) is 54

Remembered for being born today
Jacques Cartier, French explorer b. 1491
[Bonnie Prince] Charles Edward Stuart, English pretender to throne b. 1720
Henri Matisse, impressionist painter (Odalisque) b. 1869
George Marshall, authored Marshall Plan (Nobel 1953) b. 1880  
Simon Wiesenthal, Polish/Austrian nazi hunter (Wiesenthal Center) b. 1908
Pat Brady, actor (Roy Rodgers Show) b. 1914
Rex Allen, American actor, singer, and songwriter b. 1920
Odetta, [Holmes], Birmingham Ala, folk singer (Sanctuary) b.1930
Donna Summer, singer (Love to Love You Baby, On the Radio) b.1948
John Denver, NM, singer (Rocky Mt High), thank God he's a country boy b. 1943
Rosalind Cash, actress (Omega Man, Wrong is Right) b. 1938

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
José Greco, Italian-born American flamenco dancer and choreographer in 2000 @82           
Woody Strode, actor (Posse, Cotton Club, Vigilante) in 1994 @80
Chief Nipo Strongheart, Yakima actor (Pony Soldier) in 1966 @75
Floyd Cramer, pianist (Nashville Sound) of cancer in 1997 @64
Rick Nelson, singer/actor (Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet) in plane crash in 1985 @45
Roberto Clemente, slugger (Pitts Pirate)in a plane crash in 1972 @38

Brain Teasers
NET (a tool used to snare) TENT (a dwelling filled with fresh air) TENTH (a metric sort of part) TEETH (a smile, at its heart) TEETHING (what a baby suffers from -- its "cross to bear") TEEING (a golfer's action) STING (A painful bite) STINGY (penny-pinching, miserly) IN (really cool -- i.e. the "in" thing) I (I am the fool, after all. Or does it refer to you? :D )
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.
All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.
§    And That Is All for Now  §
Posted by No comments:

12/30/13


FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Flagstaff Almanac:
Week: 01 / Day: 364   
Today: L 21°…H 34°… Ave. humidity: 54%
Wind: ave:   21mph; Gusts:  36mph  
Average Low: 16° Record Low:  -16° (1911)
Average High: 42° Record High:  62° (1917)

Quote of the Day
 
Today’s Historical Highlights
1731 - 1st US music concert (Peter Pelham's great room in Boston)
1809 - Wearing masks at balls forbidden in Boston
1835 - After gold discovery in Ga, Cherokees forced to move across Miss R
1817 - 1st coffee planted in Hawaii (Kona)
1873 - American Metrological Society forms (NYC) weights, measures & money
1879 - Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance," premieres
1911 - Sun Yat-sen elected 1st pres of Republic of China
1918 - John E Hoover decides to be called J. Edgar Hoover
1933 - -50°F (-46°C) in Bloomfield, Vermont (state record)
1935 - Italian bombers destroy Swedish Red Cross unit in Ethiopia
1940 - California's 1st freeway, (Arroyo Seco Parkway), opens
1963 - "Let's Make A Deal," debuts on NBC-TV
1965 - Ferdinand Marcos inaugurated as president of the Philippines
1973 - 1st picture of a comet from space (Comet Kohoutek-Skylab)
1993 - Vatican recognizes Israel
2012 - Opening of Line 6 of the Beijing subway--longest metro network in the world at 442km

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays
 
My Free Rambling Thoughts   
A chilly windy day…it is winter afterall.
 
Stayed up late last night watching movies…so today was a lazy day. The local paper listed the top stories of our little mountain town…number 1 was the closing of the Grand Canyon during the insane government shutdown. That closure cost lots of people their paychecks during a high point in tourism. So interesting to see how both political parties blame the other side. We, as Americans, have sure picked ineffective people to represent us. Sadly, I still believe that a major part of the problem is that there are way to many Americans who do not believe we can have a Black President…even though he is biracial, they don’t want him leading our country, so they are going to do whatever they can to make him look bad. Such childish behavior.
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Thanks to my reader Wes, here is another puzzle of dropping one letter from this word to make a new word. Continue dropping one letter until only one letter remains: splatters
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Odd Lawsuits…
Drinking Problem
In 1991, Richard Overton attempted to sue Anheuser-Bsusch for $10,000. After drinking copious amounts of Bud Light, beautiful women didn't show up at his doorstep, as the commercial promised. He was outraged.
New Years Eve Drops
As New Year’s Eve is nearing…many towns in America have their own way of welcoming the New Year at midnight:
  • Atlanta, Georgia: The capital city of the peach state has a Peach Drop
  • Ball Bangor, Maine: A beach ball covered in Christmas lights 
  • Beavertown, Pennsylvania: A beaver is dropped
  • Brasstown, North Carolina: A plexiglas pyramid containing a living opossum
  • Carlisle, Pennsylvania: An Indy car is dropped
  • Cornelia, Georgia: Cornelia hosts a "Little Red Apple" Drop
  • Detroit, Michigan: A metal cursive D is dropped in front of the Hard Rock cafe 
  • Duluth, Georgia: A disco ball called the Soaring Spirit Ball
  • Easton, Maryland: A red crab is dropped
  • Easton, Pennsylvania: A ten-foot Crayola crayon is dropped
  • Eastover, North Carolina: A three-foot tall, thirty-pound wooden flea

OK Then…
 
Harper’s Index 
  • Ratio of physicians to inhabitants in the Soviet Union: 1:270
  • Ratio of physicians to inhabitants in the United States: 1:520
  • Ratio of prison inmates to inhabitants in the United States: 1:520

Unusual Fact of the Day
The consistency of your ear wax is genetic.

Joke-of-the-day
How can this be? Scientists say the world began with a Big Bang 13 billion years ago. All mankind got hit on the back of the head, and now astronomers see stars Millions of Light years away.
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
JOB INTERVIEW PREPARATION
When asked the popular question, tell me about your self; have a 3 or 4 sentence response prepared that talks to your leader ship skills, successful projects that you started, was a major player in, or successes that you take pride in.    
Yeah, It Really Happened
DULUTH, Ga. - An Atlanta-area woman says she is appealing her son's expulsion from high school for hugging a teacher. April McNair told WSB-TV, Atlanta, that her teenage son's future will be ruined if he is expelled from Duluth High School in Gwinnett County. Sam McNair, a football player at Duluth, had been hoping for an athletic scholarship to college. "We're not in a financial position to put him in a private school. If he's expelled from Gwinnett County, no other county is going to want to accept (him) in school. So you are derailing his future for him," April McNair said in a report broadcast Tuesday. The teacher filed a sexual harassment complaint against Sam, 17. He says he hugged her several times in the past and believes that if she had a problem with it she should have talked to him or his parents before filing the complaint. Both mother and son said their family hugs a lot.  
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • The highest speeding fine has been $200,000 so far and it has been issued in Finland. The Finnish law allows speeding tickets to be relative to the offender’s last known income.
  • Tomato is the red fruit of the plant Solanum lycopersicum, it is rich in lycopene and belongs to the nightshade family. Tomatoes originally come from Mexico and they have spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americans.
  • Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete, and his queen Pasiphae and she is known for her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus in the Labyrinth. Ariadne’s name derives from Hesychius’ listing of Άδνον, a Cretan-Greek form for ‘arihagne’ which means ”utterly pure”.
  • ‘Pizza Net’ was the worldwide network through which users could order pizza online from a local Pizza Hut restaurant and it was initiated to its customers many years ago. It was based on SCO Global Access, the first commercially licensed and bundled Internet Operating System and Pizza Hut did it still from 1994, being quite innovative at that time!

Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
25-31 It's About Time Week
26-1/1: Kwanzaa

Today Is                                                                      
·        Bacon Day
·        Falling Needles Family Fest Day
·        National Bicarbonate of Soda Day
·        No Interruptions Day
·        Oh My! Day

Today’s Events through History               
1703 - Tokyo hit by Earthquake; about 37,000 die
1861 - US, banks stops payments in gold
1903 - American Political Science Association founded at New Orleans
1987 - Premier Mugabe elected president of Zimbabwe

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Sandy Koufax, Dodger pitcher (Cy Young '63, '65, '66, perfect-1967) is 78
Paul Stookey, singer/musician (Peter, Paul, & Mary) is 76
Michael Nesmith, rocker (Monkees-Last Train to Clarksville) is 71
Meredith Viera, journalist, television personality, and game show host is 60
Matt Lauer, TV host (Today Show) is 56
Ben Johnson, Falmouth, Jamaica, Canadian 100m runner (Olympic-gold-1988-disqualified) 
     is 52
Jason Behr, film and television actor is 40
Eldrick Tont 'Tiger' Woods, golfer (16 Majors and 74 PGA wins) is 38
LeBron James, Miami Heat basketball player  is 29 

Remembered for being born today
Titus, 10th Roman Emperor (79-81), conqueror of Jerusalem b. 39
Rudyard Kipling, Bombay, author (Jungle Book, Gunga Din-Nobel 1907)b. 1865
Simon Guggenheim, philanthropist (died aboard Titanic) b. 1867
Al Smith, American politician and first Roman Catholic presidential candidate b. 1873
Sri Ramana Maharshi, Hindu philosopher/yogi (Maharshi Research Inst) b. 1879
Jeanette Nolan, actress (Richard Boone Show, Virginian) b. 1911
Bert Parks, [Jacobson], Atlanta Ga, TV host (Miss America) b. 1914
Jack Lord, American actor (Hawaii 50, Stony Burke) b. 1920
Bo Diddley, [Ellas Bates], rock `n' roll pioneer b. 1928
Skeeter Davis, [Mary Penick], Dry Ridge Ky, singer (End of World) b. 1931
Del Shannon, [Charles Westover], rocker (Runaway) b. 1934
Davy Jones, singer (Monkees-Last Train to Clarksville) b. 1945

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Artie Shaw, American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader in 2004 @94
Saddam Hussein, deposed Iraqi dictator is hanged in 2006 @ 69
Sonny Liston, World heavyweight boxing champion of OD in 1970 @38
Ling-Ling, 1st panda China gave US in 1992 @23

Brain Teasers
splatters: splatter, platter, latter, later, late, ate, at, a
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.
All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.
§    And That Is All for Now  §
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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.