Mar 23

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Mar 23, 2019 Week: 12 \ Day: 82

86004 Today: H 50° \ L 24° \ Average Sky Cover: 25% 

Wind:   7mph\Gusts:  17mph Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 67°[1990]   Record Low: -1°[1973]

Mar Averages: 51°\23° (6 days with rain)

Today’s Quote

Success is the sum of small efforts –

repeated day in and day out.

Robert Collier

Random Tidbits

There are around 2.2 million farms in the United States.

In 1940, the average farmer grew enough food for 19 other people. In 2006, the average American farmer grew enough food for 144 other people.

Observances This Week

Lent: 6-Apr 20

American Chocolate Week: 17-23 

National Animal Poison Prevention Week: 17-23    

National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week: 17-23   

World Folktales & Fables Week: 17-23

Act Happy Week: 18-24

International Teach Music Week: 18-24

National Fix A Leak Week: 18-24 

Shakespeare Week: 18-24 

Wellderly Week: 18-24

National Cherry Blossom Festival: 20-4/14  

International Week of Solidarity with People's Struggling Against Racism & Discrimination: 21-27

American Crossword Puzzle Days: 22-24 

Observances for Today

Endometriosis March Day Link 
Melba Toast Day

National Chip and Dip Day

National Puppy Day  Link  Link
National Chia Day Link  Link
National Tamale Day
Near Miss Day
OK Day Link
World Meteorological Day
Be Mad Day

My Rambling Thoughts

A beautiful Spring Friday. Warm and sunny.

The news channels are on the highest alert for the release of Mueller report. I’m not expecting much. We already know that 45 has always hung with those who play loose with the law and regulations. Since only one Republican senator has made a strong statement against 45’s feelings about Sen. McCain, I doubt anything will lead them to punishment of Our very own Great Leader.

Weekend will be busy for me as I gather up tax stuff. Never my favorite activity. I think everything has arrived, so now it’s just organizing it and taking to the tax man.

The Midwest is certainly suffering from flooding. The few people I know there are OK, but many others are having a very tough time.

Today’s Significant Historical Events

1400’s

1490 1st dated edition of Maimonides "Mishneh Torah", a code of

            Jewish religious law is published

1700’s

1775 Patrick Henry proclaims "Give me liberty or give me death" in

            speech in favor of Virginian troops joining US Revolutionary war

1800’s

1868 University of California founded in Oakland, California

1900’s

1901 Dame Nellie Melba reveals secret of her now famous toast

1903 The Wright brothers 1st file a patent for a flying machine,

            which is granted 3 years later

1929 1st telephone installed at the President’s desk under the

            Hoover administration at the White House

1931 Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev embrace the gallows during

            the Indian struggle for independence. Their request to be shot

            by a firing squad is refused.

1936 Physician Joseph G. Hamilton injects a leukemia patient with a

            sodium radioisotope, first intravenous injection of a human with

            a radioisotope

1945 The Swallow Sidecar Company headed by William Lyons agrees to

            change its name to Jaguar

1950 UN World Meteorological Org established

1972 Evel Knievel breaks 93 bones after successfully clearing 35 cars

1983 US President Ronald Reagan introduces Strategic Defense

            Initiative ("Star Wars")

1990 Former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood ordered to help

            clean up Prince William Sound & pay $50,000 in restitution for

            1989 oil spill

2000’s

2018 A Sahara sandstorm turns snow in Sochi, Russia, orange in one of

            the largest-ever transfers of desert sand

Birthdays Today

1823 Schuyler Colfax,

(R) 17th VP (1869-73)

(d. 1885:@61-heart attack)

1857 Fannie Farmer,

American culinary pioneer who revolutionized modern cooking

 through the introduction of precise measurements (Boston

 Cooking-School Cook Book),

born in Boston, Massachusetts

(d. 1915:@57)

1905 Joan Crawford

[Lucille Le Sueur],

American actress (Mildred Pierce),

born in San Antonio, Texas

(d. 1977:@73-heart attack)

1910 Akira Kurosawa,

Japanese director and screenwriter who was posthumously

named "Asian of the Century" in the "Arts, Literature, and Culture"

category (Rashomon, Drunken Angel, Seven Samurai, Ran),

born in Tokyo Japan

(d. 1998:@88)

1912 Wernher von Braun,

German rocket scientist (I Aim at the Stars),

born in Wirsitz, Germany (now Wyrzysk, Poland)

(d. 1977:@65-pancreatic cancer)

1922 Marty Allen,

comedian (Allen & Rossi), "Hello Dere"

(d. 2018:@95)

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67- Rex Tillerson,

American businessman (ExxonMobil) and

US Secretary of State (2017-18),

born in Wichita Falls, Texas

66- Chaka Khan

[Yvette Marie Stevens],

American singer and songwriter (Rufus, I am Every Woman),

born in Chicago, Illinois

54- Richard Grieco,

actor (21 Jump Street, Booker)

43- Keri Russell,

American actress (Felicity, The Americans),

born in Fountain Valley, California

41- Perez Hilton

[Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr],

American television personality and blogger,

born in Miami, Florida

Historical Obits Today

@91-2015 Lee Kuan Yew,

Founding father of modern Singapore and

1st Prime Minister of Singapore (1959-90)

@90-2016 Joe Garagiola,

NFL catcher and sportscaster/host (Today Show)

@87-2006 Desmond Doss,

American soldier and first conscientious objector

Medal of Honor recipient

@79-2011 Elizabeth Taylor,

English-American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian

(Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

dies of congestive heart failure

@71-2016 Ken Howard,

American actor (The White Shadow),

dies of pneumonia

@62-1983 Barney Clark,

1st artificial heart recipient,

dies after 112 days

@59-1964 Peter Lorre,

Hungarian-American actor (M, Casablanca, Beast with 5 Fingers),

dies from a stroke

@23-1931 Bhagat Singh,

Indian freedom fighter,

hanged

Mar 22

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Mar 22, 2019 Week: 12 \ Day: 81

86004 Today: H 42° \ L 26° \ Average Sky Cover: 45% 

Wind:   9mph\Gusts:  13mph Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 68°[2004]   Record Low: -1°[1952]

Mar Averages: 51°\23° (6 days with rain)

Today’s Quote

A moralist dwells on the happiness of duty;

an immoralist on the duty of happiness.

-- Anonymous

Random Tidbits

Outside of New England o.k. really didn't become famous until the presidential candidacy of Martin Van Buren in 1840 and the invention of the telegraph. The first was important because Van Buren acquired the nickname "Old Kinderhook" after his home town in Upstate New York: "OK now could have a double meaning: Old Kinderhook was all correct."

Then, the invention of the telegraph made the use of OK as shorthand for "all correct" commonplace.

Observances This Week

Lent: 6-Apr 20

American Chocolate Week: 17-23 

National Animal Poison Prevention Week: 17-23    

National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week: 17-23   

World Folktales & Fables Week: 17-23

Act Happy Week: 18-24

International Teach Music Week: 18-24

National Fix A Leak Week: 18-24 

Shakespeare Week: 18-24 

Wellderly Week: 18-24

National Cherry Blossom Festival: 20-4/14  

International Week of Solidarity with People's Struggling Against Racism & Discrimination: 21-27

American Crossword Puzzle Days: 22-24 

Observances for Today

As Young As You Feel Day
International Day of The Seal
International Goof Off Day
Talk Like William Shatner Day Link
Tuskegee Airmen Day
World Day for Water (aka World Water Day)  Link
World Day of Metta

My Rambling Thoughts

I woke up this morning to a dusting of snow. Typical spring weather for 7000’. Sun shines, then more clouds come in, then the sun comes back. Then it snows again. Headed out to my weekly trip to Sam’s Club. Stopped at Walgreens to get my necessary passport photos for my Visas to Russia and China. Got what I needed and headed home.

Looks like Boeing could have prevented the two crashed planes, if the purchasing airline had purchased the ‘extra’ package. And all the pilots who flew them got a 60-minute iPad training about the new plane. And now it is reported that the FAA can’t do much due to budget cuts. In case you haven’t noticed, airline seats in ‘coach’ keep getting smaller and smaller. Turns out the FAA can’t do the necessary studies for these changes, so they let the airplane builders decide just about everything about the plane. I guess airlines can still choose the colors for the seats and carpet. At least for now. Shameful!

Today’s Significant Historical Events

1600’s

1622 First American Indian (Powhatan) massacre of Europeans in

            Jamestown Virginia, 347 killed

1638 Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson expelled from

            Massachusetts Bay Colony

1700’s

1784 The Emerald Buddha is moved with great ceremony to

            its current place in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand

1800’s

1841 A method for alkali starch extraction is patented in the US by

            Orlando Jones, which is later applied to corn (cornstarch)

1861 1st US nursing school chartered

1900’s

1903 Niagara Falls runs out of water because of a drought

1933 FDR makes wine & beer with up to 3.2% alcohol legal

1965 US confirms its troops used chemical warfare against the Vietcong

1978 Karl Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-

            rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico

2000’s

2014 The US and EU impose sanctions on Russia

2018 US President Donald Trump imposes $60 billion worth of tariffs

            on Chinese imports

2018 The "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" between Hawaii and California

            has 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and increasing rapidly according

            to new research

Birthdays Today

1868 Robert A. Millikan,

American physicist (photoelectric effect; Nobel 1923),

born in Morrison, Illinois

(d. 1953:@85)

1908 Louis D L'Amour,

author (Hondo, Jubal Sackett), born in Jamestown, North Dakota

(d. 1988:@80)

1923 Marcel Marceau,

mime (Barbarella, Silent Movie)

(d. 2007:@84)

1887 Chico Marx,

[Leonard Marx],

American comedian (Marx Brothers),

born in NYC, New York

(d. 1961:@74- Arteriosclerosis)

1912 Karl Malden

[Mladen George Sekulovich],

American actor (Streets of San Francisco, American Express, A

 Streetcar Named Desire),

born in Chicago, Illinois

(d. 2009:@97)

1920 James Brown,

American actor (Rin Tin Tin-Lt. Rip Masters),

born in Desdemona, Texas

(d. 1992:@72-lung cancer)

1920 Ross Martin

[Martin Rosenblatt],

Polish-American actor (Mr Lucky, The Wild Wild West),

born in Gródek, Lwowskie, Poland

(d. 1981:@61-heart attack)

1920 Werner Klemperer,

German-American actor

(Judgment at Nuremberg, Hogan's Heroes),

born in Cologne, Germany

(d. 2000:@80)

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89- Stephen Sondheim,

American lyricist (West Side Story, Company),

born in NYC, New York

88- William Shatner,

Canadian author, director and actor (Star Trek, T J Hooker),

born in Montreal, Quebec

85- Orrin Hatch,

politician (Sen-R-UT, 1977- ),

born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

72- James Patterson,

American author (Alex Cross, Witch and Wizard),

born in Newburgh, New York

71- Andrew Lloyd Webber,

Composer

60- Matthew Modine,  

actor (Full Metal Jacket)

48-Keegan-Michael Key,

comedian

43- Reese Witherspoon,

American actress

(Pleasantville, Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama),

born in New Orleans, Louisiana

37- Constance Wu,

Taiwanese-American actress (Fresh Off the Boat),

born in Richmond, Virginia

Historical Obits Today

@90-2001 William Hanna,

American animator and studio founder

@73-1978 Karl Wallenda,

falls to death walking high-wire in PR

@48-1958 Michael "Mike" Todd

[Avrom Goldbogen],

American producer (Around the World in 80 Days) and

3rd husband of Elizabeth Taylor,

dies in a plane crash