Apr 3

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Apr. 3, 2020 Week: 14 Day: 94

86004: H 60° \ L 29° \ Average Sky Cover: 5%

Wind: 13mph\Gusts: 16mph Visibility: 10 mi

Nearest lightning: 810mi.; Nearest active fire: 751mi.

Record High: 71°[1961] Record Low: 8°[1980]

Apr. Averages: 60°\27° (3 days with moisture)

Today’s Quote

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap

but by the seeds that you plant."

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Random Tidbits

It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis!

No piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half!

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein!

Observations This Week

NanoDays: 28-4/5 Link
Consider Christianity Week: 29 to 4/4
Passion Week: 29-4/4
Mule Week: 30-4/5

Passiontide: 29-4/11
National Cherry Blossom Festival: 20-4/12 Link

******

APAWS Pooper Scooper  Week: 1-7
Golden Rule Week: 1-7
Laugh at Work Week: 1-7
Medication Safety Week: 1-7
Mule Day: 1-7
Testicular Cancer Awareness Week: 1-7 Link

Observations for Today

Don't Go To Work Unless It's Fun Day Link
Fan Dance Day
Hospital Admitting Clerks Day
International Kids Yoga Day
National Walk To Work Day

Find A Rainbow Day Link
National Chocolate Mousse Day

National Film Score Day Link
National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day   Link
National Walk to Work Day

Pony Express DayTweed Day

Weed Out Hate
World Party Day Link

My Rambling Thoughts

A windy day...expecting 35mph wind before the day is over. Even without Rez sand, I'm staying in. I'll walk double when the wind stops.

Talked to Andy, my old boss, and told him about WhatsApp. He downloaded it and really likes it. Much easier to talk to his friends and relatives out on the Rez. His wife is a reading specialist teacher at Tuba. She just got a call from the local Tuba hospital asking if she could make gowns for the workers. She is a great seamstress and is getting the patterns and list of materials needed. The principal told her to keep track of her time, and she could have that count as on-line teaching time.

I updated the Focus Travel Club site, some trips have moved because of Covid19, others now have some new options. Thanks to Joe and his staff for some great options during this turbulent time for traveling. I know he is doing his best on the Tahiti trip. Not all the vendors are cooperating, just yet.

Seems like a long time ago when Trump promised a website to find testing sites...it was on Mar 13. He turned it over to his son-in-law Jared and his company to do it. Even though time was donated, many Federal laws were possibly broken by the shadow operation when Trump announced he was working with Google. There still is no app, and J and crew stopped working on it.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of the page

A man wanted to encrypt his password but he needed to do it in a way so that he could remember it. He had to use seven characters consisting of letters and numbers only (no symbols like ! or <). In order to remember it, he wrote down “You force heaven to be empty.” What is his password?

Historical Events

33 - Two researchers from Oxford published a paper that put the definitive date of Jesus’ crucifixion at Friday, April 3, 33 AD

1860 - Pony Express mail, traveling by horse and rider relay teams, simultaneously left St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. They used horses, not ponies.

1885 - Gottlieb Daimler was granted a German patent for his engine design.

1953 - TV Guide published its first issue

1955 - The American Civil Liberties Union announced it would defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges.

1956 - Elvis Presley appeared on the Milton Berle Show.

1966 - The USSR's Luna 10, the first spacecraft to orbit the moon, entered lunar orbit and completed its first orbit 3 hours later.

1968 - Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I've Been to the Mountaintop speech. in Memphis, Tennessee.

1973 - The first portable phone call was placed by inventor Martin Cooper to Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.

1978 - At the 50th annual Academy Awards, held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, Woody Allen's Annie Hall won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1977.

1981 - The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, was unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.

1983 - Martin Cooper, Motorola project manager, demonstrated the 1st mobile phone, the DynaTAC 8000x. It was designed by Rudy Krolopp and the 2½ pound cell phone was soon made available for $3,995.

1986 - Merv Griffin sold Merv Griffin Enterprises, to The Coca-Cola Company, for $250,000,000.

1996 - "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski was captured at his cabin in Montana.

2000 - Microsoft was ruled to have violated United States antitrust law by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.

2010 - The Apple iPod (Wi-Fi) was released.

2012 US President Barack Obama officially secures Democratic presidential nomination

Birthdays Today

@94-Actor, Iron Eyes Cody (d. 1999)*Not Native American

@97-Actress, Doris Day [Doris Mary Anne Kappelhof] (d. 2019)

86-Ethologist, Jane Goodall (1934)

@80-Actor, Marlon Brando ( d.2004)

78-Actress, Marsha Mason (1942)

78-Musician, Wayne Newton (1942)

@76-Writer, Washington Irving (d. 1859)

75-Musician, Tony Orlando (1944)

62-Actor, Alec Baldwin (1958)

61-Actor, David Hyde Pierce (1959)

59-Actor, Eddie Murphy (1961)

49-Skier, Picabo Street (1971)

34-Actress, Amanda Bynes (1986)

Puzzle Answer:

Try to pronounce the sentence like these characters: u472bmt.

Apr 2

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Apr. 2, 2020 Week: 14 Day: 93

86004: H 68° \ L 38° \ Average Sky Cover: 50%

Wind: 5mph\Gusts: 15mph Visibility: 10 mi

Nearest lightning: 1687mi.; Nearest active fire: 420mi.

Record High: 72°[1966] Record Low: -2°[1975]

Apr. Averages: 60°\27° (3 days with moisture)

Today’s Quote

"Always remember that you are absolutely unique.

Just like everyone else."

-Margaret Mead

Random Tidbits

Most lipstick contains fish scales!

Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typing!

One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen!

Observations This Week

NanoDays: 28-4/5 Link
Consider Christianity Week: 29 to 4/4
Passion Week: 29-4/4
Mule Week: 30-4/5

Passiontide: 29-4/11
National Cherry Blossom Festival: 20-4/12 Link

APAWS Pooper Scooper  Week: 1-7
Golden Rule Week: 1-7
Laugh at Work Week: 1-7
Medication Safety Week: 1-7
Mule Day: 1-7
Testicular Cancer Awareness Week: 1-7 (aka Get A Grip Day!)  Link

Observations for Today

Children's Book Day

International Children's Book DayMule Day: 2-5 Link  CANCELLED due to CORVID-19
National Ferret Day  Link
National Burrito Day:
National Love Your Produce Manager Day

National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day Link
Reconciliation Day

World Autism Day Link
World Autism Acceptance Day Link

World Party Day

My Rambling Thoughts

The news about this pandemic just keeps getting less positive. Just keep believing we will get through this. Remember, you are not stuck at home, you are safe at home!

Before the virus, I would wake up and put on my 'outside' clothes. When I returned from being out and knowing I was staying home, I would wear sweats. During the virus, I know I'm not going out, but I still get dressed in my 'outside' clothes everyday. After almost 3 weeks, I'm now asking myself...why?

I stole this from another high school classmate on FB: “This too shall pass. It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.”

AZ has never been seen as liberal. Our governor issued guidelines regarding the virus. In his decree, the golf clubs, and liquor stores are considered 'essential', while barbershops and hair salons are closed. So I'm sure the golf clubs will have some very 'interesting' players. One of my ultra-right high school classmates posted a picture showing him and his friend playing golf yesterday in Scottsdale. Crazy.

Over the past few years there has been a movement to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr. Flag's city council did just that. Then the AZ governor sued to stop it. It is still in the courts. Now during the pandemic, it is many of the minimum wage people who are keeping us going...grocery clerks, take-out services, hospital janitors, security, and many more. I'm sure this will be revisited after this ends.

As I read other far-right posts on Facebook, it seems that some of them believe this whole crisis is due to the lefties. While many governors are closing churches and stop even small crowds from gathering in public, these crazies say that we are losing our constitutional rights of freedom of religion and freedom of assembly. They believe guns will be next.

Two religious leaders, one in FL and one in LA have been arrested for having church services in their churches after the respective governor issued an order to not hold them. Guess they believe that their God will protect them. And on Navajo, a church service held for many has resulted in about 30 cases of Covid-19 and two deaths. Crazy times.

I decided not to shop during old people's shopping day on the first Wednesday of the month at my local grocery store. I could have saved 10% on everything, but decided staying safe was more important.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of the page

What has a mouth, but cannot eat; moves, but has no legs; and has a bank, but cannot put money in it?

Historical Events

1513 - Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed near what is now called St. Augustine, Florida and declared the land for Spain.

1792 - The Coinage Act was passed, establishing the United States Mint.

1827 - Lead pencils were began being manufactured by Joseph Dixon, who built his factory in Salem, Massachusetts

1882 - Tombstone reads, "Jesse W. James, Died April 3, 1882, Aged 34 years, 6 months, 28 days, Murdered by a traitor and a coward whose name is not worthy to appear here." Jesse James was shot and killed by frenemy Robert Ford for the reward money. There was a $5,000 bounty on the bank-robber, but they gave Ford $500, and then arrested him.

1902 - "Electric Theatre", the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opened in Los Angeles.

1917 - The first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin, takes her seat as a representative from Montana.

1953 - The journal Nature published a paper with this date from Francis Crick and James Watson, titled Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid, in which they described a double helix structure for DNA.

1956 - Elvis Presley sang Heartbreak Hotel on the Milton Berle Show, with an estimated 25% of the United States population viewing.

1973 - The first portable cell phone call was placed in New York City.

1973 - Launch of the LexisNexis legal research service.

1978 - Dallas premiered on CBS.

1978 - Velcro, the hook-and-loop fastener patent, expired. Velcro comes from “vel” or velvet and “cro” from the French word crochet which means hook.

1992 - In New York, Mafia boss John Gotti is convicted of murder and racketeering and is later sentenced to life in prison.

1992 - Pope John Paul II died.

1996 - Suspected 'Unabomber' Theodore Kaczynski was arrested at his Montana cabin.

2013 The UN General Assembly approves the first Arms Trade Treaty

2019 Canada is warming at twice the speed of the rest of the world, according to a federal report, increasing 2.3% in northern Canada

2019 NASA states it wants to send astronauts to Mars by 2033, and land on the Moon again in 2024

Birthdays Today

1st Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne (742)
Writer/lover, Giacomo Casanova (1725)
Author, Hans Christian Andersen (1805)
Car company founder, Walter Chrysler (1875)
Actor, Buddy Ebsen (1908, d.2003)
Actor, Alec Guinness (1914, d.2000)
Actor, Jack Webb (1920, d.1982)
Actor, Brian Glover (1934)
Musician, Marvin Gaye ( d.1984)
Actress, Penelope Keith (1940)
Musician, Leon Russell (1941)
Radio personality, Dr. Demento (1941)
Actress, Linda Hunt (1945)
Musician, Emmylou Harris (1947)
Actress, Pamela Reed (1949)
Actor, Ron Palilo (1954)
Actor, Christopher Meloni (1961)
Actor, Adam Rodriguez (1975)

Puzzle Answer:

River

Apr. 1

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Apr. 1, 2020 Week: 14 Day: 92

86004: H 67° \ L 37° \ Average Sky Cover: 50%

Wind: 7mph\Gusts: 11mph Visibility: 10 mi

Nearest lightning: 607mi.; Nearest active fire: 499mi.

Record High: 74°[2011] Record Low: 2°[1970]

Apr. Averages: 60°\27° (3 days with moisture)

Today’s Quote

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn

for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles,

but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Buddha

Random Tidbits

........1..2..3...breathe....and repeat...........

The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows!

Observations for this Month

Action & Skill Toys Month
Adopt A Rescued Guinea Pig Month Link
Alport Syndrome Awareness Month
American Red Cross Month or Red Cross Month  Link  or  Link
Asset Management Awareness Month  Link
Brain Injury Awareness Month Link
Child Life Month Link
Clap 4 Health Month
Colic Awareness Month
Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

Observations This Week

NanoDays: 28-4/5 Link
Consider Christianity Week: 29 to 4/4
Passion Week: 29-4/4
Mule Week: 30-4/5

Passiontide: 29-4/11
National Cherry Blossom Festival: 20-4/12 Link

APAWS Pooper Scooper Week: 1-7
Golden Rule Week: 1-7
Laugh at Work Week: 1-7
Medication Safety Week: 1-7
Mule Day: 1-7
Testicular Cancer Awareness Week: 1-7 (aka Get A Grip Day!)  Link

Observations for Today

April Fools  or All Fools Day
Atheist Day Link
Boomer Bonus Days
Childhelp National Day of Hope International Fun at Work Day

International Tatting Day Link
Library Snap Shot Day
Myles Day
National Fun Day
National Fun at Work Day 
National Soylent Green Day

National Walking Day Link 
Paraprofessional Appreciation Day 
Poetry & The Creative Mind Day
Reading is Funny Day
Sorry Charlie Day
St. Stupid Day Link
US Air force Academy Day

My Rambling Thoughts

A friend called last night with a request...TP. Three in the house are down to one roll, and the kid is 2 years old. They have tried for a week to find some. I agreed to go to Walmart during senior hours beginning at 6a. I found a big pkg of TP and some Clorox wipes. Thankfully for myself I  found distilled water (for the CPAP) and rice. Picked up a few other needs. In and out in about 20 minutes. Lots of elders shopping and lots of dedicated workers still stocking shelves. As I passed the workers I thanked them for being at work. Walgreens has an app that you can pay for your scripts and use the drive up. Amazingly it was open on my way home and I picked up my thyroid medication without having to leave my vehicle. Then I got home just after 7a.

By nine I had received two long phone conversations from friends. Both are doing fine, and with all this social distancing, that was nice.

Not expecting many April Fool's jokes. Seems like we are living in the all-time best prank.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of the page

Joseph and Lena are found dead on the floor with some water around. The windows are open and a strong wind draft is blowing the curtains around. How did they die?

Historical Events

1789 - Pennsylvania Representative Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg was elected as the first US Speaker of the House of Representatives.

1853 - The first professional, full time US fire department with salaried firemen was established in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1875 - Sir Francis Galton published the first newspaper weather map, in The Times in London, England

1877 - Edward Schieffelin founded Tombstone, Arizona, best known as the place where Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers had their shoot-out with the Clantons and McLaurys at the O.K. Corral in 1881

1938 - The first panda to live in captivity outside China, Su Lin, died after a twig lodged in his throat at the Brookfield Zoo, Chicago.

1957 - The BBC broadcast the 'spaghetti-tree hoax' on its current affairs program Panorama, showing spaghetti being harvested from trees.

1960 - The first weather observation satellite, Tiros I, was launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida and made the first television picture from space.

1963 - ABC premiered General Hospital, the daytime drama that eventually become the network's longest-running (oap opera) serial program produced in Hollywood.

1970 - President Richard Nixon signed legislation officially banning cigarette ads on television and radio.

1976 - Apple Computer Company was formed by Steve Jobs Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.

1983 - Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and released in theaters.

1984 - Singer Marvin Gaye was shot three times and killed by his father during a domestic dispute.

1997 - As part of a crossover April Fools joke, Pat Sajak hosted Jeopardy and Alex Trebek hosted Wheel of Fortune.

2004 - Gmail was launched on April 1 and was widely assumed to be an April Fools' Day prank. They offered 1GB free storage in 2004 while other webmail services typically provided between 5MB - 50MB.

2007 - Google sent an email to all of its employees warning that a python was loose inside of their New York office. It was not a joke.

Birthdays Today

@84-Debbie Reynolds, actor, singer (d. 2016)

81-Ali MacGraw, actor

@71-Gordon Jump ( d.2003; respiratory failure)

59-Susan Boyle, singer

@47-Lon Chaney, actor (d. 1930, lung cancer)

47-Rachel Maddow, news host

40-Randy Orton, wrestler

Puzzle Answer:

Joseph and Lena were goldfishes. The wind tipped their bowl over, hence killing them!