Aug 21

 

Aug 21, 2021 Week: 34 Day: 233
Ave. Sky Cover:  15%\Visibility: 10 miles
Local Temp:   75°\ 48° Wind: 6mph\ Gusts: 11mph
Low risk of fire Active fire: 361mi. \ Lightning: 530mi.
Aug Averages: 79°\50° (9 days w/moisture) 

Today’s Quote

  

 

Weekly Observations

 

National Aviation Week National Chef's Appreciation Week Link	15-21
Minority Enterprise Development Week	18-24
National Little League Week Link	19-29

 

Daily Oberservations

 

Brazilian Blowout Day Poet’s Day Senior Citizens Day Spumoni Day

  

Favorite Memes

 

 

 

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

 

A nice warm day, clouds in the west say rain, weather guy says no moisture…I’ll wait and see.

Heavy snow last night on several Colorado mountain passes. WOW. Seems a tad early, but moisture is moisture.

Colleges and Universities are having ‘double’ orientation week this year. Since both freshman and sophomores have not been on campus for living or classes. During my freshman year, soon after the University had just dropped the requirement that students had to carry at least two quill pens and their own ink bottle, I learned a lot from upperclassmen. The virus has certainly changed campus life for years to come.

The Afghan withdrawal is not going as well as hoped for. This is an ongoing endeavor and one that I certainly hope will save Americans and those who helped us. The pictures are horrifying.                      

 

Historical Events

 

1264 Kublai Khan accepts the surrender of his younger brother Ariq Böke at Xanadu, at the end of the Mongol civil war

1541 Ottoman Turks under Suleiman the Magnificent capture Buda, the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom and go on to dominate central Hungary for 150 years

1831 Former slave Nat Turner leads uprising against slavery

1911 – The Mona Lisa was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre employee. It was returned to the Louvre on January 4, 1914. Peruggia served six months in prison for the crime.

1939 – 5 young African-Americans were denied library cards at the Alexandria, VA Library and arrested after sitting down and reading books. The civil disobedience was one of the earliest in the American Civil Rights Movement.

1961 – Motown released what would be its first #1 hit, Please Mr. Postman by The Marvelettes.

1968 Warsaw Pact forces complete their invasion of Czechoslovakia by arresting the Czech leader Alexander Dubček and forcing him to sign the Moscow Protocols

1986 – The Lake Nyos, Cameroon disaster resulted in the deaths of 1,800 people when a volcano suddenly burst with a wave of carbon dioxide.

1996 Netscape Browser 3.0 is released

2018 Michael Cohen, President Trump's personal lawyer, pleads guilty to charges including illegal payment at direction of Trump to women Trump had affairs with

2019 74,155 fires caused by land clearing are burning in the Amazon rain forest, the most ever recorded, according the Brazil's National Institute for Space Research

 

Birthdays Today

 

@85 – William Murdoch, Scottish engineer, and inventor, created gas-powered lighting (d. 1839)

@81 – Kenny Rogers, American singer-songwriter, actor (d. 2020)

80 – Jackie DeShannon [Sharon Lee Myers], American singer-songwriter

@79 – [William James ] Count Basie, pianist, composer, bandleader (1984; cancer)

65 – Kim Cattrall, English-Canadian actress

@63 – Wilt Chamberlain, basketball player, coach (d. 1999; heart failure)

35 – Usain Bolt, runner

32 – Hayden Panettiere, American actress

 

 

 

Aug 20

 

Aug 16, 2021 Week: 34 Day: 232
Ave. Sky Cover:  10%\Visibility: 10 miles
Local Temp:   74°\ 48° Wind: 7mph\ Gusts: 20mph
Low risk of fire Active fire: 361mi. \ Lightning: 189mi.
Aug Averages: 79°\50° (9 days w/moisture) 

Today’s Quote

  

 

Weekly Observations

 

National Environmental Services Week: Link	2-20
National Aviation Week National Chef's Appreciation Week Link	15-21
Minority Enterprise Development Week	18-24
National Little League Week Link	19-29

 

Daily Oberservations

 

Bacon Lovers Day Chocolate Pecan Pie Day Lemonade Day Radio Day

  

Favorite Memes

 

  

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

 Mary is back in town so Faith, another retired teacher from Tuba and I had lunch. She had a great time in Oregon, except for all the smoke on the drive up and back and at the beach. Mary’s neighbor got her chimney hit by lightning yesterday. Burned out the washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher that are now in the driveway. It knocked out Mary’s internet and TV. The TV is no more. Faith is busy doing some great crafts. She loves crafts and has a 10-needle embroidery sewing machine. We caught up on school gossip too and remembered some great Tuba stories. Good conversation and great food.

One of my former students and T-ball player now lives in Flag. She was on the Phx news after her Flag house flooded. Sad. Clouds are rolling in again for another monsoon afternoon. I didn’t open any windows until afternoon as the while it was in the low 70’s, the air feels different. 

 

Historical Events

 1191 Crusader King Richard I kills 3,000 muslim prisoners in Akko

1866 President Andrew Johnson formally declares US Civil War over

1905 Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen forms the first chapter of T'ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchus (Qing dynasty)

1920 – The first(?) commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), began operating in Detroit.

1920 – The National Football League was organized as the American Professional Football Conference in Canton, Ohio.

1957 USAAF balloon breaks an altitude record at 102,000' (310,896 m)

1964 US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act, an anti-poverty measure totaling nearly $1 billion

1986 – In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill shot and killed14 of his co-workers, injured 6 more, and then committed suicide. It was the initial example of “going postal”.

2018 Pope Francis releases letter to all Catholics condemning sexual abuse atrocities and clerical cover-ups "We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them"

2020 Former adviser to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon arrested and charged with fraud over a fundraising campaign to build a wall on the Mexican border

2020 Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny falls into a coma after a suspected poisoning (later confirmed to be Novichok poisoning)

2020 Kamala Harris accepts her nomination for vice-president, becoming the 1st US woman of color on a major-party ticket saying "there is no vaccine for racism"

 

Birthdays Today

 @67 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President (d. 1901; pneumonia)

90 – Don King, American boxing promoter

86 – Ron Paul, American politician, and physician

75 – Connie Chung, American journalist

73 – Robert Plant, English singer-songwriter

67 – Al Roker, American news anchor, television personality

@65 – Isaac Hayes, singer-songwriter, producer (d. 2008, strokes)

59 – James Marsters, American actor

@46 – H.P. Lovecraft, short story writer, editor, novelist (d. 1937; cancer)

@40 – Jim Reeves, American singer-songwriter (d, 1964; plane crash)

29 – Demi Lovato, American singer-songwriter and actress

 

 

 

Aug 19

 

Aug 19, 2021 Week: 34 Day: 231
Ave. Sky Cover:  80%\Visibility: 10 miles
Local Temp:   69°\ 52° Wind: 9mph\ Gusts: 12mph
Low risk of fire Active fire: 361mi. \ Lightning: 12mi.
Aug Averages: 79°\50° (9 days w/moisture) 

Today’s Quote

  

 

Weekly Observations

 

National Environmental Services Week: Link	2-20
National Aviation Week National Chef's Appreciation Week Link	15-21
Minority Enterprise Development Week	18-24
National Little League Week Link	19-29

 

Daily Oberservations

 

Aviation Day Bow Day Potato Day Soft Ice Cream Day World Humanitarian Day World Photo Day

  

Favorite Memes

 

  

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

Yesterday’s storm was bigger than I realized. Parts of our mountain got 3” of rain in less than an hour…a ‘100-500-year event’. Unfortunately, the heaviest hit area was a burn scare from our last big fire. This led to a torrent of flash flooding hitting several areas of Flagstaff. This summer flash floods are not uncommon. What was unusual was a loud, beeping text alert soon after I posted yesterday’s blog on my phone. It said to ‘stay in place, do not travel’.  Right after that, Facebook was showing lots of rushing water videos throughout East Flagstaff.  On the East side of town, the main drag, Rt. 66, was also blocked at many points by rushing water. One elementary school has been closed due to flooding in the hallways and classrooms of their building. No problems in our compound. More rain is expected today.

Today is cool, windows and door closed.

TGIR…the Gov. of AZ has issued a proclamation that any school district that requires the wearing of masks inside any school will mean that their share of $163 million in Covid Federal relief aid will be held and not distributed to them. His reasoning <?> is that mask wearing by children is a parental decision, not a government decision. Before the proclamation, numerous school districts, through elected school boards, required mask wearing. Time and the courts will decide who is right. It appears the boards will keep the mask wearing until the courts decide. Crazy.

Texas schools are having similar problems and they think they got around the order by simply changing their dress code to include mask wearing. Hmmm.

Sticking with schools, there is a small school, Cove Day School, on the Navajo Reservation, that educates K-3 and has 13 Bureau employees. It has been indefinitely closed and children in the community will get their education online. It was recently discovered high levels of radiation in the classrooms and buildings. It is believed this is from uranium mining from decades ago. No word on where staff will be living or how the online learning will be available since the school is off limits. Sack lunches will come from a nearby public school. Scary for sure.  

Historical Events

1692 Five more people hanged for witchcraft (19 in all) in Salem, Massachusetts

1791 Benjamin Banneker sends a copy of his Almanac and writes a letter to Thomas Jefferson criticizing his pro-slavery stance and requesting justice for African Americans using language from the Declaration of Independence

1812 – American frigate USS Constitution defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, earning the nickname “Old Ironsides”.

1887 Dmitri Mendeleev makes a solo ascent by balloon to an altitude of 11,500 feet (3.5 km) above Klin, Russia to observe an eclipse

1893 – Frank Wisner invented the Root Beer Float.

1934 – The first All-American Soap Box Derby was held in Dayton, Ohio.

1993 Mattel & Fisher Price toy companies merge

2020 Apple becomes the 1st US company to be valued at $2 trillion, just 2 years after it reached $1 trillion valuation 

Birthdays Today

@87 – Coco Chanel, founded the Chanel Company (d. 1971)

87 – Renée Richards, American tennis player, and ophthalmologist

@80 – [Peter Edward] Ginger Baker, drummer, and songwriter (d. 2019)

@76 – Orville Wright, American engineer, pilot, co-founded the Wright Company (d. 1948)

75 – Bill Clinton, 42nd President

74 – Gerald McRaney, American actor

@68 – Ogden Nash, American poet (d. 1971; Chron’s disease)

@70 – Malcolm Forbes, publisher, politician (d. 1990; heart attack)

@70 – Gene Roddenberry, screenwriter, producer (Star Trek) (d.1991; stroke)

58 – John Stamos, actor

52 – Matthew Perry, actor