Apr 15

 Week 16 Day: 105  Ave. sky cover: 5% \ Visibility: 10 miles Flagstaff Today 63° \23°  Wind: 5mph \ Gusts: 10mph
Extreme risk of fire \ Nearest active fire: 254mi \ nearest Lightning: 1467mi
Apr Averages for Flagstaff: 59° \ 28°  (3 days of moisture)

Today’s Quote

Monthly Observations

Pharmacists War on Diabetes Month Pet First Aid Awareness Month Physical Wellness Month Prevent Lyme in Dogs Month Link Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month    Link Rosacea Awareness Month School Library Media Month Sjogren's Awareness Month  Soy Foods Month Straw Hat Month

Stress Awareness Month  Testicular Cancer Awareness Month Tulip Month Women's Empowering Month  Women's Eye Health & Safety Month Workplace Conflict Awareness Month World Habitat Awareness Month World Landscape Architecture Month Worldwide Bereaved Spouses Awareness Month

 

Weekly Observations

Passiontide: 3-17	10-16 Holy Week Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week Link  National Dog Bite Prevention Week Link   National Public Safety Telecommunicators (911 Operators) Week Pan American Week National Student Employment Week:  Link
Money Smart Week: 9-16 Link World Irish Dancing Week: 10-17 Nat’l Work Zone Safety Awareness Week: Link 14-16   National Coin Week
Global Youth Service Days: 15-17	Ramadan: 3- 5/1

 

Daily Observations

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

A nice spring day. Slowly warming up.

I had lunch with Mary and Mike today. Mike just retired from his NAU job. All good for them.

I headed out this morning to get a much-needed haircut. I feel much lighter.

Slowly getting back into my routine. I’m still waiting for a chocolate on my pillow and someone to make my bed every morning. I’m working on a presentation of my trip. Going slow, because I stop to remember how much I saw and how much I learned.

Favorite Memes

 

A bit of Humor

What do call a man with seagulls on his head?

"Cliff"

Trivia

·        Conspiracy theorists often claim that the gold vaults at Fort Knox are empty, but the United States government contends that Fort Knox houses a ton of gold. Actually, more. There is said to be more than 147.3 million ounces of gold. Nearly all of the gold has been converted into gold bars, each weighing about 27 pounds. That much gold, at the current market of gold, means that Fort Knox is storing about $190 billion worth of gold.

·        Back to those conspiracy theorists. They believe that the gold has all been removed and sold off and that the government, to keep up the ruse, has painted a whole bunch on tungsten bricks to look like gold bars, just in case someone does get a chance to peer inside the vault.

Historical Events

Ø   1755 – Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was published in London.

Ø   1817 – The Erie Canal was authorized, to link between Buffalo on Lake Erie and the Hudson River at Albany New York

Ø   1912 – Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, near Newfoundland & Nova Scotia, Canada, after hitting an iceberg the night before.

Ø   1923 – Insulin became available for use by people with diabetes.

Ø   1947 – Jackie Robinson, became the first African-American player in Major League Baseball when he played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Ø   1955 – McDonald’s opened its first franchised restaurant, owned by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Ø   1989 – 96 fans were killed in The Hillsborough Tragedy in Sheffield, England with poor crowd control planning at a soccer match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

Ø   1983 – Tokyo Disneyland opened to the public.

Ø   2013 – The Boston marathon Bombing killed three people and injured 260 runners and supporters. At approximately 2:50 PM (EDT), in a terrorist attack, two explosions around Copley Square were caught live on camera during the telecast of the Boston Marathon.

Ø   2019 – The cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris in France was seriously damaged by a large fire

Birthdays Today

@82 – Kim Il-sung, 1st Supreme Leader of North Korea (d. 1994)

75 – Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, American screenwriter, producer

@65 – Hans Conried, American voice actor (d. 1982; stroke)

63 – Emma Thompson, English actress

@62 – Elizabeth Montgomery, American actress (died in 1995)

56 – Samantha Fox, English model, singer-songwriter

40 – Seth Rogen, Canadian-American actor, director, producer, screenwriter

32 – Emma Watson, English actress

 

Apr 14

 

Week 16 Day: 104  Ave. sky cover: a% \ Visibility: 10 miles Flagstaff Today 43° \19°  Wind: 13mph \ Gusts: 10mph
High risk of fire \ Nearest active fire: 254mi \ nearest Lightning: 925mi
Apr Averages for Flagstaff: 59° \ 28°  (3 days of moisture)

Today’s Quote

Monthly Observations

Library Snapshot Month Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month Link  Medical Cannabis Education and Awareness Month Month of the Military Child Link Month of the Young Child Move More In April  Link National 9-1-1 Education Month National African American Women's Fitness Month National Autism Awareness Month National Cannabis Awareness Month Link National Cancer Control Month  Link National Child Abuse Prevention Month National Card and Letter Writing Month National Decorating Month National Exchange Club - Child Abuse Prevention Month National DNA & Genomics & Stem Cell Education & Awareness Month Link National Donate Life Month National Facial Protection Month Link National Frog Month  Link National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month  Link  Link  Link National Garden Month Link National Heartworm Awareness Month Link

National Humor Month National Kite Month Link National Knuckles Down Month National Landscape Architecture Month National Lawn Care Month National Licorice Month National Minority Health Month Link National Multiple Birth Awareness Month Link National 9-1-1 Education Month National Occupational Therapy Month National Parkinson's Awareness Month Link  National Pecan Month Link National Pest Management Month National Pet Month Link Link National Poetry Month National Rebuilding Month National Safe Digging Month Link National Sarcoidosis Awareness Month Link  Nat’ly Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) Month National Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month  (SAAM) Link National Social Security Month  National Toddler Immunization Month Link National Youth Sports Safety Month

Weekly Observations

Passiontide: 3-17  Ramadan: 3- 5/1	10-16 Holy Week Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week Link  National Dog Bite Prevention Week Link   National Public Safety Telecommunicators (911 Operators) Week Pan American Week National Student Employment Week:  Link
Money Smart Week: 9-16 Link World Irish Dancing Week: 10-17 Nat’l Work Zone Safety Awareness Week: 11-15 Link 14-16   National Coin Week

Daily Observations

 

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

A nice sunny day…warming up nicely. The cable guy finally fixed my cable TV channel CNN. Took way too many phone calls. It was their problem. Happy camper again.

On the Focus French Polynesia trip, I rode on/in my first catamaran. A very nice experience with great views. I also rode in a glass bottom boat. The operator of the boat snorkeled and gave chum to the fish. There were hundreds of fish and a couple of small sharks. Very cool.

We also visited several ceremonial sites.  At one site there were tall plants with very long leaves surrounding the ceremonial site. The guide was emphatic that the plant was sacred and that we could not touch the leaves. Interesting for sure.

As I was driving around town, the Travel Lodge I stayed at when working on the Rez is now being converted into efficiency apartments to provide low cost housing for the homeless. A very good repurposing.

Favorite Memes

 

A bit of Humor

What is as light as a feather but impossible to hold for several minutes?

Your breath.

Trivia

·        Fort Knox was constructed in 1937. The original construction cost was $560,000, which would be around $10 million in today's money. It was built with more than 4,200 cubic yards of concrete and 16,000 cubic feet of granite, with 750 tons of reinforced steel and 670 tons of structural steel. The main vault door is 21 inches thick and weighs more than 20 tons.

·        Strict security measures are in place to keep Fort Knox secure. That means no one person knows the entire entry combination to access the gold vault. Instead, the information is divided up among several people. Even information about who knows a piece of the combination is classified.

·        Guarding Fort Knox and its gold reserves are members of the United States Mint Police. Established in 1792, the Mint Police organization is one of the country's oldest federal law enforcement agencies. Before being tasked with guarding the gold, each member of the Mint Police must go through a three-month training regiment, followed by a five-week specialized training in the field.

Historical Events

Ø   1561 – A ‘celestial phenomenon’ is reported over Nuremberg, described as an aerial UFO battle.

Ø   1828 – Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language.

Ø   1865 – President Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.

Ø   1927 – The first Volvo car was presented in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Ø   1933 – Jack Mackay and his wife reported seeing the Loch Ness Monster- and that got the whole modern lake monster thing started.

Ø   1939 – The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was first published by the Viking Press.

Ø   1960 – Broadway Show – Bye Bye Birdie (Musical) opened on April 14, 1960

Ø   2003 – The Human Genome Project was completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.

Birthdays Today

@96 – Sir John Gielgud, English actor, director, and producer (died in 2000)

90 – Loretta Lynn, American singer-songwriter

82 – Julie Christie, English actress

81 – Pete Rose, American baseball player

@77 – Rod Steiger, American actor (d. 2002; kidney failure)

@70 – Anne Sullivan, American educator (d. 1936; stroke)

64 – Peter Capaldi, Scottish character actor, The Twelfth Doctor

61 – Robert Carlyle, Scottish character actor

@56 – Cecil Chubb, English barrister, one-time owner of Stonehenge (d. 1934; stroke)

54 – Anthony Michael Hall, American actor

45 – Sarah Michelle Gellar, American actress

45 – Rob McElhenney, American actor and producer

26 – Abigail Breslin, American actress