8/18/13


FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 34/ Day: 230
Today: H 80°…L 55°
Wind: ave:   8mph; Gusts:  22mph  Ave. humidity:  54%
Average Low Average High Record Low Record High
49°                        80°                38° (1979)     88° (2002)
Quote of the Day



Today’s Historical Highlights
"Lolita," by Vladimir Nabokov, published…1958
19th Amendment on women's suffrage ratified…1920
1st commercial oral contraceptive, Enovid 10 debuts in Skokie Ill…1960
1st mail-order catalog issued by A M Ward…1872
Congress creates Bureau of Immigration…1894
FDA approves Minoxidil as a hair loss treatment…1988
Last Pottawatomie Indians leave Chicago…1835
Oldest known Roman temple to Venus is founded, starting the institution of 
     Vinalia Rustica…293BC
South Africa banned from Olympic Games because of apartheid policies…1964
TV game show scandal investigation starts…1958
Weather map televised for 1st time…1926
Woodstock Music & Art Fair closes with Jimi Hendrix / Band of Gypsys as the final act…1969

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify?…answers in Today’s Birthdays



My Free Rambling Thoughts   
A very lazy wet and rainy day. Clouds came in early, brought lightning, then rain, stayed cloudy and several rain storms came through. And then the big rain hit. While it has been a very wet monsoon season, we are reminded that lightning caused fires in our forest can happen at any time. There were at least 5 small lightning caused fires just outside the city limits. All appear to have been contained to a few acres thanks to the Forest Service first responders.
 
I stayed up way too late last night watching some good movies. Good ol’ action/spy/kidnapping/save the earth movies. Well worth the time I spent, but woke up at the regular time…about 6am…then took a nice long afternoon nap. Didn’t miss out on much around town due to the rain.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
I creep in with feline grace - Stealthy, silent, gliding - Adding beauty, mystery, and stillness to all in my path.
My shape is ever-changing: Pausing and moving, here and there, A cool caress across your cheek as I slip quietly by.
But my looks are deceiving - Peril may lurk behind my misty veil. Slow down, be cautious, or you may abruptly meet with danger there.
What am I?
Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Hmmmm…Tongue Twisters
S     
Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.
~~~
Sarah saw a shot-silk sash shop full of shot-silk sashes as the sunshine shone on the side of the shot-silk sash shop.
~~~
The sawingest saw I ever saw saw was the saw I saw saw in Arkansas.
~~~
Say this sharply, say this sweetly;
Say this shortly, say this softly;
Say this sixteen times in succession.
~~~
Selfish shellfish.
~~~
Shelter for six sick scenic sightseers.
~~~
She sells seashells on the seashore.
The shells she sells are seashells, I'm sure.
~~~
She stood on the balcony inexplicably mimicking him hiccuping, and amicably welcoming him home.
~~~
She was a thistle sifter and sifted thistles through a thistle sieve.
~~~
Shredded Swiss cheese.
~~~
Shy Shelly says she shall sew sheets.
~~~
Silly Sally swiftly shooed seven silly sheep.
The seven silly sheep Silly Sally shooed
Shilly-shallied south.
These sheep shouldn't sleep in a shack;
Sheep should sleep in a shed.
~~~
Sinful Caesar sipped his snifter, seized his knees, and sneezed.
~~~
The sinking steamer sank.
~~~
Sixish. Sixish. Sixish.
~~~
Six sharp smart sharks.
~~~
Six shimmering sharks sharply striking shins.
~~~
Six short slow shepherds.
~~~
Six sick slick slim sycamore saplings.
~~~
Six slippery snails slid slowly seaward.
~~~
Six sticky sucker sticks.
~~~
The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.
~~~
Six twin-screwed steel steam cruisers.
~~~
A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.
~~~
Sly Sam slurps Sally's soup.
~~~
The soldiers should have shooters on their shoulders. Some shun sunshine.
~~~
Strange strategic statistics.
~~~
Strict strong stringy Stephen Stretch slickly snared six sickly silky snakes.
~~~
"Surely Sylvia swims!" shrieked Sammy, surprised.
"Someone should show Sylvia some strokes so she shall not sink."
~~~
Sure the ship's shipshape, sir.
~~~
Susan shineth shoes and socks;
Socks and shoes shines Susan.
She ceases shining shoes and socks,
For shoes and socks shock Susan.
~~~
Swan swam over the sea.
Swim, swan, swim!
Swan swam back again.
Well swum, swan!

Not a Fan of Faux News, but this is crazy.


Ok, then?



Harper’s Index    
Percentage change since Obama took office in the number of veterans waiting more than a year for Federal benefits: +2,231
Unusual Fact of the Day
Invented in the 1940s in Tennessee, Mountain Dew was meant to be mixed with whisky. In fact, its bottles were designed to look like moonshine, and the original Mountain Dew labels featured outhouses, stills, and hay-chewing yokels.
Joke-of-the-day
A bar owner locked up his place at 2 AM and went home to sleep. He had been in bed only a few minutes when the phone rang. “What time do you open up in the morning?” he heard an obviously inebriated man inquire.
The owner was so furious he slammed down the receiver and went back to bed. A few minutes later there was another call and he heard the same voice ask the same question. “Listen, the owner shouted, “there’s no sense in asking me what time I open because I wouldn’t let a person in your condition in—“
“I don’t want to get in,” the caller interjected. “I want to get out.”
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
BUYING A USED JETLINER
Never expect to pay less for a used jet than it cost new.   
Yeah, It Really Happened
JENSEN BEACH, Fla. - Authorities in Florida said a "suspicious package" received by a woman turned out to be a "battery powered sex toy." The recently released report from the Martin County Sheriff's Office said a Jensen Beach woman called deputies July 31 and reported she had received a "suspicious package" the previous day, TCPalm.com reported Thursday. The package had arrived at the woman's home in a U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail envelope. The woman's name was listed as both sender and recipient on the envelope. A sheriff's office spokeswoman said a bomb tech specialist examined the package and determined it to be a "battery operated sex toy." "It was a pink plastic adult novelty item, with some type of a plastic rabbit attached to it," a sheriff's spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. "The recipient says she did not order it."  
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • Cocaine was the first local anesthetic; being used as such from about 1884 onwards.
  • Cocaine works in a totally different way from narcotics such as morphine or heroin. Heroin works on receptor sites in the brain which are stimulated by the drug to produce pain-relieving and mood-enhancing chemicals. Cocaine on the other hand works by stimulating the central nervous system, and like alcohol, is processed through the liver.
  • 'Crack' is the street name given to cocaine that has been processed from cocaine hydrochloride to a free base for smoking. Rather than requiring the more volatile method of processing cocaine using ether, crack cocaine is processed with ammonia or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and water and heated to remove the hydrochloride, thus producing a form of cocaine that can be smoked. The term 'crack' refers to the crackling sound heard when the mixture is smoked (heated), presumably from the sodium bicarbonate. 'Crack Cocaine' is still cocaine. It is simply a different chemical process applied to cocaine powder that allows cocaine to be smokeable. This means that the 'high' from Crack Cocaine is much stronger and more immediate (taking about 8 seconds to reach the brain); and also shorter lived then from the powder.
  • Despite the fact that federal spending on the drug war increased from $1.65 billion in 1982 to $17.7 billion in 1999, more than half of the students in the United States in 1999 tried an illegal drug before they graduated from high school. Additionally, 65% have tried cigarettes by 12th grade and 35% are current smokers, and 62% of twelfth graders and 25% of 8th graders in 1999 report having been drunk at least once.


Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
15-21
National Aviation Week
18-24
Little League Baseball World Series
Minority Enterprise Development Week

Today Is                                                                      
·        Bad Poetry Day
·        Birth Control Pills Day
·        Mail Order Catalog Day
·        Serendipity Day
·        (World) Daffodil Day

Today’s Events through History  
Cassini reports seeing a satellite orbiting Venus…1686
Governor of Roanoke Island colony returns from England & found everyone in the 
     colony had disappeared…1591 
Lewis and Clark meet with the Ottos to discuss the war with the Maha…1804
Republican Convention in New Orleans select Bush-Quayle ticket…1988
Sioux Indians begin uprising in Minnesota (it is later crushed)…1862

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Rosalynn Smith Carter, 1st lady is 86 
Rafer Johnson, decathlete (Olympics-gold-60) is 78
Dennis Leary, actor/comic (MTV) is 56
Martin Mull, actor/comedian (Bad Manners, Flick, Serial) is 70
Edward Norton, actor, screenwriter, film director is 44
Roman Polanski, Polish director (Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Pirates) is 80
Robert Redford, actor (Sting, Candidate, Natural, Great Gatsby) is 77
Christian Slater, actor (Robin Hood, Untamed Heart, Heathers) is 44
Malcolm Jamal Warner, actor (Theodore-Cosby Show) is 43
Bob Woodruff, American journalist, anchor is 52

Remembered for being born today
Virginia Dare, 1st English child born in New World [1587-??]
Max Factor Jr, CEO (Max Factor Cosmetics) [1904-1996]
Marshall Field, owner (Field Dept Store) [1834-1906]
Gail Fisher, actress (Peggy-Mannix) [1935-2000]
Walter J Hickel, (Gov-R-Alaska)/US Secretary of Interior [1919-2010]
Meriwether Lewis, solider, public administrator (Lewis & Clark Expedition) [1774-1809]
Casper Weinberger, US Secretary of Defense [1917-2006]
Grant Williams, NYC, actor (Hawaiian Eye, Incredible Shrinking Man) [1931-1985]
Shelley Winters, actress (A Place in the Sun, A Patch of Blue, Poseidon Adventure)[1920-2006]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Walter P. Chrysler, American automobile executive…stroke…1940…at 65
Genghis Khan, Mongol conqueror…fall or pnonemia…1227…at 65
Scott McKenzie, Pop singer… Guillain–Barré syndrome…2012…at 73
Robert Novak, journalist and commentator…brain tumor…2009…at 78
Joseph E. Seagram, Canadian distillery founder…1919…at 78
B F Skinner, psychologist (Skinner Box)…Leukemia…1990…at 86

Brain Teasers
Fog
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  §

8/17/13


FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 33/ Day: 229   
Today: H 83°…L 53°
Wind: ave:   8mph; Gusts:  30mph  Ave. humidity:  57%
Average Low      Average High
49°                        80°    
Record Low        Record High
37° (1968)           89° (1939)

Quote of the Day



Today’s Historical Highlights
1st ascent of Mt Rainier, Washington…1870
1st bank in Hawaii opens…1858
1st Compact Discs (CDs) were released to the public in Germany…1982
1st public bathhouse with showers opens in NYC (People's Bath)…1891
3 members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot are jailed for two years…2012 
Francis Gary Powers U-2 spy trial opens in Moscow…1960
Gay pride events are banned for a century in Moscow…2012
Joe Pulitzer donated $1 million to Columbia U & begins Pulitzer Prizes…1903
Kennedy administration establishes Alliance for Progress…1961
Koreas divided on 38th parallel with US occupying the southern area…1945

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   
How many can you identify?…answers in Today’s Birthdays



My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Really warmed up today…then a huge storm wandered in and cooled off everything…even had a little steam coming off the drive in front of my house. Then the storm was gone and while a little humid it turned into a nice day. All that is needed now is a breeze.
 
Oops…No matter which side of the Snowden leaks one stands, it is very interesting to learn this stuff. Today we learned that the NSA….the super secret spy agency…made a little mistake. While trying to spy on phone calls in Egypt, they were actually spying on Washington DC phone calls and didn’t realize it for some time. How could this happen? Easy…the country code of Egypt is ‘020’ and the area code for DC is 202.  A simple transition of numbers. Could happen to anybody. But wouldn’t one think that after listening to a few dozen phone calls, all in English, that some low level listener might want to let the boss know that suddenly the calls in Egypt are now in English. Certainly gives me pause.
 
I don’t speak Arabic, but it is interesting how things get translated. For the past few days all the networks have been telling the world that after Friday Prayers the Muslim Brotherhood is calling for a ‘Day of Rage’ about the overthrow of the elected government. Now, today, during the ‘Day of Rage’ CNN and others are now calling it a ‘Day of Anger’. This sure shows how important it is to have a good translator when dealing with foreign languages of any kind. Rage seems to be quite a few degrees more intense than Anger. Sadly, no matter what it is called, too many people are being slaughtered on some of the streets. It is also important to realize that there are 54million citizens in Egypt, and the violence is limited to a very small portion of the population. CNN had two amazing photos on its news…one was a picture drawn by an 8 year old child showing two Coptic Christian churches with little faces crying and a Mosque, also crying wrapping an arm around one of the Coptic churches. The other photo showed a beach, packed with sunbathers and swimmers in the foreground and a city with thick black smoke in the background. While all this violence is very real, not all…not even most…Egyptians are involved. It is small minorities on both sides with the rest of the 54 million population living their lives.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
When you curtail a word, you remove the last letter and still have a valid word. You will be given clues for the two words, longer word first.
Example: Begin -> Heavenly body               Answer: The words are Start and Star.
1. Position; observe -> Compete 2. Introductory textbook -> First in rank 3. School subject -> Floor covering 4. Written composition -> Show displeasure 5. Make again -> A colour 6. What person (objective) -> What person (subjective) 7. Close together; slow to learn -> Lairs 8. Therefore -> Unit of energy Bonus: Take the eight curtailed letters and form a one-word anagram; you will find an assignment.

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

Hmmmm…Tongue Twisters
Q    
Quick kiss. Quicker kiss.
R    
Red leather, yellow leather.
^^
Red lorry, yellow lorry.
^^
Ruby Rugby's brother bought and brought her back some rubber baby-buggy bumpers.
Quick kiss. Quicker kiss.R      Red leather, yellow leather. ^^ Red lorry, yellow lorry. ^^ Ruby Rugby's brother bought and brought her back some rubber baby-buggy bumpers.
Not a Fan of Faux News, but this is crazy.




Harper’s Index
Estimated number of minutes needed to fill out the benefit paperwork required by Obamacare: 45   
Ok, then?



Song Titles:
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Iron Butterfly: "In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey, don't you know that I love you" No, these lyrics don't make sense and really, they aren't suppose to. This is one of those songs that we have been given the answers to as to why it was written that way. The song's title (and the lyrics) were originally "In The Garden Of Eden", but according to the liner notes from a latter day CD compilation release: .....  The band's drummer, Ron Bushy, when the band was working on the song, asked singer Doug Ingle what he was singing, because he could not make out the words. He heard "in-a-gadda-da-vida", and after that the band liked the jumbled, misunderstood lyrics better, and kept them.
Unusual Fact of the Day
In 1835, John Wilkes Booth’s father Junius threatened to kill President Andrew Jackson.
Joke-of-the-day
When Mozart passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noises coming from the area where Mozart was buried.
Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to come and listen to it.
The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.
When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Mozart's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."
He listened a while longer, and said, "There's the Eighth Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling."
So the magistrate kept listening; "There's the Seventh... the
Sixth...the Fifth..." Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery. "My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Mozart decomposing."
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
ESTIMATING THE AGE OF A RIVER
 The more curves in a river, the older it is.   
Yeah, It Really Happened
Most people are aware of "ass crack". That is where a smuggler attempts to hide crack cocaine up his or her butt. The more hard core smugglers will actually ingest it, sealed in a balloon or a condom, for excretion and retrieval later.
Now in the United States, if authorities suspect someone of having secreted drugs in this way they will lock them up and observe them for as long as it takes for certain natural processes to occur, and then examine the results.
That is too slow for the Russians. When Russian police in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk suspected someone of swallowing drugs, they hired a doctor to surgically extract the drugs from the suspect's stomach.
Now, you may think using "ass crack" is bad. Russian police actually arrested the surgeon who did the operation, accusing that he stole some of the drugs he had been called on to extract. Heroin in this case.
They searched the doctor and found 5 grams of heroin hidden in his clothing. "The doctor was under the influence of narcotics at the time of detention," police said in a statement.
If convicted of stealing the heroin, the doctor faces up to 15 years in prison.
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • Harrison Ford was fitting a door for Francis Ford Coppola when a studio exec asked him to take a break to read some lines for Star Wars with actresses who were testing the film. The force was with him to land the role of Han Solo.
  • Sir Alec Guinness, who played Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi in the film, made a fortune. He had negotiated a deal for 2% of the box office revenue.
  • George Lucas had planned to have the film score sound like the classical music in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey before Steven Spielberg introduced him to composer John Williams.
  • When writing the script, George Lucas briefly considered making the characters of Luke Skywalker and his aunt and uncle dwarves.
  • George Lucas' friend Francis Ford Coppola was the inspiration for the character of Han Solo.
  • George Lucas once said that the Millennium Falcon's shape was modeled after a hamburger.


Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
15-21
National Aviation Week
18-24
Little League Baseball World Series
Minority Enterprise Development Week
25-31
Be Kind To Humankind Week
National Safe at Home Week

Today Is                                                                      
·        International Geocaching Day
·        International Homeless Animals Day
·        Meaning of "Is" Day
·        National Thrift Shop Day
^^^
·        Gabon: Independence Day (1960 from France)
·        Indonesia: Independence Day (1945 from Netherlands)

Today’s Events through History  
1st air mail (in a balloon) took off from Lafayette Ind…1859
1st meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California…1953
Monty Python's "Life of Brian" premieres…1979
Pontiac and the British sign a treaty…1765
President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper 
     physical relationship" with intern Monica Lewinsky…1998
Robert Fulton's steamboat Clermont begins 1st trip up Hudson River…1807

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Robert De Niro, actor (Bang the Drum Slowly, Taxi Driver) is 70
Maureen O'Hara [Fitzsimmons], Irish actress and singer (Miracle on 34th St) is 93
Sean Penn, actor (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) ia 53

Remembered for being born today
Glenn Corbett [Glen Edwin Rothenburg], actor (Route 66, Shenandoah) [1933-1993]
Davy Crockett, frontiersman/adventurer/politician (Alamo) [1786-1836]
Samuel Goldwyn, [Goldfish], movie producer (MGM) [1879-1974]
Ted Hughes, Mytholmroyd Yorkshire, British Poet Laureate [1930-1998]
Francis Gary Powers, US spy (USSR captures him in 1959 U-2 incident) [1929-1977]
Frederick Russell, developed 1st successful typhoid fever vaccine [1870-1960]
Mae West, actress (She Dine him Wrong) [1893-1980]
Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Native American musician-actor [1936-2007]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Pearl Bailey, actress (Landlord)/singer…heart attack…1990…at 72
Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia (1740-86)/composer…1786…at 74
Ira Gershwin, lyricist…1983…at 86
Rudolph Hess, Nazi (46 years in Spandau Prison)…suicide…1987…at 93
Jose de San Martin, South American revolutionary hero and general…1850…at 72
Vivian Vance, actress (Ethel Mertz-I Love Lucy)…bone cancer…1979…at 70

Brain Teasers
1. View -> Vie 2. Primer -> Prime 3. Math -> Mat 4. Book -> Boo 5. Redo -> Red 6. Whom -> Who 7. Dense -> Dens 8. Ergo -> Erg Bonus: HOMEWORK
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.