7-5-14


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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 185 / Week: 27 
June Averages: 78° \ 42°
Today: Average Sky Cover: 50%
    H 70° L 55° Ave. humidity: 43%
    Wind: ave:   4mph; Gusts:  23mph  
    Average High: 82° Record High:  97° (1913)
    Average Low: 49° Record Low:  32° (1912)
    
Quote of the Day

Historical Highlights for Today

1295 - Scotland & France form alliance, Auld Alliance, against England.
1643 - 1st recorded tornado in US (Essex County, Massachusetts)
1865 - Great Britain delegate's world 1st maximum speed laws
1865 - US Secret Service began operating under the Treasury Department
1871 - Trial against Kiowa chief Satanta (White Bear) & Big Tree, begins
1937 - Spam, the luncheon meat, introduced into the market by Hormel.
1973 - Isle of Man begins issuing its own postage stamps
1985 - Premier Robert Mugabe wins Zimbabwe elections

  Birthdays Today:   

How many can you identify? Answers in Birthday’s Today below


My Rambling Thoughts   

4th is going much better than previous days. I was able to move around with some pain. So much better than yesterday.
Today is Mary’s birthday so I stopped by her place for a picnic on her new patio. Very nice. Both of her kids and all the grandkids were there, as well as her husband and another friend. Her son and I had a great conversation about his recent business trip to China. He was there 2 weeks and had many very perceptive observations about China, and cleared up some of the stereotypes of China. Much about China was the same as Cuba. Very interesting. One of the best stories was when they were with some locals. They asked about USA and gun violence. They could not believe that one could walk into a store and buy a gun legally. Nor could they understand why anyone would want to own a gun. He was in some ‘not popular tourist attraction’ cities. He said people would point and smile…seeing a white guy. Locals would even ask if he would hold their baby so they could take a picture. Just cute. And Mary’s husband made the best potato salad I have ever had. It was really nice to sit on the patio, and not have to walk around. Lots of seating made it possible to talk to everyone during the afternoon. Mary’s husband has had gout and suggest ‘tart cherry juice’ as a way to keep it away. I tried some and it really isn’t bad…will get some tomorrow.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers
In this teaser, your job is to try and discover the car model within each sentence.
The model is hiding in the consecutive letters within a sentence.
Example: This recipe calls for only one onion. Answer: Neon (oNE ONion)

1. The zookeeper gave the chimp a large banana.
2. The police had the home of the pyromaniac cordoned off.
3. There are galactic areas where our starship has not travelled.
4. Do math majors find people with a nice compass attractive?
5. I once saw a gambler from Mexico roll a seven five times in a row.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today







OK Then…
Harper’s Index 

Percentage change since 2004 in the number of people using Texas’ long term care Medicaid programs: +612  

Unusual Fact of the Day

The first disposable diaper was called a “boater.”

Trivia about AZ…

The original London Bridge was shipped stone-by-stone and reconstructed in Lake Havasu City.

The capital of the Navajo Reservation is Window Rock.

Interesting facts about Islam…

Muslims accept the original unaltered Torah (the Gospel of Moses) and the original Bible (the Gospel of Jesus) since they were revealed by God. However, none of those original scriptures are in existence today, in their entirety. Therefore, Muslims follow the subsequent, final, and preserved revelation of God, the Holy Qur'an.

Weather Facts…

The Earth sees about 760 thunderstorms every hour, scientists have calculated.

People Facts…

In 2002, Kenyan Maasai tribespeople donated 14 cows to the US to help with the aftermath of 9/11.

Historical Facts…

In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant that she accepted.

Joke-of-the-day

So there's this man with a parrot. And his parrot swears like a sailor, I mean he's a pistol. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself.
The trouble is that the guy who owns the parrot is a quiet, conservative type, and this bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy.
One day, it gets to be too much, so the guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard, and yells, "QUIT IT!" But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever.
Then the guy gets mad and says, "That's it. I'll get you." and locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet.
This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of invective that would make a veteran sailor blush.
At that point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer.
For the first few seconds, there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly goes very quiet.
At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minutes of silence, he's so worried that he opens up the freezer door.
The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on."
The man is astounded. He can't understand the transformation that has come over the parrot.
Then the parrot says, "By the way, what did the chicken do?" 

Rules of Thumb:   

TESTING A DIRECT-MAIL CAMPAIGN
For a reliable direct-mail test, you should mail enough pieces to get at least 300 responses.

Yeah, It Really Happened

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (UPI) - Dark matter is everywhere. According to astronomers, it makes up some 80 percent of all matter in the universe. But since it doesn't absorb or emit light, scientists have never seen dark matter. They don't even know what it is exactly.
But a recent spike of x-rays originating from 70 different galaxy clusters has some scientists excited at the off chance it's a signal from decaying dark matter.
"We know that the dark matter explanation is a long shot, but the payoff would be huge if we're right," said Esra Bulbul, who led the research into the strange spike in x-ray emissions, recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.
"We're going to keep testing this interpretation and see where it takes us," added Bulbul -- an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Because it's never been seen or observed, what dark matter is composed of exactly is highly theoretical. So far, scientists best guess is that dark matter is made up of a sterile neutrinos -- a type of neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle.
The mysterious x-ray spike was picked up by the highly sensitive NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite. But scientists say they need even more precise observations of the x-ray emissions if they're going to arrive at more definitive conclusions.
"We have a lot of work to do before we can claim, with any confidence, that we've found sterile neutrinos," admitted study co-author Maxim Markevitch, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "But just the possibility of finding them has us very excited."
"Our next step is to combine data from Chandra and JAXA's [the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's] Suzaku mission for a large number of galaxy clusters to see if we find the same X-ray signal," explained co-author Adam Foster, one of Bulbul's colleagues in Cambridge.
Though normal matter could be responsible for the spike, scientists say the pattern doesn't mesh well with how hot gases are understood to give off x-rays.

Somewhat Useless Information   

Once in England, because of a water spout, it rained frogs!

Almost two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered by water. If the earth were flat, water would cover everything in a layer two miles deep!

During a solar eclipse, the shadows of leaves make the same crescent shape of the eclipsing sun. The image is made by light passing through tiny holes in the leaves.

Monks in the 16th century recorded seeing a giant explosion on the side of the Moon. It most likely was a large meteor that slammed into the Moon and left a large crater. It was a good thing the Moon was between us and the meteor!

See the rings of Saturn while you can. They slowly wobble up and down over the years as Saturn’s poles point away from then towards the sun. The rings disappear when edge on to our line of sight. Currently they are almost at their widest point and can be seen even in binoculars and small telescopes.

Check Your Calendar

Observances This Week:

1-7
National Unassisted Homebirth Week

3-6
Beans and Bacon Days; International Gay Square Dancing Week

4-10
Freedom Week

Today Is  

Bikini Day: 5
Hop A Park Day: 5 

International Day of Cooperatives: 5 
International Cherry Pit Spitting Day: 5 
World Environment Day
/\
Independence Day (Algeria-1962-from France)
Independence Day (Venezuela-1811-from Spain)
                                                        
Today’s Events through History  

2012 - South Korea announce plans for "scientific' whaling of minke whales

Birthday’s Today                                                        

Huey Lewis, rocker is 64
Richard "Goose" Gossage, relief pitcher (Yankees, Padres, A's) is 53
Edie Falco, actress (Sopranos) is 51

Remembered for being born today

1794-1851 - Sylvester Graham, developed graham cracker
1801-1870 - David Farragut, Admiral ("Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!")
1810-1891 - Phineas Taylor Barnum, circus promoter (Barnum & Bailey)
1902-1985 - Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr, Sen-/ambassador/VP candidate
1904-1980 - Milburn Stone, actor (Doc-Gunsmoke)
1909-1989 - Andrei Gromyko, diplomat/USSR President
1911-1974 - Georges Pompidou, President/Prime Minister of France
1996-2003 - Dolly the sheep, 1st mammal to be cloned; in Scotland

Historical Obits Today                                                           

Mrs. Miller, singer (Tonight Show), 1997, @90
Ted Williams, baseball hall of famer (Red Sox) 2002, @83
Harry James, swing-era bandleader/trumpeter, cancer, 1983, @67
Ben Alexander, actor (Dragnet), natural causes, 1969, @58

Brain Teasers                         

1. Impala (chIMP A LArge)
2. Accord (pyromaniAC CORDoned)
3. Regal (aRE GALactic)
4. Passat (comPASS ATtractive)
5. Corolla (MexiCO ROLL A)

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  §

 

US INdependence Day-2014


FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!
Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 185 / Week: 27 
June Averages: 78° \ 42°
Today: Average Sky Cover: 100%
    H 84° L 55° Ave. humidity: 37%
    Wind: ave:   7mph; Gusts:  20mph  
    Average High: 82° Record High:  96° (2007)
    Average Low: 48° Record Low:  32° (1912)
    
Quote of the Day
Historical Highlights for Today

1776 - US congress proclaims the Declaration of Independence
1796 - 1st Independence Day celebration is held
1802 - US Military Academy officially opens (West Point, NY)
1803 - The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
1829 - Cornerstone laid for 1st US mint (Chestnut & Juniper St, Phila)
1831 - "America (My Country 'Tis of Thee)" is 1st sung in Boston
1845 - Henry David Thoreau moves into his shack on Walden Pond
1855 - Brooklyn, 1st of Leaves of Grass, is published.
1862 - Lewis Carroll creates Alice in Wonderland for Alice P Liddell
1863 - Boise, Idaho founded (now capital of Idaho)
1866 - Firecracker thrown in wood starts fire destroys 1/2 of Portland, Maine
1881 - Booker T. Washington establishes Tuskegee Institute 
1883 - Buffalo Bill Cody presents 1st Wild West Show, North Platte, Nebr
1884 - 1st US bullfight held (Dodge City Ks)
1884 - Statue of Liberty presented to US in Paris
1888 - 1st organized rodeo competition held, Prescott, Ariz
1894 - Republic of Hawaii proclaimed, Sanford B Dole as president
1895 - Katherine Lee Bates publishes "America the Beautiful"
1918 - Altar dedicated at full-scale replica of Stonehenge at Maryhill, Wa
1939 - Yankees retire 1st uniform (Lou Gehrig #4), 1st Old Timers Day
1944 - 1st Japanese kamikaze attack, US fleet near Iwo Jima
1950 - The first broadcast by Radio Free Europe.
1966 - LBJ signs Freedom of Information Act
1996 - Hot Mail, a free internet E-mail service begins

  Birthdays Today:   

How many can you identify? Answers in Birthday’s Today below

My Rambling Thoughts   

Monsoon is here. Several decent thunderstorms throughout the day…NICE! Lots of lightning and thunder…not so nice, but worth it for the moisture.
Foot pain has been there all day…hard to walk. No pain until I try to walk, so that is good. Plan my walks in the house very carefully. Pain pill at 4a but started really hurting again about 8 so I took 2 pills. Just took another one about 4p. Things could be a whole lot worse…I sleep OK, eat OK, and sit in my recliner to play with my iPad and watch TV.
Heard on the news this morning that the guy that was proposing the off campus housing was at the City Council meeting last night and after some very tough questioning by 2 members, he stated that he would like to be able to re-do the proposal before the vote. That was denied. So he withdrew his proposal. Then our businessman Mayor adjourned the meeting. Some on the council and some of the participants were taken aback, since it seemed that this would have been a good time to discuss what the city might do going forward. The lawsuit against the Vice Mayor was not withdrawn so her supporters have gone onto FB and started a fund raising campaign. Such a waste of hard earned money for her. It seems the guy who filed the suit, did not name the City Council or the City in it, so for some reason, it is all on her. I’ll be watching this play out because it seems that she could not have been accused of libel if she wasn’t the Vice Mayor. Many others also passed the memo around that has the guy all upset. When she attended the meetings she was a concerned citizen. She has attended so many community meeting and gatherings since she was elected to the council, I’m sure she holds some kind of record. She is a single mom, Doctoral candidate, instructor at NAU, and active on FB. She has really grown over the past few years, since her election. She is a great public servant, who doesn’t need ‘outsiders’ from a Georgia construction company causing her all this grief. It appears at this time that much of the town has rallied behind her.  

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers
I am bound in a book but you cannot read me,
I am struck and played but not musically,
I am your equal in skill and also in stature,
I am used in heat and light manufacture.
What am I?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today








OK Then…
Harper’s Index 

Mexican men working 580 minutes a week—19% is unpaid work

Mexican women working 607 minutes a week—62% is unpaid.

Unusual Fact of the Day

Knoxville, Tennessee’s Body Farm isn’t a day spa; it is a forensic anthropology facility. Human cadavers are left outdoors in varying stages of undress in water, under brush, etc., so that scientists can study the decomposition process.

Trivia about AZ…

The Arizona tree frog is the state official amphibian. The frog is actually between three-quarter to two inches long.

Once a rowdy copper mining town, Jerome's population dwindled to as few as 50 people after the mines closed in 1953. In 2012 it was back up to about 450 thanks to tourism.

Interesting facts about Islam…

Muslims neither worship Muhammad nor pray through him. Muslims solely worship the unseen and Omniscient Creator, Allah.

Weather Facts…

There is enough energy in one bolt of lightning to power a home for two weeks!

People Facts…

The “cheerleader effect”, the theory that girls look more attractive in groups, is scientifically proven.

Historical Facts…

In 1945, a man survived the atomic blast at Hiroshima, dragged himself to an air-raid shelter, spent the night, and caught the morning train so he could arrive at his job on time - in Nagasaki - where he survived another atomic blast.

Joke-of-the-day

Q. What has two circles on either end, and is high in the middle?

A. Ohio 

Rules of Thumb:   

FISHING FOR TROUT
If you don't catch anything after 7 casts, move on to the next likely spot on the stream. Three casts should be enough for pockets and holes that are less than 8 feet in diameter.

Yeah, It Really Happened

TACOMA, Wash., July 2 (UPI) --What's wrong with a grown man liking stuffed animals? Maybe nothing -- provided they are his.
Washington police officers found a man crammed into a giant box of stuffed animals when they responded to a burglary alarm at a Tacoma thrift store.
According to Pierce County Superior Court documents, officers responded to the St. Vincent De Paul thrift store and found Michael Howell hiding inside a box of stuffed animals in the yard outside the store.
The 29-year-old reportedly told officers that he had smoked meth and then jumped in the box after he got spooked by the burglar alarm.
"I came here for clothes and food, bro," Howell told police, KOMO reported.
Howell was charged with burglary and unlawful possession of a controlled substance.

Somewhat Useless Information   

Did you know that ‘kipferl’ is an ancestor of the croissant, which has been first documented in Austria around the 13th century?
Croissant in today’s form is an adaptation from Kipferl and can be dated at latest 1839, when an Austrian artillery officer, August Zang, founded a Viennese bakery in Paris.
The bakery served Viennese specialties including the Kipferl and the Vienna loaf and quickly became popular and inspired French imitators, who renamed the French version of the Kipferl for its crescent (croissant) shape.

Check Your Calendar

Observances This Week:

1-7
National Unassisted Homebirth Week

3-6
Beans and Bacon Days; International Gay Square Dancing Week
4-10
Freedom Week

Today Is  

Rosewell UFO Days: 3-6    
Boom Box Parade Day
Independence From Meat Day
Indivisible Day
/\
Caribbean or Caricom Day (brings together 15 states in the Caribbean, including Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Haiti, Jamaica, Grenada, Guyana, Montserrat, St. Lucia, Suriname, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. to improve standards of living and work-1973)
Fil-American Friendship Day (Philippines)
Heroes Day (Zambia)

Independence Day (US-1776)  
                                                   
Today’s Events through History  

1634 - The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France, later Quebec.
1828 - Construction begins on B & O (Baltimore-Ohio) 1st US passenger RR
1845 - Texas Congress votes for annexation to US
1882 - Telegraph Hill Observatory opens in SF
1898 - US flag hoisted over Wake Island (Spanish-American War)
1901 - William Howard Taft, a former Federal judge, is installed as 1st governor-general of the Philippines
1956 - US most intense rain fall (1.23" in 1 minute) at Unionville Maryland
2004 - The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the site of the World Trade Center

Birthday’s Today                                                        

Eva Marie Saint, actress (On the Waterfront, North by Northwest) is 90
Gina Lollobrigida, Subiaco Italy, actress (Trapeze, Falcon Crest) is 87
Michael Milken, partner (Intl Capital Access Group) is 68

Remembered for being born today

1804-1864 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, author (House of 7 Gables, Scarlet Letter)
1816-1899 - Hiram Walker, American grocer and distiller (d. 1899)
1826-1864 - Stephen Foster, composer (Oh! Susanna, Swanee River)
1867-1930 - Stephen Mather, organized US National Park Service
1872-1933 - Calvin Coolidge, [Silent Cal], 30th US President
1883-1970 - Rube Goldberg, cartoonist (who made the easy outrageously difficult) Pulitzer Prize 1948
1910-2010 - Gloria Stuart, founder (Screen Actors Guild)
1911-2010 - Mitch Miller, sing along with Mitch (Yellow Rose of Tx)
1918-2013 - Abigail Van Buren, [Mrs Morton Phillips], columnist
1918-2002 - Ann Landers, twin sister/advice columnist
1929-2011 - Al Davis, businessman and NFL team owner (Oakland Raiders)
1931-1977 - Stephen Boyd [William Millar], Irish actor (Ben-Hur)
1930 -2010 -George Steinbrenner, owner (NY Yankees)

Historical Obits Today                                                           

John Adams, 2nd president (1797-1801), 1826, @ 90
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President, 1826, @83
Hannibal Hamlin, 15th U.S. Vice President, 1891, @81
Eva Gabor, actress (Green Acres), pneumonia, 1995, @76
James Monroe, 5th president (1817-25), TB, 1831, @73
Barry White, American singer, stroke, 2003, @58

Brain Teasers                         

 A Match

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.