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Almanac: Week: 52 \ Day: 357
December
Averages: 44°\17°
86004 Today: H 52°\L 31°
Ave. humidity: 65% Average Sky Cover: 8%
Wind ave: 14mph\Gusts: 29mph
Ave. High: 43° Record
High: 63° (1901)
Ave. Low: 16°
Record Low: -23° (1990)
Holiday Observances
Today:
Feast of
the Radishes (Mexico)
Rabi'I (birthday
month of Mohammad)
¤ ¤
Festivus
Human
Light Celebration
Roots Day
Observances This
Week:
14-28
Halcyon
Days
15-31
Christmas Bird Count Week
16-24
Posadas
17-24
Chanukah
Saturnalia
• • • • • • •
Quote of
the Day
Historical
Highlights for Today
1672 - Giovanni
Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn
1688 - King James II, the last Roman Catholic
British monarch flees to France-from William of Orange
1751 - France sets plan
to tax clergymen
1776 - Thomas Paine writes "These are the
times that try men's souls"
1779 - Benedict Arnold court-martialed for
improper conduct
1793 - Thomas Jefferson warned of slave
revolts in West Indies
1804 - MANDANs offer
Lewis and Clark food as trade
1823 - "Visit from St Nicholas" by C
Moore published in Troy (NY) Sentinel
1888 - Dutch painter Vincent van
Gogh cuts off his left ear
1672 - Giovanni
Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn
1688 - King James II, the last Roman Catholic
British monarch flees to France-from William of Orange
1751 - France sets plan
to tax clergymen
1776 - Thomas Paine writes "These are the
times that try men's souls"
1779 - Benedict Arnold court-martialed for
improper conduct
1793 - Thomas Jefferson warned of slave
revolts in West Indies
1804 - MANDANs offer
Lewis and Clark food as trade
1823 - "Visit from St Nicholas" by C
Moore published in Troy (NY) Sentinel
1888 - Dutch painter Vincent van
Gogh cuts off his left ear
1913 - President Woodrow Wilson signs
Federal Reserve Act into law
1919 - Alice H Parker patents gas heating furnace
1921 - Gangster Carlo Gambino enters the
United States as an illegal immigrant on the SS Vincenzo Florio
1941 - American forces on Wake Island surrender to
Japanese
1947 - Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain
& Shockley in Bell Labs
1962 - Cuba starts returning
US prisoners from Bay of Pigs invasion-1,113 prisoners for $62M worth of food
& medical supplies
1968 - 82 members of
US intelligence ship Pueblo released by North Korea
1971 - British Prime Minister Edward Heath visits
Northern Ireland and expresses his determination to end the violence
• • • • • • •
♫
Birthdays Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today
My
Rambling Thoughts
Packing complete…finally. Ready for my 6a pickup for the shuttle. Got
several texts from my brother and all is well for my visit. Good friends, good
weather, and for the first time in forever, know need for gloves or a heavy
winter coat. NICE!
This will be the last blog until I return. Happy Holidays to All.
• • • • • • •
Brain
Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
What
is this saying
OUTER
SPACE
3.14159
GROUND
Found on
You Tube with some relevance to today
OK Then…
• • • • • • •
Paraphernalia
4 the Brain:
December
Holiday Facts
* Christmas Story by Natives
*Christmas-Christian
¤ The earliest known Christmas tree decorations were apples. At
Christmastime, medieval actors would use apples to decorate paradise trees
(usually fir trees) during “Paradise Plays,” which were plays depicting Adam
and Eve’s creation and fall.
¤ Commissioned by Sir Henry Cole (1808-1883), British illustrator
John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903) invented the first Christmas card in 1843.
¤ According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there
are 2,106 million children under age 18 in the world. If there are on average
2.5 children per household, Santa would have to make 842 million stops on
Christmas Eve, traveling 221 million miles. To reach all 842 million stops,
Santa would need to travel between houses in 2/10,000 second, which means he
would need to accelerate 12.19 million miles (20.5 billion meters) per second
on each stop. The force of this acceleration would reduce Santa to “chunky
salsa.”
¤ Christmas purchases account for 1/6 of all retail sales in the U.S.
Flagstaff,
AZ History…
75 YEARS
AGO
Warner Bros. 3-week stay filming in our area wrapped up with a
fatal collision when a truck carrying four men and nine horses was struck by an
eastbound Santa Fe extra freight at the stockyards crossing about a mile south
of here. Eight horse died and two of the men also died later in the Flagstaff
Hospital. Saddened by their loss, most of the movie people left by special
coach Wednesday night for their studio in Burbank. A second coach will take the
rest of the crew on Sunday.
Flagstaff’s
Iconic 50…
Route 66
An old railroad and lumber-mill town given a new lease on life by
an influx of students at Northern Arizona University, and by the usual array of
ski bums and mountain bikers attracted by the surrounding high mountain
wilderness, Flagstaff (pop. 52,894) is an enjoyable, energetic town high up on
the Coconino Plateau. The natural beauty of its forested location has meant
that, compared to other Route 66 towns, Flagstaff was less affected by the
demise of the old road. That said, it still takes pride in the past, notably in
the form of the Museum Club, at 3404 E. Route 66, an old roadhouse brought back
to life as a country-western nightclub and ad-hoc nostalgia museum. There are
also dozens of vintage neon signs along the old Route 66 alignment: Check out
the Western Hills Motel and the Grand Canyon Cafe downtown, and the Flamingo
Motel five blocks west. (The Flamingo has been known as the Flaming Motel since
the “o” burned out on the sign.)
Harper’s
Index…
Percentage of Newark, NJ residents who are belack: 54
Of pedestrians stopped by Newark police who are: 81
Portion of Newark police stops that are ‘legally unjustified’
according to the DOJ: 3/4
Rules of
Thumb…
GENERATING
PUBLICITY
One personal call to
a newspaper reporter is worth 20 news releases to newspapers.
Unusual
Fact of the Day…
Dr.
Ruth was trained as a sniper by the Israeli military.
• • • • • • •
Joke-of-the-day
A businessman dragged himself home and barely
made it to his chair before he dropped exhausted.
His sympathetic wife was right there with a tall cool drink and a comforting
word. "My, you look tired," she said. "You must have had a hard
day today. What happened to make you so exhausted?"
"It was terrible," her husband said.
"The computer broke down and all of us had to do our own thinking."
Yep, It
Really Happened
The bizarre News story of the week, of course, is the cancellation
of the release of some stupid Seth Rogen and James Franco movie called 'The
Interview' after an anonymous group of hackers (North Korea) broke into Sony
Pictures and started threatening terrorist attacks against cinemas that played
it.
A much less widely read, but more amusing story comes from Canada where a young
man went to the Internet to find a travel partner for a trip he is planning.
That isn't all that bizarre, but the fact that he was looking for a travel
partner named Elizabeth Gallagher is.
Last year 27-year-old Toronto resident Jordan Axani had planned a once-in-a-lifetime,
round-the-world trip with his then girlfriend Elizabeth Gallagher. As sometimes
happens with boyfriends and girlfriends, they broke up.
So there he was, with thousands of dollars in tickets and reservations for a
woman named Elizabeth Gallagher, but no Elizabeth Gallagher. So he went to the
Internet.
And incredibly, he found her! A 23-year-old student named Elizabeth Quinn
Gallagher agreed and is set to jet off with Axani around the world. However,
the trip will be strictly platonic since she already has a boyfriend.
Somewhat
Useless Information
¤
The first decorated Christmas tree was in Riga, Latvia in 1510. The first
printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
¤ Thomas Edison's assistant, Edward Johnson, came up with the idea of electric
lights for Christmas trees in 1882. Christmas tree lights were first
mass-produced in 1890.
¤ The official Christmas tree tradition at Rockefeller Center began in 1933.
Since 2004 the tree has been topped with a 550-pound Swarovski Crystal star.
And since 2007, the tree has been lit with 30,000 energy-efficient LED's which
are powered by solar panels.
¤ Live Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United States since
about 1850. The first Christmas tree retail lot in the United States was
started by Mark Carr in New York, in 1851.
¤ Artificial Christmas trees were developed in Germany during the 19th century
and later became popular in the United States. These trees were made using
goose feathers that were dyed green and attached to wire branches. The wire
branches were then wrapped around a central dowel rod that acted as the trunk.
¤ In the United States, there are more than 15,000 Christmas tree farms. There
are approximately 350 million Christmas trees growing on U.S. farms.
Approximately 100,000 people are employed full or part-time in the Christmas
tree industry.
¤
While the entire area between the jawline and shoulders is an erogenous zone,
the small indention where the neck connects with the collarbone is particularly
sensitive for foreplay.
¤ Physicians note that touching the side of the torso from the bottom of the
rib cage to the hips stimulates a powerful nerve that reflexively causes the
pelvic floor muscles to contract in both men and women which, in turn, helps
increase arousal.
¤
Food can act as foreplay. While there aren't double-blind studies proving
aphrodisiac properties exist in food, sexologists suggest feeding your partner
traditional aphrodisiacs such as chocolate, chili peppers, asparagus, avocados,
and oysters.
¤ Roman baths were the focus of social get-togethers and catered to almost
every activity, including swimming, exercise, philosophy, beauty treatments,
and sex. Intercourse was common, but often attending the baths was a type of
foreplay--a type of "naked leisure centers."
• • • • • • •
Today’s
Events through History
1690 - English astronomer John Flamsteed observes
Uranus not realizing its undiscovered
1943 - 1st telecast of a complete opera (Hansel
& Gretel), Schenectady, NY
1987 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme escapes
from Alderson Prison
• • • • • • •
Birthday’s
Today
Bob Barker, TV host (Price is Right)
is 92
Wesley
Clark, American military officer is 70
Susan
Lucci, actress (All My Children) is 68
Remembered
for being born today
Joseph
Smith Jr, founder (Mormon Church), [1805-1844-@38]
Harriet
Monroe, poet/editor of Poetry magazine (You & I) [1860-1936-@75]
Sarah
Breedlove, (Madam C. J. Walker), daughter of slaves & 1st US female
self-made millionaire (hair straightner) [1867-1919-@51]
James
Gregory, actor (My Favorite Martian, Barney Miller) [1911-2002-
@90]
Corey
Haim, Toronto, actor (Silver Bullet) [1971-2010-@38]
• • • • • • •
Historical
Obits Today
Charlie
Ruggles, actor (Ruggles, Aesop-Bullwinkle Show), 1970, @84
Oscar
Peterson, Canadian jazz pianist and composer, 2007, @82
Charles
Atlas, [Angelo Siciliano], body builder, heart attack, 1972, @79
John
Cotton, Mass Bay Puritan preacher, 1652, @67
Jack Webb, actor
(Joe Friday-Dragnet), heart attack, 1982, @62
• • • • • • •
Brain Teasers Answers
Pie in the sky!
The pi(e) is where the sky should be.
• • • • • • •
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 contains mistakes and sadly once 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…§
