Jun 24

 

 

Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 26 Day: 175 \ Ave. Sky Cover: 70% \ Visibility: 10 miles Flagstaff Today 78° \45° 
Wind: 5mph \ Gusts: 14mph  Air Quality: Moderate
High Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire: 12mi \ Nearest Lightning: 1mi
June Averages for Flagstaff: 80° \ 43° (1 day of moisture)
 

Today’s Quote

 

Weekly Observations

Thru Sep.5 National Marina Days (From Memorial Day to Labor Day)  Link

17-30   National Little League Week: Link

19-25   Animal Rights Awareness Week: Link Link Greencare For Troops Awareness Week National Play Catch Week Carpenter Ant Awareness Week Fish Are Friends, Not Food! Week Link   Lightning Safety Awareness Week Link  Universal Father's Week National Mosquito Control Awareness Week

20-26   National Pollinator Week: Link  National Insect Week

20-25  Old Time Fiddlers Week

23-26  Watermelon Thump Seed Spitting Week

Daily Observations

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

Cloudy with a good chance for a nice monsoon rain. So happy that the monsoon arrived about a week early this year. We had nice rainstorms today. Not lot of total rain, but nice to have it. We need moisture to help with the fires. There are still 700+ firefighters on our two fires. Pipeline is about 70% contained, Haywire Compound is about 40% contained.

I was saddened to see that the Hong Kong Jumbo Floating Restaurant has capsized and sank in 1000’ of water. It was a beautiful site for sure. Thankfully no one was lost or injured.

I am not happy about gas prices…but am against a tax holiday of 90 days to help lower gas prices. Our country needs the $10billion that will be lost and that is not a drop in the bucket. The 18 cents a gallon on gas and 24 cents a gallon on diesel IS a drop in the bucket when gas is close to $5/gallon. Bad move Mr. President.

I am still trying to digest the most recent Supreme Court decision that overturned a 100+ year-old law in NY on concealed weapons. From my point-of-view the Supreme Court majority seems to see nothing wrong with every American carrying a weapon anywhere they please…including church, big venues for sports and concerts, school campuses. I don’t believe this was an idea of our founding fathers.

Favorite Memes

Earth’s Secrets

The Planet Is 10,000 Times Older Than Humans

"Planet Earth has an estimated age of 4.5 billion years," Jeremiah P. Ostricker, a senior research scholar at Princeton University, tells Popular Mechanics. "Homo Sapiens has been around for at most 450,000 years, that is 1/10,000 the age of the planet. And then, more recently, we spread over the whole globe in 1/100,000 of the age of the planet."

US Flag Myths

Myth #2: The flag has always had stars and stripes

America's earliest flags did not have stars and stripes. A flag used in 1775, for example, did have stripes, but it displayed the British Union Jack crosses in the canton, the top left corner of the flag that's also known as the union. The primary use of a national flag at that time was for naval ships to be able to recognize each other.

Congress didn't adopt the flag with 13 stars and 13 stripes as the official U.S. flag until 1777. 

Historical Events

Ë 1374 – An early morning, a sudden outbreak of ‘St. Vitas’s Dance’ caused people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapsed from exhaustion.
Ë 1873 – Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) received a patent (#140,245) for a self-pasting Scrapbook.
Ë 1916 – Mary Pickford became the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract (with Adolph Zukor/Paramount).
Ë 1949 – The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, aired on NBC, starring William Boyd.
Ë 1950 – In South Africa, the Group Areas Act was passed, formally segregating races (Apartheid).
Ë 1957 – In Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.
Ë 1997 – US Air Force officials released a 231-page report dismissing all of the claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Ë 2004 – In New York, capital punishment was declared unconstitutional.

Birthdays Today

@96 – Al Molinaro, American character actor (d. 2015)
@87 – Jack Dempsey, American boxer (died in 1983)
78 – Jeff Beck, English guitarist
@75 – Thomas Blanchard, American inventor (assembly line) (d. 1864)
75 – Mick Fleetwood, English-American drummer
76 – Robert Reich, American economist and politician
@72 – Ambrose Bierce, American short story writer, essayist, journalist (d.  1914)

 

June 23

 

 

Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 26 Day: 174 \ Ave. Sky Cover: 60% \ Visibility: 10 miles Flagstaff Today 76° \49° 
Wind: 6mph \ Gusts: 10mph  Air Quality: MODERATE
Extreme Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire: 12mi \ Nearest Lightning: 144mi
June Averages for Flagstaff: 80° \ 43° (1 day of moisture)
 

Today’s Quote

Weekly Observations

Thru Sep.5 National Marina Days (From Memorial Day to Labor Day)  Link

16-23  National Nursing Assistants Week  Link

17-23   National Week of Making Link

17-30   National Little League Week: Link

19-25   Animal Rights Awareness Week: Link Link Greencare For Troops Awareness Week National Play Catch Week Carpenter Ant Awareness Week Fish Are Friends, Not Food! Week Link   Lightning Safety Awareness Week Link  Universal Father's Week National Mosquito Control Awareness Week

20-26   National Pollinator Week: Link  National Insect Week

20-25  Old Time Fiddlers Week

23-26  Watermelon Thump Seed Spitting Week

Daily Observations

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

Cloudy…weather guy says monsoon will be here early…like tomorrow. I sure hope so.

I had lunch with Faith and Andy. I was getting instructions about watering their grass and trees while they sail off to Alaska. Good conversation, a few laughs, and good food.

The tourist who burned used TP that probably started the current Pipeline fire was in court. The dropped the marijuana charge but is still charged with two misdemeanors: camping in a restricted area and building a fire during restrictions. Misdemeanors… really?

Flag is already holding in-person and zoom meetings regarding flooding issues this summer. The worst inhabited area even now has a loud siren to warn residents of flooding and along with the siren is a message in English and Spanish for all to hear.

 

Favorite Memes

Earth’s Secrets

Clouds Help Regulate Earth's Temperature

"If you bring all water droplets in clouds to the surface, you would cover Earth with a liquid film no thicker than a human hair," Schneider of Caltech tells Popular Mechanics. "And yet, this tiny amount of water makes the difference between cool overcast summer days and warm clear days. And it is immensely important for climate. On average, clouds cool Earth by 13 degrees Fahrenheit relative to what global temperatures would be without clouds."

"How much global warming we get crucially depends on whether we get more or fewer clouds as the climate warms," Schneider says. "Climate models do not agree on the answer, because simulating clouds and the tiny amount of water in them is hard. At Caltech, we are working on using AI to make climate models and their cloud simulations better, to get more precise answers about how climate will change."

US Flag Myths

Myth #3: Americans have always flown the flag

Prior to the Civil War, flags were really only flown in an official capacity on ships, forts and government buildings. “In the antebellum period, if a citizen had flown his flag on his house or carriage, people would have thought that was strange. Why is he doing that? He's not the government,” Ansoff said.

The outbreak of war in 1861 quickly changed Americans’ attitudes about displaying the flag.

"At the beginning of the Civil War there was an outburst of patriotism,” Ansoff said, “and very soon, you saw people flying flags everywhere to show their support for the Union cause."

Historical Events

 Ë 1683 – William Penn signed a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.
Ë 1860 – The United States Congress established the Government Printing Office.
Ë 1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received the patents (#79265 & #79868) for an invention he called the “Type-Writer.” He also invented the ‘QWERTY keyboard’ in 1873.
Ë 1894 – The International Olympic Committee was founded at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Ë 1926 – The College Board administered the first SAT exam.
Ë 1938 – The first ‘Oceanarium’ opened at Marineland in St. Augustine, Florida.
Ë 1938 – The Civil Aeronautics Act was signed into law, forming the United States Civil Aeronautics Authority.
Ë 1953 – Frank J. Zamboni was issued a patent (#2,642,679) for his ice resurfacer.
Ë 1960 – The US Food and Drug Administration declared Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.
Ë 1969 – IBM announced that effective January 1970 it will price its software and services separately from hardware, allowing for the creation of the modern software industry.
Ë 1969 – Warren E. Burger was sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Ë 1982 – A record low temperature of -117ºF. was recorded at the South Pole.
Ë 2013 – Nik Wallenda became the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.
Ë 2016 – The United Kingdom voted in a referendum to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48%.

Birthdays Today

86 – Richard Bach, American novelist, essayist
74 – Clarence Thomas, American lawyer, judge, United States Supreme Court Justice
@73 – June Carter-Cash, American singer (d. 2003; surgery complicatioins)
66 – Randy Jackson, TV shost
65 – Frances McDormand, American actress
@60 – Bob Fosse, American actor, dancer, choreographer, director (d.1987; heart attack)
@54 – Wilma Rudolph, runner (d. 1994; multiple cancers)
50 – Selma Blair, American actress
@41 – Alan Turing, English mathematician, computer scientist (d 1954; suicide)