3 January 2023
Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 1 Day 3 \ Ave. Sky Cover 80% \ Visibility 3 miles Flagstaff Today 47° \22° Wind 3mph \ Gusts 5mph
Air Quality: Fair \ Very Low Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire 366mi \ Nearest Lightning 756mi
Jan Averages for Flagstaff: 44° \ 16° \5
Days of moisture
Today’s Quote
Monthly Observations
National Be On-Purpose Month
National Braille Literacy Month Link
National Cheesy Sock Month
National Clean Up Your Computer Month
National Codependency Awareness Month Link
National Conscience Month
National Glaucoma Awareness Month
National Hot Tea Month
National Mail Order Gardening Month
National Mentoring Month Link
National Personal Self-Defense Awareness Month
National Personal Trainer Awareness Month Link
National Polka Music Month Link Link
National Poverty in America Awareness Month
National Radon Action Month
National Skating Month
National Soup Month Link
National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month Link
National Stalking Awareness Month Link
National Sunday Supper Month Link
National Volunteer Blood Donor Month Link
Weekly Observations
Dec 14-Jan 5
Christmas Bird Count Week: Link
1-7
Diet
Resolution Week
National Folic Acid Awareness Week Link
Dating & Life Coaches Recognition Week
National Lose Weight/Feel Great Week
Silent Record Week
2-8
International
Consumer Electronics Show
Someday We'll Laugh About This Week
3-6
No
Tillage Week
Daily Observations
Festival
of Sleep Day Link
J.R.R. Tolkien Day
Memento
Mori "Remember You Die" Day
National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day Link
National Drinking Straw Day
Women Rock! Day
My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts
Our
little mountain town got another 3” or so and more is still expected. Yesterday
afternoon and into the evening, I-40 was closed for the 100 miles between Ash
Fork and Winslow, which includes Flagstaff. I-17 was closed for about 44 miles
just south of Flag.
When
I went to bed last night the schools were on a 2-hour delay for this morning.
When I got up around 7am, all schools were closed for the day.
Kudos
to our HOA for getting a snow blower for the main sidewalk around our complex.
This allows them to blow the snow away from the parked cars. Since I moved in, every
time it snowed there would be a mountain of snow between each and every parked
car. Now that snow is blown into our front area, making getting to the vehicles
much easier. Good job.
Sunrises around the world
   |
   |
Facts…
In a strange
twist of fate, one of President Abraham Lincoln’s final acts was the creation
of the Secret Service. Signed into law on April 14, 1865 — the same day Lincoln
was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre — the Secret Service was established as a
group of investigators with an entirely different mission than their purpose
today. During the 1800s, one-third of all American currency was counterfeit, a
problem so staggering that Lincoln created a commission to find a fix. The
solution was an investigative squad that could bust the bogus banknote problem,
giving way to the first iteration of the Secret Service. The Secret Service
initially served under the Department of the Treasury, though officers would
occasionally provide security for the President if other law enforcement was
unavailable. It would take another President’s assassination — William
McKinley’s in 1901 — for Congress to assign the Secret Service to permanent
presidential detail, though the department is still responsible for
investigating financial crimes and fraud today.
Slang Origins
1953: Uncool
Meaning: lacking in assurance,
sophistication, or self-control
Teens, reliable creators of slang, spend
most of their time trying to figure out whether what they’re doing is cool
enough to pass muster with their peers. They tend to be trend-setters, and as
the consumers of tomorrow, brands are very concerned with their definition of
cool and more importantly, what is uncool.
Mysteries…
WHERE IS THE HOLY
GRAIL?
The Holy Grail, the cup that Jesus drank
from at his last supper with his disciples before his crucifixion, has never
been found and almost certainly never will be. In fact, it wasn’t until the
Middle Ages that there was much interest in it, after those writing some of the
King Arthur stories described the search for the Holy Grail as a quest that
King Arthur and his knights took on.
There are no serious scholarly attempts
to find the Holy Grail, although it continues to be popular in fiction, being
used as a plot device in films like “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” where
it was used to heal Indiana Jones after he was shot by the Nazis.
WAS THERE A REAL
KING ARTHUR?
The story of King Arthur has been told
and retold numerous times over more than 1,000 years. Camelot, the knights of
the round table, the wizard Merlin and the sword Excalibur are all famous parts
of the Arthurian tales.
However, if King Arthur did really exist,
the reality was likely less magical. The earliest surviving accounts date to
the ninth century and tell of a leader (perhaps not even a king) who fought
several battles against the Saxons; even the accuracy of these accounts is
debatable.
There are a number of sites in Britain
that legends link to King Arthur, such as Tintagel, a coastal site that was
supposedly King Arthur’s home; but excavations have not confirmed whether
Arthur ever lived there or even existed. Ultimately, it seems unlikely that
scholars will ever know for sure whether there was a real King Arthur or
whether the man was purely fictional.
Historical Events
1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin
Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.
1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company
introduced the first electric watch.
1938 – The March of Dimes is established
as a foundation to combat infant polio by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1993 – George H. W. Bush and Boris
Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
2009 – The first block of the blockchain
of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was
established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Birthdays Today
97
– W. Michael Blumenthal, American economist, politician
91
– Dabney Coleman, American actor
@91 – Victor Borge, Danish-American pianist, and conductor (d.
2000)
Laughter is the shortest
distance between two people.– Victor Borge
84
– Bobby Hull, Canadian ice hockey player
@82 – John Sturges, American director, producer (d. 1982)
@81 – J.R.R. Tolkien, English writer, poet, and philologist (d.
1973)
The world is changing: I feel
it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.
– J.R.R. Tolkien, in The Return
of the King
@79 – Ray Milland, Welsh-American actor, director (d. 1986; lung
cancer)
78
– Stephen Stills, American singer-songwriter
Once you decide that it is the
art that is important and not how popular and well received you are, you no
longer have an albatross.– Stephen Stills
@77 – Glen A. Larson, American director, producer, screenwriter,
created Battlestar Galactica (d. 2014; cancer)
73
– Victoria Principal, American actress
67
– Mel Gibson, American-Australian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
@60 – Sergio Leone, Italian director, producer, screenwriter (d.
1989; heart attack)
48
– Danica McKellar, American actress
If anyone tells you it’s
impossible to be fabulous and smart and make a ton of money using math, well,
they can just get in line behind you – and kiss your math.– Danica McKeller
42
– Eli Manning, American football player
@36 – Anna May Wong, American actress (d. 1961; heart attack)
20
– Greta Thunberg, Swedish environmental activist
