23 Jan

23 January 2023

Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 4 Day 23 \ Ave. Sky Cover 40% \ Visibility 19 miles Flagstaff Today 47° \6°  Wind 8mph \ Gusts 13mph 
Air Quality: Fair\VeryLow Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire 655mi \ Nearest Lightning 1472mi
Jan Averages for Flagstaff: 44° \ 16° \5 Days of moisture
Cloudy

Today’s Quote

 

Weekly Observations

17-23
National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week
18-25
Week of Christian Unity
National Soccer Coaches of America Week
19-29
Sundance Film Festival
22-28
Clean Out Your Inbox Week
Data Privacy Week Link
National CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists) Week
National Handwriting Analysis Week
National School Choice Week Link 
Snowcare for Troops Week
Snowcare for Troops Week
23-28
National Medical Group Practice Week

Daily Observations

Measure Your Feet Day
National Handwriting Day Link
National Pie Day Link  Link  
Paul Pitcher Day  Link
Snowplow Mailbox Hockey Day

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

Sun was shining early, but now the next storm is moving in. This one should bring us about 6” of snow…adding to January snowfall.

The Arkansas governor has banned the use of ‘LatinX’ in any state documents. For context, the term LatinX is in response to Latino and Latina, both of which place gender on the noun in Spanish. The ‘X’ means null and therefore drops gender from the noun. LatinX has been around a few years and has not become popular among the various Latin communities.

The Navajo Nation has lifted its mandated mask requirements. The new administration said that people should still be cautious when in large groups.

I read an article about the Debt Ceiling yesterday. After reading it, I sent an email to my newly elected Conservative Congressional Rep. The article was pointing out the debt ceiling allows the government to pay the bills it has already occurred. It does not increase the Federal debt or increase spending. Not raising the debt ceiling would cause the country to default on its loans. That would crash the value of the US dollar here and around the world. This is not something politicians should make political. Even delaying the necessary rise in the debt ceiling has consequences. The last time we came close to default, the US credit rating dropped. That means that the US now pays a higher interest rate on any money it borrows. That increase comes right out of taxpayers pockets.

The Big 5 of Africa…lions, leopards, elephants, African buffalo, & rhinoceroses

Arizona is a great state…NEW

·        Arizona has 3,928 mountain peaks and summits, more mountains than any one of the other Mountain States (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming).

·        All New England, plus the state of Pennsylvania would fit inside Arizona.

·        Arizona became the 48th state and last of the contiguous states on February 14, 1912.

Facts…

Number of Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball designs since 1907--7

Weight (in pounds) of the current Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball--11,875

Year “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” aired for the first time--1972

Typical number of revelers packed into Times Square each New Year’s Eve--58,000 

Slang Origins

1972: Retro

Meaning: related to the styles and fashions of the past

Kids wearing retro clothes today may be wearing styles from the 1970s, but the 21st century doesn’t have a monopoly on the term. Though it’s not always clear what makes an article of clothing or piece of furniture retro as opposed to vintage, the teenagers of 1972 were going through their parents’ clothes in hopes of making yesterday’s fashion the style of the future.

UNESCO sites…

The Tower of Hercules Is the World's Oldest Lighthouse That Is Still Standing

Built around the second century CE, the Tower of Hercules is considered to be the world's oldest functioning lighthouse. It is located on the northwest coast of modern-day Spain, on a promontory overlooking the harbor of A Coruña. The tower itself rises approximately 190 feet above the sea to shine its light across the northern Atlantic Ocean. The Tower of Hercules is the only remaining lighthouse of Greco-Roman antiquity to have retained its structural integrity, and it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009.

Historical Events

1556 – The Shaanxi earthquake struck in Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000, the deadliest earthquake in history.
Walter Frederick Morrison sold the rights (Design Patent #D183,626) to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the “Frisbee”.
1998 – Netscape announced Mozilla, with the intention to release Communicator code as open source.

Birthdays Today

@94 – Wally Parks, founded the National Hot Rod Association (d. 2007)
@89 – Randolph Scott, American actor (d. 1987)
80 – Gil Gerard, American actor
@74 – Anita Pointer, American R&B/soul singer-songwriter (d. 2022)
71 – Robin Zander, American rock singer-songwriter
59 – Mariska Hargitay, American actress, and producer
Being fearless means busting down those walls of fear and being who you are, not who someone else thinks you are.– Mariska Hargitay
@56 – John Hancock, American general and politician (d. 1793)
A chip on the shoulder is too heavy a piece of baggage to carry through life.– John Hancock 49 – Tiffani Thiessen, American actress
@42 – Ernie Kovacs, American comedic actor and game show host (d. 1962; auto crash)
There’s a standard formula for success in the entertainment medium, and that is: Beat it to death if it succeeds.– Ernie Kovacs
@20 – XXXTentacion (Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy), American rapper (d. 2018; shot)
You can’t do good if you’re wishing bad on others.– XXXTentacion

  

22 Jan

 

January 2023

Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 4 Day 22 \ Ave. Sky Cover 5% \ Visibility 18 miles Flagstaff Today 41° \1°  Wind 3mph \ Gusts 4mph 
Air Quality: Fair \very Low Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire 309mi \ Nearest Lightning 1470mi
Jan Averages for Flagstaff: 44° \ 16° \5 Days of moisture
Sunshine

Today’s Quote

 

Weekly Observations

14-22
International Snowmobile Safety and Awareness Week
17-23
National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week
18-25
Week of Christian Unity
National Soccer Coaches of America Week
19-29
Sundance Film Festival
22-28
Clean Out Your Inbox Week
Data Privacy Week Link
National CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists) Week
National Handwriting Analysis Week
National School Choice Week Link 
Snowcare for Troops Week
Snowcare for Troops Week

Daily Observations

Answer Your Cat's Questions Day

Celebration of Life Day
Chinese New Year

Come in From The Cold Day
Dance of the Seven Veils Day
National Bible Sunday  National Hot Sauce Day
National Polka Dot Day
Roe vs. Wade Day
Sanctity of Human Life Day Link

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

I don’t like shopping on weekends, but it is not snowing so I headed to Sam’s for stuff I need…and some stuff that looked good. While shopping two different people from the Rez stopped to see how I was doing. Nice to be recognized after being retired for over a decade. As I was leaving, a lady checked my receipt. She scanned it and then a few items, as usual. On the 2^nd item she scanned she said it wasn’t paid for. Then she found another and then another. I said, ‘this is crazy, I spent $57 dollars and the only item scanned was a jar of nuts.’ She said ‘Sir, just pull up your receipt on your phone.’ I went to the app and asked her where to find the receipt. She said just hit ‘scan and go’. I said I didn’t use scan and go. Then she said, 'do you have a paper receipt'? I said she had just scanned it. I pulled it out and she rescanned it. Everything worked. She didn’t apologize, and just said her hand-held scanner messed up.  I bit my tongue, so I didn’t say that her scanner needed someone who knew how to use it.

Our town will get more snow on Sunday. Looking at records: Jan 2023 has the 4^th most snow in the month on record with 57”. Jan 2010 is 5^th with 56.4”. 1949 with 104” is number 1, 1980 is 2^nd with 63.4’, 1979 is 3^rd with 59.4”. I’ve seen all those except #1.

I was reading an article about World famous concert halls. The Sydney Opera House, Odeon of Herodes Atticus (Athens), Carnegie Hall, Musikverein (Vienna), Nippon Budokan (Tokyo) were listed. The final one was Red Rocks Amphitheater. Very Cool.            

The Big 5 of Africa…lions, leopards, elephants, African buffalo, & rhinoceroses

Facts…

The New York ball drop has a stunning record only dimmed by World War II. Revelers gathered in Times Square in 1942 and 1943, but no ball drop took place, thanks to wartime blackouts. Instead, the new year was marked by a minute of silence followed by chimes.

Time balls emerged as a timekeeping feature throughout the world, though evidence of them is hard to find today. The U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., installed one in 1845, which would later help history record the precise time of Lincoln’s assassination; it dropped daily through 1936. But the time ball’s reign was short-lived. The devices fell out of fashion by the 1880s, thanks to the availability of self-winding clocks. The concept would eventually be co-opted by The New York Times in 1907, when the newspaper’s formerly explosive New Year’s Eve celebrations were barred from using fireworks. Organizers took a chance by looking back at the time ball’s influence, and decided a lighted midnight drop was the perfect way to honor the occasion. 

Slang Origins

1971: The Man

Meaning: the police; political or societal establishment

In the late ‘60s, the yippie movement grew out of the hippie counterculture. The Youth International Party, founded by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, was anti-establishment, and actively protested the government. “The Man” became shorthand for the government that they wished to replace with their own system, which they deemed more egalitarian.

UNESCO sites…

The Citadel of Aleppo Is Considered the World's Oldest Castle

When you think of castles, medieval structures often come to mind. But there are some fortified structures that predate the Middle Ages by centuries, and one such ancient fortress is distinctively castle-like enough to be widely considered the oldest such structure remaining on the planet. It's the Citadel of Aleppo, a castle fort in the history-rich city of Aleppo, Syria. Use of the castle dates back to 3000 BCE, but much of the current structure was likely built during the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th century. The fortress has weathered centuries of ups and downs (including some significant damage in the ongoing Syrian Civil War) but remains standing to this day. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.

Historical Events

1889 – Columbia Phonograph (Columbia Records) was formed in Washington, D.C.
1946 – Creation of the Central Intelligence Group, now the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).
1947 – KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, began operation in Hollywood.
1973 – The Supreme Court of the United States delivered its decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, legalizing elective abortion in all fifty states.

Birthdays Today

@92 – Ann Sothern, American actress, singer (d. 2001)
91 – Piper Laurie, American actress
@77 – John Hurt, English actor (d. 2017; cancer)
If you listen, you learn; if you talk, you don’t.– John Hurt
@65 – Sir Walter Raleigh, English poet, soldier, courtier and explorer (d. 1618; beheaded)
@65 – Francis Bacon, English philosopher, politician (d. 1626; pneumonia)
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.– Francis Bacon
@64 – Malcolm McLaren, English singer-songwriter, manager (d. 2010; mesothelioma)
74 – Steve Perry, American singer-songwriter
64 – Linda Blair, American actress
Its difficult to understand why people don’t realize that pets are gifts to mankind.– Linda Blair
@59 – Bill Bixby, American actor (d. 1993; prostate cancer)
58 – DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ and producer
58 – Diane Lane, American actress
55 – Guy Fieri, American chef, author, and television host
We’re takin’ you on a road rockin’ trip down to Flavortown, where the gravitational force of bacon warps the laws of space and time.– Guy Feiri
@36 – Lord Byron, English influential poet, playwright (d. 1824; fever)
@33 – Sam Cooke, American singer-songwriter (d. 1964; shot)
@30 – Robert E. Howard, American author, creator of Conan The Barbarian (d. 1936; suicide)
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.– Robert E. Howard
25 – Silento, American rapper
You already know what it is!-Silento

 

21 Jan

 

21 January 2023

Daily Almanac for Flagstaff
Week 3 Day 21 \ Ave. Sky Cover 70% \ Visibility 10 miles Flagstaff Today 46° \6°  Wind 5mph \ Gusts 8mph 
Air Quality: Fair \Very Low Risk of fire \ Nearest active fire 310mi \ Nearest Lightning 1498mi
Jan Averages for Flagstaff: 44° \ 16° \5 Days of moisture
Snowing on & off

Today’s Quote

 

Weekly Observations

14-22
International Snowmobile Safety and Awareness Week
15-21
Healthy Weight Week
Hunt For Happiness Week
Idiom Week
National Activity Professionals Week
Sugar Awareness Week
17-23
National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week
18-25
Week of Christian Unity
National Soccer Coaches of America Week
19-29
Sundance Film Festival

Daily Observations

Bald Eagle Appreciation Day
International Sweatpants Day
International Playdate Day
National Cheesy Socks Day
New England Clam Chowder Day
National Granola Bar Day
National Hugging Day Link  
National Hug Your Puppy Day
National Hyaluronic Acid Day Link
National Use Your Gift Card Day  Link
One-Liners Day (from films)
Squirrel Appreciation Day

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

Yesterday was a busy day. I got out and about for the first time in days. When I got home, a good friend from Tuba stopped by. We talk and text frequently, but this was our first face-to-face visit in a long time. I was too lazy to post a blog.

Wednesday it became official…I am a senior citizen. The 2-1/2 feet of snow and ice berm from the grader that cleared our drive was too much for me. I watched it not melting. I even took out a snow shovel and started to move it. That is when I realized I had no business even trying. I asked my Navajo neighbor to dig out my vehicle. He was happy to do it. I paid him $20 for about 45 minutes of work. He had to either haul or throw the snow/ice to a not-so-nearby pile. Then Thursday morning I parked the vehicle in the drive area and attempted to push off all the snow on my vehicle. The roof had a good 2 feet of snow that had packed down. I was only able to get about 60% off…more than enough to drive around town. About 3pm yesterday the HOA had a  large ‘bobcat’ in the parking lot removing the piles of snow that had built up. It took him a good three hours to clean it all out. This was in prep for the Friday storm.

I woke up this morning to 6” of newly fallen snow and the sun shining. By 7am the clouds returned and it has been snowing on and off ever since.  It has been over a decade since this much snow has fallen here in such a short period of time. Still good for the forest.

We reached the debt ceiling yesterday. Not the games begin. The damage caused by not raising the debt ceiling quickly are numerous that will last for decades. I wish our elected congress would realize the damage and stop this silliness. AND…everybody, including the wealthy, should pay their fair share. If I pay x% of my income, so should everyone else.

VP Kamala Harris visited Phoenix yesterday. Good for her. She did not visit the border. That was a bad move. The border is in the news daily. Biden said she was dealing with the border situation. She was only 2½ from the border and she ignored it. Dumb.  

Republican House Committee in AZ has approved a bill that would no longer allow judges to order parents to pay costs in lawsuits they lose where a teacher is sued because the parent believes that the teacher usurped the parent’s rights in a lesson. This is crazy.

The Big 5 of Africa…lions, leopards, elephants, African buffalo, & rhinoceroses

Facts…

The first ball drops were designed for ship captains, not New Year’s Eve.

Whether at home on the couch or among the crowds in Times Square, watching the New Year’s Eve ball drop symbolizes a fresh start. But as the ball descends to mark another year gone by, it also harkens back to an era when knowing the exact time was much more difficult. Before the 20th century, timekeeping was significantly less precise; most people noted the time thanks to church bells that rang on the hour, though the system was often inaccurate. For sailors and ship captains, knowing the exact time was key for charting navigational courses, and they used a device called a chronometer to keep track of time onboard ships. That’s why Robert Wauchope, a captain in the British Navy, created the time ball in 1829. The raised balls were visible to ships along the British coastline, and they were manually dropped at the same time each day, allowing ships to set their chronometers to the time at their port of departure. At sea, navigators would calculate longitude based on local time, which they could determine from the angle of the sun, and the time on their chronometer.   

Slang Origins

1970: Truckin

Meaning: to walk with a certain purpose or goal

Taken from a 1930s blues song (“Truckin’ My Blues Away” by Blind Boy Fuller), “truckin’” was popularized in the early ‘70s by a Grateful Dead song of the same name. They in turn were inspired by cartoonist R. Crumb, whose “Keep on Truckin’” comic in Zap Comix earned him an unprecedented amount of fame near the end of the hippie era.

UNESCO sites…

Al-Ahsa Oasis Is the World's Largest Oasis

No, it’s not a mirage — it’s Al-Ahsa Oasis, the world’s largest self-contained oasis, as recognized by Guinness World Records. Situated in southeastern Saudi Arabia about 40 miles inland from the Persian Gulf, the oasis (which comprises fertile land with a water source in the midst of a desert) is home to over 2.5 million palm trees spread across 32.9 square miles. Agriculture is resplendent all year in the fertile oasis, as the soil is fed by an underground aquifer of natural freshwater springs. Over 280 artesian springs irrigate the area, which is centered in the Al-Ahsa region. Recently becoming a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2018, the oasis is one of two oases considered the most important on the Arabian Peninsula, the other being Al Ain, located on Saudi Arabia’s border with Oman.

Historical Events
1793 – After being found guilty of treason by the French National Convention, Louis XVI of France was executed by guillotine.
1954 – The first atomic submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus was launched at Groton, Connecticut. It was officially commissioned later that year.
1972 – The first convention of Star Trek fans was held in New York City’s Statler-Hilton Hotel.
1976 – The supersonic Concorde had its first commercial flights (London to Bahrain & Paris to Rio de Janeiro ). The use of the plane ended on October 24, 2003.

Birthdays Today

@97 – Roger Nash Baldwin, American founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (d. 1981)
83 – Jack Nicklaus, American golfer and sportscaster
Focus on remedies, not faults.– Jack Nicklaus
@78 – Mac Davis, American singer-songwriter (d. 2020; after surgery)
76 – Jill Eikenberry, American actress
73 – Billy Ocean, Trinidadian-English singer-songwriter
@73 – Karl Wallenda, German-American acrobat, The Flying Wallendas (d. 1978; fall)
@72 – Aristotelis Telly Savalas, American actor (d. 1994; cancer)
@72 – Richie Havens, American singer-songwriter, guitarist (d. 2013; heart attack)
@68 – Benny Hill, English comedic actor (d. 1992; kidney failure)
67 – Robby Benson, American actor
67 – Geena Davis, American actress
The more hours of television a girl watches, the fewer options she thinks she has in life.
– Geena Davis
@66 – Paul Allen, American businessman, co-founded Microsoft (d. 2018; septic shock)
@57 – Wolfman Jack (Robert Weston Smith), American DJ, radio host (d. 1995, heart attack)
We are put on this earth to have a good time. This makes other people feel good. And the cycle continues.– Wolfman Jack
55 – Charlotte Ross, American actress
@52 – Christian Dior, French fashion designer (d. 1957; heart attack)
@51 – Ethan Allen, American general (d. 1789; apoplectic fit)
That which is above comprehension we cannot perceive to be contradictory, nor on the other hand can we perceive its rationality or consistency.– Ethan Allen
@47 – Grigori Rasputin, Russian Mystic (d. 1916; assassinated)
When the bell tolls three times, it will announce that I have been killed. If I am killed by common men, you and your children will rule Russia for centuries to come; if I am killed by one of your stock, you and your family will be killed by the Russian people!– Rasputin
46 – Jerry Trainor, American actor,
38 – Nick Gehlfuss, American actor
@39 – Stonewall Jackson (Thomas Jonathan Jackson), (Confederate) general (d. 1863; shot)
If the general government should persist in the measures now threatened, there must be war. It is painful enough to discover with what unconcern they speak of war and threaten it. They do not know its horrors. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils.– Stonewall Jackson
26 – Jeremy Shada, American actor, musician, singer
29 – Booboo Stewart, actor