Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. – Martin Luther King
TODAY – JANUARY 9th – MONDAY
9th day of 2017 with 356 days to follow. Moon is waxing with 88% visible
Holidays for Today:
~ Balloon Ascension Day (celebrate balloons of all kinds on the day Jean Pierre Blanchard became the first man to successfully ascend in a balloon on the North American Continent)
~ National Apricot Day
~ National Cassoulet Day
~ National Clean Off Your Desk Day (2nd Monday)
~ National Static Electricity Day
~ Play God Day (encourages us to do something nice for someone so others can see God working in you.)
~ Bread Machine Baking Month
~ International Brain Teaser Month
~ National Clean Up Your Computer Month
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BIRTHDAYS ON THIS DATE:
1859 Carrie Chapman Catt, Ripon, Wisconsin, activist (founded the League of Women Voters and International Alliance of Women)
1870 Joseph B Strauss, Cincinnati, Ohio, civil engineer (chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge)
1886 Lloyd Allayre Loar, Cropsey, Illinois, Luthier and Acoustical engineer (inventor of the Gibson F-5 mandolin)
1890 Karel Čapek, Czech writer (introduced & made popular the word robot, used 1st in his play R.U.R.)
1901 Chic Young, Chicago, Illinois, cartoonist (Blondie)
1909 J. R. Simplot, Dubuque, Iowa, entrepreneur (founder of J.R. Simplot Company, largest shipper of fresh potatoes by WWII, patented the frozen French-fried potato)
1913 Richard Nixon, Yorba Linda, California, 37th President of the United States
1928 Judith Krantz, New York City, New York, romance author (Scruples, Mistral’s Daughter, I’ll Take Manhattan, Princess Daisy)
1935 Bob Denver, New Rochelle, New York, actor (Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island, The Many Love of Dobie Gillis) / FM radio personality in Princeton, West Virginia
1936 Anne Rivers Siddons, Atlanta, Georgia, author (stories set in the southern U.S.; Sweetwater Creek, Heartbreak Hotel)
1938 Stuart Woods, Manchester, Georgia, author (Will Lee novels, Chiefs; Stone Barringon novels, The Short Forever, Dark Harbor, Naked Greed; Holly Barker series, Blood Orchid; Ed Eagle series, Santa Fe Rules)
1941 Joan Baez, Staten Island, NYC, New York, singer and activist
1945 John Doman, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, actor (The Wire, Oz, Gotham, Person of Interest, Feed the Beast)
1951 Crystal Gayle, Paintsville, Kentucky, singer (Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue)
1955 J. K. Simmons, Detroit, Michigan, actor (Spider-Man trilogy, Hidalgo, The Astronaut Farmer, Juno, Up in the Air, Whiplash, Law & Order, Oz, The Closer, Portal 2, The Legend of Korra, Patriots Day)
1959 Mark Martin, Batesville, Arkansas, race car driver (described by ESPN as “The best driver to never win a championship”)
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Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. – Abraham Joshua Heschel
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HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS:
1788 Connecticut becomes the fifth state to be admitted to the United States.
1793 Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first person to fly in a balloon in the United States.
1839 The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
1861 The “Star of the West” incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina. It is considered by some historians to be the “First Shots of the American Civil War”.
1861 Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
1894 New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts.
1909 Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, plants the British flag 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the South Pole, the furthest anyone had ever reached at that time.
1918 Battle of Bear Valley: The last battle of the American Indian Wars.
1923 Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro flight.
1929 The Seeing Eye was formed to train guide dogs.
1951 The U.N. headquarters opened in New York.
2007 Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveils the first iPhone.
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The tiresome jury selection process continued, each side hotly contesting and dismissing potential jurors. Don O’Brian was called for his question session.
“Property holder?”
“Yes, I am, Your Honor.”
“Married or single?”
“Married for twenty years, Your Honor.”
“Formed or expressed an opinion?”
“Not in twenty years, Your Honor.”
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The defendant stood up in the dock and said to the judge, “I don’t recognize this court!”
“Why?” asked the Judge.
“Because you’ve had it decorated since the last time I was here.”
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ONE-LINERS:About Men . . .
~ Men like phones with lots of buttons. It makes them feel important.
~ Men like to barbecue. Men will cook if danger is involved.
~ Most men hate to shop. That’s why the men’s department is usually on the first floor, two inches from the door.
~ Men forget everything; women remember everything. Think about it! How many women’s sports use something called an “instant replay?”
~ Men are self-confident because they grow up identifying with superheroes. Women have bad self-images because they grow up identifying with Barbie.
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A woman was having a medical problem – her husband’s snoring. So she called the doctor one morning and asked him if there was anything he could do to relieve her “suffering.”
“Well, there is one operation I can perform that will cure your husband, but it is really rather expensive. It will cost $1000 down and payments of $450 for 24 months, plus payments for extras.”
“My goodness!” the woman exclaimed, “it sounds like leasing a new sports car!”
“Humm,” the doctor murmured, “too obvious, huh?”
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pic of the day: Red-bellied Woodpecker
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
Two rookie policemen were patrolling the small town’s business district. They stopped at the local coffee shop for dessert. Soon, they got a call on their police radio, “33 in progress, man in bank dressed as a banana.”
There was only one bank in town, just across from the coffee shop. And a 33 is an armed robbery. The men decided it was the dispatcher playing a joke on them so they continued enjoying their break.
Then they got a second call on their radio, “Repeat, Urgent, 33 in progress, man in bank dressed as a banana.”
Realizing it was not a joke, they rushed across the street, but alas they arrived just seconds after the banana split.
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A Navy officer was cutting through the crew’s quarters of his ship one day and happened upon a sailor reading a magazine with his feet up on the small table in front of him.
“Sailor! Do you put your feet up on the furniture at home?” the officer demanded.
“No, sir, but we don’t land airplanes on the roof either.”
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A man walks into a bar and says, “Bartender, give me two shots.” Bartender says, “You want them both now or one at a time?” The guy says,” Oh, I want them both now. One’s for me and one’s for this little guy here,” and he pulls a tiny three inch man out of his pocket.
The bartender asks “He can drink?”
“Oh, sure. He can drink.”
So the bartender pours the shots and sure enough, the little guy drinks it all up.
“That’s amazing” says the bartender. “What else can he do, can he walk?”
The man flicks a quarter down to the end of the bar and says, “Hey, Jake. Go get that.” The little guy runs down to the end of the bar and picks up the quarter. Then he runs back down and gives it to the man.
The bartender is in total shock. “That’s amazing” he says, “what else can he do? Does he talk?”
The man says “Sure he talks, hey, Jake, tell him about that time we were in Africa and you made fun of that witch doctor’s powers!”
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An American attorney had just finished a guest lecture at a law school in Italy when an Italian lawyer approached him and asked, “Is it true that a person can fall down on a sidewalk in your county and then sue the landowners for lots of money?”
Told that it was true, the lawyer turned to his partner and started speaking rapidly in Italian. When they stopped, the American attorney asked if they wanted to go to America to practice law.
“No, no,” one replied. “We want to go to America and fall down on sidewalks.
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My 14-year-old daughter, Maggie, and her best friend, Joannie are fans of 60’s music. They recently got front- row tickets to attend a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert in our town.
When they returned home from the concert that night, I wanted to hear all the details of the concert. My daughter says, “Mom, during the show, we looked back an saw hundreds of little lights swaying to the music. At first we thought people were holding up their smart phones. Then we realized that the lights were the reflections off all the eyeglasses in the audience!”
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TODAY IN TRIVIA: How did Miles win Henry’s bells? St. Miles Partridge once played dice with Henry VIII for the bells of St. Paul’s church. He won, and collected the bells.
~Where was the first nuclear power plant in the U.S? In December of 1957 — Shippingport, Pennsylvania became the site of the first full-scale nuclear power plant in the U.S. The plant was able to generate 60 megawatts of electricity after reaching full power 21 days after going on-line.
~How long did 19th century Londoners live? The average life span of London residents in the middle of the 19th century was 27 years. For members of the working class, that number dropped to 22 years.
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QUIP OF THE DAY: Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right. – Henry Ford
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
Thought for the day. . . If you have a purpose in which you can believe, there’s no end to the amount of things you can accomplish. – Marian Anderson