“I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but the spirit in which we face them, that constitutes our comfort.” Elizabeth T. King
FOR TODAY – FEBRUARY 2nd – TUESDAY
33rd day of 2010 with 332 to follow.
Holidays for Today:
* Groundhog Day
* Candlemas
* Bonza Bottler Day
* National Heavenly Hash Day
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TODAY IN BIRTHDAYS:
1882 James Joyce, Ireland, novelist/poet (Dubliners, Ulysses, Finnigan’s Wake)
1905 Ayn Rand, writer (Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead)
1920 Dr An Wang, founder (Wang Labs, Wang Computers)
1937 Tom Smothers, NY, comedian (Smother Brother Show, Serial)
1944 Katherine Crawford, Los Angeles CA, actress (Gemini Man, Captains & the Kings)
1947 Mary Farrah Leni Fawcett, TX, actress (Charlie’s Angels, Burning Bed)
1948 Jessica Savitch, Kennett Square PA, news anchor (NBC)
1949 Brent Spiner, Houston TX, actor (Data-Star Trek the Next Generation)
1954 Christie Brinkley, model/actress (Sports Illustrated, Vacation)
1955 Michael Talbott, Waverly IA, actor (Stan-Miami Vice)
1958 Holly Hunter, Conyers GA, actress (Broadcast News, Once Around)
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I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. – Abraham Lincoln
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HAPPENED THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
1653 New Amsterdam (later renamed New York City) is incorporated.
1869 James Oliver invents the removable tempered steel plow blade.
1887 In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.
1901 Female Army Nurse Corps established as a permanent organization.
1925 Dogsleds reach Nome with emergency diphtheria serum after 1000-km.
1935 Lie detector 1st used in court (Portage WI).
1940 Frank Sinatra’s singing debut in Indianapolis (Tommy Dorsey Orchestra).
1955 1st Presidential news conference on network TV-Eisenhower on ABC.
1962 For the first time in 400 years Neptune and Pluto align.
1964 GI Joe, debuts as a popular American boy’s toy.
1977 Radio Shack officially begins creating the TRS-80 computer.
1992 IRS & Willie Nelson settle on $9 million tax bill (of $16.7 million).
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A business owner tells her friend that she is desperately searching for an accountant.
Her friend asks, “Didn’t your company hire an accountant a short while ago?”
The business owner replies, “That’s the accountant I’ve been searching for.”
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As a potential juror in an assault-and-battery case, I was sitting in a courtroom, answering questions from both sides. The assistant district attorney asked such questions as: Had I ever been mugged? Did I know the victim or the defendant?
The defense attorney took a different approach, however. “I see you are a teacher,” he said. “What do you teach?”
“English and theater,” I responded.
“Then I guess I better watch my grammar,” the defense attorney quipped.
“No,” I shot back. “You better watch your acting.”
When the laughter in the courtroom died down, I was excused from the case.
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ONE-LINERS : IF BASEBALL WERE RUN BY CATS
~ Hard rubber ball with horsehide cover? History. New ball comes with jingle bells and catnip.
~ No one showers after a game; must lick themselves clean.
~ Catcher=Scratching Post.
~ Each team gets nine outs and that’s it.
~ Interest in the peanuts is secondary to fascination with peanut shells.
~ Base runners must run home. Or they could climb the outfield wall. Or hide in the dugout. Or hide in the bullpen and run home the next morning.
~ A player is no longer charged with an error if they were simply ignoring the play.
~ Pitcher’s mound doubles as a litter box. Umpire checks for foreign substance on ball quadruple.
~ Hacking up a hairball on the umpire is cause for immediate ejection.
~ Only three players are allowed to chase down a ball at any one time.
~ Seventh inning stretch lasts for the whole inning.
~ Before the game starts, everyone stands for the playing of the sound of a can opener.
[Chris White's Top Five on Pets w/edits and additional material by Mark Raymond]
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AT A RESTAURANT, my Army National Guard company commander noticed a couple of Marines going into the adjoining dining room. He called the waitress over and, with patriotic feeling, told her, “Buy those Marines in there a drink on me!”
The waitress left to take their order, and a loud cheer was heard. A whole platoon of Marines was in the next room. My company commander had a bar bill of $164 and 44 new friends. – Robert S. Tellman
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“The thing that attracted me to my husband was his pride. I’ll never forget the first time I saw him, standing up on a hill, his hair blowing in the breeze, and he was too proud to run and get it.”
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pic of the day: Snow Flurries
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A couple with three children waited in line at San Francisco’s Pier 41 to purchase tickets for a sightseeing boat to Alcatraz Prison. The children weren’t good at waiting: they fidgeted, whined, and punched one another. The frazzled parents reprimanded them to no avail.
Finally they reached the ticket window.
“Five tickets, please,” the father said. “Two round trip, three one way.”
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About 3 AM on very cold morning, Montana State Trooper Allan Nixon responded to a call of a car off the shoulder of the road outside Great Falls. He located the car, stuck in deep snow with the engine running. Pulling in behind the car with his emergency lights on, the trooper walked to the driver’s door where he found an older man passed out behind the wheel with a nearly-empty vodka bottle on the seat beside him.
The driver woke up when Nixon tapped on the window. Seeing the rotating lights in his rear view mirror and the State Trooper standing next to his car, the man panicked. He jerked the gear shift into drive and hit the gas.
The car’s speedometer was showing 20, 30, 40 and then 50 MPH, but the car was still stuck in the snow, wheels spinning.
Trooper Nixon, having a sense of humor, began running in place next to the speeding (but stationary) car. The driver was totally freaked, thinking the trooper was actually keeping up with him. After about 30 seconds the trooper yelled, “PULL OVER!”
The man nodded, turned his wheel and stopped the engine. Needless to say, he was arrested and is probably still shaking his head over the state trooper who could run 50 MPH.
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
“Doctor, Doctor! You’ve gotta help me! I’m becoming invisible!”
“Yes, I can see you’re not all there.”
—–
“Doctor, Doctor! You’ve gotta help me! My mind keeps wandering.”
“Don’t worry – it’s too weak to go very far.”
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I’d been working on my business degree for about a year when I finally got to take a popular finance course. I went to the bookstore to buy the textbook and was shocked to find out it would cost me $125. I asked how much it was worth if I sold it back at the end of the semester.
“You’ll get about $50,” said the clerk.
“This is insane,” I protested as I handed him my credit card.
“I know,” replied the clerk sympathetically. “I’ve always thought that a person who buys a finance book for $125 and then sells it back for $50 should fail the course.”
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Police Academy Test Question:
“You are on duty. A car with two people inside crashes into a light pold. The two people are critically injured and the car is badly damaged. An ambulance arrives, but it is going too fast and crashes into the damaged car. The car blows up. The impact causes the ambulance to flip on its side and sends a passer-by into the river. At this point a man runs out of a nearby house. The victims are groaning in pain, the ambulance driver is cursing, the guy in the river is yelling for help because he can’t swim and the guy at the house is screaming that his wife is about to have her baby any second. What
would you do first?”
Recruit’s Answer: “I’d take off my uniform and disappear into the crowd.”
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TODAY IN TRIVIA: Today is both Groundhog Day and Candlemas. It’s no accident both occur on the same day, as both signify the triumph of light over darkness, spring over winter.
Today, the 2nd, happens to be the astronomical midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
Candlemas got its name from the candlelit processions that were part of the celebration. It was originally a Celtic festival celebrating the fact that the days were getting longer and spring was not far off. The Christian church expanded this festival of light to commemorate the purification of the Virgin Mary and her presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple.
Since the traditional Candlemas celebration anticipated the planting of crops, a central focus of the festivities was the forecasting of either an early spring or a lingering winter. Sunshine on Candlemas was said to indicate the return of winter. Similarly, “When the wind’s in the east on Candlemas Day / There it will stick till the second of May.”
In England and France, a bear brought the forecast, while people in Germany used a badger for their sign. When German immigrants moved to Pennsylvania in the 1800s, they brought their Candlemas legends with them. Since there weren’t any badgers, but there were instead lots of groundhogs, they adapted and used the groundhog for their weather predictions.
It was not held as a good omen if the day itself were bright and sunny, for this indicated that snow and frost would continue, whereas if it were cloudy and dark, warmth and rain would thaw out the fields and have them ready for planting.
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LIFE LESSON: A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change.” Earl Nightingale
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“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.” – Erica Jong
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
THE LAST WORD: Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. – Peter Drucker
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