All the News (Random Tuesday)

(Because some people like Blogger and some like WordPress, i am putting the same content at both.  If you would prefer to read this on the other site, it is linked here.)

It’s Random Tuesday time!  This post is linking up with Stacy’s Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked.  

Little Girl just returned from her winter training.  Some of the soldiers were assigned to tents, and it was so cold, she woke up one morning with ice in her hair.  After that, the powers that be decided to cram everyone into the barracks whether they could really fit them all or not.

She passed all of her fitness tests and requalified as a sharpshooter, too.

#2 Son and Daughter-in-Law Becky have already filed their taxes.  Show-offs.  (Actually, i am quite proud of them for getting it done so soon.  Our own are not so easy, owning a business complicates everything dreadfully.)  The CPA has just gotten us our packets, so i now have no choice but to get going on our numbers.

Bigger Girl is chomping at the bit to move out early next month.  She will have two roommates and be much closer to campus.  That’s a great thing for her lab work with the bacteria, as she and her partner have to do a count every 12 hours to make sure the bacteria are growing and multiplying properly.  The morning count is before classes, at 6:30am, so once she moves she won’t have to get up as early to get there.

It’s been interesting having posts at Blogger and Wordpress, and i’m not totally comfortable on the new platform yet.  In fact, i cannot for the life of me figure out how to set up Wordpress so that i don’t have to approve all comments.

(By the way, Annie of McGuffy’s Reader, you asked me to email you but i still cannot for the life of me find your email address.  If you want to write to me, i’m messymimi at live dot com.)

Other than the comment issue, i find it’s just as easy to copy to both as to one, so i may stick with it this way.  People who are on Wordpress can read me there, and the same with the Blogger folks.  All my writing is done as a note on the iPad anyway, so copying to two places instead of one doesn’t take long.

This is my busy week, and i have two extra jobs on Saturday, so please forgive me if i’m getting behind with my reading.  Eventually i do catch up.

Today is:

Cash Register Day -- James Ritty and John Birch were granted a patent on this day in 1883 for an early mechanical cash register

Congressional Brawl Day -- marking the first ever all out brawl in the US Congress in 1798

Draw A Dinosaur Day -- and post it to the web site  

Feast of King Charles the Martyr -- Anglican

Fred Korematsu Day -- US (honoring the civil rights activist who protested the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII) 

Inane Answering Message Day -- the day to change those annoying messages, sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

King's Birthday -- Jordan

Martyrs' Day -- India (assassination anniversary of Gandhi)

National Croissant Day

Pax -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Festival of Peace)

Puce and Ochre Day -- Fairy Calendar

School Day of Nonviolence and Peace -- sponsored by DENIP

Shiretoko Fantasia -- Shiretoko, Hokkaido, Japan (laser lights and music illuminate the drift ice and waves of the Okhotsk Sea each night; through Feb. 29)

St. Aldegund's Day (Patron of cancer patients; against cancer, childhood diseases, sudden death, wounds)

St. Bathilde's Day (Patron of children, sick people, widows; against bodily ills and sickness)

St. Martina of Rome's Day (Patron of nursing mothers; Rome, Italy)

Three Archbishops' Day -- Eastern Orthodox (a/k/a Holy Hierarchs' Day)

Tu B'Shevat -- Judaism ("New Year of the Trees", begins at sunset)

Up-Helly-AA Day -- Lerwick, Shetland (the largest fire festival in Europe, with tomorrow as a day off so everyone can recover)

Yodel For Your Neighbors Day -- Why?  Do you hate your neighbors?

Birthdays Today:

Johnathan Lee Iverson, 1976

Christian Bale, 1974

Brett Butler, 1958

Phil Collins, 1951

Charles Dutton, 1951

Steve Marriott, 1947

Marty Balin, 1942

Dick Cheney, 1941

Vanessa Redgrave, 1937

Boris spassky, 1937

Tammy Grimes, 1934

Louis Ruckeyser, 1933

Gene Hackman, 1930

Dorothy Malone, 1925

Dick Martin, 1922

Barbara W. Tuchman, 1912

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1882

Isaiah Thomas, 1749

Thomas Rolfe, 1615 (Only child of John Rolfe and Pocahontas.)

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Yogi Bear Show"(TV), 1958

"Robert Montgomery Presents"(TV), 1950

"City Lights"(Chaplin Movie), 1931

Today in History:

The Jews of Freilsburg, Germany, are massacred, 1349

King Charles I of England is beheaded, 1649

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed after having been dead for two years, 1661

The Forty-seven Ronin, under the command of Oishi Kuranosuke, avenge the death of their master, 1703

Henry Greathead tests the first boat intended to be specialized as a lifeboat for rescue purposes, which he invented, on the River Tyne in England, 1790

The burned Library of Congress is reestablished, with Thomas Jefferson contributing, 1815

Edward Bransfield sights the Trinity Peninsula and claims the discovery of Antarctica, 1820

The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales is opened, 1826

A fire destroys two-thirds of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, 1841

The city of Yerba Buena is renamed San Francisco, for the nearby mission of the same name, 1847

William Wells Brown publishes the first Black drama, "Leap to Freedom," 1858

The US Navy's first ironclad warship, the Monitor, is launched, 1862

The pneumatic hammer is patented by Charles King of Detroit, 1894

The Canadian Naval Service becomes the Royal Canadian Navy, 1911

The House of Lords rejects the Irish Home Rule Bill, 1913

"The Lone Ranger" begins a 21 year run on ABC radio, 1933

Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is assassinated by Pandit Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist, 1948

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1956

The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police, 1969

Carole King's Tapestry album is released, it would become the longest charting album by a female solo artist and sell 24 million copies worldwide, 1971

Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations, 1972

The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary was established as the first United States National Marine Sanctuary, 1975

Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner", 1982

Peter Leko of Hungary becomes the world's youngest chess grand master at age 14, 1994

Workers from the National Institutes of Health announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease, 1995

Over half a million people participate in the world's largest wildlife survey after extreme cold drives exotic birds into Britain's back gardens, 2011