★ January 14, 2013 ★

Hello everyone & happy Monday. What a busy 3 days it's been! Saturday was spent working out in the cold, mud, & rain to get the water pipe fixed, which we finally did, but during all that the FD got toned out to a med call, Chris called, I took a quick break to make everyone a hot fried egg sandwich because we were all half frozen, then I stayed inside for a little while I dusted the bathroom accents, neatened one of the dresser drawers, fed the pets, & cleaned all the televisions. Ann-Marie IMd

me for a while & I helped her look for a weaving loom & ended up buying a Knit Wit for myself (another piece of my past that I miss ... cute little thing & great for sitting & watching TV with!) I have some great ideas for money making patterns, but I'm not going to tell you because I don't want everyone beating me to it. :) Then Ann-Marie & I were chatting about crafty stuff & she found & bought a bead bracelet

thingie for me that I was looking at on eBay as well. The one she found was on Amazon, brand new, & the same price as the used one on eBay. Thank you Ann! I say that a lot, don't I? That's because it deserves to be said a lot. :) I have some wonderful money-making ideas for that as well, but again ... it's a secret. By now Pete had found the break & we were off to Home Depot to buy parts to repair it.During this the FD got

toned out to another med call. When we got back, we went back to work on the pipe outside & by now the storm had passed, but the temperature dropped at least 20°. When we were done Eve called so we chatted with her for a bit & then drove Josh up into Princeton for his days off. We were cold, hungry, & Pete decided that since he saved so much money by not hiring a plumber (there weren't any available anyway), that he took me out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. What a GREAT dinner! I missed that place. While we were out at dinner, the FD got it's 3rd med call for the day. We came home, watched TV & crashed for the night. Sunday morning I got up early with Pete & we drove Josh to work & stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast bagels. Then we came home & went right back to bed. We slept until after noon & then finally crawled out of bed. Pete is sore from all of the digging with shovels & then laying down on his stomach in the mud & digging by hand & flinging dirt back up out of the hole. Neither one of us really had much energy on Sunday, so I when I got up I cleared out my main e-mail box from the week, went through the Sunday paper, checked facebook & then we picked Josh up from work. Since we got there early, we grabbed a slice of pizza from the Italian place next to where he works, then did some grocery shopping & headed home for a long evening of sitting in front of the TV under comforters & just not moving much at all. This morning I really wanted to crawl into the Matrix for a bit, so when I woke up & built the study for Breckenridge (3rd & 4th pics) & then loaded up the Modern Beach House built by the extremely talented Curtis Paradis. If it's built by Curtis, it's 100% top-notch high-quality! (2nd pic). I started this game out in the winter. Well, the game was already in progress, but I started it before Seasons was released, so when I continued the game I had it start with Winter. It was a cold 41° @ 1:a. My 2nd gen Sim Faith met Nigel Ware at school & they were eventually married. They had a baby girl, Jeanita Ware. Jeanita is a loner who is also friendly. She's a Cancer who likes soul music, pumpkin pie, & the color spice brown. She had just aged up to a toddler when I shut the game down for the day to go pick Josh up from work. When I got back I did some research for Pete & then ran up into town to pick Kyle up from school. While I was waiting for Kyle, Paul called & we talked almost until Kyle & I got home. Then I added another AnyTime Organizer ToDo to my list & updated my iPhone apps. LCFD Business Meeting tomorrow & I sure hope I can make it. The way things are looking though, I'm doubting it. :(

Dictionary.com:

Top-rated app with trusted reference content from Dictionary.com & Thesaurus.com. WORKS OFFLINE - no Internet connection needed when searching words. ★ Time Magazine ‘Top 10 Back-To-School App’, Apple ‘Top 10 App’ High School Survival Guide, Winner: CNET Top 100 Mobile App Award ★
Features:
* English Dictionary and Thesaurus - over 2,000,000 definitions, synonyms & antonyms
* Offline access – no Internet connection needed for most content
* Daily content, including Word of the Day & The Hot Word
* Audio pronunciation
* Example sentences
* Word origin & history
* Voice search (five free searches included)
* Favorite words
* Search history
* Spelling suggestions
* Popular & local trending searches
* Shake your iPhone to receive a random, surprise word
Tip: To turn Word of the Day notifications on or off, go to Settings > Notifications > Dictionary and toggle On or Off.
This free dictionary app contains advertisements, in-app purchases and options to share content via social media.

FlightTrack:

Add push flight alerts, Tripit, terminal maps and weather delays. No subscription needed! The app gives you everything you need to manage your flights in real-time. With over 3,000 airports listed and over 1,400 airlines available, it’s the most comprehensive way to monitor your flights. It even has an offline mode for in-flight use.

Golden Globes curtailed due to writers’ strike (2008):

Fans of the red carpet extravaganza that is the annual Golden Globe Awards presentation were disappointed in 2008, when the lavish ceremony was canceled due to the Writers Guild of America strike that began the previous fall. Under pressure from striking writers and the actors who threatened to boycott the presentation as a gesture of support, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association decided in early January that the usual ceremony would be supplanted by a straightforward news conference announcing the winners.

On January 13, the no-frills presentation took place in the Beverly Hilton Hotel; it aired on E! Entertainment Television and the TV Guide Network. NBC, normally the official broadcaster of the Golden Globes, held its own version of the awards presentation, in which Billy Bush and Nancy O’Dell, co-hosts of the NBC entertainment newsmagazine Access Hollywood, read the list of winners at a slight delay from the Foreign Press’s announcement. In previous years, NBC had earned around $25 million in ad revenue for the Globes broadcast, and the curtailed awards reportedly cost the network $10 million to $15 million in lost revenue.

The simultaneous Golden Globes ceremonies went ahead after a struggle among NBC, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Dick Clark Productions, the production company responsible for the telecast. Having already bought the rights to broadcast the Golden Globes, NBC wanted to recoup some of its predicted losses in advertising by maintaining exclusive rights to air the awards news conference. Instead, the Foreign Press Association opened the Hilton conference to all news media, and NBC decided to stage its own Globes presentation.

Members of the Writers Guild of America had gone on strike on November 5, 2007, to pressure the studios to give them a stake in the revenue generated from the Internet distribution of movies, television shows and other content. In all, the strike was far more damaging than the studios had anticipated, shutting down more than 60 television shows and costing the networks tens of millions of dollars in advertising before it finally ended on February 12, 2008.

Gold prices soar (1980):

After being released from government control, gold reaches a new record price on January 14, 1980, exceeding $800 an ounce.

Gold is scattered sparsely throughout the earth's crust and since ancient times has been treasured for both its scarcity and metallurgic properties. Before the 19th century, most nations maintained a bimetallic monetary system, which often included gold but consisted mainly of silver. Beginning in Great Britain in 1821, units of currency were redeemable for a fixed quantity of gold, a change that Britain hoped would stabilize its rapidly growing economy. As the Industrial Revolution spread, other countries followed suit, and by the late 19th century most industrialized nations were on the gold standard. In the new global economy, the common standard facilitated international monetary transactions and stabilized foreign exchange rates.

The reign of the full gold standard, however, was short. In 1914, the curbing of gold exports at the outbreak of World War I forced recourse to inconvertible paper currency. After the war, the gold standard returned, but economic growth in the 1920s overtook the gold reserves, and some nations supplemented their reserves with stable currencies like the pound and dollar, which like gold had obtained a measure of permanent abstract value in people's minds.

In 1930, the world economy collapsed and the gold standard with it. In response, most governments sharply limited the convertibility of paper currency. In the United States in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt prohibited the circulation of gold coins; though gold was still used in defining the value of the dollar. In the United States and many other countries, currencies remained "pegged" to gold until the 1970s, when dwindling global reserves signaled the final death knell of the gold standard.

In 1971, the United States suspended the free exchange of U.S. gold for foreign-held dollars, then in 1974 lifted its four-decade ban on the private purchase of gold. At that time, gold bullion was being traded in European markets at highs approaching $200 an ounce. In 1975, the U.S. government began to sell some of its holdings on the open market and in 1978, along with most other nations, officially abandoned the gold standard. After being released from government control, the price of gold soared, with its most staggering increase recorded January 14, 1980, when the price jumped to more than $800 an ounce.

hats make a bold statement about the wearer, & as Frank Sinatra said, "Cock your hat - angles are attitudes."

Hat styles for American men top 10:

1. Baseball cap
2. Akubra
3. Aviator hat
4. beret
5. Boonie hat
6. Cowboy hat
7. Fedora
8. Tuque (toboggan, skit cap, skull cap)
9. Flat cap
10. Top hat

"Inside-out" means to start 1st with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self - with your paradigms, your character, & your motives.

Instead of saying "Good morning," sing "Good morning, starshine, the earth says hello ..." (or as much of that song from the musical Hair as you can remember).

Pledge to spend 15 minutes a day for a week just getting organized - gathering your bills & documents & sorting them into piles.

Since 1840, all U.S. Presidents elected in a year ending with a 0 died in office. The "curse," supposedly put in place by Indian chief Tecumseh, ended with Ronald Regan. He was elected in 1980 & barely survived an assassination attempt the following year.

There's a scientist that came out today from the National Center for Atmospheric Research & found 2 snowflakes that were alike. That's true. Now does that mean all the stuff we learned as kids is completely wrong & we now can go swimming right after we eat? If you cross your eyes will they stay that way? Will they? -Johnny Carson 1988

Wearing a hat is the only real "cure" for baldness.