7

Parts of Anchorage had 7 inches of snow yesterday, September 29.  It was the first snowfall of the season.

76

76 is an automorphic number:

76² = 5776

76³ = 438976 

76⁴ = 33362176

76⁵ = 2535525376


etc.

some number we aren't sure of, but almost 2,000,000,000

~World's Most Expensive Building~

Antilia is the name of a twenty-seven floor personal home in South Mumbai belonging to businessman Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries. There will be 600 full-time staff to maintain the residence, reportedly the most expensive home in the world cost near about US$2 billion! The building is named after the mythical Atlantic island of Antillia. The Antilia building is situated on an ocean-facing 4,532 square metres (48,780 sq ft) plot at Altamount Road, Cumballa Hill, South Mumbai, where land prices are upward of US $10,000 per square metre.In August 2008, Altamount Road was the 10th most expensive street in the world at US $25,000/ sq m US $2,336 per sq foot).

Features of the home include:

• 400,000 square feet (37,000 m²) of living space, (in comparison the Palace of Versailles occupies 721,206 square feet of floor space)
• parking space for 168 cars.
• a one-floor vehicle maintenance facility.
• nine elevators in the lobby.
• three helipads and an air traffic control facility.
• health spa, yoga studio, small theatre with a seating capacity for 50 on the eighth floor, there is a swimming pool, three floors of hanging gardens, and a ballroom.
• an ice room infused with man-made snow flurries.
• Custom hand carved rare marble pillars and stonework.
• Worlds largest collection of antique sewing machines.

Its owner, Mukesh Ambani, 53, was ranked by Forbes as the ninth richest man in the world. His fortune is valued at $27 billion. Forbes called his petrochemical company, Reliance Industries, “India’s most valuable company.”

So - How does he enjoy the building?

India’s richest man is enjoying his 27-story Mumbai home, from afar. The world’s most expensive home is reportedly empty because the owner believes it would be bad luck to move in.  The building’s purported problem is that it lacks the correct vastu shastra, a Hindu equivalent of feng shui. The architectural doctrine emphasizes the importance of facing the sunrise and the home reportedly does not have enough windows on the east side, which could cause bad luck.  The family are reportedly living with their extended family in a more modest 14-story home elsewhere in the city.

 

 

173,000

According to their new contract, next year NFL referees will ear an average of $173,000.  They also get a generous retirement package.  This is for a job where they work 20 weekends a year and that's it.

The important question:  How do I get a job as a referee?

(Amy)

13

It is the number of years I have to go before I gets out of the military.  (Joe, one of Amy's students)

185

185 protesters were arrested on the anniversary of the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

1

Curious multiplications using 1's:
1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
etc...

50

The Jetsons premiered 50 years ago today. If you're wondering when we'll be getting flying cars and robot maids, the show was set in 2062.  So we only have 50 years to wait!!!

 

 

200,000

The animal with the most taste buds is the catfish with 200,000. The catfish has about 20,000 taste buds in his mouth, or about twice as many as a human does. But, even weirder, the catfish has an additional 180,000 taste buds on the outside of his body, which means that in all, he has 20 times as many taste buds as humans do. These exterior taste buds help the catfish search for food and sense harmful substances as he scavenges in dark, muddy water.

5

Today is the first day you can buy the iphone5.  It becomes available 1 time zone at a time, at midnight. Japan was able to buy it first.  I can't get one until November, unless I want to pay a fortune, which I don't.

134.5

Last year we (in Anchorage) had a record total snowfall of 134.5 inches for the winter.  This broke a 57 year record of 132.6 inches. 

The snowfall also affected other areas of Alaska.  Valdez had a 'snowpocalypse' of 437.6 inches and some building's roofs fell in from the snow.  Cordova had the National Guard come to help them dig out.

878

The state of Alaska has no state income tax and no sales tax.  In addition, we get a check from the government once a year.  This year, it is $878.  This is the lowest it's been in years.

57

Number of states Barak Obama visited as of May 2008.

5773

Happy Rosh Hashanah! 

33

Muslims have been rioting and attacking Americans in protest of an anti-Muslim movie in the US.  So far, the protests have spread to 33 countries.  (I got the number 33 from ABC News.)

Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Islamabad, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, Somolia, Tunisia, Yemen, are some of the countries.  Non-Muslim countries where the Muslims were upset included England and Israel, but the police in Israel stopped the protesters from getting to the Americans, and I think something similar happened in England.  I was not able to find a complete list of countries affected.

The protesters have attacked American, British, and German embassies.  They have burned other buildings, including an American school and a KFC.

In the Sudan, where the protest, on Sept 11, had been pre-planned, four Americans were murdered.  A total of 17 people have been killed, but I could not find a breakdown between Americans and protesters.

My personal opinion - If a country has a peaceful protest, ignore it.  The people in the embassies should be armed with machine guns and whatever else they need to fight back.  Any country that lets their people attack should not get any financial aid from the US.

I do not care if they are upset about a film critical of Muslims.  I didn't care that they were upset about Swedish cartoon about Mohammad.  Many of these countries have published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, claiming the book is true.  Saudi Arabia said that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish children to make hamentashen.  Iran had a contest for the best antisemitic cartoon. Children's TV shows in many of these countries glorify killing Jews.

Sorry, I am not sympathetic to the Muslims.

46

In the King James Bible Psalm 46, the 46th word is "shake". The 46th word from the end is "spear". Shakespeare was 46 in 1610 when the text was being prepared for printing

104,000,000

Bradley Birkenfeld was found guilty of tax evasion, and spent 31 months in prison.  However, he provided the IRS with information on how people can evade taxes, helping the government catch other evaders, so Birkenfeld was awarded $104 million dollars for whistle blowing.

for more information:  Whistleblower imprisoned for tax fraud gets $104 million from IRS for helping expose cheating

4

I have now been parasailing in 4 different countries:  US (Oregon), Carribean (on Holland america's private island), Israel, Hawaii.  Yes, I know that Hawaii is part of the US, but it counts as a seperate country for HAM radio contests, so I decided it can for this too.  Or, if you prefer, 4 bodies of water: Wallowa Lake, Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea, Pacific Ocean.

6000

2977

September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda flew two planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, one plane into the Pentagon, and one plane was to be flown somewhere, but the passengers overpowered the hijackers and the plane crashed into a field.  2,977 innocednt people were killed.  (I am NOT including the terrorists in the total.)  That assumes we have an exact count, which I am not sure we do.

105,538.60

This £105,538.60 ($165,000 U.S.) Ferrari has a leather exterior!

This Ferrari F430 has been given a leather exterior by luxury car customisation specialists Dartz.

It took Dartz staff 16 working days to apply the exterior to the supercar. Dartz added that the leather is real but mysteriously described it as 'something inbetween' leather and vinyl.

 

65

65 years ago today (Spetember 9, 1947), the first computer bug was discovered.

Grace Hopper was a programmer on the Harvard Mark II computer who discovered the first computer bug. She found  a moth wedged into  Relay #70 on Panel F. She 'debugged' the machine and introduced the term  debug' into the computing lexicon. The log entry for the day records the discovery and has the moth taped to the page, labeled 'First actual case of a bug found'.

100

Fauja Singh, 100, finished Toronto’s waterfront marathon, securing his place in Guinness World Records as the oldest person — and the first centenarian — to ever accomplish a run of that distance.

Singh, a British citizen, was the last person to complete the race, crossing the finish line just before 6 p.m. ET with a time of 8 hours, 11 minutes and 5.9 seconds..

37

The age-guesser at the fair guessed that I am 37.  I won a stuffed bunny.  (I'm 48.)

11

11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were killed 40 years ago in Munich.  2 of them were killed on September fifth, and 9 were killed on September sixth.   When they were taken hostage, Israel wanted to rescue them, but Germany said no, that they (Germany) would take care of it.  At least Israel learned a lesson from that, as we saw when the hostages were held in Entebbe. 

0.31

Pandaka pygmea, the world’s smallest known fish has been discovered in the peat swamps of the Indonesian Island of Sumatra. The picture on the right shows its size against a thumb. At maturity, the fish can be about 0.31 inches or 7.9 mm in length.

 

 

138.25

I took this picture of the world's record setting cabbage at the Alaska state fair.  It weighs 138.25 pounds.  The child standing next to it is 10 years old.

> 10,000

Over 10,000 people went to see cat videos at the Walker Art Center in Minnesota.  This was a showing of cat videos they pulled from YouTube that people could have seen in the comfort of their own home without driving from several states away.

Here is one of the favorite videos:

5

Just finished the book Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.  Good book. A WWII novel with time travel and space aliens - What's not to like?

11

The average age of a car being driven in the US is 11 years.