Monday, November 12, 2012

climacteric \klahy-mak-TER-ik\, noun:

• A critical period.
• Physiology: a period of decrease of reproductive capacity in men and women, culminating, in women, in the menopause.
• A year in which important changes in health, fortune, etc., are held by some theories to occur, as one's sixty-third year
• The period of maximum respiration in a fruit, during which it becomes fully ripened.

Climacteric originates in the Greek klimakter, "rung of a ladder."
Cruise Weight

• The 5 to 10lbs. (and even more in extreme cases) of weight put on while on a luxury cruise with all you can eat buffets, room service and plentiful alcohol.

"Hey man, you're getting fat!"

"It's ok dude, it's just cruise weight."

"Oh, I see."

Trivia

In what military conflict did a woman lead U.S. troops into combat for the first time?

• The U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. U.S. Army Captain Linda Bray commanded 30 MPs in a fierce firefight against Panamanian soldiers defending a huge weapons cache.

History

• Kenesaw Mountain Landis: judge was elected the first commissioner of baseball after the Black Sox scandal (1920)
• Leon Trotsky: was expelled from the Communist Party and Joseph Stalin became the Soviet ruler (1927)
• Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge: eight-mile-long structure opened for traffic (1936)
• Ellis Island: the New York Harbor facility, which served more than 12 million immigrants, was closed (1954)

Birthdays

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1815
• Auguste Rodin 1840
• Jo Stafford 1918
• Richard Quine 1920
• Kim Hunter 1922
• Sunset Carson (Michael Harrison) 1922
• Grace Kelly 1929
• Jack Oakie 1930
• Charles Manson 1934
• Ruby Nash Curtis (Ruby & the Romantics) 1939
• Brian Hyland 1943
• Wallace Shawn 1943
• Jimmy Hayes (Persuasions) 1943
• Al Michaels 1944
• Booker T. Jones (Booker T. & the MGs) 1944
• Neil Young 1945
• Barbara Fairchild 1950
• Megan Mullally 1958
• Nadia Comaneci 1961
• David Ellefson (Megadeath) 1964
• Tony Montana (Great White) 1965
• Tonya Harding 1970
• Angela Watson 1974
• Tevin Campbell 1976
• Anne Hathaway 1982