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Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Famous & 65

Look Who’s Turning 65

February 1 - Andy Mill
Skier and former husband of Chris Evert

February 1 - Andy Mill
Skier Andy Mill lived in Laramie, Wyoming before his family moved to the glitzy Colorado ski town of Aspen in the early 60s. Mill soon became a star junior racer, competing with U.S. Ski Team by 1971, and then at the World Championships in Switzerland in 1974.
He was America’s top downhill racer for the next seven years, culminating in a sixth place finish at the 1976 Winter Olympics, the best result by an American man in downhill in 24 years. To achieve this, Mill had to numb his lower right leg in snow minutes before entering the starting gate due to a training run injury that hurt so much he could hardly stand. Mill finished 16th in the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, and then suffered a serious crash the next year that ended his career.
You may have seen Mills as a ski racing commentator on several major networks, or on his show, Ski with Andy Mill. A lifelong angler, Mill became a champion tarpon fisherman and was a triple crown winner in the sport.
Mill was divorced from his first wife, a former Miss California, when he met tennis phenomenon Chris Evert. The pair married and had three sons. After 18 years together, they divorced in 2006 and Evert paired with their friend and famous golfer Greg Norman. Mill got a $7 million settlement and their $4 million dollar house, proposed to Aspenite Debra Harvick after three dates, and now enjoys biking, skiing, fishing and bow hunting with his wife.

February 18 – Robin Bachman
Drummer

Robin Bachman
If you ever listened to Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Roll on Down the Highway”, you’ve heard a song that Robbie Bachman co-wrote. It became one of the popular band’s biggest hits, along with “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet”. Robbie was the original drummer for BTO.
Hailing from Winnipeg, Canada, the Bachman brothers were all musical. As a kid, Robbie often practiced drumming with older brother Randy on guitar and lead vocals. The two first performed in the band Brave Belt, which morphed in to BTO in 1973.
Robbie stayed with BTO, recording and touring, until the tour to support their 1979 album Rock ‘n’ Roll Nights was over. He rejoined the group from 1988 until 1991. He’s now semi-retired and lives with his wife.

February 23 – Sallie Baliunas
Astrophysicist and climate change skeptic

Sallie Baliunas
Baliunas earned a PH.D. in astrophysics from Harvard University in 1980. Her original research focus was astrophysics, a branch of space science that applies the laws of physics and chemistry to explain the birth, life and death of stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae and other objects in the universe.
Although not active in recent years, Baliunas gained notoriety in the early 90s when her work stirred controversy in the global warming debate. She was the third author in a 1992 paper published in Nature that proposed greater variability in the historical brightness of the sun than was generally thought. By 1995, she had written a paper for the conservative Marshall Institute think tank asserting that “predictions of an anthropogenic global warming have been greatly exaggerated.” Baliunas concluded that solar variability has a stronger correlation with variations in air temperature than any other factor, including carbon dioxide concentrations.
In a 2001 paper, Baliunas speculated that financial considerations were a major influence on those linking climate change to human causes, however failing to account for funding received by some of her collaborators from energy companies. One such collaborator, Willie Soon, put more than $1 million in the bank from coal and petroleum companies. Baliunas (and Soon) incorrectly asserted that atmospheric data showed no warming trend, when satellite temperature records proved otherwise.
Baliunas and Soon coauthored a 2003 paper published in Climate Research. It concluded that the 20th century was probably not the warmest on record and uniquely extreme. Instead, they speculated that periods of increased sunspots in the Earth’s history corresponded with warmer periods such as one that preceded the Little Ice Age. However, the publisher’s review process for the paper came under such debate that half of the editors eventually resigned, and the publisher was forced to make a statement that the paper’s conclusions were not possible from the evidence provided and the journal “should have requested appropriate revisions prior to publication.”

February 26 – Michael Bolton
Rock vocalist

Michael Bolton
Born Michael Bolotin, he began recording in 1975 and released his first album under that name. You might be surprised that the crooner’s early years were spent performing hard rock and heavy metal, including a stint as the band Blackjack’s frontman. He even tried out for lead vocalist of Black Sabbath in 1983, but he didn’t get the job and instead changed his style and met with wild success as a pop rock balladeer after anglicizing his name to Bolton.
Bolton has sold more than 75 million records. His singing and songwriting has earned him six American Music Awards and a pair of Grammys. His success started when he co-wrote “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You”, and continued with covers of soul and Motown classics like “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay”, “Georgia on My Mind”, and “When a Man Loves a Woman”.
Bolton also put in some cameo appearances on television and in feature films, often playing himself. You may have seen him on Dancing with the Stars in September of 2010, where his team was the second to be eliminated. In January 2013, Bolton published an autobiography titled The Soul of it All: My Music, My Life.

Bolton has worked on behalf of many charitable causes, including poverty, domestic violence, and cancer research. He established The Michael Bolton Charities to help women and children living in poverty and suffering the effects of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Bolton has received numerous awards for his charitable contributions.


Source: Wikipedia
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