Today is Sunday, January 29 and there are only 77 days until Easter.   Now is the time to eat last year’s peeps, so that you can make room for this year’s supply.  Today we remember the birthdays of Hubert Poot, Frederick Hymen Cowen, Flora Perfetti and Elaine Idenden.  On this day in 1613 Galileo observed Neptune, but failed to recognize what he saw, in 1802 John Beckley of Virginia was appointed the first Librarian of Congress and in 1929 the Seeing Eye Guide Dog Organization was formed.  In Kansas it is Admission Day and in the US it is National Corn Chip Day and National Puzzle Day.

I only have a couple things to discuss today.  It was a slow week and I did not get out much.  The first thing I wanted to discuss was that I have discovered the best time to ignore traffic laws.  I was driving home from a weekend away and it was pouring rain.  In my state, there is a law that says that if you have your windshield wipers on, your headlights must be on.  I was on the turnpike and the speed limit is 65.  As I was driving along I saw a car coming up on my right at a pretty good clip.  I estimate that it was going about 75.  He had wipers on, but no headlights, he was speeding and he was passing on the right.  All violations.  In addition, he had his interior light on so he could see his dashboard, which proves he was stupid, too.  He flew past a police car, but the state trooper did not respond.  I guess he forgot to bring his slicker and didn’t want to get out in the rain to ticket the guy.

In addition, I noted several other violations in other states that did not seem to bother state police that I saw sitting on the side of the road.  Aside from speeding, there were cars changing lanes without using turn indicators, I saw tailgating and on and on, but no one was getting stopped.  Granted it was raining hard at times, but they should have been able to see what was happening.  Of course, the patrol cars did not have wipers on, so who knows.  Maybe it was an opportunity to grab a nap or eat lunch.  All I know is that rainy days seem to cancel out traffic laws.

The other thing I wanted to talk about happened at one of my favorite places – the grocery store.  I stopped by there yesterday afternoon and pulled into a space.  The car in front had either backed into the space or pulled through.  Either way, for me to get into the space, I had to pull pretty close to the backend of the car.  As I was walking away, a woman came up to me and pointed to my car and asked if it was mine.  I said it was.  She asked me if I would move it, because she needed room to get her groceries into her car.

I thought about it for a few seconds and then said, “No, I won’t.  You’ll have to pull your car forward.”  She complained that if she did that she would be in the way of cars coming down the lane.  I pointed out that if I were to move my car I would have to block the lane I was in and I would have to sit and wait for her to finish so I could move my car back in.  Either that or I would have to find another parking space.  I explained that I was not inclined to do either one.  I also told her that I had her license plate number, so that if there was any damage to my car I would be able to track her down.  I didn’t, but she didn’t know that.  I don’t know what she ultimately did, because I went into the store.  There was no damage to my car, though.


That’s pretty much it for this week.  I am sure that next week will bring some exciting things for me to write about.  Among the plans for the week, I have to go to Walmart which is always an adventure.  I also have some banking issues that should have been taken care of by the bank, but weren’t.  So I will regale you with those adventures.

This week our fact tells us that on average, women have always live longer than men.  I have a number of comments that I could make regarding this, but I also have a number of friends who are women and it is safer for me to just report the fact and leave it at that.

Now go grab a drink and enjoy National Corn Chip Day!

Today is Sunday, January 22 and there are only 337 days until Christmas.  If you ask me, now is as good a time as any to start playing Christmas music.  If you ask me.  Today we remember the birthdays of Francis Bacon, Ross Barnett and Steven Adler.  On this day in 1575 English queen Elizabeth I granted Thomas Tallis and William Byrd the music press monopoly, in 1857 the National Association of Baseball Players was founded and in 1971 John and Yoko recorded “Power to the People.”  Today is Ukrainian Day in, of all places, Ukraine and in the US it is National Blonde Brownie Day.

I wondered if bacon was named after one of today’s birthday boys or where the term came from.  My research shows a variety of answers.  All of them are entertaining, but I am not sure which is the actual explanation.  I will share a couple with you and you can decide.  One claim was that it was in fact named after Francis Bacon and another claim states it is named after Nathaniel Bacon; however, there is no supporting information to give as proof.  One claim states that bacon was a Middle English term used to refer to all pork in general.  The term bacon comes from various Germanic and French dialects.  It derives from the French bake, Common Germanic baking and old Teutonic backe, all of which refer to the back.  So there you have it.  We are no further along than we were before, but feel free to look into it and let me know what you find.

I was out on the highway recently and had the opportunity to once again observe the strange driving habits of people.  At the risk of repeating myself, I think most states could solve all their budget issues by enforcing traffic laws.  I would love to have the opportunity to talk to one of the many speeders I see when driving.  I would like to ask them where they are going in such a rush.  I also wonder why they feel the need to go at different levels of speed.  Is it that they just want to go 15 miles over whatever the limit is?  Do they ever consider the danger to themselves and others as they fly along?  Just curious.

I have seen something recently that has me puzzled.  As I drive, I occasionally look in my rear view mirrors.  From what I can tell, not too many others do that, but that is not what I wanted to discuss.  Sometimes when I look in the outside left mirror, I see a car coming up at a decent rate of speed.  Not a problem for me because they are in the outside lane and can pass me easily.  What puzzles me is that just after they pass, they come over into my lane and then slow down to under the speed limit.  Why would they do that?  Did they think they were late for something and then realized they were going to be early, so they had to slow down?   Were they simply not paying attention, singing along with a favorite song or chatting on the phone, when they suddenly realized they were way over the speed limit?  Is it because they just don’t want to be behind my car?  Whatever the reason, I wish they would quit doing it.

I have spent the past week or so trying to get my house undecorated after the holidays.  It has been tough for several reasons.  One is that I do not remember everything that I put out or where I put it.  So I go along thinking that I have everything and then discover that, in fact, I missed some knick knack or other and now have to find the box it goes in and put it away.  Another is that every time I decided to take down the outdoor stuff, it rained.  I finally put on a slicker, took the stuff down and then spread it out in the garage to dry.  Putting the tree away is another issue.  This past Christmas, when I took the tree out for the holiday, I found a couple ornaments that were still on the tree from the previous year.  This year, I took all the ornaments off and then left the tree alone for a day or two.  Then I took a bright flashlight and checked very carefully to be sure I had gotten them all.  We’ll see when I take out the tree this year.

The final problem is putting everything into the storage bins.  I have three plastic bins that all the decorations were stored in.  I took everything out, decorated and the house looked nice.  It would have looked better if I had put out everything I had, but that’s a story for another time.  When it came time to put everything away, the stuff did not fit in the bins it all came out of.
I tried stacking things in a variety of ways, but it took several days and my complete repertoire of profanities before it was finally all packed away.  I know that a couple days after I put the bins in the garage I will find something I missed, but I will deal with that when it happens.  What I may do is take pictures of the bins to assist in putting things away next year.

This week our fact tells us that 54.2% of us always wash our hands after using the toilet.  Let’s just hope that the other 45.8% are not dentists or do not work in the food service industry.

Today is Sunday, January 15 and there are only 91 days until Easter.  What are you waiting for?  Get those decorations up!  Today we remember the birthdays of Philip Livingston, James Marion Sims and Erling Kagge.  On this day in 1535 King Henry VIII declared himself head of the English Church, in 1861 the steam elevator was patented by Elisha Otis and in 1977 the Coneheads debuted on “Saturday Night Live.”  In Guatemala today is Esquipulas, in Venezuela it is Teachers’ Day and in the US it is National Hat Day and National Strawberry Ice Cream Day.  Also in the US tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr Day.

Martin Luther King Jr Day is an American federal holiday marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.  King was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement.  The campaign for a federal holiday in his honor began soon after his assassination in 1968.  A bill to make King’s birthday a national holiday was introduced by US Representative John Conyers and US Senator Edward Brooke.  The bill first came to a vote in the House in 1979.  However, it fell five votes short of the number needed for passage.  Two of the main arguments were that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive , and that a holiday to honor a private citizen would be contrary to a longstanding tradition.  Only two other figures have national holidays in the US honoring them: George Washington and Christopher Columbus.

On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill, proposed by Representative Katie Hall, to create a federal holiday honoring King.  The bill passed the house by a vote of 338 to 90.  The holiday was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986.  At first, some states resisted observing the holiday.  It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000.

As I am sure many of you know, we are now in the throes of the professional football playoffs.  While watching the games, a thought occurred to me (no it wasn’t that I should get more snacks).  I watched the antics that players went through when they did something like catch a pass or make a tackle.  Some of the things they do is amazingly choreographed.  It struck me as interesting that they do all of this for doing their job.  Yes, you caught a pass and scored a touchdown.  You should be proud of yourself, but that is what you are being paid for.  You don’t need to dance and scream and shout.

I used to work in the call center of a credit union with nine other representatives.  Can you imagine what it would have like there if, each time we solved a problem and hung up the phone, we got up and went through a special routine that included whooping and hollering?  Imagine what schools would sound like if teachers did a whole dance routine each time they finished a lesson.  Picture a secretary pulling a copy of the letter she just finished out of the printer and throwing it on the floor, screaming “Yeah!”  Come on, guys.  You do your job and you get paid for that.  Settle down and go do it again.  If a receiver got fined each time he didn’t catch a ball, I could see him being excited when he does, but unless it was the catch that won the game …

I was at the supermarket the other day and was amazed by the audacity of a person in the checkout line.  The store has self-checkout lanes and three of them are designated as 20 items or less.  Now there are times when interpretation of the word “items” comes into question.  Let’s say a person is buying cat food.  They are purchasing 10 cans of it.  Some people feel that this is ten items.  The person buying it feels that, since it is all the same thing, it is one item.  I am of the opinion that an item is an item, so ten cans is ten items … but I digress.

So, there I am standing there with my four items waiting.  There is a person with a full cart running his order through and because of the size of the load, it is taking some time.  The other people waiting are grumbling about how many items the person has, but not really saying anything.  Just as I was about to, a person ahead of me calls the issue to the attention of the store employee who is supposed to be monitoring the area, but is conveniently studying something on a clipboard.  The employee was forced to go speak to the customer and point out the restriction.

This is where it got good.  The customer felt that he was okay because he was only running 20 items at a time.  He would scan the items, pay for them and then scan the next 20 items.  The employee took some time to explain that the sign referred to the total size of the order, not the number of items on the receipt.  The customer shrugged his shoulders, said “Oh” and went back to running his order.  Finally someone on line told him to just get done and get out of the way.

The customer took exception and appeared to slow down.  At this point, I was at the station next to him taking care of my order.  I leaned over to him and suggested that he stop being an a—hole, speed it up and get out of there before someone hurts him.  He looked at me and I told him the thought had crossed my mind and that I heard others grumbling, too.  I don’t know how it all ended because I got done and got out.  I didn’t hear any sirens as I drove away, so I will just watch the papers to see if anything else developed.

This week our fact tells us that in Lefors, Texas it is illegal to take more than three swallows of beer at any time while standing.  You have to wonder what happened to cause this law to be passed.  I did some research, but was unable to come up with anything.  The only thing I can think is that on the fourth swallow, someone splashed beer on a councilman or woman and annoyed them.  If I find out anything I will let you know.

Now put on your hat and go get some strawberry ice cream.

Today is Sunday, January 8 and there are only 37 days until Valentines Day.  Shop for a gift now while the sales are still going on.  Today we remember the birthdays of Samuel Freiherr von Pufendorf, Johannesburg Kneppelhout and Shirley Bassey.  On this day in 1675 the first American commercial corporation, New York Fishing Co., was chartered, in 1806 Lewis and Clark found the skeleton of a 105’ blue whale in Oregon and in 1992 President George Bush got ill and vomited on the Japanese prime minister’s lap.  In Louisiana it is Old Hickory Day/ Jackson Day, in Switzerland it is Meitlisunntig Festival-Woman in Villmergen War and in the US it is National Argyle Day, National Bubble Bath Day and National English Toffee Day.

Let me start out by saying that I still hate glitter.  I am still finding it everywhere.  I spot it in the grout on the kitchen floor, it is on my computer keyboard, on paperwork that I need to file, on my iPad, everywhere.  The other day I was doing laundry and found it on my underwear!  I have found it in every room in the house, in the garage and in my car.  I think that whoever invented this stuff should be made to go to houses and clean the glitter up.  There is nothing more disconcerting than to look in the mirror and see glitter on your ear and have to wonder where it came from and how it got there.  Two names have been eliminated from my card list because they sent cards with glitter.  It’s too bad because they were nice people.  Oh well (sigh).

But enough about that.  We have just completed the first week of January and the Valentines Day candy is out on the shelves.  I have also seen Easter candy in some stores.  One has to wonder if this is left over from last year and brought out to get ahead of the game or if it is new (made in November) and being put out to get moving on the next seasons.  After all, Christmas and New Year’s Day are long gone.  Unplug the lights and get into the next season.  Don’t take the lights down, just unplug them.  They will be going back up in a couple months as we move into the Christmas season again.

I made a trip to the mall recently for some coffee and people watching and noticed that stores are starting to show spring and summer clothing.  Give me a break!  It is January and we haven’t even had our first decent snowfall yet!  The last thing we should be thinking about is buying shorts.  Of course, if we don’t get them now, we won’t be able to find them when we need them.  Stores are rushing the seasons more and more and then they wonder why they have to close locations.  There was an article recently that said that one retail giant was closing 68 stores.  Has it occurred to any of the people running these stores that if they had items available when people actually needed them, they might do better?  People would not have to shop on-line to get things if they were actually available in the stores.  I cannot believe that I am the only one that this has ever thought of this.  Of course I am just a retired person with nothing to do but drink coffee and watch people run around the mall without actually buying anything.

On my most recent trip, I made a point of noticing several sets of people and paying attention to them.  The place I like to sit is near an entrance.  I figured that if I watched long enough, I would see the same people coming out that I saw coming in.  I thought it would be interesting to see how many bags they were carrying on the way out.  This was, after all, when sales were still going on.  I selected a group of three women I judged to be in their 30’s, a man and a woman I assumed were married based on the look of excitement he had on his face because he was shopping in  the middle of the day and not home taking a nap, a man who came in with the attitude that he knew where he was going and what he wanted and a gaggle of young girls who were talking about the gift cards they had to use.

The first person to come back on the way out was the man with the attitude.  He was empty handed and his attitude had changed.  He was clearly unhappy.  I guess he was looking for something seasonal.  If that was the case, he should have been here back in September.  It took a while, but the next group was the three women.  One was carrying a bag and the other two were not.  They had that look that said they were disappointed.  All these stores, all the sales and they found nothing to buy.  The young girls drifted by complaining about the junk the stores had on sale.  The married couple were apparently still wandering the mall when I decided to leave.  I hope the husband at least got a new shirt out of the deal.

This week our fact tells us that the moon weighs 81 billion tons!  Prove it!  I have decided that this will be my response to these types of statements from now on.  The moon weighs 81 billion tons.  Show me proof.  How did you come to that conclusion?  What if the moon is hollow?  What if it is made of a substance like styrofoam and covered with a layer of dirt and rocks?  They claim that fingerprints are all different.  Prove it!  Has every single person on earth been printed and their prints compared to everyone else?  No.  So how do we know that someone in Addis a baba doesn’t have prints matching the guy living across the street from me?  We don’t.  So from now on, when someone tells me no two snowflakes are alike, I will simply say prove it!