Bag of Randomness for Leap Year 2016

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  • I forgot that there are no Leap Year Days in any century year not divisible by 400.
  • WifeGeeding’s sister was running in her first ever race, the 5K part of the Cowtown Marathon. She didn’t know we were coming to support her, but she got a kick out of the posters the kids made for her. This was the first big race I ever visited, and I was surprised at all the non-race events that were going on, such as an expo. There was a runner from every state except for West Virginia.  Other than the charitable aspect of a race or a run, I never really understood why one would want to be in one since you can run any distance anytime you’d like, no event or organization is required. Other than the charitable aspect, it seems a bit vain and attention grabbing. Perhaps there’s a social aspect to it, and as an anti-social person, it’s hard for me to relate.
  • Yesterday my pastor talked about the time he crawled through the milk door in his house in Chicago when the entire family was locked out and didn’t have a key. Until yesterday, I never heard of a milk door. A lot of his sermon focused on the word parakletoß (parakletos), which might be of interest to lawyers that have an interest in Biblical times.
  • My alma mater, Hardin-Simmons University, has selected a new president. To my surprise, he doesn’t have a PhD or EdD, though he does have a JD (Baylor Law 1994 for the handful of Baylor Law grads that read this blog, CV is viewable in the link provided). When I was a student in the School of Bidness, there was a search for a new dean. The leading candidate was an existing professor, but we heard there was concern that he “only” had a JD, and he didn’t get the gig and left. After that dean left, a former dean’s son took the position, but he “only” had a JD. Who knows what really happened since rumors can run amok among students, but I’m reminded of something I was told long ago – A lot of life isn’t what you know, but who you know.
  • According to this Dallas Morning News article, the best time to book a flight is 54-days before the departure.
  • This Is the Inside of a Potato Chip as It’s Being Fried – Scientists at the University of Illinois have used a technique called X-ray micro-computed tomography to look at what happens inside a 1.65 millimeter potato disk as it is deep fried for different lengths of time.
  • GIF –  Chivalry is not dead‏, at least in the animal kingdom
  • Scalia’s Death Prompts Dow to Settle Suits for $835 Million – Dow Chemical Co. said it agreed to pay $835 million to settle an antitrust case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death reduced its chances of overturning a jury award.
  • Buzzfeed – 23 DIY Costumes You’ll Only See At A Disney Princess Race
  • Speaking of Disney – Disney introduces seasonal pricing at theme parks –  The calendar will be divided into Value, Regular and Peak periods. The new pricing plan will apply to one-day tickets. A one-day park ticket at Orlando’s Magic Kingdom during a Value period will stay at current levels of $105 for those aged 10 and above. But tickets during Regular season days (most of April, for example) will rise to $110. The price will then shoot up to $124 for Peak days. That includes holidays like the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
  • ‘CBS Sunday Morning’
    • It wasn’t until their segment on movie trailers that I realized movie trailers don’t use a narrator anymore. And the reason we called them trailers is that they used to be shown after the movie.
    • IMDB.com was started by a guy from London that was basically keeping a movie journal. He later sold it to Amazon.com for an undisclosed sum, and the website just celebrated its 25th year of existence. Still to this day, he writes down the date and name of the movie when he first sees it for reference.
  • Woman, 90, chooses life on the road over cancer treatment
  • I was listening to the Feb 19th episode of “This American Life” which discussed organ donation in Iran. Every male is required to serve in the military but can get out of it by selling a kidney which is seen as a way of serving his country and contributing to humanity.
  • FiveThirtyEight – “A Statistical Analysis Of Stephen Colbert’s First 100 Episodes Of ‘The Late Show’” – The breakdown of each guest and their profession was interesting. Colbert really likes those in politics and writers, more than doubling and tripling Fallon and Kimmel combined.
  • The favorite job interview questions of Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and 26 other highly successful executives – I like this one, “On your very best day at work — the day you come home and think you have the best job in the world — what did you do that day?
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8 Responses to Bag of Randomness for Leap Year 2016

  1. RPM says:

    Colbert's CBS show is just an extended version of The Colbert Report sans fake punditry. His guests were nearly always political or writers.

  2. ALEC says:

    "Perhaps there’s a social aspect to it, and as an anti-social person, it’s hard for me to relate" http://jenniferkahnweiler.com/wp-content/uploads/

  3. Andy says:

    I ran the Cowtown 10k on Sat starting at 7:00am. Sorry I missed you! Sure, I can run in my neighborhood for free, but I like the energy and atmosphere of the organized races, plus they are laid out and often certified in official distances. I track my best training times at a variety of distances, but the only ones that really count are those from official races. Saturday I set my personal best at 10k, finally achieving a goal I'd pursued unsuccessfully three times before. It was a great feeling. Having the fans cheering and holding signs along the course energizes us. It's also cool to run with hundreds or thousands of other people who share our love of running, who trained hard, and who are pursuing their own goals in the race. I love it. I have another one this coming Saturday, a 5k.

  4. John Mackovic says:

    You should have seen me trying to explain the whole not-having-leap-years-on-century-boundaries-except-when-its-divisible-by-400 thing to my nine-year-old last week.

  5. Matt says:

    Huh. Bruntmyer. Never heard of him, though I was also Baylor Law 1994. That's the screwy thing about BLS's quarter system — he graduated in Feb 1994, and I graduated in November, and don't remember ever hearing that name (and the 9-month difference would make that possible, even with only 400 students). He's also one of the non-traditional types — looks like he jumped to law school without completing his undergrad degree, and so probably was either a summer or spring entrant.

    • Matt says:

      Ah — he was married in 1992. With a new wife while he was in law school, he probably wasn't spending much time outside of class at the Crying Shame or Chapter 11.

    • Jason Truitt says:

      Yeah, oftentimes you don’t know many people outside your quarter. I’ve never heard of him, but he sounds like an academic and I did my best to stay away from those types. I was also married while in school, but I tried to stay away from her too!

  6. Jason Truitt says:

    That is certainly an interesting word, given what we know (think we know?) about what it takes to get to heaven (and we’ll work with the assption that heaven is an actual place, here). I mean, if all we need to get in is to believe in Jesus, who do we need to stand up and argue our case to God? And if God sent Jesus to pay for our sins on the cross, why would Jesus then need to argue for us to get in by having God pardon our sins again?

    The other usage would seem to fit with my beliefs philosophically, except to the extent that the apostles couldn’t know half as much as Jesus about what he was about to experience, so it seems a little silly in that context.

    I’d be interested to know the context from your sermon.

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