Bag of Randomness for Friday, July 15, 2022

  • A young person thanked me via text for some sports photos I took, “Yeah fr thanks for taking them hope ur doing well.” I couldn’t tell if “fr” was a typo of if it was shorthand, so I looked it up. It’s shorthand for “for real.” And now you know, but you may have already known. But, now I know, and now I’m cool. I think.
  • I love my place of employment, I just wish I felt more fulfillment out of my job. They just reimbursed me for our Washington DC vacation, and when I told them I tested positive for COVID-19, they immediately sent me a $100 UberEats gift card.
  • I also wondered the same thing. Thankfully, someone asked it in Reddit – Why do windmills typically have 4 blades, yet all modern wind turbines have 3?
    • Wind turbines have three blades for a balance of stability and efficiency. It’s the fewest number of blades you can have while still keeping the structure from shaking itself apart from gyroscopic forces. Since more blades means less efficiency, three is the best we can do.Windmills were made in a time when precision engineering and machining weren’t nearly as advanced as they are now. It follows the same principle – fewer blades is more efficient – but four blades is a whole lot easier to manually balance than three is.For people asking why two blades isn’t stable: Two blades is only stable if the turbine doesn’t rotate laterally. Because an efficient turbine needs to rotate to maximize its angle to the wind, three is much better.

      Two-bladed (and even one-bladed) turbines do exist. The problem is that because of their instability, they produce a lot more wear on their components and are more prone to failure.

  • Marion Barber III’s death seems suspect, but nobody else seems to be saying anything about it.
  • Houston TV station loses power while discussing blackouts on air
  • Well, I have some in common with a most of the Trump children. Both our mothers died after falling down stairs.
  • Gas prices sure have dropped a lot, and consistenty, but you don’t hear the news talking about it.
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Bag of Randomness for Thursday, July 14, 2022

  • Happy Bastille Day.
  • I have this personal rule that if I’m surfing radio channels and come across a Phil Collins song, I don’t change the station. Why? Because it’s Phil Collins.
  • One of my son’s favorite snack foods is the Goldfish cracker. As much as I’ve been around the snack, I’ve never tasted it and have no desire to.
  • I bought a toaster oven yesterday and I’m not sure why.
  • Smoked BBQ pork ribs would taste good right now.
  • Barbara Jordan was an eloquent speaker and would have made a great Supreme Court Justice.
  • You hear nothing about Sandra Day O’Conner. In case you are wondering, she’s 92, and she stepped down all the way back in 2006.
  • Yesterday, I looked up the difference between Attorney General and Solicitor General because I had no idea what the latter did. Here’s what I found:
    • The Attorney General serves as the legal adviser to the government and other executive agencies. The Solicitor General has the additional task of deciding which cases must be appealed by the government, concentrating primarily on appeals to the Supreme Court.
  • If you’re a Breaking Bad fan and not watching Better Call Saul, you are doing yourself a disservice.
  • I want everyone to like me. That’s a problem.
  • Mexico agrees to provide $1.5 billion to help U.S. manage migrants on southern border
  • Man Arrested in Alleged Slaying of Fisherman Out of Fear of Being Eaten by Bigfoot
  • The $100 Trillion Global Economy in One Chart
  • Ms Marvel: The India-Pakistan trauma at the heart of the show
    • Critics have praised the six-episode show for depicting that traumatic event with nuance and sensitivity. The partition, which happened at the end of British colonial rule in India, was the biggest movement of people in history, outside war and famine. About 12 million people became refugees and between 500,000 and a million people were killed in religious violence.

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Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, July 13, 2022

  • Yes, it’s always this cold in Texas.
  • During high school, I used to workout outside, doing sprints of all sorts on the football field, swallowing a handful of salt tabs I found available in the training room, to get my body used to the heat for this time of year to be ready for two-a-days. I don’t think those exist anymore and thankfully no one is pushing their bodies like I tried. And to think all my hard work never got me to start on varsity. But, I probably could have if I understood proper hydration. Oh, the things I wish I could tell my younger self, but then again, I’d be too stupid to listen.
  • It’s open enrollment time at my place of employment. It used to annoy me that we didn’t do it like other companies, traditionally at the end of the calendar year. But, over the years, I’ve learned to love it because I have enough things to worry about during the holidays and I avoid long lines for those trying to make the most out of their deductible and FSA or HSA.
  • Yesterday, I discovered on the Adobe website that they offer free file conversions of a PDF to Word, and it was simple to use. Try it here. This came about looking at the new school schedule, which was sent out in PDF, but I thought I could do more with it and tailer it better if I had the original Word doc. But the conversation took care of that problem lickety-split.
  • One of the new local news anchors finished a story about the old Parkland Hospital with, “And here’s an interesting fact you may not know about, but President John F. Kennedy died there.” Lady, welcome to Dallas, but everyone around here done knew that. Also, after some breaking news about the cause of death of former Dallas Cowboys player Marion Barber read by her co-anchor, she tried to transition by saying, “Now, on to more sombering news.” So the death of Barber was something uplifting?
  • My ex sent me this question: “How do you interpret the decree regarding the ending time of the summer possession?”
    • First of all, she wanted this divorce and got everything she asked for, and then some. She knows what it says because it’s what she asked for.
    • Second, she’s labeled me a manipulator, never allowed me to defend myself of that accusation, and wants me to explain what it says to her?!
    • Third, she has pending litigation against me regarding the language in the decree. She’s either an idiot for asking me or this is some sort of setup.
  • I don’t mean this as a joke, but I feel like the Uvalde school shooting is a lot like my divorce. Right when I think things can’t get worse, it does. Sheesh, that footage is disappointing and explains why it hasn’t been released to the public until now. Especially that one law enforcement official getting some last second hand sanitizer.
  • On top of the U.S. Capitol is Lady Freedom, or the Statue of Freedom. I was told she faces east because the sun never sets on freedom. Who knows if that’s true, but it sure sounds good. That’s one of the many things one of our tour guides told us, and one reason I prefer not to use tour guides. But, the new me is trying new things and the transportation and easy access to monuments felt worthwhile. He also told us there’s a 13th hand Marine Corps War Memorial, and that it’s the “hand of God.” Again, it’s just something that sounds good and isn’t true.
  • Simone Biles offered coloring book, mistaken for child on flight
  • BMW Makes Heated Seats an $18/Month Subscription Service—Again – BMW is asking owners in Korea to pay for subscription-based options like heated seats or driver-assistance software.
    • As cynical as that might sound, Korean owners aren’t forced to pay monthly for heated seats, or any of BMW’s other available options, but monthly payments can be made to try those out. Heated seats, for instance, cost ₩24,000 (roughly $18) per month. But you can also pay for a year subscription ($176), a three-year subscription ($283), or you can buy the heated seats permanently ($406). Some other options available with monthly or yearly subscriptions are a high beam assistant, BMW’s Driving Assistance Plus software, a heated steering wheel, and an artificial noise generator to give electric cars like the i4 M50 a sci-fi noise while driving. Those will be available for different fees, and some can be added to a customer’s car immediately via computer or smartphone.
  • Albuquerque to place statues of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman
  • Fewer than 100,000 British people are older than Queen Elizabeth (96). She is the only monarch 85% of her subjects have ever known.
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Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, July 12, 2022

 

  • DaughterGeeding contacted me yesterday to inform me she has also tested positive for COVID. I’m sure her mother will test positive in a few days. My daughter also told me her mother was out shopping. If we were still a couple, I would have advised her against going out in public since everyone else in the household is infected, but then again, she would consider that controlling.
  • For our trip, we flew into Reagan National. but were flying out of Dulles. It was the best fare I could find. Since we landed after midnight, all the car rental agencies would be closed at Reagan. So, since we would leave from Dulles, I decided to rent a car at Dulles and took an Uber to get there. It would have been much easier if we departed from Reagan National, since it was closer to our hotel and not a half-hour away. I would have rather rented a car from there. So, I thought it was funny that our return flight out of Dulles got cancelled and American Airlines taxied us back to Reagan National for a newly scheduled flight. I’m not sure why I didn’t receive a text alert about the flight cancellation.
  • Since we were near Dulles, I thought we should take advantage of what’s nearby, which was the Smithsonian Air and Space hanger were we got to see two of my favorite pieces of engineering, the SR-71 Blackbird and the Space Shuttle.
  • It just dawned on me that the last four places I took the kids, the meteor impact crater in Arizona, the observatory at Northern Arizona University, the Grand Canyon, and the Air and Space Museum, are all nerdy educational things. I hope that doesn’t hurt my factor as a cool dad.
  • In case you ever wanted to see how fragile and exposed those styrofoam thermal panels are which doomed one shuttle, here you go. Click to biggify.
  • Here’s an up-close image of a space suit. You’ll notice the instrumentation letters and numbers are backwards are reversed, and that’s done so they can be read easier from the astronaut’s perspective..
  • I took this photo because it made me think of a story my father told me. His military career started in the Navy. One of his first jobs was to put on propellers. But it wasn’t as easy as you’d think, because you had to calibrate the spinning so that the machine gun would shoot between spins and wouldn’t shoot off the flying mechanism. From that day, I always tried to look at things from stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily think about. I always enjoyed telling my ex stuff like that because she never had the honor of meeting my father and it was important for me to let her know the kind of man that he was and the life that he lived. I always wondered if she was truly interested in him or was just being polite, it was hard to tell. Now, I have to have the paradigm shift that she’s no longer worthy. At least I can let my kids know the man their grandfather was. As they sing in Hamilton, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” I wonder what, if any, stories my children will tell others about me. You are only truly forgotten when someone says your name for the last time.
  • When I saw this, I automatically started to think about legendary football games. My kids’ first thoughts were of Duff Man.
  • I scheduled a walking tour of Arlington National Cemetary for mid-afternoon that Monday. My plan for us was to arrive an hour early. But that didn’t work out because the state police closed off the main entrance. I pulled to the side of the road and several others who booked the tour also arrived via Uber. But none of us were getting inside, or could meet at our rendezvous point. We ended up parking at the Pentagon (that just feels odd to type) and walking over only to be 90-minutes late. Thankfully, we received a refund. And, I’m grateful the kids got to see the two most important things at the cemetery, the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown and JFK’s grave.
  • Per my tracking device, I took over 21,000 steps that day. That’s a whole lot for me.
  • The kids never experienced room service before, so that was our dinner plans and they thought it was the neatest thing. Of course, the Ritz does a great job of presentation.
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