BagOfNothing.com

Most people: I guess balloons are ok

Me: pic.twitter.com/urmWxJ5hI2

— Jan Hakon Erichsen (@janerichsen) August 11, 2019

• We landed on a most interesting episode of The Love Boat yesterday while channel surfing yesterday. The title of the episode was ‘Picture Me a Spy/Daredevil/Sleeper‘ and included the following actors: Courteney Cox, Peter Scolari, Alan Thicke, Yakov Smirnoff, and Teri Hatcher as one of the boat’s mermaids.
• The US Navy will replace its touchscreen controls with mechanical ones on its destroyers
  • The move comes after the National Transportation Safety Board released an accident report from a 2017 collision, which cites the design of the ship’s controls as a factor in the accident.
• I had no idea that during the Vietnam War, it was somewhat common for pro athletes to join the Reserves to avoid the draft. That’s what I learned in this article about Pete Rose detailing what it’s like to hang out with Joe DiMaggio for a 23-day goodwill tour of Vietnam. A few items of note:
  • Rose was 22-years-old doing his basic training at Fort Knox. He was on kitchen patrol waxing the floor of the mess hall when he received a call informing him he was the National League Rookie of the Year. He served three years in the Reserves with Johnny Bench at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, right across the river from Cincinnati. They were both cooks.
  • Rose received a call from some guy at the State Department asking if he’d like to go to Vietnam.
    • In telling the story, he said, “And my first answer was, ‘Hell no! There’s a war going on there!’ “
    • “Then he said, ‘Well, Joe DiMaggio’s going.’
    • “And I said, ‘Do I get to meet Joe?’ He said, ‘You get to live with him for 23 days.’ And I said, ‘Sign me up!’ “
    • Rose didn’t need a lot of persuading other than that. “No. Not to meet Joe DiMaggio,” Rose says. “Uh, uh. If it’s good enough for Joe DiMaggio, it’s got to be good enough for me.”
    • DiMaggio had retired 12 years before Rose made the big leagues.
    • “You couldn’t ask him any questions about Marilyn Monroe,” Rose says. “Don’t talk about Marilyn Monroe. Don’t mention Marilyn Monroe.”
    • Rose and DiMaggio dressed in fatigues and carried phony ID cards. “We were GS … uh … GS 14s, I think. We were colonels. We had to carry that card in our back pocket saying we were GS 14s in case we got captured,” Rose says.
    • They traveled mostly by helicopter. Rose says he mused to himself that if their chopper went down, every story would be about Joe DiMaggio.
• A chimpanzee completing on of those Ninja Warrior courses
  

• Yesterday was a “big” day for the students and parents of our school. Emails were sent out revealing who got what teacher. A class roster isn’t revealed and email addresses of other parents aren’t displayed, it’s basically just a friendly greeting from the teacher. You know when the emails go out because the kids will start calling one another to find out who is in what class, and from my perspective, it’s funny hearing the cheers and jeers. However, I can’t recall how this was done when I was in elementary school. I know for sure we didn’t receive a phone call, and I’m pretty certain nothing was mailed. I think we just showed up the first day of school, our parents searched for our name on a bulletin board, and then escorted us to the classroom.
• Whataburger recently honored a woman (unlimited Whataburger for a year, and $1,000 donated to the charity of her choice) who used her jet ski to save children and adults from a burning boat. However, the Whataburger spokesperson caught my attention, he’s like the Boris Johnson of Whataburger.
  
• But, is it organic? – Chernobyl vodka: First consumer product made in exclusion zone
• It was born in Brooklyn in 1879 – Who Invented the Cardboard Box?
• Gizmodo – How to Find Spyware Your Employer Installed on Your Computer and What to Do About It
• National Geographic – Our favorite candid photographs of wild animals—taken via camera trap – Camera trap technology has given scientists an unparalleled look into the secret lives of wildlife.
  • When I saw this pic, I automatically started to sing, “When I was a young warthog…”
    
    

• One week from yesterday will be the first day of school for most of my family. Wow, August 13th, it just seems too darn early to start school. Granted, the last day of school is something like May 21, but it just feels weird starting school before the actual middle of August.
• It looks like I will no longer be driving the kids to school in the morning, which was a fantastic way to start off my day. I’m going to miss that, it was great bonding time. WifeGeeding accepted a job to be a kindergarten teacher at our kids’ school so there’s no effective reason for me to drive them to school anymore. And, as the middle school and high school are on the same campus, I may never have to drop them off every again if WifeGeeding works at the school until our children graduate. Sure, there will be exceptions, and I’ll cherish those time, but a part of my daily routine has been taken away.
• It pains me to admit it, but in an effort to be transparent, when I dropped them off at school I feared it would be the last time I see them. Mass shootings are everywhere, no place is immune. Many people tend to think such a thing will not happen to them, but I’m the type of person who thinks that sort of stuff would happen to me. I’m not an optimist, I’m a pessimist, always preparing myself for the worst and being thankful for anything which comes out half as well as I expect it.
• At least the first week of school will only have one day of triple digits, the first day of school is Tuesday for us.
  
• We all know one or two people at work who will “Reply All” when it’s not needed. Please don’t be one of those people.
• Current Mount Vernon Tigers head football coach Art Briles talked to the media for the first time on Monday. The media was told to ask questions only relating to Mount Vernon football, but one reporter out of Waco believed she found a loophole when she asked, “You guys are the Tigers. Any talk about changing (the team’s name) to the Scapegoats?” Many in sports media expressed disappointment with her question, but she defended it by stating, “No bad intent. Many in Waco feel Briles was a scapegoat. Media were told not to ask questions about BU sex scandal, only MV football-related questions, so using the mascot was simply a “sporty” way of opening the door for Briles to respond to the theory of being a scapegoat.“
• Random fact about Mount Vernon, Texas – It was originally called Keith. Someone must have realized what a pathetic and prosaic sounding name that was and decided to change it to Lone Star, and then later to its current name.
• Sony has developed a wearable mini/portable air conditioner to fit on the back of a shirt, just below the neck. It looks like it wouldn’t be noticeable with a dress shirt on, but I’m curious to know the noise level and battery life of the thing. It’s probably in the article, but I’m too lazy to read it. Sometimes I just try to find stuff to post or link to so none of y’all yell at me.
• I got stuck watching some sort of WWII documentary on the Smithsonian Channel. The narrator stated in 1939, 75% of the men in the military didn’t finish high school, 41% never even started it.
• Every bug in your house, ranked by how worried you should be about them
• HBO launches ‘Recommended by Humans’ tool to help you escape algorithm nightmares