Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, July 17, 2019

  • I’d like to wish a very happy birthday to my friend, Brent.
  • Amazon must be working their delivery driver pretty hard, they dropped a package off at my doorstep at 10:28 PM last night. I know it wasn’t a neighbor dropping off a package which was delivered to the wrong address because the delivery was confirmed by their app with a photo of it at my front door. Also, the dog barked like crazy and I looked out the window.
  • Ross and Margo Perot have been members at Highland Park Presbyterian Church since 1957 when they first moved to Dallas. Because the church was going through major renovations, so nearby Highland Park United Methodist Church held the service. I love it when a church from another denomination helps out a fellow church. I don’t know how that stuff works out, or if there were any rental fees or costs involved, but I don’t want to know, just leave me with the illusion that grace was extended.
  • I’ve mentioned several times that WifeGeeding’s friend was the nanny for the Perot grandchildren and when she got engaged they threw her an engagement party at one of their houses and I actually had a brief one-on-one conversation with the man. She spoke so fondly of that family and Mr. Perot, who insisted she simply refer to him as “Ross”. She recently posted a picture of him at her wedding and the time she was playfully choking him after a boating adventure. What a special moment that must have been to have someone like him attend your wedding. This is also the only picture I’ve seen of the man in shorts.
  • If memory serves me right, she and her husband had plans to move to Houston. Mr. Perot nonchalantly asked what her plans were and she mentioned how she’d like to work at a particular hospital. He said something to the effect that that hospital was one of his largest customers and he’s made donations to it for decades and he could pick up the phone right then and either schedule an interview or give her such a glowing recommendation she’d have to be hired. She thanked him for the offer but wanted to get the job on her own merit.
  • Perhaps the most comprehensive study of men and women’s pockets you’ll ever see.
  • It’s astonishing that NASA’s Voyager probes are still working after four decades, though barely.
  • I was surprised not to see Buzz Aldrin here and there with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch. He was invited to a special ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center but decline (it was nice to see Micheal Collins make it). Buzz was always the more outspoken of the three men on that rocket and still makes public appearances. But, I did read last month he was suing his children and longtime manager.
  • When Neil Armstrong exited the lunar module to step foot on the moon, his heart rate was at 75 beats per minute.
  • I absolutely love this photo Michael Collins snapped. It’s technology and nature all wrapped up in one. At that very moment, Collins recorded everything that ever was and is of Earth with the exception of him. Also at that moment, no other human was farther from the planet or from any living thing, and there he was, in total isolation.
  • “I’d trade it all for a little more.” – C.M. Burns
  • What’s in this?: Oreos – All 10 ingredients in these miniature sugar bombs, explained (yep, even soy lecithin)
  • I’d like to wish WifeGeeding a very happy birthday.
  • It’s pretty darn cool what the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is doing to celebrate Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary,  projecting a life-sized, animated image of a Saturn V rocket on the launchpad onto the face of the Washington Monument for three days. I hope my old college roommate who lives in the area got to see this.

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Bag of Randomness for Monday, July 15, 2019

  • Because of a Groupon email, I decided to get a massage since my back has been a bit tight. While the masseuse was working on my back, she must have come across a pimple. She centered on it a bit, picking at it as if it was a scab, then, it felt like she squeezed and popped it. All of this was done without saying a word to me and she wasn’t wearing gloves or cleaned it up at all. I didn’t say anything about it and felt weirded out by the experience.
  • There are a lot of great Ross Perot philanthropy stories, but one of my favorites was mentioned in the Dallas Morning News. In 1977, one of his daughters read an article in a classroom magazine about how the NYPD didn’t have enough money to replace their aging horses, so she asked her father buy new horsed for the NYPD as a Christmas present. He gave the NYPD 20 Tennessee Walking Horses which cost $50,000 and all the equipment which was needed. She got to name four: Lone Star, Liberty, Freedom, and Ross.
  • Tonight, Norah O’Donnell takes over the permanent anchor of the CBS Evening News. O’Donnell grew up in San Antonio — between her, Scott Pelley, Bob Schieffer, Dan Rather, and Walter Cronkite, Texas roots almost seems to be a requirement.
  • WifeGeeding took the kids with her when she had her annual checkup with her ophthalmic surgeon. It was the first time the doctor met the kids, and he introduced himself in a friendly and informal way by shaking their hands and saying, “Hello, I’m Grant.”
  • Running with your arms bent does not make you go any faster than with straight arms, Harvard study finds
  • I think my favorite line in the latest season of Stranger Things is, “You can’t spell America without Erica.”
  • Should Neil Armstrong’s Bootprints Be on the Moon Forever? – With renewed interest in the moon, some say it’s time to consider whether, and how, to preserve humanity’s lunar heritage.
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