Bag of Randomness for Monday, April 8, 2019

• DaughterGeeding isn’t a typical child. A lot of kids stress out about taking the STARR test, even practice ones. Yet, she came home from school the other day excited to tell me about this fun test which she gets to read a story and answer questions and wished she could take more tests like that.
• I’m not necessarily rooting for Texas Tech tonight (though I’m happy for my friends who are fans/alumni), but I really did like their business like attitude after their win against Michigan State. It is strange to think only one Texas college has won the men’s college basketball tournament, and that school doesn’t even go by the same name anymore.
• For three weeks in December 1916, Rasputin and Kirk Douglas were alive at the same time.
• Last week I discovered that the man who designed the glass and steel pyramid entrance of the Louvre museum in Paris, I.M. Pei, also designed Dallas City Hall, Dallas’ Meyerson Symphony Center, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’ll turn 102 later this month if I just didn’t jinx him.
• Why ‘Bless Your Heart’ Is The Most Savage Insult In The Country – As a Southerner, I’ll tell you this: It’s the nicest way you’ll ever be called an idiot
  • I’ve posted several variations of this topic, but I think this one is the most well written.
• Vietnamese supermarkets go back to leaves, leaving plastic bags – Several Vietnamese supermarkets have started using banana leaves to wrap vegetables in an effort to reduce plastic waste.
• ‘Librarians Were the First Google’: New Film Explores Role Of Libraries In Serving The Public – A new film written and directed by Emilio Estevez explores the complicated relationship between libraries and the homeless community. “The Public” centers around the Cincinnati Public Library as the city experiences a bitter arctic chill.
• Netflix Has Hired a New Screenwriter to Write an Alice in Wonderland/Wizard of Oz Crossover
• When Putin’s around, GPS goes haywire, study finds
  • The ships’ GPS systems suddenly began to indicate they were actually 65 kilometers away, on land, in the middle of an airport. The incident is one of many highlighted in a new report that found the Kremlin “spoofed” global positioning systems, or GPS, to effectively place a bubble around Putin or properties associated with him. The researchers, with a nonprofit called C4ADS and the University of Texas at Austin, used public marine GPS databases, as well as a GPS monitoring device on the International Space Station to track similar instances.
• I received this odd medial lab bill in the mail on Friday. I say it’s odd because not only are they claiming I owe them almost $3,000, but the date of service is four years old. It was for some sort of tox screen I can’t even remember taking. Curious, I looked up the company on Google.
  • The first result was a bankruptcy filing (Texas Eastern Bankruptcy Court Case 4:17-bk-41310, Filed: 06/19/2017, Last Filing: 02/11/2019).
  • The second search result was from the BBB which states it’s out of business. The page also has two comments made this week from people saying they received a similar dated bill as mine.
  • The first Google News result is a 2017 article about a lawsuit between them and Cigna – Cigna Healthcare of Texas Inc. can’t escape a lawsuit by a Texas-based toxicology lab seeking to recover more than $13 million in allegedly unpaid services ( Rapid Tox Screen LLC v. Cigna Healthcare of Tex. Inc. , 2017 BL 298478, N.D. Tex., No. 3:15-cv-03632, 8/24/17 ).
    

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Bag of Randomness for Thursday, April 4, 2019

• I saw an ad for something called DFW Fiber Fest. I’ll be honest, my initial thought was that it dealt with digestion and bowel movements and wondered how and why such an event would be planned. As you may have guessed, it’s about knitting, crochet and that sort of stuff. I believe WifeGeeding’s mother attended this event a handful of years ago.
• The world’s tallest known tropical tree has been found—and climbed – A giant tree more than 330 feet tall was identified in Borneo from the air, and then climbed with a tape measure, at considerable risk.
• Humphreys County, Mississippi – Where in The U.S. Are You Most Likely to Be Audited by the IRS?
• There really is something unique about Tennessee whiskey, study finds
  • Charcoal is a common substance used for filtration in distillation, and the charcoal chips used in the Lincoln County Process are made from selected sugar maple trees native to the region.
• Cool photos which reminded me of the last Star Wars movie – The Strange Beauty of Salt Mines
• “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”

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Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, April 3, 2019

• That’s the shower valve cartridge I replaced yesterday after WifeGeeding strenuously informed me our shower was kaput.  It’s probably as old as the GeedingManor, about 23-25 years old. To my amazement, this project only resulted in a single trip to Home Depot. Usually, when it comes to DIY home repair, no matter how well I plan things, it results in multiple trips to Lowes or Home Depot. The part only cost $17, and I estimate I saved at least $200 by not calling a plumber. The hardest part, due to all the hard water in the area, was disassembling the shower faucet and dislodging everything – hard water bonds everything together.
• It seems like Houston might have more chemical fires this year than California will have wildfires.
• WifeGeeding got pulled into The Central Park Five documentary on PBS last night.
• This seems like it would be fun – ‘Iron Man VR’ is as close to being Tony Stark as you’re likely to get
• Ford’s Mustang-inspired EV will travel more than 300 miles on a full battery – The long-range SUV will debut later this year, and ships in 2020
• Broke Millennial’s Guide to Investing If You Have Student Loans – Should you pay off your loans faster or start putting money in the market?
  • Truthfully, the answer is simple: Yes, you should be investing when you have student loans. Now, buckle up for some actual number crunching. It’s the only way to make a compelling case for why it’s in your best interest to start investing before paying off student loans.
• “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

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Automated Robotic Valet System

Robot valets are now parking cars in one of France’s busiest airports

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