What I Learned This Week - 4/12/13

1.  People, in general, have no idea how to answer basic questions. I don’t understand phenomena in my office of asking the simple question, “How are you?” only to get a response stating what day of the week it is. Many days it leaves me questioning is whether or not my brain works properly.
2. The recent uproar over the increase in child poverty has me very confused – besides Ken, who has rich kids?
3. Bears living on the Kronotsky Nature Reserve in Russia have taken to huffing jet fuel out of old barrels until they're woozy enough to hit the ground. Yes, they are jet fuel addicts. The 1,200 pound junkies will even go so far as to actively stalk helicopters for their fix, scavenging for and sucking up any excess fuel as it leaks onto the soil.
4. After having someone with a PhD in business explain the validity of Bitcoins and the recent Bitcoin boom then bust, I still don’t understand them largely because I compare virtual money to checks.
5. I did not know one of my go-to websites for weather, Weather Underground, got its name from a 1980’s terrorist group. Why either organization would use the name is beyond me.
6. If you teach your child that the ice cream truck only plays music when it's out of ice cream, your life will be much easier.
7. When you hold a sign reading, "You're so Smart and Pretty" during a running race, you'll get more response from men than women.
8. There is a special sense of pride and accomplishment one gets when the act of holding a humorous sign and yelling , “hurry up, my arms are tired!” gets a laugh and an elbow-nudge-hey-look-at-that from a runner  in a half marathon that looks like they are about to die.
9. The sign that gets the most people to laugh during a half marathon is, “Worst. Parade. Ever.”, closely followed by “Run faster, I just farted” held up by two 8 year old girls. “High five me for 80% more power” was by far the favorite for any other interaction.
10. The light rail train system in Denver is not automated and actually uses drivers. Yes, some of the drivers are not very good – but the kids like being catapulted down the aisles for a “stop”.
11. The ridges on those red solo plastic cups we all used in college where actually designed for measuring the fluid inside. The very bottom ridge, 1 oz. for a shot, the next ridge 5oz for a typical glass of wine, the next ridge 12 oz. for beer – all ridges above that I have no memory of.
12. The “Fonzie bump” to fix things actually has a scientific name – “percussive maintenance”. Sounds like a good name for a rock band.
13. I am redefining a goodnight of sleep – it is now “any night that you have a dream(s) about peeing and wake up in a dry bed”.
14. It is nearly impossible to wipe the smile from a teenage daughter’s face when she gets a trendy studded leather jacket from Grandma.
15. I’m betting if stairs were labeled with how many calories were burned on each step more people would use them. A high score board with lap counter at the top would keep people on them.
16. I cannot turn my brain off during movies. Mentally, I spend half of most action movies thinking, “if they just did {this-and-that}, we could move on faster”. 
17. It occurred to me that I've lived to see the rise and fall of many forms of media including:  cassette tape, VHS, antenna TV, Laser disc, dial-up modems, three forms of floppy discs,  portable tape cartridges, the Compact Disc, shark drives and a half a dozen forms of flash memory. DVD and Blu-ray will quickly be next.
18. Sometimes entering the, ”inner circle” of some families is a scary place. “False Alarm” texts will have me giggling for days.
19. I love the geeky jokes my kids tell - Why can't you hear a Pterodactyl go to the bathroom? The "P" is silent of course.
20. Due to the “Sequester” I have had to modify an item on my bucket list. “Fly with the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds” is now, “fly in a fighter jet”. No, it’s not a small difference.
21. Dark Lightning is a thing that exists. It’s basically bursts of gamma rays contained in clouds that can bombard you when you travel in a plane. Unfortunately this form of gamma radiation will not turn you into the Hulk or any member of the Fantastic Four.