Friday Four

Friday, August 28, 2015

1. When I take the kids to the park, I use a small "Pack-It" freezable bag to keep their snacks cool. On our last trip, my four-year-old daughter -- who has recently become enamored of a time and place of maturity and enlightenment known as "high school" -- also took a liking to the bag.

"Daddy, when I'm older, like maybe five or in high school, can I have that bag for my snacks?"

"Maybe, so, Pumpkin."

This makes me want to put the bag aside for a decade and present it to her when she starts high school.

2. We'll set aside the fact that my pocket is being picked, and my time is being wasted; it's still nice to hear the following from my new accountant regarding a crazy letter from the IRS and a fat "refund" check I had the sense not to cash: "This letter makes no sense."

Oh, and, "There's nothing wrong with this return, " was also nice.

3. From a Forbes article titled, "15 Critical Habits of Mentally Strong People," comes the following gem of a Thomas Edison quote:

Thank goodness all our mistakes were burned up. Now we can start fresh again.
This he said after his factory burned to the ground in 1914, "destroying one-of-a-kind prototypes and causing $23 million in damage."

4. At last! Someone has taken the time to debunk that silly eight glasses of water a day rule, as well as its various corollaries:
Many people believe that the source of this myth was a 1945 Food and Nutrition Board recommendation that said people need about 2.5 liters of water a day. But they ignored the sentence that followed closely behind. It read, "Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods." [link dropped]
More accurately, I am now aware of the debunking, not that I ever believed this. Read the whole thing, especially if you have children: There's an effort afoot to scare you regarding pediatric hydration that this story also addresses.

-- CAV

2 comments:

Steve D said...

‘This makes me want to put the bag aside for a decade and present it to her when she starts high school.’

Hey. Just so you know, here’s what will probably happen with a teenager (my son just entered high school)

She’ll have forgotten. You’ll have to explain it. She’ll roll her eyes (or whatever is currently in the vogue then) and say.

Daaaad!

‘as well as its various corollaries:’

Like the even more prevalent myth that you should spend your entire day at the toilet?

Gus Van Horn said...

Steve,

(1) True, but that won't necessarily stop me.

(2) Yes. That does cause me to wonder how many people who pass along that advice actually follow it.

Gus