Day 861: The Lawn Chair Pilot Takes Off

originally published May 10, 2014 For those with unlimited imagination and an unfiltered sense of audacity, our gravitational tether to the ground ceases to be a limitation. Those who are terrified of heights may hug their earth-bound security with nary a blink toward the clouds, but for those of us who would happily dance a […]

Day 860: Ethically Steering The Hypothetical Death-Trolley

originally published May 9, 2014 Today I’d like to talk to you about math. Not “math” in the numbery, equationy, algebra-y way, but an ethical sort of math. Every time we find ourselves staring down the barrel of a moral conundrum, a little light flickers in our brain’s mathematical wing, weighing the heft of the […]

Day 859: The Deliciously Dandy Fashion Zing Of The Macaroni

originally published May 8, 2014 As soon as I am catapulted to the pinnacle of my fame (which should be any day now I’m sure), I fear that the omnipresent gaggle of “star analysts”, “celeb-watchers” and “yammering space-fillers” will be particularly cruel when they analyze my sense of style. I am intentionally one of the […]

Day 858: The Tragic D-Day Dress Rehearsal

originally published May 7, 2014 June 6, 1944 was the day the Allied forces heaved their collective mass up against the first mighty domino that would eventually lead to the collapse of the Third Reich and an absolute victory in Europe. Over 160,000 American, British, Canadian, Greek… hell, you know who the good guys were… […]

Day 857: How Ignaz Semmelweis Changed The Medical World And Never Lived To Know It

originally published May 6, 2014 Does the name Ignaz Semmelweis mean anything to you? My readers whose boot-prints lay along the medical mud-path (or in the frightening swamp of germophobia) will shout an esteemed “YES!”, probably with the reverence my musician friends would reserve for a Les Paul or a Robert Moog. Dr. Semmelweis’s work […]

Day 856: When Death Sports A Wicked Grin

originally published May 5, 2014 There are souls who live lives of absolute anonymity, only to achieve the briefest flicker of fame through their final moments on the planet. For all the millions who have succumbed to heart disease, auto accidents and auto-erotic asphyxiation, somewhere there’s a story of a drunken teenager who died playing […]

Day 855: Globe-Surfin’ – The Life Of A Perpetual Traveler

originally published May 4, 2014 It only took 14,465 days for me to figure it out, but I think I finally know what I want to do when I grow up. No, it’s not writing; that’s my fall-back option if the real dream doesn’t pan out. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy plucking fancifully […]

Day 854: Training Your Barometer To Be A Really Long Ruler

originally published May 3, 2014 One day a young student at the University of Copenhagen was asked if he knew how to measure the height of a building using only a barometer. The correct answer involves measuring the atmospheric pressure on the building’s roof and again on the street below, then calculating the height through […]

Day 853: Flipping The Bird At Your Neighbors And Calling It Home

originally published May 2, 2014 There are many reasons why one would construct a house. You might be tearing down an old dilapidated monstrosity, or maybe you’re breaking fresh ground that was once farmland – doing your part to fly the banner of urban sprawl. Perhaps you’re on estate land that has been re-zoned and […]

Day 852: The Greatest Toy On Four Wheels

originally published May 1, 2014 I may have had a slightly distorted sense of value when I was a child. If I’d been on a sinking boat with the ability to save only a family of four or my Star Wars toys… well, I’m just glad it never came to that. And while I’d have […]