365 Days of Knowledge #62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, and 69

Back from the Phish show and it was nothing short of amazing. The energy of the crowd was insane, to say the least. RZ and I only had tickets for the first night so we decided to spend the rest of the time in Washington DC, which was just as amazing. It was a great trip but I am exhausted and not 100% ready to go back to work in the morning. So, what did I learn? A lot of my tidbits came from late night radio shows I listened to on the drive during our trip.

1. Over the past two decades, a Japanese cosmetics company has been researching hair length and how it coincides with the economy. According to their study, women tend to cut their hair shorter when the economy is in a slump and leave it longer when the economy is doing well. This kind of makes sense because when people are looking for jobs you want to try to have a clean-cut look, which is more easily attainable with shorter hair.

2. When there is a child abduction in or around Chicago, the city puts the vehicle information the supposed abductor is driving on signs over the motorway.

3. Phish fans brought an estimated $7 to $8 million dollars of retail revenue to the Hampton area in Virginia during the three day concert this last weekend.

4. Cops confiscated approximately $1.2 million dollars worth of illegal drugs from Phish fans during the three day concert in Hampton. Wasn't me! FYI - I saw maybe a handful of cops while I was there. You'd have to have been pretty obvious to have gotten busted, but that's just my opinion.

5. Barbie, who recently turned 50, was a risk for Mattel because they weren't confident mothers would buy their children a doll with breasts.

6. Rabbits don't make as good of pets as cats do. Rabbits charge and grunt.

7. When you go on a long trip you may begin to form a relationship with the voice inside your GPS navigational system. You may even find yourself asking them philosophical questions and then become disappointed when they don't respond.

8. When a person is tired they tend to be slothful and not insightful, hence this post. All apologies.

9. Last but not least I learned that I don't travel nearly as much as I used to and I really miss it.

I'm going to leave you with an awesome picture from the concert on Friday. I didn't take this because I was told I couldn't bring my camera in the venue, even though by the time I got in the venue people were just charging ahead and I didn't even get my bag checked and I could have easily gotten my camera in and taken some really awesome pictures and perhaps a video so I could remember that moment for ever and put it in my scrapbook next to the ticket I have........I'm a bit jaded and will now stop rambling.

365 Days of Knowledge #50, 51, 52, 53, and 54

I'm going to blame my blog slacking on my upcoming "vacation" and the preparation that goes into leaving your home for an extended period of time.

First and foremost I want to give a big shout out to the Wisconsin Parks and Recreation Department, you all rock! While I always knew the folks at the Wisconsin Parks and Recreation Department were a pretty fine group of people, I didn't learn until this weekend how really awesome they are. This past weekend I went to visit my sister who lives in north central Wisconsin and we went to nearby Rib Mountain State Park (not really a mountain). The parks department had helped to organize a candle-lite snowshoe hike in the pseudo-mountain. I wasn't really expecting too much but it was awesome, and so beautiful with the candles lighting the trail and the city lights far beneath us. At the end of the hike they had a huge bonfire and free refreshments (donations welcomed, and gladly given). It was so much fun and just a great experience overall.

Funny story. At one point during our hike the binding on one of my sister's snowshoes came loose so we stopped so I could fix it for her. An elderly couple passed us and the gentleman, who was probably in his early sixties, stopped and said, "I don't know why the hell I'm out here, I don't even buy green bananas at my age." Miss Lippy, if you're reading this, please put that on the quote board.

Another thing I learned while visiting my sister is, the old cliche, "the more things change, the more they stay the same", is often true. My sister goes to college at the same university I attended. On Friday evening we decided to "go out". My sister took me to her and her friends' "hangout" which just happens to be the same establishment my friends and I frequented circa 2001-2004. The only difference from then to now, is the name of the place. Seriously, everything was exactly the same, even down to the clientèle and their outfits. I also learned that my 21 year old sister's love interest is a 30 year old man but that's a blog in and of itself.

Last week I learned that throughout your life, you may come to a point when you do something you always swore, and believed whole-heartedly, that you would never do. I recently experienced one of these moments. I broke down, and bought....it shames me to type this......a pair of skinny jeans. Go ahead, tar and feather me, I deserve it.

I need to thank my friend Melbarney for this tidbit of information. There's a band called Vampire Weekend and they sing a song called Oxford Comma. The first line of this song is, "Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?" I like the song, I've listened to it, sung along with it, and danced amongst it, all without knowing what an oxford comma was, just knowing that I shouldn't give a fuck about it. Well, it turns out an oxford comma is the optional comma used when listing items in a sentence. The oxford comma is typically found before an and and it's completely optional, you can take it or leave it. I choose to take it. You can find the oxford comma in the title of this blog, "53, and 54". Click this link to check out Vampire Weekends, Oxford Comma video.

Last but not least I learned that the colors for Mardi Gras were chosen in 1837. Green represents faith, gold stands for power, and purple signifies faith. Happy Fat Tuesday everyone!