Three observations on textbooks: 

1. Sometimes people at work give me a math-related textbook and say, "Here, read this."  In my head, I laugh at them.  I don't read textbooks.  I've never read a textbook.  I'm one class away from a graduate degree in mechanical engineering, and I can say with certainty that textbooks weren't meant to be read.  They're written as a reference, as a how-to.  No human being should ever sit down and read through a textbook.  That's insane.
2. Sometimes people at work give me a math-related textbook and say, "Here, learn from this."  I usually say, "Ok, sure.  I'll give it a shot."  That's when I'm reminded how impossible it is to learn from a textbook when you don't already know the subject.  If you gave me a physics or calculus book, I could leaf through it and understand what's going on.  That's because I know physics and calculus.  But if you gave me a textbook called "Digital Signal Processing", you might as well be giving me an Arabic dictionary.
3. In college, I sold all my textbooks online after the semester ended.  This was the best decision I ever made.  I work at a place where most people have all their college textbooks lined up on shelves at their desk, collecting dust and making moving inconvenient or impossible.  These textbooks are often relevant in my line of work, but they're still not all that useful.  So while I was making money selling my stuff in college, these dopes were hording thick, heavy, depreciating pieces of junk.  I finally won at something.

#entertainment

Wendy knows a guy from work who was trying to get rid of one of those inflatable, semi-permanent pools.  So she brought it home, we leveled a section of earth, and filled the thing up with about 2500 gallons of water over the course of 3-4 weeks (I didn't want to suck my well dry or break my well pump).  So now we have a relatively large pool in our relatively small backyard, and it's approaching the end of pool season (it's been 55°F for the past 3 days, but that's not normal). 

I've become a bit of a conservationist recently, seeing that I spend some of my free time hiking and I like to travel to places whose main attraction is their natural beauty.  So the thought of dumping 2500 gallons of water down a drain or in the woods doesn't sit right with me, especially since the plan would be to fill the pool again next summer.  I'd like to reuse the water, perhaps by storing it in containers for later use.  But if the water was stored in 55-gallon drums, it would take about 45 drums, and quite simply, my yard is painfully inadequate for that.  I can rationalize the pseudo-fact that water dumped on the ground will eventually end up in my well anyway, so it's almost like I didn't take it in the first place.  But that sounds sort of weaselly.  I could dump it down the town's drains, after which it would travel through a wastewater treatment center and be reused for drinking water.  But that sounds eerily similar to dumping it on the ground. 

My final thought was absolutely brilliant, in my opinion.  Companies exist that bring water to people with pools.  Why wouldn't these same companies also like to buy that water back?  And I'd give them a really good price, maybe $1/gallon.  That's $2500!  I'd even be willing to accept less; I didn't pay for the water in the first place.  Brilliant. 

I called one of these companies yesterday.  That's when I lost all faith in mankind.  It turns out that water truck companies don't have storage tanks.  They fill up their trucks with the town's water and bring it to peoples' houses.  Bad part number 1.  It also turns out that water trucks can't carry anything less than a full load, somewhere in the 10,000 gallon range, because of stability issues.  So even if they could pump the water out of my pool, the truck would fall over, and most likely directly onto my house.  Bad part number 2.  And here's the best/worst part:  When a water truck fills up its tank and goes out to fill a small pool or hot tub (usually in the 500 gallon range), the rest of the water is dumped out on the side of the road or in a parking lot, again because of stability issues.  Bad part number infinity. 

The ground it is.  Who knew pool water repossession would be such a bad business idea. #psychology

Oh, the sad state of portable audio devices.  Why is it so difficult to listen to music from my mp3-capable Treo while in my car?  Sure, I can use an FM transmitter, but they have shoddy reception and are prone to interference.  (Perhaps there'd be less interference if the transmitter was closer to the car's antenna, but my 2004 Camry is mysteriously missing a protruding metal antenna.  I'm sure it has one; I just don't know where it is.)  Sure, I can use a tape player adapter (yes, my car has a tape player), but the audio quality and subsequent noise of spinning tape wheels turns me off to the idea altogether.  Why doesn't my car audio system have an audio input jack?  Why wouldn't that be a standard feature?  Why are there wires involved?  Haven't we reached a point in our technological revolution where we can do everything without wires?  Hasn't Bluetooth use become so widespread and simple that it permeates all areas of our lives?  Why does my Treo's built-in music player (Windows Media Player Mobile) not have a function that remembers the place in the song where I left off?  Who wouldn't want that feature by default?  Why does my Treo use a non-standard audio output jack, requiring me to buy an adapter? #technology