It's my personal opinion that wide receivers should catch the ball if it hits their hands.  I don't care how high they have to jump or how far they have to dive.  If the ball touches their hands, they should be able to catch it.  They play football for money.  Besides some mediocre blocking, all they do is catch passes.  Catch the friggin ball. #sports

The following boy names should only be used for girls: 

1. Sandy
2. Kerry
3. Shannon
4. Fran
5. Stacy (my sister's name)
6. Dana (my other sister's name)

#sociology

I don't fill my lawn with inflatable Halloween and Christmas decorations.  It's mainly because they're hideously ugly, but it's also because I'm a lazy decorator. 

However, a lot of people disagree with me about this, which is why a lot of people's lawns are filled with inflatable lawn decorations.  Or, more accurately, their lawns are filled with deflated inflatable lawn decorations.  So not only do their lawns took ridiculous because they're filled with $150 pieces of gaudy air-filled plastic, their lawns look ridiculous because they're filled with $150 piles of gaudy plastic. 

I personally believe it should be a civic responsibility to keep these decorations inflated.  If you went to the trouble of buying it and setting it up, you should continue to go through the trouble of making sure it's inflated and making sure it's still standing upright.  If you can't fulfill your end of the bargain, your inflatable lawn decorations buying privileges should be revoked. 

I'd be willing to cut some slack based on manufacturing defects and simple laws of physics.  If your inflatable decoration has a slow leak, that's not necessarily your fault.  So if it's deflated by the end of the day, I'll let that slide, assuming you fill it up sometime within a 24-hour period.  Concerning physics, cold air takes up less volume than warm air, so it's not too surprising to see a bunch of deflated lawn ornaments on the way to work after a cold night.  But since this part of physics is pretty easy to understand (or at least easy to observe), there's no reason why the decorations shouldn't be re-inflated within a 24-hour period of deflating. #psychology

Co-worker 1:  We'll get some wings at the hotel's happy hour. 
Co-worker 2:  Then we can go to Buffalo Wild Wings for some more wings. 
Co-worker 1:  It's a wing-wing situation. #language

I'm always amazed at the amount of detail involved in what would otherwise seem like an ordinary job or activity.  In that respect, there's no such thing as ordinary.  Everything has a science built around it, and the people who work these jobs and do these activities every day are essentially scientists in their specific field. 

One example is a friend of mine who owns a turkey farm.  They butcher their turkeys and sell them in their little farm store.  The most recent bit of science came out when talking about the upcoming turkey-eating season.  Every year, Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November.  This year, November 1 is a Thursday, so Thanksgiving is officially the earliest it can be.  This equates to an especially busy turkey-buying season because Thanksgiving seems to come around quicker than normal.  And for turkey farmers, this means trouble because people will wait until the last minute to order a turkey, and then they'll be mad when they can't get it right away.  This seems like a simple thing, but coupled with all the other turkey farmer wisdom I've heard over the last few years, it makes me realize that not just anyone can be a turkey farmer.  The person who says, "That doesn't sound too hard ... I could be a turkey farmer" is actually quite out of their league. 

It's the same with sports like golf.  Golf seems pretty simple:  Hit a ball into a hole.  But there's an elementary science about how to hit the ball, which club to use at what distance, how to putt on a sloped green, and things like that.  And once you get past that, there's an intermediate science about head placement while hitting the ball, grip tightness, arm angles, foot placement, and things like that.  There's probably also an advanced science, but I haven't made it that far.  It probably has something to do with ball dimples, tee material, and emotional preparation.  It wouldn't surprise me. 

I used to work at a pharmaceutical company, and that's where I learned how much thought goes into making such seemingly simple things.  For example, the company made pills.  To make the pills, they mixed powders together, then they put the mixture into a pill press.  After that, it went to a coating chamber where the pill was sprayed with various chemicals to make it stay together and to aid in digestion.  Then it went into packaging where it traveled over several series of conveyor belts, got sealed in blister packs, put into little boxes, put into bigger boxes, then put on a pallet and shrink-wrapped.  At each step of the manufacturing process, there were layers and layers of details that I can't even begin to understand or remember.  Hundreds of people worked on the process, and hundreds more scientists, engineers, and mechanics came up with the process and made sure it worked.  There was so much complication in the process, it was easy to forget we were just in the business of making pills. #psychology

You know it'll be an interesting day when you look down at your hand and say, "Who's blood is on my hand?" #psychology

I really need to come up with a canned response to a few common questions.  The current system of trying to think of something on the spot just isn't working.  The questions are usually variations of the following: 

What's new?
How's work?
How was your weekend?

They're simple questions.  And they have answers.  But I'm not good at communicating under pressure, and my brain equates conversation with pressure.  I'm sick of sitting there trying to think of an appropriate response to an otherwise unimpressive question, only to come up with "Not much" or "Pretty good".  My goal for the next few weeks or months is to come up with acceptable answers to these questions.  Then I'll be complete. #psychology

I don't think the current state of hotels is optimal.  I always feel like I'm wasting money and resources by being the only person in my room.  I'm definitely not sharing a room with my co-workers, but I feel like hotels could change things around a bit to get with the times.  I always feel like I'm overcharged for my stay and accommodated with unnecessary things.  I don't need a couch in my room, nor do I need 85 channels of cable TV or furniture made of exotic woods.  Without further adieu, here are my suggestions: 

1. Adopt a modular pricing system.  Have options to select when reserving a room, such as with or without cable, internet, phone; number of beds; number of closets and amount of storage space.  Have prices to reflect these options.  When I'm traveling by myself, I definitely don't need more than one bed, nor do I need a kitchen or a living room.
2. Adopt a variable pricing system.  Reward people for conserving water, electricity, heat/AC, etc.  This will not only reduce the average room bill, it'll encourage people to be nicer to the environment.  With the current system, I pay the same price whether I turn on all the lights, run the air conditioning full blast, and take 12 showers.  This is stupid.
3. Have budget rooms.  This is sort of a combination of (1) and (2).  Like I said, I don't need cable TV and oak furniture.  All I want is a bed and a bathroom.  And I'd like to be able to pay 1/3 the price of a normal room if I can get just the bare necessities.  If I wanted luxury, I wouldn't be staying at a low-to-mid-priced hotel.
4. Do what your environmentally conscious signs say you do:  Don't wash my towels if I hang them up.  I don't understand why hotels put up a facade and then waste water and energy when you're not looking.  I'm ok with a once-used towel (as long as it wasn't used by someone else).

#travel

Nuclear power in a nutshell: 

1. Place a chunk of radioactive material (usually uranium) in water.
2. Stand back as the radioactive material decays, creating heat.
3. Use the heat to boil water.
4. Use the steam produced to spin a turbine (the same thing used to generate hydroelectric power and, in a sense, wind power).
5. Use the turbine to generate electricity.

That's pretty much it.  Safety precautions and waste disposal make things a bit more complicated, but that's essentially the process of nuclear power generation used in pretty much every nuclear power plant on earth. 

Optional steps: 

1. Replace all instances of the word "nuclear" with the non-word "nucular".
2. Instruct otherwise smart people and world leaders to do the same.

#science

The same thing that enables us to talk on our cell phones is the thing that enables us to get sunburn.  It's also the thing that powers FM radio, Bluetooth, WiFi, satellite TV, GPS, microwave ovens, medical X-rays, and visible light.  It's all done by electromagnetic radiation. #science