Information you cannot live without

I've mentioned it before, but the Hemispheres magazine that United Airlines publishes is chock full of the kind of useful information (nonsense) that I just eat up. Naturally you are looking for an example and I just so happen to be able to provide one. This is from the January issue of Hemispheres:

German word of the month: "handschuhschneeballwerfer"

Good grief that is certainly a lot of letters strung together to mean...what exactly? This is how you would call someone a coward in the German tongue. Literally it translates to, "someone who wears gloves to throw snowballs." For kicks I put this into Google's translation function and voila it actually got pretty close.

I've also invented a new snowboarding trick because I'm really ready to elevate my skills to that next level. Due to this trick's landing position (on one's head), it is not recommended for...anyone.

It is quite obviously a tribute to the early pioneers of freestyle snowboarding such as [insert name of idiot with broken arm/leg/neck/face] with influences by other assorted Darwin award finalists.

Start your timers

I deactivated Facebook today so that I could disappear into the sunset. I'll still be around, but I like having a tighter control on what is posted about me/to me/from me than what Facebook provides.

Here's your proof:

We will see how long this lasts. My bet is: forever. Adios amigos/amigas.

Well this is not so good

Sigh. I purchased a really incredible new snowboard this fall in hopes that this would be the winter beyond all winters. So far we are barely able to cover the dirt in Vermont and not much hope in the forecast. The good news is that the rest of the country is suffering just as badly. What's up Snow Gods? Did I shred just a little too hard last year? (Note: I most certainly did NOT shred too hard) I suppose I'll just have to find a different winter activity to enjoy until it snows more. Playoff football only lasts another month? Eesh. Anyone have suggestions? Please do not suggest I go somewhere warm and sunny: those plans are already in motion. Details on that in the coming couple of weeks.

Fun Facts

January 5th marked the perihelion: the day that the Earth is closest to the Sun. How close is close you ask, because it wasn't particularly warm yesterday. Yesterday the Earth was approximately 91,402,500 miles from the Sun which is about 3.1 million miles closer than we will be at the aphelion in early July. These are big numbers, but what does 3.1 million miles really mean? Turns out it is only 16.7 seconds when you're traveling at the speed of light. No big deal, engage hyper drive and let's go!

And in completely unrelated news:

Farmers harvest approximately 1 BILLION coffee trees each year for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.  Each tree produces 1 pound of coffee per year. Who is consuming a billion pounds of coffee? Turns out it is all of us. Second largest commodity in the world behind oil. Hawaii is the only state in the U.S. where coffee can be grown (I've had some and it is AMAZING) which means that we Americans are extermely dependent on foreign coffee growers. Likely more so than on oil considering the U.S. is able to produce 51% of the crude oil that is consumed domestically.

Imagine for a second if foreign suppliers turned off the flow of coffee and oil at the same time. Would you be willing to use half the oil you do now? That's not really that tough: plastic, gasoline, heating oil, etc. We would survive. What about living without ANY coffee? Whoaboy! Withdrawls, shakes, headaches, anger, violence. Riots in the streets! If the Iraq War was about oil, imagine what we would do to secure the coffee plantations of Brazil or Indonesia.