"Down the Stretch They Come"

That phrase is of course what the announcer yells toward the end of The Kentucky Derby. (You may have heard it yelled at track meets – I’m the one who started that by the way.) But yeah, the Derby is Saturday. So grab yourself  a fancy hat. I like that horses, unlike boats, have unique and sometimes curious names. Let’s look at the names of some of the horses in this year’s race:

·         Forte – Apparently a very loud horse

·         Derma Sotogake – may have skin issue

·         Skinner – may provide incentive for Derma Sotogake to run faster

·         Sun Thunder – formerly known as Sun Zebedee I bet

·         Raise Cain – I’m told horses like sugar cubes

Let’s hope the horses stay in their lanes this year and don’t get bunched up. Hard to believe it was just three years ago when they had to run the derby with no jockeys during Covid.  

 

Post #750

Today is post #750. Yeah. It seems like only yesterday (OK, maybe day before yesterday) that we started this blog. So I’ve searched and searched to find something significant, something we could all relate to regarding the number 750. There’s nothing. No date, no weight, no temperature (no pre-heat your oven to 750). But I found this from an old UTST post from 2016 regarding an even higher number:

We were visiting a friend at the hospital a while back, and an employee pushing a gurney volunteered that he had transported an 1100 pound man the day before. You read that right. One thousand one hundred pounds. That’s heavier than my whole family. I don’t think the employee was exaggerating, because, if he was, he would have said 1000, not 1100 lbs. People generally round off when they exaggerate. They don’t use numbers like 1100.

So, I’m thinking, do the patient files on the hospital computer even have a four digit field for weight? If the fields only contain 3 digits, do they just enter his weight at 999 lbs? Or do they admit him as 2 people maybe and split the weight? Can they refuse to admit him? Does it even matter at that point? 

In the animal world there are small animal veterinarians and farm animal veterinarians. Are we humans headed for that?

 

 

Playing with Fire

Did you read about the fire breathing dragon at Disneyland catching on fire? I just read about it. Instead of breathing out fire, the dude burned up. Can’t you imagine that 911 call?

“Hey, the fire breathing dragon at Disneyland is on fire!”

“Yeah, he breathes fire. I took my kids there once.”

“No. He’s really on fire.”

“Yeah, he breathes fire.”

Etc. 

I thought maybe somebody gave the dragon some spicy food and maybe his breath got more flammable, but it turns out the dragon is not real. Who knew?

This is like when that sword swallower guy at the circus calls in and says he can't come to work 'cause he has a sore throat. He's not gonna get much sympathy.

Rinse, Repeat

Regarding our recent post about the shower head at the Airbnb, a long time reader wrote in and asked, “What about that shower at the bed and breakfast in Houston with the seven shower heads? Where does that rank amongst your shower head experiences?” Well, the writer failed to mention that only about three  of those Houston shower heads actually worked. Having said that, I do rank Houston slightly ahead of our recent experience based solely on their attempt to do seven shower heads. Kinda like when Tony Curtis attempted the triple jump (!) in the movie Trapeze.

On second thought, based on our recent shower head experience and its inability to provide an adequate rinse (due to its hard water), I rank Houston’s shower experience a “head and shoulders” above our recent Airbnb shower experience.Yeah.

 

Skin Off My Back

We just took a trip and stayed in a so-so Airbnb. The advantage of staying at Airbnb’s is that, unlike hotel rooms, each one is unique. This one was the upstairs of a house. Two bedrooms, living room and a kitchen. One bath. The unique aspect of this Airbnb was the strength of the water flow coming out the shower head. The force of the water was so strong that I’m pretty sure I lost my epidermis every day. The good news was that the water was very hard – so basically the epidermis was replaced each day with a layer of soap that the hard water would not rinse off.  

I got to know the guy downstairs a bit. He slept late, so we were able to coordinate our showers so none of us ever ran out of hot water. That's always helpful.

 

Canned Meat

Hey, what’s with the children’s Cow in a Can toy?  Those things have been around forever. They don’t require batteries, they never break, they’re inexpensive and yes, they really sound like a cow. You likely had one, your parents had one and your kids have one. Maybe yours was handed down. For those of you from another planet (and I know we have readers out there), these are can shaped, and they typically have a picture of a cow on the outside. You tip it over and it makes a cow sound.  I’m not sure what you do with them after that initial first tip. But hey, it’s a harmless toy. And kind of fun.

But now I see that Walmart has taken these cans to a new level. They’re selling these cans in a 12 pack now. Sorry Walmart. Kids' toys and 12 pack should never be in the same sentence.

It really doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out.