Random Thought #13

Aglet - The little plastic protector at the end of a shoelace. Thanks Phineas and Ferb and Disney Channel. I now know one additional piece of worthless information. LOL

Random Thought #12

So I just finished my latest Hugh Nibley book and in there, I learned about an old alphabet that Brigham Young tried to create with the help of some linguistically blessed members of the church. It is known as the Deseret Alphabet and was created and intended to help those who did not know English better learn it by learning the sounds phonetically. It was abandoned in 1870 due to high costs but I found it fascinating, albeit a little difficult to master.

Full details here: http://www.deseretalphabet.org/

It seems as though this was created by mankind, but I wonder if President Young's intention was to make the mormons more peculiar and set apart from the world. Kinda makes you wonder what the Adamic language looked and sounded like. I guess we'll all find out eventually :)

Random Thought #11

Wow. Its been awhile since I've last posted a random thought. Sorry about that. Things have been a little hectic lately. So, my wife has been kinda sick lately and been having a pretty bad upset stomach. That's meant I've had to pick up the slack and do a lot of the things that she normally does. Sheesh she does a lot!! So she decided to take a nap because she wasn't feeling well and was kinda tired so I was playing with the girls. Well they weren't exactly agreeing on who should push their little dolly cart so Lily threw quite a fit. She has a pretty fiery temper. Well, I had enough so she went upstairs and took a nap (or was supposed to). I tried playing with Emma while watching the Cougars lose miserably to Florida State. Lily ended up not sleeping so I had to go upstairs and calm her down again and lay down with her. She finally went out and so I came back down and played with Emma. We ate some strawberries together and then mommy woke up.

Shortly thereafter Emma threw up all of the strawberries, plus some other stuff. That then set off a chain reaction of vomiting as the smell alone could choke a horse. I finally got it cleaned up and 5 minutes later, DEJAVU!! More strawberries and other stuff and another chain reaction. Cleaned that up again and then that set me on fire. I then proceeded to clean the toilets, do the laundry, vacuum the house, bathe the girls, do the dishes, take out the trash, and sweep and mop the floors. So far I've gotten to taking out the trash. This time Emma decided she was going to lock me out. I came back from dumping off the trash and the door is locked with my darling little daughter sitting in front of the TV. She eventually let me back in, but I'm gonna have to take a mental note not to mess with her.

Still have the floors to sweep and mop so hope I finish before collapsing.

I love life!

PS - BYU lost 34-10

Random Thought #10

Why do they call the study of weather "meteorology"? It doesn't have anything to do with meteors. I was curious, so I'm going to provide the answer to this one. The word "meteorology" is from Greek μετέωρος, metéōros, "high in the sky"; and -λογία, -logia. So meteorology actually means "The study of stuff high in the sky". Kinda cool. According to Wikipedia, most of the events in the Earth's atmosphere (which we can see) happen in the Troposphere.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the troposphere:

The troposphere is the lowest portion of Earth's atmosphere. It contains approximately 75% of the atmosphere's mass and 99% of its water vapor and aerosols.

The average depth of the troposphere is approximately 17 km (11 mi) in the middle latitudes. It is deeper in the tropical regions, up to 20 km (12 mi), and shallower near the poles, at 7 km (4.3 mi) in summer, and indistinct in winter. The lowest part of the troposphere, where friction with the Earth's surface influences air flow, is the planetary boundary layer. This layer is typically a few hundred meters to 2 km (1.2 mi) deep depending on the landform and time of day. The border between the troposphere and stratosphere, called the tropopause, is a temperature inversion.[1]

The word troposphere derives from the Greek: tropos for "turning" or "mixing," reflecting the fact that turbulent mixing plays an important role in the troposphere's structure and behavior. Most of the phenomena we associate with day-to-day weather occur in the troposphere.

I love learning stuff. Wikipedia is awesome!!

Random Thought #9

So we've had a bit of rain recently as TS Hermine just rolled through and every morning, I hear on the radio what our percentage of rain is going to be for the day. It's always something like 20% or 60% or whatever. I thought to myself, how can you have numbers like that? My thinking would be you have 3 choices. 0%, 50%, 100%. Either it will rain for sure, there will be no rain whatsoever, or you have a 50/50 shot of one or the other. How do they measure this stuff? I think we should all hold meteorologists more accountable :P

Random Thought #8

As I was on my way to work yesterday, I saw a billboard that had an advertisement on it for a lawyer. It read "Chad Pinkerton. Lawyer. Warrior." Then at the bottom, it said, Personal Injury Attorney at Law. That got me thinking. What's the difference between a lawyer and an attorney? Is there one? Why does it say attorney-at-law? Can you be an attorney at something else? I did a little digging and found that the main definition of an attorney is someone who acts on your behalf, basically a proxy. The other main use of attorney is when you give someone the power of attorney. In this case, its considered a "planting attorney". I guess this makes sense because your lawyer is essentially representing you and acting on your behalf in front of the court.

That got me thinking some more. Does that mean that Chris is our attorney before the judgement seat of God? We do sometimes refer to Him as our Advocate with the Father. I kinda hope mine is an open and shut case (in the most positive sense of the phrase). Fascinating.

BTW - I'm not longer ending all of my posts with "I wonder..." (That didn't take long). I just found it too cumbersome to try and make my sentences end just right so that I could have a catch phrase.