Ok - not really random thoughts but rather a random collection of things I've learned recently. I hereby inflct these tidbits on you.

• Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben, leans enough that the top is about 20 inches off center.

• By the way, Big Ben itself rings an E natural.

• Nobody knows whether Gilligan was his first or last name. Or maybe he was like Madonna or Cher and only needed one.

• Although no one knows the exact number, it's quite likely that there are more Lego minifigures in the world than there are real people. Also, at one time Lego was the largest

I just got this notification on my phone:

Damn straight, Woot.  Damn straight.

Today I learned that the world's most expensive cheese slicer was stolen a few years ago and hasn't been seen since. From the "Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should" department, it was a Boska slicer encrusted with 220 diamonds and was valued at between $26,00 and $28,000. The thieves were caught on camera nipping away with the utensil in question from the Amsterdam Cheese Museum but couldn't be identified. The second most important part of the story, though, is that if you find the thing and return it to the museum part of your reward is the world's largest [……]

Twenty-four little hours
Brought the sun and the flowers
Where there used to be rain
— Stanley Adams

Okay. To be fair, the full difference wasn't made in just twenty-four little hours but I really like the song and it speaks to the larger point. It's remarkable how your entire perspective can change in a very short time due to one thing.

A year ago — six month ago, even — I felt like I was just going through the motions of life. I was stable and functional. I wasn't in a particular depressed funk for the most part. But I just didn't [……]

And should I dare to dream aloud
    Of music souls do yearn to hear?
A message there so pure avowed
    Serves but to gently draw you near.

And should I dare to search the night
    For shining eyes that rend the dark?
A beacon there. A guiding light
    To places new that bear your mark.

And should I dare to heed the song
    That calls the lovers to their home?
A lyric there intoned so strong
    That time nor death can overcome.

For heart to hold and hand to touch
    Or do I dare to dream [……]

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
— H. L. Mencken

Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.
— Rabbi Julius Gordon

All things are difficult before they are easy.
— Dr. Thomas Fuller

In early September, Erica and I decided that we'd like to meet in person. For various reasons, however, the first feasible date was not going to be until the middle of October.  That started what may very well have been the longest forty-four days of my life. That time, though, gave us more time to get to [……]

I recently listened to a podcast and the interviewee was talking about one of his early mentors who was a doctor working with leprosy patients in India. He commented on how leprosy, the oldest recorded disease, is also one of the most feared because it robs the body of pain. Those patients lack the body's basic alarm system that tells them not to touch something hot or, even worse, that tiny impulse that makes them involuntarily blink every few seconds. Without that, their eyes dry out and millions of leprosy patients go blind because of it. The doctor said that [……]

Five years ago today I walked out of the Markey Cancer Center after my final radiation treatment. It was strangely bittersweet.  I was certainly glad to be at the end of that journey and to get on with the business of healing, especially given the state my mouth was in at the time. I could see a light at the end of that cancer tunnel and that was encouraging. But there was another side of that coin.

Every day for six weeks I had been going through this routine and I had grown accustomed to it. I had subjected myself to [……]

• I've searched in dictionaries for years — big dictionaries with small print — but I've yet to find a definition for "pompatus."

• The classic vision of Frankenstein's monster has big bolts sticking out of its neck. I guess those are there to hold its head on. That's just proof that the good doctor was a hack and didn't know what he was doing. Those bolts are either way too long or aren't tightened down all the way. And any true craftsman would have used Torx screws and countersunk the heads.

• If Sam Smith ever gets happy, his music career is basically over.

• Just how would

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
— Paulo Coelho

Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn't mean to take.
— Angela N. Blount - "Once Upon an Ever After"

But maybe someday, my weird will be somebody else's perfect. And it will be absolutely amazing!
— phydeaux - "The Pursuit of Happiness"

A lot of the time, life is kind of predictable and gives you exactly what you expect. Sometimes…… not so much.

Occasionally, you're just walking along, minding your own business, and notice something out of [……]