Have you ever coughed, sneezed or hacked and found a little, stinky waxy thing in your mouth?  Yeah, I know this is gross, but it’s something I’ve noticed since I was a kid.

Well, they are known as “Tonsil Stones” or “Tonsillolith” and they are common in people.

They are formed in the crypts of the palatal tonsils or basically the little pockets near the back of your throat.  They are believed to be formed from dead white blood cells, oral bacteria, overactive salivary glands, mucus secretions and cheese burgers.  Guess which one I made up.

I remember the first time I found one of these I thought it was part of a tooth.  Freaked me out until I smooshed it and realized it wasn’t a tooth.

So that makes two kinds of stones my body creates.  Great.  These are not a painful but still, I have yet another stone to worry about.

Most folks never notice these stones and usually just swallow them.  The rare case is that they need to be removed surgically.  And leave it up to the herbal medicine folks, there’s homeopathic cleanser that can be used to prevent them and empty one’s wallet at the same time.

So there you have it.  Add that to the list of things you never knew you could learn.

Stay tuned…

My father-in-law Ernie has a little trick he uses to make sure he gets the most out of an experience.  He calls it “Ernie’s Clock” and he uses it whenever he’s experiencing something fun or special.

The basic idea behind Ernie’s Clock is to stop, look at what you are doing, and ask yourself “Am I missing out on something right now that I should experience.” or “How will I look back on this later and what questions might I have?”

When he and I went to the Indy Car races during the Summer, he asked himself  “What would should I do that I might regret not doing?”  The answer was to get an up close view of the cars and drivers.  We walked to the pit and saw the drivers suit up and and get their cars ready.  We even got to see one of them riding on an electric scooter around the pits.

Another example of using Ernie’s clock would be “Who have I not talked to?”.  This comes in handy when you are at say a wedding and there are a bunch of people you know.  If you say “Hello” to as many people as possible, it makes the event more memorable to you and them.

It’s a little trick but it has helps him get the most out of events and has given him some of his best memories.

Give it a try.

Stay tuned…

An object lesson is a real world example which helps in the understanding of an abstract concept.

A good example of an object lesson would be about friction.  Some one might explain friction as “The rubbing of two surfaces together to generate heat”.  An object lesson for this would be the act of being dragged over a carpet until your face feels as though it’s on fire.

With most kids object lessons are worth a million words.  I could explain friction to Samantha until I’m blue in the face but as soon as I have her rub her hands together and ask “did your hands get warmer?” she understands.

A one year old’s life is filled with object lessons because they don’t have much of a language.

I love watching Molly explore and discover concepts and then apply them in other situations.

For example she now understands that her hands need to be outside of the toy box before she closes the lid otherwise her hand will start hurting.

But there are some really important yet abstract concepts that kids need help with.

“Be careful” is hard for any kid to understand but to a one year old one might as well say “blee blobble”.  But an object lesson can fix that if the kid hears “be careful” enough times before they embarks on a dangerous activity.

Today that object lesson was that the cat and the dog play differently and one should listen for warning signs before jumping into something.

Molly has figured out that she can slap the dog all she wants and he’ll just lick her hands and face until she stops.  Because the licking is not too bad and may even seem fun to her cautioning her with “be careful”, while she’s bopping him on the head, does not carry much weight.

Saying “be careful” right before she tries this with the cat has MUCH better results.  She learned that the cat hits back and that he has pokey things at the end of those velvety arms.  She was not hurt but she did take caution the next time I said “be careful”.

Samantha asked me the other day “what’s fire?”.  My first thought was “give her an object lesson” but a split second later by parent brain kicked in and I said “Remember the candles on your birthday cake?” and that’s all it took.

Stay tuned…

I have been poking around with electronics recently as a means of understanding how things work.  I started by reading up on the various electronic components most things are built from…

• Resistors
• Diodes
• Capacitors
• Transistors
• Voltage Regulators

Then worked my way  up to power supply design and how motors are controlled.

There comes a point in any learning process where you have to put the books down and get your hands dirty.  That time came tonight.  I made a trip over to Fry’s, bought an electronics kit with most of the components I would need, I also bought a new digital multimeter to measure all sorts of things.

While I was there, I looked at the various oscilloscopes.  For those of you not familiar with oscilloscopes, they are the cool devices you see in science fiction movies with the green wavy lines floating on the little TV screen.

They are used to measure signals from various things.  They are VERY helpful when learning about electronics but they are usually quite expensive.  So I left Fry’s without one.

Tonight I also had to help my father-in-law with a computer issue.  While I was fixing his computer he asked me what I went to Fry’s for.  I told him about the things I was learning and what I bought.  I also told him that I had looked at oscilloscope.   He said “Yeah, I got one of those in my shop.  Do you want it?  I never use it.”

Wow!  There is an electronics fairy and he lives in Sunnyvale!

So there you have it.  I am now the proud owner of an older but still VERY useful two channel 20 MHz osilloscope.

Now I can complete my mad scientist’s lab in the garage.

Stay tuned…

Tonight Cheri asked Samantha what she learned in school today.  Samantha told us that she learned about the “statue of livaty”.

We asked her which city the statue is in and she said “statue of livaty town?”

She also told us that you can climb up in the statue but she didn’t want to climb it because it was too high.

Then she told us “vote Obama lives in a white house with a girl and his wife.” and the American flag has red, white and blue.

This is going to be a special 4th of July.

It’s nice to hear about what Samantha is learning and how she understands it.

Stay tuned…

NOTE: I am going to be fishing for the next three days.  I’ll update the blog with fun fishing facts on Sunday night.

This is the first entry under the “Learned” category.  I’ll post newly learned things under this category from time to time.  Usually they will be bits of trivia or things I’ve heard before but never had the time to further investigate.

Slug

In newspaper editing, a slug is a short name given to an article that is in production. The story is labeled with its slug as it makes its way from the reporter through the editorial process. Sometimes a slug contains code information that tells editors specific information about the story — for example, the letters “AM” at the beginning of a slug on a wire story tell editors that the story is meant for morning papers, while the letters “CX” indicate that the story is a correction to an earlier story.

In the production process of print advertisements, a slug or slug line, refers to the “name” of a particular advertisement. Advertisements usually have several markers, ad numbers or job numbers and slug lines. Usually the slug references the offer or headline and is used to differentiate between different ad runs.

I wonder if this word will fall from use as we move away from printed newspapers to those online?

Stay tuned…