Canadian Currency Frequency

Having lived in Detroit for over three years now, I have come to accept that 4 out of 10 times when I get pennies for change, there is some Canadian tender in the mix.   But I was thinking, until I moved here, finding a Canadian coin was somewhat rare.  Being so close to the country and with daily work commuters crossing the border, it’s not hard to imagine why the Detroit metro area would be filled with some Canadian currency.

I wonder if it’s the same in Texas or New Mexico with Mexican money?  Are there any Mexican coins that when glanced at or held could pass as American tender?

Luckily (or unluckily in relation to other factors of life) the Canadain dollar is almost equivalent to the US dollar, so I’m not losing any money on the transactions.

Dropped Call Etiquette

I’m instantiating a new guideline to follow for cell phone calls that are dropped.  To avoid both parties calling each other at the same time only to get each others voicemail (since both phones are attempting to make a call, incoming calls go directly to VM), I suggest that whoever initiated the phone call should be the one to call back.  The dual callback posses so many issues – how long to wait before I try to call you back, repeatedly calling until I can get through, and even waiting to call back somehow always backfires with both parties calling at the same time.

So I say to you now, if you are the initial caller, it’s your duty to call back if your conversation gets cut off.

Wii Sports Scoring Glitch

I’ve been playing Wii Sports for a few weeks now and my ongoing tennis score keeps rising. It got me wondering what the highest skill level score one could achieve on the game. A quick google search says that 2399 is the highest possible score you can get. I’m not quite there, but during my progress I noticed a glitch in the graph that shows you your progress. The graph actually isn’t large enough to contain the valid data points:

Cold Air and Your Nose

Walking into work the last few days in the sub-zero temperatures, I have noticed that breathing through my nose gives me a weird sensation. It feels like my nose is constricting; which I guess is normal when you take a deeper breath through your nose, but this is more than that. It seems like the nose hairs stand straight up and the nose gives a full feeling, almost like I am congested. I was curious about this and did some research:

The nose is a remarkable organ designed to condition inhaled air in order to protect the delicate lung tissues. Whether the inhaled air has a relative humidity of one percent or ninety percent, the nose adds or extracts moisture so that air reaching the lungs has a constant relative humidity of about 75%. The same is true of temperature. When breathing through the nose, one may breathe in air at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but within a quarter of a second the air temperature is quickly brought to 98.6 degrees. Many tiny blood vessels are used to affect a temperature exchange. When a person breathes cold air, the tissues lining the nose swell as the capillaries dilate, bringing warm blood to heat the cool air. Excess blood in the nose is the cause of nasal congestion (nasal congestion is backed up blood, not increased mucus).

Source

I thought this was pretty interesting. I’ve never thought much about the nose doing all that work (yes, I knew your nose hairs collect pollutants/dust/etc and act as a filter but the humidity and temperature regulations were new).

Grocery Store Checkout Lane Invention

As grocery stores have yet to convert to the first come first serve single queue lines like you see in a bank, it’s time for a new addition to the checkout lane. Atop each cashier, a digital display should display the employees throughput. Perhaps one stat would be the number of items scanned per minute, another being the number of guests processed per hour. These cues would help you pick lanes based on the employees efficiency. There’s nothing worse than having to choose between three lanes all with 2 people in them, and then watch as the other two lanes are processed twice as fast as yours.

NBC Lied To Us

Tonight an entire lineup of new episodes will air for NBC primetime, EXCEPT for The Office. All last week promotions ran about the new year, new comedy and showed Kat & Kim, My Name is Earl, The Office, and 30 Rock as new shows starting January 8th. However, today I come to find out that The Office is a repeat tonight and actually starts with new episodes on the 15th.

What a way to ruin my Thursday NBC, I hope you’re happy.

The Advantage of Flying to Small Airports

I recently flew out of Ft. Myers airport and realized there are a lot of benefits to flying out of a small airport. There was hardly any traffic unloading which allowed me to pull up right in front of my airline’s doors. Once inside, there were only a few people at the ticket counter and I was able to walk right up and print my boarding pass since I was not checking luggage. Security was a breeze, with about 5 people in front of me and two lanes open. When I got to my gate, there was an abundance of seats open with options near the windows and near electrical outlets.

The last thing that really caught me off guard were the announcements made over the intercom about personal belongings left in this store or that. To top it off, one of the announcements was in regards to the meal someone had just purchased. They had walked away without taking their salad, and an airport wide announcement was made alerting them to there forgotten item.

Although it may cost a little more to fly into a smaller sized airport, the experience in Fort Myers may persuade me to utilize the little guys more often.