Every person has his or her own personal mystery. Something that follows them through life that they try to continually figure out, but somehow is just out of reach.
My mystery is why the hems of many of my t-shirts curl up after I dry them. No matter what I do it seems to constantly happen. Ironing seems to be the only cure. Nothing seems to be able to prevent it. I’ve tried different drying temps, drying times, fabric softener in the wash, no fabric softener in the wash, etc. Some t-shirts do seem immune however, given that you fold them soon enough.
One day I hope to solve my mystery, but I don’t count on it.
Last night I found this thing I wrote a few years back. Please note that it’s not intended to be taken seriously, just something goofy I came up with for my own amusement.
Zero-point energy is the lowest possible energy level of a quantum mechanical system like a particle in a box. The kinetic energy of the system may be zero if the velocity of the particle is zero. However the uncertainty principle implies that if the velocity of the particle is measured with certainty to be exactly zero, then the position of the particle is infinite. This either means that the particle isn’t necessarily in the box (which violates the rules of the experiment) or that there is a new type of potential energy in the box. Since science doesn’t want to get into anything like that it is simply said that the velocity of the particle can never be exactly zero.
My office here at work could easily be considered a box and yet I have a zero energy level most of the time. Since my velocity is exactly zero then I must infer that either I am hallucinating and am not actually in my office at all, or that I am a perpetual motion machine, tapping the infinite energy of sitting absolutely still.
Sometimes I think about how much of my brain is being used to remember and automatically avoid the significant potholes and other road dangers all too common here. It concerns me. If the roads were smoother here I probably would have figured out the meaning of life at this point.
I just got back from the gym here at my office a few minutes ago. Allow me to recount this vignette.
I finish my workout and hit the showers. As I’m drying off at my locker I realize I had left my deodorant in my Aikido bag from the clinic this weekend. No problem, I think to myself. They’ve got aerosols of deodorant by the sinks. So I wander over there and grab a can and apply said deodorant. As I’m finishing I notice that it doesn’t smell quite right… I look at the can: AquaNet.
I did my best to remove as much as I could but alas, my underarms were already done up with aplomb.
The security guards in my building will always say “Happy Friday” in the mornings when you come in or when you’re coming back from lunch, etc. It’s very refreshing and always makes me smile. Well today as I was was coming in there was a new guy. I scanned my badge and walked passed the desk and when I didn’t hear “Happy Friday” it stopped me dead in my tracks.
I turned shoot a sidelong stare at him and he said, “Can I help you?”
I’m sure what must have seemed somewhat rude I replied, “You’re supposed to say ‘Happy Friday.’ People count on that. They need to hear it.”
“Why?” was the stone wall answer I was hoping not to hear.
“Well,” with what must have been a small amount of panic showing in my voice at this point, “that’s just what we do here. Friday isn’t just another day. It’s a state of mind. It makes the fact that you’re here on what should be the third day of weekend OK. Isn’t it good that it’s Friday?”
He looked at me for a minute and then said “If you think it’s that important I will. I have to work the weekend shift though, so my ‘Friday’ starts on Tuesday–”
I cut him off, “I will tell you ‘Happy Tuesday’ if you tell me ‘Happy Friday’. Come on man, what do you say?”
He smiled. “Happy Friday.”
The top-of-the-charts hip-hop hit “This is Why I’m Hot” by Mims has some really profound lyrics. It is not just a look at what makes Mims himself hot, but is easily applied as a general template of hotness.
In this case all the hard work was even done for me, because I wasn’t the only one who noticed this. The Village Voice shows us in what can only be called a thesis on hotness why it is exactly Mims is hot, as well as what this means in the grander scheme of “hotness” in the music industry as a whole.
I strongly encourage you to examine this article and use it to your advantage. Knowledge is power.
