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Annual Report: 2024/2025

Author: April 1, 2025 3 Comments

April 2024: Back in 1995, playing around with email for the first time, I created an list to forward funny things that had been forwarded to me. To protect the identities of everyone in the list I called it “Anonymous” and, because I’d learned about the Freethinkers from Mark Twain, I added that to the name. Then I started writing funny things of my own to preface whatever I was forwarding. Then a friend created a website and started archiving the pieces. Then I just stopped forwarding stuff because I wanted to focus on my own things and eventually it evolved into a blog, again with a friend’s help.

I’d read somewhere that the average life of a blog is three years. While I’ve never been able to confirm this I felt that, while I couldn’t pinpoint the exact date I’d started, I was close enough to say I’d now hit the twenty-nine year mark. It would only take one more year to bury the average.

 

May 2024: At this point I’d been playing the ukulele for a little over a year. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact date I started but that doesn’t matter because time is flexible and with almost any hobby there are a lot of different points at which you could say you technically started. So when asked what song I’d like to learn next I said “John Cage’s Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds.” This resulted in approximately forty-seven seconds of silence but I’m sure with practice I’ll be able to get through the entire piece.

 

June 2024: I remembered that this was the centennial year of the Surrealist Movement although with something like surrealism, which is more of a vaguely defined style than a single specific movement, there’s no way to really pinpoint the exact date. Even the first members of the Surrealist group claimed Hieronymous Bosch as one of their members and in 1924 he celebrated his 474th birthday. Or at least he would have if he hadn’t died four hundred and eight years earlier.

 

July 2024: I finally decided this was the year I’d find the best milkshake in Nashville. I’d had this idea for several years, though I couldn’t pinpoint the exact date it came into my head, but I do know I always got distracted by the idea of whether I should include chain restaurants of focus solely on local places. Local places would be my preference, and I’d also keep in mind that “best” is subjective. And then I wondered if I should focus strictly on ice cream places or any place that serves milkshakes. And didn’t I also plan to do this with gyros?

 

August 2024: Team members Dave Casman and Joe Bertman came into the office and announced that all of Emily Dickinson’s poems can be sung to the tune of John Cage’s Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds and they were immediately told to get out.

 

September 2024: Conseils d’application: Répartissez le conditionneur de manière uniforme sur les pointes et le centre de vos cheveux. N’appliquez pas le conditionneur sue votre cuir chevelu. Laissez le conditionneur s’imprégner pendant quelques minutes. Rincez abondamment. Avertissements: Réserve a un usage extreme uniquement. Conserver hors de portee des enfants. Cessez de utiliser en cas d’irritation.

 

October 2024: This is a test. This is only a test. Please stand by. Do not adjust your television set. We control the vertical. We control the horizontal. Scarecrows and magic and other fatal fears do not bring people closer together. There is no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect and mutual love. If we can learn this from the mistake these frightened men made then their mistake will not have been merely grotesque, it would at least have been a lesson. A lesson, at last, to be learned.

 

November 2024: I decided to participate in “No Shave November” and by the end of the month had acquired what most people would describe as a “five o’clock shadow”. All right, technically it was closer to four-thirty, but it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact date.

 

December 2024: The final month marked the end of yet another year, although these annual reports get filed in April, and anyway time is arbitrary, wibbly-wobbly, and as soon as you focus on a single moment it’s already on to the next. There’s nothing to do but keep going and hope things will get better.

 

January 2025: Team members Dave Casman and Joe Bertman came into the office with the idea of finding the best place in Nashville to get Boston cream pie, New England clam chowder, Belgian waffles, Baked Alaska, Buffalo wings, Pad Thai, Swedish meatballs, Turkish delight, Vienna sausages, Black Forest cake, Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts,Chicken Kiev, Canadian bacon, and Eggs Benedict and were immediately told to get out.

 

February 2025: I would procrastinate if I ever get around to it. Anyway while digging through the backseat of the car in search of some ketchup I found my gym shorts and realized it was well past time to wash them. In fact I could pinpoint the exact date because there were a couple of receipts for a milkshake and a gyro in the pocket.

 

March 2025: I’d read somewhere that the average life of a blog is three years. While I couldn’t pinpoint the exact date I’d started, I knew it was close enough that I could safely say I’d been doing this odd little thing I called “Freethinkers Anonymous” for thirty years. It would have been nice to gather everyone who’s been with me on this journey together in one room, but you’re all so scattered, and some fell by the wayside. Many years ago—I can’t pinpoint the exact date—I read the Epic of Gilgamesh and found comfort in the idea that nothing is permanent. At the time I thought it meant that everything ends but as I’ve gotten older it feels deeper than that. Everything changes and as soon as you focus on one moment it’s on to the next, but as long as we’re here the important thing is to keep playing.

Hail & Farewell., Happy Birthday., Not Non-Fiction, Quick Takes., Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval., The Vault, The Weekly Essay

Life Finds A Way.

Author: March 29, 2025 2 Comments

Someone at work gave me the Sea Monkeys kit about ten years ago while I was recovering from surgery. It seemed like a fun way to take my mind off things but at the time I didn’t have a place to put it and my brain was too foggy to focus so I put it away. This spring seemed like a good time to finally pull it out, though I didn’t know how viable the brine shrimp would be.

I let it sit for two days after adding the water conditioner and stirring. Adding the brine shrimp eggs was the second step.

After a week or so it was obvious there wouldn’t be any hatching. Brine shrimp are notoriously tough little critters which is what makes them so popular for home science kits but in this case there’d just been too much time, too many temperature changes. But there’s already a thin layer of algae growing in the bottom of the tank and I’m going to leave it to see what does develop.

For a long time I’ve been interested in the story of Anna Thynne (b.1806, d.1866). Like a lot of women in science she doesn’t get the credit she deserves but she created, almost by accident, the first sustained home marine aquarium. While visiting Torquay with her family she found some corals called Madrepores and took them home to London. Her husband was Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey. She kept her corals in a glass bowl and aerated the water by hand to keep them alive, and also had regular shipments of fresh seawater delivered. When she added plants and some other animals she realized she’d created a more or less self-sustaining ecosystem. She’d write a scientific paper about the reproductive habits of Madrepores and her discovery inspired the creation of the Fish House at the London Zoo, predecessor of the London Aquarium.

She kept her Madrepores alive for three years and took them with her to Wales where she released them back to the sea. Her research is a reminder that life is cyclical, adaptable, and persistent.

American Graffiti., Hail & Farewell., Happy Birthday., Nature Talks., Submitted For Your Approval.

Moving Right Along.

Author: March 28, 2025 2 Comments

So my wife and I have been considering moving for various reasons. It would be a big change and it occurs to me that, unlike most people I know, I feel like I’ve been in one place most of my life. I’ve traveled halfway around the world and somehow ended up back in the city where I was born. My family moved when I was just four, and though I have very vivid, and happy, memories of the first house we lived in, moving wasn’t scary or traumatic. It was fun and exciting. Then I went off to college, which wasn’t exactly moving—just transferring some of my stuff—then got married and, well, settled down. My wife and I have lived in the same house for as long as we’ve been together. That’s because we’ve been happy with the place, and still are, mostly, but around us things are changing. We had neighbors who moved out and their house sat empty for a month or so, then one morning I went to work and when I came home in the afternoon there was a pile of brick and broken wood and glass and shingles where their house had been. It’s a scene that’s played out up and down our street: as houses get sold they get knocked down and are replaced with oversized McMansions. So, to paraphrase Billy Joel, if that’s movin’ up then we’re movin’ out.

We can’t just pick up and move, though, so we’ve been looking at some different houses, which has been fun. With every place I think, what would our lives be like here? I thought it would be easy but just one day of visiting various potential domiciles disabused me of that notion. At least one of the advantages of moving now is we can look at houses online without having to actually visit them which makes it easy to narrow the search, though several looked great on a screen but, when seen in person, looked like their photos had been retouched, airbrushed, and finally replaced with a picture of another house.

The first house was perfect and had everything we wanted—if it were knocked over on its side, since the design was tall and narrow. The hallway to the bedrooms wasn’t big enough for two people to pass. The bedrooms themselves were spacious, if, like Spider-Man, we could stick to the walls. At least there was a nice big yard to make up for the lack of interior space and the week-old-salmon-colored cabinets could always be repainted.

The next house was perfect and had everything we wanted and several things we didn’t, including a giant crater about fifty feet from the front door that looked like someone had started digging a spot for an Olympic-sized hot tub and then forgot about it. At least there was a nice big yard. The only problem was the road that ran right through the middle of it. On the other side of the road, in what would be the rest of our yard, there were several abandoned camper vans. My wife said that if we picked that place we’d make hauling those away a condition of closing the sale. I thought we could keep one. I’d turn it into a studio space and name it “Beethoven”, but we decided to pass on the place entirely.

The next house was perfect and had everything we wanted and then some. It had a nice big backyard with a shed and woods and a deck built around a tree with a couple of chairs for sitting. There was even a graveyard just a few doors down which I thought would be really convenient if it became the place where we spend the rest of our lives. Unfortunately the commute to work would be two hours every day and that’s at least an hour more than I want to spend driving.

The next house was perfect and had everything we wanted if we were looking for a staircase so steep it was like climbing into an M.C. Escher print. The amazing thing about it is from the outside it looked almost identical to the house of a friend of mine, even down to its position on a cul-de-sac, and, aside from the vertical stairs, had very similar floorplan. Years earlier he bought a car that matched ours, since he liked it so much, and it tickled me to think I could tell him we were moving into his house’s twin. It also had a nice big backyard, though the downside was it was all downside, the whole house overlooking a gully.

So we decided we’d continue searching, and a week later while I was at work my wife called to say she thought she’d found one that had everything we wanted, but we decided we’d look at it together to see what it didn’t.

Adventures In Busing., Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval., The Vault, The Weekly Essay

Something In The Air.

Author: March 25, 2025 1 Comment

Spring is in the air which means it’s allergy season. Lately I’ve been hit with paroxysms of coughing, and while “paroxysm” is a great Scrabble word it’s not a fun thing to have coming up out of my lungs. For most of my life I was happy I didn’t seem to be allergic to anything. And I really mean anything. I once fell in a patch of poison ivy, not deliberately, and rolled over, because I didn’t realize it was poison ivy and if I had I would have done my best to get vertical without any superfluous motion, but I came out of the experience literally without a scratch. Before I got cancer it was easy to fill out medical forms, at least when I got to the question, “Are you allergic to anything?” I could always dash off a quick “No” and move on. Now I hesitate over the question but there isn’t a check-box for “I don’t know and I’m terrified of finding out!”

I know it’s an allergy to, well, something because other than the coughing and the occasional sneeze I feel fine. Colds, the flu, and other actual diseases would have other symptoms. I’d at least feel tired and achy. In fact I’m lucky that my reaction whatever I’m allergic to that’s in the air right now isn’t that bad. I think of allergies as our bodies overreacting to something that’s basically harmless—that might even be beneficial. Peanuts and shrimp are good for most of us but I also have friends for whom peanuts and shrimp are lethal, which is why when we go out to eat I skip the pad thai.

Then it occurred to me that my wife and I have been doing some spring cleaning. Mostly I’ve been trying to reduce my book collection to a manageable size. Well, more manageable. Well, I’ve stopped trying to pack half the Library of Congress into our house. Librarians call it “weeding”–pulling duplicates and other books that, for whatever reason, are no longer necessary. It’s prompted some hard decisions. Obviously I don’t need two identical translations of Sir Gawain & The Green Knight–but do I need two? Well, one is a verse translation and the other is prose…In addition to the hard questions it’s also brought out some dust and that could be what’s caused the coughing. 

I also remembered that I used to have a coworker who coughed all day every day. It wasn’t loud—just a steady drumbeat of low level expectoration. And it wasn’t hard to guess that her cubicle being right under a perpetually dusty air vent might have had something to do with it. Office changes have put me not quite under it but close to it. Which may be why the one thing that seems to stop the coughing is going outside—ironically the one thing that triggers allergies in a lot of other people.

 

Adventures In Busing.

It’s A Living.

Author: March 22, 2025 2 Comments

There was a feature in an issue of MAD Magazine I read when I was eleven or twelve that was called something like “Jobs Someone Must Have”. I think everything I read in MAD was memorable to me because my mother wouldn’t buy it for me so whenever I saw an issue at a friend’s house I went straight to it. But this feature was memorable to because it was funny but also thought-provoking. It was jobs like “the person who paints the black dots on dice” and the only other one I can remember was “manhole cover designer”. Painting dots on dice is probably automated but designing sewer line covers is a real job. I wish I could remember the others because, even if it was tongue-in-cheek, there are a lot of jobs most of us don’t even realize are being done. And if I hadn’t already gotten the idea from MAD the summer I worked for a temp agency really made me think about it even more. Maybe you’ve walked by the end cap displays in a grocery store without thinking about them. I spent three weeks putting those together and moving them across a warehouse into trucks to be delivered across the country.

Manhole covers are just one example but they’re a distinctive one. Japan is famous for their unique designs, and because most I’ve seen are plain—at least the ones I happen to notice since I’m usually not looking down—it’s nice to see a distinctive one. Most large cities probably have some. Here’s just one list of some really incredible ones around the world.

The cover I photographed isn’t for a sewer line, of course, but is similar enough, and also someone had to design it. It happens to be outside the Blair School of Music. If you go into the library there you’ll see this. It’s not someone’s job to decorate the bust of Beethoven but I’m glad someone does. Anything that adds a little art to our lives is welcome.

American Graffiti.

Marching On.

Author: March 21, 2025 1 Comment

The Five Stages Of March:

  1. Denial.

It can’t possibly be March. Sure, February is the shortest month on the calendar, but it’s still too soon to be March. And too cold. It seems like just a week ago we were in the middle of January. How could it possibly be March already?

  1. Anger.

Fine, it’s March. It’s still too cold but the weather’s supposed to warm up a little bit the next week. And then go back to freezing after that. Later in the week we’ll get tornadoes. Yep, that’s definitely March and I hate it.

  1. Bargaining.

Can we get some consistent weather here, please? Is there anything I can do to make that happen? I promise I’ll wear my heavy coat to work in the morning and won’t complain about having to carry it home in the afternoon when everybody’s out wearing shorts.

  1. More bargaining.

I swear I’ll do anything if it will just get warm and stay warm. Or get cold and stay cold. I can’t tell if I’m coughing because I’ve got a cold or because of allergies.

  1. Extra special bargaining.

Yes, I said I wish I were on a beach somewhere but I didn’t mean I wanted flooding. Look, the kids get Spring Break. Isn’t it close enough to spring that I could catch a break here?

  1. This is definitely bargaining.

Of course it’s raining nails and tiny little Ernest Borgnines. It’s March. I think I’d better lay off the allergy medication.

  1. Back to bargaining.

This is the third time I’ve packed away my heavy coat and then had to pull it out again. If I just leave it out will the weather finally stay warm?

  1. Depression.

Sun is out. Birds are singing. Buttercups and lilies are popping up in yards. The grass is getting green. Everyone’s happy. Yep, it’s definitely March and I hate it. I’m just going to sit here wrapped up in my winter coat.

  1. Acceptance.

All right, spring really is finally here, the forecast shows nothing but high temperatures and clear skies. I’m going to go out for a walk in the park and just relax and enjoy myself. Time to break out the shorts and sandals.

  1. Acceptance, ten minutes later.

Blizzard.

Nature Talks., Not Non-Fiction, Quick Takes., Submitted For Your Approval., The Weekly Essay

Lucky Day.

Author: March 17, 2025 2 Comments

In recent years St. Patrick’s Day has become controversial because of a maligned and often caricatured minority. I’m referring, of course, to leprechauns. Reviled, mistreated, and still all too frequently portrayed as happy little figures sitting on toadstools smoking pipes even though increasingly they’re switching to e-cigarettes the leprechaun is still the object of prejudice and misconceptions. Many of us, in fact, have passed by or even worked alongside leprechauns, often without realizing it. In the interests of time I’ll just be addressing a few of the most common misconceptions here.

The first is the ancient belief that leprechauns are mischievous, even dangerous creatures. Stories of leprechauns luring travelers into bogs or inflicting injuries on those passing through wooded areas go back as far as the 8th century, but sociologists now agree that such behavior is not characteristic of leprechauns, and is, in fact, quite rare. While there may be some basis in truth for these stories it’s widely accepted that destructive behavior was the act of a minority among leprechauns who, feeling marginalized from the culture as a whole, acted out in anti-social ways. Unfortunately this misconception has been perpetuated and reinforced by stories that are still told to children, as well as in movies, such as the 1993 film Leprechaun, its many sequels including 2000’s Leprechaun in the Hood, and, of course, the 1980 Al Pacino movie Cruising.

There is also a less common misconception of leprechauns as helpful. There are stories of leprechauns discreetly doing farm work, including harvesting, milking cows, and repairing small machinery. Again there may be some basis for these stories, but not all leprechauns enjoy the outdoors or are suited for farm work. Many prefer to work in offices, or seek employment in fields such as shoemaking. This is, of course, not to say that all leprechauns are adept at working with footwear, but many did find this to be an accepted trade. It’s believed this originated from leprechauns making shoes for fairies who, being generally more accepted, would be asked by more common folk where they got such amazing stilettoes. Working as cobblers proved to be profitable even when leprechauns were subject to such fierce discrimination that they were kept out of most cities and towns and had to form their own exclusive villages, commonly known as leprechaulonies.

Stories of farmers rewarding helpful leprechauns with suits of clothes, only to find that the leprechauns considered this an insult and would disappear, may also have some basis in truth, mainly because you can’t expect a leprechaun to wear that coat with those pants, especially after Labor Day.

Finally we come to the most common and persistent belief about leprechauns: that they are hoarders of massive quantities of gold which they keep in pots at the end of rainbows. This belief has been so pervasive that attempts have been made to lure leprechauns with artificial rainbows by everyone from Sir Isaac Newton to the manager of the band Pink Floyd. As a belief it was understandable at a time when people regarded meteorological phenomena as magical, unlike now when it’s understood that rainbows are caused by the refraction of sunlight through water droplets suspended in dragon farts. Because rainbows rarely have ends that reach the ground it’s still not understood how exactly leprechauns could have kept their alleged pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, in spite of several theories advanced by folklorists and experiments attempting to hang pots of gold from rainbows using balloons. A frequently repeated tale is that a leprechaun, when caught, may be forced to give up the location of his pot of gold, but only if the person who caught him keeps his eyes fixed on the leprechaun. In stories of this type the leprechaun often escapes capture by telling the person who caught him that there’s a fierce beast or the Chrysler building just over his shoulder. Folklorists believe that there is some truth in this, but only to the extent that leprechauns seem to have invented the “made you look” joke. Also it’s now known that leprechauns are not inherently wealthy. While there are some who have enjoyed success—the heir to the Lucky Charms fortune, for instance, or Mickey Rooney—leprechauns are no more likely to be wealthy than the general population.

That concludes the lecture for today. In preparation for next week read pages 126-153, when we will be discussing genetic mutation and its potential for altering reality. Our lab work will involve real four-leaf clovers, but I’d better not catch any of you wishing for a better grade.

Adventures In Busing., Not Non-Fiction, Submitted For Your Approval.

Inspired.

Author: March 15, 2025 2 Comments

It’s been seven years now since I took that picture. I keep returning to it because it’s the first picture of graffiti I took, and while I’ve seen a lot that’s definitely better there is something special about it. I have no idea what the story behind it is. Maybe someone was practicing, warming up, or just bored and felt an urge to do something pointless. That’s just speculation. When I saw it I thought there was something funny about the way it just trailed off with a series of wave shapes. That made me think about how fickle inspiration can be. There have been times when I’ve been suddenly energized, feeling like I can do anything. Then, as soon as I sit down to write I come up with…nothing.

The conventional wisdom about inspiration is that you can’t force it. In classical literature poets often began by invoking one of the Muses, asking for help. At the beginning of The Amores Ovid acts annoyed that he planned to write a serious epic but Cupid interfered so he’s stuck writing love poems instead. Hey, take whatever you can get.

Anyway, while inspiration can’t be forced, sometimes it can be coaxed out. Several years ago I got a job writing about local art. My first assignment was to write about an exhibit by a visiting artist named Margo Kren. I wasn’t able to get in touch with her and there’d never been a formal opening so all I had to work with was the pictures themselves and a small pamphlet with a biographical blurb. I sat and looked at the pictures for a long time, unsure what to say about them. And I also thought a lot about the term deadline. I’d asked for the job, had been prepared to beg for it, and now I was faced with the terrible possibility that I’d miss my first, and possibly only, assignment. Unsure of what else to do I started describing the paintings. Though it happened slowly—I might even say painfully—I suddenly hit a nerve. Or an artery. I had pages and pages, but my hand couldn’t keep up with my head. In the end I had to cut it down significantly, and while I would use the same technique to write two more articles the magazine folded before they could be published. It was still a valuable lesson, though, and when it comes to writing I’ll take whatever I can get.  

American Graffiti.

Basket Case.

Author: March 14, 2025 3 Comments

People make fun of me when I tell them what I’m majoring in at college. They say “I thought that was just a joke!” Well, let me tell you, it does sound funny and a lot of us who major in it joke about it too, but there’s also a very serious side to it. Do you think basket weaving is easy? Have you ever tried it? Do it before you make jokes. There’s a lot more to it than just threading a strand around the spokes. That takes a lot of manual dexterity and also concentration and time. And you have to think about the materials you’re using. Wicker, reed, rattan, and bamboo all have to be handled differently, and each one can be woven in a wide range of styles. Those are just some of the most common materials, the sort of stuff you’d get from your local hobby shop, if it hasn’t gone out of business. If it has, well, you can buy a kit online if you want, but, as a college student, I’m also learning how to forage for as well as grow my own raw materials. If you think that’s easy then just try it. But don’t come crying to me when your willow tree dies because you didn’t know where to plant it.

Yes, I know, the process of making baskets can be mostly automated. Mostly. Who do you think designs and builds the machines that make baskets? Well, mostly engineers, but they need to consult with trained basket makers to know where to start. It’s all interrelated. And think about how useful baskets are. Let’s back up a bit. Think about the whole history of humanity and our reliance on handmade crafts. That kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? Now think about all the things you can use baskets for: storage, carrying. Well, they can be decorative too. The point is, if you’ve got a nice basket for carrying things or storing things you’re not just going to throw it out. If you were going to do that you might as well use a plastic bag. Thanks for helping to trash the planet. And when’s the last time you heard about a kid suffocating inside a woven basket?

Great, so you want to know about the other part. That’s not easy either. What, do you think we just sit waist deep in a swimming pool? Or hold our breath while weaving? No, we go all in. We don’t have to do it but we like the extra challenge. And that’s what it’s all about: learning to overcome challenges. I realized that way back in fifth grade when my English teacher used to use “underwater basket weaving” as a metaphor for something useless that didn’t require any thought. Not that I’m knocking English. After all English majors know what I’m talking about. We even get the same questions. “What are you going to do with that?” I don’t know. How does creative problem solving, manual dexterity, and scuba certification look on a resume? Exactly. It’s not like I’m studying something so highly specialized it’ll only be applicable to one career path. If I wanted that I would have studied accounting.

Source: Tenor

Not Non-Fiction, Submitted For Your Approval., The Weekly Essay

Passing Through Uranus.

Author: March 13, 2025 1 Comment

Source: Wikipedia

On March 13th, 1781 the composer, musician, and amateur astronomer William Herschel looked through his telescope and realized what he’d initially thought was a comet was, in fact, a previously unknown planet. It was the first planet discovered in modern times and, after a lot of discussion, would eventually be named Uranus, after the primordial Greek god of the sky. Although it had been observed since ancient times it was so distant and so difficult to see it was assumed to be a star. The discovery that it was a planet is why I think Uranus deserves special recognition.

When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986 astronomers were unimpressed and thought it was a pretty boring planet. Since then interest in Uranus has picked up. Seasonal changes and wind speeds of 560 miles per hour have been found on Uranus. Its temperature of -200 degrees Celsius means Uranus is a very, very cold place. Until very recently it was thought to be the only gas giant that didn’t emit detectable heat. Now it’s been determined that it does emit heat, though less than Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. It also remains unusual for its axial tilt of 98 degrees, making Uranus the most lopsided planet in the solar system.

If space travel advances Uranus may someday also be very important as a launching point for missions leaving the solar system. The large quantities of methane in Uranus may even be a source of fuel, if we can tap into it. It’s fourteen times more massive than Earth so Uranus has a very intense gravitational pull. It’s also not easy to get there. Even traveling at the speed of light it would take an Earth ship almost two and a half hours to get to Uranus.

More terrestrially there’s the town of Uranus, Missouri, a small stopping point for tourists along the historic Route 66, where you can visit the Fudge Factory And General Store, and where, the mayor tells me, they have a special celebration every March 13th.

This is why I think Uranus Day is an event we can all get behind.

Source: Uranus Fudge Factory

Adventures In Busing., Happy Birthday., Keep Looking Up, Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval., The Vault