Footle and Grok

Did you see the Dragon Crew launch on May 30?

It was the first time in eleven years that American astronauts launched into space on American soil. However, the take-off and joining with the International Space Station (ISS) was only the first part of the mission. SpaceX can’t say their capsule worked perfectly until the two astronauts make it back to Earth alive. This will hopefully happen today.

Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley left the ISS on August 1 and are to splashdown off the coast of Florida around 2:48 p.m. EDT. You can watch it live here. If all goes well, many more astronauts will go into space in the years to come.

I have an app that shows how many people are in space at any moment. For years, that number has never been higher than six. I would love to see that change; SpaceX might be one answer.

Time will tell.

Time is a funny thing.

While completing my 300 miles in July, I listened to a lot of audiobooks. Several of them were about time, from a biological, psychological, and physics viewpoint. Time is still not well understood, but it is something that people think about, well, all the time.

I was listening to a podcast yesterday (during a relaxing 5k run), and the podcaster was talking about how time seemed to be moving slower for him. Even though August is here, it felt like July hadn’t happened yet. He wondered if other people had this same problem. Perhaps some do, but I do not. Despite this being a weird year, my clock knows it is August.

I think the reason time can become separated from reality is because, for most people, time moves with routine. We know it’s Monday because we go to work or school. We know it’s Thursday because that is when our book club meets. Thanks to COVID, all that has changed and so our sense of time is broken.

The reason I don’t have this problem is that I set a goal with a start date, an end date, and a tracking mechanism. My goal to complete 300 miles in July started on the 1st, ended on the 30th, and involved me doing ten miles every day. I made a chart with 60 squares. Each square had a five in it, and when I complete 5 miles, I put a sticker on that square. Every day I could see the stickers accumulate. This was the passage of time.

If you find time breaking on you, why not start a project that you can track? Perhaps you will plant a set amount of bulbs a day, or walk a certain distance, or write so many words. By having something concrete to measure and look forward to, time will straighten itself out. Plus, you’ll have the satisfaction of finishing something which can overcome the woes of 2020.

Whew! We made it to the last day of July.

I successfully completed my hard task. What was it? I ran/walked 300 miles in July.

I got up around 3:30 each morning and ran/walked 10 miles. Why did I do this? To earn a badge on Smashrun that I thought I would never achieve.

On July 1, I had no idea if I could stick with this so I didn’t want to talk about it. Looking back, I can’t believe it did it, but it didn’t feel impossible. I just focused on each day’s miles.

Thanks for sticking with me through thirty days of trivia. Here are the results.

• 15 of the trivia was true (that’s only 50%)
• 9 of the trivia was outright false
• 3 of the trivia was partly true
• 2 of the trivia was maybe true (meaning I couldn’t prove it one way or the other)
• 1 of the trivia was mostly true

Call me crazy, but I think if someone is going to add a trivia list into the world, it should be accurate. Especially since most of these were easily disproved. “Google before sharing” should be everyone’s motto.

I scored this trivia list an average of 6.7 out of 10. Sad.

That’s enough trivia; let’s move on to August. I look forward to writing about Mars rovers, good books, and other curiosities.

Welcome to Day 30 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

I won a goldfish at the school fair when I was a kid and named him Herman the German. He lived a long life for a goldfish. I fed him every day and never wondered whether he remembered me or not. It turns out he did.

Yep, this trivia is wrong. Goldfish can remember things for up to five months. Three seconds is an old wives tale probably made up by someone who never successfully tossed a ping pong ball in a fishbowl, like I did, and won a fish.

I was not surprised that this trivia was false, I was surprised by how many websites were dedicated to goldfish. They are a popular topic.

I give this trivia a 4 out of 10. The trivia is false, but I have good memories of Herman the German.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 29 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

THIS IS A LIE. However, it led me to the coolest term I’ve never heard of, so I might forgive whatever idiot made this up.

Every nineteen years, February has no full moon. This is called a Black Moon. I’m not sure how you can name something that doesn’t exist, but Black Moon is an awesome term.

Black Moon has several meanings. Here is a list so you can use Black Moon in your daily discussion of the Moon.

Black Moon definitions:

• Second New Moon in the same month (thus the opposite of a Blue Moon.) This is the most common type of Black Moon.
• Third New Moon in a season with four New Moons. This is a little confusing and rarer. Most seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) have three New Moons. When there is a four one (which happens every 33 months), the third one (not the fourth one) is a Black Moon. This is the opposite of the other Blue Moon definition that is the third Full Moon in a four Full Moon season.
• No New Moon in February. This happens once every 19 years. February is the only month that can have this type of Black Moon because it is shorter than a lunar month.
• No Full Moon in February: It doesn’t matter if there is no New Moon or no Full Moon in February. They are both called Black Moons.

I love learning new words. I didn’t know that Blue Moon had a second definition about seasonal moons, and Black Moons were totally new to me. Cool.

I give this trivia a 3 out of 10. It was neat to learn a new term, but I can’t forgive how blatantly wrong this trivia is.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 28 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

This is true, but deceiving. It makes it sound like the ostrich has a really small brain. However, an ostrich eye is the size of a billiard ball, because they need to see at a great distance, so their brain might not be unusually small for a bird. And once you learn about these remarkable birds, I think you’ll agree that their brain is just the right size.

Everyone knows that ostriches are the largest bird. But did you know they can be almost 9 feet tall and 350 pounds!!! That’s a lot of bird. They have powerful legs that you never want to encounter. Don’t challenge them to a race because they can run over 43 mph, and one stride covers over 16 feet. So remarkable. Even more amazing is that their babies come out of the egg ready to run.

I guess brains aren’t that important when you can grow that tall and run that fast.

I give this trivia a 7 out of 10. This trivia is true, but I felt it was insulting to ostriches.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 27 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

When creating trivia, it is never wise to use the word “only.” Someone will find a way to prove you wrong. If they had used the word “common” instead, then I would have nothing to debate.

It turns out there is a fifth word that ends in “dous.” That word is apodous. It is used by zoologists and means “without feet.” Earthworms and snakes are apodous. I don’t know why this word isn’t common. It seems useful.

So, technically the trivia is false. There are only five words that end in “dous,” but only four of them are common. Words mean things.

I give this trivia a 5 out of 10. It’s not true, thanks to a bad word choice. However, I’m glad to have learned the meaning of apodous.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 26 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

When I was a kid and needed to rhyme something, I reached for my rhyming dictionary. Nowadays, I ask Google. (I still have the dictionary though, because you never know.)

I entered each of the above words into rhymedb.com. What’s cool is they provide answers that are exact and are similar. Month, orange, and silver had similar-sounding words, but purple generated no similarities.

So this trivia is true. If you want your poem to rhyme, don’t end it with these words. I’m curious if there are other words with no rhyme. Unless I stumble upon them, I’ll never know since I’m not just going to stick words into rhymedb.com all day.

I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. Rhyming non-rhyming words is fun.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 25 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

I’ve heard this before and almost didn’t pick it from the list because I thought it was true. Surprise, it isn’t. You can sneeze with your eyes open, and no, your eyeballs won’t pop out of your head.

Your eyes automatically close when you sneeze due to an autonomic reflex.

According to healthline.com, “An autonomic reflex is a motor action that your body makes in response to a stimulus. It doesn’t involve a conscious decision on your part to take that action.”

However, you can override this reflex and sneeze with your eyes open. Nothing terrible will happen.

Scientists aren’t sure why you automatically close your eyes, but one theory is that closing your eyes protects them from particles that fly out when you sneeze. This makes sense to me. Even if you can keep your eyes open, why would you?

I give this trivia a 0 out of 10. I like debunking common myths.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.

Welcome to Day 24 of my July Trivia posts.*

Trivia: The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

I had heard this story before and thought it was made up. It turns out that this is true. Imagine my surprise.

Percy Spencer was working on an active radar set in 1945. He noticed that the microwaves coming off the radar melted the chocolate bar he had in his pocket.

By 1947 the first microwave was commercially available. It cost $5000 back then (about $57,000 today.) Now I can buy a microwave for under $50.

I love learning the truth even if I have to update my opinion.

I give this trivia a 10 out of 10. Not only is it true, but it changed what I know.

*I’m doing something hard (for me) in July that I don’t want to talk about until August (in case I fail.) This something takes a lot of time, so I’m simplifying my July posts. I’m using a list of trivia that Aunt Patti emailed me. Each day, I will explore a trivia fact and bring you the truth, not just the clickbait. I might even rate the trivia. I think this will be fun because I love exploring new topics and sharing them with you. I hope you learn something too. If you do, why not share it with a friend. One of my goals is to get more readers, and word of mouth is a great way to do that. Many thanks.