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    • What I've Learned

      Oct 20, 2011 12:00 am

      Tanya Savicheva kept two diaries. The first one she burned in a stove. The second one, she didn't.

      The second diary has only seven entries. The first entry reads, "Zhenya died on 28th Dec. at 12:30 a.m. 1941."

      Tanya was 10 years old when she wrote that. She lived in Leningrad, Russia, which today is known by its older name, Saint Petersburg. Zhenya was Tanya's sister.

      In September of 1941, the Nazi army surrounded Leningrad, bombed the living daylights out of it, and cut it off from outside help for 872 days. That's two years and four months.

    • Ginkgo Biloba - a living fossil

      Oct 20, 2011 12:00 am

      Prepare yourself for a spectacular event at McLaughlin Garden. Along with the vivid fall colors comes the shedding of the Ginkgos leaves. Now some of you might not know what a Ginkgo is, but the name itself is worth enquiring about and preparing for this event.

    • What I've Learned

      Oct 13, 2011 12:00 am

      I'm going to teach you to fold a letter like a Russian soldier. A WWII Russian soldier, that is.

      Get an 8.5-by-11 sheet of paper and set it on the desk as if you were going to write a letter. In fact, write a letter, if you are so inclined.

      Next – with the paper writing-side up – make a fold so that the top edge of the paper lines up with the left edge. To do this, take the top right corner and bring it down and left across the page until it touches the left edge 2.5 inches from the bottom. Line up the two edges and crease the diagonal fold you have created.

    • What I've Learned

      Oct 06, 2011 12:00 am

      During Desert Storm, I used thermite grenades to destroy captured Iraqi equipment. For example, a couple of thermite grenades placed in an anti-aircraft gun – one in the breach and one in the gear apparatus that turns and elevates it – melted the steel and left the weapon pointing harmlessly at a fixed point in the sky.

    • What I've Learned

      Sep 29, 2011 12:00 am

      In 2005, the director of a certain image-sharing website decided to play a prank.

      He fixed the site so that every mention of the word egg in a comment or a photo label would be replaced by the word duck.

      This practice spread, as things tend to do on the Internet, and someone started changing egg roll to duckroll.

    • What I've Learned

      Sep 22, 2011 12:00 am

      It was summer vacation and we – some older boys and I – were on a secluded side of an empty school. Each of the others had thrown a rock and broken a window. Now it was my turn.

      My first throw was half-hearted and thumped against the base of the building, which got hoots from the boys.

      My second throw flew higher, smacking the wall several feet from any window.

    • What I've Learned

      Sep 15, 2011 12:00 am

      For years it was difficult to remove books from the bookcase in my office.

      My office is small. All I have to do is spin 180 degrees in my desk chair, roll forward two feet, and most books are within easy reach. But I couldn't get at them because clutter had taken over the shelves.

      My rhyming dictionary, for example, was hard to remove because a mug, half-filled with thumbtacks, sat in front of it. The mug once contained pistachios. Then pistachio shells. When thumbtacks spilled all over the floor, the shells were shaken into the trash and the mug used to hold the tacks.

    • What I've Learned

      Sep 08, 2011 12:00 am

      People say that on December 21, 2012, our solar system will cross the Milky Way's equator. This will bring us into alignment with the plane of the galaxy, and the resulting gravitational strain will destroy the earth.

      Like crime in a high-rise apartment building, that is wrong on so many levels.

      We don't know where the galactic equator is, so how will we know if and when we cross it? Anyone selling you a book that says otherwise is either lying or is profoundly confused.

    • What I've Learned

      Sep 01, 2011 12:00 am

      If anyone uses the number 26,000 in their explanation of why the world is going to end next year, you can be assured they are full of baloney.

      There are plenty of people willing to explain how the Maya predicted that a 26,000 year cycle will be completed on December 21, 2012 and will do dreadful things to the earth.

      As soon as you see the number 26,000, your baloney detector should ding (mine wails), telling you to shake your head in disbelief and turn away.

    • What I've Learned

      Aug 25, 2011 12:00 am

      Let’s talk about pizza and the end of the world. The two, after all, are closely related.

      First we’ll tackle pizza.

      Pizza wasn’t invented in Italy, it was invented in the United States by Italian immigrants. Later when well-to-do immigrants went back to the old country to visit, they shared with their relatives this American treat. Italians began serving pizza to tourists.

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