A-to-Z, 2-3-5-7 & Moon Rocks

If we were having a beer, you wouldn’t quite know where to start.

“I have some weird things for you today, but first, do I need to bring some heavy equipment to your blog?”

“Huh?”

“I heard you caved on the April A-to-Z thing.”

“I did.”

“I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’ but… Well, actually, I said it was a dumb idea.”

“It wasn’t dumb. It just wasn’t a good idea for me…at this time.”

“OK, great idea, just not for you, or now. Anyway, what was your idea?”

“I was going to write about woodworking. I was going to…”

“Whoa, wait. Woodworking? I’m going back to dumb idea.”

“What’s dumb about woodworking?”

“Nothing. Woodworking is a fine hobby, and you’re pretty good at it, but how many people care?”

“I was going to explain things that people should know about, like how to tell if a piece of furniture, or a set of cabinets is well made. I was going to show tools and describe how they work and why we use them.”

“Yeah, I’m still wondering who might really care, just sayin”

“I think I could have kept it interesting; I had ideas for photos and little videos. That wasn’t the problem.”

“I hate it when you do that.”

“When I do what?”

“You end a thought with a statement that begs a question I don’t really want to ask. Still, I feel like I should ask: ‘what was the problem?’ You know, just to be polite.”

“If you want to be polite, buy me a beer.”

“Cheryl, a Yuengling for the Yankee Craftsman here… and a glass of wine for me.”

“Here ya go boys. You want to see menus, or are you just going to pick at each other?”

“We’re going to pick. He’s explaining why he gave up on the April A-to-Z blogging thing.”

“There were lots of reasons; basically it was going to be too much. I’m really not up to writing every day. Four days a week works, but even five seems stressful. Also, I like to bounce around. The closer I got to April, the less I was sure that I’d enjoy being tied to one subject for a month.”

“I can see that; your blog is kind of a scatterbrained collection of junk and whatnot.”

“Thanks… I use the phrase: ‘random thoughts’ but ‘scatterbrained collection of junk and whatnot’ – that works too. Anyway, what’s this weird stuff you have?”

“Well, you read Wired Magazine, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Did you read about the guy who discovered something weird about prime numbers?”

“I did. He discovered how primes ending in ‘9’ are less likely to be followed by another prime ending in ‘9’ than any other number.”

“Yeah, yeah, please don’t tell me why you find that fascinating. I find prime numbers about as interesting as 26 articles on woodworking.”

“Then why bring it up? I mean, you did bring it up.”

“The article said that the guy has been studying prime numbers for decades. Can you imagine that, decades!”

“Sure, people study all kinds of things for decades. I read an article a few years ago about some guy in St. Louis who is still studying the Moon Rocks.”

“The rocks they brought back in the 60s? Seriously? How much could be left to study?”

“Apparently, a lot. He says we didn’t know much about the Moon when we brought them back.”

“So what? They’ve been here almost 50 years. How much more can we learn about them. I mean, they’re rocks.”

“I guess he thinks his research might lead to something good.”

“Well, the other weird thing I have for you is something that is not going to lead to anything good. Someone discovered a T-Rex that was pregnant when she died. They think they might be able to clone it.”

“Didn’t they see the movies? That doesn’t end well.”

“All I know is that my taxes are paying for people to clone 60-million-year-old dinosaurs, ‘study’ numbers that can’t be divided and 50-year-old rocks from the Moon. Meanwhile, we have real problems to solve.”

“Well, I don’t know about dinosaurs and Moon rocks, but Prime Numbers are useful, particularly in cryptography.”

“Yeah, well I know about dinosaurs. That bozo is going to clone one, turning what was an ‘extinct’ species into an ‘endangered’ species; then he’s gonna want more of my taxes to keep it alive. People should understand that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”

“So, should we not have another round?”

“We should, but we shouldn’t spend my money. Cheryl…”