A picture of my grandfather standing next to a woman, taken before he met my grandmother, and she is holding a baby. It didn't surface until after grandpa's funeral. It was taken 500 miles away from where my family lives. I live in that other city now. I wonder if I've met my half aunt or uncle randomly in passing?

I've rescued wasps from the pool as well even though they & I are mortal enemies. 1) it was in the water with me & I didn't want it considering me a liferaft, and 2) smushing it was not an option. It flew away, hopefully to tell its brothers that I'm worthy of a brief ceasefire.

I was on the beltway one night in a construction zone. They had jersey walls (concrete barriers) instead of cones and barrels to shift traffic. The SUV in front of me had not been weaving or worrying me at all when it drifted into the jersey wall in the left and just ground along it doing about 70. I expected them to jerk the wheel the other way, but they didn't. After a few seconds, they drifted back to the center of the lane. Just as I was thinking good on them for not panicking, they slammed back into the jersey wall and rode it until it ended. Their car was scraped all to hell. They had to have fallen asleep (passed out drunk). The grinding noise of car on concrete and flying sparks were too obvious to not be noticed by a conscious driver. I backed way off and fortunately was nearing my exit.

They can just keep on being upset. Their reaction kind of reinforces why I have the damn thing mostly disabled from its primary function anyway.

I briefly microwave my ice cream before eating.

I don't want it to be soupy. I'm going for soft. And I am too impatient to let it sit on the counter a bit to reach that sweet spot of consistency.

Sounds like you're looking for the time honored Bank of Mattress Stuffed with Cash or their counterpart, Coffee Can Under the Sink Savings & Loan.

If you're truly committing to off grid, go full analog.

Otherwise you just sound like a poorly veiled ad for some sketchy unregulated money exchange.

That... is something that I've never wondered about, but now you've got me contemplating the flavor profile of various mineral aggregates.

I can tell you what coal tastes like, not that I've eaten any. But when you burn it for heat, it gets everywhere. It's bitter and kind of earthy but not like rich topsoil. More like you've been tailgating a school bus on a dirt road for hours. And the dirt is charred.

Is no one else paranoid to put a free usb stick in their computer? I thought that was the classic social engineering hack.

(full disclosure: I'm not in I.T. and my info might be older than the hills)

This trick also works on pets. My cat finally caught on though. And she's only 2.

Sounds to me like you've got it covered.

When we drive over train tracks, we have to lift our feet so we won't get caught on the tracks. We'll be mid conversation and then both of us are lifting our feet all silly like.

Note the driver only does this when it's safe to do so. If traffic is slow or stopped on the other side, we're not just going to rear end anyone.

That last one... (o.O)