Incident At The Market
After selecting about thirty dollars worth of groceries from the shelves I took them up to the least busy cashier and placed them on the moving check-out stand. Only one other customer was ahead of me and he was being taken care of. Glancing down I noticed a clean, white, sealed envelope on the floor. I picked it up, noticed that it had a Chase Bank logo, that it was indeed sealed, and it felt as though it contained a sheaf of currency about a quarter-inch thick.
Without a second thought, I handed it to the cashier and told her I'd just found this on the floor. She had finished checking out the other customer, and as soon as she saw what it was, and feeling its thickness, she exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, this must belong to that elderly lady who just left a few minutes ago." After checking out my stuff and taking my payment for the groceries, she thanked me profusely, switched off her "OPEN" light, and said, "I'm taking this to my manager immediately."
I left the store and it wasn't until I was a couple of blocks down Speedway Boulevard before I thought, 'Hey, there might have been hundreds of dollars in that envelope. I could have just stuck it in my pocket and nobody would have known about it."
Which, of course, is almost true.
I would have known about it.
You see, if I have learned anything in my lifetime (so far) it's that the memories of all those 'little' things I have done in the past which have 'hurt' other people are the things that persist in coming back to haunt me, to bring with them the dull pain of deep personal regret. The quickly blinked away tears of a wife who suffered in silence at my harsh words of condemnation at some petty mistake she'd inadvertently made. The disappointment on a child's face when I (unreasonably and selfishly) refused to attend a school or sports function. And a million other such stupid happenings.
Yes, if I had kept that money that didn't belong to me . . . I would have known.
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Last night the two presidential candidates, incumbent Barack Hussein Obama and the former Massachusetts Governor Willard Mitt Romney (Mormon), squared off for the first nationally telecast debate against each other in this politically turbulent year of 2012.
I did not watch it.
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Notice:
NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) today, Thursday, Oct. 4, to provide a status update on the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater.
Audio and visuals of the event will be streamed live online HERE
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Some of the numbered amounts within the discipline of mathematics almost rival the mind-staggering vastness of the universe itself.
For instance:
A Googol is a very large number! It is a "1" followed by one hundred zeros.
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
A Googolplex is the world's second largest number with a name. It is a "1" followed by a googol (defined above) of zeros. (I hope I got that right)
Now that is a really big number.
And the world's largest number with a name is Googolplexian, which is a "1" followed by a googolplex of zeros. (I hope I got that right)
WOW!
How many galaxies filled with stars exist within the universe?
A Googol? A Googolplex? A Googolplexian?
How many stars?
Uncountable.
WOW!
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WORD FOR TODAY
invective
noun
Insulting, abusive, or highly critical language.
Synonyms:
abuse - vituperation - insult
Susan Sarandon (born Susan Abigail Tomalin) is an American actress. She has worked in movies and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her work. She is also noted for her social and political activism for a variety of liberal causes.
Born: October 4, 1895
Died February 1, 1966
Died February 1, 1966
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".
Born: October 4, 1822
Died January 17, 1893
Died January 17, 1893
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th President of the United States (1877-1881). As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution. Hayes was a reformer who began the efforts that led to civil service reform and attempted, unsuccessfully, to reconcile the divisions that had led to the American Civil War fifteen years earlier.
Born: Oct. 4, 1923
Died April 5, 2008
Died April 5, 2008
Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter) was an American actor of film, theater and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), El Cid, and Planet of the Apes. He also is well known for his roles in the films The Greatest Show on Earth and Touch of Evil.
Heston was also known for his political activism. In the 1950s and 1960s he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak openly against racism and was an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. Initially a moderate Democrat, he later supported conservative Republican policies and was president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003.
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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
Carl Sagan
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