Category Archives: Muddled Musings

Make Me a Gift of Arrow and Quiver

buy Clomiphene online with mastercard I came upon California quite by accident.

I was the transportation reporter for USA Today and based out of metro Washington, D.C. The paper sent me to Los Angeles to cover a NAFTA event, or conference, or duel, or orgy or something. That’s all I remember about the assignment.

What I’ll never forget is my rental car: A Chrysler Sebring convertible. And it was February, like now. And it was sunny, like now. And it was warm, like now.

I was so overcome by the glow that I remember putting the top down, hitting the first freeway out of the airport and driving, according to the freeway signs, toward the Mojave Desert.

I don’t think I reached it, but I may has well: I remember seeing an actual tumbleweed. I had only seen them in Bugs Bunny cartoons, yet there on was. Just rolling — on my side of the highway.

So I got out. And chased it in my Dockers and button-down. I don’t know why: I just needed to know it was real. And when I caught it, I brought it back and forced it into the trunk, like a hostage. I don’t know why I did that, either. But the Avis rental agent who checked me in must have been thrilled to see the mass of dry twigs in the trunk.

I knew then I was a California boy. I think the state does that to some people. For those who choose to call it home, there’s something that eclipses the vanity and humanity of the place, and there is certainly too much of both.

But there’s something to Cali that still feels American, in all the right ways, to me. There are parts of the West that still look as it must have to the settlers. Still open. Still warm. Still open to possibilities.

Like a tumbleweed.

So in honor this week of National California Day (Feb. 22), a FactSlap column, Golden Bear Edition:

  • With a population of 39.5 million people, California is the most populous US state.
  • Inventions from California include the hula hoop, the Egg McMuffin, Barbie, WD-40, California rolls (sushi), Cobb salad, the Shirley Temple (alcoholic beverage), and the nicotine patch.
  • If California were a country, it would be the fifth-largest economy in the world, larger even than the United Kingdom, France, or India.
  • California is the birthplace of the film industry, hippy counterculture, the Internet, the personal computer, fast food, and beach culture.
  • California is the third largest state, after Alaska and Texas.
  • California is about the same size as France, Spain, and Sweden combined, at 1,040 miles long and 560 miles wide.
  • There are more national parks in California than in any other state, with 9 out of the 59 parks.
  • Humans settled in California as early as 19,000 years ago

Chew on This

In honor of National Bubblegum Day, a FactSlap column (Bazooka Joe remix):

  • Children in North America spend approximately half a billion dollars on bubblegum every year.
  • The largest piece of gum ever was equivalent to 10,000 pieces of chewing gum.
  • 100,000 tons of bubblegum is chewed every year all around the world.
  • Sixty to 70 percent of bubble gum is sugar.
  • One of the most famous, but false facts, is that swallowed gum will remain in your gastrointestinal tract for seven years. It is not so. Swallowed bubble gum will not get stuck to your intestines, but will pass through your system, because gum base cannot be digested, as it has fiber that is indigestible.
  • Scientists found a 9,000-year- old wad of chewing gum in Sweden.
  • The average American chews around 300 sticks of gum in one year.
  • The first bubble gum ever marketed was done so under the name “Blibber-Blubber”.
  •  According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest bubble ever blown measured 23 inches in diameter.