On this ride, your hosts Steve and Mal hurtle from Point A to Point B while contemplating the road not taken, the road that might still be taken, and lessons learned, back and forth.
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Show notes:
Apparently, the phrase “vampire skills” is at least somewhat commonly used to refer to the powers typically attributed to vampires. You know, supernatural strength, immortality, shapeshifting (bats and so forth), that kind of thing. Mal’s use of the phrase in this ep. to refer to skills perhaps best learned before forever, in case of non-immortality, deserves at the very least a nod for innovative thinking.
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Here are two photos of your basic partial trebuchet:
And speaking (again) of scams and cons, the FBI has a nice web page that discusses common varieties of those dastardly things, with tips on how to avoid becoming victim to them: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/scams-and-safety/common-frauds-and-scams. (And a link on that page can lead you to some nifty FBI videos about scams.)
Advice on how to notice the sky, from an astronomer’s point of view: https://www.astronomy.com/observing/learn-how-to-observe-the-sky-in-10-easy-steps/.
Life hacks (available on the Internet, anyway) seem to come in two varieties: tips about food, cleaning or household chores or organizing, on the one hand, and psychological life hacks, on the other. For the latter, seven useful hacks are described at https://medium.com/@Abdulsalamabdul864/7-psychology-hacks-that-made-my-life-10x-better-that-no-one-taught-me-in-school-d5f38799ec81.
[Edit to add this from our listener/commenter extraordinaire, Dragonmom:]
A good number of years ago, in a rare moment of clean-out-the-basement-impulse (that’s all one word in German), I asked Mal what they wanted to happen to their trebuchet. They told me to give it a viking funeral and let it go. I sent Mal the photo below, and placed the trebuchet at the curb to be hauled away. However, Steve decided that it was always good to have a trebuchet on hand in case of need, and retrieved it. So it lives on, albeit somewhat the worse for having been ransacked for parts.
