- Pineapple quince is good for baking like apples, and eaten fresh it is like a green pear but very dry. (Something is telling me I might have learned and forgotten this one before!) I didn’t pick one – only saw them, took a photo, and asked The Farmer, who supplied me with this answer.
- Want to know why painters wear white? There are several reasons, including tradition. It was the official color of the painters union, is the base color of almost all paints (couldn’t be the base of the dark colors, could it?? of course not!), is cooler in the heat, signifies to others a professional appearance and approach to work, and shows all the layers of work done. Finally, if you see people wearing white, it might make you careful about what you touch.
- What is BCE and why instead of BC? BC means before Christ; BCE is the newer way of indicating time and stands for Before Common Era. (You can probably infer the reason for the push to change the old designations).
- In the same vein, AD means Anno Domini, which is Latin for “year of our Lord”; it is now called CE for Common Era. This implies there will be another era ahead – will it be called UE for Uncommon Era?
- A few months ago, I learned that the dial tone on the phone is F#. Being a curious person, I decided to test it. IT ISN’T F#! It is a flat A – not A-flat (can’t find the symbol for the musical flat sign on my computer keyboard – maybe I will learn that next month).
- It isn’t wise to schedule a blog post series during an active art show. I wrote the chapters of “How I Designed a Logo” before IMAGES OF HOME opened, scheduled it ahead to run on consecutive days, and then my show happened with many fun things to show and tell. Now I keep interrupting the flow of “How I Designed a Logo”, and it dilutes the impact of this large and important (to me and D-Bar-J) custom job. I hope you are enjoying the series despite the start-and-stop nature.
- I lowered the price on The Cabins of Wilsonia from $50 to $40; the sales picked up right away! Is this because the website store page has a tag on it that reads “Sale!“? If I knew this, maybe I’d drop all my prices by a dime or a dollar and mark it as being “on sale”. But alas, I didn’t learn anything solid other than lowering the price increased the sales.
- Badgers have a white stripe on their heads. I’ve never seen a badger but my UPS driver saw one dead on the side of the road near Kaweah Oaks Preserve, took a picture and showed me.
Did you learn anything in November? (Does anyone besides me keep track?)
5 Comments
2-3. They’ll try anything to ignore the one Man who had the most influence in human history. Merry Christmas!
4. I might opine that we could accurately label the last 2 years “UC.”
5. I use the lower case b to indicate a flat, as in, Ab. After careful search in MS Word, there is a symbol for the sharp sign ? (although most people just use the number sign #) but nothing for flat. That must change! I’ll write to Mr. Gates right away.
7. I heard it said that the one word that results in the most customer interest is the one you discovered!
8. Oregon beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl . . . twice!
Sharon, your commentaries on my Learned Lists are fun. They cause me to look back over my list to carefully consider your thoughts.
2-3. Merry Christmas to you!
4. I can’t figure out “UC” – Under China?
5. It would be more useful to me if you could ask Steve Jobs about the flat symbol. And isn’t it strange that # isn’t adequate for a sharp so they have another version but b is supposed to suffice for a flat? I’m guessing that if we italicize the # or the b it would look closer.
8. Oregon has a team called the “Badgers”? I can’t stand football and pay zero attention to such matters. Or is Wisconsin the Badgers? (Don’t answer – I don’t care). But thank you for that cute spin on #8!
4. Whoops, my mistake! That should be “UE,” although “Under China” would also qualify for the last 2 years!
8. Wisconsin’s football team is The Badgers! Oregon (my alma mater) is the The Ducks!
8a. Do you know what “alma mater” means?
Someone’s mama named Alma. I know what it means in English, but hang on a pair of minutes while I go find Grandma’s Latin dictionary… never mind. It was a book of poetry and in French. Hang on another pair of minutes while I ask Uncle Google – wait, no, I will ask the Duck . . . “nourishing mother”, so it refers to the university (mother) at which you studied (were nourished), and more commonly, from which you graduated. It is December, and I have now learned something new.
See? Now this can be your #1 in your “What I Learned In December” list!
P.S. The Duck Duck is my friend, too, and not only because it’s Oregon’s mascot!
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