things i now know

Today I know two new things that I didn't know yesterday thanks to my visit to government contracting boot camp here in Plymouth.


1.  Having access to all of the everything in the world (thank you internet) is a good way to lessen my ability to remember stuff.  Said another way, without access to the internet, you have to start remembering stuff.  If you can't look it up on the internet, you might just have to find it in your brain's filing system.  This gives me hope that my memory files aren't quite as corrupted as I thought.  Might not need to refrag my brain after all.  This seems good to me.


2.  Until I came to Plymouth, I'd never seen a sign on a freeway entrance that read, "Watch for buses on shoulder."  I've puzzled over that every morning on my way to class.  Why would buses be on the shoulder?  Does this happen often?  This bus-breaking-down issue?  Is this because of the cold weather?  What happens to the school children on these broken down buses?  Why are buses taking kids on the freeway and breaking down?  Yes.  These have been my thoughts.  Today I figured out, firsthand, without the Internet, what those signs really mean.  I figured it out when a public transit bus passed me on the right on the shoulder of the freeway.  Yes.  A bus passed me on the right.  At first I thought it was simply an aggressive bus driver, tired of waiting for traffic to clear, but it turns out public transit buses are allowed, no encouraged, no expected to drive on the shoulder of the freeway during rush hour.  Who knew?  And aren't I glad I didn't move my big-ass SUV over in front of that stinkin' aggressive bus driver.  Yes,  I'm glad.


So there you go.  I probably won't make it to the headwaters of the Mississippi or to the MALL OF AMERICA (which is so big I think it needs to be in all CAPS), but I did learn two new things.  So there's that.