Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

I'm sure a lot of thought goes into the build of a car, but sometimes I really gotta question the logic behind some of the mechanisms. Like, how my husband has to take off the left front wheel in order to access the car battery. I know this wasn't just an oversight, because the engineers added terminals accessible from under the hood, so that you can still jump the battery without having to undo some lugnuts. But there are some things that you don't find out until you are in a specific situation. Like getting to your car after work, realizing the battery is absolutely dead--no lights, no sounds, nothing--and you need to get to your jumper cables in the trunk, but discover that the "pop the trunk open" button does not  work without battery power, and unfortunately the trunk doesn't have a keyhole. And it's a compact car, non-hatchback. Thankfully I was able to reach the cables by accessing the trunk through a small opening in the back seat--a secret hole th...

 As an aside, it is easiest to learn something new every day if you forget what you already knew. I am discovering that as I have to quickly re-learn various medical skills/facts that I haven't used in the past 2 years. [btw, in case you're wondering why it is easier to learn the same thing, it's because I already have all of the sources that I used the first time through.] This past week, I learned which way was north in relation to my apartment. I had thought the sun rose outside our bedroom window, making that direction east, making the left side north if I were facing east. Turns out the sun sets  out our bedroom window, making that direction west. I would have fared better just randomly guessing which direction the window faces, because north/south is closer to west than east is [so 3 out of 4 would be more right than the very wrong answer that I chose]. And another thing: did you know that although shredding mushrooms in a food processer does get the mushrooms in smal...