November 21, 2007 at 3:17 p.m.
Turkeys - too fast, too many, too small?
Turkeys - too fast, too many, too small?
Turkey Day
Israel leads the world in per capita turkey consumption. The United States is third. Wild turkeys can run at speeds of up to 25 mph and fly as fast as 55 mph.
It is projected that, for the first time this year, Americans will drink more wine than Italians. Only the French drink more. More than 80 percent of the wine bottles, worldwide, are still sealed with corks.
Ya Gotta Have Faith
Stephen Jackson was arrested last year for firing a gun in a public place. He was also one of the primary instigators in the brawl in Detroit when Indiana Pacers went into the stands.
The Golden State Warriors have made him a co-captain. This season he came to training camp with a new tattoo - clasped hands praying in front of a church. The praying hands hold a gun. You Gotta Wonder!
Global Warming and Belly Fat
If every American driver replaced 30 minutes of automobile driving a day with a half hour of walking, we would reduce our output of (greenhouse gas) carbon dioxide by 6.5 billion tons per year. We would also lose a collective 3 billion pounds of fat by burning trillions of calories. If we added 30 minutes per day of walking to our already strenuous workout schedules, Americans, on average, would lose 13 pounds per year.
Don't try this at home!
A commonly used method to measure peoples' thresholds of pain is to use a bucket of ice water. You simply immerse your arm in the cold water and see how long you can keep it there. Radio talk show host Dr. Dean Edell cautions that it is "possible" to cause tissue damage if you're "dumb enough" to leave it submerged too long.
Too Small?
Viking fans may remember "Little Leo Lewis," who was a return man-wide receiver during the Bud Grant era. I don't remember how big he was, but 5'7" and 160 pounds seems to stick in my mind. He was successful competing against behemoths.
Todd Gallagher, author of, "Andy Roddick Beat Me With a Frying Pan," was curious to find out how a major league pitcher would stand up against a team of midgets. He arranged for a whole team of vertically challenged players, some shorter than 36 inches, to face former big leaguer Dana Kiecker. The ex-Red Sox hurler walked nine in the first inning and was so exhausted that he quit after after three outs.
He got the idea because he thought that it was blatantly unfair of Major League Baseball to ban small batters after former White Sox owner Bill Veeck used a midget as a pinch hitter.
How small is too small?
Phil Rizutto was so small that then Yankee Manager Casey Stengel initially told him to, "Go home and pick up a shoe-shine box." Rizutto went on to become an MVP and hall-of-fame shortstop who eventually was the Yankee play-by-play announcer for more than 40 years.
How many is too many?
I was waiting at a stop sign, trying to make a left turn onto highway 8 the other day. All kinds of things went through my tiny little mind in the next few minutes. The longer I waited, the more, "It's just getting to dang crowded around here," kept bouncing around in all that unoccupied and unused intracranial space.
Later, I ran across a website called ZIPskinny, that explores census data by Zip Code. The geographer in me loves to look at demographic information.
How crowded? I found that 29 of 30 most crowded zip codes are in New York. The most crowded has 154,874 people per square mile. The only non-New York zip in the top 30 is in Trenton, New Jersey. All of the most crowded 100 are in New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois, Washington or D.C. The only one in the Midwest is in Chicago. That Windy City zip is 94th with 34,727 per square mile.
At least 100 zip codes boast 100 percent of adults (25 and older) who have graduated from high school. One of those (55455 in the University of Minnesota area) is in Minneapolis.
A dozen zips report that 100 percent of their adults hold four-year college degrees. The closest to us is in Iowa City, Iowa, home of the U of Iowa. The only Minnesota one in the top 100 is 55455, coming in 61st with 79.3 percent.
Seven zips report that 100 percent of their adults have earned graduate (Masters or Doctorates) dgrees. None are in Minnesota. A bunch of them are in Massachusetts.
2000 census data reveals that 10 zip codes are inhabited by residents who have median family incomes averaging over $200,000. Three of those are in Delaware, two in Florida and California and one each in New York, North Carolina and Illinois. None of the richest 100 zip codes is in Minnesota. Number 100 averages $118,901.
It occurs to me that many of those communities "Sound Wealthy." Some of those are Mill Neck, New York, Pacific Palisades, California, and Essex Fells, New Jersey.
The youngest median age, 12, is in a Kansas City, Missouri Zip. Minnesota has none in the top 100. But Redby and Ponemah, both on the Red Lake Reservation, are both in the 120's and have the lowest median ages in the state (18).
Zip code 29177 (White Rock, South Carolina) has the oldest median age (85). None of the 100 oldest zips are in Minnesota. The closest is a place called Pigeon Falls, Wisconsin (54760). They average 68 years. Older zip codes are concentrated in Florida, California and Arizona.
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