I was reading the other day that the Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies. So does that mean if a plane has to make an emergency landing, they can do it on a highway? And if so, why did they land that plane in the Hudson River in New York City instead of using a highway?

I’m not a comfortable flier to begin with. In fact, I avoid it if at all possible.  I drive to visit family in Salt Lake City when I can. Of course, last year my grandmother took a turn for the worse and I had to go back to see her before she died. Which meant I had to fly. And not only that, but last minute airfares are outrageous — it was more than $800 to get a seat the next day.

I had no choice, but also no credit cards. So I searched online for a quick loan through a car title loan store.  I found Car Title Loans in Salem, and it was exactly what I needed.  I borrowed $1000 off my old-but-paid-for Honda, and was able to leave the next evening.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to do an emergency landing and I got to spend some time with my grandmother in her last days.

The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds.

This may seem like a small bit of trivia to a lot of people. But it matters when you are involved in an organic, free-range chicken business. And last year, I was.

My cousin the hippie talked me into investing in her free range chicken farm. The idea was organic eggs and great tasting chickens. She needed $2000 and I decided it was worth trying. She had just gone through a divorce and I wanted to help her out.

The 13 seconds part came into play. Her property butts up against a creek, and she laid out her pens to go up to the creek, rationalizing the creek would keep the chickens penned in “without feeling caged.” They weren’t caged alright. About 80% of those cluckers flew the coop — we figured out the flight time to cross the creek was more like 8 or 9 seconds.

So I lost that $2000, just at a time when I needed it for another emergency. What did I do? I used Car Title Loans in Hillsboro, a car title loans store, to find the cash. It was painless, really, and I have been able to pay it back gradually (some things take longer than 13 seconds).

I married an engineer. He’s kind of a nerd, but he’s not bad to look at and a good provider. And, I can manipulate him. I needed to distract him one day, so I threw in front of him an equation I read in the paper: 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

That kept him busy for an hour, just long enough for him not to notice I was on my laptop working out a little problem.  I had smashed in my front bumper on the car, the old car, and we weren’t carrying collision insurance on it anymore.  He’s kinda critical of my driving, and yes, the accident was due to my talking on the phone while driving. So I just didn’t want him to see what happened or know that it was a $430 repair. For a week I had to be sure to pull into the garage so the way it was parked covered the damage. I managed to cover the expense “off the books,” so to speak, by getting a car title loan from Car Title Loans in Gresham, which was easy to do from my laptop. I paid it off from my own slush fund and he never knew a thing about it.

So the bottom line is if you marry an engineer, math problems are a great way to divert their attention.

Since my layoff last year, I decided to use my severance to pursue that age old mystery: Why a duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and why no one knows why.

It seemed like a containable pursuit. You get some ducks, you put them in some kind of a sound chamber, you measure things and you run it through some analytic process. I’m not an engineer or anything, but I figured if I looked into it I could find the answer and maybe get on a reality tv show. Like Erin Brokovich, sorta.

My wife wasn’t so happy about this plan. She got real upset when my savings ran out just when I found a student at Columbia College IT willing to take me up on this. Of course the ducks out in the garage weren’t making her happy either. So I needed about another $1500 to pay for the test.  I found Car Title Loans in Beaverton, a car title loans store online.  They were perfectly reasonable to deal with, and I got my money in time to get the test done.

Unfortunately, the test was inconclusive. But I’m writing a story about the process and maybe that will get on the Internet somewhere.  We ate the ducks, so that calmed my wife down just a bit.

The average life span of a major league baseball is seven pitches.  Seven. And I figure they each cost about, what, $30, so that’s a good $400 a game.  No wonder tickets to see the Portland Beavers are so expensive.  And don’t even talk to me about watching the Blazers.

My kid, he likes paintball.  We go to watch the Naughty Dogs all the time when they’re in town. And now that we have a roller derby league team, the Rose City Rollers, the wife wants to go there.  We’re real sports fans.

But wouldn’t ya know it, I got a bum leg from an accident a few months ago, so I can’t go to these events now. I’m just trying to get back to work, doing my therapy.  It’s been a tough go, taking disability and then having a lot of hospital costs. I was short of about $1200 last month, and wasn’t sure how to swing it. But my kid, he’s a smart one. He took me to a car title loans place on the internet, Portland Car Title Loans.  They gave me my money, almost $1500 all told, and I figure I can pay it back as soon as I get working again.

I told the kid we gotta go stand outside the park at PGE Park and catch some foul balls and home runs if we want to buy tickets there. HA!

My husband likes to impress everyone with his vast store of knowledge. This past Christmas he announced to everyone that In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

Yeah, he’s just an amazing pile of brains. The fact he bought a gas guzzler in early 2008, about three minutes before gas prices climbed to $4.00 a gallon was another one of his amazing moves.  He bought it with cash, too, because he had just received an inheritance. I suppose it was better than putting it into the stock market, especially with him, because his last investment in huge TV satellite dishes hit just before they tanked out of the market. He saw one at his cousin Marvin’s in Mississippi and thought it was the next big thing. What do you expect from someone who thinks it amazing he was best personal friends with Ken Kesey’s next door neighbor when he was in high school?

Well, my next big thing was discovering how his stupid, paid-for Cadillac Escalade actually comes in handy for more than camping trips. We came up short on cash a few months ago because of a broken washing machine, and I needed about $500 to get a new one. So I went to a car title loan company I found online. Sure enough, with Eugene Car Title Loans, I was able to get the $500 in two days.  Perfect solution, and finally that inheritance is helping me out too. It’s the closest thing to Superman in this house.