…of Ogre’s Ten Labours (I suppose I should be thankful it’s not twelve, and that I don’t have to go beat the crap out of the Nemean Lion. I hope not, anyway.)
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Strokin’ struuter’s ego. Seen that one. 
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My first act of kindness was fairly minor, but painful. I took a co-worker out to lunch today, and consciously (this is where the kindness comes in) asked him about his new house. See, he feels like his wife henpecked him into getting the new digs, and he resents the hell out of it. Trouble is, he doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends, so he doesn’t have anyone in whom to confide. So, knowing full well the aural assault I was about to get, I offered to be his sounding board. I hope he appreciates it, because it was a loooooooong lunch.
I stumbled on my second act of kindness by accident. My best friend ICQ’ed me this afternoon to tell me that his wife had called him (he’s in New Hampshire on business) to say that their cat had run into the attic after a repairman, and now couldn’t be found. So, mensch that I am (or sucker…you be the judge), I offered to try to find the cat. I spent 4 hours crawling through their attic trying to find that cat. Never found her. I actually am very worried about her. She’s a sweet little kitty. We ended up getting a trap from the Humane Shelter to see if we could lure her with food. Anyway, I have tiny, burning, itchy fiberglass fibers in every crevice of my body. Lord, how I itch! I even breathed some of the stuff in, and I can feel it in my throat. Blech!
My third act of kindness is pending. I agreed to go out of town to help a friend of my girlfriend’s to move. She got into a bad situation with an abusive guy, and she wised up and left. Unfortunately, all her stuff’s still where he lives. She called him, and he promised to be good, but I’m going along for moral support, lifting ability, and, I assume, to strong-arm the guy if he starts feeling froggy. The kicker is this: I really, really don’t like the woman. She’s condescending, and a total know-it-all. I’m not looking forward to making the trip, but I can’t let anything happen to her if there’s anything I can do about it.
3)Ten pointless, but interesting facts:
[ul]
[li]The little reflectors on the centerline of the road that go ka-whunk ka-whunk when you hit them were invented by a Dr. Botz, and are called “Botz Dots.”[/li][li]The highest mountain in the world is Everest, if you measure from sea level, Mt. St. Elias, if you measure total elevation change above and below sea level, or Chimborazo, if you measure from the center of the earth.[/li][li]The watersheds of the Ohio River, the Tennessee River, and the Mobile Bay watershed contain more species of fish than any other area of similar size in the world, except for the Amazon Basin.[/li][li]Most cheap vodka is made by treating hydrocarbons (oil products) with sulfuric acid, yielding ethanol. This is reportedly why many dedicated vodka drinkers will pepper their vodka, and wait for it all to sink – to get rid of any leftover impurities.[/li][li]The Pacific Northwest does not contain the only temperate rainforest on the North American continent, as is popularly believed. The Blue Ridge Mountains, especially the Great Smokies, also qualify, as they receive on average over 100 inches of rain per year.[/li][li]Jagermeister is distilled from cabbage.[/li][li]Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is now suspected of murdering his best friend over a story that Doyle had stolen from him.[/li][li]Colonel Staff headed up the U.S. military’s crash test program during the '40’s and the '50’s. He used himself as a crash test dummy. On his last crash test, his rocket sled was accelerated to 632 mph and then suddenly stopped in a quarter second. The deceleration exposed him to 45 G’s. His lungs collapsed and both his retinas detached, but he fully recovered.[/li][li]The Appalachian System of mountain chains (more on that in the next factoid) are the oldest extant mountains in the world, at 450 million years.[/li][li]The Appalachians, the Cambrian Mountains (in England and Scotland, and the mountains forming the spine of Norway (is there a general name for these mountains?) were at one time one giant chain of mountains. They were formed during the same orographic event.[/li][/ul]
4)struuter’s new sig (comments, modifications, and outright rejections are welcome): “The SDMB’s first Mentor. The rootin’-est, tootin’-est cowpoke that ever lassoed an Ogre and made him beg for mercy.”
- Two facts about ten separate posters:
::Under construction:: 
I just didn’t want struuter to think I’d forgotten. I’m sleepy now. Think I’ll go crash. More later.
