From: Todd S
To: Odd Todd <oddtodd7@hotmail.com>
Subject: Today's "What's Happening" (5-25-06)
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 12:59:36 -0700 (PDT)

Hey Todd!

I seldom see a post that speaks to me so directly as today's "What's
Happening?" (although the previous entry about the cereal bags comes
pretty close). Allow me to share my reactions:

(1) Oregano - My father and brother were fussy eaters, so we never
had anything other than the most basic table condiments. Mom is a
fantastic cook, so I'm sure she was getting the spices in somewhere, I
just wasn't aware. Then, not too long after I got out of college, I
was lunching with a co-worker at Subway, and he had the sandwich
artisit put oregano on his 6" turkey with ham. I tried it on my footlong roast beef and was hooked.
I've put oregano in just about all of my hot food since then; oregano
and I have been together for close to 18 years now.

(2) Plutonium - Old no. 94 is definitely one of my favorites. In
your research, did you uncover that plutonium is so radioactive that it
is actually warm to the touch? I don't want to know what happened to
the guy who found that out.

 I've never had any direct dealings with plutonium, but I do have a
chemistry story. Our final exam in Qualitative Chemistry in college
was we had to analyze a powder - there were something like 22 steps,
and if you screwed any one of them up, you would get the wrong answer.
Luck was on my side - the sample that was randomly selected for me was
a distinctive dull pinkish-purple color, and there's only one such animal: cobalt chloride.

So when I got a test result that didn't indicate cobalt or chloride, I
knew I had to repeat the test and fix my mistake. Okay, its nowhere
near as cool as your story, but it was either that or the one about how
they piped "Sister Christian" into the lab all day until it drove us crazy.

 (3) Chester A. Arthur - I actually chose Chester for my President
report in 11th grade, but my teacher wouldn't let me do it - she
thought he was too trivial and that I wasn't taking the assignment
seriously. While it was true that I wasn't taking the assignment
seriously, I wasn't being trivial at all about Chester A. Arthur. He
was a member of the infamous Tammany Hall (sp?) New York political
machine, and he was put on the ticket with James Garfield to guarantee the support of
Republicans in that state.

Garfield won a disputed election, and six months later somebody shot
him dead, making Chester the only machine politician ever to become President.
Now why would anyone have a problem with me writing about that? I
ended up having to write about Franklin D. Roosevelt - ho-hum. I wish
I'd known at that time that he was crippled with polio from the time he
became President and the press helped cover it up - the times, they
have a-changed. Isn't it so sad that I remember all of this?

Incidentally, did you know that the only president of a national
labor union ever to become President of the United States was Ronald Reagan?

I enjoy your website and visit every day. My site is coming along -
I just got a loan to help start my video production business, too. I'd
like to be a FOOT, but I have to learn how to make a banner first.

I'll keep you up to date.

Todd

P.S. I wrote to Mr. Deng not too long ago - nice guy!

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From: "Kathleen
To: oddtodd7@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 09:09:28 -0400

I don't know if this will make you feel better or not, but Chester A.
Arthur was actually a clue in Die Hard III. It was the school that the
'bomb' was in or whatever. Anyway, thought you might like to think that
your president wasn't SO lame...unless you hated Die Hard II, in which
case, disregard this e-mail. Have a great day!

K.

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From: Marc S
To: oddtodd7@hotmail.com
Subject: Chester A Arthur and Music
Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 23:26:09 -0700 (PDT)

Todd,

Tsk, tsk - proverbially bitch slapping a former Commander in Chief?
If you're ever lost and find yourself in Albany, you can see a 10 ft.
tall broze statue of President Arthur at Union College (except on the
weekends - every time I went to visit he was covered in TP and undies).
And for reasons I cannot explain, Chester A Arthur is commonly known as
the 'Father' of Civil Servants of the US. Hmm, what a horrible excuse
for a legacy.

Also, DUDE that Volta Sound song KICKS ASS! Very nice sir. If I
was in any way related to the Sadowsky guy that makes guitars and
basses in Brooklyn, I'd have him ship ya one - but, I'm not - soory.

Marc D

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