Brain Teaser, #8.

Mary was working in a chemistry lab with a mixture of chemicals that was 90% water and weighed 20 pounds. After returning to the lab from a weekend break, she calculated the mixture was now 50% water. How much does the mixture now weigh?
[For purposes of this puzzle, assume the non-water part of the mixture was not affected by evaporation.]

Discuss, Poll #43, Winter's Cold.

No, I'm not talking about the sniffles, this time, but I am talking about the 35 degree temps that have recently come back to the Midwest.

I remember last year in MKE when it was so cold the inside of your nose would half-freeze because of the cold air being breathed in. That's cold.

Results, Poll #42, Vote.

Wow, I'm honestly pretty amazed at how the t.c readership continues to be models of health, intellect, and now civic duty. A totally resounding result for this week's poll and, dare I say, the election as well.

> 13 (92%) people did vote in the election. Based on the elections's end result, I can guess who most of the 13 respondents voted for, we all could.
> Only 1 (7%) r.c reader was unable able to cast a ballot for president, but I suspect this was due to voter registration over apathy? It does highlight the importance of being registered well before an election day.

We picked up one more respondent than usual this week, 14 in all. I'm going to have to think of a good poll question to keep everyone involved. And since this is the presidential poll and poll number 42 for this blogger - who was the 42nd president?

Quality with a capital 'Q', Part I.

Here's some pics of Minneapolis, an interestin company building and, uh, that's it really. I can also say without a doubt, the drive from CHI to MPL is about 7 hours of cheesy Wisconsin goodness.

Minny got a really light coat of snow during the trip. It didn't amount to much on the roads, but it made the trees look nice.

This building is LEED certified (i.e. very enviro-friendly) and has a 40 megawatt solar panel array on the roof. I've heard it's the largest such array in the Upper Midwest. Powerful stuff. (I could have said "shocking" instead?)

The building is mostly warehouse, but since they are encroaching on forest preserve, they keep building up rather than out. Inside one wing of the building, special forklifts run on an almost prefectly level concrete floor and bring the driver up to heights of 35ft to pick products off the really really tall stacks of shelving. The guys wear what is basically a climbers harness while on the forklift. Falling would be bad.

It's kind of cool to have paved running and riding trails on one end of your company's parking lot... esp if you're a bike company.

Discuss, Poll #42, Vote.

SURPRISE!
I'm on the mend and thought I'd toss up a quick & dirty election day poll. If anyone has a good polling place story from the day, please share.

For example, when I voted in the primaries last year, I went to two different polling places (the first one was indicated on my voter card, but wrong) and all in all took about two hours. I had decided to go on foot and wound up walking waaay more than expected. Plus, at the 2nd polling place, I had to talk to "Shirley" to get my issues sorted out, since they had no ballot ready for me. Fun, but I did vote.

Results, Poll #41, Hallow's Eve.

BOO - Let's have a gander, shall we:

> 3 females (23%) chose 'always, i love the holiday' - lookie there! girls love this holiday - yay!!!
> 0 males (0%) chose 'always, i love the holiday' - well well well, no guys love the holiday, not even one!
> 1 female (7%) chose 'yep, i got a party to go to' - i wonder what this female would have chosen if she not had a party to go to... hmmm?
> 1 male (7%) chose 'yep, i got a party to go to' - too bad dude... and i wonder if this party and your costume were done to please a woman in your life? Do tell!!!
> 6 females (46%) chose 'nah, it's for kids' - so a good amount of women don't really care about it, ok, fine.
> 2 males (15%) chose 'nah, it's for kids' - seems about right to me.

And we also see t.c has considerably more female readers than male (10 to 3, and one of the guys is myself). Perhaps I'm that much of a ladies man, but I can assure you that's not the case. I think a more likely explanation is that women, in general, are more prone to use this kind of medium to keep tabs on those around them. After all, this is blog for family and friends. Women talk on the phone more, and I think it makes sense they'd check on a friend's blog more too.

New poll NOT up now... whose ready for break this week? I'm sick and traveling to interview. Sorry.

Can Cell Phones Pop Popcorn?

No way... right?