Countdown to 2010, #3

Ten Things I Learned in 2009

• My dog knows his way home.
  


• It is approximately 2 minutes faster to travel between my apartment and the institute building via Plymouth and 5th than via Fuller, and I have data to back it up.


• It takes more than three coats of yellow paint to adequately paint a chair. (I never figured out how many more than three coats because I ran out of paint.)
  


• Serrano peppers are spicier than jalapeño peppers and you should not touch them with your bare hands. Or touch your eyes with your serranoed hands the next morning. Or your mouth.


• "Sale" prices at many stores are really the actual prices that they expect you to pay. The "original" price is an inflated price. It's a trick to get you to buy stuff.


• Improv sketches work best when you always go along with what the other person is doing and don't block them. You may think you have the best idea in the world for where the sketch should go, but it will always work better when you build off of each others' ideas rather than trying to force your own ideas on to the situation.


• There are more numbers in the world that begin with lower digits (1, 2, 3) than higher digits (7, 8, 9). It's called Benford's law. It's mind-boggling.


• If you've lost something, it's probably under the couch or the couch cushions.
  


• God knows our thoughts and the intent of our heart. He can see past our actions to our intentions, and the Atonement is there to make right what we as humans are apt to make wrong.


• Only God knows our thoughts and the intent of our heart. Other people don't. That's why it's so important to communicate with the people we care about, in whatever form that communication takes.