He could swallow a piece of coal and dump a diamond.

Our local classical music station is having its semi-monthly fund drive. One of the gifts for those who become regular contributors at a particular level is a signed CD by Renee Fleming, who visited the station last month. And I don't care that you think I'm weird for being this close to sending them money to have that CD.
(Remember who sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl? Huh??)

Later in the morning they played an aria from the opera, "Aida." (Saturday is opera day on NPR and today included the last live performance from the Met for this season.) At the end of the track the announcer said Aida is a dangerous opera for conductors. The track he played was from a performance conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli, who a few years after this one died on stage of a heart attack while conducting that Aida - specifically, the chorus known as "The Funeral March."

But wait! There's more!
Two conductors, Felix Motti and Joseph Keilberth, collapsed and died at exactly the same point while conducting the opera, "Tristan and Isolde." These and more on-the-job deaths of conductors so scared the late Herbert Von Karajan that he commissioned a study to see if there was something about the stress of conducting an opera that induced death. Maybe, but he died of a heart attack at his home while watching the D'backs lose yet another home game.
OK, that last part maybe not.

I don't understand microwaves. It doesn't matter so long as they heat my food but it still bothers me. (Not enough to go do the research.) Some things get hot, others don't. Some things, like the plate, only get hot because the food on it was heated by the microwave. The microwave cares if there are six pieces of bacon or one. (So do I.) The stove doesn't give a whit. Do two thin pieces of bacon take more or less time than one thick piece? That is, does mass or volume make the difference?
Yeah, I could go to Wikipedia and learn all about it, but it's easier to call it magic...and eat the bacon.

And for you purists who say it's a travesty to nuke bacon, get over yourself. It's BACON. There is no wrong way to do bacon.

"Did you do the work or write the checks?"
The first time I took the Bug to the monthly gathering at the local VW dealership a guy who runs a restoration shop in the East Valley looked it over and asked me that question. I told him that except for the engine rebuild and paint job it was all my work.
There are two kinds of old car drivers. OK, three. Some are driving "as I found it" cars, and that class is getting a lot of respect the last few years. "They're only original once" is the mantra that says if it's reasonably presentable and safe, leave it alone. Patina is the byword, and obvious signs of real world use now actually drives the price up.
Someone who decides to restore a car to some level either does the work or writes the checks. When seen driving down the road nobody who turns their head knows the difference. But the guy behind the wheel does, and within the fraternity it matters.
I'm doing a better job with the truck than I did with the VW, but that's a matter of experience - doing some steps for the second time and knowing which require a deliberate, detailed focus. The body work and engine rebuild are rookie steps for me, but even there the VW project is paying dividends. I'm taking a longer range view of things, slowing down with individual steps knowing that the extra hour spent getting this little thing right is time well spent over the 2-3 total years the project will take.
Yeah, there are dozens of good sermon illustrations in here, but I'll keep them in my head and use them in my own spiritual journey. With one or two exceptions, nobody at Pathway wants to hear a string of stories about an old pickup.