264 Space Station Trivia

Marcia Smith 0:00
What is a fluffernutter?

Bob Smith 0:05
Okay, and mine’s a little more sophisticated than that. How fast does the International Space Station orbit the Earth? And why was St Francis disowned by his father? Bad boy? Answers to these and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and

Marcia Smith 0:24
Marcia Smith.

Bob Smith 0:41
Welcome to the off ramp. A chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy, take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life with fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. So St Francis of Assisi, we think of him in such great terms. He was great with animals, with children, with thoughts. Why would his father disown him? Well, hmm, what did he do? What his father would disown him?

Marcia Smith 1:09
He liked birds more than his dad? No, no, I don’t know.

Bob Smith 1:13
It was about a lifestyle. It was a lifestyle choice.

Marcia Smith 1:15
Yeah, was he? Did he fall in love?

Bob Smith 1:20
That’s not it. Okay? It’s pretty simple. Actually. St Francis was born into a wealthy family. He had no theological background or training. He was a layman. When he gave away all of his possessions and embarked on a career of charity, he’d gone so far from his family tradition, his father disowned him.

Marcia Smith 1:37
Oh, geez, he was charitable.

Bob Smith 1:40
That’s right, he was the black sheep. He was the black sheep of the family.

Marcia Smith 1:45
Good riddance to family. Good Lord, no, you’re too generous. You’re out of the family. Yeah, sorry, you’re no good Oh, Lord, that is so sad. All right, fluffernutter, what the heck is a fluffernut?

Bob Smith 1:59
I don’t know if I even want to guess on that one. So you tell me what a fluffernutter is.

Marcia Smith 2:04
It’s one of at least 11 words recently added to the English dictionary, and it’s been around for a while. Okay, it may not be part of a well balanced diet, but a fluffernutter is one of the most decadent sandwiches imaginable. This gooey treat said to have been invented by Massachusetts resident Emma Curtis in 1918 contains marshmallow spread and peanut butter slathered between slices of white bread.

Bob Smith 2:32
Wow, this has got so many bad things going for it, doesn’t it?

Marcia Smith 2:37
However, the name fluffernutter wasn’t technically coined until an advertising campaign for marshmallow fluff in the 1960s they coined that word, and it wasn’t recorded in the dictionary until 2021

Bob Smith 2:50
fluffernutter. So what is it? Again? What would you call it? Marshmallow

Marcia Smith 2:54
spread and peanut butter slathered between slices of white bread?

Bob Smith
Sounds like it actually tastes good, probably.

Marcia Smith 2:54
Oh my god. And there is the difference between you and I Oh, right. Okay, let me give you just a few more things that I’ve learned about new words being put in the dictionary. I thought I knew what this was, but I did you know what a baller is?

Bob Smith 3:15
A baller? Yeah, a person who likes to engage in sports.

Marcia Smith 3:20
Yeah, back as far as 1586 it denoted an athlete who played a sport involving a ball Okay,

Bob Smith 3:27
so that was the original media 1586 that’s a long time now.

Marcia Smith 3:31
It means a lavish lifestyle, as in, it was clear from his frequent trips on his private jet that the actor lived a baller lifestyle. Okay? And I’ll get back to a couple others later.

Bob Smith 3:43
All right, Marcia, the International Space Station. How many times does that orbit the Earth in a day? Any idea? No,

Marcia Smith 3:50
but let me guess. Okay, I’ll say four, four

Bob Smith 3:54
times two, four times two. That’s eight times no,

Marcia Smith 3:59
I’m sorry. I’m confused. Yes, you are. What is it? 16

Bob Smith 4:03
times a day? Fast the ISS moves around the Earth at five miles per second. That’s the equivalent of 18,000 miles an hour. That’s how fast it’s moving. Oh, Lord. So it takes 90 minutes to go all the way around the Earth. Does that 16 times a day, 16 orbits. This brings up the question, how can you keep track of time when you’re seeing 16 sunsets and sunrise? Yeah. So what is the time zone that the 21st century astronauts use? The International Space Station? It

Marcia Smith 4:34
must be meantime or the international the Greenwich Mean Time.

Bob Smith 4:38
Yeah, right before the ISS occupants arrived at the station in november 2000 the 15 member countries agreed they would use Coordinated Universal Time, which is essentially Greenwich Mean Time. Greenwich Mean Time was established by the British astronomers in the 1700s it was adopted by the railways in 1847 and the International Meridian Conference. In 1884 so the International Space Station in the 21st century tells time using a standard devised in the 1700s that’s

Marcia Smith 5:07
interesting. I thought so too. Do you know how it relates to us? Say, like Central Standard Time or Eastern Standard Time? Yeah, it’s

Bob Smith 5:14
five hours ahead of Eastern time, six hours ahead of central time in the United States. Okay,

Marcia Smith 5:19
yeah, all right, good to know. I don’t know why, but it’s good to know. Is it all right? What do you have there been? Let me give you two more words recently added to the English dictionary, cringe. Now the word cringe is nothing new that’s been around since the 13th century. If you can imagine that wow as a verb form,

Bob Smith 5:39
as in, I cringed at that yes statistic you just gave Yes. Okay, yes.

Marcia Smith 5:43
But more recently, however, cringe has turned into an adjective and was awarded a new definition in 2022 Oh, okay, this usage redefines it as a slang term synonymous with embarrassing or awkward, as in that first kiss scene was so cringe, oh,

Bob Smith 6:02
instead of cringy or was, okay, well, it’s the same, it’s the same root word, I mean, it’s cringe. And

Marcia Smith 6:08
this is something, I think we all know what it is, but it’s now in the dictionary, Dad bod.

Bob Smith 6:14
Oh, Dad he’s got a dad bod. That’s right, we got dad jokes. Dad bod. There are other dad things that’s interesting. It’s

Marcia Smith 6:21
a phrase that describes a physique. Let’s just say it’s not Captain America. It doesn’t have definition, no muscular definition, and tends to have a bit of a belly. It

Bob Smith 6:30
looks like a pear shape, basically. Okay, all right. Marcia, yes sir. What musical term was first used on a Cleveland radio station in 1951 we’ve been living with it ever since. But Cleveland is where this term was coined, rock and roll. That’s right. How

Marcia Smith 6:46
did you know that? I know things? Oh, do you

Bob Smith 6:48
okay? And that was, that was Alan Freed. He was a DJ in Cleveland at the time. He later moved to New York, which is where he became more famous. On a 1951 radio broadcast, the moon dog rock and roll house party. He popularized the name for the new up tempo sound rock and roll. There

Marcia Smith 7:04
you go, Moon dog. The name was in some kind of, what was her name, Sandra Dee Beach Movie. She was called Moon dog? No, she had a boyfriend who was Moon doggie. Oh, really. Okay, I don’t know. I don’t remember. It was so long ago. Anyway, I’m going to give you multiple choice here. Who is the wealthiest athlete, Bob of all time as of 2025 Is it magic? Johnson, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, or Tom Brady,

Bob Smith 7:30
I thought it was Tom Brady, yeah, isn’t it? Nope, okay, so it must be Tiger Woods because of all the endorsements he got. Nope. Oh. Who is it? It is

Marcia Smith 7:39
Michael Jordan, all because of the shoes well and more. His net worth is estimated to be 3.7 5 billion. Wow. His wealth comes from his basketball career endorsements and the success of his Jordan Brand, along with his ownership of the Charlotte Hornets. He owns a team,

Bob Smith 7:57
okay, yeah, you know I remember from that movie about the shoes that his mother, she really made that deal for him, and he got a portion of every shoe that was made by Nike and everything. Can

Marcia Smith 8:07
you imagine good old mom and LeBron James, basketball player comes in with an estimated 1.7 billion. So, okay, so those are a few of the biggest, wealthiest athletes.

Bob Smith 8:21
Back to the space station. Just a few more things here. Okay, how many hours of space walk was required to assemble that who took 136 flights different nations?

Marcia Smith 8:31
I mean, imagine just putting yourself out into an empty void to build something that doesn’t exist. It

Bob Smith 8:37
really is amazing. It’s been up there for 2030, years, almost now. Gosh, by the end of primary construction, the first occupants came in 2000 but by 2011 that’s when it was finally completed. It consisted of more than 150 components and 14 pressurized modules. And astronauts had spent a combined total of more than 1000 hours in space walk to finish it, and that is the scariest thing. You know, you’re got a tether. You’re attached to the space station, but God, if that was separated, you just go floating off to nowhere like

Marcia Smith 9:10
in the movies. Yeah. Bye. Bye.

Bob Smith 9:14
The latest module to continue to accessorize. It was launched in July of 2011 by the Japanese. So they’ve added five more modules since 2011 they just keep building onto it. It’s supposed to last until 2031 that’s when it’s supposed to go out of commission. How much do you think it’s worth, though? How much did it cost to build altogether? Oh

Marcia Smith 9:34
my gosh, I can’t even fathom. $200 billion I hope we shared that with

Bob Smith 9:39
other. Oh yeah. There was five nations that put it together. Where are they? 59 billion came from the United States, 12 billion from Russia, 5 billion from Japan, billions from Europe, two billions from Canada. The rest of the money went into ferrying astronauts and components to and from the space station itself.

Marcia Smith 9:57
Okay, Bob, how old was the youngest American? American in World War Two, the

Bob Smith 10:02
youngest American in World War Two? Yeah, soldier. Going back to some of these kids that lied about their age to get into the army, he was probably 16 years old, yeah,

Marcia Smith 10:12
you’d think. But no, he was 12. What 12? How did that happen? Calvin Graham. Calvin l Graham was the youngest US military member during World War Two, and is still the youngest recipient of the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Wow. It wasn’t unusual for boys to lie about their age, but Graham was just 1212. Years old. He forged his mother’s signature and headed to Houston to enlist. He was 125 pounds, five foot two and was miraculously cleared for naval service and assigned to the USS, South Dakota as an anti aircraft gunner. Good Lord,

Bob Smith 10:48
he was put in harm’s way. He was and he performed admirably. Apparently, he did.

Marcia Smith 10:53
He was severely burned too, and thrown down three stories of the ship, but he still mustered the strength to tend to his severely wounded shipmates, 12 years old, amazing. He was honored for his heroism, but when his mother found out about the honor, she informed the navy of his real age and got him shipped back home. Well, I think that’s probably why she did it. Oh, it wasn’t until President Jimmy Carter learned of Graham’s story and restored his medals.

Bob Smith 11:19
Oh, so his Oh, everything was withdrawn from him. Yeah, wow, that that’s terrible, but he lied about his age, Yeah, but look at what he did for his country. And yeah. Okay, Marcia, what famous church hymn was written for a children’s parade? Speaking of children like this, fellow was a child. What famous hymn was written for a children’s parade?

Marcia Smith 11:40
Children’s parade. Was it? Onward? Christian soldier. That’s it. That’s the one. Is it really? Yeah, a lot

Bob Smith 11:46
of people think that’s a militaristic banging it today. Some people think it was written for the Crusades. But no, it was written for a children’s parade. Sabine baring Gould, who was a 19th century minister in harbor Yorkshire, roped it for his village’s children. They were marching to a neighboring town for a Sunday School rally, and he said, I wanted the children to sing when marching from our village to another. So he was searching for appropriate music. Couldn’t find anything that fit, and overnight, he scribbled the lines on a piece of paper. Came up with this hymn for the occasion. Onward Christian Soldiers marching as to war, he was an eccentric fellow. When he taught school, he had a pet bat perched on his shoulder. So he was an unusual pet bat, an unusual minister.

Marcia Smith 12:29
I’m just saying you won’t see rabbis with bats on their shoulders.

Bob Smith 12:34
A miss there. The original tune was from Haydn’s symphony in D but six years later, in 1871 Onward, Christian soldiers began to be sung to a melody entitled st Gertrude, a very catchy tune. Not a surprise, who was that written by

Marcia Smith 12:49
Gertrude Stein? No,

Bob Smith 12:52
yeah, I don’t know. William S Gilbert. Oh.

Marcia Smith 12:55
Gilbert and Sullivan, that’s right. Well, now that you mention it, it is perky. Likes operas. It is like

Bob Smith 13:00
those operettas, yeah, yeah. So that was the person who wrote the music. The words were written for a children’s parade. You know, the interesting these. Both of these guys were well known for many other things, and this is just like a footnote in their careers. Baring Gould, who wrote the words. He was a scholar educated Cambridge. He wrote 85 books on theology, travel, history, myths, and of course, Sullivan, who wrote with Gilbert, he also wrote 23 operas, 13 major orchestral works, eight choral works in oratorios and two ballets. This isn’t even in his Wikipedia entry. They don’t even mention Onward Christian Soldiers was such a footnote because he wasn’t actively part of it. They just took his tune and put it against it interesting,

Marcia Smith 13:41
Bob, I don’t think you really care about this one, but I’m going to ask you anyway, why are there 18 holes on a golf course? Oh,

Bob Smith 13:51
that’s a good question. Why did they go with 18? Why wasn’t it something like on a scale of 10? You know, 510, 1518, this has got to be some arcane, weird tradition that began at St Andrews golf course in Scotland, right? That part, right? Good for you. Well, that’s where Golf was invented, suppose, correct? So it had to be something about that land or that place.

Marcia Smith 14:12
No, it was a little more prosaic than that. Okay. Golf all started in Scotland, in Scotland in 1457, yeah. Can you believe that? But King James the Second banned it because it interfered with archery practice. That’s

Bob Smith 14:26
right. It got too popular. It did taking too many people away from what they needed to for national security. So

Marcia Smith 14:32
in 1502 King James the fourth, he lifted the band and bought some golf clubs. It’s often the often the way with kinks, if I want to do it, we’ll make it legal. That’s of course, the number of holes varied at each golf course. St Andrews, the oldest and most prestigious, started with 22 holes, and some courses around the area had only five holes to make its course more challenging in. 764 St Andrews reduced the number of its holes to 18. The fairways became longer and it was more challenging. Okay, so St Andrews reduced the number to 18, and as the desire grew to codify golf and its rules, they decided we have to settle on something for everybody, and let’s go with St Andrews. And thus the 18 hole golf course was born. So it’s just an accident. They just had to arrive at something. And right, they tipped their hat to St Andrews. No rationalization for it, really, they just went from 22 to 18. Okay, yeah. Why would the

Bob Smith 15:36
YMCA not be recognized by its founder today? Because girls can go, no, no, that’s the YWCA. I know. Why is the YMCA,

Marcia Smith 15:45
but women can go to YMCA. Well, that’s not, that’s not what I’m

Bob Smith 15:49
talking about. Well, what are you talking about? It was founded in 1843 in London, England, by a dry goods clerk, George Williams, who was holding meetings for prayer and Bible reading for his fellow workers. That’s what it was supposed to be. The young men’s Christian organization had nothing to do with athletics. Physical Fitness had nothing to do with the group originally, and in the 1840s they began combining interest in religious welfare with social welfare. They added things like gymnasiums,

Marcia Smith 16:16
yeah, yeah. They’re wonderful organizations. I think

Bob Smith 16:18
it’s time for a break. Okay, we’ll be back with more of the off ramp in just a moment with Bob and Marcia Smith. We’re back, and we just want to let you know we do this show every week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and then it goes on podcast platforms and is heard

Marcia Smith 16:35
all over the world. Okay? Bob, who was the director of the first Alien movie in 1979 the movie that scared me to death.

Bob Smith 16:46
Let’s see that says the same director who directed Apple’s famous 1984

Marcia Smith 16:52
commercial, oh, the one with the hammer. Yeah,

Bob Smith 16:55
the runner in the hammer. And that was the same guy he had already directed alien at that time. Oh, okay, I’m saying that because his name is failing me,

Marcia Smith 17:04
failing What if I give you an initial, okay? R s is his initials? R s famous. He’s his other famous hits are things like gladiator Napoleon, the house of Gucci. Oh,

Bob Smith 17:18
yeah. He’s a great director. Okay, it’s Ridley Scott. That’s it. Ridley Scott, yes, he started his career in advertising, making advertising commercials. So when Apple chose him to do the commercial, it’s not just based on his you know, what he did with alien that was good, but also the fact that he knew how to do commercials. Yes, there’s a skill for definitely. Commercials pack so much into a very short period of time, just like Barry

Marcia Smith 17:40
man low was a jingle writer. Helped him a lot. He knew the

Bob Smith 17:44
all the elements of that little catchy tune that’s going to be memorable. What is

Marcia Smith 17:47
it you hate that at the end he always goes up, always

Bob Smith 17:51
changes key, always goes up at the end, here we go. Looks like we made

Marcia Smith 17:57
okay? I love it that. Look at you when you hear a

Bob Smith 17:59
ma’am. You know, it’s coming up, because it always ends up like and then he goes into the next looks like we’ve made but he was very successful. Oh yeah, we enjoyed him in concert. Yes, we did all right. Marcia, Thomas Edison, he contributed something very important to our form of democracy. But this invention, his first patented one, was ignored for many years, and was actually a failure in his lifetime. What was it he designed this in the 1860s this is who Thomas Edison,

Marcia Smith 18:29
Tom, Tom, Tom, I don’t know. Tell me the voting

Bob Smith 18:34
machine. He actually did a voting machine so you could vote electronically or electrically. And it was, there was no interest in it at all, really. He patented it. No interest. But he, he did contribute to our democracy. So there you go. Wow.

Marcia Smith 18:49
It was much needed. Still, is all right, Bob, why should heavy drinkers wear an amethyst,

Bob Smith 18:56
an amethyst? Now, this is something that you Ward evil spirits away with, right? Is that? Am I thinking? Nope, amulet. That’s what I’m thinking. Yeah, Amethyst. You

Marcia Smith 19:06
know, those are the purple or dark blue, crystallized quartz. Okay, we have pieces of rock around the house, so heavy

Bob Smith 19:12
drinkers use Yes, yes. Is that to keep them standing? I don’t know, but this is news to heavy drinkers. That’s dangerous, giving them anything sharp. I know

Marcia Smith 19:22
the word Amethyst in Greek Bob literally means not intoxicating. This crystallized quartz is considered a precious stone and is found in modern day Iran, Iraq, India and some parts of Europe. It was worn on the breastplates of high priests because the ancients believed wearing it or even touching the stone kept people from getting intoxicated, no matter how much they drank. Don’t that’s

Bob Smith 19:50
funny. Who knew? I didn’t know. Wow, I didn’t know. These things get started. It kept them from being intoxicated. I wonder how successful that has been. I’ll

Marcia Smith 19:58
give it a try tonight and see. Mom,

Bob Smith 20:01
hey, some more facts about the International Space Station. Okay, do you know how many multiple space flights were required to build it? You know, they had to go up there and take parts? Yeah, yeah. No, I’d be curious to know that one I had no idea, completing the construction of the International Space Station took 136 different space flights involving seven different types of space vehicles to get all the components up. I

Marcia Smith 20:26
believe that that fact that’s under what I would have guessed, wow, and it’s

Bob Smith 20:30
the third brightest object in the sky, behind only the Moon and Venus. No kidding, we can look for it. Yeah, it can be seen by the naked eye. In fact, NASA provides a website spot the station that lets you know when it’s going to be traveling over your location. Oh, well, let’s do that. And it’s 250 miles up, and you can see it with the naked eye. Yeah. Okay,

Marcia Smith 20:50
Bob, when something is stopped abruptly, why do we say they put the kibosh

Speaker 1 20:56
on it? What is the kibosh? That’s right. Kibosh. What the

Bob Smith 21:00
heck is that sounds like. It is a it’s it sounds like thing, a feature of a machine, you hit the button, puts a kibosh on it, or something.

Marcia Smith 21:07
Yeah, it’s a great word. But

Bob Smith 21:10
of European, it sounds like something from Russia or Eastern Europe. To me. Like,

Marcia Smith 21:15
yeah, it’s actually Irish. Oh, really, yeah. I thought the same thing. Okay. It sounded like a noodle or something. The word kibosh is Gaelic, and means that’s so happy cap of death.

Bob Smith 21:29
Oh, my God,

Unknown Speaker 21:32
the cap of death. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 21:34
it was, in fact, the black skull cap down by a judge before sentence, before sentencing a prisoner to death. Oh, dear, yikes. In modern usage, it means, as it did, to the condemned, your path of destruction has ended. Oh, so if you’re if your guy, your judge, came out wearing this little skull cap, black skull cap, that would be all you were doomed. Kibosh.

Bob Smith 21:59
She put the kibosh on it, yeah? So your time is over. It’s done. Yeah, that’s the little hat he wore. Marcia, what’s the longest mountain range in the world?

Marcia Smith 22:09
Well, has it changed? Well,

Bob Smith 22:13
we think of mountain ranges as being on Earth. This is not

Marcia Smith 22:16
on Earth. Oh, it’s under, I’ll bet it’s, I’ll bet it’s under the water. That’s right, it’s it’s in the Atlantic.

Bob Smith 22:25
It’s in the mid Atlantic. It’s called the Mid Atlantic range. It runs 10,000 miles, really, from Iceland toward Antarctica. The tallest mountain is more than five miles high, so it is as high under the ocean as Mount Everest is above the land. Yeah, that’s something. The tallest point in the range above water is more than a mile high. It’s part of the Azores island. They are off the coast of Portugal. In fact, Portugal colonized them in the 1400s there are nine islands in the Azores, and they’re part of this range. They’re all volcanos. They’re called the Azores, the Hawaii of Europe, because they have all the things you have. They have tourism, you have fishing, you have dolphin and whale watching, all this stuff. That’s where the longest mountain range is in the world is under the Atlantic Ocean. Fascinating. Thank you. Marsh show is

Marcia Smith 23:14
this Bob? Oh, okay, for every person on the planet, there are 1000 pounds of these insects. Oh,

Bob Smith 23:23
no, it’s not mosquitoes. Is it? Nope, okay. What is it ants? Nope, okay. What is it termites? Oh, my goodness, really,

Marcia Smith 23:33
they are present in 70% of the countries around the world, and their population outnumbers human beings, 10 to 110, to one. And that’s a fascinating fact from varsity Termite and Pest control.com of course, they

Bob Smith 23:49
put the creep and creepy, don’t they, holy cow, oh gosh. Okay. One last question. On the International Space Station. How big is the living space? If you compare it to a house, just an average house, like a bat go by the number of bedrooms. Yeah, yeah. They’re the size of a large six bedroom house at 5600 square feet. Oh, okay, six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms and a gym and a 360 degree bay window, laboratories and storage. So that’s a lot, and it’s as long as a football field and as wide as a six lane highway. Okay,

Marcia Smith 24:24
so they’re not too claustrophobic. No, it’s not. I would be claustrophobic, but still, you got windows and all the other stuff, and it’s

Bob Smith 24:32
as tall as a six story building. It’s huge. It is very big due to the lack of gravity. The crews sleep along the walls. You mean just they can’t lie in bed the way we do on Earth. So instead, they crawl into sleeping bags that are attached to cabin walls, and these bags where compartments are just large enough for one person to fit inside, that’s how they sleep. Do

Marcia Smith 24:54
they keep their whole space suit on? I suppose they have to. They don’t have little flannel jammies. They can sleep. Been

Bob Smith 25:00
to. No, they don’t have to keep a space suit on. No, you see them when they’re Oh yeah, they got they’re wearing regular clothes and stuff. They do everything while floating in the air. They sleep floating in the air, in these bags. And they eat while floating in the air. They can’t sit you see, you can’t sit down, really. And mealtime takes longer than on Earth, because they have to eat everything slowly, one food at a time to ensure none gets loose and goes floating around. Oh, yeah, that can get into equipment, experiments and everything interesting. And they have 52 different computers on board for different purposes. Really. Some provide crew members with internet access or social media and entertainment. Can play Pong and Candy Crush. They can do that. They can play Pong and Candy Crush. Yes, we know there’s no laundry on board the International Space Station. When clothes get dirty, they are burned, and new clothing is shipped to the ISS periodically aboard crewless spacecraft. It’s like Amazon. Do you get new clothes all the time? Oh, that’s dirty. Just burn it. But overall, if you look at the size of it from the volume of its space inside, it’s a lot bigger than you think it is. It’s as big as a 1.5 times the volume of a Boeing 747, airplane. Wow, amazing.

Marcia Smith 26:15
I had no idea. Yeah. I finish up with some quick takes. Okay, here’s from the Cincinnati star, most lies about blondes are false. That’s the That’s the joke, Bob, it is. Ci daddy. Star, okay, I don’t why would that be funny? If they’re lies, of course they’re false. I laughed right out loud. Columbus Dispatch, lack of brains hinders research that one I get? Yeah, okay. And this one, I think, is almost kind of sweet. It’s from an Arab news report, and it says we are unable to announce the weather. We depend on weather reports from the airport, which is closed due to weather, whether we will be able to give you a weather report tomorrow, will depend on the weather.

Bob Smith 27:02
And finally, that’s the translation into English. I wonder how I was in Arabic,

Marcia Smith 27:07
but I just loved it. And finally, from the US Patent Office in 1899 okay, everything that can be invented has been invented. I

Bob Smith 27:16
remember that he wanted to close it down 1899 it’s like the worst prediction anybody ever made. Yeah? And this is a guy in charge of technology, yeah? Well, everything it could be done, it’s been done. There’s nothing else. Yeah, oh my. Well, we hope you’ve enjoyed today’s show, and you’ll come back again for more when we return with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. I’m Bob Smith, I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again next time for more fun here on

Marcia Smith 27:41
the off ramp.

Bob Smith 27:44
The off ramp is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Visit us on the web at the offramp. Dot show at.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai