If you haven‟t done so yet–

read the story at Luna Station Quarterly.

The narrator is named after a good friend

and hiking buddy of mine – Tony Airaghi

The orchard is named after Steve Sillett

and Marie Antoine, redwood canopy

researchers (who also fell in love!). I first

read about them in Richard Preston‟s

The Wild Trees.

This is a finding by E.O. Wilson. He actually put the pheromone on a live ant to see what would happen. Even though it was clearly kicking and moving, his colony-mates kept picking him up and returning him to the graveyard.

See „Hey I‟m Dead!‟ The Story of a Very Lively Ant.

Inspired by my sister‟s husband. One time

we visited a Wendy‟s with an extremely

messy restroom.

My brother-in-law reported

thinking, “Why bother aiming?”

I learned this from Carl Sagan and Ann

Druyan in “Shadows of Forgotten

Ancestors”

Inspired by the never ending complaints about the BCS I heard over the years, I replaced it with a College Playoff system. When I wrote this passage, I had no idea just how numbered the BCS days were. 7 months after I wrote this passage, College Playoffs became a reality.

Paraphrasing my husband who was

greatly moved by a 2009 study.

See Dead athletes' brains show damage

from concussions

This is me paraphrasing my husband paraphrasing a comic from The Oatmeal

See Why Working From Home is Both Awesome and Horrible

In the 2006 Chic-Fil-A Bowl

(Georgia vs Virginia

Tech), little stuffed cows

actually did parachute into

the crowd before the game.

Memory from a trip to the Virgin Islands in

2008

Virginia Tech football players do this (and Michelle Obama!)

In 2005 ESPN‟s Kenny Mayne did a

hilarious “The Mayne Event” segment

exposing all the quarterbacks who licked

their fingers before handling the ball. I

still remembered it seven years later.