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MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Cement Vs. Concrete

We walk on sidewalks all the time, so much so that we usually don’t ever think about the stuff we’re stepping on: the rigid, smooth, gray hard stuff under our feet. But, have you ever stopped to wonder what the proper name for that stuff is? Is it concrete, or is it cement? And, what’s the difference between the two?

Well, while they’re often interchangeable, concrete & cement actually describe different yet related elements of the blocks, flooring, and walls that comprise so many common structures. Basically, concrete is the gray, gritty building material used in construction, while cement is an ingredient used in concrete.

Cement’s a mixture of dry powder that looks very different from the wet sludge poured out of cement trucks. Cement is made from minerals that have been crushed up & blended together. Just what minerals cement’s made from can vary: clay and limestone are regularly used nowadays, but anything from seashells to volcanic ash also works. Once the ingredients are mixed together the first time, though, they’re fired in a kiln at 2642°F, forming strong new compounds, before being cooled, crushed, and combined again.

That mixture alone is useless, though. Before it can be used in various construction projects, the cement has to be mixed with water & what’s called an “aggregate”, like sand, so that it forms a moldable paste. THAT substance is known as concrete. It fills whatever mold it’s poured into & hardens fast into a solid, stone-like form. And that’s, in part, why it’s the most widely-used building material on the planet.

So, whether you’re drawing your initials into a wet slab of sidewalk, power-hosing your patio, or maybe admiring Brutalist architecture, that’s concrete you’re involved with. But, if you’re ever handling some chalky gray powder that hasn’t been mixed with water, that’s what you call cement.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

{Katie’s Baby Blog} 26 Week Update!

Only 3 months left to go until we meet baby girl #2!!!!

Right now, we are working on a name for baby girl; going back and forth between a few. I’m also just starting to think about things that I will need for her this time around….and really, it’s not much. Luckily, I still have everything from when Lily was a newborn!

I think the only new thing we will need to buy is a bassinet and DIAPERS and WIPES (you can never have enough of those).

As far as how I’m feeling goes….right now pretty good. Definitely starting to feel “bigger”, more tired this time around, and really not much of a huge appetite. I crave sweets more than anything, but I never really know what I want to eat for any other meal.

Picking up Lily is becoming more of a struggle, so I just try to avoid it when I can, and chasing her around…I’m pretty much giving up on that. That is daddy’s full time job now.

Sleeping is getting harder, I HATE sleeping on my side, but you have to…so I’m flipping back and forth from side to side all night, just trying to get comfortable which isn’t fun.

Right now, baby girl is the size of an acorn squash…and that’s exactly what I feel like i’m carrying around. A little acorn squash that loves to kick me and wiggle around.

<3 Katie Ryan

 

 

 

 

{Katie’s Kitchen} Instant Pot Shredded Beef Tacos

I am loving my new pressure cooker! I actually have the Magic Chef version and it is amazing!

Last night I made shredded beef tacos in it and it was so quick and easy…I guess that’s the point of the pressure cooker!

I used a 2 lb. boneless chuck roast (if yours is bigger you can slice it in half to make it fit), season it with taco or fajita seasoning on both sides. Turn the pot to sauté mode- add olive oil and brown the chuck roast for about two minutes on each side, then remove and set aside.

Pour 1/2 cup of chicken or beef broth into the pot and scrape the bottom to remove any stuck bits. Then, put the roast back into the pot. Add crushed or diced tomatoes (14oz can), two bay leaves, and the rest of your seasoning mix.

Cook on high pressure, meat mode for 45 minutes (depending on the side of your roast), then allow the pressure to release naturally for 15 mins., then release the rest manually.

Remove the chuck roast and shred with two forks. With a spoon, skim the fat off of the top of your juices and put your pot back on sauté mode and let the juice simmer for 10 minutes to reduce. Put your shredded beef back into the pot and let it soak for few minutes before serving over rice or in tacos with cheese!

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons seasoning mix (I used a fajita seasoning packet)
  • 1 (3-pound) boneless chuck roast
  • 1/2 cup beef broth or chicken broth
  • 14 ounce can crushed tomatoes
  • 2 bay leaves

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Do We Make New Year’s Resolutions?

In the past 2 days, I’ve heard 4 different people say, “Welp…I’ve already blown my New Year’s resolution!” Which got me thinking: why do we make these sweeping annual promises to ourselves? Where did this tradition come from? And why does this tradition continue when so many people fail? Well, to start, we have the ancient Babylonians to thank (or blame).

The earliest recorded celebration that honored the coming of a new year was held in Babylon about 4000 years ago. Calendars weren’t what they are today, as the Babylonians kicked their new year off in late March, during the first new moon after the Spring Equinox, with their 11-day Akitu festival, dedicated to the rebirth of Marduk, the sun god. During those festivities, Babylonians made promises so they could get on their gods’ good sides, in the hopes of starting the new year off right.

Resolutions continued with the Romans. Julius Caesar decided to make a change to the early Roman calendar when it didn’t jive with the sun any longer. Caesar introduced the Julian calendar, which is basically what our modern calendar is today, and declared the first day of the year to be January 1, in honor of Janus, the god of new beginnings, to whom they promised to better themselves.

This tradition’s persisted around the world ever since. Back in 2012, Google even launched a Resolution Map where people could add their resolutions in real time. And, the experiment showed the number of people who maintain their resolutions is bleak: only 9.2% of people are successful in sticking them out.

The most popular resolutions:

Lose weight/eat healthier
Get organized
Save more money
Quit smoking
Enjoy life
Spend more time with friends/family
Get & stay healthy
Learn something new
Help others pursue their goals
Find love

If those sound familiar & remind you the whole concept’s a bust, or if they inspire you to create your own, just remember: this tradition’s destined to live on, since 4000 years of history shows us that, which is a hard-to-argue-with statistic. But, if you’re still plugging along, I wish you all the success in the world!

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Do We “Let The Cat Out Of The Bag”?

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Whoops, I let the cat out of the bag” when someone accidentally reveals a secret. But where did that phrase come from? And who put that cat in a bag to begin with?

The phrase’s first documented usage was in a book review in The London Magazine back in 1760: “We could have wished that the author had not let the cat out of the bag.” That, unfortunately, is about all we know for sure. There are 2 popular origin stories for the phrase, but both seem pretty implausible.

The first claims the phrase refers to the cat o’ nine tails, a whipping implement infamously used by the Royal Navy as an instrument of punishment aboard its ships. The whip’s nine knotted cords could scratch an undisciplined sailor’s back badly, hence its feline nickname. The bag comes into play because the cat, being made of leather, had to be kept in a sack to protect it from drying out in the salty sea air & keep it flexible.

The other explanation is that it was born from a ridiculous bit of livestock fraud. Supposedly, merchants would sell customers live piglets, and, after putting a pig in a sack for easier transport, would sometimes swap the pig for a cat when the customer wasn’t looking. The buyer wouldn’t discover they’d been cheated until they got home & literally let the cat out of the bag. Yet, while pigs were bagged for sale, there doesn’t seem to be any recorded evidence that that kind of con-game was commomplace.

There’s a certain implausibility to that trick, though, as piglets big enough for market have different sizes & builds than cats. Also, cats meow, they don’t oink. It’s hard to imagine enough people picking up their purchase and thinking, “this sack seems a bit light, and isn’t making the right noise, but I guess everything is normal,” to create an idiom out of it.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Are Our Spouse’s Family Called “In-Laws”?

The other day, as I was trying to describe to someone the difference between my current & past mothers-in-law, I began to wonder: “why do we call our spouse’s relatives ‘in-laws’ in the first place?”

It’d be easy to assume that it’s because your spouse’s family members are related to you by law, not by blood. But, that law actually has nothing to do with the marriage license your officiant ships off to the county clerk. The Oxford English Dictionary says that the “in-law” title refers to canon law, a set of church rules & regulations that cover, among other things, which relatives you’re prohibited from marrying. The earliest known English mentioning of “in-laws” is “brother-in-law” from back in the 14th century, most likely a citation of the canon law of the Catholic Church.

At its inception, “in-law” was specifically used to describe any non-blood relative you were forbidden by the church from marrying if/when your spouse died; that included your spouse’s siblings, parents, and children, along with your own step-siblings, step-parents, and step-children. The term “father-in-law”, could either have meant your spouse’s father, or your mother’s new husband. But by the late 19th century, at which point the Church of England & other Protestant doctrines had established their own various canon laws & marriage rules, the colloquial definition had expanded to include all spousal relatives, at which point “in-laws” became its own standalone term. The earliest written mention of it comes from an article in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine from 1894, which stated: “the position of the ‘in-laws’ (a happy phrase which is attributed with we know not what reason to her Majesty, than whom no one can be better acquainted with the article) is often not very apt to promote happiness.”

In other words, tension between people & their in-laws has been around for as long as the term itself. So, if you’ve got strife between yourself & your own in-laws, take heart in knowing you’re not the first & certainly won’t be the last.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Does Altitude Affect Your Baking?

While you might be proficient in the kitchen, you could potentially find yourself with a deflated cake or bone-dry brownies if you happen to go bake in Aspen, CO. Because an oven at high altitude can, very often, wreak havoc on your baked goods? But, why does altitude affect baking?

It boils down to air pressure. The higher you go above sea level, the lower the air pressure will be, mainly because of the smaller amount of air pressing down from above. Also, it’s further away from gravitational forces on the Earth’s surface. Less air pressure keeping liquid molecules in their liquid form means it takes less heat to evaporate them. Basically, boiling points are lower at higher altitudes.

For every 500-foot upsurge in altitude, water’s boiling point drops by 0.9°F. And, since liquids evaporate at lower temperatures, all the moisture that makes your signature chocolate cake so deliciously dense could vanish long before you would usually remove it from the oven. To avoid this, it’s best to bake certain things at lower temperatures.

Gases expand faster with less air pressure, too, so anything expected to rise in the oven could end up collapsing before the inside gets finished baking. Cutting back on leavening agents like yeast, baking powder, and baking soda, can help prevent that, though. That also goes for bread dough prior to baking (“proofing”, as fans of The Great British Bake-Off know). The dough’s rapid expansion negatively affects its flavor & texture, so you may want to adjust how much yeast you’re using.

Thankfully, we’re only 302-feet above sea level here in Frederick. But, because there are far too many things that can go wrong at high altitudes, including ruined recipes, that’s why I recommend doing what I do: buy your cakes & other baked goods from a professional baker.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What Color Is A Tennis Ball Really?

How each of us sees the world is, of course, subjective. But, some colors are meant to be constant. Oranges are forever orange. Fire engines are always red. Tennis balls are always yellow. Or…are they green? Which is it?

According to the International Tennis Federation, a tennis ball should be yellow in color, a mandate that came down in 1972 after TV viewers had trouble following the previously white balls’ movements across the court. Tennis ball manufacturers also officially identify their products as yellow.

So, why is it that some people perceive tennis balls to be green? Well, a yellow hue by itself can be hard for some people to distinguish. While yellow’s easy to identify when you contrast it with other colors (think paint swatches), it’s harder for people to visually decipher when there’s nothing to compare it with. Also, people tend to color correct based on lighting conditions. Warmer colors, like gold, or cooler colors, like blue, may be discounted by some folks upon their initial viewing. Which one of those ends of the color spectrum a person falls will ultimately affect how they perceive & interpret the overall spectrum. So, if you discount cooler colors, then the ball might appear to be yellow. If you discount warmer colors, you probably see it as green.

It’s also possible that people who are active in the evening time, under artificial light, discount warmer colors, while people active in the daytime, under natural lighting, discount cooler colors; those elements further shift our perceptions.

Objectively, though, a tennis ball is yellow. But, whether or not YOU think so, however, all depends on how you see the world in your own unique way.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected]!

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