Findlay Prep

Findlay Prep won the national high school basketball championship despite not being a high school.

As Sports Illustrated reports, Findlay Prep is a basketball program that "operates completely outside the traditional high school system."

It works like this:

• They find the best teenage basketball players.
• They give them a house in Las Vegas.
• They pay for their meals.
• They fly the players around the country to kick the crap out of every other team in the country.¹
  
• The operation is bankrolled by a UNLV booster.²
  
• Completely unrelated to the item above, the players often decide to enroll at UNLV after leaving Findley Prep.
  

If they like, the players may advance to Div. I college basketball programs, where they can (illegally) earn $200,000 per year.³

Or they can go to Europe and earn the type of money they can pay taxes on.


¹The team finished 33-0 this season.
² This is legal, according to the NCAA. Somehow.
³According to a New York Times conversation with ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla.

Life-saving cemetery

MARIN COUNTY, Calif. — The Fountain of Youth is purportedly somewhere in Florida. But if you're looking for a life-saving cemetery, you'll find it here on California's Point Reyes.

First Amendment Area

MARIN COUNTY — Here at the Muir Woods National Monument, they've set aside one small area where visitors are free to exercise their First Amendment rights.

That's nice of them. Finally, a place where the First Amendment is honored. But do those rights carry weight once visitors leave the First Amendment Area and venture into the rest of the park? Or the rest of the country, for that matter?

They sell the tasty ones

SAN FRANCISCO — You know those salted pig parts that aren't tasty? Well, they don't sell those at Boccalone.

Living the dream

SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. — The San Francisco International Airport isn't the world's cleanest airport, but they do recycle.

And not only that, they don't require people to put recycling into seperate trash bins.

Just put everything into this bin, this sign suggests, and we'll sort through it later.

Arbor Day

OMAHA, Neb. — Waunakee, you'll recall, wants us to know that it is the only city with its name in the world. What does Nebraska what us to know, upon crossing the Missouri River into its state?

Nebraska is the site of the good life and home of Arbor Day.

Black rock

PENNINGTON COUNTY, S.D. — Overheard here at Mt. Rushmore: "If they decide to put Obama here, they'll have to find some sort of black rock."

All-you-can-eat hamburgers

RAPID CITY, S.D. — Driving through Wyoming and South Dakota has given me a chance to see a landscape I had never seen before.

I'm not talking about Wyoming's snow-covered mountains or the buttes of North Dakota's Badlands.¹ I mean the view from the highway of fast-food buffets that, as far as I know, do not offer buffets in my part of the world.

Wendy's has a buffet here.
KFC has a buffet here.

You get the point.


¹I did, however, have time to enjoy both.

Please stop before we both starve

CROOK COUNTY, Wyo. — In this part of the country, you can drive for miles, hundreds of miles, without seeing food.

I stopped here.

St. Louis, sponsored by Fanta

ST. LOUIS — One doesn't see many orange fountains these days. And I've been looking, ever since I saw a blue fountain.

At first, I thought it was a botched attempt to color the fountain red, since the St. Louis Cardinals were opening their season a couple blocks away at Busch Stadium.

Then I realized that orange was the color of the women's college basketball Final Four, which was held in town earlier this month.

High over Illinois

MATTOON, Ill. — Here are some lessons I learned this week:

• If I ask nicely enough, I can hitch a ride on a helicopter
• For every 1,000 feet of elevation, the temperature drops about 5°
• This temperature drop is particularly noticeable when flying without the helicopter door attached
• Mattoon produces more bagels per day than any other city in America. The town is also home to the world's largest bagel (not visible from the air)
  

Click here to see my brief aerial tour of Coles County, Illinois.

Burger King

MATTOON, Ill. — Burger King is a small family burger joint here in Mattoon. What, you thought it was a chain with 11,500 outlets in 71 countries? Oh, you must be thinking of Burger King.

It turns out that Gene and Betty Hoots registered the name Burger King in 1959 as a state trademark in Illinois. In the 1960s, a Florida company opened a Burger King operation that expanded to outposts all over the country.

The result was an important trademark precedent that stands today: Burger King of Florida, Inc. v. Hoots. The Hoots own the exclusive rights to the name Burger King in Mattoon. And the Florida company owns it everywhere else.

Bloomers

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — I'll admit that I was confused to come across a sidewalk memorial to Amelia Bloomer here at the corner of Willow and Pearl streets. What attachment do Iowans have with the women's right advocate? Do the women here have a special place in their hearts for the women's garment that bears her name?

It turns out that she lived in Iowa. And died right here in Council Bluffs.

In any case, it's better than the memorial I saw in Franklin County.

Economy of letters

OMAHA, Neb. — Here at Eppley Airfield, the locals prefer the term bag claim to baggage claim.

Meanwhile, I also found it interesting that five-minute ride from the Omaha airport (which is located in Omaha) to downtown Omaha starts in Nebraska, goes through Iowa, and then ends up back in Nebraska.

Self-adhesive bra

As I understand it, the point of a bra is to support and shape a woman's breasts during everyday activities.

What, then, is the point of the self-adhesive bra pictured above? It is more like a sticker that a woman affixes to herself. How does that help anything?

Side note: If it is creepy to take pictures in bathrooms, what about taking pictures of bras in stores?

Scrubbies

I used to think Marnie was crazy for putting our dishwashing sponges in the dishwasher. She insists it is a normal thing to do and that households all over the world do the same thing.

It appears she is right. After all, the sponges pictured above brag about being "dishwasher & laundry safe."

Guess which ones I bought