The 2011 Word of the Year

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Here is the list of my “Word of the Year” words for every year since I started having a word of the year in 1999:

I’ve decided that my word of the year for 2011 is DUNNAGE.

It’s an appropriate word, for one thing. I had never heard of the word until 2011. Basically, it’s the junk that gets inserted into a box so that the important stuff doesn’t slosh around during shipping.

It’s probably the least glamorous word I’ve ever selected, but, like I said, it’s appropriate for 2011. Since April, I have been working in the packaging department at my job and, soon after starting in that new position, I began hearing the word and seeing stickers that read DUNNAGE slapped on the side of boxes. I didn’t pay much attention to it for a while, but then, one day, I figured it must have meant all that paper we shoved into the sides so that the product did not become damaged. I looked it up on an online dictionary just to be sure. But, yeah, that’s basically it.

So…a word I’d never heard before, and one that represents a major transition I made during the year. What more could you ask for in a word?

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

I found a dime today.

This brings the total amount of money I’ve found so far this year up to $5.18.

“Whoa!” you say. “How did you find that much money in less than two weeks?”

Yeah, I know, it’s crazy. It took me months to reach the five dollar mark in 2011.

But last week, I found a five dollar bill on the ground. I brought it up to the Lost and Found. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing to do, or a weird thing to do. See, five dollars seems like enough money to where someone would notice that they lost it, but it’s also a low enough amount to where that same person might just shrug their shoulders and figure it’s lost.

Anyway, I handed it to the lady and she said, “You can keep that. No one ever comes up here looking for a five dollar bill.”

So I did.

So that, plus a nickel, some random pennies, and today’s dime brings the total up to the aforementioned $5.18.

I think it’s gonna be a great year.

Thursday, 12 January 2012

With great trepidation, I tuned into NPR today. After about 20 interesting seconds of news, they segued into the Republican Primaries for the duotrigintillionth time (yes, it’s a real number), so I switched channels. About fifteen minutes later, I tried again. Once more, there was some bit on Mitt Romney’s favorite breed of horse, or some such shit that I can’t believe anyone really cares about. So I switched channels.

During my lunchbreak, however, I inadvertently switched over to NPR again and, in what surely must have been the only five consecutive minutes all calendar year, they were not talking about Newt Gingrich’s planters warts. Instead, they were discussing the number of planets in the universe.

Okay, if you’re like me, you’ve just always assumed there were boatloads of planets out there. But it’s never been proven. But now there’s new evidence, thanks to the Kepler Space Observatory, that planets outnumber stars.

READ THIS ARTICLE (I promise you, the link won’t take you to NPR).

This only makes sense, I think. I mean, as the spinning disks gather accretion that eventually becomes a star, it stands to reason that the new star does not capture 100% of the dust. This remaining dust gathers separately as planets.

For the past five years, we’ve claimed to have only eight planets orbiting our star and, I suppose, by definition that is true. But the real number of objects that orbits the sun is way, way higher, including some objects that are larger than the planet Mercury.

These are indeed exciting times in the field of astronomy. Let’s hope some of these planets have life on them. And let’s hope at least one of those lives runs for office.