The best Christmas gift returned is love.

Got that one from a church signboard.

I've learned a lot in the last 24 hours, and I thought I would share with you what I've learned.

Last night I pulled into a parking lot opposite a BMW. As I looked at that familiar circular logo, I figured something out. The blue and white in the center of the logo are taken from the Bavarian state flag. It didn't occur to me earlier and I don't know why. I had known that BMW stands for Bavarian Motor Works, but didn't make the color connection.

There was an interesting article in today's USA Today. I never knew that German scientists were (pardon the pun) the main thrust behind the US Space Program. You can read specifics here, but in a nutshell: at the end of World War II, a bunch of German scientists got together and sought out the American army as they approached their camp. These scientists had developed the V-2 rocket for Hitler, but really wanted to use their skills for space travel. So the military brought over approx. 150 folks and set up a research facility for them. And well, the rest is history. But very fascinating history.

Today I spent the day in Pittsburgh. Actually, I never left the airport, but we consider it Pittsburgh. So a couple of firsts occurred today. Today for the first time, I got to ride out on the tarmac. If you've ever flown, you may have noticed vehicles driving around on the runway area when you were taking off, or landing. Well, I was in one of those vehicles. It was kewl! And then I got to see the Operations Control Center (OCC). The best way to explain the OCC is that it's air traffic control for all US Airways aircraft. They basically track all of our planes 24-7 and assist pilots if they have to divert due to weather, or other assorted reasons. Even the international flights. It was cool cause they had a ton of monitors showing flight progress, as well as current weather reports. Very neat.

So yes, lots of education going on.

And if anyone is interested, Oceans 12 at Regal Cinema at 9:40 this Friday night.