Dog Bites Man (Wikipedia Not Helpful to Productivity)

Just now: I needed to find out where I could get rid of a pickup load of scrap lumber that I removed from our new basement. I called "Pacific Topsoil" and found out that they would take it for "$23/yard". Great, but what is a "yard" (in this context)? Time to hit wikipedia.

• yard: Didn't actually read the article before I clicked on:
• fathom: A fathom is two yards! Never knew that! Makes me wonder about:
• league: So that is weird, but it makes sense. A league is the distance you can walk (or a horse can walk) in an hour. But hold on that means "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" is about 60,000 miles! That can't be right, better go check:
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: That Joules Verne, he was a smart guy. Ahead of his time. Makes me realize that I never actually read this book - only watched the movie. What was the plot? Oh yeah, submarines, isolated life under the sea, giant squid, whirlpools... whirlpools... are whirlpools real?
• Moskstraumen, Maelstrom, Whirlpool: Very cool. I'd like to go to Norway some day and see Moskstraumen, sounds awesome.
• Lake Peigneur: Crazy! This would really be something. A drilling rig and several barges sucked through a hole in the bottom of the lake. An entire lake emptying before your eyes. A canal flowing backwards creating a 50m waterfall! The lake went from fresh water to salt water - from 10 feet deep to 1300 feet deep! And nobody killed! Amazing story I had never heard.

45 minutes later... "what was I doing?" Oh yeah, I still need to go find out what a "yard" is. This is why the fact that I am still employed always amazes Kelly.