In his blog post yesterday, fellow blogger Ray Visotski shared how he spent part of his day:
Early this morning, after playing with the dogs in the yard, I looked at the house and thought to myself, “I wonder how many bricks it took to build our house?”
Two hours later, I have the answer. . . 13,185! (give or take one or two).
My first thought was “I wish I had thought of that” and my second thought was, “I can’t wait to count the bricks used to build our house!”
I’ve written about Ray before; he is the first blogger I have met in the real world. Little did I know at that time that he would come up with a genius way to waste spend a couple of hours during a pandemic-based shutdown.
Counting the bricks will likely take a little bit longer than the other productive activity I’ve engaged in since the lockdown.
When we got back from Singapore in mid-March, we noticed that the light right outside our front door was burned out. I kept wanting to replace the light bulb, but it seemed like the only time I remembered it was when I went to turn on the light at night, and of course, there was no light. I wasn’t going to fumble with such a major job in the dark, so it was another missed opportunity.
Finally, about four weeks later, my son and I finally remembered about the light bulb while it was still bright out. We got everything we needed to do the job (a working light bulb) and set out to replace the burned-out bulb.
100 seconds later, the job was done. We congratulated ourselves, and then went back to see what was on Netflix.
Like I said, counting the bricks should take a bit longer, but I’ve got a whole new season of Bosch waiting for me to serve as motivation to get the job done quickly…
By the way, that is not my house above, thankfully…
*image from Long Island Pulse
I thought this was a how many blanks does it take to screw in a light bulb joke. Great post! I wish I had a brick house.
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thanks, John! a brick house seemed to work well for the three little pigs 🙂
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Bosch, I have just downloaded series 1/2 I hope it doesn’t disappoint but as you seem happy about season 6 I am guessing it may be worth a watch…Binge watch with all those series 🙂 As for counting bricks I’ll leave that to the man who loves stats 🙂
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I had read a few of the Bosch books and really enjoyed them, so I was probably biased going in to the tv series. But my wife and son seem to enjoy the series as well; I hope you do as well!
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Watched 2 episodes and so far I am enjoying it 😊
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I am glad you are enjoying it!
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Haha, Jim, I leave you on your own to count the bricks in your house. I am trying to make peonies out of fondant and my first attempt is a dismal failure [in my eyes – a success in everyone else’s] so I am going to start over with that. I will count the petals in each peonie.
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I’ll take brick counting every day over making peonies out of fondant! Good luck with your do-over, and with your counting!
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Passing the time is easy! A running joke around here is segregating the individual components of three-in-one instant coffee (sugar-milk-coffee), counting the number of grains in your rice jar… you get the idea.
However, binge-watching on netflix is probably much more productive!
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counting the grains in a rice jar; that almost seems like a meditation exercise… But I agree, Netflix is probably more productive, and certainly more enjoyable! Have a good weekend, jomz.
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this made me laugh so hard, you guys are amazing, way to power through!
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thanks, Beth, but give Ray all the credit for the brick idea, and my son for remembering about the light bulb before it was dark!
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💡
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Okay, if you have time to count bricks, then you have time to write poetry. It can’t be any worse than counting bricks, which I guess now is the new standard for boredom. But if you must, then I expect an academic result. I would like to see a delineation between full bricks, half bricks, and a break down as to what percentage of bricks is facing a particular direction on the compass. Oh, and a graph showing the variation of colors from brick to brick as a function of when or where they were manufactured. 😁🤣😂
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it seems like I’m not the only one with too much time on my hands! 🙂
That being said, I’m sure I could find a journal somewhere that would publish such an article! Have a great weekend, Brad!
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You don’t think there’s the slightest possibility that you’re going stir crazy, do you? 😉
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anything with numbers, I enjoy. Now If I start talking about cooking or gardening or wanting to go out dancing or a desire to upgrade my wardrobe, then you will know I’ve gone stir crazy 🙂
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I’ll keep an eye out for the signs, then 😊
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please do, and warn me if you start to see any of those things happening! 🙂
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Will do. I’m now your unofficial, self-appointed, guardian angel 😂
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Can I call you Clarence? 🙂
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As long as you mean the one in It’s A Wonderful Life, rather than Frogman Henry or the cross-eyed lion in Daktari 😉
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Lucky for you, I guess, I only know Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life!
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Difficult times call for imaginative solutions. Thanks for the mention.
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I’ll let you know how many bricks I come up with.
By the way, did you count each brick individually, or did you count the bricks in one row and multiply by how many rows there are? I’m just trying to get a sense of what the official brick counting process is… 🙂
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Beautiful home. Nice bricks, too. I’m mildly OCD … I count almost everything that doesn’t move.
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I wish the house was mine! I also like to count everything; in fact, I wrote a blog about it: https://jborden.com/2018/11/01/3-20-11-9-10-10-or-6-4-10-4-or-525-or-13-or-35-or-2-or-1401/
and by the way, congrats on reaching 500 followers!
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Okay, you’re definitely an elevated counter of steps … in the beat way possible. I use to count stairs as I climbed up. If I still do, I don’t realize. Thanks for the acknowledgement of 500 followers. Saw it the other day and thought it looked bloated.
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I’ve been busy counting everyone’s followers… 🙂
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Hahaha 😳
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Same here!
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Meaning, I also count steps, not that I think your follower count looks bloated. 🙈
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Maybe we can start a club of step counters…
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Thanks, but I’m not quite that desperate yet.
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give it time… 🙂
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Well I don’t have a brick house but I did count my tulips and daffodils the other day!! 🌷 🌷 🌷Amazing the things I would have never done before all this!!! Lol.
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it seems like there has been s spike in the number of people showing a renewed interest in math! 🙂
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Lol!!!
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This cracked me up. Will anxiously be waiting to hear how many bricks you have? I believe I will suggest this FUN activity to my kids. Filled with confidence that they will hop right to it! LOL!
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give your kids a choice to clean their room or count bricks. I know which one I would choose… 🙂
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Haha! 😄
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Happy counting! 🕊
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I’m sure it will be a goo day!
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Listen up! I demand a recount! Isn’t that the way government works? A math guy like you might enjoy computing the average number of bricks in all homes in your city. 😎
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depending on how long the lockdown is, you might be on to something! and if it’s really long, I’ll gladly recount them all… 🙂
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I just came across this idea at another blog, and I thought I would share it with you. I can’t say that I’m going to try it, but I appreciate the creativity. https://jessicanorrie.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/bookplay/#comments
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that is quite creative, and challenging. I like the list of book titles with numbers in them… 🙂 Thanks for sending me the link!
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Lol that’s one interesting way to spend your time!
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interesting is one way to put it… 🙂
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Woah, whatever will you do with this important information? Hahah
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I’ve been busy counting…
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