(Photo: Michael Marteen)

Frederick Callison of Sacramento, California had hit rock bottom, but he wasn't going to stay there.

He sat outside a grocery store, trying to get the attention of passersby. But he didn't ask for money. Instead, he was passing out his resume. Callison has extensive experience working in restaurants, which his resume listed. And he wrote on that resume that "I am firm believer in proactive productivity rather than reactive."

Indeed he was. Callison also had his Social Security card, ID card, and copies of his food handler's license. He was ready to start work. That impressed local resident Michael Marteen, who posted Callison's story and resume on Facebook and created a GoFundMe page on his behalf.

Word spread about Callison's efforts and a restaurant named Pizza Rocks hired him. The Today show reports:

"He was ecstatic about landing a job and very grateful for the opportunity," Marteen said. "He was up the night before studying the menu for hours."

The restaurant gave him clothes to wear and a friend is providing Callison with a place to stay until he can get back on his feet.

"It's easy to look at someone and not see anything but a homeless man, but after talking to him I realized he's so much more than that," Marteen said. "He's a well spoken, cool and friendly guy who knows what he wants and is going after it."

-via Huffington Post

(Photo: Library and Archives Canada)

Sir Winston Churchill, the Man of the Century, saw the dangers of Nazism before almost anyone else in the free world did. Then, after having defeated that threat and been promptly tossed out of office in 1945, he began warning the West of a new danger: Soviet Communism.

70 years ago today, on March 5, 1946, Churchill spoke as a private citizen at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He delivered a speech titled the "Sinews of Peace." But it has come to be known as the Iron Curtain speech. For in that speech, Churchill gave to the free world a startling visual metaphor for what had happened in Europe over the course of a year:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. 

You can listen to an audio recording of the full speech here.

-via VA Viper

(Photo: Pebbles Ryan)

Aliyah Ryan, 2, of Greenville County, South Carolina needed to put on her pants in the morning. This required more coordination than she was capable of. She needed help, so she picked up the phone in her home and called 911.

The dispatcher was confused by the child's need. But, as is standard procedure, he sent a Greenville County Deputy Sheriff out to the location.

Deputy Martha Lohnes drove to Aliyah's home. Her grandfather, who didn't know about the 911 call, answered the door. Then Aliyah walked up to the door with one leg in her pants.

Deputy Lohnes helped her put on her pants the rest of the way. 7 News reports:

“I just ended up sitting down on the stairs helping he put on the rest of her pants and then it was almost like a reward, she just wanted a hug,” she explained.

Needless to say, when mom, Pebbles Ryan, got the call at work, she was a little surprised.

“I came home to “oh, the police helped your daughter put pants on”. I was like “OH! Ok?” Then she wouldn’t let any of the police leave because she wanted hugs,” said Ryan.

-via Huffington Post

Prospective juror brought toddler to court with him. Power move.

— Popehat (@Popehat) March 4, 2016

Ken White is an attorney who blogs at Popehat. He's getting ready for a trial right now. On Twitter, he mentioned that during the jury selection process, one prospective juror brought a toddler to the court. This is certainly a "power move," as it would helpfully convince a judge to bounce him from the jury pool.

@Popehat GP Is the toddler even the juror's kid?

Business idea: Rent toddlers to prospective jurors outside courthouse.

— The Gormogons (@Gormogons) March 4, 2016

This incident inspired Twitter user @Gorgomons to propose a business idea: provide a rent-a-toddler service right outside of the courthouse. This way, potential jurors could equip themselves temporarily instead of raising their own toddlers, which is an expensive and time-consuming process.

This is brilliant! And, as White later comments, if this business was combined with a pre-existing child care business, then you'd have capital goods (i.e. toddlers) already available.

The concept is similar to the disabled person rental service available (discreetly, mind you) at Disney World. People in wheelchairs get to go to the front of lines at rides, so families sometimes hire people in wheelchairs to accompany them to the park.

There seems to be nothing that Shelley Gifford can't do with her daughter's hair. Every day, she sends her 6-year old daughter Grace to school with an inventive style. It takes her about 15-20 minutes to weave this kind of astonishing artistry.

And she's entirely self-taught! Gifford has been braiding for only 2 years. She tells the Today show that it's a great creative outlet:

"I try and think of a new style each night for the following day," said Gifford, who teaches mothers how to braid and does special occasion braid work. "I like trying to be creative with my braiding."

(Photo: Crazy Pedro's)

Chocolate creme eggs are nature's perfect food. They belong everywhere and pizza is no exception. That's why Crazy Pedro's a pizzeria in Manchester, UK invented the creme egg pizza. It's called "I Am The Resurreggtion." This 10-inch pizza has meringue, marshmallows, chocolate sauce, brownie chunks, and, of course, a whole creme egg sliced in two. This is Crazy Pedro's unique way to celebrate the upcoming Easter holiday.

-via That's Nerdalicious!

Ben Frost (content warning: artistic nudity), an artist from Australia, has added images of cartoon characters to packages for drugs that, somehow, match the characters perfectly. They include Peter Griffin from Family Guy on a package of gas relief pills and Cookie Monster on OxyContin. You can see more in the series at Khool.

(Video Link)

Gallaudet University in the Washington, D.C. is a school for the deaf. It's been around for a century and a half, so many of the old buildings look like what you might expect on a college campus. But that's changing. Architects are redesigning the campus to optimize the architecture for the sensory experiences of deaf people. This approach to design is called "DeafSpace."

Some are fairly straightforward, such as classrooms with desks arranged in a U-shape so that everyone can see each other at the same time. Others are less intuitive to those of us who can hear. For example, if two deaf people wish to walk and talk, they need an optimal distance between each other so that they can see each other's signs. This means building wider hallways. It also means building ramps instead of stairs so that users can look at each other instead of constantly watching their footing.

You can learn more about DeafSpace from Derrick Behm of Gallaudet University in this video by Vox.

-via Khool

The eel swam in his own, otherwise empty tank at the FairPrice Ultra supermarket in the Changi Business Park in Singapore. He noticed that the neighboring tank had tasty prawns, so he slipped over the barrier and had a snack.

(Video Link)

YouTube user itedaniel recorded the eel then returning to his own tank.

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath

(Photo: Alan Levine)

Americans usually drink milk from cartons. Canadians usually drink milk from plastic bags. How did this difference develop? Modern Farmer explains.

Up until the 1960s, both Americans and Canadians commonly used glass bottles for transporting and distributing milk. But these were heavy, expensive, and tended to break. So Americans began using the newly-developed cardboard cartons.

Canadians faced an additional challenge. They were switching over to the metric system, so it was necessary to repackage milk to be metric compliant anyway. Bagging milk made this change easier:

Everything in Canada, including milk, had to be rejiggered to be sold in metric units. No more quarts and gallons of milk: liters were the way to go. And it turned out that the thin plastic bags used for DuPont’s milk were extremely amenable to size changes. It was no problem at all to seal the bags in a different spot to make them metric-compliant. Jugs and cartons, on the other hand, had to be redesigned and manufactured from scratch, a significant disadvantage. They never really succeeded in making up for lost time, and bagged milk now reigns in Canada.

(Photo: Jencu)

Your baby has now been born. So you need a drink.

But what, precisely, should you drink? Let us consult Vanessa Rasanen of The Federalist. She's researched the perfect beers for 9 major events in baby care. For example, while potty training, you need an "easy-on-the-palate amber for the good days or a stronger imperial stout for the not-so-good." And she has some specific recommendations:

However, on those more difficult days when nothing goes as it’s supposed to and everyone’s fed up, consider switching to something a bit heftier like an imperial stout. Think Oskar Blues’ Ten Fidy or Karl Strauss’s Wreck Alley.

And what about those rough mornings? If it's 7:30 AM and you're already exhausted, then Rasanen suggests a bourbon-aged porter. Read the rest of her suggestions at The Federalist and leave your own in the comments.

What amazes me is that the iPad survived being baked at 350ºF and came out apparently fully functional.

Brandon of GizmoSlip wanted to see if it would be possible to make a protective case for an iPad using only chocolate chip cookie dough. This is called scientific research.

So Brandon made one. Then he dropped the iPad with its chewy case off the 100-foot high roof of a parking garage. Would the case provide sufficient protection for the thoroughly baked iPad?

(Video Link)

Content warning: foul language.

-via That's Nerdalicious!

(Photo: Chick-fil-A)

The Huffington Post reports on a clever gimmick offered by some Chick-fil-A restaurants around the US. It all started with a franchise in Suwanee, Georgia. Owner Brad Williams made little paper cartons where families could deposit their phones while eating. Instead of phubbing, diners could actually talk to each other.

People who successfully keep their cellphones in the coop for the entire meal--what Williams calls the Family Challenge--can get free ice cream at the end. He says that the project has been very successful:

Chick-fil-A's challenge "has completely taken off,” said Brad Williams, who came up with the concept at a store he operates in Suwannee, Georgia. “We have families who aren’t successful the first time and come back to try again. We even have people asking to take the boxes home with them! Our whole community is talking about it.”

Are you a freelance writer? Then may I offer my condolences to you. It is a sad, difficult time in your life. But you may be able to pull through. This is simply your cross to bear, so carry it with as much dignity as you can.

Dennis Ferrell is also a freelance writer. In a very self-demonstrative article at Something Awful, he offers his advice for how you can pitch an idea, write good copy, and maybe even get paid occasionally. He begins with this sage counsel:

Begin every article with the word "begin". This is quite the power move. It establishes that the article has begun, leaving no room for doubt. It's also a subtle way of telegraphing where a reader is in relation to the rest of the article.

Try not to use any letters that you made up. Unless you get really lucky, they won't be on your keyboard.

Content warning: foul language.

-via American Digest

(Photo: Justice Don Willett)

On March 2, 1836, the founding fathers of the Republic of Texas gathered at the settlement of Washington-on-the-Brazos and declared independence from Mexico. Although we were an independent nation for only 9 years, we Texans maintain our independent streak and celebrate Texas Independence Day every year.

The Glazing Saddles franchise of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts contributed to the celebration in Austin yesterday by arranging red, white, and blue donuts in the shape of the Texas flag. Appropriately, there were precisley 1,836 donuts.

-via David Burge