I lived in Colorado Springs for a time years ago, and made side trips to the park to play with the sheep nearly every time I had to go to Denver.

Oh, god. . . . Suddenly, I'm STARVING for something like this, but it's too late at night to go and fix anything. Those last couple of Oreos just won't do it.

I've always been amused by the way photos of our galaxy are nearly always presented as if it were a far-away object, like some star. When actually, the photos are necessarily taken from the inside, since Earth's system is a part of the Milky Way.

Well, I've been retired for 20 years, which makes it easier, but really, I've always read that much. My fixation on books and reading led to a long career in a very large public library system -- but you'd be surprised how much time busy librarians DON'T have to read.

I keep up with a number of series, too, mostly via a directory of checklist text files where I can keep track of whee I am with each one and what's about to be published next. When you read this much, you have to be organized about it, or you miss things.

I'm pushing 80 so I'm thankful for the invention of the Kindle, which allows me to enlarge the font easily. It's becoming very difficult to read most paper books these days. And I've never cared for audiobooks. I have to read with my eyes, not my ears.

I get through ~150 books a year, so about three per week. (And I write and post online reviews of all of them.) But there's no special technique or anything, and I don't skim. I'm just a fast reader, and have been since before I started school. My eyes take in blocks of text rather than individual words and I retain whet I read better than most people. In other words, it's natural talent (which was very useful in school). I can't throw a football worth a damn and I've never been able to read music, but I have this. It all balances out.

Okay, thanks. I wasn't aware of alcohol acting as a deeper chemical catalyst. I cook with wine frequently, and I've cooked with rum (though I don't really like the taste of rum from a glass), and those, of course, add an extra taste to the dish -- but it's a taste of "themselves," if you follow what I mean. It's like adding any other ingredient. This is a whole different issue that I hadn't considered.

I don't think I've ever had vodka sauce. But I've drunk vodka and (unless it's flavored) it really has no taste. So if you burn off the alcohol in the cooking, what's left?