09:28 – Interesting article on CNN about how countries compare in paid holidays. The UK leads the pack, with 28 statutory paid holidays. The US comes in dead last, with zero statutory paid holidays, although, as the article points out, US companies typically voluntarily provide about 15 paid holidays per year.
Americans also typically take many fewer vacation and sick days than Europeans do. Back when Barbara and I were first married, her dad introduced us to a young woman who’d just moved here from the UK, where she’d been a radiation therapist. She was being paid literally two or three times what she’d earned in the UK, but she was stunned to learn that her paid time off was a tiny fraction of what it’d been in the UK. In addition to having half as many paid holidays here, she was very surprised to learn that she got only two weeks’ paid vacation, versus the six weeks she’d had in the UK. She was also surprised to find that many Americans, then as now, didn’t even take off all the days they were entitled to.
Work on the science kits continues. Now that we’re in a slower time we’re trying to build inventory. Although it’s nothing like the flood of orders in July through September, there’ll be another mini-peak from mid- to late-November through mid-January as people buy science kits for Christmas and the second semester.
14:19 – The other night when I thought I spotted an Indy car cruising down our street I was right, kind of. It was a replica 1989 Lola Indy car. I was also right about it having a serious engine compared to the Honda 4-cylinder of the replica Can Am car I spotted a year or so ago. The replica Lola has a Chevy LT1. Both cars are street legal. Colin and I spotted them during our walk a little while ago, and I talked to guy who built them.