A wonderful part of the news about a kitten that was found after being lost in the New York Subway for 25 (!!) days is the report that “track workers Mark Dalessio and Efrain LaPorte went through the area making ‘meow’ sounds” in order to get her to respond. And she did.

My childhood ice skating memories take place in the outdoors on local ponds, swamps, and, for one amazingly icy week, the frozen front yard. In another nostalgic winter pasttime article, the N.Y. Times looks at the disappearing custom of outside skating, with warmer winters reducing the amount of skatable ice. The accompanying slideshow of this year’s good skating conditions recalls the hockey games, cold fingers tying skates, beginner slips, and friends with ponds, albeit with a few more helmets than were worn in my youth.

The world auction record for a musical instrument has been broken, but only Sotheby’s and the buyer know exactly by how much. The price for the violin, a Guarneri, was “well in excess” of the $3.54 million paid for a Stradivarius in 2006. New owner Maxim Viktorov loans his instrument collection out regularly and this new acquisition will be played by Pinchas Zukerman next month in Moscow.

When we were planning our wedding a few years back I’m pretty sure that Target didn’t have this set of Double Happiness Wedding accessories. The items themselves aren’t very Chinese (we used a signing cloth instead of a guest book) which makes me wonder if many non-Chinese couples decide to have Chinese-themed weddings.

I ordered a Thinkpad laptop recently and received free shipping, which I assumed was going to be of the usual “stick it on a UPS truck for a couple weeks” variety. Once I received the tracking number I settled in for a leisurely, days-long observation of my laptop’s journey. However, the trip was over almost before I knew about it. The laptop left Hong Kong on the evening of Feb 11 (their local time) and arrived on my doorstep in Washington State the morning of Feb 12. In between it went from Alaska to Ontario (so it wasn’t a straight shot over, it had to backtrack) before it arrived in Seattle. It was roughly a 28 hour travel time. That’s an amazingly short span, especially considering customs clearance (it was held up for a few hours for “REASONS BEYOND UPS’ CONTROL”), loading and unloading. I recommend John McPhee’s New Yorker article about UPS in the April 18, 2005 issue (blurb), also in his book “Uncommon Carriers,” (hardback is only $6.67 at Amazon right now) for those of you as fascinated as I am by these logistics.

While researching the ins and outs of international shipping I ran across a Logistics Magazine article (bottom of the page) about how Lush (Canadian retailer of handmade soaps and other nice smelling things that get you clean) worked with UPS to improve their shipping process to the U.S. Their Internet sales were primarily from customers in the United States and each order was handled separately and manually, including dealing with customs. As their sales grew, the process became too burdensome. UPS provided a system that consolidates their U.S. orders into one large shipment that clears customs once, and is then separated for individual delivery after arrival in the states.

A recent study found that coral exposed to chemical sunscreens died after four days. The four ingredients the tested sunscreens had in common were paraben, cinnamate, benzophenone, and a camphor derivative. The conditions used for the test did not duplicate natural reef conditions, but the study author explained that even a small dose of sunscreen caused viruses in the corol’s symbiotic algae to replicate rapidly, eventually killing off the algae and coral.

Spotted at Target this weekend: FLOR carpet tiles for kids in Pooh, Cars, and Disney Princesses (pink of course). They’ve had FLOR for about a year now, but I don’t know if the kiddie patterns are new.

650 pounds of sunflower seeds are on their way to the USA Network, courtesy of fans disappointed in the cancellation of “The 4400.” Giants Seeds in North Dakota is handling the orders. (Who knew sunflower seeds came in dill pickle flavor?)

Are the faithful every-3,000-miles oil changers being unkind to the environment? The California Integrated Waste Management Board is launching a campaign to call the 3,000 mile oil change a myth. Many manufacturers recommend more mileage between oil changes for cars these days. The Automotive Oil Change Association, an organization that represents fast lube companies, is not surprisingly calling the campaign “misleading.” The bottom line is: read your owner’s manual, and dispose of used oil properly.

Two fun new exhibits in the Seattle area: on Saturday the Museum of Flight opens “Style in the Aisle: The History of Fashion in Flight,” a display of flight attendant uniforms from their extensive uniform collection. And yes they have the infamous Pucci+Braniff space bubble headgear. At the Pacific Science Center, kids can learn all about trees from the inside out, sit in a giant bird’s nest, crawl through a log, and go inside a huge acorn.