How to hardboil an Egg & tie your shoes

These issues came up many years ago, but I finally decided to say something about it. It seems that something as simple as hard boiling an egg or tying your shoes would be something that everyone would know how to do. Part of the problem is that some people think that they know how to do both, but in reality they don't.

A friend of mine told me a story about tying shoes. He thought that he knew how to tie his shoes, but he always had a problem, his shoes would often come untied. He never thought much about it until someone pointed out to him that he was not correctly doing it. There are two ways of tying a shoe, but each results in a different type of knot. One stays tied and the other does not. If you pull the loops out, then you can see the type of knot. The difference is in how you do the second part of the knot and how that relates to the first part. This is hard to explain, but if your shoes come untied all the time, get a book and see what a square knot looks like. If you pull the loops and that is not what you have, then follow the procedures for a square knot.

Here are some instructions, but it is hard to explain: Right over left, end now on right side under shoelace from right side of the shoe, make a loop from the end on the right side, take the end on the left side over the loop that you created, about part way to the end and create a loop by putting that through the hole between the first part and the loop.

The other item is how to hard boil an egg. Most people don't know how to do it and you can tell the difference by the color between the egg white and the yoke. If it is green, then you are doing it wrong. The taste difference is remarkable. I found out that I did not know how to properly cook an egg many years ago by a friend. I was told how and tried it and was amazed at the difference. To properly cook a hard boiled egg, put the egg in cold water with about an inch of water above the egg. Bring this to a hard boil and keep it boiling for 1 minute, then turn off the burner and let sit for around 18-20 minutes, depending on the size of the egg. The egg will come out of the shell easier, there will be no green between the white and the yoke and it will taste much better too.

Another aspect involving eggs is how to make an omelette or scambled eggs. I learned what not to do by yet another friend. There is an old book which talks about the chemistry of cooking. Most people don't think of chemistry when it comes to cooking, just like they don't think of physics when it comes to driving, but cooking is really all about chemistry. It turns out that if you combine milk with eggs it will come out tough due to the way it chemically combines. If you use water instead, your eggs will come out much fluffier and taste better. I need to track down this book because most cookbooks fail to address such issues and instead just repeat the wrong information.

I mentioned driving above because I took an advanced driving class and one of the first things they mentioned was the physics aspects of driving. Although I had taken physics, I had never really thought about many of the aspects and how driving relates to physics. I thought I knew how to drive, but in four long days I learned many things which I had never considered before and come to realize that I really did not know how to drive before. Learning simple aspects like this can save your life and while such classes are expensive, it is well worth it since it can save your life. I would personally recommend Bob Bondurant's driving courses. One thing that makes his classes different is that he has a custom made training track with parts taken from race courses all over the world. Another thing which is different is that they do not have speed limits. Some other places do, strange as that seems for an advanced training class with close ties to racing. The track is the limiting factor at Bondurant's, so you can learn to the limits. Book learning is really nice, but when it comes to skids and skid control, real life pratice, in a safe environment, makes all the difference in the world.

How many other simple things do people not know how to properly do? Especially when they think that they do!