Here's a quick roundup of some of the mini-moments you may have missed on this week's Morning Edition.
Tick-tock, time to find the clock
At times, the passing of time can seem to go by so slowly, and then there are the times you're constantly reminded of the time. Usually these reminders come in the form of alarms. Well for 13 years, Jerry Lynn and his wife have been reminded every day at 7:50 p.m. that there's a clock in their wall. As Morning Edition host Rachel Martin said on Monday, Lynn dropped the clock down an air vent inside a wall, and while it might seem like an accident, he told CNN it was not. Rather, dropping the clock was part of a plan that just didn't execute as it should have.
The idea was to drop the clock down, so Lynn could see where he would need to put a hole in the wall for a TV wire. Well, the clock went down, but it didn't come back up. Lynn decided to leave it there because he thought it would stop working. But 13 years later and it was still going. I guess 13 years is the limit though, because Lynn and his wife recently had it removed. Now it's time to find out what type of clock and batteries they had.
Start-up sadness
There are a lot of great businesses and ideas that have come from start-ups. There are bike shares, ride shares, apps that we need, others that we don't, and so much more. For every start-up that makes it big, however, there are many others that don't. This Chinese start-up might fall into the second category. E Umbrella, an umbrella share program, launched just about three months ago with the mission of keeping people dry. Verge reports the company had an investment of around $1.47 million when it launched in April. This roughly equates to 300,000 umbrellas out in the wild. It sounds like a great idea because who really wants to get caught in the rain and end up looking like a wet dog at work?
The answer: no one, but that's also the answer to who wanted to return the umbrellas. As Morning Edition guest host Mary Louise Kelly said on Tuesday, E Umbrella lost all 300,000 of its umbrellas when people didn't return them. Don't worry though, founder Zhao Shuping isn't discouraged. His next idea is umbrellas with GPS and a better way to check them in. Best of luck, Zhao.
Beer baggage
It's not uncommon for people to check their luggage with a bottle of wine or other alcohol in it. But what if your luggage was just beer and no bag was necessary? That was the reality for Dean Stinson. As Morning Edition host David Greene said on Friday, Stinson wanted to see if he could travel across Australia without giving up his beer. He traveled from Melbourne to Perth and before boarding his flight he checked his luggage, I mean, beer. It was just one can — not even an entire pack — and it got its own tag. Granted, the tag took up most of the beer can, but by the time they landed in Perth, both beer and man made it. And Stinson picked up his beer just like any other luggage — off the conveyor belt.
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