Thursday Thirteen

This week's Thursday Thirteen is a completely random list of thirteen random, unrelated statistics thanks to Real Simple Magazine, a magazine I read religiously:

1. $1.2 billion - the estimated dollar amount employers nationwide could lose in productivity during the NCAA men's basketball tournament, as employees direct their attention to filling out the perfect bracket.

2. 1,500 - the average number of miles product travels from farm to table in the USA.

3. 501,000 - the number of Easter Eggs hidden in the largest-ever Easter Egg hunt, held at Cypress Gardens Adventure Park, in Winter Haven, FL, last Easter.

4. March 9, 1959 - the day Barbie (Miss Barbie Millicent Roberts from Willows, Wisconsin, to be exact!) first made her way onto store shelves. Happy 50th anniversary, Barbie!

5. 7:44AM - Easter daylight time on March 20: the time of the vernal equinox. Spring has sprung!

6. 6,200 miles - the distance the bar-tailed godwit flies nonstop from New Zealand to the Yellow Sea on its Spring migration. And to think that your husband complains when you send him out on a milk run.

7. 10% - the percent of holiday gift cards that wind up unused, devalued, or missing - or that simply expire over time, a whopping $8 billion in consumer loss.

8. 250,000 - the approximate number of homeless pets available for adoption on petfinder.com.

9. 1.1 billion - the estimated number of people worldwide with no access to clean drinking water.

10. 1862 - the year the first U.S. Income Tax was levied. Abraham Lincoln signed into law this revenue-raising method in order to help the federal government pay for the expenses of the Civil War.

11. 29 days, 4 hours, 3 minutes and 20 seconds - the duration of the longest debate, which took place in the parliament of Tasmania, Australia, from November 2 to December 1, 1996. The subject? "Tasmania's greatest asset to it's people".

12. 4 things - that's all most people can remember at one time.

13. 72% - the percent of women who say that happiness lies in making progress toward their goals, even if they never achieve them.