If you were looking for a brass blog yesterday, you might have noticed that nothing got updated. That’s because no one was working. Labor Day, baby! I spent most of the day driving back to Corvallis from my hometown of Lakeview. It was a long five-hour drive after watching the 89th Annual Lake County Round Up Parade. I was also tired after staying out 'till midnight the night before in 38 degree weather watching the Destruction Derby. The highlight was watching a former high school classmate (affectionately nicknamed "The Stain") drive his 1970s Chrysler New Yorker across the arena at full speed into the front end of another local Lake County boy's car. They hit so hard that Stain's New Yorker ended up parked in the other car's engine compartment. The roar that went up from the packed grandstand was the deep-throated cry of the American Redneck. Needless to say, the derby ticket was the best $9 I've ever spent.  Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures... so you're stuck with this Flickr jewel (via Creative Commons). Don't worry though, all that Labor Day free time wasn't a total waste. After all, it made me wonder how much money was paid out to workers who got the day off and used their time as wisely as I did. Here's what I found out: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 145,819,000 employed workers in the civilian labor force. On average these workers are pulling down $18.06 per hour. There are eight hours in the standard work day. Put all those numbers together and this is what you get: 145,819,000 X $18.06 X 8 =  $21,067,929,120. Now I know that some people work on Labor Day, and not everyone gets paid to take the day off, but you get the idea--$21 billion are paid out to American employees to not do any work. As McDonald's would say,  "i'm lovin' it." --Jens