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I like seeing new places, and what better way than on a road trip? I enjoy road trips (it helps that I’m carsick-free), and imagine my pride when I saw this California road trip list that included my home town.

The fun thing about lists is that you can count how many of them you’ve visited. However, I’ve lived in California for more than three decades, and I’ve only seen 13 of the 29 places on that list. I guess I’m a work in progress — but hey, at least I am one state past seeing half of the 50 United States! Small steps.

And, since I’m not always great at posting photos, here’s a picture of me last year at one of these road trip places — the statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

For those of us who always wanted Legos and remote-controlled cars but instead got dolls for Christmas, it’s never too late to play with Legos at work! Yep, it’s true: Google and Lego teamed up to make Build With Chrome, which resulted in me wasting entirely too much of a recent Saturday morning.

If, like me, you’re having some trouble figuring it out, you can browse a map of the world to find others’ “Build” creations. Take, for instance, this dude in San Jose. Yeah, I think I’ll just go back to my day job now.

Today’s post is brought to you by a nerd — a nerd who runs. A few years ago I tried running with a heart rate monitor, but it chafed in a place where I already battle chafing. I stuck it out for a while, but then decided I valued my skin more than I wanted to know how fast my heart was beating.

However, it’s now 2014 and of course “there’s an app for that.” And it’s free! This app uses my phone’s camera to “see” my pulse in my finger, which sounds extremely suspicious, right? Well, it seemed correct when I first downloaded and tried it. (I have a low resting heart rate, and it agreed.) I was able to test it when I recently went to the doctor, where they measured my pulse at 62 beats per minute. I then used the app a few minutes later when my appointment was done and the doctor had left the room, and the app said 58. This seems correct, since I was relieved that the appointment was done.

Anyway, here’s the iTunes link for the app. And here’s the Android link. Download it, place your finger over your camera lens and enjoy the nerdy numbers.

(Hat tip to The Boring Runner, who told me about the app.)

Since Friday is Valentine’s Day, how about a trip into the Google Doodle vault from two years ago? Here’s a cute little tale about a cute little boy trying to woo a cute little girl.

(Side note: Not only is it 11:11 a.m. but today is the 11th day of the month. Yep, I’m still as nerdy as ever.)

In the “awesome parent” meets “fun art to look at” department, this dad wins. For the past five years, he has been making his kids’ lunches and drawing art on the sandwich bag. Here’s a post about it, with some tidbits including this: “David says the most touching comments he receives are from parents who do similar things for their kids… just because they love them.”

But that’s not it. You can see ALL of David Laferriere’s sandwich art photos on his Flickr. The total is nearing 2,000 photos. If that’s not an excellent Tuesday Time-Waster, I don’t know what is.

To see even more about the artist, here’s his Facebook page, and here’s his website.

The New York Times published a list of places to see in 2014, (which probably means that they’ll get over-saturated, but that’s beside the point). I’m a little perplexed by a few of the options including #5, “downtown Los Angeles,” and I doubt I’ll actually go to any of them in 2014, but it’s fun to look through the list and see the pictures.

I’m a little biased when I note the absence of Ireland. I still have yet to finish the blog posts about my September trip there, so here’s a photo just to make this post a bit more interesting.

You know you want to be Lolo Jones and hurdle like an Olympian. Well, if you missed this Google doodle in August 2012, you can still hurdle, though I can’t promise that you’ll look as good while doing it.

As if that’s not enough, walk down memory lane and look at the list of other interactive Google doodles linked in this article.

(Note: This blog post was in “draft” mode since August 2012. Shortly after I started that blog post, Lolo Jones took up bobsledding.)

Ever since I met my friend Katie — and, subsequently, her dog — I have loved corgis. They’re incredibly smart, they’re friendly, they’re lovable, and they’re cute. They have short legs, but I don’t think they realize their ears stand up tall. And that’s why some of these “Find the Corgi” pictures are hilarious.

It seems to be my thing to see corgis during marathons, and that’s usually one time I’ll expend extra breath to talk: “Corgi!!!”

(Note: During my recent interest in reviving my weekly 11:11 a.m. “Tuesday Time-Waster” tradition, I was going through my half-written blog posts and found this one. Yes, folks, it was sitting in the hopper for a whole year.)