After the 2008 election losses, followed by a recession, the Douglas County School District and the Douglas County Libraries had some cuts to make.

The school district chose to eliminate all of its subscription databases -- information resources offered over the Internet. At the same time, the library was looking at trimming its own subscriptions.

As an undergraduate, I spent a lot of time at the student billiard center. Occasionally, smooth, well-dressed pool sharks would come through on tour. They had great names, like blues singers or gangsters: Las Vegas Jimmy, Spats McDonough, Gentleman Joe, and so on.

For a long time, scientists believed two things about the brain.

The first was the idea that you're born with a set number of neurons -- "brain cells." Then, you lose them all your life.

I'm a pretty fast reader. Because of that, I usually only read one book at a time. (That also helps me keep the characters and plots straight.)

But last weekend, I broke the pattern, in part because the formats of the books were so different.