Orion "The Big O" Samuelson might be a national treasure, but he's a Midwestern icon. He is best known for hosting the U.S. Farm Report and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2003. But those of us who grew up in the Chicagoland area know him as the first person we ever heard say, "pork bellies." He was the guy on that radio station old people listened to. Our parents or grandparents would have it playing on the clock radio in the kitchen every morning and sometimes all day long.

The industrial Internet, or Internet of Things, is one of those terms that most people reference, but few people actually understand.

The thought of connecting the logic of every capable processor and enabling them to share data is a remarkably massive undertaking, but time and again we have proven ourselves quite capable of achieving the seemingly unachievable. We have, after all, been to the moon, split an atom or two, and found the Higgs-Boson particle. An Internet of things seems like child's play in comparison.

We are going to Mars. I'm so excited I think I just colonized myself.

A group called MarsOne (http://mars-one.com/en/), led by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, who founded Ampyx Power (www.ampyxpower.com) before selling his majority share to fund the Mars mission, has the world abuzz with the idea of leaving it forever.

Cats are smart. That's a commonly held belief by many, especially those who live with them. Scrappy and Princess, our two feline housemates, each forked out the $18 fee and aced the Mensa Home Test (https://www.us.mensa.org/join/mht/), but neither has managed to pass the supervised admission test, mostly because curiosity always gets the best of them and they end up staring out the window at the whimsical air, which inevitably leads to cleaning and napping. Maybe they're just not genius-smart.

Why worry about tomorrow? As we count down the final hours before the Mayan calendar and civilization as we know it come to an end, there's really no point in fretting over what might have come later, had the world not exploded and splintered into umpteen kajillion fiery pieces sent hurtling through space.

I spent the past three days touring Baldor (www.baldor.com) manufacturing plants and test centers in North Carolina and South Carolina. It was a week of fresh-baked cookies constantly coming out of the oven. I mean that figuratively, of course, but the days were filled with one batch of sensory delights after another.

When the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, www.cern.org) announced it had discovered a particle that was at the very least similar to the Higgs boson particle this past July, the world's population of physicists pricked up their collective ears.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Bremen Castings (www.bremencastings.com), a family-owned foundry and machine shop in Bremen, Indiana. It was on the cusp of hitting 500 days without lost-time injury. That milestone was met, so I thought some safety advice and insights from JB Brown, the company president, might be highly valuable. Here's what I found out, in Q&A format. Listen up, and take notes. He did not disappoint.

Few things are worth a 20-year wait. A single-malt scotch, yes. French fries at the McDonald's drive-thru, no. Retirement pension, yes. Tickets to see Katy Perry, no. The SMRP annual conference, yes.

Bremen Castings, a family-owned foundry and machine shop in Bremen, Indiana, will hit 500 days without lost-time injury next week. Lost-time injury is defined as an occurrence that resulted in a fatality, permanent disability, or lost time from work of one day or shift and possibly more.