Chris Smith

The official 2010 U.S. census form was fine as far as it goes. You need it to govern the country, they say.

But please. It had 10 questions, some of those the same question, just about the other people living with you. How many people live here, their ages, race and gender.

When Les and I set out to write The Unofficial U.S. Census last year, we felt that’s just not enough information about the family next door. What are our 310 million next-door neighbors doing over there?

• Are they single or married? Are they tattooed? If so, do they regret it?

• Do they buy Christmas presents for their pets, or keep a picture of Fluffy in their wallet?

• How many believe extraterrestrials have visited Earth other than in the movies?

• How many of their kids make perfect scores on the SAT?

• Are they giving more money to charity than you are, and are they really going to church on the weekend or just pretending?

The answers weren’t hidden. We found them in data from Pew, Gallup, Harris, and other polling firms, in-depth research by Kinsey Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. We looked at how people behave online through Google and Twitter data. OK, celebrity websites too. For good measure, we checked with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, FBI, CDC and the Census Bureau itself.

What we learned: Americans are smart, crazy, creative, generous, hard-working, funny, sad, honest, devious and a thousand other wonderful, interesting things.

Some of my favorite random facts from the book:

1. Nobody loves their commute to work. But the rest of us should probably stop whining. 3.5 million Americans commute to work more than 90 minutes. Every day. Each way. 17 million people—13% of all commuters—leave home for work between midnight and 5:59 a.m.
2. Americans are the most tattooed people on earth, thanks in part to the 21,000 tattoo parlors in the U.S. And we’re way beyond “Mom” or skulls inked on the arms of sailors and bikers now. More than a third of Americans 25 to 29 have at least one tattoo.
3. We’re hopelessly outnumbered by our pets. And dog owners spend $40 million, and cat owners $19 million, on toys for their pets. The cats reportedly are not amused.
4. Some accused Americans of being self-centered, but more than 63 million of them volunteer in their communities, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service.
5. 50,000 people who play paintball are 65 or older. So much for bingo.
6. Slightly more than 12 million people participate in amateur dart throwing.
7. Your average neighbor spends $120 a year on reading but more than $2,700 on other entertainment.
8. Finding Mr. or Ms. Right has become a $1 billion business. The two most popular Internet dating sites total more than 10 million visitors every month.
9. The average American claims to have sex 118 times a year—lower than the worldwide average of 127.
10. Nearly 50 million Americans live in a home with least two adult generations, or a grandparent and someone from at least one other generation. That’s 16% of the population. But it’s nothing like the way things were before World War II, when one-quarter of Americans lived in such a family arrangement.
11. In the Colonial Era the average per-capita net worth was approximately 74 British pounds, which comes out to just over $1,000 in today’s money. Now, according to Federal Reserve, the average person in the United States is worth $182,000. Of course, that average comes not just from the assets of teachers and firemen, but also of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and other Americans with strong balance sheets. And at one point during the last recession, some economists calculated that 41 million Americans were living with a net worth of zero.
12. Your neighbors have a lot of hot tubs, TVs and cell phones. You knew that. But did you know there are 5.8 million hot tubs in the country, and more TVs per average home than people living in those houses?
13. Eighty-five percent of Americans 18 and older own a cell phone. Among people 18 to 29, it’s nearly 100%.]
14. The average U.S. male is 5’9″ and weighs 191 pounds. The average woman: 5’4″ and 164 pounds. In 1960, both men and women were an inch shorter and more than 25 pounds lighter.
15. The U.S.D.A. says the average American consumes 62 pounds of beef, 47 pounds of pork, and 60 pounds of chicken every year. That’s a lot of burgers and wings.
16. We’re not getting enough sleep. Americans 18 years and older now sleep an average of 6.7 hours on weeknights. That’s an hour less than half a century earlier.
17. Remember the Bronx Zoo Cobra? Sure, he’s safely in the zoo, but the American Veterinary Medical Association estimates that 390,000 U.S. households own a snake.

I don’t know about you, but I may never think of my next door neighbors in quite the same way.

This is what I saw. But it doesn’t do justice to what happened.

The launch of a shuttle turns out to be brighter than anyone who has seen it in person lets on. You hear them talk about that sound, the one that you feel as much as hear. But few explain that the light from the solid rocket boosters and the shuttle’s main engines combine nearly to embarrass the sun. It’s really bright.

By the time I held the camera to the side and clicked the shutter so I could witness the launch with my own eyes, store it in my own memory, and then took a short, amazed breath, the shuttle punched a hole in the cloud cover and was gone. It left behind an angry smoke plume and probably a lot of startled pelicans and love bugs. And the rest of us, on the field by the countdown clock — now counting up instead of down — some whooping, others just grinning. I think I just said wow quietly but I don’t know for sure.

Here in the parking lot of a Gainsville coffee shop, drinking their coffee and getting one last wifi fix before the rest of the long drive home to New Orleans, I feel the need to tell the story from beginning to end of my NASA Tweetup experience. At least part 2. But not today. I’ll come back when I have more pictures ready and have had some sleep.

Go Endeavour!