Jump-start your week: Egg hunts and spring myths come with chips and dip

Pick of the week: You don't have to look hard to find an Easter egg hunt this week. They're being held in parks all over the Twin Cities — all over the state, for that matter — and offer just about every variation on the theme, including an after-dark hunt by flashlight (8:30 p.m. Friday, Creekview Park, Minneapolis), one in which kids color the eggs (noon Saturday, Lions Park, Lake Elmo) and another involving wild bird eggs (1 p.m. Sunday, Eastman Nature Center, Dayton). To find a hunt in your neighborhood, just log onto your favorite search engine and enter "Easter egg hunt" and the name of the city.

Cheat sheet: Spring is in the air — well, according to the calendar, anyway. Here are some tidbits with which to show off your climatological expertise.

• Sunday's first day of spring was called the vernal equinox. Despite what your Uncle Vern told you when you were a kid, it's not really named after him. It's Latin for spring.

• Spring fever is not in your head. Increased amounts of daylight cause hormonal changes in the body, scientists have found.

• It's not a myth: On the day of the spring equinox, you really can balance a raw egg on end. But you can do it every other day of the year, too, because (here's the myth part) it has nothing to do with a variation in the gravitational flow. It simply involves patience and balance — plus not having anything more interesting to do.

Day by day: Tuesday is International Goof Off Day, and Wednesday is National Chip and Dip Day. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have those be on the same day? It's common knowledge that for goofing off to reach its full potential, you need chips and dip.

Life hack: Need a large batch of eggs for coloring? Instead of covering your stove with pans of boiling water, put the eggs in a muffin pan on the middle shelf of the oven at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. If you don't have a muffin pan, a moistened kitchen towel will work just as well.

recommended reading: Do fitness monitors really help or are they just gimmicks? The answer is in Tuesday's Variety.

Jeff Strickler • Star Tribune