Saturday, October 25, 2008

Drive


3,000 freakin miles. That is how far I have driven in the past month. Click that link, its a google map of my path. Finishing school, visiting the lady, the parents, friends, before heading out for good. I am now on my way down to New Bern for the last time, we will be meeting up with my uncle, aunt, and cousins, and then setting sail on the 1st of November after a few final preparations. It has only recently begun to dawn on me how long 7 months is to be away, and it is still incredibly exciting that all 7 will be spent exploring the Bahamas.

So in my recent travels, I Most of the drive was spent alone, so I did a lot of thinking, mostly about driving. I have a thing for efficiency, so I ended up thinking a lot about the most efficient way to travel. Many times when I drive, I try to drive the tangents of a curve, taking the shortest route as possible on a road. Think of it like a string was strung through the turns, when you pull the string tight, the path it takes is the most efficient possible path. In order to test my efficiency when making an effort to be efficient, i reset my odometer at mile 1 when I entered a new highway. At highway mile 2 the odometer read 1, by mile 40 the odometer read 39.5, and by mile 80, the odometer read 80, which means that my path was a mile longer than the marked highway miles after only 80 miles. whoever made those highway markers really knew how to ride the tangents. when I stopped making an effort to be efficient, I gained a mile on the highway markers after only 60 miles. They say that the most efficient speed for fuel economy is 55 mph. I buy it, it makes sense, but what about on hills? Is it just most fuel efficient to push down the pedal to go 55 on the straight parts or to actually go that speed. If you are going up a hill at 55 and keep your foot pressed on the gas at the same point, that will get you up to 80 on the downhill easily, I know, I tested it, multiple times. It is more efficient to go slower up hills, I have heard that many times, but they never talk about the other end of the hill, I say that it is more efficient to go 80 down hills. But dont do it. Thats is against the law.

As I drive down I-64 and take a turn, the full moon glows in front of me, and it gets me thinking. What if you were to take some kind of super space nuke and detonate it on the moon to disrupt its orbit and send it crashing into the earth? Aside from the mass destruction and the possible disruption of the entire world ecosystems, I think it would be a pretty interesting experience. The moon has a pretty strong gravitational pull, it controls the tides even from its distant orbit. Maybe if it were on the earth it would pull all the water from the other side of the world and leave a huge ex-ocean pit. There would be whales and sharks and all kinds of things flopping around everywhere. And whose would it be? I think I would also send out a separate rocket after the nuke, equipped with a flag reading "Brendonia" to claim the moon as my own before it crashed onto the Earth. The United States could have like an acre where Neil Armstrong staked his claim, but the rest would be mine. Maybe it would mess up earths orbit too, and send us crashing into the sun. Someone get Dr. Evil on the phone.

You will notice that I added some pictures to my gallery, take a look. There are some pictures of the dry docked boat, some critters, and some of the fellow Bahamian cruisers. Oh, and one of a milk float. Milk floats are one of the greatest inventions ever to be invented. Fill a cup with ice cream, pour milk over it, and daaaaaang is it good. I tried a Guinness float (Guinness poured over chocolate ice cream) the other day. That may sound like a sin, and I was reluctant to do it for fear of the beer Gods wrath, but I survived the experience, and the it was actually quite good.

Superman had to have been really smart, but they never mention this power. In his last movie he diagnosed Lois Lane with his x-ray vision to make sure she would be ok. It would take a fairly intimate understanding of the inner working of the human body to be able to confirm proper functioning at a glance, its not like they have an x-ray vision medical school, he learned all of that on his own. Of course, the x-rays may have given her cancer in the process, but it was necessary, superman dosnt have time for lead aprons.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

you can add a few more miles onto that total. you have philadelphia as your destination, and no matter how much you don't want to admit it, you actually drove to new jersey.

you'll get used to having to accept that fact, i'm working on it.

Unknown said...

ok, so u can take credit for sending the moon into the earth, ive not considered that one before
But i did think about drilling a hole exactly through the center of the earth and considering that the center of gravity is the center of the earth, having things oscilate endlessly along the hole

and have you ever considred a world without friction... thats a fun time too, interesting parameters, think bout it

but as far as superman goes, the man gets his powers from the sun... theres got to be some kinda UV damage that goes along with that
how do we know that there isnt kryptonite in the sun?

Unknown said...

oh ya, u must tell dad bout ur gueniss float... over the summer he was sayin how much he loves the combo of eatin ice cream and drinkin beer and i asked him if he ever made a beer float... and he didnt!
i was flabbergausted!
i htink there should be put into research what types and flavors and whatever other qualities of beer would make the best float maker