Too long

September 19, 2006I has been entirely too long since I've gotten on here.  Daniel too, in fact.  Things have been very busy lately.

Daniel got all of his one-year vaccinations last week.  Then, he woke up that night breathing strangely.  Everything was alright (we later found out), but a late night ride to the emergency room with my baby in the back and me at the wheel is enough to stress anyone out.  He spent the next several days kinda fussy, as the vaccinations kinda through him for a loop.

I've been practicing on the motorcycle since my parents brought it up.  I've taken it for a ride every day (except yesterday because of rain) and will be taking it to work today.  I have all the safety gear (helmet, jacket, gloves, pants, and boots), and feel very competent and comfortable when riding.  Oh... and last time I filled up, I had gotten 70mpg.

In related news...
#18 of reasons that Cookeville is great:
Gas Price: $2.14/gal

Speech Recognition

September 07, 2006Perhaps this software needs some tweaking.  I was just chatting with it, and this is what it heard.

All in all I thought of it works very well I thought it
worked very well graininess crazy reading it really it’s it’ll work in all U.S.
invaded one was the lead in the eighteen one wanted the lead in the 18116
billion 18116 billion billion yen and the Indian and the lead in the day I
think the night new ally in tonight’s income tax on the council and dollars in
dues begin it looks like news union will be adding a little in the new nine
outlays might think about the lake and $1.00 and used might be delayed and
$1.00 in music alive when the when of whom were lined the war lined the war in
Lebanon war in Lebanon in Lebanon in Lebanon union and the only union and the
old union the old union was named to the AIDS activated to the eighth eight to
use the boys in the

10 vs 12

September 06, 2006I think this is kind of neat, but you might want to skip this post if you don't find math interesting.  Have you ever wondered why we have 12 inches in a foot instead of 10 inches?  As I said two posts ago, it's much easier to divide by 10.  Metric uses 10's for distance (centimeters, meters, kilometers, etc).  But we use 12's and related numbers (12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, and you can divide 12 into 5280, which is how many feet there are in a mile).  So why?  We have 10 fingers, right?  10 is easy to multiply.  I think most of us can do 10^3 easier than 12^3.  I think I know why.

Sure, it's easy to multiply by 10, but very little of measurement is multiplication.  Think about this instead.
10 / 2 = 5  and  12 / 2 = 6
Nothing fascinating yet, right?  But what about this.
10 / 3 = 3.3333 and 12 / 3 = 4
10 / 4 = 2.5 and 12 / 4 = 3
10 / 5 = 2 and 12 / 5 = 2.4
10 / 6 = 1.6667 and 12 / 6 = 2

Generally speaking, it is a lot easier to break up 12 than 10.  12 is one of few numbers that can be divided by every number up to its square root (that is, 12 is evenly divisible by 1, 2, 3, and 4).  Please don't ask why I ever figured that out.  60 is almost as good.  Convenient division, eh?  So next time you grumble about multiplying 14*12, think of how much easier it is to break 4 feet into 3 pieces (16 inches each) than to break 4 meters into 3 pieces (133.333 cm each).

Great Weekend

September 05, 2006Two great things happened last week.

First and foremost, Daniel had his one year birthday party!  I tried to add pictures, but it only added to last two I attempted (both motorcycle).  Go check out Liz's blog for pics of our precious baby.  He had a great birthday.  His grandmama got him an awesome soccer cake, and Daniel had much fun with it.  As his previous experience with sugar was two bites of icecream and two bites of pound cake, a bowl of icecream and a full piece of cake was quite the adventure.  He was starting to get tired towards the end of it, but he seemed to have a lot of fun anyway.  Liz helped Daniel open presents, and much entertainment was had by all.

Second, I bought a motorcycle!  I've been shopping for a while, and finally found a great bike in my price range.  I bought a 1995 Honda Shadow VT600C VLX.  Mechanically, it's in great shape.  It runs smoothly and sounds great (not too loud, but there's no question that you're listening to a motorcycle).  I'll be replacing the spark plugs, but no major mechanical issues.  Cosmetically, it's in excellent shape.  There are some minor tears on the rear seat, but the paint and chrome looks great.  The paint is factory, but it's unlike any of us have seen on a factory bike.  It's really hard to appreciate it from the current pictures, so I'll try to get some better pics of the finish and post them.  I have my gear picked out, and I'll be trying it on this weekend.  I just got the insurance (a whopping $75/year!), I'll be getting my license tomorrow (just need the endorsement, no testing because of safety course), and Liz will be getting the registration this week.  Hopefully I'll be taking it for my first ride with it Friday night.

In related news, one of Daniel's new toys is a big car that we can push.  He LOVES it.  We took him for a walk in it and he sat up straight and held the steering wheel (except for clapping with enjoyment) the whole time.  We'll probably reserve it for evening walks, so he won't get as much direct sun.  The stroller has shade, but it's nearly as cool as his car.  He even has a trunk, which we filled with everything a little guy needs for a rode trip: a change of clothes, his owner's manual, his toy hammer, a bag of M&Ms, and a Dr. Pepper.  Ah, the easy life.

Gas Mileage... ups and downs

September 04, 2006I have come up with a great way to make calculating gas mileage easier.  See, the typical way is to divide total mileage you just traveled by how much gas you have to put in.  But... sometimes you don't have a calculator in front of you.  How do you divide 379 miles by 11.35gallons in your head?  Instead, I use the power of mathematics to make it easy and accurate.  I add gas until I've added exactly 10gallons.  Then, I check the miles and then divide that by 10.  It's a lot easier to divide by 10 than by 11.35.  Then, I just finish adding gas, reset the trip meter, and I'm on my way.

In unrelated news, my car has been getting great gas mileage lately.  It's kind of inconsistent, but I seem to be up 10%-15% on average.

And to avoid the confusion, I'm joking.