Thursday, January 30, 2014

Good morning crew,

I recently picked up a really cool book called "My Old Man and The Sea." It's the true story of this college kid and his dad who sail a 25-foot pocket cruiser from New London, Connecticut down the east coast of the United states, through the Panama canal, down the west coast of South America, around Cape Horn and all the way back up the other side. I'm only a few chapters into it but it's already very engrossing.

One of the things that piqued my curiosity is the constant reference to 'nautical miles'.

We all know a statute mile (or land mile) is 5280 feet and comes from some arbitrary ancient Roman measurement. But why should a mile on water be different than a mile on land?

Because a nautical mile is based on the circumference of the Earth. If you divide the Earth at the equator into 360 degrees of longitude, and then divide each degree into 60 minutes...each minute of arc is equal to one nautical mile.

To break it down, a nautical mile is 6,076 feet or 1.15 land miles. As a side note...a speed of one nautical mile per hour is one knot.

So there you go. You're as salt as Neptune himself. Now, when if anybody ever talks about 'sea miles' or traveling at so many 'knots' you can nod your head knowingly and say, "That's something to do with longitude, right?"

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"Don't make the same mistake twice seems to indicate three mistakes, doesn't it? First you make the mistake. Then you make the same mistake. Then you make the same mistake twice. If you simply say, 'Don't make the same mistake,' you'll avoid the first mistake, won't you?" --George Carlin

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When we decided to sell our house, we nailed "FOR SALE BY OWNER" signs on two trees in our front yard. Before long, the doorbell rang. "How much do you want for the trees?" a young man asked.

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A young man walked into our insurance office to purchase coverage for his new motorcycle. Only one question confused him. "Do you have a lien holder on the vehicle?"

"I've got a kickstand," the prospect replied. "Is that the same thing?"

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More examples of creativity provided by a 6th grade class during history tests [these absolutely slay me]:


1. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couple.

2. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

3. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were to 2 singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backward and declared, "a horse divided against itself can not stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

4. Abraham Lincoln was America's greatest precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation . On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in the moving picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a suposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

5. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large.

6. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died from this.


*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
In a small business office they have an answering machine that instructs callers to leave their name and address, and to spell any difficult words.

Early one Monday the secretary was reviewing the weekend messages and she heard an enthusiastic young woman recite her name and address and then confidently offer, "My difficult word is reconciliation. R-E-C-O-N-C-I-L-I-A-T-I-O-N."