It had to happen

Hey, a video!

Not much to say here, I'll let the vid speak for itself.



Rich

110 degrees Fahrenheit

Yesterday, the official high temperature was 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Edison New Jersey.  It got up to 108 in Newark New Jersey ( the closest relatively large city to our home in Edison ) and 104 in New York City ( where I work ).  I never recalled being in weather hotter than 103 degrees before ( It turns out NYC did hit 104 degrees when I was 7, so I guess I had been in weather that hot, and it might have been hotter than 104 when I was hiking down the Grand Canyon in the Summer of 1985 with my Dad and brother ( We had to turn back less than halfway down because my brother ( who was 12 at the time ) started to turn purple from the heat. ) ), so I actually stepped out of my office building for a few minutes when I noticed that the NYC temperature had hit 104.  I also occurred to me that NYC had hit the 40 Celsius mark, which is probably a lot more significant that 100 Fahrenheit in the rest of the world. 


That got me thinking a bit about the relative merits of Fahrenheit and Celsius, and I've decided that when it comes to describing weather here on planet Earth, Fahrenheit is the far superior unit of temperature.


Now, before you pigeon-hole as an "ignorant American who won't accept the metric systems", give me a few moments to explain myself.


I've got nothing against the metric system.  I spent my entire academic career studying science and engineering, and I wouldn't think of using anything other than metric units to do science.  In fact, if I could snap my fingers right now and force the USA accept meters, liters, and grams, I'd do it in an instant ( Also, as long as I had those magical finger snapping powers, I'd also force the English-speaking world outside the USA to spell "liter" and "meter" the way they are pronounced.  I mean really, "metre"?  C'mon UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - you should know better than that. ).  However, when it comes to describing weather, I think the USA may be the only nation that still does things the right way.


Let's face it, unlike meters, liters, and grams ( I just misspelled "grams" as "grahams" for the second time in this post.  I must be getting hungry. ), scientist don't really use Celsius.  No scientist or engineer would ever use Celsius when working with an equation like "PV = nRT" ( unless that scientist really got a kick out of adding 273.15 ).  Kelvin is the temperature scale used for science, not Celsius.  Sure, Celsius units are the same size as Kelvin units, and it's easier to convert from Celsius to Kelvin than from Fahrenheit to Kelvin, but in the end, neither Celsius or Fahrenheit work for science unless you do some conversions.


So, with that in mind, why is Celsius any better than Fahrenheit when it comes to describing weather?  Gee, I guess it's nice that the freezing point of water in Celsius is 0, and the boiling point of water in Celsius is 100.  But guess what ...


I'm not a fuckin' glass of water.


When it comes to describing the weather that any person might experience, 100 degrees Celsius is pretty much irrelevant.  100 degrees Fahrenheit, on the other hand, is pretty damned special, and I like it when special values are nice round numbers like 100.  I also like it when things are scaled from 0 to 100.  I guess that's why the inventor of Celsius used a scale from 0 to 100 to describe the freezing and boiling of water.
However, as I mentioned above, people are not water, and using the freezing and boiling point of water to scale your temperature systems seems rather arbitrary anyway.  Why water? Why not use the freezing and boiling point of iron?  Why not create a scale where the burning point of paper is set at 100 degrees and call those units Bradburys?  Heck, this 0 to 100 thing doesn't even really work for water if you are not at sea level.


On the other hand, when it comes to describing the weather in a good portion of the world, the 0 to 100 scale  in Fahrenheit almost perfectly describes the expected range of temperatures you might experience over your lifetime.  At the latitude I live at ( and lots of major cities in the world are close to that latitude ), the temperature rarely gets above 100 Fahrenheit or below 0 Fahrenheit.  The temperature only goes out of that range about once a decade, and when it does, it barely goes out of that range.  I kinda like living in a 0-100 weather world, and I kinda feel bad for those who live in a world where the weather "ceiling" is only 40 and the weather "floor" is way below zero.

In any case, I guess it all depends on where you live and what you are used to, but for my little corner of the world, Fahrenheit is just right.

Rich

"It used to hurt til Tuesday. Now it hurts til Friday."

Eventually, I will write a "Why I Run ( Part 2 )" followup up to my "Why I Run ( Part 1 )" blog entry, but for now, you can consider this short post to kinda be a "Why I Run ( Part 1.5 )".

Sometime in the late 1980's there was a television commercial for Sports Illustrated which featured aging future-Hall-of-Fame wide receiver Steve Largent.  The commercial shows a worn-down Largent going through a tough practice.  In a voice-over, we hear Largent say ...

"It used to hurt til Tuesday.  Now it hurts til Friday"

While I though this was a pretty cool commercial as a teenager ( Note for non-football fans: The NFL plays its games once a week on Sundays.  Largent was talking about how long it took his body to recover from the pounding he would take in the game each Sunday. ), it resonates even more with me now that I'm far older than Largent was when he shot that ad.

Now, I'm certainly not being hit by 240 pound linebackers and 220 pound safeties each Sunday, but I did have a rather intense run on the treadmill on Sunday, and I find that I'm still a bit sore today.  Thankfully, I'm nowhere near as sore as I was on Monday morning, when I experienced a good deal of pain in the underside of my right heal when I took my first first few steps of the morning ( which basically means I've got a bit of plantar fasciitis in my right foot. ).  Things have gotten a little better each day, and I should be just about recovered for my next intense run on Thursday night.

Still, as much as I'd like to be able to deny it, I'm forced to admit that Father Time is catching up with me.  There are a lot of reason why I run, but the biggest reason why I run these days is probably DENIAL.

If I can run miles at a time far faster than I possibly could as a 21-year-old ( which I can ), I can fool myself into believing that I'm in better shape now at 41 than I was at 21.  However, that's just a big lie I like to tell myself to stave off my fear of the reaper.  Sure, I'm in much better cardio-vascular shape now than I was as an asthma-afflicted younger man, but if my heart and lungs had allowed me to run several miles at a rapid clip back when I was 21, I'm sure I would have woken up the next morning without any muscle pain at all.  Heck, when I first started running on a treadmill at 31, I never felt any pain after a run.  As much as my brain might like to deny it, my muscles don't lie - I'm getting old.

However, I guess that's not the worst thing in the world.  Age has brought me a wonderful wife and two wonderful kids, and I certainly wouldn't trade them for a chance to be 21 again.  I guess we all get old, but even if your whole body is sore, every day you get to spend with your loved ones on this earth is a gift.  I might complain a bit, but I'm certainly appreciate that gift every day.

Rich

4th of July

I miss the good old days.

And by "good old days", I mean the good old days of 4th of July celebrations.  Sure, I guess it's a good thing that most places have cracked down on illegal fireworks.  Sure, it's certainly a good thing that people aren't blowing off their fingers anymore.

... but still ....

I can't help but miss what Independence Days were like back when I was growing up on 96th Place in the Ozone Park neighborhood of New York City.  That scene had to be seen ( and smelt and heard ) to be believed.  Of course, I've never been on an 18th Century battlefield, but I've got to image that those battlefields sounded and smelt a lot like the way 96th Place smelt and sounded every July 4th in the 1970's.

All day long from about 11 AM to 1 AM you'd hear a plethora of illegal fireworks blowing up.  Smoke would hang in the air like a thick fog, and there was a distinct smell of sulfur in the air.  Most people on the block didn't travel on that day, because they were afraid they might come home to find their house burnt down due to an errant firework.  So, because we were all going to be home all day anyway, it didn't make much sense to sit around and gripe about the sound and the smoke.  Instead, we all joined in on the fun.

It seemed like every Dad on the block ( including mine ) got his hands on every kind of illegal firework imaginable.  They would set them off all day in the street as the kids watched, and there's really nothing that makes a young boy happier than watching stuff blow up.  I still remember the year my dad got his hands on some blockbusters (a blockbuster is a quarter stick of dynamite ).  He lit one and placed it under a 3-foot tall steel garbage can, and I swear that the garbage can must have launched about 20 feet into the air.  As stupid as this may sound, I still consider that moment to be one of the highlights of my childhood.

Now, my parents were wise enough to keep fireworks out of my hands, but plenty of  parents on the block were more than willing to let their kids join in on the "fun".  I don't remember any kids handling the big stuff, but kids can still do a lot of damage with fire-crackers and bottle rockets.  Especially those kids who thought it was fun to throw lit firecrackers.  Especially those kids who thought it was a blast ( pun intended ) to shoot bottle rockets horizontally along the ground.  I was never unlucky enough to be hit by one of these low-flying missiles, but I distinctly remember a few whizzing right past my feet ( The same kids who though it was fun to launch those things horizontally thought it was hilarious to aim them at people. ).

As crazy as all that was, I think it all pales in comparison to the insanity of what people did with roman candles.  A roman candle is basically a small mortar you can hold in your hand.  Now, it's not really a good ideal to hold a lit firework with enough explosive power to launch 10 fireballs into the air, but people certainly did.  My Dad used to hold a roman candle up in the air like he was the Statue of Liberty.  I still remember those green and red fiireballs launching out of that roman candle in his hand.

Certainly not wise ....

Certainly not safe ...

... but it was freakin' cool!

Yeah, not wise, not safe, but COOL!

Happy July 4th folks!  I have no choice but to live the safe and secure life of a suburban Dad these days, but if you have an opportunity to, please blow something up for me today!

Rich