Lunch with Esther

Today, Esther and I were supposed to meet for lunch at Grillsmith, but the Brandon branch doesn’t open until 4 during the week. We ended up at our normal lunch venue: Mimi’s. Esther had the Quiche Lorraine and I had the Bacon Mac and Cheese. If you ever go there, they make one of the best Berry Pom smoothies I have ever had, but be careful. Brain freeze is a very real possibility because it is so good, you don’t want to put it down.

It was another beautiful day in Florida, though not quite as hot today as it has been the last few.

I’m working on Jack Reacher book number 11, actually, I’m almost finished with it.

Someone sent me the neatest email today. 

RAILROAD TRACKS... Bet'cha Didn't Know This

 

Railroad  tracks. The   US   standard railroad gauge (distance between  the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an  exceedingly odd number. Why  was that gauge used? Because that's the way they  built them in England,  and English expatriates designed the  US   railroads. Why  did the English build them like that? Because  the first rail lines were built by the same  people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and  that's the gauge they used. Why  did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the  people who built the tramways used the same jigs  and tools that they had used for building  wagons, which used that wheel spacing.  Why  did the wagons have that particular odd wheel  spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other  spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of  the old, long distance roads in   England,  because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.  So  who built those old rutted roads? Imperial   Rome  built the first long distance roads in Europe  (including  England ) for their legions.  Those roads have been used ever since.  And  the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed  the initial ruts, which everyone else had to  match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.  Since  the chariots were made for Imperial   Rome,  they were all alike in the matter of wheel  spacing. Therefore the United States standard  railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived  from the original specifications for an Imperial  Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.  So  the next time you are handed a  specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What  horse's ass came up with this?' , you may be  exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were  made just wide enough to accommodate the rear  ends of two war horses. (Two horses'  asses.) Now,  the twist to the story: When  you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch  pad, there are two big booster rockets attached  to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are  solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are  made by Thiokol at their factory in   Utah The engineers  who designed the SRBs would have preferred to  make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be  shipped by train from the factory to the launch  site. The railroad line from the factory happens  to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and  the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The  tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad  track, and the railroad track, as you now know,  is about as wide as two horses' behinds.  So,  a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is  arguably the world's most advanced  transportation system was determined over two  thousand years ago by the width of a horse's  ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't  important? Ancient horse's asses control almost  everything... and the current Horses  Asses in Washington are controlling everything  else!

Until next time…