That Funky Monkey

Interesting tale related by the Father-in-Law:

In the age of wind power and naval empire, cannons emplaced in ships were the ultimate weapon.  The problem was the ammunition fired by those cannons, better known as cannonballs, which tended to roll all over the place on a ship.  Of course, sailing ships were crewed by men who were wise, clever, and learned* and posessed of rather a lot of free time.  These men invented a tray made specifically for holding cannonballs.  The trays were basically squares of metal with indentations to hold cannonballs; they provided stable bases for pyramids of balls.  Early on, it was discovered that the trays could not be made of iron (or steel) because then the iron (or steel) cannonballs would rust onto the tray and become useless (or at least not readily available).  So brass was used.

Now, it's a little known fact that brass and iron (or steel) contract at different rates when exposed to low temperatures.  This fact was demonstrated repeatedly when ships posessing brass trays full of cannonballs sailed into cold climes, causing the trays to contract and the balls to fall off, which created a mess and, worse, a ruckus.

Somewhere along the line, some clever sailor decided that "cannonball tray" was too prosaic and boring.  He coined the term "monkey" to describe these copper and zinc storage devices.

And the next time the temperature dropped, he (or one of his comrades) noted that it was 

"cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey".

Here endeth the lesson.

*just ask Gilbert and Sullivan

Sick Like the Dog

...except the dog isn't sick.

For the last 6 weeks I've been fighting some particularly feisty bronchitis.  Thought it was just my allergies acting up at first, but it hung with me all through last month's road trip and just got worse when I got back home.  I finally broke down, saw my doctor, and got a z-pack and some steroids.  Four days later I was breathing easily and no longer spitting up stuff.

This really messed with my running.  I went from doing 2+miles 4-5 times a week to nothing.  Now I'm trying to get back into it and I find I'm breathing hard from a mile-and-a-half walk.  So that's frustrating.  And so is the attendant 10-pound weight gain.

Oh well, it's a process.  And the weather's great for walking outside, which the dog likes.  I've given up on running the upcoming 10K in April, I'll walk it instead.

Discussion Question

Practically everyone I know agrees that "teachers should be paid more".  I'm on the same bandwagon.

The question before the class today is: how much more?

What is a reasonable annual salary for an average public grade school teacher?

So That's What All the Noise is About

As most of you know, The Wife has been exiled to Homeless, Luzianne for her sins.  As some of you know, yesterday was Valentine's Day.  So I found some flowers, drove deep into the swamp, and wished her a happy V-Day.  In-depth details will not be provided.*

As part of the festivities, we decided to watch a movie in the crappy apartment she's been sequestered in.  Said crappy apartment lacks DVD player, but The Wife is clever and brought her laptop.  Except the laptop has, well, laptop-quality speakers and we were missing a lot of the finer dialogue points in the movie.  So we decided to go buy some computer speakers.

Well, one thing you can say about Homeless, Luzianne is that it has a Best Buy.  Really.  It's right across the street from the Wal-Mart and the Outback.  Homeless is a mecca for chain stores.  Or something.  So there we are in Best Buy, looking at the so-so speakers for $90, when I realize that for a mere $350 we can a top-of-the-line, Bose, virtual-surround-sound, violate-noise-regulation-and-cause-structural-damage type surround sound system.

I was weak.

But DAMN.  Those things make a difference.  Once we got 'em figured out (which was tricky) we watched a few shows and were amazed by the sound.  Despite putting no effort whatsoever into the speaker arrangement, and having a really awful room acoustically speaking (or aesthetically speaking, for that matter) the sound experience was downright intense.  The only problem was we had to keep turning down the damn things whenever we decided to watch a Bruckheimer flick. 

I'm looking forward to getting them home and plugging them into my existing system.  It'll be funny to have speakers that are worth more than everything else combined.

*you're welcome

Getting in Touch with my Inner Grumpy Old Man

Something's been bugging me lately regarding the switch to digital TV.  I'm not complaining about the switch itself, that I get.  What I don't get is why you and I are subsidizing a new TV receiver for every schmuck who's been too poor to buy a TV for the past, what, 3 years.

That's my tax dollars going to make sure Billie Sue and her 19 welfare brats can continue to watch "Jerry Springer".   I'm sure there's better ways to spend that money.

All I Ever Wanted

The Wife and I just got back from vacation.  We had talked about a cruise, but she didn't want to leave the dog behind, so road trip it was.  We had a really good time.

High points included: 

--Houston, to hang with the in-laws (many of which drove in from N'awlins as well, but what the hell).  We caught the BodyWorks exhibit (plasticized dead people, expertly dissected).  The dissections alone were interesting, although somewhat frustrating as they removed some structures I was interested in from most of the exhibits, preventing my answering a few anatomy questions.  On an unrelated note, I was introduced to kolaches, which are both tasty and evil.

--San Antonio, home of the Alamo.  Be advised, the Alamo is not pet-friendly.  Unlike Ozzy Ozbourne, I did not pee on it.  We didn't get to look for the bicycle in the basement*.

--Phoenix, where we watched Obama's inauguration with my high school history teacher, which was interesting.  It occurs to me that CNN was showing crawls about how Obama became president at precisely noon, whether or not he took the oath, well before the famous fumble.

--Grand Canyon National Park, which is about a mile and a half above sea level (more altitude than this ocean-dweller's used to).  We stopped to let the dog run around in some deep snow, which led to her sleeping well that night.

--The Grand Canyon itself, which is freaking amazing.  This was my third visit (The Wife's first) and it never stops being cool.  The three of us hiked along the south rim, had dinner at a very nice restaurant on the rim while watching the sunset over the canyon.  I highly recommend it.

--Vegas, where I met Heather's grandfather (the WWII bomber, ex-POW--let me tell you he had some stories).  We also caught "Reve" which is a show by some guys who spun off Cirque du Soleil.  Who knew that you could do interpretive dance without a black turtleneck?

--San Diego, where we saw Legoland (remarkably neat despite sounding really lame), the iron-hulled bark Star of India, the replica ship HMS Surprise, and an ex-Soviet attack sub.  We got to take the dog onto Star and the sub.  Oh, and there was a mock naval battle with cannons and whatnot.  So that was fun.

--Los Angeles, where we did the tourist bit and hung out with Justin and Dawn.

We were running out of time on the trip home, so we drove most of the way across Texas in one day (which is hard to do), fueled mostly by truck-stop coffee and cheap cookies.  So that was fun.  Surprisingly, despite two weeks together in a car, I did not get divorced (The Wife is an amazingly patient person).  A good time was had by all. 

*thanks Woody for the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure reference.