I thought I’d write a blog post this week. Then I thought, “Daylight Savings is killing my creative sprit so I think I’ll skip it.” Then I thought, what the heck, maybe I just rewrite an old post and publish it as if it’s something new. I’ve been posting here since 2011 which is … just a second … yup, 11 years. Of course, if you’re reading this in 2023, then it will be 12 years … I guess you’d add a year for every year after 2022 – unless I didn’t post anything in that year …
No, I can’t figure it out. Math. That’s the reason I switched from a degree in engineering to one in English. Now give me some credit, I did manage to pass calculus 1, after the third attempt, with a “C” while I was getting mostly “A”s in my English classes. Well, except that one English class where the professor insisted on correct spelling and grammar – seriously, in an English class. Go figure.
It’s true, simple math I get, but I’m just one quadratic equation away from total brain failure. Now, fractions I’m a wiz at and that skill is likely due to my years of woodworking where everything is in quarters, eighths or sixteenths of an inch. Okay, you could avoid the whole fraction thing by switching to measuring in metric where fractions have been outlawed, but exactly how long is 30cm and how much does a teaspoon weight in grams? Now don’t start with that, “teaspoon is volume while grams is mass” thing and I don’t want to hear your lecture about the difference between weight and mass.
I did take a physic class once that I really liked where everything was measured in metric and I learned that acceleration due to gravity is 9.81 meters per second (in real measurements that is 32.174 feet per second), which means that a fall of just one second can really, really hurt.
My physics teacher suggested I might do better in the English department or perhaps theater.
Still, I’ve found my math education has helped me to better understand some things. It hasn’t helped me understand daylight savings time. The biggest question is, why? And more importantly, why do it when almost no one likes it? Shouldn’t we all get to vote on this?
I’ll stop there before I enter into an unwise political rant.
Which is something I’ve stayed away from in this blog. It’s not that I don’t have political ideals or vote in certain ways that match my personal value system, but it’s something that I decided early on in writing this blog that I’d keep in a different area of my life. Now don’t think that I have a clear plan on what I post here. Nothing like that, but I do have a few things I don’t write about here – politics, nuclear physics, calculus, advanced theology, sex …
I have written 1099 blogs posts and I’ve managed to avoid discussing sex, politics, and even sex in politics. Even though the later likely happens far less than is reported in the news. Come on, have you seen pictures of politicians? One of those images will keep your mind off bedroom activities for at least a month.
Getting back to numbers, I found out today that I now have over 4,000 followers. At the time I checked, there were 2 more than 4,000, but still, that’s over 4,000 (learned that in math class). Of course you bloggers out there know that the total number of followers is somewhat meaningless as a lot of those, “followers” don’t ever actually read your posts. The better measure of your blogging success is if you enjoy the writing process.
Which I have to say is why I really keep posting here. I like writing stuff, except for the above mentioned topics. What’s really cool is that most times 40 or 50 people go out of their way to press the like button on a post and between 10 and 20 will actually write a comment, which is the most valuable blogging gift I can think of. Thank you so much to all of you who stop by with a nice comment about what I post here.
Now, not everybody is completely positive about what I post and I’ll apologize for this right now. The thing I get the most complaints about (two so far) — yes, I have not been posting enough pictures of my cats lately. Sure, I showed you their new outhouse, but the actual cute furry critters have not been photographed much lately. I promise to work on that.
So while I’m too depressed about daylight savings time to do a post, I thought I’d at least check in and let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you.
And that I have been thinking about my list of topics I won’t write about. I’ve been thinking lately that I should start expanding my range and maybe being a bit edgier, a bit more risqué, and perhaps a bit more adventurous in my writings.
Yes, you know exactly what that means. Next week I’ll be writing about thorium nuclear reactors.
