100

If  you are paying attention, you may have guessed that the title of this week’s post refers the fact that last week’s was the one-hundredth submission if you don’t count the first which was merely an announcement that I was starting a blog and features would be forthcoming.  (All of this, of course discounts the existence of my travel blog.)

So I thought I’d review some facts and figures about the blog (because feelings don’t really matter) so far.

Across 100 posts, the blogsite has received 6,046 pageviews.  Now you would think, if you did the math in your head, “Hey, that’s not bad… sixty hits per week.”  But the truth is, there are some weird anomalies going on here.  We’ll get to those later.

The truth is, with one exception, the highest pageview count was received by the first post, The Great Potato Excursion (a boyhood memoir) with fifty-six hits.  After that, the readership dropped sharply and averaged around twenty hits per week for about nine months then dropped again into the single digits range.  Obviously, some television network is airing Mr. Ed reruns opposite by blogpost releases.

By far, discounting the aforementioned anomalies, the single highest pageview count was enjoyed by …and Taxes.  If you were among the eighty-one visitors to that post, then you will remember it was not about taxes at all but the inevitability of death.  By pure coincidence it was posted on April 11, four days before the income tax filing deadline. I am sure some number of poor desperate tax filers were looking for last minute suggestions on how to screw Obama, Inc. out of one more dollar.  God’s work, I say.

But in September and October 2014, something strange happened.  The Ukraine became my favorite audience and boosted the monthly counts to 633 and 556 respectively.  No, I don’t know why.  Adding to the mystery, the vast majority of these hits went to The Greatest Invention of My Lifetime and The Greatest Invention of My Lifetime, cont., an inane two part treatise on my love affair with the word processor that had been published on successive weeks in June of 2013.  Yeah, go figure!  There was some Ukrainian spill over onto The Zen of Mustachios (81-July 3, 2013) and Cats or Dogs? (77-June 6, 2013).  Those are the facts and I can’t even begin to explain them.

But speaking of foreign countries, the readership breaks down like this:

USA                3,555

Ukraine              705

Turkey               387

France               152

Germany            147      Thanks Nicky, miss you.

Russia               127

Poland               115

New Zealand        81

China                  65

Mexico                52       My good friend, Chris (BTW Amigo, that’s just half!)

I have received very little feedback from readers.  My friend Frank is always ready with a thought or two, but I see him weekly anyway and he’ll do anything for a burrito.  The most frequent can be paraphrased to, “I didn’t get that at all!”  My former sergeant offered the most valuable insight when he corrected my use of the word “roll” when I had intended to use, “role”.  Once a mentor, always a mentor… thanks, Doug.

So that’s where we are to date.  And, considering the tissue tender nature of my ego, I think it’s probably time to change things up.  Rather than forcing the creative (non) juices to flow on a weekly basis, I will write as I am inspired by the humorous world around me and post as produced.  You may get lucky and never be haunted by my musings again.

Tout Suite Too

As you will remember, last week we left our hero in a dire predicament…

So there was my Nova, doing its best impression of the space station ala 2001: A Space Odyssey (MGM-1968), hurtling southward while spinning on its own axis.  Once a vehicle has lost traction and turned its ass around one hundred eighty degrees, the operator has become more or less dead weight and is merely along for the ride, as short or long as it may ultimately prove to be.  So I calmly removed my hands from the steering wheel and pondered my situation, the probable outcomes and the faint strains of Johann Strauss, Jr.’s “Beautiful Blue Danube”.

The situation:  Some might say my car was out of control at this point.  This is incorrect.  It was perfectly under control of the calculable and predictable laws of physics.  And as such, it would continue to travel in a straight line until interrupted by some other force.  A quick assessment of my environment (from memory, it’s dark) yielded that I was on a two lane country road.  On the left, no right, no left… on the east side of the roadway is a shear drop-off of ten to fifteen feet.  On the west side is a cliff face of solid granite. The prospects seemed grim at best (la-dah-dah-dee-dah, dum-dum, dum-dum).  I counted three complete spins (I have no idea how many actually occurred).  When the vehicle came to a stop, as a result of gravity and the coefficient of friction between my tires and the macadam, I realized I had neither collided with the escarpment nor been launched into orbit.  Unbelievably, my car had come to rest perfectly centered in the northbound lane (remember, my original direction of travel had been south) facing the correct direction.

For a brief moment I sat there and collected my thoughts, most of which were, “I need a restroom!”  Rather than try to maneuver a U-turn in these hostile climes, and perhaps encounter a cruising Highway Patrol unit, I just opted to follow my good fortune back into El Cajon and seek out another route to Casa De Oro (my home community).

Lesson learned?  C’mon, this is Dale we’re talking about.  My motto: Any lesson worth learning is worth learning multiple times.

In 1986 I realized a life-long dream and purchased my first Corvette.  It was a 1981 model year.  The color was metallic graphite.  It would sparkle in the moonlight.  On one occasion, while cruising through a strip-mall parking lot, a little kid called his father’s attention to the car and shouted, “Dad!  Look, it’s the Batmobile!’  Yeah, I was cool.

I was a resident of greater Los Angeles at the time.  Two weeks after the purchase, I drove to my folks’ house in San Diego for the weekend to show off the new wheels.  I arose early Sunday morning to take the Corvette out on the nearly deserted roads to see what she could do.

There was a complex network of rural roadways within minutes of my parents’ home so it didn’t take long for me get truly into the spirit of the proceedings, which was speed.  I was tearing along Willow Glen Road in generally a southwesterly direction.  This is within a couple of miles of the famous sub-orbital, maiden flight of the Nova.  The proximity reminded me of that fateful night.  But no fear, I was in a true-to-form sports car now.  I could scoff at the laws of physics.  Haw!

Suddenly I found myself face-to-face with a familiar driving challenge; a slight upgrade in a curve where the apexes of the hill and curve coincided.  With cool aplomb, I goosed the gas just a bit to transfer weight to the rear wheels and increase traction.  The master has arrived!

Then there was a sickening reemergence of a long-suppressed feeling.  My rear end was coming around faster than I could steer into the slide.  Once again, hands off of the wheel, into analysis mode.  It seems pea-gravel, detritus from the rock wall on my right, significantly changes the formula, greatly reducing friction.  This time, the car made only one rotation as it slowed.  I remember thinking, “I’m gonna beat the devil twice (as it turns out, I have competed with and fought the devil to at least a draw on several occasions, but those are other stories for other times) in one lifetime.”  As the front end continued to slow its sweeping arc across the spinning landscape, I let out a breath.  Then a new question popped into my head, “Hey, when did they put that guard rail (BANG!) there?”

Nature can be very humbling, especially when we test wisdom again and again.  I was very lucky to have survived spin-outs twice (that you know about): The first cost me nothing but pride.  The second was a bit more expensive, about $600 in body work.

Tout Suite

I am a car guy.  I believe we established that in A Short (very) Story back in May of 2014. If you haven’t read it or don’t remember, I suggest you give it a look see.  It lays the foundation for much of my life. 

I do appreciate the finer points of car design.  But my passion is for driving, not wrench turning.  And thus, my focus has always been improving my skills as a pilot.  A motor vehicle is an instrument.  Van Cliburn doesn’t tune pianos, he pounds on the keys.  And as is the case in most any passionate pursuit, I have been known to push the limits right up to or slightly beyond the edge of the performance envelope.

Jamacha Road

It was a Friday night; more likely very early Saturday morning.  I was headed southbound on Jamacha Road (pronounced ha-maa-shaw: CA state highway 54) out of El Cajon en route my parents’ home where I still lived.  Those of you familiar with the area today would not recognize it way back then.  Today, it is a five-lane, curbed, well-lighted boulevard comprised of both residential and commercial zones.  In 1974, it was a two lane country road with no night lighting.  There were no signals or stop signs from the city limits of El Cajon to the junction with State Hwy 94: It was about three miles of near-straight blacktop.

1972 Nova

I was driving a 1972 Chevy Nova powered by a stock 350 CI V-8 engine.  I was feeling a little squirrely and may have been ever so slightly under the influence of a liquid intoxicant.  Good judgment has never been my strong suit and as events would betray, my suit was at the cleaners on this night anyway.

The road was clear of all traffic so I leaned into the accelerator a bit.  Eighty miles-per-hour, I seem to recall.  Just south of Hillsdale Road, the road grade begins a gentle incline.  As it passes the entry to the old quarry (no longer there) the highway jogs just a few degrees left at the same time it reaches the apex of the grade and starts downhill.  This is where I learned my first practical lesson regarding traction and the unloading of one’s suspension.

When a spring suspended vehicle is climbing a grade at speed, it is building energy in an up direction.  As the car reaches the apex and transitions to a down direction, the inertia of the suspended weight continues upward for a very brief period of time unloading the suspension, resulting in a reduction of traction.  Normally, you only notice this if there is enough suspension travel to result in that floating feeling one gets while riding a roller coaster:  Negative Gs as it were.  However, if this reduction of traction coincides with the need to maneuver, let’s say for a curve in the road, the effect can be more serious.

So there I was, still travelling southbound along Jamacha Road, while at the same time my car was spinning on its own axis.  I was unnaturally calm as I witnessed the event; it was too bad that this was happening in the dark, as I would expect the passing view was somewhat exhilarating.  My life did not flash before my eyes as is suggested in cartoons.  My thoughts were turned more to the depth of embarrassment my parents would endure over the death of their only child in such a ridiculous fashion.

…be sure to tune in next week to learn Dale’s fate.  Did he die in a fiery crash? 

They Comet and Goeth!

The year 2015 is starting out with a swoosh for the sky watching crowd.  Comet Lovejoy is making a rare visit to our neck of the solar system.  This comet was discovered only last August (by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, thus the name).  Unlike our more famous comet, Halley, which has a period of 75-76 years (period is the number of years needed for a comet to complete its solar orbit), Lovejoy’s period is approximately 8,000 years.  If you miss it this time, any descendants of yours around to witness the next visit are likely to regard you as an ancestor as we do the caveman.

Comet Lovejoy

I have tried unsuccessfully to find Lovejoy thus far.  The glow of the full moon was too bright the first couple of nights and then last night, the sky clouded up.  As the month progresses and the moon rises later (it rises just a bit less than one hour later each night) an observer will have a longer period of post twilight darkness to find and observe the comet.  Here in metropolitan California, you will likely need the aid of binoculars or a small telescope as the comet’s natural brightness is not enough to overcome ambient light to view with the naked eye.

You have seen pictures of comets with their tails leaving the impression that they whoosh across the night sky.  This is misleading.  On any particular night, the comet will appear stationary in the sky.  It is moving (at incredible speed) but the sky is so vast that it takes hours to make any appreciable progress against the background of stars.  However, from night to night, if you are dedicated enough to watch, you will notice that the comet has moved along its orbital path, just as the planets do, i.e. it will be in a different position relative to the stars and constellations.

Comet Halley

I was lucky enough to see Halley’s comet in 1986 (I doubt I’ll last long enough for its next appearance in 2061) and it remains one of the highlights of my sky watching experience.  I was fortunate enough to experience Halley during a camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park where the light pollution was minimal.  It was my first comet and to my surprise, did not resemble the large telescope images or the artists’ conception illustrations.  Rather than a bright point with a flaming tail, a comet will appear as a (small) cloudy or misty blob.  If it is reflecting enough sunlight, or you have a more powerful telescope, you may detect a bright spot within the blob.  That will be the body of the comet itself, the fog being the halo of detritus swept off of the comet by the solar wind.

Rather than attempt (and most likely fail) to instruct you in how to locate the comet, I suggest you Google “green comet” (so nicknamed for its green tint) which will offer you several websites that can take you through the mechanics.  The comet, depending on weather conditions, should be visible through much of January.

Good hunting!