November 28, 2006

4.5 HSW CEUs!

Yay me! Knocked out about a third of my required hours for the year, and got a great big breakfast out of the deal as well! AND a Hilton ballpoint pen! AND a Hilton Post-it Note pad! And a big binder full of product information and CDs! And a lovely certificate suitable for framing!

All in all, actually not that uninformative. It was about stone. There's a lot involved in turning rock into stone, and then keeping it looking nice and stony after it's installed. The presenters--there were SIX of them--weren't all that scintillating, but they at least seemed to know what they were talking about. The second presenter was some girl who said she'd been warned to talk a bit slower (we hear slower here because we're so backward and stupid) but I swear if THAT was her slow pitch, her regular-speed work must be like listening to an Alvin and the Chipmunks record. The last girl I think was from Canada and had a pinched, nasally voice something like Edie McClurg, and had a bad verbal tic of saying "basically" and "okay" with just about every sentence. With her accent, it came out as "bazickly" and "m'kay?" It was distracting, but she was very nice otherwise, however.

Saw a ton of folks I know, which is odd. I usually run into a few, but in a room full of sixty or so folks, I figure I knew about half of them. Of those, I'd like to apologize to just about all of them because of my propensity to forget names of people. And not just people I've been introduced to once, but people I have contact with all the time. Generally, I just fall back on the old standard, "HEY BUDDY!" but with that many Buddies around, that begins to look a bit obvious.

Anyway, you got a question about stone, I can answer it. It may not be right, but I can answer it.

Got back here, and found that despite the fact that I don't seem to do anything productive, when I'm not here great wads of poop start clogging up the valves and tubes, and so I just had a very intense hour and a half of doing my office gymnastics/alligator wrestling/wildfire dousing routine. I hate doing that.

And now, more things to do, because I have to get ready for my usual off-campus excursion tomorrow morning, and it promises to be something like a collision between two trains full of nitroglycerine. Fun all around!

So, maybe tomorrow afternoon we can play some more.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at November 28, 2006 02:25 PM
Comments

What side of a rolling stone does moss grow on?

If you put a limestone rock the size of your fist between two nitroglycerine-laden trains that collide, what would be the resultant mean particle size?

What is the average flying speed of a stone-laden swallow?

Posted by: Marc V at November 28, 2006 02:36 PM

African or European?

Posted by: Sarah G. at November 28, 2006 02:51 PM

Yet again a reduction in our normal portions of possumy goodness.

*sigh*

At least I have a picture of a possum up on my blog. I guess I'll go stare at it.

Posted by: Sarah G. at November 28, 2006 02:53 PM

Marc--

1. A rolling stone gathers no moss. However, Rolling Stone is doing a story on the Rolling Stones, and reports that Keith Richards is contructed almost entirely of moss. And cigarette butts.

2. 198 microns

3. Assuming an African swallow, 14.3 miles per hour, with the occasional burst of 14.5 miles per hour. An European swallow is able to accomplish the same rock-laden flight at a velocity of 14.3 miles per hour, with occasional bursts of 14.501 miles per hour. This assumes a rock weight of 500 kilograms, an ambient temperature of 564 Kelvin, an average height of 5,000 feet above mean sea level, and the sun at an azimuth of 3.8 rads.

Sarah--sorry, but doody calls.

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at November 28, 2006 03:00 PM

1. On the outside, silly.

2. If you place a rock between two colliding trains, you won't have to worry about the mean particle size, just a mean headache.

3. The larch.

Posted by: Marc V at November 28, 2006 06:11 PM

BURMA!

Posted by: Terry Oglesby at November 29, 2006 02:41 PM