05-15-05  15:26, Ardith Hinton told James Bradley about Speed Racer

 How do, Ardith?

 JB>  "Light years in a leap year..." 


 AH> Found this among the instructions for a rally we 
 AH> participated in... to four decimal places, please & 
 AH> thankyou!  We didn't have calculators or computers then.  A 
 AH> friend of ours, an accountant, reported that he'd worked 
 AH> out the answer in ten minutes.  Maybe that's why he's an 
 AH> accountant & I'm not... [rueful grin].

I might be wrong, but I think they were having you on. Seeing as a light
year measures distance, and a leap year time - just another day tacked onto
the regular 365... Maybe with reference to velocity? You know, "Light
years/Leap year." But then, they  might not differentiate a leap year
when calculating light years... 

 
 JB>  The one thing I never forgot from my bicycle
 JB>  escapades, is to never try to repeat the same
 JB>  mistake that lead me to the emergency ward.

 AH> Uh-huh.  A sign of intelligence, or so I understand...
 AH> [chuckle]. 

I wouldn't go that far. I think a worm will avoid contaminated dirt.
Doesn't take a rocket scientist. 

 
 JB>  in the *back* seat, Ardith.

 AH> Fair enough.  I never learned to ride a bicycle.  By the
 AH> time I had  an opportunity to learn, with a borrowed one, I understood 
 AH> only too well what might happen if I fell off!  Rallywise, 

...Add that height to as fast as you can pedal to tenth gear down a steep
hill, and you'd learn too. 

 AH> what were doing was usually more a test of our ability to
 AH> match wits with the rallymaster... and vice versa... than a 
 AH> race.  We were supposed to maintain a certain average speed 
 AH> & didn't know in advance where the checkpoints would be 
 AH> located.  If the instructions told us to take the first 
 AH> opportunity to turn left, for example, was this or was it 
 AH> not a reference to the goat track which might end in a 
 AH> muddy field & delay us by half an hour??  We did fall off 
 AH> the road once on a speed stage.  Like the vast majority of 
 AH> other people we knew who had done the same, we were unhurt 
 AH> & the damage to the car was minor. These were relatively 
 AH> local "fun rallies"... not as dramatic, or as competitive, 
 AH> as the national rallies on TV.  But I won't deny there were 
 AH> some risks....  :-))
 
Ah... Just when I thought you had some "wish fulfillment" or
whatever the shrinks are calling a "death wish" these days.

 
 JB>  (HAPPY MOTHERS DAY, BTW! ]|-)


 AH> Thankyou!  Yes, if she's at all like the typical 
 AH> primary teacher you'd probably drive her nuts & vice versa. 
 AH> I'm not, as I guess you know now....  ;-)
 
...You're not a happy mother? 

Mom taught business ed at a vocational school for most of her career. She
started at a High School, and toward the end, she spent some time at a teen
pregnancy facility, and again finished up at an old-money High School. She
was in charge of a lot of computer training, which surprises me how little
she is able to absorb about them. 

 
 JB>  Maybe Barnstey is also a manufacturer, and she just
 JB>  assumed your clock might be made by them?


 AH> As to the former, I suppose anything is possible.  As to the
 AH> latter, I think she assumed a lot based on a cursory 
 AH> inspection from three feet away!  She wasn't the expert 
 AH> we'd come to see... he hadn't arrived yet.  And all the 

Ahhh... Those types. "Know-it-all" kinda says it all? I knew what
you were saying when I first read your last post, but I was trying to
understand the smart-butt, and if she *might* have some
expertise.

 AH> clocks available for purchase in the store had obviously
 AH> been made within recent years, so I doubt she knows very 
 AH> much about 19th century clockmakers.  Such people tend to 
 AH> express personal opinions in such a firm & authoritative 
 AH> manner, though, that others often doubt themselves.  The 
 AH> incident with the clock is rather amusing in retrospect, 
 AH> but the same occurs with regard to more serious matters 
 AH> too....  :-/
 
Too often their quest for superiority is rewarded, but short lived. The
heck if they care about the long term though. I just found out the other
day that I may have worked for a sociopath. They have many of those
demeaning characteristics, and little grasp of what consequences the future
holds for those petard hoists.
 

 AH> Uh-huh.  I can relate to many of the problems you're having
 AH> with  folks who don't understand your organic gardening methods 
 AH> because I've read up on this subject as well.  I was quite 
 AH> annoyed when my father-in-law took it upon himself to spray 
 AH> an apple tree a decade ago, thinking he was doing us a 
 AH> favour.  And I'm still battling the alder weed another 
 AH> "helper" spread by chopping the roots into little bits & 
 AH> leaving them buried in the ground to produce more weeds... 
 AH> (sigh).
 
The people who resided in my father place before we bought, were convinced
aphids were killing his Nan-king Cherry, and had dosed it up twice a year
with some poison or another. (Forget just what it was.) Weaning it from
that was taxing on the bush until the Lady-bird beetles started returning,
but I don't know if it has ever recovered. It might just be that it has
reached old age by now. It lived long enough for me to propagate some seeds
though, so it *will* live on. <-| *Sweet* fruit from that one!

I just finished double digging most of my garden, and have quite a bit of
seed in. My, am I sore! Now, I have to keep up with the weeds. I hadn't
cultivated seriously for quite some time, so I have quite a row to hoe sort
of speaking... Literally! <-;

RE: Alder weed
Is that the weed that doesn't seem to sucker, but rather *fires* out roots,
and some twenty to thirty feet away pops out anew? Purple veins on
deep-green leaves???

Say, I'm in need of a source of Nitrogen for my compost, and I don't think
the neighbors are going to be too accommodating. Any ideas there? I'm about
to ask a local produce store if I can tap into their garbage, but I don't
know if I can get there with any regularity. I toying with planting Alfalfa
this Winter, but unless I get the roto-tiller running again...


 JB>  you on your crap, and have a good laugh about it later.
 AH>  I'd like to think you've just located one... me.  :-))
 JB>  Right back at ya!!!

 AH> "Do as you would be did by."  It works for me... [chuckle].

I feel like I've been had. 

All this typing about gardening is going to get me out in the yard again.
Shoot, I have to realizer my limits. Steady as she goes!!!



... James

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