Sunday, May 8, 2011

Will The Fork In The Tandy Trail Take Me To The Metric System Or Kava Kava Tea

When I came to the fork in the trail, on the Tandy Hills today, that you are looking at in the picture, I was momentarily confused as to which fork to take.

Head north? Or head west?

A perfect metaphor for my current perfectly bad mood.

I called my mom, when I hit the hills today, to do the Mother's Day thing. Mom was not home. So, I left a Happy Mother's Day message on their old-fashioned, non-cell phone answering machine.

I could have called mom and dad's cell phone. But that always seems not to work out too well. Usually they are on the road when I call their cell phone. My mom can't see the phone. My dad has to answer it and then give it to my mom. This has accident potential written all over it. So, I don't call their cell phone.

I have no idea why, but last night I found myself reading the Wikipedia article about the country called the United States of America.

Til I read it in Wikipedia, I did not know that soon after the Civil War, in the 1870s, America's economy became the world's largest and has remained so ever since. With China scheduled to become #1 by, I think, 2016.

I also did not know, til I read it in Wikipedia, that America is one of only 3 nations that have not adopted the metric system. America still uses British Imperial Units, like miles, yards and Fahrenheit degrees. Burma and Liberia are the world's other two metric system holdouts. America is in good company.

I remember decades ago learning the metric system because this would soon be the law of the American land. But, that law has not come to pass.

I remember when Canada switched to the metric system. Buying gas by the liter was confusing. As were the speed limit signs saying things like speed limit 100 KPH. That sounds so fast. And 85 kilometers sound so much further to the border than 52.8165 miles. 32 degrees Fahrenheit seems so much warmer than 0 degrees Celsius. 10 liters of gasoline for $10.12 sounds like a much better bargain than $10.12 for 2.65 gallons of gas.

Anyway, I have never been at all good with math, so for me, it is a good thing America has never switched to the metric system. Even though the metric system seems logical. Isn't the American currency method sort of metric?

I've got sun tea outside brewing a big container of kava kava tea. I'm hoping this will have a salubrious soothing effect on me when I drink some later.

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