And now you know...

and so do I. I was looking at the assessment form for my house and it said the corner lot we are on is a total of almost 7000 square feet. For whatever reason, I thought that was about a third of an acre. At this point, I have to confess that I am bad when it comes to visualizing size and distances. Across the street there used to be a hardware store/lumber yard and about 4 houses. I had no idea how they were going to remove those buildings and replace them with a 35000 sq ft grocery store and parking for 100 cars. Yet the grocery store and parking lot are there.

So using this little thing called Google, I looked up how many square feet are in an acre. I was a little disappointed to see our lot is only 16% or about 1/6th of an acre and that an acre is 43560 square feet. Why that odd number instead of one with a lot of zeros?
I'll leave that to Tom Dorn, who is the Extension Educator for Lancaster County at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln to explain. And he throws in some etymology (thats the study of word origins for those of you in State College) as a bonus.

The unit of land area in the United States is the acre. An acre contains 43,560 square feet. Have you ever wondered why an acre is 43,560 square feet instead of a round number like 40,000 or 50,000 square feet? The story goes like this. When plowing with a yoke of oxen, it was standard practice to rest the animals (and the farmer) after plowing a furrow 1/8 mile long. An eighth of a mile therefore became known as a furrow-long or furlong; (a furlong is a nearly forgotten term for distance, except at horse racing tracks where it remains in common use).

The usual practice after plowing a furlong was to then turn the team around on a "land" and plow the other direction. Lands were laid out so the farmer would be able to finish a land every 10 rounds with a 10 inch plowshare (about 16.5 feet). One could imagine that perhaps farmers used a pole or rod that was 16.5 feet long when laying out lands because this measure of distance is still called a rod today.

By starting early in the morning, two lands could be finished before noon with a good yoke of oxen. At noon, the farmer stopped for his noon meal and to feed, water, and rest his animals. After the noon break, another two lands could be finished before quitting time. Four lands, or forty rounds (80 furrows) measured 16.5 x 4 = 66 feet across by 1/8 mile (660 feet) long and was considered a good days work with a walking plow. The area plowed was therefore 43,560 square feet and became the standard unit of land area we call an acre.

By the way, a farmer who plowed 80 furrows an eighth of a mile long would have walked ten miles while wrestling with the hand guided walking plow. Is it any wonder this measure of land area became known as an acre (ache-er)! Actually, the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary states that the name comes from the Old English ‘aecer'; akin to Old High German ‘ackar' (field), Latin ‘ager' (field), Greek ‘agros' (field), or Latin ‘agere' (to drive).

Get a brain, morans

To the morons in Talladega who were throwing crap on the track. Keep it up and you will ruin a very good thing for a lot of us. The very good thing I am talking about? Being able to bring your own food and drink to the races. Only in motor sports are you able to do this. A lot of people scrimp and save all year to attend one race and bringing their own sandwiches and beer helps them afford to be there. Not everyone wants to, or can afford to pay $6 for a beer or $10 for a bag of ice.

But you go ahead and act all offended because Jeff Gordon has now won more races that Dale Earnhardt. This may come as a surprise but there are other drivers with more wins than the Intimidator and Jeff might pass them too. Somehow I can't imagine DW or Cale Yarborough fans throwing beer cans when Jeff passes them on the all-time win list.

Even the man's son can't get it through your thick skulls not to do this. It is just racing. Democracy isn't going to fall if the 24 car ends up in Victory Lane. Do any of you recall 2001 when some "fans" threatened Sterling Marlin after we lost Dale Sr. Y'all listened when Dale Jr said it wasn't Sterling's fault and to leave him alone. Listen to him again now and chuck a couple of cans at your own cars if you feel the need. Not all of you are NFL quarterbacks and your throws aren't reaching the track. Most of them are ending up in the stands hitting other people who paid just as much as you did to watch a stock car race and not be hit in the head by a can of beer thrown from above.

NASCAR likes to compare itself to the stick and ball sports. The NHL had to erect netting at the ends of all the arenas after a puck went into the stands, hit a 13 year old girl in the head and killed her. People at baseball games are getting hurt by bats and get away and foul balls. NASCAR even has catchfences around all the tracks to keep car parts from sailing into the stands and hurting you. But you think it's OK to throw things from the stands at the competitors.

Now I want you to name me a single arena or stadium in North America thats hosts NHL, NFL, CFL, MLB or NBA games that allows you to bring your own snacks and drinks inside with you. If this keeps up, ISC and the other track operators will ban people from bringing coolers into the stands and you'll be complaining as you wait in line for a $6 warm draught beer that you won't normally drink because it sponsors a different driver. And it'll be served in a paper cup and they'll stop serving with 1/3 of the race left to run. Next time, it might be you in the first 10 rows getting a 10 stitch gash in the back of your head.

And on top of all that, you are helping to reinforce the stereotype that all NASCAR fans are inbred, slack-jawed, beer swilling yokels. I can say that the majority of people at Talladega today are nothing like that. Nor are the vast majority of NASCAR fans that I have met but you just wait until the video of this makes it was onto all the news channels with headlines like "Rednecks litter track after Gordon win".

Kudos to law enforcement at Talladega who were handcuffing people when they saw something thrown, whether it reached it's intended target or not.

Photer-graphs

I talked in a previous entry about taking the dog for a walk and wishing I had a camera with me. Well, I went down there again, without the dog, because someone else had taken her for a walk. But I did bring my camera with me and will share a few of the photos with you.



The first photo is to show how close to the US border I am, so here is a lovely view of the city of Rochester NY . You may have to squint a little to see the skyline but it really is there. Wave to the nice people.



This photo is the shoreline of Lake Ontario looking to the east.


One side of the trail is Lake Ontario and there is a pond on the other. Here are a couple of canada geese soaking up the rays on a beautiful spring day.




Same pond. More geese out for a swim and a swan in the background looking for lunch.

At the end of the trail is the mouth of a creek flowing into Lake Ontario.


Another view of the shoreline looking towards the west.

Change of plans

I was going to write a blog about NASCAR and debris cautions and Tony Stewart's comments on his Sirius Satellite radio show Tuesday night but that has been beaten to death. Instead, after watching Nextel Cup qualifying today, I would like to offer this comment.

&^&^^%%*&^*%^^%&%&%*&^*^())((&&*%%$^$!!!

What the heck happened to the 21 car? Time wise they should have made the race, especially when you have a car that started on the front row driven by a past winner at the track, but no.... some teams wanted to do race runs in practice and since they are in the Top 35 in owner points a lot of faster cars went home. This just doesn't affect the 21 but also the 55, 83, 22, 84, 09 and 34. All of those cars were one of the 43 fastest in qualifying but they have all loaded up for the long drive back to Charlotte.

I will admit to being a fan of Ken Schrader, a peak at the links on this page should tell you that. But he was fast enough to make this race as were all the drivers listed above. I know that if all the cars were going to qualify the 7 teams that received gifts this week would probably qualify anyway but we don't know that for sure until they get on the track. In the case of the 55 car, it was 0.009 seconds between him making the race and going home. Written as a fraction, that would be 9/1000. Try doing anything in that period of time. In fact, the difference between Paul Menard, who made the race and Schrader, who is going home was a quarter of a second.

I understand why NASCAR changed the provisional rules when they did and why they did it. But times have changed when you have 50 full-time sponsored cars showing up every week and these rules need to be changed too. Maybe make it Top 25 in points, or let the "go or go home" cars all qualify at once. It's been reported Michael Waltrip has to return $300,000 dollars to NAPA everytime he doesn't make a race. So far he is up to $2.4 million dollars. Is the deal the same for the UPS and Domino's/Burger King cars?

Anyway, I'll probably still watch the race but not really pull for anyone to win. I just hope no one is hurt and whoever ends up in Victory Lane is someone who hasn't been there for a while.

Somebody must be reading this

Anyway, in an effort to keep myself motivated to lose more weight, I probably should not be posting this. I lost 1 pound for the week, which again is not very much but at least I keep going in the right direction which is lower. I am also down 3.8 pounds from this date a month ago and 16 pounds overall. Still a long way to go, 149 pounds to be exact but I think I can do it.

An Ode to Spring

Spring has sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where my BBQ iz?

Ok so that isn't very creative but it is so nice to have temps in double digits and seeing that big, bright yellow ball in the sky. After the colder temperatures and all the rain/snow/sleet we have received in the last 2 weeks I am sure some people wondered if spring would ever arrive?

Since I was blessed with a day off, I took the opportunity to head out for my shed and pulled out my trusty BBQ after a long winter's nap. It started right up on the first try. But what to cook to celebrate the arrival of spring? After rooting through the freezer I chose an inch.. I mean 2.54 cm thick strip loin steak cooked to well done perfection and it was delicious! And I do not like my steaks to moo at me from the plate, thank you very much. For the curious few, I had some oriental rice and followed it up with apple pie a la mode.

Then of course I needed to walk some of those extra calories off so the dog and I went for a stroll along the waterfront trail and down to the mouth of Gage's Creek where we saw some Canada Geese and a beaver in the water. I wish I had brought my camera with me so I could post some photos.

The good news is tomorrow is supposed to be just as nice and I have it off as well, so there may be more barbecueing in my near future. Maybe some burgers this time with fresh tomato slices. Probably not a good idea to be talking about food before bedtime. That is part of the reason why I am trying to lose weight now.

Weekly Weigh-in

I know there may be someone out there, somewhere, who is anxiously awaiting the weekly update on my weight loss goal. This is where the drum roll would play. 0.36 kg is the total for the week. I know it may not sound like much, but it is the lowest number I have been since I have started, and the highest amount of weight loss. And it is better than going up 0.36 kgs for the week. So my total is now 7.27 kg. That would be 0.8 pounds this week and 16 pounds total for those in State College.

Speaking of State College, nice segue eh? Kate Bilo of AccuWeather was an on the scene reporter in Binghamton NY reporting on the nor'easter storm that made it rain a lot here. She did a great job and gets better with every report she does.

Who was right?

I know at least a dozen people are dying to know which weather forecast was correct. Based on the official hourly observations from Environment Canada. The answer is.... NOOOOOOO-BODY, as Blaine Lastman would say in his Bad Boy commercials. Only 3 hours were listed as snow/rain precipatation and I doubt that would have caused any accumulation. Even here, in the centre of the universe, we had no snow on the ground during or after the storm. The only problem I saw, or didn't see, was the HD coverage of the first night of the NHL playoffs that was knocked out by the bad weather. To be fair, the folks in Warkworth and Roseneath had snow, apparently so did Trenton and Belleville. But since we were talking about Toronto, they all scored a big fat goose egg.

Now there is another storm possibly headed our way. an April Nor'easter that could cause major damage. So keep your heads down in the areas that are predicted to get over 30 cm of snow.
My weightloss buddy, Kate Bilo is on her way to a unnamed secret location to report on the storm for accuweather.com so I send her and her camera "crew" traveling mercies for safety on their travels as well as any one else who has to be on the road. And for those of you who don't have to be on the road this weekend, STAY HOME!!!

So who's right - part deux

It is now Wednesday morning and it looks like Environment Canada and TWN have traded forecasts for Toronto.

TWN is now saying rain or snow today, up to 10 cm of accumulation changing over to just rain Wednesday overnight.

Environment Canada is now saying Toronto will basically get just rain with some wet snow mixed in.

680News, I haven't listened to today and can't get their online audio stream to work.

AccuWeather, no update from Brett Anderson

TWC is calling for light rain and snow this afternoon, periods of rain and snow tonight changing to rain overnight. Rain with some snow mixing in for tomorrow afternoon. Again no accumulation totals.

So who's right?

We apparently have ticked off Mother Nature so she is sending us some more winter weather this week and we also have a variety of guesses as to what will happen over the next 36 hours.

Since I was working today I was listening to 680 News for their traffic updates and since they do "traffic and weather, together on the ones" and they have their own staff of meteorologists. I heard Harold Hosein say that Toronto could get 10 cm of wet snow that won't accumulate Wednesday night and possibly another 10 cm on Thursday.

The publicly funded Environment Canada, which issues the forecasts that most radio/TV stations use is saying for Wednesday evening in Toronto, periods of wet snow mixed with rain. Snowfall amount possibly reaching 4 cm. Periods of snow for Thursday with no predictions for amounts.

The privately owned TWN (The Weather Network) which uses the same raw data that the publicly funded Environment Canada is calling for1-3 cm of snow in Toronto along with 2-4 mm of rain in the next 24 hours.

And finally, Brett Anderson who is the Canadian weather expert at AccuWeather is saying Toronto will get 4-8cm of wet snow mainly on grass and secondary roads.

And just for fun, here is the Toronto forecast from the American weather channel. Cloudy early with periods of light rain and snow later in the day. Wed night: Cloudy with rain and snow. Thursday: Rain. No accumulation amounts mentioned.

Since I am not working on Wednesday it will be interesting to see who is the closest to being correct.

Potpourri

Well I guess I'll combine a couple of different topics into one blog.

First off, since I am in a weight loss "challenge" with Kate Bilo (you can find a link to her blog over there --->) and she is in Weight Watchers and weighs in every Tuesday I will stick to that schedule as well. I put challenge in quotes because she doesn't respond to any of my taunts and where is the fun in that? Without further ado, the total is down 1 kilogram for the week and a total of 6.91 kgs since I have started.

Second topic is the NHL playoffs. In my last post I noted that God's team, the Toronto Maple Leafs didn't qualify to compete for Lord Stanley's Cup and have already cleaned out their stalls and headed for the golf course. That leaves me with the question of do I continue to watch with interest or just ignore the goings on? I think I will pay attention and cheer for a Calgary/Buffalo final, which I am sure will annoy the New York suits to no end.

And speaking of New York suits, I see an article in today's Globe and Mail that Gary "Baby" Bettman has ticked off the folks at CBC. It seems thanks to the NHL playoff schedule there will be NO Canadian teams playing on Saturday night. The Ottawa Senators are scheduled to play that day but at 3 in the afternoon to accomodate NBC which pays exactly ZERO dollars for television rights as opposed to the $65 million cheque the CBC writes. I guess in this case, those with the gold do not make the rules. Keep alienating the Canadian fans who built this sport and soon there will be no fans left, except for a handful in Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

Oh and for those taking some sort of perverted glee in the fact the Leafs missed the playoffs, I will point out that both of last years Stanley Cup finalists (Carolina and Edmonton), the Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers and Colorado Avalanche are also sitting at home.

Oh and I found my remote and clock has finally been changed.

Headed for the golf course...

are the Toronto Maple Leafs. After missing several chances to take care of business themselves, they had to wait for the New Jersey Devils to help them sneak in the back door of the playoffs. And as might be expected, that help was not to arrive. I give the Devils full marks for making a game of it and sending the game to a shootout. But the Leafs played the same Islanders last week and lost the game that might have eliminated the Islanders before today. And then there was the game in Buffalo where they blew a 4-1 lead in the third period. And to add to the list, there was Toronto's woeful record in shootouts. Ah well, there is nothing that can be done about it now and it is time to either enjoy the playoffs or move on to other things.

Happy Easter.

Go Devils Go!

I hate that the Maple Leafs didn't take advantage of their opportunities in the last couple of weeks to make the playoffs on their own. They caused countless cases of heartburn and ulcers with their performance tonight yet somehow managed to blow a 3-1 lead and then overcome a 5-3 deficit to win 6-5. Now they have to hope that the New Jersey Devils win on Sunday afternoon against the New York Islanders. It must be a helpless feeling knowing your playoff fate is being decided by 40 other men who are about 1200 kilometres away from you. For the next 24 hours, I am a fan of the New Jersey Devils. I hope Lou Lamierello starts his best lineup especially Martin Brodeur in net.

Until then I am going to enjoy the last installment of the 2006-2007 Battle of Alberta.

Welcome back!

Yes I changed the URL slightly to reflect my screen name on the few hundred message boards I post on. Not that I expect anyone to be reading this. I have told basically, no one that I am doing this.

After one month

As you can tell from my posts so far, part of the reason for this blog is to track my success, or lack thereof, in losing weight. Today is one month since I purchased a scale and saw that hideous number for the first time. I am here to report that I am now 14.6 pounds smaller than I was on March 5, 2007 not that you can tell from looking at me. Although other people claim to notice a difference. Only 150 or so pounds until I reach my ultimate goal. I also see that the smart and gifted Kate Bilo has now reached 4.6 pounds for which she deserves a round of applause.

P minus 5 days

That means there are 5 days left in the NHL regular season and 5 teams left to compete for the last 3 playoff spots in the Eastern Conference. Since my last update, the defending Stanley Cup champions have been eliminated from the playoffs so they will not be able to defend their championship.

In a quick side note, the team they defeated, the Edmonton Oilers are sliding quickly into oblivion. Not that they are getting blown out every night but the team has been demoralized by the trade of Ryan Smyth. If they lose their last 2 games and St. Louis and Phoenix win all of theirs, the Oilers will have gone from competing for a playoff spot at the trade deadline to finishing last in the conference.

Here are the standings before the games tonight on Wed April 4.

Tampa Bay 92 pts, 80 GP
NY Rangers 92 pts, 80 GP
Montreal 90 pts, 80 GP
Toronto 89 pts, 80 GP
NY Islanders 86 pts, 79 GP

It'll still take a lot of help for the Islanders but they still have a chance with an extra game to play. Thursday through Sunday will be very interesting when all 5 teams will decide whether they make the playoffs or not.

Where the heck is my remote???

I have no idea where the remote for my VCR/DVD recorder is. Not that I have any specific movie I want to watch or record but I haven't been able to change the clock since we sprung forward by an hour and it's usually the first clock I see when I wake up AND IT IS DRIVING ME NUTS!!!