It's just a spring-clean for the mayqueen.


Spring has hit in the big DE. Not all days are sunny as in AZ, but at least I can relish in the fact that the trees won't turn brown in the next two weeks.

Really though, the sun has been shining nearly each day, and hence providing good weather for walking, barbequing, or whatever else it is that people do in the daytime. (I'm a night person myself... which is somewhat ironic due to the fact that I don't particularly enjoy the nightlife, but whatever.)

I really don't have much to say today, but felt like writing nonetheless, so I suppose I'll share in a story with everyone. Yesterday, John was being, well, John, and trying to push me around a little, knowing full-well that he's far too small to engauge in such endeavors. Seeing as how all of our floors here on the second floor are done with fairly cheap linoleum, John really can't get much traction, especially in shower slippers. There came a time when he was really trying, and I finally pushed back, and he just slid, holding form, across the room. This lead to a great revelation in the minds of two engineers. "A man is only as strong as his mu."

Since I know not all of my readers are inclined to the study of mechanical physics, let me take a moment to explain this realization. See, when studying friction, a person learns that there are two types: static and kinetic. Static friction is the friction given by an object at rest, while kinetic friction is the resistance given by an object once it's already in motion. (e.g. The initial resistance to starting movement of, say, a chest at rest on a floor vs. the resistance to motion of that same chest once it's already moving.) There are two frictional values for every type of surface, one for each of the types of friction. In order to cause an object to move, or to keep it moving, the force applied to that object must always be greater than each of these values. The values are called the coefficients of friction, (one for static, one for kinetic), and are represented by the greek letter mu.

So, looking at the statement, "A man is only as strong as his mu" one more time, I think it's pretty obvious how a person could find that entertaining provided he has at least a little background in Newtonian physics. At this point, if you're still reading, I imagine you're probably saying, "Lame Dave, just lame." The thing is, we'll see if you're still saying that the next time I watch you slide through an intersection in flagstaff while sitting on my lawnchair, drinking a warm "Andy's Mint." (Creme de Menthe and Hot chocolate) Heck, I might even hold up signs that say such things as "Your mu was: [insert number here]". We could even have judges giving scores based on grace of slide, number of collisions with inanimate objects, and possibly the time required for recovery. That'd be a fun party for any Saturday after football season, no doubt, no doubt.



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