Onion News Network

I had heard they were doing this, but I hadn't seen any clips yet. This one was pretty funny, as a parent. Or even if you're not a parent. I especially liked the text headline on the bottom of the screen that kids support increasing military funding to protect toys.

They may give the Daily Show a run for their money soon.


Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children�s Healthcare

iPhone 2.0 in 60 seconds!

It took Apple 142 minutes to talk about the iPhone 2.0 a few days ago. Someone was nice and condensed it down... it's fun to watch. The price is cheap enough that maybe I'll get one now.

Solar Eclipse

Gavin: "We need to go visit your parents in 2017."
Jen: "Eclipse?"
Gavin: "Yeah... how'd you know?"
Jen: "I don't know."
Gavin: "You're awesome like that."

13.070 gallons

I reckon there aren't many people in the world who know exactly how much gasoline their car can hold. I discovered for myself just 15 minutes ago.

The needle of my trusty Corolla had been nearly empty for days as I drove a few miles to and from work. As I left work today I decided I really did need to fill the tank today on my way home. I knew of several gas stations on the way, two of which were convenient to get in and out of.

I blew past the first one at 45 miles an hour, realizing belatedly that there was station #1. Ah, well, there was still station #2. I pondered for a few moments, estimating traffic over the bridge and consequent drive time, air conditioning set to maximum, my driving habits... Surely, I figured, I had enough gas left to get to station #2.

Over the bridge I drove, with the soothing stop-and-go flow of rush hour. We crept through a stoplight and then approached my intersection near station #2. As I turned onto the street and accelerated up to 20 mph, the unthinkable happened! 40 yards away from station #2. Softly, my engine quit, without even a whimper of a warning.

30 yards. I kicked the automatic shift into neutral before trying to restart it, but the timing was going to be tricky.

20 yards. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't bother trying to restart.

10 yards. Yeah, I think I can make it, no oncoming traffic for me to avoid.

In a display of energy management surely worthy of a veteran flight dynamics engineer, I smoothly turned left, coasted up the incline and drifted to a stop in front of pump #2 with only a faint touch against the braking pedal.

After celebrating my foolhardy luck, I watched with interest as the gas counter soared upwards.

"Funny, I always thought I had an eleven and a half gallon tank."

Bonehead

You know how you have those bonehead moments where you can’t belive you just did something? Like in 9th grade when I went to a school band concert and forgot to bring my flute. Well, I had one of those a couple days ago when I went flying.

I was chatting with my instructor while pre-flighting the airplane. One of the steps is that you get up on the wing and measure the fuel remaining by dipping a ~14" long plastic stick into the tank. I stuck the stick in upside down first, and had to pull it out and turn it over to read it correctly. Thus the part of the stick in my hand was wet with av gas when I stuck it in the second time.

Me: "Yeah, I was a little worried when I called earlier and the wind was gusting to 18... Oh, shit."

Instructor: "What?"

Me: "Um..."

Instructor: "Did you drop it in there?"

Me: "Uh, yeah." ... blushing ... "Can you get it out?"

Instructor: "I’m not sure I have anything here..."

As it turned out, we did fish it out. Or rather, he and another pilot did. My pregnant belly wouldn’t even let me get up there enough to look in the hole. It took pushing the plane up onto a little hill to get the probe to roll to the front of the tank, my instructor lying on his belly on top of the cabin, and ther other guy on a ladder holding the flashlight and one gripper. And 20 minutes. But, we got it out.

I was very careful when I measured the fuel in the other tank to hold on to the stick.

Anyway, I’m sure it wasn’t the first time it’s ever happened in the history of aviation. But, it was the first time for my instructor, and when you’ve flown as many hours and instructed as many students as he has, that’s saying something.

Top 10?

The new version of Blogger has the ability to label posts. That's a feature I've found really useful on other people's blogs, so I'm going to try to go back and label all the old posts on this one. It will take a while. Hope somebody uses it. I guess at the very least I will use it someday to go back and read my ranting about different things.

I have this vague plan to create a "top 10" posts list for the categories. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that the button incident probably takes first place. People still talk about it. He hasn't learned his lesson either. Just yesterday, for instance...

Gavin and Jen wait in the exam room for the OB/GYN to come in to do the ultrasound

Jen watches in fascination as Gavin examines and then very carefully pushes the red buttton on the light that the doctor uses to, well, examine people.

G: I was pretty sure that was a light.
J: What if it wasn't? What would you have done if it started whirring?
G: Turned it off - quickly.