The post office is less than two miles from home, so as part of our effort to make our gasoline supply last as long as possible, I had decided to go by bicycle to mail an important package. Porter was happy to come, but suggested we continue on and see how far we could get on the nearby bike trail. Bear in mind that our bicycles had seen but little use for a long time. Intrepid or foolish, we filled our water bottles, figured out how to work our new helmets, and took off.
For those to whom this has meaning: we crossed over the I-4 bridge! And went a bit further, to one of our churches, then turned toward home. I'd like to tell you how exhausted I was when I finally glided into our driveway, and how every muscle in my legs was throbbing...but Janet climbed Mt. Fuji this weekend and I'm sure after I read her report I'll feel a little silly...and a lot wimpy.
It was a lot of fun, though.This is for my dear friends who will soon be travelling to Spain:
When I was in elementary school, we were taught, drilled and tested on the formulas for converting temperature measurements between Fahrenheit and Celsius. Celsius was known as Centigrade back then, but they both begin with C so it doesn't matter. :)
F = 9/5 x C + 32
C = 5/9 x (F - 32)
It was an all but useless exercise. How often do most people need to do those conversions? In the science lab, we use Celsius; otherwise, Fahrenheit. Except at our house, when I was young. The thermometer that my father bought and installed outside our window read only in Celsius, so I was kept busy converting it into the more familiar numbers. Even so, I never really learned the conversion formulas; I never could remember which way they went. How liberating it was, many years later, when I realized that I could easily figure that out, knowing 0C = 32F (water freezes) and 100C = 212F (water boils).
It wasn't until I was more than 30 years outside of elementary school, vacationing in New Zealand, that I discovered even greater freedom. All temperatures there are in Celsius (as they are in most of the world), and those old formulas were just too clumsy. So I amused myself by developing a much handier formula that was just fine for my purposes. (More)
