Tue 27 Dec 2005
Andrew Gets Measured
Each year we mark the height of our kids on their birthday on the Hertzler Family Stick. Cathy’s and my mark stood far into the distance relative to our kids’ mark – until this year. Andrew grew 11.5 cm (4.5 inches). This picture makes me look taller than Andrew, but the difference is now really just a few centimeters.
Happy Birthday, Andrew!
December 27th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
Happy Birthday, Andrew!
centimeters?
Are you already “thinking in metric”?
December 27th, 2005 at 6:42 pm
Happy birthday, Andrew! I certainly remember getting the news that you had been born and telling bitty person Jessica that she had a new cousin.
December 27th, 2005 at 7:01 pm
Jeff,
While I realize the cost of converting to the metric system is too high, it still frustrates me that USA uses English units. So, while I live in the land of the more reasonable measures, I’ll use them!
11.5 sounds like a bigger number, too.
And, yes, I can think in metric temperature, measures, distances, and volumes now.
Local conventions for measuring automobile fuel efficiency still elude me, though. They use liters per 100 km. So a car that uses 12 L/100km is not very fuel efficient, while one that uses 7 L/100km is. I’m still stuck in miles/gallon.
December 27th, 2005 at 10:16 pm
Jerry,
Yes….we colonists do feel the heavy burden of conserving Anglo-Saxon culture against the assimilation of the global industrial Borg. We have fought bravely, sometimes against our own Presidents. Resist we do, yet not in futility. We know there is more to life than the cold, sterile efficiency of the metricist. We value tradition, for though it may be clumsy, it is not boring. Nay, we enjoy the rich tapestry of history that lay behind the foot, furlong, and farthingdale.
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Three Foot Rule
W. M. Rankine
When I was bound apprentice, and learned to use my hands,
Folk never talked of measures that came from foreign lands:
Now I’m a British Workman, too old to go to school;
So whether the chisel or file I hold, I’ll stick to my three-foot rule.
Some talk of millimetres, and some of kilogrammes,
And some of decilitres, to measure beer and drams;
But I’m a British Workman, too old to go to school,
So by pounds I’ll eat, and by quarts I’ll drink, and
I’ll work by my three-foot rule.
A party of astronomers went measuring the earth,
And forty million metres they took to be its girth;
Five hundred million inches, though, go through from pole to pole;
So let’s stick to inches, feet and yards, and the good old three-foot rule.
METRIC MADNESS
Volodimir Barabash
Pipe the newest tune of madness,
For this country’s citizens,
Who are struck by metric madness…
Poor and helpless denizens.
Watch those drivers on the highways,
Ringed with frowns and without smiles,
As they labour how to render
Kilometers into miles.
On hour housewives show your pity,
As they ply their daily rounds.
To grams all must be converted.
No more ounces…no more pounds.
Voice your feelings for the farmers.
For their daughters and their sons.
They must tabulate in kilos.
No more bushels…no more tons.
And what about all those tradesmen,
Carpenters and engineers.
Draughtsmen, chemists and all others.
For them we should shed our tears.
Teachers, preachers, politicians.
Printers, newsmen…victims all.
Let us hope this metric fever
Will not drive us up the wall.
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