Reality Check

Fasting – 119
Post Meal – 230

However, the good news, Glycosylated HB A1c – 6.5%.

End result – I am not on medicine yet though the diet and exercise regime is strict. I am told to reduce weight by 10 KGs if possible. Today’s reading was 63.300. I will be happy if i can bring it down to 57 / 58.

So the new year starts on a note that will make me work towards a healthier living.

A Happy and Prosperous new year to all!

This came in the mail today as a FWD!

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and  that’s the gauge they used.  Why did “they” use that gauge then? Because the people who built the  tramways used the same  jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if  they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on  some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge  of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.  Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a Specification/ Procedure/ Process  and wonder “What horse’s ass came up with it?” you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate
the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses’ asses.) Now, the twist  to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at  their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would
have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad  line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you  now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two  thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass. And you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important? Ancient horse’s asses control almost everything…and current Horses Asses are controlling everything else!!