It is Sunday, October 11 and there are only 20 days until Halloween.  Now is the time to start remembering where you hid the candy you bought in August when they put the Halloween candy on the shelves.  Today we remember the birthdays of Eleanor Roosevelt, Elmore Leonard and Daryl Hall.  On this day in 1811 the Juliana, the first steam-powered ferryboat began operations, in 1890 the Daughters of the American Revolution was founded and in 1987 200,000 gays marched for civil rights in Washington.  In Sri Lanka it is Deepavali, in Western Samoa it is National Day and in the US tomorrow is Columbus Day.

As in years past, I have taken time to discuss tomorrow’s holiday.  I try to provide different information each year so that you don’t get bored.  Here is this year’s contribution.  At the end of the 15^th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land.  The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid.  Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea – they sailed south along the West African Coast and around the Cape of Good Hope.

Columbus had a different idea.  Why not sail across the Atlantic?  His logic was sound, but his math was faulty.  He believed (erroneously) that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was.  He felt the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible but comparatively easy.  We all know how that worked out.

One final point I would like to make is that though he did not really “discover” the New World – millions of people already lived there – his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of trans-Atlantic conquest and colonization.  That is it for this year.  I hope you have gained from this annual delving into Columbus.

For all of you who have been sitting on the edge of your seat for the past week, yes, we finally closed on the house and are technically done with it.  I say technically because we still have a project that has to be completed so that the buyers can have the house free and clear.  There is the matter of a stairway that needs to be built.  The town granted a conditional certificate of occupancy after paperwork was filed saying the buyers would be responsible for seeing that it was done according to code.  We have hired the contractor and are paying for the work, but it has to be completed and the town has to sign off before the entire transaction is complete.

As I have said, once it is all done, I will regale you with the foolishness that we endured trying to get this sale completed.  All I can say is that if you are looking to move, have your town inspector come by and get the process going as soon as possible.  I am hearing horror stories from people in other towns who have had the same types of problems.  It appears that the Code Enforcement people are very good at interpreting rules and regulations any way they want.  The problem is that you have no recourse.  You are at their mercy.  The question that is always asked is why do they bust your chops so much.  The answer is simple – because they can.

One of the benefits of having to drive back and forth, a one hour drive each way, is that I had a lot of time to ponder and wonder about things.  I think I have mentioned the one question before.  Why is it that the right outside rear view mirror is different than the left outside mirror?  Who decided that it was an advantage to look in the right mirror and see things that appear to be farther away than they really are?  To top it off, why do they put the message on the bottom of the mirror in lettering that is hard to read?  It is confusing to look in the inside rear view and see a car approaching you and then look in the outside mirror and have that car seem farther away.  What is the benefit to that?  Don’t drivers have enough to worry about with texting, talking on the phone, selecting music from their MP3 and drinking coffee?  They already use normal mirrors for the left side.  Why can’t they just use those same mirrors for the right side?  I would love to hear the explanation for that.

Here is something else that has puzzled me for a while.  When you are driving, the road signs tell you that something is coming in ¼ or ½ mile.  However, the odometer in cars shows the mileage information in tenths of a mile.  Wouldn’t it make more sense for the road signs to be in tenths also?  That way the information would be of more value.  I am sure that many accidents are caused by drivers being distracted trying to figure out how many tenths of a mile equal a ¼ mile.  

There are also signs that say construction will begin in 1500 feet.  Again, how does that equate to tenths.  Of course with construction, it is not as difficult because the cones have been laid out for a mile approaching the area where work is being done, so you know it’s coming, you just are not sure when.  Another indication, if the work is being done at night, are the lights they use to light the work area.  These lights can be seen from space.  They provide more light than workers would get if they were working on a sunny day.  I have the opportunity to ponder these things because I put the car on cruise control, doing the speed limit (unless it is 55) and let everyone else fly by me.

This week our fact tells us that researchers at the Texas Department of Highways in Fort Worth determined that the cow population of the US burps some 50 million tons of valuable hydrocarbons into the atmosphere each year.  The accumulated burps of ten average cows could keep a small house adequately heated and its stove operating for a year.  I have to ask why the Department of Highways is researching cow burps?  Are the roads in Texas in such great shape that they do this type of research to keep busy?  Now before you go and build the pen for your cows, make sure you get the necessary permits from your town.  

I have to go now.  There is a slight chill in the house and I need to go give the cows some soda.