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JAYNE WITH A WHY |
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Sunday, May 23, 2010OH TO BE A DOCTOR & WHAT HAS TO BE THE BEST RETORT EVER! First-year students at Medical School were receiving their first anatomy class with a real dead human body. They all gathered around the surgery table with the body covered with a white sheet. The professor began the lecture by telling them: "In medicine, it is necessary to possess two important qualities as a doctor: The first is that you not be disgusted by anything involving the human body." To illustrate, he pulled back the sheet, stuck his finger in the anus of the corpse, withdrew it, and stuck it in his mouth. "Go ahead and do the same thing," he told his students. The students freaked out, hesitated for several minutes, but eventually took turns sticking a finger in the butt of the dead body and sucking on it. When everyone finished, the professor looked at them and said, "The second most important quality is observation. I stuck in my middle finger and sucked on my index finger. Now learn to pay attention." Wicked! Sincere thanks to Harley biker bud George for that one :-) A classic, if not truly brilliant retort!  This is allegedly a true story. An Irishman was just finishing up at work, when his wife phoned. It was their 15th wedding anniversary & she would be making a really special dinner for him that evening. She asked her husband to please stop at a particular shop on his way home from work & buy a small can of escargot. The dutiful husband stopped as requested & bought the escargot, but whilst he was in the shop, he ran into a friend & they got chatting. He explained that it was a special day - his 15th wedding anniversary - and his wife was cooking him a special dinner. After much begging, the friend managed to persuade the Irishman to join him for a quick drink at a nearby pub. He met many other friends at the pub, who upon hearing he would be celebrating his wedding anniversary, all bought him drinks. The hours flew by & next thing he knew, it was nearly midnight! He thanked his friends for all their good cheer & swiftly made his way home. He knew he'd be deep in shit with his wife, so he had to think up a good excuse. He opened the can of escargot & lined the little snails up on the path leading up to the front door. Without further ado, he knocked on the door & stood back.................. The door opened & his wife stood there, stony faced................until He said "C'mon you little buggers, you've only a couple more yards to go!" With sincere thanks to Rob via Hubs, who had me in stitches!  
Sunday, May 16, 2010SPECIFICATIONS 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 designed 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 had 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 (including England ) for their legions. Those 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 arse/ass came up with this?' , 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' arses/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 arse/ass. And you thought being a horse's arse wasn't important? Ancient horse's arses control almost everything... and CURRENT Horses arses are controlling everything else With thanks to Hubs, who passes on all sorts of useless information to me :-)
Friday, May 07, 2010SUN, SAND, SEA & A WHOLE HEAP OF HARLEYSWe arrived in Margate absolutely knackered! The 1010km trip took 12hrs, thanks to the bastard roadworks on the highways outside Pretoria & Joburg. (I'll be so glad when this fuckin' Soccer World Cup is over & bloody done with! All the upgrading of existing roads is a bloody nightmare.) We started passing bikes shortly after we hit the N3 (Durban highway) & the closer we got to the coast, the more bikes there were. After unhitching T2 at the spot where we'd booked in, we set off in search of food. Not long after that, we hit the perch & it was a case of sinking into a welcome coma for the next 8hrs! The following day - Friday - we rode into town to suss out what was happening in 'Harley Street'. Oh my gawd, what a pleasure! The powers-that-be closed off the main street which ran the length of the beachfront & it became Harley Heaven! There were bikes, dealer showrooms & tents, local tourist traders & more bikes. Despite this being a HOG rally, all makes of bike were welcome to attend. (I gotta admit though, that the sight of someone wearing Hells Angels South Africa colours, riding a rice rocket, literally made me cringe.)  Harley Street (aka Marine Parade) - the street where everyone sussed out everyone elses bike!  The gathering of bikes at the Shelly Centre on Sunday morning, in preparation for the mass ride.   The above 2 photos were of the mass ride - from Shelly Beach to Margate. Despite the departures being staggered, the later departures made up the rear of a solid 9km 'train' of bikes. Bloody awesome!  Harley Street in full swing - heaps of peeps & heaps of bikes.  Preparing to leave the Shelly Centre.  Hubs & I took a ride out to Oribi Gorge, less than 40km away. The scenery was stunning. What made it nicer was we took our hemets off in the gorge - what a pleasure to hear the birds & critter, plus the dulcet tones of T2 :-)    The above 3 photos were all taken from the spot where we stayed. It was so peaceful - even with the roar of hundreds of bikes passing by at regular intervals - & the outlook was really beautiful.  Nice paint jobby - gets the message across quite eloquently dontcha think?  A vintage BMW with sidecar - I like the mounted machine gun.........I bet no one even thinks of road-rage when they see that........hehehe  There were several trikes at the rally & as much as I like them, I didn't come across a single one that retained any of the original bike power. I liked the paint jobby on this one though.  T2, parked up by the front door of our chalet. Any closer & I could've sat on her to watch TV at night! Thumbs up to the management of Villa del Sol, who accommodated the bikes & bikers with great service.  New screen on T2...............I'm not exactly a 'skull theme' type of dumb blonde, but I gotta admit I really liked this screen when I first saw it, so Hubs got for T2  I got me some new ink done whilst I was in town. There were at least 3 tattooists in Margate, but I waited until the town had quietend down before making an appointment. I took a good book with me & only said "oww" once. Less than 45mins later & I was all done - what a pleasure! (The new ink is a medical warning that I take a blood thinner & tend to bleed profusely when cut) Overall, there was only one thing that truly pissed on my battery during the rally & that was seeing a lovely blue TriGlide (the HD trike) on proud display in the Harley Davidson main showroom. I could've wept honestly, as (for the 1 or 2 regular readers of my drivel will know) I've wanted one for months & months. The dealership we dealt with when we first came back to SA told us a heap of bollocks & we ended up buying T2, an Ultra Classic Limited. Don't get me wrong, T2 is a fabulous bike & we're very happy with her, but the TriGlide was always my dream. Fuck em, I'll wait & see what the 2011 bikes are like, cos I'm not prepared to wait several more months to get a TriGlide in the colour I want, plus lose a shitload of dosh on a trade in. The residents of Margate & surrounding towns deserve a huge 'Thank You' for being such gracious hosts to some 8,000 bikes & more than 20,000 visitors. They lined the roads & waved to everyone on the mass ride out on Sunday & I never heard a single complaint from anyone. I also never saw a single person who was ratarse (in public) or who caused any form of (annoying) disturbance. That to me, is a major compliment to everyone who attended. Hubs got to finish his dissertation - YAY! - so we have to wait now until sometime in June for the results. I helped him as much as I could, but that was mostly by making sure he was kept well fed & watered. Mind you, what I know about Economic Duress (the subject of his thesis) nowadays is quite inspiring! Next on the agenda: deciding where to bugger off to in July, cos I sure as hell don't want to be here for the fiasco of the Soccer World Cup! Labels: 2nd All Africa HOG Rally, Harley Davidson, Margate KZN, Oribi Gorg, Villa del Sol
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