Brewing Master

Question:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The big disadvantage to riding at night is that I have to keep my mouth tightly closed or I’ll end up swallowing a bug (how do you know when a motorcycle rider is happy?  count the number of bugs in his teeth!). Now, here, my friend, you are in real danger! lol! Just as I would be. Keeping my mouth shut has never been my strong suit. ROTFLMAOWTIME!  Guilty as charged!  ; It’s getting to the point where I get antsy the closer it gets to the time I usually ride, I can’t wait – I think I’m getting hooked on endorphins! For the first 5 miles I feel sluggish and like I’m making an effort, but the last 10 – 15 miles are just plain fun – I have to make myself stop. Wonderful. I am not getting the exercise I should, and I need to. I recall how good it felt to really get the heart pumping on a regular basis. I had to find something that was "fun" rather than a "I have to" chore. I’m glad I picked the bicycle because it takes me back to when I was a kid and riding my bike was strictly for fun and not for fitness. But you live in HOUSTON!! It may be fun but if I recall those drivers correctly, you had better be careful!

I’m lucky in that I live in a very large and sprawling subdivision in Spring (just north of the city of Houston).  I can ride for miles and miles without ever getting on a highway.  However, as I wrote in my first note, that still you on the left without even slowing down.  When I’m making a left turn I’ll use a left-hand-turn hand signal, but I never assume that the nut-job behind me will know what that means and wait for me to turn left before speeding past me on the left.  I either wait until they pass me, or make sure they’re slowing down and waiting for me to turn.  Which is a general rule-of-thumb* when driving *any* vehicle in Houston – *ALWAYS* assume that every other driver on the road is either insane or intoxicated (and often is both) and compensate accordingly! * Trivia question…  I hate this expression, "Rule of Thumb" – does anyone else know where this expression came from? Hugs, CatNipped

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The big disadvantage to riding at night is that I have to keep my mouth tightly closed or I’ll end up swallowing a bug (how do you know when a motorcycle rider is happy?  count the number of bugs in his teeth!). Now, here, my friend, you are in real danger! lol! Just as I would be. Keeping my mouth shut has never been my strong suit. ROTFLMAOWTIME!  Guilty as charged!  ; It’s getting to the point where I get antsy the closer it gets to the time I usually ride, I can’t wait – I think I’m getting hooked on endorphins! For the first 5 miles I feel sluggish and like I’m making an effort, but the last 10 – 15 miles are just plain fun – I have to make myself stop. Wonderful. I am not getting the exercise I should, and I need to. I recall how good it felt to really get the heart pumping on a regular basis. I had to find something that was "fun" rather than a "I have to" chore. I’m glad I picked the bicycle because it takes me back to when I was a kid and riding my bike was strictly for fun and not for fitness. But you live in HOUSTON!! It may be fun but if I recall those drivers correctly, you had better be careful! I’m lucky in that I live in a very large and sprawling subdivision in Spring (just north of the city of Houston).  I can ride for miles and miles without ever getting on a highway.  However, as I wrote in my first note, that still you on the left without even slowing down.  When I’m making a left turn I’ll use a left-hand-turn hand signal, but I never assume that the nut-job behind me will know what that means and wait for me to turn left before speeding past me on the left.  I either wait until they pass me, or make sure they’re slowing down and waiting for me to turn.  Which is a general rule-of-thumb* when driving *any* vehicle in Houston – *ALWAYS* assume that every other driver on the road is either insane or intoxicated (and often is both) and compensate accordingly! * Trivia question…  I hate this expression, "Rule of Thumb" – does anyone else know where this expression came from?

The expression rule of thumb has been recorded since 1692 and probably wasn’ t new then. It meant then what it means now-some method or procedure that comes from practice or experience, without any formal basis. Some have tried to link it with brewing; in the days before thermometers, brewers were said to have gauged the temperature of the fermenting liquor with the thumb (just as mothers for generations have tested the temperature of the baby’s bath water with their elbows). This seems unlikely, as the thumb is not that sensitive and the range of temperatures for fermentation between too cool and too warm is quite small. It is much more likely that it comes from the ancient use of bits of the body to make measurements. There were once many of these: the unit of the foot comes from pacing out dimensions; the distance from the tip of the nose to the outstretched fingers is about one yard; horse heights are still measured in hands (the width of the palm and closed thumb, now fixed at four inches); and so on. There was an old tailors’ axiom that "twice around the thumb is once around the wrist", which turns up in Gulliver’s Travels. It’s most likely that the saying comes from the length of the first joint of the thumb, which is about an inch (I remember once seeing a carpenter actually make a rough measurement this way). So the phrase rule of thumb uses the word rule in the sense of ruler, not regulation, and directly refers to this method of measurement. (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-rul1.htm) I hope I didn’t leave anything out!!  ;o)) —