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Winsome, Lose Some

Looked for loopholes. Everytime I consider the possibilty that someone terminating what appeared to be a perfectly good friendship, just because she's met a new romantic possibilty, is a tad dramtic - maybe I'm over-reacting - I go back and check her words. And, no, there's no escape clause: I've lost a friend.

Truth is, there's a pattern here: with the X, she intially shut me out of her life (frankly, only let back in because she didn't really know anyone else in this town). The brief liasion with sparkinglycombativegirl intially meant that she avoided me for a while (yes, I'm that disappointing), while an ever briefer interlude with lingeriedesigner (yes, really: it does sound like I'm trying to spec up a male-weighted Look At All My Encounters show - Cocks And The City, if you will - but it's really not as impressive as it might sound) meant that she won't be alone in the same postcode with me and a bottle of red wine ever again. And the less said about redjacket, the better. I honestly felt (and, indeed, feel, but I've decided to give the future tense locked away in a battered box now) that relationships (and, indeed, brief encounters), when amicably ended, should remain as friendships. And I'm always been told that I'm vastly naive. But in truth, it doesn't matter if I'm right, if I'm the only one. "What would happen," Charlie Brown asks Linus in a Peanuts cartoon, "if we all ran away from our problems?" Linus is quick to reply smartly - "At least we'd all be running in the same direction .."

Everything As It Should Be

I am astonishingly cynical. And, also aware of the slight idiocy of being aware of my own cynicism. But, anyway. After a year of having that cynicism tested, I am now able to have been proved right.

I'd had an impressive and wonderful relationship with bettiepage, who was - well, I could spend pages and pages of blog telling you that she was dynamic, intelligent, beautiful, passionate, fantastic, sensual, witty, intoxicating - yadda, yadda, yadda - and I'd never be able to really get you to 'get' it. No matter. The most important word in that paragraph was 'had'. Past tense. All over.

It was an amicable split, I felt. I'd always been aware that I was merely transitional, a rebound, whatever, but I had hoped to mantain the friendship. I had felt that we had supported each other well, and that our friendship - well, had some worth.

Nada. She of course met someone else - and this, I don't begrudge her - of course, I have the feelings of inadeuqacies (least of all of being able to spell that word), the feelings that no matter what he's like, he's better for her than I'll ever have been, the certainty that within a year they'll have moved away and be making babies - but she's told me that due to the nature of our relationship, she just wouldn't feel comfortable meeting up, catching up, having coffee, whatever. So, that's it: Friendship terminated.

I'm bored of this, you know: I'm bored of being the only one, it seems, to think that it's healthy to remain friends with ex-lovers when the split has been amicable. I was with her because I cared about her, because I liked her. She seemed to like me. If I knew that I was going to lose her friendship over the last (very good, very positive) year - then I would've traded that year. Just to keep her in my life.

I have always been cynical. But, now, honestly? I give up.

Fill In The Blanks

See, since I can't access this site at work, I'm rarely here anymore. Plus, I've gotten overly distracted by facebook (the seduction of people I actually know), despite the fact that that's not accessible at work, either.

But, thankfully, refreshingly, no Distractions to tell you of. bettiepage and I are purely platonic now, nigella has gone onto a new job, freckles is very happy in her partnership, and redjacket has been AWOL (from my life, at least) for a couple of years. Not that I don't still remember her occasionally, of course.

The thing is, I'm always distracted by someone. So, to be free of that is .. new.

Will it last? -

1) If you're cynical ..

No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule our flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.

There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. But since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - or 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that is 91.8 millions homes. One presumes there's at least one "good" child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels East to West (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each one of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but for the purpose of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75 and a half million miles, NOT counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purpose of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego Set (2 lbs), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On landing, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 330 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point 1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine reindeer. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload, not even counting the weight of the sleigh, to 353,430 tons! Again for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth!

353,430 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as space craft re-entering the earths atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy ... per second ... EACH. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating deafening Sonic Booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve ...

he's dead now ....

2) If you don't want to be cynical ...

This is a long overdue editorial response to the "Scientific Inquiry into the existence of Santa Claus" which was published in the January 1990 issue of Spy Magazine: (Submitted to Spy Magazine, December 1994 by Thomas Grady)The theories outlined in the previous article, while being mathematically and scientifically correct, are somewhat limited in scope.  I offer some speculations in another direction.  I feel that it is necessary to offer the POSSIBILITY that Santa Claus (or some iteration of that story) exists, in opposition to the distinctly negative slant that the aforementioned source article suggests.

 

Consider, if Santa Clause started his operation sometime in the 1600's (as legend has it), then it's altogether likely that it is no longer THE Santa Claus that carries out this yearly responsibility.  I ask for some latitude at this point, as I am not a mathematician, so my numbers, though close, will be approximate.

 

Lets examine the possibility of Claus population.  At an accepted average rate of 3.5 generations per century (Population Reference Bureau), this gives us approximately 14 generations of Claus breeding to consider.  At an average (taking historical references and averages as a rule) of 4 children per Claus Family (starting with Santa and Mrs. Claus), producing at least 2 males per family unit, that renders a total current possible Claus population of approximately a quarter of a BILLION Clauses (factoring in the attrition due to the harsh Arctic Circle climate, reindeer pilot training incidents, elf uprisings, sibling homicide, and other accidental deaths).

 

Presuming that the maintenance of the secret of the Claus "situation" is due to limitation or exclusion of outside people, this would lead us to speculate that the current Claus population is a product of rampant inbreeding.  Generations and generations worth.  So much so that the combination of magnified recessive gene traits, exclusion of new genetic material, and limited task training has, in all likelihood, produced a population of Task Specific Idiot Savant Clauses who know nothing other than the functions of piloting sleighs in flight (clear point of contention with the original article), breaking and entering, gift distribution, and gorging on any exposed foodstuffs, all on one specific evening all around the world.  I believe that this massive undertaking is financed by a well established fund raising program, implemented centuries ago, incorporating the street-corner and mall residing Santa's.

 

If the idea of a multi-Claus population were proved, that would guarantee that all of the Santas would then, in fact, be THE Santa Claus (or more appropriately, _A_ Santa Claus), simplifying the explanation to children inquiring into why there are so many Clauses ringing bells, or why Santa was at THIS mall when he was just at the LAST one. That would also alleviate any guilt on the parents part stemming from feeling the need to respond to the child with either the perceived truth that there is actually NO Santa Claus (surely helping the child along to his/her specific predestined emotional dysfunction), or the creation and maintenance of a lie ("Oh, that's because he's following us, dear", surely resulting in deep psychological scarring in the child for life, and producing an unfortunate deep seated fear of overweight people in red crushed velvet leisure suits and black patent leather boots). Of course, this also means that every city and town has a resident population of Clauses, simplifying local gift distribution.

 

Back to the numbers.  If we do the math, we would see that the average number of "Active Delivery Units" (which we will refer to hereafter as ADU's, being described as male-Claus gift distribution units, but not with the insensitive intent of perpetuating the sexist image of the traditional Christmas figure) is reduced to a paltry 53.5 million ADU's. Keep in mind that though there are clearly more Male Clauses alive at this point, some may be children, some in training, and some may be too old or infirm to engage in the Christmas eve task.  Using the numbers that you provided in your article, 98.1 million homes, our numbers would suggest that the average Claus would only have to deliver to and average of 1.71 homes, and they would only need to walk an average of a mile and-a-half to get there.  Of course, rural ADU's might have fewer homes and further to walk, where urban Clauses might have more homes in a more compressed neighbourhood, but Claus allocation would address that.

 

As far as Payload per household is concerned, we need to clarify that as a current societal issue.  In today's society, we can no longer afford to judge a child to the extent that what they receive on Christmas morning is based on their emotional/psychological/interpersonal performance of the past year.  The modern non-Claus family unit (practicing random breeding patterns, typically excluding members of their immediate family) cannot bear the responsibility or social impact of having raised a dysfunctional child.  Thus, we can presume that the lumps of coal and switches are no longer gift options to be delivered by an ADU.  Our point is, all Christmas participating non-Claus families with children will receive actual gifts.

 

Again, based on our current societal standards, the average family of three children will receive a minimum of eleven gifts (three for each of the children, and one each for the parents, regardless of whether or not they believe in Santa).  I would conservatively estimate the average total weight of gifts per family to be in the 50-70 lbs range, which is no problem at all for a lumbering idiot-savant who considers the transportation of this payload to be among the chief ingredients to his happiness (the delivery of which immediately follows the most satisfying Breaking and Entering portion of the evening, and the reward of which would be the removal and consumption of any exposed baked goods). Engaging in these activities in the house/houses within his jurisdiction is the only thing that truly gives him pleasure (save, perhaps, producing his share of Clauses with his particular Mrs.  Claus).  At an average walking speed of 3 miles-per-hour, travel time would be roughly an hour, round trip, per house.  using this theory, the arguments about friction, wind resistance, and centrifugal force are reduced to insignificance. The only flames that and ADU might face might be found in the dying embers in a fireplace, and then only if an ADU insisted on using the chimney as an access point (probably uncommon nowadays, and realistically unlikely).

As far as the reindeer are concerned, I think that you have not fully examined their usage from an operational standpoint.  I have considered that with common herd thinning, and attrition through losses when flying over countries with sensitive military airspace, they might have phased out the usage of flying reindeer altogether.  Understanding that each ADU has only to walk a couple of miles to reach a target household, the use of reindeer as transportation on Christmas Eve would be a waste of reindeer technology and resources.  However, if we discount the herd thinning, and apply the same formulas to reindeer mating as we have to the Claus Principle (excepting, we hope, the incest), one would end up with an enormous herd.  This would provide a wonderful stock delivery service from the manufacturing site at the North Pole (assuming that they have not followed suit with other modern manufacturing companies and either built remote manufacturing sites, or out-sourced their operations altogether) directly to the residence of each ADU.  Understanding that the ground speed of a laden reindeer is approximately 15 miles-per-hour (factoring in variables in terrain, un-navigational obstacles, and hoof soreness), we might then grant an airborne reindeer a possible forward airspeed of perhaps 75 miles per hour.  At that speed, the distribution process could begin as early as August.

 

It is clear to me that the author of the previous article was very negative on the possibility of an actual functioning Santa (or Santas). It is evident that science has blinded that author's perspective, and it is my hope that my article might correct any damage that might have been caused to any children that might have happened upon that author's most narrow-minded opinion.

 

Thanks to the Author:  Thomas W Grady, Seattle, WA, for his contribution

 

.. Merry Christmas, kids ..

Chesnuts Roasting ..

So, it was Redjacket's birthday last week. It's true that I haven't mentioned her in a while, but, hey, I haven't actually been on this site in a good long while. While with have little or no commuincation (or rather, to be somewhat more accurate, actually no comminication) I always feel compelled to send her a birthday card. Her sister - Sparkingly Combative Girl - passed on RJ's thanks, and mentioned that she had met Redjacket's new boyfriend. At a loss to describe him, she finally settled for "Well, she's gone for -" looking at me - "The you's of this world."

Ah, the irony. So it goes.

Had a wedding reception yersterday, which was lovely, if only to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a while. People's careers seem to be progressing nicely, and it was good to be able to give news of stuff that was developing for me. (That's the secret of sucessful reunions: always have something going on in your life: and we don't mean being able to predict the winners of Pop Idol). On the flip side, it's apt that my friends long ago stopped bothering to ask me what my love-life was like (mainly because my response was: "Like a long term Cancer patient - no change")

In the whole Christmas present buying thing: I've got one. One. The next time I get a chance to shop - is this weekend.

Oh. And my oven's broken ...

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