Beige Alert!

English is a ridiculous languge

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:53:00 GMT

I'm sure many of you will appreciate this:

Exercise

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:53:57 GMT

Well, I'm very curious how tired and achy I'll feel tomorrow. For now I actually feel fine.

I've been itching to try a fast 5km run, so that's what I did this morning. It really didn't feel like it was going well, my heart rate stayed fairly low, I was breathing very hard, and it didn't seem as fast as I'd hoped. In the end, though, my time (25:39) was just seconds longer than my personal best. On the one hand, I was aiming for a new personal best, on the other, essentially equaling my best time on a morning when things were just not going right isn't so bad. Also, I was pretty much totally wiped out when I set that best, today, not so much.

After a few hours and some food, I figured I'd go to the Pettit Center. I'm going to be running a half marathon there at the end of January, so I really ought to do some running on the track that encircles the ice. 11 laps is 4.95km, and 27:30 at a easy-feeling pace is not bad at all for me. I'll have to try some different clothing to find something just right for the temperature in there. The rubber running surface is nice even if it is worn-looking, and just as skaters get to watch the runners, runners get to watch the skaters, so while it's endless loops around the oval there is at least something to see.

Then after a short break I went out on the 400 meter oval ice for a half hour. Now I remember why I like that so much. A long-track speed skating oval is, after all, meant for speed. It's huge, there is lots of space to go fast. Nothing like coming around one of the turns and seeing 100 meters of mostly clear ice ahead. I can never resist applying all available power. I mostly spent the time getting used to skating again after the summer away from it. A few hundred meters backwards (love having the space for easy backward skating), some slow skating, some bursts of speed, 500 meters at maximum effort, and general fun.

Frost

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:46:43 GMT

The last two mornings have been clear, sunny (in the sun-just-rising sense), and around -2°C. There's a sliver of moon high in the sky, the sun peeking above the trees shines on everything, and the grass is frosted white with frost, making a weird pastel green-white color. It makes for a very pretty bike ride into work. The ride home is in the dark, of course, and though the air is warmer with no sun and the cold sky, it doesn't feel any warmer.

Without seeing a single thing

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:25:39 GMT

OK, in the vein of some things I've been saying:

"air"

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:32:32 GMT

I have just read what is an excellent paper overall (so I won't name it or the authors, since I'm making fun of a tiny part of it here), and noticed in the methods section their list of the settings used for collision-induced dissociation in their mass spectrometer. The list includes the notation "atmospheric gases." Atmospheric gases? Perhaps that's more commonly known as "air." There is nothing wrong with using air as your collision gas, I've done so in related work and it's as good as anything else you might use, not to mention inexpensive. No, what I have a problem with is using sixteen letters in two words to say "air."

Things seen while on the road

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:37:22 GMT

While I always say you can't really see anything from inside a car, this isn't literally true. One thing I saw on the way home from OVFF was a man walking along the side of the highway with his can of gasoline, headed back toward his car. It was a Volkswagen, actually. A classic beetle, in his case. Not that this brings back any memories or anything. ("No problem....") He passed me later, driving at high speed.

Warm!

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:45:21 GMT

The temperature in Milwaukee hit 22°C today, which is highly unusual for this time of year to say the least. I went downtown by bicycle, ate at the Public Market, rode around by the lake shore, and generally had a nice time out in the warm sun. There were a lot of people out. As summer turns to fall and fall wears on into the season of cold and dark, the number of people I see out on the way to work drops from the summertime six or eight cyclists and even more joggers and walkers to maybe one other cyclist and a die-hard runner or two. Everyone has been hiding indoors for some time now, and they all came out at once when the one day of record warmth came. It was just fun to see other people out again.

Running

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:50:28 GMT

Last month I was jokingly wondering how much running you can do while still claiming that running is not your sport and you're really not that into it.

Anyway, I've signed up for a formal, organized, official half-marathon, to be held at the end of January in Milwaukee. INDOORS! Because in Milwaukee in January, you probably don't want to schedule that for outdoors. It's held at the running track that surrounds the indoor 400-meter long track speed skating oval at the ice center.

I have actually run 21.1km once now, on my own. It took me 2:05. The thing about doing some sort of sport like this on your own is that it's not obvious how you compare to others. Now, the easiest number of all to look up is the world record. It takes just seconds with google. The record times for full marathons, twice that distance, are just under that time. Well! The record for the half marathon is 58:33. I'm not sure I can run that fast at all, even for 100 meters. It's like the pro cyclists averaging speeds in a time trial that I cannot reach at all without a steep hill to descend.

World records aside, as far as I can tell a two hour half marathon is, if not a great time, basically reasonable for a beginner.

For all that I used to claim to not like running, I have come to like it. Some sort of competitive urge sets in to try to set better times or take on longer distances. For me it's much more of a pure athletic thing than the bicycling. Mostly I'm going somewhere on the bicycle, and want to save some energy for whatever I'm going to do when I get there, and for the trip back. Out in the real world, you go pretty fast on a bicycle and thus quickly encounter intersections, traffic lights, stop signs, and all that. A fast trip home from work is partly a matter of luck at the intersections. Lots of red lights and the trip will be slower. Bicycling involves a lot of thinking about traffic and how to navigate through it safely.

Running is slower, especially for slow runners like me, and it's easy enough to zig-zag around the neighborhood for 21km without ever having to stop anywhere. It's a pure athletic event, no navigation, no traffic safety, no destination at all. Just the Garmin on my wrist with the speed, distance, time, and heart rate data.

The thing about admitting that I like running is that I'll have to stop making fun of those crazy runners and their crazy sport. No more claiming that it's crazy to run twenty kilometers when a sensible person would get on a bicycle and ride one hundred-twenty kilometers, or would ski 20 km at a temperature of -20°C. Anyway, somehow, when written down like that, my old favorite activities don't really sound any less crazy than the running.

Driving

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:09:30 GMT

I managed to spend $76 on gasoline last month. Previous month: $12.55. Something of a shock to suddenly spend so much time in the car.

Much of that was the 1512 kilometer round trip to OVFF, taking 21 hours and burning 15.8 gallons costing $42.71. (Yes, 4 liters/100km. Helps not to be in a hurry. Obeying the speed laws helps, too.) It always feels very wasteful burning a month's supply of fuel in one long weekend, even if the fuel cost is pretty much negligible compared to the other trip expenses.

Given enough time to not be in a hurry, the driving isn't actually all that bad, as annoying as driving usually is. It is strange, though, traveling so much yet seeing so little. You really can't see anything from inside a car. It always feels weird to drive again after being away from the car for a week. You can't enjoy the trip, you have to pay too much attention to safe movement. Even making good speed on a bicycle you can wave and say hello to the people you pass by. Not in a car. Can barely see people at all, can hardly be seen by people in there. The drive to Columbus passes through what seem to be scenic areas, but it's hard to tell.

What is it like to pass over a river in a car on the interstate? You see the sign with the name of the river. If you glance to the side, you see, for a few seconds, the concrete wall at the side of the bridge. Up above that treetops can be seen. There is a gap in the trees in the middle, which presumably is where the river is, though the actual water is usually invisible, hidden by the concrete of the bridge. In fall the trees are all yellows and reds. I bet it would be pretty if only you could see it.

I noticed a while back that while cycling I see the faces of the people driving the cars that are stopped at the cross streets, yielding to the traffic on the road I'm on. Yet when I'm in my car, I never see the people. Either way I'm looking at them evaluating whether they are indeed stopped or if they are headed out into my path. What is the difference? On the bicycle I'm looking at them as I'm about to pass at 20 or 30 km/hr, to see if they are going to pull out and smash me. I see them up close. In the car I'm traveling at 50 or 60 km/hr and I've looked at them from a couple hundred meters back, too far away to see the faces. By the time I'm close enough to see the people, it's too late for me to do anything at the speed I'm traveling anyway, and I'm looking hundreds of meters ahead at the next threat. Never see the person. Just an anonymous metal box. Notice how we say things like, "be careful, that car over there might turn left." Well, most likely it won't on its own. The human driving it might decide to turn left, though. But you can't even see him. On rare occasions there are loose nuts in the steering mechanism, but usually the loose nut is the one behind the steering wheel.

OVFF

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:28:53 GMT

What a fun con!

(This is sort of a vague and chaotic kind of con report)

I followed my first rule of happy long trips, which is to have lots of time. I took a total of four days off from work. I headed out comfortably early (about the same time I normally head off to work) on Thursday and arrived 10.5 hours plus one hour of time-zone later at a reasonable time in the evening. No problem. I saw the old fart concert (and later on in the weekend got to tell Bill Sutton my "Only Here for the Beer" story, from the LARP in Germany last year. * "Oh, you were already in the third verse! That's the verse to be in!"

There was a nice circle in the big room, and I got to bed at some sort of reasonable hour and slept nice and late.

Friday there were concerts, and more concerts. Toyboat was fun. (I have photos!) It was great to see Duane Elms. Never saw him before, but of course I know some of his music. I was unreasonably happy hearing Ghost Puppies. I've had that in my book for a long time and just recently dragged it out at a housefilk (live and unrehearsed!) when we got to that time of night when you've run out of stuff you've been practicing and move on to the other stuff.

It was wonderful to see Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps again. I first saw them in Germany a few years back. They are really great performers.

And the Pegasus nominees concert was great as always. I'll get some photos of bits of that up eventually.

And it's great seeing Judi. I always think of her as a part of OVFF.

At some point I got into the chamberfilk thing again, there was a rehearsal Saturday and Sunday mornings. It amazes me how after so little rehearsal somehow it always comes together during the performance. It is also fun to be up on stage, with the sound guys running around setting sound stuff up, the sort of thing most of us aren't involved in very often.

The Gigantic Stage-Filling Concert by Mary Ellen Wessels and a great many friends was just a delight.

I also enjoy the Farewell Jam. I haven't usually been able to stay long enough to attend, but these last two years I have. That's the kind of thing I don't get much practice at and am not very good at, but participation is encouraged and, really, everyone is making such a loud joyful noise that you're not going to cause a disruption by being clumsy.

Oh, and Mongolian Barbecue is great.

I had fun with my own music making over the weekend. I played the flute quite a bit. I played peteralway's flute piece, the Allemande from Bach's A-minor partita more than once (one time in the hallway), and a quite good run through the Sarabande (though there is nothing like playing the sarabande in the staircase at the castle in Germany).

I really enjoyed seeing moshez again, and was great to meet nightface. Collectively, I think we are The Phoenix Conspiracy. I sang Der Phoenix, the German translation, and saw moshez run over to nightface while I was singing. I figured they must be up to something. If I was to guess, probably something in Hebrew. Indeed, there is a Hebrew translation. The next day tigertoy sang the original ~~Klingon~~English, and I followed that with the Kanefsky version, so over the weekend every known version of that song got sung.

On Sunday peteralway set up a Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount in the parking lot, aimed at Jupiter. The four Galilean moons were plainly visible (you can see them with just binoculars) and Jupiter itself was a small disk with a few cloud bands visible, something I'd never actually seen before (it's just a dot with no features in normal binoculars). Also during that break in the music moshez and I went out in the hallway so he could sing the Hebrew Phoenix for me again so I could get a good listen. Song translations delight me.

I had all Monday to drive home, again no problems. I took Tuesday off from work, so I could sleep a bit and have another day to get my wake/sleep schedule back closer to business hours, and to run errands. I got groceries, went to the library, wandered through a used book store, and went to the art museum. I don't go to the museum that often, but I do always enjoy it. There are always a few new exhibits and I do like to see my favorites again in the collection.

* What story? Oh, at the LARP at one point some of us were hanging around, and drinking beer, because we were in Germany, and drinking beer is one of the things you do there. I broke into song: "I'm only here for the beer! I'm only here for the beer!" One of the women said, "You came a long way from America just for the beer." Now, the beer is better in Germany (I never liked beer at all until I visited and sampled the good stuff), so it's probably worth the trip. But also at that moment a very lovely woman and good friend wandered into the room, and I walked over to her and snuggled up and gave her a little back rubbing and said, "well, I'm not here only for the beer."

some OVFF photos

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:58:31 GMT

The big concert with folkmew and friends.

Toyboat's concert.

The little rock star:

Home safe

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:01:23 GMT

OVFF was fantastic, and I'm now safely home. I'll have more to say later, and, yes, there will be photos. Eventually.

Since I specially promised folkmew and Heather Dale concert photos, here are the first two photos:

Winter...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:10:50 GMT

So, yes, I am going through the entire Frazz archives...

So far we've just barely touched 0°C here, but there have been a few trips in to work at around 2°C, so this cartoon is starting to seem appropriate:

Not Beethoven's ghost

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:35:41 GMT

What is the limit?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:28:38 GMT

I always say I'm not really a runner. Sure, I do a little jogging now and then, since exercise is good for you and all. But it's not really my sport. I'm a cyclist, after all. So, sure, I'll strap a GPS to my wrist to keep track of distance and speed and heart rate and I'll enter the data into a spreadsheet and maybe I'll dress up like a colorblind superhero and run 10km in the rain on a Saturday morning, but, still, it's not like I'm really into it. I'm not one of those runners.

But then I realized that my last little run was just 6km short of a half marathon, which means I could do a half marathon for sure, no problem. Now, I know for sure that if you run a full marathon, you can't really say that you're not a runner, and you're just not really that into running. But a half marathon? Can you run a half marathon just for the hell of it and still claim to not really be into running?

Vacuum-Coffee

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:58:23 GMT

I always wanted one of those vacuum coffee pots. The local Alterra coffee shop had the Bodum Santos on hand, the first time I've seen one in a store. So...couldn't resist.

Water goes in the bottom, coffee grounds in the top:

Apply heat and the water is forced up the tube into the top:

Once that process is done, you take it off the heat and vacuum pulls the coffee back down:

It's always described as being fun to watch but fiddly and time-consuming. I've only used it twice, but it actually seems pretty practical, not really something that deserves a reputation for being too fiddly for normal use. Now, this unit is all glass, and the top chamber has a glass tube that extends down into the lower chamber, and it seems very breakable when cleaning it, but with care it should be manageable. There is a plastic stand to hold it when you remove it from the lower chamber, so you don't have a fragile, awkward glass object rolling around looking for the floor. It does make nice coffee, and no grounds make it past the plastic strainer/valve, though having a painfully expensive grinder that doesn't produce a lot of powder also helps.

Autum

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:14:13 GMT

Overnight lows have been just below freezing, afternoon highs warmer but not exactly warm. No kayaking this weekend!

I did get a little running in on Saturday, 15km in 1:24:40. I don't really think of myself as a runner, and that's my longest run. That's a pretty good speed for me. Six more kilometers at that pace would be a half-marathon in two hours. I'll have to try that someday.

It turns out there was a big charity run downtown, also. When I went downtown to the library I saw a lot of people in their matching t-shirts with numbers pinned on.

Splenda With Fiber

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:05:23 GMT

Michael Pollan:

I mean, what are we to make of a wonder of food science like the new Splenda with fiber? (“The great sweet taste you want and a little boost of fiber.”) Should we call this progress? Is it even food?

I had not heard of this, but, yes, apparently, there really is "SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener with Fiber." Really! It's on the splenda.com web site!

It's boggling. You have to wonder what inspired this weird combination. Never mind what technical challenges it presents, who thought to even try? My guess? Internal corporate rivalry. The research and development people thought the marketing people needed a real challenge! Let's see them market this!

Color-blind superhero

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:18:33 GMT

One of my favorite Frazz comics is this one. "I worry about Frazz." "Why?" "He's really skinny." "He races triathlons, you know that." "He's eating more and getting even skinnier!" "He's just doing a full ironman." "Also, he dresses like a color-blind superhero." "We all worry about that."

I recently realized that most of my full length tights were pretty much worn out, and I went shopping for cool-weather clothing. I bought a bunch of stuff, much of it from Under Armour, which is one of my favorite brands because of the highly-unusual shopping experience I have with them. I try on several sizes, some too small, some too large, and pick the size that fits best. Normally, I only try the smallest size available, and try to decide if it's just too baggy, or if it fits well enough.

I promise I will get some photos of the full color-blind superhero look. This morning on the way to work I was wearing black tights, a bright red shirt mostly covered with a very bright yellow jacket, and the red and gray bicycle helmet. And I have other choices just as alarming. People will remember me when they see me jogging through the neighborhood in the rain on Saturday mornings!

Morning

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:50:04 GMT

Clear sky this morning, the sun just peeking over the horizon when I set out for work, the moon high overhead. The trees are getting into the fall thing, yellow and red leaves lit by the morning sun. A nice morning to be out on the bicycle.

I drove my car to work yesterday, which I haven't been doing often, and it's a strange way to travel. For one thing, of course, the giant steel box seems just a bit excessive for me, my sandwich, and my tiny laptop computer. Around here, my car is one of the smaller ones. And it just feels so dangerous. You could hit somebody driving one of those giant steel boxes! Everyone is going so fast, and following so close, and changing lanes so carelessly. Crazy people everywhere! Sometimes you feel, as a cyclist, that many of the people in cars seem to hate cyclists. Then you get in your car and realize that, actually, they also hate other people in cars. It's really a free-floating anger at the entire world.

Nice to be back on the bicycle.

More Paddling

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:30:53 GMT

Sure it was cloudy windy and around 13°C out, but this Sunday there no rain. It was weather for the wetsuits, though.

Here's the track. All the way to the end of the Burnham Canal, and then through the port and a little way into the Kinnickinnic river. Just under three hours, 10.8 kilometers.

The Stewart J. Cort was in the port. It's...big. It's one thousand feet long, and unloaded and riding very high the two props were only half submerged, leaving roughly 9 or 10 feet of prop above the water. We also saw a barge loaded with some sort of soil or gravel getting pushed up the Kinnickinnic, one tug pushing, another near the front helping it turn.

We didn't see anyone else under human power in the water, but there were some larger motorized pleasure craft out. Even the port gets some tourism besides us. It's not exactly natural scenic beauty but it's interesting to see.

Paddling

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:57:11 GMT

Although the weather forecast for last weekend wasn't looking so nice, by the time the weekend came Sunday was looking better. The winds were strong, so Joyce and I avoided kayaking through the outer harbor and instead launched the kayaks directly into the Milwaukee River, from the spot across the street from the Milwaukee Public Market (At Water St. and St. Paul Ave). That's a reasonably nice spot to access the river, though it really helps to have two people to get the kayaks down the narrow ramp with the sharp turns at top and bottom.

You can see the track on the Google Earth view here. The weather started out quite warm, sunny, and very windy. As long as you keep some headway into the wind it isn't so bad, but even a brief time drifting will leave you going backwards on some strange heading and it takes some work to get turned around and moving again. Down between the buildings in the city the wind gets channeled in complicated ways. It seemed that we always had a headwind, no matter which way we were going.

There is a railroad bridge very low over the Menomonee River right where it joins the Milwaukee River which opens by rotating at the south side, which opened for Iroquois tour boat, so we got to see it swing back closed from up close.

Soon after passing that the rain started. The wind died down when the rain got going, though, so in that respect the weather improved. Joyce is quite the enthusiast, so being pretty big nuts we kept at it. The rain was intermittent but the wind stayed calm.

There was some sort of game, possibly soccer, going on at the Marquette athletic fields. Past 25th street the river makes a turn to the south, then passes under a set of railroad tracks. Those tracks funnel into the switching yard there. Last weekend we'd passed under the tracks at the other end of the yard as they pass over the canal. There are a bunch of narrow, low passages under the tracks, most of them mostly blocked with debris, but there is one clear. The water is quite shallow in this area. Layton Boulevard passes high overhead, and we turned around at that point. Someday we'll have to see how far we can get, the water is shallow but the kayaks don't draw much water. The Mitchell Park Domes are visible peaking up behind the riverbank. Sitting in a kayak in the river is about as low a vantage point as you can get, so it's always interesting what things you can see here and there in the semi-distance.

The trip totaled 11.5 km, in 3.5 hours. I'm starting to think that maybe the kayak paddle is a great application for carbon fiber. I have a very heavy, very cheap paddle. If I'm going to be making three hour trips on a regular basis, I ought to upgrade. I have roughly the cheapest kayak you can get, so I'm going to end up with a paddle more expensive than the kayak (possibly several times as expensive, depending on whether I end up going for the full-carbon option).

Photos

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:11:50 GMT

So, some photos:

The Milwaukee River Challenge. I only saw the eight-person racing shells. Mostly the photos are of the women.

Yes, I appreciate that this is private property and they don't want people trespassing and wandering around causing problems. But, really, look at the wording of that sign. Serious, eh? Is this where they store the enriched uranium? Nope, it's a cement storage facility.

This is my favorite t-shirt, which I will certainly have to wear next time I go to Germany:

This is another good one:

And this one is funny but the print is tiny and almost unreadable, so it's really not a practical t-shirt design:

Fall

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:06:21 GMT

Autumn is here, the leaves are falling off of the trees. It's still early enough in the year that I have daylight for my trip back home from work, but there is very little extra time now to make any side-trips without ending up in the dark. We're not yet at the point in fall where huge unmarked dark piles of leaves get deliberately placed on the road for (eventual....) pickup by the city. That doesn't come until the season of darkness. Always great to have the roads narrowed by loose mounds of debris when it's dark out in the late fall.

The thing I was really thinking about is the off-road section of Oak Leaf Trail between Villard Avenue and West Congress Street in Milwaukee. This was in terrible condition and was completely torn up and repaved over the summer. The pavement is smooth and it's been slightly raised in places so it will hopefully flood less. This is actually a useful route in a part of town where few streets actually run all the way through and connect to anything else, and being beside the river it avoids actually intersecting streets except at the ends, so it's reasonably safe. In the US bicycle/pedestrian routes generally just run randomly into streets and intersections in whatever the cheapest manner is, without regard to traffic safety.

So, when they finished the paving, for a few weeks, it was brand new and clean. No loose debris, no broken glass, no sticks and branches, no wet slippery leaves. Since it's out of the way enough to not be clogged with dog-walkers, you could really ride fast on the smooth clean surface. (In the US there is no such thing as a cycle facility, only dog-walking facilities that are shared with bicyclists. It makes for very slow, somewhat hazardous cycling in nice weather when the walkers are out.)

Unfortunately, the leaves are falling. It will never be clean again. Right now there are wet slippery leaves all over, and the loose gravel and mud is starting to build up. The pavement itself will be in good condition for years to come. Later in the year the fall of leaves will stop and the accumulation will dry out and partly blow away. The mud and dirt will reach an equilibrium. The debris will get better and worse, but it will never actually be completely clean again like it was for a month or two. I sweep up some broken glass from time to time, but clearing a few kilometers by hand is not really a one-person unofficial volunteer project. Sure, in theory a sweeping machine could be run through, but where the money for that would come from, I can't imagine in this country. Completely impossible.

It is too bad that 107th street in that area, probably the best on-road route, is in such horrible condition. Real roads, the ones used for cars, are always cleaner, and no dog-walkers. It's an unnecessarily wide street, with little motorized traffic, but the pavement is really wrecked. It makes it hard to move to the right to let people pass, then get back out to get around the occasional parked car, because the road holes and cracks are so bad you have to hunt for a spot to move left or right. Someday that will get repaved, and the northbound downhill will be fun someday when the road is good enough to enjoy the speed.

67% bicycle

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:42:14 GMT

2009-08-07:
car filled with fuel
car odometer: 27761 miles
bicycle odometer: 24359 kilometers

2009-09-19:
car re-filled with fuel
5.082 US gallons at $2.469, $12.55 total
car odometer: 28046 miles
bicycle odometer: 25276 kilometers

So, in 43 days, 285 miles (458 km) in the car and 570 miles (917 km) by bicycle. 67% bicycle.

56 miles/US gallon, 4.2 L/100km for the car alone, but if you add the bicycle distance in you get a notional 168 miles/US gallon or 1.4 L/100km. You'd have to add in the pizza and chocolate somehow to get a real number. 0.45 liters of gasoline a day at US prices is, well, pretty much a negligible cost. I do drive it a lot more in the winter, though.

Another thought: A very efficient car, left parked at home most days, averaged half a liter of fuel a day, which is, by American standards, pretty much nothing. Pour a half a liter of gasoline on the ground and set it on fire. OK, don't actually do that. But that would be a pretty darn good fire. You don't see the flames inside the engine, you don't even see the fuel, you just stick a hose in the side of the car now and then and see some numbers displayed on the pump. There is a lot of combustion going on in there, unseen. Great forces are commanded with a touch of that pedal on the right.