I enjoyed writing blogs on NOTH some months ago, but circumstances this summer limited me to short visits on The Hill, and any other place on my computer. I guess I needed to be reminded that there are times when life circumstances, not involving computers, need to be moved to the top of our “priority” list.
Members who have followed the A-Z Blog Challenge, may remember that I was working on the second round of the challenge. I must admit that the letter ‘K’ was a challenge the first time around, and the same letter became the same challenge in this round. Earlier this summer, while doing a bit of traveling, the idea for this blog just dropped in. My husband asked if I could figure out what kind of mileage we were getting on the trip. That’s not a simple exercise, particularly for our generation. Our education was based on the Imperial system of measurement, and to think in terms of “miles per gallon”, not “kilometers per liter”. We also have trouble picturing a trip of 73 kilometers. How long will it take to travel that distance? We travel at 70 miles per hour, so the trip will take us about an hour, but travelling 73 kilometers is a different story, because one kilometer is 0.621371 of a mile, or 1 mile is 1.609344 kilometers. I need a calculator to get an answer that both of us can understand. When we visit our daughter who lives in the U.S., and we ask how far it is to a certain destination, she tells us how long it will take to get there. What if we drive ‘under’ or ‘over’ the speed limit? What time will we arrive if we stop of an ice cream cone, or a ‘call of nature’?
If the weatherman reports that an expected snow storm is coming our way, with winds up to 120 km per hour, the quickest way to picture what is coming is to stick my finger in the air and feel the wind! Go figure! About the only time I really like a metric answer is when I’m told that I weigh 73.9 kilograms instead of 163 pounds. It makes me feel much lighter!
Tags: Metric Conversion Imperial
