So on Fridays, after a long, hard week of not working, sometimes all I want to do with this blog is throw some things out that might (should?) be interesting to my readers.
For example, I have just calculated the first full month with my new Prius, and I went 614 miles, and averaged 53.8 miles per gallon. I think September was a typical month for me when we are in town, an average of about 20 miles per day, with some days twice that, and some days much less. I do like to drive, you know. If I annualize the 614 miles, I get 7,368. Our lease gives us 12,000 miles per year before we have to pay a premium, so we should be good for 4,000 miles of road trips. Will I drive 4,000 miles a year on the road at ages 84, 85 and 86? Not sure (and that is being optimistic).
You might remember (ha!ha!ha!) that on our road trip not to Maine, we averaged 63.8 miles per gallon. The estimated mpg for the car was 57 mpg both highway and city, which I couldn’t quite believe would be accurate, but if you add the numbers that my car turned out for the month of September, and the road trip, you get 58.8, which is pretty close to 57, so I can’t complain.
By the way, the color of my red Prius is “Supersonic Red”. Our Israeli friends reminded me that when they were last here, and I had a red 2015 Prius, it was “Absolute Red”. They asked the difference. I was embarrassed to say that I didn’t know (it took me a while to remember the old color was Absolute Red; they remembered it as Totally Red, and that didn’t sound right to me, so I had to wrack my brain).
Gemini tells me that Absolute and Supersonic Red are “two completely different paint colors, with distinct paint codes, formulas, and visual effects”. Okay, go on……
- Absolute Red is “a classic, vibrant, non-metallic bright red…..It looks essentially the same flat shade of bright red whether it is in direct sunlight or shade”.
- Supersonic Red “features a specialized multi-layered process that uses a metallic/pearlescent base layer topped with a translucent, red-tinted clear/mid-coat. Because of this formula, the color has a massive range: it looks liked a deep, rich crimson in the shade, but literally glows and pops with an intense, bright candy-like depth when direct sunlight hits the metallic flake.
How is it possible I did not know?
I like Google’s Gemini mainly because it is right there when I Google something, but also because of its sense of humor. I am not one of those who engage Gemini in long back and forth conversations, I just ask it a question and maybe one follow up question for the most part. (By the way, when I ask anything of it, I try to be very polite, as if I am talking to a very sensitive person. I am not sure why that is, but I think it a bad sign for the future of the world.)
Sense of humor, you ask, while scratching your chin?
We were looking tonight at a picture of English intellectual, Bertrand Russell, who was a tall (I think, tall) and very skinny (I know, very skinny) guy. I decided to ask Gemini “Was Bertrand Russell fat?” just to see what it would say.
I quote: “No, Bertrand Russell was not fat. He is consistently described as exceptionally lean, thin and slight. His most famous book, The History of Western Philosophy, was described by a New Yorker reviewer as a “fat book”.” Gemini also mentions that Russell’s father, on the day of Bertrand’s birth in 1872, wrote in his diary that his son was “found to weigh 8 1/2 pounds, and he looked fat.”
It went on to offer some tidbits that I wasn’t looking for, telling me that Nietzsche and Wittgenstein were also skinny, but that David Hume was quite stout. Maybe it thought that I was going to ask about these three fellows next.
Because yesterday was Thursday, you might be wondering what happened at my breakfast meeting. The topic was something like “The Jewish History of Prince George’s County, Maryland”. I found it very interesting, but my guess is that the typical reader of this blog will be happy to know that I am not going to say anything about it. If you are curious, you can ask me, or you can ask Gemini.
What else? Let’s see. Well, I was in the Dupont Circle area yesterday afternoon, and I stopped into Emissary, which calls itself a place to stop for “coffee and conversations”. I wanted neither, but I wanted something cold and settled for a glass of strawberry lemonade, which only set me back $6.60, to which I added a 10% tip. I want to give credit where credit is due. Made with fresh strawberries and fresh lemons, it was delicious!! And it was large enough that I was full on the first half, and Edie got the second half, so we each had a strawberry lemonade for only $3.30 a person. I couldn’t recommend it more highly. Just go with a friend.
Pretty big weekend scheduled. A Sukkah party, a Japanese dinner, Step Afrika at the Arena Theatre, and Sunday dinner at an Italian restaurant, La Speranza, to celebrate son-in-law Josh’s birthday.
Today? Hopefully, get a lot of paperwork done. You remember paperwork?
