Thursday, April 07, 2005

Blame it on the sound waves, sure

I had one of those evenings where I came home, worked out for an hour (from 5:45-7:00, driving time included), watched 45 minutes of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason then was on the phone for LITERALLY the rest of the evening to 6 different people. We're talking 4 ½ hours of phone time here. None of the calls were initiated by me, either. Background...this is the first conversation I've ever had with this person on the phone or otherwise. D's job includes driving all day delivering stuff, sometimes as far away as Parsons, Kansas:

D: Sometimes I get real bored when I'm on the road and so I listen to the radio and I'm always trying to win stuff on there.
Me: Oh yeah, how many times have you been successful?
D: None
Me: Well, that sucks
D: Yeah, but I think I know why.
Me: Because cell phones aren't as fast and easy to dial as landlines?
D: No, because think about it. If I'm far away then it takes a few MINUTES for that radio wave to hit me and so I'm slower to call in.
Me: Yeah, yeah blame it on the radio waves. (Dead silence for about 3 seconds) Oh, are you serious?
D: Well, it makes sense, don't it?
Me: Ummm...I really don't think it works that way.
D: Then why sometimes am I on the phone and I hear someone's TV on the same station as mine and there's a delay.
Me: Well, that would depend on if you two were both using cable, antenna, or satellite. Because the time delay happens at my parents' house when one TV is on antenna and the other sattellite. There's 5 second or so delay. MAS annoying.
D: You're one of those people that has to be right about everything, aren't you?
Me: Uhh...well, when I know I'm right, I guess. But I have no problem with being wrong and being proven wrong about things and in fact I welcome being proven wrong. It keeps the ego in check and makes me analyze things closer. Makes me smarter.

That's the general gist of things here. I became very concenred after this conversation, thinking that I had somehow missed an important principle in high school and college (wait...not college, no science of substance take there, save astronomy) and that I was about to have some massive paradigm shift. Like completely change the underlying principles I base the world on. So I do some research. From this site, let's assume it's an average 60˚ F. At that temperature, the speed of sound in air is 764 miles/hour. Parsons, Kansas, the farthest he said he travels for work, is 112 miles away from Tulsa. I doubt Tulsa signals are that strong at that distance. But I'm going to be extremely liberal on the math calculations here and let's just say that it takes 2-3 seconds for the air waves from Tulsa to reach Parsons. Yes, I know this is way off. Put all of the other assumptions aside, I doubt very seriously that 2-3 seconds time delay can be any of the reason for not winning stuff.

And let me just say that button up shirts do not look good on me. I'm wearing a company button up and it's like 2 sizes too big, I can't tuck it in, and the back is all puffy. I'm so uncomfortable in it. It looks like I stole my (non-existent) boyfriend's business shirt and decided to wear it around all day. This didn't stop me from wearing it, though. It's that weird time of year when I don't want to wear heavy stuff but the short-sleeve weather isn't here yet.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Everything takes longer to get to Parsons, KS.

Parsons: Birthplace of BKDotCom

Anonymous said...

You know, I have won several times on the radio stations. Once I won for answering a question about hair!

What is the less predominant hair color.

Then I won by just being the 10th caller! Again, I had the chance to speed all the way across town to win a t-shirt and a cool phone holder! YEAH!!

BUT! Never once did I go out and try to win these thing. I was just at the right place at the right time.


Lucky me!

ET said...

I would comment, but I'm still trying to get past the "I Finally Saw the Creature" post. The horror...the...horror...