How come no one ever told me about this? Six TRILLION miles to a light year? So the North Star (300 light years) is so far away that the calculator on my Mac needed to insert letters into the final number (1.7597088e+15) of miles? Crikey. That’s really freaking big. I do so hope Nathan got David’s smarts. Pretty only gets you so far and that distance appears to be lying in bed going “No freaking WAY!” and then googling light years and stuff. All because you read there is going to be a mission to the sun and how cool is that?!?!
And isn’t this ironic? You wouldn’t know it because you weren’t here this afternoon. But I was and I think my humble pie is rather ironic. We’re having the master bedroom and the kitchen painted as well as having the last of the baseboards installed. One of the painters is quite the conversationalist. I know about his divorce (she answered the door to the process server and called her husband to the door without ever telling him she wanted a divorce). I know how much alimony he is paying ($284.75 a month until the day he dies). I know he has new blinds and how much they cost (four set and $380). None of that is ironic, I know. No, what is ironic is that he was going on and on and on about how he changed all the electrical outlets in his house over the weekend. He actually said, “but see I can do that because I’m a painter.” I sort of just blinked. Multiple times he threw out that he could change the outlets because he is a painter. Then he let me know that he can change outlets without flipping the main breaker. Because he is a painter. I was just sitting there wondering how he could have missed the pieces of paper hanging upstairs that show David has multiple advanced degrees in electrical engineering. David could switch all of the electrical outlets in our home without throwing the breaker in his sleep. Although he doesn’t because changing the outlets in your sleep is stupid. As is changing them without flipping the breaker. So I’m thinking, “Dude. Yes. You are a painter and guess what? I am paying you. Not because I can’t paint. But because I don’t want to paint. You being a painter doesn’t make you smarter than me. It makes you willing to do a job for which I am willing to pay.” I tell you I was smug! And maybe more than just a little bit elitist.
It turns out that David is way wicked smart and knew the equations to figure out how far away is a light year without having to google them. I mean I knew he was smart and I’ve never once considered myself on par with his brain, but he could also tell me what the little “e” and plus sign meant on the calculator. Although I did stump him on what is the number called when it has twenty zeros. Mostly because it would appear there isn’t a name for a number that large. That’s okay through because I don’t think I am going to the North Star anytime soon. Not if it’s going take me 10,000 years traveling at some asinine speed of 25,000 mph to get to our closest star and it’s only 4.3 light years away!
ETA: He is currently sleeping and I shook him awake to mention that there is a number called a “thousand million million million” and asked if that maybe had twenty zeros since it sounded so big and all. “No - that’s <insert explanation here.>” IN HIS SLEEP PEOPLE!!
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