Every Day's a New Day

So, the question came up nexusly on TIM about the weight of a cubic meter of pure gold.

1 m = 100 cm
1 m^3 = 100 cm x 100 cm x 100 cm = 1,000,000 cm^3 = 1.0 x 10^6 cm^3

Density of pure gold = 19.3 g/cm^3

Mass = Density x Volume = 19.3 g/cm^3 x 1.0 x 10^6 cm^3

= 19.3 x 10^6 g (or 1.93 x 10^7 g, if you're being picky)
= 19.3 x 10^3 kg (or 1.93 x 10^4 kg, if you're still being picky)

Conversion of mass (in kg) to weight (in pounds) is (Mass in kg) x (2.20 pounds/kg), so:
(19.3 x 10^3 kg) x (2.20 pounds/kg) = 42,460 pounds (if we're ignoring significant digits)

So, if my calculations are correct, it's about 21 tons. It seems high to me, but then I've been teaching division by decimals all day. :)

I have plans for a little photo project that I'm calling Main Street, USA. The basic gist of it is this: it'll be a collection of photos of Main Streets in towns across the country. Notice the capitalization: this is limited to actual streets named Main, not the "main street" (i.e., primary thoroughfare) of a town/city/municipality.

Why am I mentioning this? Well.. I need your help. All I need is a digital photo of the Main Street(s) in your life--a snapshot of whatever you think is interesting. Please send it to me, along with the name of the town/city/municipality and your name as you'd like it posted for attribution, at bigmeanie at livejournal dot com. I will post the photos to a Web site at some point in the near future.

I'm leaving this post open to the public, so if you want to help me advertise this project, please point your friends/family/neighbors here. Comments and feedback are welcome. Thanks!

[update, 11:05 a.m.]
New community! mainstreetphoto
Join it. You know you want to. :)

A few tidbits this morning:

I finally remembered to measure my Peanuts calendar cross-stitch pieces. All but one would fit in a 4x6 frame, but I'm looking for uniformity, so I'm probably going to go with 5x7 frames. I checked out some at pictureframes.com, but I didn't see anything that struck my fancy. There's no rush to decide on frames now, considering that I have 8+ pieces to finish still, but it's good to know what my options are.

Speaking of cross-stitch, I finished stocking #5 and started stocking #6 last night. I'll probably work on it some more this week and definitely some this weekend (while Steve's at work). I'm on track to finish it by month's end.

It seems that John (my landlord's son) has been spending additional time at the house since the "Frank wandering outside" incident last week. It's comforting, in a way, but very sad at the same time. When I moved in (in July 1999), Frank was driving the local library's bookmobile and dropping off books to elderly shut-ins. Now, he's one of those shut-ins.

My sleep schedule is getting back on track. Now, if I could only STOP spooking myself at night so I can get to sleep earlier, I'd be a happier woman.

At 2 p.m. Eastern, the 2003 inductee class of the National Baseball Hall of Fame will be announced. I have my fingers crossed for one or two men in particular. (Veterans Committee selections will be announced late next month.)

After work tonight, I'm going to see Harry Potter 2. That's two movies at the theatre in under a month. Someone call Ripley's!

Yes, finally, I've updated the TinyTIM-South Park gallery. Yay! So, go forth and enjoy. Or go forth and soak. It's up to you. :)

(Pictures are now posted in alphabetical order of TIM character name. New people are indicated with a tasteful "new" graphic. The class picture is not yet updated. D'Arcy and KhaOS will be added during the next update--I had difficulty getting to the generator site to redo their pictures in full size.)