The Move-In

Finally completed the move-in to my new apartment. The bed is being delivered tomorrow and everything will finally be done. Whew! My back is aching from moving this and that and two bowling balls I didn't know I had and stuff. It's funny how when you move you take stuff out of one closet and move it into the new closet.

The gym is still there and I am still going. While I have not made peace with the treadmill, I have befriended the eliptical machine -which raises a strange math question that I thought about while working out.

Every three minutes I slightly change the workout. For the first three minutes, I do not use my hands, the next three I use the arm thingies on the machine and for the last three I hold on to the pulse reader thing and then repeat for a total of 30 minutes.

So I was thinking that I spent 30 minutes working out and did three activities over and over, so 10 minutes for each step. Since I do the steps in 3 minute increments, how can I total 10 minutes? I mean 10 does not go into 3 equally. It seems like there is a left over minute somewhere.

I think I figured out but let's see if you can. I'll tell you my answer next post.

Another stupid math thing that used to puzzle me is when I was pumping gas. Let's say I was pumping $10.00 worth of gas. At $1.00 per gallon, I would get 10 gallons. At $2.00 per gallon, I would get 5 gallons. Now, let's say gas was $1.50 per gallon - halfway between $1.00 and $2.00.

Logic says that I would receive the halfway point between 10 gallons and 5 gallons - 7.5 gallons right?

Well do the math - 10/1.5 = 6.67 gallons. I don't know - it just doesn't make sense to me.

Is anyone still there? Did you see math and your eyes glazed over and skipped to this section. Well, go back and read the math part. It's interesting! Ok on with the show. Here is my next little installment of the "Casa Fernandes Chronicles" or my working title "Beautiful Dreamer"

Outside

Access to the parking lot was made via “the shortcut”- two boards were missing in our fence. Due to some geographical anomaly which to this day I am unable to explain, the parking lot ground level was a full three feet higher than our backyard.

It was as if God himself lifted the church and its accompanying parking lot three feet higher than the surrounding ground. Either that or the Hayward fault that we heard so much about ran right through our backyard. So to access the parking lot, one had to fit through the opening of the fence and enter a piece of ground that was a no man’s land known as “the ditch”. Nothing but weeds and spiders lived in “the ditch.” The ditch separated our low land back yard from the raised level of the church parking lot. I once saw a spider with legs so long and a web so thick that I feared using the shortcut for weeks. Surely the spider would ensnare me in its thick web and eat me alive!

Once through the shortcut, the church parking lot was ours for the taking. Most lazy summer days were spent playing basketball on the parking lot. Well, our version of basketball anyway. More often than not, we didn’t have a “basketball.” We used any ball that fit in the basket – volleyball, soccer ball, four-square ball, even the occasional tennis ball was used in a pinch.

The backboard was attached to a light post that seemingly stretched several hundred feet in the sky. At the base of the light pole was a concrete base of about two feet square with a small pole at each corner to prevent cars from ramming into the tall but light light pole.

When we didn’t have a basket ball, we used to stand on each small pole and carefully hop to the next one, hugging the light pole for balance. We did this for seemingly hours on end – from corner pole to corner pole. A delicate balancing act performed daily -two feet above the ground. Since church was not in session, not too many people interrupted our adventure round and round the light pole.

One day that all changed when we were visited by an odd older man with a smile and laugh that gave him a kid-like quality and innocence. Imagine a Winston Churchill-like man with a hearty laugh and less teeth (three to be exact). That man as we came to learn was named James and he lived across the street at a curious place called Casa Fernandes. In between jolly laughs, he sang one tune over and over “Beautiful Dreamer.” We would come to learn that summer that James was indeed a beautiful dreamer.