The Earth, The Sky and Everything In Between

This is to funny
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The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5inches

That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads. ( Not to forget the Irish and Asian laborers , who probably did the work; I think the English were the designers...BB )

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then?*

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England* *, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing..

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And
bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.

The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. 

As many of you know, I am an unrelenting fan of Andrew Peterson. He leads my reasons to continue caring about Contemporary Christian Music(CCM), and gives me a fresh breath of hope that CCM might return to original composition and fresh thoughts. Whether that happens, however, is of little present relevance. Andrew is not a crusader and I will not make him into one. Instead, he continues doing what he's done for the last 10 years, humbly tell us about God as He presents himself in Scripture: a powerful, unrelenting, loving Father, Shepherd, Judge, Savior, and Champion of our faith and redemption. I am openly weeping as I write this, mostly because I realize how good and loving God is to me, when I deserve nothing. I am thankful to Andrew for being faithful to the call God has placed on His life. Doing so has strengthened and refocused my own walk with God more times than I can count.

This morning, I listen to Andrew's alternate version of his song, Serve Hymn. I am floored - I am undone - by the honesty of His words. While he tells the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, the parallels are clear. Abraham's obedience of God's call provides for us a stunning look into God's own, beautiful heart. He knew the pain in Abraham's heart; the burden and cost of discipleship. God knew His mercy, justice, and love would lead Him to do that which he spared Abraham. There would be no eleventh hour when it came time for Christ to be laid down on that same altar. All of the sudden, the weight of this story becomes very real to me. I expect I'll be a father sometime in the next few years; I'm sure that plays a part. I think mostly, however, is realizing what a great price He paid for me. The cost of my salvation exceeds any worth I could ever place on myself.

I tried to think of anything else to write, but I think that's really the point. We cannot comprehend the cost of our salvation, so we certainly cannot comprehend the love the drove God to endure such a cost. Out of this same love, He spares us from this cost while commanding us to live in full awareness of it.

I hope you get a chance to hear this song. It's available on his independently-released Appendix A: Bootlegs and B Sides album. I've posted the link below. For now, I'll leave you with the lyrics, which do half the job of conveying this beautiful and powerful message of love.


Serve Hymn:

Wake up little Isaac
and rub your tired eyes
Go and kiss your mama
we'll be gone a little while
Come and walk beside me
Come and hold your papa's hand
I go to make an altar
and to offer up my lamb

I waited on the Lord
and in a waking dream He came
Riding on a wind
across the sand He spoke my name
and "Here I am", I wispered
and I waited in the dark
And the answer was a sword
that came down hard upon my heart

Holy is the Lord,
Holy is the Lord
and the Lord I will obey
Lord help me, I don't know the way

So take me to the mountain
I will follow where you lead
and there I'll lay the body
of the boy you gave to me
and even though you take him
still I ever will obey
but Maker of this mountain
please, make another way

Holy is the Lord,
Holy is the Lord
and the Lord I will obey
Lord help me, I don't know the way
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I'll have to lump a few of these together. I was out of town hunting this weekend and foolishly forgot to write anything.

I wrote a statistical model the other day to calculate, based on a 302 day engagement, at which point did the waiting become hardest. After extensive, painstaking calculations, I determined that, from a 302 day engagement, the anguish begins at day 48, reaches its pinnacle of difficulty at day 11, and resolves itself at day 3. We'll see how the rest of these steps go, but I'm happy (kinda) to confirm that day 48 was correct as predicted. Once I realized I was actually inside of 50 days, and paused to consider how close I am to giving up the rest of my life, I became ever-so-slightly unnerved. Thankfully, I had flocks of dove and a 12-gauge to distract me. Now, at Tuesday the 46th of Dean, I'm not so lucky. Waiting and patience are hard disciplines.

All the while, I know God's Hand is in our marriage. Cara and I are walking beside each other and towards Him. This is no less than a dream come true. My life is not easy, and neither is hers, but we will walk through all those times together as a single life, heart, and mind, in pursuit of Him.

46 days...