We've been spending the last 2 days riding ATVs and enjoying the Wyoming countryside.

Borrowed from Minds, but I've seen this multiple places in the past written slightly differently. The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, 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 (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's as came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' ases.)  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 in 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, and 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 as. And you thought being a horse's as wasn't important? Ancient horse's as*es control almost everything. #grownostr #bueaucracy

I have a question for those who know NOSTR well. Is it possible (I'm using Iris now with default nodes) to manually chose which node each note is written to? One thought I had, since I'm considering getting a Start9 server at work and possibly at home, is having a personal node. My idea is posting public notes to public nodes, but being able to post private notes to my private node and only those to whom I give access can see the private notes. Is that something possible with NOSTR? Is that something Iris or another client can do? Is that something that someone would be interested in implementing? #grownostr #nostr #plebchain #plebstr #help

My husband was cooking pork chops last night. He stepped a way for a couple of seconds and turned around and my dog had his front paws up on the counter. He thought he'd lost the pork chops, but No. My dog didn't want the pork chops. He wanted to chase the red dot which is associated with our IR meat thermometer. What kind of dog wants to chase a red dot more than he wants pork chops? A Leonberger.

We went out for a Mother's Day lunch today after church. We learned years ago, that on Mother's Day, all of the steak restaurants are full; all of the Italian Restaurants are full; and all of the Seafood Restaurants are full. Do you know what isn't full? Mexican restaurants are empty, so you instantly walk in and sit down. I hate waiting, so we had Mexican for lunch today. #grownostr

I don't know how many people are familiar with Awana, a Christian kids program where kids memorize a bunch of Bible verses. My oldest son got his Citation award, and my youngest son got his Timothy award last night. The Citation award is a huge deal proving he learned about 1000 verses and read the whole Bible and summarized every book in the Bible, but I am particularly proud of my youngest, who has Down Syndrome, for getting his Timothy Award. He had to work really hard and I had to make up a song for every verse he learned to help them stick. #grownostr #christian #bible

I got some broccoli transplanted outside on Tuesday because it was supposed to start raining the next day and for 4-5 days. (We don't normally get rain like this in Wyoming). The broccoli looks very happy and not as sad as it usually does when I transplant it. If you notice a bunch of green against the edge of the deck, that is mostly carrots. Two Falls ago, I missed pulling all of my carrots, so some went to seed last year. At the end of the season, I just crushed the seed heads and sprinkled the seeds over the bed, hoping they would sprout this year. It looks like our crazy winds, blew all/most of the seeds against the deck, so there is a thick line of carrots growing against the edge of the deck. After the rains stop, I'll need to thin them. I don't know how growing against the cement deck will effect the carrot roots. I left a few dandelions in the bed until I have time to get other stuff planted to fill the space. #grownostr #garden