Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are
wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
- Edward R. Murrow


Monday, November 30, 2009

Where's the Shelf Elf?!?

My manager turned me onto a holiday tradition in her brother's family and Joey's really had a lot of fun with it.

Every day when Joey wakes up, one of the first things he does is look for the Shelf Elf in the house.

What is Shelf Elf? He's the elf that watches over Joey during the day and then goes back to North Pole to report to Santa every night. So that means that Shelf Elf, who Joey named "Pinocchio", is in a different place in the house every morning. So far, he's been on the fireplace mantel, on window valences, on top of kitchen cabinets and in the dining room chandelier.

When Shelf Elf first arrived at the house, young Mr. Davis was very skeptical to say the least.

"Daddy, he's not real. He can't talk!" I told Joey that the elf may not be able to talk to us, but he can talk to Santa. The look on Joey's face told me he still didn't buy it.

Fast forward to the next morning and, lo and behold, the elf was in a different place!

"Mama, Daddy, look! He moved, he moved," Joey said. "It's magic!"

Needless to day, Joey loves trying to find the elf every morning ... it's like hide-and-seek.

I think my favorite thing about this and that it's never even occurred to Joey that Mama or Daddy might be moving the elf. As soon as he saw that the elf was in a different spot that first morning, he's totally bought into it.

Yet another reason why I love Christmas again ... just amazing and so much fun to see it again through Joey's eyes.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Bugatti Veyron

The Bugatti Veyron.

Look, I'm not a gear head ... cars are nice and I appreciate a good car but it's not really a big deal to me.

And then there's the Bugatti Veyron.

I had never heard of this car until I saw a piece on BBC America's Top Gear.

Oh.

My.

God.

A few statistics:
  1. It costs about $1.55 million ... yes, you read the right ... "million".
  2. It is currently the fastest, most powerful and most expensive production car in the world.
  3. It has two, four-liter V8 engines and four turbo chargers.
  4. It's rated at 1,000 horsepower ... 1,000 HP!
  5. Goes 0 - 60 mph in 2.5 seconds and has a top speed of 252 mph, which comes to 373 feet per second.
  6. Its gas mileage is rated at 8 mpg/city and 13 mpg/highway. At full throttle, it would empty its tank in about 12 minutes.
  7. On average, drivers hit 7th gear at around 252 mph at which the engine is taking in 10,000 gallons of air per minute.
  8. The engine (which is mounted in the middle, rear of the car) doesn't have a cover but it does have 10 radiators: three to cool the engine itself, three for the inter-coolers, one for the rear axle oil, one for the engine oil, one for the differential oil and one for the hydraulic fluid used to raise the car's rear spoiler.
  9. The control stalks for the windshield wipers and directionals are made of a magnesium-aluminum alloy and cost almost $7,000 ... each.
  10. It costs $7.5 million to make one car.
I have to admit that, even not being a gear head ... if I had all the money in the world, I'd have one of these in my garage.