A Conversation Flying Through My Head

-
Do you ever find yourself imagining that you are trying to explain some modern invention to someone from like 500 years ago? This morning, the conversation in my head went something like this:

What on earth is that?

What?

That! Up in the sky!

Oh. That's an airplane.

An... air... plane?

Yes. It's a big machine that transports people long distances.

There are people in there?

Yes.

How many people?

Some airplanes only carry a few people. That one probably carries four or five hundred.

*shudder* Why ever would a person want to get on an big machine in the sky?

Well, sometimes we want to go places that are far away more quickly than it would take us to travel there by land or sea. For instance, if I wanted to go to my parents house, it would take me 8 hours to drive there, but only an hour or two to fly there, not counting the time sitting around in the airport.

What is an airport?

That's the place where the airplanes land and take off. It is where people go to get on an airplane.

How many airplanes are there?

Thousands. There is probably an airplane taking off somewhere in the world every minute all day every day.

How does it get up there, and once it does, how does it stay up? Why isn't it falling?

Well, when an airplane takes off, it goes really fast, and the wings are shaped so that the air pressure lifts the plane up. It feels kind of weird when it actually lifts up off the ground...

Wait, you've been on one of those?

Well yes, a few times.

And you're still alive to tell the tale?

Of course! The first ones built over a hundred years ago were dangerous, but airplanes today are perfectly safe... unless of course they get hijacked and flown into a building or something happens to the pilot...

Right...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Talk about Gratitude

-
I recently told my bishop that I enjoyed giving talks in Sacrament Meeting, and it is true. I didn't expect, however, that I would get an email from a bishopric member on Thursday last week to say that his talks for Sunday had to leave town, and would I be willing to speak? Here is the talk that I gave on Sunday, May 27th, 2012: For my topic today, I was given a talk which was given by President Monson in 1992, entitled “An Attitude of Gratitude”. In his talk President Monson begins by telling the story of the 10 lepers. I would like to share it with you. In Luke 17 we read: And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” And when he saw them, he said unto them, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.” And it came to pass, that, as they went, ...
Read more

How Clean is Clean Enough?

-
Image
How clean is "clean enough"? I realize this question is loaded and the answers are very individual, so for a moment, think about yourself and your home and consider, for you, how clean is "clean enough"? What is the difference between a "quick clean", a "daily clean" and a "deep clean"? At what point do you consider your home "clean enough"? Does "clean enough" mean having a clear path from the front door to the other rooms in the house? Is it having the clutter picked up and the floors vacuumed? Must it be dusted every week, every month, or at all? Is it a quick swipe on the surface to remove the dust or crumbs? Is it a scrub with disinfectant? Is it clearing tables and desks, or delving into cupboards and drawers, purging and organizing?    Does it depend on the day of the week? Is "clean enough" on a weekday the same as "clean enough" on a weekend? If not, is it more clean, or less? Is there a...
Read more

School closing, Josh adventures, Back pain relief...

-
On Wednesday school was cancelled all over the Denver area because there was a credible threat that an 18 year old woman with a fixation on the Columbine shooting would attack a school. Apparently she arrived in Denver and bought a gun and then vanished, so they shut down everything just in case. (They found her body later that day... She committed suicide. More info here .) John was frustrated that school was cancelled because one acts are coming up (they are this week!) and he needed the rehearsal time. Instead, John took advantage of the free day to go to School of Mines to check out the campus and talk to someone about getting his admission deferred. I got a ride to my book club, and both of us were home again before Josh and Peter rolled out of bed. Early in the afternoon I took Josh to Children's Hospital to see a cardiologist about his seizures . They did an EKG, but the results were normal. He doesn't have a heart murmur or anything else they could identify. I still thi...
Read more