[Racer X 69]

But the twelfth day of the thirteenth month of 2015 has not happened yet (I presume you mean January 2016). Are you a prophet or is OP Dr Who?

He could be on an Ethiopian calendar. But then 2015 is even further into the future. And the 13th month doesn't have 12 days.

No, I suspect he's using some obscure notation that is not used by anyone else on this globe.

Only in Amerika!
(Dec. 13 2015)

No, it is the rest of the world that expresses dates wrong.


December 13, 2015 is 12-13-15.


Sounds odd to say 'thirteen December, 2015'.


You go with what you know, and a lifetime of speech and written communication habits are not easily changed.


Probably why we still use Imperial measure, rather than Metric. Even the World's leading manufacturer of commercial and military airplanes uses inches and feet rather than millimeters, centimeters and meters.


And they operate worldwide.

[JibbaJab]

Having worked in civil engineering I can say this is certainly a great way to break up feet. I never got the hang of working with fractions, and decimals are always easy.


Like the metric system.

Currently working in civil engineering, I agree. My AutoCAD is always set to decimal engineering units, and I curse when I have to work with a drawing in architectural units.

[Racer X 69]

Yes, it's a 30+ year old trailer. (At 30+ years old, it's a trailer. Ain't no "mobile home" or "manufactured" nothing to it!) The reason I have to have an electrician is because the power company will not reconnect without an electrician's sign off that the 200a breaker service is wired correctly. The new pole is up and everything is ready, but the county office is closed on the weekends. Bastards! So, Monday it is!

Oh, I just remembered!


Mrs. Racer and I also had a 'trailer' with the meter panel and main switch, here where we now have the house that I designed and built. But instead of a pole, it was on a post, as the utilities are underground from the overhead stuff out on the road. When I put in the electric service for our new house in, I used the opposite side of that post to set the meter base and junction box, then continued underground into the basement.


The trailer was a single wide, Marlette, built in the early 1970's. It was 14 feet wide and 74 feet long.


During the 4 years we lived in it we called it the "shipping container".


I had to move it about 30 feet (sideways) to make room for where we wanted to erect the house. Jacked it up, took out the blocks, mounted the wheels, pulled it forward and then backed it into position, jacked it up, leveled it, set it back on the blocks and reconnected the power, water and septic.


Six months later the house was done and the county said it had to go.


I tried to sell it. The people who had cash enough to buy it didn't have the funds to have it moved. Then I offered it up for free. Then there were people who wanted it, but couldn't afford to pay relocation costs.


There was even one idiot who wanted to take it, but leave it where it was and live in it. I had to explain the finer points of property zoning to him.


Oh, and how inconvenient it would be without electricity and running water.


So, with the clock ticking, I decided to dismantle it, sell the siding, roof, wiring and frame for scrap, cut up and burn the wood structure, and take the rest to the dump.


Took about a month or so, and I made $3,200 on the metals.


Way better than selling it!


And we found a couple Polaroid pictures of it from when it was new, and in a 'trailer park'.






I've shared photos of our new house here before, but here is one again, and the trailer after I moved it to make room for the house. (someday I should scan the Polaroid shots we found)


The trailer, just before basement excavation. You can see where the trailer used to sit, and the concrete pads where the tie downs were.











And if you look closely, just through the arch of the excavator, you can see the meter on the post.









During construction it was clear that I moved the trailer 'just enough'.









In this shot the meter post is hiding by the tree on the left.






After the house was done and I had dismantled the trailer (I really wish I had shot some of the dismantling). Notice the meter post on the left.










And one last bit of fun.

In this shot you can see one of the piles of soil from the basement excavation, under plastic.







Later, when scooping the dirt with a tractor and spreading it around, I had noticed that it looked like some critters had been bedding down on top of the pile. Here is what we saw one morning.





A doe and her two yearlings had been using it to sleep on.


Living in the sticks is way cooler than the city.


Any day of the week, and any month of the year.


Like our first Christmas in our new home. Our first Christmas was a white one, how cool is that?




And the meter post is on the left.

[THoog]

Having worked in civil engineering I can say this is certainly a great way to break up feet. I never got the hang of working with fractions, and decimals are always easy.


Like the metric system.

One of my favorite drafting scales ("rulers" to those who never took drafting) is marked in tenths and hundredths of inches. It's useful for model building when I'm having to use US-standard-units stock, but don't want to deal with fractions (and 0.2 inches = 5mm, or close enough for hobby work).

[monochrome]

When I measure somethin to cut I measure to x inches and y marks, where y = stripes on the tape measure. Finding a center is easy. 1/2x + 1/2y, + the long stripe if y is odd.

It only causes trouble when finding a center for hanging a picture. That is harder. Then I just guess. No one has complained yet.

[savoche]

It's got nothing to do with logic or size order - it's tradition. The traditional way of writing dates in the US is monthname date, year. (Just to add to the confusion, we write "January 4", but we SAY "January fourth".) Whenever we began abbreviating it to just numbers, we kept that convention.

Ironically, the one date that we say the other way around is the Fourth of July (Independence Day) - ironic because the first line of the document that day celebrates reads "July 4, 1776".

No, it is the rest of the world that expresses dates wrong.


December 13, 2015 is 12-13-15.


Sounds odd to say 'thirteen December, 2015'.


You go with what you know, and a lifetime of speech and written communication habits are not easily changed.

Ah, so you do say "4, 10 minutes past" and not "10 minutes past 4", then, since you write 4:10?



Of course, for me it's perfectly logical to say "10 past 4" even though I would write it 16:10 (provided we are talking pm, of course...).

[THoog]

"10 past 4" is okay, but "10 past half 5" for 16:40? One of my friends of Norwegian descent is trying to learn norsk, and telling time gives him quite a bit of trouble.

When digital watches became popular, I noticed that people would look a little confused at an exact time, because what they were asking was really an analog question: "how late am I?", or "how much time do I have?" that previously would be answered as so many after / until, rounded to the nearest five.

On that note, remember when the French tried decimal time?

[robtcorl]

One of my favorite drafting scales ("rulers" to those who never took drafting) is marked in tenths and hundredths of inches

When I build something I still bring out my old surveyors tape or ruler for measurements.
The only metric measurement I know is 2 liters of soda..
or to some folks, coke, soft drink, or pop

[THoog]

According to wikipedia.org only these few countries, shown in green, have adopted the metric system:

BTW, that map, however popular, is actually misleading. The United States adopted the metric system by law as an official, legally recognized, system of measurements in 1866. However, we never made it our ONLY system, because every attempt to do so met stiff resistance due to the cost of conversion - so our system of measurements really is based on that most decimal of units, the dollar.

[Racer X 69]

. . . . . even though I would write it 16:10 (provided we are talking pm, of course...).

My dad was a 'lifer' in the US Navy (20 years). So I grew up in the Navy. They use the 24 hour clock.


Funny thing, I never learned it.


Something about 13 hundred hours that just doesn't add up.

[dansamy]

Being a night shift nurse, my life revolves around that 24° clock!

[Jean Poitiers]

OK ... my wife uses "military time" in French which just kills me ... I can never get the hang of it.

7:20 PM translates to "19 heures 20" ("dix-neuf heures vingt") which literally reads "ten-nine hours twenty" ...

What's worse is 5:00 PM is "17 heures" ("dix-sept heures") which literally reads "ten-seven hours" !!! How did we get to seven before passing five ?!

I mean, how can it be "10-7" hours at 5 PM ... lost in translation ... lost, I tell you ... lost

[FantasticMrFox]

BTW, that map, however popular, is actually misleading. The United States adopted the metric system by law as an official, legally recognized, system of measurements in 1866. However, we never made it our ONLY system, because every attempt to do so met stiff resistance due to the cost of conversion - so our system of measurements really is based on that most decimal of units, the dollar.

It's similar with the UK - metric system adopted, but roadsigns still show distances and speeds in miles/mph etc.

[THoog]

My dad was a 'lifer' in the US Navy (20 years). So I grew up in the Navy. They use the 24 hour clock.

Much of the public awareness of the metric system in the US is due to folks with military service. Likewise, the US military does use day-month-year notation, which is increasing its use in the general population. It's not that we aren't converting to international conventions, just that we are doing it very slowly.

I have had discussions with educated, technical adults, who could not estimate sizes for anything and would not believe that a standard floor or ceiling tile was 2 feet (60 cm) across unless you got out a tape and measured it for them - when people don't really know what one foot or one mile is, how receptive are they going to be to a completely different set of terms?

[monochrome]

Just because other people do things differently, that doesn't make it right.