Category: Animals



Good Engineering Lasts Forever!

There has been the contention that the US railroad gauge is NOT the same as the English, but the story is still very humorous.

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates. Why did the English build them that way? 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? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

So why did the wagons have that particular odd 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 was the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet-8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications 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 war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war horses.

Thus we have the answer to the original question. Now for the twist to the story. When we see a space shuttle sitting on it’s launching pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s. The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB’s might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses’ rumps.

So, a major design feature of what is arguably the worlds most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass!

Don’t you just love engineering?

Chocolate Chip Cookies

An elderly woman decided to make chocolate chip cookies for her next-door neighbors. Being that she had very poor eyesight, she grabbed a bag of bullets instead of chocolate chips and poured them in the batter. She went next-door gave the cookies to the mother, who then gave them to her three children. Later that day, one child went up to the mother and said, “Mommy, mommy, there’s a bullet in the toilet!” The mother told her not to worry about it, she’ll take it out later. A few minutes after, the second child went to the mother and exclaimed that she also had found a bullet in the toilet. Again the mother said she would take care of it. Lastly, the third child approached the mother saying, “Mommy, mommy!” “Lemme guess, there’s a bullet in the toilet?,” interrupted the mother. “No,” said the child, “I just farted and I shot the dog!”

Gorilla

Two gay gentlemen are walking through a zoo. They come across the gorillas and after a while they notice that the male gorilla has a massive erection.

The gay men are fascinated by this. One of the men just can’t bear it any longer and he reaches into the cage to touch it. The gorilla grabs him, drags him into the cage and mates with him for six hours nonstop.

When he’s done, the gorilla throws the man back out of the cage. An ambulance is called and the man is taken away to the hospital.

Next day his friend visits him in the hospital and asks, “Are you hurt?”

“AM I HURT?”, he shouts, “Wouldn’t you be? He hasn’t called, he hasn’t written …”

Why God Created Pets

A newly discovered chapter in the Book of Genesis has provided the answer to, “Why did God create pets?”

Adam and Eve said, “Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day. Now we do not see you anymore. We are lonesome here and it is difficult for us to remember how much you love us.” And God said, “No problem! I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves.” And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased.

And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail. And Adam said, “Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal.” And God said, “No problem. Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG.” And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them. And they were comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail.

After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, “Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well.” And God said, “No problem! I will create for them a companion who will be with them forever and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration.”

And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam and Eve. And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat’s eyes, they were reminded that they were not the supreme beings. And Adam and Eve learned humility. And they were greatly improved. And God was pleased. And Dog was happy. And Cat didn’t give a crap one way or the other.

Hounded Out

Upon entering a little country store, a stranger noticed a sign reading, “Danger! Beware of Dog” posted on the glass door. Inside, he noticed a harmless old hound dog asleep on the floor besides the cash register.

He asked the store manager, “Is that the dog folks are supposed to beware of?”

“Yep, that’s him,” he replied.

The stranger couldn’t help but be amused. “That certainly doesn’t look like a dangerous dog to me. Why in the world would you post that sign?”

“Because,” the owner replied, “before I posted that sign, people kept tripping over him.”

Hot Pooch …

Two foreign immigrants have just arrived in the United States by boat and one says to the other, “I hear that the people of this country actually eat dogs.”

“Odd,” her companion replies, “but if we shall live in America, we might as well do as the Americans do.”

Nodding emphatically, one of the immigrants points to a hot dog vendor and they both walk toward the cart. “Two dogs, please,” she says.

The vendor is only too pleased to oblige, wraps both hot dogs in foil and hands them over the counter. Excited, the companions hurry to a bench and begin to unwrap their “dogs.”

One of them opens the foil and begins to blush. Staring at it for a moment, she turns to her friend and whispers cautiously, “What part did you get?”