January 7th: Old Rock Day

Old Rock day. Well, I found a couple of fossils lying around the house. But there wasn’t really much I could do with them. So I set out to find out just how much you can do with a rock. After finding four old rocks from various places (One that came with us when we moved from Bristol, one from a volcano in New Zealand, a lump of coal, and a bit of masonry left over from when we destroyed part of the patio), I explored their possible uses.

They’re good for a bit of maths practice; I calculated an estimate of the volume of two of them – one is around 49.5cm³, another around 112.5cm³. I tried juggling with them, and managed to juggle with 2, 3 and 4 rocks. (I can just about do 5 on a good day, but not so well with rocks). I then tried representing rocks as a juggling pattern. After a bit of playing around with numbers, I found that “A Rock” is a 'nice' 8 ball juggling pattern. Sadly, this is beyond my ability to juggle. Some of the other uses I considered are:

• Paperweights. Obvious, but still a use.
• Building cairns. Admittedly, there is a limit to the size of cairn you can get with 4 stones, but never mind.
• Surrounding fireplaces.
• Measurement: If you tie a rock to a piece of string, and lower the string from the top of an object you wish to measure until the bottom of the rock touches the ground, then the length of the rock plus the length of the string equals the height of the object. By this system of measurement, our fridge is approximately 183cm tall.
• And, finally, the best possible use I have ever heard: "Ineffective Frisbees."

Laura has decided to celebrate today with her pet rock listening to Classic Rock. Clever, eh? Eh?

That’s it for now. No idea what Jonnie is up to, but I’m sure he's having great fun!