Drug Rehab Options Blog

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (cencus) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park his sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself.
On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship not the monarch).

600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the same time that Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s in 0.001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Merry Christmas.
Author Unknown!

I found SR very close to my sober day, in fact I was basically making my decision to stay sober during my first few days with the forum. I've spent almost all my time at SR in the New to Addiction and Recover section and I've benefited from some great support and tried to give some in return. On the last day I drank (July 12th 2008) I had my first black out after decades of binge drinking and it really got my attention. Things had been getting worse and worse over the last couple years, and especially the last 10 months or so before July. I'm not an AA person and I don't intend to go to AA meetings but I do see the value in much of the program.

As I'm approaching 90 days without alcohol it feels like I'm in newly dangerous territory so I'm opening this thread here because I think it will reach an audience that includes a variety of lengths of experience with sobriety. I'll also let my friends in the Class of July 2008 know of this thread.

Here's what's going on any given day lately. These don't all happen at the same time, but some of them do. Some are in conflict with each other.

1. I'm thinking that I'm good at this and maybe I don't have as bad of a problem as I thought I did.
2. Ninety days seems like a lot which makes me think of this long term, rather than one day at time.
3. Alcohol advertising is getting me irritated more often lately. Even worse, the movies and shows that have everyone turning to drink when times go bad or when they want to have fun.
4. There are way too many drinking/drug/party songs!!! Do you ever get to the point where you can enjoy them because they're otherwise good songs?

None of this is new ground to you or to me but it seems different/worse right now. I don't have strong urges to drink, and rarely even get medium urges, but....I don't know....it seems like I should be happier.

Is it common to hit this point in the road around 90 days? For those that hit this at 90 or at some other amount of time I'd appreciate knowing how you did it.

Thanks for reading this far down.

There it was. Right on the front page of our local newspaper two days ago.

A man going 60 miles per hour ran off the freeway into a parked van. The van

happened to have the female driver underneath fixing a tire. The impact

of the ensuing collision slammed her van into her father's sedan parked

in front of her.

Why was this photo "shocking" to me? The man's car ..smashed to the

steering column, looked like my little mini truck 14 years ago...

In the spring of 1993 I met my ABF at a BBQ restaurant after work

to have "dinner". I do not recall dinner or ribs or corn on the cob.

I do recall one shot of whiskey ....that's it. You see..I started drinking

in 1992..a black out drinker from the start. I have a vague recollection

of being pulled out of my truck, kicking, sceaming, and biting the police

officers and paramedics. And calling them names... The next memory is

being chained to a hospital bed and asking an officer.."Do you think I'm

pretty?" Bless his heart..he said yes before he arrested me.

I was released to a friend who had an "in" with the Sheriff's Dept.

According to my boyfriend's info and what the police could piece

together...I became enraged about nothing after several drinks

at the restaurant. I left without eating...bought a 12 pack of

beer and drove around..drinking all but 4 (tall) cans. Then I

stopped myself by driving headlong at 50 miles per hour into a

parked truck on a residential street.

I went to see my "baby"..my beautiful little truck at the yard two days later.

I swooned..someone had to hold me up. Just like the man's car in the

paper...a total wreck. My truck was smashed to the steering column.

My legs had deep cuts. I had a concussion. I had to be extricated.

The difference?

The man died on impact. There were others in the parked vehicles..

They are still in the hospital.

All I got was a concussion, and bruises...even the owner of the other vehicle

was nice.

I am so, so, so grateful..and I do not understand why some of us are

spared and some taken. But I do know that I am grateful today.

Grateful I stopped in time....and didn't hurt anyone else.

Grateful for another chance.

Grateful to be here on SR.

Thank you, God.