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Here’s a little something I threw together while i wasn’t throwing other things around.

My guts are filled with water
And my head is filled with hay
Well my nose is always running
but it will not go away
And I think I have an illness
that is awfully hard to beat
So I take my favourite medicine
it's a lovely chocolate treat

And so on and so forth. I’d have written the rest but I got grumpy and had to quit, haha.

Speaking of medicine, here’s an inspiration.

Everything’s always better with Julie. The exception being that Blake Edwards monstrosity.  The poor lass.

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An article came across my desk related to how “poorly” Houston did regarding work commute times, in relation to other cities across the nation.  I found the article – while brief and objective – to be misleading, nonetheless.

Here’s why.

The article states that Houston (at #6) ranked below Abiline, TX (at #1).

The longest time in the time range specified for Houston was 29 minutes.  By comparison, Abilene was clocked at a speedy 14 minutes for the commute time.

While it seems pretty bad to have to drive twice as long to get to and from work in Houston than in Abilene, let’s consider some factors that were obviously not part of the ranking:

  • Total city land mass in Houston = 601.3 sq. miles.  Abilene = 110.6 sq. miles.
  • Total population in Houston = 2,099,451.  Abilene = 117,063

Given that for relative baselines, we run these times through the calculatron:

  • Houston is physically bigger than Abilene.  Meaning there’s more area to drive from points A to B and back.

    But the commute time average in Houston is 0.04 minutes per square mile (29 mins / 601.3 sq. mi) whereas for Abilene it’s a whopping 0.12 minutes per sq. mile (14 mins / 110.6 sq. mi).

    That works out to be more than 2.5 times faster in Houston than in Abilene on average.

  • Houston has more people living (and driving) in the city than in Abilene.  Meaning there are more cars/trucks/SUV/busses/donky carts on the road to drive behind, around, and through.

    But the commute time average in Houston is 0.00001 minutes per person (29 mins / 2,099,451 people) whereas for Abilene it’s a whopping 0.00012 minutes per person (117,063 people / 14 minutes).

    That works out to be more than 8.5 times faster in Houston than in Abilene on average in this regard.

My conclusion?  Houston still wins hands-down, especially when you consider the  sheer size and scale of infrastructure in the city.  The numbers in the survey and my viewpoint on them show me that this is really a nice place to be.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Abilene – as long as I don’t have to drive to work there.

Smileyface.

 

References:

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2012/01/05/houston-has-one-of-texas-worst.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene,_Texas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston