Time seems to be slowing down the closer it gets to the appointed time of the playoff game against the Eagles. Creeping slower the more I anticipate the kick-off. Very slowly.

On Friday, a European spacecraft plunged through the murky atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan on Friday and successfully came to rest on a bizarre landscape of mystery never before explored.

My son and I love astronomy and the study of the solar system. So we've listened to the sounds from Titan. We've looked at the photos showing the orange surface. We've been awed by the whole scale of the project. And that things move slowly on Titan.

A raindrop forms ninety kilometers above the surface of Titan. It starts with an infinitesimal speck of tholin, adrift in the cold nitrogen atmosphere. Dianoacetylene condenses on the seed nucleus, molecule by molecule, until it is one shard of ice in a cloud of billions.

On Titan it takes almost a year for the shard of ice to precipitate downward twenty-five kilometers, where the temperature drops low enough that ethane begins to condense on it. It starts to drift.

At forty kilometers, the drop gets caught up in a ethane cloud. There it continues to grow. It occasionally collides with another droplet and doubles in size. Finally it is too large to be held effortlessly aloft by the gentle stratosphere winds.

It falls.

Falling, the drop sweeps up methane and grows large enough to acheive a terminal velocity of almost two meters per second.

At twenty-seven kilometers, it passes through a dense layer of methane clouds, aquiring more methane, and continues its downward flight.

The air thickens, the velocity slows and the drop begins to lose some of its substance to evaporation. At two and a half kilometers, when it emerges from the last patchy clouds, the drop is at a lazy terminal velocity of one meter per second and hits the surface.

So, which is faster? The rain on Titan or waiting for the start of the playoff game? Today, time feels like the slow rain of Titan. Very slow indeed.

Overlooking Pepper?

Much has, and will, be made of the tremendous height advantage that Randy "Moon Man" Moss will have over the diminuative cornerbacks of the Beagles this coming Sunday.

Moss stands 6-4 and leaps like a graceful gazelle. The Dwarfs of the Eagles each go 5-10. According to my 1979 Texas Instrument calculator, that is a 6" advantage...or 1/2 foot. Man versus boy. We've all seen what Moss has done when given that type of height advantage before. "Daunte fires high! Moss goes up and gets it! Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!"

Gets kind of boring after a while, doesn't it?

But I want to take you back to the key Vikings player for this game and the remainder of the playoffs. That would be Mr. Culpepper.

At 6-4 and 264 lbs., Culpepper outweighs each member of the starting
defensive secondary, each member of the starting linebackers, and two of the four starting defensive linemen for the Beagles. Culpepper is so big that often you can hear the voices of the defense echo off the huge frame as they bark out commands at the line.

"Watch out for the draw-aw-aw-aw!"

Culpepper can snatch and lift a mere 370 lbs. in the weight room. More than most linemen in the NFL.

One would expect to hear, "Did anyone get the license plate of that truck?", coming from the mouths of many a Beagles defensive player this Sunday.

This coming Sunday, Culpepper will be the most important player on the field for the Vikings. And I say he will stick out his tongue to the world. The world who did not believe.

It will be so.

Links and Tidbits

Check out the numerous Packer spoof photos that Spiking Viking has posted on his site. And be sure and save 'em for those times next year when your obnoxious Cheesehead co-worker needs a little reminder!

Reason 741 that we all hope the Vikings get to Super Bowl XXXIX? Randy Moss and Media Day!

Posted by maasx003 at January 14, 2005 02:39 PM | TrackBack