2 Cubed Times 3 Squared Times 7...

Before I state whether or not I got to see the St. Louis arch, I thought you might be wondering how I pass the time on my drive.

Well, one thing I do is listen to music. My range of music goes from Nine Inch Nails (I love their new album) and System of a Down, to The Carpenters and Enya (I love her new album too). Sometimes I listen to the radio. I find NPR kind of dry, but I like getting the news from them. And even in the middle of nowhere you can often find an NPR station (sometimes the same broadcast on 3 different frequencies...I don't know what that is all about).

The other kinds of stations you can always pick up in the middle of nowhere are the Christian stations; there are usually several of them no matter where you are. Those and country music stations and I hate both types. Fortunately, I have a lot of CDs to listen to.

Probably the strangest things I do to keep my mind occupied are mathematical calculations. I like to take the mile markers and break them down into their prime factorals. For example 327 is 3 times 109. 504 is 2 to the third power times 3 squared times 7. 101 is a prime number, etc. It keeps my mind active.

I also try to figure out how my mileage is doing. I tend to set my cruise control to exactly 10 MPH over the speed limit. It's pretty rare that a cop will stop you on the highway if you're going 75 in a 65 zone. Every hour I check my total miles traveled divided by the number of hours passed. I try to get my average speed above 70 if possible. I also try to calculate how well I'm going to be doing by figuring out how many minutes there are until the next hour has passed, estimating how many miles I will travel between now and that time, and adding them to my currently traveled miles. Then I divide and try to figure out how my mileage will be when that hour is up. It can be a bit confusing sometimes and I don't always get the answer before the next mile marker comes up. But it keeps me occupied.