what was that? is that all there is? who is this? this is it.

Ceramic Ball Bearings. The smoothest of the smooth. High end hubs rolling on ceramic bearings, rolling and rolling and rolling. When I think of ceramics I think of Junior High art project ash trays or pottery wheels and touchy-feely community center art instructors with overcrowded kilns. I don’t think of really expensive bike parts. But ceramic bearings are the best. They’re smooth, hard, round, corrosion resistant and heat resistant. And I'm not just talking about bike parts. Ceramic bearings are everywhere, in all kinds of machinery, engines, weapons and space craft.

Sphericity is a measure of how spherical an object is. Ball bearings come in different grades. Measured in millionths of an inch. The lower the number the higher the quality, the higher the roundness, the greater the sphericity. A 25 ball bearing is sweet, really really spherical and durable, within 25 millionths of an inch of being a perfect sphere. A 1000 ball bearing is cheap, round enough, but a lower quality, perhaps softer metal. Ceramic bearings are very high grade, low number, hard, smooth and round. But it’s not as if you could reach into a bucket and pull out a handful of bearings and sort out the 25s from the 1000s just by looking at them. I like ball bearings but I think I like words like sphericity even more.

Fecundity is the ability to produce offspring, or creative productivity. For some reason sphericity brings fecundity to mind, at least to my mind. The connection, the correlation, the explanation is up to you. A lot of words, words you don't use everyday, you can take a stab at and come within a half mile of their actual meaning even with out acknowledging the Latin roots. But some words are just out there. Word.

visualize a beautiful ball bearing blossom in full fragrant bloom, just oozing high grade bearings. High sphericity and fecundity in one pretty picture.

Felicity she really brings it all together. I like Felicity even more than sphericity. word.

P.S. lubricate frozen nipples.

taken out of context certain phrases can take on new meaning. And it doesn't take a bored bike mechanic to illustrate this concept.

4 Comments

"From the depth of the pacific, to the height of everest, and still the world is smoother, than a shiny ball-bearing." -- Ani Difranco So, what would be the sphericity of the Earth?

Poop 1. a superstructure at the stern of a vessel. Protozoan 1. any of a diverse group of eukaryotes, of the kingdom Protista, that are primarily unicellular, existing singly or aggregating into colonies, are usually nonphotosynthetic, and are often classified further into phyla according to their capacity for and means of motility, as by pseudopods, flagella, or cilia. Shirt received. Gracias.

like you said Lane, it's all in your mind. Thanks.

I'm moving to Seattle and getting my Masters at UW...I'll keep in touch

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