7.31.10

A fine day in Kampala and so I traveled over to my favorite local restaurant - Chef d'oeuvre - for some rice and chapati (which was delicious, as usual). While I was waiting for my food, Moses, one of my favorite waiters, brought me my usual ice-cold Coca Cola, a nutritious part of every complete lunch. And, as I was sipping on the bottle's sweet contents I wondered to myself, "Hmm, you know...I wonder how much liquid my body has processed during my lifetime."

Based on my subsequent estimates, somewhere between 2,219.28 - 2,536.32 gallons. And, given that a gallon of water weighs about 8.33 pounds, this means my body has processed about 18,486.6 - 21,127.55 pounds of liquid.

(Cool trivia fact: the human heart pumps about 1,900 gallons of blood in ONE DAY. So it's taken me almost a quarter of a century to drink what my heart pumps through itself everyday...crazy.)

So then, as I was enjoying my lunch, I noticed a mosquito lazily buzzing its way through the restaurant and my mind naturally wandered to another question: "Hmm...I wonder how many mosquito bites I've received in my lifetime."

Based on my subsequent estimates, somewhere between 600 - 700. And, given that a mosquito extracts about 0.01 milliliters of blood which each bite, this means that I've lost between 0.026 - 0.03 cups (or about half a tablespoon) of blood in my lifetime.

(Cool trivia fact: the average leech drinks about 1 tablespoon of blood before it's full. So, it's taken me almost a quarter of a century to lose half the amount of blood to mosquitoes that I would to ONE leech.)

So, my lunch finished and bill paid, I headed home - taking the shortcut along a now-familiar dirt road past the steel warehouse, the small hotel, the two or three chapati and samosa stands, and my dear boda-driving friends on the corner. And, as I settled down here at home and logged onto my blog I wondered one last thing: "Wow, I wonder how many times I've used that password to log onto a website."
Somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 times.

Cheers.