Go Ask Your Father: Spoilers, Gasoline, Vanilla, and Hats

Lo and behold! Spring has sprung. Hence, I managed to post just 3 times this week because we’re getting awesome weather. So I’ll toss out a few questions Crash and Bang asked. Then I gotta get going to a birthday party!  My Fitbit had fun counting to 17,000!

1. What’s a spoiler?

A spoiler is when I tell you about the baby on Grey’s Anatomy last Thursday. Or if you told me about Game of Thrones. But that’s not the kind of spoiler he meant when he asked. This spoiler in question is on the back of a car. On an every day family car they’re just for decoration; to make the car “look” fast. But when you put them on racecars the air passing over them presses down it. Like when you put your hand out of the car window. This applies more pressure to the tires like when an 8 year old sits on your chest. This extra pressure creates more friction between the tires and track allowing for faster speeds. But I hate to spoil it for you, it sounds like the faster the racecar goes the more friction it will have and therefore be able to go even faster. Not true. There will eventually be a threshold where no more friction will be created. When the forces acting on the x-axis of the car overtake the friction acting on the y-axis the car slides.

 

2. How does gas power cars?

My simple explanation was that the gas explodes inside the engine. The little explosions turn gears which turn the wheels. When you press the gas pedal more gas is pushed into the engine making more explosions and turning the gears and wheels faster.

A slightly bigger explanation would be as follows…

First, the piston starts at the top, the intake valve opens, and the piston moves down to let the engine take in a cylinder-full of air and gasoline. This is the intake stroke. Only the tiniest drop of gasoline needs to be mixed into the air for this to work. Then the piston moves back up to compress this fuel/air mixture. Compression makes the explosion more powerful. When the piston reaches the top of its stroke, the spark plug emits a spark to ignite the gasoline. The gasoline charge in the cylinder explodes, driving the piston down. Once the piston hits the bottom of its stroke, the exhaust valve opens and the exhaust leaves the cylinder to go out the tailpipe. This starts the whole process over.

3. What’s the difference between vanilla and French vanilla?

Vanilla parle Anglais, Vanille française parle français. [Translation: Vanilla speaks English, French Vanilla speaks French] Duh. To the ice cream connoisseur, though, there is a significant difference in taste. Like the difference between Coke and Vanilla Coke. The difference isn’t in where the vanilla beans are grown. It’s not a difference in type of vanilla bean. The difference is found in the egg. Egg yolk is added to French vanilla.  So it’s all about that base, ’bout that base. No yolk! Vanilla is just plain vanilla bean extract using cream as a base. French vanilla is more sophisticated, with it’s custard base instead of cream.

4. Do you like my hat?

Bang asked this one. He asked it several times. He’s been saying he loves the Blue Jays. His favorite color is now blue for… you guessed it, the Blue Jays. Crash and I are Orioles fans. Anyway, when DW and Bang landed at school last Friday to pick up Crash and I, Bang was wearing a brand new Blue Jays hat and a face splitting smile.

Bang- Daddy doesn’t like my new hat because it has the Blue Jays on it and only mommy and I like the Blue Jays. Mommy laughed because daddy didn’t like it.

That was his Monday morning news at school. He is proud of his new hat. All though I’m an O’s fan, we do live in Blue Jay territory. So I can’t really tell him no. Plus, he is pretty darn cute in his blue hat. So we’re a house divided for some friendly rivalry.