Moments on the interstate

[mtbc]

While driving on I-40W this afternoon I had a couple of quietly notable moments. First, I saw a sign,

Knoxville 12
12 mi or 19 km

and I wondered why that sign in rural Tennessee would be one of the very few I notice mentioning kilometers, let alone devoting half of its content to the conversion. Later, on the same road, in the middle lane of five, cruise control fitting in just fine among the Knoxville downtown traffic, I had the afternoon sun on me and the radio turned up for Steve Winwood's Valerie and I noticed that I really felt at home, that I was back in the right kind of place again.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

Maybe that sign is a leftover from the thwarted idea the USA had to convert to metric decades ago?

My sister and her boyfriend live in Varno (I think), and my niece and her family in Knoxville. I have never been to the area, so I don't know it.

My sister moved there late last year and then Covid happened.

[mtbc]

I've yet to encounter Varno and, really, even much of Knoxville. The west part I'm in is quite generic, heading much into downtown Knoxville will have to wait until after Covid.

Interesting theory about the metric conversion! Next time I'll try to notice how old it looks. (-: I already managed to deposit my dollar coins seeing as that conversion effort failed too (sigh).

[wildeabandon]

I'm glad you had that moment. Feeling at home is so important.

[mtbc]

It is, thank you, it's nice to have it back. I didn't have it living in an end-terrace in a Scottish village. I'm hopeful for work too as I should get more in the way of varied research again.

[wildeabandon]

I hope that it all works out. What sort of research is it that you do?

[mtbc]

Thank you. My background is in science and AI and I'm joining the research software engineering group at ORNL which is mostly funded by the US Department of Energy. The role should see me touching a good range of projects over time, I'm curious to find out what I end up working on! What I especially love to do is learn about application domains and figure how novel software could help then make that happen.