ian-mstm

Ian

Bob

Kilo's to pounds is pretty easy to ball park, but I still prefer converting pounds to stones for human weights and everything else I have to visualise either as a can of beans or a bag of spuds to make sense of it

As for mph/kph, I know 100kph-60mph ish because that was the speed the driver who killed my brother was doing, in a 50kph-30mph zone.

scrubbedexpat097

Oh wow Bob, that's a very sad and painful reason to be a reminder


I do like your "can of beans" and spud visualisations though

Sally Redux

You've brought back a memory, my mum still has the kg bathroom scales she bought in Germany in about 1969, so growing up I weighed myself in kg.
Yes as scientific and medical matters are all metricated, it does seem a good argument for changing the whole system.
Yes terrible Bob

tuxedocat

Some people may ask if you have a church home because they would like to invite you to theirs. Evangelicals generally will not try to "recruit" from another church so they will ask that first out of respect if you already have a home church.
There are often social and recreational things at churches so that could be why they ask you, to invite you to something, especially if they know you are new to the area. We are Catholic but we used to attend activities at a Southern Baptist church two - three times a week. It was the dominant religion where we lived and they had plenty of wholesome fun social activities for my son who is an only child.

retzie

In metric, we talk about litres per 100 km

US cans are 330mL, in Oz at least they are 375mL.

Tbh, I'm an Aussie who's lived in the US going on 5 years and I still have no idea about Fahrenheit. It is 100% wilful ignorance, though - if a linear conversion is beyond me, I should probably stop teaching all these kids calculus...

The most distressing one for me is the 'standard' that can't be converted away: paper sizes. I never knew how much ISO 216 meant to me until it was gone

N1cky

I think it shows just how far equality has come, now people can choose to stay at home and look after their children as opposed to having no choice but to stay home and look after them.

You live in an extremely affluent area, lots of people here are in marriages where both have earned good money for many years, lots save this money so when they do have kids one of them can stay home with them. Many others are fortunate that they can live comfortably off one salary.

I don't find people here presume I don't work, in fact it is quite the opposite. Despite the fact that I don't go into an office, and wear shorts, shirt and flip flops 9-5 90% of the time.

Does your wife find people assume she doesn't work?

I work with a bunch of women who have kids, and I am friends with a bunch of people in the UK who have kids and don't work.

As for lunch time, I take it you haven't been to downtown Mountain View, or California or University in Palo Alto over lunch time? You can struggle to get a table between 12-2.30.

After all the moaning you have done on here, isn't it time you gave up on the Bay area and moved somewhere that you might actually like?

ian-mstm

Indoctrinate 'em early... that's what I say!

Ian

rudd

I live in the NY Metro area.

Working mothers.

Of those couples we are friends with about half the wives work full time. Of the others, some retired from the careers when they had children and either decided to be stay at home moms or found it difficult to commit to a meaningful career after having kids. Many are not stay at home moms in the traditional sense. One works part time for her husband's company another is pursuing a masters. Almost all have full time childcare. Almost all are fairly affluent.

My wife chose not to work after our children are born, or rather she works about a half day per week. She is in the fitness industry and her job gives her that flexibility. Once both children are in full time education she plans to work more. She loves been a mom and we make the necessary financial sacrifices to make it happen.

The general attitude is that is perfectly acceptable for a women to have a full time career and children or not, her choice. Some women work because they want to, some because they have to. US labour laws don't really support working women in the way that France or the Scandinavian countries do. I was shocked at how little maternity leave is given on average.

What seems less acceptable is being a traditional full time mother with kids at home. The NY ideal requires kids to be constantly engaged in something outside the home: Pre-k, classes, activities etc.

Religion.

My wife is religious, I am not but was raised in a traditional Catholic home. She attends two churches, one is both traditional in it's service but very liberal in it theology. I'll usually tag along if she goes to this one. I like a lot of people there and more often than not in end up in the graveyard for 30 minutes with my youngest. The other church is a more evangelical in it's tendencies so I don't attend it. Most of out friends are agnostics of some description. I don't think anyone has yet asked me about what church I attend. People constantly ask what schools and classes are your kids attending.


Food.

Eat whenever and whatever you want. I always found some of the European cities much more difficult as they had very set times for meals. Spain and Italy especially and someone already mentioned Switzerland. I remember flying into Zurich for work on a Sunday night. I could not find any restaurant open. After searching for 30 minutes I had a very tasty meal in an orthodox Jewish place.

Steve_

The metric used is l/100km, so you're looking for the lowest number, not the highest.

Cans of pop are 355ml, i.e. 12 fl oz. In Canada we still get 355ml cans, but they don't have the fl oz measurement on them.

I used to think I had a clue about Imperial and US measurements, then I went into Home Depot and looked at the selection of screws and various fittings. I have got NO CLUE what the hell they mean.

Supposedly in Canada everything is metric, but it's not because the proximity of the US makes it impossible, so you end up buying for example a 3.78l jug of orange juice.

Also bizarrely many things are still Imperial, good example being most things to do with construction, so I saw in Home Depot 1 ft sq floor tiles advertised, 8mm thickness.

But everyone is taught metric exclusively in school.

Everything measurement wise is going to stay f---ed up until the US uses metric. Get talking to a pilot, height in feet, but fuel is often sold in litres and has to be converted to US gallons as that is what fuel tanks are usually denominated in.

Steve_

355ml. European cans are 330ml. Or 0.33cl as they sometimes put it.

jackattack

My babies were weighed in lbs and measured in inches at birth. And every time I went for a pregnancy check up, they weighed me in kilos.
Practically every baby reference there is, online and in books, speaks to lbs for baby weight.

Steve_

I remember when I got a ticket in Montana and on my Alberta licence all my measurements are in metric, that caused the state trooper some confusion.

Lorna at Vicenza

Except here in Italy where my babies were weighed in grams. Heads and lengths measured in Cm.
I had to convert the Kg/gr to pounds so that my mum would understand how much they weighed.

Jerseygirl

I find it a headache. Here it's imperial...then I go to the UK or Canada and it's metric.