Stuff That Weighs More than Me has MOVED

Dear readers.  Just wanted to let you know that "Stuff that Weighs More than Me" has moved.  It is now part of my other blog at www.fatchicksings.com  So come on over and follow me over there!

oxoxoxoxo

Stuff That Weighs More than Me: Boom, you're OUT!

Letting Loose at the world's largest dodgeball game.

This week's post on reliving playground dramas, got me thinking about that nemesis of so many primary school PE programs, dodgeball.  A little googling led to a world record held by a group quite local to me, the kids at UC Irvine.  This group managed to put together the world's largest dodgeball game, wresting the record out of the sweaty hands of their arch nemesis in giant dodgeball battles, The University of Alberta.  The day was described by many as "absolute mayhem".  Nevertheless, the competitors were counted and the blue team one.  Here's some stats:

Weight of dodgeball ball-- 1 to 2 lbs.
Average Weight of participant (conservative estimate) 100 lbs.
Number of balls/participants: 4488
Weight of participants plus chosen weapons* 453,288 lbs.
*Does not include weight of victory beer

CONCLUSION: The World's Largest Dodgeball Game at UC Irvine weighs more than me.

Want to hear more about reliving playground dramas?  Click HERE to see my latest post on Fat Chick Sings.

Stuff That Weighs More than Me: You Can Ring My (Liberty) Bell!

The Fat Chick Visits the Liberty Bell in the Land Of Brotherly Love and Cheesy Sandwiches

So often when I travel, I never manage to get out beyond the conference room, the convention center or even the hotel.  But on my recent trip to Philly, I was determined.  I was going to see that big, big bell.  And although it doesn't look that large, brother it is HEAVY!  Not just with history and significance but also pure, unadulterated poundage.

Here's some stats

Cast: In 1751 by Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London

Composition:  70% copper, 25% tin, 2% lead, 1% zinc, .25% arsenic and .20% silver with trace amounts of gold, magnesium, nickel and antimony

Tone: E-flat

Circumference: around the lip (bottom) of the Bell is 12 feet and around the crown (top) is 7 feet 6 inches.

Length: from the lip to the crown 3 feet and the height over the crown measures 2 feet 3 inches.

Thickness: of the Liberty Bell at the lip is 3 inches and, at the crown, the thickness is 1.25 inches.

Clapper: measures 3 feet 2 inches and weighs 44.5 pounds.
 
Total Weight: 2,080 lbs.

Conclusion: The Liberty Bell weighs more than me

Want to read my Body Declaration of Independence?  Check out my latest post on Fat Chick Sings!

Stuff That Weighs More than Me: Above Ground Pool

While there are many sizes and forms of above ground pools, they are all fairly big.  Take the example above.  This bad boy is available on Amazon for about $1500.  In order to know the weight of the pool, we'll need to do a little bit of math.  (Don't worry, it's not too hard).

Size: Size: 24' Length x 12' Width x 52" Height.
Weight of empty pool: 464.7 lbs.
Water Capacity: 8,403 gallons
Weight of one gallon of water: 8.34 pounds
Weight of water in pool 70,081.02 pounds
-10% for displacement/splashing 7,008 pounds=63,073.02 lbs
Add empty pool weight= 63,537.72 pounds

Conclusion: Even without any swimmers or a single blown-up floaty toy, an above ground pool weighs more than me.

Want to hear more about getting ready for swimsuit season?  Click HERE.

Stuff That Weighs More than Me: Asteroids!

I had a friend say to me that she feels as big as an asteroid.  To which I responded, "That's not likely, in fact I'm going to do a little research."  Turns I was right.  Asteroids can range in size from a few meters across to hundreds of meters across.  Especially large asteroids are often referred to as planetoids.  Ceres (pictured above) is the largest known (and first discovered) asteroid.

Ceres is BIG.  Almost 1,000 kilometers in diameter (about the distance between Washington D.C. and Chicago).  The best thing about Ceres is that if you visited there, you'd weigh almost nothing at all!  Moi personally would weigh about 6 pounds on that august body.  Yay Ceres.  So here's the stats for Ceres, the largest asteroid:

Size:
Diameter: approximately 950 kilometers (equatorial diameter 974.6 +/- 3.6, polar diameter 909.4 +/- 3.2 kilometers) (about 1/13 or 7.5% of Earth)
Mass: 9.43 x 10^20 kilograms (0.016% of Earth)
Bulk density: 2.10 grams per cubic centimeter (less dense than rock, more dense than ice, WAY more dense than people...)

Conclusion: An asteroid weighs WAY more than me.
P.S. Want to learn about some other ROCK STARS?  Check out THIS POST on Fat Chick Sings.

Stuff That Weighs More than Me: The Race Car in the Art Gallery

Indianapolis Race Car on Display at the William Rolland Gallery at California Lutheran University.

It was somewhat surprising and also kind of cool to run into a Indy Race Car right in the middle of an Art Museum.  Then again, given the fact that the art museum is in itself part of a new sports complex at California Lutheran University, it's not so very surprising.

With William Roland at the Gallery opening.

I first saw this beauty at the grand opening of the William Rolland Gallery last weekend.  And the minute I saw it, I knew I had to have a photograph.  Why?  A) Because it is beautiful and B) Because the information card said it weighed more than me.   Here's the stats:

Length: Over 15 ft.
Width: About 6 ft.
Weight: Over 1500 lbs.

Conclusion: An Indy Race Car weighs more than me.

P.S. Want to learn about the race cars on my feet?  Click HERE!

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: Giant (Broken) Heart

The old walkthrough heart exhibit at the Science and Industry Museum

When I was a kid and my parents asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, did I suggest roller skating parties or pony rides or cakes with pink icing roses?  Nope!  I wanted to go to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  This was (and still is) one of the most awesome places on earth.  The museum was chock full of amazing interactive displays including a giant, plaster-of-paris heart complete with cavernous lub-dub sound effects and fabulous mood lighting.  I don't know exactly how big this bad boy was.  It certainly made an impression on me as a kid.  It was big enough to walk through.  And it was so big, that when they decided to upgrade the heart to a newer model, they couldn't remove it intact from the museum.  It was in fact broken into smaller pieces for removal (world's biggest broken heart?)  Some of the pieces were sent to some of the artists, designers and workers who built the original heart. (Yes, it was THAT awesome!)

The heart has been replaced by a brand spanking new interactive heart (world's largest heart transplant?) that features projected video simulations of the working of the heart and a handlebar that allows you to sync the beat of the giant heart with your own.  How awesome is that?  The new heart is LARGE.  I don't know exactly how much it weighs.  But it's over 13 ft. high and over 8 ft. wide and is made out of steel plate.  So I'm fairly confident in my conclusion:

The Giant Heart at the Science and Industry Museum weighs more than me.

Note: Interested in learning more about hearts?  Check out the latest post on Fat Chick Sings!

Stuff That Weighs More Than Me: World's Longest Lemonade Stand

So some kids in Michigan decided to make a lemonade stand to raise money for their school, and get into the world record book.  So they decided to make the world’s longest lemonade stand.  Each kid bought an individual stand that was about 4 ft. wide and 7ft. high.  And ultimately, they sold 350 of them.  Add that all together and you get nearly ¼ mile of lemonade stand!  (I hope you're thirsty!)

Okay, let’s do a little math to calculate the weight of this bad boy.  Each lemonade stand contained a sign 48” wide and 48” tall.  (That’s 16 square ft. of plywood)  The table top is 48” wide by 16” deep. (That’s about 5 square feet of plywood). 

*A common rule of thumb is a 4x8 foot sheet of 1/4" fir plywood weighs 25 pounds. There are 32 square feet in a sheet, so a square foot of 1/4" fir plywood weighs about 0.78 pounds.

This makes each stand approx. 15 lbs.  There were a total of 349 stands in the world’s longest lemonade stand.  So here’s the final stats:

Height: 7 ft

Length: 1400 ft.

Approximate weight per stand: 15 lbs.

Approximate weight of world’s longest lemonade stand 5,250 lbs. (excluding lemonade, stand attendant and decorations)

Conclusion: The world’s  longest lemonade stand weighs more than me.

Want to read about more people who are taking A STAND for kids?  Check out my latest post on Fat Chick Sings!

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: The Big Suit

Here's yet another of the wonderful sculptures at the St. Louis City Garden.  This behemoth by artist Erwin Wurm is simply titled, "Big Suit".  Despite it's soft, pastel colors, (and the fact there's no dude in the suit) this bad boy is heavy.  That's probably why aluminum never really caught as a textile for garments.  Here's the stats:

Material: Painted Aluminum
Dimensions: 300 x 130 x 73 cm (118 x 51 x 29 in) 
Height: Nearly 10 feet
Shirt Size 144 Long
Estimated Weight: 1 short ton

Conclusion: The Big Suit weighs more than me. 
Want to learn more about some serious tailoring?  Click HERE.

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: Santa's List

This is a late post-Christmas entry, but I'm going to use it anyways because A) New Years is all about lists and B) I had the research done before I got sick before the holidays and I'm basically to lazy to try to keep this until next year.

Now technically Santa could store all the naughty/nice data for the children of the world on a computer or even a freaking thumb drive both of which certainly weigh less than me.  But have you ever seen a picture of Santa sidling up to a laptop?  I didn't think so.  Nope, we all know that Santa's got a book--a BIG book.

Now the latest estimates indicate that Santa's got around 2.5 billion kids (under 18) to keep track of.  Now to estimate the weight of that giant book, lets take a phone book to a major metropolitan area as a guide.  A phone book for a decent-sized city might have 1 million names in it.   A phone book like that (which is printed very small--even for Santa's reader glasses and on very thin paper which is a far cry from the leather bound parchment paged thing we see in all the movies) weighs about 2.5 pounds.

So here comes the math:
1 Million names in  a 3" thick phone book weighs about 3 pounds.
2.5 billion= 2500 phone books
Santa's Book is 7500 inches or 625 feet thick
Santa's Book weighs at least 7500 lbs or 3.75 short tons


Conclusion: Santa's list weighs more than my list (thank goodness) AND weighs more than me.


Want to learn a little more about holiday (including New Year's) lists?  Check here!

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: The Tree At Rockerfeller Center

Photo Credit: ATTRIBUTION. © by James G. Howes, 1987.

2011 Tree Stats:
Type: Norway Spruce
Height: 74 ft.
Width: Approximately 35 ft.
Lights: 30,000 LED lights on five miles of wire
Swarovski Star on Top:  9.5 feet in diameter, weighs 550 pounds
Drinks: 90 gallons of water per day

Weight: The star and the water in the tree alone weigh 1301.5 pounds.  Lights will probably add another 3,000 pounds or so.  The tree itself weighs in at over 12 tons.  Estimated total weight 15 tons.

Conclusion: The 2011 Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center weighs more than me.

Want to look at a slightly more manageable tree?  Check out THIS post on managing holiday expectations.

Stuff that Weighs More Than Me: Really Big Bed Sculpture

In honor of trying to get more sleep during the holidays, I've been thinking about beds.  And this my friends is a BIG one.  This famous sculpture, entitled "In Bed" is by artist Ron Mueck.  And however big I may feel, I'm pretty sure I'm not as big as THIS lady:

Materials:  Polyester resin, fiberglass, polyurethane, horse hair and cotton

Width: 5.5 ft.

Length: Over 20 ft.

Weight: Unknown, but I'm guessing that  a 20 ft. tall woman weighs more than me.

Conclusion: This woman "In Bed" weighs more than me.

Want to hear more about my holiday exploits in bed?  Click here!

Stuff That Weighs More than Me: Shark Tank!

This past year, we spent one night at the Golden Nugget Hotel on Fremont Street in Las Vegas.  The hotel was fairly average for 21st century Las Vegas, except for one thing.  The Shark Tank.  This thing is huge!

Animal inhabitants: Over 300
Height: Over 3 Stories
Featuring: 3 story-tall enclosed tube water slide
Capacity: Over 200,000 gallons
Weight: 1.7 million pounds (excluding the glass and the critters)

Conclusion: The Tank at the Golden Nugget weighs more than me.

Want to learn more about the Shark Tank/Thanksgiving connection?  Check out my series on surviving the holidays at Fat Chick Sings!

Things That Weigh More Than Me: Super Fun, Tons of Buns!

 

While these bunnies may look soft and fluffy, they are anything but.  These colossal cuties (by Dutch artist Tom Claassen) are on display at the Citygarden in St. Louis.  I am pictured whispering into the ear of the taller of the two.   These bunnies are cast in bronze and then covered with white enamel paint.  So while they look marshmallows, these are some seriously heavy rabbits. 

Here’s the stats:

Material: Bronze

Dimensions: Bun 1—87”x61”x55”, Bun 2--63"x68"x45"

Weight: I don’t specific weight data, but at over 7 feet tall, I think we can safely calculate over a ton of buns!

Conclusion: Tom Claassen’s fluffy bunnies weight more than me.

P.S. There's lots more info on corpulent cottontails over at Fat Chick Sings.  Go check it out!

Stuff that Weighs More Than Me: Safe!

This safe door was built in St. Louis, then installed in a bank in the “Loop Building” in Chicago and then rescued from demolition, brought back to St. Louis and installed in the unbelievably awesome City Museum.  This used to be one of my regular haunts when we had our office on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis.  It is totally filled with stuff kids love and stuff that makes you feel like a kid again.  If you ever make it to St. Louis, first see the City Museum, then see the arch if you have time.  It’s that good.

And this is one honey of a door!  Here’s the stats:

Height: Over 10 feet

Width: Over 10 feet

Thickness: Over 2 feet

Weight: Over 3000 pounds

Conclusion: The “safe door” entrance to the vault room at City Museum weighs more than me.

Hint: If you’d like to hear more about being “safe” check out THIS new entry in The Fat Chick Sings.

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: World's Biggest Cupcake

Normally we think of a cupcake as something sweet and diminutive.  Even cute.  But not THIS bad boy.  Introducing the World's largest cupcake recently unveiled in Detroit, Michigan.  (Thanks Kat for sharing it on FB--at least virtually.)  Just take a gander at this recipe:
REALLY BIG CUPCAKE
serves a whole lot
200 lbs. sugar
200 lbs. flour
200 lbs. butter
800 eggs

Mix in a really, really big bowl and bake for over 12 hours or until giant toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool completely.  (This could take a while.)  Cover with a small mountain of custard and frosting.

Here's a few more stats:
Circumference: 11 ft.
Oven Door Size: 8ft. x 8ft.
Weight: 1,224 lbs.
Conclusion: The world's largest cupcake weighs more than me.  (It's probably a little sweeter than me, too!)

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: Elephant

Elephants are big.  REALLY big.  In current terms, they are the largest land animal.  I mean, these puppies weigh 200 - 250 lbs. when they're born!  And they can run pretty fast too.  (Good thing I got a head start!)  Here's the stats:

Height: Up to 13 ft.
Daily Food Intake: Hundreds of pounds
Daily Water Intake: About 50 gallons
Weight: Up to about 8 tons

Conclusion: An elephant weighs more than me.  However, I understand some of them can still do ballet: (Edna the Elephant).

P.S. I probably won't be seeing any elephants on my upcoming camping trip.  But I'll be sure to let you know what interesting critters I do see...

Stuff That Weighs More than Me: David

Well probably not the cheesy fiberglass replica pictured behind me.  (Which is out front of the Mad Greek Cafe in Baker, CA).  But the real deal, for sure!  The Michelangelo's David is one of the most copied statues of all time.  (The plaster cast version at the Victoria and Albert museum apparently has a detachable fig leaf that was created after Queen Vicky saw David's "endowment" for the first time.)  But the original is an unquestioned masterpiece, carved from a single piece of marble. 

Height: Over 17 ft.
Weight: Over 6 tons

Conclusion: Even after I ate a homemade strawberry shake at The Mad Greek Cafe, Michelangelo's David weighed more than me.

Stuff that Weighs More than Me: The Saguaro Cactus

The Saguaro Cactus is the largest cactus in the United States.  Despite great height and weight, the saguaro has a very shallow root system--only 4 to 6 inches deep.  The roots can extend out in a circle as far out from the center as the cactus is wide.  They are found mostly in Southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.

Stats: 

Height: Can grow to 40-60 ft. tall

Weight when fully hydrated: between 3200-4800 pounds

Conclusion: The Saguaro Cactus weighs more than me.

If you'd like to hear more about my life in the desert, click HERE to check out my latest post on The Fat Chick Sings.

Stuff that Weighs More Than Me: Fire Engine

The stats for fire engines are largely dependent on the type of fire truck.  There are 3 main types (who knew?).  The longest is the ladder truck.  The ladder is about 100 feet long and the truck itself can be 40 to 50 feet long.

The tanker holds the most water.  This truck is 30 feet long and can hold more than 1,000 gallons of water.

The pumper truck (pictured above) is the most common.  Typical stats include

Height: 6 ft and 11 inches

Width: 7 ft.

Length: 19 ft. and 4 inches

Weight: About 28,000 pounds

Conclusion: While I and a pumper truck are both good at putting out fires, a pumper truck weights more than me.

Want to hear more about putting out fires?  Check out my latest post on The Fat Chick Sings HERE.