April 14, 2014.

The trip up the ICW can be boring at times but it is a good time to make observations, contemplate life, that sort of thing.

North Carolina gave us no depth issues and would have been quite relaxing if not for the flies. They're not nasty, biting flies....just annoying, land on you and walk around flies. They were slow enough that you could kill them with your bare hand but the fly swatter made it simpler. And when my wife wielded the fly swatter I noticed something new about her.

You see, when I swat a fly I make it a sporting event. I snap the fly swatter and the end of the stroke to just hit the fly hard enough to kill him while trying not to hit whatever surface he was sitting on. If hes on a chair I try to kill him without “smacking” the surface of the chair. He could be on a plant and I try to whack him without any damage to the plant. Its kinda fun and sometimes even I'm impressed with my ninja like swatting skills.

On the other hand Christy uses a more old school, full swing, complete rage swat. BAM!! Dead. So I sat quietly and observed the complete annihilation of several flies and came to a conclusion. The BAM sound isn't the sound of the swatter impacting the flies chosen landing zone. The fly swatters head is moving at the speed of sound as she swings for the kill. The noise is actually a sonic boom as the swatters head breaks the sound barrier.

Of course this led to the observation that the swatter wasn't actually killing the flies, its the shock wave that reaches the fly just before the contact of the swatter. The concussive force of the shock wave hit the flies with such force that their insides are turned to jelly, instantly killing them. The swatter then strikes the already dead fly exploding his body into a gooey pile of “used to be a fly”.

Its amazing what you notice when you have the time to sit back and watch.