II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second -- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional Reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional Reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" Reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them -- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance -- this would heat up the Reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of Reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the Reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire Reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

------------------
Mike Pipes
Digital Illusion Custom Graphics
Lake Havasu City, AZ
http://www.stickerpimp.com

*********************************************
To:All Santa Helpers
From: The Head Jolly Guy
RE: Mike Pipes

FOR IMEDIATE RELEASE!!!!

Please take the name "Mike Pipes" and remove it from the "NICE" list and place it on the
"VERY NAUGHTY" list. This name shall remain
on this list until further notice.....

Signed
Santa B. Clause
********************************************

Sorry Mike, but ya did it to yourself.....
hehehehehe

BTW, I do "Help Santa" every year. I do about 15-20 corporate and private residence vists each year. I don't have a set fee, won't even give them a hint, they pay what is in their hearts. All the monies go to a local charity. Last year I was able to donate over $800.00 in toys to our local "Toys-for-Tots" program. This year is looking evan better!!!!!!!!
I have only missed one year, the year I had my total knee replacement in Nov. and believe it or not, my grouchy dad filled in for me, if you knew my dad you wouldn't believe him dressed up in a santa suite.
------------------
Troy Haas
"Metal_Leg" on mIRC

SAM Signs
& RPM Auto Graphix
812-437-5367
Evansville,Indiana

"Chaos, panic, disorder - my work here is done."

------------------
"A wise man concerns himself with the truth, not with what people believe." - Aristotle

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson)

Cam
Finest Kind Signs
256 S. Broad St.
Pawcatuck, Ct. 06379
"Award winning Signs since 1988"

------------------
HotLines Joey Madden
Pinstriper and designer of the Inflite'
See it go to work http://www.killerkoncepts.com
learning capabilities http://www.members.tripod.com/Inflite
Merry Christmas http://members.tripod.com/Inflite/killerkart

=)

I've seen em both.. =)

Hey ppl, I didnt make the joke up, I just relayed it. =) It's one of those old ones that's been floatin around for a long time.. kinda like the Elf Shuffleboard game. =)