Motherfuckinyeah!

As a writer, one winds up researching unusual things. Y'all know this from experience.

For a poem I'm writing, I decided I needed to know how many tons of asphalt it takes to pave over various areas. (Unimportant note: in this poem, the paving is a good rather than bad thing, and the asphalt is doing a heroic job. I have these wonderful reassuring images of the weight of black mass, ready to be spread around.) So I poked around the interwebs and found some e-mail addresses of some guys who work for Vulcan Materials Company - the U.S.'s largest producer of construction aggregates. (Doesn't that sound impressive?) And they pointed me to this amazing calculator, so that I can estimate my little heart away, with the added knowledge (thanks to those helpful Vulcan guys) that by federal Superpave standards, traffic lanes must be a minimum of twelve feet wide, and asphalt must be a minimum six inches deep.

So I guess what I'm saying is:

(a) check out this calculator: it's fun for hours, and

(b) if you're thinking about paving something, my vote goes to the Vulcan guys - they answered a totally frivolous question quickly, accurately, and comprehensively. Fuck yeah!