High Tech Red Neck;

Sam was on the phone to Travis. He had spent the last three days acquainting Ursula with the workings of a spray painter so she could exercise her interior decorating interests. The local Home Depot had marked the 't' at the end of the sign as stolen from 'Lowes,' and everyone in town seemed to agree that this was a pretty good sale; they had marked the sacred rite of passage of newlyweds by ritual purchase of furniture, with income derived from anticipated savings on rent. Her instructions were to use the paint matching feature at the store to get all the colors exactly like she wanted them, with rocking chairs, dinner chairs, walls, etc. color coordinated to her liking. When she was done she was to get vinyl cupboard linings and line all the China cabinets. Meanwhile he directed Travis to meet him at their regular watering hole.

Cassandra's had re-lined the parking lot when he pulled up. Travis took his time completing his report on Pork Belly prices since they met last. He was descriptive about letting Sam know just how much effort he had put into the substantial shared proceeds. Sam had listened patiently, and now it was his turn to report. "Travis. I got a mystery on my hands," he explained. "Melbourne's got this bee in his bonnet that an Upside-down cake comes out of the oven upside down down under." "A _Pineapple_ upside-down cake?" Travis verified. "Probably made with Hawaiian Pineapple," Sam rejoined.

They pondered this in silence for a long moment. Melbourne was trying to make SOME kind of joke, but what could be the point of this specific foolishness was not immediately evident. "How's he makin' you think he's _serious_ about it?" Travis asked reasonably. "Well, there's no bank and no bet." Sam replied. The seconds ticked away as Travis turned this imponderable over in his head. Sam relented and added, "He sent me an email with a long experiment to send the U5t research division," he qualified. "Answer came back was supposed to be either 180 degrees or 0, and it wasn't!"

Travis' laughter was merciless. "Well if the cake didn't move, and it didn't turn over either, what happened to it Sam? You eat it all already?" A passing waitress regarded a rarity without even knowing what she was looking at. Sam's color rose from neckline to hairline, slowly darkening from tan to reddish brown. It stopped short of purple and subsided. "The answer was some number of minutes and seconds per hours, minutes and seconds," he elaborated. From Travis' point of view this was fodder for more raucousness, and Sam endured the commentary with decreasing disgust as his opinion of Travis (and his intellect) fell. Travis' amusement fell away as Sam's embarrassment subsided. Travis was a computer nerd by day, and an Algebra professor by night. His own mercy finally took the form of the word 'superficially.' As Sam adjusted to reality, Travis adjusted to Melbourne's strategy.

The conversation took no shortcuts, but after considering the axis of rotation, the direction of travel and the speed of progress, it became evident that the only way for the cake NOT to turn over was to make some kind of parabolic trip either through low-orbit space, with a 360 degree flip, or a high-orbit trajectory that accounted for the revolutionary orbit of earth and related lunar computations. For this version, the cake was to remain attitudinally stable all the way. This was to be accomplished with the purpose of landing in Australia upside down without having rotated significantly otherwise. Neither of these experiments appeared to support the romantic ideal of a 15 degree per hour progress report. Sam blushed. "You mean the 'degrees, minutes and seconds' of the angle around the earth, and the 'hours, minutes and seconds' of the divisor are different; _distance_ and TIME?" Travis' laughter was better received this time, and they were reduced to giggles for a while. Travis spoke to bring matters to a head. "I wonder if his experiment was right, or if he just wanted to bamboozle you?" he asked Sam. Sam was honest with his friend. "These are _Not_ mutually exclusive Travis," he admitted ruefully.

All reports of Melbourne had been good, and the stories were more entertaining than anyone _else_ Sam had ever taken in, so he was neither angry nor mean when he asked, "How we gonna get him back?" "Well, I know this much. after all the stuff we talked about, leaving ONE cake sitting in ONE place for exactly 12 hours OUGHT to be a useful thing to make him measure." Sam opined. Travis chuckled and threw in another puzzle piece. "Tell him what I told a customer on a Tech support line one time," he smiled. "The Abercrombie and Fitch Stock Brokers have a killer position in textile futures, and a small investment -insert short notice here- would pay off HUGE for Andrea. Make him send it Western Union. They have a time difference too! Use that on him if you're mad." Sam was once again at ease. "I'll make him say he sent it from the West Coast to save time and fees," he agreed. He turned to more benevolent considerations. "You make out alright for Valentines?" he asked. "I only sent flowers to one girl," Travis shared, "but I got three buddies to go muddin' by the Austin City swamp, and get stuck." "Pull 'em out soon enough?" Sam regarded him sternly. "Oh yeah," Travis responded. "They owe me BIG time."

"Well," Sam concluded after a moment's contemplation, "This beer's bitter. You promised we'd get BORED." "Want to play Pool instead, Sam?" "Actually, that sounds about as good a way to get bored as any," Sam agreed. "Ursula ought to have gotten the bed-springs bucked out by the time I get back. I can't for the LIFE of me figure why I thought she was sweet on Melbourne over the phone." "Probably because you'd be sweet on Andrea over the phone if She came on to _you_," Travis philosophized, "...by the time you're good enough at flirting to get their attention, they want to jury-rig a communist monopoly on your affections, and charge interest for the privilege."

Sam preempted an old tirade with an old riposte. "You still haven't explained why Hitler wasn't a woman." "It's called POOL, not TALK and play POOL," was Travis retort.