Friday, February 26, 2010

Speed

The lights flash, three yellow and then a green all separated by five tenths of a second. As soon as the last yellow light flashes you want to launch because five tenths of a second seconds is the time that it takes your brain to react to change and process the information. You end up leaving when the green light turns on and not leaving to late. You feel that felling that pushes you into your seat and makes it hard to lift your head. Next you are on your way down the drag strip and feeling the best thing in the world. Later you let your car slow down from the effects of what just happened, and pull to the little building after you turn off the strip and pick up a slip that shows your accomplishments. In the end you look down at the pale slip of paper and see what all your hard work has been for, speed. The word speed evokes many feelings and thoughts. There is no other thing like it.
Speed. Saying the word is even fast and simple. One syllable, five letters, and all speed. When the word is said it usually comes out quickly and there is no pause or lag. One word like that can be used to describe many things. Cars, people, technology, and actions all look to have the speed in their history or future.
Dictionary .com defines speed as move fast: rush. Speed implies moving fast or doing something quickly. Dictionary.com also defines efficient as performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time, the way that it is defined is just what the word speed also means. There is no way you can have efficiency with out speed. Getting things done and with out waste is important to society and is one of the core values. To go, move, or proceed quickly, is how thefreedictionary.com defines speed as a verb.
A good way to feel the word speed is to visit a mail distribution center. As soon as you walk in you can tell that speed is a big emphasis on how things are done. Everything is going fast and flying past you in a blur. You can clearly see speed as the white streaks that are letters zoom by like fighter jets doing an air show. An even better way is by being in or driving a fast car. By driving a fast vehicle you can experience speed in a way like no other. You can look at a car and just tell its fast by the way it looks, the lines that the engineers have put into the body of the car, or it could be the sound of a car as it flies by you on the street. When you get in the car and start to feel it accelerate, and the torque push you into the seat. It all adds up to the felling of speed. The best way to see speed is the way that it has changed the place that we live in. take a look back in time and see how slow everything used to be, maybe you had a fast horse, a fast mind, or could run quickly. Back in the older day things were way slower and now everything has to be fast. For example look at all our technology; it just keeps getting faster and faster. People are living in a fast pace or sped up lifestyle. How about when you’re driving and there is one guy that is not doing the speed limit; what happens? You get mad or people start to complain that he is going slow and not speeding up.
The old fable the tortoise and the hare shows that the race is not always won by the speediest, but in etymology speed is directly connected to success. Dictionary.com tells us that The Old English word spēd, from which our word speed is descended, originally meant "prosperity, successful outcome, ability, or quickness." A corresponding verb, spēdan, in Modern English the verb speed, meant "to succeed, prosper, or achieve a goal"; and an adjective, spēdig, the ancestor of our word speedy, meant "wealthy, powerful." Except for archaic uses the words today relate only to the general sense of "velocity."
Speed is always going to be ingrained into my life. Initially it was about riding a bike as fast as I could around the block and trying to beat all my friends. Then as I got older and had the opportunity to buy a vehicle I was thinking about speed. It was in my mind as I looked for a car, I was looking for something that I knew that would go fast, so I ended up getting my Mustang. After a little while it was not fast enough for my taste so I was looking for more speed, so I started to add parts that would make it go quicker. Now every time that I drive my car I have the chance to feel that grate felling that is speed. So now that you have read this, go hop in a race car, find a big hill and ride a bike down it, or ride a fast rollercoaster so that you too can feel the intenseness of the word speed.

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