Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for May 30, 2010

Baldo should already know that is completely loopy.

Pappi is right. Wonder where Baldo got the money to buy all that lumber?

Calvin would have done this with snow.

The first ramp isn’t high enough too make through the first loop.

IAMTXMILADY Many plausible solutions:

Cartoon physics! Rocket powered skateboard 3> OK, I ran out of ideas. See 1.

“Consequences are the best teachers”, so let Baldo face his own consequences, Sergio! At least he’s wearing a helmet.

margeritem, Baldo probably sold the leftover helium from the tank Sergio used as a boy.

Lewreader and iamtxmilady, 3. On a skateboard, he can boost his own speed with his foot once he’s at the bottom of the ramp, so he doesn’t necessarily need to rely on the gravitic momentum provided by his first descent to take him through the whole track. (OK, if he’s got the leg strength to do it, that will be cartoon biology rather than physics, but still..)

What I wanna know myself is, since when has their driveway been 50 yards long?

“Experience is the best teacher” was proverbial before Franklin rephrased it to point out the cost. A Norwegian variant of the same is “Experience is the best teacher, but the tuition is high.”

Here are some other quotes:

“We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.” ~Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

“Life, not the parson, teaches conduct.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” ~Mark Twain

“Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses: We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the Author.” ~John Keats

“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.” ~Rita Mae Brown

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” ~Douglas Adams

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” ~C.S. Lewis

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” ~James Joyce

“If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.” ~John Maxwell

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.” ~Elbert Hubbard

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done, But, he with a chuckle replied That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried. So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin On his face. If he worried he hid it. He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that; At least no one has done it”; But he took off his coat and he took off his hat, And the first thing we knew he’d begun it. With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit, He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure; There are thousands to point out to you one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin, Just take off your coat and go to it; Just start to sing as you tackle the thing That “couldn’t be done,” and you’ll do it. ~Edgar Albert Guest

My old Hot Wheels track didn’t have that many loops.

Yes, I know, Joe. When people say “Experience is the best teacher”, they’re not misquoting Franklin (unless they actually attribute the saying to Franklin). They’re echoing a sentiment that had been proverbial for ages, and which Franklin tweaked for his own use. Franklin’s opinion of the COST of learning by experience says NOTHING about its effectiveness. He neither endorses nor denies the ancient wisdom, he merely points out that it comes with risk. That’s why I cited the Norwegian variant, “Experience is the best teacher, but the tuition is high” FIRST.

Nothing comes without cost. Bad experiences may be costly, but the lessons learned are learned DEEPLY.

Two children are told that touching the stove will hurt. One does not touch it, one does. The one with burnt fingers ends up with a far more profound understanding of stoves than the one who never risks getting hurt.

And anyway, why should Franklin’s bromide be the last word on the subject? It certainly wasn’t the first. Julius Caesar wrote ‘Experience is the teacher of all things”, Pliny the Elder wrote “Experience is the most efficient teacher of all things.” Tacitus simply wrote “Experience teaches.” You wrote that what Sergio said was a “revised version” of what Franklin wrote. It seems to be more clearly a “revised version” of the far older proverb, of which Franklin’s own was merely a “revised version”.

Again, “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” ~C.S. Lewis

I think Baldo has the looping course in the driveway in mind in the same way that Tia Carmen had traveling the world in mind while contemplating marriage.

♫ Imagination! Imagination! ♫

well you don’t have to shout; one could argue also (without shouting) that most costly (or dearest) is also the best experience because it’s the most costly (or dearest)

No new Baldo today?

“Cul de Sac” didn’t update today either, but Richard Thompson said it was a technical glitch and provided a link to today’s strip on his blog. The absence of “Baldo” might be related. Or it might not.

It happens from time to time, and if a Monday strip doesn’t appear later today, it might appear tomorrow (as well as a Tuesday strip, of course). Or it might not.

Perhaps Hector will pop in and give us a link to the strip elsewhere. Or he might not.

PS: To echo one of the first comments on this strip, if Baldo had to buy the lumber to make his track (as opposed to using scrap wood), then whether he succeeds or fails this experience is likely to be a costly one indeed…

He should have enlisted Gracie to calculate how much force he will need to be able to clear all the loops. As someone pointed out, there isn’t enough ramp at the beginning.

fritzoid, love that poem!