[geeks] lawn mowing efficiency

[Bill Bradford]

As I sit here, covered in sweat from just finishing mowing the lawn,
I had some thoughts while mowing said lawn.

I do it with a normal cheapie $150 push mower from Wal-Mart.  The way
I was "taught" to mow lawns, with a eject-on-the-right-side mower, was
to do it in a spiral, or squared-spiral, counterclockwise so that you
never had to go over the grass you'd just mowed and ejected on the right-
hand side.  Like this (monospaced fonts ahead!)

|
|/-----\
||/---\|
||\---||
|\----/|
\------/

(you get the idea)

Till you end up in the middle (or darn near close to it) of a freshly mowed
lawn.  

I was wondering.. this is probably a math problem.. is there a more efficient
way (less walking distance) to mow the same area?  Which is longer, the "spiral"
way or the "rows way (see below)?

|
|/\/\/\|
||||||||
||||||||
||||||||
\/\/\/\/

Thoughts?  I do a lot of zen-like thinking wihle mowing the
lawn... 8-)

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford
mrbill at mrbill.net
Austin, TX