Life is about timing.

-- Carl Lewis

Have you ever noticed how you can sometimes anticipate a stoplight turning from red to green?

More times than I can count, I've been sitting there looking at the glowing red bulb, and will say to myself "Now."

And the light will change.

I know I don't have any mysterious powers, it's just that some internal clock has silently counted the seconds in the light's timing pattern.

How do we do that?

Or this?

I almost never set an alarm clock. I just tell myself to wake up at a certain time. Invariably, that's when my eyes will open.

How does that happen?

And when did I learn it?

My teenager is apparently immune to wake-up calls. He is the only person I know who will not only sleep through the loudest alarm clock but has always slept through every alarm clock.

He can only be awakened by being physically shaken (or by someone tossing the little, white dog onto his bed.)

I keep telling him, he's going to have to learn to listen to his internal clock before leaving for college because the dog and I are staying home.

MAILBAG: Adele Sarracino , of Martinez, writes from Mount Rushmore that "the year's not over yet, and some of us are still on vacation." So far, Adele says, she's traveled 2,976 miles.

Speaking of travels, frequent travelers Sandra and Shirley Johnson send postcards from Philadelphia and Atlantic City.

And Pat Jackson , of Duluth, Minn., says she used to live in Augusta and still misses us (and working at The Chronicle .)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Scott Gay of Waynesboro asks: How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?"

TODAY'S JOKE: The detective was interviewing the man whose clothing shop had just been burglarized.

"It's bad," said the proprietor, "but it's not as bad as it could have been if he'd robbed me yesterday."

"Why is that?" the detective asked.

"Because today everything was on sale."

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bill.kirby@augustachronicle.com.