mortality

As most of you probably already don’t know, I spent a lot of time in my pre- and early-teen years pondering my mortality. Not that I was at all suicidal, but I did think about the possibility of instantaneous death quite frequently and probably not for the reasons you may be able to come up with.

Sundays at my house were a special day. We wore special clothes, ate special meals, had special toys, and even read special books (it wasn’t until later that I realized the term ‘special’ was usually reserved for buses). It was one of these ‘special’ books that was the impetus for my somewhat morbid thoughts and, despite what you may be thinking, it wasn’t a spiritual book at all. It was a book about our universe, aptly named ‘Our Universe’.

Describing in great detail the scientific world’s theory of the big bang and progressing through the planets within our own solar system, the book illustrates such marvels as black holes, asteroid fields, and Jupiter. It also describes the life-cycle of stars, which is really fascinating until you realize our Sun is one of said stars.

This book could have just as easily been named Why a Huge Ball of Burning Gas Will Eventually Go Supernova, Engulf the Earth, and Vaporize You.

You can see how an 11-year old would be very worried about this. Especially considering that I skimmed a lot and don’t remember reading anything about a time frame for the Sun’s inevitable explosion-implosion. Also, the book was published in 1980 (before science existed) so it may very well have ended with 'and we’ll never know when... but it could be tomorrow'.

When faced with an inescapable stellar explosion, it’s fairly easy to accept your mortality. That may be why I work for a company actively designing systems to flee the surly bonds of Earth.

Does it feel warm in here?

toenail clippings

Well, well, well…here goes nothing. Time to clip my toenails on the kitchen table.

I figure that’s a better way to start than the standard, “Everybody is blogging so now I am too because, for whatever reason, I think that everything I say is important enough that the whole world should know what I think.” I’m pretty sure that really is the premise behind a blog and now Melissa and I have fallen into the same trap. Don’t worry, it’ll probably be something we do for 8.435 days and then give up. That will also save all of you a lot of time because you won’t have get to read this anymore.

I don’t think it’s fair to start blogging retroactively – if we wanted to write about stuff that already happened we should have done so already. Obviously, we didn’t care enough to do that which means we have to start with the here and now. That means we have to start with activities tonight. I’m the Scoutmaster over about 9, 12-13 yr old boys. I say about because sometimes there are more than others and most of the time at least one doesn’t really count as a whole kid. Melissa volunteers with the 12-13 yr old young women. The Scouts do way cooler stuff.

Tonight we’re going to the pool to pass off some requirements for the swimming merit badge and to show everyone how many Twinkies I’ve eaten in the past 7 years. I’m really looking forward to it. Melissa is doing a poster for their bulletin board. That sounds like even more fun.

Anyway. I think that’s a pretty good start.

Also, clipping your toenails on the kitchen table is disgusting. According to Melissa.