boring

I will readily admit that this is probably the most boring blog ever. With almost monthly updates, there is no way it could not be boring. Now for those of you wishing for an update on my life, here it is:

The most exciting thing to happen recently was the finding of this article in my company health newsletter (the important parts are highlighted):


I think this is probably the best advice I’ve read in a very long time.

Other than that, Ma and Pa Pierce came down for a visit last month. It was great. One of our SD cards won’t let us pull the pictures off it so we can’t see any of them. Most of them are airplanes flying around in a big circle really fast and really low. It was awesome.

We also went camping which was a lot of fun. Our tents look like a Coleman advertisement. Unfortunately, there were no vicious animals stalking us unrelentingly this time which was pretty disappointing.

Anyway. Now you’re pretty much caught up. Melissa has agreed to give me ‘undisturbed visiting’ time, I haven’t had to see a doctor yet, and Ma and Pa had a great time on their visit.

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?

also

Also, Melissa made a cake.

science fairs

After receiving comments from all three people that read this blog, I have decided to change my name and move. Mostly because that would be easier than an update. Thank you for your time.

Okay, Melissa tells me that won’t work because I would have to clean up the house so we can sell it. I guess my aversion to housework means I have to write something here despite having surpassed my promised 8-day writing span. Technically, anything else I write is of additional scope not originally outlined in my contract.

It actually has been quite the eventful month as of late. Scout camp occupied most of two weeks of my time (including the week prior to the actual camp which was spent rushing around completing last minute chores). After large amounts great fun and only slight complaining about the food/sleeping arrangements/merit badges/dirt/squirrels/fresh mountain air my troop was able to walk away with just about every award they could give us. In fact, the only awards they didn’t give us were the ones for second place. We won everything else. Yay scouts.

After the very eventful week of August 11-16, Melissa and I, with a few friends, put our lives in peril on the infamous Subway Hike down in Zion National Park. This particular hike is a kaleidoscope of beautiful red rock traverses, glacial water swims, and terrifying leaps across what Melissa refers to as the “Chasms of Death.” It’s a lot of fun.

The beautiful redrock

The glacial swims

This one's fuzzy, but it's the Chasm of Death

Imagine I have a newspaper. Then try as hard as you can to forget that image.

Finally, the most recent adventure we have had the opportunity to enjoy was a very local middle school science fair. The kind of science fair where moldy bread is considered A-quality work and poster board is used to describe exactly how many times your brother licked the bread on paper plate #2 vs. paper plate #1. Except ‘very local’ means ‘in our basement’ and ‘moldy bread’ means ‘our basement’ and ‘how many times your brother licked the bread on paper plate #2’ means ‘how long the sprinkler water has been seeping into the wall through the main water line’. This was probably the best science fair I’ve ever been able to attend. In fact, this project (which was most likely the culmination of four months of toil) won first prize over entries such as ‘Clean the Living Room,’ ‘Put Away My High School Stuff,’ and ‘Go to Scouts.’

As of now, we think the project has come to an end with the introduction of two garbage cans, lots of bleach, and a fair amount of silicone. It is yet to be determined if lots of digging is in my near future and until we can be sure that next year’s entry will not be from this particular water source, we have yet to hang, mud, and paint new sheetrock.

On the plus side, besides winning first place, my snot factory nose has drastically reduced output.

Of course, Mom and Dad are coming into town and we don’t have any ginormous trees or a 46-ton shed…

cramps

A couple of days ago Melissa woke me up tossing and turning and screaming about ‘not wanting to go in there.’ I could only imagine that it had something to do with Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I wouldn’t want to go in there either. That’s probably the scariest place ever.

But that doesn’t really have anything at all to do with what I was going to write about except that Melissa was sleeping. Twice in the last month I have been very rudely awakened by an excruciating throbbing in my lower right leg as every muscle in my calf suddenly decides it wants to tighten into a teeny little ball of granite. After I get past the “my appendage feels like a shot-put landed on it after being hit by a car”* it’s really quite nice.

For one thing, at that exact instance of occurrence I am completely awake with no desire whatsoever to go back to sleep. If I could plan these torturous spasms to happen at the exact moment my alarm went off instead of 01:42, it would be perfect. Or I could start waking up at 01:42. I’m still working that out.

These paroxysms of agonizing pain (really a minor inconvenience, as it were) also give me the very rare opportunity to do a speed sit-up. In fact, I believe you would be hard pressed to find anyone that could do an unexpected sit-up from a completely prone position and without anyone holding their legs faster than I can. And it would be nigh impossible to find someone with my fantastic physic who possesses such talent. This is a great skill that I can only imagine will become very useful later in life.

Finally, I highly doubt that there exists anyone who is as adept as I am at letting out blood-curdling screams completely under their breath. This is also a skill that I believe will be very useful in life. For example, imagine you are walking down a dark trail in the middle of the woods and didn’t have a “freaking 12-gauge”** with you. Now imagine you happen to step on a sleeping wolverine that immediately starts to viciously tear apart your leg and then imagine you look around and see that there is a sleeping Tyrannosaurus Rex lying right next to the wolverine. At this point you would want to let out a blood-curdling scream completely under your breath so as to not wake the T-Rex; if the T-Rex were to awaken, you would end up like the goat in Jurassic Park.

This situation is more easily imagined if you have ever had one of these leg cramps and been camping recently with Melissa.

*ode to Charity
**ode to Napoleon Dynamite