A weakness

All my life I've been taught you should make your weaknesses your strengths. No one ever told me how to do that though. I guess it's supposed to be one of those things you learn as you go through life. I'll let you in on a secret I discovered though. There are two ways to make weaknesses strengths. You could actually work on overcoming them and all that stuff, OR you can find a way to make your weaknesses look like strengths. That's the goal of this post. I've found recently I have a new weakness. I can't make what I do sound exciting, so either I need to think of a new way to describe my work/research, or I need to convince everyone out there that science, when described in a monotone, unexcited voice, with long drawn out details, is really cool!!! Please use a tone of voice for that last sentence that merits the three exclamation marks. You can use your really excited voice, your awestruck voice mixed with wonder and amazement, or you can use your cool voice, with undertones of rocking out.

Monotone science explanations are now cool. They're the new black (I don't know enough about fashion to actually know if that means something).

So let's look at the different parts of how I explain what I do. First off, I use a monotone voice. 'Mono' means one, and 'tone' is some how related to pitch or something like that. But what people don't realize is that there's a third thing to look at with this word. It has the word 'mon' in it, which is a cool Jamaican way of saying man. So what using a monotone voice means is that I only use a cool manly pitch when describing my work. That's good. It's kind of like listening to Arnold talk as the Terminator. Cool and manly.

There's no need for a caption here, but, since I'm one to belabor the point, let me again point out, science rocks. The more details the better, and if it's told in a sweet melodious monotone voice, even better!

And as for science itself, Webster's online dictionary uses these words, among others, to define science (note that the order of the words may have been rearranged to enhance readability): "Science: Something obtained through a physical sport." So that means talking science is normal, like talking sports. In fact, it's manly for guys, and cool for girls, just like talking sports, otherwise Webster wouldn't have put those words somewhere in the definition.

And let's not forget the old saying, "the devil is in the details". So going into the long drawn out details is like letting your rebellious nature come out. And everyone likes a rebel. So, as you can see, my descriptions of my work really are pretty awesome. Check that off for another weakness turned into a strength.

Foraging, the new manly

So, back in the old days, it was manly to be a hunter, and not so manly to forage around and gather berries and such. I mean, think about it. What could be more manly than taking a sharpened stick and tracking down viscous wild boar? Certainly not frolicking through the forest with a basket looking for raspberries while humming sweet little melodies to yourself. But now with today's modern grocery stores, things have changed. It is now more manly to forage than to hunt. How do I know that? Well, because I forage at stores, therefore, it obviously must be more manly.

Gathering and foraging in the old days was not very manly. The fuchsia border is supposed to help you understand that. Fuchsia is not a manly color. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

People who hunt in stores know exactly what they want. They have items in mind and they track them down. Us foragers are much more care free. We have no idea what we want, nor where it will be found, we just wander aimlessly, picking things here and there as they catch our eye. Usually large sale tags catch our eyes, but sometimes the random things like cherry flavored carrots just nag at your curiosity until you slip them into your cart. Some may claim that we just don't have a plan, but that's not true. Our plan is just so good, that it doesn't need to be thought about before hand. It just kind of happens.

A picture of today's modern forager. Tough, manly, and cool. There's nothing sissy or weak about this.

So here's the moral to the story: It's now manly to be a forager, however, it is still not manly to hum sweet little melodies to yourself.

Also, I've been forgetting to do this mention this, but my roommate started up a roommate blog where we each put a quote on it, and people vote through the week on which one they think we should put on our fridge. So far, in the two weeks it's been going, I've won once. Yeah, I know. That's good. Sadly things aren't looking so hot for week three, but I'll still be one for three...that's not bad. Feel free to check it out: http://fridgeforthought.blogspot.com/. I'm not allowed to tell people which quote is mine, but if you're really my friend, you should know, and should vote for it.

A visit from the sister...!!!

So my sister came and visited me two weeks ago. It made me realize a couple of things, mainly that I don't know how to punctuate to show horror. For trailing off and sarcasm, I often use "...", for confusion I use "!?!??!", surprise "!!!", and such. What do you use for that horror tone of voice, accompanied by creepy music? I hope ...??? did it, because that's what I'm going for in the title.

Here's a picture of my sister and me. If you are thinking the letters on my side seem so much cooler than the letters on my sister's side, that's probably just the letters reflecting my much higher level of coolness. If you think the letters on my sister's side seem cooler, that means the hours and weeks I just spent playing with word art were wasted on you.

So the week with my sister here was pretty good. She's been in Japan of the last year and a half, thus the picture of us eating sushi (before that, she wasn't a seafood fan, like most in my family). Despite her long time in Japan, I was still able to finish my meal before her using chopsticks. She will claim it's because she was full and couldn't eat anymore, but that's like the slow kid who quit the race and said he felt like he had run far enough. Incidentally that kid would then go on to drop out of school. He would quit jobs on and off for the next 15 years until people would stop hiring him. Then he would join the foreign legion but quit that shortly after joining. They wouldn't take his desertion very well though, and eventually they would find him and put him into a prison camp for the rest of his life, where he would die hungry and alone. Just an interesting little story I heard once.

I should have realized a younger sister's visit could be as dangerous as a nuclear explosion. Despite the fact that I've always done those good older brother things (You know, protecting her from bullies, helping her with homework, picking her up when she fell), I fear she may have spread rumors while she was up here, and for all I know is now spreading rumors to the rest of my family. I think she gets this from my older brother, who loves to spread all sorts of rumors. It took me a while to realize why my mom seemed very concerned for me when I first moved to Michigan. It turns out my brother was having a blast spreading rumors to her that I was depressed...

So yeah, sister came, we did fun things, and I of course was a good older brother, meaning I'm sure I was very encouraging of everything she did, and I showed great restraint and didn't tease her in the slightest. Yup, I showed great restraint...only letting a few things here and there possibly slip out...but very small, modest teasings...nothing too big. Well, for the most part.

I'm not dead

Well...blogging hasn't been happening much lately, but don't worry, I'm not dead. At least I don't think I am. I don't have any of the symptoms (lack of breathing, no pulse, cold skin, inability to move, etc.) Each week that I haven't posted, I have at least started entries. One I didn't finish, then the other I didn't like so I spared you...not to mention I didn't finish it either. Things have been busy, though not too stressful...I think. Sometimes it's hard to tell busy and stressful apart. They're like friends that hang out around each other too long so they start acting like each other and almost seem the same.

Well, this was a convenient find. I was getting ready to go through the grueling task of editing a picture of a tombstone to say what I wanted. I was unhappy about the time it was going to take, and grumbling quite angrily to myself, when I stumbled on this site that puts the text in for you. It's a blogging miracle!

This blog post is going to be short. The main idea is to get something up so that rumors don't spread about me being either dead, or having fled the country for some criminal act. Don't worry though, I'll make up for it with a teaser for the next blog post.

Doesn't this raise the anticipation for the next blog post? Is it going to be funny, or serious...or scary (given the title, scary is probably a good guess)? Are you so excited, you won't be able to eat nor sleep until it comes? In case that's true, I'll try and get it up this week...so hang in there.

Written Sunday, posted Tuesday...why is that? Read to find out!

Sometimes I've sat in class and thought: If society collapsed tomorrow, none of this would help me. Who cares about thermodynamics when the human race is on the brink of extinction? What I would really need would be survival skills. Or at least some useful skills that would make a tribe leader think I was important enough to keep around and feed. Needless to say, these kind of thoughts made many of my chemical engineering classes seem pointless. Now I've veered away from chemical engineering and my studyies are more focused on steel. Now that's useful. If I could make steel, everyone would think I was useful, they would definitely keep me around and not abandon me in the terrible wastelands that would be left after society collapses. This has been a big motivator to work hard in my classes and studies now. The only problem is, no one has actually taught me how to make steel in the real world. I may need to do some outside research...I mean, do I just find some red rocks and throw them in a fire, and out comes iron? I don't think so. But I don't know.

Here it is. This picture single handedly delayed this post from going up until today. The entire post was written, and the other picture was done on Sunday, but I couldn't decide what to do for this first picture. I searched online for images of ruined wastelands...but a rare fit of guilt at randomly stealing other people's pictures for my own puroposes, no matter how great and noble those purposes might be, suddenly kicked in. I have shamelessly stolen bits and pieces of other people's pictures (and sometimes the whole thing) numerous times. I'm not sure what happened. But it did, and I had to create my own ruined wasteland. So I searched through my pictures, found this one, edited it, and put it up. I guess I'll put the original below so you can see some of the wonderful ways paint can edit pictures (though technically the color changing was done in some other program that is on my computer). But the point is, this is what the world could look like tomorrow. Are your classes preparing you for it?

Speaking of classes, school's going pretty well for me, despite great obstacles and opposition. And by that I mean I'm doing fine, but you always hear those stories of people overcoming great odds to do something. That makes me feel like I should be doing something more, since I don't really have any huge setbacks (When I was young, I once went on a shopping trip with my mom and sisters that lasted for many, many hours. That nearly killed me...but I feel like it's just not quite the same as some of the obstacles other people overcome). So rather than work harder and do more, I decided I would invent difficulties in my life, so my meager accomplishments would look like huge triumphs of the human spirit. Maybe someday I'll go into more detail about these huge obstacles I face on a daily bases. You know, the type of obstacles that would make a lesser man give up and surrender to the bleak realities of a stark and cold future that surely awaits him. But for today I thought I would just go on vaguely about what's going on in my life for the people that care (I know you're out there...at least one or two of you...if all else fails, I'll call my mom and make her read this. She has to pretend to care.)

This is what I claim my life to be like. Well..understanding that the lightning, pit of vipers, torrential downpour, and deadly briar patch are symbolic for the many grueling hardships that I face on my journey. Don't worry though, as hard as my life might be, I continue pushing on and making meager accomplishments, despite the metaphorical (and possibly literal) pits of vipers that I must face.

This weeks been pretty good. I learned some interesting things. One, playing a mobster card game (Family business) the night before Valentine's day, makes for a different sort of Valentine's day. I don't think I've ever been wished "happy Valentine's day...massacre!" so many times before. Nor have I ever seen so many red and pink cards with veiled...or not so veiled...threats on them. Secondly, I've learned...well...actually, that may be it. I try not to overload my weeks with too much learning. In other news, my younger sister got back from Japan this last week, after having been there for a year and a half. It's exciting to have her back...but lest you think I'm actually a good older brother, I should probably point out, this sister has always been pretty easy to tease...and teasing by email just isn't quite the same. While she's been gone, I've had to up the teasing on all other sisters quite a bit to make up for her absence.

If I had a million dollars...or more!

You know the song "If I had a million dollars"? I've been thinking seriously about that lately (as seriously as I think about anything in life). What if I did have a million dollars? Probably, I wouldn't buy you a house, like the song says. Sorry. I don't know how many people read this, but if I bought each one of you a house, I'd lose my million dollars pretty quickly. Maybe I'd buy you a hat or something. This got me thinking though. What if I had a billion dollars? Then maybe I would buy you a house. But just one, for all of you. You'd have to work out amongst yourselves how you were going to share it. But what else would I do with the left over money? There's all sorts of things I could do with a billion dollars. I made a pretty good sized list of what I would do with a billion dollars, here's some examples.

1. Eat at a buffet everyday.
57. Get it all changed into coins, and store it in a money bin that was roughly the size of a large sky scraper.
91. Buy an island and make my own country (I'm not sure how that works, but if I had a billion dollars, I could pay someone to find out).

I could do all sorts of things with a billion dollars. I could buy servants, friends, and much, much, more! Yup, owning a billion dollars would be the best...or would it?

This should be roughly a million dollars. Not that I counted. When you have this much money, you pay someone else to count your money. But you need to watch them to make sure they don't steal any. Not that you watch them though. When you have this much money, you pay someone to watch the guy you paid to count your money. You may even want the second guy watched too. Just in case.

What if I ruled the world? Now that would be something. I'd be a benevolent ruler...at first. Then power would definitely corrupt me. You know the drill, I'd probably throw my sons in prison (this assumes in the future I have sons) because I'd be worried they would try and take my throne (solid gold by the way, very ornate, lots of precious stones, and plenty of platinum and silver worked into it in nice little spiral designs). Towards the end, I wouldn't want to die, so I'd start forcing all the scientists in the world to find a way to make me live forever. Then I would get angry when they told me it wasn't possible, and I would make a decree that as soon as I died, the world would end. I'd have some sort of switch hooked up so that when my life ended, nuclear warheads would go off in the center of the earth or something. That would encourage the scientists to work harder. Then, as I got older and there was still no hope of not dying, people would start coming out to save the world. You know, like Harrison Ford, Will Smith, and other world saving people that we see in the movies. I would win though, because I've seen the movies, and because I rule the world and have many billions of dollars by this point. By the end though, I would realize the errors of my ways, and not want to destroy the world. On my death bed, I would tell my advisor (who would not be the typical evil advisor trying to supplant me) the code to disarm the bombs. Unfortunately, my change of heart may not come quickly enough. As I finish telling him, and he runs to the control panel to type it in, I would probably pass away. Would the world be saved? Who knows. The only way we're going to find out is to make me the ruler of the world and see how it plays out. So next time we get together to decide who should rule to world, pick me, and we'll solve this mystery.

Orange juice isn't sleep, and other disappointing realities

This past week I've had the great blessing to be able to work overnight shifts in the lab. Please note the usage of the phrase "great blessing". It's meant to cause jealousy in others who didn't get this same opportunity, while at the same time hide the fact that I may or may not have been really excited to do this. So it turns out, not getting enough sleep can make you feel sick. But drinking orange juice can help stop you from getting sick. To me, it seemed obvious that this means that orange juice can replace sleep. Not so. Despite drinking a fair amount of orange juice the first night, I still felt pretty groggy towards the end, and somewhat sickish, until I got a pretty serious nap in. So it turns out, orange juice is not a good substitute for sleep. Don't trust me on this though, feel free to test this out yourself. I know I was shocked to learn this.



Orange juice, it supposedly does the body good. But apparently it's not a sleep substitute...very disappointing...see if I ever drink it again.

Did you know socks don't last forever? It's sad, but true. It seems like they should, I mean, it's not like you grow out of socks, they're not quite one size fits all, but they're close enough. But it turns out, socks wear out. Just one of those cold, dark realities of life. I've been faced by this recently, when I started realizing more and more of my socks had holes in them. I would put my socks on in the morning, note that one had a hole in it, and make a mental note to throw it away later (it was too late to throw it away at this point, obviously. I was already wearing it). Sometimes I remembered, more often than not I forgot. Eventually it seemed to always happen, and I had to go and buy new socks. Sad, but true. Don't worry though, Kroger carries socks, very high quality brands I'm sure. While I've accepted the fact they don't last forever, I'm hoping to at least get 25 years out of them.

I realized that a lot times I put the pictures before the paragraph they pertain to. I like to think it builds up suspense for the next paragraph. What could the last disappointing reality be? Is it about the chicken? Maybe the playing cards. Probably not the very tough looking hand, that obviously belongs to a very tough man...probably,,,

And the last disappointing reality that we must face in life from time to time is that forks can't cut everything. I'm not much of a knife user, I definitely prefer just to use the side of the fork to cut off whatever I want. And it works most of the time. Sometimes though, you have to break down and actually use a knife. I guess that's why it was invented...people eventually realized that forks just couldn't cut through everything. Secretly I'm not sure if it's socially acceptable to cut food with your fork, or if you're always supposed to use the knife. I like to think it is...if it isn't, don't tell me. Ignorance is, in reality, bliss. Ignorance will never be on my disappointing realities list.