Finding the Blog

Many of you may have noticed my blog has been missing as of late. No, it's not that I haven't been updating it, it's that the blog has been missing so I've been unable to update it. For those who don't understand and view blogs as merely an internet site that cannot possibly go missing, I say "Phhh, you don't understand. You could never understand." My blog was missing, and this post is of the journey I undertook to recover it.

Here is a map to help you follow this great journey I recently undertook.

I left home and headed in the direction I could sense to be the right one. I first approached the cruel, fearsome mountains of inevitable suffering. As I drew closer, I slowly began to develop a subtle sense of dread. I noticed it as I passed an old wooden fence. At the end of the fence, sat a lone crow, the harbinger of doom, cawing at odd intervals. Shortly thereafter, as I entered the woods at the base of the mountains, I saw the venomous black widow, harbinger of sorrow. Further along, after my path was crossed by a cat as black as midnight, the harbinger of bad luck, I came to a small river. Flashing in the sunlight as it jumped, I saw a rainbow trout, the harbinger of good fortune. It was snatched out of the air by a great horned owl, the harbinger of metaphorical disaster. It killed the small fish in it's cruel claws and devoured it until it was no more. I decided that my feelings of misgiving were probably all in my head, so I continued onward. If only there had been some sort of sign to tell me how hard this journey would be, I may have never attempted it. Anyways, to make a long story vaguely shorter, I crossed the cruel, fearsome mountains of inevitable suffering with great difficulty, overcoming many trials and hardships. I was on the brink of death more times than I can count (approximately ten, as I tend to struggle with numbers having more than one digit).

Next up on the journey was the uncrossable burning lake of freezing death. This lake is famous for burning with a heat intense enough to burn you to your very soul, while the the water itself is so cold that the average man or woman will freeze to death at just the thought of it. The lake does a fair job of defying logic and passage across it. It wasn't easy, but I was able to swim across it by skimming the surface at the interface between the awful heat and the frigid cold. It also helped that I am, by nature, a fair amount tougher than the average man or woman.


Finally, I arrived at the location of my blog, the cave of horrible trials and great rewards. It was indeed horrible, but I made it through, at last arriving at the room of hidden wonders. There I found my blog, resting between treasures of equal value, such as the fountain of youth and world peace. Not wanting to be taken as greedy, I only took my blog and left (well, I did technically take a sip of the potion of manliness, guaranteed to make you the most manly guy on earth. I was not surprised to note that I remained unchanged after drinking from the potion.)


I decided to try an alternate route home. It was getting late, and I was somewhat anxious to get my blog home. This route was similar to the first, only instead of uncrossable burning lakes of freezing death and cruel, fearsome mountains of inevitable suffering, I crossed over meadows of wildflowers. This route was slightly longer, but in the end proved to be significantly faster.

The McMurtrey family curse

Having visited family recently, the ominous McMurtrey family curse was made fresh in my mind. It's not something we talk about, and rarely to those outside the family. But, I decided, if you're really to get to know someone, you should know about any family curses. And what better way to reveal family curses than on a blog?

We do our best to act like a normal, happy family. But there is constantly a dark cloud hovering closely around, never far from our minds...the McMurtrey family curse.

I'm not completely sure when the curse started, so the parts of the following story that I don't know, I'll exercise a bit of artistic liberty to help the story flow. Here's the mostly true story of the origin of the McMurtrey family curse: Sean McMurtrey, my great great great grandfather, lived in a small fishing village of the coast of beautiful Ireland. He was known for being a handsome, strong, extremely manly, intelligent, tough, rugged man, traits that had always seemed to run in his family, and would for generations to come. Often, as the sun peaked over the Emerald Isle, Sean would take his young son fishing. He enjoyed these times, reeling in fish after fish with his son. He would continue to enjoy them, until the day the the family was cursed forever.

This is that fearsome place where the McMurtrey family was placed under a curse. I stress that this is definitely the place, and not just the first picture that came up on a google image search for Ireland.

On that fateful day, long remembered by his descendants, Sean took his son fishing early in the morning. As the cool breeze blew across the shimmering lake, Sean thought: "Today will be a wonderful day." He couldn't have been more wrong. Not long after he cast in his line, Sean felt a fish nibble on the bait. At that same moment, an old woman came up behind him begging for alms. "Wait jest a moment, I think I've got one!" The woman only begged more loudly, crying and sounding miserable. Sean feared she would scare away the fish. "Can ya not see that I'm busy? Isn't there somewhere else ya could be beggin'?" He said. He ignored the woman after that, staring intently at his line in the water. Suddenly a clap of thunder was heard, coming out of the beautiful blue sky. Birds in the forest took flight, and a horrible screeching sound came from the forest. Sean turned to see the old woman, skinny arms clawing strange signs into the air, hair blowing wildly, though there was no wind. "For caring more about fishing than the good of those that ask your help, I curse you and all of your descendants. Never again, when you go fishing with your son, will luck be with you." She cackled horribly and then vanished, leaving only the stench of burnt hair in the air. From that time forward, McMurtrey's have never been able to catch more than one scrawny fish in any father and son fishing trip. I have many memories of fishing as a family when I was a kid...but few memories of ever catching anything. I was recently reminded this, as my dad wanted to go fishing when I was home. To ensure success, he decided we would get a professional fishermen to show us the best places to fish. For trying to go around the McMurtrey family curse, my father was rewarded with a large thunderstorm the morning of, and a cancellation of the fishing trip.

Vacation

Well, I'm on vacation, so I thought I'd take a vacation from my random posts, and actually post about what I've been up to. Plus I have just a little bit of time, as I accidentally got myself out of the game I was playing with my family, so I have to wait for them to finish so I can jump in on the next one. My vacation can probably be summed up by Friday's experience. I woke up from my afternoon nap on the couch at 4:00, saw my dad walking through the room, and asked "So what's planned for the rest of the day?". He thought about it for a second, and replied "Nothing." Beautiful, I thought. This is what vacationing is all about.

Other than taking it easy and playing games with the family, seems like we've been spending a good amount of time in either a lake or a pool. I haven't done a lot of swimming in these last few years, so that's been a bit rough...especially playing sharks and minnows. I've played a different version with some friends before, but the way we play it in my family is basically like tag where you can't be tagged while you're underwater. This means the "shark" has to trap people while they're underwater and force them to surface before tagging them. And that means the game is pretty closely related to drowning. Next year I'll have to practice up on my swimming...and drowning...skills before visiting home. Anyways, I'll be out here at my parents house in Texas until Wednesday, and then back to the joys of work and such...

Early mornings stifle creativity?

So, originally I wasn't actually going to put up a new post this week. I just haven't been able to think of anything to write about. I admit, I didn't exactly "try hard", but let's be serious, you're not supposed to have to try hard to come up with a blogging topic. Usually if I have to really search for a topic, I end up writing just to write something, and it's feels forced and not so good. As I was trying to figure out why I couldn't seem to come up with anything, I realized it's because early mornings kill creativity. Here, I made a chart to make sure it's clear.


Bottom axis is supposed to be wake up time. I realize now that I should have made the time go forward...but I wanted the creativity to go downwards, so...anyways, it's already made, and I'm not about to go back and fix it.

I remember never being a believer in the old saying "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." It wasn't until I read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, that I realized how the saying's supposed to go. If memory serves me well (usually doesn't), the quote goes something like this: "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes." I've had to get up early for the last week and a half to use a machine that is always booked during the day by other people. Since everyone else seems to realize that getting up early actually makes you a worse person, the early morning times are usually free and I've taken up scheduling them. On a side note, there is a computer set up in this lab so you can get on the Internet while the machine is running. It's a Mac. This is my excuse for the lack of quality images in this post. After an epic battle with the mac version of excel and then photoshop, I was able to get the graph made. I'm not willing to risk my life trying to make any other sort of graphics. I did, however, find an icon labeled time machine...I will most likely double click it at some point after I post this, so if you never see me again, I probably died in the future, or the past. Hard to say which, given my Mac-using abilities.

Fun and useful

Well, there's been a lack of blog posts lately, mostly because I've been traveling. Now I don't want you to think my blog is unimportant to me, and that I dropped it as soon as I found something better to do. So I've prepared a great story about how I was going to update it while traveling, but just as I went to upload the new posts, I was attacked by a large group of men. Only it turns out they weren't men, but were actually beings from another dimension disguised as men. And they weren't just attacking me, but had plans to destroy the entire world. After I subdued them, I found that nearly two weeks had passed and the first thought that passed through my mind was "Curses, I haven't been able to update my blog yet." So as you can see, the blog is of utmost importance to me, I just was unable to update due to unexpected attacks on my life and the planet I live on. Someday, this event will mostly likely be made into one of those movies based on actual events, so I don't want to go into more details than that, otherwise I'd ruin it for you. But, having my life nearly come to an end that way, made me realize I'd better pass on some more wisdom to those that read this. Here's a couple of the most important things I've learned in my life.



Pooling comes with hot and cold rinse cycles, commonly called hot tubs and normal pools, to help your clothes get extra clean and retain their vibrant colors. Please be advised that the use of bleach is typically uncalled for while pooling, especially if multiple people are pooling nearby.

Do you know about the importance of pools, especially during the summer time? Yes, they're fun, but what makes them important is how useful they can be. Pools can replace showers! It's a great time saver, plus it makes getting clean fun. Instead of showering, you could be pooling! The chlorine in the pool acts as a disinfectant, plus it leaves you with that nice clean smell that everyone loves. Worried that your hair might not be getting the nutrients it needs? Don't worry, put a little shampoo in before jumping into the pool, and problem solved. Need some clothes cleaned but don't feel like doing the wash? The pool is the place for you, it cleans clothes just as well as it cleans you. So put those clothes on and jump in the pool.


This man has it all...well...a grill that bears his name. And in the end, isn't that all that matters? That alone makes him worthy of being anyone's idol.

Another fun time saver is the George Foreman Grill. I've been ignorant about how great these things are for most of my life, but that all changed about 6 months ago when I got one. Yeah, it's easy to cook on, and let's you grill from the comfort of your home, but what you may not have realized is, like all grills, the foreman grill doesn't need to be washed! You never wash grills, you just scrape off the charcoal from before and throw new things on. And this grill is no exception. My only hope is that someday I will be able to make as useful a contribution to society as Mr. George Foreman.

Acting my age

Earlier this month I went another step up on the age ladder. I'm now high enough that I don't have to pay extra when renting a car, but not so high that the rungs on the ladder are starting to get a bit rickety. Now that I'm up here, it seemed like a good idea to take a look around and make sure I was acting my age. So I spent the last week meditating on the things I should be doing by 25 (it was either that, or do actual work...). Here's what I came up with, and how I measure up.

Complain about work: check and check. This one just came naturally to me. By this age, most people are just getting into this. I've been going strong for years.

Complain about aching joints/back. I just started to get into this, but I now vow to put more effort into it. The little I have dabbled in this, it's been fun. It's a good outlet, and as an added bonus, it's very annoying to those around you when you do it. I don't see any downside to this. With any luck, I can throw my back out, and then no one will hear the end of it. I'm pretty excited about the idea.

Act mature and grown up. Check, check, and triple check. I mean, people have been complimenting me on my maturity, adulthood, prime of life, ripeness, mellowness and development for years (Sometimes using the synonym feature in Word gives you interesting results...). When you look up maturity on wikipedia, it just shows my picture (provided you look within the next 10 seconds before it gets changed back to a less true definition).


Clear cut and to the point, you can always trust wikipedia. Just like you can always trust everything said on this blog (with possible exception to things said in the comments).


Reminisce about the good ol' days. I don't know if this task actually falls into the responsibilities of my age group, but I'm willing to take it up just in case. Man, things were good back then. So much better than now. And have I told you how much better the cartoons were when I was young?


Yup, that's right, I'd definitely say I earned this.

Well, after this thorough investigation, I'd say I'm still on target with my age. I can't wait until the day I become old enough I can just sit on a rocking chair on my porch all day and just yell at the young whippersnappers as they run by. I'm hoping the word whippersnapper comes back into fashion by then, otherwise I may be calling them hooligans. Either way, I'm excited for it.

Adventure part 3ish

Not the best of my logos...but time is short if I want to finish this by the end of Sunday, and I'm trying to get back to being more consistent on my updates. I used a picture I took in Disneyland, so that's got to be worth bonus points for the logo grade.

How many adventure posts have I done? I think this is the third one. Chances are I could go back and look, but ever since I hit double digits on the posts, it's seemed like way too much work. So this week, I knew what I should write about, but I wasn't sure how to do it. I didn't want to just do a list of things I did, but also thought that out of all my weeks to write about, this one should be the easiest, since I took some vacation time and went to Disneyland with family (brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, mom, and two sisters). So I decided, since Disneyland is the place where fantasy meets real life, I'd mix fantasy with actual descriptions of what I did. There's a chance you may have to look closely to get what I actually did.

Among the untold stories of this adventure is the tale of the capture of my sister, sister-in-law and nephew by the flying elephant. I was OK with the loss of the sister, but had to fight valiantly to rescue everyone else. I taught "Dumbo" not to mess with me.

I went to California on Tuesday, spent some time on the beach, and then Wednesday we went to Disneyland. Started things off with a submarine ride. The goal: Find Nemo. I was all over that. I saw him in the distance, swimming with a shady looking turtle. Word on the street said the turtle went by the name Squirt. Sadly I was unable to retrieve Nemo, as I was informed by the captain that the submarine was not equipped with diving suits and I could not leave the submarine until the ride had come to a complete stop. I suspect the captain had been paid off by Squirt. You may have won this time Squirt, but next time, I'll bring my own diving suit, and we'll see who waits for the ride to stop.

This picture depicts one of the many lessons I learned at Disneyland. If at first you don't succeed, crawl. After attempting to run under this arch, hitting his head and falling backwards, my nephew got right back up and crawled under it. I will use this lesson throughout my life. Next time I fail, I will get right back up and start crawling until I succeed!

Next up, I received a call from space command. The evil emperor Zurg was stealing batteries to power his ultimate weapon. I wasn't going to sit by idly while he destroyed the universe that I live in, so I set off, hopped in my star ship, and started blasting things. Luckily Zurg marked all his minions with a Z so I knew what to shoot. As you may have noticed, the universe has not been destroyed. I confronted Zurg and his weapon of mass destruction and took him down with my laser blaster that lit up in three different colors! After being highly praised by Buzz Lightyear himself, I set out into the world again. It should be noted that Zurg, who apparently wasn't killed, tried this scheme three more times, but don't worry, I took him down each time. Anyways, the rest of the trip was filled with action and adventure as I took on pirates, towers of terror, and let's not forget, Goofy.