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Most Likely To Exceed

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Today’s post comes from Wally, proprietor of Wally’s Intimida, home of the Sherpa – the SUV that’s so large, it has its own gravity.

The Car Is A Butte
The Car Is A Butte

This is a great day to buy a Sherpa from Wally’s Intimida! Did I say great? I meant PERFECT!

But then I say that about every day. Too bad some people just don’t get it. Most people, actually. But the day will come when you will feel sorry that you didn’t buy a Sherpa when it was possible.

This car is mammoth. It can be seen from space. Not only does the Sherpa have its own gravity – it leaves a giant footprint. Park the Sherpa outside your house and it will begin to re-shape the landscape by changing wind and weather patterns. Set the parking brake and leave it for a million years, and you’ll have a butte in your back yard – guaranteed.

But one thing the Sherpa can’t do is make the list of the Most Frequently Stolen Cars in America. That top honor goes to the Ford F-250 four-wheel-drive crew cab. The Chevrolet Silverado came in second. The top ten targets of theft were all large or Very large pickup trucks or SUVs.

So why didn’t the Sherpa make the list?

Simple.

Thieves don’t know they can steal it because it registers as part of the landscape. It exceeds their expectations of what a car can be, and they simply cannot imagine themselves behind the wheel of something so gigantic. They can’t understand that it even has a wheel – the car looks like foothills to the uneducated observer.

And this mind-numbing-through-size happens to miscreants who regularly steal Ford F-250s. That’s got to tell you something!

Today is the day to get your own Sherpa from Wally’s Intimida. Bring it home and leave it unlocked. The car simply is too awesome for the criminal mind to comprehend.

I’ll see You In The Showroom,
Wally

I suppose on one level, having your product become the car-most-stolen IS a sign of success, since covetousness is what automobile marketing is all about.

What item would you steal if that was the only way to get it?

Travel

A Walk Across Town

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Whenever I want to break out of the rather familiar and predictable world I’ve constructed for myself, I visit Paul Salopek’s Out Of Eden Walk blog.

With the assistance of National Geographic, Salopek is on a mammoth journey – an ambitious 7 year walk from the Horn of Africa to Tierra del Fuego – tracing the path of our ancestors as they set out to explore the world on foot.

The most recent post uses digital mapping technology and video to chronicle a portion of the walk – traversing Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Ruined_Shoes

I used to fancy myself a world traveler. I imagined that I would see the world and feel at home everywhere, meeting and befriending remarkable people in exotic places. That was before I actually went anywhere and found out how uncomfortable travel can be for an introvert who is picky about food. Facing reality and acknowledging personal some limitations had the effect of shrinking my options.

Instead, I decided to ruin my footwear by puttering around the yard. My favorite shoes used to be gleaming white and spiffy, but pulling weeds, digging holes, picking up after the dog and mowing the lawn have given them a greenish-black tinge that could have been earned more quickly in some other, much more adventurous and tale-worthy way.

Alas, I will probably never make it to Jeddah. But following Salopek has given me something approximately like a real experience of being in a place. Of course it would be better to actually GO. But absent that, this will do.

What city would you like to walk across?

Uncategorized

The Thing With A Tail

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C,

Wow, I just looked up from this game I’m playing with my buddy Pete and I see that the Fourth of July already happened. That’s awesome!

Things sure do happen fast when you get to be old. I remember when I was in middle school, time moved so slow – it seemed like everything took forever! Now I only feel like that whenever my dad is talking.

Like yesterday, when he decided to explain to me how scientists discovered that our solar system has a tail. And the way he said it was like it was really important news that should matter to everybody, even though whether or not anything has a tail is a totally meaningless unless you’re talking about a super-fast animal like a cheetah or something, because they can use their tails to keep their balance so they can run as fast of rockets when they’re trying to catch you and eat you for dinner and you have absolutely no chance of getting away.

Cheetah_chase

I’m not so sure it would be different if they didn’t have tails, but you can always hope.

Anyway, the fact that there’s a tail on the solar system is something I didn’t really care about at all, but we cut a deal that if I watched this video from NASA and then talked about it with a friend for at least five minutes, I wouldn’t have to mow the lawn this time.

He’s always trying to get me to do stuff like that.

So I said yes and watched the video and yawned all the way through it to show him I was really Not Into It, even though the thing was pretty well done and kind of interesting.

So after watching the video I called Pete (dad made me) so I could tell him what I learned, but instead I asked him which animals are cooler, the ones with tails or the ones without. He said the ones with tails are cool because that includes Lions, tigers, kangaroos and dogs, but I said the ones without tails are better because then we’re talking about octopuses, spiders, slugs and bears.

But Pete said bears do have tails, and I said no they don’t – prove it, and then we got into this huge argument.

So my dad made me hang up and told me I had to write about it instead, which is why you’re getting this letter. So there it is. The solar system has a tail. Amazing.

And now I don’t have to mow, which is awesome. I still feel like I got away with something. Kind of like outrunning a cheetah!

Your pal,
Bubby

Which animals are cooler – those with tails or those without?

Songs

Sandy Samba

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Ten years ago no one would have guessed that cheesy Wisconsin would become known for it’s abundant supplies of frack-ready sand.

Cow

The geology of the western part of the state (and southeastern Minnesota) features reserves of silica sand, with fine, tough, spherical grains that are perfectly configured to work in the process of hydraulic fracturing, or Fracking. The sand is mixed with water and chemicals and injected into deep shale under high pressure to force open fissures that release oil and gas – a dirty, violent process that stands in stark contrast to the charming images Wisconsin is known for – gentle big-eyed cows casually secreting dairy products.

If you are an excavation specialist or a fracking contractor, the Wisconsin you see has a special allure that has nothing to do with ice cream and curds. The western part of the state is a sandy beach littered with dollars.

For some reason it made me think of this famous lustful samba, done here by the tune’s author, Tom Jobim, and Ol’ Blue Eyes himself.

This classic song transports me to a sweltering beach in Rio, which is odd because I’m not a big fan of beaches or sweltering, and I’ve never been to Rio. But with just a few word changes, perhaps it can get across a hint of the desire excavators feel when they consider places like Onalaska.

Stout and wide and slow and brown-eyed
The cows of West Wisconsin go walking
It makes me shudder
beneath each udder
there’s … sand.

Sand with grains so small and touchable
round and hard and so uncrushable
All from nature
It’s made by glaciers
this … sand.

Sand so abundant and fine it
makes me feel desperate to mine it
Here is a contract please sign it!
But I can’t tell the Mayor my goal.
He’s on someone else’s payroll.

Warm and tempting, nothing lacking
This raw material for fracking
I’ll make a killing
Each truck I’m filling
with … sand.

If you could have complete control over one natural resource, which one would you choose?

Science

Life Under Ice

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Just when we had completely forgotten about its vast potential for holding deep mysteries, Antarctica’s sub-glacial Lake Vostok is back in the news. And I find nothing in this new information that will change the deep concern that grew out of our previous encounter with this topic.

Arctic_Ice_2

The news that Lake Vostok, hidden under ice for 15 billion years, is teeming with life, should give us pause. This is another step down the path originally imagined for this scientific story – the cinematic tale of research gone wrong where curiosity runs out ahead of prudence and rips the top off a container holding a monumental amount of trouble.

Already we have discovered that the story includes many of the stock characters from a standard sci-fi disaster – the researchers who are genuinely EXCITED to find that 95 per cent of the 3,500 some-odd DNA sequences found in the lake are associated with bacteria.

In case you’re wondering where we will find the dialog for this horror film, it is being written in the labs where they examine Vostok’s ice cores. For example, someone has already said this about the DNA findings ” … that doesn’t necessarily mean the unrecognized sequences are exotic forms of life.”

That line will be given to the first scientist to be engulfed and dissolved by the plasma-like creature that bubbles up out of his beaker while he has his back turned on it. Guaranteed.

Aside from all the obvious reasons NOT to take a big drink out of a chilled bottle of Vostok Spring, there is this – the scientists who found loads of bacteria in the submerged lake acknowledge that they only found recognizable life forms because that’s the only type of life they know how to look for.

Ergo, the life forms we have never encountered (if there are any) would still go undetected. They remain invisible until their effects become known!

And what of the more complex life forms living in the dark, slushy Vostokian bottoms? When we withdraw them from their chilly surroundings and introduce them to the modern world, there is no assurance that they will be grateful to us for doing it.

Much like the character in this James Taylor song, “The Frozen Man“.

You have been frozen in ice for one million years. Assuming your vital organs are intact (you didn’t donate them to science, did you?) would you want to be thawed out and re-introduced to the world?

Science, Uncategorized

Blogger Heads

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I have to admit there are days when I wonder why continue to write six blog entries a week. There have been days when I’ve thought if not for the regular attendance of a troupe of dedicated Baboons, there would be little reason to keep the thread going.

cerebral_lobes (1)

Until now, that is.

A new neurological study indicates that keeping a brain active is one way to significantly impede the progress of dementia. Published in the scientific journal Neurology, this investigation found that a group of people who read regularly and were in the habit of writing letters had fewer of the physical changes (lesions, brain plaques, tangles) that go along with dementia.

And yes, they had to wait until the people the were studying had died. Then they took out their brains and examined them. Ugh. I wonder how it effects longevity to know that when you die they’re going to cut open your skull and put your brain in a jar? For me, that would be a huge incentive to stay alive.

Maybe I could get funding to study that.

Anyway, in the articles I saw on this topic, reading and writing were the only specific brain activities mentioned that could slow the advance of dementia, although the brain is such a multi-purpose instrument I’m sure there must be other ways to keep it “active”. Doing long division, for example. Or playing the piano or learning another language. How about rebuilding carburetors or memorizing state capitals? Suppose all you do is watch TV. Even trying to understand the activities of the Kardashians has to demand some neurological wattage. I would think knowing the names of all the current reality-TV stars is a remarkable achievement in the field of memory. At least I know it’s a mental workout I wouldn’t be able to do.

I’d be OK if reading and writing were the only sure things, brain-freshening-wise. I’m fortunate that I happen to like doing both, and blogging six days a week gives me a well regulated daily dose of each of these medicinal activities. Perhaps I should claim blogging-related expenses as physical therapy to prevent the build up of various bits of clutter and debris that can disable brains.

And maybe I should charge guest bloggers a surprisingly hefty fee for partaking of this brain therapy along with me, just like a clinic or a hospital would. But I can’t – I’m too kind-hearted.

Plus, I’m planning to take a couple of weeks off and I need the help.

So if you have an idea for a guest post, please send me a note and let me know what you want to write. I’ll write back to confirm the assignment, and you’ll feel better instantly. The deadline for finished pieces is July 15th – one week from today.

Write to me at connelly.dale@gmail.com, and give your melon the workout it deserves. A post a day keeps dementia at bay!

Would you donate your dead body to science? Why or why not?

Until now,

Songs

A Voice in the Choir

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There was just one time when I looked up from my desk to find a movie star standing there waiting to talk to me.  Only once, but that was enough. It was Ned Beatty, whose birthday is today. He’s 76.

Ned Beatty Sings
Ned Beatty Sings
Beatty is a character actor, and a good one.

He spends part of his year in Minnesota and somehow managed to get into the habit of listening to a daily radio program I worked on. He was in the office to talk to some other people about a film project and wanted to stop by to say “Hello”.

That was very kind of him, and memorable too. Obviously, since I’m still flaunting it today. Beatty’s “hello” resonated across the wide-open room, which makes sense because he claims in his bio he got into acting because he has such a loud voice.

Although his first show-business love, and his career focus now, is singing. Apparently, after several hundred film and TV roles as a character actor, Beatty has come full circle to the place where he started.

Beatty’s online bio says: “Singing was probably his favorite subject in school . He also sang in church, at weddings , in a quartet, ( they sang for their supper), the Louisville a cappella choir, and received a scholarship to Transylvania University to sing in their excellent a cappella choir, under the direction of Harvey Davis, a gifted musician and composer of modern Liturgical music. Ned loved to sing in that choir, but wasn’t particularly interested in attending classes in other subjects.”

And when I listen to him sing, I understand why he enjoyed to that show, since his music would have easily fit into our playlist. In other words, it’s not chart-topping material. He sounds like a straightforward singer, not one to add lots of showy embellishments. He sings like someone who got a kick out of singing in a choir – a singer interested in honoring the song and blending with the others, not necessarily in being in the center of attention or creating a spectacle.

Kind of like a character actor.

Are you a pop star, or a voice in the choir?

Uncategorized

Ask Dr. Babooner

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dr_babooner

Dear Dr. Babooner,

Yesterday was a national holiday and tomorrow, it’s the weekend.

The holiday was all about celebrating our independence, and the weekend is all about having unstructured time to pursue our interests. Yet today is a day when I’m supposed to work. I’m known around the office as a hopeless drudge – someone who always shows up for work and rarely complains about it. But right now I feel like I’m caught in an obligation sandwich with freedom on both sides and this stupid job commitment as the un-tasty center.

I could go to work anyway but I’m concerned that to do so would disrupt the freedom theme that was established yesterday. It might even be a betrayal of our national ideals – a crime worthy of harsh punishment. Our Uncle Sam wants us to feel as free as possible, as long as we don’t use that liberty to release sensitive information or communicate with unsavory characters overseas. Then we might find ourselves stuck in a Russian airport … forever. Which would be much worse than having to go to work.

Anyway, it’s not too late for me to change my plans. Very few people are going to be in the office, so I have some options.

  • Option 1: I could take the day off and call it comp time or a flat out vacation day. If I did that I’m sure I’d feel liberated and relaxed for the entire weekend.
  • Option 2: I could go to work but leave after a few hours to attend a “meeting” (on a golf course) and claim on my time sheet that I worked the entire day. No one will be the wiser, unless Uncle Sam is reading this letter, which I doubt, because who has time? He’s only one guy! And if I did that, I’d feel free AND clever AND devious, which is the same as normal freedom, but with an excitement boost because I’m sneaking around in order to get it.
  • Option 3: I could report for work as planned and stay the entire day. Very few people are going to be in the office tomorrow so I could get a lot of stuff done. And getting a lot of stuff done would help me feel a sense of freedom from all the other work obligations that have piled up over the weeks and months.

So I guess no matter which path I choose I’ll feel some sort of liberation. The question is – which one would make me happiest?

Freely,
Hopeless Drudge

I told Hopeless to take a hard look inside at his motivations and values, and to be prepared to accept that the most liberating option might actually be number three. Anyone who signs a letter “Hopeless Drudge” is probably the sort of person who simply loves to work, in which case option one would be a letdown and option two would appear to be freeing but would actually create an internal prison of disappointment and guilt.

Option three, however, would be a stress-reducer and would go a long way towards reducing clutter on the desktop, which releases endorphins and brings on feelings of exuberance. For Drudges, anyway.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

Uncategorized

Exploded View

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Today’s guest post comes from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.

Greetings, Civilians!

I want to share this old photo with you – it was taken from the capsule of Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve, 1968. It is an historic image of the Earthrise, as seen from the moon.

Image: NASA
Image: NASA

I’ve been thinking about this photo a lot.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that today is the Fourth of July. And I certainly don’t need to explain how I feel about exploding things! That fact that anybody, anywhere would willingly cause something to blow up violently completely concusses my safety-conscious mind!

It’s fair to say that anyone who invites me to go to Wisconsin to buy skyrockets with them, or wants me to watch while they set off a string of firecrackers, is going to get a stern lecture instead of the thrill they were seeking. I find nothing exciting about loud noises and the smell of gunpowder, except for the potential satisfaction i might get from shaming someone for putting us all in such danger.

Is it even possible to have an explosion-free Fourth of July?

I was going to say “go to a movie”, but there’s plenty of violence there. Grilling is an alternative, but some hot dogs do have a tendency to blow up. I have spent most of my adult life engaged in a public service campaign to discourage the very kind of celebration that seems to make up most of the Fourth of July. Not that I’ve had much success.

Sigh.

Why do we have to glorify the bomb? I blame it on human nature and the National Anthem.

As humans, we are enthralled by things that are loud and bright and dangerous. I know this is not a popular position, but we have to face it. The Star Spangled Banner has been misused, and its unfortunate popularity in a shortened version at sporting events has served to oversimplify the message and nullify the poetry. Yet it could be reclaimed so easily.

Here’s the part that we sing:

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Note that the rockets and the bombs come in at the most emotional moment in the verse. No wonder we’re so explodo-centric!

What if we brought forward some of the other verses of TSSB? The song is based on a four stanza poem by Francis Scott Key – “Defence of Fort McHenry“. And yet we only sing one of the stanzas!

The others are more poetic and less violent. In particular, here’s my favorite.

On the shore dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Why can’t we sing THIS stanza at a ballgame every now and then? In addition to putting great words (haughty, reposes) into the mouths of ordinary American sports fans, the key lines focus on a glorious dawn rather than bombs being hurled at the foe.

And if a simple sunrise doesn’t stir you, think of it in terms of the photo above – the sun revealing a rising Earth, with the USA front and center, if you wish.

In my safety-obsessed fantasies, we would adopt this sun-centric stanza as our standard verse for “The Star Spangled Banner” and gradually transition from having a bomb-worshiping culture to one that values a simple sunrise.

Is that too much to ask?

Yours in safety,
Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty

History

Seat of Power

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As millions of Egyptians yell for their elected president to hand over his authority, I’m grateful on this 4th-of-July-eve that we still have a working mechanism in this country for the peaceful transfer of power and I wonder at the various ways people have decided in the course of history that one person or another will get to make the decisions.

Not a Very Comfortable Looking Place to Roost
Not a Very Comfortable Looking Place to Roost

The Scots have used various methods, including the sword and the bludgeon. This is the anniversary of the day in 1996 when Scottish people learned that they would be getting their precious “Stone of Destiny” back.

And here I thought “Stone of Scone” was the way a dyslexic barista refers the 2-day old pastry at Caribou.

But no, it seems The Stone of Scone is an actual rock that royal people have to sit on when they get crowned. So much for the comforts of rank. But whether the current stone is really the stone of legend and lore is open to question, since it has been stolen and moved back and forth over the border that separates Scotland and England. That’s a lot of travel for a chunk of Earth that weighs over 300 pounds. But it might have even more stamps on its passport if it is, in fact, “Jacob’s Pillow” stone from the Bible, as some have said.

Or maybe it’s a meteorite and is not of this Earth at all.

For a rock this thing has a remarkably complicated history. In addition to being stonenapped at least once, several decoy versions are rumored to exist in various places. The original perching place of kings and queens might truly be in Edinburgh Castle waiting to be transported back to London for the next coronation. Or that one could be a forgery and the real stone might be in the town of Arbroath, or maybe it’s hidden inside Dunsinnan Hill. Or perhaps J.K. Rowling had Harry Potter steal it, and it serves as a coffee table in one of her houses.

So the Stone of Scone remains mysterious. Even when you’re looking at it, you can’t be one hundred percent sure you’re really looking at it. But then that’s what you get when you invest so much power in an ordinary thing. It’s the sort of magical transformation that can only be accomplished through storytelling.

Describe your favorite chair.