I keep having this recurring nightmare that I'm a 91-year-old man walking through Wal-Mart and I look exactly like the Dalai Lama.

Any dream theorists out there?

I should also note I offer quaint tidbits of knowledge concerning trans-fats to young couples and smack people with my staff when they say they're, "looking for a good pair of Sketchers for cardio."

Advice

If you've a friend who believes in unicorns, and he takes you to his horse farm to see all the hornless unicorns, it is best to humor him while visiting. That doesn't mean you should take up the Unicornology and travel to all the latest unicorn trade shows and study the medicinal properties of their magical horns.

Running Advice: It is shy near impossible to run a good solid 8 miles a mere six hours after eating 5 rainbow trout and a half-quart of Earl Grey tea without experiencing the type of gastrointestinal difficulties that make your stomach feel like it is trying to turn itself inside out like some kind of discombobulated Mobius strip...

Pope Fiction

Just received a lot of fiction books in the mail at approximately the SAME EXACT time the new pope was elected.

Pulp Fiction...Pope Fiction....Coincidence?..

Hmmmmm...

I'm sure there's a conspiracy theorist out there somewhere who can explain the mysteriousness of it all.

Training for the Olympics

More Training  Advice: (Because it’s Friday and I’ve nothing better to do except look at a hundred microscope slides of dead arthropods at work…and my eyeballs hurt)

This is guaranteed to make one a much faster runner.

1-Sell all your worldly possessions and move to the Himalayas in Northern Nepal.

2-Buy a tea house and learn Nepali…I’ve a phrase book if you want.

3-Spend the first six months running from the tea house to the nearest village twice a day.

*note: this should be at an altitude no less than 15,000 feet

4-By this time your hemocrit level should reach illegal levels according to the International Olympic Committee which is where you want to be.

5- Rest for one week and read ‘War and Peace’ in the original Russian.

6-(Time for speedwork) MWF for the next 3 months, run 3*1 mile repeats uphill. Wear Sketchers, Wal-Mart jorts, and tube socks…and a weight vest if you can find one whilst training. This will curb any doubts left in the mind of others that you are in fact crazy…quite crazy…and the natives won’t bother you. TThS and S you should run easily 8-10 miles on a dirt trekking path.

7-Take 3 days off and make yak jerky…you’ll need the protein. It’s prolly a good time to make sure your oxygen-generating machine is working as well.

8-The last three months, run 20*400m repeats with 45sec rest in a tea plantation. Ideally you’ll want a big bull yak in there to keep you wary and alert. This will train your fast twitch muscle fibers in a way simply running around your typical American high school track won’t. Do this 3 days a week while resting the other three. One day a week should be a long run…I’m thinking a round-trip jog to Everest and back should do the trick…and take a bag of candy.

9-By now you should have the lung capacity of a Diplodocus, blood so thick with red blood cells you need a pacemaker, and muscles that rival Madonna’s biceps. So…then it will the optimum time you run a 5000m PR.

Good Luck>

Scientia Potentia est?

 
Ok.  I got it now.  

Knowledge is Power. 

Power according to physicists is Work divided by Time. So, Knowledge is also Work divided by Time. Or (to rearrange the equation)

Knowledge (Time) = Work

Knowledge is also equivalent to Google

So as Time increases on Google, Work increases

But statistics show as Time increases on Google, Work decreases.

But stats lie.

So, as Time increases on Google, Work really does increase.

Interestingly, the Journal of Women’s Studies reports that as Work increases, Money ($) decreases.

Therefore, the more the Work, the less the Money ($).

And the less the Money ($), the less the Power.

Furthermore, since Power corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts absolutely, (whether for good or evil depending on your viewpoint), it goes to show the less Power, the less one is corrupted absolutely.

Hence one becomes poor (less $) with a corresponding lack of Knowledge.

To further complicate matters: Ignorance is Strength (as we all know from Orwell’s ‘1984’)…the less Knowledge you have the stronger you are.  And the stronger you are, the more Work you can do…as long as you don’t expect to get paid for it.

Hmmm…maybe I SHOULD go into politics…

Art is Important

Art and Beauty provokes the inner part of man, the soul and spirit, in a way laws, philosophical systems, and programs cannot. The experience of viewing, participating in, Art allows one to catch a glimpse of heaven from our fallen state. It touches on one of those thin places in reality. Man sees through this translucent veil where the physical plane meets the spiritual plane and cannot help but long for his eternal home. All men know intuitively they are broken (whether they admit it or not) and see a glimmer of what they could be as the spiritual realm acts as kind of a mirror reflecting the ideal. Beauty sparks the imagination and practice of men to make their own thin places that aren't a dream, but a transforming reality.

Brothers' Odd

(On Craigslist today)....Pterodactyl Handler: Looking for someone to train my pet pterodactyl. I've got a custom titanium saddle and 14" cattle prods. Experienced trainers only. Text or call xxx-xxx-xxxx.

(There are some weird people in Morgantown)

Go

There is no reason to sit around daydreaming thinking circular thoughts that carry no meaning. Life is meant to be an on-going forward progress. So go and reconquer your kingdom, which has become seeped in mediocrity. Stop repeating the same routines. You won't learn anything new that way.

Je n'aime pas le neige

Currently in West Virginia

 

Tonights forecast: snow

 Tomorrow: snow

Day after tomorrow: snow

Day after that: even more snow

Sunday: again...snow

Next day after Sunday: more snow

24 hours later in same place: that's right...you guessed it...more snow

24 hours later (still in same place): neige (French for snow)

 

Thursday after this Thursday: small probability of sun. If not, then Groundhog Hunting Season

The dominant thought revolving in my mind last night during the State of the Union speech

"The major problem, one of the major problems, for there are several, with governing people is that of who you get to do it. Or, rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well known and much lamented fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

 --Douglas Adams, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hot-air Balloon

Seven sheets of paper + 2 hours of my lifetime + a tiny bit of Elmer's glue = one hot-air ballon. This particular model was designed by Yuri and Katrin Shumakov.

Caballo Blanco

Using 9" tracing paper.

 

 

Turtle Making

                  Here's my latest creation. A snapping turtle made from green wrapping paper.