The Board is Back

Sing praises! Make merry! Lift your voices high to the heavens! The 100 Hour Board is back in business. In honor of this momentous occasions, I made up a little song about it this morning while I was running. It's to the tune of Jingle Bells:

Joy to the Y! The Board is back.
Let questions now flow in!
We'll answer in a few days
And satisfy your craze
For quirky answers and wit,
We'll answer you right quick,
So ask us, so ask us any question!

Yeah, I know, that was a terrible song. Let's just say I'm happy to have it back.

Experts

We went to the Men's Volleyball game last night. It was a big matchup, with BYU (No. 3) playing UCLA (No. 1). We beat them the night before, but they apparently learned from the experience because they swept us rather handily in three games. Actually, rather than give the Bruins the credit for our loss, it would be more accurate to say that we gave it to them with numerous penalty calls and a whole lot of wide shots. Victor Batista alone had three or four lifting calls, and the whole team just wasn't playing together nicely. But they were still really fun to watch. I only wish I could jump that high. And since the shortest guy in the team is still taller than me, I can’t criticize them too much. I sure wouldn’t do any better.

But that didn’t stop a lot of the people around me from voicing their “expert” opinions. What is it about sports fans that makes them feel omniscient as soon as they step into a sports arena? Instantly they have a better view and better basis of expertise than any official or referee on the floor. It’s almost like when people start writing for the 100 Hour Board, and then they feel so high and mighty. . . oh, that’s me. Actually, I think every new writer has that initial thrill of being on the Board, of being "omniscient." Suddenly the world is at your fingertips! You are the expert on anything you can research! People look up to you, they depend on you for accurate information, prudent advice, and a quick wit. New writers usually come out of the blocks with a vengeance, answering more questions per capita than they will for the rest of their tenure as Board writers. Actually, I think the older writers that have been around the block a few times need this new blood, because it reminds them how cool it is to be a writer. It would be easy to take it for granted without the new writer zeal that accompanies every new addition to the Board. I confess that over the last year I have truly taken the Board for granted. I never realized how much I depend on it until it wasn't there. And all too soon I will have to surrender my writer status when I graduate and move on to bigger and better things. That will be a sad day. But in the meantime, I still get to be the wiseguy and the expert at everything. And praises be to the 100 Hour Board muses, tomorrow we are back online!

Awe, crap!

Since I’ve been diligently running three or four times a week, I’ve felt a lot better about myself. It’s not that I think I’m fat and that nobody likes me, although that may be the case. I just feel like a lazy bum when I don’t do some physical activity in my schedule. So Monday morning I ran around town, including through part of Kiwanis Park. I like to run on the grass because it’s a lot softer than concrete, and it reminds me of when I used to run cross-country, back when I was actually in shape. So I ran across the grass and had a nice run. When I got home I stretched out a bit and read the comics. As I was getting ready to get in the shower, I smelled something . . . pungent. *Sniff* “What’s that?” I wondered. Then I looked down at my shoe, and the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “Awe, crap!”

I was indeed right, that’s exactly what the smell was coming from. I had stepped in dog poo sometime during my run, probably in the park. I didn’t even bother trying to clean it off just then, and I just threw the shoes outside to deal with later. Although it was definitely annoying, I guess it was kinda funny in retrospect. It reminded me of a similar moment with Phoenix and Kassidy. We were coming back to my apartment from somewhere and we had been eating Hershey’s Kisses in the car. Phoenix dropped one and thought it had fallen to the floor, and since he was driving he decided to look for it later. But when we got out of the car, we discovered that it had fallen between his legs and he had been sitting on it for the last fifteen minutes, and it had left a nice brown streak on the car seat and on the seat of his pants. He got out and looked at the car seat and looked at his pants and said . . . yep, you guessed it. “Awe, crap!” Both Kassidy and I looked at him and looked at the car and laughed so hard I thought I would follow suit.

I don’t actually like the word crap that much. I try not to use it very often, but it’s such a useful all-purpose word that I sometimes can’t help myself. Crud is pretty nice, and I’ve started to use that more often, but sometimes crud just doesn’t cut it. I think it’s important to have a few words handy for especially trying situations. If I say everything permissible on a regular basis, then when I bang my thumb with a hammer or slam my head on that annoying kitchen cupboard door, then the word that will come out of my mouth won’t be “crap,” although it’ll probably have four letters. So in order to avoid unnecessary profanity, I keep some good pretend-swear words in reserve for those moments. That’s why I try to avoid using “crap” too much: to save it for more worthy situations. Like when I find out that I stepped in it and tracked it around the house. Now that is crap-worthy.

The Reverend and the cartoon character

First Tinky-Winky, now Spongebob Squarepants. Every once in a while one of America’s conservative loose cannons decides that the Left hasn’t had enough easy ammunition to throw and lobs ‘em a nice slow pitch. Back in the late 90’s when Jerry Falwell proclaimed the Teletubby Tinky Winky to be a flamer, it provided lesbians across America with a new symbol and late-night talk show hosts with almost more jokes than Monica Lewinski. I thought Falwell was a fool for saying it, but I couldn’t help agree with him—the purple teletubby with a purple triangle on his head and a purse sure did look like a fruit. In fact, the whole show was the most absurd piece of rubbish to emerge from the UK since Ringo’s Starrs, and for several years gave Americans something to mock Britain for other than its food. It was really first-rate crap, and I was glad to see it go. However, its demise in America at least was probably postponed by the Reverend Falwell’s comments, which was quite tragic.

The latest target, of course, is Spongebob Squarepants, a character as unlikely as his name. I’ve seen portions of the show, and I definitely agree that it’s a queer show, but not necessarily in the gay sense. It’s pretty bizarre though, and I’m more inclined to believe that poor programming is more at fault than homosexual ulterior motives. I can’t stand kids programming right now. Crap like Ed, Edd, and Eddy and Spongebob is truly weird. Even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looks commonplace compared to that trash, and that really wasn’t that great of a show. Even the classics, like Sesame Street, have largely been taken over by the likes of Elmo and other nonsensical creatures. I’m waiting for the Far Right to start attacking the morons who make up these shows, and then I’ll throw in my support. Bring back Bugs Bunny and Co. and get rid of almost everything on Nickelodeon right now. What? What’s that, Mr. Falwell? You think Bugs Bunny encourages alternative lifestyles by dressing up as Granny to fool Yosemite Sam? Awe, crap. Ain’t nothing safe anymore.

Taking it back

There is very little in this world that I love more than running. I love The Redhead more, which is a good thing, since I doubt she’d enjoy sitting at home all day while I went running for hours on end, and I know she wouldn’t enjoy running with me that much. But I do love running very much. I really enjoyed those mornings when the sun was coming up across the lake as I ran around the reservoir and the dew on the grass made my ankles wet. I liked to put in 10 miles in before most people were awake. I loved those cool summer mornings with fog drifting across the lake when I’d surprise a blue heron or a bald eagle and they’d lift off and scare the bejeebers out of me. What I liked even more about that time was how in shape I was. I used to say that the run didn’t really begin until after the tenth mile. I was serious, too—I ran between 12 and 16 miles every day of the week except Sunday all summer long, and then did cross country and track during the school year. I never realized it, but I was in great shape. I used to come home from running and turn the sink on full blast and gulp the cold water straight from the faucet. Then I’d have a ¼ gallon of ice cream for breakfast. It probably wasn’t what the FDA recommends, but I thought it was a great way to live.

It’s pretty ironic that something I like so much was basically taken from me. My senior year in high school I developed a chronic hamstring injury that I’ve never entirely been able to overcome. I did physical therapy with those rubber bands, heat pads, ice packs, stretching, anti-inflamatories, and even ultrasound that was supposed to help break down the calcium deposits. The therapy helped, but the problem came back. I took two full years off of running during my mission and I still can’t run like I used to. If I had one wish I might choose to be able to run again. I miss it that badly. But it’s not going to happen. I used to be jealous when Balthazar would go running and stuff and I couldn’t keep up with him. If I did, I’d just be really sore and tight the next day and I couldn’t run again for weeks.

For a long time I gave up running. Unfortunately, along with it I gave up all semblance of physical fitness. So starting this semester I’ve started taking it back. I’m back to running a couple times a week and I’m loving it. The key is to not let myself run too long. Each morning I get up and start running and about ten minutes into the run I feel great. I find my rhythm and my stride and I want to go for hours. But I make myself stop and slow down. I’m more at a waddling penguin pace than a 5-minute mile pace, but I’m willing to make that sacrifice to keep running. Well, maybe it’s really jogging, but the important thing is that I’m back doing something I like. Just in slow motion.

Heart attack

When I declared my major about 2 ½ years ago, my advisor told me that I could use some of my AP credit from high school towards elective credit for the major. I was rather pleased, since it would allow me to graduate sooner. It also fit well with my semester in Washington, D.C. I was pleased that I was able to graduate in 4 years even though I didn’t declare my major until I was almost a junior. So while I was in D.C. I applied for graduation in April and received a graduation report saying I would still be deficient for 6 credits of electives. My advisor had made it seem like my credit counted automatically, so I had given it little thought for more than a year. But since I apparently had to take care of it myself, I decided to do it when I got back to Provo. So the first day of classes I walked into my advisement office and explained my situation and asked them what I needed to do. Because it was the first day of classes, however, they couldn’t even pull up my reports because the system was bogged down my students looking up their class schedules. So they sent me over to the Transfer Office, which was essentially a waste of time since they had no clue as to what I was talking about or even who could help me. So I finally got in contact with the professor who could help me, and I sent him an e-mail explaining what I needed and asked when I could have him sign my form. He e-mailed me back and we set a time to meet, but he said that he didn’t think I could get the credit I wanted needed to graduate. This was rather worrisome, especially since today is the last day for adding and dropping classes. So I couldn’t sleep most of last night because I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to graduate, or I would at least have to cram several difficult classes into my schedule and that would just ruin my semester.

So this morning I went to this professor’s office and showed him the form and explained it all out, and he shook his head and said, “No, you can only receive credit for two 100-level classes, and you already took those.” I told him my advisor had told me that I could have my credit count for those classes or for electives, and I chose electives. He replied that my advisor was wrong, and that I would have to take add 6 more credits of electives to my schedule in order to graduate in April. Well, this didn’t exactly make my day. In fact, it was a really rotten way to start the week off and I practically had a heart attack. Finally he said, “Well, let’s look at your ABC report.” So he pulled it up and he said, “Oh, you’re on the old program. I guess it does work that way.” I went from the depths of sorrow to complete elation to barely restraining myself from throttling the guy for making me think I was screwed. Gee, you think that if someone is about to graduate they maybe entered the program more than a year ago? Good job, genius. I’m actually not mad at all, I’m just glad I can graduate. I have to go talk to my minor office later this week, too. I hope they don’t pull a similar trick on me; I don’t know if my heart could take it.

Keep it to yourself

Among the frequent themes on the writers’ (and occasionally readers’) blogs is anonymity. And with good reason: writing a blog is essentially an exercise in maintaining a public anonymous side while maintaining a private personal side. Perhaps one of the more interesting things to do is to see how different writers and readers approach their respective blogs. Thanks to the glorious tab-browsing abilities of Firefox, I can pull up all the blogs I like to read every day and see if they have any updates. (This is a pretty big list anymore; I have more tabs for blogs than I do for comics; about 20 in all.) As I read the blogs, there is quite a variety of anonymity. Uffish Thought, for example, won’t even reveal his or her gender. Duchess, on the other hand, tells where she’s from, where she works, her sibs’ nicknames, etc. Some people write philosophical diatribes, some write funny experiences, and some write about whatever sticks in their mind. And some people write crap that shouldn’t even be shared, much less published on the Internet. (Geez, people, keep that crap to yourself.)

So what’s my approach to anonymity? I’d say probably somewhere in the midrange, with some leanings towards the paranoid. The alias game is really very fun to play, and I’d hate to lose that fun aspect of Board writing. But it’s still fun to share small tidbits of non-specific personal information in order to tell amusing stories. I guess I’m just not willing to put any vaguely personal information online, just as a general rule. I think that’s part of how the Internet works—you can’t really trust anything online. Like when a site wants you to register with an e-mail address—do you ever put your real address down? No way, you use a throw-away account that you keep just for this very purpose. Otherwise you’ll be getting spammed like mad before you can even reach your inbox. Sometimes it comes straight from the provider. Last time I registered for a Hotmail account (a few years ago) I had 10 porn solicitations waiting for me when I first logged in, and it got worse from there. Needless to say, I no longer use Hotmail. But it taught me a valuable lesson, so I don’t put anything personal online. It’s just good policy—keep it to yourself. And to quote Max from one of my favorite movies, “Anonymity . . . is like a warm blanket.”

What you leave behind

Today I finally got around to changing my location on my blog bio. Sadly, I no longer reside in Washington, D.C. I admit, saying you live in Provo isn’t nearly as cool as saying you live in the District. That, in fact, is one of the things I miss about D.C. So I’ll start my list.

• I miss the sights. I miss walking to work and seeing the Capitol every day. I miss seeing the Washington Monument in the distance as I walked to the grocery store. (I do NOT miss the prices at that miserable little Safeway in the Watergate Complex, however.) I miss walking down to the Potomac on warm evenings and watching the city lights reflect off the water as boats go by.
  
• I miss the food. I miss having every type of cuisine known to man available within a 6 block radius of our apartment. I especially miss the fact that we were within walking distance of two Chipotle's, and now we aren't within several hundred miles of one. Long live the burrito.
• I miss The Washington Post. Not that The Deseret Morning News and The Salt Lake Tirbune aren't decent newspapers, but having the Post available every day was great. Good journalism is a thing to be admired.
• I miss the showerhead from our little bathroom. I don't miss much else about the tiny apartment we lived in, but I miss the showerhead. It delivered the most exquisite spray that was like a massage every morning. Now our shower head is 4 inches lower than my head. Unacceptable.
• I miss being there when stuff happens. The elections were crazy in D.C., but I wouldn't have wanted to have been anywhere else. I liked going to congressional hearings and oral arguments before the Supreme Court. Every time something important happens, I wish I was back. I can't believe I missed the Supreme Court decision on the Booker and Fanfan cases. Now I have to read about the implications for federal sentencing guidelines on NY Times Online. Crud.
• I miss the cool Spanish-speaking branch where The Redhead and I went to church. I don't miss the hour-long Metro ride, but I do miss the crazy way Hispanics do things. The Redhead even gave talks and taught lessons without speaking Spanish. Plus, we got to try pupusas. You can't argue with that.
• Speaking of the Metro, I miss its utility. It was nice to be able to travel in an hour-and-a-half radius just by walking a few blocks and catching a train. I wish Provo used trains or trams instead of buses. Buses are seriously lame.

I miss all of that stuff. But I'm glad I don't live in D.C. for good. It's no place to raise a family, and it would definitely be more fun if I were rich, single, and not a member of the Church. So I guess we'll stay in Provo for a few more months, since being poor, married, and a member just makes you average around here.

Moment of silence

A brief and somber moment of silence on my blog for BYU professor Rich Long, who died earlier this week after a massive stroke. The Daily Universe article talks about how beloved he was by students, a fact to which I personally attest. He was highcouncilman in my ward a long long time ago, and he was my favorite friendly, caring, asleep-on-the-stand highcouncilman. A moment of silence please.










He will surely be missed.

That's unfortunate

I can’t help but laugh at my clever little title for this ever-so-brief entry. It cracks me up. It stems from an incident in which Mynamyn and Duchess were taking HEPE together, way back in the day, and they ran across a picture in their textbook of a man who had elephantitis of the testicles. Myn’s response was, “Ohhhhhh. . . that’s unfortunate.” Haha, it still makes me laugh. The guy apparently had to carry himself around in a wheelbarrow. I’m kind of glad I wasn’t there at the time, though. That can’t be a pretty sight.

Anyway, today’s unfortunate incident stems from a gentleman I was doing some business with at work. His name was Richard Cox, but he went by Dick. Now that is an unfortunate name. I won’t even elucidate all the ways that name could be made fun of, but suffice it to say that it’s one of the most unfortunate names I’ve ever run across. What were those parents thinking when they named Poor Richard? They must have known to what grade-school horrors it would rendered him vulnerable.

My name also opened me to easy and frequent ridicule, although most of it wasn’t of the same nature as Dick Cox. No, I’m not talking about Benvolio, I’m talking about my real name. Although if my real name was Benvolio I’d probably get made fun of more. Little kids are so cruel. I’d probably go by Ben.

Board Schizophrenia

As I sink further into Board withdrawals, I start seeing things all over that can be applied to the Board. The most interesting (and by far most intellectual) piece I have come across is in today’s online version of The New York Times. It discusses the ability of human beings to carry on multiple lives or deep secrets. Towards the end the author delves into topics such as people leading secret homosexual lifestyles outside of their marriages, but for the most part the article is a fascinating study of one of the fun aspects of writing for the 100 Hour Board—anonymity. I cite a few portions of the article:

But psychologists say that most normal adults are well equipped to start a secret life, if not to sustain it. The ability to hold a secret is fundamental to healthy social development, they say, and the desire to sample other identities - to reinvent oneself, to pretend - can last well into adulthood. And in recent years researchers have found that some of the same psychological skills that help many people avoid mental distress can also put them at heightened risk for prolonging covert activities.

"In a very deep sense, you don't have a self unless you have a secret, and we all have moments throughout our lives when we feel we're losing ourselves in our social group, or work or marriage, and it feels good to grab for a secret, or some subterfuge, to reassert our identity as somebody apart," said Dr. Daniel M. Wegner, a professor of psychology at Harvard. He added, "And we are now learning that some people are better at doing this than others."

Although the best-known covert lives are the most spectacular - the architect Louis Kahn had three lives; Charles Lindbergh reportedly had two - these are exaggerated examples of a far more common and various behavior, psychologists say. Some people gamble on the sly, or sample drugs. Others try music lessons. Still others join a religious group. [If you’re crazy enough, you join the Board and set up multiple aliases.] They keep mum for different reasons.

Psychologists have long considered the ability to keep secrets as central to healthy development. Children as young as 6 or 7 learn to stay quiet about their mother's birthday present. In adolescence and adulthood, a fluency with small social lies is associated with good mental health. And researchers have confirmed that secrecy can enhance attraction, or as Oscar Wilde put it, "The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it."

The urge to act out an entirely different persona is widely shared across cultures as well, social scientists say, and may be motivated by curiosity, mischief or earnest soul-searching. Certainly, it is a familiar tug in the breast of almost anyone who has stepped out of his or her daily life for a time, whether for vacation, for business or to live in another country.

"It used to be you'd go away for the summer and be someone else, go away to camp and be someone else, or maybe to Europe and be someone else" in a spirit of healthy experimentation, said Dr. Sherry Turkle, a sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now, she said, people regularly assume several aliases on the Internet, without ever leaving their armchair: the clerk next door might sign on as bill@aol.com but also cruise chat rooms as Armaniguy, Cool Breeze and Thunderboy.

Most recently, Dr. Turkle has studied the use of online interactive games like Sims Online, where people set up families and communities. She has conducted detailed interviews with some 200 regular or occasional players, and says many people use the games as a way to set up families they wish they had, or at least play out alternative versions of their own lives.

One 16-year-old girl who lives with an abusive father has simulated her relationship to him in Sims Online by changing herself, variously, into a 16-year-old boy, a bigger, stronger girl and a more assertive personality, among other identities. It was as a more forceful daughter, Dr. Turkle said, that the girl discovered she could forgive her father, if not change him.

"I think what people are doing on the Internet now," she said, "has deep psychological meaning in terms of how they're using identities to express problems and potentially solve them in what is a relatively consequence-free zone." [If the internet has deep psychological meaning, then all of the writers for the Board are stark raving mad at this point.]

Welcome to the ward

We went to our new ward for the first time yesterday. For those of you who have never experienced the joy of a married student ward, let me first explain a few key issues. First, a married student ward is blessedly free from most mentions of eternal marriage or dating or any of the other topics that seem to monopolize the pulpit time of single student wards. Don’t get me wrong, marriage is fine and dandy and all, but it seems like singles ward bishops delight in overkill.

Although a married ward escapes that particular pitfall, there are several other quirks that make the experience just as surreal. Testimony meeting in a married ward is epic. I have never born my testimony in a married ward because I can’t get up fast enough. I’m just not the kind of guy that jets from the pews like a sprinter from the blocks just to stand in front of my neighbors and tell them, “I just wanted to say that I have the best wife in the whole wide world and I’m so grateful for her and blah blah blah. . ..” I do think my wife is the best person in the whole word for me, but I’d rather tell her that than the people in my ward. Why would I announce something like that anyway? Am I trying to make my neighbors jealous or something? “Oh, gee, Benvolio’s wife is the best in the world? Shoot, I got a second-class version.”

There seems to be a lot more crying in these wards too, particularly from the men. Maybe they’re just very sensitive fellows, and that’s why they got snapped up by their spouses, but there is definitely more male weeping than what I’m used to. And then the girls get up there and tell about all the sensitive and kind and loving things their husbands do, and I’m sitting in the congregation thinking, “Shut up, woman, you’re making the rest of us look bad! Just ‘cuz I didn’t take my wife to Disneyland last week or I don’t bake crème brulee, it doesn’t mean that I’m not a nice guy!” (I’m not kidding about that Disneyland one, by the way. Some guy’s wife in my old ward said, “Let’s go to Disneyland!” and the poor sucker actually took her in their 15-year-old car. And the worst part is that they made it there and back and they had a wonderful time, thus validating her expensive and impulsive tendencies.)

So this new ward is the second married ward The Redhead and I have lived in. We had the good fortune of ending up in the same ward as Mynamyn and Dinomight, which was really lucky and will probably keep us sane for a few months. They warned us ahead of time that there were a lot of babies in this ward, so when we walked into the chapel of the dumpy little multipurpose building, we knew there was going to be noise. But nothing could have prepared us for the cacophony of hundreds of babies wailing during the sacrament prayers. The first speaker practically shouted in the microphone, which I thought a bit odd until the ambient volume in the congregation rose as the babies got fussy, and I realized the girl speaking wasn’t unaware of her volume—she had just planned ahead. Little rugrats wandered the chapel freely and I repeatedly reminded myself that we will never have children. (I never really mean this, but some days I come close than others to being sincere.)

This irreverent ruckus was juxtaposed by some of the most doctrinally-rich talks I have heard in quite some time. Maybe it’s because we just spent a semester in a growing little Spanish-speaking branch, but these people threw down some serious doctrine. I haven’t heard talks like that since General Conference. Inasmuch as I could hear what they were saying, I appreciated the discourse. So I’m not quite sure what to think of it all, but one thing’s for sure—we will never end up in a ward like this again. Which is probably a good thing, since I don’t know if I could handle the intensity.

First day

The first day of class is always an adventure. I’m always looking at my palm or my notebook to see where the heck I’m going in ten minutes. And somehow I always see more people that I know during the first week of class than the rest of the semester combined. I saw Latro, Saurus, Novel Concept, and Ambrosia today, all within about an hour of each other. I spent some of the day doing some errands, which was largely a hopeless cause because everyone I went to was either a) not very bright, or b) helpless because their computer wouldn’t work due to everyone logging on to find out when their classes were starting. (Yeah, I was one of those. Oops.) I don’t blame the people who couldn’t access my records due to computer problems, but the geniuses in the Transfer Office took 20 minutes just to tell me that they didn’t know how to help me and that maybe when someone else gets back later this week I can go to them. Well, gee, that’s helpful. Thanks for supplying me with zero information that I didn’t already know.

I also started work this week. I know several of the people there, but it’s always an interesting experience to start fitting into a work place. It’s even stranger because they’ve all been working together for a semester now and I’m “the new guy.” (I might explain a little better sometime where I work, but I won’t bother now.) I spent 4 ½ hours reading boring manuals and editing various course materials today, which I hope is not representative of what I will be doing every day there.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have an huge mess of boxes and stuff in our new apartment. Phoenix, Novel Concept, and Uffish Thought helped us haul a bunch of stuff from our storage unit over to our new pad. I never thought of the Board as a service organization, but that’s what it’s turned into in many cases. I find it immensely ironic that we’re actually doing a decent job at fulfilling part of the BYUSA mission by serving others. Who knew? So we have an absolute disaster area on our hands now, and we can’t seem to get federal funding for relief efforts because it’s all going to the tsunami victims. Talk about bad timing. So The Redhead and I are digging ourselves out, bit by bit, and although it’s slow, it’s a fun process sometimes. I keep looking in boxes and finding things I really missed. The bad part is that when I find something, like my old N64, I feel obligated to go try it out and see if it works, thus wasting several precious and potentially productive hours. Hmm, come to think of it, that’s what this blog is for too.

Cross Country

We live in a big country. Seriously, it's a huge place. I keep forgetting how big it is until I have to drive across half of it, which is just what The Redhead and I did last weekend. We made great time and we lucked out and had good weather, but it was still a long and grueling trip. I think you learn something about yourself and about your nation when you drive for several days. You find out just how little sleep you can survive on and how annoying 55 mph speed limits are. You also find out how many adult superstores there are on I-40 and how many Christian groups have put up billboards decrying said business. Since we took I-40 to avoid the snow, we went through parts of the country that I have never seen before. It was kind of a Bible Belt tour through much of Arkansas and Oklahoma—I never knew there were so many churches—and it was definitely a great example of the so-called "Red State" phenomenon. Then we got to Amarillo, Texas and were welcomed by a series of nude dancing clubs and the smell of cow manure on the outskirts of town. (Actually, you could smell the cows in every part of the town, but it was particularly pungent as we arrived.)

I made several important decisions during our trip. For example, I decided that I don't want to live in New Mexico. It's a pretty place, but there aren't enough people in there to make me feel at home. I expected Albuquerque to be a lot bigger, but it was only about the size of my home town, which is relatively small when compared to the surrounding cities. And Albuquerque does not have any surrounding cities. It doesn't really have much of anything surrounding it, just nothing. And trailer homes, I guess. I also decided that I will be very glad when we settle down somewhere and go more than 4 months
without schlepping our stuff across the country. Fortunately for us, we will only move across the country once more, although it probably will be in 4 months. But that should be the last time for a long time, so I'll be happy. Another thing you realize as you move—you have a lot more stuff then you ever imagined.

See you on the other side

The car is packed, the cooler full, and we’re ready to go. See you next year.