In the Hall of Knowledge

There is a common misconception afoot in America that we, Homo sapiens, are descended from the apes.  We are not.  It is actually much worse than that.  We are, in fact, descended from the rats.  Any tenth grade biology student, and now me, could tell you that, while we share a common ancestor with the apes, we are not directly descended from the simian family.  We are, however, directly descended from the rat ancestor known as Megazostrodon, which was the first prehistoric mammal.  Our great civilization basically started out as a group of dinosaur egg stealing, bark chewing, nocturnal rodents.  I am sorry if this offends you.  But science is science, unless of course you are running for president of the United States on the Republican ticket.  In that case science is innuendo.  An inconvenience that gets in the way of our egos.

But the story gets worse.  It is even more shocking than you might imagine.  I learned of our primordial ancestor in the Hall of Mammals at the Smithsonian Institute Museum of Natural History.  In Washington DC.  And it didn’t cost me a dime!  (At the time of admission anyway).  That’s right.  Public money, aka your  tax dollars, paid for this bit of conjectural information.  It is not quite clear to me where the Smithsonian gets its endowment, but I smell a rat, pardon the pun.  For five hours I wandered around the halls of this great repository of American natural history and I never paid an admission price, nor was I solicited to make a voluntary contribution.  There was the Hall of Ocean Life.  The Hall of Precambrian Fossils and the Hall of Postcambrian Fossils.  The Hall of Mammals and the Hall of Reptiles.  And of course the Hall of Man, with its focus on hominid (us) evolution.  But no where, no where, was there a Hall of Intelligent Design!  At any moment in my wanderings I expected to enter an awesome hall where, instead of a giant blue whale hanging from the ceiling, there would be a giant bearded man pointing down to Earth. And before his outstretched index finger would stand a naked hominid with no resemblance what so ever to Alley Oop our prototypical cave man.  Walk a few steps further and there, behind the glass, would stand the apple tree with the snake himself in a jar of formaldehyde, forked tongue extended, mocking us for the stupid choices humans make.  

This being the Natural  History Museum, the centerpiece of the Hall of Intelligent Design would have to be a splinter of wood from Noah’s Ark.  Displayed prominently in a 360 degree glass case with little interactive buttons to press.  Push one and learn how the great diversity of life on Earth was preserved on a boat during the Great Flood.  Push another and see how the boat might possibly have been built with slave labor providing the necessary man power.  And finally, as a tie in to the Hall of Marine Mammals, you would actually walk thru the belly of a ginormous  latex whale, like Jonah, on your way to the museum gift shop.  It would only be fair.

To compound this imbalance in portraying our American culture, the American History Museum, across the way, had entire galleries devoted to the frivolities of television and Hollywood.  There, ensconced in his very own case, was the original Kermit the Frog.  He wasn’t green by the way.  More of a shit brindle brown.   And from the moment one entered the museum you were bombarded by signs crowing about the newly acquired ruby slippers that magically teleported Dorothy back to Kansas in the Wizard of Oz. There was even a purple Dumbo car from the Dumbo Whirl-a gig ride in Disneyland.  Thank Providence that our founding fathers knew the difference between fun and faith. 

Life in the Green Zone

It was during the last half of the eighteenth century when Ben Franklin first posited about the false economy in removing all the trees around one's property.  He mused about the as yet unknown oxygen cycle whereby trees replenish the bad air expelled by animals, with more refreshed air for us to breathe.  He came up with this idea because of an experiment conducted by Joesph Priestly which involved a candle, a mint sprig, a bell jar and a mouse. His postulate preceded ecosystem science by 200 years. True story.

The Priestly Experiment

So it is with the blessings of one of our greatest founding forefathers that Tammy and I always felt it necessary to live amongst the trees.  We never even considered living in a subdivision built on an old farm where one Bradford Pear per quarter acre is considered woodland living.  True, Kentucky Bluegrass conducts photosynthesis on a regular basis but due to our active lifestyle and the abundance of hot air I produce we need enough oxygen that only a forest of 200 year old oaks can generate.  And I always felt a few back breaking days of raking leaves every year is a small price to pay for all that recycled air. 

But a series of recent events have led me to rethink my position.    Actually a series of events over the course of the last 25 years.  No, a tree did not fall on our house, though the daily barrage of acorns raining down on our roof has led me to believe Chicken Little may have been on to something.  I did not think acorns hitting a roof could make such a racket.  It's as if the squirrels are the German Luftwaffe and our home the British House of Commons.  Nor is the stick (pardon the pun) that broke the camel's back the drudgery of bending over and picking up the 50 gallon trash can's worth of branches every week.  A large limb did fall and dent the hood of Tammy's car a few years back but that is when I still valued the friendship of the foliage.

Over the course of the years I have tried to take a preemptive approach to removing the dangerous trees before they can inflict damage on our property.  Much like Bush's War on Terror.  I don't hate all the Ents.  Just the arborofascists that want to destroy our way of life by suicide bombing my house by crashing down on the roof.  And also like the war on terror, my preemptive pruning just seems to make them angrier and more prolific.  Every time I remove one, three more seem to grow in its place.  But in any case, the twig that finally convinced me to want to move to a gated, over 55 community with no trees, was a thirty inch diameter Beech that fell into the lake behind our house.  No property damage, fortunately, but my sources tell me we may need to bring in a crane to remove it.  True story.  I will post the pics when the crane rolls in.

In the mean time I will continue to advocate for better understanding between the  autotrophs and heterotrophs because we all have to share the same Earth.

She Bang

It has often been noted that political women have a twofold burden when in the public eye.  Not only must they be quick witted, but they have to look good doing it.  Men, it is often lamented, do not have to live up to this double standard.  Well even the most apathetic student of evolutionary psychology will come to learn the fallacy of this argument in the first year of his studies.  It is a well known paradigm that women are attracted to virile behaviors [in men] such as an ability to kill and skin a bear in the wild or the resources to make a lot of money during a bear market on Wall Street.  Men, on the other hand, are attracted to physical attributes such as nice skin and large breasts.  It is a self evident truth [in light of advances in dermatology, plastic surgery, and Lasix] that it may indeed be more convenient to change one's superficial looks than to reconfigure one's masculinity.  You will therefore forgive me for limiting my remarks to Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin as I see no hope for Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman.  Rick Perry and Mitt Romney can obviously kick the shit out of them so all they have to do is have a rutting match to lock up the female Republican vote.  No one seriously doubts that the Ann Coulter Pod People care for much else.

So what does Sarah have that Michele does not?  Bangs of course.  If you have a forehead that only an extraterrestrial could love then I suggest it should be hidden behind some hair.  A very facile and effective grooming approach that I am quite certain will soften Michele up a bit.  Her inscience won't play too well outside of Iowa so perhaps her coiffure can.  Conservative women, after all, are more pretty than pedantic.  If you don't believe me I suggest you compare and contrast the women of Fox News to the lineup over at PBS or MSNBC.  OK, perhaps Rachel Maddow is sensual in a sexy butchy sort of way but Fox has the 18-55 male demographic tied up with Jenna Lee and Courtney Friel. 

We should not apologize for our licentious feelings as they are just that, feelings.  Both men and women have them.  But we can rise above them. 

The Final Step of a 17 Year Journey

The final step of a 17 year journey.

Summoning the strength and courage to stand up.

I decided to sit on the summit rock due to rain and high winds

Back at base camp 1.  The axe is pointing to the summit

No official post yet but I completed driving, hiking, and climbing to the highest point of all 48 contiguous United States.  Tammy and I hiked to our first one in 1994, Clingman's Dome in Tennessee.  We became official Highpointers in 2002 when we completed Signal Hill in Arkansas and we became aware of the Highpointers.org community.  It has been a 17 year inner journey.  The mental and emotional components have proven to be way more taxing than the physical aspect of climbing mountains in the US.  Here are photos of my last summit.  Gannett Peak Wyoming at 13,804 ft.  Summited at 9:30 AM August 1, 2011.
The weather at the summit was quite poor so the pictures are not as pretty as one would expect.

There Will Be a $100.00 Fine for Unwarranted Use of This Stall

Yes, I use the handicapped stall in a public restroom.  A handicapped stall is not regulated like a handicapped parking spot at the mall.  People don't walk around malls and airports with blue handicapped placards hanging around their necks, so how can a cop prove I don't need a high seat and perhaps a grab bar to get myself up?  Besides, many males over the age of fifty could be considered disabled if urinary urgency or irritable bowel syndrome got any respect from the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Another appealing aspect of the handi-stall is its large size and prime corner real estate. So the worst case scenario is that there is only one other guy farting next to you.  It's like the corner office on the 56th floor of a skyscraper, but without the view.  Unless you consider peaking through the crack in the door a view.

But having justified my use of this exclusive stall, I was still embarrassed by what happened to me at the tiny Jackson Hole airport the other day.  Not being in a rush to catch my flight, I lingered while on the handi-throne and caught up on my e-mail via my smart phone.  When I finally did get up to leave there was a guy in a wheelchair waiting to get into the stall.  And boy was he giving me the evil eye.  So as I passed him I muttered something about how irritated my thigh was from my prosthetic leg and thank goodness for the extra room in the handicapped stall for some privacy while I adjusted it.  He replied "Right on, dude".

I am pretty certain Hell for me will be spending all of eternity on a porta-pot that has not had routine maintenance since Adam ate the apple.

Press 1 for Hell

"Okay, let me see if I can help you".  Thus began the voice prompt odyssey.  And at first I was hopeful that this sexy voiced computer would be able to dispatch my problem with great haste.  I imagined myself the star in a science fiction fantasy where the mod she-bots dote on my James Bond like character.  Greeted as I enter the room with a sexy "Good morning Dr. Feuer.  How may we assist you?"  You can picture it.  The she-bots are wearing those Twiggy style mini skirts and their hair is in an over sprayed, non-movable "updo" configuration.  And perhaps they are wearing those white gloves which reach practically to the elbow.  "Ah yes", I breathed in anticipatory delight.  I will not have to deal with a clerk who states his name is Joe when we all know his real name is Rajesh.

But no, Verizon's artificial intelligence system is not quite ready for a Star Trek like experience.  There is no proactive command function available to the hapless customer who just wants his Fios voice mail to not cut off his Mom in mid message.  Apparently, the rocket scientists over at the Verizon R and D department have been instructed to program the voice recognition tech support hotline to weed out the morons who have simply forgotten their voice mail phone number, lost their 4 digit pin code, are not sure how to leave a message prompt, still have a rotary phone, or have no idea what voice mail even means.  So rather than simply having me state my problem I had to suffer through this cross examination:
"Do you have a dial tone?"
"Yes"
"Sorry, I didn't get that."
"YES!!"
"Okay, have you forgotten the number to retrieve your voice messages?"
"NO"
"Have you forgotten your pin code?"
"NO"
"Would you like your current balance?"
"Not really."
"How about how many text message units you have left?"
"Seriously?"
"Would you like to hear about special offers Verizon has for our special customers like you?"
"I thought this was tech support."
"A simple yes or no will do."
"NO."
"No, you don't want to hear our special offers or no, a simple yes or no won't do?"
"No. No. No. No.  No."
"Okay then.  Congratulations.  We have determined that you have an actual problem.  Please hold for the next available technician."  CLICK.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!"

Can I Return It if It Is Not Comfortable?

I recently cracked my toilet seat in half.  While I was sitting on it.  I didn't even get to finish the comics section.  True story.  Fortunately no shards pierced my delicate bottom.  I am not one hundred percent certain, but I think skin that has never been exposed may be more delicate than the weather beaten kind.  So I dodged a bullet there.

So shopping for a new toilet bowl seat is not as straight forward as one may imagine.  Aside from the almond versus white and the elongated versus round there are a myriad of choices that no man should have to bother himself with.  It's easier to pick out flowers for your wife and that's just wrong.  Thank goodness the bowl itself usually comes pre-installed in a new home so the shape decision has already been made.  And if you think it is strictly about accommodating the male physique I invite you to "Google" elongated vs round.  There is a discussion thread for every bored man, woman, and plumber on the face of the Earth.

But our story begins on the top of the bowl.  The porcelain-ass interface if you will.   Where man meets contraption (concraption?).  The weak link in any piece of adaptive technology such as a prosthetic leg.  And with all due respect and empathy for the disabled, the importance of avoiding chafing and numbing due to pressure points may be of equal concern to handicapped athletes and potty sitting couch potatoes alike.  And that is why I  don't understand the retail mechanism by which toilet seats are sold.  When you go to purchase new kitchen chairs they are not all hanging on a wall.  Same with living room chairs.  And mattresses.  Even bar stools.  One does not walk into a dinette set showroom only to be confronted with a wall full of hanging furniture.  No.  All the seats are on a display floor.  Strategically placed for the leisurely appraisal of durability, stability, and comfort.  So why when I walk into Lowe's or Home Depot are all the toilet seats hanging on a wall??  Are they artwork for purchase?  They are seats.  And a seat, I should point out, which will get more action than the dining room chairs we use twice a year.  And those chairs were carefully vetted over a course of weeks and months of trial and error sitting.  In furniture showrooms across a three county area I might add.

I know what you are thinking.  I should have gone to the Kohler showroom.  Well, that is like telling me to go see a Frank Lloyd Wright house when all I want is a sub division double wide.  Toilet seats are for the masses, and the masses shop at Lowe's, or Walmart, where we actually ended up buying the thing.  Their selection was rather limited which suited me just fine.  If I couldn't try the seat out, I might as well not have too much to choose from anyway.  Though we did fight over cushioned versus firm.  And "whisper close" versus metal hinged (which slam closed).  And satin finish hardware versus shiny.  And wood toned finish (perfect for a log cabin in my opinion, but not Tammy's) versus plain white.  And plastic molded contoured versus melamine covered wood.  And a ten dollar model versus a twenty dollar model which differed only in their respective warranties.  And if you are not clear as to why a toilet seat requires a warranty I refer you to the first paragraph of this essay.