Evolution lapses on camping trips, Part 2

The first few miles were all smiles. We were tromping along a dirt path that I could have hiked in my sleep. After a while, we entered Orderville Canyon.

Orderville is a slot canyon, which according to Wikipedia, "is a narrow canyon, formed by the wear of water rushing through rock."

The first part of the canyon floor was all mud because a flash flood had torn through the night before. Despite collecting several inches of mud on the bottom of our feet, we were all still in high spirits.

Here's where I want to get back to the stupidity thing I addressed in Part 1. It's not that we weren't prepared--we certainly had everything we needed for the hike, we just didn't bother to bring what we had.

The first thing I'd like to address is our rations. While some had plenty to eat and drink in their packs, others had very little. Actually, Neanderthal #5 didn't even bring a pack. He carried a re-filled Gatorade bottle in his hand and a PBJ his back pocket. Neanderthal #10 went with two cans of Mountain Dew and a small bottle of water.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, we decided to leave the wetsuits behind. Well, about the time we got to the water section of the hike, where we had to start wading and swimming, a cold front came in.

The wind picked up and rain clouds covered the sun. Nonetheless, our jovial nature managed to carry us through the first few swims. But after an hour or so of plowing through 55-degree water in the bottom of a chilly canyon, it got really old really fast.

With everyone being hungry, dehydrated, and soaked in freezing water, it was every man for himself. If anger is a symptom of hypothermia, we all had it.

Funny movie quotes and jokes were replaced with death threats and grumblings. If someone biffed it in the water, their call for everyone to hold up was ignored. I'm pretty sure I remember someone asking for a handgun.

I remember thinking that if I fell in the water one more time it would definitely be my last fall. I was ready to give myself up as a sacrifice to Orderville.

Just as we were all reaching our limits, we came to the end of the hike. Orderville Canyon terminates at a visitor's point of Zion National Park. Thus, families with little kids and Chinese tourist watched ten men, on the brink of death, climb out of the river one by one.

It didn't help that many of us had our shirts off (some hiker we passed earlier on suggested we'd be warmer without them). Like zombies, we each stumbled onto the riverbed and fell down shivering.

Some of us looked dead and some looked incoherent. Some of us looked like we still had some evolution to go through.

Evolution lapses on camping trips, Part 1

I'm sure women are the driving force of mankind's progression. We men are just too stupid on our own; we have no internal check and balance to keep us on evolution's path.

The best place to realize this is a camp out. Get a bunch of guys together out in the wild, without female counterparts, and they immediately begin to degenerate.

Last weekend I noticed this phenomena when I went camping with a bunch of friends, all of whom are men. About a month earlier we started emailing each other about doing a big camping trip.

The first stirrings of stupidity came then, in the planning stages. Emails like this started to circulate among the ten of us:

Neanderthal 1: What do you say we plan a man-trip for some weekend?

Neanderthal 2: I'm down for something intense, or something casual. Just something where I can spit, swear, and not shower for a couple days.

Neanderthal 3: Here's what we do: head down to Zion National Park and camp on Friday. We'll eat some tin foil dinners, or whatever we kill with our bare hands. Then we hike Orderville Canyon on Saturday and drive home on Sunday. Boom, planned.

Neanderthal 4: There's a lot of water in Orderville Canyon, so we'll need wetsuits. The water down in the canyon will be freezing in May. Also, there could be flash floods.

Neanderthal 5: This is MANcation. We don't need tents, we don't need changes of underwear, and we don't need to plan.

Neanderthal 6: It's outings like this one where I wish I had some sleeveless Harley Davidson T-shirt.

Neanderthal 7: Hey, what do you wear under a wetsuit?

Neanderthal 8: Nothing.

Neanderthal 9: I don't think my wife wants me to go on this trip. She thinks I'll hurt myself being stupid.

Neanderthal 10: Stupid decisions are likely. Is it bad that my wife is not concerned for my safety? She either trusts me or wants me to get hurt. You pick.

With input like that, our trip to Zion National Park transpired. We arrived at our destination around 10 pm. Then we spent the next three hours, in the dark, looking for a place to camp.

We eventually settled in on a spot and began preparing for the next day's big hike by carbo-loading on Mountain Dew and Chips Ahoy. After a couple hours of sleep, we woke up and tried to cook some eggs and pancakes.

Luckily nobody could find the plasticware, so we got to eat breakfast with our bare hands. After breakfast we packed some PBJs and drove up to the get-out point of Orderville Canyon to begin our 13-mile descent into one of the Park's most treacherous slot canyons.

We had all rented wetsuits the day before, but it was sunny when we started out so we decided to leave them behind.

TO BE CONTINUED (next week)...

The Lone Ranger knows how to pack light

I recently spent some time chatting with my brother-in-law about a seven-day trip to China he'd just returned from. What impressed me most about his trip was that he took nothing more than a single carry-on bag.

The last time I caught a plane, I had to pay 15 bucks to check in my suitcase--at least if I wanted it to be on the same flight as mine. And then I had to deal with the baggage claim crowd. If I’m going to stare at a conveyor belt for a long time, I want it to be at Krispy Kreme, where doughnuts move along in front of you and not suitcases.

I’ve put some serious thought into packing lighter. Take packing, hauling around what is packed, and unpacking out of the traveling equation, and you’ve got a pretty enjoyable trip on your hands. Indeed, a suitcase is nothing more than a traveler’s ball and chain.

The next time I fly, I want to walk by the baggage check-in and give ‘em the bird.

There are definitely some obstacles to overcome in packing lighter, all of which are reasons why we're turning into pack horses:

For one, I can't wear the same shirt for more than a day (I haven't found a deodorant strong enough). Actually, I guess I can, but I'd need to be around people who have no regard for personal hygiene. And I just don’t travel with my old college roommates that often.

Then there’s the weather. Who knows if it will be too hot for pants or too cold for shorts? They do make pants that can be transformed into shorts by unzipping the bottom half of the legs. Those would be a good option, but my wife has veto power over all my clothes, and I think she'd exercise it in this case.

Probably the best way to pack light is to bring a little washboard and take a few minutes before bedtime to scrub down the clothes I wore that day. I'd just need to bring one pair of clothes to wear while the other dries out on the shower rack.

There are plenty of other obstacles (e.g., contact solution, swimsuits, neck pillows), but it can be done. I just think of the traveling cowboy: nothing more on the back of his saddle than a bedroll, a can of beans, and a rifle.

Those big, bad airlines probably thought people would simply accept the luggage fee. Not this lone ranger; he'll be checking his gun in for a washboard and firing back.

When do I get my honorary Ph.D.?

This past week Barack Obama received a Ph.D. from Notre Dame. Dolly Parton got one from the University of Tennessee. Here's the kicker: neither one of them did a dang bit of the university's coursework.

On top of that, they didn't even have to buy a textbook or take a test. President Obama never had to paint a football helmet gold. Dolly Parton never had to sing "Rocky Top Tennessee" after getting hazed into a sorority. It was just given to them.

Here's a list of a few other famous folks that picked up a degree like it was a doughnut at a complimentary breakfast:

• Tim Allen - Western Michigan University
• Bob Barker - Drury University
• George Foreman - Houston Graduate School of Theology
• Billy Joel - Syracuse University
• J.K. Rowling - Aberdeen University, Scotland
• Arnold Schwarzenegger - University of Wisconsin Superior
• Mike Tyson - Central Ohio State University

As masochistic as it may sound, I've thought about going on to graduate school a time or two. But then I think of, well..., going back to school, and any desire to do so is immediately extinguished. Walking back into homework just doesn't sound appealing. "Like a dog returning to its vomit," to quote Proverbs.

After seeing the above list of honorary degree recipients, I think their path to higher education is the way to go. Now I know what you're saying:

"You could never successfully host a game show for 35 years."

"You'll never pen a song that matches the likes of Uptown Girl or Piano Man."

"There's no way on this green earth you could write a book about Quidditch."

Maybe that's the case, but I think I could be a handy man (regardless of what my wife says). I also think I could invent something like a hamburger grill. Shoot, I could even be a boxer and take a bite out of some dude's ear.

Wikipedia says that a school giving someone an honorary degree "often derives benefits by association with the person in question." That may be a hard sale. I know that even my wife wouldn't give me an honorary degree, based off that criteria.

For now, I guess my marriage certificate is as close as I'll get to anything honorary.

The idiot and the parking lot

I took an IQ test last week. The format was a little different than the conventional test, but it still assessed my intelligence. Essentially, I'm as dumb as a dead carp.

I don't lock my car anymore. I figure that between the high-pitched whine that resonates when I accelerate and the rattling that kicks in once I apply the brakes, anyone that chooses to swipe my car will abandon it a quarter mile down the road.

So when I couldn't find my car in the airport parking-lot, I knew darn well nobody jacked the thing. Rather, I knew I had lost it.

I've certainly lost my car before at places like Walmart, Home Depot, and the parking lot outside my apartment complex. But an airport parking-lot is a different story. It's like all three of those combined.

The IQ test began as the park-n-ride shuttle approached the lot: find an object the size of a baby whale that I had parked 5 days earlier.

I had no clue which stop to get off at, so I just went with the first one. No problem, I thought. I'd just stroll up and down a few rows of cars and find my car in five minutes.

Twenty minutes later, I found myself disoriented, alone, and on the bridge of heat stroke on an asphalt sea of cars, none of which appeared to be mine. I'd hauled my luggage up and down countless rows of cars and had passed the mocking (at least he appeared to be) shuttle driver more than once.

In that asphalt sea, I was looking for my white whale. And there were a lot of look-a-likes. I'd see a white Honda and head for it, only to realize it didn't have a dent in the bumper from where my wife hit the pole of our carport.

Thirty minutes later, I switched my search from a random, scattered search to a more methodical strategy. I realized the only way to find my car was to start at the top, row 20, and zigzag back and forth down to row 1.

Fifty minutes later, my mouth parched, my face sunburned, and the wheels of my luggage ground down to stubs, I arrived on row 3. There sat my blasted car.

I may have felt like an idiot, but it sure felt good climbing into my car knowing I wasn't going to perish on the arid parking lot. As I accelerated out of that dreadful place, the whine and rattle of my car never sounded so good.

ROUNDTABLE

The author is out of town. Please enjoy this re-post (originally published on 3/22/08).

I've now been to roundtable... I'm not even old enough to rent a car, and yet I've been to roundtable. To say the least, it was a slap-in-the-face welcome to the boring world of adulthood.

For those of you who've grown up with parents involved in scouting, you may remember hearing them grumble under their breath about going to some horrendous meeting on a Thursday night. The second Thursday of the month, that is... always has been, always will be. Unless you end up in hell, then it'll be the second and fourth.

When I arrived at the meeting I saw a bigger crowd than I'd expected, all decked out in certified uniforms and neckerchiefs, mumbling to each other about the latest Klondike activity. There were basically three types of people in attendance:

1. The nice lady that serves faithfully as the troop's den mother. Always has a lot of fragile decorations in her house that you're not allowed to touch, but she's good for home-baked goodies.
2. The overly-cheerful guy that serves as the troop's scoutmaster. Dons a beard 90% of the time. Can rattle off at least 9 dutch-oven recipes upon request.3. The newly-called scout leaders that are wondering what wrong they've done to the world to deserve such punishment.
After a few opening announcements, a bona fide scouter stood up and called a person from the congregation to join him on stage. Apparently the chosen individual had completed "Wood Badge," a week-long training course for scout leaders. With his wife in hand, the prizewinner took an honorable walk to the front; he looked proud as a peacock when a new neckerchief was placed upon his shoulders. The awarder then announced, "we can't let him go without singing the Antelope Song!" In a flash the others in the congregation, who'd apparently completed Wood Badge also, stormed the stage and belted out the type of song that makes you want to slam your head against the nearest solid surface. They finished, there was an awkward moment of silence, and the meeting resumed.

I learned from roundtable that there is a pride cycle in the world of scouting. As an 11 or 12 year-old, it's neat to get badges and beads; when you're 17 or 18, it's not so great anymore. But when you become a middle-aged man, racking up badges suddenly becomes cool again.

I'd rather not tweet

It's hard to keep up with the latest, coolest thing. For instance, we still don't have a bagless vacuum or a toaster that fits bagels.

I also didn't have a Twitter account, until just last week. I don't really know why I registered for one. I guess I just thought that someday I may use it, so it would be a good idea to nail down the user name I wanted before it got taken.

For those of you who don't know, Twitter is like a blog, but each post must be under 140 characters. Each post must also contain one or more internet initialisms such as LOL, ROFL, or JK. If you're unsure how to use one in a sentence, just ask a 12-year old girl--or one of the Jonas Brothers--to send you a text.

Each post on Twitter is actually called a "tweet," which is a big reason I was so hesitant to open an account. As a man, I try to limit the number of times I use the word "tweet." It falls right in with "yay," "scrumptious," and "oodles."

The idea of each tweet (*shuddering*) is to give a quick update about what you are doing/thinking/wondering at the moment.

Even though I have an account, I haven't touched it since I set the dang thing up. And I don't intend to. Why? Well, here's an example of how a given day, say... a lazy Saturday, of me on Twitter would read:

8:10 a.m. - Didn't sleep in today. Instead I got up early so I could wander around the house.

9:33 a.m. - Aerating the soil in my houseplant pots. BTW, when will I have a yard and some real earth to till?

12:29 p.m. - Had a good church-ball game: 2 points, 3 fouls, and I made some guy swear. Dude shouldn't have tried to make a lay-up on me.

12:54 p.m. - Great shower. Skipped the soap and just went with water - LOL!

2:02 p.m. - Lunch at the local taco stand... went with the 1-pound Machaca burrito smothered in salsa verde. Now my stomach hurts like hell, but IDC.

3:31 p.m. - I'd like to get on Antiques Roadshow with some random piece of crap. I should start visiting more yard sales.

4:22 p.m. - Just ate a green Otter Pop. Should have gone with red.

4:28 p.m. - Just ate a red Otter Pop. Much better, IMO.

5:49 p.m. - Went to the dollar store, now I'm SFETE. Bag of cinnamon bears, tube of super glue, bottle of Mexican soda, and a mini radio all for just 4 bucks!

I think you get the idea. Not much there. I think I'll keep my energy focused on this blog, where my mindless drivel doesn't have to be capped at 140 characters.

Was it Britney Spears who sang "Smokin' In the Boys Room?"

It all happened unexpectedly: A long time ago my wife mentioned that she kind of liked Britney Spears' music; I recently found out she was coming to town; I got a good deal on tickets; Yada yada... Suddenly I'm a 25-year old guy walking into a Britney Spears concert.

There are a lot of places I never thought I'd end up in my lifetime--North Dakota, a NASCAR race, Denny's--and now a Britney Spears concert can be crossed off that list.

I wouldn't say I was excited about the whole thing, but I was somewhat curious. It's not every day you get to see a former Mickey Mouse Club all-star in person. However, once I got into the venue my curiosity quickly dissolved, and I wanted to get the heck out.

For one, my wife wasn't letting me make any sarcastic remarks. For instance, she got mad at me when I asked the usher if Jamie Lynn was going to be performing with Britney. The usher didn't think it was funny, either.

Secondly, crazy-pshyco-fanatic girls wearing shirts saying "Oops I did it again" and "Hit me baby one more time" were in full force. Hundreds and thousands of 'em. There weren't many guys there, and I told my wife I needed to leave because everyone would think I was some kind of pervert.

However, my concern quickly dissolved when the show started and the Pussycat Dolls, who opened for the concert, were on stage. That's when I saw some dude with binoculars, and he kind of took the cake on the whole creepy/pervert thing:

The show wasn't too bad; lotta theatrics, lights, dancers, and screaming fans. At halftime (technically it was intermission, but we were in an NBA Arena so I'll call it halftime) I headed for the men's restroom, to well, use the bathroom. I also wanted to hear some man-to-man urinal talk and find out how other guys in the place were handling the concert.

When I walked into the men's room it smelled heavily of marijuana smoke. THAT is how they were handling it.

I elected to skip out on sharing in on the high, and I went back out for the second half. More theatrics, more lights, more ear-drum deafening shrieks whenever Britney began to sing (and by sing, I mean lip-sync) a new song.

She sang a song while sitting in the handle of a giant umbrella, hung by the rafters. She sang a song while getting sawed in half by a magician, then came out of the box whole again. Etc, etc. And then it was all over.

Going to a Britney Spears concert is kind of like playing in the mud: it's entertaining enough while you're in it, but after you're done you feel like you need a shower. So as my wife and I walked back to our car after the concert, I was glad it was raining.

What happened to riding bikes?

When I was a kid, my bike was freedom.

For one, a bike provided unlimited options for fun. A popular game in my neighborhood was one wherein some kid was chosen to be on a bike, and everyone else was on foot. The chosen cyclist would then try to ride away from the pedestrians (a.k.a. foot soldiers), who were wielding broomsticks.

The goal of the foot soldiers was to lob a broom handle into the spokes of the rider's front wheel. The goal of the rider was to try to avoid eating the handlebars. When a foot soldier successfully wrecked the cyclist, he was awarded a turn on the bike (I know, the motivation seems idiotic, but it worked). The following embedded video will give you a general idea of the process:



We always talked my younger brother into letting us use his bike for that game; all we had to do was compliment his bike by saying it did the best front flips. He never seemed to mind that his bike was in constant need of an alignment.

Secondly, my bike could have been a tax write-off, had my paper route brought in enough money to merit filing income taxes. My bike was a moneymaker, and delivering newspapers on it was certainly more efficient than doing so on foot.

For instance, the time I threw a newspaper through the glass of someone's storm door I was able to make a quick get-a-way. Unfortunately, a newspaper thrown through glass is an object that can easily be traced back to the paperboy. That dang storm door equaled six weeks of wages.

Lastly, my bike was great for simply getting around. It was nice to not have to beg my parents for a ride into town; I could go buy crap from the the pet shop, the gas station, or the pawn shop on my own volition.

With all the freedom bikes gave us as kids, it's unfortunate that we abandon them so readily once we've got a car.

I bought a bike last fall from some stoned dude at a yard sale. He was also selling a lot of other stolen goods, but the bike was all I was interested in. It's actually a pretty nice bike; it has shocks and everything.

My goal this summer is to ride my bike more often, not just to reduce my carbon footprint (that line is for you, Al Gore), but to see if I can garner the feeling of freedom I once had as a young and reckless cyclist.

Two pets is one too many

"Surround yourself with people smarter than you," is a saying tossed around in the business world. However, at home people seem to prefer to surround themselves with those of lesser intelligence.

At least that's my philosophy on why people have pets. We naturally like to be the ruler of someone or something, and getting a pet is one of the quickest ways to gain a subordinate.

Such was the case with a lady in Lehi, Utah. Last Friday police removed 60 cats from her two-bedroom apartment, then condemned the dwelling. A few years prior, the police had removed 35. I guess she was more of a sovereign queen of kitties, rather than just a ruler of pets.



The thing is, I'm sure it all started with one feline and then snowballed out of control. I went through the same thing last year, but with houseplants. Although they're not pets, they are still something to rule over.

First I got a neat-looking yucca plant, and placed it in the living room. Then I thought a pepper plant by the window would be nice. Then I figured housing an aloe vera plant would be reasonable, for sunburns and what not.

And on it went with herb gardens and palms, until I realized I needed to take a deep breath and step back. Now on our front porch lay half-a-dozen stacked pots, like gravestones to those that I did away with. I guess I'm lucky I was able to nip the craving at the bud (no pun intended); the cat lady wasn't so fortunate.

My wife and I also have a little fiddler crab, that we rule over jointly. It's as far as we've gone in a pet venture. We got it about 10 months ago, and never thought it would live until now. But since it's survived the trials we've put it through (like the time we went on vacation for a week in December and left the heat off), we've grown attached.

I'll even say we've thought of getting a second fiddler crab, so it could have a friend. Thankfully we've been able to resist, because next thing you know we've got 60 and our next door neighbor is calling the police.

Cell phones were originally used to call people

http://imjosh.com/images/

I recently got a new cell phone for work. The thing does everything from GPS navigation to emailing. Heck, I could even update my MySpace page from it, if I had one. It's a lot different from my first wireless phone.

I decided to finally get a cell phone during my Sophomore year of college. I was sitting in class, watching some guy pick up on some girl--so I started taking mental notes. Before they parted ways, he smoothly pulled out his cell phone and asked her for her number.

That's when I decided to get one, so I could have something to put chick's numbers into. I went down to Cricket Wireless and signed up for the cheapest plan they had. No texting, no voicemail, and my service area was only in-state. All for an even 20 bucks a month, which matched the amount I budgeted each month for dating.

To my disappointment, I quickly found out that women wouldn't flock to me just because I had a mobile phone. When the opportunity finally came, and a girl was standing in front of me rattling off her number, I couldn't figure out how to type in her name with the stupid numeric keypad. And so Dgtmmg became the first female--that wasn't a relative--to grace my phone.

I also learned that I wouldn't suddenly muster the courage to call a girl just because I had her name (some form of it) and number programed into my cell phone.

Since then I've been through a number of phones. My personal favorite was the one that would randomly call 911. I'm not sure how it would happen, but the phone would be in my pocket, think there was an emergency, and dial away.

It happened once on a date. I got a call from the police, saying I had dialed 911 and they wanted to know if everything was all right. I told them it was, and explained my phone's bad habit. Then they told me they looked up my number and that there was a warrant out for my arrest.

A couple month's prior I had received a traffic ticket. I paid it right away, but somehow my payment didn't get recorded. It was a lot of fun handling that call in front of my date.

My new phone sure is slick, but it probably does too much. Looking back, I kind of wish I could go back to my first cell phone and the simple world that went along with it: dial and hang up.

The Kool-Aid tastes funny in Arkansas

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e61/vasandack/kool_aid_man_main.jpg

In a particular Simpson's episode, Homer is on tour with the The Smashing Pumpkins. In a scene backstage, he is quizzed by a couple members of the famous rock band:

Billy Corgan: Hey, Homer, looks like our next stop is your hometown, Springfield.
D'Arcy: Is it true that we have to bring our own water?
Homer: We got a little rule back home: if it's brown, drink it down; if it's black, send it back.

In Arkansas, bright blue is the new brown...

Earlier this month, a day-care operator near Little Rock served windshield wiper fluid to 10 children. According to reports, the operator thought the brightly colored liquid was Kool-Aid. It was even chilled in the fridge before serving.

The good news; all 10 kids were quickly released from the hospital and are doing fine. The bad news; Arkansas just reaffirmed its usual stereotype.

I imagine a lot of people are outraged at the incident (like, say... the parents of these 10 kids), but I can understand the screw up. As a youth, I went through many unpleasant experiences while trying to figure out which liquids were palatable, and which were not.

For instance, my mom would always save the juice from cans of vegetables and use it for soup stock. When I came across the pale-colored liquid while sneaking through the fridge, I'd often mistake it for pineapple juice. It shouldn't be a surprise when I tell you the sweetness of green-bean juice certainly doesn't measure up to that of the pineapple.

On that same note, I also vividly remember a time when I found a mason jar full of brown liquid in the fridge. Mmmm... root beer! After taking a hearty swig, I was quickly reminded that my mom was big on homemade maple syrup.

I guess kids just have a knack for expecting things to be better than what they really are. That is, if it's wet, drink it down. How else do you account for Kool-Aid's success?