Budd's Alternate Reality

    For some odd reason, yesterday, my wife took my daughter back to school to get a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest.  Ashli, along with every other kid, had noticed the bird hopping around while they were at recess.  No other parent, if even asked, gave in and went back to the school to look for the bird.  I said to my wife, "Don't, it will only die."  My protest via phone were either ignored or already too late as there was a bird in a box in my living room when I got home from work. 

     A quick internet search revealed that I was in fact right and that their was about a zero chance of survival with us nursing this bird.  The site I referenced also mentioned that in the State of Tennessee it is illegal to take a wild bird out of the wild.  I doubt wildlife management was running a sting, but it was another reason to be rid of the thing.  More research revealed that the mother would continue feeding the bird even after we had touched it.  It said we should try and put it back into its nest, make a nest to put in a tree for it, or, at the very least, put the baby in a tree or bush off the ground. 

     Of course it was up to me, the heartless dad, to take her back to the school with the bird and let the bird go.  Tears flowed for hours as my daughter explained that she could have kept it alive and that it would have been a great pet.  We put the bird on a thick branch in a tree, the nest was not evident.  Hopefully its mom and/or dad will find it there and continue feeding it. 

We are having a debate amongst my friends about the consequences of mythological monsters fighting/infecting each other.  For example;  What would be the implications of a zombie biting a vampire or vice versa.  We have little doubt that a Zombie could infect a werewolf but how would that affect his metamorphosis, if at all?  So let me know what you think and what rules you are going by for eache character (i.e. Romero Zombies, Rice Vampires). 

What is your definition of cheating?

Getting Caught!

1.  China is facing an imbalance in male/female ratios.  In about 10 years there is going to be a war for women.  The article says that for every 100 girls born there are 120 boys born.  Now multiply that by a billion people in China.  Yeah that is a lot of men with no prospect for a wife at all, let alone one that they find physically/mentally/emotionally attractive. 

2.  I like to call this my Crowded Room Theory.  Take a room of any size and start inserting people into it.  At some point the room will become noticably warmer with every person shoved in.  Now imagine that the earth is a room and we have over 6 billion people in it.  that is compared to  just under 2 billion in 1900.  We more than tripled how crowded the room was in about 100 years.  Could body heat be the culprit behind global warming.  

3.  Milk bottlers put a chemical in the milt to make it go sour after a few days to ensure that people are constantly buying their product.  The government lets this happen because the states get sales tax on every sale. 

Yes, they are a little cooky, but so am I.

1.  Jacob-  he was either Satan or one of his spawn.

2.  Kountry Kupboard-  This is a place we passed in McMinnville.  I think they changed it to K so that both words would start with the same letter.  Wait. . .

3.  Leroy's Trailer Park-  This was in between Murfreesboro and Woodbury somewhere.  

4.  Copperheads-  You have to read the the camping trip post.

5.  The scenery-  I thought it was pretty scenery going down there, but the falls and the gorge were awesome. 

6.  Han Solo and the college kids-  Han Solo was by himself and was staying till Wednesday by the camp permit he had posted.  The college kids looked like they were about college age but they could have been young married couples.  They were playing beer pong though, so you decide.  These were our non obnoxious neighbors at the campsite.  Why bother learning names when you can just refer to people by nicknames.

7.  Fishing-  We went for two hours and never even got a bite.  An angler walks up drops his line twice and pulls out a fish.  We attempt to fish for 15 minutes then give up and go home.  I had to wade out to retrieve one of my lures that was stuck in a branch.  The water was freezing. 

8.  The Buffett at  the inn-  All you could eat Southern goodness.  It was sooooooo good.

9.  Frozen Hershey bars-  Are not good for making smores.

10. Charcoal and lighter fluid-  Although not sanctioned boyscout fire starting tools, they really get a fire going fast.  We did start some using more traditional methods.  Sunday I got the fire going from the embers of the fire from Saturday night.

     Friday, two of my co-workers and I went on a camping trip to Fall Creek Falls.  It was a pretty fun trip.  Friday night it rained on us pretty hard, but my tent was sealed and I stayed dry.  We awoke at 5:45 Saturday morning to the sound of  the 2 year old in the next campsite over crying.  This is a sound that would plague us for the remainder of the trip.  Night, day, or whenever, this kid would cry and his parents would do nothing about it.  On Saturday night the father of the kid brought him over to say goodnight to us.  I guess this was a "subtle" hint to be quiet.  5:45 Sunday morning and  again I am awoken to the quiet piercing sound of this kid screaming his head off.  I did get some satisfaction when his mom packed him into the car to go home he was crying, and she was going to have to listen to it. 
   Enough about the bad lets get on to the good.  When not plagued by the devils own voice we could hear the creek that was right off the cliff behind our campsite.

Leaving on a camping trip today.  Going to Fall Creek Falls.  Looks like it will rain tonight and be cloudy tm. but I think it will be a fun trip anyway.  Hope to take some pictures to post.

You were warned.

Old and Busted:  Going Postal
New Hotness: Going to College

University of Phoenix could do a whole marketing campaign.  Stuff like:

University of Phoenix-You can bring a gun to class

University of Phoenix-If you get shot while taking one of our classes, you were probably cheating on your spouse. 

University of Phoenix-Because bullets don't travel through the Internet. 

Everyone laughed when it was called going postal, but I am supposed to feel worse for a bunch of stoner college kids and hippie professors.  Flame on Johnny Storm!

     Yesterday I caught part of a movie called Godsend.  In the movie a couple clones their son that died in an accident at 8 years old.  Of course the cloned child starts acting weird at 8. 

     I thought it was kind of sick that they would clone their child.  You can't just replace a person and it isn't like bringing the first child back to life.  It did get me thinking about cloning though.  I would like to clone myself.  Much like Jango Fett, I would raise the child myself and teach him in the ways I felt he should be taught.
 

     To understand my thinking you have to know a little about me.  My mother didn't quite quit drinking or smoking while she was pregnant with me.  I was born premature and weighed 4lbs 9oz.  This isn't too small I know and several people have a worse time of it being born.  I was also not breast fed and allergic to milk/formula.  I was put on meat formula.  I was always smaller than other kids growing up and now stand at a tall 5'7".  There is no way of knowing if I would be taller had my mothers pregnancy been healthier.  I don't really care about that, but it is an area to be considered when cloning oneself to try and get the maximum potential out of oneself. 
 

     The greatest area of improvement would be in academics, I believe.  I attended 13 different schools growing up.  Looking back, this had a noticable impact on the classes I was able to take and the consistency of my learning.  I was either catching up or waiting for the people around me to do so most of my school life.  I moved to a different state for 9th grade and they wouldn't let me take Algebra due to me not taking pre-Algebra which was normal 8th grade math for me.  This meant that I didn't advance through the Maths and was never able to take an advanced math class due to time constraints.  I also changed schools in the middle of my 11th grade year.  I was taking French III, but my new school only offered up to French II.  I was able to take the French II class for a French III credit but I slept through the class and finished the year knowing less French than when I started and with no option for French IV.  Examples abound.

      I consider myself a smart person and know that I was bored at school most of the time, but the turbulance of my situation never allowed that this would get noticed and I would get that special attention that could have impacted my academic carreer.  I was also not pushed at home.  Good grades were encouraged but that was it.  I was never directed and seldom received the at home education that would have encouraged learning in the sciences and social studies.  I am thankful that our house always had a bookshelf with books like Watership Down and The Hobbit. 
 

     So, I want to clone myself to see how I could have been, had I been given the right circumstances growing up.  I want to allow this version of me to play little league and take martial arts classes.  I want him to get the encouragement he needs to excell in school.  I want to feel for what interests this person and guide him towards it acedemically.  To a point my own children exposes some of this potential, but there is always the question of did they get that from me or from their mom.  It shouldn't matter with my kids and it doesn't, but I kinda want to know how I could have been and the girls don't reveal that, not the way a clone would. 

Last month Ashli was invited to attend 2nd grade at the Discovery School.  I think they had two slots open and over sixty applicants.  She was evaluated on her current grades as well as a two hour test.  Needless to say that we are very proud of her.  It is a charter/magnet school that focuses on technology about thirty minutes away from our house.  Luckily, there are two families with children in our neighborhood that currently attend and we will be able to car pool.  We didn't think we were going to get in after we got wait listed at the two other magnet schools in our county.  My wife is really excited about it.  Ashli is very non-chalant about the whole thing; she could care less where she goes to school.