Roller Derby Babies and Hot Yoga

So last Saturday I got tricked into going to a roller derby practice.  It was supposed to be a practice bout, (roller derby matches are called "bouts") but in reality it turned out to be girls practicing solid roller derby fundamentals like stopping, falling, and skating backwards.  (Turns out they don't wear fishnets and miniskirts for practice either.)  Useful I'm sure, but probably closer to watching a pitcher practice his curve ball than watching batting practice prior to the home run derby if you don't mind my using a sports analogy to describe sports.  Luckily for me it was held in a building on the Fort Walton Beach fair grounds so I started to wander off to look at the old farm machines.

Suddenly a girl skates up to me, hands me a crying baby, and tells me; "Here... Take him outside if you want." She then skated back to practice.

Holy SHIT!! A baby!?!?!?  I am qualified for many things, but being handed a crying baby then left unsupervised is not one of them.  Usually I hand crying babies BACK!... anyways, I figured I like "outside" maybe this kid and I will get along.  As I started walking toward outside... the intensity of the crying increased exponentially.  It got to the point where I was worried about him bursting the top of his head off if I took one more step toward the doors.  I wasn't going to risk that sort of thing so I went back into the practice room where the crying was about what I would consider an intense whimper.

Somehow, I ended up with all the lost children of the roller derby girls, and I was their peter pan!

No not really... basically I just ended up surrounded by the kids and felt vaguely like the only adult and somehow that made me somewhat responsible for everyone's safety. The only game the kids wanted to play were karate and run in front of the track...  perfect...

Eventually a large piece of paper and a dried out set of markers won the day.  I drew a pirate ship... so then everyone decided to draw bigger better pirate ships.  It kept them alive till I could relinquish responsibility for all the kids.  Also, I drew a dragon that was immune to pirate cannons so I also feel like I won the drawing too.

Yesterday I didn't have to go in to work till the afternoon... so bright an early I get asked the age old question, "Do you want to come to yoga with me?"

At first I thought it was a terrible idea... but after a few moments I realized I didn't have any really good reason not to, so I went.  I asked what to wear and was told "as little as possible."  I went with ranger panties and a band shirt I had from high school.  (a marching band that I was in... not ACDC or anything...)

I have never been to a yoga class before.   Apparently there are different types of yoga and this is what they call "Hot Yoga."  Let me describe it... We got there and an old hippy lady rents me a rubber mat for 2 bucks.  The way they clean this mat is not totally apparent, but whatever... Then I go into the "studio."  It is sweltering.  Like breathing butter.  Probably this is part of the experience to simulate the open air yoga studios of the interior of India.  That is how I rationalized it anyways.  Also, it was filled with beautiful young women wearing skin tight cloths.

Immediately I started to worry!  Why would my very possessive and willing to slap me in public girlfriend bring me to such a place?

Admiral Ackbar knows... "It's a Trap!"

The next hour and a half was watching the old hippy lady perform feats of strength and then failing to emulating them.  Also sweating... did I mention that rubber mat?  When you combine that much sweat and a rubber mat, you have effectively made a Slip'N Slid.  Yes, so all the balancing has to be done on a slip'n slide.

So... Hot yoga  = doing feats of strength surrounded by girls in tight clothing while playing on a slip'n slide.  I'll probably be attending again soon.

XKCD hits another homerun for Atmostpheric Science

So, I haven't been to work for two days.  The panhandle of Florida is under about a quarter inch of ice and because of all the bridges being closed, I couldn't drive to work even if I wanted to be there.  I talked to my brother up in Alaska and he tells me it is like spring up there and totally lovely.



One would have thought this would be a great two days to catch up on some garage projects.  I have my girlfriend's miata engine half disassembled in the garage ( I am pretty sure she thinks I murdered her car, she had never seen pistons in a vehicle she owns before), I have a flying motorcycle that needs everything, I have a cadillac that is leaking tranny fluid and needs to be converted to diesel, I have my girlfriend's shoes pretty much everywhere with a shoe storage closet only a figment of my imagination... but unfortunately everything is parts + X. (X=time in hours) I got the + now, but not the parts.  You either got time or you got money/parts... but never at the same time it seems or the same X for that matter.

Thanks to amateur-sophist I happened to have an old school balsa model of a hellcat to build.  A nice indoor project that only involves super glue and exacto knives!

I ran out of super glue...

waiting for elmer's to dry...

elmers glue drys really damn slow...

five gimlets in...

decided to write a post!

You are WELCOME! :-)

Mars, it is getting real! Wear you damn safety glasses!

So I had my first interview about going to Mars today.  To be honest, I wasn't completely sure how it was going to turn out.  I tried asking myself reasonable questions about going to Mars ahead of time to prepare so that I would have some sort of answer queued up in my brain... but as it turns out, there are no reasonable questions to ask about going to Mars.

I thought the interview went well, and I don't think I gave away launch codes to nuclear missiles... We will see when the article gets published.  Anyways, Carl Engelking from Discover magazine interviewed me and I'll post a link to the article when he publishes it.

(Why is my father's goodbye saying, "Don't let me read about you in the paper tomorrow!" ringing in my head.)

In other news:  Think about the worst sound you have ever heard in your life?  I have one worse!  And I heard it twice last weekend.  It is undoubtably the sound of a bolt breaking off in an engine block... where you could never ever get to it without taking out the whole engine.  I was fixing an oil leak in the jeep and putting the oil pan back on.  I wasn't torquing it oddly or anything when one of the pan bolts went, "CLICK"

Oh god.... no.... NOOOOOOOOOOO

Yea, so I snapped a bolt off in the bottom of the engine.  Shit...  well, not to big a problem (I rationalized), it isn't a corner... maybe the seal will be good enough... maybe I can ignore it till next time I pull the engine... probably ok...

(There was no way I could get a drill aligned in there or remove that bolt with out removing the engine...)

I'll just put the next bolt in and not worry about it.

So there I am.  Just finger tightened the next bolt.  Put my wrench to it...

"CLICK!"

...no.... AHHAHAHAAHAHAHAH  NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

It is the kind of sound that makes you wish you could dial back time just a few seconds!  It was so OK just seconds ago... now it is so terrible!  Please can I get a do over of the last 8 seconds! Please!!!!

Well, I have no idea how that second one broke off because the bolt stem was still loose in the engine block.  I could jiggle it with my finger nail.  I have no idea how it broke instead of turned.  Anyways so I figured I could retract it by banging it around with a screw driver and a hammer by hitting it just right to turn it out.

So there I am laying with my face 5 inches under the broken bolt, a screw driver poised against the broken bolt, and a hammer ready to knock it around... when I think to myself, "This is exactly when I should be wearing safety glasses."

What did I do?  Get safety glasses? No... I hit that damn screw driver!

"Ping!!!!"

You can guess the rest.

The chunk of metal stuck in my eye was large enough that it could be picked out with a pair of needle-nosed pliers.  It was large enough that I thought looking down and jumping would make it fall out!

Anyways, wear your safety glasses!

An Overdue Update:

Well... a lot has happened.  Three years might be a little long to build anticipation.   I doubt there is anyone still reading this thing, but maybe it can be resurrected.

Reading my "recent" posts I'll start with an update for those.  The Buick needed it's engine rebuilt.  The Cadillac that I had planned on turning into an electric car, has been put back together as a gasoline car again for now.  It was a beautiful day and I thought to myself, "I wish I had a convertible to drive around on such a beautiful day!"  then I looked over at the piles of orange parts scattered all around the shop and said, "Holy Shit!  I do have a convertible to drive around on beautiful days!"  So I temporarily put the electric car project on hold and put it back together with the massive 500 CI/8.2 L monster engine it originally came with.  One trip to the gas station and over a hundred bucks later I remembered exactly why I was going to convert it to being an electric car... 6-10 mpg will do that.  Not coincidentally, within the next few weeks I am pulling that engine out again and will be replacing it with a duramax diesel engine.  I love the car, but 6 mpg is really undrivable.  My plan is to do the engine swap right in the middle of my condo parking lot.

The caddy hiding coyly because I am talking about her upcoming engine surgery in public.

Duramax Diesel: The soon to be power plant of the caddy.

Speaking of wrecking property values... I have moved out of the garage in New Mexico and now live in a condo in Florida.  It is a pretty sweet place apart from all the crappy cars parked all over the parking lot!

In other news, I have made it through the first round of selection for the Mars One project!  This is a public world wide project to send astronauts to colonize Mars.  http://www.mars-one.com/  From what I understand they started with about 300,000 applicants and are now down to about a thousand.  This will be a one way trip.  Right now we are in the preliminary medical screening and initial announcement phases.  I'll post updates as I progress through this project.  So far I have only told a few people... but no reason to keep it a secret.  I already told my mom... she wasn't particularly thrilled.  Maybe I didn't convey the awesomeness of this through my text to her.

Oh yea! and I bought an old ultralight gyroplane from some dude out in the desert and taught myself how to fly it by watching youtube videos!  It is not much more than a lawn chair with a snowmobile engine!  When I look straight forward while flying, I can't see any part of the aircraft at all.  It is like I am flying with just my face!  Soon after getting reasonably good at flying it around Portales, it became obvious that it would be a lot more fun if I could bring someone up with me.  So I am building a two person version...  but here is the thing, I also don't like trailering it to the airport.  So the version I am building will also be a road legal motorcycle.  Literally a flying motorcycle!  What could go wrong?!?!   (Fast forward ten years: "DRUG RUNNING MOTORCYCLE GANG SWOOPS IN FROM THE SKY TO TERRORIZE SMALL DOWN WITH BOOZY ACROBATIC ANTICS"  Yea, ok so besides that?

Flying motorcycle project: 

Seems like a reasonable sign.

The funny thing is that this didn't describe at all how to operate the toilet that was in that stall.

Big Lucid Dream Break Through

Ok, so just a warning, if you start to delve into your own subconscious, it maybe weirder than you expect.

Major breakthrough though last night... I was able to sustaing a lucid dream almost as long as I wanted. The most unusual discovery was playing with my subconscious as if it were a different entity than yourself. Me and myself being different people.

I had kind of figured lucid dreams were the route to being one with your subconscious and all its resources and knowledge. The act of lucid dreaming plays out like this... you are there, basically an immortal god in a world of your own creation. Anything you want, is created, any being, machine, environment... all you have to do is desire it and it happens. I can't imagine anything closer to being all powerful than lucid dreaming. The thing is that when you are there, it isn't even an illusion. It is as real as anything that happens in your physical life.

When it gets weird is when your own subconscious imagination messes with you for it's own fun. I figure, if you really are in your own brain, then whatever you are experiencing must have been created by you. Right? Things should take the form that you imagine they should, because it is your imagination creating them. It should be a closed system. No one in there but you and yourself... So where would this unexpected element come from?

I know that might sound crazy. Sort of if you imagine a you have found a magic Genie, and he thinks puns are funny. Several times I would wish something into existence, find what had been created was not in fact what I had intended, but could be interpreted that way if it was trying to fuck with myself.

"I wish for a million bucks!"
(Suddenly surrounded by deer...)
"Ha ha... subconscious me is being funny again, apparently I have to be clearer with myself..."

That kind of thing.

The other interesting thing I found is that it is easier to sustain lucid dreaming when your dream body is doing something different than your real body. Try and keep your actions as different from laying down in a bed as possible. When the signals and sensations from your dream body start to be similar to what you physical body is experiencing they star to overlap and you will start to wake up. So if you feel yourself start to wake, just do something really physical (in your dream). What worked for me was to run. When I was running, I would go deeper into dream state and when I stayed still, I would start to come out of it.

The only problem with this "do something physical in your dream" model of dream sustainment is that you may accidentally cross the signal and make your physical body do it instead of your dream body. This takes the shocking form of finding yourself awake in shipping container in central Asia having just punched the overhead bunk or the wall next to your bed. I imagine it could also get awkward with your roommates if you try some sort of dream sex act and your physical body acts it out because of crossed signals...

So, in conclusion. When you are by yourself in your own mind, you aren't alone... or you aren't really in your own mind... Think about it! Also, push the bed into the middle of the room for safety.

The only logical explanation: I blasted it with my mind!

So as I have mentioned before in a post, I am exploring the possibilities of Out of Body Experiences, Lucid Dreaming, etc...

Unfortunately I do not have proof of having traveled through space and time just with my mind, or entered other people's dreams or anything like that. I am not even going to claim that I have done it at all even with out proof. However, I would like to relay an interesting anecdotal happing from two days ago.

I had been reading a book on the subject of Astro Projection written from a wiccan point of view. Why not right, might as well check on it. A lot of it seems like bunko and... witchcraft... but one technique for separating your conscience from your physical body involved meditating while looking at a significant symbol drawn on a card. The idea being that you travel out through the symbol on the card to the astral plain.

As I thought about it, it seemed to me that what might really be happening is that your mind is more easily focused if you have something for you eyes to look at. A simple drawing on a card simply presents an easy place to keep your attention. Using this logic, I decided to try it.

When I am in bed, I hang my watch from the bottom of the bunk over me. That way, in the middle of the night I can just look up and can see the hands glowing in the dark and know the time. Since I imagined this technique of astro projection basically about giving something to do for your eyes as your mind focuses and separates I figured my glowing watch in the darkness would be a good subject to look at. It was simple in appearance, contrasted well with the background, etc... I didn't think that I would actually travel out through the watch, just that I might be able to meditate more focused by looking at it in the dark.

So I did...

Now, let me explain that this watch is really a pretty darn good watch. It is a 3 year old Citizen Eco Drive skyhawk A-T. It is solar powered so it doesn't run out of batteries and has never ever been off time in the last 3+ years that I have been wearing it. I have banged it around in aircraft, irradiated it with radars at close range, spun high voltage electrical equipment around it and never has it done anything but keep perfect time. I have literally trusted my life to this watch when I have used it as a fuel gauge. I would say it is probably the most reliable mechanical object I have ever used.

Right, so back to the astro projection bit. That night it went down like this: I was laying there in bed, focusing on the watch. I remember doing that for a while... then it was the next morning. I woke up and figured I must have just fallen asleep.

Shit, oh well, I guess I'll try again later.

After I had been awake for a few hours, I noticed that my watch was all kinds of screwed up! Not only was the time off in the digital section, but the hands themselves weren't even aligned with the wrong time! Basically the whole thing was completely jacked up! This watch can display three timezones at once, but they are all synced up at least in the minutes and seconds... Now they didn't even agree with each other in that! This shouldn't even be possible.

The obvious conclusion is that I accidental blasted my watch with my mind as I attempted to astro project.

So, in the name of science I should attempt to do it again. Surprisingly my roommate would not let me attempt it on his watch the next night. Even after I reconfirmed that what he feared was me breaking his watch with just my thoughts and energy of being... he said no... he really liked his watch. I can only assume he can sence my powers!

Don't worry everyone, after downloading the manual from the internet, I have been able to recalibrate my watch and it seems to be performing nominally again.