Child Endangerment by my Parents?

I was visiting my parents over the past weekend and realized something as my mother and I were leaving the cemetery where my grandparents are buried:

I COULD SEE OUR OLD HOUSE FROM THE ENTRANCE TO THE CEMETERY.

Holy crap! We'd been sitting zombie bait for 15 years!

The more I thought about this, the more I realized what a potentially deadly and re-animated situation I narrowly escaped by going away to college. Not only was my childhood home a mere, what? 300 yards away from a cemetery, it was a ranch-style house. And one room had been converted into a sunroom - all windows. And there was no basement. And the attic was only accessible from the garage. What had they been thinking when they bought the place?! Obviously not the safety of themselves and their children.

They moved when I was in college. Oh sure - move to a safer place once the kids are out of the house...

A New Kind of Personal Torture

I've been seeing a personal trainer at the gym. This is good for me for a number of reasons. #1, I need accountability to get up of my lazy arse and do strength training and lose weight and be healthy and prepare for sculling school. #2, it gets me out of the house twice a week and allows me to talk to someone. When you work from home you can find yourself cooped up in the house for days straight. Especially in the winter. And when you don't know anyone where you live. And when you use the self-checkout lane at the grocery store, thereby avoiding even brief interactions with other people. I could literally go for days without talking to anyone other than Dr. Nate. And I don't want to start anthropomorphizing pocket lint and the kitchen table. I do it enough with the cats.

So I trot off to the gym twice a week and see Trainer Jim. Trainer Jim is evil, but in a good way. I like someone who pushes me to the limits of what I can physically do. It's the only way to improve, right?

But Trainer Jim said two things today that I didn't particularly like (okay, yeah, here I go with the negativity again, but trust me folks - you would whine about it too...)

#1. He wants to see a food log. Damn. That means I need to be on my best behavior while I'm logging this stuff. No cookies. Although if I wanted to be really truthful with him I would eat the cookies anyhow and just tell him. Or, as is likely, I will be good for a week and then eat cookies AFTER I submit my food log.

#2. He suggested that I start what sounds like the worst possible thing EVER. It's called the 100 Day Burpee Challenge. See? That sounds miserable, doesn't it? My grousing is justified. I haven't done burpees since junior high PE class. Trainer Jim LOVES the burpees. So this challenge is: Day 1, do one burpee. Day 2, do two burpees. Day 3, do three. And so on until you get to day 100 when you have to do 100. But you can't do 20 in the morning and then 20 a few hours later, etc. (believe me, I asked!) until you get to 100. No, you do them all at one time, no matter how long it takes.

But Trainer Jim's "suggestions" are never really suggestions at all. They are more of a command. "You should do" really = you will do or prepared to be hassled about it everytime I see you. So I will do it. Although I reserve the right to whine about it.

Incidentally, I'm a bit confused by the wikipedia description of a burpee. I've never put the push-up at the beginning. I always have just started from a squat position and then gone from there.

So tomorrow starts the challenge. But maybe I'll have a cookie first

Staged Death or Something Else?

If zombies were at all involved then this story is AWESOME. If zombies were not involved then it's just sad and dangerous.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/13/missing.pilot/index.html

Stop it, Christians!

Christians need to stop co-opting our secular holidays. I've noticed this trend in recent months, it being, you know, the "holiday season." And I find it distressing.

I was miffed when I noticed the massive (read: scary) lutheran evangelical church down the street was holding Thanksgiving services. Thanksgiving is on a Thursday. So it wasn't like it was a regular Sunday service. It was a service FOR Thanksgiving.

NOTE: Thanksgiving is about honoring the pilgrims by making 'hand turkeys' and watching football and eating oneself into a coma. It's not about religious figures being born, dying, or do whatever else religious figures do...performing miracles and making the grass grow or whatever.

So leave it alone.

You christians have your own holidays - they are called Christmas, Easter, various and sundry saint-related ones (Catholics only), lent, Good Friday, advent, and a really weird one that I have yet to figure out what it's all about: Mandy Tuesday? Monday Wednesday? (I didn't feel like looking it up in Wikipedia. It shows up around Easter, I think).

But okay, I'll cut you a little--not a lot, mind you--slack on Thanksgiving since it's about giving thanks and all, and christians like to do that by congratulating themselves on stuff like Proposition 8 and the rapture.

However, my ire was very much raised by driving past a different evangelical church that was holding New Year's Eve/Day services. WTF? I ask you: how in the HELL is New Year's Day a religious thing? It marks the beginning of a new calendar year. How is there any sort of religious connotation to that?! For pity sake - let the poor parishoners have a break! Let them go out and have fun and watch football and nurse hangovers.

There aren't a lot of secular holidays we can lay claim to. Thanksgiving was one. New Year's was another. And you've taken them from us.

It'll be Fouth of July and Casual Friday next.