Happy Birthday, Earth!
Posted by Mike | Filed under Mike's Rambling
Sure, your birth certificate says you are 4.6 billion years old, but who can picture such a number? It’s simpler to imagine that you were born at the stroke of midnight on January 1st, and that it is now midnight again, exactly one year later. You’ve accomplished so much in that time!
You spent three months just cooling off and letting water vapor condense into rain to fill your oceans. By about March 5th, you had already become home to single-celled life forms. You suffered your first environmental disaster in early June, when some organisms began releasing the toxic chemical oxygen into the atmosphere. Many life forms died, and others retreated to hidden places where the poison couldn’t reach. A few, however, learned to thrive, using the oxygen to produce energy. By August, eukaryotic cells with nuclei had developed, enabling even more complex life forms to evolve.
And evolve they did, into some amazing creatures. Around December 12th, the mighty dinosaurs appeared, to rule the planet until around 8:00 PM the day after Christmas when they mysteriously disappeared. This afternoon, December 31st, at about 7:14 PM, some strange-looking apes appeared, walking on two legs, and by 11:37 (23 minutes ago) they had evolved into us, homo sapiens. We have turned out to be an astoundingly industrious species. We built the pyramids at 11:59 and 36 seconds. A little over 1 ½ seconds ago, we invented the steam engine and started the Industrial Revolution. Since then we have built the modern world of today, with all its technological wonders, and have developed an overwhelming sense of confidence in our abilities.
You’ve had a bit of trouble holding your temperature steady over the past year; you’ve developed a chill at least four times that we know of. We think the earliest was around late May, then again just before Halloween, again at Thanksgiving, and finally as late as this afternoon, around 4:22 PM. During these cold spells, snow and ice covered much of your surface. In between these periods, your temperature rose enough to shrink the ice caps to a tiny area at the poles, leaving even Greenland and much of Antarctica ice-free. Since those regions are ice-covered today, you must still be recovering from your latest cold.
These changes haven’t gone unnoticed by us, and we have grown ever more sophisticated in our analysis of the climate. We now feel confident that we know what is going on. Seven tenths of a second ago, we declared that you were growing colder. Then, a little more than half a second ago, we corrected ourselves and pointed out that the temperature was getting warmer. Less than a quarter of a second ago, we recognized our mistake and said no, you were actually growing colder, and perhaps we should spread a layer of black carbon over your ice caps to warm things up. Then, about one tenth of a second ago, Al Gore straightened us out and said not only was the climate getting warmer, it was our fault! For a while, we called this “Global Warming.” Unfortunately, our scientists now tell us that you have actually cooled off a bit over the past five one-hundredths of a second, so we now call it “Climate Change.” But we are sure it’s still our fault.
Mutton-Bustin’ Zander
Posted by Mike | Filed under Mike's Rambling
Zander walked reluctantly up to the office door. He hesitated a moment, then knocked gently. The door swung open, and he was dismayed to see that his rodeo trainer was watching the game film from last night.
“You wanted to see me, coach?”
“Yes, Zander,” the grizzled old cowboy replied, “have a seat, son. I wanted to talk to you about your ride last night.”
Zander shook his head in disgust. “I know, I didn’t stay on very long.”
“Are you kidding? I was going to congratulate you! Do you know who that was you rode for almost two seconds?”
“No, they didn’t tell me.”
“It’s a good thing they didn’t, or you might not have gotten on him at all. Only two other riders have even made it out of the gate, and neither of them lasted more than half a second on that monster! That was Crazy Fluffy you were riding!”
“Crazy Fluffy? Are you sure?” asked Zander in amazement.
“That’s right. The Devil’s Q-Tip himself. You set the record, son, and it’s going to last forever. They’re retiring that walking death-trap immediately. Something they should have done long ago. It’s a wonder no one’s been hurt. Now sit down and watch this ride, son.”
Zander watched with new-found pride as the film looped over and over.
“Do you see right there, at the point seven second mark?” the coach said, “That little bushwacker is trying to bite off your right leg, so you leaned over and rode him sideways for the next eight tenths of a second. I haven’t seen riding like that since Yakima Canutt perfected that trick in ‘Riders of the Dawn’ in 1937.”
“Yeah, that’s right, I did that on purpose,” Zander quickly agreed.
“Where’d you learn to ride like that? I’ve only been working with you for a month.”
“My Mom taught me.”
“Well, I’m tellin’ you, Zander, you’ve got a real lucrative career ahead of you if you stick with it.”
“I don’t know, coach. Do you think mutton bustin’ will ever become as big as soccer?”
“Of course it will! Once those idiots at the networks stop ignoring my letters and start showing action like this,” pointing to the screen, “why, sponsors like Wrangler and Stetson will start beating a path to your door. You’re gonna be rich!”
“But coach,” Zander protested, “I’m only five years old!”
“You don’t ride like it, son. Now, do you want to stay for lunch?”
“What are you having?”
“Lamb chops, boy! Crazy Fluffy has thrown his last rider.”
Goodbye, Dad
Posted by Mike | Filed under Mike's Rambling
I said goodbye to my Dad last night around 7:30. At around 9 in the morning the hospice nurse had said he didn’t have much time left, but she underestimated how much he loved being alive. He fought for every breath he could until the cancer took the last one away from him. He loved everything about his life: his home, his wife, his children. He loved sitting in his easy chair watching a football game. He loved doing volunteer work, helping people out. He especially loved the outdoors. Put a fishing rod in his hands and a lively trout on the line and he simply couldn’t worry about what the rest of the world was doing. Even in his illness he took pleasure where he could; his eyes would light up when I’d arrive with his favorite chocolate-iced doughnut. The best things I know were learned sitting beside him in a freezing duck blind or on a boat trolling for salmon. My greatest triumphs came as he grudgingly doled out three or four dimes after one of our viciously competitive golf games (“That’s a slow putt, Mike; better hit it hard!”) My worst defeat came last night at around 7:30. Goodbye, Dad. Wherever you are, I hope the fish are biting.