It’s What Aunties Do

I just checked Maegan’s flight status and it seems that she is somewhere over Lake Huron. I’m pretty impressed with this technology. I’m pretty impressed that a person can travel over 2000 miles in just under four hours, sitting on their ass and getting served drinks and snacks. Hell, I am amazed that I could mail a card from Calgary on Friday and have it delivered in Toronto on Monday. We do live in an amazing world.

Maybe the most amazing thing is that we just take all of this stuff for granted. I can remember back about fifty years and the changes that have happened in that time are pretty incredible. Can you imagine the changes that will occur in the next fifty years? No, I can’t either, but they are sure to be wondrous and stupefying. I hope that the human race can change fast enough to make the best use of the technology that is coming our way. Most of the stories don’t paint our development in a positive way.

I would imagine that the people in power will somehow use the new technology to keep the populace happy and paying taxes. Personally, I think that the only thing holding back electric cars is that they aren’t sure how to charge us, and the government isn’t sure just how they are going to get their cut. I read a short while ago that there are fast charging options but they are obviously still in development.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcbx57Azisw I can’t wait.

The problem of course is that although our cars will be going green, until the methods for producing electricity become green there will more than likely be a net loss. We are moving in the right direction. I am hoping for cold fusion. I can’t figure out why the people in the future don’t come back and just give us the plans. Someone is bound to work out that pesky time travel thing sooner or later anyways. I think someone from the future is watching me already and why not just slip me plans for the old cold fusion. How will future historians know whether I developed it or not? I sure as hell don’t plan on telling anyone. If they don’t want to tell me, then just come back and put it on facebook and let it go viral. That should solve things.

Maybe that is just what will happen on the 21^st. It would certainly be a monumental change in the way we live our lives. Well, it’s not likely to change my day to day life much. Somehow the coffee will be heated and taxes will rise just a little each year. Politicians will lie, get caught and shrug their shoulders and tell us “OOPS”.

Christmas is officially here now that Maegan is coming to town. We will be shopping and early pick up of the nephews tomorrow, shopping for raw materials on Friday, and Gingerbread house construction with the boys on Saturday. We plan on getting them OD’in on sugar, super excited and then passing them back to mom and dad. It’s what aunties do!

Maegan is over Superior now…

Dream of Sugar Plums

In days of ole

When knights were bold

And toilets weren’t invented,

They left their load

Along the road

And walked off so contented

I woke up before the alarm this morning thinking about a book that I received for Christmas a number of years ago. It was called “How To Shit In The Woods”. I have no idea why I would wake from sound sleep thinking about a book that is essentially an instruction manual for taking a load off in the forest. Quite frankly, I don’t want to remember the dream sequence that led to this particular thought.

 

The book deals with all aspects of this unpleasant but necessary topic. It wasn’t too many years ago that all of mankind had this rudimentary knowledge. The book covers technique, how and where to dig a hole, what to do when you can’t dig a hole, diarrhea, how women can pee without filling their boots, feminine funnels and wilderness alternatives to toilet paper. I am sure that I was given this book as something of a joke, but it is really an informative and enlightening font of information.

 

Thankfully, in this day and age, we are seldom out of walking distance from clean and sanitary facilities. The modern toilet is credited to Sir John Harington who came up with the concept and first working prototype in the 16^th century, not Thomas Crapper as we would all like to believe. You really have to go out of your way and have lost voluntary control of your bodily waste functions to need the information in this book if you live in a city.

 Thomas Crapper

I was caught a few times when I was a mailman, and there were a few times when I was backpacking when this kind of information was invaluable. I still get beads of cold sweat on my forehead when I think about the time I had to walk a half mile to the nearest toilet, taking two steps at a time and clenching my butt cheeks together after every step.

I remember once when I was hiking the West Coast Trail I had to make use of the inter-tidal toilet (beach) in the worst way. There was nothing but beach as far as the eye could see in either direction, so I took off my pack, dropped my shorts and squatted on the beach. Even though there was no one for miles around, I developed a kind of performance anxiety. There was no way this was going to happen! It was silly really, but I eventually had to go into the forest and brace myself against a tree. I don’t know why I felt that way; perhaps fear of a rogue wave or the desire not to get crabs. I just know what eventually worked.

I hope that tomorrow morning I wake up thinking of breakfast or things that I need to get done before Christmas. With any luck I will dream of sugar plums…