lists of 5

List 5 things we don’t know about you:

1. Some may know this. I bake a mean Jack Daniels chocolate chip pecan pie, from scratch- my mom's recipe (though I think she got it from someone else.) I don't make it often though because, health.
2. I really like sheep and I have always dreamed of living/working on a sheep ranch.
3. When I was a kid I wanted to be a dog sled racer in Alaska. (still would be cool!)
4. I grew up (mostly) in a house that was over 100 years old, then moved to a brand new one my dad built in the pasture. 
5. All of my education was Christian, including university. There were a few years of homeschooling mixed in as well.



 5 things you’re knowledgeable about

1. Geography, in general
2. The Lord of the Rings- and anything Tolkien, really. Seriously, ask me anything.
3. Identifying dog breeds. And animal behaviours. Comes with the job, I guess.
4. Some parkour. Also filed under things I wish I was more knowledgeable about.
5. Buying and selling things on eBay. I've made a fair amount of money back on things I no longer want/need. I've also saved heaps by buying used things. My current work shoes (Merrell Trail Gloves) cost me $20 and have lasted well over a year, which at my workplace is unheard of. 


5 things you know nothing about 

1.  Dancing. When I've had something to drink, I can move around a bit, but I wouldn't call it dancing. 
2. Liechtenstein. Literally all I know is where it is. 
3. Cars. Rather, mechanics. I know how to drive and how to do very, very basic maintenance, but I'm not fond of cars and I'm basically lost if anything goes wrong. 
4. Twitter. I am savvy to most social media platforms, but that one has eluded me. 
5. Practical uses for higher math. I know basic math, and I even (barely) passed pre-calc, but I don't know how to use any of that.


5 things you believe

This makes me think of a song: "It's not that I do or don't believe, I just don't not believe in God or aliens or love at first sight." The Guggenheim Grotto (now Storyman)

1. Humans evolved amazing feet and we're now killing off the amazingness by trapping them in tight and padded shoes.
2. I believe cool/cold weather is so much better than hot weather. 
3. I believe that I was taught history and science  incorrectly (see education above.)
4. I believe that there is other life in the universe. It's simply too big. And it's awfully arrogant of us to believe we're alone here (even if you believe in a god.)
5. I believe there is a very big difference between truth and fact. Ask me about it sometime, perhaps I need to write a whole new post on that subject.

Space tights.

I got some running tights. It's vaguely embarrassing, but I really like tights, especially now that I'm very visibly male. I stayed as far away from them as possible until a couple years ago. But these are spectacular and I figured I can force myself to run in cold weather if I feel fantastic. Mostly I have been enjoying this trend of "galaxy" print clothing, especially tights. I saw a video of a guy doing parkour in some, so I decided I could do it too. I like the general oranges and reds that seem most common, but I wanted something unique. And I found the Carina Nebula. The $8 plus a month for shipping from China was just fine.

When I was in college I used this fantastic image as my laptop wallpaper for months at a time (I usually changed the wallpaper every other day or so.) Even now it's in the photo folder that gets rotated through for my current wallpaper.

Here's a more manageable size, but seriously, click the link.

I think what I like about this nebula image is that it's not just colorful, but also bright. It has a lot of white and essentially no black. Most other space images are dominated by black. It's my favorite and someday I hope to have a huge print/poster of it for my wall. 

And here are my tights.

Interstellar-- Go see it. (no spoilers)

Interstellar was very likely the best movie I’ve seen in years.

Epic doesn’t quite do it justice. Nor does awesome, unless we go back to the original meaning.

It’s hard to review the film without spoilers, so I’ll just say it was beautiful and wonderful and only very slightly cheesy in one little aspect.

The basic theme was that we messed up Earth and it’s up to us (and science) to save ourselves. There were no subtleties about trying to revitalize interest in NASA and science in general. The ever-important quest for knowledge and survival. The movie also portrayed the important roles of women in science (though they still had one sort of damseling.)

One thing I enjoyed was that there wasn’t a romance subplot. I think the slight cheesiness that existed would have compounded had there been one.

The effects are “out of this world”! And I even enjoyed Matthew McConaughey’s performance and was pleasantly surprised to recognize a vast majority of the other actors.

If this film doesn’t win all the awards, then I definitely need to watch more movies.