Hiding in the Bushes

It seems that it was just yesterday that we were writing the previous post for this blog. A long weekend has a way of making time pass quickly. On the other hand, it also feels like time has passed very slowly since I listened to several hours of classical music over a telephone. And now politicians are getting involved, so who knows what that will mean. Politics have been playing a role since Brooks and Dunn was at its peak. It's all becoming a never-ending country song we've heard too many times before. (Although, if it is never-ending, I guess that would mean that we have only heard part of the song.....but that's getting too philosophical). And in case you are wondering, I only know about Brooks and Dunn from second hand sources.

Is this man coming to prominence or is he fading away? 

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Since we last spoke, we have visited several states and have hiked several miles. These two statements, while connected, are not to be taken as identical. Most of the movement from state to state was done via motor vehicle, not by foot. All of the hiking was done on foot. Due to the sensitive nature of publicly revealing our exact location, we will avoid explicitly saying where we were. But those familiar with the area may recognize a lily pad or two.

For most of the hike, we were very vigilant to prevent any bears from creeping up on us. You never know what could be hiding in the bushes. We were armed with bear spray, but it would not have done a hill-of-beans worth of good if a bear had jumped from a tree to get our baby wipes. A mother bear will do pretty much anything when she gets desperate for baby supplies. If you have even been to Babies-R-Us on Black Friday, you will know what I mean. Now picture if all the moms in the store weighed 600 lbs and had 3 inch finger nails. (Okay, that already describes the Memphis, Tennessee Babies-R-Us.....however, most of their customers don't have fur everywhere. Note that I said most, not all. And if they ever get into the Big XII, at least they will have fertile recruiting grounds). 

The next day after the hike, we went to a park and took over a PokéGym (Japanese: ポケジム). This park was only a short walk from the house, so it barely counted as more hiking mileage. When we came upon the PokéGym we realized that it was right next to a gazebo of people eating barbecue. Hence we hid near a tree and performed our work. We earned our 10 coins and 500 flecks (?) of stardust (what unit does stardust come in?), then promptly lost our holding an hour later. That is how it usually goes.

Our final day out of state, we decided to become involved in a wild goose chase. We were of course not chasing an actual wild goose, just a figurative one. As we alluded to last week, our readers fall into a diverse number of positions on the ovine-caprine scale, so we are going to--for a variety of reasons--be vague on some of the details. This way no one feels bad that their institution's only claim to fame is that they allow beards, and no one will feel they need to place hats on the pulpit in church.

You think you look smug and daper

But you actually just look like this.

Or like this.

But anyway, I digress. Our latest vacation adventure involved tracking a cardboard box around the state and hoping the powers-that-be dropped it near our location. We split up into two teams and communicated via walkie-talkies (since that made it seem more official). Most of our time was spent hiding in the shrubs near our stakeout location. It was a hot evening, and we did not end up winning. This was to be expected, since one box for 2000+ sweaty fans does not usually spell high rates of success. (Although it does establish a national fanbase.........wink, wink, wink).

You never know what could be waiting in the bushes.

We all got a Chicken-Duck-Woman thing, waiting for us. Waiting in the bushes of love.

The Waiting

Since we receive a wide variety of questions about our lives, this post is somewhat like a buffet. It can be divided into two parts. The first half will deal with some short anecdotes about various things that have happened since we wrote last. The second half of the post will contain the unsolicited snide commentary that became characteristic of a previous blog some of you used to read.

Half One

First off, in the spirit of full disclosure, we have dabbled in Pokemon GO this past week. We have slowly played, not paid, our way up the ladder. Since we live right next to a university, local hunting has been rather successful. Because we only have a single smart phone between the two of us, this has been a beneficial exercise in teamwork. We are not ardent players, and probably only devote an hour or so at night to walk around campus. In another week the fad will have likely passed and we will all move on with our lives. Who knows. All we can do is wait and see.

Engineer J has recently taken up a musical instrument: The ukulele. 

As some of you are aware, Engineer R has dabbled for several years in the guitar. This has included visiting local guitar stores to test guitars. He probably could actually write a blog just about guitars, which. His main mode of purchasing and selling guitars is in fact eBay, but going to stores allows him to do some hands-on testing. While on a visit to one of these stores, he tested the following guitars (we include this only for you guitar fanatics, skip this list if you desire): Fender HSS American Series (3-tone Sunburst), Ibanez Artcore AFS75T (maroon with gold hardware), Gibson Les Paul Standard (Heritage Cherry Sunburst), Martin D15 (Natural). 

BUT, while testing these guitars, we also stumbled onto the ukuleles. Long story short, Engineer J ended up buying a soprano ukulele (natural finish, with creme body and neck binding). We probably were the first people to ever buy a uke in that store. Nevertheless, Engineer J now is the proud owner of a ukulele.

Since Engineer R occasionally receives questions about his line of work, here is a one sentence synopsis: 

We just proved strong consistent screening (meaning P(S_H = S_T) approaches 1 as n goes to infinity) for the Cochran-Armitage trend test applied to ultrahigh dimensional data by using the weak law of large numbers and the Mann–Wald theorem for continuous mappings.

Maybe this will lead to a publication. All we can do is wait. 

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Half Two

As some observant readers noticed, we missed posting last week. The chief writer was sick, and this obviously complicated matters. Moreover, we just did not have that much to write about. Let's face it, people find your life boring when you are not trying to potty train an offspring or attempting to make sure said offspring doesn't eat (too much) dirt. (And let's not even get started on potty training children that eat dirt). If your offspring does not eat dirt, count your lucky stars. (Although, then you can only post on your blog about how your child does not like dirt, which severely lessens the relatability of your character development and plot).

As was to be expected, some people have given themselves to much fretting over the timing and or imminence of the bearing of late-stage-compost eating offspring. We here at DE are not excluded from such worries, just in the opposite direction as most. This probably makes us awful people or something, but we at least want some time to form a contingency plan for what to do if our child eats dirt. (Please don't make me get out the Power Point and flow charts about life goals or give the oak tree in a field analogy). Besides, I have better things to do with my life, such as lying awake at night and wondering why they cancelled that one TV show I liked, or listening to two-and-a-half hours of dial tone infused classical music, just to be told it's not happening yet. (But it will happen, right? Riiiiiiight?) This is the high life, let me tell you. Oh, and don't forget the fact that this gives us more time to play Pokemon GO.

Since readers of this blog come from all points of the ovine and caprine spectrum (aka the OCS), I will have to leave the postulating about future events for another day. But there will be a day of dividing and ascension, that much I feel certain of.

Overall, I guess the lesson of the week is as follows: It will happen when it happens. Amazingly, that applies to red-headed children who eat dirt as well as red-faced adults who eat crow. All in good time. (For the record, I hope the adults eat their meal before the children).

Performing Surgery

Before going further, we must warn our more sensitive readers that at some point in this post we will be addressing the topic of surgery on a stuffed dog toy. Pictures of the actual surgery are not included, however there are some slightly disturbing pictures of plush farm animals cut from the collarbone region (if plush animals actually had collarbones) down to the nether regions (if plush animals actually had such). 

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Unlike the post from last week, which deviated from our usual method of presenting a "travelogue" of the past week, we will return to relating one of the projects that we here at DE have been working on.

Since it has already been introduced, we will begin with the story of performing surgery on plush animals. Several weeks ago, Engineer J's pet dog, Augustus Theodore Thermopolis Captain Cornelius Junior ("Gus"), underwent surgery. He is of course not a plush animal. He is an actual animal. And we did not perform that operation, since we were out of town at the time. The plush animals come into the story later.

Gus the Dog

After the surgery, the veterinarian gave him an "Elizabethan Collar" (that's a technical term) to wear on his head. Dogs wear these cone-like collars after surgery to prevent people from seeing their faces. It can be rather embarrassing to be seen post-op in a hospital gown with no makeup and sporting uncombed hair.  In certain canine cultures, the cone is actually a fashion statement of sorts. Surprisingly, Gus was not a huge fan of the cone. As such, his spirits have been rather low.

Back at Christmas, Gus received as a gift some plush chew toys. However, these toys were for a dog with a mouth about 15 times the size of Gus' mouth. Whoever designed these toys obviously did not put much research into the product. A 25-pound dog cannot shove a volleyball-sized plush toy into its mouth. Thus we, the Domestic Engineers, decided to construct a toy for Gus to play with.

To back up slightly, several months ago Gus had another toy. This toy was a plush frog that squeaked. He destroyed that toy quite quickly, since it had clearly not gone through proper quality assurance procedures. But, we rescued the squeaking part of the toy, which was vital for our next toy.

While sitting around on the 4th of July, we decided that we were going to perform a slight surgery on the large dog toys from Christmas. Avert your eyes now if you get queasy easily.

All three animals went under the X-acto Knife

This surgery consisted of carefully slicing open three dog toys and pulling out the big plastic bulbs inside. Once the plastic bulbs were removed, the dog toys were a much more practical size. The animals represented were as follows: American Yorkshire Pig (Sus scrofa domesticus), Holstein-Friesian Cow (Bos taurus), and the American Beefalo (Bos taurus × Bison bison). Yes, that animal in brown is a Beefalo. What is a Beefalo you ask? It is the offspring of domestic cattle with the American buffalo (bison). Hence "Beefalo." We determined that this last animal was a beefalo, since it did not really look like a something purely from the cattle family.

(Aside: As per several sources, viz. [1], [2], and [3], only three genetically "pure" [i.e. not mixed with domestic cattle] American bison herds exist in the United States: One of them is in Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota; the other two are in Yellowstone National Park and the Henry Mountains area of Utah. As luck would have it, Engineer R has been to all three regions. And he has read more about domestic cattle and the American bison than you would care to know).

But, back to the beefalo we surgered. After cutting open the stuffed beefalo, we placed a squeaker into its innards, then stitched it back up. We have not heard the latest on how Gus has taken to the toy, but at least initially he seemed to like the toy okay. Here are two pictures of the toy in action:






















This about sums up our work with stuffed dog toy surgery. It is amazing how much one can write about cutting plush animals open with an X-acto knife.


Before ending this post, we would be remiss if we did not post some sort of photo of the 4th of July. This is said photo:

Loyal, Strong, and True.

As always, feel free to comment on a time that you performed surgery. I once had a roommate that performed surgery on himself. He was not always well accepted in society. Although I also had roommates that the local social fold rejected just because. Surgery or no surgery, didn't matter.